Fifteen minutes later.
"The test is over. Stop what you're doing," Female Wizard Peggy said. Compared with the previous group, she had ended this round of testing five minutes early. Only then did some of the Wizard Apprentices realize why Peggy had not cared that their water was colder—it was because of this.
Only the young man in blue stood there with a blank expression, feeling like an idiot. Looking at the water in the vat before him, which had not yet fully frozen, he used every last ounce of strength to pour in the final strand of mana.
Peggy walked to the first Wizard Apprentice's water vat and began checking how thoroughly it had frozen.
She extended a slender, pale finger and tapped the ice surface. After listening to the dull sound it made, she nodded. "Pass."
She moved to the next one and tapped it again. "Pass."
The third one: "Pass."
The fourth...
When she reached the fourth Wizard Apprentice, Peggy paused slightly after tapping the ice with her finger. Hearing the clearly different echo, her expression slowly turned displeased as she looked toward the Wizard Apprentice.
"Wizard, listen to me, I..." The fourth Wizard Apprentice opened his mouth to explain, but Peggy coldly cut him off the next moment.
"Get out. Don't make me say it twice," Peggy said.
The fourth Wizard Apprentice stiffened. He forcibly swallowed the words he had not finished saying and ran out of the courtyard in disgrace.
"Hmph."
Peggy gave a faint snort and said nothing more as she walked toward the fifth Wizard Apprentice.
Then the sixth, the seventh...
Before long, Peggy reached the young man's water vat.
The young man was gasping heavily beside the vat, panting like a dog. Seeing Peggy approach, he grew somewhat flustered and said between