37.2: Blood Scandal (1)

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(Part 2)

"Young students." The Provost called and his voice echoed to every corner in the hall, "In my hands there are a handful of official sealed scrolls. These are the students' log of codes, the performance grades given by the esteemed judges, and finally, the final exams' grades."

It was the moment everyone was waiting for. Nobody even dared to breathe loudly.

"Only the third-year students remain in the center of the court please." The Provost said making every other student move to the side while all the third years remain in the spotlight.

"First of all, let me congratulate the 88 students who passed from the total of 110 students. Making this year's success rate higher than any previous year despite the difficulty. As for the 22 students who will not be hearing their names mentioned tonight, you will have to report to the Second Royal Academy within the limit of three days to undergo your re-evaluation. With that out of the way, let's begin announcing the grades."

88 students passed while 22 failed. In other words, one of every five students has failed this year. The students who weren't confident in their grades were already falling apart from worry and could be noticed quite easily.

Some academy servants brought in a gigantic blackboard on wheels and a table was already drawn on it. That table had three rows of information, one for the students' code numbers, another for the students' names, and the last for the grades.

Many professors started gathering around the table and the Provost himself descended to join them as well. He handed two of the official papers he had to the right and left Deans and the younger teachers were readying themselves to record everything on the board.

"Manifistus!"

"Manifistus!"

"Manifistus!"

Three professors, who seemed proficient in Magic, cast a magical spell as they vocally called its name. "Manifistus" is one of the weakest yet most used spells known to man, also known as the Magic Hand Cantrip. It covers the hand with a faint aura and conjures an apparition of that hand that floats in the air. Just as proficient and skillful as its owner's dominant hand, these magic hands picked up the chalks provided on the blackboard and followed the instructions given by the Provost. [Image Here]

The Provost started with the student's code from the lowest grade to the highest. It took a fair ten minutes to get all the codes and grades in order.

The students at the 88th rank scored 97.03% and the grades kept going, increasing only by 0.01 to 0.05 points. It is worth noting that this ranking disregarded the difference between the subjects each student picked since it was expected of every student to be nothing less than perfect.

It was also known that if the difference between two students was greater than 0.1 point, the student of lower grade, anyone lesser than them, would automatically fail.

It was then time to reveal the names.

"Starting from the 88th rank, Timothy Brown…"

The professor standing near the board adds a plate with the name of Timothy Brown to the board.

"Alan Talbot, Thomas Spenser, Evelen Firzwillaims, Fredrick Percy…"

Name after name, the list was being filled upward, and many faces were seen triumphing, humiliated, and hopelessly desperate.

With grades being this close, there was no point competing on a specific rank. What the students had to compete over was petty superiority. Relationships of rivalry and camaraderie would form in such an environment and the students created a system to bet on themselves and against each other.

Bets would involve money, possessions, and collectibles of all sorts. The academy encouraged this kind of behavior even and didn't forbid students from gambling with grades. 

Vivian had no such bets going on but it seemed that some people had bet A LOT against her.

It was to be expected since her situation was a bad one and despite the names reaching rank 40, her name was not mentioned just yet.

Can it be that the Prince's influence has reached so deep into the Royal Academy to the point where she was eliminated regardless of her efforts?

The notion was scary for Vivian to think about, especially when she had a lot hanging on the balance.

"And now we move on to the top 10 students." Provost Albert Morgan said, "Before that, let me remind you that the top from each year are the only ones allowed to participate in post-graduate studies here in the Academy, which guarantees them the position of Assistant Teacher in the future if they wish to pursue the academic career. With that out of the way, here are the top 10 students."

At that point in time, most of the students were already sure about some faces in the crowd who in no way in hell can't be in the top 10.

"Scoring 99.34, Allister Crowley." The name of the 10th-ranked student was announced.

"Scoring 99.36, Rebecca Stirling." The 9th.

"Scoring 99.37, Stephania Habsburg." The 8th.

"Scoring 99.41, Vivian Moore." The 7th.

And here it was… the names everyone was already sure wouldn't be heard since the ranking reached the top 30s.

The 7th ranked student in this year's finals. Only then would the facade shown by Prince Liam fall instantly as he looked towards Vivian with eyes wide open.

She made it!

She survived everything and persisted in the top 10, even though she was a candidate to be in the top 5 from her performance during the school year. All his effort only pushed her two ranks backward.

"Scoring 99.42, Valentine De Clare." Then the 6th was announced.

"Scoring 99.44, Kevin Law." The 5th.

"Scoring 99.45, Ansley Byron." The 4th.

"Scoring 99.48, Cornelius Morgan." The 3rd.

"Scoring 99.49, Octavius Morgan." The 2nd.

"And finally with the score of 99.51. His Highness, Crown Prince Liam Harland." And the 1st.

That final bit was pretty wild since two members of House Morgan reached the second and third ranks while it was expected for the Prince to reach the first rank.

But was it over?

Absolutely Not!

These are the grades before the bonus from the performances was added. The students would duel for these performance positions all year long just to get the chance to boost their grades at the end of the year and there are only 21 spots available for all 110 students.

"First, the marital performance, Student Reginald Ashcroft was awarded 0.3 points for his performance, leading to a score of 99.63. Second, student Percival Wentworth was awarded 0.21 points…"

The situation kept going and every student from the martial performance was awarded between 0.1 to 0.3 points at best. This toppled even the Prince's rank in the lead but not for long, of course.

The magic performance bonuses were added and the score got even wilder. Even Vivian and Valentine were already out of the top 10 at that point and other students replaced their spots leading Cornelius and Octavius Morgan to be the new 1st and 2nd ranks.

Finally, the music performance scores were added and it got wild. Many of the faces that were in the top 10 started to return to their rightful position and Prince Liam's turn was up.

"... sixth, his highness Prince Liam Harland was awarded 0.5 points for his performance, awarding him a score of 100.01 points. This is by far the highest grade ever given to a student in our academy in all of our surviving records."

100.01 points is already insane enough for the score to be a world record and it made many people congratulate the prince with insane fervor. The Prince, however, was solemn and worried.

"Finally, Vivian Moore was awarded…"

The Provost halted his words at that moment and looked at the paper he just opened before looking towards the music performance judges as if he was trying to argue, the three judges seemed to have figured out this would happen the moment they saw the score on the board.

"She was awarded 0.6 points which is legally the highest combined score that can be given by the judges, as every judge can give up to 0.2 points." Provost Albert Morgan seemed to be trying to get this off his shoulders and blame the judges for it in front of the Prince, "This rewards Vivian Moore the total of… 100.01 points."

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