8 hours or so later...

'Everyone, get out of the UVR, the plane is about to land.' The Queen sent Goerge's message in everyone's minds.

​​

Felix immediately logged out after hearing so. He rubbed his eyelids before pulling the curtain of the window up.

He leaned against it and started gazing down at the beautiful and magnificent capital city of Germany.

Berlin had only a few small-sized skyscrapers like most European cities, who decided to keep their firmly established buildings with grand historic meaning instead of demolishing them for space.

Felix loved this about European countries, as it set their culture apart from those industrial-focused countries.

In fact, he knew that a decade down the line, Europe will be one of the most popular tourist hotspots for outsiders from other planets.

Though, Felix believed that in this timeline, it was going to be happening way sooner than that.

Shortly after, the plane landed successfully in a private airport that was a bit far from the center of Berlin.

This time, they were welcomed grandly, as Felix saw from the window more than hundreds of people waiting to welcome them while standing on a wide red carpet.

Irked, Felix knitted his eyebrows at the sight of the reporters waiting eagerly for them to disembark and assault them with never-ending questions and flashes of cameras.

"Guys, please give the country a good image before the reporters."

George requested out loud while giving Felix and Noah quick glances. Alas, both of them just acted like they didn't see it.

"Sigh, watch your steps as you walk down."

In the end, George gave up on his attempts to make them accept interviews and just gestured for them to head down.

Felix waited until everyone went down and got surrounded by the media before he followed after them.

Too bad, the moment his foot touched the asphalt, the reporters ditched everyone and gathered around him, pushing and pulling each other, trying their best to shove the mic in front of his face.

Yet the worst of all was the neverending noise of them speaking together at the same time, making Felix massage his temples in irritation.

"Mr. Felix, can you share with us the name of your legendary bloodline?!"

"Sir. Felix, what are your expectations about the world's competition?! Do you believe that you can take down Slyvia The Ice Queen of Russia?!"

"What's your take on your 3rd position in the current most famous Elite list for the bloodliners?"

"Sir. Felix!!..PLease.."..."Stop pulling me! I am first! Sir. Felix..."

Seeing the terrible state Felix was at, George ordered the security guards hastily to do their jobs and keep them from pestering Felix any further.

He believed that Felix might just say f*ck it and jump above them, running away.

But in reality, Felix just walked through them, and any reporter in his path was pushed to the side gently, clearing the path for him.

However, the reporters weren't giving up yet as they kept shoving those mics near his face while walking beside him.

"Please, Mr. Felix, just one comment for your fans on the internet, they will really appreciate it!"

Seeing that the cameras were on him and probably broadcasting this on live, Felix took the microphone from a random reporter and said with a charming smile, "I appreciate the support."

Leaving that polite comment behind, Felix gave the mic to his owner and carried on his walk.

There was no point to attract hate from his internet fans when it could be avoided with one single line.

"Alright, back off!" The security guards surrounded Felix and started blocking the reporters from getting in his path.

Seeing that he was a lost cause, most reporters went back hoping to continue interviewing the rest.

Alas, they found out that no one bothered to entertain them anymore...Except for Adam, who accepted their questions again in a polite manner.

Leaving him behind, Felix and the rest entered the black Mercedes cars, which were waiting to pick them up.

"Please take us to the hotel." Felix requested from the driver politely.

"I apologize but we were informed to listen to only Mr. George's orders." The driver said in English with a thick accent while glancing at him from the back mirror.

"I see." Felix nodded his head in understanding while looking from the window at George, who was answering a question after another without stuttering.

From the look of it, George was planning on staying a while until he addresses most of those reporters' questions since no one in the team bothered to be interviewed by them except for Adam.

Felix didn't want to wait, as he was too eager to reach his room and start practicing the poison manipulation, carrying on from where he left.

"If you take me to the hotel in under 15 minutes, I will tip you with ten thousand dollars." Felix promised with a faint smile, "Don't worry, you won't lose your job after."

"We will be there in 10 minutes." The driver said in elation while turning on the engine. Then, he drove off, leaving the two Mercedes behind.

'That punk! Can't he wait even 10 minutes?' George scolded Felix in his mind after seeing the car leaving him behind.

Though, his expression was stoic and solemn as he kept throwing promises to the media that the USA was going to emerge as the final winner.

He said so, as he didn't want to expose that his team had leaks on the competition's format.

After all, only countries with capabilities and channels inside the ESG Organization would have been able to secure those leaks.

...

15 minutes later...

Felix was sitting on the carpet in a large-sized clean room. The hotel chosen was a 5 star one, giving Felix finally a decent room with a good bed and an actual bathroom.

"Let's try with a small poison ball."

Felix decided to step up his inner manipulation as he had just finished creating successfully a poison of string again.

The only issue he was met with was the delayed response from his energy that lasts for a couple of seconds before manifesting.

He didn't know what was causing the problem and he didn't want to ask the Jörmungandr before attempting to find a solution on his own.

However, instead of tackling this issue first, he wanted to do an experiment and see its results.

Soon, he closed his eyes and started imagining a ping-pong red ball.

He extended his palm forward and ordered for his energy to take that shape on top of his palm.

After a five seconds delay, Felix noticed red mist emitting from his pores and starting to converge into a ping-pong ball.

Seeing so, Felix felt quite moved again.

The fact that he could manipulate poison to his wishes and desires was just a fantasy that he had for a long time.

He was always activating abilities and seeing them in action. Yet, he always felt like an outsider, detached from the element that he was using.

He could touch the element and feel it in his skin, but never control it.

Thus, to see with his own eyes, the poison element responding to his wishes was truly a dream come true.

That being said, the dream was merely in its infancy stage as it was evident that Felix needs to work on the delayed response if he wanted to actually use his manipulation in battles.

"The string had 2 seconds delay while the ball needed 3 seconds." Felix murmured as he wrote the results on a screen.

After he finished typing, he returned to his practice, but this time he manifested a long snake. And it took a whopping 7 seconds for it to appear!

Undisturbed by the results, which were getting worse and worse, Felix merely noted them down and carried on his practice.

Next, he manifested a green war hammer, which took 10 seconds. Then, he decided to step up his game and manifest himself standing!

Yet, that wasn't all, as he took his time to place down as many details as possible in his mind before giving off his order.

Then...He waited and waited until a long 30 seconds passed by.

Felix's eyelids kept twitching in annoyance throughout the entire duration due to Asna's jeering laughs and the Jörmungandr's disappointed sighs.

"Laugh all you want, I still believe that my results are optimal." Felix said in a composed manner.

He might get annoyed by their voices, but he wouldn't let it affect his self-esteem or his drive at improving his poison.

30 seconds to create a somewhat detailed version of himself was indeed extremely long.

But, with the data that he gathered, he could start tackling the issue and see what could he do to lower the delay to the bare minimum or in the best case remove it entirely.

After brainstorming for a couple of minutes, he came up with one hypothesis to the cause of the delay.

He wanted to understand the problem first before trying to fix it.

From the few gathered data, he reasoned that the delay was caused by his none familiarity with using poison energy in his body!

He theorized that since energy was inside the body and it could be felt, it should be considered as part of the body like his limbs, senses, brain, heart, and such.

If he saw energy from this angle, it quite meant that he had just received an extra limb or a sense and he wasn't adapting to using it like the rest of the limbs.

Hence, the lack of familiarity.

Felix believed that practice and repetition should be the key to solve this and make his inner poison energy be responsive instantaneously.

In turn, the abilities created would also manifest in a heartbeat just like the unlocked abilities in his bloodline!

"Elder is my deduction correct?" Felix asked.

"Close enough." The Jörmungandr said, agreeing.

Felix smiled widely while waving the poison version of him away from his face.

Now, he was planning to start by practicing with small creations until he completely removed the delay from them.

...

An hour later...

Felix had to stop as his inner energy was about to be fully consumed.

He beamed some of the medium-grade poison stones and put his left hand on them while continuing to practice at the same time.

The energy enters through his pores from one hand before exiting from the other in a different and unique shape, like dolls, small cars, beds...etc. All of them had different colors as Felix was changing the inducements each time.

Just as Felix was in the process of manifesting a blue car key, he received a Queen's message from George, 'Felix, if you are not planning on joining the evening parade with us, then please attend the night banquet. It is hosted just for the captains of the teams.'

'Not interested.' Felix replied nonchalantly.

'If you attend, I won't bother you with the rest of the activities in the next three days.' George tempted.

Hearing so, Felix stopped his practice for a second as he took a second to think about it.

He knew that there were quite a few activities, meetings, ceremonies, speeches, and all of that nuisance that he wanted to avoid.

If all of this could be avoided by going to a banquet late and leaving early, not spending even an hour, he didn't mind it anymore.

'When will it start and end?' He asked.

'9 PM and it will last for 3 hours max. Be sure to dress formally and build good relations with some teams. No need to antagonize everyone as we still don't know if alliances will be allowed in the competition.' George requested.

Felix voiced his agreement and requested the address of the banquet.

Ti-ring!

After getting it, Felix told the Queen to not send him anyone's massages until 10:00 PM, and also to alarm him so he wouldn't forget about it due to engrossing in the practice.

'Alright, let's carry on.'