"Hello, lad! I was among the faculty privileged to observe your impressive performance inside the Morninglory Dungeon. Based upon your mastery of both light and spatial magic, I assume that your subclass is a High Mage. I taught your dad when he attended this academy, but he wasn't as talented in magic as you are," Kilmar praised.
"It's my honor to meet you," Luka replied and shook the man's hand.
Drinara quietly left the guests alone in the office. She didn't know what Lord Evans and Kilmar wanted from Luka, but the dorm mother didn't think the two had malice toward the student. Thus, she didn't need to stick around and protect Luka. Furthermore, Drinara saw that Luka acted very respectful toward Cloten, and she assumed that the two shared a close relationship.
"Let's sit down," the nobleman suggested and took his seat.
The two companions followed his lead.
"I know you are tired from the school trip, and you're anxious to return to your dorm and get some sleep. So let me get straight to the point of my visit. I want the space crabs in your possession," Kilmar declared. "Ladis is a cheapskate! He would never give any specimens to my department to study. Since you caught a few, I would like your cooperation."
Cloten smiled faintly. "Those space crabs are tough to defeat, as you know from experience. Kilmar is very anxious to get them from you," he explained. "But we're not asking you to give them away for free. You can choose from two types of rewards: cash or school points."
"This academy operates on a point system to calculate student rankings. Also, we encourage our students to engage in extracurricular activities for these school points. Some students can't afford the tuition and fees, and they have to work and make money to continue their enrollment. That's why we offer cash rewards as well."
"How many points will you provide for each specimen of the space crab?" Luka inquired.
Kilmar rubbed his hands together. "How about a thousand points for all six bodies?" he offered.
Lord Evans shook his head. "Now, who's being a cheapskate?" he asked with a disapproving look.
"Heheheh. I misspoke, my little friend. I meant a thousand school points per specimen," Kilmar corrected himself.
Cloten nodded. "Yes, that's more like it!"
Luka relied on his teacher's advice and accepted Kilmar's upgraded offer. The student took the space crabs out of storage and stacked them against the wall.
"Excellent! Now, give me your student ID card," Kilmar requested.
Once the student complied, the chairman took out his card and tapped it against Luka's copy. "I just added six thousand school points to your card. If you press a finger on the back of your ID, you'll see the current number of points in your possession," Kilmar explained.
Luka reclaimed his identification and checked his points. He saw "6,000" hover above the card in 3D.
The chairman stored the specimen in his magic bag. "It's a pleasure doing business with you, Luka. Next year, please consider joining our Magic Department. As a student member, you will gain access to our research and restricted sections of the library that store special grimoires containing long-forgotten magic."
"I will consider joining," Luka nodded.
"It's getting late," Lord Evans prodded gently and stood up from his seat.
"Yes, you should return to your dorm room," Kilmar agreed and slowly rose from his chair. "Good night, Luka!"
Cloten nodded slightly and accompanied the older man out of the office.
Drinara quietly entered the room. "Is everything okay?" the dorm mother asked.
"Yes! They came to buy something I picked up during my field trip," the student explained.
"Really? Did they offer cash?"
"Yes, but I chose points instead; I received 6,000 school points for my transaction."
Drinara's eyes twitched. "That's a lot!" she exclaimed in disbelief. She knew that Kilmar was a frugal man despite his immense wealth. Hence, Drinara couldn't understand why he would give out so many points to a freshman.
But the dorm mother remembered Lord Evans' presence, and she assumed that the nobleman prodded Kilmar to increase his offer. "If there's nothing else, you should return to your room and rest," Drinara reminded Luka.
"Yes, I'm going now. Thank you for letting me use your office," Luka said.
"No problem."
The student climbed up a flight of steps and then teleported directly into his room.
Chapter 68
Field Trip Results
When Luka finally entered his dorm room, he felt weakness in his body. The mage immediately teleported to his bed and laid down face first. The soft mattress soothed his weary figure, and Luka drifted asleep. Before he knew it, a hard slap on his cheek awoke Luka! SMACK!
When the human opened his eyes, Luka saw large red beads peering down on him.
[Took you long enough to wake up!] Bel grumbled and patted his cheek lightly. The rabbit hopped off Luka's chest and jumped to the ground. [Kiddo, you better hurry and take a bath. You wouldn't want the ladies to cringe when they cling all over you.] He grinned at the imaginary scene.
Luka teleported directly into the washroom and began to clean himself. The last thing he remembered was landing on the bed before falling asleep.
Luka didn't realize how tired he felt from the hectic week. After all, he endured a seven-day field trip, fended off assassins, and negotiated with senior faculty.
Luka wondered how well he performed compared to the other freshmen and whether any rival will emerge. Frankly, Terrwyn didn't qualify because she lacked the magical talent to compete with him. But then again, Alectos had once implied that High Mages, who excelled in light, dark, space, and time magic, were rare. Therefore, Luka was unlikely to encounter a second High Mage even though the academy gathered elite students from the entire kingdom. Furthermore, Luka qualified as a Sage because he also possessed proficiency in all eight types of magic.
Luka quickly bathed, washed his face, and brushed his teeth. The student put on a clean set of school uniform and returned to his bedroom.
He saw Bel and Gripper waiting impatiently in front of the exit. Luka placed his textbooks in storage and then left his dorm room. The mage confirmed that no one was using the staircase and teleported to the first floor.
Luka strolled through the front lobby and greeted Drinara on his way out. However, Matty accosted him outside the residence.
"Good morning!" the tall, burly escort greeted with a friendly smile.
"Good morning," Luka reciprocated. "Do you mind if we jog over to the mess hall?"
"No problem."
Luka began to run; Matty, Bel, and Gripper matched his pace. The group arrived at the cafeteria within ten minutes. Luka felt relieved to see many free tables.
The escort wordlessly claimed one, and the animals joined him.
Luka entered the food line and ordered two big servings of chicken stew and one portion of pancakes plus fruits and milk. He returned shortly, and Matty replaced him on the service line. When the escort returned with a similar order, Matty and Luka distributed the meat to the animals and retained the pancakes for themselves.
Some students furtively watched Bel and Gripper devour their portions of meat. The two animals already attracted infamy from the student body for their healthy appetites. The human observers wondered how Luka could afford to feed these gluttons. Even though Luka belonged to a duke family, there must be limits to its wealth!
Luka was aware of the extra attention on his pets. But he politely ignored the watchers and continued eating his breakfast. He understood their fascination with Bel and Gripper and didn't mind at all.
After the group loaded up on food, they left the mess hall and ventured into the training grounds. Matty separated to join his class while Luka did the same.
Kayne picked up Bel and carried the rabbit in her arms. She began to stroke his long ears and rubbed his white fur.
The other girls in the Elite Class crowded around her and touched the animal.
Luka worried that Bel would misbehave; the owner gave the rabbit a stern look.
The familiar snorted but obediently allowed the girls to worship him affectionately. [I can't help it if the chicks have good taste.]
Luka rolled his eyes.
The guys became upset because the girls were ignoring them. Some female students even rudely walked out in the middle of their conversations to touch the rabbit.
Hoot! Gripper became jealous and sadly stood next to his owner. Nobody paid the young gorilla any attention.
At eight-thirty sharp, Headmaster Ladis climbed onto the platform to start the freshmen assembly. "I'm very pleased to see you are here on time this morning. The purpose of this meeting is to release the results of the first Morninglory Field Trip. This year's freshman class has six hundred students with the majority split into groups of fifty members labeled Class B through L, Elite Class with twenty, and Class A with thirty students."
"The school trip is a way for our students to demonstrate their physical and magical abilities as well as teamwork in a challenging environment. The dungeon's most difficult section is the arena on the third floor, and many classes wiped out against these four waves of monsters. The other floors provide up to 5,000 student points for distribution. Each monster wave inside the arena offers 5,000 points for a total of 20,000 points. But only three classes accomplished this feat and reached the fourth floor. The class scores reflect this discrepancy."
Ladis waved his hand, and two large scoreboards appeared to his left and right. Both listed the class scores excluding Class A and the Elite Class. The highest scorer was Class B, with 27,500 points, while Class J stood at the bottom with 7,000 school points. In other words, the participants in this class didn't reach the third-floor colosseum.
The audience became stunned at the big difference in points between these classes. Students of Class J were visibly embarrassed, and they secretly vowed to do better next time to avoid coming in last again.
"Members of Class B made a valiant effort fighting inside the arena. Although their party was down to a dozen survivors at the end of the third wave, the students turned into kamikaze fighters and killed several dark gnomes in the last wave. This tactic netted an extra 2,500 points since the class defeated half of these monsters. We should applaud their bravery on the battlefield," he said.
View screens overlapped the whiteboards and began to depict Class B's fight against the fourth wave. Once the video clip ended, Ladis clapped his hands, and the students slowly joined the applause.
When they stopped, a student asked a question. "Are you suggesting that we should disregard our lives and recklessly fight our enemies on the battlefield?" he yelled out.
Ladis smiled faintly. "It depends on the situation. While our lives are precious, there may be instances in the future where we must protect our sacred homeland no matter the cost. Our great hero, Tsunka Heavensfell, is revered for his tremendous sacrifice to save our world. I'm proud that he was an alumnus of our academy, and he's a wonderful role model for all of us," he replied.
Some students who knew of Luka's heritage furtively glanced at him. The famous son kept a calm facial expression despite hearing these kind words. Luka didn't trust Ladis because the student remembered the essay question in the admission exam, which implicitly mocked Tsunka's sacrifice.
Luka still harbored a grudge against the school administration even though it had been six weeks since he took the test. Moreover, Ladis' public praise of his dad worsened the son's opinion of the official because Luka thought the man was a hypocrite for his inconsistent views of Tsunka Heavensfell's actions.
Headmaster Ladis noted Luka's lack of a reaction to his words but didn't fret over it. The speaker focused on motivating the freshmen students to perform better in the future. "Next, we have the results for the top two classes: Class A with 40,000 points and the Elite Class at 46,000. While both groups successfully reached the sixth floor and earned the maximum of 40,000 school points, a member of the Elite Class earned a bonus of 6,000 points for defeating special monsters on the seventh level and submitting these specimens for faculty research."
Ladis waved his hand and showed Luka fighting six space crabs by himself and taking possession of their remains. The audience witnessed how easily he defeated the monsters without incurring any injury.
However, the video clip provided little illumination against the backdrop of outer space. Thus, the viewers couldn't see what magic the mage used to defeat his enemies. Moreover, they couldn't understand how Luka propelled himself to move around like a ship in the sea.
The audience recognized that they couldn't duplicate his actions. But they became convinced that he earned those extra points fairly. Thus, no one complained about rewarding those additional points to Luka. Instead, this exchange of dead bodies for points gave the students renewed hope in finding unconventional ways to accumulate school points for their student evaluations.
The school official smiled because Ladis achieved his purpose in motivating these kids by extolling Luka's unique accomplishment. "In addition to class rankings, we have individual rankings for the top ten performers during this trip. Not surprising is the name at the very top: Luka Heavensfell with 28,400 points. Now, please join me in giving our classmates a round of applause."
The students clapped while studying the scoreboard. The individual scorers' list displayed the person's name, class, and school points. Aside from the outlier known as Luka, the rest of the students possessed scores in the four digits. The runner-up was Ruedrol Marblearm from Class A with 5,900 points, while Hauss took third-place with 5,100 points. Terrwyn Cadogan and Wickkuil Orcarmour rounded the top ten list with 3,000 points each.
The astute observers recognized that Luka's score was inflated by 6,000 from extra credit. His actual total was 22,400 points out of a maximum of 40,000 for defeating the dungeon's first six levels. In effect, Luka swiped 56% of all the points distributed to his Elite Class.
In comparison, Reudrol took 5,900 out of the same 40,000 total in Class A or a more reasonable 14.75%. Hauss clocked in at 12.75%. From this perspective, both Terrwyn and Wickkul achieved miracles in making the top ten list because Luka took away most of the points, and he left very little for the rest of his class. Thus, the students felt relieved that they weren't in the Elite Class and forced to deal with that monstrous genius.
However, not everyone shared this general opinion. The remaining seventeen members of the Elite Class realized that they had fallen behind in the student evaluations. If this trend continues throughout the rest of the year, they would be demoted to another class next year. Thus, the students felt tremendous pressure to seek extracurricular activities to make up the difference.
Someone raised his hand. "Headmaster Ladis, can you elaborate on Luka's score? How could he accumulate more points than several classes combined?"
The assembly nodded in unison. The students couldn't understand how Luka could surpass everyone else by such a wide margin.
Ladis made a gesture and pointed his finger at Luka's line on the scoreboard. Another window appeared and overlapped the first one. The new screen showed:
"Breakdown of Luka Heavensfell's score:
Round 1: 2,800 points
Round 2: 2,800 points
Round 3a: 2,500 points
Round 3b: 500 points
Round 3c: 2,000 points
Round 3d: 5,000 points
Round 4: 3,500 points
Round 5: 3,300 points
Round 6: 0 points
Bonus: 6,000 points
Total: 28,400 points"
The headmaster made additional comments on the breakdown. "The sixth floor had no monsters to fight; that's why the contestant received zero points. And since Luka didn't find the exit out of the seventh floor before time expired, the adventurer gained no credit for the monsters he defeated."
Some audience members refused to yield despite seeing this detailed breakdown of Luka's scores for each floor. "Wh
o was the judge deciding the contestant's points for each round?" someone asked. "How did Luka achieve the full 5,000 points in Round 3d?"
The headmaster took out a crystal orb. It pulsated a deep red color from within as if the item was alive. The relic floated above the school official's palm. "This is the core of the Morninglory Dungeon. This relic functions as the heart of the entire location, and it sees everything that happens inside its boundaries. Who is better qualified than the dungeon core to assess student activities and distribute points? It has no bias and judges your student performances fairly and accurately."
The questioner turned visibly pale because he inadvertently denounced the dungeon core's judgment. It could kill the student during the next field trip and label the murder as an accident.
"As for the second question, here's what happened in the last wave on the third floor," the headmaster said and waved his hand. A new screen appeared and began to play a video clip of Luka's desperate fight against the dark gnomes. Once the video finished playing, he dismissed the screen. "Does anyone else have a question?" Ladis asked.
"Yes!" a student raised her hand. Her face was smooth like ivory, and her cheeks were light pink like a pink carnation. Her blue eyes and blonde hair sparkled under the morning sunshine. "My name is Etla Angan from Class B, and I'm number five on the list with 4,700 points. My Angan family are faithful believers of the Goddess Altima, and we have close ties with the Divine Church of Light. My uncle Mosi Angan proudly serves as a Templar under the Pope's direct command. I have a request for Luka Heavensfell, who holds a portion of Altima's divine power in his body as her Godson. Your Holiness, can you demonstrate your Divine Summoning?" the girl requested and knelt on the ground in his direction.
The students were shocked at her reverent attitude toward Luka. Some of them didn't know about his connection to Altima. But this new information made the students accept Luka's outstanding achievements more readily.
The Divine Summoner: Godson of Altima Page 56
