Just as Fredrick was about to finish his food, the other four in the house finally arrived at the kitchen one by one.
"Good morning." Amelia waved as she was the last one to arrive at the table.
"Good morning."
With everyone at the table, Fredrick decided to reveal the news he had been kept secret for a while.
"I found someone for the upcoming competition that's going to help us."
"Who?" Ava immediately asked, looking a little surprised, as did Katherine and Amelia.
"It's a cultivator from the East. I don't know how she smuggled past the barrier portal, but she is currently inside the town."
"Why is she willing to help us?" Amelia raised her concern.
"Because she thinks we have the highest chance of seeing the guardian if we did win."
"What's the cultivator's level?" Katherine asked, seemingly unsure of their usefulness.
"They are in Great Ascension level——"
"What?"
The name shocked Luqing, and the other three adults in the room seemed a little confused.
"How good is that?" Katherine asked, not knowing how the cultivation level works.
"It's almost equivalent to the peak of one level away from archmage."
All three of them looked a little disappointed, as both Fredrick and Ava were already one level away from level 8 archmage.
A level 7 mage was nowhere near enough to beat the various alliances that have more than a handful of level 7 mages.
"Don't let that fool you into thinking she's weak. She had beaten me offhandedly, and I couldn't even resist a single time."
It raised the hope a little, but it was still nowhere near enough in terms of numbers to match.
"Where is she right now?" Ava curiously asked, wanting to test it herself.
"She's somewhere in the town... She said she's going to come to the castle when the time comes."
A few minutes later...
When everyone finished breakfast, Katherine dragged all three of the kids back to the other living room.
"For this entire week, you guys are going to try to advance as hard as you can for this event, okay?"
All three of the kids nodded in agreement, even though they knew they wouldn't be much help in the grand scheme of things.
"Now, first, you all need to get to mage level 2. Or at least to the peak of it as fast as you can."
The room suddenly turned dark before a black void surrounded them, with nothing else besides the sofa below them.
"You guys are going to meditate every single second. Don't think about going outside."
Several hours later...
Just as Alex felt his body had reached the limit of his meditation for the day, Katherine handed him a cup of milk to drink.
For some reason, the burnout disappeared, allowing him to go back into meditation.
The same goes for Sophia and Mary, who quits their meditation an hour after Alex.
They, too, received the same glass of milk to drink before heading back to their meditation.
It was almost nonstop, from the sun rising in the sky to the sun disappearing on the horizon.
The only break they received was when they needed to go to sleep or going to eat.
Ava questioned, her face seemingly a little angry from the cultivator's first impression.
"It's better than nothing."
---
Meanwhile, in Alex's room...
As the two of them lay down on the bed, Alex tried to scooch away from Katherine a little.
He knew how bad Katherine's sleeping posture was.
It was even worse than Sophia and Mary, who he had slept with almost his entire life until the past few months.
Unfortunately, Katherine had already wrapped both of her arms around him.
"My cute little Alex, we haven't slept together for so long!"
"Yeah..."
Alex quietly sighed, starting to suspect Katherine was just looking for an excuse to sleep with him again.
Soon, Katherine had already fallen asleep, letting out a steady breath as she held Alex like a body pillow.
Meanwhile, Alex's head was all over the place, unable to fall asleep at all.
But it wasn't because of Katherine's warm body that was touching his skin.
Rather, it was the upcoming competition for tomorrow.
His brain was going through all kinds of different scenarios he could face when going in.
From possibly being put in a massive arena to being in the jungle, he was trying to prepare every strategy possible.
"Why am I thinking about this? If I walk into someone who's a higher mage level, I'm dead either way."
With that out of the way, Alex shifted his attention back to trying to fall asleep.
But with Katherine's legs wrapping around just right below his belly and her chest touching his neck, it was getting a little difficult.
More importantly, he noticed she wasn't wearing bras underneath the pajamas, allowing him to see the little tip in the dark.
"Alex... I love you."
Katherine's sudden murmur made Alex's brain freeze for a second before he realized she was just talking in her sleep.
"I love you too, Mom..."
Alex shook his head a little, getting everything out of his mind as all kinds of weird thoughts disappeared in his brain.
---
It was a full moon, and the sky was clear for the night. The moonlight shone all over the city, illuminating the roads.
But as the clock hits twelve, an even stronger light begins to appear across Regina.
Thousands upon millions of light appeared in each household before it went dimmed all at once.
The castle was no exception, as a large light hit the entire mansion before it disappeared.
Everyone in the city was all put asleep, even if someone was just walking down the street in the middle of the night.
People who didn't have any mana or qi all woke up for a second before quickly going back to sleep.
They all knew it was that time of the years again, an event that had no impact on them.
Meanwhile, everyone else who didn't wake up was forcefully dragged out of their dreams as their sleep continued.
Soon, the entire world seemed to be coming to a pause, as if time itself had stopped ticking.
Yet the sky and the moon's movement indicated that only the things within the city were frozen.