Dimensional Keeper: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 1473 A Letter of Invitation!

"Even after possessing this artifact for thousands of years, your clan remains one of the weakest forces in this realm," Joe commented lightly, shaking his head in what appeared to be mild regret.

His voice carried a casual air, almost like everyday chat, but the statement sliced through the atmosphere with keen precision.

The impact struck right away.

All seven family heads' faces turned grim simultaneously. Their once-restrained poise grew tense, while subtle waves of restrained aura emanated from them. The elders positioned behind also found their expressions hardening.

Facing such ridicule right in their hallowed testing area, in front of their followers and kin, amounted to outright contempt.

Still, the quiet persisted. None of the family heads advanced, and none of the elders let their rage spill out verbally, for beneath the wrath Joe's remark had ignited in everyone flowed a thread of icy, clear-headed realization that no one dared overlook.

The individual before them wasn't merely impolite or lacking etiquette. He served as an elder of the Violet Star Palace, and even the most outraged among the gathered knew without doubt that dismissing the implications of that role would lead to repercussions they weren't ready to handle.

The might of that organization loomed behind Joe like an unseen, unyielding barrier, and everyone there sensed its pressure squeezing the gap between them and him. Thus, they remained in their fury, biting back words, as the hush around the Combat Legion Tower lingered unbroken by any motion.

"Heh," Joe's scoff broke the silence first, a brief and scornful noise that slipped from him with the natural poise of one so used to gazing down on everything nearby that mockery felt instinctive.

Next, sans any formality or introduction, a rectangular card appeared in his grasp as if drawn straight from thin air.

"Take this," he instructed, and before Mathew could do more than react on reflex, Joe had already launched the card slicing through the breeze toward him with a nonchalant wrist snap that implied he placed little value on the item, even though summoning it suggested the contrary.

Mathew grasped the card and lifted it for inspection, his eyes scanning its face with the meticulous focus of someone aware that any gift from a Violet Star Palace elder merited thorough review before judgments.

The remaining family heads observed from their spots, their prior ire not completely faded, and briefly the assembly buzzed with the strain of folks anticipating details they hadn't yet received.

They traded subtle looks between each other, pondering what this flat item might signify and the reason a Violet Star Palace elder would journey to their testing world just to hand it over.

While they speculated, they saw Mathew's countenance alter, and it shifted in a manner none had anticipated from a figure of his calm and seasoned nature.

The steady, probing interest that had formed on his visage as he studied the card didn't ease into another form but flipped abruptly and totally, capturing every onlooker's attention.

In place of the concentrated scrutiny of a family head evaluating an unfamiliar item stood something primal and exposed, a sheer, unrestrained thrill that shattered all the poised control that years of command had layered upon him.

It resembled the look of someone who had just grasped a revelation that reshaped the limits of his perceived possibilities.

"This..." The syllable escaped as little more than a whisper, and he glanced from the card to Joe then back, his eyes darting as if verifying the deliverer's reality and the object's authenticity in his palm.

Despite being the leader of one of the seven major families and a top figure in the Black Dragon Clan, a role requiring unwavering displays of command, he couldn't muster the poise to regain control right then.

What the card embodied hit too profoundly at his clan's goals and requirements for him to feign indifference, and the dignity he'd upheld perfectly amid Joe's prior barbs collapsed completely in the face of this new possession.

"Here, see this," he urged, handing the card to the closest other family head with a haste in the motion that conveyed its importance prior to their own inspection.

The card passed hand to hand, and for each successive examiner, the identical shift repeated. Astonishment descended on every face in turn with the relentless sameness of those confronting an event that surpassed their expectations for the day.

The prospect embodied by the card wasn't merely notable like sporadic lucky breaks that aid a group amid routine rivalries and obstacles in the Divine Realm.

It reached a magnitude that overshadowed every challenge the Black Dragon Clan had faced over tens of thousands of years, a duration so immense it engulfed entire lineages and eras, yet this item circulating among the seven family heads rendered all prior events in that expanse seem mundane.

"Don't look at me," Joe declared, lifting both palms in a motion that pushed their shared wonder away from him, as if he sought no share in the acclaim for the feelings the card had evoked.