I AM A MAGE BUT WITH MILF SYSTEM

Chapter 802: The Duke’s secretive training

And so the life of Julian as the son of the Duke continued in the castle of Astran with new tales and twists every day.

One whole week had passed since the arrival of the envoy from the royal capital. The days were peaceful and strangely silent, with nothing of major importance happening inside the castle walls. The usual undercurrents of tension between the Duke’s faction and Liam’s side had dimmed into an uneasy truce.

Yet beneath that calm surface, something felt off.

One thing in particular had caught Julian’s sharp eyes: the Duke.

Duke Astran had become increasingly secretive. He rarely socialized anymore. Breakfasts and dinners were often taken in his private study or skipped entirely. He rarely attended formal gatherings. When he did appear, his expression was distant, his words brief and cut short as though his mind was constantly occupied elsewhere.

The few times Julian had crossed paths with him in the corridors, the Duke had offered only a nod and a tired smile before disappearing into another closed-door meeting with Commander Aldric or a handful of his most trusted retainers.

Even more telling were the knights of the Duke’s faction. They were noticeably more on guard. Patrols had doubled in certain wings of the castle. Training sessions in the eastern grounds had grown longer and more intense. Small groups of soldiers could be seen whispering in corners before quickly falling silent at the approach of outsiders.

This all might have been nothing but a coincidence. But since it had begun directly after the arrival of Captain Voss and the envoy from the capital, it made Julian very suspicious.

He had remained vigilant.

In the days following the envoy’s visit, Julian had conducted his own investigation. He moved through the castle like a shadow – listening to servants’ gossip in the kitchens, observing the shift changes of the guards and even slipping into the library’s restricted sections again under the pretense of research.

But there was no clear lead.

No one seemed to know anything concrete. The servants only remarked that the Duke looked “more burdened than usual.” The lower-ranking knights knew even less. Even Aldric, who had once been relatively open with him after their duel, had become tight-lipped, offering only vague assurances that “everything was under control.”

**

Julian stood now on one of the higher balconies overlooking the eastern training grounds. Below, a squad of the Duke’s elite knights drilled under torchlight and their movements were sharper and more coordinated than usual.

There were four figures standing before the elite knights.

He could easily recognize the first two: the Duke himself, his posture rigid and commanding despite the late hour, and Commander Aldric at his side, his arms crossed as he observed the training with a critical gaze. However, the other two figures were completely unknown to him… and surprisingly, one of them was a woman.

The woman was tall and lean, dressed in dark, figure-fitting robes that made her look mysterious. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, revealing angular features illuminated by the flickering torches. The man beside her was shorter but built like a fortress, with broad shoulders and scarred arms suggesting a lifetime of brutal combat.

Both carried themselves with calm authority and occasionally stepped forward to correct a knight’s stance.

The four figure seemed to be discussing something intently. The Duke gestured sharply toward one of the training formations, while the woman nodded and replied with quick, decisive hand movements. Whatever they were planning, it was clear this was no ordinary night drill.

Julian’s gaze then lifted slowly from the figures then traced upward until it reached the massive, dome-like barrier that covered the entire training ground. The veil shimmered faintly under the moonlight – almost invisible to the untrained eye.

This was the reason that no one else in the duchy had even the slightest idea that the Duke was holding secretive training sessions deep into the night.

Julian had sensed it on the third day after the envoy had left. At first, it had been nothing more than a faint distortion in the flow of mana around the eastern grounds. But the more he observed, the more certain he became that something significant was unfolding beneath the surface.

After close inspection, he discovered that this barrier was a formation magic – magic that is prepared using predefined formations, mana crystals and mana circles. To someone of his level, bypassing it without alerting those inside was relatively easy.

That was why he was here now, standing undetected in the shadows, prying into the Duke’s hidden activities.

He narrowed his eyes and extended a thin thread of his own mana towards the edge of the barrier. The thread slipped through one of the formation’s weaker part like a needle through silk. Once inside, he could hear fragments of conversation.

“…the southern border reports confirm increased activity,” the Duke was saying. “We cannot afford half-measures. Every knight here must be ready to face corrupted forces within the month.”

The woman instructor replied. “Their current progress is acceptable, but acceptable is not enough against his kind. We need them to survive the black flame corruption.”

Aldric grunted in agreement. “The young lord… Kraven… has grown too fast. If he senses even a fraction of this…”

The Duke cut him off with a sharp gesture. “Kraven is not the immediate concern. Focus on the real threat.”

Julian’s expression remained calm on the surface, but inside, his mind was racing. Black flame corruption. The words confirmed what he had already suspected.

Whatever the Duke was preparing for was directly connected to the Servant of Death… or at least to forces wielding its power.

Julian remained perfectly still, committing every detail to memory. The unknown instructors… who were they? Where had the Duke found people capable of training knights against death-corrupted mana? And why keep it hidden even from most of his own faction?

He watched as the woman demonstrated a technique – she channeled a pale silver mana that formed a protective shell around her arm. When one of the knights attempted to replicate it, the shell shattered almost instantly, and the man staggered back, clutching his arm as if burned by invisible frost.

“Again,” the woman commanded coldly. “Your lives will depend on this.”