Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 424 - 422: Examination Papers from Tens of Thousands of Years Ago

Chapter 424: Chapter 422: Examination Papers from Tens of Thousands of Years Ago

A month quickly passed by, and life in high school was sometimes lazy, mostly busy. Every meal was a nutritious meal from the cafeteria, with no junk food at all; the taste wasn’t great, but it ensured good health. They wore school uniforms and lived in student dormitories.

Every morning they got up at six o’clock, and evening self-study ended at ten o’clock; their schedule was very regular. It was impossible to be irregular under the supervision of the robot teachers.

Zhang Yuan actually quite liked this lifestyle; it had long become a habit for him. However, most people didn’t really like it; compared to true freedom, this life was too restrictive, too incapable of letting oneself soar.

As the time for graduation approached, the atmosphere in the whole school became more and more enthusiastic, completely devoid of the tense atmosphere typical of university entrance examinations.

Boys and girls centered their discussions around one core topic— "freedom"!

Yes, true freedom which would soon arrive with the end of the entrance examinations.

Zhang Yuan could very well understand this longing for "freedom." Most people didn’t really like studying, including his good buddy Ma Mingtao and the beautiful Wang Nana. Oh, right, the three of them also had an older sister who had already graduated. She did not go to university but opened a flower shop in the city instead.

They often went to their sister’s house for meals on the weekends.

For someone like Zhang Yuan, who became happier the more he studied, he was definitely in the minority.

People here had no stress from life, became more indolent, and "studying" mostly just shaped values.

Once they entered society, each person would receive 100,000 yuan per month from society for living expenses.

Yes, 100,000 yuan!

This wasn’t a figure inflated by currency devaluation; a simple meal cost merely 5 yuan, and everyone had housing allocated to them.

In this world, there wasn’t much one could buy; houses were allocated, and cars were shared. Many services, such as household utilities, were directly free of charge. Besides some electronics that might require a few thousand yuan, well, compared to a monthly income of 100,000 yuan, a few thousand was really not much.

So usually, it was impossible to spend all the money; it only accumulated more and more, serving as a number for a sense of security.

This was truly a society of great affluence!

...

Time flew quickly, and the college entrance examinations arrived.

Everyone seemed hugely liberated, attending the examination with various emotions— some expectant, others reluctantly clinging to the whole campus environment. Regardless of their feelings, everyone had to take the test.

The university entrance examination had a total of eight subjects: mathematics, language, art, geography, physics, history, programming, etc. Aside from requiring essays for language and drawings for art, he finished the other exams in nearly half the allotted time.

Doing these types of problems couldn’t bring Zhang Yuan any pleasure; the results didn’t really matter, as they would definitely not be too bad...

Zhang Yuan was contemplating what his presence in this world could bring to this society.

Living a life without achievement was not his style. Plagiarizing novels from Golden Finger to bring himself glory was too tasteless, especially since this world didn’t require him to make money; society distributed money to you.

With technology developed to this extent, he alone couldn’t possibly change anything.

"I came here, what exactly should I do? Like Professor Aiding, travel the world? But, how can this world progress? It seems quite good as it is now..."

Not having a direction to advance was a big problem. Zhang Yuan frowned and thought for a long time but couldn’t figure out a reason.

As the bell rang, signaling the end of the last subject, all the students cheered loudly.

Everyone was cheering and jumping, throwing their old textbooks from the upper floors like birds escaping from a cage.

The underclassmen could only look up with envy, but a few glances were all they got before the teachers stopped them.

"The college entrance exams are over, we’re free!"

"Today, we’re going to eat barbecue skewers!"

"It’s time to lie in bed and sleep all day!"

You could hear all sorts of brash statements everywhere, making eating barbecue skewers seem like some earth-shattering event.

When Zhang Yuan returned to his classroom, he found his classmates already in full party mode. Wang Nana dashed over and called out, "Zhang Yuan, how did you do on the exams?"

"It should be okay," Zhang Yuan replied nonchalantly.

"Your ’okay’ might be about double my score!"

"It might even be more than that." Zhang Yuan laughed. "I usually intentionally score lower to spare your little hearts from getting shocked..."

"You’re really considerate!"

"Haha, thanks for the compliment... but I’m telling the truth."

Wang Nana was the type of girl whose eyes lit up inexplicably whenever she saw a top student. Having a ’brother’ like Zhang Yuan made her very proud, and she often bragged about him to her close friends.

In school, the only comparison was academic performance. Although in this world, going to a good university wasn’t much different from not going at all, having good grades could at least prove you were intelligent!

Today was their last day at school. The robot teachers were distributing commonly used functional phones. Some students were also filling out their future work aspirations. Everyone would soon step into society and needed to find things to do, instead of lounging around in allocated houses all day... at least that’s how everyone appeared on the surface.

The hottest industries today were the entertainment and various gaming industries. Thus, past education included courses related to art and program design.

In reality, the entertainment industry—including games—could be deeply engaged by robots; music could be seen as a sine function. Games, on the other hand, were repetitive in various modes, never really innovative anymore; a change of skins and values made for a ’new’ game.

Zhang Yuan even felt that the music and games created by these robots were plagiarized by the artificial intelligence "Xi Ta" from other worlds. Jokingly, the so-called world of technology was naturally not restricted to just one; simply copying the outputs from other worlds was enough.

"What a cheating AI," he said, looking up at the distant horizon as if searching for Xi Ta’s existence.

While everyone was filling out their reports, the robot-corrected exam results had already come out.

[Congratulations, your total score is 889, ranked first nationwide!]

[Considering the major ’Space Engineering’ at your chosen university ’Qingbei University’ does not have any corresponding professors, you may change your major.]

[...]

Zhang Yuan looked closely.

Following was a long explanation that this major had been in decline for a long time and had no professors.

If he didn’t change his major, he’d have to teach himself and then, during the final exam, take a test from tens of thousands of years ago to graduate.

And if he managed to pass an "AAA" level difficulty exam, he could become a professor at the university and thus revive the major.

Zhang Yuan couldn’t help but laugh, "The management of this world is too lax—expecting me to teach myself and tackle an exam from tens of thousands of years ago..."