Chapter Thirty-Five: The Painting

"Ten questions?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure you answered ten questions?"

"At least that's what Professor Mannstein said when he collected the papers."

Night fell in Room 303 of District 1. Finn jumped off his bed so hard he nearly hit the ceiling, pulling his hands back in a hip-thrusting motion and letting out a "Woo-hoo!"

"Is it really necessary to be this excited?" Lin Nian, on the bottom bunk, looked up helplessly while twirling his pencil.

"Ten questions! My dear junior, do you know how many questions are on the 3E exam in total? That's right! Only ten! And you answered every single one!" Finn’s face beamed as he slapped the iron guardrail of his bed.

"I could have answered them wrong, you know. Just because I answered doesn't mean it’s a hundred percent correct." Lin Nian took a sip of cola, looking uninterested. He seemed preoccupied with the images he had seen during his earlier spirit vision, and he was hunched over his desk, sketching on a sheet of blank paper.

"Unless you're just scribbling nonsense, the accuracy of answers derived from resonance is usually over ninety percent! At least, I’ve never heard of anyone writing down a wrong answer after a resonance; that in itself is a very hard thing to pull off!" Finn, sitting cross-legged on the top bunk, enthusiastically lectured him. "For example, if you resonate with the Dragon Text 'Emperor,' it is impossible for you to write the answer as 'Silence.' The most that could happen is that you made a small mistake while sketching the Dragon Text, making the shading or lines a bit unclear. But N.O.R.M.A. is a supercomputer; she compares your answer against the standard ones in her database. Once the match rate exceeds eighty percent, it’s marked correct. The margin for error is huge!"

"So, the odds of you winning your bet are also huge," Lin Nian pointed out the reason for Finn's excitement.

"No, junior, you have to understand that since we share the same roof, a large part of my joy is genuinely for you," Finn said, beaming.

"You should probably fix your crooked nose first," Lin Nian glanced at the open laptop. The forum for the Watchers was flooded with private messages asking about his 3E exam, and it looked like many of the gamblers were starting to get anxious.

Just as he was about to close the page, a notification popped up: he had received a new email from N.O.R.M.A.

"Junior, that must be your course schedule." Finn, still in high spirits, cracked open a beer and glanced at the laptop screen.

"Are there a lot of classes for freshmen at Cassel College? How does it compare to high school?" Lin Nian sighed and moved the mouse to the email.

"Well, that depends on which country's high school you're comparing it to. High schools in China have evening self-study sessions, but in Japan, they let out at three or four in the afternoon. University life usually starts off easy and gets tougher, that’s the norm." Finn took a sip of his beer. "Don't worry, you're currently in the preparatory program; N.O.R.M.A. won't assign you anything too heavy. She’ll probably just give you introductory courses like Dragon Genealogy, language classes, and physical education."

"Actually, I'm more confident in science than in liberal arts," Lin Nian muttered as he opened the email.

N.O.R.M.A.'s email indeed contained a course schedule. It began by congratulating Lin Nian on passing the 3E exam, noting that once the scores were released, N.O.R.M.A. would record them in the database and send a report to his inbox. Following that were his classes starting tomorrow; he would be attending lectures alongside the other freshmen, though his grades and credits would not count toward his final GPA.

"Let's see what you’ve got," Finn leaned over from the top bunk, squinting at the screen. "Old Norse, Hebrew, and Runic alphabets... Hmm, how was your high school English, junior?"

"My high school had pretty good teaching conditions. My English teacher was a foreign instructor, and I had no issues communicating with him normally."

"Good language talent, then. It looks like you won't struggle with language classes. They're a real headache, but fortunately, most of them are dead languages, so they don't focus much on grammar." Finn shrugged.

"Dead languages?"

"Languages that no longer have any ethnic group using them as a mother tongue," Finn explained. "Like Old Turkic. You don't need to use it for daily conversation or practice speaking; you only need to understand the written words. The hardest part of the course is memorizing those symbols that look like tadpoles or abstract art."

"My memory has always been pretty good... Besides language classes, there's 'Dragon Family Genealogy,' 'Survival Training,' as well as 'Baji Quan' and 'Introduction to Cold Weapon Combat.'" Lin Nian scrolled down, reading each one. "What kind of class is Survival Training? Does the school air-drop us into harsh environments for individual survival?"

"It’s not that extreme during regular classes. At most, they teach you survival knowledge and how to navigate using astronomy when you're lost. But for the final exam, it’s exactly as you said. I remember the previous graduating class was sent by a Gulfstream jet to the jungles of Guatemala for a month of survival training. One of the requirements was to hunt a large beast independently." Finn raised an eyebrow.

"A large beast?"

"Bears, pythons, caimans, that sort of thing. I once saw a student drag back a live jaguar. The only reason he didn't kill it was that he thought it was too cute and wanted to keep it as a pet, but the school rejected the request for safety reasons—safety in a school filled with jaguars! Our college is very practical; the exams are quite hardcore. For the sword combat course, you're required to duel with real blades by the end."

"Is this Baji Quan the same one I know?" Lin Nian asked, pointing to the screen.

"Baji? I thought N.O.R.M.A. would pick Tai Chi or Jiu-Jitsu for you. Yes, that's the ancient Chinese martial art you know. Our college has collected many lost or restricted close-combat techniques. If you're interested, you can check the library; you might even find a detailed guide on Qigong." Finn bit down on his beer can, leaning further down to look at the screen. "Ah... of course, Dragon Genealogy. I knew you couldn't escape that course. It's practically a mandatory subject now, and the instructor is the Principal himself—that flamboyant guy."

"Are you sure it's okay to call the Principal 'flamboyant' behind his back?"

"Once you meet him, you'll know that description is spot on. Besides, 'flamboyant' isn't a derogatory term. Anyone who’s met the Principal would agree from the bottom of their heart that he is a rare, old flamboyant fellow!" Finn said, sounding perfectly justified.

"I suppose I'll find out tomorrow if the Principal is like you described." Lin Nian studied the schedule for a moment. "I have a Dragon Genealogy class tomorrow morning in a lecture hall with the freshmen. The appendix also reminds me that all the textbooks I need will be packed and left at my door tomorrow morning... That’s very thoughtful!"

"N.O.R.M.A. is always that thoughtful, provided you are her friend, not her enemy. Since your first class is with the Principal, you’d better get some sleep, junior. As far as I know, no one dares to slack off in his class—not even that hotshot Caesar Gattuso. Who knows? Maybe after class tomorrow, the Principal will invite you for a chat over tea." Finn shrugged. "What about the afternoon? Do you have any classes? If not, I can take you to a party. There’s no better way to fit into campus life."

"Oh, sorry. I have one more class in the afternoon... Spirit of Speech?" Lin Nian paused, stunned.

"Oh?" Finn suddenly became interested. "It seems those old guys who arranged your schedule have high hopes for you."

"What does this course mainly teach? A hundred ways to use superpowers?" Lin Nian asked suspiciously.

"Not that extreme. Let me ask you: in the few days you've been on campus, have you seen anyone summoning wind and rain or playing with fire?"

"You really should work on your idiom usage, senior."

"You're missing the point!" Finn waved his hand. "The point is that within the college grounds, no one can freely release a Spirit of Speech!"

"A rule?"

"Rules can be broken, but the old man’s 'Commandment' cannot. As far as I know, since the school was founded, no tough guy has ever been able to break through the 'Commandment' to forcibly release a Spirit of Speech!" Finn took a swig of beer and leaned against the wall. "I know you have many questions, junior, but these things can't be explained in a few words. Taking the course is the best way to understand it. I’m not bragging, but I got an 'A' in Spirit of Speech, which is second to none."

"What is your Spirit of Speech, senior?"

"How can I just reveal my trump card? Besides, does it matter what my Spirit of Speech is? It's not like it's powerful enough to bump my rank back up to 'A'." Finn hummed dismissively and changed the subject. "What is your Spirit of Speech, junior? Today, during the 3E exam, didn't you have the urge to sing something?"

"What?" For a moment, Lin Nian wondered if the "musical dragon-slaying" he had imagined while his brain was running wild during the exam had come to life.

"A Spirit of Speech is the ability to communicate with the rules of the world using Dragon Text to trigger abnormal phenomena. If humans want to use it, they have to chant the Dragon Text. Most of the tones in Dragon Text are rhythmic, so when you chant a Spirit of Speech, it feels like listening to an opera singer hitting high notes," Finn explained. "Didn't you want to improvise a tune during your exam?"

"No, my mind was full of Bach," Lin Nian shook his head.

"You haven't awakened a Spirit of Speech?" Finn’s expression turned odd.

"Is that strange?"

Finn nodded. "It's quite strange. Every hybrid should have their own Spirit of Speech. Even if it doesn't have destructive power or obvious reality-altering features, something like Toyama Yashiro's 'Hypnosis' counts! Your bloodline is expected to reach 'S' rank; how could you not have one?"

"But I really don't." Lin Nian stopped sketching on the white paper and racked his brain, trying to recall the scene of the exam. He honestly didn't feel like he had any urge to burst into song.

"It's fine. Maybe the impact of the spirit vision wasn't strong enough, or perhaps your bloodline awakening is slow. Who knows? In a few days, you might be eating hot pot and singing, and just burst into song while walking down the street. Don't worry, if there are other students or professors around, they won't think you're crazy; they'll be happy for you and even applaud... Well, provided no one records it and posts it on the forum." Finn reassured him. "By the way, junior, what did you see during your spirit vision?"

"Some... things."

"If it was an unpleasant experience, just forget it. Spirit visions are as blurry as dreams—they come and go quickly. You’ll probably forget all about it by the time you're eating pork knuckles tomorrow afternoon," Finn said.

"But senior, I already told you—my memory has always been very good," Lin Nian said softly.

Finn leaned out from the top bunk and saw the white paper on the desk in front of the laptop. He froze when he saw the content.

On the white paper in front of Lin Nian was a pitch-black cage, with the faint, curved silhouette of snow dunes visible outside the window. Inside the cage, a girl was kneeling, and her profile—the lines sketched in pencil—was gentle and clear.