Chapter 268: A Great Harvest and Returning to the Wizard World

After the Battle of the Five Armies ended, the North finally returned to peace.

As the greatest contributor to this war, Wayne's deeds spread widely among the dwarves, elves, and various forces around Lake-town. Not only the grassroots people, but even the high-level officials of various races, the wizards who maintained order in Middle-earth, and even the Elf Queen Galadriel were all shocked by Wayne's powerful strength.

Thorin and Dain were relatively lucky. Although they had resisted the orc attack by creating a collapse in the narrow mine tunnels of the Lonely Mountain and had been hungry for a few days, after the orc army was cleared, they were still rescued.

As their savior, and even the savior of the dwarves of the entire Kingdom Under the Mountain, Wayne received the highest courtesy from all the dwarves.

Thorin even proposed to forge a twenty-meter-high golden statue for Wayne in the palace of the Lonely Mountain to commemorate the friendship between him and the dwarves.

As for the Woodland Realm of Mirkwood, King Thranduil also proposed similar gratitude. It was precisely because of Wayne's existence that the Silvan Elves were able to preserve so many people under the siege of the orc army.

This Elf King stated that if Wayne needed any help in the future or wanted to make any requests, their Woodland Realm would do their best to help him to repay this kindness. The Silvan Elves valued promises, and even if hundreds or thousands of years passed, they would still be valid.

As for the hundreds of refugees in Lake-town, after considering it for a few days, Wayne still refused the request to serve as their king. He suggested that everyone move back to the abandoned Dale and rebuild their homes there.

In order for Dale to develop peacefully, Wayne created the Dale Council, selecting ten people with both ability and prestige to serve as councilors. In the future, the entire Dale would no longer implement a dictatorship, and important matters would be decided after discussion and voting by the Council. He also left behind the wealth collected by the former mayor as development funds for the entire town.

Of course, Wayne was not without gains for this town. He was granted the position of Permanent Councilor by the Council, able to participate in various affairs of the town at any time, and even possessed veto power.

And before leaving, after discussing with the Council, he took in twenty members from the orphans who survived in the town, all children between five and ten years old, preparing to take them back to Wayne Manor in the Shire for training.

Of course, this was just the external statement. In fact, Wayne was preparing to take these children back to the Wizard World, to Kaer Morhen, to let them join the Witcher Order and cultivate these children from a young age.

Although it was not certain whether these children could be trained into witchers, even becoming loyal staff members was a good harvest.

However, this harvest was just a little extra for Wayne. What really made him very satisfied was the task reward after the Battle of the Five Armies was completed.

During the Battle of the Five Armies, counting an Epic-level task and a Master-level task obtained from Thorin, plus a Master-level task obtained from King Thranduil, he had gained nearly 5,000 experience points and two Master-level Treasure Chests and one Epic-level Treasure Chest.

And besides the tasks of these two, he also had a Master-level task to eliminate the orcs of the Misty Mountains, which was received from King Elrond, and it was just completed.

Adding these tasks together, the experience gained just happened to raise Wayne's level by another three levels, reaching a full twenty levels, and the ability points were added by three points, reaching eleven points.

It made him sigh, sure enough, high-level tasks upgrade fast.

In just less than half a year of the Middle-earth journey, his level had increased by seven levels, and the number of high-level treasure chests obtained made him feel like he was dreaming.

Now in his system, he had already saved two Epic-level Treasure Chests, five Master-level Treasure Chests, more than forty Expert-level Treasure Chests, and nearly two hundred Ordinary-level Treasure Chests.

These treasure chests, he was preparing to return to the Wizard World, find the Lady of the Lake, choose a lucky day, and find a unlucky person to borrow some luck, and then open them together.

By then, his strength would definitely be able to improve by a large margin again. The treasures in the Epic-level Treasure Chests, just thinking about it made people feel very expectant.

And besides the rewards brought to him by these cheats, the things obtained in this Middle-earth journey were not few, including the 1.8 billion Oren worth of gold in the Lonely Mountain, an order for 10,000 sets of knight armor, 100 top-quality warhorses from Rivendell, and the book collections of the two major elf races, as well as two ancient elf swords, two finished sets of Mithril Armor, and promises of eight sets of Mithril Armor, etc., all of which were extremely rare treasures, and ordinary people would find it difficult to obtain any one of them in their lifetime.

However, the most important harvest of this trip to the Lonely Mountain was not these external things, but the connection or kindness with the leaders of various major races. With this emotion, in the future, when he encountered anything that needed help, he could have more choices and more opportunities.

Unlike the conspiracies and tricks between the kings of the Wizard World, these leaders of Middle-earth were trustworthy and could be entrusted. As the saying goes, a promise is worth a thousand gold, and their promises were countless times more precious than a thousand gold.

After dealing with the affairs of the North, Wayne said goodbye to his friends one by one. Although everyone enthusiastically tried to keep him, witchers were not people of the same world as them, and it was impossible to stay in the North for a long time, so they still parted reluctantly. Accompanying him back to the Shire, besides those twenty children, were Bilbo and King Elrond.

And this time, in order to make the return journey faster, Wayne specifically asked the dwarves to build a large carriage like a cable car, hanging it behind the Deathclaw, specifically used to transport these children. However, with Bilbo's height, he could also ride with the children.

Just like that, their group only spent less than a month crossing Mirkwood, crossing the Misty Mountains, and arriving at Rivendell of the Sindar Elves, which was the legendary Imladris.

In Rivendell, Wayne was once again warmly entertained by King Elrond. To commend his achievements, this king specifically held a banquet for him for three days and three nights, singing and dancing with the entire Sindar Elf race, enjoying fine wine, and sharing victory and joy.

And in this beautiful holy land of the Elf race, he also met Princess Arwen and the future Human Emperor Aragorn again.

The beautiful Elf Princess was still very enthusiastic toward Wayne, or rather, overly enthusiastic. During his time in Rivendell, the princess would come to find him every day, sometimes to chat, sometimes to talk about his experiences in the North, and sometimes to go with him to visit Aragorn, who was practicing swordplay diligently.

And this time, perhaps because the achievements Wayne made were too dazzling, even King Elrond did not stop his daughter from associating with Wayne again. But for Wayne, this was a kind of alternative torture. The Sindar Elves were very dedicated to feelings, and a playboy like him did not match a pure elf like Princess Arwen, and he did not want to win the favor of this elf girl through deception.

So, during one conversation, Wayne deliberately revealed to the princess the fact that he already had a girlfriend, and more than one, which made Princess Arwen's face change instantly, and then she left in a daze.

For the next few days, the Elf Princess deliberately avoided Wayne, and until the day he left Rivendell, the two did not meet again. However, this kid Aragorn had an amazing decision.

After hearing about Wayne's dazzling battle record, he showed infinite respect and worship, and had been trying every possible way to continue learning swordplay from the witcher.

But Wayne was about to leave Rivendell, and even leave Middle-earth, perhaps not returning for several years, so he found it difficult to agree to this request.

As a result, this kid, one day, pulled King Elrond over, and under the witness of this Elf King, wanted to become Wayne's official apprentice, go out on adventures with him, learn swordplay together, and promised to respect Wayne as a father, which surprised him very much.

Regarding such a request, King Elrond did not seem to oppose it, and even had the intention of matchmaking.

After considering for a long time, Wayne agreed to this request, and agreed with Aragorn that before he came of age, he would always teach him swordplay and arrange his life well.

And the reason why he agreed to this request was not that Wayne valued his future identity as a Human Emperor, perhaps there was a little bit of that, but the most important thing was that Aragorn was particularly sensible, and had extremely high talent for swordplay. Even without going through the witcher's Trial of the Grasses, in terms of swordplay and physical fitness, he could surpass the vast majority of witchers in the future and become a top-notch swordplay master.

Such a good seedling, he also had some interest in hunting. If he could cultivate Aragorn into an expert, not to mention being a good tool man, he would definitely get dozens or even hundreds of times the return in the future.

By the time their group left Rivendell, besides the kid Aragorn, the accompanying team also had 100 Elf Knights from Rivendell, as well as 100 Elf Warhorses that King Elrond promised to reward Wayne with.

This Elf King was truly a benevolent leader. In order to help Wayne send the warhorses to their destination, he simply sent 100 knights to accompany them. Besides that, even the books for raising these elf warhorses were gifted to him together.

Thus, after leaving Rivendell, Wayne's team suddenly became much larger. They traveled together for more than half a month, climbing mountains and wading through water, passing through town after town and wilderness, and finally returned to Wayne Manor located in the Shire.

As the owner of the manor, after returning to the manor, a grand celebration was held for a week. Wayne not only entertained all the guests who came from afar, but also made Bilbo, who participated in this Lonely Mountain expedition, a famous hero among the Hobbits.

Although this kind-hearted Hobbit didn't care much about such fame, Wayne felt that as a warrior who had fought against the orc army with the expedition team, he deserved people's respect and appreciation.

And after the carnival, peace returned to the manor.

Wayne finally found an opportunity to take his full harvest and those who traveled with him back to the Wizard World.

Although about nine months had passed in Middle-earth, in the Wizard World, it had actually been less than two months.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 269 =====