"Teacher Ning, why are you lying about your name?" Ender whispered while they were moving towards the living.
"I have some circumstances that need me to keep my name hidden," Ning said.
"Oh, and also, why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be in the ceremony?" he asked.
"I left early," Ning said with a smile.
"Oh, thank god you did. I hear quite a large massacre took place in the ceremony afterward. The crown prince tried to forcefully take the throne and was killed," Ender said.
"You haven't heard anything else?" Ning asked in surprise.
"Umm… no? That's all father told me from what he was reported," Ender said. "He was about to tell me more, but…" Ender turned towards Bradley and hinted that they were interrupted.
Ning understood and smiled.
Bradley reached the living room first and said, "Oh wow, look at your servants, prepping snacks for me before I even arrived. At least you are doing something right, uncle."
"Come, Sister Ely. I have a lot to talk about with you," he said and sat in the very middle of the seat.
'No wonder the father tried to send her away. He's just so… annoying,' Ning thought.
"By the way, how is business going, Nephew Bradley?" the father asked.
"It's fine. I don't know what we are doing, but it only seems to grow," Bradley said. "Anyway, Sister Ely. When are you leaving that Academy?"
Ember Rigot sighed when he saw his one attempt to distract Bradley away from his daughter didn't work.
"I'm not leaving the academy. It's one of the best places in the entire empire, nay the entire continent. Why would I leave such a place?" Eleonora asked angrily.
"But… it's just a school to make workers. You don't need to do that. You are the lady of a… house. If you were to become the lady of a bigger house in the future, you could easily afford to employ those people. You don't need to waste time learning and teaching. Let the others do that," Bradley said.
Ember and Ender got a little scared when they heard that and slowly turned to look towards Eleonora.
They knew for ages that she was very into making artifacts and no one could get her to stop making them. She would even get extremely angry if someone tried to stop her.
Knowing all of that, they started to fear for Bradley's life.
Eleonora didn't get angry, however. Instead, she gave a mocking smile and asked, "If I'm wasting my time learning and teaching, then what would you say is a good use of my time?"
"You should cultivate and become strong. That way, if there is ever a time you get attacked like in the academy, you can easily defeat the attackers."
"Look at me, I'm already at Nascent Soul 4th realm, and I did it just at the age of 400 years. I'm one of the youngest ones in the Empire to reach this level of cultivation base so early."
"You are so young and already in the 1st Nascent Soul realm at just around 300 years. If you go into closed cultivation for a few years, or even a century, you will surely come out around the same cultivation base as me," Bradley said.
Ning chuckled lightly from the side. 'So he thinks she's weak, huh? Has she not revealed her cultivation base outside of that one time she threatened me?' Ning wondered. However, he stopped when he realized something the man had just said.
'Wait, Singeer said that too… but that doesn't make sense,' Ning thought.
"Teacher Eleonora, are you really not even 300 years old?" Ning asked.
"Hey, don't butt into our conversation, silver," Bradley said.
Eleonora looked to the side confused and said, "Yes, I will be 3 centuries old in a few years. Why?"
Ning fell silent for a while and answered, "I'm more than 500 years old by now."
"Hah, so old and still at the 1st realm of Nascent Soul. No wonder you are still only a silver. You can't reach up to Sister Ely's position in a lifetime," Bradley said while shaking his head.
Ely ignored Bradley for a second and focused on why Ning was surprised. But then she realized.
"Wait… but we should have been—"
"Stop speaking," Bradley suddenly said. "My father is trying to communicate with me."
He took out his talisman, regardless of what the people around were saying, and started talking into his talisman.
"We'll talk about this later," Ning said.
"I said SHUT IT, silver," Bradley shouted. Then, he focused on the talisman while speaking loudly.
"Yes, father. Yes. No, I didn't return. I instead came to uncle Ember's house— Yes, Broken Soul city. Haha, Sister Ely is here too, so I was quite lucky. Oh, you will? Sure."
Then he put down the talisman.
"My father says he wants to come here, Uncle," Bradley said.
"Oh, Brother Tyander is coming? That's a surprise. Although I expected him to stay back at the Capital due to what had happened," Ember said.
"Sigh, I guess my old man is scared that there might be something else happening there again soon. Also, he says that Prince Kindley's coronation date has been set for a week later from today, so he will need to stay close by to return there in time," Bradley said.
"Huh? Wait, what? The Emperor is giving up the throne so soon? I thought he could go on for many years," Eleonora said as she had been the only one to not hear anything about today's events. "Also, wait Prince Kindley? But the crown prince is prince Badel."
"Oh right, due to nephew Bradley's arrival I forgot to give you the important news from today," Ember said.
"Apparently, in today's medal giving ceremony, the crown prince attacked the emperor with all of his people. This included the Emperor's shadow guard, normal guards, and even some family head."
"Wait, a coup?" Eleonora asked.
"Yes, but an unsuccessful one. They would have succeeded if not for the person from your academy that was there to take the medal. They say he singlehandedly killed everyone in the coup, just like he did with the intruders in the academy," Ember said.
"This teacher named Ning Ruogong."
