Pretending to be a genius starts with the civilization advancement assessment.

Chapter 100 Level 3 Personal Assessment

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A deathly silence enveloped the space around them, with only the increasingly loud roar of the helicopter rotor echoing in their ears.

Li Zhenguo's smile froze instantly, and all the words he wanted to say stuck in his throat.

Nie Chang, Liu Qiying, and the others were also stunned, almost thinking they had misheard.

The Xia Kingdom has dealt with mid-level nest elite Abyss Beasts before. The military paid a huge price, and the one they killed was not even a leader-level beast.

Seeing the almost speechless expressions of shock on their faces, Lin Yi quickly added, fearing it might cause a misunderstanding, "However, with my current total source energy, if I wanted to kill a beast of that level, even if I used all my strength, I could barely manage to unleash one attack."

"After one strike, the source energy will be exhausted."

Li Zhenguo remained silent for a moment, and finally, he patted Lin Yi's shoulder hard again, this time with astonishing force.

“Good! That was a perfect ‘one’!” His voice was even a little hoarse. “I understand, that’s enough! This has completely exceeded our highest expectations!”

After that, Li Zhenguo said no more. He turned around and strode toward the transport helicopter, his steps even a little hurried, as if he couldn't wait to bring this amazing news back.

Nie Chang and the others also recovered from their extreme shock, and the way they looked at Lin Yi changed.

The helicopter cabin door slowly closed, the rotor speed reached its peak, and the huge fuselage rose from the ground. Surrounded by four armed helicopters, it quickly climbed and flew north.
-
Inside the Emerald Whisper Starship, Irelia did not immerse herself in cultivation as usual.

She was sitting in front of the control panel, carefully reviewing the recent situation report on the Blue Star civilization, which was being updated synchronously with the Star Language system.

The report details the initial operation of the global consortium and the gradual stabilization of the settlements, and everything seems to be moving in a positive direction.

Just then, her intelligent sprite, Star Whisper, emerged from the control panel, its body shimmering with a brighter and more cheerful aura than usual, and gracefully circled Irelia once.

"Master, Master!" Xingyu's voice was filled with obvious excitement, "There's another piece of good news in the latest data synchronized from Lord Xuchen's spaceship!"

"Another piece of good news?" Irelia was slightly taken aback, her expression momentarily dazed.

Good news. More good news.
Since the start of this civilization assessment on Earth, good news seems to have been coming one after another.

First, the incredible individual Lin Yi appeared, publicly demonstrating his guiding techniques, rapidly advancing in rank, and slaying the leader.

Next, the entire Blue Star civilization responded quickly, forming a coalition and achieving two precious milestones, resulting in a surge in points.
All of this stands in stark contrast to the messages she has received from her distant homeland, the Cuiwei Star Region, throughout her millennia-long career of guardianship.

In her memory, messages from her hometown always seemed to be shrouded in a dark shadow.

Either a remote territory of the family was seized by a neighbor, or the painstakingly built caravan was harassed by ruthless space pirates on the sea route, suffering heavy losses, or a highly respected elder of the family was inexplicably provoked and challenged to a duel while traveling, returning severely wounded.
Even those retainers and advisors who were invited at great expense, some of them didn't even wait for their contracts to expire before finding excuses to leave, unwilling to have any further involvement with the increasingly declining family.
Bad news seemed to be the most frequent theme she heard throughout her long life.

Irelia shook her head violently, as if trying to banish those chaotic and frustrating thoughts from her mind.

She looked up at the lively Xingyu, a faint smile returning to her lips, and asked gently, "Xingyu, what good news is it? Could it be that our Blue Star civilization has achieved another new milestone?"

She subconsciously didn't think of Lin Yi.

After all, that young human had only demonstrated his initial mastery of the metal-based rules during "Operation Dawn" a little over twenty days ago, which could be considered as officially stepping into the threshold of the star core level.

Although his talent is nothing short of monstrous, the deeper one delves into the rules, the more difficult and obscure it becomes, requiring time to mature and fortuitous opportunities to be triggered.

Moreover, accumulating total energy resources is a gradual process that takes time and effort, and there is absolutely no possibility of achieving it overnight.

In Irelia's view, Lin Yi's ability to reach the perfect initial stage of Star Core comprehension in the short term was already the limit.

Therefore, the first thing she could think of was that the Blue Star civilization as a whole had achieved some kind of breakthrough collective achievement.

However, Xingyu shook her head vigorously, her voice tinged with a hint of smugness: "Master guessed wrong~"

As the spaceship's AI, Xingyu has historically reported almost exclusively bad news to its master, either warnings or mundane daily data.

This put considerable pressure on Xingyu, since she was not a pure machine devoid of emotions.

Therefore, the recent string of good news has made this little elf much more lively and cheerful.

"It's Lin Yi, whom you're most concerned about!" Xingyu blinked her big eyes made of light particles and said cheerfully, "According to the information that just came in, about an hour ago, he successfully used the methods of 'rule transformation' and 'rule trace' in public. After analysis and verification, it has been confirmed that his level of rule comprehension has reached the Star Vortex level standard."

"Furthermore," Xingyu paused, seemingly emphasizing that the following information was even more significant, "because his breakthrough simultaneously fulfilled two new personal assessment milestones, his current personal assessment level has been officially upgraded to Level 3!"

???

A barrage of information rained down on Irelia like a storm, completely stunning her. Her clear emerald green eyes widened instantly, and she was momentarily bewildered.

Rule-based transformation? Rule-based traces? Reaching the Star-vortex level?!

It's only been a few days?!
It's been less than a month!

From initially grasping the rules to achieving stable Star-level comprehension?
It took me over seven hundred years to advance to the Star Swirl level!

How did Lin Yi, a rudimentary human from a source energy-poor region, manage to do that?!

"Detailed data! Star Language, immediately retrieve the detailed data and recorded footage!" Irelia's voice carried a hint of urgency.

"Yes, Master!" Xingyu waved her hand, and a clear virtual screen immediately unfolded in front of Irelia.

The processed footage begins to play rapidly on the screen.

Lin Yi's speech at the opening ceremony, the sudden silence, the terrifying purple arcs of electricity surrounding him, and the astonishing demonstration that followed, condensing a thunder dragon and leaving indelible marks on stone.
Irelia stared intently at the screen, especially at the details of Lin Yi's blank state and subsequent manipulation of the power of the rules.

Upon seeing this, she suddenly realized.

"So he had entered a state of enlightenment. No wonder."

Irelia murmured to herself, her tense nerves relaxing slightly.

If it's a sudden enlightenment, then the leap in understanding of the rules becomes somewhat understandable.

Because she had experienced enlightenment herself and knew what that feeling was like.

That was a long time ago, when the family suffered a series of blows and was in dire straits.

Her grandmother, defying all opposition, decided to expend the family's remaining vital resources to send her to the human realm, both to seek a glimmer of hope and to provide a way out.

As Irelia was about to leave in her spaceship, she looked back at the family's home planet, which was gradually shrinking and emitting a soft green light. A myriad of emotions welled up in her heart: worry for her family, uncertainty about the future, and resentment at her own weakness.
Amidst the turmoil of intertwined emotions, she unexpectedly experienced a brief moment of enlightenment.

That brief moment of enlightenment allowed her understanding of the rules of life, which had been stuck at a bottleneck for a long time, to increase directly from 21% to 48%, completing an astonishing leap from the second stage of Star Vortex to the fourth stage, and laying a more solid foundation for her later path.

Based on the detailed feedback data, Lin Yi's level of understanding of the rules demonstrated in this epiphany was just over 10%, showing around 12%.

"From 1% Star Core level, it has increased by 11% in one go, crossing the major threshold of 10% rule comprehension, and can be considered to have entered the Star Vortex level."

Irelia carefully examined the data panel, her mind racing with calculations. "Although it only took a month to reach the Star Vortex realm, that speed is indeed astonishing. However, in terms of the duration of enlightenment and the magnitude of improvement, it seems to be less than what I experienced last time?"

This discovery allowed Irelia, who was in a state of extreme shock, to breathe a sigh of relief and even feel a subtle sense of comfort.

She finally has one skill that is slightly better than this monstrous human youth.

However, as soon as the thought arose in Irelia's mind that "her enlightenment was not as good as mine," she immediately became alert and was overwhelmed with self-reproach.

"Irelia!" She pinched her face hard, scolding herself in her heart, "What you should be hoping for right now is for Lin Yi to perform better and grow faster. This is directly related to whether you can complete your mission, and even to the future of the race. How can you have such a pointless comparison!"

"and"

Looking at Lin Yi's 12% rule comprehension on the data panel, Irelia realized a crucial factor that had been overlooked.

time!

"His enlightenment was short-lived, perhaps not due to a lack of talent, but rather because his cultivation period was too short and his accumulation of knowledge was not deep enough?"

Irelia pondered to herself that her own epiphany was built upon more than seven hundred years of cultivation, the foundation of her family's heritage, and the extreme emotional impact of facing a major life change.

Even so, the duration of that epiphany, if converted to Earth time, was only about five minutes.

And what about Lin Yi?

All told, it's only been thirty days since I first came into contact with the source energy! And yet, thirty days of accumulation could trigger a three-minute-long epiphany about the rules?!

After this comparison, Irelia suddenly felt that her talent was ridiculously mediocre compared to Lin Yi's.

The faint sense of superiority that had just arisen regarding the timing of enlightenment and the amplification vanished instantly.

Instead, there was a deep sense of powerlessness.

(End of this chapter)