She was out of the door before the next student had even stood. He wasn’t that scary, was he? Anyways. He proceeded to brutally crush all the next formations with his cube, none of them even standing a chance. Of the lot, Xinshi’s formation got the closest by far— a very clever application of what he had to guess was a standard shielding formation stacked five times over, only failing because it was too good— the iron cube was stopped on the second layer… and then proceed to crush the egg anyways when the formation ran its course. Frankly, that’d been pretty fun.

He took one look at Lily’s formation and made her go to the back of the line. Avyr’s formation was the first to work— unlike Xinshi’s flat plates, it was a single, powerful dome powered by his qi, which— as an Opening cultivator— was practically limitless compared to what everyone else had to work with.

Then, Uramaphara placed his formation around the egg— a single talisman that looked simpler than even some of the ones from the first

exam. That earned a few mutters, but Mingtian tried his best to restrain his laughter— someone at least had thought outside the box. He quickly repeated the series of handseals and tossed the cube once more into the air—

He couldn’t resist grinning as Uramaphara’s painfully basic formation activated, summoning a light gust of wind that just… rolled the egg out from underneath the cube. “Good job. You pass.” Grinning, the boy slunk over to stand with Avyr in the ‘socially excluded because they’re better and/or giant cats’ part of those who’d stayed to watch the rest.

A few more passed unimpressively, until, finally, it was Lily’s turn. She’d made an interesting talisman, densely scrawled out onto two sheets of paper with more complexity than most of the other students’ formations… combined.

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He recognized largely what it was supposed to do, but with the second part hidden from casual view… he tamped down the urge to check with his domain, because if he was right, then it would be awesome. “Ready?” Lily nodded, and he began the handseals, and he cast— once more, once last

in more ways than one, the destroying cube into the rafters— and it fell. And Lily’s formation burst into sudden and vicious flame, qi racing along the lines of its formation in an intricate webbing of power, sucking in the ambient qi like a vacuum as the pages flared and turned to ash, and in its place was left planes rapidly crumpling into spears, rapidly crumpling into a single line of golden bright energy intense enough to almost look white hot—

It was not an attack quite at the level of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, but it was in many ways close. The iron cube fell and— inherently unstable, sparking and shivering, the line of force swept up to meet it— and when the two met, the line of burning qi sliced it in half. A burst of light and force and the sharp sound of something shearing against metal— and the two halves of the cube embedded themselves into the floor on either side of the egg, still molten.

He gave her a smile. “A good counter to the weaknesses of my formation. Pass.” He was proud of her. To recognize the elemental basis of his own formation— the basis of lunar cold iron— as a mortal… that was an accomplishment to be proud of.

He smiled as he watched the last of the students file out of the room, occasionally sending glances over at the sundered cube as they left. Some of them looked scared. Xinshi looked utterly, eerily calm.… But either way they left, leaving him alone once last in the silence of the empty classroom. It was finished. He was done.

His first and last year as an instructor at East Saffron’s 32nd preparatory academy was over.