Chapter 268: Chapter 268: Meeting with the parents- We need to talk, son.
Clara left to help Theo get a lot more silkworms of the same species he had before the evolution.
She also tried looking around for the variant Theo now had, which was a bust job as all she ever got were some confused gazes from the merchants.
Theo did his best to level up the spider but he knew that without the evolution, it was going to be hard to make it stronger than it was right now.
The spider was a good strategist at its own level. If it had a good terrain to work with, its poison threads did most of its work on their own.
But its size and the quality of the web were still a big drawback that Theo needed to fix.
He had tried evolving the spider, but there were no potential evolution options till now, which had made Theo a little worried too.
But he did not give up on it and kept trying.
Meanwhile, the next main focus was on the ants and his swordsman training.
The spiked worker ants were getting bigger each and every day.
Theo was making them soak in direct natural sunlight during the day while providing them with sunlight through different measures at night.
The ants were still getting stable, and a lot of them were not at full par even yet, according to the ant queen, so Theo had to stop feeding them random stuff to get new evolution pathways.
One unfortunate realization was that they were not able to change into Embermaw or Aquamandible variants anymore.
He needed to find new evolution potential, which grabbed most of his mind’s attention most of the time.
And just like that, a month passed with trial and error.
Theo had stopped upgrading the ants into Aquamandibles and Embermaws since the success of the Spiked variants, so their numbers were still the same. It was only the level of their skills that increased further, as normal leveling was really slow after level 4.
There were 30 more silkworms now, which had evolved to the Life Bloom Silkworm variants already.
The past month, Clara tried her best to get as much silk from the 30 silkworms as she could.
In that whole timespan, she was able to make enough fabric to make an undershirt the same size as the baron through the Head Butler’s help.
Their main goal finally felt like it was completed for the time being.
In the present,
"I can’t believe the quality of the silk improved so much, young master!" Clara spoke in an excited yelp while touching the softness of the undershirt kept on the table.
"It’s most definitely the 3 level-ups the silkworms had due to the skill’s excess use, Clara." Theo spoke.
"We should help them get the skill even higher in level, isn’t that right?" He continued with a grin while looking at the box filled with silkworms that wiggled around slowly or kept eating the high-quality herbs that were kept in abundance around them.
"Are you ready to show your hard-earned creation to the baron now, Clara?" Theo asked with a grin etched on his face, making Clara gulp in somewhat panic.
"I don’t know if he will like the design, but I have tried to make it as noble-like as possible." She spoke while her mind trailed into thoughts again and again.
"Are you kidding me? That is the softest cloth I have ever touched aside from some stuff we wear for ceremonies." Theo spoke and continued, "And do you realize how cost-efficient making this thing is? We only have our own silkworms, which we are leveling up day by day to improve further, and then there is the labour you are providing, which we will start to account for once this is approved. You have seriously done a great job, Clara." He spoke and patted her shoulder with pride.
Clara’s eyes gleamed with excitement, "I like the way you said ’our’ silkworms, young master. It makes me feel very included."
"Let’s go now, we don’t have time to waste!" Theo spoke. He knew she was trying to prolong their conversation so that they could delay going to the baron and the baroness.
But Theo made her pack the undershirt in a nice box specially made for this product and dragged her out with Elias together.
Elias, for some reason, was very quiet about everything, and Theo could notice that.
There was serious competition between them both, and while Theo didn’t like that, he could tell that it was great for making one try to work better than the other.
Which, in turn, helped both of them grow at a great pace.
When they saw the gate of the baron’s office from afar, they could already see the Head Butler waiting for them.
When they got close, Theo nodded toward him with a smile, and the butler bowed his head in turn.
When he looked at Clara, who was averting her gaze but still gave her courtesies—
"Don’t give in to panic when you’re the attendant of a Merrick heir, Attendant Clara." The butler spoke, making Clara straighten her back even more.
When she heard that, she felt hesitant for a single second before she let her training get to her, and a poker face got plastered in mere seconds.
Theo noticed that and finally felt relieved; this could help her speak her mind properly in front of his parents now.
The Head Butler opened the gate, making Theo look at both his father and mother. His face bloomed into a smile, and he entered briskly.
Yet he halted for a moment after looking at them for more than a few seconds.
’Something is wrong,’ he thought.
The baron was not like his usual self. There were visible dark circles below his eyes and a light frown, even though his son had come and visited him after more than a month.
His mother, on the other hand, had a grave expression on her face.
"... Is everything alright?" Theo asked with a heavy heart; he already knew half of what they were going through.
It was totally obvious.
"We need to talk, son."