War on the Horizon

The hunting day was finally. Enzo, more comfortable now on Tormu's back, Chua, Kai, Arvu, and the new additions to his team, flew home. A successful day.

Enzo was able to enjoy the blue skies, the whisper touch of the frothy white clouds, and even encourage Tormu to race the team members back to the castle.

Enzo was still amazed at his castle, high on a cliff, imposing and beautiful at the same time. The team landed smoothly and safely near the courtyard. After dropping off Enzo, the team moved swiftly to their trees, their nests calling for a long sleep.

It had been five days since his fight with the Kobolds, and the novice protection period was coming to an end.

Walking into the throne room Enzo surveyed his surroundings. Enzo loved the ornate room with the dragon and phoenix slithering down each wall. The throne sat between the two faces. The dragon head and the phoenix head served as very comfortable armrests. Behind the throne, dozens of dragon and phoenix wings splayed out and layered intricately from floor to ceiling.

The throne and the wings were gold and the gems, generously embedded in the wall and throne, picked up the glow from the immense metal chandeliers hanging from the thick arched dark wood beams. Walking toward his throne, Enzo pulled up his updated personal interface and sat on the plush red velvet that lined his gold throne.

[Enzo

Tier: 4

Age: 23

Race: Human]

In these five days, he had been slowly building his forces and accumulating strength for the oncoming attack scheduled to happen the next day.

Accessing the troop tab, he saw his full Dragon Phoenix Army which hosted a total of

2 Pairs of Tier-6 Dragon Phoenix warriors (Flame, Nature)

3 Pairs of Tier-5 Dragon Phoenix warriors (Ice, Shadow, Wind)

1 Pair of Tier-4 Dragon Phoenix warriors (Metal)

Over the last several days, Enzo also had conquered several tribes of Kobolds, Goblins, and Birdmen.

Although these tribes weren't the strongest, they were great in number having over 1,000 troops in total between all the tribes.

The day after Enzo took control over the first Kobold tribe, he noticed a new interface option called "Conquered Settlements" which showed all the settlements not fully integrated into his kingdom.

As he would later find out, he would be able to collect a maximum of 50% of the resources from conquered settlements without their loyalty dropping. Collecting more than that would lead to their loyalty decreasing, and if it dropped below a certain figure, they would have a chance of rebelling.

To integrate a settlement, the system said that Castle Lords first had to level up their kingdom to Duke-Tier and then they could convert conquered settlements to a vassal which would increase their loyalty and devotion to the kingdom.

Loyalty not only had an effect on the resources available, but it could also increase the settlements fighting power, working speed, and reproduction speed.

Also once Castle Lords' conquered settlement loyalty reached 100, they would get the unique bonus of castle troops and be able to level up by killing instead of through resources or meditation.

This last bonus was the main reason to get the conquered settlements loyalty to 100, but the only way of doing so was to integrate them into the Castle Lord's kingdom. If not, it would be stuck at a maximum of 85.

Enzo shifted on the throne. It was a little rigid for his taste. Back on Blue Star, he often chilled on an extra-large fuzzy bean bag. He usually slept on that bean bag. He chuckled, "Well I guess a throne isn't suited for napping anyways."

His thoughts were interrupted by a message from the system.

[Global Announcement: The novice protection period will be over in 12 hours! We wish you all good luck in your first Castle Siege!]

[Hint: Where there is war there is always opportunity]

Instantly the regional chat was in a frenzy.

"I'm not ready! Someone help me!"

"Please give us more time! Just a few more hours!"

"Eating steak right now. Damn it's good!"

"My Giants will be No. 1!"

"Ya'll are wimps. Bring it on cowards!"

"Who said that? You better not let me catch you!"

With that ominous announcement playing through his ears, Enzo opened the 'Castle Bank' interface and selected the storage option.

These past few days he had accumulated quite the collection of tokens and blueprints.

Enzo also had been taking 50% of the resources of his tribes to bolster his supplies of wood, stone, and iron.

Along with the selling of food, which had dropped in price to 3 units of wood/stone, he had a total of 8764 wood, 7542 stone, and 2403 iron.

Bringing out a few "Small Magic Cannon" blueprints, which required 500 iron and 5 (Tier 3) Beast Crystals, he decided to build the maximum he could, which was 4. He had more blueprints but he didn't have enough iron to build them.

Deciding to make a small profit, he put the 2 remaining cannon blueprints up for auction on the trading channel which immediately caused another sensation in the regional chat.

"What! Enzo is selling magic cannons?!"

"Who's Enzo?"

"Are you living under a rock? He's the guy who conquered the first tribe and is rumored to have Epic ranked troops!"

"Oh yeah, I remember! Damn! These cannons cost 500 iron to build!"

"Yeah, but if you have enough iron, you can have the same power of a Tier-4 warrior!"

"Shit! I only have 1 Tier-3 Troop! All of my other troops are Tier-2!"

Enzo decided to sell the cannons for two reasons: 1. For profit, of course, and 2. For the attention and "feeling of gratitude" he would get from the people who ended up purchasing the blueprints.

He figured these buyers would inevitably be the richest in the region, other than himself of course.

From the first global announcement of his successful conquest of the Kobold tribe, Enzo had made up his mind that he would create an alliance.

He had a feeling that this world's local forces wouldn't just sit by and let new superpowers be born in their backyard.

So, to stand a chance of fighting against them in the inevitable war, he needed an army. And when fighting against the unknown, the more prepared he was, the better.

Enzo was once a relatively popular and successful businessman and privately suffering his midlife crisis on Earth before waking up in Blue Star in his 23-year-old body.

Back on Earth, he was most known for his large-scale deals between companies, and he was great at appeasing both the workers and the CEOs of large corporations.

Life seemed good. Penthouse apartment in Manhattan. Handmade suits. Unlimited beauties and a Rosso Mars Lamborghini.

But the high living had come with a crap load of stress. Too much work-related stress had basically killed him. A heart attack while driving was the last thing on Earth that Enzo experienced. And what had he thought? "Damn, guess I'm going to be a little late for my meeting."

He woke from the wreck to a heavily accented voice yelling at him, "The dishes, Enzo!" When Enzo looked down, he saw a sink full of dirty pans, a faucet of running water, and smooth 23-year-old hands staring back at him. Forgetting the dishes and water, he grabbed a pan, turned it over, and stared at his reflection. He hadn't seen that guy for 27 years!

The dishwashing was a breeze. He felt light and free. Once he realized that he had time-warped or whatever onto another planet, and he was young again, all was good.

Then suddenly, one day while he again awoke on another planet, this time nothing like the Earth that he first called home.

Now he was the 23-year-old Castle Lord, bringing his 25 years of executive experience, 2 months scrubbing experience, and now 5 days of hunting experience. With all his experience, ok maybe not the scrubbing experience, he was sure that he could create the biggest alliance in the region, if not the world.

He had tried to ask the system about creating an alliance but the system was oddly quiet.

Enzo had a suspicion that after the Castle Siege tomorrow, the secret to creating an official alliance would be revealed, but perhaps that was just his mind playing tricks on him.

Clearing his thoughts he checked his Friends List.

At first, Enzo was reluctant to accept any friend requests since they could see his castle name, but after consideration, he decided it didn't matter.

On one hand, everything would be made public eventually, and on the other hand, people wouldn't necessarily believe he had both dragons and phoenixes in his castle.

He could just hear them say to themselves, "I mean, just one of these mystical creatures could stand above the masses, wouldn't two be a bit overkill?"

So far he had accepted four friend requests from three Castle Lords with Top-Tier Troop Buildings and the only known Epic-Tier troop owner in the region, the Castle Lord with the "Double-Headed Eagle".

These Castle Lords had been a great help to Enzo in the chat rooms, helping him understand the world better and curing what he lacked the most at the moment… human companionship.

Even on Earth where he was a big business mogul, he was always alone. Too busy with his work, he was always stressed and never had time to enjoy himself.

When he transmuted to Blue Star, he was basically homeless, so he just adopted the same mentality of working hard to stay alive is the only choice.

For survival, he just became a cog in a wheel.

But coming to a fantasy world, he wanted more. He needed more.

Since the first time riding his dragon, Enzo knew he wanted to enjoy himself and finally do things the way he wanted.

He didn't want to stress over whether someone else would like him, or if his "brand" was "appropriate". He wanted to live free from others' control.

He decided he would not bend or bow to anyone. No matter how strong.

After having determined this, he felt like a huge weight had lifted off his shoulders and like he was finally free.

He decided to message Kayla, who was a Castle Lord with large ape creatures as her initial troop.

"Hey, Kayla how was your hunt today?" Enzo inquired. Kayla was his favorite Castle Lord. She was in her late 20s, so older than the current him, and had a hot-tempered personality. She was really starting to catch his attention.

Since Enzo had regained his youth he was looking for fun interactions, he didn't know what exactly yet, but he knew that he wanted something.

He didn't have to work out at the gym, get botox around his eye wrinkles, or have his personal stylist dress him for his dates.

He could chill on the back of a dragon, fight a couple of monsters, and still look better than any supermodel on Earth or Blue Star.

Kayla replied a moment later, "So you finally decide to talk to me huh?" she teased, "It was alright. A few tier 2s, and we even took down a Tier-3 boss. I've been having a slight problem with a tribe of rock giants who throw these giant boulders they always…"

As she continued to droll on about the annoying rock giants Enzo cut her off with,

"Enough of the giants. I'm starting to get intimidated," He teased.

"Oh please, I bet you could kill them with a flick of your wrist." She replied, "You still haven't told me what your troops are yet."

Struggling Enzo felt conflicted, on one hand, he didn't want to lie to her, but on the other hand, he still didn't trust her.

"I guess you'll have to see for yourself." He replied vaguely hinting at something.

"Maybe one day I will." She replied with a smiley face.

Ending the conversation he stared up at the stars and wondered just how hectic tomorrow would be and if his stay in this world would be cut short yet again.