Chapter 551: Gift, Dose, Poison

The Rune Brigade was still using a very old-school naming convention:

"O, child of breath.

Born in a pit of toxic mist, whose father is the one from that April night.

It follows the guidance of the yellow wind; whither the wind blows, thither it walks.

All who inhale its breath are its brothers."

Very old-school, very rigorous, right? The more it was like this, the more advantageous it was for them.

Richard looked at the entry for the "fog man in the gas pit" and slowly pulled out a slip of paper from a Highland soldier:

"This evil creature also wears a gas mask. It coughs."

Underneath it were over a dozen other slips of paper, all describing the same new type of evil creature.

Some said it coughed; others said it was afraid of smoke.

One soldier from the Imperial Capital even provided a vivid description, claiming the evil creature followed him around begging for a smoke for ages. He gave it a Woodbine, and it just squatted next to him and refused to leave. The boys on the front lines had given the evil creature a wide variety of names, but the one that appeared most frequently was "Old Cough."

That night, Richard added a new story to the Collection of Strange Tales, titling it "Old Cough."

The story began by describing a crater in Flanders.

A cloud of smoke with a severe cold lived inside the crater. It coughed for a long time every day, keeping everyone awake with the noise, and often stopped passersby to beg for cigarettes.

Every time it smoked, it would choke on the fumes and end up coughing even harder.

It would cough until its body fell apart, only to slowly condense back into a cloud the next morning—and the very first thing it would do was beg passing soldiers for another smoke.

At the end of the article, Richard added a rule of his own:

"If the fog in the crater asks you for a smoke, give it one.

But you must walk upwind afterward, and never look back."

After Richard finished writing this new story, he handed it to Clara to copy out, and also sent a letter to the Ypres Times, still using the alias Mr. L.

The letter wasn't long: "If any of you encounter Old Cough in a crater, please pass on my regards and ask if its bronchial tubes are holding up all right."

In early March, a new development occurred with the slips in the basement; people began writing feedback.

"This morning, the fog man in the crater coughed for a long time again. It grabbed our pant legs to beg for a smoke."

"Sargent gave it his last cigarette, and it quickly dissipated."

There was another description of Old Cough:

"Last night when the poison gas rolled over us, Old Cough stood up in clumps and formed a line, following right behind the yellow smoke. Their ranks looked almost like a regular army."

In the afternoon, Richard spent the entire time in the backyard of the Ashford House practicing with his Silver Needles.

He rolled up his sleeves, stood twenty paces away, pinched a needle between two fingers, held his breath in concentration, and flicked it forward.

The Silver Needle left his hand without a sound, yet it drove accurately into a thumbnail-sized tree scar on a wooden stake. The tail of the needle vibrated with a hum for a long time before barely stopping.

For the past two months, he had been consuming condensate every day.

[Decay Digestion] burned furiously at the bottom of his stomach, and [Gushing Spring] slowly accumulated in his breathing. The weight he had lost was gradually returning bit by bit.

Although his shattered spirit had not fully mended, the vast majority of it had recovered.

The throbbing pain at the back of his head only flared up occasionally.

"Creak!" The side door was pushed open by the butler, accompanied by another person.

She wore a khaki jacket and a faded scarf. Her face was flushed and her lips were chapped.

Catherine stood blankly outside the training ground, her gaze falling on the Silver Needle in Richard's hand, poised to be thrown.

She had thought she would find a bedridden invalid incapable of managing his own bowels, someone who needed daily, constant care.

The moment Richard saw her, he quickly put away the Silver Needle and walked over, asking, "Why are you..."

Catherine dug a pen and paper out of her pocket, quickly scribbled a line, and handed it to him:

"Next time something happens, remember to tell me first."

She grabbed Richard's wrist, turning it over to inspect it.

"Not bad. You're much sturdier than the professor said."

She smiled and wrote in her notebook, "The professor didn't want to let me come back. His letter said you were so skinny you were nothing but a bag of bones."

"I told him that meant I had to come back even more."

Not far away, the shears in the gardener's hand twitched, snipping off a perfectly good rosebud.

Before dinner, Richard suggested going out for a stroll.

His aunt looked at him, then looked at the red-haired girl sitting across from him, shoveling oatmeal into her mouth.

Finally, she could only sigh and say, "Come back early. We're having mutton stew tonight."

The two of them walked onto the tree-lined avenue in the western district. Many crocuses had sprouted on the roadside lawns; since no one was tending to them, purple and yellow flowers grew wildly in scattered clusters.

The rowing shed by the river was locked. An old, forgotten oar rested against the railing, its blade caked with a winter's worth of bird droppings.

They strolled slowly upstream along the towpath.

After walking for a while, Richard noticed that something was off about Catherine.

Usually, she walked like the wind, parting the roadside weeds; each of her strides covered the distance of two normal steps.

Today, however, she was unusually slow. Sometimes she even stopped to stare blankly at the wild ducks in the river.

She was waiting for him.

Richard slowed down as well. He was afraid she was holding back too uncomfortably and wanted to accommodate her.

Seeing him slow down, Catherine assumed he was struggling and slowed her own pace even further.

The two of them walked slower and slower.

Eventually, two old women carrying vegetable baskets caught up from behind, overtaking them on the left and right.

One of them glanced back at them and muttered something to her companion.

Richard finally stopped.

"Catherine, my legs are fine now."

Catherine brought out her notebook again. "The professor said your physical condition was not optimistic."

"That was back in January."

Catherine stared at him earnestly for a long while. Once she confirmed he was fine, she put away the notebook and broke into a large stride, her boot soles slapping loudly against the towpath.

Richard quickly caught up to walk side-by-side with her.

'No way,' Catherine thought. 'How can I walk slower than a patient?'

She sped up, and Richard sped up too...

A moment later, the two were childishly racing each other along the towpath, blowing past the two old women from earlier like a gust of wind.

A few dairy cows by the riverbank raised their heads, chewing grass as their eyes tracked the pair from left to right.

The two soon reached the old orchard upstream. Before the war, university students often came here to row boats and drink afternoon tea.

Now it was deserted and cold. Even the deck chairs had been put away, so they had to go inside and sit in the small parlor.

Catherine looked off into the distance, recounting her field experiences on the front lines.

She was in the Highland purification team north of Ypres.

There were twenty-one people in the squad. She was the youngest, but she had personally dispersed the fog in the gas pits quite a few times.

As she wrote, Richard took notes. This was firsthand intelligence on battlefield evil creatures.

Eventually, Catherine flipped the page and brought up something else. "My uncle's disability allowance was rejected again. This is the third time. The reason given was insufficient proof linking his injuries to official duties."

"What does he think about that?"

"Let them owe him for now. When the war is over, he's going to go to Whitehall in person to demand it."

After finishing talking about Duncan, Catherine turned to a fresh page and finally brought up the real reason she had come over. "I heard from Hecate that you're going to the New Continent with that person?"

After the red-haired girl finished writing, her green eyes stared fixedly at him.

Richard knew she was confused as to why he had submitted a leave of absence to the gathering claiming he was going to the New Continent, yet here he was. He put down his teacup and could only give a brief recount of what happened that morning.

Of course, he omitted exactly who he had visited on the New Continent, as well as the schemes between him and Matthew.

"It only took us twenty minutes round trip."

Catherine tilted her head. "Then... where did your spirit get damaged?"

In the old orchard, a blackbird landed on a bare branch, chirped twice, and flew away.

Richard hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "I can't tell you about this right now."

A hint of dissatisfaction seemed to enter Catherine's green eyes. "Are you trying to shoulder it all on your own again?"

Richard thought for a moment. He reached out, tore a page from her notebook, and solemnly wrote:

"Today, Richard Williams owes Catherine Blackwood one answer.

When the time comes, it will be paid in full, face to face."

Ever since they met, she had always been the one writing IOUs for him. Now, finally, there was one he had written for her.

Catherine gripped her pencil and wrote down stroke by stroke, "Those who owe me must come back alive to pay up."

By the time the two headed back from the orchard, the sky had grown completely dark.

The river was shrouded in mist, and the towpath beneath their feet had frozen solid with the sudden drop in temperature, crunching loudly as they stepped on it.

Catherine walked briskly in front, seemingly very happy.

The girl would slow down slightly after walking a certain distance, waiting for his footsteps to catch up before continuing on.

Richard watched that thick red braid swaying back and forth in front of his eyes, and his eyelid twitched.

[walking lv.4, progress 99% → 100%]

[Advancement conditions have all been met. Required points: 2]

He took a deep breath and temporarily held off on adding the points.

The two waved goodbye at the intersection, and Catherine took a carriage back to the Academy District.

The very first thing she did upon returning was head straight to the Ashford House; she hadn't even gone to visit her mentor yet.

It was past eight o'clock when Richard got back to the Ashford House.

The mutton stew was keeping warm on the stove. Evelyn had saved a large plate for him. His sister sat across from him, resting her chin on her hands and watching him eat while gossiping, asking what that red-haired sister had talked to him about today.

"Mmph... we didn't talk about much," Richard answered vaguely around a mouthful of mutton. Power-walking with Catherine had made him hungry.

"Then what were you guys doing together for so long?"

"Just writing."

Evelyn was practically radiating question marks. "Are you two dating or taking an exam?"

Richard didn't have time to chat with her. After finishing the mutton, he abandoned his bowl and plate, hurried back to his room, and bolted the door.

[Available Points: 3.02 → 1.02]

[walking lv.4 → lv.5]

[walking - traceless: Leave no trace when passing; drastically weaken the locking and tracking effects of others.]

The changes appeared first on the soles of his feet.

The floorboard in his room that usually creaked loudly when stepped on was now quieter than a corpse.

He pushed open the window and reached out to press down on the frost covering the sill. When he looked again, there was not a single mark on the frost.

The panel lit up again.

[Four attributes of Body have all reached lv.5]

[Plantable core detected: Arcane Ember (unplanted)]

[Characteristic tags: Dose, Boundary, Gift]

[Planting conditions met. Proceed with planting?]

That was the seed he had stored on the night of April 30th last year, left behind by that poison gas Virtuoso, the "one who causes people to cough out their lungs in a single night."

"Yes!"

When a sliver of pale gray had just appeared on the horizon, Richard was already awake.

Clattering sounds drifted up from the kitchen downstairs; the maids were lighting the fire to cook breakfast.

The trial had lasted the entire night. His mind was more bustling than a New Year's festival.

The trial consisted of three scenarios in total: an antidote paste from a medieval plague doctor, a "soothing syrup" fed to a teething baby by a Victorian mother, and a poison gas officer tallying the number of steel cylinders.

He had to find the "Boundary" among them: the exact same substance was medicine on this side, but once it crossed the line, it became poison!

The key to solving it was his realization that the Virtuoso who had yielded this seed had been a Germanic professor in life.

In the Germanic language, to give was "Gift."

In Old High German, "Gift" meant something handed out; it was a present, an offering.

Later, its meaning gradually shifted, until in modern Germanic, its only meaning was poison.

But in the Albion Language, "Gift" still meant a present.

In Greece, there was a word called "dosis," which meant dose, but its original meaning was also "to give."

A gift, a dose, a poison—they were fundamentally the same thing.

So, standing in that basement room of the trial on the eve of that Virtuoso's advancement, he spoke the word "Gift" to him in German.

The cellar he was in collapsed, and the cabin in the textile city and the hospital ward in Avignon collapsed along with it.

Only a single line of text remained: "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dose alone makes a thing not a poison."

The author of that sentence was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. This alchemical physician had traveled across half of the Old Continent and picked fights with every single medical school.

Centuries later, a man sharing his name drew a line north of Ypres, causing tens of thousands to cough out their lungs.

Text gradually surfaced on the panel.

[Seed - Dose, Boundary, Gift: Germination complete]

[Acquired: Dose Adjudication]

[Nature: Unattributed (Ember)]

[Effect: Sets an activation threshold for items or Spell Formulas. Poison is halted short of lethality; medicine is halted before it causes harm.]

[Restriction: The target's dose must first be fully analyzed; it cannot be adjudicated without analysis.

If the caster's Rank is lower than the target's, the adjudication effect diminishes.

The more the adjudicated matter pertains to life and death, the heavier the toll to maintain it.]

[Description: Every gift has a dose.]

He had already used the effect of this seed's ability in the trial.

In the most straightforward terms, it prevented a poison that would normally kill you from being fatal;

it made medicine that was already effective even better, and weakened all of its side effects.

Richard dragged the Frost Branch Box out from under his bed.

He consumed the condensate inside very sparingly—only two pieces a day, because eating just one more would cause his stomach to stage a silent protest.

He picked out the portion his grandfather had given him last December. This piece had the highest concentration, and usually, he only dared to nibble a tiny bite off it.

Using the Condensed Mirror Method to carefully illuminate it, he could see exactly how much Ether was inside, how fast it flowed, and even which parts his circuits wouldn't be able to withstand.

Finally, he swallowed the condensate.

At the bottom of his stomach, [Decay Digestion] began to burn.

The Ether flowed along his circuits, circling once around that wisp of incomplete spirit.

With the third piece down, Richard waited for a full fifteen minutes, but his stomach remained completely silent.

He closed the Frost Branch Box and quietly looked at the mint on the windowsill. This had originally been his aunt's beloved plant that she had raised for years, but on the day he fell into a coma, she moved the mint into his room, saying it would bring him some good luck.

...Since it could treat overdoses, the residual circuits that had been lingering in his mother's body for over a decade could finally be completely resolved.

In the study, Gerard looked over his newspaper. "You're going back to Briston alone?"

Richard was very helpless. "I definitely have to take Evelyn with me. If she finds out I went back without her, she probably wouldn't talk to me for at least two days."

On the afternoon of March 4th, Briston.

The coal smoke in the air was still as thick as ever; a deep breath filled the throat with the taste of rust.

Evelyn affectionately took a huge gulp of her hometown's air, which resulted in her choking so hard that tears sprang to her eyes.

"The air here really hits the spot."

Slag Alley hadn't changed much. Mrs. Weir's cat had gotten very fat, and upon seeing Evelyn, it merely flicked its tail lazily.

Margaret was wearing an apron, her face and hands covered in flour. The moment she saw the two of them, she froze.

"How are you two..."

She was cut off mid-sentence by a violent fit of coughing. Originally, under the nourishment of [Gushing Spring], her lung disease had improved significantly.

However, when Richard had been in a coma, Margaret had stood vigil constantly. Under extreme anxiety and having caught a chill, her old illness had relapsed.

Evelyn quickly rushed over and gently patted her mother's back.

"Mom, we're back!"

When Rogers got off work, he was taking off his shoes at the door when he looked up and saw his two children helping out in the kitchen. The tool bag in his hand unknowingly slipped to the floor.

At dinner, Margaret suffered a severe coughing fit after every couple of bites. By the end of the meal, she had barely eaten anything.

At eleven o'clock that night, Rogers was snoring upstairs, and the light in Evelyn's room had gone out.

When Richard went downstairs, Margaret was sitting in the kitchen, stroking a tin bottle engraved with small daisies in her hands.

"You bringing your sister back definitely isn't just so Evelyn can show off the mille-feuille she learned at school, is it?"

"Of course not."

"Where did you go this time?"

"I didn't go anywhere, I was just at home." Richard pulled up a chair and sat down. It wasn't really a lie; Matthew had indeed taken him to the New Continent directly from the house.

Margaret smiled and, without the slightest hesitation, held out her hand. "What did you learn this time? Give it a try."

Richard gently placed his hand over hers, illuminating the condition of all her branch circuits.

He illuminated exactly how much it could bear, how much it was currently bearing, and where the excess was burning.

He had to pause after stabilizing each one, letting [Gushing Spring] go in to nourish it.

His mother's hand was cold at first, but slowly began to warm up.

However, that half-sentence of her oath was still stuck there. This was the crux of the illness.

Richard looked up. "Mom, what did you say when you were twenty-six?"

The kitchen was very quiet. Margaret looked at him. "The year your grandmother passed away, I was nine."

"Your uncle was running around outside, and Isabella was still young, clinging to her books without letting go.

All the family's affairs fell squarely on your grandfather's shoulders alone."

"Everyone said that the Ashford House was a lampstand on the decline. So the first sentence I spoke during my advancement was: 'Standing beneath the falling lampstand.'"

"For the second sentence, I had only just opened my mouth and said the word 'With' before my circuits immediately blew out."

"What did you actually want to say back then?"

"'Burning together with the family's fire.'"

A look of nostalgia appeared on his mother's face. "My thought at the time was to finish that sentence, so the fire in the house could be reignited.

That way, everything wouldn't have to fall on your grandfather alone."

Richard listened quietly. This was his first time learning the remaining half of his mother's stuck sentence.

It was like someone holding up a torch for over a decade, refusing to put it down even when their arm went sore.

"Mom, I can snip it away completely.

Those circuits won't keep spinning anymore, and your lungs will slowly get better."

"And..."

Richard hesitated for a second. "After recovering, you might even still be able to use your circuits."

Margaret did not interrupt him.

Richard continued, "But the Hunter's training regimen... soaking in ice water, hyperventilating, blood ignition."

"I'm already over forty," Margaret waved her hand dismissively.

"I'd like to keep what little life I have left.

"Keep it to see Evelyn open her bakery, to see you stop running out in the middle of the night, and to see when your father will finally finish repairing that bridge."

"Back when I stood in those circles, all I thought about was that little bit of fire of the Ashford House."

She placed her other hand on the table as well, wrapping both hands together and pressing her son's hand against her chest.

"Now I don't need to worry about any of that. Your grandfather is still around, Isabella has stepped up, Vincent and the others have all grown up... and there's you."

"The family... hasn't needed me for a long time."

The torch she had held aloft for over a decade was finally lowered.

"I know better than anyone where I want to stand right now."

Margaret seemed to let go of a heavy burden, lowering her eyelids.

"I want Briston, Slag Alley, and this stove."

The veil didn't record these words. This was just a mother in her kitchen at night, telling her son where home was.

Richard brought out the Silver Needle, pinching it tightly.

"i. (Settle.)"

The Silver Needle fell. The tiny flame in the stove suddenly flared up, then slowly receded.

Early the next morning, Evelyn walked down the stairs rubbing her sleep-filled eyes. She entered the kitchen, just getting ready to cook.

Yet she found her mother standing energetically at the stove, stirring the oatmeal and humming "Greensleeves."

Then, lightly rising onto her tiptoes, Margaret reached up and effortlessly brought down the large soup bowl from the highest shelf.

Evelyn patted her own cheeks. "Mom, you're... not coughing anymore?"

Humming her tune, Margaret placed the soup bowl on the table and ladled the oatmeal into it.

"...It must be because that air you two brought back from the Imperial Capital is so good."

......

On March 2nd, the Conscription Act went into effect.

Someone in the tavern remarked that they had been a bachelor just yesterday, yet today they were a soldier, and no one had ever bothered to ask for their opinion on the matter.

That same morning, in a building on a side street of Whitehall, the Deputy Director of the Wartime Abnormal Affairs Coordination Administration was signing documents.

Four hundred and seventy Hunters were about to enter the Ypres purification team.

That night at Flower Moon Street, he had taken a requisition order to pull up that Fire Temple pillar, only to end up bringing back a single basin of fire, making him the laughingstock of the entire building for a whole week.

The Deputy Director flipped open another stack of documents, and a table met his eyes: the Summary of Wartime Casualties Among Registered Hunter Families.

Every family had a record on it: the Montagu Family, the Phillips family, the Blackburn Family, the Graham family...

For the Montagu Family, an earl's eldest grandson had been killed in action at Loos;

For the Phillips family, it was the Chief Inspector himself; the cause listed in the registry was sudden cardiac arrest;

For the Blackburn Family, it was two of the earl's nephews—one was left behind forever at Gallipoli, and the other died at sea with no remains recovered.

Below that were three from the Graham family...

Every single family had someone listed. Some were killed in action, some were registered as retiring with severe injuries, and there were also those marked as "Lost contact during fieldwork, failed to return."

However, the column labeled for the Ashford Family, nineteen whole months into the war, was still completely blank.

One morning last winter, that old black hound in Whitby had been staring at the old man the entire time, but the very next day, it was the other Chief Inspector traveling with him who died.

When there is only one person at the gambling table who has never lost, they will inevitably be investigated by the dealer.

The Deputy Director set the casualty table aside and picked up the already signed "Wartime Dispatch Regulations for Registered Hunter Families."

"Families watched over by a Virtuoso are placed under special consultation."

Therefore, the remaining four hundred and seventy personnel had to be distributed among the families without a Virtuoso.

When Gerard read about the special consultation that night, he let out a cold sneer.

Per Margaret's instructions, Evelyn had long been dragged away by the tutor to memorize Franc verbs. At this moment, only Richard, his grandfather, and Isabella were in the living room.

"Grandfather, can our family choose not to report?"

Gerard dug a stack of papers out of his drawer. "Enchanted Bullets, condensate, arming permits, and even hunting ground licenses all have to be issued through the General Administration."

"Baldwin's rank of major and Vincent's rank of lieutenant were both submitted to the military command by the General Administration for approval."

"Then the special consultation for Virtuoso families is..." Richard shifted his chair to lean near the fireplace.

In his view, those lords didn't dare provoke a Virtuoso out of fear that they might bust down their doors at any moment.

"A Virtuoso doesn't strike casually, and this isn't just about martial deterrence."

Gerard slowly explained:

"Families watched over by a Virtuoso possess a high degree of independence, like the Montagu Family.

They have their own seal array built right underneath their estate, they employ their own craftsmen, and behind the veil, there is that figure from the Solar Tradition."

"If something happens at home, they can even mobilize a Minor Adept all the way from Scotland; they don't need the General Administration's deployment at all."

Isabella threw away her candy wrapper. "Hunter families without a Virtuoso are the ones who can least afford to break away from the official system."

Not long after, the Ashford House's dispatch roster was officially issued, its envelope stamped with a red expedited seal:

Baldwin was to head to Picardy to clear out yellow-throated hound nests in preparation for the summer offensive;

Vincent was bound for Mesopotamia;

Rockwell, Percy, Carey, and the two sons of their cousin-in-law from the Holloway family were drafted into the Ypres purification team.

There was also a supplementary note: This quarter's condensate quota was cut to half of the original amount.

That last line was actually the most inconsequential; as soon as the war broke out, condensate had flooded the market.

Isabella tossed the roster aside, her brows furrowed tightly. "Mesopotamia... They said just last week that the reinforcements were defeated again."

"That place flooded." Gerard sighed as well. "The Tigris River has swelled, and the entire plain has turned into a muddy mess."

Richard noticed there was another page at the back of the roster. It read:

Montagu Family, special consultation, Colonel Javier Montagu appointed as Imperial Capital Liaison Officer;

Blackburn Family, special consultation, Constance Phillips volunteering for fieldwork, officially drafted into the Ypres purification team.

Article Nine explicitly stated: "Registered families must report any supernatural items in their household to this Administration within the stipulated time frame this quarter, so they can be requisitioned at any time. No concealment is permitted."

Gerard only reported his own, because he had already used it in public and couldn't hide it.

It was great-grandfather's Remains Artifact; as long as he blew it once, the sound would transmit, and every prey inside the hunting ground would be locked onto and marked with nowhere to hide.

Three days later, the requisition order from the General Administration came down.

It stated that the item was to be assigned to the Ypres purification team for large-scale locking onto yellow-throated hound nests—a very high-sounding excuse.

Gerard sat in his study reading the requisition order for the entire afternoon.

At noon the next day, the butler of the Blackburn Family arrived.

The butler spoke at a steady, unhurried pace. Upon entering, he first praised the pillars on the Ashford House's porch, and then praised the tea brewed by their own butler.

Only after finishing his praises did he take a cream-colored envelope out of his briefcase and hand it to Gerard with both hands.

The moment the letter was in Gerard's hands, the butler immediately rose to take his leave.

Gerard tore open the envelope, skimmed it once, and handed it to Isabella.

Isabella read it while unwrapping a piece of candy. When she reached the second article, she stopped unwrapping; by the time she reached the fifth, the candy had unknowingly slipped from her fingers.

Richard leaned over for a look. The wording of the letter was quite polite; the general gist was to discuss a marriage between the two families.

But the various conditions listed afterward were anything but normal.

It stated that the discussion concerned Viola alone; the Ashford House did not need to prepare a bride price, nor did they need to cede hunting grounds or seats;

The Blackburn Family would provide the marital home—a mansion in Mayfair in the Imperial Capital—and present an annuity as well, meaning that after the daughter married in, her maiden family would still send money every year;

If the two families officially united in marriage, starting this quarter, the Ashford House could be listed under special consultation alongside the Blackburn Family;

Enchanted Bullets, condensate, and craftsmen—as long as the Ashford House needed them, they could be requisitioned at the Blackburn Family's internal price.

As for the groom's injuries, the Blackburn Family would spare no expense to invite a Virtuoso from the Solar Tradition to treat him, and the Blackburn Family would cover the costs entirely; the groom would not bear any financial responsibility.

Holding the letter, Richard felt that something was off, but before coming to any conclusions, he first asked his aunt, who had experience with this sort of thing.

"Auntie... what was your situation like back then?"

Isabella bent over to pick up her dropped candy, blew the dust off it, and popped it into her mouth.

"When I was nineteen, their family indeed sent me a brochure and a list of conditions too."

She counted them off on her fingers, one by one:

"For the bride price, they opened by demanding half of the seal maintenance rights to the Ashford House's northern hunting ground;

"The first child to manifest circuits had to enter their household at age twelve to receive special training, and had to visit the maternal home every Easter."

"The child's name also had to be embroidered onto their family tree."

"And..." Isabella began to sneer.

"I was indeed allowed to pick whichever man I wanted from the brochure, but they made no guarantees that he would actually agree."