Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Chapter 176: Take a guess

"Your majesty, here' the upgraded version of the Glimmer"

Glimmer was the device Don used to create fake magical fluctuations around him and his men wore the normal version of Glimmer to hide the bound energy signatures.

"It can change the magical fluctuations as you like plus it had better resistance to battle energy than the older one, your majesty"

Just when Don was talking with Ken, he felt a vibration in his hand and he looked into his space ring to see the key to the dungeon shining.

He retrieved the key as a projection appeared from it

"The ancient dungeon will be opened in three days from now at Red Gem mountain of Zenith Kingdom, the champions must bring the key with them to enter the dungeon"

The voice said and disappeared.

"Finally"

Don sighed 

"Your majesty, do you need me to craft another set of armors for you?"

"Yes, make it two, she also need one"

Don pointed at Arrora as Ken nodded

"Your majesty, I suggest you wear a different color because if you're going to pose as someone else, you should go with another color"

Ken suggested changing his armor color considering he always wore black and it had become his trademark to wear black.

"As long as it's not pink, yellow, sky blue, or any girly colors, I will wear it"

"I like the sky blue color," Arrora said. 

"You can wear that color, but I won't take you with me"

Ken chuckled when he heard this as Arrora too started to laugh.

"Cat, activate the teleporter"

Don said and disappeared from the throne hall with Ken and Arrora in a flash.

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

As usual, Nikalas was working on the array when they appeared.

"Your majesty"

"The dungeon is opening in three days, Nikalas" 

Sudden excitement emerged in Nikalas's eyes as this could be the chance to remove the curse on his mother Vivianna.

Don said and started to walk towards the throne hall to meet Knight.

When he entered the throne hall, he noticed the demihumans and elves were busy renovating the throne hall by coating the walls with new paint and fixing the beams and everything.

"I didn't know we are renovating the castle"

Catalie was overseeing the works as she turned to look at him with a wide grin.

"Brother, you're back and Arrora"

"Hey Catalie"

Arrora waved her hand with a smile

"Knight's order brother, he wanted to renovate the castle as he recently found some cracked walls and broken glasses"

"Let's go outside for a moment"

Don couldn't wait to see what has changed in Everlight since he left.

Unlike the castles in Emir and Agoria, he could see his whole kingdom if he stepped out. There were no distant villages in Everlight but everyone lived near the castle since there was still a huge untouched land in this realm.

As he stepped out, he saw the lawn is full of beautiful flowers that were just planted before he left. The elven girls were tending to the flower beds as the dwarves were building a new fountain with the help of their fellow citizens.

"We just harvested the crops"

Catalie said and pointed out the empty land where there was a golden paddy field before. And when he laid his eyes on the houses, his eyes went wide in surprise. Every house on the block seemed like it was built for nobles as each house had a unique structure and lawn that made them so pretty and elegant. The dwarves built them just using the common materials they could buy for a rather cheap price and looking at the houses, he decided to allocate more budget for the dwarves in Everlight to build more elegant buildings.

Since the construction works were finished, he could see there's a crowd near the river and the steel chick tavern.

"It seems they have more free time now"

"Your majesty, we can put them to work with our men in Emir, Sigalla, and Agoria"

Ken said.

"Do we have enough masks to cover their identity?"

"Yes, your majesty"

Don had remembered that he ordered Ken to mass-produce the masks and the glimmers.

"Brother, come on, let's take a walk"

Unlike before, the mud road had been turned into stone pavement and each side had flowers that emitted a sweet fragrance.

"Your majesty"

"Me king"

Along the way, he saw many demihumans, humans, elves, dwarves bowing toward him with a smile on their faces. He was happy to see the people started to forget about the racial hatred as he could even see some goblins were playing with other children in front of their parents.

"Ken, when I return from the dungeon, remember me to do an oath-taking ceremony, we need to bring the Emir's army here to train them"

"Yes, your majesty"

After roaming around the kingdom, Don went to see Knight and the soldiers at the training ground.

"Isn't that our new enemy maker?"

Knight came with a wide grin on his face and punched Don in the shoulder

"What're you talking about?"

"I heard the stunt you pulled at the gathering,you're turning into like the young masters in the divine continent, making new enemies wherever you go"

"How do I know they'd act like that?"

"So why don't we just"

Knight ran his paw across his throat hinting that they should kill them

"We shouldn't"

Don said and retrieved one of the poison arrows from his space ring

Catalie and Ken were confused to see the poison arrow as Knight guessed that Don was attacked

"Did you kill the one attack you?"

Catalie's gritted her teeth in anger as Ken took the arrow and started to inspect it

"The attacker was able to penetrate my windshield, Knight so it was not easy to catch him"

"Don't smell that"

Arrora shouted at Ken when she noticed he was taking a whiff

"Rotriatyl mixed with Ebon petal and Wyver's saliva and something else"

"Do you recognize the poison?"

Knight asked as Ken shook his head

"Not completely, General Knight, but what I do know is this is not something that can be bought anywhere, it could easily kill grandmaster level mage"

Before Ken could close his mouth, Don retrieved all the arrows from his space ring.

"How many men did we lose?"

Knight knitted his brows and asked

"No one, the attack was solely focused on me and Arrora"

"So we are dealing with someone who's extremely resourceful or someone who would go any length to kill you or both"

While they were discussing about the ambush Joel came running towards them

"Your majesty, General Knight, I've just received a message from benedict through one of my men"

Arrora's lips parted slightly as her eyes went wide

"What is it?"

"Benedict said that he will reach Emir soon from Arya's home and asked his majesty to teleport him back here"

"What about Arya? Did he say anything?"

"No, your majesty, he didn't say anything about Arya"

Although Don felt a little relieved to hear Benedict is fine and coming back, he was concerned about Arya and the woman who attacked Gael.

"We can hear the full story of what happened from him when he returns"

Knight said as Ken and Arrora nodded.

"Joel, have you learned anything about the rules of the dungeon?"

The board overseeing the dungeon had been keeping the rules secret as the only rule or requirement they knew is only three people can enter with one key. Other than that, no one seemed to know anything else.

"No, your majesty, my men couldn't even get near the members of the board"

"It's not our first time Don,we'll be fine, in fact, we will rob the place clean"

"Did you give her the brew of Oracle?"

Arrora had a bad feeling when she saw the evil grin on Knight's face as she turned to see Ken is avoiding eye contact with her

"What did you give me?"

Arrora frowned 

"It won't work if we tell you"

"What won't work?"

Amaryll came with her two goblins helpers

"Come here"

Amaryll embraced Arrora and smiled at Don

"How's the training going?"

"It's going great but they still need more time"

"Take your time and also try to come up with new flavors for the tea, I heard you made a cinnamon tea for Arwen"

Amaryll nodded head with excitement

"I have so many ideas and two guinea pigs to test"

Amaryll chuckled as the goblins growled '

"Where's uncle Dior?"

Arrora asked 

"He's at the treasury doing the books"

"Knight, do we have any new great masters?"

A proud grin appeared on Knight's face when Don asked

"Come on take a guess?"

"Alright, two"

"You can do better than that, Don"

"Four"

Knight shook his head and surprised Don since he didn't expect that more than four people would break through to the great master level.

They already had hundreds of master level cultivators in the army and with the help of Apex and the resources like cultivation pills, Everlight men's reached a new level of cultivation speed.

"Six, final guess"

"Add four more to it"

Don and Arrora was taken back by surprise and shock

"Don't be surprised, I've almost run out of pills and potions "

Knight complained but Don could see the pride in his eyes

"Don't worry about the pills, we will find an alchemist to produce them here"