Chapter 5 - Cultivation Core

I could feel a slight tremor in my whole body. Ahh, the no-suspension middle-aged period horse cart, the shaking is so bad. I slowly open up my eyes in annoyance.

“Hmm, a familiar ceiling. Or rather, a familiar horse cart hood”

“Have you woken up, young master?”

“Ah, good morning, Jane”

“Would you like to have some women accompany you to take a bath, young master?”

“Have women accompany, what?”

My mind is still not fully woken up yet. But after I remembered what happened yesterday, I immediately sat up from my lying position.

I immediately checked my body and was surprised to realize that I have broken through to tier 3 mage. There’s also a black stone sitting in my dantian while mana keeps on circulating in my meridian.

“I have reached tier 3”

“Young master, are you okay?”

“I’m okay Jane, no need to probe anymore. I’m still me. Tell me what happen after I fall unconscious yesterday”

“I understand, young master. After the young master fell unconscious yesterday, I ordered the quartermaster to keep silent about this while telling Leon about the matter. There is only one weird thing that happened to you while you were unconscious, young master. Your body seems to excrete black-smelly pus-like-thing which I immediately wash off. Other than that, I ordered everything to go as usual. We are currently continuing our journey to the capital”

“What about the black stone from yesterday?”

“The black stone seems to be completely turned into meaty appendages and all of it has entered young master’s body. I thought the black pus thing was the meaty appendages that young master managed to beat from infiltrating your body”

“Hmm. Well, good job in managing things while I was out. And give me something to eat. I feel quite famished”

“As you wish, young master”

Asking about women's company was how Jane tried to probe whether ‘I’ am still the current Emilio Stadford. I have told her stories before about doppelgangers and body stealing revenants so it seems that she prudently tried to probe me first.

And she handles everything perfectly. Spreading the news about me fainting would only bring insecurity. She also asked Leon, who is the strongest fighter in my army, to back her up in case I am really possessed.

Finally, that thing about the black-smelly pus-like thing that I excreted from my whole body… That is straight-up a reference from any xianxia novel! That is a sign that I have refined my body through a certain threshold and my body is becoming… what is it… purer? Well, it’s just a sign that you are getting stronger in xianxia novels. And it doesn’t seem to be only fiction as I am now a tier 3 mage which is obviously stronger than before.

Jane quickly returned with a big bowl of boiled meat with sour and sweet fruit broth. I just feel so ravenously hungry that I ask Jane to bring more meat to me. Jane quickly returned with a barrel of fresh meat and started cutting it thinly as I conjured some water to the now empty bowl. Jane filled my bowl full with the sliced meat and I used my magic to boil the water.

This is microwave magic. I just make molecules vibrate faster with my magic and when molecules vibrate, things would turn hot soon after. Really handy when you want to boil water but not that great as a magic attack. You need to keep touching the enemy for a few seconds before things could heat up and in a battle, which is impossible to do in a battle. Yeah, one might be able to cheese the enemy and use this microwave magic to them but the efficiency is just not as great as when you are using other ‘normal’ attack magic.

Anyway, I keep on eating to fill the feeling of hunger that I am suffering from. I will sometimes add dried fruits to add the taste but I still mainly shove meat slices one after another to my stomach.

I imagine that this might be because of my sudden level-up or because of my ‘fight’ with that unknown self-acclaimed god or maybe both. Gotta top up my tank and have a deeper check on my body.

When I finally feel full, I tell Jane to stop cutting more meat and tell her to tidy up. While Jane is busy tidying up, I once again checked my body for changes.

After thoroughly checking for the third time, I don’t find any glaring anomaly except for the black stone residing in my dantian. My meridian also automatically circulates mana now unlike before when I needed to do it manually. My body strength has also slightly increased but I am still a tier 1 knight. The drastic improvement only affects my mana reserve and other mage-related things I guess.

Time to address the elephant in the room now I guess.

The black stone in my dantian just looked too similar to the black stone before it turned into tentacles and tried to possess me. It is just a lot smaller. I hope it does not let out tentacles like the bigger black stone.

But after checking it again and again. I am now positive that this black stone is something I myself own. It is a part of my body, not a foreign thing. The black energy from yesterday is condensed into this black stone. It could be said that this is like the mana core that could be found inside a strong beast. But why is mine black? Shouldn’t it be rainbow-colored or something as I can cast most basic element magic?

Also, that wannabe god. Those tentacles and the feeling of suppressive terror and fear… Why did it feel like something out of a Lovecraftian novel? But thanks to that wannabe god's opening speech, rather than fear, I feel contempt even more.

Sigh, there are just too many questions without answers. Anyway, as I don’t feel any discomfort from the black mana core in my dantian, I should just ignore it for now. Like worrying about it would help.

I continue on checking my condition by training my mana control, mana sense, and other basic mage training. My mana output is noticeably far stronger than before thanks to my upgrade into tier 3 mage but my control over mana slackens over the drastic increase in output. This won’t do. I need to train my control for the time being.

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When I think about it again. This is definitely like the situation of most characters in xianxia novels that had just experienced level-up. They need to re-learn their control over their body so they won’t accidentally hurt or break anything. In my case, it is for my magical prowess.

Well, I still need to train my body too. A healthy body houses a healthy mind. Balance is the way.

There is still some time before we reach the capital city. If there are no more hurdles along the way like yesterday’s bandit group then we should reach it in another week. Imagine traveling on the road for a month. We might arrive earlier though as I join my army to do jogging for around 5 to 6 hours a day.

If I count it by the average human walking speed and how long it takes to reach the capital city, the distance between my hometown and the capital city is roughly about a thousand kilometers. It is like going from the northernmost of Japan’s main island to the southernmost. I just realized how big the kingdom I am currently living in is.

Well, I don’t have much to do besides training, and more training, after all, gotta get myself used to being a tier 3 mage. After all, I want to join the Magic Academy and there will be a test to screen the new student coming. I don’t want to fail in the first step.

Then again, if the Magic Academy really does fail me, a 15 years old 3rd tier magician, then that place might just be a place full of trash.

I mean, seriously? Even that wannabe god called me as a youth with great potential. It should be something right?

So right back at training then. There’s no need to think about my black mana core for the time being. And even more about that wannabe god or that black stone thing.

And I focus again on training along the way.

2 days later.

Well, we have arrived in the capital city.

We are traveling faster than the average caravan after all so it is not weird that we arrived faster than scheduled.

Although the last 2 days I never asked my army to go jogging like usual because of our prisoners and civilians in our care, it didn’t delay us that much.

My underlings quickly deal with the process to enter the city.

Most of the civilians returned back to the capital or found other ways to return to their origin. Some civilians asked to join my group for work. The cat girl and dog girl are also included in the list of people that are going to join us. They asked to be trained for combat after seeing my army’s strength but I told them to work for me first. I will train them either way but I will only take trusted people in my army.

Yeah, I need them to do an internship for me for a long time first before adding them to the army if they are still interested.

After making sure that they would become stronger even when they just became a worker, the cat girl readily accepted my condition and started working for me. The dog girl seems to just follow the cat girl. I get the feeling of buying one and getting two from looking at the two.

The Stadford family has two lands in the capital. The first is the Stadford mansion inside the city and the other is the whole of Tusk Plains. Yes, a whole plain that is close to the capital city is owned by my family. When I heard of this I immediately asked permission from Earl Stadford, my eldest uncle, to make use of it. I already got his written permission and other things needed to avoid any trouble with legality so that will be my first gold mine.

One might wonder how the Stadford family, an Earl house, could own such a vast plain close to the capital. Well, my grandfather was actually scammed to buy that land. It was actually owned by a few nobles before but the Tusk Plains are filled with too many monsters. Those nobles can’t build anything on the land as long as the monsters in the plain are not eradicated. But they were unable to clean up the monsters and leave the land unattended. I don’t know the details but grandfather then bought the land owned by the nobles and became the legal owner of the whole Tusk Plains.

From what I heard from my dad and uncles, they lament the fact that Grandpa is using a large amount of money to buy useless land. But for me, that place is an uncovered wealth ready to be harvested.

My 1st business plan in the capital is to fully exploit the plains by making a ranch in that place. Most of my army and workers would go there to start exterminating and taming the monsters there.

I did say before that meat is plentiful here and herding animals does not seem that profitable here. That might be true but what about other husbandry products like milk and cheese? Leather might also be plentiful here as they are the first to be taken before the meat but what about wool? There are also other products that can be made from animals like oil, glue, gelatin, and fertilizer. Also, I can breed pack animals like donkeys and horses. Anyway, gotta try making the mother of all steak here. I won’t need to be worried about food ever again.

Okay, I’ll confess. I have planned to make this ranch because I have always been wanting to eat all those fancy preserved meat that I always watch on YouTube. I was not poor but I was not rich either back then. So I can only watch videos about those fancy meat dishes while wondering how they will taste. But now, I can get infinite meat for free (self-labor). I can create most of those mouth-watering dishes from before whenever I want to…

Well, not really. This middle-aged society only has a minimum amount of spices and plant variety. A far cry from the global open market back on Earth. It is a good thing I invest early in merchants (spies). I hope they can bring some more variety of spices for me to use.

Heck, even salt is a rare product back in my hometown. Much less spices that drive European nations to colonize tropical countries.

Next is the 2nd business plan which is not really a business plan. It was just an old hobby of mine which is taking over the local orphanage. If the orphanage treats children badly, I will take over it. If not, I will invest in the place. I have acquired many highly trusted and capable subordinates from taking over an orphanage before after all. If it works, repeat it again.

The ranch could be used to help the orphanage get enough food to eat. The orphan could also help out on the ranch without much worry. Its synergy is top-notch. Child labor huzzah!

And lastly, the 3rd business plan is… to open a hunter’s guild. Yeah, yeah it is the overused concept in isekai novel, the adventurer guild. But adventurers sound like undisciplined people so I use hunter as the name instead. Of course, there won’t be a hunter exam that could endanger the examinee. I am just nitpicking the name.

Why did I make the hunter’s guild in this world? Well, the easy short-term answer would be to add manpower to my 1st project. I can give a reward to any able-bodied person in the capital that registered with the hunter’s guild. They can do odd jobs or help my army hunt beasts according to their abilities.

My real thought? I don’t really think that far. Opening a hunter’s guild also doesn’t seem that profitable either. The work is more on the philanthropic side. But the existence of the guild could also bring many conveniences in the future so why not.

That is my current plan to secure funds and manpower. I want to do more but I don’t have enough people to run it. I only bring 50 people with me after all.

Only 20 people will join me to enter the capital city while the rest of the army with the addition of new workers and new slaves will go to Tusk Plains for preliminary cleanup.

I will only hear this later but it seems that the bandit group that I defeated was actually quite infamous in the capital. There was subjugation from the kingdom but they always managed to escape. No matter how I see it, they must have a mole in the capital feeding them intelligence or it would be impossible for them to escape every time.

But thanks to that, the bandits' bounty is also quite sizable. Especially for the mage who is leading the bandits. There are also other members that have their own bounty and my men immediately submit them while processing the other without a bounty to be a criminal slave. The bounty we received is enough to process the rest of the bandits into slaves with a lot of extra.

I just hope that the mole inside would take their revenge on us so we can get more slaves. My nobility lineage is really practical to use at such a time. Of course, I should not underestimate my enemy or they might bite me when I least expect it.

On the other hand, from the 20 that follow me, 5 will follow me to join the Magic Academy, 10 will deal with the hunter guild and Stadford mansion as my main residence in the capital city, and the last 5 would check the orphanage.

After paying the city entrance tax, I and my 5 followers will immediately go to the Magic Academy to take the entrance test. I am confident with my ability but I still couldn't help but feel nervous. Well, don't disappoint me, Magic Academy.