The moment my pen touched the paper, everything else faded.
The creaking of chairs, the scratch of a hundred quills, the occasional suppressed groan from someone who hadn't studied—all of it became background noise.
This test wasn't a challenge. It was an opportunity.
I didn't need to be the strongest here. I just needed them to notice I wasn't like the others.
I looked at the first question:
Question One:
You are trapped inside a collapsing ruin with a mana-leeching beast. You have no grimoire, no allies, and no escape routes. List three methods of survival using only physical means and your environment.
I thought about it for a few moments. The first question itself was the kind of question that made students panic and write whatever sounded "textbook safe."
I didn't make a single movement after reading the question. I simply set my pen down and closed my eyes.
Numerous thoughts formed and vanished in my head every passing second.
In my mind, the ruin unfolded like a map. I imagined the stone corridors, the crumbling pillars, the darkness, and the echoes.
I thought of the beast. I went through every single detail of it, from its breathing, its rhythm, and its hunger.
And then I opened my eyes.
A faint violet colour flickered through my golden irises for just a second as my psychic ability finished calculating.
A smirk formed on my lips as I wrote the answer.
1) Stay low and still. Mana-leechers hunt by tracking movement and body heat. Minimize both. Breathe slowly with no sound and no sudden gestures. Play dead for as long as possible.
2) Distract it using the environment. Find anything, be it a stone, a piece of fallen rubble, or even a torn scrap of cloth. Throw it away from you to create false noise and movement. Redirect its instincts.
3) Identify structural weaknesses around you—any loose beams or cracked arches. Lure it beneath one, and collapse the debris. Doesn't matter if you trap it or just buy five seconds. That's survival.
I glanced at the front as I finished my answer.
Freya was hunched over her paper, with her brow furrowed like the question had personally insulted her ancestors.
"Why the hell would anyone go into a ruin without their grimoire?" she muttered as she grunted and scribbled something aggressively.
Serena, on the other hand, hadn't looked up even once.
Her pen glided across the page with the elegance of a master calligrapher dissecting a corpse.
I couldn't help but watch her for a second longer before I turned back to the exam.
I continued answering strategically before my pen halted on another question.
Question Nine:
A noble client commissions you to brew a potion that enhances memory for battlefield use. However, the base ingredient is toxic in large doses, and the potion's side effects include hallucinations and emotional instability.
How do you adjust the alchemical process to minimize risks while retaining the desired effect? Provide your rationale.
I blinked while looking at the question.
It was alchemy-based, which made it very interesting.
They were testing our logic here, not formulas. There was no correct answer here—only answers that made sense to the right kind of mind.
I flexed my fingers.
A average student would write about some half-remembered combination of lotus leaf distillation or try to neutralize the side effects through brute dilution.
But this question wasn't about ingredients.
It was about intent.
Alchemy wasn't just a science. It was philosophy wrapped in fire and glass.
I smiled and began writing.
Step 1: Replace the toxic base with a milder catalyst that mimics the same neural conductivity enhancement, specifically, Nightfern extract. It is slightly weaker, but safer.
Step 2: Infuse a stabilizing agent with emotional grounding properties. Powdered silverroot works well—it's subtle and regulates mood swings caused by overstimulation.
Step 3: Include a time-release spell from an ability card in the brewing process. The potion's absorption will happen through the bloodstream slowly, instead of delivering it all at once.
Result: Reduced potency, but extended duration. Safer use in combat. Minor hallucinations persist but can be anchored with a grounding charm or a tether sigil applied before ingestion.
I tapped the desk lightly with the end of my pen. Just enough to stay focused and not overthink my answer.
At the front, Freya was staring at the same question like it had personally betrayed her.
"I don't get it," she whispered toward Serena. "Why not just chug the thing and hope for the best?"
Serena didn't respond with words. She simply pushed a second ink bottle toward Freya without looking up.
The implication was clear: you're going to need more ink if you're going to be this dumb.
Freya scowled and muttered something about alchemists being witches before going back to scribbling.
I leaned slightly forward to sneak a glance at Serena's paper. Despite the large distance between our seats, I managed to catch a glimpse.
Her writing was unnervingly neat. Color-coded annotations. Marginal notes. She had section headers and sub-points.
Was she formatting her exam like a thesis?
I blinked and returned to my own.
This girl was a walking research library. And Freya was a sledgehammer with muscle cramps.
God help me, they were both terrifying.
I continued through the next few pages—analyzing magical architecture diagrams, decoding a flawed array, and identifying a falsified historical account.
I didn't rush, but I didn't slow down either.
Then came the final question.
It didn't look like much at first. Just two short paragraphs printed on the page.
But as I read through it, I felt the entire room grow colder.
You are the commander of a remote fortress defending a city of 30,000 civilians. Your scouts report a massive horde of corrupted beasts en route—too large to defeat. Reinforcements will take three days to arrive.
You discover a natural chokepoint: a ravine that, if collapsed, will delay the horde by 48 hours. However, a village of 400 people is located directly within the ravine. There is no time to evacuate.
Do you collapse the ravine? Justify your decision.