Chapter 60_ 1st War (5)

Knowing how amazing he was based on his reputation so far, this teenage boy was a beast that was hard to tame. She had to be alert. The wary Mercedes pulled out a letter and read it.

"I, Juander, master of the earth and sky, order it. I accept Lexus' sins with a generous heart and acknowledge the status of the King of Eternal Kingdom. King Lexus and the Eternal Kingdom will be thrilled and give their loyalty and grace to the empire forever. The kingdom must pay 72% of the tax revenue every month to the empire."

The immediate problem was giving 72% of the tax revenue to the empire.

'I know that the other kingdoms only give 36% of their tax revenue to the empire.'

"As a result of your bravery and insolence, you have to pay twice as much tribute as other kingdoms. You don't want to?"

Mercedes made a taunting expression. Now that she actually saw Lexus, she acknowledged him and was vigilant, unlike the emperor. Thus, she decided to use her own judgment and hoped Lexus would cause more disturbances.

"No matter the reason, I won't submit to the empire."

"Are you truly not afraid when the day the empire tramples your kingdom to come?"

Mercedes tried to provoke him, hoping to see if his attitude would change. Even the most subtle of gestures from her exuded her confidence and a powerful air, making her seem more and more like a true empress. However, contrary to her intention, she suddenly found herself struggling to breathe. Mercedes noticed that his eyes had shifted to vertical slits and an aura that seemed to press everything in the surrounding area.

It was the moment when Lexus' Dragon Fear flared.

"I may look a simple 18 year old teenager but I suggest you should not underestimate me."

Lexus spoke with an indescribable pressure radiating around him.

"...You truly aren't ordinary. I understand. I will go back now."

Mercedes nodded slightly to Lexus and left the audience room.

"Am I gonna experience my first war? Interesting."

He grinned as he was left alone. He could feel an incoming battle from his intuition.

•~×~•

"This is the skill archive, your majesty."

Lexus was guided to a spot located at the far end of the royal library by Sera. The Skill Archive was another section of the royal library and this section holds all types of martial skills throughout the kingdom.

Either common martial skills, swordsmanship passed down from generations to generations of nobles and even some notes of the emperial combat styles of the Saharan Empire. It was undeniably the largest of all the sections in the royal library. Four gigantic buildings were standing in a row, and the entrance was guarded by powerful warriors.

He walked through the entrance of the archive. And as soon as he stepped inside the archive,

"Whoa!"

An exclamation of astonishment escaped his lips. In front of him was the main hall connected to several endlessly long isles filled with bookshelves. And above him, he could see at least four more stories, which without a doubt had a similar structure to the first floor, all connected through a spiral staircase. He was overwhelmed by the immense amount of books. It was proof of the long history of the former Eternal Kingdom.

"According to our history, the Skill Archive was built when King Loran, the founder of the Eternal Kingdom. In this archive, we have all sorts of documents ranging from the skill tomes of all the martial skills that the citizen has created from the past century, to some magic scrolls, martial art manuals, and many other ancient books."

Throughout her explanation of the Skill Archive, Sera's voice was filled with a sense of pride.

'How many books are there in here?'

Even at a rough estimate, this place contained millions of books.

Undeniably, some of these books were worth reading, but the overall majority of them were just miscellaneous books.

Even if he somehow managed to filter out all the worthless books, he would still have to waste a copious amount of time selecting books that would help him create what he intended and to top it all, this was just one out of two archives that he had access to.

'A war is incoming. Somehow I had to make something to let my armed forces grow.'

The main reason why he entered this place was to collect knowledge about all kinds of fighting styles to create something that will surpass the Empire's Swordsmanship, Empire's Spearmanship and many other more to make his soldiers and knights to become stronger.

Although he can create degraded versions of his swordsmanship for them, the same cannot be said for those who use spears, halberds, or battle axes; therefore, more research is definitely needed.

With his Keen Intuition, Lexus was truly alerted of an incoming war. He couldn't really explain it but somehow he was sure of it.

[Keen Intuition]

[* Allow you to see through the opponent's movements and intentions.

* There's a certain probability of detecting or sensing events that will unfold in the near future.

* The higher the number of Super Sensitivity stats, the higher the effect.]

A passive skill he obtained after his Super Sensitivity stat reached 500 points. The description is simple. In other words, it was the same as seeing into the immediate future.

Returning to his original intentions, Lexus summoned five additional clones of himself while the others continued to manage the kingdom's affairs. Swiftly picking up the books from the archives, he found that most of them appeared old and badly worn, but some were surprisingly new or had been well-preserved.

Then, Lexus and his clones then used Enhanced Thought Acceleration at the same time, allowing their perception to see a very slow down world. Despite having only wandered around one section of the archive, Lexus had already drawn over three thousand books. After laying them all out on the floor, he began to skim through the titles and pick the books that he required.

He and his clones then plopped down onto the floor and began reading the books in earnest.

'I wonder how many books I could read.'

With that thought in mind, he continued reading the books.

Once he finished the next book, he quickly started reading another one, and after finishing that one, he once again grabbed a new book... Lexus kept on reading endlessly.

At first, reading one book required quite a lot of time for him, but the more books he finished reading, the faster his reading speed became. Not only the speed but his understanding regarding the difficult terminologies also showed improvement. He had read so many books by this time that he had lost count of how many he had read.

[Intelligence has increased by 1.]

[Your intelligence stats have surpassed 10,000 points.]

[Intelligence stats will be increased by 1,000 as the first person in this era to accomplish this achievement.]

[The Gods and Demons have started to look at you with curiosity.]

Several waves of messages filled his view.

'Hmmm...The gods and demons are now interested in me?'

Gods and demons were an unknown territory that many people targeted for thousands of years to no avail. Information about them remained a mystery to common people.

'Well it doesn't really matter.'

Lexus was aware that even though he caught their interest because of his 10,000 points in intelligence stat that might had surpassed some of theirs but none of them could do anything at the moment. If they made their presence in the human world, they would be weakened to the extreme.

It was because if they descended, their spiritual pressure would destroy the human world, so the gods and demons respectively stayed in their divine worlds and in hell.

"Solomon, you can now proceed."

« Very well, master. »

Then trusting Solomon once again, Lexus leaves it to Solomon to modify and create one of the strongest fighting styles in the continent. An all rounded battle style.

[Eternal Swordsmanship]

Rating: Legendary

[It is a single blow that deals 3,000% attack power to....]

[Eternal Spear Arts]

Rating: Legendary

[....]

[Eternal Axe Arts]

Rating: Legendary

[...]

[...]

Not breaking his expectation, the effort of collecting knowledges were not wasted in vain by Solomon. Seeing the completion, Lexus smiled as he was inwardly filled with happiness deep inside.

"Thank you Solomon. You're the best."

« As long as I could be of use, my master. »

•~~~•

"Your majesty. Viscount Barn mobilized his troops without a declaration of war against us."

The moment Lexus returned to his office to return in his work, Chucksley said a report.

"Who's that?"

He was dumbfounded.

"You see, he's a rural noble with the stubbornness of a Duke. He had the ambition of taking away the throne from you your majesty."

Lexus held his chin. He suddenly felt it was a shame that it wasn't the empire waging war against them but a small fry instead.

"He's a frog, not a fish – in the way that he moves without thinking, just like a frog eats things first and then sees what happens." Chucksley mocked the Viscount.

Lexus nodded. Although he didn't feel the threat as even his super sensitivity was not reacting at all.

"How large are their forces?"

"Sir, they are shaping up to be around 300,000 men strong in total."

Lexus' eyes narrowed. In accordance with the laws of the former Eternal Kingdom, a viscount can only have the maximum of 1,000 soldiers and 4 knights and yet the forces of the viscount had greatly surpassed that amount.

"300,000? That's more than we expected."

"Yes. Word is that they have recently been hiring mercenaries in preparation. And…"

"And what?"

"Our scouts say that he mobilized a great number of his county's common and civilian people. A large portion of them are poorly armed males."

When he heard that, Lexus' eyes made a cold glint. There was a hint of displeasure in his voice.

"He rounded up his civilians? What a lunatic."

"Indeed, he does not seem to be of sound mind."

A lord's subjects were meant to be protected by him. The people paid taxes to the lord in exchange for living in a lord's territory – but in turn, the lord had a duty to protect them. Of course, there were instances where common civilians had been forcefully conscripted, in critical situations such as large wars that affected the entire nation.

But even then, this was a last resort. But who would forcefully round up his own civilians, not in a dire war of a national scale but just for personal greed. He was dumbstruck, while Chucksley could not hide his disgust.

"My Lord, simply give me the command, and I shall take the head of Viscount Barn at once."

His spirits were simmering as he wanted to lead the troops in a sortie immediately.

"Hmmm."

Holding his chin, a plan was immediately formulated in his mind. The plan was for Chucksley to take the lead and break through the enemy lines at a single focal point in one fell swoop, with the objective of striking their commanders.

It was a simple plan, but they had the conviction that it would work. Although their enemy's numbers were great, the quality of their troops was of an overwhelmingly dominant position; and more than anything, it would be greatly advantageous that Chucksley was leading the counterattack.

There was no way that a Great Swordsman would be defeated by the likes such as Viscount Barn. But not only that, Chucksley was of the highest possible caliber for a knight throughout the kingdom. If he were to take the charge and push into their lines, the enemy would not have any way to impede the rush of their soldiers.

This was the best choice with the greatest chances of victory from his perspective.

Yet…