Kiana and the Captain's Bizarre Adventure

Chapter 273 Silver Branch

"Attention all contestants, attention all contestants."

The broadcast in the competition area came on, and all the participants, including Xing and Liuying, stopped in their tracks to listen to the specific arrangements made by the organizers.

"The invited judges have arrived at this competition area. From now on, this competition area will adopt a challenge system. All participants need to complete all the challenges in this competition area and pass the evaluation of the invited judges in the end to advance. The detailed rules have been explained before the competition started, so they will not be detailed here. Good luck to everyone."

"Xing, did you understand what the broadcast meant?"

"Hmm." Xing nodded. "I didn't expect to run into a special guest judge right away. I just wonder who this special guest judge is?"

"I have a feeling that we might be quite familiar with this special guest judge."

“But I don’t have any friends in this area.” Xing scratched her head, then thought of the snow-covered city. “It’s not that we don’t have any, but Belloberg has just emerged from the Star Core Disaster and hasn’t officially made contact with the outside world yet. There are no ships traveling between the two worlds, let alone in Pinocene.”

"But didn't one of your friends come here before?"

"You mean Sambo?"

"Correct."

"That guy was acting all mysterious. You could tell at a glance he wasn't a local from Belleburg. Besides, wasn't that guy Hanabi in disguise?"

"That's true, but since the other party claims to know Sambo, it seems that Sambo is very likely also a member of the Masked Fool."

"Why is it the Masked Fools again?" Xing complained. "Why do I run into these guys everywhere except at the Black Tower Space Station!"

"After all, they are a group of people who believe in pleasure, so it's not surprising that they appear anywhere. The Black Tower Space Station is, in the end, the private space station of that Black Tower lady. The Masked Fool wouldn't go to a place where he rarely sees his owner and has no fun to look for."

"Is that right?"

Xing was somewhat skeptical of Liu Ying's explanation, not because Xing herself distrusted Liu Ying, but because when she thought of the Masked Fool who held the Ether Spirit Competition in Belloberg, she found it hard to imagine that these people who would create their own fun even when there was none would appear at the Black Tower Space Station.

After carefully considering her own stereotypes about the Masked Fool, Firefly fell silent. In the end, Star broke the silence.

"Forget about all that, let's think about how to get through the three existing levels first."

In the time that followed, Xing and Liuying spent a lot of effort trying to pass the challenges. Xing originally planned to use her excellent acting skills to pass the challenges in one go, but she underestimated the judges' pursuit of acting skills and overestimated Liuying's acting skills.

Fortunately, the opportunity wasn't just once. After hearing the complaints from those around her, Xing realized that she wasn't the only team that failed in the acting test. For some reason, the judges at this year's competition were much stricter than ever before.

This forced Xing to choose action scenes, which were relatively less demanding on acting skills. He managed to pass through the three challenges without any major incidents and arrived at the location of the special guest judges.

"Miss Eden and Miss Alicia?" Xing exclaimed in surprise.

"Hi, I didn't expect to see you so soon, did I?" Alicia greeted her with a smile.

"So the two of you are the special guest judges this time?" Xing asked.

“To be precise, it was just Eden alone,” Alicia replied. “I was just a passerby who came along to watch the show.”

"Is that so?" Xing scratched his head.

“However, there’s one thing I need to remind you of beforehand,” Eden said at the appropriate moment, “I won’t lower my standards just because we know each other.”

"Please let me go!" Xing said, her face showing reluctance, as she clasped her hands together.

“Star, give up,” Alicia advised. “Eden had already tested several groups before you arrived, and no one qualified to advance directly. To be honest, even I couldn’t give a good evaluation of the contestants’ performances, let alone Eden, who has a passion for art.”

"Heaven has forsaken me!" Xing cried out in anguish.

Meanwhile, Eden was pondering how to formulate a question that would seamlessly advance Xing's advancement. Thanks to Kiana's help, Eden was able to share a view with the captain who had infiltrated the scene and also learned about Xing's detailed situation from the captain.

Simply put, Xing's acting skills are fine. As long as she takes the assessment seriously, her advancement is a sure thing.

But the key is that Miss Firefly. According to the information obtained from Kiana, she is an artificial human created as a weapon of war. She may be fine for fighting on the battlefield, but she is not good enough for performing on stage.

To put it bluntly, Liu Ying's acting skills are at best at the level of a newcomer who has just graduated from a professional acting school, and even worse than a newcomer.

The previous challenges were passed by taking shortcuts and choosing assessments that didn't really emphasize acting skills or action scenes, but they wouldn't work at all for me.

After all, the acting skills of the contestants who came to her were no worse than Liu Ying's, and most of them were even much better. If Xing and the others were to pass directly, wouldn't it seem too unfair?

Eden felt a headache coming on at the thought of this. Action scenes were out of the question. After all, they had reached the final stage, and even action scenes, which didn't require much acting skill, would demand a correspondingly higher level of skill.

But this makes Xing and the others' chances of passing the test infinitely close to zero, and this is without Eden even considering the possibility of Xing encountering an accident.

As we all know, the star, as a nascent human form, is a star core spirit that can easily become a little crazy and has an incomparably beautiful mental state.

Alicia, who was standing nearby, noticed Eden's predicament and secretly contacted Kiana.

"Are you there? Kiana, are you there?"

"What's wrong with Alicia?" Kiana asked.

"I've told you so many times, just call me Airi. Never mind that, Kiana, I want you to help me out."

"What's the deal?"

"Right now, aren't the people on the Starry Sky Train trying to get a way to go to the Pinocchio Grand Theatre through the preliminary rounds? For some reason, Eden is currently struggling with what kind of questions to ask to guarantee that Xing and the others will advance."

"This? To be honest, I'm not good at acting either, so I can't help you if you want me to."

"Isn't there any other way? Like manipulating dreams or something?"

"You mean you'll just let them advance directly?"

"Hmm, it's not impossible, but Eden definitely won't agree."

"So that's how they acquire superb acting skills?"

"Isn't this too obvious? No, no."

"This won't work, that won't work, you're making things very difficult for me."

"Please, Kiana, please have mercy on me!" Alicia began to plead.

Kiana, unable to resist Alicia's charming advances, could only sigh.

"Well then, Eden has already given me the test questions, so I'll just follow her instructions."

Eden, who had already given up, also gave Xing and Liuying their test: to perform a situational comedy skit of any genre, with the only requirement being to make the audience laugh. If they could make the majority of the audience laugh out loud, they would pass.

At this moment, Eden was very glad that he had set the questions according to the strength of each group of participants. Although the crowd had some complaints, he was still able to keep them in check.

After all, the questions varied in difficulty, and the onlookers had already seen quite a few before Xing and the others arrived. Moreover, Eden always managed to set questions within the contestants' capabilities. As long as the contestants could calm down and perform well, they would naturally pass.

After all, this is a preliminary selection event, not a battle of celebrities, so Eden naturally wouldn't make things difficult for these people with dreams.

The reason she failed was simply because the other contestants were always intimidated by her aura and couldn't calm down or get into character. A performance that couldn't get into character naturally wouldn't pass.

Sitcoms can be difficult to make, but they can also be quite simple.

Ultimately, it's still a comedy, and the most important thing about comedy is how to make the audience resonate with the jokes in the plot and laugh heartily.

As long as you can grab the audience's funny bone, even a complete newcomer can make most people laugh. But conversely, if you can't find that, then even the most superb acting skills are useless. This is the only test that Eden can think of in a short time that they have a chance to pass.

While it involves some luck and an understanding of current trends, Eden can only gamble on whether the abstract concept of stars can capture the audience's laughter.

With Eden's command, Xing and Liuying began to discuss topics. They said that there were no restrictions on the subject matter, but it was not easy to make someone laugh without any preparation.

If there's one method that's hard to go wrong with, it's probably the current internet trends.

But what kind of place is Pinocchio? It's a star of the festival, a place where people from all over the universe flock, where different cultures collide, and it's not easy to come up with a topic that can make everyone laugh.

For example, Xing's various abstract performances are not acceptable to everyone.

Time ticked by, and just as the time for discussing the script was about to end, Xing finally came up with a theme.

However, since there were only two people on her side and her idea required three people, Xing turned her attention to Alicia.

"Alicia, could you do me a favor?"

"?"

Alicia looked at Xing with a puzzled expression, then at Eden beside her.

"If there aren't enough people, we can find a teammate on the spot. Of course, the temporary teammate must have the consent of the person in question, and they are not eligible to advance."

Upon hearing this, the contestants who had originally wanted to form teams to increase their advantage immediately gave up, since sacrificing themselves for others was simply impossible.

However, Alicia is not a contestant; strictly speaking, she is a staff member, and Eden's temporary supplementary rules do not restrict the identity of this temporary teammate.

After hearing Xing's script, he showed interest and decided to help.

Then, the team consisting of Xing, Liuying, and Alicia began their performance. The general plot was about a timid convenience store manager and his prankster employee who were robbed late at night.

Xing plays the store manager, Alicia plays an employee, and Liuying plays the robber.

The original plan was that this robber would require the highest level of acting skills, but Xing really found it hard to imagine Liu Ying showing a fearful expression. On the contrary, she was surprisingly good at switching between the robber's fierceness and concern.

With Kiana's secret help, over 90% of the audience laughed out loud. Alicia's performance, in particular, won over countless fans, and even a talent scout hidden among the crowd immediately jumped out to extend an invitation to Alicia.

Unfortunately, Alicia wasn't interested, and after a polite refusal, Eden gave her a passing rating.

Thus, Xing and Liuying became the first team to advance in this region.

Afterwards, Eden and Alicia tested several more groups of contestants, and the competition entered its second half, at which point the preliminary rounds were completely over.

In the region where Eden is located, only one team, excluding the star teams, passed Eden's test. The remaining contestants were given a final score by adding the scores they obtained in the first three stages to the total score given by Eden. The three teams with the highest scores advanced to the next round.

Due to time constraints, Eden only needs to participate in the preliminary rounds and the final round of the entire competition.

Therefore, the knockout stage and semi-finals ended relatively quickly, with only one group of players from each region advancing to the semi-finals, and the same applies to the semi-finals.

Xing successfully made it through the semi-finals, but unfortunately, the final was not the internal battle between the Star Trains that Xing had imagined. Their opponent was a person with long red hair wearing silver knight armor.

"Silver Branch, how come it's you?" Xing asked in surprise.

"Oh? I didn't expect my best friend to participate in this competition. What a coincidence." The red-haired man, whom Xing called Silver Branch, exclaimed upon seeing that his opponent was Xing.

His name is Silver Branch. During a Star Train journey to Wash Car Star, Silver Branch's spacecraft was involved in a traffic accident, and since then, Silver Branch and Star have formed an unbreakable friendship.

"Actually, I wanted to ask you why you're here at Pinocchio too?" Xing scratched his head and asked.

"Well, the Pure Knights are a well-known force in the universe, and the family has extended invitations to several of them. However, I was the only one who responded to the family's invitation," Silver Branch explained. "Speaking of which, on the way here, I encountered a tourist who had come here after being captured by a black hole. After rescuing him, I finally completed the check-in procedures. I didn't expect to see the promotional poster for this tournament as soon as I entered."

So I also planned to take this opportunity to spread the beauty of the Pure Star God to the entire galaxy, but I never expected to meet my dearest friend in the finals. It was truly a joyous occasion.

Immediately afterwards, Yinzhi took out her spear and extended an invitation to Xing.

"Come on, my dear friend! Let's put on a spectacular showdown in front of thousands of spectators!"

Although Xing also wanted to have a real showdown with Yinzhi, there were priorities, and now was not the time to act impulsively. Given Yinzhi's personality, Xing thought that persuading him directly might be more efficient.

So Xing invited Yinzhi to have a talk therapy session.