Chapter 165: The Truth About The Second Assessment
The 50 boxes of weed crystals that were placed by Lin Huang next to the production line as well as a couple of boxes on the product line were taken away by Lin Huang and the other six people. Lin Huang got the most while the girl in ponytail got the second most. Lin Huang finally got her name from the rest. Her name was Xia Yu.
Recalling that Xia Yu wanted to sell a single weed crystal for 100 Life Crystals, Lin Huang thought it was completely ridiculous. One Life Crystal was sufficient to purchase two to three silver-level pieces of equipment. Even if she was the only one who possessed the weed crystal, nobody would buy it from her for 100 Life Crystals unless it was a recruitment assessment for Copper Hunters. However, it was only the second round of assessment and even if they passed through the second round, the possibility of them passing the following rounds were still an unknown.
Moreover, there were seven of them who possessed the weed crystal and people would definitely compare prices. Therefore, they could not sell the crystal weeds at a high price and could only probably sell each for one for two Life Crystals. However, Lin Huang was satisfied with what he got. He had earned himself some Life Crystals and nobody knew he was the one behind the massacre.
The head examiner, Zhuo Lin was surprised when more than 5,000 of the participants showed up at the Hunter Association with a weed crystal in their hands. Soon, he heard about the massacre in Heisen Castle from some of the participants. He then reported to the management and got them to follow up with the incident.
48 hours had passed, the head examiner Zhuo Lin looked at the 5,600 people and started to speak.
"Aside from the tip that I gave in the second round of assessment, the rest of the information was fake. That includes the 5,000 black crystals that had inscriptions on it from yours truly. It was to prevent all of you from cheating. I believe a few of you had figured out the true purpose of this mission."
"The first one would your ability to manage information. An outstanding hunter should have the ability to differentiate if a piece of information was real or fake instead of blindly believing in whatever people said, even if the person was your head examiner."
"The second would be your ability to retrieve information. There are many ways to retrieve information. The Heart Network and Hunter Forum would be the mainstream platform many used to obtain information. However, there are times where a hunter would need to rely on other ways to obtain certain information. In this assessment, there are only two people who retrieved the correct information. They are Lin Huang and Xia Yu while the rest of you failed."
"Third was the ability to work together. I chose a mission that was impossible to be done alone, it was not meant to get you killed but instead, for you to obtain the item by working together. However, due to this incident, the goal was not achieved."
"However, luck is considered to play a part in all of this. Therefore, all of you who managed to obtain a black crystal will pass the assessment..."
Many who were worried were relieved when they heard that. Many of them thought that the result of the assessment would be invalid due to the incident.
"However, it's too early for all of you to relax. This is only the second round of assessment, nobody knew how many of you would pass the following rounds." Zhuo Lin smirked.
What he said was like splashing cold water on those who were excited. Since the second round of assessment was already so difficult, many of them began to worry if they could handle the following rounds.
"I would like to inform you on behalf of the head examiner of the third round of assessment that all of you must gather at the Hunter Association at 8 a.m. tomorrow. Someone will bring all of you to the assessment point. Don't be late, you would be disqualified if you are late." After informing them about the third assessment, Zhuo Lin then knocked on the table with his walking stick, "Alright, that's all I have. You can leave now."
The 5,600 participants then left the Hunter Association. After they left, the head examiner of the first round of assessment, Xu Jinpeng appeared again.
"I thought you would only pass the two kids who retrieved the correct information." Xu Jinpeng laughed.
"I gave them 48 hours but these two kids managed to retrieve the information within two hours. They are really something. However, that doesn't mean that the rest could not retrieve the information within 48 hours." Zhuo Lin laughed as he explained.
"However, if the incident didn't happen, the passing rate would be close to zero. It's too risky that you set the mission like this." Xu Jinpeng shook his head, he disagreed with the way Zhuo Lin carried out the assessment.
"Lao Xu, it seems like you don't know me at all." Zhuo Lin laughed, "This assessment would end once the participant walked out of the black market. It's not important if they managed to find the weed. Did you really believe what I said about working together? I was once a spy, I had never worked with anyone on any missions."
"You sly fox, you are always lying." Xu Jinpeng did not expect he was cheated by Zhuo Lin.
"Alright, let's talk business. What's the situation now at Heisen Castle?" Zhuo Lin asked. Xu Jinpeng was the one who was responsible for following up on the incident. Xu Jinpeng frowned, "We can't track who did this. All of the surveillance cameras were destroyed, it was a clean cut job and the culprit can't be determined. There could be one, two or three people who did this. It could also be done by a powerful Imperial Censor who owned many summoning monsters."
"There were three possible scenarios that killed the staff. They were either sliced by a blade, burnt by flames or they probably committed suicide."
"We could only speculate that the person have mastered the sword, the fire element, and even some illusion or mind control skills."
"Could it be done by one of the participants? The time that the incident happened seems to match the hunter assessment that's going on. This is skeptical." Zhuo Lin suggested.
"You're thinking too much. Looking at the trails, the murdered killed all the silver-level humans in one hit. Even one of the gold-level rank-3 guards was killed in one hit. This means the murdered was at least gold-level rank-3. None of the participants is silver-level, how could they manage to do that? Even if any of them is an Imperial Censor, the most powerful summoning monster they could summon would be a silver-level rank-3. Both of us are gold-level rank-3, why would we be afraid of a silver-level rank-3 monster?" Xu Jinpeng shook his head and smiled.
"If I encounter a double mutated monster, I would be afraid." Zhuo Lin was silent before he responded.
"A double mutated monster? Do you think these bronze-level kids could manage to control a monster like that?" Xu Jinpeng insisted that Zhuo Lin was thinking too much.
"Alright. You didn't see how clean cut the murder scene was. The murderer must be someone who some terrifying combat skills. Even I couldn't do that."
"I must be thinking too much then..." Zhuo Lin shook his head and left the thought behind.
...
Lin Huang did not hear the conversation between Zhuo Lin and Xu Jinpeng. If he heard them conversing, he would be concerned because Zhuo Lin's estimation was very close to what exactly happened. Once the second round of assessment ended, Lin Huang thought that the difficulty of assessment was much harder than he could ever have imagined. He thought the assessment would just inspect their abilities and they would be given a pass. He did not expect there to be unpredictable traps everywhere.
Almost all of the head examiners set the assessment contents according to their own personalities, which made the assessment unpredictable. Nobody could tell how ridiculous the head examiner could be.
"Hopefully the head examiners of the following assessments would not be too eccentric. If they were the same as the head examiner in the second assessment who even lied to us, the passing rate would be rather worrying..." Lin Huang said worriedly.