Chapter 500 – Exam Passed

Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph returned to Number 21, Apprentice Lane with their trial cards in hand.

Lilith tossed a {Dawn Society Trial Invitation} directly into Mo Lan’s lap. “Instructor, a money-making opportunity has arrived — sign it!”

Mo Lan had already learned of their little scheme through the {Dawn Society Management Card}.

However, it was all within the rules, so she hadn’t stopped them. She signed her name on the invitation while asking:

“So you’re planning to let one person complete the trial task first? Greta could have originally earned three contribution points, but now she can only earn one. She wasn’t upset?”

“Greta was a bit surprised at the time, but she wasn’t angry!” Vasida said. “With her abilities, making connections with other mages is practically effortless! If we hadn’t done it this way, who knows when we’d ever complete the trial task!”

“Moira, does Trial Task Two require us to personally invite people?” Lilith asked. “What if we write the invitation letters and have someone else deliver them?”

“Whoever’s invitation letter it is, the person invited counts under their name.”

After Mo Lan finished speaking, she noticed Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph all looking at her with expectant faces, and a thought struck her: “You’re not thinking of having me deliver your invitation letters for you, are you?”

“The apprentices came home and their instructor immediately discovered their secret, so they came clean about the Dawn Society. When the instructor goes to complete her own trial, she conveniently hands out the apprentices’ invitations along the way — that should be perfectly reasonable, right?” Lilith said.

“For an advanced mage, handing out ten invitation letters versus thirty-seven should be equally easy, right?” Sylph said.

“An instructor who appears stingy and strict on the surface but is actually deeply devoted to her apprentices — she’d surely help with this ‘tiny’ little favor, right?” Vasida added.

“…” Mo Lan said, “You three haven’t been scheming about this for the past few days, have you?”

It felt like an arrow she’d shot had somehow come flying back at her.

Lilith, Sylph, and Vasida smiled without a word.

“Fine! I’ll help you send out the trial task invitation letters, no problem…”

Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph immediately cheered.

“Don’t celebrate too early. Since you want me to help deliver your invitations, the matter of organizing the Advanced Wild Mage Experience-Sharing Seminar will be left to you three to handle!” Mo Lan said.

“Advanced Wild Mage Experience-Sharing Seminar?” The three Sorceresses looked confused.

“It’s using the pretense of an advanced wild mage freely sharing her experience to attract mages to gather in one place. We earn a little extra on the side, and conveniently hand out invitation letters while we’re at it!”

Mo Lan continued, “Just fifty spots, one Magic Gold Coin per person for admission. Make sure you don’t invite any other advanced mages — if I’m up there spouting nonsense, it’ll be hard to wrap things up.”

The three of them: “…”

They hadn’t expected they still couldn’t escape the fate of inviting mages after all.

Before, each of them had to invite ten mages to sign trial invitations — with only twenty-seven remaining, they could all pass the trial.

But now they had to invite fifty mages to attend some Advanced Wild Mage Experience-Sharing Seminar.

They truly couldn’t tell whether they’d come out ahead or behind.

If it weren’t for being able to use the prestige of an advanced mage’s name, they would have genuinely wanted to back out.

“Alright, go take your exams and complete Trial Task One!” Mo Lan said. “The reward for Trial Task One isn’t bad, right?”

After all, she had specifically designed the Magic Gold Coin rewards to match each of their personas!

“Just one Magic Gold Coin, and it’s only the right to redeem it — compared to the Academy’s exams, that’s far too stingy!” Vasida said.

They were only short on money in their current identities, not truly lacking funds.

“Don’t forget, the Dawn Society was founded by all four of us together, and the costs need to be split equally among us four,” Mo Lan said irritably.

“This exam is much simpler — having one Magic Gold Coin’s worth of redemption rights is already quite good!” Lilith hastily said. “Watch me! I’ll have this Magic Gold Coin in hand in no time!”

Vasida and Sylph also sat down and began taking the exam.

The three of them indeed achieved the “Good” rating required for Trial Task One on their very first attempt.

Aramir, by contrast, had been testing up until now and was still hovering around eighty-something points. Yet his Trial Task One required an “Excellent” rating of ninety points or above to be considered complete.

Lilith and the others only now saw Aramir’s exam records for the day.

“He’s taken it this many times and still hasn’t passed?”

“Is it really that hard?”

“Looks like he’ll need to grind through the exam questions many more times before he can break ninety.”

…

“He’s an Elf. He’s probably just not accustomed to exams,” Mo Lan said.

It wasn’t just Elves, in fact. Across the entire Continent of Valen, aside from human mages who cast spells using psychic power, all other races relied on bloodline abilities to cast magic.

Constructing spell structures through psychic power required extensive magical knowledge as a foundation, but casting through bloodline abilities only needed innate talent and practice.

Exams and assessments existed only among human mages. Other races had never even been exposed to them.

Though now, the witches had their own exam culture too.

Aramir truly ground through questions nonstop for two days before finally managing to score 90 on one attempt, just barely scraping by to earn the Excellent rating.

And even that was thanks to good luck — he’d happened to encounter original questions he’d seen before.

Aramir was now convinced that the Dawn Society really must have been created by human mages — some kind of academically rigorous organization with exacting standards.

Besides human mages, he couldn’t think of any other race that would devise exams so torturous for Elves.

At least he had finally passed. That {Temporary Item Card — No. 9 Spatial Planting Pot (3 days)} in the trial shop could finally be redeemed!

He immediately poured his forces of nature into it, filling it up until he had accumulated 1,000 Gem Coins, and then purchased the card.

Out in the courtyard, after materializing the card, an enormous planting pot appeared on the ground — large enough to transplant Yar into.

He walked over to the oak tree and spoke using Wood Speech: “Yar! I can take you with me now!”

“Good!” The old oak tree rustled its leaves, equally excited.

“Come on, Yar!” Aramir cast the Elven spell Animate, temporarily granting the old oak tree the mobility of an animated plant.

The old oak tree slowly drew its root system from the ground, then carefully shuffled over into the planting pot.

When Aramir reverted the planting pot back into card form, the old oak tree was miniaturized along with it into the small card.

On the card face, where there had been an empty planting pot before, an oak tree now stood.

He quickly materialized the Spatial Planting Pot Card containing the old oak tree again. “Yar, how do you feel?”

“Wonderful! Even more comfortable than being in the courtyard!” the old oak tree said.

“When I put the planting pot away, you didn’t feel any discomfort?” Aramir asked curiously.

“I don’t know — I think I fell asleep just now,” the old oak tree said. “But I’m certain I feel fine right now! Just as good as before!”