Approaching Midterm

Days went by without much noteworthy changes to the daily lives of every student on campus. Days turned into weeks and before they knew it, every student was facing the final week of preparations before they participated in the midterm exams.

The first half of the exams was a written test in which they would need to show a collective increase in their individual knowledge of society, history, and tactical formations. The second half was divided between the classes of each year.

For the first-year combat students, this would entail the hunting of Level One beasts. Unlike the risks this posed considering the likely survival rate, the first-year support students had a rather safe practical exam. They simply needed to show the level that they had progressed their individual conjuring capabilities.

Most of the support students simply focused on the written exam portion. Joe plans to spend this last week preparing the squads for a joint effort. Except for Third Squad, led by Jordan Farrel, every other squad was prepared to follow the instructions and guidance of Joe.

Ever since his appointment to Platoon Head, he has reformed each of them to suit their own strengths. In doing so, his classmates grew by bounds compared to their performance in the Mountain Trial. Their cohesion and trust within each other were unprecedented when compared to the history of the campus.

On Monday, Joe had the squads training as they had been up to this point. He took meticulous mental notes of the capabilities and weaknesses of his peers. Later that night, after he had spent enough time with both Clara and Shianne separately, Joe devised a detailed method he was going to implement in the coming midterms.

For this task, he plans to divide the squads into smaller teams with no regard to their original structure. He divided the seventy-five total members into fifteen groups of five. Those he considered to have a higher communication ability were assigned to the team's first. This included himself, Clara, John and the current leader of Fourth Squad, Ari Wilson.

Following that, he picked two closer range and two supporting members. He played towards the balance that these members would have. From weapon choice to their boasted stats, Joe ended up rearranging the members more than a dozen times before he was satisfied.

Knowing that every participant would be given a communication device that also included a holographic map of the area and pinpointed the exact location of the participants, Joe then moved onto the actual tactics he would explain to the class the next day. Team leaders would have direct communication to Joe and other teams while the team members would only be able to communicate within a set range of one another.

Joe plans to adapt the movements of each team throughout the entire test to play off one another. Using the information each team would be sending him, he would be able to update the map to show the positions as well as numbers of the beasts.

If a group of beasts exceeded two, he would regroup the teams to either avoid or engaged the group. Despite the potential of a low survival rate for this test, Joe was aiming to minimize, if not eliminate, all potential for death within his class.

Fifty percent. That was the expected number of year one students that were expected to return from the test. This number was entirely unacceptable to him. The campus was expecting half of his classmates to perish in this test. After all the work each one of them had put in, Joe wouldn't have even been content with a ten percent mortality rate.

The following day, just as he'd planned, Joe divided the three squads into the fifteen teams. For the rest of their pre-test time, they were to train as a singular unit. He tasked them with figuring out for themselves why he had divided them like this. He couldn't simply give them the answers or else they wouldn't grow from the experience or may even become complacent just before the test.

As if to meet his expectations, it took less than an hour for the last team to start moving as a singular unit. Having been pared together to play off each member's strengths and eliminate the weaknesses, it came as no surprise that his plan played out and that fact elated him.

Unlike the seventy-four that had followed Joe's leadership since his appointment, Third Squad was fumbling in the last moments. Jared had each of them focus on their own training and had treated them as the reason he had lost face.

His impulsive nature and narcissisms were dragging the members of his squad down and none of them grew any noteworthy amount since they began their enrollments. Each of them realized what the real problem was so for this week, they have completely disregarded his supposed leadership.

Every member of the squad began training with one another with the exclusion of Jordan himself. The members of his own squad failed to even consider inviting him to the united training they had agreed to. Why would they when he was the reason they were so far behind the rest of the class?

A few of the members had spoken to the other squads and voiced their concerns about their 'leader'. In the end, they had a general idea of how to start working together. It was far too late for them to change their weapon of choice, so everyone was stuck with a longsword as they were initially instructed to wield before the Mountain Trial.

The most pressing issue this posed was that someone who's speed was boasted by their awakening was slowed down by the weight of the weapon. When sparring with one another, this posed little issue. Against boasted beasts, this could be fatal. Especially if the person was to run into a beast that had also awoken in speed.