69: The competition

The competition

Mr. Lao solemnly led everyone onto the stage.1

The students from Jixia Academy were still being quite polite.

The stands in the stadium were filled with people. The majority of the audience were from Jixia Academy since it was situated in the capital.

The remaining five universities were not situated in capital city. Hence, very few of their students had made their way here.

Most of them were all viewing the event through the school's online live-streaming platforms.

At the stadium, Jixia students made up the majority. However, they still clapped for the other teams out of politeness.

Once the remaining four teams had made their entrances, they lined up according to the results of the previous year's competition.

"The rules of the competition this year are slightly different from the previous years," the host announced. "In previous years, the contestants could be switched out every round. The representative sent forward could be chosen by the team."

This year, the competition format will be changed to a knock-out style.

"That means that every team will send out one member. During the round, the contestant with the highest points will progress to the next round, while the other teams will have to swap out. Every round will continue in this manner. Once a team has no more players left, and once the team has no more representatives to swap for the next round, they will be eliminated. They will not be able to earn points the following round," the host explained.

The contestants nodded their heads. They already knew this change of rule. But the audience was shocked.

"This time, there will definitely be at least one team member who needs to compete in a round that they have no expertise in."

"Why? If they lose in the first round, they can just swap to a member that they know will probably have an advantage in the next round."

"But what if they win the first round? The winning contestant would have to progress to the second round. But if the second round is based on a topic that they are not familiar with, then their loss would be certain. Naturally, they would be able to swap with another player who has better chances in the third round. If that contestant wins again, they might encounter another unfamiliar topic in the fourth round. That's why I said that at least one player would have to play in a round that they are not familiar with. They might not even be able to defend well."

"Eh? The host mentioned that there was a chance one of our teams might not have enough players to progress to the next round. But even if we lost every round, there would still be enough members to compete."

Not long later, they heard the host's announcement, "Next, I'll explain the second change we've made. The previous competitions always consisted of ten rounds. Although the rules did not stipulate that a new contestant needed to appear every round, every team would usually choose to send out different representatives."

"But this year, due to the change in the competition format, we especially added another a round. There will now be 11 rounds instead of ten." The host continued, "If a team loses every round, then they will no longer have any players to play in the final round."

The host grinned slightly. "The probability of this happening is actually quite high."

After all, only one person could win every round.

Everyone finally understood.

"Who decided on this competition format?" The competition format had not changed for five consecutive years. Yet, such a huge change had been instituted this year.

"May I invite all the contestants to their seating areas. All six teams will have ten minutes to choose their first representative. However, the remaining contestants will no longer be given time to decide their representatives in the subsequent rounds," the host reminded them. "All the teachers will have to decide which student to send up before the next round commences."

"This year's competition should be quite fun." On the stage, there were some students who weren't bothered by this. They were quite happy to observe the reactions of the other students.

All the teachers-in-charge led the students of their respective teams toward the competitors' seating.

The competitors' seating arrangements were located quite close to one another.

It would be quite easy to communicate and interact with one another if they had wanted to.

On the Shengyang High school side, since they had decided on the students, Mr. Lao firmly said, "Jing Zhao, you're up."

Although they didn't know how they could advance to 11th round, now was not the time to make any changes.

Jing Zhao nodded and stood up. "Mr. Lao and fellow team members, please rest assured that I will do my best."

The six competitors from the six different teams went on stage and took their places in front of the podiums.

"Please may the competitors test out their buzzers," said the host.

All six competitors pressed on their buzzers. There was no problem with any of them.

"All right, please look at the big screen. After the ten-second countdown, the first question will appear on the screen. Once the question is shown, you all will be able to compete for the answer. Since this is the new format of the competition, there will not be a sequence where the hosts will be reading out the questions," the host announced.

Then, with a DEET-DEET noise, the ten-second countdown appeared on the big screen.

The first round was of Maths subject.

The title of it as well…

The crowd all sighed. "They just couldn't be nicer about these questions, could they? I can't even decipher what this question is asking."

It was ridiculous to set such a difficult question for the very first one in the entire competition.

Even the ever-confident Lin Zhenhui looked uneasy.

CLANG!

After about three minutes, Jing Zhao pushed down on the buzzer.

All eyes were on him now.

"Shengyang High school, please answer," the host said.

Jing Zhao firmly answered, "Option A."

"The answer is correct!" The screen lit up as the host shouted it out.

The students of Shengyang high school clapped happily.

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