Ch.142142 – Lower Class Mana Verification Exam

<142 – Lower Class Mana Verification Exam>

The Mana Verification Exam is divided into five categories.

Knight Department – Crossing the Bridge.

Magic Department – Destroying the Scarecrow.

Administration Department – Resolving Petitions.

Production Department – Object Structure Analysis.

Adventure Department – Finding the Certificate of Acceptance.

Lower class students can challenge two of these categories, and passing even one is enough to pass the Mana Verification Exam.

Of course, Professor Van Snake, who believes that failing as many first-year students as possible is actually doing them a favor, made sure that not a single test would be easy to pass.

“Knight Department applicants, come this way.”

The teaching assistants divided the applicants by department and led them to individual testing sites.

The test site Morb had chosen was the Knight Department’s.

“Wow… it’s huge.”

“We have to cross a bridge blocked by that boulder?”

“Can’t we just swim across?”

The lower class students tried to think of shortcuts.

A bridge blocked by a boulder larger than a house.

It wasn’t the kind of boulder that could be rolled away by force or destroyed with weapons to cross.

It was so tall that if you tried to climb it and failed to land properly, you’d break your limbs or hit your head on the ground—perfect for instant death.

Unless you could demonstrate superhuman combat power using mana, it was a test that would be difficult to pass without an extremely well-trained body.

“Go Morb~!”

“Is that him? The lower class student Oknodie has been looking after.”

“I looked into him separately, and he’s quite a diligent student.”

“Hmm? He looks as frail as a mouse. The boy’s too thin.”

“Maybe it’s because he’s learned a mana cultivation method?”

“He doesn’t have the background to learn professional cultivation methods. He must have instinctively grasped mana breathing and independently practiced muscle compression.”

On the viewing platform across the bridge.

In one section were Oknodie, who had come to cheer for Morb, and colleagues who had followed her.

“What’s this? Morb’s girlfriend?”

“That’s the top student of the year.”

“She’s cute. I heard rumors she was like a devil incarnate, but were they false?”

As his classmates teased him, poking him in the ribs, Morb’s face turned red.

“Don’t say that. There’s nothing between Oknodie and me. I’m just someone who’s received her kindness one-sidedly.”

Even the students who were forcibly teasing Morb to relieve tension fell silent when the first challenger stood before the bridge.

“Hiyaaaah!”

With a loud battle cry, the challenger swung a large hammer.

With a clang, the hammer bounced back.

“Ouch. That must hurt.”

When striking a light object with a weapon, the impact is fully transferred to the object, so there’s no recoil.

In contrast, when hitting an immovable hard object like a wall or the ground, all the impact returns to the attacker, making fingertips tingle and weapons vibrate.

The student who struck the massive boulder was experiencing exactly this kind of shock.

“Hiyaaaaaaah!!”

Clang! Clang!

With repeated recoils, blood formed on his hands, and his face contorted in pain.

A challenge as reckless as Don Quixote charging at windmills!

“What a shame.”

With Oknodie’s single comment, the boulder shuddered slightly.

A slight movement.

All the spectators and waiting examinees clenched their fists in support.

“Just a little more!”

“You can do it!”

“You’re almost there! Don’t give up!”

Despite the desperate cheers, the student with the hammer had used up all his strength in his previous strike.

The challenger, who had excessively strained the muscles in both arms—from the forearms to the biceps and triceps, to the deltoids in the shoulders—was completely drained and finally gave up.

“Next!”

The instructor in charge of scoring mercilessly finished the evaluation and called the next student.

This challenger, having learned from the previous failure, took off his top, apparently planning to cross through the riverbank below the bridge rather than over it.

“Ah, poor guy.”

“Isn’t this that river? The one Professor Platton used to visit.”

“That’s right. Look, there’s even a changing room.”

The senior class students expressed their condolences in advance.

They had been slow to notice that a bridge they hadn’t seen before had been built in just a few days with a huge boulder on it, but this was the river where the water current twisted unpredictably.

Sure enough, one of the teaching assistants was holding the “Magic Washbasin” that Professor Platton used to handle.

What made the impending disaster even more terrible was the kitchen whisk in the assistant’s other hand, apparently to make it easier to stir the water vigorously without getting tired.

“They’re determined to cook these poor kids.”

The subsequent tests unfolded exactly as Isabelle had commented.

An ambitious student jumped into the river, the assistant diligently stirred the washbasin with the whisk, a whirlpool suddenly formed and engulfed the student who swallowed a lot of water and cried for help.

A waiting assistant pulled the examinee out in a large water bubble.

Cough cough. Blech blech.

As the student coughed up water each time his stomach was poked, he looked like a fish out of water, which made Oknodie lick her lips.

Isabelle thought to herself:

If others saw this, wouldn’t they misunderstand and think she was looking at people as food?

She slightly lifted her cloak to hide Oknodie, but it might have been too late, as several examinees who made eye contact from a distance pretended not to look and averted their gaze.

Though they tried to appear natural with expressionless faces, they couldn’t stop their hands and feet from trembling, either grabbing their forearms with their other hands or pressing their legs together in a straight line to stop the shaking—all of which Isabelle clearly noticed.

“Looks like more people will fail than pass. Wouldn’t it be normal if Morb failed too?”

“Indeed. The weight of the boulder seems much heavier than usual!”

“…”

Honestly, Oknodie thought people’s fear was self-inflicted.

The casual phrase “than usual.”

How did she alone know information that no one else did?

When she glanced at Giselle with a questioning look, Giselle shook her head slightly with a bitter smile.

Oknodie’s foundation, which uncovered information unknown even to active black market merchants, now inspired fear rather than resentment.

“Ah, finally it’s Morb’s turn!”

As many challengers failed one after another and postponed their turns, Morb, whose turn had come, stepped forward without hesitation.

“You can do it, Morb!”

“Oknodie. Thanks for the support, but please don’t shout… it’s embarrassing…”

“I’m embarrassing?!”

Oknodie was shocked by Morb’s rejection.

Isabelle stroked the back of Oknodie’s hand to comfort her.

“Teenage boys are all like that. When they’re around girls, they get shy and embarrassed, so they act cold.”

“I, I know that!”

“I wish she didn’t know that…”

Morb’s weapon was a weighted spear.

It was a long spear specially prepared for this test.

“Haah!”

Morb thrust the spear with a battle cry.

An unusual roar struck both the boulder and the fatigue of people tired from the unsuccessful tests.

The spectators blinked their eyes and focused.

They felt it too.

This kid was different.

* *

Morb had naturally adapted to the power of his high stats through days of weight training.

Even someone with a stat of 20 doesn’t always exert 100% of their strength 20.

In everyday life, 10% of strength is enough, and in training, people use an average of 30% of their power.

In actual combat, they squeeze out 50% of their strength and can consciously exert up to 70% when needed.

However, drawing out 100% of one’s power is difficult unless one’s life is in imminent danger.

‘Hehe. It was worth it.’

He had worried that they might remove the weights and relax when sleeping or going about daily life, when he wasn’t watching, but it was a needless concern.

Morb’s strike was clearly close to 90%, if not 100% of his maximum.

As his body became accustomed to exerting strong force and withstanding the weight, power came naturally.

“Huah!”

The subsequent series of strikes continued to produce loud noises as the spear collided with the boulder.

He was drawing out exactly the necessary force at the necessary timing, and enduring the recoil with his increased health from the status window.

“Yah!”

The concentrated strikes that didn’t miss made the boulder shudder.

The momentum that wasn’t fully dissipated by a single shudder made the boulder tilt more and more with each successive impact.

As the boulder teetered on the edge of rolling, Morb realized this was his chance.

“Release the weights on my arms!”

Morb immediately removed the weights from his elbows, shoulders, and wrists.

In that brief moment, the boulder’s movement decreased significantly, but Morb’s right arm became much lighter than before.

“Tahaaah!”

With a powerful battle cry, the thrust of his spear finally lifted the house-sized boulder, raising its flat bottom surface until it rolled over the bridge with a thud.

[A lower class student who received guidance has passed a test they would have otherwise failed.]

[Education Experience +10]

[Good Child Experience +2]

He did it.

[You have completed the <Charity Work> linked event.]

[Morb’s affection has increased.]

[You acquire 10000 points as a bonus for excellent performance.]

[Your reputation among lower class students has increased.]

[Students fear you less.]

The thrill of changing the fate of a powerless person with his own hands hit him strongly.

[Arcadia is convinced that you can still remain a good child.]

[Hero Ishtar reconsiders her judgment that your corruption level is lower than expected.]

Just as he was jumping with joy, feeling an even greater sense of achievement than when he was accepted into the academy:

[Professors of the Imperial faction look upon you unfavorably.]

[Professor Van Snake is extremely angry.]

Unlike the instructors and assistants who were pleased with Morb’s amazing growth, hostility could be felt through a crystal orb floating in the middle of the outdoor testing site.

The watching eyes that many professors had set up to gauge the abilities of the lower class students.

Emotions leaked from these proxies that they had remotely synchronized with their senses.

‘The newbie rescue event has the drawback of fluctuating Imperial faction favorability!’

A side effect he hadn’t known about since this was his first time with this event.

If playing for the Imperial faction, I should skip this event.

He felt embarrassed at the thought that emerged as if he would play this game again.

Even though the game had become reality, he was thinking about the next time.

Could this also be called an occupational hazard?

It didn’t take long to realize that such concerns were premature.

“You really passed.”

“It’s thanks to having a good mentor.”

The student who stepped up after Morb.

He stared down at Morb’s weights that had fallen to the ground.

The dust that rose with a thud.

The weights so heavy that the lower class students standing behind felt their indirect weight with astonishment.

Morb who had worn several of these on his body and still completed the test easily, the weights that had made him stronger, me who had contributed to his growth.

The curly-haired male student who made direct eye contact with me in the audience seats had cold anger in his eyes.

[Zaku’s affection has plummeted.]

[Zaku’s affection has entered negative territory.]

[Zaku has become a hostile NPC.]

Notifications poured in one after another, warning that something ominous would happen from this student.

The veteran’s intuition was saying even more.

The incident of week 4.

The tragedy of the lower class.

This student might be the starting point.