Jack now had 44,500 mana cores inside his inventory. This number was still far to be enough to copy the talent pill and Upgrade Cell, though. So, he stuck to his decision to not copy those two items.

These mana cores were prioritized for his pendant summon. A bit more and he could summon the Archdemon Lord again. The Archdemon Lord was his current ace-in-the-hole to get out of a tough situation. If he could summon it during the fight with Euphosine just now, the battle would have been much easier.

“We are ready to leave now. Will you be joining us?” Talia asked.

“No, I will use my Town Return Scroll and get back directly. Your new base will be waiting for you when you arrive,” Jack answered.

“All right then. I hope I see you again,” Talia said.

“You will,” Jack replied.

As Talia bid Jack farewell, Jack received notification that his Influence skill had upgraded to Advanced Expert. Talia was now the leader of a divine faction. Being a friend to her helped boost Jack’s standing.

Talia organized her people. The players who wanted to join them in traveling to Themisphere followed after their group. Talia lent all of them rare-grade steeds so that they could have decent traveling speed. Stefan, Richard, Dina, and Tom followed Talia’s group since they had never visited Themisphere in the past. Freddie and Naomi had. The two used their Town Return Scroll to teleport to their hometown before teleporting to Themisphere. Jack informed them to look for Bowler once they arrived.

“I am going somewhere first, I will see you later,” Grace said to Jack.

“Oh? Where are you going?”

“Greed’s place is close to here. I promise him I will visit once in a while,” Grace answered.

Hearing that, Jack pondered for a bit. He then said. “I’ll follow you.”

“Are you sure? I thought you need to go back to the palace after being absent for so long,” Grace asked.

It was indeed so. Tomorrow would be the day when he could do another Mass Drill and Call to Arms, but he was also very eager to get the Gold Dragon Wing Peniel mentioned. He had seen Master with his demonic wings and Grace with her wings tool. They could fly anytime they wanted, while he was still limited by his beast form and Soar spell’s duration.

He remembered inside Greed’s sanctum, the aerial combat portal awarded him 390 draconic essences each round. He only needed another 3050 draconic essences to reach bloodline level 9. He only needed to do eight runs inside that portal, then he was good. Even if he could only do it once a day, this would only take eight days. If he went to the underworld, it would take him roughly ten days to get that amount. Additionally, he couldn’t go back to the spot he had visited before, so it might take even longer than that.

“The kingdom is in good hands, John should manage. I will inform him of my plan,” Jack said.

John had been sending messages to Jack but Jack didn’t find John’s tone to be urgent, hence he hadn’t contacted John back until now.

“Where have you been all this time? Are you all right?” John asked.

“I am touched by your concern,” Jack replied.

“I actually hoped you are not all right, so I can promote myself to be the new king,” John said. “Are you coming back today? I have something I want to discuss with you.”

“What is it? Is it urgent?”

“It might. I can’t be sure. There has been some unrest in some towns near our border with Verremor.”

“What? What kind of unrest?”

“There have been reports of some of our citizens clashing with the orcs there, starting around a week ago. Not long after we lost contact with you.”

“How? Haven’t we already implemented regulations to bring the two races together? Like open border, trade exchanges, and dignitary visits, especially between the settlements at the border?”

“That’s true. That’s why I have increased the security at those settlements. I have a feeling this is not an accidental occurrence.”

“You think it’s intentional?” Jack asked.

“I can’t say for sure. I will need more information,” John replied.

“Send our investigative teams to those border towns. This incident takes priority. I don’t have many affairs to be investigated at the moment, anyway.”𝑛𝚘𝒱𝖊𝓛𝒏𝑒xt.𝗰𝞸𝓂

“All right, I will organize them. So, you are not returning today?”

“No extremely urgent stuff, right? I want to go somewhere else first. I will return in eight days.”

“Wow, that long? You should just give your crown to me,” John said.

“Bye,” Jack replied and ended the chat.

“Something happens?” Grace asked. She saw Jack’s face turning tense for a bit while he was messaging.

Jack told her what John had told him.

“Shouldn’t you return? You have done so much to bring peace between Themisphere and Verremor. It will be a pity if this peace is ruined.”

“I can’t do anything even if I return. I have to wait until our investigative teams get more information,” Jack replied. “But I will check the situation on the other side.”

Jack contacted Four Winds.

Four Winds confirmed there were disturbing reports on the border towns. Human nobles had been throwing complaints about illegal orc activities near the border but the orc chiefs assured that there was no such activity. The orc chiefs had instead grown irritated because they felt accused. The old enmity between the two races had started to resurface. Four Winds and Grand Chief Kabaka were trying their best to defuse the situation, but if the matter escalated, they were afraid things might go out of hand.

Jack told Four Winds to continue calming those chiefs. He told Four Winds he had sent some teams to investigate the truth of the incidents. He believed things should be brought to light soon.

“You sure you don’t want to go back?” Grace asked.

Jack shook his head. “I can go back immediately if something bad happens,” Jack replied. But then he added, “Wait, that Greed fellow won’t lock me up again, will he?”

Grace smiled. “Don’t worry. Let’s go.” She summoned her Unicorn.

Jack summoned Pandora.

Talia and the others had left. The mansion and the garden around it were now just a ruin. Probably the world system would have monsters spawn at this place and turn it into a new wilderness zone. Jack gave the place another look before he left with Grace.

—————

In the Shylvan region where the mist that imprisoned people in Euphosine’s dimension used to be located, an army had gathered. Master was leading the army. He found that there was nothing there. The mist was gone. There was no mansion. No base of the Council of Charites.

“How do they escape?” Motherboard, who was riding beside Master, asked. “There should be at least a building here, shouldn’t it?”

“… It seems the power source of that faction’s base is not yet depleted,” Master answered, but he was no less surprised. Even if the power source was still available, he expected Jack or the natives who survived would at least stay for half a day before deciding to leave. He never expected them to leave this place so early.

“Never mind. Let’s return,” Master commanded. At the same time, he sent a message to Linda who was in Liguritudum palace.

“How is our preparation?”

“Our main troops still need around one week before we can begin our campaign. As for the distraction, I made the preparation a week ago. They are in hiding but will be good to go at any time, but we should wait until our army moves before using them.”

“What about the negotiation with that person?”

“He had agreed. He will act as requested.”

“Good. Then hasten the preparation so we can move earlier!”

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