Tokyo Psychic

*

Saturday, May 2022, 5

【PM.2:04】

【Youth Math League - Trials.】

In the academic exhibition hall of Wuyang High School, the most elite science talents from all the colleges within the Cangshan 1-chome area gather here.

As the invigilator distributed the test papers covered with questions and the bright white draft paper, they quickly occupied the space on the long table. The terrified cries of young boys and girls could be heard one after another from behind the table.

At the front of the exhibition hall, there is a countdown with white text on a black background on the LED screen.

The long string of numbers froze, like the sudden halt in the thoughts of some of them...

Now the word "most elite" must be corrected:

Family background is also part of this "elite" standard.

Since it is a competition with high gold content, there are always people who want to come in to gild themselves... The higher the price of this gilding, the more it makes ordinary people sigh in despair, and the more the best among them will flock to it.

After briefly reading the entire test paper, a boy wearing an expensive mechanical watch and sitting in the corner couldn't help but look around. Then he looked at the densely packed questions in front of him that looked like terrifying spells, and finally sighed helplessly.

It's clearly a math competition, but the test paper is full of hiragana, katakana and English letters. It's terrible.

He covered his face, and his eyes gradually turned into a kind of rich sadness in the darkness.

He originally wanted to win by relying on his own strength, but now he has to rely on external forces... After all, he is not only carrying the glory of his family name, but also the heavy and urgent expectations of his blood relatives who serve as directors and senior management of the school.

Even if he puts aside his personal interests, he has reasons to win.

To do this, he can trample on any fairness.

The boy named "Yajima Hiru" put down his hand and looked at several people in the exhibition hall who were exuding a strong presence.

They are influential figures from prestigious schools around Aoyama 1-chome, including Tetsuya Takimoto of Tokyo Metropolitan Aoyama High School, Manabu Yukawa of Kokugakuin University Kugayama High School, and Kyouko Kirikiri of Tokyo Jogakukan High School.

But the boy in the middle of the first row, with a half-hunched back and a gloomy expression, caught everyone's attention like Halley's Comet that visits the earth every 76 years. His overwhelming momentum made all the top students hold their breath and dare not act rashly.

On the other person's desk was the school emblem of "Shujin High School" and a nameplate with the words "Amamiya Ren" on it.

His hair was messy, his clothes were unkempt, and he wore a plaid short-sleeved shirt with a crooked tie, revealing a pair of muscular forearms. He took off his plain glasses and placed them next to the test paper. His dark grey eyes shone with an extremely intimidating light, and he showed a ferocious and cold gaze like a cheetah towards the live camera that was so close.

Yajima Hiru looked up at the dozens of live broadcast images from different angles on the demonstration TV above his head, and found Kurusu Akatsuki's location as quickly as possible.

According to the information provided by the competition team, this "Amamiya Ren" is the enemy that needs the most careful study in this selection competition.

Damn, just by looking at him you could tell he was incredibly strong.

Yajima Hiru's eyes suddenly became sharp.

The core criteria for this selection competition are two points: "answering time" and "answering accuracy".

There are three examinations arranged in three examination papers. The maximum time for answering each examination paper is one hour and the minimum time for answering each examination paper is ten minutes.

Once more than 30 people submit their test papers, they will immediately enter the next round of examinations, and the rest of the people must submit their papers regardless of their progress.

After review, the teams will be given corresponding scores based on the individual player data rankings. Finally, the team's total score will be calculated to determine whether the school can qualify from the "selection competition".

If you rank in the top ten, you will get a lot of "extra points".

As a result, famous scenes such as "one to four, one to five" often appear.

As per convention, the strongest teams among the participating schools are mostly composed of "jewelry" and "weighing".

"Zhubao" is responsible for answering the questions, while "Chengtuo" submits the test paper immediately when "Zhubao" hands in the test paper, so as to compress the remaining time of the test takers from other schools as much as possible.

As long as we can ensure that the "jewelry" has a score close to full marks and that the "weights" of other teams have almost no time to finish the test paper, we can lock in the qualification.

In other words, the actual answering time is often within 30 minutes...

Damn it, even if I had memorized the answers before the competition, it would still take at least ten minutes to completely recall and copy out all the answers on this test paper full of subjective questions.

However, since the opponent is such a formidable character, I (we) have no room to hold back (must go all out)...

As the school bell rang, announcing the start of the game, seemingly plausible thoughts appeared in the minds of everyone on the field almost at the same time.

Yajima Hiru carefully stretched his finger to the bottom of the watch, and then pulled out a piece of paper with "prompt words" written in very small handwriting to aid memory. At the same time, he glanced at the familiar "comrades" in the classroom, and sure enough, they were all writing without thinking.

This is a "cheater" like him.

Meanwhile, those powerful men from various schools, possessing unparalleled academic abilities, unfolded their draft paper fields, their pens swiftly moving. In just a few seconds, they had formulas listed, then verified the results and began filling in the answers...

The speed at which they solved and answered the questions was even faster than the “cheaters” who wrote down the answers from memory!!

Of course, Yajima Hiru had foreseen such a situation.

But cold sweat couldn't help but flow down his forehead.

He tried hard to recall the solution to each question, fearing that missing a detail would cause his accuracy to drop...

The empty showroom was eerily quiet.

The tiny sounds made by the pen tips moving quickly across the paper were like maggots gnawing at his flesh and blood, accompanied by a vague phantom pain, which continuously eroded his original confidence and pride, and brewed unspeakable panic in the emptiness.

The countdown on the big screen passed by minute by second.

The exhibition hall was as silent and heroic as a battlefield at dusk. The wealthy young men in helmets and armor were losing ground to the brave warriors with superb skills and physique at a speed visible to the naked eye. Their squire knights stood silently at the edge of the battlefield with swords and spears, always waiting for their leader to gain the upper hand in this battle of iron and blood, and then rush forward to surround the fruits of victory and send it back to their own fiefdom.

......

In the conference room on the upper floor of the academic exhibition hall.

The princes of the fiefdoms stood beside the long table, looking at the live broadcast on the surveillance screen. They looked calm and had a clear conscience, but they all had their own ulterior motives.

Among them, an energetic old man was the most nervous, with all the wrinkles on his face almost collapsed. He stared nervously at the sweaty Yajima Hiru on the screen, and his skinny hands gripped the corner of the table tightly, as if he wanted to break it.

Suddenly, clear footsteps were heard in the corridor.

A strong but complacent voice said, "I went to the bathroom. How are things now?"

The old man subconsciously looked back, immediately turned his head away in disgust, and then put on a hypocritical smile and looked at the new Ma Xiaolian who was standing at the door of the conference room in a suit and tie.

His smile was a bit surprised, and then he sighed sincerely, "Shinma... Principal Shinma, ah, I'm still not used to this title. Sometimes it's hard not to feel that time flies. The boy who once dreamed of Koshien has now become a famous educator."

Xin Ma Xiaolian laughed heartily, "You've aged too quickly, Principal Yajima. It's been so many years since we last met, and you've aged to the point where you haven't changed at all. You're still the same hypocritical, contemptible person you once were."

Yajima forced a smile, "You have indeed changed a lot."

Ignoring the uniform hostility in the conference room, the new Ma Xiaolian smiled even more boldly, like Dong Zhongying of Xiliang, besieged by warlords but commanding elite troops who kept them too intimidated to act rashly. "Why do you all have those expressions? What happened in the exam room during the ten minutes I was away?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the entire conference room fell silent.

The princes looked at each other and saw the dark clouds in each other's eyes.

When Xin Ma Xiaolian approached, his leather shoes made a crackling sound on the wooden floor, like thunder.

As he walked into the conference room amidst thunder and pulled out his office chair to sit down, the rain clouds that were shrouding the entire conference room collapsed.

Then the rain came pouring down—

pat.

A crisp sound.

Drops of sweat fell on the test paper, leaving water marks like flowers. In the exhibition hall without air conditioning, Yajima Hiru's pupils trembled. He raised his head in a trance and looked at Kurusu Akatsuki who was sitting in the first row of the classroom.

Not only him, more than half of the people in the entire exhibition hall looked towards Kurusu Akatsuki's position.

In the quiet bachelor's exhibition hall, the rustling sound of him turning over the test paper was so clear.

It's so clear that it makes people shudder.

The countdown on the big screen had just passed six minutes.

Kurusu Akatsuki has completed all the questions on the first page.

At this point, the entire nature of the game changed.

It is no longer a battlefield where heroes clash for supremacy, nor does it have the elegant yet bloody ritual of medieval knights clashing their lances, where life and death are decided in the blink of an eye...

The black dragon covered in scales was perched in the front of the crowd, its head lowered in arrogance and disdain, a raging fire brewing in its mouth that would determine the outcome.

The brave warriors who still had a glimmer of hope tried their best to stand up from the crowd of corpses, leaning on their swords, and roared angrily at the black dragon in front of them.

Behind them, whether they were the wealthy young men who relied on their armor and props to show off their might or the squire knights who had achieved victory, they all knelt in fear at this moment, because the battle they were about to face was completely beyond the realm of mortals!

The sound of turning pages came one after another.

Tragic and stirring music seemed to resound from the void, like proof of a hero's sacrifice, like a medal awarded to those who challenged the ancient dragon. The stories of the young men, swords drawn, leaving the village, continued to turn! Turning to the title page where only their names were left! Turning to the ancient cover that read "The Book of the Brave"!

Strength surges from extreme indignation and despair!

From this moment on, the brave men from all the major universities began to burn all their wisdom and inspiration so far. The flame called "talent" burned in their bodies, and the "inspiration" that was hard to come by in daily life seemed like countless silk threads woven into an impenetrable net in front of them, covering all chances of victory.

Black Dragon ignored this group of unknown "challengers", seemed to have dozed off, lowered his head drowsily, and then drew a picture, wrote a formula, calculated, and filled in the answer for the last subjective question.

He stood up, looked back at the layers of stairs behind him, looked into those pairs of eyes filled with disbelief, confusion, and fear, raised his hand expressionlessly, and said, "Hand in your paper."

The Black Dragon stomped his feet, and the entire exhibition hall shook as if an earthquake had occurred. Then he spat out a spit with a temperature comparable to that of the solar corona, and all the heroes were burned to a charred black in an instant.

All the "traitors" who defected to the Black Dragon raised their hands and handed in their papers, and the "allies" who had been recruited before the game also raised their hands and handed in their papers at this time.

Amidst the scattered sounds, the first round of the selection competition ended in a hurry.

In the academic exhibition hall where more than half of the students had left, the "fallen" brave warriors looked at each other in bewilderment.

Just like in Monster Hunter, players are allowed to "revive" three times by lying on the cat car.

They had already died once, but they still had to fight two more rounds of desperate battles with that incomprehensibly powerful monster.

"My hands are shaking." Yukawa Manabu of Kugayama High School whispered.

"Me too." Tetsuya Takimoto from Aoyama High School nodded in agreement.

Kyouko Kirigiri of Tokyo Jogakukan High School stared at the photos of Kurusu Akatsuki's test paper and draft paper displayed on the big screen: the clean paper, the smooth and beautiful handwriting, the cohesive application of various problem-solving techniques and knowledge points, like the "Nine-Headed Dragon Flash" slashed by "Kenshin Himura", instantly destroying the carefully prepared test paper... The most perverse thing was that his draft paper was completely empty...

The corners of her mouth twitched twice. "This is simply not the amount of knowledge a high school student can possess."

"You're overestimating the knowledge of 'high school students,'" Takimoto Tetsuya said, pushing his glasses up. "To find someone with problem-solving abilities like that, you'd have to go to the science department of a top university."

Yukawa Manabu knocked on the table. "The next round will start in an hour, if I remember correctly..."

Kirikiri Kyouko whispered, "The key test point is spatial geometry."

Takimoto Tetsuya suddenly ran out of the academic exhibition hall, then took out his schoolbag, dug out a collection of wrong answers from it, and placed it on Yukawa Manabu's desk. "It just so happens that I'm quite knowledgeable in spatial geometry."

Yukawa Manabu stood up and coughed twice in mock mockery. "What a coincidence! Even though it wasn't taught much in high school, I unexpectedly have some personal experience in spatial geometry."

With that, he ran out of the exhibition hall and soon came back with a thick notebook.

At this time, Yajima Hiru, who was sitting in the back, actually ran up and tried to pretend that he had extraordinary academic qualifications.

Yajima Hiroshi's little tricks were seen through at a glance, but Yukawa Manabu and Takimoto Tetsu also noticed the mechanical watch on his wrist. Although they felt disdain and contempt in their hearts, they did not refuse him to join.

Thus, the makeshift troupe of the "Three Brothers of Taoyuan" was assembled.

Kirikiri Kyouko doesn't have much experience to share, nor is she willing to share it with others.

She returned to her seat without saying a word.

In her opinion, the first qualifying spot in this "selection competition" has already been determined, and no matter how hard she struggles, she should be fighting for the only second spot.

From the very beginning, these people's starting point was wrong—

The enemy they need to defeat is no longer Kurusu Akatsuki, but each other.

......

In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the "Three Heroes vs. Lu Bu" who cooperated with each other in perfect harmony found it difficult to win.

What's more, this is a makeshift team that was formed temporarily and has a lot of baggage.

After that, Kurusu Akatsuki cleanly finished two rounds of exams within 15 minutes.

He packed up his stationery and left the academic lecture hall in the most casual manner in full view of everyone, leaving behind a group of sweaty and bewildered challengers.

But when he left the examination room, the person who greeted him in the corridor was not Jing Qincai, who had said on Line that she would take the tram to bring him water.

But it was the new Ma Xiaolian with a square face.

The principal stood in front of Kurusu Akatsuki with a smile on his face, his eyes filled with twisted desire that had lost all concealment.

"Amamiya-san, you are truly Shujin's pride."

Kurusu Akatsuki restrained his fists, "As a member of Shujin, this is what I should do."

Xin Ma Xiaolian's smile was quite sincere. "Thanks to you, I've been able to hold my head high in front of my colleagues. Since I'm new to the position and don't have any particularly impressive resume, it's inevitable that people will look down on me."