At the end of the underground plaza was a huge monitoring room. All the teachers from the high schools in Tiger Forest Region were gathered here, and they could see the commotion of the students clearly.
"The quality of the graduates of our Tiger Forest Region this year is pretty good. Their fighting spirit is very high!"
The surveillance camera followed Ning Xueshi and Yan Feirou to Ninth High School's square formation. It was just in time to capture Meng Chao and Jin Zhanpeng's conflict clearly.
Many of the top students from the key high schools in the city had just suffered at the hands of Construction Middle School, which made the leading teacher feel bad.
Now, when they saw Construction High School being defeated by a key high school in the region, the teachers from the key high school in the city could not help but smile.
"What's the student's name? Meng Chao? Let's pay close attention to it later. "They discussed softly, no, quite loudly.
The teacher in charge of Construction High's team had a face so dark that it looked like ink was about to drip out of it. He glared at Demon Yan.
Demon Yan's face was expressionless, but he covered his mouth with his palm. Only then did his lips curl up in a very discreet manner.
"Time's up. The brain cell activation agent should have taken effect. The second test will begin in three minutes."
The examiner walked to the control panel.
"All candidates, please get into position. Pay attention to your feet. Look at your school name and student number. Please choose one of the three sitting stances. Sit down, relax your breathing, and enter a state of deep meditation."
A cold, mechanical voice sounded above the students' heads. "After one minute, those who are still standing, walking, or making any noise will be considered to have violated the exam rules. The first time, you will receive a warning. The second time, you will be directly expelled from the exam!"
For a moment, the thousands of examinees in the huge underground plaza were completely silent.
Meng Chao sat down cross-legged and chose Withered Wood Stake, one of the Nine Great Stakes. As he breathed evenly, he gradually entered a meditative state.
He imagined himself to be a tree stump that had been cut down, enduring the pain of the sun and the rain. However, in the extreme pain, a new vitality burst out of him, and a small bud grew out of the wound.
The laughter from a moment ago was thrown to the back of his mind, and the mottled nightmare once again surfaced in his mind.
But this time, there was no more confusion or fear in his heart, only a firm belief and courage to press forward.
The sound of sophisticated machinery came from above.
Rows of metal racks slowly descended.
There were also helmets connected to a flexible tube on the rack, and they were sent to the top of each candidate's head.
Meng Chao held the helmet in his hands. It was soft and warm to the touch. It looked like crystalline gel, and there were profound and complicated runic symbols carved on its surface. Spirit energy flowed slowly among the runic symbols, giving it a mysterious and futuristic feeling.
The inside of the depression, however, was filled with dense protrusions. They looked like echinoderms, but also like living metals. It was a little nauseating.
"This is the superbrain?"
Meng Chao observed it carefully.
The newest model of the superbrain was built with nanochips, monster biochemical brains, and quantum algorithms. Its computing power was unprecedentedly great.
More importantly, it could seamlessly connect with the human brain through bionic nerves and directly input information into the human brain.
Genetic martial arts, spirit energy technology, and superbrain technology were the three pillars Dragon City relied on to fight for supremacy in the Other World.
Meng Chao put the superbrain on his head.
The gel-like active shell was slowly adjusted to ensure that it was comfortable and appropriate to wear.
The protrusions, which were as dense as echinoderms, were gently pressed against the acupressure points on the head and cervical vertebrae. Bioelectricity traveled through them in a numbing manner, and the human brain nerves were perfectly connected to the superbrain crystal cluster.
Meng Chao's eyes were covered by the superbrain, but his optic nerves received information from the superbrain.
A fluffy ball of light appeared in front of him, and a small row of words appeared in it. [New Era Year 55. The second round of the entrance test for Dragon City's type one universities will begin in one minute.]
It was not just his optic nerves. There were also his olfactory, auditory, and tactile nerves.
Meng Chao was sitting cross-legged, but he gradually felt like he was standing.
The smell of smoke and blood entered his nostrils. He could also hear cold wind blowing by his ears, along with the wails of ghosts.
He felt as if he had gone from the safe and comfortable underground field to the new world and into hell.
…
The teachers from the various universities watched as the chief invigilator implanted the scenes into the superbrain's main computer in the monitoring room.
The extremely terrifying scenes caused them to click their tongues in amazement.
"Why is the difficulty of the mental strength test so much higher this year? Even though it's a virtual test, the information implanted into the superbrain is completely real. The fear and pain the children will feel will be 100% real. How can they endure it?"
"No, it's not 100%. It's 120%. The impact the examinees will have to endure in the virtual world will be even more terrifying than in reality!"
“120%？ This is the standard for the Red Dragon Army to choose elite special forces soldiers. Isn't this year's national college examination a little too ridiculous? The fear and pain last year was still 90%, right? "
"It has to be ridiculous. You know what the Red Dragon Army's fog investigation team discovered recently, right? The war is really going to become more intense. If these children can't even pass the test in the virtual world, there's no need for them to be sent into the depths of the fog to become food for the monsters. "
When the chief invigilator mentioned the discoveries in the depths of the fog, all the teachers fell silent.
They could only watch as the chief invigilator threw ferocious monsters into the virtual world.
Soon, the implantation of the scenes was completed.
The mental strength test began.
Fog, ruins, blood moon, and monsters rampaging about!
The examinees' vision changed swiftly. They noticed that they had gone from the underground field to an unfamiliar battlefield.
The students around them, the teachers leading them, and everything they were familiar with had disappeared.
They were alone and had no help. They could only step on the rotting carcasses and search through the torn limbs and broken walls in fear.
"ROAR!"
The blood moon dyed the fog red, and the monsters grinned savagely in the bloody fog.
The mental strength test did not test the examinees' fighting skills. It only tested their mental endurance.
Hence, the education department did not choose the superbeasts with great offensive power but mighty or even gorgeous appearances. Instead, they chose the nightmarish creatures that looked like the amalgamations of reptiles, arthropods, echinoderms, and deep-sea fish. They made people unable to eat for three days after they saw them.
"Ah!"
"Help!"
"Oh my god!"
When they saw the deformed monsters that looked like skinned frogs and were about to spit out their organs at any moment, many of the examinees from normal high schools who usually did not have the means to receive virtual reality training were terrified.
Those who performed well turned around and ran. Those who performed poorly stood where they were and shuddered. In the end, the deformed monsters pounced on them, and they could only watch as half of their bodies fell into the monsters' mouths.
While the monsters chewed, they glared at them with their murky eyes and smiled.
The examinees could no longer hold themselves back. Their eyes rolled back, and they fainted.
"Examinee 5501342 from Small River High School, Ren Fei. His mental strength index is lower than 40% … Lower than 30%. Warning. Examinee's mental strength index is still dropping. It has been lower than the warning line for more than sixty seconds. Determined to fail the mental strength test. You will be forced to leave the virtual exam hall."
The screen that surrounded them showed each examinee's mental strength. All sorts of numbers kept jumping. When they went above or below the warning line, the numbers would immediately turn red, and a special alarm would be sent.
One examinee started foaming at the mouth and convulsing in the exam hall.
He was immediately forced to leave the virtual world. The superbrain then sent a rather gentle bioelectric current to his cranial nerves to massage his cerebral cortex to ensure that his mind was stable.
A few people in white coats rushed over and carried the examinee, who was about to break down, out of the exam hall to be treated.
The teacher in charge of Small River High School sighed, but he could do nothing about it.
Fifty years ago, when humans unlocked their genes and released the maximum potential of their brains, scientists and superhumans noticed that the spirit energy in the Other World had an effect that was one hundred times stronger than on Earth.
If they guided spirit energy into their bodies and charged into their brain cells, they could release explosive power and extraordinary divine arts, but they would also create a substance known as superbrain endorphins.
There were two types of endorphins in the human brain. They were methionine enkephalin and leucine enkephalin. They were neurotransmitters that resembled morphine in the central nervous system. They could increase pain threshold and maintain mental stability. In fact, they were even connected to the emotional regions of the human brain.
Superbrain endorphins were even more mysterious and complicated. Up to this date, scientists had not completely understood their structure and mechanism of action. They only knew that they could control spirit energy and form bioelectric currents to stimulate the deepest parts of human cells so that the energy supply efficiency of mitochondria would increase by one hundred times.
A large amount of superbrain endorphins was the key for humans to become superhumans.
But going too far was as bad as not going far enough. Just like how drinking too much water would result in water poisoning, if the human brain secreted an excessive amount of superbrain endorphins for a long period of time, it might also result in superbrain endorphin poisoning.
In this sort of situation, an excessive amount of superbrain endorphins would invade the human brain, taint the human mind, and distort the human will. It would cause the human to become deformed, degenerate, and mutate into mad monsters.
After decades of research, the Supernatural Tower had tossed out the concept of mental strength index and emphasized that humans had to control superbrain endorphins. Regardless of whether they were training or fighting, they had to remain rational at all times.
The benchmark for a mental strength index was 100%, which meant that superbrain endorphins were normally secreted.
And when a person was greatly stimulated by the outside world and saw something incredibly terrifying, mysterious, strange, or unknown, the human brain's self-defense mechanism would start to secrete a large amount of superbrain endorphins.
At that time, a person's mental strength index would fluctuate between 90% and 110%.
When a person's mental strength index was lower than 1, they would develop fear, anxiety, and other negative emotions.
When a person's mental strength index was higher than 1, they would become brave, fearless, and even bloodthirsty.
Regardless of whether they were fearful or brave, as long as they did not go overboard, they were necessary and beneficial.
There was no need to mention how brave they were. Even if they were fearful, they could help a person become wary and instantly assess the difference in strength between them and the enemy. When it was time to retreat, they could choose to retreat.
Many people's minds would often go blank when they were terrified. In truth, their bodies would automatically shift all their energy from their brains to their muscles, and they would use their instincts to escape.
But the terrifying creatures and mysterious phenomena in the Other World far surpassed the limits of what the human brain could understand.
And to dig out their potential, superhumans usually secreted a lot of superbrain endorphins.
This made it easy for their mental strength index to go over the safe zone of 80% to 120%. It was either too high or too low.
When a person's mental strength index was lower than 80%, the negative effects of fear would gradually overwhelm the positive effects. The superbrain endorphins would turn from a good medicine to a poison that would invade the brain, and the human would be enveloped by fear of the unknown. They would feel as if they had sunk into a swamp, and they could not get out of it.
The more they were afraid, the more superbrain endorphins they secreted, and they would enter a vicious cycle of being poisoned by superbrain endorphins.
When a person's mental strength index fell below 30%, it would be practically impossible for them to break free with their own strength. The excessive amount of superbrain endorphins would attract a spirit energy tsunami and completely devour the human's mind.
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