"Look here."

Hua Yingjie pulled out a dagger, attempting to insert it between two bricks, but even the blade couldn’t penetrate.

"This craftsmanship is absolutely impressive."

Tang Ming was astonished.

"Indeed! As far as I know, both the Pyramid and the Great Wall have similar structures, impenetrable by blades, perfectly aligned. So, the former prestige of this small city must have been significant."

Hua Yingjie looked at Tang Ming with a serious expression, "But the problem is, we’ve never heard of such a small city before, and now we’ve suddenly come to a place like this, it’s so strange."

"It is indeed odd, but we’re here for the medical competition, no need to overthink it."

Tang Ming shook his head, wrapping his arm around Zhou Xiaoqian’s slender waist, "It’s the same as always, we should adapt to the situation."

"All participants in the medical competition, please immediately gather at the Medical Tower located in the city center."

At this moment, a loud voice echoed through the entire small city, and two silhouettes appeared at the top of the pancake-shaped building.

The small city wasn’t large, so there was no need for any loudspeaker.

A group of people quickly hurried to gather in front of the peculiar building at the city center.

Huang Hexian and another elder were atop the over two-person-high building, beginning to call roll and confirm everyone was present.

"Excellent, you fifty are the finalists in this medical competition. Next, the final round will begin, everyone enters the Medical Tower, and we’ll introduce the rules in detail."

After roll call, Huang Hexian spoke slowly, then a stone door appeared on one side of the pancake-shaped building.

Huang Hexian and the other elder walked ahead, entering through the stone door.

Tang Ming and the others quickly followed inside.

As soon as they entered, everyone was stunned. Inside the stone door was a hidden world, brightly lit, filled with various advanced medical equipment and numerous patients.

"Welcome, everyone, to the Medical Tower."

After everyone entered, the stone door closed, Huang Hexian smiled as he looked at everyone.

"An outlet, an outlet, I need to charge my phone."

Upon seeing so many modern things here, someone immediately thought about charging their phone.

"No signal here, charging is useless."

"I never imagined such a super-modern secret base would be hidden here; it’s like two different worlds compared to outside."

...

A group of people clicked their tongues in wonder, looking around everywhere.

Tang Ming was also a bit bewildered, surprised that such a secret base was hidden in an otherwise backward ancient city, estimating that telling others would lead to disbelief.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if there are no questions, I will now announce the upcoming competition rules."

After a moment of amazement, Huang Hexian spoke slowly: "The final round will determine the ranking in this medical competition using a points system. Everyone received 100 points upon entering here, points are added for completing relevant tasks, deducted for task failures, and no action is considered a withdrawal."

As Huang Hexian explained, a virtual screen appeared in the air, recording everyone’s names along with their points.

"The final competition will have several rounds, the first round will determine victory and defeat in the Medical Tower. As you see, this place has the most advanced medical equipment for today’s standards, a medical repository, whether it’s Traditional Chinese Medicine or Western Medicine, you’ll find everything you need here.

Additionally, here are two hundred rare-disease patients recruited nationally and internationally, your task this round is to diagnose and treat these individuals. Accurate patient diagnosis and reasonable treatment will earn you one point per patient; failure in treatment deducts one point per patient, so you must choose carefully.

All points are included in the total, and your ranking will be arranged from now on.

Moreover, each person must make appropriate choices; inactivity is directly considered a withdrawal. This round, the nine people with the lowest points will be eliminated."

Hearing these competition rules, Tang Ming was slightly surprised, thinking how Imperial University was acclaimed nationwide, having already considered real-world treatments during selection.

"If there are no objections, you can now start treating the two hundred patients present here, the time allocated is two hours."

Huang Hexian cleared his throat, "As always, choose cautiously, or you’ll lose points."

As soon as he finished speaking, fifty people became busy, starting to look around the hall, observing the state of patients through the glass protective shields.

Over two hundred patients, all rare cases nowadays, were lying in beds connected to various high-end equipment, along with prominently displayed materials like medical examination images and data.

"Damn it, who said the medical competition favors Traditional Chinese Medicine? This is clearly advantageous to Western Medicine."

After walking for a while, Zhou Xiaoqian looked at a big man in a ward, complaining gloomily: "Medical instrument data is placed there, it’s clear at a glance for those proficient in medicine, but as Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners, we can’t diagnose without direct contact, unless we enter, otherwise, there’s no way to take a pulse."

"Xiaoqian, you should give up this round."

Tang Ming gazed at Zhou Xiaoqian with a complex expression: "Traditional Chinese Medicine emphasizes observation, smelling, asking, and feeling. Given the situation, we need to initially determine what illness the patient might have by observing reactions, then decide if we can treat it, and choose the task accordingly; it’s too challenging for your current medical skill."

"But I..."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Xiaoqian’s eyes reddened, was it all ending here?

"Making it this far has been tough, don’t push yourself further, stay put and wait for the competition to end."

Tang Ming instructed, no longer paying attention to Zhou Xiaoqian; it was beyond her capability, even helping her through wouldn’t be meaningful, instead hindering her growth.

"Alright!"

Upon hearing Tang Ming, Zhou Xiaoqian sighed helplessly.

Others were also observing, then searching for patients they could treat.

Despite the rules seeming absurd, this round was a comprehensive test of medical skill for participants, especially for Traditional Chinese Medicine. In circumstances where patient contact isn’t possible, making judgments is exceedingly challenging.

Though Western Medicine participants could analyze patient conditions through medical data, concerning these difficult cases, no one dared to choose lightly as even revealed conditions were currently very difficult to cure; seeing it doesn’t imply successful treatment.