Chapter 98 – The Questions Must Be Wrong

While the little witches were working on the History of Witches exam, Amisha had already finished grading the Fundamentals of Magic Theory papers with her red ink pen.

By the time the little witches finished the Continental History exam, the History of Witches papers had been graded as well.

Once all the papers were turned in and Lady Amisha began grading the final exam, the little witches—finally free—frantically sought out Mo Lan to compare answers!

The fill-in-the-blank and short-answer questions at the beginning were manageable enough. The little witches who had diligently memorized the key points could mostly answer them with reasonable accuracy.

But when they got to the multiple-choice questions, wails of despair erupted everywhere.

“What? E?”

“It’s A, the angel! Definitely the angel! Even if he couldn’t use dark magic himself, he was carrying dark magic items! An angel carrying dark magic items—there’s obviously something suspicious going on!” Iris argued forcefully.

The little witches who had also chosen A chimed in: “There’s no way it’s the demon—the victim’s soul was still perfectly intact! Moira, did you pick the wrong answer?”

“I think it’s C,” Alba said. Because of her affinity for light-element magic, she knew more about angels, whose power was similar: “Angels’ holy light magic is different from ordinary light-element magic. It’s completely incompatible with dark energy—they simply can’t use dark magic items!”

“It’s not the demon, and it’s not the angel, so it must be the human. A human mage could potentially wield dark elements too!”

She was using the process of elimination.

“Wrong!” Sylph said. “This is a village whose primary industry is grain cultivation. The resident village mage even lives near the farmland—he’s obviously a wood-element mage. It’s very unlikely to be him.”

“I chose the half-dragon!” Vasida said. “The village was perfectly fine normally, and then something suddenly happened that day. It definitely wasn’t someone from the village.”

“Impossible!” Cheryl shook her head. “That half-dragon has red hair. A half-dragon’s hair color represents their bloodline. Dyeing it is tantamount to betraying their clan, so he can only be a descendant of a red dragon and can only use fire-element magic!”

“Then what did you choose?” Vasida asked.

Cheryl spread her hands. “I couldn’t pick one. I thought none of them were right! Not the angel, not the demon, not the human, and not the half-dragon. The only one left is the witch. And while this Black Witch does have the right specialization and a bad reputation, witches bear plenty of false accusations—most of it is just rumors—and she would absolutely never harm another witch. The victim hadn’t offended any witches either, so it couldn’t have been the witch who killed them. Before turning in my paper, I just randomly filled in ‘E.’ But I’m planning to raise the issue with the Headmistress later—the question must have been written wrong!”

Mo Lan listened to their heated debate and said helplessly, “Have you ever considered that although killing people and devouring their soul power is synonymous with demons, they don’t necessarily devour souls every time they kill? None of the others fit, so it’s obviously this one!”

“Why wouldn’t it devour the soul?” The little witches were puzzled. “A demon goes through all that trouble to kill someone—isn’t it precisely for that mouthful of soul power?”

“Maybe she didn’t want to expose her identity? A succubus who went to be a resident village mage’s lover probably isn’t very powerful, right? At the very least, she definitely couldn’t beat that mage!”

Mo Lan said, “Regardless, this is the only option with the highest probability. The question isn’t asking us to find the real killer—just the ‘most likely’ suspect.”

The little witches: “…”

How could it work like that!

Two points lost. If they lost even three more, they would have no chance at the Magic Gold Coins!

“So does that mean I guessed right?” Cheryl was overjoyed.

The other little witches who had gotten it wrong: “…”

“Alright, I’ve finished grading! Time to hand back the papers,” Amisha said, standing up.

The little witches immediately shrank back into their seats, nervously eyeing the stack of papers in Lady Amisha’s hands, praying silently:

“Elder Sorceress, please protect us—please don’t let us fail!”

“First place: Moira. Perfect scores in all three subjects. Reward: 3 Magic Gold Coins.”

Amisha gestured for her to come to the front.

Mo Lan retrieved her exam papers, along with three gleaming Magic Gold Coins.

The little witches: (ω)!

“Second place: Cheryl. Fundamentals of Magic Theory: 92, History of Witches: 98, Continental History: 96. Reward: 2 Magic Gold Coins!”

The little witches: “(○ o ○)!”

Mo Lan getting perfect scores only made them envious—it wasn’t the least bit surprising.

After all, this was Moira, the inventor of the Valen workbooks and practice exams, the woman with a photographic memory.

But Cheryl had also scored above 95 in two subjects and earned 2 Magic Gold Coins—that was truly impressive!

It was perfectly normal to have a large gap compared to Mo Lan. But Cheryl? They had all studied the same material, they were all witches, and she didn’t have any special Talent. If she could score this well, then surely they couldn’t be far behind?

Could they perhaps earn Magic Gold Coins too?

The anxiety in the little witches’ hearts instantly transformed into anticipation.

However…

“Third place: Sylph. Fundamentals of Magic Theory: 88, History of Witches: 94, Continental History: 90.”

Sylph had missed earning a Magic Gold Coin in History of Witches by just one point.

What a shame. The moment she got her paper back, she couldn’t help but look at her mistakes, then regret not being just a little more careful—just two more points.

She wasn’t the only one thinking this. Every single little witch felt the same way.

The rest of the little witches, each and every one of them, actually weren’t far apart in scores. Even the lowest scorer had above 80 in every subject.

Not a single one below eighty.

While they were happy they hadn’t scored low enough to “earn” extra workbooks as punishment, they also felt wistful about being so close to the Magic Gold Coins yet not quite reaching them.

When Lady Amisha went through the exam papers, they discovered that their biggest point losses in the multiple-choice section were mostly because they hadn’t read the questions carefully, hadn’t properly analyzed the information given, or hadn’t recalled what they’d learned—which made the regret even worse.

“Ugh! These questions were way too tricky!”

“I was so close—just a little bit more! I could have gotten a Magic Gold Coin!”

But the exam was already over. No amount of regret could change anything now.

If not this time, then next time!

“Headmistress, when is the next monthly exam?” Vasida asked.

She did the math—if she could just hold onto the points she shouldn’t have lost, she would definitely earn at least one Magic Gold Coin!

“One month from now,” Amisha said.

The little witches all noted the date, eager to try again.

Next time, they would definitely read the questions carefully and earn those Magic Gold Coin rewards!

From dreading failure to being red-eyed with desire for rewards—all it took was one decent set of exam results.

Only Mo Lan knew the truth: there weren’t really that many careless mistakes. They simply hadn’t mastered the knowledge flexibly or firmly enough, that was all.

Cheryl’s high scores weren’t due to luck. It was because she had always been working hard!

Cheryl: “I sit right behind Moira. Every time I lose focus in class, I look up and see her grinding away. If I don’t work hard, who will?”