Lucien stood up and walked toward the child which was already Rank 0 in 3 Paths, it was 5 times stronger than adults in all aspects, but that didn't mean anything.
Going near the mother, he smiled.
"Can I hold my brother?"
Henry immediately frowned, he was sure he could stop any action Lucien might take, but the request seemed really weird.
'Has he figured something out? Maybe I shouldn't have invited him.'
The mother seemed completely fine with the request as she handed him the child.
Lucien held the boy and looked into it's eyes. He wasn't planning on doing anything as that would definitely be spotted by Henry. The only reason he was doing this was so he could be closer to the child, once he touched a person the Blood Path was incredible potent, he was currently viewing the information stored in the blood.
'It seems the contact was made even before it was born, is there a method to forcefully make an infant contact a Path?'
The contact was under half a minute and Lucien figured everything that he could from the blood.
'Anyway, it doesn't matter for me, I don't plan on growing batches of kids.'
"He will grow to be a lady killed for sure." Lucien made a joke as he was handing the boy back to his mother.
After he handed the child back Lucien didn't linger around, lest his mood was destroyed or some pest suicides by using him as the tool. Before he exited the hall, he threw a meaningful glance towards Henry, who smiled in response.
Later that night after everybody went their own way, Lucien was in the throne room facing Henry.
"It seems your son had quite a lot of potential, no?"
Lucien smiled as he probed, if he could find more information or something useful.
"So you noticed in the end?"
"I have the Wind Path at Rank 0, so I could tell that the kid is Rank 0 Wind Path Practitioner."
Lucien acted ignorant about the other two Paths.
"It doesn't matter to you, he is just a backup plan. No matter how early one starts training, it would be hard to surpass your speed, isn't that right?"
"So you noticed as well?"
Lucien smiled as Darkness Particles flew outside his body and detached themselves, which was the sign of a Rank 2 Practitioner. It was all within his calculations, he had to keep increasing the strength he showed if he wanted the protection and influence that came with the title of Prince.
"I got lucky and opened the gates a year or two earlier than I expected."
"Luck is also part of your strength Lucien. I heard that that Holy Empire girl broke through Rank 2 these days as well, you already caught up with her. Now I'm only worried about your brother, I hope he can catch up as well."
'I wouldn't worry about him if I was you.' Lucien knew that Vlad was not in the palace since the rounds finished, he left and his whereabouts were unknown.
Lucien smiled and didn't ask about who the mother was or anything that would lead to a dead end.
"That family from before..."
Lucien trailed off, wanting to see how far would the Emperor go to please him, he was sure in his value.
"Don't worry about it, you won't see them again."
Empires were funny in this world, they didn't actually need subjects to rule, it was more of an amusement for the royalty. Even if all the commoners and nobles died, the royal family wouldn't care a bit. The resources that they were getting by exploiting the Empire for years could be made in one day by the Emperor himself. The only thing that they might lack is women if a thing like that happened.
So when he had to please a talented son, he didn't mind exterminating one of the more prestigious families. And the amusing thing was that nobody would say a peep about this. They relied on the Empire too much to separate.
"I see... Another thing I have to tell you. I'm going to start an organisation."
Henry looked at his son with amusement.
"Another one? So you want to play house on a larger scale? I don't mind, as long as it doesn't get in the way of your progress."
'He treats the whole Empire as a playground? I guess it makes sense, after he becomes an Ancestor and the Emperor after him also reaches that Rank, he would leave for some other place, this is just a temporary thing he treats as a stepping stone to the true stage.'
Lucien was not surprised that Henry knew about Elena, he was the Emperor, knowing what is happening in his Empire was a given. This was also part of the reason Lucien told him directly, he wanted to make sure no royals interfered with his project.
Lucien suddenly sharpened and said with a deep voice.
"The organization might bring quite a lot of chaos to the Empire."
Henry showed a meaningful smile.
"It doesn't matter, as long as you don't kill a royal, I won't care about whatever is that you want to do. That is of course only if your keep being so outstanding, I'm sure you know your value by now. To tell you the truth Lucien, if your value drops, I won't treat you so well. In this world you have to have talent or strength in order to be treated well even by your father. Don't disappoint me."
'Old fart, you plan to use these tricks to motivate me? Don't worry I won't disappoint you, heh.'
"On another note, keep what you know about your brother a secret."
Lucien just nodded without feeling like going into details. Once he was strong enough, the secrets would be open books to him.
Lucien left soon after and headed to his room, where he started trying to control his Devil Armor better, and he finally understood something. It could truly amplify his stats 5 times for both Defense and Attack, but the thing he also understood was that it depended on the stats. If he is Rank 2 like now, the amplification was 5 times, but as soon as he promoted to Rank 3 in a particular stat, the amplification for that stat would drop to 2 times.
'It's not omnipotent.'
'Considering the way it was created, I would say enhancing it would be the same way, lot's of negative energy could increase the amplifications.'
The drawbacks were the amount of energy needed. Since it took so much to create it, enhancing it would be even harder, and the other thing was that he could only absorb the negative energy when it was within his Soul Domain, which was only a kilometer right now.
He was not like that God who could gather the faith from a different world. And a church was out of the question, a cult was more of an option in this case.
'I have to change the plans I have for Maria a bit.'
Lucien was a bit frustrated that he could not ask All Existence about exact details, the prices were completely out of the acceptable range.
'I wonder if there is a realm above Devil.'
Since it provided such obvious benefits, Lucien grew more and more interested.
The next morning he switched with the clone again and went to the inn. Once he was close enough, he could see which room was Maria in and just entered not caring about details.
Maria was just out of the shower and had only a towel around her body that barely covered anything. Seeing Lucien walk in she blushed, but didn't say anything further.