"Asking about your friend?" Cesile chuckled, as she glanced over Rayan while adding, "you have a loyal lad here, I'm sure you are now celebrating your amazingly lucky pick."
Rayan felt some embarrassment, as he got the most benefit out of this deal, without even moving a finger. "Don't worry, he got a nice deal that made him cry in triumph when he heard it," she said to Arthur before pointing towards the scorpion queen, "let her come back now, she had enough fun already."
Arthur then unsummoned the queen, feeling he had bought her quite some time for her to play. With the disappearance of the queen, and the absence of Arthur, the fight stopped abruptly just like that. the surviving mages exchanged silent glances between each other, not believing this nightmare had already ended.
"This challenge has ended officially now by the winning of the contender, Willy of the golden lion clan. He will gain his promised sword, pocket world, and a cauldron as a reward. In addition to that, the current sprout ranking will be reset to what it previously was before the last conclave."
The sound of the clan head appeared in the stage world, where Arthur realized what Rayan had gotten from this deal. He glanced at Rayan, who had a beaming smile over his face, expressing how great this change was, for him at least.
After the words of Obrim ended, Cesile tossed a parchment of paper to him, with a small box with a pill inside it. "take it once you are out, it will help eliminate all the side effects of your forced transformation."
He received them and stored them inside his storage ring, while thinking about her last words. 'So, I was forcibly transforming then, that explains much,' he thought to himself, as he now realized why he couldn't utilize any of the dragon famed attacks, like the standard breathing fire for instance.
He also understood the reason behind the usual weakening after transformation. He then felt a repelling force coming from the stage itself, pushing him and others outside the stage, returning to the real world once more.
The moment he returned to the world, his huge body started to shrink on its own, as the energy supporting it had already vanished. Arthur didn't delay as he took out the box he received from Cesile and took the silver pill inside.
The moment he took it, the severe weakening that usually attacked him was blocked by a strange wave of energy coming from the pill. He marveled how this worked, as this pill wasn't any inferior to a human rank pill in his previous life.
He was busy dealing with his current problem to not notice that the eyes of everyone were all focused on him. He returned into his human form in a few minutes, standing tall, feeling to sign of weakness this time.
'Amazing!' he muttered, as if he could have a ton of such pill, he wouldn't be worried about any fight.
"Don't celebrate too soon, as this kind of pill is already precious, even to some esteemed master like me," Cesile chuckled, as she noticed his desire and imagined his dreams.
"Are you a master from the academy?" he asked, with an astonished tone. He never thought to early meet someone from the academy here.
"Sure, I'm Cesile, one of the elder masters of the academy," she said while stretching her hand to shake his. He shook her hand as he said:
"I'm Willy, the head of the golden lion clan."
"I know," she chuckled, while she sensed his own body energy with this simple hand shake. It wasn't a regular custom here for mages to shake hands, but she did so to closely examine his body, assess his strength, and try to confirm a deep guess inside her mind.
Through this simple moment, she injected part of her energy into his body, trying to pry inside his. The moment she did so, he sensed it, and at once glanced at her while his energy surrounded her strand of energy and crushed it.
"Oho, interesting," she giggled, while taking her hand back. At this moment, she felt some strange fear inside her soul, like she was standing beside a very dangerous predator. She shook her head, and with that she shook away this strange feeling she had.
Arthur didn't comment on this, as he knew she wanted to know and assess his strength, though the mean she used was really rude.
"Let's go down there, the clan head is waiting for you," Edmory didn't notice this brief silent awkward moment between the two as he said, while moving towards the stairs.
"You know I don't like my disciples to be mere followers of other clans or guilds. If not for your current admirable devotion for this clan, I would have rather stretched the offer for you to join my side," she suddenly said, in a low tone, while they were descending the stairs side by side.
"I don't like my master to be a tool for other clans and guild to use, if not for that, I would have already agreed on your offer," he replied, in the same way, whispering to her as well.
She didn't reply, as she side glanced at him, feeling a strange thing about him. He gave her the vibe of being someone old and mature, not young and sprout like his shape.
"Oho, interesting," she just muttered like that, as she returned to her silence again, gracefully descending the stairs towards the ground, while everyone down there were eyeing them with much respect and admiration.
Rayan was walking behind the two in front of him, while enjoying the blessing eyes from everyone of his clan, he was also ecstatic about another thing.
Edmory just informed him while Cesile was busy with Arthur that he would also be inside her faction in the academy!
That news alone was worth celebration! He knew Cesile from the academy, as a famous celebrity figure like her was hard to be ignored by anyone. She was a force that everyone admired and feared, while her long line of enviers was with no end.
She was considered a local legend in the academy, with no backing of anyone she managed to reach the top. However, joining her faction was really hard, extremely hard, even impossible for those who came from clans or guilds.
Many tried to bribe her, gift her, even some were foolish to threaten her. She replied kindly to those offers with rejection, and for threats she had her own way to deal with them.
"I seem to make the most right choice of my life when I decided to support Willy," he muttered to himself, with a face stretched out by a smile that expressed his current mood.
If he and Willy were compared together in gaining from this challenge, then he would be the real winner here.
However, for Arthur, this was something he didn't care about. His only goal was to support Rayan, make his stand in the clan indisputable, and that would help his clan afterwards.
Achieving that with many bonuses over it, made him quite satisfied. What he was thinking about right now was the pill he just ingested. This pill opened a world to him he longingly craved for, as his post transformation weakening was really a headache for him.
He thought of asking Cesile for more pills, but she had expressed her refusal from the beginning. He then had no other choice but to seriously consider making the recipe he had from her.
The problem was how, when, and where he should do this! He had a very narrow window before the next competition, and wasting any more time here would be pointless and slightly risky.
'It seems I have to postpone this until I finally enter the academy,' he sighed, helplessly, as he had no other choice here.
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