Wanda was often told she was crazy for trying to make a new type of runes, especially one that carried so much risk when using. The potential of soul runes was endless, but they were only limited by the lack of restraint of humans.

  Numerous people have tried her runes, but often overused them, resulting in damaging their souls. Despite her countless warnings, the blame always falls on her. This even resulted in a conflict between her and the Everbloom family. Simply because one of their heirs was too reckless.

  “Ms. Altir?”

  Wanda quickly took a step back and turned to find a man with slicked-back black hair and eyes. It took her a while to recognize her as the man who bought a rune from her at the sponsored market event since he was more professional looking this time.

  “Yes?” for a moment, Wanda was afraid he was another one of the people who would blame her for misusing her soul runes.

  “I’ve been looking for you for a while,” the man handed her a business card. “I wanted to buy more of your runes.”

  “You do?” Wanda asked in surprise.

  He nodded. “I also wanted to make you an offer to work with me.”

  Wanda raised an eyebrow and took a glance at the business card that he handed to her. It had the logo of a purple flower that she didn’t recognize. She also didn’t recognize the name Lucas Atican.

  “We can talk about it over lunch,” he offered.

  Wanda shrugged and agreed to the offer. They went to a decent restaurant and were seated at corner for some privacy and gave them the opportunity to talk about business.

  “You want to use my soul runes in your golems?” Wanda asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Lucas Atican nodded. “I only plan on adding to a few personal golems, so you don’t need to worry about me overusing them.”

  “Are you some kind of mage?” Wanda asked.

  Lucas Atican shook his head. “I’m primarily a crafter, but I’m also an aura cultivator.”

  Wanda didn’t know what an aura cultivator was, but she was happy to hear that he understood the risk of using her soul runes.

  The conversation drifted to him asking about her runes, so Wanda began explaining the types of soul runes she had made and their applications. They also discussed how they could use her soul runes to improve some of the artifacts Lucas had created.

  At some point, Wanda gained the courage to start ordering some wine and was getting a little too carried away. But Wanda didn’t want to hold back during one of the few chances she actually had a reason to celebrate.

  She got so drunk that things were starting to get foggy.

  One moment she was venting her frustrations to a man she just met, and the next, she was in an unfamiliar bed.

  “AHH!” Wanda screamed as she rolled off from the bed.

  She was completely naked with only the bed covers preserving her dignity. Quickly looking around, Wanda was relieved to find out that she was alone in the room. Wanda hoped that nothing happened, and she just stripped. But unfortunately for her, memories of last night began flooding back to her.

  Kissing

  Groping

  Embracing

  Fu- “AAHHH!” Wanda screamed into the pillow.

  She had just slept with a man that was basically a stranger. Why did she do it? Was she really that easy?

  “I can’t believe this,” Wanda groaned.

  To add to her dilemma, she recalled making plans to meet with him again to discuss their partnership.

  Wanda groaned in shame.

  Lucas returned to the company to see everyone at the lobby. “What’s going on?” Lucas asked.

  “I’m just reviewing them on their roles,” Althea replied as the trio of demons nodded.

  Ruth had become Althea’s assistant in managing company affairs. Marge served as head of security in the company, while Cassidy became the face of the company by doing advertisements and modeling.

  “She’s not really good at office stuff,” Althea mentioned.

  Lucas nodded in understanding. “How’s the mana vein?”

  “Macey mentioned there were multiple attempts of infiltration, but Chief dealt with all of them,” Althea stated. “Since the mana vein is in a neutral zone, nobody would question the number of bodies outside the walls.”

  “Alright,” Lucas replied, not at all bothered by what he just heard. “Tell me if something happens,” he said before heading to his personal workshop.

  He had bought three control enhancement soul runes from Wanda and planned on upgrading Ragnar and Percival first.

  “You’ve been slacking on your training,” Perci commented as Lucas came out of the elevator.

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  “I refined all the wild aura I absorbed,” Lucas replied as he went to a workbench.

  “Yes, but you haven’t done any physical training,” Perci stated as he floated towards Lucas. “You lack martial talent, so you need to at least improve your physical state.”

  “I will. Just got busy lately,” Lucas said as he reverted Percival back to its disc form and began applying the soul rune on it.

  Perci watched the scene in silence, observing as Lucas attached the rune to the magic circle and activated the golem. A part of Lucas’s soul was torn away from him and was absorbed into the golem.

  Percival took shape once again, but the once empty shell regained its menacing presence even without Perci possessing it. If it wasn’t for the cybernetic appearance of the golem, Percival would look like the monster lord it once was.

  “You could have died,” Perci mentioned, oddly calm.

  “What?” Lucas turned to the floating ego while clutching his chest.

  “The amount of soul energy that was taken away from you would kill anyone else,” Perci revealed. “If you weren’t an aura cultivator, you’d be dead.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your golems are manifestations of monster lords. Living calamities,” Perci stated. “The amount of soul energy needed to power that rune isn’t a small price to pay.”

  Lucas didn’t consider that. After promising Wanda that he wasn’t going to be reckless with her runes, he goes and almost gets himself killed by it.

  “I’ll hold off on upgrading Ragnar.”

  “There’s an attribute that enhances the soul,” Perci revealed. “Vitality. I suggest looking into it.”

  Lucas chuckled. “After dropping a bomb on me, you give me a way to defuse it.”

  “Would you like me to give my opinion of you human?” Perci suddenly asked Lucas, making him stare at the floating ego in confusion.

  “Sure?”

  Lucas didn’t know where this was going, but he knew Perci wasn’t the type to say meaningless things.

  “My first impression of you is that you were the type to keep to yourself and value people dear to you,” Perci stated. “You had a decent character for someone that was gifted with an ability. An overall decent person.”

  Lucas thought that didn’t sound bad.

  “But after observing you for nearly a year, I realized how wrong I was,” Perci said bluntly, making Lucas flinch. “You have a calculative greed. You show no mercy to others. You only act when it involves people you care about.”

  “It’s called being human,” Lucas replied.

  “Not like you,” Perci countered. “You didn’t even react when you heard your golem killed people.”

  “They tried to infiltrate the mana vein.”

  “Capturing them would have sufficed, but you just accepted that they were slaughtered by a monster of your creation.”

  Lucas started to grit his teeth. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No,” Perci answered, causing Lucas to stare at him in confusion. “I do not care if you’re the demon king, but you need to be aware of who you are. The others will start noticing it too,” Perci added more before he floated away. “I still see you as a decent human as you don’t mindlessly slaughter people with your newfound power.”

  “Okay... I’m a selfish guy that would do anything to protect the people I care about,” Lucas stated.

  Lucas got back to his work, feeling awkward about what just happened. Perci already flew out of the window to do whatever he always did outside.

  Perci wasn’t wrong. Lucas was aware that if the people he cared about wasn’t involved, he wouldn’t act. If Perci was wrong, Lucas would be out there saving people. Instead, he was making powerful golems with the sole intent of protecting what was dear to him.

  He stopped what he was doing and leaned back on his chair.

  The sound of the elevator opening caught his attention and saw his mother, Valeri, and Ruth. His mother was the only one that stepped out, and Ruth went down with the elevator.

  Lucas got up. “Mom... what are you doing here?”

  “You didn’t come home last night, so I came to check on you,” Valeri said as she approached Lucas.

  Lucas thought back to his meeting with Wanda, remembering what had happened. “I got caught up in stuff,” Lucas coughed.

  “I still got worried,” Valeri replied. “Also. I heard you’ve been throwing your sister off a building.”

  “That wasn’t me!”

  Lucas got scolded.

  Floral magic academy was a prestigious mage academy, so the majority of students were from reputable houses, or at least people affiliated with them.

  People like Rose who got in through her efforts alone were rarer than becoming a king-ranked mage, so obviously when the gap in ability became apparent, Rose got the ire of the spoiled bitches from the houses.

  “They’re just jealous,” Rose huffed as they walked through the hallway.

  “It’s a regular thing in houses,” Hanna added. “They won’t try something in school, but you should still be careful,” Hanna warned. “They might try something underhanded if given the chance.”

  “I can handle it,” Rose said proudly.

  “Quite cocky for a peasant.”

  Rose and Hanna turned to find a woman with shoulder-length wavy blue hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and amazing figure. Behind her was her entourage of suck ups.

  “Senior Erina,” Hanna bowed, while Rose just scoffed.

  “I don’t have time for this,” Rose turned away.

  “Don’t turn your back on me!” Erina yelled.

  Rose groaned as the woman kept calling out to her. Erina Thoma was a graduating student, but she didn’t have any notable accomplishments and barely passed the evaluation to become a Baron-ranked mage.

  It annoyed her that Rose had a better mage evaluation than her and was predicted to pass the Baron evaluation at the end of the semester. Since the Thoma family was a house of mages, someone from an average family like Rose being a better mage was a major blow to her ego.

  “You think she’ll try something?” Rose asked Hanna once they were far enough.

  Hanna shook her head. “House Thoma is powerful, but they won’t spare resources for useless things like that for Erina,” Hanna answered. “The people you should be worried about is the students sponsored by houses since they have talents to back them up and personal money.”

  Rose nodded. “I’ll be ready for them.”

  Lucas crossed his arm and leaned back on his chair as he considered his options for the remaining materials from the angel monster lord.

  He already used both pairs of wings to make two of the wing artifacts, one of them being given to Rose, one for himself. He already sold the body of the angel to a duke-ranked necromancer mage for decent price even if Lucas took the wings. The organs were sold to the alchemy association, earning him quite the hefty sum, especially for the heart which included half of the elixirs that would be made from it.

  That left him with the swords and the armor. He wasn’t a blacksmith, so reshaping these would be impossible for him. And the material on the golem was locked in with Biozonite, so he couldn’t just hand it back to the angel once its golem form was created.

  Lucas shrugged. “Might as well make another golem.”

  As Lucas was wondering what golem to make, he remembered that he needed to make one with a specific ability.

  “Talk about a coincidence,” Lucas turned to the armor.

  Lucas smirked.

  “A dungeon exploration?!” Valeri exclaimed as her daughter handed her the permission slip.

  “It’s our semester exam and if I do well, I’ll be promoted to a Baron-ranked mage,” Rose explained. “I need this mom.”

  Valeri sighed. “Fine,” she gave up. “But please be careful.”

  “Don’t worry mom.”