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Originally Posted by
Ryllharu
Ubel is the bright spot of this test in the arc.
She reveals a bit of arrogance and hypocrisy in the gatekeeping that the Mage Association does with this exam.
Ubel understands magic on a more fundamental level than most of the cast. It's all about visualization first, then the mechanics behind it fulfill it come after. In contrast, Fern was taught the mechanics first. Ubel just ignores the mechanics. It's consistent with her other skill of empathizing with another and then taking their magic specialty. She believes that once she does, she'll inherently know their trademark spell, and then she simply does.
The magic association members are crippling themselves and their examinees with predilections, intentionally or otherwise. The flashback showed that they frequently plan the 2nd test to be nearly impossible to pass. I don't really buy their excuse that a First Class mage should be capable of overcoming these challenges when they've surrounded themselves with specialists and then design tests around their areas of expertise.
The way they set up that previous test, Ubel was the only one who could ever have passed it. Maybe Richter could have, or Kanne, but they'd have been disqualified by the other offensive spell limits the association placed "for safety."
It's a great moment that Sense just fails to believe that Ubel could cut anything. She lost from the moment they even spoke. Sense then fails to learn anything by justifying it to herself that Ubel is simply crazy and a sociopath.
And yeah, Sense can talk about how she's a pacifist all she wants and how the test should be easy if they all cooperated, but the Association designed this test to fail as many examinees as possible, and Sense herself tagging along was the contingency plan.