My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode-161

[Author Note: The release will be slowed down here. I have caught up to the draft. From now on, I'll be posting 2 episodes (4 Chapters) daily for 200 episodes (400 Chapters), and I appreciate your support in staying with me here. ]

Chapter : 321

He looked at Milody, his eyes shining with a pride that was fierce, undeniable. “I was impressed by his soap, my love. I was impressed by his victory in the tournament. But today… today, I was truly, profoundly, impressed by his mind. By his character. By his vision. He is not just a warrior, not just an innovator. He is a leader. He thinks not just of punishment, but of progress. Not just of victory, but of growth.”

A slow, brilliant smile spread across Milody’s own face as she finally, truly, understood. “So, the entire, terrifying, ducal inquisition… it was all just… theater? A stage you set for him?”

“It was,” Roy confirmed, his own smile returning, the smile of a proud, cunning, and deeply satisfied, father. “A test of his maturity. And I must say,” he concluded, a rare, genuine warmth filling his voice, “he passed with honors I never would have dared to dream of. Our son… he is a true Ferrum. And perhaps,” he added softly, almost to himself, “something more besides.”

The weight of the day, the weight of the Duchy, seemed to lift from his shoulders. The future, which had so often felt like a heavy, uncertain burden, now felt… bright. And it was a future that was being forged, unexpectedly, brilliantly, by the son he had once so profoundly, and so very wrongly, underestimated.

---

The evening after the impromptu, and frankly revolutionary, ‘Business Summit of the Desperate and Terrified’, Lloyd found himself seeking refuge in the cool, silent depths of the private indoor training hall. The day had been a whirlwind of frantic, almost manic, activity. The eight former conspirators, their faces a mixture of dazed gratitude and profound, almost fearful, respect, had arrived at the manufactory as instructed. The meeting, chaired by a visibly impressed, if slightly bewildered, Mei Jing, had been a masterclass in Lloyd’s new philosophy of “aggressive partnership.” Terms were laid out, contracts were drafted, and a new distribution network for the AURA brand was born from the ashes of a failed sabotage plot.

It was a triumph. A brilliant, audacious, and strategically sound triumph. But it was also… exhausting. Lloyd felt a deep, bone-deep weariness, a fatigue that had less to do with physical exertion and more to do with the immense, constant mental and emotional strain of his new life. He was not just running a business; he was managing a political entity, navigating treacherous social currents, and constantly, relentlessly, planning three steps ahead in a game whose rules he was still largely inventing as he went along.

He needed to vent. To reconnect with the simpler, more direct, aspects of his power. He needed to feel the hum of Void energy, the satisfying weight of manifested steel, the raw, exhilarating challenge of pushing his own limits.

He stood in the center of the training hall, the moonlight slanting through the high windows, illuminating the still-visible, spiderweb cracks in the stone floor from his mother’s… ‘lesson’. The air was cool, smelling of old stone and polished wood. Fang Fairy, her silver-grey form a shimmering, ethereal presence in the gloom, sat patiently in a corner, her golden eyes watchful, understanding her master’s need for this quiet, focused solitude.

Lloyd closed his eyes, his breathing slow, deep. He didn't focus on his Ferrum power, not yet. He reached for the other, newer, more enigmatic part of his heritage. The Black Ring Eyes.

He thought of his mother’s demonstration. The effortless creation of the shimmering, ephemeral war hammer. The power of the Forge. He knew, with a certainty that was both frustrating and deeply motivating, that the key to his next great leap in power lay in mastering this ability, in fusing it with his Steel Blood.

He activated the power. The familiar, cool sensation washed over him as his sclera turned to pitch black, the luminous bluish-white rings blazing to life. He focused on the empty air before him, picturing the hammer his mother had created, trying to replicate the form, the substance, the sheer, creative will.

The air shimmered. A vague, hammer-shaped distortion, like heat haze, appeared, pulsed weakly, then collapsed with a sad, silent fizzle.

He grunted in frustration. It was still beyond him. The level of control, of raw, creative energy required… he wasn’t there yet. Not even close.

He tried something simpler. The cup. The small, perfect, silvery-grey cup he had managed to create in his moment of desperate, exhausted breakthrough. He focused, remembering the feeling, the quiet invitation, the gentle merging of the two powers.

Chapter : 322

Slowly, hesitantly, a shimmering outline began to form in the air. It was a cup, yes, but clumsy, lopsided, its surface flickering, unstable. It held its form for a few agonizing seconds, then, with a soft, sighing sound, it dissolved back into nothingness.

“Damn it,” he whispered, the single word a testament to his mounting frustration. He could do it, yes, he had proven that. But it was inconsistent. Unreliable. It required a state of mental exhaustion and Zen-like emptiness he couldn't just summon on command. It was a fluke, not a skill. Not yet.

He abandoned the creative forging for now, his head throbbing with the effort. He turned his attention to a different application, a more martial one. He pictured one of the heavy, sand-filled practice dummies in the corner of the hall. He focused his gaze, the right eye, the eye of the Seal, flaring with a cold, hard light.

A shimmering, bluish-white ring of energy snapped into existence around the dummy’s thick, leather-bound torso. He willed it to constrict.

The ring tightened, its edges biting into the leather. The dummy groaned, the sound of compressed sand and stressed stitching echoing in the quiet hall. The leather began to smoke, the seams straining, threatening to burst. This, at least, he could do. This was raw, direct power.

Lost in his concentration, in the satisfying feeling of imposing his will on the physical world, he didn't hear the soft, almost imperceptible footfalls approaching from the shadows at the edge of the hall.

“An interesting application of pressure.”

The voice, cool, crisp, and unnervingly close, made Lloyd jump. He lost his focus instantly. The constricting ring around the dummy vanished, the pressure released. He spun around, his heart hammering, his Black Ring Eyes still blazing, instinctively identifying the source of the sound as a potential threat.

It was Rosa.

She stood there, a few paces away, a silent shadow against the moonlit stones. She was dressed not in her usual elegant gowns, but in the same stark, practical black training leathers she had worn the last time he’d encountered her here. Her face, unveiled, was a pale, exquisite oval in the dim light, her expression, as always, unreadable, but her obsidian eyes held a sharp, analytical curiosity as they flickered from the groaning, slightly misshapen practice dummy, to Lloyd’s still-glowing, demonic-looking eyes, and then back again.

“My apologies,” she said, her voice a calm, level monotone that held no trace of apology whatsoever. “I did not mean to disturb your… practice.”

Lloyd let out a slow, shaky breath, consciously willing the Black Ring Eyes to recede, the transformation fading, leaving his own familiar dark eyes in their place. “Rosa,” he managed, his voice slightly hoarse. “I… I didn’t hear you approach.”

“Clearly,” she replied, a statement of fact, not a judgment. She took a step closer, her gaze still fixed on the damaged practice dummy. “That ring… it was not Ferrum Steel. It was… pure energy. Your mother’s power.”

“You recognized it,” Lloyd stated, a slight surprise in his voice.

“I am not blind, Lloyd,” she retorted, her tone cool. “I witnessed her… ‘lesson’… the other day. It was… informative.” She looked at him then, her obsidian eyes probing, analytical. “The incident in the square. The allergy. The conspiracy. I heard the resolution from my handmaiden.” She paused. “It was a clever trap. Well-executed.”

“Thank you,” Lloyd said, a little taken aback by the unexpected, if clinical, compliment. “I had… good advisors.”

“Indeed,” Rosa murmured, though her eyes suggested she suspected the core strategy had been his. She fell silent for a moment, her gaze sweeping over the ruined floor of the training hall, then back to him. The silence stretched, not awkward this time, but… thoughtful. Charged with unspoken questions.

Then, she spoke again, her voice low, almost musing, as if thinking aloud. “The Washerman’s Guild. The Bathhouse owners. They are small fish, Lloyd. Desperate, foolish, but ultimately… insignificant.” Her obsidian eyes met his in the gloom, and for the first time, he saw not just icy indifference, not just analytical curiosity, but a flicker of something else. A shared understanding. A warrior’s cold, hard, pragmatic logic.

“No common guild master,” she stated, her voice a quiet, chilling certainty, “no matter how desperate, would dare to move so openly, so publicly, against a venture backed by the Arch Duke. Not without encouragement. Not without the tacit approval, the hidden backing, of someone far more powerful. Someone who wished to see your enterprise fail, to see you humiliated, but who was clever enough to use these… pathetic merchants… as their disposable pawns.”

She looked at him, her gaze sharp, intelligent, utterly uncompromising. “Someone else is behind them, Lloyd. Someone is pulling the strings from the shadows.”