Time moved like a flowing river and in the blink of an eye, three months had passed since Ivan arrived at the academy.
Sitting on his bed, Ivan's consciousness observed his mana core. After three months of absorbing mana without the use of beast mana cores or the effect of a mana chamber, his mana core had grown quite a lot.
His mana reserve, which was previously the size of a small pool, had grown to the size of a big pool. His core, which was as big as a watermelon, had doubled in size as well.
As for the small orb inside his core, its brightness had increased quite a bit but it wasn't really glowing yet.
It was comparable to a candle in a dark room, which was several times brighter than it was when Ivan first came to the academy.
"I can feel it, the third stage is just around the corner," Ivan muttered to himself as he opened his eyes. He got up and stretched his body.
After three months of attending classes, Ivan couldn't say he had learned a lot. Most of the knowledge wasn't really new to him, however, the same could not be said for the other students who were gaining new knowledge after each class.
After a long wait, the most anticipated month had arrived; it was finally time for the assessment. Ivan wasn't an exception in this regard, he was very much looking forward to the ranking and the rewards that came with it.
When he was done stretching, Ivan went to take a bath before leaving his lodge and heading to the cafeteria. The assessment was starting tomorrow, so he decided not to absorb mana after coming back from the cafeteria since it was already late.
He wanted to get enough sleep and be in his best state.
Teacher May had informed them that the solo assessment was going to be in two parts. The written assessment and the physical assessment.
As for the squad assessment, it was going to take place in one of the dungeons owned by the academy.
Yes, it was possible to own and maintain a dungeon, and still prevent a dungeon outbreak from occurring. The method was actually simple, and that was clearing off all the beasts in the first region of the dungeon.
After some time, new beasts will move into the first region and occupy it.
This would make sure that the dungeon didn't stay unattended for too long, thereby leading to a dungeon outbreak. And the academy could continue using it to train the students.
It wasn't just the academy, a lot of noble families owned a few dungeons too which they constantly kept in check.
After making his stomach happy, Ivan returned to his lodge and went straight to bed.
Morning came quickly and in less than an hour after dawn, all of the first break of dawn, all of the students had gathered in their classrooms, waiting for the assessment to begin.
They were all so excited that some of them had not even slept and had stayed up throughout the night.
In classroom 3, Ivan stared at his classmates from the corner in silence. The kids were discussing how much they had prepared for the written assessment and how difficult they thought the questions might be.
Not long after, Teacher May entered the classroom with a stack of papers in her arms. The students instantly stopped talking the moment she entered. After three months of learning from her, they had gotten an understanding of their teacher's character. Teacher May wasn't as cold and expressionless as they had initially thought. As long as one was able to focus during her classes and didn't irritate her on purpose, she was quite easy to get along with.
Although, she got irritated easily so they had to be careful.
After entering the classroom, May took a quick scan around to make sure that everyone was present.
"The assessment will begin now," she voiced out as she began to pass out the papers in her arms to the students.
Each student got a single piece of paper. On each paper were several questions and a space for their answers underneath.
Their first assessment was going to be on Dungeon studies and the questions covered everything that they had been taught during the past three months.
When Ivan got a paper, he scanned it with his eyes, his expression unchanging. These questions were easy and he could answer them without needing to attend any classes during the previous months.
Teacher May had informed them that the written assessment would earn them fifty points while the physical assessment would make up for the other fifty, making it a hundred points in total.
Seeing as there were only ten questions here, Ivan figured that each question carried five marks.
He didn't start right away, waiting for Teacher May to finish passing out the rest of the paper.
When she was done, she returned to the front of the classroom.
"Begin, you have twenty minutes to answer all questions. The next assessment will start thirty minutes from now." She announced.
'Then we'll have a ten-minute break between each assessment,' Ivan thought as his pen landed on his paper, he felt that ten minutes was too much time.
He wanted to move on to the next assessment right after finishing one.
For the following minutes, the classroom was silent and only the sounds of their pen rustling across paper surfaces filled the classroom.
Teacher May watched the students carefully, her gaze swallowing all of them from where she stood. All of them seemed occupied with answering the question before them and it didn't look like any of them was going to try to cheat, but it was still her duty to watch them!
Eight minutes after the assessment started, Ivan was done with all of his questions. He took another two minutes to double-check and then nodded, satisfied with his answers.
Since he was done, Ivan dropped his pen and leaned back in his seat. Teacher May instantly noticed this.
"Ivan Castellan, what do you think you're doing?" She asked in her usual cold tone.
Ivan "..."
'Could you not say it like that? It's as if you caught me cheating!'
Hearing their teacher's voice, the rest of the students turned to look in Ivan's direction but Teacher May's voice rang out again, telling them to focus on their assessment.
Meanwhile, her gaze remained fixed on Ivan. Letting out a sigh, Ivan stood up and said he was done answering all the questions.
Unable to stop themselves, the students stared at him in surprise.
It has only been eight minutes, how was Ivan already done answering everything? In their opinion, these questions weren't so easy that one could answer one within one minute.
Teacher May was equally surprised but didn't show it on her face
She told Ivan to hand over his paper if he was sure he was done. Ivan did as told and returned to his seat while the others focused on their questions.
Several minutes later, others were soon done and went to hand over their papers to Teacher May. Eventually, the twenty minutes were soon up.
Those who haven't finished answering all of their questions yet could only lament internally as they went to hand over their papers.
It couldn't be helped, it was either they handed them over or marked them by themselves.
The former was obviously better, at least they would get some marks for the questions they answered.