It was more intense for the students who were standing beside their now conferred mentors… They looked at the person beside them with disbelief in their eyes.
"... is this for real?" Their heads were ringing due to the surprise and the uproar as they blankly looked at their respective mentors whose identities were formidable!
The four imperial women seemed to enjoy the surprised looks on the student's faces. Only Eli and Randel kept calm and collected.
The students felt pressured upon seeing the judges and now turned to their very own mentors waiting for them to pay respects.
The very first one to step forwards and face his own mentor with a humble 90-degree bow was Max who was now doing his best not to explode from excitement upon slowly realizing what kind of future he would have with the opportunity to be thought by Randel.
The others followed quickly as they were now also starting to realize how the turn of events suddenly came into their lives.
Every one of them subconsciously looked at Eli who was the one who firmly persuaded them to try.
When she said that she found teachers for them they did not think of it much. But who would have known that the very teachers she was pertaining to were formidable people?
"Good! Good! Let's work hard together!" The Imperial women warmly welcomed their respective students while Max and Randel seemed to have been a great contrast, one man who is passionate and bulky, and his teacher was silent and mysterious.
Eli's group was rather a little bit tense, to begin with, becauseLainie was actually an acquaintance who knew more of Eli's and Desmond who had been reprimanded earlier.
However, Grandmaster Reuben and Deputy Chairman Bramwell felt optimistic that these tandems would work great in the coming days.
The proceedings of the selection event not only spread rapidly in the entire campus but even throughout the entire capital.
Even during the intermission of the official council, it was the main topic of the men of the political world.
For some, this was a great development because it might become a good impression for the Imperial Family to have the Queens and the Princess consorts do such activity.
This is also a way to somehow tell the people that the imperial family is still for the people and Carolina's case is just something that is unfortunate.
But for some in the aristocratic function, there were hidden frowns as they discussed the matter. It was because once again, Eli's name was involved in another uproar.
"It is here again… that inventor."A noble from the rising new faction could not help but whine in disdain.
"Why must she also involve herself in music and the likes? I thought she was someone who prefers to bury herself in books and experimentation?" Another also commented irritatingly.
"If this continues, then her prestige would become unrivaled even when our noble daughters would join forces to compete with her popularity."
"Haaaa! What a nuisance! Common people should have just stayed where they should be! They were not to meddle in the affairs of the empire."
"Indeed! And what's the Imperial family doing with teaching a bunch of poor commoners?"
"Well, this is what I heard from my useless son who knew nothing but to speak of his admiration over that young inventor. Apparently, it was the young inventor's idea to assemble the eight as well as their teachers!
Hah! For her to be able to even convince the Imperial women, how far must her influence go?"
"Her rising reputation must be stopped, we can no longer delay anymore!"
"Yes, we have to move. Or else, our daughters will be the ones to suffer!"
"Men, we must already commence our plan to disrupt the inventor's momentum before the Third Prince moves to propose to her."
"What's the rush, the Prince might be too busy to even bother about that because of the empire's preparation for the Temple's visitation and the Grand Tournament."
"That must be the case, but once the inventor manages to even get one of those students and researchers to win an event in the tournament, her prestige will become solid as ever!"
"Yes, it won't hurt for us to disturb her momentum at the earlier stages. Remember, our goal is to not let her succeed anymore."
The men continued to discuss their plans to bother Eli, but unbeknownst to them, their entire conversation was actually falling into the ears of an undercover roaming blade who successfully infiltrated the group.
The roaming blade immediately reported the matter to Leon and Eli, who were now relaxing after a long day in the cottage which was now relocated once again to the Forgeworn territory because of the increasingly busy activities of the two.
"What do you say about that, Eli?" Leon's face was actually dark and gloomy, seeing that many men would like to bother Eli with their nonsense.
But instead of becoming anxious, Eli just shrugged as she let out an amused laugh,
"What were those men thinking? They want their daughters to become your partner so they wanted to put me down. If so, did they ever think of what would happen if they were successful? Aren't they going to start biting each other then?"
"Well, I am sure that they wouldn't even succeed in their plans, but it might be quite amusing to see them go at each other, those greedy men."
Leon's mood was suddenly lifted seeing that Eli was not even bothered by the schemes of those men, however, he took a mental note to give the rising new faction trouble in the coming days.
"Well it is just sad that after all the work everyone did to purge the curse users in the Empire, it did not resolve the greed in these noblemen's hearts. Instead, after the disappearance of a great competitor, they are now starting to think that they will soon be kings."
Eli shook her head as she looked at Leon and the blades who were listening sympathetically.
"As for the so-called plan, you need not jeopardize your cover just to let me know exactly what their scheme was. The important thing is that they were not planning on killing anyone in the course of the process." Eli looked at the undercover agent and advised him genuinely.
She knew that it took a lot of preparation and effort for the blade to infiltrate the faction. So Eli was not willing for him to waste his effort in dealing with such a scheme. His purpose there was to make sure that the faction was not doing something that was as gruesome as what the Vesalas had done.
"Are you sure about it Eli? It's really no bother for us if we need more people to infiltrate." Leon furrowed his brows worriedly.
"I know that you can now protect yourself, even though it makes me feel sad that I will now have a lesser chance to be your knight in shining armor… but then, your work will be disrupted by those nuisances."
Eli could not help but laugh at Leon's words. These days, Leon was becoming more vocal and open in showing his affections towards her, almost as if he turned back to his old ways when he almost chopped half of the Silver Dew Forest just to impress her.
"No need, really. Apart from my improvement in my magical aptitude, Zeke and Uncle Bramwell are always around so you do not need to worry." Eli stood up this time and moved towards Leon's seat.
From his back, Eli leaned down and enveloped Leon's body with her arms. Leon held her hand and kissed her sweetly.
"Eherm…" The single dogs who were initially listening to the discussion attentively had awkward expressions on their faces. They employed different techniques to look away and not watch their masters turn lovey-dovey in front of them.
Soon looking at the ceiling, others even pretended to play with Little Han's toys, the others also tried to check if their swords were fastened well and if their nails were clean.
"Look, your men are now waiting for you to finish the meeting." Eli gave a light peck on Leon's cheek as she pointed out the amusing reactions of the blades. "I'll check Little Han inside."
Eli gave Leon and the blades some space as she knew that there would be more discussion points that they needed to tackle.
"Master, will you really just do nothing about the men who were trying to trouble madam?" They asked.
"Of course not. But I have a different plan in mind." Leon, who had a gentle expression earlier, suddenly became cold and frigid. It was apparent on his face that he was not pleased with the men from the rising faction.
"Let us agitate them even further. Tomorrow, Father Emperor will finally announce the members of the Anti Curse Committee. I am sure that hearing Eli's name will trigger them so much."
"Now what you will do is to spread the news as fast as you could, emphasize that Eli is included. Then they will hastily move."
"By that time, they will be more likely to fail because they do not have enough preparation to retaliate!"
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶