The Admiral of Hogwarts

After the test paper appeared on the desk, Hugo flipped through it quickly. He found that he had mastered most of the content, with only a few knowledge points causing some problems.

These problems weren't because he was completely ignorant of the content, but because the questions leaned towards practical application. And both Salem and Indomitable, who imparted knowledge to him, each had their own methods.

"Use Indomitable's methods," Enterprise said to him through the Admiral Network after learning of Hugo's inner doubts.

"The skills Salem possesses have obvious American characteristics, and the judges for this competition are mainly from Europe. So, it's better to use popular European techniques as much as possible in front of the judges."

"How do you think I did on the test just now?" Hugo asked through the Admiral Network as soon as he left the examination room. "I feel like I wrote down everything I know, but I still feel like something is missing."

"Rest assured, my dear Admiral. Your answers to those questions were very good," Indomitable's voice appeared in Hugo's ear. "Although the answers weren't perfect, I can guarantee a high score."

Actually, when Hugo was taking the test, the ship girls were constantly watching him in a live broadcast, except the ship girls almost kept silent all the time. The reason for this was that this theoretical exam was just a qualification exam.

After all, Hugo's overall alchemy level was very average because he was a beginner. If the theoretical exam results differed too greatly from the practical operations, he could easily be seen as someone with high aspirations but low abilities, or even a cheater.

That's right, although he could make runestones and access a massive amount of alchemy-related information, these points didn't mean he had mastered profound alchemy skills.

Since alchemy itself is a discipline that focuses on practice, Hugo, who can only make runestones and some simple alchemical products, is currently only at a relatively low level in alchemy.

Of course, because of the strange rules of the competition, the overall alchemy level of the participants wasn't high. And the competition organizers were obviously aware of this.

For example, the questions just now didn't pose any profound problems in terms of difficulty. It's just that the scope of the questions was relatively broad, covering most of the common knowledge points.

As for why this was the case, it's very simple. Although this competition looks very formal, it's actually just a test used by Nicolas Flamel to select a successor to his knowledge.

In this context, the scores of these exams or competitions can only serve as a reference at most. The key to winning the competition is to meet Nicolas Flamel's requirements.

Therefore, Hugo didn't have much confidence in winning the competition, because for someone who has lived from hundreds of years ago to the present, no one can know what his standards are in this regard as long as he doesn't reveal his thoughts.

In this situation, the best way for the participants is to show themselves as much as possible. Then, pray that the greatest alchemist since the Middle Ages will take a liking to them.

As for the first exam, it's estimated that besides warming everyone up, the only purpose was to filter out some guys who weren't skilled enough and had a shaky foundation but came to fill the numbers.

Sure enough, when everyone was having breakfast early the next morning, the results of the first competition were already out. Except for three contestants who had obvious flaws in their fundamentals and were eliminated, everyone else entered the next round of the competition.

"I'm very happy to see that the vast majority of you are still here. Unlike the previous competition, the second competition is a practical competition, and you will have a week to complete it."

After finishing breakfast, the official from the International Confederation of Wizards said to the participants who passed the first competition on the podium. He waved his wand, and a box appeared in front of them.

"For the next competition, your task is this golden egg." The official pointed the wand at the keyhole of the box. With a click, the lock on the box opened, revealing more than twenty metal eggs the size of goose eggs inside.

"Over the next week, what you have to do is use alchemical techniques to open these metal eggs and take out the contents inside."

"During this process, each of you will have 200 Galleons for materials. Anyone who fails to complete the task after the deadline or after spending all the money will be eliminated from this competition."

"During the competition, you can only stay in the designated room to complete this competition independently and cannot communicate with outsiders. However, you will receive a book list, and you can borrow the books on it to find information at a price of five Galleons per book."

After announcing the content of the competition, some student volunteers from the magic school who stayed on campus led these participants into their respective rooms, and then used magic to seal these doors.

Besides automatically opening after a week, the door can be opened by the participants inside at any time, but once it is opened, it is equivalent to announcing automatic failure.

"This is better than I imagined." After the door was sealed, Laurenson immediately checked the room where he would be staying for the next week and found that the overall level of this room was very good.

The entire room consists of a standard alchemy lab, a living room, and a washroom with shower and toilet facilities.

At the same time, on the dining table in the living room, there is also a magical menu. As long as you say the food and drinks you want to the menu, those things will soon appear on the small dining table.

After trying to order a glass of juice and drinking it, Hugo immediately started his work. After placing the golden egg on an analysis magic circle on the alchemy table and activating it, a large number of white runes immediately appeared on the golden egg.

"Locking, concealing, fixing, fusing—" Hugo quickly took out paper and pen and quickly recorded these runes. There were many and miscellaneous, but the overall difficulty wasn't high.

For him, solving it just required a lot of time.

"It can be done in three days—" After recording all the runes on the golden egg and analyzing them, Hugo breathed a sigh of relief.

Because this question wasn't too difficult for him. Although there were several traps in those runes, these traps didn't escape his eyes under his careful observation.

In the following time, he quickly exchanged the materials from the material list. Then, he began to try to remove the seal on the golden egg.

Just like untangling a complex ball of thread, he only needed to follow a certain pattern to crack those runes one by one.

"This is the last rune." On the afternoon of the third day, after engraving ancient runic runes on a silver plate with a small pocket knife and filling the grooves with a mixture of mercury and sulfur to cast a spell, Hugo placed the prepared silver plate on the last few runes remaining on the golden egg.

As soon as the two runes came into contact, a light flashed from the point of contact. In an instant, whether it was the runes on the golden egg or the runes on the silver plate, they all disappeared.

Then, the surface of the golden egg, which had now become smooth, began to crack little by little. Finally, the entire eggshell suddenly opened like a flower, revealing the things placed inside the egg.