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Valerie stepped off the stage to some cheers and returned to Melinda and Suri\'s sides right at the same time that someone began to clap...

*Clap*

*Clap*

*Clap*

The sound of the claps was low and normal but they caught the attention of everyone present for no other reason than the one who was clapping.

Gilbert Doe, the leader of the Golden crow guild ignored Clovis\' groans of pain as he walked past him to climb the stage.

He was facing Melinda as he clapped and then his eyes cut to Valerie just as he said,

"Marvelous. What is even more impressive is that you are only just into your second year in the Academy. You truly are a special kind of genius" Gilbert said to her.

His tone surely sounded friendly but anyone could tell it was all facade.

Valerie ignored the words with an eye roll being the only indication that she actually heard them.

Melinda, however, smiled,

"Valerie appreciates your praise," she said. Like Gilbert, her smile and jovial tone were all a facade.

Neither Valerie nor she appreciated anything from one of the most antagonizing guilds in regards to the Sapphirine guild as the guild war drew near.

Gilbert\'s eyes were suddenly turned back to Melinda,

"Ah, the famed leader of the Sapphirine guild. You should be commended as well. 

Having your name in the same conversation as mine despite having no feats to speak of.

Truly impressive." all of this he said with his well-mannered smile.

Melinda was humble and she almost looked bashful as she stepped up on the stage and only left a few feet between herself and Gilbert,

"I thank you for your praise. It means nothing to me of course, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

I AM impressive.

I don\'t need feats to know I am better than you"

All these words, Melinda said with her humble and fairly bashful smile that was only meant to taunt Gilbert further.

Gilbert chuckled,

"A joke. That\'s what you are. \'Better than me?\'. Arrogance. That is all you have. I have lived longer than you have and I have the strength to back that age difference. You\'re nothing before me" he said and his words had Melinda bursting into laughter.

When she stopped, she asked,

"Why? Because you are at the early stage of the Cosmic Pagoda realm and have been in that realm for ten years now? Because you bolster your fighting abilities with Artifacts and skills. 

You are the one who is nothing in front of me." she said and turned around.

"You\'re just going to walk away?" Gilbert asked, his tone taunting and mocking.

Melinda did not turn around as she said,

"I don\'t waste time with incapable idiots"

Gilbert frowned,

"I challenge you," he announced.

"I decline," Melinda said with a wave of her hand.

"What? You are all talk and no bite?" Gilbert asked with a smirk.

His words actually caused Melinda to pause and look back at him,

"Because you are weak. You will hardly be a challenge" she said.

The tone, the nonchalance, the blatant disrespect had Gilbert struggling to just let Melinda be and he stepped forward and reached out to grab her shoulder while releasing the pressure of his cultivation and also exerting his strength.

If it affected Melinda, she gave no indication and instead eyed the hand on her shoulder and the anger in her eyes were clear as day,

"Who said you could touch me?" she asked and turned around.

All through her motion, Gilbert never allowed his hand to leave her shoulder.

He was about to wonder why Melinda was not showing a visage of being affected by his strength and cultivation pressure.

With Melinda not being as public as all other Guild leaders, and the last public knowledge of her cultivation realm being at the early stage of the Cosmic Aurora realm, it was easy for Gilbert to have no idea how out of his league he was with the monster that was Melinda Dane.

He had no way of knowing that the beautiful woman was in no way a cultivator he could hope to oppress with his cultivation just at the Early stage of the Cosmic Pagoda realm.

His lack of knowledge was not totally his fault and could better be blamed on the standard and accepted rate of cultivation progression which made it so that, according to common sense, early-stage Cosmic Aurora did not become a late stage in a year, much less, peak.

Also, he had not yet comprehended his Dao, hence his Dao heart was even more susceptible to oppression.

As she released an Aura of Dominance, Gilbert found his hand, the one that was on her shoulder, shaking.

His eyes widened and he looked down at the shake which he had felt but refused to believe.

Then Melinda placed her hand on his shoulder and exerted her pressure on him.

It was weaker by one cultivation stage and was clearly in a different, weaker, realm but it was stronger in every other way.

"Never in your life should you touch me" Melinda said and with each word, Gilbert found his knees buckling.

He tried to fight it but he could not.

He took his hand off Melinda\'s shoulder but that was not enough to shake off her Dominant aura.

Gilbert began to sweat.

Here he was, in front of a large crowd of students and also members of his guild who used to look at him with respect and was finding it had to keep his legs straight.

He was finding it difficult to remain standing.

He was finding it difficult not to fall to his knees in front of the beautiful lady whose visage resembled that of an overbearing goddess.

*Thud*

The sound of his knees hitting the stage was quite mild but could be heard quite clearly in the pin-drop silence that descended upon the scene the moment Melinda first stared at his hand on her shoulder.

The pressure of his cultivation was still out but it did nothing to help him.

If anything, it further amplified his humiliation in the sense that the full blast of the cultivation pressure was useless in the face of true dominance.

Melinda then bent low, having never broken a sweat and looking as refreshed as she had when she first stepped up on the stage,

"I told you, You are weak. You are Nothing in front of me"

With that, she walked off the stage.

Leaving Gilbert on his knees, staring at the ground, and tightening his fists in anger at the humiliation he had just faced.

***

The Doxon Duchy...

The Doxon Duchy Palace...

Svetlana Doxon was in her court and wondered what the hell was going on?

Never had she planned to let the Doxon family fight each other to the point where it would weaken the internal structure of the family.

She was not going to let the battles between the different factions, to determine who would govern after her, be the reason the Doxon family would be destroyed during her tenure.

And while she rarely interfered, she always kept a close eye on the developments to make sure, overall, it wouldn\'t be too devastating for the family as a whole.

However, never had she thought that things would take this strange direction that they had now taken.

Through her orb which she used to observe the Doxon Duchy, she observed a bizarre change that she could not, for the life of her understand...

One thing was clear though, nefarious energy was connecting every member of the Doxon family and then connecting them all to something outside of the range of her Duchy-wide monitoring perception....