Chapter 141 - Meeting

It was the next day and Cecil was currently training by himself in the bas.e.m.e.nt's training grounds. He was solely practicing his family martial arts, perspiration wetting his entire body.

Yuna was on the side gazing at the boy. She was intrigued at his peculiar way of training, much different than what she was used to. The dragons only needed to cultivate their mana and grow stronger in stages. As for close combat, they would rely on their innately strong body to crush their enemies.

"Wanna join Yuna? I can teach you." Cecil called out.

"Hm? No thanks, although I can see it'll be of great help, but I'm not a close combatant. Although I could fight to some degree, but I'd prefer using my magic."

Cecil nodded hearing this and focused back on his training. Not long after, Lucia called out to the two from the ground floor.

"Hey, you two~ Lunch is ready! The others are here as well! Cel, go and take a bath before you eat!"

"...your wife's calling." Yuna teased.

"Can it."

Cecil quickly finished his last set of movements. He took a towel and wiped off his sweat, Yuna had already gone up so he was left alone down in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

He spread his Mana Sense and sensed his other party members were already in the living room. Then he directed his sense into his body.

Cecil turned to take a look at the mana pathways on his body and smiled a little. He was trying to evolve his torso and abdominal region's mana pathways into mana circuits and he was using the same method he did with his legs.

It was excruciatingly painful, but Cecil found a way to alleviate this pain and that was by training and rotating his mana using his family's martial arts instead of using Mana Burst.

He limited the flow of mana only to the pathways in his body so he wouldn't overdraft his mana. Cecil saw that his pathways were slowly being baptized by his mana and transforming. It was slow, but steady.

At least he saw some progress and he didn't have to experience the torturous pain of overusing his pathways.

After he finished inspecting his body, Cecil walked up to the ground floor and quickly headed into the bath. The bath was already prepared and he took a quick dip.

"...she's acting like my mother..." Cecil mumbled while inside the bath. Ever since Lucia began living together with him under the same roof, the girl's been babying him. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all things she prepared, even his bath was already ready whenever he needed to go have one.

It was nice, but Cecil felt like Lucia was behaving more like a mother instead of his friend. Cecil did address this earlier today, but Lucia said that she wanted to do this. In exchange Cecil would be in charge of cleaning the house and going out to buy their groceries if they ever ran out.

Cecil shrugged and thought that it was an okay exchange so he let it be, but then Yuna began teasing him and calling Lucia his wife or something.

When he was done, Cecil quickly went towards the dining room and saw everyone was already eating together.

"Hey, Cecil, come eat!" Ainz said while stuffing himself with the pasta in front of him.

"Pasta?" Cecil said as he raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah! I finally figured how to make the noodles!"

"Woah... let me taste!"

"Come try it!"

Cecil quickly sat down and Lucia brought a plate of pasta for him. He quickly took a bite of it and he widened his eyes at the nostalgic taste.

"Wow... it's...it's the same!"

"Yay!" Lucia cheered, only she understood what Cecil been by the 'same'.

Cecil began to happily eat his meal and even Silver was wolfing down his food right next to him. Ainz was eating ravenously, but in a noble-like manner. The girls were also the same. It was a first for them, since they've never eaten pasta before.

The meal was great and everyone completely cleared all the food that Lucia made, they could only shower the cook with praise for the great and unique meal. The foxkin girl was always surprising them with new and strange cuisines every now and then.

"Okay, since we've finished eating... let's get the meeting started." Cecil said after seeing that everyone had finished eating and were all beginning to relax.

Everyone became serious at his words. Today they would be holding a meeting, since tomorrow was going to be the start of the Dueling Tournament and also the selections for the participants of the National Tournament.

"Ainz, did you get the info?"

"Yes, here it is. It's the bracket formations for all the fights happening during the first 5 days of the qualifiers."

Ainz quickly transferred Cecil the data that he had secretly acquired which showed the order of fights for the tournament.

Cecil was a little confused since he didn't see any of the Little Kings' names. He could only wait for Ainz to explain the reason.

Ainz stood up and began explaining to everyone after he sent them the data. "There are 10 qualifier brackets in total, with 100 participants in each bracket, which means that there will be 50 matches in every bracket.

Every participating faction has sent anywhere from 100 to 200 students to participate in the tournament, half of them will be participating in the qualifiers while the other half along with the faction leaders and Kings will be seeded into the Tournament's main stage matches. We'll only be participating in the main stage matches on the 5th day of the tournament when the top 3 from every qualifier bracket have been selected to participate in the main stage."

Ainz finished his report and sat back down. Normally the boy would be joking around boasting, but when there was a need to be serious he was as serious as anyone could get. He also had a very good information network in the academy, so he was able to get this information for the party.

Cecil nodded and smiled in appreciation, "We're all seeded and it seems the main stage matchups haven't been decided yet, and let's just hope we won't bump into each other until the latter half of the tournament... unfortunately only Yuna wasn't seeded since she's not a King."

Everyone turned towards the newest member of Little Kings, the dragon girl Yuna. Only Lucia and Cecil knew about her actual identity of being a dragon while also being in a pact with Lucia. Everyone else only knew her as Lucia's friend from Fauxe village.

Yuna was currently eyeing the data in her MID and she shrugged. "Well, there's no helping it. I'm no King, but I can guarantee a spot in the qualifiers. I'm super strong after all!"

Everyone smiled seeing her confident response.

"We'll come and cheer you on!" Lucia said.

"Yeah! We're all right behind you, Yuna!" Fina added.

Everyone else nodded and gave her words of encouragement. Yuna was confident in her abilities and felt no need for it, but she was still happy receiving the support, her dragon tail was waving back and forth in delight.

"Okay, now we'll talk about whether or not we should preserve and hide some of our abilities." Cecil said.

"Yes, we should just do enough to make sure we win! We shouldn't overdo it and show too much of our capabilities. Remember, this is only the Selections, our real goal is the National Tournament." Eli said while reminding everyone.

Everyone in the academy already knew they were strong. Their King Titles proved it all. Now they should just do the bare minimum to guarantee a spot for themselves. Their main objectives were to win the National Tournament. This time even Lucia was in agreement, as was everyone else.

"Okay, first off. Aura Manifestation and Burst, we can't hide this anymore since everyone's already seen it before. Just use it if you need to." Cecil said. Then he continued,

"Next is the high tier magic spells, I'm pretty sure everyone agrees with me when I say..."

"Off limits!"

"I second that."

Fina and Eli were the first to open their mouths, they voiced to conceal their ability to use high tiered spells. Of course, many have already speculated that they could use such spells from the footage shown during the First Segments Awards ceremony, but it was better if they didn't expose too much.

Everyone else also nodded in consent.

"...good, so we're all in agreement. Honestly, high tiered spells are a little overkill. I mean, it's not like we're trying to kill our opponents, right? That includes your Lasers Lucia!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Lucia gave him the white eye; it's not like she was that unreasonable.

"Weapons?" Velicia asked.

"Well, we can't really hide that now can we? That's unless of course, you guys plan to take down your opponents with your fists like me." Cecil wryly said.

"Yeah, we'll just use them as we see fit."

"Yup."

"Finally, we have our pets...the tournament does allow us to use them, but what should we do? Are we going to use ours?" Fina asked as she eyed Silver and the Frost Wyrmling perched on her shoulders. She had named the little fella Little Ruru, since the Wyrmling always cried out 'Ruuu' whenever it wanted anything.

The Frost Wyrm egg that Lucia bought at the auction was given to Fina since Ainz said he had found a newborn wyvern hatchling when he was doing his trial. The hatchling in question was currently in Ainz's arms, being slowly fed with liquid food that Lucia had specially created.

"Well, I can't have Maxi here fighting now can I? He's still a child," Ainz said as he continued feeding the little monster. He had already formed a pact with the wyvern and named it Great Wyvern Maximillion Ainzdu Bernstein. It was a long, cringe inducing name and he would always call out to it in its full name...but it was only until Cecil forcibly stopped him from doing so that he settled with just Maxi instead.

Since he had already bonded with the wyvern, Ainz only needed to continue feeding the little guy with food while nourishing the monster with his mana to help it grow.

Fina's Frost Wyrm, Little Ruru, was the same. They were still young and had no viable combat capability whatsoever. Sure they could use some basic spells, but they probably won't have any impact on the match. The only concern was Silver, but there was no way Cecil would have him assist in his fight.

"...I guess we really don't have to discuss this right?" Velicia said.

"Yeah...only Silver will be able to fight, and knowing Cecil... there's no way he would allow Silver to fight his battles." Lucia agreed.

"Now let's talk about the tournament rules... Ainz, you're up again."

"Mhm. Well, it's the same as any other tournament. The match has a 30 minute time allotment. Each student will be wearing academy issued safety gear that will block 1 attack that could incapacitate the person. Once their gear's protective enchantment has been broken, the fight ends.

If you send your opponent off the stage then that will be counted as your victory and the match will end. In the case where your opponent sends out a pet, you will only have to incapacitate the monster to achieve victory, or just directly knock out the owner."

Ainz stopped and began thinking.

"Yeah, I think that's all. Oh, forgot, one more thing, since personal equipment is allowed, no instant-use potions or poisons are allowed to be used. If you are found to have used a potion or a poison then you will automatically be disqualified, and for the poison offender, he'll be imprisoned in the academy until further notice."

Cecil nodded after hearing all the rules, there were some other smaller rules in the information that Ainz had sent them, but they were inconsequential. It was pretty loose and the rules didn't constrain the participants as much.

Cecil dismissed the meeting and everyone went back to the living room to sit around and relax. It was clear that they were all anticipating the start of the tournament. Although their matches were only until the 5th day of the tournament, it was still very exciting to wait for.