U.A. Entrance Exam (2/3)

- Exam Orientation Room -

"Woah!! There are so many people here!" Mina exclaimed in amazement.

We were currently sitting on our seats inside a large auditorium where they will tell us about the criteria for the practical exam.

There were lots of people present, but I still couldn't really spot any familiar faces around me at the moment. I was sitting with Mina on the far end back of the hall, waiting for the start of the orientation.

Suddenly, the lights in the hall turned dark while the ones facing the stage turned on.

A tall, slender man with long blond hair, which spiked upwards in a huge tuft behind his head, a small mustache on his face, and wearing a pair of orange-tinted sunglasses, walked onto the stage.

This man was of course the Pro Hero and one of the teachers in U.A. High -- 'Present Mic'.

"For all you examinee listeners tuning in, welcome to my show today!"

"Everybody say 'HEY'!" Present Mic shouted enthusiastically.

~Silence~

When I first saw this scene in the anime, it was actually quite funny to me at that time, but now that I was personally experiencing this situation, I seriously had the urge to help him out here, but it was way too embarrassing to do that.

"What a refined response. Then I'll quickly present to you the rundown on the practical exam!"

"Are you ready?! Yeah!!"

~Silence~

'So awkward..' thought everyone in the hall.

"Now pay close attention, listeners! You'll be conducting ten-minute mock urban battles at our replica city-district after this!"

"You can bring whatever you want with you. After the presentation, you'll head over to your designated battle center, okay?"

"Okay~??" Present Mic cupped his ear towards the audience.

~Silence~

Not feeling any embarrassment from the silence, Present Mic simply continued and began to explain the rules of the exam to us.

Basically, we were given ten minutes to use our Quirks to immobilize robotic villains in order to score points depending on the robot's point value. The more points one examinee earned, the higher their chance was to get accepted into U.A. High.

There were four different types of robotic villains, each worth a certain amount of points, which were assigned to the Bots according to their difficulty level:

• 1 Point - Easy Villains

• 2 Points - Medium Villains

• 3 Points - Hard Villains

• 0 Points - Arena Traps

'Arena Traps' were massive Villain Bots scattered throughout the city replicas in order to trap and weed out people from getting high scores. They were not meant to be fought, which is why they were worth no points.

Of course, I knew that this was a lie. These massive Bots were actually presenting us an opportunity to truly shine and stand out from the crowd.

The purpose of this robot was so that the judge's panel could observe how students will react to the desperate situation created by the giant robot.

By the way, like in the story, after the explanation was more or less over, Iida Tenya questioned Present Mic about the fourth villain listed during the explanation.

And after Present Mic answered his question that it was more of an obstacle rather than something we should fight, Iida sternly reprimanded Midoriya for muttering too much as he was being a distraction to the others.

Looking at this, I thought that even though I knew that Iida wasn't actually a bad guy, he was still quite a strict and disciplined person, a model student so to say, which might make future interactions with him a little bit harder for me.

Anyway, other than that, the rules also explicitly stated that we were not allowed to fight other candidates.

Doing so would result in disqualification.

Students hailing from the same middle school were also placed in different testing areas to avoid potential cooperation.

Well, these were basically the criteria for the exam, however, I knew that there was still a hidden criterion which wasn't shared with us.

'Rescue Points'.

Other than scoring villain points, we could also earn points from rescuing other examinees.

"That's all from me!" Present Mic was ending his speech.

"Finally, I'll give you listeners a present -- our school motto."

"The hero Napoleon Bonaparte once said: 'A true hero is someone who overcomes life's misfortunes.'"

"Go beyond. PLUS ULTRA!" Present Mic shouted fervently.

A good catch phrase indeed..

Now that the orientation speech had ended, I made my way towards my specific battle center, but not before giving Mina a subtle hint about the rescue points.

Unfortunately, Kirishima wasn't with us right now.

Since the incident with Gigantomachia, he kinda closed himself off from us, not that I was worried though. I knew that this was just the time for him to change and he should already be here somewhere.

"Good luck, Jayden! Not that you need it, though."

"Yeah, you too, Mina. Let's crush it!"

We high-fived each other and then went our way.

Naturally, Mina was one of the few people who actually had some knowledge about my Quirk and also knew how strong I was.

That was why she didn't worry about me failing the practical exam from the beginning. I also didn't worry too much about how she would do, since she became a little bit stronger than her counterpart in the story due to my influence.

_______________________

- Battle Center B -

Surprisingly, I was put in the same battle center as Midoriya, Uraraka, and Iida. I felt somewhat bad for stealing some of their spotlight soon..

Okay, I was kidding. I didn't actually care..

Right now, we were standing in front of the huge open gate, from which you could clearly view the enormous replica of a city.

Many examinees were extremely nervous. Some of them wore simple sport suits, while some of them already wore their own type of hero costumes.

Well, if you could actually call them hero costumes, considering their rather poor quality..

I was only wearing a simple red shirt, long black pants and black shoes. Strapped around my neck was the fang of the Wolf King who I fought back then.

I somehow managed to puncture a thin-sized hole through the fang, and use a string to bind and transform it into a necklace. I looked quite cool with it, I must say.

Anyway, not too long after arriving at this battle center, I didn't waste much time and immediately sprinted towards the city replica.

The other examinees were clearly bewildered by my action, well, until they suddenly heard Present Mic's voice sounding out from the top of a building, "Okay, START!"

But even when they heard his words, they still stood fixed on the spot without moving. They were blankly looking towards Present Mic on the building.

"What's wrong? There are no countdowns in real fights! Run, run! The die has been cast, you know!" Present Mic reminded them again.

And only now did they snapped back from their thoughts and immediately rushed towards the city in order to gain more points than their competitors at the end of the exam.

And while they had only started out now, I had already found some prey. I had clearly taken a huge head-start in this competition, but hey.. I didn't care.

I demolished the many nearby Bots with just my brute strength, and destroyed the ones who were further away with energy beams.

Points were piling up really fast on my side.

And now that the others also finally managed to pick up their pace, I decided to also focus on rescuing them, should they come into a dangerous situation.

There were a few who struggled, but also some who already had gotten a good grasp of the situation. All in all, many different Quirks could be seen being launched at the robotic villains.

It was quite a chaotic environment, but I still had an extremely formidable overview over the situation due to my Ki senses, which allowed me know where those Bots would appear and when someone was in need of help.

My actions also didn't get unnoticed by the other examinees, and especially by the judge's panel inside the Monitoring Room.

________________________

- Monitoring Room -

In a darkly lit room you could see a large monitor displaying all the fights of the examinees from all battle centers. Currently, it was more focused on the more noteworthy individuals in the exam.

Sitting in front of the monitor were several unique-looking individuals. They were obviously the judges of this exam and also the teachers from U.A. High.

"In this practical exam, the examinees have not been informed of the numbers of villains or their locations. They have limited amount of time in a vast area. They have to draw the villains out from there with their own methods." said someone who looked like a mouse.

He was naturally Nezu, the principal of U.A. High School. He was the extremely rare case of an animal manifesting a Quirk.

His Quirk was called [High Spec] and granted him superior intelligence that even surpassed humans.

"Information gathering ability to grasp the situation quickly and accurately."

"Mobility that allows you to arrive at the right place at the right time and that can also be used in many different circumstances."

"Judgement, the ability to face any obstacle with coolness and composure."

"And of course, pure combat ability."

"These basic abilities needed to keep the peace in the streets are turned into points in this exam." Nezu concluded.

"This year's group look quite promising, don't they? Especially that handsome young boy there with the red shirt." a feminine voice spoke up.

"Hm, indeed. Examinee 5910, Jin Jayden. He seems quite extraordinary. He has all the abilities that I previously mentioned. He has not only accumulated the most villain points by now, he is also in the lead in the rescue point ranking at the moment." Nezu nodded in agreement.

"His Quirk is really interesting. He is able to shoot out beams that are able to easily destroy the Bots. And his pure strength is also extremely formidable." another voice added on.

"Well, we can't know for sure, yet. Their true test is still to come."

*Beep*

Another person suddenly pressed the button that signaled the release of the gigantic villain bots worth zero points onto the city streets.

It was time for some individuals to shine!