Chapter 6: Acquiring Gold

Tomini wondered how the Empire would react when the news of the fallen soldiers reached them.

Meanwhile in the empire, a middle-aged man sat on the Imperial throne. “Your majesty the orcs are invading our southern territories!” an adviser yelled running into the throne room. Unbeknownst to the emperor, the land to the north of them had also been claimed by an unknown individual.

“Those blasphemous orcs! They will pay with their life’s” yelled a knight. Among the emperor's company, there were knights, nobles, and advisors. They all started chattering amongst themselves after hearing the bad news. “What? We should move and intercept the orc threat as soon as possible!” cried out one of the nobles. “Yes we must go with haste your majesty!” one of the nobles agreed.

The emperor waved his hand silencing the chatter in the throne room. “Baron Eler, Duke Zikiel take your troops and defend the southern territories!” exclaimed the emperor. “With pleasure” replied Duke Zikiel, “It would be my honor” replied Baron Eler.

“It seems that the nobles long for battle.” the emperor thought to himself. Together the armies of both the noble’s armies combined were approximately 27,000 thousand soldiers. It could be considered a formidable army.

"Please leave me I need some rest" the emperor stood up motioning his guests to leave the room. Moments following their departure the emperor collapsed on his knee coughing blood. "Father!" a purple-haired girl ran to the emperor side. "I need more time!"The emperor thought to himself hitting the ground.

When Tomini returned to the doorstep of his home he overheard a conversation between Galen and Ardale. Galen spoke, "So you're Lord Tomini's woman ?". Ardale was baffled "What?!" her face turned red, "How could I be his women I'm only a maid!" Ardale finished.

They hadn't noticed but Tomini was standing 10 feet away from their conversation. "You two please don't say anything unnecessarily, and Ardale you shouldn't belittle yourself," Tomini said, Ardales face glowed redder with each passing moment. Tomini decided it would be best to check on Ren and Duron.

"Have you guys seen the other two" Tomini asked "The other two? Oh you must mean Ren and Duron they said they were going out a couple of hours ago." replied Galen. Going out? Why would they go out? The front door swung open and in came Duron and Ren. "Perfect timing I wanted to talk to both of you. let's go to the courtyard"

Once in the courtyard, Tomini got into a battle stance, it was a martial arts style they hadn't different to theirs. Tomini looked at both of them in the eyes.

"I can see you guys have increased your levels Durron yours is now level 13 and you Ren you're almost level 14." Tomini grinned, he stuck his arm out and motioned his fingers "Come.", Ren and Duron instantly knew that Tomini wanted to spar with them.

The both of them pounced on Tominie's location, with ease Tomini was able to block all their strikes. No matter how hard they hit or how fast they hit, Tomini was always one step ahead of them. "Come on is that the best you guys can do?" Tomini asked the pair.

"How did you know we were holding back." Ren stared at Tomini in aw. "At your levels, you guys should be able to defeat those soldiers that invaded your village with your martial arts but you're only at this level?" Tomini sighed. In reality, Tomini was monitoring their stamina bar and it wasn't draining quickly. "In battle, it's kill or be killed, fight like your life depends on it. Again!" Tomini shouted.

Ren and Durron began once again ren lead with a high kick, but unfortunately for him, his leg was caught by Tomini to easily. Duron took this opportunity to try to thrust his fist towards Tomini.

Tomini dodged and Duron's strike landed on Rens's face. "Watch what you're doing!" yelled Ren holding on to his cheek. "Release your skills or you won't be able to land a hit on me." Tomini stated.

Duron ignored Ren and he unleashed the skill he acquired "Martial Skill: Full Connect!" Duron shouted. This skill had an extremely high accuracy rate, although it wasn't very powerful it was almost a guaranteed hit. Duron's body started glowing blue as he was getting ready to release his skill.

Bang a shock wave was released, it had shocked Duron because of how powerful it was as he hadn't used this skill before. "Good, very good, you're skill landed... right into my fist" Tomini was grimacing, Tomini used this opportunity to karate chop Duron knocking him out. "Look Ren at how easily your compared has fallen. Do you still have the will to fight?" Tomini asked Ren.

"Martial Skill: Light Step!" Ren shouted the skill engulfed Ren in a yellow glow. The light step is a Martial skill that increased the users base speed by 50% allowing them to surpass their limits. With this Ren began moving all around the courtyard, jumping from floor to wall and vise versa. "Come at me, Ren!" Tomini shouted the sun began to set and Ren made his move.

Ren was punching 10 times a second but all his moves were either dodged or blocked. "How is this possible?!" Ren thought. Little did he know the level gap was too big ren was like an ant in front of Tomini.

Two faces were sticking out of the house's doorway, Tomini had noticed this. It was Galen and Ardale they were curious about the commotion in the courtyard.

Tomini was getting ready to finish the fight and in the same way he knocked out Duron, Tomini began raising his hand and karate chopped Rens neck leaving him unconscious. Hey, Galen come pick these two up and take them to their rooms. Galen hastily moved to pick them up, he didn't want to be next to spar with Tomini.

With the little spar, they had Tomini knew it was time to start recruiting his army. Tomini began walking to his room when he was stopped in his tracks by Ardale, "My sister is probably worried about me do you think I could take a day off and go see her?" Ardale asked Tomini, "Take tomorrow off then and bring her here she can stay with you in your room." Tomini replied.

Tomini headed towards his bed and went to sleep. Morning came Tomini had woken up and decided to go see how the village was doing on collecting the gold. The villagers seeing Tomini went up to him and thanked him for his generosity for allowing them to keep some of the gold. He spotted the village elder and questioned him on the gold, "Have the villagers collected all the gold yet?" Tomini questioned him.

"Yes Lord Tomini they've collected 5 gold coins and 54 silver coins." Tomini remembered that 1 gold piece was equivalent to 100 silver or 1000 copper coins. "We also have a problem, there are villages in the land you claimed that they've heard of what you have done and wish to join." continued the elder.

"Join me? Why for?" asked Tomini in confusion. "If they are in my land they are already part of my soon to be empire. The only problem is that they wish to relocate to our village, if that happens there will be about 300 of us but we won't have enough food to last us to through the winter. " followed Tomini. "They are also tired of the oppression they fear that what happened to our village will also happen to theirs." said the elder with a worried expression on his face.

"How could I be so stupid," Tomini thought winter is coming and I didn't realize. there's no heating in the villager's house much less the food they've acquired cant feed that many people. Tomini Decided that he would need to go to the empire and purchase food he could also look for skilled laborers to work for him in the village.