The clan stopped for the night a few hours after passing through the Psycho Pigs' cave chamber. The beasts ran from Aaron as soon as they saw him and stuck to the walls, terrified, until he left.

Cultivator maids were expected to be a mix of secretaries, bodyguards, maids, and heavy workers. Thus, once they stopped, Lana tied and fed the ligurus, combed their hair, fed them, put everyone's sleeping bags in position, and lit a bonfire. After setting up camp, she then used one of the spells she had learned when leveling up.

"The Light drives the darkness away and envelops its children. Goddess, protect us from the shadows of the world and welcome us into your radiating embrace. Third Degree Holy Skill: Sanctuary of Light!"

A ten feet long bright white thread materialized in front of her waist every time she used the skill. It kept floating horizontally, in place, while she created a circle around the camp, spell by spell.

After she cast the last spell, the circle shone brightly and transformed into a wall of transparent white light that moved like the northern lights.

"Good job," said Aaron.

He had stopped her from doing those things before, in part because he had wanted Tia to pull her weight, in part because he hadn't trusted Lana to protect the group. He still didn't, not fully. Yet, giving her life some structure after the shock of being bashed by her family member was also a way to comfort her.

Lana smiled. "Thank you, Patriarch."

That night, they took turns to stand watch. Alys was still unconscious. Lana got the first shift.

When it was Aaron's turn, he used the silence of the night to consider Lana's behavior that day. From what he had seen, she was sufficiently recovered from the episode with Logan. Maybe a bit too recovered. She clearly wasn't taking seriously the fact that Aaron had almost killed her brother.

He had experience dealing with people, but psychology wasn't his strong suit, and he might've analyzed the situation wrongly. Maybe what she needed was some distance from the people involved to look at it from a safe place.

So, the next morning, he would comfort her one last time.

Whether she had needed comfort in the first place or not, she didn't need it anymore. Her emotional vulnerability was gone. Therefore, Aaron saw nothing wrong in manipulating her slightly to improve her loyalty toward himself.

Lana woke up to the smell of scrambled eggs, toast, and honey. This had been her favorite breakfast on the trip, and when she saw the Patriarch looking at her with a slight smile on his face, it was clear that he had prepared everything for her. She blushed when she realized that he had noticed her tastes and remembered them.

"Good morning. Sleep well?" he asked with obvious interest and attention in his voice.

"Yes, Patriarch," replied Lana.

She got up from the sleeping bag and immediately straightened her hair. She hadn't cared so much about her appearance since joining the Fire Wolves, but she didn't want the Patriarch to see her all messed up.

He passed her a plate with the perfect proportion of eggs, toast, and honey, which made her even more impressed by how much attention he had paid to her. Then he took a glass of cold milk from his spatial ring. This became the most perfect breakfast she had eaten in a long time.

"Thank you, Patriarch." She smiled happily. "How about you? Sleep well?"

"I did."

They ate in silence. When they finished, the Patriarch removed a barrel of water, a huge metal spoon, a bar of soap, and a sponge from his spatial ring. Then he passed his plate to her.

Lana was surprised, remembering his words when she explained the functions of a maid.

"Most of the time, a personal maid or butler acts as both a domestic worker and a secretary. You will take care of everything for me, from my schedule to cleaning my clothes. You can hire people to delegate functions, but you are responsible for anything that goes wrong."

He had taken a break and looked deeply into her eyes.

"I consider it a private matter when anyone takes care of me, even in something simple like washing my clothes. You should never comment on my intimacy with anyone. In fact, you should never say anything about me to anyone, not even to praise me. As my maid, you will be the final grave of my secrets, the ultimate defense of my image. Often, your job will be to perpetuate the aura of mystery around me, something that has multiple uses that are beside the point now.

"Back to hygiene, I will not allow you to take care of me for now. First, because it's a chance to poison or sabotage me and I still don't fully trust you. Second, because as I said, it is something private and therefore a great honor. You are still not worthy."

Lana remembered how she had found him extremely arrogant when he said those words. Was it an honor to wash his clothes? It showed boundless arrogance.

But now that he was giving her his plate to wash for the first time, she felt strangely happy. Not because she was to wash dishes, which wasn't an activity she liked, but because of the trust placed in her and the... honor.

Yes, she realized. The Patriarch was a powerful man of many means. It was an honor to be his maid and to take care of such details of his life.

Without saying a word, she started working. He came over, patted her head affectionately, and walked away to meditate.

Lana smiled as she washed the cutlery.

Aaron was satisfied with the interaction. Since he believed Lana wasn't emotionally vulnerable anymore, he would go back to his planned interactions with her. At the moment, he was in the first steps of cementing her loyalty toward him.

The most important part was the trust he had placed in her, which was a great way to make her trust him. From his observations, the human psyche was contradictory that way. If someone asked for a favor, you felt closer to them. If someone told you a secret, you felt you could trust them more. If someone trusted you, you felt it would be wrong to betray them.

He obviously didn't completely trust her. He had other plates in his ring and would take out fresh ones for himself the next time he needed one. There were five clean sets of plates and cutlery remaining, which would be enough for them to reach Red City, where he could clean everything himself or replace them.

As a Three Star Qi Manipulator, it wasn't difficult for him to identify foreign substances with his sense of smell or taste buds. But it was one thing to identify the poison, another thing to remove it after it entered his system. Some poisons could kill by smell alone and were powerful enough that they could ignore weak Three Star Qi like his, even if he acted quickly. He wouldn't risk his life just to make his maid happy.

As much as she was an important person to the clan and, by extension, to him, his own life was even more important.

But speaking of Lana, while she washed the plates, he sat down to meditate on what to do about her once again. Was going back to his previous plans for her the best route to take?

He had placed her in the close position of a maid to more easily detect if she betrayed him, but her submission and diligence until now had left him satisfied. She was a good acquisition to the clan, and he wanted her without the dubious loyalty to the Goddess of Light.

Just working on her loyalty towards him, like he was already doing, wasn't enough to make her loyal exclusively to him though.

To accomplish that, two things were required. First, the removal of her Priestess class, which effectively made her a subordinate to the Temple of Light, even though the Goddess of Light theoretically freed her from her priestly duties. Second, the removal of her Devout energy specialization, which made her dependent on the Holy Energy of the Goddess of Light.

The first part was easy to achieve and didn't require Lana to do anything; he could just ask the goddess to release Lana from the Priestess class. Unless the entity had secret plans on how to use the girl, she would comply with his request. At most, they would need to negotiate some terms.

The problem was the energy specialization. Though the Goddess of Light could also take care of this, cultivators didn't choose the energy types they took inside themselves by change.

By absorbing them, they affected the cultivator.

Holy Energy was part of who Lana was. She could change that part of herself, but having that part forcibly removed would be a terrible mental and soul trauma from which she might not recover.

That wasn't just a matter of personal choice either. Lana was too connected to the goddess. It was one thing to be "fired" from the Temple of Light by losing her Priestess class. It was another thing to be "scorned" by the Goddess of Light to whom she had devoted her life, as would be the case in having the Holy Energy removed against her will. The mental impact would be even greater because of that, and he couldn't predict how she would handle it.

So, he needed to make her want to change.

He had no problem with the morality of that. To begin with, he had explained to her that the clan rules allowed the Patriarch to shape the image of the clan and all its members according to his will. Whoever entered the clan needed to accept it, and if they didn't like it, they could simply leave. Nobody was forced to be part of his clan if they didn't want to.

But even if those rules hadn't been in place, Lana had promised him absolute obedience. Such a complete surrender naturally also meant he had the right to mold her to his purposes.

Furthermore, the simple truth was that he would not abuse his clan to harm anyone. Of course, this was open to interpretation, but he was confident that he could tell the difference between good and evil after his long, long life. He would never shape Lana into selling her body, for instance. But into serving him better, into being more faithful to him? He saw no problem with that.

Anyway, shaping her would be a complex and delicate job. Any mistake might have dire consequences for their relationship, and he wasn't even particularly good at that. But it just made him smile. It had been a long time since he had encountered such a challenge.

That would be fun.

Alys woke up in a world of pain. Her entire body was sore. It wasn't something simple like muscle pain, but something deeper. Like... like a toothache? No, it went deeper than that. Much deeper.

For the first time in her life, Alys felt her own soul.

It would be an exciting experience if it weren't for the circumstances. Her soul was hurting so much that she would rather go back to sleep. Fortunately, she could use a simple skill for that, so she pulled some Arcane Energy—

"Ahhhh!" she shouted out loud.

Pain! The pain in her soul when she tried to use Arcane Energy was such that she would rather die!

"Don't try that again," said the Patriarch somewhere nearby. "Your soul has been damaged, and it affects your control over energy. You can probably see that in your status."

'Show Status,' she thought.

[Status]

Name: Alys Tyren

Class: Sorceress

Level: Three Stars (Four Stars)

Physical: 1

» Strength: 1 | Speed: 1 | Stamina: 1

Energy: 1 (4)

» Type: Space | Quantity: 3 (4) | Control: 0 (4)

Mind: 4

» Willpower: 4 | Reasoning: 4 | Perception: 4

It wasn't just her energy attribute that had been affected by the damage to her soul, her level had also dropped. However, her willpower, reasoning, and perception had increased, which was a surprise. Now that she thought about it, she barely remembered seeing a Heavenly Message stating something like that before she passed out.

She had never seen parenthesis in her status before, but she knew that meant her current numbers were temporary, and that in time they would come back to the number inside the parenthesis.

"Your body language tells me I was right. Can you tell me how much your control has decreased so I can estimate how long it will take you to recover? Unfortunately, I'm unable to analyze your soul to give you more accurate information."

Alys opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came. With difficulty, she made a four with her fingers.

"Hmm... If I'm not mistaken, your control barely reached level four when you leveled up, right?" She nodded slightly. "Four minus four is zero, and I can see that you're also missing a level. By my estimates, it can take anywhere from five days to two months for you to regain a single point of control and become able to use simple spells. Probably five to ten days, based on the type of injury that I believe you received. It's really a shame that I can't feel your soul directly. You'll recover the next point of control in half that time. Then, in half the time used to recover the second point, you will recover the last two levels of your control at once. So, nine to eighteen days for a complete recovery."

She was relieved to hear that. Her soul ached so much she thought it would take much longer to recover, perhaps even years. She had no idea how these things worked, she had never studied souls before.

Once again, she opened her mouth, this time to thank the Patriarch. But heavy dizziness hit her, and she was happy to feel herself fainting.

When Alys woke up again, she felt much better. Her soul still hurt, but at least the headache had subsided.

The Patriarch apparently had some way of both detecting when she was sleeping and guessing she was feeling better, because his voice reached her ears shortly afterward.

"Good, you're aware. I was waiting for it so I can ask you and Lana something at the same time. Tell me, what in the seven hells is a High Lord, and what is the Order that Logan was talking about?"