Glenn reinforced his stance with the strength of his cultivation base and used Cosmic Energy to ward off whatever feeling was now rising in him.

The one at the foremost was fear.

Now that he had a good handle on his body, he frowned at Hal who was now grinning widely at him,

"So all what you said was a lie?" You are really going to report me" Glenn said.

He was far from being an invaluable alchemist. After all, he was older than all the youngsters outside of that door, and yet he only surpassed them as an Alchemist with one rank.

In the case of one of them, it did not even amount to a complete outrank.

This job as an Examiner was his only opportunity to toss his weight around and even then he could not test above his Rank and today he graded another youngster that was now at his rank.

He was definitely replaceable.

And he feared that Hal, who clearly knew the branch head would be the one to usher in that situation.

Hal chuckled,

"Report you? No of course not. Everything I told you was more or less true. I do admire your good sense and healthy love for profit but you should also know that I have a healthy love of profit as well.

So I ask you once again, how much have you made from all the high-grade ingredients you've stolen?"

He took a step closer and although Glenn wished to move back as well, he found himself unable to do so and the feeling he thought he had warded off with Cosmic energy was now back in full force,

"T-T-Two hundred thousand" he said in a quiet voice.

"Gold coins?" Hal asked with a raised brow.

"No, Blue gems!" Glenn corrected.

"Wow" Hal said but when he thought deeply about it, he realized it was warranted and he was only surprised because he had been judging with the prices of those ingredients in Grimoire when the Artifacts prices tend to be cheaper.

Speaking of which,

Apparently, Grimoire was only giving away things its past hosts had stored inside of it and while it had virtually everything, it insisted it lacked the volatile ingredients Hal wanted.

'I'm meant to give knowledge, the rest you get out of me are just bonuses' it had said.

'Since when are bonuses for sale, shouldn't they be free?" Hal had retorted.

'Well, they are not free here? If you don't like it, you can purchase it from local vendors!'

Anyway,

Now that he thought about it, Glenn must have sold rank four ingredients and they must have made up the bulk of his wealth which meant he was most likely cheated.

Then again, the Black market was a shady place to sell already.

'I was expecting him to have made a lot but that is so much. This is a good day.' Hal thought.

The moment he realized the Examiner was not giving him high-grade ingredients, he decided he might as well ask for it which he did with ensnarement and got the poor guy to open up all for the purpose of getting all he had.

This confession of greed gave Hal the opportunity to invade Glenn's mind. Almost as though Glenn gave him permission.

Of course, if it had been only about getting Glenn's wealth, intimidation and flat-out robbery were enough but Hal wanted to go a step further.

He wanted to keep Glenn under control.

And since he had decided to be screening those he made a part of his force, he was no longer interested in giving contracts or Devil marks to just about anybody so he went for the next best thing...

"Give it to me" he said and stretched his hand.

Glenn pulled off his spatial ring and placed it in Hal's hand. Hal inspected it with Astral perception and realized the amount in the ring was lower than the two hundred thousand but well above one hundred and fifty thousand so still a win.

He destroyed the imprint on the ring and it caused Glenn to have a Bloodsport before he emptied it of all the Blue gems and transferred it into his inventory as subtly as he could without raising Glenn's suspicion.

Then he imprinted the empty ring and slipped it on his finger as the perfect decoy when accessing his inventory.

"See? That wasn't so hard now was it?" Hal said before placing this hand on the paralyzed-with-fear Glenn and infiltrated his body with Devil energy while taking control of his confession of greed,

"You will never breathe a word of this to anyone and if you get the chance, keep stealing and selling the ingredients.

When I ask you to give me all you earn from the sale, you do so. Have I made myself clear?" He asked with a calm and quiet voice as Devil energy swirled around them both.

Almost as though hypnotized, Glenn slowly nodded his head,

"Good boy" Hal commented and retracted his Devil energy as his eyes turned back to their normal blue.

Glenn shook his head and looked away from Hal while working to regain control of himself now that Hal was no longer intimidating him,

"Well, I'll let you out now, Alchemist Hal." He said in a surprisingly calm voice and Hal smiled.

"Thank you, Alchemist Glenn. This has been most... profitable" Hal said as Glenn deactivated the Runes and pulled up the curtain before opening up the door to the curious youngsters on the outside.

Irene was the first to step towards Hal when he was out of the test center,

"What's your rank?" She asked.

"I don't see why I should tell you" Hal said before turning to Karmen who was grinning and knew to immediately lead the way out but before she did, she said to Hal,

"Master, they really want to know. Why not satisfy their curiosity?" She told him since if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that Hal's rank was surely not lower than any of them.

And she could tell that without him telling her anything.

Hal shook his head,

"Nah, let them claw out their hairs in curiosity. Now THAT would satisfy me" He said and walked ahead so that Karmen had to run a little to catch up.

The moment he was out of sight after turning a corner, the five turned to Glenn who was looking agitated, and before they could even ask,

"I need to speak to the Branch head" he mumbled and walked away.

"The branch head?" Blaise said with furrowed brows.

"Do you think it's about Hal?" Isidor asked.

"Why would he want to see the Branch head because of Hal?" Blaise asked with a snort.

Irene sighed,

"Because Hal is a Rank four Alchemist" she said while looking into the room the test had been taken.

"What?" The other four were incredulous but Irene gestured at the room,

"This is how my rank four test went as well. I did not succeed with the pill of course hence my rank 3 intermediate but I can tell he succeeded.

Look out boys, we have another genius on our hands." She said with a strange mixture of Awe and a sneer.

...

Meanwhile,

Hal was back at the reception and giving his test certificate to the clerk who eyed it and looked up at Hal many times before going off to lodge in for the Rank Four token.

Hal was a little surprised that the meeting of Alchemy masters was not yet done despite him spending so many hours with his tests that it was now nighttime outside.

He was waiting for the Token when he felt something was off with his surroundings,

"Karmen" he called but she was already wielding her Cosmic Armament and using the flat side to smack an assailant!

*Bam!*

The one she had hit and was dressed head to toe in black and a mask that shielded his face took the attack and grabbed hold of her Armament before punching at her but she leaped back to avoid it.

Unfortunately, she was leaping towards a second assailant who had his fist drawn back for a punch but suddenly Hal was in between and landing a kick on the side of the assailant's face.

*Bam!*

This assailant could not shrug off the kick and fell to the ground while drowning in pain.

The one Karmen had tried to smack was dashing towards her again so she let out the fog of her fiendish bloodline and punched him right in the stomach.

"Ack" he doubled over and thus presented his head in the perfect position for her to kick and knock him unconscious as well.

And then there were more assailants and both Hal and Karmen were easily outnumbered.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Hal could not help but ask, considering the security of the Alchemist organization should not have been so easily broken, as he summoned his Cosmic armament that was thinly shrouded with a cosmic phenomenon.

Then he heard a deep voice that he thought he recognized say,

"Don't resist"

...and then...

*Bang!*

The sound of a mild Explosion from which he detected Astral energy and everything turning black was the last thing he remembered.