“But you do.”, I say confidently, staring right at him.

“I honestly don’t.”

“You do.”

“Young master, I could even show you my record books, I don’t.”, he has a face of displeasure as he takes out his record books. I really d-”

“1 Favour, 1 favour when I become Duke. Unconditional.”, I declare.

He stops his words upon hearing this. He ponders for a bit.

His jovial face turning serious, he grabs a pouch from within his robes, throwing the bag on the counter. The bag has an inscription on it, it’s a space pouch, one that compresses the space within it.

“There’s 5,000 gold inside. There’s no need to return the gold, I want you to sign a spirit contract.”, he says solemnly.

“Sure.”

A spirit contract is simply a contract made upon the presence of the various spirits. If a contract of this manner were to be broken, the person would lose all his attributes for the elements. He would be unable to use magic, regardless of mastery, as if he were to do so, the backlash would likely kill him.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Leticia hands me a knife, and I use that knife to cut a slit on my thumb, dripping my blood on the contract. Yuan Zheng does the same.

The details of the contract were simple: “If Qiu Xue were to become Duke, he would need to perform an unconditional favour for Yuan Zheng, aside from direct suicide.”

“Pleasure doing business.”

I pass 2,000 coins to Leticia once we leave without saying anything. She nods and leaves.

That’s my personnel problem solved.

I should be able to reap this harvest soon, but for now, I’ll strength my own forces. It’s time to rope in Xun Zhou and gang.

On a perfectly ordinary day, I head to school as usual.

Right after class, I tell Xun Zhou that I have something important to tell him.

We meet up in a room by the stairway, it’s usually unused, since it’s a room filled with physical weapons within a Magic Academy.

“What’s the important thing that you need to talk to me alone for?”, he asks quizzically.

“Have you thought about your future?”

“What’s with this weird question? Or course I have, I’ll become a mage that’ll support my family in regaining it’s past honour. Everyone knows this.”

“But is that what you really want?”

“What?”

“That’s simply what your family wants, but deep down, you know that at the current rate of your progress with your talent, normal methods would never let you breakthrough to become a formal Mage. don’t you?”

He frowns.

“You’ll never become a formal Mage.”

“You’ve said too much, if you were anyone else, I would have punched you by now.”, he says, gritting his teeth.

“But it’s the truth.”

He lunges forward at this, grabbing my left shoulder. Flicking his wrist, he thrusts my shoulder towards the ground, making me fall down on the ground facing up with his mounted on top of me.

“Take that back. This is your last chance.”, He stares at me with anger.

I fetch out the space bag from Yuan Zheng from my robes while pinned down.

I raise it up, inviting him to take it.

“I’m not in a good position now. Everyone knows that, I don't have enough power. My other brothers have more support, their own forces, and me? I only have my title as the eldest son, nothing else. I need to have strength to fight for what I want. I need to have strength to become the next Duke."

I pause.

“Be my General.”