The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

Evelyn felt slightly embarrassed being held up like that by the old man, especially with her feet awkwardly dangling in the air. Thankfully, he let her down shortly after, and the girl breathed a sigh of relief.

Once her introduction was over, all the elders except for the strange man, Bree, and her grandfather flew away in one direction.

Just as she was nervously wondering what she was supposed to do now, she saw them head back with a giant stone slab that looked like it weighed at least a few tons floating between them in a spirit formation.

Even though they let it down quite slowly in front of her, it made a resounding boom upon making contact with the ground.

Evelyn gulped, hoping her test wasn't to crack it open with a punch.

----------

'So that's the girl grandma always compares me to.'

That was the first thought that crossed through the mind of a young girl sitting in a special area reserved for the ancient family's descendants. Her ash blonde hair was tied in two pigtails using red ribbons, and her soft brown eyes squinted as she tried to figure out what was so special about the little girl.

Long pink hair immaculately arranged in a combination of princess and waterfall braid, a dark blue short halter dress and white stockings... all served to complement her adorable appearance.

She looked like a beautiful doll that anyone would love to hold in Cecilia's eyes.

And she had many dolls. They were nothing special. After a while, they were... boring.

"She doesn't look like much."

Cecilia didn't realize she had spoken out loud until the boy sitting next to her chuckled.

"Be kind, Cecilia. She's so much younger than you."

The young girl frowned. "Bleh, don't teach me, idiot Markus. Treat your brother better first, maybe."

Markus Ventura was almost twice the age of the young girl, almost approaching his twenties, but he still found her reactions quite amusing.

At least, it was far more interesting than the dolled up little girl who would probably start crying once she goes through the test and fails.

They had all gone through it, after all. And only Cecilia had 'passed', even if barely.

"Aiyoo, you won't understand. As the only heiress to the Fulbright family, how can you know what it's like to compete for the position of the future leader? If I'm kinder to him, I'm unkind to myself. Besides, we're only step brothers."

The twintailed girl harrumphed but refused to answer him.

"Hah, you only want me to be nice to him because you think he'll marry you, right? Oh but remember, the Fulbright family only agreed to a marriage with the Ventura. They never said it had to be with little Aeron. Who knows, it could be me?"

The young girl pretended to gag. "Yuck, disgusting! I'd rather marry a dolly like that girl than marry you!"

Markus chuckled. "Heh, you like that little girl?"

Cecilia's face twisted into a frown. Just why did she have to share the same breathing space as this disgusting man? When she grew up and became stronger than him, the first thing she must do is turn him into a red stain on the ground!

"At least she's cute! You're just disgusting. Your name shouldn't even be Markus, but Disgustus, because all you do is disgust everyone!"

Markus seemed completely unaffected by her tirade and smiled instead. "Hmm, I guess you're the type who likes to console soft little crybabies, huh? No wonder you like Aeron."

The little girl had nothing to do with him, but it was another matter for his 'little brother'.

"Ew, stop talking to me! Disgusting moron!"

Markus was about to continue teasing the little girl, but his words got stuck in his throat as he stiffly turned his neck towards the arena.

"W-What's going on?"

----------

The hushed murmurs of the arena turned into complete silence as Evelyn felt the spirit power within her body flow strangely after she was told to sit cross legged in front of the stone slab.

This was not the first time these people had been to an ancient family's ceremony, so they noticed right away when something was out of the norm.

At first, Evelyn felt nothing, and even started to idly wonder if her white stockings would look ugly now that she had gotten them dusty by sitting on the ground.

But within a few moments, the spirit power in her body started moving on its own, and it felt as if the stone was a giant magnet that could attract and repulse it even from within her body.

Thankfully, the force it applied was very gradual, and the direction in which the spirit power was directed seemed to be a circuit that didn't cause any actual loss of her spirit power.

Evelyn was wondering what exactly was the point of that, but she could only focus within herself and hope that nothing strange happened.

'Is it going to suddenly turn wild? I better be ready, or I might explode!'

Thankfully, her predictions were wrong, and the stone slab was moved away from her far before she could explode.

After removing the heavy slab, the leaders of the ancient families seemed to be arguing about something, but Evelyn couldn't hear them.

'Is it some kind of skill that prevents sound from leaking out of an area?'

Her thoughts were cut off as the Fulbright family's matriarch cleared her throat, and her amplified voice echoed throughout the colosseum.

"Spirit power is the very foundation of our strength! Those with low spirit power remain civilians, while those with higher spirit power can become soldiers."

"And above those, are people whose spirit power can exceed a hundred points, and it gives them the qualifications to become a ranger!"

"In the first test of spirit power, Evelyn has passed! We estimate her spirit power to be… at least a hundred points!"

There was a huge uproar the moment her words were finished, but the old woman seemed to ignore the crowd and continued.

"Next, we shall proceed with the test for affinity."

The other elders could understand why the crowd was clamoring for an explanation like that.

After all, this was perhaps the most absurd result they had ever had. But that being said, it was impossible for so many top tier experts like them to be all mistaken on such a minor thing.

"Still, Osmond… what the hell are you feeding her?"

----------

Compared to the mild shock of the elders, the spectator's excitement was on another level entirely.

"Isn't the first ceremony of the ancient families held at a kid's fifth year? She's only five years old and has over a hundred spirit power?"

A rich looking woman frowned, thinking that her companion was being too overexcited over nothing.

"Is it so weird? All the guards at my home are required to have over a hundred, minimum."

The man who had spoken earlier rolled his eyes.

"Ignorant! Those are all ranked rangers, and have gone through years of training! This little girl hasn't even seen the academy yet. How can the two be put together?"

The lady looked awkward. "For all you know, her family trained her since she was born."

"They would have to be crazy to teach an ignorant child any kind of spirit circulation! A simple mistake can cost their life, you know? If they did that, she should already be crippled."

"Maybe she's just lucky."

"Hm…"

Compared to the conflicting voices among the crowd, many of whom thought it was the overly ambitious Knox family overdrawing the girl's potential, the children of the other ancient families were completely awed.

Markus Ventura's joking face was completely devoid of emotion, and the eyes of the previously gloomy 'little brother' of his were glowing brightly.

Aeron hadn't even dared to speak while he was being ridiculed by Markus in front of Cecilia, but right now his words of wonder just wouldn't stop flowing.

"Cici, didn't you have just sixty points of spirit power during your ceremony?"

Cecilia's face was red. "Y-Yeah… I guess she's a bit stronger than me… and a bit cuter… but I'm definitely smarter!"

The boy with long golden blonde hair who had remained silent till now sneered in their direction.

"She's just a monkey, dressed up like a doll by her mother and doped up on medicines to be strong. It's hilarious that you guys are all thinking she's so great just because of a stupid stone."

Cecilia frowned as she gazed at the pink haired girl in the arena, who was now standing in front of an array of colored boxes instead of the large stone for testing spirit power.

"You're being sour as always 'uncle' Ryan. Even if you think she's stupid, you should just wait for the test to be over first, or it might be you who looks like a monkey in the end!"

----------

The quarrels among the spectators and even the ancient families children had nothing to do with Evelyn, who was attentively listening to her grandfather finally explain what she had to do next.

"Channel a little bit of spirit power through each of these items, slowly. Stop channeling only once you're told, and then move to the next one. And be careful. Got it?"

Evelyn nodded. "Okay."

As she moved towards the first box, the Fulbright matriarch's voice echoed through the arena once more.

"We use spirit power to manipulate elements, and each of us has a different affinity for each element! To be a qualified princess of an ancient family, one must have an affinity greater than seventy percent for at least three elements!"

Evelyn gulped as her heart sped up. She didn't know of her affinities at all, because she didn't have any abilities that could manipulate elements yet. All her abilities so far were based on either spatial or body manipulation.

'Ugh, I hope they count space as an element or something, or I might be out of luck…'

And as the matriarch opened the first box slowly, a brown colored thing sprang out of it and lunged straight at her face!