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Chapter 22: The End of The Exam

Deep within the mountainous areas of zone three, cliffs and hills surrounded Kate and her group.

Their group had already managed to hunt the Great Boar of zone two and were now hunting the Starlock in zone three. Unfortunately they have been having an extremely difficult time trying to kill the creature, having already spent close to an hour fighting it.

This wasn't because the creature was strong but because it was intelligent and avoided direct confrontation with them. Instead it opted to pick up boulders or large stones before throwing it down at them from the sky.

Bradford spent most of his time blocking the falling rocks and boulders from hitting Allen and Kate, which allowed them to focus on shooting the bird down with their arrows.

Since the Starlock didn't fly too high from the ground due to it carrying the rocks and the layout of the surrounding hills and cliffs, most of their arrows managed to hit the bird when it wasn't actively trying to avoid their attacks. This had managed to significantly slow it down compared to how fast it had been moving at the start of the battle.

After shooting another round of arrows at the Starlock, Bradford instructed the others, "Stop shooting. If we injure it any further it's going to try to escape."

"Then what will we do next?" Kate asked Bradford.

"Wait for the Starlock to throw another boulder and then it will be finished. All you have to do now is focus on dodging the incoming boulder as I won't be knocking it away." Bradford replied.

Hearing his words, both Kate and Allen nodded their heads in agreement.

After having fought with him for a while now, the two of them have come to understand Bradford's skills and capabilities. Beside being a strong martial artist, he was also a brilliant strategist and commander, that's why they didn't question his orders and simply agreed.

After waiting for a while the Starlock flew past them, dropping a massive boulder from the sky. Kate and Allen had already moved away while Bradford stood stationary.

When the boulder was around 15 meters away from them, they watched with astonishment as Bradford leaped into the air towards the direction of the Starlock.

When he had reached around the 10 meter mark his ascent had slowed down to a stop, and he was still another 10 meters away from him. When he was about to fall down however, the boulder that was thrown at him came right next to his feet which he used as a support to jump even higher coming face to face with the Starlock who looked at him with a vicious expression as it screeched at Bradford before swiping its sharp talons at him.

With an expressionless face, Bradford twisted his body midair, managing to completely dodge the Starlock's attack before violently swinging his sword downwards.

*Swoosh!*

With a clean cut, both Bradford and the Starlock, whose head had been separated from its body, fell to the ground.

With a loud thud, the creature's body crashed into the ground as Bradford used its corpse as a cushion to soften his fall.

"Quickly, scan its corpse, the exam only has a minute left!" Allen shouted as he rushed back to the body of the Starlock.

Hearing his words, Bradford nodded his head before scanning the corpse of the Starlock.

A few seconds later they all got a notification telling them that they had acquired 16 points.

Seeing the notification, Allen sighed as he collapsed to the ground exhausted.

Ever since they had grouped up they had basically been fighting monsters and running around the various zones for five hours straight with little to no rest.

Kate was also overwhelmed with fatigue, however she kept her cool and didn't disgracefully drop to the floor like Allen.

"Good job everyone. Thanks to you this hunt was successful and we managed to kill three out of the four bosses." Bradford said to the others.

"It's a bit upsetting that we didn't get to go kill the Goblin King. If we did we would have managed to hunt all four bosses instead of three." Allen said out loud.

"It is indeed upsetting but there was nothing we could do about it. Not in that situation anyway…" Kate said as she silently remembered the scene they had witnessed when they arrived outside the goblin fortress.

The group's original plan was to go straight to the goblin fortress after having hunted the Great Boar. Unfortunately when they arrived what they saw was a scene as if hell was on earth.

The entire fortress was covered in fire. The heat from the flames had greatly deterred them from getting closer to the fortress to investigate. Kate and everyone could see goblins running out of the fortress all scattering in various directions, desperate to escape that hell.

Bradford had managed to come near to one of the goblins and was able to examine his conditions. The goblin was short and had ash and soot covering its body. Its skin was slightly burned in some places and a small splatter of blood seemed to cover it.

What had surprised them the most however was the reaction the goblin gave when it saw them. Usually all goblins would snarl or mock humans in their own language before attacking them or trying to call for backup. However that wasn't the case with the goblin that had escaped the fortress.

Instead of doing any of that, he groveled before them, its body still shaking and eyes watering. They could all tell that the goblin had been completely consumed by fear. At that point it didn't even have the courage to run away or get up and fight them. It completely surrendered in front of them.

Kate could even hear the goblin's soft sobbing causing great shock to everyone. They all couldn't help but wonder what was going on inside the fortress, however looking at the black smoke rising into the sky, they could all feel an ominous energy radiating from the fortress.

After contemplating for a while they all decided to retreat from the fortress and focus on the Starlock instead.

However, none of them could get rid of the image of the goblin sobbing out of their minds. It filled them with a deep sense of curiosity and wonder as to what had happened inside the fortress.

At that moment however, a notification rang out from everyone's watch signaling the end of the exam and instructing them to return to the beach where they had started within two hours.

…

Two hours later, all of the remaining candidates had gathered together at the beach.

Lake had also arrived and was currently taking a small nap on a foldable chair besides Instructor Derek.

When he had returned he was completely exhausted. Although he didn't really engage in any difficult combat during the exam, he always had to keep his mind sharp and alert as he didn't know when things could go wrong. When he was using the Observer Of Fate skill to track the goblins movement and read the goblins movement and gain information, he would have to make sure that he wasn't in any danger while also trying to calculate the goblins future actions as fast as possible.

When all of those actions added up together Lake felt exhaustion take over him as soon as he returned to the beach and released his guard. Thankfully the instructors had prepared seats for the students who passed the exam to give them a chance to rest.

Kate and Allen had also returned and took seats next to Lake and instructor Derek. Seeing that Lake had fallen asleep on the chair, they decided not to disturb him as they were also exhausted.

At that moment, the original holographic image from before appeared again. On it stood Alec who quickly started his speech.

"First of all, I congratulate each and every one of you for passing this year's Martial Arts Course Exam. We know that we have made this year's test more difficult compared to any other test in the past, and since each of you managed to pass it, that is something you should be proud of."

"In this year's exam, out of the eight hundred and forty three students that have taken this test, only one hundred and three students managed to pass the test, achieving a pass rate of twelve percent."

Hearing the pass rate, most of the students were slightly surprised. The pass rate is the second lowest in the history of the Marital Arts Course Exam, just barely surpassing last place by two percent. However, considering the difficulty of the exam, they were more surprised that it wasn't last place instead.

"Next, we'll be showing the ranking of the students that passed for this year's exam."

Hearing his words, most students perked up as they looked forward to the results of the exam. However some students in the back looked down in slight disappointment. These students were the ones who had just barely managed to gather one hundred points before hiding for the rest of the exam.

After saying that the ranking board appeared on a separate hologram next to Alec. It showed ranks one hundred three to rank eleven, leaving the names of the top ten hidden. Next to each ranking, Kate could see the points that a student acquired, along with a rating of the performance of the candidates.

From what Kate saw, this rating seems to go from Inferior, Average, to Superior with a sub grade of Low, Medium and High for each of the ratings. She also noted that the higher the rank, the better the performance.

Looking at rank eleven, Kate saw that her points were higher and knew that she had gotten into the top ten.

After the ranking appeared, Alec then went on to personally announce the ranks of the top ten.

Kate listened to the rankings as she made an observation of each of the candidates. Since she was the daughter of a guild leader, she liked to spend time scouting out potential talent for her guild.

As the ranking went on she noted the names and faces of each of them. She also took notice of the weapons and body types they had to figure out their specialties.

As the ranking went on, Kate kept track of all the candidates until she heard the announcement for fourth place.

"In fourth place, candidate 0100, Allen Spindale. Total Points, 365. Overall Performance rating, High Tier Superior."

Hearing this name, Kate was completely shocked. Turning her head she also saw that Allen had a shocked expression on his face, proving that she wasn't hearing things.

Looking at the scoreboard she watched in shock as Allen's name appeared in fourth place. Looking at the difference between fourth and fifth place, there was a points difference of over 100 points, a large gap that couldn't be easily filled.

She also knew her own points and Bradford's points which were higher than Allen. However, even with that high points difference that existed between her and the other candidates, someone managed to surpass one of them? Kate simply couldn't believe it.

Unfortunately for Kate however, reality was cruel.

"In third place, candidate 0099, Kate Blackheart. Total Points, 385. Overall Performance rating, High Tier Superior."

Kate starred in a daze at the rankings.

Somewhere in the crowd of students, Bradford also frowned as he watched the rankings.

"In second place, candidate 0050, Bradford Keraunos. Total Points, 430. Overall Performance rating, Surpasser."

Everyone was shocked upon seeing a new rating emerge, however three people on the beach were more concerned about the points than the rating.

Upon seeing the score, Bradford immediately stood up from his seat as he watched with wide eyes. Kate and Allen were also stunned hopelessly as they watched Alec continue to announce first place.

"In first place, candidate 0101, Lake Egoven. Total Points, 850. Overall Performance rating, Surpasser."

"…"

Silence immediately fell on the entire beach. Everyone's mind had gone blank upon seeing the difference between first and second place.

Some people rubbed their eyes in confusion wondering if they were still exhausted from the exam and were seeing things, but no matter what they did, the results never changed.

Kate and Allen stared blankly at first place, before slightly turning their head to look at the peaceful sleeping expression of the man next to them.