{Konoha Academy, Konohagakure}
{3:21 PM, 1st July 13 Yrs ANB}
{3rd Person POV}
...
~Tick~
The tense atmosphere was once again stirred as Ibiki used a piece of chalk to tap on the blackboard, he explained the rules of the exams in a serious voice, "There are several important rules to this first test. I will take no questions so listen accordingly."
'More rules, he has already laid out two rules before... There would be no battles without the permission of the proctors and actions leading to death should be avoided that means knocking someone out should be feasible.' Ren thought as Ibiki tapped the chalk a couple more times.
"First off is the first rule, each of you is given 10 points from the start. The written exam has ten problems in all, each problem is worth one point. This test is a point deduction system, you are deducted one point for each problem you get wrong. If you get three wrong, you'll have seven points." Ibiki finished and let the genin contemplate his rules for a second.
...
'This is a little weird, Ibiki specifically mentioned in the beginning that he won't repeat these instructions, which means each and every word is important, and repeating his instructions would lead to more people figuring out the key to passing his test... So the fact that he specifically mentioned that each and every one of us has 10 points at the start and each wrong answer would lead to 1 point deduction...' Ren thought as he looked around at everyone's serious expression.
...
'...It could easily be interpreted that only if you answer the question wrong you would lose points, so if the questions are too hard I could simply leave the answers blank and still pass the exam.' Ren concluded. His conclusion was based on the 3 rules that Ibiki has mentioned till now so he was quite confident in his hypothesis.
"The second rule... Pass or Failure will be determined by the average points of the three-person teams-" Ibiki spoke, he couldn't continue as he was interrupted by Naruto freaking out.
"W-wait a minute, What do you mean by average points of the three-person team," Naruto shouted as he stood up from his seat, he was both confused and frightened at the prospect of dragging his team down.
"Shut up!" Ibiki rebuked harshly, thankfully he didn't disqualify Naruto for speaking out of turn and he explained.
"There's a simple explanation for this, there is someone in the exam who got a special pardon to take this exam alone," Ibiki spoke and Ren could see a lot of glares focusing on him, "so the only option is to make this exam fair for everyone was this method."
'What the fuck, why are you dragging me into your mess, can't he give a more exam-friendly reason like teamwork or some shit...' Ren cursed as he smiled at the proctor who was giving him an evil smirk.
"Don't interrupt me again," Ibiki reminded everyone and then he continued, "If you understand then let's get to the most important rule, those who are caught by the proctors as having committed an act of cheating or something similar to that..." Ibiki's smirk widened.
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"...Will have two points deducted for each act," Ibiki concluded that quite a lot of people were surprised by this rule.
'So this is an info-gathering exam, everything makes a little more sense now.' Ren concluded and Ibiki's next words confirmed Ren's hypothesis.
"In other words, there may be some of you who will be dismissed during this test without waiting for your papers to be graded... Know that those who commit awkward cheating will bring ruin upon yourselves." Ibiki finished explaining the 'second' rule.
'Those who commit 'awkward' cheating will bring ruin upon themselves... isn't this just straight-up telling everyone to cheat responsibly or something...' Ren concluded, he thought that Ibiki would be more subtle about explaining the info-gathering stage of the exam so more people would be eliminated, but unless someone was very nervous during the exams they should be able to connect the dots here.
"If you aspire to become chunins at all, know that shinobi should act like exemplary shinobi." Ibiki continued his monologue which Ren translated to, 'Lie cheat kill to complete your mission objective, isn't that what an exemplary shinobi is.'
"And, in case of even one person on the team getting zero points, everyone on the team would fail," Ibiki concluded and now Ren could see the pressure that was beginning to exert on everyone.
"By the way, the last problem would be given forty-five minutes after the start of the test. The time for the test is one hour..." Ibiki stared at the clock waiting for seconds to tick by.
...
"Begin!!"
~Rustle~~Rustle~~Rustle~
There was a rustling storm as almost everyone immediately flipped over their papers, Ren was one of them, he was expecting the problems to be difficult but after he read through the first problem he gave up on trying to solve the problem.
...
'''...In a distant ninja training ground, a skilled ninja named Hiro intends to throw a shuriken at a target located on the opposite wall. The training ground is a rectangular room measuring 10 meters in length, 5 meters in width, and 4 meters in height. Hiro stands at one corner of the room, and the target is located at the exact opposite corner.
Hiro throws the shuriken with an initial velocity of 15 meters per second at an angle of 30 degrees above the horizontal. The shuriken is released 1 meter above the ground.
Now, considering the effects of gravity, air resistance, and the dimensions of the room, calculate:- The time it takes for the shuriken to hit the target on the opposite wall?...'''
...
'Yeah, I'm not solving that, what kind of bullshit question is this, who could even solve something like thi-' Ren thought but he paused as one of the genin sitting 2 rows in front of him started to write and solve the question.
'wait what... how, he was able to understand these complicated questions in just 10 seconds and began writing...' Ren was stunned for a moment but after a couple of seconds, he thought about the rules of the exam and realized what was going on.
'Of course, the purpose of this exam is to test genins spying and information gathering skills. That won't actually work if they don't plant a few people in the room that act as relay points for the information to start flowing.'
Ren sensed various shinobi who had started using chakra for various jutsus and techniques, he sensed Neji's Byakugan and Sasuke's Sharingan activating as they began copying answers.
'That's kind of cheating no, Neji's bloodline was kind of tailor-made for this test...' Ren sighed as he leaned back into his chair, he was having trouble deciding what to do, he had a plan of action but that was a last resort kind of plan.
'At the very least I had to let the 'plants' finish answering all their questions before doing anything...' Ren leaned down on his paper and closed his eyes, he made a Ram seal and focused on spreading his senses across the room.
...
'What's Ren-kun doing, he doesn't have teammates to fall back on... should I help him after I copy answers from Sakura,' Ino thought as she looked at Ren who was sleeping peacefully in the middle of the test.
Ibiki's eyes twitched as he saw Ren resting peacefully in the middle of his exam, he had worked hard to make this situation as tense as possible but the brat was ruining the atmosphere.
'What did that brat figure out he looks a little too amused by the situation, I can't really disqualify him as he's not doing anything outside of the rules.'
...
Ibiki started leaking a burst of killing intent in order to increase the pressure that everyone faced and after a couple of minutes, the first genin was disqualified along with his team.
'And the mayhem begins...'