The assignment Belphegor gave the black cat was not difficult. They were the sort of questions anyone could answer by diligently consulting textbooks and reference books. The process and answers were simply too cumbersome, doing almost nothing to improve magical ability beyond testing a student's patience.
Like the question about drawing a star chart.
These days, a standard star chart drawn with a magical quill sold for five Copper Coins per large sheet at Green's General Store. If one wanted a specific region of the sky, another five Copper Coins would do, and the shopkeeper would even thoughtfully add a soft border to the chart—after all, a small roast chicken at Yota Restaurant in Beta Town cost twenty-four Copper Coins, skin and bones included.
Other than the old pedants at First University, no one still lay sprawled over parchment with a Brass Telescope and Quill Pen, painstakingly tracing the heavenly bodies above, each with its varying brightness.
Many students privately speculated that the school retained this ancient, backward method of study partly because of the inertia of tradition, but also because it used these meticulous, tedious assignments to drain young wizards' energy, so they would not have too much free time to cause trouble all over campus.
But none of that was a reason for the black cat to help with someone else's homework.
Looking at the densely packed questions covering the parchment, the black cat nearly raised its little furball-sized paw and slapped the Bird Head Mask in front of it—he could not even finish his own homework, and this guy wanted him to do someone else's?
This birdman was dreaming!
Only the fist-sized lump of gold glittering beneath the moonlight barely suppressed the black cat's anger and kept it from leaping up in a fit of impulse.
"I