She reached for the next blank scroll before dipping her quill in ink, but just when she was about to begin writing on the scroll, her study door suddenly opened softly in front of her.

Of course, Rowena didn’t look up.

She already knew who it was from the sound of the footsteps alone, and it was none other than Austin himself.

Austin crossed the room without saying anything.

Then he walked around to her side before leaning down and pressing a kiss to her cheek. "Good morning, countess."

Rowena smiled and turned to her right to kiss him back properly.

"Good morning, Austin, but you know you shouldn’t call me countess anymore."

"Alright then. Good morning, my lady."

"Better." Rowena beamed and kissed him even more.

These past few months had brought them closer than ever, so she was getting used to kissing her boyfriend even more and wasn’t feeling shy about it anymore.

Once satisfied, Rowena pulled back reluctantly before refocusing her gaze on her work.

She held her quill and focused on the scroll in front of her.

Seeing this, a grin appeared on Austin’s face as he glanced over at the scroll.

They were supposed to be wedding invitations to nearby nobles within the kingdom, so Rowena had been busy writing out invitations to any important guests she might want to invite.

"Wow, you started early, huh." Austin muttered as he stared at the neat rows of scrolls on her desk.

"Yeah, there are a lot of names on this list, so I had to work on them as early as I could," Rowena said simply.

Austin looked at the remaining stack of blank scrolls and nodded slowly in understanding. "Do you need help?"

"Your handwriting is terrible, luv, so that’s a big no." Rowena replied jokingly because she knew if she admitted the truth, Austin would definitely help her, but she didn’t want to trouble her boyfriend right now.

So instead, she chose to be mean about his handwriting.

"My handwriting is not that bad, and you know it."

"No, my love. It genuinely is." Rowena giggled softly as she dipped her quill into the ink again before saying.

"Anyway, no need to stay here and wait for me, luv. I’ll be down before long, so go and have breakfast, okay?"

Austin looked at her for a moment before smiling, then he pressed one more kiss to the top of her head before heading back out of the study.

"Love you."

"Love you too, luv."

"And I love you the most!!!" Austin yelled as he stepped out of her study, and Rowena couldn’t help but grin as her ears turned slightly pink at the tips.

*****

Days passed by, and by the time a week had gone by, several sealed scrolls bearing the crest of Elmfield County had quietly begun making their way across Greymoor Kingdom in every direction.

Some scrolls travelled by courier on horseback.

Whilst others went by merchant caravan heading toward the capital.

A few were also delivered personally by members of Rowena’s household staff to recipients close enough to reach without a long journey.

And one by one, across sitting rooms, studies, and dining halls throughout the kingdom, many important people began breaking those seals and reading what was written inside.

****

With one of them being here.

In a grand estate on the eastern edge of the kingdom, a heavyset nobleman by the name of Lord Harvey Briggs sat behind a desk twice the size it needed to be, and he could be seen reading the scroll his steward had just placed in front of him.

The man read it once.

Then he read it again, still finding it hard to believe what he had just read.

After a while, he set it down and stared at the wall for a long moment before picking up his wine glass and finishing it in one go.

"The potion lord, huh. So, he’s marrying the Countess of Elmfield."

"Jarvis..." Harvey Briggs called out to his steward.

"Yes, your lordship?" His steward replied while waiting to hear what Harvey had to say.

"Send a reply to the Elvenheart Household now. We’ll be attending their wedding," Harvey Briggs ordered, and the steward immediately nodded before carrying out his task.

****

Meanwhile, further north, in a tall townhouse in one of the capital’s more prestigious districts.

There was a sharp-featured noblewoman named Lady Ariel Aldwell.

She was currently reading her invitation while standing up.

Of course, she was still in her morning robe and had just received the scroll directly from her courier’s hands the moment he arrived.

And so, she read it through, and her expression became unreadable.

A myriad of emotions coursed through her body.

From confusion, anger, surprise, and anything else imaginable.

All these emotions kept swirling in circles within her, and this was all thanks to the scroll she was holding.

Before today, Ariel had always wondered why the countess had been the one having a business partnership with the potion lord, but now that she was seeing this invitation, everything began to make sense to her.

"That potion lord must have been targeting her pussy all along"

And as for how and why everyone called Austin potion lord, this was because over the last few months, the countess and her well-hidden business partner had somehow discovered a way to brew not only a 20% stamina-enhancing potion, but they had also somehow developed a 20% mana-replenishing potion as well.

Yes, that’s right, thanks to Rowena sharing her late father’s family secret potion recipe with Austin, the young man had been able to brew an improved version of her family’s mana-replenishing potion recipe.

But it seems this wasn’t enough for the countess and her human partner, because as though those two accomplishments weren’t enough, they decided to come up with a 20% healing potion as well.

At least, this was what Ariel heard, but she had never really seen the potion before.

She only heard rumours of the human brewing this potion and selling it within Elmfield County, but as for whether the rumors were true or not, she truly did not know.

Anyway, these rumours were what circulated within the kingdom until the countess and this so-called human were recently invited to the duke’s daughter’s eighteenth birthday ceremony.

That birthday party had invited a lot of nobles across the kingdom, so it allowed everyone to witness the true genius behind the famous potion being brewed within the kingdom, and to so many nobles’ surprise, the genius turned out to be none other than the notorious gambling bastard of the Rin Household, Austin Rin.