Leonel shook his head speechlessly; He could tell that this old man was trying to take advantage of him again; but what else was new? First it was the war against Terrain; then it was the expansion war that took place after Earth entered the Fifth Dimension; and now this; It made him wonder how Earth ever managed to survive without him at all; 

He had only had the badge for a few seconds but he was already swamped with work; He hadn't even properly recovered yet; 

Also, did they not see how sickly he looked? Where was the justice in all of this? 

In the end, though, Leonel still put the badge away and turned to leave; 

"Don't blame me for my methods, then;" Leonel said on his way out; 

Emperor Fawkes chuckled in his heart. 'My only worry is that you won't be wild enough.'

Even though he thought this, he didn't say it out loud; 

Empress Fawkes sighed; Although she was aware that her relationship with Leonel wasn't very close; she still found it unfortunate; He had hardly looked at her despite the fact they hadn't seen each other in over 20 years in her eyes; 

"Oh; right;" Leonel turned back; "Grandma; this man is very shameless; If you bullies you be sure to call me so I can teach him a lesson; He's apparently got too much free time on his hands since he wants to run my Empire into the ground;"

The Empress was shocked speechless for a moment before she sputtered with laughter, her gaze filled with a doting and loving expression; 

Even after just a few seconds; Leonel could tell that his grandparents' relationship was a lot different than his own with Aina's; or even that of his parents; Their past should also be quite complex considering how long they had spent separated; Simply put; his grandmother didn't have very sturdy reins on this old man; so it was best that he tighten them for her; 

For the first time, Emperor Fawkes' expression flickered with a peculiar light; It was fleeting and almost impossible to pick up on, but the moment Leonel saw it, he grinned wildly; 

It had been a long time; but he had finally found it; the old man's weakness; 

Leonel turned back toward the palace's exit; raising his head in laughter; He would have quite some fun pressing down on this weakness in the future; 

It was too hard to deal with someone who had no shame; There was really only one method: to be even more shameless;

The ministers fell into silence; For some reason, after Leonel's appearance, all of the tension had dissipated into thin air;  C0pyright © 2024 Nôv)(elDrama.Org.

Although the faces of the ministers were all new. they were all citizens of Earth. 

They were here when Leonel dropped a city on the capital and crushed the Demi God that had stripped them all of their Ability Indexes and left them helpless in the face of Terrain's experts; 

They had all been here when three Sixth Dimensional galaxies attacked and Leonel fought six Sixth Dimensional experts alone while he had only been at the Fifth Dimension, crushing them one by one and then out-scheming them in the end. 

Even though 20 years had passed, and the legends had somewhat faded, if there was anyone who remembered it was them. 

Prince Leonel Morales had returned. and since he had. these matters could be considered to be settled. 

It was unknown just how much he had improved in his absence. but they suddenly felt a great amount of anticipation in finding out. 

Among the ministers, there was a gorgeous woman who sat in silence. This was none other than the former Secretary Marquisette Maia of the Royal Blue Province. However, now, not only was her status high enough to sit within the Imperial Court, her position didn't seem to be normal even amongst the ministers as well. 

She watched Leonel's back disappear into the distance, her thoughts unknown. 

… 

Leonel rubbed Little Blackstar's head, lost in thought for a moment. He wasn't exactly sure of how to approach this just yet. He was just one person and the burden was heavy. 

The obvious choice was to build up a cohort of people that he could trust, preferably one large enough to take up the former role of Shield Cross Stars, but that would take too long. The people he could trust without a shadow of a doubt were far too few. 

This meant that Leonel's best choice was a small, speedy and tactical unit that could quickly cover the territory of Earth. 

Unfortunately, even the flagship at its greatest speed would take several hours to cross the two furthest points in Earth's territory. If Leonel wasn't fast enough, it would be a problem. 

'Then that means that the only way is to set up a teleportation network, one that allows me to get anywhere within a few minutes. I could probably finish something like that within a week given that I have enough resources.

'Resources should be fine, I'll just steal from the old man. In these two decades, I'm sure that he's accumulated a large amount of wealth, especially with the current range of Earth's territory.

'In that case, the biggest problem with this approach will be that I won't have enough people to protect these teleportation networks.'

If others knew of Leonel's thoughts, they would be shocked into silence. If creating a teleportation network was so easy, it wouldn't only be the likes of the Void Palace that had such methods. In fact, even for the Void Palace, they didn't set up networks, but rather relied on high class treasures they only handed to a select few individuals. This was how Leonel's mother had opened that wormhole-like portal back to the Void Palace. 

Leonel wanted to do something like this, but his ambitions were further beyond because unlike others, he could see through the limitations of the Void Palace system and he wanted to fix them all. 

'I need a map, a map of Earth's territory…'

Leonel mumbled to himself as he turned back, entering the Palace once again. 

The guards could only speechlessly watch him. Maybe only Leonel would so casually come in and out of the Ascension Empire's Palace as though he owned the place.