471 Discussion

As soon as they arrived, Alex and the others were led to a small meeting room to discuss the trial. They did not make this public since the queen wanted to see the other elders that had supported her this whole time.

There were around fifteen people inside the room, including Alex and Shelka… Kyle was there too but still hugged by the queen.

"As you might already know that Ellen is going to succeed the throne, she might be far younger than me, but her talent and knowledge are by no means below me. She might make a mistake, but please help her." The queen said to the elders.

"Of course, our queen." All of them bowed their heads.

On the contrary, Ellen could only watch her mother announcing while hugging a certain phoenix on her arms. As time passed, more and more people started glancing over and over on this little phoenix.

"Your Majesty. I am sorry for my rudeness, If I may ask, who is this gentleman?" One of the elders could not hold her curiosity for Kyle. Even the others stayed silent, hoping for an answer.

They had many questions such as 'Who is he?', 'Where does he come from?', 'Why are there a human and an elf here?' and so on. Yet, their biggest curiosity was the phoenix kid in her embrace.

Alex helped Kyle rebirth a few years ago. So, even his real age was unknown, the body was still those of a few years old and this baffled all the people.

Some of them thought he was the queen's child, some of them thought he was Ellen's partner and some of them even thought the queen had gone to a forbidden path. Unless the queen solved the misunderstanding, their thought would only become crazier.

Out of their absurd imaginations, they got the answer right as they heard the queen exclaimed. "He is my husband."

The room fell silent. Confused, baffled, perplexed. All of them filled the scene, but the most dominating one was a shock.

They froze like a statue out of shock.

"Mother. You should explain to them more clearly." Ellen sighed. She had a lot of stress after her mother asked her to succeed the throne. She wanted to help her mother in managing the race and had been learning under her for quite a while. But when the moment came for her to take the throne, she could only feel anxiety, not excitement.

"Look, she will be better than me after acquiring the experience as the queen." Stina smiled as she explained. "This is my husband. The same husband that had gone to another world in the past… he… finally come back."

"!!!" A few of the oldest ones had their bodies shaken as they could not believe what they just heard. "Your majesty, is that true?"

"Yeah." Stina nodded as she turned to Alex before explaining more.

Alex nodded his head, knowing what to do. He took the purple crystal out and said. "I, Alexander Sirius, challenge the Phoenix Trial for the crystal."

"!!!" The shock was running down their spines once again, "My Queen."

No one knew that the Human had recovered their crystal, but their answer came in the form of action. An orange crystal appeared in the middle of the room and pulled the purple crystal toward it. Before long, both crystals shone, approving the challenge.

The elders could say no more when they realized the trial had been approved.

As for Alex, his consciousness was teleported again into another world. He had experienced this when his crystal joined together with the Elven Crystal.

He saw the man who had phoenix wing and dragon wing on his back.

"Portal to Another World..." He said. It was more clear from the first one, but Alex could not understand a single thing. He asked, "Portal to Another World... do you mean the portal that connects this world to the Northern Continent?"

Sadly, he did not get his answer as the world vanished as he came back to his consciousness. No one noticed his change of expression, so the meeting continued as usual.

"This gentleman here is the benefactor of my husband. I don't know how they could get to this world, but it is a fact that I managed to reunite with my husband because of this. He does not have his memory though." Stina explained.

"Kyle said he wanted to go here though. He did not know why but something was calling him to go to this place." Alex added, trying to calm himself from the previous scene. Since the queen decided to go with him to another world, he thought it would be no problem to say this. She would become a powerful ally anyway.

Kyle became pale as he heard that statement, imagining what would happen after this. He looked at Alex with sad eyes. "Mast-"

Before he could even call Alex, he was choked by two arms. Stina was hugging Kyle as she expressed all her emotions to him. "Husband still cares about me. Even if you don't have a memory, you still don't forget me."

"Ahem… Your Majesty��� I think we need more explanation about this gentleman… There is even Princess Shelka from the Elven Kingdom here." One of the elders said.

"Ah." The queen realized she lost herself just now. She looked at them with a weird expression before taking a deep breath to calm herself down. "Anyway. Just say that he somehow has that crystal.

"However, for some reason, humanity has yet to know about this. And if my speculation is right, then he should have beaten the Elven Race trial. If not, then there is no way their Princess Shelka would accompany him." The queen said with sharp eyes.

"I am genuinely impressed. As expected of the queen of wisdom." Shelka smiled. "Yes. I am accompanying him on this journey. I believe he could beat all the trials."

"?!" The elders were shocked by her statement.

"I am also sure that he can finish the trial of our race. After all, his element is Pure Fire." The queen added.

"?!" The elders turned their heads to the queen again. All of them were sweating as they could not swallow all of these shocks at once.

"Your Majesty, please don't joke with us."

"I am not joking with you." Stina shook her head and turned to one of the elders. "Elder Arba, prepare the trial door and the ritual so we can enter the trial tomorrow. I shall explain the trial to him."

"Un-Understood. I shall prepare it immediately." The elder called Arba nodded and left the room.

She then looked at Alex with a serious expression. "Do you know why we are recording all the fire elements and bloodlines with those crystals?"

"!!!" Alex was enlightened by that question. He narrowed his eyes as he answered. "Trial."

"Yes. The trial will inquire about your bloodline and fire affinity. This will determine the difficulty of your trial as well as the place where you will finish your trial.

"For example, I had 95 points from the bloodline crystal back then. I was transported to a Phoenix Grave to complete my trial. Ah, you might be unfamiliar with this term. Basically, when a Phoenix dies, their blood will be absorbed back to the Earth and their soul will migrate. Actually, this is not the case.

"When a phoenix dies, we are transported to the Phoenix Grave. Our blood, our bones, and even our soul. After that, our blood and bones would remain in Phoenix Grave while our soul can choose whether to stay there or reincarnate.

"Anyway, back then, I absorbed some of the blood and increased my blood purity. However, there is a record where the door will transport you to a whole white world for the trial. This usually happens when someone does not have Phoenix Bloodline. So, I am more or less confident that you will be teleported there.

"Then there is another aspect which is Fire Affinity. This is a bit random, but I am sure it will test your will and perseverance.

"That's it. I can't tell you more than this as it would destroy the meaning of the ritual. However, I do have one piece of advice for you. One does not get stronger in an instant. It is a tedious but dangerous process and you can only tread it step by step."

"I know." Alex nodded while adding inwardly, 'A certain system taught me that already.'

[Your Welcome Host.]

'You know this is sarcasm, right?'

[Even pain is a certain form of love. Why can't sarcasm become a certain form of flirting?]

"..." Alex was dumbfounded.

"However, may I know how long it will take? I still need to do a few things." Alex asked.

"Is this related to the fox inside your body?" She asked while narrowing her eyes on the top of Alex's belly where Sherry stayed.

"Yes. If I am going to be away for a long time, I need to arrange a few things so she could keep progressing quickly." He answered.

"I see. I can lend you a courtyard for that. But because the fox is a Celestial Fox, I could not allow her to roam outside. I am afraid the other phoenixes would look at her with hostile eyes. After all, Celestial Fox is a beast that governs Fire if there is no Pure Fire."

The elders were dumbfounded.

"Your Majesty, what do you mean by Celestial Fox?"

"This human…"

They were afraid of a Celestial Fox as they were told that this being could even swallow a whole phoenix alive if they were disturbed. The queen shut them up with, "Say no more. It is under control. My husband even said she is a good elder sister to him, so why are you even afraid?"

"That is good enough for me. As long as she is not bothered, it should be fine." Alex nodded.

"It includes you, Princess Shelka." Alex turned his head to Shelka, noticing she had a weird smug.

"What do you mean, Sir Supreme?" Her body shook when she heard that. She just thought since Alex was hard to get, she could approach his pets first. But because Kyle was on the queen's hand, so she could only target the fox.

"She is very hostile to strangers. If she is disturbed, she might even rampage in this place and I am sure the Phoenixes won't like this. If you can't wait, then go back. I still can search for another way to get to another continent." Alex said. Of course, he also had another intent behind this. He wanted to summon Anya to take care of Sherry as well as Anna and the others.

Judging from her reaction when she heard Anya's voice in his room, he knew she was dangerous. For that reason, he wanted to keep her away. He couldn't care less about her life, he was much more afraid of exposing Anya and the others, making them be targeted by others, especially her.

In fact, if she went home, Alex would be more relieved since he did not need to be careful against her. She had served her purpose anyway.

"Kh…" She tried to say something, but it would only make her look bad. Ultimately, she could only say, "I will wait for you, Sir Supreme."

At the same time, she convinced herself. 'I can't rush here. The harder he is, the more satisfying I will get when he falls in love with me. Refrain… refrain…"

Meanwhile, Stina answered. "If it is about time, I am also clueless about it. It will depend on you and your trial. But I can say it will at least take two months."

"I see. Then I need to take your majesty's suggestion and borrow a courtyard." Alex nodded.

"Alright. Do you want to see the courtyard first?" She asked.

"If possible." He nodded again.

"Sure. I will lead you there before leading Princess Shelka to her own courtyard." Stina said before turning to the other elders, "Then, I hope all elders work like usual and assist Ellen in today's affairs."

"Yes, Your Majesty." They bowed.

She turned back to Alex. "This way."

After getting into his courtyard, Alex immediately drew a rank 5 Gathering Array for Sherry. The queen promised him that she would train Kyle, so Alex did not need to worry about him for the time being.

Anya and Sherry were having a meeting to come up with a plan to drive Shelka away. Sherry had been holding back this whole time to not appear and kick her.

Sadly, if Anna was here, they could put a curse on her like they did to Mega. That way, she would be stressed by all those nightmares and go home. Of course, since she was not an opponent, they would lift the curse if she decided to go back.

Alex only sighed as he waited for the trial. The queen said the gate would measure his true potential, so even if he hid the Pure Fire inside his Phoenix Seed, it would not change the trial. Because of this, he decided to release his Pure Fire immediately and waited for tomorrow.