"Principal Dilan, the students from the Magic Beast Academy this year aren't very good."
In the backstage area, Lan Chen sat down beside Principal Dilan. After watching the magic beast demonstrations of nearly thirty students, Lan Chen gave his blunt assessment.
Dilan's eyelid twitched, but he said nothing. Ni Lan, sitting nearby, replied, "Is Instructor Lan saying that the Divine Guard Academy has an excellent pool of students this year?"
"Ahem, that's not what I meant." Lan Chen apologized sincerely.
During the Crown Prince Year, several direct descendants of noble families had enrolled in the Divine Guard Academy. They had specifically chosen to enter in the same class as the Crown Prince in hopes of competing for positions as the Crown Prince's guards or the guards of future vassal kings. The quality of the incoming students had not declined but instead increased, completely unlike the lukewarm situation at the other academies.
"What I mean is that they're worse than I expected." After thinking for a while, Lan Chen still spoke bluntly.
Ni Lan rolled her eyes furiously. She had no idea how to respond to this straightforward man, while Dilan's expression had grown frighteningly dark.
What the other man said was indeed the truth. This year's quality was shockingly poor, far worse than in previous Crown Prince Years. The students who took the stage had already been screened once. Several thousand candidates had been narrowed down to over four hundred, yet the first thirty students to demonstrate had still been so unbearable to watch that they had not even reached the usual preliminary-test standard.
It truly put people in a bad mood. And beside them was a painfully blunt man who insisted on telling the truth.
"Uh..." Seeing Dilan's gloomy expression, Lan Chen realized he might have hit a sore