50: Chapter 50: Clues to the Crimson Sacrifice! The Family's Past!

After dealing with Ravenna at Snow Velvet Manor, Rowan did not stay long in Gino City.

Early the next morning, he boarded the carriage returning to White Cliff Territory.

Snow Velvet Manor was nice, but it was ultimately just a temporary stopover.

A noble's true foundation always lay in his own territory.

More importantly, his seven young children with Sylvia were there.

Every time he left, he had to calculate his time well, ensuring he didn't stay away too long to guarantee the safety of the territory.

Therefore, even though he had some interest in the newlywed Miss Elena, he needed to return to the territory first.

What surprised him somewhat was that the letter he had sent to Dawn Cathedral before leaving had received no reply from Aliyah.

This was unusual.

"Angry?" On the mountain road back, Rowan leaned against the carriage window, a flicker of thought passing through his eyes.

But his Charm skill's emotional perception told him that when Aliyah left Snow Velvet Manor yesterday, while her emotions were complex and surging, there was absolutely no sign of anger or disgust.

On the contrary, he had captured the signs of her psychological defenses wavering very clearly.

Were church affairs too busy?

Or... was she deliberately avoiding something?

After pondering for a moment, Rowan wasn't too worried.

He had also inquired about the affairs Aliyah was responsible for in the church, so he wasn't completely in the dark.

A month ago, three churches near Ice Lake City were attacked, and the priests martyred; this bloody case had shocked the entire Gino County.

Currently, Aliyah was in charge of investigating this matter.

For this matter, he had some leads.

Back in the secret room of Mist Castle, he had obtained many letters between Viscount Gladstone and Count Farrell.

Some of them involved the dealings between Count Farrell and the Crimson Knights.

Rowan did not know why Viscount Gladstone kept these letters.

Perhaps for self-protection?

But he didn't care about that.

The important thing was that he had obtained a crucial piece of information from them.

At the end of this month, there would be a key time node called the "New Moon Rift," where the Crimson Knights would hold an important sacrificial ritual.

It required Viscount Gladstone to prepare sixty pure materials.

Now, Viscount Gladstone was certainly unable to prepare these materials anymore.

But presumably, this sacrifice would not be interrupted because of that.

And the location happened to be one of the three church tragedies, Mist Whisper Town!

Rowan believed this was no coincidence!

The Ice Lake City tragedy had been publicly attributed to the Crimson Knights by the church, so Earl Farrells Estate, which had close ties to the Crimson Knights, could not stay out of it.

It was even very likely that they were the masterminds or important promoters.

Therefore, no matter why Aliyah didn't reply to his message, he still had absolute confidence in making an appointment with her next time.

After all, judging by the information he had collected these days, Priestess Aliyah was a very dedicated clergy member.

Rowan chuckled in his heart.

Perhaps she would be on guard after the incident at Snow Velvet Manor.

But so what?

As long as they could meet, he would continue to use his Charm skill to influence her imperceptibly.

Even if there were changes, it would only delay the final day of blooming; the outcome would not change.

However, regarding Aliyah's current strength, it remained unclear, like flowers in the fog.

The power system of the clergy was different from that of knights, and its path was closer to that of a mage.

Its strength depended on the completion of the star palace constructed in the spiritual world, which was almost impossible to judge from the outside.

However, seeing as she was able to break free from his Charm Lv3 at the last moment yesterday...

Her strength likely exceeded his original imagination.

Could she be at the Great Knight level?

Rowan fell into deep thought...

At dusk, the carriage arrived outside White Cliff Castle.

The familiar mountain wind, carrying the chill of autumn, blew onto his face.

The sunset pierced through the clouds, and the gray-white castle stood silently on the White Cliff by the coast, appearing solid and isolated.

Butler Henry had already been waiting at the gate with the servants.

Seeing the master return, a smile appeared on the steward's tense face.

"Master, you are back. Was the journey smooth?"

"Hmm." Rowan replied briefly, taking off his coat and handing it to a servant, "Where are the children?"

"They are playing in the backyard, looked after by the servants, everything is well." Butler Henry replied immediately.

"Hmm." Rowan nodded and walked straight through the foyer to the backyard without stopping.

The backyard was encircled by high stone walls, enclosing a wide lawn.

Three fluffy little mountains covered with soft white snow lay obediently on the ground.

Rowan looked over.

The bodies of the Frost Sea Giant Bears had grown even larger.

The eldest daughter, Mia, was the most composed among the children; the hem of the little girl's dress was stained with some grass clippings as she carefully reached out to gently stroke the soft ear tips of the giant bear.

The second son, Aidan, was energetic, running around the white bear and playing, occasionally reaching out to pull the fluffy fur on the bear's neck.

The third son, Finn, had a quiet and gentle nature, sitting obediently on the bear's thick back, swaying back and forth.

They had long been accustomed to these Frost Sea Giant Bears and showed no fear while playing.

On the grass a little further away, there were four smaller figures, watched by servants, occasionally looking at their older siblings and the white bears playing, with longing in their eyes.

Rowan stood in the shadows outside, watching quietly for a while.

Then, he didn't go in, but turned and returned to the master bedroom on the top floor.

The system's functions determined that he would have more children in the future.

And his pursuit was the pinnacle of power, an immortal eternity like a god.

The significance of children to him... living well and being able to fill the number of milestones was enough.

The next day.

On the castle's training ground.

Fifty guards dressed in uniform leather armor stood in neat formations.

After nearly a year of nourishment from potions and rigorous training, their eyes had become more determined, their physiques were noticeably sturdier, and they exuded a sharp aura.

Little blacksmith Nolan, standing at the head of the team, had even stepped into the threshold of an advanced Apprentice Knight, making him the undisputed leader among the group.

Rowan walked slowly to the front of the formation, his gaze sweeping slowly over every face filled with loyalty and expectation.

Deep in his eyes, however, a trace of imperceptible helplessness flashed by.

Almost a year.

Even with his continuous supply of valuable basic rock potions to temper their muscles and stimulate their potential.

But these fifty people in front of him, including Nolan who had the most promise, still showed no signs of breaking through to an Official Knight.

Their aura was indeed much stronger than a year ago, and their individual combat power had reached at least that of a junior Apprentice Knight, and their formation fighting was even more formidable—calling them elite soldiers was not an exaggeration.

But, between them and an Official Knight, a huge chasm still lay.

That was not just a gap in strength, but a preliminary leap in the level of life, involving the condensation of life seeds and more precise control over energy.

This required talent, opportunity, resources, and even a bit of luck; it could never be achieved in bulk just by hard training and ordinary potions.

Rowan realized that he had broken through to a knight by adding points, so he might have thought about it too simply.

Cultivating knights, especially vassal knights who could stand on their own, was never an easy task.

Coming from a commoner background, without the heritage of a knight's bloodline, their talent was limited, so he could only try his best to select and cultivate those with great talent.

Because everyone's knight talent was different, their upper limits and resource conversion efficiency were different.

With the Knight profession, he had top-tier talent, but wanting to improve rapidly also required massive resources.

He could not distribute secret-medicine-level potion resources again; for resources of this level, the materials were limited.

The reason secret medicine was called "secret" was that the fewer people who knew about it, the better.

Looking at it this way, perhaps after a few more years of tempering, Nolan might be worth granting a secret-medicine-level potion to gamble on that slim hope of breaking through to an Official Knight.

But the others... I'm afraid they would find it difficult to touch that threshold in their entire lives.

However, without sufficiently reliable and powerful knight-level combat strength to sit in White Cliff Territory when he was away, he had to calculate the return date every time he left and could not stay away for too long.

After all, with seven young children, this ancestral foundation of White Cliff Territory could not be left unattended.

He couldn't really be a hands-off manager and just abandon the children and the territory.

Thinking of this, Rowan couldn't help but feel a bit depressed.

When his father was alive, the White Cliff Family had a loyal knight-level vassal.

Unfortunately, when his father was conscripted by the royal family to participate in the Twilight Canyon campaign, he took that vassal with him to the battlefield, and both eventually died in battle, leaving nothing for him.

"Father... everything was good, except he was too blindly loyal." Rowan looked at the distant mountains and sighed softly in his heart.

Did that King Breed who died in battle really lack the loyal service of a border viscount and a knight vassal?

Why not consider his young son a bit more?

If he hadn't later tricked Sylvia back to White Cliff Territory, given the situation when he first inherited the title, he would probably have been long dead, and White Cliff Territory would have changed hands.

Their Flynn Family branch was originally awarded by the Empire's founder, the first Emperor Tudor, due to military merit, and they belonged to the royal family's direct vassals, with the royal family as their superior nobles.

This glory once made them prestigious, but it also became a shackle.

Since the fall of the first emperor, The Senate, crowded with great nobles, rose to power, and subsequent Tudor royal families had no one qualified to be crowned emperor, and could only be called kings.

Consequently, the lives of these royal vassal nobles also became difficult, and they were squeezed and suppressed by those established local nobles with long histories.

The Twilight Canyon campaign was a gamble launched by the contemporary King Breed to revive royal power and suppress The Senate.

If they had won, the king's prestige would have been at its zenith, and being crowned emperor might have been in sight.

Unfortunately, the gamble was lost.

A crushing defeat not only buried a large number of the kingdom's elites but also caused the already turbulent situation in various places to completely spiral out of control.

The current chaos in the North was proof of this.

Now, many royal direct vassals like him had lost their pillars, and their heirs had also died one after another in accidents, with their territories changing hands...

Withdrawing his drifting thoughts, Rowan cast his gaze back to the silent and determined guards in front of him.

Loyalty was useful, but talent and strength... were ultimately a fatal flaw.