You know, I thought I was done with standardized testing, like who would’ve thought after the SAT’s and such I had to take for college that this world had the equivalent acronym. PZAT, the Pre-Zucai administrative Test, was even a thing. A servant came to collect me early in the morning, on orders from Lady Zhou of course, and I was given a pamphlet on the exam, and just wow, I am amazed at how it is somehow the exact same experience. Lady Zhou informed me ahead of time that she would make this pre-test as accurate to the actual Zucai exam, or as it’s official name is the ZAT. Little did I know the pre-test, the PZAT was actually an official thing as well. Large influential Clan like the Zhou are even required to have a few Clan members gain a Path that are VERY specific to these administrative tests.

[Path of the Zucai], such a stupid thing. Turns out that’s not even a low Rank Path even, it’s ranked up from [Path of the Pre-Zucai]. Bao Bao even cracked a joke about this, [Path of the Jinshi] is the most evolved generic Path of that line, and a standard Technique they have is an auto bubble scanning Technique that is a passive Technique that highlights any incorrectly bubbled answer on the answer sheets. [Auto Bubble Scanner], I am told it is, which makes it even weirder that they even named the testing sheets Scantrons because of that one Technique. That’s not even the worst part, there are variants of that Technique too. [Quick Bubble Correction] that not only scans all scantrons in a testing room, but fixes the bubbles instead. I almost cried when I heard that Technique used when little kid on the other side of the room had half his scantron misbubbled.

I know what you’re thinking, the Techniques, the acronyms, couldn’t be even similar, right? Wrong, the spaced out desks configuration, the people watching for cheating, all of it.Lady Zhou called in a favor and had a high ranked official come in to oversee the PZAT because some of their Techniques apparently can detect the use of reincarnation and other death avoiding measures as a means to become younger when taking the test. I thought this was all a joke, mind you, but apparently there was a kid who passed the ZAT when he was 10, and now all these old farts who fail the test a bunch will reincarnate once they hit Spirit realm and attempt the test around 8 or 9 so they can claim the record and regain some of their face. Silly right? But these Techniques literally scan your soul against a record of those who attempt who have attempted or passed the test, and it just makes a note if you have reincarnated and what your actual number of attempts are, before sending you off into another room where you take a harder test.

This higher rank official was brought in because my circumstances apparently could be determined to be similar to reincarnation depending on how the Technique functions, but was considered unlikely. The official was told that I was the reason he was called in, so of course I got the stink eye the whole time, and had been scanned multiple times by all his anti-cheat Techniques. The guy just waves his hand, a bunch of his Techniques go off in rapid succession, some random kid gets marked as a reincarnator, and another kid is told he has the wrong type of pencil, before he takes me a separate room, and am given a thorough talking to. The audacity! He dares mistreat this Young master, he shall pay for it over a thousand life times. Ahem, I got little worked up there, the guy was VERY thorough, felt like I got a cavity search via Technique.

After the 5th time he did his suite of anti-cheat Techniques, I may or may not have stuck my tongue out at him. Pretty sure that’s why he started grading my test after each section of the PZAT. I grinned when he didn’t mark anything incorrect on the math portion. Then the little bastard had that gleam in his eye and marked a couple wrong answers on the philosophy section. I was tempted to use [Young Masters Right] right then in the hopes it didn’t just mean invoking a right, but that I was right, but as soon as I opened my mouth the official looked at me and stare at me. Somehow he knew, I started sweating a bit, and resigned myself to sticking it straight for the rest of the test.

The rest of the test passed in silence, I only missed a couple more questions about Empire history, but in the end I passed the PZAT with flying colors, almost acing the test. I was about to start celebrating when Lady Zhou came over with the official in tow. She took us both off to the side, where she spent the next hour rebuking us both. She called me childish in a dozen different ways, honestly the mouth on her, if only she wasn’t the Matriarch. Damn, she went off on the official though, saying what he did a scandalous level of abuse of power, and if he wasn’t a family friend, and that she called him in herself, it would’ve been enough to lose his Path.

We ended up apologizing to each other, he even kowtowed three times. I may or may not have later crossed that off my bucket list. After Lady Zhou carefully explained to him that I was not originally a citizen of the Empire, and it was possible my existence may have triggered one of the reincarnation Techniques he used, he waved that concern off, saying part of the Technique scans for multiple instances of the soul in the administrative system, not so much the unique and foreign introduction of souls.

After the events of the test, I was told to brush up on the missed questions, as the Main Branch might dismiss anything but a perfect score, over the next couple days before the actual ZAT. Deciding it had been a long day, I took a long bath that night, had a light meal for dinner, and went to sleep early that night. I awoke the next morning to a surprise.

[Young Master Rank 2]

[Young Master Rank 3]