Chapter 182 - Who To Trust?
A moment of silence had filled the entire room. If what Polschk said is true, then it means that even the Royal Family had been fooled by this tradition.
"Do you have any idea what this Twilight Bless is?" Lance placed his fingers on his chin in deep thought. "Apart from its covering up for the Championship of the Greats? Or why is it covered up with the competition."
"I do not know," Polschk sighed. "Even through my intensive research on the ancient manuals and the old texts in the palace and the older libraries, I couldn't find anything that would help. The only thing they left was its name."
"What does the book you've read says about it?" Elliot asked. "There must be some kind of clue."
"The Champions Shall Receive Greatness, is the only other encryption I could find. All first letters in each word of the sentence is capitalized," Polschk said. "I use ancient magic yet I couldn't fully encrypt any other documents."
"What if…" Elliot trailed off. "What if the winners would receive powers from an ancient reserve? What if the first ones to establish the competition placed a hidden reserve of magic, ancient magic and sealed them."
"Perhaps that may be the case," Polschk said. "Judging from the name of the event, maybe the winners will receive a blessing from something."
"And these Twilight Wings," Lance looked at the butteflies hovering over them. The gentle insects with beautiful glowing colors gently fluttering their wings over them. "Did the texts say anything about them?"
"That's it," Polschk snapped hos fingers. "These butteflies are the keys to the reserve. Maybe they are the key to unlocking the Twilight Bless."
"Perhaps Braun knew about this?" Elliot asked. "He did wanted the Twilight Wings. And you don't just want the Twilight Wings if you have no idea what's it used for, right?"
"People like Braun are always coming after the Twilight Wings for their own selfish desires," Polschk sighed. "I just thought he wanted money in exchange for the butteflies, but he wanted something else after all. He want world domination, and to achieve that, he's are willing to do all evil things they could possibly do."
"Then this is bad," Ed said. "The competition is going to happen in about two weeks. Are we really going to participate?"
"Yes," Lance said. "We're going to join the competition. This time, we aim to win, not just rank so we could enjoy the parade and free stuffs from being ranked."
"Okay, I agree," Elliot said. He looked at Polschk, the old man had a worried look in his face, obviously not wanting for others to steal his butteflies.
"I can't believe we're fighting over butteflies," Ed snickered. "And there's not even many of them. There's only six."
"Though," Polschk cleared his throat. "These butterflies are as old as the competition itself."
Gasps erupted from the room. Even Dustin who had barely any idea of what's going on was shocked.
"You mean these small butteflies, are like y–" Ed stopped himself, puffing his cheeks as he struggled to get the word out.
"Go on, say it," Polschk challenged, raising his right brow up in intimidation.
"These are… ancient?" Ed shrugged awkwardly, returning to his seat and eating his scones in peace. "I didn't want to use the word "old" as to not offend you, just for the record."
Polschk chuckled at this, "I could see that. But yes, these butterflies are almost as old as the Adventurer system itself. It our hypothesis is true, then the ones who established the Twilight Bless created or placed whatever they wanted to place inside these insects. And that was more than five hundred years ago."
"So, that's why these butterflies are valuable," Elliot said in amazement, watching over the small insects in awe. "But Mr. Polschk, how did you stumble upon this? Or did you already knew about it beforehand?"
"Well," Polschk paused. "I like to read, obviously. Something in the books of the ancient records just makes my heart skip a couple of beats. At my age, that'd be dangerous so that's why I read less."
He eased the tension with a bit of humor, making everyone laugh lightly.
"And in one specific book in the Royal library of Alorde, the oldest library of the kingdom, I saw the book," Polschk paused once again. His eyes were saying that he was recalling the memory of himself in his younger years. "And the cover of that book, I saw the engraving of six butteflies. I touched them and they sprung to life."
"Those were the Twilight Wings?" Elliot filled in, Polschk nodding in agreement.
"They are," the old man replied. "It was then that I started to build the Butterfly Garden, thinking these butteflies would bear no harm, when in fact, they are something that could change the world."
"But wait," Lance interrupted. "You're a powerful man. You could seek help from the other elites to help you. You would have an easier time then.
"Yes, but even with my power, it's hard to determine which person to trust. I could say everything to someone and they could turn out to be the brains that leads the group against me," Polschk said. "So, I kept all this to myself until today, when I saw you young folks. It was as if the butterflies themselves whispered to me to trust you, and let you all to help me."
Elliot relaxed in his seat, proud of the old man's words for him. He found himself looking at the butteflies. Something inside him was screaming but the voice was empty.
"We'll win the Championship," Elliot whipered.
Everyone turned to him in surprise. Although he just whispered, his voice was loud enough for everyone to hear. They all looked at each other doubtfully.
"Elliot? What do you mean?" Lance asked.
Elliot stood upright, "If we win this competition, then we will win the prize. We will receive the Twilight Blessing."
"What?" Connor pouted. "Elliot, I already received a lot of titles. Are you sure about this?"
"Besides, do you know how strong our opponents are going to be?" Ed asked. "I once filled in for the members just so we could reach the head count and let me tell you, they are just… vicious."
"Let's train then," Elliot said. "We have beaten a dragon, a snake woman, a man who lits everything to flames, what's a few Adventurers could do?"
"You're right," Lance nodded. "I'll ask Frederick to train us, then. We'll start as soon as possible."
"Okay," Elliot grinned.. "Let's train and win the Twilight Bless."