"First place is a what?"
Inside the room, which held the main processor system for collating the examinees' results, a man in a lab coat stared at the humanoid robot as it informed him of the final scores.
"F, first place is a human." The robot, which looked just like a male teenager, stuttered.
Although it was a machine, it was a high-end product equipped with emotional reaction capabilities and a special algorithm known as 'Reading the room', which allowed it to act more hyuman. The robot could sense and process the man's emotions, reacting in the most proper way that would make it seem emphatic. In this case, it was now truly afraid.
"How the heck did a human get first place?! How am I supposed to announce these results? How the gaggle-lore am I supposed to explain this?" [1] The man roared.
"Do you think anyone would believe these results? There's the genius of the Oder family, the Mertens' star child, Master Bolks' personal disciple, Kalerka Pure College's number-one student in the last decade, and so many other freaking geniuses. How do you think their backers would feel once they hear that a human outperformed them? Who would even believe this crap?!"
No matter how the chief examiner looked at it, it was just ridiculous. A human being taking sixth place in the theory was already strange enough, but not entirely impossible. However, to take first place in the practical was practically impossible. The craziest part wasn't just a human doing so well in the exam, but surpassing certified geniuses who participated alongside him.
No logic, mystery, or magic could explain it. Even Digress city-state didn't have any human vestige-smiths despite having figured out a cheat code to improve their stellar energy level. So, even if the main system had calculated the results and given them to him, he refused to accept them.
The humanoid robot kept silent, but in truth, it was calculating plausible explanations or a justification for this incident. There were two possible conclusions it had calculated.
The first was that Lucas had cheated in the exam, but that was impossible as the technology was foolproof. The virtual world was a technology the Baylands City's EVL branch got from the head office in the Bernin continent. The only way to cheat was to hack the system, but doing such was incredibly taxing and difficult.
What's more, how could a young adult human male pull it off without anyone noticing something strange?
The second possibility was an equipment fault. However, the robot had conducted a test of all the pieces of equipment and found nothing wrong. It then decided to check the footage of the virtual world to see if it could notice something strange.
Suddenly, its eyes flickered.
The man in a lab coat had been paying attention to it as he knew it was trying to figure out an explanation. Seeing the change in expression, he hurriedly asked,
The robot blinked its eyes and responded.
"The recording of the vestige-smithing process is nonexistent. It seems like a fault occurred at that moment, and so, there is no footage available."
"Damn it." The man cursed.
None of them suspected Lucas for this. The idea that a human could tamper with the footage of the virtual world was as absurd as an ant lifting a planet on its back.
After a bit of thought, the man's eyes glistened.
"Release the results, but place that human kid in twenty-third place."
There were sixty-four examinees, so having the human take twenty-third place, although unbelievable, was still not as bad as first place. At the same time, such a ranking would draw attention to him. This was because the top twenty were those who had either successfully made a vestige or their final product was 90% close to a real Grade 1 vestige.
Being just three places behind would mean that Lucas was lacking only a little, but not a vestige-smith. This made sense, as a young human couldn't be a vestige-smith. However, being a skilled blacksmith was still doable.
If Lucas wanted to argue the result, who would believe him? A human, making a vestige? That sounded like the joke of the century.
Placing twenty-third was already impressive, and since everything was in a virtual world, there was no evidence that he had made a real vestige. The examiner also had the right to decide whether or not to release the footage, and deciding not to do so would not be seen as an issue by the others, and that was all that mattered.
"What about first place?" The robot asked.
"It's a tie between Maximillus Oder and Vergil Mertens."
The man was surprised by this but then sighed with relief.
The two individuals were from top families that could somewhat influence even the EVL branch in Baylands City. Having their descendants caught in a tie was a safe bet. It could also motivate the two to become true rivals, and maybe the city would witness the birth of two more Tier 1 Masters. Tier 1 Masters were hard to come by, and Sofoklis was the most recent one in the last four years.
"Release the results as they are." The man ordered.
"What's going on? Why haven't they released the results yet?"
A commotion burst out in the viewing room filled with powerful individuals and the waiting room for the examinees. It usually takes less than fifteen minutes after the exam has been concluded for the results to be released. But thirty minutes had gone by, and there was still no sign of it.
"Sorry for the delay." The robot who had spoken with the examinees at the start arrived.
"I will now display the results."
Meanwhile, Lucas wasn't paying attention because he had just received a notification from the system.
[[Congratulations on completing the hidden mission: The One Above All.
Mission Description: Take first place in a vestige-smith registration exam.
Rewards: Random precious materials x10, Special ability card x1]]
The notification was pleasing, however, it wasn't that notification that got Lucas' attention but the next one.
[[ Congratulations to the host for leveling up the system. Inventory expansion takes place. One new system ability granted. Host can now earn system coins per mission.
Rewarding 10 system coins. One drop of Icarus' tears. ]]