The ancestral hall was not just one hall as its name suggests, but a complex array of buildings and preparation rooms, It also housed many important treasures and was attended around the clock by many guardians and family elders.
Stepping into the entrance, Victor’s father and uncle had to leave alone with the elder to prepare for their roles in the ceremony. The participants will have to wait for a while.
Before leaving, Theodore gave his son one last examining look. Then without talking turned around and followed his older brother through one of the branching corridors.
The ceremony participants were guided respectfully by one of the staff into a grand hall to wait. This hall was not empty as it was already full of other candidates who arrived before from other places, some were sitting on lavish chairs around round tables discussing the ceremony and sipping on their drinks, while others were standing in respect and waiting nervously.
In the family, there are two types of people, Players, and non-Players. Players are usually ranked according to their Authority, level, and skills into elders, core members, inner members, and outer members. Like sects do. While the none players had five levels, First are the elders followed the unawakened pure-bloods of the main branch, the side branch heirs and those offspring who do not have pure bloodlines comes next, and after that comes the disciples, they are members who were not originally part of the main family but were adopted or accepted as disciples because of their talents, or special family needs for them. They had to change their family name to Von Weise. In the last tier are the servants who are the lowest cast in the family and mostly do not have any rights.
Of course, within each tier and even between different tiers different levels exist. Like the punishment hall disciples who only answer to their hall’s master.
And from every one of these tiers, there will be members participating in the ceremony. Participation for those of pure blood is mandatory, as for the rest it is optional because their mortality rate is much higher. While they were not expected to achieve great results and most likely would die, if even one percent were able to succeed they would add great power to the family, and they would be like the carp Leaping over the Dragon Gate. In this hall, there were 30 members and disciples sitting around the tables in addition to about 80 servants standing in the back.
To participate in the ceremony there are two conditions:
The candidate must have been an adult for no longer than a year.
The candidate must be a virgin.
When Victor and Ron entered the Hall. All the candidates gathered there looked at them and tensed up, then everyone stood up and respectfully saluted,
Victor and his cousin were the only main branch heirs participants, so their entrance exerted tremendous pressure on the others.
Acknowledging the salute with a nod of his head, then finding an empty seat. Victor sat down casually while ignoring his cousin, who passed him with a glare, then went on to find another seat at the other end of the hall, followed by the rest of their convoy. They seemed to have made up their little minds to be on Ron’s imaginary team.
Victor grabbed the petite servant girl whom he had just acquired and ordered her to sit on his lap, which caused her ears to turn red in shame, but she could only obey.
“I am sorry, I am a little dirty,” she said while sitting under the astonished look of the observers. She was not that heavy,
“I need to feed her more” thought Victor who was actively confirming the rumor that he is a perverted young master to everyone around, And that was his plan.
“That does not matter, what is your name ?” he asked, he didn’t know her name.
“Lily, young master,” she answered in a barely audible voice. As a servant she did not have a last name.
“Why do you want to participate in the ceremony so bad as to break the rules,” he asked “And why does your hall master forbids you? Looking at the spider tattooed on your neck, I can tell that you should be from the assassins’ hall. You don’t seem to be that great of a talent that he would not want to sacrifice you,” he questioned while gently caressing the tattoo on her small white neck.
Every hall and member in the family would tattoo their emblem on their lower members’ necks so that they can be identified. But what only Players knew, was that this tattoo was created using an artifact and can be used to locate and eliminate the ‘servant’ if needed. Victor would need the family’s approval to change this tattoo on her to his own emblem after the ceremony.
The girl hesitated a little then answered his question,
“The hall’s master intended to gift me to his son after the ceremony. But I hated him, he is a vicious and merciless man. I was tortured by him many times during our training. If ended up in his hand, my destiny will be worst than death. So I thought if I was able to succeed in the ceremony and was valued by some elder, The hall’s master will find it hard to force me. young master, you can look at him. He is also participating in the ceremony today. He is there in the back glaring daggers at you.” she said while pointing with her pretty eyes.
She did not tell the whole truth, he knew it, and she was trying to use him. He had too much experience to be lied to by a little girl, but he did not care, because he could guess what she wanted to do, and he does not mind helping her a little to gain his trust, so he will not expose her for now.
Victor looked at the back of the room, matching his eyes with a remarkably normal brown-haired young man sitting lonely in the back. Really fits to be heir to the assassins’ hall, if Victor didn’t know about this guy, he would have never suspected that he wanted to murder him, let alone notice him at all.
But Victor knew him, His name is Guy, and he will betray the family with his father, the assassins’ hall master, in the future, in about ten years probably. He has to find a chance to get rid of them.
He returned his eyes to Lily, who was trying to act calm.
“This ceremony is very dangerous, and the Assassins’ hall’s master is a branch family member. His son does not seem to have the bloodline, is he really willing to sacrifice him for a chance of better status? using his connection he can easily arrange a manager or a supervisor position for him.” He asked Lily, whispering in her blushed ear.
“Young master, that is exactly what I thought,” she answered in a serious tone,
“He is his father’s only child, and he is an evil person. Many of my sisters have suffered in his hands” she had a painful look in her eyes,
“But,.. “ she lowered her voice, “... I heard a rumor. One night while one of my sisters was accompanying him, he was very drunk and because he had to keep his virginity and couldn’t sleep with her, he could only vent by abusing her. One time she was very hurt and told him that he should die in the ceremony, so he rebuked her and had a slip of tongue. He said that his father has acquired some kind of a rare pill and fed it to him, and he was pretty assured of his success. Luckily, he was very drunk back then and could not remember what he had said. If not, my sister and I would have been already dead by now.” she shivered a little while saying that.
“A pill !?” Victor thought with a surprise,
“It can’t be !. No wonder they betrayed the family back then. It seems the family found out, so they had to escape and seek refuge with other families.”
He knew exactly what kind of pill it was, as there are only a handful of pills that can increase a candidate’s awakening chance. And there is only one kind that can be feasibly if not cheaply acquired by them if they utilized the resources in their hall.
But he can’t accuse them without solid proof, and he didn’t really need to. There are always many methods to get rid of some ants. This will have to wait till after the ceremony. But it did not mean he couldn’t interfere with Guy’s ceremony. He will have to use a little trick, and if his conclusions were correct, he may be able to cause him some trouble without being discovered.
Looking at Guy, Victor smiled then whispered in Lily’s small ear “Do you want him dead ?”
“I dare not young master” she answered while keeping her face down, but he can hear the desire for revenge in her voice.
“Whatever, you just need to listen to me, and do exactly as I tell you to.” he said and waited for her to nod before he continued whispering in her ear, “During the ritual that will happen next, make sure to focus on him, and although it would be painful, The moment you feel a piercing pain in your head, I want you to keep your eyes open looking at him and remind your self with what he did to you and your sisters, you will need to do this for about a minute and no more, or it will affect your ritual, it will not be easy though. After that, you can return to focusing on your ritual and ignore him completely. understood?” he asked.
“yes, young master..,” she answered. He could hear a hint of doubt in her voice.
She did not understand how the ceremony worked nor what it implied. Even the family only had a very rudimentary and experimental knowledge about it.
But he understood it well. He didn’t spend all those years researching in vain.
While he has no idea if this would be effective, if Guy was unlucky, he would end up in a coffin.