Harold Receives A Shock

After Asher had returned alone -though not quite since he had Ol' Fang in his shadow-, he immediately laid on his bed and ignored everyone else. At the end of the day, when classes were over, Owen, Noah and James arrived to see a 'log' on the bed, releasing intermittent snoring sounds that disrupted the peace of the room.

James had an inferiority complex towards nobles, so he didn't do anything about it. Noah wanted to please Asher and get his attention to support his family, so he too didn't make any complaints or disrupt Asher's sleep. Owen was the only one who held no good feelings about Asher, but he also didn't want to interact with him, so he left him sleeping. And so, the three had to go on with their activities while Asher's snoring sounds reverberated throughout the room.

Luckily for them, daybreak eventually came and Asher woke up with a loud noise.

"Ah~ I really had a goodnight's sleep."

'Goodnight sleep? You slept from 3 pm yesterday till now. Why wouldn't you have a good sleep.' Noah cursed internally.

"The results should be out today, right?" Asher asked.

Since both his uncle and father wanted him to do well in school, then he had to start taking things seriously.

"Yeah. The academy has strict procedures and guidelines regarding such. Group tests like yesterday's don't usually take more than a day before the scores get released. There's a special panel for that, you know." Noah informed him.

The test was held yesterday and since the number of participants wasn't exactly huge, the marking process wasn't time-consuming.

"Alright. Let's go then."

"If I didn't know any better, I would think that you actually did well." Owen sneered.

"Save the talk for when the scores come out." Asher waved his hand.

…

The previous day in a certain building within the academy…

A bunch of people in black cloaks and strange masks that covered their faces. Each sat neatly in front of an assigned table without any noise coming from them. On the table were a bunch of scripts and just like machines, the cloaked individuals graded each script in silence.

Just like Noah had said, there was a special panel that dealt with recording and marking the test scripts of the students. The aim of the panel was to prevent any form of malpractice from the teacher's side. No one could say for sure that a professor in the academy might not be partial to a certain script that belongs to his nephew, child or whatever, once he or she discovered it. The academy didn't prevent relatives of the staff from attending, so there was a high chance of such occurring. Hence, the upper echelons brought up the idea of having a certain group of people charged with grading tests, rather than leaving such in the hands of the course's professor.

Everyone in the panel wore a black gown with a black mask that had a number written clearly on it. Apart from the director and a few high-ups in the academy, nobody knew their identity; not even the professors or the cloaked men themselves. No one knew the other and the other didn't know another. They simply addressed themselves by the number on their mask. This was the special panel in charge of grading students; the Grading panel, and yes, the name was indeed very 'original'.

Professor Harold stood at one side, overseeing the entire process. Whenever an anomaly was found, it would be reported to him for directions since he was the head of the course that was being graded. As the scripts weren't identified based on names, it would be quite difficult for the professor to know which belonged to whom. Nonetheless, since the results of the test pertained to the results of the promotional exams, the grading panel was called in.

So far so good, there was nothing out of the ordinary and professor Harold was getting bored. Truthfully, he was even a bit disappointed.

'With all my efforts in teaching these silly kids for two weeks, no one has been able to make an excellent score so far.' Harold frowned.

So far, the highest score in the class was 87%. This was already quite impressive but when considering things from the strict views of Harold, it was just average. A test comprising lessons from the past two weeks had only led to an 87% grade being the highest? What would happen if the test comprised of a month's worth of lectures? And the midterm test was six months' worth.

'The average grade is acceptable to a certain extent, but for the highest to be just at 87%, this means that there's no genius-level figure in my class.' Harold sighed.

This year's students were divided into three divisions and Harold was in charge of the Basic Magical Studies course for one of them but had no relation with the other two classes. According to Roland, there were eight children with great potential in this year's batch, but it seemed like none of them were a part of his class.

'Such bad luck.'

Just as Harold was lamenting his luck, one of the graders suddenly made a sound. Albeit low, Harold was a Guardian with six mana points open; his senses were above an ordinary human being's, so he easily heard it.

"What's wrong?" Harold questioned.

"This script, professor. The answers are just, amazing. I have never seen anything like it before. The writer seems to have answered quite a few of the questions from a perspective never thought of before, but they are all correct."

"Hmph. Let me see that." Harold got irritated.

He always hated having to work with the grading panel. In his opinion, what was the use of having professors if they couldn't even grade their own students by themselves? Apart from that, it was rumoured that the members of the guarding panels weren't certified professors, hence he even looked down on them more. If you aren't a professor, then what gives you the right to grade a student's script?

Taking the script from the cloaked man's hands, Harold scanned through it. At first, he was a bit surprised, then it turned into shock. Finally, he got immersed in the script to the point that Harold ignored his surrounding, including the incensed glance from the masked man.

"This, this, this is amazing. Glorious!" Harold cried out.

"In my twelve years of working in this academy, this is the very first time a script has made me feel this way. This student is a bloody genius, heaven's child. He has to be one of them." As he said the last part, Harold's eyes flashed for a second.

'This child is destined to reach heights beyond mine; seven points should not be an issue for him. If I can find this child and nurture him properly, then once he graduates, he won't forget my efforts. If he reaches a very high rank in society, it would be equivalent to me having a very powerful backer. Hehe. Old brother, you refused for me to succeed you and even refused me to hold a rank in the family. Well, guess what, I don't need it. Haha. This kid should be able to reach the rank of Marquis with such potential, maybe even duke. When that happens, I can just ask him to confer on me the title of Count or make me his right-hand man as repayment. Haha. By then, my authority would even surpass the family's. You guys will regret your actions.'

"I need the identity of this child. Get it for me."