Another mage produced two pages of data and handed them to Helen Su. The Legendary Mage scanned them and practically jumped up. "He improved the Fireball spell? Let me see... seven improvements in total! Truly impressive—casting a Level 3 Fireball as a Level 1. Even back in my day..."

  The Legendary Mage abruptly cleared her throat before continuing, "When I first became a Level 1 mage, I could only manage four or five Fireballs myself. But the kid's a real genius! A Construct Master, too, and with the Akmond bloodline! Heh heh, hehe, haha!"

  Helen Su pored over the two pages, reading them again and again, finally bursting into laughter. Through her uninhibited laughter, the Legendary Mage said to the Grey Dwarf, "Alright, let's adjust Richard's budget for the month. Hmm, increase it under the item 'My Delight'..."

  Before she could state the specific amount, the Grey Dwarf, intimately familiar with Her Highness's temperament, immediately cautioned loudly, "Your Highness, you seem perhaps too pleased right now!"

  Understanding the implication, the Legendary Mage couldn't entirely stifle her laughter but decided nonetheless to postpone the budget adjustment.

  At this very moment, the future Saint Construct Master remained completely unaware of all this. Richard stood naked in the bathroom, dumping a basin of roughly-drawn cold water over his head. He had long since turned off the magical heating in his quarters. Comfortable as it was, maintaining a constant temperature year-round cost a steep 1000 gold coins a month. The shock of icy water splashing over him made every muscle in Richard's body clench involuntarily. Yet only this could quell the boiling blood surging through his veins.

  From the brawl with Papan before the duel to those terrifying kicks in the arena, Richard still couldn't understand why he had acted so savagely. Was it Papan’s insult to his mother? Surely that wasn't the whole reason. Grabbing Papan’s head and smashing it into the ground, preparing that second fireball in the arena—both could have been fatal. Richard, still possessed of a mountain youth's simple sense of justice, believed Papan deserved punishment—even harsh punishment—but certainly not death. Yet at that moment, stinging from the insult, he’d felt a searing rush of blood to his head, his entire body ablaze as if tossed into a furnace. In that state, Papan became utterly loathsome to him; Richard felt that even tearing the man limb from limb wouldn't have been enough to quench the hatred burning in his chest! Smashing Papan’s face into the ground had only been the start. In the arena, Richard would have willingly overdrawn his mana just to incinerate Papan then and there. That second fireball would absolutely have turned Papan—stripped of all magical defense—into a human torch, burning him alive.

  Overdrawing mana is a cardinal sin for mages. Depending on the extent of the overdraft, mild cases could slow mana recovery for anywhere from a month to several years; severe cases could cause the mage's power to drop a level, or even prove fatal. It was a steep price, but Richard had been willing to pay it simply to kill Papan. Yet even killing Papan a hundred times over wouldn't have sated the rage burning in his heart at that moment.

  After the duel, Richard was dazed, barely aware of how he’d gotten back to his quarters. He only vaguely sensed far more people around him than usual, their anxiety and concern almost palpable.

  When Richard truly awoke, it was already the third day after the duel.

  The aftereffects of his boiling blood lingered, making Richard fight the urge to seek Papan out again. He quickly realized his state was far from normal; his temper had become unusually short, surges of murderous intent welled up from deep within him, and he sometimes felt he couldn't control his own actions. Even now, he desperately wanted to smash something, anything, just to find some release for the fury coiled within him.

  Splash! He doused himself again with another basin of cold water.

  Although Richard's body was far sturdier than that of an average boy, the icy water left him shivering uncontrollably, his face pale. But as the initial wave of cold subsided, he felt the heat in his blood stir once more, this time even causing a faint resonance with his internal mana. Richard gritted his teeth. With numb, stiff hands, he grabbed the wooden bucket again, filled it to the brim with water, then scooped up a shovelful of crushed ice and dumped it in. Even these simple movements were difficult; most of his joints were stiff, and his fingers were completely numb.

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  Just as Richard struggled to lift the heavy wooden bucket, a clear, sweet voice suddenly called out from behind him, "Hey! Anyone in there? Time to eat!"

  This shock came out of nowhere and made Richard's mind go blank, just like when he was a child in the mountain forest and was quietly hitched from behind by a seat wolf on his neck. The instincts honed in the mountains made him immediately throw down the barrel and reluctantly lunge backward in an attempt to fight the attacker to the death. As soon as he turned around, Richard saw a young girl standing in the doorway of the shower stall, looking in with her head sticking out. Richard recognized it as the teenage girl who had been delivering his bills, but could no longer control his stiff body and pounced straight on the teenage girl, tackling her to the ground.

  Richard had grown close to an eighteen or nineteen year old teenager and was about the same size as the teenage girl. The young girl was crushed underneath and immediately yelped in pain.

  Somehow, Richard's always clear mind had now become a little drowsy, and things that he could usually think clearly in an instant now took a long time to understand. His body temperature had already dropped to a very low level, but those deep-seated boiling blood were still restless. Moreover, the girl underneath him had very thin clothes, the dark blue magical robes had the function of keeping her warm, even in winter, there was no need for too many clothes, so through the light and soft material, he could clearly feel the shape of the girl's body as well as her fiery body temperature. The collision between the cold skin and the hot body of the young girl instantly made Richard's senses increase to an unprecedentedly sharp state. The young girl's body was both soft and elastic, full of youthfulness. Richard suddenly had a strange feeling, as if a certain part of his body was awakening. And the boiling hot blood seemed to have found a target and surged downward in unison. However, the blood veins leading to the awakened part didn't seem to be very smooth, and with the potency of the several large buckets of ice water in front of him still in place, the progress of the boiling hot blood became slow after advancing for a short distance.

  “How is it you? How did you get in here?” Richard asked in surprise as he struggled to maintain his limited lucidity.

  “I'm in charge of bringing you food now. But you keep falling asleep, I've been here twice already, how did I know you would suddenly disappear ...... Ouch!” The young girl innocently said, she had been knocked over and crushed by Richard, falling to the point of dizziness, and only now was the pain around her body starting to be severe. Although she was already an official level two magician, but magicians didn't have a strong physical body like warriors, and most magicians' bodies weren't much stronger than ordinary people.

  It was only then that Richard remembered that he still had the young girl underneath him, and apologetically tried to get up, but the cold and stiff joints didn't allow him to do so, and just as he propped up half of his body, he flopped on top of the young girl again, and he struggled a few more times, but it seemed like he was intentionally grinding himself on the young girl's body. In the end, Richard was no warrior, and the potency of those buckets of icy water wasn't something that passed easily.

  The girl's face violently flew up a layer of red, subconsciously reaching out to push away Richard. However, when she touched Richard's young but hard body, she suddenly changed her mind and changed from pushing to hugging, her body wriggled uncontrollably underneath Richard, like a cat that refused to be at peace even after being held down. Her eyes were half-closed, and her body kept pushing up, rubbing Richard's slightly shaped pecs with her soft breasts. Moans still drifted from her throat, but they were more than just tinged with pain, they were also slightly disoriented and gasping.

  Richard was a little surprised at the young girl's reaction; she had clearly started out trying to help him stand up, so how had she suddenly become a hindrance? However, the young girl's reaction gave him another kind of strange sprouting, in his eleven years of life, it was the first time he had such a strange feeling of his heart beating faster. Suddenly, Richard actually felt that it was also very good to just press her like this, somewhat not wanting to get up. And the softness felt in front of his chest, is it the girl's breasts, it's really comfortable. If only they were bigger ......

  This was not a wild thought, but was backed up by ample data. Richard had been given almost all the data of the young girl's body, and the gifts of precision and intellect had come into play at the same time in this moment, to the point of constructing equations describing it for certain changes in important curves. Once again, the numbers allowed Richard to experience beauty, only to be an anachronism. With a layer of numbers and formulas, the impact of the budding sensation was immediately diminished by more than half. But it was true that the young girl's size was not advantageous compared to the other women in his memory.

  Is not bad! Age is also an important variable that affects key numbers. Once again, the two talents came together to correct Richard's erroneous viewpoint.

  Just then, one of the young girl's bouncy legs suddenly poked out from the hem of her magic robe and inserted itself between Richard's legs, then lifted upwards and kicked hard at Richard!

  In an instant, little Richard's eyes were full of fluttering numbers without the slightest connection to each other.