Two months passed before Ning could even realize it.
"So, make sure to make the paste as smooth as possible to have the highest effect. You can only achieve that with a really good mortal and pestle. So, make sure to not be stingy when buying one. Get one that is good, even if you have to spend a lot of money," Ning explained to the Physician class.
"Alright, that's it for today. Due to the exams coming up, there won't be another class next week."
Ning waved to the students and walked out of the class. He was currently wearing a red robe since he was still in the Alchemy wing, but his clothes had 4 different badges.
He had 2 silver badges with a leaf and a claw imprinted on them for Alchemy and Beast Master classes as well as 2 bronze badges with a mortar and pestle, and a ladybug on them for teaching Physician and Bug handling classes.
He was starting to get a lot of students regularly, however, since he split his schedule into 4 separate classes, he couldn't get any higher badges.
He walked over to the staffroom and sat down. It was now time for him to come up with problems for his students to solve. Since the academy was quite strict, every 3 months, they would have an exam to test the students. If they failed, those students would fail and thus be directly expelled from ever taking that class again.
So, Ning had to come up with problems that were easy for the students, but not so much that they all passed without a problem. He didn't have to worry about it though, since his problems would be crosschecked by other teachers to make sure they are up to par.
Since he taught 4 different subjects, he needed to make up 4 separate test problems. That was a headache for him.
He spent the next 3 hours just thinking of the problems and finally felt like he was okay with them. He searched for Aikon, the handler for Alchemy wing's teachers, and gave him both the Alchemy and Physician-related questions.
"Teacher Ning, please check these questions too. If you find anything too easy or too hard, mark it as such," Aikon said as he handed him the questions.
Ning spent another hour looking through all the questions and marking what he thought of it. Once that was done, he went to the Beast Master wing and did the same thing.
He gave his questions and marked the other questions.
He would get the feedback from those questions pretty soon and he would change it per those feedbacks.
As such a few days went by in a flash.
Ning walked into an exam room and looked at the many students he was in charge of.
"Alright, settle down everyone. I will begin your test very soon," he said as he looked at the different students. Some he recognized from his class, some he was seeing for the first time.
"Alright, everyone takes out your mortar and pestle, the exam will consist of you making some medicines," Ning said. The students did as asked and brought out their tools.
Ning suddenly threw a bunch of bags towards the various students and said, "There are exactly 13 ingredients in the bag. You will write down their name for 10 total marks. You will write down at least 5 facts about those ingredients for 20 marks. Then, you will make the one possible medicine out of those ingredients for 50 marks."
"Finally, you will name the medicine and list down its usage for another 20 marks."
"In total, there are 100 marks you can get from this, and you need to get 70 marks to pass."
"For each ingredient you name wrong, you lose a mark. For each fact you write wrong, you lose 1 mark. For the grade you reach with the paste you make, you get 5 marks for each grade. Finally, for each mistake on the last one, you lose 1 mark."
"Mistaking the name of the medicine will immediately fail you. Understood?" Ning asked.
Everyone nodded.
"You have one hour to complete it all. Your time starts now."
Everyone frantically started looking at the ingredients that were in their bag and started noting down the answers. Ning looked at all of them to make sure they didn't cheat, but given how they weren't allowed to use their Divine sense, it was unlikely they would cheat.
He waited for about 15 minutes before one of the students started to pour the ingredients into their mortar and pestle. Ning smiled when he saw the order of ingredients the student was crushing them in. That was the correct order.
He was happy that they weren't going to flop it majestically. Soon everyone started crushing the ingredients and started making a paste out of it very fast.
Ning looked at the time and saw that there were only 10 minutes left by the time everyone was done making the paste. One of the students stood up and walked to the front.
She then handed the small jar with the paste and a talisman with the answers to Ning and bowed towards him a bit before leaving.
Ning looked fondly towards the student as she walked away.
This was one of his best students in the Physicians class. Ning had yet to learn her name, but she was always active in the class and learned everything he taught the class. She even asked questions he thought were impossible for normal students to come up with.
He looked at the talisman she just handed and read it.
"I see. So her name is Daisin huh? Sounds like a flower," he thought. After that, students came up one by one, handing him their papers and bottles.
Ning made sure to separate them accordingly and not let them mix up.. Once all the students were done with the exam, Ning also left the room and went back to his underground room to check the results as well as prepare for tomorrow's beast master's test.