"You never get tired of it, do you?" Xiu Ying said with a bitter smile.
Rex tilted his head in confusion, not understanding what she actually meant.
"You boy is still the same… It's night time, coming here should have been tiring for you, rest a bit," Wang Cang said with a smile, she didn't show much of it on her face but she was truly happy, others didn't have many expectations that he would come back, even if he did, they weren't sure how many years, tens or hundred, would he take to come back.
This was the reason others weren't sure if Rex would return in their lifetime but she always believed he would, and he lived up to her expectations which made her very happy.
Rex turned to her, then walked up to her and hugged her into his arms. Wang Cang was taken by surprise, he released her after a few seconds and laughed out loud.
"How can a cultivator like me who cultivated three paths to Core Breaking peak stage and fought with a Calamity Lord for several nights… And days, get tired so easily? Let's go to the hall, I will tell you my tale, the tale of Great Shadow Lord catching the envy of heavens, Middle Realm version," He said as he walked inside the Sect Master Pavilion.
[I thought your blood cultivation is only at the Blood Core peak stage,]
'I can't hear you,' Rex nonchalantly said.
Wang Cang nodded with a smile then followed behind him. Xiu Ying didn't say a word and followed the suit, it was her pavilion she was going to enter anyway, Li Min was also interested so she joined them.
Rex didn't have any impure thought towards Wang Cang, the feeling of closeness he had with her was different from others, it was hard to describe that feeling in words, but if he still had to choose a word that is closest to define this feeling then it would be… Family.
The way she hugged him at their first meeting was still burned into his memory, it changed his growing route in many ways, whenever he looked back at the past thinking what he would have done with his revenge mindset if he hadn't met her, it scares even him.
Because with his current self, it was easy for him to guess the route he would have walked on. At that time, Rex was walking on the thin path between darkness and light, one wrong step and he would have lost complete trust in any other human. As a result…
He might still be an inventor but the things he would make won't be towards world development instead they would more likely be weapons of mass destruction.
He might have become the inventor of things he hated the most.
He might still build an organization but it would be akin to another Puppet Sect, he wouldn't have time and heart to think about the slaves or helping beastman in need.
He might have tried to steal the egg for a pet contract instead of saving the baby inside, in other words, Little Aru might have never born and Lerna would be an enemy.
With such temperament and personality, Rose too would have grown in a different direction.
After developing a personality such as this, would Zakiya let him live? He didn't know before but later Rex had realized that she was monitoring his every action in the forest. If he had tried to deceive her and run then it would have been over for him.
At present…
Once all four of them settled down in the central hall of the pavilion, Rex began his brave tale, albeit the version was a little edited, some certain female characters and events went missing in the story.
Rose tried its best to remind him about those characters and events but Rex pays no heed to all those comments.
Wang Cang attentively listened to his whole tale without slacking off.
Li Min kept giving him suspicious and doubtful looks from time to time.
As for Xiu Ying, her expression was screaming 'You are talking shit!' the whole time.
After the heroic tale was finished, Rex got a bunch of praises from Wang Cang, several questions from Li Min & Xiu Ying, and last but not the least, a set of sarcastic comments from Rose.
Once he was done with his modest replies, he explained to them his plans of going to Middle Realm with them and the things they need to do before putting the plan in action.
"Land, we need a lot of land, mines, and minerals, I will also permanently set the Ancient Teleportation Portal after finding the right place, I can't do it here, this place isn't right for doing this or if someone finds out the location they might target it to reach the upper realm.
I mainly need land for building Smart Bands manufacturing facilities, metal refineries, herb plantations.., etc. Remember the most precious thing in Lower Realm as a resource is a land, use all the forces and money we have to claim the ownership of as much land as possible," Rex said.
During the rapid expansion of Frozen Flame he had realized that even if he uses tens of clones to make Smart Bands or ID cards using his methods, it won't be enough to meet the need in the future.
The problem was that his main technology required his abilities to be put to use.
That's when he got the idea to drop the quantity to increase the quality.
Most people, especially those that only have 1 Star ID card won't be able to use even half of its true capabilities so what was the use of giving them the same ID cards?
As a result, he came up with an idea, making the things like core smart brain, satellite, signal towers, and receivers with his technology and replace current ID cards with new version Smart Bands that are made using just arrays and inscriptions.
This way, even if someone can copy his new generation Smart Bands, they won't work because not being connected to the main servers. Furthermore, he would be able to mass-produce them and expand his business to all over the planet. Not just Middle Realm but Lower Realm too.
The population in these words was way higher than Earth, this was why accomplishing this feat wasn't easy but was Rex a mortal? He had clones, and Working Bots to do simple tasks and he himself could focus on the harder ones instead.
To put his plans into action, Rex needed an enormous amount of land and resources, if he tried to do this in Middle Realm it would catch a lot of unwanted attention but who would care about Lower Realm?
The resources here were normal metallic ores and minerals which can't be used to make even one descent Spirit Weapon, it won't catch the attention of those big forces in Middle Realm that is trying to rival Frozen Flame.
"We already have a lot of land in several cities and…." Xiu Ying was saying but Rex interrupted her in the middle.
"You got me wrong, I want way more land than you think, and not in just Eastern Continent but whole Lower Realm," Rex said.
His words shocked everyone but they soon calmed down because if it was so simple why would Rex bother discussing it with them.
Rather than being hard, it was an annoying and lengthy matter in Rex's eyes.
"Occupying land in Eastern Continents is easy as we have the reputation and disposition of an overlord sect but because of it, the other continent's forces isolate us. Fortunately, Monster Taming Sect has always tried to maintain friendly relations with us so it shouldn't be that hard to expand in Western Continent with their help.
We have good connections with some experts from Southern Continent so we can talk with them, the overlord sect in Northern Continent is just observing us as a neutral force but the biggest problem is Central Continent, the cultivators from the overlord force there have no good intentions towards us.
They love their status, they won't like it if you treat everyone equally and let precious information spread among people, they follow a dictatorship system. The Emperor there won't let the masses acquire cultivation resources freely or let the commoners have the opportunity to gain strength so easily," Xiu Ying said.
Rex understood what she meant, if he spreads his business by building strongholds, factories, and establishing a guild system there, then commoners would have the opportunity to rise, the big families wouldn't like it, they love their authority, how can they let commoner gain strength? What would happen if they tried to get back at them for the deeds they had done so far?
"If polite words don't work then we would use force, if things keep going like this then Lower Realm would only become worse with time," Rex said while looking at Wang Cang. If it wasn't for her being here, he would have directly announced the antihalation order of that Emperor.
He may be wary of Azure Emperor of Golden Bird Continent but what does the Emperor of Central Continent here worth?
"You mean, you would go negotiate with them?" Li Min asked. She stretched the word negotiation, her words carried a hidden meaning, she had the same solution as Rex but didn't want to get into an argument with Wang Cang.
"Not me, I have two better men for that task. For now, focus on building and reinforcing a better stronghold I talked about, just try to contact and negotiate with whom you can, and leave the rest aside. I will be focusing on building the new stronghold so I won't be able to help you with your task, in case, a problem occurs I have few toys to help you solve it," Rex said as waved his hand and three Mr. Black appeared out of nowhere.
The strongest Combat Bots were predator series bots but the new version of assistant-type bots was more than enough to deal with the powerhouses of Lower Realm.
Rex vaguely explained the capabilities of these bots and finished presenting his plans.
From the next day, the plan was put into action.
No one except the four of them knew about the plan but many people from the sect could see the rushed movements of their sect master these days, Xiu Ying didn't try to hide it that much because there wasn't a need to, she summoned the main forces of sect and spared no efforts to fasten up the progress as much as she can.
She also invited people from the other four overlord forces to talk but the communication and traveling methods in Lower Realm were worse compared to Middle Realm so it was inevitable that it would take some time for it to work.
Rex had left these things to her, he was focusing on finding the right location to build the stronghold, after some thought he got an idea.
The place he chose was the same where the main Frozen Flame Sect was built, the only difference being it was just some hundreds of meters below the surface.
He got this idea when he remembered how Dwarves were capable of building underground kingdoms, he had seen the inner structure of an underground city himself, it wasn't that hard for him to formulate a blueprint for one personally.
After deciding the place, he spent a few days shaping, strengthening, and inaugurating formations in the empty hollow space. The next part was to make it livable for normal living beings then installing the core working system of the Ancient Teleportation Portal.