Midas cunningly thought of something and said, "You know actually, I noticed that the trees are growing these huge bulb-like seeds on them. I wonder if you guys know if they're edible or not?"
Gwen didn't react much to this as she said, "Well, no they're just seeds apparently. It would be great if they were edible."
'Do you really believe that?' thought Midas. He managed to keep his face straight while continued naturally:
"Oh are you guys saying that because you tested them? I mean nuts are just seeds too right?"
Right then, another man approached from behind the woman and started speaking, saying "Well, who's this? A new friend?". He stood at almost 2 metres tall and had a delicate face with sharp features. His body's muscles rippled under his formal suit and made him look like a gangster.
'Another American. This one is a physical monster though.' thought Midas. Midas could tell that even Julio, who was standing behind him, became visibly tense at the entrance of this new guy. It was like when a Wild Dog recognised a Lion.
"This is Midas and Julio. Midas, Julio, this is Frank." said Gwen with a curious smile. Frank reached out his right arm and said:
"Well, we're already in this situation together. Everybody here is friends with one another. It's nice to meet you Midas."
Midas responded by shaking his hand firmly. Frank gave a bit of a squeeze and then released almost as if to test Midas, but Midas acted as if he didn't notice it and let go.
Frank continued, while waving his arms around animatedly "Midas and Julio right? Listen, we were thinking about forming a community of friends who help each other. Comrades who stick together. We know that people received some really strong Skills and we were trying to come together and use those Skills to build a haven. A Home. So what do you say? You want to join us?"
Midas noticed how Frank blatantly avoided the previous conversation direction, but he kept a natural face. As long as the seed that 'the Seeds may be edible' was planted, that was enough for him. Someone would later test the situation out for him, and for that, Midas would always be grateful.
Who doesn't love free labour? It was clear that this Frank guy liked it too, or else he wouldn't be building a "group of friends" for himself.
Ironic. That was the exact reason why they were setting up their little group here. Midas smiled mockingly inwardly but kept a cool face, thinking, 'Help each other? More like help yourselves. You know what actually? Thank you. This idea of yours, I will appropriate it. A group would be incredibly useful in this place. Especially one that is under my control.'
Midas also understood that, funnily enough, another reason he avoided the conversation direction may be because those seeds may cause their little business to crumble. And that was something they were not looking forward to letting happen.
"Hmm… I think that's a really great idea. But, quite frankly, I'm a bit of an introvert. We both are, Julio and I. Being in large groups like this irks us to no end. That's actually the reason why we left yesterday and coincidentally stumbled into the Stone Block. But I think if you give us some time to think about it, maybe we could mull over it and give you a positive answer soon. What do you think Julio?" said Midas while turning around.
Julio merely nodded and said "I agree, for now we'll just explore, maybe later on we'll see."
Before he could continue his musings, Midas felt a weird atmosphere suddenly. 'Dangerous!' thought Midas.
Midas felt the atmosphere change implicitly and stepped back as quickly as he could. He also went into a battle stance with his spear ready to defend or attack on command for a split second. Then, realising he made a blunder, he faked a dizzy spell and dropped his spear causing Julio to respond by helping him up. Everyone else was a bit worried, wondering what really happened.
Only Frank's eyes flashed imperceptibly.
"Are you okay?" asked Gwen with worry painted on her face.
"Sorry for worrying you, I didn't sleep much and it's been probably 40 hours since I drank some water so I guess I was feeling dizzy. I heard there's a river up North. Is it true?" queried Midas as a response to Gwen.
"Yeah. Just go straight ahead in this direction and you'll find it." said Gwen, pointing them in the Northern direction.
"Thank you."
Midas looked in the direction and turned back to her before saying "Well, we'll get going. I hope you guys won't be strangers after this."
"Well, we're going to set up a base here close to the Shrine, so it'll be easy to find us," said Gwen.
"And if you find anything out, please share it with us as soon as possible. This is to help everyone know if anything changes at any time." said Frank with a genial smile on his face.
"Ofcourse. Most definitely." said Midas while turning. And then he seemed to spot something and he smiled.
Lina noticed this and asked "What is it?"
Midas pointed at a girl who was standing not too far away watching him and Julio and he said "That girl has really pretty eyes. I wonder what she sees through them."
When he smiled and looked back at the two, he could see something flash in their eyes at that moment. He knew he had caught on.
And he also knew that they had caught on too. Atleast he hoped so.
"Well, Bye then," said Midas. He turned around and waved while leaving, dragging away Julio, who was shyly speaking to Maria, in the process. Midas had no idea how Julio had found the little girl Maria in this place.
'He probably smelled her scent considering the dog of a man he is', thought Midas jokingly after reminiscing the less than flattering comments Julio had made yesterday.
Gwen and Frank stood there watching him leave and after some time Gwen spoke first.
"You did something? That's why he acted strange. You scared him off."
"I didn't scare him off, I just released some bloodlust and tensed my muscles a bit. He somehow sensed it and he reacted to it incredibly quickly." said Frank while shaking his head.
"Eh, really? So do you think he's a fighter?" asked Gwen.
"No. I tested him previously during our handshake, and he didn't even react. He probably just has good instincts." said Frank to which Gwen snidely responded by saying:
"So you're saying those instincts are what led him to not want to associate with us? Funny." said Gwen with a smirk.
"No, those are the instincts that led him towards the Stone Tablet. There must be something special with the place. We should definitely focus more on it." said Frank while scratching his chin.
"Pfft, whatever." said Gwen.
"Eh, I just think you're pissed because your little Charm ended up not working on someone else other than me. Don't think I didn't see you giving him those [Mesmerising Eyes] of yours. I'm surprised it didn't work." said Frank with a laugh.
"Maybe he's gay? Or blind. Whatever he is, we'll find out soon enough won't we." said Gwen while signaling for someone to approach. The person who approached was the girl who Midas had noticed and complemented previously.
The girl didn't speak much, and merely flashed her hands allowing two windows to pop up in front of the two people. Soon enough they were joined by three others and all six people stood there. They stared at those panels and after some time started nodding to themselves.
"That Julio is not bad as a B Ranker. The Gift of Power, huh? A fighter, although I'm worried about the Antisocial Personality Disorder… Doesn't that mean he's a sociopath?"
"Not necessarily, it just means that he won't be held back by his emotions like normal people. He can be used."
"Oh my god, speaking of using people again. Who do you think you are?"
"I'm someone with an S Rank Gift, that's who I am. As far as I'm concerned, a true Chosen should be someone exceptional and gifted."
"Speaking of exceptional and gifted, that Midas is really special. The Gift of Knowledge? Too bad he's not an S Rank."
"As if you'd want another S Ranker in our group…"
"Pfft, do you idiots really think we're the only S Rankers here? There must be way more people hidden among us. We only came together because of Mai here."
"We could still use him, that Midas who's an A Ranker. The [Memory of the World] Skill's description is almost like a psychic superpower, no? It's like seeing into the nature of things."
"That guy may have even used [Eye of Judgement] on us and it possibly showed him that we have S Rank Gifts. It's an A Rank Skill, it might be better that Mai's."
"It doesn't matter, he's not physically strong and therefore he's not a threat. We should definitely be friends with him though. He'd be great for the language."
"You mean Uzgiyesh? Maybe. We'll just have to keep an eye on him. It would've been great if he could join, but someone ended scaring him away…"
"Oh my god. I didn't scare him away okay. I merely tested him. And anyways, we're the only ones who have access to food in this place. If he wants to survive, he needs to interact with us. We'll have him soon enough."
"Okay. In the meantime, we'll have to ask Mai to keep gathering talented people for us. We need to find a way to get through this bullshit."
"Yeah."
Meanwhile, Midas and Julio were walking in the forest, Julio couldn't stand the silence anymore and ended up speaking his mind:
"Maria is so cute, Midas we should have stayed to chat."
"What? Oh my god Julio, didn't you notice the strange atmosphere back there?"
"The only strange atmosphere I found was between you and that girl hehe. So you found someone that you liked Eh? Listen to me from now on, I know how to get all the girls to love you. Hey Midas? Are you listening?"
Midas merely shook his head. He couldn't with this guy.
He was thinking about the war he just fought. That whole conversation was a battlefield.
On the forefront, it seemed normal. But that is only if he hadn't noticed the existence of 7 S Rankers at that place with Gwen and Frank being two of them. And apparently, this S Ranker Club were already coming together and planning things out. They may even be hatching plans to dictate the direction of the Chosen and the Trials in general.
They already fancied themselves to be the leaders of all the people gathered here.
The idea ruffled Midas' feathers to no end. The idea of being blatantly tested and having Skills being used on him without his consent also annoyed him.
If he was normal, he could have been mind controlled, or even mind broken by those two S Rankers. To them it was just standard testing. But to him, it was the ultimate disrespect and a threat to his future wellbeing.
How dare they?!
How dare they test out their Skills on him. How dare they try to intimidate and manipulate him into making decisions that could end up detrimental to his future.
This was why when Julio started speaking about women, Midas felt a bit taken aback. Midas was merely demonstrating to the S Rankers that he had a good head on his shoulders and understood some things. He was not counting on Julio misunderstanding his jab at the S Rankers' schemes as an attempt to flirt.
He had bigger fish to fry than some girl with a flimsy little B rank [Appraisal] skill that couldn't even see through his [Hidden Divinity].
And how did Midas know that the girl had an [Appraisal] skill?
Midas had been covertly using his [Eye of Judgement] on every important object and important looking Person he passed by since a while ago. And he learned some interesting things in the process.
For one thing, this Trial was absolutely not safe.