After Su Ling finished eating all the fruit on the table bit by bit, the two of them finally set off to submit the magic cores.
Since Sevitis had brought Su Ling out of the exam hall under her own power, their scores wouldn’t simply be calculated based on the cores they had on them at the time.
When they arrived at the submission point, she dumped the cores from her Space Pouch like pouring beans, right in front of all the examinees and examiners.
At first it was just a crisp clink-clink two times, but then the sound turned into a continuous clatter—.
The cores instantly piled up into a small mountain on the table, with plenty spilling over and rolling onto the floor.
This exaggerated commotion immediately drew everyone’s attention. The entire exam hall, once buzzing with chatter, fell silent.
Even the examiner in charge of verification was startled by the sight.
The pen slipped from his hand, and he pushed up his glasses before stammering through the count:
“One Fourth Rank core, five Third Rank cores, twenty-six Second Rank cores, and First Rank cores…”
“F-five thousand three hundred twenty-five cores!”
Gasp—!
Hearing that shocking number, everyone present couldn’t help but suck in a breath.
Over five thousand? What did that even mean? Most people, even if they fought nonstop for the whole three days, would only manage to scrape together a fraction of that!
Had these two slaughtered their way through the entire exam hall? But even if they had that kind of strength, the First Rank monsters in the forest couldn’t possibly be enough, right?
Actually, only Sevitis herself knew how those five thousand-plus First Rank cores came about—
Back in the cave, she had unleashed a chain of Fireball Art bombardments, wiping out the entire nest of newly hatched Demon Spiderlings from the mother spider.
That had dropped a pile of First Rank cores, so she’d conveniently pocketed that unexpected loot.
As it turned out, her luck was pretty decent. She just seemed to have forgotten to mention it to a certain dumb cow.
“Haha… am I dreaming?” The ox demon girl beside her had spiraling eyes, actually wondering if the toxic mushrooms she’d eaten were still taking effect.
“So, the total score is…” Sevitis put one hand on her hip and tilted her head, looking a bit impatient with the examiner’s dawdling.
The examiner swallowed hard and announced the final result:
“A-a total of… seven thousand eighty-five points!”
A full seven thousand-plus points!
To put that in perspective, most ordinary examinees, after struggling in the forest for days on end, would end up with scores hovering around one to two hundred points.
Four hundred points was already far above average, and the score of these two girls completely crushed everyone else’s results by a landslide.
But Sevitis had actually held back. To avoid suspicion, she hadn’t brought out the Fourth Rank core from the mother Demon Spider at the end.
Otherwise, their total would have been another thousand points higher.
The reason was simple: she had trouble explaining what happened afterward to Su Ling.
Although Su Ling was gullible enough that any random lie would fool her… she suddenly didn’t feel like doing that anymore.
The examiner in charge of verification picked up the fallen pen, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and prepared to record:
“These cores… do you two split them fifty-fifty, or…”
“Yes, fifty-fifty. Please register that,” Sevitis answered without hesitation.
“B-boss… most of these cores were hunted by you alone earlier, right? You don’t have to split them evenly with me. Just count the ones we hunted together as half mine…”
Even though Su Ling was much taller than Sevitis, she looked like a bullied kid right now, timidly tugging at her sleeve, her voice trembling.
“I said we split evenly, so we split evenly. These aren’t all from me alone. I’ll explain the details when we get back. For now, just remember that we earned them on our own merits.”
Sevitis’s tone left no room for argument.
“But…” Su Ling still felt embarrassed taking so many points for free.
“No buts. It’s decided.” Sevitis shot her a cool glance with those blue-violet eyes. “Or did you call me ‘boss’ for the past few days just for fun?”
“No, it’s not that…”
“Then that’s settled. Why all the useless talk?” Sevitis turned around, signaling the examiner to continue recording.
Su Ling had no choice but to withdraw her hand.
“I just feel like I owe Little Sevi more and more…” Su Ling muttered quietly behind her.
She wondered if she should think of a way to repay her. Her mother had taught her, “Repay a drop of kindness with a gushing spring.” But she had nothing to offer.
She pondered: maybe she should just use her body? Little Sevi had refused earlier, but maybe she just didn’t like the outdoor setting of the forest?
So why not pick a dark and stormy night and go to her room… After all, her mother said “gushing spring” repayment, and she considered herself…
CLANG—!
“Clear those dirty thoughts from your head, or don’t blame me for being rude.”
Sevitis pulled out a terrifying giant sword from somewhere and slammed it heavily onto the ground.
After spending these days together, she had long figured out this dumb cow’s behavior patterns.
Every time she got quiet, she was definitely cooking up some kind of trouble.
Add to that the indecent knowledge she’d picked up from who-knows-where, and if Sevitis didn’t stop her in time, she’d be the one to suffer.
“Oh, oh! Got it!” Su Ling was startled and looked up at the giant sword, which was almost taller than her.
Compared to that, the long sword Sevitis had used to hit her before was like a toothpick. Imagining this exaggerated thing being used on her…
Su Ling gasped and immediately shook all those pink thoughts out of her head.
That big would definitely not work! It would break her!
Once she confirmed that the horny cow had calmed down, Sevitis turned to look at the examiner who had been recording, only to find him sweating profusely while fiddling with a Voice Transmission Stone.
“Not done yet? It’s just registering a score. Does it take this long?”
“Sorry, please wait a moment. I just received a notice that we need the Chief Examiner to come personally to verify it.” The examiner wiped his sweat.
Just then, whispers broke out among the waiting examinees:
“You think… those cores weren’t actually hunted by her, but brought in already stored in a Space Pouch?”
“That’s possible! Otherwise, how could a Third Rank gather that many cores in such a short time?”
“Today, several people trying to pull that trick have already been caught red-handed by the examiners.”
“And isn’t she the useless heiress of the Adams Family? Maybe she bought them at a high price from someone else. But the academy hasn’t explicitly banned that kind of transaction, has it?”
The surrounding murmurs grew louder. Su Ling’s face flushed with anger, and she was about to step forward to retort loudly, but Sevitis grabbed her arm.
She had heard all the gossip, but she couldn’t be bothered to explain to these people.
Since the Chief Examiner had declared before the exam that the academy could trace the origin of every core, she would simply wait for the academy to make a fair judgment.
Not long after, Chief Examiner Kennisi arrived at the scene in a hurry.
“Everyone, quiet!” A voice infused with Magic Power spread through the area, instantly suppressing all the dissonant noise.
She strode straight toward the center of the storm. The examiner in charge of recording sighed in relief and immediately stepped aside, about to report the situation.
“Enough, no need to say more.” Kennisi raised her hand to stop him and turned to look at the mess on the table.
Even the well-traveled Kennisi couldn’t help but twitch the corner of her mouth when she saw the small pile of cores.
She looked helplessly at the culprit before her.
“You troublemaking little girl, you really were born to be my calamity…”
“Hehe, sorry about that.” Sevitis blinked, showing an innocent smile. “Do you need some time to verify the sources?”
“No need. Since I came personally, I’ve already checked the results.”
With that, Kennisi turned around and swept a cold gaze over the surrounding examinees, announcing loudly in front of everyone:
“After careful investigation by the academy, all the magic cores submitted by these two examinees were produced from this exam’s Blood Burial Forest, and were hunted entirely on their own strength!”
“To summarize, their scores are valid and authentic!”
As soon as she finished, the whole place erupted in uproar. Unfazed by the shock, Kennisi turned to the examiner and said:
“Alright, quickly register their scores. I have other matters to attend to, so I’ll take my leave.”
The examiner nodded repeatedly and picked up his pen to record.
“Wait! I disagree!”
A discordant voice suddenly emerged from the crowd.
“Even though you’re the Chief Examiner, you can’t just make us accept this result based on your word alone, can you?”
Kennisi paused mid-step, giving the speaker a dismissive look as if he were an idiot.
“It seems you’ve misunderstood something. When did I ever say I was here to prove anything to you?”
“I’m only here to ‘inform’ you of the result. Whether you believe it or not is your own business.”
“Y-you’re clearly abusing your authority! I’ll report you to the higher-ups…”
“Yes, I am abusing my authority. So what?” Kennisi admitted outright, her tone dripping with contempt.
“What are you going to do about it? If you think it’s unfair, the exit is over there. You can leave right now. Kantaier Academy has never lacked self-important fools.”
“Since I’m the Chief Examiner for this exam, what I say goes in this venue.” Kennisi’s eyes were sharp as knives. “Anyone else have objections?”
The one who had spoken first fell silent instantly, his face red, unable to get a word out.
Just then, the Voice Transmission Stone on Kennisi’s body suddenly vibrated.
She took it out and listened for a moment:
“Mm… I’m almost done here. Oh? Is that so… I see. Understood. I’ll handle it.”
Kennisi put away the Voice Transmission Stone, her gaze once again landing on the examinee who had protested earlier, a mocking sneer curling at the corner of her mouth.
“I was wondering how you dared to jump out and lead the charge. Turns out it’s a case of ‘the thief crying ‘Stop thief!’”
“W-what do you mean? Don’t slander me! I was just raising a reasonable doubt.” The man was clearly panicked, shouting with a fierce front but a weak heart.
“The Space Pouch you were about to submit contains two Third Rank cores, eleven Second Rank cores, and one First Rank core.” Kennisi listed them unhurriedly.
“Of those, the two Third Rank cores are secondhand goods you bought at a high price from the Adventurer Guild on Commercial Street before the exam. The eleven Second Rank cores were bought from other examinees with money in the forest.”
“As for the remaining First Rank core, you killed it on a whim to use fresh monster blood to soak those cores, trying to confuse the traces of hunting and fake evidence.”
Kennisi pushed up her glasses, her eyes icy:
“How about it? Do you need me to list exactly how much you spent as well?”
“N-no need…” The man’s face turned ashen, his legs trembling.
“So, will you leave on your own, or should I have someone ‘escort’ you out?”
Under the contemptuous gazes of the entire crowd, the cheating examinee lowered his head and fled the scene.
Everyone present was stunned by this turn of events. No one dared to raise any further doubts about Sevitis’s scores.
This time, they had seen for themselves the depth of Kantaier Academy’s strength.
They could actually uncover every detail of an examinee’s background in such a short time.