248 Odd about him. (2/2)

Even without his improved abilities, he could have easily noticed the odd air surrounding Mikol. Even with Blaze's abnormal talent, this Mikol seemed to match the raw Mana both of them had, and Ozul found it strange.

'Hm. I will just watch the match then. I can test my limits later,' he decided to wait till the end of the tournament since it concerned Blaze.

When all the other Rank-9 Mages probed him except for Alver, Ozul also gave all of them a brief look. His eyes paused at Lammert for a couple of seconds and felt those raging emotions inside him.

'Just you wait... you will be the next,' he thought inside his head before sweeping his gaze towards the woman with an icy cold look.

She was the sect leader of the Nine Petals Sect and still held the grudge that he had taken her best disciples in her sect's entire history.

Ozul's gaze didn't linger on her for another moment. He didn't look at Alver who was actually staring at him with such an intense gaze that he had a hard time ignoring it now.

Just then, Ozul remembered something and turned his face to his right.

There he saw the old man standing on one foot and scratching his leg with the other one. He was still barefoot, but when he focused on his feet, they didn't have a single speck of dirt.

Taking a moment to arrange his words, Ozul spoke, ”You said you wanted to find those candidates here in the Neutral City? What are you doing here then?”

”Hoho~? Are you that ashamed that such an uncultured old man like me is standing beside you?” Old Gu answered with one of his hands scratching his back like he was a monkey.

Ozul could at least tell that this old man was deliberately doing that to test his patience.

”You can stay with me all day, I wouldn't care as long as you keep your mouth shut. I am just reminding you to hurry up your task. You still have to give me an explanation,” he answered without a change in his expressions.

”Haha! Young man, you sure are impatient. Alright, I can at least tell you that it will take around five years before things start,” Old Gu revealed how much time he would actually take to tell him his identity.

”What are you doing here then? Don't you have work to do?” Ozul asked this question after carefully thinking about it for a while.

He wanted to probe if this old man was acting independently or doing things on others' orders. Though he leaned towards the former possibility, and it might not help him in any way. He thought that it wouldn't hurt to try it anyway.

”I have as much time as I want, young man,” Old Gu also answered in a way that didn't reveal anything.

”But I am here because now I don't need to find all the candidates again. A couple of them are already here, haha! I am lucky!” Old Gu laughed in delight, attracting quite a few eyes because of his loud voice.

”Who is this old man?”

”He is just an ordinary man, I can't feel any Mana from him.”

”But he was also flying with the leader of the Three-Eyed Strangers earlier!”

”If I can't sense his Mana... does that mean he is actually stronger than me?!”

...

Even the high ranking officials from the other factions started muttering while some even blatantly pointed their fingers at him.

”Hehe... It seems I attracted quite a lot of attention, huh? Alright, as an apology, I will give a piece of advice. Start training those two under you with all they have got, things might get difficult later on~” Old Gu apologized, but Ozul felt that he would have given him this 'advice' even if he hadn't done anything.

”Can you at least tell me if... you have anything common with me?” Ozul asked even though he wasn't able to word it correctly.

”Haha? What? Do you think I am your grandfather, young man? Hoho~? If you crave grandparents' love so much, I might actually just adopt you. However, I am very strict, I tell ya!” Old Gu continued to tease Ozul who by now was glaring at him with cold eyes.

”Ooh. Don't get so serious young man. I thought you finally had learned to appreciate the humor. Geez, the young generation so cold these days,” Old Gu hurriedly waved his hands and shook his head in a disappointed manner.

By now, Ozul had realized that he wouldn't get any answers from this old man no matter how much he tried to probe.

Not willing to put up with the old man's nonsense any longer, Ozul shifted his focus to Irvin who looked dumbfoundedly at the old man's interaction with his young master.