Fortmore repeatedly nodded.

“Indeed, we just saw someone causing trouble. There are many people who don’t know their place after all, and those puppets might not work if the one causing trouble is a Heaven Rank powerhouse.

“Although the two of us aren’t very strong, we are capable of dealing with a 1st or 2nd Rank Heaven powerhouse. In order to express our regrets, we decided to come and apply to be guards.”

Layford conveniently took out two contracts already signed with their magic signatures. The contracts only missed the other side’s signature to be official.

Faleau picked up the contracts and checked them. There was no problem with the medium itself, since the paper was produced by the Gilded Rose.

After taking a look at the content of the contracts, Faleau’s expression became strange.

The contracts were effective for 500 years and the conditions were as follows: They had to protect the Gilded Rose, help the Gilded Rose deal with any troublesome powerhouse, they were forbidden from injuring any member of the Gilded Rose or steal anything from the Gilded Rose.

The dense forty clauses contracts were extremely harsh.

To put it simply they were offering themselves as two powerful security guards who only needed food and shelter, but no salary.

And there was no need to worry about betrayal, because the cost of violating the contract was very high. The lowest penalty for a breach of contract was their mana dissipating. If the breach of contract was even more serious, the penalty would be their souls falling into Hell and they wouldn’t be able to die even if they wanted to.

After checking the contracts, Faleau looked at the anxious Layford and Fortmore with a stunned expression, he was at a loss.

‘Damn, what the hell did Sir Merlin do? How did he scare these two guys to that extent? These conditions are so harsh, yet they actually took the initiative to come and request to sign those contracts? Such strict soul contracts…?

‘Do they have brain injuries?’

Faleau looked at the contracts again, before looking back at the two people, he really couldn’t make sense of this. He ultimately picked up the contracts and looked for the Artisan they had previous recruited and other people to appraise them. He discovered that there was no problem, the medium, ink and even writing tools had been produced in the Gilded Rose.

There is only one conclusion, they had suffered a shock, and the injury wasn’t light.

This was a good thing. No matter what these two guys wanted, Faleau had no reason to refuse, signing the contracts meant that they agreed to uphold them.

After the contracts were signed, Layford and Fortmore sighed in relief, as if they had gained great benefits.

On that day, the Gilded Rose’s eighteen shops gained two 2nd Rank Heaven Mages as guards, one of which was a strange dark curse mage. And sure enough, there weren’t many people willing to cause trouble.

As for the Jackson family, they also dispatched someone to apologize to Lin Yun and let him know that the Jackson Family had expelled Fortmore and Layford, that it was an order from the Jackson Family’s ancestor and that they had nothing to do with the Jackson Family anymore. Whether they lived or died no longer mattered to the Jackson Family.

On the other hand, Lin Yun still didn’t know about it and kept leading his troops in the Puppet Plane to keep conquering steel cities. They had already gotten rid of 19 Heaven Puppets and obtained eight ability runes. This was a very high ratio. There was also nine Heaven Puppets who held some black substance within their body.

The black substance he obtained was all used to strengthen Pabiete’s absorption system. Along with the parts they obtained along the way, Pabiete’s strength rapidly grew and reached level 43. He was only a bit weaker to Lin Yun when it came to fighting power, but was a lot stronger than Xiuban and Reina.

They found a new steel city. This one spread over twenty kilometers and had a kilometer-tall spire. This meant that the strongest puppet within that city was level 43 or 44, and there wouldn’t be less than five Heaven Puppets.

They had attacked two such steel cities before so Lin Yun didn’t really mind it and started the attack.

Half an hour later, the five puppets had already been dismantled and the ability runes and black substance had been collected.

At this time, the small wolf standing quietly on Lin Yun’s shoulder anxiously howled.

Information was transmitted to Lin Yun’s mind. From what the small wolf sensed, a huge danger was incoming and all living beings would die within a few minutes.

Lin Yun’s hair stood on its end as he received that information. He unhesitantly collected all the puppets and had Xiuban, Reina, and Pabiete ride the flying ship before fleeing.

When the flying ship was being made, the only things that had been considered were speed and concealment. It didn’t spread a single bit of mana fluctuation and was invisible, the safety was really high.

After getting on the flying ship, Lin Yun immediately urged it to move towards the puppet cemetery. This was the weakest place of this area.

Less than a minute after they left, Lin Yun felt a terrifying mana fluctuation surging from behind. A kilometer-big ray of light in the shape of a bear’s paw fell from the darkness and ruthlessly slapped that steel city.

Loud rumbling noises echoed and terrifying shockwaves swept across, razing everything to the ground within ten kilometers. That city spreading over twenty kilometers thoroughly disappeared, only some buildings on the outskirts survived the destruction.

As for the center of the steel city, it thoroughly caved in. Those sturdy black steel buildings were like piles of mud ruthlessly slapped by a bear.

All the buildings were squeezed into a ten-kilometer-wide black disk with a seven-kilometer-wide bear paw imprint in its very center.

Xiuban turned his head and his face turned green as he noticed the bear paw’s imprint. Lin Yun’s eyelids twitched, if not for the small wolf’s warning, they might not have had the opportunity to escape.

The hand appeared and fell to the ground in less than two seconds. Not even their bones would have been left if they had made the decision to block.

This attack came from a level 49 puppet, they weren’t worthy of a Puppet King making a move.

Lin Yun had benefited quite a bit. It would be better to back up and move in another direction. If nothing else, that Heaven Puppet should have discovered that something went wrong from the fact that the spire was torn apart.

After all, in a battle between puppets, even if the steel city ended up snatched, the defensive spire would definitely not fall.

Lin Yun inwardly sighed in relief.

‘Forget it, in any case, that dismantled spire is enough for my research. I won’t destroy the next steel city’s core buildings, I’ll only hunt Heaven Puppets.’

Once they reached their starting point, the puppet cemetery, Lin Yun was finally able to relax a little.

At least it was safe there.

…

As Lin Yun was about to return to Noscent, something happened to the Gilded Rose.

A hundred-meter-long airship was slowly flying towards the frontier of the Odin Kingdom and the Andlusa Kingdom. A huge wheel symbol was engraved on the ship, with a golden rose in its center. This was the symbol of the Gilded Rose.

The airship was filled to the brim with the Gilded Rose’s materials. These were materials that had been refined once and would immediately be used after reaching the Odin Kingdom.

There would be an airship flying from the Andlusa Kingdom to the Odin Kingdom every couple days. Although that kind of airship wasn’t very fast, it had a far bigger storage capacity and could hold a lot of materials that needed special storing methods. Although it was a bit slow, the cost-efficiency ratio was terrifyingly high.The Gilded Rose’s transportation costs were a few times lower.

Some special materials, as well as some ordinary materials, had to be stored in special Spatial Rings after their first refinement in order to ensure their efficacy. Some other materials needed to be exposed to air or some other thing to slowly complete their following refinement.

And the Spatial Rings weren’t necessarily safe. If a Spatial Ring was destroyed, everything within would fall into the endless void and could no longer be recovered.

The transportation was going well, until a problem suddenly occurred. A several-dozen-meter-long battleship appeared in the sky and blocked the Gilded Rose’s transport airship’s path.

The Gilded Rose’s convoy was protected by a 9th Rank Archmage and a group of puppets. These days, the Gilded Rose had developed so quickly that no one in the Andlusa Kingdom dared to make a move on a convoy belonging to the Gilded Rose. The Odin Kingdom also showed some respect, and the clueless bandits were all wiped.

Unexpectedly, someone blocked their path. And not only did they block their path, they used a battleship to do so. This wasn’t something ordinary bandits could do, only some large families possessed this kind of thing.

“This is the Gilded Rose’s convoy. Could I know which friend is pranking us?”

The expression of the 9th Rank Archmage leading the convoy remained unchanged, he stood at the prow of the airship and shouted towards the other side.

The battleship slowly adjusted its angle, and on the deck, a mage wearing a long robe coldly waved his hand.

“Sink their airship, eliminate everything, whether it’s a puppet or a human.”

Countless spells and magic arrows flew out of the battleship and fell onto the airship. The airship was only a transport convoy, it was big and had no fighting abilities. The huge air sacs were torn to shreds within a few seconds. The airship’s array was unable to withstand the immense weight of the hull and hold by itself and the airship slowly fell towards the ground.

In less than a second, the airship hit the forest below and the hull collapsed. A large amount of items fell from the airship as it was slowly falling towards its doom.

The large number of spells and magic arrows were still falling down, covering several hundred meters.

On the battleship’s deck, that cold mage sneered.

“Gilded Rose? That trash from the rural Andlusa Kingdom dares to compete with our Rodney Family for benefits? Truly reckless. That stupid dung beetle thought he could touch a Dragon’s treasure? What an idiot.”

Looking at that torn airship, Toursse Rodney turned and gave an order to the person behind him.

“Look, give the order to go down. Shoot down any convoy belonging to the Gilded Rose. I don’t want to see anything belonging to the Gilded Rose getting into the Odin Kingdom.

“Moreover, warn those stupid material suppliers, whoever dares to supply the Gilded Rose will become the enemy of our Rodney Family!”

…

Faleau immediately received the news of the Gilded Rose’s convoy being attacked. But the information specified that not a single living being had been found in the wreckage of the convoy.

The materials had also disappeared and the puppets were even torn to pieces. Some of the recording crystals were completely shattered so they didn’t know who attacked the Gilded Rose’s convoy.

But from the wreckage, it could be seen that it had been a one-sided slaughter. The other side must have dispatched a battleship to easily get rid of the Gilded Rose’s airship.

Faleau frowned and used the Gilded Rose’s relationships to investigate this matter as he felt that this might be a very complicated matter.

At that time, Layford seeked Faleau.

“Sir Faleau, I obtained some information through some of my friends. It was the Rodney Family who attacked the Gilded Rose’s transport.

“Moreover, they warned every material supplier that whoever dared to trade with the Gilded Rose would become the Rodney Family’s enemy.”

Faleau’s expression sunk. How could he not know about the Rodney Family?

The Rodney Family was a very powerful force in the Odin Kingdom, they were a lot more powerful than the Jackson Family, the two simply weren’t on the same level.

The Rodney Family had a very ancient inheritance that could be traced back to the early stages of the 3rd Dynasty, and they never declined. Even when the 3rd Dynasty collapsed, the Rodney Family didn’t decline and maintained its position as a first-rate force of the Odin Kingdom.

But the most important part was that the Rodney Family’s source of wealth was different from the other forces who relied on the planes they conquered, they instead relied on alchemy items.

Their family was mainly focused on potion, from the lowest potion to potions that could be used by Heaven Rank powerhouses.

They were collaborating with the Starry Sky College and it was rumored that the Rodney Family had a Saint Alchemist. That rumor hadn’t been verified, but the Rodney Family was the preferred location the alchemists taught in the Starry Sky College wanted to work at. There was no doubt about that.

The northern part of the Odin Kingdom was where the Rodney Family operated.

When looking for trade partners, the Gilded Rose also contacted the Rodney Family, but there was no opportunity to cooperate.

The Rodney Family was very tyrannical, they had offered one condition, the Gilded Rose had to become a subsidiary of the Rodney Family.

How could Faleau agree to such a condition? He then looked for other forces to cooperate with, but they were all middle-ranked forces, like the Jackson Family.

They were able to cooperate with the Starry Sky College purely because of Lin Yun. The Gilded Rose was able to develop so fast only because of Dean Gandaph’s approval.

The Rodney Family looking for trouble gave Faleau a headache.

If the Gilded Rose only had a few stores in Neverwinter City, the Rodney Family wouldn’t care, they would just ignore it.

But the Gilded Rose rose to prominence too fast. Not only did they open an eighteen-store-big shop, they expanded in all directions and were about to open 38 more branches at once.

Moreover, the main products of the Gilded Rose were potions, and the quality was not only good, they were a bit cheaper. This immediately made the Rodney Family unhappy.

It was because the Gilded Rose was marching on their benefits and snatching a part of the Rodney Family’s market. And with their growth, their share of the market would grow bigger and bigger.

Back when the Rodney Family developed their business, they had started in Neverwinter City, and through this biggest northern city, they expanded in all directions until it reached their current state. They could now be said to be occupying the largest share of the northern market.

The competition in the Odin Kingdom was fierce and the Rodney Family wasn’t able to monopolize the market, but it was enough to rank the Rodney Family as a 1st-rate force of the Odin Kingdom.

The conquest of the Raging Flame Plane was done by the 2nd-rate forces of the Odin Kingdom, the 1st-rate forces simply didn’t have enough manpower to dispatch, or they weren’t interested in the Raging Flame Plane’s benefits.

The Raging Flame Plane was indeed a large plane rich in resources, but there were too many forces involved, the price to pay to conquer a small plane would be the same as participating in the Raging Flame Plane’s conquest, yet they would be getting even more benefits.

Faleau’s head was hurting now that the Rodney Family came looking for trouble. He had already expected a conflict with the Rodney Family. After all, the Gilded Rose only dealt with alchemy items, they had no other business. To expand, they had to keep expanding the range of their business.

After contemplating, Faleau dispatched someone to contact the Rodney Family. The other side was deeply rooted in the Odin Kingdom after all, especially in the northern part of the Odin Kingdom. Their roots had already spread to half of the Odin Kingdom. If the Gilded Rose wanted to peacefully do business, they couldn’t circumvent the Rodney Family.

If it was just for the sake of profit, then they could discuss or start collaborating. In any case, it was better to find a middle ground that satisfied both forces.

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