431: Chapter 417 Mr. Gao's Selection Method.

The fool-proof exams were proceeding in an orderly manner, and candidates from all over America were arriving one after another.

To speed up the progress, Neo sent people to set up over a dozen more examination halls, increasing the seating to three thousand, allowing fifty thousand people to enter at once, and raising the number of sessions from eight to twelve per day.

The exam time was limited to two hours, meaning six hundred thousand candidates completed their papers in a day.

However, even at such a terrifying speed, it took a full ten days to clear the number of candidates waiting to be tested.

Afterwards, a few parents still rushed there, but all examination halls had already closed and would be dismantled in a few days.

Having traveled thousands of miles to get here, they were certainly unwilling to return home empty-handed, so they gathered in front of the bungalows of the admissions office, raising banners and protesting.

After Neo learned of this, he did not intend to make any exceptions.

Taking ten days to reach New Moon City, there was no doubt that these people were driving private cars or taking slow but cheap trains, perfectly fitting the "fool" family criteria mentioned by the Examiners.

Furthermore, being late for something as important as applying to a Magic School clearly showed they didn't value it enough in their hearts.

Ordinary schools have registration deadlines, let alone the only Magic School in America?

Neo felt that reorganizing exams for them was a pure waste of precious time.

Of course, letting them cause a scene at the admissions office was also undesirable.

The news of the preliminary selection's conclusion had already been sent to Mr. Gao. Mr. Gao would soon visit the school in person to conduct the formal admission assessment. Setting aside whether he would blame them, Neo was resistant to even leaving a negative impression if he saw the flag-waving protesters.

After a bit of thought, he came up with an excellent solution.

He obtained the most difficult exam papers from top-tier American schools, printed a sufficient quantity, and distributed them to the candidates who refused to leave.

The exam rules were very loose: they were allowed to check answers with each other and seek help from parents, answering the questions in their own tents; the only thing prohibited was using electronic devices to look up answers.

Neo didn't send Examiners to their camp, only deploying high-power wireless signal jammers nearby.

When they first received the solution announced by the officials, the parents were very excited, believing it was the result of their protest.

But once they got the exam papers, they were completely dumbfounded.

Check answers?

On this paper, even the best candidate couldn't get a perfect score; what was the point of checking answers?

Seek help from parents?

Don't be ridiculous; the knowledge they received in school had long since been returned to their teachers.

Furious at being played, they gathered to protest again, but Neo wasn't going to indulge them anymore.

The questions are hard? Can the questions for a Magic School not be hard?

Different from the papers of the candidates who already finished?

Neo smiled slightly: "Do you have evidence?"

The people were speechless, but they didn't just admit defeat and go home quietly; instead, they banded together to post on forums, trying to create public pressure on the officials.

Unfortunately, this is America; my promotion of freedom doesn't mean you are actually free.

Neo had long since firmly controlled all major social software in America. With one order, major forums immediately began banning accounts, and the cyber department followed up to handle related posts; they couldn't make even the slightest ripple.

The angry crowd used local materials, collecting branches of suitable thickness from the woods and trimming them slightly to make spears, intending to storm the admissions office.

If time were rolled back to the Middle Ages, they might have had a hope of success; after all, there were many of them, and with abundant food and nutrition in their daily lives, they were exceptionally strong, each being excellent reserves for heavy infantry.

But unfortunately, it's now the twenty-first century, the home turf of firearms.

Facing tens of thousands of parents who had transformed into a medieval infantry regiment and were charging into the sunset, Neo sent only a reinforced company, setting up over a dozen machine guns at the front to easily resolve the crisis.

That night.

The parents helplessly accepted reality, packed their tents and daily necessities, and set off on their return journey.

When Neo received his assistant's report, he was wandering around the school, conducting a final inspection.

"Are they all gone?"

"Yes, Mr. Neo. As you instructed, we provided travel expenses to each family.

Also, do the bungalows used for admissions need to be demolished?"

"Demolish them."

"Understood."

The assistant turned to gather manpower for the demolition. Neo looked around for a moment, intending to head to the dean's office, but just as he lifted his foot, he was stopped by a voice from behind.

"Neo."

In America, the only ones with the courage to call him by his name, besides Mr. Gao, were the few allied clan heads.

Neo turned around, and sure enough, several of them were walking toward him together.

"What are you doing here? Is it okay for you to leave the spaceship project?"

One clan head smiled: "The hull is finished. For the remaining performance tests, we just need to wait for the reports."

Neo nodded: "The launch date should be ahead of Ying Country and Russia."

"We can't be sure about Ying Country. Our intelligence network there was already heavily damaged, and we lost a group of elites while investigating the statue of god. The remaining forces aren't enough to determine the progress of Ying Country's spaceship construction."

Another clan head added: "Perhaps tomorrow morning, we'll see news of Ying Country launching its spaceship in the newspapers."

Neo waved his hand dismissively: "It's best if we're ahead of them, but it doesn't matter if we're not. Anyway, Hua Country has already taken the crown for first place, so it doesn't matter who is second.

Now, our most urgent task is to handle the affairs of the Magic School properly; that's our hope of catching up to them."

The clan heads looked at each other, all showing expressions of agreement. One of them suddenly remembered something and asked: "The preliminary selection has ended successfully. When will Mr. Gao come to preside over the formal selection?"

"I don't know."

Even though it concerned the admissions of the Magic Academy, they didn't find such a perfunctory answer absurd; instead, they had looks of understanding.

Mr. Gao's whereabouts were mysterious, and Neo didn't have a stable way to contact him, so he could only wait passively.

They weren't in a hurry either. Mr. Gao's acting style seemed casual, but in reality, his goals were clear, and he never delayed any important matters. As long as they focused on completing the tasks assigned, Mr. Gao would handle everything else properly.

One clan head looked around: "What a beautiful campus. I believe it will bring prosperity to America."

"I also believe... Mr. Gao!" Neo was happily agreeing when his peripheral vision suddenly caught a figure standing in the center of the nearby plaza. After looking closely and recognizing the identity, he walked quickly toward him.

The clan heads were startled by his sudden shout, and after recovering, they hurried to follow him.

Mr. Gao turned around and looked at the people approaching: "How many students passed the preliminary selection?"

"Mr. Gao."

"Mr. Gao."

"Mr..."

After they finished bowing with their hats off, Neo replied: "4,365,231 people. They are currently scattered throughout New Moon City. Once you start the selection, I will notify the candidates to arrive."

Mr. Gao looked at him: "Is there a venue nearby large enough to accommodate this many people?"

"We can do it in batches."

"Hehe." Mr. Gao laughed inexplicably and looked sideways at the teaching building. "No need for such trouble. Hmm... tomorrow afternoon, come to the principal's office to pick up the admission list."

Neo was a bit dazed. From what Mr. Gao said, it seemed he intended to test over four million candidates simultaneously?

After thinking for a few seconds without understanding, he temporarily set aside his thoughts: "May I ask how many students you expect to admit?"

"Is there something?"

One clan head stepped forward and explained: "Knowing the number of students helps us prepare enough living supplies."

As the first and likely only Magic School in America, Neo naturally wouldn't be stingy with investment.

The school not only waived all registration fees, tuition, meal costs, and accommodation fees for all students, but even daily items like towels and toothbrushes were provided for free.

This wasn't because Neo and the clan heads were kind and generous.

The students of the Magic School would inevitably become the backbone of America in the future, helping America accelerate its development. For them, spending a bit more money to gain loyalty was a very profitable deal.

Mr. Gao pondered for a moment: "About three hundred people."

"Three hundred people?!" Neo and the others cried out in shock.

"Hmm? Is there a problem?"

"No... no, none, just... startled by the admission rate."

The total number of candidates was over four million; even rounding down, it was four million. The official enrollment slots were three hundred. Although Mr. Gao used "about," the margin of error likely wouldn't be large.

Neo quickly calculated in his head and came up with a number—0.000075.

Rounding it off... it's 0.8 per ten thousand!

The clan heads also calculated the result at the same time, feeling a chill run down their spines.

They were long accustomed to brutal competition, had seen much, and had experienced much themselves, yet they were still shaken to the soul by the terrifyingly low admission rate.

Keep in mind, the base was four million after rounding down, meaning the number of people ultimately eliminated would reach a staggering 3,999,700.

If those two numbers were placed side by side for comparison, that tiny numerical difference was roughly equivalent to total annihilation.

Neo swallowed hard, feeling relieved in his heart that he had decisively rejected a clan head's proposal back then.

That clan head had speculated that since Mr. Gao required the school to be designed on the scale of a university, the estimated number of students admitted would be at least thousands, and tens of thousands wasn't impossible.

In a group of thousands, what would it matter if they slipped in a few members of the family's younger generation?

Neo had been a bit tempted at the time.

After all, this was a Magic School, an opportunity to learn magic and step onto the path of the supernatural. If Neo weren't eighty years old and didn't fail to meet the age criteria set by Mr. Gao, he would have wanted to enroll himself.

However, after careful consideration, he restrained the impulse.

The supernatural was simply too foreign to humans; it was an unknown territory.

Neo didn't know if supernatural means had other wonderful uses besides combat, but judging from the potion gifted to the Queen by Hogwarts, there was a high probability they did.

If Mr. Gao possessed lie-detecting magic?

This kind of magic wasn't unusual; it had appeared in human films, literature, and other works, or something similar.

Mr. Gao would only need to ask all students at the start of school: "Did you enter this school through your own abilities?"

Even if the family descendants he planted were superb actors and lied without a trace of a flaw, the trick would still be exposed.

Mr. Gao looked at the dazed people: "I understand your thoughts, but this school itself is somewhat experimental in nature. I don't plan to admit too many students in the first batch. Once all aspects are refined and mature, I'll consider expanding enrollment."

After saying that, he left the words "Remember to come pick up the list tomorrow" and vanished from the spot.

...

After leaving the Magic School, Zhang Mu went directly above New Moon City, circled for a while, and landed on the rooftop platform of a skyscraper.

As dusk fell, he sat by a buzzing air conditioner, looking down at the city where lights were gradually turning on.

"Over four million people."

Screening three hundred people from this number was a foreseeably massive workload.

And since these four million people were scattered throughout New Moon City, which had a total population of over eight million, it was equivalent to him having to pick three hundred students from at least twelve million people.

Most importantly, Zhang Mu didn't intend to just pick three hundred students at random and then deceive the world by announcing "they are the best."

He truly had admission standards.

First, the students must possess a certain learning talent, such as quickly mastering a foreign script.

Furthermore, their family backgrounds must cover all social strata.

Zhang Mu took out a stack of student lists and placed them beside him, about thirty centimeters thick. He picked up the top one and began browsing, looking for suitable students.

Thanks to the enhancement of his bodily functions by his Mental Energy, he finished reading this stack of lists in just half an hour, then took out another stack of the same thickness to continue.

In the blink of an eye, it was late at night.

Zhang Mu stood up: "Three hundred is too few."

After reading the student information, he found many students with excellent qualifications, including many geniuses who had received admission notices from prestigious universities at a young age.

The number of people Zhang Mu favored was around six hundred, far exceeding the upper limit of the admission slots.

After hesitating for a long time, Zhang Mu ultimately remained unwilling to go back on his decision, even though Neo and the others would not and dared not question it.

"Let's make it three hundred and twenty; no more."

Photos of the students' upper bodies flashed quickly through his mind. He eliminated 280 people based on comprehensive conditions; the rest were the winners of this competition.

Having determined the admission list, Zhang Mu set about the preliminary preparation for tomorrow's selection.

He traversed the streets and alleys of New Moon City, placing crystals to serve as mana nodes at various locations. Then he went to the outskirts of the city, using mana to condense the energy operation circuit of a Magic Array in mid-air—specific lines for mana to flow through.

Zhang Mu was setting up a Magic Array that enveloped the entire New Moon City.

Its function was simple: to amplify Mental Energy.

Quickly locking onto three hundred people out of twelve million—twelve million people who were constantly moving, changing positions, with elderly people constantly passing away and newborns being born at every moment—was difficult even with his Magister-level Mental Energy, enhanced by the Blue Star. He needed some auxiliary means.

Once everything was finished, Zhang Mu didn't rest. He turned and flew to the center of New Moon City, the location of the Magic Array's central hub.

Setting up such an ultra-large Magic Array was very tedious, and the activation process was equally troublesome and time-consuming, like an ocean-going icebreaker exploring the North Pole, where refueling was measured in months.

Of course, the Magic Array before him wasn't that extreme; Zhang Mu was willing to "spend."