Chapter 512 One Day Before The Exams.
Days went by quickly for Felix and the rest of the students in the academy. Some of them could swear that nineteen days had gone by in a blink of an eye.
Tomorrow was the first day of the final exams that would last for three days straight.
The first two days would cover exams about the six theoretical classes that were taught in the 1st semester.
As for the last day? It would be for only a practical exam or which everyone refers to as a concoction contest!
It wouldn't be wrong to call it that since it would be streamed live throughout the Forsythia Witch Empire!
This was a running tradition in the Royal Academy that was enjoyed by most citizens in the empire.
After all, witches couldn't participate in the games like most races. Hence, they didn't have much entertainment that was purely related to them.
Streaming the students' concoction exam was much better than hosting a concoction competition with senior witches participating since that would be wasting their precious time.
Naturally, there were concoction competitions between Academies throughout the empire but those competitions were for senior students only.
Typically, the practical exam's stream would attract a lot of attention but not as much as it was shown in the past days.
The hype for the exams was evident throughout all social media in the witch empire plus the Milky Way Galaxy!
That's right!
The humans were actually the ones who were most anticipated to watch the stream purely for Felix!
After all, he was the first human potioneer and they had to watch how he does it and if he was any good at it!
Till this point in time, there wasn't a single video released of Felix concocting potions! That's because it was against the rules to record in class!
Felix seldom concocted a potion in any other location than his own UVR's room or the classes.
This meant the only source of information was rumors spread by Felix's classmates in the network!
The latest rumors were about his lack of preparation for the exams due to him being absent for half the semester.
This made the humans pretty grim about Felix's chances to pass the exams.
Currently, the forums were filled with nothing but negativity.
[Sigh, it will be the greatest joke if the first human potioneer failed to pass the easiest semester.]
[I can already see the headlines when he fails! The first non-witch potioneer still can't amount to the worst witch in the Academy]
[I don't care about the results, I am still watching!]
[Get off his back! Our lord has started concocting potions in less than a year! How can you expect him to perform as well as the witches who were taught from birth?!]
'Hehe, even your fans are doubting you.' Asna chuckled while reading the comments with Felix.
He was chilling in his dorm's bedroom while chewing on a red apple casually.
He was this relaxed and cool because he was given four days off from training by Jörmungandr.
In reality, it was Lady Sphinx who forced Jörmungandr to hold off the training for those upcoming 4 days.
"Since there are doubters, there must be a bet on going related to me." Felix slid his finger through the hologram and started searching for bets related to these particular exams.
Upon checking a few shady websites, he ended up locating a legit one that had already tens of thousands of bets ongoing on the entire exams! From 1st semester to the 6th one.
'Hot damn, people are really betting on witches' results.'
Felix wasn't even that surprised since he knew that there was a lot of crazy shit going on in the UVR.
Things were far more dreadful than the games themselves. This was nothing compared to it.
After scrolling for a couple of seconds, he was astounded to find that Lobna had at least thousands of bets placed on her ability to emerge in the top five in the 4th semester.
'Lobna sure is popular even outside. Let's see me?' Felix mused while continuing to scroll down the list of bets.
Upon reaching the 1st semester, he saw more than 350 names written neatly in order based on the number of bets placed on them.
Unsurprisingly, Lara was in the top three with three more witches from other classes.
She had exactly 410 bets on her emerging in the 1st rank, 431 emerging in the 2nd rank, and lastly 780 to emerge in the 3rd rank.
There were other non directs bets on her like how many potions she will make or if she was going to fail a concoction or not.
It seemed like some bidders preferred this style of betting since the odds were great compared to the normal bets on her being just 1-1.7.
The other witches near the top had the same ratio of bets. The lowest Felix scrolled, the fewer bets could be seen.
'Where the hell am I?' Felix's lips twitched as he had almost reached the abyss of the list yet his name was still nowhere to be seen.
Asna's sadistic grin kept getting wider and wider with every scroll.
When he finally reached the bottom and saw his name in the last rank, Asna exploded in laughter, 'Hahaha! I can't breathe!! Everyone thinks you are a retard in concoction!'
Felix could only bath in her mocking laughter while staring speechlessly at his name that had barely 20 bets on him!
15 of them were indirect bets, and five were direct bets!
Since it was impossible to bet on his failure in the exams, most of them were betting that he would get B+ or C+ in his written exams and fail at least three to five potions in his practical exam.
There were only two bets placed on him emerging in the top three! However, the amount placed was just 5 million SC.
Although it was low, if Felix actually managed to pull it off, the bidders would be earning 7 times their money!!
The odds were that great yet no one was that stupid to take those bets.
In their eyes, they had higher chances of winning the lottery than this bet!
'It's their loss I guess.' Felix shrugged his shoulder carelessly, not feeling pensive anymore.
Instead, he was actually somewhat happy since without this cloud of doubt, the odds wouldn't be this great.
'Let's try to bankrupt the house, shall we?' Felix rubbed his hands with a grin and pressed on his name.
After getting transferred to the list of bets on him, he placed 5 billion SC on him emerging in rank 1, another 4 billion to emerg in rank 2, and lastly 4 billion to emerg in rank 3.
After locking down his bets and signing a holographic contract, the amount had been deducted from his balance by the house.
Felix chose this betting formula since he wasn't really positive in which rank he would emerge.
The reason he didn't bet that he would get in the top 4 was that he knew that if he ended up in that rank and won his bet, he wouldn't enjoy it at all.
How could he enjoy it when he would be strapped to a cold table in Lady Sphinx's lab?
'Now we got that out of the way, let's check my class number, it should be out by now.' Felix thought while accessing his student's ID details.
He scrolled down and found that he was assigned to lecture room number 12 while his table number was 140.
Just like college entrance exams or such, the students placed in one class were randomized for the entire semester.
Felix memorized his number and went to the official website to check on the ranking rewards.
Since there were ranks, it was only normal to have rewards for the students who tried their best to topple over the rest.
Felix already saw the rewards for students who ranked 50 or below. They weren't bad at all as they were giving the students 4000 CP to enjoy on the campus.
The amount increases with the rank.
However, the rewards for the top ten were kept secret, and only now were they going to be released.
After clicking on the exams' rewards button, another hologram emerged on the side, showing all the top ten rewards starting from the top.
//
1) Duskwraith Potion Recipe Licence+7000 CP.
2) Elixir of Might Recipe Licence+5000 CP.
3) Vial of Concentration Recipe license+5000 CP
..
9) Draught of Tranquillity Recipe Licence+4000 CP
10) Phial of Eternal Rage Recipe Licence+4000 CP//
Felix wasn't surprised that the rewards were licenses to recipes for rank 2 potions since the Academy always rewarded different licenses to startup students with great aptitude.
It might seem like it wasn't much of a reward but Felix knew that was far from the truth. In his eyes, Those rewards were better than even wishes from silver games!
That's because getting a license for a potion implied that the potioneer had all rights reserved to concoct it, mass-produce it, then sell it to anyone she pleases!
If she had only the recipe of someone else but not the license, she could utmostly concoct it for her own use.
As for those with neither permission nor license, they couldn't even concoct it and use it in real life since the Queen would find out instantly and penalize the offender.
Hence, In this thirsty market for potions, obtaining licenses was the same as getting a method to print money!
But Felix knew that the real money-making scheme was creating new recipes and selling the licenses to other witches!
It was like patenting his own recipe and everyone who sells a potion by using it must pay 3 or 5% royalty fees!
"My level is still far from creating recipes but I must at least secure a license for myself to practice and also earn on the side."
Without further ado, Felix typed the name of the first potion in the network and began reading its details, wanting to see why it was placed in rank 1.
Upon seeing that it was priced at 500 million SC a bottle, Felix's eyes widened in disbelief. 'Why the hell is it so expensive?!'