47: Chapter 47 Pangolin?
Leaving the examination room.
Li Yu sat on a bench to rest, quietly waiting for the next round of the assessment to begin.
Based on his analysis of the questions, he estimated he could barely manage a passing grade, but the sudden noises and lasers from earlier had forced him to divert some of his attention to deal with them.
The actual score he would get...
40 points?
Or even lower.
Thinking of this, Li Yu felt like tearing that machine apart, but he knew very well that now was not the time to lose his temper.
The priority was the rank examination.
“Brother Li Yu, are you alright?”
Several figures walked over. Li Yu glanced at them and then retracted his gaze.
It was those Interns.
They walked over, and one of them slapped Li Yu on the shoulder with a 'pa' sound, laughing, “We're all colleagues, why so cold? Did the exam go poorly? It's fine, doing badly is normal.”
“Is there something you need?” Li Yu said expressionlessly.
“Hehe! Nothing, we just saw you looking tired and wanted to give you some encouragement. We heard your practical skills are good and that you've bred many beasts; we're really looking forward to it.”
“Exactly, we're all waiting to see your next breeding session.”
“...”
The group complimented him with smiling faces, but Li Yu could clearly see excitement and mockery in their eyes. He watched them speak without expression, then watched them leave.
After a long while.
Li Yu gave a light chuckle: “It seems there's a performance waiting for me in the practical phase as well.”
...
Soon.
Preparation for the second assessment began.
Li Yu followed the crowd toward the location for the practical breeding assessment. On the way, the people around him were all discussing the written exam from just now.
Some said it was hard, others said it was easy; in just a few sentences, they completely exposed their performance in this exam.
“Hey, friend, what's the deal? Were you being targeted?”
A voice rang out abruptly.
Li Yu turned his head to look but saw nothing. He looked to the other side, and there was still nothing.
“Hey, hey, hey! That's uncalled for! Why are you looking so high up?”
The voice rang out again, carrying a hint of frustration and irritability.
Li Yu followed the sound again, his gaze slowly lowering until he saw a girl who looked to be less than 1.5 meters tall. She was tilting her head back, staring at him with two large, round eyes.
This girl left a deep impression. She had short hair with purple-dyed roots, a lollipop in her mouth, headphones hanging around her neck, and was dressed quite fashionably.
Hmm... a fashionable Little Potato.
“Uh... sorry.” Li Yu gave an embarrassed smile and then asked, “Are you talking to me?”
“Yeah, were you being targeted?”
The girl acted as if they were old friends. She took the lollipop in her hand, waved it around, and said, “I wasn't paying attention during the first half of the written exam, but in the second half, I counted. Just the lasers sweeping across your face alone happened no less than twenty times. And they were damn well concentrated too; that must really hurt your eyes!”
“And then there's that chicken-feather Invigilator, wandering around and always heading your way. I really wanted to fly up and kick that chicken-feather thing out. Talk about making trouble!”
“So, I guess you were being targeted by someone. Right?”
As the girl spoke, she tilted her head up to look at Li Yu with an expression that said, ‘I'm impressive, right? Hurry up and praise me.’
Li Yu smiled and said, “That's more or less it. But aren't you taking the exam? You were just busy counting?”
“Tch! Who are you looking down on? I could recite that knowledge backward and forward when I was in elementary school. A tiny written exam is easily handled!” The girl looked triumphant.
Li Yu: “...”
Listen to that, is that even human speech?
Although he didn't want to admit it, Li Yu felt offended.
An academic underachiever being offended by an overachiever.
Hmph!
You Little Potato, you'd better not be bragging.
“Um... Little Potato...”
Li Yu blurted out. The next second, the girl bristled and shouted excitedly, “I'm not a damn Little Potato! I have a name! Zeng Huohuo!”
“Sorry, a slip of the tongue. I'm Li Yu, nice to meet you.”
“Hmph! I, Zeng Huohuo, am not at all happy to meet you.”
After saying that, Zeng Huohuo tossed her purple-streaked hair, turned around, and walked toward her own workstation. Halfway there, she stopped and said, “Hey! Be careful yourself. Don't get targeted again.”
Li Yu was stunned for a moment, then smiled.
“Got it.”
The practical exam was in a spacious indoor area. It was very large, equivalent to three basketball courts, with standard workstations arranged in an orderly grid.
Li Yu and Zeng Huohuo's workstations were not too far apart.
“Candidates!”
The one proctoring this time was still the same Invigilator from before. The one speaking was exactly that Hard Shoe Sole who had targeted Li Yu.
Hard Shoe Sole: So it turns out I'm not supposed to have a name.
“This practical breeding session has a time limit of 40 minutes. The breeding targets are random. During the process, you are not allowed to chat with other contestants or cheat. Violators will have their results disqualified for both parties!”
While speaking, the Hard-Soled Proctor stared fixedly at Li Yu, his gaze as if saying—Kid, don't even think about cheating, I'm watching you.
Li Yu watched quietly, too lazy to respond.
With a shout of “Start,” all the workstations emitted a humming sound, the noise of chains moving.
Immediately after, the floor next to the workstations opened like trapdoors, and beasts rose up. Some of these beasts came from within the Research Institute, and some came from outside volunteers.
This was an unwritten rule in the beast-taming industry.
When certain competitions or assessments required a large number of beasts and the count was insufficient, they could publicly recruit eligible Beast Tamers and use their beasts for breeding practice.
The benefit was that it was completely free, giving Beast Tamers from poor families a chance to get ahead.
The downside was that their fate was in the hands of heaven and entirely dependent on luck. If they encountered a low-level Breeder who caused the beast to die or become crippled during breeding, they could only blame their own bad luck.
Li Yu looked at the surrounding beasts; each had different elements and varied appearances—cute ones, cool ones, silly ones, and some slightly ugly ones—they had everything.
He thought of his younger sister.
If not for his appearance, his sister would probably have to use this method in the future, handing her beast over to an unknown Breeder to try her luck.
He let out a long breath and looked in front of him. Then, he raised an eyebrow, let out an almost imperceptible hmph, and murmured, “As expected, they were holding back their malice to wait for me here.”
No matter how different the surrounding beasts looked, one thing was the same: they were healthy.
The beasts from recruited volunteers were all healthy and sound. If a beast so much as yawned too much, had watery stools, or developed a pimple from internal heat, it would be disqualified.
They were in perfect sub-health condition.
Except for one.
Diagonally in front of Li Yu, in a small metal cage rising next to the workstation, curled a listless little beast.
It was about the length of a forearm, its body covered in overlapping brown scales. Its four small, pitch-black, sharp claws were huddled together as it curled into a ball as if sleeping, its body smelling of earthy musk.
A careful observation would reveal that the beast's breathing was very unstable, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, sometimes stopping and then continuing, and its body was slightly trembling.
A Pangolin?