Several days passed since Christmas, and New Year's Eve was coming. Currently was snowing heavily, and Lucien was spending time training in his kenjutsu. Training here was much better than training outside as there was a much more silent environment, and it gave a more peaceful feeling.
When he wasn't training in kenjutsu, he was refining blood essences from the corpses of killed ghouls or those bones and remains he obtained from the Cochlea Detention Center from the disposal room.
Currently, he had a huge amount of blood essences thanks to the number of ghoul corpses and remains. Lucien spent more than three whole days refining those bones and remains of the ghouls from the disposal room of the Cochlea Detention Center.
Originally there were small mountains from those bones and remains of ghouls; Lucien refined all of them to several hundred blood essences.
***
Itori was currently reading some books and drinking blood wine during it.
She was in the library of the estate, which was rather big and full of various books that Lucien had placed there. As she was reading the books, somebody suddenly knocked at the door and hurriedly entered.
The person who entered was one of the mercenaries guarding the estate. Currently, more than forty people are guarding the entire estate. Even though most of them were in the smaller house, only half of them were active on duty, and the other half had free time.
"Madam, some young girl named Kirishima Touka came here, saying that she wanted to meet Lord Aeon. She is currently waiting at the gate with several men guarding over her."
Reported the mercenary who came here. One must admit that the security here was top-notch. The entire complex was under the watch of cameras, detectors of movement, and other gadgets all the time. Besides that, it was under the constant watch of more than twenty ghoul mercenaries all the time.
Itori was surprised that Touka had come here, but she knew that Lucien had offered her help and that he would train her a little.
"Escort her to the living room; Lucien will return soon."
Said Itori as she continued reading her book and sipping the blood wine. She won't be going to meet Touka as Lucien probably knew that somebody was here and would return soon.
***
Touka was currently standing at the checkpoint, which was a small building at the gate leading to Lucien's estate, and was under the constant watch of four ghoul mercenaries. During the time here, some of the mercenaries even reached S-Rated thanks to Lucien and the blood essences he gave them occasionally.
Soon, the mercenary who departed to the mansion returned and came to her.
"You can go to the mansion; the Lord will return soon and see you. You two escort her to the living room and then return."
As he pointed at two mercenaries, they then departed together with Touka, leading her to the estate. When they entered the estate, she was shocked to see such a luxurious mansion. Everything here looked too expensive, and even some things looked like antiques.
She was led to the living room; there were a beautiful Christmas tree and Christmas decoration. She sat down on the leather sofa and waited patiently for Lucien to come as soon after Lucien came here as she was told.
"Welcome to my estate, Touka-san. So what brings you here? Heeeeyyyy, bring us some coffee."
Lucien said jovially as he welcomed her here. Then he screamed to one of the mercenaries to bring some coffee for both of them.
"Thank you. I would like to request two things from you, Lucien. As you said previously, could you please train me? I wish to be stronger; as currently as I am, I can't do anything."
Said Touka as she bowed her head down. Lucien mentioned last time that he would help her to get stronger and agreed that he would train her. Soon after, somebody came and delivered two cups of freshly made coffee for them.
"As I said, of course, I would do my best to help you. So from today, came to my estate every day to train. If I am not available, then my most trusted subordinate would train you, but now I have much of free time."
Answered Lucien, to which Touka became happy because Lucien would train her. Even Yoshimura admitted in secrecy that he was no match for him. It was something like an instinct to know if someone was stronger than you.
In truth, many species as demons, devils, vampires, and other similar races, were very good at this thing.
"And what is the second thing? You mentioned you had one more thing you wanted to ask?"
And now the second topic came to the surface, even though Lucien already knew what she would ask for. It was very apparent, as it wasn't some secret, that he was collaborating with the Aogiri Tree, but in reality, the entire Aogiri Tree was just a pawn on his chessboard.
"Yes, Kaneki Ken. He has joined the Aogiri Tree; perhaps you could please bring him back?"
Touka was one of the people that was very against the fact that the Kaneki Ken joined the Aogiri Tree. Even her brother was a member of the organization, but many, especially those from the Anteiku, strongly disagreed with the methods used by the Aogiri Tree.
"It was his own choice to join the Aogiri Tree, and with this, I can't help you much, maximally I can keep an eye on him, but that's all, Touka-san. Your friend has joined the Aogiri Tree in order to seek power and change or he had some other reasons for joining the Aogiri Tree that I don't know. So I would advise you only one thing, leave him be for the time being. He would return when he would be ready."
Everything was part of the plan; he wasn't going to let Kaneki Ken go from the Aogiri Tree as he would be very useful in the organization.
Even though Touka was rather disappointed by his words, she knew that there was nothing she could do about it, and as Lucien said, she could only wait.
"Now that we are ready come with me to the training room. I would like to see your abilities and what you can do."