Chapter 56: Mana Sensitivity Test [4]

"What, what, what?!"

"Perfect score? Did she just say perfect score?"

"My ears... my ears... I think there's something wrong with my ears..."

"This isn't right...! It can't be!"

"Did we all just have a collective hallucination?"

The second-year students were engulfed in astonishment. To them, today's event was probably more shocking than if the sun were to rise from the west tomorrow.

The fact that a common class troublemaker perfectly solved a problem that even the royal class couldn't properly solve must have felt like an absolute impossibility to them.

"Pepepepepe...?"

On the other hand, there was someone who regained his senses due to the shock.

Sunny, who seemed to have reached enlightenment the moment he set the fire and was laughing blankly, suddenly came to his senses as soon as he heard the perfect score, only to mutter "pepepe."

...I'll correct that.

He still hasn't come to his senses. Ignoring him, Max spoke to Professor Karen.

"It's the expected result."

Even he found it an annoying thing to say.

But what could he do? To make sure everyone remembered his existence, he needed this level of character, didn't he? It's an eternal truth that boring people are unpopular.

...Of course, Max might have overdone it a bit because he was uplifted by people's astonished faces.

"Then, that's it."

Max forcibly dragged the mumbling Sunny to one side to rest. At that moment, Professor Karen's voice stopped him.

"Where did you learn that method?"

"It's not something I learned."

'Sorry, cheat sheet writer. This method is now my original now.'

"I just utilized the experience I had when I set fire to the fields before."

"I see. Experience is a good source of knowledge."

Professor Karen nodded with a smile, seemingly convinced. Getting a good impression from the professor must be what they meant by this.

"Good. I look forward to the next test."

Sunny still couldn't believe what was happening was real. When he pinched his thigh hard enough to hurt, the usual pain came through.

It hurts.

...This is reality.

***

"14 minutes have passed."

The teaching assistant's voice.

Only 6 minutes left. Students were still struggling to find the answer. Surprisingly, this included many from the noble class.

Talented individuals who had been in the same class as Sunny for a long time. Those talents were just pacing around, unable to find the answer.

On the other hand, what about Sunny, who had been with the two useless humans of the common class?

He had received a perfect score early in the evening and was leisurely sitting back, enjoying the view of the fire across the river.

"Now that you mention it... it seems to be subtly lighter and darker."

The students, who had set fire but didn't know what was different, were uncertain.

But even so, most of them focused on sight. It was a trap set by Max.

They had fallen for it because Max had made it look that way with the smoke. And once people believe something, they tend to convince themselves it's true.

"Is, is this...? It, it must be! This is it!"

"Ha... Hahaha, this was it! This was it!"

"I'm sure, I'm sure of it! Let's go now!"

Teams shouted as if they had made the discovery of the century.

They picked up the stones and ran energetically to the professor before it was too late. By their momentum, they all seemed to have already scored perfectly.

"Here it is!"

"Wait, wait a minute. Our team was first..."

"Don't we all have to arrive to be recognized?"

In front of the professor were noisy students. Professor Karen clicked her tongue.

"Everyone, calm down. I'm not the kind of professor who deducts points for being a little late."

The teams from the rush finally calmed down.

But.

"Then I'll start evaluating quickly."

As soon as the professor received the stones, she tossed them to the ground as if throwing away trash.

"0 points, strive harder."

Thud.

"0 points, strive harder."

Thud.

"0 points, strive harder."

Thud.

"1 point, well chosen."

Thump.

"0 points, strive harder."

Thud.

What is this?

An endless parade of zero points. The one point must have been lucky to have a correct stone mixed in.

One thing was certain. None of the second-year students... no, no student at the academy had ever seen such a rampant scoring of zero points. It was an evaluation that would go down in the academy's history.

In a bad way.

And one more thing.

Max's words were right.

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