New Life, New Task: I'll Be A Mom Then!!!

"Indeed… this chance was probably made by the heavens for each of us that were involved," Randel replied softly as they watched the eight students come inside in an orderly yet nervous manner.

His eyes flashed with surprise upon seeing a familiar face among the eight - Lainie. Only then did he truly know what Eli meant when she said that this chance was indeed timely.

Soon the room livened up upon the arrival of the eight.

They looked around and were surprised to see even the Headmaster of the Institute, Grandmaster Reuben, and the well-known mysterious-looking apprentice of the Grandmaster Andvari in the empire, Randel.

While just being in front of Eli and the officials of the school could already affect their state of mind significantly, having Randen and Grandmaster Reuben had already made them feel cold in anxious.

"Young ones, this might be the day where a great chance will finally be in your hands. Whoever enters here will not look into your background or appearance. They are only interested in what you can do with your skills." Deputy Chairman Bramwell led them to the waiting seats and let them relax for a while.

They looked at Bramwell gratefully, obediently waiting for the event to start. They watched as the officials and even the familiar faculty members were getting busy with the auditions.

They couldn't help but ask themselves, was it really necessary to have a lot of people involved with just a mere audition for students like them?

After some time the hall seemed to have paused as four regal-looking women who were walking with grace and dignity appeared from the doorway as they were escorted by their respective knights.

Grandmaster Ben and the officials, along with Eli stood up and met them immediately, greeting them politely.

The eight students seemed to have been struck by lightning the moment they recognized the identities of the four women - they were none other than the First and Second Queens and the Princess Consorts!

"Is this for real? What kind of thing did we even involve ourselves with?" Raya could not help but cling to her older brother's hands and ask nervously.

"I… I don't even know what to feel right now…" Desmond replied clearly troubled. His inner self was already debating whether it was still right for him to stay in the hall or not, or whether they chose the right decision or not.

"Still, let's stand tall. We are already here and we can only stay strong and do what we have decided to do." Max reminded them as he clenched his fist, trying to calm his nerves down.

He had never been this nervous in his life, even the first time he held his tools to work on the most expensive piece of material for the first time.

But then there's no turning back. They can no longer run as it would be an insult to the royalties who had gone all the way here to witness their auditions.

"That's right, keep your heart calm and face everything head on. If you ever manage to conquer this first hurdle, you will be able to meet more formidable personalities during the tournament. You will also be watched by hundreds of pairs of eyes as you do your work. So do not falter and take this situation as a practice."

Dean Athena approached them as they gave them a piece of advice seeing them visibly panic.

Soon the program started. Although it was merely an 'audition' for the eight students, it was still by nature a formal selection of student representatives for the grand tournament, and so right after the arrival of the main guests of honors, the audiences were already allowed to enter the hall.

These were the students and other members of the faculty and staff that were interested in witnessing the selection happening.

"A pleasant evening for our distinguished guests, Her Highness's First and Second Queen and the Princess Consorts, Sir Randel of the Forgeworn Merchant Group and the Headmaster, Deans of each school, students and teachers that were here today. Welcome to our first round of selection for the student representative of the grand tournament!"

Deputy Bramwell stood up on the host's stage and addressed everyone.

"Today, we are testing eight students who were also the only members of the Department of Culture, Fine Arts, and Performing Arts.

There's no meaning for me here to conceal what was the state of our institute in terms of the area of Music and Fine Arts, for everyone knew that it was almost on the verge of being discontinued, if not for the eight students who passionately stayed.

Coincidentally their department was now chosen to represent us in the grand tournament. Now they are trying their best to prove whether they are worthy to represent our institute or not.

Everyone here will bear them witness that our department will attempt to be reborn by the hands of these eight strong-willed students!"

Everyone had a solemn look on their faces, even the students who were watching did not look at the eight students with ridicule or contempt.

If they fail to qualify to represent the school, then they might as well wave the white flag in surrender. And so all of them were wishing that the eight students were strong enough to bear the weight of the institute on their shoulders.

"Our guests of honor, along with the Councilor, the Deans and selected faculty members will be judging their performance from this point forward." Deputy Bramwell raised his hands and signaled the assistants to enter from backstage.

The assistants stood orderly in front and waited for Bramwell's further instruction.

"Let us first start our test for the fine arts students, sculptor Max and painters Raphael and Anna!" Bramwell looked at the trio and signaled them to go to the center of the hall.

"The three of you will be transferred into your designated workrooms where we will be remotely watching your progress. All the materials needed were already prepared in these areas and the time limit is only three hours for painting and eight hours for sculpting.

The theme for your creation would be… Resilience!"

The trio recognized Deputy Bramwell's instruction before following the respective assistants to their workrooms.

As soon as the three entered their respective spaces, three surveillance screens appeared in the hall for everyone to see. Every spectator could now watch what was transpiring inside the workspaces.

"Hmmm… the deputy Chairman really didn't hold back. Resilience is such a hard topic to interpret." Arielle, who was most interested in the painters, unusually opened her mouth first and conveyed her opinion.

"Indeed… but what I am really worried about is the young sculptor. To only have eight hours to conceptualize and materialize his interpretation, would be a lot tougher." Queen Tehila looked at Randel to ask for his opinion.

"It may really become his hurdle if he would choose the wrong material to work on…" Randel obliged to answer Queen Tehila's curiosity as they all watched Max choose his main material.

"Hmm… in just eight hours… wood might be the best material… however… there is a risk that it might be underwhelming… especially when it was in situations like a tournament…" Grandpa Ben also watched with interest.

"It could be… but a lump of mud can become the most prized piece of pottery to a master's hand…" Eli commented. In this era, people were yet to appreciate the modern perspective of art interpretation.

Like in sculpture, there's still a strong belief that the more rare and challenging the material to work on, the more valuable and beautiful the piece was.

In the modern world, the sculpture is now perceived as the artist's way of shaping space, in which elements of openness or empty spaces were already incorporated into the sculpture.

This is unlike the the traditional sculpture was mostly a representation of the artist's imagination in three-dimensional solid form.

The same is true with painting, this era only knew the traditional painting mediums like oil on canvas. In the modern world, there were artists who painted on different mediums like fabric, watercolor, waxes, and even through fire.

And so Eli wanted to know if she could spark a revolution by engaging Randel and Arielle along with these students to bring forth a new era for fine arts.

With her books, she wanted to feed Randle and Arielle inspirations for their medium of work and hopefully find their own interpretations. The best part would be their proteges will also do the same.

Thinking about this, Eli watched the trio as they started to conceptualize their artwork.

The first one to move was Raphael who immediately set up his canvas and tried to sketch the outline of his work.

Anna also started to move, but she paused for a while when she came into a dilemma about which type of medium she would use.

Max on the other hand remained standing in a daze looking at the four blocks of materials that he could choose from. There's wood, bronze, marble, and limestone. The observers are very curious as to what type of material he would use.

However, thirty minutes have already passed, yet he still remained in a daze that they thought that he had already given up on the challenge!