Chapter 874 - A Fight for Supremacy!
Not too far away from Research Institute 137 where Xia Fei resided was Fig Corporation’s Research Institute 142. This was where the only graduate of Eternity Branch in the last one hundred fifty years, Zack, had his temporary office.
Proud. That was the conclusion anyone who first set their eyes on Zack would come to. His head of short, unkempt blond hair, with two thin raised eyebrows. No matter who Zack met with, he would always be looking at them with his chin sticking out.
It could not be helped. He was the first Fig Star Academy genius seen in the last one hundred fifty years. It must be known that Zack was merely three years old when he first entered Fig Star Academy! At an age where he could not even walk properly, Zack had already demonstrated an intellect well beyond that of a full-grown adult. Subsequently, he was sent to the most legendary Eternity Branch of the academy and was considered an exemption entrant. It was rumored that his parents were given quite the fortune as gratitude for giving birth to such a genius for Fig Star Academy.
The spacious and well-lit office only had Zack alone; he was using his free time to answer the problems listed on the centralized questions column, working while he ate a freshly baked muffin, sipping his top-grade red tea, appearing to be very relaxed.
Zack and Xia Fei, who had joined Fig Corporation on the same day, received treatment heaven and earth apart. Xia Fei was working in the gloomy and pungent warehouse with the maintenance team, living in the most basic room prepared for staff.
Meanwhile, Zack had a luxurious office over a hundred square meters in size, with a picturesque scenery right outside the window for anyone who stood inside the office. He even had his own personal secretary, who would specifically serve him tea or snacks, and lived in a super luxury duplex suite over three hundred square meters.
Zack did not really care about the questions on the column. The reason why he even bothered spending two hours of his time answering them was all to announce his arrival and demonstrate his greatness.
The many comments, with most being very flattering statements, below the column pleased Zack immensely.
“Truly, a genius from Eternity!”
“The first in one hundred fifty years!”
“When are you free? Could you help take a look at my query? I’d be forever grateful.”
What Zack loved was not solving these questions but seeing these replies and comments, instead. It made him feel very accomplished, almost as if his arrival had changed Fig Corporation.
Zack was still casually answering the questions. There were a total of five sections to the centralized column. The fifth section was where the easiest problems were; points earned from these were the lowest. A genius like Zack of course saw no reason to answer such simple questions, so he chose to start from the third section immediately.
Letting out a yawn impatiently, Zack rubbed his eyes. The thousands of hardly new or refreshing questions made him feel bored. If not for the fact that he would obtain admiration and praise from countless people through this, Zack would not even trouble himself with solving such problems at all.
Suddenly, a red arrow, which rapidly soared through the daily leaderboard of accumulated points, caught Zack’s eye.
In order to encourage the staff of Fig Corporation to ask and answer more questions, they designed various forms of rewards, and even set up a ranking leaderboard. The daily points leaderboard would list the people who answered the most questions within a twenty-four-hour period. Without a doubt, it was Zack’s name that was on the number-one spot, and that had been the case recently.
The leaderboard would only list the top one hundred names, so Zack had not taken any notice when the name ‘Yin Fei’ appeared, but when he finished his twenty-first question of the day, he noticed that Yin Fei had already risen from the one hundredth spot to fifty-sixth!
historical
It must be known that only three minutes had passed! This meant that Yin Fei had used three minutes’ time to jump by a total of forty-four spots! It even appeared as if this insane rise was still continuing!
Stunned, Zack mentally noted, ‘Perhaps this Yin Fei has been answering section 2 questions. Hmph! While the points awarded for such questions are high, one needs to spend plenty of time on them, so who knows how many long hours this guy has put into studying each?’
*Snap*
With a wave of his fingers, Zack switched off the leaderboard and began to answer his last question. Two hours was the most he could spend wasting his time. In his eyes, answering questions was no more than a way for his prestige to be known, no more than something he did to pass the time.
The final question was a little difficult, so Zack spent a whole twenty minutes on it. Looking at the time, Zack decided to end his performance today.
Just as he was about to turn off the screen, Zack had a thought and opened the leaderboard once more.
He had no idea when, but Yin Fei’s name had reached the second spot, and he was right on his heels!
It had only been about twenty minutes since, yet this Yin Fei had actually managed to take the second spot?! This was completely inconceivable!
Suddenly, the usually very confident Zack felt an indescribable sense of pressure!
Ever since he was born, Zack had always been recognized as a genius! No one had ever posed a challenge to him! When he stepped out of Eternity, those old men who could not graduate despite being hundreds of years old could only stare at his back with envy. That had been the greatest joy he felt his entire life.
How was he to know that the moment he arrived at Fig Corporation, just as Zack was about to demonstrate his prowess, this Yin Fei would viciously give him a blunt strike?!
Zack had earned a total of 430,000 points today, while Yin Fei had gotten 390,000! It was merely 40,000 points away from his own, while the one in third place only had 170,000 points!
This means that if Zack left now, this Yin Fei would surpass him in the next minute!
“No way! I most definitely can’t let something like this happen!” Zack almost shouted out loud.
He had just geared himself up, ready to keep answering more questions, when something unexpected happened.
He saw this Yin Fei actually stop answering any questions after hitting 390,000 points and abruptly log off, disappearing without a trace.
Zack simply could not understand why Yin Fei would choose to log off at this time. After all, the difference between the two of them was just a very small step. He simply needed to answer several more questions and he would be ahead.
Puzzled, he tapped on Yin Fei’s name and glanced at his information. Zack could not help but immediately furrow his brows. Research Institute 137, maintenance team?
Everyone knew what the maintenance team did; how would anyone of that caliber end up repairing the broken equipment down in the basement together with the maintenance team? They ought to be part of a proper research team or at least the engineering team.
He looked at Yin Fei’s record of answers today, and at first he frowned, but soon he burst out laughing.
Section five questions! They were all section five questions!
The points offered by the questions Yin Fei answered was so low to the point of paltryness. He answered a total of five hundred questions, and the points he obtained did not even surpass Zack’s twenty or so questions.
Smiling, Zack felt that Yin Fei’s standards were too subpar, having depended entirely on quantity in order to reach such a high standing in terms of accumulated points. He was completely of a different level to himself; after all, the questions he answered were all from section 3, and the difference in level was clear for all to see.
He inadvertently spied the time Yin Fei took to answer the questions and noticed that it was from ten to eleven in the morning. He only took an hour!
Five hundred questions in an hour?! Though the level of questions Yin Fei answered were very low, he did so at an astounding speed! He basically answered over eight questions every minute!
This was indubitably a terrifying speed! It must be said that just reading these over five hundred questions once might take even longer than one hour, not to mention having to solve them all!
Stunned, Zack quickly checked to see Yin Feng’s rate of correct answers.
100%! It was 100%!
He answered five hundred questions in an hour and got 100% accuracy for them!
Zack suddenly felt faint. Such a frighteningly high efficiency was something even he could not achieve, yet this Yin Fei had done it!
..
The next day, Zack arrived at his office early, the slightly dark circles under his eyes proved that he did not have a good night’s sleep, almost as if something had been mentally bothering him.
Turning on the screen, he did not head to answer questions as he usually did but waited, instead. He wanted to see if Yin Fei would appear again.
Zack thought about it for a long time last night. Most people would definitely fail to answer a hundred questions in an hour’s time, and to get them all correct? The only one who could do so was someone that had secretly recorded down all the questions prior and posted the answers after having solved them remotely.
At 10:05 AM, the fifth section’s questions suddenly decreased at a rapid rate! The situation was just like yesterday!
He saw this Yin Feng answering the questions as if they had gone insane, answering all these questions at this speed that went well beyond human imagination. Yesterday’s eight questions a minute became nine today! His speed today was even faster than yesterday!
Gritting his teeth, Zack immediately fought back!
He was still sticking to the section 3 questions, but Zack was answering them now with his full concentration. He had previously treated these questions as pastime, preferring to answer the questions as he sipped tea and snacked on something, but today was different, for he had finally met an insane opponent!
*Zoom*
Two red bars were swiftly making progress up the leaderboard. In the lead was Zack, but right on his heels, not showing any sign of letting up, was Yin Fei!
Five minutes later, Zack’s points broke 100,000! Yin Fei was 96,000!
Ten minutes later, Zack passed the 200,000 mark, while Yin Fei was at 195,000!
Fifteen minutes later, Zack broke the 300,000 mark! Yin Fei was still hot on his heels, though, with 290,000 points!
Zack was shocked!
The entire Fig Corporation was equally shocked!
No one could imagine just how intense this fight was! The two experts were engaged with all their might, duking it out on this smokeless battlefield!
Zack was using even higher level questions to earn points rapidly, while Yin Fei was like a hurricane, sweeping up every single question on section 5!
Without a doubt, Zack had the tactical advantage tackling the questions that gave more points. After all, just reading a problem expended quite some time, and when answering questions, it was of course better to complete those that gave more points.
However, Yin Fei was doing so at an incomparable speed, with a stubborn will as metal!
Zack was picky when answering his questions, but Yin Fei was no different from someone cleaving down a mountain with an axe, overcoming each and every obstacle without fail!
“Quick, come look! They’re fighting! There’s a battle breaking out on the leaderboard!” a chubby researcher shouted. He had not seen such an intense and exciting battle in his whole life until now!
*Whizz*
A crowd very quickly gathered, their eyes all glued to the leaderboard. They were witnessing two red bars resembling dragons as they rose to the sky rapidly!
“A total of 350,000 points! It’s only been twenty minutes, yet Zack has already earned that many!”
“Oh, my god! Is he going to break the record today?”
Everyone appeared to be very surprised, while that chubby researcher pointed to the screen and said, “Zack is great, but that person right behind him is even more amazing! Everyone, look carefully! All the problems he’s solving are all from section 5, and he’s practically solving nine to ten of them every minute!”
“Ten every minute?!”
“What joke are you pulling? That’s impossible!”
“Just who could actually chase after Zack so diligently? Zack is the first to graduate from Eternity in the last one hundred fifty years!”
When everyone carefully read the description on the screen, almost all of them became breathless!
Sure enough, that one named Yin Fei was like a vicious wolf, whose jaws had snapped on its prey and was refusing to let go, keeping up with Zack the entire way, not letting him create too large a gap!
The originally packed section 5 questions column decreased exponentially.
This was what it truly meant to sweep a thousand-man army!
Whether the questions were worth a thousand points or a hundred points, Yin Fei was not in the least bit fussy with them. He treated all as if they were his enemies provided that they appeared before his eyes!
He finished them all!
With a frighteningly quick speed at that!
He was clearing the section out!