Harry Potter and the Great Old Ones

Chapter 570 Mentality

"Alright, now..." Tiera snapped her fingers, "Collect the scrolls!"

"Snap—" came the sound of Tiera snapping her fingers.

All the exam papers disappeared at the same time, and then landed one by one on the circular lectern experimental table behind Tiera.

"Do not!"

"I haven't finished writing yet!"

"Give it back to me! Give me the test paper!"

"I've got a solution to that problem! Just one step away from finishing it!"

"I can write it now, give me back my test paper!"

"Almost there! Almost there! It's almost finished!"

After the exam papers suddenly disappeared, countless cries of agony erupted from some of the wizarding students who had been writing furiously, and some even reached out excitedly to snatch the papers back.

"The exam is over." With that, Professor Tierra tapped her finger lightly forward.

The students who tried to snatch back their exam papers felt a sharp pain on their foreheads, as if they had been stabbed hard, and then they lost their balance and fell back into their seats.

"Alright, students," Tiera said with a smile, "Although we took the test for four hours, it's still 10:20 AM outside. There's still an hour and ten minutes until your lunch break. You can go outside the castle and stroll around on the lush green grass by the back gate, sit and soak up some sun. This test won't count towards your grades; it's just a simple placement test, after all..."

“After all, dark magic is a dangerous thing. I can’t possibly teach you dark magic before you have a solid foundation in basic knowledge,” Tiera explained kindly, like a real teacher. “The slow class mainly focuses on the principles of magic and dark magic, as well as the basics of magical arithmetic. The regular class adds the analysis and practice of several commonly used dark magic spells. The fast class adds the analysis and unveiling of advanced dark magic principles to the regular class. The practical class will, under my protection, create dark magic items and practice using basic and some classic dark magic spells.”

"Whether you are assigned to the slow class, the regular class, or the fast class, please don't worry. We will have a monthly exam at the beginning of each month. Similarly, the monthly exam score will not be included in the total score. However, students who score above a certain score on the monthly exam can choose to move up a class. That is to say, students who do well on the monthly exam in the slow class can choose to move up to the regular class. Similarly, students who do well on the monthly exam in the regular class and the fast class can also move up to the fast class and the practical class."

After Tyella finished speaking, some of the young wizards present clearly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Alright, get out of class dismissed. Everyone, go home." With that, Tierra clapped her hands and began to usher everyone out.

After Tierra's explanation, the young wizards seemed to calm down a lot, and they walked out of the dark magic classroom in twos and threes, chattering away.

“I did terribly on the test,” Ron complained as he walked out of the dark magic classroom, glancing hopefully at Tyella, the student who was walking with them. “Could you please not put me in the slow class? It’s too embarrassing.”

“Me too!” Hermione said worriedly. “I don’t think I’ll make it into the advanced class. I gave up on several questions, and even among the ones I did answer, I’m sure at least three were wrong.” “Don’t worry,” Tierra said with a smile. “You can all make it into the advanced class.”

"They can all get in?" Hermione asked in surprise. "Even Ron?"

“That exam,” Tiera smiled, “only a third of the questions on those six papers tested the basic knowledge necessary for learning black magic. All the other questions were too advanced and mysterious for your current stage. You might be able to figure out the approach, or you might be able to get started, or they might seem simple at first, but when you got to the end, you found that the result conflicted with the conditions, and there were even several questions that had no answer at all.”

"What?" Hermione exclaimed in surprise, then her eyes widened in anger. "Why did you put it up if you couldn't solve it? Why did you test us?"

“The most important thing in learning dark magic is not talent.” Tiera paused. “Well, talent is still somewhat important, but mindset is even more important.”

“Once you truly begin to learn dark magic and delve into its mysteries, the most important thing is not how far you can go on this path, but how long you can stay on it,” Tiera said. “Do you remember the story Professor Flitwick told us in our first-year Charms class? The wizard Balfeo, who pronounced ‘f’ as ‘s’, found himself lying on the floor with a bison standing on his chest.”

“On the path of exploring the mysteries of magic, obsessively focusing only on the result while ignoring the initial conditions can easily lead us astray,” Tiera said. “And the consequences of going astray on the path of magic are far more serious than having a bison standing on your chest.”

“Actually, the content that needs to be covered in the slow and regular classes has already been covered in Dumbledore’s Army training courses. Even if some students haven’t mastered it yet, they can gradually become proficient through the assignments and exercises in the first few Dark Arts classes,” Tierra said. “And students who can enter the fast and practical classes need to have not only mastered the necessary magical theoretical knowledge, but also have the qualities of being down-to-earth, realistic, and rigorous in their deductions.”

“Hmm… although Ron, after you finished filling in all the questions you knew on the test paper, you slept on the table for most of the exam… but it’s true, you didn’t touch a single question with contradictory conditions…” Tiera said, “This kind of mentality is good for learning dark magic. If you can’t learn it, don’t learn it. If you can’t calculate it, don’t calculate it. You might as well just take a nap.”

“As for you, Harry,” Tierra said with a smile, “you actually thought of peeking at my answers.”

“No, no… I… I just wanted to know about you…” Harry immediately denied awkwardly.

“Don’t be nervous, Harry,” Tyella said. “Reality isn’t an exam. When one path doesn’t work, there’s nothing shameful about taking another. It just means you need to be more careful about your approach in the future.”

“Um…” Harry replied awkwardly.

“And Hermione…” Tierra gave Hermione a deep look and said, “Hermione wrote down all the formulas for the problems she couldn’t solve, but she still didn’t get the answer…”

"Not bad," Tiera said with a smile. "If you were a third-grader, I bet even if you knew you couldn't figure it out, you'd still keep trying, wouldn't you?"

"Then you didn't need to make us do so many tests!" Hermione said, ignoring Tyella's comment, "And they took so long!"

“If we don’t do this, how can we affect your mentality?” Tiera said. “Dark magic is no benign thing. The emotional impact you face in the early stages of learning dark magic will be far more terrifying than sitting in a classroom, writing a test for four hours, and not being able to answer half of the questions.”

"Why would someone whose mentality can be ruined by an exam learn black magic?" Tiera retorted.

(End of this chapter)