Chapter 345: Assessment Intermission

After successfully exiting the maze, the candidates participating in this year's White Badge assessment were granted a day of rest. This day was intended to provide a buffer for those still lingering in the maze, to allow the Examination Institute time to set up venues and facilities, and, most importantly, to let the magical girls who had exhausted too much mana in the maze recover their state.

Most candidates chose to use this day to catch up on sleep, compensating for the rest they missed while rushing through the maze the previous day—after all, the first assessment alone had left them utterly exhausted. However, not everyone was content to rest; considering there were three more assessment items ahead, this was clearly not the time to slack off.

Candidates with similar thoughts were racing against time: some were training, some were reviewing their performance, and some were drafting battle plans for the next assessment. Of course, there were also candidates currently celebrating with a meal.

"Then, let us toast to Xiaojin for taking first place in this assessment."

Following Cui Que’s toast, the members of the Fang Ting city team sitting around the table raised their glasses. Under the bright yellow lights, the glasses clinked with a crisp sound.

"Yeah!"

Among them, however, Lin Xiaolu’s cheer was surprisingly the loudest, an unusual situation that caused the others to reveal expressions of slight surprise.

"…What’s wrong?"

The subtle expressions of her companions made Lin Xiaolu suspect she had done something wrong, and she subconsciously shrank back. But after thinking it over carefully, she was certain she hadn't done anything wrong, so she straightened her back again: "Aren't we celebrating?"

The other three were momentarily speechless. They thought to themselves, they couldn't exactly say, "We thought you would be unconvinced," could they?

This suspicion was entirely groundless.

Because right now, "Who is Xiaojin?" had become a hot topic among the White Badge candidates. Some were curious and amazed by this suddenly emerged first-place winner, while naturally, others felt unconvinced.

In other words, there were plenty of people out there right now who felt unconvinced by Xia Liang.

Nearly ten hours had passed since the assessment ended, and the vast majority of candidates had either already exited the maze or had realized they were lost and voluntarily forfeited. It could be said that, except for a very small number of magical girls still trying to scrape together a few reward points in the maze, all candidates were aware of the maze assessment results and had inevitably noticed the code name "Xiaojin."

Moreover, the way Xia Liang exited the maze had been clearly seen by everyone on the viewing platform; it was hardly a secret, and naturally, this event became a hot topic of discussion within the candidate community. Even many Paper Badge candidates who should have been preparing for their own assessments participated in the discussion. For a time, the name "Xiaojin" became widely known, and various criticisms against her grew rampant.

"At any rate, you, Xia Liang, are my teammate. My teammate got first place."

"What’s wrong with me being happy for you?"

Perhaps also gradually realizing something, Lin Xiaolu quickly turned the conversation toward Xia Liang: "Although your method of getting first place was a bit… well, devious? But isn't that your skill, too?"

"Ha… well, thanks for that."

Xia Liang gave a dry laugh to accept Lin Xiaolu’s "compliment," but after a few seconds, the smile on her face collapsed: "Sigh, if I had known it would cause such a stir, I should have run a little slower."

"This is just one stage of the assessment; there is no need to care too much about what others think right now."

Cui Que did not quite approve of this mindset, so she advised: "There are three more assessments to go. If you can still achieve excellent results, then others will naturally begin to gradually acknowledge you and view the first assessment as a manifestation of your uniqueness. If your subsequent results are mediocre and your performance becomes average, then they will just make a few snide remarks and won't view you as a rival anymore."

"At the end of the day, the main reason others have criticisms of you now is that they don't understand you yet; they don't know if you are a true dark horse or just a lucky opportunist."

Cui Que swirled the juice in her glass and then raised it slightly, gesturing toward Xia Liang: "But we, the teammates sitting here, know your strength. We all believe that this first place is only the beginning of you making a name for yourself among the magical girls of this generation. All criticism is only temporary and will disappear as others see your strength clearly, so this is indeed something worth celebrating."

"Little Senior, when you put it that way, I feel even more pressure to the point of a stomachache…"

Xia Liang gripped the handle of her glass, looking quite restless: "The main and alt accounts I registered on Carrier Pigeon are almost being bombed by private messages. Besides some gossip, there are even people asking to duel me in the second assessment… what am I supposed to do?"

"Of course, beat them all back!" Lin Xiaolu said with a grin.

"You want to work me to death, right?" Xia Liang rolled her eyes.

The "duel" she spoke of was not a private fight started by other candidates, but rather one of the procedures for the second assessment.

Yes, when most candidates had exited the maze and the first assessment was nearing its end, the examiners from the Examination Institute announced the content of the second assessment on the viewing platform.

Unlike the first assessment, the Examination Institute did not hide the main focus of this item, but stated quite clearly: the evaluation criteria for this assessment would be Magic Equipment.

This could be said to be a tradition of the kingdom's annual assessments.

The items for the practical assessment changed every year; sometimes neither the theme nor the format was the same as previous years, but only the evaluation of Magic Equipment was present every year.

This was unavoidable; after all, a magical girl's abilities are largely dependent on her Magic Equipment, and the capabilities of the Magic Equipment are the foundation for the combat styles of many magical girls. Therefore, the practical assessment for magical girls is destined to be inseparable from Magic Equipment.

According to the Examination Institute's statement, this year's Magic Equipment evaluation was divided into two parts.

The first part consisted of the examiners testing and grading the magical girls' Magic Equipment capabilities. The examiners would test the candidates' development and mastery of their own Magic Equipment capabilities from multiple dimensions, and then give the candidates a preliminary grade.

The second part was to give those candidates who were dissatisfied with their grades an opportunity to improve them.

The specific manifestation of this opportunity was actually very simple: nothing else—if you feel the examiners misjudged you and your Magic Equipment is more powerful than they said, then use actual combat to prove it.

Candidates could challenge targets with a higher Magic Equipment grade than their own. During the challenge, both sides could only use basic abilities and Magic Equipment capabilities; the use of spells, wonderlands, and further means was prohibited.

Based on the result of the battle, assuming a B-grade candidate challenged an A-grade candidate and won, her Magic Equipment grade could be adjusted up from B to B+, while that A-grade candidate would fall to A-. After that, if this B+ candidate challenged another A-grade candidate and won, the B+ grade would rise to A.

However, if this B-grade candidate lost while facing an A-grade candidate, half of the assessment points she would have earned as a B-grade would be allocated to her opponent. And once a candidate lost all her points, she would lose the right to continue challenging upward.

This was why some candidates were applying to duel Xia Liang in advance. After all, in their view, Xia Liang had "stolen" first place in the maze project by relying on the special abilities of her Magic Equipment, so the grade of her Magic Equipment was bound to be high. And the way they wanted to express that they were unconvinced and did not acknowledge her was, naturally, to challenge Xia Liang and lower her grade.

Admittedly, Xia Liang could refuse the challenges, but one only had to think for a moment to realize that under such rules, a candidate who did not fight others at all was destined to be unable to get a particularly good ranking.

Even if a candidate could get an A grade right from the start, if she just held onto those points and avoided fighting out of fear, then other A-grade candidates who accepted challenges and won points would climb above her. Among thousands of candidates, there were probably hundreds who could get an A grade, plus those B-grade candidates who were truly good at fighting and could climb to A grade… in the end, this A-grade candidate who avoided fighting would probably only rank outside the top hundred.

If she were a magical girl with no fame and no ambition, being able to coast to a rank of one or two hundred with an A grade would probably be satisfying enough. But for someone like Xia Liang, who was at the center of the storm and had just taken first place in the first assessment, avoiding the fight in the second assessment would likely make people look down on her.

This was why, when Xia Liang refuted Lin Xiaolu, she only said she would be "worked to death" but did not mention "not being able to win."

Clearly, she also had the intention of beating back a few challengers to prove herself.

This was also the reason why, when Xia Liang refuted Lin Xiaolu, she only said she would be "tired to death" but made no mention of "not being able to win."

Clearly, she also had the intention of repelling a few challengers to prove herself.