[Special thanks to Superdee for gifting RNIG with a Dragon Gift :) Everyone can thank them for this bonus chapter!]
Dyon grinned even as boos rained down from the surrounding crowd.
Thadius' uproarious laughter nearly drowned it all out as he heavily patted Dyon's shoulder.
"I like your style successor. Both the sign and your wives, well done."
With a smile, Dyon gently laid Delia to rest on one of the heavily cushioned beds then motioned for everyone to enjoy.
Ri and Madeleine, much to Dyon's sadness, completely ignored him and left to tend to Delia. Venus seemed like she would ingratiate herself well with them, so Dyon could only let it be.
"Tell me successor," Thadius leaned in and whispered into Dyon's ear, "how do you keep two at once? Ronica doesn't seem to mind, but River won't let me live it down. She won't even talk to me anymore!"
Dyon's breath got caught in his throat, causing him to cough until tears came from his eyes.
Seeing this, Eli began laughing heartily. For the first time in a long time, everything seemed perfect.
That said, he still turned a worried gaze toward Delia, something Dyon didn't miss. "You should be the first person she sees when she wakes up." Dyon playfully nudged at Eli.
Hearing this, Arios and Thadius both raised eyebrows as though something juicy was happening.
Eli blushed profusely. "What are you saying! The princ – I mean Delia is too good for me."
Dyon grinned, wrapping his arms around Eli's shoulders. "You might want to think carefully about that."
Eli blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Let's just say that…" Dyon turned a sly eye toward Delia's sleeping figure. "After Delia's change is complete, there might be seven beauties instead of six. I only want the best for my friend."
"Delia can't possibly get more beautiful!" Eli protested.
Ri, Madeleine and Venus looked up in confusion.
"Eh – " Eli covered his mouth quickly, hoping they didn't hear him.
"It's settled then." Dyon grinned. He knew that Eli didn't care about something like how beautiful Delia was in comparison to others. After all, Eli had spent years traveling to Patia-Neva peak, at Focus Academy, to see Delia. How could he not have seen Madeleine in all that time? And yet, Eli had fallen for Delia.
Dyon hardly cared about such things either. He had been fully willing to take Ri as his wife before he was even aware of how beautiful she was.
The reason, though, he had brought up Delia's beauty was to hint at something entirely different. Ri, Madeleine and Delia all had one thing in common: they each had a God level constitution amongst the top three.
Madeleine became a world-renowned beauty with the partial awakening of her constitution, although that then led to her sickness. But, she became even more of a beauty after it was fully awakened.
Ri became a beauty worthy of rivaling Madeleine as soon as her constitutions stopped conflicting with each other.
And now? Delia's constitution was about to fully awaken… The end result was clear.
Maybe it was less important than the power given by a constitution, but, the ranking of female God level constitutions often linked with their beauty. This was, of course, evolutionary. They were by definition the peak of what a female could be, born with peak level constitutions. As such, every aspect of them also reached that level of perfection.
This also explained why Elves were such an inherently beautiful race of people. Even their weakest were already born with Earth level bodies – something humans could never match. Normal human blood lines, that is.
Faith seeds didn't work like this. That was because faith seeds were the product of cultivation. Although they did have profound benefits to the body, they didn't fundamentally influence one's genetic code. After all, faith seeds were external power sources from past peak experts.
What did this mean in the end? It meant that the most beautiful women in the cultivation world were also the most powerful. Having won the genetic lottery, their Earth, Heaven and God level constitutions gave them advantages no one else had.
And even further? This meant that Dyon would have to pay extra attention to the strongest beauty in this universe... Saru Shruti.
"Will she wake up before the next round?" Eli asked softly.
"Doesn't matter. I'll take her through the next round no matter what. I know this tournament is important to her, so I can't allow her to lose because someone thinks they can lord over her life."
Madeleine looked up. After Eli's outburst, they had started to pay more attention to what was going on, on the "boys" side of the luxurious living room type area. "What happened?"
"I think I have a small idea," Ri answered. "Delia's father sent me a message saying that she would be fine and that he'd prevent future attacks on her mind. It seems as though he knows who the enemy is, but allowed Delia to be attacked as a trial."
"So it's the Clyte…" Dyon and Madeleine said in unison. They were both fully aware of who Delia's enemies were. But, what they didn't understand were Patia-Neva's actions. Neither had any way of knowing how powerful he was, let along why he'd try to hide something like that.
"The Clyte?" Eli asked.
Dyon remained silent, allowing Madeleine to answer. "Focus Academy was formed while I was still with the main Sapientia branch. But, I still know a few things because of my father.
"When Patia-Neva made the move to create the academy, he didn't hide himself at all. In fact, he even allowed a Kami branch family to be a pillar of the academy, who are obviously a clan originally from Planet Naiad, where the Clyte are from. That said, maybe the most glaring evidence of this is the fact he never changed his last name like the Storm family did.
"Being part of the Sapientia family, my father was privy to information many weren't, especially because of my step mother. So, he immediately made the connection between the recent destruction of the Patia-Neva clan and the appearance of Head Patia-Neva.
"When my father asked Head Patia-Neva about this, he didn't try and hide it at all. He expressed that he had enmity with the Clyte God Clan and that he had lost his lover as a consequence.
"Because Patia-Neva was so honest, the pillar families decided to remain in the Focus Alliance. Well, it wasn't so simple, actually. The main reason was because attacking the clans and sects of another planet is highly taboo. Which meant that if Patia-Neva was ever found out, it would be him alone who suffered and the rest of Focus Academy would be left alone so as to minimize any noticeable impact.
"However, there was always quite a few odd things about Patia-Neva's actions, even aside from the fact that it didn't seem as though he was truly hiding.
"For one, there was the location he built Focus Academy on. The ruins of the Celestial Deer Sect had been a pseudo taboo area for quite a long time until Patia-Neva came.
"The second was the central pillar library and the masterful arrays Focus Academy had access to. For example, the creation array that was used at the opening ceremony and the teleportation array to the Elvin Kingdom. Patia-Neva always brushed these off as having been left by the previous Celestial Deer Sect, but the problem still remains that they shouldn't have been so intact. If they had been, why hadn't they been taken by someone else instead of being left to such a weak academy?
"And also, the books in the central pillar library. It didn't make sense for them to exist. Dyon has probably told you all some version of this story at some point, but the Celestial Deer Sect was completely sealed. So, how did Patia-Neva gather books from them?"
Dyon's brain churned more and more quickly as he listened to Madeleine's words. As soon as she mentioned the teleportation array to the Elvin Kingdom, his memory remembered something else.
There was not a single flaw in the teleportation array. And, come to think of it, there was not a single flaw in the creation array either. The level they were both at was something even the current Dyon couldn't put the most accurate gauge on…
But, it had been thousands of years since the destruction of the Celestial Deer Sect… No array should be able to last that long without maintenance. Even the Gates themselves closed down for a few months every year to repair themselves… So, the question was how?
How was it possible?...
