"What do we do now?" Lapsa asked the group.

Cayden looked at Cronix, with the others following his example. Cronix raised an eyebrow when he saw this but didn't comment on it, instead he said, "I guess the first thing we should do is find a place to stay."

"But, we kind of have the same problem we had earlier, how are we supposed to travel like this?" Cayden commented, adding a bit of perspective in the situation.

Cronix put on the cloak, "It actually might be simpler than the gate since we're already inside, we won't look as suspicious compared to if we were just entering. So all we have to do is mask all your animal features with the dark element, and with my cloak, we'll look mysterious, maybe a bit suspicious, but mostly mysterious."

After saying this, Cronix looked at Kara, and she understood what he wanted. With little effort, the surrounding dark elements surrounded both Cayden and Lapsa, hiding their ears and tail.

"You should try restraining yourselves from moving your tails as best as possible. I mean it's not like you guys ever had a problem with that, but I'm just saying, the dark elements would have an easier time if you don't move the parts it's hiding." Cronix told them, putting his hood on.

When they were leaving the alley, they saw multiple guards all heading towards the gate, obviously sent to deal with the wildfire.

The four of them began to wander through the city of O'Kairo, looking for any place to stay. The darkness wasn't a problem for them, but sadly most of the places which usually had rooms were strangely already booked.

"Do you think we should just find a spot, and rest there, I mean we would have a better time finding a place in the morning than now." Cayden suggested.

But Cronix shook his head to that idea, "I don't trust this place, even with... Kara?" He looked at the bird in his cloak, she shook her tail, which Cronix took as a confirmation.

"Anyways, the point is, we're not safe here, we might be in even more danger with her here."

Lapsa frowned, "What do you mean by that?"

"In Alktarsha, I once saw someone kill someone else just for a tamed magic beast. Imagine here, where there are more powerful people, and Kara is at the Core Creation stage."

After Cronix said that, there was no more discussion, and they all continued to search. After about an hour of this, they finally found a building that was lit up and open, the only problem was that it wasn't really an inn.

The building was in a more secluded part of the city, not because it was a dangerous place, but because it was for the people with a little more money to spend.

The front building itself was all purple, and when they began walking the road to the building, the scenery seemed to change to the color purple, from the structures like fences, to the flowers.

The three looked at each other, and only shrugged. Cronix looked at the sign near the entrance, it read: Madame Potpourri's Rental Houses.

They walked to the entrance and opened the glass door. The inside of the building was much like the outside with almost every color in sight was a shade of purple with very few things of any other color.

There was an attendant at the desk also dressed in purple, with black shoulder length hair that was also tipped with purple, like the color was slowly corrupting the hair.

But she didn't notice the three of them yet, she was paying attention to a ranting voice, they couldn't see the speaker, but from the voice they could tell it was a woman.

"How could that two-faced bitch pay off every single useful person to not fight for me, besides you, all I have left is trash, where does she get that kind of money?! Once I get my hands on Malory and all those traitors, I'm going to kill..."

"Madame Potpourri, we have customers!" The attendant said with a panicky tone when she noticed the trio, which caused the woman to frown, "What type of bastards come at this time!"

Then they saw the speaker, and honestly, she looked like the color purple vomited on her, every part of her attire, including her hair and eyes, were purple, surprisingly she was also in the advanced Core Creation stage.

The trio were speechless, thankfully Kara was inside the cloak, so she was spared of the sight.

When Madame Potpourri saw the three boys, she was almost as speechless as them, they looked so strange, especially the two on the sides of the cloaked one, their bodies had some weird layer on it that she couldn't make out.

But she was most aware of the cloaked one since she couldn't even sense his presence.

These ones could be from a rich family.

"What are you here for?" She questioned.

Cronix was the one to answer her, "We want to rent a room."

The madame was pleasantly surprised to hear the voice belonged to someone young, which meant that the cloak was special, not so much the person, so they posed no direct threat, but they had to be from a rich family to have something like that.

"You want a mere room, you're at the wrong place." Despite her assumption they were from a rich family, she didn't change her attitude towards them.

"Then what do you have here?" This time it was Cayden who spoke.

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Madame Potpourri frowned, then said, "I rent out more than simply rooms, I rent out actual living residences."

"Okay, then how much for a night?" Cronix asked.

The madame shook her head, "Wendril, take care of these brats, I can't be bothered." She then left the room, probably to her office or something like that.

The attendant nodded her head, and turned her attention to the three boys, "You three must be mistaken, if it's only a night, you won't find a place here."

"You mean we have to stay here for more than a night then?" Cronix question, "So we're renting an actual building?"

The attendant nodded.

Cronix looked at the other two boys, who both nodded, then he turned back to the attendant, "Let's get to signing."

"Okay, but first there are a few questions you have to answer."

The attendant took out a piece of paper, and Cronix got ready to answer her questions.

"Names?"

"Cronix, Cayden, and Lapsa."

"Family names?"

"There are none."

Actually both Cayden and Lapsa had family names, but none of them said anything.

"Okay...Um...Stages?"

"Five star Caster, flawless Three star Caster, and three star Caster."

"All three of you have to touch this." The attendant took out a disc with colorful gems on its side, except for the area the hand touches.

"What is this?" Cronix asked, scanning the disc with his eyes.

"It's an emotion disc, we use this to see if you have any malicious intent." The attendant explained, pushing the disc onto the counter towards the boys.

Cronix glanced at the two other boys before putting a hand on the disc, all the gems lit up then their light circled around the gems before stopping on a grey gem.

When Cronix saw this he frowned, "What does that mean?"

"It means you're confused, now both of you have to do this." The attendant gestured for the other two boys to come.

Cayden went first, and got a blue gem meaning calm, and Lapsa got a purple gem meaning nervous.

After that was sorted out, Cronix had to sign a paper, and drip his blood onto a circle on the paper. The moment that happened, he felt a weird connection between himself and the paper, it didn't feel comfortable.

"You'll get used to it, now I need a deposit, and if you fail to meet any of the payments, this paper will combust, whether you survive that or not is uncertain."

The deposit was of three advance magic crystals which was way more than the rent of an apartment.

"Can I pay all six months in advance?" Cronix asked, not willing to take the chance of the paper exploding.

The attendant nodded, and Cronix looked at Cayden, who took out a large number of advanced magic crystals, and handed them to Cronix, who handed them to the attendant, this took a huge chunk of their savings.

"Here's your key, and I will guide you to your residence." The attendant handed Cronix a purple key, and she walked out from behind the desk.

"One quick question." Cronix leaned forward, near the attendant's ear, "Are the residences also..." He began gesturing to the room, which the attendant understood what he was trying to convey.

She said, "All the areas here are... suited to the madame's taste, so there are a lot of similarities including color."

"Gotcha." Cronix said, before turning back to the other two boys, and giving Cayden the key. They then began to follow the attendant to their new residence, but a voice called out, "Wait!"

Madame Potpourri came back into view, and she looked at the three boys with a hint of interest, "You said, you're all in the Caster stage, correct?"

Cronix frowned, he glanced at the other two boys before he answered with a nod. When the madame saw this, she suddenly became excited, "How about we make a deal?"

With narrowed eyes, Cronix asked, "What do you want?"

"It's nothing too bad, and both of us can benefit from it." Madame Potpourri said.

"Just get to the point." Cayden said, starting to get impatient, and he also felt the dark magic surrounding him weakening.

Madame Potpourri shot him a look, then looked at Cronix, she considered him to be the leader of this trio, "You just have to enter a competition, and be my team."

"Yeah... No. We don't want to get involved with anything like that." Cronix said turning away from here, but before they could go anywhere, Madame Potpourri said, "I let you three stay here rent free for as long as you like."

Cronix froze, then turned back to her, "That's... still no deal."

His tone was calm when he said this, but if Cronix put his hand back on the emotion disc, it would also be purple like Lapsa's, but he had a slight bit of confidence she wouldn't hurt them.

The Madame frowned, then smiled, "Fine, name your conditions."

"Well, first off, we know little to no techniques or spells, so we're already at a disadvantage in a fight, and we're also pretty weak, so we need resources to advance forward in the magic path." Cronix casually said.

Cayden and Lapsa glanced at each other, kind of in disbelief at what Cronix was trying to do.

"Spells, resources, and room." Madame Potpourri repeated to herself, then frowned, but still asked, "Is there anything else you want?"

Cronix raised up three fingers, and said, "I want three favors after that, I don't know what they are, but I want three."

The Madame had to think about this for a while, but after thinking about the smug face of a certain individual, she agreed, "But we're going to be making a new contract in place of your old one, covering all these terms, in this way we can make sure none of us goes back on our word."

Cronix agreed to this, and they scrapped his old contract, writing down a new one.

They both restated what they wanted, madame Potpourri said, "To join the focuser survival game, and not embarrass me."

Cronix frowned at what she said, but just like earlier, didn't comment on it, in fear it would mess things up. They both signed, and dripped their blood on it, the contract now forged a connection with the both of them.

"Wendril will give you an explanation of the event, I'll get you three registered." Madame Potpourri quickly left them to her attendant.

Cayden bumped Cronix's arm with his elbow when he rejoined them, "Was it really smart of you to get us involved in something like this? We shouldn't get ourselves into the spotlight, and it seems we're also getting involved with a personal grudge."

Shrugging his shoulders, Cronix replied, "This is the fastest way to get stronger, if we don't want to go back to slavery, or be in another situation where we need help just to have a chance of surviving, then we'll need this."

He then turned his attention to the attendant, "So what exactly is this competition?"

The attendant began explaining as they opened the door to the outside, following a purple trail to their new residence, since it was still on madame Potpourri's property,

"The competition is a survival game which happens every five year, and lasts for a season. Magic users in the Caster stage go into a special space to find focuser beads and other resources, but all points come out of the focuser beads. You can also be in teams."

"Special space, what are focuser beads doing in a special space?" Cayden butted in.

"They are placed there by the alchemists of the big companies and organizations, this whole event is specifically prepared by them, so they can find talented people in the younger generations." The attendant explained.

"Only people in the Caster stage allowed to enter this competition?" This time it was Lapsa who asked this question, and the other two also paid attention to this answer.

And unfortunately the attendant nodded, "No one in the Core Creation stage or above are allowed to enter, this is only for Casters."

The three looked at each other and they could all see the fear in each others eyes, they would have to solely depend on Cronix's dark elements in this competition then.

By this time they were already at their new residence, but Cronix had one more question, "When does the event start."

"On the 79th of Autumn, so you have a season to prepare, but many people are preparing right now, so you can't afford to slack."

After finishing this up, the attendant bid them goodbye, while also giving back their crystals. When she left, the three entered their new home, which was as expected, purple.