Later that day, evening came to Millfall, and Vicente was at his house with Nina and Eve.
After returning home early, he'd taken advantage of the fact that Nova wouldn't be coming to the estate until late tonight since she was busy. He gave the second stage plant he'd bought at the auction the day before to Eve.
Filipendula Jaburan had an orange pentagram, so he had given it to Eve to absorb that essence about three hours ago.
Now, he was looking after his little sister while Eve finished her absorption when he felt a change in the mana around his residence.
'It looks like Eve will succeed now.' He smiled as he looked over to see Nina reading a book on her bed.
Seeing her brother looking away and smiling, Nina asked. "Big brother, did aunt Eve finish? Was she successful?"
"It seems so. Finish your reading so we can go see her." Vicente looked at Nina with a smile on his face as he saw this girl getting excited.
Nina was really excited that Eve was getting stronger. The blonde woman was currently at level 2 of the 2nd state, which meant that she desperately needed a second pentagram.
After tonight, Eve would be able to start looking for level-ups again and would probably become a level 3 Acolyte in no time!
How did Eve advance so quickly with so little talent? Nina had no idea until that night.
But after discovering that her brother had managed to 'buy' Eve a pentagram, Nina realized that her older brother wasn't as simple as she had thought.
She knew that her old father, even in his prime, couldn't do the same. But how had Vicente, who had only inherited the Fuller family, grown so much that he could do this in such a short time?
Nina was full of doubts in her heart, but she didn't want to tell her brother about it because she already knew he wouldn't tell her the truth, at least not yet.
Not only that, but he was rather careless in front of her. Maybe because he thought she was too naive or didn't understand things, not only Vicente but especially the men in the Fuller family often let their guard down when they were with Nina.
Because of this, she was learning more and more about her brother, and she didn't want to spoil everything by trying to talk to him and force him to be more careful around her.
"I'm done, brother!" She said as she put down her book and jumped out of bed, taking the lead in going to see Eve.
By the time they reached the lower level of the Fuller mansion, Eve had come out of her meditative state and had a big smile on her face as she closed her eyes and felt her new power.
"This is a really good power. I'll be able to help heal family members with it." She murmured as she felt Nina and Vicente looking at her.
Vicente said to her. "I will try to help you absorb pentagrams of a similar nature in the future."
"Thank you, Vice. But don't worry about me. Everything you've already given me is more than I ever dreamed of."
As she said this, she picked up the body of the medicinal plant and said. "Now I'm going to make the Filipendula Jaburan soup. Wait about 15 minutes, and I'll serve it."
Cooking a magical resource was like cooking any ordinary food.
However, there was a difference between an ordinary person who used magic items to cook and a chef who did the same.
The cook would preserve as much of the mana and elements in their ingredients as possible. Through their special skills, they would greatly increase the power of that dish.
In other words, imagine that a certain dish requires 3 ingredients to prepare, and each ingredient has 10 units of mana and pure elements. Looking at their total units, you might think that the final dish would have 30 units, but in practice, that wasn't the case.
If an ordinary person cooked those ingredients, the final dish would have less than 30 units. But if a professional cook did the same thing, the dish would have more than 30 units, sometimes more than double the units of energy and elements in the ingredients.
That was possible because of the cooks' magical abilities!
But even an ordinary person could prepare a special meal.
Since there weren't many professional cooks in Millfall who could handle Filipendula Jaburan, Vicente hadn't gone looking for one. So Eve was the one who would cook Nina's soup.
Vicente and Nina sat around the kitchen island of that house, watching Eve prepare the soup, the young black-haired girl looking intently at the special plant that the blonde woman was cutting.
Isn't that the Filipendula Jaburan?' Nina wondered, recognizing the item that had been auctioned the night before.
The auction the night before had been the talk of the students at the academy Nina attended. She had talked about the event with practically all of her friends today.
That's why she knew all the items from the previous day's auction and their appearance and properties.
'How did big brother get that plant? I stayed at the auction entrance until the last person entered the local theater, and I didn't see him pass by. What's more, my colleagues said that Cesar Mazzanti was the one who took this plant. Why is it here?" She wondered as she watched as Eve cooked.
Over the next few minutes, Nina considered many possibilities, remembering that her family had previously rented House Mazzanti and the possibility that Vicente still had dealings with Cesar.
'He must have gone to the auction with Cesar's group...' She thought, imagining that this was the most likely scenario. 'That makes sense! The older brother must have paid a fortune to get that man to buy it for him. And it was probably all because of me...'
She looked at Vicente and clenched her little fists, feeling even more grateful for her big brother, who always took care of her, even when he couldn't be there for her.
'One day, I'll be strong enough to help you, big brother!'
After making this vow, Nina saw Eve serving Filipendula Jaburan's soup.
It didn't take long for her to devour the soup, while Eve and Vicente tried only a few spoonfuls, leaving it to this child to take as much soup as she could.
The medicinal effects of Filipendula Jaburan were not immediate, especially considering how fragile Nina's body was. It would take months or even two years for her tiny body to absorb this plant's medicinal power. So Vicente and Eve didn't expect her condition to improve immediately.
They just looked at Nina with hope, expecting that this soup could somehow help this little girl.
