"Miss Lia." Manager Desmond rubbed his long, silver-streaked beard, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "This old man did not expect to see you here, young lass. It has been some time since we last met, has it not?"
"Grandpa Desmond!" Lia exclaimed in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
He chuckled softly. "I was in Blue Spirit City for a short visit and thought I would stop by Sector Six to take a look around."
He then glanced at Grey, who was standing there while fiddling away on his phone. He had immediately taken his phone out, fully realizing that this was going to be an unskippable cutscene. Since that was the case, he decided to utilize this time to be productive and search for a game to play!
At the same time, he had noticed the old man. While the people next to him didn't seem like a threat, the old man was. An extremely oppressive aura was constantly being released from him, and as someone with Nexus Energy, he was more prone to these things.
During the time he was talking with Lia, he even tried to probe him, but Nexus Energy swiftly negated it.
"Which clan's young master might this young man be?" Manager Desmond asked Lia with a small, curious smile.
From how Manager Desmond saw it, Grey was exceptionally beautiful and carried himself quite well. He looked a lot like those young masters from rich clans.
"Oh… err…" Lia froze. She had completely forgotten Grey was with her!
Quickly recovering, she blurted out, "This is my friend… we go to school together!"
"Isn't that right, Grey?" she added, turning to him. Grey, however, was completely absorbed in his phone, scrolling with a bored expression.
Seeing this, she jabbed him lightly in the ribs to get his attention.
"Huh?" Grey glanced up, shooting her a lazy glare. "Yeah, that's right. We're classmates… and friends."
Albert, silently standing to the side, observed everything without making a sound. His face remained expressionless, giving nothing away.
"Is that so?" Manager Desmond chuckled softly, a glint of amusement in his eyes.
"Yeah…" Lia nodded. "I was just about to show him to the assessment area for evolvers. He just recently became an evolver."
"Oh?" Manager Desmond showed even more interest on his face. "To have awakened this late, are you a second awakener?"
"Yes. That is correct," Grey replied with a smile. Since the other party was talking to him, he naturally had to respond in a polite manner!
"Good! Good!" Manager Desmond said. "Then I came at the right time. Young Grey, would you mind if this old man observed your rank assessment test?"
"Huh?" Manager Victor, who was on the side, was surprised hearing this.
Did this kid catch the branch manager's interest? he secretly thought in his mind.
"I can arrange for that." Manager Victor smiled and spoke. "We can use the special assessment room in the building to assess."
He gestured to Secretary Selene, who swiftly got to work.
"Sure, I don't mind," Grey said with an awkward smile.
However, on the inside, he was cursing like mad.
This old man was most likely a peak 2nd-rank or a 3rd-rank. To have captured attention from someone as powerful as him this early was definitely not a good sign!
He believed the reason he showed interest in him was probably due to his probing failing. Of course, there was no way for him to even let him do that either, because Nexus Energy would act on its own and deflect whatever came its way.
It wouldn't allow any inferior energy into Grey's system. If it did, then Nexus Energy would send an entire army to destroy it completely with multiple nuclear warheads.
From the old man's energy pattern, Grey immediately recognized he was an Esper. His mind radiated a bright silver glow, indicating that his energy was stored within his consciousness. Grey also noticed cosmic energy in his energy field, being converted into that silver light.
From his understanding, Psionic Energy shared the same fundamental properties as Life Energy, but it was uniquely tied to the mind and soul, making it a distinct and highly specialized attribute.
It became even clearer when compared to martial artists: those who reached higher levels often awakened consciousness domains, akin to the abilities Espers possessed.
Of course, Lia had no idea about any of this. She believed she was doing Grey a favor by helping him build a connection with someone like Branch Manager Desmond so early. His talent far surpassed hers, and by a significant margin at that. Still, she wanted to help Grey in any way she could—after all, he had been pushing her combat abilities forward by leaps and bounds.
Soon, they made their way into the special assessment room mentioned by Manager Victor. It was right near the normal assessment room, and before the normal assessment room was a queue of evolvers, many of them there to reassess their new ranks.
Evolvers usually reassessed their ranks once at 4th level and the 10th level. These were the bigger thresholds in all ranks, with the gaps growing marginally as the stage goes. The 4th and 10th levels had the most drastic impact on one's strength, several times that of the 3rd level.
Hence, evolvers at stages 1–3 were considered Low-level Evolvers, those at stages 4–6 were Intermediate-level Evolvers, stages 7–9 were deemed Advanced Evolvers, and stages 10–12 were referred to as Peak Evolvers.
If he wasn't allocated the special assessment room, then he would've also had to queue up behind them.
Now he could be over with it faster and go visit Golden Chamber.
Entering the special assessment room, he looked around a bit. The room wasn't particularly big, but there was a screen on the side, a person walking in looking at a transparent tablet in his hand filled with digital information, and the room was separated into two, covered by a glass panel. Across the room was a highly functional virtual machine.
Assessments were completely virtualized with the advanced technology Blue Star possessed.
Now one could measure their capabilities more accurately with virtual machines by simulating combat and much more desirable settings.
It was far more effective than the usual tests.