「You may begin.」

The clock was ticking.

03:59:51

…

The entire hall was filled with the frantic sounds of students shuffling around their seats, clothes scrunching against the table and Pens™ scratching against the tablet screens.

After a few seconds, the hall was practically dead silent.

03:59:42

I looked down at my tablet and pressed on the start exam button.

-

Question 1)

A number is called Norwegian if it has three distinct positive divisors whose sum is equal to 2022. Determine the smallest Norwegian number. (Note: The total number of positive divisors of a Norwegian number is allowed to be larger than 3.)

-

There was a lot of blank space to write the answer despite being so simple. I guess someone might need it if they were trying to solve this with trial-and-error, but otherwise, there wasn’t a need for all the scribble room.

For a school which is supposed to be enrolling only the most gifted students in the galaxy, this shouldn’t be too hard for everyone. It was boasted to be ‘the most prestigious academy in the world’, monopolising all the future talents—with an acceptance rate of only 0.5%. The population of people around the galaxy was probably around two-or-three trillion by now.

Still, I assume the silence could only have been from the difficulty of the questions.

-

Question 2)

Let k be a positive integer, and let S be a finite set of odd prime numbers. Prove that there is at most one way (modulo rotation and reflection) to place the elements of S around a circle such that the product of any two neighbours is of the form x^2 * k for some positive integer x.

-

There was a different type of question for one. There must’ve been markers for proof questions, unless the technology at this academy was advanced enough to be able to assess written proofs.

There was probably some leeway regarding notation, so I wrote down the simplest method I could think of.

Also, this exam seemed weirdly math-heavy. If this school was trying to create ‘humanity’s greatest warrior’, the abilities must be somewhat related to academic performance, or at least math ability to some extent. It was probably a good idea for me to look at them after this. I sort of neglected that section of the SHOP since there wasn’t a need for them yet.

I could hear the sighs from students beside me.

03:56:11

I went through a few more questions.

03:45:24

They did get a little bit harder, although none of them reached a level where they could properly challenge me. If anything, they just felt like recycled questions from the Interplanetary Olympiads. They all had concepts that I had seen countless times before.

03:23:16

-

Question 14)

Prove that 5^n - 3^n is not divisible by 2^n + 65 for any positive integer n.

-

It was a very simple-looking question with quite a complicated proof. For the first time in this exam, I had to spend over ten minutes just to solve it.

I wonder how many questions there were.

I basically filled the entire space that they provided.

03:12:54

I continued to make my way through the questions.

There were still no questions aside from maths. There also seemed to be no end to the questions. More questions continued to appear as I solved them.

Maybe I was a bit too relaxed? If I don’t make it to the end of the question list, it was definitely possible for someone to overtake me. I assumed, based on the difficulty of the ‘Surprise Questions’ that I’d be able to finish this with time to spare.

02:55:17

They definitely seemed to be never-ending. The exam seemed to be written with the intention of not being able to be completed. Still, it wasn’t like they had an infinite supply of questions.

…

I quickly glanced around, seeing the pale faces of a lot of students. Whilst I couldn’t see what was on their tablets, their faces did show that they were struggling. Still, everything was relative. There were probably a lot of people smarter than me.

02:18:35

Time simply passed as I continued to answer questions.

After almost two hours, I saw the first question that wasn’t a maths question.

02:01:43

-

Question 40)

Write a response regarding the topic: ‘talent vs hard work’

-

That was it.

There was no indication on the expected length nor the format. It seemed to all be up to the individual interpretation. There wasn’t anything to gauge how much time should be spent on written response. It was just… there.

It was an interesting topic at least.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

00:00:00

「Time is up.」

Everyone’s tablet instantly returned to a plain white screen with text: Your results will be released soon. The other students were all looking around, dumbfounded.

“How’d you go, Akira?”

The average-height, strawberry-blonde girl was looking down on me (I was sitting down).

“Alright.”

“Just alright?”

I suppose so.

Slowly, the hall erupted in chatter. Students began to frantically complain with the people next to them. Sound quickly grew as people shouted to speak over others.

I decided to get out of my seat.

“I assume they’re going to release the results on our phones.”

“Yeah, want to go back to your room, Akira?”

“Probably, it’s way too loud in here.”

We made our way back to my room.

…

…

Not even an hour later, the results were out on our phones.