You went on a blind date and presented an A-level wanted criminal as a meeting gift?

The simulation chamber in Area A is a fully enclosed steel box, 20 meters long and wide, and 8 meters high, with no windows.

As the fourteen people went inside, the hatch slammed shut behind them.

The sound of the iron gate closing echoed in the enclosed space, and several people subconsciously glanced back at the now-gone exit.

The cabin was lit by stark white industrial fluorescent lights, which made everyone's expressions appear exceptionally serious.

The four walls are bare gray steel plates, the floor is non-slip rubber, and the ceiling is densely packed with dozens of metal nozzles of unknown purpose.

The broadcast started again.

"First challenge: Survival and breaking through in extreme environments."

"Thirty seconds later, a high concentration of hallucinogenic gas will be released from the ceiling of the cabin, and at the same time, the temperature inside the cabin will rise to fifty degrees Celsius within two minutes."

"Your mission is to find the ventilation shaft hidden somewhere in the bulkhead within ten minutes, enter the correct six-digit code, open the ventilation shaft, and escape."

Those who fail to escape within the time limit will be eliminated.

"Thirty-second countdown, begin."

The cabin instantly erupted in commotion.

Several candidates, all former special forces soldiers, immediately began searching along the walls, tapping on the steel plates with their fists and listening to the echoes to determine which wall had a hollow structure behind it.

The tech expert, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, pulled out his notebook and tried to deduce the possible patterns in the password within thirty seconds.

Xiao Kuang took out a simple folding gas mask from his pocket and skillfully put it on his face.

He came from a demolition background, so carrying gas protective gear was a basic habit of his. After putting on his mask, he glanced smugly in Lin Chen's direction.

Lin Chen stood in the center of the cabin, his hands in his pockets, doing nothing.

The countdown has ended.

The nozzles on the ceiling turned on simultaneously.

A stream of pale yellow gas gushed down from dozens of outlets, moving quickly and densely, filling the entire simulation chamber into a murky soup within three seconds.

It has a pungent and spicy smell, with an indescribable sweetness.

At the same time, the temperature inside the cabin began to soar.

Twenty-five degrees, thirty degrees, thirty-five degrees... The air became hot and thick, as if it had been stuffed into a heated oven.

The effect is immediate.

The first one to run into trouble was an intelligence analyst from the national security system.

He had no protective gear. After inhaling three breaths of poison gas, his pupils began to dilate, and he staggered.

Twenty seconds later, he crouched on the ground, holding his head in his hands, muttering incoherently, and appeared to be seeing some kind of hallucination that terrified him.

Then the second, and the third.

The high temperature accelerated the penetration of the toxic gas, and the unprotected candidates collapsed one after another, writhing in agony on the rubber surface.

Less than half of the people were still standing.

Xiao Kuang was wearing a mask, so he was unaffected by the poisonous gas, but the 50-degree Celsius heat had soaked his clothes with sweat.

He carefully explored the north wall inch by inch, punching it once and pressing his ear against it to listen.

"Where the hell is the combination lock...?"

He cursed under his breath.

Lin Chen remained standing in the same spot.

The poison gas entered his lungs through his respiratory tract and was then carried throughout his body by the bloodstream.

Then nothing happened.

[God-level Anti-toxic Physique] It filters out hallucinogenic molecules like spam.

As for the 50-degree heat, for someone who has trained in the Sahara Desert, it's just a matter of sweating a little.

But Lin Chen had no intention of looking for the password.

He closed his eyes.

[God-level Meteorology Mastery] unlocked.

[God-level Physics Mastery] unlocked.

Something interesting is happening inside this sealed cabin.

The high temperature and toxic gas were not sprayed evenly.

The air output of the dozens of nozzles on the ceiling varies slightly, and these differences create a miniature airflow circulation system within the enclosed space.

Hot air rises, spreads laterally after hitting the ceiling, sinks down the walls, and gathers on the ground before being heated and rising again—this is a standard Rayleigh-Bernard convection unit.

However, if there is a hidden vent somewhere in the bulkhead, even if the vent is closed at the moment, its sealing performance cannot be exactly the same as that of a pure steel plate.

The extremely small gaps at the edge of the vent cause a pressure disturbance in the airflow that is imperceptible to the human body.

This disturbance will propagate along the convection path, forming a weak Kármán vortex street at a specific location.

The frequency of a vortex street depends on the width of the slit and the airflow velocity.

Lin Chen's skin is sensing changes in temperature gradient.

His ears pick up the ultra-low frequency sound waves produced by the movement of air, vibrations below the range of normal human hearing.

Two seconds later, he found it.

Southwest corner, 1.2 meters above the ground.

Lin Chen opened his eyes and strode over.

He didn't fumble around on the wall, didn't look for the combination lock, and didn't even slow down.

[Master of Architectural Technology] He provided a complete structural analysis of this steel plate wall from his perspective.

The ventilation opening was covered by a camouflaged steel plate, which was fixed to the inner C-shaped steel frame with four concealed countersunk bolts.

The stress concentration point of the frame is at the lower right corner.

The welding at that location was a fraction of a millimeter rougher than the other three corners, making it the weakest point on the entire camouflage panel.

Lin Chen raised his right foot.

He didn't use his full strength. He only used a force just exceeding the shear strength of the weld.

"Bang!"

The sole of the military boot precisely hit the welding point in the lower right corner.

The camouflage steel plate bounced off the frame, crashed into the opposite wall with a loud bang, and then slammed to the ground with a clang.

The ventilation openings were exposed.

Behind it was a dark escape route.

Thirty seconds have passed since the gas was released.

Lin Chen patted the rust powder off his palms and bent down to crawl into the ventilation duct.

He walked at a leisurely pace, his footsteps echoing through the metal pipes.

The simulation chamber behind me was deathly silent.

Xiao Kuang was wearing a gas mask, his hand still pressed against the north wall, maintaining a posture of listening to the echo.

It took his brain about three seconds to process what had just happened.

Then he slowly turned his head and looked at the hole in the southwest corner that had been kicked open.

No one present could see the expression beneath the mask.

But his Adam's apple bobbed twice, as if he had swallowed a piece of pig iron.

The pipeline ends at an outdoor receiving area.

When Lin Chen emerged, there was only one examiner in the receiving area holding a timing board.

The examiner glanced at the numbers on the timing board.

00:30.

Then he looked up at Lin Chen, his mouth opened slightly but didn't close.

"You...didn't use a password?"

"The password is for people who use the main entrance."

Lin Chen signed the attendance sheet and found a chair to sit down.

Seven minutes later, the second person climbed out of the ventilation shaft.

Nine and a half minutes later, Xiao Kuang crawled out of the pipe.

He ripped off his gas mask and threw it on the ground, panting heavily. When he saw Lin Chen sitting on a chair, legs crossed, drinking water, his face contorted into a crumpled mess.

Final results: Fourteen people participated, four were eliminated in the first round, and ten advanced.

Lin Chen broke all records in the seven years since the subject was established, taking only thirty seconds.

The previous record was eight minutes and twelve seconds.