Classroom of the Elite: I Can Gain Points Without Limit

[This activity was organized into three grade levels, with the final scores determining a winning group (first place), a middle group (second place), and a losing group (worst performance).]

[After the event, the winning team will receive up to 500 Class Evaluation Points from the middle team and 1000 Class Evaluation Points from the losing team.]

[At the same time, rankings need to be determined within each of the three grades. The top four students within each grade will have their Class Evaluation Points that either "plundered" or "was plundered" based on a 4:3:2:1 ratio.]

These three short rules seem simple, but on the surface, they involve a frighteningly large number of Class Evaluation Points.

People like Shibata Sou had already started to gasp in surprise.

"The winning team can plunder 500 points from the middle team and 1000 points from the losing team, which adds up to 1500 points—that's terrifying!"

"It's not actually that outrageous," said Kanzaki Ryuji, who was in charge of the class finances and was quite perceptive about such figures. "This is the total winnings of all four classes in the winning group."

"However, the results for each class will be calculated separately. Within the winning group, the scores for first to fourth place should be 600, 450, 300, and 150 respectively."

"Looking at the middle group, from first to fourth place, the Class Evaluation Points lost are 200, 150, 100, and 50 respectively, which isn't actually that much when spread out."

"That's true, but the school used a little trick here." Aragaki Shun tapped the table lightly with his fingers, drawing everyone's attention to him.

"The Class Evaluation Points are distributed in a 4:3:2:1 ratio, which is normal for the winning group, since those who put in more effort should receive more."

"However, the middle group and the losing group, which have their points stolen, also follow this allocation scheme, which means that the higher the ranking of a class, the more Class Evaluation Points it loses."

In this way, the losing group will lose 400 points, 300 points, 200 points and 100 points respectively, from first place to fourth place.

The player who performs best in the Sports Festival gets 300 more points than the player who finishes last?

Given this premise, is it possible that some classes might deliberately drag the class down, aiming for last place and thus turning the entire grade into a losing group?

It's likely that such a thing would happen, especially if other grades interfere, giving them the opportunity to use this plan as leverage to trade for something else.

There's a conflict between the interests of the class and the interests of the grade.

It seems that what the school wants to test is the decision-making ability of each class in the face of competition and cooperation.

239. Seizing opportunities to hinder others; the advantage of numbers.

This could be a win-win situation for the entire grade, but it could potentially widen the gap between classes.

Despite losing all classes in the grade, there's an opportunity for the lower-ranked classes to close the gap with Class A.

The school deliberately created this contradictory situation at this Sports Festival.

"Class A, Class C, and Class D are all fine; everyone definitely wants to be a member of the winning group and then steal enough Class Evaluation Points from the upper grades."

"But for Class B, if they can't be first in the winning group, they should be even more eager to be last in the losing group."

Aragaki Shun calmly outlined two directions for this Sports Festival.

The winner of the winning group is in first place, while the winner of the losing group is in last place.

For Class B, the latter outcome was even more tempting than the former.

If a class occupies the last place in the losing group, a total of 1000 points will be deducted from the entire grade. Class A, being the first place, will have 400 points deducted, which will immediately reduce the gap between the two classes by 300 points.

It's important to know that Class A's current Class Evaluation Points is 2122, while Class B's is 1658, a difference of only 464 points on the surface.

Not to mention, at this stage, Class C and Class D are subordinate to Class A. If we include the points that were stolen from these two classes, Class A's actual loss is as high as 900 points.

If they can actually pull off this plan where the entire grade loses and drags everyone down, then Class B will have hit the jackpot.

Of course, this plan is not only suitable for Class 1-B, but also a pretty good option for Class 2-B and Class 3-B.

Unless they can secure first place in the winning group while also ensuring that their respective grade's Class A finishes third or even last, they simply cannot find a better solution.

But if they truly possessed that ability, how could they have been consistently suppressed by Manabu Horikita Miyabi Nagumo?

It seems that Class B from all three grades will have to work hard to avoid dragging the team down in this Sports Festival.

"So the key to this Sports Festival lies with Class B?"

Somewhat bored, Sakayanagi Arisu suddenly spoke up, "Trying to control Class B of this year, and then letting Class B of the other two years compete for last place, seems like this is an exam involving alliances and strategies."

"Not necessarily," Shiina Hiyori and then asked the homeroom teacher of Class A, "Excuse me, teacher, is it possible for someone to receive a negative score in any of the events at the Sports Festival?"

"No, that's not the case." Hoshinomiya simply shook his head.

"It's like an individual competition where everyone participates. The first place gets 15 points, the second place gets 12 points, the third place gets 10 points, the fourth place gets 8 points, and the fifth place and so on decrease by 1 point each time, until the twelfth place gets exactly 0 points."

"In team competitions, the first place gets 600 points, the second place gets 500 points, and the points decrease by 100 points for each subsequent place, with the seventh place getting only 0 points. The same applies to the eighth through twelfth places; there will never be a negative score."

"Just as I expected," the Literary Girl said with an expression that suggested she had anticipated this. "In that case, given the situation of the first-year students, it wouldn't be unreasonable to exclude the Katsuragi Class from the plan altogether. After all, they can only get a maximum of 0 points, and they can't have their total grade points won by the three classes deducted through negative scores."

"Assuming Katsuragi Class will inevitably betray them, and given that they can only provide 0 points, should we directly calculate the win rate of a 3v4 game?"

Hearing this, Aragaki Shun found it very interesting, as it aligned with the strategy he had always implemented for Class A.

Given Class A's strength, his goal is to get the most points in all events.

Team battles are fine, but individual competitions...

A question popped into his head, Aragaki Shun immediately looked at the homeroom teacher of Class A, "Hoshinomiya-sensei, the number of students varies in different grades and classes. For example, our Class A has 48 students, but Class D only has 32."

"Given such a large gap, how should the school arrange competitions for individual athletic events?"

In fact, not only in individual competitions, but also in the difference in the number of students in each class, the outcome of team battles is greatly affected.

If Class A and Class D were to face off, and Class A had 16 more members than Class D, and they still lost, it could only be explained by external factors. Class D would only have a chance of winning if they used some underhanded tactics.

However, the team battle is conducted in the form of two classes competing against each other. Since the school requires everyone to participate, it is impossible to restrict extra people from participating.

Moreover, the difference in the number of students in each class is the result of past competition between classes and a testament to their strength. The school has no need to deliberately restrict the class with more students in this regard.

The problem lies in individual competitive events.

At present, among the 12 classes in the three grades of the entire Advanced Nurturing, only the number of students in Class 1-A has increased instead of decreased, directly exceeding 40 students.

In this situation, how should the school arrange for the extra students in Class A? They can't just let them win first place simply because there are no competitors, can they?

Aragaki Shun hoped for this, but Hoshinomiya's answer naturally shattered that wish.

"The school has also discussed this issue, and finally decided that the rounds for individual competitive events will be based on the standard number of 40 students per class."

After pondering for a moment, Hoshinomiya, worried that the students in her class might not understand, deliberately gave an example.

"For example, for the first event where everyone participated [the 100m Dash], the school planned 40 rounds. In each round, each of the 12 classes needed to send one person to determine the rankings, and everyone would receive different points based on their rankings."

"Later on, if some classes don't have enough students to continue playing, their score for that round will be 0."

After speaking, Hoshinomiya looked around at the students in the classroom.

"Everyone can understand, right? Class D only has 32 people. So when the competition progresses to the 33rd round, they won't have anyone left to send out, and they'll get a score of 0."

"Our Class A has 48 students. Even if we send one student out each round, theoretically there will still be 8 students left over. The school's arrangement is that we can assign the extra students to rounds with fewer than 12 students, and the points will still go to Class A after the ranking."

In other words, when Class D can't send anyone out by the 33rd round, Class A can send someone to take that position.

In this way, Class A will have two participants in this round, and as long as they are not in last place, they can get double the points.

"Haha~ Doesn't this give us a huge advantage?"

"That's right, our class has the most students, so we can not only get the maximum score in each round, but also get 8 extra points that would otherwise belong to other classes."

"Speaking of which, it seems that only Class A of the Third Year is full after us, right? That means by the 40th round, only our two classes will need to participate in the competition, and everyone just needs to compete for first and second place."

"You reminded me that the number of participants decreases as the rounds progress. If we just put the remaining 8 people in, we'll definitely get more points."

After learning about the rules explained by the Hoshinomiya, the students quickly understood their class's greatest advantage and began to discuss it excitedly.

In individual competitions, the first place winner in each round receives 15 points. If a class wins all 40 rounds, they can earn a total of 600 points, the same as the first place winner in a team competition.

If the eight extra students from Class A were placed in later rounds where they were severely short-handed, they would certainly be able to secure a top-five or even top-three finish, even if they didn't win first place.

If they perform well enough in individual competitions and achieve high enough scores, they can completely disregard the potentially backstabbing Katsuragi Class and directly lead Class C and Class D to become the final winning group.

After all, given their class's strong foundation, they are basically guaranteed to win first place in the team competition.

It's just three against four, is that so difficult?

"It seems everyone is very confident!"

Seeing the lively scene inside the classroom, Chie Hoshinomiya clapped her hands with a smile and made a deliberately cute gesture.

"And here's another piece of good news: considering that older students are older and have more experience in taking exams, the school has decided to add an initial score for both grades."

"Simply put, except for the Third Year which starts from zero, all four second-grade classes will be assigned 100 points, while the four first-grade classes will each start with 200 points."

"Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise? The Sports Festival hasn't even started yet, and the four first-year classes already have a combined score of 800."

Undoubtedly, this is a compensation mechanism Advanced Nurturing with fairness in mind.

Regardless, the basic test of the Sports Festival is physical fitness. If the three grades compete directly, then the older students will inevitably have a huge advantage.

There may be some athletic geniuses among first-year students, but for the vast majority of people, an extra year of development during puberty can lead to significant physical growth.

Some people are only 1.5 meters tall in their first year of high school, but by their senior year, they have grown to 1.8 meters. It would be very unfair to put these two types of people on the same stage.

Therefore, the school directly assigned different initial scores to the three grades, with each lower grade receiving 400 more points than the higher grade. This is equivalent to a third-place finish in a team competition, which is not much, but not little either.

"This is truly a wonderful surprise!" Shibata Sou exclaimed. "Are there any other rules? Teacher, please tell us already, we can't wait!"

"The rest are just some violations," Hoshinomiya said, shrugging. "You can look through the documents yourselves."

"The details above are very important. The school hopes you will read and abide by all the competition rules. Violation will result in disqualification from the exam."

"If the offense is particularly egregious, the instructors acting as referees have the authority to disqualify the participant and may even deduct Private Points from the participant's account."

After tapping on the podium, Hoshinomiya took out several sheets of material from a drawer, indicating that the general rules had been explained.

According to the meeting, the original version of the Sports Festival rules originally included rewards and penalties based on Private Points and Written Exam scores.

The school intends to reward those who excel in individual competitive events, allowing the top three to receive Private Points or, at their discretion, bonus points for their next Written Exam.

Conversely, students who perform poorly will also have Private Points deducted and will have points deducted in the next Written Exam.

However, with the change in the Sports Festival rules, these issues were also removed from the meeting. After all, the Class Evaluation Points involved in this Sports Festival were already quite numerous, and there was no need to make the situation too complicated.

"Finally, there's this 'entry form' that you need to fill out. This form records all the details of the competition. You need to decide which events you want to participate in and in what order, then fill it in and hand it to me, your class advisor. This step is very important, so please be careful and make sure you don't make any mistakes."

"You decide the events and order in which you participate?"

Aragaki Shun raised an eyebrow, immediately thinking of the story of Tian Ji's horse race.

However, the participants in this Sports Festival come from 12 classes. If we want to do it this way, we need to get the participation forms from the other classes, especially the older students.

"Yes, all the competitions that take place on the day of the Sports Festival, down to the details of who will run which round, will be decided by you yourselves."

"Please note that the entry form must be submitted before the deadline. No changes will be allowed after the deadline for any reason. This rule is very important."

"The submission deadline is one week before the Sports Festival, and ends at 5 PM the day before the Sports Festival. Please remember this, otherwise the school will randomly assign participants from the entire class."

As she explained, Hoshinomiya-sensei slowly walked down from the podium and went directly to Aragaki Shun's seat, where she put down the materials in her hand.

"It's up to you, Aragaki. Make sure you understand the situation of everyone in the class before the deadline, and then carefully arrange the order of participation."

"I understand." The Leader of Class A nodded, looked at the materials he had copied several times, and then distributed one copy to Ichinose, Kanzaki, and the others.

Upon seeing this, Sakayanagi Arisu had just transferred to Class A today, sighed and raised her hand.

"I also want to ask Hoshinomiya-sensei, does participation in the 'all-class participation' project mean that everyone in the class must participate? If someone is feeling unwell, can they submit an application before the Sports Festival?"

As soon as the question was asked, everyone in the class turned their attention to it, and then they immediately thought of the Uninhabited Island Exam during the summer vacation.

At the time, Sakayanagi Arisu a member of Katsuragi Class. Due to health reasons, she did not set foot on the Uninhabited Island, which resulted in Class B having 30 temporary points deducted before the exam began.

Now that they're members of Class A, we can only let them bear the consequences.

To some extent, you could say it had a bad start.

240. Meeting Nagumo at Ryuen: Do you think I'm a fool?

The Sports Festival hasn't even started yet, and they're already destined to be missing a member. This is truly a bad start for Class A.

Fortunately, Chie Hoshinomiya quickly offered a solution to make amends.

"Once the entry form is submitted, it cannot be changed. If someone is absent on the day, the only option is to use Private Points to have someone else from the class take their place."

Sakayanagi Arisu's eyes lit up. For the young lady, anything that could be solved with money wasn't a big deal.

Although she can no longer casually produce 20 million yen after transferring classes at her own expense, Chairman Sakayanagi still made sure the girl had several million yen in pocket money before leaving the school.

It's just a substitute game at a Sports Festival; it's impossible to spend millions all at once, right?

This is completely unrealistic; very few students in the entire school can withstand such a drain.

"I'd like to know, how many Private Points are needed to bring someone on as a substitute?"

"Each competition costs 100,000," Chie Hoshinomiya kindly reminded the Board Chairman's daughter, who was wearing a beret, "If you don't choose to be a substitute and instead apply to not participate, you will lose 1 point in the Class Evaluation Points for each event in which all members participate that you miss."