The demon didn't cause as much havoc as Eric was expecting it to do. Still, he gathered most of the intelligence he was after. With a wave of the hand, he closed the demon-seeing mirror. Should he be worried about the strength of the adventurers? One glance at the small army of demons that were just in the room dissuaded any thought that his power might be challenged from the inside. No, he only needed to worry about other transported heroes. After they defeated the demon lord it was obvious they couldn't work together anymore. They were too different and their relationships quickly deteriorated. That's why he needed to become even more powerful. Conflict with his former associates was inevitable.

"Thoughts?" He turned to his two advisors. Both were older men, they seemed somewhat sluggish but graceful. But a slight glitter of panic crept into their eyes the moment Eric addressed them. Leko was bald, with wrinkles patched all around his face that continued into a long white beard. Neven on the other side had short hair and was cleanly shaven, but his old age also showed with wrinkles and liver spots.

"Well, your Highness," said Leko, "I think your incredible might was obvious to all. No one would dare question your rule with a show of power like that."

"Quite so, your Highness, your power is beyond comprehension truly," said Neven.

Annoying bootlickers. Eric forgot why he kept them by his side. Usually, he enjoyed flattery but now wasn't the time. He paced up and down his throne room deep in thought. A dozen minotaurs guarded every corner of the room, ready to pounce on any disturbance. In the middle of the room, three succubi mapped each other's body with sensual movement, while maintaining eye contact with the Warlock. Distractions. Pointless distractions. He didn't need any of this right now.

"Everyone out. I need peace and quiet to think."

"But Sire," Leko said, "surely the guards can stay to keep yo.."

"I said out. Now!"

No one tried to argue again. In just ten seconds everybody emptied the room, leaving the disgruntled ruler alone. The silence was music to Eric's ears. That's one thing he missed from Earth. Music. Here, they only had some boring medieval-like shit. He tried to explain to them rap, rock, or any other genre, but they couldn't understand anything. To be fair, he didn't know much about music, so his explanations could've been not good. In the end, there was no helping it. The silence was the only sound that was the same as back home.

The character screen opened in front of him. He was level seventy-two at the moment and a long way to seventy-three. Warlock, advanced summoner, fire magic mastery, greater magical affinity… In a few years, he amassed considerable amounts of classes and abilities. The issue was that any subsequent level required an absurd amount of XP. And to make matters worse, there was no explanation for the system in place, he wasn't even sure if level one hundred was the limit. None of the NPCs knew anything about the system either. Everything was completely hidden from them. So they were completely useless. Only people who were transported from Earth could see it.

Eric was a gamer back home. He particularly enjoyed MMORPGs so grinding and farming XP wasn't an issue for him. Problem was, high XP enemies were rare to come by in this world and there was no respawning. Also, XP depended on the age of the enemy. Testing showed that humans below the age of six gave no XP. Between six and fifteen, XP was tenth of what adults gave. And now that he was so high level, even XP from adult humans was a drop in the ocean for him. He would need millions of them to level up.

Wait a minute. Eric rose up. He had an idea somewhere in his head. He could feel it forming, trying to push through. Like fungus that coerces zombie-ants to climb vegetation, Eric's idea forced him into movement, pacing like a madman up and down. While there was no respawning, there was still spawning. There were around ten million people in his domain, of which four million were of child-bearing age, in total two million couples. If he mandated that everyone had to have ten children, a child per year at least. Calculating in time to reach the age of maturity, he would have fifteen million new NPCs in twenty-five years. If he repeated that process over and over, somewhere between eighty and one hundred and twenty years from now, he would have enough people to farm to reach level one hundred.

It was too much. Plus that was if everything went perfectly. What if there was some disaster or war or disease, he could lose a huge amount of people that way. And there was still a possibility that after some level humans wouldn't give any XP at all. Eric sank into his throne. Why can't things just be simple?

The door opened slowly and Leko's bald head peaked through.

"I beg your forgiveness for disturbing you, your Highness, but the envoy from Lordx Bealuna is here and wishes to speak to you. It seems very important."

Just the thing he needed. A headache from a mentalist mage.

"Fine, let him in."

Doors opened wide. His minotaur guards entered first, marching with their battle-axes. They established themselves in front of Eric, marking where it was allowed for the entourage to come. After them, a rather peculiar bunch followed with Eric's advisors. Each had a different hair color, one had pink, the other bright green, yellow… And their garments were similarly mottled with different tinctures. In the middle, one person separated from the rest. He had long black hair, a short beard, and big breasts. Oh God, what was Connor thinking? Eric's advisors prostrated themselves before him and the entourage followed suit. Leko rose slowly to his feet.

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"Your Highness, Lord N00bpwn3r, may I present to you envoy from the esteemed Lordx Bealuna."

"Your Highness, thank you for granting me this audience," the envoy continued, "my name is Bino, pronouns they/them, and I come on behest of my master, Lordx Bealuna, pronouns xe/xem, who is in fact equal to everyone else in our country, to discuss matters of utmost importance regarding the border town of Vigrida."

"Why am I not surprised that Bealuna is always unsatisfied with something? What does he want with Vigrida?"

Bino grabbed his head, spasms took over his face, while he produced high-pitch sounds.

"Please, I'm begging you, your Highness, use pronouns xe/xem when talking about Lordx Bealuna. It's of utmost importance."

"I will do no such thing. Now, make this quick and don't waste any more of my time with stupid things."

Writhing in pain and panting, Bino somehow soldiered through.

"I'll try, your Highness. As everyone knows, Lordx Bealuna is creating a paradise where everyone can be free of oppression. Xe created it because xe knew everyone was a unique soul and needed different ways for people of all kinds to express themselves. Lordx Bealuna notices with disappointment that you do not share xeys vision and oppress people with your indifference. People of Vigrida have seen how happy everyone is in Lordx Bealuna's domain and requested to join xeys rule without oppression. Lordx Bealuna can not just ignore this request so xe demands that you relinquish your hold over people of Vigrida and allow them to join freely the society that Lordx Bealuna created in xeys infinite wisdom."

There was a moment of silence as every pair of eyes was looking at Eric with anticipation. He grinned innocently at first, then loud laughter burst out of him. His guards and advisors started laughing after him, to the great embarrassment of the whole entourage. Eric couldn't believe what he just heard. The scene was like some bad Hollywood movie. Very kind from Connor to make him nostalgic. But he had to take things seriously. It was obvious Connor wanted everything for himself and Vigrida was just an excuse.

"You can tell your Lordx that I found his proposition funny just like him. And if he tries anything with Vigrida, I will take my staff and ram it into his ass. Clear?"

"Yes, your highness. But I can't say that to Lordx Bealuna."

"Fine, tell him I will beat him with the staff instead."

"No, your Highness, that's not the issue. Could I say you said xeys proposition and xem ass?"

Eric furrowed his brow. The envoy was nervous, his mouth formed a painful smile beneath the troubled eyes. Eric couldn't force himself to look beneath his face, into his cleavage. If this came from anyone else, Eric would think he was being mocked. But from Connor, he should've expected as much.

"Sure, tell him whatever you want."

"Thank you, Your Highness.", Bino prostrated himself again. "Your mercy is beyond bounds."

"If that is all, I would prefer it if you didn't waste any more of my time."

"Of course. We will leave immediately. Thank you once more, your Highness."

Everyone left, and Eric found himself alone again. This could be a problem. The stupid SJW was maybe annoying, but he was still immensely powerful. He had to take this seriously, the conflict could erupt at any point and with Bryan and Julia in it as well, it was anyone's game at this point. He will have to send some troops to reinforce Vigrida just in case. He had to hand it to Connor though. He didn't think Connor had the balls to annoy him like that with the envoy. He considered just killing the envoy for the laughs but decided against it. The poor man obviously went through different torturous procedures. Connor probably imbued his soul with essences of other animals to make him "unique" and changed his body and mind, so that it would represent his soul in a perfect way. His knowledge of mind and soul magic was frightening.

Wait, that's it! Eric's eyes nearly popped in a flash of excitement. The solution to his troubles just presented itself a couple of moments ago. There were lots of powerful soul mages in Connor's country who could merge the soul of a powerful creature to the human soul. But how much experience would that person give? What if merging a soul of a dragon into a human, and killing that human, he would get experience for a dragon? Is it possible to game the system in that way? If that could work, he would just breed humans with these transformed souls, then the number of humans to reach level hundred would drop exponentially. And if level hundred wasn't the limit, even better. He would have a hack with an infinite amount of XP gain at his disposal. Eric jumped with a roar. Nothing felt as good as gaming the system. He wasn't about to lose in a world with game-like magic to a bunch of casuals. Sure, it would take years until his plan took full effect, and the war was looming close. But he could just entrench himself, and never take any risks, while passively becoming more powerful than even his fellow hero-mages combined.

He still needed to test this. He needed to gain knowledge on how you merge different souls together, which only mages from Connor's domain had. And then he needed to kill the person with this transformed soul and see if he got experience for a normal human or the powerful entity. But who? He couldn't use anyone close to him, they were all under different control and soul-bound spells. If Connor's mages found he was behind this they would never do it. Eric stopped and enjoyed his brilliance once more. Who could deny his genius at this point?

"Leko come here immediately!"

The bald, wrinkled man appeared immediately, gagging faster than one would say it was possible for him.

"What is your request, my Lord?"

"Do you remember the people that defeated the demon in the city?"

"Yes, do you want them flogged or killed?"

"No, I don't care about that stupid demon. I need you to bring me one of them, unharmed."

"Which one? They seemed like a tight group, if I tried to bring one, they would probably all demand to come."

"No, I meant that one who was outside of the group, that was in the barn."

The old man opened his mouth to speak but stopped in confusion.

"You mean the one who tried to capture the demon's anchor into a lamp?"

Eric smiled widely. Everything presented to himself perfectly today. Even the sacrifice.

"Yes, exactly him. He is perfect for my plan."