"What?" Emperor Sid Mon Rator the Seventh frowned deeply. "I was called to my throne room for this? For nonsense? Whose head shall roll for this?"

He glanced at each of the gathered ministers, vassals, and officials as he made his fury be known to all. "A mere demi of no note has you shaking at the knees? I agreed to join the Free Nations' Alliance, but my prestige and self-respect have their limits."

He pushed himself off of his throne and swished his sleeves behind his back as he folded his arms. "I'll hear nothing more this. Refuse this demihuman terrorist's demands. General Auxford, you are to mobilise the first-through-fifth armies tomorrow and take back Castle Hrogar."

"As you will it, Your Imperial Majesty!" a burly man in full-plate armour loudly proclaimed as he very formally saluted and bowed his head.

Emperor Sid Mon Rator the Seventh nodded regally then left the throne room as he muttered, "Incompetent fools. Losing a castle occupied by so many 'so-called' elites of the other Free Nations' Alliance members. I knew I should have formally declared war on the Crimson Foxkin Clan myself without getting convinced we'd need help."

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"So, your emperor," Lone said as he pointed at a particularly rotund man, "and your king," he added as his finger moved to face the man with a long scar running down his face, "they both refuse to accept peace?" he asked.

"We will not negotiate with feral animals," the overweight nobleman claimed arrogantly.

The man with the scarred face frowned lightly. "You have no place to butt into our affairs regardless of your species, so yes, we will not accept the demands of a terrorist like you."

Lone shrugged. "Well, five out of seven ain't bad. Mental Destruction. Mental Destruction."

With those four words, the two opposing officials began bleeding from every facial orifice as they then slumped over to their deaths.

Three of the remaining human officials suppressed the urge to scream or vomit, while the mage and the apparent youngest of the five were both calm.

"Okay, now, you five, stay perfectly still if you don't wanna be like them. None of you are actually the rulers of your nations, are you?" Lone asked as he took out five blank scrolls and his trusty bucket of blood.

The mage coughed. "Ahem, I am the current leading Archon of the Empire of Magic, Petroleum."

Lone laughed a little bit. "Petroleum? Funny coincidence on that name," he commented as he wrote up the mage's contract first. "Okay, since you're the ruler, here. Sign with your blood. I trust you can bite your finger and won't die from anaemia, right? You look old, but I can still tell that you're a triple-X-ranker."

The mage smiled proudly. "Indeed, I shall be fine, Young Mageling," he said as he cast a simple Wind Blade spell, but somehow controlled it to only cut the tip of his finger, and not lop off his entire hand.

'Young Mageling? Interesting nickname just for using my Contract Magic,' Lone though as he marvelled at the sight of the old man using such refined air magic as he watched him go on to sign the Contract Magic-infused parchment. "How'd you do that? You can make spells weaker? Or... smaller? I've never seen nor managed to do that before."

The mage grinned as he held his head up high in pride. "Trade secret, Young Mageling. An Archon never reveals his secrets, you see."

"Huh. Well, now that I know it's possible, I'm sure I'll find out how to do it on my own," Lone muttered before he forced the other four humans to sign a contract with their own blood.

"Okay, with that out of the way, if your kingdom or empire doesn't officially state its lack of a desire to go to war with the Beastman Alliance within three-days, then you will die and I will immediately be informed through the power of the contract. As a result, I'll go talk to your nation's ruler and either force them to sign a contract personally, or I'll just kill them and find someone more agreeable to rule in their place," Lone said, failing to hide his excitement a bit.

'I'm fucking threatening entire nations... If only I could have done this back in Milindo... Boy, this feels cathartic as fuck,' he thought as he stood up and then said, "To make sure none of you gets any funny ideas like trying to waste time on finding a way to remove my Contract Magic - which is impossible by the way, we'll be going to change the rulership or destroy the Aymtar Empire and the Kingdom of Westground."

Lone turned to look at Sloth. "You defeated Milindo's army in less than a day, right? Which would you prefer? The kingdom or the empire?"

Sloth shook her head. "Don't... care... Kingdom... sounds... weaker..."

Lone nodded. "Kingdom it is. Soph, that place is about five-hundred-miles west of here. Bring Sloth, Envy and Greed with you there, please. Once you're done, come right back here so you can bring me to the empire."

He then passed The Glade's key to her and motioned for Greed to get off of his arm, but the snake hissed sadly.

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Sloth responded to her hissing by saying, "Take... her... with... you. I'm... enough... for... one... kingdom."

Lone shrugged. "Okay, but you're not staying with me forever, alright, Greed?" Lone warned questioningly. The little reptile bobbed her head about as a way to express her acknowledgement.

She was a spoilt snake, but she wasn't a selfish snake despite being Greed of the Seven Deady Sins.

The incredibly old mage stroked his beard with a fascinated look on his face. "Young Mageling, might I remind you that there should still be a division of Westground knights outside of this room along with the Five Blades of Aymtar. They could be useful to you."

Lone glanced back at Sloth. "Don't... care. Blackmail... too... much... work. Easier... to... erase... the... nobility... and... army."

"Cruel," Lone casually commented before he returned his attention to the Archon. "Thanks. I'll make use of them."

The elderly triple-X-ranker chuckled. "No need to thank me. By the way, my empire shall take full responsibility for the fallout of your actions both today and after you are finished dealing with the Aymtar Empire and the Kingdom of Westground. Despite being focused on research, we are still one of the most powerful nations on Teresta, so I don't particularly mind cleaning up your mess."

Lone held his chin. "That'd certainly be handy. Not for free, I'd imagine? What do you want? If you demand too much, I'll just dump it all on Sarah instead."

'To so casually refer to that barbarous woman... It would certainly be a mistake to get on the wrong side of this Young Mageling when there's clearly so much to gain from helping him,' the Archon thought as his wisened eyes narrowed in a friendly manner. "All I desire is a chance to teach you and perhaps make you my disciple. I'm very good at spotting the magical talent and potential in a person without needing the aid of measuring tools you see, and you, Young Mageling, well, I see my legacy in you."

"That's a bit weird but sure. I'm all about magic right now," Lone replied calmly. "However, I'm joining The Academy next week, so if you wanna teach me anything, you'd better work around that. Either that or wait a few years. I'm a bit busy."

Lone couldn't help but think about how he still had to deal with the slavery issue in Falron, handle the Divine coming from the holy land of the Chruch of the Primals, and also track down the remaining five Primals. Of course, there was also the very pressing issue of healing Rachel's soul and learning a stable and trustworthy method of moving Sophie's newly-forming soul to a body of its own.

In fact, him planning to settle down in Mystopolis for two to three years was almost like a vacation solely to satisfy his desire to learn some real magic.

"Hahaha!" the Archon heartily laughed, making his aged bones rattle a bit. "The Academy, hmm? Very well, I'll make some arrangements so that I can teach you without interfering with your school life. You four, come with me. I'll support you with convincing your rulers to call off this war officially."

The three more anxious representatives had incredibly relieved looks on their faces and they immediately moved to quickly walk behind the younger representative as well as the person that they believed to the most powerful in this room as he left it.

Lone cracked his neck as he allowed them all to leave. "That went a lot better than I thought it might go. I was expecting more death. I guess my rising luck played a part? Or maybe your obscenely massive luck did some heavy lifting again?" he asked mostly rhetorically towards Soph.

"Um, yay?" Soph replied, not fully understanding the situation. "I'll be back in, uh, ten minutes?" she added before she gave Lone and each of his nine tails a cuddle.

Lone smiled warmly. "Sure," he replied before he took out a communication orb from his Dimensional Storage and threw it towards Envy who very easily caught it despite the fact that he was holding onto Sloth. "Use that or break it to message me if anything goes wrong. I don't doubt Sloth's power, but it'd be dumb to not be cautious."

Envy nodded, then he entered The Glade with Sloth as soon as Soph opened the gateway to it. Saying one final goodbye, Soph teleported away.

Lone looked down at the albino snake wrapped around his bicep and said, "Well, should we go round up those 'Five Blades'? Also, I want you to show me your unique skill, if you don't mind. Use it on the Westground knights since Sloth doesn't want to make use of 'em. I'm curious what your skill looks like when it's active."

Greed happily rocked her head up and down and hissed cutely to say that she agreed.

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Some time later, after the old mage had left the conference room with the four other official human representatives, in a large pentagonal room, ten men or women of varying species - all exclusively humans, elves, or fae, were standing around or sat at a rectangular table as a projection of a particular Archon calmly stood in its centre.

"Are you sure this is wise?" a female human who looked to be in her later forties or early fifties asked the magical projection.

Stroking his beard, he answered, "Absolutely. We only joined the petty alliance to avoid the magical artefacts of the concerned beastmen species falling into the hands of the ignorant. Now with the threat of war out of the way, and a mysterious man with, what I judge to be, at least three never-before-seen magics at his disposal as well as an incredible aptitude for over a dozen magic types appearing, I'd go so far as to say that it would be foolish to not do as he wishes here in return for him imparting his knowledge to us."

"I still don't believe he has so many affinities. If it wasn't you telling us this, Archon Milos, I wouldn't trust it for even a second," a grumpy looking woman in a witch's hat muttered. Many nodded in agreeance with her.

"Archon Milos, can we truly trust this 'Contract Magic' of his? Is it not a cleverly disguised slave collar? I think we all know how excited you get at the prospect of new magic. I don't doubt your judgement, but I, as well as everyone else here, am simply worried about you," a High Elven man with an incredibly gorgeous face asked.

Archon Milos' projection shook in anger. "I'm not senile yet! The decision's final!" he angrily shouted.

Everyone gathered smiled wryly. "Very well, neshehehe, as Gul'hu'a stated, we trust you."

Nodding and straightening his beard, Archon Milos said one final thing before he cut off the magic being used to cast his image so far away from his location. "I intend to follow this young man back to Mystopolis and then finally accept my invitation to teach at The Academy. I expect each of you to send at least a single disciple over and have them ready by next year's entrance exams. It's about time that we showed The Academy who the true kings of magic on Teresta are!"

With that sudden proclamation, the projection scattered and faded, leaving the excited or simply stunned fellow Archons in the pentagonal room to their own thoughts.

"Why did we elect him again as our ruler this decade?" No one had a good answer for the young human boy who was obviously far older on the inside than his ten-year-old-body might lead one to think.