The castle had gone ahead and caused another misfortune. It had fed on Silver Mask's army and now they were after his life.

It could be business as usual for the castle, but it was different for Abdin. He couldn't just leave for another place like he used to do.

After some thought, he brought out a seal from his bag. He studied it for a long while before bringing out another seal.

He studied both seals side by side before eventually bringing out a black Ayrid, which he gazed at intently.

He shook his head and returned the Ayrid to his bag. The two seals should be enough. It hadn't fared well the last time he had used a black Ayrid.

Taking a deep breath, he took a green Ayrid and threw it upwards, thereby creating another save point just like before.

After he was done with his preparations, he matched to the heart of the forest and summoned the castle.

The seal he used in the summoning closely resembled the two seals he'd just studied. It was nothing like the usual seal of the castle.

A castle appeared and replaced the heart of the forest. However, Abdin found himself in a house at the center of the castle. Quite unlike how he would normally appear by the entrance gate.

He took a deep breath as he studied the room. It was his room. He had appeared at the same spot he died when he last summoned this very castle.

Every shutter in the room was tightly closed, but Abdin could still hear the footsteps of people as they passed by.

People would pass by the house, chatting with each other. And Abdin could make out their conversations quite clearly.

"The queen's latest consort has been kidnapped," someone said.

"Eh? The queen's latest consort has been kidnapped?" A second voice asked. "What are you talking about?"

"That's what I overheard in the market. But a lot of people think... He just ran away. You know how she is..."

Abdin opened the window shutter a little bit and peered out. Unlike the castle of Abd which was full of empty houses, this castle was fully occupied.

He released the breath he had been holding. He was the queen's consort in question.

He wasn't a consort per se, but rather a house slave. The queen had almost three hundred and six consorts, and countless children. She was nuts and Abdin never wanted to meet her again.

Abdin was a man with extraordinary summoning skill.

As a six-year-old student of the Dao, he had once drawn a seal to summon some drinking water. But instead of drinking water, a medium-sized building appeared.

He drew another, and a lone room appeared in the middle of a forest. This had been the nature of his skill.

At first, he could only summon houses and rooms. But as his cultivation grew stronger, he started to summon entire villages. Now it was castles.

Some castles appeared complete with their inhabitants and Abdin would only be one among the dwellers. Others like Abd city were empty except for himself.

He needed a set time, a place, and a particular kind of seal to summon a particular castle.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

So this time around, he had decided, for the sake of Silver Mask, to summon the castle of Queen Aureya.

Abdin cleared his throat, mentally recalling the face of the queen. Her name wasn't Aureya - Aureya meant marriage addict in Juyad - but he had decided to call her that because of the number of her consorts.

He sat down and retrieved some white pebbles from under the sofa, which he assembled before him.

Not long afterward, the pebbles began to discharge Ki.

Abdin folded his legs beneath him and began to meditate.

There wasn't Ki in this castle, but there were these white pebbles. The pebbles only worked inside the castle and provided Ki to the inhabitants. The Ki wasn't as thick as the one found in Abd castle, but with enough pebbles, it could be much better than the ambient ki even in level 5 empires.

The only setback was that, in the next two or three months, his reserve would be exhausted.

He would then be forced to go out and search for fresh pebbles. But then the queen would spot him the moment he went out. And he wouldn't have any choice but to go back to being her consort.

He sweated as he thought of that and recalled his life in the castle before.

He shook his head. He would not go back. Even though it had been ten years now since he had summoned castle Aureya, it had been a mere second for the queen and her subjects.

Time always froze until he would summon the castle again.

He pushed away that thought and fully immersed himself in meditation.

Nine days later, Abdin reopened his eyes.

[You have increased your cultivation by seventeen years. Your overall pol is now at 162 years.]

He grinned. This had been the upside of taking a long break before summoning a castle. He could get more pol from it than from the castles he had used recently.

He would like to hear about the situation of Duna and Will of San in the past nine days.

Queen Aureya and her subjects had the required strength to face the Will of San. The sect wouldn't dare try what they had done to him.

But most importantly, Silver Mask couldn't track his scent here. He used two seals structure to summon the castle. He made one seal distribute his scent to everyone in the castle, from Aureya to the castle slaves. And the other seal took their scent and transferred it to him.

Silver Mask wouldn't kill everyone in the castle. Also, if he decided to, Abdin would just flee. The man wouldn't scent his fallen men's aura on Abdin anymore.

The only setback was, instead of how Abdin had usually been the commander and controller of the castle, now Queen Aureya ruled the castle.

So Abdin couldn't do as he wished here. For one, he couldn't invite Juwaira and her team, and he had no say in the castle matters.

He couldn't force the inhabitants of the castle to do his bidding. He had once tried but it hadn't turned out well.

The souls of the inhabitants were intertwined with the castle, and the castle was in itself a skill. If the inhabitants got killed, the castle disappeared with them. In the same way, it would disappear if Abdin died.

These were some of the reasons Abdin didn't want to summon an occupied castle.

He lay on his back thinking about how things would turn out. The castle would expand despite him not being the sole resident. The only requirement was his cultivation. Once it was high enough, the castle would expand.

He could let the residents fight for him, despite their inability to go out of the castle, but the entire castle would disappear if he allowed the inhabitants to get killed.

Abdin often found himself thinking that the castle inhabitants were animations because these people did not know their past lives.

The first thing they had always remembered had been the instance Abdin had summoned the castle. It was as though that had been the time they had come to life.

But, the nature of their thoughts, their interactions, and their cultivation - which were all no different from other humans - were the reasons Abdin had stopped thinking of them as animated clones.

But whatever the case, he would probably be forced to return to Queen Aureya to reach an understanding.

When last he summoned the castle, Aureya had found from the people visiting the castle that the settlements surrounding them had changed. She tried to go out of the castle and see for herself, and when she couldn't, she disturbed everyone in the castle.

Abdin dreaded to think of what would happen when she found out that her surroundings had changed again.

There were many committees she had set up for investigations, but Abdin had frozen the castle even before they could come up with any answers.

He had the feeling now that the queen would soon resume her investigations...

Thunder rumbled just then. Abdin's hideout shook and felt like it was toppling over. With a deep frown, he ran to the door and peeped through.

Had the queen already started with her tantrums? He would be lucky if it wasn't him she had been looking for. She used to be serious with her consorts.

She had even said that it was him she loved the most among all her consorts...