it didn't take much effort to recruit more witches after I revealed the kind of investment I would be providing for the coven infact the real problem became turning people away as more than a few rejected failing the interview as apparently living grimoires were far rarer than I previously imagined as Marie had explained to me after our first interview with the potential coven member so didn't want others to find out and asked me not to mention it again but unfortunately there were spies and diviners that I originally ignored who had already heard and spread the news far and wide.
Now because of my negligence the witch community was whipped into a frenzy some looking to join the coven, become a sub coven or seeking cooperation others were looking to buy the grimoires or threatened us for them while more than a few insinuated that we were lying and demanded proof but for the most part all the witches didn't try to steal the grimoires from me barring two exceptions the first was from the black forest coven as they didn't want to loose control over the witches in this city to me which led to me catching them using guard spirits then selling them back to their coven the other was a much more serious threat as they were able to disable the guardian spirits but were caught by surprise by Chynna and her defective companions that were created by Ai Wu which I didn't realize until the following day as I was too busy enjoying some of the new acquisitions (women gifted from the party earlier) that I received from the cultivators so I had those intruders locked up until I could completely counter what they did to my guardian spirits.
Even with all these difficulties the witches weren't the real problem instead the problem was the mages; mages like to preach things like equivalent exchange using ideas from alchemy but in actuality they are selfish thieves that continously threatened me and made clearly unequal offers that greatly favor them all making very apparent how little they respected me to which I soundly beat them like cheap drums before robbing them and tossing them out like trash in only their underwear no matter who was backing them eventually it happened enough that their emissaries learned to curb their behavior and speak with respect or I would kill them like I had to the last three one who came to me seeking revenge for robbing his disciple to which after beating him I poured I boiling water down his throat until he was dead before throwing his naked old corpse through the window of their base but the mages continued to try to sneak in or summon my possessions until I finally broke into the mage association and slaughtered my way to their vault and blantonly stole everything inside before leaving needless to say all attempted thefts stopped as well as negotiations for a bit before they restarted negotiations pretending as if there is no animosity between us.
....
Adam POV
Once again I find myself in front of my master Charles only this time he wasn't alone in fact I am actually in front of the entire council of the Mage Association and the reason couldn't be clearer as Sebastián assaulted the mage association and robbed it; to ensure that we knew that it was him he waved to the security cameras and carved Sebastián was here into the vault inner wall before he left which was extremely childish and petty of him.
Charles has told me to keep my mouth shut until he gave the order as he plans to use me so that he could finally get a seat on the council although I don't see how.
Random council member(rcm):"We requested you and your apprentice's presence here as he had a very public dispute with Sebastián that depicted the both of them had history between and therefore our only source of information into his history on how we should deal with him"
Charles:"It is exactly as you stated but we tool mages are outliers to the mage association or as Derek a seated council member so candidly put it to me that we are "barely members and are just lucky enough to have the associations protection" because we don't have vested interest and the association seems to be a detriment for us the tool mages I believe it best for us to cessed from the association in order to protect ourselves"
Derek:"Charles you mother fucker this is no time to play games or threaten us now that the association is facing a major crisis!!"
Charles:"This is not a threat just a statement of fact since my apprentice's fiasco at the auction I have ordered all tool mages in my faction to not antagonize Sebastián and since then we have suffered no losses"
rcm:"No losses! He literally assaulted our base of operations in this city and robbed the vault!"
Charles:"Yes, your base, your vault as those are your resources as you restricted access so again that is your loss"
rcm:"Stop dicking around and tell us what you want for the information on Sebastián"
Charles:"Well since you asked..."