Ellis breathed heavily due to heavy strenuous fight he just had. The fog was starting to dissipate, but if what he saw was right then he could shorten the duration of fog to be less than 1 minutes from the current 10 minutes.
Ellis walked back to his seat before the fog fully dissipated as the invigilator, who similar to him breathing labourously, looked at him in utter contempt and disgust. He looked at his screen, he had 2:52:21 time left.
Plenty of time for his plan to work, if it was a success.
As the fog fully dispersed from the hall, everyone was drawn to the sight of bloody desk, chairs and floors.
The invigilators although extremely tired, focused on healing the students. They knew they were close to victory. Just 1 or 2 more waves and all the students here will be too tired to even move, even if they had recovered their magi particles to the full.
Few of the nobles who had a successful smile in the previous round were breathing heavily in their torn clothes. They looked at the students around them in pure hatred and anger.
As the last students were healed and seated back, a light assaulted everyone's attention.
Turning to the source of light everyone looked up to notice a bright source of light on the roof of the building.
As the light faded it revealed a square with, a 10 by 10 grid. However, the strange thing was, an 'X' marked every other square like a chessboard. One of the grids in the middle left-hand side had an 'X' marked as well but this one had a green background colour to it.
Everyone was confused seeing the weird drawing. Archer looked at the drawing and scrunched his eyebrows at the unexpected surprise. He looked at Ellis, the only person, he knew, capable of doing something like this in the hall.
After a while, a few of the students in the hall came to a sudden realisation at what the drawing was. They smiled while thanking whoever had the idea of this drawing. While looking at Archer who was looking at the drawing curiously.
Ellis sighed that his plan was a success. Now he just has to hope at least one person from each grid understood it. He worried for no reason seeing Archer's gaze land on him for a moment, but it seemed all was fair as long as the cameras didn't spot him committing the action.
Suddenly after a few minutes, a bout of red hue and alarm appeared all over the hall, in certain grids. It was only after this alert went off that the clueless ones, finally realised what the drawing was all about. It was simply put a map.
Everyone knew that a long draw out battle against the invigilators and the nobles would spell defeat to them. So, most of them had decided, after witnessing the expulsion of the invigilator and the 2 students, in the last round to mimic the same thing.
During the wave of fog, they decided amongst themselves who would be the sacrifice. It was a hard choice especially for those students in the grid who found it hard to hold off their invigilators. However, they knew 2 of them had to leave, or the most hated person in their life will succeed. This was their only chance to properly avenge the trash that been giving them rotten hell for the past few years in the academy, without having to face a court trial.
Luckily for half the grids in the hall, the map proved to be their saviour. The map was an instruction telling them all the grids marked with an 'X' should proceed with 2 sacrifices. Once this was done all the grid not marked with 'X' will be attacked by the fog. However, this time due to all the adjacent grids next to this grid being without fog- due to the invigilator being replaced- the fog will at maximum last 2 minutes, before being quickly dispersed. This gave the students a much easier time to defend against the invigilator.
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The key code in identifying the map was the grid with the green background marked by an 'X'. The smart ones in each grid quickly realised this was the grid location of the noble girl who just had her invigilator replaced.
Eliot had seen how when the 2nd wave of fog arrived that the particular grid was inactive, obviously, due to the current invigilator being unrelated to the noble. What caught him to make this plan was seeing how the fog from the neighbouring grids was slowly seeping into their grid, making it less foggy.
In junction with the spell students use and the adjacent grids being empty, it will take roughly 30 seconds to 1 minute to empty a grid of a fog. If, however, the students didn't use any spell to assist taking the fog out, it would at maximum take 2 minutes before the fog becomes so light that the camera could see again.
Archer proceeded to kick the 100 students and 50 invigilators out, while the nobles in that particular grid had their face distorted in resentment and hopelessness.
Soon the new wave of invigilators arrived to replace the empty grids.
The students focused on writing the exams, while the invigilators who were still in the game to support their masters lamented their misfortune. There was no way for them to break the game now. It usually took them at least 3 minutes to break through the defence of the students, now they had to do the same thing but in a shorter time span.
Still, the invigilators decided to give it a try for their masters' sake. The half remaining invigilators quickly decided to bring in the fog to cover their grid.
However, the fog didn't even last 10 seconds before it started dispersing. The invigilators and their masters were confused at the rate of dissipation of the fog along with the other student, although they were glad at the quick disappearance of the fog.
Suddenly, they noticed the gradual disappearance of the magi particle in their adjacent invigilators' hands.
Archers voice quickly resounded through the hall. "You see unlike you scums; these invigilators actually do their jobs responsibly. They are here to ensure students in their grid, write the exam fairly without any hindrance. You guys better think up another plan or your masters are done for in this test."
The remaining invigilator all despaired. There was no more point in carrying on with fogging their grid if the adjacent invigilator disrupted it.
Ellis sighed in relief at the unexpected bonus fruited from his plan. Now he can actually focus on his paper.
2:30:09 time left.
There were occasional attempts from the invigilators who were getting desperate along with their masters as time ticked on. Yet it would get either thwarted by the adjacent invigilators or mainly the students in their grid.
1:45:53 time left.
Ellis had finally finished the paper. Although it was hard for the usual academic students for him it was truly a normal paper.
Ellis closed the paper while signalling the students watching their invigilator that he will take over the watch to keep an eye on her.
1:07:02 time left.
The remaining invigilators attempted a last-ditch effort at giving their answers to their masters. Out of the remaining 50 invigilators, only 2 succeeded while the rest along with their masters were expelled from the hall.
0:22:22 time left.
Most students had finished by now, while wondering who put the map up.
0:07:17 time left.
The heirs of nobles and other high standing people gave up in despair. They knew there was no more hope for them. Few of them started to regret ever poking the hornet's nest while the majorities fury soared towards the peasants rebelling against them.
0:00:01 time left.
0:00:00 time left.
"Stop! Time is up." Archer shouted, followed by each invigilator starting to observe for anyone still carrying on.
"This is the end of this phase. Your results will be posted tomorrow outside this hall. Till the end of this exam, you are not to leave the exam premises or meet anyone else not participating in this exam other than the staff for this exam. This is the same for all the students who have been expelled from this test and are in the waiting room." Archer laid out his instructions.
The students especially, those in the waiting room were confused by the orders. Why do they have to still stay inside the exam premises? What was even the point?