[You should be happy; at least you wouldn't have to stress yourself, besides Having practical and theoretical exams means they wouldn't last long. That means you will still be able to hunt for in short while and then you will have enough time to hunt for an entire day if you wish that is.] The system couldn't help but chuckle at all of Blake's wasted efforts.
"The exams will involve both your compulsory courses and all your specializations and as the principal said they will be decided by your professors. The exams for the compulsory classes will be taken separately while the specialization exams will be taken together by all the members of the specializations." As the supervisor of both the elite class and the entire first-year professor, Gibson made sure everything was clear.
The exams he had for the day were forging and array mastery. The rules and nature of the practical exams were based on the decisions of the professors. Since forging alone to a lot of time, both professor Mack and Professor Tacitus decided they should have a joint exam for those offering both of their courses.
Just like their first day in the forge, they were told to forge a sword, but this time they were to inscribe nothing less than 2 arrays onto the sword. The exam was aimed at testing the student's accuracy and speed when completing the task.
The swords cutting ability, thrusting ability, guarding Capacity, speed, technical versatility, and Durability were to be inspected by professor Tacitus, while the effectiveness and complexity of the inscribed arrays were to be checked out by professor Mack. This meant the more complex the arrays were the higher the points awarded.
This was great news for Blake because with the help of the system he would surely be the fastest to forge the best sword and since he learned how to draw 2 more arrays during the past 2 weeks he would be able to stand a chance when facing off against Luciano.
[You should focus more on your speed because the fastest will normally be rewarded the highest point and since you now know of better arrays your odds of getting the first position in both courses are pretty high.] The system said while Blake was psyching himself for the task ahead.
"What the...?!" Blake was shocked when he saw raw ores appearing at everyone's work station.
"This is an exam not a class exercise, so you should have already expected it to be harder." Professor Tacitus said with an evil grin.
In their class exercises, they were already given treated and prepared metals, so all they had to do then was to cut the desired length of metal. This time professor Tacitus decided to give the students a shock of their life and laugh at their horrified expressions.
'Doesn't make much difference and since I have the fire element things will be way faster.' Blake thought as he waited for the exam to start.
'Haha, the sadist type professors. I must say it's nice being loved by all.' Professor Mack said with a beaming smile.
When the exam was signaled to start, Blake used his fire abilities to quickly purify the ores given to him, before melting all the materials and pouring them into a mold.
Since they were in a magical forge Blake didn't have to wait for the melted ores to cool he quickly picked up a cooling device that was in the shape of a hairdryer. All he needed to do was steadily pour mana into the device to make sure that the melted ores were evenly cooled to solidification.
The sensory abilities of the system helped him mark out hotter spots that he had missed and after making sure that the melted ores had solidified a yellow heat, Blake began the hammering process.
It took him close to an hour to perfectly hammer the shape of the sword into perfection, but immediately put it back into the fire to prepare the metal to be worked on by other tools.
After making sure that the sword was evenly heated and had lost all its magnetic properties, he brought it out to begin inscribing the arrays.
'Too bad I can't steal the competition by inscribing 4 arrays, but this should be enough.' Blake sighed as he gathered the surrounding mana to envelope his fingers as he began inscribing the weight-lightening and mana dispersion array.
He would have gone for 2 complex basic arrays like mana dispersion array that nullify a certain amount of mana that came to the sword and the razor array that used the user's mana to coat the sword with a thin line of mana that made the sword twice sharper.
But the problem was that metals of infinite realm were naturally heavier than those on earth meaning that a forged sword would also be heavier and of what use was a sword when you can't swing it properly. That was why he had chosen the weight-lightening array and a complex array to avoid making the sword to basic.
Normally, it would have taken him less than an hour to engrave 2 arrays, but since the mana dispersion array was one of the most complex arrays when it came to basic arrays, It took him almost 2 hours to perfectly engrave the arrays on the sword.
While the students were in a race against time to come out as first to finish the forging process, the professor's were moving around the hall inspecting their works so far.
The exam was nearing 5 hours from the start and since then they had been moving all around the hall. Being experts in the 2 different fields, they had developed a virtue that was very difficult to possess and that was patience.
If Blake was in the shoes of the professors he would have been extremely bored watching a bunch of students doing a basic thing which he could perform without much effort, but the professors weren't in any way bored.
Apart from professor Tacitus that mostly sneered with contempt in his face when he inspected the works of the students, professor Mack had a smile on his face as he checked out their work and from his expression, it seemed... as if he was enjoying watching them forge.
Two hours thirty minutes later, Blake had completed the grinding and polishing process, before calling the 2 professors over to his work station.
"Blake, Always the first as usual. Let's see what we have here..." Professor Tacitus said with a proud smile as he picked up the sword and swung it a few times in the air.
"A Katana... Nice cutting ability, splendid thrusting ability, great guarding capacity, excellent speed, and very durable... Nice job." A rare smiled that always appeared on his face whenever Blake submitted a work, was on his face before he passed the sword over to professor Mack.
"As usual your arrays are perfectly inscribed and you made the perfect choice in choosing a basic and a more complex array. You see, I am not only to inspect how perfect your arrays are, but I am to inspect the array combinations because a good forgemaster should know what is perfect for an item.
A katana is known for its speed and your choice in choosing the weight-lightening array perfectly complements its speed. As for the mana dispersion, it is also great especially when used against low-level protections." The professor said with a smile as he praised Blake's work.
When the other students heard professor Mack's words they weren't even in the mood to envy Blake because most of them had made the mistakes Blake had avoided. Most of them had used two complex arrays that didn't compliment the attributes of the sword because they had thought they would get higher points.
"What should I do now..."
"Fuck! It's too late to change."
The entire exam hall had gone into a panic, but when Blake looked at the faces of the 2 professors they had a similar expression and that was a grin.
'They are Evil!' Blake held back his laughter when he understood what was going on.
The reason professor Mack had said that secret so openly was because it was too late for any of them to go back to the array inscribing process and if someone was foolish enough to do so they wouldn't finish before time.