Chapter 189

As Wayne's voice fell, the entire reception hall was silent for a dozen seconds.

Princess Pavetta was full of disbelief, Queen Calanthe was angry and surprised, and the old druid Mousesack and King Eist looked at each other without speaking, seemingly lost in thought.

And the Sea Boar, Crach an Craite, expressed it most obviously. He slapped the table and said indignantly: "This Duny is really not a good thing. The first time I saw him, I felt he was a liar and a coward."

"I shouldn't have been stopped back then; if I had been allowed to stab him to death, the world would have one less scourge."

Seeing his nephew spouting nonsense, King Eist glared at Crach an Craite and scolded:

"Shut up, Crach an Craite. Duny is Pavetta's fiancé now. Don't jump to conclusions before investigating clearly."

Queen Calanthe didn't like Duny to begin with, only reluctantly accepting the guy due to the Law of Surprise and her daughter's choice. Now, hearing this information from Wayne, she didn't express whether she believed it or not for the time being, but asked the Archdruid Mousesack, the spellcaster with the best relationship with the Cintra royal family: "Mousesack, what do you think about what Wayne said?"

The old druid first looked at Wayne. Emotionally and rationally, he was willing to believe what Wayne said. After all, a witcher who had just arrived in Cintra for the first time had no conflict of interest with this suddenly appearing Duny, so there was no reason to lie in front of the royal family to frame him.

The old druid stroked his beard, pondered for a while, and said:

"If we follow Wayne's statement, then Duny's disappearance has an explanation."

"There were no signs of any struggle in the study. It is very likely that after Duny lifted the curse on himself, he contacted the sorcerer who was working with him and then left through magic."

"That must be a powerful sorcerer; my prophecy spells had no effect on him."

"As for the reason Duny left, perhaps it was because your wedding with Eist made this Duny, who might be Prince Emhyr, realize the failure of his bid for the Cintra throne, so he didn't want to waste any more time."

"Perhaps he has already secretly returned to Nilfgaard, just leaving without saying goodbye to us."

Wayne nodded repeatedly on the surface, but couldn't help but complain in his heart: this old man is really good at filling in the blanks. He actually filled in the cause and effect in such a short time, and what he said actually made quite a bit of sense.

As he spoke, the old druid looked up at Queen Calanthe, his expression somewhat confused, and said:

"It's just that there are still some questions I don't understand. If it was just to break the curse by relying on the Law of Surprise, why did Duny choose Princess Pavetta? Wouldn't it have been easier to choose a commoner?"

"The last banquet was full of danger. If Geralt and Wayne hadn't stepped in to help him, Duny would very likely have already died."

Regarding Mousesack's question, no one else knew how to answer. Mainly, there were too few clues about this matter, and they couldn't think of anything.

However, Wayne had long since prepared a draft. Seeing that everyone was in a thoughtful mood, he coughed lightly to attract the attention of others, and then said: "Regarding this question, I do have some guesses that might give everyone some inspiration."

The old druid Mousesack looked over at him immediately, and everyone else pricked up their ears. Only Princess Pavetta was lost in a trance again; clearly, the answer Wayne gave at the beginning had a huge impact on her.

This princess, who was only in her teens and full of romantic fantasies, probably couldn't imagine that the man she found would be a liar, deceiving her from the very beginning.

Wayne didn't hide it and said straightforwardly:

"According to the investigation by that witcher colleague of mine, the main goal of that evil sorcerer working with Emhyr was to seize the power of the Elder Blood. This is probably why Emhyr went after Princess Pavetta."

"Using the Law of Surprise to make Princess Pavetta his property, plotting for the Cintra throne, and even through the birth of offspring, to seize more of the power of the Elder Blood."

Mentioning the term Elder Blood and Wayne's subsequent speculation, Queen Calanthe's face became quite ugly. Mousesack looked deeply at Wayne, while King Eist and the others were all confused, not knowing what this so-called Elder Blood was.

Wayne didn't care about the expressions of the others, but said in a warning tone:

"I learned about the Elder Blood in an ancient book. This is an extremely rare and extremely powerful force. People who possess this bloodline are natural Sources, possess extremely powerful spellcasting talents, and can even control special, powerful forces."

"Before seeing Princess Pavetta, I thought this was just a legend. Now, I'm afraid that in the entire Northern Kingdoms, only the Cintra royal family has this bloodline passed down."

"Her Highness the Princess was originally just an ordinary person who had never learned any magic. Everyone has witnessed the power she displayed at the banquet."

As he spoke, Wayne looked at the gloomy Queen Calanthe and continued:

"Your Majesty the Queen, this kind of power is like a treasure. It can bring unimaginable benefits to its owner, but it will also bring many dangers to its owner."

"Perhaps I am being alarmist, but regarding the Elder Blood, I think for any sorcerer, wizard, or other person who wants to obtain this power, they wouldn't mind having one more Elder Blood test subject in their laboratory."

"Whether it's the Sorcerers Brotherhood or the evil sorcerers of the south, it's all the same."

………………

The conversation that afternoon ended on a sour note, and no results were discussed regarding the whereabouts of the hedgehog-man, Duny. However, for Wayne, he had already done his part and had even warned Princess Pavetta in advance about the dangers of the Elder Blood. As for how this matter would develop in the future, as an outsider, it was not easy for him to intervene too much for the time being.

The only thing he could do now was to improve his own strength and enhance his power, to meet all changes with constancy. In the future, whether it was the Wild Hunt, the Sorcerers Brotherhood, or the armies of the north or south, as long as his strength was strong enough, he could do what he wanted to do.

A few days later, Wayne drove the magic flying carpet back to the Kingdom of Temeria and returned to the city of Wyzima.

Accompanying him were two beautiful dryads, Marika and Aigles.

However, considering that the two dryad beauties were not used to life in the city and were not used to getting along with humans, Wayne took them directly to the forest on Black Gull Island, letting them live in this forest for the time being.

Anyway, this island in the middle of the lake, located on the shores of Lake Wyzima, was almost considered Wayne's territory now. The surrounding lake water was managed by the small earth spirit Feifei, and the forest on the island was a place where the Lady of the Lake, Lilith, often appeared. Outsiders never landed on this small island.

For this reason, he even spent a day and a night having an in-depth exchange with the goddess, and during the day, he introduced these two dryad beauties to the goddess.

As for being able to see the Lady of the Lake, both Marika and Aigles were very excited, even beginning to believe the words of the Shujing nvwang, regarding Wayne as someone chosen by destiny, and looking at Wayne with even more admiration. After all, how could an ordinary mortal be so familiar with the Lady of the Lake?

The only pity was that Wayne discovered that ever since he had an in-depth exchange with the Lady of the Lake, which raised his Divine Blessing skill to level two, the growth rate of this skill had become very slow. Even if he engaged in that kind of exercise with the goddess again, the growth range became very small.

This made him have to wonder: does this Divine Blessing skill need to be practiced with different goddesses to grow significantly? Unfortunately, the current data sample only had the goddess Lilith; there was no other data for comparison.

After returning to Wyzima, Wayne caught up with his old friends and took the time to return to Middle-earth to handle matters at Wayne Manor.

The butler of the manor, Old Ford, seemed to have become accustomed to Wayne's frequent absences, and Hobbits were kind by nature. Even when Wayne was not there, Old Ford still diligently managed all the affairs of the entire manor for Wayne.

In the warehouse of Wayne Manor, countless bags of pipe-weed of all sizes were already piled up. The ten thousand gold coins he had initially invested had also been more than half used in the process of acquiring pipe-weed.

However, Wayne did not intend to sell these pipe-weeds directly to the wealthy merchant Leuvaarden or to the dwarves.

Always relying on other people's channels not only meant he couldn't make big money, but he also couldn't grasp real power. Therefore, Wayne wanted to establish a chamber of commerce of his own, specifically responsible for selling goods from other worlds.

And with this chamber of commerce, using it as a center, he could continuously hatch more forces, more power, and even establish an extremely powerful organization that spanned multiple worlds, like the bank of the Goddess of Wealth.

For Wayne, who had received a modern education, commercialized actions like armed caravans and companies were more in line with his management habits.

The only pity was that this caravan plan was still missing a soul figure. It had to be someone who could be trusted, had sufficient ability, and could lead the caravan to continuously develop, in order to meet his requirements.

However, this matter was not urgent yet. Wayne had enough time to find a suitable candidate. As a witcher, his time was still very abundant.

Time flew by, and it was October. During this period, Wayne lived quite peacefully. Except for taking the time to help Leuvaarden complete an expert-level task of clearing a mine, he had not accepted any other difficult tasks.

And in his spare time, he would fly to Black Gull Island with tools to build a small cabin for the two dryad beauties to live in the forest.

Wayne also asked for several saplings of the Sacred Oak from the Druid Elder Kaen for the dryads. With the permission of the Lady of the Lake, the two dryads would build a dryad home of their own in this forest.

Of course, as an old lecher, there was no reason not to eat the meat delivered to his mouth. Ever since the dryads moved to the forest on the island in the middle of the lake, the days Wayne spent the night there had become more frequent.

Marika and Aigles were both dryads who had never borne offspring and had no experience in this regard. Under the guidance of the veteran Master Wayne, they also experienced the joy of it. As the three understood each other more deeply, their relationship became increasingly intimate. Although it was too early to call them lovers, it was definitely much more intimate than the relationship between an employer and a guard.

This day, one morning in mid-October, Wayne, as usual, picked Triss up from his arms and placed her aside. The sorceress had a smile on her lips, seemingly dreaming of something happy.

He did not disturb the red-haired beauty's sweet dream, but put on his clothes, left Triss's bedroom on tiptoe, and came to the kitchen, preparing to make a delicious breakfast for the sorceress.

It wasn't until he habitually picked up the silver dice on the table and rolled a lucky number that Wayne was slightly stunned, a smile appearing on the corner of his mouth.

After waiting through the entire month of September, the lucky day in October had finally arrived. It was time to draw prizes from the pile of treasure chests he had accumulated.

And this time was unusual. Although there were only forty-some ordinary treasure chests and one expert treasure chest, he had a full three master-level treasure chests.

The task of the Striga, the task of the Shujing nvwang, and the task of the Cintra selection banquet—in this short month or so, three consecutive high-difficulty tasks not only earned him three master-level treasure chests but also gained him over a thousand experience points.

If this were replaced by an ordinary task every day, it would take at least a year. With this experience, his witcher level finally rose to level eleven, making him progress a little bit again.

However, having opened treasure chests on lucky days so many times, Wayne was already used to it. He didn't make himself look particularly rushed, but prepared a delicious breakfast for Triss as usual, then woke the sorceress up, and after the two enjoyed a sweet breakfast time together,

after Triss left his mansion, Wayne returned to his home unhurriedly.

(PS: Regarding the reason why Princess Pavetta's power was too strong, I will explain it here. That is because it was described that way in the original work, and the Cintra selection banquet is also a very important part of the original work. Because I respect the original work, I did not make major adaptations. Perhaps because of my lack of ability, the changes were a bit stiff. I hope the readers will bear with me, mwah!)(Didn't exceed the word count, no money charged.)(End of chapter)