Aravel

Chapter 10

The day of the individual examination soon arrived.

After a few days of written papers and practical tests, the students had 3 days of rest and preparation for one of the harder parts of the exam overall.

While the individual examination was made to sound like a scavenger hunt of sort, the school was not so dumb as to give students free points. One thing most students, especially the second year onwards who have experienced the examination before, were excited about was what comes after the examination. In order to understand this, first we need to look at the individual examination itself.

While it was true that the maximum points that one was allowed to gather for the maximum score possible was 500, that didn't mean students were unable to gather beyond that. What that was not directly explained to the students, but allowed for themselves to figure out in the middle of the examination, was what happens after the 500 point mark.

In Tristania, there existed an invisible ranking system other than being the best academically. Since the culture of sword fighting and magic was engrained deep within the system of the school, it was natural to assume that the culture played a big role in establishing the city itself, which would go on to improve the nation in the long run. Students with certain prowess in their fighting abilities were able to compete with each other and gain points, which in turn allowed them to exchange it for certain benefits as well as rise through the ranks of the student body. One way of attaining the said ranks other than through formal events like 1 vs 1 during physical education, was through the individual examination.

Once a student had gathered over 500 points using their bracelet, the extra points would be accumulated and tallied towards the invisible ranking system. At the end of the exam, the rankings of the top 50 students would be made public, based on the student year and the overall students in the school. As such, it was possible for a student in the first year to be ranked higher than students in the second year but that rarely happened due to students in second year onwards having accumulated points since their first year. As such, students would usually compare with people in the same year as they were but also looked up to the top 10 overall strongest students in the school.

Certainly, if one were allowed to gain points through the individual examination, then it wouldn't be surprising for one to abuse the system by focusing on just collecting the jewels to get as high points as possible so they could rise through the ranks. Unfortunately, this method had already been predicted as well as it was not possible to attain anymore jewels once the points have reached 400. This forced students to complete challenges or hunt monsters in order to further propel themselves past the point limit, which meant it was smarter to focus on jewel collection right from the start to not waste much effort. This was also the reason why students were not allowed to form groups, because there wouldn't be any merit to it. Once the points have been collected, it would be recorded individually.

On the day of the individual examination, all students were already gathered at the starting point of the event early on for their briefing. Naturally, Kaze made his way there along with the rest of the students as neither of them knew what to expect as first year students. This was also the first time he was able to see what the students were capable of, from outfits to weapons.

Since this event would involve fighting, students were allowed to bring their original weapons and wear armour for protection. Unsurprisingly, students of higher household ranking and nobles showed up with expensive equipment and vitality potions that would aid them during the examination. Everyone had to have their weapons and items brought processed right before the entered the event gathering site, due to needing to ensure no one cheated or modified their weapons beyond what the school allowed. This included, but were not limited to: harmful potions, wide range attack weapons, ability-sealing scrolls, lethal traps and such.