Chapter 240: I Hate Three Plus One [Part 1]
The round-shaped test zone was divided into eight smaller zones. Every zone took a forty five degree fan-shaped space. There was a ring of spectator stand outside the shooting range, and it was divided into the upper level and bottom level. The examiners were at the upper level, and the examinees were at the bottom level. All examinees who had finished their test or were waiting for their turn were watching the examinees in the test zone at the bottom level of the spectator stand.
Shooting was a skill all students must learn. Even if there was a student who hadn’t come into contact with a gun until now, they were still required to learn shooting after they were officially accepted into AF1. Therefore, one could say that shooting was an important course in every school. A lot of teachers loved to test their students on their shooting skills, and shooting had always been a course that took up a higher percentage be it in an exam or a tryout like this one. That was why a lot of people chose shooting as their subject.
Curved shooting might be an ultra difficult shooting technique outside of AF1, but in here, a place where geniuses clash against one another, it was nothing more but an everyday technique. Maybe the teachers would give them a second glance if they hit every target while curving their shots.
There were some actual AF1 and AF2 students from previous years who were watching the test too, and from their expressions Cillin knew that very few examinees actually came to their attention. Of course, it wasn’t that these examinees had performed exceptionally poor. If they were further trained after they were officially accepted into an affiliated school, they would only shine brighter than ever before.
The examinees went in and out of the test zones amidst the actual students’ chatter and the teachers’ absent-minded gazes. They were all so full of ambition before they came to this place, but it was only a matter of time before they learned why AF1 and AF2 could become the top schools in the entire empire. Gold always shines, but even gold becomes unassuming within a sea of gold.
Cillin believed that shooting technique was just one of the aspects they benchmarked the examinees with. The other thing they observed was the type of guns they used.
That’s right, the shooting test was set up in a way that allowed the examinees to bring their own guns. That was why the students weren’t forbidden from carrying firearms into AF1’s preparatory campus. It also meant that some people in AF1 had the ability to prevent and control any undesirable situations that might arise from the missing rule.
Cillin stared at the shooting range from the spectator stand. Libero and Ironhead didn’t take shooting, but Walley and Teita did. Walley was in front of Cillin while Teita was behind him. The order was decided on a first come first serve basis.
Walley and Cillin were put in the same test zone, and Cillin soon discovered that Walley had impressive shooting instinct. He reminded him of Tang Qiuqiu, which meant that he was either born with great shooting instincts or forced to develop them due to his environment. It could be the latter seeing that Walley came from a pretty messy place. Still, it couldn’t be easy for a parent to raise and instill such a careless attitude in the young man despite living in a messy place like that.
Walley picked a gun directly from the gun rack, gave it a look, fired a test shot and started his test immediately. He hit everything, and he never stopped shooting until it was over.
Cillin couldn’t see Walley’s eyes when the latter fired his gun from where he stood; he could only see his shooting methods and results: maybe the teachers could see them from the cameras inside the shooting range? At any rate, when Walley was done shooting Cillin could feel that the teachers’ reactions in this zone were a little different from before. If he wasn’t mistaken, it should be something like satisfaction.
“Cillin, it’s almost your turn, isn’t it?” Teita ran over and talked to him. Just now he was talking to a current student he knew. On a side note, the stress test didn’t put any pressure on Teita.
“Mm. There are two more before it’s my turn.” Cillin said while pointing at the fan-shaped zone before him.
Teita waved his hand and said, “No need to be nervous, just do like you always dol!” This was an advice his father often gave him.
Cillin smiled back. “I’m not nervous.”
Walley returned while the two of them were chatting.
“There’s nothing to see here. The real students are staring at pretty girls, the pretty girls are staring at pretty boys, and the teachers are yawning again and again. I’m not sure if they’re trying to piss us off on purpose.” Walley leaned against the fence and asked, “So hungry. Say, do you guys have anything I can eat?”
Cillin tossed a compressed biscuit, a bag of jerkies and a bottle of water at him. “Conserve your strength. The next test is probably going to just as tight.”
“What a troublesome test this is.” Walley caught the food and began replenishing his stamina.
Walley didn’t have a subspace container because it was a luxury to him. That was why he couldn’t bring as many food as Cillin or Teita did. He didn’t want to eat nutrient tablets either because those things were okay in the norm but completely insufficient in a test like this one.
“Oh by the way, I asked around and learned the third test is going to undergo a small change,” Teita said.
“What change?” Cillin and Walley looked at him at the same time.
Teita sighed. “I heard that “The Three Tests” is going to be changed into the “Three Plus One Tests” from here on. The three ‘choose-yourself’ mini tests haven’t changed, but now there is a fourth mini test. The fourth mini test may be different each term, and it seems like we’re be running a marathon this time.”
“Marathon? How far do we have to run?” Cillin asked.
Teita shook his head. “I don’t know, they don’t know either. Only a teacher in charge would know about this.”
Walley looked up into the sky with a clear look of forlornness while chewing his jerky. “I have a bad feeling about this...”