185: Chapter 185 Three Months Later! The Path of a High-Ranking Knight! Choosing a Direction!

Spring, 1854 of the Holy Calendar.

Spring had arrived, and the branches of the dogwood trees in the courtyard of Golden Flame Castle were covered with tiny flower buds.

For the past three months, Rowan had almost never left the castle unless necessary.

Thanks to his hard work—

His preliminary investigation of the young women for the Beauty Pageant had also concluded.

He had treated them all equally, leaving none behind.

One hundred and fourteen bright red plum blossoms had bloomed in succession.

During this process, he had also gradually completed adjustments to the castle's internal management structure.

Three people were added to the Cabinet of Lady Officials.

Lydia Chamberlain, 86 points.

Born into a merchant family in Gino City, she had traveled extensively with her father since childhood, was knowledgeable, and excelled at negotiation and intelligence analysis.

Eleanor Murphy, 85 points.

From a lawyer family in the south, she was proficient in imperial laws and litigation procedures, had meticulous thinking, clear logic, and excelled at drafting and auditing documents.

Fiona Gordon, 84 points.

A local from the North, her father was a retired quartermaster; she had been influenced by this since childhood and had an innate sensitivity to logistics scheduling and material management.

With this, the Cabinet of Lady Officials had expanded to nine people.

They were: Helena, Melissa, Isabelle, Adeline, Sylvie, Charlotte, Lydia, Eleanor, and Fiona.

After his investigation, all nine intelligent lady officials possessed a certain degree of talent on the spiritual side.

Therefore, he taught them all Crystal Meditation Method.

After being used nine times, that legacy magic stone reached its capacity and was completely ruined.

However, among these nine, only Helena and Lydia had a relatively high affinity with water-element magic, making them suitable for in-depth learning of water-element magic legacies.

The other seven, while able to temper their spiritual power through meditation, remained blank slates in other aspects.

Rowan was not in a hurry; if suitable legacies became available later, he would arrange them for them then.

Meanwhile, the personal guard led by Cecilia had also expanded to twelve people.

These twelve young women were carefully selected by him after physical fitness tests and talent assessments.

Their average age was between eighteen and twenty, their physical fitness was generally superior to other women of the same age, and they all displayed a certain talent for the Knight path.

The lowest score was 83 points.

Rowan taught each of them a suitable Excellent-grade Breathing Technique.

Besides Cecilia, the most outstanding among them was a country girl named Anna Moss.

She was nineteen this year, from a remote village in the North; her skin was slightly rough and did not feel as comfortable to touch as the other girls, but her features were decent.

Her eyebrows and eyes were delicate, her nose bridge was straight, and a pair of gray-blue eyes were clear and firm; when she smiled, she revealed a pair of cute little fangs.

Her score was as high as 89 points, and her Knight talent was particularly prominent; for the same move, while others needed to practice ten times to master it, she only needed one or two.

Then there was Sophia with 88 points.

This mixed-blood girl from a border tribe had the most powerful combat intuition.

Although Anna had a higher score, in terms of actual combat, she was crushed by Sophia.

Providing the daily cultivation resources for these twelve knights was a significant expense.

In this regard, Rowan could not help but thank the new Viscount Willis for his generous sponsorship in his heart.

If not for those two hundred thousand gold coins, he really would not have been able to afford this personal guard.

As for the candidate to receive the Embrace and learn the Scarlet Hymn Breathing Technique, he ultimately chose his personal maid, Catherine.

Catherine had no extraordinary traits in her body and was a pure blank slate.

This meant that the Vampire's power would not conflict with any existing traits in her body, making the fusion process the smoothest and most cost-effective.

After observing Lady Lillian and Elena for this period, he had already discovered—

The so-called Vampire was not a race, but an extraordinary configuration of the Red Moon path.

All Vampires could only be converted through rituals and could not be inherited through bloodlines.

However, different rituals had different upper limits; the Vampires converted through the Embrace ritual could not exceed the rank of Duke.

To become a Vampire Prince, one must face the Red Moon directly.

Currently, among his three Vampire descendants:

Lady Lillian chose the purest Vampire path.

She completely imprinted the Vampire's extraordinary configuration into her own life sequence, taking the standard Vampire advancement path at every step, and was about to break through to Official Knight.

Elena, on the other hand, was completely different.

She used the methods of a Runic Warlock to break apart and reconstruct the Vampire's extraordinary configuration.

Then, she only took the most core part of that configuration to build her own unique blood-qi furnace and embedded this furnace into her Runic Warlock system, continuously devouring resources to convert into nourishment for her own runes.

Her true core path was always her continuously ascending path as a Runic Warlock.

Which of the two different paths was better, he could not judge for the time being and needed to continue observing.

However, Catherine could obviously only follow the same path as Lady Lillian.

...

But now in the castle—

The head maid, nine lady officials, twelve female knights, plus Catherine the personal maid...

Over twenty extraordinary individuals... the consumption was not small.

The two hundred thousand gold coins obtained from Frosthill Territory temporarily stabilized the castle's financial situation.

But Frosthill Territory was ultimately just a Viscount's territory, and even if drained dry, there was not much money.

If new sources of income could not be established, relying solely on the resources of the Count's mansion, after a certain stage, he would have to make choices and could only focus on nurturing some.

But it was still the starting phase, and holding out for half a year until the next elective profession appeared was not a big problem.

Thinking of this, Rowan sighed softly, stopped overthinking, and sank his consciousness into the panel in his mind.

[born succubus more children more blessings system]

[Name]: Rowan Flynn

[Age]: 22

[Current Qualified Partners]:

Sylvia Latour (92 points)

Aria Windsor (93 points)

Elena Farrell (90 points)

Cecilia White (91 points)

Helena Payne (90 points)

[Current Number of Descendants]: 7

...

[Inherent Profession]: Succubus

[Inherent Skills]:

Charm lv3 (5606/10000)

Drain lv4 (1031/80000)

Remaining Free Attribute Points: 10471

[Second Profession]: Myriad Knight

[Profession Skills]:

Myriad Furnace Breathing Technique lv3 (2862/30000) (Low-tier Great Knight)

Current Traits: [Annihilation (Light Purple)], [Vampire Prince (Purple)], [Fire Bearer (Purple)]

Winter Oath-Keeper Swordsmanship lv3 (2163/5000)

Silent Pilgrimage Archery lv3 (2934/5000)

[Qualified Descendant Number Milestone Rewards]:

7 people: Obtain [Random Profession Card x 1, Profession Random Skill Card x 2] (Already Claimed)

14 people: Obtain [Designated Profession Card x 1, Profession Designated Skill Card x 2]

28 people: Obtain [Random Saint-tier Profession Card x 1, Saint-tier Profession Random Skill Card x 2]

...

10471 Free Attribute Points.

This was the harvest of his million gold coins and three months of hard work.

In the meantime, he had added points to upgrade the Drain skill without hesitation whenever it could be upgraded.

The remaining ten thousand plus free attribute points were enough for him to push any skill to a new height.

But considering that all the young women had finished their first blooming, he would have to be steady and sustainable in the future...

He also needed to keep some attribute points in reserve for the new profession six months later.

Therefore, he decided to first raise his core Breathing Technique, and upgrade other skills as the situation allowed.

Thinking of this, he stopped hesitating and started adding points.

Target: [Myriad Furnace Breathing Technique]

[Free Attribute Points burning...]

[Breathing Technique proficiency skyrocketing...]

Rowan felt a scorching and profound energy emerge in his body, surging toward his limbs and bones...

His physical body began to evolve and strengthen at an unimaginable speed—

Muscle fibers were continuously tempered, tiny crisp sounds came from deep within his bones, and his overall stamina, explosive power, and physical toughness were all leaping rapidly...

Three thousand, four thousand, five thousand... As the proficiency of the Breathing Technique skyrocketed, countless insights regarding the use of battle qi began to appear in his mind...

Until the Breathing Technique proficiency reached eight thousand points.

He stopped abruptly!

It was not because he did not want to add more.

But because he realized—

He could not add more!

At the moment of touching the threshold of the High-Order Grand Knight.

He clearly realized one thing.

That was, the condensation of the High-Order Grand Knight's battle phase was not just a simple accumulation of battle qi, but involved the condensation of a Knight's will, requiring a directional choice.

Different choices might lead to completely different forms of battle phases and would also determine his future combat power.

He needed to think clearly about what kind of battle phase he wanted before continuing to add points and deduce.

Thus, he fell into deep thought—

What kind of battle phase did he want to forge?

...