Rex soon reached the place where Izumi was waiting since they had agreed as such before the auction. He could clearly see the glare the woman was giving him, obviously upset at his actions to aquire the young kitsune girl. Her butler was standing beside her, even bigger fron on his face. Rex cared little for their attitude, since it was the elders of their council who held the say over their politics and decisions, And every noble here was made aware of his capabilities as a blood mage, since he had shown of his to new girls, alrady branded. He must have already prepared a ritual site to aleviate the burden on him, but still, he was quite energetic and happy, based on his tone of voice and the rather jovial attitude he had at the end of the auction.
"Lets go, shall we?" Rex asked once he was next to them. And they were on their way. Quite soon after they had left the building Rex spoke
"By the way, I will have Millie taught by your tea experts." Noticing the questioning gaze he added "The kitsune girl I just aquired." Izumi was almost fuming right now, while Rex kept a slight smile on his face. And before she could stay something stupid, Rex added
"I hope you can controll your temper lady, or I might just be willing to take a loss and offer quite the favourable conditions to your people in exchange for you. I can be that petty" and his face was now sporting an evil smirk. That stunned and calmed down the kitsune immediatly. Even if the probabiility was almost zero, there were always exeptions, and she was well aware of that. And so the rest of their walk was spent in utter silence.
While Rex was on his way to kitsunes, a few other important events unfolded. For one, Elena Vex was slightly frowning. She was quite sure they had offered quite the treasures, and yet, the mage had not showed any interest. She was quite sure regarding the possible treasure offered by Hersts and Merhads, and she was rather also quite sure their offer was much better. And as far as she was aware, and her information was quite substantive, Nyx Ifritti were not known for any special treasure created or aquired in their lands. And while the place was quite isolationist, there were always people willing to talk for the right price or a well placed threat.
And so, she once again set her mind to plan new ways to gain an opportunity to interact with the mage. She knew she was here for the long haul. Months, years, maybee even decades, but the mission took priority, and from what she had witnessed, she elevated the importance of her task to a higher rank. This was no longer pinnacle A rank mission from her supperiors. The mage was surely S class potential, and as such, the importance of the task had to be equivalent. She had also decided to report the matter to the Archbishops.
"How is your search going?" She asked Royce, who was walking next to her.
"We are still looking. He has not shown again as of yet. Boot he will have to mive soon again, and thats when we will catch him." the inquisitor responded. Both had quite the task ahead, adn they were looking to the satisfaction achieved once their tasks would be completed.
At the same time, a rather elderly elf was walking along with his entourage, emersed deep in his own thoughts. The Silvermist elves had failed to gain the interest of the man. They had made quite the offer, but since the mage had not shown any interest the man could only asume he was still holding a grudge for their previous encounter. And while the families chosen this time had no standing conflicts with them, there was no guarantee, the ones in the future would not be. And as he was wracking his head, they had reached their residence. At the gate stood a woman clad in a battle attire. She gave off a feeling of a powerfull warrior. One of the men quickly approached the elder adn wispered to him
"His valkirie." The guard was one of the men previously accompanying Kanaelia, so we had met the woman. And it was hard to forget her. She was both beautifull, the elf had to gripingly admit, and powerfull. The elder immediatly showed a friendly smile an addressed the woman
"may we help you in any way miss?"
"My master is quite dissatisfied by your previous actions, but he is willing to give you a chance to show your remorse." there was a pause in her words, giving time for the elf to focus his attention on what is about to be said "He wants Anylialas mother to be given over to him. No exiling or anything, as the woman will not be made a slave. Od this and your families previous blunder shall be overlooked. But make sure you do not send young, foolish and arrogant children to do the talking when they dont understand who should be bowing. Respect is earned, not given, and those green behind the ears have earned none."
The elder listened carefully, his mind already been made. What was a single concubine of the king, when they were already willing to offer up one daughter. Their king would agree in a heartbeat as well. And the second part, while sounding arrogant implied that one had to aproach with tact and manners. It was quite sure the young ones would be heavily punished should something like Kanaelia situation were to repeat. He would be willing to bet, that if Kanaelia were to be sent again, and she would repeat her previous mistake, which she obviously woudnt, but if she did, it was almost guaranteed that the mage would make her a slave. Elders however were old enough to read most of the situations particularily well and knew that sometimes one had to bow their head to aquire what was desired by the family.
"I will have to inform our ruler, but I am almost sure he will agree to your masters demand, and the woman in question will arive with haste. Once we are ready we will visit your residence. Is that acceptable?" the elder spoke.
"It is. However I cannot guarantee master will be able to recieve you personally at that time, but the deal will be honored, he has ashured that. He is a bussy person now, as you must be well aware."
"Yes indeed. We understand." The elf replied to valkirie, and after a polite nod, she left. The elf then entered their residence and proceeded to start aranging for the woman to be safely brought to Blythe. As he had thought, after a short recount of todays events as well as the new evaluation of the mage, their ruler agreed immediatly.
At the same time master Airen was returning to the mansion where the mage guild had set up temporary residence. He was accompanied by a few younger mages and one middle aged one. The middle aged man was visibly shaking, his eyes darting back and forth. The man had ben terrified for quite a while now, and for the life of him Airen had no idea why. Once they had entered their residence that was heavily warded he asked
"Jugen, what happened to you? Looks like death itself is on your heels." The man, named Jugen had relaxed a bit one they entered the safety of the wards, but was still quite shaken answered
"Y- you didnt feel that?" then shaked his head "Of course you didnt, only a blood mage would." he shivered at the memory surfacing up "You wanted an evaluation? Here it is" his next words were enunciated one by one "He is A freaking monster." Seeing Airen remain quite he elaborated
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"Blood mages specialize in soul and its power. The stronger the sould the more powerfull creatures you can brand and the less people exist who could even hope to attempt to break a brand of yours. It is becasue of this we can somewhat improve the power of our souls. That also allows us to somewhat sense the power of other souls as well, allowing us to estimate if a brand could be placed."
"Yes I am aware of that. I am a scolar for a reason." Airen answered, and asked more "is his sould that powerfull? What are we talking about Pinnacle A class, maybee he has even breached S class?"
"I dont know." Jogen answered, and seeing Airen's confucion he explained "I can sense nothing from him. Literaly nothing. And before you ask, that can happen only in two cases, since i am pinnacle B class blood mage. Either he is a savant of the soul and can conceal his own, which I hope is the case, or he is so beyond me, I dont have the capacity to comprehend the vast difference, hence my mind just does not register it at all."
"And why would the second case be that bad?" Airen asked.
"Well I dunno," Joegn spoke sarcasticly "mabee becasue then he could probably brand the whole town in a single go for example without preparing shit and there would be nothing we could do about it. We are talking DEMIGOD levels here man. So no, lets just go with a savant." his small rant sudenly had him go silent for a moment, then he continiued
"Of course, he is young." as if an inspiration had struckj him the man calmed down, visibly relaxed "He is too young. I could nop sense his soul, but he radiated youthfulness, you must have thought so too, right?" and seeing Airen nod, he went on "The kids a savant. I would be willing to even bet he has quite pure bloodline of one of the progenitors with that level of skill and intuition."
"What are we talking about here? This is one of the few areas I have not delved too deeply within." Airen once again asked
"Sadly, we coudnt even guess. Thats something not recorded in our books, as it is extremely difficult to trace the bloodlines to the originator if the creatures do not roam around in the current day, or at least their distant cousins." Jugen answered. "But we should at the very least create an amiable relationship with the man, if we cannot outright coax him into joining our guild. I would suggest offering him some of the knowledge we have on the blood magic and their spells. Or the snippets we have on the soul magic, since those are two sides of the same coin."
"Lets wait and see how things proceed from now on first. What we do not lack is time after all." Airen responded. Afterwards they all went to do their own seperate things. They had to make this place into a proper guild hub now it seemed, as they would spend some time here.
Rex stood in the room together with Izumi. Her buttler was of to the side as the device was turned on and they were in the presence of the council members. As the council was sitting in their chairs, Rex had creaetd one of his own. He woul not be outdone, and izumi scoffed at this display. While it may look childish to her, Rex was asserting his position. He was in no way inferior to the other side, if anything, he was the supperior here. They needed much more from him than the other way around, so he had much more leevay in doing things. And since he had what was essentially the only suply for almost endless demand he had all the cards in any of the negotiations he might take part in.
Izumi had a few minutes to bried the council of what had happened during auction, as Rex didnt mind them coming to their own conclusions and the like. Now he was waiitng for them to innitiate, since what he was offering was already known, and he was waiting for them to show their offer. The firts few minutes were a small introduction, as well as their quite mild frustration with his recent actions. In truth they were very upset, but could not show it too much, since Izumi, had spoke of how he had apparantly been prepeared and had branded the two girls he bought already, and was seen without the rummored bad mood and the other rumored after efects of a branding.
Rex was not willing to spend a lot of his time here without achieving anything so he just asked
"You have had more than a day to ponder over your possible offer regarding the heaven grade meat i might aquire in the future. And since the knowledge regarding its bloodline purifying properties are going to spread like wildfire, its value is only going to increase. So , what is it that you believe you can offer, that would be nearly as valuable as it."
It was the green haired lady who thne spoke "My clan is willing to offer a wide variety of many rare herbs, only aquired in wild or by purchasing them from us. We would come to an agreement regarding the exchange per killogram, as is the custom in such trades." then she proceeded to name several different herbs and their properties.
"While they do sound somewhat usefull to most people seeking strenght, since I am no alchemist, and I have infinite acsess to earth grade meat, i have all the time in the world to achieve my goals. As such herbs hold little, if any interest at all." Rex replied, as it indeed was the case. Besides he had the best way to grow more powerfull anyways, and it required no ingridients or any other external support. All he had to do was keep murdering and draining, adn he would improve.
"Unfortunately, I believe that what is of the most interest to me is information and knowledge, since I dont see any way I am getting acsess to your beauties, and I dont plan on shooting in my own leg to make you an offer so great , where a few of your princeses would seem like a ridiculously low price. Besides I will soon have my very own noble rank kitsune." And his words created quite a few frowns, Izumis being the owrst one
"What, I will be purifying Millies blood quite a bit. Gotta see the limits." Rex lightheartedly spoke. What followed was almost thirty minutes of listing of different kind of information the kitsunes were willing to share, and what they believed to be an apropriate value for the information. Rex had quite the plan, and even when he kew he was losing out on the few deals he was willing to make, he needed to show some goodwill towards the foxes. He had agreeded to exchange a few kilograms of the heaven grade meat for some knowledge regarding magic that the kitsunes had a tight grasp on, and some of their internal energy techniques. Rex knew he was recievign the absolute low end of their library, but he just needed the concepts. He could use those to build his own versions and possibly even surpass their pinacle skills.
Before leaving Rex looked at izumi, while the council was still connected, and spoke quite clearly
"I woudnt mind having a meal or two with you every month or so, serving the heaven grade meat, if you were to serve me in bed every week im here. Think on it." His words had quite a few jaws drop. His deliberate timing made his intent quite obvious. He found the woman attractive and he was willing to provide her with quite the benefits in exchange for her. The way he said it meant she would retain her status. izumi was reddening from both embarasment and anger at the same time. The arrogance and confidence one had to have to make such an offer was unbelievable. But she could also remember the divine taste of the meat she had eaten, and the purifying effect on her bloodline she had felt.
"And why would you make this offer here?" One of the councill men asked, wanting a proper explanation.
"If she agrees, she grows stronger, and eventually someone would decide to find her a partner. And once I claim someone, they become mine, branded or not. So you being aware of the possiblity ensures noone gets some weird ideas. Thats all." After that Rex was escorted out and he left. Izumi returned to the room where the council was still waiting.
"Take the offer." council member of her clan spoke with all of his autority. Right now he was enacting his autority as her father first and a council member second "It is far too good to refuse. And if you bear his children, we might very well secure an alliance of sorts." Izumi knew very well she would eventually have to mary someone to strenghten their situation, she just had asumed it would be within their own nation, since kitsunes rarely married outsiders. Rex had asked for her as a concubine, and while it would be considered an insult by any other noble, Rex had displayed the potential of an S class blood mage. That was in a league of its own.
"I understand father." Izumi bowed to the man "Please allow me a few days to mentaly prepeare myself." To her this was just another asignment she had recieved, as a loyal member of the noble clans of their empire, she would perform her task, to bring further prosperity to her people. Years later she would look back at these memories and praise herself for her choice. What she had thought would be a sacrifice in duty to her homeland, became a life of happiness and fulfillment. And her old home would feel so small and distant to the divine, nine tailed kitsune she had become.