[Age: 35]

The dreadful number which Elizabeth just couldn't comprehend. She simply found it impossible, and could not begin to grasp how it would appear. She was after all certain that her own age couldn't be above 8, yet the device clearly showed otherwise.

"Regretfully, it is just as I have feared," Amadeus feigned a saddened tone, however, the corners of his mouth rose slightly "such shame must be removed with all due haste," as those words left his mouth particles of elemental flame began to gather around his palms, without a doubt preparing to remove Elizabeth before she gathered her wits to retort.

"STOP!" just as the spell was about to take form a booming voice echoed through the entire arena. All the present mages felt dense sheet of mana enveloping and enhancing the sound waves, and just the sheer amount of power contained within that voice put most of those mages to shame. Just this much wouldn't be enough to even faze an Elemental lord so under such circumstances Amadeus would still finish the execution before things got out of hand. Yet to even his own surprise he dispersed the spell and stopped in his tracks.

All of the countless eyes within the entire Black arena turned towards the source of that sound, and there, on the side of arena grounds, he stood: A raven haired child gowned in just as ebony fine leather clothes. His piercing gaze seemed to delve into one's very soul when their eyes met and his demeanor transcended his age. Those more observant and less dazed by his sudden appearance could notice that his eyes were slightly bloodshot, although his expression was completely tranquil.

"Who are you?" Amadeus immediately demanded. Now that his judgement was paused he would first need to deal with the situation at hand.

"An Elemental lord, yet he bullies children," the youth did not answer and instead began to swagger towards where Amadeus stood "truly shameless and disgusting."

"Who do you think you are to insult master Amadeus?!" the first to shoot back was the middle aged man who brought the pearl earlier, however, as soon as those words left his mouth Amadeus placed a hand on his shoulder and half whispered: enough, Blaze.

"It is good to see you here, lord Irwyn," Amadeus quickly recognized his opponent. There were only so many children of that age who could pour this much mana into their voice: about 1 to be exact "what brings you here today."

"Injustice Amadeus, what else?" Irwyn just smirked back at the man, not granting him any respect.

"There seems to be a misunderstanding, lord Irwyn," Amadeus frowned, but played dumb.

"Was there, I wonder. You claim that this girl broke the rules of the competition, based on what?" Irwyn cut to the chase and addressed the main issue. By this time he already arrived on front of Amadeus, still amplifying his voice so that the whole audience could hear him.

"That is simple, lord Irwyn, we used this item which accurately shows the age of people who use it, it had clearly shown us that she exceeded the she limit by a lot," Amadeus explained, already dreading what would happen next.

"Could I have a look at it?" Irwyn just smiled; his eyes clearly showed that he knew exactly what was going on, but Amadeus simply couldn't refuse him: The boy had too much of a reputation to dismiss him for a naive child, and when that was put together with the influence of his family it was no stretch to say that he was currently the most influential brat in the North.

"Of course," Amadeus beckoned to Blaze with a feigned smile. The cat was already out of the bag, all he could do now was pretend to be ignorant. Irwyn grabbed the pure white pearl and did not even need an explanation on how it worked.

[Age: 35]

Clear letters appeared in the sight of the entire audience and the boy utilised their moment of daze to speak: "So then, Elemental lord, would you say that I, Irwyn von Blackburg, am 35 years old?"

"No, of course not. The pearl must be damaged," Amadeus immediately replied.

"So you are saying that the mages guild brought a faulty product to an event of this importance and somehow didn't manage to locate this flaw in time?" Irwyn immediately threw around accusations.

"I find it incredibly unlikely," Amadeus could only bite the bullet and attempt to cut his losses "but it seems to have happened."

"Yes, so unlikely it is impossible. In fact the pearl is working exactly as intended; I am aware of the inner workings of these tools: They measure the exact amount of seconds since birth, but then they don't show that number, instead an artificer sets brackets which correspond to years. If for example an artificer was to set a bracket for 7-12 years of time since birth and then made the pearl to always show, let's say 'age 35' instead of the correct age for that bracket…" Irwyn explained and smirked as he left the last words unsaid.

"You are accusing the mage's guild of cheating," Amadeus frowned.The situation was not developing well. He had hoped to put all the blame on a faulty product, but couldn’t admit to something as serious as cheating. The mages guild cared far too much about their public appearance.

"Of course I am. You have a motive, the resources and the guts to try pulling this off," Irwyn just kept smiling.

"What motive would I have? Even if you are the son of duke Blackburg, accusing an Elemental lord of cheating is no light matter," exposed, he only had one last card to play.

"Elemental lords can only retain their status for so long. Once in a while there is a vote whether a new one should be chosen for each of the elements. And you, Amadeus, have a rival not far behind in exploits. While your disciple placed third, his placed second. It would be a serious blow to your chances if only your opponents disciple advanced. So you ordered your disciple Blaze, who stands right behind you even now, to set up a trap for an innocent girl. You even wanted to murder her where she stood so that no one could prove her innocence later, and you had nearly done so before I stopped you," Irwyn kept an amiable smile all the way on his face was he read Amadeus like an open book.

"This is ridiculous, I deny any guilt," Amadeus naturally wouldn't admit to what he did; his status was more than enough to protect him from even being tried for today’s events, but his reputation, both within and without mage circles, would suffer greatly. With that Irwyn fulfilled his goals.

"There is also another reason why I can be certain that the girl is completely innocent," Irwyn decided to add one more insult to injury "her name is Elizabeth Black, my personal maid whom I taught magic from scratch. How would I be unaware of her age?" he just scoffed.

This statement left the entire crowd flabbergasted. Not because of her identity as a Blackburg maid, not because she was personally attending to the infamous Irwyn von Blackburg, but because he claimed to have taught her magic from scratch. If he could allow such a young girl to reach 5th circle spells, just what sort of unfathomable power he possibly held?

"And remember, Amadeus, you tried to break what belongs to me, and I tend to hold grudges," his expression was deathly serious, but then once again turned pleasant as he addressed the girl "let's go, Elizabeth," he said and the girl followed wordlessly after a quick bow, yet a wide smile was plastered on her face after she finally regained her wits. Just as he had said: When she thought to be hopeless he arrived and once again granted her salvation.

They spent the rest of the day observing from a private VIP booth. The entire event would take 4 days, the first day was qualification and the rest were a day for each age category. The 3 categories were under 13, under 20, and under 27. The main reason why there was no category for older participants was that they were either not talented or already utilised secrets they wouldn't want revealed to the public. The exact age was determined by the youngest tier 4 mage recorded in the guild's archives: Their founder and guild master. There was only a minor further turmoil in the youngest category when a girl unaffiliated with the mages guild barely managed to advance. A talented spacial mage, although there was not much drama around her advancement since the Elemental lord of decaying past and his disciple were undisputed.

Then the category under 20 years started and the seats for the audience were completely filled from this point forward. The examination was much different than those for the youngest mages. The participants were each asked to solve a complex issue using any means necessary and were no longer restricted to individual spells. Albeit the event was lively enough to fully grab Elizabeth’s attention Irwyn did not see anything interesting happen. The same applied for the oldest category. Although there were many mages far more powerful than those in the previous categories none of them managed to catch Irwyn’s interest. In the end Irwyn left almost disappointed; a carriage was somehow already arranged for him and Elizabeth. They would return to rest and participate in the main event tomorrow. Irwyn hoped there would be actually someone capable among the seeded participants, otherwise the rest would turn out boring and that would be a waste.