Bad Day For A Cardinal Alchemist

Evangeline Starling had not been particularly thrilled with today's Sect Recruitment Holiday.

First and foremost, she wasn't pleased by the fact that one of the positions of Alchemy Assessment Examiner had fallen onto her time. She would rather not waste any time with a bunch of Mortal Realm children, if she could help it. But, as one of the Cardinal Alchemists of the Ephemeral Slipstream Sect, one who had avoided this responsibility for years, she couldn't skimp out for much longer on her duties.

With a bored sigh and a dead look in her eyes, she agreed to the Sect Master's request and for the past couple hours she had been more disappointed than she imagined with what she saw.

Self-centered, snivelling, undignified trash made up the majority of those that had called for her today, thinking that simply because they had decent Affinity for Fire or Wood, they would be the next coming of the Alchemy Sage. It wasn't so much the fact that they almost all failed on their first attempts at pill concoct that disappointed her, rather, it was their almost predictable inclination to blame something other than their nonexistent skill for said failure.

"Hey lady, you didn't screw me over with some dud herbs, right?" She recalled one of the most arrogant brats asking her.

"I'm sure I would have made a successful batch if I had more than three tries and a better technique," another sore-loser whined.

"Amazing, aren't I? This is what a genius' first try looks like," this particular idiot said after barely producing a terrible batch of pills, where only two of the maximum ten formed; all of Trash Quality where the structural integrity and toxicity filtration were questionable at best.

"This sucks ass," Evangeline said, very much unbecoming of her dignified status, both as an incredibly accomplished Alchemist and Cultivator.

Not every Sect Disciple prospect she tested responded to her so disrespectfully; most, in fact, didn't even come close. However, even if the turnout was good this year for the Alchemy Department which Evangeline was a part of, she simply couldn't find any joy in paying witness to the mostly average talents of the next generation.

She was a Cardinal Alchemist now and had a background of coming from a dignified Clan of Alchemists herself. With an Innate Excellent Affinity for both Wood and Fire, which by now had been brought up to the Consummate level, she was a rare once in ten-thousand year genius.

'What even is the point in recruiting this bunch that will probably end up being fodder to people with serious talent of their generation like me?' She honestly thought.

She knew the legends of Cultivators who against all odds managed to claw their way to the top in spite of their poor natural talent. But those kinds of people only came once in a lifetime, if they came at all; they were legends for a reason. The standard everyone knew was of kept balance of power within a Sect, within a Clan, and within the world, in the hands of the naturally talented.

She shook the futile questions from her mind as she felt the call of yet another potential Sect Disciple prospect calling for her attention.

'Welp, here we go again,' she shook her head as she prepared to be faced with a failure once more and as expected…

She was confronted with yet another idiot that underestimated her because of her youthful appearance.

'Honestly, this is starting to get annoying,' she thought as she snapped at the idiot before her and asked, "Brat, what's with that look?"

"Hmm… I did call for an Alchemist, right?" The kid looked like he was about to laugh in her face!

"I am an Alchemist. What were you expecting?" Evangeline asked, bleeding with intent.

'A wizardly old man?' His response didn't not inspire any confidence in her.

"Well aren't you just ecstatic to see little old me instead?" Evangeline asked as she thought, 'I swear if this fucking brat disrespects me to my face… I'm rejecting him right here and now.'

"I guess it's whatever."

'What?' Evangeline actually had to take a second to reflect on what she saw. 'The kid looks sincere enough, but is he serious?'

"Really? You're not glad they sent some incompetent little girl to test you?" She carefully asked.

"I wouldn't presume as much."

'So he isn't completely incompetent...' Evangeline thought.

Then she probed his cultivation and felt like killing herself for daring to think so... so carelessly. The boy before her had to be the biggest idiot she had come across today, if solely by virtue of daring to try the Alchemy Assessment as a Beginner Phase Mortal Stage Water Practitioner.

Sure, he had an impressive amount of energy in his reserves for his Stage, but besides that he had nothing going for him; her Spiritual Sense told her as much.

"Huh? What's the problem?" The boy noticed her blatant contempt, but was too stupid to figure out why it existed to begin with, Evageline reasoned.

"The problem is you, my guy." Forget being cordial and proper, Evangeline was set on treating the idiot before her with the tact he deserved.

She continued to taunt him and his ignorance until he dared to touch her reverse scale and called her a "lady..."

"You'd think being a Cardinal fucking Alchemist would get you some respect, but I guess not," she blurted out.

"Cardinal Alchemist? You do realize that I still don't know much more than the most basic information about the Ephemeral Slipstream Sect, right?"

With a tired, resigned sigh, Evangeline said, "You know what? Just waste these herbs so I can fail you and never see your ugly mug again..."

Instead of responding with a statement of his own, the boy simply took his bunch of herbs and started chuckling to himself as he muttered something along the lines of, "Failing? Hahaha, sure." He was rolling his eyes and smugly smiling as if he knew something that she didn't.