Of all the things I was expecting to do in the Kalnislaw lands after Hamsik had invited me over, I had no idea I’d be gaining the estate. Well, kind of.

  “You really don’t need to officially hand it over,” I said. “I’ll be happy to look over things regardless of any official documents. I’m your friend, Hamsik. I don’t mind spending a little bit of time here because you need it.”

  Thefris smiled at me as she squeezed Hamsik’s shoulder while standing behind him. “I already told him that, Ross. This big-hearted idiot doesn’t care.”

  Hamsik paused the scratch of his quill on the very official-looking document to scowl up at his wife. “Will you stop embarrassing me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hamsik. I thought you said Ross is like family now?”

  It was a little hilarious seeing Hamsik of all people flush like a little boy. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  I laughed.

  None of us were going to dissuade Hamsik now that he had set his mind to it. I waited patiently until he was done signing the document. He sat back with a small, satisfied smile on his face.

  “There, all done,” he said. He looked up, scarlet eyes flashing. “I didn’t sign it all over to you per se, Ross. It’s more like the Cult of the Sun is now the owner and overseer of the estate of House Kalnislaw. But, as the current leader of the cult, I need you to accept and sign here.”

  He pushed the document over to me, indicating all the places I needed to put my signature. Wow, had I even used my sign on Ephemeroth yet? I took the quill, dipped it in the inkpot, but didn’t pull it out. I looked at Hamsik first.

  “What exactly does being the owner of the Kalnislaw estate entail?” I asked.

  He nudged at the papers with his pointy chin. “Well, it’s all in the document, isn’t it? But essentially, you now have all the powers the owner is expected to have. You can manage the lands as you see fit, even sell it off if you wish.”

  “Right, right. But what about you?” I frowned down at the papers. “Don’t tell me you’re just signing everything over without keeping a single line of income or anything for yourself?”

  “As much as he wanted to do so,” Thefris said. “I made sure he kept a tiny bit for himself. Honestly, Hamsik, you’re supposed to know economic matters even better than me.”

  Hamsik just grumbled under his breath. I rifled through the papers and read the lines carefully before I found the section that proved that Hamsik would keep ten-percent of all profits earned from the Kalnislaw estate and associated businesses.

  Interestingly, this was essentially a ten-percent stake in House Kalnislaw. He was expected to contribute that much in return for his share of profits, and he could sell it off too.

  “Good,” I said. I remembered how he had acted with Elder Escinca, willing to give up all his inheritance in return for helping the cult. He might act all belligerent and grumpy and dour, but honestly, Hamsik really was a big-hearted idiot. “My only concern was you, Hamsik. Now I can sign in peace.”

  A somewhat rusty signature later, I was now the official overseer of House Kalnislaw.

  [ Rank Up!

  Your Fervour Attribute has risen by one Rank.

  Your Path of the Archon Apostle has risen by one Rank.

  Fervour: Gold III

  Path of the Archon Apostle is evolving… ]

  Well, wasn’t that nice. Funny how expanding the cult’s reach and power and influence was always what got me new ranks in my cultist Path.

  Threads of invisible energy were seeping into me. I felt a little bit like a balloon that was slowly being filled up. Always interesting how my cultist Path’s evolution was so different from my other Path’s evolving process. That one was significantly flashier and far more involved.

  Pits, last time it had given me a damned Heart Demon to deal with. One who had turned out to be a nemesis somehow stuffed into my own soul.

  Thinking about it hurt my head a little. Especially in present company.

  “You alright?” Hamsik asked.

  I waved off his concern. “Yeah. Just got my Path Evolution so it’s a little… you know.”

  Hamsik exchanged a glance with his wife, which I wasn’t sure how to interpret. “Told you, he grows far too quickly.” He stood up. “Alright, if you’re not about to be incapacitated, then how about we go check out the lands? I remember you saying you had some plans…”

  I grinned. “Yeah, I had some ideas.” I got up too. “But that’s what they are—ideas. Don’t be disappointed if they don’t work.”

  Thefris snorted with a soft hiss. “If your ideas don’t work out, I think the only one who’ll be disappointed is you, Ross.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  She… had a point there.

  As we walked over to the Kalnislaw vineyards, I was just glad I had some time to think about my progression. With no Master Kostis anymore, I’d need to guide myself through all my Aspects and Affixes by myself.

  It was a good thing I had been left an excellent base to work off of.

  Flare and Illumination were both in Silver, which meant I had new Affixes for each to consider. So was Ritual. That wasn’t counting the Affixes I had left for Sacrifice, Gravity, and my newest Aspect, Entropy.

  The problem was that I didn’t have ideas for all of them. Not yet. I was slowly starting to think about the things I needed with each of them, which helped my decisions going forward.

  As Gutran had said, it was all about how my new abilities could expand or complement what I was already capable of.

  To that end, I practiced drawing heat into myself with Flare’s Concentration Affix. I was gathering all the local energy to slowly heat up my body. Since I couldn’t exactly bear a ton of heat, it wasn’t like I was leaving the local atmosphere chilly. But that was what I wanted to train up with a new Affix.

  A couple of prior incidents reminded me of my vulnerability to my own Aspects, to some extent at least. Back in Eversight Dungeon, before its collapse and the Nether Vein’s awakening, I had almost fallen into the lava around the arena at the bottom of the pit.

  For someone who could essentially control heat energy, burning or melting to death was hilariously unacceptable.

  The same had sort of happened at the end of my Nether Vein excursion, when I had been fighting Zoltan. My desperate use of my Entropy Aspect had caused light to explode outwards in a spray of damaging photons. Damage that I had suffered, not just my Scarseeker opponent. Embarrassing.

  “He even said he’s getting a second mana core,” Hamsik was saying to Thefris. “Can you believe that?”

  Thefris gave me an appraising look. “How’s that coming along?”

  “Uh…” I actually had no idea because ever since receiving the notification that I could manifest a new mana core, I had received nothing else. No new energy, no feeling like there was another surge of mana I had to deal with. Not even a new timer for a new mana implosion. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

  Thefris laughed.

  I figured I needed more information. Just hadn’t gotten around to acquiring said information just yet.

  “How’s your foot coming along?” Thefris asked. “You’re not even limping anymore.”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding with a smile. “It took me surprisingly little time to get used to it. I guess that’s the power of a Councillor who’s been doing this for decades.”

  I wasn’t kidding. My new leg felt pretty much the same as my old leg. There was functionally no difference. It didn’t feel unnatural, certainly not painful, it just felt like a natural extension of myself that I didn’t have to think about. Like what a leg was supposed to feel like.

  Their conversation didn’t distract me from what I was attempting to accomplish. I kept channelling Flare with Concentration, drawing in more and more heat. My body was flushed with heat, threatening to break out in a sweat, trying my best to withstand more and more energy getting stuffed into my body.

  Hamsik and Thefris were nice in not mentioning that I probably looked way too red.

  Of course, I wasn’t getting a new Aspect like that in one day, certainly not in the twenty-odd minutes it took to reach the vineyards.

  “Wow…” I said. I didn’t mean to sound disparaging, but the state of the fields definitely left a good deal to be desired. “We definitely need to do some work here.”

  Far behind the main Kalnislaw manor, the fields that were supposed to be filled with lush grapes and vines were devoid of plant matter almost entirely. The trellises were rickety and ready to get blown over. All that remained of anything that looked remotely like crops was the little pustule-like seeds that gently pulsed and writhed on the ground.

  Hamsik winced a little bit. “Yes, well, it’s not like we’ve had anyone looking after the vineyards.”

  I didn’t blame him or anyone for that matter. Ever since the issue with Glonek and the criminal Scarthralls trying to take over all of Ring Four by force, House Kalnislaw had been a shadow of itself. Well, no. That was putting it mildly. They had been a shadow of their former selves long before Glonek. In fact, Glonek was supposed to have helped revitalize the House.

  And instead, he had shattered everything that the Kalnislaws had worked towards. With how much money had been fined from House Kalnislaw, it was no wonder they had failed to keep up their businesses and other ventures.

  “Are those the blood seeds?” I asked, pointing at the pulsing pustules.

  Dark as their name sounded, I was actually pretty fascinated how it worked. Ephemeroth lacked a proper sun to cultivate crops or carry out any sort of normal farming.

  That was why societies like the Anymphea had come up with the Bloomwagons. It made me wonder what exact methods other places employed. Aside from harvesting bugs, that was. Well, I supposed Zairgon had their Preserves, and while I hadn’t gone past any farmland, they supposedly existed.

  “Yes,” Hamsik said. “They haven’t replenished in ages, however. Naturally.”

  I nodded. “Naturally.”

  “Are you thinking of replacing them?” Thefris asked.

  “Yes. Can’t rely on things I don’t particularly understand and I’d like to use what I’m capable of.” I clapped my hands. “Looks like we’ve got a good amount of work to do.”

  Thefris raised her… well, not brows as I typically thought of them since there was no hair there, but something like that. Did brows need hair? I wasn’t sure. “You’re taking to this with incredible adroitness.”

  “He does that a lot,” Hamsik muttered.

  “I do indeed do that a lot,” I said. “Because I can see this has a good deal of potential, so there’s no point in letting that go to waste.”

  “Potential, is it?” Thefris said. “For what?”

  “Well… I’m trying to think of it as something that can help the cult. Since the cult is technically the owner, the whole cult should benefit. But tests come first.”

  I was going to start using my Aspects, a combination of them that I thought would really work, but we had to wait a little bit. There were people coming over. Guests who ideally needed to be present for the whole thing before we got going.

  Yerenc, the old butler of the Kalnislaw estate, was leading in the familiar figure of the leader of the Anymphea.

  “May I present the leader of the Anymphea in Zairgon,” Yerenc said formally, though his formality was undercut by his fanged grin. “Lord Ascelkos.”

  “Greetings, Ross,” Ascelkos said. He even imitated the Zairgon salute of the fist-to-chest bow. “I’m glad you waited before you began.”

  “Well, you said you were interested and it wasn’t like I was in a rush,” I said.

  “Thank you, Yerenc,” Hamsik said. “You may depart.”

  “Do you bid me to leave, Young Master?”

  Hamsik blinked. Then looked at me. I just shrugged, though I was curious, so I turned to the butler.

  “You’re interested too?” I asked.

  “Yes, friend of Young Master Hamsik,” Yerenc said. “I—”

  Hamsik cleared his throat. “The Kalnislaw lands belong to the Cult of the Sun now, Yerenc. Please accord Ross no less respect than you accord me.”

  All Yerenc showed was a minor lifting of one of his aged, silver eyebrows. “Of course, Young Master.” He turned to me with a little bow. “Then I am even more interested in seeing what my lord has planned for our lands. These lands and I are one and the same. It is only for that reason that I wish to remain, if you will allow it.”

  “Fine by me,” I said. “Just, uh, there’s going to be quite a lot of light…”

  “Fret not, my lord.” He pulled out an honest-to-goodness umbrella, I had thought it was some kind of walking stick or something, with how thin it was, but no. The fabric unwrapped to reveal a curved black canvas at the end of the actual stick. “I have measures for safety.”

  I wondered how much he kept something like that around, considering the lack of a proper sun and all. It was probably a little too inappropriate to ask, though, so I kept my mouth shut.

  Instead, I focused on my goal of revitalizing the Kalnislaw farmland with my powers.

  “Here goes,” I said, then channelled my Aspects.