Era of Disaster Chapter 159: Test

Chapter 159: Test

Bai Yi’s words and deeds truly surprised the majority of the ministers, and his att.i.tude caused somebody’s scheme to work slightly better than expected as well. Bai Yi indeed sat firmly within his position as Chairman of the Recovery Center, but his reputation among evolved humans gradually fell. However, Bai Yi didn’t seem to mind this at all. After acquiring a stable environment for himself, he began on his own plans.

The Recovery Center was built on the foundation of a large hospital. Although there were cracks in the building left by various plants, and signs of activity by animals all over the place, their requirements weren’t that high. For the time being, they only needed a place to stay and rest.

Their primary concern was electricity. Two of the power stations in the city had been repaired, and no matter what, Bai Yi was one those with ‘status’, so he very quickly got priority access to the electrical grid. After acquiring electricity, Bai Yi’s team set up a few computers inside the hospital. However, there were only six of them, and these computers were only found after much effort searching the marketplace. With these six computers, they could finally connect with Yeye again, and these six computers could be considered to be Yeye’s little intranet.

“Seriously, only six of these lousy computers? I feel so much more worthless now.” Yeye said with dissatisfaction.

“It can’t be helped, this is all we have now. I checked before, and there are indeed some talents that are skilled in producing electronics, but not many people have the energy now to do something like that.” Bai Yi said.

“Anyway, you already promised to make a human-shaped body for me so that I can move around freely!” Yeye whined.

When did I say something like that? That’s just your wishful thinking! Bai Yi complained in his heart, but at this time he nodded seriously instead. “If I have the ability, I will definitely help you to accomplish this. Definitely!” Bai Yi nodded again. No matter what, Yeye had helped them a lot. Bai Yi didn’t have prejudiced notions that artificial intelligences would harm humans once they attained their own autonomous consciousness either.

“Yeye, you mentioned last time that you have a knowledge vault in you containing information on biology from the most basic to the most advanced level. Can you teach me?” Bai Yi asked again after promising her.

“Of course!” Yeye immediately and happily agreed after receiving Bai Yi’s promise.

However, Bai Yi could only stare dumbly when Yeye brought the knowledge vault up. This is basic biology knowledge? This is totally the culmination of all human knowledge! The information covered everything from the elementary school level all the way to something so complex that Bai Yi couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He couldn’t help but stare at Yeye inside the computer screen.

“This much? When would I have to study this until?”

“You think it’s a lot? But I don’t think it’s a lot at all, it’s at most only a few million words worth of content. It’s just that the learning speed of you humans greatly limits you. Based on Dr. w.a.n.g’s explanation before, a human going from elementary school to university, or even attaining a Ph.D., takes around fifteen to twenty years. However, in reality, more than 95% of that time isn’t spent on studying.” Yeye explained.

“That can’t be, 95% of the time isn’t spent on studying?” Bai Yi could remember that he spent at least seven to eight hours a day in cla.s.s back in school.

“Don’t believe me? Why not try to think back to your time in school? From elementary school to senior high school, how much time each day was spent on learning? And out of all the time spent learning, for how much of it were you 100% focused? All the time spent daydreaming, playing, and on many other random activities, how much of your ‘studying’ time did it occupy? This is the so-called studying efficiency. If a person was 100% focused all the time, the true amount of time needed to go from being illiterate to a learned professor is actually twenty years multiplied by 5%, that is to say... one year!” Yeye gave an example using numbers. Not only was Bai Yi struck dumb, but even the rest of them listening in from the side were as well.

One year? From an elementary school student to a professor? Then weren’t their lives before eaten by dogs?!1

“But you humans can’t do this because in that one year you would have to use every second on studying. No rest, no distractions, and you would have to maintain 100% focus at all times too. n.o.body can actually do that.” Yeye continued and giggled.

“Fine, Yeye, just tell me directly: what do you want me to do?” Bai Yi surrendered.

“Start reviewing the content from the most basic level. After you finish learning and seriously trying to understand it, I’ll give you a test. Only after getting full marks on this test will you be able to continue on to the next part. Also, try using your eyes to hypnotize yourself while studying to maintain absolute focus. I guarantee that your level of studying efficiency will astonish yourself.” Yeye explained.

“Absolute focus, huh... Ok then!” Bai Yi nodded and prepared to start studying based on Yeye’s plans.

What Bai Yi received first was a set of elementary school studying materials. He gave up on anything related to literature, and it only contained knowledge on mathematical sciences. Looking at the simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems, one corner of Bai Yi’s lips went up. Heh, something like this is too easy! Bai Yi looked at Momo staring blankly into s.p.a.ce beside him and suddenly had a good idea.

“Momo, want to learn together with daddy? Let’s see who’s faster.”

The moment Bai Yi’s words left his mouth, Alodia, who was sitting to the side, immediately stared at him in surprise. Uncle Bai Yi, what age are you now, you still want to compete with a small kid like Momo? Wouldn’t you feel embarra.s.sed even if you won? Apparently, Alodia was unable to understand this interaction between a father and daughter. Bai Yi looked at Alodia’s eyes and didn’t understand what she was thinking either.

“What? You want to compete with us as well?” Bai Yi asked.

Momo was initially quite hesitant, but after hearing her daddy’s words she thought about it for a while and nodded. After that, she called Sharpei over as well. “Sharpei, Pupu, Chinchilla, all of you come over. We’ll see who can learn faster and gets the highest score!” Momo was suddenly full of confidence. After all, her results couldn’t be worse than the three pets, right?

“Oink oink.” Pupu was the first to reject her and immediately shook his head, running outside right after. However, how could they let Pupu run away now? Bai Yi also had his playful side triggered at this time, and immediately dragged Pupu back. If Vala and Woolf hadn’t gone out earlier, they probably wouldn’t have been able to escape now either.

Of course, Bai Yi didn’t have that much time to waste, and only fooled around for a while. Hence, after Bai Yi, Momo, Alodia, Sharpei, Pupu, and Chinchilla got ready, Yeye gave each of them a test on one of the six computers. Since the three pets weren’t able to use a computer well, Yeye only gave them multiple choice questions, so they only had to press the numbers from one to six.

The test began!

Initially, Bai Yi thought that this was just an elementary school level test, but very quickly his head became bloated. There were quite a few strange questions, such as one asking him to split a weird shape into a few similar regular shapes with only a few steps! This confused Bai Yi utterly. It can’t be, this is an elementary-level test? Bai Yi's heart quivered and he immediately tried to use all his brain power to solve the question. At this time, the rest of them weren’t too different. Momo had a serious and focused face and was totally different from how she was usually when she tried to slack off.

After an hour, the test ended, and everyone’s results came out immediately after. Yeye promptly revealed a mysterious smile and looked at Bai Yi.

Hey, don’t look at me like that! Bai Yi silently complained inside. This gave him even more stress!

“Sixth place, Chinchilla, 11 points!” Yeye immediately started to announce the results. Chinchilla was completely fooling around—still, being able to choose eleven correct answers by randomly pressing keys from one to six was already not bad. However, Momo still teased Chinchilla for a while.

“Fifth place, Sharpei, 82 points!”

“Fourth place, Momo, 87 points!”

“Third place, Bai Yi, 95 points!”

“Second place, Pupu, 96 points!”

“First place, Alodia, 100 points!” Yeye very quickly announced everybody’s results, and all of them immediately froze on the spot in astonishment. It wasn’t surprising that Alodia got first place, but what shocked everyone was that Pupu was actually second! Pupu was a pig! How would the rest of them feel scoring worse than a pig? Especially Bai Yi, he immediately turned into a gray fossil2 and lay face down on top of the computer.

How can this be?!

Sharpei immediately and viciously glared at Pupu, and slowly walked over. Not bad, huh, you actually scored higher than Bai Yi and Momo. You tactless moron, let me ‘educate’ you. Sharpei advanced on Pupu with a fiendish look, intending to have a ‘heart-to-heart talk’ with him. But of course, Pupu’s skin was too thick, and he wasn’t scared of getting injured anyway.

“Daddy, did I inherit your genes? Why am I so stupid?” Momo suddenly said softly.

“HAHAHAHA!” Bai Yi abruptly burst out laughing when he heard Momo’s question, and this laughter very quickly infected everyone else. They all started laughing. n.o.body would have expected this kind of result from the start. To think that Bai Yi would have only gotten third place! Momo’s question right then just happened to strike the punchline of this big joke—so was the reason why Momo didn’t like studying because she inherited Bai Yi’s genes? Of course, other than Sharpei, n.o.body else knew that Bai Yi and Momo didn’t have any blood relation.

At this time, Vala and the others came in from the outside and found them all laughing loudly.

“What’s going on? Everybody’s laughing so happily.”

Bai Yi and Momo immediately revealed fearful expressions to Yeye the moment they heard voices coming from outside. “Yeye, delete the test! Wipe it out completely, and never tell anyone else about it!” This was completely their own shameful history, and Bai Yi and Momo did not want to embarra.s.s themselves in front of the others.

“Understood~!” Yeye said obediently, but she actually secretly saved everyone’s test transcripts. Of course, she wouldn’t reveal to everyone that all their tests were different and that Bai Yi’s test had some ‘special ingredients’ in it. She could probably use this to blackmail Bai Yi, hehehe!

Translator Notes

The expression eaten by dogs means that it’s worthless like dog food, so yeah the author was saying they have lived their lives worthlessly if they could have gotten a Ph.D. in one year.Gray fossil - you know those animes you watch where some character receives a shock and turn into stone/fossilized? Yep, that’s it. I’m not sure why the author didn’t use stone but gray fossil (the two words are very different), but I’ll just follow what he used.