The observers looked at each other, rubbing their eyes. Some of them stared in disbelief. They had been doing this job for a few years, and Black Iron-rank evaluations were not hard, but even if it was simple, Xiao Lin was still way too quick. It was basically a complete slaughter.
“Why isn’t he coming out?”
“Wait, didn’t he say he wanted to try the magical opponent?”
“What! I thought he was joking!”
Everyone was starting to get frustrated. They had all placed bets, and none of them had bet on Xiao Lin. Even if they had hoped that Xiao Lin would fail, they did not dare harbor any thoughts about affecting the results after seeing his performance.
Even though losing to either of the opponents would not qualify someone for the certificate, but with his earlier performance, Xiao Lin was without a doubt qualified to be at the Black Iron-rank. If they did not issue the certificate, their jobs would be at risk. The student union was quite strict about being fair to students.
After waiting for a while, Xiao Lin curiously waved his hand to the window, trying to get the next battle started. The truth was, Xiao Lin was not trying to show off. Of course, proving himself was part of it, but Xiao Lin just mainly wanted to know how strong he was after entering the Black Iron-rank.
The ones outside were deep in discussion, and someone finally said, “Let’s just see what happens. What if he wins?”
“You’re joking. He only has three months under his belt; how could he have the time for so many different courses. The magical opponent has pretty high requirements for mental strength and perception.”
They might have said that, but they still reactivated the battle system. The magical opponent’s attributes were 15 Strength, 25 Agility, 35 Intelligence, and 25 Physique. Those were the usual attributes that an elf woman would have when they reached Black Iron-rank. Elves did not just specialize in archery. Female elves usually had high intelligence, so they wielded rare elvish magic.
The two tests used elves and orcs as the virtual opponents–on some degree, reflecting the plans of the upper echelons of Dawn Academy. Of course, that was not what Xiao Lin was thinking about at that moment.
Xiao Lin had been waiting impatiently. The moment the room lit up again, he immediately switched to the wand prepared for the evaluation, knowing that the opponent would be magic-based.
Other than being able to help with the gathering of elements, the wand did not have any other uses. The rank evaluation was meant to test a student’s actual capabilities, which was why the students could not bring any of their own equipment inside.
Miracle still had a few minutes of activation. Xiao Lin quickly put all his attributes into Intelligence, giving him an intelligence of over 60. That number already exceeded what even Gu Xiaoyue had. The Miracle attribute started off not being too strong, but as his total attributes increased, the effect got increasingly more powerful.
“Flame Bullet!”
Xiao Lin once again attacked without hesitation. Flame Bullet was the Black Iron-rank version of Flame Ball. The damage was somewhat reduced, but the casting speed greatly increased thanks to it. Even without his Peakfire Staff, causing Flame Bullet’s burn damage to decrease, the spell itself still used his own mental strength. A Flame Bullet cast under the effect of Miracle was nothing to laugh at.
The thumb-sized Flame Bullet shot out from the wand, exploding when it hit the virtual opponent. In a mage battle, the speed of casting was the most important thing, and the opponent for the evaluation was not that fast.
The opponent could not properly cast its Flame Ball under the constant barrage. It seemed like that evaluation was just a check of the student’s basic attributes, so a big enough difference would naturally lead to an easy time. With that, the battle ended in less than 20 seconds.
When Xiao Lin exited from the room, the evaluators could only look at him with respect. Their earlier discontent had long since evaporated. They could only hate themselves for not being able to see his talent earlier.
The Black Iron-rank certificate was just a thin, regular piece of paper–not much different from most of the certificates on Earth. On the certificate was the stamp of the Rank Evaluation Office. Other than the words Black Iron-rank on the certificate, there were also a few other words: Physical Test: 18 seconds; Magical Test: 23 seconds. It then stated the total attributes at the time of evaluation as 101.
That was the time it took for Xiao Lin to defeat his opponents in the simulation. It was obvious that this was not just a certificate of qualification; it also somewhat reflected the student’s ability.
“Getting a job in the New World would probably not just rely on the qualifications; the time recorded would be a selection criteria as well.” The evaluator saw Xiao Lin’s incredulous expression and could not help but remind him.
Xiao Lin nodded in understanding. Just like the English examinations on Earth, a pass was still a pass, but the score one earned would put them on different levels.
“You can always apply to retake the evaluation if you’re not happy with your record. Of course, the next evaluation will need to be paid for, and the higher your total attributes, the less value a fast time would mean. It’s just Black Iron-rank anyway.” After pausing, the person in charge said, “Of course, you don’t need to worry about it at all.”
“Is there anyone faster than me?” Xiao Lin asked.
“Of course there is, but the evaluations differ from time to time, so it’s not really a direct comparison. Your results are basically already at the top level; it won’t really improve that much more.”
Xiao Lin shrugged, not really caring about getting a job or whatnot. He had the letter of appointment, after all. The dean had already prepared his future path.
The evaluation results quickly spread on the forums. The certificates that came from the student union were not easy to forge, so wailing could be heard at every corner of the academy. Thankfully, the academy’s bets were not too much. Even those that lost money did not really lose much, but it was a different story in the New World. Xiao Lin would not be surprised if there were those who wanted to end their life because of the results.
He had asked Department Head Song about it before, so Xiao Lin more or less knew the rules of gambling in the forums. Thanks to the protection from the school system, the bets were automatically enforced, not needing him to do anything special, which was why Xiao Lin quickly received the notification that he earned 36,000 redemption points when he got back to the dormitory.
At the same time as the message, he received an invitation from an unknown ID.