Alexander Smith
Alex is in the mage tower command room with his siblings and cousins. Looking at the display screen on bird view, he counts six unidentified ships heading towards their barony. This is most likely the next pirate fleet Charles has instigated to raid their barony. This time, he did it in broad daylight totally disregarding any need for subterfuge. There is a possibility he could be wrong and this could just be a harmless merchant fleet but the chances of that is almost slim to none. The southern part of the island has the lowest commercial activities in the entire kingdom and only a single merchant ship will sail to one of the two minor ports on this side of the kingdom every time. The only time this side of the kingdom sees a fleet of ships in the past are all linked to pirate raids.
"Zooming in on the fleet of ships. It's difficult to see the flag on those ships but the black sail confirms that those are pirate ships." James declared. The color of the sails most of the time reveals a ship's affiliation but no civilian ship out there would dare to use black sails. It is the unique symbol of pirates and one of the many methods pirates use to instill fear on merchant ship it encounters on the far reaches of the ocean. The bird view real time video they are now enjoying is the result of a satellite they have placed on high orbit at great expense. Buying the satellite isn't exactly cheap but it was nothing in comparison to the level four item teleportation scroll they need to place the satellite into position without anyone discovering it. "There are six of them this time. No wonder it took the slimeball more than five months to invite another fleet. I have no idea what Charles promised those pirates but it will definitely cost him a fortune."
"The more the slimeball needs to pay out of his own pocket the better." Joshua voices out loud. "If only I can witness his facial expression when we took down the entire fleet with ease. I'm so going to rub it in his nose once this is all over. With the recent pirate fleet, I am going to suggest to him we should band together and everyone contribute to this area's common defense. Oh, I just have a frat idea! I will then cry poor. The defense against the recent pirate fleet just cost our barony more than fifty thousand spirit stones. I will then curse whoever bribed the pirates to raid our kingdom right in front of slimeball. I can't wait to openly scold him indirectly right in the face and he can't do anything to refute me. He should be smart enough not to admit that he is the mastermind behind that pirate fleet, right?"
"Nice idea with the misinformation. Although you tripled our actual cost, Charles shouldn't find it too unbelievable. The scrolls and weapons we used are either rare or unheard of here on Hycean. Importing them would definitely be expensive. I guess Charles had to pay somewhere between twenty to thirty thousand spirit stones to recruit this pirate fleet. The money he lost will stings but he will justify that he caused us greater lost. This will increase the odd he will maintain the path of hiring another pirate fleet after this one. I highly doubt he has access to unlimited funds. Even if quickly figured out a way to counter the smart naval mines, it will take him at least six months to gather the needed spirit stones to recruit another pirate fleet." Henry likes the idea of misleading their annoying neighbor.
"Let's convene again after we get rid of the pirate fleet." Alex steps in. "We should move six runic bombs to the rooftop now and get ready to welcome our uninvited guests."
*****
It took almost another hour before the pirate fleet became visible from the top of the mage tower and another half an hour for the pirate fleet to enter smart naval mine field. In any case, what happened after that has goes as planned. The pirate ships got trapped by the smart naval mines in succession before Alex, Joshua or Edward activates a level three trap scroll to buy them the needed time to deliver the runic bombs after that. The six explosions have been loud and destructive. Alex is quite confident Charles is definitely spying on the battle from some hidden corner. It is a pity that they had to kill all the pirates this time round. There are at least six hundred pirates on those ships and they will make ideal labor for re-education back on Tolena's hostile environment.
*****
Lin Feng
The Blood Refining Sect has been developing well since it successfully established a foothold here on Norozza. Things have been much easier for Lin Feng since retired veterans were sent to reinforce their foothold the moment its survival has been proven to be viable. Although he is still the Sect Master on the surface, the entire sects operations on Norozza are now led by a council consisting of three retired ministers and two retired generals.
It was like a great weight has been lifted of Lin Feng's shoulder the moment he is no longer in-charge. As a young working adult that has just joined the police force for two years, he had at most the experience to lead a small unit. The scale of the operation has grown to more than a hundred headcounts and he will be delusional if he still believes he can get the job done without making any major mistakes. Sure, he just needs to follow the instruction of his superiors and expert advisors back on Earth but handholding only goes so far when snap decisions need to made for unexpected situations.
For starter, skirmishes have restarted the moment the trade goods used for buying slave started to gain popularity in the region. Despite the fact that his subordinates managed to win every single battle, those new enemies just refused to go away. It was only when the retired veteran soldiers began to take over that the frequency of those attacks slowed down before coming to a stop. To be fair, everyone in the initial team setting foot on Norozza are in agreement that everyone look like a bunch of amateurs when comparison is made. The level of ferocity, combat skills and zeal are all on an entirely different level. Despite the casualties suffered after each battle, the retired veteran soldiers made each battle looks easy and winning is a matter of course. It can be said that the sect's reputation was elevated from crazy suicidal maniac into a group of ferocious predators that doesn't put much weight on life.
The elevated sect's reputation also makes local politics a lot easier to manage in most cases. Those retired senior officials that came along are so adapt at politics that Lin Feng is impressed that they could so easily outmaneuver the other local powers and appease the Savage Corpse Cult. Even then, their immediate superior has been acting like an insatiable bandit the moment they develop an appreciation for the superior grade alchemy pills the sect is selling. Savage Corpse Cult had arbitrarily demanded the sect sells them half of all alchemy pills being sold and at a discount despite the regular tributes the sect needs to pay.
As a patriotic young adult, it took Lin Feng a lot of self-discipline to swallow the bullying by the Savage Corpse Cult. Fortunately for him, he just needs to hold it back for another two Earth months. By then, they would have sufficient cultivators in the third major realm on Norozza to begin the operation to displace Savage Corpse Cult as the local hegemon.
The trade that with soon takes place with the Dwarven Federation will also plays nicely into their plan to take down the Savage Corpse Cult. One of the novel inventions on Eldorin that can soon be introduced to the rest of the cultivation world is spirit battery. Expert analysts back on Earth believes that as long as the sect sold the bulk of the spirit batteries available for trade to the Heavenly Blood Sect's local branch overseeing this continent, Norozza's overlord will not intercede in their conflict with Savage Corpse Cult.
The Heavenly Blood Sect wouldn't care much about the deaths of second major realm cultivators but things are different when it comes to those in the third major realm. Whenever a war with the orthodox side ever broke out, the number of cultivators in the third major plays a decisive role in influencing the outcome of the war. As such, the Heavenly Blood Sect would have to take an active role managing its third major realm cultivator population to ensure their ability to mobilize for war is never jeopardized.