Second Exam

On the airship.

"My name is Tommy Soren, and I'm your examiner for the second exam. The airship will now take you to the venue for the second exam. Judging by what you went through yesterday, you can take a short rest on the airship."

Naturally, the exam would not be held on the airship.

The examinees dispersed.

Lucky also planned to find somewhere at random.

Lucky was not sleepy either. He found an empty spot and did some simple Nen training.

Whenever he had free time, Lucky would not let it slip by, doing his best to incorporate training into his daily life.

Nothing else happened.

Three hours later.

The airship arrived above a bustling city.

The second exam would take place in the city, though no one knew what kind of test it would be.

Lucky knew this city.

Ferrol, one of the more famous cities in the world.

That was because it housed the world's largest library, whose collection covered everything imaginable.

Lucky had not expected the examiner to bring them straight to Stockton Library.

The world's largest library.

The library took the form of a towering building.

There were simply too many books, enough to fill a high-rise.

And the examiner, Tommy Soren, seemed to possess some sort of authority within the library.

After arriving at an empty inner library.

Examiner Tommy began announcing the test.

His exam was simple: a straightforward written test.

As for the content of the test, it was contained in the library behind him.

"The total score is one hundred points. As long as you score twenty points, you will pass. Very simple, right?" Tommy said with a smile.

"How could it be? There are so many books here!"

This inner library alone probably contained around ten thousand books.

"So, I'll give you three days to read these books." Tommy gave the examinees three days, though it was still quite a demanding requirement.

"But what if I can't read?" There would always be some unusual examinees.

Tommy wore a helpless expression. "Then there's nothing I can do. Those are the Rules of my exam."

The exam sounded simple, but actually carrying it out was extremely difficult.

Lucky was already in Action, picking up a book and flipping through it.

And he flipped through it very quickly.

Lucky did not possess the ability to glance at something once and remember it forever.

But as long as he had "seen" it, he could use his Dreamscape ability to search for it.

Lucky's memories were a tangled mess. Finding what he needed among them was certainly not as simple as merely dreaming.

He possessed a certain ability to "search."

By "searching" for keywords, Lucky could quickly select a great many relevant memories.

And now, Lucky's Dreamscape ability had developed the ability of Dozing.

It had become very convenient to use.

"Oh, right. Anyone who damages a book will have points deducted. Of course, if anyone wants to withdraw, you may say so now."

Naturally, no one withdrew.

Tommy then disappeared, giving the examinees the chance to "study."

There were still over two hundred examinees. If they worked together, they could actually handle this exam.

First, the examiner had only said it was a written test. He had not said cheating was forbidden, nor had he said they could not copy one another's answers.

It might even be an open-book exam.

Of course, none of that mattered to Lucky. He could cheat anyway, so there was no need to consider too many possibilities.

Tommy was also one of the rarer book Hunters, as well as a learning and writing Hunter.

"Everyone, my name is Tonpa."

Lucky stopped what he was doing and looked over.

Tonpa had already begun taking the Hunter Exam?

What he saw was not a square-nosed middle-aged man, but a young man who looked nothing like his anime counterpart.

This was the young Tonpa.

Tonpa then began speaking of what he had discovered.

He believed everyone would need to work together to pass this exam.

The examiner had not said they could not copy from each other. In that case, they only needed to divide up the work and each read a portion of the books. Of course, that would also test the examinees' memories.

Three days was not enough to memorize something once and remember it forever.

Because of Tonpa, the examinees began to think it over. They truly did need to cooperate.

They also discussed all kinds of possibilities.

Some examinees even suggested stealing the test papers. If they knew the questions, finding the answers would be much easier.

That was also a method.

It even earned the agreement of some examinees.

Tonpa even suggested that if they wanted to copy the test papers, perhaps they could bribe the staff here for information.

He then proposed finding scholars in the library who were extremely familiar with the books in this inner library.

When the exam began, they could have those scholars help them directly from the side.

They did not necessarily need to read the books themselves.

They only needed to pass the exam.

It was an extremely unconventional approach.

Even Lucky could not help giving those methods a second look.

Tonpa, the Rookie Crusher from the anime, really did have some brains!

But that made sense. He had begun taking the Hunter Exam at the age of ten. Even if he had not passed, he had survived.

He continued taking the Hunter Exam afterward, and by the time the protagonist appeared, he was still completely unharmed, without even losing an arm or a leg.

He definitely had strength, and his mind was not bad either.

The current Tonpa probably had not yet considered becoming a "Rookie Crusher." It was only after repeatedly failing the Hunter Exam that he began to give up on himself.

During the Hunter Exam when Miss appeared, it was clear from the second-to-last exam that Tonpa truly wanted to become a Hunter.

Lucky did not choose to act together with the other examinees.

If only he had Shadow Clones. Otherwise, Lucky would have planned to read every book here when he had the time.

Even if he could not finish reading all the books, he was not worried about the exam. If he could not answer something, he could copy the other examinees' answers.

Of course, if none of them were correct, there would be nothing he could do.

He could only say that he had bad luck, running into an examiner like this.

The difficulty of the exam varied depending on the profession the examiner specialized in.

With an examiner like this, examinees would be eliminated quite quickly. It was even possible for every examinee to be eliminated.

Soon, the three days passed in the blink of an eye.

When it was time for the exam, all the examinees gathered in the library.

Tommy also entered the library carrying the test papers.

Besides the examinees, the library also contained other people the examinees had found to help them with the test.

With their help, passing the exam should be easy.

The exam venue was also inside the library.

Tommy imposed no restrictions whatsoever. He even said that they could look through books during the exam.

This was an open-book exam!

There were a hundred questions in total, all fill-in-the-blank questions.

The exam duration was six hours.