“Hold on,” Rook spoke, still smirking while he eyed Ben. “There’s something that needs to be addressed here. This isn’t a daycare, you can’t just bring any random kid along to it.”

“…Do you have an issue you’d like to present then?” Killi asked, her tone speaking of her opinion on the other more than anything else and shouting to the world that she was unimpressed.

“I do. Get the brat out of here,” He said, dismissively trying to wave off Ben and drawing his teacher’s ire.

“If you have a problem with my apprentice, you have a problem with me.”

“And it’s long been acceptable to bring guests if the skill holder in question sees them as having the potential,” Killi sighed. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“Well this isn’t exactly going to be a regular meeting, is it?” He shot back. “Besides, I’ve been here longer than any of you by a mile, I have an eye for who’s actually going to cross the line by this point and he doesn’t have a chance so there’s no use dragging him here, it’s a waste of all of our time…”

He trailed off as he heard the sound of a soft giggling coming from Yuzu, with her teacher looking like he was struggling to suppress his own laughter.

“What?” The immortal asked. “You think a couple of newbies like the two of you have better judgment than me?”

“Obviously,” Elvat said, with Yuzu nodding her head as well while Killi spoke once more.

“I’d also say you’re an idiot if you really believe that but frankly, you’re well known for your poor judgment by this point. I don’t know why you’ve decided you don’t like the boy and to be clear, I don’t care. I’ve already heard that both of the soulsmith’s guests were brought along at the request of the god Nare and frankly if even then you still think it’s inappropriate to have two guests then Ben can be mine instead. Now, can we go on?”

“No, I’m happy to grind things to a halt if that’s the way you want to be, I don’t believe it’s right for him to be here when he clearly doesn’t have potential and I have seniority on all of you.”

“Does such a thing even matter for someone who’s never reaching godhood?” The divine chef sighed from the aquatic side, seeming both tired and used to things going that way. “You claim seniority but never act your age. Can you do us all a favour and shut it so we can wrap this up? Some of us actually have important work to be doing.”

“And as for potential, I would personally place Ben as the most valuable among the summoned, including myself,” Yuzu added, with the statement drawing eyes from the rest of the table, Ben’s included, with a range of emotions behind them. More than a few were curious upon hearing that but it was the eyeless one among them who seemed to flair up at those words more than anything, even if she chose to stay silent.

It didn’t matter so much that Yuzu had outed him as one of the summoned when nearly half of the people in the room were as well. What mattered was her evaluation of him, something far beyond anything he’d call himself with Rook laughing as soon as she’d said it.

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“If he was that valuable then he would have already been in an earlier meeting. Don’t get a big head newbie, I know there’s only five of you.”

“The tier matters less than how you use it,” Elvat sighed. “And frankly, I agree. Now, are you really going to say your judgment is better than two soul mages?”

It felt like that should have been the end of it, but still the immortal insisted on being a pain.

“The judgment of soul mages is famously poor. If it wasn’t there’d be a lot more of us.”

“Infinite hells, just kick him so we can start already,” The king of growth muttered. “What’s it matter?”

“The principle,” Killi told them. “The point of this is to act in a civilized manner with each other and to help find and promote promising talent when we bring someone along. Someone else can’t just one-sidedly decide that another’s guest shouldn’t be allowed. If anything, I’d certainly choose to keep Ben around for the potential he can offer rather than some useless old fool whose only talent is that nobody can get rid of him.”

That dropped the smug look from his face, changing it to a scowl instead.

“Oh, so you think he’s better than me too?”

“Yes, and it’s not even close. Now, are you still going to keep proving me right with every word you say or can we finally get on to things?”

“Hmph, in that case, let’s bring it to a vote. Nice and diplomatic, right?”

“…What a waste of time,” Killi muttered. “Fine. In that case, Ben, would you like to say anything so we can get this farce over with?”

“Huh, sure, why not? Give me a minute,” Feeling annoyed by the entire thing and spotting a chance to embarrass the one who’d literally tried to kill him just the day before, Ben materialized two large posters for all to see, holding them in view for the group to go over, with some of them instantly understanding what he had and laughing. “In my right hand, I have all of my current skill levels, as can be verified by both soul mages and Verbum. In my left, I have randomly selected one of you to act as a counter-example. Completely random, no bad blood to skew my choice or anything.”

While his list only revealed his levels while only giving the names of just four skills, being his unending crafting, his divine enchanting, his unnatural mind, and his knowledge, he’d laid Rook’s list of skills bare for all to see, leaving the man completely simmering in anger across the table from him while Elvat spoke up.

“I can confirm the levels he’s showing for himself are correct, and more importantly, that he’s a contender for four skills. Considering you’ve all already heard about him being one of the summoned, I don’t need to tell you what that means but it goes beyond that. When Yuzu first met the boy he only had tier-one skills and raised everything he had through his efforts. Frankly, if anyone is still going to insist that he lacks potential, I’d say we should just kick them from the meeting and carry on without anyone around to cause needless problems but that’s just my humble opinion of course. Now, should we get to the vote already? Everyone in favour of him staying, say aye.”

A round of ayes went up, only two staying silent in fact which was more than enough to tell Ben the opinion the rest of the table held of Rook, with only him and the strange summoned girl keeping quiet.

“Alright, I do believe that settles that,” Killi told them. “Now, if no one else wants to interrupt, can we finally get this meeting started?”

This time there were no interruptions, even if Ben could feel the immortal staring daggers into him from the side while the eyeless girl gave the impression she was judging him in entirely different ways.

“Nobody then? Good, in that case, we can begin. Now to start with, apologies to all of you who found out so last minute about the sudden delay, some news came to light that unfortunately we need to discuss. The collapse holder Regnal is found guilty of the murder of ten he fought with and weakening the world’s forces as a whole.”

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