"Hey, how many points do you think will be necessary to get into the top 10 ranks this time?" Noah asked out of curiosity.

"Hm? Were you planning to bet on this time's exam?" Lou looked at him with an incredulous expression.

​​

Noah laughed.

He was a man.

Not a monster, nor a dumbass.

"Of course not. Hey, since my deal with my father is on the midterms, why don't we push all bets to the midterms?" Noah suggested.

Wouldn't it be a whole lot more interesting if everything happened all at once?

Lou nodded in agreement, but what he didn't know was that Noah was not only talking to him but also the girl beside him too.

Grace also casually nodded as if just listening in on the conversation from the sidelines, but Noah got the message, so it was all good.

'Well, this midterm is going to be a whole lot more interesting than all its predecessors,' Noah thought with a stunning smile.

Meanwhile, Lou finally answered Noah's first question.

"Not sure how many points you'll need in total, I don't think you can miss more than 25 points total (out of 7 subjects aka 700 points) if you want to be top 10. Um, maybe 70 for a top 25 or so, and well, I really don't know about the rest," Lou scratched his head.

He never really had to look that low down the list, so he didn't.

And thus, it was hard for him to infer anything about it.

"Well, the tests are getting harder and harder, so I wouldn't be surprised if the bar perhaps lowers," Lou added.

Noah chuckled.

"What are you smiling about?"

Noah shook his head as if to say that it was nothing.

"How do you think one gets 675 points?" Noah asked rhetorically.

He was thinking of a funny scene from a few days back that he had just recalled.

It was back during a tutoring session with Emilin and Grace.

Back then he had asked a similar question.

When it came to studying, while he wasn't bad, it couldn't be compared to either one of the girls.

In the end, he was prone to get stuck in some questions that the other two didn't even find troublesome in the least.

Of course, his situation wouldn't warrant pity since he was in fact very gifted, it was just that his objects of comparison were too abnormal.

Noah was scratching his head with his pencil, trying his very best to stare a hole into his paper so that it would just disintegrate out of sight.

Sigh.

Sadly, he had no such powers.

Though most things went well with practice, there were always some big questions that he couldn't wrap his mind around.

Like physics.

It was simply… physics.

There was no other word better to describe his sorrows and pains.

He had already made a bet with Grace, so he really couldn't lose when it came to just this.

Wouldn't that be too shameful?

When Grace left for a bathroom break, Noah took the chance to ask Emilin.

"How can you get 97.5 % on the physics test?"

He had asked out of curiosity.

That was the minimum score for an A+.

Even though he probably wasn't going to get anything out of the question, it was still worth a shot.

But the cruel reality proved him wrong, very wrong.

Emilin seemed to ponder on the question a little, something he could see quite clearly as they had all been sitting on the floor around a short table to work and converse at the same time.

Making checking each other's work easier.

"Well, I guess skipping one of the first questions that are worth fewer points would do the job," she said in all seriousness.

It wasn't as if there were a total of 100 points in the test, if she calculated correctly during the test, she would probably be able to find one of the questions that would be worth the number of points that amounted to 2.5%.

Noah was dumbfounded right away.

???

LoADinG in prOgREss…

DING!

"Ah," Noah finally reacted.

"Right, that would probably do the job," not even quite believing his own words.

He had forgotten that when it came to their studies, the two of them were quite literally worlds apart.

At times, that left Noah embarrassed about himself and proud of Emilin at the same time, but sadly, Emilin was at a point where he could hardly think of catching up.

While he was trying to think up ways to reach the mark, Emilin would have to find ways to lower her marks just so that they would reach the same point.

Noah chuckled a little depressingly, but he knew that Emilin meant no harm.

He had indeed asked her how she would do it and honestly with some interactions with Emilin, it was clear to tell that there were some things that one couldn't assume she knew.

If you wanted to ask her something, you really had to be straightforward, or everything would fly over her head.

As for this time, she was really just expressing her true thoughts.

After all, with Theodore and Nathen who were not all too different from herself, there was some lack of awareness in certain aspects.

Most social cues that were jammed into others were not in her as no one had the guts nor heart to tell Emilin that she could hurt their feelings.

Especially not when she seemed so cutely oblivious to it.

Noah sighed and patted Emilin's head softly with a smile and she let him.

'What's going on with him?' Emilin questioned inwardly.

"Are you getting too stressed with the exams nearing?" Emilin asked.

Noah shook his head and retracted his hand.

"Well, maybe it is that." Maybe he was a little anxious.

But looking back at the memory, even though it was quite a recent one, Noah could still smile.

At that time, even though he was anxious, it wasn't entirely because of the exam.

But that didn't matter anymore.

***

Meanwhile, the sun had already started setting and Emilin headed back to her apartment.

There was no progress with her photography and Mason had already informed her that he would need some more time to do more research and organize a comprehensive plan to teach her.

Something that in hindsight, he probably should have done sooner, but honestly, in this case, he wasn't really choosing his schedule.

Emilin was incredibly touched by how much Mason was putting into teaching her.

If before she was just taking him as her teacher because he was skilled and she didn't have many other options, now she felt some genuine respect for this person who took his art so seriously.

Emilin was walking down the hallway, nearing her door with every step, still lost in her thoughts.

Lost in her thoughts about what she could do with her itchy hands that just didn't seem capable of holding the camera properly when she wanted them to.

So lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice when another door opened, and someone approached her.

"Master Emilin."

"Master"

Two people said in unison.

It was Levi with Xander following behind.

Levi had heard the footsteps when he walked past the door and Xander came with when he saw that Levi was checking things out.

"Hm? Xan, Mr. Levi, what are you guys doing out here?" Emilin asked.

The two men shared a glance and shrugged.

"Of course, it's to pick Master up," Xander bullsh*tted.

"You're going to pick me up from the hallway just two steps from my door? How nice of you," Emilin said with a funny face.

Xander laughed.

He was unsure if Emilin was being sarcastic and joking or serious and trying to be nice.

Either way, Xander couldn't stop laughing at how adorably eccentric his Master was.

"Master Emilin, would you like to come in for some supper?" Levi asked.

"Sure," Emilin nodded even though she had just eaten before leaving the pastry shop.

Well, an extra meal had never done her any harm.

She ended up walking in first as the others followed in and at that time, behind Emilin, Levi elbowed Xander as if giving him a signal.

One that Xander received with a helpless smile.

It was time!

He was going to ask his question during supper!

[AN: Yeah, I added that line so that I wouldn't end this in a weird cliffhanger.]

***

As for Elijah, who had just made his way to where Margo was said to be, he went there for not.

"Sorry Sirs, our Boss is currently out for a business trip."

Elijah gritted his teeth, but his expression didn't show any signs of fluctuation.

His people would have never made such an amateur mistake as to mistake where the target was located.

But the problem was that Margo never was, and never will be a normal target.

And there was only one reason why he would get incorrect information about Margo's whereabouts.

"Teacher…" Elijah said through gritted teeth.

It was that old man doing his thing again.