Chapter 29: How Well Do You Have to Study to Get into Seoul National University? (1)
A week had already passed, and final exams had arrived.
The final exams of the second year, first semester.
It is also a watershed moment when most of the kids who were flying high in their first year taste their limits and realize their place.
From here, the distinction is made.
Those who fall behind and those who rise even further.
Even among the kids who excelled in their first year, there are many who realize their limitations after the first semester of their second year.
On the other hand, those who overcome this huge wave and maintain or rise above their position will be able to look at even higher places.
It is no exaggeration to say that most of the school’s internal grades are determined in the first semester of the second year!
Kyung-joon was on his way to school early in the morning.
“Hoo, finally.”
Looking back, the past week had been very fruitful.
He and Teemo had spent the entire week creating and solving practice problems for every subsection of every subject.
That took four days, and he spent the remaining three days focusing on reviewing what he had studied.
Even now, if someone were to ask him, ‘What’s the answer to question 17 in the covalent bonding section of Chemistry Chapter 3-2?’, he could immediately explain the solution and the answer.
That’s how hard he had prepared for the exams.
“I’m suddenly nervous.”
His mouth felt dry.
He was nervous even though he had prepared so thoroughly.
Could it be that he was even more nervous because he had prepared so hard?
He felt like it would be really sad if the results didn’t reflect the effort he had put in.
He didn’t expect anything more, nothing less.
Just as much as he had studied.
He would be satisfied if he could just get that much.
‘Come to think of it, why did I start studying so hard?’
Just as he was about to take out his notebook to look at one more English word, a thought occurred to him.
Why did he start studying?
The beginning was simple.
His father’s retirement, which had become almost certain, would make their already difficult family situation even more difficult.
Thinking of his younger siblings, who were still in elementary school and babies, he felt like he had to do something as the eldest son.
So he started studying blindly.
Of course, there was no way studying like this would go well.
He had no talent for studying in the first place, and he had never done it properly before.
Still, he thought he might as well try his best until graduation since he couldn’t get a proper job as a high school student anyway.
As if moved by his extraordinary determination, he won a free one-year coupon for The World and gained access to the Village Library, a great place to study.
After a year of studying like that, another blessing came his way.
Infinite Knowledge Seeker.
He had been reborn as an incredible Mythical Job that gave him various benefits for studying in the game.
It was from then on.
That his life began to change little by little.
What was his life like before it changed?
About 18 years of life.
To sum it up, it was a life of not being good at anything.
He had never once been praised for being good at something, a genius, or anything like that.
He wasn’t even good at games.
Back when he was in lower elementary school, before VR games came out, he used to play a game called League of Legends at PC bangs, and he always died.
So when he played with his friends, they always told him to just play support.
The guys who were good at games were usually smart too.
There was even a guy who made as much money as an office worker every month by trading in an online RPG.
Indeed, kids with high IQs and smarts were usually good at games too.
On top of that, their grades were high, so they were practically kings in front of their parents and teachers.
Human Calculator Kim Chul-soo’s mom always said at gatherings, 『My son only plays games at home, it’s driving me crazy~』
But her son was second in the entire school.
It was a completely deceptive statement.
He had only ever watched those high-flying kids from afar.
Sometimes, he even looked away because they were too dazzling.
The bright light only served to highlight the fact that he was nothing but a dark shadow.
‘But it’s different now.’
While he was being blinded by the excessively bright light, he saw stairs.
Stairs that allowed him to chase after them.
In a world of shadows where he could do nothing but look up.
To the world high in the sky where he could shine his own light.
He had been given the opportunity to go there.
He didn’t want to live a life of just looking up anymore.
He was tired of envying them, then turning away and rationalizing it as sour grapes.
He wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who felt like people from a different world.
He wanted to be someone who aimed at least as high as them, if not higher.
He wanted to climb higher and higher.
It wouldn’t be easy.
There were still several midterms and finals ahead, not to mention the CSAT.
There were still mountains of big and small things to deal with between exams.
And then there was the dreaded CSAT.
But graduating high school and aiming for a good university wouldn’t be the end.
College life. Or social life.
Things that were still too far in the future for him to even grasp.
Something even harder than high school might be waiting for him.
Of course, as a South Korean man, there was also the mandatory military service……
Anyway, all of these were unavoidable trials on the way up.
“Hoo……”
In the end, he didn’t get to look at his English vocabulary and had already arrived at the school gate.
But it wasn’t a waste of time.
He looked back on himself.
And he had a vague grasp of what he had to do next.
“Finals.”
He had no clear basis for it, but he felt that this was the turning point.
His life would be decided here.
Would he walk the path that successful people walked?
Or would he be unable to even walk, only able to envy them from afar?
“Let’s go.”
It was time to say goodbye.
Let’s leave behind the old, unremarkable him as a memory to laugh and talk about later.
Let’s always remember this moment and keep walking upwards.
Let’s go higher and higher.
With that, Kyung-joon stepped into the school gate and headed towards the exam room.
🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷
The first semester of the second year had also ended, and the summer vacation ceremony had arrived.
Today was very special.
This was because it was the day that the ‘Cheongshin Big Character Poster’, a tradition of Cheongshin High School, was posted in the hallway.
The Cheongshin Big Character Poster listed the names and GPAs of the top 50 students in the school, from first to fiftieth.
With a total of 500 students, only the top 10% could make it onto the Big Character Poster.
It was a system created by the school to motivate high-achieving students to study even harder.
This method was quite effective.
In fact, because of this method, many top students didn’t neglect their studies at least until they went to college.
In a way, it was only natural.
Top students didn’t study because they liked it.
Except for a few really strange ones, they studied because they enjoyed being ‘the ones who were better at studying than others’.
There was no better way to stimulate this primal desire to study than this Big Character Poster.
“The Big Character Poster is finally up!”
“Is my name there? I got a 100.”
“Bullshit, you’d need to combine your Korean, English, and math scores to get a 100.”
“You caught me?”
“As expected, Yoo Seol-ha is first again this time. A GPA of 99, that’s crazy~”
The hallway was crowded with students.
And Kyung-joon, who happened to be returning from the bathroom, also passed by the Big Character Poster.
His friend who was next to him asked,
“Kyung-joon, didn’t you do pretty well on the exams this time too? Are you on the Big Character Poster?”
“No way.”
Kyung-joon shrugged and turned to go back to the classroom.
He had done his best on the exams this time as well.
But for some reason, he didn’t feel like he had done as well as last time.
On the contrary, after studying so hard, he realized how difficult the exams were and how much he lacked.
“You don’t know! You didn’t even check your answers this time. The results are coming out today since it’s the vacation ceremony tomorrow.”
“That’s true.”
The reason Kyung-joon didn’t check his answers was that he wasn’t as confident as he thought he would be.
He thought that checking his answers might make him anxious and negatively affect the next day’s exam.
So he deliberately didn’t do it.
He could also get his exact scores from the report card that would be handed out before the vacation ceremony today.
“Let’s just check, just in case.”
So, his friend stopped in front of the Big Character Poster, suggesting they check.
Kyung-joon also stood next to him since it felt awkward to go alone.
His friend exclaimed in admiration,
“Wow, Yoo Seol-ha is really amazing. A GPA of 99 again this time.”
“She was actually upset about it. She said she didn’t get a 100.”
“What, really?”
“Yeah, I overheard her mumbling to herself.”
“Wow, that’s crazy. If it were me, I’d be satisfied with that. I wouldn’t be crying and making a fuss even if I made a marking mistake later, right?”
“Totally.”
Kyung-joon gave his friend a half-hearted response as he looked at the Big Character Poster.
A faint hope that his name might be within the top 50.
With that thought in mind, he slowly scanned the list from 50th place, looking for his name.
’50th Han Bi-san, 49th Kim Myung-soo, 48th Choi Ho-jae… 37th Lim Yoon-ha, 36th Hong Jae-chan, 35th Jeong Yeong-yun…’
He kept going up and up, but his name was nowhere to be found.
At first, Kyung-joon had held onto a sliver of hope.
’20th Kim Ja-bin, 19th Park Soon-young, 18th Lee Dan-jeong… Sigh.’
As he reached the top 20, then the top 10, only disappointment washed over him.
‘As expected, I’m outside the top 50. I studied harder than I ever have in my life… Well, it’s only natural, I guess.’
It had only been half a year since Kyung-joon started studying, and less than half a year since he started studying properly.
And yet, he was already thinking about being in the top 10%.
Maybe he was being too ambitious.
‘I should just keep working hard like I have been. It’s too early to expect results. Honestly, wouldn’t it be fine if I just got the same grades as the midterms?’
He tried to rationalize it a bit, but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
He thought he had gotten a little closer to the top students while solving creativity problems……
Maybe it was just wishful thinking.
Kyung-joon stopped looking for his name and nudged his friend next to him.
“Jin-woo, let’s just go to the classroom.”
Kyung-joon said and took a rather gloomy step.
But then his friend suddenly grabbed his arm.
His hand was trembling.
“Hey, hey… You, you…”
“What’s wrong?”
“T, That……”
His friend pointed a trembling finger somewhere.
It was the Big Character Poster.
His finger was pointing somewhere above the 10th place, where Kyung-joon had given up looking.
“First place……”
“Why first place again? It’s Yoo Seol-ha.”
『1st Yoo Seol-ha GPA 99.4』
Kyung-joon checked the first place section, but nothing had changed.
But his friend added one more thing.
“Below that…”
“Below? Second place?”
As his friend suggested, Kyung-joon checked the second place section of the Big Character Poster.
He noticed something quite unexpected.
“Huh? It’s not Kim Chul-soo or Park Young-hee? Someone named Lee Kyung-joon took second place. Well, it’s all the same below Yoo Seol-ha anyway, so it doesn’t really matter who’s in what place.”
It had always been like that, in his first year and during the last midterms.
While the second place spot alternated between Park Young-hee and Kim Chul-soo, first place always belonged to Yoo Seol-ha.
If Yoo Seol-ha in first place had a GPA of 99, then those below second place would have at most 93 or 94.
From the beginning, Yoo Seol-ha was an insurmountable wall.
“……”
His friend gave Kyung-joon a very cold stare as he spoke nonchalantly.
“What, why?”
Kyung-joon frowned as if he didn’t understand.
His friend let out a hollow laugh and replied,
“You idiot…… Lee Kyung-joon is your name……”
“Huh?”
Kyung-joon, suddenly coming to his senses, looked back at the Big Character Poster.
『1st Yoo Seol-ha GPA 99.4』
『2nd Lee Kyung-joon GPA 94.2』
『3rd Park Young-hee GPA 93.4』
『4th Kim Chul-soo GPA 92.9』
Quite coincidentally, the Lee Kyung-joon in second place was none other than himself.
What the? Was this some kind of hilarious prank?
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