Chapter 101 – A Mere Exam

Monday at noon, in the first-year theory classroom. The moment the twelve o’clock bell rang and Lady Amisha departed, the young witches bolted out of the classroom.

“Go, go, go! Hurry to the second-years next door!”

Mo Lan trailed behind the young witches. She wanted to watch the spectacle, yet feared being ganged up on by the upperclassmen.

The second-year witches had just endured the baptism of their workbooks and been forewarned of the dreadful news about exams, only to find their classroom doorway blocked by first-years who had even charged inside.

Vasida led the charge, getting right up in their faces: “Upperclassmen! Did you enjoy today’s class?”

The second-year witches understood everything instantly. “You all knew about this already?”

“Of course! We’ve been using them for two months now, and we’ve already taken the exam twice!” Vasida said. “Come on, girls! Show them your badges of honor!”

Vasida, Sylph, Cheryl, Iris, and the other young witches all produced the Magic Gold Coins they had earned.

“Huh? Where’s Moira? She has the most!”

Mo Lan, who had been quietly lingering at the very back, standing on tiptoe to observe the upperclassmen’s “delightful” expressions: “(-_-;)?”

“Moira, what are you doing back there? Get up front!” The young witches pushed her to the very first row.

“Didn’t we tell you to bring all your exam-reward Magic Gold Coins today? Did you bring them?” Vasida tugged at her sleeve.

Mo Lan nodded with difficulty. She hadn’t known beforehand that this was why Vasida wanted her to bring the coins!

Under their expectant gazes, Mo Lan found herself caught between a rock and a hard place. She took six gold coins from her satchel and held them cupped in her hands, just like the others.

“Upperclassmen, work hard on those workbooks, get a good score on the monthly exam, and maybe by the time you graduate, you’ll have saved up enough for a Purple Gold Coin!”

The second-year witches’ eyes went red with envy at the sight of those Magic Gold Coins. “Those are all from monthly exam rewards?”

“Yep!”

“You’ve already taken the exams—were they hard?”

“Not at all! And not a single one of us scored low enough to get a workbook penalty!”

Hearing this, the second-year witches felt a weight lift from their chests.

If none of the first-years had scored below seventy, then surely they wouldn’t do that poorly either!

With the punishment posing no real threat, the allure of Magic Gold Coins grew even stronger.

“Exams aside for now—Moira, why is your name in this workbook?” Lilith held up the workbook, flipping to the title page. “Editor: Beyond Peak Witch Amisha. Knowledge Consultant: Sorceress Moira. And here too…”

She flipped to the very last page. “‘In tribute to the inventor of the Valen workbook, the evangelist of Earth’s workbook and examination culture—Sorceress Moira’… That’s talking about you, isn’t it?”

Mo Lan leaned in with surprise to take a look.

Good heavens, it really was there! She quickly snatched the Fundamentals of Magic Theory workbook tucked under Vasida’s arm to check—it was in there too! They had even included her Sorceress title.

There were only seven Sorceresses in total, and no other one was named Mo Lan. She truly had no way to deny it.

She didn’t have to do the workbooks herself and had never examined them closely. The ones she had proofread before hadn’t contained any of this.

She hadn’t expected the Headmistress to go and add her name to the workbooks.

Headmistress, oh Headmistress, you’re going to be the death of me! Surely inspirational rhetoric works on the upperclassmen too, right?

Things having reached this point, Mo Lan could only nod and own it: “It’s me! I felt that for improving reading comprehension and deepening one’s grasp of knowledge, the reading exercises and exam-based assessment methods from my previous life were more effective. So I recommended this model of learning to the Headmistress. You’ve all done the workbooks, right? After finishing them, don’t you feel like you’ve retained the knowledge more solidly?”

“Yes!” Lilith said through gritted teeth.

While she did indeed retain things more firmly now, the process of completing them was far more grueling!

Even more terrifying was that the Headmistress had ordered them to complete the workbooks for all the material they had already covered, with the exam at the beginning of next month!

With less than three weeks, that covered several months’ worth of coursework!

Mo Lan, as if completely oblivious to the menacing edge in her upperclassman’s tone, launched into the same speech she had given the first-years about the necessity of building a solid theoretical foundation, serving each upperclassman a generous helping of “motivational soup.”

However… the upperclassmen were a year older after all, and not as easily swayed as the naive first-year newcomers. Seeing them still gazing at her with those dark, brooding eyes, Mo Lan had no choice but to play her trump card:

“Don’t you upperclassmen want to learn more, score well on the exams, and earn Magic Gold Coins? After graduation, there won’t be such easy opportunities to make money.

A mere workbook and exam—all the first-years have already withstood the challenge. Quite a few have earned Magic Gold Coin rewards, and even those who didn’t weren’t far off. You upperclassmen have absolutely nothing to worry about. It’ll definitely be no problem at all!”

“Who said we’re worried!” Lilith was the first to object. “We’ve studied a whole year longer than you lot. Our reading skills are well past being an issue! A mere workbook and exam! Hmph!”

“Exactly!” The other second-year witches refused to be outdone.

The first-years had barely been in school and could already earn Magic Gold Coins from exams—there was absolutely no reason they couldn’t do the same!

So what if there was more homework? Could they really be outdone by a bunch of first-year juniors? Absolutely impossible!

Even so, they still couldn’t stand the sight of their juniors coming to watch them squirm:

“Shoo, shoo, shoo! Don’t you have afternoon classes? If you don’t hurry down the mountain for lunch and get ready for your afternoon lessons, what are you all doing clogging up the doorway? It doesn’t matter if we lose a bit of time—we hop on our broomsticks and we’re back in a few minutes. But you lot have to walk for hours, don’t you?”

The first-year witches: ⊙﹏⊙

The moment broomsticks were mentioned, their good mood evaporated!

“When on earth are we going to learn to cultivate broomstick grass!”

Flying class wasn’t until second year, so they could set that aside for now, but surely they should have started growing broomstick grass by this point? They had been in school for months already.

“Once you finish your Culinary Magic course and go through some of your Plant Magic lessons—once you’ve learned how to grow basic crops—that’s around when it should begin!” Lilith said.

“What? We’re only just starting to bake black bread with Culinary Magic!”

The first-year witches couldn’t even imagine when they would finish the Culinary Magic course.

“What? You’ve only just Attuned your cookware and started baking black bread? All of you?” Renée exclaimed.

“Moira has already learned every dish taught in the textbook and can make them all with Culinary Magic. She’s practicing her own recipes now. Iris is also working on the final dish—grilled meat patties. Vasida and Sylph are nearly done learning to bake white bread. It’s only those of us with poor cooking talent and poor Culinary Magic talent who are just starting on black bread…”

Alba tallied up everyone’s progress in Culinary Magic class. “Renée, at this rate, how much longer until we finish the Culinary Magic course?”