The following days were very practical as Kevin routinely practiced with Lexia in the early morning.
One thing he noticed was Lexia's interest in joining him through his meditation. However, for the lack of situational awareness during deep meditation, he remained oblivious to the subtle resonance between himself and Lexia whenever he began to interact with the mana.
Kevin was itching closer and closer to the substantialization of his third eye—he didn't need any magical resources as he had already obtained the catalyst for this transformation, a structure, and a guiding force.
All that remained for him to do was nourish the third eye with mana on a daily basis and he could already feel the transformation in his body and spirit.
According to his shallow understanding, he was on the cusp of becoming a novice mage. This would allow him to passively sense mana without the need of immersing in deep meditation.
The third eye overlaps the neurons network to discharge mana throughout the brain and the human body. The moment he starts to feel mana pulsing throughout his entire body, that would pretty much consolidate the fact that his third eye had been completely constructed.
There was no way for Kevin to keep track of the progress, he could only continue to train his body and mind through excessive exertion and meditation while he waited for news from the viscount daughter, Jean.
Two weeks later in his study, Kevin received a telegram from the woman. Satisfied, he sternly told Lexia not to slack off from the daily morning practice and that he will reward her with one wish if he was satisfied with her progress by the time he came back.
Kevin had to admit that the lack of servants made everything much easier.
On that night, only two people were aware of his departure from the baron's castle, namely the head steward and Lexia.
…
To the extreme north of Riverside Town was a hilly terrain. A caravan route wound through the medium and small hills, barely visible on this starless and moonless night.
Two agile black steeds rushed down this winding route in the silence of the night, gradually pulling away from the town and approaching the borders ahead where a long river lay in the open.
"I only wanted the information, you don't have to follow me around, do you?"
The steeds were almost glued to one another—communication wasn't an issue at all. Thus, Kevin who was leaning forward in a countermeasure to the resistance of wind currents couldn't help but voice out his displeasure.
"Little brat," snorted the woman who was pace to pace with him, a tight black suit bound tightly to her figure. "I had a feeling you're up to no good when I sensed your determination to kill… If you were to die days after signing off half of the coal mines business under my name, what would the nobles of the dominion think?!"
"What are you talking about? I'm simply going to scout the enemy camps for a few days," retorted Kevin, grunting. Still, he couldn't convince himself, let alone Jean who was all too well aware of this lie.
"Yeah right, just make sure you don't die or anything, else I wouldn't have the face to say we haven't coerced you into selling your business," Jean whipped her horse with a hint of impatience, completely ignoring its breathing as it grew heavy.
"You have yet to tell me why you've followed me all the way here," Kevin resumed the former line of conversation, confused.
"How do you plan to stealthily cross the borders without my assistance?" Jean rolled her eyes. What happened to him? He was so cleverly attentive two weeks ago, how can his intelligence regress so much?
Kevin was speechless for a brief second.
The next moment, however, he understood.
It would be weird for the past Kevin to practice infiltration and espionage, let alone stealth scouting and assassination.
The moment this clicked in his head, Kevin smiled faintly under the shadows of his hoodie, both parties tacitly communicating through their silence.
The rapid footfalls of their horses quickly approached the borders as Jean signaled to Kevin, basically gesturing for him to wait until she cleared the coast for his advance.
…
"Hopefully you know how to swim," spoke Jean, her arms crossed below her bulging breasts as her black hair blended seamlessly into the night.
Water black like ink rushed in a violent cold stream, tossing and crashing through boulders in the river.
It has been a few minutes since Kevin jumped into the gushing torrents, she had yet to spot him surface the water or cross to the other side.
In fact, one can't blame her as the dense water vapor in the cold night obscured her vision—it was impossible to tell whether Kevin made it safely to the other side or not.
…
"I hate sentry posts so much!"
"For real, this cold is unbelievable. If the river waters speed wasn't so violent, I bet it would have long frozen over."
"Oh no, I'm not too bothered about the cold—we can always warm up with some you know what I mean, haha. I just hate these nights of no stars or a moon, the difficulty of supervising watchtowers increases by many folds."
"You'll catch some sexual disease one of these days I swear to god. If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought you joined the war efforts to conquer the flesh and not lands."
"Why can't we conquer both? Anyway, I have no clue what the hell is going on in the central capital; the entire continent must be laughing at our dynasty."
"They're probably waiting till the civil wars escalate and ravage the dynasty before washing it clean in one fell swoop. Sigh, I don't know anymore, power and wealth are a scary thing."
"You think you're the only one to think like this? Do you count yourself intelligent or something?"
Like any ordinary soldier introduced to the gossip of the military, these two sentry comrades were discussing the hottest topic of the year; this meaningless war.
Military intelligence indicated that the private armies of two marquises joined the stationed troops of the local lords of the dominions and engaged in decisive warfare.
"Even though the internal strife is serious, everyone has their bottom lines. For example, as long as the casualties are limited to soldiers and no one from the royal bloodline, like princes and princesses of the kings, it will be fine."
"Yeah… in two weeks give or take, the forces from inland will arrive and the barracks will undergo a serious shuffling. I'm hoping for some drama between the factions of the two counts."
"So what if that happens? People like us at the bottom of the chain won't get any benefits out of it. If anything, we'd be no more than scapegoats."
…
The whistling cold wind and the voices of these two soldiers chattering away through the night did well to mute the heavy pants of Kevin.
He sat there with his back to the watchtower, resting literally under their noses while trying to catch his breath and gather some superficial knowledge.
The reason why Jean couldn't see him on the surface of the river was precisely due to his deliberate dive to the bottom of the river, crawling along the riverbed so as to not get washed away by the currents.
"Two weeks? That should coincide with the time of our so-called reinforcements too I guess," whispered Kevin to himself. "It should be enough time for a few hits."