Chapter 82

Spark Hall.

On twelve pitch-black, calm obsidian prisms, torches burned fiercely.

Looking at Tamerlane kneeling on one knee in front of him, Xia Mingyu looked stunned.

The grandson of the Sun Pope wants to be my servant? It sounds even more exaggerated than some carpenter emperor.

"Tamerlane, comrade is actually similar to a servant..." Fearing Tamerlane would misunderstand, Xia Mingyu explained patiently.

"But it is more equal than a servant, isn't it?" Tamerlane smiled slightly.

"With your status, the line of people in this world who want to become your servant is longer than the body of the World Serpent Jörmungandr, so it wouldn't hurt to have one more."

"Moreover, my intuition has long told me that you will be the dawn of this dark world, bringing radiance to everyone."

Tamerlane said loudly, his handsome and delicate face full of longing and expectation, as if hoping to see a new world full of radiance in the next second.

Ah... you've praised me so much, what else can I say?

Xia Mingyu said no more, silently draping his outer garment over Tamerlane's shoulders.

After all, he also really wanted to know what kind of heaven-defying gift Tamerlane, who was summoned from across the world by the spark along with Hagek Kesi, would awaken.

Something like the Light of World Purification or the Sword of Promised Victory would be fine.

"How can you say you have no clothes? I share my robes with you."

Xia Mingyu began to chant with ease.

However, unlike the previous two enfeoffments, this time after chanting "Qin Feng · No Clothes," that outer garment did not turn into countless points of light and merge into Tamerlane.

Clearly, the enfeoffment ceremony had failed.

"Could it be that the same style of clothing cannot be used for enfeoffment twice?"

Xia Mingyu thought for a moment, then materialized another outer garment to drape over Tamerlane's shoulders, repeating the previous process.

It still failed.

"Tamerlane, what is your current rank?" Xia Mingyu asked.

He suspected that perhaps the rank gap was too large, so he could not enfeoff a comrade.

"Your Highness, I am currently at the Fifth Rank, Crescent Moon Rank." Tamerlane answered respectfully.

Fifth Rank?! Xia Mingyu's heart shook.

When Kalen achieved the Morning Star Rank in his twenties, the name "Howling Wolf" had already resounded through the Southern Region.

And Tamerlane looked to be only in his early twenties, yet he had already reached the Fifth Rank!

One must know that on the path of transcendent advancement, the difficulty of subsequent advancement multiplies several times with each rank.

Looking at it this way, enfeoffing a comrade fails if the rank gap is more than three ranks...

Just as Xia Mingyu was still pondering, Tamerlane looked at the emerald green protection above his head and had a faint guess in his heart.

"Your Highness, have you already enfeoffed two comrades?"

Xia Mingyu nodded slightly.

"Your Highness, a noble's protection at the transcendent rank can only enfeoff two servants; after that, there are two servant slots for every rank advanced." Tamerlane explained.

"So that's it; I thought the enfeoffment failed because the rank gap was too large." Xia Mingyu realized suddenly.

"How could that be? With your talent and the blessing of 1.4 billion citizens, you should have reached at least the Sixth Rank, Radiant Moon, by now." Tamerlane said, laughing and crying at the same time.

"More than that, with the great power you displayed when you crossed boundless distances to bless me at that time, I believe you should have already reached the highest human rank, the Eighth Rank, Eternal Sun." Hagek Kesi countered.

The two discussed for a long time and finally reached a consensus—His Highness is at the Seventh Rank, but his power is enough to rival the strongest human at the Eighth Rank.

Xia Mingyu: "..."

Should I tell them that I am just a Second Rank true illusionist!

Black Langbao.

With the arrival of Young Master Haidun's baby ceremony, at the call of his maternal grandmother, the Lord of the Southern Region, Rosa Masha, the lords of the entire Southern Region arrived here one after another in luxurious carriages.

Because of the inconvenient transportation and long distances, they usually tried to arrive the day before the baby ceremony to avoid missing it.

So, early this morning, the gates of Black Langbao were thrown wide open, and Kalen and his wife were waiting at the entrance early, gazing longingly at the blue-tinged horizon in the distance.

These were not guests arriving, but stepping stones for their son's brilliant future!

Clip-clop, clip-clop.

A luxurious carriage stopped at the entrance.

The first to arrive was the Lord of the Night Shadow Territory, which bordered the Black Wolf Territory—Viscount Night Shadow, Victor Night Shadow.

He was a tall, thin, middle-aged man with pale skin and a somewhat gloomy face.

"Respected Viscount Night Shadow, my friendly neighbor, Black Langbao welcomes your arrival, thank you for being able to come and participate in my young son's..."

Facing the Viscount who stepped out of the carriage, Kalen bowed slightly to show his welcome.

Then, before he could finish his sentence, he was pushed aside by Victor.

"Hmph." After glaring at him fiercely, Victor snorted coldly and walked into Black Langbao on his own.

Kalen: "..."

"This guy really has no noble demeanor at all!"

Kalen frowned slightly, a trace of displeasure flashing in his deep green eyes.

If it weren't for the fact that Victor was here to bring blessings to his young son, he would have already rolled up his sleeves, ready to let the other party feel the anger of the Howling Wolf.

"Relax, darling, his Night Shadow Territory has always had the phenomenon of residents fleeing, and most of the fleeing residents have entered the Black Wolf Territory to pay us taxes; it is only natural that he would be dissatisfied."

Danielle gently stroked Kalen's face and offered a kiss, saying softly.

She still had to welcome the lords coming from all over the Southern Region from thousands of miles away, and she didn't want her husband to entertain these guests with negative emotions.

"That's true." Kalen's brow gradually smoothed out.

Putting himself in his shoes, if the residents in his territory were constantly being absorbed by the neighboring territory, let alone pushing the other person, he would have the heart to kill them!

"Hehe, this can't be blamed on me either; who told this guy to even tax the breathing of the residents in his territory, under the high-sounding name that air is also his and cannot be breathed for free..."

Kalen's mouth curled slightly, a trace of mockery appearing on his rugged face.

In the simple folk customs of the Southern Region, because of the call of the Southern Region Lord, Count Masha, and the great contributions made by the former Count's husband—the famous Radiant Moon Knight, Red Fire, who led the Southern Region lords to form a great army in the Dragon-Lion War and cut off the head of the rebel leader, Duke Mason, but himself suffered irreparable heavy injuries.

When the knight was dying, the King of Gluttony brought the great nobles to express their condolences and granted him the right to make any one wish.

This was what kind of honor and the dream that countless nobles dreamed of!

He could have made a wish for the Masha family to be promoted to Marquis in one fell swoop, or a wish for his child to become the King's godson.

He could even have asked for countless gold and silver treasures, as well as great posthumous fame, but Red Fire did not do so.

Under the confused, shocked, and surprised gazes of all the great nobles present, Red Fire made his wish, which was absurd to the point of being unbelievable—to exempt the Southern Region from the grain tax.

That was all.

The King of Gluttony asked three times if he wanted to change it, but until Red Fire breathed his last, he never changed his wish.

Thus, thanks to Red Fire's sacrifice, the Southern Region was exempted from the Kingdom's grain tax by the King of Gluttony for fifteen years.

All the lords of the entire Southern Region benefited, so they naturally returned the favor by accepting the call of the Southern Region Lord—or rather, Red Fire's widow—to reduce the taxes on the residents in their territories.

Anyway, no matter how much they reduced it, it was still much better than the lords in other regions who had to pay grain taxes to the Kingdom.

Precisely because of this, the Southern Region could become one of the few pieces of paradise in the entire Socia Kingdom, and even the entire continent.

Except for the Night Shadow Territory in the Southern Region, where Victor truly achieved taxing even breathing, single-handedly making the residents on the Night Shadow Territory live worse than death, with starving corpses littering the fields.

This also faintly made him an outlier among the Southern Region nobles, faintly excluded by the other lords.

"Hehe, yeah, if it were according to his tax collection method, one day all the residents in his territory would starve to death, and then he would become the first lone-wolf lord in Socia's history."

Danielle also echoed her husband, mocking along.

The two looked at each other, both revealing a tacit smile on their faces.

"But it's been so many years, I didn't expect Victor, this guy, to have actually been promoted to a Great Knight."

Recalling the power that came from the push earlier, a trace of doubt appeared on Kalen's face.

"Him, a Great Knight?! I remember Victor only barely achieved transcendence in his twenties..." Danielle said in surprise.

In this world, with the blessing of noble protection, if one only achieved a transcendent knight in their twenties, then the possibility of achieving a Great Knight was almost completely cut off.

"Yeah, when we participated in the Dragon-Lion War together, this guy always hid in the middle of the team, not daring to come out at all; whenever there was a battle, he would lie down and pretend to be dead or run around, and he was mocked by me and Lu En and the others quite a bit."

Kalen shrugged.

Clip-clop, clip-clop.

At this moment, another luxurious carriage arrived in front of Black Langbao.

"It's the Lord of the Rock Territory, Warren Rock; he is also one of my former comrades-in-arms from the Dragon-Lion War, come, let's go welcome him together..."

Inside Black Langbao.

Victor walked aimlessly in the castle's courtyard, his expression incomparably gloomy, so much so that the servants passing by did not dare to get close, only able to take a detour from afar to avoid angering this guest with the emerald green noble protection on his head.

"Damn Masha, damn Hughes!" Victor cursed fiercely in his heart.

He didn't want to come and bless the young son of this neighbor who kept sucking the blood of his territory like a leech.

But helplessly, the Southern Region Lord, Count Masha, gave him an ultimatum: either come to participate in her grandson's baby ceremony and offer blessings, or convert the grain taxes that had been exempted over the years into money and hand them over to the Masha family together!

After all, that was the glory left by her husband, and Victor had deprived his residents of the right to bathe in this glory.

Forced by helplessness, Victor had to set off for Black Langbao, but this gave him a sense of humiliation of being threatened.

"Damn it... as long as the power of pain accumulates to a certain level, I will be able to be promoted to a Bishop, and then whether it's Masha or Hughes, I will torture you until you wish you were dead!"

Victor secretly vowed in his heart.

As he walked, he arrived at the martial arts field of Black Langbao before he knew it.

Clang, clang, clang!

A series of rapid clashing sounds of metal like raindrops attracted Victor's attention, so he looked in the direction of the sound.

He saw that on the martial arts field bathed in the morning sun, a young man holding a long sword was engaged in a fierce battle against two knights.

The young man looked to be only seventeen or eighteen years old, his figure thin but straight as a pine, a few strands of brown hair soaked with sweat hanging in front of his forehead, but his eyes were as sharp as a hawk's, staring tightly at the opponent in front of him.

Clang, clang, clang!

The long sword in his hand was wielded as fiercely as a hurricane and as precise as a hawk catching a rabbit, managing to block the simultaneous attacks of the two knights.

"That is... Kalen's two servant knights, Suolin and Lei Mi?"

Watching this scene, Victor's expression was replaced by surprise.

That young man looked at most seventeen, yet he could simultaneously resist two transcendent knights without falling behind!

This was simply heaven-sent talent! In the future, he would almost certainly become a Morning Star Rank, and there was great hope for the Crescent Moon Rank as well.

Thinking of this, a sense of appreciation rose in Victor's heart.

"Kalen's servant slots are full, this young man should not be his servant, and since the status protection 'comrade' is not a noble, nor a servant, then he should be a person without a master."

Holding the retaliatory psychology of having had so many residents absorbed by Kalen, he also wanted to abduct a genius, so Victor slowly approached the three people fighting.

"Respected Viscount Night Shadow, I, Suolin Brook, servant of Viscount Hughes, greet you."

"Respected Viscount Night Shadow, I, Lei Mi..."

After noticing Victor's approach, the two transcendent knights withdrew from the battle one after another and bowed slightly to salute.

Although this Viscount Night Shadow had a quite terrible reputation in the Southern Region, that was a matter for their lord to consider; as servants, they had to treat their lord's guests with courtesy.

"En, get up, this is..."

Victor looked at the young man in front of him with appreciative eyes.

For some reason, the other party trembled all over with excitement after hearing his name.

Tsk, sure enough, I, Victor, as the Lord of the Night Shadow Territory and a participant in the Dragon-Lion War, still have a bit of a reputation in the Southern Region.

A sense of self-satisfaction rose in Victor's heart, and at the same time, he became more confident in his subsequent recruitment of the young man.

"Uh... this is a guest staying at Black Langbao, Boge Chu."

After Knight Suolin and Knight Lei Mi exchanged glances for a moment, they gave the answer.

Given that His Highness's identity was currently in a state of strict secrecy, they could not directly say that Boge was a servant of a big shot.

"Kid, your swordsmanship is very good, and your eyes are also very sharp, are you interested in having a battle with me?"

Victor looked at the young man who was lowering his head in front of him and smiled slightly, issuing an invitation.

Naturally, he wouldn't be so reckless as to directly ask the young man to be his servant; that wouldn't be certain enough.

In any case, in this world, force is the thing that can best conquer people's hearts, and as a Great Knight, he happened to have this force.

(End of chapter)