A Serpent's Tale
Chapter 279: Shadowy Plots

Chapter 279: Shadowy Plots

After leaving the colosseum, I headed to the guild and waited in line at the reception to request a strength test for myself.

It was quite busy since it was the weekend, to the point where there were seven receptionists working at the desks today.

When I got to the front and asked, they said that they could only book a time for me to do it at a later date.

We managed to agree that it would be done a week from now.

Which meant that I would have to wait, which was fine. It’s only a week away anyways.

That week went by very quickly. I even gained a new skill in my Etiquette class.

[Ding!]

[You have learned the Skill [Grace: LvL. 1]!]

Given how I obtained it, its name, and its description, it was pretty obvious what it did. It was a passive physical according to its description, which meant that it would always be active whenever I wanted it to subconsciously.

Anyways, after that lesson, I remembered that I had some stuff that I wanted to do here at school.

The first of which was to check with the headmaster whether or not it was okay for me to use my special status to get out of situations like being poached.

Unfortunately the headmaster, Miss Amoranaa was out, but her assistant, which I learned was called Miss Zanaraz, and she was able to answer my query.

"So you’re asking if you can exert you status as a Prodigy to get rid of people who might try and poach you?" She reiterated my question to try and better understand it.

"Yes. I fear that my existence as a just another ordinary person won’t remain secret for long."

"You know you’re not actually ordinary, right?" Miss Zanaraz pointed out.

"I know that, and I know that some people already know about me, but what I’m saying is, people will start to pay attention to me, hard. And I don’t want that. I want to be left alone to do my own thing."

"And that’s why you’ve come to ask if you can use your status to deny any such vile offers?" She reaffirmed once more.

"Yes. I know it’s against the rules to flaunt our status, but I was hoping that if such a situation ever rises, if it would be okay to do such a thing."

"Hmm... Depends on what exactly unfolds. If they do indeed insist on taking you in then I believe it should be okay, but I would only do it if they keep on insisting. In fact, it would just be better to come straight here and report it to us, we’ll take care of the unsavoury people."

After hearing her propose this, I thanked her and got up to leave. But as I was leaving, she said something else.

"Your talents have already reached several such people, but they know better than to try anything whilst you’re under our care."

That was all she said.

And to be honest, it was extremely disturbing the way she said it. It was almost threatening they way she spoke, as if she was warning me of something. But why? Why would she do such a thing?

I slithered away with a bit more haste as I didn’t want to be there longer than necessary.

And as I left the building, I noticed something about what she said. She said "Whilst you’re under our care." Which meant that I would be subject to this kind of stuff the day I graduated.

And that thought sent chills down my spine.

Maybe I should get stronger. For no other reason than to make people leave me alone.

Perhaps if I became strong enough, they would leave me alone because they wouldn’t be able to force me? Yeah, I think I should do that.

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The weekend came and I opened up to Eric about what had happened as we sat on the sand and his expression turned solemn after hearing my explanation of the events of my talk with Miss Zanaraz.

"Hmm..." He seemed to be in deep thought so I didn’t disturb him at all and just waited for him to speak, which he eventually did.

"It seems like they have dug their hands much deeper into this region than I thought..."

"Who’s ’they’?" I asked with both curiosity and fear. Curiosity because who isn’t curious? And fear because to make such a powerful magic user like Eric this perturbed meant that they were a real threat in his eyes.

He looked over at me and sighed. He then began explaining a lot about more than just who ’they’ were.

"You may or may not know this, but you do not conform to the fates. An Outlier."

"Yes, I’m aware of this."

"Really? How’d you know?" He was surprised by this revelation, but given that he’s more than likely seen a lot of shit from the future, he probably has a pretty high tolerance to being taken aback.

Even though he was surprised by my literal God blood. That I think is the only thing that’s really, genuinely surprised him.

Sure he’s been a little shocked by other things, but it never made him hysterical or anything to that degree.

But that didn’t matter. What mattered was answering his question, and so I did.

"A nice elderly mage called Kronia taught me about it."

After telling Eric about my encounter with her he just sighed again.

"Of course... This timeline has been fucked up it would seem." He mumbled drowsily.

I could see the tiredness in his eyes also. As if he had grown tired from dealing with this stuff, which he probably was. I don’t know how many times he’s done this, but looking at him, it seems to have taken a toll on him.

But that look soon disappeared as he shot back up onto his feet and smiled, returning to his normally much cheerier personality.

I smiled and got up as well and we resumed our usual lessons. I didn’t bring up his depression mood because I felt that it would just make things worse, so I just followed his tutorage a learned what I could.

The two training days quickly passed and I was able to learn a new skill.

[Ding!]

[You have learned the Skill [Spatial Domain: LvL. 1]!]

This was apparently a very hard skill to obtain, but with my talents, and [Spatial Vision], along with the rest of my vision skills, I was able to learn it pretty easily.

And I despite calling them skills, they’re more like spells, since I was learning them normally, and even when they became skills, I used them as if I didn’t have a Soul Scroll, just like my father taught me to.

When Eric learned of this he nodded in approval.

"Yes, good. Very good. You may not know this, but there are people and places out there that can prevent one from using their Soul Scroll, so it’s always best to learn how to use your powers without them."

Our lessons finished and it was now the last day of the second week, which meant that it was now time for my test at the Adventurer’s Guild.

I’d booked it for the same four things as before. Strength, Speed, Agility and Durability.

They gave me instructions to head to the dungeons second floor, where they had actually built an arena for this very purpose.

When I got there, there were several others who were also waiting in line for the test as a few adventurers were taking theirs.

Some of them seemed to be friends as they bantered with one another, but a lot of them seemed to be here on their own like me and didn’t really engage with the conversations. Me included.

I fortunately didn’t have to wait too long, only about an hour, since most people were only here to test out the limits of a couple of their abilities.

From what I hear, I might be the only one to be doing four today, seeing as everyone else was only doing about two to three tests.

When it came time for me to go up, upon knowing it was me, they waited for the one’s currently being tested to finish up and didn’t let anyone else start their tests.

The people waiting for their tests were disgruntled upon hearing about this but ultimately were curious as to why I was getting special privilege.

The people being tested soon finished but didn’t leave as they had noticed what was going on and wanted to stay and watch, which is fine, I guess.

The people who were running these testing ground prepared this little testing arena for me, and explained what and how they would be testing me.

News of what I did last week had reached their ears pretty easily, so the Strength test would be last, and instead, they would be testing my speed first, making me run around the arena at top speed against one of their own.

It was basically a race, with ten laps around the arena to see who could complete them first.

And because they guessed that my prowess was more than likely absurd, they gave me a red robe to wear, and the person I’d be racing a blue one, so that they could hopefully keep track of our speeds.

We got ready at the starting line and waited for the signal to start.

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