Mu Ningxue Descends Upon the School

Student Dormitory

"Brother Fan, we need to go — it's the annual assessment. Being late would be bad," Zhang Xiaohou said to Mo Fan.

"Head on without me. I want to practice Control a little longer," Mo Fan replied.

"Last-minute cramming," Zhang Xiaohou muttered.

The rest of the dorm didn't bother waiting for Mo Fan. They dressed themselves up presentably and made their way to the examination grounds.

The examination grounds were naturally not a classroom where students sat furiously filling out answer sheets. Magic theory was tested as well, but it didn't carry much weight in the final score — what mattered most was the annual practical assessment.

In plain terms, it was an evaluation of every student's cultivation progress since their awakening that year, followed by a large-scale class re-sorting.

Mo Fan was the last to arrive at the training field. On any normal day, practical lessons were held here, but today the space had been arranged quite differently. In addition to a semi-circular row of examiner tables, there was a floating Star Sensing Stone.

The Star Sensing Stone looked somewhat like a black river pebble, roughly the size of a watermelon, and at the moment it rested on a stone pedestal at the front of the training field.

This Star Sensing Stone was the most critical instrument for the assessment.

The annual assessment was actually quite simple — just like the awakening ceremony at the start of the year. Students only needed to place their palm on the large Star Sensing Stone, and the examiners could immediately gauge each student's year of cultivation progress from the stone's brightness.

Like a university entrance exam, a student's fate could very well be decided by this single evaluation. In this world, there were equally rigid metrics: either you continued your studies and earned better opportunities, or you packed your bags and found another path.

"Remember what I told you — the strength of your Stardust's radiance reflects the level of magical energy within it. Students of Class Eight, the moment has come to prove the fruits of your year's hard work. Let your Stardust shine!" Homeroom teacher Xue Musheng declared with flushed enthusiasm.

"Teacher Xue, I'm sorry... I think I'm going to be expelled," said a frail-looking girl, tears streaming prettily down her face. Her anxious, helpless expression drew a wave of sympathy from the students around her.

"That can't be. You've worked hard in everything — don't be so pessimistic."

"But I'm not talented. Even though I practice every single day, my Stardust still looks so dim," the girl, He Yu, said.

"He Yu, don't worry. Even if you don't pass, aren't I still here? A family only needs one Mage," said Lu Jianhua, the dorm leader of Mo Fan's dormitory, pounding his chest as he spoke.

"Oh, get out of here — you might not even pass yourself!"

"Are you kidding me? The moment I put my hand on that stone, the light is going to blind your titanium-plated eyes!" Lu Jianhua declared with swaggering confidence.

Before long, three school officials and examiners finally arrived.

The examiners were mostly from the disciplinary office — the ones students were most afraid to see under normal circumstances.

"All right, quiet down. Several School Board Directors will be conducting inspections during today's annual assessment. I hope you will all demonstrate the spirit and bearing of true Mages!" Xue Musheng reminded the students.

The examiners took their positions. Thirty freshman classes — fifteen hundred students in Tianlan Magic High School uniforms — stood in imposing formation across the training field, arranged in dense rectangular blocks.

Before the assessment began, there were of course speeches. The principal spoke first, as every year.

Then came the School Board Director's address.

When Mu He stepped up to the podium and began painting a stirring picture of the glorious future awaiting young Mages, Mo Fan couldn't help but find it faintly ridiculous.

The speech was brimming with expectations for the younger generation. But what Mu He was actually like — Mo Fan knew better than anyone.

"Today is also a very special day."

"We have invited the most outstanding female Mage in all of Bo City to join us. At fifteen years old, she was admitted to the Imperial Capital Magic Academy through a special exception — I'm sure many of you have already heard her legend. That's right — she is Mu Ningxue! Let us welcome with applause this magical prodigy who should have been your classmate, yet has long since advanced to university!" Mu He announced in a booming voice.

The words landed, and the entire field of over a thousand students erupted.

"Oh my god, it's Mu Ningxue! I heard that when she awakened, her Ice Element power froze the ground solid beneath her feet."

"That's just a rumor. What I heard is far more accurate — she mastered Ice Vine, the basic Ice Element skill, in only eight months."

"E-eight months?! Good lord, I've been at this school a full year and I've barely got five Star Motes! How can two people be so different?!"

"None of that is the point, okay? The point is — she is absolutely gorgeous. Truly talented and beautiful, both at once. Bo City's chosen daughter!"

The entire school buzzed with chatter all at once. From everyone's reaction, Mu Ningxue was clearly no stranger to any of them.

None of them had expected that their annual assessment day would let them lay eyes on this legendary prodigy in person.

"Brother Fan, Brother Fan — it's the little princess! It's really her! She actually came to our school!" Zhang Xiaohou grabbed Mo Fan's sleeve in excitement.

Mo Fan looked up toward the podium. He could indeed make out a beautiful figure standing there — poised and pristine as a white lotus above snow, her snow-white high-waisted dress tracing every line of a figure that would have made anyone stare.

But what drew the eye most wasn't merely the allure radiating from her. It was that breathtaking silver-white hair, parted at the center and cascading down in flowing waves.

Despite the sweltering heat, the young woman standing on the podium seemed as though she had stepped straight down from the glaciers of a distant mountain range into the mortal world — like a snow spirit made flesh, hauntingly beautiful and wholly untouchable.

The moment she appeared, the entire faculty and student body fell into a stunned silence.

They had all heard the tales of Mu Ningxue. None of them had imagined that seeing her in person, she would truly embody the image of an ice goddess in the bloom of youth — from the quiet authority in her bearing, to the elegance of her dress, to the natural silver-white of her flowing hair that seemed born rather than dyed.

*This was Mu Ningxue.*

An imperious nobility that radiated from the very core of her being.

Mo Fan, too, found himself transfixed. *This must be my first time seeing Mu Ningxue since that incident — three years now?*

Back then, all of them — a whole group of children — used to call her their little princess. And she truly was a princess in everyone's eyes: living in a castle up on the hill, dressed and adorned far more finely than any ordinary girl, with that captivating and adorable face of hers...

But after three years, Mo Fan felt he almost couldn't recognize her.

She had changed — profoundly, completely.

The girl who had once been warm and easy to approach had, in the fullness of her youth, become someone who felt entirely out of reach.

*Was it a change in her bearing? Or was it simply that the vast gulf between our circumstances had, with age, made me feel it more acutely?*

"Brother Fan, you should've just run off with the little princess back then," Zhang Xiaohou sighed, gazing at Mu Ningxue standing apart like a crane among chickens.

"Did you smash your head on that bathroom door again?"

"Uh... I was just saying."