Chapter 1165: A Magister and Grades

Selenne moved one name from the introductory spellcraft roster to remedial theory, rejected two requests for advanced formation studies, and returned a third petition because its author had neglected to include the instructor whose course he wished to enter.

Three folders remained open across her desk. Enrollment sheets occupied the chair beside it, sealed faculty requests waited beneath a brass weight, and a stack of corrected registration slips had reached sufficient height to inconvenience the assistant collecting them.

"The approved ones go to Records," Selenne said as he attempted to gather everything at once. "The blue-marked slips return to the students. Magister Olyss’s capacity request goes nowhere until he explains how twelve students are meant to share six stabilization arrays."

The assistant carefully separated the offending document. "He marked it urgent."

"So did everyone else."

He accepted the answer with the resignation of someone who had made the mistake of hoping urgency possessed a single definition, then left with both arms full.

Beyond the closing door, students moved through the faculty corridor in uneven currents. Some carried permanent timetables they had already begun revising. Others waited outside offices with petitions prepared by private tutors, household secretaries, or parents who believed a sufficiently expensive seal could substitute for a prerequisite.

Formal lectures would begin near the middle of the week.

The Academy had also granted several days for enrollment corrections, residence transfers, equivalency reviews, and changes between auxiliary courses. Selenne understood the logic behind beginning both processes at once. Practical halls could not remain unassigned while hundreds of students considered their preferences, and instructors needed stable groups before meaningful work could begin.

Understanding the logic did not make the same student occupying two compulsory sessions any less impossible.

’Administrative grace would be more convincing if anyone were permitted the time to use it.’

Selenne drew the next folder toward her.

A first-year wanted to avoid foundational shaping because his private instructor had already covered the material. His equivalency record demonstrated excellent fire manifestation, adequate control, and no evidence that he could safely dismantle a failed construct once it began feeding upon its own heat. She denied the exemption, approved a placement assessment, and added a note preventing the student from entering any enclosed practical room until he passed it.

The next request came from a young woman seeking admission to intermediate water arrays. Her cultivation level was sufficient, her theory marks were strong, and the instructor had agreed to accept her. The only available practical group, however, already held the maximum number permitted by its safety classification.

Selenne placed her on the priority list rather than displacing a student who had registered correctly.

From the corridor came a knock, followed immediately by a faculty aide carrying another set of timetable conflicts. Selenne reviewed the worst of them, reassigned one instructor to an early session, and refused a suggestion to combine two remedial groups merely because both contained students who were "behind."

Behind in what?

One group lacked formal terminology after years of practical instruction. The other could reproduce elementary spell structures from memory but failed whenever those structures deviated from the approved example. Placing them together would save a room while ensuring that neither received what they needed.

Students encountered these decisions as forms, delays, and doors that refused to open. From this side of the desk, each name represented a question the Academy preferred to compress into a category: whether the student could survive the course, whether the instructor could teach them without neglecting everyone else, and whether granting one place meant denying it to someone better prepared.

The questions were legitimate.

They were also remarkably useful whenever someone wished to exclude a student without admitting why.

Selenne sealed the final remedial assignment and set the folder aside. Her desk had begun to resemble wood again, although a narrow stack remained near the far corner. She checked the day’s annotations, paused at a violet mark she had drawn beside one entry, and remembered what the ordinary disorder had pushed aside.

’The examination audit.’

She had requested the consolidated record after the final rankings were confirmed.

Not because every poor result given to a commoner concealed misconduct. Toven Vintrell’s weaknesses would not disappear because acknowledging them proved politically inconvenient. Mireilla Dane’s limited Weaponship preparation did not deserve an invented proficiency, and if Elayne Cors had answered an examiner poorly, Selenne had no intention of improving the answer after the fact.

Protection that required falsifying their competence would become another method of condescension.

The question was narrower.

’Did each score measure the student, or did it measure what someone had already decided the student must be?’

Parts of the Examination Period had provided enough reason to ask. The reform entrants had faced deliberate pressure, Lucavion’s assessments had attracted repeated interference, and faculty opposition had not vanished merely because five commoners survived admission.

Their scores would now determine placement, initial Credits, remedial obligations, course access, and which instructors considered them worth further attention. In time, the same numbers would be presented as evidence for or against the reform itself.

Five freshmen had entered the Academy to study. The institution had turned them into an argument before their first lecture.

Selenne could not prevent supporters from displaying every success or opponents from preserving every failure. She could ensure that neither side manufactured the evidence.

If an evaluator’s penalty contradicted the report, she would challenge it. If equivalent performances received different treatment, she would document the comparison. Suspicion alone belonged in her private notes; evidence would receive her seal and whatever political inconvenience followed it.

She retrieved the requested file from the locked drawer. Authentication lines shimmered briefly beneath her fingers before releasing the clasp, and the first sheet unfolded into a consolidated record. Evaluator reports, penalty notices, procedural annotations, and detailed scoring breakdowns waited underneath.

Selenne looked at the five names together for the first time.

Lucavion

W-I: 82 | W-II: 80 | Oral: 40 Mana: 84 | Combat: 100 | Weapon: 100 Rotunda: 82 Weighted Score: 89.2

Caeden Roark

W-I: 78 | W-II: 79 | Oral: 77 Mana: 86 | Combat: 89 | Weapon: 88 Rotunda: 82 Weighted Score: 84.9

Elayne Cors

W-I: 74 | W-II: 75 | Oral: 63 Mana: 84 | Combat: 92 | Weapon: 94 Rotunda: 67 Weighted Score: 83.9

Mireilla Dane

W-I: 66 | W-II: 69 | Oral: 64 Mana: 74 | Combat: 84 | Weapon: 67 Rotunda: 87 Weighted Score: 73.7

Toven Vintrell

W-I: 55 | W-II: 58 | Oral: 58 Mana: 62 | Combat: 76 | Weapon: 53 Rotunda: 69 Weighted Score: 62.5

Caeden’s consistency resembled the student himself and, perhaps more importantly, resembled competence in a form the Academy already knew how to recognize. Toven’s academic foundation was plainly weak; concealing that weakness would only allow it to harden. Mireilla’s practical results exceeded her formal preparation, while Elayne’s sharper divisions warranted attention beneath the summary.

On the contrary...

Lucavion could wait.

The boy was irritating, but Selenne possessed a more comprehensive account of his abilities than she had of the others. She had personally observed three of his six examinations, questioned him at length during one of them, and reviewed enough of the interference surrounding his candidacy to distinguish several genuine weaknesses from manufactured ones.

The other four required her attention first.

Selenne opened Caeden Roark’s packet.

’Consistent scores, consistent reports. Either every evaluator misunderstood him in precisely the same way, or he is exactly as straightforward as he appears.’

His written performance supported his oral result, while the practical reports described the same disciplined judgment found in his Combat and Weaponship scores. None of the evaluators had imposed an unusual penalty. Selenne noted that his prior training had translated cleanly into Academy standards, then marked the file for ordinary placement review rather than complaint.

Elayne Cors required longer.

’A close-combat specialist with respectable mana control, weak formal expression, and a Rotunda score that falls well below everything she can solve with a knife.’

The disparity was plausible. Elayne’s combat reports praised perceptual misdirection, movement, and rapid adaptation, while her Oral examiner described incomplete terminology and difficulty explaining structures she could nevertheless use. The Rotunda assessment contained sharper deductions around social interpretation and role management. Selenne marked both reports for comparison against students with similar performances.

Mireilla’s packet produced a different pattern.

’She understands people and terrain better than she understands examinations.’

Her Combat and Rotunda results reflected years spent making decisions under imperfect conditions. Weaponship exposed narrower formal preparation, while the written papers revealed missing foundations rather than an absence of intelligence. Selenne recommended supplemental theory and an applied instruction group. Mireilla required access, not an inflated score.

Toven’s record was the least flattering and, perhaps, the most useful.

’His weaknesses are real. So is the fact that nobody taught him how to contain what he already possesses.’

His lightning output had carried portions of the practical assessments, but the reports repeatedly mentioned inefficient division, poor grounding habits, and dependence upon specialized equipment. Selenne found no clear scoring irregularity. She added recommendations for foundational theory, controlled-output practice, and an instructor capable of correcting him without mistaking volatility for stupidity.

By the time she finished, four concise summaries rested beside the consolidated sheet. Two files required comparison, two required academic guidance, and none yet justified a formal complaint.

Only Lucavion remained.

Selenne drew his packet across the desk and rested her fingers upon its seal.

His most recent examination had not taken place beneath her supervision. Even so, reports from the Rotunda had traveled through the faculty faster than the official scores: an assumed identity handled too convincingly, a decision that disrupted the intended Measure, and a ceremonial flame that had reacted in a manner nobody had properly explained.

Selenne broke the seal.

Her memory returned to the Rotunda and the moment the flame changed.