Adrian watched as the bishop nodded and told him that he’d give him a few books for training knights.

"That’s great." he said and leaned forward as he rested his elbows on his knees. "Every citizen of Oresfall will receive free treatment from the clerics of the church and you can price your services extremely expensively to the non-citizens if you need. Next, you will have to build a teleportation tower and you can build it inside the church too. Lastly, you’ll have to declare Oresfall as a holy site and go against anyone who tries to wage a war against us."

The two priests looked at Adrian and then glanced at their bishop who looked speechless.

"I... can agree to all these conditions except the last one. The royals will not allow it." he said as he stood up and headed to the main door.

"I’ll see you soon, Baron Adrian...." he said, his voice not holding any enthusiasm.

The bishop walked out of the house with blank soulless eyes. He had thought that this would be an easy task, but little did he know that the man he was dealing with, could milk him dry.

"Bishop..." the priest beside him said, "Are you alright? There is no need for us to actually build a church here. It’s his loss."

"Shut up. You don’t know a thing." the bishop said as he clicked his tongue and hurried out of the property.

Inside, Adrian let out a soft sigh.

"If only I could get them to take my side politically..." he muttered, "Unfortunately, in Crestwall Empire, every church must stay neutral no matter what."

Just then, a small head peeked out of Aria’s room and Adrian’s face immediately lit up.

"Good morning Aria!" he said, his voice loud and cheerful as he looked at the sleepy child.

"Papa... can you read this book for me? I can’t understand it." she said as she opened the door completely and trotted over to him with a leather bound book in her hands.

Adrian, curious about the book, picked it up. It had no title but when he opened the book, he immediately recognized the language.

In the past, before Aria was born and even before his marriage, he had taken the path of a scholar and learned multiple languages so reading this was a child’s play for him.

Fighting might not be his specialty thanks to his curse, but this was his domain.

He read through the contents in silence for a few seconds before he realised the value of this book.

Aria watched as his expression changed to that of fear first and then shock.

The novel he had read before his transmigration, had explained how the protagonist’s mana breathing technique worked in detail, but it had no information on most of the others.

Adrian had never heard of a breathing technique like this one.

’It’s similar in a way but the process is much more complex. In return, the amount of mana I take in, is also higher. This... is a godly method. If Aria learns it, I wonder how strong she’ll become.’ he mused as he skimmed through the rest of the pages.

He then looked at Aria.

"This is a mana breathing technique for mages, Aria. Do you want to learn it?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Aria looked confused for a moment.

’Why would you want me to learn it? Aren’t you going to learn it first? Even if I’m your daughter, you can’t be that selfless...’

She blinked twice and then nodded enthusiastically, "Yes! But only if papa does it with me."

Adrian nodded but quickly stopped himself as he looked at his daughter, "Do you know about your blessing and curse?"

Aria shook her head.

There was only one way of finding out about blessings and curses and that was by going to the church and letting a bishop or a higher ranked person pray to the god and ask for their insight.

This method was seriously flawed as it only revealed the answer if the person had a divine blessing or a divine curse.

There were two common situations.

First was if the person had a divine blessing. This was the best case scenario as they would get to know about both their divine blessing and the demonic curse.

The second situation was if the person had a divine curse along with a demonic blessing like Adrian. They would only receive information on their curse and would get no answer when it came to the blessing.

This was to keep the people blessed by demons in check, so that they couldn’t grow their strength easily as they wouldn’t be able to understand their own strengths.

But for Aria, both of her blessings were demonic and if anyone found out, it would not end well. In the novel that he read, his ex-wife had made sure that she never went to a church to find out about her blessings and this was a blessing in disguise.

But when Aria graduated from the Magic Academy, the first thing she did was to try and find out about her blessings. Little did she know, that she would be labeled as the spawn of the devil that very night.

Aria did not look comfortable with where this chat was going as she hoped that he wouldn’t take her to a church tomorrow.

She knew what would happen and she had already experienced it once.

"Hmm... blessings and curses." he said as he looked at the book, "I guess there’s still a lot of time for that."

He didn’t want the people to know about her.

All it would do, was destroy their peace and he knew that he had no way of protecting her if the entire world turned against them.

It was better to forget about it for now.

"Okay, let’s try this out the. Hmm... first, we need to activate your first circle and then we’ll be able to do the same breathing method together. Sit down cross legged." he said and the girl sat down obediently.