All the duels ended one by one.
Coincidentally, both classes had the same number of victories. So the competition was called a draw. This is also what originally happened in the novel. Both classes A-1 and B-1 had 150 wins.
Lucas at first was afraid that his win, which definitely didn't happen in the original novel, might be the reason for class A-1 to win. It would cause the timeline to stray from the original plot. Of course, he didn't know that Kardama also won a duel from the other side and balanced it out.
Everyone went back to their class, and then another problem appeared.
A written test.
A test that will directly affect the ranking system. Lucas appeared in this world just a week ago. And most of the time, he was busy raiding the tomb. So he could only let out a long sigh.
***
"What the fuck? A test right after the duel competition? And a test right on the first day of class? They didn't even teach anything yet."
Kardama became mad at this. He appeared in this world just four days ago. Obviously, he can't answer anything.
"How is this even fair?"
[ The contents of the study were already given by the academy a long time ago. Exactly 3 months ago.]
"How the hell would I know that?"
The first question is,
-What is a mutant?
"Those people with super powers in the X-MEN movies, I guess?"
- Name three toxic monsters.
"Anime fans who think Goku can solo every other verse."
"K-Pop stans?"
"And football fan at the time of FIFA?"
- What ended in 2071?
"2070?"
- In which battle did the Hero of Light die?
"In his last battle?"
- Where was the Declaration of the Human-Elf Alliance signed?
"At the bottom of the page?"
Kardama realised he didn't have even one answer to any of the questions.
"Wait a minute! System, just answer me these questions."
[That will be cheating.]
"I remember someone saying, The system was solely created for the purpose of helping the host adjust to this world'."
[Okay. But that doesn't mean I would help you cheat in the exam.]
" I also remember that someone didn't give me an important piece of information about how dangerous the place he told me to attend was, only because I never asked, which nearly made me antagonise the whole class of people with super powers who can kill me even before I realise that I am actually dead."
[....]
***
The results came out.
Zara Scarlett: 100% marks
Kardama Drogo: 100% marks
Eleanor Macbeth: 98% marks
Matthew Joseph: 97% marks.....
Kardama scored a total of 100%. But unlike a typical story, no one caused him any trouble. No one accused him of cheating. Maybe the main reason for that is that students are allowed to cheat as long as they can. The watch given by the academy monitors students, and in cases of cheating or using ability , points will be deducted. If they got caught, that is.
Or maybe the real reason no one caused him trouble is because they couldn't. Everyone in the class saw how powerful his roar was. And he was literally 5 feet 10, the second-biggest after Elias Alcaeus, who looked like a small giant.
But at the moment, size doesn't matter. Even a girl that looks like she's 10 years old can kill a 30-year-old big, muscular man. So the reason to not mess with him is his ability.
Every ability that depends on elements can be offset by another element.
Weakness of fire element is Water elements. Water is weak to wood type arts as it quickly absorb it. Then wood is weak to fire. But water has another weakness which is lightning. Water has electric conductivity so it can't defend against lightning.
Dark and Light is opposite of one another. Air is a balanced element which can easily change the direction of fire and water. But it's weak to earth elements magic. Earth elements has high defense and can easily absorb fire, air, water, ice and lightning. But it also can't do much damage to other elements.
In other words, every element has the weakness of another element.
But for abilities that don't depend on elements, such as charm and mind attack, it's tricky to deal with them.
So people don't easily mess with people that don't primarily depend on elements.
Although Kardama got many curious gazes and some friendly approaches, he just ignored them.
***
Lucas on the other hand passed the exam with bare minimum numbers. Although he didn't get much time to study, since he knew how important the test was he covered as much as he could. And even without the points he could get from the written exam he already earned about 2500 points by betting. Which pretty much should be enough for his future plan.
Holmes Jonathan : 100% Marks
Diana Verus : 100% Marks
Novalie Valentine : 100% Marks....
....
....
....
Actaeon Lucas : 34% Marks.
"As expected. Those three got the highest mark."
And he himself had the lowest score on class A-1.
After grabbing some packed foods Lucas dragged his tired body to dormitory.
"I should get enough sleep before the next test began."
***
After the test, Kardama went to the training hall. There were many types of personal training rooms with different purposes.
Passing by the training rooms for gravitational fields, which were most popular for strength training, he entered one of the evasion training rooms once again.
Arrows flew towards him, using his soul sense he easily dodged before they could hit. As time passed, the difficulty rose. The speed and count of the arrows increased more and more. After reaching difficulty 5, the arrow became too fast for him to react. The first arrow hit him in the chest, and the training was over.
Kardama dropped on his back, exhausting all his stamina. The arrow was a training arrow, so it didn't hurt.
After exhausting all his energy, he began to gather around the mana. From what he read, it becomes easier to feel mana when stamina is low.
He began channelling it using the memories he got from soul essence . Kardama has gathered pretty much enough memories to achieve a basic level of fire control.
Mana began to travel inside his body on new paths. It felt like his mana veins were burning as it opened up a new path. This is why affinity is important. To use art, a person needs to make his body familiar with the elements and adapt to them. Just because someone has knowledge doesn't mean they can master an art.
After 15 minutes of channelling mana all over his body, Kardama opened his palm wide open. Mana gathered in his hand.
"It's time to try the most basic spell. Fire ball."
A fire as small as a finger nail appeared in the middle of his palm.
"Haha..ha..."
Kardama laughed awkwardly. From his memories, the size of the fireball was supposed to be at least the size of a tennis ball. But to just manifest a fire ball, it takes near a year of practice for a normal child. If a child learns it within 6 months, they are called geniuses. Monster-level genius can do it within 1-3 months.
A spell has three parts. Understanding the spell, creating the mental image, and then manifesting the spell Understanding can be increased with study. Mental image depends on the person himself and his ability to visualise. Manifestation depends on affinity, talent, and practice.
For the most basic spells like fire ball, understanding is easy. But creating a mental image and manifesting it is hard.
But Kardama, who completely copied the "understanding" and "mental image" parts from the memories, succeeded in creating the fire ball spell in his very first try.
But because he didn't have any affinity, his body has little to no mana, and this was the first time for this body to experience this spell; the "Manifest" was at its lowest level.
After manifesting a small fire ball, Kardama tried to make the size bigger. After countless tries and no progress, he lost interest in it.
"Hmm. Maybe because the body is not capable of it."
Then he tried making a water ball. He had already studied the contents and memorised them. Similar to the fire ball, he tried to create the mental image of a water ball. Then he tried to manifest it.
"As expected. It's not that easy."
No matter how he tried, he couldn't create even a drop of water. And the training came to an end when he completely ran out of mana.
Coming out of the training room, Kardama wonders how to learn to spell quickly. Although learning the first spell takes a lot of time, learning spells after that becomes easier and faster. If someone can learn a fireball spell in six months, he could learn another fire related spell within two or three months.
But the same measurements can't be used on Kardama. Although he manifested his first spell within 15 minutes, as a non-elementalist with no affinity, it would naturally take a longer amount of time for his body to adapt to the spell.