Chapter 92: Top One Hundred in the City!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Meng Chao suppressed his urge to pinch the girl’s cheeks and asked, “What happened to Test Area 5523? How many people died or were injured?”
“I saw the news. I think there were examinees who died,” the girl said.
“Ah…” Meng Chao felt complicated emotions in his heart.
He felt hurt when he heard that his peers died, naturally, but in his previous life, Principal Sun did not protect them, so there was a possibility that the number of deaths had reached the hundreds at that time.
Nearly one hundred people’s fates were changed, and they had hope to further their studies in university. In the future, they would serve important purposes.
Principal Sun must feel really gratified in heaven, right?
“Don’t be sad, Big Brother, just like how I didn’t manage to stop Granny Wang from sacrificing herself no matter how hard I tried, you could not do it either. I heard that when the reinforcements arrived, you looked like a smashed watermelon with hundreds of slashes on you. Even so, you still kept your hand firmly around that superbeast’s brain!”
Granny Wang’s sacrifice and her big brother’s heroic deeds made the girl much more mature.
Even though the comparison was really inappropriate, she had at least learned how to comfort someone.
She thought about it and tentatively brought out a wooden box covered in red velvet. She opened it as if she was presenting her treasure to him. It had three medals inside it. Two were silver and one was bronze.
“These are your medals. Everyone thinks you’re really brave! I’m serious!” the girl said.
The first was a silver medal. It was squarish and looked like a city. Sitting on top of it was a huge, roaring dragon. Written under it were the words: Grade Three Citizen of the Order of Merit.
This was given by the Survival Committee, and it was commonly known as the Dragon Medal. It was the proof that a citizen had performed a meritorious deed to the city.
The second silver medal was shaped as a five-pointed star. It had an artillery carriage formed by intersecting weapons on it. They carried a murderous looking artillery.
This was given by the Red Dragon Army. It was commonly known as the Artillery Medal, and it was proof that a soldier had performed a meritorious deed.
The third was a bronze medal. It was rectangular in shape, and on it was the towering Supernatural Tower. Around it were a cluster of brilliant stars.
This was given by the Supernatural Tower, and it was commonly known as the Star Medal. It was proof that a superhuman had performed a meritorious deed.
Dragon City was a lone army in the Other World. To encourage the citizens to be brave and kill the enemies, they paid a lot of attention to the classification of meritorious services.
The three systems governing the citizens, military, and superhumans had their own way of distinguishing what was a meritorious deed and their own promotional system.
There were five grades of medals: metal, bronze, silver, gold, and the most valuable and rarest blood. The last one was a medal dyed red by the martyrs’ blood.
Each grade represented different rewards. They could be given extra points during the national college examination, be recruited by business industries or civil services when all potential candidates had the same qualifications, be exempted from tax when they created their own business, have an earlier turn when they applied for public renting houses, be able to apply for larger houses, and other such rewards.
As long as anyone performed a meritorious service, they would be able to obtain benefits in their lives, work, and cultivation.
The two silver medals meant that Meng Chao had performed a grade three meritorious service.
The one bronze medal meant that he had performed a grade four meritorious service.
Since the difficulty of the practical test was incredibly high, the examinees who were injured or died received treatment equivalent to a soldier, and Meng Chao had also broken through the limits of his life during a vicious fight.
Hence, the three organizations credited him for his deeds. At the very least, he could get an extra thirty to fifty points to his final score.
Meng Chao was a worldly person.
When he faced the Bloody Moon Wolf King, he was angry, and his mind had become blank. Even if it meant that he was going to end up crippled, he still insisted on getting rid of that wolf.
But after the entire thing, when the government acknowledged his deeds and he gained both physical and spiritual rewards, he still felt really good.
He pressed the medals against his chest and started posing in his sister’s direction.
“Ah, look at you.” Bai Jiacao pouted. “Next time, I’m going to get my own medals, and I’ll get more than you! I’ll be more awesome than you!”
As she spoke, their parents came back to take over, because they had finished eating.
When they saw that their son had woken, they were naturally delighted. The entire family hugged each other.
The parents then spoke words that put Meng Chao at ease.
The points of his national college examination were just fine.
Since a space-time rift had appeared in Test Area 5523, the examinees there had lost an hour of the exam compared to the other test areas, and they could be considered to have suffered some loss because of it.
But many of the examinees who were sent to the wild fought bravely and displayed the mighty attitude that young Earthlings should have.
Their actions were all recorded by the monitors they carried with them. Even if they experienced interference, many of the data could still be recovered.
The examinees who did not know each other before the test could also give witness testaments that were cross-validated. Besides, the Demonic Bloody Moon Wolves’ carcasses and wounds served as proof, so it was not hard for them to receive points based on their performance, especially for Meng Chao.
Luo Hai and the rest testified that he was the first to mention that they had to stand their ground and wait for reinforcements, was the first to kill a Demonic Bloody Moon Wolf, the first to sing loudly to gather a large number of examinees to his side, and stir up the students’ courage.
When the reinforcements arrived, they also saw that he had his arm inside the wolf king’s brain.
The terrifying scene stunned many of the powerful fighters when they saw it.
Based on the principle of rewarding bonus points to examinees who were active in saving their companions, Meng Chao gained a few hundred bonus points as his reward.
With the extra he gained from the three medals, his total made him rank thirty-ninth in the whole city.
“That high?”
Meng Chao was shocked by the result.
In just a short month or so, he managed to plow his way through being ranked in the ten thousands to the top one hundred in the city. This was basically the same as him cheating.
Wait, he was cheating.
He thought about it and asked, “By the way, Jiacao mentioned that this is Fengshui Medical Center. Why am I here? Isn’t this place supposed to be really expensive?”
His mother had to change her joints here. Even if someone familiar with the members of the staff recommended a patient here and received a seventy percent or higher discount, they would still have to spend millions to be treated.
With his injuries, he would not be released unless they spent tens of millions on him.
“You don’t have to worry about that. Someone paid for you,” Bai Suxin explained.
When people like Meng Chao who performed meritorious deeds ran into accidents, the education department, insurance company, and the three government organizations who gave him the medals were willing to pay the medical fees.
During the first few days, he was in the ICU of a government hospital and enjoyed the best treatment for free.
Once he was out of the critical zone, someone suggested that he switch to a private hospital.
This did not mean that private hospitals were better than government hospitals.
Instead, it was because many of the best medical plans required expensive medicine that was not listed among the items that could be reimbursed, and the government hospitals could not use them at will.
“Mr. Ning Shewo was the one who suggested this. Yan Organization also took part in this. They introduced a lot of famous doctors and formed a joint medical team with Dr. Su Yuan.
“Your Dad said that Mr. Ning is trustworthy, and Yan Organization is a major organization. Dr. Su Yuan was also very attentive while treating me. Besides, the environment here is much better than in the government hospitals. After we thought about it, we transferred you here.
“As for the medical fees, the government will reimburse half of the medical fees if you’re treated in a private hospital. As for the rest, Elder Ning and Yan Organization paid for it. They mentioned something really strange. It’s something about, ‘Just think about it as us expressing our gratitude to Old Fire Relayer.’ Who is that?”
Meng Chao coughed. “Mom, he’s the master I mentioned last time. I got to know him from a life science forum.”
“What?” Bai Suxin was shocked. “You got yourself a master on those harmful websites?”
‘… Are you guys reading from a script? Why are all of you saying the same things?!’
“By the way, someone major dropped by as well. He’s Soul Breaking Saber Luo Wu. He brought a lot of valuable medicine and said that he will pay for your medical fees.”
Bai Suxin gasped in amazement. “Chao’er, when did you get to know Master Luo Wu? He’s a Heaven Realm elite!”
Meng Chao was stunned for a moment, then he understood what had happened.
Luo Hai, the student council president of Construction High School and Soul Breaking Saber Luo Wu’s son, was in the same test area as him.
Could it be that Master Luo Wu believed that his heroic deeds saved his son’s life, so he came to repay the favor?
Or was there a deeper meaning behind this?
“Big Brother, I just found out recently that you know a lot of people,” Bai Jiacao said with shining eyes. “Aside from Master Luo Wu, two older girls came to visit you. One of them is Elder Ning’s granddaughter, and the other is Ripple Princess, Yan Feirou. I won’t talk about Elder Ning’s granddaughter, but isn’t that Yan Feirou the girl that you observed with a magnifying glass and with your butt out in the air in front of the TV last time? Why did she come to visit you?”
“Well…” Meng Chao tilted his head and thought about it. “Maybe it’s because she admires heroes a lot?”
Bai Jiacao was about to make a sarcastic quip when the handsome Dr. Su Yuan entered the room with a group of other doctors in white coats.
Behind them was Ning Shewo, and he looked delighted.
He came for a check-up from Dr. Su Yuan and was just in time to see Meng Chao wake up.
“Based on your physiological parameters, you’ve recovered really well. How do you feel now?”
Dr. Su Yuan placed his hand on Meng Chao’s shoulder.
Meng Chao immediately felt a few very comfortable waves of heat slowly circulate and grow in his body like roots of a tree.
Dr. Su Yuan then said in slight puzzlement that Meng Chao’s body was definitely the “hungriest” body he had ever seen. The activity of his cells was several times higher than those of a normal person. The gene medicine and high-calorie nutritional fluid he had been taking over the past few days was good stuff that could not be bought with money from the market.
Forget about normal people, many of the three star Earth Realm elites did not eat as much as Meng Chao did, and the stuff they ate was not as good either.
Usually, new superhumans were not able to withstand powerful energy nourishing them. This was just like how a three-year-old would definitely be sick if he ate a ginseng like a carrot.
But Meng Chao’s body was like a black hole. No matter how many treasures they stuffed into his body, they were all digested and absorbed until nothing was left.
Fortunately, he had performed a meritorious deed, and the government had reimbursed half of the fees, while the other half was paid for by Ning Shewo, Yan Organization, and Soul Breaking Saber Luo Wu. That was why Meng Chao could afford the lavish treatment plan.
Even so, the doctors did not know just where he hid the energy he absorbed.
Meng Chao knew, though. It was the reason how Kindling kept on getting stronger.
But there were plenty of talented people in Dragon City, so there was nothing that he needed to hide when it came to his health.
“I feel good. But there is some multi-colored smoke floating in front of me,” Meng Chao said.
Meng Yishan and Bai Suxin looked at each other. Multi-colored smoke? They did not see it.
Bai Jiacao wanted to say something, but did not. She just shrank into a corner.
“That’s spirit energy. Do you remember that you turned into a superhuman on the battlefield? It’s natural that you can see spirit energy now,” Dr. Su Yuan said. “We can see things because our visual system turned the light we can see into electrical pulse signals.
“This transformation ability differs among different living objects.
“Canines can only decipher signals in grayscale, so they cannot see colors. As for shrimps, their eyes contain sixteen different color sensory organs.
“The human visual system has a lot more color and light sensory organs compared to that of shrimps. We can see infrared to ultraviolet, and tens of thousands of colors in a large spectrum. Logically speaking, we can also directly see magnetic waves, the planet’s magnetic field, a person’s magnetic field, spirit energy, solar storms, and all sorts of natural phenomenon and forms of energy.
“But most of the visual sensory organs in a normal person are dormant. Only when you surpass the limits of your life are those sensory organs activated one after another, and you become capable of seeing a more radiant world. It also reveals more truths of the world.
“Being able to see spirit energy is the most basic thing that differentiates a normal human from a superhuman.”