Two consecutive bolts of lightning greatly dampened the young wizards' enthusiasm for discussing The Wand's roster.
Until the end of Alchemy class, the three male wizards behaved as meekly as chicks, diligently reviewing Professor Tesla's notes and working through the vast, complex alchemical formulas on scratch paper.
It was only after class.
Most of the people in the classroom had already left. When Zheng Qing raised his head and rolled his aching neck, he happened to see the witch in the first row leading Li Meng out.
His thoughts stirred slightly, and he poked the Fat Wizard in front of him with the shaft of his brush.
"Let's not talk about the Great Arcana," the young publicly funded student said first, setting the tone and drawing a red line for everyone. "Were there any changes in the Minor Arcana this year?"
Fatty Xin turned around with difficulty.
"The Minor Arcana?"
He pulled that crumpled piece of parchment from his robes, glanced at it, and muttered, "Hmm, there are two interesting ones... One is Andrew Taylor from Alpha. He entered the Coin Sequence and was directly named 'Knight.' I guess that has a lot to do with his performance during the Winter Hunt. The other is Nicholas... He entered the Wands, Sequence Ten."
Most of the names that entered The Wand had clear reasons behind them. They were generally assigned according to the proportion of the top one to four outstanding students in each year. Every September, after half a year of observation and assessment, The Wand selected some first-year students to enter the Minor Arcana at the end of the first semester, while removing some upperclassmen who were about to graduate from the roster.
This almost hereditary cycle of replacement resembled a set of precise gears, each tooth tightly meshing