Chapter 548: Celebrity

Julius didn’t know whether to be surprised or exasperated at the attention he found himself suddenly under.

Thanks to that little incident, he was now at the center of everyone, and his appearance didn’t go unnoticed. The people who had been blissfully ignorant of his appearance were now staring at him with excited whispers and murmurs.

Soon, the entire tram was bustling with mentions of his name.

“Really, is it truly him?”

“Nah, can’t be. Why would he be riding on the tram with us?”

“He looks younger than I expected.”

“He’s a first year, dumbass, of course he looks young.”

“No, I mean it’s hard to tell what he looks like when he is surrounded by fire.”

“You think he will sign my shirt?”

He wouldn’t say he was attacked, but most of the tram politely crammed together as they wanted to get a closer look at him. Some of them even asked for some autographs. They were really nice about it, too.

Since they were so respectful, Julius smiled and started signing people’s stuff. They were asking him a whole lot of random questions.

What was his favorite color? Did he prefer tea over coffee? Some of these questions made him laugh.

Then, as he was talking to another young man who was telling Julius about a supposedly excellent restaurant he wanted Julius to visit, he felt something tug on his pants.

He looked down and held back the laugh at the sight he was greeted with.

A young boy, around five years old, somehow weaseled his way to the front of the crowd. However, it was the large item the young boy was desperately trying to hold on to that caught his eye.

It was a helmet that was much too big for him. A beautiful yet simple helm that looked like it had seen its fair share of battles. It was still in pretty good condition except for one significant slash across the forehead of the skull.

“Can you sign my helmet?” The boy asked cutely. His high-pitched voice melted Julius’s heart, and Lily clenched her chest as if the cuteness was too much for her.

The boy’s mother pushed through and found her son clenching the helmet. “There you are. Don’t run off like that, it’s dangerous, you might get stepped on by somebody,” she scolded her son before turning to Julius with an embarrassed flush.

“Sorry about that. That’s his dad’s old helmet; he wants to be like him when he grows up. You don’t have to sign it.”

Julius shook his head. “No, it’s fine. As long as you are okay with me signing it, I don’t mind.”

The mom glanced at him hesitantly, then back at her son, who had some of the most adorable puppy eyes. “Only if it’s really not an issue.”

Julius smiled brightly and leaned down to grab the helmet from the boy. He gave it a quick sign with his pen. Luckily, the pen was magical, so the ink actually stuck to the metal without smearing right away.

The boy jumped up and down excitedly. The people around him were all grinning at the boy’s exuberance.

Julius, on the other hand, was beaming widely and couldn’t help but feel great about himself. Apparently, he had become some sort of celebrity, and he didn’t hate it as much as he thought he would.

Lily pulled him away from these people and off the tram when their stop approached. She muttered something about dragging him away before he started to get too big a head.

He merely laughed at her, but allowed himself to get dragged.

***

The start of the third stage was as much of a dull affair as he thought it would be. There was a ceremony, but he almost fell asleep in the middle of it. There was a lot of talking and a lot of celebrations, but there wasn’t anything really required of him to do.

The only thing he cared about was that the brackets had finally been made. His first fight had been scheduled for later tomorrow. He would be fighting some guy named Erik, but until then, he was allowed to watch the rest of the fights.

He also found out that Liam, Lyra, and Jonas had made it through. Unfortunately, Irene hadn’t made it, nor had Christine.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He was actually with Derek’s family at the moment, sitting in their special booth, away from the crowd. He wanted to watch from the same place he had watched the first stage, but with how popular he had gotten, it wasn’t possible.

Unlike the people on the tram, most of the people who spotted him wanted to speak to him about other things. That wasn’t even mentioning the organizations that were hounding him.

He found himself getting harassed by almost a dozen representatives who asked him to either join their organization or do something else for them. He did his best to ignore them and avoid them.

Of course, this was harder said than done.