In the next couple of days, Ren, Kai, and John were grinding the books, studying for the coming exams. Ren was still mad at the two, but he had to put that whole thing on hold until they finished the exams. In fact, they put everything on hold. They didn't go on any patrols on the days they didn't have SIED work, and on the days they didn't have work, they asked for permission to skip so they could study.
That annoyed John at first, but he understood that he had to do this because he came to Earth as a Star Island student. That meant he had to do normal student things. Plus, he didn't really mind as much because it helped him understand more things about Earth—even though it wasn't by a lot, since it was mostly information about math and science, stuff that should be lower in grade compared to his home planet. But he was more interested in history and art subjects that could tell him more about this planet.
So after six days of studying, Ren and Kai went to their school for the exam. John wasn't with them—that was because John went to an entirely different school.
Anyways, the two of them went and took the exam.
A while later, Ren came out of the classroom, completely burnt out from how difficult the exam was. That was something he had never experienced before. Normally, Ren would take exams after barely studying and still get number one—but that was back in Canada. Thankfully, he anticipated that Star Island exams were going to be on a whole different level, so he made sure to study hard.
Anyways, after the exams—which took place pretty early in the school day—he just relaxed and went through the day like normal until something strange happened.
Him and Kai, along with a couple of students from his classroom, were called out to leave. He was confused, but he saw students from other classes also coming out. This was strange. Why would they take a bunch of random students in the middle of the school day?
Well, it didn't seem like they were completely random. He did recognize some of the students that were called out as well, but that still confused him. Then he looked at Kai. He seemed relaxed, like he knew exactly what was happening.
Ren was holding his frustration with Kai from the cyborg incident. He wasn't as angry anymore—he had cooled down over the past few days. So even though he was still a little angry, he decided to just let it go and not hold any grudges.
"Hey Kai, do you know what's going on? Why are they taking us?"
Kai just looked at him like he was crazy. "Dude… you know we are going to take the exam right now, right?" he asked.
Ren was shocked. "What do you mean exam? We just took it," he said.
"Yes, we took the normal school exam, but now we are going to take the hero course exam."
Ren was absolutely horrified. He knew now why he recognized some of the students before—they were in the hero course as well.
"Shit, shit, shit…" Ren muttered while rubbing his head with his hands. "I'm so fucked. I didn't study for any of this also how the hell didn't I know about this until now?" Ren said out loud, but it was more to himself than anyone else.
"Dude, calm down. It's fine," Kai said from the side, trying to calm him down. "You probably never heard of it because you were busy studying for the school exam, but that's okay. There isn't any writing or studying involved in this exam."
Ren looked at him. "Really?" he muttered in hope.
"Really, man. All we have to do is do some physical stuff. Maybe fight some robots, or fight each other, or whatever. As long as you've been keeping up with your training and you've been improving well, you'll do fine in the exam."
Ren sighed in relief. He had been training ever since he got into the island and getting much stronger, so everything really should be fine.
"Well… usually that's the case," Kai muttered.
Ren managed to hear that.
"What the hell does that mean?" Ren said coldly.
Kai shivered and looked at him. "What do you mean? What did you say?"
Ren glared at him with an extremely cold tone.
Kai, who shivered in fear again, decided to give up and tell him. "Well, the test is normally… well, normal. But from what I know, because this is the first test of the first years in high school all over the island—and considering high school students and above are the only ones who are allowed to join SIED—this is gonna be the first hero course exam for nearly all of the students that are gonna be there. That means it's gonna be much more difficult than normal."
Ren just listened silently, then took a deep breath and exhaled.
Then a second later—
"FUCK."
After letting out his frustration about taking a new difficult exam after finishing one, he calmed down and got on the bus with Kai. While they were riding the bus, Kai explained more things about the exam.
"The reason we got out of school in the middle of the school day is because the hero course exam takes hours."
Ren looked at him. "What do you exactly mean by hours? Like five or something?" he asked, hopefully.
But Kai responded bluntly. "I mean… it could take the whole day."
Ren just sighed at that. He already expected a lot of things when he heard Kai's description earlier, so it wasn't much of a shock hearing that it could take the whole day.
"Anyways," Kai continued, "another aspect of this exam is that multiple students from different courses and different schools are gonna be joining in one group. That means there is a chance of us being in the same group as John… or not, depending on if his school is in our group or not."
But he didn't really have to explain that part, because Ren could already hear all the students around them talking about this exact subject. Some of them were wondering what schools they were gonna be grouped up with. Some were hoping their friends from other schools would be there.
But there were also some hoping they wouldn't encounter specific schools—more specifically, the advanced schools.
Even though everyone knew that the difference between a normal school and an advanced school was quality of life for the students, not education, that wasn't the part the students were fearing.
It was the students themselves.
Students from advanced schools were rich, yes—but they weren't afraid of the rich students. They were afraid of the hero families, where their parents or grandparents were heroes. Those were probably—no, most definitely—some of the strongest students on the island. Very few ordinary students from ordinary backgrounds could keep up with them.
There were also other kinds of hero families, like people with parents or grandparents who were vigilantes. But it was rare to spot those students, because they wouldn't reveal their identities, obviously.
But that didn't change the fact that they could run into hero family students in The exam which would definitely be their biggest obstacle.
One that Ren wasn't sure they could get through.
After all, he met the girl from the greatest hero family ever—Cass—so his impression of hero family students was much higher. Even though he knew he couldn't compare all of them to Cass…
Eventually, they arrived at the exam location.