Chapter 59: First Assessment – Reaction Speed
Wang Ying spoke with the other two soldiers and then left with Xu Cheng. She led him back to the military base she was instructing at and brought him to conduct combat-related assessments.
Shi Wenbin and his partner saw that the monster had just left with their goddess-like instructor.
Such an effective way of picking up girls!
The two practiced for a bit and also went back to their military base to see what Xu Cheng was doing.
At the base, there were many existing combat sites and equipment that could be provided to Xu Cheng for self-testing, so the environment was a lot better than the clubhouse they were just at.
“There’s a shooting range at our military, and the conventional assessment involves a machine that will shoot out flying discs randomly, and the disc will disappear into cover after only two seconds. If someone doesn’t have a fast reaction time, they won’t even be able to fire the shot in time, let alone hit it. This is the most difficult assessment setup we have in place.”
Shi Wenbin and his partner walked over as they nodded. Speaking of this, Shi Wenbin was still a little proud, because disc-shooting was his strong suit. Immediately, his mouth opened. “It’s not easy to perform well in this. We are all pretty good in other areas and we only go to those professional strength-training clubhouses when we need to work on our power and explosive strength.”
Xu Cheng didn’t reply. He was just thinking about what level to start his training at. If it was just shooting discs, he already perfected the skill back when he was still in the military, and it wouldn’t be useful for testing the limit of his reaction speed.
Seeing that Xu Cheng was hesitating, Wang Ying pointed at Xu Wenbin and said, “If you want someone as a benchmark to compare to, Shi Wenbin can compete with you. He’s pretty good when it comes to reaction speed, especially in this 2-second disc-shooting assessment; his score is pretty high up there in our entire military region. Many people might try their best and only hit 1 out of 10, and Shi Wenbin still holds the record of being able to hit 3. You can compare yourself to him.”
Finally seeing that his skills were recognized by Instructor Wang, Shi Wenbin was secretly laughing inside. He coughed and said, “Even during that run, I was lucky with one of the shots. It’s just really difficult because your brain can hardly react in time the second the disc flies out, which in turn affects your speed to move your hand and aim. Unlike other disc-shooting machines, this one doesn’t give you any notification and the disc will just come out without a sound. You can only rely on your eyes to detect it.”
Xu Cheng nodded. He really didn’t need this explanation. Of course, since Instructor Wang recommended this, he didn’t know how to reject, since there didn’t seem to be any better means to test his reaction speed.
“Okay, let me give it a try.”
Shi Wenbin immediately went to get the prop gun. Seeing how enthusiastic and excited he was, his partner obviously knew that Shi Wenbin had been waiting for a long time to show off in front of Wang Ying. Strictly speaking, Wang Ying was only an instructor for strength and physique training and wasn’t their general instructor. They were all about the same age, so it was inevitable for the male hormones to act up and the male to want to show off in front of the beautiful female. If it wasn’t for the rule in place in their military region, they would’ve started courting Instructor Wang.
Unfortunately, Wang Ying didn’t care about anything else other than their body and strength training when it came to these two. As a result, Shi Wenbin and his partner never got a chance to show off other skills they were good at.
So now, Shi Wenbin almost couldn’t wait for this opportunity. In addition, if he could outperform Xu Cheng, maybe it would make Instructor Wang even more impressed.
Thinking back to the day they saw Xu Cheng breaking the dynamometer, he realized that Wang Ying’s curiosity towards Xu Cheng was definitely through the roof. In other words, right now, Xu Cheng was definitely at the center of Wang Ying’s attention, and if Shi Wenbing could teach Xu Cheng a lesson and take his ego down a notch, then Wang Ying would definitely admire him too.
The more Shi Wenbin thought, the more excited he got. He brought over two prop guns and gave one to Xu Cheng.
Then, he said, “Would you like me to show you a demonstration first?”
Xu Cheng nodded, and then the two faced towards the spacious range. Xu Cheng asked Wang Ying, “How far is the disc going to be flying from us?”
“There are different options. If you are confident in your shooting skills, you can pick 50 meters. If you aren’t confident, then pick 20. However, the premise is that your reaction speed can be fast enough. Otherwise, if you can’t react in time, your hands won’t move in time, there wouldn’t be any room for you to use your shooting skills.”
“Put it at 20 first and let him try it out first,” Shi Wenbin said to his partner, and the latter went and started the machine.
“Focus your attention. It won’t give you a heads up before the disc flys out,” Shi Wenbing reminded Xu Cheng.
But just as he said that, a disc flew out. Unprepared, Xu Cheng didn’t shoot in time, but Shi Wenbin did lift his gun and made a quick shot. Although he missed, he indeed had good reaction speed.
Xu Cheng understood the whole process. In comparison to other disc-shooting ranges, this one was a lot more demanding in terms of time and concentration. For the traditional ones, the disc would go high into the sky, and as long as it didn’t fall to the ground yet, you can take your shot as it moved in the air. But now, these disks would come out randomly without any audio cue, and it would disappear into cover within just two seconds. Thus, the hit rate would indeed be incredibly low because the disc speed would be too fast, making it very difficult to analyze its flight path to predict where to shoot.
“Oh nice, you got even faster!” His partner didn’t forget to kiss Shi Wenbin’s azz. Although he missed, he did indeed manage to shoot in time. Just this alone in comparison to Xu Cheng was something worthy of bragging about.
Shi Wenbin laughed, and he looked towards Wang Ying from the corner of his eyes, only finding her face calm. He wasn’t anxious. He would definitely prove himself once he managed to hit a few in the future.
Xu Cheng was busy listening to Shi Wenbin, so he didn’t notice that the disc would fly out at that moment.
But after seeing it for the first time, he felt like this assessment did contain a slight element of luck.
“Can luck play a role in this? It seems like if I just spam my shots, I should be able to hit a few,” Xu Cheng said.
Shi Wenbin immediately replied, “That’s why you are limited to 10 bullets per round. Even if you can get lucky once, you can’t get lucky three times.”
He did sound a bit angry. What he meant was: how dare you suspect that I was just lucky? You take 10 shots yourself and see how many you can get lucky with.
