Chapter 1130: Banquet (Part 2)

Chapter 1130: Chapter 907: Banquet (Part 2)

Rodrick still kept his half-risen posture, one hand braced on the edge of the table.

“The fourth floor forbids combat.” Noah said. His voice was still that calm, as if he were stating an ancient rule. “Here, I must ask everyone to remain restrained.”

Before the words had quite fallen, a faint, heavy pressure seeped into the hall from all directions like ghostly mist.

It did not intend harm, yet it made everyone’s breathing pause for half a beat.

Rodrick’s body went rigid. He held that forward-leaning posture, fingers slowly loosening from the table edge, then sat back down little by little. For the first time, a clear wariness showed on his face.

No one else in the hall spoke.

Noah turned around and took his seat at the head of the table, as if everything just now had been nothing more than a brief interlude before the banquet began.

“Sit.” he said. “Rest well tonight.”

With Noah seated, the banquet officially began.

The side hall doors opened again, and two lines of Elf Attendants filed in bearing silver trays. Their movements were like something rehearsed countless times, each step landing on an extremely light beat.

The first dish brought up was a chilled soup served in a thin shell of Moonlight Shell. The soup was milky white, with a drop of emerald-green aromatic oil in the center, like a piece of jade set in white marble.

Next came a whole bird roasted to a glossy golden-brown, its skin brushed with some lightly sweet sauce. The instant the knife pressed down, juices welled up from beneath the crisp, charred skin.

Then followed one dish after another whose names were unknown: delicate slivers of fish wrapped in violet petals, charcoal-grilled mushrooms skewered on silver picks, and assorted berries served in ice cups.

The cups held pale golden fruit wine, sweet on the tongue, with the faintest aftertaste of honeyed blossom.

The people along the long table gradually relaxed. Even if grudges remained, faced with such a sumptuous feast, no one wanted to tear the mask off right away.

The sound of knives and forks lightly touching porcelain mingled with hushed conversation, punctuated here and there by a few quiet laughs.

A few scattered contestants even took the initiative to raise their glasses to those beside them, exchanging names and allegiances, as if to set aside, for now, all the tension that had built up in the labyrinth over the past days.

Rodrick still wore a stern face, but no longer looked toward Duke.

Valentine also stopped bickering with Audric, simply drinking glass after glass, as if he meant to drown the phantom pain of his severed arm in the fruit wine.

When Noah finished, he picked up his napkin and slowly wiped the corner of his mouth, then tapped lightly on the rim of his glass.

The sound was soft, yet it rang clearly in every ear.

The hall quickly fell quiet, and all eyes turned toward the head seat.

“For each of you to have made it here through the first three floors, at the very least, proves one thing.” Noah spoke slowly, his dark-golden pupils looking particularly tranquil in the candlelight. “You are harder to kill than you yourselves imagine.”

No one responded, but no one took it as a joke.

“The third floor will remain open for another month. Those who have not reached the fourth floor by then will be sent away by the Path of Divine Revelation itself. At the same time—that is, one month from now—the auction at Morning Star Manor will officially begin.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over every person present. “In this one month, you may rest here, meditate, or inquire with the manor’s attendants about the catalogue of auction lots. But one thing must be emphasized again: within Morning Star Manor, any form of combat or strife is forbidden. Whether actual blows or mere probing, it will be regarded as disrespect toward the Master.”

The last four words he spoke very softly, as light as a feather falling onto the surface of water.

Yet no one in the entire banquet hall doubted the weight of that sentence.

Even Duke sensed from this inscrutable Aurem man something heavier and older than a Level 4 Bone-Armored Giant Beast.

It was like a shadow lurking in the deepest part of some ancient underground palace, that never chose to move of its own accord—a thing no one wished to wake.

After saying this, Noah rose from the head of the table and left as quietly as he had come.

It was quite a while after he departed that the atmosphere in the hall began to loosen again.

Duke set down his wineglass, drew his gaze back from the side door through which Noah had vanished, and exchanged a brief, silent look with Vera.

In this seemingly peaceful banquet, everyone kept their own thoughts hidden, and it was the auction a month from now that would truly stir the waters beneath this calm surface.

After the banquet ended, Duke and Vera each received from a maid a catalogue of the auction lots to be sold one month hence.

The material of this list was very peculiar, like some sort of mercury paper specially treated. It felt faintly cool in the hand, and the writing upon it slowly surfaced as one’s gaze moved.

When Duke accepted it from the Elf Attendant, the latter specially reminded him that this was the “current edition,” and that further items might be added once the third floor concluded.

Duke nodded and spread the catalogue out on the desk.

Vera sat on the other side of the desk, holding a glass of the manor’s special pale-golden fruit wine, her gaze also fixed on the list.

The two of them read quietly for quite a while. In the room, only the very soft rustling of turning pages could be heard.

The items listed were indeed extraordinary. On just the first few pages alone there were more than ten kinds of Level 4 Magic Potion Materials, several of which would be enough to spark bloody battles among Level 4 Mages out in the world.

There were also some extremely rare Alchemy Materials—for example, a small vial of “Immortal Star Flame” sealed within a Holy Silver Bottle, annotated as suitable for refining the core components of a Level 5 Witchcraft Artifact.

Or three “Void Sea Shells” salvaged from different High Planes, said to be able to briefly open a random spatial rift when blown.

Vera’s gaze paused for a moment on those three Void Sea Shells, but quickly moved on.

She knew very well that no matter how tempting these things were, they were not the focus of this trip.

When the list was flipped to the later section, Duke’s fingertips halted.

Divine Fragment—Wind, Fire, Earth, Water, Light, Dark—six attributes, one piece for each.

Each had a brief description beside it. For example, the Fire Attribute one was said to be the core fragment left when the Divine Status of a fallen Fire God collapsed, its edges bearing natural Divine Patterns, capable of directly altering the concentration of Fire Element Rules within a region.

The Water Attribute one was marked as “core remnant of the Old Sea God,” its surface condensed with deep-blue moisture that would never evaporate.

The Light Attribute and Dark Attribute fragments were especially striking, their frames traced in silver thread by the Elves, with a note that the two were mutually repulsive in attribute and could not be stored in the same box.

Each Divine Fragment had a starting price beside it, the unit for all of them being “points.”

The lowest starting price was five million points.

Duke stared at the illustrations of those six Divine Fragments on the list, thinking. Divine Fragments were rarer and more precious than Rule Fragments.

For Duke, who aspired to condense a six-system Divine Status, this was almost the most direct path.

He certainly knew that relying on these fragments alone could not possibly let him leap the chasm from Level 3 to Level 4, but the fragments were bridges.

Without Divine Fragments, he could only hone all six Rules to an extremely high realm and then seek a breakthrough opportunity in some extreme environment.

With them, many paths that had been hazy would suddenly become clear.

“All six.” Vera had seen them too. She raised her head to look at him. “You want them all?”

Having known him for this long, Vera naturally was already aware that Duke walked more than one elemental path, though she still did not know just how deep this man’s concealment ran.

“As many as possible.” Duke said.

“Their starting prices together already exceed thirty million. The final hammer prices will only climb higher.” Vera calmly reminded him. “You have seventy-five million, which does put you in the lead. But if several factions join forces to target you, trying to bid for six items at once, you may not be able to secure them all.”

“At present, the highest total is Senior Helena, and the others each have just over ten million. If they intend to target me and fight me over these, it will indeed cause some trouble. But doing so would also cost them everything they have.” Duke mused.

He was not overly worried about others targeting him—for that, they needed enough capital in the first place.

Here, only points carried a voice.

The fireplace in the room had been burning for some time. Pale-golden flames danced gently within the carved hearth, filling the entire space with a soft, warm glow.

Duke locked the door, then used Spiritual Power to probe within and around the room. Once he was certain there was no potential threat, he finally took off his tight formal attire and stepped into the bathroom.