Conning the Students

Down in the woodland at the base of the cliff slope, a man in a straw hat dropped out of a tree the moment Group Three's twenty students cleared the gorge. He had a scorecard in hand.

He finished recording his notes, slipped quickly out of the woods, and headed toward an open stretch of grassland.

"All of Group Three made it across," the man in the straw hat said, stepping into a tent and addressing the person inside. "One Wind Element student — name of Zhang Xiaohou — put on a particularly impressive showing."

If the students had been able to see this place, they would have been astonished. Nearly all of their field course teachers and instructors were gathered here, lounging at ease on the grass with snacks and small cups of liquor.

"Oh?" Chief Instructor Zhankong raised an eyebrow.

Among the Wind Element students he knew to be strong, that name hadn't come up.

*Well, figures. Cultivation level is just the baseline — a mage who can truly hold their own needs brains and guts.*

"Mark the name down. He earns a high score," Zhankong told Deputy Instructor Pan Lijun beside him.

Pan Lijun nodded and quickly recorded Zhang Xiaohou's name.

"Ha! You waystation military types really know how to run things," Zhang Jianguo said with a broad laugh.

"Right? Dump the students straight into the mountains, make it perfectly clear they're on their own with no backup coming — then shadow them in secret and note down whoever stands out while they work through the mission..." Chen Weiliang was grinning now. "You couldn't design a better method."

"Compared to the old approach of just letting them coast through, this actually tests each student's composure under real pressure." Teacher Tang Yue nodded in agreement.

If those hundred students who'd been called deadweight ever learned that their own teachers and instructors had conspired to set them up, one could only imagine the expressions on their faces.

Of course, they hadn't actually been abandoned. At their current level, these students genuinely lacked the skills to survive in the wild on their own — but if the exercise didn't feel real and dangerous, it would miss the point entirely. The best solution: play hard and unforgiving on the surface, shadow them in secret, and be ready to step in the instant anything went seriously wrong.

"Boss Zhankong, even I almost fell for it," Deputy Instructor Pan Lijun admitted. "I genuinely thought you were going to be that ruthless — not letting a single student pass this Field Expedition."

"You've got that wrong," Zhankong said flatly. "The ones who contribute nothing during the expedition — those I genuinely won't pass."

"But... the bounty posting itself — surely no one can actually complete it."

"I'd say making it through that demon-vine thicket would already be quite a feat for any of them," Chen Weiliang remarked.

"As for the actual bounty — no, none of them can complete it. Honestly, even some of our instructors here might struggle with it." Zhankong smiled.

"Even the instructors might struggle?" Zhang Jianguo frowned, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Here's the thing," Luo Yunbo said with a grin. "Since we've designated that One-Eyed Demon Wolf den as the students' final destination, we had to make absolutely certain there wasn't a single Wolf left inside. So we also stationed a Summoning Element mage there. That mage is actually every student's last test. There are no real Demon-Beasts in the den — but there is one summoned beast..."

The teachers' faces lit up one by one as it sank in.

Chen Weiliang — Academic Director, and not a man prone to understatement — clapped his hands in outright delight.

"Inspired. Absolutely inspired. This is sheer genius!"

Xue Musheng was nodding vigorously. "Exactly — we obviously can't send these students up against real Demon-Beasts and risk actual casualties. But a Field Expedition has to train each student to stay calm when facing one. You can't achieve that without the encounter. Bringing in a Summoning Element mage and having his summoned beast stand in for a Demon-Beast is perfect on every level — the students get the experience of facing something genuinely threatening, and their safety is secured!"

"We really have to thank Boss Zhankong for devising such a flawless approach. I'm certain the students will come away from this with a great deal," Xue Musheng added with a smile.

"It's what needed to be done."

"That said — there's only one summoned beast," Tang Yue couldn't help saying. "What if the students are fiercer than we expect and manage to take it down together?"

"Tang Yue, you're overthinking this." Zhang Jianguo waved the concern away with full confidence. "We've been teaching at Tianlan Magic High School for going on twenty-some years, and not once have I heard of a student managing a complete, clean spell Release when facing a Demon-Beast for the first time. And even if one of them somehow did — their skills are still Level 1. They couldn't do real damage to a summoned beast no matter what they threw at it."

"Right — among all the elements, Fire and Lightning hit hardest," Chen Weiliang added cheerfully. "The only student who might give the summoned beast even the faintest scare is Xu Zhaoting with his Lightning Element. As for Fire Burst: Scorch — at best, it scorches the surface. A bit of singed hide, nothing more."

The teachers and instructors all laughed.

They knew the students well enough. This expedition had never been designed to be completed — the real goal was growth along the way. What the students would run into at each stage of the journey, the instructors had essentially mapped out in advance.

Tang Yue didn't laugh. Her gaze drifted to the mist-veiled valley in the distance.

*Mo Fan has had the Stardust Artifact for a full year. I wonder whether his Fire Burst has grown into something beyond what anyone here would expect. If it has... he might be the only student who could actually wound the summoned beast. And a student who wounds it — an S-grade should be no problem.*

Then she shook her head.

Against a ferocious Demon-Beast, managing a clean Release at all would already be extraordinary.

What Tang Yue truly hoped was simply that the hundred top students didn't get wiped out entirely at the summoned beast encounter — because the bar was already low enough that Zhankong would award an A-grade for the Field Expedition to any student who pulled off even a single successful Release at that stage.

An A was the highest grade any student had ever received from an instructor across all the years the Field Expedition had been running.