Chapter 98: Godlike Data

Tang Shen did not argue. He only kept smiling.

In his view, he was right.

In Qin Wu's view, he was right too.

They simply stood at different starting points. For a matter like this, pressing it too hard was meaningless.

They arrived at the reaction test area, in a reaction-testing chamber.

This third test could not be passed by a newly awakened gene warrior unless that person had been training since childhood and had a chance of making it through.

But the sudden surge in power after awakening also caused many people to lose control over their own strength and speed, making the pass rate extremely low. In most cases, people had to train first, gradually learn to control their strength and speed, and then come back for another assessment.

That was why Qin Wu had asked him. That was the usual procedure.

Of course, there were also those who awakened but failed the test, then trained on their own and finally passed in one shot. Such people existed too.

Clearly, Tang Shen was not that kind.

Following the instructions, he stepped into the center of the reaction chamber. The room was sealed, the lighting soft and gentle, bright enough without being harsh.

"Prepare to begin!" Qin Wu's voice came down from the ceiling above.

Crack, crack, crack!

The walls around him began to change. Then, densely packed gun barrels the size of bowls appeared, looking like a honeycomb, only much larger.

"Specially made spheres will be fired from the barrels to test your dodging reaction. You must evade as many as possible from all directions within one minute," Qin Wu said again.

"Please tell me the minimum passing standard, so I can dodge enough spheres and earn the standard gene warrior contract I've been dreaming of," Tang Shen said once more.

Qin Wu: "..."

Damn it, again!

Right now, he said, he felt absolutely nothing toward this simple-minded dream of Tang Shen's. At the same time, he had an urge to rush in and beat him up.

"The minimum passing standard is thirty. Prepare to begin!" Qin Wu still answered. As the person in charge, he had to respond to a question like that.

Tang Shen was taken aback. Thirty? That many? He had thought it would be three or something like that. That would have been the truly strict standard.

Could it be that every wall was going to fire at once? How was anyone supposed to dodge that?

Puff, puff!

A soft sound came from the gun barrels on the rear wall. It was so faint it could almost be ignored, but Tang Shen still heard it clearly.

Whoosh, whoosh!

At the same time came the sharp sound of air splitting, the friction of the spheres slicing through the atmosphere.

Tang Shen's first thought was: So slow?

It really was slow. Even without looking, he could clearly feel the speed of the incoming spheres. It was truly slow. And there were only two of them. A whole wall of gun barrels, yet only two spheres were fired.

Probably only a little over ten meters per second.

He did not even turn his head. He merely shifted slightly to the side, and the spheres flew straight past him.

Qin Wu and the others watching the monitors outside were all stunned. That was too perfect. Coincidence?

They had assumed Tang Shen would fail to evade them. After all, the attack came from behind, and there were no eyes on his back. To rely on hearing alone, one needed both rich experience and keen ears, and there were two spheres.

Yet in the final second, Tang Shen merely gave a light twist of his body and let them pass as naturally as breathing. It looked simple, but it left them in disbelief.

Do not be fooled by how easy it looked. This was the reaction chamber, a room with limited space. The distance from the barrels to Tang Shen was less than a second. In other words, the reaction window he was given was only that small, and he still had to detect the spheres himself. If he failed to notice them, he would be hit.

In truth, the purpose of this test was to train reaction speed. It was meant to keep people from relying entirely on eyesight, because eyes cannot see in all directions, and sometimes they can even lie to you.

But this kind of assessment was far too childish for Tang Shen.

After the rear wall finished firing, it moved to the left, then the front, then the right.

He strolled through it like a man taking an evening walk, barely moving at all, not a hair on him was touched.

Of course, this was only the beginning.

It started with one side firing in rotation, then became two sides firing together, and the directions were no longer fixed. The number of spheres also increased from two to four.

Tang Shen's eyes shone like bulbs. The trajectories of the spheres were crystal clear in his vision. Gradually, he even began to find the test interesting, though the spheres were still too slow.

Two became four, then six, and in the final three seconds, it jumped to eight spheres coming from every direction.

This level of difficulty was indeed not something a newly awakened gene warrior could pass. Even someone who had trained for a while would struggle to keep up with the demands on sight and hearing. It was hard.

For them, this speed was already extremely difficult.

But it still could not threaten Tang Shen. Of course, he did not forget the passing requirement either. Here, one sphere would catch him off guard; there, another would strike him by surprise.

Counting silently in his head, he reached the final second and hit exactly the thirtieth sphere. Perfect.

Tang Shen felt a little regretful. In truth, he felt that this reaction chamber was helpful for his own training. If the speed were increased several times and the number of spheres raised, there would still be a great deal of room for improvement for both him and Kuina.

He would have to see whether he could figure out how it worked someday and build one in the world of the pirates.

Bright red digits flashed on the display: 30.

Exactly on the passing line. Not one more, not one less.

Qin Wu's mouth twitched. He could not help feeling that number was glaringly conspicuous. Silently recording Tang Shen's result, he said nothing and gave you a back view full of existential pain.

At the side, Hu Da said, "Just as I expected. Thirty. Exactly."

Yang Zhi said, "I really have nothing left to say. Just how monstrous is this guy?"

Yu Guang said, "He must have done it on purpose, right? That movement was practically dancing on the edge of a blade."

Qiao San said, "I don't know. I can't tell. It doesn't feel intentional. Maybe I'm just not good enough to see through it."

White Snow's bodyguard: "..."

I will continue to keep silent.

Tang Shen walked out of the reaction chamber, saw the result, and put on a terrified expression. "Close call! So close! I just barely passed. My luck today is really something."

Everyone: "..."

The five of them stared at Tang Shen speechlessly, their faces saying that only a fool would believe him.

Tang Shen ignored their looks entirely and turned to Qin Wu with an expression full of anticipation. "So, I can sign the standard contract now, right? I'm so excited! Eighteen years of dreaming, and it's finally come true."

In truth, Qin Wu had already experienced scenes like this several times today, but for some reason, facing Tang Shen, he still felt a faint, inexplicable ache in his gut.

Something was very wrong, but he could not say what.

Looking at Tang Shen's results — strength: 1251 kilograms; speed: 27.04 meters per second; reaction: 30 spheres — the numbers were practically godlike.

And yet they were absurdly average, all of them stuck right on the passing line. Looking at those results, there was no way any gene squad would be interested in him.

Anyone who saw them would only think that this guy was insanely lucky. He had actually managed to pass like that.

Too much of a rookie. Too ordinary. Put simply, any gene warrior who had passed the line would be stronger than Tang Shen by these numbers.