Chapter 49_ Cork Island (2)

Not caring about the dying figure of Seuron, his gaze met the eyes of the Golden Guild members. Seeing his blood red eyes, a player murmured in shock and fear after seeing the notifications.

[Affinity with Undefeated King 'Lexus' of the Eternal Kingdom has fallen to hostile.]

[Due to your actions of you greatly offending a great monarch, all of the fame you have built in Eternal Kingdom has disappeared, and you have now become infamous. They will look at you and call you a thief and will now view you with hatred, disgust and malice.]

[All nobles in the kingdom will despise and oppress you. Your jobs will be limited. ]

[Reputation throughout the continent will decrease by 20,000.]

[If you further offend the king, you will no longer be able to enter Eternal Kingdom and any soldier will kill you on sight.]

[Your level has dropped by 10.]

Seeing the system message, their expressions paled. They didn't even had that amount and yet, their hard earned reputation disappeared in the blink of an eye. Also, they also lost their hard earned levels that took them many weeks or months to increase one level after reaching level 200.

It's like saying goodbye to the months of their efforts. Most had built up a considerable amount of reputation while completing quests in this kingdom from level 1 to the present, and some affinity with the residents was at its maximum.

They even experience that merchants gave them a 20% discount when they bought goods, and the goods they sold were purchased at 15% above their value. There were also residents who gave them hidden quests when they approached them. All these achievements automatically flew away the moment they miserably messed up.

With that… Lexus made them incapable of receiving quests from his people even without him personally taking any actions. Although he could kick them out from Eternal Kingdom, that was a light punishment for players when they could just transfer their base of operations in another kingdom.

Then, to make them suffer the consequence of provoking him? To not let them easily receive any quest from the kingdom. This way, although he didn't do anything directly to torment them, they will surely suffer from being left behind by other players for not receiving any quest.

Even hidden quests that could lead them to some great rewards would be included. In comparison, it was like a very dependent or even spoiled child, being kicked out by his parents and the support that made him survive till the present will be cut.

With that, offending Lexus obstructed their growth. It essentially crippled the guild and all members of it. Also, he was aware of some mentality of some players. If other players would notice the state of decline of Golden Guild, they might even take advantage of the situation, making them suffer even more.

"...Ah, I— This is sh*t," A curse naturally emerged from their mouths but for some people...

"Those red eyes... White-haired swordsman... Th-this terrifying strength..."

"N-No! It can't be!!"

As a sudden thought came into his mind about the infamous rumors in the forum, he quivered as he mentioned it.

"The...White Reaper!!!"

"That's!!!.."

Upon hearing the name 'White Reaper', the other players also had some interesting reactions towards him. He was a well-known figure who single-handedly annihilated the Yak Guild, which was on par with the Golden Guild, and he had treated more than 100,000 players like children.

Seeing them shivering like children, completely losing their dignity as a guild in front of Lexus, he completely lost interest in them. Wanting to just get rid of them from his sight, he simply burned them with a Fireball (Enhanced).

Without much resistance, the players who came into contact with the flames instantly turned into gray lights. Though fireball is just a basic magic spell like magic missile, it completely changed when it was enhanced by Braham's Enhanced Magic. The players were swallowed by the flames that were as hot as hellfire and turned to ashes.

Not to mention, all the damage from all fire attribute attacks and skills were greatly amplified by Lexus due to having the Dragon Heart with him, the bonus effects of Aetherium, God Hand, and his title, Ruler of Fire.

However, as players, they had resigned themselves to their deaths and surrendered to their inevitable defeat; however, what they did not expect was that, if they died at the hands of Lexus, they would randomly lose their skills to him. The despair they felt upon discovering that some of their beloved skills had been stolen from them by Lexus was still unknown.

After leaving the gate and having taken care of the matter, Lexus returned his way to the palace. As he hadn't even broken a single sweat, he was no longer bothered by what just had happened. Remembering that the skill had already ended, Lexus immediately cast it.

[Clone Magic (Enhanced) - Lv.1]

[A clone magic developed by the legendary great magician who has completely overturned the activation formula.

Summon twenty imperfect, semi-autonomous duplicates of yourself, which can gain gold and experience as you do and share experience, attributes and abilities. However, the clones cannot wield any items and the stats applied are only 30%.

It boasts tremendous performance, but consumes a lot of resources.

Resource Consumption: 15,000 Mana.

Skill Casting Time: 1 second.

Skill Cooldown Time: 5 Hours.]

Normally, when magicians use clone magic, they can only summon one clone of themselves and only a small number of skills (random) are copied, while the clone's stats have only 5% of the stats of the caster. However, his enhanced version is definitely a superior version. Instead of a single clone, he created twenty clones of himself with superior base stats compared to the normal clone.

This also had a little bit of a drawback because of the large amount of mana it consumed. However, this weakness was not an issue for Lexus, as he now possessed massive mana reserves. This magic could also be used to train quickly, since all the clones shared their experiences with the original body. With the use of this magic skill, Lexus was able to efficiently manage the affairs and interests of the kingdom without causing him tremendous stress.

If Solomon had taken control of the clones, this have greatly surprised King Wiesbaden, Chucksley, and all of the vassals. Lexus alone is hundreds of times or even thousands of times more productive than them combined in managing the kingdom. His wisdom, intellect, and insight were mind-blowing to them; they began thinking about how absurd the situation was.

He was not only talented in combat but also a very capable, incredible, and great ruler. They even recalled the rumors he had heard about the Lexus having an inferior aptitude and a horrible personality in the past. But now, how could a great person like him possibly be mediocre?

Therefore, his abilities alone grant him full power over the management of the territory, making him the number one most powerful figure in the local bureaucracy. As glorious as the title of being the 'youngest king' sounds, it comes together with plenty of skepticism and doubt. Most officials choose to hold their tongues, but some are actually dissatisfied with King Wiesbaden's decision.

One must know that King Wiesbaden was a famed figure in the kingdom, respected by the people no matter where one went. Even though he was already old, there was no denying that his massive influence and popularity made their work much easier.

It was normal for humans to glorify the past in the face of uncertain change; as a result, Lexus had an extremely low approval rating when he first came to power. However, to everyone's astonishment, the situation quickly improved over the course of ten days...

Ten days ago, after Lexus ascended to the throne, his first thought was how he could unite the people. Chaos was bound to ensue when a change in leadership occurred. The subordinate officials lacked a sense of loyalty to their new king, and the populace who weren't interested in politics were unaware of the change in leadership.

This was a normal occurrence in a world with an underdeveloped media industry.

This problem was further exacerbated by his youthful age. He knew that he would have to act fast, or else it would be difficult to change public perceptions once the notion of him being an incompetent leader sank in. The first days would be crucial.

Knowing how important it was to have the support of his subordinates and populace in order to effectively implement changes, Lexus unhesitatingly pulled out three plans. Although the miracle he created that the people witnessed was just something he did on a whim, the first action he took was to reorganize public security.

The dominant factors to deal with were things like the number of bandits operating in the kingdom, the safety of the roads within the Eternal Kingdom, and other factors that would affect business operations. However, to the citizens, it was the criminals lurking within the community that destroyed their livelihoods. Minor thefts, hoodlums, gangs, loan sharks, and even human trafficking—these were the things that brought stress to the people, sometimes even causing irreparable harm to them.

Lexus had heard a lot about these matters in his previous world, and he carried a deep level of abhorrence for them. He was determined not to allow such vermin to operate under his rule, which was why he started a campaign to tighten security on the streets and sweep away the criminals who were already operating in the area.

He started off by mobilizing the militia and the city guards. Even the army was provided with significant benefits, depending on their efforts. Lexus had set up a ranking system within the military. Inspired by how the Saharan Empire distinguished its strongest knights, Lexus intended for the lower numbers to represent increasing strength among the knights.

Upon receiving their ranks, they would gain rewards for their rank. Since Lexus had access to numerous magical fruits that could strengthen someone, he created this system to motivate them to do better. Although he now had plenty of them, a single fruit had an astronomical value, as these fruits were nonexistent.

Based on Lexus estimates alone, a single fruit is worth 1 million gold. If he were to give them away for free, the astronomical value of the fruits might disappear, and people might take them for granted. The Kingdom Contribution, four basic stats such as strength, agility and so on will be the basis for the overall rankings along with skill, combat power, and mana reserves.

As Lexus allowed them to have a little free taste, they became aware of how amazing the promised rewards were; so everyone in the military, whether he was a knight or a soldier, became enthusiastic about doing their best to fulfill the missions that Lexus had given them, hoping to increase their rankings.

They were extremely motivated by the first mission Lexus had assigned to them. Less than a week after they began, they had already submitted a name list with over a hundred potential candidates.

The name list was categorized into three classifications.

The first classification consisted of murderers and human traffickers. The second classification consisted of violent criminals and loan sharks who had torn families apart. The third classification consisted of thieves, blackmailers, and those committing less serious crimes.

Of course, Lexus instructed them to do further investigation and make sure that the evidence was concrete. They had to first ensure that everything was accurate and document the process well before making an arrest.

The severity of their punishment would depend on their crime. For human traffickers, especially those who kidnapped children and sold them elsewhere, they would face the death penalty. Lexus felt that there was a need to make it harsh in order to deter others from doing the same. He carried strong emotions about this matter because of the documentaries he had watched in his previous life, and he didn't think that there was any need to waste valuable taxpayer money on people like that. Under his rule, he would forbid slavery.

Those who belonged to gangs and secret societies were severely punished to ensure that they would not be able to harm another victim or exact vengeance against the one who reported them.

Due to the swift and sharp actions of the knights and soldiers, within a fortnight, several of the larger secret societies and gangs inside Reinhardt had fallen one after another. Many loan sharks were apprehended in the midst of their escape, and the human traffickers were all arrested as well. It was a nightmare for all of the criminals.

All of this bad news led to criminals queuing up to admit to their wrongdoings. They were afraid that the military would come down on them hard. The knights and soldiers were mostly young men from the military. Aside from their desire to advance their careers, they had an overwhelmingly strong sense of righteousness that often led them to take extreme measures against criminals, particularly those caught red-handed.

Those who sustained fractures should count themselves lucky, as there were those who were killed outright.

Although the means were questionable, there was no denying that the deterrence effect was incredible. Nowadays, the street hooligans would start shivering uncontrollably as soon as they saw the guards wearing the Eternal's military uniform.

And these are just the first of the changes their new ruler has implemented.