Inside the royal palace Ben waited on the receptionist to bring someone to the front desk to update him on his appointment with the king. Ben patiently waited in the lobby and was soon greeted by the same official he had spoken with on his first visit.
"Good morning sir, I wanted to stop by and see how my appointment was progressing and to leave an address I can be reached at. I purchased a property on main street three days ago and have opened a store there."
Ben took out a ballpoint pen and a sheet of paper and wrote down the address of his store. The receptionist and the official were shocked by the pen and paper. They had not been exposed to the products manufactured and sold by Ben in Goldcrest so they were both fascinated by the two items.
Ben caught the way they looked at the paper he handed them and the pen in his hand.
"Ah, these are two of the many items I sell at my store in the Aregard Capital. This is called a pen. Unlike the quill, you do not need to dip it in ink the ink is held inside this enclosed tube here and it is applied to the paper as you write. This paper is actually made from wood pulp. They both make writing anything quicker and more organized." Ben explained
He brought out a couple pens and gave one to each of them as a small gift.
"Thank you, Archduke Ben, these pens are interesting. I will be sure to hang onto your address and send someone to your business as soon as the king has time from his busy schedule."
"Excellent, Ah I'm sorry I never got your names when I visited the first time."
"I am Varin and this is one of the king's assistant. His name is Gossum." The receptionist gave him and the assistants names when Ben asked.
For some reason, the assistant flashed a menacing stare to the receptionist when he had given Ben his name. Ben was confused by this and thought maybe he was upset at the receptionist for not allowing him to introduce himself to Ben.
Ben did not bother to ask figuring if he pressed the issue he might get the receptionist in more trouble so he thanked the two of them and left the Royal Palace.
Back at his store, he helped to hand out fruit, vegetables, and thin slices of meat to the shoppers who passed by his store. This time around he did not explain the effects his food would provide when eaten. He figured people would be more open to test his food out if he didn't make them think he was some type of con man.
The people of Goldcrest had originally avoided him thinking he was pulling some kind of scam at first. If it wasn't for that old cultivator who came to confront him he would have had a difficult time convincing the people to try his food.
As the sun began to set the Merchants retired to their apartment upstairs for the night and Ben waited on his Spies to come back. Just as he had heard in the Tavern his spies learned about how much corruption there is in the city.
Everyone has their hands out accepting bribes and payoffs. If someone wanted to smuggle in illegal goods or have the guards look the other way while they performed a crime you only needed to spread a few coins around.
It was the same with the merchants and store owners. They would use their money to work against one another with bribes, payoffs, or hiring local gangs to harass or drive off the competition.
Ben made the right decision to design his store like a covert stronghold. If anyone came to cause trouble at night there wasn't much they could do to his store. Even if the guards were paid to look the other way they would never get through the thick steel doors or the concrete and rebar roof and walls. If someone attempted to tunnel under the store to try and break in through the floor they would be obstructed from entering by the concrete enclosed basement walls and floor.
After he talked with his two spies about their day Ben gave each of them 500g and one of his solid gold noble crest badges. He figured they could gain access to areas with his household badge they would normally be barred from.
Ben told the two of them to use their disguise skill tomorrow while they wore his noble badge and instructed them to go to a tailor and seamstress. Ben told them to have a few custom outfits made. Ben explained he wanted them to purchase a high-quality noble outfit, a commoner outfit, and to have an outfit custom made to look like it is the ragged and torn clothing of a homeless beggar.
With these different outfits, his spies will have the ability to blend into the background anywhere around he sends them in the future. If they wore the custom-made beggar's clothes they could sit around near businesses or restricted areas acting like panhandlers and no one would suspect them to be spies who were watching and listening to everything going on around them
These outfit request might make people raise a few eyebrows and wonder what they were being made. This is why Ben instructed them to purchase them while using their Disguise skill. Once their clothing was created and paid for the people who ordered them would never be recognizable thanks to them having altered their appearances.
The rest of the gold would be used for daily expenses or to purchase information. Ben gave them permission to use the money to find out who could or couldn't be trusted in this city. If someone were going to cause him trouble it would be better to hear about it before they had a chance to make a move against him.
That night when he finished with the spies, Ben decided to use Zoom to return to the Fortress. He teleported to the entrance of the Barracks and went inside to purchase twenty Elven Male Archers and twenty Human Male Dismounted Knights. By using body templates, every one of the new human recruits he created all have the exact same measurements. For the Elves, he used the measurements of the first male elf he created and turned it into a saved template.
All twenty of the new Elves were made with the same Elven Male body size. Ben decide against using the bulky muscular human male body template for the Elves. He thought It would look strange to see an Elf who looked like a front-line melee fighter.
These new recruits were outfitted with the standard weapons, armor, and gear for their classes. They left the barracks with large duffle bags slung over their shoulders and stopped at the Stables. Ben took out two carriages and purchased four horses and hitched them to the carriages.
The new group of recruits left the fortress with Ben while it was still dark out and they took the two carriages south through the forest. At the end of the road near the Ciral Kingdoms border, Ben explained they would be tasked to guard the walls here for now. He showed them the mini castle compound where they would sleep along with the Market, Restrooms, Stables, Bathhouse, and Restaurant.
When they were settled in and knew how to use the menus and surrounding facilities Ben unhitch the horses and put them in the Stables. He left the two carriages there for emergencies. The new border troops were told to send someone to the fortress if they were to come under attack and have the generals lead the troops here to help defend the walls and gatehouse.
Ben figured with the Magic Turrets in place on the surrounding towers it would take a sizable army to get over these walls. This was why he only had forty men stationed here with the Magic Turrets tossing out huge exploding fireballs they would quickly whittle down the attacker's numbers before they could even reach the walls.
Before he left the troops they all had breakfast together at the Restaurant. Ben explained his plans of connecting the road to the kingdom just over a mile south of them through the woods and they would allow any merchants and travelers to use this road to travel toward Aregard.
They were to explain to everyone who came through that the stone towers along the road could be used by them to rest on their journey. Everyone would be permitted to pass through the Gatehouse and travel the forest road unless it was a large army or hostile forces.
The only Army with permission to travel through the Avalon Kingdom was an army of the Aregard Kingdom. Ben even made a drawing of the Aregard Crest and framed it. They hung it on the wall inside the tower so his men could familiarize themselves with it. Anyone who carried the Aregard royal crest was to be looked after and given special treatment and protection.
Now if a merchant had fifty or even a hundred guards Ben didn't mind but when they starting seeing hundreds of armed men grouped together on their own then it was time to close the Guardhouse and find out what they wanted.
The system would automatically tag any troops from Trareniel or Brandomma as hostile who entered Avalon Territory and this information was shared with the magic turrets. This would make the magic turrets attack them once they entered their attack range.
He left his new recruits at sunrise and used Zoom to return to Wolfmere and opened the store. They followed the same routine today of standing outside and handing out food. A few people were already returning to ask about the food who had eaten the free samples.
They were shocked after eating the food and feeling the streams of energy coursing through their bodies. It wiped away the exhaustion from the day. The pain in their backs, legs, and feet from working or walking all day vanished like smoke in the wind. They were left with a pleasant feeling that recharged and healed them.
This was when Ben began to explain the properties of his hybrid food and how it could offer the benefits of many spirit plants. His food would even help to strengthen their bodies and heal old injuries over time. Even cultivators and magi could boost their training by simply eating his food.
It was hard to believe but they had already experienced the effects first hand! Affordable food with such miraculous effects was an incredible achievement! This would change the entire food industry once people began to catch on to this new food sold at this store! Even the simplest of commoners knew Ben had a product which would shake the business institution of the Ciral Kingdom!
Over the next three days, Ben was beginning to bring in customers who had eaten or heard about his spirit foods. It had now been six days since he had first arrived in the Ciral Kingdom's Capital and he still had not heard back from the Royal Palace.
Ben could see how the king could be busy but how could he have not found the time to talk with a diplomat from another kingdom by now who was here to offer him unbeatable wholesale prices on iron and copper ore?
Wanting to know what was going on Ben gave his spies another mission they were to get into the Royal Palace by any means and find out what was going on. They could make bribes or secretly listen in on discussions. He left it up to them how they wanted to proceed.
These two were both level five spies so Ben figured they would be as skillful as any modern government agency's spies. If possible he wanted them to try and find out what the king and the people in the Royal Palace thought about his ore proposal while they were in there and what they felt about the Aregard Kingdom.
It seemed these two had enough skill and charisma to get hired to work inside the Royal Palace by falsifying past work experience. They both had a forged letter of recommendation from the Yardom Royal Palace. They had paid a shady backroom organization to create fake identifications and documentation with the Yardom royal crest on them.
It was a fantastic way to infiltrate the Royal Palace but this would only hold up for a few weeks. Once word came back from the Yardom Kingdom that these two never worked for the royal palace they would need to have already left their jobs. If they were found to have used false information they would be immediately arrested.
The male spy was hired on as a secretary to one of the older palace officials and the female spy was hired as a palace servant.
The female would clean the palace and the royal quarters and help with other small jobs like bringing meals to the palace offices. The male spy would be filing and delivering documents along with organizing the official's daily schedule.
This was even better than Ben could have hoped for they both had excuses to be in the palace and their jobs provided them enough freedom to move around the Palace to investigate and listen in on the other palace employees!
A week and a half later Ben was still waiting around in Wolfmere. There was something going on here he wasn't aware of and he began to grow suspicious. Why in the hell hasn't anyone come by to give him any information on what was happening with his appointment?! You would think they could at least send someone around with a future date when he would be able to talk with the king but there hasn't been a single word sent out to him.
These questions were answered the next day by his male spy. Just after working in the palace for a past few days he began to hear rumors about officials being offered money by the Trareniel Kingdom!
It seemed the Trareniel Kingdom would offer the Ciral palace officials a large amount of gold to get simple information like what hours did certain employees work in the palace. Over time the officials who took the money would be asked to provide more sensitive information every time they were contacted. These greedy officials became so accustomed to the large amounts of gold coins they were gradually turned into corrupt spies working for the Trareniel Kingdom!
When Ben heard this he began to think the Trareniel Kingdom was more than likely influencing the officials to overlook anything to do with the Aregard Kingdom. The Trareniel King obviously had not given up on conquering Aregard so he would hinder anything that could aid the Aregard Kingdom. He had closed his borders and was trying to economically break them over time by making them lose money and field an army while trying to make the other kingdoms avoid contact with them.
Once Aregard could no longer afford to feed an army and were forced to disband it Trareniel would have another shot at conquering them with a smaller army. The Trareniel King lost too many of his male subjects who never returned and this would begin to hurt his Trareniel kingdom's economy. It was now imperative for the future of Trareniel to somehow acquire the Aregard Kingdom. The money generated by taking over the Aregard Kingdom could keep Trareniel afloat until their population bounced back.
Ben didn't know the Trareniel King was dealing with these types of problems but he did know his troops would be limited because due to the Sandy River Battle. This was what forced King Sletten to try and prevent the other kingdoms from dealing with Aregard by any means necessary.
'If King Sletten had bought off the Ciral officials then they were possibly working behind the scenes to hinder my deal and stop any word of my visit from reaching the king's ears!'
The more he thought about it the more it began to all add up. Why would it take over a week and a half to gain an audience with the king when he was offering them a deal so beneficial to his kingdom? The king could buy iron and copper ore at cut-rate prices and sell it to his kingdom's merchants to generate huge profits.
Ben sent his spies back out with a change in their orders. He wanted them to discover the names of anyone who was thought to have been accepting money from Trareniel in the palace and if there were any trustworthy people with power or influence close to the royal palace.
After spreading around a few coins his spies came up with names of the more obvious corrupt officials who were accepting money from Trareniel. Ben now had a list with ten names on it and one of them happened to be Gossum. The friendly assistant he was dealing with at the palace who gave the receptionist a dirty look when he gave Ben his name.
Now Ben knew why he was angry because he did not want Ben to know his name. Gossum wished to remain as an unidentifiable assistant if things went bad. This would allow him to use his borrowed power as a shield to hide behind.
'Athena do me a favor and mark each of the people on this list with a red dot for me.'
While watching his map Ben saw ten gray dots inside the palace instantly become red. He could now easily see who were the people on his list. When he clicked on a dot the person's name came up. He found Gossum's name and placed a waypoint on it.
Just after two o'clock in the morning, Ben left his store. He activated Night Sight, Silent Movement, and Chameleon. He melted into the darkness and began to move across the city using alleys and dark streets.
Twenty minutes later he was outside Gossum's house. He opened the System Store and purchased a spell called [Open Lock].
[Open Lock]: Used by the caster to open simple locks found on doors and windows. Higher levels will increase the odds of opening more advanced locks and decrease the audible sound of the lock opening.
Ben went to the front door of the dark house and cast Open Lock. He heard a click as the lock turned and drew the bolt into the door. He slowly opened the door while crouching and slipped into the entrance way the interior of the house was pitch black but his Night SIght made it look like it was daytime.
He silently stalked through the house and found what looked like a study. On the desk, he found parchment documents Gossum had brought home but there wasn't anything incriminating. Ben went through the desk and the study until he came across a solidly built locked chest near off in the study corner.
Ben cast his Open Lock spell once more and found a large stack of documents, reports, and correspondence. He found what he was after there were letters he had kept sent from the Trareniel palace asking him to provide them with sensitive information.
'This guy must be a first class idiot to hang onto these letters unless he is still working on acquiring what they are asking for. Maybe he is just arrogant enough to believe no one would ever find them in his house. He is a Palace assistant so it would take a lot to have the guards sent to his home to search for stuff like this and even if guards were sent he could probably just pay them to look the other way. This kingdom is something else, just what the hell is this king doing?'
Ben removed any documents from the chest which were written by Gossum or mentioned him in them and placed these documents in his inventory. He left the dark house like a shadow and went toward the next red dot on his map.
By the time he came back to his store, he had enough incriminating documents to have six of the ten people on his list arrested for treason and/or various other charges.
The next day Ben's female spy had spent the day in the royal quarters of the palace and had discovered the king of Ciral was only seventeen years old. His father had died mysteriously and many thought he may have been poisoned. The king was too young to officially rule the kingdom and could not take full control until he turned eighteen in seven months.
It seems he is merely a puppet king right now and his father's brother is the one with the real power. There wasn't anything nefarious with his uncle it was just he was not a man who should be in charge of a kingdom. His uncle holds a noble title of Duke and is also a wealthy businessman, but he doesn't have the confidence to rule a kingdom.
The soon to be young King Whitaker and his uncle have a great relationship but neither one of were ready to take on the responsibility a kingdom. The previous king's death was so sudden it caught them off guard. They had assumed the king would have ruled for years to come but then they were suddenly thrust into power. Gerald was too young to rule and his uncle was never the type who should rule chose to allow the Royal Palace officials and assistants to make the majority of the decision for the good of the kingdom.
The two of them had no idea how deeply their people had been now corrupted by the surrounding kingdoms. The inexperienced uncle was worried about hurting the kingdom that his brother the previous king had governed so well. He left the people who he felt were more experienced make most of the important decisions in the palace.
This was how Gossum could ignore Ben and not report to the king that a diplomat had come for an audience. If anyone questioned him later about it he could make up an excuse and brush it off because he was given the authority to make these types of decisions by the king and his uncle.
After Ben had heard this he sat down rubbing his temples wondering again what the hell were these people thinking. How could they allow their subordinates to run the kingdom for them? Of course, the officials are going to make decisions favorable for them and their factions and with a whole palace of people doing this, it would begin to turn into complete chaos.
"This is what known as, (Too many cooks spoil the broth)," Ben said to one in particular as he let out another long sigh.