Chapter 240: I Hate Three Plus One [Part 2]

Cillin’s number card shook a little. It was a reminder that his test was about to begin.

“I’m going. You guys chat with each other first.” Cillin walked towards the fan-shaped zone while carrying the box Guan Feng gave him. Subspace containers were disallowed inside the shooting range.

Guan Feng gave him the weapon, so there was no need to hide it.

When the examinee before him walked out of the shooting range, Cillin pressed the number card he received earlier into the card slot. A door opened to admit Cillin into the shooting range.

“What’s that box he’s carrying?” At the spectator grandstand, Walley asked Teita while eating a compressed biscuit.

“It’s a gun, isn’t it?” Teita wasn’t sure himself. There were very few people who used a box to carry a gun into the shooting range.

The targets inside his area were flashing with light already. There was about fifty of them in front and behind him. The targets were only as big as a fingernail, and the speed and direction they moved at were unpredictable.

Cillin stood still inside the zone, put his box on on top of a table and began assembling his gun. His speed was equal to Guan Feng’s assembly speed that day.

The instructor in charge who was absentmindedly staring towards his direction from the spectator grandstand abruptly jumped to his feet. He wasn’t sure at first, bringing up the live camera feed to clarify his suspicions. Then, he let out an involuntary swear. “That old fox! Fuck! How can he do this?! How can he do this!!”

A different instructor holding a teacup wobbled his way over when he saw his reaction. “What’s wrong? Did you have sciatica or something?”

“Your grandmother has sciatica! I asked him so many times to give me that gun, but he gave it to a child instead!?”

When the other instructor looked at the display, he nearly dropped his cup. “It’s given away already?”

The instructors in charge in the other zones were made curious by their reactions too, and they all had different expressions after they learned the cause. The box had undoubtedly attracted their attention though.

“Hmm? Why does Cillin’s gun look so odd?” Walley stuffed his mouth with food until it’s full before grunting.

“Purgatory’s Thunder Snake! It’s Purgatory’s Thunder Snake! The picture on that box is the Purgatory’s Thunder Snake’s logo, and, and that’s a K-type! A K-type!” Teita shouted out in excitement as he stared unblinkingly at Cillin’s zone.

Teita had only seen the B-type and and E-type version of the PTS* in his life before. He hadn’t seen a K-type PTS until today. According to his father, there were less than five people in the entire imperial capital who were qualified to use the K-type PTS. AF1 had tried to nurture someone who was capable of using the gun for the longest time, but the amount of people who actually qualified were very few. His father had said that Old Fox Guan was a very stubborn person, and he had turned away everyone who thought themselves good enough to use the gun to this day.

*from now on Purgatory’s Thunder Snake will be shortformed unless it’s mentioned in dialogue

Teita’s cry drew a lot of attention, causing some people who were conversing with each other to look over to Cillin’s zone too. Even those who knew nothing about PTS put Teita’s reaction and the instructors’ gazes from the second floor together and started paying attention towards Cillin.

The examinees’ reactions were obviously incomparable to the students’. When they learned that Cillin was using a K-type PTS, they blanched like they’d seen a ghost before staring unblinkingly at Cillin’s test zone.

After Cillin was done assembling his gun, the system spent ten seconds to announce unnecessary instructions such as how many targets were there, how much time he had and so on. In reality, these unnecessary instructions were a buffer for the examinees to adjust their gear and get into top form. The examinees’ physiological parameters such as heart rate and blood pressure were measured the moment they stepped into the shooting range. It allowed the examiners to inspect their psychological quality.

When ten seconds was up, the system announced the beginning of the test.

Cillin raised his arms and fired without hesitation.

“He missed…”

The speaker blared “target hit” five* times before Walley could finish his sentence.

*I know this number should probably be fifty, but Cillin only fired five times. Maybe the system tracks the shot first, then calculate if the shot had hit a target. That’s why it only said “target hit” five times. Also, I imagine the system will fry if it tries to repeat “target hit” fifty times in a row.

After that… there was no “after that”.

Cillin withdrew his gun, disassembled it, put it back into the box and walked away.

The entire place was silent except for a couple of the electronic voices that came from other fan-shaped zones.

Then, an uproar happened.

Walley had spat out the biscuit crumbs in his mouth and nearly choked himself. It took him a couple mouthful of water to recover himself.

“Five… was it five shots?!” Walley stretched out five fingers at Teita as if he was trying to confirm his senses.

“Yup! Five shots!”

Teita’s eyes were bright. This was the K-type; the highest ranking model of the PTS! His father had always wanted to attract a K-type PTS user to their side, but Old Fox Guan never allowed it to happen. It was something his father complained about very often, but it was only until today that Teita realized just why his father was so insistent in recruiting a K-type PTS user. Although he was too young to fully understand what he just saw, the fact that Cillin hit fifty targets with five shots was all he needed to know.

The instructor in charge of Cillin’s test zone checked the physiological diagram drawn by the system, and a long while later he sighed. “That’s another one.”

Another one who fired a gun like he was eating a meal. Another one whose physiological parameters didn’t look any different from normal.

Walley was just the same before Cillin.

“Cillin! Cillin!” Teita ran over to Cillin and stared at him with puppy eyes. “Can I touch K for a bit?”

K was Teita’s nickname for the K-type PTS. That was how he called it in private.

“That depends on your performance. If you do well in the test later, then I’ll let you touch it.”

“Promise!”

“Promise.”

“Alright! Wait for me!” Teita ran towards the shooting range after he said this. It was almost his turn, but his test zone was on the other side.

Walley stared oddly at Cillin. “Hey, that Snake whatever gun you have, how does it work exactly? I want to take a look too.”

“I’ll show it to everyone once we get back.”

“Hehe, thanks!” Walley turned his head back to the shooting range while chewing his biscuits. His mind was already somewhere else though.

Teita was young, but his shooting skills were pretty impressive. He didn’t have brilliant techniques, he didn’t know how to shoot at a curve, and he couldn’t hit multiple targets with a single shot. However, every one of his shots hit the center of the targets, and he almost never hesitated when he fired.

When the test was over, Teita ran back to them impatiently and asked, “How is it? It’s not bad, right?!”

“It is. I’ll show it to all of you once we get back. For now, let’s catch a nap as much as we can. The test is almost over, and the additional test is about to be revealed,” Cillin said.

As Cillin said, the rest of the tests ended about the same time as the shooting test ended. The students were guided to an assembly spot where Cillin, Teita and Walley ran into Libero and Ironhead. Their expressions were all the telltale signs they needed to know that they did well in the test.

The three tests weren’t a problem to them, but the additional test made everyone’s vision turn black for an instant.

It was a marathon. A lot of people had learned about this before the announcement, but it was only now they knew about the details.

And what were the details exactly? The details was that they had to run a lap around the globe. Yes, by ‘globe’ they meant the planet itself.

Right now everyone was standing at the “Equator” of the planet. “Equator” was also the name AF1 gave to this special running track they prepared.

“Equator” wasn’t as flat or narrow as your normal running track. It was wide and filled with all kinds of obstacles: forests, rock piles, hills and so on.

Even if the planet wasn’t that big, it was still a difficult marathon. Geographical obstacles aside, there was a black thing running towards them that made every examinee felt the brush of autumn frost.

“Is that… a monkey?”

“No, it’s a black ape. A giant black ape!”

“It’s seriously huge.”

The earthquake grew stronger and stronger as the giant black ape approached.

“Even my stomach is starting to shake,” Walley said.

“You’re touching your kidney.”

“My entire body is shaking, okay? No one taught me how to fight such a species!” Walley pointed at the giant that looked like it was ten meters tall.

“It’s not the only one.” Cillin pointed at the other animals running over from the other side of the continent.

This meant that they had to run around the globe and be wary of their surroundings at all times. It was because these giants would be chasing after them.

“I hate three plus one!” Walley looked up and let out a long sigh.

Cillin looked around and realized suddenly that the cat had gone god-knows-where to make new acquaintances.