Since Dyon couldn't figure out what it was about him that cause the Soul Rending Peak elder to be so surprised, he let it be. He wasn't a fan of making conjectures when he didn't have enough evidence to do so, doing something like that would be akin to putting on blinders that might cause you to miss the truth when you truly came across it.
Instead, Dyon casually studied the white-haired beauty along with the dark elf. He was the most interested in Asyna because he could feel something inside himself throbbing with recognition.
Considering Dyon's wife was an Elvin Princess, it wasn't hard to guess what it was, but there was another possibility. The Ancient Elvin manifestation techniques were actually a method of altering your bloodline into an Elvin one... Could it be that this elf was from one of the three ancient Elvin clans?
Obviously, she wasn't from the Acacia family. But, that still left two other possibilities...
Either way, Dyon knew something else: this was definitely the woman who was observing him earlier, and since he could sense her, she could definitely sense him.
'This just got a little more complicated... Who are these girls and why are they here... Their talent would be enough to stand at the peak of even the top 3 quadrants, let alone this poor 98th ranked one...'
In the skies, Lilith pretended to not notice Dyon at all. When RolRol and Asyna came to find her, she had assumed they were speaking nonsense just to defy her orders. However, seeing what they were talking about first hand let Lilith know that there was more to this young man than what met the eye.
In her life, there were very few men who dared to leer at her, and in her experience, they were all the best of best geniuses. In the martial world, powerful women weren't so easily pursued. Without the proper power to do so, one would simply be running into their deaths. So, to Lilith, the fact that Dyon's head was the only one looking up meant one of two things: either he was incredibly stupid, or incredibly strong.
Now, if Asyna's analysis was correct, Lilith might tend toward believing the latter. However, the question was 'strong in relation to what?'. Dyon might have an overblown ego, enough to foster a Presence that allowed him to believe he stood on equal footing with the four of them, but whether or not that was actually true was another matter entirely. After all, the competition in the 98th quadrant, or the supposed 74th quadrant he originated from, wasn't exactly fierce.
In the end, this meant little to Lilith. Although Asyna and RolRol's speculations were enough to cause her to raise an eyebrow, from what Lilith could tell, this young man didn't have enough power to defeat Asyna even while she was suppressed, let alone enough to disrupt their plans.
That said, Lilith still decided to take this a bit seriously. She had been given a very important task by her Nightmare Palace and her royal father. In these circumstances, she couldn't allow underestimation to be the reason why their plans failed. So, when Asyna came begging and pleading to be allowed to fight Dyon, she directly agreed.
If Dyon didn't place first, he would hardly be worth their time. If he did place first but couldn't defeat Asyna, he still wouldn't be worth their time. It was as simple as that.
As for Evangeline's interest in the young man, Lilith didn't think twice about it. After spending that past couple weeks with the woman, Lilith had come to understand her personality. She was simply kind to everyone. In all likelihood, she probably naively spoke to Dyon in order to stop those rowdy disciples behind them from attacking him directly.
This made Lilith slightly disdain Evangeline. She simply didn't believe that a woman should be so soft and kind hearted, nor so devoted to the strictly written stereotypes of their gender. Lilith had always been cold and ruthless, just like her father before her. Being soft was just asking to get taken advantage of.
As Lilith was thinking to herself, their seats were arranged.
Seeing that the organization had concluded below, Evangeline took this moment to speak a few words.
"I'm happy to see so many willing participants this year." She smiled lightly. "On behalf of the Soul Rending Peak master, I want to take this opportunity to apologize to you all."
The crowd was shocked by her words and began to murmur amongst themselves. Apologize? For what?
"Without prior deliberation, we unilaterally changed the rules of this assessment. This isn't usually how my Soul Rending Peak would do things, but I believe you all deserve some compensation for the trouble we've put you through.
"With the power given me as the Vice Master of Soul Rending Peak, I would like to formally double the size of disciples that will be accepted this year."
When the participants heard this, they were overwhelmed with joy. Evangeline was truly the goddess of their 98th quadrant!
"We'll be taking 180 outer disciples instead of 90. 18 inner disciples instead of 9. And 2 core disciples instead of 1.
"I would also like to extend those who will unfortunately be unable to take part in this provision an extra attempt at joining my Soul Rending Peak. Usually one would only be allowed 3, but I've decided to strike this from your attempt total, thus effectively giving you four.
"I wish you all the best of luck."
After the jubilation of Vice Master Evangeline's words died down, Dyon found himself standing at the edge of a platform, standing in line with nine other individuals.
They had been split into 256 groups of about 9 or 10 each. The goal was to end with a single winner while the only rule was that any victor had to have been, in whole or in part, responsible for the disqualification of at least three other participants.
The reasoning was fairly obvious. They wanted an easily usable elimination pool. After the first elimination of the fourth round, the round following this one, those 128 eliminated participants would fight it out for the 72 remaining outer disciple spots.
Because of Evangeline's rule change, it was no longer possible to have all groups occurring at once. So, for the sake of entertainment, the happened in groups of ten. Whether by coincidence or design, Dyon's group wouldn't be going until the final 6 remained.
At some time, Violet had made her way to the group of core disciples behind Evangeline and the three beauties. Much to the added anger of those disciples, her eyes, along with Asyna's, seemed to never leave Dyon, as though they were determined to examine his every movement.
What made things worse was that Evangeline would often look over as well. If it wasn't for RolRol's shyness and Lilith's aloofness, they would probably be looking too. Neither the participants, nor the crowd, nor the disciples understood just what was so great about Dyon character.
Of course, that was only the men. The women could very clearly understand. Although many of them were disappointed after Dyon's 7th grade talent reveal â€" since a weak handsome man meant nothing in the martial world â€" after seeing his title potential, the matter had changed entirely. Suddenly, Dyon's appearance and his future prospects perfectly aligned with one another.
That said, this had nothing to do with why Lilith and Evangeline were interested in Dyon. Lilith was only concerned about the threat Dyon posed, and although he was among the most handsome men she had ever seen, that had no effect on her heart at all. As for Evangeline, although her thoughts were unknown, it was certain that an elder of her stature, especially after living so long, would never see a junior in such a light.
The only exceptions were Asyna and Violet, who very clearly had something that made Dyon's lust light on fire in their eyes. However, he tried his best to temper it down. He didn't like the idea of his body ruling his mind... But, without his soul, it was becoming more and more difficult to rein himself in.
When Dyon thought back to the pain he put Ri in just to satisfy his own lust, he became pissed off with himself again. Coupled with how angry he was about that girl who got taken away for her soul talent, and no one was too eager to stand within his vicinity.
As the crowd and Dyon thought about these various things, the battles had already gotten underway.
