The Grand Duke’s Perspective

Somewhere within a gray-colored palace in the other universe. Inside the biggest hall, a man was sitting above a golden-marble throne while emitting a forceful aura. He had orange hair, pupils, and even wearing orange-colored stripes expensive clothes. There was a crown and a scepter on him, making him look majestic.

The man was closing his eyes while listening to a report voiced out by an elderly minister at the side. The elderly minister was rambling non-stop and thus made the majestic man bored to death. He was about to interrupt him, however, one of the reports made him jolted awake and stared at him seriously.

“So, the puppet we install on the Brightmoon fief was taken down by mysterious forces and now the land was occupied?”

“Yes, Your Highness! This will set back the Dukedom’s plan to occupy the northern hills.” The elderly minister bowed subserviently.

“Well, no matter. Since I had the previous Lord of Brightmoon killed, I did consider this possibility. His daughter is just that special.” The Grand Duke smirked slightly and asked, “So, who occupied the land? From the looks of it… a Magus?”

“Indeed.” The elderly minister confirmed with a nod but was stunned by what he read next. “He was said to control an army of golems and numerous Magic Equipment that couldn’t be made sense of. Houston, the apprentice of the head court magician was killed along with four other court magicians.”

Shocked upon the news, the Grand Duke held his chin and began contemplating. Golems? Only several factions in this continent have those kinds of forces. He must be an Alchemist. I should treat this carefully.

“Speak. How many golems in this army you speak of? And how strong is he? Even if he was a Great Magus, a dozen golems should already be hard to maintain.”

“Hundreds… In the report… it was stated that a total of hundreds of golems was sighted when he occupied the Brightmoon fiefdom.” From what the elderly minister reported, it was obvious that the Razel Dukedom had extensive channels and various means to acquire information.

Bang!

Abruptly, the sound of the door slammed opened resounded throughout the room. From there came a black-robed, white-haired elderly man holding a monster skull staff. He approached the throne before bowing swiftly without being haughty nor submissive.

“Your Highness! I heard that my apprentice was killed. Please… dispatch a troop with me to take back the lost land! I’ll be sure to give Your Highness, Grand Duke Razel, the head of this bastard and the legacy he keeps.” The elderly man proclaimed with a hidden haughtiness.

“Head Court Magician Arnold, you cannot act like that in front of the Grand Duke! Know your position!”

"Silence! Mortal!" Head Court Magician Arnold glared at the elderly minister with a deathly stare. A suppressing aura emerged around the minister and made him fall. All the elite knights on the surrounding felt the pressure, some of them even kneeled.

“Ack!” Couldn’t hold the pressure, the elderly minister’s mouth began leaking blood and his body pressed flat to the ground.

“Enough! Arnold, give me some face!” The Grand Duke radiated a pressure that didn’t lose to the head court magician and lifted the pressure on the elderly minister.

“Hmph. Count yourself lucky.” The head court magician erased his suppressing aura while closing his eyes.

The elderly minister wiped the blood on his mouth and glared at him but didn’t say a word.

“Ahem! I don’t want to see any discord again in the hall!” The Grand Duke shifted his eyes left and right then called, “Roderic!”

“Yes, Your Highness!” A full-armored knight with a full visor came forward and subserviently kneeled.

“Under my name, Randal arc Razel, I want you to lead the 20,000 elite troops of the Second Order and take back the occupied land from foreigners.”

“Yes! Your wish is my command.” Knight Roderic bowed and took a step back.

“And Arnold, you will accompany Roderic as the advisor of the army. You may bring the rest of the court magicians and the ‘special siege engines’. Keep what you promise! I don't care about his legacy, but I want his head!"

“Of course! I won’t disappoint Your Highness.” Head Court Magician Arnold agreed with a nod and seemed unbothered by his position on the army. Unbeknownst to anyone, he secretly smiled and a dark thought formed on his head.

Clack!

The Grand Duke hit the ground with his scepter and dismissed all the people in the hall — including the guards and knights. When no one else was in the room, he stood up and stared outside from the big glass window at the side. There was a brown reflection on his orange pupils.

The Month of The Brown, huh? A good month for Earth Elementalist. That crazy Arnold… If it wasn’t for him having some connection with the Magus Institute of Ralonia, why would I fear him? The Razel Dukedom… no… the entire Raivia Union of Nations is just a puppet for that organization… The Grand Duke sighed before leaving the great hall behind.

Three days had passed away, but the smile didn't fade away from my mouth when I thought about the gains from the pirate’s space station. After having occupied the place for almost a month, they had gathered tons of the Golden Stardust. They amassed lots of advanced light weaponry and many other things too.

However, the smile on my mouth diminished once the engineers’ fate crossed my mind. Since it would be immoral to not tell them about what happened to their family, I told ATA to explain it to them. Initially, they didn’t believe what she said, although it was normal considering that ATA was an A.I.

Hah… it’s not that I’m cruel or anything… I cannot release them just yet. If the information about the Golden Stardust reaches the government's ears, it’ll be a disaster.

In the end, I gave them two choices. Either they submit and worked to me or being locked away until who knew how long. All of them went silent the moment that statement reached their ears, some even suicided for losing their family members. To my surprise, half of them accepted the proposal to work under me for being grateful that I killed Graham.

Naturally, I had made a copy of ATHENA to control the space station. Also, I had given the engineers a self-replicating nanobot on their bodies. I didn’t want them to escape and the word about the Golden Stardust here spread out than ever.

[Host. We will reach the destination in 23 minutes.] ATA’s projection suddenly emerged and reported.

Since my spaceship had a very slow FTL engine, I changed it to what was the space pirates were using. Although it was still not as good as the military, at least it had a speed twice of my previous engine. Crossing two hundred light-years in a day was now possible.

“Well, the most important thing to do right now is to sell the Golden Stardust. This time though, I’ll be even more cautious and sell little by little.”

With that, another ten days passed in the blink of an eye. I had gone to a dozen small space stations and even several medium-sized space stations, accumulating credits and buying all sorts of things. After crossing to a crowded and civilized sector, the distance between space stations was shorter than the average on sector 837 — where the wormhole was located. I didn't go into commercial planets though, since finding a marketplace there would take longer.

Now that I’ve accumulated enough credits, it’s time to go to a scientific space station. Yup, different from a normal space station, scientific space station is a place where scientists and science-focused companies sell their cutting-edge technology.

“Heh… I heard that the scientific space station in sector 25 was large-sized. Been a long time since the last time I came to a space station of this size. Hmm… what was it called again?”

[It’s Supernatural Scientific Station or S.S.S. for short, Master~]

Well, anyway… there’s like another three to four days before I reached sector 25. I’d been at the cusp of the 1st rank Warrior all these times but unable to push for a breakthrough by the lack of qi in this universe.

When I was lamenting the fact, a great idea suddenly appeared on my mind. Wait, if I exhaust all qi in my body and use the High Nutrition Liquid to force the breakthrough. I should be able to do it without damaging my potential.

Subsequently, I sat down and began practicing the breathing technique. Luckily, it didn’t take too much qi for someone to make a breakthrough in Warrior Stage. Furthermore, High Nutrition Liquid's effect minimized the need for qi.

To achieve 2nd rank Warrior, someone needs to open acupoint in one part of their limbs. Either hands, legs, stomach, or head. Guess, I'll open the head acupoint first since it requires the least amount of qi.

Before long, I heard an exhaling sound came out from my mouth. I had successfully reached 2nd rank Warrior. When opening my eyes, I could feel that the world seemed to be clearer than usual. It was as if anything in the room could be perceived.

“Is this what it feels to open the head acupoint? I wonder how much stronger I’d become.” While wondering, I took out and used the Universal Measurement Device on me.

"Holy crap! 269? If what Graham said about gene enhancement level was true, then I should be equal to level 2, no?" I held my chin and began pondering but gave up after lacking data to confirm.