Chapter 246: Soul candles.

Once the students had settled down, Professor Gibson continued. "The team exercise aimed to give the 2nd year students a go at leadership experience, and to teach the 1st years how to take order from superiors."

"I won't give a long pep talk. Let's see how you all performed." Multiple displays appeared all around the hall. The first image that appeared was that of Blake's team when they go to the ant hive.

"In this situation, Sach was well aware of his strength as well as his weaknesses. So he didn't waste time to temporarily pass team leadership to Blake who had more experience in situations like this." Professor Gibson explained as he switched to a different scene.

It was the scene of Haldor's team. It showed how their team leader, Tanvir's performance.

The team consisted of 4 commoners and not only was he treating his team like shit, but he assaulted and harshly scolded them on every mistake they made.

When it came to hunting knight rank beasts he made them left the last hit to him and ended up taking all the knight rank beast cores.

"A good leader should always keep in mind that his top priority is his followers. Tanvir's foolish and greedy decisions led to his team eliminating him in a well-deserved manner." Professor Gibson said with a smirk.

The eyes of almost the entire auditorium turned to the 2nd year section in search of the moron, but luckily his off-white-colored cast that wrapped almost his entire body made him stick out like a sore thumb.

As part of his punishments, the school didn't patch him up with light or water magic, but by the normal means meaning it would take a while till he fully recovered.

"Wow, that was one hell of a beating." Blake was finding it hard to hold back his laughter.

Many including the second years wanted to spit on him and even give him a beating of their own, but with the presence of both Professor Gibson and Instructor Zirrack who has been silent all through, no one dared.

"As you can see he is currently being punished, but that isn't all. His score in the exercise will be distributed among his team making it as good as he didn't participate in the test." On hearing this the students thought it was a well-deserved punishment.

"These 2 are just the best and worse types of leadership skills that were displayed during the test. Now, let's move to team scores." A holographic projection appeared in front of Gibson.

"This was both a survival and an objective-based test. So all those eliminated are by default below those that survived…" There were murmurs but he ignored them and continued. "Also points gained after the test was canceled don't count."

Professor Gibson went on announcing the positions of each team. Tessie's team came in 10th position, Brian in 8th position, Castiel in 3rd, Luciano in 2nd, and Blake in 1st.

As the number 1 team, Blake and his fellow teammates received 30k points and 20 knight-rank beast cores each.

"We will be moving over to the best leader of test and it has a reward of 10k points. This was quite a close call between Blake and Luciano but it goes to His Highness." After the round of applauds, Professor Gibson explained the reason why.

Apart from planning methods of hunting, most of Blake's escapades were those with Damon. On the other hand, all activities carried out by Luciano were with his team and the fact that he was leading right from the start gave him an edge over Blake.

"Finally, the MVP of the test undoubtedly goes to Blake. 10k points reward and 4 soul candles to him for his outstanding performance." Professor Gibson announced causing an uproar.

"4 entire soul candlesticks, isn't that too much?!" A first-year noble shouted.

"Isn't it suspicious that the school didn't give Luciano any other thing apart from points, but gave him something special?" 

The uproar was entirely caused by nobles from both 1st and 2nd years, the commoners were quiet because most of them had no clue of what the soul candles were, and that included Blake.

Seeing the look on Blake's face, Luciano decided to explain the reason for all the noise.

"Soul candles are dark blue candlesticks which when lit produce darkish blue flames and a sweet scent. The sweet scent of the soul candles increases the user's awareness and mana control so far you are still in the area.

Most importantly, it induces the state of mana vision to the user and lets the user experience it for a short period." Luciano explained.

"That explains a lot!" Blake was stunned by the effects. Although it may not sound like much, something that could put him in the state of mana vision for some time was magical.

(AN; Note he tapped into the system's mana vision, so he hasn't felt it.)

"How much do you think they cost?" Castiel couldn't help but ask after seeing how the nobles were reacting to the news.

"A lot. You can say it is very rare and expensive for even nobles. That is why even the top 3 families can't provide it for all their descendants in the first years only a selected few." Luciano said.

"I wonder how many things you nobles get that we commoners don't have an idea of?" Brian thought.

"They do get a lot more than you can imagine. Almost no noble family would want their descendant's rank to be below that of a commoner so they keep giving them everything they need and more." Luciano said. 

"That explains their lack of skills and morals." Castiel said in anger. It was vexing that the nobles got all they needed but still ended up being useless.

"That is exactly what the royal family is against. They believe in natural talent so as long as you are not on a certain level you don't receive anything no matter who you are." Luciano said with a hint of pride in his tone.

"Dismissed!" Professor Gibson announced before warping away with Instructor Zirrack.

"Forgot those 2 were still there." With his mind still focused on the soul candles Blake was unaware of his environment.