Sabina was flustered.

He had a baby face, hardly fitting for a title as lofty as count.

He was the youngest of all the lords Sabina had ever met.

But his skilled way with words and his easy manner were those of a seasoned noble.

He must be of noble blood.

From his speech and manners, he was clearly of noble birth, schooled in all the lessons of a noble house.

Even in her surprise, Sabina studied the lord closely.

His face looked like he'd barely come of age.

On top of that, he had black hair, rarely seen on the continent.

It wasn't perfectly black, but hair that dark was hard to find.

His face was quite handsome, too.

His bearing was full of dignity and never frivolous.

In etiquette, he outdid every noble she'd seen lately.

And yet he didn't so much as blink at her beauty or let it sway him.

Hot-blooded young men usually reacted to Sabina with heat, their eyes wavering.

Who is he?

An unusual mana warrior who could summon spirits.

Sabina felt a strong curiosity.

After the empire split, hundreds of noble houses and countless knights had sprung up.

With titles handed out left and right, the nobility had reached such a mongrel state that even nobles couldn't tell who was a real noble.

Principles had collapsed and gone unkept; anyone with skill could become a knight or a lord.

The chaotic continent offered endless footholds for the capable, and that was how things went.

The mana stones... What does he want them for?

Unlike fresh mana stones, spent ones had only a fifth of a mana stone's original power.

At most, mages used them for research, or noble houses used them for rechargeable lamps or in their kitchens.

Some low-level mages even breathed mana back into them.

Out of curiosity, some mercenaries who could handle mana set mana stones into their weapons.

They weren't as common as stones by the roadside, but there were a lot of spent mana stones scattered across the empire.

"Are the spent mana stones I asked for…