Gordon couldn't hold back his frustration and shouted.
"No, this doesn't make any sense! Why are grains going in first, not people?"
"And you think it makes sense for you to go first?"
It wasn't as though he could go in before his senior mercenaries like Gillian or Kaor.
Out of words, Gordon scratched his neck awkwardly.
Ghislain looked at the dumbfounded mercenaries and chuckled.
"I'll give you a chance later, so go back and finish what you were doing for now."
The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment. Gordon clung to his hope and began to beg.
"Ah, can't I just try it once? I've really wanted to experience this."
A mana concentration circle is something even knights with the greatest talent in the kingdom barely get a taste of.
With one right before his eyes, but destined for seeds instead of humans, he felt like he was going to lose his mind.
"Later. If you enter a mana concentration circle without proper cultivation techniques, your body will burst and you'll die."
"Oh, please. I know a bit about it. I even learned a little before."
In reality, the technique he learned was the lowest-grade method, which barely even circulated mana and only offered minimal health benefits.
It was uncertain if he could survive in the concentration circle at all.
Still, given a chance that may never come again, it was only human to want to try, even if it meant risking his life.
Gillian frowned and grabbed him by the back of the neck, but Gordon kept whining.
He hadn't fully snapped back to his usual discipline since he had just returned from escorting Anna.
The other mercenaries, clicking their tongues and thinking he'd get in trouble, also hoped Ghislain might grant permission, so they didn't stop Gordon.
Ghislain, stroking his chin with a troubled look, glanced over at Gillian.
"It looks like they all have extra energy to burn lately, Gillian."
"Yes, sir."
"Have everyone run 200 laps around the training field, and train them in shock tactics until they go to bed."
"Understood."
The mercenaries turned pale and began to back away.
But it was already too late.
Once Ghislain issued an order, he never rescinded it, barring an urgent reason.
And Gillian was someone who faithfully carried out Ghislain's orders, even if it meant beating disobedient subordinates into compliance.
The mercenaries began to regret their behavior, their faces full of dismay.
They had forgotten what he was like since Ghislain had been busy with estate affairs and hadn't interacted with them much recently.
The mercenaries, cursing Gordon, quickly looked around.
"Ka-Kaor? Where did he go?"
They had no choice but to train, but they needed to find Kaor quickly.
If Kaor clashed with Gillian, they could use that moment to lessen the intensity of the training.
"Where is he? Where'd he go?"
Kaor had already disappeared, hiding somewhere.
He probably planned to deny hearing anything about the training, saying he wasn't present at the time.
Gillian looked at the mercenaries with a pitiful expression and said in a low voice.
"Training begins now. Start running from here. Move."
With faces of despair, the mercenaries vanished. Ghislain smirked as he resumed inspecting the magic circle.
Alpoi, who had been watching in a daze, suddenly burst into laughter, clutching his stomach.
"Hahaha! So the plan was to make the grains stronger, not the mercenaries? You actually thought it would get stronger by putting grains in there instead of people? What a twist!"
If putting people in would allow them to accumulate mana and grow stronger, he must've thought that grains absorbing mana would make them resilient enough to survive in poor soil.
It was a notion only an absolute novice to magic could come up with.
"Even people without proper mana cultivation would explode in there. How do you expect grains to endure? And even if they miraculously do… grains can't utilize mana! Hahaha!"
Alpoi clung to Vanessa beside him, giggling uncontrollably.
"Ah, my belly button is going to fall off. Vanessa, look here carefully to see if my belly button falls off. Hahaha!"
Vanessa was at a loss for words, unsure of how to respond, but Alpoi was too busy laughing to notice.
How badly did he want to win this bet to waste such precious runestones like that?
Selling them to the Magic Tower would've been a much greater benefit to the estate!
'What a waste. A fool with a treasure doesn't know its worth.'
Laughing hysterically on the outside, Alpoi internally clicked his tongue at the wasted runestones.
Of all people, those precious stones had gone to someone like Ghislain!
Thinking of all those valuable runestones disappearing like melting snow just for a bet was enough to make him sick.
As if reading Alpoi's thoughts, Ghislain gave a sly smile.
"Want to place a bet yourself?"
"What?"
"If I win, you work for free without a word of complaint for ten years. If I lose, I'll give you five thousand gold and let you go back to the Magic Tower."
'An opportunity!'
Fearing Ghislain might back out, Alpoi eagerly nodded, his nostrils flaring.
"Deal!"
Other mages nearby raised their hands as well.
"We want in too!"
Ghislain readily agreed, and the mages left, rejoicing.
"We're free!"
Vanessa, nervous and fidgeting, hurriedly spoke up.
"M-My lord! This is a bad idea. We need the mages to carry out large-scale construction."
Even if more mages would come to manage a new branch of the Magic Tower, it would be pointless if the current ones left.
"It's fine. Don't you trust me?"
"No, that's not it…"
This wasn't a matter of trust, but rather of common sense!
Vanessa internally screamed but couldn't bring herself to argue with Ghislain.
In the end, she left in a hurry to inform Belinda of the situation.
As the area quieted, Ghislain clicked his tongue.
"Finally, some peace and quiet. They're all so full of energy."
Claude, his eyes hollow, looked at Ghislain and let out a faint laugh.
Having worked tirelessly day and night, 'helping' as much as possible before his departure, he looked nothing short of a zombie.
"So, did you really prepare grains for this?"
"Yes, I'm going to improve the seed stock and create something exceptional."
"Sigh…"
Claude sighed, looking at Ghislain with pity.
Improving seeds was a process of selecting the best, planting them, and growing them over generations.
Even with years of research by mages, success wasn't guaranteed.
If seed improvement were that easy, the royal family would've funded new varieties ages ago.
'Vanessa looked pretty taken aback, too.'
If even Vanessa, the estate's most knowledgeable mage, reacted that way, it had to be a foolish endeavor.
"My lord, it's great that you're trying things, but… the bet deadline isn't far off. There's only about a month and a half left. Do you really think you can get results by then?"
He wasn't really worried—he knew he would win the bet.
But something about Ghislain's actions left him with a slight unease.
"No problem. That's plenty of time."
"How long do you expect to grow these grains?"
"A month or so?"
Claude's face contorted as he tried to hold back laughter.
Just as Alpoi had predicted, it would be a miracle if the grains didn't burst.
Even if they didn't and grew just as Ghislain hoped, there would only be about two weeks left.
What could he possibly accomplish in two weeks?
"Ahem, why not just admit defeat? If word gets out about wasting runestones like this, the backlash will be worse than simply losing the bet. Oh, wasting those runestones, what a shame."
Claude, grateful that Ghislain had saved Anna, didn't want him to suffer such disgrace.
"Well, if you ask nicely, I could declare it a draw."
Ghislain's expression softened with pity at Claude's words, emphasizing the word "draw."
"What? Are you already scared? There's no such thing as a draw; once you start, you see it through to the end. I'm about to gain a whole bunch of high-grade labor."
"Haha, well then. I was just looking out for you, but if you insist, so be it. While I'm here, I might as well watch to see if those grains explode or not."
"I'll make it worth the watch."
With a grin, Ghislain carefully placed grains into the magic circle in small batches.
As he gradually infused mana into the runestones engraved with activation spells, mana started gathering in the magic circle.
Blue light began to glow around the circle as mana accumulated.
The grains scattered within the circle started to tremble slightly.
Contrary to Alpoi's confident predictions, not a single grain burst.
After meticulously inspecting every magic circle, Ghislain smiled.
"It's a success."
Now, these grains would possess incredible vitality.
In his previous life, this method had spread widely, so there weren't many who didn't know about it. But now, it was Ghislain's secret alone.
When the continent was devastated and people began to perish, countless mages and scholars had gathered to find a solution.
It was a method of strengthening seeds with mana. Though it looked easy since Ghislain knew of it from the future, it was knowledge established after dozens, even hundreds, of failures.
Claude, watching Ghislain's cryptic smile, commented uneasily.
"Well, at least they're not exploding. Did you expect this?"
"Of course, did you think I was doing this blindly?"
Claude, feeling a tinge of doubt, quickly shook his head.
'It must be a coincidence. Or maybe that circle has those effects. Perhaps Vanessa secretly helped out.'
Even in the academies where scholars gathered, no one knew how to infuse mana into grains to increase yields.
Even mages from the Magic Tower didn't know this.
'Even if there were such a method, there's no way only the lord would know about it.'
Someone who had only lived in a rural backwater couldn't have more knowledge than scholars or mages.
'There's no way a lord who doesn't know magic could come up with this himself. This is 100% bluff.'
Claude was certain.
Such opponents were common in gambling, too.
Even with a bad hand, they would bluff, trying to make the other person fold first.
'Heh, your bluff won't work on me. Even if the grains do absorb mana, the land itself can't support them. What then?'
No matter how he looked at it, Ghislain had no chance of winning the bet.
Having reached this conclusion, Claude relaxed and casually said,
"Well, it was worth seeing. I look forward to the results."
Claude quickly excused himself.
If he lingered any longer, Ghislain might assign him more work.
Once everyone had left, Ghislain, alone, clenched his fist and fell into thought.
He had dealt with all the immediate tasks.
Now that he had a bit of free time, it was time to address the issue that had been weighing on his mind.
'I can't keep putting this off when it's my own body at stake.'
He had been steadily training his body and diligently cultivating his mana, but he still couldn't figure out why his mana had changed in nature.
Nor why his recovery rate had improved.
'I keep thinking it's related to that…'
It all began after his near-death experience fighting a Blood Python in the Forest of Demonic Beasts, so it was likely connected to the Blood Python's venom.
"Damn thing. If you're going to kill me, at least do it cleanly."
Ghislain let out a sigh of irritation.
"I need to check it out."
Holding onto an uncertain power didn't sit well with him.
But there was only one way to confirm it, and he hadn't been able to try it until now.
'It would've been a disaster if I collapsed while things were busy…'
He had been putting off checking due to his busy schedule, but things would only get busier soon.
With the land reclamation work done and the seed improvement about to be completed, he'd be swamped with new tasks.
Now that he finally had a moment of quiet, it was the perfect time to try something.
After a long period of contemplation, Ghislain finally decided to go through with the experiment.
An experiment that might put his life in danger.
[T/L: Please support me and read extra chapters here: https://ko-fi.com/revengerscans ]