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A harsh white light flooded the room.

...

When Rowena opened her eyes again, everything in front of her had changed.

The computer desk was gone. In its place stood a long table lined with trays of spices.

The heavy scent of spices, mixed with damp air, rushed straight into her nose, so vivid it almost dragged her back to her years studying in Europe.

Back then, to make money, she worked nights at a Western restaurant, grinding basin after basin of spice powder every single day, and then...

"Rowena!"

The voice snapped her awake. Rowena jerked her head up and looked around.

It was a classroom built in a late medieval European Gothic style.

The windows were tall, the walls thick, the floor cold and damp, and a crystal chandelier with intricate patterns hung from the ceiling.

Inside sat a group of boys and girls around twelve or thirteen years old. At the front, beside the first desk, stood a blond man in his thirties or forties, clearly a teacher.

"Rowena!" the blond man called again, his tone sharp. "Stand and answer my question."

He stared at Rowena without blinking, the suspicion in his eyes plain for anyone to see.

Suspicion?

Rowena's pupils tightened. A huge wave of panic rose in her chest, and a strange, unfamiliar emotion crashed into her mind all at once.

Along with that surge of feeling came flashes of memory, one after another, pouring through her head.

She remembered now. The girl who had originally owned this body had entered the academy by pretending to be a noble young lady, only to offend a real noble miss after fighting with someone over a dormitory room.

What was happening right now was plainly that noble young lady’s revenge. She had seen through the original girl’s fake identity and wanted to strip her bare in front of everyone on the very first lesson of term.

And that blond man was the instructor for this class, Professor Richie Phill.

It was also he who had gone along with the noble lady’s suggestion and called on the original girl to answer.

This was a potions lesson. The topic today was basic spices commonly used by nobles, and the question thrown at her was naturally about spices as well.

But the original girl had never even touched such costly things. The moment she heard the question, she was so scared she nearly lost her soul on the spot, let alone stand and answer it.

As for why she was this terrified, the reason was simple: if a commoner pretending to be a noble was exposed, she would be seized, brutally tortured, and then hanged in the street for all to see.

The thought of all those cruel medieval punishments made Rowena suck in a sharp breath.

She forced herself to steady down, rose to her feet, and looked at Phill. "My apologies, Professor Phill. I lost focus for a moment. Would you please repeat the question?"

A snicker came from the front right. One of the noble lady’s attendants curled her lip and said with open mockery, "I doubt she was distracted. More like she simply doesn’t know, doesn’t she?"

The moment those words fell, whispers spread all across the classroom.

If Rowena could not even recognize basic spices, was she really a noble at all?

"Silence." Professor Phill rapped the desk, then looked back at Rowena. "Rowena, identify the spices on the table and briefly explain their uses."

"Yes, Professor." Rowena lowered her eyes, her gaze returning to the tray of spices.

Dill, sweet basil, parsley, sage, rosemary... they were all the most common seasonings in Western cooking.

A few hundred years ago, these might have been expensive goods. But in the modern world, hundreds of years later, they were grown everywhere and had long since become cheap and ordinary.

She could only hope that in this world, their names had not changed.

She steadied herself, reached out, lightly sorted through the spices, and spoke their names and uses one by one.

"Dill. Slightly sweet with a sharp note. Used in cooking, and it may help with stomach pain and sleeplessness. Sweet basil, suitable as a garnish or side herb."

"Parsley, a seasoning herb, and it may also be eaten fresh. Sage, strong in fragrance, fit for cooking or enhancing aroma."

...

"Vanilla pod. A pod from Vanilan. Rich scent, very distinctive. Edible, and also useful in blending and fixing perfume."

"And the one at the very bottom—"

Rowena pushed aside the pile of dried herbs and spices. When she saw the yellowish lump of fat-like resin beneath them, she quietly let out a breath.

So that noble young lady still wasn’t completely sure she was not of noble birth. Otherwise, she would never have used this thing to test her.

"This is frankincense. A resin from olive and frankincense trees. It can ease pain and help preserve against decay."

She drew her hand back, lifted her head, and asked, "Professor, is my answer correct?"

The entire classroom fell dead silent.

Rowena frowned slightly. Could it be that the names of these spices were different from the ones she knew?

Only after a long pause did she finally hear Richie Phill speak.

"You’ve tasted all of these spices?"

"Professor, aren’t these all rather common seasonings?" Rowena smiled a little. "Though I’ve never eaten frankincense. It’s more of a medicinal incense. It’s better suited for fumigation and essential oils."

Of course, Phill knew that much. He had been born a noble himself. Even so, not even he would use such costly spices so lavishly in cooking.

And frankincense—that was an exceptionally precious aromatic. It was usually reserved for offerings, because legend said it was the scent closest to the gods... Wait. Since when was frankincense part of basic medicinal materials?

Professor Phill suddenly came to himself and strode quickly to Rowena’s desk. "May I see your spice tray?"

Rowena stepped back half a pace. "Of course."

Phill picked up the yellow lump from the tray and held it beneath his nose. His expression shifted again and again.

"It is indeed frankincense," he said at last, setting it down. "I must have mixed it in by accident while sorting the herbs. My apologies, Rowena. How about I add ten points to your score for this lesson?"

"Very well, Professor."

Holding the frankincense, Phill returned to the lectern and lowered his head to write something down.

Just as Rowena sat back down, the noble young lady seated in front suddenly turned sideways and cast her a measuring look with those clear blue eyes, as if she were weighing some object whose worth had yet to be decided.

When Rowena met her gaze, she noticed something interesting.

This noble young lady called Asina had a head of dazzling golden hair, and by pure coincidence, it was the exact same color as Teacher Richie Phill's.

The second half of the lesson was so calm it turned dull. The students in class grew sleepy listening to it.

Rowena kept her eyes lowered, looking as if she were daydreaming, but in truth she was sorting through the extra memories that had appeared in her mind.

The original owner of this body had once been nothing more than a little fisher girl. Her fishing village was slaughtered by pirates, and she escaped by sheer luck, only to be saved by several knights.

Among them, a kind female knight had given her a letter of recommendation for admission, along with some gold coins, and told her to come study at this school.

The girl had been pretty enough to draw trouble. On the road to the academy, she had nearly been violated several times. To protect herself, she started pretending to be a noble.

But that rash choice had also cost her life.

In those memories, because she had failed to answer Richie Phill's question today, her classmates had grown suspicious.

They informed the Church's inquisitors, who dragged her into a church prison. Unable to withstand the torture, she confessed her real identity.

Once her secret was exposed, the soldiers first tied her up with ropes and paraded her through the streets. After that, they hung her on the city wall for a full seven days, where she endured endless curses from the crowd.

Those commoners splashed dung water on her and hurled rotten vegetable leaves at her. Even her former classmates came to watch the spectacle, pointing at her, sneering, their faces full of contempt.

In the end, she was taken to the public execution ground and hanged on the gallows.

Right before she died, she offered up her soul to an evil god, wishing for that god to change this world, and change her future too.

Who knew whether that evil god had truly accepted the sacrifice and sent Rowena here, right onto the very day her identity was supposed to be exposed.

Rowena's eyes stayed half-lidded as she quietly recalled everything she knew about this school.

Shiriya Magic Academy had been founded with the joint support of several nations, and its ideals were unusually progressive: it claimed it wanted to break class prejudice and nurture the finest talents on the whole continent.

A pity that, no matter how often the academy repeated "all who enroll are equal, whether noble or common," the nobles here still looked down on commoners terribly. The divide between the two sides was sharp and obvious, and no one truly took that line seriously.

The original girl had entered the sight of the noble students by pretending to be one of them, yet everything about her habits clashed with noble upbringing. Sooner or later, she was bound to be exposed.

Today's little test was only an appetizer.

At the very least, Asina was not going to let her off that easily.

In the original girl's memories, Asina had already sent people to investigate her background by this point. It was only because the girl had been exposed too fast that none of Asina's backup plans ever had the chance to come into play.