Chapter 97 – Little Witch Kiki

The approaching weekend grew tense and uneasy because of the exams.

After the afternoon Culinary Magic class ended, Mo Lan was astonished to see the little witches flocking into Breadfruit Grove in droves—something that had never happened before.

Each one came back to the Dormitory hugging a large bunch of Breadfruit.

The little witches still hadn’t learned a single proper spell. Even in Culinary Magic, they were still at the cooking stage and hadn’t so much as touched the magic side of things.

Normally they only spent a bit of magical power when summoning or dismissing their Grimoires, and rarely needed to eat Breadfruit to restore it.

Ever since they’d learned basic cooking, they seldom used Breadfruit at all—only occasionally making some fruit cake when the craving struck.

This evening, Breadfruit Grove was exceptionally lively.

Even Vasida refrained from stuffing Breadfruit straight into her Devouring Stomach, keeping one bunch in her hands instead. “I’m bringing these back to eat directly! I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep while reviewing.”

Every little witch knew perfectly well about Breadfruit’s sharp, refreshing effect.

“Between the workbook assignments and reviewing, there probably won’t even be time to cook this weekend. Might as well just gnaw on bread!”

Sylph had already gone to the Planting District at noon to ask Bi’er to water Little Bell for her over the weekend.

She absolutely had to study hard. She refused to come in last place and embarrass the Sorceresses!

With everyone so fired up, Mo Lan simply went along with them to Breadfruit Grove and picked enough Breadfruit to last through the weekend and into the following week.

She didn’t really need to review, but she still had a huge stack of upper-year workbooks to proofread!

*

Saturday evening, Quilin carried her basket into the backyard to pick vegetables as usual. She sniffed the air but caught no scent of cooking meat.

She glanced toward the Dormitory behind her. The chimney was completely clean. “How strange! Little Iris hasn’t cooked for two whole days?”

On a normal weekend, even outside of mealtimes, little Iris’s chimney would always have a wisp of smoke rising from it, and the aroma of meat would drift all the way to Quilin’s yard. This was highly unusual.

The more Quilin thought about it, the stranger it seemed. She carried her vegetable basket to the door of the Dormitory behind hers. “Iris! Iris!”

Iris opened the door clutching a workbook. Seeing who it was, she hastily hid the workbook behind her back—she couldn’t let it be discovered. “Senior Quilin? Is something the matter?”

Quilin got straight to the point. “What happened? Why haven’t you cooked in days?”

Iris’s face crumpled. “I haven’t finished my essay yet—I’m racing to get it done! There’s no time to cook. I’ve been gnawing on jerky every day. Good thing I made enough of it before!”

“Oh—” Quilin nodded in understanding. “Everyone goes through this. Once you’ve done it a few times, it gets easier!”

She pulled out all the vegetables from her basket that could be eaten raw and pressed them into Iris’s hands. “Here, take these. You can’t eat nothing but meat every day—you’ll get constipated!”

Iris forced out an awkward smile. “Thank you, Senior!”

Since nothing was truly wrong, Quilin headed back reassured. She couldn’t help sighing to a fellow upperclassman in the neighboring Dormitory, “No little witch escapes the torment of essays!”

She had no idea that half the Dormitory district away, a certain little Sorceress was working hard to free them from that very torment.

*

“Energy exists in different forms. The most fundamental energy is Mana. Mana’s versatility and potency surpass all other forms of energy…”

“Courage, resilience, and kindness are qualities inherent to a witch’s soul. Freedom and independence are a witch’s lifelong pursuits…”

“The four great racial forbidden zones of Valen are: Heaven’s Peak in the west, belonging to the angels; the Wilds in the south, belonging to the Sorceresses and witches; the Abyss underground, belonging to the demons; and the eastern seas, belonging to the Dragons…”

“Angels excel at proselytizing, demons excel at manipulating hearts, and Dragons love hoarding wealth…”

On Monday morning, the little witches reciting their textbooks formed a long line as they walked toward Academy Castle.

Whenever an upperclassman flew overhead, they would all shut their mouths in silent agreement.

They had managed to keep the workbooks and the exam a closely guarded secret.

As they neared the Castle, they encountered more and more upperclassmen, and finally stopped reciting.

Having never taken an exam before, even though their lips had stopped moving, their hearts were far from settled.

“What if we really can’t pass?!”

“We didn’t even eat a single proper meal all weekend. If we still can’t pass after that, then we’ll just have to accept the Headmistress’s workbook punishment—there’s nothing else we can do.”

“I feel like I’ve memorized everything, but I have a feeling I might forget it all soon. Can we review a bit more before the exam starts?”

“Two hours for three subjects—I don’t think that’s going to be enough!”

…

Under the nervous, apprehensive gazes of the little witches, Amisha walked into the classroom carrying three stacks of exam papers. “Put away your Grimoires and workbooks. Nothing is allowed on your desks except a pen and ink!

Each paper has thirty minutes of answer time, timed by hourglass. Read the questions carefully, then answer.

The paper being distributed now is for Fundamentals of Magic Theory. The exam begins!”

Without a moment’s respite, the test papers fanned out and flew to each little witch’s desk. At the same time, an hourglass appeared on the lectern.

Mo Lan received her paper and scanned through it.

There were only three question types: fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and multiple choice.

The short answer and fill-in-the-blank questions directly tested knowledge from the textbook. As long as you’d properly memorized the key points, answering them was no problem.

Only the multiple-choice questions were somewhat different—they were all scenario-based.

But there were only five of them in total, a mix of single-answer and multi-answer, each worth two points.

“While traveling, Little Witch Kiki lodges in a small village whose primary industry is grain cultivation. That night, a murder occurs in the village. The victim had no enemies in life. The body bears clear traces of dark magic, but the soul is intact. There are only five spellcasters in the vicinity of the village. Please determine who is most likely the murderer:

A. An angel carrying dark magic artifacts.

B. A Black Witch of terrible reputation, living as a recluse in the forest outside the village.

C. A human mage stationed in the village, living beside the farmlands.

D. A red-haired half-dragon bodyguard from a merchant caravan.

E. The stationed mage’s succubus lover.”

Mo Lan was very familiar with this type of scenario question—it was part of the training program she had submitted. Whenever she used a witch as an example, she liked to call her Kiki, after a little witch anime she’d watched in her previous life.

Lady Amisha had adopted the name as well.

But the content of these questions was completely different from the ones Mo Lan had written.

Still, they genuinely didn’t exceed the scope of the exam. They simply required more flexible application of the knowledge from the textbook and lectures, and careful analysis of the clues within the question, in order to arrive at the correct answer.

When she thought about it, the multiple-choice questions were actually the hardest part—no wonder they’d been placed last.

The moment Mo Lan saw this question, she knew some little witches were going to fall right into the trap.

She chose E without hesitation.

…

Half an hour passed. The papers were collected, and the second set of exams was distributed immediately.

The question types were more or less the same.