Stellar Echo: Heart of the Myst-Chapter 171: VOL 3 - 9: You are exactly what I need.

"Good afternoon."

"Well then, tell me, have you encountered any difficulties these days?" After taking a sip of his tea, Erik asked while picking up one of the cookies from the plate.

"A little, boss; mana control is really complicated..." Sofía replied, a bit embarrassed, which caused her siblings to lower their heads slightly. After all, mana control had been the greatest obstacle they had encountered.

"I see..." Erik commented as he brought his right hand to his chin and began to think deeply, which made the siblings uneasy. However, Erik quickly snapped back to himself and added with a reassuring smile.

"Well, that is a problem we must tackle gradually. For now, please take a seat; we'll do a little test to see how you did with your studies this week."

"""Yes, boss"""

After they responded in unison, the siblings quickly sat behind three black wooden desks carved with different runes all over their surfaces, specially aligned to face Erik. Erik then handed Seraphina three packets of sheets, which she placed on the siblings' desks.

"Okay, then you have one hour to answer. Try to respond with what you know; don't just make things up at random."

Once Seraphina placed the sheets onto the siblings' desks with her own hands, Erik announced in a calm tone, prompting the siblings to nod with incredibly serious expressions as they responded in unison with a certain solemnity.

"""Yes, boss"""

After speaking, the siblings quickly turned over the sheets and took their pens, then began reading the questions with complete concentration. This made Erik smile in satisfaction as, after finishing his tea, he resumed writing on the magical scroll, causing the room to once again be engulfed by a deafening silence in which only the sound of pens against paper and the sporadic interventions of Ignis and Ebonique—who offered Erik advice and ideas—were heard.

Exactly one hour later, Seraphina, who remained behind her young master like the perfect maid she was, stepped forward and went to the siblings' desks in complete silence. At the same time, the sheets on the siblings' desks turned completely black, preventing them from writing further and indicating that their time was up.

Setting her pen aside, feeling slightly confident, Martín turned to look at his sisters, noticing that Clara was quite calm, while Sofía, on the contrary, was a bundle of nerves and appeared on the verge of tears—a fact that inevitably caused his heart to tighten with concern. At that moment, Seraphina collected the respective packets of sheets and then placed them neatly on Erik's desk, who continued writing, deeply focused.

A few minutes later, Erik finished writing and lifted his gaze, finding Clara calmly drinking her tea, while Sofía and Martín shifted uncomfortably, visibly nervous. So, he set his pen aside, took the freshly refilled cup from Seraphina, and then began reviewing each packet of papers attentively.

The source of this c𝓸ntent is frёeweɓηovel.coɱ.

After some time, Erik laid the papers with the siblings' answers on the desk, then scanned the three faces, realizing that now even Clara looked slightly nervous. At that moment, he spoke in a clear voice.

"Well, I can see that you have been studying diligently; especially Clara, in the free-response section on alchemy, you proposed interesting ideas. Not only have you studied hard, but you are even beginning to master the knowledge little by little—congratulations."

Seeing Erik congratulating her with a charming smile on his face, Clara blushed a little, but she quickly composed herself and rose from her chair before bowing respectfully and thanking him with a joyous tone.

"Thank you very much, Young... Boss."

Erik smiled wryly as he saw how she was about to call him Clara, but simply shook his head at Seraphina's slightly proud smile and continued listening to Clara, who continued speaking in a serious tone.

"But it's all thanks to the advice you gave me to see alchemy as if it were a cooking recipe; looking at things from that perspective has helped me a lot."

Upon hearing Clara's words, Erik smiled with satisfaction and brought a cookie to his mouth before speaking in an upbeat tone.

"I'm glad it was helpful. If you continue improving at this rate, you should be able to take the Alchemy Assistant exam before the call for my assistants at the Regulation Institute comes out. So get ready. I'll soon take you to see someone who will help you polish all the details necessary to pass the exam."

"I will do my best, boss." Clara responded enthusiastically, bringing a smile to Erik's face again, as he spoke in an encouraging voice.

"Then I count on you."

"I won't disappoint you, boss."

After Clara sat down with an expression that fluctuated between determination and happiness, Erik turned to look at Martín and took his exam before commenting in a calm tone.

"The second-best performer in this test was Martin. While you struggle a bit with making complex logical inferences, you have a good memory and managed to answer most of the questions correctly. And although math didn't go particularly well for you, you've shown considerable talent with runes, so from now on, we'll focus on that. You've worked hard."

Upon hearing the evaluation, Martin smiled with joy, but quickly stood up and bowed respectfully as he spoke in a courteous tone.

"Thank you very much, boss. It's all thanks to your constant guidance, and I'll make sure to work even harder so as not to disappoint your expectations."

"It's nothing—you've all put in enough effort. Just be careful not to overdo it; that would be counterproductive." Erik commented with a smile as he took another cookie, to which Martin quickly nodded.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind, boss."

As Martin returned to his seat, Erik turned to look at Sofía, who had her head down and was trembling slightly, trying to hold back the tears that were on the verge of bursting. At that moment, the star-haired young man began to speak in a calm tone.

"As for Sofía... Hmm... how should I put this? If I had to grade your exam, I'd have to say you passed with the minimum required score. While I can tell you studied diligently, you made a lot of mistakes and fell into several traps I placed in the questions."

Erik's words struck Sofía like lightning through the heart, leaving her devastated. Having her suspicions confirmed was far more painful than she had expected. During the exam, Sofía had struggled immensely—many of the questions were hard to understand, and she couldn't recall things she was certain she had studied.

But no matter how much she tried, once again, she had ended up being the worst. Even though she had worked harder than anyone else, studying tirelessly night after night until the early hours of the morning, it hadn't been enough. She was hopelessly foolish, and by now, her boss was probably regretting ever bringing her along.

A deep pain began to fill Sofía's heart. She felt stupid and useless—a complete waste of her boss's efforts, who had given her nothing but the best and treated her with such care and kindness, the kind she hadn't believed even existed in the world. And yet, she had failed to do her part and ended up disappointing the one person she never wanted to disappoint under any circumstances.

Tears full of pain and guilt began to fall from Sofía's eyes, bringing looks of panic and sorrow to Clara's and Martin's faces as they desperately tried to think of a way to fix the situation—though without much success. But their minds came to a sudden stop when they heard Erik's calm voice.

"But that's only regarding the basic exam that Clara and Martin answered."

Erik looked at Sofía with a smile, and she raised her head to reveal her tear-stained face; her expression caught somewhere between surprise and confusion.

"I don't know if you noticed, but your exam was longer than your siblings'." Erik paused to give Sofía a moment to process his words, and seeing her shake her head, he continued.

"For the past couple of weeks, thanks to the general knowledge questions in the exams, I noticed that you had a talent—or rather, a strong intuition—for business. For that reason, I decided to pay a little more attention to that side of things, and today I designed a more specific test just for you. The results pleasantly surprised me."

Erik's words brought wide smiles to Clara's and Martin's faces, while Sofía just stared at him in astonishment, unsure whether to believe what she was hearing—wondering if it was just a joke or a cruel trick her mind was playing on her. But without paying any attention to her swirling thoughts, Erik continued explaining in a soft and calm tone.

"This time, I decided to evaluate you in eight areas that I consider important for business: Business Case Analysis, Problem-Solving, Creativity and Innovation, Communication Skills, Decision-Making, Market Knowledge, and Ethics and Responsibility. And although you failed quite spectacularly in the ethics and responsibility section, in all the others, you demonstrated great talent and sharp intuition, giving creative and logical answers.

"I especially liked your responses in communication skills—though your style still needs some polishing, it was quite appealing and interesting. And honestly, it's truly impressive how you managed to understand the university market so well, considering you've barely even left the mansion. How did you do it?"

Seeing the genuine curiosity on Erik's face, Sofía took a deep breath, still feeling a bit flustered and confused, but quickly wiped her tears with her forearm and responded in a slightly nasal and awkward voice.

"B-boss, it's nothing impressive... I'm just a little curious, so I simply listened to the other workers around the mansion talking and ended up learning more or less how things worked here. It's kind of a habit, really—I used to do it all the time in Aranta to find out which places were best to work at, where to get good deals, and the best ways to guide tourists, things like that..."

Upon hearing her explanation, Erik nodded thoughtfully, then took a small notebook from his storage ring and jotted down a few notes. After that, he looked back at Sofía and spoke with a slightly excited tone that not only surprised her but also caught Clara and Martin off guard, while Seraphina smiled warmly as she looked at her young master's back.

"It really is something impressive, you know? You're incredibly talented when it comes to business, and people like you are exactly what I need—just as much, if not more, than my assistants in alchemy and artificery. Honestly, I feel like I hit the jackpot by bringing you here."

***

You can support me on patreon.com/lordanl and get up to 10 advanced Chapters.