One setback after another had left Count Raymond thoroughly disappointed in his son. Yet after his disappointment, he only grew more "determined."
Make no mistake — he had no intention of wasting more effort on a talentless idiot boy. The Count channeled all his "effort" into his beautiful wife instead.
If this son was good for nothing, destined to be unable to inherit the family or carry its glory forward… then he would simply have to father another son.
After a month of trying, the Count's efforts finally bore fruit. The Countess soon became pregnant again, and the following winter, Count Raymond welcomed his second son, just as he had hoped.
While the entire manor celebrated the joyous news, Dwight remained in his room, carefully reading the books on **Potionology** he had managed to collect.
Thankfully, Master Clark's last words before leaving had not fallen on deaf ears. With a "how could things possibly get any worse?" attitude, the Count had simply let his idiot son study Potionology.
For nearly months, the Count did not bother to visit the son who had utterly disappointed him. Even the Countess, who had always been loving toward Dwight, had to reduce her visits due to her pregnancy and impending labor.
On the day after his mother gave birth to his little brother, Dwight was led by a servant to the Count's chamber to visit his weakened mother and his newborn sibling.
The Count was clearly delighted. The new baby boy fit the Rollin family tradition perfectly — he had a loud, strong cry, and even as a newborn, it was obvious he would grow up strong and sturdy.
Count Raymond did not even bother to glance at his useless elder son. After a perfunctory greeting, he waved him away. Though the Countess lying in bed felt a pang of pity, the newborn's cries immediately drew her attention.
Dwight quietly withdrew. Behind him, he heard the Count's satisfied laughter and the infant's wailing. Even with his heart long numb, Dwight could not help but feel a flicker of loss.
He told himself: Stop thinking nonsense. You do not belong to this world. He is not your father… and she… she is not your mother, either.
But when he thought of that stormy night, when this beautiful woman had knelt before the Goddess's statue all night praying for him, a sharp ache twisted in Dwight's chest. He shook his head hard.
Forcing aside his chaotic thoughts, Dwight poured all his attention into his studies.
It was undeniable that Dwight was deeply curious about magic in this world. Even though Master Clark had declared he had no magical talent, the unwilling Dwight still clung to a sliver of hope. And the noble Count's manor naturally boasted a considerable collection of books, many of them about magic.
After reading countless volumes, Dwight had to admit that Master Clark had been right — he truly lacked the talent to become a magician. No matter how long he sat meditating, even for an entire day and night, he could not sense the slightest fluctuation of magical elements. Once, he had even fallen asleep mid-meditation.
Still refusing to give up, Dwight turned his focus to the **Magical Potionology** Master Clark had mentioned.
After all, Potionology was still a branch of magic, and a potion brewer was technically a type of magician. Though, after asking the manor's servants, Dwight learned exactly how lowly people in this world regarded this "type of magician."
Officially, everyone claimed potion brewers were magicians — even the Magic Academy had written it down in black and white. But deep down, everyone secretly thought: Is that even considered magic?
Potionology, as the name suggested, was the study of brewing all kinds of magical potions.
After hearing enough talk, Dwight came up with an accurate comparison: if the medical field of his past life was anything to go by, real magicians were like specialized doctors in a hospital. Potion brewers, though… they were little more than nurses assisting the doctors. They worked in the same place, but nurses were far beneath doctors in status and income.
Yet after studying it carefully, Dwight grew extremely interested in Potionology!
To him, it was a completely new field.
For example… how to use the eyes of a Dologe Jumping Frog and purple Wormwood to brew a potion that would render someone mute for a short time. Or how to grind the saliva of a Stavin Scale Dragon, clover, and the liver of a Keke Triangle-scaled Fish into a powder that could turn people to stone.
Or how the extract of Firescale Grass, dried and crushed into powder, could ignite instantly when scattered anywhere.
The problem was, nine out of ten of these strange plants and creatures — Jumping Frogs, Scale Dragons, Triangle-scaled Fish, Firescale Grass — were completely unheard of to Dwight.
What did it remind him of?
It was just like the chemistry system of his old world!
Dwight had never imagined magic could be understood this way!
Potions to silence, petrify, ignite… it was fascinating, was it not?
In Dwight's mind, a potion brewer was more like a physician — except physicians healed, while potion brewers specialized in making deadly poisons.
Little did Dwight know, this thought of his perfectly matched how the world saw potion brewers: **Poisoners**.
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Days passed. Dwight remained obsessed with Potionology. Yet his knowledge stayed only on paper. After all, even the wealthy Rollin manor did not have the bizarre ingredients described in the books.
Only the laboratories of real magicians kept such materials. And in the magical world, potion brewers usually served only as assistants to proper magicians.
Besides, no one would dare hand dangerous magical herbs to a child — even the Count's son.
Six years slipped by quietly. In those years, Dwight's younger brother thrived. Named **Gabriel**, the boy was the very model of a Rollin heir, in stark contrast to the idiot Dwight.
Gabriel had been healthy and energetic from a young age. At six years old, he had already begun training under Captain Alpha the Swordsman, who spoke highly of the Count's second son. Almost everyone in the manor saw him as the future hope of the Rollin family!
The Count clearly poured all his affection into his second son. He had even decided that in two years, when Gabriel turned eight, he would personally teach him the Rollin family's ancestral Battle Qi.
Gabriel was loved by the servants, praised by the captain, doted on by his father, and even his tutor declared him exceptionally talented. Word even spread that the Count, for the sake of the family's future, planned to arrange a prestigious marriage for his six-year-old son with another noble family of the capital.
Meanwhile, Dwight — the family's firstborn — was forgotten in the shadows.
The Count barely saw his elder son once a month. Only the Countess still visited him often in private. Sometimes late at night, she would slip into Dwight's room in her nightgown, barefoot, hold her poor son, and sing lullabies until he fell asleep.
Only in those moments did Dwight's heart soften. Sometimes he had to pretend to sleep to avoid the urge to cry. The Countess's tears and sighs often accompanied him into his dreams.
Finally, when Dwight turned thirteen and Gabriel seven, the news came — the final decision from Count Raymond.
Starting the next year, he would personally teach Gabriel martial arts and the Rollin family's secret techniques. At the same time, Count Raymond had sealed a marriage alliance with the Empire's Minister of Finance. The political allies would strengthen their bond through this union, and Gabriel's future wife would be the Minister's nine-year-old granddaughter.
In truth, rumors said the marriage had been decided long ago — even before Gabriel was born!
Originally, *Dwight* had been the one promised to the Minister's daughter. But now that Dwight was written off as a hopeless idiot, the duty of binding the two families had fallen to his talented seven-year-old brother.
As for Dwight…
On a dark, windy night, he left the Imperial Capital in a carriage. His destination was the Rollin family's territory in **Cote Province**, in the southern part of the empire. The official announcement claimed: "Thirteen-year-old Master Dwight, soon coming of age, will travel to the family territory to oversee its properties."
But Dwight knew the truth: he was being exiled.
Oversee family properties? It was a joke. Everyone knew the family's important affairs lay in the Imperial Capital — the political heart of the empire. The properties on the family territory… farmlands, peasants, taxes? Those only required a few stewards.
The hard truth was, Dwight would leave the Count's manor for good and live in a run-down ancestral house in some countryside village in southern Cote Province. And… without the Count's summons, he would never return to the capital for the rest of his life.
Everyone understood: the title of "Heir to the Rollin Family" had been stripped from Dwight and passed to his seven-year-old genius brother.