The results went up at the seventh hour.
Not the Grand Scoreboard of first year — that had been spectacle, a live crystal display with the entire first-year cohort gathered at its base watching the hierarchy rewrite itself in real time. Second year posted differently: a standard administrative board in the Academic District's northern corridor, pale stone inlaid with iron lettering, updated by the administrative staff before the day's first session. You came to it. It did not come to you.
Vane read his name at the seventh hour sharp.
Academic Rank 6. Practical standing carried forward from the Ashfield evaluation's partial results. Combined semester position: Rank 4.
He looked at the board.
