Congratulations to all of you who made it," Stephen said. "This is the final stretch. I'm about to explain the final test of the exam."
"Finally!"
"WOOHOO!"
"Yes, let's go!"
"Oh no… why did it have to be now? I just came back."
There was cheering and booing from all over the place.
After all, a lot of people were excited because they did great on the tests so far and wanted to keep the momentum going. Others were excited because this whole thing was taking too long and they just wanted to go home and rest.
And the ones booing were the ones who had just come back and wanted to rest.
Ren, however, was one of the excited ones.
He was fully ready to get the test finished so he could go back to his apartment and relax—and most importantly, eat something. This whole thing had been going on for hours, and no one had eaten anything, which was technically part of the test. Sometimes in the field, you don't get the opportunity to eat.
Stephen just smiled and listened to the cheers and boos, then continued with his announcement.
"Now, I will explain the main focus of the third test. Throughout the two previous tests, all of you had the option of teaming up with another person. That was a teaser for the final test, which is teamwork."
"You will all be put in a warm-up phase where you have to find three other people to form a four-person team. Once you do that, your objective is very simple. You will be teleported into the third training area where your objective is simple. The team will find a car next to them. That car has a civilian puppet inside. You have to escort that car throughout the training area and reach your objective, which is again a light pillar—but in this case, it's a light wall."
Ren listened carefully to the explanation.
This was a good test for teamwork. It had a lot of avenues and elements that required cooperation to complete the objective—especially when it came to their main obstacle.
And he already had a guess about what that obstacle could be.
Stephen smiled on the stage.
"Now, a lot of you are thinking—what could we expect to face on the road? Well, that's very simple. You will be facing other students."
His last words sent confusion all over the auditorium.
What does he mean?
Wait… could it be?
Is he making a joke?
A lot of the students were confused—but some of them already guessed what he was talking about.
Some of you won't get a car next to you. If there is no car next to you, that means you are the villains in this scenario. You are the attackers that have to attack the cars. If the team manages to take down a single car, then they win the test. Obviously, because of the nature of the test where everyone will be split into sides, the chances of passing this test is 50%.
The rate of success in this test made everyone in the auditorium freak out—except for a few.
One of them was Ren, who had already predicted this possibility.
He then looked at Kai, who looked back at him.
"We have to try to team up this time, okay?" Ren said.
Kai nodded. "Yeah, I know. I don't think I could rely on anyone else in this test. I don't know anyone here at all except for you—as far as I know. Not to mention, if it's truly a benefit to have strong teamwork, the two of us would easily pass this test."
Ren smiled and nodded.
And before they knew it, they got teleported out.
Ren looked around at the place he was in and found himself in a large wide Room.
But this wasn't the training area—not at all.
How did he know?
Because there were hundreds of other students all around.
Ren immediately understood what was going on. This was the place where everyone had to find teammates.
So Ren quickly started moving all around the place, trying to find Kai.
While he was walking around, he noticed a gigantic timer on the wall. It showed that everyone had 30 minutes to find teammates.
So he hurried his search—until he heard someone call him from behind.
"Hey, Ren, over here!"
When he looked around, he was surprised to see Rex and Sophia walking toward him together.
"Sophia? Rex? I didn't expect to see you guys in the final test… wait a minute—why are the two of you walking together?" Ren asked, confused.
Sophia quickly explained, "We actually know each other from way before we came to the exam. But to be honest, I'm shocked too. I didn't expect you to know Rex as well."
"Well, yeah. Me and him teamed up in the first test."
Yeah, after he forced me to team up with him. I honestly didn't want to, but I decided to give this guy somebody to help him out," Rex said with an arrogant tone.
Ren sighed. He nearly forgot about his personality.
"Yeah right, like I would believe that," Sophia said, rolling her eyes.
"Hey, I want you to introduce you to someone. Hey, Peter, come here. This is Ren Dover. Me and Rex teamed up with him in the two tests."
Ren looked behind The both of them and saw a grey-haired young man who seemed to be Australian. He was the same height as him—which was impressive considering the two of them were towering over Rex and Sophia. Not by much, but it was noticeable enough for Rex to start getting pissed about it.
Peter put his hand forward for a handshake, and Ren shook it.
"Hello there, my name is Peter Quill," he said with an Australian accent.
"My name—" Ren was about to say, but Peter interrupted him.
"You don't have to. I already heard Sophia. So you're the guy who teamed up with the both of them. I hope they weren't really a bother to you especially Rex. I know he could be a headache."
"Hey!" Rex complained from the side, making Ren chuckle a little.
Peter smiled and spoke up again.
"Well, I'm just gonna get straight to the point since we don't have much time," Peter said, looking at the timer.
"You already teamed up with my two friends, and they seem to really like you. And since you're the only one we actually kinda know in this whole test… do you want to team up with us?"
Peter's offer made Sophia give him a thumbs up, while Rex just scoffed and looked away.
Ren smiled and replied, "I appreciate the offer, but I kinda wanted to team up with my friend. So… I don't know if I could."
"Oh really? Then where is your friend?" Peter asked while looking around.
"Well, I actually didn't find him yet," Ren said awkwardly while scratching his head.
Peter didn't mind and just smiled.
"Then how about this—you let us go with you and look for your friend. If you have no luck finding him by the end, you can just team up with us. No pressure."
Ren smiled and agreed.
So the four of them went around trying to find Kai.
But obviously, they couldn't find him through the large crowd.
So they simply gave up and decided to team up.
The process was easy. They just pulled out their phones, found Their phones had bars on the scanned them scanned each other's bars.
and they were officially teammates.