It was more than 3 hours later before the herb-gathering competition came to an end.Trisha walked back to the wooden building with a triumphant step, having already acknowledged that Melinda would stand no chance against her.She'd dreamed of leading the group since the start of the conference but because of that fool Vance, she was unable to do so and had to make do with second place.But now, nothing was stopping her ascent to the peak.Her parents had told her; that under no circumstances should she come back a loser.Their ambitions were different from the other families, they wished to assimilate them into their own, and to do that, Trisha had to play her part.She already expected a big celebration to welcome her return after all, she had done as instructed though not completely considering Melinda was the one who helped her deal with Vance.In any case, she was thankful to that bitch.At least she was useful for once.“Now, I'll take care of the rest.” She muttered as she step

The exclamation caused Trisha to pause in her tracks just as a soft radiance emerged from the other side of the room.Struck by terror, she glanced at the origin to find that it was the flower Geraldine used to test Melinda's potion.‘How?... How is this possible?... This doesn't make any sense?’ Unable to accept this, Trisha exclaimed. “Impossible!... You cheated!... You must have cheated!” “How can you be so sure?” Richard inquired, feeling rather amused.“You must have tampered with the flowers!”“But you checked them yourself, are you saying you doubt your capabilities?”“... That, I don't agree with this. Use that flower on my potion and you'll see.”Richard shrugged as he moved to Melinda's cauldron while Geraldine moved to Trisha's own.Performing the same thing, the results came out the same with Richard's flower glowing with an effervescent glow.“No…” Trisha muttered as she realized that had indeed lost.“But how?... You haven't even created a core yet?... I poisoned the c

A gunshot echoed in the forest as Melinda subconsciously shut her eyes and took a sharp breath.Simeon had a sinister grin on his lips as he expected the bullet to pierce Richard's knee and send him sprawling to the ground.His employer had told him not to touch Richard as he wished to do so himself but it was unavoidable now so he had to ensure that didn't do too much damage.What Simeon hadn't revealed was that his gun was a spirit-infused pistol that was handed to him by his employer.It had a limited number of bullets but each was lethal enough to destroy a normal jeep if aimed right.So how could a man like Richard possibly defend against it?Simeon expected Richard to fall and cry out in pain, at least, that would cause Melinda to realize the gravity of the situation, however, that never happened.Instead, Richard stood upright, his gaze trained on Simeon as his expression took a dangerous turn.Simeon frowned as he glanced at Richard's leg only to realize that it hadn't penetra

The owner of Smith Cuisines was Grace, the same lady who had suffered at the hands of the previous owner of the building, Lesley.Lesley at that time, was using the authority granted to him like a tyrant because his uncle was the owner of Jade Panda and so, who would dare to go against him?Yet Grace had stood her ground and at her moment of immense trial, Richard had saved her and elevated her status from a mere waiter to the owner of an establishment.Initially, Smith's Cuisines was meant to be hers alone but she didn't want that and so, after gaining permission from Maria, Grace had gotten her restaurant to become acknowledged as one of the subsidiaries under Orion Corp.Of course, her business was currently the smallest compared to the giants of the business world Richard had managed to acquire but that didn't matter to Grace.As far as she was concerned, all she wished for was to never be ungrateful to Richard for what he had done for her.He had saved her life and even if it wer

When Letitia was attacking Grace, Richard had taken the chance to take out the black phone and activate [Eyes of Truth].Lolita who had seen him do this, glanced at the phone screen only to realize that there was nothing special about the phone which meant apart from Richard, no one else could see the black phone's true contents with others that attempted to do do so, only passing it off as a normal phone.Anyways, utilizing the [Eyes of Truth], Richard used it to evaluate what Letitia had said only to discover that most of what she had said had been a lie, though it was hardly any surprise.However, on checking the man in the wheelchair which she claimed to be her husband, he found that the man was indeed suffering from a stroke which meant some of her words were indeed true.Pondering on this, Richard made an initial analysis. The man had indeed gotten a stroke but not from Smiths Cuisines, but Letitia, for reasons unknown decided to pin the blame on the restaurant, perhaps in a bi