“What’s wrong? You don’t look so good.”
“…Nothing, nothing.” Mo Li quietly placed the teacup aside, avoiding it.
Even though saliva only makes up less than 0.1%, he couldn’t help but think about it.
“By the way, you mentioned that you diluted a lot.
Did you sell all those medicines?”
“Yeah, I put some up for auction at my family’s count estate, but I kept most of them.”
“Oh.” Mo Li nodded stiffly, lost in thought.
“If I remember correctly, your second match this afternoon is against contestant number 23, Yegor.
If I’m not mistaken, Yegor’s father is the deputy financial manager under Viscount Minster, making him a distant relative of Minster.
There’s not much clear information about his combat skills.”
“Yeah.” Probably never even fought before, how could there be clear information?
Mo Li had already lost interest in these Minster rural nobles.
After watching their matches, he was speechless about their combat abilities—standard flashy moves, like eggs that shatter at the slightest touch.
However, Mo Li didn’t let his guard down.
Even if his opponents were a bunch of incompetent nobles, he was fully prepared.
He had the fox clan’s spatial cloak given by Yalong Nolai, and a replica of the quasi-epic weapon, Hanxi, given by the ring.
The competition rules didn’t restrict the use of hidden weapons, so Mo Li brought almost all the hidden weapons he could, just in case.
It turned out he had overestimated these nobles.
In the afternoon, Mo Li, clad in a white battle cloak, entered the arena fully armed.
The noble students in the stands on both sides cast strange looks at him.
“The match is about to begin.
Both sides, take your positions.
It’s number 66, Mo Li, against number 23, Yegor.” The hook-nosed referee stood in the center of the square, routinely announcing the match rules.
“Who is this? Mo Li? What’s his surname? Never heard of this name.”
“Which little noble’s son is he? Never seen him in the academy.
If he’s not a student, how does he qualify to compete?”
“Probably a bastard or something, got in through connections.
Look, he didn’t even wear formal attire, doesn’t understand manners at all, completely lacks the noble demeanor.
Must be a bastard.”
The consensus in the stands was that Mo Li was some noble’s illegitimate child.
After all, if he wasn’t related to nobility, how could he have qualified for the competition?
Mo Li probably didn’t expect that just by appearing, he would inexplicably be labeled as an “illegitimate child,” but he didn’t care.
“Is this my opponent? I refuse to compete with him!” Just as the match was about to start, Mo Li’s opponent suddenly acted up, refusing to compete.
Mo Li silently watched the effeminate-sounding, clearly male, but waving a handkerchief in the air, slender young man in formal attire.
Compared to this fool, Barlow seemed normal.
As the saying goes, “one’s environment shapes them,” these small-town nobles were each more abnormal than the last, a true showcase of human bewilderment.
Perhaps because they lacked noble bloodlines, these small nobles valued their noble status so much that they needed to emphasize it repeatedly to find some comfort in their hearts.
“Why is that?” The hook-nosed old referee frowned slightly, seemingly displeased that his opening speech was interrupted.
“He didn’t wear formal attire and didn’t salute me.
That’s disrespectful, so I refuse to compete with him! Hmph!” The last “hmph” was deliberately raised in pitch, the sharp voice making Mo Li want to kick this androgynous character in the face.
“The competition rules don’t state that not saluting or not wearing formal attire disqualifies someone from competing.” The hook-nosed old man seemed impatient with this guy.
Just a worker for rural nobles, what’s with the pretense of elegance? The old man had a sense of balance; someone of this status wasn’t worth accommodating.
Who did he think he was? To make him turn a blind eye and open the back door, it would at least have to be a legitimate noble.
He wouldn’t even glance at a noble subordinate without a title.
“Objection overruled, the match officially begins.”
“Wait, wait a minute! You’re making me compete with such a vulgar person? This is absurd, utterly absurd! What’s your name, referee? To be so hasty in front of so many nobles, you have no class at all.”
Mo Li didn’t care about any of that.
Since the referee ignored him, it seemed he was allowed to start hitting people.
He drew his dagger and charged at Yegor.
As long as he didn’t kill him, he would beat him senseless, just to fix this guy’s head.
“Rude! So rude!” Yegor shouted while hurriedly drawing his sword.
These self-proclaimed noble nobles seemed to have a fondness for rapiers, these flashy but impractical weapons.
He hadn’t seen many who didn’t use them.
Mo Li moved like the wind, swift as lightning, and in a breath, he was right in Yegor’s face, scaring the effeminate guy so much that he couldn’t even draw his sword properly.
“You lost.” With the dagger at Yegor’s neck, Mo Li calmly declared the verdict.
It was a match without suspense.
“You, you, you…” Yegor, breaking out in a cold sweat, took ten seconds to react, struggling to squeeze out a sentence with a trembling voice.
“You, you cheated! In a duel, harmony is valued, and you attacked before I even drew my sword.
It’s unfair, it doesn’t count!”
Mo Li couldn’t be bothered to argue with him.
He believed that anyone with eyes could see the difference between them.
He trusted the crowd’s judgment.
“Tsk tsk, this bastard is really unreasonable.
He attacked before the other guy even drew his sword, shameless.”
“No manners.
Didn’t his parents teach him how to behave?”
“Exactly, he has no sense of rules.”
“No wonder he’s an unwanted bastard, just like those commoners, uneducated.”
“…”
Alright, Mo Li had overestimated the intelligence of these nobles.
Hearing the various insults and dissatisfaction from the nobles in the stands, Mo Li shook his head.
He wasn’t angry at all; he just felt a sense of superiority, yes, in terms of intelligence.
This was a competition, not a knight’s duel.
As long as it was within the rules, winning was all that mattered.
The Minster Viscount’s territory was truly shallow, with these pampered noble children not knowing the value of daily necessities.
Well, in their ivory towers, why would they care about daily necessities?
After the referee announced the result, ignoring the cursing Yegor, Mo Li sheathed his dagger and left the stage.
The nobles watching the match in the stands were mostly students from Fran Academy, and among them was someone Mo Li knew well…
“Hey, your former crush won.
How do you feel, happy?” Barlow teased, glancing at the brown-haired girl sitting next to him.
She had her hands intertwined, looking complicatedly at the figure walking off the stage.
It was the second young lady of the Minster Viscount’s territory, the mastermind who instigated Mo Li to assassinate Norma, Martha.
