Ivory giggled.

“Hey, doesn’t that sound a lot like your name, Jun? Only it’s a lot longer, and of course it can’t be yours. After all, anyone with half a brain can tell you’re in no condition to be fighting. Fighting for your balance maybe. Remember? Because of the time you fell down? Very embarrassing, I must say.

“Anyway, if an errant breeze is enough to bowl you over, I’d hate to think what a decently thrown fist might do. It would be like punching babies. And you know how little patience I have for baby punchers Jun! Not that I’ve ever met one of course. But, even if they were extremely polite and gave me all sorts of wonderful things, I very much doubt it’d sway my opinion. Much. Say, don’t you think it’s rather rude for this Junwei person to keep the nice man waiting?”

You…? I don’t even… Ivory, you can still see my screens, correct?

“Yes? But I really don’t see what that has to do with…? Oh…? Oh! Oh… oh no.”

As every eye in the room abruptly jerked in his direction—many of them plainly showing the same disbelief he felt—Jun turned his head in his mother’s direction, as if some way, somehow, she held all the answers. What he saw there only left him even more confused.

Because instead of the look of shock or incomprehension he’d been expecting, his mother appeared… pleased? No. Almost… smug? But wait that couldn’t be right. What did she know that he didn’t? There was this oddly contented smile on her lips as she looked back at him. And then, almost conspiratorially, she winked.

Okay, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Alindra was the first to put words to her incredulousness.

“Th- This has to be some sort of mistake! That boy isn’t even a cultivator, and you want him to join the kingdom’s triennial tournament? Whose idea of a joke is this?”

The envoy looked a bit miffed at being questioned so openly.

“Well, I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that the matriarch was very insistent. Young master Cedric and young master Junwei have already been enrolled in the triennial tournament's registry. In two years' time, they are to convene at the capital. Where they’ll be joined by many other powerful scions from all across the frontier. With that in mind I would suggest you put all your energies into preparing your sons accordingly, rather than waste it on meaningless protests.”

“But-!” Alindra continued. “This simply can’t be true! You expect us to give a good showing and then strap us down with dead weight? Can’t you see that this could be detrimental to the Beckonfrost Households’ reputation as a whole? What will the other houses think when one of ours drops out during the very first round?”

Jun, who would normally have been offended by this public dressing down, honestly concurred with the demon empress for once.

He would be little more than dead weight in such a setting.

Perhaps he might shine in the arena of commerce, the battlefield stalked by stadium vendors and underhanded organizers, but on the fighting stage? In his head he scoffed.

Yeah, not likely.

He couldn’t imagine what the matriarch had been thinking. Or his mother for that matter, seeing as the contented expression had yet to leave her face. Jun stepped forward, ready to put an end to this nonsense.

“She’s right,” Jun said. “I not sure of the Matriarch’s intentions, but I would be more liability than help.”

Alindra, at first shocked by his unexpected assistance, quickly turned back with a look of smug satisfaction.

“See? Even the boy agrees he’d be useless. Please lord, I have two other sons of no inconsiderable talent. Surely they should be considered before this untalented trash.”

Jun ground his teeth. Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been the best idea to side with the devil. He should have disagreed on principal, he decided, no matter the actual truth of things. With a sudden lunge,

Alindra snapped her arm forward, quick as a snake.

Clearly intent on snatching up the entry passes before anyone could tell her otherwise, she didn’t actually manage to get very far before the case slammed shut with a definitive snap.

For a time after, the only sounds in the hall were its occupants’ careful breathing. And, when at last the envoy spoke, his voice came out as cold as the arctic frost that was their collective namesake.

In an instant, all those present abruptly remembered they were not just speaking to any old messenger, but to a powerful scion of the main branch itself. By all rights, he was likely a cultivator of a calibre beyond even their wildest imaginings. And to make matters worse, he might as well have just been insulted to his face.

“I apologize if I somehow insinuated this was a discussion,” the man intoned softly.

Being the object of his apparent ire, Alindra flinched back, though she wasn’t the only one. In fact, everyone was taken aback by the literal decrease in temperature which accompanied his tone.

“The fact of the matter is, each of these items is their recipients to do with as they see fit. Not yours. End of story. End of discussion. If you truly insist on turning this simple fact into an incident, I implore you to please leave your formal complaints with the Matriarch’s head secretary. She’s available at all hours, five days out of the week, and is a positive delight to be around. And if, after that, you still insist on making trouble, you may always feel free to take it up with me.”

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The room went eerily still. No one daring to move or even make a sound. Though, Jun noted with growing anxiety, that appeared to be less and less voluntary by the second.

Misty clouds escaped past dozens of quivering lips. Lips which had all taken on an alarmingly blue tinge. The oppressive aura of biting frost doing more than just chill them down to their very bone marrow. It stiffened them unnaturally, as if trapping their bodies within invisible blocks of ice. As if every vein, tendon, and muscle fiber had suddenly developed thick layers of frost.

And the most terrifying part of all?

The envoy seemed almost oblivious to the effect his domineering presence was having on the rest of them, as he first stared into submission a terrified Alindra, then a meek Lord Darius. And then, just as suddenly as it’d appeared, the oppressive aura vanished.

“Now,” as if a switch had been flipped, the young lord reverted back to his usual chipper demeanor. “Why don’t you two boys come up here and take these things off my hands before I too find myself tempted.”

The man waited patiently, scanning over the heads of the crowd in search of Cedric. A frown formed on his brow when no one appeared.

“Apologies, lord,” said lord Darius, somewhat cowed. “But my son is currently bed ridden. There was an… attack near the forest line two days ago. He has yet to recover and is currently in no condition to receive such a gift. If you would allow me to-”

“Well, that simply won’t do,” he interrupted. “Markus, take one of the servants and visit the boy’s quarters. If he’s still alive after a spirit beast attack, the damage can’t have been too severe. Use one of the peak-grade vitality restoration elixirs. That should be enough to get him standing. If not, then I dare say little else will.”

There were gasps of surprise at the casual flaunting of wealth.

Jun knew well that even a low-grade elixir was probably too much for most families to afford period, and it certainly wasn’t something a branch like theirs could afford to just give away willy-nilly. Truly, the elites of the Kingdom were on a level of their own. That he could likely have done the same or more was neither here nor there.

“Yes lord,” the coachman said before marching off in the wake of a servant.

“So,” the envoy said as he turned back to Jun. “You must be this Junwei!”

“Please, no one calls me that. Just Jun is fine.”

He could practically hear the stiffening of spines at this apparent lack of deference—the feeling of that cold aura still fresh in everyone’s mind. The envoy on the other hand, simply quirked an eyebrow and smiled all the wider.

Intellectually Jun knew he should feign deference like the others, but, at this point, he honestly couldn’t be bothered. He’d spoken on equal terms with more influential men than this young lord, and after the week he was having…? Kowtowing just didn’t seem like a possibility at the moment.

“Huh, okay. Just Jun it is then. Well, “Just Jun” I present you with your very own tournament pass,” he flipped open the lid revealing the two entry passes.

Entirely blank on the front, it was the shape and size of a paper talisman. A metal ring was embedded in the top, where a braided red cord was looped through and tied off. Jun stepped forward, breaking from the whispering crowd.

When he was immediately before the smiling cultivator, he made to reach forward and grab his entry pass. But, suddenly thinking better of it, he paused. Much to the crowd’s annoyance, Jun cocked his head to the side, and took a second to think.

From deep within the recesses of Jun’s inner jacket, Ivory stirred.

“Would that really work?!”

Not sure yet. We’ll see.

Jun focused on the items.

“You said that I could do whatever I wanted with this, correct?”

“It is yours to do with as you see fit.”

“And what’ll happen when I touch it?”

Based on the man’s earlier reactions, Jun had a hunch, but he wasn’t sure. The glint of delight in the man’s eyes told him he’d been more or less correct.

“It would imprint itself onto your soul shell and become unusable by anyone else.”

So it could be used by someone other than himself. He had hoped for that to be the case, but hadn’t known how exactly that would work.

“And if I wanted to sell it instead?”

An outcry of disbelief and anger arose throughout the dining hall. Lord Darius and Alindra both made to step forward, but an icy look from Damien stayed their hands. He returned his gaze to Jun.

“Then you would have to do so without touching it, I’m afraid. And I, unfortunately, cannot leave the box with you, if that’s what you were thinking.”

Undeterred, Jun pondered the conundrum for quite some time.

On the one hand, he didn’t particularly want to reveal even one of his secret abilities. Especially not here of all places, with these people, though he doubted they’d pick up on what it meant even if they saw it up close. On the other, he knew that the pass would be all but wasted on him. Not to mention, if he could actually sell such a treasure, it might make meeting his impossible deadline all the more likely.

He looked to his mother who looked at him right back, neither encouraging nor discouraging. Coming to a decision, Jun opened up his system screens and found the only section he felt a true kinship with.

|Merchant of Promise|

Allowed access to the System Approved general marketplace.

He opened up the general marketplace with its nostalgic ringing chime. He found the icon for “Auction House” and—skipping over his many bids currently in progress—he created an auction listing of his own. Selecting the entry pass on the left with a mental request, he saw the envoys eyes widen and eyebrows raise. No doubt in response to the sudden pop-up request asking him if he consented to the pass being transferred into Jun’s custody.

The man must have mentally agreed, because in the next moment, without any warning, the leftmost pass disappeared. At the same time a new icon blipped onto his screen—listing one “triennial tournament pass” as “now on auction.”

The hall exploded into exclamations of equal parts shock and outrage.

Alindra grabbed Jun roughly by the arm and spun him around none too gently. She questioned him in that special way she had wherein she clearly cared very little for his response. Spittle flying from her mouth and veins bulging at her temples, it was unlikely anything he said would’ve assuaged her.

With expert ease Jun ignored her ranting—still hung up on the last words he’d heard the envoy mutter before the sounds of the branch’s displeasure drowned everything else out.

“A merchant's title. Incredible. I hadn’t believed her, but she was right. Truly remarkable.”

Wait a minute. Just hold on one second! What was that supposed to mean?!

And so, it was just as he was running through the implications of the man’s words, that all hell broke loose.