Chapter 273 - Recruitment

Cecil quickly finished the test and exited the room. He was the first to finish in his room, but even when everyone noticed this, they only sneered at him in disdain.

Being the quickest didn't mean he knew everything on the paper. They all thought that he finished first because he only answered the questions without giving it much thought, people like him would only be eliminated in the first round of the competition.

They were right about one thing, Cecil did answer the questions without much thought, but he had answered every single question so specifically that his paper could probably be turned into an artificer's personal experience log.

The examiner was an aged old man, but he looked the part of a veteran artificer. So when he got ahold of Cecil's answers, he was planning on only flipping through the paper since he too thought that Cecil had answered his questions incorrectly, but when he saw the very detailed and lengthy answer of the very first question, he actually saw some newfound concepts in it that even enlightened him.

He was a veteran artificer so he already had a broad understanding of magi-tech crafting and runes, but even he was enlightened by the answers that Cecil had given. The examiner immediately rushed out to try and catch the kid who had just exited, however he couldn't find anyone in the corridor.

"Ah, crap...these are the answers of a genius...we probably already found our winner..." the examiner mumbled. He returned back to the room and noticed that the examinees were all puzzled at his earlier actions.

"Continue the test, don't mind this old man."

He sat down and began reading the rest of Cecil's answers and couldn't help but voice out his shock and awe as he continued reading the answers.

"I...I have to show this to Head Artificer Sola!"

The old man quickly rushed out of the room and went to find someone to replace him before going to the higher floors of the Empire's Workshop.

When he got to the Head Artificer's Office, he immediately burst in without even knocking.

"Head Artificer Sola!"

In the room, a busty young woman in her 30s was currently enjoying a cup of tea as she stared proudly at the rifle on display in front of her, but was suddenly startled by the old examiner's abrupt entrance.

"Goddammit! Which bastard—"

"Forgive me for my rudeness, but please, you must take a look at this!"

"Tsk, this better be worth barging into my office Osman!"

"Please!"

When the book was presented to Sola, she looked at the title and nearly threw the book back at Osman in a fit of fury.

"Look at the contents before you chuck that back at this old man," Osman chuckled as he said when he saw a nerve pop on Sola's forehead.

"..." Sola only glared back at him menacingly, but old Osman only continued chuckling in response, not minding the clear hostility present in the woman's eyes. This niece of hers was as fiery as usual.

As Sola opened the book and began reading the answers, her countenance brightened visibly and her attention fully focused on the book, not minding that her uncle had sat down comfortably and poured himself a cup of tea while clearing away the snacks on the table. After reading through the book another 2 times, she put it down and solemnly looked towards Osman.

"Whose answers are these? I see that the examiner's name is Cecil, but I don't find this name familiar."

"Yes, the person who took the test seems to be an artificer outside of our kingdom who has gotten a recommendation, and what's interesting is that the person who vouched for him is our workshop's little protégé."

"What?"

Osman presented a tablet version of a MID to Sola and they saw the registration info of Cecil and his recommender, Ren Maki.

"This kid... just where did Ren find him?"

"I asked yesterday, but it seems that little Ren is prepared to acknowledge the boy named Cecil as his master."

"WHAT?! That little brat! He won't acknowledge me, but some random kid from the streets?!"

"Ahem, I don't believe he's just some 'random' nobody, it's clear that his knowledge in Artificing and Runes are beyond our understanding."

"..."

"We should try to rope in this boy."

"Yes! We should do that! Where is he now?!"

"Well, the first phase assessment is still ongoing, but he finished very quickly and just left. I have no idea if he's still in the venue or not."

"Then find him!"

"I already tasked someone to—oh, speak of the devil, we just found him." Osman said as he tapped his own MID and showed it to Sola. "He's still in the venue...but he's at the spectator's seat for the 2nd Phase..."

"Let's go," Sola said as she got up from her seat. She took her coat and dr.a.p.ed it over her shoulders and walked out. Osman closed the door to her office and trailed behind.

In a VIP booth in the spectator area, Cecil was resting by Lucia and Serilla's side. He got bored from waiting so he actually slept to pass the time. Ren was in the room as well. He didn't expect his master to-be to have finished the assessment in record time, taking only 30 minutes to finish all 150 questions of the test.

Ren was in totally disbelief at his master's feat, but he firmly believed that his master had answered all 150 questions correctly. Ren even had one of the competition staff provide him a copy of the test for the assessment and he quickly asked for Cecil's guidance in answering all the questions.

For him, it was all basic questions that he could easily answer, but he wanted to see the answers from his master's perspective of understanding. He wanted to see what and how his master answered the questions. Ren already knew not to compare his master's methods to his own or any of the methods he's learnt up until now.

So after taking advantage of Cecil's brain and kindness, he was now fully immersed in reading all of his master's answers.

Cecil felt a certain sense of kinship with the little kid and found him quite likeable. It was like he was looking at himself as a child so he had answered the questions using some of the knowledge he obtained from the World Tree. This way, the answers were much more profound and totally different than the ones on his original assessment paper.

After he answered all the questions again for Ren, he immediately hugged Lucia and began resting his head on her lap. He had been spoiling Serilla lately so he thought that Lucia deserved some of his attention now.

Just as Cecil's mind completely relaxed and he fell into a deep sleep, the private booth's doors were immediately swung open.

"Is Ren and the kid named Cecil here?!" A woman asked in a loud voice as she made her way into the room.

Ren was immediately startled and he dropped the answer book he was reading. Sola's eyes sharply picked up the familiar book and handwriting. She focused her eyes at the answers and couldn't help but notice that they were different from the ones she saw earlier.

"Th-this..."

Just as she was going to pick up the book, it suddenly flew in the air and into Lucia's hand. The girl glared at the woman and stored the book into her spatial ring. She was angry that this woman had suddenly barged into their room so rudely and nearly disturbed Cecil's rest.

"Can we help you?" Serilla asked politely. She too was a little angry, but she didn't show it.

"M-Mentor! W-what're you doing here?!" Ren asked as he stared fearfully at the woman.

"Hmhm~ if it isn't our little Ren~ I heard that you were trying to gain someone's acknowledgement to be their disciple, hmmm?"

"Ah...errr...Y-yes, I am! S-so what?!"

"Ohohoho~ you wouldn't even acknowledge me as your master...yet here you are..."

Ren gulped and backed away from the Head Artificer as he stuttered in reply, "Y-yeah...s-s-s-s-so?!"

Sola only nodded at him before turning her attention towards the young teenager sleeping in Lucia's embrace. When Sola had barged in earlier, Lucia had quickly wrapped her arms around Cecil's head and covered his ears.

"Is this the kid named Cecil?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Lucia replied curtly.

"Hmph, how rude."

"You're the one who's rude."

Lucia glared at the woman and Sola only returned her gaze with an indifferently before saying, "I have business with that kid. Do you mind handing him over?"

"Yes, I do mind."

"If you're looking for him for business, then why don't you just tell us what you need from him? We'll tell him later when he wakes up," Serilla hastily replied when she saw that Lucia was only growing more and more hostile by the second.

"Hm? And what right do you have to inform him of MY business?"

"The two of us are his wives. Surely, that gives us the right?"

Sola raised an eyebrow at her Serilla's declaration. She smirked at the young lady and said, "Really? On his registration bio, he's single though?"

"..."

"Just hand him over, I'm not going to take long."

"Hmph, no can do. I'm not handing over my husband to some rude old lady!" Lucia immediately spoke up.

"Old...lady?" Sola's countenance darkened when she heard Lucia's snide remark. She circulated her mana and was about to punish the little lady, but suddenly a large golden spear of mana materialized in the air just below her neck.

"..."

"Lady, if you need something, shouldn't you be ask politely?" Cecil said as he got up. He let his guard down when around his lovers so he didn't wake up earlier when Sola had barged into the room, but when he detected the faint bloodl.u.s.t directed at Lucia, he immediately snapped awake and retaliated instinctively.

If he hadn't quickly noticed that the person who was emitting the faint amount of bloodl.u.s.t towards Lucia was actually a human, Cecil would have no doubt skewered the woman into the wall by now.

Sola raised her hands, signaling that she meant no harm. Cecil quickly dispersed the Mana Lance he created and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"Tsk...It was the first good nap in a while..." Cecil mumbled as he looked around the room before turning his attention to the unfamiliar woman. "Do you need something?"

"Yes, I do. Do you mind stepping out with me?"

Cecil waved his hand and the door closed, shutting out Osman who was still standing just outside the door. "We can talk here if you want."

"Fine..." Sola said as she quickly took a seat, she took out a unique looking crest and continued, "I'm the Head Artificer of the Great Workshop and I'm here to recruit you."