At dawn, sunlight streamed into the castle atop the mountain, illuminating the couple in the lord’s bedroom.
“What do you want?”
Upon hearing the man’s words, the woman’s complexion suddenly turned pale.
Seeing the change in her expression, Ivan, who was still lying in bed, realized he had just uttered something a scumbag would say.
“Cough, cough, what I mean is that you should be aware of my situation. I have to leave this continent in about twenty days and head to the unknown Sorcerer’s Academy, with no fixed return date. Don’t tell me you think I’m blind; I’ve seen how beautifully you dressed up every day, but due to the reality of the situation, I didn’t respond just to avoid holding back your prime years.”
Justine, lying to one side, finally improved in color: “Then what about last night—”
Ivan wrapped his arms around her: “What do you think? You’re such a brave girl; how could I, as the lord, bear to push you away?”
After hesitating for a few seconds, Justine carefully looked at him: “What if I want to become the Lady of the Mulberry Valley?”
“That position was tailor-made for you.”
Ivan readily agreed; despite Justine’s lack of combat skills, she was an authentic sorcerer apprentice and pharmacist—intelligent but unambitious. People were unaware of her situation; otherwise, countless nobles would have wanted to marry her.
However, the curse on her was a problem.
Uh—Justine couldn’t be counting on him to lift her curse, could she? Smart choice!
To Ivan, this was no big deal; it was only natural to help his woman lift the curse if he had the ability.
To the right of the Lord’s Hall was a connecting corridor, and at the end of the corridor, a round house now served as a dining room for the Marichadon family, with Aunt Kasey still cooking, having followed them to Mulberry Valley.
Justine followed Ivan into the dining room; aside from Sean, who cast a strange glance, nobody else found it surprising.
Leider thought to himself: His son Ivan was already over fourteen years old and eligible for marriage. It seemed he had to find time to discuss with Baron Glatton, to at least finalize the couple’s marriage contract and settle the matter.
After the meal, Ivan continued to make potions during the day, only now with Justine by his side. According to Justine, she had wanted to learn potion-making from Ivan for a long time but never found the right opportunity.
Ivan was happy to teach, and with his current level, instructing Justine was more than enough.
One taught patiently, and the other learned humbly; Justine’s apothecary skills improved significantly, keeping her smiling all day.
Ivan also gained something in return.
[Apothecary Skill Experience Point +1]
[Apothecary Skill: lv4 (20/1000)]
As he had expected, teaching a subject could gain prestige, and indeed, experience points rose much quicker.
Evening arrived.
Justine moved into the lord’s bedroom.
When she saw Ivan about to leave, she puffed up angrily but said nothing.
“What’s the matter? Wasn’t the day’s teaching enough?”
“But—”
“Fine, then I, as your lord, will teach you some new knowledge.”
At Justine’s exclamation, Ivan turned and pounced onto the bed.
Having a strong constitution was a blessing; dealing with her ‘one fight, one trash’ was all too easy. When Ivan rose to leave again, Justine didn’t dare to ask him to stay, only hiding in the blanket pretending not to notice.
Shortly after, Ivan arrived at the front ridge of Mulberry Ridge, his spirits high.
Regarding the root cause of the troubles in Mulberry Ridge, he had observed for several nights.
According to Toyennes’s experimental records, there were billions of types of insects in the world, with a new species emerging almost every minute, but the vast majority were valueless.
From a control perspective, all insects can be divided into two categories: those with an ‘insect queen’ that propagate the entire swarm; and those without.
The swarms with an insect queen are the easiest to control, as one only needs to handle the queen. However, this type of insect is rare and serendipitous, like most bees and ants.
Upon his observation, the culprit behind the damage at Mulberry Ridge was of the kind that possessed an insect queen, which is why he did not act rashly.
Proper preparation was necessary to eradicate the plague of Mulberry Ridge in one fell swoop.
To save time, he could only consume a level 1 Light of Wisdom to comprehend and apply the ‘Basic Study of Common Energy Particles’; as a result, on the following day his Energy Particle Skill rose to level 2. Under the effect of the Small Light of Wisdom, he became further proficient in the knowledge of basic common energy particles.
Energy Particle Skill brought him a level 2 Light of Wisdom.
Then he used two level 2 Lights of Wisdom to decipher the Insect Control Skill and Tracking Technique and successfully outlined the magic models yesterday.
Now, the Academic Prodigy’s panel had only one level 2 Light of Wisdom and one level 3 Light of Wisdom left.
“Tonight I will make the final confirmation, and tomorrow during the day I will capture the insect queen.” Spending a lot brought great returns, and Ivan was confident he had made thorough preparations, even if the insect queen escaped tomorrow, he could re-locate its hiding place with the Tracking Technique.
If he succeeded tomorrow, he would control the insect queen with the Insect Control Skill, not believing the other insects would fail to submit.
The insect queen’s hiding spot was inside that hundred-year-old mulberry tree, and a careful observation would reveal that other moths frequently entered and exited from the same spot in the trunk of the mulberry tree, only to return to their original positions in their own trees after a while.
Occasionally, young moths would fly out from it, and from their clumsy flight, it was evident they had recently been born.
After watching for most of the night, Ivan finally made up his mind.
The next day.
At noon, when the sun was high in the sky.
Ivan only brought a few of his stronger followers and asked each of them to carry a shield.
The shields were to prevent any surprise incidents, as those moths were too good at hiding, and no one knew what other abilities they might have; Ivan had to maintain the necessary caution.
“Lord, shall I do it?”
“No need, I’ll do it myself, everyone be careful.”
Ivan rejected Dayne’s kind offer, leapt up four to five meters high, then used his hands and feet to climb up the old mulberry tree, and reached a point on the trunk side where the insect queen resided, his feet firmly on a branch beside him.
He was fifteen or sixteen meters above the ground, and the trunk by his side was one of the offshoots of the tree, with a diameter of only about thirty centimeters left.
He brought a small round shield, the Quillen Sword, and a canister with a piece of fresh mulberry wood inside; the wood was sourced from elsewhere, and the canister was made of double-layered iron.
He discovered that these moths disliked light and deliberately chose a time when the sunlight was at its peak.
All was ready.
“I want to see your true face, to think you had the power to plague twelve hundred acres of mulberry forest on your own,” he muttered, drawing the Quillen Sword and slashing at the tree above where the insect queen was hiding.
The trunk split in two, which he casually pushed to one side, allowing it to fall.
With another slash of the Quillen Sword, the trunk was thinned down by a few centimeters.
The cross-section of the trunk, illuminated by the sun, had something wriggling down it.
With his keen eyes, Ivan casually grabbed the clumsily wriggling thing; upon closer inspection, it was a caterpillar that looked like it was carved out of wood, completely made out of mulberry wood.
It put up quite a struggle.
Feeling the force of its struggle increasing in his palm, he stuffed the wooden caterpillar onto the piece of mulberry wood in the canister, and under the sunlight, the caterpillar indeed wriggled into the piece of wood.
“So clumsy?”
Ivan raised an eyebrow, feeling as though he had punched a sponge, and all his preparations were in vain.
Despite his doubts, he covered his hand with Combat Energy, morphing his hand into a claw and reaching down into the split trunk, scraping out a handful of wood shavings each time. The wood caterpillars hiding beneath were caught by him one by one and deposited into the canister.
Soon, a wood caterpillar as thick as two fingers emerged, looking notably plump and unique; this hefty fellow must be the ringleader insect queen.
Ivan snatched it up and tossed it into the canister too, watching as the plump wood caterpillar clumsily burrowed into the piece of mulberry wood, then he sealed the canister with its lid.
At that moment, he suddenly sensed a trace of danger, and reflexively shielded himself with the small round shield when he heard a thud—a moth collided with the round shield like a bullet, causing the shield in his strong arm to quiver slightly.
So fierce!