At the start of term, professors were always especially lenient.
When Zheng Qing and his group hurried into the classroom, there were less than five minutes left before class, yet Old Yao had not arrived, and the room was unusually lively. The joy of reuniting after the holiday mixed with the major news of the New Academy's establishment, giving everyone more than enough to chat about.
Unlike newspaper editors who were timid and constrained, young wizards never hesitated to comment boldly on current affairs. First University's special status also gave these young people still within the ivory tower an exceptionally broad perspective. Though their views might not have been sufficiently profound, they were remarkably sharp, keenly detecting the undercurrents surging swiftly beneath the placid surface after the New Academy's founding.
These "undercurrents" were not yet clearly reflected in the school newspaper, which prided itself on neutrality.
But the Beta Town Post, which had always leaned conspicuously toward Alpha Academy, made no attempt to hide them. In today's special edition, it devoted extensive coverage to North District Wizards practicing "Sacrifice Magic," North District Wizards squeezing ordinary lower-class wizards out of their jobs, and the stronger tendency toward Evil God worship among Edge Wizard communities—even the general rise in spellcasting material prices since last year was blamed on North District Wizards buying in bulk, causing supply shortages and vicious inflation, among other things.
It was as though ordinary wizards had grown poorer entirely because of the appearance of North District Wizards and Edge Academy.
Jiuyou and Alpha had never gotten along.
As the saying went, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Jiuyou had not originally enjoyed a particularly good relationship with North District Wizards, but if Alpha people said something was bad, then in the eyes of Jiuyou people, it