Chapter 369 – The Graduation Exam

Chapter 369 – The Graduation Exam

After settling the matter of the Practice Quiz Cards with the Headmistress, Mo Lan quietly teleported out of the Headmistress’s Lounge.

When she returned to the fifth-year temporary lounge in the library, the young witches were still exactly as she’d left them—sprawled in various positions, reading books and drafting outlines. Not a single one had noticed the new card that had just been listed in the Card Shop.

The young witches rushed and scrambled, squeezing their sleep and meal times to the bare minimum, and only managed to finish outlining every book on the reference list by the early morning hours of the 27th. At the very least, they now had a general idea of the main content of each volume.

Once the outlines were organized, the young witches cast a halfhearted Cleaning spell on themselves, crawled into bed, and fell asleep the moment their heads hit the pillows.

May 27th. Exam day.

The fifth-year young witches headed to the examination classroom carrying their Grimoires and the outlines they’d prepared.

Madam Amisha was already waiting for them in the classroom, having arrived early.

Mo Lan glanced up at Madam Amisha standing at the lectern.

It was her true form. Only the true form ever wore different witch robes—all of her other avatars only had one set of clothes.

Madam Amisha winked at her, and Mo Lan hurriedly averted her gaze, lowering her head.

She was terrified the other young witches might notice her exchanging meaningful glances with the Headmistress right before an exam.

As for the Practice Quiz Cards—she swore she’d created them purely to help the young witches consolidate their knowledge and boost their motivation for studying. She hadn’t even taken any profit; every bit of it had been funneled into the card reward system.

But the young witches were facing an exam right now, having just endured the agony of studying. They would probably have a very hard time accepting that she’d turned what was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime graduation exam into a quiz card that would follow them for the rest of their lives.

“Moira, you memorized every single reference book word for word. You don’t need to worry about the exam at all—so why do you still look so miserable?” Vasida asked.

Mo Lan shook her head with a bitter smile but didn’t answer.

She wasn’t worried about the exam. She was worried about getting beaten up by the young witches once they found out about the Practice Quiz Cards.

“Fun for a moment when you release the card, a funeral afterward”—that described her situation perfectly.

Once all the young witches were seated, Amisha began announcing the exam rules:

“The graduation exam begins today at seven o’clock and runs until noon the day after tomorrow—a total of fifty-three hours.

When it ends, papers will be graded on the spot and final scores announced.

Young witches who score 95 or above, rated as excellent, will each be rewarded with 1 Purple Gold Coin.

Young witches who score 90 or above, rated as good, will each be rewarded with 50 Magic Gold Coins.

Young witches who score 80 or above, rated as average, will each be rewarded with 10 Magic Gold Coins.

Young witches who score 70 or above, rated as passing, will each be rewarded with 1 Magic Gold Coin.

During the exam, you are forbidden from communicating with other young witches about exam-related questions by any means. Violators will have their scores marked as failing and will have all supplies earned during the survival trial confiscated.

Is that clear?”

The young witches were stunned.

“Headmistress, did you forget to mention something?” Vasida asked. “If we score low, we don’t get punished with workbooks anymore?”

The rewards were generous, sure, but without any mention of the workbooks, they couldn’t feel at ease!

Amisha shook her head. “No more workbooks…”

“What?!” the young witches couldn’t help but exclaim.

They were shocked and delighted, yet hardly dared to believe it.

Had the Headmistress suddenly become merciful this year? Increasing the rewards while canceling the workbooks—that didn’t seem like the Headmistress’s style at all!

“No more workbooks,” Amisha repeated. “However, after graduation, if your exam score doesn’t exceed eighty, I wouldn’t recommend leaving the Witch’s Wilds to travel!”

The young witches were confused. What did she mean by “after graduation, exam score”? Were there still exams after graduation?

Before they could ask for clarification, Amisha produced a stack of cards that floated down to land in front of each young witch:

“For this exam, we will be using Moira’s newly released {Practice Quiz Card —Mo Lan’s newly released {Practice Quiz Card — 《Witch Academy Graduation Exam》} in place of the traditional paper exam.

Please complete the card binding first, then follow the instructions to familiarize yourselves with how to use the card.

Once you’re ready, raise your hand to signal.”

The young witches were even more bewildered. An exam where they handed out cards instead of test papers? And what on earth was a Practice Quiz Card?

By the time they’d fumblingly completed the card binding and made it through the Practice Quiz Card’s beginner tutorial, every single one of them was shooting dagger-glares at the purple-haired girl sitting in the middle of the front row.

Mo Lan had activated her Practice Quiz Card, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on the quiz light screen, as if she were completely oblivious to the other young witches’ murderous stares.

Amisha found this amusing and very “thoughtfully” added:

“Moira’s card is wonderfully designed! The problem of witches losing their theoretical knowledge after graduation has been perfectly solved.

It’s also more portable than workbooks, and working through it gives a greater sense of accomplishment.

What’s more, Moira donated all the profits to design a quiz reward system! You should all properly thank her!”

Rationally, the young witches agreed. But emotionally, they found it very hard to accept the reality that they were about to own a quiz bank they could never finish. One by one, they gritted their teeth, staring at the back of Mo Lan’s head, and said: “Oh, we’ll ‘thank’ her properly!”

Mo Lan: “…”

She was done for. The moment the exam ended, she’d be in danger.

“Is everyone familiar with how to use the Practice Quiz Card now? Set your card to anti-peeping mode, then tap 【Simulated Exam】, set the exam duration to fifty-three hours, and wait for my command to begin!”

At Madam Amisha’s signal, the young witches tapped start, and a graduation exam paper was generated on each of their quiz light screens.

“Begin!”

Madam Amisha didn’t bother proctoring. After saying her piece, she simply left.

The Headmistress’s departure had absolutely no effect on the young witches. Not a single witch would even think of cheating.

Setting aside the fact that their very soul nature wouldn’t allow them to do such a thing, the mere existence of the Guardian Headmistress was more than enough to keep them honest.

Although the exam had been moved to the quiz light screen, the question types, quantity, and difficulty level remained unchanged.

The page counter in the corner of the light screen clearly displayed “1/200″—one hundred pages in total.

Each page contained two A4-sized sheets of content. Excluding sleep time, they would need to complete at least four and a half pages per hour to have any hope of finishing.

Time was still extremely tight.

The young witches had no time to “thank” Mo Lan anymore and threw themselves into answering questions.

Having been through many exams by now, they’d picked up some test-taking strategies. Combined with the open-book exam techniques Mo Lan had taught them before the test, they all started by completing the questions they were confident about and marking the uncertain ones.

After the first pass, they would go back and look through their outlines to find answers for the questions they couldn’t solve. Once those were done, they’d tackle the uncertain ones, improving their accuracy.

Following this method through meant going over the entire exam at least three times.

The test had so many pages that by the time it grew dark, the young witches still hadn’t finished their first pass.

They had all prepared Breadfruit Cake in advance. Aside from Vasida, filling their stomachs only took the other young witches a few seconds. Sleep, however, couldn’t be skipped.

Without sleep, their efficiency would only drop lower and lower.