"Bahaha! So, Sir. Aylward? What's the assessment for my student? Hahaha!"
Though I was extremely glad to see Ms. Red doing well on her test, I wasn't sure if that happiness made up for the torture that was seeing Oliver's reaction. A reaction consisting of a mix of unbearable glee and haughtiness.
Luckily for Sir. Aylward, he also happened to have been instructing a very impressive student, a student that had already created huge ripples in the history of the academy.
From the fact that he started out as a mere [F]-rank, one of the weakest students to ever be admitted to the academy, to reaching the highest rank among the freshmen in less than a year. The last student to be assessed was by far one of the most noteworthy that had ever attended the academy.
Trying his best to ignore the grinning bald man, Sir. Aylward took his place at the microphone, as he was the teacher responsible for the last assessment. Pressing the button on the control panel, he was obviously quite impatient to show Oliver that he wasn't the only one responsible for an exceptional student.
That being said, there was still the fact that Oliver was the homeroom teacher for the sophomores, which made me think that he would still find some way to brag about his students.
To some extent, I was a bit sad to not have them as my students anymore, as they had been quite an amusing group of people. More than that, a lot of them had such exceptional potential that it was hard to believe they came from the same generation.
Now, I didn't believe the freshmen to carry low potential, it was just that they didn't quite have the same qualities as the sophomore. Many of them had potential that would allow them to reach very far if they tried their best, but there was no one of them that held the heaven-defying potential like Arthur, Sophie, Adriana, or... Peter...
These four were people that I believed could break whatever limit they ever found, more than likely being able to reach further than [A]-rank if they kept pushing forward. It had to be said that for Adriana, it was quite insane that she was able to keep up with the humans around her, as elves typically had slower growth in the early stages of life.
Peter was... special, to say the least, but in terms of talent, his entire being was overflowing. Though his physical abilities were a bit lacking, the amount of mana that he carried in his body and the speed of execution of his spells were, for his age, absurd.
Sophie had already demonstrated the reason why she would be able to grow stronger than anyone, and even though part of the reason lay in her Manual, her attitude towards fighting was an even bigger part.
And then we had...
"Arthur Luminary."
Having his name called, it didn't take long until a boy with blonde hair entered the room, his very demeanor seemingly shining even in the well-lit room. Handsome, strong, and filled with resolve. This man had everything one could wish for, and yet it felt like he wasn't even closed to being satisfied.
"Are you ready, Arthur?"
"I'm ready."
A succinct answer was all he gave to his swordsmanship instructor, his eyes already looking past this test. Almost as if he was chasing someone, trying desperately to catch up.
"Then I will start the test. For this test, you will be challenging level A-6."
In contrast to D-6, which was a test fully focused on fighting in close quarters, the A-levels were meant for all-rounders. For the students that had a flexible fighting style and could deal with various different scenarios.
Unsheathing his sword, Arthur showed us that he was ready to begin as a slight glow quickly emerged on the blade, to which his instructor didn't hesitate to start the countdown.
[Test starting in:]
[5]
[4]
[3]
[2]
[1]
[Start!]
And just like when Sophie had started the test, eight circles appeared. Now, however, they weren't just confined to the ceiling high up in the air and the floor. Now they were spread all over the room, with dummies even coming out from the walls.
In other words, the scenario that was being constructed where one that put Arthur in the middle of an ambush, with dummies surrounding him from every direction. Even worse was that they weren't just close combatants, instead, there was one healer, two spellslingers, and a ranger in the mix as well.
So, even if the tests were designed to be relatively equal in difficulty no matter what kind of scenario one was tested on, only a fool wouldn't understand that this was a lot trickier of a test to deal with.
Despite this, the student seemed to be completely unfazed, and what happened next somehow managed to surprise us even more than his former achievements.
In an instant he had managed to recognize the roles of his enemies, his figure blurring as he dashed toward the healer of the group, ending its artificial in the blink of an eye.
Then, as the rest of the dummies got desperate to stop him, and to make sure he couldn't get to the casters who had started preparing their spells, he merely positioned himself behind the melee combatants, making it so the casters couldn't find an angle to attack him.
"[Arc of Light - Strengthened]"
A big wave of light exited the sword he swung with all his might, making short work of two of the melee dummies who were trying to catch him. At the same time, the fall of the two dummies opened up a gap for the mages to launch their attacks.
So, they finally launched their spells, one ball of fiery flames and a blade of compressed wind. Unfortunately for them, the natural movement of the two remaining melee combatants had already made it so they inevitably filled that gap as they went for another attack, creating a situation where they were the ones to eat the spells in their backs.
And so, after two slashes of the glowing swords, there were now only the two casters left, who had no choice but to accept their fate as Arthur once again dashed with insane speed, catching them before they had even managed to start preparing their next spells.
[Test completed. Time for completion: 1:24]
As the robotic voice announced his victory, neither of us could believe what we had just witnessed.
It had been an absolute massacre, a dominant display of both power and prowess, as well as showing off just how insanely fast his mind had analyzed the situation and created the most optimal way of dealing with it.
Not even Mr. Brown found words to say, and there was no sign of a gleeful grin on his face this time, and although Sir. Aylward had been the one to teach him, he didn't seem to have understood the extent of Arthur's either.
Absurd was the only word I could find for it. How a sophomore could display a performance that not only eclipsed his classmates but most likely eclipsed the majority of the seniors if not all of them.
As he exited the room, there was finally someone who broke the silence around us, a certain old lady who had probably the most experience out of all of us.
"I think we might have the first sophomore in the history of the academy to reach B-rank on our hands."
Turning our heads toward Mrs. Bright, who only stood there while wearing a very gentle smile, a small ball of stress started growing inside of all of us when thinking about what her words entailed. Though it was always great to have talented students, there was a downside if they were too talented, mostly because we would have to make sure we could guide them adequately.
Suddenly, another voice rang out, a voice coming from someone who usually wasn't present at these kinds of events.
"Not quite, Mrs. Bright, but I do not blame you for thinking so. The fact is, there has been another sophomore during the history of this academy to reach B-rank as a sophomore. A man whose achievements could be said to not only have changed our world but saved it."
As it was not unusual for the principal to just show up out of nowhere, we weren't surprised enough to miss what he was saying. Even less understanding of who he was talking about.
The hero himself, the one who had saved the allied races 300 years ago.
So if Arthur was as talented as him, didn't that mean we stood the risk of squandering the potential of another hero?
Somehow, just hearing the principal tell us something that we to some extent already understood just made everything feel so much harder.
'We have a lot of work to do with those sophomores...'