Dominating Evolution of the Cosmos

As he was quizzing Steve, Daniel naturally harbored evil designs. As such, others could not help but shift their attention to him.

"I have answered all 1,000 questions, which were all very simple. Where is the difficulty?" Steve calmly said.

Daniel heard what he said and burst out laughing, which was followed by comments and peals of laughter from the other noble apprentices.

"Haha, did you hear him? He said that he has answered all 1,000 questions?!"

"This young lad must be making up a story, as it is impossible to finish answering all of the questions!"

"Haha, he even said that the questions are not difficult, he really must think he is a genius."

The noble apprentices could not help but laugh, as none of them took what Steve had said seriously. After all, it was impossible to achieve.

"Hey, brother, even if you did not manage to answer the questions well, you don't have to lie to everyone about it," Torbjörn said with a sigh.

Even Torbjörn and a few others did not quite believe what Steve had said. After all, Earl, who was the most talented, had only been able to answer seven hundred and eighty of the questions. So, in comparison, he would have been considered lucky if Steve could have answered even just 100 questions!

"I'm telling the truth. When the results are out, you will all see." Steve smiled calmly and looked at Daniel. He then added, "When that time comes, I hope that someone does not go back on his word."

"Well, you can rest assured. If I lose, all of my money will be yours. However, you must not forget to refrain from pestering Catherine if you lose." Daniel sneered. He then added, "But, I am not afraid of you defaulting either, for I would make you regret that."

The crowd understood that Daniel was not joking. The group of people, who had pestered Catherine in the past, had all suffered for it in the end.

If Steve did not have a letter of recommendation in his hand, Daniel would not have talked to him so nicely but would have driven him away immediately. After all, his having a letter of recommendation meant that Steve had at least one F grade pharmacist supporting him, so Daniel did not dare attempt to resolve their conflict by physical force.

Of course, if Steve dared to breach their new agreement, Daniel would then not be so nice. After the examination ended, five minutes passed quickly.

"All of the examination papers have been graded, so we're releasing the scores, along with your current rankings," Frank, the examiner, announced.

In order to guarantee fairness and impartiality, the examiners had not touched the examination papers. Also, before the results were announced, no one knew the scores.

Swish!

"I saw it. I scored 312 points and ranked 200th!"

"Haha, I scored 483 and am in the top 100."

Suddenly, the scene became very noisy. Some people were laughing excitedly, while others were crying in frustration. There were all kinds of reactions.

"What? 58th place and 524 points! I managed to make it in the top 50!" Clinton was all smiles. "Linken, what about you?"

Steve looked calm. Then, Lance came over and said with surprise, "I've just noticed the bottom three in the ranking. They are still Darwin, Albert, and Hawking. Those three idiots. They have been at the bottom for so many consecutive examinations!"

"Linken unexpectedly is not in the last place! How many points did he score, and where did he place?" Torbjörn asked excitedly.

"First place, 1,000 points. That's a perfect score," Steve calmly said.

"Brother Linken, this joke is not funny at all!" Lance smiled, not at all believing what Steve had said. "Let's look from the bottom up. Then, we will find his name soon."

Torbjörn and the others also did not believe what Steve had said. This was because Steve was still just calmly sitting in his seat, not even bothering to look at the list.

Obviously, he also did not think he had scored well, so he was not bothering to look at the results. Even Catherine had gone up to the front to check her score. At the same time, there were constant sounds of exclamations at the front, coming from other apprentices.

"Earl came in fourth, scoring 798 points. Again, he came within a whisker of overtaking Daniel!"

"Daniel came in third this time, scoring 803 points. He's better than Earl, but only by a few points."

"Catherine should have been in first place this time. I wonder how many points she scored for the examination?"

"Catherine scored 937 points! She actually got 937 points. That's incredible! But, she still did not come in first!"

Just then, all of the exclamations regarding the top few rankings suddenly came to a halt. Everybody's throat felt as if they had been strangled, as they were speechless. At that point, Torbjörn and the others started looking for Steve's name from the list.

"Linken's name is not below the rankings of the top 100. He surely wouldn't be in the top 100, right?" Torbjörn asked, surprised. However, they kept looking upward along the list, until they saw the very first three names and were stunned.

"The first... First place, Linken.. 1,000 points!" Torbjörn stammered as read the results aloud. Everyone present was stunned and felt that the results were unbelievable!

"He really got first place..."

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! His first round of elemental talent only earned him 5 points, so how could he get such a high score?" At this point, Daniel's facial expressions were changing constantly, going from shock to anger, then turning ghostly pale.

Earl also had a confused look on his face. They had previously thought that Steve had given up on the second round of the certification examination, perhaps not even bothering to check his results, as he knew that his results would be very bad.

None of them thought that Steve could get a perfect score! Suddenly, the crowd recalled that Steve had gained access to the certification examination directly via a letter of recommendation.

"Sure enough, it's true that a person, who can get the letter of recommendation to join the certification examination, is no ordinary person!"

"Even if he got a perfect score, his elemental talent was only 5 points. For him to become an F grade pharmacist would be a miracle, and his future would also be limited."

Those words immediately gained everyone's approval, as no matter what Steve got in his basic score, his final achievement would still only be an F grade pharmacist. At this point, even Alex and the other six examiners were also amazed.

"He's the only apprentice to ever score full marks in a theory examination in the Stanlos Pharmaceutical Guild branch!" Alex exclaimed.

"So what? No matter how good his theoretical knowledge is, his elemental talent is still too low. As such, it will be difficult for him to become a pharmacist," Willy shook his head and lamented.

Even those high-level executives on the top floor were also surprised to see that Steve had gotten a perfect score. Still, they did not feel threatened by him, nor pay it to much attention.

This was because they knew that knowledge could be accumulated and learned slowly, but talent would be hard to change. Thus, without a great talent, one would not be able to reach the peak of being a pharmacist in the future. So, they quickly ignored Steve.