"Wizards?" Zheng Qing thought of the little girl from earlier and felt his teeth ache. "I could barely accept it if you said Taoists."
"That includes Chinese Taoists, monks, Confucian scholars, the Church's cultivators and priests, Japanese Onmyoji and Ninja, India's Brahman monks, Egyptian priests, American superpowered individuals, and even non-living beings like the Blood Clan, Werewolves, vicious ghosts, and spirits. They all count as wizards. Different names merely arose for historical reasons."
Zheng Qing blinked, finding it rather interesting. "You said First University is a Wizard University. Does that mean there are wizard middle schools and wizard elementary schools too?"
"Correct!" Thomas nodded. His emerald-green eyes were calm and clear, and there was not the slightest trace of a joke on his face.
"Then do you know Hogwarts?" Zheng Qing asked with a smile.
"Of course. Outstanding Hogwarts graduates can always enter Alpha Academy of First University without taking an entrance exam." Thomas looked somewhat surprised. "You know that school too? Do you have a friend there? If I heard correctly, a little girl mentioned that school's name on the road earlier as well. Hogwarts is an ancient middle school located in Britain. I attended middle school at Super Genius in America. In truth, aside from recruiting new students and certain international exchanges and collaborations, First University has little connection with those middle schools."
"What day is it today?" Zheng Qing cut off Thomas's endless explanation. He pulled a long face as he stared at the guy with gleaming hair before him, his eyes full of suspicion. "It doesn't seem to be April Fool's Day."
"You don't believe me?" Thomas raised an eyebrow.
"I'm just a little curious. It's not that I don't believe in these, um, supernatural things..."
"There's nothing supernatural about this. Isn't this perfectly natural?" Thomas interrupted solemnly. "To wizards, everything is natural."
"What I mean is, I've never attended any wizard elementary school or wizard middle school... The fact that this is a university rather than an elementary school alone says a lot. Would you expect someone who doesn't even know addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division to prove '1+1'? I'm not Harry Potter!" Zheng Qing waved his hand irritably, explaining in a hurried tone.
"Who is Harry Potter? I've heard his name several times today." Thomas looked utterly baffled, but still answered seriously, "Also, isn't one plus one equal to two?"
"Are you an alien?" Zheng Qing's eyes widened.
"To be precise, I do have some alien blood." Frowning, Thomas answered seriously, though somewhat unwillingly. "But I wouldn't recommend asking other students that at school. It's very rude... If school regulations didn't require interviewers to answer students' questions, I wouldn't bother with someone as unreasonable as you."
A tea house waiter came over carrying a kettle to refill their water, replacing the platter of dried fruit at the same time.
Zheng Qing picked out a peanut, cracked its shell, and tossed the kernel into his mouth. Chewing, he shifted sideways and changed his sitting position. He found their conversation just now extremely bizarre. He needed to move around a little and adjust his state of mind.
"How did you find me?" Zheng Qing changed the subject after watching the waiter leave.
Thomas's raised brows and gaze swept over Zheng Qing's head, as though he found the question as laughable as the ahoge atop his head.
Zheng Qing looked around. The waiter stood behind the counter with a numb smile, while the few scattered customers cared only about the cups before them. The entire tea house was exceptionally quiet.
He picked up his teacup, took a sip, and put it another way. "What I mean is, how did you know I was a wizard?"
Thomas still looked puzzled, as though he still did not understand what Zheng Qing was talking about.
"What I mean is, I don't remember applying to First University." Zheng Qing considered his words and rephrased the question again. "And I've been emphasizing since earlier that I never attended wizard kindergarten, elementary school, or middle school. I have hundreds of classmates who can testify to that. From elementary school through high school, for more than ten years, I never strayed beyond a two-street radius."
"Oh." Thomas suddenly understood. Then he studied Zheng Qing with a very strange look and said, "But you can cast spells, right? It's like you finished elementary and middle school at a school that wasn't entirely formal. Once your abilities were sufficient, you were naturally added to the school roster."
"Besides, you also took the independent admissions exam organized by First University." Thomas took out a sheet of paper and handed it to Zheng Qing, smiling with satisfaction. "I have your score report from the global Wizard College Entrance Exam. The full score is 500 points, and you scored 480. You ranked second among this year's newcomers. An excellent result!"
As he spoke, he raised his teacup and took a sip. He nodded at the stunned Zheng Qing and gave him an encouraging smile.
Zheng Qing vaguely recalled the night he had found Poseidon's mother.
Before someone shook him awake in the KTV, he had dreamed of running after a black cat. Then it had led him deep into a dense forest, into a large building, where a pretty little girl stuffed him into an examination room to take a baffling test.
"I always thought that was a dream." Zheng Qing felt like an idiot.
"It was an examination conducted in dreams. There is no faster way to gather all examinees in one place than in a dream." Thomas shook his head. "From Alaska to the Himalayas, examinees are scattered across the globe. The school doesn't have enough Pumpkin Carriages to send to all of you."
"You travel by Pumpkin Carriage?" Zheng Qing grinned.
"That was a figure of speech." Thomas took a deep breath. "You can think of it as a bad joke."
"Then could you introduce this... First University to me?"
"Just as its name suggests, First University is the number one university in the Wizarding World." Thomas did not refuse. After thinking for a moment, he began speaking at length.
"What students receive at this school is the finest education, verified by many Archwizards: Sky Script that can travel throughout the universe, spellcraft encompassing different mystical arts, the preparation of all kinds of miraculous potions, a higher-level understanding of the World Origin, and a broader understanding of our history. It could be said that this school gathers together all the world's finest knowledge and teaches it to the next generation."
"The school has a very long history, though there are still some disagreements over its exact founding date."
"First University developed from Jiuyou Academy. It originally had only a few specialized departments, such as the Department of Arcane Arts, Department of Potions, Department of Alchemy, and so on. But with the changing times, three hundred years ago, the Professor Joint Conference of that era spent several years deliberating before finally joining forces with several outstanding academies from the Wizarding World to establish the new First University. Although the school's influence expanded greatly, its internal disputes also became more numerous."
"For example, there was the dispute over the school's founding date. Some insist it should be calculated from the establishment of Jiuyou Academy, believing the school has existed for thousands of years. Others believe the school was truly founded three hundred years ago, and that the former Jiuyou Academy was utterly incomparable to the current First University."
Thomas shook his head, took a sip of tea, and curled his lips in clear disapproval.
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