With the Mark of Obedience added to his roster, Lucius felt a bit more relieved.

"I can start the expansion plan sooner now… Neta was just the first…" Lucius smiled to himself.

​​

Lucius went to bed after having done this. He had already been tired after forming the spell matrix and using it on neat had exhausted him even more. As soon as Lucius's head hit the pill, he fell into a deep sleep.

The next day, Lucius woke up feeling well rested. The exhaustion he had for the past two days had been swept away by a good night's nest.

~knock~

Lucius heard a knock on the door and guessed that it must be Kiana who came today. He quickly opened the door and saw her holding a few letters.

"Priest Maleck replied," Kiana said upon seeing Lucius.

"Oh? What did he say?" Lucius questioned.

"Priest Maleck has agreed to do a private appraisal and is fine doing it anytime you want. The only thing we need to do is take the required Aether crystals with us to the Appraisal hall and he will do it for us." Kiana answered.

"Is that so? That's mighty well then. We can go today itself, though what are the other letters you have?" Lucius questioned.

"Oh, these are some letters Aunt Lita got," Kiana answered. "She thought you might like to read them too." She added.

"Hmm… something I'd like too?" Lucius said as he took the letters from Kiana and opened them.

The letter was written by one of the nobles of the Inanis city. It was a typical letter that talked about the gossip in the city and the things that were happening in the circle of the nobles.

Lucius was almost going to put the letter away until he reached the middle part.

'Countess Lita, I recently got some really good wine from Dowland city. I assure you, it will probably be the best wine you've tasted till now.

One of my friends whose husband is a merchant sent this to me, telling me that I had to try it. And just from tasting one sip, I was mesmerized. At first, I thought that it is some vintage wine from a distant part of the kingdom but it is actually a new one.

The name of the wine is Humble Blaze and it is just as its name says. Oh! The pleasure! I can't wait to tell you more in person. Come meet me, we'll talk more and I'll call the rest of the ladies as well.'

This was the content of the letter, and Lucius was rather surprised by it.

"Didn't think Humble Blaze would reach back to our city so quickly," Lucius said.

"It's not just that one letter, read the others too." Kiana suggested.

Lucius nodded his head and checked the other letters, finding that all of them had words similar to the one before and they were all talking about the new wine that had just appeared in the market.

There was even speculation about who was the creator of the wine and that it was an old wine master who had been persevering to make the wine for decades and was now finally successful.

They were assured that it was the best wine that the kingdom would see for years to come and that all other wines that they've tried till now were too weak compared to the Humble blaze.

"Oh my… this is even better than I thought," Lucius said in a pleased tone.

"Exactly right? We now have first hand account of the noble's feedback. And we know it is true since they don't actually know who made it, so it is honest." Kiana replied.

Lucius had not expected that he would be seeing the market response so fast and in this way. This was a pleasant surprise and a good way to start the day he thought.

"I'll get ready for the day and we'll go to the Appraisal hall in the afternoon," Lucius said.

"Alright, I'll get things ready as well." Kiana said, and left to do her work.

Lucius got some clothes and went down to take a bath. He had not had a bath these past two days and felt that it would be a good way to start the day. The servants got the bath ready in a couple of minutes and Lucius was done in thirty minutes.

He then went to have his breakfast with Kiana. Lita was not here as she had gone to meet up with the other noble ladies seeing from the letters that had come today. Usually she would have just denied them politely, but since it was related to their brewery, she felt that it was important to go attend it.

Gabriel on the other hand, was busy with army orders. The process of the armistice was currently halted and some problems had arrived. They didn't know how or why it happened, but they had to do as they were told.

Even Gabriel didn't know what the king and his advisers were thinking as of now and was helpless. All he could do was to perform his duty to the best of his abilities. Lucius was quite interested in this and wondered if the situation at the border had changed or not.

The Land Of Etara was rather narrow in shape than the other states of the kingdom. Its northern border was the same as that of the Grantz kingdom's official border and thus one of the battlefields was located there.

This was the same battlefield where the original Lucius had died.

If anything were to happen due to the armistice, the Land of Etara was quite likely to be affected by it first. Overall, there were five battlefields and the one at the border of the Land of Etara was the second biggest one.

In addition to this, there was another battlefield to the west of the land of Etara and three to the east of it. The main battlefield which was the biggest one was located north of the capital though and was the harshest one as well.