Otherworld Adventure

During this time, Ren would sometimes pop up out of nowhere, most of the time ruining the girls" date with Cecil which sort of earned him a little enmity with them. Cecil himself didn"t particularly mind because he would only stay and chat for a bit with him before disappearing, but for the girls, it sort of ruined the atmosphere.

When it was finally time for it to start, Cecil and his party went over to District 25 and met up with Ren.

"Master, Master, over here! Follow me to the venue!"

"Hm."

When Cecil took a look around, the district was bustling even more with activity. It was only during these 3 days during the whole year would District 25 be open to the public, and by public this naturally meant only those people who weren"t citizens.

There of course would be some security concerns, but seeing the large robots and automatons patrolling the city streets while scanning all the individuals around, Cecil could only release sighs of amazement at how technologically advanced the Machina Reggio Empire was.

From some of the things he manipulated Ren into telling him, Cecil found out that despite the Empire being so powerful, they weren"t warmongering nor did they hold the desire to expand their territory.

This was because every one of Mecca"s Districts needed power from the main flying castle, which was District 0, in order to fully function. This power was naturally the energy drawn from the super volcano that District 0 was hovering stationary above.

Without the power provided by the volcano, the fortresses wouldn"t be able to stay for long in the air and this was also another reason why the Empire didn"t hold any desire to expand out. Their fortresses were limited and so were their range of operations, thus, holding any more land would be useless for them.

Ren led the party into the largest workshop in the District, the Empire"s Great Workshop, where the compet.i.tion was going to be held. From all around, Cecil could see a sea of people making their way over as well.

He noticed that while most of them were spectators, there were a select few who were partic.i.p.ants judging by their attire and the air they exuded.

When they got into the building, some attendants immediately noticed Ren and led the boy inside. Ren only asked of those people to quickly bring Lucia and the rest over to a VIP booth that he reserved for them and himself while he would lead Cecil over to the partic.i.p.ants" waiting room.

It was amusing, but when Cecil and Ren pa.s.sed by the general waiting area that was full of partic.i.p.ants, Cecil was informed by the boy that he was given his own personal waiting room. Now Cecil was intrigued and was curious to find out just what ident.i.ty this little boy had.

"Well, Ren, it"s nice that you think so highly of me, but I won"t guarantee that I can win later."

"I have utmost confidence in you Master!"

"Hm~"

"My, my~ if it isn"t little Ren," Someone said.

Cecil turned his eyes over to the person who had intruded in the room and saw a human who was most likely a couple of years older than him.

The young man immediately noticed Cecil, who Ren was conversing with, and cast a disdainful glance at him when the newcomer saw his attire. Seeing this, Cecil disinterestedly turned his gaze away, not bothering to acknowledge the guy.

Ren similarly only cast a dismissing gaze at the young man before turning his attention back to Cecil and began animatedly conversing with him again.

The young man gritted his teeth in annoyance when he saw the 2 people not bothering to acknowledge his presence.

"Ren!"

"What do you want Emil?"

"...Tsk, I want to use this room."

"Can"t you see we"re already in here?"

"Surely you can spare some room for us? This place is big after all!"

Ren turned his gaze behind the young man and saw 2 people, a teenaged boy and girl.

"Suit yourself, I don"t care what you do just don"t bother me and Master," Ren replied plainly before turning his attention back to Cecil.

Even when the boy and girl nodded to Ren as a form of acknowledgement, the little kid didn"t care and only told them not to bother him and Cecil. He placed no importance to anyone and only continued to converse with Cecil.

He wouldn"t miss the opportunity to have a one-on-one talk with Cecil regarding artificer techniques and runes. Cecil was also explaining the basics of the ancient runes to Ren earlier before they were interrupted, so the little boy was obviously p.i.s.sed when Emil and the 2 others with him suddenly barged in.

The trio at the doorway only frowned in displeasure when they saw Ren"s dismissing att.i.tude. He gave them no face at all, but they found the topic they were talking about quite interesting.

"What"s this? The great prodigy Ren is actually learning from a commoner?" Emil voiced in derision.

Being interrupted and having his master insulted, Ren immediately grew furious. Just as he was about to yell back at the imbecile, Cecil waved his finger and began casting a spell.

He cast a Silencing Barrier and quickly cut off all the noises around them. He was enjoying the talk with Ren, but someone just had to barge in on them. The way Cecil cast his spell was similar to the way he engraved runes in the air so Ren"s attention was already fully focused on him.

By the time he noticed that everything around him had been silenced, Ren couldn"t help but exclaim in wonder.

"Master, what was that?!"

"I have trouble casting spells using incantations, so that"s how I cast spells," Cecil replied.

"You can cast spells with runes?!"

"Well, yes, I mean, runes are what make up the spell formations of magic spells."

"I didn"t know this!"

"Well, now you know. That"s also a reason why—"

When the three people outside of the barrier saw Cecil and Ren"s inaudible conversation, they couldn"t help but grow puzzled at what he had just done. He only waved his hands very quickly in the air earlier and formed some kind of runic array that looked more like a spell formation before their conversation could no longer be heard by the 3.

"What did he do?"

"I think he put up a Silencing Barrier...?"

"..."

While the pair behind Emil exchanged surprised exclamations, Emil himself was gritting his teeth in anger when he saw the commoner boy dare to disparage him like that.

He marched over next to the barrier, but as he was about to walk through, he was pushed back by a rebounding force. Cecil only eyed him for a moment before ignoring the young man. He resumed his conversation with the eager Ren and continued explaining how runes were intricately connected to magic spells.

Emil could only stomp his feet in annoyance and sit down somewhere in the room. It wasn"t long before another pair of people walked in the room. The leading person only eyed Ren who was animatedly talking with Cecil inside the barrier before bringing his companion to sit down in the room.

2 more groups arrived as well and Cecil finally understood that this was not HIS personal room, but a VIP room for people who got invitations or recommendations by a character of the Empire"s Workshop. He ended his conversation with Ren and immediately dispelled his barrier.

Cecil looked around the room at his fellow compet.i.tors and knew that since these people were able to get recommendations like him, they were most likely skilled in their own right.

"Hopefully the stuff I learned back at Magnum Artifex will be usable here..." Cecil mumbled to himself.

He obviously wasn"t going to use his Ancient Artificer knowledge to beat his compet.i.tors. Those were things that even a prodigy like Ren was immensely attracted to, what more the other artificers in the empire. Heck, even the Empire and the Emperor himself would likely be interested.

Cecil didn"t want any troubles. So if possible, he would try to win the compet.i.tion using the artificer knowledge he got during his time working at Magnum Artifex. However, if needed, he wouldn"t hesitate to use his ancient knowledge.

It didn"t take long before the first phase of the compet.i.tion began and Cecil as well as the other compet.i.tors were gathered and separated into rooms inside of the workshop with about 20 people per room.

They were going to take the Written a.s.sessment and Cecil likened it to a school test. Cecil scratched his head awkwardly when he was presented a not-too-thick book that held questions which he had to answer.

"The first phase, the Written a.s.sessment, will test the partic.i.p.ants" general knowledge regarding artificing! If you can"t get 90 percent of the questions right, you will be eliminated!" The compet.i.tion staff informed after everyone in Cecil"s room had received a book.

"You may begin!"

Cecil flipped open the book and began reading the questions. He was a little stumped when he saw that the questions were a little too basic.

"The main and supplementary runes to the Mana Conducting Array... functions of the Shock Rune and denominations of—hmm... this"ll be easier than I thought!"

He felt a little relieved since he didn"t have to use any of the runic knowledge he obtained from the World Tree. He was bound to attract attention, but it would be better if it was only attraction due to him winning and not because of the weird concepts and answers he wrote on the test.

As for his artificing methods he would be using later in the second phase, it was inevitable that he"d have to reveal some things, but he"d just take it in stride and make sure not to do anything too flashy.

As for the last phase, he already had something he wanted to create, and from the information he got from Ren, the materials the Empire provided for the compet.i.tion would be enough for him to complete his magi-tech.

His finished creation would surely attract attention, but he"ll deal with that once he"s crossed that bridge.