Turns Out I Was the One Getting a Perfect Score

Xie Yu let out a breath, easing the irritation in his heart.

Sure enough, he should never have turned the paper over. He should have just answered the questions on the front and been done with it. At least he would have been in a good mood after the exam.

He had heard that the Kingdom Magic Apprentice Unified Entrance Examination had originally been established so that ordinary people could become magic apprentices too, and to prevent mage nobles and financial magnates from monopolizing magic.

It gave children from ordinary families who dreamed of magic something to do, allowing them to understand the greatness of mages. Perhaps, every now and then, an extraordinarily gifted genius would emerge from among ordinary people and add to the kingdom's talent pool.

Yet other memories, entirely at odds with that, surfaced in Xie Yu's mind.

Last year, his father had paid a great deal of money to hire Chris, a young mage, as Xie Yu's private tutor. Once, in his spare time, Chris had said to Xie Yu:

"Magic knowledge is probably passed down through bloodlines.

"Look at your parents' mage ranks when you're born. That's probably the limit you'll reach in your lifetime."

Chris was a genius from Pinecone Town who had passed the entrance exam and gone to the kingdom's capital seven years ago. Many people in the town regarded him as its pride and glory. When he returned to visit his family, he worked as a private tutor on the side to earn some gold coins.

"You're so talented. Can't you become a sage either?" Xie Yu hadn't understood what he meant at the time, so he had asked.

"Rather than fantasize about becoming a sage, I'd be better off fantasizing about my father working hard to become one and taking me along for the ride."

Chris had laughed, patted the child on the head, and told him to stop talking nonsense and get back to memorizing his lessons, with sixty points as his goal.

[The Petulant Test Paper (affection 80) looked at you expectantly:]

[You're reading so carefully!]

[Can you really see a corner of the kingdom in these questions? Can you tell me what the great kingdom is like?]

"It sounds like you're very interested in the great kingdom.

"You're part of the kingdom's greatness yourself. You represent the fair opportunity for commoners to receive a magical education too. The kingdom's greatness is shining through you."

Xie Yu said.

What he said and what he thought were, of course, two different things. After all, when faced with an exam paper, he had to say what it wanted to hear.

In truth, before entering the examination hall, Xie Yu had felt nothing sacred about changing the course of his life, nor did he care about the so-called exam, becoming a magic apprentice, or going to school.

He would rather finish the exam quickly and spend some time learning about this other world, absorbing everything in his memories, adjusting to his new identity as Xie Yu, and figuring out what the affection he could see was all about.

Still, the exam paper's affection was rising pretty quickly.

Looking at the affection above the paper, Xie Yu felt that a mere sixty points would no longer satisfy his appetite.

Not knowing how to answer the questions didn't mean he couldn't get points.

Based on his experience answering the basic questions, this exam paper clearly knew its own answers.

[The Petulant Test Paper (affection 85) laughed happily:]

[Really? Am I shining? I'm part of the kingdom's greatness too? That's wonderful... No one has ever told me that before.]

The term "affection" didn't exist anywhere in Xie Yu's memories of his first sixteen years, and it didn't seem to be an effect of magic either.

If this was his golden finger, he had to put it to good use.

He would start grinding affection.

The exam was hard, but when it came to winning affection, Xie Yu was confident he had a few tricks up his sleeve.

[The Petulant Test Paper (affection 85):]

[Come on, write on me!]

[Don't hold back. Please, write on me to your heart's content. Even if you can't fill me up, I won't mind anymore.]

[I heard that the higher your score, the better the school you can go to.]

"Great and fair exam paper, I've run into a problem."

Xie Yu first buttered up the exam paper, then reached out and gently stroked its edge. In a sorrowful voice, he said:

"Advanced question three requires spiritual material ink, but I didn't bring any. I didn't even know I needed to bring it. I think this goes against the kingdom's original intention of being fair and just."

[The Petulant Test Paper (affection 85) sounded a little flustered:]

[I don't know how to help. Didn't you have a diviner divine what materials you needed to bring to the exam in advance?]

Good grief, diviners could divine that too?

Xie Yu felt he had finally glimpsed the secret behind the exam. No wonder people said mages relied on bloodlines to cultivate, even though magic knowledge itself had nothing to do with bloodlines.

With even a little help from a mage, the difficulty of the exam was worlds apart.

"But I'm a child from an ordinary family. Neither my father nor my mother is a mage, and I don't know any seniors in the field of divination either. Does that mean the kingdom's fairness has to shut me out?

"Great exam paper, I understand that you're fair, and I understand my fate. I'm just a little sad."

Xie Yu spoke softly, his eyes slightly red.

[The willful and guilty exam paper (affection 90) felt it had wronged you:]

[Don't cry, please don't cry. I didn't know anything like this happened. I suppose the magisters at the examination board must have accidentally left it out when they announced the exam rules.]

[But... I can't help you with that. Now that things have come to this, answer the other questions first.]

"Yes! An exam is an exam. This is part of the exam too."

Xie Yu smiled, adjusting the corners of his mouth to the most subtly pitiful angle, and nodded emphatically.

[The willful and guilty exam paper (affection 92) was entranced by your smile.]

[It actually felt that what it had said was unreasonable, but there was nothing it could do. It feared your negative emotions and feared that you would come to hate it because of this, so it had forced itself to offer some comfort.]

[It hadn't expected that you wouldn't blame it.]

Xie Yu picked up his pen and began reading the questions carefully in order again.

[Advanced question 1. The field of sealed artifacts...]

He pretended he had the answer in mind and prepared to write, but the instant the tip of his pen was about to touch the paper, his hand stopped.

"Great, fair, and kind exam paper, I was wondering what kind of people are taking this exam alongside me."

Xie Yu looked around the examination hall.

The people sitting here were all like Xie Yu. Many of them were still scratching their heads over the basic questions. It seemed that a simple word like "sage" could stump them, and they wrote cautiously, afraid of remembering or writing something wrong.

[The willful and guilty exam paper (affection 92) asked curiously:]

[What kind of people could there be in the examination hall?]

"Kingdom Sealed Artifact 2-079 seems to be in the Southwestern Administrative Province. There must be an advanced research institute in the provincial capital that houses it. Have the youths at that institute's preparatory academy seen the sealed artifact with their own eyes and touched it with their own hands?"

Xie Yu said with a sigh.

[The willful and guilty exam paper (affection 92) began to imagine:]

[Of course! The academies also have a sealed artifact exchange program. Safe sealed artifacts are displayed in rotation at research institutes across the kingdom, so that as many children as possible can come into contact with them. As the most complex, powerful, and wondrous field of magic, the field of sealed artifacts has always been a top priority in the kingdom's education efforts.]

"But I've never been to the administrative province's capital, and I'm not eligible to attend any research institute's preparatory academy. Exam paper, how do you think someone gets to study at a place like that?"

Xie Yu said with a sigh.

[The willful and guilty exam paper (affection 95) fell silent.]

[An answer appeared in its mind:]

[The answer was simple. To attend a magic research institute's preparatory academy, one parent had to hold an official position at the institute. The lowest official position at any magic research institute was lecturer, and applicants needed a three-star mage certificate.]

[It realized something was wrong, but it couldn't put its finger on what. Its guilt toward you deepened a little more.]

"Looks like I stumped you." Xie Yu patted a blank space on the paper.

[You did not! Idiot, you can't stump me. It's just...]

"Actually, I've had a thought in my heart ever since the moment I met you." Seeing the paper fall silent halfway through its sentence, Xie Yu launched his final assault.

Xie Yu's genius inspiration told him the time had come.

[The Petulant Test Paper (affection 95) was relieved by the change of subject and asked curiously:]

[What thought?]

"I want to take you to see the great kingdom. I want to take you to see its vast cities, take you through crowds of people coming and going, walking from day into night, from winter into summer. We'll go see the real kingdom.

"I want to fill you up with writing, cover you completely-not just fill in one question after another, but fill you up too."

Xie Yu gazed at the exam paper, his eyes burning.

[The Petulant Test Paper (affection soared to 100):]

[Aaaaaah! What are you saying? What are you saying?! You can't talk like that! You shouldn't say things like that!]

"I just said what I was thinking, that's all," Xie Yu said with a smile.

[But, but we're strangers who only met in the examination hall. We've only spent thirty short minutes together. We haven't even chatted yet, we haven't...]

[And then we'll have to part. I'll be collected, and you'll go back to your home...]

"Yes. There are still so many things we haven't done, and we're already going to part."

The boy sighed cautiously. He no longer pressed his case, instead showing his sorrow in a gentler way.

His inspiration told him that he couldn't force the exam paper to do anything. Willful as it was, it didn't like a heavy hand.

After pushing hard, he also needed to ease up a little and relax.

That was the trick to winning over this exam paper.

Xie Yu wasn't completely certain, nor could he predict what the exam paper would do. Even if it suddenly turned against him, he wouldn't lose anything. It would merely be a little hardship along the way as he explored his ability.

His gaze fixed on the exam paper's affection, the number 100 a vivid red.

[The Petulant Test Paper (affection 100) felt that its life was too sad:]

[I didn't mean to make things difficult for you.]

[I was written this way from the start. I can't decide my own fate either.]

[I'm just an exam paper, like millions and millions of others...]

Seeing the exam paper's reaction, Xie Yu believed that this attempt to win it over, which amounted to cheating, seemed likely to succeed.

"I'm just a child born to a commoner family too. In the kingdom's examination halls, there are millions and millions of people just like me. I understand how you feel."

[The Petulant Test Paper (affection 100) made its final decision:]

[I'll tell you all the answers! Don't worry about the ink for drawing the magic array either. I can just go rub up against another exam paper to borrow some.]

[A perfect-score exam paper will be put on display. When the time comes, you must remember to come and get me.]