Can the sadness that magic cannot take away be offset by love?

When we reached the flat ground at the top of the cliff, it was already 1:30 p.m.

Iris remembers that the players arrived at the venue at noon, so the next round of leaderboard updates will be at midnight tonight.

On the flat ground not far away, a group of people dressed in blue robes were walking towards Iris and her companions. The leader said:

"Time is running out, hurry up and catch up."

After saying that, he turned and left with his men, with Iris and the others following behind.

The process of climbing the cliff was not smooth sailing. The contestants each had their own ideas, but no one would fail to recognize the face of the previous champion. In addition, no one would try to provoke her at the beginning, so Iris's climb was relatively smooth. At this point, there were quite a few people behind her, including those who had not yet climbed up.

However, the leader did not wait for them. Not long after he followed the group of people in blue robes out, the number of remaining players on the leaderboard stopped changing.

The thick fog rising from below has completely sealed off the cliff, and those who haven't come up yet will no longer have a chance to do so.

This single task eliminated nearly 50,000 people.

Iris noticed that the names of those eliminated would immediately turn gray, but their points and rankings would still be displayed on the leaderboard, just like Ernest, who was not on the field, would still have his name on the leaderboard, except that they would no longer have the opportunity to earn points.

Being eliminated in this round does not mean you cannot advance to the next round, because the only condition for advancing is to be ranked in the top 10,000 by the end of the qualifying round. Those who are eliminated midway or who did not actually participate in this round can still be included in the leaderboard.

The group arrived at a spacious square that could accommodate hundreds of thousands of people.

"Rank B mission [Arrival at Incense Square] has been completed, points +100."

As she listened to the broadcast, Iris's gaze remained fixed on a huge altar in the very center of the room.

Thirteen tall incense sticks on the altar pointed straight to the sky, their wisps of smoke rising with the wind.

A group of solemn-looking, distinguished individuals stood below the altar. Once everyone was in position, one of them spoke:

"Thank you all for choosing to take the Medicine King Valley entrance exam. For 1,700 years, under the guidance of the Thirteen Incense Sticks, Medicine King Valley has diligently pursued knowledge and tirelessly taught its disciples, ensuring the continuous flourishing of its lineage. Today, we welcome 100,000 fresh blood to continue the lifeline of the Thirteen Incense Sticks—"

"This entrance exam will only admit the top 100,000 students. The exam will begin in ten minutes, so please be prepared."

After he finished speaking, no one below the altar spoke again, and the contestants were all somewhat bewildered.

"Huh? It starts in ten minutes? What's the test?"

"Just tell me what you need to prepare!"

“Taking 100,000 out of 400,000 people seems like a pretty good ratio.”

Iris herself was also clueless, and stood silently for ten minutes among the contestants who could only anxiously "prepare".

When the time came, she closed her eyes and opened them again, and she was sitting in a chair.

Looking down, I saw a wooden table in front of me with a pen, a piece of paper, and an exam paper on it. Looking up, I saw that everyone in the room had the same setup.

This is a classroom, or more accurately, an examination room.

She counted; there were twenty-five candidates sitting in front of the exam papers, and two men in blue robes standing on the platform, each wearing a "Proctor" sign around their necks. One of them spoke:

"Exam rule one: The exam time is 120 minutes. Candidates must not exceed the time limit to answer questions, otherwise their scores will be reset to zero."

"Examination rule two: Thirty minutes after the start of the exam, candidates may submit their papers early on their own. After submitting the paper early, the score will be automatically assigned, and candidates can immediately view their current paper score and ranking. Candidates may continue to answer questions after submitting the paper early. Each candidate may submit the paper early a maximum of three times. The candidate's final score is the paper score at the end of the exam."

"Examination rule three: If you encounter any difficulties during the examination, you may ask the invigilator in this examination room for help at any time, but you are prohibited from asking the invigilator any questions related to the test paper. Violation of this rule will result in your score being zeroed."

System notification sounds simultaneously:

"You have unlocked a B-level mission: [Pass the Medicine King Valley entrance exam]".

"Reward for completing the task: 100 points."

The invigilator then announced: "The examination is now officially beginning. Candidates, please begin answering the questions."

Iris first analyzed the three rules given by the proctor.

The first rule is that you are not allowed to continue answering questions after the exam has ended. All exams have this rule, which is reasonable.

The second point is quite interesting. Since students can continue answering questions after submitting their papers early, the purpose of "submitting papers early" is to allow students to check their scores and rankings at any time.

The third rule states that students can ask the invigilator for help, as long as it's not about questions related to the exam paper. This seems similar to the first rule, and much like the rules in regular exams. However, in regular exams, students can only ask the invigilator for help in situations like forgetting a pen and eraser, dropping something, running out of scratch paper, or needing to use the restroom. So what about in a mock exam?

She then began to examine the exam papers.

The total score is 100 points, and there are two major questions in total.

The first major question is a fill-in-the-blank question, worth fifty points.

The second major question is a short answer question, worth fifty points.

...There wasn't a single multiple-choice or true/false question. Iris muttered to herself, then focused her attention on the first big question.

The first major question is: What is the purpose of Medicine King Valley?

Answer area: "□□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□, □□

The answer should be filled in the "mouth".

Iris counted them: there were four "口口", seven "口口口", and two "口口口口". After counting, she laughed at herself.

Thirty-seven "mouths" are worth fifty points.

Aside from the phrase "Medicine King Valley has always upheld equality and freedom" that she had seen on the note, which provided the answers to the "equality" and "freedom" questions, she had absolutely no clue about this 50-point question.

However, if "equality" and "freedom" can actually be filled in, is it possible that the words on the slips of paper hidden in the contestants' wooden plaques are different, and that combining all the different slips of paper can spell out the answer to the whole question?

But how do you determine the order in which the words are filled in? Or is there no fixed order, and you get points as long as the words are correct? But something as formal and serious as "purpose" shouldn't be too casual, right...?

She paused her train of thought, not filling in a single word, and instead moved on to the second major question.

This major question has 25 sub-questions, each worth two points, and all of them are open-ended questions that require candidates to organize their own language and answer in writing.

After only a cursory glance, Iris was stunned, and then read it carefully in disbelief.

"What ideas from his homeland did the founder of the Krohman philosophy school incorporate into his own experience to form Krohman philosophy?"

What is the fundamental theoretical difference between the Carlton Kingdom faction and the Norma Forest faction in the theory of elementalism?

What are the differences and connections between neo-Viesonism and old Visonism?

What contributions did the philosopher Bragg of the Tis Empire make to the development of analyticalism?

As she looked at it, the text on the title gradually simplified in her eyes to this form:

"The difference between (personal name)ism and (personal name)ism."

"How does (the name of the person) provide a completely new perspective for (the name of the philosophical school) through (the name of the theory) proposed in (the name of the philosophical school)?"

What is the philosophical basis for the nationwide belief (based on the context of the question) of [country name]?

Finally, it was simplified into a series of incomprehensible combinations of personal names, country names, theoretical names, and even names that were not even known, along with verbs, interrogative words, and various other words. Iris felt a little dizzy from reading all of it.

She seemed to have heard some of the names from others, but that was all; some sounded familiar, but that was all.

Many more were things that had never been heard of before.

Let alone thinking about the answers.

Isn't this the entrance exam for Medicine King Valley?

Medicine King Valley doesn't test your knowledge of magic potions, but rather your philosophy?

A magician who isn't good at philosophy isn't a good potion master?

She tried to find a few questions she could answer from the vast sea of ​​problems.

There were indeed some meager gains.

For example, this question: "You have a pill that can only save one person, but two dying people appear before you simultaneously, begging you to give them the pill. The first person is a stranger who is researching a pill that can save millions of lives; if she survives, she will definitely succeed in developing the pill. The second person is your mother, who raised you, accompanied you, and loves you deeply, but even if you save her with the pill, she will still die in a year, although she still wants to live one more year. Who would you give the pill to? (You must choose one; no explanation is needed.)"

Iris arrived at her answer in just 0.1 seconds, but she didn't know what the "correct answer" was, so she couldn't be sure if her answer would score points.

However, there was one question that made her pick up a pen, and the answer area was large enough that she could modify her answer at any time, so she wrote down her answer first.

Unfortunately, out of the twenty-five questions, she could only understand this one; she couldn't even guess the answers to the others.

So she had to close the pen cap, look up, and discover something even worse.

Almost everyone else in the exam room was writing answers with their pens, filling the question and answer section completely.

Iris even heard someone in the exam room click their tongue softly: "Isn't this something taught in general education courses?"

Huh? General education includes philosophy courses? How come she never took one?

Before adulthood, everyone must receive general education, and the subjects they study are the same across the entire continent of Ward. There should be no situation where one of you has studied something that another of you hasn't.

And once you become an adult, you will no longer take general education courses.

Then Iris remembered that she was in a dream when she took the general education course. The entire general education knowledge system was pieced together by Enid and Samuel finding online courses and secretly recording offline courses for her at the general education school. The general education system covers a wide range of subjects, from astronomy and geography to how to tighten a screw. The two of them did not have time to record all the subjects for her, such as philosophy.

Yes, you can attend classes and learn in your dreams, as long as the dream creator is patient enough to record all the teaching details.

Iris scratched her head in frustration.

If you don't learn it before you're an adult, and you're busy with all sorts of schemes and plots after you're an adult, and the academy doesn't teach it, and you don't even know there's such a thing that you can learn, what can you do!

She knew there were gaps in her general knowledge, but her parents had already recorded all the courses she needed to learn to survive. The ones they hadn't had time to record were the ones she could still live without. She was busy after waking up from her dream and planned to catch up on those courses after dealing with the Novero family. If she couldn't solve the Novero family issue, she probably wouldn't survive either, so there was no need for extra lessons...

Taking advantage of her faster answering speed than others, she boldly spent a lot of time thinking about these random thoughts. Realizing that her mind had wandered a bit, she brought her attention back and began to think about the current situation.

Her mind worked quickly, and she swiftly shifted her focus to the three rules.

Thirty minutes later, an option appeared on the exam paper: "Submit your paper early (remaining attempts: 3)".

Before anyone in the exam room had even stopped writing, she immediately handed in her paper. A large red "0" appeared on the paper, with two horizontal lines drawn below it, one shorter than the other.