The Exam Begins

The day of the exam finally arrived. The central auditorium of Advanced Nurturing High School had been temporarily converted into a testing venue, large enough to accommodate all first-year examinees.

A stifling tension hung over the campus.

Students from different classes filed in one after another, finding their seats according to their exam ticket numbers, whispering to each other or silently checking their stationery.

Every face bore a varying degree of seriousness.

Yuefeng found his seat—midway down the left side of the auditorium, neither front nor back, with a decent view.

He sat down, arranged his exam ticket and stationery neatly, and let his gaze sweep casually over his surroundings.

Soon, he spotted several familiar figures.

A few rows away, Hiyori Shiina sat quietly, head lowered, hands resting on her knees, as if in a final moment of meditation.

Today, her hair was neatly tied back, revealing the pale nape of her neck. The lines of her profile were soft, but her tightly pressed lips betrayed her earnestness.

Diagonally ahead were Ishizaki Daichi and his lackey.

Ishizaki looked somewhat agitated, scratching his head from time to time and glancing around restlessly.

His eyes darted over several high-performing students from Class C, clearly still fixated on some "unconventional methods."

But recalling Kiyotaka's warning from the night before and the potentially severe consequences, he could only suppress his restlessness with reluctance.

Further away, in the Class A zone, Katsuragi Kohei sat bolt upright like a statue, eyes closed in quiet repose.

Beside him, several other Class A students also appeared composed, as if victory was already in their grasp.

In the Class B zone, Ichinose Honami was speaking gently to a nearby classmate, seemingly offering encouragement, her smile as infectious as ever.

In the Class D zone... Yuefeng's gaze searched. He spotted Horikita Suzune.

She sat with her back straight, expressionless, staring ahead, a thin notebook in her hand as she flipped through it one last time.

Sudo Ken wore a look of "I'm going all out," fidgeting and scratching his head.

Hirata Yosuke was softly reassuring a few classmates who looked especially nervous.

Then, he saw Kiyotaka Ayanokoji.

Kiyotaka sat in an inconspicuous corner of the Class D zone, his posture relaxed, even a little lazy.

He wasn't reading or talking to anyone, just calmly staring at the empty podium ahead, his eyes vacant, as if the tension around him had nothing to do with him.

That extreme placidity, amidst the auditorium's charged atmosphere, stood out all the more starkly.

Yuefeng withdrew his gaze, took a deep breath, and steadied his slightly racing heart.

Kiyotaka's last few meaningful words from the night before still circled in his mind.

"Understand each other's environment and resources"... "Class C's atmosphere isn't conducive to focused study"... What the hell was that guy plotting?

But now wasn't the time to think about that. Yuefeng steadied himself, focusing his attention on the exam about to begin.

Hiyori Shiina's intel, Kiyotaka's "hints," plus his own cramming over the past few days—he felt his preparation was fairly solid.

He didn't aim to shock everyone, just to pass steadily, claim those tangible rewards, and increase his survival leverage in Class C.

"Ding—"

A crisp bell rang, and the auditorium fell instantly silent. Several stern-faced proctors stepped onto the podium, began reading the exam rules, and distributed the papers.

The test paper landed in his hands—a thick stack. Yuefeng quickly skimmed the questions and felt a slight relief.

The question types were indeed as Kiyotaka had said, very "offbeat."

A large number of analytical questions tied to real-world cases, spanning economics, society, history, and philosophy across multiple fields, demanding high logical reasoning and breadth of knowledge.

There were very few rote memorization questions; most tested understanding and application.

"Definitely not the usual approach..." Yuefeng picked up his pen, cast aside distractions, and began focusing on the questions before him.

Time ticked by, second by second. The auditorium was filled only with the rustle of pens on paper, occasionally punctuated by a suppressed cough or sigh.

The difficulty was indeed high. Many students soon wore expressions of frustration and distress, scratching their heads.

From Ishizaki's direction came frequent, impatient clicks of the tongue—clearly, many questions were beyond his ability.

Yuefeng sank into his own rhythm. Thanks to his targeted review, he could find a path through even seemingly obscure questions.

When he encountered problems requiring complex logical deduction or fine detail analysis, he concentrated, and that peculiar, "slow-motion" Perception Enhancement occasionally kicked in.

It allowed him to grasp the key information and hidden conditions in the question stems more clearly, avoiding certain mental traps.

However, about halfway through the exam, a massive question combining classical philosophical thought with a modern international relations case study stumped Yuefeng.

The question required analyzing a fictional international conflict case and explaining and extrapolating it using at least two different schools of classical political philosophy.

The case details were intricate, the philosophical concepts abstract, and combining the two was a headache.

Yuefeng tried several approaches, but none felt thorough enough, or he couldn't make them logically consistent.

Time was slipping away. This question carried heavy weight; if he did poorly, it could seriously impact his final ranking.

Fine beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and his fingers tapped unconsciously on the desk.

Just then, from the corner of his eye, he seemed to catch a glimpse of Hiyori Shiina, diagonally ahead, shifting slightly. Her arm appeared to casually nudge her scratch paper a little toward the edge of her desk.

This movement was very slight, barely noticeable in an exam hall full of students focused on answering questions.

But Yuefeng's "Slow Motion" perception happened to be in a mildly active state, stimulated by the test questions, allowing him to catch this detail.

His heart stirred, and he subconsciously glanced in that direction.

On the edge of Hiyori Shiina's draft paper, written in extremely fine strokes, were several keywords and short logical arrows.

One of those keywords was precisely the core concept of a certain philosophical school that Yuefeng had been racking his brains over, and the deduction direction the arrow pointed to happened to give him a new, suddenly clear train of thought!

Yuefeng's heart pounded. He immediately withdrew his gaze and lowered his head, pretending to continue pondering.

But in his mind, he had already rapidly combined the hint from Hiyori Shiina's draft paper with his existing knowledge, and a much clearer path to solving the problem gradually emerged.

Was it a coincidence? Had Hiyori Shiina just inadvertently revealed her draft paper? Or...

Yuefeng didn't dare think too deeply, nor did he have time to.

He seized this flash of insight and immediately began writing furiously on his answer sheet.

The previously blocked flow of thought instantly cleared. His analysis advanced layer by layer, and his integration of case studies felt effortless.

When he finally finished writing the last sentence of this major question and let out a long breath, he felt his back was slightly damp with sweat.

He quietly raised his head and looked toward Hiyori Shiina.

The girl was still focused on answering questions, her profile serene, as if that tiny movement had never happened.

But Yuefeng knew it wasn't a coincidence.

Hiyori Shiina was helping him. In an extremely subtle way, almost impossible to detect, and even if detected, impossible to fault.

Why? Because of classmate camaraderie? Because of the "help" from before?

Or because... of what she had said, about hoping the "class atmosphere" could be a little better?

A complex surge of emotions welled up in Yuefeng's heart.