Hearing his name called, Leo began walking straight to the crystal and as all eyes were on him, his brain was constantly thinking about something.
If people found out that I have talent that is above pink? Wouldn't that put the family in danger? What if I end up breaking the machine? This won't end up well. I must find a way to not take this test.
As the crowd was there watching impatiently, Leo arrived at the crystal and slowly raised his hand. Just as he was about to touch the crystal, he suddenly stopped his hands that were reaching out. He then slowly turned towards Migi and calmly said, "I would like to not participate in this test, please call the next name up. Thank you."
As he said this Leo walked off back into the crowd and rejoined Aurora, who herself had a shocked expression on her face.
Silence flooded the arena, even the clan heads were all silent to the point where only the light breathing of everyone could be heard. This year's ceremony had brought a lot of shocks. The crowd got to see the appearance of two extremely rare gold affinities. They got to witness the rarest pink grade affinity as well. And to top of this already mind-puzzling event, they got to witness a noble simply reject a test. It would be normal if the person refusing the test was a commoner to save themselves from the embarrassment but this was a noble. Or at least that's what they thought Leo was. There was only one reason for this that appeared in all the people's minds, weakness. A noble would not turn down the test if they had good talent so Leo's talent must be terrible or below average, they all thought.
The scene in the clans' area was now unreadable. Each clan head was in utter confusion as they could not believe why Leo had rejected the test. The Decan clan head had said that they were both taken by the grand elder so they had expected Leo to be nothing but extravagant. Especially since Aurora's result had completely ruined their plans to possibly gain more power in Sapphire City.
They all looked towards the Decan clan head and saw that on his face was an expression of confusion, this confused them all more and caused them to be more lost. They turned around to look at the grand elder of the Decan clan but he somehow seemed to have disappeared from the clan area.
"Next! Aka Decan!" the officiator's voice sounded out again as the test continued but the crowd was still yet to recover from all the shock. The rest of the other children who went up got average talents and did not bring up any more surprises for the people who were watching.
It took about one and a half hours for the remaining participants to finish, "thank you everyone for coming to this ceremony. The test has now ended. Now we can move on to the banquet and feasting field area," said Migi as he officially ended the testing stage of the ceremony. Now it was time for the food and feastings.
Immediately, everyone in the crowd began moving as they headed for the arena exit.
"Aurora, give me a minute," Leo spoke to Aurora as he walked to Migi and Eren who had begun shutting down the crystal.
"Excuse me!" Leo called out to them.
"Hey! What do you want?" Migi asked curiously. Leo had made a particularly interesting impression on him as he was the only person in the whole ceremony to reject a test.
"Is there a chance for me to learn blacksmithing from your master?" Leo asked as he bowed.
"Haha! Nice one kid. It's rare to see such a young child want to learn blacksmithing, do not worry, blacksmithing doesn't depend much on your affinity so you don't have to feel embarrassed at all. If you want to learn blacksmithing, then you will have to wait a few more years, I'm afraid that you are too weak to begin now," Migi laughed as he explained.
"Oh... That's unfortunate, I see... Well then, I'll be off, for now, thank you for officiating the test. Please thank your master for me," Leo bowed respectfully as he joined Aurora and left.
'What a nice and polite kid,' Eren thought.
Aurora and Leo went out and walked off to the grand elder's area. Since the test was done, they had no intention of meeting people and eating with them. But there was a constant barrage of people who came and introduced themselves to Aurora in hopes of becoming friends with her. They would all come to Aurora with all smiles as they revered her like a mini goddess. Meanwhile, when they saw Leo walking along with her, they were filled with thoughts of jealously and anger as they immediately saw Leo as a degenerate noble and that he was not worthy of Aurora at all.
Eventually, the crowd got so hectic and claustrophobic that Aurora and Leo had to make their way to the Grand elder's area to escape the paparazzi.
"Phew, just a small event and you are already a famous celebrity," Leo spoke jealously.
"I don't like all this attention, it's your fault. If you had just taken the test then you would be the famous one," Aurora responded annoyedly.
"I prefer to let you take all the glory. I don't want people knowing about me but anyways let's get inside quickly I want to ask grandfather a few questions. Along with that, your cooking tastes much better than those simple food being served at the field," Leo commented.
Aurora's cooking had improved massively and Leo had now grown to love it so he preferred to eat at home instead of eating at the banquet. As they arrived inside the house, they were greeted by Andy who had the sleeping little Lex in his arms.
Seeing them arrive, he warmly greeted them, "the ceremony is finished?"
Aurora and Leo both nodded in unison and Leo took Lex from Andy's arms and placed him is his crib.
"I'll go and get changed, I'll make dinner now," Aurora spoke as she walked to her room.
"Leo, let's go and have a talk outside," Alfred spoke as he walked out to the cherry blossom tree.
Once Leo got out, he began exploding in confusion and amazement, "WHY IN THE WORLD DID YOU REJECT THE TEST?! Is there something wrong with your head?! Is your talent that different from Aurora's?"
"About that grandfather... I wanted to ask you a few questions regarding that," Leo responded.
"I'll only answer then if you agree to a request of mine," Alfred spoke commandingly.
"Ok..." Leo weakly replied as he was intimidated by his grandfather's anger.
"You must go and take the test! I will force the officiators to keep the machine here and you will take the test!" Alfred demanded.
"Oh..." Leo blankly responded, he had expected something more dramatic. He replied, " Ok fine, but it can be only you who is there to watch."
"Deal!" Alfred immediately put on a happy face as he saw that Leo quite easily agreed.
"So grandfather, I want to ask, during the test, Aurora got the snow affinity, why have I never heard of it?" Leo began asking.
"Ah... Well, those are an extremely rare affinity that appears once in a decade. Along with there are darkness and light, these are the three rarest talents. They have never once appeared in Sapphire city so that why you have never heard of it. For Aurora to have such talent, it means that her luck is extremely high or her parents were extraordinary," Alfred expertly explained.
"Ok, here's my next question, will Aurora's talent bring problems to the clan?"
"This... This is a very hard question to answer. The other clans in the city may use this and gang up on us or they may want to form an alliance with us. From the clan's perspective, we don't really have to worry about the sects. But I will personally watch over Aurora on that front," Alfred answered.
"I see... Grandfather, can I asked how cultivation stages after emission realm work?" Leo suddenly came up with a new question.
"Ah... That is a good question, you already know that cultivation starts with vein opening realm then manipulation, then gathering, then condensation realm, and finally emission realm. This is known as the initial stage. After emission realm comes refinement stage. This is split up into seven stages. And after this comes the origin stage which is split up into nine stages. Any human who has reached this stage can be called an ascended being."
"Grandfather, what are uncle Aron and your cultivation?" Leo curiously asked.
"I am at stage two origin stage and your uncle Aron is at refinement stage seven,"
Hearing this, Leo's brain crashed in error, he must have been concealing and limiting his cultivation this whole time, he thought as he laughed at his stupidity. He was a clan head how could he possibly have such low cultivation.
"I'm running late, I have to go, take care of Lex and Aurora, I have some of my old friends coming to visit, I'll go and welcome them. Tell Aurora that I won't be there for dinner," Alfred spoke as he walked off in the direction of the clan entrance.
"Leo, a little help?" Aurora's voice suddenly sounded from behind Leo as she brought out all the cooking equipment and the tables outside and they began preparing the food.
"Leo, did you also think that I shouldn't have taken the test?" Aurora suddenly asked while chopping the vegetables. Ever since they left the village Aurora had been following all of Leo's orders. Her whole world broke down when she lost the village, Leo was her only hope and as they continued to survive, she had grown to have complete trust in him, when she saw that Leo had rejected the test, she suddenly got worried and felt slightly disturbed.
"So that's what was bothering you all this time. Well, no. I'm happy that you did. I'm glad that the little Aurora of the Meno village outshone everyone," replied Leo as he softly chuckled, "I'm sure every villager would be proud of you that you have talent that could outshine even nobles in a city," he continued in a slightly more comforting tone. Seeing that Aurora was not fully convinced, Leo gave her a light pat on the head and continued cooking.
Meanwhile, the scene at the banquet was full of shouts of joy and happiness, Alfred had met his friends and they started roaming the banquet area. As they walked along, they began conversing as they gulped down the wine that they had stored in their spatial storage.
"Did you hear about the girl who got a legendary pink affinity?"
"Yes, I heard about it. Apparently she was wearing a veil on top to cover her face. She must be extremely beautiful to have such talent. Hey Alfred, you must be really proud eh!"
Alfred's friend, Drake gave him a cheeky glance as he looked towards Alfred and commented, "looks like the Decan clan will grow stronger. Its a shame that the war is going on."
"Haha. It is indeed almost unheard of to find someone in pink grade. She must be a very good talent, " spoke another person behind Andy.
"Haha, it is indeed rare, Elliot. I also did not even see this coming, " spoke Alfred in a very happy but friendly manner.
They eventually stopped in front of a noodles stand and began to eat. While they were eating, "Hey Alfred, tell us how you came to adopt her. Oh yeah! Tell us about your grandson as well," Drake asked.
"What!? Little Ava was alive this whole time?" exclaimed Elliot in disbelief. He immediately reminisced over Ava, back then he was still in his youth. He could remember the sweet little girl who would often call him uncle and would often pull on his beard. When he heard about the action of her sect. He immediately flipped as he almost accidentally released his aura.
"Haha! I knew she was alive. It's a shame that she died tho. She was an extreme talent. I really liked her. It seems that she left you with two sons, " spoke Drake in a quite disappointed tone.
"Anyways, I want to ask you, boys, to help me take revenge on the Wavern Sect. Their leader's strength is easy to deal with but the grand elders of the sect are a big problem for me. So I wanted to ask you guys for this favor, " said Andy in a very vengeful tone.
"If this means that you owe us a favor then I'm in. I quite liked that little girl as well, " said the other two in unison.
"So it's decided. Haha, let's have a toast for it then. Cheers! " Exclaimed Andy with an extremely big smile on his face.
"Leo, I'm done cooking!" Aurora spoke out as she called out to Leo who was sitting on a small boat in the pond, training.
"My my, I thought that I thought that would find you here. Well done Fawkes!" a voice sounded from the dense trees at the mainland end of the bridge.