I Inherited a Beautiful Wife and a Territory - Chapter 25

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Inheriting a Beautiful Wife and Estate Episode 025

25. Lord Skill ‘Territory Declaration’

The butler wore a bitter smile.

The Duke’s attitude toward Cliff was sometimes strange. This time was no different. He seemed lenient toward Cliff, yet treated him like a complete stranger.

Still, one thing was clear.

‘His Grace has expectations for Lord Cliff.’

So he must be waiting for Cliff to stand on his own.

The treatment was certainly different from how he dealt with other illegitimate children. However, wanting to raise a son and his position as head of the Duke’s house were distinctly different matters.

That’s why the Duke often felt regret.

That Cliff was born not to a duchess, but to an ordinary maid.

Still, there might have been opportunities.

“Your turn.”

“My apologies.”

At the Duke’s words, the butler moved a piece on the desk.

Chess between the two men.

In this Duke’s mansion, only the butler could be a worthy opponent for the Duke.

That’s why, as before, the time they spent together had increased even more.

“A very clever child.”

The Duke spoke.

“And you were the first to tell me about this.”

Though he didn’t mention the name, the butler knew who it was.

“God has never seen anyone with mana as pure as Lord Cliff’s.”

“I’ve heard that countless times. And… that child had excellent intelligence too.”

“He had the qualities to become the greatest mage… such a genius.”

“Greatest mage, indeed. Wasn’t his most important mana capacity rather pitiful? He must take after his mother.”

Regret seeped through the Duke’s words.

The butler nodded at those words.

He was the one who had taught Cliff magic. Therefore, the butler knew Cliff’s qualities better than anyone.

Only one thing was lacking.

‘If only something else had been lacking instead…’

Perhaps if he had truly been born to a duchess, things might have been different.

The Duke’s house, and his maternal family, would have spared no expense in providing elixirs.

“Mana capacity is half innate, no matter how much effort one puts in. Unless you’re an elf with a long lifespan, we humans can increase our mana capacity very little through training.”

“That’s right.”

“That’s why everyone goes crazy for elixirs. But that child’s vessel is too small. An elixir that could expand that vessel… appears perhaps once in a hundred years.”

“…”

The butler affirmed with silence.

Having diagnosed it himself, he knew it all too well.

“To obtain such an elixir… we’d have to catch something like the Tyrant of the Lazahar Sea.”

“An impossible goal.”

“Indeed. We don’t even know where in that vast Lazahar Sea we could find that tyrant, and even if we met it, we couldn’t catch it.”

The Lazahar Sea.

A place teeming with countless merchant ships and the pirates who preyed on them.

Incidentally, all the ports here enjoyed prosperous lives.

‘Even on the supposedly backward Yusta Peninsula, the ports facing the sea are different.’

There were plenty in Central who didn’t know this well.

The southern part of the Yusta Peninsula had accumulated more wealth than expected. All thanks to trade involving the Lazahar Sea.

“That child’s estate has a river that can reach the sea. Through that river, he must engage in trade. So the time has come to end trade that depends on others.”

The butler nodded at the Duke’s words.

But there was something even the Duke didn’t know at this moment.

That the very tyrant of the sea lived in the river he just mentioned, and that the tyrant would die to Kyuung.

The Duke at that time couldn’t have imagined it at all.

This was a conversation that took place in the Duke’s study on the day the butler reported the meeting between Barton and Tom.

Gulp.

He swallowed the sea dragon’s heart that Kyuung gave him whole.

At first, there was an instinctive rejection.

It might sound ungrateful, but he worried about both the texture and taste. He thought it would be difficult to swallow the raw heart of such a grotesque creature.

‘Huh?’

That thought changed the moment he ate it.

What he thought was made of flesh melted and disappeared as it entered his mouth.

Instead, it felt like something enormous was rushing down his throat into his stomach.

‘It’s mana!’

It was definitely the Serpent’s mana.

Cliff realized why Kyuung had divided it into four parts before giving it to him.

For his small vessel to contain it, the energy that had been in the Serpent’s body was too intense and massive.

Ironically, Cliff considered this moment the greatest crisis of his life.

‘…I’m going to burst!’

Even divided into four parts, the energy it contained was enormous.

Until now, Cliff had never experienced handling such massive mana.

It felt like his body would explode.

“You must concentrate! You must not lose consciousness!”

Teobaldt shouted from beside him.

“Kyuung!”

Kyuung cheered him on too.

At their voices, Cliff grasped his consciousness that seemed about to snap.

The energy that seemed to expand his body.

Gradually calming it, Cliff recalled the knowledge he had learned before.

The continuously swirling energy soon began to take the shape of a ring.

‘It’s working!’

And so, one.

A mana circle that Cliff could never have obtained with his previous mana was created.

It didn’t end with just one.

Even after one ring was completed, the remaining mana was still raging.

Controlling that as well, he immediately formed a second circle outside the first ring.

Whooom.

‘I did it!’

Success.

The first one was difficult, but later it was rather easier.

Before he knew it, two mana circles had formed.

Without stopping, Cliff created a third ring.

Now he began to feel that his mana was running low. But the three rings rotated and absorbed mana from the atmosphere.

Only then did Cliff understand why his family had given up on his magic training.

‘This too follows the principle of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.’

First, you need to know how to create at least one mana circle.

Only then does subsequent growth speed increase. In other words, Cliff, who had achieved even an incomplete third ring, was now drawing atmospheric mana incomparably faster than before.

That mana filled the gaps in the third ring.

“Whew.”

Cliff exhaled.

Until just now, Cliff had been somewhere between an ordinary person and a mana user.

But in this brief moment, he had become a true mage.

‘To think I actually completed 3 circles….’

Still a low-level mage.

But the fact that he had become a proper mage was what mattered.

And originally, the wall between low-level and intermediate mages was incredibly high.

‘3 circles should be enough, I suppose.’

Of course, there were still problems.

While at the Duke’s mansion, he had learned the basics of magic and how to handle mana, but he hadn’t learned any actual important spells.

He knew no magic.

‘Does this mean… I’m not really a mage?’

He’d think about that later.

At least he had created the circles.

He just needed to obtain some spellbooks later and learn from them.

“How do you feel?”

Teobaldt asked him. His face clearly showed envy.

Cliff chuckled.

“Absolutely fantastic. I feel several times stronger.”

“….”

Greed showed in Teobaldt’s eyes.

He recalled when he first met him.

Unlike the doll princess, he had seemed like someone who had given up on life. That same man now showed desire.

‘Well, it’s something anyone would covet.’

That’s what elixirs were like.

Cliff looked at Kyuung.

“Are you going to devour all of that heart?”

Three pieces still remained, frozen solid.

The moment he saw them, he felt it.

All of those were precious elixirs. If he consumed them, he could attempt the 4th circle.

However, it would be too much for now. His current understanding was insufficient to attempt the 4th circle.

Excess leads to deficiency.

‘If I attempt it again here, even the fragile existing circles I barely created might break.’

That’s why Kyuung had only given him one piece.

Reason made such a cold judgment. But separately from that, he felt greedy.

‘This must be human greed and foolishness.’

Unlike humans, as if having no greed, Kyuung shook its head.

“Then could you give one of them to this friend here?”

“Kyuung!”

“M-Master?”

Kyuung nodded too easily.

Teobaldt looked quite surprised.

“You don’t need to make that expression. This time we survived because Kyuung was here, but next time we should be able to handle snakes like that ourselves, shouldn’t we?”

“…If you consumed them all, Master, even though the efficiency would drop since it’s the same elixir, you could increase your mana by more than double what you have now.”

Don’t you feel tempted?

Teobaldt asked while looking at Cliff.

And Cliff’s answer to this.

“You need to become strong so I can put you to work. I’d like people I can boss around to appear soon and lighten my burden. Yes, preferably a Sword Master. If you’re going to hold a sword anyway, a man should have at least that much ambition, shouldn’t he?”

“Then what about you, Master?”

“Me? Well, honestly, I’d rather be someone who commands Sword Masters and Archmages than become one myself.”

This was probably the Duke’s influence.

The Duke had been that kind of person.

A person who thought it was important to be someone who handled the strong, rather than becoming strong himself.

‘Even though I’m a reincarnated soul, did I inherit my parent’s temperament?’

It was fascinating.

And honestly, right now there was also the significant factor that increasing circles wouldn’t matter since he had no usable magic anyway.

Still, it was true that Cliff’s desire for talent was greater than his greed for elixirs. He grinned.

“So you eat one.”

Teobaldt’s pupils wavered.

‘Sword Master….’

The supreme realm that was truly every swordsman’s dream.

A superhuman that any nation would try to recruit by even granting titles. Naturally, any swordsman would dream of it. But they would also quickly give up that dream.

Teobaldt had been the same.

When he was naive, he had imagined becoming a Sword Master, but forgot about it as he grew up.

“…To say you’ll become a master who commands Sword Masters, you have greater ambitions than I thought, Master.”

“Of course.”

Cliff nodded.

He held out the heart fragment he had received from Kyuung.

“So you eat this.”

“What if I fail to become a Sword Master?”

Cliff shrugged.

“Then today’s investment would have failed. But you know what. People need dreams to move forward. You just need to keep advancing without giving up. Then won’t you become a more capable knight than you are now?”

Dreams.

Advancement.

Capable knight.

Teobaldt repeated Cliff’s words to himself.

He took the heart fragment and swallowed it.

Then he drew his sword and began performing sword forms.

‘Oh?’

A faint blue aura was visible to the naked eye on Teobaldt’s sword as he performed the forms.

When that sword energy could form the complete shape of a blade, people would call him a Master.

Leaving Teobaldt absorbed in his trance, Cliff examined the other rewards he had gained.

‘Let’s see.’

The rewards he had gained weren’t just the Serpent’s spoils.

The countless messages he had seen the moment the Serpent was defeated.

Actually, his rewards that he had briefly forgotten due to the Serpent’s heart, the surge of mana, the formation of circles, and such.

‘These are the real ones.’

This time he had truly power-leveled.

First, the lord status window.

There was a reason he had been looking forward to this.

[Name: Cliff Elimis]

[Level: 9]

[Dignity: 4]

[Grace: 1]

[Virtue: 1]

[Remaining Points: 6]

Lord level 9.

Remaining points 6.

And his Dignity stat was 4.

Cliff immediately recalled what had happened today.

The dignity that had resisted the Serpent’s fear.

But the experience of failing to resist due to stats that were too low.

But wouldn’t things change from now on?

[Name: Cliff Elimis]

[Level: 9]

[Majesty: 10]

[Elegance: 1]

[Virtue: 1]

He had thought about it before.

That when stats increased, and probably the moment any stat reached 10, there would be some kind of change.

The kind of change he could feel for himself.

And finally, his Majesty had reached 10.

-The lord’s Majesty has reached 10, awakening a dormant skill.

-You can now use the lord skill ‘Territory Declaration’.

His good premonition had not been wrong.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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