Verity led Felix down several halls, when they arrived at a particular hall which branched into several other halls, all of which were full of doors stretching far into the distance. Slaves were rushing about everywhere about their tasks, but many of them stopped to quickly bow to Felix before they returned to their work. Verity led Felix in to one of the halls, and the very first door on the left, which she knocked on. "Prudence, the second Young Master is here to see you!" she called out at the door.
"Eh? The second Young Master?" a female voice called out hesitantly from inside. "C-come in."
Verity smiled and opened the door, holding it open for Felix, who entered the room.
The room was much nicer than he expected. It had a boudoir, dresser, and red silken linens on the bed, along with a couple of chairs and a table, in addition to being more spacious than he was expecting. Prudence was sitting in one of the chairs, looking a bit abashed, as she was rather dolled up and wearing an exquisite red dress. Even though her looks were a bit plain, Felix thought she looked quite nice when she was like this.
"What can I do for you, second Young Master?" Prudence asked, rising and giving Felix a curtsy.
"Well, I need to speak to Leo, and I've heard you're the one to see about that." Felix said.
"Ah, I see. Well, I'm expecting him within the hour. Unless this is some sort of emergency...?" Prudence asked, looking up at Felix hesitantly.
"It isn't. I don't mind waiting." Felix said, taking a seat in one of the chairs.
"You're being watched. It's Leo again." Arboro remarked in his soul.
Prudence looked like she wasn't quite sure what to say or do in this situation.
"It seems Leo is already aware that I'm here. Did you message him somehow?" Felix asked her.
Prudence blushed. "N-no.... umm... I don't know if I should say this, but... Leo, he... although I swear to you he doesn't watch most places in the manor, he favors me greatly, so he does keep an eye on my room, so he can ensure my safety." she said.
Verity leaned in close to Felix's ear and whispered to him, intentionally being just barely loud enough that Prudence would hear her. "What she really means is, the first Young Master is a voyeur who likes to watch her as she sleeps or changes her clothes, and he's very jealous, so he wants to make sure no other men get near her." she said, causing Felix's face to become heated. Prudence looked very flustered and looked away from the two of them, as Verity giggled.
Felix coughed. "Right. I think I'll just umm, work on my spells until he arrives." he said, and he promptly began to work on the Enslavement spell then and there, causing Verity to laugh. Although Felix did his best to ignore them, Verity had walked over to Prudence and began touching up her hair and gossiping with her. Asking her about Leo's likes and dislikes and talking about the latest gossip. Felix could feel her eyes turn to him as they talked about the gossip involving himself and Scarlet right in front of him, as if Verity was gloating in front of him that she knew he wasn't really concentrating on spell construction, and she was distracting him successfully, teasing him.
Felix felt an intense desire to pinch her cheeks and call her a brat, but to do so would mean she would win, so he retained his stoic expression and continued to very poorly and inefficiently work on the Enslavement spell, acting as if he was a paragon who could not be distracted by mortal affairs. After what felt like sixteen lifetimes to Felix, but was really only probably a half hour to forty five minutes, there was a knock on the door.
"Prudence, may I enter?" Felix heard Leo speaking from outside.
Felix opened his eyes and looked at Prudence, who had a very last second little touch-up done by Verity, before she called out "Yes of course Le- I mean, Young Master!".
The door opened, and Leo stepped in. "You look exceptional, Prudence. I assume I have Verity to thank for that." Leo commented, looking at the two ladies. They both rose and gave Leo a curtsy. "Yes, Young Master." Verity said.
"So, I assume you didn't come out here to the slave's quarters because you had a sudden interest in the architecture, am I right Felix?" Leo asked, looking to Felix.
"Although the architecture is quite interesting, you are correct, I needed to find you, since Uncle is out at the moment." Felix said.
"And what do you need of me?" Leo asked him.
"Well, I need an environment particularly and extremely rich in the metal element. Although I typically cultivate the earth and the dark elements, I have a sudden urgent need to cultivate metal for an important spell. Therefore, I need you to let me in to the treasury." Felix said.
Leo looked at him for a moment, before responding. "Well, as Grandfather has stated you could have half the treasury if you so wished for it, I suppose letting you in there just to sit in the middle of the metal bars to cultivate metal isn't much of an issue. Might I ask what spell you're constructing that is worth you putting in the effort of non-affinitied cultivation?" he asked.
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"Well, I don't want to tell you just because I'm not certain the spell will work, as it's experimental, and I don't want to get your hopes up un-necessarily. I will need to test it on a slave in short order after I leave the treasury. If that testing goes well, though... This spell will be a great boon to Scarlet, and maybe even the entire Belrose family. I can promise you that much." Felix responded.
Leo looked surprised. "That's quite a claim, but I'm assuming you wouldn't have made it without any basis." he said. "Very well. Prudence, I'm so sorry, but I'll have to make you wait for another half hour or so, so that I can help Felix here into the treasury." Leo remarked to Prudence.
"No, no, of course the tiniest of your affairs are always more important than me." Prudence said, shaking her head quickly.
Leo smiled. "Verity, can I bother you to keep Prudence company while I escort Felix?" he asked, turning to Verity.
"Of course, Young Master." Verity said with a curtsy.
"Don't worry, I'll make it up to you later." Leo said to Prudence, who blushed. "Let's go, Felix." he said, as he turned to leave. Felix got up and followed after him.
"How long do you think that you will need to be in the treasury to construct this spell for?" Leo asked as they walked.
"I don't know, unfortunately. I've never constructed any spells with the metal element. However, since it has a positive relationship with earth, which is my major element, I suspect that it shouldn't be too terrible." Felix said.
"Hmm... how many metal nodes?" Leo asked.
"Only twenty-six. Not too terrible. But it's something I have to get done as quickly as possible." Felix said.
"Hmm... you can probably do one node per hour if we stick you on top of some mithril bars." Leo said. "I'll come get you at noon two days from now, then." he said, after some quick mental calculations.
"Sorry for the hassle." Felix said with a smile.
"What hassle? If it's for Scarlet's sake, this much can't even be considered a token effort." Leo, returning the same smile.
Finally, they arrived at an unassuming wooden door and stopped. Felix looked at the door surprised. "You guys use a wooden door to house the treasury?" he asked Leo incredulously.
"Heh." Leo said smugly. "That might look like regular oak, but it's from an Ironbark Oak, grown in soil infused with mithril and adamant dust, watered with the heart-blood of a 10,000 year-old Fortress Turtle, reinforced with defensive wood magics from the greatest elf noble clans, and hardened by earth magics cast by the greatest dwarven earth mages. It took my great-great-great-grandfather 80 years of effort to create that door. Frankly, I doubt the King and his entire personal guard could break through that door in under a month, and that's if they went all out the entire time, so as to overpower the regenerative wood magics." Leo said, looking at the door proudly.
Felix looked at the door and thought for a moment. "At that point, wouldn't it be easier to just go around the door?" he asked.
"A good thought, but no. There's nothing behind the door in the physical plane besides a plain wall. It doesn't act as a door in the regular physical sense, when you open it using the family seal, it opens a spatial passage to the treasury, which is kept in a pocket dimension." Leo explained.
"The door alone must be worth at least half as much as it's contents." Felix surmised.
"Indeed it is." Leo said, as he took out a small crest with the symbol of the Belrose family engraved into it. He pressed it in to a small depression in the door. The door glowed for a moment, and then a small click was heard. Leo opened it, and Felix saw a dark passage behind the door.
"After you." Leo said, holding the door for Felix. Felix walked through the passage, as Leo shut the door behind him and followed. After a brief walk, they entered a large stone room, filled with a strange glow in a rainbow of colors, which were given off naturally... from the large piles of metal and money Felix had fully expected. Purple metals, green metals, silvery metals. Jewels in actual piles, 20 feet tall. And gold, so much gold. Felix was mentally prepared, but even still, he was stunned when he saw the wealth on display in this place. He sensed the metal element - it was as thick in this place as the darkness element was in the crypts below the manor.
"As an orchard boy, I always knew the nobles were far wealthier than I was, but now I see my imagination was still far too limited, I was a frog in a well." Felix remarked, somewhat depressed.
Leo laughed. "If you think this is grand, let me tell you, we're not even in the top ten of the wealthiest families in the kingdom." he said, shaking his head and walking in a certain direction. Felix followed him, until they reached a relatively small (although still as tall as Felix himself was) pile of cerulean blue metal bars. Felix sensed the metal element around him again, and he was shocked. These blue metal bars had an insanely high concentration of metal element, even higher than the training room in the crypt's concentration of dark element.
"What is this?" Felix asked, looking to Leo.
"Pure mithril, not an alloy like the chains used for the crypt lift. That chain is only like ten percent mithril. But these bars..." Leo said, picking up one of the bars with both hands using great effort. "These bars are ninety nine percent pure mithril." he said, before putting the bar back on the pile with a huff of exhaustion. It seemed the metal bars were far heavier than they looked to be.
"I can feel their metal element from here. It's astonishing." Felix said, looking at the mithril bars. Leo nodded.
"Welp, let's not stand on ceremony any further. I have places to be besides here after all." Leo said, tossing a bag with some rations and water he had brought with them on top of the pile. He then grabbed Felix's arm and roughly helped him on top of the pile.
"See you in two days." he said, heading back to the passageway with a wave.
Felix was a bit stunned and miffed that Leo quickly just dropped him off and left like that, but then he remembered Prudence was waiting for him, so he just sighed and began to absorb the metal element on top of the bars. Even with the insanely rich metal environment and a positive relationship with his own elements... it was still painfully slow. He felt like he was constructing nodes at a fifth of the rate he constructed darkness spells in his room, let alone in the crypts. Felix shuddered to think of how bad it would be if he ever had to construct fire or light element nodes for anything.
And so, Felix sat there on top of the pile of mithril bars for two days, and finished constructing the experimental elemental affinity conversion spell just before the promised time for when Leo was to come pick him up.