Two days later...

After his previous encounter with Nova, Vicente would meet her again tonight, this time for dinner at a local restaurant.

But at the beginning of the day, Vicente still didn't have that nightly rendezvous in mind. After a hearty breakfast with Eve and Nina, he saw them getting ready to leave for the academy, where his little sister had started her classes the day before.

After they left, Vicente quickly left the house, heading for a meeting with some of his men in one of the taverns under his protection.

Vicente did not go to his headquarters, nor did he even return to wear his mask and armor, which had already become the familiar marks of the man with a 200 coin bounty on his head.

As someone wanted by assassins from outside and Millfall itself, he avoided encounters with his men known to be part of his group.

But not everyone on his team was part of his family's crime group. Some of his men who were part of that family acted as Vicente Fuller's subordinates in his business, not as Cesar's subordinates.

As much as many of his men and business partners knew his real identity, Vicente was not worried about information about him getting out.

As a cautious man, he had included confidentiality clauses about the identities of those involved in his business in every deal he made. Even under threat, his clients or men could not talk about who he and Rory really were.

So Vicente dared to walk around Millfall as if he didn't have such a large reward on his head and even went to some of the establishments in his area daily.

In the days since the robbery of the year, his group had handled the actions of Defiant Tyranny's men well, managing to stop over 80% of enemy attacks before their contractors were even harmed.

Even under constant attack, Vicente's group of partners were happy, and the day before, his territory had actually increased in size with new contracts.

As the days passed and Vicente's territory became more stable, more merchants in the area became hopeful about the offers already made by Vice and his men.

It might seem premature to ally with Vicente and enter his territory. After all, it hadn't even been a week since the big Defiant Tyranny incident. However, for a faction whose leader was threatened with 200 gold coins, standing up for those days was impressive.

As a result, Vicente had made 4 more deals the day before, bringing the total number of establishments protected by his people to 14!

With this number, he already had almost 2 blocks of Millfall under his protection.

His group's income from these deals with business owners had also increased, and now the group had a monthly income of 49 gold coins.

In the past few days, they had also collected another 10 gold coins in valuables from enemies. Knowing this all, Vicente was excited about the future of his faction.

As much pressure as they were under from many sides, it was precisely this pressure that was pushing them to become stronger and more relevant!

In the meantime, he had been developing his forging skills, reading the books Benson had lent him, and doing the training his master had encouraged him to do.

With that in mind, Vicente arrived at Zander and River's tavern, where he immediately got a table.

When they saw their boss there, the guards of this place didn't look at Vice too much to avoid suspicion. But they all couldn't help but admire their leader's courage to walk the streets and even come to this place with such a large reward on his head.

'What great courage!'

'I wouldn't do that!'

'The boss is truly dignified. He acts as if he owes nothing to anyone.' The Acolyte, who was watching the area, thought to himself as he smiled.

Meanwhile, two of Vicente's men, who had been sitting around the area waiting for him, quickly moved when they saw him there.

They had no masks on their faces like the men on guard.

After sitting down in front of their leader, the two greeted Vicente before tasting the snacks already left on the table.

One of them then said. "Boss, we bought some of the ores you requested. We are also stockpiling the cheapest pure metals we can find."

"But some of the items you requested are rarer, and only blacksmiths from the Association can access them at affordable prices. I don't think it's worth it for us to try to get some of them outside the Association. It would be too expensive." The other informed Vicente and showed him a list of what they had bought and what was missing.

Seeing some of the most important materials he needed to make new weapons and also improve the quality of the items he already had, Vicente said. "Hmm, I agree. I'll try to focus my time in the next few days to get closer to the level needed to pass the Association's test.

When I get my license, we'll use it to buy the materials missing from this list. For now, keep up the good work."

Since he was "unable" to act on behalf of his group in these post-robbery days, Vicente had a lot of time to read about and practice his forging skills.

He had gotten great results from his practice. As he practiced extracting metals from ores and practicing the things he learned from the books, Vicente increased his mana density at a magnificent rate.

As a result, he had jumped from about 7% progress at the Senior Apprentice level to about 24%, just with the training he had been doing these days.

With an improvement of about 3% per day, he was rapidly becoming stronger!

As he got stronger, his forging skills improved proportionally, and he found it easier to master the techniques from the books he had been reading.

In addition, Vicente had helped Rory with his training by sparring with him every other day, which had contributed to his improvements in magic.

"But tell me about our business," Vicente said after drinking some of what was in his mug. "Is the village doing well? How are our merchants?"

"As for that, everything is going according to plans..."

The two men began to report the latest data from Vicente's trading company operating out of Martell Village.

As much as Vicente focused on increasing his family's power through the underworld, he did not neglect operations that could give him cover in the light of day.

As a criminal, he knew the importance of having a good front for his illegal operations!

Martell Village was his first domain, so he had other reasons to value it.

Anyway, when this morning's meeting was over, Vicente soon left to meet Rory in another part of the city, curious about how his friend had acted with Lena and the Irwin family but also about the results of his new mercenary contractors.