Chapter 1155 - Ceremony

The five flying chariots came from afar. The ones pulling these chariots were the pegasi, which were special flying mounts owned by the elves. Four of the chariots were escorting one flying chariot that was in the center. On the side, White Show was also accompanying them (looking a lot stronger than last time, actually). Lady Sainte was here.

Instead of going forward, Wizard Hume and the elves of the Royal Palace made sure to give space to Abel. Then, under Druid Lucia’s instructions, the flying chariot went down and stopped right in front of him.

Druid Lucia jumped and left pretty quickly, “I’ll be in now, Grandmaster Bennett.”

Abel shook his head and smiled. As he went forth to open the chariot door, he could see Lorraine was blushing in her full attire.

Abel whispered, “Everyone’s waiting for the new woman of the house, you know.”

Lorraine changed the topic, “You’ve become a lot stronger now, Bennett.”

Lorraine didn’t think that much changed after Abel became a grandmaster alchemist, but that was until the Wizard Union insisted that Abel should go to the promotion ceremony. To learn about what’s so special about grandmaster alchemists, she even went as far as to look up records from the temple. She was surprised when she learned that the rank of the grandmaster alchemist was actually a missing link between modern technology and ancient technology.

Basically, the grandmaster alchemists were what’s so important about the ancient civilizations. A lot of the stuff from ancient times could not be replicated just because there were no grandmaster alchemists nowadays. This was what’s so important about grandmaster alchemists. Not only could they create grandmaster potions that could change the entire ecosystem, but they could also craft war machines that would change the way of how wars were fought. Of course, Abel wasn’t so proficient yet to be capable of accomplishing those things, but his appearance was something of a very powerful symbol for the central continent. He became the hope for the central continent to revive the technologies of ancient times, which was especially important since the Nation of God had always been a terrifying threat.

Before going to join the ceremony, Lorraine told Abel everything she knew about grandmaster alchemists. After that, they just walked with each other and had their conversation. No one was interrupting them. Abel eventually understood why the Wizard Union, the dwarves, the orcs, and even the legendary wizards were placing so much importance on him. However, he also thought about what Wizard Dolan said. It was very important for him to pick when he wanted to use his skills because, quite literally, no one could pressure or push him to do anything now.

Abel and Lorraine walked in as soon as Druid Dolan announced, “Great Grandmaster Bennett and her Majesty, Lady Saint of the Honourable elven goddess temple have arrived!”

The elven horns blew on two sides of the hallroom. The atmosphere was becoming extremely solemn. While Abel was entering, he could see that the guests were almost taking up all the space. The guests were a lot more than the number a few days ago at the golden castle. It probably had to do with the restrictions he set on the golden castle. In the golden castle, only those who were above advanced rank were allowed to win. Here, it was actually the emperors of the human empires that had to stay out. Royalties were not especially taken as important figures by the class holders. This was especially true for law-defying wizards, big druids, and archpriests.

Abel and Lorraine smiled as they walked towards the innermost part of the palace. Wizard Hume was already waiting for them.

“Everyone!” Wizard Hume announced very loudly, “I’m here to represent the Wizard Union to host today’s promotion ceremony. All the guests will now be able to see the grand book that will go into one of the most important collections of history. This is the first promotion scroll of the first grandmaster alchemist on the continent. It is supposed to represent how far the alchemy level of the continent has reached!”

Some of them already noticed that Wizard Hume mentioned grandmaster alchemist and not grandmaster potion master. They got quite confused as they thought that Wizard Hume got it wrong. The dwarves were not them. They knew that this was what Grandmaster Bennett’s actual title was. The title of grandmaster alchemist was supposed to represent both grandmaster potion master and grandmaster forger at the same time, and Abel happened to be both of these.

Wizard Hume continued, “Let’s give our best welcome to Grandmaster Benentt!”

Lorraine smiled and pushed Abel on the back. Abel was just following Wizard Hume’s instruction to go to his side. In the inner part of the palace, the original throne of the elven queen was now replaced with one that was made entirely of gold. Originally, replacing the throne was never done before, but when the Wizard Union made the request, the elven queen didn’t hesitate to agree. The way she was looking at it, it was the most honorable thing the elven race had done to welcome the very first grandmaster alchemist in history. It was definitely much more important than her reputation as the queen.

Abel watched guests and spoke loudly, “My name is Bennett, everyone, and I’d like to address all of you here as my friends. I do see some of you that I don’t know that well, but whether you know me or not, I’m here to thank you for attending my promotion ceremony.

“You know, I’ve been trying to get to know my grandmaster ability better lately. I don’t know the full extent of my powers now, but I can guarantee one thing you, people, one thing I can guarantee you is that I’ll be brewing at least golden quality potions from now on. That means that I won’t be making anything below golden quality.”

The entire crowd got extremely loud when he finished. There was only one rank difference between the golden quality potions and the blue quality potions, but the two differed drastically. It could be said that the ingredients of the master-level potions were, without exception, all very precious. Abel said that he could always produce much better results with ingredients of the same quality. But, of course, that was going to make everyone a lot louder.

Abel continued, “Of course, I’ll have a limit of how many potions I can create every month. There are missions that I have to complete immediately. There is a limit to how many potions I can give, so from here on, their upper limit for the master level potion would be five bottles. I’ll be personally picking the appropriate applications from the mission platform.”

What Abel said caused, again, a massive reaction in the hallroom. If he was just brewing five bottles every month, that would be nowhere enough to meet the whole central continent’s demands. Abel wasn’t going to say much more than what he had, however. He’s got no gain brewing the master-level potion. Actually, if it wasn’t for helping out the Potionmaster’s Guild, he didn’t even want to do more missions that they assigned. He’d actually be more content with five bottles because he could then distribute the other missions to the other three potion masters. Not the “natural breathing,” though, since the elves would only let him do that.

As for how Abel was going to calm this crowd down, he didn’t really care. He didn’t know most of the people here. The people that were actually close to him weren’t reacting that much, anyway, since they could always contact Abel if they wanted their own bottles.

Wizard Hume could see that Abel stopped talking, “Quite, everyone! Let’s now have Grandmaster Bennett sit on his grandmaster’s spot!”

The elven horns were blown once again. All the guests were looking towards Abel as he went forth to sit on the golden throne. This was a ceremony, a tradition that was supposed to take place for legendary wizards. From what it looked, the Wizard Union was treating grandmaster alchemists just like the legendary figures. It was even clearer when the visitors all saw the golden throne. Everyone was starting to see just how much importance the Wizard Union was placing on ABel.

All of them cheered, “Grandmaster Bennett! Grandmaster Bennett!”

Five streaks of white light flashed in the sky. The five legendary wizards appeared in the sky of the hallroom.

The five legendary wizards congratulated, “Congratulations, Grandmaster Bennett.”

After seeing the legendary wizards floating in the air, some of the guests were actually shocked. Many of them hadn’t seen any legendary wizards before, and they just couldn’t divert their gazes away.

Abel stood up and bowed back, “Thank you for coming here, legendary wizards!”

Wizard Laking laughed out loudly, “I came for your wine and food, Grandmaster Bennett!”

Wizard Dolan continued, “Same! I’ve lost the taste of other food after going to the golden castle.”

The other three legendary wizards nodded and smiled. The five legendary wizards did their bit to show their good relationship with Abel. It was extremely surprising for the guests.

Wizard Hume laughed and announced, “Everyone, we’ll now have the banquet. Let me make it clear. All the dishes were cooked by the two chefs of the golden castle. The red wine was also taken from the wine keep of the golden castle. Of course, we’ll also be providing legendary level water spirit fruit juice.”

Abel was quite surprised until he realized that the red wine and fruit juice must be the ones that were only synthesized. Those must be the ones he left for his followers and Butler Meyer to distribute to his friends. Those four were probably the ones who got these ready.

Actually, there were just simply too many guests at this banquet. The two chefs had been securing a regular supply of food while they were busy cooking up the dishes. Once they were done, the freezing element wizards of the Wizard Union would then be cooling them down for preservation. When the dishes were to be served, all it took was some heating up to serve the dishes that were prepared several days in advance.

When Wizard Hume made his announcement, the servants went forth to get the dishes over. Like most banquets, this one was supposed to be done with a buffet. As the smell of the dishes was going out to the hallroom, all the guests were very pleased with the amount that was put into this particular occasion. On most days, they would have to pay light stones and wait in line to get access to these dishes. They’d also have to be high-ranking class holders to even qualify to eat. This meant that some of the noblemen here weren’t even supposed to see these dishes in front of them.

Abel was quite speechless when he saw how rowdy the whole scene was getting. He didn’t participate in the affairs of the promotion ceremony. If he did participate in arranging for today, he would’ve never allowed the rabbit essence dishes to be included. Right now, he couldn’t bear to imagine how messy it would be later one.

Abel tried to keep it to himself with a smile, “Legendary wizards, why don’t we head to the side palace?”

The doors of the side palace weren’t closed. Inside, there was a small-sized banquet for only those whom Abel acknowledged. Abel was bringing Lorraine and the five legendary wizards in. Following that, it was Emperor Gallatin and the dwarven king. There wouldn’t be anyone else after that.

As soon as Wizard Dolan went in, he immediately grabbed some food he liked and started eating on his own. Abel didn’t know what to think, but if a legendary wizard was acting like this, he wouldn’t find it difficult to imagine what those guests inside the main hall would be like.

Wizard Dolan turned to Abel after sipping some red wine, “This isn’t the right wine!”

“I can’t have the best stuff with this many guests,” Abel sighed, then took out some beverages that he synthesized twice before, “Here, Wizard Dolan, let me change that for you.”