COTE : Backed By Black Technology System

A little earlier in time, inside a large entertainment venue on the cruise ship, all the students of Class C were gathered here, and the person who called them over was, of course, the dictator of Class C, Ryuen Kakeru.

Forty students were divided into twelve tables, clearly assigned according to the groups from the privilege test.

"It's 7:57 now. In less than three minutes, the school will send out information about this exam. So, everyone, put your phones on the table in front of you. Until I confirm everyone's identity, do not move without my permission."

Ryuen said this to the thirty-nine students in the class.

Ryuen Kakeru, after understanding the basic rules of the school, had used violence to dominate all of Class C. Even Yamada Albert, who was stronger than him, was subdued by Ryuen's tenacity and refusal to yield no matter how many times he was knocked down, and became Ryuen's top enforcer. Since then, Class C became completely controlled by Ryuen, with him being the one in charge, absolutely.

Although the class lost nearly 500 points in the first month's moral conduct exam due to Ryuen's misdeeds and the students' lack of discipline, Ryuen felt that it was not too late. After he took control of Class C, he used strict methods to correct the students' bad habits, stabilizing the class points.

In the subsequent midterm exams, he used the higher-performing students, Kaneda and Shiina, to ensure the class passed the exams smoothly.

Later, he accepted an employment offer from Sakayanagi of Class A, intentionally sending his subordinates to provoke the students of Class B and have them self-destruct together.

It was when he met Kanda Shuichi, a guy from Class D, that Ryuen felt a connection, sensing that they were kindred spirits.

He first noticed him during the event that changed the class dynamics. After A Class was severely tricked, their points fell behind Class B.

In order to protect A Class's rank, Sakayanagi used 1 million private points to hire Ryuen to provoke Class B into self-destruction.

At that time, Ryuen, always testing the school's limits, gladly accepted the offer. After all, trouble was trouble no matter whom it was with, and since he was getting paid, Class B was bound to face some consequences.

The way he came into contact with Kanda Shuichi was quite strange. Ryuen had been going through the list of talents in his class and noticed that Shiina, the top student, had been getting closer to Kanda Shuichi from Class D. To find out if Shiina had been manipulated by him, Ryuen set up a dinner party. It was at this dinner that Ryuen began his cooperation with Kanda Shuichi.

From then on, his plans went very smoothly. Not only did he benefit greatly from their second meeting, but the later deserted island incident was also a huge success. He not only extracted a large amount of points from Class A but also managed to take some from Class B.

However, during these two collaborations, Ryuen always felt like he was being used by Kanda Shuichi. Even though the results were good for his plans and for Class C, the feeling of being controlled really bothered him.

So, he wanted to use this privilege test to teach Kanda Shuichi a lesson.

At exactly 8:00, everyone's phone almost simultaneously received the school's special email, and the harsh ringtone echoed throughout the entertainment facility.

It's here?

Ryuen first took out his phone to check the message.

[After a strict adjustment, you have not been selected as a VIP student. Please act with the awareness of being a group member and take on the exam. The exam will begin at 1:00 PM today. This exam will last for three days starting today. Students from the Dragon Group, please gather in the Dragon Group room on the second floor.]

Not selected, Ryuen muttered to himself, then started checking from the nearest table to him. After checking, he returned the phones.

For a full half hour, the place was very quiet until Ryuen finished his checks.

"Alright, take your phones back. The few who were selected as privileged students, make sure you don't reveal your identity. Otherwise, you know the consequences."

With Ryuen's command, the students of Class C quickly took back their phones and began confirming their identities.

When they all checked their phones, everyone's expressions became very strange.

"Hey, Ryuen, what's going on here?"

A student from Class C stood up and showed Ryuen the message log on his phone.

"It's nothing. I just thought you idiots might leak your identities, so I deleted all your message records. How about that? Aren't I thoughtful?"

"Are you kidding me? If we don't know our own identities..."

"And if you don't know your identity, so what? Or do you want to betray me?" Ryuen's fierce gaze shot at the student.

Faced with Ryuen's intimidation, the student just clicked his tongue and sat back down.

"That's how it is. For this exam, no one is allowed to send the answers to the school until I give the order."

To prevent his class from acting smart on their own, Ryuen took extreme measures. If they didn't even know whether they were preferred candidates, no other class would be able to figure it out by talking to them.

And Ryuen already knew who the preferred candidates in his class were. The next thing to do was to figure out the pattern for selecting the preferred candidates.

Once he figured out the pattern, Ryuen planned to take down all three classes by himself!

Currently, Class C has 678 points, while Class B has the highest with 969 points. As long as his class earns 450 points, even if the preferred candidates are discovered in the end and lose 150 points, it won't matter.

As long as he guesses all the leaders of the other classes correctly, Class C will undoubtedly be able to move up to Class A next month.

As long as they can figure out the pattern for selecting preferred candidates earlier than the other classes!

However, Ryuen actually hoped that all of his class would reach Result One. That way, this exam would generate over 80 million personal points, enough to send four people to Class A.

Regarding class points, Ryuen trusted personal points more. Rather than nervously fighting for points in every exam, he'd rather save up 800 million personal points and have all the students in his class move up to Class A!

But no matter what idea he had, the most important thing right now was to get the list of students in the twelve groups.

It was clear that these idiots in Class C hadn't even bothered to remember which students were in their group.

After dismissing the regular students, Ryuen kept only the elites and his close followers.

Once he input the list of preferred candidates into his phone, Ryuen handed it to Shiina, who was sitting to his right.

"These are the preferred candidates in our class, three in total. If I'm not mistaken, every other class has three as well."

Shiina glanced at it, then nodded, agreeing with Ryuen's statement.

"Are you planning to find all the preferred candidates?"

"If I can, of course. But I'm more inclined toward Result One. The only problem is whether everyone will cooperate," Ryuen squinted his eyes.

To achieve Result One, it was necessary to send the correct answers to everyone in the group—except the preferred candidates and their classmates—between 9:30 PM and 10:00 PM on the final day after the exam ended.

During this time, all students were required to stay in their rooms and were forbidden from discussing anything related to the exam.

In other words, to achieve Result One, the names of the preferred candidates must be revealed to everyone before the exam ends, by 9:00 PM on the final day.

However, even revealing the preferred candidates' names exactly at 9:00 PM didn't guarantee that no one would betray the group during the period from 9:00 to 9:30 PM.

So, to achieve Result One, it was essential to have all 150 or so students trust each other completely, which was incredibly difficult.

Of course, if it didn't work out, Ryuen could still use forceful measures.

But here's the key point: during the deserted island exam, the three classes B, C, and D teamed up to mess up Class A badly, leaving the members of Class A in a state of confusion. 

Trying to unite with them now seems difficult, unless someone who can take charge steps up. Katsuragi has completely lost his influence, and Sakayanagi isn't on the boat, so Class A, a scattered group of people, has become the toughest problem to deal with.

Ryuen's headache is the same as Kanda Shuichi's. 

Right now, he was thinking about how to get Class A to join the group.

He didn't worry about Class B, since Ichinose and her group were solidly united. As for Ryuen's side, that was even easier to manage.

Kanda Shuichi had noticed that Ryuen seemed to care more about personal points than class points, so it was likely he'd want to reach result one as well. 

Maybe Ryuen would even propose cooperation before Kanda Shuichi did, but the real issue was Class A.

According to the information Kamuro sent back, Class A was currently in disarray. After being betrayed by B, C, and D, they had developed a persecution complex.

And here they were, Class A—Kanda Shuichi couldn't hide his disdain.

At the same time, he regretted it—Damn, Class A had been messed up too badly on the deserted island.

He also complained, "Why couldn't the special candidates test be held first?" If it had been, he wouldn't have to regret how badly he treated Class A.

At the moment, he still hadn't figured out the rules for selecting the special candidates.

Although he wanted to use the Time TV to find the answer directly, that would have been way too boring.

Plus, he had no idea how this information had been passed on to the teachers. The simplest guess was that it had been communicated somewhere, but without knowing the location or time, searching would be really slow.

He might spend all his 20 million points and still not find it.

As for tracking when students received the message—it was even worse. Excluding Class D, there were 119 other students, and each minute cost 1 million points, totaling 11.9 million private points.

This was in the best-case scenario, of course. Some people might sleep until after 9 AM, and you wouldn't even know when they'd check their phone.

So using the Time TV as a shortcut was quickly ruled out by Kanda Shuichi.

After using the Time TV twice, he noticed a problem.

It couldn't be recharged.

Yeah, it couldn't be recharged, which was a huge inconvenience!

This meant it probably had a limited number of uses, so until he found a way to recharge it, he definitely couldn't use it recklessly.

So, this limited-use item? He still had to pay for it!

Kanda Shuichi felt like the biggest fool.

As for taking it apart, that was even less of an option. It was perfectly sealed with no removable parts. He even wondered if it was a one-time-use item.

His only hope was that sometime in the future, he could get a charger for the Time TV from the system.

At noon, after lunch, Kanda Shuichi and Hirata Yosuke went to the Dragon Group room on the second floor of the ship.

The scheduled discussion time was from 1 to 2 PM, and since the time was getting close, they decided to head over early.

But when they arrived, someone was already there. The first person they saw was Katsuragi from Class A. His shiny bald head was impossible to miss.

Of course, Kanda Shuichi didn't mean to look down on him. He just thought it was really eye-catching.

Katsuragi was sitting with three others, all unfamiliar faces. They were likely students from Class A, but Kanda Shuichi wasn't interested in them because they weren't privileged students.

He only needed to know their names. There was no need for a seating arrangement, because the school didn't choose privileged students based on looks.

The three privileged students from Class D, Kushida and Karuizawa, were both quite attractive, but that student Nan was more ordinary in comparison.

When Kanda Shuichi entered the room, Katsuragi's expression became a little more serious, but he didn't say anything.

On the other side were the students from Class B, led by Ichinose. Besides Ichinose and Kanzaki Ryuji, who Kanda had met before, there was a girl, whose name, according to the list Kanda had seen earlier, was likely Tsube Hitomi.

And if looks were the criteria, Ichinose would be the one chosen as the privileged student for this group. While Kushida was attractive, she was still not quite on the level of Ichinose and Horikita.

"Good afternoon, Kanda-san, Hirata-san," Ichinose greeted the two as they arrived.

"Just call me Kanda, no need for honorifics, Ichinose," Kanda Shuichi said, walking over and greeting her. He then sat down near the Class B section.

"Feel free to sit as you like," Hirata said as he sat next to Kanda Shuichi.

The only ones left were Horikita Suzune and Kushida Kikyo from Class D, as well as the three students from Class C.

Seeing the relaxed demeanor of the leaders from the other two classes, Katsuragi felt a sinking feeling in his heart.

He realized that the leaders from those two classes had already gathered information about their privileged students, while he was completely in the dark.

Yes, Katsuragi had no information on Class A's privileged students.

Class A now felt like a bird that's been shot at—no one trusted them, especially Katsuragi. The best Class A had done was to earn only 70 class points on the deserted island.

Because of this, some even suspected that Katsuragi had been bought off by another class. If it weren't for the clean origin of the points in his student ID, he would probably have been isolated by now.

Facing such a Class A, Katsuragi had no way of dealing with them. He had lost his credibility and couldn't compete with Sakayanagi for the leadership of the class anymore.

However, if Class A continued with this attitude for the exam, it would undoubtedly lead to another defeat for them.

Thus, Katsuragi, with a heavy heart, put forward a suggestion that everyone could accept in order to offer a plan for the class.

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