Wizard: I'm leveling up by AFK in another world

"Maintaining the balance of the medicinal properties of the materials and the balance of energy reactions requires extremely keen mental perception and superhuman reaction speed."

At this point, Heller paused, his cold gaze sweeping across the room once more.

"The fact that you are all sitting here means that you have all been praised as geniuses and are the hope of your respective families."

"I must remind you all that your prized talent has given you powerful mental strength, but that does not mean you can concoct potions well."

He lowered his head and picked up the book in his hand.

The classroom was filled with the rustling sound of him rapidly turning pages. Everyone instinctively held their breath, staring blankly at this strange professor.

However, Heller continued flipping through the pages for quite a while, not only without stopping, but his expression also became increasingly grim.

Finally, he snorted coldly and casually tossed the book aside.

"This is incredibly boring. Let's play a game."

He took a crystal ball out of his wide sleeves and placed it in the metal recess in the center of the lectern.

As he infused it with magic, the crystal ball emitted a deep hum, and intricate runes appeared on its surface.

Immediately afterwards, a huge three-dimensional light screen was projected in mid-air, presenting a deep starry sky.

At the top of the light screen, five different colored cubes float.

They are gold I-shaped blocks, green S-shaped blocks, blue L-shaped blocks, red Z-shaped blocks, and brown T-shaped blocks.

Heller explained, "This is an elemental balancer, a gadget that many professional potion makers like to use in their spare time to hone their micro-management skills. It simulates the elemental reaction process during potion making, so it can be used to test potion-making talent."

"The rules are simple. Elemental blocks of different attributes will continuously fall from above. You need to probe the crystal ball with your mental energy to control their position and orientation."

"As I've said before, the most important thing in potion-making is balance. In addition to precise control of your mental energy, you must also have the ability to observe the big picture and react quickly to unexpected situations."

"When a row is filled with squares, it means that the elements in that row have been neutralized and converted into points. The more elements neutralized, the higher the score."

"If they're not arranged properly, they'll create the last thing a potion master wants to see: impurities. They'll pile up, and once they exceed the red warning line at the top..."

Heller gave an ugly smile: "Bang! The forging failed, and your masterpiece is now destroyed."

The apprentices below the stage listened attentively, many of them showing thoughtful expressions.

Only Claire had a complicated expression and almost couldn't hold back.

Isn't this just Tetris?

The only difference is that the blocks are given representative colors of the five elements, and an extra scoring challenge mechanism is added; the core logic of the game remains completely unchanged.

Here, this casual game suitable for all ages has surprisingly become a tool for testing potion-making talent?

"Interesting." The blond man in the front row looked at the screen with a confident smile. "This is actually similar to constructing a magic model in the mind. All this talk is essentially a test of mental strength."

"Who wants to come up and give it a try?" Heller looked around.

"I'll do it!"

The blond man was the first to stand up.

"As is customary, you should introduce yourself."

"Julian Charles." He bowed gracefully to the crowd, then placed his hand on the crystal ball.

"start!"

As Heller finished speaking, the elemental cubes on the light screen began to slowly fall.

It must be said that Julian certainly has the right to be arrogant.

His mental energy is very concentrated and extremely strong.

Under his control, the cubes on the light screen seemed to be grasped by a powerful hand, moving or rotating rapidly and landing precisely in the right positions.

"Fire element here... then metal element... and then what's next? Still fire element...?"

"That's not ideal. However, if I'm fast enough, I can neutralize it before it piles up!"

As time goes on, the element blocks fall faster and faster.

Sweat began to bead on Julian's forehead.

Although he has strong mental strength and quick reflexes, he clearly doesn't understand the game's techniques at all.

He was only focused on eliminating the enemies in front of him, eliminating them one by one without considering the subsequent strategy.

As the strength increased, it left many unfillable gaps in the middle, like a wall riddled with holes.

"Stay calm! Stay calm!"

Julian gritted his teeth and desperately mobilized his mental energy in an attempt to turn the tide.

But this was clearly futile.

When the I-shaped gold element fell, he was horrified to find that, due to the previous haphazard arrangement, there was no vertical space left to accommodate it.

No matter how he spun it, the gold element was like a fishbone stuck in his throat, with nowhere to go.

boom!

The light screen emitted a piercing explosion, and all the elemental blocks instantly shattered, turning into a red light that formed a skull emitting black smoke in the air.

Final score: 1580 points

Julian released his grip, panting, and looked at the evaluation with a somewhat unpleasant expression.

He felt that he hadn't used up all his mental energy; he was just unlucky.

"Not bad." Heller nodded. "To get this score on your first attempt shows that your mental control is indeed quite good. Among all the freshmen, you're in the upper-middle range. Next."

Several more people then stepped forward to try.

But the results were largely the same, with scores mostly hovering between several hundred and one thousand.

Like Julian, they all relied on sheer willpower to fight.

Faced with an increasingly rapid descent, they are easily flustered and lose their composure, focusing only on their own safety.

"It seems this year's freshmen are nothing special." Heller shook his head in disappointment. "Is it really that hard to even break through two thousand points? To become a qualified potion master, you need at least three thousand points to even be considered a beginner."

"Professor, this is too difficult!" someone complained. "It's too fast; there's simply no time to think!"

"Yeah, this really tests your mental strength. The speed at that stage is so fast, only a mid-level apprentice could keep up, right?"

Hearing the complaints around him, Julian's expression softened slightly.

Although his rating isn't high, he still has the highest score in the entire competition and remains the most outstanding talent here.

As his tense nerves relaxed, he quickly remembered some things.

He turned around, his gaze sweeping over the crowd and landing on Claire in the corner.

"Hey, you special case student with seventh-grade talent," Julian shouted, "Aren't you quite the talker? Why don't you come up here and give it a try? Let us see what Lord Marius the Wizard has in mind?"

"Or are you afraid you can't afford to pay for the repairs if you break the crystal ball? Don't worry, if the oven explodes, I'll cover the repair costs. Just consider it a bit of fun."

The whole class turned their attention back to him, their expressions filled with anticipation for a good show.

"Claire, ignore him." Rod tugged at Claire's sleeve. "This is obviously a trap. Our mental strength is already weak, and the game gets faster and faster as it progresses. We won't be able to react at all, and we'll definitely embarrass ourselves if we go up there."