Free Web NovelChapter 86: Chapter 86: Has the Slacker Become a Big Shot?
Xiong Jie looked at the test report in his hands; it showed his current body rating.
Flying Tiger didn’t have his earlier body rating; the current score was measured against that of an average person.
After surviving different dungeons, humans would generally experience some improvement in physical abilities.
Senses, strength, even reaction speed would all be tested.
Previous survivor rating tests showed that body scores would rise sharply at first, then hit a slow-growth plateau; but if you broke through the plateau, the numbers would spike up again.
People called each plateau a Tier.
Currently, the highest known human tier is Tier Fifteen.
Xiong Jie stared at the results in his hand—almost Tier Three. He felt a bit dazed.
He had a tier report; he was now at the Tier Two plateau phase.
On the graph was also a standard red tier curve.
Comparing his own curve with it, he was exactly at the Tier Two Peak.
Among the dungeons known so far, the highest clearance among humans was the A-level dungeon; the rest were weaker, from B-level down to F-level.
Some humans cleared S-level dungeons, but that was a long time ago, before Flying Tiger started this wide-scale data collection.
Back then, humans hadn’t even named the rating and tier system yet.
There were many reasons why Flying Tiger didn’t collect data from those who had cleared S-level dungeons in the past.
For example, some are now powerful bosses in their own right. Some records from back then were incomplete, so even they didn’t know what tier they belonged to. Plus, almost no one cleared S-level dungeons again.
Even if you asked, the data would be meaningless for ordinary people.
So Flying Tiger didn’t bother collecting that series of data.
The rate of growth after clearing different dungeon levels varied, but Xiong Jie knew for sure: humans started at Tier Zero.
To reach Tier One, you had to clear two F-level dungeons, or one D-level dungeon.
Almost no one like him jumped to Tier Two Peak in one go.
He glanced at Fanben nearby; as the field team leader of Flying Tiger Squad, Fanben was only at Tier Three Junior.
Thinking of this, he looked down at his hand—did he finally have the power to protect himself?
The livestream viewers stared enviously at Xiong Jie, watching his look of disbelief.
[This is so real—like a slacker mastering lightning!]
[He bumbled through one round and now he’s suddenly a boss?]
[Tier Two Peak is nothing special though, is it?]
[He only cleared one dungeon, and it was a low-level one; now his odds of survival have already shot up.]
[And rumor has it, how much you grow your first time clearing a dungeon sets your growth potential. The higher your level after first clear, the faster you grow later on.]
...
As soon as they said this, most people fell silent. This theory wasn’t officially acknowledged, but many people felt it was probably true.
If your starting tier is high, you advance faster than those who start lower.
Some say they were just strong to begin with, so getting stronger is natural—though obviously, that answer doesn’t satisfy everyone.
Some cursed aloud, but still couldn’t hide their envy.
Starting out at Tier Two Peak—his future really did seem limitless.
"Your turn." Even Flying Tiger looked at Xiong Jie with some envy. Even for her, having that kind of starting point was enviable.
"You can think about joining Flying Tiger. You won’t get team leader status right away, but after you clear a few more, we’ll get you leading your own squad. You can bring this kid with you too." Flying Tiger looked at Xiong Jie, once again making her pitch.
"I’ll think about it..." Xiong Jie frowned, actually in deep thought this time.
Seeing him lower his head, Flying Tiger turned her attention to Jiang Che.
For first clears like Xiong Jie, their data wasn’t suitable as reference.
But Jiang Che, who was about to clear his second dungeon, was the main data point for collection.
After all, everyone only has one first time; there are countless repeat clears afterwards.
Jiang Che watched as the squad members attached all sorts of metal patches to his body. They also placed a screen in front of him, displaying animations—apparently to test reactions.
The moment the patches stuck to his skin, a familiar feeling surged into his heart, leaving him somewhat anxious.
After so long in the mental hospital, what he did most often was physical examinations.
These devices felt both familiar and repulsive to him.
"In a moment, just follow the figures on screen—imagine yourself doing exactly the same moves," one staff member said as she turned on the animation.
This was now the reaction speed test.
When imagining the moves of a virtual figure, your brain runs a simulation.
Your body might not move, but your muscles make small, involuntary reactions.
The metal patches attached to Jiang Che’s body would pick up the bioelectricity from his muscles as fast as possible.
There were patches at every joint, giving a clearer picture of how his limbs would react.
The eye sees a lot, but once the brain recomposes the image, it’s hard to send commands for every detail to every muscle group.
Plus, the eyes might miss small details in the figure’s movements.
Most important, even when the brain visualizes a figure, the muscles don’t react instantly—even if no actual motion is made, only visual-muscle reaction is needed.
Jiang Che nodded, watching the animations, forming the corresponding images in his mind and following along with the movements.
To Jiang Che, the animation seemed to move very slowly.
The figure on screen and the figure in his head overlapped, both moving through the actions at a crawl.
Although Jiang Che found it slow, he didn’t complain—he thought maybe this was just how these tests went.
Or maybe you had to imagine moving with perfect form?
Jiang Che focused, mentally polishing every detail of the figure’s moves on screen.
The person monitoring the muscle electrical flow grew increasingly serious as he watched the data.
He glanced at the animation, then reached over and tapped the playback speed button on the keyboard.
His behavior made the person controlling the video frown. "We’re doing a standard comparison, not a limits test."
The video tech thought the data collector had forgotten what they were doing.
Standard comparison meant ordinary data collection; a limits test would speed things up to see the person’s outer limits.
"I know!" The data collector stared at the screen running at double speed, his expression growing graver.
He reached out again and sped it up once more.
Now it was three times speed!
