The events in Frost Town didn’t cause much of a stir at school.

Although busting a pearl rosemary plantation—especially with temple priests involved—would normally be explosive news.

But Vasily obviously wasn’t about to let anyone release it.

This operation wasn’t discovered during a routine Oath and Law Knight Order patrol; it was a surprise inspection, so those news-chasing guys couldn’t even react in time.

By the time they did, all they saw was a Holy Court announcement saying the High Priest of Frost Divine Hall had been arrested for playing both sides, embezzling funds, and colluding with heretics.

Stuff like this happens every once in a while, so most people are used to it by now.

To students, unless it’s something the whole world is talking about, no one pays special attention to "little things" like this.

Studying is still more important.

Especially with the annual assessment coming up.

After returning from Frost Town, life gradually calmed down.

Once Anarce came back to school, she seemed normal again, which put Hilia at ease.

From then on, everyone was in full-on cram mode for the annual assessments.

Hilia could feel the atmosphere at school changing.

There were way fewer people in the common areas; even those who were around were there practicing Magic. It was rare to see anyone just hanging out—or even on a date, for that matter.

"With this heavy mood, even I’ve started getting serious."

Hilia stretched and tossed Mage Behavior Code aside.

"Why can’t we just use our wristbands to look up answers for stupid required classes like this?"

Mage Behavior Code is the least important but most compulsory course for all first-year students.

The assessment is a pure written test—it’s all rote memorization, with no shortcuts whatsoever.

Compared to all those bizarre, nitpicky answer choices, Hilia would rather memorize history books.

Rose sighed as well, "This book makes the driver’s license written test look reasonable. Why are they so obsessed with the wording?"

"Driver’s license written test?"

"Never mind. Just think of it as ’Flight Class: Exam Part One.’"

"Oh... but flight class doesn’t have an exam."

"Flip open Mage Behavior Code, pages 45 to 50, and see what’s there."

Hilia grabbed the Mage Behavior Code again, flipped it open, and stared wide-eyed at the explicit rules for mage flight.

Her head shot up, eyes full of pleading: "Lord Rose—no, O Great God, please help me pass the annual assessment!"

Hilia was seriously envious of that picture-perfect memory.

How could Rose know so precisely exactly what was on which page!

Hilia wanted to learn that so badly.

But right now, she wanted even more for Rose to help her survive the annual assessment.

She had no worries about any other subjects; it was just this Mage Behavior Code that was killing her.

The same question could have several different answers.

Like this flight rule question: First version—During low-altitude high-speed flight, if you spot a demon ahead, should you ignore/evade/slow down/gain altitude? Correct answer is gain altitude, because at high speed you don’t have time to slow down or dodge.

The second question changes to: During low-altitude high-speed flight, if you sense a demon ahead, should you ignore/evade/slow down/gain altitude? The correct answer is evade, because if you can sense it, evasion is possible and should be done.

Slow down? You must have a death wish!

Hilia couldn’t figure out why you couldn’t gain altitude for the second question or why you can’t evade in the first one when you spot it.

And why can’t you just ignore it?

But, that’s just how the answers are—nothing she could do.

"Damn Mage Behavior Code! It’s a hundred times more annoying than Doris! Help me, Great God! Or at least teach me the Memory Skill."

Rose stared at her for a while, then said flatly, "There is no Memory Skill. There’s just a strong memory...and Mage’s Hand."

"Mage’s Hand?"

Hilia froze for a second.

"Once you’re skilled enough with Mage’s Hand, you can perform delicate manipulations. Master it further, and you can even phase through pages and see what’s written underneath."

Hilia’s eyes lit up. "Mage’s Hand can do that?"

She had to admit—she was suddenly very interested.

This is basically the ultimate cheat tool!

"Exactly. So, you should practice more and aim to master it as soon as possible."

Rose was secretly laughing inside. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Mage’s Hand is nowhere near as easy to master as it sounds.

That simple word—"mastery"—trips up countless Mages.

There used to be the odd prodigy who mastered a spell or two, but now even Rose was skeptical.

All Mages now simply shove whatever spells they want to learn into their Magic Puppets.

But no matter how many times a Magic Puppet casts a spell, its proficiency never increases.

The Puppet’s command of any spell is always fixed—it can only ever perform at 100% capacity, never developing versatility or breakthroughs like Mages do.

"Once you reach mastery with Mage’s Hand, you’ll discover a whole new style of combat."

"Okay, I’ll work hard!"

Hilia thought mastering it wouldn’t be too tough.

Judging by her current Mage’s Hand control, she figured she’d master it by second year, reaching the level Rose described!

Rose just smiled and said nothing.

Naïve.

Mastery and further advancement—that’s stuff on par with the Ascension God Stairs. It takes a flash of inspiration, thousands of hours of practice and use, turning quantity into quality.

Wanting to master it fast? Unless you’re cheating.

In a way, Hilia was cheating—if Rose hadn’t persistently expanded her mental channels, Hilia wouldn’t have picked it up so quickly either.

"Time to review potions now."

After imagining an epic future, Hilia snapped back to reality and picked up her huge potions textbook.

"Hope I don’t fall behind the other candidates too much in my first year."

Being a Holy Daughter isn’t just about fighting—you have to be well-read, knowing a little bit of everything.

Being Tier Two by the end of first year was probably the baseline.

Haven’t seen Doris around lately; obviously she’s off advancing already, probably learning a bunch of Tier Two Magic by now.

In any case...

"You can do this, Hilia!"

Time drifted by painfully in study mode.

In a blink, October arrived. Only three days remained before the annual assessment at Divine Magic Academy.

That day, Alina came to find Hilia.

"Hilia, let’s go—to the Holy Court with me."

"To the Holy Court? For what?" Hilia asked blankly.

"To get your annual evaluation."

"Annual... evaluation?"

"That’s right." Alina nodded. "Every candidate Holy Daughter’s daily behavior is recorded and evaluated before the annual assessment. The higher the rating, the more bonus points are added to your assessment results."

Alina smiled slightly. "You helped us locate a summoning node of the Deep Sea Mutual Aid Association, helped the school crack the base’s Array, and preserved a lot of precious information. That counts as a huge achievement—your evaluation definitely won’t be low."

Not to mention you also destroyed a Dusk Sect base, toyed with a Tier Four heretic, and sent three High Priests to jail in one swoop...

With all that, if you’re not ranked number one, it must be the nobility suppressing you!