People on the test whispered to each other as the test was ending and disqualified people were being kicked out.
"Did the match for that Elizabeth finally appear?"
"What was his name?"
"Oliver Vaikuntha, and only being twelve years old he is already at the peak of the tenth layer of Essence Reinforcement. He can become a Magus Rank 1 at any moment."
Roland was happy everyone was ignoring him until he heard the name of the young boy and his eyes narrowed with profound anger, and he did his best to extinguish it before his master perceive it. "He can't be related to her, right? But what are the chances of someone with a surname so strange be not related to her?" He thought and after convincing himself that was impossible to that aberration of nature be related to his saviour, he sat down to wait for the second stage.
Roland thought he had hidden well his anger but someone at his side found it different. "It's frustrating, isn't it? Your results were so impressive, yet nobody is paying attention to you. You mustn't be lucky, buddy. But don't fret, I paid attention to you and I know how amazing you are."
At Roland's side, there was a teenager girl a little older than Shin Ta, she had long light green hair reaching her waist and similar coloured alluring eyes. Her face made Roland feel familiarity, it wasn't beautiful and also wasn't ugly, although it was for sure uglier than the average face that Carmen had in his opinion.
So probably this girl suffers more about her appearance than Carmen, since her face is worse and she was also a little chubby in her white clothes that made easier to one perceive her weight and ugliness.
This made one question her sanity and fashion sense, and also the reason to have an out of place golden bracelet above her clothes at the middle of her arm.
"Sorry, but have I meet you before? Your eyes and face look familiar to me." Roland accidentally ignored what the girl said earlier because of how similar she was to Carmen, she even had the same eyes.
"O-Of course not. I-I'm Carmen Cockaigne and I've never met you before." Carmen stammered in panic, visibly shaking and making Lucy and August discover her identity.
"Carmen? How strange, I have a friend that is also called Carmen and she is really similar to you." Roland looked quizzically at her.
"I-It is just a coincidence, Carmen isn't a name that uncommon, after all. And this Carmen you know, I doubt she has a strange surname like mine. How old is she? I'm already sixteen, this girl you know couldn't be also sixteen, right?"
"Oh, that's true. And the Carmen I know is fifteen years old. Also, there is no way she from the Kirin Renascence Society could be here. Sorry for the misunderstanding."
"No problem, it's fine." Carmen nervously laughed and thought. "Damn, I got too nervous because he was too close to me that I revealed to him my true name that no even my grandpa know and almost screw up everything."
"This look fun, so let's stay quiet. This girl seems for some reason also capable of reading now the flow from the World's Fate." Lucy sent to August.
"Oh, I didn't introduce myself yet. My name is Roland, Carmen." Roland touched his chin in thought. "It's really strange to call her Carmen, do other people that also know people with the same name feel in this way?"
"So like I was saying earlier, you are really amazing, Roland. And yet nobody is paying attention to you. Your rank was Quasi Emperor while mine was only Baron." Carmen tried to bootlick him, she knows that the best way to get in a good light in someone is to praise them while making yourself lower.
"So what's your ulterior motive to talk with me? Tell me now if not I will ignore you." Roland mercilessly said, perceiving how she was able to spot him in the confusion of Oliver's talent being revealed and her bad bootlicking that is comparable to August's acting.
Roland wasn't smart enough to discover her identity but when her acting made him remember of August, it was easy to him pick clues about her strange actions of talking with him just after he sat down and always commenting how she paid attention to him despite the number of people in the trial of fire.
"Fuck you, God. It was supposed to me be lucky, why everything that I do get messed up?" She thought and said. "I think its better to me be honest with you." She exhaustively sighed. "I'm actually in love with you. It was love at first sight and-"
"Okay, you are going to be ignored now." Roland closed his eyes, even a baby can see how Carmen is lying.
"Wait, wait, wait. Let me finish." Carmen quickly said while cursing in her mind her stupid idea, she thought he would at least let his guard down after being confessed but he didn't even bat an eye at her confession. "Like I was saying, it was love at first sight but I know how ugly and fat I am, so I didn't have hopes of you liking me, however, this couldn't stop me of paying attention to you. It was then that after my test quickly ended at rank Baron, I saw your ranking.
"I thought of it as my only chance to live a proper life in the Society without being bullied by my looks, if I become friends with you, someone talented despite being old, nobody will talk bad about me and I will have a chance of finally living my life without being judged or tormented. Do you know how bad is to be ignored through all your life by your loved ones just because of your low talent and ugly look? It is insufferable and after some time you just wish you were dead."
Roland was finally able to feel sincerity and pain from Carmen's eyes and actions, if she was capable of feigning such pure and raw emotions then she deserved an award and Roland will have to help her anyways in respect.
Although considering her appearance, what she is saying is probably true, this isn't a world that looked kindly on the untalented and different from the norm. Roland knew well about that since the days he lived on the slums and the looks of scorn of the people he begged for money when younger.
But there was still a question lingering in his mind. "Why me though? If you want to someone protect and serve as a foil to you, why didn't you try talking with Oliver? His talent is bigger than mine."
A false blush appeared on Carmen's face. "I-It's because you are my first love and I had faint hopes that maybe you would begin to love me after you pass enough time with me."
"And the true motive? You have three seconds." Roland was getting a headache while dealing with this girl that thinks she is too good at hiding her feelings.
"Because I am at the eighth layer of the Essence Reformation and Oliver is at the tenth layer. Those kinds of arrogant pricks won't care about people weaker than them, so it's useless to talk with them. In the other hand, you that is at the seventh layer will at least talk with me and since you are older than me there is a chance you will feel pity of my teenager's problems and help me." Carmen indifferently said, if she was the 'Carmen' from this world those would be her true motives but since she isn't, she has another ulterior motive she can't talk to Roland.
"Good enough for me." Roland gave up on understanding the weird girl. "Fine, I will be your friend. It's already set to me live near Elizabeth, the patriarch's daughter, so if you met some problem just come to ask me for help."
"Are you serious? You are accepting becoming my friend after I told you all of this?" Carmen sounded genuinely happy and even stupidly smiled while sitting near Roland. "This guy is so nice, so much better than Shin Ta. Now doing that to my survival doesn't sound that bad… why for a second I just thought I was thinking like a bitch and happy about this situation? This must be only my imagination. I'm different from those street girls that stole Father from my family." She thought, tilting her head to the sides while getting close to Roland.
"The second test will begin now, the ones that passed please go to the black door with designs of dragons at the north and the ones that failed go to the door with designs of birds at the south," Vaen shouted.
Only thirty percent of the people that came passed and the majority was only rank Soldier. The only special ones were a group of seven people that got rank Marquess, Roland with his rank Quasi Emperor, and of course, the new genius, Oliver, that got rank Quasi Demigod.
"Let's go, it will be good for you if you since now already began to act like my friend." Roland stood up and motioned for Carmen to follow him by helping her stand up.
Carmen nodded and obeyed him, walking together with him to the black door and being surprised by what appeared at her front after passing through the door.
The people that passed were now at a location out of place in what they supposed was an antique castle, around them they saw mountains, boulders and faint vegetation.
"The second stage will decide your position in the caste in our Society. You can receive any caste, even of Crown Prince or Crown Princess if you do this stage well enough. The only caste you can't get is that of Followers which only depends on the elders of the Society."
Vaen said and from underneath him, a big black slab appeared full of symbols of smelting furnaces and a myriad of other tools and equipment. "This is the final stage where you swear fealty to our Society but the spirit of our founder is sometimes whimsical and can ask you to do things like fighting before the ceremony, so this is the reason we have the rule of not killing."
Vaen proceeded to call one by one the people that passed the first stage to touch the slab.
They would touch the slab and if they had luck, the slab would nothing besides shooting a red light on their bodies to mark their loyalty and saying their caste to Vaen give the person the robe from the Society.
Sometimes the slab would ask for them gather materials on the middle of the mountains around them and other times it would ask them to demonstrate the techniques they learnt before entering the Society.
Nothing of really special happened until now, with only three fights happening and no casualty on them.
"Green haired girl, it's your turn." Vaen pointed to Carmen.
Carmen nervously went to the slab, constantly looking at her golden bracelet at her arm.
Vaen noted this and looked to the bracelet, he tried his best and didn't see anything of special on it, it was just a normal bracelet you can buy at the market.
She tapped her finger on the air in a way nobody could understand what the weird girl was doing before touching the slab, and the founder's booming voice sounded. "You're a Peasant, only with luck would you ever get out of this caste." The red light entered Carmen, signifying her pledge to never betray the Master Blacksmith Society.
Carmen gave a sigh of relief when the founder didn't make her do anything just as she planned and accepted the official vestment from Vaen that could, thanks to two runes on it, adapt to the wearer.
Vaen then called Roland since he was close to the Carmen.
Roland hoped the founder wouldn't make him do anything hard but as always his hopes got thrashed. "You caste is undefined, fight to prove your worth." A silver streak of light connected him to the slab and another went to the crowd to chose his opponent.
This already happened when another person fought and Vaen explained that the founder chose people of similar strength, and when one of the fighters receives enough damage the silver streak of light will be broken to prove the person lost.
And with Roland's luck, it wasn't a surprise to him that the silver streak of light connected to Oliver Vaikuntha, the young genius with rank Quasi Demigod.
Oliver confidently walked out of the crowd with a happy smile stamped on his young face, he was just twelve years old and his presence was frightening. His long red hair seemed to fly behind him and his piercing amber eyes bore a hole in Roland's confidence of defeating someone at the tenth layer of Essence Reformation.
HIs oval face seemed innocent but it was just a mask to his overbearing arrogance and contempt to all life forms under the skies from where he came from. He couldn't be happier than he was now, he would fight the one that permitted him to have the dog and parrot, and show to him his superiority.
Roland was just going to forfeit and feign to fight after letting down his masters just as Oliver did before walking out of the crowd when Oliver summoned from thin air a sword made of a golden fire that made Roland's heart go cold in anger.
The feeling of oppression, the constant flickering of the flames, the fear reaching him and Oliver having that surname made him confront a truth he didn't want face.
Those flames and fire sword were exactly equal to that monster which killed his grandfather.
Roland coldly said with Qi appearing around him being fueled by his hatred but not corrupting his brain since the tribulation was already over. "What's your relationship with that aberration of nature, Victoria Vaikuntha? Is she here on Lakepoint?"