Massive thorny vines as thick as a grown man's waist, covered in barbs, broke through the ground with billowing dust, growing from the earth like coarse and menacing giant pythons. Under Borrell's control, they came crashing down heavily toward Sean!
Boom boom boom...
The manor's flat ground was riddled with numerous trenches and craters under the bombardment of these massive, thorny vines.
Sean watched the thorny vines twisting and swaying toward him, his wand moving continuously to sever the vines at their roots. At the same time, he pointed his wand forward, flames rising and transforming into fire clouds that rapidly spread across the ground, while flames formed into fire serpents that writhed toward Borrell.
Borrell extended his hand, pointing toward the artificial lake on the left. Large amounts of water gushed from the lake, intercepting the fire serpents. When water met fire, massive amounts of steam erupted and spread outward.
Looking at the steam blocking him and Borrell, both Sean and Borrell on the other side cast spells toward each other almost simultaneously. Red and deep purple lights pierced through the steam and collided, countless sparks and electrical currents radiating outward from the center of their colliding spells as both entered a formal magical power contest.
However, before their contest could reach a conclusion, a white light mist descended between Sean and Borrell. Gavin emerged from it with a serious expression, raising one hand as a pure white wand appeared in his grasp. Following Gavin's wand movements, a golden thread of light extended from his wand tip and, under his guidance, wrapped around both combatants' colliding spell beams.
As the golden thread wound around them, Gavin flicked his wand upward, causing the colliding spell beams to immediately tangle with each other under the golden thread's interference, flying up into the sky where they exploded in mid-air and dissipated into nothing.
At this moment, Sean noticed the prompt on his panel.
[Duel Concluded!]
[Conditions Met: Draw Against Magical Opponent.]
[System Commencing Reduced Ability Extraction from Defeated Target: Borrell Bulstrode.]
[Ability extraction count reduced due to draw result.]
[Extracting...]
Sean felt a sharp, thorny sensation prick at his magical core—brief but intense, like being stabbed by a thousand needles made of pure malice before the feeling dissolved completely.
[Extraction Complete!]
[New Curse Acquired: Thorn Curse LV5]
Seeing the panel prompt, Sean's steps, which had been preparing to leave, suddenly stopped.
First, spell levels had seven tiers, from LV0 to LV5MAX. In other words, after LV4 came LV5, then finally LV5MAX.
Of course, what Sean focused on wasn't the level of this Thorn Curse, but rather that under this level, the Thorn Curse's power that Borrell had just displayed was far inferior.
In other words, during the battle between Borrell and Sean, he had deliberately held back!
Why would he hold back? There was no reason!
Unless Borrell wasn't simply trying to go easy but wanted to hide his true strength in front of someone.
As for this person's identity, it was naturally the current head of the Bulstrode family—Gavin Bulstrode!
How interesting. Was he even guarding against his own father?
This cheap Uncle Borrell seemed to have quite grand ambitions indeed.
Not long after Sean returned to the Bulstrode family mansion, Aldrich hurried over. Seeing that Sean didn't have any major problems, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Young Master, I'm glad you're alright."
"Aldrich, how did your chat with your friends go?"
"Thank you for your understanding, Young Master. We had a good talk."
"Then the trip wasn't wasted."
Borrell left Bulstrode Manor with Marcellus and Doris, heading to Doris's maternal family—the Flint family—where they planned to stay for a while.
Sean wasn't surprised by Borrell's departure, or rather, his avoidance.
During the remaining time at Bulstrode Manor, Sean, accompanied by Aldrich, took a general tour before settling in the family library within Bulstrode Manor to read various books.
The Bulstrode library had a very complete collection, and many books not sold outside could be found here. Sean found relevant books on potions, transfiguration, and alchemy, reading them with great interest under Aldrich's companionship.
Originally planned to stay only one day at Bulstrode Manor, but due to the warm hospitality, Sean's family of four ended up living at Bulstrode Manor for nearly three days.
"Sean, how has your time living at Bulstrode Manor been?"
Hearing Gavin's words, Sean nodded lightly, "It's been very good, thank you for your hospitality, Grandfather."
"By the way, those books you've been reading recently, you can take them back to continue reading. This isn't Hogwarts, the Bulstrode family library doesn't have those unnecessary restrictions. If you want to read them, just take them. It doesn't matter if you don't return them."
"Thank you, Grandfather."
In fact, Sean really did have some books he wanted to borrow, but he hadn't mentioned it before because he didn't know if the Bulstrode family library would agree. Now that he had Gavin's permission, Sean naturally wouldn't be polite.
"Sean, what do you think of this Bulstrode Manor?"
Gavin's sudden question caught Sean off guard for a moment, but he quickly responded, "The environment here is very good, I like it very much. The cultivation area villages are also quite nice, they can help more children."
"Sean." Gavin looked at Sean, "I'm planning to separate out the cultivation area. Are you interested in taking it over?"
"Take it over?" Sean looked at Gavin as if looking at a madman, "I still need to study, and I have my own research. I simply can't handle this responsibility."
Gavin had already known Sean would refuse, so he directly told Sean, "That's why I've arranged for Aldrich to serve as your attendant. With him acting as your proxy, I think there shouldn't be any problems."
Aldrich?
If it was him, then of course there would be no problem.
Moreover, the key point was that Aldrich already had extensive connections in the cultivation area, with very good relationships. Some children even regarded Aldrich as an idol, so managing it wouldn't waste too much effort.
However, Sean didn't immediately agree. He just looked at Gavin and asked, "Grandfather, please tell me honestly, what exactly do you want to do!"