163 Farewell

The moment the music faded away, Greyson released Eris and wanted to quickly leave. That was already the third dance which meant that it was socially acceptable for people to start leaving now if they wanted. Actually, he was not the only one with this idea as he could see a small amount of people start to head towards the exit. Now that he was not distracted, Greyson could feel the odd and questioning glances focusing in on him. What was their deal? His curiosity only lasted for a moment before he decided to just ignore them. This was neither the first nor the last time he would be the center of attention. Nobles seemed to enjoy making a spectacle out of him since he was just a commoner in their eyes. Although Greyson had strong pride in his true identity, he was not so petty or bored to pick a fight with every single person who disrespected him.

Once he was outside the palace, he let out a sigh of relief. Somehow, even though the ballroom was definitely spatious enough, Greyson felt that the atmosphere was stuffy. Letting his shoulder relax over a little, he almost ran home. His suit was stiff and hard to maneuver his arms in, plus these new shoes were not broken in so they started to give him blisters. He was dearly missing his old leather boots back in his room. Looking formal sure was uncomfortable!

When he reached the room, Greyson pulled the suit off gingerly, afraid to damage it. After all, it was something provided by the Emperor, wouldn't he be rude to rip it already? The suit was once again hung neatly in the closet, before Greyson used a quick water element spell to clean himself. As he stretched out some of the kinks due to his earlier stiffness, he threw on comfortable pajamas and fell onto the bed. Learning their lesson from all the previous times, all three of the animals gathered to sleep at the corner of the bed to avoid Greyson falling on top of them. Only waking up for a moment, they snuggled closer to him before continuing to close their eyes to sleep. Feeling the warm bodies, Greyson's eyes began to droop. Barely lasting another second, he soon fell asleep.

...

With the chirping of the birds and sunlight peeking in, Greyson began to stir at dawn. Bursting up out of bed, he checked the clock to see that he still had plenty of time to make it for the first day of training. Knowing that he would probably be worked hard, Greyson wore a light cotton shirt and pants with his old boots. These things were cheap and easily replaceable, so even if they get ruined his heart would not ache. Buckling his belt, Greyson also hooked on his sword sheath. Instead of keeping it in his space like usual, he decided to have Genesis out beforehand. Double checking everything once more, Greyson opened the door to head out.

"Wait! I'm coming along this time." He heard a voice add in from behind.

"Snow, too!"

"Count me in!"

Lucius bounded up onto his shoulder while Theo found his place on Greyson's head. Snow tried to hop onto Greyson's shoulder, but found it to be too small now.

"Oh? Snow, have you grown a bit?" Feeling the weight more than usual, Greyson put the Moon Leopard down to take a good look at her. Just as he thought, it seemed like she was almost double the size she was before! Earlier, she always stayed in her small form that he believed she could control her size. But it seemed that the truth was that they could make themselves bigger, but their true form was still a cub. Now the cub was maturing, so she could only grow bigger?

"There are a lot of magic beasts who are able to transform into their mature forms for a short while to fight better. The only reason Gold could keep it up for long before was because he was only running and not fighting. All his mana could go to sustaining himself. Their original forms were small. Eventually, though, they will permanently be that big." Surprisingly, it was Theo who cleared his doubts.

"Oh, I do remember hearing of such abilities. But, it's usually only the higher-tier bloodlines that are able, right?"

"Yes, they normally have a longer maturity period. So, in order to increase their chances of survival, they can use this ability."

"Heh, Theo, you are more knowledgeable than I expected." Lucius commented.

"I am a popular mouse, what can I say? I made a lot of friends in the Plateau. Plus, my mother introduced me to most of the magical beasts, so that I would know when to escape and how to attack weaknesses." Puffing out his chest a little, Theo bragged happily.

"Snow doesn't want to be big, though." Tail drooping, the leopard began to pout.

"Really? But I would be glad to see you big!" Greyson encouraged.

"Daddy wants me to be big?" Snow looked up, eyes sparkling.

"Of course! I would be proud of a bigger and more mature Snow." That way you would finally look threatening and cool! But he held the latter part of his sentence inside.

"Okay! Snow will try her hardest to grow bigger!" Perking up happily, Snow threw away her earlier sadness and bounded down the steps.

Greyson grinned widely as he cheered on the inside. Only Lucius watched everything knowingly and just snorted before closing his eyes.

Waiting in front of his housing, Greyson was surprised to run into the rest of the Idris team. Scratching his nose, he realized his bad habit had resurfaced. He had completely forgot all about them! They all looked ready to journey home. Were all the contestants returning today? But he did not see his teacher among them. Even Quinn Ventus was nowhere to be found...

The Old King noticed Greyson first and he greeted him very enthusiastically.

"Greyson, you did splendid this time around! The Idris Kingdom will surely be rewarded well for your performance! When you come back from the competition, do not hesitate to put forth any request."

"Yes, we were all able to hold our heads up high thanks to you." Nicholas joined in on the praise.

"Very impressive, indeed." Palmira nodded politely.

"Grey Grey, big sister here even fell for you." Seirina winked seductively. Ignis's expression changed a little hearing those words, but still bit his tongue as he knew that he could not match up.

Sebastien looked as though he wanted to add something, but felt awkward complimenting someone who he previously had bad relations with.

"Uh, thank you for you kind praise." Greyson responded with a forced smile. "Are you all leaving now?" He tried to change the subject.

"Yes, now that the selection is over, it is time for us to head back. Many things in the kingdom still need taking care of, plus we must bring back your good news as soon as possible. Actually, most of the higher-ups already know, just it was better for us to personally announce it to the public." The Old King replied.

"I see. Where are my teacher and Quinn, then?"

"Ah, they both claimed to have some personal matter to take care of. We do not need to force them to come with us, so we are getting a headstart and leaving now."

"Oh, okay." Why didn't teacher let him know... Greyson wondered inside, but he did not think much of it. Maybe it was not something hard, just that he had some material to buy or an old friend to meet. It was not like his teacher reported to him.

"Are you going to start training now?" Nicholas asked curiously, he could tell from Greyson's get-up that he seemed to be going out.

"Yes, the Emperor assigned the Duke of Winterbridge along with his personal guard to teach the 10 representatives."

"Duke of Winterbridge?!" They all exclaimed together.

"Hm... Yes?" Greyson looked at them wondering what they were so excited about.

"Are you not aware that he is the Emperor's younger brother?" Nicholas began.

"I am aware."

"They are not half-siblings, you know. They were born from the same mother." Sebastian continued.

"Yes..."

"Grey Grey, don't you understand the potential for connections in front of you?" Seirina added.

"The Duke of Winterbridge is said to be extremely intelligent and talented, but has absolutely no desire for the throne. He and the Emperor get along very well! The Emperor treats his younger brother as his most treasured advisor. If you manage to make a good impression on such a man, there are so many advantages!" Palmira finished. Everyone else nodded along eagerly as if to nail down this point.

However, Greyson's expression only soured. What more was he expecting from these people? Even the "innocent" Nicholas could not hide the envy in his eyes.

"I will work hard as expected of me. Whether the Duke approves of me or not is not my primary concern." He responded coldly.

"No, Greyson. You have to understand what these connections could mean for the Kingdom! No, this is not right. I should go out and buy some gifts for you to present to the Duke!" The Old King started mumbling to himself.

Disgusted by them, Greyson wanted to say something back, but he spotted an oncoming soldier before he could. Eyes lighting up, he quickly said his goodbyes to his so-called group.

"That must be the soldier sent to guide me to the training grounds. I have to go now! Safe travels back to the kingdom."

"Wait, Grey-" They tried to hold him back, but he just ignored them and quickly approached the soldier.

"Hello, are you Mr. Grey-"

"Are you here to escort me to the Duke?" Greyson quickly interrupted.

"Yes."

"Then, let's quickly go. We can't have the Duke waiting." He rushed.

"Uh, yes, sir. Follow me, please." Turning heel, the confused soldier began speed walking towards the training grounds.

The group left behind

"That boy has no manners! What if he makes some mistake in front of the Duke." Palmira frowned.

"Haah, there's nothing we can do. It's not as if we can be thick-skinned enough to follow. That could just prove to anger the Duke even more." The Old King sighed helplessly.

"Hmph, there's no reason for him to act so proud. We only complimented him a little and it goes to his head. He looked so obviously disdainful of our words. Why is he pretending to take the moral high ground? Only idiots don't take advantage of opportunities placed in front of them!" Sebastien grumbled.

"Yeah, really. I was so friendly with him before, but he keeps ignoring me like he's better." Nicholas complained.

"I've heard that the Duke does not take well to others trying to curry favor with him. Maybe Greyson's approach will instead work better." Too experienced to get swept up into his emotions, the Old King did not feel that angered by the obvious disrespect. If anything, he felt he was too hasty earlier with his thoughts. "Anyways, the fact that this talented boy is from our Idris Kingdom is a blessing. It would do you well not to anger him. Who knows how powerful or successful he could become? At that point, it would be us currying favor with him. It's best to keep an open mind about such things. Hubris is the cause of many rulers' downfalls. You must place your vision on the long-term!" He looked towards his grandchildren and sighed with slight disappointment. Each and every one of them was like a frog in a well. Just what did being royalty in a Tier One Kingdom of the weakest Outer Country amount to? In a word: Nothing. As someone who travelled to other outer countries in his retirement, the Old King was all the more aware of the gap. He could only guess the extent of the disparity of their power with the Inner Countries and Central Region countries that he could not enter. He decided he should speak with his son about sending the more talented ones out of the Snow Country. They would never amount to much if they stayed confined inside their safe bubble. After travelling, his ambition was reignited but he was already far too old to change. These young ones still had a chance. Losing heirs was not something to be feared. Allowing incompetent leaders to take over was scarier.

Sensing their grandfather's unhappiness, the Yce siblings said no more. Even if they had complaints, there was nothing they could do if their abilities were worse than someone else.

...

"Ah, you can slow down now." Feeling guilty when he saw the soldier still rushing along, Greyson spoke up.

"Yes? Oh, yes, sir. I understand." Turning around, the soldier looked puzzled before nodding and slowing down his pace. Actually, he wasn't that low in terms of rank, so Greyson was a little amused to see that he was so scatter-brained and obedient. On his left breast, there was one full moon and one half moon which meant he was already pretty high up. Greyson was not really well-educated on what the ranks were titled, he just knew there were 15 and this man was at the eighth highest which was impressive.

"Right ahead is the training grounds. My mission ends here. I hope your training proves fruitful, Mister Greyson." He led Greyson to an open dirt field that had weapons organized on the side. Greyson could already spot the Duke waiting for him, so he nodded and thanked the soldier before running over.

"I hope that young one will be okay... the Duke..." Shivering to himself without finishing his sentence, the soldier looked at the excited Greyson's back with pity.