Professor C closed his eyes slightly, and his voice was full of exhaustion. "Fat man, you take Yavi to settle down first. I will report to the board of directors and see if I can negotiate for some more conditions."
Peter nodded solemnly. "I'll come find you after I've settled this kid." He turned around and patted Yavi on the shoulder, "Let's go."
Yavi stood still, his throat tight. "Professor... you must take care of yourself." His voice was so soft that it was almost inaudible.
"I'm not that fragile yet." Professor C waved his hand and turned to the direction of the sun again, "Go ahead and let me, an old man, bask in the sun quietly for a while." His figure looked particularly thin in the halo.
When following Peter through the corridor, Yavi's footsteps were extremely heavy. They came to the affairs office first, and Peter handled various procedures skillfully.
"Special handling for special circumstances." Peter said to the clerk, tapping his fingers on the parchment, "Arrange a private room for him."
When Yavi finally came to his room, he found that it was a small and cozy space: a single bed, an oak desk, and an unknown green plant on the windowsill. The sunlight filtered through the gauze curtains, casting soft light spots on the floor.
"Remember," Peter said seriously as he stood at the door, "Don't leave Emerald Wing until you pass the review. Your identity... is very sensitive." He hesitated, and then added, "Get a good rest, tomorrow will be the real test."
As the door gently closed, Yavi slowly sat on the edge of the bed. He stared at his trembling hands, and Professor C's skinny face kept appearing in his mind. Outside the window, there was a faint explosion in the direction of Crimson Flame Wing in the distance, but his world seemed to have fallen into deathly silence.
That night, Yavi was tossing and turning. Whenever he closed his eyes, Professor C's rickety figure would appear in front of his eyes; when he opened his eyes, he had to face the unknown fate. He originally thought that his growth over the years had been strong enough to control his own life, but reality dealt him a heavy blow - in the face of real power, he was just a leaf of duckweed fluttering in the storm.
This feeling of powerlessness at the mercy of others made Yavi feel like a ray of light on his back. He stared at the lines on the ceiling, and his fingers unconsciously clenched the sheets tightly. Just as his thoughts were surging, a light tap broke the silence.
"Yavi, it's time to go." Peter's iconic funny voice came from outside the door, "Loriess also arrived last night."
Yavi opened the door, with no trace of emotion on his face. He silently followed Peter's footsteps and walked through the corridor shrouded in morning mist.
"You are calmer than I thought." Peter looked at Yavi sideways, "When most people face this kind of situation... uh... they will be a little..." He made an exaggerated trembling movement.
"Just like you said," Yavi replied calmly, "Accept what cannot be changed and change what can be changed."
Peter burst out laughing, but did not answer. The footsteps of the two echoed in the empty corridor.
The grand door of the Garstang Palace is in front of you. Several warlocks in dark blue robes have been waiting for a long time. The leader is a sorceress with a stern face, and she looks Yavi up and down with her sharp eyes.
"Is this the Yavi?" Her voice was as sharp as an ice blade.
Peter curled his lips. "Susan Auntie, there's no need to put up such a big fight, right? Are you still afraid that I'll run away with him?"
The sorceress's face instantly darkened. "Damn fat man, keep your bad mouth in check!"
Peter laughed in an even more exaggerated and funny tone. Under the angry gaze of the sorceress, they were "escorted" by everyone into a circular conference room. Under the circular dome, twelve high-backed chairs were arranged in a ring, and a solemn-looking sorcerer sat on each chair. The moment Yavi stepped in, all eyes were focused on him.
An oppressive sense of solemnity filled the circular conference hall. Yavi's eyes quickly swept across the twelve high-level warlocks - except for Professor C sitting on the right and Loriess on the left, the rest were all unfamiliar faces. Professor C gave him an almost imperceptible look of encouragement, while Loriess nodded slightly with no expression on his face.
Behind twelve high-backed chairs, dozens of warlocks were sitting around in a staircase. Their whispering voices echoed strangely under the dome, like countless poisonous snakes hissing. Yavi could clearly feel the scrutinizing eyes, some curious, some contemptuous, and some full of hostility.
When the Warlock Warlock signaled him to walk to the center of the ring, Yavi's pace was unusually steady. The moment Peter sat down, the entire conference hall suddenly fell into darkness, with only a dazzling white light falling from the sky, covering Yavi.
Under the strong light, Yavi squinted his eyes, but remained calm. He slowly looked around and engraved every face into his memory - the old man with a goatee had a calculating light in his eyes; the middle-aged sorceress wearing silver-rimmed glasses was writing quickly on the parchment with a quill pen; and...
His eyes unconsciously stayed on an elf woman. Even among many high-level warlocks, her existence was like the bright moon in the dark night - her long silver-white hair shone like pearls, her pointed ears loomed from the hair, and her emerald eyes were unfathomable. When their eyes met briefly, the elf frowned slightly, and then stopped looking at Yavi.
"Yavi Morgan." An old voice came from the shadows, "Because he used magic in the war between Kovir and Poviss, which seriously affected the direction of the war, and captured Poviss's senior generals and royal family members through magic, causing serious losses to Poviss, he is now being tried."
The air in the conference hall seemed to have solidified. As the sorceress pronounced her sentence, countless eyes wandered back and forth between Sicco Jett, Loriess and Yavi, cutting through the silence like sharp blades.
"Since no warlock organization is willing to recognize Yavi Morgan's identity," the sorceress's cold voice echoed under the dome, "Then let's move on to the second agenda. Are there five warlocks willing to guarantee him and make him the apprentice of the Aretuza Academy?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Professor Sicco Jett stood up tremblingly, and slapped his skinny palms heavily on the table. Then Loriess also stood up expressionlessly, his long black hair glowing coldly under the magic light. Peter sighed, slowly pushed away the chair and stood up straight.
Just when everyone thought that was the end, a man in a black robe slowly stood up in the back row. Yavi had never seen this person before - he had a back as black as ink, pale and almost transparent skin, and a pair of bottomless eyes. The man stood straight and straight, like an unsheathed sword, which was incompatible with the loose-robed warlocks around him.
"Four." The sorceress's voice was emotionless, "There is still one more to go."
Peter winked at a red-haired sorceress and winked exaggeratedly. The other person just shook her head slightly and turned her face away. Sicco Jett's sharp eyes scanned every sorcerer he had come into contact with before, but those sorcerers were either lowering their heads to study their nails or pretending to be interested in the ceiling.