He read through the information quickly and dismissed the screen with a thought. Then he rolled the parchment back up and handed it over.

"I have read it..." Adrian said, his voice soft as he looked at the duke. "And there are a lot of things that you need to know. If you force your daughter to undergo this ritual, it will destroy her, it will destroy you, and it will destroy your entire territory."

Silas froze, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up.

Because Silas had never told Adrian where he actually got that scroll. He had had secretly negotiated with a intelligent monster to acquire it. And judging by Adrian’s expression, the monster had completely tricked him.

Adrian on the other hand, stared at the system screen as he read all of it’s contents again and began connecting it to the stuff he remembered from the webnovel.

’Serena Ashford...’ he thought.

Back in the original story, Aria eventually found a mentor who was a completely ruthless and overpowered sixth circle mage. And that mentor was Serena.

But the novel never explicitly explained how the weak, F rank daughter of a Duke suddenly became such a strong mage all of a sudden. It only gave vague flashbacks that had hints about a ruined territory, a brutal civil war and an entire Duke’s family getting wiped off the map.

Serena was the only survivor, and after a few years from when she lost everything, she took Aria in as a student. The two of them traveled the continent together until Serena eventually sacrificed her own life to keep Aria safe.

Now Adrian connected the dots, he finally understood that everything that happened, was because of the blood sacrifice.

[Warning. Forbidden Blood Sacrifice Methodology Analyzed.]

[Advantage 1: Artificially boosts the mana veins and mana circle ranks in proportion to the amount of sacrifice.]

[Drawback 1: Maximum lifespan forcibly reduced by approximately 50 percent.]

[Drawback 2. Mana Vein Potential permanently locked upon completion. User cannot advance past acquired rank.]

[Drawback 3. Severe Negative Karma Accumulation.]

[Click here to read more.] 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Adrian read through it and let out a soft sigh.

The physical drawbacks were already terrible. Forcibly reducing a lifespan was not like receiving a demonic curse since curses just lowered your maximum age. You could still die a peaceful, natural death in your sleep when your time ran out.

But a blood sacrifice triggered an unnatural death. The world itself would actively try to kill the user in this situation.

And the third drawback was the absolute worst. Karma was a very real, thing in this world.

Slaughtering close to a hundred thousand innocent people to trigger mana veins mutation had it’s impacts. The user would accumulate a massive amount of negative karma of those who were sacrificed.

That negative karma acted like a magnet for bad things and if the amount was large enough, it brought horrific luck to everyone around the user. Family members would die, entire territories would collapse due to a chain of random events. If the blood sacrifice was big enough, the Karma would literally destroy everything the user ever loved.

That was exactly what happened in the novel. Serena got her power, but the Karma slaughtered her family and ruined her father’s territory.

She lost everything she held dear.

"Are you absolutely sure about this?" Silas whispered, pulling Adrian out of his dream world.

"I am..." Adrian said.

"Then I have failed." Silas slumped back into his leather chair. "I have no other options... I don’t know how I can help her."

Adrian watched him and let out another soft sigh.

He was not a saint and he did not care about saving the world. But he was a father.

And looking at Silas right now, Adrian saw exactly what he would look like if Aria was the one suffering.

"You do have another option." Adrian said.

Silas slowly raised his head.

"I have a method." Adrian stated calmly. "My mana veins used to be E rank and right now, they are D rank. I know a way to physically upgrade the potential of a mana vein without using a single drop of blood or dark magic."

The Duke stared at him, completely frozen.

"It is a slow process though." Adrian warned him. "It takes months of using a special mana breathing method, and it’ll consume a lot of mana crystals too.."

Hearing this, Silas practically threw himself across the desk. He grabbed Adrian’s right hand with both of his own. The most powerful Duke in the northern territory brought Adrian’s hand right up to his face, looking like he was about to kiss his knuckles in pure reverence.

"Please." Silas begged as tears actually welled up in his eyes. "Please help my daughter. I will give you everything I have in return. My treasury, my armies... Take whatever you want, but just help her."

Adrian awkwardly pulled his hand back. The intensity and honesty of the Duke’s gaze was a bit too much for him.

"There is no need for all of that." Adrian cleared his throat. "I will help her."

Silas dropped back into his chair. He let out a massive, shuddering breath of pure relief.

"But we need to set some ground rules." Adrian pointed a finger at him. "You cannot tell a single soul about this method. Not a single one."

"I swear that I won’t." Silas nodded frantically.

"This method was a direct gift from the Goddess of Prosperity." Adrian lied like a smooth criminal. "I am already taking a massive risk by sharing her divine guidance with an outsider. The only reason I am doing this is because I am a father too. If my Aria was suffering like your Serena, I would be sitting exactly where you are right now."

Silas pressed a hand over his own heart. "You have the eternal gratitude of the Ashford family, Baron Sterling. I will never forget this debt."

"Send her down to Oresfall." Adrian said. "I will handle her training personally."