“You what?!” Cassandra exclaimed in shock after Zane told her about the Dragon den.
Zane looked up from where he was handing out plant seeds to the petal fairies. “I found a dra-”
“I heard you. But why did you enter an unmeasured Dragon den?” Cassandra questioned.
“My master told me it was still incomplete dungeon, so it wouldn’t be dangerous,” Zane answered.
Cassandra turned to Melissa, who just shrugged. To be completely blunt, Cassandra did not have any romantic feelings toward Zane. Her desire to marry him had two main reasons. The first was because Zane had no attachment to any major family or organization, and the second reason is to establish a connection to his master.
“Did your master come here?” Cassandra hurriedly asked, hoping to potentially meet Zane’s master.
“No,” Zane shook his head.
“His master talks to him telepathically,” Melissa mentioned.
“Telepathy?” Cassandra turned to Melissa in shock.
Cassandra covered her mouth as she began pondering the possibilities. Telepathy was magic that was still undiscovered. It was possible using magic tools, but using it with magic alone was near impossible with what they currently know.
“Can I meet your master?” Cassandra asked Zane.
“I’m not sure. Even I haven’t seen him in person before,” Zane revealed.
“Then how did he teach you his mana control?” Cassandra asked since teaching someone mana control needed physical contact.
“He implants information into my head,” Zane answered. “It’s... painful.”
Cassandra choked in shock.
------
A tremendous amount of mana swirled around Zane as he meditated. He had a lot more mana at his disposal compared to others in the same stage, even if he only uses it to enhance his strength.
“It’s time,” Averin spoke.
“For what?” Zane asked, keeping his focus on meditating.
“To change your mana control to better suit you.”
Zane sighed, already expecting another painful headache. “I’m ready.”
Information flooded into his head, but to Zane’s surprise, it wasn’t as painful as the previous times Averin implanted information into his head.
“Get started. I’ll evaluate you later, I have somewhere to be,” Averin stated.
“Got a date?” Zane asked with a smirk, but received no reply. “Oh well...”
Zane sat back down and began using the new mana control method Averin gave him. Unlike the first mana control he used where the mana felt like a flowing stream of water going through his body, the new one felt like cold air rushing through numerous pipes lining his body.
As Zane was focusing on his new mana control, he didn’t notice the ground beneath him was starting to freeze. The moment his mana spiked, a blizzard erupted around him. The training room went into lockdown as area around Zane began to freeze.
------
“Those fucking bastards!” Cassandra slammed her fists down on her desk, causing it collapse.
Cassandra had just received a notice that all the paperwork she wanted processed were being delayed. Although that’s what they said, Cassandra knew that this would continue on and kept being delayed with them giving a variety of stupid reasons.
“It seems they’re quite dedicated in trying to inconvenience you,” Elise, the best info broker Cassandra knew, commented. “From what I’ve gathered, it seems both the Nero family and the Albertian faction is behind it.”
Cassandra raised an eyebrow. “The Albertian faction? Why the hell are they getting in my way?”
“They’re not against you,” Elise replied. “They want to hinder Zane.”
“Why? Because he’s a cryo subject?”
“I guess I’ll give you this one for free,” Elise showed a holographic projection of an emblem that looked like a dragon being impaled by ice. “They’re a new faction called “Frozen blade”,” Elise revealed. “The members are cryo subjects and the people that support them.”
Cassandra chuckled. “Let me guess, they’re openly hostile to the Albertian faction.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Elise sighed. “With how fast they’re growing, they’ll become a powerful force soon.”
“How come none of them approached Zane? It’s pretty obvious that Zane has tremendous potential,” Cassandra stated. “It won’t be a surprise if Zane wanted to join them.”
“Well, like everyone else. They’re worried about the person behind Zane,” Elise replied. “Someone that could pass down a mana control like his wouldn’t be weak.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Cassandra looked away. “If only you knew.”
Elise’s eyes widened. “You know something! Tell me!”
“I haven’t met them, but apparently, he has access to magic that we haven’t even figured out yet, like telepathy,” Cassandra revealed. “Even I’m getting greedy to meet him.”
“Is that why you want to have a business marriage with Zane?”
“It’s one of the lesser reasons,” Cassandra admitted.
“Does he know?”
“I belie-”
Cassandra was interrupted by an alarm blaring. She turned towards the wall where each alarm was labelled and found it was coming from the training rooms.
“What’s going on?” Elise asked, but Cassandra was already out the room.
Cassandra zoomed through the halls like a ball of flame before stopping in front of the training rooms. It didn’t take her long to figure out which training room caused the alarm since only of them had a blaring red light above it. The fact that door was frozen was also a dead give away
Cassandra flinched when she felt the cold air hit her skin. “What the hell?” she muttered in confusion.
Her mana erupted like flames, shrouding her body and protecting her from the cold. The frozen door began to melt as she got closer. She allowed her mana to spread, completely thawing the door and allowing her to open it.
The moment she entered the room, she saw the blizzard surrounding Zane. He looked completely unharmed, but the area around him was completely frozen.
She was about to reach out, but a hand grabbed her shoulder. Cassandra reacted quickly and reached for the assailant’s neck. But to her surprise, Zane’s summoned creature caught her hand before it reached its neck.
“My master is to not be disturbed,” the summoned creature spoke with a distorted version of Zane’s voice.
“You can talk?” Cassandra asked in shock.
“My master is to not be disturbed,” the summoned creature repeated, while releasing an ominous energy from its body.
At that moment, Cassandra felt it. The creature in front of her wasn’t normal. It was normal for summoned creatures to be stronger than the summoner, but Cassandra had never seen a difference this big.
If Zane was in the upper tier for 3rd stages, then his summoned creature was around the lower tier of 5th stage.
“What’s going on?” Cassandra questioned, ready to exert more force if needed.
“My master is to not be disturbed,” the summon repeated once again, then began to shift to look more draconic.
Cassandra prepared to fight, but they were stopped by the blizzard suddenly vanishing. She turned to Zane, finding that he had stopped meditating. “What happened?”
“You froze one of my training rooms. Well, technically, one of your training rooms,” Cassandra stated as the summoned creature left the room. “How is that thing moving around even when you’re not focusing on it?”
“He has his own mana control,” Zane revealed as he dusted off the snow on his clothes.
Cassandra’s eyes widened. “What?!”
------
When Zane found out he had an affinity for ice, he was hesitant to actually pursue it since he didn’t like being reminded of his origins. But seeing how much damage he did to the training room just by meditating made him conflicted on how to feel.
It gave him a glimpse of how much power he could potentially have. Power that he could use to protect everything dear to him and destroy everything that threaten them.
“You have visitors, sir,” Meridith informed him as she entered the room.
Zane turned to her and nodded. Cassandra had told him about people potentially showing after finding out he lived here.
When he arrived at the reception room, Zane found a pudgy man with brown hair wearing a suit and three women in extravagant dresses along with another woman wearing a more casual dress.
The man reacted excitedly after seeing him. “Ah, you must be Zane,” the man stood up and shook Zane’s hand with both his hands. “I am Michael Allander, the head of the “All Land merchantry”,” Michael introduced himself. “And these are my lovely daughters,” she gestured to the four women.
“It’s nice to meet you,” the four spoke in unison.
The three women wearing extravagant dresses looked around Zane’s age. They were completely dolled up with thick make up and fancy jewelry, while the other woman that looked a bit older didn’t have a single accessory one her. No ring, earring, or even a hair pin. Her was let down and Zane couldn’t even tell if she had lip stick.
Her simplicity reminded him of Melissa.
“Nice to meet you. What do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Zane spoke.
“Well, we heard we had a new neighbor, so we believe it was only right to welcome you,” Michael replied.
Zane raised an eyebrow. There wasn’t a house for another three kilometers. Did they even count as neighbors? “Thank you,” Zane replied as Meridith arrived with drinks.
From what Cassandra had told him, there were only two reasons people would visit him. The first was that if they knew his name, they investigated him and wanted to establish a connection to the new promising rookie. Second, if they mentioned Cassandra, they wanted to establish connection with her, one of the top ten mages in the world.
“Is it safe to assume that your family deals in real estate?” Zane asked, guessing based on the name of the merchantry.
“Certainly! We sell houses from sector 112 to 119,” Michael said proudly.
Zane noticed his wording. “Just houses?”
“Of course. We can’t sell land we don’t own after all,” Michael replied less excitedly. “The land belongs to whoever rules the sector.”
That got Zane’s interest. “And who rules this sector?”
“Well, each sector in the area is ruled by a different person, but the person who rules this sector is Cassandra Nero,” Michael answered.
“Ah...”
That meant that even though Cassandra said she was giving Zane this house as a gift, the land still belonged to her.
“Thank you for answering.”
“Anytime,” Michael returned to being cheerful.
The conversation turned towards Michael praising his daughters. Specifically, the three he dolled up. He exaggerated their beauty, talents, intellect, and even made comments about great they would be as wives.
Zane had to suppress the urge to groan with Meridith even subtly telling him that he was doing a good job. He tried to find something to put his attention on, and noticed the fourth daughter just subtly smiling at him.
“Ah, I recently heard about your marital order being decided,” Michael suddenly mentioned.
That got Zane’s attention. “Pardon? My what?”
“Your marital order. It was pretty big news considering how important it is to ensure the quality of the future generation,” Michael stated. “After all, we don’t know when another threat to our world would appear.”
“I see... I haven’t been notified yet,” Zane said.
“Really? It was quite the news since they announced that you were required to have a child with seven wives,” Michael revealed. “It must have been due to your achievements at such a young age,” Michael let out a hearty laugh.
Zane’s eyes twitched as he heard the information Michael just revealed.
“Of course, nobody expects you to have seven wives through romantic means. A business marriage should suffice. I’m certain there are thousands of people out there willing to build connection with you through marriage.”
Zane sighed. At this point, Michael was being obvious with his intentions.