28: Chapter 28 The Criteria for Evaluating Horror

Vice President Wu Molin's pupils contracted slightly.

Inside the miniature world.

The surviving students stood in sparse lines.

Some were still trembling, others had begun to comfort each other, and some stared at their barely intact cards, their eyes filled with the relief of having survived a disaster.

Zhao Dahai climbed up from the ground and brushed the dirt off his backside.

"I actually fucking survived."

"This is just the beginning," Lin Xiao said, putting away her longbow card, her tone calm. "Let's see if you can survive until the end first."

"Sister Lin, can you please not bring me down every single time—"

"Don't call me Sister Lin."

"Got it, Sister Lin!!"

Su Bai did not participate in their daily bickering.

He was looking at the sky.

The phantom of the universal balance was still suspended above the clouds. Its two golden scale pans rotated slowly, emitting a majestic and indifferent light.

"The first round is over."

Li Qingyue announced from the outside, without any extra words, "Those who passed, proceed to the second round."

She raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

Boom!!

The ground of the miniature world trembled violently.

It wasn't an earthquake. Something was crawling out from underground.

One, two, three...

Dozens of five-meter-tall humanoid Stone Demons burst out of the ground in the testing area at the center of the examination grounds.

Their bodies were composed entirely of dark gray Abyss Front heavy armor rock, with magic cores emitting a dim purple light embedded in their joints. Each Stone Demon held a thick, massive rock shield, and their eyes were two hollow magic burning vents.

Abyss Front Heavy Armor Stone Demon!

This was the most common siege-type monster on the Abyss Front, with a defense rating sufficient to withstand the vast majority of physical attacks below the third tier head-on.

"The rules for the second round of testing are very simple."

Li Qingyue's voice sounded again.

"Destroy it. Or prove the value of your Armament Card in your own way. Any method is allowed. Any means is allowed."

She paused.

"I will provide an evaluation."

A heavy silence permeated the air.

The five-meter-tall Stone Demons stood quietly in the center of the examination grounds, like a row of tombstones waiting for offerings.

The surviving students looked at each other.

No one wanted to go first.

Because everyone knew—the first person to go was the one testing the waters.

"Hurry up."

There was a hint of impatience in Li Qingyue's voice.

"Or are you waiting for me to invite you?"

The effect of this sentence was immediate, and Vice President Wu Molin shouted directly, "Liu Kai, you go first!"

"...Yes!"

The tall, thin, bespectacled boy who was called out walked out of the queue, trembling.

He held an earthy-yellow magic card in his hand. After activating it, a half-person-high steel shield embedded with metal spikes materialized on his arm.

Steel Spike Shield.

"I, I am Liu Kai."

The bespectacled boy took a deep breath and shouted loudly at the "giants" in the sky, "Respected judges! My Armament Card is [Steel Spike Shield]! It possesses both defensive and counter-attack functions! The shield face is forged from steel and can withstand frontal impacts! The inside of the shield face has rebound spikes; while defending, I can use magic to eject the spikes to counter-attack—"

"No explanation needed."

Li Qingyue interrupted him.

"Proceed."

The bespectacled boy's expression froze.

He opened his mouth, seeming to want to say something to cheer himself up, but in the end, he said nothing.

He just raised his shield.

And charged toward the nearest Stone Demon.

Then—

The Stone Demon moved.

It used that ridiculously thick rock shield to smash directly down onto the boy's Steel Spike Shield.

Boom!!!

The sound of metal colliding with rock exploded in the miniature world.

The next second—

Crack.

The spikes on the Steel Spike Shield snapped off at the base!

No.

Not just the spikes!

The shield face also began to crack. Fissures spread from the point of impact, like a rapidly expanding spiderweb. The metal groaned, and the magic patterns collapsed!

The bespectacled boy was sent flying.

He tumbled twice in the air before crashing heavily to the ground.

The Steel Spike Shield.

Was shattered!

"..."

The entire place was dead silent.

The Stone Demon retracted its massive shield and stood motionless in place, as if nothing had happened.

In the sky.

The universal balance descended with a ray of golden light. The light fell upon the bespectacled boy, condensing into a translucent panel of truth in front of him.

[Name: Steel Spike Shield]

[Type: Solid Armament]

[Spatial Stability Rate: 15%]

[Armament Level: D+]

[Characteristic: Basic Form Transformation]

[Appraisal Evaluation: Rigid circuits, magic congestion, barely formed.]

Then, Li Qingyue's voice exploded across the sky.

Indifferent.

Objective.

Devoid of any emotion.

"You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Your spatial capacity is insufficient, and by forcing a spike counter-attack mechanism onto the shield face, you caused the magic circuits of the defensive structure to loosen. The defense rating, which could have reached C-level, was forcibly reduced to D by you."

"Final score—"

"E-."

Three words.

Like three knives.

The bespectacled boy was stunned.

"E—E-?"

His lips were trembling.

"But, but my card passed the first round—"

"Passing the first round just means you didn't cheat."

Li Qingyue's tone was flat.

"But it doesn't mean you passed. Those are two different things."

The bespectacled boy slumped on the ground, his lips quivering, but in the end, he couldn't say anything.

And his words didn't get out.

The white light from the universal balance had already teleported him away.

The atmosphere in the entire arena plummeted to freezing point.

The live stream comments section completely exploded.

[E-?! Someone who passed the first round only got an E-?!]

[Oh my god, Master Li Qingyue's standards are too terrifying...]

[So that means the first round was just to filter out cheaters? Passing the first round doesn't mean you're safe? You might even just get an E-?!]

[Everyone who can get onto the examination grounds must be a genius!! But Master Li makes them look like a bunch of elementary school students!!]

[Too brutal!! I love it!!]

[Master Li, step on me!!]

[To the person above, are you sick in the head?]

The comments poured down like a rainstorm.

And in the miniature world, the atmosphere was even heavier.

The surviving students looked at the bespectacled boy slumped on the ground, and every face was filled with the same thought—

This is just the fucking beginning.

Zhao Dahai swallowed a mouthful of saliva: "E-... That guy's card passed the first round of appraisal, so logically speaking, he should already be stronger than 90% of people, right? And yet he only got an E-?"

"The appraisal of the universal balance mainly looks at the basic circuits, whether there is cheating, whether there is plagiarism, and whether the spatial framework is stable. But these are just the 'basics'."

Lin Xiao calmly analyzed, "Master Li Qingyue's grading is a different set of standards. She is evaluating the level of the Card Creator themselves... It's not about how expensive the materials are, nor how well the circuits are copied, but whether you have your own ideas. The problem with that shield just now wasn't that the quality was poor, but that the idea was stupid—forcing spikes onto the shield actually destroyed the main circuit of the defensive structure."

Zhao Dahai nodded blankly.

Then he suddenly realized one thing.

"Wait, then what about a mace like mine that only piles on strength—"

"Not necessarily bad," Lin Xiao said. "You didn't use any fancy, showy spikes. You are just doing one thing: maximizing the power of the mace. The idea is simple, but at least it's not stupid."

Zhao Dahai breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he looked at Su Bai.

"Su Bai, what are you looking at?"

Su Bai didn't answer.

He was looking at the universal balance in the sky.

The balance's two golden scale pans were rotating slowly. On one of the pans, a new mass of golden light was condensing—brighter than when it appraised the bespectacled boy just now.

[It is analyzing the circuits of everyone in the arena.]

Kyubey's voice sounded in his mind.

[That Li guy. That fatty. And your rich girl classmate. Their circuits have all been marked by it.]

"And what about you?"

[It is still trying. But the Law of Deception has caused ambiguity in its measurements. It is trying to confirm whether or not I am actually a cat.]

"...You are a cat."

[No. I am Kyubey.]

Su Bai was just about to continue retorting.

In the sky.

Seeing that the first student was given an E- grade evaluation directly, Vice President Wu Molin's face stiffened, and he hurriedly said, "Next student, Wang..."

"You don't need to call names," Li Qingyue's voice interrupted everyone's train of thought. "It's too slow."

Vice President Wu Molin was stunned. "Too slow?"

"Testing one by one, when will we finish? And although quite a few students passed the first round, the card effects are still mediocre and uninspired. This is not what I want."

After speaking, she raised her hand.

And pointed at two people in the miniature world, seemingly at random.

"You two, come out at the same time."

Golden light descended.

The first person pointed at—

Li Haoran.

A direct descendant of the Li family, first in the class, hugging a mithril-rimmed card box, his dust-proof cloak not moving an inch.

The second person—

Zhao Dahai!

Formerly the second to last in the class, clutching a mace card in his hand, his face the color of earth.