The Lady's Butler: I Reincarnated To Serve The Villainess

Chapter 239: Cedric’s Trial [Final]: An S Rank Is Born

[Ice Wall]

The moment Cedric stepped into the room, he immediately put up a wall of ice.

A moment after, the dark room was suddenly lit up by a glowing blue ice breath that slammed directly into the wall.

Cedric immediately moved to safety, just before the wall could crumble, entirely freezing the door behind it.

A moment after, the ice breath disappeared, letting the darkness swallow the room again.

But not for long, because soon enough, the torches on the wall lit up, revealing his attacker.

Resting on a raised platform was the beast that was supposed to be sealed here, but it was also a beast that he recognized.

After all, the ’beast’ was his contracted spirit, the ice weasel.

"Huh?" Cedric let out in confusion.

From the way the creature was looking at him, it didn’t seem to recognize him, but he was certain that it definitely was his contracted spirit.

Just bigger.

The weasel lifted itself off the platform, its body growing larger with every step it took.

The adorable spirit Cedric knew had completely vanished right before his eyes, replaced by something that could only be described as a monster.

Its snow-white fur became denser, while sharp translucent blue crystals erupted from its back and tail.

Its tiny claws lengthened into razor-sharp talons that seemed like they could easily tear through metal, and the innocent blue eyes he’d grown accustomed to were now cold and devoid of recognition.

By all means, it was a monster right now, yet Cedric slowly lifted his hand towards it as he called out, "Snow?"

The older brother’s naming sense was just as bad as his sister’s, but that was a story for another time.

Right now, Cedric tried taking slow steps towards the creature who was looking directly at him.

The weasel’s ears seemed to twitch for a second before it lowered its stance and let out a growl.

Cedric immediately stopped halfway, realizing that something, probably the lotus, was messing with his contracted spirit.

Since he could still feel their contract, it meant that his contracted spirit was still in there; he just had to get it back.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when the weasel suddenly disappeared, and the next second, it was suddenly in front of him.

Snow’s massive claws were aimed directly at his head, but he managed to move just in time to avoid them.

Though with how fast he had to dodge, Cedric was slightly off balance, and before he could recover, Snow spun around, its crystal-covered tail aimed toward his ribs.

BOOM!

Cedric crossed his arms just in time, but the impact launched him across the chamber like a cannonball.

He crashed through one of the stone pillars before rolling to a stop.

"Damn it, snow," he let out as he slowly recovered, the pain flowing through his entire body, "after this, you’re definitely not getting beast cores anymore."

As if it didn’t care, the weasel was suddenly upon him again, but this time, Cedric was prepared for it.

A large pillar made of ice was suddenly formed beneath the snow weasel before it slammed into it, launching it backwards.

The weasel quickly recovered and turned towards him, growling.

"I don’t want to hurt you," he muttered, "but if you don’t snap out of it, I’ll have no other choice."

Understanding none of his words, the weasel continued growling, causing him to let out a sigh and mutter, "The hard way it is, then."

Standing up straight, ice began subtly spreading beneath Cedric’s feet, preparing the environment for the weasel’s attack again.

Unfortunately, instead of rushing in again, the weasel suddenly opened its mouth wide, and out came another breath attack, forcing him to dodge to the side.

Where he previously stood was then enveloped completely in ice.

Cedric landed and immediately had to move again as Snow followed the first breath with a second without pause.

He wasn’t going to win this through attrition.

Although he had managed to recover his mana outside this chamber, he was quickly going to burn through it if he tried keeping up with the weasel.

Which meant he needed a way to quickly end this before burning through his recovered mana.

He quickly put up an ice wall to stop the third ice breath as he moved to safety and started thinking of a way.

He soon came upon a solution, one similar to what he had done to the ice golems outside,

Just on a much bigger scale.

"Let’s just hope this works," Cedric muttered as he let out a sigh and released his mana toward the weasel.

The creature seemed a bit confused at first, but since it sensed no danger from the familiar mana, it focused back on its prey.

Unfortunately for it, the mana wasn’t exactly as harmless as it thought it was, because the next second, as the weasel prepared to pounce, the mana around it suddenly transformed into solid ice, completely encasing it.

With its movements restricted, Cedric immediately rushed forward.

He knew the ice wouldn’t hold for long.

Snow’s current form was far stronger than he was, and his control over ice wasn’t enough to imprison the beast for more than a few seconds.

Crack!

Cracks immediately started appearing on the surface of the ice, but he managed to reach and reinforce it before more could appear.

"Now then," he muttered, letting his mana flow through their connection, "let’s see what caused you to go berserk."

He searched for a while, seemingly finding nothing.

That is, until he came upon the large mana pool within the creature, one that seemed to have come from the ice lotus.

Unlike Crystal, Snow couldn’t properly absorb the mana from the lotus, which is why it went berserk.

And Avera managed to take that berserk form and set it up as Cedric’s breakthrough trial.

All he had to do was somehow calm his contracted spirit down, and he knew just the way.

Sitting on the floor with crossed legs while his hand remained on the block of ice, Cedric immediately started absorbing the mana into himself.

This ended up being quite easy since the two shared a mana pathway thanks to the contract.

***

Meanwhile, outside Cedric’s souldscape, Adrian watched as the mana around Cedric suddenly started increasing.

Even the pressure that filled the cave had changed, a sign that his breakthrough was almost complete.

Grand Duke Boreas also silently watched his son go through the breakthrough trial, obviously very proud of this moment.

After all, the stronger his family became, the lower the chances of him losing any of them.

The pressure in the room got heavier and heavier until it all suddenly receded, disappearing as if it wasn’t there in the first place.

Adrian’s glasses picked up the dense mana coming from Cedric, and he immediately knew that the breakthrough was a success.

Slowly, Cedric opened his eyes, immediately feeling the sheer amount of power he possessed now that he was back in his real body.

It was almost overwhelming, and he felt as if the slightest bit of misstep from him would end in a disaster.

He looked at his palm, quickly opening and closing it as he truly got a feel for his power.

"So this is S-Rank," he muttered with a small smile before finally standing up and turning around.

The first thing that greeted him was a blur of white shooting straight toward his face.

"Eek!"

Cedric instinctively caught the tiny creature midair.

"..."

"..."

The massive beast from his breakthrough trial was gone.

Instead, curled up in his hands was the same tiny snow-white weasel he remembered contracting.

Its ears drooped guiltily while its tiny paws nervously poked against each other.

"You remember now?"

"Eek..."

Snow lowered its head even further.

Cedric sighed before flicking the weasel lightly on the forehead.

"Don’t ever try killing me again!"

He chuckled at its reaction before patting it on the head and turning to both Adrian and the Grand Duke.

"Congratulations on breaking through," the butler was the first to speak up.

"Thank you," Cedric replied, truly grateful.... Before recalling something and asking, "Now then, would you like to have that spar?"

He was referring to the challenge he made back at the frontier, but this time it was not to regain his sister’s love.

This time, he was just curious if the butler was still stronger.

But before anything else could be said, Boreas suddenly spoke up, "It seems you successfully broke through."

"Yes, Father," Cedric nodded.

"Congratulations."