Aria froze, blinking her eyes as she stared up at Adrian cutely.

"Papa can just use his own mana," she said. "So I didn’t use a stone."

Adrian gave a slow nod. "Fair point."

He looked into his dungeon and soon, a handful of ingredients appeared right in front of him as he touched his earring. He tossed a heavy block of butter onto the hot cast-iron skillet next and it began melting immediately.

The harsh popping sound came out as he tossed a decent amount of crushed garlic and some green herbs into the melting butter. And while stirring the whole thing with a wooden spoon, he glanced at Aria.

"So what did you do with all those crystals I gave you?" Adrian asked casually.

Aria stared at him.

"I have another surprise for you Papa," Aria deflected smoothly. "But I will only show you after I eat."

"Deal." Adrian grinned.

Eating rare meat in this backwards era was basically a death sentence. Most people would cook their beef until it was completely just to kill off the the bacteria so that they didn’t get sick later. The nobles weren’t spared from this fate unless they had a mage who was really good at using purification magic.

Even with that, old habits die hard.

The dungeon system bypassed all that garbage. It filtered out the toxins automatically, leaving behind perfectly safe meat which could be turned into an absolute luxury.

On top of that, Adrian wasn’t from this world, so he wasn’t limited by their preconceptions and customs.

He just grabbed a beautifully marbled piece of meat with his bare hands and tossed it directly into the foaming garlic butter.

Once the edges charred up nice and crispy, he threw together a quick sweet-and-savory dipping sauce which Aria absolutely loved. He cooked a second steak for himself because Aria outright refused to eat unless he sat down and ate with her.

"Alright then," Adrian asked. "Let’s eat?"

Aria nodded quickly.

She cut up a small piece of beef and shoved it into her mouth.

Now that was pure perfection. The overcooked stuff that the other local chefs made was nothing compared to what Adrian could put on a plate.

After they finished their plates, Aria slid off her chair. She opened the bottom drawer of her bedside table and pulled out a box which was made entirely of glass and formed a perfect cube.

Inside the cube rested a small mana crystal, attached to the bottom pane of glass. The glass itself was scratched up with several magical symbols.

Adrian looked at the contraption. "Wait, is this..."

He noticed the mana crystal was glowing. Usually, a raw mana crystal just had a faint and natural glow that didn’t consume any of its stored mana. It was just a harmless byproduct of the energy packed inside. But this specific crystal was glowing intensely. The light it emitted was bright enough to illuminate the entire bedroom if it was dark.

Adrian didn’t even need to run tests to know that it was a perfect light source, albeit an expensive one. A single glass box could light up a medium sized room. Four of these cubes could easily illuminate the massive main hall of his mansion.

As a knowledgeable mana engineer, he also noticed the flaws. The drawn lines and runes were not perfectly aligned. That meant the mana efficiency was pretty bad. But he could immediately think of a few specific symbols to add that would fix the energy issues and if he added a switch, he could turn it on only when needed, which would save a lot of energy since the current version was on 24/7.

He smiled and patted her silver hair. "You did a really great job, Aria."

"Unlike the self heating pan you made, this magic lamp can help even regular people see at night." Adrian explained. "I will make this available to every single person in the Barony."

He looked at his daughter proudly.

"Thanks to your genius, I can continue working on this and make it more efficient." Adrian said and kissed her cheek. "You have made a massive contribution to the development of Oresfall. I am so proud of you."

Aria’s chest puffed out. She looked extremely proud of herself but she wasn’t done yet.

"I have another surprise for you," she said.

She grabbed his large hand and placed it flat over her chest. "Sense my mana, Papa."

Adrian closed his eyes and focused his mana sense inward.

He pushed his energy down to her mana heart and he completely froze.

He could clearly feel four distinct rings of concentrated mana orbiting her small heart.

Four magic circles.

Adrian opened his eyes and looked absolutely shocked. "How... how did you go from the first circle to the fourth circle in just a few months?"

He had absolutely no idea it had actually only taken her a few days. He just assumed she had been slowly grinding away in secret while he was busy doing military missions for the general of his ex wife.

"I used the mana crystals you gave me," Aria explained quickly. "And I used the breathing method in the book that I gave you a few months back."

She looked up at him with determined eyes. "I can be useful to you now, Papa. You can take me with you on dangerous missions and I won’t be useless."

But she kept the real reason to herself.

’I don’t want to be left alone while he goes out and risks his life.’ she thought. ’I want him to take me with him. I miss his cooking.’

Food was just an excuse though. She just loved being near him didn’t even realize it herself. Because whenever Adrian left the house, her brain dragged her right back to her past life. She would turn hyper alert, scanning the corners for assassins who might just jump out of shadows to attack her. But when Adrian was nearby, this state was completely suppressed.

She could actually drop her guard and not think too much about dangers. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"You don’t have to leave me behind anymore," Aria pleaded. "I can help."

[A/N: I’ve been writing a lot for the past two weeks and it looks like it’s finally getting to me T.T. I do appreciate all the love that you guys are showing the book but I feel like it’ll be better for me to cut down on the uploads for a week. I’ll still do 3-4 Chapters so there’s no need to worry much. I’m just unable to do 6 or 7 like before cuz it feels like I’m pushing myself to the point where the quality might suffer and I don’t want to give you guys slop. Though, I’ll make sure you guys can eat well next month! So do look forward to that.]