Junseo woke the next day to the distinct cadence of military boots marching down the hallway. He quickly swiped the sleep out of his eye and grabbed some cloths before the door burst open.

"Captain Chan, is that you?" Junseo asked in disbelief as his former fencing master appeared in the small dormitory room dressed in a regular uniform.

"Alas, I am no longer a Captain and probably not long for being a palace trooper either." The man scratched his chin and looked one of his most frustrating students up and down. "Did you grow some more on me boy? Wait, what are you doing here?"

"My uncle was kind enough to offer me a place at his school to finish out the term after my state examinations." Junseo ignored the comment about his height since he towered over most of his coaches.

"You told me you did not want to be a palace guard. Yet here you are helping us out with this challenging duty," Trooper Chan pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Tai Yi's bed.

"Not at all. The Psyonan Lord Presumptive Jong Tai Yi, should still be accorded the respect his station deserves and such protections as prudent given these difficult times in our respective nations." Junseo stood up straight and used a resonant tone of voice.

"I had almost forgotten about your Grandfather being an ambassador," Trooper Chan commented sourly, "So what is the boy to you?"

"I am honoured to be Lord Presumptive Jong's roommate and hope one day he will call me a friend." Junseo bowed in the direction of the giggling pile on the bed opposite. He used the proper degree for a junior court member recognizing a senior one.

Trooper Chan just raised one eyebrow then asked, "Is our young lord ready to make an appearance or shall I wait in the hall?"

"I will be ready in a minute." Tai Yi said a bit impatiently but then added "Junseo, can stay."

Trooper Chan sighed and left to assume his post in the hallway.

"You are brilliant!" Tai Yi grinned at his roommate and hurried to get his uniform on straight and find his brush case and scrolls. "Are you coming down for breakfast?"

Junseo held up a hairbrush gesturing for the boy to come over, "I am assuming it is just a braid and a headband today."

"You don't have to do this. One of the maids usually takes care of it before Matron catches me."

"Let's save the girl the trouble. I have to get my uniforms and practice gear sorted so I don't know if I will make it back in time for breakfast."

"They usually have rice balls and fruit at the back table for a grab and go."

"Thanks. Now do you think you can behave in a way that will remind Trooper Chan his duty is important?" Junseo asked this as a serious favour.

"How do you know him?"

"He coached my fencing team for the regional finals. Now I think you have let him wait sufficiently to satisfy your dignity."

"You sound almost like our etiquette teacher." Tai Yi shook his head and went on his way with his disgruntled escort.

Junseo was able to get fully kitted out and grab some fruit before he made his way to the training field. There he met his peers in the candidate pool. The older boys all showed signs of having enjoyed their celebratory evening a bit too much and were not at all friendly. He admitted to the Master-at-arms he was likely not to do well since he was really starting to feel the after-effects of four days of hard riding. The man showed some sympathy by letting Junseo run some warm-up laps around the track and do a full set of stretches before sending him to work at the practice dummy

with a weighted staff.

When the whistle blew to switch stations, Junseo was not sure he would be able to even pick up a bow, never mind draw and shoot the longbow accurately. He did another series of stretches and made small talk with the other boys while he waited for his turn. The others all worried about when the results would come out.

"They only do the lists for the local exam here, right?" Junseo was glad he was not at home waiting for his results. He figured he would be waiting at least a week or two to find out.

"No all the exams have to be ranked together to figure out who is in the top quarter. Even the ones from the provinces. Not that anyone outside the capital has made the cut for the qualifying tournament in, like, forever." The smaller boy had just enough edge in his voice to make it clear he meant this as an insult.

The prick to Junseo's pride was enough to make him put a bit more effort into his shots when it was finally his turn. He had the satisfaction of turning in the best score in their group and earned a nod from the Master-at-arms.

By the time the equipment was properly stowed there was barely enough time to get cleaned up and changed before his ethic class. The quick reading the night before had not helped his confidence. Once he looked at them, he could remember Cantos one through six clearly but numbers seven through nine felt like a completely different author and just did not stick as well.

He waited for his new classmates to be seated before finding an empty desk toward the back of the room. The teacher had him stand up and introduce himself at the beginning of the class and mercifully did not call on him for the first recitations or comments. The class was going over a section in the fourth cantos which could be quite difficult and they kept getting bogged down. Junseo's fixed expression of polite interest changed into one closer to bewilderment.

"It looks like we may have lost our newest student," the teacher's condescending tone gave the class permission to laugh.

Junseo rose slowly to his feet and bowed to the instructor. "Thank you for providing me with this opportunity to seek greater clarity. Some scholars liken this part in the Fourth to the ending of the Third." Junseo then recited the relevant lines.

The teacher corrected his pronunciation at one point and then asked which scholars Junseo referenced.

"I think it was Yan Ho. I don't know the full quote but essentially, he argued when the sage mentioned the "weight of the stars" he did not mean it directly in their foretelling but in their pasts, and the pasts yet to come. It then better aligns with not looking to the sun but to your son's son like in verse three."

"It would make for a better symmetry" the teacher conceded and then realized their time was nearly up so assigned the next section of the fourth cantos. He asked Junseo to stay behind for a moment.

"I noticed you first quoted the poem in Shen?"

"Yes sir, it is how we learned it, and I remember it better with the original cadences."

"And what commentaries did you use the most?"

"I'd say Zhu Xu and Yan Ho were about equal."

"In translation?"

"Not usually. We did the first two cycles our languages class so were expected to read and speak Shen."

"I see. I guess we will have a better idea for your placements later but perhaps you could do the Shen recitation of Cantos Four at the beginning of our next class."

Junseo thanked the teacher and walked slowly down the hall. He did not know what to think. In his head he had built up a picture of the schoolwork in the capital being far superior to what had been offered in Ilidan. Maybe his uncle had put him in a more intermediate group to make things easier. He liked this explanation until he remembered the boys in his class had all written the government exams as well. His worries had him quietly picking at his lunch while he sat among his senior classmates.

"I hope the old fuddy-duddy wasn't too hard on you," one of the quieter boys from his ethics class ventured.

"No, he was just trying to better understand my background with the material," Junseo said a bit absentmindedly.

"Did you really memorize the Shen version?" one of the others sounded awed.

"We did it in our languages class for about three years." Junseo exaggerated a bit.

"Bet that made your conversational classes fun."

The other boy meant this as a joke so Junseo played along and replied, "Positively scintillating."

This earned a bit of a laugh and he was able to get directions to the science labs.