System vs Rebirth

A moment ago.

The Gem Lord was sitting in front of Noel with a gentle smile on his face. "Say, what do you think if I retire in this place? I don't really need the mine. Just give me enough materials and money to do my research, and I'm set."

Noel raised his eyebrows. The Gem Lord was basically saying that he wanted to serve him. Originally, the transaction was there to get his help, but it seemed that the Gem Lord had seen the future of the Ardagan family and decided to side with them.

The Gem Lord was the eldest among the elders in the Tower Association. His strength and his knowledge were among the greatest.

For the Ardagan family, accepting his plea would mean paying a little bit more than the original agreement in exchange for his help. That was right. As long as the Gem Lord remained here, they would get yet another peak grandmaster. He might be weaker than Milfa, but the gap between them was not big. More importantly, the explosion gems were extremely useful for city defense. Hence, the Gem Lord's value actually surpassed Milfa.

When Noel heard this, he couldn't help but ask, "Are you sure about this? You should know that this city could be said to be the most dangerous place in the kingdom."

Lounstein was definitely the target of everyone. So, the Gem Lord might have to fight again and again.

However, the Gem Lord made a genuine smile as though he had thought this through. "As long as you don't push away this old man."

Noel blinked his eyes a few times. There was a bit of disbelief since he never imagined that he would get this kind of harvest from the battle.

Noel stood up firmly, implying his answer.

Seeing this, the Gem Lord pushed his chair to the side and took a step back. After that, he fell on one knee while saying, "Jayden Rivermore would like to serve Earl Noel Ardagan."

"I accept your loyalty, Jayden Rivermore. From now on, you are my vassal."

"I greet my lord." The Gem Lord lowered his head.

"I'll make sure that you won't regret your decision today, Gem Lord."

"I have passed my mantle as an elder, my Lord. If you don't mind, you can just call me Old Jade. People usually call me that." Jayden smiled.

"Sure, Old Jade." Noel smiled, knowing that the name probably came from removing two characters from his real name.

While the Gem Lord submitted to Noel, the Water Lord had no intention of serving anyone. However, he was implying that he didn't mind some collaboration between Lounstein and the Silica Valley, which was a good opportunity for Noel. The Water Lord could get a lot of runes from Noel, while the latter could get a lot of medicinal herbs from the Silica Valley. Those herbs would be useful for Khalid. It was due to his medicine that a lot of people didn't die in the last war.

The Demon Banner Army had also retreated from Lounstein. Noel had promised Clara a bunch of stuff for her help as well as giving something back to the Zero Squad that had taken care of him this whole time.

Milfa was a bit ruthless. Instead of bringing something back from his city, she only wanted the heads of the two new Devil Saints. It seemed that she was planning to use them as propaganda to eliminate more members of the organization.

Faust, on the other hand, came because he was indebted to Noel for helping his Demon Barrier Squad in the past. Now that the debt had been repaid, he returned to his squad.

Meanwhile, Paladin Aurelia and Saintess Layla became witnesses to the power of runes, which made the establishment of their headquarters much smoother. Of course, he had to work on the carriage that would symbolize the cooperation between the Ardagan family and the Moon Temple soon.

Finally, he could take care of the rest of the matters regarding the Ardagan family's future.

He assembled all his pillars in a single room. Of course, he also added Livia, Tristan, Felicia, and Jayden.

All of them had been waiting for his conversation with the Gem Lord to finish, which made it a good time to introduce the new vassal.

There was a reason why Noel accepted the Gem Lord into the family.

Name: Jayden Rivermore

Affection: Loyal (95/100)

Description: In awe of your achievement.

Noel entered the room with the Gem Lord, which confused most people. Only a few understood the reason for Jayden's arrival.

"Congratulations, my lord." Charlotte was the first one to stand up.

Anna, Dimitri, Livia, and Harley were next.

The rest were still confused, so he introduced him. "This is Mr. Jayden Rivermore. He will be staying with us from now on."

"Ah?!" Douglas hurriedly stood up as he blurted out, "Congratulations, my lord, for getting a new vassal."

When they heard the last part, the rest of the people caught on and hurriedly congratulated Noel. Jayden was simply too big of an addition to be ignored.

"Ahaha, this old man feels flattered. Please call me Old Jade." Jayden smiled.

Noel turned to Sandra. "Please bring one more chair into the room."

"Yes, sir." Sandra hurriedly executed his order. It seemed that she had taken her training seriously the whole time. Not only her strength grew, but her skill as a maid was impeachable. In less than a minute, Sandra had returned with a chair, albeit a bit confused as to where she should put it.

"This old man will just take a seat on the side. I don't know anything about the family after all." Jayden smiled and took the chair from Sandra before placing it on the side. He only planned to observe the condition, since Noel wanted to show him the family that had been hiding its fangs the whole time.

Now that everyone was seated, Noel looked at Dimitri. "Let's start with the report of the battle, shall we?"

Dimitri nodded. "There are a total of 121 casualties. Most of them are normal soldiers. 230 are suffering from heavy injuries, but thanks to Khalid's medicine, more than two hundred of them will recover. However, the rest can only live with handicaps. 785 people are suffering from minor injuries. Half of them are soldiers while the rest are normal citizens."

"Make sure to record all the people who have died and suffered heavy injuries. Compensate them properly if they have a family or relative as it's due to their service that the city can remain standing. Of course, all the people who participate in the battle have to be compensated as well." Noel nodded in understanding.

It was truly hard to know that a lot of his subjects were dead. But the only thing he could do as a lord was to offer his sympathy and pay compensation. Even if he wanted to visit them and thank them personally, he didn't have enough time to do all that as work was piling up in his office.

"Also…" Dimitri glanced at Khalid. Khalid nodded his head, saying, "I currently don't have a lot of materials to make more medicine."

"In that case, Dimitri will buy the materials while preparing for the next batch migration. Also, we are going to have more cooperation with the Silica Valley, which is known for producing a lot of medicinal herbs, especially rare herbs. I think that is enough, right?"

Khalid nodded his head. "Yes. Thank you, my lord."

"Howard?" Noel continued to discuss the matter outside the city, specifically the demon corpses.

"We have made a rough calculation. There should be around sixty thousand corpses around the city. Although a lot of the corpses are destroyed, we should have no trouble recovering their demon crystals."

Noel thought for a moment. "We will keep all the Superior Demon Crystals, Peak Demon Crystals, and half of the Low Level, Mid Level, and Advanced Level Demon Crystals. As for the rest, we can use it for the funds."

Balott agreed with the arrangement. "That's good. I believe that my lord should use all the Superior Demon Crystals and Peak Demon Crystals. If my Lord becomes much stronger than today, I believe that our enemies won't dare show their fangs in front of us. And that is the best investment in my opinion."

Dimitri, Howard, or even Jayden were Spirit Grandmasters. However, Balott believed that Noel should be the one using it. In the end, his talent was too overwhelming to be ignored. It was better to focus their resources on the most talented ones to increase the possibility of a Spirit Transcendence Expert being born in this family.

"We will talk about that later." Noel waved his hand before turning to Harley. "How about it, Harley?"

"I have gathered all the information you want, my lord. How do I say this… The situation doesn't look that good for us." Harley paused for a moment before raising three fingers. "First, we have seen the second carriage bearing the flag of Rosenhood. I'm assuming that the royal family is bringing back that despicable bastard to the royal court."

"Are you serious?" Charlotte frowned.

"Who is he?" Noel asked, not knowing about this figure.

"Raymond Les Rosenhood. His sister married the previous king, thus putting him as a teacher of the current king. We heard a lot of his names brought up by Master Luke. Master Luke and Duke Raymond had been stepping on each other's toes during the throne war.

"He retired after the execution. The reason he came back was probably to once again destroy the Ardagan family. It could be said that if Marquis Stargaze didn't step in and take care of the execution, he was the one who would remove the bloodline of the Ardagan family forever.

"In terms of ability, he might be the best politician in the kingdom right now. So, we have to raise our guard or something bad is going to happen."

Noel frowned while Anna couldn't help but ask, "I have sent the letter to my father about our next move. Is he going to hinder us?"

"Most likely." Charlotte nodded. "I'm afraid that he is looking for a way to punish us."

"For the time being, there is no way to punish us. The reward is simply much greater than the punishment, so if they still openly punish us, there will be great unrest in the kingdom. The only way to hit us is probably by cutting a portion of our reward." Noel looked down, contemplating.

"This is bad. Are we not going to get our reward?" Anna's expression darkened. "My father…"

"It's fine to be honest." Noel waved his hand, assuring her that everything was fine. "I have never put the reward into consideration. Isn't that right, Balott?"

"Eh?" People couldn't help but look at Balott, wondering what he was talking about.

"Of course, my lord. People don't know that there is one hidden meaning when showing the runes in this war. What will you think about the runes in this war?" Balott smirked. "Overwhelming? Strong? People will focus on the Rune Academy to acquire it? People want to cooperate with the Ardagan family to get a bite on the rune technology? No. That is not the real reason. What we want to show is the effectiveness of runes. This will be proof that the runes can be developed further and used by the masses. And…"

"Yeah. It's time to discuss the next development plan. The reason why I'm not bothered with the money is because of this plan." Noel asked, "How did people see the Ardagan family in the past?"

"A merchant noble family?" Charlotte tilted her head in confusion.

"That's right." Noel smirked. "What do you think about making this family once again the wealthiest family in the kingdom?"

Balott shook his head. "The wealthiest in the kingdom? I think you are setting the bar too low, my lord. Don't you think we should become the wealthiest family in the world?"

As expected, Balott understood him the most. As a merchant, they would definitely sell something. And by proving the rune's effectiveness, he could finally sell runes.

Noel snapped his fingers while saying, "It's time to set up a new merchant group under the Ardagan family's name. We will sell the rune technology, their maintenance, and even their development under a single banner. I call this company, Rune Garden, or to make it short, Runegard."