ryethenovel Chapter 741: The Reason
Chapter 741: The Reason
**Chapter 741: The Reason**
With Augusta’s current strength, she already stood quite high among fifth-ring wizards.
Although there was still a gap between her and Jie Ming, the potential she displayed was truly not to be underestimated.
Judging from the will and potential Augusta had shown, she had even surpassed David, whose aptitude had once exceeded hers.
Jie Ming felt genuine delight at Augusta’s attitude of wanting to surpass him. In the world of cultivation, this was enough to call her a fellow Daoist.
“Speaking of which,” Jie Ming suddenly thought of a question and turned his head toward her, “why did you come to this banquet? I remember you and David don’t seem to have much of a relationship.”
In his impression, although Augusta and David had crossed paths on a few missions, they were merely nodding acquaintances. They should not have been close enough to warrant an invitation to the wedding.
“I wasn’t invited,” Augusta replied casually, raising her hand to point toward a certain direction deeper into the banquet venue. “I’m just here traveling with my grandfather.”
Jie Ming followed her finger and looked over.
His gaze passed through the crowd, over the fountains and flowerbeds, and finally landed on a resting area deep within the venue, enclosed by several carved pillars. A handsome wizard was sitting there, speaking in low voices with several seventh-ring wizards. His posture was not particularly upright; he leaned back in his chair somewhat casually, holding a half-cup of steaming tea in his hand. His gestures were calm and relaxed as he spoke with the others.
It was Wizard Augusta.
A seventh-ring wizard, Senior Brother to Mentor Clark, and therefore Jie Ming’s martial uncle.
Even from this distance, the naturally overflowing aura of a seventh-ring wizard’s law solidification domain tinged the surrounding air with a faint amber luster.
Jie Ming was somewhat surprised to discover he had such a connection with Berta Vera Augusta, but he quickly realized he should have noticed it earlier. She had always been called the young lady of the Augusta family, so the surname itself should have been a clear hint.
Within the entire Noren Workshop, being referred to as “young lady” by so many wizards meant the family had to have at least one seventh-ring wizard at minimum.
And his martial uncle, Wizard Augusta, was indeed the only seventh-ring wizard in Noren Workshop with that surname.
Out of courtesy, Jie Ming immediately walked in that direction, with Augusta following behind him.
“Martial Uncle Augusta, it has been a long time.”
Jie Ming stopped before the resting area, leaned forward slightly, and performed a greeting that fell between everyday courtesy and formal etiquette.
Wizard Augusta paused his conversation, turned to look at him, and a gentle smile appeared on the face that bore some resemblance to Berta Vera’s. “It’s Jie Ming. The last time I saw you was at Clark’s place… You’ve done well. I heard about the dragon matter. Even Broadleaf spoke highly of you. You’ve brought honor to our lineage.”
“Yes, Martial Uncle, you flatter me…”
Wizard Augusta raised his hand in a gesture that there was no need for excessive formality.
“Today is your friend’s wedding. No need to be so restrained. You two young people should relax and enjoy yourselves. Don’t keep hanging around with us old folks.”
As Jie Ming withdrew from the resting area, he noticed that the several seventh-ring wizards beside Wizard Augusta were speaking in low voices, their topic seemingly related to the Star Ring Federation’s most recent military reform.
He glanced over thoughtfully.
Augusta had somehow appeared beside him again. Her face remained expressionless, but those black eyes swept across his face, as if catching that brief moment of distraction.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
Her tone was flat, yet the question came quickly—too quickly to be casual.
“Nothing much. I’m just a little curious why so many high-rank wizards were invited to what is essentially just a wedding,” Jie Ming replied honestly, not hiding his thoughts.
Although David was his friend, Jie Ming knew very well that with David and his wife’s current strength ratings, they were not particularly worth befriending in normal high-rank wizard social circles.
To put it bluntly, there was no need for David’s wedding to be arranged on such a grand scale.
After thinking for a moment, Jie Ming offered a guess: “Could it be that David wife’s family is very powerful?”
Augusta let out a cold snort.
This one was several degrees colder than the one she had directed at him earlier. However, it was not aimed at Jie Ming, but at the question itself. “His wife’s family is actually slightly weaker than David’s. The real reason the event is so large is very simple… power struggle.”
Jie Ming’s brows furrowed slightly.
“The Colmar family might not seem like much to you,” Augusta said with unconcealed disdain. “But within their family, there are considerable power disputes. Several veteran sixth-ring wizards have been checking and balancing each other for thousands of years, none able to completely suppress the others. David’s rise as a newcomer represents a massive shift in power for the entire Colmar family.”
She paused, her black eyes sweeping across the smiling guests at the edges of the banquet venue.
“A newly advanced sixth-ring young bloodline naturally carries a louder voice within the family than the old-timers and receives more support from the younger generation. Most of the guests today are not here for the wedding—they are here to pick a side.”
Jie Ming fell silent for a moment after hearing this.
He agreed with all of her analysis.
Yet if Augusta had not pointed it out, he would never have considered this angle.
It was not because he lacked intelligence, but because from the very beginning, he had never associated the matter with power struggles.
The wizards he usually interacted with were more accustomed to fighting for speaking rights directly through strength.
After all, on the battlefield there was no room for such twists and turns. It had always been whoever had the bigger fist that decided things—clean, decisive, and clear at a glance. The kind of side-picking at banquets, the hints hidden in compliments, and the calculations behind smiles seemed to him a complete waste of time that could be spent on research or cultivation.
But thinking about it carefully, what else could those wizards who could advance no further do?
Facing the ceiling they could never break through every day, they could not simply sit at home in a daze.
Power was the only thing they could still strive for.
And these roundabout methods were the only tools they could still use under the layered rules of wizard civilization.
They were passionate about it, even tireless, simply because there was nothing else in life left worth looking forward to.
Jie Ming withdrew his gaze from the venue.
“…Boring,” he said.
Jie Ming now understood why the several Colmar sixth-ring wizards at the entrance had been so excessively enthusiastic.
Augusta turned her head and glanced at him.
Those black eyes lingered on his face for a moment before shifting away.
“Yeah… boring.”
When she spoke these words, her tone was rather pleasant, as if in this noisy banquet she had finally found someone whose evaluation completely matched her own.
The two stood quietly for a few seconds amid the white stone-paved banquet venue.
People came and went around them, glasses clinked, and fireworks exploded overhead into silver showers of light.
These two fifth-ring wizards—who could make tactical decisions with nanosecond-level reactions on the battlefield—stood in the middle of a grand wedding banquet and, in rare synchrony, shook their heads.
Jie Ming suddenly felt that this banquet was no longer worth looking forward to.
“However… my gift turned out to be coincidentally appropriate.”
Embryonic aptitude enhancement technology—something that directly raised talent to the limit of mortal beings—delivered into the hands of a groom who was being treated as a pawn in a power game at his own wedding.
And from the moment that technology was handed over, it would likely be immediately drawn into internal family resource allocation negotiations.
He turned his head and looked at Augusta.
Augusta was expressionlessly watching a Colmar family wizard in the distance who was toasting other guests, the corners of her mouth pressed down into an extremely subtle arc.
That was her way of expressing contempt.
Jie Ming withdrew his gaze, casually picked up two glasses of fruit juice from a passing server’s tray, and handed one to Augusta.
Neither spoke again. They simply clinked their glasses lightly and stood together in silence, watching the bustling splendor before them.