After leaving the battlefield, Lucien didn't go back to his base, he first went and grabbed everything in the treasury of the WindWolf branch.
Only after that was he confident enough that he didn't miss anything important and left.
In this battle, he was only regretting that the Soul Devour didn't have bigger range, the only Soul he actually got was from Gary and that was 1000 points and his Soul surged to 77.00, Gary apparently had around 60 points in Soul, as Soul Devour steals 1/10 during the conversion.
He could have headed to the battle of Rank 0s and stayed there, but it would defeat the purpose of the whole setup, they were just the fodders, Lucien had to keep watch over the Rank 1 battles.
Sitting back in his makeshift base, Lucien sent his body into the Crimson World.
It was quite different since the last time he stepped in here, in addition to a rock, a crimson moon and a bunch of books floating in space, there was now about 15 square meters of high leveled soil or about 15 tons, and in existence points that translated to 13 500 points.
On that soil, right now there were chests and piles of gold all over the place.
In the chests it was mostly valuable goods, that Lucien didn't have a channel to sell right now, so they would be around for a while.
'Maybe I can sell them through the SilverMoons.'
The most important thing was the gold coins.
'All Existence, how much are there?'
-Counting-
-5245 gold coins-
'Good, it enough for at least 2 Vitality based Rank 1s.'
'My future existence point source is within view.'
Since there was nothing special left within the loot, Lucien left the Crimson world, he had a meal to attend to.
The 2 and a half Rank 1 gave Lucien, almost 10 000 existence points.
With the Soul of Gary almost 11 000.
Lucien didn't have to wait too long for the Rank 0s to be delivered, Roy was probably trying to show his loyalty, they were at the given location one day later.
It was not far from the base and Lucien payed attention the that place, one day later there were 27 neatly arranged Rank 0 bodies.
'Hmm it seems he saved more than just his subordinates and turned them into his people, while their trust can be doubted, as long as he can control them, I don't mind, it's part of my powers after all.'
'27 hmm, if I average them around 75, as they are skinny thief like bandits, it's just above 20000 existence points.'
'This was a big success, and I got all the benefits out of it. If they were just Rank 1 groups, not backed by a Rank 2 'above mortal' bandit, they wouldn't have even cared about a missing subordinate or that bit of provocation, not to mention starting a war. It was obvious someone was pouring oil into the fire from behind the scenes.'
'Whatever doesn't matter for me.'
'Now with these about 31 000 existence points, my route to Rank 2 is pretty secure, I should probably go practice in the Dusky Woods and try to breakthrough. After all for commoners Rank 2 is almost a god, but in the imperial military Rank 2 is only a Thousand Man commander, and there were 100 of them in the power shown above the table by the Empire. Who knew how many Rank 2s were actually in the hands of the imperials.
'As a prince I would still be vulnerable to assassinations if I was Rank 1, the assassin they would send is probably Rank 1 and he would be hidden. Maybe even hidden from my 10 meter absolute area. I never though I know the full extend of the methods in existence. So Rank 2 would give me security to develop silently.'
'After I hit Rank 2 with one path, I'll just silently practice and focus on the other paths, the only imbalanced stat would be the Soul, I'll bring the others slowly up by practicing, it would make me understand the particles and my Path better that way, I can't always rely on All Existence.'
'Control over the particles of different Paths is going to be a main priority. And control over the Soul would be second priority.'
'I still have about half a year, I'll just try to breakthrough, even if my time runs out, one of the contacts of the SilverMoon family is in the capital, it should be fine to contact them about the slaves even if I'm forcefully teleported back to the capital.'
Lucien didn't hesitate and started his journey towards the Dusky Woods.
Couple of days later, he entered that familiar forest, still forsaken by everyone, still gloomy and dark.
'I need to find a safe spot, I can't practice the Darkness Path in the Crimson World, yet.'
Looking around for a couple of hours, Lucien found a giant tree, it was enormous, it would need dozen of men to surround it with their hands.
'This is the place. I'll make it work.'
Lucien climbed up in the branches to make sure the entrance he would make would be covered and not visible to the random passerby.
He started absorbing the tree and that resulted in a hole, that was big enough for a person to pass, he continued absorbing down till he reached the roots.
There he started expanding his little base, with the 10 meter Soul Devour zone, he knew exactly how much to absorb, and keep the tree intact.
In a couple of hours, it was a cozy little tree cave, it was not giant or fancy, but it was enough to go by unnoticed and safe while practicing his Path.
Sitting down in the middle of it, Lucien meditated for a while, this would be his first long term seclusion, back in the palace he had to appear in the eyes of the maid often, even the Darkness Path breakthrough to Rank 1 didn't take more than a half a day, because he did everything to familiarize himself with the process prior to trying.
Now he didn't have any idea how the breakthrough to Rank 2 was going to be and if All Existence judged 1 year was needed, it certainly wasn't the same process I was familiar with, I'll just try and see how it goes.
'All Existence, increase my Soul to 100.00.'
-23.00 stat points needed to 100.00, price would be 4600 existence points-
'Do it.'
All of a sudden, Lucien felt that familiar feeling of clarity, it was weaker than last time, but it was the very feeling of freedom, as if he was bound till now with a shackle and now all of a sudden the shackle is gone.
Lucien almost moaned while enjoying the feeling.
Let's start and see the Path to Rank 2.