Altair walked over to the weapons arrayed on the wall and frowned as she looked over them. There were four different types of swords of varying lengths, a war scythe, a long and short spear, two flails, a mace, and a maul. Altair frowned at all of them as she reached out and took the short spear from the wall. She wasn't tall enough for the long spear and the short spear was the closest thing to a Bo Staff for her. She would like to break off the head of it but it appeared to be made entirely of metal so that wouldn't be possible without burning a decent chunk of Mana and if she did that then she would probably wind up burning all of her Mana due to her strange problem.

She examined the spear in detail and noticed that the point was blunted. Seeing this caused her brows to furrow then she touched the edges and those were also bluntly. She frowned at the weapon until the thought occurred to her that this was an event with the children of nobles so of course the weapons wouldn't be lethal. She tossed the spear from hand to hand to test its weight and balance and found it to be excellent. It wasn't as good as her shadow weapons but it would suffice.

She then turned and walked to an area that was more isolated than others and started going through her forms to learn more about her weapon. She swung her spear with one hand and two hands, swinging it around her in a circle while moving her body to counter balance it as well.

At first she had a very hard time moving properly in the formal dress she was wearing. It was very clear that it bogged her down and hindered her movements. However, Altair adapted to it very quickly with the short spear in hand. Soon her movements flowed like water while swinging the weapon around and for the first time since she came to the Empire she felt at peace as she invested herself entirely into her practice.

Everyone in the room around her and the adults above quickly picked Altair out as she practiced. To them, it looked like an angel was dancing with a weapon. The adults and experienced fighters could easily tell that she was extremely skilled with the weapon because her movements sped up but did not get sloppy even though some were extravagant and showy. When the adults used the screens near them to get a closer look at the person dancing with a weapon they were stunned at how young she appeared to be. Most of them had seen this girl with Sarah and had immediately guessed she was the new adopted daughter of the Marnithok family. They were also aware of Joshua's prowess in his grade. Coupled together it looked like the Marnithok family had stumbled onto a treasure that doubled their future.

No one else in the room warmed up with their weapons the same way that Altair did. They weren't as skilled and didn't know as much about fighting with these ancient types of weapons as her so they were unaware of the benefits it offered.

With her dance complete, Altair abruptly sat down with crossed legs and rested the spear on her thighs as she sighed in satisfaction. She closed her eyes to rest as she normally would have done before a battle right after her warm up as well. The way she was now, she was no longer Aria Marnithok or Altair Maxwell. She was now a reaper on the battlefield and her muscles tensed up in anticipation as her heart thumped loudly in her chest. She felt eager for whatever this combat event was to come because she hadn't had a fight with a weapon in a long time. Even if she couldn't really use her Mana it was still going to enjoyable.

The way Altair was sitting went against noble etiquette but it couldn't be helped. It was a habit that had been imprinted into her body since she was rescued years ago. To her, it was also the most comfortable way to await a battle. Now that she had a weapon she was actually looking forward to something for the first time since she came to the Empire. Perhaps the noble events of this place weren't as bad as she thought..

Elsewhere in the Lothan mansion Sarah was walking along with Helena and Gordon down a hallway to where the kids who dropped out of the event were taken to. Sarah expected that Altair would be there. After all, Celestine was from the Ladrian family. The Ladrian family had a rich history in the Empire and was very trustworthy, so there was no need to doubt that Celestine would do as she said she would.

The reason Sarah didn't want Altair to participate in the event wasn't because she was injured. It was because she didn't want the other families to know what Altair was actually capable of. Once it got out that Altair was a genius in combat then their family would be flooded with marriage proposals and the government would start watching them like a hawk.

The government might even try to strip away the parental rights they had from adopting her if they weren't satisfied with how they were raising her. This would cause all sorts of problems for their future plans for Altair. It would make it a lot harder to make her disappear later when her lack of body growth became a question and it would also make it practically impossible to use her for whatever reasons Renald had.

Sarah and the others arrived at the smallish room where the children were and quickly looked around it. It took a whole three seconds for Sarah to realize Altair wasn't here. Her expression darkened at this realization and she quickly turned on her heel and hastily walked to where the event was being held. She would be unable to quickly extract Altair from the event but she could demand that Lothan blind the areas around her if she acted hysterical and dove in to try and save her. That was her current plan.

Sarah found herself lowering Celestine's value in her mind with this. Celestine had failed the one job she had been given and it was a very simple job too. She couldn't wait to see her squirm as she was questioned later.

Before too long, Altair smelled grass and foliage and felt grass poking up into her legs and butt suddenly. She opened her eyes and watched as an entire forest with ankle deep grass grew up around her, obscuring her view of the nobles above and everyone in the room around her. The sight of it stunned Altair as she watched it all happen.

What she was watching was an Augmented Reality room taking shape around her. It was capable of generating realistic environments, creatures, weather patterns, day and night changes, along with the sounds, smells, and temperatures that followed in any of those cases. Any injuries accrued here would be real injuries. The system judged a person's ability by examining their Spiritual Energy capacity and creating creatures that they should be able to handle. This naturally had holes where people could die but that wasn't the case for the event that the Lothan family had planned for tonight.

The Lothan family had put in safeguards to ensure that no deaths could happen. It would be a complete debacle if any noble children actually died in a training exercise that was designed to showcase the talents of the younger generations to the noble parents. It was another test to judge the stock of the upcoming generation so that the parents could make more informed decisions on who to marry their children to. It also showed hints of the future to the families with excellent children. Furthermore, it allowed the children to show off their talents to one another in a setting that wasn't at school.

But at its core the event was for determining which pairing the parents would want in the future. Noble children were, on average, genetically superior to commoners. This was more obvious with the longer running noble families because they had more money to toss at Gene Stimulants for longer generations. Because of the constant Gene manipulation that was happening under the surface among the noble families and how much of an impact it had on the houses future, they put forth hundreds of these kinds of tests to see who was valuable and who wasn't valuable.

This was just another one of those tests in the end.

Altair stood to her feet and looked around her surroundings. She could no longer tell where she was or by what means everything came to be the way it was now. She silently put up her guard as she eyed her surroundings with cautious eyes. She had knowledge of camera's being able to record and transmit people's actions from when Stacey recorded her just a few days ago and from when the real Liam exposed her. She was probably being watched as this was supposed to be entertainment for the nobles above.

Her thoughts were correct. Everywhere in the room was closely monitored and people could watch any of the children at any time with a flick of their wrist.

Shortly after Altair put up her guard a masculine voice echoed across the room, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for attending our party this evening. Tonight, the event we have in store for you all is quite an entertaining one. Using AR technology we have recreated a forest from a Palnorman world. Within there are all of the kids who have chosen to take part in the event. The rules are simple, do not surrender until the end or be the last one standing before time runs out. This does mean that you are all against each other but you are not the only threats here." The voice paused a moment before it added, "Shortly predators will be created in the environment near every person. These creatures are created based on the people nearby and will hunt each person down. You can defeat them in the same way you would in reality but it won't stop the system from creating another creature to harass you within a few minutes of you dispatching that creature. These creatures can be lured to other people and they may change their targets, so do be careful okay? Do not worry as we have instilled safeguards to ensure that no deaths can happen but it will hurt if you let your guard down."

"Well then, I hope you all enjoy the show and I hope that all the kids learn a lot from this exercise!" The voice cut off with that last sentence and Altair narrowed her eyes as she stretched briefly.

'Fighting another worlds wild beasts should be interesting,' Altair though to herself as she looked around her surroundings. She then started walking with her spear tucked behind her arm.