Once the Initiates who failed in the exam stage had been cleared from the hall, Researcher Fu smiled at the eleven remaining Alchemy Initiates in the room.
"Now that we've dispensed with the preliminaries, the real contest begins." With a snap of her fingers, a group of young research assistants filed into the room carrying several wooden boxes, porcelain bottles, and other sample containers.
"This round of the exam is simple. Here we have six different items taken from the area around the mountain lake that reacted in some way to the eclipse. Each of them has been placed among several similar items that did not react to the eclipse. For this round of the contest, you will be given one-quarter of an hour for each set of items. In that time, you must identify which of the items was affected by the eclipse. At the end of that time, you will move on to the next set and so on," she explained.
