"I did it!" Cronix's voice filled the room, drawing the attention of the other three. It's been a few days since the crow's break through, and only three days until Onyx's party.

Lapsa stood up, "Does that mean we can leave right now?"

Cayden shook his head, "That wouldn't be smart, there would be a lot of problems if we suddenly disappear. We wouldn't be able to go anywhere without constantly glancing over our shoulder."

Cronix stayed silent, he didn't question anything Cayden said, and instead asked, "Lapsa, how prepared are the formations in the kitchen?"

"They're ready, but they're obviously not going to be as strong as yours."

Nodding Cronix turned to Cayden, "What else do we need?"

Cayden shrugged, and said, "We're basically all set, there's nothing else we really need to do? We should just follow the rules for now."

No one argued with that, and they all continued doing their own thing.

Cronix entered his mental expanse, and worked on the ice wraith.

Cayden sped up his absorption speed and his third star, that was already blue to begin with, turned an even deeper shade of blue, but not enough to be considered flawless.

Lapsa didn't stop working on the energy sealing arrangements, even if they weren't needed anymore.

The crow studied her core, hoping to find hints on how to better integrate her stars into the core.

The day quickly passed from there and the three days until the party became two. The hallways and the great hall looked completely different compared to the week before.

The amount of decorations had tripled in the last few days and the great hall was just about ready to fit countless guests.

Cronix and Cayden were walking through the hallways, admiring the finished product. Cronix was suddenly bumped by a fellow servant, they were in a rush, so they quickly apologized and continued on their way.

Cronix didn't mind, and continued admiring the decorations, especially the ice sculptures in the middle of the great hall. As he was looking, he quietly asked Cayden, "Exactly how many people are coming?"

Cayden answered with, "I don't know, but there's probably going to be people from the other families coming over."

Cronix frowned, his answer confused him, "Why are they inviting outsiders, aren't they at their weakest right now? I mean even we were able to cause so much chaos."

"It's more like a front, you see the other families don't know that the Ayuna's are at their weakest state, so instead of keeping a low profile, they're acting the same. This way they aren't suspicious, besides only the younger generation is invited."

Cronix understood what Cayden was saying, but he still felt like it was very bizarre. The two were silent after that, and Cronix decided now was a good time to apologize, but right when he opened his mouth, he was suddenly bumped by another servant.

The servant was flustered by the sudden stop, but they were also in a rush, so they continued moving, not even acknowledging Cronix.

As it turned out, they weren't the only servants in a rush, Cronix and Cayden realized that everyone around them was busy and in a panic.

Cayden stopped one of them, "Why is everyone here acting crazy?"

That servant was out of breath, but they managed to say, "Mistress Amethyst is arriving today."

Those five words drained all the color on Cayden's face, and his pupils instantly shrunk.

Cronix didn't really understand why those words were bad, or who Mistress Amethyst was, but he could judge from Cayden's face and from the movement of everyone else that this was really bad news.

Cayden let the servant go and turned to Cronix, "Why need to get a move on things, what were our tasks again?"

"We have to clean out all the dust in the manor." Cayden was more than relieved to hear this.

"Dust contains dirt, so I can just..." Cayden put one of his hands in a claw form and created a ball of dirt.

The dirt ball quickly became like a vacuum and sucked all the dirt inside the great hall, the dirt brought along everything it was attached to, effectively clearing out the dust.

Cronix then cleaned out those places with water, taking out any remaining remnants. They quickly rushed to do the same to the other rooms, thanks to the combination of their elements they did things rather quickly, but it still took awhile since there were countless rooms.

By the time they were done an hour had passed, and the atmosphere in the manor was the most tense it has ever been since Cronix arrived, and that wasn't only for the demi-humans, even head butler Ortan was scared.

But the ones who were the most scared were the two young masters Onyx and Riley.

Onyx's feared his mother greatly, she wasn't like his father who seemed like he didn't care about his children, no, she was caring in her own way, but it was her way that made him fear her, as she was constantly pushing him through his limits, although that was one of the only reasons he made it to the flawless Caster stages.

However for Riley it was different, he had his own reasons to be scared of her. Between the two boys, Riley feared her the most. In truth scared wasn't the word to describe how he felt about her, not even terrified was a strong enough word.

Riley's hands shook, when he heard she was arriving today, he remembered his father saying she was coming, but the fear he felt before was nothing compared to right now. She could be arriving at any moment.

Ash, why couldn't you be here?

Riley shook his head at that thought.

Even if he wasn't busy, he would've gone to the main house. She's only in the Core Creation stage, I'll also get there eventually, there's...

A knock interrupted him, he opened the door and a servant appeared before him. The servant was pale, and they said with a soft voice, "She's arrived."

Riley cursed under his breath and dismissed the servant. He clenched his fist and walked outside the manor to the direction of the gate.

When he made it to the gate, he saw a line of all the house servants near the side of the gate, including Cronix, Cayden, and Lapsa.

Onyx was already there and so was head butler Ortan, they were also in a line at the other side of the gate, Riley joined them. At the gate was a black carriage, led by two horses.

The horses weren't normal; they were an almost black shade of blue with an azure mane. There was a zig zag pattern going from their ears converging at their spine and ending at the tip of their tail, also with the azure color.

Occasionally there were traces of electricity appearing throughout their body.

Ortan left the line and opened the carriage door, there was an obvious tremble in his movements when he did this, like he was opening the door to the lion's cage.

A dark blue haired woman slowly walked out of the carriage, she looked around 30 years old and her reddish orange eyes scanned the area. Her expression was stern and cold.

It was actually a wonder how neither Onyx's nor Topaz 's faces were naturally stern like both their parents.

There was an emblem on the woman's coat, it wasn't the Ayuna emblem, but one with black lightning surrounding a multi-color jewel in the middle.

She reached the bottom, and walked through the gate, she didn't even acknowledge Ortan's existence, which he was very thankful for.

The two of them may both be in the Core Creation stage, but there was a very big gap between them. First of all, she was already in the advance Core Creation stage, almost in the Star Core Magician stage, already creating a massive gap of power which couldn't be crossed without special means.

Second of all, even when she was in the intermediate stage, which was the stage Ortan was in now, she was leagues above him in terms of strength, there was zero chance he could ever beat her.

Riley's mouth was dry, and it looked like only Onyx was calm, except his hands were sweaty. The dark blue haired woman slowly made her way to the lines.

All the servants bowed, and said, "Welcome home headmistress!" She ignored them though.

When she arrived she stopped right in front of her son, her expression softened, and her arms wrapped around him. All of Onyx's previous worries vanished, and his expression changed to one of happiness.

That could not be said for anyone else, especially Riley. They wanted to run from this place so badly, it was practically became like an unreachable itch.

When the two broke the hug, mistress Amethyst's face had softened up quite a bit, but it quickly reverted back when she glanced at Riley.

A pike of hatred appeared in her heart, and whether she intended it or not, a fraction of her aura escaped her. The aura was directed at Riley.

Riley's face instantly paled, and his heartbeat sped up. He felt something inside his magic expanse become unstable, one of his stars began showing signs of collapsing.

His stars were about to reveal themselves out into the open, but he restrained them, he wasn't going to show any weakness.

The headmistress turned away from Riley and walked inside with her son beside her

Only when she was gone did Riley allow him breathing to become heavy, and his face to flush. Across from him both Cayden and Cronix looked at each other.

Cronix finally understood why everyone was acting weird. Everything she did made his heart beat faster, and nothing was even directed at him.

His hope of being able to escape slowly began to fade, and was replaced with fear. To Cronix, this was kind of like an eye opener, their escape was slowly becoming an 'if' in his mind.

On top of a tree, the crow watched the arrival of the mistress. There was an obvious hint of fear in her heart.

It could be said that her understanding of how strong mistress Amethyst was, was better than everyone here, besides Ortan, since she was also in the Core Creation stage.

To her, it was going to be like fighting an eagle when she was the size of a normal crow, but she did have something that might even the odds, but she didn't know how well it would work.

When the head mistress entered the manor, something seemed off to her, all over the walls, felt like there was something that wasn't supposed to be there.

But she didn't pay it any attention, she was gone for so long, it was destined to feel weird coming back.