“Is this our new town?”
“It must be. The leader said so himself, he wouldn’t lie.”
“Hmph. Do you think we can trust this civilization to house us?”
Hundreds of people walked the streets of Earth civilization’s town only to stop at the main plaza. Their heads moved left and right as they surveyed their new home with curiosity and no small amount of distrust.
They were the warriors from Grenara.
Just two hours after Oreto met with Nova, Jack, and Erevan, he was allowed to move his people into the town, and now the process was almost complete.
The only thing left was…
Clap, clap!
A bulky man loudly clapped his hands, enough to drown out the growing murmurs of the people.
“Enough with the chit chat,” he said, pointing a finger at four houses at the heart of the town.
“Apart from those four houses, you can pick any residence. Once you’ve settled in, come and report to me.”
He watched, expecting them to quickly rush to occupy a house, but they only stared at him blankly.
Irritated, he shouted, “MOVE! NOW!”
Realizing this was most likely an order from their leader, they quickly scrambled to find their own residences.
In a matter of seconds, the previously bustling plaza became empty.
/////
Nova sat on a sofa in his own house.
“It seems like the most basic rules are what keep the place from devolving into chaos, that’s why they’re so general and lax.” He murmured to himself as he thought back to what Oreto had said during the meeting.
“Two fights left to earn a rank, and then we’ll be able to directly challenge other civilizations.”
Sighing, he continued, “But the price is truly too exaggerated.”
While it was true that the higher the ranking, the lower the price a civilization had to pay to challenge another, that didn’t mean the cost was low.
A top 100,000 civilization needed to pay 10,000,000 gold coins to issue a challenge and those were considered high ranking in this place filled with millions of civilizations.
That sum, while not prohibitive, wasn’t something every civilization would choose to spend just to challenge another, especially when they were at the bottom of the rankings and the number of civilizations they could challenge was limited.
Grenaria wasn’t exactly in that situation but they weren’t better off.
They were in the perfect, worst spot. Not strong enough to challenge wealthier civilizations and become rich, yet needed to pay 10 million to challenge a poorer one, losing money on the fight in the process.
It was pointless.
Meanwhile, the situation for the top 100 civilizations was on the opposite end of the spectrum.
The price they had to pay was only several hundred thousand gold coins, depending on their ranking, and the number of civilizations they could challenge was so vast that they wouldn’t be able to fight all of them even if they issued a challenge every day.
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It granted them total freedom in choosing their opponents.
In other words… they were free to decide who their next vassal civilization would be.
“He might have a use after all.” Nova’s lips curled into a smile as he stood up from the sofa and took Dreadscape out of his Inventory.
“Information is good, but I need more strength to make use of it.”
Swish!
The spear tip cut through the air at a speed that only the strongest people on Earth would have been able to see.
/////
One day later.
Matted with sweat and bare chested, Nova’s blue eyes were focused straight ahead as the spear in his hands became nothing more than a blur.
Buzzzz!
It was at that moment that his communication device buzzed loudly in his pocket.
His movements stopped so abruptly that it looked as though he’d never moved in the first place.
‘Must be him.’
He thought as he reached for the device, and when he saw it was Jack, his smile widened even further.
“You got them?” he said, so happy that his cheerful mood seemed to drip from every word.
A grumble rang from the device. “You only want me for the money? Can’t you be any more of a gold digger?”
“Yeah, yeah. You got them, yes or no?” Nova waved it off, probably not even registering the questions in his mind.
“Yeah. Come get them,” Jack said exasperatedly before closing the call.
After placing the device on the table beside him, Jack muttered to himself, “It’s okay. This time I fought and they’ll get a share, but next time, they’ll fight and I’ll get a share. Things will be even.”
He had just finished saying that when a knock sounded at the door of his house.
Raising an eyebrow, he exclaimed, “Already?”
He opened the door and, waiting there, was indeed Nova. He hadn’t even put his top back on before rushing over.
“Where is it?”
That was the first thing he said as soon as he saw Jack.
Jack felt like facepalming but restrained himself. Instead, he pointed beneath the table, where several large sacks rested, and said, “Those are yours. Erevan already picked up his share.”
His voice was still echoing when the bags vanished, and Nova was nowhere to be seen.
“Seriously, what happened to him? He’s never been this attached to money before,” Jack whispered as he closed the door.
/////
[Gold: 210,034,164]
Seeing this put a wide smile on Nova’s face.
‘With this, I can continue tempering my body. I should also buy an undamaged Spear Lord’s insight and compare it with the Spear King’s letter I already have. I might reap some unexpected benefits.’ He thought, though his mind was already purchasing dozens of herbs with no sign of stopping.
Back when he had seven million gold coins, he had felt like a true beggar just looking at the prices of the herbs, but now…
Now he felt like he could buy anything he wanted.
“Shit. I’ve run out of money already.” He cursed out loud as almost eighty stalks of herbs lay beside him, along with a booklet.
That was until he became a beggar again.
“Whatever. I only need to wait until next week to get some more allowance.”
Nova’s eyes landed on the herbs, and without hesitation, he picked them all up before entering the bathroom.
“With so many herbs, my body should become as tough as the strongest Grade 1 ore. At least, I shouldn’t be too far off.” He muttered to himself as he began filling the bath with hot water.
In most cases, a person’s body would never be as tough as an ore of the same Grade, unless that person refined their body many times over to reach comparable toughness. Even then, the process was so painful that few were willing to endure it merely to obtain a tougher body.
After all, if they could simply sit down to comprehend Force or use mana to eliminate their enemies, why would they subject themselves to such torture?
That was why having a body as tough as an ore of the same Grade was considered rare, even in higher-tier civilizations.
That said, having a body as tough as the strongest ore of the same Grade was, obviously, even rarer.
It meant that only someone whose strength already transcended Grade 1 would be able to injure him.
‘It’s ready,’ Nova thought as he glanced back at the herbs he’d bought, another question surfacing in his mind.
‘But how many should I start with?’
He mulled over the decision for a while.
Although he wanted to become stronger, he also didn’t want to die from getting greedy during training.
That would be too shameful.
On the other hand, he couldn’t go too slowly, or he might not be able to use all the herbs before the next fight. In one scenario or another, he could either miss the fight due to ongoing tempering or enter it without being at his peak.
‘I have about eighty stalks of herbs to go through and a week left if I take one day to set the rules into consideration. That means I should use about a dozen stalks each day, and even that might already be pushing it.’ He thought.
Recalling the pain he’d endured during past temperings, he couldn’t imagine what he would face now that he had a dozen per day to use.
But that couldn’t stop him.
It wouldn’t.
He threw a dozen stalks of herbs into the hot bathtub and, after discarding his clothes, slowly stepped in.
“Any moment now…”
Nova whispered, subconsciously clenching his teeth. Every fiber of his body was prepared to endure whatever would be thrown at it.
He felt ready.
That was, until a handful of seconds later, when the pain finally arrived.
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