Chapter 5 - The calm before the storm.

Close to the center of Nan, just a few streets from the central market, there was a small two-stories villa, made out of Ebony wood and gray marble. It wasn't the most marvelous house in the city, but one for the middle class. Actually, the land that it was standing on was more valuable than the house itself as it was very close to the center of the city, where the most circulated zone was. Behind the house, there was a small courtyard, no bigger than fifty square meters, and Inside the courtyard, there weren't any decorations or furniture as one was expecting. Instead, there were a few training dummies and steel pillars.

This was Zephyr's propriety that he bought two years ago with the money he made from his shop.

He had two shops in the city. A jewelry shop, owned by his family, that he was just administrating. And a runic equipment shop that he opened five years ago with help from Cellir and Vallen. While the profits from the family shop were given to the family through an advisor that came to Nan every year, the profits from the runic equipment shop were only his. He earned around 2.500 gold crowns every year from the shop. He also had a few shares in another few businesses around the town. So for the last five years, he had a steady income of around 5.000 gold crowns. This was a big sum that even some of the nobility of Nan couldn't compete with. For example, Baron Belick had only an income of around 1.200 gold crowns after he deducted all of the costs of his domain.

Over a period of five years, Zephyr managed to save around 15.000 gold crows. After he came back from the Southern domain and sold the spices, he managed to get his investment of 5.000 back and invested the profit of 20.000 gold crowns into the new trade route.

Zephyr was in the middle of the courtyard. His attire was different. Instead of his usual black suit, he wore a tight black leather armor inscribed with a few red runic letters on the chest. Those were runes that improved the resistance of the armor. Being inscribed with those kind of runes, the leather armor was as resistant as a chain-mail or a poor made steel-plated armor, while still keeping it's advantages of weight and mobility. This set of armor was quite expensive and it cost 40 gold crowns. Its importance wasn't one to be underestimated. Even the weakest runes, the red ones, could increase an attribute by up to twenty percent. In battle, those were huge boosts.

The boots Zephyr was wearing had their own set of runes that increased one's movement speed. There is no need to explain of how useful those could be.

In his hands, there was a seventy centimeters sword with a thin blade on which there were inscribed green runes. These were middle-grade runes that could increase the sword's sharpness by forty percent.

Zephyr looked at a steel pillar in front of him. This pillar was around fifteen centimeters in radius, around the side of an adult tree trunk. On the surface, there were countless scratches made by sword. He used to test the strength of his slashes using these pillars. Of course, those were made by a normal steel sword. What he wanted to see was what kind of damage this sword could do.

Zephyr took a stance and slashed at the pillar. A strong scraping sound rushed in the surrounding akin to a wailing. The sword cut in the steel as a hot knife would in butter until it lost it's momentum and stopped.

Looking at the pillar, Zephyr constated that the sword managed to cut through a quarter of the steel pillar. This was a good result. If such a casual strike could cut through seven centimeters of steel, no normal armor could withstand this sword.

He draw the sword from the pillar when a sound of applause waved from behind him.

Zephyr's heart jumped and he instinctively turned around only to let out a smile. In front of him was his good friend Count Vallen Vesear, dressed in his usual black suit.

"Shouldn't you knock before entering a house?"

"I Could have but when I heard the commotion in the yard I came directly here." Responded Vallen jokingly.

Every time he came to Zephyr he would always enter without letting him know that he arrived so Zephyr got used to it already.

"That is a nice sword you have there."

"Indeed." Said Zephyr excited about it."It was a gift sent from Duke Gales."

Vallen felt his mouth fall open. "He gave you such a precious sword?"

Zephyr nodded. This was indeed an expensive sword. On the market, it couldn't be bought for less than five hundred gold crowns.

"He said that is a token of his appreciation for helping him secure a few more votes."

"That cheap bastard." Added Vallen visibly bugged. " I help him too in that category. Where is my sword?"

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"He is going to give you a minister position. Is that not enough?"

"Well, if you put it that way..." said him while reluctantly taking his eyes off the sword.

"Anyway. How is the election going?

Vallen's reluctant face suddenly turned into a smile. "It will be over in two days and Duke Gales is leading by eleven votes. "

The election in the Kalian Federation took place every ten years and it was lasting a week at the most, time in which every noble would come to Nan and cast a vote for one of the candidates.

"Then everything should be developing as predicted?" Asked Zephyr.

"That should be so. It just a matter of time until he wins and we could start making our move."

"So we will begin the trading route immediately after we find the final results?"

"Well, yes. While the result is already obvious, we should wait. We already bought ten trading ships with 3.000 gold crowns and four warships with 2.800 gold crownes." Said Vallen

"Are four warship enough to protect the cargo?" Asked Zephyr curiously.

"There should be almost enough. We cannon by more because the laws of the Federation dictates that a merchant company cannon own more than four warships. Even with the support of Duke Gales we could not breach this law as it would be too obvious."

"I See...I didn't know that" Added Zephyr while losing itself in is thoughts.

"We also hired 350 sailors and 200 mercenaries. We also got provisions worth of six months and we bought runic equipment worth of 100.000 gold crowns." Vallen took a break leaving Zephyr to catch un and the continued. " The equipment is as follows: one thousand swords, one thousand spears, two thousand full-plate armors, and one thousand bows, all inscribed with red runes."

Zephyr was impressed. He knew that with such funds they could buy a lot, but he didn't expect that much.

"The ships should leave in two days and the whole trip should take around three months." Added Vallen.

"What are the estimated profits? " Asked Zephyr.

"Hmm, Based on your trip, we should have spices worth one million in three months."

Hearing that number Zephyr almost fainted."One million?" He asked again in order to make sure that he heard right.

Vallen smiled at him. "That is according to the current market prices, But if the war starts in the south, the prices would rise. We will sell spices worth of 200.000 gold crowns and deposit the rest. When the wars start, the prices would probably double."

"You talk about 200.000 gold crowns like it is spare change and not a mind-boggling amount." Added Zephyr Jokingly. He would have never thought that the business he recommended could bring such profits.

"The problem is..." Added Vallen interrupting Zephyr's thoughts. " We will only be able to make this kind of trade with the Konoshi Kingdom only twice or trice before they run out of spices. "

"Even so, the amount of money that we could make each would make us ones of the richest in Nan." Said Zephyr greedy.

With so much money, their group would become one of the most powerful ones in Nan, and with the influence that Vallen and Gerver would have in the future, things looked very good for them.

"By the way Zephyr, the reason I came here today was not to tell you all of this."

"Oh!" Exclaimed him. " What then?"

"Emperor Richard the forth died last month."

Hearing this, Zephyr was shocked. Richard the fourth Elleon was the ruler of the empire with the same name. This empire was on the west coast of the continent and was at the same time the biggest country on the continent either reported to land or population.

The Kalian Federation and the Elleon Empire were at odds with each other for more the two hundred years and over time there were countless wars between the two nations. Over the last few years, there has been peace because of a treaty which stipulated that as long as Emperor Richard was alive, the Empire would not attack the Federation or vice-versa. Now that the Emperor was dead, the empire could attack anytime. This was bad news for the Federation because for the last years tensions escalated in the east with three other kingdoms. The federation simply couldn't take an attack from the empire.

A slight feeling of excitement invaded Zephyr's body when he heard the emperor was dead. He hated the current emperor for what he did.

Zephyr didn't belong to any noble family in the Federation. He was the son of a Count in the Empire. When he was still young he showed great promise for cultivation which worried his elder brother. At that time the Empire was at war with the Federation and his elder brother earned a few merits in battle and gained the praise and support of the Emperor. Richard sent a letter to Zephyr's father in which wrote that the oldest son was a great leader and would make a good House Head. With this, his father could only appoint Zephyr's brother to the position of heir. But that was not enough for him as he even made his father cast Zephyr away to the Federation Capital where the family had a jewelry shop. That was ten 5ears ago but Zephyr could still remember his father's words as it happened yesterday.

In the beginning, he couldn't understand his father's decision, but when he reached twenty and the person assigned to teach him how to manage the shop was ready to return to the empire, he told everything to Zephyr.

After he heard the words of the old man, Zephyr grew to hate his older brother and even the Emperor which took him the opportunity to fight for the house and the title. He began to expand his influence in Nan so that one day he may be able to have his revenge. But as the years passed he felt that he had nothing to demonstrate to his father and his hatred dwindled. He still wanted to take revenge but only if the opportunity arrived. He would not go out of his way in order the seek it.

Hearing that the Emperor was dead calmed Zephyr even more.

He cleared his throat and asked. " And who ascended to the throne?"

"No one." Responded Vallen

Zephyr was confused. 'the throne was empty?' thought him'.

Seeing Zephyr's face, Valled continued. " The internal situation of the empire is in a stalemate. As the Emperor died without naming an heir, neither of the three princes wishes to relinquish their rights to the throne. "

Zephyr was shocked. " If this countinues won't the Empire..."

But before he could finish, Vallen interrupted. "Enter into a civil war. Yes, there is not much evidence that with these events the empire could take another route."

Hearing Vallen's words, Zephyr started to worry about his father and his little brother. While he hated the situation of him being sent away, he didn't blame his father after he learned the truth. As for his little brother, he was the apple of his eye.

"Count Vallen... Could you please make a few inquiries about the situation in the Vargar Domain?" Asked him seriously.