CHAPTER 04-The Banquet of Nobles

The moment Ray walked into the banquet hall followed by Isis and Ambrosia, all the chattering seemed to stop as everyone looked at them with heated gazes.

It seemed as if three out of the world immortals had descended.

This would probably be the only time everyone present there could meet both the people of royal bloodline and the court mage at once from so close.

As such, everyone was dying to get a chance to introduce themselves and make themselves look favorable.

Even if the three of them seemed to appear without any protection, there were guards hiding among the butlers and skilled assassins in the shadows in every corner of the room.

Only the world's greatest fool would think of harming the royal family in their own banquet hall.

Ray knew everyone present was waiting for him and the empress to make a speech before they could continue their celebration.

Unlike some empires where banquets were concluded with a speech, the Celestial Empire had a different custom.

They believed in the principle, 'A speech should never be used to put an end to a joyous occasion.'

As such, the banquet would begin without the host, in a light mood where everyone got to familiarize themselves, and after sometime, the host or guest of honor would make their appearance. Giving a light speech, the banquet would continue until everyone along with the host would chat, talk and build relationships or just did whatever they wanted.

And the host could leave anytime he wanted, but the banquet wouldn't end. Everyone present could continue to celebrate until they wished.

One could even stay back alone after everyone else had left if he wanted to.

But after twenty four hours would pass, everyone would be asked to leave and the banquet hall would be cleaned and prepared for future occasions.

It was Isis that broke the silence, speaking in a soft and polite voice which soothed everyone's ears.

"Everyone gathered here today is here to celebrate a joyous occasion. The awakening of my only son and the future Emperor of the Celestial Empire. I am grateful to everyone that spent their time to attend this occasion and as such without wasting any time I would ask my son to say what he wants and continue with the celebration."

Ray sighed inwardly.

'You're still too soft. You shouldn't appear humble and weak in front of these nobles. None of them would think twice to backstab us for their benefits…'

Without letting his thoughts appear on his face, he put on a charming smile as he began speaking.

"Everyone gathered here have a lot of things to do, and time for us nobles is extremely precious. And as such I wouldn't like to waste any of it with useless promises. The only thing I ask everyone here is to remember…. Any and absolutely anything that I will do… will be for the benefit of the empire."

'And myself obviously.'

Some nobles suddenly felt a weird chill pass through their spine when they heard the way he worded his sentence, but they ignored it and started clapping after his speech ended.

And them, Ambrosia walked up and spoke, "Let the celebrations continue!"

People then walked up to the three outlandish looking people and started introducing themselves.

The Celestial Empire had an Emperor ruling the empire, below him in rank was the Empress, and below her, even though just in name was the crown prince.

The other concubines and princes and princesses, if any, didn't hold any titles, but just belonging to the Emperor gave them power to control a certain part of the Imperial Knights and Mages, making their overall might in the emperor only slightly below the Dukes.

Even though they had to request explicit permission from the Emperor to make any political move or command any Imperial forces, no noble wanted to mess with the royals, and thus they enjoyed extremely high status.

The Royal Palace was located at the centre of the Celestial Empire and covered a huge area. It had almost every facility one could think of. Library, Research Area, Training Grounds, Events Halls, Banquet Halls, underground dungeons for captives and torture rooms for information extraction, huge luxurious buildings for housing the Imperial guards, a whole building for the imperial mages, another building for knights, and others for assassins, spies, private mercenaries, necromancers, healers, potion makers, blacksmiths and many more facilities, each self sufficient on its own with buildings having places for new recruitment, training, work, production and housing.

In the eighteen years that Ray spent in this life, he had renovated abandoned empty buildings in the palace area to convert them into their private spy, potion making and blacksmith organizations.

He also made a lot of new changes which vastly increased their recruitments, troops and overall strength.

Earlier the soldiers would only be paid a fixed salary and could only work for the empire, but Ray made every new recruit swear an oath that basically said that every building would have a public and private request board, where the troops could take personal requests and do anything they wanted for additional income as long as the request wasn't against the empire's policies.

So almost every person that wanted to be an adventurer or mercenary would now join the empire rather than the guilds because it had additional pay and very little work to do. And they also received free training from the empire.

Another restriction was that after one left the troops, they could enjoy a retired life with half the pay while they were working, but cannot work under any other organization.

Strict as it might sound, the benefits provided were absolutely top notch compared to many other empires where people were just forced to enlist in the empire forces.

Under the royals was the Archduke and the Archduchess who had their own lands in around the central part of the lands, around the palace, essentially making their territory an additional line of defense if any external attack arrived.

There could be only one Archduke and one Archduchess.

Below them were four Dukes and Duchesses, for the North, East, West and South respectively.

Each Duke territory had further four counts and countesses, taking the four cardinal directions of their own territory.

Thus making sixteen counts with their wives being the sixteen countesses. Each count and countess further had four Marquis and Marchioness, then four Barons and Baronesses, and then four baronets for each.

To give a proper count, ideally the empire would have 4 dukes and 4 duchesses, 16 counts and 16 countesses, 64 marquis and 64 marchionesses, 256 barons and 256 baronesses, 1024 baronets and their wives making another 1024.

A total of 2720 nobles under the dukes.

And even then ideally there shouldn't be any discord because below the archduke rank, both males and females held the same power. So the duke and duchess had the same power and authority, and thus choosing a partner for the noble was an extremely difficult task. If both the people at the high rank agreed on a decision, they could do it after permission from one level above them.

Then again if a duke and the duchess had a varied opinion, they could take votes from counts and countesses and then make decisions. In case of another draw, the vote would just go down another level.

It was monarchy and democracy at the same time, making en extremely rigid and complicated system where betraying an empire could not be done single handedly, but with massive alliances and rigorous planning.

The empire was so huge that even the land of every baronet was a major developed city, and as such one could imagine just how huge the royal palace lands were.

Just the banquet hall could contain more than five thousand people.

But nothing can go as planned, as after the last emperor died, he didn't die alone but took both the archduke and the archduchess along with him.

Isis was the daughter of the then Archduke, and her mother was the archduchess. When her mother was sent to the neighboring empire for a mission, she died, and the emperor appointed another archduchess by promoting single duchess from east while also marrying her as the official Empress. The marriage was strictly political to tie down the Archduke.

As such Isis' father and the new archduchess didn't have any relation, and were two separate people with separate families. When they died along with the emperor, the three highest ranking nobles died, throwing the empire into chaos and breaking the rigid system of loyalty.

Right then, Isis was found pregnant and the royal advisors immediately made a decision to coronate Isis as the temporary Empress, giving her equal authority to the Emperor.

Since Ambrosia was Isis' sister and the only other daughter of the previous archduke, she inherited the title of the archduchess and didn't plan to marry anytime soon, leaving the other archduke position empty.

It was up to Ray to appoint someone to the position after he became Emperor and he had the perfect candidate in mind.

Ray couldn't spend time meeting every one of the two thousand and more nobles that had gathered.

He would only meet the dukes and the counts and their wives, and other than that he had a few targets he had to meet.

While he was thinking of the important targets he would meet, a tall man with black and grayish hair walked up to him.

"Nice to meet you your majesty."

He gave a slight bow and stood up to face Ray.

One could see his age from the grayish side hair and a small grey beard in his chin.

"Nice to meet you East Duke Dray Hadwyn!"

The old man around seventy appeared to be delighted as Ray recognized.

"It seems your highness has remembered the name of this old man. I am extremely honored!"

"What are you saying Duke? You are a hero everyone looks up to. Of course I remember your name. I hope everything is fine with your duchy."

"A hero you say…"

The old man narrowed his eyes and looked at Ray for a few moments before going back to his old demeanor.

"It's all in the past. Now I'm just an old man looking after affairs staying back home. And yes, everything is fine in the East. While we're on this matter, I would like to officially invite you to my mansion for my son's marriage ceremony."

"…"

"I know this might be just another negligible occasion for your highness, but considering I have only my youngest son left, this is the most important occasion of my life!"

"Alright… I'll try to attend the ceremony."

The old man's face instantly brightened.

"Thank you, your highness, this old man will send you an official invitation through a messenger by tomorrow. I bid you farewell and may your reign be eternal and supreme!"

"Farewell…"

The old man bowed and left, disappearing within the crowd.

'That's the most disgusting creature in this empire; I'll have to get rid of it as soon as possible…'

Dray Hadwyn had something called an 'Illusionist System', and though not legendary or unique, it was an epic system with considerable power. He could send massive enemy troops into confusion during battles, and make allies turn on each other, or enemies band together.

While dueling someone he could cloud their minds, showing them a completely different reality than what was actually happening, or bring out their innate fears.

While he was weak physically, his mind magic was what made him one of the most feared people in the empire.

'But that's only what he has told everyone…'

Ray knew the secret about this old man and he hated him to his core.

But just to be sure he had used 'Appraisal' on him, and his skill being at Divine rank there was no way the Duke would find out.

And surprise surprise, he was exactly how Ray remembered him.

[System: Hypnotic Control System (Unique)

Name: Ermes Hadwyn

Age: 77 (body), 139 (mind)

Skills: Mind Control, Mind Swap, Hypnosis, Illusion, Emotion Control, Thoughts Control, Enchantment, Action Control

Stats: …

Titles: …

….]

Yes, this bastard controlled people by controlling their mind.

But that wouldn't have been a problem in itself, but just the things he committed would be enough to reserve a separate section of his dungeon just for him.

'Now that you have called me yourself, I can't help but go…'

Ray was laughing internally, imagining everything he would do once he travelled East.

While he was doing so, a young looking couple arrived before him and bowed.

"Greetings to your highness…"

"Greetings to your highness…"

They greeted Ray at the same time.

"Greetings South Duke Barion Krones and South Duchess Tserina Krones!"

They immediately broke into a smile and began chatting and talking with him and left after some time.

Before they left, they requested him to visit them after a few months when they sent him an official request. It would seem like the duchess was expecting and they would call him once the child was born and ask him to name it.

'They are really honest and hardworking people, always caring for the empire and extremely loyal.'

Among all the dukes this couple was the youngest and had taken seats just a few years back, when the previous duke and duchess retired.

Barion and Tserina were around twenty three and had pretty peaceful and heroic systems. Ray had a really good impression of them, as in his second life they had tried their best to save him from the conspiracy, but died pretty early on.

They were soon followed by the North Duke Ono Kazuo.

He was a fierce and violent man, who always stayed in the front lines of the battlefield during a war and had killed more than millions of people. He had a system that made him stronger the more he killed people.

Even though he was fierce and violent, he was loyal to the crown and extremely caring for his family. He was around sixty, but appeared to be around thirty.

He had three wives and more than ten children altogether. He visited with his first and third wife, while his second wife, the duchess was apparently ill and staying home.

He too left after introducing himself and congratulating him.

From what Ray remembered, this man had tried to kill him in his second life, but not willingly, his family had been taken hostage.

'Now that I think about it… he said the duchess was ill… worth checking it out…'

And finally he met the West Duchess.

She was dressed in a tight black dress that highlighted her moderate curves at the right places.

"Greetings to your highness. May your rule be eternal."

"Greetings West Duchess Valindra Tiafel…"

"Well then, farewell."

"Farewell."

This was an extremely big fish. She was someone even Ray had to be extremely careful around.

'Even though she is extremely dangerous, she isn't my priority right now. I can only wait and grow before attempting to do anything to her…'

'After all… she has a legendary system and possesses more than one divine skill…'

On another note, she was single with no apparent family, but Ray knew that was not really the case. She did have a family, but not what one would expect.

Shaking his head, Ray went on with the banquet and met various counts and countesses.

And then he went on to meet a few specific people. Not going overboard, just showing them mild appreciation and letting them introduce themselves.

Sometimes he would see young ladies and even a few mature women eyeing him and some even taking initiative to get close to him, while sometimes he would even see a few people in the crowd looking at him with suppressed hostility and envy.

All in all, a pretty normal banquet as a prince. Completing all his duties, he finally left the hall with his mother and aunt while the others continued celebrating for the whole night.