Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 974 -  Taming the Ceremony - 2

Weirdly, Orion wasnʼt pushing many advantages that affected the legitimacy of the ceremony…

The attendance protocol was being respected. Each family within its representation limits, each contingent placed in the sectors the rules established. From a purely formal perspective it was a ceremony conducted as it should be, the protocol intact, the forms observed, every visible requirement met. But from any other perspective it was a balance of tensions wearing ceremony as decoration.

Orion occupied the west side of the hall with his elite. A small number compared to the army heʼd left outside, but not negligible in individual terms, Julius had assessed them at the entrance with the same attention heʼd gave to any data that needed verification before being used. Gold rank across the majority. Nearly half of them carrying the signs of people who had been active in the last several days and were still fully functional despite it, which said something about the quality and loyalty of the resources Orion had invested in this particular contingent.

 The crystal barrier was also active.

 Invisible to anyone without sufficient mana sensitivity to feel it, but present in the way the air in the west section of the hall had a different texture from the air in the rest of the room, slightly denser, slightly weird in the way of something that was filtering what passed through it. Orion had been maintaining it for hours, well before the ceremony started. Julius had not observed a single moment in which it wasnʼt active, and he had been watching since before they walked in.

 On the opposite side, Luna stood with the posture of someone who had worn protocol clothing enough times that the body knew how to use it correctly without being told. Composed from the outside, giving nothing away, the surface doing exactly what those same protocols required it to do.

 Barely enough to keep her from crossing the hall and confronting her uncle directly over what he was doing with her motherʼs heart, wearing it so openly, spending it so shamelessly, right in front of her.

He had crossed the line…

To her left, Larissa. To her right, Liora, who was the only one of the three who occasionally gazed toward a point in the hall that had nothing of visible interest in it. A specific point that Julius understood perfectly, because he was watching the same one, just a bit more discreetly.

The hidden contingent watching over Renʼs sleeping body was positioned in the upper gallery, behind several artifacts, materials, and pelts that suppressed mana signatures.

Selphira, Victor, Ren.

 Victor more recovered than before but still unconscious, propped against the wall. Selphira still waiting for a miracle, even if she couldnʼt move right now, if... Ren, still in the state he had occupied since the interior space returned him to his body, the quiet of something still completing a process that couldnʼt be hurried from outside, regardless of what was happening in the hall below.

 Julius knew it because Larissa had explained it for him before they entered.

And he knew it because every time his eyes completed their habitual circuit of the hall and reached the gallery point, Liora was looking there, still worried.

♢♢♢♢

 Julius had added three time consuming protocols to the opening of the ceremony.

The first was procedural: the formal count of all families present with their verified representations, which was mandatory by rule but which was normally abbreviated by mutual courtesy because everyone in the room always already knew who was there. Julius did not abbreviate it at all…

He ran it family by family, representative by representative, in the full form the regulation specified, with the unhurried pace of ʼsomeone who considered the procedure worth doing correctlyʼ.

 The second was historical: a reading of the negative precedents relevant to the type of rights transfer Orion was preparing to request, a practice that existed in the legal record but that no one had executed in its complete form in several reigns, because it was long and dense and assumed everyone was aware of the cases already. Julius delivered it in its entirety, watching Orionʼs side of the room while the master of ceremonies read, noting who shifted and who didnʼt, watching for the reactions that protocol couldnʼt fully suppress in people who werenʼt expecting to sit through the whole thing.

Orionʼs reaction, from the outside, was almost nothing. Julius recorded that too.

 The third was ceremonial: an unusually thorough verification of the state of the ceremonial artifacts, each one requiring activation and confirmation by a tamer of sufficient rank before the main session could begin. A legitimate requirement, applied with a thoroughness that was itself a message.

 Orion accepted all of it.

 Not with enthusiasm… But still with the patience of someone who can afford to wait since the time passing is time during which his position doesnʼt worsen. Julius observed it in how Orion responded to each extension of the protocol, a slight gesture of acknowledgment, no objection, no visible impatience. Even when the family count took several minutes per family that under normal circumstances would have taken seconds, Orion exhaled lightly and resettled into his position like a person who arrived to an appointment with time to spare and is mildly inconvenienced but in no danger.

 Julius filed that observation.

 The confidence of someone who doesnʼt need things to go quickly because the things that matter are already secured.

”He feels like the barrier solves everything,” Arturo said in a voice low enough that it barely existed. ”It hasnʼt failed for a single moment since he arrived. Unfortunately we donʼt have any reason to think itʼs going to fail now.”

 Julius didnʼt answer out loud. He gave the small nod that meant received and moved on.

 Beside Luna, Larissa tilted her head toward her by one degree. The kind of movement that communicated something in the right context without looking like communication.

 Luna didnʼt respond visibly. But her eyes, which had been holding the forward-facing calm she had installed since leaving Renʼs room, moved briefly toward Orion with an attention that had nothing ceremonial in it. A look she pulled back from as quickly as it had appeared.

 From the other side of Luna, Lioraʼs gaze drifted toward the gallery.

 She caught herself.

 Looked forward…

Then looked toward the gallery again.

 Larissa placed a hand on her arm with the discretion of someone adjusting another personʼs posture, nothing more.

 ”Heʼs fine… Youʼre going to give away the position,” she said, the words shaped more than spoken, barely enough breath behind them to carry the distance.

 Liora gazed forward.

 ♢♢♢♢

 The main section of the ceremony began when Julius had exhausted every available procedure and nothing remained that could be extended without violating the same protocol he had been using as a tool. The line between using the rules and breaking them was a line he knew precisely where it was, and he had run the preparations right up to it without crossing it.

 The master of ceremonies, a man old enough to have conducted these sessions through enough different political climates that his face had developed a permanent quality of having seen worse, which on this particular occasion was doing only moderate work, took his position at the center of the hall. He had the expression of someone who would have preferred not to be here and had the professionalism to do the job well anyway.

 ”The new year session for the recognition of rights and transfer of ownership is now open,” he announced, with the volume and diction the protocol required, the words placed with that very specific deliberateness of someone who understood very well that what he was saying was going into the official record and would stay there. ”In accordance with the norms established in the Code of Lineages and in the presence of sufficient representation from families with an active vote...”

Julius listened to the opening formula with the full attention reserved for words where meaning matters more than sound. Each line was a confirmation that the rules he had invoked to set this stage were still active. Each confirmation was another boundary on Orionʼs room to maneuver inside the hall. There were a lot but many werenʼt very useful. Yet the ones that existed mattered and were real, and real was the only quality that ʼmatteredʼ in a room like this one.

Orion listened too…

Arms slightly crossed, the posture of someone waiting for their turn in a process they already know the ending of. His elite arranged behind him, motionless. The barrier active, invisible for many and yet constant… The same texture in the air on the west side of the hall that had been there since they entered, that Julius had not seen lapse for a single moment.

Julius glanced at the gallery once, with the casual angle of a man checking the room.

The darkness behind the artifacts showed nothing that shouldnʼt be there. But there was also no sign of the agreed signal.

So Ren was still sleeping.

The ceremony continued.