The Ace

He got his usual breakfast, hungry from the morning"s exercise, and went to sit at one of the empty tables. He was only there for a few minutes, when Ray popped up from behind him, trying to surprise him yet again.

"Hey Ray, morning.", he said, with a cheery smile on his face, even if she could still not see his face, since she was behind him.

"Ughhhh, I thought today could have been that day.", she sat down, some food on her plate, and coffee on her mug.

"Ready for the test?", Ace asked, she nodded, "A bit nervous, but I will be taking part in the global portion, me and Stella are…"

Ace nodded, understanding her meaning, "It"s fine, you will beat her, she does not seem that ready."

"Really?", she perked up at his lie

"Yeah, I saw her this morning, she hid it well, but she is worried, I was not sure why before, but now? It all makes sense.", the lie came seamlessly, and it showed, Ray ate it up, and now had a wide smile on her face.

"Thanks for the info, what about you, you ready?"

"Yep, don"t worry, I won"t bomb it."

"Uhhh, I would also like to warn you… There are some people that are not exactly...Impressed by your attendance. They might try to demoralise you, so be ready ok?"

"It"s fine, they can say what you want, plus, you should not be worried, do you see my team worried?", his team knew what he could and would do, so none of them was worried in the least, they all knew that with him, the top rank in at least the freshman and Global exam was secured

"That is true, none of them seems worried, and no one has said anything to you about not going right?"

He shook his head and smiled, "There you go, it"s all good and my team knows it."

"Ok, if you say so…"

They spent the rest of their breakfast talking about how much they missed skateboarding, and what they were looking forward to doing in the future.

"Ok, I better get going, I have a team meeting soon.", Ace said, standing up with his tray.

"Yeah,I probably should go too.", she did the same and they parted ways, wishing good luck to each other on the upcoming exams.

******************************

"You ready?", one of his teammates asked, and Ace nodded, "Of course, and also, you should not be nervous, I have seen your scores, you could easily do well in this test.", he smiled, and his teammate brightened up with confidence.

"It is so easy with these guys, they have such inflated egos, although to be fair, all of them are either geniuses or people with a h.e.l.lish work ethic, so everyone deserves to have an ego here, they have something to back it up after all, and that something is not just Daddy or Mommie"s money."

They all gathered in a circle, where Leilah gave them a few choice words, which seemed to boost everyone"s confidence.

"Ok, let"s review, the exams for the people partic.i.p.ating in the grade portion are in the morning, and last four hours. Then, you can choose to take the Global exam once you have finished it, which will last another four hours. We all clear on who is doing what?", Leilah asked

Nods and "Yeps" all around, which seemed to make her proud, "Ok, let"s make history today guys, we can do it."

They huddled for a few more minutes, and then, it was time to begin.

***********************

They were all taken to separate rooms, where there were two big desks, and two chairs facing each other, at one side of each desk.

Ace sat down, and at 9:57 a woman came with a stack of papers, Ace had already set a black pen close to him in preparation.

The woman gave him about a third of the papers.

��Once the clock hits 10, you may begin, you will have until 2, then, you can take a half an hour break for food and to go to the toilet, and you will begin the Global portion of the exam, if you wish to do so."

"Ok, thank you, if I finish beforehand, I can begin the Global part earlier right?"

"Of course, you will have four hours as well, but once you begin, you will not be allowed to go to the toilet unless you give up the rest of the exam."

"I understand"

Ace just relaxed until the clock on the screen showed 10, and then he flipped over the test.

As soon as he saw the first question, he began writing, the questions were a jumble of various topics and subjects, which made them even harder to answer, since you had to change the tune of your brain every time, although, you could always answer them by subject first, but you risked the chance of missing one.

Ace sped through the test, writing so fast that the supervisor looked up in surprise, he was moving his pen at breakneck speeds. And while his hand was working overtime, his brain was relaxed. This was like asking 2 + 2 to a mathematics university professor. The quant.i.ty of brainpower needed, and the extent of mathematical knowledge needed to perform the operation was minimal in comparison to what he could achieve.

He finished the test in 50 minutes, and it only took him so long due to the quant.i.ty of writing necessary in order to get full marks.

He spent another ten minutes reading over it, and edited if necessary, then handed the test into a surprised supervisor.

"May I have the Global portion now?"

"Uhhhh, yeah, uhh, of course, here you go, you will have fours hours for this one as well, and if you finish beforehand, you will have to stay in your room until everyone has finished their own exam."

"I understand."

He began the test, and again, he sped through it, it was a breeze, the questions were considerably more difficult, we had gone from 2 + 2 to 5 * 5. This one required even more writing, and he outdid even that, he added quotations from relevant sources and added footnotes if necessary. After two hours of writing in a variety of topics, he was done and had reviewed the test. He handed it over to the supervisor, who was now even more in shock, and after wishing her a wonderful day, left the room to go to his.

*************************

[Finished the tests. If I do not get 100% in both, someone is going against you.]

[Good. Congratulations, make sure to enjoy yourself tonight.]

"Ugh, there is a party today there is not, probably won"t go, it will most likely just be people bragging about questions they got right."

He spent the time he had on just working through some harder puzzles, he solved every single one of them, and made a mental note to speak with his math teacher about getting some of the hardest puzzles in the world, just so that he could have an actual challenge.

The way his brain worked was not unlike a computer, it broke down and extrapolated data, which made it extremely easy to perform any sort of mathematical puzzle, since he could break it down to impossibly simple chunks.

However, unlike a computer, he knew emotions, which meant that he was also able to take in data from other people, he could cover his mind"s most fatal flaw with his own previous knowledge.

This meant that most of the "hard" puzzles were simply solved with a look, as his brain worked through the million of probabilities out of all the data he had gathered with that one look.

The screen in his room lit up once he could go outside, and he decided to go to the common room, he had already eaten from the room service, but wanted to see how people felt now that they should have finished both portions of the exam.

********************************

As expected, there were a mix of emotions, some people had huge smiles on their faces, others were crying, and others were bragging about what they had gotten correct. He sat down on one of the lounge chairs, and began to draw the various emotions on people"s faces. From a girl bragging to her group of friends, to a solitary boy that was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with pride, and a crying boy who was being comforted by another, who was clearly pleased with the result.

The different facets of humanity when faced with adversity, this was interesting, but Ace just wished that he could be there when each person got to see their own results. Relishing in the various expressions they would show, and the treatment they would receive from their "friends".

"How was it?", Leilah asked, "As expected, you?", "Good."

"Congratulations."

"Thank you, to you too."

They sat in silence, him drawing, and her just looking at him. "How long did it take you?"

"3 hours."

"Only? I was there for the whole four."

"No, three hours for both tests, I finished the Global portion in two."

"Holy…", she was amazed, that meant that he had most likely written for two hours straight, without stopping to think about a question or anything.

"How did the others do?"

"We should be Gold. I am unsure as to how the top students of the other academies did, but I know at least that the top rank should be hours."

"That is the least I could do for my school. I hope the others did well, you should go to them, the ones that did worse will need support from their leader, also, tell them that nothing is decided until they receive the tests."

She stared at him, and wondered just how he did it, but before her thoughts got any wilder, she just walked on to meet other members of their school, cheering those necessary up.

All the while, Ace captured those emotions with his stylus, sitting there, watching the students, as if a child looking through a window, observing the people outside.