NOVEL WEB Chapter 169 Written Exam
In the Magic Kingdom, the written exam for the White Card certification consists of four subjects, namely "Rune Literature," "Mathematics," "Residual Beast Analysis," and "Kingdom Law and Task Behavior Standards."
Among these, "Rune Literature" naturally examines the knowledge reserve of a Magical Girl in the mystical aspects of the Magic Side. Because whether it's interpreting the kingdom's literature, researching magic techniques, or creating magic tools, it all requires corresponding rune knowledge. For a Magical Girl, this quality is essential.
Next is "Mathematics," which aims to verify and ensure that the Magical Girl possesses the ability to handle emergency arithmetic problems. This is also generally recognized as the easiest subject, with its assessment range and difficulty roughly equivalent to the fifth and sixth-grade mathematics of the Material Realm, and there won't be any intricate problems. One can say that as long as a Magical Girl has received basic education, she can definitely pass.
As for "Residual Beast Analysis," as a key subject in the assessment's written exam phase, its difficulty is significantly higher. Its content of examination is not only limited to the classification of residual beasts, the capabilities of different stages of residual beasts, and the common physiological characteristics and indicators of residual beasts but also involves many microscopic level knowledge points.
Taking the first question from last year's exam as an example, the question stem was: "Please list the three functional changes in the consciousness body's physiological stimulus transmission structure from the egg stage to the Huo Stage for a covered-type Residual Beast. If a mutation occurs during evolution and it becomes an open-dirty Residual Beast, what are its functional changes? Try to list more mutated types (extra points will be awarded)."
Such questions permeate the entire subject exam, posing a considerable challenge to the knowledge reserve of each Magical Girl candidate. If it's those Magical Girls from big cities with experienced seniors in their team, it's manageable. They can gradually learn from their seniors in daily battles and slowly accumulate this knowledge. But if it's a Magical Girl from a small place, her seniors might have only mediocre scores in "Residual Beast Analysis," and they might not have much to learn from.
Magical Girls like this can only buy specialized textbooks for preparation. However, it's a fact that not all Magical Girls have the ability to self-study diligently, leading the kingdom to establish special tutoring classes to help those lacking knowledge in this subject.
After these three basic subjects, the exam for "Kingdom Law and Task Behavior Standards" follows.
This assessment was originally designed to let Magical Girls learn about the legal system, and regulate their behavior, to ensure the maximum protection of the general public and minimize unnecessary casualties and losses during tasks. So at the initial establishment of the assessment system, this subject was actually as simple as mathematics, belonging to the category that most candidates could pass by memorizing some material.
However, with the development of the times, to serve as a warning for future generations, this subject began to include various cases of non-compliant task execution, or Magical Girls violating relevant kingdom regulations. Later, in order to ensure that the candidates truly grasped the principles, the exam questions gradually integrated content analyzing and deconstructing these cases. Today, the subject has become a mishmash of task regulations examining Magical Girls' understanding of residual beasts, public infrastructure, citizens, human criminals, fairies, and Magical Girl traitors.
Similarly, taking last year's exam question as an example, one was: "During a Magical Girl's beast-slaying process, improper handling of the battlefield led to toxic substances entering the city's underground water network. To prevent a large-scale water poisoning incident, portions of the water supply network were blown up, causing a temporary hydrological cutoff in parts of the city and reduced crop yield in some agricultural areas. However, it simultaneously killed off a gray magic organization hiding in the sewer. How should the Magical Affairs Institute penalize or reward this?"
"A Magical Girl, due to a third party intruding in her relationship, attempted in anger to lead a beast to her boyfriend's home during a battle, not expecting that the boyfriend's house, being dilapidated, would suffer a collapse accident that very night. The Magical Girl rushed to the scene, realized the mistake, defeated the beast, and attempted to rescue. However, the boyfriend, rescued subsequently, died suddenly due to a heart attack upon witnessing the beast corpse disintegrate. Which regulations did this Magical Girl violate, and how should her actions ultimately be handled?"
Yes, if there is a subject in the qualification certification exam that is the most headache-inducing and the least desirable to take, a vote of the candidates would likely rank this one at the top.
Even if a Magical Girl memorizes regulations and collects relevant cases thoroughly, the Exam Institute can always find bizarre questions that probe candidates' cognitive blind spots. In this battle of wits, akin to a brain-teasing game, the exam questions for this subject become stranger with each passing year.
And even more ironically, if a candidate passes the White Card exam and progresses to the word plate stage, the exam subjects transform — "Rune Literature" becomes "Magic Technique Integration," "Mathematics" becomes "Basic Science," and "Residual Beast Analysis" becomes "Magic Power Characteristics"...
Only "Kingdom Law and Task Behavior Standards" remains unchanged.
Yes, the word plate exam still tests this subject, with even more peculiar and bizarre content. Consequently, the official reference book of the kingdom for this subject, titled "Legal Theory and Norms, From Beginner to Master," is teased by many tormented candidates as "Twisted Theories and Strange Facts, From Entry to Grave."
Of course, these are not things that Emerald Sparrow needs to worry about.
For instance, during the current "Rune Literature" exam, from entering to completing the paper, her expression did not change at all, as if it was written without any ripples.
She was able to proceed so smoothly in the written exam not only because she passed the word plate exam years ago — even if much of it was forgotten thereafter, she had gradually picked it back up in tutoring and training juniors over the past year. Also, because here, she didn't intend to achieve an outstanding score.
"Long Dan" is just an ordinary newbie Magical Girl, and the age recorded on the ID card means she shouldn't have overly mature thoughts or an immense knowledge base. It's already impressive if Magical Girls of the same age can pass the exam. Thus, Emerald Sparrow plans to adhere to this pretend identity to the end, seriously answering only seventy percent of the questions on the entire exam paper, leaving the rest blank as if "she doesn't know how to write it."
However, an odd little episode occurred during this period — her exam venue was the auditorium of the Silver Corridor, with a total of eight proctors, four of whom were Green Faction Magical Girls. Several of these Green Faction Magical Girls passed by her side numerous times, saw the blank questions on her paper, and even tried to secretly give her hand signals to convey the answers. Emerald Sparrow shook her head to each of them, nearly speaking out loud that she didn't want a high score to finally settle them down.
Yet such a peculiar phenomenon drew the attention of the other four proctoring Magical Girls. They assumed there was suspicion of cheating by a Magical Girl in Emerald Sparrow's area, thereby extending their stay nearby and increasing the patrol frequency.
Emerald Sparrow's paper intentionally left almost a third blank and was viewed by several proctors. They disapproved of "candidate Long Dan" for leaving large blank areas on the paper for questions she didn't know, even being too lazy to guess possible solutions. More than one proctor signaled to Emerald Sparrow to fill in the blanks, while one even returned later to check again, making it truly exasperating.
Fortunately, the exam time quickly ran out. The content of "Rune Literature" itself was not difficult, and acts of cheating were not prevalent, so the first written exam concluded smoothly.
The four subjects are spread over two days, each taking half a day. Therefore, after this exam ends, the candidates will have a full lunch break.
After finishing the "Rune Literature" exam, Emerald Sparrow drooped her eyelids and came out of the exam room, immediately pulling out her phone to send a message inquiring to a few juniors:
[How did you do on the exam?]