Seeing all of the four volunteers listening carefully, he added, “Now normally, the inferior disciples are required to know at least three percent of the whole knowledge which exists inside the first floor to proceed to the next one.”
“But as this is only the second evaluation with a time limit of two days, you need to receive a mark of two-tenths of a percent to successfully pass the test, which means you would have to at least read two books and get full marks in both of them.”
“You can also choose and read whatever book you want on this floor… so begin!
“Oh… by the way, I will be back in two days around this time to see the results in action, so try to be ready by then…okay… that was all, do any of you have a question?” He concluded his explanation.
Everyone stayed silent for a while after hearing his inquiry, when Alice, who had achieved pale yellow at the first evaluation opened her mouth while looking at the door to the next floor which had ten names engraved on it, “What are those ten names on the door elder?”
Hearing the question, the elder first looked at the door before answering, “Well, that’s irrelevant to you five, but since you asked… it’s the top ten disciples with the best results for this floor.”
Hearing the answer, the four volunteers’ eyes started to shine as they looked at the ten names while checking their results.
The Top Ten Keepers of Knowledge on the First Floor:
Number one – Astes – [One hundred nine books] – [Ten percent of knowledge mastered]
Number two – Ingon – [Ninety-eight books] – [Eight percent of knowledge mastered]
Number three – Sila Agnes – [Seventy-six books] – [Seven percent of knowledge mastered]
Number four – Ilith – [Eighty-one books] – [Seven percent of knowledge mastered]
Number five – Su Jao – [Eighty-eight books] – [Seven percent of knowledge mastered]
Number six – Emius – [Sixty-five books] – [Six percent of knowledge mastered]
Number seven – Azar – [Sixty-nine books] – [Six percent of knowledge mastered]
Number eight – Delia Tiniusenn – [Fifty-eight books] – [Five percent of knowledge mastered]
Number nine – Riaxas – [Sixty-four books] – [Five percent of knowledge mastered]
Number ten – Seruf – [Sixty-five books] – [Five percent of knowledge mastered]
Witnessing the clear curiosity in the eyes of the volunteers, the elder decided to put a little bit of his time on this and clarify the different words on the knowledge ranking.
So, he began explaining, “The numbers at the first column shows the rank of each disciple with the number one being the highest and the top one.”
Staring into different volunteers eyes, he continued, “The second column is the name of each disciple who is on the list, with the third column being the number of books which the disciples used and involved to achieve their percentage of knowledge which is stated in the last column.”
Hearing the explanations, all of the four volunteers’ eyes unconsciously looked at the top disciple on the list, which went by the name of Astes.
Finally, one of them couldn’t help herself but ask, “Who is Astes…?”
Hearing the question, the elder’s eyes seemed to shine with a little bit of pride as he replied, “Astes could be said to be the best Superior Disciple in the Alchemy section of the sect…”
Looking at the volunteers who seemed unable to understand exactly how amazing the first rank on the ranking list was, the elder just couldn’t allow himself to let them stay in the dark as he began clarifying the situation, “Don’t look down on her first rank… She is much more amazing than you assume…”
Listening to the elder’s words, the four who were already thinking Astes must be really amazing got confused, and seeing the confusion in their eyes, the elder expounded further, “You see, the first five rankers before Astes who took the first five places had all ended their discipleship years ago… with some even having finished discipleship close to two decades ago…”
“And just like that… for years… no one could take the place of any of the first five rankers… that is… until finally, Astes showed up.” He unfolded.
“Before her, we all thought that for Inferior Disciples, with the time limit of the examination, using the knowledge of ninety-eight books to achieve eight percent was the absolute limit for Inferior Disciples unless at least they improve their cultivation by a lot… but by that time, they would no longer be an inferior disciple, and no longer stuck at the first floor.”
“But… a couple of years ago, a fairy-like genius showed up which changed all of our thoughts once again and toppled our views upside-down…and with just being an inferior disciple, she… in that short period of time, inputted the knowledge of shocking hundred nine books!!! More shockingly… she achieved a whole ten percent knowledge from it!!!”
“Just imagine how startling her achievement must be to achieve mastery of ten percent knowledge…” The elder said with eyes which were shining with joy and pride by now.
“At the time, almost everyone at the sect was stupefied and breath taken by her achievement…”
Looking at the volunteers who were now even more dumbfounded by her achievement after they truly understood what achieving ten percentage of knowledge meant, after a nod of satisfaction he questioned, “Do you finally understand how amazing she is?”
“Yes!” Now that everything was unraveled before their eyes, the four were truly astonished as they confirmed at the same time, with glimmering eyes which obviously yearned to be just like her.
The elder then noticed Virus who was until this moment just listening to his explanations rather casually without any kind of reaction in his expression or eyes, which seemed strange to the elder, considering that he had seen almost no one who wouldn’t react at least by a little when hearing about Astes, but this monster in front of him wasn’t reacting in any way.
He wanted to ask why wasn’t he reacting to what he had just clarified, but after a little thought, he decided against doing that, as it seemed strange and odd to simply ask, ‘Why aren’t you reacting startled, dumbfounded, and stupefied after hearing such a heavenly achievement?’
“Good! Now begin… I will be back in two days to evaluate you all one by one…” Saying that he turned around, no longer looking back, about to leave.
But it was at this moment that Virus called and stopped him, “Elder.”
Hearing the volunteer he was most curious about stopping him to inquire about something, the elder couldn’t help but grin as he reasoned, ‘Oh… Is he finally going to ask about Astes and reveal a little bit of his feelings of stupefaction? Huh! I knew it! Earlier, he was just hiding his feelings to act cool in front of us, but inside he must’ve been greatly amazed and now he wants to ask something about it… hehe, I admit you hid your feelings really well and you could probably fool others by that facade, but you can’t fool my old experienced eyes boy!’
After that, he turned back as he questioned with penetrative eyes which seemed as serene as the clear sky, “What is it Vee youngster?”
“Oh, nothing much… just that on your way outside, please tell the girl who’s waiting for me that I will be out in around eighteen hours at most.” Voicing that, Virus looked back and began walking toward the first bookshelf, no longer paying the stupefied elder any further attention.
