Hazel's adventurer's union became well known. While they were not protecting Aile's interest or making money for him, they would go to the Sacred Mountain Range to bring back unique beasts and herbs.
Fiona's business was at the very peak, and the Royal Clan and White Clan noticed the value of the healing medicine. To prevent their greedy hand from extending too much, Aile spread the rumour that it came from the Oxe Merchant Guild. They would not be able to strong-arm such a big merchant hall. Every time they stocked up their merchant hall with the healing cream, it would immediately get sold out.
This also forced Aile to spend time to put the ingredient concealing rune on each batch of the medicine. There was no one else capable of doing it. Although it was consuming Aile's time, it was the most profitable item. Therefore he needed to make sure the ingredients did not become public knowledge. Aile had started training a few people to create the same runes. However, no one could create good enough runes to keep all the ingredients concealed.
Taking this opportunity, Aile created a few black auctions that would happen regularly and sell the healing cream. This attracted many people, including people from other towns and cities. This made Aile a lot of money as the value for the healing cream was much higher in the black market.
The Pirate group that had been targeted by Oxe Merchant Guild soon recovered and they started to create conflict with the other pirate group and bandit group. This was the first time there was a conflict between them. They had divided their territories and each stuck to their part up to this time. Aile figured out that they had gotten the support of the White Clan.
It did not take long for the other pirate to gain the support of the Royal Clan.
Soon the two bandit spies came and told Aile that the two pirates were hired to gain control of the seas and use its's resources to profit. Aile had tried to create a force in the sea too, but with the presence of 2 pirate group, it did not succeed and remained a tiny existence. This did not make Aile worried as it was an opportunity for his force to grow a little while the other two were not paying attention.
The war between the White Clan and Royal Clan finally manifested as the fight between the two pirate groups. They fought more and more. They hired more people, and it continued and escalated. This attracted the Oxe Merchant Guild, they asked Aile if they could open up a trading hall in Port Kiar.
Aile could not disagree, but he sent them two option. One was a property he had. The other was for them to sell their stuff in his merchant hall. He would take a portion of the profit, and they would take the rest. This way, they did not need to worry about hiring people, transportation, and logistics.
They took the second option, and they started to sell many things. They sent a representative, who would also sell the fighting equipment through the black market. They did not realize that the black market was under Aile's control. Thus they were trying to profit without letting Aile in. Aile did not care, he was making a profit from them anyway, and he was their enemy from the beginning.
He would occasionally give the bandits tips about their trade route of the illegal weaponry. So that they can make losses to prevent them from starting a merchant hall in competition with him. He did not want to turn them into enemies in reality.
With so many people in Port Kiar frequently people tried to poach Hazel, Fiona and his other workers, making Aile raise his guard. He had already put a seal on his key staff, and the rest were not influential enough to affect him. He similarly made sure the Adventure's union's top echelon remained clean.
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Time passed, and another three years passed.
During this time Sara had improved a lot, but she still maintained the routine of her morning visit to Aile whenever she was in town. Seldomly she would cash-in her card of sleeping in Aile's room. As Laila was missing, there was no reason to reject. Sophie too would occasionally sneak in in the night to not be outdone by Sara. Leia was not happy about it but nor was she angry about it. She had gotten close to Sara and Sophie, and they are mostly spending their time together cultivating, training, and chatting.
Emily became a little more reserved after she failed to protect Laila and the others. Along with the fact that she did not tell Aile everything about her past, she would feel depressed every time Aile got close to her. Although their relationship improved a lot, that barrier remained intact. She was waiting for Sophie's 16th birthday, which was approaching to finally tell Aile everything.
Hazel was getting very close to Aile. His soul power improved a lot, and each time he healed her. He would try to absorb a bigger-portion of the Evil Energy and cure a bigger-portion of her soul.
This would create a more severe reaction for her, and she was getting used to kissing him every few nights. Sometimes much longer after the effect of the healing wore off. No one said anything about it, and there was a tactful-understanding between them.
Diana was spending all her time with Aile as that was her only job. She would do her utmost to help him. Diana was apart of him, and they grew accustomed to having each other around. However, Sophie was not happy about this as she was his maid too. Sophie would fight for attention from her, and Diana would not back down.
One day Emily and Fiona came and told him, that once a week he should train the 4 ladies that were their assistant, and he should train them as Shadow. Leaving him no choice to deny he now had created some friendship with them.
The girl that Diana took in was extremely hard working and at times would not sleep or rest until she learnt stuff from Aile. Every time Aile saw her smile, he knew that she had completed another training for him. She only ever asked for Aile to cook for him. During one of the times Laila got back she had tasted Aile's cooking, and now she would go through anything as long as Aile promised her roasted meat.
The four boys had gotten used to Aile. Once a month they would go on an adventure to the Sacred Mountain Range, they would hunt, eat, gamble and have fun. They had started to get some of the responsibility from the underground work. From there, they have learned many ways to enjoy life, and they taught Aile about a few. They taught him gambling and how to cheat. Like this the 5 them would gamble, anyone that lost or got caught cheating would be responsible for feeding the mounts or carrying the luggage or something like that.
Aile also realized that they were working great as a team. One was great at running and baiting their prey. Two would be hiding and attacking with a fatal-strike. Three was the brain creating strategic-traps and physical one to gave them an advantage. Four was called a two-faced berserker he would calmly join in a fight only to go berserk and take it too far. Seeing this, Aile was happy. He finally had some male friends. They were very trustable, not to mention the fate seal on them would be a deterrence.
Leia was improving by leaps and bounds the cultivation she got was indeed suited to her.
She now was very close to Fiona in cultivation.
Ellie would visit Diana often and gave a smile to Aile and talked with him occasionally. But they usually did not meet as Aile would be spending most of his time training and connecting to the energy channels.
The worst news for Aile was that he could not keep up with the rate of broken channels, and he would need 1 more year to finish it. That would be when he reaches 17 years old. He had made this error while calculating the timeline. Aile thought that he could successfully take over the body by the time he was 15, but he was off by 2 years.
Hazel has also been talking with the king once a year. Over the years the king proposed a couple of solution for Hazel to return. However, they were not very thoughtful. It seemed that he only wanted to create the illusion that he was trying to negotiate and bring Hazel in.
One surprising thing was that he had invited Sara and Aile to the princess's birthday for the last two years, saying that she wanted her friends to be there. However, Hazel, of course, denied it. It was too risky, with no gains for them to attend such an occasion.
Aile's three years were mostly highlighted by these events.