BXBX NOVEL Chapter 451: Eve 1
"You...!! You..." The red-haired girl was at a complete loss for words.
"Why do you have this thing?" Garen stood at the side with his eyebrows furrowed and asked the question that everyone wanted to know.
Kid threw another one of those things into his mouth.
"This seed is actually from a type of plant called the Nightmare Vine. It has a strange ability that forces people into nightmares and makes them unable to free themselves, but I naturally have specialized physique, thus I wasn’t affected." He trailed behind Garen, as the opportunities for him to speak increased.
"But the seed from earlier tasted weird, as if it was cultivated wrongly, and were not as tasty as mine." He added another sentence right as he finished the first one.
"Do you always have dangerous things with you?!" The red-haired girl could not help but scream.
"You guys are just too weak." Kid looked at them contemptuously. "If you reached Form 3 you wouldn’t be affected by this anymore."
His sentence rendered the entire Mercenary Group speechless.
"Alright, Angel will recuperate here with me while the rest of you return to inform the others," commanded Garen the moment he opened his mouth.
Most of the Mercenary Group members did not dare to disobey orders, except for two of Angel’s disciples who stood on the spot and did not move.
Both of them exchanged glances.
The boy Gracie suddenly said in a loud voice.
"We want to stay behind and take care of Teacher as well!"
Garen looked at both of them carefully.
"Okay." He waved his hand.
Once the Nightmare Seed was extracted, Angel was fine. When she woke up, the situation cleared up naturally.
"Someone’s here."
Immediately, an older female servant rushed into the palace frantically.
"Palace Master?"
"Take them downstairs and arrange rooms for them there, make sure that their food and drinks are light and soft. Hire some doctors to come into the palace to take a look," Garen told her.
"Understood."
Soon, most of the people from the Black Panther Mercenary Group had left after Gracie and Hill’s instructions. Both of them carried Angel, and followed the servant into the guest room.
Garen pondered for a moment, and realised that he definitely lacked palace staff. Tasks such as arranging food and lodging required him to command them individually, which was very troublesome.
Suddenly, he thought of the two Dragon Blood death prisoners that he had modified. Those two had insufficient strength, but could do some housework at least. They could also help the extremely busy Lala.
Although Lala did not have a lot of strength, the critical thinking skills she had gained from the law department allowed her to manage the family business in perfect order. Those two could now become her subordinates.
After handling Angel’s situation, Garen called both of her disciples to his study room alone.
Watching Garen drink his green tea slowly as he sat on the chair made the two others slightly cautious of him.
"Have a seat."
The three of them were the only ones in the study, and there were no one else in their surroundings.
The entire Black Fire Palace was unlike the rumors from the outside, there were no violent bloody scenes, but instead it was deathly quiet.
Neither of them dared to defy him, so they quickly sat down on the bench on Garen’s left side.
"I called you here, because I wanted to know about Angel’s Mercenary Group, and what the current developments are? Why didn’t she contact me all this while?" Garen called a servant girl over to serve two cups of green tea to the others.
The boy Gracie smiled bitterly.
"Palace Master, I think I know why Teacher never contacted you."
"Oh?"
Gracie remembered for a moment.
"Everytime Teacher taught us, she would always sigh for an unknown reason. From Teacher’s words, I could always hear a certain.. longing." Gracie lifted his head and glanced at Garen.
"Teacher seemed like she always wanted to surpass somebody. Because of that, she worked hard determinedly. Meanwhile, Teacher always complained that her talents were not strong enough, and although she worked hard, she could never see a ray of hope. Frankly, we could never understand the meaning behind Teacher’s desire. In our eyes, Teacher was already strong enough. There would always be people in the world who were stronger than ourselves, and if we wanted to surpass all of them, one lifetime would be insufficient," he smiled bitterly.
Garen furrowed his eyebrows slightly.
Gracie seemed like a calm person who would not be fazed during peril, but he never expected that he would lack the desire and strength to improve. He did not like people like this.
Pushing that aside, he understood what Gracie meant.
Perhaps the person that Angel always wanted to surpass was an old acquaintance, or a friend, or maybe even Garen himself. This was something that nobody knew for sure.
"That’s right, this is the open communication device that Teacher left behind before she left." Gracie had thought of something suddenly, as he took a little square black box out of his arms.
The little box was made of black iron, and looked unimportant. There were rows of horizontal cracks on its surface, exposing its hollow interior.
This thing looked like the outside of a radio from earth.
"Open communication device?" This was the first time Garen had heard of this phrase in this world, it was a name that was obviously connected to technological terms.
"Hmm, could it be that Palace Master doesn’t about this?" Gracie was slightly shocked. He quickly explained. "This is a communication device that is currently very popular. Initially, only high levelled Totem Users had the right to use it; it can communicate with others from distances of over a thousand kilometers, using a shapeless resonance technology. It was developed in the Rainbow Domain, as it was said that they caught a small insect species that possessed natural resonance abilities, thus they used these insects build nests, and researched them for a while, before finally creating this thing. Its price is..."
"This thing is very cheap, only ten copper rumbs for one," interrupted the red-haired girl on the side, as it was finally time for her to present herself, as her brother had said everything earlier, making her feel non existent. Now that Teacher had finally gotten out of harm’s way, she had almost returned to her normal, girlish lively nature.
"It only requires one copper rumb?" Garen picked up the black box, and noticed that there were two switches on the right side. One of them was a button, and pressing it would decide if it was opened or closed. The other was a knob that was probably used to adjust something.
"This communication device can self regulate frequencies, and if a predetermined frequency is chosen, many people from distances of over ten thousand kilometers could communicate with each other at the same time, which would be extremely convenient. Except that its consumption source is something called an Acer Crystal, which is only sold in Rainbow Domain. One piece requires two copper rumbs, and is enough to last for an hour."
"No wonder this thing is so cheap," Garen realised. "So the key is its consumption."
"Mm," Gracie paused, before realising. They had only thought that this thing was interesting, but had never expected that Garen would look at it through the perspective of Rainbow Domain, and see the problem through the bigger picture. He saw that Rainbow Domain was controlling a large business opportunity through this.
Garen was quite impressed, after watching Gracie’s demonstrations of this thing, he learned how to use it after a few tries.
It had almost the same functions as an original radio from earth.
But it was more advanced than a radio, because this thing could be used to communicate. As long as the other person’s frequency was known beforehand, both parties could communicate directly. The distance between them could span up to ten thousand kilometers as well.
In simpler terms, if you spoke on one frequency, whether you intended it or not, everyone who happened to be on that same frequency would be able to hear what you were saying, and this was the true meaning of open communication.
However, these resonating frequency adjustments could reach extremely fine degrees, and there were a total of more than ten thousand grid scales, and the slightest movement would mean that the next grid would be a new frequency, making it impossible to use all of them.
The moment Garen turned on the communication device, strange loud noises could be heard from inside, as if many people were speaking at once, in chaotic confusion.
He adjusted it slightly, and changed to a different grid scale, before it quietened down.
"Are you here?"
"I’m here. Where do you want to exchange the goods today?"
"Did you bring the money?"
"Give me the goods first!"
"Give me the money first!"
"You don’t have the right to set requirements!"
Why did it feel like a gangster movie?
Garen looked at Gracie with a weird expression, while the latter slapped his own head suddenly, and took out a piece of light red foil and pasted it carefully on the surface of the communication device, covering the top of it quickly.
"This is a sound insulation membrane, it will ensure that the sounds you make on this side will not transfer over."
Gracie explained.
Garen tinkered with the communication device for a while, and felt that it was extremely fresh, as he had never expected that the technological advancements in this world would develop so quickly, as the Totem User’s usage of research could not be underestimated.
Since Totem User’s powers had already developed to such extreme lengths, they did not need such destructive technological advancements.
Large defensive covers that spanned over hundred square kilometers would never exist on earth.
Gracie and Hill noticed that Garen was having fun with the communication device, so they decided to just give it to him.
"Palace Master, a lot of people are using this now because it’s popular. They are other grades in Rainbow Domain, and this one here is medium grade. Below it are normal grade, while above are premium grade, luxury grade, aristocratic grade, gold grade, diamond grade and the only silver grade. The price increases with their grade. The important part is the difference between sound filters, and the variations in packaging appearances," Gracie explained.
"Understood," Garen nodded. The interior structure of this thing was very primitive, a sign that the Forgers in Rainbow Domain were unable to thoroughly study the principles properly, and were thus unable to make minor adjustments.
Upon seeing that Garen was playing with it intently, the other two got up to leave.
Next, Lala entered and quickly announced the recent news regarding the family business.
Garen listened casually and continued to play with the communication device, and asked some questions occasionally.
Lala had really managed everything properly, the resources that Garen had gained from the palace were used as the foundation of a new reward and punishment system, to establish a new set of perfect management systems.
This would motivate Totem Users to work hard, creating improvements as well. It also ensured that they were not too exhausted or troubled.
As for normal workers, there was a different set of beneficial methods as well. But it was obvious that it was not something that she had thought up on her own.
Garen just listened to these things casually. He only cared about his final income and expenditure summary.
"This is a set of welfare and wage systems that I came up with, could you look at it and see if anything needs to be added?" Lala brought out a thick stack of white documents.
Garen took the documents and flipped through them, and since his reading speed and memory analysis abilities were extremely quick, he was able to read through the entire thing within a minute, before he took his seal out and stamped it.
"I pass it, so you can take this to the Black Fire Palace’s treasury to take the necessary financial resources for each month. The elite Black Fire Guards there will release them automatically." Garen passed the documents back.
He paused.
"Furthermore, as the supervisor, you can elect a vice supervisor on your own to manage the other tasks. You have the authority to approve one hundred thousand gold rumbs for all of these receipts, and these one hundred thousand gold rumbs will be the total monthly expenditure."
Lala’s eyes widened suddenly, as she did not expect Garen to give her such great authority.
It was important to note that although the Trejons household was undergoing significant expansion, in reality, the entire household’s assets were under a million gold rumbs. This happened after Garen became one of the Four Gargantuans of the Kovitan Kingdom, and succeeded in selling a large number of houses in the vicinity of the palace.
Although the palace still belonged to the Royal Family in name, once Avic died, Ivycius and Edin of the Silver Palace remained silent, and immediately supported the Black Fire Palace. Under the circumstance that no one objected, naturally, no one would dare to object his invasion of the palace areas as well. Although the other three Gargantuans were at odds, they were not entirely innocent as well, and would obviously not dare to provoke him directly as well, in case everyone would be thrown into an uncomfortable state.
Especially under the circumstance when Garen’s name was related to violence and cruelty.