Chapter 9: High-Difficulty Exam |
Hiss—
The airlock doors at the building's main entrance slid apart, revealing the Kram Cigarette Factory's mysteries to the students.
A figure walked toward them.
He wore a long, hooded white robe. A mechanical mask covered his nose and mouth, and his right eye had been augmented, replaced by a cybernetic prosthetic that pulsed with red light.
"Whoa, so cool. He has implants."
"His right eye is glowing red. Is he scanning us?"
"I really want to get a bionic arm for myself, but it's too damn expensive. I couldn't afford one even if I sold my old man."
The boys whispered among themselves, practically buzzing with excitement.
Flesh is weak; the machine is eternal.
"Silence."
The man's mechanical mask integrated a vox-array. His voice was electronically synthesized, making him sound like a machine.
He stood before the door with his hands behind his back, his demeanor stern.
"I am the security supervisor of the Kram Cigarette Factory. You may call me Borg.
"My master is the esteemed Mr. Kram. He is the owner and controller of the Kram Cigarette Factory, as well as the leader of the Kram Family.
"I expect you to remain dignified and solemn at all times after entering this building. Do not wander without authorization. I will hand any violators over to the Hive City's Department of Justice, where you will be charged with the theft of classified documents."
Borg paused, sweeping a cold gaze over the crowd.
"Have I made myself clear?"
The students nodded in unison, not daring to breathe.
"Good. Follow me."
With his hands clasped behind his back, Borg walked toward the entrance, his spine perfectly straight.
The students exchanged glances before forming three columns and entering the hall.
Lino trailed at the end of the line, walking next to Amy. He casually handed her book back.
Amy looked extremely nervous.
After putting the textbook away, she didn't speak to Lino, her eyes locked straight ahead.
The group moved forward in silence.
A strange smell lingered in the corridor, somewhat like disinfectant. The air was noticeably colder than outside, raising goosebumps on their skin.
Sound-absorbing material lined the walls, swallowing the students' footsteps and making the atmosphere even more oppressive.
A moment later, Borg stopped and gestured in front of a sensor door.
The door opened. Inside was a room filled with desks and chairs, spacious enough to seat everyone.
"In five minutes, the exam questions will appear on the Dataslates on your desks. The first test will last for one hour. Only those who pass may proceed to the second test. Find a seat."
The students filed in.
Lino took a seat in the corner.
The Dataslate on his desk was connected to a cable, with a stylus resting next to it.
A countdown timer displayed on the screen in green pixels.
Five minutes later, the countdown vanished.
Multiple-choice questions populated the screen one by one.
The screens illuminated the room, casting an eerie, sickly green glow over everyone's faces. Anyone unaware of the situation might have thought it was a stock exchange.
Gasps of shock rang out across the room.
"My god, is this even Low Gothic? How come I recognize every letter, but I can't understand them when they're strung together?!"
"Damn it, I think this is High Gothic! Weren't we supposed to be tested on Low Gothic?"
"This is High Gothic? Terrifying. The words are longer than my index finger."
Lino glanced at the multiple-choice questions on his Dataslate and felt a surge of surprise. He looked to his left.
Amy sat right there.
Her expression was complicated—a mix of joy and relief.
Had her dean of a father leaked the details to her?
She probably wouldn't go as far as cheating.
It was more likely she had studied High Gothic at home, which would explain her reaction.
"Quiet." Borg stood by the door, his face grim.
"From now on, anyone who makes noise will be expelled from the building. The exam has begun. Answer your questions."
The students braced themselves and began to work, most of them looking on the verge of tears.
Lino, however, didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
It wasn't because the test was hard, but because it was too easy.
He could easily pass with a perfect score if he wanted to.
He had his mastery of Latin from before his transmigration to thank for this.
To submit papers to international journals, he had used his free time to teach himself mycology-related Latin.
By mastering the common roots, affixes, and grammar shared between English and Latin, he could just barely read short Latin essays.
The relationship between Low Gothic and High Gothic was exactly the same.
With a sufficient vocabulary in Low Gothic, anyone could use a find-the-similarities method to identify the roots and affixes of High Gothic, gaining a general understanding of the questions.
Fundamentally, the exam tested the students' ability to adapt on the spot while checking if their foundation in Low Gothic was solid.
Lino saw right through the examiner's intentions. Combined with his self-taught Latin, the exam was a piece of cake.
Not getting a perfect score would be an insult to all the hard studying he had done before his transmigration.
He began to answer.
Time hurried by.
Some students sighed heavily, while others seemed to have discovered the pattern, their eyes lighting up with excitement.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes.
The sighing in the room lessened as more people grasped the trick to the questions.
Forty minutes, fifty minutes.
Lino wrote furiously, his stylus moving without rest.
But the damn exam seemed endless. The moment he finished one page, another would pop up.
If he couldn't finish all the questions, how was he supposed to get a perfect score?
He wrote and wrote, scribbling madly, furiously, and tirelessly.
Lino felt as if he had returned to the days of preparing for his postgraduate entrance exams, completely immersed in a boundless sea of questions.
What the crowd failed to notice was that Examiner Borg's cybernetic eye was blinking rapidly.
A strange force field emanated from his eye, blanketing the entire room and making many of the examinees drowsy.
There was only one exception.
That was Lino.
When others' wrists grew sore, he was solving questions.
When others stretched their arms and shoulders, he was still solving questions.
When other examinees yawned repeatedly from the inexplicable drowsiness, Lino continued to solve questions.
The force field Borg emitted didn't hinder Lino at all.
The test-taking abilities he had forged over his long academic career completely erupted.
No matter the question, he didn't pause for a fraction of a second, breezing through them with flawless fluency.
Borg stepped up behind him.
His cybernetic eye flashed and flickered, invisible light repeatedly scanning Lino as a faint, continuous hum of electricity echoed inside Borg's body.
Every movement and micro-expression Lino made while answering was captured by Borg's eye, compiled into binary data by his cranial implants, and transmitted through the vox-array system directly to the building's monitoring room.
There, four figures observed Lino solving the exam.
