Aislin was a little curious. "When I went to see him before, it didn't seem to smell like this.
Gilbert, are there many kinds?"
"The Defense Tower used to like making herbs that refreshed the mind and soothed spiritual power." Rute glanced at her. "The best materials were all used to make the herbal tea the Archmages often drank. The scraps were probably used to make scented candles.
The Hainalson Family had once been glorious, after all. It was normal for them to have some stockpiles.
They must have given them all to Gilbert back then... The people in that family all had their own little schemes, but when it came to resources, they would not, and would not dare to, be stingy."
Mages born into noble families might be selfish, exploit others for their own benefit, and trick people without batting an eye, but they also understood how to weigh the pros and cons. They knew what could be kept and what could not.
Come to think of it, their greatest flaw was giving up too quickly. But correspondingly, the reason they could survive so long in Mage Towers was that they gave up cleanly and decisively, never clinging too tightly to a price they were destined to pay.
Aislin naturally understood that very well.
She had actually wanted to wipe out entire families over several of her past love affairs... but those nobles had always managed to find sufficiently tricky angles that forced her to choose the benefits she wanted more.
Compared to indulging in a momentary outburst and securing a better future, she was not so foolish as to not know which to choose.
The ones who truly let her vent her fury without restraint were instead commoners or people from minor mage families.
But Aislin... merely