Chapter 1001

Serena rested her slender fingers lightly on the keyboard. She lifted her eyelids,

shooting Bianca a sideways glance.

“Don’t worry, I’ll bury you right now p>

The moment the words left her mouth, her fingers struck the keys.

Her pale, delicate hands were a work of art, beautiful to watch as they danced over the board.

But a second later, they became nothing but a blur.

Her typing speed was terrifying.

It was practically inhuman.

Even Caleb, whose speed easily ranked in the top ten of their computer science department, watched in absolute awe.

He knew it.

He always knew. That string of computer equations he had found on her scratchpad

in the library had been her researching a revolutionary operating model.

He knew their Captain was a god-tier programmer.

With that speed alone, she easily ranked in the top three of the entire industry.

But… three minutes passed.

The Hope Initiative’s score hadn’t budged an inch.

Dreamscape Alpha’s members began to laugh. “Seeing her act so confident, I thought she was some legendary hacker p>

“What is she even doing p>

“Did she just give up and start mashing keys to look cool p>

Bianca laughed until her sides hurt. “She’s totally faking it. We’re at 5,800 points. They’re stuck at 2,100, just a few points away from dead last. How is she supposed to catch up p>

Their mockery did nothing to slow Serena down.

The code on her screen scrolled at a speed the naked eye couldn’t process. Even Caleb, a verified genius, couldn’t track exactly what she was typing.

All he knew was that she wasn’t answering the competition prompts to earn points.

She was writing custom code.

Switching between offense and defense.

Patching vulnerabilities.

And running a reverse-trace on the virus.

All these operations were happening simultaneously.

When Caleb finally caught a glimpse of the backend data, his eyes went wide. “C- Captain, are you p>

His breathing grew ragged. Pure, unadulterated excitement lit up his face.

The way he looked at her had completely changed. It was pure worship.

Serena’s fingers paused, a wicked curve lifting the corners of her lips.

“Watch closely p>

“Game on p>

She slammed the enter key.

On the giant scoreboard, their team’s progress bar which bad.

been stuck bouncing between net

bottom two slots-suddenly erupted.

2,300.

2,500.

2,800.

3,000.

The numbers skyrocketed at an absurd, terrifying pace.

That wasn’t the speed of someone manually solving questions.

In a mere thirty seconds, The Hope Initiative surged from dead last straight into the top ten.

But then, something even more bizarre happened.

As their points continued to explode upward, Dreamscape Alpha’s bright red, first-

place bar suddenly glitched.

Then, their score started dropping.

5,900. Down to 5,300. Then plummeting to 2,700.

Do you know that feeling? In that

short span of time, the bottom bar soared while the top bar plummeted. The visual whiplash left everyone stunned: Contest

It was utter visual whiplash.

The bottom-ranked team was soaring to the heavens, while the top-ranked team

was in a catastrophic freefall.

The entire arena sat in stunned silence, completely dumbfounded.

Someone rubbed their eyes. “What is happening? How did the

second-to-last team just break into

the top five? And why is the fl

first-place team losing points p>

“Can points even be deducted in this match p>

“Is this a legit competition? Are you allowed to play like this p>

Uproar exploded through the crowd.

Everyone shot up from their seats, staring in disbelief at the chaotic scoreboard.

In the entire history of the Marington Elite Scholarship Gauntlet, nothing like this had ever happened.