104 Chapter 104. After the War

About two weeks had passed and peace and neutrality had returned to the surface. The Ruby kingdom had sent a letter of peace which the Lapis King was forced to accept as he could not harm any more lives of his fellow citizens. He had tried to see if Leo had any desire to lead the charge but Leo stated that he would only defend the kingdom.

The King had formed a large liking to Leo and grew slowly closer and closer to him. During one of their conversations, Leo had found out that the king was currently dying of an illness and his life would end in the next decade. The king seemed to want Leo to act as a protector of some sort for the kingdom and desperately tried to rope him in but Leo simply rejected all offers and said that he would defend the kingdom as long as the southern mountains remained untouched by the royal family. Having no choice the King agreed. Although it was not what he had hoped for, he had still managed to have a powerhouse in his remains.

Leo had given his two requests to the king already for his rewards. The first one was to ask the king to find news on Heaven's Wrath disease which the king has already dispatched scouts but none had returned yet. The second was to learn how to blacksmith from the top blacksmith in the Lapis kingdom. Leo had chosen this particular request because he wanted to be able to make his won weapons as he often had the issue of breaking his swords and it was quite a good profession as swords could often sell for a lot. The king did not waste any time at all and Leo was immediately taught by the best blacksmith in the kingdom who was a rank five blacksmith.

And so, during the past two weeks, Leo had spent most of his time learning blacksmithing and his speed of progress had shocked the blacksmith so much that he fell unconscious for a day. By the end of the first week, Leo had learned everything that he was taught and reached rank one. Now all he had to do was practise and gain experience by making swords. By the end of the second week, the blacksmith had nothing more to teach him. This was not due to Leo learning everything but Leo's method differed from the man's one. With the help of the heavenly golden eyes, Leo was able to follow and see which places of the swords needed and so his way of working with the hammer was quite unorthodox so the blacksmith had given up.

Other than blacksmithing, Leo had spent his free times cultivating and visiting the library. Through at least seven hours a week of visiting the library, Leo's knowledge on the world that he was in increased. The world he was in was split into countless continents and the continent that Leo was in was called the Suang Continent. It was split into ten different regions.

There was the Western Empire which was made up of three superkingdoms and was located in the south-western regions of the continent.

On it's east laid the Southern Alliance which was formed through twenty kingdoms declaring alliance. Legends had it that the rulers of the twenty kingdoms were once brothers-in-arms.

On the central east of the continent was the Southern Alliance's rival, the Eastern alliance. And just like it's rival, it was also made up of a collection of kingdoms.

On top of the Western Empire, laid the most chaotic empire of them all, the mercenary empire. This empire from its name was formed by a mercenary leader who wanted there to be a place for mercenaries to be able to stay. Eventually, he died and the empire was in ruins. Countless other kingdoms had attempted to take over but they were always stopped and now there was a power struggle for who would be king.

Caught in the middle of the four giants was the Crystal Empire. The weakest of all the great powers so far. The only reason why no one had tried to take over this was due to the past emperor forming a treaty for peace for the next hundred years but times were changing and the treaty's time limit was now down to four years.

While these giants were powerful, the strongest powers in the continent were all located in the north. Right in the central north was the Jade Empire which was said to be rivals with the Iudex sect which was located in the very north of the empire in a very small piece of land. While it was the smallest of all continents, it made up for it with the strength of each cultivator in their sect being extremely powerful.

On the central west of the continent was the Buddhist Empire that was rising in power. And on the opposite side, the northeast of the continent was unclaimed land. For hundreds of thousands of years, these lands were uninhabited by humans and little did they know that there was a multitude of beasts who had developed the ability to communicate. Not knowing this, humans had once tried to rule over the lands but were humiliatingly defeated by the beasts and so the northeast of the continent was known as the desolate beast grounds.

From strongest to weakest, the kingdoms were Iudex sect, Jade empire, Buddhist empire, Eastern alliance, Southern alliance, Western empire, Mercenary empire, and lastly, the Crystal empire.

Other than that, Leo had also received news on the powerhouses and who were the strongest characters in the continent. It was said that the Iudex sect leader and the Jade emperor were around the same cultivation at Earth Sage and this had somewhat surprised Leo. He did not expect them to be so strong. The Llama of the Buddhist Empire's cultivation was unknown but last recorded as an early half sage. And the leaders of the rest of the empires and alliances were all currently said to be at early half sage.

By the end of the first week, Leo as the Duke of the Southern mountains was required to make a palace and housing for himself but he barely had any time to finish this due to him being so busy with reading and blacksmithing.

The crew stepped up and Leo decided to leave the development of the mountains to them and he just told them to not make it too grand and just to make it a village. And the buildings seemed to have done extremely well. As it was decided to be a village, the buildings were extremely fast and easy. And Leo had received a letter from Garrick saying that everything had gone well. They had built a large number of houses along the mountains surrounding Mt. Ketumati. Leo's house was said to have been placed around upper areas just beneath the clouds on Mt. Ketumati. And similarly so, the crew were also allowed by the king to have their palaces at the mountains which made it easier for them.

Reading about all of this had made Leo extremely anxious and so he decided that there was nothing better to do than to see it for himself. He had been here and the only thing that he was waiting on was the news of the disease so there was no need to stay any further.

'I wonder how you are doing right now Aurora, Lex' Leo thought as he slowly stared up at the unpolluted clear sky and began taking in the astral energy and practised his arts. The breakthrough to Origin realm was eminent. Leo had to think quickly about how he would unseal the next door soon. Earth Sage was still quite a large distance away.