On the day of the wedding ceremony, Viridius was staring at Gisel's map. There were no chandeliers to light the room or any fancy sofas suited for a senator's room. He was not in his room in his manor though. The walls had only one thing hanging, the map. There were no pictures of him, no expensive paintings, nothing. It was Viridius, the map and his throne could be seen in the room. The room was Viridius's fantasy. The five feet chair he was sitting on, he made it himself. He decorated the entire chair with gems, etched the chair's arms with gold and diamonds. He saw the chair as his throne instead of a chair. One could simply sell the chair for millions.
The room was located in Crilta, beneath one of the houses in the noble district. For years, he was planning to take over Gisal from here.
"I'm the ruler of Gisel," Viridius said as a smile in between happy and evil appeared on his face. He had been repeating these words for nearly twenty years. After speaking these words, he stood up before walking towards the map. He framed the map with gold frames and high-quality glass. The glass reflected a wrinkly old man in his early eighties. He covered his bald head with a few stripes of white hair. Coupled with his hunched back, lack of three front teeth, and convex nose, he looked like an evil grandpa from a children's storybook.
While staring at the map, he took a drinking pouch made of leather. His hands shivered due to old age while lifting the pouch towards his mouth. After he finished drinking from the pouch, his wrinkles slowly began to disappear, returning the glow to his skin once again. In a few moments, he transformed from a wrinkly old man in his eighty to a less wrinkly old man in his early seventies.
A small trickle of red liquid flowed down from the corner of his lips. It wasn't wine though, it was blood, human blood. Of course, Viridius had his own team of scholars to experiment and come up with potions to reduce his age as well as many other nefarious things. No one except him knew that some of the underground labs that experiment on slaves and cultivators belonged to Viridius. In fact, there was one lab in Pen town that belonged to Viridius where some scholars experimented on Aria's brothers.
Creak!
Suddenly the door behind Viridius creaked open. He turned back with a grin to see his daughter in a wedding dress walking towards him. Even in the dim light illuminated from the candles lit on the room's corner, the white wedding dress sparkled like stars in the midnight sky. Tiny gems, diamonds, and grains of gold decorated the dress just like his throne.
A girl with an oval-shaped face smiled at Viridius. The thin veil covering her face failed to cover her purple-colored lips or the dark eyeliners.
"The bride wants her groom papa" the girl pouted yet her tone wasn't of a worried bride. Instead, she sounded amused.
"The Gisal will soon be your groom pool, baby girl"
The girl walked slowly towards Viridius. She then faked a frown,
"Too bad, I really liked Herius" she put her arms around Viridius, joining him to stare at the map.
"Too bad he's dead. But don't worry, I'm planning the biggest fireworks this kingdom has ever seen as a token of apology for killing your groom" Viridius gently patted her hand on his shoulder.
"Speaking of killing, here's your refill" the girl put her hands inside her corset to pull out a leather pouch just like the one in Viridius's hand. Rather than handing it over to him, she opened up the cap before placing it into her father's mouth. She slowly fed him the blood. She was one of the scholars who's running the experiments. Only a few people knew about her experiment and talent.
It took her years of experiments on slaves and rogue cultivators to find the formula to brew the potion. Nonetheless, she knew the formula is far from perfect. Currently, the potion would temporarily make the drinker younger. However, it had the side effect of fastening the aging process. Hence, Viridius looked like he was in his eighties when he was actually fifty years old.
"I want Caius alive papa. I heard he found something, it could be the piece I'm missing to perfect this formula" A glimmer of delight emerged in Viridius's old eyes. He turned to look at his daughter,
"You can play with him. I'll arrange for him to be taken to one of your labs discreetly" As Viridius was talking with his daughter, he felt the communication stone in one of his robe pockets vibrate.
Feeling the vibrations, the girl put her hands on his pocket to retrieve the stone for her father. The bluestone shone as it vibrated. She gently held it in her hand for her father to speak.
"Lord Viridius" a voice came from the stone,
"Speak"
"It's done," the person from the other side spoke.
"Meet me at the usual place tomorrow. The payment will be there" Viridius said.
"It's nice doing business with you, Senator" The stone soon lost its glimmer, indicating that the communication had ended.
"Send the cleanup crew" After she put the stone back into his pocket, Viridius calmly ordered his daughter.
"No loose ends, hehehe" She chuckled evilly. She was just as cruel and ruthless as her father. In her life, there were only two important things, her father and her drive to find a cure for death. Only a few Southern continent-born people were able to cultivate after settling in the cultivation continents. Yet, none of them could live past the Body Refining Stage. Knowing the statistics, she decided to change their body from within to adapt to cultivating.
She had experimented on hundreds of lives to imbue arch energy in a cultivator's blood without losing the energy after crossing the void line.
*********************
"I can make you cultivate Shorty but you have to quit drinking. Think you can do that?" Instead of sleeping on the bed in his room, Michael was outside with the crew. He was looking at the sun rising on the horizon while talking with Shorty and Gibson.
"Come on Cap'n. I want to do all the cool stuff you do" Michael never thought Shorty would come to him, pleading to make him a cultivator. The idea of Shorty being a cultivator amused Michael. Michael did not completely cut him off.
"I bet you do. But as I said, first go without drinking for a month and I'll think about it" the other pirates were laughing at Shorty.
They found the thought of Shorty casting spells the funniest thing they had ever imagined. Shorty heard the sound of them laughing yet he seemed adamant about becoming a cultivator which surprised Michael. At first, he thought Shorty wasn't serious but that thought began to change.
" Cap'n if I do that, will you make me a cultivator?" Shorty tucked Michael's sleeves. Michael looked down at Shorty. For the first time, he saw a serious look on Shorty's face.
"Quit nagging Lord Lucifer you idiot" Gibson tried to interfere yet his shout didn't even make Shorty bat an eye. Michael raised his hand as Gibson quickly shut his mouth.
"Alright, I'll give you a chance. Go without booze for a month and I'll make you a cultivator"
"Really? You promise?" Shorty's face brightened up like someone lit a candle inside his head while his eyes sparkled with excitement.
"What the hell? You got my word" Michael sighed as he promised Shorty. He was going to make all of his men cultivators anyway.
"And its Lord, Lord Lucifer, Shorty" they turned back to see Gaya walking towards them. She didn't wear any skull masks to hide the frown on her face.
Noticing the frown, Michael knew something serious came up.
"Gibson, get the crew ready and set the course for Gisal"
"Yes, Lord Lucifer"
"Aye aye Cap'n, Lord...Lord Lucifer"
Gibson addressed Michael as Lord Lucifer while Shorty addressed him as Cap'n. No matter how hard Shorty tried, he couldn't address Michael as Lord Lucifer. Still, Shorty was trying and Michael could tell he would learn soon.
"What is it?" Michael climbed down the stairs to enter his room with Gaya.
"I have good news and bad news. The good news, Heinberg, and Tiberius found where they might have gone " Gaya rubbed her temples as she spoke.
"And the bad?"
"They might have brought their own explosives to blow the shit up" Michael realized why she had the frown. Heinberg already planted the explosives he bought from the system around the place where the senators would sit. The explosives were planted carefully to blow up the senators but not all of them. If the gladiators brought their own explosives hoping to blow up the arena, the power of the explosion would be doubled, killing every single senator, including Caius. In addition to that, if the explosives the gladiators brought were powerful, the blast could kill Tiberius, Heinberg, and Maxine along with all the nobles. Michael knew killing nobles might look like cleaning up the city but it would cripple the economy. The nobles were the backbone of the kingdom's economy so killing them was equal to crippling the kingdom. If Michael were to destroy Gisal, he would have let the gladiators blow up the nobles.. Since his plan was to use Gisal as his first step to conquer this world and earn gold coins, he had to stop them.