"What's wrong? Why the long face?" Lin Nan pressed. "Don't even ask." Zhao Xin looked so miserable that his whole face nearly crumpled.
"My ranking wasn't high enough. They assigned me to the Heavenly Observatory Court, so now I'm a poor bastard just like you."
The prefectural examination had rankings. Those who failed to rank high enough for the Criminal Law Court or the Central Secretariat had to accept reassignment.
"Look at it this way. Once you finish your training, you can hunt demons with the Evil-Quelling Office and make plenty of money. How great is that?" Lin Nan patted his shoulder comfortingly.
"No, I'm not earning money by licking blood off a blade's edge!" Zhao Xin snorted. "I'd rather hole up in the academy studying forever and never graduate."
Lin Nan gave him a speechless sidelong glance.
The time allotted for study at Jiangnan Academy was limited, and students had to pay ten taels of silver each month while studying. Only after passing the assessment and graduating could they join an Evil-Quelling Office team as an academy representative, serving as support personnel who analyzed intelligence.
Students could choose when to take that assessment. The quickest graduated in three months, while the slower ones took years. Some never passed at all. It depended entirely on their foundation and aptitude.
After the two collected iron identification tokens from the academy and signed their contracts,
Lin Nan began his studies at the Heavenly Observatory Court.
The Heavenly Observatory Court's regular curriculum had three core components. The first was case-file writing and analysis of anomalous disasters. Students reviewed historical demon-suppression cases and reports of strange phenomena from various regions, studying the terrain where incidents occurred, the circumstances of the victims, and the characteristics of the evil entities involved.
The second was general study