"Please enter."
"Sorry to bother you, Headmaster, but you have to see this?"
A man with ho appeared to be one of some overseers of the test entered the headmaster's office.
"Mmm. 15 minutes, right?"
"Yes, he finished the test in 15 minutes and answered correctly all of the questions. Moreover, there was no sign or attempt to cheat. Is necessary to do more investigation on this matter?"
The test was nothing more than a little background knowledge check, and even though the Headmaster was displeased with this decision, some of the higher-ups in the Empire decided to emphasize the duels and dungeon exploration.
Of course, despite using words such as 'teamwork' and 'hidden potential', these people only wanted to use this opportunity for their benefit.
As such, even if the students only managed to answer the easy questions, they would be qualified for the next test.
Nonetheless, the headmaster had insisted that they should at least make the test more challenging, in the hope to let those who were smart but lacked fighting ability show their skills.
She explained that it would be unfair if the test was too easy and those people would not benefit from their hard work.
The Empire needed, not only strong fighters but ask smart and intelligent people to win the war.
It was obvious why some of the people at the top didn't want to gather too many of these intelligent people, but since the headmaster had a point, they couldn't just refuse her request.
"What do you think Derige? This kid had made quite a scene yesterday, and it doesn't look like he intends to stop soon," the blonde-haired woman, who was currently the Headmaster of the Holy Academy.
The office of the headmaster, if it could be called so, was very spacious, and there was a collection of items, ranging from weird-looking books to something similar to a dragon's remains.
Sitting on top of a comfortable and luxurious-looking couch, Derige looked like he was sleeping while crossing his arms.
"Why are you asking me this question, Agartha?" He said and his words carried so much weight that the room was filled with his presence.
From the look of it, he had the habit of closing his eyes and crossing his arms when he was listening to someone.
"I was just wondering, how the strongest person in the Empire would evaluate this young man? Do you think your daughter can outperform him?"
From how Agartha said it, one of Adam's participants that would duel with Adam in the second test was Derige's daughter.
During this test, a participant needs to secure 2 victories, for the test to be fair. As such, if they win one duel, and lose the next one, they still have a chance to pass the test with the third duel.
On the other hand, if they secure two victories successively, they didn't go for a third duel.
Knowing this, even if Adam wins, it wasn't like either him or Derige's daughter would be disqualified, or so Agartha implied, and this duel would just show their real ability.
"There's nothing such a granted victory. You should already know that," Derige replied, not giving a precise answer.
"Well, I am looking forward to seeing the performance of this generation despite the schemes of the higher-ups," Agartha said, and the overseer had a face expressing his worry concerning her comment. It was not something to be said out loud, but the Headmaster looked like she didn't care.
"Continued to keep an eye on him for now," Agartha added, and the overseer left the room after nodding at her words.
Nevertheless, Adam was not the main topic of Derige and Agartha's discussions, and it was just a slight interruption in their ongoing talk.
"Continuing our discussion, I doubt the Holy Mother and the Holy Church are involved in all of this, but we should be careful. I still find it funny that despite you trying hard to hide everything from her, she still managed to follow in her father's footsteps. I guess, it's in your blood," Agatha said.
She had known Derige for quite a long time, and she had never expected him to marry and have a daughter.
Derige also understood that his status, lifestyle, and the environment he was accustomed to were not something that should impact her daughter's life.
He knew that getting too involved with the Empire would be harmful to her.
Nevertheless, despite all of his attempts to keep her far from all of that, his daughter still ended up discovering the dark side of the Empire.
Moreover, she was also as stubborn as him and had an acute sense of justice.
"At this point, it is of no use to try and stop her, so the least I can do is to make sure that she can follow the path that she chose to take," Derige said, and even though his voice was not different from before, and his expression was unchanging, Agartha knew that it was not something that he liked to talk about.
However, it had been a while since the two of them talked so Agartha wanted to see if Derige had somehow changed, and she wasn't disappointed.
"I see, you are the same as ever. I know that you will still blame everything on yourself though," Agartha remarked. "Well, as long as we can obtain that item, everything should be set up. I don't have much time left. These bastards must have already found a way to get rid of me, so we need to do this quickly."
Deridge nodded at Agartha's words, and even though everything appeared to be normal, their voice didn't even leave the room, at least that was what they thought.
*****
As the most beautiful place within the Holy Academy, the Holy Garden deserved how to be referred to with such a name.
The entirety of this special area was as big as a whole city, but most of it was covered with forests.
There were artificially built pathways all around the area so that people wouldn't step too much on the greenery, or wander too deep inside the forests.
After all, it was not only a place where beautiful flowers grew and bloomed, but it was also the home of a lot of rare animals.
The scenery reminded Adam of the Royal Garden of Kepalta, a place that her mother loved.
Nonetheless, he knew that being overly sentimental about it wouldn't do anything well. There were a lot of inhabited planets in this world, and as long as the resources were enough, rebuilding a civilization wasn't impossible, or so Adam thought, as he enjoyed the beautiful scenery.
Well, at least, he wanted to enjoy the scenery and take a little bit of a break and relax, but there were too many things that bothered him.
For example, the face of cheeky kids ruined the view, as they didn't even bother to hide the fact that they were gossiping about him.
This happened after he turned down the request of a group of girls who looked like they tried to get something from him.
To be exact, he didn't say anything and just let them stand there until they left on their own.
Adam had also given Blanca a book filled with beautiful illustrations of classy women and their outfits, as well as instructions on how to act like an elite.
Therefore, she didn't even take a look at the bunch of girls who approached them.
Blanca was smart, and despite how she acted, she liked the outfit that Adam designed for her. In other words, she was interested in fashion. It was not something that she even cared about before, as she was just wearing armor most of the time.
Considering this, Adam and Blanca appeared like they were alone in their world, without caring about the other people around them.
Nonetheless, some didn't like it when there were people who didn't acknowledge their presence.
It was not totally a bad thing to have pride in one's status, accomplishments, and abilities, and Adam also wanted people to respect him for those.
However, he also knew that as an elite, it was never the best idea to force someone to acknowledge his superiority, even if it was unavoidable sometimes.
"I tell you, he is so arrogant! He thinks that he is above all of us! Harold, are you going to let him do whatever he wants?"
One of the girls who was ignored by Adam began to complain to one of the kids who appeared to be the leader of one of the big groups.
Hearing what the girl said, Harold looked around, but the other groups didn't look like they would make a move soon.
After what happened with the security guards, most of them were wary of Adam's ability.
'If I can take care of this, my position would rise, and I would acquire more influence,' Harold thought to himself, believing that he could deal with Adam if he wanted to.
"Mmm. It seems like he isn't from a decent family in the first place. Some things can only be learned by experiencing it," Harold said, and it sounded like his words were very deep.
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