Heading into the classroom, the trio took their seats at their desks. Tian Qingfeng slid his backpack beneath his seat and glanced around. Twenty-two black metal desks were arranged in a four-by-six grid, grouped into twelve paired islands facing the front of the room. At the front stood a raised platform with an instructor's table and a wall-sized screen mounted behind it. The door to the room was set to the right of the screen.
His fellow students were sitting on the desks and in their seats, chattering and laughing. As he looked around the room, his eyes met Fei Baixue's. They exchanged a faint, gentle smile, and she then went back to talking to her girl friends.
He reengaged with Chen Zhiyu and Lu Tai, who were sitting behind him, chatting about what happened on the live stream. After a couple of minutes, the school bell rang as a woman in a flowing deep blue dress and high heels holding a tablet strode into the classroom and placed it on the instructor's table.
"All right, get back to your seats," she declared, "It's time for a roll call."
The students quieted down and got back to their desks, facing the front of the classroom.
"Hong Wuhao"
"Here"
"Wang Zhengyi"
"Here…"
The teacher's voice faded into the background as roll call began, and Tian Qingfeng found himself fixated on the upcoming test, his anxiety mounting. He slowly recalled the test's procedure.
First, the strength test, then the speed test, and finally the martial proficiency test. I've got this.
"Tian Qingfeng!" The loud voice of the teacher cut through his thoughts, pulling him back to reality
"H-here!" Qingfeng called
"Yuan Sheng"
"Here"
She slid the tablet into a slot on the desk and tapped the center of the desk with a sharp, slender, and fluid motion. A transparent light blue screen rose from the metal surface. Without hesitation, she seized the holographic projection and tossed it onto the wall-sized screen behind her. The motes of light entered the screen as it lit up, its soft blue light casting a glow across the classroom as the word [Agenda] appeared, followed by three neatly organized bulletin items.
"Now, onto today's major agenda."
"First is the Technical Exam. Once that's finished, we'll be welcoming a new student to the class. After getting them settled, we'll go over a brief refresher on our federation's martial history, and then we'll proceed with the martial skill instruction lesson."
"Everyone got that? Ok, let's go."
She grabbed the tablet and led the class toward the testing chamber. As they neared the testing site entrance, they ran into another class. At the front stood a man in beige cargo pants, a light blue dress shirt, a tie, and round glasses.
"Ms Su, it's nice to see you. How have you been? It's been a while."
"I have been well, it's nice to see you too, Mr. Ma?"
"How do you think your students are going to perform? Do you think any of them will reach the top 100 on the freshmen rankings?"
"I have faith they'll do well. What about your class?" Ms Su questioned."What do you think they'll do?"
"They'll be fine. I believe that some of them will make it into the top 50 at least," said Teacher Ma
As the teachers conversed in front, the students were chittering with each other.
"Hey, Lu Tai," Tian Qingfeng nudged Lu Tai next to him, "Who do you think would be in the top ten this time?"
"I dunno. I think Fei Baixue and Wang Xuanren from our class were in the top ten during the entrance test. They have advanced quite a bit, so they may probably reach the top ten again."
"Do you think you can get into the top 100?"
"Of course I can, we all made it up there back so we should be able to do it now, right? What, are you nervous?"
"Nah, I've got it."
As the two classes entered the testing site, they reached a white metal table in front of the door. A woman there, wearing glasses, who was tapping away on a holo computer, looked up from the screen.
"Please register the class data," she motioned towards the slots in front of the holo computer that led into the table.
As the two teachers placed their tablets into one of the slots each, the half of the tablet still sticking out lit up. The blue lines on the sides of the table headed into the table, starting from the middle of the tablet heading downward, as if it was injecting something into the table. The tablet's exposed screen had a download progress bar. After a while, the lights stopped, and the table ejected two drawers filled with data terminals. The woman in glasses gestured towards the students behind the two teachers.
"Please take a data terminal and sync it to your virtual device. It shall be used during the entirety of the test."
Tian Qingfeng grabbed a data terminal. There was a notch at the bottom of the device. He moved it above the wrist band's inlaid diamond-shaped protrusion and connected the two. After the two connected, the data terminal's screen lit up and displayed his information as well as four blank entries.
⌜￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
[Tian Qing Feng] [Age: 15]
[Martial Progress: N/A]
[Strength: N/A]
[Speed: N/A]
[Martial Combat Proficiency: N/A]
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"After registering your information, please head to the left to begin the test," said the lady behind the counter
Tian Qingfeng, along with the rest of the class, headed towards the left and arrived at a scanning chamber.
"Hong Wuhao, you're up."Teacher Su motioned at the scanning chamber
"Yes, ma'am."
Hong Wuhao walked towards the chamber and placed his data terminal into a slot on the door. The chamber's door slid open with a hiss. After walking in and closing the door, the machine started whirring to life as it scanned him from head to toe. After a while, the machine stopped moving, and the door opened back up. At the same time, a screen in front of the machine displayed the result.
⌜￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
Martial Progress: Muscle Strengthening Fifth Layer
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