Chapter 66 Inter-Family Tournament
"Sure, that\'s possible, what else do you want?" asked Maelis, knowing that wasn\'t the only thing that he was going to be asking.
"I want to learn your technique, light armor, and the skill that I was about to learn when I decided to do the trial," said Aiden finding his demands to be quite fair.
In his mind, he knew his value and he thought that those demands respected what he was worth.
"Sure I can give you all that, anything else?" asked Mia, also finding those demands quite reasonable.
Hearing her ask if he was done made him think for a couple of seconds but he didn\'t find anything else to ask her.
"Yeah, I think that\'s about it."
As Aiden finished his answer, a contract seemed to appear out of nowhere, on it were some of his demands and the demands of this guild which didn\'t restrict his movements and even encouraged his freedom.
It seemed that the contract was already ready for him as they simply added his demands on it.
However, as he kept reading the contract he arrived at something that he wasn\'t quite sure to understand.
It was written that he would have to participate in the Inter-Family Tournament.
\'Is it the tournament that Ava mentioned when she disappeared in the reward room? She did say that we would meet again, but I didn\'t understand what she was talking about at the time maybe that was it,\' thought Aiden, starting to understand the meaning of the tournament that Ava mentioned.
Having absolutely no idea about what it was, Aiden immediately raised his head with a questioning gaze.
"What is this Inter-Family Tournament and why do I have to participate in it?" asked Aiden, wanting to know more about it to confirm his thoughts.
"You don\'t know about it?" said Maelis surprised but then she realized that he was part of the Slums and probably didn\'t have the opportunity to hear about it.
"It\'s quite simple, it\'s a tournament between the best talents of the families. You will surely participate in it as you will be our strongest Awakened if you decide to join us. This tournament is held every five years and it is quite the attraction as everyone comes over to watch the winner of it."
"And don\'t worry, you won\'t participate for nothing, you will get great rewards if you perform well in it," said Maelis when she noticed the face of Aiden who didn\'t seem too happy about this news.
However, the emotions that came off the face of Aiden weren\'t because of the reasons that Maelis was thinking.
Aiden was actually thinking about the Nightshade and if they were going to participate in the tournament which caused him to ask a question to Maelis.
"Are the founding families participating?"
Noticing that Aiden hadn\'t been relieved by her mention of rewards, she knew that there was something else that didn\'t make him too happy about participating.
\'Maybe he doesn\'t want to reveal his talent? But why?\' thought Maelis, not understanding his motive, but she quickly removed those thoughts from her mind as she was only speculating and answered Aiden to the best of her capacities.
"Yes, the founding families will participate and they will probably win as usual since they have the most resources and techniques out of all the families."
Aiden wasn\'t surprised by the fact that the founding families were obviously dominating over the rest of the families.
But, the real problem was that participating in the tournament would reveal to the Nightshade family his talent and his existence.
After all, Emily, Aiden\'s maid would probably soon arrive at his little house in the slums and find out that he wasn\'t there anymore and that he had disappeared.
The Nightshade probably wouldn\'t react over the disappearance of their useless son but they would probably try to get some information about him since they would nothing about what happened to him.
"Then, can I not participate?" asked Aiden, not wanting the Nightshade to learn about him.
"What? Why? Didn\'t you hear me, you are going get many rewards simply by participating," said Maelis, not quite understanding his reasons.
But, how could she?
She didn\'t know anything about the origins of Aiden, or else who knew what she might do.
"I just don\'t want to participate, can I?"
"I guess you can not participate but if it\'s about your identity and not wanting to reveal it to others, you don\'t need to worry about it," said Maelis as she was almost convinced that was the reason that Aiden didn\'t want to participate.
"Every time the tournament is held, some people go under anonymously not wanting to reveal their identity to others."
"Seriously, I can go anonymously?" asked Aiden, as he understood that his problem was going to be fixed.
"Yes, so if you go anonymously there won\'t be any problem?" asked Maelis relieved to hear that.
After all, going far into the tournament would give her family fame and also rewards as they will have the merit of developing this awakened.
Winning the tournament might give her the power to reach high-level families.
Because to become a high-level family, one needed to have high-ranking techniques and also three members that are over level 50.
·ƈθm One of those conditions was already met but the other wasn\'t.
That\'s why she hoped that this tournament would help them in many ways.
Aiden quickly nodded at the question of Maelis not revealing why he didn\'t want his identity to be revealed to anyone.
He simply let her get ideas about it as it would be simpler that way.
"So, when is that tournament going to take place?" asked Aiden as he still didn\'t know the date and stuff like that.
After all, he needed to make sure not to be in a trial when the Inter-Family took place.
He didn\'t want to not respect his contract since the punishment for it was quite severe, he would get stripped of his status as an awakened if he didn\'t respect the terms.
It wasn\'t difficult to respect the terms since they only had one demand which was for him to be at the tournament.