There were Cyrus’ homicidal goons who’d met an unfortunate end who had still yet to show up, but surely the instructor didn’t know what had happened to them. Unless...

He looked down to the candle. Was this some kind of manatech powered candle? Did it function as a tracking device? Security camera?

The instructor smirked and took a drag of his cigarette before throwing it out and crushing it with the heel of his shoe into the sand of the beach.

“Congratulations to all of you who have passed,” he said. “And apologies to those who lost. I’m sure you tried your best.”

A few of the student climbers who had failed the exam started to talk back and question the results.

“This is unfair! This test was dumb!” they shouted. “How can you judge us as climbers on the sheer basis of a candle flame. A wind can easily snuff it out.”

“Silence,” shouted the instructor and marched up to one of the complaining students.

The student visibly paled and quieted down as the teacher approached.

The man snatched the candle out of the student’s hands.

“A climber who gives up because the wind blew the wrong way will not survive the cruelties of the tower,” said the instructor.

Then the instructor imbued mana into the candlestick and the flame suddenly reappeared at the top of the candle.

“Do you see now?” said the instructor. “This goes for everyone—even those who passed the exam. There were many ways to win here. If any of you had studied the candle and its properties itself, you would’ve figured out it was a mana controlled candle and would’ve relit with the slightest imbuing of mana. You could’ve run around with an unlit candle and then imbued your candle before showing up here this morning and you still would’ve passed.”

The mood of the student climbers who had failed grew even more downcast. Their failures could no longer be blamed on circumstances. They had screwed up. They had let themselves take on a defeatist attitude before the test even finished and for that, they failed. They only had themselves to blame.

“As you can see,” said the instructor. “There were many peaceful ways to pass this exam. Mr. Max Rainhart will get a special three points added to his score due to being the only student to propose an entire-class alliance at the start of the exam. For those who decided to attack their fellow classmates, that was probably more foolish than those who didn’t figure out the trick with the candle. For that, Ms. Sybil Westley and Mr. Cyrus Archer lose three points.”

“That’s ludicrous,” hissed Cyrus. “You have a bias against me. I’ll tell my father.”