618-634

618 The Three Sovereigns' Offers

As for Angelica, she was just feeling as pumped up as Hilary. I could see a group of people working at a distant spot, building a city there.

I didn't intend to interfere in this useless fight between the two girls. I just hoped she wouldn't neglect her task here.

She had to supervise the workers here and take care of the lifestyle of the humans and races inside the towns and city.

As I decided to not interrupt her, I led my chariot and went towards Hilary's mansion.

I would start cultivating there.

But just before I'd close my eyes and start cultivating, a message came to disturb my peace.

[Hye! Are you here?]

I looked at Silverlining message and recalled the last thing we two spoke about. He was supposed to go to his race main world and speak with people there.

He was so excited about my red grade bone. It was supposed to grant me a kingdom heart at least, with the addition of a few cool items..

[Hey my friend, whassup?] I sent in response while knowing that my cultivation session would be delayed.

[I'm great! Damn man! That thing you gave me, that bone… It's not an ordinary treasure!]

[Don't think about snitching it away] I laughed, [It's secured by our deal and the system is my witness]

[Don't think too little of me like this] he sent such a strong response before adding, [But frankly, I was tempted to get it for myself. Sigh! If not for that contract, sigh!]

[Hahahaha! I'd never give away such a treasure without guarantee]

[Yes, I got scolded for getting such treasure with a contract] he seemed to hear lots of greedy comments over my bone, [Many are now interested in your bone, too much of my people are even fighting among themselves to get a chance to see it]

[Hahahaha! You are going to be a hot shot there right now]

[I am] he admitted it, [But that's not what I'm speaking with you about. I've filtered all the offers and there are three who are giving really generous terms. However…]

[However, what?] he was saying great things, then why would he pause and add such a disturbing word at the end?

[They want something in return]

[They will get my bone, isn't this deal is all about it?] I felt a little weird when I read his words. What did he mean by this? Wasn't my bone enough?

[It's not about the bone, they already are going nuts because of it]

[Then… What?!]

[They want the same thing, all of the three want to secure a deal for you to provide them with such bones]

[…!!!]

I couldn't help but get shocked by what he just said! [Dude, this bone… It's not just thrown on the side of the street for me to collect! You know that, right?]

[No, they don't mean bones of the same grade, but bones with better grades than the ones you use for my impact]

[Ah, you mean higher than blue graded bones?]

[Yes, that's their request]

[Hmm…] I realised at last what they want. Bones higher than my blue grade would be silver grade then gold and dark gold ones.

For sure the higher the grade the lesser I had. I had lots indeed, but not enough to constantly supply them for such big shots.

I knew such people wouldn't settle with a few groups of my bones. They needed lots of them. And to do that, I had to go into fights again and secure these bones.

The common grade bones I'd get usually were green, blue, and silver. The gold graded bones would appear from time to time, but not at such a rate to make me sure and confident in closing this deal.

[Send me their offers, and what will I get in return for my bones?]

[You will understand once you get to see their offers] he sent this weird answer before adding, [But in general, no matter what deal you will strike with whom, you will be a VIP friend of our race]

[VIP friend? Is this like an ally? A high ranked ally?]

[That's correct. For example, you are now fighting for hegemony over your apocalypse cluster, right? We can even pay the price to come in, send a world of our own to take part in your cluster, help you reach the goal you wanted in the future]

[Damn! Is that for real?!!!] I was taken aback by what he just said. I thought about establishing good relations with his race. After all, he was one of the mightiest three in the entire universe.

But I never thought such a deep and strong relationship would develop with just a single bone! I looked at my inventory and there were still ten more red bones lying there.

Would I be able to secure such a deal with ten more mightier races then? Damn! If that was true, then it would be cool!

[Ok, send me the offers. I'm all excited about accepting the deal now]

[That's the spirit]

The next minute I received three different messages from him. Each one contained an offer, with slightly different offers and rewards in return for the same offer.

[An offer from Lurdan Sovereign from the Toranks race:

In exchange for human Hye highly valuable bone artefact, I'm willing to exchange it with the kingdom heart he is asking for. In addition to that, I'm willing to exchange the seed of necromancers' world, a highly ranked artefact, with him. Also I can exchange the black liquid of death, a highly grade artefact.

I also want to have another offer, a long term one, regarding his bones. I want bones, higher grade than the blue graded bones he is dealing with our Silverlining's petal impact.

These bones will be assessed and exchanged for the following:

-Drop of black seeds of death.

-Potions of fog of death.

-Leaves from the biggest tree of death in the universe.

That's all plus a VIP golden friend pass to any of our worlds]

619 I Want Necromancers!

[An offer from Konken Sovereign from the Toranks race:

In exchange for human Hye highly valuable bone artefact, I'm willing to exchange it with the kingdom heart he is asking for. In addition to that, I'm willing to exchange the den of heroes, a highly ranked artefact, with him. Also I can exchange a blood fountain of the mightiest heroes, a highly grade artefact.

I also want to have another offer, a long term one, regarding his bones. I want bones, higher grade than the blue graded bones he is dealing with our Silverlining's petal impact.

These bones will be assessed and exchanged for the following:

-Drop of blood of the mightiest heroes.

-The filaments of courage weed.

-The dew gathered around the milky way in the universe.

That's all plus a VIP golden friend pass to any of our worlds]

[An offer from Tontram Sovereign from the Toranks race:.

In exchange for human Hye highly valuable bone artefact, I'm willing to exchange it with the kingdom heart he is asking for. In addition to that, I'm willing to exchange the fountain of life, a highly ranked artefact, with him. Also I can exchange the golden breath of life essence, a highly grade artefact.

I also want to have another offer, a long term one, regarding his bones. I want bones, higher grade than the blue graded bones he is dealing with our Silverlining's petal impact.

These bones will be assessed and exchanged for the following:

-Vapour of life essence.

-Seeds of tree of life.

-Vitality droplet potions.

That's all plus a VIP golden friend pass to any of our worlds]

I looked at the three messages, reread them many times, without getting anything from them!

The three seemed to follow the same protocol of making an offer. They were sovereigns, a rank that seemed to be high and mighty in that race.

I got the feeling that they were even higher than hegemonies.

The three would provide me with the kingdom heart I wanted, besides many other weird named things.

Silverlining said that I'd get what I'd get from such deals in exchange for my bones. But I didn't understand a single word of them!

It seemed each one of those three had an affinity with a certain power in the universe. One was death, the other was courage, and the last was life.

That's what I got from the weird names and items they provided. They considered my bone to be an artefact, a highly grade one.

They also would give me a pass to their worlds. I didn't imagine that. I expected just a rank of friendship, but it seemed that being friends meant I could go and visit their home.

[Dude, I got nothing from all these items] I gave up and decided to ask for Silverlining's help.

[Oh! I totally forgot about that!]

[About what?]

[You still didn't go to the alien universe battlegrounds yet]

[That's true] I acknowledged that, [But… What's the relation between these things and that scary place?]

[These are all items and treasures used by the mighty forces to strengthen their forces there. You know about the negative energy infecting our people once they are there, right?]

[No, first time to hear about that]

[When we reach there, no matter who, all will get infected with a deadly weakening of negative energy. Even a sovereign will end up being much weaker than a hegemony!]

I wasn't well aware of the difference between the two high ranked powers. But it seemed the gulf between these two ranks was really huge!

[So?]

[The mighty forces and powerful figures all across the universe found ways to negate such effects. These treasures offered to you are all working in different ways to reach the same goal; relieving almost seventy-five percent of the negative effect from your forces]

[That… Is that all?!!] I knew such a battleground was special and such. But I also wanted these treasures to affect my forces right now.

[They can also be used in our universe, but their effects are little less and less important than when using them at the alien battleground]

[I need any help right now] I sighed. This was the difference between big and small races.

I was thinking about surviving, putting my current gains as top priority while they were looking further ahead. Of course I wanted to think like them, but I had no choice in that.

[Can you send me each treasure and item detail for me to decide?]

[Sure, give me a second]

He sent long rows of messages with too much information for me to grasp in a short time.

I started slowly reading through all the dense amount of info I got. The more I read, the more shocked and impressed I was.

Saying that I envied those born under such a mighty race would be an understatement. Sigh! With such treasures offered just from three of their powerful figures, my race could have a strong foothold in any apocalypse and world.

Silverlining wasn't lying. These treasures were all centred around giving bonuses at the alien battleground.

But that didn't mean this was everything they could do!

The seed of necromancers' world was a treasure that would create a secluded part in any world. Inside, the dead energy would be too much condensed.

It worked by absorbing the death energy from the world it was in, turning it into liquid, fog, and even growing plants and vegetation filled and rich with the energy of death.

It carried this name as there was once a legendary race, necromancers, who were cursed just like my soulers. From the description of it, I got that the main problem of keeping necromancers alive was the death energy.

My soulers needed souls, and necromancers needed death energy. Both were considered one of the mightiest and most unlucky races in the entire universe.

Necromancers were still present in our universe, but just like soulers they were in small numbers. They suffered from the lack of death energy, even in times of great wars and many apocalypses running.

620 Den Of Heroes Artefact

The main reason behind that was the inability for them to gather up and store death energy on their own. Just like my soulers, if they weren't present in a place filled with killing and death, they wouldn't survive.

So only the big powers in the universe kept large numbers of such mighty races. A mighty race cursed with his powers, ending up being warriors, serving others for just keeping themselves alive.

And this artefact here was one of the ways big forces used to keep them alive.

Interesting! That sovereign offered me such treasure and didn't offer me a way to exchange necromancers.

Was he thinking so high of his necromancers or too low to not include them in our deal?

As I read more about this artefact, I got more impressed with it. It wasn't just a tool to create a separate place in any world, but it worked as a way to filter the death energy into real things anyone could use.

Black water that was considered like potions, vegetations that were reached with death energy, and even the mist in the air that could be inhaled..

All these and more were applicable, giving anyone having necromancers the ability to support them outside that pocket world.

In addition to that, if a normal race consumed such things, his stats would get doubled and even tripled. It had a berserk bonus, turning a weak race like us into a fierce one.

And they also help in supporting and accelerating cultivation.

Damn! Just these few usages in my world was enough for me to say yes!

As for the other items he provided in his offer, they all worked towards increasing the amount of death energy in that world.

The death energy could just be collected from the world here. Yet such a process would take a long time, even years to give a result.

Using such items would accelerate things. And that was what that sovereign depended upon to keep my bones running in his pockets.

Yet there were still many uncertainties here. For example, how effective were these items? How would he decide the exchange rate of my bones with his items? And how much could he provide for me?

[As the Lurdan sovereign if we can add exchanging necromancers as part of the deal]

[Necromancers? You mean those cursed warriors? Don't tell me you want them!]

Of course I wanted them! Why each time I asked for such a priceless race I got the same reaction?

[I want them] I liked the challenge coming with any cursed race. Just look at my soulers. Even after all this time together, I didn't suffer even for once to keep them alive.

Look at my fallen gods! They were also considered one of the cursed races. They ended up without causing a single problem for me.

Paying a little extra price to keep such two mighty races by my side? That was a cheap price to pay.

[Ok, I will contact him and see his response. But I doubt he will refuse. Such a warrior race… They aren't wanted by anyone to be honest. Only that sovereign is the one breeding them in the entire race]

[Cool! Ask him and let me know about his answer] I closed this issue and started to consider the two other offers.

Before going through these two offers, I had a liking for the first one. Giving me such a brutal race like necromancers, providing me with the chance to help my people in their cultivation and even making them stronger… Who would say no to such an offer?

But when I read through the second one, I gasped out of surprise.

The second offer came from Konken. He offered the den of heroes. According to the long and detailed information provided by Silverlining, I knew this thing wasn't a joke!

It was an egg, planted in the dirt, to form a huge den. Unlike the separate pocket world provided by Lurdan, this one didn't ask for a world filled with killings and death.

It wanted a totally peaceful world, a world without any conflicts. At first glance, such a requirement would limit lots of its advantages. But frankly, it was just perfect for me.

I had the second Earth world, a world in total peace with no wars. It was also secured, with no one would dare to come and trespass it.

This den thing would ask for the bones or dead bodies of killed people in battles. It would digest their aura, forming a grand place filled with the aura of courage and might.

Using such aura, it would give birth to water, even rivers and lakes. It would allow for trees to grow up, and would let eggs to appear and get matured.

These eggs would give birth to a certain breed of creatures, a race with the mixture of all the abilities and powers that came from the dead bodies I provided before.

Merging Selvators, Berserkers, Dragons, and even the hellish Hectors together and produce a new race with all the good traits in all of these… Damn! This was dope!

How would such a thing even exist? To use it, one had to own two worlds, one where brutal fights would take place and the other where no war was there.

Two contradicting words, and the two complement each other. And luckily for me, I got access to such needed worlds.

I just needed to start collecting corpses after each fight from now on. As for the other items he provided, it was just like Lurdan's. They aimed at accelerating the birth of the new race, enriching the aura around that den.

The things that would be harvested from there did the same as Lurdan's necromancers' world. They would relieve any negative effect from the alien battleground.

Besides, using these by normal races here would facilitate the speed of cultivation, increasing stats, and giving a protective mighty aura around each one.

621 Fountain Of Life

Such aura would stand against any mental type attack. Just like that illusion thing the enemy of mine used before on my forces. If they got the water or the fruits from this den back then, they wouldn't be affected at all.

To be honest, just comparing the two offers right now puts me in such a hard situation. The two gave such valuable things that would help me later on.

Forget about the alien battleground, using these treasures at this moment would greatly enhance my forces.

And there was still a third offer to think about.

Something told me this offer wouldn't pale in comparison. Silverlining already scanned the offers and selected the top three.

Two offered such great terms, and the third didn't come short in comparison..

The offer was made by Tontram. And to be honest, it might look the least favourable one among the other two, but the thing he offered held a great importance for me later on.

He offered the fountain of life. It was, according to Silverlining words, an old statue of the extinct supreme life shrine. I knew there was a life shrine here in our universe, but I didn't know what was the difference between it and that extinct one.

This fountain of life could be used repeatedly. And that placed it above all other treasures here. However, the conditions for each time were really hard to fulfil for any normal being.

To use it, one had to select a very brutal fighting ground, one which consumed the lives of at least ten million in it. Then one should use it in a region that fell under his control.

This condition clearly stated that one should use it in any place belonging to his kingdom. So a kingdom heart was needed. And that battle must happen inside that region.

In addition to that, one had to pay lots of energy to just establish the fountain. The energy used could be in any form, even in stat points. But the number needed for stat points was really scary.

One hundred billion stat points per each time! Damn! I thought that I was rich, but at this price… I had to spend lots of my bones to get my hands over enough stat points to use the fountain just once.

These conditions limited the benefits of that treasure. Especially when adding the six months fixed period for it to mature and grow, without having anything to affect such speed at all.

But when the fountain would be established, the entire region would show major transformation.

The first to change would be the soil itself. The lands covered under the effect of this fountain would end up being suitable for any crops to grow.

Unlike what I was doing here, this soil would be rich in energy, enough to let any seed grow no matter what.

Also it would give a bonus to anyone living inside that place, an eternal bonus in stats that would grow the more time these people stayed there.

In other words, this place would turn out to be a hotspot, fought over by all to get a place there. People would flock to that region like they were going into pilgrimage or something sacred like that!

That was what could be considered as the passive effects of this fountain. The fountain would create a big lake in the centre of the area.

Per Silverlining words, this lake would grow and be added to the area and the world. It would be an additional piece of land here, with many great treasures born under water.

As for its water, it had a magical effect of expanding any place to double its size if enough was used. And the great thing was that this water was getting replenished with time and with addition of items provided by that sovereign in the offer.

What did that mean? I could grab a piece of land, throw it into the ocean and start pouring this magical water on it to let it grow in size. I could grow continents out of nowhere, expand any land to reach any size I wanted.

I could turn this small piece of land I got right now into a massive continent, and all would be under my control and dominance!

It wouldn't only grow lands, it would grow places with resources. Consider a mine of great ore for example. Using this water there would expand it and its content, making any small mine of precious kind of ore become a huge one.

If any race consumed this water, then he could grow back any severed limb or part of his body. If he was on the brink of death, he would return back alive.

It was magical! Not to mention it could be used in potions and pills, creating fantastic drugs and boosts for anyone to use.

According to Silver Linings words, that sovereign already amassed huge wealth thanks to this water. It was a hot cake in the universe, with few suppliers and great demand.

As for its effects at the alien battleground, it was the same as other treasures.

Looking at this offer, I knew it might seem the lowest in terms of strict conditions and the long time needed for the fountain to be formed and water to be replenished.

But in comparison in terms of a long time like years or so, it didn't pale at all! In fact, I thought of many ways to use this water to give me invaluable benefits.

The three offers were in front of me, and I had to choose one. Just watching the three made me feel bitter, like nothing else I felt ever in my life.

Each offer had its perks. Each offer had its own strengths. I wanted each, I wanted them all!

[I have something to offer, but I don't know if it could be done…] Feeling such a dilemma and bitterness in making a decision here, I decided to go bold.

[Of course, just say it and I'll see what I can do. Ah, Lurdan gave up his answer. He agrees to add the necromancer race in the offer]

622 What's So Special About My Bones?

[Great. Speak with the three sovereigns, tell them I want to accept the three offers]

[This… But… You only have one bone! They… I don't think…]

I could feel his panic even from my faraway place! [Dude, chill it out first. There is nothing to worry about here. I didn't mean I want to exchange my bone for the three, I meant I want to exchange one bone each with them for their offers]

[You… You have… No way! This… Are you sure?!!!]

Instead of getting panicked or ruining the deal, he panicked out of his shock. This dude… He still didn't know me quite well.

[Just ask them and let me know. I'm willing to exchange one red bone each with each sovereign in exchange for their generous offers]

[Damn Hye! You… Are you really a human? Are you a reincarnation of a mighty being?]

[Hahaha, no, not at all. I'm just a human who got lucky]

[I doubt it! Luck can't do all these miracles for you!].

[Just go and ask them… Ah, I also want to get a clear answer about something. The offers stated that they will exchange my bones for their items. But they didn't state the exact numbers for each exchange]

[Because they don't know the value of your higher grade bones] he paused for a long minute, [You do know that the highest grade bone we have is the blue ones you provided for us]

[No problem. I just sent you nine bones, three for each sovereign] I didn't hesitate to select silver, gold, and dark gold graded bones for them to assess.

[These… Damn! Your bones are fierce!]

[They are the ones I'm willing to use in these deals] I laughed over his reaction, [Of course I can't provide lots of amounts from these. They aren't as weak or low graded like other bones you saw before]

[I understand]

[Let them assess each bone and give me a detailed list of exchange for each item they offered. I'll use this list as the base for out future trades]

[I will send these to them and get back to you. But… You do have more of these red bones, right?]

[Dude, they are very precious and extremely rare!]

[It's just… If the news spread, others would get the wrong idea and might come asking for a deal as well]

[They have none to blame but themselves] I shrugged, [If they were sincere, they should have offered something precious like these three]

[What if… They made such big offers then?]

[Well, I can't say no to a big profit, right?] I sent such a good response to make him excited before adding, [However… I don't have any more right now. They will have to wait for quite some time, until I find such redbones again]

[So… You can get more?]

[In time and big battles? Indeed!]

[That… I will deliver such news as well to the three sovereigns]

[What for?]

[They might ask for red bone monopoly]

[Really?]

[It's normal, who would let his rivals get the same good stuff he has?]

His words made quite sense indeed. Damn! Such a deal that I started with only having the kingdom heart in mind turned this big.

But I had nothing to regret here. I still had a few left of the red bones. I wasn't out of stock yet. But it was always great to make my customers feel how hard and rare my goods were.

I closed the chat with him with a big smile over my face. What I got from him, from his race, was something I didn't even imagine.

Getting the approval of the three wouldn't be a big issue. They were offering what they had for me to take. It was all upon me to provide three bones to them.

But it seemed many eyes were looking closely and watching this deal talk at his race. Would others make a move? Give more generous offers?

Another thing I started to consider while sitting inside the big and empty mansion. What was the real benefit and value of my bones?

I heard the explanation provided by the nymph lady. But she lied and kept things hidden from me about the real value of my bones.

So why would she tell me everything about the real uses of my bones? In fact I even started to doubt the things she said before.

Using the bones to get a similar shape and abilities of the dead race they belonged to? High grade source of energy? And other uses? They looked enticing and great, but something told me these were just the tip of the iceberg.

Even such mighty figures of a mighty race were craving for my bones. I took a red bone out and started to closely examine it.

What was so special about you, my love? Wouldn't you speak and tell me about your secrets?

Thinking about going to Silverlining and asking him for answers wouldn't give me anything in return. In fact, he might be dealing with me in such fairness as he thought I knew all the benefits and real value of my bones.

If he sniffed that I didn't know any of that, a different treatment might be the result of it.

No, it was risky, I shouldn't even think about doing it.

As for the rich things I'd get, I started to consider how to use them. I wouldn't delay in using the den of heroes here. As for the necromancers' world, it would be used on my Earth once I got it.

The problem lies at the fountain of life. I had many brutal fights inside my territory. However I didn't count the number of deaths at any battle.

Besides, I had to wait until I'd use the kingdom heart before thinking about using this fountain.

I could use it, but if the conditions weren't met, I'd end up losing all the energy I paid for this time.

Would I lose such a big number for nothing? Would I use it at my capital? Or at the big battle that occurred at the central plains?

623 The Crown Meeting

That battle was really huge! Ten million? I'd bet the number of dead there would be in the tens of millions.

However… The distance between my capital and these plains was simply immense! I'd use the kingdom heart at my capital. Would it reach that place?

If it did, then I'd use the fountain there. And that wasn't the sole problem.

That fountain must be secured and watched all the time by lots of my forces. If any hostile force attacked it, it would shatter and I'd lose time and resources.

I thought about using it at my capital or near it. However, that big number of dead conditions was the only obstacle I had.

Even if the kingdom's heart range reached the central plains, it would place a great pressure over my forces right now to secure it.

Besides… I had low confidence in my ability to control these plains in the next quest.

Wryly was busy fighting up north with all his forces. Fang could help, but that bastard would ask for lots of benefits in return.

Since day one I met him, and he was such an informative person. Lily also gave me the same impression. It seemed all Selvators were knowledgeable and knew lots of info and secrets about the universe..

So if I wanted to get it all for myself, I had to depend solely on my forces. And putting in picture the threat coming from Hectors at East, and that son of b*tch eyeing my kingdom from west, I had no ability to do such a thing for now.

My only hope would be for the upcoming battle to have tens of millions of dead in it. It might reach such a scale if monsters were added. But the stretch of such battle might encompass most of the kingdom 's territory.

I needed such a big fight to happen at a certain spot.

Sigh! I was already having trouble dealing with this big fight. And now I had to not aim to scatter my enemies around, but try my best to group them together.

Was I working against myself right now or what? Wasn't this supposed to be the sole focus of my enemies?

[I got good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?]

[Give me both, I don't care]

I knew there would be good news. They would accept my offer without doubt.

However I didn't expect bad news. Not so soon at least.

[The good news is that all the three agreed on your offer]

That was expected indeed. [So what is the bad news?]

[Others learnt about your offer]

[And?]

[The three sovereigns asked for monopoly of your bones. Not only the red ones, but all the bones you can provide]

[All the bones?]

[Even for my impact. They want to be the sole customers of your bones in the entire universe]

That… Was pretty unexpected! So my bones held such immense value for the three to go for such lengths?

Without the need to hear the rest of his words, I guessed what happened.

[Other sovereigns protested. They asked for a fair chance to compete over your bones. The two fights are now amassing their powers, and a calling for a grand crown meeting of our race is being issued]

[Crown meeting? What does this mean?]

[All the big names of our race will gather up. A decision will be made, and that's the bad news]

[What do you mean?] I still wasn't aware of the bad results such a meeting would bring to me.

[In that meeting, new offers can be enforced over everyone to give to you]

[Enforced? How?]

I agreed and was ready to exchange bones for the things I received in these offers. I even started drawing many of my future plans based on them.

[The meeting can force the three sovereigns to change the terms, either lower or increase the terms of the offer]

[Aha, I see…] I controlled myself from exploding in his face. [Then you should tell anyone asking about my answer, I didn't yet agree and won't agree to any offer that's lower than the ones I received]

[This…]

[I'm the owner of the bones] I tried to select my words carefully. I didn't want to start building friendship with such a mighty race, and ended up being an enemy with them, [And I got the right to decide to whom I'll sell these bones to. I agreed on the offers provided by the three sovereigns. Anyone wants to give another offer of such worth, then I'll consider it and can accept it. Just like I told you before, my bones might not be available for now, but will be in the future]

[But… The three wants monopoly over your bones]

[That's another offer and deal to talk about] I had to put a clear line between the two deals here. Mixing them like that would either end up with me gaining tons of profits, or having nothing in the end.

[You mean…]

[I only agreed upon the three offers I received. As for any other offers, I didn't receive any to decide. And if the three offers got changed to be on bad terms, then don't expect me to agree on any]

[Understood] he got my point and knew what I wanted to say here. [But I doubt the initial offers will be changed. The only debate right now is about the monopoly offer]

[This a deal, and that's a totally different one]

[Got it!] he paused for a second, making me think he went to see the ruckus at his place, [But… This meeting will happen in one day time from now]

[No problem]

[The decision might take another day to come out]

[I can wait]

Did he think I was dying to complete this deal right now? I wasn't his sovereign! They were the ones who must be dying to complete this deal now more than later.

[By the way… Can we conclude this deal before the meeting?]

624 A Problem During Cultivating

[You mean the three sovereigns deal?] I paused, thinking about this move. If I said no, I'd get on the bad terms of those three. And if I said yes, then I'd get on the bad terms of other sovereigns.

[I'd consider like not receiving your last message] that was the perfect answer to such tricky question, [See you later, in two days time]

[Ok]

He seemed dejected by my evasion. Dude! Don't blame me here, I'm not going to let myself be cooked by such a wrong decision.

Well… I had to put down all my hopes for now. I had to wait for two days, and then see the result.

"Ok, time to start cultivation then," I got delayed, and I was glad I did. I had such rich offers and just had to wait for that race of higher ups to make up their minds.

Refusing to do business with me? That was a joke! Trying to change the content of the three sovereign deals? That also was a joke.

If they wanted to do anything here, they would aim towards giving me better offers and let me accept them..

I sat down and closed my eyes, regulated my breaths and started to absorb the outside energy.

However the first moment I did so, I felt a great torrent coming from outside, getting attached to my right arm.

The dantian there looked like it was a hungry beast, and the world outside was throwing so damn tasty preys for me to devour.

"Damn fierce!" I couldn't get such absorption under my control for much longer than half an hour. I had to stop training, opened my eyes while my breaths rushed up.

I felt like I was running, not training! The moment I opened my eyes, I saw the energy all around stirred up, gathered to form a big and violent looking tornado.

The ceiling of this mansion was even damaged by the energy gathered up here. I looked up, with daze and amazement, towards such thick and pure violent energy.

The energy was like a wild beast that got unleashed. I stood on the side, while my right arm kept absorbing whatever energy was here.

Things took almost another half hour to cool down. Damn! What just happened here?

I knew this world was left untouched for a long time. But I never thought the amount and level of this energy would grow to such magnitude.

Just training for an hour here was equal to more than training for days back on Earth! Was there such a difference between the two worlds?

"Let's try again," the first time I got by surprise. But this time, I got my mind ready to face that kind of berserk and immense energy.

I absorbed it the moment I closed my eyes and regulated my breathings. The amount of energy coming through my body was just too massive. However this wasn't the issue.

I handled lots of energy before. But this time this energy was acting more like the black energy from the weird creatures I absorbed before.

Yes, there were strangely many similarities between the two. This kind of energy wasn't on par with that black energy in purity and level, but it just acted as aggressive as it.

Was this just a coincidence? I didn't have time to think about that possibility. I started to push the energy in my body to circle inside, gaining speed the more I did.

The absorbed energy gushed into my body, putting too much pressure over my meridians.

Last time I felt like if I didn't stop, then my meridians would burst open. However this time I tried to soothe such pressure over my meridians by forcing the energy to enter my dantian fast.

However I couldn't continue doing this for more than three hours. I had to stop, and as I watched the berserk energy cutting through the ceiling of this mansion, I left the task of digesting this energy for my dantians.

"Hilary… Is going to kill me!" I looked at all the damage here and could only sigh. This energy… How could it grow to such a degree to feel intangible?

I was sure Hilary used the best graded materials to build this mansion. However it didn't last for more than a couple hours before getting ruined by this energy.

It wasn't the issue of the materials used to build this place, but in the energy itself.

"I'll try something next," I tried two more times, but all ended up failing. The longest training session lasted for five hours, while the other lasted only for three and half.

That five hours I reached by concentrating all the energy over the secondary dantian. It worked much better than my main one, but it also wasn't enough to match the insane influx rate of this energy.

I had to find a solution here. I wanted to take advantage of such a time difference in this world for my benefit. Adding the high grade of the energy here, cultivating here would give much more benefits than anyplace else.

I had to endure and last longer. And I got an idea about how to do that.

"Another try," I said to myself while returning to sit down. Once I closed my eyes again and regulated my breathings, the energy gushed in like before.

But this time, I didn't aim towards making all of them circulate through my two dantians. I simply established a link between this energy and my feet.

I threw most of it towards my shadow world, hoping that the black energy cluster there would accept this as a teaser.

The remaining part was left to circulate through my body net of meridians, ending up getting absorbed and refined in my two dantians.

Just as I did that, I felt total control over the situation. The previous attempts put a great pressure over me since the first moment of the entry of such energy into my body.

Yet this time, I was controlling everything and didn't feel any pressure or pain anymore. The influx towards my shadow world was secured and would last as long as I wanted.

I was curious about the fate of this energy. But knowing how fierce and greedy the black cluster energy of mine was, I didn't need to go in there and check things for now.

For now, I had to use all the extra energy to strengthen my dantians and meridians.

And as such, a long time of cultivating started without me realising it!

625 Two Months!

I stayed for a short time in my estimation. All I did was to allow for the energy coming from outside to go mostly towards my shadow world while letting the few left to be absorbed by my two dantians.

However even with such control, I felt at a moment that my two dantians swell and reached their limit. I knew I had to stop.

Trying to bite more than I could chew wasn't wise.

So I opened my eyes, exhaled a breath that extended for half a metre away. Even after all this time of cultivation, my energy didn't show any signs of changing from its pale blue colour.

I didn't know how long it would take for me to train and evolve my energy to the next level.

As for my base, I didn't want to take such a step before getting my energy higher than the blue grade at least.

If the energy followed the same rule of the grading system in the apocalypse, then it would become silver, gold, dark gold, then black.

My goal was to make it reach black. I wanted it to be like the black energy I was absorbing from the creatures of the alien universe.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that the energy was ragging wild. It wasn't just forming a simple tornado in my mansion, but it went way up towards the dense clouds in the sky..

It gathered all the dark clouds and made it look like it was going to rain. It was so fierce to the degree it changed the atmosphere.

I sighed. This energy… I was dealing this hard with it. What about my humans? When they'd start cultivating, I shouldn't hurry and bring them here.

"You are finally awake!"

I heard this familiar voice coming from the direction of the door. I turned and saw Angelica standing there, with such pale face and a look of terror all over her face.

"Angelica? What are you doing here?!" I was taken aback! Wasn't she supposed to be working on building her city or what?

"Don't give me that look, monster!" she harrumphed, and yet her voice came shaky and a bit weak.

"What happened?" I still couldn't get what she was speaking about, or why she was here, or why she was behaving like this.

"What happened? Damn! You caused all this ruckus and you know nothing about it!" she sighed, shook her before pointing towards the outside, "can you come out for a second?"

"Sure," I shrugged, stood up and just as I did, I felt strange pain assaulting my joints.

*Crack!* *Crack!* *Crack!*

My joints issued such cracking sounds when I tried to move. I felt like I stayed in my place for such a long time to make my joints stiff.

What the hell went on here?

But the greatest surprise came when I came outside.

The world… The clear and bright world… It all changed now!

All I saw was a dimly lit world, a world covered with a thick veil of black and densely packed clouds.

And in many places, I could see lots of lightning arcs dancing from time to time.

Damn! Did I cause all this?

"When… When did that happen?"

"Just a few days after you went into such deep sleep," she sighed, pointing towards the direction of the sky, "this came all of sudden. At first, people thought it was going to rain. However all it brought was thick attacks of lightning attacking the ground, with not a single drop of rain."

"Few… Did you say I stayed for a few days here?"

"Days? Damn Hye! You stayed here for at least two months!"

"Two… Two what?!!!" I was taken aback when I heard what she said. Two months! Damn! Damn!

"What happened here?" I asked, even moved in a hurry to grab her arms, "what about the kingdom on Earth?"

"Let me go," just holding her in the middle of my rushed emotions left me unable to control my strength.

And just by holding her, she got so soft under my grasp. Her knees bent, and her body fell on the ground with a loud thud sound.

And her face turned from showing fear to showing pain and anger.

"Dammit Hye! It hurts!" she bellowed while shivering. I looked at her without knowing what to say or do.

"S… Sorry," that was all I could say, "I just got lost in the middle of my anxiety… Sorry about that. I just… Though I stayed for a day or two."

"Day or two? Damn Hye! You lost yourself in training this time! Anyway, things here aren't that bad. Everyone is working despite it looking gloomy here thanks to this nightmarish atmosphere."

"Ok," I got what she meant. I turned my eyes to the dark sky filled with dancing arcs of lightning and could only sigh.

Two months… I stayed here for such a long time already. I knew with the time difference, only a few days passed in the real world.

But I told them I'd come each day to check on their progress. I also didn't want to leave them unchecked, as they might get attacked by that bastard at any given moment.

I had to check over their building progress. I had to check over Lily and her team working over making the potions. I had to check over the training of everyone. I had to check over the jumper, the teams out there watching over the enemy movements.

And above all, I had a deal with Silverlining. He promised to return to me in two days, and I stayed for two months.

I didn't know if the time difference would apply to him. If so, then it would be safe to assume only three days just passed at his side.

But if it didn't… Sigh!

I didn't even dare to look at the messages record. I simply grabbed the rope and started to climb up.

However, just when I tried to climb, I felt my body light as a feather. It jumped high in the air, reached the height of a couple hundred metres before finally landing at the deck of my chariot.

I got stronger again!

626 Dealing With The Mess

Even if my energy didn't show any signs of improvement, it was always great to get stronger.

I instantly opened a portal to my Earth and passed back through it. Once I arrived, I moved my chariot to rise up, to be able to take a general look over the situation here.

But things looked much calmer than what I thought. During these days, the night prevailed again, as the sun clusters in the sky vanished.

Comparing this dimness here with the one back at my second Earth world made me not know which one was worse.

But if I had to select, I'd choose my second Earth for sure. At least there was no fight, no monsters, no enemies, no apocalypse, no quests there.

As things here looked calm and stable, with only signs of improvement at the building progress, I started to move outside the blockage zone.

[How are things at your end?]

I sent this message to the one hundred teams scattered all around my kingdom in the mission. I also sent it to Alex and Leo, to my jumper as well.

All returned back with good responses. Nothing major happened, even at the jumper's end.

The enemy seemed to grow silent, in preparation for the big fight soon to come..

The calmer he became, the much stronger his next attack would be. However I already decided to strike first. And those who strike first always win.

"Everything… Looks fine," I sighed at last. All that remained now was for me to check over the various teams working here.

But before that, I checked the messages coming from Silverlining.

And just from the long row of messages I got, I knew the time difference didn't work over the place he was in.

For a reason, this time difference seemed to be active with my Earth. I also recalled something I missed. When I spoke with the lady nymph, she also didn't get affected by the time difference.

What did that mean?

Two months of time… Two months without giving a single answer to him made him really insane!

At first, he sent messages telling me that the meeting concluded and he wanted to share the results with me.

Soon he started to send many messages, wondering about why I didn't get back to him.

And soon his messages turned to please, panic messages sent from such a scared man.

Sigh! It seemed he got severely punished for losing me as a client!

[I dunno what to say, but I was lost in training during all the past months]

[Damn! Damn Hye! Do you want to see me dead or something? Did I do anything wrong or offended you?]

I knew he would say that. After all, the last messages showed how panicked he was.

[Sorry man, I didn't mean it. I just… Started training and ended up losing track of time]

[For two months?]

[Yes bro, it felt like a couple of hours to me] I wasn't lying, [Anyway, are you good? Can you solve your current tight situation?]

[I can as long as you can deliver what you promised. Damn Hye! Just the past couple of months… They were a hellish period for me!]

I didn't know why, but I just imagined him falling on his knees and crying out of relief.

[Ok, let's start doing business then. I'm going to resume cultivating again so…]

[No, please don't! Not for a day at least!]

[Ok]

I laughed. This dude… He got really scared when he heard I was going to vanish again.

[Now I'll tell you what the crown meeting ended up with] he sent this message before a longer one arrived almost the next moment.

I felt like he was scared for me to vanish at any given moment.

When I read the content of the second message, I got to know that what I thought about before starting cultivation happened.

The meeting agreed over the three offers of the three sovereigns. But they also included the condition of sharing bones with others, and not let the three take control of everything.

I got other offers from other sovereigns asking for my red bones and other bones as well. The offers in general weren't that much different than the ones provided by the three sovereigns.

They gave weird treasures in addition to other stuff that would help these treasures mature and work.

I knew nothing about any of these treasures, and knew if I'd ask, I'd get enticed by these offers.

So I didn't.

I had to make sure my red bones would be hot cake in that race, in the entire universe. And to do so, I had to keep control over how much bones I'd give for others.

It was better to put on hold their offers for now, even if I could satisfy most of their needs at the moment.

I would accept loss right now and gain much later on better than selling my redbones cheap and suffer later on.

[Sorry my friend, but I told you already I got no more of these red bones] I sent to him, tactfully rejecting the other sovereigns' offers.

[But… I thought after all this time…]

[I told you, I was lost in training. I didn't have time to do anything else. So you do apologise to the sovereigns on my behalf. In a few months time, I'll have at least one more red bone ready. But…]

[But what?]

[Which sovereign will have it?] this was where my real gain would come in, [You know there is a long list of over thirty sovereigns wanting my bones! I can only give one up to two bones in few months time]

[This… Is a real problem indeed]

[Just ask the council or whatever of those controlling decisions at your race. Let them make the selection for me]

[Are you sure? Won't you select anyone?]

Me? Humph! If I did that, I'd end up being the enemy of over thirty sovereigns! No way I'd let myself be cooked in such a way.

[No, I trust your higher ups to do the right thing. Also the richest offer will win, that's the general rule. I hope you understand]

627 Removing Masks

[I… Get it. What about the three sovereigns' offers?]

[I'm ready to conclude them right now] I was ready to do so two months ago, [As compensation, I'm ready to exchange other bones as well. Ah, you didn't send me the list of bone exchange price list yet]

[This… I got lost in the ongoing events after we talked and…]

[No problem] I got what he wanted to say, [Just tell them to prepare a list fast]

[Cool. I'll speak with them now! I'm in shock right now, and I won't risk going there myself. You might vanish again!]

[Not until concluding this deal and delivering the bones, I promise] I closed the chat while laughing at him. Everything in my kingdom looked fine, but he was the only one who got the toll of my absence.

As he needed time to contact the three sovereigns and others, I decided to go and check over the ongoing big operations inside my capital.

Three days weren't enough to finish the building of my capital. But at least the foundations were all laid and buildings started to grow slightly taller off the ground.

From the sky, the sight looked really great! Isac did a great job in planning this capital well, even better than the grand city built in the second Earth world..

However, just before I'd move my chariot towards my capital, a message came that stopped me from moving.

[You damn bastard! You did a deal with the petal impact! And also that damn race! Then you vanished! Vanished for two months! Damn you, Hye! Damn you!]

F*ck! It was the green nymph lady. I totally forgot about her!

Two months! I didn't get back to her for two months. What did that mean? It means she kept gathering up things for me during this time.

Damn! Just thinking about the size of forces she gathered, the races, humans, the soulers… Damn! Just thinking about these made my scalp numb!

[Sorry, I got lost in training] I honestly said, [Are you still collecting races, humans, and soulers?]

[Sure! But first, tell me why you went to deal with other people?]

[You ask? Don't you know why?] If she dared to act this shamelessly, then I wouldn't flinch from exposing all the cards on the table, [I know about the real value of my bones. You… You got my bones with such low price and sold them in such high return]

[That's… How trading world is all about]

[As the sole provider, I have to secure my interests as well. So I looked for others and will lower the deals between the two of us from now on]

As she didn't even show any regret about hiding such info from me, I had to punish her at once. I depended entirely on her impact for my past period here.

But that will change from now on.

[Is this going to be our last deal then?]

[Not to such extent] I shrugged, [Also if you become sincere, I might consider increasing orders from your impact]

[What about your kingdom heart?]

[I already secured three!]

[Damn! That race… Then the rumours I heard were right! You caused a big ruckus and almost got them to raise weapons at each others' faces!]

[I just got an offer I can't refuse] I didn't delve into any detail regarding my dealings with the Toranks race, [Now, how much do I owe you?]

[Hold on for an hour or so. I have to check again]

[Take your time]

I knew she wasn't going to check on the things she already gathered for me. She was going to contact her higher ups, and try to amass much more to gain better this time.

After all, she got it from my words. This was going to be the last big deal between the two of us.

I would still ask for things from them, but not that much, not like before anyway.

At least soulers would be provided by them for now. Until I found another replacement elsewhere or the subsidiary petal impact responsible for dealing with warriors would provide them.

She would take an hour or more to return back to me. And Silverlining would take roughly the same.

I went directly to my capital, and started checking things there.

The first place I went towards was the training grounds. The place there didn't look any much different than before.

Just the size of teams working over the bigger pools of salty waters increased by almost double. As for the far away ships, they tripled, with the far away ships number doubled again.

Great! My forces were making progress. But… Was it enough?

The upcoming fight would be brutal without doubt. I knew the ones in the ships would become generals, the ones fighting in the bigger trenches would be the squad leaders, and the rest would be the mere soldiers.

Yet their advancement speed wasn't enough. If just the second Earth got monsters there, I'd have taken all of them to that world to get benefits from the time difference.

However there was another way to get them stronger; the cultivation potions.

I turned my eyes towards the place where Lily was working. Many days passed since she got the recipe and got the people she needed.

I could see lots of altars being built there, lots of people working diligently without rest. But so far, she didn't even send me a single message about the progress she made.

Did she fail? Was all this time not enough for her to produce a single potion group at least? Was it this hard to do so?

I went there while burdened with all these worries. However just as I approached, I saw a dragon girl rider rushing towards my direction from that place.

"Lord, you are finally here," just from the look on her face I could tell she was looking for me for a long time already.

"Whassup?" I casually asked while she didn't drop the look on her face as she responded:

"The lady, Lady Lily, said that she got what you wanted ready."

628 Potions Are Ready

"For real?" I asked in delight and she nodded.

"She asked me to deliver this message almost two days ago. However, I couldn't find a single trace of you anywhere."

"Yes, I was outside town" I turned my attention towards the nearby working place of Lily, "where is she right now?"

"Follow me, my lord," she said in such respect that I started to get used to it. As she flew towards the ground, I followed with the lowest speed of my chariot.

She flew over the altars built in the form of big pyramids with flat ends and broad platforms at their bases.

After five minutes of flying over many of such pyramids, we started to pass over still not finished ones. Workers were trying their best to place melted ores in the right shape needed to build these altars.

I watched all this while wondering about how these altars with the help of potions would let my boys open cultivation bases.

I previously thought about letting Lily go to the second Earth world and start building altars there. However, since my attempt to cultivate there, I grew more hesitant towards doing that..

The energy there was so much over anyone, even me. So it would be wise to let my boys cultivate here, raise their cultivation bases first, before letting them go into that harsh world to train.

After ten more minutes, we finally passed the region of altars. This place was considered outside the capital area, outside the blockage zone.

"We need protection here," this was the first thing that flashed in my mind once I reached the outer border of this zone.

This place was going to be the heart of my capital, the place that would create magical effects for my humans.

Here, miracles would be born. And I didn't want such a place to suffer destruction in the middle of any upcoming battle or quest.

I had to ask Isac and Hilary to start working on this part, reforming the entire plan to be more defensive and highly secured.

"Here she is," as we passed this region, we ended up at the furnace place and big cauldrons meant for alchemy.

At one side, big ovens were densely packed, looking like a bee hive from high above. Workers were going to and fro, carrying ores, moving melted ores, and others were working on the ovens.

As for the other side, there were different sized cauldrons arranged nearly in rows with regular intervals.

Comparing the two areas together, anyone could tell that alchemists were having much more peaceful and more organised lives than blacksmiths.

But the number of alchemists working here was much larger than blacksmiths. It seemed not only the grand talents I bought for her worked here, but also many disciples also came to help from my humans.

"Nice work," I said to Lily in applause when she boarded my chariot with a handful of selected personnel.

"We already started the production two days ago! Where were you all this time?"

"I got entangled with something," Lily wasn't aware of the presence of my second Earth, "how is the production going?"

"Terrific," her face beamed with such a wide smile, "we are producing one hundred of each potion per hour. See this…"

She took out nine different sized and coloured bottles from her inventory and gave these to me. All I saw was different coloured liquids with different viscosity in these bottles.

"Don't!" Just as I was about to open one of the lids to sniff and examine these liquids more thoroughly, she hurriedly shouted to stop me.

"If you just opened the lid and didn't consume the liquid, they would explode," she explained when I gave her such a questionable gaze.

"Really? How fierce?" I grew curious about knowing how violent such potions were.

"Enough to wipe out an entire zone of a few hundred metres radius!"

"Damn fierce!" I commented, nodded as I took this small note to my notice.

So, they weren't just mere tools of opening cultivation bases for my people. They could be used as weapons. And she spoke about using one potion.

These nine were considered small pieces of a big potion. If the nine were mixed together, what sort of explosion would happen then?

However with the current production rate, there was no way to allow such weapons to enter military service. I might let more people come and help them to accelerate the production speed.

By then, I could start thinking about using these potions in war times.

"When can we start testing these?" I still couldn't feel how special these potions were. And I wanted to see how they would allow my people to open their cultivation bases.

"We can start anytime you want," she shrugged, "we stored almost nine thousand groups of potions. You can gather nine thousand people at most to start testing."

"Ok," I paused, "if this worked, then we have to accelerate the process of production."

"How?"

"I have more talents coming soon. Let's use more of the alchemists and workers to help in producing more potions per hour."

"But…" she seemed to think about the high requirement of any alchemist needed to make these potions.

"I sent the alchemists over to you as the first batch. I know you used more talents from my race as an apprentice to help. But now I have a better way to get more of these alchemists."

"The apprentice grade ones?"

"No, the grandmaster and much higher than them," I already spoke with Silverlining about this. All I needed was to make an order and I'd get more of these alchemists.

The ones I gained were all delivered to Lily. She did great by taking in more talents to nourish. Yet such a route would take much time to give real results.

"If you can provide more alchemists of such calibre, then we can work faster indeed."

"Good, send the word back to Hilary. Let her gather up five thousands of good fighters to get tested."

629 A Scientific Debate!

"Only five?" She raised one eyebrow and her fine scales moved slightly in a way to express her surprise, "we can do more than that."

"It's enough for now," I said, "we are just going to test the potions. The time for mass production will come later on. We just need to confirm the results. It will look bad if we amassed production and the potions had a fault in them."

"I… See…" she seemed a little annoyed by what I said. After all, this technique was handed down by her ancestors.

"I'll go to look for more alchemists, you prepare the place for the test. I'll be here in six hours."

"Got it."

I let her descend with her trusted people before moving slightly away.

I had four things to do here. First close the deal with Silverlining and his sovereigns. Second, I had to ask for alchemists.

Then I had to close the deal with that greedy nymph lady, and finally I had to look for Isac..

This place… It should be heavily fortified! And this should be done before the start of the big war coming in a few days.

That meant we had little time left here to do things right.

[Any news?] I sent it to the lady and to Silverlining. But the answers I got made me sigh.

They weren't yet ready. Silverlining's people didn't yet give a response. It seemed they were busy preparing the lists of exchange for my bones.

As for the nymph lady, she said she needed more time. I knew she was trying to prepare a greater deal to gain more bones from me.

These two weren't ready yet. So it was time to go and look for Isac.

I didn't know where this girl was. I stopped one of the dragon rider girls and asked her to find Isac for me.

I knew Hilary would be in the coastal region. But Isac could be anywhere.

I thought she might be near Hilary, to help her in strengthening defences. But when the girl returned and told me about her current location, I was slightly surprised.

"At MIT campus? Cool!" I thanked the girl and went towards the other side of the river to the MIT campus.

Of course this place couldn't be considered a campus anymore! After all the destruction that happened from the last battle here, and adding the extra damage created by the explosion of the capsule's energy, this place looked much different.

Most of the buildings were demolished, totally or partially. Rubbles were scattered everywhere, but that didn't stop the small army of brilliant minds to work here.

I saw lots of groups of youths working in different spots here. They worked in the middle of all this chaos, without caring about cleaning the area around them.

Scientists… Sigh! Once their attention was piqued, nothing would be in their minds but to test and try.

Finding Isac wasn't that hard. After all, she was standing in the middle of a large group of different races, seemingly in a heated discussion with a few youths of the MIT team.

I saw the girl who I appointed as the leader of this team. What was her name again? Damn! I forgot about it!

"Lord!"

Once I arrived with my chariot, all of them greeted me with such respect and fear.

"What brought you here?" only Isac had such an attitude, "and where are my aquatic boys?"

"I will get them over in a few hours," I totally missed this point. I had to wait then for the lady nymph to return and finalise this deal with her. I'd ask for all the aquatic races to come here. Hopefully they wouldn't come in large numbers.

Or else they would cause more chaos than help!

"Better do that," she harrumphed, seemingly looking in such a bad mood.

"What's wrong?" I moved my eyes around. The bunch of talents here were a mixture of different races that I never saw before.

Few covered with scales, others were covered with thick skin, layered over each other in different sized patches. Few had horns, others had spikes, and some had smooth skin like the most sexy girl in the world.

They weren't too many, making me believe they were the leaders of the different talents I brought over from the petal impact.

"We are having a problem," Isac said, focusing her eyes over the group of human youths here, "your talents don't accept the ideas proposed by my talents."

"How so?" I moved to the girl leading my human MIT geniuses and paused for a long moment. She sighed, before speaking up:

"They want to change the entire procedure of producing energy," she pointed at Isac before adding, "they want to just use energy ready items to produce energy. We are researching how to extract energy from various sources to form new and unique ones for our people to use."

"This will take longer time, much effort, and will garnish the same results!" Isac seemed to be leading the other talent group, speaking up for them.

"But we need to create a new source of energy, solely for our race!"

"It's pointless! Why reinvent the wheel? Just use that damn wheel!"

"Stop it you two!" This was the last thing I wanted to see here. I asked for the talents to come and help, not to cause such disturbance and bring trouble to my MIT youths.

"I brought you here to help, yet instead of getting to know what others are doing here, you wanted to impose your opinions?" I said, speaking to the talents and not Isac.

"They are just trying to help," Isac spoke in defence, but I wasn't convinced.

"My youths are trying to create something new here. You might think this is nothing much, but it's a very important thing to my kingdom, to my people, to me!"

Of course their opinion was right and wise. Wasting time in reinventing the wheel wasn't a good thing.

But who said I was looking for an energy source to feed my capital, cities and towns, my kingdom?

630 I Will Turn This Place Into An Impregnable Fortress!

I started this project with one sole purpose in mind; changing the human arsenal of weapons and turning them into apocalypse friendly weapons.

To do so, I had to merge the human obsolete tech with the current trend of apocalyptic friendly power sources to form a new hybrid form of energy.

Such a thing would work with my human weapons. Using other routes wouldn't bring me any results at all!

"But…"

"This is final!" I wouldn't accept any argument or talk about this matter, "either they help them in doing what I asked them to do, or they can return back to the second Earth world and start working there on what they know."

"Second what?" The girl looked at me in such a shocked way while others behind her gasped in surprise and shock.

"Not now," it wasn't time to introduce the new earth for them, for everyone here. "So, what's your decision?"

"We accept the lord's challenge," one old looking man, with weird spikes covering up what was supposed to be his eyebrows, said in such a deep and strong tone, "we will see how the old human tech will work with ours."

This old dude… He was smart and got what I wanted to do here from the beginning! Then what was such debate and ruckus that happened here?.

Were they testing me?!!

"But… Old Gan…" Isac seemed to treat this old man with eyebrows made of spikes with such respect.

"It's ok, I like new challenges anyway," he said, acting as if he held the decision here, not me!

"Start working then and stop wasting more time," I jumped over this useless remark. This dude was bound by a contract with me. So no matter how he tried to act, he was still serving me.

"What about my aquatic boys?" As the two groups dispersed, went to different directions and started further detailed scientific discussions, Isac turned to me and asked in such a way.

"I told you, in a few hours they will be here."

"You should be right," for a reason, she seemed pretty much annoyed by what I did here. Was she adopting the viewpoint of these talents or what?

"Let's go, we have another place for you to work your magic on," I dropped all these useless thoughts off my mind while walking back to my chariot.

"Where? Back to that world?" she hurriedly ran after me after staying back in daze for a few seconds.

Of course with her big body, she caught up with me in just a few steps.

"No, it's here," I said, while pointing towards the distance, "there is a place out there that needs urgent defensive buildings."

"At the coast?" The direction I pointed towards wasn't that far away from the coast. And that made me inwardly sigh when I realised this point.

"It's a very important place," I said just that while boarding the chariot with her. As I led the chariot towards that place, she kept asking about what made this place special.

"It's like… A factory," I tried to find the right words to describe this place.

"A factory? Producing what?"

"Magical drugs to let anyone start cultivating," I slowly said, while looking deeply in her eyes.

Once she heard what I said, she, for the first time ever, gasped out of immense shock.

"You… Is there a way to do it?!!!"

"Let's not speak about this at the moment," I didn't want her to get her mind burdened with such a thing. I told her because she would soon know anyway.

And it was better for her to understand the value of this place to take the task of fortifying it very seriously.

"B… But… You know how big this is, right?!!"

"I know, and it's not the thing I wanted you to do here," I rolled my eyes, "as you can see, this place lies at the outer border of the capital."

"It's… Vulnerable!" she got what I wanted to say, turned around before adding in such a serious way, "I'll make sure this place is like a fortress when I get finished with it! It will need a miracle if anyone manages to trespass the outer walls of this place."

"But you have a tight time limit here," I warned her, "you only got four days, five at most."

"This…" she paused, realising how hard this task will be, "if you gave me enough support, I surely can do it in a shorter time than that."

"I'll give you workers," I said before pointing towards the ovens here, "and you can use these to help you melt down the ores for the foundation and defensive structures."

"Cool! But I might need tons of workers."

"I'll get you tens of millions if you need."

"Agreed!"

"Check the area out first," I led her around in a wide tour, "don't forget to make account for future expansion."

"I'll place the defences away from the current work places," she paused for a long minute, thinking about the layout of defences in her mind, "the only problem is still out there."

She pointed at the direction of the ocean. When I saw where she pointed at, I sighed.

Indeed, that place was still considered the most vulnerable weak spot at my capital.

"We will build lots of aquatic forts there," I said, which gave me little reassurance.

"But… Building such things will take time. And…"

I got what she wanted to say. We didn't have much time ahead of us. So we had to select which zone to start working on first.

"This place is top priority," I decided, "the other coast is now fortified with mighty walls and forts. This one will take time to have the same kind of protection."

"Got it! I will start working over the blueprints and arrange the teams to melt down the needed ores. As for the workers…"

"I'll get them to you in a few hours."

"With the aquatic races?"

"Both will arrive at the same time."

631 Meeting Hilary

"Great then. I expect at least fifty million," she moved her arm to cover up the entire open lands south to the working zone of Lily and her people, "this place… It will change in less than two days time. I give you my word for that."

I nodded, returned back to the middle of the oven zone and dropped her there.

With the help of dragon riders, she could get whatever she wanted from around the capital. As for me, I had to wait for the response from the lady nymph and Silverlining.

I checked and found that only an hour had passed so far. So I had yet to wait for a couple, even more hours for them to come back to me.

"Let's check over Hilary then," I decided to go to the coastal region and check over the walls and defences there.

My last visit there was a few days ago in Earth's time, many weeks ago in my time. I had to get used to such chaos in time while jumping in between the two worlds.

That place was already showing much progress than most buildings in the capital last time I checked it..

So when I reached there and saw long rows of walls with regularly separated forts, I wasn't that much impressed.

The focus over this party started early in the building process. Also the number of workers here was too much compared to the area they were working in.

Walls stretched for over ten metres, triple in some places, five in others. Around the forts, circles of walls surrounded them. And the forts were built over a higher ground than the walls.

They looked like miniature versions of big and mighty fortresses. I liked that!

I knew this was all Isac's arrangement. And that made me curious about what she would do at the new project she had.

I flew for almost half an hour before reaching a point where the walls went two separate ways. Part went to the same path, lining the coast and protecting it.

And the other went in a horizontal direction, like it was going to circle my capital starting from here.

I liked that! Instead of following the coast, I felt curious and went to follow the walls going into the depth of the lands.

This part seemed recently built. I didn't fly for ten minutes before reaching a place where the digging process was still undergoing.

Large number of workers were lost in the work here. Not a single one was free to raise his head high and spot me.

As I saw them working in such diligent way, I started moving back towards the coast. The people working here were led by humans, but I didn't see any sign of Hilary at all.

If she was here, she would have come shouting and waving from far away!

The walls at the coastal border continued for half an hour before I finally reached a place filled with digging.

Just seeing the size of this digging process that stretched for almost two miles up ahead made me know why the building here was much faster than anywhere else.

Hilary and her men seemed to adopt such a tactic, organising people into teams, digging a large distance first before laying down the foundation and then raising the walls high up.

They might take a few hours to finish digging without any sign of progress. But once the digging would be finished, laying the foundation and raising walls wouldn't take that much to give such an impressive result.

Besides, they had to work in a narrow space, building the same thing over and over again. Building walls didn't require any skill, didn't need any special design or process in building.

And in the middle of all this, I spotted Hilary doing exactly like I imagined; coming at me running and waving in obvious delight.

"What a surprise! You said you'd come here and check on us once every day. But hey, you took three days to come this time! And it's just the first time."

Once she arrived at my chariot's top, she threw her body in my embrace while complaining like this.

"Sorry," I didn't know how to tell her that. But considering her three days with the two months I spent away from Silverlining and Lady nymph, she didn't seem to suffer at all! "I got busy training."

"You are always like that!" she looked at my eyes, "you shall take a few days off. Why not go to that peaceful world together, find a secluded place there and… You know…"

Her face turned all red when she said that. She was acting shy, as I knew how fierce and daring she was in bed.

"Not now," I moved a few long strands of her hair off her face to better take a closer look of her mesmerising eyes.

And without saying much, we two were lost in a deep and intimate long kiss, a kiss that linked our souls and breaths together and entwined us into one entity for long minutes.

"What do you think of my actions here?" after finishing such a good moment, she asked in a slightly weaker tone.

"You did great!" I honestly responded.

"Don't I deserve a reward?"

"Not now," I sighed, resisting the urge to carry her soft body in my arms and go down there to devour such a sexy and fiery body. "We have a big war coming up."

"I know, and that's more reason to do it."

"Not now," I softly kissed her on the lips to stop her from persuading me, "I have to go back and check other matters."

"Ok," she nodded, acting weirdly obedient when she was in my arms like that. She was like a totally different person laying softly in my arms like that.

"Go back now… Ah, try to focus more on expanding the walls going through the lands."

"You mean… The ones surrounding the capital?"

632 Creating A Triangular Defensive Zone

"You already went too far ahead," I nodded, "we won't be able to finish these walls before the next war. It will be most likely for those Hectares to come and destroy these walls first."

"Hmm… If so… Then why not try to link the two together?"

"Like…"

"Making a big triangle here," her eyes shone while adding, "this way we can turn this entire region into a big training camp. Also it will help us a lot in defending the capital from any northern attacks."

"I like that!" I nodded, "didn't Isac plan this before?"

"No, she just was busy and drew long lines going for the end of this continent!"

"This…" I knew this would be great to extend walls to cover the entire coast. However it wasn't that practical at all!"

It was better to do like what my chick here said.

"Ok, go down and start doing it the way you said.".

"Uhm," she nodded, reluctantly leaving my embrace after long and deeply intimate kisses between our lips.

As she went down in such hesitant steps, I could only sigh. In such harsh times of the apocalypse, trying to have a normal life like this was impossible.

Not until the kingdom would be established for long years and most of the deadly quests would pass.

"Karoline…" Just looking at the getting far back of Hilary made me recall my lost girl. "I hope that you'll come back alive in the end."

I still had no way to get to her for now. And I just hoped she would emerge alive from this ordeal.

I threw her problem behind my back for now. There would be a time when I'd go and rescue her. But not for now.

Now I had to totally focus on preparations for the upcoming big war.

Hilary's idea was great. Doing it wouldn't only save the part of the walls built on the coast, but it would also help in better using it in the upcoming fight.

And that military zone that would be here would do a great task in the upcoming war.

If they came from the north, they would face hell. I looked to the south and considered mimicking this as well.

But we lacked workers! And that made me look for the great delivery the lady nymph was going to make.

After all, it would be her last time getting such a deal from me.

I thought about what I should do with the southern region. Isac was already taking charge there, changing the entire place and turning it into a real fortress.

So adding a little extra work to her wouldn't be a big problem.

I went directly to her place. I knew she wouldn't be able to do much with the limited manpower she had right now. But she would need time to think about what to do there.

We needed walls, forts to be stationed at the coast. We also needed to think about the eastern borders of my capital.

Hilary's idea about making a triangular shape of the northern border made me think about something else. Isac planned the entire capital to be in a star shape.

But that didn't mean the defence wouldn't be like a big triangle. This way, we could limit the size needed for protection, have extra smaller triangles built upon the big walls with main training camps there for extra protection.

Thinking about this, and imagining the finished version of my capital to have such planning, made me more reassured.

Like this I could leave my capital behind without any worries about getting hit by any army no matter what!

Without having a good and well secured base, how would I consider myself the strongest in the entire apocalypse here?

When I reached her, I found her busy giving orders to lots of workers. She was already in the mood to finish up what she had in mind. And I had to wait for almost an hour without saying a single word, waiting for her to finish.

"You are patient," she said once she came on board. Her smile was so big, making me feel more guilty about what I was going to say to her.

"I want you to expand the work here."

"Really?" she raised one eyebrow before adding, "with such few workers?"

"I'm going to get you tens of millions," I shrugged.

"Those were barely enough to make the work here done," she crossed her arms before adding, "I want double that number."

"You didn't ask about what I want."

"It's obvious," she grinned, "you want to add walls to the coast here, link these with the big fortress I'm going to build, right?"

"Not only that," I was impressed by her quick wits, "I want to change the entire defensive plans of the capital…"

I started to explain to her what I had in mind. She didn't reveal her thoughts until I finished.

"You want all this to finish before the upcoming war?"

I nodded and she had to roll her eyes. "Dammit Hye! Why can't we just build things over the other world and get the benefit of the time difference?"

"If that can be done, then I'll agree," I sighed, "but you know, we have to do it before the big war."

"I know… Fine! I want at least one hundred million workers, even double if possible."

"Do… Double?!! This place won't take them!"

"You don't get it," she pointed at the outside area of her fortress, "the world is vast and open for us to do whatever we want in it. I want teams to work all time, exchange shifts with each other to keep the wheel running."

"I… Get it," I got what she wanted to do here. She wanted to use double the numbers to make two teams, one work for part of the day and the other would replace them when they got tired.

Doing it this way would save lots of time indeed. But that also meant lots of food to supply, big places for these workers to live in, and also lots of resources to be readied to match the insane working speed.

633 Giving Silverlining A Scare

In brief… We needed much more blacksmiths to melt ores, workers to move things around, and more dragon riders to relay orders and deliver news.

"You deal with the planning and supervising over the building process," I said, "and leave everything else to me."

"What about north?" she motioned with her head, "that girl is working there, right"

"Hilary is already working there, mostly finished with the coastal walls and forts."

"Hmm… I won't be behind such a girl," I didn't know why, but Isac seemed to make a challenge with Hilary over this.

And as the lord of this place, I was happy to have such a good fight.

"Go now," I waved my hand, "let me go and prepare things for you."

"Two hundred millions… Not a single one less…" she raised her finger in warning before leaving, "and don't forget to get as much ores as you can, tools to dig and move things around, and also more blacksmiths."

"I got it!" I shouted while she vanished through the stairs.

I needed a lot! Races weren't the issue. The Bringold impact would deliver more than that for sure..

But resources… Talents… Tools… I needed tons of these.

[I need help from your subsidiary impacts]

[Sure! What do you need?]

[I need…] I started to state my requirements. I needed ores, one that had at least one single bonus effect when used.

I spoke about big tools to dig earth fast and with much more efficiency than the ones used here. Also I needed these in large amounts to satisfy the manpower I was going to acquire from Bringold impact.

I needed blacksmiths. At this point, even apprentices were warmly welcomed by me. I needed a lot of these, thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands if possible.

[Damn! Are you planning to renovate an entire world or what?!!]

[I'm just building a city]

[Just one city? What the heck?!!! It's like you are asking for turning this city into an entire world!]

[I just like to do things in big way] I laughed over his reaction, [Ah, and I need these as fast as you can provide]

[This… How fast is fast exactly?]

[What do you mean?]

[I mean if you want things now, then I'll provide what we have. But this might not be even close to one tenth of what you are asking for]

[Save this place then, and keep sending things over. You got two days at most. As for what you have, send them all]

[Damn! Asking for such a big thing without even batting an eye! Quite fierce! Are you really human?]

[I got asked this question quite a lot] I laughed again before adding, [Go and prepare things over. Once done, send me a message with contracts to finalise the deals]

[What about warriors? You seemed pretty much interested in them before. And humans as well, you asked precisely for these two goods]

[Ah, you can also prepare what you can and send them over] I was going to get a lot from the Bringold impact. But who would say no to more of my humans and warriors?

The list of warriors I got before was very long and quite detailed. What I wanted from them were my beloved Bulltors, winged wyverns, shield warriors, and even vampires!

[Send me all the warriors your subsidiary impact got, all in the form of exchangeable seals]

Seals were the things stored in my inventory. If I had them, I could exchange these mighty fighters with my teammates and even capable generals.

[Are you sure? We are speaking about millions of them! Even more!]

[Just prepare all these… Don't forget, exchangeable seals]

The only drawback about my warriors besides their low number was the inability for me to exchange them with others. Even my soulers, they would only answer to me, and me alone.

[Ok, this might add little cost to their initial price but I got the feeling this won't be a problem for you]

[You guessed it right]

[Then… What about their ranks?]

[What do you mean?]

[I mean… Do you want only mere commoners or you want higher grades like specials, elites, and generals?]

[Oh… So they got ranks?] I previously was puzzled with my soulers. I got tons of them but none showed any remarkable or outstanding abilities or performance.

[Of course! But those with higher grades will cost much more. Also they are handled by our main impact]

[No problem. Do you have general grade soulers?]

[Gene… Damn hye! Do you want us to kill ourselves to keep such scary beings? No way! If you want them, you have to sign a contract first to directly handle them without our intervention!]

[This…] His weird answer and nervous reaction startled me. [Are they this bad?]

[Damn! A ranked elite souler will consume ten thousand souls per day! Ten thousand! And that's just an elite! A general will need a million! Who is in his right mind to accept such a scary condition? No way! We won't deal with such deadly goods, not directly at least]

[I got it] I understood what he meant. I opened my soul class and watched the twenty something million souls residing there.

I was sure in the upcoming battle, this number would grow to reach a terrifying figure. Paying my debt to that higher up? It wouldn't be a problem after this war.

[Find me a general, five elites then]

[Hye! Are you out of your damn mind! Didn't you get what I just said?!!]

[Just send me their contracts to sign. Once you got them, they'll be mine]

[Damn!]

[Also send me their price]

[No, I won't ask for anything back! Just take your time and rethink about this]

[I want them, I can deal with such conditions] I knew he was worried about my safety. Of course not out of good will. He just was scared he'd lose his golden goose.

[I've never met such a crazy dude like you! And just two months ago you asked for those scary necromancers! Damn Hye! What are you? Really, what are you? You can't be human, no f*cking way!]

634 Making Great Deals

[Just send the contracts and send these over. I need them and might need more if they performed well]

[Performed well? Just pray you won't die out of their scary consumption!]

Die? Humph! This dude wasn't yet even the least suspicious about my class! I got over twenty million souls. That meant I could satisfy the general souler needs for twenty days at least.

In four days we will have the big war. Also there was another big war high up in the north. If there was no war, I'd find myself in a den of rat monsters and rabbit monsters, breed them to reach billions and start harvesting their souls!

If I got cornered, then all the races I was going to get and had no use for would be sacrificed! Damn! I got lots of ways to get many souls, more than what I needed.

So Silverlining, stop getting me nervous over such useless things!

[Just send the contract, and see what I asked for]

[Ok crazy dude!].

He stopped speaking with me for ten minutes before returning again.

[I spoke with my sovereigns. They say if you lack good warriors, they can provide you with what you need. But don't risk using the cursed soulers]

[Dude! Sigh! I already have hundreds of thousands of soulers under my command!]

[What?!!!]

[I needed a general, elites to lead them as well. So don't think I'm just asking for something I don't know about. I know, and I can deal with these. In fact I'm dealing now with close to what a general might need. Stop worrying and start working]

[…]

He just sent me these empty dots without saying anything. For sure he was scared and shocked. I had to get those general ranked soulers at any cost.

But right now I had to play it wise and safe. I had an army of soulers suited for one general to lead. Considering the next batch provided by that nymph lady, I might even hit the million record with them.

If that general grade was worth what he cost, then I'd be relieved from this army.

Warriors were smart races, but there was something lacking in these soulers and my other warriors. They needed me to give orders to them. They lacked the intelligence and skill to make decisions in the middle of the fight.

They were soldiers, commoner grade as I understood from Silverlining. I needed a general to lead soldiers. With a capable one, such an army would show a remarkable improvement, might even be enough to hold a fight on its own.

This time I didn't wait for more than a few minutes before he returned with many things.

Tons of contracts were sent for me to sign regarding the deals. Six of them were special, as they were regarding the soulers I wanted.

I signed them all, paid everything using my blue bones.

After finalising such big deals, I felt the story of my blue bones got lower in a visible rate.

"Sigh! I need to return to collect bones in the next war," I knew it wasn't a big problem, especially when I was going to fight Hectors, monsters, and other races.

I could pay with higher grade bones but I didn't feel like it. I still had lots of blue bones, enough to make such a deal dozens of times before getting bankrupt.

Just the gains of one big war would be enough to make up for such payment, and get much more as extras.

And that would be a myriad of different graded bones, not just blue ones.

I had three more deals to honour with the three sovereigns. Dealing with impacts cost me this much. So dealing with the mighty sovereigns would take much more than that.

I decided to put on hold the first delivery with them after the end of that big war. At that time, I'd have my inventory swelled up with bones, able to exchange whatever I wanted with any amount I desired.

Signing these contracts made me feel like I turned into a businessman! And as I was in the middle of doing this, portals started to flash all over the place.

I was standing just near the place of the fortress of Isac's project. It was outside the capital, looking much desolate and separated from any security and life signs for now.

But I knew later on, and just when the major construction process ended here, this place would be considered the safest inside my capital.

So I wasn't worried about leaving such tons of ores and materials, tools for digging and moving things around, and even big special ovens to melt these ores here.

Then my humans arrived!

I jumped from signing contracts of deals to signing loyalty contracts in batches.

[I'm sending three hundred million humans, they are all what we got right now]

The number looked smaller than I expected. Comparing the two impacts together in size and wealth, the petals impact should give much better deals than this.

However I knew this was also considered something as I asked for these in a hurry and without any prior arrangements. I still recall the first few million deliveries batched by the Bringold impact.

The difference was wide and obvious if things were seen from the right perspective.

[Thanks] I said before realising something. Angelica and her team were way over the other world. So who was going to do the introductory part and deal with the confused humans here?

"Sigh! I'll have to take such responsibility for now," I decided to look for a dragon girl fast and ask her to spread the word around my capital.

Those who got taught by Hilary and her men and saw in themselves the ability to do such a thing would come here and volunteer to do such a task.

I found one and sent her back to the central part of the capital. Workers there were the first ones to come here, and they were the ones understanding what was going on here the best.