I smiled as I took my seat at the table.

“So, how is the plan coming along? Is the convoy ready?” I asked.

“Yes, your grace, the Gold and Diamond class adventurers will be exclusively guarding the main convoy while the other convoys will have a mix. I took your advice and had nice uniforms made for them, though I still think there are too many assigned to the convoy, your grace. The roads might be unsafe, but even a single Gold class adventurers would be enough.” Xerte said.

“The guards aren’t there to protect the convoy, Xerte. I am aware they are too much for that, they are there to showcase our power. A few dozen Plants and Plantlings? The convoy will be guarded by an army that will intimidate others and solidify our position as a Jewel. The Council may have named us one, but we haven’t received the people’s acknowledgement. The people that know how many Plants and Plantlings we have are few and far between, we have to earn their respect and the way to do that is to showcase our power.” I answered.

A week had passed since I had killed the ducal family, and my mother had just left a few hours ago, to my great relief. I had been ignoring her however, focusing instead on developing the duchy. After a lot of planning we had finally been able to develop a plan to set up trade.

The Grant organization had given out grants that had allowed the local businesses to trade. The farmers would be sending out a lot of their latest crop, the new lands making for a huge excess. Handicrafts had sadly not made the cut, the market for them was too minor among the commoners.

The list did have things like liquor, weapons, and traps though. The items being traded had been ‘glossed up’ by adding select items from the Organization loot in. The best thing? I had found ways to replicate all of them using magic. The adventurers guild’s recruitment process had been sped up, and I had assigned most of the Ducal guard to test them. The Rotere guards had also expressed that they would like to have the spy organization test their skills on the recruits.

But I had to say I had been hesitant. The spy organization would leave the recruits devoid of privacy, and would be an extremely invasive process. But at the same time, becoming a cultivator gave people a lot of power, power that was hard for me, or any government to control. The power could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. I knew it would eventually happen, but I would die before not trying my best to prevent it.

I had equated it to applying to join a government agency with clearance or getting a gun license. The government conducted background checks. So would I. I had added a bolded line in the application form about it and given the Rotere guards the go ahead.

“Is there anything else on today’s agenda?” I asked.

“Yes, your grace, the duchy’s seal has yet to be finalized. And there are those within the Ducal guard and the Administrative Wing that think that you should declare us an archduchy. The title sound s better and is more accurate given that we have a lot more land than a duchy.” Aswelth suggested.

“I agree. The duchy is now the Arch duchy of Alvere. As for the seal. I don’t suppose you have options?” I asked.

“Well…” Aswelth answered, shifting in his place-“ I did ask a few artists for a few options.” he said as he took out a few scrolls from his spacial ring. The organization loot had provided us with enough Spacial Rings to equip most of the duchy’s higher ups.

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Aswelth opened the scrolls, displaying three options. A painting of the mountains, one of the fortress and the third was of the city. I liked none of them. The duchy, arch duchy, wasn’t defined by any one of these things.”

“Hmm, nope, none of these are satisfactory. Get the Administrative Wing to release a notice that we are accepting options. And then we can vote on it.” I said, dismissing the thought from my mind.

“Is there anything else?” I asked as Xerte opened his mouth. Guess the work never ended. I needed more people. Didn’t the Administrative Guild not level up yet? What was the condition that remained…right 50 members required.

“The Kingdom’s envoys have arrived to discuss buying the corpses off us, your grace. And are asking about the convoy’s route.” Xerte said.

“Tell the envoys to give a price. And then sell it to them at that price, they will give us a low one, but selling corpses for cheap is the least we can do after all the help the King has given us.” I said.

“Yes, your grace.” Xerte answered.

“And tell the Ducal guard that applications for the Administrative Wing are open.” I told Aswelth. The guard was the best place to recruit from, the people were already verified and had high cultivations.

“Are you stealing people from me, your grace?” Aswelth asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Yes, you have all the good ones. I made monopoly illegal long ago, you need to share.” I said as I left, leaving Aswelth flabbergasted.

I quickly flew to the guard mansion, landing in an empty training area. The area was usually deserted now that most of the guard was occupied. I let out a little Qi, letting it seep out into the surroundings. And then I began training. I had learned my lesson, I was never going to be caught unprepared again. I was much weaker training wise to most people in my cultivation level, so I needed to put in more effort to catch up.

A few hours later, after I had almost run out of Qi, I ended my training session. I already felt my muscles remembering my movements, my flexibility had increased, and so had the fluidity of my movements. I did have pretty high stats after all, I had a boost to learning too. Now to get myself a few skills.

I had decided to learn the staff, ‘asking’ the Rotere guard that had asked me about my staff for help in learning it. And that occupied my next couple of hours as I sparred with him. According to him, the basic training methods would be less useful to me, my stats already told me how to fight, what was needed was to fine-tune it and making it natural. And then I could develop my own style. But that would come later, first I had to learn to fight.

And the cycle continued, I spent the mornings in planning and setting up the duchy, noon and afternoon were usually spent dealing with the newest emergency and complication. And training occupied my evenings and nights.

A week later the convoys left, the main one routing through the Kingdom, the Dark Empire and finally to the Valley. The Sect would receive its own convoy, and I was considering sending a diplomatic convoy to the People, but the Confederacy had refused to lift the ban on Arch duchy citizens. Well, they could do whatever they wanted, I wasn’t going to harp over their actions. I was just going to make the Archduchy’s economy so good that I got all of their deals.

Xerte had, surprisingly, volunteered to join the convoy. Apparently he was interested to see places. I was happy to let him, he was already a Late-Plant, and was sure to break through eventually. And given how good his ‘luck’ was, I was sure he would find himself breaking through on this trip. And that made the convoy even safer

. Unless one of the other Jewels decided to declare war, I doubted that they would attack the convoy. Sadly Kerrin had not returned yet, a thing with the duchies had kept him back. Apparently they were appealing to the King to act against me, or at least declare war against me. I doubted they would succeed, the King had already confirmed that he wanted to engage in trade.

Acting against the Archduchy would be against everything he had shown till now. Besides the duchies were crying foul over something they themselves were guilty of, the hypocrisy was irritating. I wanted to punch them in the face and teach them some common sense.

But leaving that, I had another wish. I would have liked for him and Xerte to meet, I was sure it would be entertaining to say the least. The two geniuses meeting.