Kill one monster, stack one poison, and I alone will poison my way across the world!

Temporary monitoring center outside the Dark Forest instance.

About 500 meters from the instance portal, several black armored vehicles painted with the emblem of the Provincial Department of Education were parked in an open space.

Several large magical monitoring devices were humming and running, with various data streams flashing on their screens.

Song Yi, Deputy Director of the Education Department of Jiangnan Province, stood in front of the main control screen with his hands behind his back.

He was dressed in a smart Zhongshan suit, had a square face, and an imposing expression.

As a high-ranking official who has worked in education for many years, even when he is just standing casually, he exudes a sense of oppressive heaviness.

"How are this year's seedlings doing?"

Looking at the dense array of glowing dots representing professionals on the screen, Song Yi casually asked a question.

A staff member nearby immediately opened his tablet and respectfully reported to the leader:

"Song Hall, currently there are over 1,200 senior high school students in the province who have entered the Dark Forest instance. Among them, 80% chose the normal difficulty and 19% chose the hard difficulty."

The staff member paused and adjusted his glasses.

"As for Nightmare difficulty... only two teams have entered so far."

"Oh?"

Song Yi raised an eyebrow slightly, a hint of surprise flashing in her eyes, but that was all.

He doesn't believe any student can beat the Nightmare difficulty level.

These two teams should be out of the game soon.

"Are there any teams that are too hasty and reckless, rushing headlong into the BOSS's arms?"

This year's scenario... was personally designed by Song Yi to test the students' ability to make on-the-spot judgments.

The staff member gave a wry smile and nodded.

"Of course there are, quite a few. More than a dozen teams have tried to kill the BOSS directly because they didn't observe carefully enough, and as a result, some of them were seriously injured and had to be carried to the hospital."

Upon hearing this, Song Yi not only wasn't angry, but instead smiled faintly.

"Good news."

He picked up the teacup on the table next to him and slowly took a sip of tea.

"Remember, you can't grow a towering tree in a greenhouse! Give them a lesson, let them suffer a bit before the college entrance exam, so they won't be arrogant and think the world is just a game."

"What the leader says is true!"

Several staff members in the monitoring room nodded in agreement, praising Director Song for his foresight.

however.

In the midst of this orderly atmosphere, a device in the far corner suddenly emitted a piercing beeping sound!

"Beep—beep—beep—!"

The red alarm lights flashed wildly, turning the entire monitoring room a blood-red hue.

"What's going on?!" Song Yi's smile vanished instantly, and he demanded sharply.

The staff member in charge of that instrument suddenly jumped up from his chair, shouting and yelling, his voice even changing tone.

"Song, Song Ting! Something terrible has happened!"

He pointed to the energy bar on the screen, which was plummeting, "The dungeon... the dungeon experience points are almost depleted!"

"What?!"

Everyone in the monitoring room gasped simultaneously.

Several technicians immediately surrounded him, their faces filled with shock.

"impossible!"

A section chief retorted sharply, "The experience pool in the Dark Forest is valid throughout the entire province. This year, the Ministry of Education has been very generous, giving us in Jiangnan a full 50% more experience points than last year!"

The section chief shoved the staff member aside and pounced on the keyboard, typing rapidly.

"This experience pool has more than enough to support these thousand-plus students until tomorrow's college entrance exam, let alone for two more days! How could it possibly run out?"

Song Yi's expression also darkened. He stepped forward and stared at the screen.

"Is there a problem with the instrument? Or is the magic energy conduction tube leaking energy?"

"No, it's not an energy leak..."

The section chief stared at the scrolling data logs on the screen, and cold sweat broke out all over his body.

He swallowed hard, his voice trembling.

"Director Song... please see the retrieval record."

Song Yi looked in the direction her supervisor was pointing.

[17:30: Extract 6000000 experience points.]

[17:41: Extract 6000000 experience points.]

[17:50: Extract 6000000 experience points.]

Every ten minutes, a huge sum of money is precisely allocated.

It's like someone is using a super pump to frantically drain the experience pool in a dungeon!

"What's going on?"

Song Yi's eyes widened. "Six million in ten minutes?!"

Even if a student clears a normal-level dungeon once, they will only get a maximum of two or three hundred thousand experience points.

This amount of six million is equivalent to one hundred people clearing a normal-level dungeon once!

Moreover, every extraction is an integer, without any error!

Logically, the number of monsters spawned in each instance should be random within a certain range.

How can experience points be integers?

"Investigate! Find out which coordinates were used to extract it right now!" Song Yi roared.

"Yes, Director Song, I'll investigate immediately!"

The section chief's hands flew across the keyboard like afterimages, and he was sweating profusely with anxiety.

Just then, the green experience bar on the screen suddenly plummeted.

Completely bottomed out.

Several glaring red warning lines appeared in the center of the screen.

[WARNING: The experience pool for the Dark Forest dungeon is about to run out.]

[WARNING: Once the experience pool is depleted, all current players will be forcibly removed according to procedure.]

……

at the same time.

In the copy.

Before the giant old tree spirit could even wave its vines, it was attacked by dozens of corrosive snake guards that appeared out of nowhere.

The health bar cascaded down like a waterfall, emptying in just a few seconds.

[Hint: Defeating the level 20 Decaying Ancient Tree Spirit (Gold-tier BOSS) grants 1000000 experience points.]

[Hint: Your team has cleared [Dark Forest (Nightmare difficulty)], gaining 2000000 experience points.]

……

In just four seconds, the poor old tree spirit was transformed into a huge amount of experience points once again.

"Whoosh!"

A dazzling golden beam of light descended from the sky, enveloping Su Chen entirely.

Immediately afterwards, crisp system notification sounds flooded Su Chen's ears.

[Hint: Experience points are full, level up to 20!]

[All attributes +1, gain 5 free attribute points.]

[Note: You have reached the current rank cap; the experience pool is locked!]

[Note: Subsequent experience points will be automatically stored in the backup experience pool and can only be unlocked after the first job advancement.]

As the golden light faded, Su Chen stretched comfortably and casually turned off the virtual panel in front of him.

This provincial department is really impressive.

Three million experience points per person, given away without batting an eye.

"Little Su! You're level 20 now?"

Lin Shiqing's excited voice came from the side.

She skipped and hopped to Su Chen, a blush rising on her originally fair face from excitement.

Her ponytail swayed back and forth with her movements.

"At this rate, if I grind one more time, I'll be level 18 in no time!"

Lin Shiqing's eyes sparkled.

Su Chen glanced at his grayed-out experience bar and nodded, "Okay, let's keep grinding!"

Once you miss this opportunity, it's gone forever.

Three million experience points in ten minutes, how can anyone not grind for that?

After saying that, he walked to the green pus that the old tree spirit had turned into, preparing to touch the corpse.

Just as his hand was about to touch the fallen orb of light on the ground.

The entire instance space suddenly began to shake violently.

A piercing alarm sounded simultaneously in every corner of the entire instance.

[Warning: The current dungeon's experience pool is depleted!]

[Warning: The mana reserves needed to keep the dungeon running are below 1%!]

[Notice: The dungeon protection mechanism has been activated. All difficulty levels will be closed shortly, and all players present will be forcibly removed!]

"Holy crap! My gear isn't even here yet—"

Before Su Chen could finish speaking, everything went black.

A powerful spatial repulsive force instantly acted on the two of them.

"Whoosh!"

The next second, Su Chen and Lin Shiqing's legs went weak and they almost fell over.

"Cough cough..."

Su Chen choked on the dust that was kicked up.

He looked around and was immediately stunned.

The once orderly dungeon portal has now been transformed into a giant vegetable market.

More than a thousand senior high school students were sprayed out of the portal like garbage, sprawling on the ground in all directions.

"What's going on? I was grinding when it suddenly said my experience pool was empty and kicked me out!"

"Me too!"

"Damn you, Education Department! I almost killed an elite monster with a sliver of health left!"

"What's going on?! You said we could grind until before the college entrance exam! I even cleared another dungeon specifically to do this one, are you kidding us?"

"My gold coins! They fell on the ground and I didn't have time to pick them up!"

"..."

The shouts and curses were so loud they almost overturned the forest.

Lin Shiqing dusted herself off and stared blankly at the chaotic scene around her.

"What... what happened?" She tugged at Su Chen's sleeve. "The system just said the experience pool is depleted? Little Su, could it be... we've been grinding too hard?"

"..."

Su Chen's lips twitched.

The experience pool is empty... Did they grind the provincial department's dungeons until they went bankrupt?

He took a deep breath and said innocently, "We were just running the dungeon normally, what does it have to do with us?"

"..."

Lin Shiqing glanced at the two people's levels, and her lips twitched as well.

Is this really normal?