In a forest far away from any kind of civilisation a small rabbit type mana beast was drinking peacefully from a small stream. It was at the bottom of the food chain so it made sure to look around after every couple sips unfortunately for the rabbit a shadow panther had spotted it and as soon as the rabbit went down to take another sip the panther jumped towards it. Right before the creature could clamp its jaws around the helpless bunnies neck it froze mid leap as two shadows seemed to pass right through it. Nought a second later it’s body exploded into bloody chunks as the only part remaining intact was its head and mana core both of which were absorbed by the smaller shadow. Despite having just obliterated a mid B rank beast the shadows showed no sign of caring. There were know four shadows in all in the clearing 3 smaller shadows surrounded the larger one. One of the small shadows had a staff typical of mages from rich noble families, one had two daggers and the other had a sword that was nearly paper thin(think katanas but even thinner). Suddenly with no warning the sword and dagger wielding Shadows charged the big one as the shadow mage started casting a spell. The dagger wielding shadow let out a flurry of blows all of which were blocked by the larger shadows spear, sensing danger from behind him the tall shadow twisted his head to the left as a sword wizzed by his head creating a chip in his ki barrier. As soon as he turned his head he was met by a fireball the size of a mans torso barely managing to swing his spear around in time he cut the fireball in half. By the time the tall shadow had finished off the fireball the sword and dagger pair had fallen back to form a triangle around the tall shadow. Suddenly the wind seemed to change directions and the tall shadow quickly twisted his head as an arrow the size of one of the small shadows shattered his ki barrier and skimmed his cheek before hitting the ground and creating a cloud of dust. Not having been able to see what happened the smaller shadows seemed highly excited before the dust blew away and standing in the center of a hole in the ground the tall shadow looked completely unharmed. He turned to face the mage but before he could do anything the sword wielding shadow was behind him and his sword glowing even blacked then the shadows around him he swung at the larger shadows seemingly unprotected back. Reacting faster then should be possible for a member of a mortal race the man spun around and planted his foot right in the pit of the smaller shadows unprotected stomach. Launching him back and crashing through several trees the shadow came to a stop and slowly staggered back to his feet using his sword as a crutch before rushing back to the battle. After having dealt with one annoyance for a couple seconds the spear charged the dagger wielding shadow and started thrusting at her so quickly he left after images. The smaller shadow was having a difficult time keeping up and her ki barrier was barely protecting her. Luckily for her the ground rose up and grabbed the tall shadows ankles allowing her to jump back and gain some room. The mage was shooting a continuous stream of magic at the shadows back but despite being stuck to the ground he managed to bob and weave through most of them only taking minor damage. Another arrow fell from the sky and this time it hit the tall shadow straight in the head despite his head suddenly being jerked back he managed to keep his balance and break the restraints and turn to face his adversaries. Despite the holding spell only having lasted for a couple of seconds it was enough time for the three smaller shadows to regroup and plan their attack. The sword wielder unsheathed his blade pressing the Mune (curved non sharp part)of the blade to the tip of his nose and closed his eyes as he chanted an incantation, the dagger wielder also closed her eyes as she started chanting while flames spread along one of the daggers and water on the other. The magic user in the back had already casted her spell as she seemed to be waiting for the other two to finish. The spear wielder hadn’t changed he simply started spinning his spear faster and faster around him as a whirlpool of earth formed around it. All three of the melee fighter seemed to finish their preparations at the same time as the shadow with a sword opened his eyes one glowed pure white and the other was blacker then the darkest night twisting his body as to shield the sword from his enemies line of sight he sheathed his sword on the lift side of his body and rested his right hand in the grip. His stance was meant to keep the enemy from reading were he was aiming but the tall shadow only grinned at this threat. For three whole seconds the forest was eerily quite then all hell broke loose. “Thunder clap strike!”

The shadow with the sword yelled as lighting flickered around him before he disappeared in a flash of light and a “boom!” Echoed throughout the forest. Appearing behind the tall one he created a foothold in midair and drawing his sword he swung with all his might. At the same time the dagger wielding shadow had teleported in front of the man and swung both her blades at the same time. From above a massive ball of water flew towards the man. Even as all these attacks that could kill even double S ranked mana beasts thundered towards him the man remained completely calm and even laughed as he finally released the earth mana he had accumulated around his spear towards the mage, striking her straight in the chest as a golden barrier activated around her and a loud buzzer like noise came from the suit of armor she wore. At the same time the man grabbed the dagger wielding shadow and swung her into the path of the sword as the same golden barrier and noise came from her armor. Right after he stepped forward and uppercut the last shadow and the gold barrier activated again. At that moment a voice sounded through the forest, “come children it’s time for supper!” The three small shadows who had already fallen to their knees gave a small weak cheer as they released their barriers and gasped for air.

Leonidas POV: My dad is totally unfair no matter how many times we fight him and how good we get at working together nothing we do ever fazes him. I was laying in my back with Elizabeth and my sister laying on either side as we all gasped for air after our training session with dad. He was still just laughing as he casually twirled his spear around. Mother walked into the clearing after that and started casting recovery magic on us all. A bow was slung on her back and on her chest were two babies. I had more siblings now, these two were only a couple of months but I had another sister who was a year and a half. As I watched the arrows that had nearly killed father levitated back to the quiver on her back as she laughed at fathers shocked expression. “Sorry sweetheart I couldn’t resist!”

My parents called each other and us all kinds of pet names when it was just our family and Elizabeth alone. When other nobles were around they had a far more dignified way of speaking that I found hilarious. Cassandra was already asleep so father carried her back to were the cars were at and for some reason Elizebeth said she was to tired to walk back so I had to carry her. As we headed out of the forest we finally came across a beaten dirt road that led even further into what seemed like the middle of nowhere. But as we came up the hill a line of vehicles was waiting for us. Below us was a cove in the shape of a U. On either end of the U were fortresses and dock yards that had all kinds of boats moored to them most were military warships ranging from small patrol corvettes to a couple heavy cruisers (think ww2 looking ships). The reason for this massive amount of growth in just two years was a technology and personnel sharing agreement with a nation of dwarves and a massive reward from the king for my acts of heroism in the battle of the ballroom as it came to be known. The reason we were out in the middle of nowhere was for the city below us, it was a massive city that I had stated building two years ago when the king first gave me this territory to rule. Although father was actually managing the diplomatic and economic side of it till I was old enough to understand what I was doing. I just took charge of the military and technology side of the city. Observing the city from in top of the hill I climbed into the limousine that had been prepared for our family and Elizabeth as the soldiers formed up around us. The armoured vehicles around us ranged from Humvees to type a-12 main battle tanks(think Abraham type tanks) The territory I’d been granted was infested by monsters but also had massive amounts of natural resources, the city me and my comrades had built sat in the middle of the U protected from any attacks via the sea by the two fortresses at the mouth of the cove and protected from land by 8 heavily guarded fortresses spread through out the mountain ranges. There were only 4 ways to get to the city from land and those all had fortresses on them to keep uninvited guests out and the remaining four were spread throughout the surrounding hills with high vantage points so they could rain hell down on any attacking force that managed to break the first line of defense. These fortress also helped us with our main income of mana beast cores and fur. Even though we hadn’t been able to expand very far yet and the territory I was granted was massive we’d already found major iron, copper, gold and several other precious metal deposits just around the mouth of the bay. The military distract was actually sitting on top of two metal and two magnesium deposits which were mined by soldiers who wanted extra cash and sent straight to the factories to be refined and turned into new weapons of war. The dry docks were also situated in the military district on the far left of the city. We currently had 10 dry docks available for use and another 5 were planned for the future when we had more money available. We were currently building 22 corvettes for patrol duty(these were small enough that dry docks aren’t needed just a small scaffolded area that could be flooded), 5 new destroyers, another cruiser, three battleships and a aircraft carrier. The last four were not even close to being done although one battleship would be war ready in a year but the others probably not for another 3. Of course We don’t actually have aircraft just yet but the r & d department tells me their pretty close. Now that I think about it maybe I shouldn’t have asked them to start making mana reactor powered jet propelled aircraft as the first type but what’s done is done. As we started driving back both Cassandra and Elizabeth had fallen asleep on my shoulders and I had to crane my kneck to be able to see the city. People had started calling it the city of gentle waves because of how calm the water in the cove always was and how it had never been attacked by magic beasts since it had been created. As we passed the first of four gates the guards waved us through and we started passing through the poorer commoners district. Many jobs in my city paid well but there were always those he just didn’t have the capacity to work those and were stuck with doing low paying menial jobs. The unfortunate truth was I didn’t have the resources to invest in those less fortunate right now. I needed more troops and while I could make troops that didn’t need pay they still needed weapons and armor as well as food if they become homunculi. Even with all the riches of my territory I didn’t have enough people to mine them all and by the time I was done paying for all of our projects at the end of each quarter my coffers would barely make it through. I’d started creating more golems and homunculi again just because we need as much man power as possible. My city had a population of around half a million maybe a hundred thousand more I haven’t looked at the population sheet in a while. Of those roughly 1/5th are soldiers, technicians, scientists and sailors who are all working to strengthen my people. The rest are civilians and former slaves I’ve rescued. Whenever I have the money I go to nearby cities and buy as many slaves as I can. The best way to get loyal subjects is to give them back their freedom and care for them. Then they will remain loyal even if they don’t swear an oath of loyalty. Today is the first day the city is being revealed to the general public and other nobles so every soldier was on duty. We conducted mana beast clearing operations in a 4 kilometre radius of all the roads. Once we were back in the city I’m sure a report on the operation will be on my desk, I just have hope that nothing unexpected comes up because we’ve only got four hours till guests start arriving. For now I relaxed and looked out the window as my city grew ever bigger and my parents peacefully chatted about politics and silly rumours about other nobles. Slowly my eyes drifted shut as well and I napped for the first time since I was a baby.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

When I woke up it was to Sebastian gently shaking us kids awake. I stoped him before he could wake up Cassie and Elizabeth and said, “just carry us to the rooms I’m to tired after the spar with father just let me sleep till it’s time for the dinner.”

“Young master I can’t do that you blew off all your paperwork this morning to go play with Your family and the princess so know you need to get on it! Also The dwarven king is requesting a meeting to talk about project viper and the factory workers want a Longer lunch break.”

I could only sigh as even with father taking care of a majority of the paperwork for me because he was used to it and I was to young he always left the most bothersome stuff to me so I could supposedly learn quicker. When he said that in front of mom she actually smacked him for being to lazy and leaving the most troublesome stuff to his 7 year old son. Of course nothing had changed but it was nice to know mother was on my side.

After I got to my office I immediately grabbed the after action report from my commanders on the monster extermination mission. And as I knew was going to happen there was a massive anomaly, there had been no goblins spotted at all during the mission. Goblins breed faster then rabbits and we knew there had been a nest near the roads up until a month ago which was the last time I’d sent a scout to make sure they hadn’t moved. We let goblins breed because they made great live fire training missions for new troops. Even the highest level goblins who are called goblin emperors were only B rank and while those hadn’t been seen in decades the rank below them was goblin king and they were normally only a high C at most. This Made them perfect training material and while they could be very dangerous when there were a lot of low level goblins they were all pretty stupid so it was easy to defend against them and even those several ranks under them might be able to kill a king goblin if they set traps before hand. The goblin ranks below king were nothing more then cannon fodder but they did have a strict hierarchy that went:

Emperor

King

Elder hob goblin

Hob goblin

Goblin

The fact they all seemed to have disappeared into the forests was a sign that something might be up and that a rare never before seen class of goblin might be leading them or maybe even an emperor. Of course even an army of several million goblins wasn’t enough to take down a single one of my fortresses much less attack the city itself. But they could kill one of the nobles who were coming and that wouldn’t be good it would make it seem like we couldn’t even protect people on our home territory. I summoned one of my commanders and gave orders for armoured units to lockdown the roads and escort the nobles to the city. I also had several elven soldiers dispatched into the forest as scouts. I may hate elves but I draw a line between the safety of my people and my personal feelings. Of course these elves were bound by multiple oaths and curses so if even one of them tried to go back to Yggdrasil to report to their queen they would die and I would know immediately. Luckily nothing of the sort had happened so far, and I had to give it to them they were very good scouts especially in the forests that surrounded us. Next I received the call from the dwarves king, inclining my head slightly towards the projection I greeted him and we began a half hour discussion on the viper project and it’s progress. To keep nosy human nobles from sending spy’s and to save me the time of tracking down and killing every noble that tried to find out my secret projects all projects that weren’t ready for field deployment were sent to the dwarves underground cities where no human could lay a finger on them. After he hung up I had to negotiate with the head of the munitions factories workers who wanted their lunches extended from the current hour to an hour and a half. I said no he threatened they would all go on strike I reminded him they only had to work 8 hours a day, not counting their lunch break and finally I threatened to replace them all with golems which finally made him shut up and yield. I’d been very kind to them so far and they must have thought I was a pushover, I’d made sure they had safety equipment and that any injuries that occurred from the use of the machinery improperly was cared for by healers I’d placed onsite. They even got a week of paid vacation a year which was unheard of in this world. Of course I didn’t do this out of the goodness of my heart as it was all to attract even more of the oppressed commoners in other domains to migrate to my city. Even with my massive mana pool I could only make so many homunculi so I needed actual soldiers to fill in the gaps. We also had helicopters and Osprey and talon class VTOL aircraft so we needed pilots who were able to work them. I had created some homunculi to handle those tasks for now but the amount of mana needed to make homunculi with enough brain power to learn how to fly, land, hover and all sorts of tricks that comes with being a military pilot was no joke! It took half my mana pool and a A rank core just to make one of those bastards. Even with my recovery rate I could only make three or four a day before my brain started overloading from overuse of mana. I couldn’t use my ki pool either because ki is only able to be used briefly unlike mana that sticks around even after it’s left that body as soon as ki accomplished it’s task it is gone. After I was done with my paperwork I only had an hour left before nobles arrived so I teleported to mine and Cassie’s room climbed into bed with her and I instantly fell asleep.