The two weeks flew by and now it was the morning before the Winter Tournament. Seifer smiled as he watched the sun rise over the city of Nox, he had just finished performing a few drills with his new sword on the balcony.

The pitch black blade with a few golden streaks had been bought at the Trade Hall a few days ago, right after he recovered from the bankruptcy the sunfruit had put him in. Of course, after buying the Draconian steel blade of 90 percent purity, Seifer was once again a pauper.

He had a few hours left, the tournament would only begin at noon. Any First step Transcendent under the age of 25 could participate, with the best 10 being rewarded and the champion would personally be rewarded by the patriarch.

While thinking about the tournament from his last life, Seifer was startled by someone appearing right next to him. The figure reached out to him but he had already struck the attacker’s neck.

The mountain breeze inflicted more damage to the pine trees than his blade did to the “attacker”. Seifer let out a heavy sigh, it seemed that his actions were already changing things, this hadn’t happened last time.

“Ahem, why are you sighing like you don’t want to see me and not hugging your awesome aunt” said a very annoyed Annalise Nox.

“Why are you here? You know there’s another 244 days before you can see me?” said Seifer casually as he hugged her, giving no signs of his emotions after not feeling her embrace for thousands of years.

“I’m not giving you any resources so it isn’t that bad. Besides, they won’t find out” she said, surprised yet happy to see that Seifer hadn’t let go of her in two seconds like he usually did.

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“Grandfather wouldn’t be happy”

“Well no one’s going to tell him” Annalise said, flicking his forehead.

“Anyways, I’m here because someone has been keeping secrets from me. Look at you, secretly being a potions prodigy” she said with a mock glare.

“Well that’s not even close to being the biggest secret” said Seifer.

“What else, did you meet Lucifer?” she asked with a laugh.

“Yes, we made a snowman”

An hour later, Annalise left, leaving him alone on the balcony. Seifer stared out at the city, deep in thought.

It was only now that he fully understood what it was like to have his aunt back. In his last life, his aunt and grandfather had died in his youth, while he was only a thousand years of age. Over the hundreds of thousands of years, he had fully come to terms with it and had essentially forgotten them.

Seifer thought about these feelings until noon, at which point made his way to the Castle Arena with the rest of House Nox. Thousands of people were seated around the ring, split into various “circles”. The higher their rank, the higher up they were seated.

In the highest circle, the seats were more akin to thrones for the Elders and the Patriarch. Also in the highest circle, sat the honored guests of the House of Nox like Arcturus Harkes.

Seifer was seated in the second circle, just above the mortals. He felt the stares from the stronger Transcendents in the arena, they could sense the dramatic increase in his power.

The Patriarch Augustus Nox smiled, his interest in Seifer grew further. He glanced at Marcus, noticing that the usually stoic Marcus was shooting smug looks to the other elders, especially Octavian.

Octavian and Marcus were the two most powerful Elders in the House of Nox, they had a fierce rivalry. Augustus also recalled that a young Seifer Nox had once defeated Octavian’s grandson, also called Octavian in a duel with ease despite being three years younger than him.

A few seconds later, Augustus stood up. The chatter in the arena died down as the whole family looked to the Patriarch. He extended his palm outwards and a single drop of blood left his body.

The crimson droplet slowly reached all the way to the ring before it splattered to the pure white floor and spread out from where it landed, dying the entire floor red. With that, a loud cheer rang out from the stands. The winter tournament had begun.