Lanchi's Social Skills

Lanchi stood in the Sage Institute waiting area in the courtyard, his mind still lingering on the Holy Kingdom-style desserts.

"It's said that the food you can taste in the Shadow World is as real as in the real world, but in the artificial Shadow World, it's just an illusion. The dessert I baked for half an hour just now had no taste..."

While lost in thought, he also unintentionally overheard many other candidates discussing their respective completion times.

It turned out that most qualified candidates needed forty to fifty minutes to barely meet the passing requirements.

It seems everyone's legal awareness is still not strong enough.

Just as Lanchi's thoughts drifted into space for a moment.

"How much time did you take?"

A light voice sounded not far from Lanchi.

Lanchi turned his head and saw a tall woman of similar age looking at him.

Her eyes were amber, cold and proud, as if she could overlook the entire world with a single glance.

Judging from her obviously expensive attire and jewelry, she was likely a noble from a prominent family in this kingdom.

She seemed to have noticed another particularly relaxed and at ease candidate nearby.

Someone who didn't seem to care about their exam results at all was rare in the entire examination hall.

"..."

Lanchi remained silent, roughly estimating in his mind.

In fact, the entire process only took him about ten minutes.

"Less than fifty minutes."

Lanchi replied kindly.

He felt that this young lady, who looked very impressive at first glance, was probably a troublesome person with a proud spirit.

So if his completion speed was really faster than hers, saying it in front of her would definitely make her unhappy.

Therefore, being conservative and answering less than fifty minutes would be best.

This was called understanding social dynamics.

"I see."

Immediately, the young lady nodded expressionlessly, then no longer focused her attention on Lanchi.

So he's just someone who doesn't care about good or bad grades.

Hughberlian thought to herself.

She had been misled by his overly calm demeanor earlier.

Then he shouldn't become her teammate for the third round of assessment.

As the daughter of the Duke of Aransal, Hughberlian had long known about the examination mechanism for the third round of the Sage Institute this year—

Students of different functions would be teamed up to fight against teachers.

Generally, under this type of exam question,

a team would be assigned a support mage or a healing mage.

Sometimes, depending on the ratio of candidates, it might even be all output mages.

A good healer support can lower the difficulty of the third round of assessment for the entire team, while a slacker will greatly increase the pressure on the other team members.

According to what's been heard, the grouping rules this year will be based on the ranking from the second round of assessment.

This means that candidates from the Sage Institute who ranked higher are likely to become teammates and then face stronger teachers.

Hughberlian, who is bound to be among the top in the second round, as an output mage, naturally doesn't want to be assigned a clumsy healer support when facing the high-difficulty challenge of the third round.

What's more, there are people in the kingdom who don't want her to successfully enroll.

Being with her, the difficulty of the practical assessment will undoubtedly become exaggerated.

Only by getting a good support can there be a slight increase in the possibility of passing.

Of course.

Those powerful figures who don't want her to enroll will also try their best to manipulate their lackeys within the academy to arrange the worst, or even actors, among the selectable teammates within the rules.

Just thinking about this, an uncontrollable killing intent, spreading like ripples, surged in Hughberlian's heart.

"Give me a few more years... I will settle accounts with all of you... slowly and painfully..."

She thought viciously in her heart.

Her expression, however, remained as calm as ever.

During the waiting time, as the examination hall gradually became a bit more noisy,

at the edge of the courtyard, a cool young man with gray-white messy hair leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. At this moment, he had put on a pair of small round sunglasses, looking lazy and somewhat arrogant.

He could clearly hear the conversations of the other candidates.

Most of them were discussing the details of passing the second round of assessment and the time it took.

Finally.

He closed his eyes with considerable disdain and contempt.

He didn't understand.

Why did the passing time of these people...

have to be calculated in "minutes"?

Frei frowned slightly, pondering this question.

Clearly, this exam was testing the candidates' loan thinking.

Pawning the clothes on their bodies for money would solve it directly, so why would it take so long?

The chief examiner for this round of exams, Loren, the Dean of the Sage Institute, was waiting for the terminal to calculate the final scores for the second round of assessment.

Hearing the students' discussions, he knew that some candidates who were still smug about their completion speed of over thirty minutes would soon doubt their lives.

Originally.

Such a result could be considered very good.

As someone who had been observing the candidates' exam status on the screen in the examination hall, Loren had a rough idea of the completion speed that would be determined for each student.

Among all the candidates from the Knight Institute and the Sage Institute, except for two individuals, the fastest of the others still took 25 minutes and 3 seconds.

Lanchi, on the other hand, completed the task requirements at the 9 minute and 53 second mark.

While normal candidates were still in the process of investigating, he had already arrested the entire target family.

Frei took 7 seconds.

He solved all the problems at the very beginning.

In this type of Shadow World with a not-so-complex mechanism, completion speed was the most heavily weighted scoring item.

Frei definitely received an extremely outrageous base score for speed.

However, because he didn't have any decryption process in this type of puzzle-solving Shadow World, he would receive almost no other scoring bonuses.

As for Lanchi's score, even Loren didn't know how the terminal would calculate it.

If they could successfully pass the second and third rounds of assessment, their scores in these two rounds would be weighted separately and counted towards the total score.

The ranking of the total entrance exam score would affect subsequent class assignments in the corresponding institutes, the priority for formal registration and recommendation for challenger exemption from exams, the representative seats for first-year students in institute exchange activities, and so on.

The artificial Shadow World activation terminal was about to operate as usual, about to calculate the candidates' scores.

Just as the calculation reached a certain node.

Arcing electricity suddenly flashed on the mithril and magic crystals of the artificial Shadow World activation terminal, followed by continuous bursts of electrical cocoons around it!

As the screen connected to the terminal suddenly froze, all images and indicators stopped moving.

In the next instant, continuously appearing chaotic pixels made the screen repetitive and blurry.

This anomaly clearly attracted the attention of all candidates, and a wave of panicked noise erupted in the seventh-floor examination hall.

Loren frowned tightly, without much hesitation, and with a solemn expression, he forcibly shut down the terminal.

Although doing so might damage the valuable magical equipment, he had to prioritize the safety of all students and staff present.

At the same time, the chaotic electrical flashes on the terminal also dissipated.

This made many candidates breathe a sigh of relief, feeling lingering fear.

However.

When Loren tried to restart the terminal using the key.

He found that the terminal remained motionless.

It seemed that the previous incident had damaged it.

"...No."

Loren shook his head in pain, then pinched the bridge of his nose.

He only felt extremely tired today because of this exam, and even less wanted to go to the Magic Engineering Institute to be scolded by Professor Bora Ao.

Even without calling Professor Bora Ao, the expert from the Magic Engineering Institute, for repairs, Loren already had a rough idea of what the problem was.

No matter what, the artificial Shadow World was not a divine creation like the real Shadow World.

The evaluation of the replicated artificial Shadow World could only be done using pre-set and pre-input algorithmic models.

Frei's method of clearing the level, although unconventional, was simple and crude.

Even if a few parameters were missing, a score could still be calculated.

However, the replicators had never considered a method of clearing the level that completely overturned the algorithmic model, like Lanchi's.

This guy, on the contrary, had input a bunch of abnormal parameters!

Therefore, the terminal had malfunctioned and frozen.

In terms of clearing speed, Frei from the Knight Institute should have been first in this round of assessment, with Lanchi from the Sage Institute second.

But due to Lanchi's overly bizarre actions, the specific scores of all candidates could not be determined in the end!

Loren felt a headache just thinking about having to explain the urgent follow-up repair matters to the Magic Engineering Institute later.

Finally.

Loren let out a long sigh, as if ignoring Lanchi, he looked at the many candidates and said:

"We will manually evaluate the second round of scores based on the exam records, and the third round of practical assessment will be held the day after tomorrow. All candidates will receive notification of the specific exam arrangements before the end of today."

Out of sight, out of mind.

Everything was a test given to him by the Goddess, and as a priest, he must never easily get angry...

After announcing the important matters.

Dean Loren saw off all the candidates in the courtyard as if sending off guests.