Theron had used this week to get used to his new cultivation. He had leapt up two tiers, including crossing a major divide, in quick succession. Compared to others, he was still well in control of his Mana. But it wasn’t to the point that he was satisfied with it.
Until now.
His eyes opened, a sharpness radiating from them that quickly dulled away.
“I’m ready,” he said lightly.
The formation activators were already ready, getting quite impatient. There was nothing wrong with what Theron had done, and it was to be expected given he was challenging several Exams on the same day.
But Theron was a nobody in most of their eyes. If his last name was Thistle or Vermouth, maybe they wouldn’t second guess any one of his actions.
But it wasn’t.
That much was fine to Theron. He had no aspirations to make his name known. The only reason he had ever wanted to become an Imperial Scholar was because he loved to read and learn. It was the cruelty of the cultivation world that thrust him into this situation.
In that case… they would have to learn his name, whether they wanted to or not.
Unfortunately, in this situation, it was quite deadly.
Or it should have been.
The goal of the Exam was simple. Neutral Mana Bullets would form in the distance from formation rings. While limited to a small sphere of movement, the task was to take them down from a distance while avoiding injury.
S-grade for this Class was time and performance based. Not only did you need to clear all 99 formations within 10 minutes, you also had to not get hit a single time by the incoming Mana Bullets.
A-grade required the same, but getting hit was fine.
A PASS just meant clearing all 99 formations.
The real trouble with this Exam was how the difficulty scaled.
The formations wouldn’t appear one at a time. If you took too long to clear one, a second would appear. Not only would this next formation be further away, it would also move a tick faster.
By the time you got to the last of the formations, they would be moving in fast blurs, and yet the Neutral Mana Bullets they produced would be no less accurate. Not only more accurate, but also more lethal.
Much like the other Exams, death was a remote possibility, but it was surely a possibility.
Balancing moving, controlling your Mana, and targeting things from a distance. That was the crux of this Exam.
That was why it was so odd when Theron didn’t move. In an instant, the Neutral Mana Bullet was upon him.
The smile on Teacher Burne’s face froze. He sensed it before anyone else.
While Sadie and the other students had their eyes widening in shock, wondering what the hell Theron was doing, the Neutral Mana Bullet curled out of its direct path to him, as though it had missed.
BANG!
It shot out from behind Theron’s head, slamming into the formation it came from at breakneck speeds.
Theron stood there, not having taken a step.
An odd occurrence was taking place as a silence fell. Was there… ever an instant of someone standing around for so long, waiting for the next formation to appear?
Yes… yes there had been… just weeks ago now, right?
Were they truly going to witness something like this again?
The seconds seemed to tick by so slowly, an agonizing wait taking place as though they were all sitting on the edge of their seats, waiting for the next formation to appear so they could make sure they hadn’t just made up what they saw.
And then it did.
A Neutral Mana Bullet whistled through the air, and once again, Theron didn’t move.
It curled away from him, zipping back as fast as it came, crashing into the formation that formed it.
The third formation.
The fourth.
The fifth.
The same play repeated itself with sharp efficiency.
Theron never moved an inch, never side-stepped, never flinched. Even as the bullets became so fast that they began to rotate to slice through the air with more speed, he never even reacted.
It was a complete and utter domination. If one didn’t know Theron’s Mancy Path before, they wouldn’t know it after watching this Exam at all.
Never did they think that this Exam had such an exploitable fault. No, worse than that… even if this fault was exposed, was there anyone else, even amongst the Fourth and Fifth Years, that could take the First Year version of this Exam and succeed in this way?
The contents of all Exams were the same regardless of year, but the difficulty was increased depending on what year you were taking it in.
But right now, they were doubting if any child could do what Theron was doing.
Taking control of such fast Mana, even if you had a strong affinity for it, was nigh impossible. Taking control of such fast moving Mana when it was a Mana you didn’t have much affinity with at all…
That was a different sort of monster entirely.
The distance, the speed, the erratic movement, none of it fazed Theron at all.
This fault of the Exam… even though they were thinking of it as one, was it really?
BANG!
The 99th formation shattered to pieces in a rain of Mana. In the end, the Neutral Mana Bullet curled so far that it looked like Theron would finally miss, only for the formation to zip right into its path.
If they didn’t know better, they would have thought that the formations had been tweaked to allow Theron to win.
And “win” he had. There was no doubting it.
His performance was even better than the last time they had seen such a thing.
—
[Class One Ranged Assault Exam]
[Test Taker: Theron Galethunder]
[Result: 00:00:05:23]
[Grade: S]