The meeting, whatever it was about, clearly had nothing to do with Nero because Hans' words surprised all of them. They had no idea that Nero had produced an Eldrim card, and that the card was so useful that it had already received offers.
Isabella, especially, was surprised because she had not even left Nero much time to experiment with Eldrim cards. She'd given him only the amount mandated by Nero's counsellor. Yet what was this? It wasn't surprising that she didn't know about the card.
She created Nero's schedule and received regular updates about his performance, but that did not mean she looked into every single detail of his life. She had many other things to deal with, after all.
By comparison, the others were surprised, yet they found his achievement acceptable. It was not unheard of for their cadets to have recipes for cards beforehand, and only publish them when they became cadets. The merits they received in the Exemplar's list were more than worth the wait.
