When only two petals remained on the black lotus mark, Yue Shi decided to take an exam.
It wasn't the graduation exam, but a standard extra exam.
The self-service exam rooms on the first floor of the teaching building were open twenty-four hours a day.
His application was quickly approved, and he was assigned to a testing room.
The room was tiny—a sealed space that could only hold one person. In the center was a desk with an embedded screen. The screen was lit, displaying the words: "Please swipe student card."
Yue Shi tapped his student ID against it. With a beep, the screen switched to the exam interface.
The countdown began. The test started.
Multiple-choice question: Among the following options, which one can perfectly fulfill a wisher's heart's desire without any distortion? ( )
A. Divine Dragon
B. Holy Grail
C. Shiji Niangniang
D. Laipishe
The first question was a freebie.
Fill-in-the-blank: When Bai Suzhen carried out the flooding of Jinshan Temple, the height the water level rose to was ( ).
This was a question Yue Shi happened to have memorized.
All that rote memorization—the knowledge points from hundreds of books forced into his mind—was finally proving its worth.
The multiple-choice, true-or-false, and fill-in-the-blank questions weren't too difficult.
The reading comprehension, essay questions, and application problems were the real challenges.
Yue Shi stared at the reading comprehension question on the screen, feeling a headache coming on.
The prompt was a long passage titled 「The Ethical Boundaries of Gender-Reversal Weapons in Multiversal Conflicts」. It was incredibly dense and filled with technical jargon.
He read it once and didn't quite understand.
He read it again, and still didn't get it.
He began to answer anyway, writing seriously with neat handwriting.
Even if his answers made absolutely no sense, at least his calligraphy was beautiful.
After finishing the last question, he submitted the paper.
The screen flickered, displaying 【Grading in progress】.
Ten seconds later, the results appeared. He had barely passed.
Yue Shi breathed a sigh of relief. A pass was enough; at least his student card finally had a positive balance.
In this school, zero debt was good news.
He stood up and walked out of the room. The hallway was empty.
He headed to the library. There were very few people inside.
Those who remained were still studying diligently. The only sounds in the air were the turning of pages and the scratching of pens against paper.
Everyone was studying with intense focus.
Yue Shi walked to his usual seat by the window, placed the snow leopard cub on the table, and pulled a book he hadn't finished from the shelf to continue reading.
Having passed the initial period of struggling to read, he could now find some enjoyment in learning.
The people who remained now, having survived round after round of screening, were undoubtedly individuals of firm resolve and great strength.
The weak-willed had already left. The incompetent were already dead. Those who neither wanted to leave nor could survive had already gone mad.
Those left behind were the final grains of sand in the sieve. They were mostly loners, each possessing their own methods to endure the skyrocketing prices. They trusted no one and relied on no one.
But they all had one thing in common: they were all in the library, racing against time to read.
Yue Shi had realized long ago that the books in the library weren't just for passing exams.
Some books contained truly useful knowledge that could be used immediately once learned.
For example, 《Multiverse Coordinate System and World Navigation》 explained in detail the calculation methods for world coordinates and how to locate, jump, and navigate between different worlds.
If one could master the contents of that book, they might be able to find their own destination without needing the school's placement.
Another example was 《Basic Theory of Causality》, which discussed the principles, classifications, and countermeasures for causality-based weapons.
The arrow from Jinlong Continent that had once been aimed at him—the one that was destined to hit and ignored all defenses—likely had its underlying principles hidden on some page of that book.
There were also 《Analysis of Dark Magic from Moxian Castle》, 《How to Eliminate the Side Effects of Possession》, and even more ancient and obscure books whose titles he couldn't even read.
However, the threshold for this knowledge was too high. It wasn't something just anyone could learn; one needed to learn various foundational theoretical concepts first, and even those required even more basic foundations.
Most people in the library were just using rote memorization. It didn't matter if they couldn't understand it now; they would memorize it first and digest it later when they had the time.
If they missed this library, they would likely never have another chance to encounter such useful things again.
Everyone was like a sponge, frantically memorizing and learning faster and faster. Some even gave up on treating their injuries. Even with broken limbs, they refused to go to the medical room, unwilling to waste points.
Points had to be saved for food and housing to buy more time to read in the library.
Gradually, they had become the "seniors."
A new batch of transmigrators arrived.
They appeared suddenly on the playground, everyone looking around warily.
Then came the familiar process: everyone received a student card, and the loudspeaker announced the various school rules.
Soon, conflicts broke out among the crowd as they formed factions and committed murders to establish dominance.
They were all beings at the level of True Gods, yet looking closely, they seemed no different from mortals.
The experiences of this new batch were identical to what Yue Shi and the others had gone through.
Failing the placement test and being executed, taking out loans to heal, testing again, failing again, being executed again, and taking more loans.
Some began stealing others' student cards, while others started riots. The cycle was exactly the same.
Yue Shi now understood why the seniors didn't care to acknowledge the newcomers; it was a waste of time to explain the school rules to them.
Explaining was useless anyway. They would try to challenge the rules and only settle down once they got hurt.
That time was better spent reading a few more books.
...
After the black lotus mark vanished, Yue Shi directly felt the survival pressure of the school.
In the afternoon, when he went to the cafeteria to eat, he saw his long-absent roommate, Foreshadowing.
Foreshadowing was standing behind the serving window, wearing a cafeteria uniform, serving a dish to a newcomer.
Holding his tray, Yue Shi froze for a few seconds. "You..."
Foreshadowing looked up and glanced at him. "What do you want? We have a new dish today, Spicy Siren."
Yue Shi asked him, "You became a member of the school staff?"
Foreshadowing nodded.
"How did you do it?" Yue Shi asked again.
"Not convenient to disclose," Foreshadowing replied.
"Alright." Yue Shi didn't pursue the topic further.
Foreshadowing pulled a tissue from his pocket, wiped his hands, and suddenly said, "Among the new students, one of them arrived with a recommendation letter from an outstanding senior."
"With a recommendation from an outstanding senior, all expenses for the first few days of their stay are waived."
Yue Shi's pupils constricted slightly. A recommendation from an outstanding senior meant all initial expenses were waived.
The face of Tang Zhuhe immediately flashed in his mind.
So that was it. It seemed Tang Zhuhe had once been a student here as well, and a highly successful one at that.
"What does it take to be an outstanding graduate?" Yue Shi asked curiously.
Foreshadowing said, "A score of 600 or higher on the graduation exam, or having made a massive contribution to the school."
Yue Shi's gaze sharpened as he quickly calculated in his mind how long it would take if he wanted to score 600 points...
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