Class A's Absolute Advantage / The Sports Festival Special Task Force

Class competition and stock price increases will be the two main focuses of the new semester.

By dawn the next day, Hashiba Hikaru was already up.

After learning that Sports Festival would be held in the second semester, his morning runs became a daily routine again. Although he no longer had the [Exercise Booster] to help him, his physical fitness had improved significantly after regular training.

After finishing her workout, Hashiba Hikaru took a shower and changed into her school uniform. Today was the first day of the new semester, and she had to face everyone with a fresh and energetic attitude.

When he arrived at the classroom door of Class A of the First Year, people immediately noticed the boy's figure. As a key figure in the class, Hashiba Hikaru's presence became even more prominent after she and Ichinose Honami officially became a couple.

Good morning, Classmate Hashiba!

Good morning, Classmate Hashiba. I bet you had a great summer vacation.

"Good morning, Hashiba. It's been a long time since I've seen you, you busy man." The athletic Shibata immediately came over and put his hand on his shoulder.

As a core member of the Soccer club, Hashiba Hikaru had met him before when she went to handle Soccer club's budget review. After learning that Hikari was in charge, he immediately became the Soccer club's lobbyist, constantly persuading the boys to approve their budget proposal.

Although Hashiba Hikaru ultimately rejected the idea, he clearly did not give up.

Good morning, everyone.

Hashiba Hikaru walked into the classroom, and next to her seat, a pink-haired girl with a bright smile was already sitting there.

Good morning, Light.

"Good morning, Honami."

Chapter 232 The Absolute Advantage Possessed by Class A

Since today is the first day of the second semester, the morning classes were mostly spent previewing the textbooks. As a group that is currently united, everyone is still very focused on their studies and there is no sign of them slacking off.

During the lunch break, the classroom immediately became quite lively.

Students are enthusiastically sharing their summer vacation experiences, whether it's playing around on campus with friends or playing games in their dorm rooms. After all, there are no restrictions during summer vacation, and a balance between work and rest is the best way to spend it.

However, it was clear that most of the students in Class A were more concerned about the relationship between Hashiba Hikaru and Ichinose Honami. Since the last class in the morning, many people had been gathered around their desks.

Although the students in Class A all knew that the two of them would eventually get together, they didn't ask too many questions on the Cruise Ship at the time. After all, they had just finished the Special Exam and no one was in the mood for it.

During the summer vacation, apart from a few people in Ichinose Honami's small circle, no one really knew about the relationship between the two, so now is the best time for gossip.

After sending away the last group of people asking questions, Ichinose Honami glanced at Hashiba Hikaru's face. The other person had just pushed all the responsibility of answering questions onto her while she slacked off on the side.

"Hikari, you went too far just now!"

"What's wrong with me? Everyone's more interested in Honami anyway, so having you explain is the best way," Hashiba Hikaru said with a faint smile. "The students are just curious, so they probably won't come back after asking today."

"But I'm still a little angry. What are you going to do about it, Hikaru?" Ichinose Honami asked, putting on a stern face and pretending to be angry.

"Hmm... how about this then? To calm Honami down, I've decided not to talk to you all day. Is that okay?"

"No!"

Ichinose Honami instantly lost her composure. She immediately leaned over and grabbed Hashiba Hikaru's arm, angrily saying, "This proposal is rejected!"

"Alright then, I'll think of another one."

"Think quickly!"

After their playful bickering ended, it was afternoon.

The remaining two periods were class meetings. As the first day of the new semester, there were quite a few things to explain. After Class A's homeroom teacher Chie Hoshinomiya, walked into the classroom carrying a bunch of things, the students immediately greeted her happily.

"Hello teacher, it's been so long! We've all missed you!"

"Yes, yes, the teacher seems to have lost weight again."

"Really?" After striking several poses on the podium, Chie Hoshinomiya asked with a smile, "I thought you'd gained weight from eating too much during summer vacation."

No, it's still very pretty.

"Thank you for the compliments, but let's begin the class meeting first."

As a homeroom teacher who gets along well with her students, Chie Hoshinomiya is very happy to be able to interact closely with them, a quality that other homeroom teachers do not possess and is something she is proud of.

Once the classroom had quieted down, the smartly dressed young teacher began to explain the details of the class meeting.

"There are two things I need to explain during these two class meetings. The first is about the upcoming Sports Festival, which is a large-scale event that the school holds every year, so everyone needs to take it seriously."

"As for the second thing, the new class rankings are out. As a reward for everyone's hard work over the past few months, you should have received your Private Points this morning, right?"

"Received."

"Wow, that's a lot of points! Our class should have pulled ahead of the classes behind us this time."

"That's right. I think we should listen to Classmate Hashiba and Ichinose's ideas about the points arrangement this semester, since a lot of changes have occurred."

The students were chattering excitedly about their Private Points, and everyone was in a great mood after seeing the new remittance record this morning.

"Let me finish explaining this part first, and then Classmate Hashiba and Ichinose can organize it. Anyway, our class meeting is quite long."

Chie Hoshinomiya has always recognized the abilities of Hashiba Hikaru and Ichinose Honami, so she had long ago given them a great deal of autonomy. She basically didn't speak much during previous class meetings, handing over all the authority to arrange affairs to them.

"Then I'll announce the new class ranking scores first." Chie Hoshinomiya turned around and wrote the new Class Evaluation Points on the blackboard, immediately attracting everyone's attention.

Class A, 1845cp

Class B, 1062cp

Class C, 385cp

Class D, 186cp

"Wow, we've already pulled ahead of Class B by so many points?"

"Yeah, it won't be so easy for them to catch up with us now, hahaha."

The students in Class A exclaimed in surprise, not at the Class Evaluation Points, but at the gap between them and the other classes. After all, they had received 184,500 Private Points that morning, so everyone knew what their score was.

"Anyway, I'm very happy that everyone has achieved such excellent results in the first semester."

Chie Hoshinomiya's gaze swept over the students in the classroom. She was naturally extremely satisfied with this score, because the score difference between her and Class C, led by that woman Chabashira, was almost five times. She could never cross such a chasm.

After a while, once the classroom had quieted down again, Chie Hoshinomiya began to recount the second matter, directly calling out the names of Hashiba Hikaru and Ichinose.

"Classmate Hashiba, Ichinose, please distribute this information to everyone first."

"OK."

The two walked up to the podium and distributed the booklet filled with dense text to everyone in the class. At the same time, Chie Hoshinomiya stood on the podium and began to explain.

"Because the Sports Festival is coming up, the school will be offering physical education classes from September to early October in preparation for the Sports Festival. We'll tell you the specific schedule later, so please don't forget the dates."

"The information released now is about the Sports Festival, which details the arrangements and rules. Please take a look, and raise your hand if you have any questions."

"Teacher, is this the new Special Exam?" someone asked immediately.

"The rules of the Sports Festival include information about class scores, you all should understand what that means, right?" Chie Hoshinomiya didn't give a direct answer, but the meaning she conveyed was roughly the same.

"Hikaru, this Sports Festival might not be so simple." Ichinose Honami, standing beside him, read the rules in the handbook, her expression somewhat grave.

"Hmm, it seems we have a lot to do later."

Hashiba Hikaru's gaze swept over the rules one by one. Just like Horikita Manabu, this was a large-scale team battle that brought together students from all three grades. Only the best class could take home the most rewards!

Chapter 233 Sports Festival Special Task Force

After everyone in Class A received the handbook about the Sports Festival, they all read the rules carefully. After all, if it really concerned the Class Evaluation Points, then they had to do their best to deal with it.

"Have Classmate Hashiba and Ichinose read the rules yet?" Chie Hoshinomiya looked at the key figures in the class. If they wanted to get more points in this exam, they still needed to rely on the two of them to lead the class.

"I've already finished reading it."

Ichinose Honami excitedly raised her hand, but noticed that the boy next to her was still carefully studying the rules, seemingly unwilling to overlook any detail.

"Wait a moment, there are still some things I need to think about."

Hashiba Hikaru studied the rules of the Sports Festival. Since this large-scale event had already listed the increase or decrease of Class Evaluation Points, it meant that it had the same significance as Special Exam.

Having experienced the previous two Special Exam, he understood that the school's exam rules generally allowed for some degree of manipulation. Beneath the explicit rules, there were always many avenues for maneuver, and that was exactly what he was looking for.

Just as Horikita Manabu provided, this year's Sports Festival will adopt a group competition format involving all grades.

Within the three grades, Class A and Class D will become the Red Team, and Class B and Class C will become the White Team, with a final comparison based on their combined scores.

If a group loses in the overall grade-wide score competition, 100 points will be deducted from the evaluation score of all classes in the losing group. Moreover, this rule has an even harsher aspect: in the overall grade-wide score competition, the losing group will lose points, but the winning group will not gain points.

Moreover, the deduction mechanism is not a standalone system, but involves multiple calculations and combinations. In addition to the overall score for the entire grade, winners and losers will also be determined in competitions within the grade.

Besides the class that ranks first in the grade receiving 50 Class Evaluation Points, the second-place class receives no points deducted and no points added, the third-place class loses 50 points, and the last-place class loses 100 points.

This combination of factors immediately highlights the score difference. If a team loses both the group score competition and the grade-level ranking, a total of 200 points will be deducted, which is a significant amount and will greatly increase the gap between classes.

After about five or six minutes, Hashiba Hikaru finally looked up from the rulebook, turned to Hoshinomiya-sensei on the podium, and said to her, "Teacher, I've finished reading it."

"What about the other students?"

The young teacher's gaze swept over the other students in the classroom. If everyone had read the rules, the next step was to devise a strategy for the Sports Festival. This task naturally fell to Ichinose Honami, the class leader, and Hashiba Hikaru, the class's core decision-maker.

"We've all finished watching."

"Yes, these rules are really cunning. The rules regarding increasing and decreasing scores are far too strict."

"Shouldn't we be developing a plan to deal with this?"

After the students finished their discussion, Hashiba Hikaru and Ichinose Honami both saw the expression on Chie Hoshinomiya's face, and then they both got up from their seats.

"Now that everyone knows the rules, it's time for our class to start preparing a plan for this Sports Festival."

Hashiba Hikaru glanced at Ichinose Honami beside her. If they were going to divide the work, they needed to come up with a concrete discussion plan first.

"Next, let's have Ichinose explain how to allocate the participants for the project, while I'll fill in any gaps to make our plan even better."

"Okay, everyone, please quiet down."

As the class leader, Ichinose Honami skillfully stood in the middle of the podium. She first glanced at Hashiba Hikaru standing behind her, and then began to share her thoughts with everyone.

"First of all, this Sports Festival is related to the increase or decrease of Class Points, so it is essentially Special Exam that organizes all students in the school. If we want to win in the end, we must win in the overall score comparison of the whole grade and get the top two in the grade to ensure that our class's current score will not be reduced."

"Yes, but this time we'll be cooperating with Class D. Their situation..." Kanzaki Ryuji's tone was tinged with doubt. He disliked Ryuen Kakeru very much, so he couldn't trust Class D, which was ranked at the bottom of the class.

"Yeah, this time, the Red Team is actually going to have to team up with Class D? I feel like they'll only hold us back."

"I think so too. And do you guys remember Ryuen, which caused violent incidents before? I think it would be very risky to cooperate with someone like that."

Just as everyone was expressing their unwillingness to cooperate with Class D, Ichinose Honami clapped her hands on the podium, drawing everyone's attention back to her.

"I know everyone doesn't have a good impression of Class D right now, but since the rules for this exam have already been set, they can't be changed. No matter what, we are all members of the Red Team, and I believe they also want to win the exam."

"That's right. Don't forget that the Red Team not only has Class D, but also members from Class A in the second and third years. If these seniors who are leaders are in the same group as us, it should give the Red Team a lot of advantages."

Hashiba Hikaru stepped forward to speak at the opportune moment, mainly offering words of encouragement. "As long as we can win in the overall score comparison across the entire grade, this is a crucial prerequisite for obtaining points."

"That's true. I remember the Student Council President is a member of Class A of the Third Year, right? Are we going to fight alongside them?"

"I still feel there's quite a bit of hope."

After the students' discussion returned to normal, Ichinose Honami continued, "There are thirteen events in this competition, nine of which require everyone to participate, and four others are recommended for participation."

"I think the competitions we recommend will become the focus of competition for several classes if we want to achieve the best results," the pink-haired girl said slowly, looking earnestly at everyone in the class. "So I think we need to finalize the list of participants for these competitions."

"Are we asking everyone to nominate themselves?" Someone raised their hand.

"It's not a good idea for someone to recommend themselves for this kind of project. They should send the most suitable person to participate in the competition; that way, their chances of winning are much higher."

I think so too.

"How should we decide on the spots for the recommended competition? I think we can do a test first, and then make the selection."

Ichinose Honami turned around and wrote the four projects that required member recommendations on the blackboard.

These included Borrowing Race, Four-Way Tug-of-War, Mixed Gender Three-Legged Race, and All-Grade Joint 1200m Relay.

"For example, if a classmate is athletically gifted, they can choose to participate in Relay Race; if a classmate is strong, they can participate in Tug of War, and so on. This can increase our chances of winning. What do you all think?"

Ichinose Honami asked for everyone's opinions, which was a relatively safe approach. She suggested that not everyone should participate in the competition, so selecting the most suitable candidates was the key to victory.

"Agree."

"That's a good approach. Letting the right people do the right things not only increases our chances of winning but also prevents other unsuitable people from feeling uncomfortable."

This suggestion was unanimously approved, so Ichinose Honami immediately went on to explain.