The Guild knew this as the quest he had taken was an A-rank quest meant for a party of three, yet he had completed it single-handedly.
When he inquired what the promotion exam for the A rank was, it turned out to be much simpler than he had imagined.
Instead of having to fight any powerful monsters or go on some dungeon raid that would take months like normal, the Vice Guild Master made an exception for him and decided to make it easier.
All he had to do, was fight an official duel against an active A ranker.
"That seems a bit too easy does it not? Should there not be other criteria for the A rank?"
"Yes, there are. The number of quests you've completed, the reviews from the commissioners of the quests, your credibility to the guild and a few other things but you've already checked out all those things.
If you were Level 300, you would have automatically passed, however…"
"I'm only 299, huh?"
"Only? You do realise you're just 14, right? Being Level 299 at your age is already unprecedented."
"My original goal was to reach 300 before I turned 14 though.
Maybe I'd make it my goal to hit 400 before I turn 15."
Evan's words had both the Vice Guild Master and the Receptionist's mouths gaping in shock as they heard the boy's words.
While they wanted to refute Evan's words and tell him it was impossible, the boy's track record had shown that making such kind of 'impossibilities' possible, happened to be a speciality of his.
The Vice Guild Master turned her gaze towards the Guild's Appraisal device and saw Evan's partial status, His Name, Age, number of titles, Stats and Number of skills, shaking her head as he heaved a defeated sigh.
'How on Aidos does he have over 40 skills? That's more than twice what even SS rankers have.'
"Give me a moment, I want to get some things from my office first."
"Wait up…I actually have a prior appointment in a few minutes, so I would not be able to do the battle today."
"Is that so? Then when would you be available?"
Evan took a seat on the counter stool and placed a hand on his chin, sorting out his plans for the rest of the week and picking a day he was relatively free.
"Next Monday, I guess."
"I don't think I have anything arranged for that day so there's no problem. Besides, even if I do, I can just have another Vice Guild master take over for me."
The woman said with a shrug as she marked the date on her schedule book, returning her attention to Evan after to talk about who his opponent was to be.
However, before she could speak, an adventurer jumped off the gallery of the hall and landed on the ground floor, before making his way over to them.
Silence pervaded the entire area as even if a nearby group of SS rankers who were discussing how they were going to challenge the Capital Dungeon's 80th floor, turned towards the man in surprise.
He appeared to be fairly young, having just recently become an adult, with a well-featured handsome face and a toned muscular body.
The man had long black hair which he tied up into a ponytail, and deep dark eyes. He wore a casual-looking brown polo t-shirt and black trousers, with a similarly coloured leather jacket.
However, any trained eye could easily discern that his clothes were made with materials from powerful grandmaster-level monsters.
Standing face to face with this man, Evan rose an eyebrow in light surprise as he didn't expect something so random to suddenly happen.
"You're Evan Eris, huh?
I challenge you to a duel, do you dare to accept?"
He declared his challenge to the young hero who only stared at him in silence for a moment, ignoring the gazes of the other adventurers who were looking to see his reaction.
After a moment, Evan turned his gaze back to the Vice Guild Master and posed a question to her.
"What were you about to say again?"
Evan casually disregarded the man's existence like it was nothing and continued speaking with the Vice Guild Master who also ignored him too, resulting in a huge chorus of laughter that echoed across the guild hall.
B to SS rank adventurers were more unrestrained with their laughter, while those C rank and lower tried to cover their mouths as they could tell that the man was somewhat powerful and didn't want to piss him off, but still, the fact that he made that grand entrance and declared a challenge publicly, only to get ignored was quite funny to the adventurers.
The man himself was feeling the greatest humiliation ever as he had never been so blatantly disregarded by anyone.
"You cheeky human brat!!"
He tried to grab Evan's shoulder in an attempt to seize the boy's attention, but before he could touch Evan, a fair slender palm grabbed his arm and squeezed it tightly, using enough force to cause forearm bones to crack slightly.
"Guh!"
As he grunted lightly in pain, he tried to pull his hand away but the strength of the person holding his hand was far greater than his, making his attempts futile.
"Did you not see that the Vice Guild Master was speaking to him? Or are you blind?"
The voice of the Receptionist who was behind the counter merely a second ago rang out as she tightened her grip on the man's arm, followed by the audible sound of his bones cracking.
She glared at the man and released her aura slightly, about to force him down to his knees when the Vice GM spoke up.
"That's enough."
The elven woman let go of the man's hand, before dusting her palms and returning to her position behind the counter.
Despite this display of strength, none of the adventurers present in the hall were surprised by it.
The Receptionists of the Capital Guild that dealt with hundreds to thousands of Adventurers of various strength levels daily, were required to possess a certain level of power themselves, and this particular one had strength on the level of an early S ranker.
"Seems like retried adventurers like picking up administrative job positions in the guild, huh?"
Evan casually said after feeling the woman's aura and appraising her.
"Hmm? I'm not fully retired per se…I'm just taking a break for a few decades. Give or take, 30 years."
"Wouldn't your skills wane after being off for that long?"
"Nahh…I still train once in a while so I don't go out of shape. Besides, 30 years isn't that long for an Elf like me."
"I see…"
Evan nodded in understanding before turning his attention back to the Vice GM who was rebuking the man.
"You…you're the new Fernsnout kid, aren't you?
Do you perhaps happen to be sick in the head or something? You really dared to be so brazen as to cut into my conversation in such a rude manner.
You think you can throw your weight around as you like just because you're a Fernsnout? Or is it because you achieved a little bit of fame and let it get to your head?"
Seeing that the Vice GM was getting increasingly pissed off with each line, Evan decided to cut in and diffuse the situation.
"Take it easy. Let's at least try to understand his reasons."
He then turned to the man and continued.
"For starters…who the heck are you?"
Another roar of laughter erupted across the guild, slightly startling those who weren't paying attention to what was going on at that counter anymore and others who just entered the guild building.
The expression on the man's face grew darker the more the sound of the adventurers laughing increased.
He felt like his pride had been wounded and his sense of self-importance shattered. Never before had he been treated so brazenly, and by one so much younger than himself no less.
As someone who had achieved the level of Grandmaster at the age of 17, he was someone who had earned a deal of fame across the continent. Someone who had cemented his place in the annals of history as one of the youngest A rankers in the world.
But as if Fate was playing a joke on him, his gradual ascent to glory was swiftly eclipsed by the news of the Cheverton Undead Crisis.
And as if to make matters worse, whispers of his name were now uttered in the same breath as Evan, the newly emerging 'Hero'. Alas, more often than not, he found that he fell short in the eyes of people and he lost out in comparison to the young hero.
The weight of people's perception bore down heavily on him, who had been lauded as a prodigy in his clan for as far as he could remember, and the way his clan was viewed also changed in the eyes of people.
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