Chapter 251: Phantom Eyes
Lukas sat there, stretching his senses out, while keeping his posture relaxed so nothing in his body language showed what he was trying to do.
The attention vanished the moment he reached for it.
His eyes narrowed fractionally. Whoever it was, they were good.
The moment they’d noticed even a slight change in his composure, they’d withdrawn immediately.
This told him that the attention was definitely not a coincidence.
Which meant they were still here. Somewhere close enough for them to keep an eye on him.
He looked up, casually letting his gaze drift across the lobby.
The official at the front desk had her head down, her pen moving across a document, looking unbothered. It couldn’t be her. After all, he’d felt the attention before they even arrived here.
The two other people in the lobby were seated a few chairs apart.
One had a handbook open in their lap, lips moving faintly as they tried to memorize the contents before their own exam.
The other person sat with their arms crossed and their eyes on the ceiling, wearing the expression of someone counting minutes and bored out of their minds.
Lukas studied them both without making it obvious, but neither of them gave anything off.
He let his attention move to the streets outside the building.
A car rolled past, followed by another going the other direction, but there was no one on the pavement outside.
He sat back.
Where had it come from?
"Hey." Akira’s voice pulled him back. "How much are we actually setting aside for my shopping? I want to have a rough number in my head before we actually get there."
Lukas kept his guard up and his senses on high alert, turning to Akira. "I don’t know what the base costs look like yet. Materials for a [Tinker] class aren’t something we’ve priced before."
He thought for a second. "We won’t go over a few million. Once we know what things actually cost, we can set a proper budget."
"Fair enough," Akira said.
Melody turned from her other side. "What about my shopping? I have things I need too, you know."
Akira didn’t even pause. "We’re already buying you a fifteen million gold coin car."
"That’s not technically for me," Melody said, crossing her arms. "I can’t even drive it yet. Lukas will be the one driving it."
"You picked it," Akira said. "You hugged it. You spoke to it like it had feelings."
"That’s completely beside the point."
"It is the point."
"It’s semantics."
"That’s what I said."
Lukas laughed, the tension from a moment ago loosening slightly in his chest. "For now, Melody, the car is your shopping. Everything else can wait."
Melody pressed her lips together and looked away with the dignified expression of someone choosing not to argue further, which meant she was absolutely still arguing internally.
"That’s not—"
"Valentine?"
A different official had stepped into the lobby from the hallway, a folder tucked under one arm, eyes scanning the room.
Lukas raised a hand. "That’s me."
The man stopped in front of Lukas and held out the folder.
"Mr. Valentine," he said. "You passed."
Lukas took the folder and flipped it open. His score was printed cleanly at the top of the first page.
It wasn’t perfect, but the gap between his score and the cut off mark was wide. More than wide enough.
He closed the folder.
Melody was already staring at him. "How...?"
"How what?"
"How did you do that?" Akira asked. "I’m sure you didn’t spend more than a few minutes on the handbook, and you walked in there confidently. You were in that room for twenty minutes. And you came out saying you were confident, which at the time I was willing to write off as stubbornness."
"How did you even pass?"
"Maybe I’m just a genius," Lukas said.
Akira snorted, while Melody pointed at him with a mock determined expression. "I’m going to figure out how you did that one day. I want you to know that. I will uncover every secret you have."
"You’re welcome to try."
The official cleared his throat gently, drawing their attention back. "Mr. Valentine, if you’re available, we can proceed to the practical driving test today. Complete that and we can issue your full certification before you leave."
"Let’s do it," Lukas said.
"Very good." The official turned slightly towards Melody and Akira. "I’m afraid the practical portion is restricted to the candidate and the examiner only. You’re both welcome to wait here in the lobby."
Melody dropped back into her seat without complaint, though her eyes tracked Lukas as he stood.
Akira gave him a small nod. "Don’t crash."
"That’s very helpful," he smiled.
He followed the official through a door at the far end of the lobby, down a short corridor, then down several flights of steps that went deeper than he expected. The air grew cooler as they descended.
At the bottom, a set of heavy doors opened into a large basement that stretched further than the building above it suggested it should.
The floor was painted with clean white lines marking out a driving track, and thick pillars rose at intervals throughout the space, breaking up the path and creating the kind of obstacles that would require actual handling skill to navigate properly.
At the center of the track was a small car. It hovered a few inches above the ground, waiting for them.
"The test itself is straightforward," the official said, moving alongside him. "You shall drive two full laps following the painted track at a controlled pace. Then one final lap, completed entirely in reverse."
"After that, you shall return the vehicle to this exact spot and park it." He gestured to a marked rectangle on the floor. "Any questions?"
"None," Lukas said.
The official gave a single nod and moved to the passenger side. "Then whenever you’re ready, Mr. Valentine."
Lukas walked around to the driver’s side, pulled the door open, and got in.
