The Golem Mage

The moment they saw his result, the three men in charge of reading it out couldn’t immediately find the right words to say, even the head envoy who had led their group couldn’t help letting his usual smile fade when he noticed how hesitant they were to announce the grade, he started to feel that maybe Alec had one of those unusual grades that surpassed Takeda.

It wasn’t until they finally found their voices and read it out that he understood why they had stalled.

Alec Gordons—the winner of the competition, the one he had placed in third, had somehow been graded as a mage with F-rank potential, though he didn’t particularly like Alec, however; he had never imagined the boy would end up with anything lower than Dragov.

“Does he have some kind of hidden injury that has worsened over time and damaged his foundation or did he use performance enhancing drugs which is making it impossible for him to advance further? Because what else could make someone be graded as F-rank talent?” the head envoy said to the other three normal envoys standing beside him.

Though he might have been speaking out of shock and concern with a low voice, however; in a place where everyone’s hearing was heightened, and without using voice transmission or mental concealment on his voice, it meant everyone else heard him clearly, which Alec believes he did on purpose.

Immediately, many began to revel in what looked like the beginning of Alec’s downfall, the ones happiest about it were naturally the mages who had never had a good relationship with him, the likes of Liam.

Alec simply stepped down from the machine, he could tell the people before him were still in shock, but he didn’t care about what they felt, because he knew he was far beyond an F-rank grading.

He just walked over to the side of the counter, waiting for the middle-aged man there to hand him most of his rewards, since they had already been submitted by the normal envoys.

Though the man was clearly reluctant to hand over such a large amount of rewards to someone who had only received an F grading, However; Alec , who was already far from having the best day—finally lost his patience.

He looked the man straight in the eyes and released a trace of his bloodlust, without anyone else noticing, the mage before him fell into a brief trance where everywhere was completely dark and different demonic beasts, seemingly formed from pure blood energy, rushed at him and tore him apart.

It lasted only a second, but when the man regained his senses and looked into Alec’s irises, which carried a faint blood-red tint, he instinctively cowered backward; now, whenever he looked at Alec, all he felt was an innate fear, as his hands trembled while he swiftly handed over the prearranged rewards.

At that moment, Alec turned toward the men seated at the table who were responsible for the grading.

“Sorry, but if you don’t mind, I would like to exchange my reward for something else.”

The moment they heard what Alec said, their expressions changed instantly, as they believed he was about to protest that the rewards he had received were too small, they had seen in his record that he was the champion.

Though they didn’t care why the envoys had placed him in third position, they were certain that if he had shown a much better grading potential, something like A rank, they wouldn’t have minded helping increase his rewards, but now that his potential had been graded as F rank, they honestly didn’t feel very inclined to listen to him.

However, Alec didn’t wait for them to respond before continuing.

“I want the rewards I’ve been given to be evaluated and exchanged entirely for high-rank corpses, the higher the realm, the better. And I truly don’t care whether they are beast or human—so long as they were high-rank lifeforms before death, I’ll gladly accept them.”

The moment they heard what Alec wanted, they were genuinely surprised, whatever idea they had in mind when he first asked to change his reward was completely shattered the moment he finished speaking.

“Are your powers in some way related to necromancy?” one of the mages in charge of grading asked, as he felt that might explain why Alec had received an F grade, if he was a necromancer and currently had no undead under his command.

“No. I experiment a lot and dabble in different things, and those corpses would profit me more than the pills. Since I’ve already gotten some advice about being able to grow the natural resources needed to craft other pills, I don’t see any reason to take them now when I can simply get them later, once I have my territory and an alchemist under me.”

Seeing how reluctant they still were after he said no, Alec decided to act naive and play along with the lofty dreams the normal envoys had been feeding the group earlier.

The moment they saw how he explained it with such energy and attentiveness, two of the three envoys who had escorted them there couldn’t help bursting into laughter, it was clear they thought Alec was stupid, especially with the way he was repeating their earlier words so earnestly.

“We shall grant you ten Tier 7 corpses and one Tier 8 corpse then.” Though they couldn’t tell what Alec wanted the corpses for, they were certain it would not affect them much to let go of such bodies.

In fact, in their eyes, it was almost as if they had cheated Alec, though they clearly did not care, they couldn’t understand how someone like him had managed to win the competition, but they certainly didn’t mind taking advantage of what they saw as his naivety.

Though they saw it as cheating Alec, Alec himself felt it was more than a fair trade, he knew for a fact that if he tried to recreate what had been offered to him through having ordinary alchemists and forgers work with only the corpse, he would likely fail miserably.

After all, he didn’t believe there was anyone around who even had up to an eighty percent chance of successfully creating pills or crafting top-tier equipment on every attempt, and this was when he only had corpses and not the major ingredients or materials needed.

But he was different, he had the Ancient Primordial Tree, so something like that was never going to be a problem for him, he could gain far more than what had been offered to him, and not only that, he could also gather enough resources to support other things, like the Astral Summoning Cards that looked like talismans, while still being able to forge good equipment.

“If that is all, move to the side so we can continue with the grading, someone will bring over your new rewards,” one of the men said.

Alec nodded with a smile before making his way to the side, away from the line of mages still waiting.

“Alec.”

Agnes, Arthur, Endrick, and almost everyone in his inner circle—not the entire team, just those from his clan’s inner circle, finally managed to send him a voice transmission after great effort, asking what they should do with their own share of the rewards, and Alec only had one answer for them.

“Convert them all.”