Four-Element Affinity

Although the potion was a liquid, it felt like jelly—cold and slippery, without any taste.

Just as Raven was about to chew it, it silently flowed down his throat.

A few seconds later, Raven finally tasted it.

A trace of sourness accompanied by searing pain spread from the tip of his tongue throughout his mouth, then extended into his esophagus. The heat seeped through his esophagus and into both lungs.

"Hiss—"

At the sound of his low cry of pain, the muscles in Raven's shoulders began to twitch. It was as if he had eaten something he shouldn't have, and even his internal organs seemed to be twisting in agony. His face went pale, and cold sweat poured down his body.

Amid the pain, a chill suddenly spread from his lower abdomen, radiating throughout his body. Wherever it passed, the pain eased. The cool sensation seeped into his organs, smoothing away the invisible agony.

Raven felt as though he were slowly soaking in ice water. The chill crept upward, reaching his chest, throat, and finally his lips and teeth. The tension made his breathing unconsciously grow faster and heavier.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

Buzz.

The instant the chill swept across the space between his brows, the Eye of Truth quietly activated. Immediately afterward, a cold sensation seeped into Raven's mind.

Lowering his head, he could clearly see through the Eye of Truth that the same specks of silver stardust as those in the Second-Tier potion were swirling restlessly between his chest and abdomen, exploding again and again.

Every time a speck of stardust exploded, an invisible energy carrying a chill swept outward, and the cold sensation grew even stronger.

Raven felt as though he had swallowed an entire bucket of ice cream. The veins in his forehead throbbed, yet he could not feel the slightest trace of warmth—only wave after wave of cold pain.

And... a feeling of fullness!

This had already reached the limit his body could endure.

Two trails of tears silently rolled down, and the smell of blood spread through Raven's nostrils.

He raised a hand and wiped at his face, revealing a smear of red in his palm.

In an instant, Raven reached a conclusion—this awakening had failed!

Without the slightest hesitation, Raven opened his mouth and exhaled deeply.

He could wait for the next awakening if this one failed, but he had only one life.

The cold sensation seemed to have found an outlet. It flowed backward along his esophagus, burst from his mouth, and spread invisible energy through the air. Every time the stardust in his abdomen exploded, it squeezed out even more energy.

The pressure on his body quietly eased.

"Huff!" Raven let out a sigh of relief.

At least his life was no longer in danger.

But the instant this thought arose, his eyes suddenly tightened. The Eye of Truth quietly began operating, and the energy that had been spreading through the air was drawn by an invisible force and violently poured into the space between his brows.

"What's going on!?" Raven was startled and hurriedly tried to shut off the Eye of Truth.

But the pain he expected never came. Instead, his eyes felt intensely comfortable, just as they had when he first activated the Eye of Truth.

And so, inside this Secret Chamber, Raven passed through a strange cycle. He seemed to have become a humidifier, constantly exhaling energy from his mouth while the space between his brows absorbed it.

No one knew how much time had passed. When the final speck of stardust exploded, the energy in the room was absorbed completely.

"So... did I succeed or fail?" Raven scratched his head. He did not feel any different.

After all, there was no mage or teacher beside him to tell him what a successful mage's awakening was supposed to look like.

If he didn't know, he could only try.

Raven casually picked up and unrolled one of the scrolls he had brought inside. It recorded the Wind spell Wind Wall, along with a short incantation used to test a mage's elemental affinity.

"Elements of wind that exist everywhere, heed my command and gather in the palm of my hand."

As he chanted the spell, Raven followed the instructions and used his consciousness to draw an unknown power—if it even existed—into his palm, thereby "attracting" the wind element.

After a brief silence, Raven suddenly felt a chill in his palm. Immediately afterward, the hem of his clothes lifted for no reason, and a breeze echoed through the Secret Chamber before vanishing without a trace.

"I... I succeeded!?" Raven still found it hard to believe. He reached out and loosely clenched his hand, feeling a current of air swirling between his fingers. It was as comfortable as holding his hand in a spring breeze.

The moment his attention wandered, the airflow in his hand vanished.

Wind was ultimately somewhat ethereal. To make sure it had not been an illusion, Raven picked up another scroll, this one recording the Fire spell Fireball.

The scroll contained the same method for testing elemental affinity.

After chanting the spell, Raven used his mind to guide a certain power to his fingertip.

According to what Laxus had said, a mage usually had an affinity with only one element. Spells from other schools were not impossible to use, but both their efficiency and power would be greatly reduced.

In Raven's understanding, it was like burning gasoline in a diesel car. It could run with difficulty, but it harmed and wasted both the car and the fuel.

The wind-element affinity test had gone so smoothly that Raven had not expected the fire-element test to succeed even once. Yet the moment he focused his attention on his fingertip, a tiny flame ignited there!

"Huh?" Raven widened his eyes, slowly raised his palm before his face, and gently blew on it.

With a puff, the flame went out.

He chanted again, gathered his intent once more, and a flame suddenly sprang to life on his fingertip, nearly setting Raven's hair alight.

"I succeeded again. Could my fire affinity be even better than my wind affinity?"

That was indeed excellent. After all, the destructive power of fire magic was renowned, and it was far more impressive than wind magic.

He had already tested two elements. Raven did not mind trying the remaining two.

A few minutes later, Raven stared blankly at the pile of dust beneath his feet and the water swirling in his palm.

Raven swallowed and said in surprise, "It's Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind—affinity with all four elements."

Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind, together with holy light and darkness, made up the six great elements that formed the world. Every other element was derived from these foundations.

Affinity with Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind meant that Raven could cast spells from almost any school without additional loss.

Raven calmed himself and said with a smile, "So that means I really have become a mage."

But another question rose in his heart.

Where's my mana? Where is my mana? Why can't I feel it?

He blinked and suddenly saw something flash past.

"Huh?"

After a brief pause, Raven closed his eyes again. This time, the Eye of Truth did not look outward. Instead, it began observing his body from a lofty angle, as if his soul had left his body.

He could clearly see a thin silver curtain of light rippling through his mind. It represented his Spiritual Power, the most important energy a mage possessed besides mana.

Further down, between his eyes at the space between his brows, an invisible energy had gathered. That, it seemed, was his mana.

"So that's what it looks like." Raven opened his eyes, a smile still hanging from the corners of his mouth. He sighed, "Now I'm finally a bona fide Lord Baron!"

Why had Raven spent a large number of Gold Coins on helping himself awaken, yet neither Old Gordon nor Denise had objected?

Because while there were many Transcendents in the world who were not nobles, there were very few nobles who were not Transcendents.

Raven's becoming a Transcendent was a good thing for the entire Griffith Family.

When the Empire had first been established, it had decreed that no one could be granted a Nobility Title without being a Transcendent. Now, with the Empire's extravagance and decadence, many rules had either been abolished or reduced to empty formalities. Only this one remained unchanged.

Of course, this was not for the sake of the Empire's prosperity, but because of the arrogance unique to the nobility.

If you were not even a Transcendent, how could you distinguish yourself from those muddy-legged commoners?

Moreover, advancement in Nobility Title was also closely tied to one's tier and strength. Within the Empire, not a single viscount was below the Third Tier.

Becoming a mage meant that Raven had taken another step toward becoming a viscount, albeit a tiny one.

But weren't all roads in the world traveled one step at a time?

"Besides, I've also gained a clue about the secret behind breaking the family curse." Raven closed his eyes and brushed his fingers across the space between his brows.

At that moment, he could clearly see a scarlet, gloomy energy twisting around him like a spiderweb. It was not yet dense, but it gave him a deadly sense of danger, like a noose that could tighten at any moment.

His instincts told him that this was the shackle of the Griffith Family bloodline.

Raven had heard before that no one in the family lived past forty, but he had never witnessed it himself. He had been half-convinced and half-doubtful of such an uncertain matter.

Now that he could clearly see it, this was already progress. At least it had given him a clear warning.

For some reason, Raven thought of Donald. His cheap uncle had already been a Second-Tier Bloody Knight when he died.

"Could it be that you saw this too, and that was why you were forced to commit such a crazy and cruel act?"

He suddenly felt that he understood Donald a little. No one could watch death approach step by step and still remain rational.

Raven shook his head slightly, pulling his scattered thoughts back, and opened a box beside him.

During this time, Fili had sent over a few Demon Cores every few days. Raven had also frequently made some half-monster-transformed domestic pigs to produce leather. By now, the warehouse had accumulated sixty-three intact pieces of monster leather.

Raven had not used all the Demon Cores for leatherworking, either. He had kept five of them, with Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and holy-light attributes.

He had kept them to test whether, after becoming a mage, he could absorb more energy from Demon Cores.

Raven selected a Demon Core containing the power of a storm and held it in his hand. With a slight exertion of his fingers, a crack spread across its surface. The Demon Core quietly shattered, and the energy within it drifted out in a hazy mist.

"What is this...?" Raven frowned.

This time was different from before. The energy in the Demon Cores had previously been pure and clean, but today, it contained wisps of twisted purple-black aura. They resembled strips of rotten flesh and filled him with disgust.

"Could Demon Cores also spoil?"

Raven laughed at his own idea.

For the sake of caution, he still did not absorb the energy. After it dispersed completely, he selected another Demon Core containing the power of fire.

This time, it still contained that purple-black, rotten, revolting substance.

"How strange. This was only delivered a few days ago."

A dozen minutes later, he smashed open a Demon Core with an earth attribute. It still contained the same substance.

At this point, even Raven's reactions could not be slow enough to miss that the problem did not lie with the Demon Cores themselves.

"Did the Eye of Truth evolve after I became a First-Tier mage, allowing me to see things I couldn't see before?" Raven rubbed his stubbled chin. "That's very possible. After all, when I closed my eyes before, I never entered that state of 'inner sight.'"

If that was the case, then there was no reason he could not absorb the Demon Core's energy as he had before.

He activated the power of the Eye of Truth. "Come."

The mist-like yellow-brown energy in the air surged toward the space between his brows. Raven could feel that the mana he had expended was being replenished.

The purple-black aura also probed into the space between his brows.

The instant it touched his skin, Raven felt a familiar stinging and itching.

"I understand now. This is what made absorbing the Demon Core's energy so painful." A glint flashed through Raven's eyes. As he absorbed the energy in the Demon Core, he tried to keep the purple-black corrupt aura outside.

At the thought, an invisible barrier—or, more precisely, a sieve—formed before Raven. The Demon Core's energy passed through unhindered, while the purple-black aura could not break through no matter how hard it tried.

Raven's eyes would close for a short while every now and then.

He could clearly see that as the Demon Core's power flowed into his body, his physical strength did not increase much, but his mana slowly expanded after being replenished to fullness.

Although the increase was not large, its total amount was genuinely rising.

"It seems that Demon Cores can replace meditation and increase my mana. I wonder how efficient they are compared with meditation."

As he spoke, he opened his eyes and turned his gaze toward the scrolls beside him.

Besides recording spells and methods for testing elemental affinity, these four scrolls also contained a general meditation method.

"Ow...!"

Suddenly, Raven felt a wave of fatigue, as though he had gone two days without sleep. He slowly closed his eyes and saw that the silver color representing his Spiritual Power had grown extremely faint.

He hurriedly stopped absorbing the energy. His Spiritual Power finally stopped being depleted, and the purple-black aura that had been about to reach the space between his brows also halted, circling there in confusion.

Absorbing the Demon Core's energy itself consumed almost no Spiritual Power, but blocking that strange corrupt aura placed a heavy burden on his Spiritual Power.

"Hmm... this aura is so strange. Could it mean that it's also the culprit behind the domestic pigs going berserk?"

As he muttered to himself, Raven added another goal to his schedule: verifying whether this plan was feasible on domestic pigs.

Picking up the scroll, Raven smiled as he thought of Laxus.

All these scrolls were written in both the Imperial language and Elven. Although their meanings were roughly the same, Elven used shorter syllables.

This meant that among First-Tier mages, whoever mastered Elven could cast spells faster, greatly improving their combat and self-defense abilities.

"It seems she thought of this day long ago. The condition she proposed wasn't just meant to make things difficult for me." Raven sighed. "Have I bullied her too much?"

"Living alone in a Church must be boring. Otherwise, she wouldn't have read so many books."

He made up his mind. Even if it was not for the sake of reducing what he owed, he had to step up his study of Elven.

For one thing, it would benefit his magical abilities. For another, it would give him the chance to spend more time accompanying Laxus.

This innocent and kind Priest had already done so much for him. She was worth protecting.

Raven held the scrolls in his hand and brushed his belt. The scrolls immediately vanished. He said cheerfully, "Hey, I can finally use the Spatial Belt without a Demon Core!"

Raven pushed open the door to the Secret Chamber and walked toward his bedroom with light steps. Through the corridor window, he could clearly see the rising morning sun.

In the bedroom, Patti was cleaning the carpet. The moment she saw Raven return, delight appeared on her face. "Lord Baron, you've finally finished cultivating. I was worried sick these past two days!"

"Two days?" Raven paused, then chuckled. "Then I suppose this counts as 'seclusion.'"

Raven had spoken the second sentence in Chinese. Patti naturally could not understand it. She neither could nor wanted to ask.

There would never be a shortage of beautiful women around a lord. Although she possessed some beauty herself, if she wanted to serve the baron for a long time without being disliked, she needed to remember her place at all times.

"My lord, breakfast will be served soon. Will you eat in your room, or...?"

Raven had not felt anything before, but as soon as he heard the question, his stomach began to growl. "Tell Bolo to prepare something more sumptuous. I'll eat in the dining hall. I might as well find out how the territory has been doing these past two days."

"Understood, my lord!" Patti curtsied and withdrew.

Half an hour later, Raven sat at the dining table while the maids brought out the prepared breakfast.

The golden-brown croissants had been cut in half, revealing beautiful, fine air pockets. The smoked pork had been fried until its surface was slightly charred, its fat turning translucent. The sunny-side-up egg had been fried on one side in pork fat, leaving the yolk half-runny and highly appetizing. There was also a bowl of hearty potato-and-sausage soup, rich in color, aroma, and flavor.

This meal was undeniably sumptuous. The carbohydrates, protein, and fat were perfectly balanced, filling Raven's stomach, though he still felt that he had not had enough.

Western food was good, but it always fell a little short when it came to satisfaction. Raven felt full, yet somehow still hungry.

After all, no matter how well bread was made, from an Easterner's perspective, it could not be considered a staple food.

He began to miss Chinese food.

Rice would be difficult to find, but steamed buns, mantou, and noodles might still be worth trying.

He needed to find a chance to teach Bolo a thing or two.

"Lord Raven..." Old Gordon called Raven's name.

"Oh, I was just distracted." Raven swallowed the saliva that had begun to pool in his mouth and raised his head. "Is something wrong?"

"I was the one calling you." Even after breakfast, Denise's makeup remained exquisite. She asked bluntly, "Raven, did you succeed or not?"

The moment she finished speaking, everyone looked toward Raven.

Leaning back in his chair, the latter smiled and uttered a few syllables. With a sudden pop, a cluster of flames ignited on his fingertip.

"Heaven bless the Griffith Family..." Old Gordon was dumbfounded. Tears glimmered in his slightly cloudy eyes. "My lord, you succeeded!"

"Heaven bless the kind." Eric flattered him. "I knew that with your nobility, sincerity, kindness, and bravery, you were certain to become a mage!"

Denise's gaze toward Eric immediately grew strange.

How had she never realized that this rough-looking man could flatter someone so naturally?

Nobility, sincerity, kindness—how could he even bring himself to say those things?

Although that was what she thought, Denise did not look down on Raven's accomplishments in the slightest.

Mages were synonymous with mystery and power.

Every mage was an extremely valuable asset to the empire, and their status far surpassed that of knights of the same rank. Fire mages in particular possessed tremendous killing power and destructive force on the battlefield. A high-level mage might even turn the tide of battle with a single high-level spell.

If reclaiming Shining Gold Town was merely a starting point, then Raven becoming a mage was the first step the Griffith Family had taken after rising back to prominence.

"It seems my investment wasn't wasted." A smile appeared on Denise's face. "That money wasn't spent for nothing, either."

"Oh?" Raven raised an eyebrow. "Could it be... the samples you mentioned last time have arrived?"

"Mm-hmm." Denise nodded. "They're being stored in the workshop's warehouse."

"Then let's go." Raven slapped the table and stood up.

"I hope their quality is good."

Whether Angel's Tear could truly be turned into a luxury product would depend on this.