Fang Zheng's paper presentation was scheduled for the third session in the afternoon, so no one was particularly nervous—or rather, at least Fang Zheng wasn't.
"Kasugano-kun, aren't you nervous at all?"
Seeing Fang Zheng dozing leisurely beside her, Honoka Mitsui asked uneasily. Fang Zheng merely shrugged.
"What's there to be nervous about? You've listened all day too. From the looks of it, the standard of this year's paper competition really isn't very high. At the very least, there's nothing much worth mentioning..."
"It seems the attack really had a major impact on the other schools."
Shizuku Kitayama nodded beside them. They had also been observing the other schools' research topics and found that there was basically nothing particularly novel among them. It couldn't be helped. During the attack, the teams from all nine schools had been assaulted. The students with combat ability were one thing, but those responsible for support and technical preparations generally had little fighting power. Many schools' magic engineering students had practically been slaughtered under enemy gunfire. Under such circumstances, being able to pull themselves together and attend the paper competition was already commendable enough. Asking them to turn grief into strength and come up with innovative topics would truly be asking too much.
Originally, the most anticipated school in this paper competition had been First High, where Fang Zheng belonged. After all, he had successively produced two major papers—"Universal Flying Magic" and "Automatic Calculation Core"—making him someone capable of rivaling, and even slightly surpassing, the legendary Hill. However, after learning that his paper's topic was "The Practical Application of Flying Magic," most people paid them less attention. In their eyes, First High was obviously just trying to deal with the competition.
After all, flying boards and flying CADs already existed. In their view, Fang Zheng was