[The special ranking reward can be redeemed from here directly. Do you want to redeem it?] Ram asked from the side.

“Of course. Please do that.”

The interface changed and the reward was displayed.

[Special Ranking Reward: Intelligence Attribute Increase +3]

Aditya felt a sharp headache for a moment and then it slowly toned down, but didn’t completely go away.

“What the hell is this?”

[That is the side-effect of directly increasing your intelligence. It is normally not possible to increase at all.]

“Whatever. Just go to the rewards section. With all the torture I have been through, they better be good.”

[They are indeed not bad.]

Ram replied and changed the interface to the reward section.

[ROUND 2 CLEAR REWARD: PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES IMPROVEMENT PACKAGE x3, INVENTORY SLOT x1

HIDDEN OBJECTIVE 1: KILL ALL THREE LEVEL-2 CREATURES, REWARD OBTAINED: 10 POINTS

HIDDEN OBJECTIVE 2: KILL TWO LEVEL-2 CREATURES AT THE SAME TIME, REWARD OBTAINED: 10 POINTS

SPECIAL CONDITIONS WERE CLEARED. PLAYER HAS KILLED ALL THE CREATURES WITH FIRE, PLAYER HAS KILLED MULTIPLE SPECIES OF INSECTS WITH FIRE. SPECIAL REWARD OBTAINED. INCINERATION DAGGER x 1 (CHECK THE INTERFACE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WEAPON)]

Aditya read through all of this and was quite surprised, but what surprised him even more is that after he finished reading the rewards, a dagger materialized in his hands. It is completely made of red metal and has a faint heat to it. It was exquisitely designed.

When he held it, it looked like a perfect fit in his hands.

As he stared at the dagger a prompt appeared over it.

[Incineration dagger.]

He opened it up and the details of the weapon appeared.

[INCINERATION DAGGER

A SPECIAL DAGGER SPECIALLY ENHANCED WITH FIRE ATTRIBUTE.

SPECIAL ABILITY: INCINERATION (3/3)

INCINERATION: WHEN THE USER STABS THE TARGET AND USES THE SPECIAL ABILITY OF THE DAGGER, EVERYTHING WITHIN THE FOUR FEET RADIUS FROM THE POINT OF CONTACT WILL BE INCINERATED.

ABILITY HAS LIMITED USES AND NEEDS TWENTY MINUTES COOLDOWN PERIOD TO RESTORE EACH USE.]

Aditya marveled at the special ability and almost wanted to try it, but he knew he couldn’t do that and suppressed the urge.

Stolen story; please report.

He opened the inventory to store the dagger, but to his dismay, the slots are not empty. There are two slots and one of them has the Bug limb and the other one has the three AIPs he got as the reward.

“Where can I store this dagger? I cannot carry it around like this.”

[Open the shop. I think you have what you need there.] Ram said from the side, so he opened the shop.

[STRENGTH ATTRIBUTE IMPROVEMENT PACKAGE: 10 Points

AGILITY ATTRIBUTE IMPROVEMENT PACKAGE: 10 Points

ENDURANCE ATTRIBUTE IMPROVEMENT PACKAGE: 10 Points

PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES IMPROVEMENT PACKAGE: 40 Points

INVENTORY SLOT: 10 POINTS (ONLY ONE AVAILABLE)]

Aditya looked at the number of points he had. There are a total of Fifty-nine points in total. The five points he got from the first round which were unused and the fifty-four he got now. The ten points are still affordable and anyway, he definitely has to buy that one.

He finished the purchase and placed the dagger in the inventory.

Now he has only forty-nine points left.

He just sat there for a while and rested before getting out and going back to the dorm. His whole body is painful and he is sure that he would need at least a few days to recover from this. But he didn’t have that much time. There is less than three days left for the next round and he is sure that it wouldn’t be easy.

He can only rest.

He took a shower and just went to sleep without any thoughts of even eating. He really is not in a mood for anything else and could only sleep on an empty stomach. The headache due to the forceful increase of intelligence is not really helping.

The next day, Aditya woke up earlier than usual. He woke up at four and didn’t even know what to do for a moment. He is too hurt to start exercising, so he decided to study.

That day is the Saturday and that is also the last day for taking the SAE exam that week. If they miss it that day, they have to wait till Monday. They are going to have a busy day until the evening as they need to take the written exam as well as any other possible exam after that.

So, he decided to go through the syllabus a bit. But when he read through it, he was shocked.

“What the hell is happening?” He couldn’t help but mutter out loud.

Currently, he is going through some theory regarding the Automotive transmission and previously it was a bit hard for him to understand it. He couldn’t completely grasp the concept as well as the mathematical part regarding the derivations and stuff with all the gearing calculations, different parts and mechanisms.

But now as he read through it, it was like a breeze. Even the parts he does not understand for some reason, he could still grasp why he didn’t understand that in the first place and what his drawbacks were. He could clearly rectify them with just some reference to the relative knowledge.

And once he started, he couldn’t stop himself from continuing further and he only came to himself after three hours. He already went way beyond the syllabus that was needed for the exam.

He soon got ready and went to the classes with his roommates.

In the lunch break along with many other students, they took the examination. It seems like almost every freshman in mechanical department took the test.

When he looked at the paper, Aditya finally understood why the test was difficult.

It is because the test is not just about going through the syllabus and answering multiple choice questions.

Every question somehow needs some extra logical approach and thinking outside of the box.

In fact, there are three questions that he spotted to be wrong.

Yes, the questions are straight up wrong to begin with. For example, the spur gear mechanism which is one of the basic gearing systems has one of the most important conditions. In every gear pair, the maximum gear ratio must be 4:1, any more than that would be practically useless as the pair would slip and it wouldn’t serve its intended purposes.

But in the question given, they have to solve a problem regarding a spur gear pair with a ratio over 8:1. Even though theoretically calculating it is not impossible, the very fact that they are trying to join a club that has so much practical application and the test with such a theoretical flaw beats the purpose.

At least that is what he thought and in fact he solved the problem by particularly mentioning the flaw in the question.

There are two more questions like that and he did all of them and he felt pretty satisfied.

He now felt like the headache he had to go through the whole night is totally worth it