[Ebook 'Power Suit and Exoskeleton Cards' processed.]
[Transferring data please be on standby…]
[Data transfer complete.]
With this AGI had processed all 15 ebooks and transferred the processed data to Art with an hour to spare before the semester-end exam began.
Dressed in his clean and ironed Watford University uniform, Art walked out of his building. Ignoring the homeless and junkies camping or lying on the sidewalk, Art made his way around them and hurried toward his university as he needed to be in the exam hall half an hour prior to the exams.
Arriving at the exam hall a full 35 minutes before the exam commenced, Art was surprised to see the rows of supercomputer pods that the students will be using to take their exams.
In this highly-advanced technological world, card engineering students were equipped with AI cards instead of advanced calculators and gave their exams using supercomputers instead of paper.
Searching for the supercomputer pod designated to his roll number, Art took his seat. Feeling a hostile gaze he turned to look at the source to find a slightly chubby girl staring at him with unkind eyes. She was Karen Wang, the late Arts bully.
[You have received a voice text from Karen Wang.
(Open/Ignore/Mark as read/Delete)]
Karen had sent Art's AGI card a voice text using her AI card's 'Electronic Communication' skill. If not for the strict conduct during exams, she would have heckled Art in person.
'Open,' knowing Karen had nothing good to say to him, Art still chose to listen to her voice text.
[Karen: Hey, slum rat, I heard you signed up for the second year's internship program. You do know that students need to have an average percentile of 60 percent in the first year to be eligible for the program.
You barely passed the first sem with 35 percent, which means you need to get 85 percent in the second sem exam to get a 60 percent average in the first year and be eligible for the internship program.
I agree that students should have big dreams and ambitions but isn't this a bit much? Know your place, slum rat.]
The second-year internship program that Karen spoke of, allowed the second-year students to earn a living while studying for second-year by developing one-star cards on the side for the organizations recommended by the university.
Developing one-star cards was no joke hence the eligibility criteria for the program besides even if one were to be eligible for the program it did not guarantee that they will get an internship because the seats were limited.
Regardless, signing up for this internship program was one of the solutions Art had thought of for his financial problems. Art was confident that he would top the exam so he was not worried about meeting the eligibility criteria of the program but the limited seats available in the program. Hopefully, his top score in the second sem exam would increase his chances of getting one of the limited seats in the program.
As for Karen's taunt, Art chose to ignore them because she had bionic limb implant cards which when equipped replaced her normal limbs with bionic limb implants manifested using aura.
These limb implants provided her with superhuman strength and agility. They had an algorithm that allowed their users to display advanced martial arts with ease.
With super strength, super agility, and advanced martial arts Karen could kill Art even before he blinked let alone call for help. So, Art chose not to piss off someone that powerful.
Then Art put on an act of being frustrated and embarrassed to give Karen the satisfaction of having embarrassed him otherwise her actions would only escalate further if he chose to be indifferent and not give her the satisfaction of having humiliated him.
In this dystopian world where people go missing and were killed for any number of reasons, Art's best chance of survival was to keep his head down and not stick out until he had the power to explore other options.
The invigilator entered the exam hall exactly half an hour before the exam and announced, "Students please get to your assigned Supercomputer pods.
The signal jammer has been activated so your AI cards will not be able to connect to the network or communicate with each other except your supercomputers.
I hope you all have backed up your AI card's drives and wiped them clean before entering the exam hall. If the supercomputer catches you cheating you will be debarred from attending any university for the next decade.
Now you have ten minutes to turn on your supercomputers and optimize them according to your preference. If there is any fault with your assigned supercomputer pod please inform me immediately."
In this parallel world instead of having different exams for various subjects, they had one long exam which lasted for 12 straight hours and covered questions of all the subjects.
This was because these were not normal students but card masters who would be developing cards in the future and even the simplest of cards takes hours to develop. So this exam was designed keeping that in mind.
They were not just testing the student's knowledge but putting their concentration span and stamina to the test. This meant no coffee or toilet breaks during the exam as card development doesn't tolerate any margin of error no matter how negligible.
These students were all one-star card masters, they had the stamina and energy to go on without food, water, and washroom for a day or two let alone 12 straight hours. Not to mention they must have met all their physical needs beforehand in preparation for the exam, that was only logical.
"Alright, ten minutes are up. All students can now use their supercomputers to log in to the university network and sign in to the university-exclusive card developer simulator. Please make haste, you have twenty minutes to finish the procedure," the invigilator instructed the students.
Since the students had completed this procedure previously for the first sem exam the students had no trouble following the invigilator's instructions.
Art too skillfully used his supercomputer to log in to the network and sign in to the university-exclusive card developer simulator. Completing the procedure, he waited for the invigilator's signal to enter the simulator and begin taking the exam.
20 minutes later,
"It's time, all students can now use your AI card's brain interface to enter the university-exclusive Card developer simulator through your assigned supercomputer pod.
All the best for your exams, your hard work will never fail you," the invigilator announced the commencement of the exams while wishing them to do their best.