"You!"

Paqina could feel Naclis's anger. Normally, Naclis always wore a cold expression, but this was the first time Paqina had seen her genuinely furious.

"I'm sorry..."

Paqina muttered a weak apology, but Naclis stood up directly. Seeing this, Paqina flinched and curled up in fear.

After all, this time she was in the wrong. As the saying goes, cursing someone's father to their face is an act of disrespect, and she had literally said to Naclis's face that she wanted to be her mother...

Although Naclis was angry, she wasn't about to actually fight Paqina over something this petty. Fuming, she stormed back into her room. Strangely, even Anna felt a bit sorry for Naclis—this was just pathetic.

"I suggest you find a way to win Naclis over. Master Mentor loves her the most and values her opinion highly." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"If Naclis doesn't give the nod, you'll never make it happen in this lifetime."

Even though Anna usually enjoyed messing with Naclis, if Naclis was genuinely upset, she was still willing to speak up for her.

With that, Anna followed Naclis into her room, leaving behind a deeply troubled Paqina.

...

"Noah."

Loren arrived at a dark basement. A dim oil lamp flickered on the table, barely illuminating the scene.

The place was damp, the floor caked with mud, and half a rat lay rotting in the corner.

Looked like there was plenty of food around—Noah could even afford leftovers.

As for why Loren thought these were Noah's leftovers, it was because when he walked in, he happened to catch Noah in the middle of eating a rat.

Noah bit down on the rat's head, snapped it off, and pulled out the spine along with it. After roughly plucking a bit of fur with his teeth, he began tearing into the meat.

Loren figured he'd treated Noah pretty well. Before leaving, he'd given Noah at least a few thousand gold coins. How could Noah have ended up like this?

"Master Mentor?"

Hearing Loren's voice, Noah squeezed the rat's intestines out through the hole in its belly and into his mouth, wiped the blood from the corner of his lips, then tossed the rat aside.

"Why are you eating that?"

"The organs are easier to chew. Goes down faster."

"Damn it, I'm asking why you're eating rats! Didn't I give you money?"

Loren felt a bit nauseated. Noah was seriously disgusting.

"Oh, I was too busy with my research to bother buying food. There happen to be plenty of rats down here, so I just ate them. I didn't move out because it's convenient for meals."

"..."

Hearing such a reasonable excuse from Noah, Loren couldn't bring himself to scold him.

He really wanted to pat Noah on the shoulder, but he found it a bit repulsive.

Loren just liked to be clean; he didn't have OCD, but Noah's current state was way beyond his comfort zone.

"Did you understand everything I gave you?"

"Yes."

Loren nodded. He had to admit, Noah's talent was impressive.

This world had no technology. Noah basically had to start from scratch to understand these things, but he still managed to learn.

With the blessing of the Goddess of Love, Noah could be considered the world's top scientific researcher.

"Alright, then I have a new task for you."

With that, Loren handed Noah the paper with the jewelry crafting process, along with the equipment and raw materials.

"Make me jewelry. The more, the better. If possible, combine it with what I gave you before and set up an assembly line. If you need materials, order them from the Falling Star Merchant Guild. Money is no object."

Loren didn't think he was asking too much. After all, if Noah could make nuclear bombs, setting up an assembly line was nothing.

Besides, Loren had more than enough money now. Profit didn't matter to him. What he wanted was to make his jewelry as widespread as possible.

Of course, if he could make money from it, that would be ideal.

"Yes, Master Mentor."

The method for making jewelry was precious, and Noah knew that too, but he showed no emotional reaction. In short, whatever Loren told him to do, he did it. Even if it meant death, he wouldn't hesitate.

"Alright, keep it up. I'm leaving now."

The smell here was also getting strong, and Loren couldn't take it anymore.

He wasn't afraid of Noah leaking the method. The chance of that happening was lower than Loren doing it himself.

"Goodbye, Master Mentor."

Noah simply responded briefly before starting to study the things Loren had given him.

He was a practical man. The way he repaid Loren was by working his ass off for him, not by wasting precious time on meaningless formalities.

...

Having a slave was definitely a good thing. You could dump all the troublesome tasks on him without any guilt, even though Noah was a white man with white hair and blue eyes.

There were no black people in this world either.

"Time to go back and make the puppet."

For the new puppet, Loren already had a concept in mind, and this time, with Paqina's help, making it would be much easier.

But as soon as Loren pushed open the door, he saw Paqina sitting there with a troubled expression.

"Paqina, aren't you going to rest? What happened?"

Hearing Loren's voice, Paqina looked up, but even Loren's appearance didn't lift her spirits this time.

"It's nothing..."

This matter was related to Loren, so Paqina couldn't exactly say it directly.

It wasn't like she could say, "I want to be your daughter's mother, but your daughter rejected me," right?

"Master Mentor, weren't you going to make the puppet? Let's start now."

"Are you really okay?"

Loren was a bit concerned about Paqina. Paqina stood up, slapped her cheeks, and forced a smile.

"I'm fine."

Since Paqina wasn't saying anything, Loren didn't press further and directly led her to the newly set-up laboratory.

The lab was already piled high with materials needed for making the puppet, mostly special metals.

"Carving magic circuits and magical arrays into these metals can amplify the effects of magic..."

Loren explained the uses of these things to Paqina. As she began to learn, she temporarily forgot the sorrow caused by Naclis and focused seriously.

This metal was very precious, usually only used for cores, but this time Loren planned to use it for the main body.

At the same time, it was inlaid with all kinds of gemstones with special effects. Loren even used several resonance cores, so the new puppet wouldn't be limited to only one of Loren's abilities at a time.

Loren's goal was clear: he wanted to turn the new puppet into a bomber. So much so that he even added a magic storage function. If the magic was fully charged, plus Loren's own mana, it would be equivalent to having ten thousand points of mana. That was an incredibly terrifying number.

At the same time, its construction cost was also extremely high. The high-grade materials William had sent were basically all used up by Loren, and he even had to dip into his own stockpile.

The cost was so high that Loren decided to raise the price of the jewelry, but it was all worth it.

Loren and Paqina worked hard for a long time, and finally, a graceful young girl appeared before them.

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