Episode-251

Words : 1791 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

Chapter : 501 [Author Note: Hello, everyone, it’s your unworthy author here. I’ve written a total of 45 chapters (500-610) where the MC is inside the Farming System. While these chapters were written to satisfy my own grinding cravings, you can skip most of the content in these chapters and focus only on the skills the MC acquires, the monsters he defeats, and his current FC. Other than that, feel free to skim through the paragraphs. However, those who enjoy grinding chapters, you’re more than welcome to dive in! XD Just a heads-up in advance. As for my current update: I’ve drafted up to 710 chapters and outlined five arcs with summaries of future progressions. Hopefully, I can wrap up this novel within 6-7 arcs. I’m still unsure how to end it, but readers’ comments have been incredibly helpful in shaping my next major novel, "The Anime Man and Divine Children."] The name was a constant, low-level hum in the back of her mind, a paradox she could not solve, a puzzle she could not put down. The drab duckling. The disgraced failure from the Academy. The awkward, unimpressive heir. That was the man she had expected to find, the man she had been prepared to pity, perhaps even to mock. But the man she had found... he was something else entirely. A brilliant strategist who thought in terms of market saturation and psychological warfare. A surprisingly ruthless warrior who wielded a power she had never seen before. A man of hidden depths, of strange, anachronistic knowledge, of a quiet, unshakeable confidence that was utterly at odds with his public reputation. He was a paradox, an enigma, a walking, talking contradiction. And he was, she admitted to herself with a flicker of annoyance, utterly, completely, and infuriatingly, fascinating. Her thoughts were a jumble. She remembered the easy camaraderie they had shared in the makeshift studio, the way they had argued, laughed, and created together. It had been the most stimulating, most intellectually challenging, artistic experience of her entire life. He had pushed her, challenged her, forced her to see her own art, her own world, in a new, sharper, and more pragmatic, light. He had treated her not as a noblewoman to be flattered, not as a prize to be won, but as an equal. A colleague. A partner. She remembered the feel of his presence beside her, the quiet confidence, the unexpected humor. She remembered the way his dark eyes would gleam with a kind of predatory, intellectual delight when he was explaining one of his strange, brilliant, and deeply manipulative, marketing theories. She remembered the way he had looked at her, at her art, not with the empty, fawning praise of a courtly sycophant, but with a genuine, analytical appreciation, seeing not just the beauty, but the function, the purpose, the power within it. A strange, unfamiliar warmth bloomed in her chest at the memory, a feeling that was both pleasant and deeply, profoundly, unsettling. She frowned, her fingers tracing idle, meaningless patterns on the vellum. What was this feeling? This... distraction? This constant, intrusive presence of him in her thoughts? It was illogical. Inefficient. And deeply, deeply, annoying. He was married, for heaven’s sake. To the Ice Princess, Rosa Siddik. A woman as cold and beautiful and untouchable as the winter moon. Faria had seen them together at the Summit, a king and queen of a frozen, silent kingdom. She had seen the way the other nobles looked at Lloyd, with pity, with contempt, for being shackled to such a woman. And she had, she admitted, felt a flicker of the same. But now... now she saw it differently. She saw a man of immense, hidden power, of a brilliant, unconventional mind, trapped in a cold, loveless, political marriage. A dragon, chained to an iceberg. And the thought, for some strange, inexplicable reason, filled her with a new, different kind of emotion. Not pity. But a fierce, almost angry, sense of... injustice. He deserved more. He deserved a partner who could match his fire, not just reflect his light with a cold, distant sheen. He deserved... She stopped the thought, a flush of heat rising in her cheeks. Where had that come from? It was none of her business. His marriage, his life, it had nothing to do with her. She owed him a debt, yes. A life debt. And she had paid the first installment by painting his magnificent, vulgar, brilliant soap advertisement. The transaction was complete. Her duty was done. So why couldn’t she get him out of her head? She picked up the charcoal stick again, her grip tight, determined. She would sketch. She would focus. She would exorcise this strange, lingering ghost of a man from her thoughts. She stared at the blank vellum, her mind a determined, focused blank. And then, her hand began to move. She did not draw the sea. She did not draw the sky. She did not draw the graceful curve of the coastline. Her hand moved with a will of its own, the charcoal whispering across the vellum, her mind lost in a memory, in a feeling. The lines were sharp, clean, confident. The curve of a strong jaw. The intense, intelligent light in a pair of dark, amused eyes. The faint, almost invisible, smile of a man who held a universe of secrets behind a mask of quiet, unassuming competence. She was halfway through sketching his face before she even realized what she was doing. She gasped, her hand freezing, the charcoal stick snapping in her suddenly tight grip. She stared at the image on the paper, at the face that had been haunting her thoughts, now brought to life by her own, treacherous hand. Chapter : 502 “Oh, by the ancestors,” she whispered, her heart hammering in her chest, a wave of horrified, flusttered comprehension washing over her. “What... what is wrong with me?” It was in that moment of profound, private, and deeply, deeply, confusing self-revelation, that a new voice, gentle, warm, and laced with a familiar, maternal amusement, broke the silence of the pavilion. “He must be a very captivating subject, my love,” her mother, the Marquess-Consort Joynab Kruts, said softly from behind her. “To draw your attention so completely from such a beautiful day.” Faria yelped, jumping as if struck, frantically trying to cover the incriminating sketch with her hands. Her face, which had been pale with shock, now flushed a brilliant, furious, and utterly, comprehensively, guilty, crimson. She had been so lost in her thoughts, she hadn't even heard her mother approach. And her mother, whose eyes missed nothing, had seen everything. The distraction. The faraway look. And now, the face on the page. The face of Lloyd Ferrum. The game was up. The garden pavilion, which had moments before been a sanctuary of private, confused turmoil, now felt like a courtroom. The single, incriminating charcoal sketch on the easel was Exhibit A, a stark, undeniable testament to her distraction. Faria Kruts felt a hot, mortifying blush spread from her neck to the very tips of her ears. She felt like a child caught stealing honey-cakes from the kitchen, her guilt absolute, her defenses non-existent. Her mother, the Marquess-Consort Joynab Kruts, did not press. She did not demand an explanation. She simply moved to stand beside her daughter, her movements as fluid and graceful as a southern breeze. Joynab was a woman of quiet, formidable strength, her beauty less fiery than Faria’s, more serene, but her eyes, a warm, intelligent shade of hazel, held a depth of perception, a shrewd understanding of the world, that was as sharp and keen as any blade. She looked at the sketch on the easel—the half-finished but unmistakably recognizable face of Lloyd Ferrum—and then at her daughter’s furiously blushing, utterly flustered face. And she smiled. A slow, gentle, and deeply, profoundly, knowing smile. “So,” Joynab murmured, her voice a low, calm, and utterly non-judgmental hum. She picked up a fallen petal from a nearby jasmine vine, twirling it between her fingers. “The young Lord of the North. The soap-maker. The unexpected dragon. It seems he has made quite an... impression.” “Mother, it is not what you think!” Faria stammered, her usual fiery confidence completely deserting her, replaced by the flustered, defensive panic of a teenager. “We were merely... collaborating! On an artistic project! It was a professional arrangement! A settlement of a debt! Nothing more!” She was babbling, she knew, her protests sounding weak and unconvincing even to her own ears. “Of course, my love,” Joynab replied, her voice still impossibly, infuriatingly, calm. “A professional arrangement. Which apparently requires you to commit his every feature to memory with the devotion of a court painter creating a royal portrait.” She glanced at the sketch again, her eyes twinkling with a gentle, maternal amusement that only made Faria’s blush deepen. “The likeness is quite remarkable. You’ve captured the... intensity... in his eyes perfectly.” Faria let out a small, strangled groan of pure, unadulterated mortification. She wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole. She wanted to snatch the drawing, tear it into a thousand pieces, and throw it into the sea. “It is... a study,” she insisted weakly. “A memory exercise. To keep my skills sharp.” “Ah, a memory exercise,” Joynab echoed, her voice still laced with that same gentle, knowing amusement. “And does this exercise also require you to sigh dramatically every time you look at the horizon, and to pace the halls of this house like a caged lioness, your mind clearly a thousand leagues away in a certain northern capital?” She finally turned to her daughter, her expression softening, the teasing replaced by a quiet, serious understanding. “My dearest Faria,” she said, her voice a gentle balm. “I am your mother. Do you truly think I have not noticed? You have not been yourself since your return. You are distracted, restless, your heart and your mind are clearly... elsewhere. And now,” she gestured to the sketch, “it seems we have a name, and a face, for this ‘elsewhere’.” Faria finally slumped onto a nearby stone bench, her shoulders slumping in defeat. The pretense was useless. Her mother saw right through her. “I do not know what is wrong with me, Mother,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, filled with a genuine, miserable confusion. “He is... infuriating. Arrogant, in his own quiet way. He thinks of art as a tool for... for commerce! He is married! And yet...” She trailed off, unable to articulate the strange, compelling pull he exerted on her thoughts.

Episode-251

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