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"What Viola means is that we'd like you to travel to Dragon's Valley with us." Violet caught the shift in the air and hurried to explain. "After the business with the Dragon Renegades, the Dragon Lords reached an agreement. As repayment, they've decided to open the Dragon Transformation Pool to you."
"And besides that, our mother would like to meet you." That settled it for the rest of them, though not one had expected Dragon's Valley to open the Transformation Pool to Luke.
"If I remember rightly, the number of times in all of history that Dragon's Valley has opened the Pool to an outsider can be counted on one hand. Basically only for someone who's done them some enormous service." Elise seized the chance to slip free of Luke's claws and pushed her silver-rimmed glasses up her nose. "So the Dragon Renegades really do matter to the Valley more than most people would guess."
"They do. Even counting back before the Renegades' Rebellion, it's happened fewer than five times." Violet nodded. "And since the Rebellion, this would be the first."
Lily and the other girls let out a soft sound of amazement, and envy flickered deep in every one of their eyes.
"Dragon's Valley. The Transformation Pool." A pool that reshaped a bloodline's talent was worth seeing for himself. "All right. Once the monthly hunt's over, I'll make the trip with you."
There was still a while yet before the night of the full moon, easily enough to fit Dragon's Valley in. And by the time he came back from it, the timing would be about right to head for the Eternal Night plane.
"Wonderful!" Brilliant smiles broke across both girls' faces at once, and since there was next to nothing to tell the two of them apart by sight, the effect drew even more eyes.
Around them, in fact, a fair number of people had already started pointing at Luke's group, and the loudest of the discussion came from the male students. Elise and the rest were prizes of the heavens, every one, and now the lot of them were gathered around Luke, which left the men envious and jealous in equal measure.
Why couldn't a thing like that ever happen to them?
...
"So we really don't rate a second look." A little way off, Seraphina watched Luke's group, and her mouth thinned.
Not only because of Luke, either. Elise and the girls had drawn nearly every gaze in the plaza, which turned Seraphina from the usual center of attention into a small transparent nobody, and she was not taking it well.
"Let them bounce around a while longer. Once the monthly hunt starts, they'll learn what refusing the Magus Society costs." Byron clapped a hand on Seraphina's shoulder, entirely at his ease. "We've prepared a fair number of tests for our junior classman."
As the Society's second strongest after Fenner Roan, and a top-ten power inside Celestial besides, Byron didn't think much of Luke at all. What did interest him was Elise and the other girls, since a crop of that quality was not a common sight.
Especially every last one of them at once. Even he felt a twinge of jealousy toward Luke.
"In that case, I'll leave it to you." Seraphina saw well enough where his thoughts had gone. "So long as you handle the Luke business cleanly, do as you please."
"I'm not one to trade the old for the new." Byron caught her meaning, shrugged, and didn't exactly deny it either.
...
"Solene, tell me you're not setting me up. The two of us walking into Cloud City is no different from asking for a beating." In another corner of the plaza, Kellan was glaring at Solene Ashgrave and privately wondering whether the woman's brain had cooked.
Not long after he'd parted from Zane last night, a message from Solene had reached him, asking him to join this monthly hunt with her.
He hadn't thought about it much before agreeing. He was free anyway.
He hadn't expected that they'd barely meet up today before Solene announced this hunt would take them into the Sanctum's core, Cloud City, which very nearly had him excusing himself on the spot.
Cloud City held Commandment Angels as high as eight-star Perfect. Kellan and Solene had eight-star spirits of their own, but on quality theirs still fell a step short.
Never mind that inside the city the angels had special abilities besides, which made them roaches you couldn't stamp out. Fighting them on their own ground put you at a serious disadvantage.
"Relax. I'm not a reckless idiot like you." Solene spared him a glance, and then said the thing that set his eyelid twitching. "I'm going to Cloud City to collect one particular material, not to pick a fight with the Commandment Angels."
"And it isn't only the two of us this time. I've brought in Halden Faye and Zane as well. Unless our luck is truly rotten, we won't so much as run into one."
As she spoke, her gaze went to the middle distance, where the two of them had appeared in the plaza and were making their way over.
...
"Quiet!"
A figure appeared before them all at the sound of it, slightly stooped and showing his years. The aura of a high King settled across the whole plaza, and even Monarch-realm Card Masters like Kellan and Byron felt it come down on them in waves.
"That's Mentor Warrick Voles. Moira mentioned him once. He loves nothing better than showing off in front of students, and his name inside Celestial is nothing special." Elise explained through the weight bearing down from overhead, her brows drawn tight.
Lily and the others were no better off. They were only Leader realm, and even the dragon sisters, stronger than the rest, were mid Leader and no higher, which made standing against a high King's deliberately loosed aura a strain.
"So Mentor Voles is treating us to a show of authority." Luke's brow climbed. Still, Celestial was Celestial. Any random mentor who wandered out had the strength of a high King. Put that in a high school and it would be vice-principal treatment outright, second only to the Emperor-realm men like Victor Ashford.
Except that strength like that still fell a long way short of his senior sister's, and more to the point, Warrick Voles no longer looked young, which meant his real age was higher still. That alone said plenty about how far from ordinary Selene's talent really was.
A thought moved, and a gentle power spread outward from Luke, until it covered the ground where the girls stood and sealed Voles' aura away from them entirely.
"What's this?" With that weight suddenly gone, Elise and the others let out a breath as one, then turned to Luke with astonishment written all over them.
"Just a small trick." Luke only shrugged.
The pressure a high Card Master gave off was, at bottom, an attack on the mental plane, and Luke, who carried the Legend Spirit Ring, was flatly immune to that kind of thing. He was the only person in the plaza it hadn't touched at all.
As for clearing it off the girls, that was nothing more than pushing the ring's effect out a little further. For a man who held a dimensional plane of his own, a trick like that came easily.
To Elise and the rest, though, the sight earned Luke a beautiful eye-roll from every one of them at once. A small trick, was it.
Still, none of them were meeting Luke for the first time, so once the initial shock passed their faces settled back to normal.
They did, however, all drift a little closer to him without noticing. Not one of them wanted that weight back on her shoulders.