On top of the endless plateau, ten talents stayed idle in various positions, not knowing what to do.
They did not know that five wizards were floating not far from them. With their figures concealed, they were whispering to each other.
“What’s the deal with the boy carrying a bird on his shoulder? Did he see us?” An old man with a gentle look asked. He was white all over; white robe, white hair, white eyebrows, and beard…
A witch with red hair and a fine body shape revealed some spell light in her eyes as she replied, “Can’t be. He’s just a mortal, without any mana flow in him, and I sense no spiritual model on him.”
“That’s strange. I think he looked at us, or am I seeing things?” The old man muttered to himself and turned toward another two people with a disgusted look.
“Sunders, YOU found these talents. Why are they all weirdos? And there are only ten of them! You just created a new record for us Brute Cavern. The worst recruitment record! So how are we supposed to arrange them among us? Well, I don’t care. I could use some errand boys. I’ll take seven or eight!” said the old man. He moved up his sleeves as if ready for a big fight.
Ness, a tiny old man with gray hair who stood across from Sunders snickered. He gave Sunders a “See? I knew it” look.
Sunders was also watching the talents. However, he was only paying attention to Angor alone. He too wondered how Angor saw their presence. Also, Sunders was sure Angor must have noticed them as the boy looked at their direction twice. When people asked Angor questions, the boy even hid something in his answer…
“You hear? Eight! I want at least eight!” said the white old man. He rushed in front of Sunders and blocked the man’s view with his big, aged face.
Sunders stared at him, speechless.
Flora, who had been floating near Sunders, rolled her eyes so drastically as if she could see through the back of her head. The old bastard was asking “seven or eight” just a second ago, but now he wanted eight straight. He was changing his mind too fast.
However, Flora had no intention to speak up. The old man looked gentle on the outside, but when it came to making scenes and talking nonsense, he was second to none in the entire Brute Cavern. Flora would avoid getting involved with him at all cost.
Still, the old man was not someone who could do as he wished. As far as Flora knew, Sunders was his natural nemesis.
“Nine,” Sunders spoke slowly.
The white old man revealed an “are you sure??” expression, which was soon replaced by great joy. He tried to suppress his excitement as he asked, “Did you say there are nine people?”
Sunders nodded.
The old man laughed. He put down his sleeves and got rid of his ready-to-fight attitude while putting on a “this elder is satisfied with you youngsters” expression.
“Not bad Sunders, you did well. Since you’re willing to give me nine of them, I’ll gladly accept them.”
With that, the old man prepared to pick his prize. His final conclusion was to take everyone except the half-blood.
After the old man made his decision, Sunders slowly spoke again, “I said there are only nine talents this time, not ten.”
The old man froze. So, instead of giving him nine people, Sunders was correcting his mistake? He glanced at the half-blood named “Balba”. Well, without that guy, there were nine people alright.
The old man turned to look at Sunders with squinted eyes. He asked, “What? You changed your mind?”
He was obviously going to play dumb again. He did not care what Sunders meant.
In fact, he had already put up an “I’m ready for some quarrellin’!” look.
Sunders gave him a cold gaze as he replied, “Nine. Aside from the boy with a bird, you can have the rest, and I don’t care.”
Sunders continued, “Wallace, you can give up your petty tricks. Even if I allow you to take all nine people with you, do you really think you can actually have them?”
The white old man was Wallace, a representative academism wizard in Brute Cavern.
Of course, Wallace knew that despite their decision, the academism would not claim all the talents. They needed to follow certain rules when arranging human resources.
“You only found ten talents. It’s your fault anyway,” Wallace mumbled a complaint.
“Really? I’ll leave the recruitment job to you next time,” Sunders said.
Wallace’s face turned green. He quickly waved his hands and faked several coughs, “I’m too old for this. Let’s ask the youngsters to do this job…”
Sunders sneered, “We’re of the same age.”
“…” Wallace was speechless.
“And I’ll make it clear again. Nine talents, the winners from deathmatches in the nine chambers. Not ten,” said Sunders.
Wallace cast a side-look at Sunders, “Then what was about that bird kid? He isn’t one of the talents? Just so you know, I already checked. He has 15 spiritual power, so he’s absolutely a talent.”
Sunders smiled, “Because he is my student.”
Apart from Flora and Ness, who already knew the matter, Wallace and the red-hair witch both stared at Sunders in shock.
Sunders… THE Sunders actually found a student for himself?!
…
It took some time for them to get over their surprise and return to their original temperament. Now, Wallace and the red-hair witch began to inspect Sunders’ new student with extra care.
Wallace watched Angor’s movements and manners for a long time.
“I don’t think the kid goes well with Sunders.”
Sunders did not say anything. Instead, he directed a terrifying gaze at Wallace as if throwing knives at him.
“… Ahem! The talents have waited for quite a while now, and we already see their reactions in the situation. Let’s start talking about our impressions,” said the gray-haired old shortie, Ness. They dropped the talents on the plateau to test their psychological properties, which was the last test before they were admitted into Brute Cavern.
Ness never showed up in front of the talents during their trip, but he had been recording their characteristics in secret. After finishing this final test, he would create personal profiles for them, and write down comments about these talents together with Sunders.
The comments would be left on their profiles. Usually, wizards referred to these comments when they chose their apprentices.
These comments were different from the messages used for students in mortal schools. Mortals usually described good virtues, such as kindness, friendliness, and generosity. These things were not important standards for wizards to determine apprentices. For wizards, selfishness, arrogance, cruelty, and irritability were sometimes better traits.
“Who’s going first?” Ness looked around.
“I’ll do it,” said the red-hair witch as she stepped up.
Ness nodded, “We’ll start from Fiery Charm then.”
The witch called “Fiery Charm” reached out a hand and pointed to one of the talents, “I’m interested in the young man called Orlando. He’s willful, childish, and self-centered, but he knows how to control himself, and he has a sharp mind. When interacting with his friend, he had shown great loyalty.”