Seeing the Mortal Emperor, everyone except Jenna and the two Princes kneeled and greeted, "We pay our respect to His Imperial Majesty, the Mortal Emperor!"
Meanwhile, the Empress and the two princes slightly bowed in respect.
Antonio nodded in acknowledgment, "Rise everyone. You all are the future hope of my empire, and I'm very pleased to see you all as well."
Then he smiled gently at Jenna while nodding, "It's been hard on you."
"Your acknowledgment is enough for me, Your Majesty." Jenna gently stated as she walked beside the Emperor and stood beside him in her rightful place while the two princes impassively stood behind the other imperial children.
On the other hand, Riana and Evie remained with the other Imperial Students. Although Riana was already engaged to Carlos, she still wasn't an official part of the Imperial Family yet, so she remained with the school crowd.
Antonio looked at Riana and Evie with an amiable smile, saying, "Princess Riana, I hope Carlos has been taking good care of you in these past months."
"Thank you for Your Majesty's care. His Highness has been very good to me." Riana nodded with a somewhat impassive look on their face, while Carlos, who was standing with his other siblings, smiled broadly upon hearing this.
Antonio nodded in satisfaction before looking at Evie, "Little niece, Evie, you have grown even more powerful these past few months since I last saw you. It seems Honorable Principal Zack has been taking good care of you. I hope you also received my gifts and they were to your liking."
Darren suddenly smiled when he heard this since he was the one who was tasked as the gift bearer, or it would say he had volunteered. After all, despite Zack's rejection, the imperial family would never let go of Evie so easily.
The second prince, Darren, has been 'working' tirelessly to woo Evie and has completely given up on Riana.
The only problem was that the Crown Prince had also joined the fray, and he didn't care about how Riana would feel; in his eyes, he could do anything because he was the future emperor.
Moreover, Riana never acknowledged his advances and still treated him coldly. If it were before, he would've tried his best to win her heart, but he didn't care anymore after Evie's appearance.
Since Riana was bound to be his, he decided to win over Evie as well, whether Riana liked it or not. He wanted to obstruct Darren as much as he could from gaining a powerful helper.
However, Ace was surprised by this revelation as he had never expected this at all. The imperial family was really vicious to their own as they had been tricking both the first and second princes all this time. They were just clowns fighting for something that would never be theirs in their entire lives.
It was quite ironic and the truth of the world of power. Since Sofia was going to be powerful beyond belief, how could the first prince and second prince hold their heads high against her?
But Ace was still somewhat baffled by Eva's suggestion and couldn't help but smile wryly, "If you want a maid, you can get it. You don't have to ask me. Didn't I've already handed Livia to you? As long as they can serve their purpose, it doesn't matter if they are under you or me; it's all the same."
"How can that be? My maids will have the status of maid in waiting, so in a sense, they are still yours." Eva laughed evilly with a hint of coldness.
'She's testing me.' Ace instantly knew and quickly replied, "What are you, an Empress? Stop playing around."
"We'll see." Eva left those ambiguous words before she became silent.
While they were talking, Antonio was giving a speech about the Sky Abyss, which was aligned with Jenna's earlier speech.
From start to finish, Antonio didn't even glance at the other Imperial Students since they were not worth the effort. Moreover, he knew these imperial students already had secretly joined his sons, and their masters were under him except for a few of them. So, he didn't need to pretend to earn their loyalty.
After giving the speech, he then turned at a masked giant as he nodded solemnly.
The giant moved forward towards an ancient altar in the top center corner of the hall, and he began to place peak grade-8 Qi stones and soul crystals on it.
The next moment, he clasped his hand and shouted, "Open!"
The ancient altar suddenly began to shimmer fiercely as a powerful aura filled the entire hall. The next moment, a black vortex suddenly formed over the altar, and an ancient voice rang.
But the language it speaks was unknown, and its words were nothing but mumbling to others. Not even the imperial clan knew the true meaning of these words.
However, today, there was something who could understand those words, and when he heard it, he was shocked.
"Vampyre Clan Army Class Trial for Common Vampyres has been opened!