Reen swallowed hard. She then reached out a trembling hand, and placed it on the sphere…
When the small hourglass on the desk made one flip (1 minute), Reen shook her head in disappointment and left on her own accord.
Richard retained his blank expression. "Next."
Time passed. Dozens of people had taken the test and none succeeded.
When an honest-looking young man did his test, his expression became sharp.
"I just felt a scorching heat against myself, as if I'm standing near a bonfire," said the young man. He rubbed his hands and seemed to be enjoying something.
Aiden became excited as well. He happily asked Buttler Albert about the young man.
Albert, however, looked at the "honest" young man and curled her lips. The man had quite a bad name in the manor, and someone like him was actually talented? Shaking his head, "His name is Owen, son of the gardener, Bran."
Owen? Aiden never heard of him. It did not matter though. There were lots of servants in the manor.
In a high spirit, Aiden ordered Emilie, "Take a hundred gold coins from the storage and present them to—"
"Wait."
Richard's deep voice suddenly echoed inside the room.
When hearing Aiden mentioning "coin", Owen felt quite proud. When Richard spoke, however, he slumped down quickly, sweat drops showed on his forehead.
"A bonfire? Ha… No one dared to lie to me back in the capital. Now someone here actually made up a story in front of my face? Do you really think Arcanists have no temper?"
Richard humphed, and a strong storm began circling around Owen.
"A bonfire was it? I'll grant you that wish. Enjoy the warmth of this 'bonfire'!"
There was screaming before Owen was set ablaze by Richard and was quickly taken away by the other servants.
Aiden's expression went pale as he asked, "Richard, what happened? Was he lying?"
Richard sneered, "The 'change' can only be seen by the testee, true. But once that happens, the Talent Sphere will glow in a corresponding light indicating a talent has appeared."
Hearing Richard's words, everyone quickly understood the reason for the incident.
They had been watching. The sphere never gave out anything from the start, which meant Owen was truly lying...
Aiden showed obvious anger and turned to the Buttler Albert, "Don't let me see Owen's face in Alzure Town, starting from tomorrow."
Albert made a bow to acknowledge the order before she left the room.
No one thought about what would become of Owen. Richard tidied up his robe a bit and lifted his impatience before he proceeded with the test.
Two hourglass hours had passed. All the servants were done, including Head Maid Emilie and the guard knights. No one was talented.
Finally, Richard shifted his gaze onto Aron.
This is it.
Aron had made up his mind.
After all the young testees were done with their magic talent test, a large crowd of 77 untalented young men and women stood inside the massive dimly lit Hall looking at Aron, the only one remaining to be tested...
"It's your turn brother," Aiden patted Aron's shoulder.
Aron nodded and sat on the chair, slowly placing his hand on the smooth surface of the Talent Sphere.
Immediately as soon as Aron's hand touched the Talent Sphere, a bright flash of purple light illuminated the entire dimly lit hall, enshrouding everything and everyone inside the Hall in a purple light...
"Purple—Purple light!" Everyone stared at the Talent Sphere with their mouth agape. This time there was a real talent!
Aiden watched with joy. Brother Aron was a talented one?? Aiden clenched his fists because of the insuppressible excitement. He might be happy too if one of the servants showed up as a talent. Still, servants were only servants, and they could only provide the family with limited convenience.
Aron however, was a true family member, and his closest brother. Even if Aron had to stay an apprentice, the Smith Family would benefit from this greatly!
A look of Surprise was evident on Richard's face, as he stared at the crystal ball glowing in a bright purple light.
'Purple? Does he have talent in the element of Electro?'
'But the intensity of light is a bit too bright...normally it shouldn't glow this brightly...'
While everyone was lost in their own thoughts, the person who was the center of attention, Aron, had fallen into a strange state….
Upon touching the talent sphere, Aron found himself floating in the air. He immediately felt excitement because this was just the "change" he was hoping for.
Happiness climbed onto his expression as he realized he was really talented.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of melody and drumbeats outside the hall, accompanied by loud chees of a large crown, as if a Parade or carnival was taking place.
'Weird. what's with these cheers and noises? Are there people outside the castle?'
Aron turned his head to ask Aiden about this, only to notice something even more strange.
Apart from himself who had been floating in the air, there was not a single soul in the massive dimly lit hall. His brother, Mister Richard, and the crowd of young people working in the Smith castle… They were all gone.
The hall was not totally empty though. The Talent Sphere on the table was still there, as well as the candle, that was burning quietly with a bright yellow light. Everything seemed fine besides the absence of everyone.
The music and cheers outside started getting louder and louder. Aron frowned. He slowly floated towards the massive double door of the hall and pushed it open.
As soon as he opened the door, he was suddenly blinded by a burst of bright light. He floated there motionlessly for a while, waiting for his eyes to get used to the sudden brightness.
After a while when he opened his eyes to look around himself, he found himself totally flabbergasted...' Am I dreaming?'
Because he suddenly found himself standing in the middle of the streets of the same otherworldly Nightmare City/world where he had first appeared after transmigrating to Versa(current world)…..It was also the Nightmare City where the dead Aron would always appear in his Nightmares...
He was currently standing in the middle of a crowded street, which was packed with all kinds of bizarre nightmare creatures.
He saw a green muscular giant humanoid being moving past him, with a towering height of 4 meters. It looked somewhat similar to a certain mutated superhero named Hulk but with lots of green thorny vegetation growing all over its body like a mini walking mountain.
It had a humanoid face with two dark hollow eye sockets housing 2 sets of glowing green eyes, like shimmering emeralds. A large broad shoulders and long muscular arms ending with sharp dreadful claws. Its head was entirely covered in a turban of brown thorny vines, which continued to coil around the rest of its gigantic body.
The giant appeared completely naked and didn't seem to have any kind of sexual organ or outlet port. Aron then saw more than 8 green dragonflies about the size of a cat, with the head of an eastern dragon and the body of a scaled dragonfly, being tied to the vines growing on the green giant's body, the sight looked as bizarre as the rest of the rest of the Nightmare city.
As Aron continued to look around he came across more such bizarre sights, he saw a bunch of small purple Atrociraptors the size of a dog, ruthlessly fighting among each other for the body of a dead dragonfly,
He then saw a group of giant bipedal humanoid gray rats about 2 meters tall, with round crimson eyes a flat ugly face, and a mouth full of fangs, each of the rats was wearing a black kimono with the symbol of a black and purple Queen face poker card on the right side of their chest, they were seemingly patrolling the streets, where a lot of these bizarre nightmarish creatures/citizens have all gathered for some kind of festival or parade, he had no idea about.
Once again he noticed that none of the creatures here were able to see him and notice his presence as if he didn't exist. He also noticed that all the Nightmare citizens were wearing kimonos and Yukatas and were waiting near the streets with anticipation.
As he cautiously roamed around the streets, he came across several shops with glass windows, in one of the shops he saw, a large humanoid skeleton with its entire body covered in tattoos, was wearing an expensive-looking kimono and selling all sorts of skulls of various kinds of creatures at the counter.
As he continued to roam around, he suddenly saw a clown at some distance from him, leaning against a shop and smiling at him eerily.