Epic Of The Demonic Sage

Lucius felt a bit happy seeing that the plans that he had made a while ago were finally showing their effects. This was just a small part of it and was not even that important, yet it was a confirmation that his plan was working.

If the trade between the Harrels Barony and the territory of the Inanis family was free, they will not have to worry about one branch of food now. Fishes were a relatively cheaper way of getting good protein.

Before, the fishermen did not have the permission to fish in the waters of the Harrels Barony that had several lakes and small rivers passing through them and thus could only fish in the lakes of the Inanis territory.

While there were fishes here too, they were not as good as the fishes in the Harrels barony. Of course, it was not just the Harrels Barony that had fishes, the other territories on that side did as well, but it was the Harrels Barony with which they had a deal right now.

This would ensure that the people of Inanis territory had another source of food now. 

"This is good then," Lucius said.

"Indeed. That's why I wanted you to be the first to eat them. Try out your 'fruits of labor'." Lita chuckled. 

Lucius understood why Lita had been insistent on coming for lunch today. She wanted to show him this. And Lucius truly did feel that it was worth it now. He simply nodded his head and got to eating.

Today, they all had a rather leisurely lunch and took forty minutes to finish it. Once done, Lucius gently cleaned his lips with a napkin before standing up. 

"I shall head back to work, mother." Lucius said.

"Go on then. Just make sure that you don't strain your body too much. I don't want you to exhaust yourself too much." Lita replied.

"I'll keep it in mind, mother." Lucius said before leaving for his lab.

The door opened up and Lucius looked at the cage.

"Hmm… it's still asleep." Lucius muttered with a hand on his chin.

He then locked the door of the lab behind him before lifting the cloth from the cage and fully exposing it. Since the cloth was not moved before, Lucius was sure that the bore shrew was still asleep.

Lifting the cloth from the cage, he saw the beast fast asleep without moving at all.

'Let's see if normal commands work…' Lucius thought.

"Wake up!" Lucius ordered.

The bore shrew woke up rather quickly in response to Lucius's voice and shook its head once again. Lucius tested out, giving the beast a few more commands and saw its responses. It was going to be a long session and Lucius was noting down all things that he learned from this.

He spent the rest of the afternoon in this until it was time for the swordsmanship practice. He made the bore Shrew sleep again, before going to the training hall. In the time that Lucius had tested out commands with the Bore shrew, he had learned quite a few things.

When he gave the beast commands to move from one spot to the other, he could just say it and the beast would comprehend it. He also did not need to reward the beast often, if that was the case.

But if he wanted to give the beast a complex command, it was easier for him to use hell energy for that. Hell energy could contain the command in the form of an intent and once Lucius send this to the bore shrew, it could innately understand it.

But the more complex the command was, the more hell energy Lucius would need up using it. Right now he had enough hell energy to give the bore shrew a hundred commands of the level of sleep that he had done before.

He had also been giving the bore shrew rewards of small slivers of hell energy but they were mere fractions that did not really tax Lucius. In all the amount of hell energy slivers that he had given the bore shrew till now, he had used up less than twenty percent of his hell energy capacity.

This was a reasonable amount that he could tolerate, at least for a thing such as training a beast. Though he did wonder if there could be a better way of training the beast that would not take up as much amount of hell energy.

"Till I find that… I guess I gotta make this work." Lucius muttered to himself while walking towards the training hall.

John was already there waiting for him and seemed to be warming up.

"How're things going at the brewery?" Lucius questioned upon entering.

John was mid stretch when he heard Lucius enter the hall. 

"Oh, the brewery is coming along well. We should be done with the construction by next week and in the coming three-four days after that, all the equipment should also be set up in there. The blacksmiths have already made seventy percent of the things we asked of them." John said in one smooth motion, tilting his body to the side all the way.

"That's good," Lucius said as he withdrew a practice sword from the rack.

He swung the sword in a circle, freeing up his wrist joint a bit and his shoulders as well. 

"Yes, hopefully, we are done fully in two weeks and can begin work. The count has also said that he would give out a bonus to those who finished their work before the deadline. This has gotten the workers excited." John added.

Of course, when John said the Count, he meant the 'noble' who had gotten bought the land. The orders went through either John or the steward, anyway. 

Having said this, John stood up and picked out another training sword for himself, and came at Lucius.

The two men broke out in battle instantly and exchanged blows.

"Oh, by the way… did you guys find any more of the bore shrews at the brewery?"