Chapter 572: Secret Recipe

“That was some bullshit!”

Julius stifled a laugh when he heard Aubrey cursing up a storm. Obviously, she wasn’t very pleased by her result and wanted the entire world to know it.

“Hey, you made it further than me,” Edgar said to her reassuringly.

This made her pause and look over at Edgar. Unfortunately for Julius’s big friend, he had lost in the previous round. Once again, it had been a tough matchup, and Edgar wasn’t able to come out on top.

However, Edgar wasn’t that upset about it. According to him, he had managed to get a lot further than he had ever expected he would. He initially believed he would only barely get into the Top 100 or something.

“Yeah, and it was against the Sage of Falling Sword’s personal disciple. There is no shame in that. You even forced him to use that skill at the end of the match. Nobody else had managed to do that yet,” Lily added with a supportive hug to her best friend.

Aubrey sagged into Lily’s arms and pouted. “Still, I wanted to win.”

“You have improved more than any of us in these past several months. You should be proud of yourself,” Lily continued to praise Aubrey and patted her head.

Aubrey enjoyed the pampering for a little while before she turned to look at Julius. “You’d better win this thing,” she said with a glare.

“Why only me? You got no faith in Derek?” Julius questioned with a look at their other friend.

Derek opened his eyes, taking a break from his meditation exercise to return Julius’s gaze and glance over at Aubrey briefly. “I don’t take any offense to that. I think we all know that Julius is the one with the highest odds of winning.”

Aubrey shrugged. “I don’t know. After his last match, I saw that his odds took a huge hit. Apparently, people are starting to think that he isn’t as strong as they thought he was.”

“I’m telling you guys, he was really skilled,” Julius argued for the seventh time. Apparently, they hadn’t believed him when he told them how good his opponent was despite his plain fighting style.

“You were just fooling around once again and almost lost because of it,” Aubrey grumbled.

“It wasn’t that close,” he scoffed.

“He shaved off half of your spine as well as half of your back.”

“He surprised me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

“He did!”

Lily coughed into her hand to get their attention, then smiled brightly at Julius.

“Anyway, don’t worry about your odds. I think they have decreased by almost half. Thus, I have already told Marcus to increase our bet on you. Do you guys want me to add anything on your behalf?”

“Seriously? Isn’t House Violet rich enough already?” Julius asked with an exasperated sigh.

Lily preened. “We are rich because we don’t give up chances for free money. If people want to underestimate you because of one small fight, then we are going to capitalize on it,” she said, puffing out her chest.

“Ruthless,” Aubrey whispered quietly.

“What about Derek’s odds?” Edgar asked.

“About the same as they were at the beginning,” Lily replied.

Derek also had his match today, and unlike Aubrey, he came out on top. It was a little dicey in some moments, but ultimately, his opponent hadn’t been able to withstand the power of Derek’s lightning. They had eventually been defeated, and Derek moved on to the next round.

Now there were two of them in the Top 8. Honestly, the fact that there had been four of them still in the tournament up until this point was quite the achievement.

“You know who you are facing in the next match, right?” Lily suddenly asked Julius.

The rest of his friends all quieted down upon hearing Lily’s question. They all knew who Julius’s opponent was. She was skirting around her real question.

“What are you trying to ask?” Julius asked her, not meeting her gaze.

“Well, with all of this stuff about your family coming back up, I was just wondering how you were feeling,” Lily said to him.

“You know how I am feeling. You’re a psychic after all,” Julius pointed out.

“Yeah, except I can’t. You normally don’t care if I sense your emotions and thoughts, but you are keeping me out for some reason.”

Julius paused. Had he been locking her out? If so, he hadn’t realized it.

His next opponent was none other than Garrett Greyson.

Truth be told, he didn’t know how he should feel. A part of him wanted to be angry, and another part of him didn’t really care about the Greyson Scion. His beef was with Wesley Greyson and the others involved in the attack on Estate Hyperius. He doubted Garrett had anything to do with it.

Still, Garrett was Wesley’s son and had already been a thorn in Julius’s side, especially during the second stage. It would be a lie, he said he didn’t want to thrash Garrett just for that reason.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“See? You are hiding your emotions from me,” Lily pointed out.

“Let him figure it out on his own. Give him some space,” Edgar said to Lily gently.

She pouted but listened to Edgar.

Julius gave him a grateful nod and looked off into the distance. He didn’t know what he was going to do. There was so much stuff going on. Edwin was still unconscious. The Conclave was still messing around in the Empire. Clan Genshen was still out there and possibly still out for his blood. He didn’t know what was going to happen to House Greyson. Then there was all of the stuff with Cassian that awaited him after this.

Add this to his upcoming advancement, and he was being overwhelmed.

He sank back into his chair and tried to sort everything out. He was so stressed that he didn’t even realize he had taken out a pork bun from his storage ring and was munching on it. He didn’t know until Aubrey tapped his shoulder, asking for some, too.

He gave one look at his bun and another at her. He didn’t really want to give it up since he only had one more left, but considering she had just lost, he understood that she needed it more than him anyway. He passed over his last bun with tears in his eyes.

She took it from him and gave him a small hug before tucking into the chair beside him, enjoying her bun with a grin.