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Julius won. It wasn't even a fight. It wasn't a good match either. Julius completely overwhelmed Jason and the match barely lasted ten minutes. Sighing, Theodore focused back on the present. Currently, he was busy teaching Leona some neat tricks and also helping her with her skills and stuff.
Somewhere along the way since he'd arrived here, she'd started opening up more, and recently she'd been a bit insistent he teach her some cool magic.
So, as the big brother he was, he obliged.
Using [Mind Division] he split his processing power across multiple brains just to handle the sheer complexity of the task. A small glowing bird materialized right above his palm and fluttered its little wings. It was made entirely out of pure mana through [Mana Manipulation] and keeping the face and feathers stable was incredibly hard.
But hearing Leona gasp loud was worth it. Her eyes practically turned into literal stars shining in the training room. She pointed at the little bird and immediately demanded he teach her how to do that exact thing.
He laughed and dispelled the bird into a shower of sparks. Walking before running was the rule here. He started her off with the absolute basics and instructed her to form simple cubes and spheres with her mana.
She failed a lot at first and the shapes kept collapsing into messy puddles of blue light but she was a little genius alright and it only took her a few dozen tries to finally stabilize a perfect sphere and a sharp little cube.
Although a bit wobbly.
He made sure not to comment on that as she was looking at him expectantly.
"Okay good," Theodore said and pointed at the floating shapes. "Now spin them."
She scrunched up her face in concentration and got the shapes rotating slowly though she failed no matter what she did. Theodore smiled at that. He told her to make more and maintain as many as she could at the exact same time and once she was able to do that he would teach her the next step.
Giving her a few final pointers about keeping her mana flow steady he wrapped up the lesson.
When he was done with her, Leona practically skipped out of the training room and she was muttering under her breath about showing off to her friends. Theodore watched her go and felt a warm fuzzy feeling spreading in his chest. It felt nice.
Juliana was lounging in the corner on a padded bench and she had her legs kicked up over the armrest. She tossed an apple in the air and caught it. "She seems really happy," Juliana said.
"I've been trying to mend our relationship. Figured helping her with magic is a good start."
"Aww." Juliana grinned and gave him a sickeningly sweet look. "Look at my bad brother getting all soft and squishy inside."
He gagged at her. "Shut up. I am just doing my duty as a brother. Plus she was getting annoying begging me all the time."
"Sure thing teddy bear. You totally just love seeing her smile."
"Keep talking and I will freeze your feet to the floor."
"You can try." She took a loud bite of her apple and chewed loudly just to annoy him.
"You are disgusting," he pointed out.
"And you are a softie," she shot back. "Accept it."
Theodore snorted and shook his head.
Dropping his smile, Theodore leaned against the weapon rack and crossed his arms. "Anyway. Enough about me. Did you dig up anything?"
Juliana stopped chewing and swallowed. Her expression turned serious in a blink. Theodore had asked her to look into Garrett and find a way to stop the guy from bothering Jason's family.
Slumping her shoulders, she sighed heavily. "It is all tight business on the outside. I dug through his family ledgers and checked his usual lackeys. Squeaky clean."
Juliana crossed her arms and looked incredibly frustrated. "There are absolutely no weak points to get in. They hid their tracks too well."
Theodore frowned and tapped his fingers against his leg. If Garrett was playing it safe legally they needed a different angle. He thought about Jason and his situation for a second.
"What if we just hire Jason?" Theodore asked.
Juliana blinked. "Huh?"
"We hire him and bring him into our faction," Theodore explained. "Give him enough of a standing and a fancy title so that Garrett matters a whole lot less. Jason being under our official protection means Garrett backing off is a given."
Juliana seemed to think for a moment and stared at the floor while running it through her head. She nodded slowly. "Yeah sure that works. It is a massive flex but it solves the problem. Also gets us a valuable ally."
Theodore smiled. That was sorted then. He would talk to Jason later.
The conversation naturally moved on to the tournament. The whole city was buzzing about Garrett, Theodore, and Julius right now.
"Julius is the opponent you or Garrett will face in the final match," she pointed out and tossed the apple core into a nearby bin. "Depending on who wins the match between you two of course."
"I will face him," Theodore said.
Juliana raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Confident are we?"
"Just stating facts. I know exactly what Garrett can do. It will be interesting fighting Julius though."
Juliana stood up and stretched her arms over her head. "This is going to be interesting. I really wanna see this."
She walked over to the door and looked back at him over her shoulder. "When is your match with Garrett again?"
"Today," Theodore said.
Juliana smiled.
***
Theodore hadn't bothered returning to the Hunting Grounds yet, given that he was absolutely certain that the vile centipede wouldn't have left. Knowing how sadistic it was it wasn't that far fetched to say that it would also be petty, so he wasn't going there until he was prepared enough.
Maybe take a few other people with him, like Juliana, Freya, and Roland.
But that could wait. He'd already leveled up his Race and was already at the precipice of advancing his Class, so he was focused on that, grinding back in Holden with some new quality of life inventions. Soon the tournament business would be over and he could be back in Holden chilling as usual.
Regardless, his current priority was the tournament, and especially his match against Garrett.
Garrett was a Rank 4, but his skills were at least on the level of someone at Rank 5.
He could probably hold his own against some Rank 5 beasts.
Arriving at the arena later that day Theodore walked into the competitor's waiting area and immediately sensed a weird atmosphere turning the corner.
Garrett stood in the middle of the hallway with his arms crossed. Right in front of him a young arena attendant was forced onto his hands and knees.
The poor kid was shaking violently and gasping for air while clutching his chest. His face was completely purple from the unnatural blood pressure. Garrett was using his [Blood Manipulation] just to torture the guy? Huh. Just what did he do.
"Learn your place," Garrett sneered.
He pressed his expensive boot right onto the back of the attendant's head and pushed his face into the stone floor.
"You commoners really forget yourselves so easily. The view from down there is exactly what you deserve. Memorize it. Let this be a lesson to never bump into a noble."
Stepping forward, Theodore casually shattered the telekinetic hold Garrett had on the kid with pure [Mana Manipulation], and cut away at [Blood Manipulation]'s effect using [Severing Aura].
The attendant collapsed onto his side and sucked in greedy breaths of air, looking at Theodore with wild eyes.
"Leave," Theodore told the kid bluntly.
Scrambling away the boy disappeared down the corridor and left the two nobles alone in the hallway. Garrett turned to Theodore with an expressionless face.
"Interrupting my lesson is quite rude," Garrett said.
"Torturing staff before a match is pathetic," Theodore pointed out.
Garrett tilted his head expressionlessly. "We are nobles and they are dirt. It is simply the natural order of the world."
Garrett looked Theodore up and down with barely hidden contempt. "Though I suppose someone who hangs around commoner trash like Jason would naturally fail to understand true superiority."
Theodore really wanted to smash his face for some reason.
"We will see about superiority in the ring," Theodore said.
Walking right past Garrett he purposely bumped his shoulder hard against the guy's. Garrett stumbled back a step and glared at Theodore's back.
Theodore kept walking straight towards his designated area. Holding back was completely off the table it seemed. He was going to utterly break this guy and humiliate him in front of the entire capital.