Arthur's expression became grim, being shouted by an Arch ranked was an insult to him, the problem is that if he did anything Aura was sure to stop him anyway, also it was a well-known thing that Ulises Argent has more balls than brain so there was no use in complaining.
"Argent matriarch, tell your subordinate to watch his mouth, this isn't a third-rate brothel but the Wild Claw academy", still he had to say something to keep his face, especially because the other half emperors were just waiting for an excuse to speak behind his back.
Aura saw Arthur trying to make himself look refined while if not for the place he would have definitely attacked Ulises, and she smirked.
"Why didn't you act this "sensitive" back then when you called the young generation of my Argent family trash?".
Arthur was livid, he simply snorted and stopped paying attention to Ulises, but inwardly he poisonously yelled.
'I will remember this Aura, Ulises, a hundred years isn't too much for a gentleman to take his revenge!'.
Daimon which was feeling interested in Reiner's fight, injected mana into his eyes so that he could see through the fire dome.
"Leslie, that guy is related to your father, right?", he asked while seeing what was happening inside the fire dome.
"Mm", it took her a second, but Leslie nodded, Jester is part of the same family branch as her father, which makes him her cousin.
"Then why is his fighting style so different to yours?".
This time Veronica which was just arriving along with Anya and Irina, took the initiative to answer.
"That's because he isn't using the techniques that have been passed down from ancient times in our fire crane clan, but ones that were created just a few generations ago by Kirik's family branch".
"Why the hell would one do that?", asked Calvin as he frowned, the Risha family might not have a Half Emperor, but they aren't pushovers by any means, in fact you could say that they are better than some families which do have them, in some aspects.
The records of their family go back quite a bit, a couple of thousand years more than most families at least, of course having the notes and techniques doesn't equal to being able to master them, but their potential is quite big, Richard didn't become the most respected instructor in the army for nothing after all, he is the one that has managed to comprehend the most from the records of the Night Sparrow clan.
Leslie took out her fan which had some metal instead of feathers here and there and pointed at it as he explained.
"It's because our traditional techniques have some requirements, a "soft" weapon and agility are the basics, also for amateurs the performance isn't any special compared to other modern techniques".
Veronica shook her head before hugging her daughter from behind.
"That's only half right, but since my little Leslie wants it to be a surprise for her "Hero", I won't say a thing~".
"Mom!", Leslie pouted knowing her mother was teasing her.
Daimon looked at Leslie's fan and he formed his own theories, but there was no point in guessing, their tournament started tomorrow, and since he told them to utterly destroy their opponents, then they would need to fight seriously.
'Now that I think about it, I haven't seen anyone of them giving their all', he thought, although Michael showed his movement technique, knowing that his master is the renowned "Lightning Assassin", there is no way that was the only card up his sleeve.
He also couldn't help but steal a gaze at Calvin and Aleah, although Aleah treated Calvin as her subordinate, she never called him "herbivore", so considering his master is that strange old monstrous grandfather, he was also hiding something.
Anyway, for the time being Daimon put the subject at the back of his mind and focused his attention on the platform.
Inside the fire dome Jester kept shooting fire balls and other kinds of attacks towards Reiner, just to swear as he dodged or parried every one of them, ultimately, he decided to suffocate Reiner.
Using what was left of his mana, he raised fire walls to surround Reiner and increased the heat as much as he could, to the point that even he started to sweat due to the high temperature.
"Muscle heads are always hard to deal with, now stay there and become a fried dog…".
The words in Jester's mouth nearly made him choke when he saw all his fire started slowly rotating, the dome itself was being sucked in, by the strong twister that suddenly increased its force.
Jester couldn't do anything but watch horrified, how the dome was broken into smaller flames which were then redirected by the wind upwards, but what truly made him despair was that besides some patches of slightly burned skin, which were healing at a visible ratio, Reiner was perfectly fine.
"H-How can it be… you must be cheating; referees he has an item which protects himself against my flames!".
Jester finally couldn't keep it together, he purposedly created the walls of fire far from him, so that the oxygen near Reiner would be consumed before, the flames should have heated up the air to the point that breathing would be a torture for his lungs and yet, he looked so calm as the twister on the left side of his body kept liberating his flames upwards.
"Cheating huh… I guess for a loser like you it might look like that", said Reiner as he craned his neck.
"I was well aware that fire was my weakness, that's why I trained a whole year so that I would become able to endure higher temperatures to the point that I burned my skin at least a couple of hundreds of times, the second weakness was that fire mages would always try to suffocate a wind affinity knight, since the amount of wind we can manipulate isn't as big as a wind mage".
"So, I just needed to increase the amount of time I could hold my breath, I fainted a lot of times at the beginning, but I managed to train myself to not breath for about five minutes… fighting you is just a formality, I surpassed you a long time ago".
After saying that Reiner's image flashed, before Jester could react, all the wind gathered in the tip of Reiner's index and middle finger, before he liberated everything in one go as soon as his fingers made contact with Jester.
"Twister Breaker!".
Jester's eyes rolled back; blood spewed out of his mouth as his body rolled while being dragged away by a huge horizontal twister.
A loud whistling sound and an explosion echoed through the place as Jester was sent flying out of the platform, the referees prevented him from turning into minced meat against the wall of the arena, but even then, due to the momentum his body made a loud sound of impact against the mana of the referees.
Reiner stood there on the platform while heavily breathing, the nails of his index and middle fingers were a bloody disaster, he turned them into claws in the last second but they still exploded due to the pressure of the wind.
The referees inspected Jester's condition, there were cuts all over his body but no one was lethal, there was blood coming from his mouth and ears, probably due to the pressure his eardrums exploded which made him faint.
Although he looked miserable and was going to need a lot of medical attention, there was no threat to his life nor permanent damage, so the referees jumped into the platform and gave their verdict.
"The winner, Reiner Argent!".
As expected, the crowd went crazy, one of the members of the top ten was replaced, also Reine's story about how he overcame the natural weakness of a wind knight, was quite inspiring too.
At the seats for honored guests, some of the half emperors were casually chatting about the previous match, even the field marshal said a few words of compliment, the only one who didn't seem to be in the mood to exchange courtesy words was none other than Arthur.
"Pretty impressive, what a shame the Argent below the Lord realms have it tough at the moment of advancing, or that kid might have been a decent opponent for Samuel".
Listening to Arthur's condescending tone, Aura frowned but ultimately a small smirk appeared in the corner of her mouth as she replied.
"Words are cheap, if you have that much confidence into that nephew of yours, how about we make a bet?".
Arthur felt the gazes of all the other half emperors focusing on him and he gritted his teeth, to be honest even he wasn't confident that his son and nephew would win, but how could he retract now, so while imagining Erin's disdainfully smiling at him for falling into an obvious trap he nodded.
"Fine, how about one million mana crystals?".
Aura shrugged as she laid back on her seat again.
"Forget it, if the Jolbaris have so low funds to the point that they can't even make a decent bet, then….".
"Count me in for the bet Argent matriarch, one million mana crystals for the Jolbaris youths", Lars suddenly stepped in for Arthur, but to his surprise Aura shook her head.
"Two million mana crystals aren't worth enough, it's my two disciples the ones fighting after all".
Lars turned to see his friend Maxim and Lydia trying to get them to join the bet, Lydia completely ignored them, she already paid for a spot so she didn't want to get involved in Lars schemes.
Maxim on the other hand inwardly sighed as he raised the bet.
"I will participate too, is three million mana crystals still not enough for you, Argent matriarch?".
Aura yawned, for a half emperor one million mana crystals is nothing, those three were simply trying to bet low in case they lost, but she was decided to make them bleed.
"Make it fifty middle ranked mana crystals and we have a deal, otherwise you better recognize here and now that you are afraid of my disciple beating your son to a pulp".
Arthur felt his heart stopping for a split of a second, although middle ranked mana crystals are still within what can be bought in the market with some connections, each one of them has an approximate price of one hundred thousand low mana crystals and there is an extra fee if you want to buy them with low ranked mana crystals, in other words Aura wanted them to practically double their bet, but at this point he didn't care anymore.
"Fine, but I will add my own condition, they have to be new", said Arthur as he inwardly snorted.
Aura nodded, while she stole a gaze at the skybox of the elite class, her eyes glowed for a second which allowed her to see through Erin's dak curtain, just to see her smiling at her.
'This tournament is quite lucrative', she thought.
