That night Linley’s father finally achieved his lifelong dream and successfully awakened his bloodline, following in the footsteps of his sons and becoming a legendary Dragonblood Warrior.

After congratulating his father, Linley returned to his room and took out the book Ace gave to him. As soon as he opened it, he became captivated as he read its contents.

In fact, it wasn’t just him. Even his master, Doehring Cowart, peered over his disciple’s shoulder to read.

In the room, only Bebe was unable to read, but seeing the concentration on both men’s faces, he did nothing to disturb them.

“Grandpa Cowart,” Linley called out after he finished reading. “Are the contents of the book true?”

“I don’t know, Linley,” Cowart replied with a sigh, recalling his days as a saint before he died. “But I feel like they should be. If I’m not mistaken, the profound mystery I had focused on as a saint was the essence of earth. It should be what allowed me to manipulate each of my spells with such ease and freedom.

Thinking back, using this book as a reference, I can practically name each of the profound mysteries of each of my fellow saints, be they friends or enemies.”

Thinking to there, Cowart could let out another sigh of helplessness. “I wish I had this book back then; it would’ve helped me improve far faster.

Linley, you owe young Ace yet another debt of gratitude!”

“I know, Grandpa,” Linley nodded helplessly. “What I don’t know is how I’m going to pay them all back.”

“That’s easy,” Cowart smiled. “Hurry up and grow into an expert worthy of being a rival for him. Something tells me that was the main reason he gave you the book in the first place.”

“Knowing him, you’re probably right,” Linley smiled.

The following day, Cesar finally returned from his organisation’s HQ with the Armand Clan’s Undying Secret Manual, causing no small amount of excitement amongst Barker and his brothers. Still, with that finally in their possession, Linley and his group no longer had any reason to stay; they had too much to do if Linley truly wished to compete with Ace.

After seeing Linley off, Ace and his group went to work, and by work, I mean getting their heads down and focusing on their training.

And they weren’t the only ones; Cirulus started each of the city’s soldiers on a gruelling six-month training cycle.

It was the hardest six months of their life, but it was timed perfectly.

Cirulus had set up the city in Ace’s name, and at first, many flocked to the city hoping to rub shoulders with the son of heaven, but after six months of the legendary child of heaven never making so much as a fleeting appearance, many became sceptical.

Thankfully, Cirulus and Lance had the strength to ensure no one threatened their leadership.

Then, with Killian and the other disciples of the Yin-Yang Pavilion taking centre stage during the beast tide, once again showing off the might of a true genius, casually slaughtering beasts well above their individual levels and even teaming up and holding their own against a saint level dragon, any doubts they may have previously had, all but disappeared.

But that was nothing compared to the impact of watching Ace singlehandedly kill said saint-level dragon and then fearlessly confront almost a dozen more – with the rest of his group.

Add all that to the appearance of a deity who seemed to be on the side of Ace and the Yin-Yang Pavilion; how could the soldiers be anything but motivated, especially when Cirulus explained that Ace wanted to turn each of them into his elite army?

For the world-famous son of heaven to have so much faith in them, their willingness to endure Cirulus’ hellish training was more than understandable.

At the same time, all the major forces operating in the Anarchic Lands were paying close attention to the movements of the city of Gol, with many having sent spies to infiltrate the city.

It had to be remembered that after the incident in the O’Brien Empire, Ace seemed to have disappeared, and because the Pavilion never explained why, everyone was left to draw their own conclusions, many of whom correctly guessed that Ace was left severely injured by the drawbacks of the mystical technique he used to defeat Olivier.

Unfortunately, whilst many had prayed that Ace had died, all were shocked to hear that not only did Ace make an appearance with no signs of injury whatsoever, but he even defeated a genuine dragon at the early stages of the saint realm, on his own, without relying on that mystical technique.

And that was just the start of their shock, as they later learnt that Cesar had apparently broken through to the deity realm, forcing the dragon king himself to retreat. Information that they all welcomed, wanting to take advantage of it to strongarm the Pavilion into revealing some of its secrets. After all, as an Acolyte, Ace wasn’t allowed to be supported by the Pavilion anymore.

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The only problem with attempting to strong-arm the Pavilion was that one needed a certain level of strength, and of all those with such intentions, only the O’Brien and Yulan Empire had such power, or at least they did prior to Cesar’s breakthrough.

Unfortunately, with Cesar’s breakthrough, the Pavilion had effectively become the continent’s third strongest power, only behind the forest of darkness and the mountain range of magical beasts, both of which had deities who had at the very least surpassed the Demi-God realm sat at their helms.

Because the Pavilion had two experts with the power of a deity, they officially became the strongest human power on the continent, making everyone think twice about even asking for an explanation.

If they now decided to go back on their word and protect Ace, there wasn’t anyone capable of stopping them.

Thankfully for them, Cesar, via Saber’s channels, released a statement saying neither he nor the Pavilion has any intention of going back on their word. The Pavilion will not actively protect any of their Acolytes; what happened with the dragons wasn’t to protect Ace, but the five Armand brothers who now follow Linley.

Many were still sceptical, but for those who knew of Cesar’s past and how close he was to Armand – the original Undying Warrior – they knew he was likely telling the truth, or at least in part. Plus, the fact that he, a deity, released a statement in the first place was enough for most to understand that, at the very least, Ace wasn’t being protected.

Otherwise, they could’ve simply said nothing and ended it there. After all, no one, not even the War God or the High Priest, would dare provoke them.

Many wondered why the Pavilion would actually leave their most talented disciple out to dry in such a way. Most would protect such a gem at all costs.

The truth was, having predicted things progressing like that, before Cesar left, Ace was the one who went out of his way to ask the newly ascended Demi-God to make the statement.

It didn’t take a genius to understand that Ace, being the battle-hungry maniac that he was, wanted to use his enemies as a whetstone for him and those around him. A fact that made Mathias and the rest of the experts at the Pavilion shake their heads helplessly. Not that they did anything to try and change his mind.

Ace and his cohort were probably the only ones both willing and able to act in such a manner.

Still, whatever the reason, all of those who saw Ace as an enemy and or a threat were just happy that they hadn’t gone back on their previous decision, but that was where their good news stopped.

Within a month of that incident, all the spies of the various other forces on the continent in the city of Gol had mysteriously been found and forcefully kicked out. They didn’t understand how the city of Gol had managed to act with such frightening accuracy.

To this day, although they correctly guessed that many of Ace’s unique abilities had originated from a new and unique bloodline, they still didn’t understand all the abilities of said bloodline, nor that Milianna had also awakened it, and was now able to use it with more skill and finesse than Ace himself.

After agreeing to take the role of leader of their territory, Milianna knew she couldn’t afford to be half-hearted with her approach. As such, she had Cirulus comprise a list of everyone who could potentially be a spy sent by their rivals and enemies.

Cirulus was no fool; he too understood that each of the various major factions of their continent would obviously use spies to keep track of their movements, but unlike Ace and Milianna, he had no way of knowing with any kind of certainty who was and wasn’t a spy. As such, all he could do was live with the fact that there were enemy spies around and act accordingly.

Still, he gave Milianna the list of almost 10,000 names for her to organise that each of them is individually interviewed by herself ‘as a way to get to know her new constituents.’

And though it took a long time, she was able to easily find each of the spies. But even after finding out who the spies were, she didn’t hurry to kick them out. Instead, she waited until her position in the eyes of the city residents was solidified – something that, with her otherworldly looks, angelic persona, her status as mother of the child of heaven, and her having set up a free medical clinic, didn’t take long – before making her move.

When she felt the time was right, Milianna used their connection to Saber and the Dawson Conglomerate to pretend it was them who gave them the information about who was and wasn’t a spy before releasing it to the public.

At which point, all the innocent civilians who had all but fallen in love with their pure and angelic leader turned their anger and indignation toward the traitors, forcing them to pack up and leave in a hurry.

The higher-ups of the major organisations all knew with absolute certainty that there was no way even the likes of the Dawson Conglomerate and Saber would be able to know so much about who was and wasn’t a spy, but they had no way of finding out the truth, especially not now with their spies purged.

Just like that, not only had the problem of spies been dealt with, but all the residents had quickly come to love and respect their new leader.

Milianna’s tactics wouldn’t have yielded such results had this been anywhere but the Anarchic Lands, but because of the chaotic and turbulent nature of the region, all the ordinary civilians didn’t care about her supposed past; they only cared that Milianna seemed to genuinely care about each of them, to the point where she made a command that all residents of their city, which would go on to be the capital would be exempt from taxes.

Something like that wouldn’t be possible for most, even if they were benevolent enough to want to do such a thing, but because of them facing somewhat regular beast tides, they had a constant source of incredible income.

Plus, Ace and Killian had accumulated an incredible amount of wealth after raiding various branches of Saber, and seeing as neither had much they needed to spend money on whilst in the Pavilion, all that money just sat in their storage rings gathering dust until now.

Milianna’s incredible achievements in such a short space of time made Amira and the others sigh in amazement. It genuinely seemed that after curing her tainted souls, there was nothing she couldn’t do.

Ace merely smiled, seeing how naturally gifted his mother was as a leader. Not only was she incredibly good at it, she genuinely enjoyed it. The love and affection the residents of their city felt from her were 100% genuine. She loved every minute of being able to improve the living conditions for their civilians.