Chapter 420: Mission Recruitment

He looked at her seriously.

"So once you are done with a session, it is always highly recommended to actually go out and train like you usually do. Spar a little, exercise and all that stuff."

He turned to look at Serena.

"And this is the exact same for mages too. It is a good thing to always use a few spells, test around, and actually train instead of just doing this. This is a shortcut, yes. But just being strong does not mean that you are a great mage or a great knight. A knight with incredible stats and physical capabilities might not actually win against a weaker knight who has trained heavily in a specific form of fighting and is an expert with a sword."

Claire nodded.

"Yeah, don’t worry about that. As you know, I am extremely hardworking. Though there is one big issue..."

She paused and glared at him playfully.

"That issue is that I don’t think I will be able to walk properly for probably the next two to three days."

Adrian felt a little embarrassed, but that embarrassment quickly turned into pride and he just ended up smirking.

"Well, you were the one who told me not to stop."

Claire just lightly kicked his thigh under the sheets, but the kick barely did anything. Adrian easily caught her leg.

"Are you offering yourself to me right now?"

Claire tried to use her other leg to kick him again, but he quickly grabbed that ankle too.

"I want to go for another round," she huffed, "but I don’tthink it is a good idea. We need to leave tomorrow. Oh, wait, no. We need to leave in two days."

Adrian nodded and let go of her legs.

"Yeah, that is true."

He got off the bed and walked straight into the bathroom completely naked. He took a nice shower before walking back out with a towel around his waist.

He looked at them. "Do you guys need help showering?"

Before he could even finish his words, Serena sat up slightly on the bed.

"I don’t think having you in the bathroom with us is going to help. If you remember right, we tried it before, and the only thing that did was result in us doing it in the bathroom too."

She gave Claire a pointed look.

"And I still remember Claire getting overly excited. She basically slipped, and we all know what happened after that."

Adrian chuckled warmly.

"Well, I guess that is true. I will prepare a proper hot bath for you guys so that you will not even have to lift a finger. All you need to do is just soak in it. You know, similar to the one that your father had in his mansion at the capital."

Serena recalled the huge pool-like bathroom and smiled. "Yeah, that would be great."

"Okay then," Adrian smiled. "I am going to go gather the others and set up our plans for the expedition."

"Okay, take care," Serena said softly.

Claire just watched enviously as Serena tiptoed out of the bed toward Adrian and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek.

Compared to Serena, Claire had gone a lot rougher just because of how much energy she had. So in the end, while Serena couldn’t exactly walk easily either, she was in a much better state. Claire on the other hand, could barely feel her own legs.

She just looked at the two of them and pouted.

Adrian sensed this. He walked over to her side of the bed, leaned down, and gave her a deep kiss on the lips.

"I will see you guys later."

Before Claire could even say anything, he was already out of the room.

She just turned to look at Serena. "He is so unfair, isn’t he?"

Serena giggled. "Yeah, but I still love him."

"Of course, even I love him!" Claire huffed. "But this is just infuriating. How could he just kiss me without any warning?"

"Well, why are you acting like you didn’t like it though?"

Claire just glared at her and threw a pillow. "You shut up."

Adrian walked down to the main hall after checking on Aria’s bedroom. He didn’t get a reply when he knocked, so he just assumed she was probably outside.

He walked downstairs and saw Damien standing near the entrance.

"Where is Aria?" Adrian asked.

"Lady Aria went out to train with the knights, my lord," Damien replied respectfully.

Adrian nodded. "Okay."

He walked out of the mansion and headed straight for the training grounds. There he saw all of the soldiers going through their grueling routines.

The training grounds had been expanded by a lot. The five elite teens had gone from being mere trainees to officially becoming trainers. The reason was simple: they had ranked up from E-rank knights to D-rank knights.

Octavia, on the other hand, had gone further and pushed her way up to C-rank, which was insane. She was basically on Claire’s old level, and all it took her was two years of training without much external help.

She did use quite a bit of Adrian’s resources, mainly the mana-infused meat from the engineered dungeon cows. He had basically given the five teens access to an unlimited supply. While the rest of the army did also get the same meat, it was strictly rationed. But these five could eat however much they wanted, whenever they wanted.

He had told them to ask him for things if they needed anything else, but they hadn’t. So the meat was the only real advantage they had for now, and they had easily gotten their promotions because of it. Though, the main reason was the fact that they trained hard and they also had mana veins which made things a lot more easier for them.

Even though Hugo was officially a part of the medical squad at the moment, he was still acting as a trainer. The reason was pretty simple: he was basically bored to death.