Chapter 495 Meeting The Hero

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"These are the simplest questions I've seen so far; did you expect me to have some sort of difficulty with them, lady Evelyn?" I sighed.

"N-No, that's not it but..." Evelyn muttered. "All the answers are correct! Amazing!"

"Simple questions? I am struggling here!" Chris said.

"Ah, even for me some of these magic theory questions are hard..." Eric sighed.

"(Pshh, Blake... Can you tell me some? Any? Pretty please?)" Erika used her newly acquired Telepathy Spell trying to sneak some questions out of me.

"Young girl! Don't think that I cannot detect magic waves generated through telepathy! I am well aware illusion magic users can use that trick, so if I see you sneaking on it again I will give you the lowest score in the exam!" Evelyn reprimanded Erika before I could give her any answers.

"E-Eh?!" Erika felt shocked, as she lowered her head. "Guhh..."

"Now, now, finish your exams quickly, we are only halfway through this." Evelyn hurried everyone else.

It seems the exam was actually rather hard for everyone else except me, I couldn't find it hard at all to be honest. But perhaps they have not studied as much as I told them to study, or their memory wasn't as good.

I sat down and waited for them to finish off, the entire party had to finish the exams to go into the fighting exam. After forty minutes, the last one, Erika, gave up and ended giving her exam to Evelyn.

"Alright, let's see..."

Evelyn only took five minutes to give us all our scores.

"Blake, Perfect 100 Points. Eric, Very good 94 Points. Elizabeth, Very Good 89 Points. Erdrich, Good 78 Points. Chris, Okay 66 Points. And lastly, Erika, Barely Passable 52 Points."

"Ooh nice! I got almost perfect!" Said Eric happily.

"Eric you won over me?!" Elizabeth was surprised she was surpassed.

"I am okay I guess..." Sighed Erdrich.

"Nice! 66 Points is more than half of a hundred!" Chris was happy.

"Geh..." Erika muttered in disappointment. "I did my best and I still got only 52?!"

"Well you've always been slacking on your studies Erika." I said to her, crossing my arms.

"Ugh..." Erika sighed.

"Erika, if you don't study more you're only going to get worse. Exams are even harder when you enter the academy. Written exams take half of all the scores you get. If you don't reach a certain number once the year ends you won't be able to pass to the next year." Said Evelyn while crossing her arms.

"What?!" Erika was slowly falling into despair.

Erika looked back at me with puppy eyes.

"...Fine, we can study together." I sighed.

"I knew I could count on you!" She said happily, hugging me and giving me a kiss in my cheek.

"...I'll make sure to ingrain every single thing inside your head." I said with a smile. "You better prepare yourself, I am not going to let you score lower than that ever again."

Erika's face quickly changed as she felt slightly intimidated by my resolve.

"A-Ah... D-Don't look at me with those eyes..."

"Hey, I also need help for studying..." Chris sighed.

"I guess I could help you out too." Said Eric to Chris.

"Really? Thanks friend!" Chris felt relieved.

"Me too, don't forget about me." Erdrich said.

"Erika that's unfair! Don't get all of Blake for yourself..." Elizabeth complained. She quickly began pulling my arm as well. "I also need to study! I only scored third place after all!"

"I think you scored pretty well already..." Erika said while narrowing her eyes.

"I can always score better, no?" Elizabeth giggled teasingly.

"Hm, I'll see about that later. For now, we should stop getting into Evelyn's nerves." I said, pointing as Evelyn was growing more and more angered.

"I told you to not go showing off that kind of affection in public!" She reprimanded us, quickly forcing us to separate.

"Sheesh, I don't know what's so wrong about it..." Erika complained.

"Evelyn's Party! Come down!"

Suddenly, we were called by the instructors inside the arena. Evelyn hurriedly guided us there and then we were greeted by everyone there. Several students were being healed from the bruises and minor wounds they got from these fights. I guess the instructors were not messing around with this.

"We are here sir..." Evelyn said while gasping for air. "Hahh..."

"Huh, you're the lass with the party of talented ones, huh?" The instructor said, a bald man wearing leather armor. He took a quick glance at all of us before he called out someone.

"Hey, Dylan, you're up."

"Yes sir."

Someone walked from the seats, having long green hair and sharp golden eyes. I thought he was an elf due to his unusual hair and eye color, but he was a human, overflowing with an overwhelming amount of Mana and Spiritual Essence.

"Hello kids, I was told that I should be your opponent today. Usually I am called Hero, but just call me Dylan." He said relaxedly.

"H-Hero?" Asked Chris.

"Wait, you are...?" Asked Eric.

"Indeed." Evelyn said. "This man right here is Hero Dylan, the man born with the 5 Star Hero Talent. He's part of the Academy's former students."

"H-Hero Dylan?! Wait, I know about him..." Erdrich said. "He's always the talk around town, specially when there are news about the demon battle in the Northern Demon Continent..."

"He's... the Hero chosen by the twelve Holy Spirits?" Eric wondered.

"I think so..." Chris muttered.

"Huh? He doesn't look all that great..." Erika said while raising an eyebrow.

"You seriously lack insight Erika..." Elizabeth sighed.

"I was called here because of you guys in specific." Dylan said with a relaxed smile. "It is nice to see some talented and promising ones. All of you are brimming with potential. So? Who's first? Don't worry, I'll hold back."

The Hero...

In this world where people is born with Talents, sometimes, every hundreds of years, people with 5 Star talents are born from the start.

These prodigies are regarded as Heroes. Sometimes they have Talents as simple as "Hero" and other times they possess other Talents such as "Sage" or "Saint".

These are the strongest Talents out there, apparently. Each of them became famous not only due to the quantity of Stars, but because people with these Talents belonged to the original Party of Heroes that Sealed the Demon Towers in the long past...

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