Chapter 35: Ch 35: Making money is not easy

Kael headed to his research lab not long after that conversation with the others. But he could feel curious eyes looking at him until the very last second.

He closed the door shut behind him before anyone could say anything else to make him change his mind.

"Finally, some peace and quiet. Now, let’s see what I was experimenting on."

Kael looked through the research papers he had been reading recently and decided on the shortest experiment he could recall. It was about a magic stabilizer which...he forgot what it was used for.

But what he did recall was how to make it work and what he needed to do to complete it.

So Kael got started on the work, intending to finish it in two days at most. But he forgot about one important thing—the time it took for magic to react.

There were various kinds of magic in this world, some fast-acting and some slow. Among them, curses were the slowest, but there were other types of magic that were slow as well.

One such type of magic that Kael was using was rune magic.

The theory behind it was simple—once you drew runes and allowed them to absorb magic, they would automatically activate once triggered. But it took time for the runes to absorb magic.

In this case, the wait time was two days before Kael could even begin working on them. So he had to wait that long.

He could have left the research room, but his eyes caught the design for the prototype and he recalled that he needed to shape the vessel to store these runes as well. He instantly remembered what a nightmare it had been in his previous life.

"Should I give up now and choose something else? But I already started this and the preparations are already done. I don’t want to spend another day preparing."

Kael grumbled as he looked at his research papers.

The longer he looked, the more he felt like he could not change his choice now. He had to commit to this one way or another.

Besides, it should be fine. He had already succeeded in making the prototype container in his past life. So surely it would not be this difficult this time...right?

Wrong!

Kael might have perfected the process of making the container in his past life (he had not), but the skills had not carried over either (mainly because he had only made the container once and never again).

So that was how he spent the next two days making containers for the runes. By the time the runes were ready, he only had one prototype container that he considered passable.

Finally, with the container ready and the runes fully charged, it was time to start the real process.

And that took three more days, bringing his total time spent in the room to five days.

Kael came out of his room looking like he was about to die and immediately headed toward the dinner table.

Concern-filled eyes looked at him, but no one pointed out the obvious...except Iris.

"You look like you are about to collapse any second."

"I know. I am going to head to my room and fall asleep now. Wake me up if there is an emergency."

Kael told them and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He took a 24-hour nap and finally woke up feeling refreshed.

Somehow, he had wasted an entire week without even meaning to. But at least he would have money to show for it.

Breakfast felt like a godsend. With his exhaustion finally gone, all Kael felt was an all-consuming hunger to devour anything in his path.

He finished the food on his plate and finally noticed the guilty looks on the faces in front of him.

"Are you all hiding something from me?"

He asked in a suspicious voice and the trio immediately shook their heads. They held out for a while before Seraphina broke down and decided she could not handle lying to him anymore.

"I-I cannot do this anymore. I am sorry! There is a letter for you that came a few days ago, but you were busy, so we decided not to show it to you. Please don’t be angry at us."

She broke down and begged Kael with a desperate expression. Kael felt sorry for her and decided to pat her head for her honesty.

"It’s alright. I promise I won’t be mad at you for hiding the letter. Now, can I see it?"

He asked Seraphina and she looked relieved by his reassurance.

[Seraphina’s trust: +5]

[Seraphina’s affection: +3]

"Actually, Iris had the letter. She said she would keep it because she’s an adult."

Kael turned toward Iris, who looked startled and took a step back.

"I am not handing the letter over. It is not something you should be worrying about. Just rest and recover...fine! Here, take it! Just stop looking at me with those eyes."

She yelled as she brought out the letter and handed it over. The fact that she had the letter on hand meant that she had expected to hand it over eventually. She was just acting tough because she wanted to.

"Thank you, Iris."

He told her and Iris looked relieved to see that he was not angry at her.

[Iris’s trust: +5] 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

[Iris’s affection: +3]

"Tsk, both of you are so easy to manipulate. You should have given the letter to me. I would have never handed it over."

Leon muttered and Kael chose to ignore it. He knew that it was the truth anyway.

Out of the three of them, Leon was the most resolute and hardly ever backed down once he had made a decision.

It would have been nearly impossible to get him to give up the letter.

But for now, Kael had the letter and turned it around to check who had sent it.

He immediately understood why they had hidden the letter once he saw who had sent it.

"It seems like Cardinal Flux has a lot to say to me even after our meeting. He’s even sending me a letter now. Let’s see what kind of nonsense he sent this time."

Kael opened the letter to read it, but he did not find any curses inside.

Instead, it was an invitation to the Holy Festival that was going to take place...tomorrow? It was far too soon.

’The letter came three days ago, which gave us enough time to reply. Since we did not decline in time, it means we technically agreed to attend. Should we...just not show up without notice? Even if it’s rude, I don’t want to face the Cardinal...or let the kids interact with him.’