Richard found the girl named Edith Carter in the crowd.
She answered each of the registrar’s questions one by one, her voice low and her back ramrod straight.
After finishing the process, she was directed to the last seat on a long, hardwood bench in the hallway.
The other hardship students managed to exchange a few words, gathering in small groups to whisper among themselves.
She sat at the very end. No one spoke to her, and she made no effort to approach anyone else.
Richard walked up to the long table. He was a recommended student.
The verification of recommendation letters was scheduled after registration.
Pendleton sat behind the registration desk.
The general affairs supervisor was wearing a formal suit today, buttoned all the way to the top.
He took each person’s documents, looked them over, and then passed them to the man sitting beside him for review.
That man wore a dusty-looking gray suit and remained expressionless, not uttering a single word from start to finish.
Pinned to his chest was a tiny insignia that Richard recognized: the symbol of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The line shuffled forward.
It was Richard’s turn.
He handed over his documents.
Pendleton took them and flipped through, page by page.
When he got to a letter tucked deep inside, his movements slowed.
It was sealed with wax, and the envelope bore Professor Mortimer’s personal seal.
Pendleton pulled the letter out and handed it to the Ministry of Internal Affairs representative beside him.
The movements of the several people behind the registration desk paused for half a second.
Class placement was scheduled for the day after registration, nominally a "Scholarship test."
The testing method, however, was peculiar.
An empty classroom, with several silver-backed plaques that Richard didn’t quite understand embedded in the walls.
The candidates went in one by one. Inside sat two elderly examiners.
They would have you press your hand on a copper plate on the table, then recite a passage in Latin.
Whether you recited it haltingly or fluently, the examiners made no comment, simply making a note on the roster before telling you to leave.
When Richard went in, he spread his [Hidden Spiritual Vision] very thinly.
He understood then. The copper plate was for testing one’s loops.
As soon as a hand was pressed on it, the inscription on the copper plate would give a response indicating whether or not the person had an Ether Loop.
Reciting Latin was just a pretense, a smokescreen to prevent the children in the regular class who had no loops from noticing anything.
After the test, the class placement results were posted the next day.
There were two classes. Richard was assigned to the "special class."
The roster for the regular class was long.
The top students who had studied hard for years, believing they had finally squeezed their way into the highest institution of the Imperial Capital, crowded around the bulletin board, searching for their names.
They would breathe a sigh of relief upon finding their name, only to turn and realize they had been separated.
The notice didn’t say why.
"Both classes will take the basic Scholarship courses together."
Pendleton explained privately to Richard when the schedules were handed out.
"The special class has additional ’special topics’ that the regular class can’t take."
"What are the special topics about?"
"You’ll find out in a few days."
Pendleton avoided the question and continued:
"A Scholar from the regular class." He held up one finger. "The highest they can ever become in their lifetime is a lecturer."
Richard’s breathing slowed.
"Only those from the special class." Pendleton held up a second finger. "Can even touch the rank of associate professor."
"The work that a full professor does... people from the regular class will never even see it."
Richard understood.
The top students from the regular class, the ones who had studied hard for years, were separated by an invisible glass wall.
They thought they had entered Imperial University and that a bright future awaited them, but they had no idea that a glass ceiling had long been placed over their heads.
As Richard was leaving, he ran into someone who had been shut out by that wall.
A boy was staring at the class placement list, reading it over and over, confirming that his name fell into the regular class column.
He stood motionless in front of the bulletin board for a long time, an indescribable bewilderment on his face.
He didn’t even know at what point he had been weeded out.

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