Imperial Throne

Chapter 121: Cindy and Robin

Yam departed for White Mountain City on the third day after Monica left Westerburg.

He had deliberately staggered his departure from Monica's.

Over at Westerburg, he had already confirmed that no unexpected incidents would occur. This whole event was clearly a planned conspiracy; it was just that, for now, they could not determine what exactly the orchestrator intended to do. However, Yam guessed that once Hachi returned with his group from the Eaglehead Mountains, they would probably learn the general outcome.

Perhaps, the orchestrator himself had not anticipated that the situation would evolve in such a dramatic way, escaping his intended setup.

Upon returning to the City Lord's Manor in White Mountain City, Lily came out immediately, holding the child in her arms.

Seeing the bright-eyed girl in Lily’s arms, Yam instantly felt at peace inside.

"I'm back," Yam said as he quickly stepped forward, gently embraced Lily, and kissed her forehead.

"Welcome home," Lily responded with a smile.

She watched as Yam reached out a finger to gently tease little Cindy. The child giggled under the teasing, and Lily’s expression grew even softer. “You just got back—want to rest for a bit first? I’ll ask the kitchen to prepare more of your favorite dishes tonight.”

White Mountain Territory had gained a considerable sum through a newly formed trade channel that relied on raiding smugglers.

But that didn’t mean White Mountain Territory had become a wealthy land. The lives of the citizens had not seen much improvement. If this business of raiding smugglers could not be sustained, the territory would immediately revert to its original state. Therefore, all the profits from this trade had been entirely invested in the development of Westerburg.

So, although Lily could ask the kitchen to prepare more food that Yam liked, it would only be an increase in portion size, not in variety.

"No need, just the usual is fine," Yam shook his head slightly, then reached out and took Cindy from Lily’s arms. “Let’s go. She seems a bit heavier now.”

“She eats and sleeps, then wakes to eat again. My working hours have been cut down a lot lately,” Lily said, somewhat complaining. “The physician said in half a year or so, we could start trying to feed her some gruel and milk. I’m thinking of buying a few cows. What do you think?”

The City Lord's Manor had a dedicated milk supply, purchased from the city’s bakeries, which needed milk for some of their recipes.

But if Cindy also needed milk, then from a practical standpoint, it would clearly be more convenient to keep a few cows at the manor. That said, the manor would have to allocate space for a cattle shed, which might compromise its overall aesthetics and integrity.

“I think it’s a great idea. Cindy’s growth is more important. If we really don’t want to affect the look of the manor, we could raise the cows at the foot of the mountain. It shouldn’t be a problem to establish a small ranch there.”

…

Robin looked at the little girl in Yam’s arms.

He observed carefully for a while before finally confirming a fact.

Cindy’s bloodline aptitude was slightly stronger than Yam’s.

Previously, when Ion had used him for the bloodline awakening experiment in an attempt to awaken the bloodline of those veteran soldiers, Robin had also conducted sample observations.

He had drawn a conclusion from that.

It wasn’t that the bloodline potions derived from the Demonic Sword were ineffective, but rather that the bloodline awakening potions he directly extracted required a higher natural aptitude from the user: only those with naturally higher aptitude could fully unleash the awakening potion’s effects. Otherwise, the average person could only achieve fifty to seventy percent of the result.

In a memory that came back to Robin after Yam killed those Forest Witches and took their blood energy, there was one particular scene.

One of his previous wielders, upon realizing this flaw, had developed the so-called bloodline potions through various experiments—potions that allowed people with lesser natural aptitude to also fully manifest the corresponding awakening power.

That could be considered a form of progress for the era.

However, this method came with significant hidden dangers—namely the bloodline advancement path.

Due to the “pollution” from other ingredients in the potion formulas, bloodline users retained a certain amount of toxin accumulation in their bodies. Although these toxins normally remained dormant, they could be instantly activated when triggered by different potion formulas. This was the reason why bloodline users who failed to advance always died.

That was why Robin's second inherent ability was [Purification].

It removed all those toxins and produced the purest bloodline potions.

This ability was originally supposed to be a last resort, an insurance mechanism. But clearly, for the Soderbell Family, his second ability was the truly crucial one. In fact, this was indeed the case—because if they used his first ability, [Extraction], to awaken a bloodline, then neither Yam nor Akar would even need the ability of the Flame Demon Hound. Even with just the Flame Hound, they could exhibit seventy percent of its power.

In reality, their aptitude was not significantly superior to those veteran soldiers.

The only difference was that those veteran soldiers needed to go through a life-and-death ordeal for the power of their aptitude to be revealed; whereas Yam and Akar, the two brothers, didn’t need to undergo such a life-threatening adventure — from this point alone, the brothers’ aptitude was actually slightly superior to that of the veterans.

But Cindy was different.

Robin had seen the bloodline power flowing within her body to be remarkably pure. With such refined bloodline potential, even without using the ability of [Purification], the effect of [Absorption] alone would allow her to obtain the entirety of her bloodline power — unlike those veterans who could only obtain seventy percent of it.

At that thought, a new idea emerged in Robin’s mind.

…

Yam, who was holding Cindy, suddenly halted in his steps.

“What is it?” Lily, noticing Yam suddenly stop, asked with curiosity.

“The little one’s fallen asleep,” Yam replied softly. “I figured I should walk more gently.”

Lily returned with an amused expression, then reached out to take the sleeping Cindy from him. “This child is more adaptable than you think. If she’s asleep, as long as you don’t deliberately try to wake her, she’s not going to wake up that easily.”

Yam said nothing more, but his gaze towards Cindy became a little more complex.

After he held Cindy, the Demonic Sword strapped on his back suddenly began to tremble.

He didn’t know what this meant, but he was certain that a resonance effect had occurred between his daughter and the Demonic Sword — just like when he neared the missing components of the Demonic Sword and it would give a response.

He just couldn’t figure it out — his daughter wasn’t one of the missing components of the Demonic Sword, so what did its tremble just now signify?

Afterward, Yam’s behavior didn’t change from the usual.

He ate, rested, and chatted idly with Lily. It wasn’t until late into the night, when Lily’s breathing grew steady, that Yam opened his eyes from where he lay on the bed. Then, he walked over to the cradle and gently picked Cindy up.

The little one wasn’t asleep, but she wasn’t crying either. Since Lily had just fed her, she simply opened her eyes and curiously observed everything around her.

Yam carried Cindy out of the room and entered his small study.

Because of its danger and uniqueness, the Demonic Sword hadn’t been placed in the bedroom with him and Lily, but was instead stored in this study that no outsider had ever entered. It was precisely for this reason that Yam only now discovered the resonance effect between the Demonic Sword and his daughter.

With Cindy in his arms, Yam carefully extended his hands, letting her get close to the hilt of the Demonic Sword.

He didn’t dare let her near the blade.

The sharp edge wouldn’t spare even the wielder, and with Cindy’s nature, if she reached out to grab it, she would definitely be hurt. So Yam only dared to let her approach the harmless hilt.

“Ah.”

Just as Yam had expected, the curious Cindy immediately reached out to touch the hilt of the Demonic Sword.

In that moment, the Demonic Sword suddenly emitted a gentle glow.

…

Robin, who resided within the sword, immediately drew upon the blood power of the five leaders of the Forest Witches and merged it into Cindy’s body.

The blood power of that Forest Witch leader was nearly equivalent to that of a Third-Tier Bloodline User. Though the power had dissipated upon death and such pure blood power was difficult to activate, in Robin’s eyes, it was essentially a blank Bloodline Certificate — unlike the drop of True Blood from Burton Kasein, which was already marked with a path of advancement.

For Bloodline Users who possessed a Bloodline Imprint, as long as they followed the path recorded in the Bloodline Certificate to advance their bloodline tier, they could progress upward without fearing death due to failed advancement — of course, this didn’t guarantee they would reach Fourth-Tier or higher, but it did mean they wouldn’t die from accumulated internal toxins when attempting to advance.

In fact, the Bloodline Potions provided through [Absorption] also had this effect — the Soderbell Family simply didn’t know it.

At this moment, the reason Robin gave Cindy such a portion of blood power was because he wanted to test whether this kind of “blank Bloodline Certificate” from the Forest Witches possessed further uses and value — for example, whether it could raise Cindy’s bloodline aptitude.

And the result left Robin pleasantly surprised.

Cindy’s bloodline aptitude truly improved by a small margin!

However, Robin soon realized that this enhancement was a one-time effect, because when he attempted to merge a second drop of the Forest Witch’s True Blood into Cindy’s body, he inexplicably sensed a warning — doing so would kill Cindy!

And that wasn’t all.

Robin also discovered that to fuse the Forest Witch’s blood power into a bearer’s body, they needed to possess the appropriate natural talent.

Someone like Yam or Akar, whose aptitude was insufficient, also couldn’t gain this enhancement.

…

Yam had no idea his daughter’s aptitude had improved at that moment.

When he saw the Demonic Sword emit a soft glow, he immediately sensed that something was wrong, hurriedly pulled his daughter back into his arms, and saw that she had already fallen asleep. Her breathing was calm and peaceful, not harmed in the slightest. In fact, it seemed more like she had exhausted her energy and simply dozed off.

After a brief hesitation, Yam reached out and grasped the hilt of the Demonic Sword.

In the next instant, his expression became somewhat strange.

Because — he had actually received information from the Demonic Sword.

This was the first time he had ever received such a clear instruction!