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Just as Horikita Manabu said, the school has always cultivated people with both qualities: those who have solid hard skills and also understand how to adapt flexibly.
If "society" is replaced with the context of "school," it probably means all-rounders who are both academically top-notch and can keenly discover the "standard answers" in special exams, like rule loopholes or opportunistic paths.
However, it's regrettable that although this school isn't lacking in talent, many of those who graduated from Class A are "specialized." They're either honor students who can score full marks in all subjects, or "rule players" who can recognize the rules of special exams instantly and quickly find the optimal solution.
Those who can truly achieve "top-tier academics + agile thinking" are extremely rare.
After all, people with good grades often view "opportunism" as trickery and reject it from the bottom of their hearts, while those who are good at adapting often look down on honor students who "stick to textbooks," finding them inflexible.
When the school held the special exam for the second month in previous years, these two factions often argued over the "exam papers." Honor students felt that "opportunists" were cunning, while opportunists felt that honor students were rigid.
But from the school's perspective, they might've hoped to see the two types of people cooperate, and even wished for the emergence of talents who possessed both qualities.
However, even Horikita Manabu couldn't definitively say which type of person society needed most.
Personally, he held respect for both. The former, consistently diligent for ten years, steadily climbed the ladder with the halo of a prestigious school. This resilience was inherently admirable. The latter, with their unconventional thinking, could always seize fleeting opportunities to achieve class advancement. This keenness was equally rare.
And in his opinion, Akira was undoubtedly a genius who possessed both qualities.
The latter goes without saying. The surveillance rental to earn points last month was enough to prove his flexibility and keenness.
As for the former, there were already signs. When he called the Chairman previously, the Chairman mentioned Akira's persistence in physical exercise.
Later, one time when he woke up early, he inadvertently glimpsed a figure running in the morning mist on the track at 6:30 AM. Judging by the physique, it was Akira.
To maintain such disciplined self-control while also being "opportunistic" is something ordinary people can't achieve.
Horikita Manabu never cared about others' definitions of "genius." In his heart, mere academic talent wasn't enough, and only being opportunistic was also insufficient. Only by combining both could one be worthy of being called a "true genius."
And since he took office as Student Council President in his first year of high school, he'd only seen two such promising talents among the new students: one was Nagumo, and the other was Akira.
According to the Student Council's past rules, only talents who possessed both strength and adaptability were qualified to sit in the President's position. It was precisely for this reason that he'd proactively extended the invitation for Student Council Vice President to Akira.
So when he heard Akira say he wanted to focus on the "exam papers," his curiosity was immediately piqued.
"Can I buy the right to modify the exam papers with points? For example, how many points would it cost if I wanted to change a few questions?" Akira's eyes lit up as he presented the idea he'd been pondering for the past few days.
"One million points, a maximum of five questions in total, ten points per question." Horikita Manabu stated the number calmly, then paused and added, "Some students have tried it before. One of the questions that person changed was, 'How many sheep did I count that night?'"
"Ah, this..." Akira was momentarily speechless.
So, an upperclassman had already pulled this trick.
Asking how many sheep he counted? The answer to such a question was clearly known only to himself.
This meant that other classes definitely wouldn't be able to answer it, so their average score would inevitably be lowered, achieving the goal of reducing class points.
A thought flashed through his mind immediately. What if he changed all five questions on the same paper, making them all questions only he could answer? In this way, the person taking that paper could at most get fifty points.
But this thought was suppressed as soon as it arose. The school had clearly anticipated such an action, otherwise they wouldn't have set the rule of "half of the average score as the passing line."
In that case, even if the entire class's score for this subject was only fifty points, the passing line would only be twenty-five points.
Calculating it this way, fifty points for five questions would only reduce the other class's points by ten points.
Using one million points to exchange for a ten-point difference... Akira couldn't immediately figure out if this deal was a profit or a loss.
"If there's a limit on the number of times for a single student, what about another person?" Akira's eyes showed more inquiry. "For example, two people simultaneously changing the same question, or cooperating to change ten questions. Would that work?"
"The modification permission can only be used once per person, and there's only one slot for the entire grade, limited to the current year's exam papers. You should be the first in this grade to have this idea. At least so far, I haven't received any modification notices." He looked up at Akira and suddenly asked, "What, are you really planning to change the exam paper? Ten class points might seem insignificant, but don't underestimate them. In past records, the difference for many classes was stuck at these crucial few points."
As Student Council President, he'd seen too many similar cases. "There was a Class B, for example, which was only nine points behind Class A before graduation, and ultimately failed to move up."
After all, with class points, one point more or less could make a world of difference.
Just these ten class points, converted, means each person in the class would get an additional one thousand private points.
With forty people in the class now, that's forty thousand private points per month.
There are still thirty-five months left, and if this advantage can be maintained, it would accumulate to one million four hundred thousand private points.
"But from a personal perspective, the personal benefits that these ten class points can bring might not be much." Horikita Manabu added, "Even if other classes are willing to pay points for this, at most it'd be thirty thousand class points. What you'd ultimately get would probably be around two hundred thousand, and there's also a possibility that you wouldn't even break even. This strategy is generally aimed at weakening other classes and isn't very suitable for individual action."
"You're right." Akira immediately dismissed this idea.
Spending 1 million private points to change the exam paper? Other classes might not even act for the sake of just 10 class points.
Not to mention, even if they agreed, buying the answers to five questions for 300,000 points just to get 10 class points? Akira didn't think other classes would be that generous.
He thought for a moment. Just as the President said, this strategy was better suited for weakening other classes.