Chapter Twenty-Eight: An S?! Impossible!

"Well?" the principal demanded of the three examiners.

Before they could report the Dark Stone's discovery, Mu He cut in:

"Oh, since there's an issue, let's simply run the test again. Director Wang, head to the storage room and bring back another Star Sensing Stone... These Stones are useful, but they're delicate — interference from different types of energy can cause minor problems. We really must thank Teacher Tang Yue for catching it at a glance and sparing us a serious mistake."

True to form, the old fox had instantly moved to contain the situation, cutting off the three examiners before they could breathe a word of the truth.

Tang Yue frowned, though she understood well enough that this whole affair was almost certainly tied to Mu He.

*Going public would only put the school administration in a difficult position, and this student's assessment would be affected either way. Perhaps it was better to let it rest.*

"Mm. Retest."

"Retest!"

"Mo Fan, the Star Sensing Stone experienced a minor malfunction — your previous score is void. We'll give you a chance to retest," the bald examiner said, seizing the lifeline with both hands.

Mo Fan watched the lot of them the way you watch a troupe of clowns.

*Keep scrambling. Your grandfather isn't going anywhere.*

"Excellent, a retest! You're a D at most — there's no way that was a B. Third, we can stroll out of school together after all!" Lu Xiaobin could barely contain himself.

*Heaven smiles on me! Thank goodness Teacher Tang Yue caught the problem in time.*

*I always knew it — if Mo Fan is an even bigger deadbeat than me in everyday life, how could he possibly turn things around?*

"Teacher Tang Yue, why put yourself through this? Giving a student a second chance isn't such a bad thing," Xue Musheng said, caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement.

*So the Stone really did malfunction.* Xue Musheng felt completely undone.

*What had to come eventually has come. Three years without incident — and it had to be someone from his own class.*

"Ha! As if I, Huang Feifeng, could ever end up dead last. Teacher Tang Yue, you're a genius — I worship you." Huang Feifeng, a fellow Fire Element student, exhaled with relief.

On the other side, Mu Bai's devoted lapdog Zhao Kunsan was no less relieved.

*Scared the life out of me — I actually thought that deadweight was going to pull it off. Even Zhao Kunsan only scored a B, after all.*

"Close call, Mu Bai. That faulty Stone nearly let that punk slide through the cracks. I'm starting to think Teacher Tang Yue is the woman of my dreams." Zhao Kunsan wiped the cold sweat from his brow and continued, "Hey, Mu Bai, why are you still scowling? Didn't we just establish he only got a B because the Stone was broken? Relax — he's definitely getting expelled."

"Would you please shut up? You're insufferable," Mu Bai snapped, his temper at its absolute limit.

Zhao Kunsan shrank back, genuinely at a loss for what he had said to offend his master.

Testing for the other classes had mostly wrapped up. Word of the irregularity in Class Eight had drawn a crowd — students from across the school, including top performers from other classes, drifting over to see what was happening.

Just like that, Mo Fan had inadvertently become the center of everyone's attention.

"Alright, Mo Fan — you may begin the retest. Teacher Tang Yue, you've checked everything. No issues this time?" the bald examiner asked with a fawning smile.

"None," Teacher Tang Yue replied.

Mo Fan stepped up to the Star Sensing Stone once more. This time, no icy chill rushed out to meet him.

*So it really was Mu Bai and his people.*

He let out a cold snort. *Thank goodness my drop-dead gorgeous Teacher Tang Yue caught it when she did. Otherwise I'd have had to drag these bastards through the dirt right in front of the school brass.*

Mo Fan closed his eyes and placed his hand on the Star Sensing Stone.

The stone's chill faded almost at once, softening under the flow of Mo Fan's Stardust power.

The glow built and built — climbing, intensifying. A deep crimson radiance blazed from within, as though the stone were being set alight from the inside. This time, nothing held it back. The light erupted outward, completely and without restraint, spreading in every direction across the surface of the Star Sensing Stone — and then beyond, overflowing it entirely.

"This... this glow...!"

The first person to show outright disbelief was Mu Zhuoyun himself.

The principal, vice-principal, disciplinary director, and School Board Directors all stared wide-eyed.

"The light is overflowing!!!"

Homeroom teacher Xue Musheng was utterly dumbstruck.

After so many years of teaching, how could he not know exactly what an overflowing glow meant?

As far as he knew, Mu Bai was the only student in the entire school who had ever reached this level — and whether it was because Fire Element was inherently more luminous, this crimson overflow burned even more intensely than Mu Bai's Ice Element glow.

**"What the—!!!!!"**

Not a single onlooker — from other classes or from Class Eight — could manage anything more coherent than that.

Overflow. This was actually, genuinely, an overflow!!

A student who had practically been written off as a hopeless failure had reached the stage of overflow!!!

"S... S??"

"It's an S... it really looks like an S."

"Should we... should we check again?"

They had all lost their minds. Bald Director Wang and the other two examiners had lost their minds. The classmates who had been so certain Mo Fan was about to be expelled had lost their minds.

*The Stone must be broken again. How in the world is his cultivation at that level???*

"It's a hallucination — it has to be a hallucination!"

"I don't believe it! I don't believe it! I refuse to believe it!!" Lu Xiaobin, a Water Element student, wailed like a man whose world had ended.

*We had a deal — we were supposed to leave school together!*

*Fine, say you broke your promise and didn't get expelled — but going from total deadbeat to academic genius in the blink of an eye?! Nobody stop me this time, I'm jumping in a river. If Mo Fan can become a genius, then a Water Element Mage like me is perfectly entitled to drown himself.*

The perpetually expressionless Mu Ningxue, for the first time, let something show on her face.

Even she hadn't imagined the outcome would be this.

For a student like Mo Fan — with no special talent and no family backing to speak of — a Grade B would have been entirely reasonable.

But he had reached overflow. Fire Element overflow. And it shone more brilliantly still than Mu Bai's, who already had resources and an entire clan behind him.

For reasons she couldn't quite name, something like sunlight spread through Mu Ningxue's chest — unfurling just like that overflowing crimson light.

"What a shock," one of the School Board Directors said at last. "We nearly lost a truly outstanding student."

"Indeed. Just imagine leaving him with only a B — the damage it would have done to his future, and the remarkable Mage our school would have thrown away."

"Better late than never. Teacher Tang Yue, you truly have our gratitude for your perceptive eye."

Watching the administrators fall over themselves to praise her, Teacher Tang Yue offered only a quiet smile.

In truth, she was no less astonished.

She had always believed Zhou Min was the finest Fire Element student in the class — yet Mo Fan had surpassed her entirely. More than that, he had spent the entire year cultivating in quiet, deliberate stillness: no showing off, no comparisons, never once tipping his hand. That kind of temperament was precisely what the makings of a true Mage looked like.