Instructor Jing

Thirty minutes later, the piercing end bell rang.

Less than forty people were still left standing in the arena.

Black Crow looked at the rankings on the light screen and announced expressionlessly: "...An Changqing, third; Long Ao, fourth; Su Yuehe, nineteenth; Chen Guan, thirty-second; Liu Feiyu, fifty-fourth."

Everyone thought the opening ceremony was over, but another figure walked out onto the high platform.

The man wore a crisp instructor's uniform and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.

He wore a gentle, friendly smile on his lips, which seemed completely out of place with the grim atmosphere of the arena.

He was no more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, looking refined and elegant.

However, the moment he appeared, Chen Guan's eyelids twitched uncontrollably.

Why did he feel so familiar...

The instructor clapped his hands gently, the crisp sound drawing everyone's attention to him.

"Good work, students."

His voice was mellow yet carried clearly to everyone's ears.

"Did I miss the best part?"

His gaze swept gently across the arena, lingering for a moment on the face of every survivor.

His expression was like someone admiring a collection of perfect masterpieces.

The smile on his lips deepened, but the meaning behind it was unfathomable.

"Let me introduce myself. My name is Jing, and you can call me Instructor Jing. Some people are very good at hiding themselves in the sand, thinking they won't be discovered."

His words caused several students hiding at the edges of the arena to tense up.

Instructor Jing pushed up his glasses, a glint of light flashing across the lenses.

He continued in that gentle tone, "This is a type of wisdom, knowing how to avoid risks. It is worthy of praise."

He paused, his tone still gentle, but his words sent a chill down everyone's spine.

"But you have forgotten that this is a training camp."

"And my duty is to take every piece of gold that is unwilling to remain silent yet vainly attempts to hide itself..."

His gaze pierced through the crowd and landed straight on Chen Guan.

Like a scalpel slicing through tissue, it peeled him away from the rest of the crowd.

"...and pluck them out of the sand, one by one."

He pointed a finger through the air in Chen Guan's direction.

The smile on his face was bright, but that only made him look even more dangerous.

"I will personally help you... shine."

Before Instructor Jing's words even faded.

In the training ground, everyone's heads turned in unison.

Nearly a hundred gazes wove into a net, firmly trapping Chen Guan in the corner.

Some smart individuals had already connected the dots from earlier, their faces turning ugly.

This person who had hidden throughout the whole process was finally plucked out. He would be thrust under everyone's scrutiny, with nowhere to hide.

[Here it comes, the instructor is personally targeting him.]

[My Guan is in danger. This instructor is a total hypocrite, hiding his rotten core behind a fake smile.]

[Hahaha, that's what you get for playing safe. Now you've been made an example of. Public execution.]

[Why do I feel a bit excited? I just love seeing Brother Guan forced to work. So thrilling.]

An Changqing frowned deeply and took a step forward. "Instructor Jing, Chen Guan is just introverted. He didn't mean to hide."

The smile on Instructor Jing's lips did not diminish in the slightest, nor did his gaze shift away from Chen Guan for a second.

He simply raised his hand and pressed down lightly in the air, and a heavy pressure immediately descended.

An Changqing's body sank, his throat feeling as if something was blocking it.

They opened their mouths but couldn't make a sound.

"I admire your team spirit," Instructor Jing said gently. "But right now, it is individual time."

He pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose.

A pale reflection from the ceiling lights flashed across the lenses, devoid of any warmth.

"In order to better tap into every student's potential, we will conduct a second test, called Deep Sea Listening."

As soon as his announcement ended, the metal floor in front of everyone split open.

A spherical cabin, three meters in diameter and cast entirely from matte black metal, rose smoothly.

Its outer shell was seamless, with only a tightly closed cabin door right at the front.

"The tester will enter the cabin, which will be completely dark and filled with high-pressure turbulent currents. What you need to do is rely solely on your hearing to capture and touch randomly appearing sound sources within three minutes. The sound sources will appear as extremely brief beeps, each lasting no more than 0.1 seconds."

These harsh rules caused a collective gasp of cold air across the training ground.

Darkness, high-pressure water currents, and those fleeting sounds...

This tested not only hearing but also one's body control, spatial awareness, and reaction speed in extreme environments. Those with lower mental strength all grimaced in distress.

"Of course, for the sake of fairness, and to give our lucky one a stage to show himself."

Instructor Jing's gaze was pinned back onto Chen Guan.

"Student Chen Guan, you will be the first to take the test. Moreover, your test difficulty will be tripled, the sound source intensity weakened by seventy percent, and the turbulent pressure doubled."

"Oh, by the way, if you fail, you will be sent back."

These words made the red-haired girl, who had been spacing out the whole time, shift her gaze over, casting an intrigued glance.

How was this a test? It was clearly murder.

Facing Instructor Jing's piercing gaze, Chen Guan's Adam's apple bobbed, but he ultimately remained silent.

He understood that any argument would only become an excuse for the other party to push further, only adding to his amusement. Besides, why did this kind of sick sense of humor feel somewhat familiar?

The sense of deja vu was getting stronger.

Chen Guan walked silently toward the black metal sphere.

Under everyone's sympathetic or gloating gazes, he placed his coffin at the door and walked into the testing cabin himself.

The cabin door closed, letting out a muffled mechanical locking sound.

Immediately after, the entire surface of the sphere lit up with faint blue data streams.

The internal feed was projected onto the giant light screen in the center of the training ground.

It was a pitch-black space isolated from all light, with only the loud rushing sound of water echoing within.

"Test, begin," Instructor Jing announced softly.

Inside the cabin, Chen Guan felt himself being swallowed by freezing, bone-chilling rapids.

The force of the water surged from every direction, tearing at his body and making it impossible to stand steady.

Universal Visualization Technique.

The thought flowed through his mind as he closed his eyes in the endless darkness.

The outside world was a raging sea, but his heart was a silent starry sky.

In his perception, the entire spherical cabin transformed into a miniature model of the universe.

The water currents were surging galaxies, and he himself was a solitary boat navigating those galaxies.

Buzz...

A faint beep, so weak it was almost swallowed by the sound of the water, appeared to his back left and vanished.

On the light screen, everyone watched as Chen Guan was pushed back and to the left by a current.

His body tumbled uncontrollably in the water, looking as though he was about to smash into the cabin wall.

However, just as he lost control of his body and his hands flailed in the water...

His fingertips, at an impossible angle, tapped precisely on a specific spot on the cabin wall.

[Sound source captured successfully.]

The mechanical notification chimed.

You could hear a pin drop in the training ground.

Everyone stared intently at the oddly postured figure on the light screen.

Could this... really work?

Buzz...

A second sound source appeared in the upper right.

Chen Guan's body was lifted once again, swept up by another current of water.

His limbs flailed wildly as he floated upward in a contorted posture.

Then, his forehead happened to bump right into the second sound source.