I'm in a real religion, why are all the people who confess to me girls?

"Time's up, Horikita-san. Please return to your seats. We will now begin distributing the test papers."

Actually, the agreed time had long passed, but Sakagami wanted to see how Horikita, as the acting class leader, would deal with the troublemaker in the class, so he deliberately extended the time. Now that the exam had missed its start time, Sakagami was not nervous at all. He calmly walked to the podium and began to distribute the exam papers.

Since he already knew everyone would submit blank papers, it saved him a lot of trouble.

The test papers were quickly distributed to everyone. Most of the questions were related to swimming safety and safety issues to be aware of during running training. In addition, they also included emergency treatment methods for fire prevention, prevention of mosquito, snake and rat bites, and heatstroke. The questions were extremely simple. As long as the test taker had basic common sense, getting 80 points would be more than enough.

However, following Horikita's instructions, everyone wrote their names and then collectively handed in their papers. The written test for Class 2A ended in just one minute, making it the fastest test to finish in this special training session.

After the written exam in the morning, the physical fitness test was in the afternoon. This week's physical fitness test was swimming. Class A performed only so-so. Apart from Koenji, Onodera, and Hirata, whose swimming results reached the top level, the swimming results of the others, including Horikita, could only be described as average.

However, Horikita was clearly no longer concerned about the results of this physical fitness test. As soon as the test ended, Horikita couldn't wait to open the emails on OAA.

The average scores of the second-grade class's written test in the third week, sorted from highest to lowest, are shown below:

Grade 2, Class B: 81 points

Grade 2, Class D: 69 points

Grade 2, Class C: 23 points

Grade 2, Class A: 3 points

All the classes were stunned by the results. The classes outside Class A were shocked that Class A's average score was only 3 points. Even if they wanted to lower the score so that more people could surpass the average, this was too harsh. It was no different from the whole class submitting a blank paper.

Ryuen couldn't figure out why Horikita was doing this, so he could only put it aside for the time being. Anyway, Horikita's actions would only cause Class A to lose the class points reward that she should have received. Only when the gap between Class A and Class B gradually narrowed would Class C have an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

The students in Class A were dumbfounded because the average score was only 3. According to Horikita's requirements, everyone should have submitted a blank paper, so the average score should have been 0. Did someone participate in answering the questions?

Thinking about the conversation between Horikita and Koenji before the exam started, the students in Class A suddenly became nervous. How could anyone dare to openly provoke Horikita and Amane?

"Horikita-kun, I think there's something wrong with the grading. I was paying attention to the class at the time, and it's impossible for anyone to have had time to answer the questions."

Hirata believes that the average score might be due to a grading issue. If it were graded by computer, there might be some kind of system bug when encountering a situation where all the papers are blank. Or perhaps the school was afraid that when the results were announced, Class A would receive a score of 0, so they gave it 3 points because they thought it would be too embarrassing. In any case, it is unlikely that someone could answer the questions during the one-minute or so gap.

“What Hirata-kun said is exactly what I was thinking. And according to the calculation, if the school didn’t deliberately give us a score of 3, then it means that someone in the class did a perfect score on the test. Since the average score doesn’t show a decimal, it’s rounded to the nearest whole number, which is why it became 3. But the problem is… even if the questions are so simple that it’s easy to get a perfect score, answering the questions still takes time. I don’t think anyone has enough time to hand in a test that would have been perfect.”

Katsuragi and Hirata shared the same view, believing that there was a problem with the school's grading process.

They hoped that Horikita could represent Class A to communicate with the school about this matter, but what they didn't know was that this score was exactly the result Horikita wanted to see.

What does this seemingly pathetic class average of 3 points signify? It means someone got a perfect score on the written test for Tianyin!

In this way, Horikita no longer needs to worry about whether Amane can participate in the special exam. Since the school allows this kind of operation, Amane must be the type who is guaranteed admission. As long as it is ensured that Amane can participate in the special exam in July, Horikita is confident that Amane can definitely lead the second graders to defeat those sharp-tongued first graders.

……

Chairman's Office.

"Oh? This result? I didn't expect our plan to be seen through."

Marina was quite surprised when she saw the email on Amane OAA showing that the average score of Class A was 3 points. In her opinion, even if Class A was not very good, an average score of 34 points would be very easy. It was impossible for it to be only 3 points!

Just as Marina was about to verify with Chairman Fujiwara a second time, she suddenly realized that the problem wasn't with her exam results, but rather that her existence had been exposed.

"It seems our plan has been discovered."

Marina casually handed her phone to Fujiwara Rin, who took it, glanced at it, and then returned it.

"I've already heard about this from Sakagami. Class A collectively handed in blank papers during the written exam this morning. I didn't pay much attention at first, thinking it was just some little trick Class A was playing. I didn't expect them to catch you, the big fish. The current leader of Class A in the second year is quite capable."

Fujiwara Rin's tone was very calm. Although Class A's actions and purposes were somewhat unexpected, Marina and Fujiwara Rin could easily deduce the cause and effect of the matter. As geniuses, they had all made a name for themselves in the school on their own back then, and they were already used to such tricks, so they were not particularly amazing.

"So what do we do next? Should we pretend we don't hear, or... should you step forward and explain?"

Marina asked casually while fiddling with the charm on Amane's phone.

"There's no point in explaining to them. Just pretend you don't know. I believe they won't spread this kind of thing after they find out that someone is helping Tianyin earn points behind the scenes."

After speaking, Fujiwara Rin lowered her head and continued to handle her official duties.

Fujiwara Rin had thoroughly researched Horikita Suzune, and knew she wasn't the type to take advantage of others and then act innocent. Since she could gain tangible benefits from the school, keeping quiet was the best option.

Fujiwara Rin believed that Horikita knew how to handle the matter, so she stopped paying attention to it. Besides, there was something more important to prepare in advance than having someone take the exam for Amane.

"How is Tianyin's injury? Will she be able to participate in the final test in the fourth week on time?"

"There shouldn't be any major problems. After Tianyin came back from her last trip, the hospital gave her a full check-up, and the fractured area is healing quite well. I heard that even the doctors were quite shocked. She truly is my child..."

Fujiwara Rin rolled her eyes at Marina, speechless. Ever since Amane accepted Marina's existence, Marina has been overflowing with maternal love. Whenever Amane is mentioned, it seems like there are endless topics to talk about, and all of them are praises of Amane. This makes Fujiwara Rin sometimes doubt whether Amane is really the well-behaved, cute, and worry-free good child that Marina talks about.

However, putting aside Amane's unpredictable personality, her strength and physical abilities are undeniable. Although her father is a good-for-nothing, her mother, Marina, possesses rare genius genes. The probability of a genius's offspring producing another genius is higher than that of ordinary people. In addition, the family ruthlessly artificially matured Amane, so Fujiwara Rin is not surprised at all that Amane has achieved what she has today.

Even Fujiwara Rin, who set a record at the high school that no one could break for ten years, thought that even if she and Amane were in the same year, she would probably be completely crushed by Amane. The reason was that all the records she left behind had been broken one by one by Amane. The reason why those records were kept by the school was that many of them were world records that were broken, but were ruled invalid by the official because the athletes were not professional athletes. However, even records that were difficult for professional athletes to surpass have now been replaced by new records with Amane Miyako's name on them.

This is enough to demonstrate the terrifying power that can be unleashed when Tianyin's talent and hard work are combined.

"Stop, stop. If you keep going, you'll start praising Tianyin endlessly. I know she's your child, but she's grown up now. You can't always treat her like a little kid. Let's get back to the point. Since Tianyin's condition has improved, let's inform her that she can start practicing for the final test ahead of schedule. As long as she passes the comprehensive review above, Tianyin can participate in the special exam."

During a special exam on an uninhabited island, a severe fire broke out on the island rented by the school, resulting in the school being banned from leaving campus for one year to conduct outdoor special exams.

Since the ban is calculated based on the month before summer vacation, the ban will be officially lifted on July 1st this year. However, considering Gao Yu's past record in this regard, relevant departments have sent various professionals to conduct a comprehensive review of the safety knowledge and physical fitness of students participating in the outdoor special exam. Only students who pass the review can participate in the outdoor special exam, thereby reducing the probability of accidents.

"No matter how old she gets, Tianyin is still just a child in my eyes. By the way, what is the final test?"

Half marathon.

Chapter 175: Hui is a Crybaby

"Half marathon?"

Marina hesitated for a moment when she heard about the final test, and then her gaze toward Fujiwara Rin became strange.

Is there something wrong with this?

Feeling a little uncomfortable under Marina's intense gaze, Fujiwara Rin couldn't help but ask, thinking that Marina had discovered something.

"There's nothing wrong with it, but isn't it a bit too easy for the final test to be a half marathon? Or are there some requirements for the examiners? An ordinary person with professional training can definitely run a half marathon. If there's no time limit, then the only people who might fail the test this time are probably those with particularly poor physical fitness, right?"

The total distance of a half marathon is 13.1094 miles, or 21.0975 kilometers. The race time is usually 3 hours, which is quite ample. With a little training and systematic marathon training, it is very easy to finish the race within the specified 3 hours. Even beginners can generally finish in 2.5 to 3 hours. Therefore, if the half marathon is regarded as a marker of students' physical fitness, it is actually a relatively simple event.

However, this is on the premise that the examiners have no other requirements.

Faced with Marina's questioning, Fujiwara Rin handed Marina a report on the assessment criteria. Marina took the report, quickly skipped the meaningless template-like nonsense at the beginning, and then flipped directly to the assessment criteria at the end.

The assessment standards are divided into three levels.

First of all, it should be noted that completing a half marathon will earn you 60 points, and your usual performance and check-ins will earn you 40 points. You will be considered qualified if you reach a total of 80 points and can participate in the school's special exam in July.

Those who assess the half marathon are well aware of the significant discrepancies involved. With three hours, anyone with decent physical fitness can finish the race on foot. If all finishers receive the same score, then the assessment loses its purpose.

Therefore, the assessors divided the evaluation criteria for the half marathon into three levels:

Tier 1: 60 points can be earned by completing the race within 2 hours.

Tier 2: 40 points can be earned by completing the race within 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Tier 3: 20 points can be earned by completing the race within 3 hours.

Students who fail to complete the competition will be automatically disqualified from participating in the special exam.

According to the school's latest regulations, students who are eliminated from special training can enjoy summer vacation at the school, but will be punished with a two-month ban on personal points, except for students eliminated due to physical illness.

These students do not enjoy any preferential treatment when they win the special exam and receive rewards, such as the privilege of being exempted from expulsion with one million personal points. Those who fail to take the special exam do not enjoy this benefit. Conversely, if their grade loses the special exam, those who fail to take the special exam will be punished along with their grade, such as having their personal points suspended.

This forced many students who had originally planned to slack off and deliberately get eliminated from the special training in hopes of avoiding the special exam and enjoying a two-month summer vacation to start working hard. After all, if their grade really lost this special exam, not only would they lose the benefit of being exempted from expulsion by using one million personal points, but the two penalties of not being able to issue points would add up to almost half a year. No one was willing to trade half a year without personal points for two months of summer vacation. Even if there were people who didn't lack personal points, they couldn't just stand by and watch their class lose a lot of class points and completely lose the qualification to advance to Class A.

"According to the rule that at least 80 points are required to participate in the special exam, and considering that my usual scores are around 30, that means... I need to reach at least the second tier level. Even if I reach the second tier, I still need to find a way to collect the remaining points..."

Marina immediately realized the problem: the half marathon was very lenient on the time limit for finishers, but the points awarded for each level were almost drastically different.

The third tier is almost no different from elimination; even if you get the best grades in your regular classes, getting only 20 points is practically useless.

So it looks like there are three levels, but in reality, the third level is basically the elimination level. The second level seems to give a lot of points, a full forty points, but what does that mean? If a normal student gets the second level score and forty points, he must get full marks in all his regular grades in order to participate in the special exam.

This alone is a very tough test for all students, so the best way to secure a spot in the special exam is... to win the top-tier competition.

Completing a half marathon in two hours, while not a top-tier achievement, is enough to qualify one as a half marathon runner.

Gao Yu wanted to turn all the nearly 300 students in the first and second grades into elite athletes in just one week. Just thinking about it, it was clear that this was an impossible task.

If Gao Yu truly possessed such abilities, he wouldn't be so scheming to enhance his reputation, even resorting to unorthodox methods like showcasing 'legitimate violence' to attract more students who enjoy venting violence to choose him.

The reason for this behavior is that Gaoyu High School has an advantage over other high schools in that it is completely free, guarantees job placement after graduation, and recommends students to excellent universities.

In reality, only Class A can enjoy such privileges. Students in other classes still have to rely on their own abilities to get into university or find a job after graduation. So how are these students different from students in other high schools? A manager on an assembly line will not care which high school a graduate comes from, let alone what kind of thrilling special exams you have experienced in school, what brilliant results you have achieved, or what kind of illustrious reputation you have created.

No matter how much you say, the interviewer will always bring you back to reality with just one question: "Then why did you come here?"

Failing to graduate from Class A is tantamount to being a failure, which makes many people give up the idea of ​​entering the more competitive Gaoyu. Therefore, most of the students admitted to Gaoyu each year are those with physical talents who want to be recommended to universities that value sports, or those whose families are not well-off and need to go to such a free school to reduce the burden on their families. In addition, there are some children of tycoons and big families who come to get a prestigious education, as well as some lucky ones who seem useless but have some potential.

Kao Yu University may seem to have a wealth of talent, but don't forget that these are 160 people selected by Kao Yu University from hundreds of thousands of applications. Perhaps many of them seem mediocre or overshadowed by the dazzling performances of some geniuses, but they would be considered relatively outstanding in other schools.

Even with such careful selection, they still couldn't satisfy the higher-ups at Gaoyu. So, after seeing the strong reaction to the video of Tianyin dominating the sports festival, they decided to try another approach.

The concept of supremacy of strength is concretized, and the most direct and obvious result is violence.

It's easy to imagine what kind of people would be attracted by such a gimmick.

Back to the topic.

Marina has only two options for passing the final review: one is to achieve a first-class half-marathon result, which almost guarantees passing the review; the other is to achieve a second-class result plus excellent performance in her daily routine.

The second option may seem a bit difficult for ordinary people, but they should still give it a try, no matter how difficult it is. Anyone who knows anything about sports knows that every second of progress in sports achievements requires more sweat and effort.

Moving from the second tier to the first tier is something that ordinary people who haven't trained for even a few days can't handle. It's the most direct ticket for talented students to be selected through the special exam.

"I didn't expect the review process to be so strict. Rin, what do you think the pass rate will be for those students now?"

After understanding the strictness of the selection process, Marina looked at Fujiwara Rin with some concern.

She wasn't worried about whether Amane could finish the half marathon, because the half marathon was too easy for Amane; it was practically a foregone conclusion. What Marina was really worried about was that many of the second-year students' evaluations weren't very high. If a large number of second-year students were eliminated, the first-year students would have a natural advantage in numbers, especially during exams. In certain situations, sometimes the advantage of numbers is a terrifying advantage that leaves no chance for resistance.

Marina didn't explicitly say which grade of student she was asking, but how could Fujiwara Rin not know what Marina was thinking at that moment?

"Thirty percent."

The fact that the percentage dropped sharply from 70% to 30% made Marina gasp involuntarily.

If a class has 40 students, only 12 students will pass the exam.

"At this point, all we can do is wish them well."

Marina sighed helplessly. This was all about individual strength, which perfectly matched the school's reputation for prioritizing ability. So even though Marina felt that this was a bit inappropriate, she had nothing to say.

……

A week passed quickly.

After a week of intensive marathon training, many students were just getting used to the marathon pace when they were pulled onto the track. The half marathon, the final assessment item, was held as scheduled.

However, the half marathon was not held at the forest school, but in a neighboring city.

It's not that Gao Yu has such influence that a city would cooperate with a school to host a half marathon. Rather, the school cleverly arranged for all its students to register for a half marathon in a neighboring city. This way, the school could save a huge amount of money, such as food and water supplies along the route, medical personnel, volunteers, referees, security personnel, and so on.

Both students and teachers were speechless at the school's clever tricks in this matter. The neighboring city was not close to the school, and the start time of the race was tight. If the students of Kao Yu wanted to participate in the half marathon on time, they had to get up at six o'clock in the morning, gather together, and take a bus to the race venue. Moreover, once they arrived at the race venue, they had to start the race immediately without having time to warm up. Only in this way could the time be considered barely just right.

Just hearing about this arrangement tells you how people will feel about the school's actions, but when the time comes, complaining won't help.

"Fanbo, Hui, how are your preparations going? Are you feeling unwell at all?"

As the competition drew near, Horikita, who had already changed into her competition uniform, specifically sought out Ichinose and Karuizawa, who were in the crowd, to inquire about their physical condition.

"I feel pretty good, but I think I get a little carsick. I guess I'm not really suited for long bus rides. But Hui is..."

Ichinose's smile turned into worry when she looked at Megumi beside her.

"I...I can still hold on..."

Karuizawa covered her mouth with one hand and her abdomen with the other. Coupled with the extremely ugly expression on her pale face, no one would think that she could persevere.

"If it really doesn't work out, it's okay to give up. It's just a matter of losing some personal points and the benefits you get when you're expelled. You don't have to worry about your daily expenses with the allowance Tianyin gives you. And no one would be so foolish as to expel you. Even if something unexpected happens, with Tianyin and us here, you won't be expelled easily. Don't do anything that will harm your health for a little benefit. If something happens to you, I won't be able to explain it to Tianyin."

Seeing Karuizawa's utterly dejected expression, Horikita knew that she probably wouldn't be able to finish the race. It might be better to let her give up than to suffer on the track.

Given Karuizawa's physical condition, it was unlikely that she would achieve a very good ranking. However, due to physical discomfort caused by physiological reasons, the judges agreed that as long as Karuizawa could reach the second-tier level, she could be ranked according to the first-tier score.

But to ask a girl like Karuizawa, who doesn't usually exercise and relies entirely on a week of intensive training to improve her physical fitness, to run 20 kilometers while feeling unwell, just thinking about it feels like torture. Not to mention finishing the run, she might even have to be carried away by medical staff halfway through.

"I know all that Lingyin is saying, but I..."

Karuizawa was a little unwilling. She knew that she would feel unwell for a few days at the end of the month and the beginning of the next month. She was in pretty good physical condition during training yesterday, but when she woke up, she found that her body was not quite right. She knew better than anyone else that with her strength, it would be difficult to finish the run, and with so many unexpected situations, it was impossible for her to finish.

But giving up the competition would mean that all her efforts over the past month would be in vain overnight. How could she accept that so easily? She had worked so hard to participate in the special exam with Tianyin... She didn't understand why fate, whether in the past or present, always seemed to choose the right time to torment her.

Karuizawa wanted to cry, but Horikita and Ichinose were right in front of her. After a month of getting to know each other, Karuizawa's relationship with Ichinose and Horikita had improved a lot, and they had started calling each other by name. Horikita had also completely accepted their presence. However, there is no such thing as peaceful coexistence in the war of emotions. Even among friends, the competition in private can't just disappear.

If Karuizawa were to show any weakness or vulnerability in front of the two of them...