Reminder

Huvel drank the blood of the monster and absorbed the mana in it until his mana circles overloaded. He then made potions using all the mana he just absorbed. When he could not drink any more blood, he absorbed the mana trapped inside the [Dark Shroud] he casted around the monster's meat.

He continued absorbing mana until it was time for dinner. He washed up and headed to the dinning room. The dinning room was filled with a sweet aroma as soon as the servants brought the main dish. Huvel had a bite of the monster meat. It was as fantastic as the knight said. Although it was a bit hard to chew, the meat tasted better than any meat Huvel had eaten before.

Every one at the dinning table enjoyed the meat. Even the two guests, who were avoiding Huvel as much as they could, complimented the taste of the meat and thanked Huvel for it.

"Daddie, can I eat this meat every day?" Pechie asked with sparkling eyes.

"Umm… we cannot eat this every day. The meat will become bad after a few days."

"Oh…"

"If you like it that much, I will order the chef to make jerky with this meat for you."

"Hooray! Thank you daddie. Can I help the chef when he makes it?"

"Do as you wish."

-----

The next day, Huvel told Chance to handle all the paperwork in his stead since he wanted to meditate as much as possible using the monster's remains.

"Understood," Chance replied. "But there are a few things that I have to report."

"Ho? What is it?"

"Last night, soldiers of the wall had a feast at a tavern. Luc, the knight who was on leave after being abused… I mean, receiving his punishment in the dungeon, joined the feast, had a fight with the other knights and insulted you, the lord of the town, in public. Although he was already punished last time, I am thinking of giving him a severe punishment for this is his second offense. What do you think about it, master?"

"Him again? What a moron! I guess he misses the dungeon. Catch and throw him into a cell there."

"As your command."

"Is there anything else?"

"Yes, the intelligence unit discovered that the knight from House of Mustero, Sir Ranger Mustero, have been sending letters regularly to Musteronis."

The intelligence unit was a group that Huvel forced Parcivel to make after their last encounter. Huvel knew that he could not rely on Parcivel alone all the time so he made him teach intelligence gathering to a few people and form a small group that was not affiliated with the guild he was in. It was not that long since they had started but it seemed they were proving to be useful.

"House of Mustero, huh!" Huvel scorned. "It has been quite some time since I left that place. They are keeping tabs on me now? How ridiculous!"

"Should I order our men to steal the letters midway and change the contents, master?"

"No. No need to go that far yet. Leave them be for a while since I'm not doing anything big as of now."

Huvel went to his training room as he had planned. He was quite agitated to hear the name 'Mustero' after a long while. Ranger Mustero, the knight dispatched by the House of Mustero, was from a collateral family and Huvel did not know much about him. He was not sure from whom that knight was receiving orders. It can be the duke, the duchess or any other elders of the family.

"I shouldn't be distracted by that!" Huvel reminded himself. "The most important thing for me now is to become more powerful. I have to reach the 6th-circle with this monster's mana!"

Huvel diligently work on absorbing mana from the monster's blood and depleting it all with the hope to break down the wall between the 5th-circle and 6th-circle. He repeated the process for three days until he had drunk up all the bottles of blood. He had also absorbed all the mana stored in his [Dark Shroud]. However, his mana circles showed no sign of advancing even after taking all that mana!

"It seems it is not easy to reach the 6th-circle using this method. Dark Grimoire mentions another method to increase the mana circles. 'To have a thorough understanding of magic.' It is too vague. I think I can cast dark magic very well now. But it doesn't affect my mana circle. Perhaps, I have to research on magic like those magicians in the magic academy? Will I have to spend dozens of years to get an enlightenment?"

Huvel wanted to be a 6th-circle wizard as soon as possible to avenge his monster and to be able to survive even if people knew he was a dark magician. But to reach the 6th-circle before the age of twenty sounded like a wishful thinking. the more he thought about it, the more downhearted he became.

He pondered if he should ask for the Flying Leaf Nymph's help. If possible, he wanted to use the nymph's favour for something even bigger. But he decided to have a talk with him first so he went to the room where the nymph makes potions.

"… What the hell are you doing?!"

Huvel shouted as soon as he entered the room because the scene inside. Alain Boden was on all fours on a table. His lower half was naked and the nymph's hand was on one of his buttocks. There was a glass basin between his knees and some white liquid was inside it. Huvel was shocked at the bizarre scene as he did not remember teaching the nymph to 'play'.

Both the nymph and Alain were startled by Huvel's shout and turned their heads to Huvel. Alain's face was white with fear. Huvel could not blame him as it would really be frightening for anyone to be abducted and abused by an eight-feet-tall, buck-naked nymph.

"Why are you shouting? I'm just milking this man," the nymph said casually.