"Twenty."

... She thought he meant one, and then you'd have to return it visibly undamaged to get the next. That's the way a sensible person would do it! WHO LETS SOMEONE HAVE TWENTY OF THEIR BOOKS?!?

... Someone who can make books almost effortlessly and so replace any losses without worrying.

The stakes these people are playing for are much, much higher than twenty books. And she still doesn't know what the game is.

Tetley presents a single romance novel to be scanned. 

After some lobbying that he should be in fact allowed to have thirty books, Wei Wuxian grudgingly settles for twenty, all math and science and magical theory. 

Alida's stack resembles Wei Wuxian's, except that she's mixing in books on history and economics and political theory.

Bern considers taking twenty but doesn't think he can protect twenty, so he only takes four, talking about various practical skills he wants to pick up.

"It's great to see how interested you all are in learning," he says, apparently not sarcastic.

What response can you make to that???

"Is there some reason we shouldn't be?" she says, raising an eyebrow.

"Most students at Auradon Prep try to learn as little as possible and spend their time playing tourney."

What seriously no why. Are they all just children?

"It's very easy not to learn anything on the Isle," she says calmly. "It's much harder to survive it."

(She does think he got a more bookish than average selection, but that's really not the same thing as not wanting to learn as much as possible.)

"Well, you know, everyone survives at Auradon Prep, that's probably the difference."

And we will be Very Ticked Off if you break this record. Message received, Asher; she'll stick to nonlethal violence if violence is necessary.

"Probably."

Wait, nobody dies? At all? Even from disease or hunger or being unbelievably stupid?

Wow.

"And how many people die six feet away from the edge of Auradon Prep?"

"Also no one but good thought."

Message received, Wei Wuxian, getting way too inclined to just believe him. Appreciate the grounding.

If he wanted to mislead us, he could just lie both times. Most people don't prefer technical truths to just lying, even if she does.

"All right, I'm going to take you to your dorm rooms. You're going to each share a room with a person of the same gender who isn't a villain."

Broken up.

So they can't keep their gang together.

She should have talked about proper gang formation this morning before the limo arrived instead of just talking about magic however interesting magic is - 

"Understood," she says. It's a perfectly legitimate move on his part, she shouldn't be surprised or offended, all this will do is make her job a little bit harder -

What if that person wants to beat him up? Asher's not going to listen to a henchman's kid over an Auradon Prep student! Yes, Wei Wuxian would also beat him up, but if he did Alida might do something about it!

... Or she might not, it's not like he's valuable compared to Wei Wuxian.

Ugh.

Yay! She gets to meet new people!