When it was Jasmine's turn to enter the examination center, one of the guards couldn't help but ask "Little girl... are you sure you want to attend the examination?"

"Yes mister!" Jasmine said, her tone filled with determination.

Hearing Jasmine's tone, the guard nodded and said. "Go ahead then. Good luck!"

Jasmine quickly skipped past the guard and entered the examination center's hallway. A look of disbelief flashed as she saw the inside of the place. Compared to what she had expected, the examination center did not match her expectations at all. She had expected grandeur, yet what she saw was... very minimalistic. There were no busts, sculptures or suits of armour on display. There were only a few paintings on the wall which depicted nature, making her feel that they served no other purpose than just dressing up the place a tiny bit.

The hallway was filled to the brim with men and women, both young and old, who had various feelings showing on their faces. Sadness, joy, rage, anxiety, ... name the feeling and it could be found within crowd. This was par for the course since the hallway contained those who were waiting to take their exams, those who had received their results and those who had yet to get them.

Slipping past the crowds, Jasmine quickly made her way to the intersection in the middle of the hallway. "Examination room, examination room .Aha! To the right!" She muttered as she looked around at the variety of signs on the wall. Having a destination, she quickly darted to the examination room.

She quickly entered the room and took one of the remaining free seats. One of the invigilators came by and after seeing Jasmine, he thought and frowned before walking out of the room, only to return with another man a minute later. The two of them walked over to Jasmine's desk. The invigilator who had initially looked at Jasmine spoke up. "Since you are so young, it will be Master Ian who will watch you take the exam instead of me. He will explain any and all questions that you don't understand."

If not for the grand master's orders to allow anyone to partake the exams, the invigilator would have long sent Jasmine home. Even though he still wanted to do so, the matter of fact was that he did not dare to go against the grand master's orders.

"Master Ian, I leave her in your capable hands." Having said that, he gave a polite bow before leaving to watch over another person's exam.

"These are the examination sheets. If there are any questions that you do not understand, feel free to ask me. Likewise, if you are not sure how to formulate an answer you can also ask me." Master Ian calmly said. It had long been a custom to help kids fill in their examination sheets. Some considered it a form of cheating, but when one thought about it, it would be quite hard for a kid to write a well formulated answer, so no one really complained about it. Those who did dare to complain about it, quickly realized that all they were doing was making a fool out of themselves.

"Thank you very much." Jasmine said politely as she accepted the examination sheets, flipped them open and looked at the questions one by one. She had always been taught by her parents that before starting to answer an examination sheet, she first had to seriously read each and every question and at least try to understand each and every single question.

There were many different questions. Some were very basic and she could answer them straight away, others were a little more complicated and finally there were a few pictures of battle situations with a little summary of the available troops for both parties, it assigned you one of the two sides and asked what you would do if you were that side's strategist.

Master Ian was surprised at Jasmine's serious attitude and her little frowns or her mouth suddenly widening in a quiet "oh" expression as she looked at the answers. This made him think that the little girl was at the very least taking the exam serious and in some cases even understanding the questions. He had personally overseen many children below the age of twelve take the exam, but he had never seen one that had been so serious and was so caught up in the exam's questions.

However, when he thought about it this did not come as a surprise. Most children that did take the exam were nobility after all and they never took it serious because they were only there to gain some experience and considered it a mock exam. It would only be at the age of sixteen, on the day that they would gain adulthood that they started to show up with serious attitudes.

While Master Ian was thinking that to himself, Jasmine quietly finished reading the questions. She flipped back to the front page, took her pencil and started to write down keywords next to each question before Master Ian could even offer his help in explaining the questions she did not understand.

When she was done with writing down keywords to one question she moved on to the next one. Writing keywords down before answering the question had also been taught by her parents and since she was taking this exam to make her parents proud in the hereafter, she was going to take this exam exactly the way they had taught her.

This girl understands every question? Master Ian thought to himself, seeing that Jasmine did not even bat an eyelid as she started writing down keywords. A slightly astonished expression settled on his face, one that only grew more and more intense as he stared at the keywords the little girl was writing down.

One of the other invigilators noticed Master Ian's expression and shot him a warning glance before resuming his duties. Master Ian wryly smiled and fixed his facial expression, yet the more he watched the girl at work the more astonished he became. He did not have a clue how such a young girl could write these keywords down.

Jasmine had no clue what feelings her actions were stirring up in the old man next to him and honestly she could not care less about others. This exam was way too interesting to her! While some questions were too basic for her, the others were things she had given some serious thought before or they were questions that were hard enough to give her a challenge.

To her, these questions were of a normal level. After all, she had been thought by not one, but two of the best strategists in recent history. Even if she had not been a diligent student under her parents tutelage, she still would have at least been able to write down half of these keywords. But she had not merely been a diligent student, she had been much, much more than that, at least the last two years she had nearly devoted all of her time to strategy. She did not understand why it held such a great interest to her, but at the moment she just liked everything about it.

A quiet sigh of relief exited her lips as she finished writing down the keywords. She had never liked doing this and in the past she had skipped doing it more often than not. Flipping back to the first page, she put down the pencil, closed her eyes and just as she had been taught before, gave herself a moment to get herself to a peak state of mind. By doing this, she looked more like a little adult than as a small child in Master Ian's eyes.

A minute or two passed before she picked up the pencil again and started writing down the answer to the first question. This was a rather simple and basic one. She had to name all the different types of military units. Starting from fireteam, squad, platoon and battalion all the way to field army, she wrote them all down without missing a single one unit type or average number of soldiers in each unit.

With the first question done, her confidence in the exam grew and she quickly filled in a couple more of the more basic questions on the first two sheets. After that the questions only grew harder, but her determination to solve them grew bigger and bigger. In the end, the only ones she slightly struggled on were the questions regarding battlefield situations. It was not that the questions were too difficult, it was just that she knew of more than one way to deal with the situation and could not quite figure out which one was the right given the situation. She shook her head on these questions as she just did not have any idea how these questions would be graded and she just filled them in with the answer that seemed the most fitting to her.

All this time, Master Ian just stared, inwardly in disbelief as the questions were answered with great speed, each answer being good enough to get full marks, but that was only when taking the average test taker in account. Master Ian was a pretty accomplished strategist himself and could clearly see from the little girl's answers that while yes she could answer the questions nearly perfectly, her understanding was still on a superficial level.

Then again this was normal since a girl this young could have never touched a battlefield. If she had... Master Ian did not even dare to think of the possible answers the young girl could have given. In truth, deep down, he was absolutely frightened by this girl's understanding, even though it was merely textbook level knowledge!

While deep in thought, Jasmine suddenly called out. "Uhm, Mister? I am done with my exam?"

Snapping back to reality, Master Ian quickly took the Jasmine's exam and said "Don't move. Stay here!" as he rushed of.