After Ray came back to his room, he opened the pink window that had appeared that morning suddenly, but had been ignored by him.
[Quest: MILF? And the best there is? You definitely need to do it.
Status: Completed
Clear method: Did you have a choice?
Remark: What can I say; your logic was too good. Just don't try the same with other women. And take some points as additional rewards, you did a good job.
Rewards: Trait Randomizer (SS)
Additional Reward: 400 points]
Nodding in sweet satisfaction he called for Adrianna.
She came within three minutes of being called and stood in front of him in his room.
"Yes, your highness?"
Ray could feel the happiness and sincerity in her voice every time he called her. After that night they had kissed a few times but couldn't spend more time together.
He did feel a bit bad about it, but things just kept progressing rapidly and he would have to stay on his guard, updating his plans regularly if he wanted this life to go on smoothly.
'But I know the kind of girl Adrianna is… if I neglect all my work and just want to stay with her, she'll lose respect for me.'
"All the prisoners have been gathered in one place?"
"Yes, your highness. As per your order, all twenty seven of the people you captured have been kept in the large cell of the dungeon, and are currently under surveillance!"
"No one has taken any weird action over the last few hours?"
"No, your highness."
'So no one from outside is controlling their minds, or they would have reacted somehow…'
"Alright, ask the people in the dungeon to leave, I'll be heading down there."
"But the guards…"
"No need, those leeches do not have the strength to courage to face me."
Adrianna blushed, seeing his confidence. She didn't know why, but every time she knew Ray was better than someone, or people feared and respected him, she was strangely happy.
"I understand your highness!"
Immediately she left with a happy smile on her face.
'Time to place a few more pawns in the field…'
After waiting a few minutes, he walked out, went downstairs and took a transfer circle to move to the dungeon which lay under the palace.
With a flash, the bright sunny daylight disappeared, and a dark cold place welcomed him. There were cells of all sorts in rows, and if one didn't know the place properly it would not be an understatement to get lost.
Most of the pathways were arranged like a maze, while most of the cells were empty.
'Well, that father of mine just outright killed everyone. He didn't know what torture or capturing people meant…'
Turning his head from side to side to find anything weird, he finally reached the large cell meant for holding a group captive.
It was the last room in the end of a pathway towards the left, and had no bars, but a solid door.
Pushing the door open, he entered after activating his pride aura and reverence skills, making all the people in the room who were chained up shiver with fright.
He counted and found exactly twenty seven people, separated in five groups, with their hands bound with an extremely shiny black handcuff.
He walked to the first group which had five people.
These people were from the financial division. They were part of the group that managed expenses and transferred funds from one department to another and collected taxes and other incomes.
Ray used appraisal on all of them, but none of them had any weird status effect. Even their systems were pretty normal and just increased their management, calculation and had a few skills related to money and wealth.
'Now the question is… corruption I can understand… but why did they start plotting against me?'
"You five… do you know why you're here?"
Ray spoke in an overbearing voice that made all five people's knees tremble.
"You don't need to reply."
Next he went to the other group of five people.
"Ah yes, the people in charge of the treasury. Stay calm, stay calm…"
He moved on to the third group.
'Another five people but from the defense management team…'
The fourth group had five people from the people who took a count of new recruits and troops in the palace.
And finally the last group had seven people.
"The people from the foreign affairs division…"
These people managed information flow, spies and people from other empires.
After walking slowly across the room and observing the scared expressions on everyone's face he suddenly clapped loudly.
"Alright, attention on me. Stop shivering and stand straight."
Since all of them were already his slaves, they complied.
He hadn't enslaved them with his SS rank skill, but with an S rank one from a slaver before he obtained the skill.
"Enslavement."
A bright magic circle started shining below everyone's feet as Ray replaced all their enslavements with his own.
Suddenly, Ray felt connected to all the people in front of him.
'Let's dive into their memories…'
After a few seconds of scouring through the memories of each of his new slave, he returned back to himself.
'Would you look at that… this isn't a fish that bites, but one that hides…'
His face broadened in an amused smile.
According to what he saw, he wouldn't have to change his plans much.
"Alright… what I want you guys to do is…"
***************************************
Ray was standing alone in a large room.
There were several weapons hanging on the wall in one side of the room, while several magic circles were embedded in the walls and the floor.
This was Ray's personal training room. He had asked his aunt to make this room on his ninth birthday, and as it was his first request from his aunt, she went all out creating a massive room for him alone.
'Well, the bigger the better…'
The enchantments in the room could stimulate various environments, heating conditions, gravity, darkness and could even seal the mana in the room.
Right now Ray didn't have any particular task at hand.
He had issued orders to the noble slaves and teleported them out of the castle.
He made sure to make everything as discreet as possible. Everyone knew that he had killed the nobles, and destroyed their bodies with mana, but that's just what he had declared.
After all, being cautious always helps.
There was a meeting Claire would apparently attend at night, and he had the rest of the day to himself.
He could have eliminated the moles and rats in the palace that had he had found about, but he didn't.
'Catching these small fries now will just alert the masterminds. I'll make my move on my coronation ceremony and catch everyone in one full swoop.'
He went to the wall and picked out a plain looking sword.
All the weapons be it swords, spears, bows and even shields were customized by size and weight to Ray's liking.
Holding the sword in his right hand, he walked to the center of the room.
'I haven't trained my swordsmanship in the last few days…'
Even though the System gave out mysterious powers and skills to hosts, they didn't really give anyone a sure victory.
Since systems just delivered power to hosts from a mysterious source, these powers could be used to do all kinds of weird things like healing people, assisting in faster growth, raising dead people, messing with people's minds, but none of them could just teach a person how to use weapons or magic.
Sure, a system could give out skills that made a host's learning speed exponentially faster, but the host still had to learn certain things himself.
While fighting, one could face different types of enemies…
People who just relied on systems and its skills. They didn't know how to properly use mana or weapons, and once their skill restrictions kicked in, they were completely vulnerable.
Next were people who learned battle techniques, and integrated their techniques with their system skills and made their own fighting styles.
And then there were people who learned controlling their mana, becoming mages.
One possessed a mana core since birth, and could use mana once a person gained proper understanding of things.
Since Ray was born fully knowing everything about mana, he started practicing mana control ever since his birth.
This was the reason behind his SS+ rank control.
But Ray put all his focus on mana practice and just did physical exercise for a long time. This was because of the size of his body.
Since he was safe in the palace, and training and practicing magic required a lot of concentration, the early years of his life were the golden period for him.
He had started practicing battle techniques only a few years back and even though he had made a lot of progress and could defeat a few knight instructors, he knew that simply based on battle techniques there were many people who could defeat him just in the empire, forget about outside.
'But with my skills and mana in addition, I'm pretty confident…'
What Ray was doing now was to continue his battle technique training, and he had to work extra hard because he had something specific in his mind.