In the royal palace, Isis was sitting in a meeting room.
It was noon, and she had spent the whole morning in the throne room, just sitting in the room. Her job was to meet various nobles who would ask to meet her to discuss problems with their territory.
At first, she would help everyone who asked her for help with as much as she could, but she stopped it after a few years when Ray showed her how most of the nobles had created their own problems to obtain resources from the royal family.
Isis being the eldest daughter of the previous archduke was extremely pampered. She grew up innocent and among loving people.
Furthermore she was a healer and liked helping people.
After that, she was married to the Emperor and became the Empress.
The Emperor didn't really love her and just after two years of marriage, he died along with her father.
Even though she didn't care about the Emperor, his death and also her father's death really saddened her.
It was her sister Ambrosia that consoled her and helped her through her sorrow.
After she revealed that she was pregnant with the Emperor's baby, she was hurriedly made the temporary ruler.
She felt extremely burdened and all her hatred was directed towards the previous emperor, her dead husband. It was he who chose to marry her, it was he who ignored her and didn't show her any love, it was him that dragged her father to death and then died himself, and it was for him that her son would have to face the burden of the kingdom from a young age.
As such, she decided to try to be a good ruler to the kingdom, albeit a temporary one and devote all the empire's resources towards her son's growth.
But her son was extremely intelligent from a very young age, an absolute genius and he was the only one other than her sister that she felt comfortable in.
Ray often helped her with work of the kingdom and also set up a lot of organizations to decrease her workload to the minimum.
Now all she had to do was sit on the throne while requests from the nobles were automatically verified, scanned and proper actions were taken by the various organizations under the palace.
The people of the empire called her various titles like 'The Kind Queen', 'The Peaceful Queen' and 'The Innocent Queen'.
She wanted Ray to take credit, but he dismissed her saying he would have his own titles when he would become a ruler.
And so Isis was an empress loved by all, while she loved only two people… Ray and Ambrosia.
And right now, in the conference room, with neither of them present, she had a forced smile on her lips, listening to all the expenses and other security and countermeasures they were preparing for Ray's coronation day.
While Isis was pretending to listen while thinking of how she would hand the crown to her son, one of the people sitting around the table stealthily held a tiny specially crafted recording device recording everything that was being discussed, relaying all the security positions and magic circles to be placed to a certain red haired person.
After around an hour the meeting ended, before everyone left, the person shattered the recording orb into tiny pieces, before he stood up preventing the people from leaving.
"Your Majesy!"
Isis was pulled out of her thoughts as she looked at the person who had called her.
"Yes?"
"Shouldn't you check for recording devices before everyone leaves?"
"Ah yes! Thank you for the reminder… Everyone please wait!"
Isis then cast a certain probing magic in the room which returned without anything detected.
"Alright, all of you may leave!"
And everyone left the room except Isis.
'Ray taught me that spell and asked me to probe everyone both before and after any meeting… I… forgot to probe them before the meeting…'
'Should I inform Ray about it?'
After thinking for a few seconds, she shook her head.
'No, he just had his awakening and will soon have his coronation; I bring every other minor thing to him...'
'I'm sure its fine! All of them have been working for me for a long time!'
Nodding to herself, Isis left and soon forgot about the incident.
**********************
Meanwhile…
Ray was sitting in his room, smiling in satisfaction.
He had returned in the morning and immediately contacted Adrianna and asked her if she had gathered all the captured people in one place in the dungeon to which she happily gave a positive reply.
This was the task he had handed her. To heal all the tortured captives and gather them in one hallway of the dungeon.
The dungeon and basement was extremely huge after all, and finding them one by one would have taken a long time.
He then contacted his mercenary organization and called someone with a pretty high level enslavement skill to immediately meet him in the dungeon of the palace.
He put it in as the highest priority request. At the same time he put in another highest priority request asking the mercenaries to submit the core of any S ranked monster, and two liters of blood from any royal bloodlined creature or monster.
Lower level monster cores had impurities and blood other than royal could make his bloodline mutate in a weird direction.
He didn't use his name but asked Adrianna to do it, but due to the pay being very high, someone immediately visited him.
After using a high tier enslavement skill in all the people gathered in the room, he enslaved them in one go while a screen appeared before him.
[Quest: The Beginning of Wrath
Status: Completed
Clear Method: (2)
Reward: Subdued Rage (A), Reverse Berserk (A+), 100 points]
After only a few moments two liters of blood from a wyvern king was submitted and he drank a liter of it, storing the other in his ring and waiting for the core.
An S rank core being a rare one, it took some time, until noon to be exact until he got it in his hands.
He had spent more than 10,000 gold on the requests but he didn't regret it.
He had loads of money, but extremely limited time.
Without wasting any time, he devoured the small black colored, slightly spongy and fleshy monster core in two chomps.
Another window, a blue one flashed before him this time.
[Quest: The Beginning of Gluttony
Status: Completed
Clear method: Custom (both 1 and 2)
Remark: Cleared both condition 1 and 2. Hidden condition has been met, rewards have been amplified.
Rewards: Choose any 3 skills from the available ones, 300 points.]
'Choose Growth, Blood Refinement and Sustenance!'
[Obtained Growth (D), Blood Refinement (D), Sustenance (E)]
After doing everything, he opened his stat window to look at all his skills and collected points.
[Name: Ray Celestia
Age: 18
Species: Human
Bloodline: Royal (A+)
Physique: Self-Healing (S)
Mind: Calm (SSS)
Disposition: Neutral
Title: Celestial Empire Crown Prince (Unique)
Strength: (A)
Agility: (A)
Intelligence: (SS+)
Charm: (S+)
Dexterity: (A)
Stamina: (A+)
Mana Quantity: (B)
Mana Output: (A+)
Mana Control: (SS+)
Mana Purity: (B+)
Passive Skills: Strong Body (B), Reverence (B), Subdued Rage (A), Love Sight (SS), Dreamscape (B), Dream Control (A), Blessed Fate (SS), Growth (D), Blood Refinement (D), Reverse Energy Aura (A), System Backlash (Divine), Reincarnation Cycle (Divine)
Active Skills: Pride Aura (A+), Reverse Berserk (A+), Suggestion (S), Sleep Vision (A), Cursed Fate (F), Sustenance (E), Positive Envy (A), Lust Overflow (A), The Divine Rod (S), Appraisal (Divine)]
[Current Balance: 780]
'Now… it's time for shopping!'