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Emma and I were walking to the administration office to get the subject selection out of the way before the academic year truly began. By now, word had gotten around that Emma and I had some kind of close relationship since she was following me everywhere I went from the moment we arrived back on campus and got her settled in a dorm for her year’s intake.

It did not help that on the first day we got back, many people saw her holding onto my hand as I showed her around the campus, it took me quite some time and compromise to get her to walk with me normally without hand holding in public.

We arrived at the administration office to get our subject selection out of the way before the bulk of the students did so, seeing that I already had a lot on my plate, I decided to drop the Advanced Combat & Tactics course as I felt I was not getting much from it and decided to take up the specialized Healing Magic course.

When the admin staff lady saw my name and what I wanted to do with my course selection, she recognized me and recommended that I ask Instructor Greyham if I could take credit by examination for Advanced Combat & Tactics, meaning that if I passed, I would have done the equivalent of passing all four years of the course, which would look good on my graduating report.

I decided to take the admin staff up on her idea, but first, we had to settle Emma’s subject selection. Unlike me, who had a solid academic background from my previous lifetime, I did not expect Emma to pick up as many elective courses as I did, nor could she… kind of.

Because Emma was starting out at Year One, as most eight-year-olds do, the elective courses available to her were not as advanced as the ones I took when I started in Year Five, so we had another list to select from than the one I did.

Since she studied magic under Mum, Emma had a decent foundation in magic, so we signed her up for Basic Spell Theory, and depending on the results of her tests, she may be fast-tracked to Intermediate Spell Theory.

While I was away, Emma had taken a shine to gardening, so I suggested the Botany course that was available to all Years, but this was not your everyday backyard garden botany, this botany also included the cultivation of magical plants.

Seeing that she could afford to take on another course without being too overburdened, we asked the admin staff for any suggestions on what course to take, to which she recommended Basic Alchemy as it would blend nicely with her Botany course, the level of Basic Alchemy dealt mainly with the fundamentals of Alchemy with mostly harmless concoctions, anything more volatile would be reserved for Year Five and onwards. So we took her advice and put Emma’s name down for it.

After handing in Emma’s elective subject selection, we made our way to Instructor Greyham’s office and knocked on his door. “Instructor Greyham, it's me, Luke Ironcrest. Do you have a moment to talk?”

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A second later, I could hear the muffled sounds of glass clinking and a drawer slamming shut as Instructor Greyham said, “One moment!”

After a few more seconds of ruffling sounds, Greyham said, “Come in,” to which Emma and I entered.

There, we saw Instructor Greyham sitting up, prim and proper, holding up an upside-down piece of paper that he was ‘reading,’ and there was the unmistakable scent of alcohol in the air. It must be pretty strong stuff if I can smell it just by entering his office, but besides the slightly flushed cheeks, it looked like he was in the middle of ‘reading’ some reports.

“Luke, what can I do for you, and who is this young lady by your side?” Grayham asked.

“This is Emma, my personal maid, she is starting Year One this year, As for what you can do for me, I have decided to drop the Advanced Combat & Tactics course to take up the Healing Magic course. The admin staff recommended I ask you for credit by examination so I can include clearing this course in my graduating report.” I said.

Greyham stroked his beard as he considered my request, “After the tournament and the end-of-year exam last year, I think it is safe to say that you are too advanced for this course. With the way you fight, I would say that even the majority of the graduating batch would not have a chance of beating you. So when do you want to take this test?”

I just shrugged and said, “How about now? How long will this take? I want to get this out of the way before the rest of the students flood the admin office”

Greyham touched his communication brooch and spoke, “How many assistant instructors are available at the moment?”

After a few moments, an almost synthetic voice came out of the communication brooch, “Thirteen.”

“That should be enough, we will be performing a credit by examination, tell them to meet at the training grounds in an hour.” Greyham said before standing and gesturing me to follow.

***

The credit by examination started off with an oral theory section where Instructor Greyham would list out scenarios. When it was first explained to me, I thought it was just a question and answer, but it turned out to be a Tabletop Role Playing Game.

Painted cloth maps of terrain were rolled out on the table, props for buildings were placed, and small wood-carved miniatures were placed to represent me, my teammates, random people, and enemies.

I was put into different scenarios where I was controlling a solo piece, a squad, and even a platoon of pieces to run into hostile encounters. There were no dice to decide success or failure, in this world, Greyham was God, and his word was law, he decided whether an attack was successful or if I or my enemies lived or died. The only hard rule was that all my decisions had to be made in five seconds. Otherwise, Greyham got to take another turn.

In other words, this was a sped-up D&D game. By the time we were done, out of the ten scenarios, I had won seven of them, four of the seven I won were either with heavy losses or pyrrhic victories. When I looked at Greyham’s face to see if I did well on this part of the exam, his stony face revealed nothing as he told me to get dressed for the practical part of the exam.

Honestly, I think some parts of the scenarios were rigged, when this exam was over, I would recommend they use a dice system to determine success or failure.