Endless Journey: Infinite Realms

Chapter 196 The One Who Hoards and the One Who Learns

After meeting up with the lady Celestial and her butler, Alex decided to enter the conference hall along with his two companions.

"Thud." As Alex entered the conference venue, he could not help but look around him, as he felt that the place that he was in right now looked somewhat familiar to him.

"..." After a few seconds of reminiscing, Alex managed to remember where the sense of familiarity comes from.

The venue of the conference vaguely reminds Alex of the lecture halls that he sat in at his original life.

Right now, Alex found himself inside a large room, with thousands of chair arranged in a crescent-shape, with the chairs in front nearer to the ground, and the chairs near the back of the room elevated a little higher.

At the other end of the room, a large stage could be seen, which was fitted with a large glass screen and a lecturer’s podium.

No matter how Alex tried to look at it, it felt like this whole conference was just an advanced version of public lecture.

But this time around the lecture will be about the topics related to the Red Moon, and the audience were the power-wielding people of this world.

"..." As Alex continued looking around, he saw more details with his eyes.

One of these details was the deliberate arrangement of the chairs.

The chairs were divided into three clusters, one in the right side, one in the middle, and one at the left side.

There was no doubt to Alex that each cluster was meant to separate Faction members from the other Factions.

That conclusion of his was reinforced as he saw most of the Devourers sitting at the right chair cluster.

As for the Symbolists, most of them sat at the left chair cluster and the Celestials sat on the middle chair cluster.

As Alex saw this sitting arrangement, he could not help but look at Anya and Eris, whose attentions were slightly focused on the Celestials.

"Ara ara, it seems like even here, we still have to gather with our peers." Anya said as she tilted her head. "Hmm... I don’t like this..."

"...." Alex could understand Anya’s sentiment, as he saw that most of the Celestials inside the hall were now staring at Anya with hostile and wary looks on their eyes.

It does not take a genius to realize that most of these Celestials were treating her as if she was an enemy.

"Eris, go and talk to the organizer of this conference." Anya said as she snapped her finger. "Tell the organizer that I want to have a private room for this conference... Oh, and that room must be good for 3 people."

"I shall do it now, Miss Anya." Eris said as she hurriedly left, not before she glared at Alex once more.

"You want a private room for three? You must really loath being with them." Alex said as Eris left, with the word ’them’ obviously pertaining to the Celestials in the conference.

"Hmph, unlike you, Mister Sigmund, these little boys only are good on posturing! None of them are brave enough to impress me!" Anya replied as she let out an irritated sigh. "And besides, I only know most of them for political reasons... There’s no way that I will befriend people like them!"

"I get it, I get it." Alex replied nonchalantly as he observed Anya’s face.

From the way that this woman talked, it was quite obvious that she’s not only a Stellar Celestial. She’s most likely one of the high-ranked Celestials out there!

After all, it was only those kind of Celestials that can warrant this kind of attention from this many people.

"Look! It’s The Queen Hoarder! She really attended this conference!" With his advanced hearing, Alex heard some of the Celestials muttering these words.

As he looked at these Celestials, he realized that they were muttering these words while looking at Anya herself.

"Queen Hoarder? Oh s**t!" It was at that point that Alex realized who Anya really was. "S**t, it seems like I have dipped myself on hot water this time!"

From the memories that Alex obtained from the kidnapped Symbolist, he was able to take note of some of the fearsome figures from the Celestials and the Devourers.

One of these figures was Queen Hoarder, who was deemed as the most talented amongst the current young generation of the Celestials.

At only 19 years old, Queen Hoarder was able to dominate every Celestial that were similarly aged as her.

That in itself already speaks greatly of her talents, but what made Queen Hoarder more famous was her somewhat fearsome behavior.

From the rumors that Alex obtained from the Symbolist’s memories, Queen Hoarder was an inherently selfish person, and if she wanted to obtain something that she wanted, she will do everything that she can in order to get it.

This selfishness of hers was so blatant that there had been some stories of Queen Hoarder personally assaulting and killing people just to obtain what she wanted!

Of course many were enraged by this behavior, but with Anya’s great talent, and her status as the daughter the Grand Minister, they were unable to stop her wayward activities.

But even with that kind of notoriety, there was actually no portraits of Queen Hoarder circulating around, and only the Celestials who had met Queen Hoarder knew what she looked like.

Alex was not sure why there were no portraits of Queen Hoarder circulating around, but he was sure of one thing.

And that this lack of Queen Hoarder portraits had definitely screwed Alex now!

"So, you are the infamous Queen Hoarder..." Alex said to Anya as he tried to stop his eyebrows from twitching. "It’s an honor for me to know that the fair lady in front of me is actually a powerful fighter too..."

"Oho, so you’re not disappointed from knowing who I really am?" Anya replied playfully as she stared at Alex.

"Why would I be disappointed?" Alex replied, although inwardly, he was already regretting his plan to join Anya for this day. "For me to accompany a woman like you is like a dream come true to me!"

"Hehehe, you always flatter me, Mister Sigmund." Anya replied as the sounds of Eris’ footsteps approached them.

"Miss Anya, the organizers had already prepared a room for you." Eris said as she looked at her Master. "I also made sure that they gave you the best private room that there is on this place. And master, if you think the room is not good enough, the organizers will personally recompense you with money."

"Good work, Eris" Anya replied as she patted Eris’ head. She then looked at Alex, who tried his best to appear nonchalant.

"Mister Sigmund, I really appreciate you coming with us. I hope our time together today will be of great fun to you." Anya said as she followed her butler, who was now leading them to their private room.

"I share the same sentiments too, Miss Anya." Alex replied, although what was in his mind was different.

Right now, all that Alex could think of was the fact that his association with Anya has placed him in a dangerous situation!

With the kind of behavior that Anya has as Queen Hoarder, it’s quite obvious that the object of her conquest right now was Alex!

With her track record before, there’s a chance that Anya would not let Alex stray far away from her!

"Tsk, I only wanted to get some blood from a Celestial... How could it be like this?" Alex sighed as he followed Anya and Eris. "Sigh, since it had come to this, I have no choice but to go all-out here... Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I must not hesitate!"

As he made this conviction in his mind, Alex narrowed his eyes as he stabilized himself.

The day is still early, and there’s still a lot of things that will happen.

All that Alex can do now is to stay alert and watch out from anything that Anya might do to him!

***************

1 hour later.

Even after Alex, Anya and Eris made themselves comfortable in the very luxurious private room, they still had to wait for an hour before the whole conference could start.

Looking through the one-way window placed in the viewing portion of their private room, Alex could see the slow trickle of the arriving people.

With this slow arrival rate, it took around an hour before the whole conference hall was filled with attendees.

"Oh at last, this is going to start already. Tsk, lazy old coogers, always taking things like this slowly. No wonder some of the Symbolist cities are already losing their power..." Eris muttered to herself loudly, as if she wanted Alex to hear this.

Surprisingly to Alex, he saw that Anya did not rebuke Eris all. It was as if even Anya agrees with what Eris just said now.

"Well, in my opin-" But before Alex could say something, he heard the unmistakable sound of ringing bells.

"?" Alex looked for the source of the sound, and he found it right at the center of the lecture stage.

There, Alex could see a tall, wizened man holding a golden bell on his left hand.

The wizened man was swaying his left hand back and forth, prompting the bell to make a melodious sound which was the sound that Alex heard earlier.

"!!!" As Alex observed the appearance of the wizened man, he could not help but tremble as he realized who this wizened man was.

"So, the Apprentice of the Grand Symbolist takes the stage... This will be interesting." Anya muttered behind Alex as she uttered the identity of the wizened man. "From what I know, he does not like to involve himself in worldly matters... For him to be in this conference just means that the whole Symbolist community was really wary of the impending Calamity..."

"..." Alex chose not to say anything right now, as he mulled over the new discovery that he had.

With the memories from the kidnapped Symbolist, Alex was 100% sure that the man standing in the stage was indeed the Apprentice of the Grand Symbolist.

As he saw the appearance of this man, Alex could not help but let out a sigh, as he realized that the trouble for him today has just doubled!

If Anya was the most talented among the younger generation of the Celestials, then the Apprentice of the Grand Symbolist was the most talented among the younger generation of the Symbolists!

Of course if that was the only thing about the Apprentice, Alex would actually not be worried about him.

However, there was something unique about the Apprentice himself.

And that was the fact that Artos, the Symbolist who Alina had stolen memories from, was actually a relative of the Apprentice!

Just that fact alone was already enough to make Alex wary of the Apprentice.

After all, even with the disguises that Alex did, there could be a small chance that Apprentice could identify Alex, especially if Alex uses Artos’ Symbolist skills in this place.

Now, that won’t be a fun situation to Alex.

"S**t! Why is this guy here?" Alex muttered to himself as he stared at the Apprentice still ringing the bell. "Shouldn’t he be busy with his experiments?"

From the memories that Alex and Alina had stolen from Artos, Alex knew that the Apprentice was someone who was not interested on dealing with other people.

After the moment that the Apprentice was taken in by the Grand Symbolist to be his pupil, the Apprentice had never once went out of his lab to meet other people.

By following that fact, Alex already expected Apprentice to still stay on his lab.

But it seems like Alex was greatly mistaken, as he can see the Apprentice standing on the stage right now!

"S**t! Since it’s like this now, I have no choice but to keep a low profile..." Alex thought to himself sourly as he decided to not do anything stupid for now.

As Alex made this decision, he heard the sound of the ringing bells stopping.

As this prevalent sound disappeared, its holder, the Apprentice, hid the golden bell on his robes as his eyes scanned the people on the conference venue.

"Everyone, we have gathered in this room to talk about the ramifications of the appearance of Red Moon, codenamed Claret." The Apprentice said as his deep voice reverberated all across the venue. "I hope that all of you have come here with the intent to learn and share important information with each other. If not, then you must leave now."

"..."

"Nobody’s leaving? Good. In that case, let us start the conference now!" The Apprentice then wrote 10 symbols in the air, which in turn summoned a large staff which the Apprentice caught with his right hand.

As the crowd started to become excited and interested, the Apprentice walked towards the speaker’s podium as he held the staff tightly with his right hand.

"For the first part of this conference, we will discuss about the things that happened after the Red Moon appeared." The Apprentice said as he twirled the staff. "I hope everyone will be honest with their information, as those who offer false data will be punished heavily here!"