Chapter 49: Evaluation
Austria, January 12th 1795
3:21 PM
Lukas was sitting at a table in the library. He had a lot of books piled up on the table as he wrote a few things on a sheet of paper.
"Pent... pentagon..." Lukas said as he tried to read in Latin out loud.
After a while, he grunted in frustration and laid his head on the table.
Soon, he raised back his head and sighed. 'This takes so long! It's like I'm obliging myself to learn it! I wanna learn out of my own volition, like when I started learning foreign languages! Foreign languages are interesting, but this "hippotenuze" is not! So boring!' Lukas internally complained.
After a while, he sighed once again. 'I need a break,' he thought.
Then, Lukas jumped out of his chair and started walking around the hallways of the mansion. 'I got dancing classes soon. I don't think I should be worrying so much about these studies, anyway,' he thought.
After a while, he found Olivia weeping the floor with a smile on her face as she hummed a song.
Soon, Olivia noticed Lukas watching her. "Oh, Lukas..." she raised her brow. "...what have you done this time?" the humble-looking woman asked.
Lukas was taken aback by Olivia's question. "Hey! Why do you always think I'm up to something?!" he asked.
"...Do I even need to answer you?" Olivia asked.
"...Yes... I mean, no, I mean... don't answer a question with another question!" Lukas said.
"You do that all the time," Olivia replied.
Lukas then puffed his cheeks, as if sulking and turned to go away, however, he was stopped by Olivia laughing.
"I am joking, Lukas! Come here, I can see you want to talk," Olivia said as she smiled warmly and motioned her hand for Lukas to come.
Lukas hesitated a bit as his cheeks blushed, but he soon went over to Olivia.
"So, what's happening?" Olivia asked as she calmly wept the floor.
Lukas just watched Olivia calmly weeping the floor. "You are so diligent, you don't even look bothered," the blonde boy observed.
Olivia chuckled. "I have done this ever since I was your age, Lukas," she answered. "It is just natural that I would get used to it sooner or later. You also got used to your swordsmanship training, and you only took three years, not to mention that that is much more demanding, physically speaking," the
humble-looking woman commented.
Lukas sighed. "I guess you are right," he said.
After a short break, Lukas finally spoke up. "How can you be diligent in a brief, but demanding and important task? I mean, you wouldn't even have time to get used to it," he said.
Olivia laughed. "What do you mean? You do that kind of tasks all the time," she said.
Lukas sighed. "It's not the same thing! The tasks I usually do are not brief, they usually are very lingering, actually! Besides, I can do them whenever I want! I don't have an official deadline!" he countered.
Olivia thought for a bit and then she nodded her head in consideration. "Yes, I suppose you are correct," she answered.
After another short break, Olivia answered Lukas's question. "When I have to do a very demanding, but brief task, I usually say to myself: 'The faster you do it, the faster you are free,' that is something that usually helps me out," she said.
Lukas nodded his head in understanding. "Anything else?" he asked.
Olivia hummed for a bit. "Well, different from what many people say, our strongest feeling is not love, but hate and anger, and those two come from fear... mainly in men. So, I usually try to think about something that I am afraid of happening to me and that would happen if I did not fulfill that task," she explained.
Lukas gave it some thought to Olivia's explanation. "Fear and anger are the strongest emotions..." hemurmured.
"Thank you, Olivia," Lukas excitedly said as he darted back to the library.
Olivia just laughed at Lukas's reaction as she helplessly shook her head.
Once Lukas entered the library, he immediately jumped back onto his chair.
After that, he crossed his arms and leaned back on his chair. 'Okay, something that I'm afraid of happening to me,' Lukas thought. 'It can't be that difficult!' the blonde boy concluded.
Lukas then took a deep breath and started imagining.
-----
Suddenly, a piece of paper was thrown onto a table with the number 30 written on it. "Sorry, boy, you failed," a masculine voice calmly said.
-----
Austria, January 12th 1795
3:34 PM
Lukas slowly opened back his eyes with a weirded out face. 'I'm sure that didn't make me afraid at all,' he thought.
Lukas then took another deep breath and closed his eyes once again.
-----
Suddenly, a bunch of papers were thrown onto a table with a loud boom. The first paper had a large and red zero written on it.
When Lukas looked up, he saw Johannes with a smirk pointing at him. "Hahaha! You are a loser, you brat! What a shitty grade! You didn't even get one question right!"
-----
Austria, January 12th 1795
3:34 PM
Lukas suddenly opened his eyes as he gritted his teeth. 'That bastard...' he thought as he clenched his fists.
Lukas abruptly grabbed the quill and started writing on the sheet of paper.
"I WILL NOT LET IT HAPPEN!" Lukas sterically yelled as he wrote.
"Pent- Pentag- Pentagoni- SHIT! PENTAGONUM! PENTAGONUM!" Lukas said as he tried to read the geometric terms in Latin.
-----
Austria, January 12th 1795
4:59 PM
Lukas and Elisabeth were dancing in the room that had been designated for their classes.
Elisabeth and Ingrid thought that Lukas was strange that day, he looked much more focused and diligent.
Finally, their dance was over. Ingrid then eyed her watch and nodded her head. "Well, today's class is over, Lukas, let me jus-" she was interrupted by Lukas darting towards the door.
Ingrid stretched her hands as if to tell Lukas to wait. "H-Hold on," she said.
Lukas abruptly turned to Ingrid with an angry face. "WHAT IS I-" he then cleared his throat and showed a smile. "Yes, ma'am?" the blonde boy asked with a soft voice.
Ingrid showed an angry expression. "Yesterday, my brother sent me a letter saying that you asked him to get you a degree!" she said.
"...It's true," he said, before turning to the door as he raised his hand. "By-" the blonde boy was interrupted, once again, by Ingrid.
"It's still not over!" Ingrid abruptly said.
Lukas mumbled some curses before turning back to Ingrid with a gentle smile. "Yes?"
Ingrid crossed her arms. "Are you aware of what you have done? That's an illegality!" she said.
"I can also mention a few things that I recently found out about a certain person that are an illegality too," Lukas sarcastically replied with a low tone. 'Actually, I'm not even sure if what they were doing was an illegality, I just wanted to piss her off,' he thought.
Ingrid gritted her teeth. "What?!" she asked.
Lukas just quickly waved his hands. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, get angry later, where do you wanna get with all of this, after all?" he asked.
Ingrid took a deep breath. "My brother also told me that you are impolite, arrogant, and a ruthless blackmailer," she said.
Lukas raised his brow as he crossed his arms. "That's all true, but I didn't blackmail him," the blonde boy said.
"He told me that you gave him a contract to sign, and that it said he agreed on getting you a degree if you had a positive grade on the test," Ingrid countered.
"That's not blackmailing, though. He signed the contract because he wanted to. Are you saying that any kind of law is blackmailing? ...I could say that is an interesting discussion, but I prefer to tell you that it's just stupid," Lukas said.
Ingrid just gritted her teeth.
Lukas smirked and put his thumb on his lip. "By the way, don't you think that what your brother did is, in fact, the illegality? Because I'm an innocent child, I didn't know what I was doing! I was just joking!" he said with an innocent voice.
Ingrid kept gritting her teeth, but she suddenly took a deep breath. "You won't be able to piss me off anymore, boy," she said with a grin.
'Great!' he thought. "Okay, bye, then," he said as he raised his hand and went out of the door.
Ingrid sighed and then turned to Elisabeth. "What do you see in that boy, honey?" she asked as she pointed at the door.
Elisabeth widened her eyes and her cheeks blushed. "W-What do you mean? I don't like him!" she said.
Ingrid just sighed as she put her hands on her hips. "And I'm not stupid! Do you really think that you can trick your own mother when it comes to that kind of subjects?" she asked.
Elisabeth didn't answer, instead, she just looked down at the floor in embarrassment.
-----
Austria, January 18th 1795
3:34 PM
Lukas was, once again, in the library with even more books piled up than on the day he had started studying for the test.
Lukas was deeply focused on the subjects that he was studying, he even mumbled a few things in Latin once in a while.
'I can't believe I had to force myself to think in Latin! I'm so glad that I started studying Latin long before this!' Lukas thought.
Lukas then eyed the clock. 'Okay, I still have about an hour before the real assignment. I'll go through all the stuff within this time. I can do it,' he thought.
Even though Lukas was far from having a photographic memory, his memory was still very good, he was even able to memorize a complex formula in about 2 minutes.
After going through all his notes, he looked at the clock and saw that there were still ten minutes left before the test started.
'Okay, I guess I will not put all this stuff back to its place and I'll grab something to eat instead. I hate to leave a mess wherever I go, but I have to be smart here,' Lukas thought.
So, he quickly jumped out of his chair and immediately went to the kitchen in order to grab something to eat.
Lukas knew himself, he knew that he wouldn't be able to focus during the test if he was hungry.
If it was a physical task, like swordsmanship, he would eventually forget it, but it's a task where you are sitting and you have to focus on remembering a lot of things.
After eating, Lukas went to the front door and eyed the clock nearby. '15 more seconds,' Lukas thought.
After waiting a few more moments, he heard a knock on the door, before any maidservant could even arrive, Lukas grabbed the door handle and opened the door.
There, was Johannes with a wide smirk, which made Lukas frown. 'He is up to something. I bet he made sure to make the test as difficult as he could,' the blonde boy thought.
Lukas then showed another smirk. "I'm so glad you are here on time. Please, come in," he said as he stepped aside for Johannes to enter.
"Thank you very much," Johannes said as he walked in.
Soon, they were in the library. Lukas had about 12 sheets of paper in front of him on the table. Johannes was sitting across him as he stared at his watch.
"Get ready, commence..." Johannes said.
Then, Lukas grabbed the quill and quickly started reading the answers.
After a few minutes doing the test, Lukas looked at Johannes with an angry expression. 'This bastard... I knew it, he made sure the questions were as hard as possible!' the blonde boy thought.
When Johannes noticed that Lukas was staring at him, he showed a slight smirk to the blonde boy.
When Lukas saw that, he took a deep breath and calmly took his quill. 'Fine, then, Johannes... let's dance,' he thought.
As Lukas studied, he noticed that he couldn't study while he was fully angry, since he wouldn't be able to focus. He had to use what he had named after "friendly anger," some sort of anger that simply pumped Lukas up and didn't disturb him.
Lukas then stared at the test and took a deep breath. After that, he started writing.
Three hours had passed and Johannes finally spoke up. "Time's up! Drop the quill!"
Lukas confidently dropped the quill and showed a wide smirk. "I did everything. Prepare to give me two diplomas," he said.
Johannes was apprehensive. He had noticed that Lukas was very focused and everytime he checked, the blonde boy was solving all the questions correctly.
'I-It can't be that he aced it, right?' Johannes wondered.
Johannes hesitatingly took the sheets of paper and started correcting the test.
Lukas then stood up and went to check on his correction. "You don't mind if I watch you, do you? I mean, I don't want you to make a mistake," he said, with a teasing tone.
Johannes just clenched his fist and kept correcting the test.
Johannes even tried to argue his way out a few times, but Lukas took advantage that he had not put the books back to their place and made sure to fetch the suitable book to correct every single question that Johannes tried to mark as wrong.
Soon, Johannes had finally finished correcting it.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone