In a hurry and eager to finish the task, Apolo headed toward the room where he had been working just a few minutes ago. Upon arrival, the young nobleman saw the pile of clothes on the bed and began folding them once again.

Meanwhile, Apolo wandered in his mind about his future projects and the possible designs he could create for the countless rooms that still needed furnishing. Before he knew it, he had completed the task, which took very little time since Apolo had become an expert at folding clothes, as it was one of the easiest things to buy secondhand and was very useful for filling furniture.

After finishing his task, Apolo left the room and returned with a jar containing thick white liquid. Taking the box with the child's bones, he began removing the bones one by one, arranging them on the bed to reconstruct the child like a puzzle.

—You'll see how comfortable you'll rest in this room, Timoteo...— Apolo whispered with a smile as the bones on the bed started forming the skeleton of a child.

When he finished the task, he proceeded to open the jar of white liquid and, using an old cloth, applied the liquid to the bones, sticking them together. After completing the delicate process of connecting the bones, Apolo brought his palm close, almost touching the bones.

Then, his palm began to emit a faint fire, which caused the thick white liquid to turn yellowish and solidify. The task continued for hours until finally, the skeleton of a child sat on the bed, looking at the door as if the child were waiting to see who was about to enter the room.

—Perfect, Timoteo feels someone knocking at the door and wakes up to see who it is...— Apolo murmured, trying to recall the story of this room in his mind—But he realizes he imagined the noise, and there was no one knocking on the door. However, while all this was happening, someone was observing Timoteo attentively from the adjacent room.

Apolo approached one of the wooden walls in the room where a painting of a clown hung, staring fixedly at the bed where the child lay. Carefully, he touched the paint of the clown's eyes, creating a pair of holes by pressing his fingers onto the eyes of the clown in the painting.

—Alright, all that's left is to make holes in the wall and furnish the clown's room— Apolo said with joy, realizing that he could finally use the things he had bought from the bankrupt circus owner by following some "logic".

After making sure everything was in order one last time, Apolo left the room and hurried to the mansion's door, observing that the line of carriages was still so long that it reached the entrance of his estate. Ignoring the curious glances from the carriage drivers, Apolo followed a path of blue tiles that surrounded his mansion and went to the back. Then, he walked among the dead roses and weeds in the backyard of the mansion, reminding himself that he would eventually have to spend some money to hire gardeners. At the moment, the yard was so neglected that the grass and weeds reached Apolo's knees.

After a few minutes of walking, Apolo saw a small wooden cabin around some trees and with a view of the lake. He walked along the path hidden by the weeds, appreciating the animals that lived in this part of his estate: most of them were birds and insects, which were quite beautiful and rare. It was probably because some neighbors brought these animals to their respective estates, but they ended up moving to live near his lake.

Apolo entered the wooden cabin, revealing a single large room inside, decorated with an array of training equipment, showing that the cabin was actually the mansion's gym. He walked to a closet in one of the corners of the room, undressed, stored his clothes in the closet, and took out a gray-yellowish training tunic. It wasn't particularly comfortable, and it definitely couldn't be called aesthetically pleasing. But out of habit, Apolo couldn't train without a tunic on, so he always put it on for his exercise routine.

Now dressed in his training clothes, he approached some dumbbells lying on the floor and started lifting them as usual. The dumbbells weren't particularly large, and they didn't seem to weigh more than 5 kg, so it seemed quite ridiculous that someone with Apolo's physique was using them for exercise. However, the two circles on the sides of the dumbbell were filled with small holes filled with gray stones, setting it apart from a regular dumbbell.

Apolo noticed the dumbbell didn't weigh anything and looked around the room for a bucket, which was filled with finger-sized transparent crystals. He dipped his hand into the bucket, pulled out a handful of crystals, and then casually dropped them on the floor next to the dumbbell. After that, he lifted the dumbbell and, pushing one of the gray stones with his finger, managed to make the stone come out of the hole and fall to the ground, revealing that the stone was actually a crystal that had lost its transparency and turned grayish.

He continued loading all the crystals into the dumbbell until he finally replaced them all. With the preparations complete, Apolo started lifting the dumbbell with effort, as if he were genuinely struggling even though the dumbbell didn't look intimidating at all.

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Not much time passed, and as is typical during intense exercise, sweat began to appear on Apolo's body, staining his clothes. However, what was strange was that a dense white mist began to emanate from the transparent crystals, completely filling the room and obscuring the young nobleman's body.

Apolo started breathing heavily, as if it were difficult to continue exercising and breathe in the white mist at the same time. Nevertheless, he didn't stop and slowly, the veins all over his body began to stand out, his skin turned red, and his eyes reddened as if he were pushing himself to the limit while also loading up on anabolic substances. He continued training intensely, performing various exercises with the dumbbell, until something unexpected happened for the nobleman:

*Cough, cough, cough...* Apolo began to cough violently and had to stop exercising, covering his hand with his mouth. He tried to stop coughing, but he realized it was impossible, prompting him to leave the room and breathe fresh air outside.

Breathing without the mist and feeling the cool winter air filling his lungs, Apolo finally managed to regain control and stop coughing. But away from the mist, he realized the major problem.

—What a nuisance...— Apolo muttered angrily, staring at his hand, which had been covering his mouth and was now covered in blood—It makes no sense that I'd get infected so easily...

However, logic mattered little because the evidence was undeniable, and Apolo had coughed up blood. Nevertheless, the young man was more dismayed than scared; he knew that fixing the problem was easy since he was all too familiar with the Blue Plague.

Even though his true childhood interest had been exploring the forest, the reality was that his family still compelled him to participate in military lessons, as was the case for all the future "soldiers" in the family. As a result, Apolo had learned about diseases that could be seen during a siege or in a military camp. Among them, a fairly common disease in the empire was the Blue Plague, and he knew that it could be contracted through contact with the living or the dead. One couldn't burn the body of someone who had died from the Blue Plague, and the only way to deal with the problem was to bury all those who were infected.

In truth, the Blue Plague was caused by the spores of a fungus that grew in the empire. These spores were carried by various animals or humans who had eaten an infected creature or had come into close contact with a creature in an advanced state of decay due to the disease. Gradually, the spores grew within the host until they killed the infected, thus creating a promising ecosystem for the fungus to grow and reproduce: corpses.

However, Apolo knew that his body was naturally quite resistant, so in theory, a mere case of Blue Plague should never infect him. Nonetheless, the evidence was clear, and there was no other reason for him to cough up blood. Reflecting on this and noticing that evening was approaching, Apolo decided to return to the mansion and devise a plan to solve the issue.

Eventually, night fell, and to the surprise of Orrin and Mateo, Apolo wasn't interested in eating that day. This had been normal in the past, but since the young man had become a mage, such occurrences had ceased. Truthfully, the nobleman remained in his room to avoid potentially infecting the only servants who were vital for his plans to proceed smoothly. However, the truth was that Apolo was, as always, exaggerating things. The disease had just infected his body, and although his exercise routine accelerated the development process, Blue Plague only became contagious when it reached its final stage of development and the host could hardly move from the bed. So, the disease wasn't as contagious as it seemed: as long as one avoided touching corpses or people close to becoming one and took care not to eat contaminated food, the disease wouldn't affect them. Thus, Blue Plague was quite easy for nobles to avoid. The same couldn't be said for commoners, whose economic situation sometimes forced them to buy dubious food.

Hours passed, and as sweet slumber claimed everyone present in the mansion, Apolo rose. Using his finger as a makeshift candle, he reached the closet, removed his pajamas, and grabbed a black hooded cloak from it. He put on the peculiar attire and, taking the silver mask he had prepared on his desk, mentally prepared himself to leave his room.

With delicate and noiseless steps, Apolo left his room and headed to the mansion's exit. Some carriages were still in the process of unloading, which puzzled Apolo, but he put on the silver mask given by his ancestor and, not minding the curious looks, dashed out of the mansion. The truth was that all the drivers were sleeping inside the mansion, but Apolo was unaware of this fact, and the night was too dark to see it with his own eyes. He ran at a visually stunning speed and exited the estate in a matter of minutes. Then, following the streets' paths, Apolo continued running until he felt far enough from his mansion that nobody would suspect him or recognize him.

Feeling adequately distanced from the estate, Apolo vaulted over the wire fence that marked the limits of an unfortunate nobleman's property. With slow steps, he made his way toward one of the trees in the estate's yard. Concealing the gold ring with his other hand, Apolo placed his hand on the bark, and in a matter of minutes, the tree's life began to wither.

The truth was that Apolo could have used any of the trees along the way. However, those trees needed to be replaced by the minister of urban affairs, while these were private, and the research capabilities of these nobles weren't the same as those of the minister, who clearly knew their origin.

Another option was to use one of his own trees, but Apolo was in no way willing to ruin his already withered garden. Hence, the young nobleman had decided to go through all this trouble to ruin some unfortunate stranger's life.

Finally, the tree died, and Apolo felt more alive than ever. Just to be safe, though, he took the life of another tree before proceeding to return home to sleep. On the way, Apolo reflected on how eventful this day had been in his otherwise peaceful life as a mage. He complained from time to time and smiled during certain stretches of his internal monologue, which seemed remarkably interesting: so much so that the wicked author decided to ignore it and make his readers' lives a bit more bitter.