Has The Lord’s Career Chart Been Filled Today? – Chapter 116
With adequate food, proper shelter, and gradually restored physical conditions, the slaves who performed heavy manual labor daily clearly possessed significantly better physical stamina than most commoners.
Especially with the slaves pushing forward as if driven by fire at their backs, they swept nearly all the top positions.
This dealt a heavy blow to the usually proud commoners.
Slaves… slaves were actually this capable?
They had merely received some resources through the Lord’s generosity.
However, this was not just individual competition but also a contest between teams.
As long as their team won, even if it relied on those slaves they usually looked down upon, they would still receive rewards.
Remembering this, they quickly recovered from the setback.
After each event concluded, they were the first to crowd around the registration board to check the updated team scores.
Watching the record keepers meticulously register their names, results, and teams for future ranking calculations, all the slaves felt as if a fire ignited within them, setting their blood boiling with excitement.
Many of them… had only recently acquired their own names.
Those characters that usually seemed obscure and incomprehensible to their illiterate eyes were now memorized with utmost seriousness.
That was their own name!
This test was equally unbelievable.
While they were merely running desperately, they found themselves surrounded by overwhelming cheers and applause. If they achieved good results, they were even warmly surrounded and praised by strangers from their own team.
They had never experienced such shining moments.
Eggs, grains, or other rewards—their minds, seemingly dizzy with excitement, hardly cared about such things.
Was this experience of rightfully receiving praise and cheers something they truly deserved?
At this thought, they couldn’t help but feel somewhat apprehensive.
After the two-day “sports meet” concluded, Oliver was unsurprised to see that nearly all the top rankings in the “physical fitness” category were occupied by slaves.
After all, among the commoners, those with better physical conditions had already been directly selected to receive training personally led by the knights.
This time, the participants were competing in swordsmanship, which tested skill more than strength.
Oliver only watched the sprint and long-distance races from a high vantage point on the first morning, spending the rest of his time observing the swordsmanship competitions.
This was both to show his concern and soothe the restless commoners, and because those who passed the preliminary swordsmanship screening were the ones eligible to enter the “reserve knight” training phase.
A few slaves with good physical fitness would be allowed to become guards after training, and after a period of service or outstanding performance, they would typically be promoted to commoner status.
Oliver had no intention of hastily disrupting the long-established social hierarchy in a short time, nor did he advocate for the naivety of “absolute equality.”
Therefore, only commoner-born “reserve knights” were qualified to be assigned as guard officers.
Commoners needed to bear more responsibilities and obligations, naturally enjoying the privilege of priority selection.
But this did not mean that those born as slaves would never be qualified to become leaders.
It simply required more outstanding performance and a longer process—of course, during this “waiting period,” should war arise, they must also shoulder the same combat obligations as commoners.
While pondering these matters, Oliver watched the past two days of swordsmanship competitions with a smile.
The competitors on the field were likely the most conflicted in heart. They rejoiced in the Lord’s regard for them, unlike others who had gone to watch the slaves’ events; yet they feared their clumsy performances would not only be displayed before the stern instructors but also witnessed by the Lord himself… Just imagining the Lord showing a disappointed expression was enough to make their limbs go weak.
Under immense psychological pressure, nearly half of them became stiff and severely underperformed.
—And nervousness, clearly, was contagious.
Observing their increasingly poor performances, Oliver, who had discerned the reason, wasn’t particularly bothered.
“Running under the cheers of classmates” and “sword dancing under the boss’s gaze”—the difficulty of the latter was obviously much higher.
However, the knights who had been teaching them during this period grew furious first, gnashing their teeth in frustration.
When students performed poorly, the instructors naturally felt deeply embarrassed.
After noticing this, Oliver deliberately smiled and reassured them: “Teaching a group of ordinary beginners basic sword skills in such a short time is already highly commendable. Truly worthy of my loyal knights.”
As the knights looked ashamed and bowed in modest refusal, the golden-haired deity beside them blinked thoughtfully.
…If it were done by the “person” formed from his divine power, it could undoubtedly be done better.
What truly gave the commoners a sense of psychological balance, or rather, allowed them to demonstrate abilities that “crushed” the slaves, was the subsequent textbook content exams.
Regarding the frequency of exams, Oliver finally decided on twice a year—this autumnal event was an exception, and henceforth, all would be held at the end of summer and the end of winter.
After all, for the people of Laina, the most important goal was filling their stomachs, and their main energy had to be devoted to farm work. They couldn’t immerse themselves in studies like true students.
Winter was the season with the least work to be done and the longest time spent indoors, making it most suitable for reading and learning, accumulating as much knowledge as possible for the following year’s spring planting.
The slaves clearly had self-awareness or, rather, a deep-seated sense of inferiority before the commoners. No matter how diligently they studied normally, when the day came to sign up for the test, they still shrank back in fear.
Lucy, Jonathan, and Ziken decisively signed up.
But in the eyes of the slaves, they had long since completely shed their slave status, so performing well was only to be expected.
Rebel, who had been working with Farmur all along and was undoubtedly the most broad-minded among the slaves, vaguely grasped the prince’s intention.
The Prince… did not wish for them to remain ignorant beasts forever, slaves who only endured oppression and suffering.
While feeling incredulous, he was also unwilling to watch his companions miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity due to cowardice.
A precious opportunity willingly offered by a second lord would not be completely wasted.
He absolutely must not disappoint such a wonderful lord.
Whenever he had a spare moment, he would rush around, urging everyone to try and participate.
Only after Rebel’s persistent persuasion did the slaves muster their courage and gradually sign up.
Even so, the number of slaves who ultimately had the courage to participate in this “trial of the Cat God” was far fewer than those who had taken the physical trial—only a pitiful 400 or so.
In contrast, although the total number of commoners was only about 1,000, more than half had signed up.
Oliver had anticipated this and was not in a hurry.
One must eat bite by bite; it’s impossible to become fat in one mouthful.
The suffering the slaves had endured in the past far outweighed the sweetness he had given them. Moreover, compared to their previous state of having nothing, they now had new houses, enough food to fill their stomachs, and work that wasn’t too exhausting… Faced with an unknown new choice, it was a good thing for them to be cautious.
He would neither lower the difficulty of the exam to accommodate the slaves nor offer better rewards to encourage more participation.
As long as a few brave individuals took the first step, the changes they would undergo in the next six months would profoundly influence the onlookers around them and the choices they would make next.
For those lacking physical talent, studying became their only path to change their fate.
When they saw those around them gradually transforming and rising above their original status… would they still be content to remain slaves, doing the hardest work for the meagerest pay?
Some would, some wouldn’t.
He did not force them to make a choice; he merely showed them more possibilities and offered some guidance on new paths.
But whether they would take those paths, and how far they would go, depended entirely on themselves.
No matter how gentle Oliver tried to be, the world remained cruel: those unwilling to move forward would be quietly left behind.
This was true for both slaves and commoners.
After all, this was only the first exam, testing only the basics from the textbooks.
To score high, one only needed to understand all the words on the exam paper and memorize most of the book’s content. There was no essay section allowing for free expression.
With standardized answers, grading was straightforward.
After ranking the results, Oliver immediately noticed a name that stood out unquestionably at the top with a perfect score, far surpassing the second-place Weston and third-place Farmur—a name that was… all too familiar.
Like Weston, this was a commoner he had never met.
“Oliver?”
And it was someone who shared his name.
Oliver silently repeated the name, intrigued, and said, “Fosse, could you bring him to me? I’d like to meet him.”
“Yes, my respected lord.”
Fosse bowed without hesitation to accept the order.
Neither of them noticed the golden-haired deity beside Oliver suddenly straightening his previously relaxed, cat-like posture, sitting rigidly upright—with a hint of guilt.
While waiting, Oliver flipped through the exam papers of the top ten students. When he found Jonathan and Lucy in seventh and tenth place respectively, he couldn’t help but marvel, “Truly remarkable.”
Jonathan had once been a commoner. Even though he had been forced to neglect his studies during his years as a slave, the knowledge he had acquired in his childhood couldn’t be forgotten so easily.
Moreover, he was diligent and hardworking enough to stand out immediately and achieve seventh place, which was still within Oliver’s expectations.
Lucy was different, however.
She came from a completely slave background—a young girl who had never received systematic education before he distributed textbooks to them.
What’s more, in her daily life, she had such demanding work as a livestock keeper while also being responsible for training new breeding apprentices… The time she could squeeze out for studying was pitifully scarce.
In her first attempt at the exam, her handwriting showed obvious trembling due to nervousness and haste, yet the content was almost entirely correct.
Especially in the areas of agriculture and animal husbandry, her answers were flawless.
“Such excellent aptitude—it’s too wasteful to keep her only as a livestock keeper,” Oliver murmured to himself. “Once the backup staff for the chicken and pig farms are fully trained, I should give her an opportunity for further advancement and career transition…” Of course, the final decision would still depend on Lucy’s own wishes.
TL Note: Happy Holidays!
