Although Veronica, the current Saintess of the Church of Light, had been rushing to the Magic Tower hosting the exchange as quickly as possible, her noble status dictated that every road she traveled had to be cleared by a squad of knights in advance to ensure safety before she could pass.
Consequently, by the time she finally arrived at the Magic Tower, the preliminary defense segment had officially come to an end.
"We deeply apologize for failing to get you here in time!"
The Bishop in White, Bernard, and the Deputy Director of the Inquisition, Reinhardt, bowed in unison to apologize, fine beads of sweat trickling down their foreheads.
Veronica stood at the entrance of the Magic Tower. Afternoon sunlight streamed through high windows onto her platinum-blonde hair, casting a soft halo around her.
She maintained her signature narrow-eyed smile as she spoke:
"There is no need to blame yourselves so heavily. This must surely be Lady Serafina's arrangement. Had I appeared inside the examination hall during the preliminary defense, it would only have caused chaos and disrupted the students' performance, which would put the cart before the horse."
She paused before continuing:
"However, since the purpose of my visit is to learn, I plan to head to the grading room now and join the professors responsible for the preliminary defense. I want to see if there are any students exceptional enough for me to learn from."
Bernard and Reinhardt exchanged a glance, both bowing their heads in agreement.
Without further delay, Veronica stepped lightly into the interior of the Magic Tower, accompanied by her two guard nuns.
Watching her figure vanish behind the doors, Bernard slowly straightened up and asked Reinhardt beside him in a low voice:
"Tell me... could there really be a student so outstanding that Her Holiness the Saintess could learn from them?"
Reinhardt remained silent for a moment before shaking his head.
"Although students from over a hundred magic academies are gathered in the Magic Tower this time, I believe the possibility is slim. After all, before Lady Veronica became the Saintess, she was an exceptionally brilliant genius in her own right."
Bernard sighed. "Forget it. I can sense Her Holiness didn't hold high expectations to begin with anyway. I just hope no trouble arises."
The two pursued the topic no further and turned to leave the Magic Tower.
As the preliminary defense had just concluded, most students had gone to the dining hall on the middle floors of the Magic Tower, leaving the corridors and elevators practically deserted.
Thus, Veronica reached her destination without hindrance.
When she pushed open the door and stepped into the grading room, the busy professors paused their work one after another.
Upon recognizing her face, everyone immediately stood up and bowed in greeting as one.
"We respectfully welcome Her Holiness the Saintess!"
Although their respective headmasters had informed them in advance that the Saintess would audit the exchange to observe and learn, actually meeting her in person still made them nervous. After all, she was the current Saintess of the Church of Light, a figure secondary only to the Goddess of Light, Serafina, in the minds of countless believers.
Veronica was no stranger to scenes like this.
She smiled gently, clasped her hands before her, and spoke in a warm, approachable tone:
"Please do not be nervous, everyone. Continue with your work. I am only here to observe if there are any interesting insights and will not disturb you."
Her voice possessed a natural calming power. The tense nerves of the professors gradually relaxed, and they sat back down in their respective seats to resume their grading.
The topic for this preliminary defense was "The Loss Mechanism of Mana Conduction and Its Optimization Solutions."
It was a classic and open-ended question that evaluated both the students' mastery of basic theory and their ability to put forward novel insights.
The professors needed to score the students' responses across four dimensions based on their answers: clarity of arguments, sufficiency of evidence, innovation, and logical rigor.
The grading room was quiet and orderly, filled only with the rustling of turning paper and the scratching of quill pens across pages.
Whenever a professor encountered an interesting answer, they would call over nearby colleagues to review and confirm it, occasionally sparking quiet discussions.
Throughout this process, Veronica stood quietly to the side, her gaze moving across the exam papers alongside the professors' discussions, neither offering opinions nor disrupting their work.
Before long, a professor from Glory Cael Magic Academy picked up an answer sheet. After examining it for a moment, he nodded slightly and said to a colleague beside him:
"The perspective in this response is very clear, with explicit arguments and solid evidence. Although the proposed solution isn't particularly novel, its strength lies in complete logic and an extremely solid foundation."
Another professor leaned over to glance at the student's name. "Victoria Cecil... Hmm, isn't she the first-year representative from Glory Cael?"
"Indeed."
The professor nodded, a trace of emotion in his voice:
"To think a student from a commoner background possesses such natural insight—it truly is rare."
Hearing this, Veronica let her gaze linger on that answer sheet for a brief moment, though she said nothing.
A short while later, another professor picked up an answer sheet, read through it, and could not help but admire aloud:
"The logic in this response is remarkably thorough; the argument is almost flawless. Furthermore, her understanding of mana conduction on a microscopic level far surpasses that of most second-year students."
"This is Silvia Lorraine's answer sheet."
A professor nearby glanced at the name and raised his voice slightly, seemingly intending for Veronica to hear:
"I heard she can proficiently use various light-attribute spells. A student like her would surely be considered quite outstanding even within the Church of Light, right?"
Hearing that, Veronica merely gave a faint nod and responded calmly with a single word: "Yes."
And that was all.
The smile on the professor's face—who had intended to flatter her—froze for a second, and a subtle awkwardness filled the air.
Coughing dryly, he hurriedly lowered his head to read the next answer sheet, not daring to say another word.
Soon, other professors brought up the answer sheets of Lilith and Vivian:
"These two are the First and Second Princesses of the kingdom, after all."
"No wonder their foundations are so solid."
Another professor chimed in, "It seems they haven't slacked off due to their royal status; on the contrary, they've been working quite hard."
Veronica's gaze rested briefly on both answer sheets, yet she still offered no special evaluation.
Afterward, the professors sequentially commented on several other excellent answer sheets from the other four major magic academies—such as one from a niece of Aurora, headmistress of Ember-Eye Tower Magic Academy; one from the Young Mistress of the Gloom Wolf Tribe; one from the Prince of the Elf Kingdom; and one from the Third Imperial Princess of the Empire.
What surprised them even more was that outside the Five Great Academies, a first-year student named Melina from Frost Ring Magic Academy had actually reached the same caliber as these prodigies.
Yet, although all these students' answers had their respective highlights, featuring solid foundations and clear logic that placed them firmly at the top level even among the Five Great Academies, in Veronica's eyes, these responses merely fell within the category of excellent students. They were still far from reaching a level that would make her eyes light up.
Just as she assumed this batch of students would reach this level at best, a professor sitting in a corner suddenly uttered a soft exclamation of surprise.
"Hmm, the handwriting is certainly quite nice—"
Her voice carried a casual tone of praise, but in the very next second, her pitch spiked sharply:
"Wait—w-what is this!?"
Her unusual reaction quickly drew the attention of those around her.
Several professors set down their own answer sheets and gathered round to look at the exam paper in her hands.
And when Veronica's gaze followed to fall upon the words written on that paper, her relaxed expression suddenly turned serious.
It was a feeling difficult to put into words.
The handwriting on the paper was neat and elegant, but what truly moved her was the content those words conveyed.
Not only did this answer accurately pinpoint the core issue of mana conduction loss, but it also proposed a revolutionary theoretical framework—an optimization scheme for conduction that she herself had never seen in any literature.
Even more frighteningly, the logical chain of this scheme was complete and rigorous. Every inference was supported by sound reasoning, and it had even anticipated and counter-argued potential objections in advance.
Spanning thousands of words, the entire response contained not a single line of filler, as if its author had contemplated this very problem for decades.
Veronica slowly opened her eyes, which shone like starlight, letting her gaze rest for a moment on the signature line of the answer sheet.
Greg Sass.
She softly repeated the name to herself, then closed her eyes once more.
Only now, the smile at the corners of her lips carried a nuance quite different from before.
...
Meanwhile, in the dining hall on the middle floor of the Magic Tower, Greg leaned back in his chair after eating and drinking his fill, comfortably checking the time.
Calculating the timeline in his head, he mused:
Judging by the timeline of the original game, the Saintess of the Church of Light should be in the grading room by now.
So by now... she ought to be about to see my exam paper and take an interest in me.
Rate on N.U.
