Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Chapter 146: Revenue

"Tell me about the king of Enarin"

"It's not the king who holds the power in Enarin but the Queen, your majesty"

Enarin was one of many kingdoms that had queen regnant since, in this world, women were often born with unique and heaven-defying body types that help them gain a huge advantage over the men in cultivation. And seldom, even if the kingdom was ruled by a king, if a princess had a heaven-defying body type, the king would choose to crown the princess than crowning the prince because she could reach the higher levels of cultivation quickly compared to the regular youths of her age and bring glory to her homeland.

"Recently I heard that princess Vivanna was crowned to be the next queen after her mother, Queen Leona "

"Does Queen Leona have any other children?"

"Prince Noah, Princess Vivianna's elder brother, I think he's studying to be a scholar"

Usually, scholars were harmless and bury themselves in the books to quench their thirst for knowledge, of course, there were exceptions and the divine continent was full of evil scholars who looked for shortcuts to achieve immortality.

"When is the gathering, your majesty?"

"Five days from today"

"Then we should leave by tomorrow, your majesty"

Because Lord Clemo was leaving the kingdom with him, Don had to put someone in charge of Agoria while he's away and Ken was the person he had in mind

"Then you should take some rest, Lord Clemo"

"Thank you, your majesty"

Lord Clemo excused himself as Don went to his chamber to return to Everlight

***********************************

"Great job on the teleporter, Nikalas"

Looking at Nikalas was still working on the teleporter, Don said as he noticed that Riya was waiting in the corner with a tray full of food 

"It still has some room for improvement, your majesty"

"You should eat while it's hot Nikalas, you don't want Amaryll to find out that you let the food go cold"

Nikalas let out an embarrassed smile as Don motioned Riya to bring the food to Nikalas

"Your majesty" Riya bowed as Don nodded

"Is everyone treating you well?"

"Yes...yes your majesty, everyone is so kind here"

Compared to Korrinth, Everlight was like heaven for Riya as everyone in the castle quickly became friends with her and treated her like their own. At first, it was very surprising and suspicious to Riya but after spending some time with everyone, she came to know Don's hatred towards racism and his speech about unity.

Since everyone living in Everlight had some kind of traumatic past, they treated this place with the utmost respect, care, and took Don's terms very sincerely. Until now, she witnessed some quarrels between only dwarves and elves but they would settle their disputes in the steel chick tavern by competing in the drinking game and even Nikalas would go there in his free time with the dwarves and goblins.

"Keep an eye on him and don't let him work too much"

Riya smiled and nodded as Don left the room leaving Nikalas with his food

"Oh you're back"

When Don was heading for the Apex looking for Ken, Don heard Amaryll's voice as he turned back to see she's walking towards with her two goblin assistants

"Doesn't Agorians have a cook in the castle? You seem like lost a few pounds"

As she said, Amaryll looked at the goblins beside her

"Greenies go and bring your king a meal, chop-chop"

"No need Amaryll, I'm staying here today, we'll have dinner together, prepare a feast for everyone"

"Great"

Amaryll clapped and laughed in delight 

"Come on you two, we have a feast to prepare"

"Ti recentlrit cut fifki za onions"

(I recently cut fifty of onions)

"not should ask ten mear parit"

(we should ask for more pay)

The two goblins grumbled something in their language and followed Amaryll to the kitchen but looking at their faces, Don was sure that they were complaining.

"Your majesty"

"Me king"

"My lord"

"look et's sep kine boss"

(look it's the big boss)

Don saw many people greeting and bowing to him while he was going to the Apex hall to meet Ken and some of them seemed to be in a good mood while the newcomers looked nervous 

The Apex hall was a mess when Don opened the door as Ken and Reghys were working on the rusty cannon that Benedict bought in the auction and they didn't even notice Don entering

"You two should take some apprentices"

"Whoa"

Ken startled and almost dropped the metal plate in his hand

"Your majesty, you scared the hell out of me"

"Don," Reghys said

"What are you guys working on?"

Reghys pointed at the metal tubes and nuts beside her

"We are trying to fix this bloody complicated piece of crap"

"Well it's a very expensive piece of crap, so it better have some use for us"

"Reghys, Stormrider is not a piece of crap, when it's restored to its original state, Stormrider could easily kill a group of great masters "

"Stormrider huh? Catchy name"

"Thank you, your majesty"

"Aren't you from the future? It should be easy for you to fix this"

Reghys rolled her eyes as she said

"Well first, compared to what we had in my time, Stormrider is old technology so even I have only a little knowledge about its inner workings"

Ken paused for a moment and went on

"And second, I don't have all the required tools and materials to quickly fix it, I'm working with what I have so yes, it'll take some time"

"Can you buy the things you want?"

Ken shook his head hearing Don

"No, your majesty, some things not even invented yet and others I have no idea where to get or find"

"In that case, why don't you get ask Dhursir and Cat to take a look at this, they might surprise you"

Don could see that Ken didn't even think about this as Ken looked like he just realized the fact that dwarves were pretty good at building things and Catalie had great knowledge about nearly everything except the healing field which Don had no idea why

"And Ken, I'm going to Enarin tomorrow, you're in charge of the Agoria while I'm away, just spend an hour or two in the castle and then you can work on this"

"Of course your majesty, you can leave everything to me"

"Good, see you at the dinner"

After speaking with Ken and Reghys, Don wanted to go to the training hall and meet Knight as well as the troops.

Leaving the Apex, Don slowly made his way to the training hall as he looked at the construction works outside through the windows. The paddy field in the distance looked like golden bed sheets as now they filled double the land than before while many small fishing huts were built by the river as children were playing in the shore.

Don was happy to see that everyone he sees was doing some kind of work such as the elven women were busy with planting flower plants and herbs to create homemade healing potions, a group of dwarves and demihumans were plowing the lands and fishing at the river, the rest of them were building roads and doing construction works and many little things to help the place.

Everlight was shaping into some kind of fairy realm that Don visited while he was in the divine continent and he was excited to see more. The only problem he can think of now was that they didn't have anything to bring wealth to the kingdom, even until now all of the expenses were coming out of the treasury which had the leftover wealth of the dragon king and the wealth earned by Don by stealing and auctioning. He needed to find revenue for his kingdoms other than selling foods and crops to Emir and merchants of other kingdoms.

And that's what he was going to talk about everyone at the dinner, Everlight had to have a stable source of income that's not stealing and looting from the nobles. This was one of the reasons that Don decided to go to Enarin so he could strike out some deals with other kings that would bring him the wealth to the treasury. Unlike Emir and Everlight which had mines and farmlands, Agoria had nothing but wetlands and unusable coasts because of the violent waves as well as the weather.

Eventually, Don reached the training hall reflecting on the problems in the hand and saw Knight on his stage looking at the new trainees as well as the old troops.

"You work on your form, even a child can hit you with a spoon in your current form"

"That's harsh, Knight"

Don jumped up on the stage and punched Knight

"Oh you're back, how's Agoria treating you?"

"It's not going to be easy"

"How're the new guys?"

Don was looking at Hagu and his group when he asked

"We can't put them in the battlefield yet"

Currently, Hagu and the other orcs were doing pretty basic exercises and drills. Even though the orcs had big physics, they had little to no experience and their cultivation level was very low.

"I'm going to give more people to Arrora and Joel"

"Speaking of Joel, how's he doing? I want him to be like Gael who could defend himself"

"He's doing remarkably well, Don but since you're taking him to the gathering, his progress will be slower than the others"