My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode : 139

Chapter: 277

“And,” Jasmin continued, her voice dropping even further, her eyes darting around as if expecting an angry Duchess to materialize from the shadows, “the handmaiden was instructed to inquire… if a refill might be… procured. At Lady Rosa’s convenience, of course.”

The request was simple. It was mundane. It was delivered through intermediaries, stripped of all personal emotion, a mere logistical necessity.

But its significance hit Lloyd with the force of a physical blow.

She had used it. Not just once, out of curiosity. She had used it all. The entire bottle. She had integrated his creation, his Aura, into her daily, private ritual. And now, she was requesting more.

It was not a compliment. It was not a thank you. It was not a thawing of the ice between them. But it was… an admission. A quiet, undeniable, almost reluctant, admission. An acknowledgment that the product he had created, the thing born of his strange, otherworldly knowledge, was not just adequate, but necessary. That it had become a part of her life.

A slow, wide, almost giddy grin spread across Lloyd’s face. He felt a surge of triumph so pure, so potent, it was almost intoxicating. He had impressed his father. He had intrigued a king. He had baffled his sister. He had built a factory and launched a brand that was the talk of the entire city.

But this… this felt different. This felt… monumental.

He had conquered the market. He had conquered the nobility. And now, in this small, quiet, profoundly significant way, he had conquered the bathroom counter of the Ice Princess herself.

It was, he decided, his greatest victory yet. A small, private, rosemary-scented triumph that felt bigger, more satisfying, than any tournament win or royal investment. The Aura empire had just claimed its most difficult, and most important, territory.

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The fire in the hearth of Lloyd’s private study crackled softly, a warm, living counterpoint to the cool, silent procession of numbers marching across the vellum ledger before him. It was late, the kind of deep, quiet hour when the rest of the Ferrum Estate was lost in slumber, when the only sounds were the sigh of the wind outside and the whisper of a turning page.

A month. It had been just over a month since the Summit, since the world had tilted on its axis. A whirlwind of activity, of challenges met and expectations shattered. He looked around the small study—a space he had claimed, a space that was unequivocally his. It smelled not of potpourri, but of old books, fresh ink, and the faint, lingering scent of success.

On his desk, beside the neat stacks of production reports from Alaric and the market analysis scrolls from Mei Jing, sat one of the oak-and-steel Aura dispensers. It gleamed in the firelight, a solid, tangible symbol of everything he had built. An empire, born from a memory of Earthly hygiene, funded by the audacious belief of a father and a king, and forged into reality by the sweat and brilliance of his small, dedicated team.

The factory was more than just a success; it was a phenomenon. The money, the real, tangible gold, was flowing in, a steady, growing river that was already beginning to reshape the Ferrum family’s financial landscape. Master Elmsworth’s projections, once seeming wildly optimistic, were now looking almost conservative. The demand for Aura, for the status it conferred, was insatiable.

Lloyd leaned back in his chair, a rare, genuine smile of contentment touching his lips. He felt the solid weight of a small purse at his belt—his personal share of the initial profits, a steady income that made his former Ducal allowance look like a child’s pocket money. The daily System conversion, once a source of constant anxiety, was now an effortless, almost forgotten, routine.

He closed his eyes, accessing the familiar, cool interface of the System.

[Current System Coins: 344]

The number glowed with a quiet, satisfying light. It was a healthy balance, growing daily. It represented security. It represented options. It represented power.

He thought back to the man he had been just a month ago. The awkward heir, sleeping on a sofa, scrounging for a single gold coin, his only real asset a series of fragmented, often-confusing memories and a wolf-spirit of unknown potential. Now? Now he was a captain of industry, a tournament champion, a respected (if still deeply perplexing) figure in his own right. The change was staggering. Dizzying.

He looked at his own hands, resting on the polished oak of the desk. He flexed his fingers, remembering. He remembered the feel of lightning, raw and exhilarating, crackling across his skin as he channeled Fang Fairy’s power for the first time. A power now his to command, a tool of stunning, elemental force.

Chapter: 278

He remembered the feel of steel, cold and unyielding, extruding from the void at his command, weaving into invisible wires, solidifying into kinetic projectiles. The ancient, potent legacy of his Ferrum blood, a power of precision, of control, of lethal, tangible force.

And he remembered the feeling behind his eyes, the cool, almost detached, hum of his newly awakened Austin bloodline. The Black Ring Eyes. The power to sever, to seal, to control not just the physical, but the metaphysical. A power of subtle, insidious, terrifying potential.

He had all of this. These disparate, powerful, almost contradictory abilities. And now, he had the resources to fuel them, to nurture them, to grow them into something truly formidable.

The soap, he thought, a slow, profound clarity settling over him, a perfect, crystalline understanding locking into place in the core of his being. The factory, the gold, the brand… it was never about the soap.

The soap was the foundation. The means to an end.

It was the brilliant, almost ludicrously mundane, engine he had built to generate the one resource that truly mattered in his strange, new reality: System Coins. It was the key that unlocked the true potential of his other, far more important, assets. His power. His survival.

The ghosts of his past were still out there. Rashid al-Fulan. Colonel Volkov. The faceless soldiers with vengeance in their hearts. They were growing stronger, their shadows lengthening across this new world. Ben Ferrum, his crippled, steel-limbed nemesis, had shown him the terrifying truth of the power disparity.

But now… now, the race had truly begun.

With the steady, reliable income from his Aura empire, he could finally stop thinking like a desperate scavenger, grabbing at whatever low-level quests the Guild offered. He could start thinking like a true strategist. Like a Major General.

He could afford to Ascend his other spirits, when he acquired them. He could afford to push them to Transcendence. He could afford to systematically, methodically, rank up his Void powers, transforming his F-rank Steel Blood and Black Ring Eyes from potent novelties into truly devastating, world-altering forces.

The soap was the how. The power was the why.

The realization was liberating. It stripped away the last vestiges of his old identity, the awkward, uncertain Lloyd Ferrum. In his place stood someone new. Someone forged in the crucible of three lifetimes. A creator, a warrior, a strategist. A man who understood that true power was not just about wielding a sword or a spell, but about building the very foundations upon which that power could be sustained and grown.

He had built his foundation. It was solid. It was profitable. And it smelled faintly, pleasantly, of rosemary.

Now, it was time to build the fortress on top of it. It was time to get strong. Truly, terrifyingly strong. Strong enough to face down the ghosts of his past, to protect the future of his family, to carve out his own destiny in this strange, new world.

He opened his eyes, the firelight reflecting a new, hard, unshakeable resolve in their dark depths. The quiet satisfaction was gone, replaced by a familiar, cold focus. The contentment of the businessman gave way to the grim determination of the soldier preparing for a long, brutal war.

The game had changed. The rules were clear. And Lloyd Ferrum, armed with a burgeoning commercial empire and a growing arsenal of supernatural power, was finally, truly, ready to play. The foundations were laid. Now, it was time to raise the walls.

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Days turned into a week, and the Elixir Manufactory hummed along with the beautiful, predictable rhythm of a well-oiled machine. The AURA brand was no longer just a phenomenon; it was an institution. Tisha’s three-tiered queuing system had transformed the chaotic factory gate into a model of orderly, if still deeply desperate, commerce. Nobles received their discreet missives, merchants lined up with stoic patience, and the daily Citizen’s Lottery had become a public spectacle, with crowds gathering to cheer as the ten lucky commoners were chosen, their tearful, triumphant joy a more potent advertisement than any paid crier could ever be.

The gold flowed. The ledgers filled with neat columns of black ink. Master Elmsworth was in a state of perpetual economic ecstasy. Grand Master Grimaldi was happily sequestered in his new lab, muttering about the ‘olfactory potential of distilled moon-petal essence’. The entire enterprise was a resounding, unqualified success.

And yet… a quiet, persistent unease gnawed at the edges of Lloyd’s satisfaction.

It was the System. His silent, demanding, and often infuriatingly cryptic partner in this whole interdimensional reincarnation mess.