Chapter 161 – Simulated Task, Life-and-Death Contract

“All the residents of Smokeless City are volunteers from the first group to undergo consciousness upload.”

These were Zhou Ling’s exact words.

The biggest difference between the Cyborg system and the new martial arts system lies in whether consciousness is uploaded.

The former completely abandons old ideological concepts and fully embraces the new path of “flesh is weak, machinery ascends.”

For cyborgs, the body is essentially a tool that can be discarded and replaced at any time.

As long as the consciousness repository’s backups remain intact, they can continue to “resurrect” and “rebirth.”

Although repeated backups of consciousness can lead to unavoidable issues like “consciousness confusion” and “personality collapse” due to currently unexplained technological factors, making true “immortality” impossible, the advantages over other systems are still significant.

While the new martial arts system also follows a semi-cyborg path, it still aligns ideologically with pure martial artists, placing great importance on the original consciousness.

There is only one body, and only one life.

Smokeless City was the Xia State’s last experiment before officially implementing the cyborg system.

A large group of people, driven by terminal illness, aging, disability, or other reasons, eager to escape death and “live forever,” voluntarily joined this experiment.

Their consciousness was copied and uploaded, and their genes were sampled and preserved.

After their current bodies “die,” the officials promptly provide a new cloned body for free replacement.

The only requirement is that they must live in a designated area.

This is how Smokeless City came to be.

In other words, the entire Smokeless City can be seen as a giant experimental dish.

And the people living in Smokeless City are essentially lab mice, constantly under observation and study.

“Truman’s World…”

Lu Yuan watched the ground getting closer and closer, and the name of a movie he had seen in his past life popped into his mind.

But he quickly shook his head, thinking that this analogy wasn’t quite appropriate.

Because the people in Smokeless City were much luckier compared to Truman in the movie.

Smokeless City was rich in resources, even more advanced and civilized than most cities.

And there weren’t many people observing them; as a group of observed subjects, they were large enough.

If one could overlook the fact that they were experimental subjects, the people living in Smokeless City lived far better lives than most people in this world.

They had no worries about food and clothing, no suffering or illness, and an alternative kind of longevity…

In a certain sense, it did fit the folk description of a smokeless land, an immortal paradise.

Lu Yuan slowly retracted his gaze from surveying Smokeless City and instead looked at the few people inside the shuttle cabin in front of him.

Including him, there were a total of six people in this shuttle.

Their ages ranged from about seventeen to twenty-two.

He was among the youngest.

The most noticeable among the six was a young man wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, with long hair parted in the middle.

Both of his arms and his back were equipped with a rather exaggerated exoskeleton.

It was pure black, with a matte finish, looking like a giant skeletal frame tightly attached to the young man’s back.

It reminded people of super special forces soldiers in sci-fi movies.

There was also a boy with bright blue-dyed hair.

He seemed slightly younger than Lu Yuan.

This kid was wearing a colorful sports jacket, had a neck full of iron necklaces, was wearing air-cushioned height-increasing sports shoes, and had an inexplicable evil smile at the corner of his mouth. He kept his head down, looking at his two hands constantly crackling with blue electric currents.

“New martial arts!”

Lu Yuan was sure that this person must have transplanted some kind of palm or boxing techniques from the new martial arts system.

Besides these two, the other three included:

A burly, dark-skinned young man with a rather mature appearance.

His arms were particularly strong, with thick knuckles and palms full of calluses, clearly a pure martial artist.

Lu Yuan slightly sensed the presence of “inner strength” in this young man.

The remaining two individuals included a punk girl with numerous braids, a pretty face heavily made up with smoky eye makeup, chewing bubble gum, and constantly fiddling with a black handgun.

There was also a short-haired youth with a cold, expressionless face and an aura that screamed “stay away” all over his body.

Compared to them, Lu Yuan, who had concealed all his presence, dressed like a senior high school student with black-framed glasses on his face, appeared quite ordinary.

Apart from being handsome, he had no other remarkable features.

There was no interaction among the group. They all knew that they were competitors in this trial assessment, creating an undercurrent of tension in the air.

“Handing that strategy to Zhou Ling had no impact on my assessment. It seems the strategy was fake…”

Staring at the punk girl’s fair legs opposite him, Lu Yuan thought idly.

In fact, he had long suspected the strategy was fake.

It wasn’t about trusting Yellow Bear’s organization discipline too much, but simply because…

With Gao Qing’s capabilities and methods, she probably couldn’t get the real strategy.

How much hope could you have for someone whose idea of destroying evidence was to write “burn after reading” on the last page of the document?

“What are you looking at?! Keep staring and I’ll blow your brains out!”

Perhaps annoyed by Lu Yuan’s stare, the punk girl suddenly pulled her foot back under the seat and angrily warned him with her handgun.

Lu Yuan smiled at her and said, “Your shoelace is untied.”

The punk girl’s fair face turned red, and she cursed under her breath, turning away as if she didn’t want to talk to Lu Yuan anymore.

But she couldn’t help but sneak glances at him.

Their small exchange caught the attention of the others, but most just glanced briefly before looking away.

At that moment, the shuttle suddenly dipped, causing everyone to pause.

Following this, a crisp sound of hard-soled leather shoes hitting the steel floor was heard, and a middle-aged man in a white bear uniform appeared before them.

“The assessment is about to begin.”

“You were all recommended by the White Bear Level, so I won’t repeat certain things. I’ll mainly talk about the key points of this new blood assessment.”

The middle-aged man said as he handed a small stack of documents to the mature young man with dark skin closest to him, giving him a signaling look.

Caught off guard, the mature young man hesitated for a moment but then took the documents and started to read them.

“Below us is Smokeless City No. 3, which is your task site for this assessment.”

“This assessment will be conducted in the form of a simulated task, lasting a total of fifteen days. It primarily evaluates your overall capabilities in various aspects…”

“Senior, I finished reading.”

The mature young man suddenly looked up and spoke to the middle-aged man.

“Did you sign it?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Good.”

The middle-aged man nodded and instructed, “Then pass it to the next person.”

“Okay.”

Lu Yuan and the others curiously glanced at the documents in the mature young man’s hands before returning their focus to the middle-aged man.

“…We have set up numerous tasks within Smokeless City, and you will select one to complete in a team cooperation format.

During the process, any damage to buildings, casualties, or disruptions to order within Smokeless City will be counted in the final evaluation.

Of course, you can choose to complete a task independently, though I personally do not recommend it.”

“…We do not oppose competition between assessors, but if you maliciously harm a teammate, you will be immediately disqualified from the assessment.”

“The entire assessment will be monitored by us. This means that every move you make, every small action you take after entering Smokeless City, will determine your final assessment score.”

As the middle-aged man was speaking, the punk girl sitting opposite Lu Yuan suddenly said “Hey” to him.

Then she handed over the documents and a pen she was holding.

Lu Yuan glanced at the person sitting closer to the girl, hesitated for a moment, but eventually reached out to take them and quietly said thank you.

With the document in hand, Lu Yuan didn’t rush to read it.

Instead, he reflected on what the middle-aged man had just said.

Simulated tasks, team cooperation, casualties…

He roughly understood the specific format of this new blood assessment.

The Yellow Bear organization acts like high-level police specializing in handling special dangerous events.

They generally operate in small groups.

Often, the task locations are in residential areas, inevitably involving ordinary people.

So, aside from strength and talent, the Yellow Bear values the potential for team cooperation, leadership, and crisis management awareness in new blood.

The reason for using Smokeless City is that its environment is realistic enough to perfectly simulate residential areas.

And the people living in Smokeless City aren’t afraid of “dying.”

Even if this group of reckless new blood accidentally kills a few civilians during the task… it’s just a matter of replacing them with clones afterward.

At that moment, Lu Yuan began to change his previous view of the residents of Smokeless City.

Beneath the seemingly glamorous exterior, these so-called “immortals” living in the smoke-free land…

Are actually just a bunch of helpless “lab rats.”

“Hey, are you done yet? Stop dawdling!”

As he was thinking, an impatient voice urged from beside him.

Lu Yuan turned his head, a glint of light inadvertently flashing in his eyes.

The blue-haired boy sitting next to him glanced at Lu Yuan’s deep, calm eyes, as tranquil as a sea without waves.

A sudden sense of unease welled up inside him, even the currents jumping between his palms became erratic for a moment, and he subconsciously avoided Lu Yuan’s gaze.

“Almost.”

Lu Yuan adjusted the black-framed glasses on his nose and saw the words “Death Waiver Agreement” written on the document in his hand.

On the other side, the blue-haired boy regained his composure and looked at Lu Yuan again, only to find him unremarkable.

The inexplicable panic he had felt just now seemed like an illusion, leaving him puzzled.

Turning his head, he noticed the punk girl diagonally opposite him glaring at him “fiercely” with her handgun… making him feel even more bewildered.

“Crazy.”

…

“…The detailed task content and information will be provided to you once you enter Smokeless City. You’ll know what to do then. For now…”

The middle-aged man finished explaining all the rules and raised his eyes to look for the life-and-death contract that had just been handed out.

“Has anyone not signed that agreement?”

“I haven’t.”

The short-haired youth with a cold demeanor, sitting at the back of the cabin, stood up and said expressionlessly, “I’m quitting.”

After speaking, he grumbled with some dissatisfaction and disdain, “What a trash trial. Even if you pass, you just become a grunt, and there’s a death quota… ridiculous, ha…”

He then plopped back down, completely ignoring the bewildered expressions of the others.

The middle-aged man responsible for explaining the rules didn’t seem to care either. He retrieved the documents, glanced at them, and then nodded, announcing, “Now get ready to be deployed one by one into the assessment site.

First, Xiang Shenghao.”

The mature young man sitting closest to the middle-aged man stood up with a serious expression and followed the middle-aged man to the front exit of the shuttle cabin.

…