Chapter 182: Monthly Examination, Mental Tempering Stage (1)
Character Faculty.
Intermediate class.
Su Yu was late. This was the first time he had ever been late since becoming the class monitor. The monthly examination was going to be held today. He was actually going to be late on such an important day. When he arrived, everyone was stunned into silence.
"Class Monitor, what happened to you?"
Seeing Su Yu's pale face and his dim eyes, some of the students thought of something.
One of them roared, "This is Lin Yao's fault!"
"This is too much!"
"Class Monitor must have cultivated too much in order to not embarrass the intermediate class and ended up injuring his own willpower."
"Damn that Lin Yao!"
"Class Monitor, are you fine?"
One person after another walked up to Su Yu and looked at him with expressions of grief and indignance. Why must he push himself so hard?
Even Lin Yue had a sorrowful expression as she said, "Su Yu, even if you lose, it's nothing. Even without the mountainbreak bull blood essence, you still have the chance to get more in the future. Why torture yourself like this?"
"Yeah!" Liu Wu, who had a decent relationship with Su Yu, said, "Class Monitor, it's not good to push yourself like this."
Previously, Su Yu was still in a slightly dazed state due to his willpower exhaustion. By the time he had arrived at class, he had recovered slightly. When he saw the reaction of his classmates, he did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Who said that he had tortured himself because of Lin Yao? Was he dumb? In his eyes, Lin Yao was nothing. He had merely exhausted too much of his willpower trying to tame the Divine Character. The kill character was too strong.
It was much stronger than his previous characters. He had spent an entire night taming that character. If it wasn't for the high durability of his willpower, he would have run out of willpower way earlier instead of lasting until the morning.
"I'm fine..." Su Yu smiled, "I'm really fine. I exhausted a bit of my willpower, but I would recover soon. Don't worry. It has nothing to do with Lin Yao."
He increased the volume of his voice as he continued, "Everyone, stop talking about Lin Yao. After all, he's...cough, someone's student. Everyone, don't make things difficult for yourself because of me."
Realization sank in for everyone. Right, Lin Yao was Liu Hong's student! Liu Hong, the genius teaching assistant. Would they offend Liu Hong for scolding Lin Yao like this? Initially, all of them had a good impression of Liu Hong. But he was rarely around so the students had nearly forgotten about him.
Only now did they remember that Liu Hong was their head counselor.
Even so, someone still said, "So what? That fellow is the one at fault. Why do I care if I offend Liu Hong? What is there to fear?"
"That's right. Class Monitor, your teacher is a genius teaching assistant as well. Your teacher is ranked even higher than him! He's merely a bully. It's not like we don't know about this. The single character faction has been bullying the multiple character faction for many years..."
A lot of these intermediate class students were without official teachers. Thus, most of them were unaffiliated with any factions. There was no one to shape their opinions. The senior class, on the other hand, was different. Most of the students there had official teachers of different factions. Thus, the separation between factions was much clearer in that class.
The student continued cursing Lin Yao and Liu Hong. After a while, someone suddenly coughed outside the classroom. It was Wang Ming, the head instructor of the Character Faculty's intermediate class.
Standing beside Wang Ming was none other than Liu Hong. When Liu Hong's gaze landed on Su Yu, he was astonished. Even if this kid was reading the willpower text last night, he shouldn't have been in such a bad condition. Was the Mountainsea willpower text too harsh for his willpower? And this kid had been too engrossed while reading to notice the damage done to his willpower?
Just look at that exhausted appearance of this kid. If he didn't know what Su Yu had been up to, he would have wondered what night activity Su Yu had participated in to drain him that much.
The moment the two teachers arrived, the class sank into silence. Su Yu went to his seat and sat down. There were nearly 600 students in the class. Participation was mandatory for these monthly examinations.
Wang Ming walked to the front of the class and said, "The exam today will be jointly supervised by Liu Hong and I. This is the first monthly exam of the new students. I hope you can do your best in the exam.
"You are all already aware of the rules. The top 10 students will be rewarded while the last 10 students will be penalized. The exam is split into three main sections: culture, willpower, and Divine Character."
Wang Ming Looked at Liu Hong and said, "Assistant Liu, do you have anything to add?"
Liu Hong smiled and looked at the class. "Everyone, don't be nervous and perform as you normally do. The first exam won't be too hard. The top three students will be allowed to challenge the senior class students. If you win, you can enter the senior class directly even before reaching the Mental Tempering Stage. Of course, you can also choose to not challenge anyone. The last 10 students of the senior class will not be allowed to refuse any challenge. The other students have the right to refuse your challenge."
Many students looked at Su Yu.
One of them said, "So we can't challenge anyone without getting into the top 10?"
"Yes." Liu Hong smiled, "That is a measure to protect the weaker students and give them more space to grow."
Everyone looked at Su Yu again.
Someone said, "Class Monitor, you're in a bad condition today. I'm afraid you won't get into the top three. We won't be holding back either."
They could see that Su Yu's willpower had suffered some damage. Thus, they wanted to squeeze Su Yu out of the top three so that he wouldn't challenge Lin Yao in that condition.
Su Yu was feeling helpless. So were they helping him or were they standing in his way? After all, he would get 10 merit points if he could place first. Also, if he couldn't get into the top three, the promised 1,300 merit points would be gone.
Su Yu smiled and said, "Everyone, just do your best. Don't let me affect your performance. Your results will be kept in your records. I know some of you have offered to help me reach the top three without doing anything..."
Su Yu's face turned solemn, "Don't do that! Don't ruin your future because of me! Just do your best or I would feel bad staying as your fellow classmate!
"If I fail to get into the top three, that would be my own problem. If I can't get it this time, I can simply try again next month! Therefore, don't hold back. That is the same as disrespecting me. No matter what, I'm a genius as well, right? I'm the only high-high student in our class. It would be too embarrassing to have my fellow students hold back so that I can get into the top three. Guys, I still care about my reputation."
Toward the end, Su Yu adopted a joking tone. When the other students heard that, some who were planning to hold back turned solemn as well. Yes, holding back would be a form of insult against their class monitor.
Su Yu said, "Also, be sure to do well in the exam. I am the class monitor. If our class does poorly, then that would reflect on me. That would be considered a dereliction of duty on my part. I might even get my merit points deducted for that..."
Su Yu laughed and continued, "Assistant Liu is right here. If I end up having my merit points deducted, you guys would have to compensate me."
"Who would dare to say that our class monitor isn't performing his duties well?" Liu Wu roared, "Class Monitor is the first person to arrive and the last person to leave every single day. Before deducting our class monitor's merit points, they have to get through all 600 of us first!"
"That's right!"
In front of the class, Liu Hong had the same bright smile on his face, looking like he had heard nothing. Was this brat scheming against him? This scheme was not good enough against someone like him. He was completely unbothered by it.
Liu Hong waited until the students were almost done talking before interrupting them with a cough. He then smiled and said, "Since you're done talking, we should get started with the exam. The first test is the culture test. The monthly exam is mainly for the purpose of measuring your growth. Thus, the languages that you have tested for during the entrance exam won't be tested again. That would be pointless.
"Instead, your growth during the past month will be the focus here. For the culture test, you will only be tested for the language and Divine Character classes you have signed up for during the past month.
"The rules are similar to the entrance exam. Each set of questions will grant you a maximum of 10 marks. You guys will be the ones to decide how many marks you can get. The more classes you have signed up for during the past month, the higher your maximum score will be.
"This is an academy. Here, we teach according to the students' ability. Your ability will decide your score. Nobody will stop you if you only sign up for one language class. But in that case, you won't be able to get more than 10 marks during the test. Therefore, you will have nobody to blame but yourself for your bad result."
He looked at Su Yu and continued, "Student Su Yu, you have signed up for 15 classes during the past month. Manage your time properly during the test. You don't want to end up getting only 20 or 30 marks out of 150 marks. That would be embarrassing. I can see that you're in a bad condition today. You can also give up on the exam."
Su Yu looked up at Liu Hong. A smile formed on his pale face as he said, "Teacher, I'll do my best."
When Liu Hong saw the smile on Su Yu's face, he was slightly stunned. Why was that little bastard learning from him? He felt uncomfortable seeing his trademark smile on Su Yu's face.
"That's good to hear. Do well and don't try to cheat. If anyone thinks that you'll be able to cheat in front of me...you’re welcomed to try."
...
The test papers were soon distributed to the students. Each student was given a different set of questions in accordance to the classes they had signed up for. Standardized examination questions did not exist in the cultural research academy. The students were the ones determining the maximum score they could get.
And there was no limit to the maximum score one could get. Why? Because this was an unfair era. This was an era where the gap between the talented and the untalented was massive.
Some of the students had only signed up for two or three classes. Some had signed up for a lot of classes, like Su Yu. In truth, he had not voluntarily signed up for all the classes. He simply had no choice since he was the class monitor. He had to be present for all classes.
Looking at his examination papers, a dizzy spell assaulted him. His willpower was still damaged. And since he didn't have the chance to recover, his head was hurting badly.
Fortunately, he was already used to such pain. Back when he first started having his nightmares, he would suffer from similar headaches in the mornings as well. He had been able to continue going to school despite that by slowly getting used to the pain.
He was only looking so bad right now because it had been a while since he last suffered from a nightmare.
He had received 15 sets of questions. 12 of them were related to different languages while 3 of them were related to Divine Characters. He rubbed his temple and started answering the questions.