Week 9 Midterm Exams (1)
On Sunday, most of the graduate mentors—including Ahn Jungmi and the lazy bum—boarded the train leaving Dungeon Island.
After seeing them off, I shut myself straight into the Training Center.
Something's bound to happen during the midterms.
By eliminating one Blood Cult Elder in advance, I had thrown part of their plan into disarray, but these were not men who would give up over that. Rather than scrap the plan entirely at this late stage, they would choose to force it through with a screw loose somewhere.
Which meant some kind of mischief was a foregone conclusion.
And with the midterms only days away, there was exactly one thing I could be doing right now.
Skill grinding.
Getting just a little stronger, however I could.
Using Skill Book — Air Burst.
Acquired Air Burst (F+).
My top priority was completing Spiral Explosion. For that, all three prerequisite skills—Twister, Point Burst, and Air Burst—had to be raised to C-Rank.
The first two were done, which left only Air Burst.
When I operated the terminal mounted on the training room wall, a wooden dummy appeared and rattled about in front of me.
Whirrr—
A mass of wind gathered over my hand and compressed into a sphere. I hurled it straight at the dummy.
Its flight speed was roughly that of an underhand-thrown soccer ball—generous as I might be, no one could call it fast.
But when the wind sphere struck home—
Pop!
The wooden dummy burst apart, splinters scattering in every direction. Hitting anything with it was the hard part; the sheer impact itself wasn't bad at all.
And "hitting things a lot" was precisely how you ranked up Air Burst.
I worked the terminal, and a fresh dummy slid into place. This time I raised the wood's durability a notch and—
Rattle, rattle—
—set it diligently scuttling side to side. I observed the dummy's movements, predicted where it was headed, and sent an Air Burst flying.
Pop! Pop!
The training kept picking up speed. The material shifted from wood to steel, the number of dummies multiplied, their movement quickened, and I even upgraded the artificial intelligence so they'd dodge incoming shots on their own.
Pop! Pop-pop!
By the time I'd blasted the frenzied dummies to splinters one after another—
Air Burst rank increased. (F+ → E+)
The rank climbed a whole tier in no time at all. Compared to my other skills, it was a low-grade ability, so raising it was relatively easy.
I immediately used the Rank Up (E) I'd procured from the Game Center.
Using Rank Up (E).
Air Burst grade increased. (E+ → D+)
Keep the momentum going.
Pop!
There was one more skill that needed rank grinding.
I settled into a Mana Cultivation Room and pulled the Demon Sealing Box from my inventory.
I had left the Purification Talisman attached to it and simply let it be, and now the once-pristine white strip had burned down to nothing, leaving only the black rectangular imprint of its outline. When I gave it a light tap, black ash flaked off and scattered.
A Purification Talisman is gradually consumed as it purifies—or neutralizes—demonic qi. The fact that it had crumbled to ash meant it had done its job to the very end.
I would have to check inside the Demon Sealing Box to know for certain, but even if it wasn't fully purified, I figured a good deal of the demonic energy inside must have been neutralized.
I unwound the golden cords coiled tight around the box and peeled off the layers of talismans plastered all over it, one by one. Then, when I slid the lid half open—
Sssssss……
Black mist seeped out, curling lazily into the air. It had been considerably neutralized, but demonic qi was still demonic qi; there was no helping the venomous feel of it.
I extended my index finger straight and unleashed the Hyeonum Jade Demon Finger.
Crrrack,
My finger froze solid in an instant, turned into a veritable icicle. The frost qi, seemingly unsatisfied with merely swallowing my finger, tried to push into my hand—was driven back by Elemental Resistance—tried again—and kept up the assault.
In that state, I slipped my hand into the half-open Demon Sealing Box. The demonic mist drifting out clung eagerly to my outstretched finger, as if welcoming it.
I held the Hyeonum Jade Demon Finger like that for a long while.
That should about do it.
After an appropriate stretch of time, I pulled my hand out. Eaten away by the demonic qi, the finger had blackened completely. But when I drew a few drops from a Lesser Elixir and let them fall, it returned to normal almost immediately.
How to refine one's demonic arts attribute—by harnessing the demonic qi of the Demon Sealing Box, that was how. Because it used condensed demonic energy, the process was worlds faster than any conventional method.
Had I not neutralized the qi with the Purification Talisman, it would have been even faster than this, but—
The side effects would've been worse, too.
That was why I needed to reduce the backlash down to a level a Lesser Elixir could handle. And even at this pace, it was more than enough.
I'll finish it before the midterms.
The target: B-Rank.
I cast the Hyeonum Jade Demon Finger once more and plunged my hand into the box.
Monday's class. Every student in the room hung on Lee Sudok's every word.
It wasn't that they were cowed by his murderous presence—rather, an even blend of tension and anticipation hung over them. At length, Lee Sudok brought up the topic they'd all been waiting for.
"As announced two weeks ago, this week is midterm week. I will reveal the exam contents today, then give you Monday and Tuesday to prepare—briefly. From Wednesday, the midterm will run for three days."
In other words: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday would be spent inside a dungeon.
First, Lee Sudok revealed the environment.
MAP: [UNINHABITED ISLAND]
Screens bloomed across the blackboard, showing scenes from every corner of the uninhabited island: tropical rainforest, caves, ruined buildings, monsters prowling between them.
"A colossal artificial dungeon built directly by Dragon Slayer Academy. The entire first-year class will enter this island to sit the exam. And an uninhabited island demands uninhabited-island rules, doesn't it?"
The screens flickered out, and in their place the rules appeared.
RULE: [SURVIVAL] [PAIRS] [CRYSTAL]
"Let me explain the most important rule, [SURVIVAL]. First: for the three days you are inside the dungeon, your inventory is sealed."
"……!"
Shock washed across the students' faces. With your inventory sealed, you were essentially reduced to a primitive human for the duration of the midterm.
For those who'd stockpiled items at the Downtown Market, the blow would hit even harder.
Pay it no mind, Lee Sudok continued his explanation without so much as a glance.
"What you may carry on your person is limited to two items, plus your uniform. Stuffing things into a subspace backpack as a loophole won't work, so don't get any clever ideas."
"……!"
"Everything else you will have to provide for yourselves within the dungeon. Supply drops will arrive from time to time, but—"
—he added, with a meaningful lilt, that such supplies were hardly going to be handed over for free.
[PAIRS] was a rule that had appeared so many times before that no explanation was necessary: two to a team, scoring together. So Lee Sudok moved straight on to [CRYSTAL].
He set a red, a blue, a yellow, and a green crystal on the lectern.
"As you can see, there are four types of crystal. Your grade will be determined by how many 'charged' crystals you possess at the moment the midterm ends."
Example 1 appeared on the blackboard: four crystals, all fully charged, glowing bright.
"Five hundred conquest points per charged crystal type, for a total of 2,000 points. Additionally, the point payout multiplier is four times."
"……!"
In other words: charge all four crystal types, and 8,000 points would be paid out in one lump sum. The students were thrown into even greater shock than they'd been during the survival rule explanation, and some of them were already flushed with excitement.
Next, Example 2 appeared on the blackboard. The red and blue crystals glowed brightly, while the yellow one had been merely held—its light dead.
"Uncharged crystals are excluded from scoring. In this example, only the red and blue count, for a total of 1,000 points."
Which meant that simply holding a crystal without charging it was utterly meaningless.
Still, even two crystals like Example 2 meant 1,000 points—and a whopping 4,000 points at that. By this point, a fair number of students were probably thinking: don't be greedy, just aim for the middle.
But is it really that easy?
Example 3 appeared on the board. Four red crystals, all charged.
"One red crystal is worth 500 points; every additional red crystal thereafter grants 250 points. In this example, the total is 1,250 points."
"……!"
"How you gather your crystals, and which types, is entirely up to you."
You might, for instance, trade with other students to collect one crystal of each color.
Or you could take them by force.
More crystals always meant more points and more payouts, after all. Which is to say: merely charging your crystals wasn't the whole game—keeping them safe from theft for all three days mattered just as much.
Even holding onto two would be no mean feat.
Just then, a student hesitantly raised a hand.
"Um, Teacher?"
Lee Sudok tilted his chin, inviting the question.
"So…… how do we get the crystals?"
"Good question. Crystals can be obtained on the island in a variety of ways. As one straightforward example—"
Screens lit up with goblins, trolls, ogres, and all manner of monsters.
"Beat these things down, and they'll drop one at a certain probability."
And though Lee Sudok didn't say so explicitly, the stronger the monster, the higher the drop rate. Bagging a single ogre promised better returns than slaughtering hundreds of goblins.
"Of course, as I said, there is more than one way to obtain a crystal. You will need to put to use everything you've learned since entering this Dragon Slayer Academy."
Even if the elements hadn't appeared in the official rules, the essence of the PvP assessments and conquest battles we'd been through was surely woven throughout every corner of the dungeon.
Lee Sudok wrapped up the class with an instruction to think carefully and prepare thoroughly. Then he glared at me for a long moment before finally turning on his heel and walking out of the classroom.
He's watching me like a hawk.
Really, it was unnerving. He'd been throwing glances my way even during ordinary classes, but ever since the inquiry hearing the other day it had gotten noticeably worse.
I didn't think he'd caught me with the Hyeonum Jade Demon Finger or the graffiti or anything of the sort, but apparently I'd left some kind of scent. There was nothing I could do about it right this moment, so I decided to focus on what was in front of me.
First, I called up the sub-quest that had just arrived.
Week 9 Midterm Exams
▷ Objective: Charge the crystals
Red (0/1) — Blue (0/1)
Yellow (0/1) — Green (0/1)
▷ Reward: Paid out according to your grade
Sub-quest rewards were tailor-made, designed to assess the player's growth and grant the items, skills, or traits they most needed. And because the midterms and finals were harder than your average sub-quest, their rewards were that much more lavish.
If I charged all four crystal types and cleared the sub-quest at maximum completion, the reward would be—
The Fixing Pin.
A once-in-a-lifetime, cheat-tier item that turned a single copied skill or trait fully and permanently into "mine." No matter what, I had to get my hands on it.
Well then, time to prepare, one piece at a time.
The first thing to settle was, naturally, who to pair up with. And sure enough, the moment class ended, two prime candidates had already drifted over to me.
On my right, Go Hyeon-woo, his eyes sparkling.
"Brother Kim, shall we not sit the midterm together?"
On my left, Seo Ye-in, gently tugging at my sleeve.
"Team up."
Both spoke at the exact same moment.
And the two of them locked eyes in midair.