“Wait a minute, wait a minute!”
Seeing the expressionless Xiliya aim her staff at her, Mira immediately tensed up. She had genuinely felt the killing intent radiating from Xiliya!
She had only teleported into the forest and heard some noise from this direction, so she came to investigate. She never imagined her luck would be this bad, running into this plague god!
“Y-y-you, you’re not thinking of attacking me, are you? This is the exam grounds. If you attack a fellow examinee like me, won’t that be against the rules?”
Mira shook the student terminal in her hand. “The academy monitors the exam the entire time. Don’t think your actions won’t be discovered!”
Looking at the overbearing yet naive Mira before her, Xiliya couldn’t help but laugh. “Against the rules? Why do you think attacking other examinees counts as breaking the rules? The exam guidelines don’t explicitly prohibit that sort of behavior, do they?”
“Besides, do you remember the scoring criteria in the exam rules?”
Mira froze for a moment. Before entering the exam grounds, she had carefully reviewed the rules. The scoring standard was that killing any creature in the forest granted points…
“Any creature… wait!”
Mira suddenly understood. “Any creature” naturally included other examinees, which meant the academy tacitly allowed students to attack each other?
“There’s nothing surprising about it. The academy isn’t just testing raw strength. Strategy, skill… even luck are all part of the exam.”
Xiliya’s lips curved into a smile. “Looks like your luck isn’t great.”
The staff in her hand condensed a magic beam, and she fired it mercilessly at Mira! Xiliya had no intention of going easy. Even if she went for the kill, Mira would simply be teleported out by the teleportation magic device.
“Wah! You’re serious?!”
Though Mira panicked momentarily, she quickly reacted. A magic barrier blocked Xiliya’s attack, and another small skirmish erupted in the forest.
Meanwhile, outside the Mist Forest’s barrier.
The gentle female teacher who had spoken earlier was helping pour tea for the others, but Shasta refused when it reached her.
“Forget it, I don’t need any.”
“You should rest a bit too, Shirley Teacher,” the kind-hearted principal chimed in. “Why don’t you sit down and see how this year’s freshmen perform?”
Several tables and chairs were set up outside the Mist Forest. A spherical magitool floated in midair beyond the barrier, projecting multiple screens. Each screen showed a student’s figure.
“Instructor Shasta, what do you think of this year’s freshmen?”
“I don’t know,” Shasta replied expressionlessly from under her large parasol. “I’m not here to watch these freshmen take the exam.”
In previous years, Shasta had never come to the site as a “proctor.” She had no interest in such things. Her presence this year was solely because the academy had deployed numerous magic puppets in the forest.
It was a win-win measure: it assisted the freshmen exam while allowing them to collect combat data on the puppets. In other words, Shasta had zero interest in these freshmen.
“This year’s students are working hard too.”
Shirley looked up at the screens. Quite a few students had already begun proactively hunting magic beasts in the forest for points. Of course, some who lacked confidence in their strength were searching for hiding spots to endure the three days and pass.
After all, surviving three days unscathed guaranteed at least a passing score. Getting slapped out by a magic beast meant a definite failure.
“By the way, I heard Instructor Shasta took on an assistant student from the freshmen this year?” Shirley suddenly recalled something and glanced at the sunglass-wearing Shasta. “To catch your eye, that kid must have something special, right?”
Not just the students—even the teachers had recently heard about Shasta taking an assistant student. Though they knew it stemmed from the teaching evaluation reforms, any student Shasta selected was surely no ordinary one.
Shirley suspected Shasta had snatched a top freshman ahead of time. That student was probably mowing down foes inside the barrier, racking up points like crazy.
This reminded Shirley of last year’s class division exam. Melrose, then a freshman, had amassed an unreachable score in two days. The princess then leisurely rested on the final day and still claimed first place.
“I don’t know. I picked them at random,” Shasta said flatly, seemingly indifferent to her new assistant student.
“Hahaha,” the principal laughed. “That’s what they call fate. I’m curious too—what kind of kid did Instructor Shasta pick?”
The principal waved his long staff, and the floating spherical magitool rotated, soon locking the surveillance monitor onto one person.
“There—the one I remember is… Student Ximo, right?”
The image zoomed in. As the group anticipated Ximo’s performance, they saw her in a maid outfit, sitting on a clean boulder, humming a tune, with a large pot simmering something in front of her?
In the footage, Ximo deftly drew a small knife and sliced mushrooms into bits, tossing them into the pot.
The teachers outside the screen fell silent.
Shasta’s new assistant student, right in the middle of the class division exam… was this cooking hotpot? And where the heck had she pulled such a massive pot from?!
“Weird, why do I keep getting this ominous feeling?” Ximo scratched her head. “Feels like a bunch of eyes are watching me… Whatever, time to forage more ingredients~”
The little maid stood, patted her butt, tossed a few branches under the pot, and set off to gather more food.
Ximo could only say she was lucky to have watched a few episodes of survival shows when bored!
She wouldn’t resort to eating bugs, but ingredients in the Mist Forest were easy enough to find.
In the past hour, Ximo had gathered plenty of edible wild fruits, caught two rabbits, and nabbed a few bird eggs from trees… Most of it was now boiling in the pot.
As for the big pot, System had issued it through the system as a “private business, public good” reward.
“Oh, two more mushrooms… Nah, they look poisonous?”
“Sharingan, activate!”
Ximo stared at the mushrooms, using the item-safety confirmation ability System had given her two days prior to verify they were non-toxic. Then she bounced back with her haul, humming the “mushroom-picking girl” tune all the way.
Ximo had no idea that her every move was being watched via the surveillance monitor by those esteemed teachers outside the barrier.
