Chapter 198
But the two had only recently started dating, and were deeply in love and inseparable, so he really couldn't resist.
Ugh~ Why do all these classes suddenly feel so unbearable? How much longer until school ends?
On the Class 1-B side, Koenji, Ryuen Kakeru, and the others were all furious at their son's lack of ambition after hearing the news.
Damn it, how did you get knocked down so easily, Nagumo?
If you collapse, who will attract Aragaki Shun's attention? Who will donate blood for their class?
Weren't you very arrogant at the beginning?
How could it collapse so easily after just one Sports Festival?
It's so flimsy!
You useless sucker, get your act together!
Without you, how can we fight against the Aragaki the Great Demon King!
273. When one reaches a certain level, supernatural powers naturally arise; the beauty of the Hiyori is breathtaking.
The students in Class 1-A, who had just finished their mid-term Midterm Exam the second semester, all breathed a sigh of relief.
Unlike last semester when the school deliberately left a loophole, this time there are no Past Exam Papers for everyone to memorize. Everyone has to rely on their own abilities to take the exam, and those who fail will be forced to drop out.
However, students in Class A don't need to worry about these things. The passing score for Advanced Nurturing is half the class average, which means that as long as you score above 50 points, you will definitely pass.
As a member of Class A, and having spent a significant amount of money on tutoring every month, if I can't even meet such a simple requirement, I might as well quit and avoid making a fool of myself here.
"Kanzaki, could you please keep a close eye on everyone's studies lately? Because of the Sports Festival, most of the classes in September were changed to physical training. Now that the Sports Festival is over, it's time to get back to normal."
Walking up to Kanzaki Ryuji, Aragaki Shun patted him on the shoulder. "Anyway, tell them to be more focused during their tutoring sessions. They can dedicate more time to their main courses during this period."
The man with short purple hair paused, a thoughtful expression appearing between his brows.
"Is this inside information from the Student Council? The content of the next Special Exam is related to academic ability?"
If it weren't for this reason, Kanzaki would never have imagined why Aragaki Shun would specifically make this kind of reminder.
After all, the Midterm Exam have just ended, and theoretically there is still quite a long time before the Final Exam.
More importantly, unlike last semester, subsequent Final Exam only resulted in expulsion for failing, without any rewards in terms of Class Evaluation Points. Therefore, it wasn't really a big deal for the students in Class A, who generally had excellent grades.
"That's right. The specific rules haven't been finalized yet, but it's confirmed to be Special Exam based on academic ability, and it's limited to only four classes within the first year."
Aragaki Shun nodded, his tone revealing regret.
It would be great if we could directly steal Class Evaluation Points from the second and Third Year, just like at the Sports Festival. Unfortunately, such a wonderful thing is unlikely to happen again in the near future.
Kanzaki Ryuji looked embarrassed, and said with a mix of amusement and exasperation:
"After just one Sports Festival, you've practically ruined the entire second grade. How could the school be so heartless as to let you continue to extend your reach to the upper grades?"
"But from the school's perspective, isn't this actually a good thing?"
With his arms crossed, Aragaki Shun spoke with complete confidence.
First, the competition among second-year students has intensified once again, and the Special Exam have regained their original significance, instead of becoming a tool for Miyabi Nagumo to Advanced Nurturing -level talent, as they had in the past.
Secondly, the evaluation scores of all second-grade classes were forced to drop below 100, which saved the school a lot of money on Private Points.
Finally, he also helped Advanced Nurturing verify the destructive nature of the Zero-Point Strategy, giving the school an opportunity to patch things up.
Despite these three advantages, the school was still reluctant to award him an Outstanding Student Medal, which was incredibly stingy.
Kanzaki Ryuji shook his head. He couldn't refute Aragaki Shun's statement, but thinking about the current situation of the second-year students, he couldn't help but sigh softly, "The Zero-Point Strategy is really too ruthless. Fortunately, it was you who triggered it, and not the other first-year classes."
You have to understand, there's a dangerous individual like Ryuen Kakeru in their first year. Last semester, when he was in charge of Class C, if he did something like this, everyone in Class A would be in trouble too.
This tactic is absolutely disgusting; it's best to ban it altogether.
"It's alright, those who have nothing to lose don't need to be afraid of those who have shoes, but that's assuming the former truly has nothing."
"I signed debt agreements with several lower-ranked classes during my first month of school, so there's no need to worry about them daring to use this tactic on Class A."
Because all three classes are in debt, once their Class Evaluation Points drop to zero and they don't have enough Private Points to repay the loans, the penalties for breach of contract will be severe enough for them to suffer.
Therefore, this tactic can only be used in the second year, because Miyabi Nagumo's way of unifying the second year is based on so-called credibility, without any specific constraints.
Of course, he chose this approach intentionally. If the contract restricted the specific uses of the Private Points handed over by the second-year students, how could he freely dispose of the funds as he pleased?
"In short, the next Special Exam has been confirmed to be related to everyone's academic ability in the class, so keep a close eye on that."
First came the physical education test, then came the academic performance assessment. From the school's perspective, it was clear that only a combination of academic and athletic pursuits could achieve a balance.
However, this is also one of Class A's strengths, so they have absolutely no need to fear any rival classes.
Therefore, Aragaki Shun only gave Kanzaki a few brief instructions before handing over the actual work to him and heading straight to the library to absorb knowledge.
Then, unsurprisingly, the boy saw a certain Literary Girl in that familiar spot as always.
As a permanent NPC in the library, Shiina Hiyori lost a lot of reading time last month due to sports training. Now that campus life is back on track, she Shiina Hiyori wants to catch up on the mystery novels she hasn't read yet.
"Speaking of Hiyori, do you have any suitable books to recommend lately?"
Sitting opposite the silver-haired girl, Aragaki Shun rested his chin on his hand, admiring Hiyori's exquisite beauty, and began their leisurely and comfortable way of getting along with each other with a light laugh.
"I've finished all my study plans ahead of schedule, and I'm currently free. Could Hiyori please recommend some good books for me to pass the time?"
As he said this, Aragaki Shun subconsciously glanced at the skills displayed on his Personal Panel.
[Combat Lv.4 (3/5) → Combat Lv.5 (0/10)],
[Writing lv.4 (2/5) → Writing lv.5 (0/10)]
[Erudition lv.4 (3/5) → Erudition lv.5 (0/10)]
All three skills have grown to the mortal limit that only the most gifted individuals have a chance to reach during this period.
This is not surprising in itself; the key point is that Aragaki Shun did not invest Source Power to enhance these skills.
In other words, these three skills were developed naturally through his own accumulation of knowledge and experience, and he naturally evolved to this point.
This situation even surprised Aragaki Shun himself; if things had continued at the original pace, it would theoretically have taken at least another year or two to achieve the same results.
The reason why this great thing of saving Source Power is happening now is mainly because the four basic attribute values have been strengthened to 20, which is the effect of stepping into the limit of mortals.
As the saying goes, once you reach a certain level, supernatural powers will naturally arise.
Because the foundation is so solid, the speed at which these self-taught skills can grow through proactive accumulation is truly beyond imagination.
In this way, all of Aragaki Shun's skills and talents fixed on his Personal Panel were upgraded to level 5 at this moment, and further enhancement would result in true extraordinary power.
This is certainly good news, but it also brings a completely new problem --
That is, there are no extraordinary elements in this world, so naturally no one can provide knowledge in the Transcendent Realm. It will be more difficult for Aragaki Shun to improve himself by acquiring knowledge and learning on his own, just like before.
In other words, all his existing talents and skills can only be enhanced by adding points to them using Source Power.
Unless he wants to gather some new abilities, he can reduce the consumption of fixing them on his Personal Panel by understanding and comprehending the corresponding principles, and then rely on his solid basic attributes to learn on his own, so that he can quickly strengthen them to the limit of the mortal realm.
Otherwise, the help he would receive from reading all day, as he had always done, would be negligible.
Unfortunately, at this stage, the key for him is to reach the transcendent realm as soon as possible. Therefore, unless absolutely necessary, Aragaki Shun will obviously not waste his Source Power to fix new skills or talents.
After finishing reading through all the scientific research materials he had brought from home, the boy found himself with some free time. He decided to relax for a while and spend some time reading entertaining novels with the Literary Girl.
Shiina Hiyori was naturally unaware of Aragaki Shun's current situation, but she was more than happy to oblige her fellow book lover's desire to communicate.
"This is a suspense novel that I've always wanted to read, but it's quite obscure. I couldn't find it in the library before, and it was only put on the shelf a few days ago after I applied to the school."
With a smile, Shiina Hiyori pulled a thick novel from the pile of books, her eyes sparkling as she looked at the boy.
Although she enjoyed the quiet atmosphere of the two of them reading face to face, as a seasoned mystery novel enthusiast, she naturally hoped to exchange ideas about her favorite works with like-minded book lovers.
However, Shun-kun's reading interests have always been quite diverse, and she reads quickly. Most of the time, she tends to focus on biology, medicine, and other scientific research, leaving little time for me to spend alone with her enjoying the world of detective novels.
Ugh~ I'm still a little unhappy about it. It seems like Shun-kun has less and less personal time. She's already seen him being dragged off on Matoba by other girls several times.
That's so greedy! You've already started dating several girls, and you're still not satisfied?
Taking the book from the Literary Girl, Aragaki Shun was somewhat bewildered when she gave him a disapproving look halfway through.
So he decided to activate his invincible intuitive talents—[Danger Sense] and [Turning Turn Misfortune into Good Fortune into Good Fortune]!
What? There's no danger or ominous sign right now?
Haven't you heard that love is war?
The term "Shuraba" originally referred to the battleground between Asuras and Indras, but now it has come to mean Matoba multiple girls develop romantic entanglements with the same person.
Isn't this dangerous?
Deep within his pupils, tiny golden arcs of electricity flashed by. Under the influence of his surging mental power, which was just one step away from being released, Aragaki Shun distorted the effect of his intuition talent.
And so, through sheer force, he quickly and instinctively sensed the subtle emotions in the Literary Girl's heart.
But this kind of thing is difficult to resolve for the time being.
After all, he can't distort the passage of time right now. As he has more lovers, the average amount of time he can spend alone with each person will decrease, which is inevitable.
However, he was confident in his stamina; with just a few concubines, he was sure he could keep them all well-fed.
Looking at the beautiful Hiyori in front of him, Aragaki Shun had this thought in his mind. He placed the book he had taken on the table and then reached out his right hand to rub the girl's delicate cheek.
"I'm sorry, I've been neglecting Hiyori lately. I promised I wouldn't let you be lonely."
"Eek~"
Caught off guard by this sudden attack, the Literary Girl instinctively let out a gasp, her earlobes turning a deep red.
Her breath hitched slightly Hiyori felt her heart pounding faster and faster. She couldn't help but mutter softly, "That's unfair, Shun-kun, are you deliberately teasing me?"
"Given our relationship, this shouldn't be considered playing a prank, right?"
After thinking for a moment, Aragaki Shun stood up and moved from the seat opposite Hiyori to the seat next to her. The two were very close, and he could even feel the rounded texture of the girl's thighs.
Looking back now, his relationship with Hiyori was probably the one that developed the fastest. Before Shiranami Chihiro officially confessed, the two had been getting along for a long time as book lovers. Later, he invited her to transfer to Class A and even made a promise to become best friends for life.
For some reason, when he was with the Literary Girl, Aragaki Shun rarely felt worldly desires. Instead, he enjoyed the tranquility and peace, just like an old married couple.
Otherwise, he believed that if he just mentioned it, even if Hiyori and her heart raced, she would definitely not refuse to give him a room key.
"... This is the library, Shun-kun."
Using an open book to cover the lower half of her face, revealing only a pair of slightly shy eyes, the silver-haired girl nervously gestured to the crowd in the distance and whispered a reminder to the boy.
No matter how tolerant you are of your "best friends," it's completely inappropriate to do those intimate things in a public place.
"I know, but Hiyori seems a bit lonely. She doesn't have anything else important to do lately, so how about we go on a date sometime?"
"Huh?" Upon hearing Aragaki Shun's suggestion, the Literary Girl's beautiful eyes flickered several times, but she ultimately shook her head in refusal. "Compared to walking around outside, I prefer staying in the library with Shun-kun."
Well, this was a response I expected, since Shiina Hiyori isn't the type of girl who enjoys socializing or shopping.
In his view, the two of them were already close, and their relationship was even deeper than that of the other girls who had already established romantic relationships with him, so there was absolutely no need for this kind of pointless formalism.
But this gave Aragaki Shun a bit of a headache. The girl was starting to get a little upset, and he couldn't just do nothing, could he?
"... The library closes at night, Hiyori the book Hiyori recommended is quite thick. I probably won't be able to finish it in the next few hours. So, could I stay at Hiyori's dorm for a while so we can talk more easily?"
Holding the delicate hand of the Literary Girl, Aragaki Shun could feel her body tremble slightly twice, but it quickly returned to calm.
"Shun-kun's desires are so straightforward..."
Feeling a little shy, but after a couple of complaints, Hiyori still handed over a card from her pocket—a card familiar to all Advanced Nurturing students—their personal dormitory room key.
"This, this is the backup..."
Aragaki Shun remained silent, seemingly having been prepared and waiting for him to speak.
274. Spending the night Hiyori the dormitory; a new Special Exam.
Although they are best friends who have vowed to be together for life, this is only the second time that Aragaki Shun has entered Hiyori's personal dormitory.
The last time was before summer vacation, when the first semester's Final Exam were about to take place.
At that time, the Literary Girl had just joined Class A and was not yet used to the daily physical training in the class, so she was exhausted.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Aragaki Shun was in Shiina Hiyori, he pinned her against the wall and kissed her, even thinking for a moment that he could completely devour her.
Unfortunately, Hiyori felt ashamed that she wasn't prepared and worried that she would be covered in sweat after running, so she kicked Aragaki Shun out of the dormitory in a fit of embarrassment and anger.
Then came a series of Special Exam, and the progress of their relationship stalled there, without much change.