Eli could feel that the student's attitude towards her, Lainie, and the rest of the team went up to another level.
"Now now… settle down everyone!" Eli clapped her hands and reminded them to calm down.
"Since everyone was willing to be part of this team, the Farauld Magic Institute also prepared something for everyone.
This contract is signed by the Headmaster, the Vice Chairman, and the Dean, this formalizes your membership in the Farauld's tournament chamber orchestra.
With this, the Farauld Magic Institute offers you benefits according to the stipulation of the contract. Of course, there are handsome rewards especially if this team managed to snag first place in the tournament.
One of these prizes is that all of you can enjoy a three-month exchange program to the Farauld Magic Institute, with all expenses paid and no course restriction, meaning, you can join any class you want!" Eli explained.
"Woah! For real?"
"That's awesome!"
"Ah! I'm glad I decided to join!"
As soon as Eli explained the details of the contract, everyone got excited.
Since the incident with Raya being framed, Grandpa Reuben and Uncle Bramwell became anxious that those who would eventually join the orchestra would choose to join because they wanted to sabotage the entire team.
And so the elders decided to add a layer of extra protection, which is the contract, offering handsome rewards that are hard to let go of even for musicians like them.
After settling the matter of the orchestra, Eli proceeded to perform her duties with the Anti-curse committee.
But even before she was able to get out of the campus, she received a summon back to the Imperial Palace.
"Eli!" While walking towards the exit she heard Kayden's voice behind her.
"Big brother Kayden!" Eli smiled gently as she replied.
Kayden jogged to catch up with Eli as he immediately patted her head affectionately, his eyes looking at Eli with a knowing glance, "You seem to be fine after all…Have you also received the summons from the Imperial Palace? Let's go together…"
"Hmm?" Eli became confused about Kayden's first statement, however, she still answered, "I'm alright. We can go together then."
"Alright let's go…" Kayden nodded and they soon called in the carriage to the Imperial Palace.
At a far distance, Arabella was watching them with her fist clenched tightly. It was lucky that Nikolai was assigned to a different task and could not see the seething anger brewing around Arabella's countenance.
Her eyes were filled with jealousy and anger, not leaving her gaze on Eli, "This b*tch… why are there so many b*tches around him whenever I see him!"
"I must kill her! I have killed once before! I'll do it again!" She gnashed her teeth as she swore to take action. However, at the last second, she was able to meet Eli's gaze before the other party completely entered the carriage.
Arabella felt her heart drop, feeling like she was exposed. Her face darkened as she was contemplating whether Eli had only coincidentally looked in her direction or she had really felt her presence.
No wonder, the Crown Prince became wary of her during the opening ceremony, it seems like the woman was not simple.
"Very well… I'll play with you Eli… hehehe…" Arabella flashed an eerie smile. A mere inventor like her was no big deal to Arabella, after all, she had already sized her up during the time she was able to interact with her during the banquet.
"At the same time, she'll finally disappear by my love's side!" She happily beamed.
In the carriage, Eli's face darkened as she sat quietly with Kayden.
"Little Sister, is there anything wrong?" Kayden saw Eli's frown and asked.
"Someone was watching us earlier… and he or she did not even bother to hide the evil intent directed towards us." Eli did not hide her suspicions from Kayden, in fact, while they were outside waiting for the carriage, Baobao had already warned her that there was someone who was watching them from afar.
A flash of surprise and vigilance appeared on Kayden's face. He knew that Eli was able to detect hostile presence from a distance because of Baobao's powers but he could not help but become shocked that they were being watched for that long.
"Don't worry big brother… the presence seemed to be watching me more rather than you… it seems like this person wanted to target me after all. But… I have no idea whose force it belongs to." Eli said.
"But still… the threat dares to roam around in the open! They clearly viewed us as nothing… as if we are set to disappear once they make a move." Kayden replied with indignance, these people who were aiming to destroy the Empire are really audacious.
"Well, they would never be interested in attacking us in the first place if they were not confident enough to deal with us. I only pray that we are ready enough to retaliate once it happens." Eli's eyes became cold, she did not stop her training no matter how busy she was. And so, she was ready to fight whenever it was needed.
Upon arriving at the palace, Kayden and Eli realized that all the members of the committee had been summoned. They quickly headed toward the meeting area and respectfully greeted Emperor Valentin and the three princes.
"Now we can start!" Emperor Valentin looked at his sons and announced.
"We called you here today to inform you about the latest results of our investigations…" Leon immediately stood up and handed out a report.
"In this report, you can see how many people had been detained trying to forcibly bypass the security checkpoints in the Empire. A large number of them attempted to use the spatial void to try to randomly teleport in…"
"More than a hundred people? This is many…" Anderson frowned, he had expected that many would attempt to sneak into the borders of the Empire, but he did not expect it to be this many.
"Indeed, it is unexpected knowing that we have already announced and showed the entire Prasinos how strict and capable our security checks were," Leon replied.
He continued, "As you also have known, during the opening ceremony Eli has verified ten people with confirmed curse presences inside their bodies."
"Yes, we knew about it… but we are clueless about how these people were able to bypass the curse detection magic."
"We have conducted several tests with the help of Doctor Einz here in order to identify the potential reasons why. We have the First and Second Prince also cooperate with the experiments since they were confirmed as severe victims of the curse magic… Dr. Einz can best explain the proceedings of this research." Leon looked at Kayden and gestured to him to take over.
"We have conducted a series of tests to identify under what circumstances the detection device would fail and came up with two theories…
The first one was to create a vessel that would carry the dormant curse power. It was concealed fairly well because it would be installed in a body that has been damaged by curse magic.
My warmest gratitude to the First and Second Prince for coming up with this theory and also going out of their way to become the subject themselves of the matter.
In this test, we also verified that only those who had been severely victimized by the curse power would become the perfect temporary vessel because the detection device would immediately bypass the curse's presence as a damage remnant, not an active trace…" Kayden handed in the report.
This time it was Prince Antoine who continued the presentation, "We have noticed that once the carrier successfully bypasses the detection device, the curse power will remain dormant until the third day, where the curse power will have to search for the host to settle into.
With this, the temporary carrier will exhibit flu-like symptoms prompting the real one to harvest the power.
It can be even done in a way that the temporary carrier had no idea that they had been a mule to smuggle the curse magic. We have proven this by matching the data from the hospitals and clinics, looking for cases of extreme life and death symptoms but suddenly recovering for no reason.
The total cases of these people were seven."
"So this means that the other three were the cases that fell under the second theory?" Mishael had it figured out.
"Yes… Kayden nodded and continued to explain.
"Aside from being a mule, I did not rule out the possibility that the third case users were most likely a controller of the spirit fragments."
"You mean!!!" Mishael and the rest were startled, they were not able to continue but all of them knew what the second theory meant - there are three curse users roaming freely in the empire that was as strong or even stronger than Carolina Vesala!