'Let's see if this will impress you, you pieces of shit.'

Samur snapped his fingers again; that was a lot of snapping for one day.

At this point he was getting sick of it. There won't be any snapping for the next few weeks, that's for sure.

Anyway, the moment he made a noise by pressing his middle finger against his thumb and suddenly releasing it, the ice swords in the air started rotating horizontally, just like the ice sword he had used to cleave his arm.

One (as long as they weren't incredibly dumb) didn't need any future prediction skill to know what was about to come. They had already seen it before, after all.

As the speed of the rotating blades increased, Samur took another Elixir out of his Inventory.

Simultaneously, two translucent, yellow arms appeared in the air behind him, obviously conjured through magic. He handed that bottle to them.

He needed someone to open the Elixir and feed it to him, after all. He probably won't be able to do it himself.

Now, needless to say, Samur had misunderstood the audience's 'What the actual fuck was that AAAAAAAAAAAA' to 'Not. Impressed.'

And Samur would not have it. His prank wasn't as epic as he wanted it to be; it still needed the final touch.

And he knew just what, or rather, who, he needed to play the greatest prank of his current life.

Now, because Noelle was not incredibly dumb, she knew what Samur was planning to do.

He was going to hurt himself with those ice swords.

If it was anyone else, they might still have been in the stage of denial; wondering whether the one on the stage was actually Samur, or if he was actually going to do what everyone thought he would.

But Noelle was different; she knew the one on the stage was Samur, and that he WILL accomplish whatever he was planning to.

'Why is he doing this?'

She obviously had no idea why Samur would use such an extreme method to present the Elixir. If showing its effects was all he wanted to do, then he could have used an animal, or maybe a monster, or something which wasn't him.

Was he doing this because he enjoyed it? Or was he doing it out of spite?

She didn't know.

But boy oh boy, was she going to get the answers out of him.

Anyway, she freed her hand from Azell's, and this time, the latter did not try to grab it back.

He didn't because he knew it would be futile, of course, but he also wanted her to stop Samur from whatever he was planning to do.

He was going too far; he had already proved the effectiveness of his Elixir.

From the corner of his eyes, Samur saw Noelle getting ready to move.

'Good, the stage is set,' he smiled.

Now all he had to do was start the play.

"Now, it would seem that my previous demonstration was not enough to convince you. A shame, if I may say so myself, but worry not, I have one more thing in store for you," when he said that, the floating swords started revolving around him.

'Is he being serious right now?' Jennifer scoffed.

Everyone was VERY much convinced. What they weren't convinced about, however, was the endgame.

What did the man on the stage plan to prove by cutting himself and healing himself with an Elixir?

As they saw the tens of revolving swords, Arteria and Neia bit their nails in dread. They knew what was about to come, and they had no idea how to stop him.

Interfering here would risk revealing his identity, and it didn't take a genius to know that neither Samur nor Azell wanted that to happen.

"Now, I would need a…" Samur muttered to himself.

The rotating blades revolving around him got even faster.

It was clear that within a few moments, those swords would launch at Samur and slice and dice him apart like he was a thanksgiving turkey.

Noelle could no longer just sit and watch. She had been hoping that Samur would come to his senses and stop, but it didn't seem like he had any intention to do so.

And so, she decided to interfere.

Logically speaking, there was actually no need to stop him. Samur had an Elixir, a legendary potion which could heal any wound, so there was no risk of him dying.

The problem was with the idea itself; Samur was deliberately hurting himself, going so far as to chop off his own limbs just to prove that the Elixir was effective.

And Samur had actually gone out of his way and used this approach.

A small mistake in his demonstration and he would die a slow and presumably horrific death, yet it seemed he thought nothing of it.

Such a mindset meant that Samur placed little to no value on his life.

This was just… wrong. A 12-year-old child should not think that way.

That's what Noelle believed, anyway.

Hence, Noelle entered her assassin mode. With her supercharged kinetic vision, she saw the blades starting to move towards Samur with the intention of impaling him.

She stood up from her chair and dashed towards Samur. Within a fraction of a second, she evaded all the revolving swords and arrived at the place where Samur was standing.

Her plan was simple; she was going to stop Samur from hurting himself, and she was going to give him a taste of his own medicine.

In other words, she was going to protect him with her own body. It was a bit risky, but Samur had a motherfucking Elixir with him; he'd save her life with that.

Probably.

What she had to do was simple. Within a second, the blades would arrive where they were. She only had to push Samur out of the way before they did and let those blades penetrate her instead.

It will probably hurt a lot, yes, but she was left with no choice.

Well, that's what was supposed to happen, anyway.

Her action of leaving her seat and reaching Samur occurred within a single second.

So, for those looking at the stage from the outside point of view aka the audience of today's Seminar, the moment they blinked, the masked man was replaced by a woman.

'Replaced', because the man was nowhere to be seen.

'What the hell is happening here?' Jennifer furrowed her brows.

'Huh?' Azell was stupefied for some moments.

And those moments were all Samur needed.

Contrary to what Noelle had predicted, the blades didn't attack right away, they just continued revolving around her like they were the planets and she was their sun.

Well, that sure came out a bit romantic.

Anyway, Noelle looked around to find Samur and make a sense of the situation, and found him in the shadows of the backstage.

To be more precise, she saw a pair of eyes hidden behind a mask looking at her.

'What are you up to, Samur?' she stared back at that pair of eyes.

Those eyes then, to her surprise, winked.

The next moment, she heard the swoosh of the blades heading towards her.