In the Market at Dolores,
John and Joseph met with their companions and told them about the good news that Baron Mendez had agreed to sell the Town to them and they got both the deeds,
1. North-frontier Towns deed.
2. Deed of Honorary Baron.
Sally was quite skeptical about how the Baron so easily gave up the land but she still understood that there were many benefits for him in throwing responsibility on John's head about the magic beast attacks and successfully creating a buffer between forest and his Domain while lowering his costs at the same time.
However, after they heard the terms of the contract and price of the north-frontier town they understood why the Baron so easily sold the town to John. But they also knew how it was hard to maintain after buying a dominion, usually, only knights were conferred lands after the war but they would still have to clear the land of magical beasts and successfully bring people to their dominion. so raising a dominion cost a lot of money for new nobles who were granted fiefs and they would still require enough strength to protect their dominion from other nobles and Magical beasts (if present at the borders).
Baron had bet that even if John receives help from Marquis Ray, they still would not be able to repel the magical beast attack this time because of their recent increase in volume. Additionally, it is very hard to recruit Knights even if they are slaves. While If John wanted to train his knights then it would require top-notch techniques as well as a few years worth of training so John neither had time on his side neither did he have strength on his side to protect his fiefdom. While at the same time he would still require loyalty of the knights and magicians working under him if he had any. So Baron Mendez had considered a lot of things when he decided to sell the North-frontier Town to John.
At Baron Mendez's home after receiving the letter of Prince Hector, both Baron and Antonio understood that Prince Hector wasn't willing to directly interfere in this matter but he still wanted to help them indirectly and hence they accepted the invitation to the ball which Prince Hector intended to hold at his summer house in Imperial city. From this, they understood that it was this gathering where their plans will be made. This ball was going to be held 2 months later.
While during the absence of John and others at his mansion, Vlad noticed a lot of things which occurred in North-frontier town and understood why Grand potioneer Melanie took him in as one of her disciple. The most notable thing he observed was that the farmers in the villagers used fertilizers while working in the field which was a very unfamiliar thing to him, after asking he didn't get the answer at first, it was only later when he visited Grandma Melanie that he got the reason why the villagers were using fertilizers and doing the four crop rotation method. It was one of the experiments proposed by John to increase the yield of the soil.
Vlad knew Grandma Melanie from a long time ago as he was one of his frequent customers in the old days. Today, as he was already in the North-frontier town, he had decided to visit her.
He visited the pharmacy when there was no one, "Still experimenting like the previous old days?"
"What are you doing here. Are the assassins of Bluesea family so free nowadays?" She asked him as she recognized him immediately.
After watching Vlad here at the North-frontier town, she was very surprised and alerted because she knew that whenever Vlad visited a certain place there would be a mess from behind the scenes and he came for something important at that place and that was also one of the reasons why she was very alert.
"You don't need to be so alert after watching me, nowadays I am only working as a butler and bodyguard for Princess Diana. Since she decided to visit this village, I thought maybe I should visit my acquaintance from the past since I knew you were staying here. Do you really think I would have shown my face in public to you if I was going to do some secret mission over here?"
After observing him for some time, she concluded from his actions and tone that he wasn't here for anything and it seemed he really came here because he was now a butler of the princess of Bluesea family. So she decided to let him in the pharmacy.
Vlad sat down, sighed and said to her after watching her actions, "It seems that not staying in the Imperial city has dulled you for a long time."
Melanie was quite straight forward and asked him about his intentions on visiting her, "I am sure you came here to about important things, not reminiscing about the past. I don't think you are the type of guy who will waste your time and visit me while you have a job to protect the mistress of Bluesea family."
Vlad smiled and said, "Straight forward as always, ok I will come straight to the point. The thing is when I visited this town, I noticed some different practices by farmers in the village so I hoped you can explain those to me and how were they different from normal practices and how it affected the growth of plants, were these changes recommended by you? As you know I always love to gather more information so it would be better for me to have more information on these practices as well even if they are unknown practices."
Melanie thought for a while, understood some of his intentions and answered him vaguely, "Well, this is one of the theories of my disciple, John and we are experimenting this theory on the farms since the farms already became barren and we anyway intended to cultivate new lands.
After following these experiments, it has given us good results for now, though we are not sure on the other theories proposed for long term yields however we are quite happy with the current situation so we intend to continue with our current practices."
Melanie didn't lie to Vlad, but she didn't give full answers to him.