Chapter 723: Re-Decorating the Palace
Lord Marshall had yet to become Earl Marshall. He was still waiting for an official reply from the Kingdom of St. Ellis. Still, as Abel would see it, there really wasn’t a possibility that the emperor would turn down an application from himself directly. With that in mind, his t.i.tle would be Earl Marshall from now on.
While he was still staying at Harry Castle, Earl Marshall became very busy with the administration work of Harvest City. He was the one in charge of all official affairs. Ever since Abel became the king of the duchy of Carmel, immigrants of the n.o.bility cla.s.s started spiking up. Not only were there more professionals in different fields, but there were also more wizards that had come here to serve as guards and soldiers alike.
As of now, there was an entire community of wizards outside the Harry Castle. Harvest City, especially, became a hotspot for where the wizards came together. Abel didn’t want to make any adjustments to that. To him, since Harry Castle was his home, he wanted to protect with as much a.s.surance as he could.
For Bakong City, it was up to Head Commander Hoover and the other knights to protect it. Abel wasn’t quite satisfied with their overall strength, so he decided to hide his battle fort 03 right on top of the palace. He did it to protect the teleportation circle that was inside the palace building.
The Bennett Family chose to move to Bakong City with Abel. However, instead of living inside the palace as Abel requested, the Bennett Knight asked for a large mansion so they could live separately. Abel complied.
Other than that, Abel spent the next two days setting up the teleportation circle inside his castle. When he was done, he connected it to the whole teleportation network that the Wizard Union had access to. This way, the duchy of Carmel became one of the few duchies that could move to other regions from the royal palace.
For a few days longer, a lot more changes were made to the royal palace. Plenty of lighting circles were installed. Some of them were in the main hall, some of them were in the side hall, some of them were in the bedroom, the walkway. Even the kitchen (for the servants) had them in place. To make things more ridiculous, even the underground room was installed with lighting circles of its own.
To protect his treasure room, Abel decided to guard it with a special defensive circle that he made. Apart from himself and Burbridge, it was intended so that no one else would be able to open it.
There was also a special room that was sealed inside the giant underground room. Without a short distance teleportation circle, it’d be impossible to ever know about this place’s existence. And what’s so special about here? Well, inside this room, there was a spirit that Abel bought in the Lianty City Wizard Union branch with his points. He was powering it with the perfect gemstones that he made.
The purpose of this spirit was very simple: to control all of the lighting circles that were inside the palace. Most people couldn’t see places that would also cover nearby areas with a large number of circles. Usually, it’d be controlled by the battle fort 03, but if Abel had to use battle fort 03, it was always to work in the way that it was programmed to.
That was a lot of resources Abel had put into the renovation. Actually, the amount he commited was enough to make several intermediate wizards go bankrupt. The palace he was building was one of artificial intelligence, which was the first of its kind that was ever made in history.
No, there was a magic tower right next to his palace, but if it did get attacked, the battle fort 03 would be the first thing that comes into aid. Even if the battle fort 03 wasn’t there, wizards at Harry Castle could also come through the teleportation circle.
In times of emergency, the underground room would be a safe place to hide. There was a room with both a seclusion circle and a defensive circle. Inside was a huge amount of “ration potion” in case any crisis happened. It was so well prepared, Abel thought that he was being too paranoid about being attacked. He could’ve built anything he wanted, but going with a mana-proof safe room was taking a step too far.
These days, Bartoli became quite busy while acting as Abel’s personal butler. She was preparing for November the fifth, which was the day that the duchy of Carmel would hold a banquet at its royal palace. She was in charge of sending the invitation letters to everyone. Yes, everyone. The dwarves. The elves. The three kingdoms. The nearby duchies included the duchy of Thunder, the duchy of Laka, and the duchy of Koror.
There were a few complicated reasons for not inviting the other duchies. To begin with, instead of granting Abel the duchy of Carmel, the Kingdom of St. Ellis could’ve just given him the duchy of Keyen, which was a declining power that had barely any influence left. Stll, he was too powerful as an influential figure. If he wanted to build his own political influence, he could’ve formed alliances with the nearby duchies, and that would only be detrimental to the existing power balance that the state had tried so hard to maintain.
For this reason, Abel decided to not invite too many duchies over to his own banquet. He didn’t want to be perceived as a power-hungry dictator. He had other aspirations, and this was not part of what he was after.
Speaking of which, Abel had pretty much stopped his search in the dark world recently. Most of his time was now devoted to wizard training. Other than that, he would use his spare time to make equipment and potions. He needed time to increase his strength. If he wanted to explore the cave inside Lut Gholein, he needed to become at least an intermediate wizard first. Without the “instantaneous movement” spell, it’d be extremely dangerous if he was moving in narrow, dark s.p.a.ces that he wasn’t familiar with.
Abel needed to care of himself a lot more now. He was not just a person, nor just a person that belonged to a family. He was a king. He had his own duchy to take care of, so all the supplies he could make before, he would now have to make enough for the state that he was ruling.
Before Abel left the dark world once more, he decided to pay a visit to the palace at Lut Gholein. He was taking away all the art pieces he could inside his s.p.a.ce portal bag. He wanted a surprise for the upcoming event.
Tomorrow was a special day. It was the day that the duchy would hold its first banquet. It was the first banquet that the new king was holding, and the scale of it was grander than most events that people were familiar with.
Even Burbridge hadn’t seen something like this very often. When he saw the invitation list, he was astounded by the names that he saw. For starters, there were the names of the emperors of the three kingdoms. While it wasn’t too likely that they would come in person, there was still the possibility that their princes and trusted officials would make attendance.
There were also important figures from other important places. There was the dwarven Goff family, the ruling elven family at Angstrom City, the Liante City Wizard Union branch, and other very impressive people. Even some of the personal invites were all quite impressive themselves, since most of them were either master blacksmith, head knight’s commander and wizards from low to middle tier.
“Hey, hey!” Burbridge yelled at one of the servants he was taking charge of, “Watch it! That’s the special realm statue the king has brought himself! It’s supposed to be an irreplaceable item, so watch your hands when you try to carry them.”
Burbridge was thrilled. He was just about to take out the treasures in the treasure room and decorate them all over the palace, but while he was in the middle of doing it, the king decided to bring a bunch of art pieces he got from a special realm. The palace was starting to become a very cultured place. Added with the extraordinary number of lighting circles, it also felt like the king wanted to build a museum.
For the banquet tomorrow, the royal palace had ordered all sorts of different food ingredients. There were sealed wines that were stored in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and even the grandmaster wine was prepared for some very important guests.
After training them for about twenty days, the royal palace chefs had learned to create a new sort of dish. Upon agreeing to learn to make them, these chefs were all told to sign a magical contract for confidentiality’s sake. Seeing this was enough to make Burbridge put a smile on his serious look. Even in the smallest of matters, the duchy of Carmel was about to reach its most prosperous time.
When Burbridge was busy with something else, a servant was looking around himself in a very anxious way. He was hiding a precious decoration piece inside his clothing. If he could sneak past the guarding knights, he would be able to sell it at a very high price.
This servant thought to himself, “Come on, come on, come on. Don’t let me run into anyone, and I’ll be gold.”
As someone who had served the palace for many years, he was very familiar with the locations nearby. By walking around in various directions, he was able to bypa.s.s the guards and reach a wall near the palace. Not a lot of people knew about this, but there was an underground sewage at the bottom of this wall. It was just big enough to fit one person.
The servant thought that he was never coming back. He smiled as he readied himself to say goodbye to the royal palace, but as soon as he went outside the royal palace, Abel’s guardian spirit started to flash very rapidly.
“The guardian has found someone who tried to steal a royal item. Please come and seize him!”
This very message was sent directly to Abel and the battle fort 03 spirit.
Abel shook his head when he saw this, “Trying to steal from a wizard. Wow, what is this person thinking?”
And no, Abel didn’t bother to make the arrest himself. The battle fort 03 was here, so there wasn’t even the need for him to bother at all.
When the servant climbed over the palace fence, he could see that the view in front of him was getting dark. When he raised his head to look for the moon, he saw that there was a four-metre tall metallic monster looking at him. It was pointing a super-big ballista at him.
The servant felt weak. He just wanted to steal something, but that thing, whatever it was and whatever weapon it was using, was enough to take care of even a knight’s head commander.