Raphael was shocked by the descriptions of the skills he could learn from making the Hansel and Gretel book, but his happiness didn't last long when he realized that although the grimoire made it available for him to learn these skills, it still required Mana!
'If I was a magic prodigy, I wouldn't have been exiled and abandoned by my family...' Raphael snorted in disappointment.
He was feeling like one of the children invited by Willy Wonka to the chocolate factory, there were so many delights and wonders in front of him that he had always dreamed of, but he simply couldn't take any of it and could only stare.
'If I get a lot of money, maybe I can buy magical artifacts that increase my maximum Mana?' Raphael thought hopefully.
The Von Kaelen family had a few artifacts like this, but given the rarity and value of each of these artifacts, they were kept only for the most magically talented sons of the family, something Raphael was very far from.
But if he earned a lot of money in the future, it wouldn't be impossible to buy something like this for himself.
Another question he had was why he could only learn the skills of [Hansel and Gretel]?
Raphael wondered if the reason he could only learn the skills from the last book was because the other books didn't have good enough skills?
'[Message Scroll For Raphael Von Kaelen] obviously wouldn't have anything very useful for me to learn, but the other two books should have good enough skills, right?'
[The Great Warrior Argon III!] was literally a legendary warrior, who in this volume already had the physical strength to destroy mountains, while [The Three Truths of Laufrey the Merciless] should have people and territory management skills, which is the focus of the book.
But only [Hansel and Gretel] provided skills for him to learn...
Looking around the room, Raphael looked at the mess his desk had become, how much ink he'd gotten on it, how many corrections he'd had to make to the artwork, how much planning he'd had to do so that the changes to the story didn't spoil the original message... then he realized.
'I haven't even read the other books in their entirety... perhaps the grimoire also depends on my understanding of what is being copied in order to be able to generate corresponding skills?' Raphael began to theorize.
As he had no Mana to do anything else, Raphael went to the library to get [The Three Truths of Laufrey the Merciless] again to re-read it and understand it more thoroughly.
As he was going back to his room, he saw William walking with a little red-haired girl.
(Visual Representation on Discord.gg/NunuXD or Patreon.com/NunuXD)
Alternating his gaze between William and the little girl, Raphael guessed her identity, after all, the old Raphael knew that William took his granddaughter everywhere, he just never bothered to get to know her.
Suddenly, Raphael smiled as he had an idea.
"William." He said as he waved to the man.
Surprised, William looked at Raphael with a sincere twinkle in his eyes, but before he could say anything, he felt a gentle tug on his pants.
It was Lia.
The little girl was partially hidden behind his leg, squeezing his hand tightly as she peered at Raphael with curious and frightened eyes.
Raphael had never seen Lia before, but Lia knew him very well.
Ever since William had told her that it was the "young master" who had saved his life, Lia had created an almost magical image of Raphael.
Handsome, noble, powerful, almost like a fairytale prince.
But in practice, all the servants at the mansion always did their best to keep Lia away from him.
They knew who Raphael was, or at least who he used to be.
And even if Lia looked at him with that childlike fascination, the adults always found a way to cut off any enchantment with sharp sentences and dry warnings:
"Don't go near that man."
"He's dangerous, even if he looks nice."
"Don't be fooled by that handsome face."
Even though she didn't quite understand, Lia took it all in.
Fear and enchantment mixed together and now she stood there, tugging at her grandfather's pants, staring at the young master as if she were seeing a dragon disguised as a prince.
Sensing Lia's fear, William was a little embarrassed, but he didn't let his guard down either.
Even if Raphael had changed, years of serving under this young master had revealed to the old man Raphael's true inner self, and although Raphael had never done anything with children, the girls his age who were charmed by this young master never ended well.
But despite his concern, William still kept his composure and bowed slightly to Raphael.
"What can I do for you, Young Master?" He asked politely.
Raphael noticed how nervous they both were, but pretended not to see anything and explained. "I've finished that story, if you're free, how about reading it and giving me your opinion?"
Hearing that Raphael had finished, William was overjoyed.
Since that day, William has found himself thinking about those children's story several times a day.
In such a small town, with no developed entertainment culture and no technology to entertain people, little things like that story were very fascinating.
So, seeing that Raphael didn't want anything more, he nodded. "Thank you very much, Young Master, I will give you a very sincere and dedicated review of the story."
Raphael smiled at this and didn't take it too seriously, he was confident in his story, this review by William would only be to confirm his certainty.
So without saying another word, Raphael started walking towards his room.
Even though the castle had been cleaned and refurbished where it needed it, Raphael spent 90% of his time in this world just locked in his own room.
'Even the grass in the garden has been cut... I guess I can read this book in the backyard, right?' Raphael asked himself, excited by the idea he had.
Meanwhile, William followed Raphael courteously, but still kept Lia a step behind him.
Lia, on the other hand, was staring at Raphael's tall, erect back with confusion.
'Everyone talked so badly about the Young Master, why doesn't he look that scary?' She asked herself confusedly, but remembering that her aunts had warned her to be even more careful when he didn't look scary, Lia regarded Raphael even more seriously.
Arriving in Raphael's study, he picked up the copy of the book from above the desk and handed it to William before turning and leaving the room.
William looked at the beautiful cover with the drawing of the two children and cracked a big smile.
'I'll finally get to read the end of this story!' he thought excitedly.
But the one who was most interested was Lia, who, despite being well-behaved, was extremely curious to see that book with the drawing of two cute children.
Noticing his granddaughter's curiosity, William thought that having Lia's opinion could help the Young Master even more, so he went back to his room with Lia and decided that they would read the book together.
'That might even be a good English study session!' William thought happily.
-
Raphael, who was reading [The Three Truths of Laufrey the Merciful], was surprised by the depth of the content of this book.
While [The Great Warrior Argon III!] completely disappointed Raphael with how shallow and uninteresting the story was, Laufrey, despite using tiresome and exaggeratedly far-fetched language, needing a page to describe something that would hardly need 50 words to explain, still contained a lot of important knowledge.
Even more so for him, who was learning how to manage a territory, there were many lessons in this book that could be useful to him in the future.
After reading the whole book, Raphael was able to summarize Laufrey's three truths as:
1 - "Everything that is given, exacts a price."
2 - "The only constant in the world is transformation."
3 - "Mercy is the most difficult magic."
These three sentences were practically self-explanatory, anyone with the slightest interpretation of text could understand the purpose of each sentence, but the explanations, examples and philosophies that Laufrey went through to arrive at these sentences were very interesting and enlightening.
While Raphael was reading this book, many servants who passed by were shocked, not only because Raphael was reading with such focus, but also because he hadn't done anything scandalous in the last few days.
But despite this doubt, no one gave him any opening and everyone just kept the necessary distance between them.
Every now and then someone served Raphael cookies or tea, but apart from that he just spent the afternoon quietly understanding and absorbing the contents of this book.
Feeling that he had finally absorbed everything, Raphael picked up the grimoire and opened to the first page to see if anything had changed.
Fortunately, Raphael discovered that the grimoire was able to become invisible to other people after testing it by asking William to pick it up for him and the man not being able to see the "white book" Raphael had mentioned.
So when he placed the grimoire between a normal book, the people around just thought he was holding a book.
-
[The Great Warrior Argon III!]
[The three truths of Laufrey the Merciful]
↳ Price Reading
Improves the assessment of the cost of an object, action, proposal or agreement, whether in money, effort, time or social consequences.
↳ Flexible Mind
Man, woman? With a flexible mind you can change and adapt to like what you want.
↳ Silent Command Presence
Learn to exercise authority and leadership without shouting, threatening or imposing yourself by force.
[Message Scroll For Raphael Von Kaelen]
[Hansel and Gretel]
↳ Prisoner Resilience
Reduces the effects of hunger, fatigue and confinement.
↳ Fraternal Protection
Gain a boost of stamina or power when fighting to protect someone close to you.
↳ Guardian Ginger
Summons a magical creature made of gingerbread dough that performs tasks for a limited time.
-
Looking at the new skills that had appeared, Raphael's eyes began to glow, until he read the second skill and froze.
Without thinking twice, Raphael looked for a way to erase the skill and delete it from his vision.
'I can have a flexible mind without having a flexible sexuality...' He thought as he sighed.
But apart from this ability, Raphael was satisfied with the other skills.
None of it seemed magical, it was just knowledge that normal people could learn, but that perhaps after using Mana to learn it, he could learn instantly.
And best of all, because he felt that these skills weren't magical at all, the Mana cost of learning them wasn't out of his reach!
But suddenly, while Raphael was marveling at the possibility of learning one of these skills tomorrow, the Mana in his body began to recover rapidly.
Startled, Raphael looked around and noticed nothing wrong.
'What's going on?' He thought in awe as he closed his eyes and tried to understand what was happening to him.
Feeling the Mana in his body, the Mana that didn't grow by even 0.1% a day even though he used it all every day, was now not just recovering, but growing in total volume!
Even if the total amount wasn't much, it was still a much bigger increase than he received every day!
'What's the reason for that?!' He asked himself in shock.