Irsen Kartal was drinking in the Initiation’s Room, next to some other mages. They were looking at the stage, where some recreational magic was showing the altercation at the Dodon-Mergifari airship.

Putting so many young mages inside a ship was sure to provoke some fights, which was the idea.

After all, seeing how the possibles selected reacted to conflict in a sudden confrontation was better than any show they could pull on the selection day.

To the novice mages, that show was all they had to catch a selector’s attention. But that was a lie.

The trip to the Mergifari was already testing them.

It didn’t allow for murder, having official mages ready to stop any close attempt.

Ethra’s, in this case.

Kartal looked at the images, feeling proud.

He had been the one saying Velvet was interesting, but, from some comment, to seeing it, there was a difference.

Even more when the two instigators of the fight were a Ropertti and a Graham.

He guessed that Adeline Graham had refrained from telling his youngest son about not attacking Velvet, since she planned for Ethra to defeat her in that skirmish, recovering some wounded pride.

A plan that had gone wrong. The reason was simple. Ethra wasn’t planning on killing Velvet, maybe harming her, but not murder, since that could ruin his entrance to the Mergifari.

On the other hand, Velvet already saw the Grahams as enemies, so killing one when the opportunity presented itself was removing a future problem early. Also, Ethra was the one that started it, so she could plead self defense!

Laws didn’t work like that, but anyway.

Nereus was also an interesting one. He almost ripped Alrai Siberetti a new one, and his raw strength had caught the attention of some selectors.

Especially the moment when he crushed the knife that Alrai used to try and stab him. With his teeth.

As the leader of the Scales of Poine, he had access to a lot of information, so he knew that Nereus was the victor of one of the Queen’s Arenas of this year.

Unlike Charlampa, Arhontissa was too far away from the Mergifari for a sea route, leaving only the air route, which is not affordable to many wandering mages.

So the Queen decided to host a number of tournaments, where only mages not affiliated to a family could participate, to try and win a ticket to the Mergifari.

There were a few categories, so that not only the most physically strong could win. Still, Nereus was of the physically strong category.

A street kid that stumbled upon a deceased mage’s inheritance on the sewers of a city, obtaining magic and becoming part of the Predator Paradigm.

Also called the Man-eater or Beast Paradigm, it was the middle ground between the Wrath and the Gluttony Paradigms. That alone should give enough clues to understand how troublesome it was.

Which Alrai Siberetti did find out. And his father found it hilarious.

That was what made gambling spells so annoying to use. Failing the gamble put the Siberetti against a ravenous dog with a golden medal.

Actually, Irsen wasn’t sure of the paternity of Siberiald, but he preferred not to ask. He kept presenting his ‘children’, even when he never found any woman or man that was sexually close to him.

Not that there weren’t offers, some people liked their men murderhobo clowns.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Irsen coughed a bit, continuing with his original train of thought.

Nereus and Velvet were the two mages that almost killed another in a matter of minutes.

That made some attention go to Adeline Graham, who was staring at the images in silence, her face expressionless.

…

Why is Ethra teaming with a Ropertti? I was trying to make him fight the gambler, not the girl.

She mentally reread the letter she sent a few hours ago to Ethra. There was a seal that prohibited any official mage from divulging that the novices were being watched right now, so she didn’t say or hint at anything like that.

Instead, she talked about how Siberina ROPERTTI had been the key point in Cornelius’ death. She wanted Ethra to try to harm Alrai, not Velvet. She barely mentioned her, actually.

And then, he teamed up with him, and ended up losing again.

Were the Roperttis becoming a curse in her family?

Was Ethra stupid?

Thoughts like this were crossing Adeline’s mind. Still, someone was overthinking more than her.

…

Winter looked at Nereus being lied, used and messed up with.

She massaged her temples.

One of the Queen’s Champions being the conflict starter…

She understood Nereus’s circumstances. He didn’t know how to write or read, and was plenty uneducated.

He was too used to street life, always quick to resort to violence.

If Dianthus disrespected the Queen because he was a bonafide, prophecy chosen, holier than thou powerhouse, Nereus did it because he didn’t know anything about politics, negotiations or etiquette.

Winter did prefer Nereus, and he was her pick as a Selector.

Still, Igern did scold him too hard… But that ended up putting him closer to Velvet…

Winter also wanted Velvet as her apprentice. She could afford both, so there was no problem.

If they became friends before entering the Mergifari, it would just make her job easier.

…

That spell…

Someone in the Selector’s seats was looking at the moment when Velvet used a charm to throw Ethra on the ground.

She was using a concealment spell to blur the symbol…

Hasdrubal squinted, caressing his long beard, trying to see if he could remember similar spells.

Since the images were just a recreation, he couldn't just use an uncover spell to break the concealment.

And, even if he was the official mage on the airship, doing that was forbidden.

The official mage couldn’t ask anything about their abilities. Just stop the fights.

Hasdrubal caressed his beard again, his mind replaying the scene from every angle.

Nothing, he didn’t know those chains.

But he knew something about Velvet. A novice mage that appeared in Petren, no one behind her.

It was weird that she had such a spell, did she come across an inheritance?

Some mages, especially wanderers, became mages after finding some inheritance in the wild. Mage inheritances were the remains of an abandoned mage’s corpse, usually a wandering one, since they tended to hide before perishing, unlike mages with a family that could inherit their remnants.

Since they couldn’t become ghosts or reincarnate, their bodies and souls, mixed with the Primeval Sea, ended up becoming altars.

An inheritance had three parts.

The will. The last desires of the mage were written in a book made with the mage’s skin.

The ornaments. The things the mage had with them upon death. Usually grimoires and artifacts.

The blessing. The remaining body of the mage. Melting upon death, it became a small lake, where the future mage must open their own Esca. That way, the Paradigm would be the same as the deceased mage, making both the will and the ornaments useful.

Hasdrubal wanted to know what Velvet did. If it was because of an inheritance, he hadn’t seen one like that in his hundreds of years of age.

Chains. The thing that held Ethra in place.

They looked weak and fragile, almost translucent with how weak the mage using them was. But they were new to him.

As the more advanced mage in the Knowledge Paradigm, finding something related to magic he didn’t know about was a surprise.

He had been subsiding with technological advancements for so long, new magic made his mouth water.

How much does she have? What else does she know? Who is behind her?

It didn’t matter if Velvet didn’t select him. Whoever she ended up choosing wouldn’t refuse the possibility of striking a deal with him.

After all, he was Hasdrubal the All-knowing, the Mergifari’s brain.