The Exam (2)

A young blond haired boy, held a sword against the attacker who tried to attack Karl behind his back, Austin who had saved Karl held his blade against the attacker and they started to fight.

"Are you saying that these attackers are send by the academy to test us for the exam?" Karl said as he held the pointed arrow at his previous attacker's neck.

"Yes" Austin said "we have to defeat them and take the sticker out attached to their chest" Austin continued his fight as he spoke to Karl.

Karl then noticed a sticker on his opponent, which held the number 1, he reached for it with his arm and took it out from his attacker. Karl then slowly took away the arrow he had held at his attacker's neck; the attacker admitted his defeat and run away.

[You have defeated an opponent]

[10exp obtained]

'The system recognized it as a defeat?' Karl thought but quickly thought of something else 'I should check out what text formed on the badge before the attack was' Karl took out badge which had a little glow on it and read…

THIS IS A MESSAGE FOR THE PARTICIPANTS WHO HAVE REGISTERED FOR THE EXAM OF THE MAGIC ACADEMY.

Instructions:

1. The candidate has to defeat the attackers send by the exam bureau and collect the sticker attached to their body.

2. A total of 10 points is needed to pass the test for each person which can be obtained by collecting the stickers.

3. After obtaining enough points, the candidate has to reach the location provided on the badge.

4. Complete the exam in 1 hour limit.

Karl noticed a next button on the bottom of the message and clicked it, which in turn erased the message and boxed lines formed on the back of the badge with a glowing dot at the rim of the circular badge.

"It a GPS, showing the location to reach at the end of the exam" Karl said amazed by the seemingly ordinary badge.

"Now that that you have read the message…" Austin said as he walked towards Karl, putting a sticker in his pocket and a body lay on the ground behind him. "I have a proposal for you, how about joining hands to complete this exam. What do you think?"

"I don't understand" Karl said "Why do you want to form a team when you can probably pass this test on your own."

"I know what you are thinking but this test is not that simple and you don't even know the full rules yet." Austin said

"What do you mean?"Karl said curiously as he had just read about the rules.

"There are people that started this exam before you and I am one of those that started before you with a different set of rules." Austin said.

"Even if I believe you, how do you know that I started after you, I didn't tell you." Karl replied.

"Because your information and location was provided by the exam bureau and if you don't believe me then I have way to convince you" Austin said as he took out a bunch of stickers from his pockets and tossed it toward Karl. "You have to take the sticker and place it above the badge to gain points" Austin told Karl how to add points to the badge." and after gaining enough points you will understand."

'It is more stickers than I need to pass this test, why is he helping me?' Karl thought as he put 9 stickers from Austin's bunch and one that he collected from the attacker above his badge. As soon as Karl put 10 stickers on the badge it started to light up again with a text forming on the back of it.

A HIDDEN MESSAGE HAS BEEN UNLOCKED

THE EXAM IS NOT OVER YET, TO PASS THIS EXAM CANDIDATE HAS TWO WAYS.

1. THE CANDIDATE CAN REPEAT THE TASK GIVEN PRIOR AND WITH EACH POINT CAN OBTAIN 10 MINUTES EXTENSION ON TIME LIMIT.

2. THE CANDIDATE CAN FORM A TEAM WITH OTHER CANDIDATES.

'Why is the team forming part so vague?' Karl thought and he still had questions about this exam and some things he didn't understand.

"I still don't understand how come I have less information than you even after I have obtained 10 points. Are you lying about some things?" Karl asked.

"I would have appreciated the complexity of the exam if I was not in it."Austin said to himself and then replied to Karl "I guess that you don't have full information on how to pass the exam with a team, ok, I will tell you about what I know…"

Karl soon found out about the system of the exam and how it worked. Basically there are three phases to the examination and Karl is part of the third phase and Austin is the part of the second phase, Austin had to get 30 points in three hours limit but when he got enough points a hidden message appeared on his badge informing him about the only way to pass the exam…

"So, I was provided the location of all the third phase candidates and to pass the exam I had to form a team with one of them and your location happened to be near me, and forming a team does have it advantages."Austin said.

"What do mean by advantages?" Karl asked. 'From what I know I think that every phase has their advantages and disadvantages, like I have another way to pass the exam other than by forming a team and on other hand this guy had more time and received more information about the exam and about second way of passing the exam' Karl thought.

"In a team, members will share all the points. I mean that if a team has two members like I suppose you and me than the total number of points we have to collect will be 40, 10 from you and 30 from me but we will be getting 1 point each for defeating a attacker and the candidates from third phase can double the points if they use their own badge." Austin said.

'It's just as I thought, every phase has their advantages and disadvantages, and I don't need to form a team to pass this exam unlike him but why is that? If we don't form a team than I have to collect 10 points and if we form a team than still I will have only collect 10 points and he will collect the other 10 and then I can double it' Karl thought. He kept thinking for a while before answering "ok, we should form a team" Karl said to Austin as he thought about how Austin had saved him from disqualifying before and he may be better off in a team.

"By the way my name is Karl" Karl said as he extended his hand towards Austin "Nice to meet you, Karl. Let me introduce myself once again, I am Austin and your new teammate." Austin said with a smile.