Soul of Searing Steel

In the mansion of the city, Joshua was in a study room sealed by solid granite walls. He was holding onto his black notebook and was drafting his future plans.

It had been a year since he transmigrated to this world. Although it was not a very long time, he had been through a lot of ups and down within this short timeframe. He had drenched himself in the whirlpool of battle throughout. Similar to his pre-existence, the Mycroft Continent was indeed a land filled with conflict where wars and battles were normal occurrences. It was definitely not a boring world for Joshua.

Next to Nissia Snowy Mountain’s lake, Ying who was feasting on roasted meat asked Joshua why he was so obsessed with the lake. He smiled and replied the concerns raised by Ying.

Because he knew a lot due to his knowledge of the past, it drove Joshua to have the urge in seeking more, wanting to know more about this world.

He wanted to know the world, which was more vast compared to the game world he knew. He wanted to enjoy the journey filled with excitement and valuable experience. He wanted to seek for the strongest opponents and beat the crap out of them. He aimed for the adventurous life that he could achieve in this world.

Joshua’s desire had no limits—he did not want to control his desire in this world. His curiosity, as well as his urge for battle, was the fuel that drove Joshua towards the exciting life he craved of.

Dragon race, Chaos, Aragami, and the Dragon’s Calamity.

The black diary recorded only these four simple words. Joshua then tapped the feathered pen on the table and sighed. “I was too focused on clearing dungeons in the past. Looking back, all the historical events were also the path progressions in the game.”

The Pentashade Dragon God had allied with Chaos, setting up a different agenda and plotting against the world. They had tried to release the seal in the North to allow The Famine to venture into this world. After the onslaught in the north, they had set up another plot in the South. In the end, the Seven Gods of Humanity worked together in defeating the Metal Dragon God. Its main body was left on the physical world, causing the Dragon’s Calamity.

Later on, the Dark Tide occurred during the Glorious Era.

Even the extinction of daemons was not something that could shock the world. Extinction was only a norm in this era.

“There are too many things that I have to achieve.”

Joshua looked at the black notebook on his hand and went into deep thoughts.

He was neither a good-hearted man nor a world savior. Yet he should not be categorized as a cold-blooded bastard either. When the dragons invaded the land of his people, he came forward and fought against the dragons. If there was someone who tried to harm the world he was protecting, he would definitely beat the crap out of all them.

At that moment, the sound of footsteps was heard outside the study room. With Joshua’s permission, Ling entered with a mountain of parchments. The whole stack of parchments covered half his face. Ling spoke in clear voice behind the parchments, “Master, these are the documents and information which you need to go through.”

“Why are there so many?”

Joshua frowned as he observed the abundance of documents held by Ling. It was a hindrance which he could not avoid. “There shouldn’t be so many issues of late. I have already made the arrangements for the refugees. How come there are so many reports?”

“Master, you are a noble count after all.”

Ling also felt helpless facing these documents. He had already gone through all of them once before deciding to present them to Joshua. “Most of them are invitations sent by other nobles. Even the royal family sent a letter to you, Master. I daren’t open it. I assume that it is an invitation letter to the Imperial City,” Ling put down all the parchments on top of the table as he spoke.

“Imperial City… Brandon did mention it to me a few days ago.”

Joshua suddenly understood the reasons for the letters. As he flipped through the parchments, he saw a golden envelope. On top of this glorious envelope was the royal seal. The young warrior opened it without hesitation and read the contents carefully. “As expected. A celebration of the destruction of the daemons. I was once the vice-leader of the Black Crow squadron. I’ve also received the Blade of Glory badge. The invitation for me is a given.”

“Master, will you be going?”

Ling approached Joshua tip-toeing, holding onto his arm while eager to read the content of the letter. The warrior fulfilled his curiosity and handed the letter to Ling.

“Of course I’m going. The Empire is a place that I wished to visit for quite a while. The banquet will be held in April of the following year, which would also be the start of spring. The administrative work should be done by then. I will have time to make my way to the Imperial City.”

Joshua closed the black notebook on his hand, stood up and spoke, “Is there anything else that I need to know? Do not forget about the minor tasks at hand while only focusing on the major ones.”

“Ah, of course there are.”

After being reminded, Ling blinked his eyes and remembered some of the tasks on hand. He quickly replied, “There are several merchants from the southern region that want to meet you. They seemed to have accepted the request you posted to the Empire merchant’s guild headquarters.”

“Request? Oh right, it’s the materials to awaken Black.”

After pondering for a moment, Joshua stood up and walked towards the side of the study room. He took up a glass of tea and had a sip of it. Although Black had already strengthened its Smelting Black Dragon bloodline, he could still further evolve and enhance its bloodline. To further strengthen its bloodline, there would be two choices. Either he would allow Black to slowly mature and purify its bloodline for more than ten years, or he could choose to embrace the method that would consume a lot of money.

The recent developments in Moldavia were smooth. Due to the fact that Joshua had spent a lot of resources to set up public facilities, create the runic factory and Winter Fort Academy with Nostradamus, his liquid assets were nearly exhausted. He would have gone bankrupt if he did not sell off some of the white dragon materials secretly.

Speaking of which, what required attention was the Pentashade Dragons in this matter. In the past, if people killed dragons openly, the Pentashade Dragons would take the matter seriously, as they condemned such actions. They would even send out their champions to hunt down the dragon slayer to display the pride and dignity of the dragon race. However, the dragons did not seem to be taking any action today. It was as if they were not paying attention to this matter at all.

If such irregular actions were taken by the enemy, there should be a conspiracy behind all these happenings. The only fortunate thing was the evidence from the dragon lair; a bottle filled with dark mist, which was sent by Nostradamus to the Empire’s emperor. The emperor had understood the graveness of this case and had put the whole Empire into a state of alert to be prepared in facing any form of invasion from the enemy.

With these acts in hand, it could help reduce the amount of death and losses occurred during a battle.

“Master?”

Looking at Joshua who had gone into a state of contemplation, Ling tried calling out to him several times but to no avail. The black-haired boy could only lightly pull Joshua’s shirt to gain his attention.

Feeling a tug on his shirt, Joshua finally snapped back to reality and responded to Ling, “Set up a meeting with the merchants. Tell the representative of the merchants to see me. I would like to see what type of items they have brought for us.”

At this point, Joshua shook his head and felt that the life of a leader was very bothersome. Looking at the financial issues that he would be facing in future, he sighed, feeling a slight migraine.

With Ling being the only assistant he had, it was definitely not enough. Ying was attending cultural lessons to build her knowledge. Joshua could not depend on Ying at this moment.

Being a leader, one would only need to know how to identify the talents and utilize them, not needing to perform every single task single-handedly. Joshua’s current situation was a little too hectic.

Even Joshua would need to take a break sometime, lying comfortably on the couch in the mansion. It would be ideal to be able to relax, watching the clouds flowing in the vast sky, enjoying the change of view of day and night.

“Okay, I’m going to arrange for the meeting immediately!”

After getting a reply from Joshua, Ling nodded his head in acknowledgment and jogged out of the study room. Before he exited the room, he left his last message for Joshua, “Master, do not forget to complete the task at hand.”

“I will….”

Joshua patted his own clothes and returned to his seat. He looked at the mountains of parchments and sighed. “Oh well. I just have to consider this as my meditation training session to train my mental strength.”

After a few hours.

“My Master has agreed to meet all of you. Please follow me.”

Outside the liege’s mansion, a maid walked towards the two merchants who were waiting to see Joshua.

After hearing this news, the single-eyed man and the ordinary looking man looked at each other and smiled.

After looking at their appearance carefully, they were the members of the merchant group that were saved by Roland not long ago.

For unknown reasons, both of them did not accompany their merchant group and had reached the liege’s mansion beforehand.

“Good, everything is going according to plan.”

They used hidden magic which allowed them to communicate via Spirit Sense. The ordinary looking guy spoke in disgust, “He is prepared to meet with us without doubting our status, it shouldn’t take too long for him to let us wait and meet up.”

“This liege’s mansion is filled with the disgusting stench of the power of Order. This is way too unbearable for me.”