The four wives of a formerly disgraceful scion of the great Elt clan surrounded a pale corpse whose sole article of clothing had been stripped, revealing a rather soft and blemishless skin, it was unlucky that he had been born with masculine features, otherwise he might have survived as a servant, or pet of the household perhaps.
But the four weren't really interested in that, it would all be turned into food anyways, no, what had led Linmin to call for some assistance was the strange pattern etched directly upon the dead man's chest, the tools and methods used to cut those symbols into his flesh, as well as to somewhat 'heal' it were clearly special, and it seemed like Edrick had overlooked this detail.
The second wife merely focused on various house chores and swordsmanship, so he had no clue what this could be, but still felt that slicing it apart brashly could be a bad idea, if not because it would be directly dangerous, but perhaps because it could be valuable.
The blasse-fusses were a group of humans that had retreated and had barely interacted with the outside world for a very long time, anything from them could be considered to be of some value.
"Is that some sort of array? I have been reading up on them lately, and it looks pretty similar, I guess? Though, they are supposed to be very hard to carve onto bodies" Fanqia tilted her head, in her quest to be useful and earn praises from Anoteros, she had begun to learn about plenty of things, so far, alchemy, arrays, and incenses as these were the fields most common amongst cultivators, and she had resonated with it a fair bit.
So although her progress wasn't exceptional so far, Fanqia was pretty confident that this could very well be an array.
"An array is definitely possible, but this guy doesn't look like a cultivator, does he? Maybe it's a similar thing… Like a magic circle, a rune, a sigil, a glyph, or maybe what was left behind after a ritual? I just now realise that there are a bunch of stuff that are basically the same thing but aren't for some reason…" Luxuli rubbed her forehead, having been reading up as well recently, she and Fanqia were studying similar stuff, so they had often exchanged on their progress and were trying to combine their thoughts.
And whilst it was working, it was somehow making the task of figuring things out even harder as the matter of ways of power was a rabbit hole that kept on getting deeper.
"Isn't that a blasse-fusse? Where did Lord Lucien find this little guy? Lord Lucien defeated him? And he was fine? That's incredible!"
"Hui?"
"Ah, sorry… Got a bit carried away there… The blasse-fusses aren't a nation that really thinks much of cultivation, they have an ability innate to their species and hide in a tundra that is always freezing… And they are knowledgeable about hexes!" she readjusted her round glasses with a smug expression, happily flexing her knowledge.
"Hexes is a word that can be used in multiple scenarios- The way of power relating to them specifically actually has multiple branches, and these cold folks only specialise in one of them, which is the hex spell, or spell-hex category! Sometimes…"
"...Why are you looking at me like this? Can I really not explain all the details? Even if I say please and look all sad like this? No? Awww… I-It's really interesting, I swear!"
"We can discuss such things later, Linmin needs to know what to do so that he can start preparing the food as quickly as possible" explained Fanqia.
"Yes, Hui, you can explain all you want later!" added Luxuli.
"I am sure Lord Edrick would love to hear you be so enthusiastic" Linmin also said.
"Alright, you guys are too convincing… Basically, a spell-hex is a spell that is incredible at lasting through time, or even forever, they need some preparations and materials to be casted normally, they often function as curses that you throw at people, but the blasse-fusse uses them like blessings on themselves, and uses their own bodies as the material required for the casting, it makes the hex more attuned to them… So basically, this guy customised his own body and granted himself a boost or even a spell of sorts that he could use at will without any cost"
"That sounds great! Can you tell what this one does?"
"Well… He did use some characters, but no… This isn't something that can actually be read, we would need to make it work to actually know" Hui sighed "We definitely should cut out that part of his skin and keep it though"
The demoness climbed up on the counter to get a better look at the hex, her bright pink eyes turning darker for a few moments as she made use of her appraisal ability, now that she knew exactly what it was, she deemed that an appraisal should tell her what they wanted to know.
"You could have done this from the start, right?" spoke Linmin, staring at the feet that were touching the place where he prepared food.
The demon's tail froze in place as she formed a wry smile.
"But Hui and Fanqia looked so happy trying to figure it out…"
She swiftly got off the counter and dusted her shoulders as the other three waited for the results.
"It is a spell-hex that allows one to cast a spell at someone, which will bring out the target's compassion and enhance it, basically forcing them to be caring and friendly toward the caster" Luxuli explained.
"That could be useful for Lord Edrick"
"If it can be customised a little, it could definitely make the recruitments of maids much swifter, we could just check if they already hold certain emotions for Lord Lucien"
"Indeed, it could even be used for Lord Anoteros to have some amusement by igniting the emotions of people… But this guy tried to use a spell that relies on compassion against Lord Anoteros, huh?"
"That certainly is an awful match-up"
"Highly unlucky"
"Anyways, I'll just cut out that area of skin, we can just dry it and preserve it for further use" Linmin grabbed a knife, and with utter precision, extracted the remnants of the hex, handing it out to the other three.
They all checked if there was anything else of note on the body, but once that was done, the second wife instantly went to take the corpse apart, and no one seemed to have any reaction that the dinner tonight would be a human.
With his sleeves rolled up, hair tied into a bun and with a headwrap around his head, Linmin emptied his guts like he would with anything else, took out the organs, and directly went to cutting the body apart with a cleaver amongst other tools, he had already done it before with other humans as per his lord-husband's orders, so the process was not foreign.
Although the flesh and bones of a blasse-fusse were not an exact match, it was still pretty much the same thing.
After some time passed, the fact that there had once been a humanoid corpse here was hard to believe, and the pieces of meat left behind were difficult to imagine to have belonged to one either.
He kept the bones, intending on using the marrow to make some broth, as for the teeth and hair, although not really edible, they were conserved as they could potentially be used as materials for other things.
Linmin would hate to waste some of the ressources Anoteros had gathered.
'I guess we'll start tonight with a simple steak, despite being so thin, there was more meat than expected'
'I could make some sausages for breakfast tomorrow too-' whilst Linmin was already thinking ahead, he heard the sound of someone knocking on the front door, and this manner of doing it was not one he was familiar with.
Elder Gang and Shu were already memorised in his mind, but this one sounded much weaker, more feminine.
'Ah… It must be her'