Karl watched Adrian continue speaking with righteous confidence, and after several seconds, a quiet chuckle escaped his mouth, the sight was simply too hilarious.
In his previous life, after Karl awakened the SSS-rank Sword Saint talent, Adrian Gilbert had been one of the first young heirs to completely change his attitude toward him.
The same person now calling him trash had followed Karl everywhere, praised nearly every decision he made and repeatedly tried to enter his circle through whatever excuse he could find.
Karl still remembered Adrian raising a glass during one banquet and loudly declaring that Ardent City would eventually belong to people like him.
And now he suddenly grew a spine because I awakened F-rank.
The thought made Karl laugh again.
Adrian’s expression immediately darkened. "What the hell are you laughing at?"
Karl did not answer him, which only made Adrian angrier as he stepped closer to the platform.
"Stop laughing, you piece of trash, and answer me. Do you seriously still think—"
A large hand suddenly landed upon his shoulder as Leon stepped between them.
The grin he normally carried had disappeared as he looked down at Adrian without hiding his irritation.
"Apologize."
Adrian frowned. "What?"
Leon tightened his hand slightly. "I said apologize to my brother."
Adrian pushed his arm away. "Do you even understand who you are speaking to?"
Leon looked him up and down before giving a short laugh.
"Unfortunately yes, some midget from the Gilbert family who thinks awakening one good talent gave him permission to involve himself in other families’ affairs."
Several students nearby struggled to suppress their laughter, and Adrian’s face immediately became red.
Leon pointed toward Karl without taking his eyes away from him.
"Whatever happens between Karl and Seraphina is their business and the business of their respective families, you are neither a Reed nor a Vale so stop barking in the middle."
Karl looked at Leon for several moments before another smile appeared across his face.
Nothing had truly changed, his talent could be SSS-rank or F-rank, yet Leon’s attitude toward him remained exactly the same.
"He is right."
A clear female voice suddenly came from nearby, a beautiful silver-haired girl who had arrived from another awakening section stepped forward and stopped beside Leon.
Her delicate appearance contrasted sharply with the fierce expression currently covering her face as she looked directly toward Adrian. "Whatever Karl decides is his business, who are you to decide anything for him?"
Karl’s gaze stopped upon her.
Mira Vayne.
Another of his childhood friends, even when they were younger, Mira had possessed that same fierce temperament whenever someone targeted either Karl or Leon.
She argued constantly with Leon, complained whenever the two of them dragged her into trouble and still somehow ended up standing beside them every single time something actually mattered.
Earlier during the ceremony, she had awakened an S-rank talent alongside the rare hidden class Shadow Assassin, exactly as she had in Karl’s previous life.
Her future should have been extraordinary, yet just like Leon, Karl had slowly left her behind after awakening Sword Saint.
Training sessions became more important, academy matters consumed more of his time, guild invitations constantly pulled him elsewhere and eventually almost everything in his life began revolving around Seraphina.
By the time Karl realized how far he had drifted from the people who had known him before his talent meant anything, the distance between them had already become enormous.
Adrian looked between Leon and Mira before clenching his jaw.
Karl watched the two people standing before him and felt something uncomfortable tighten inside his chest.
They had supported him before he awakened Sword Saint and expected almost nothing in return. He had repaid that loyalty by gradually leaving both of them behind.
How blind was I?
His gaze slowly moved toward Seraphina.
I abandoned friends like these while chasing after someone like you.
As if sensing his gaze, Seraphina finally stepped away from the Vale family group and began walking toward them.
The conversations throughout the plaza gradually weakened.
Even Adrian moved aside when she approached, while several students immediately turned their attention toward Karl and Seraphina.
She stopped several steps away from him and remained silent for a moment before speaking. "Karl, I think we should end our engagement."
Leon’s expression immediately changed, but Karl raised one hand slightly before he could interfere.
Seraphina continued, "You know this engagement was arranged by our families when we were children, neither of us made that decision ourselves."
Her tone remained calm.
"If you really care about me, then you should understand that forcing this relationship to continue will only hurt both of us. We are going to walk completely different paths from today onward."
Several students nodded after hearing her words, on the surface, there was nothing particularly unreasonable about what she had said.
Karl had awakened an F-rank talent as a Necromancer, while Seraphina possessed an S-rank talent and a fourteen-star Lightning Mage class.
Anyone looking at the situation from outside would naturally believe their futures had separated.
Karl lowered his head and then he started laughing.
Seraphina initially seemed to believe he was trying to hide his embarrassment, but his laughter only became stronger.
The surrounding students looked at him strangely, while even Leon and Mira became confused.
Karl could not help it, in his previous life when he awakened Sword Saint upon this same platform, Seraphina had behaved completely differently.
She had walked toward him in front of everyone, held his arm and smiled as though she had never once treated him with contempt.
"I always believed you would awaken something extraordinary."
Karl still remembered those exact words.
Afterward, she praised him constantly and defended their engagement whenever anyone questioned whether the Vale family relied too heavily upon the Reed family.
Now that the awakening crystal displayed F-rank, she suddenly believed their childhood engagement would only hurt both of them.
What a performance.
Seraphina’s expression gradually became uncomfortable. "Karl, why are you laughing?"
His laughter finally stopped and raised his head and looked directly at her. "You and the Vale family really have developed some impressive courage."
Seraphina’s expression stiffened as the surrounding plaza became noticeably quieter.
Karl continued before she could respond.
"You stand here talking about how our paths are different and how continuing this engagement would somehow hurt both of us."
He gave her a faint smile. "Have you forgotten how this engagement began?"
The remaining conversations around them disappeared.
Seraphina frowned. "What are you trying to say?"
Karl stepped down from the awakening platform and stopped directly across from her.
"The Vale family was not one of Ardent City’s three major families when this agreement was created."
His voice was not loud, but the silence around them allowed nearly everyone nearby to hear it.
"When your family was still struggling to establish itself, it was the Reed family that agreed to this engagement."
Seraphina’s expression changed slightly.
Karl continued without giving her time to interrupt.
"My family opened business channels for yours, introduced your elders to people who would not even have accepted a meeting from them and supported the Vale family when several other forces were trying to suppress its rise."
None of those were exaggerations, the Vale family had eventually become powerful through its own efforts, but the Reed family had played a major role during its early rise.
Now that the Reed family had declined, that history had simply become inconvenient.
Karl looked toward the Vale family members standing behind Seraphina.
"And now that the Vale family has risen while mine has weakened, you walk over here immediately after seeing an F-rank result and tell me that our paths are suddenly incompatible."
The expressions of several older spectators changed. Adrian opened his mouth, but Leon turned toward him with enough warning in his eyes that he remained silent.
Seraphina’s expression became colder. "Karl, there is no reason to drag our families into this, I am only saying that we should peacefully end something neither of us chose."
Karl nodded.
"Good."
That single answer caught her off guard, she had expected him to beg, argue or at least to reconsider the decision.
Karl reached into his pocket and removed the Reed family token he always carried before holding it openly in his palm.
"If ending it is what you want, then we can settle everything properly."
Karl looked directly at Seraphina. "I, Karl Reed, as the direct heir of the Reed family, publicly divorce Seraphina Vale."
"From this moment onward, there will be no marriage agreement between Karl Reed and Seraphina Vale and neither family will possess any obligation through our former engagement."
For several seconds, even Seraphina seemed unable to react, she had approached Karl expecting him to resist, beg, argue or at least ask her to reconsider.
Instead, Karl had ended the engagement himself before the entire city’s awakening ceremony.
The surrounding students immediately erupted into discussion.
"Did Karl just cancel it himself?"
"In front of everyone?"
"Didn’t Seraphina come here to break the engagement with him?"
"That is completely different, she wanted an annulment on her terms but he just publicly rejected the Vale family first."
Adrian’s expression became ugly, while several people standing with the Vale family immediately began talking among themselves.
Leon slowly turned toward Karl before a grin spread across his face. Mira looked between Karl and Seraphina, her expression still carrying a trace of surprise at how quickly everything had changed.
Seraphina remained where she stood and for the first time since walking toward Karl, the confidence in her expression had disappeared.
Karl calmly returned the Reed family token to his pocket.
The engagement that had followed him throughout his entire previous life was finished.
This time, Seraphina Vale would never receive another opportunity to stand beside him simply because his talent became valuable again.