Chapter 55

 Du Mingna stared at the mall for a while and recognized the system's purpose.

The system wanted him to expand enrollment and do more research at school.

His papermaking hadn't yielded much yet, but it had already contributed a lot of points for him.

Buildings like the Tower, once completed, could only increase points once.

Students working hard in class and improving would earn more points from the system.

Over time, the points contributed by students would definitely surpass those from construction.

There were also tasks released by the system to increase visibility, probably to facilitate enrollment, right? As for recruitment opportunities? Excluding the opportunity he hadn't used yet, if he wanted to recruit, he would have to spend ten thousand points.

He couldn't afford it now, but when he had enough points and the school really expanded, he would consider it.

Du Mingna recalculated the current tasks.

Increasing visibility was a long-term task that couldn't be rushed.

He would take it slow.

The current focus was still on the Tower research and Jia De's tasks, the two side quests.

The system wanted him to figure out the side quests and special tasks on his own.

How could he explore them? Could it be...

by organizing exams at school? This thought instantly energized Du Mingna.

In his past life, he didn't know how many years he had been dominated by exams, from his student days to exams for certificates after graduation, and performance evaluations.

Now it was finally his turn to cast the shadow of exams on others? Just thinking about it got him excited; he wanted to quickly give the students a preliminary exam before moving to the new school.

Several fixed students had been studying for a while, so a mid-term exam wouldn't be excessive, right? Could exams be considered side quests? Faintly, Du Mingna felt a message from the system.

Yes.

But he needed to make the exams as formal as possible, even including rankings.

If it wasn't formal enough, normal exams would be more like special courses rather than completing side quests.

If he wanted to start side quests, he had to announce this to the students and teachers so everyone knew it was happening, then it would be considered successfully initiated.

Du Mingna breathed a sigh of relief.

It's settled.

He could prepare monthly and final exams in the future.

Oh, should he also organize assignments for winter and summer vacations? But the system had requirements for the fixed students' study time...

Just as he thought about it, the system immediately provided a new prompt.

Winter and summer vacations were possible, but assignments needed to be given to ensure the fixed students' study time was at least two hours.

The system would provide corresponding monitoring, and if any student didn't meet the standard, on the verge of being deregistered by the system, the host would be immediately notified.

In addition, the accumulated time for winter and summer vacations each year must not exceed ninety days, and for other holidays, it must not exceed thirty days.

Also, the holiday system needed to be activated after the host's school reached level 1.

Du Mingna's current school was still considered a level 0 school, a temporary school, so stricter study time standards were temporarily required.

Du Mingna also vaguely realized the system's definition of "deregistration." The school could expand enrollment, and there could be many students.

But the system only recognized a limited number of students.

Du Mingna could manually add or remove students from the list, and the system would strictly require how these students should be treated.

It didn't matter if other students slacked off.

As the school grew larger and the number of students increased, it was impossible to expect all students to be the same.

Du Mingna turned back and looked at the stone house behind him.

On the door, the wooden board with the words "Ash Rope Village School" carved by him with a small knife showed a clear outline in the morning light.

He chuckled to himself and asked the system in his heart, is it quite unfair for the system to only help him manage this one school for now?Even though the school grades have not been released yet, he still told him in advance that his current school level is only 0, and there needs to be a (temporary) note? The system only responded to Du Mingna with a somewhat indifferent and proud hum, then there was no further movement.

Du Mingna stopped thinking about it.

While it was not yet time for formal classes, he quickly practiced punching a few more times to exercise his body.

He also needed to adapt to absorbing elemental power while practicing boxing to enhance his magical power, preferably allowing the elemental power to merge into his body and strengthen his physical body...

He had to figure it out on his own.

How could he succeed without diligent study and practice? Next was breakfast, classes, and then listening to Oak say he wanted to train Arthur, help Arthur with extra classes, and help Arthur awaken faster on his own.

Belinda and Dora, knowing that Du Mingna had completed the previous stage of training, excitedly suggested planting something in the field for research.

This aligned with what Old John and Du Mingna had discussed the night before.

It seemed that this was indeed the root cause of the strange atmosphere in the village.

As the principal, he made the final decision.

Arthur could learn more from Oak, Belinda and Dora happily prepared to go up the mountain with Houseman to dig up medicinal herbs, and also prepared as many herb seeds as possible.

Jad also followed Batan to both exercise and learn some forging knowledge.

Even Old John could ask the villagers to transplant some plants suitable for papermaking to the research field.

It could be said that everyone was happy.

But Du Mingna felt that the atmosphere in the village had not truly recovered.

It seemed like everyone was still hiding something from him.

However, those who were hiding things from him kept their distance, not like before.

Whenever he left the room and saw the students coming to class, as well as the teachers, he could vaguely sense something.

This confirmed to Du Mingna that Old John, Oak, and others had only told him part of what they were hiding.

And there were more important things that they hadn't mentioned.

In response, Du Mingna smirked inwardly.

Alright, everyone was hiding things from him? Then he would give them a big surprise! As a first-level mage, he could slightly slow down his training pace, and then...

give them a test! The first round of student assessment at the Gray Rope Village School, commence! He had plenty of time to prepare! What if he didn't have paper and pen? The system had previously given him a blackboard that could split into a new one every day.

He already had over a dozen blackboards in his backpack! He would write the test questions on the blackboard.

He worked overnight to prepare the test questions for the students! The students had already used the new Chinese textbooks for a few days and learned new characters and words.

There was no pinyin in this world, but the Chinese textbooks had characters and words that needed to be memorized.

He would test them on this! Oh, and the names of the school's fixed members, which were mandatory for each student, could also be tested.

They had only studied math for a short time, still learning addition and subtraction within tens.

But Du Mingna could easily give them some simple math problems.

These would all be written tests, allowing the children to answer on the blackboard.

In addition, there would be two teaching instructors who would assess the students' knowledge mastery, similar to an interview situation, testing their basic magic and forging knowledge.

The student with the best overall score would receive a bottle of basic physical enhancement potion.

This was the reward he had prepared for the students.

The only beneficial and suitable potion he could currently exchange for the students was the physical enhancement potion.

If he gave out too good of a reward for a small assessment, it would be inconvenient for him to provide upgrade prizes for mid-term and final exams.

The next day, after the students had finished Oak's basic magic class at Du Mingna's house, he happily announced this to the students.

The assessment! The test would be held tomorrow morning.

They could start preparing for the test today.

The test content would not exceed what they had already studied.

The students present and aware of this information could inform others and encourage them to prepare early.

Du Mingna gave them some preparation time at least.

But when the students heard about this, they were all stunned.

An exam? So sudden? And how exactly will the exam be conducted? The children in the village have experience with collective learning and testing.

But what they went through were just oral exams, sometimes they could even communicate secretly when the village guard members were not paying attention.

The exam format Du Mingna mentioned is different from what they have experienced.

Du Mingna only said that the exam will cover what they have already studied, but how well have they mastered it? They are unsure.

Anxious, clueless, and a little hopeful.

That's how the students feel now.

Among the students who came to class in the morning, there are both regular students like Jad and Arthur, as well as some irregular students.

The irregular students have the best mindset.

They simply don't spend as much time studying as Jad and the others.

No matter how difficult Du Mingna says the exam will be, or what rewards they might get for being first, they know they won't be first.

They even feel like it doesn't matter if they don't participate in the exam.

So why panic? Dora, Belinda, and others, after the initial panic, became eager to try.

Whatever they learn normally, Du Mingna will ask and test them the next day.

Du Mingna teaches Chinese and mathematics.

There will definitely be a simple review the next day, and random reviews in a few days.

They actually have a good understanding of their learning situation, knowing what they have mastered and what they haven't.

As for basic magic knowledge, including things like perception basics, that will be tested by Oak.

During class, the first half is spent listening to Oak's lecture, and the second half is spent doing perception exercises under Oak's guidance, or asking Oak questions they don't understand.

Each half is an hour.

Their perception ability is still relatively weak, they usually can't sustain perception for an hour.

And perception requires them to carefully feel the surroundings.

Listening attentively to what Oak and the students asking questions say, imagining Oak and the students' current appearance, movements, expressions, all count as perception exercises.

Students without questions can fully engage in perception while listening to this part of the discussion.

Du Mingna paid attention to the students' emotions, seeing them becoming more hopeful, he nodded satisfactorily in his heart.

What made him even happier was the system prompt sound.

"Ding! Release side mission: Diagnostic Exam! After more than ten days of study, are your students still illiterate? Let's use a diagnostic exam to see their level.

Please complete the exam and announce the ranking within three days.

"Mission success reward: Random practice book*1, Mall points*1000; Mission failure penalty: Student affinity -5." After reading the content, Du Mingna raised his eyebrows slightly.

It's this "student affinity" again.

It seems like the "Gray Rope Village Trust" is still an unlocked system, just like this.

Du Mingna couldn't see the specific values, but thinking back, as long as the villagers of Gray Rope Village are willing to come to his school, regardless of whether they become regular students or how biased they were against the Hall family before, they will quickly develop a liking for him.

Like Old Harper, who manages the bakery, was particularly hostile to the Hall family.

At first, Old Harper and his relationship were not that good either.

But after Old Harper and the villagers listened to his history lecture together, their attitude towards him suddenly improved a lot, and they had many smiles when they saw him.

Could this be the "affinity" taking effect?