<821 – The Power of the Student Council (4)>
The lower class doesn’t know this, but in fact, fourth-year students can submit their graduation project in the first semester.
After accumulating all the grades until the third year, when they become fourth-year students, they apply only for the required courses of the fourth year in the first semester and submit a non-disclosure agreement for the exam questions to apply for a fast-track exam before taking any classes, aiming for early graduation.
If they pass the exam, they’ll only have one graduation project left until graduation in a speedrun to graduate!
“When the second semester rolls around, you’ll have to compete with those average losers for your graduation project. Do you want to fight like hell with those who have overlapping topics, or do you want to roll around like a dog until the third year and feast in the fourth year?”
Lessons sprinkled with the blood and sweat of seniors!
The early graduation meta is a kind of academic fraud tactic where students from the third-year intermediate class to upper class apply for the lower class of the fourth year due to the low difficulty of the required courses, allowing them to challenge the graduation project sooner.
Even with a rough idea of the fraudulence, some students feel a sense of disillusionment, wondering if it’s the same competitiveness when everyone taps into the first semester graduation project meta and ends up in a bloody competition.
But that misunderstanding is quickly corrected.
“How many hours do you sleep a day?”
“Three hours…”
“Don’t tell me you still can’t replace sleep with the Mana Flow Technique? Talentless losers like you don’t even deserve to challenge the first-semester graduation project meta!”
“Do you think it’s easy to advance a year’s worth of credits?”
“Are you guaranteed to graduate? Are you a prince who’ll inherit the kingdom? Are you having the graduation project arranged for you outside?”
“Uh, no…”
“Then don’t act all high and mighty trying to rush ahead among those smarter than you with better family support. Just live your life!”
Only those qualified are even allowed to challenge the first-semester graduation project meta!
It’s a royal road, a shortcut that requires mastery of the Mana Flow Technique, proficiency in departmental knowledge, innate talent, and family support—all must be in your possession to walk this path.
And now, fourth-year students traversing such a shortcut stepped into the reward room beyond the boss room with tired strides.
“It’s been a long 30-day challenge!”
“To enter the underwater dungeon that opens only in May, you need to defeat all seven branch bosses to access the final boss, and if it’s a treasure chest that comes after defeating the ultimate final boss, surely it will be something tremendous worthy of a graduation project, right?”
“We worked hard during that boss raid, so we should at least make sure to ace our graduation projects.”
This is a large-scale dungeon that’s confusing enough to wonder if it’s the deep sea dungeon or a deep sea trash bin, [The Forgotten God's Temple].
The treasure chest lies at the deepest point of the temple, where the pressure is the highest in the deep sea.
For today, they hunted deep sea monsters in the temple and of course made deep sea equipment on the spot, continuously enhancing their gear as the underwater pressure rose.
A knight for the underdog deity of the sea.
A blue magician in his element.
An enhancement magician wielding taboo magics.
A financier and the prince of a small country.
A pirate who got hooked by tales of treasure and suffered greatly.
The party, composed of one student each from the Knight Department, Magic Department, Production Department, Administration Department, and Adventure Department, boasts excellent balance.
Vanguard, rear guard, maintenance, financier, multipurpose.
They perfectly perform their respective roles, each person doing at least the work of five, compressing a raid unit into a party.
Of course, with that comes a high dungeon difficulty.
The party members trembled, stating they would never again glance towards a dungeon after today.
“Prince Delphi. The information is solid, right? The sea bed suddenly collapsed, opening a dimensional gate to the spirit realm, and the true ultimate final boss isn’t popping out, right?”
“This dungeon can’t be that pathetic. According to the royal records, this is really the end.”
“Since it’s over, I ask this—what in that chest can qualify five of us for graduation recognition?”
Those who followed, trusting only Prince Delphi’s name or thinking he’d scam them and disappear, had no idea what the final reward was.
Some magical tools have competitors that swarm just by mentioning their name.
“It’s a diary written by an unknown god’s apostle.”
“A diary…?”
“Are we suffering all this for a diary?”
“Are you joking?”
“Prince Delphi, are there a million knights hidden away? Or did you bring in a member of the Empire’s top ten?”
The party members, feeling betrayed or receiving a new form of declaration of war, were left in disbelief!
“This diary isn’t an ordinary one. It’s more like an indictment documenting the god’s disgrace and the atrocities of the old god’s apostles. It even gained the [Cannot Be Destroyed] attribute due to some things done during its production, making it indestructible.”
Indestructible.
Just the fact that the diary gained one of the top options among item attributes meant it held tremendous value.
“Why does a diary have such an option?”
“It’s a miraculous result of a record documenting the god’s shame and the efforts to resist the god’s will. I think the reason there are so many bosses is that the old god wanted to keep the diary from being revealed to the world.”
“Any treasure information?”
“Um… Sorry, but the value of this diary as a forbidden book exceeds its value as a treasure.”
“Is it because it documents a past so heinously villainous that it can destroy the mental state of the reader just by writing it?”
“It’s so disgraceful that the nameless god cast a curse over it to prevent anyone from seeing its content.”
“Wow, what could be in there that’s so bad?”
“The royal family has records left by worshipers who once served the nameless god, risking their lives to decipher it. Based on that, it’s said… the old god committed acts against the marine monsters.”
The party members gasped in horror, looking at Prince Delphi.
“I’m not kidding. It’s true.”
“What the heck…”
“It’s embarrassing enough to prevent anyone from opening it.”
It’s like being caught in lewd acts with dogs or cats and having a subordinate record it, then uploading that record to the Mana Computer Network where it can never be destroyed.
Unless one was intent on self-destruction, this information needed to be prevented from ever being viewed.
The curse symbolizes the nameless god’s determination to keep such a shameful record from anyone in the world.
It’s like planting a malicious virus in the Mana Computer Network that would burn down anyone who opened it, resulting in outrageous pain.
“Will the Principal acknowledge that as a graduation project?”
“I think he’d accept it since it’s fun.”
“Well… he probably would.”
That horrifying past and the secrets contained in the diary are now inside the treasure chest before them.
“Just so you know, the treasure chests in dungeons contain more mana based on the dungeon’s difficulty and storage time, awakening new effects or evolving existing ones. Brace yourselves. Even if you don’t open the diary, the forbidden book may attack us.”
If the diary carries the [Forced Reading Curse], a mere touch might force one to open it against their will, leading to disastrous consequences.
For some reason, the pirate, who felt like a slippery rogue, looked uneasy as he rummaged through the treasure chest, sighing.
“Let’s face it, pirates fare well out of the water; once underwater, they’re just fish food… Don’t you guys want to open it?”
“Feel free to disappear if you want your name wiped away during the joint graduation project submission.”
“Cowardly scoundrels…”
Click.
As the pirate opened the chest, everyone tensed, darting behind columns, at the entrance to the reward room, and glancing cautiously at the entrance to the boss room.
“Let me know if anything happens!”
“I’ll definitely get my revenge!”
“…You useless piles of trash less than a pirate.”
The pirate opened the chest and picked up the book.
The party members peered from afar, only sticking their heads out to ask.
“Do you suddenly feel the urge to open the book?”
“Do you wish to smear human blood on the book’s cover?”
“Yeah. I’d love to explicitly display it in front of you bunch and smear it all over.”
The pirate, infuriated, had to beg for his life as he was met with three kill spells, five ranged attacks, and three potion tosses.
“But there’s something strange about this book?”
“Indeed. It feels ominous, but… doesn’t it feel different somehow?”
“It’s lacking luster to be the final reward of a dungeon that has been accumulating mana for hundreds of years, isn’t it?”
The party members tilted their heads in confusion.
The hastily written text appeared not in ancient script, but resembled the scrawl of a young child too hard to decipher.
Prince Delphi squinted hard and interpreted the title.
“It’s ‘The Diary of Oknodie.’”
“Uh? Oknodie?”
“Dark Princess?”
“Why does that name come up here?”
“Prince Delphi, shouldn’t we open this?”
Prince Delphi hesitated.
“What if the forbidden book has [Concealment] effects to hide its danger and [Deception] effects to change the title?”
Let’s just skip opening it ourselves and ask the professor at the academy to open it for us.
What matters is we found a treasure; sentiment doesn’t matter as long as we can receive it, right?
Letting dangerous feelings fall into someone else’s hands, the students cunningly returned to the professor as they learned from the academy!
The professor, who received the diary as evidence of students diligently attending class, presented a serious appraisal of the item, frowning as he spoke.
“Kids.”
“Yes?”
“Even if graduation season is stressful, isn’t it wrong to go around stealing kids’ diaries?”
“…Yes?”
“It’s a real diary.”
The deeply disappointed deep-sea dungeon party trudged down the hallway, stopping as they encountered other parties that had also emerged.
Realizing that the books in each other’s hands were eerily similar, they checked each other’s titles.
[The Diary of Oknodie Vol. 1]
[The Diary of Oknodie Vol. 8]
[The Diary of Oknodie Vol. 5]
Fourth-year students from all over the continent, tackling their graduation projects, returned with Oknodie’s diary.
This time, they finally realized.
Oknodie had hoarded the rewards, scheming to ensure the fourth years couldn’t graduate.
“Not human…”
“The director must have given some orders to control people, and the Dark Princess must’ve taken away the graduation projects, allowing only obedient graduates to graduate?!”
“Ha. How could we survive if the foundation’s remnants snatch our graduation projects?”
The furious or despondent fourth years headed towards the student council president’s office seeking Oknodie.
