The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 460: Upgrade!

“Ah!” Mike, who was sitting around a table having a meal while getting introduced to his half-brothers and sisters, suddenly yelped as he felt something jolt inside of him.

“What?” Alice turned and asked him.

“Nothing… Just some cramp…” he said as he felt strange. What just happened.

“You are just too tense after Mother’s scolding!” Alice spat.

“Yeah… Probably….”

Roy who watched the brother and sister felt strange. Rex and Max made him believe that all of the familyʼs true heirs were snobbish bastards. But seeing how Mike and Alice acted, they felt like a normal family.

“So you are from Gravola City?” ʼVictorʼ, who was speaking to him, asked with complex eyes.

“Yeah, I was raised there by my mother, but recently came here because one of my little sisters needed to go to the hospital!” Roy explained. “She is not our father’s daughter….” he quickly added to clear things up.

“Oh…” Victor nodded, clearly understanding his problem.

“How is she?” Alice, who heard their conversation, asked. “Your sister!”
“Ah! She is fine, Sister Iris did promise to help with some new experimental pills, but it seemed her help was not needed after all, my sister was just suddenly cured!” Roy shrugged. “I guess miracles do happen!”

“Ah… I see, that’s good!” Alice nodded. “You should bring them here someday! Since they are your family, they are ours!” she said.

“Ah... maybe someday!” he said, not expecting Alice to be this friendly.

“Big brother….” someone suddenly asked Mike. It was one of their sisters called Alicon. “I wanted to ask… What kind of person Father is?” she asked nervously after feeling that this big brother was very approachable.

“Didn’t you guys already meet him?” Mike asked with a frown.

“No, we only gave him a customary greeting when he first arrived!” Roy replied nervously. “He didn’t have the time to sit with us at all!” In fact, Unlike Juju and Roxy who met Theodore before, for most of the others, yesterday was the first time they truly saw their father, and he was more imposing than what Iris and Roxy describe him to be.

“I see…” Mike sighed. His father was really like that, not caring about how others felt.

“Don’t let his imposing persona fool you!” Alice, who could easily read her siblingsʼ thoughts, replied. “Father is a very kind person, he is far more mushier than he seems to be….. Just don’t tell him I said that about him!” she chuckled.

“Ah… “ Roy paused. Did she describe her father as being Mushy? “I see…” he said.

“I think he will meet you guys officially in a couple of days…”

“Iris already told us that… We are just a little nervous about what this is all about!”

“There is no reason to be nervous!” Mike said. “Even Lara will be there too, right?” he turned to look at Lara who was sitting to the side listening silently enjoying the company of her family, and asked.

“YES!… Esteemed Father said that I will be attending!” she nodded. “El will be there too!” she said, making the little maid behind her nod seriously while keeping her wary eyes on ‘Victor’ as if she was waiting for him to make one wrong move.

“Oh…. See, since Lara and Little El would be there, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about!” Mike said, calming his siblings.

“I keep telling them that!” Iris sighed. “It is all Max’s fault for scaring them!” Ever since suffering at the hands of Max, her siblings had been a little nervous, that’s why she wanted them to meet Mike and the others.

“What did he tell you?” Mike asked with a frown.

“He said that we will be tested and if we fail, Father will never help us ever again!” the girl Aliceon said, biting her lip and making Roy listen carefully. He knew that the said test had something to do with making them reenter the family, but he had no idea what it entailed.

“Don’t believe him…” Mike chuckled. “In fact, that guy doesn’t even know what is going to happen!” he added, hiding a deep vigilance in his eyes. “You just need to keep up with the training you have been doing. They would definitely help you with your results!”

“Results… What do you mean?’ Juju who sat next to Victor asked, wiggling her body a little and ‘accidentally’ rubbing her brother’s arm with her big breasts.

ʼVictorʼ could only move his seat a little to the left to get away from her.

“You will know very soon,” Mike who acted as if he didnʼt notice what was happening said. “I can’t explain things ahead of time and spoil Father’s favorite pastime hobby!” Mike shook his head with a smile that only Alice and Iris knew what it meant. Their father seemed to enjoy the shocked look on his children’s faces when he told them about the existence of players.

“Oh!” Roy looked at Roxy who was also curious and sighed. This was the same answer they got from everyone, including Geroge.

“Are all the ones who will participate in the ceremony already arrived?” Mike suddenly turned to Iris and asked.

Ceremony? Roy couldn’t help but catch that word.

“No, there is still one batch who will arrive tomorrow. Cousin Morris, John, and Luke will be among them!” she said.

Lara who heard her sat straight. She clearly didnʼt know that and was beginning to feel nervous meeting Luke and John after all this time. Those two used to bully her a lot when they were on the family island!

“Morris that douchebag too?” Alice asked with disgust. She remembered reading a report about that guy. A total douchebag who raped a princess and then used the family to help him run away from taking responsibility like a man!

“Grandma had to placate his grandfather to fix a few things in the family, so she offered him a position!” Mike who had been helping his grandma for the last few days said.

“OH!” Alice nodded.”He better not do anything funny…”

“Don’t worry, Father already dispatched a few men to keep an eye on him!” Mike sighed.

***

Victor, who watched the exchange between Roy and the others thought Mike was having a real hard time containing his wrath.

Thankfully by the time the carriage arrived at Rosette’s palace, he had already calmed down.

Although his hate for Roy didn’t subside at all, he could start to think rationally and feel that there might have been a deeper story to the things that happened back then.

What he really needed was to return and really investigate this guy. Sadly, this was not an option yet, so he decided to find some time to Sync his soul and send a message to Margret through Lily to let her take care of things.

Damn it….

“Did that demon scare you that much?” Lyra asked as she stepped down from the carriage, clearly noticing the strange atmosphere around him.

“ Something like that…” he quickly replied, as he stepped down after her and then helped Ermira down before entering the palace.

In the main living room, Mirai was sitting reading a romantic novel of some kind. This girl seemed to be the kind who didn’t have to work at all, leaching over her master and Rosette.

“Back already?” she looked up and asked as soon as they stepped in.

“An accident happened!” Lyra said. “A demon appeared in the library, so Big Sister told us to go back here…”

“Did Aerith take care of it?”

“Yeah… I don’t know the details yet!” Lyra sighed.

“Oh, good…” Mirai nodded and then returned to her book. Demon’s appearances, although rare, were not that big of a deal.

“Did that elf display any strange behavior?” Lyra asked. The reason she returned to the palace was because of that.

“No, he is in his healing barrel in the basement…” Mirai said dismissively as she flipped the page. “Meril is with him holding his hand, you can ask her…”

“There is no need!” Lyra said with annoyance before turning to face Victor. “I will need to go check in on my unit, don’t leave the mansion before Aerith returns!” she warned.

“Ok…” Victor nodded and then watched her leave before turning to Emira. “Stay with Aunt Mirai… I want to take a little nap to calm my nerves…!” he told her.

“Un!” the little girl nodded. “It is… going to… be …. Ok…” she told him as if to reassure him. Like Lyra, she probably thought he was a little shaken from the demon.

“Don’t worry…” Victor rubbed her head with a smile then, nodding toward Mirai, he turned and headed to his room. Feeling a little calmer.

As soon as he got in, he directly cast a few protection talismans, made an illusion of himself in bed, and then entered the cauldron heading to an isolated floor.

There, sitting down he began the painful process of syncing his soul with the one in the other world!

***

It was past noon when Mike finally returned to the hotel suite that he was staying at. He was feeling a little strange after spending the day with his brother and taking Axel on a tour around town to induce him to a few ‘reputable’ brothels.

He never truly experienced anything like this before and it felt a little nice!

Sighing as he opened the suite’s door, he found his two twin wives waiting for him at the door, dressed in some very revealing bunny suits!

“What’s the occasion?” he asked in surprise as he closed the door and raised one eyebrow. Although he was not a stranger to cosplaying with his wives, he felt surprised watching them take the initiative.

“Margret was here…” Honey said as she began to help him take off his jacket.

“Oh… Did she need anything?” he frowned. Did that girl tell his wives to dress like this?

“Um… a few things…. She told us that the movie was canceled!”

“Yeah,” Mike nodded. “A few logistical problems…”

“She said that we should not worry and that she already found another good one, but we will need to wait a few weeks for the shooting!”

“Oh… That was quick…” Mike was a little surprised. “As long as you want to, I don’t mind…” he said as he walked inside.

“Um…” both nodded as they followed him.

“What else?”

“She told us about what your esteemed mother talked about…” Honey replied nervously.

“Ah!” Mike sighed as he took a seat, shaking his head. That slut was really getting nosy. “You don’t need to worry about it, my mother is like that… And we still have time, in my family it is normal to only have a few children!” he said. “And you don’t need to dress like that for us to have some fun… Not that I am complaining…” he shrugged, changing the subject.

“We need to…” Bunny said.

“Why?” Mike raised one eyebrow.

“It is a ritual that Margret told us about… She said that if we follow it we could have a high chance of giving birth to a child!”

“A ritual, does it involve you wearing bunny suits?” he asked as he raised one eyebrow.

“Yes….”

“What is it about?”

“...” Honey looked at Bunny as both of them blushed heavily.

“What?” he asked. His wives were former prostitutes, so the things that made them blush like that could never be something common!

“You will have to experience it with your own body…” they said as they threw themselves at him.

***

Finishing with the synchronization, Victor who was in pain felt as if he could finally relax as he sat up on the grass in the endless forest inside the cauldron.

Now, he felt a little calmer. All he had to do was to simply wait until the investigation his wives were going to do to finish.

If Roy turned out to be a good guy, he would consider sparing his life…. Maybe….

He sighed.

Seriously, who would have thought that it was his own brother! This explained many things, like how he came to him instead of Zoe or any of the other hidden Von Weise survivors.

Maybe it wasn’t about the dragon bloodline after all, but about the demonic one that he didn’t know anything about!

This also answered the question of why his father who was tasked to hunt down Roy before after he came after Morris didn’t do a thing. He must have known that it was his son and decided to secretly help him not realizing the guy would come back with revenge in mind!

For Victor, a few things that he couldn’t answer before were slowly getting clearer, but still, there were a few questions left unanswered, like how that guy became the young light lord, and what was the real reason he destroyed the entire Von Weise Archipelago!

It seemed really like his time travel had changed a lot of things…

He sighed, deciding to turn his attention to something else for now!

First, he decided to start with the appetizers. The cooking book!

He waved his hand making a chair and a desk appear in front of him.

He slowly sat at it and took out the cookbook from his storage space, putting it in front of him.

It was totally unbound thanks to that idiot demon throwing it to the ground, so Victor had to rearrange the pages first of all. It was not big of a deal at all as the book was only composed of only 100 pages with illustrations taking half of those.

So following the page number, he slowly restored it to its original order.

He first gave it a quick look, leafing through the pages in a few minutes to check the content. It was a completely normal cooking book, with only the recipes being a little strange, requiring a lot of unidentified kinds of meat!

Remembering the info he got from the old cannibal couple, he began to read the book’s chapters in an alternating fashion using the sequence of strokes that were itched on the leather cover.

The lines he read that way didn’t make any sense, but he knew better than to stop as he had heard of such strange books before.

It took him 30 minutes to finally reach the end as he needed to make sure that he would not make mistakes.

The moment he finished, the pages of the book all shone with a strange black light and he felt something enter his body.

; ;
WARNING

YOUR BODY HAD BEEN INFECTED WITH ʼCANNIBALISTIC ANIMAL CURSE, SSS’

YOU WILL NEED TO EAT 1 POUND OF FRESH HUMAN FLESH EVERY DAY TO LIVE…

; ;
WARNING

THE SKILL… CANNIBAL, B HAD BEEN ADDED

; ;
WARNING,

SKILL CONCEPT ALREADY EXIST…

SKILL DELETED!

UPGRADING EXISTING SKILL INSTEAD!

DEVOUR, X HAD BEEN LEVELED UP….

; ;
WARNING

THE SKILL MEAT SHIELD, D HAD BEEN ADDED

; ;
WARNING

THE SKILL ENHANCED SENSES, E HAD BEEN ADDED

; ;
WARNING

THE SKILL FLESH IDENTIFY, B HAD BEEN ADDED

; ;
ERROR!

HIGHER SKILL BLOODLINE IDENTITY ALREADY EXIST…

SKILL DELETED!

; ;
WARNING

THE SKILL EVIL COOK, AAA HAD BEEN ADDED.

; ;
WARNING

THE SKILL FLESH SEAL, AAA HAD BEEN ADDED.

; ;
WARNING,

SKILL CONCEPT ALREADY EXIST…

SKILL DELETED!

UPGRADING EXISTING SKILL INSTEAD!

MASTER SEAL, SS HAD BEEN LEVELED UP!

MASTER SEAL IS NOW SSS RANKED!

As Victor watched the series of notifications flash past his eyes, he quickly threw a dispelling talisman on himself and made sure the curse was gone before checking everything out.

First his devouring skill!

It had evolved, and now he would be able to activate it once a week!

Second, that meat shield skill… Its use was to make his body stronger like iron, being able to take on hits without getting injured. Sadly, he was not a masochist, so it was useless… No wait… It might be usable when facing a certain rabid girl and her infamous sword… YES… There was no useless skill!

Enhanced Senses were nothing special, just enhancing his senses to taste the food better!

Evil cook was a skill that allowed him to cook strange things and make them edible!

Lastly, he looked at his master seal skill that became SSS ranked.

Oh!

The upgrade gave him a new kind of slaves to create.

; ; BLOOD SLAVES (7/8) MIKE, ALEX, EMIRA, TOM, LIN, DANIAL, RITAFLESH SLAVES (0/50)
FLESH SLAVES, despite the name sounding stronger, were a nerfed version of blood slaves. By making the target willingly drink his blood or eat his flesh, the target would not be able to go against the masterʼs wishes.

The drawback was that, unlike the blood slave, he couldn’t really communicate or use his skill through this connection. It was like a form of contract. He also had to wait 24 hours before the blood got integrated with the target’s flesh and the seal became complete.

Still, it was not bad!

His profits from taking this book were plenty!

Sadly that demon already left with Lizor, or he was sure it would have jumped his body the moment he finished the book. Since it could directly control that guyʼs body, it was definitely a high-ranking demon! Maybe a really strong one!

Damn it… What a missed opportunity to have a nice meal! If he had known he would have damaged the book himself!

Victor sighed and shook his head. It’s no use crying over spilled milk!

Checking his body again to make sure nothing was wrong, he finally turned his head and looked at the main course.

The bookcases that were at the moment in front of him, continuing knowledge that he long yearned for!