Episode-248

Words : 1610 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

Chapter : 495 He began to recount the stories, the rumors, the legends, his voice filled with the dramatic, wide-eyed wonder of a boy telling a grand, epic tale. “First, there was the tournament! They say he was a dark horse, that no one believed in him! They say his own cousin, the arrogant Lord Rayan, mocked him publicly! But brother-in-law... he was like a storm! He defeated every opponent with a single, contemptuous gesture! And his spirit! They say it is a magnificent lightning wolf that moves faster than sight and shrieks like a thousand birds!” He mimicked the sound, a high-pitched, enthusiastic squeak that was more startled mouse than terrifying spirit. “And in the final,” Yacob continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, awed whisper, “Rayan, in his rage, cheated! He used a live blade! He summoned an Ascended spirit, a monstrous bear of black iron! And brother-in-law... he did not even flinch! He met his power with a greater power! They say... they say he has eyes that can steal your very soul! And he defeated the monster, broke the cheater, and won the tournament without even breaking a sweat!” Mina listened to her brother’s enthusiastic, and clearly heavily embellished, account with a raised eyebrow and a faint, amused smile. She glanced at Rosa, whose veiled face remained a mask of perfect, unreadable calm, but whose hands, Mina noted, were now clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles were white. “And that’s not all!” Yacob declared, his excitement reaching a fever pitch. “The soap! Rosa, have you tried the soap? It is a miracle! They call it AURA! They say it is an elixir that can make your skin as soft as a baby’s! And the bottles! They say he invented the bottles himself, with a magic pump that delivers the perfect amount every time! They say even the King himself demanded a personal supply! Father’s head merchant said that a single bar of brother-in-law’s soap is now more valuable than a pouch of saffron from the Southern Isles! He is not just a warrior, Rosa! He is a genius inventor! A merchant king!” He was pacing the room now, his small frame radiating a second-hand glory. “And he faced down his own uncle! The treacherous Viscount Rubel! They say Rubel tried to frame him, to steal his honor! And brother-in-law, he didn't just defend himself! He exposed his uncle’s entire conspiracy, in front of the Arch Duke and all the nobles! He was brilliant! Ruthless! He protected his family’s honor! He is a true Ferrum!” He finally came to a halt before Rosa, his face flushed, his eyes shining with a pure, simple, and utterly, completely, unshakeable adoration. He looked at his quiet, cold, and beautiful elder sister, and his voice softened, filled with a boy’s simple, honest, and deeply poignant, logic. “He is a great man, isn’t he, Rosa?” Yacob asked, his voice filled with a genuine, innocent wonder. “You are very lucky to be his wife.” The innocent, heartfelt words, delivered with such simple, unshakeable conviction, were a more powerful, more devastating, blow to Rosa’s icy composure than any of Mina’s sharp, logical accusations had been. Lucky. Her twelve-year-old brother, her adoring, innocent brother, saw her as lucky. He saw her husband not as the awkward, unimpressive boy she had been forced to marry, but as a hero. A genius. A great man. And in his eyes, his simple, honest, hero-worshipping eyes, her own coldness, her own distance, was not a sign of strength or pragmatism. It was a failure to appreciate the magnificent gift she had been given. She looked at her brother’s bright, expectant face. And for the first time, she had no answer. She had no logical retort. She had no cool, dismissive remark. She had only the weight of his innocent admiration, and the profound, echoing, and deeply, deeply, unsettling, silence of her own heart. The legend of Lloyd Ferrum was no longer just a rumor from the capital. It was here, in her own home, in the voice of her own brother, and it was demanding a reckoning she was not yet ready to face. The silence of his study at the manufactory was a welcome, if temporary, balm. The echoes of his strange, emotionally charged life in the capital—the confrontation with the princess, the impossible sight of Airin, the phantom weight of his apology—all faded, replaced by the cool, clean, and beautifully simple logic of the System. Here, in the quiet solitude of his own mind, there were no complicated emotions, no political minefields, no ghosts from his past. There were only objectives, rewards, and the clear, quantifiable, and deeply satisfying, path of progression. He closed his eyes, sinking into the familiar, comforting interface, and stepped through the shimmering, translucent gate into his private world. Chapter : 496 The Soul Farm greeted him with its familiar, serene, and slightly cartoonish, beauty. The impossibly green grass of the Slime Plains stretched out before him, a vast, teeming sea of bouncing, gurgling, gelatinous life. The air was pure, still, filled with the gentle, squelching soundtrack of his next great task. The memory of his first, long, and mind-numbingly tedious grind through the Shadowfen Forest was still fresh. He had fought with a brute-force determination, a simple, almost desperate, need to accumulate power. But the revelation of the time-dilation effect had changed everything. It had transformed the Farm from a simple training ground into his single greatest strategic asset. It was a place where he could invest hours, days, even years of focused effort, for the cost of mere minutes in the real world. The grind was no longer a chore; it was an opportunity. A magnificent, almost limitless, opportunity. And the Major General, the master of logistics, the man who had built empires of technology on the foundation of pure, relentless efficiency, was ready to exploit that opportunity to its absolute, brutal, and glorious, limit. His objective was clear. The first foundational quest, the Slime Cull, was a distant memory, a task already completed that had unlocked this very space for further development. Now, he had a new, far more ambitious, target in his sights: the 500 Farming Coins required to purchase his first major System Upgrade. He knew from the menu that the first upgrade was the ‘Automated Harvesting’ function, a siren song promising a future where his power would grow even when he was sleeping, a true, passive income stream of a currency more valuable than gold. It was a long-term investment, the kind of strategic, forward-thinking move the engineer in him adored. To get there, he needed to harvest. And the Slime Plains, respawned and teeming, were a vast, ripe, and jiggly, field, waiting for the scythe. “Alright, Fang Fairy,” he said, his voice a low, determined murmur in the still air of the Farm. The ethereal, silver-haired storm goddess materialized beside him, her golden eyes holding a quiet, patient amusement. Back to the gelatinous menace, Master? her silent thought was a hum of contained power. “Back to the grind,” Lloyd confirmed, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. “But this time... we are not just working. We are working smart. We are going to turn this tedious, soul-crushing slaughter into a beautiful, elegant, and ruthlessly efficient, assembly line of destruction.” He surveyed the teeming plains, his mind no longer seeing a chaotic horde of individual monsters, but a single, massive, logistical problem to be solved. His first experimental foray into slime-culling had been clumsy, inefficient. He had used his chains to bind small clusters, then had Fang Fairy electrocute them. It worked, yes, but it was slow. The binding took focus. The repeated, small jolts of lightning were an inefficient use of Fang Fairy’s immense power. It was like using a master sword-smith to sharpen kitchen knives. Wasteful. He needed a new system. A system of mass production. A system of mass destruction. His eyes narrowed, the strategist taking over, his mind a whirlwind of tactical calculations. The slimes were weak, yes. But their strength was in their numbers, their sheer, overwhelming ubiquity. And their weakness? Their utter, complete, and almost comical, lack of intelligence. They moved randomly, drawn only by proximity, with no sense of self-preservation, no concept of tactics. They were a mindless tide. And a tide, he knew, could be herded. It could be channeled. “Fang Fairy,” his mental command was sharp, clear. “New pattern. Forget the small-scale electrocution. I want you to act as a sheepdog. A very fast, very intimidating, lightning-infused sheepdog. Your speed is the key. I want you to circle the outer perimeter of a large section of the field. Don’t attack them. Just... herd them. Use your speed, your presence, the crackle of your aura, to drive them inwards. I want you to condense them, to pack them together into a single, dense, jiggling mass of pure, unadulterated slime.” A flicker of intrigued understanding flowed back through their bond. You wish for me to be a shepherd of gelatin, Master? An interesting, if somewhat undignified, application of my power. “Think of it as crowd control,” Lloyd replied dryly. Now, go. Fang Fairy moved. She was a blur of silver-grey and azure light, a living storm streaking across the green plains. She didn't touch the slimes. She didn't need to. She simply ran, a wide, sweeping, circular path, the crackling aura of her Lightning Cloak, flared just enough to be a visible, intimidating threat, acting as a moving fence.

Episode-248

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