Chapter 488: The Contrast

The night passed, and dawn soon arrived, signaling another day in the Trial of Parazonium arrived.

Baiyi’s Kitty Cat Maid had woken up extra early. She let out a jaw-breaking yawn as she entered her office, setting the student’s performance record book wide on her desk. Squeezing her eyes a little, she mustered her attention to the screens and observed the students’ state in the morning to award them points for last night’s performance.

One may raise an eyebrow at the idea of assessing past performance based on their present state in the morning, but it was logical. How refreshed and spirited these students were in the morning allowed Attie to infer the experience they had last night. Was it a pleasant rest? Were they forced to tussle with the Jawflower? Or perhaps they suffered an attack from some other nocturnal natives?

A look at how invigorated Team Egghead and Team Eisenrose, for example, was a big sign that the night had gone as well as it could. They were visibly high in spirits as they began to pursue their mission targets. The same, however, could not be said to the team led by supposed cream of the crop, Lee. They actually seemed even wearier than the day it began.

Curiosity took over Attie. As one of the contenders for the platinum necklace, Lee had always been a target of her attention. This was why if he ever wavered, she picked it up instantly. That was not all; Attie noticed that the boy had emerged not from the bear’s den that he had so forcefully taken over yesterday, but from the top of a suspending rocky spike. He had been spending the night up here.

It came out as a shock. This was Lee’s fourth time joining the Trial, which meant he was one of the most seasoned veterans among the students. Surely he was above committing an egregious error that could cause a deduction of points like this. What could have happened to make him abandon a secure camp close to a secured food source? How did he even end up in this state?

Attie tapped on Lee’s screen and flicked her wrist. Quickly, the scene started playing backward until it was last night.

The downfall began with an honest-but-deadly mistake from two first-graders whom Lee had so good-naturedly taken in as his teammates. Being newbies, they were not familiar with the characters and unwritten rules of Da Xue, including who the Jawflower was or its reputation as the fearsome beast that guarded the female dorm. When they heard the strange, rhythmic poundings outside the den, in false chivalrous bravery they ventured outside.

Of course, with the aid of the torches in their hands, they were easily discovered by Jawflower X. They made their next grave mistake by sprinting straight back to the only place they knew was safe, effectively leading Jawflower X to their base.

No students could contain an upgraded and enlarged Jawflower — not even honor student Lee. Thanks to his useless teammates, he was forced to go on a run, and in an effort to thwart Jawflower X off his heels, he neglected the welfare of his teammates and escaped alone. His team was in shambles, but after some thoughts, he decided to abandon them altogether and spent the night on a tall rocky spike, high above Jawflower X’s reach.

Da Xue famously extolled the virtues of collectivism and discouraged individualistic heroics [1] — a principle palpable in the points-awarding system for the Trial of Parazonium. Although it was not explicitly stated that students must form teams during the Trial, they were nonetheless incentivized to do so, simply because there was a lot of extra points for teamwork. If one performed exceptionally and managed to carry their entire team throughout the Trial, they would be even more lavishly awarded.

In summary, anyone who worked in a team would always earn more points than a lone wolf.

This was really the greatest reason why Lee decided to take in these first-graders in the first place. If he ever hoped to earn that platinum necklace, he would stand a better chance by grinding more merits. Taking up juniors into his team was merely one of his tried-and-true means to earn points, and was one he had used over his past three Trials.

Whether his intentions were selfish or not mattered little since, in the end, it did encourage someone as strong as himself to help the weak — the very thing Da Xue had hoped to achieve with the incentives. However, what ruined Lee’s plan was the unannounced addition of mutated monsters this year, as well as the sudden twist that his teammates were not those he had selected and planned prior to the Trial but anyone he came across.

That was how he ended up in this fiasco: he was unable to help his teammates and ended up miserable and alone at the top of a rocky spike with hardly enough sleep.

While putting together a team to victory would net in a huge amount of points, the inverse — abandoning your teammates at the face of danger — would cause a landslide loss of points enough to drastically hamper one from achieving distinction. In other words, this turn of events had dealt a fatal blow to Lee’s overall performance; the only way he could ever cover that loss was if he managed to complete every single mission plus the additional side quests.

In other words, he was going to lose his eligibility for the platinum necklace.

There was a small loophole that could save him, however: Attie’s decision. If she ignored this slip and allowed him to maintain his current score, even if he opted to survive the Trial without a team, his personal prowess should still be able to push him back into the bar of distinction.

Should she let this mistake go, because Lee was the Knight’s Faculty only hope for bringing in the glory of the platinum necklace, or should she be impartial and deduct his points accordingly?

A smile played on Attie’s lips. With a light little flick of her quill, she slashed off a large number of Lee’s points as if the pen was a sword. It might as well be, as she had basically murdered the Knight Faculty’s chance at obtaining prestige and bragging rights through Lee’s platinum necklace.

She was not the slightest bit upset at the thought of it. “Running away from the unexpected? Ha! To think that a wimp like you once thought that you deserve my Mia!” She ribbed as if Lee was there in her office. “Unlike you, if there’s any danger, Mia would definitely throw herself in front of others!”

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She had not expected someone to listen in her conversation, but a familiar voice ringing from the other side of her door said otherwise. “Huh? Who’s in trouble?”

The owner of the voice opened the door and made herself known.

“Mia! I didn’t expect you to be here today. Aren’t you supposed to invigilate for the upcoming sorcery exam?” Attie greeted before scanning Mia questioningly. “Why… are you wearing something like that?”

Mia’s go-to Professor uniform would always be the newly designed one with its long, floor-draping skirt and its high-cut slit at the side which sometimes served as a window to her lean legs. Today, however, she was donning the original Da Xue classic — a thick, long robe, with every inch of her skin covered completely. It was as though she had worn a bucket.

Unsurprisingly, this was Baiyi’s favorite design, but it was one of the worst outfits Mia, the avid fashionista who would do anything to show off, had ever had the displeasure of wearing. Right now, though, here she was, wearing something only Baiyi would approve.

“It’s because of the exam that I’m wearing something like this!” She grumbled helplessly and stumbled into Attie’s office like an animated bucket with short stout legs. “I mean, the students are always distracted whenever I’m wearing our usual uniform. It’s fine during lectures, but it’s pretty bad during exams.”

Last year, when she wore her favorite uniform to invigilate for an exam, the asymmetrical cut had made its high-cut slit far more risqué than she had expected. It was marginally better during lectures because Mia spent most of the time standing up or walking around; but as during invigilations the most action she did was to sit on the desk, her lean, long legs wrapped by sexy white pantyhose became completely exposed for all to see. Naturally, that tore the boys’ eyes away from their papers too frequently.

The effect was, to Mia’s dismay, substantive. The scores in every exam Mia invigilated suffered considerably, and after knowing her part in it, she volunteered to wear the most conservative uniform she had for all of her invigilations since then.

“Huh, that’s pretty considerate of you,” Attie commented with an amused smile after listening to Mia’s explanation.

“I still have some time left before the exam started, so I thought of visiting you for a nice chat,” Mia continued. “How’s the exam on your side?”

Attie pursed her lips and replied simply, “See for yourself.”

She beckoned Mia to come closer to where the screens suspended in the air. “Following Principal Hitman’s request, we added some changes to the exam, and now everything’s a little… different from last year.”

Baiyi had discussed the difficulty of the Trials of Parazonium at length with the Hitman in the past. On a superficial level, the Trial was just the right amount of challenge, but once students had gotten used to its offerings then formed a workable team, the difficulty level plummeted disproportionately. As the Trial had been done since the founding of Da Xue itself, the students had a wealth of knowledge about Mount Parazonium itself; from its danger zones, safe zones, finest delicacies, to its ecosystem and where the most dangerous beasts reside. If nothing new was going to happen, Baiyi had argued, the Trial of Parazonium was going to turn into Teatime at Mount Parazonium very soon. However, with that being said, Mount Parazonium was objectively too difficult for newbies without guidance from veterans.

The chasm in difficulty between the experienced and the rookies was just that stark.

If it was not for the fact that getting a good micro-realm for their exercise was a load of trouble while establishing the All-Seeing Eye was annoying and tricky to pull off, Baiyi would have asked the Hitman to change a new micro-realm for their exam every few times or stop the trial altogether.

The Hitman had held his ground that the Trial was still very much relevant. He did, however, agree that the faculty would need to spice things up for the veterans. For that end, the faculty had introduced different difficulty levels of missions according to the student’s current grade, as well as banning them from bringing medic packs, water, and ration from outside. The faculty even adjusted the scoring scheme multiple times, but the effects were still negligible.

It was only this year when the Hitman decided to up the ante by throwing Jawflower X, Cactus Z, and Watermelon Omega — three magical beasts the students could not possibly defeat — into the fray to shake things up. Because of that, the students’ experiences, while still relevant, were no longer a guarantee for success. Lee’s failure was only an example of it; using the same methods he had been employing since he first joined the Trials had caused him to fail on the very first night itself.

When changes were introduced, only those who could adapt accordingly stood a chance to prevail and score high. Eisenrose’s team, though consisting of first-graders much as Lee’s was, demonstrated that spectacularly. By a stroke of bad luck, her camp was in the middle of Jawflower X’s nightly patrol path, causing them to be quickly discovered by the mutated monster.

Despite being a girl and therefore never once targeted by the Jawflower before, she was surprisingly knowledgeable about the Jawflower’s pattern and behaviors. With her quick-thinking, she managed to lead her team away from the Jawflower systematically, then quickly secured a new location to set up their base in the darkness of the night, just so her teammates would not lose a night’s sleep.

Then, the next morning, their misfortune struck again, this time in the form of Cactus Z. It was a precarious situation, but Eisenrose thought fast. She knew that the Cactus was a much less aggressive monster than the Jawflower, and so armed with her knowledge of Mount Parazonium’s geography, she managed to calmly lead her team to retreat while baiting Cactus Z to a den of lindworms. When Cactus Z was stuck in a fight with them, she used the opening to escort her team to safety.

A few minutes later, she led her team back to the now-wrecked den to salvage materials, such as lindworms’ eggs, from the aftermath. This, in turn, allowed her teammate to complete his mission.

Naturally, her display of resourcefulness, level-headedness, and leadership had earned Attie’s rave review, especially when compared to that no-good Lee.

Mia was impressed after listening to Attie’s commentary, too. “That girl is like a copy of you, Attie! She’s so good at taking care of others perfectly… Are all of you dark-skinned girls always so gentle and good at taking care of others?” [2]