About 15 minutes after the cake had been placed in the oven, a delicate, delicious fragrance began wafting through the kitchen. The heat in the wood-burning oven wasn't exactly even, so the cook time for something as delicate as sponge-cake varied a lot, but after several attempts at making this dessert over the past few months, Lucas had basically mastered it, so he knew the baking was only about half-done.
Another 10 minutes passed before Lucas popped open the oven and pulled out the custom-made grate on which the cake-pan was set. Poking it with a thin wooden skewer and seeing it come out clean, the young boy nodded before using a towel to remove the dessert completely.
The smell was so intoxicating that both Lucas and his mother wanted to eat the cake right then and there, but they knew doing so was a bad idea… from personal experience.
Setting the cake aside to cool for a bit, mother and son sat down at the kitchen table and continued talking in low voices, discussing just what they knew about the uninvited guests who had arrived in town and what they should be doing while the Roths were here.
The conversation was mostly Lucas asking questions, with Anna doing her best to answer her son's doubts. Of course, Lucas also explained how he had been in the eastern fields, spotted the Roth Family caravan, and gone to warn Sasha about it.
Through this discussion, Lucas had learned that the one who was leading the Roth Family caravan was named Madison, and he was the youngest son of the current Duke Roth.
It seemed this Madison Roth was 28 years old and a newly promoted First Step Sea Establishment Realm Practitioner. The 'trial' he was here to perform had something to do with that recent breakthrough.
Wrinkling his brow, Lucas couldn't help feeling a bit confused when he heard about the Duke's son's age and asked, "Is this Madison Roth talented, or not talented?"
Anna, Drake, and Sasha were all in their mid to late 30's, yet they were still in the Vein Opening Realm. As for the only Core Formation Realm expert in town, Charles, he was in his early 40's.
Comparatively, someone who was only 28 and had already reached the Sea Establishment Realm should be considered quite accomplished.
However, thinking about the difference in environment and resources available to the son of a Duke, Lucas wasn't sure what the standard should be.
Lucas himself was an outlier, having reached the Second Step Sea Establishment Realm at the age of 9. This didn't mean the boy thought he was supremely talented, of course; he knew that his breakthrough was an accident of sorts rather than his own ability. Still, it caused him to not know just how to judge the advancement rate of others.
Glancing out the window, making sure that the Roth Family guards weren't listening, Anna lowered her voice further and snickered, "Actually, that brat is probably one of the least talented noble kids I've ever seen."
Raising a brow, Lucas felt a bit stunned by this and asked, "You mean, his cultivation is considered slow among the children of nobles?"
Nodding, Anna replied, "Your father and I don't know much about the upper nobility, but your Aunt Sasha knows plenty and told us a thing or two during our travels."
"Oh, that makes sense," Lucas muttered, asking curiously, "So what counts as talented?"
Taking a moment to recall what her best friend had told her all those years ago, Anna did her best to explain, "Sasha said that for the Direct Descendants of the upper noble families, Counts and such, only those who reach the Sea Establishment Realm before the age of 25 are considered geniuses worth nurturing."
"Those who reach that point before the age of 27 are considered average and still given substantial resources, but receive no special treatment. Anyone who takes longer than that is considered not worth paying attention to."
Lucas was listening intently, absorbing this new knowledge while also trying to analyse his own situation.
Since his breakthrough to the Second Step Body Tempering Realm, Lucas had been cultivating extremely diligently, putting in an average of one and a half hours every day. That was on top of his regular training and all his other activities around town, which also contributed a bit to his progress.
With such dedicated effort, Lucas felt he was indeed close to breaking through to the Third Step, but it had already been about 9 months, which was about 50% longer than it had taken for him to go from the First Step to the Second Step.
Even if he was being extremely generous and calculated that each Step in the Body Tempering Realm took 3 months longer to reach than the previous one, that still meant that Lucas wouldn't reach the Vein Opening Realm until he was in his early 20's.
And that was assuming he could smoothly break through to the Vein Opening Realm in the first place. According to Lucas' understanding of cultivation, breaking through Minor Realms, Steps in this case, within the same Major Realm was far simpler than breaking through from one Major Realm to the next.
At that pace, Lucas felt he would lucky to reach the peak of the Core Formation Realm by the time he was 50!
Lucas had always known that with his limited aptitude and resources, there was no chance he could keep up with those noble sons and daughters, but when he really ran the numbers, he couldn't help feeling a bit depressed.
"How could the difference be so huge?" Lucas complained out loud, "Are all those nobles born with such incredible Innate Talent?"
Noticing the gloomy mood her boy was falling into, Anna smiled wryly and reached out to pat his head, "Don't worry too much, Son. Although those noble brats indeed have better talent normally, that's not the real reason they are able to cultivate so fast."
"I know," Lucas grumbled, "It's all about resources. It has to be."
"That's partially right," Anna acknowledged before shaking her head, "But there's more to it than just that."
Looking up, Lucas silently asked his mother to explain further, a request she obliged.
"The son of a Duke doesn't have to worry about feeding himself, or about earning money to buy resources, or about anything else in life, really. He lives in places where the World Qi is densest, eats the highest quality foods available, and has the best teachers and masters to train him. Even the room he sleeps in might be set up to help promote the rate of his cultivation! At least, that's what Sasha told me," Anna listed off everything her friend had explained to her about how noble kids lived.
Looking at her son seriously, Anna asked him, "Compared to those chosen few, the life you're living is much harder and poorer, so how could you possibly cultivate as fast as them?"
It was a harsh reality, but one that Lucas couldn't do anything about currently. Perhaps if he earned even more money, he could improve his living environment and cultivation rate, but it would still be some time before he obtained that kind of disposable income.
"Haa…" Letting out a long sigh, Lucas slumped over onto the table, mumbling under his breath, "I guess I just have to take one day at a time."
Anna knew her son well, and understood that he was just grumbling to himself and wasn't really depressed, so she just let him mope for now.
It took a few minutes, but Lucas eventually recovered, straightening himself up and smacking his cheeks before turning to the freshly made cake and deciding that the best thing to do right now was to have dessert!
After all, nothing cheered people up faster than sweets!
Quickly slicing up the cake, Lucas wisely served his mother a piece first before sitting down with his own, digging into the mid-day snack. It was a rare moment of laxity and indulgence for the boy, but he figured that after being unjustly attacked and forced to defend himself, he deserved a small break.
As he was munching on the cake, which if he was being honest was a bit dry due to being overcooked, Lucas thought back on everything his mom had just told him and found himself wondering, "If the young lord who came to Redwood Town is an example of talentless noble child, what counts as a true genius?"
"Hm?" Anna looked up from her piece of cake, which was already mostly gone thanks to it being the most delicious kind of dessert she had ever eaten.
"Oh," Lucas muttered, "I was just talking to myself, Mom."
"Still stuck on that, are you?" Anna said after swallowing down what was in her mouth, "A true genius, huh?"
Thinking about it for a moment, Anna mused, "I don't know if it's credible or not, but there were rumours going around some time ago about the youngest princess of our Rockwell Kingdom. Supposedly she's some kind of once in a 1,000 years prodigy that reached the Core Formation Realm last year at the age of 14."
"A 14-year-old Core Formation Practitioner?" Lucas gawked, a half-chewed piece of cake dropping from his jaw as he tilted his head doubtfully, "Isn't that a bit much? Are you sure it's not just the Royal Family trying to increase its prestige by claiming something so outrageous?"
"Possibly," Anna nodded, not taking offence at her son's disbelief, or his sloppy manners. She too found this rumour she heard from a traveling merchant to be somewhat unimaginable.
Shaking his head, Lucas dismissed this rumour out of hand. In his opinion, no matter how much of a genius one was, how could it be possible to reach the Core Formation Realm in just 4 years? It was simply absurd!
Just as the boy was laughing off this funny joke and was about to go back to his cake, the sound of voices echoed again from the backyard, drawing both Lucas and Anna's attention.
At some point, the sound of hammering had stopped, and now it seemed a discussion of some kind was happening. Whatever the Roth Family's blacksmith had been doing in Drake's smithy, he was apparently finished.
Getting up from the table, the mother and son duo moved to the window to try to see what was going on.
Outside the smithy, Drake was speaking with another middle-aged man who, unlike all the other Roth Family people, was wearing rough, sleeveless clothes, probably because he was a blacksmith who had just been working in a forge.
Despite the distance, Lucas could clearly make out the smug look of superiority on the man's face, one that seemed to have an innate, ingrained arrogance to it.
From the bits and pieces of the conversation Lucas was able to pick up, he could tell that his father was asking for something, and that the Roth blacksmith was haggling with him. The discussion was brief, with the Roth Family blacksmith eventually handing a pouch to Drake and then having his guards gather a bunch of cases and sacks before walking off.
As the group of 6 walked past the house, none of them even bothered to glance over at Lucas and Anna, treating them like air despite them being the family which lived here.
"Something's wrong," Anna muttered, drawing Lucas' attention.
"What do you mean, Mom?" Lucas asked.
Staring out towards her husband, Anna didn't quite know how to explain it to her son, but from the way Drake was acting, she could tell that whatever transpired between him and the Roth Family blacksmith hadn't been pleasant.