Waiting for Alex

"Those who wish to participate in the competition, step forward!" Exclaimed Adrian as he looked at those around the age of 50 to 100.

Following his request, Amelia, Jonathan, Talia, Ector, and everyone else eager to join the competition stepped forward.

'The ones who stepped forward are pretty much the ones we expected,' thought Adrian as he observed the group of young participants.

In total, there were 16 contenders for the position of the branch head position.

"As you may already know, the battles will be battles of 1 vs 1, and since you are sixteen in total, the winner would have to fight and win 4 times. There will be no time pause between the fight, so make sure to perfectly manage your mana, understood ?"

The participant nodded and then Adrian continued, "If everything is clear, we will start to draw the lot so each of you will know their next oppone-"

"Wait, one participant didn't arrive yet" said Grace, cutting Adrian off.

Everyone looked at her with a puzzled expression, one participant didn't arrive yet ? Who was this participant ?

People checked with their neighbors to see if anyone knew more, but nobody recognized the unknown participant.

"Who is the participant you are talking about ?" Questioned Adrian.

"Alexandre" replied casually Grace.

"...."

"...."

"...."

Everyone looked at Grace with speechless expressions, including those from the older generation, before laughter suddenly echoed in the air.

As they looked towards the source of the laughter, nobody knew how to react as they saw Robert laughing so hard that, for a moment, it seemed like he was out of breath.

"Hahaha, you...haha...actually want to make this useless grandson of yours participate in this competition? It's the greatest joke I have ever heard, hahahaha" said Robert through his laughter.

When they heard his words, many of the present people started to laugh at Grace's words.

"YOU MOTHERFUC-" before she could finish her sentence, Lilia covered the mouth of Scarlett.

As previously mentioned, the reason Scarlett didn't participate in this kind of gathering was actually because sometimes some people mocked her father and she hated that, she was someone that disliked that someone insult or slander her closed ones, so, when something like that happened, she immediately became pissed.

However, it wasn't just her that was like that, actually, all of Alex's daughters eyes were glowing with rage.

Lilia shook her head toward her daughters and turned to Scarlett and said with a confident smile on her face, "don't bother, all of that will finish today".

Hearing her, Scarlett calmed a little bit.

Lilia nodded, seeing that she calmed down a bit and turned to Adrian, that was starting to speak again.

"Grace, you know that I don't have anything agaisnt your grandson, but he can't participate in this competition, he doesn't even meet the requirements and even if by miracle he meets them, we can't keep waiting for him, if he wanted to participate he would have come earlier".

"Yeah, why would we wait for that trash to come before we start" 

"He doesn't even fit the conditions to participate, I say that we start right now!"

"He lives here, yet, he is the one that is late, that means only one thing, that coward won't be showing up"

As seconds ticked by, more and more people expressed their dissatisfaction, even the participants were complaining, shouting that Grace was abusing her power by making them wait for her grandson that would surely never show up.

As the situation was getting too heated up, Adrian glanced at Grace, sighed, then turned toward the furious participant.

"SILENCE!"

Adrian's outburst quickly calmed down the rowdy participants.

He then looked at Grace and uttered seriously, "Ten minutes, in ten minutes if Alex doesn't show up, we will-"

"No need for that, I'm here" said a voice, cutting off Adrian.

When they looked at the location the voice came from, everyone saw a shirtless man with long silver hair walking towards them.

The man -Alex- had dark bags under his eyes, showing the state of extreme exhaustion he was currently in.

When she saw this, Lilia facepalmed, she had said to this idiot husband of her to rest, but here he was, coming to a battle competition already exhausted.

As Alex approached, he could see a myriad of expressions on the faces of the participants, from indifference, contempt, disgust and sometime even hate.

However, he didn't pay them any mind and continued walking till he came in front of Adrian.

"Since you were waiting for me to show up, can we start right away?" Asked Alex with a sleepy voice.

"Not so fast, we still don't know if you meet the requirements, we will have to check that, before proceeding with anything" said Adrian.

"Be my guest" replied Alex.

Adrian then used his mana to probe Alex's level.

His eyes widened in shock when he felt Alex's level.

"Level 4?" Exclaimed Adrian absent-mindedly.

When others, whether participants or onlookers, heard him, they all used their mana to gauge Alex's level. This action caused a ripple of shock to spread among those present as what they witnessed was beyond surprising.

"Now that it's confirmed that I fill the requirements, let's start already, I'm kind of tired here and need to sleep."