While Aditya, Julia, and others had lunch together and then went back to their work, the outside world wasn’t exactly calm. A large army led by Eddie attacked Viscount Ronan’s Mansion.
It was a bloody battle. The knight riders destroyed Viscount Ronan’s army. In less than an hour, Viscount Ronan’s Mansion, his family members, servants, slaves, maids, butlers, commanders, and generals were killed or turned into a slave. Eddie did his best to spare the innocent ones.
The king also did not question Duke Adam’s action after he was presented with clear pieces of evidence. The King ordered public execution for Viscount Ronan. On the very same day, Adam returned. The first thing he did after returning was to execute Ronan in front of a large crowd.
It was then Adam, the wild lion began calming down. His cruel actions were also to send a message to his enemies. He was indirectly telling them if someone messed with him, he won’t wait for the King’s orders.
Meanwhile, Aditya was drawing runes on a greatsword while old Vampire Tobias guided him and cleared any doubts he had.
“Since your fighting style is more focused on speed, I think you should learn this rune spell. This rune spell can decrease the weight of armor or greatsword by half.” Aditya stopped drawing runes as he put the greatsword down. The greatsword was a Peak 3-star weapon. The weapon was about 200kg in weight.
“Grandpa, my armors are lightweight. Also, I don’t normally use a greatsword. I prefer to stick with a sword.” Aditya was an agility-based fighter. His fighting style was quick and agile like assassins. He always refrained from using heavyweight armor or weapons.
“Sometimes just having high agility is not enough Aditya. Suppose you’re facing an army of 10,000 2nd-order all by yourself, at that time, your agility won’t be of much use. Yes, you can use your agility to keep dodging the enemy’s attack or you can also use your agility to kill your enemies in an instant. But in a fight where you’re forced to face a huge army, you will need something that is destructive and has to power to take out hundreds of soldiers at the same time.”
“I can just use my Crimson Blaze to annihilate the enemies in an instant.” It’s not like Aditya was lacking in mana, so he can keep using his Crimson Blaze for a long time.
“….I guess I forgot about your other powers.” For a moment the old Vampire forgot that Aditya was a dragon, not some human.
‘Well, considering the red flame and a huge pool of mana, he can even fight against a beginner 4th order. I guess I was just overthinking.’ The old vampire secretly thought.
“Alright, I will learn it.”
“Huh….?”
“It wouldn’t hurt to learn one more spell.” Aditya kind of liked the idea of using a destructive type of attack. Even though he is currently an agility-type fighter, he can slowly change his fighting style.
As a heavenly dragon, Aditya was born with extraordinary strength. And his strength would only keep on increasing as he levels up. ‘In the future, I should give some attention to increasing my strength.’
“Alright. The spell is not that big. You can learn it within a few minutes given how fast your compression abilities are.” Inwardly Tobias was cursing his bad luck. It took him more than a week time to master this spell while Aditya here can learn it within a few minutes. Sometimes fate can be cruel.
After another 4 hours of teaching, the old man finally decided to end today’s session. He can’t give all of his attention to Aditya. His other students also needed some attention. Not to mention he still had to put an enchantment on some 4th-star weapons.
“Alright if you have any doubts, you can ask me tomorrow.” Tobias got up and was about to leave. He was getting hungry. He wanted to drink some human blood.
“Grandpa, I have a question.” Tobias stopped and turned around.
“What is it?”
“How much do you think it would cost me to get a 4th-star or 3-star weapon or armor?” Aditya wanted to buy high-quality weapons and armor and bring them back to his Kingdom. If possible he wished to buy a bunch of 3-star weapons at the same time.
“A 3-star weapon or armor costs somewhere from 30,000 royal gold to 100,000 royal gold coins. While a 4-star weapon and armor cannot be bought. 4-star and 5-star weapons are not sold openly. Only if you have some connections with a highly skilled blacksmith can get you a 4-star weapon or armor.” Tobias felt strange. Everyone knows this kind of information. But then he realized that Aditya originally came from the Eastern region of the continent. From what he heard, there are only a few 3-star weapons in that region.
“A 4th-star weapon is like having a 4th-star bodyguard. Even a 4-star blacksmith has less than a 30% chance of successfully creating a 4th-star weapon. If I had to give you a rough estimation then I would say, a low-tier 4th-star weapon costs somewhere between 1,000,000 to 10,000,000.” Aditya nearly coughed out blood hearing the outrageous price. But then again he also understood why would a faction or a powerhouse even sell a 4-star weapon in the first place.
Every big faction, powerhouse, or Kingdom had a high-ranked alchemist, blacksmith, and runemaster. A blacksmith’s role was to create powerful weapons for the faction or the kingdom to use. Of course, there are some rare situations where 4-star weapons are auctioned.
‘I already have the alchemy goddess in my faction. As for runes, I can create them. So we’re only lacking a highly skilled blacksmith.” In the previous war, Aditya either had to buy 2-star weapons or rob them from his enemies. Buying a 2-star weapon can be very costly in the long run. Aditya would be able to save tons of money by finding a blacksmith.
Tobias understood why Aditya wanted to know about weapons and armor prices. After a bit of thinking, Tobias came up with a suggestion. “Why don’t you head to the slave market?”
“Slave market…..?” Aditya seems to understand what Tobias wanted to say.
“Yeah. With a few hundred extra gold coins, you can buy a slave who used to be a blacksmith. Sooner or later, you will eventually need a blacksmith in your kingdom so why not nurture talents from the beginning? You can order the blacksmiths who now have become slaves to teach others.”
On the other hand, Aditya had a completely different idea. The idea itself would freak Tobias out. Aditya decided to not say anything.
“Thank you, Grandpa.” Tobias was dumbfounded seeing Aditya excitedly walk out of the room.
After leaving the room, he went to find Julia in her laboratory.
“What happened?” Julia asked. Right now she and Paige were enjoying some spicy street foods.
“Are you finished?” Aditya asked seeing that the 100 meters long line had finally ended.
“Yeah. I finished it a long time ago. By the way, do you want some?” Aditya looked down and found her eating tamarind mixed with chili pepper salt.
“No, thank you. If you’re done. Would you like to come with me?” Aditya did not like Tamarind that much even though he was fond of spicy food.
“Where?” Julia had a happy smile on her face while eating the tamarind.
“To the slave market.”
“Alright. Give me 5 minutes.”
Aditya nodded and then walked out of the laboratory.
– The slave market in this region of the continent was even bigger than in the eastern region. Slaves from different continents came to this region. There was a wide variety of slaves from different races. As long as one had enough money, one can even buy a dragon as a slave.
Whenever a kingdom or a powerhouse went to war, the slave numbers in the market would see a drastic rise. Sometimes soldiers, generals, and even kings were turned into slaves and sold off. Slavery was a cruel thing. At first, the system of slaves was invented to turn criminals into slaves. But later the system changed. Nowadays one can even buy a former king as a slave.
–
– 𝒊𝒃𝙧𝙖𝓭.𝙘𝒐𝙢
“Why are we suddenly heading to the slave market?” While sitting beside Aditya inside the royal carriage, Julia asked while drinking a glass of water.
It was evening. Most people are either returning home after a long day of hard work or some people are going out to enjoy this time with their friends and families. Apogale city did not lack entertainment.
“I plan on buying some slaves.”
“We can just ask Watson to buy slaves that way you don’t have to worry about sending them back to the Istarin Kingdom.” Sending slaves to the Istarin Kingdom would take a lot of time and money. In her opinion, it would be better to just ask Watson to buy slaves from the local market.
“For now let’s go and see if we can find any slave worth buying.” Now that Aditya can turn humans into dragonians, he did not need slaves. There was a time when he lacked troops so he thoughts of using slaves. But right now, the Istarin Kingdom had over 100,000 troops. The number would only increase if Aditya were to add the troops that were being raised by the nobles of his Kingdom.
It took them 43 minutes to reach the slave market. The slave Market was located on the bank of the river that flowed beside Apogale city. There was a time when slave trading was banned but later this ban was lifted.
“Miss, we have reached the Slave market.” The royal carriage stopped in front of the slave market.
Aditya and Julia nodded and walked out of the carriage. “It looks like the slave market only has become bigger.” The last time Julia was here, the slave market wasn’t big as now.
“Let go.”
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The source of this content is 𝙡𝓲𝒓𝙚𝓪𝙙.𝒄𝒐𝙢