In all honesty looking for a surbodinate to do your bidding was quite easy, all you needed was leverage to motivate them to work hard. Leverage can come in many ways such as holding their family hostage, threats using something you have on them,being more powerful than them in any way, helping them in their time of need and even having something they want in return. All this ways could get you a surbodinate but not a loyal surbodinate.
Loyal surbodinates are only found by giving them something they cherish and desire bt are unable to get with their own resources. Though this is under the premise you are not of equal status and power. Do this three times and you gain their loyalty, yet this type of loyalty is subject to changes depending on the situation. A better offer, threats on someone they hold dear and maybe even growing ambition. A truly loyal surbodinate is someone with no ties and nothing to lose. A shadow is a very loyal surbodinate as it's only ties are to it's creator, the caster of the shadow. Same lies true for intelligent beings.
This made the system mission easy and hard at the same time. Getting a surbodinate was easy but making that surbodinate loyal to him and the shadow society was a headache for Gray. For someone to be loyal to you, you had to have sufficient power and that was what he in someway did not have but worrying about that was not helping the cause so he just decided to run the scan first and go with whatever came his way.
The dutchy was huge but it didn't have that many people who were high rank. This was due to where the Evergreen kingdom was located which was the outermost periphery of the empire at the border between the empire and the Mirkwood forest. This was what some would consider relatively barren and the distribution of natural resources increased as you moved either towards the center of the Mirkwood forest or the capital of the empire. For a country that only had one rank ten this was the best location they could secure to build a kingdom, a place no one with sufficient power would want and that's exactly why it was perfect for Gray. As this gave him time to develop his own forces and immass enough power covertly under the empires nose.
Due to the somewhat barren location, the high rank combat power per unit area was pitifully low. At least that's what he discovered after the search concluded and he realized that he might have to raise his own forces. Five. That is the number of high ranks there were in the dutchy which included the duke, the stationed head of the branch of the mercenary union, an ancestor of the duke's who was behind the scenes, a priest of the Evernight church stationed in the dutchy and someone who seemed to be on death's door with a lifespan that was running out.
In terms of combat power the ancestor was ranked first as he was a half step into rank nine which was probably a safety measure against the forest. The dying man was second at peak of rank eight followed by the duke at half step into rank eight and the priest and head of the branch of the mercenary union came in last at rank seven. Though they came in last they were more terrifying as they had behemoths as their backers such that no one would dare look down on them. The trump cards they had on them could probably level the whole kingdom so people steered clear of provoking them.
It did not seem like he had a choice but then it hit him that he had the ultra healing potion. Lifespan was the enemy of everyone as no one could truly say the life they had lived was enough, everyone wanted more, that was the greed of humans and other races alike. If the ultra healing potion could give him who had a weak crippled body with a shattered core more lifespan what about high ranks with declining lifespans. His body was inherently weak and could not take too much stimulation but high ranks were different and even if it did not give them added lifespan, with renewed vitality and a body at it's peak they could aim to breakthrough with the time they had left to increase their lifespan further. Though this did seem like a gamble.
Excited about the idea he quickly choose the dying man and he quickly entered his pocket dimension to see the said man. Lying on the green grass was an old man with wounds and scars all over his body and seemed to be barely breathing. He first changed his face and had the mask show to avoid giving away his identity and asked the system how many drops were required to heal the man and he received a feedback saying three drops was enough.
He was surprised by this as it seemed even this dying man before was better of than the previous him even in the state he was in.After dropping three drops of the potion into the mouth of the man he seemed to exhale and all his wounds started healing at a pace so fast he seemed unable to keep up. He's wrinkles also receded and he slowly became a middle aged man.