Chapter 54: Witnesses

Under the morning light, the Rizon branch family and the Mirth family, along with other influential families, gathered within the Mirth house manor.

A party for the wealthy and the powerful, hosted by the Mirth family. These people controlled the prefecture with their vast wealth and fame, as well as their strength.

“Ha ha ha, yesterday’s match was sure entertaining. It seems that the Flame guild is truly quite powerful”, a youth of age 30 said to the crowd

“You think that’s powerful? You should visit the capital once, that kind of strength is normal”

“Ha ha ha, this youth is too ignorant of the world. Within the empire, these kind of strength isn't much”

The various influential people talked and laughed as the feasted on rare delicacies and drank wine. Suddenly, a large commotion was heard not too far away.

Elon Rizon, who was sitting on a chair and conversing with another, recognize the loud and disturbing voices. The head of the Rizon branch family looked at Elon as if he looked at a subordinate and ordered him to check with his gaze alone. Elon’s eyebrows raised and then stood up and walked towards the angry voices.

‘What are those idiots doing!?’

Causing a disturbance during the time would cause an embarrassment to the Rizon branch family which might even affect the main family.

He saw several youths of the Rizon faction and some of the Rizon family members conversing in a hesteric fashion.

“Quickly! We need help to catch a despicable bandit!”

“Sir Zachery has been robbed and Kristofer assaulted! You must help us!”

Elon swiftly stepped forward, grabbed the collar of the two who were making such a ruckus and dragged them into a room and closed the door.

‘Getting robbed and assaulted? Do you have to announce it here of all things?!’, Elon gnashed his teeth in anger but controlled himself.

“You two, tell me what happened?”

After learning of what had happened, Elon’s face twitched as he rushed out of the room, but as soon as he was about to leave a haunty figure appeared before him

“What’s this? Headmaster Elon, is what the rumors your students brought in true? That your Rizon members were robbed and assaulted by a kid? Ha ha ha”

The figure was an outstanding rival of Elon that was from the Mirth faction. Although the two families were always in friendly terms in the outside, they often competed and ridiculed each other underneath their words and actions.

This rival had heard the misfortune of the Rizon family and came to mock him. He found it so amusing that he could no longer hold his laughter.

Elon’s face turned red. He had hoped to keep this incident hidden before the other families could learn of it but he was too late. He could only glare at the two behind him.

‘When we get back, I’ll severely punish these two’, he thought

The two who saw Elon’s gaze shivered and cold sweat condensed on their backs.

Elon regained his composure and smiled.

“Ha ha, it is nothing, just a few of our children playing around. You do not need to concern yourself with these kinds of matter”

Before the other could reply, Elon rushed outside of the manor and headed towards the arena, meeting up with Zachery.

Zachery told him that they were tricked and had Kristofer beaten up and their stuff stolen. Even the ring was also stolen!

Anger swelled inside him and he grabbed Zachery and chased with all his might. Elon was a 4th class warrior so his speed was very fast, although his cultivation was low for his age, it was high enough to be respected within the surrounding area.

From the distance he saw three figures who was swiftly moving towards the academy. He grinded his teeth together as his speed could not block them in time.

He continued to follow and reached the academy and found the six students leisurely walking towards the inner part of the academy.

“YOU SIX STOP!”

Elon commanded the six with a strong and loud voice. His Qi rose up to the surrounding and covered the area.

The group of six turned around and saw headmaster Elon who had a serious and infuriated expression.

“You thieves! Return what you stole!”, Elon shouted

He slowly approached them but he did not let up the aura that he released. Although there was no killing intent mixed with this aura, it still had a malicious intent

Teo, Windle and Lia were frightened and panicked at the sight of the angry headmaster. They knew who this person was and Teo had a tinge of regret surfacing within his stomach, but unlike them, the three seniors were calm as peaceful summer breeze.

The three stood up in front of the frighten bunch and protected them with a layer of Qi.

“Headmaster what seems to be the matter?”, Gina spoke with respect but not a hunt of fear was in her voice.

“Don’t play dumb! Hand it over! Then you can kneel and apologize!”, He was furious from being embarrassed by his rival and these kids are even playing innocent.

“You are mistaken headmaster we have stolen nothing. We-”

“Quiet! I don’t want to hear any excuses! Now do as I command or get punished!”, He shouted, interrupting Gina’s explanation

Although he did not fully understand the situation, he believed the statements of his Rizon faction member as well as Zachery’s. All he knew was that they stole ‘that’ ring and he had to get it back. Normally he would let the younger generation handle their own matters but this ring was something that cannot be easily lost.

“But headmaster-”, Rowen tried to reason with him but seeing this, the headmaster rushed up and grabbed towards Teo

Seeing this, Rowen’s face became solemn as she blocked his hand with her Qi.

“You dare!”

The cultivation of the headmaster was a little more advanced than Rowen’s but it was enough to deter him from his actions.

“Guards!”, Elon shouted. Although he could not match up with the three of them, he was the headmaster of this academy. He quickly called the guards who protected the gates with a loud voice that was empowered by his Qi.

The guards rushed to their location and was confused at what happened.

“Arrest them!”, Elon commanded as he gestured towards the six

The guards were confused but since it was the orders of the headmaster they could only comply. Their cultivation were peak of class 4 fighters and could easily subdue Rowen and Gina. As for Tordin, he was would pose more of a problem, but as they walked forward a voice appeared to the side.

“Headmaster, what is going on here?”

The voice came from 2 older men, who wore plain clothes and a cloak, but as one of them asked this question to the headmaster, they both revealed that underneath their cloaks were red armbands on their left arms.

Everyone at the scene saw this armband and instantly knew who these two were.

“Red guards!”

The red guards were the law enforcers within the academy, they were there to punish anyone who broke the rules and were there to secretly protect the academy. Unlike the academy guards, they were an elite force.

The faces of Teo and the others were relieved as they saw one of these two red guards. One was often visited the Martial faction and acted as an instructor, so they had some hope for help.

“Elders, these six students had stolen something from my grandson, and assaulted another student in an extreme manner, please help out dealing punishment to them”, Elon explained

“This is wrong elders! We have done nothing wrong! We are being falsely accused by the headmaster”, Gina argued

The calm looking Gina was always very fearless. Even against the headmaster she would not back down.

“Preposterous!”, Elon shouted as his Qi became even fiercer than before

Seeing the furious headmaster, the two red guards stepped between them and halted Elon

“Calm down headmaster, we’ll investigate this matter before anything else”

Elon’s face twitched but he said nothing. Although Elon was the headmaster of the academy, he had no control of these red guards. The red guards were a faction created by the Royal family to protect and oversee the many academies across the empire. They were veteran royal guards that retired from their old roles to make way for the younger generation, and only answered to the Imperial family. Despite being old, their strength in a distant prefecture such as this was more than enough to overpower anyone.

The two red guards looked at each other and then to the others. Although one of them was an instructor to the Martial faction and had close ties to it, he was still a red guard, he was loyal to the crown.

“Explain to us what happened?”, they calmly said. They were just, and would listen to both sides of the story and investigate before making any deliberation.

Gina, Rowen and Tordin explain the situation in a precise and clear manner. They left out very little detail of the incident.

Elon who also listened to the explanation knew that the things that was said to him by Zachery and the other were not aligned with each other.

‘Fucking hell? He used that ring as collateral for 1 gold?!’, Elon silently thought. A vein popped out of his forehead as he glanced that Zachery.

Zachery was his grandchild from his fourth daughter. Elon doted on him quite well because Zachery was an elementalist that was directly link to him. He had hopes for the future of Zachery, and hoped that after Zachery became successful within the Imperial city, he would be invited to live there in the future, so he gifted Zachery this ring to protect his life.However, he would’ve never thought that his grandchild was so stupid to place something so valuable in a bet.

Zachery saw his grandfather’s gaze and tilted his head down. He knew he made a huge mistake, but he was still hoping that his grandfather could fix it for him

From Zachery’s reaction, Elon could tell that there were truths to these explanation.

“Don’t tell me that you elders believe these thieves rather than the headmaster? They have even injured a second year student. I demand justice be served!”, he argued

Elon tried to use his position to defame their statements and have the red guards side with him, even though he knew that what they said was probably what really happened.

Inside, Elon sighed. If he had caught them before they entered the academy everything could have been resolved by force, but now that the red guards were involved, he could not predict how this was going to end.

“Well, if this is what really happened we can easily verify this from the witnesses in the city”, one of the red guard said as he looked to the other one.

The other one swiftly ran towards academy’s gates and headed to Mirth city.

Elon’s face grew dark. He had no hopes of success anymore. With many witnesses from the arena, the truth could easily be revealed.

Having injured a student outside the academy? Why would that have any punishment? If it was inside and a student was killed or maimed then there would be serious consequences, but Kristofer was neither maimed or killed and was outside the academy grounds.

Stealing from someone? The same logic applied! If one was dumb or weak enough to have their belongings stolen in the outside world, they could only blame themselves. If it was really the case then it would’ve been the city guards’ problem since it happened within the city.

If only the duel was within the academy, Elon could’ve twisted the truth and intimidated the witnesses into falsifying the truth but since it was within the city and it happened all too fast, he had no way of controlling the situation. The arena judges and staff members also had a reputation to uphold and would not be easily bought.

Elon had never felt so powerless within the academy before. He had control of the staff and students, but as for punishing any rule breakers, he was helpless.

After sometime, the red guard from before came back and said

“What these kids were saying was true, nothing they did deserves any punishment. The arena judge and several witnesses had similar testimonies”, as he gestured towards Teo and the others. Inside he was glad that these Martial faction member were not in the wrong, because of his ties to the Martial faction.

“Well then, Elders, headmaster, we will go on our way”, Gina said respectfully even though inside she wanted to grind down the headmaster with her very sharp tongue.

Her smile was more than enough to irritate Elon. His gaze was full of hatred for the two siblings.

He remembered that Rowen disrupted his plans to impress the visitor from the Imperial city during the ranking tournaments. He even heard that Rowen’s brother made money off the faction members’ money and now this!

But as the group turned around to leave Elon shouted

“Wait!”

‘How can I let this go?’, he thought inwardly.

Even though they were protected within the academy, with his resources as the headmaster and a member of the Rizon family, he could easily make them regret this day.

[Author's note: (Minor spoiler)

I know our MC has not yet been exposed to much danger yet, and I do plan him to be exposed to it in the future. It is just that he is still in his growing phase (title of the second arc is Growth), so I plan to only expose him to only minor danger for now. As for when any life threatening danger will occur, I plan it to be at the third arc.

Also the second arc will end after Rowen leaves for her exploration years]