Chapter 104: Assimilating the village

The villagers had to first create shacks and small huts to live in Kloras Town.

Azaroth had asked Ralph to go and attack their camp because he wanted to prevent them from bringing anything into the village.

That way, they would be forced to work according to how he wanted. Firstly, he asked them to create small houses so that they could live.

After a few days, each family had a house of its own. Soon, these people began to work on the jobs they were experienced in.

The woodcutters went to the nearby forest to cut wood every day. The women brought the water from the nearby river.

There were even carpenters who made furniture using the wood that arrived every day. Many villagers were also laborers. They could work in fields and also assist the other builders.

The addition of these villagers had immensely assisted Azaroth.

The laborers now no longer needed to focus on cutting wood or on other things. They could work on building new houses.

Currently, there were around 100 laborers in Kloras Town excluding the ones working in fields.

Out of these 100 laborers, 60 laborers were tasked with making new houses. Their speed had massively increased as the woodcutters would provide them with wood.

Meanwhile, the remaining 40 laborers were now building a gigantic building. Azaroth planned it to be a pub.

He had also chosen 3 merchants among the villagers to go to the nearest town and buy all the booze and iron nails they could. Azaroth naturally provided them with quite a lot of money.

He had brought quite a sum from the Rhodes Mansion and it was only now he had begun to utilize it truly.

He was confident that by the time these 3 merchants returned with the goods, the pub would be ready and they could focus on the next buildings.

The builders would continue to form houses for all the villagers before Azaroth would hard the production of houses and shift them to create large buildings to give away apartments.

It would be easier for travelers to acquire rooms and stay in Kloras Town.

But still, there was quite some time for all of this to occur.

Sophie had also contacted someone in the Merchant Union in the capital and asked them to inform the Vice-Head that she wished to talk to him.

The man was surprised when he heard that Sophie, Spencer Russel's daughter wanted to talk to him.

He immediately picked up his Voice Transmission Stone and contacted Sophie.

Sophie soon picked up her Voice Transmission Stone and activated the array in it.

"You wished to talk to me, Miss Sophie?" The Vice-President asked Sophie.

Sophie soon informed him what Azaroth had told her. She wanted him to spread the information to all the reputed merchants he knew.

~~

Ralph and Yrellea had managed to pass their trials in their current week.

Ralph managed to pass his trial because of Sargan's advice. Sargan informed him that if he wanted to pass his trial, he had to give up on being on the defense. Ralph's greatest skill was his superior physique and his ability to use Flame Ardor with his Martial Arts.

If Ralph wanted to use these abilities to his full advantage, he had to change his mentality to stay on the defensive and only attack when he finds the opportunity.

Such a way of fighting would work well if there was no time limit. Ralph tried to minimize his injuries by being careful and playing it safe. Only when he found the perfect opportunity would he attack the opponent.

But within the trial designed by Azaroth, if Ralph fought using such a method, he would take too long to destroy the required number of opponents.

Ralph had to dive into the herd of enemies and destroy them in pure physical power. If they attacked him, he had to enforce his body to endure the attack. But not dodge it.

If he dodged it then he would basically be giving up on the attack for a few seconds. Those few seconds would also be quite crucial in the battle against those Ice Trolls.

The second thing Sargan informed him was that he had to use the minimum Ardor to turn the surroundings in his favor.

The greatest advantage those Ice Trolls had over Ralph was the Ice Floor that would prevent Ralph from having a solid grip of the ground.

Sargan informed him that he needed to utilize Flame Ardor in his feet and melt the Ice Floor to have a firm hold on the ground. This way, his steps wouldn't be negatively affected by that cold Ice Floor.

And surprisingly, Ralph got the hang of it quite quickly.

He was easily able to make his way towards the Ice Trolls and kill them. Now that his movements weren't so restrained, he was capable of fighting them in close and defeat them all with his quick movements.

It had been so easy for him that he managed to defeat 1000 Ice Trolls in just 45 minutes.

As for Yrellea, she had gotten the hang of using Pure Water. The Heavenly Poison Scripture massively helped her in this regard as well.

This scripture allowed her to create different kinds of poisons by changing their composition within her body.

And using it, she could even change the composition of the water produced by her. Her proficiency in using it had reached such a level that she could use Pure Water normally now.

After passing their Elemental Trials, a tremendous amount of Ardor flew into their bodies.

If not for the cultivation techniques provided by Azaroth, the two never be able to refine it and explode.

But because they did possess the techniques strong enough to refine this Ardor, they survived. And were in deep meditation as they assimilated it with their own core.

After 5 hours, Ralph managed to refine two-thirds of the Ardor. He had broken through to the 3 Star Rank.

Once he broke through to the 3 Star Rank, he quickly assimilated the rest of the Ardor with his core.

Yrellea took just 3 hours to refine and assimilate the Ardor with her core. It was mostly because she was already 3 Star Warrior and her Heavenly Poison Scripture had a strong refining ability.

After all, it was a scripture used to refine poisons but still, refining Ardor wasn't that difficult for it.

Azaroth knew that the two had finished their elemental trials. Only Noah and Tiana remained now.

Noah couldn't take part since he had to stay in the mansion. Now that Sophie had met him, he could spend a lot of his time on training.

He had to accompany Azaroth to do some menial tasks. Noah didn't mind it at all. His motive for growing stronger was to assist Azaroth.

As for Tiana, she was still getting used to her Ice Ardor. She couldn't control it freely.

Azaroth also couldn't assist her because of the presence of Sophie. He sighed in acceptance as he was helpless in this situation. He didn't plan to move Sophie at all and wanted to use her to further increase her feelings for himself.

The more her feelings increased, the greater the benefits he would be able to extract from her.

Currently, he was sure that the Vice-Head of the Merchant Union had already spread the information to many merchants that Sophie wanted to promote Kloras Town.

The excuse given by Sophie was that she felt responsible for not protecting Kloras Town during the Beast Raid.

This was quite an acceptable excuse but how could the man who had reached the post of Vice-Head of the Merchant Union be fooled?

He had naturally investigated Kloras Town and knew Azaroth was its mayor. He also knew that Azaroth was the only other survivor from that beast raid in Kloras Town.

As intelligent and shrewd the man was, he could easily connect the dots. That there was something fishy about Sophie and Azaroth's relationship.

Once he confirms this suspicion, he would definitely try to come and curry favor with Azaroth.

It could be said that Azaroth's support would be equivalent to Sophie's support. And Sophie's support even without her father's prestige was quite great because of her connections.

Her closest friend was the 7th Princess of the Royal Family. Even though the 7th Princess was not the crown princess, she and the crown prince had the same mother. As a result, they had a close relationship.

As a man of his stature, along with his intelligence, he possessed the ambition to become the president of the Merchant Union.

To him, his path would become a lot easier with Sophie's assistance.

Also, to prevent others from knowing about this fact and taking advantage of it, he would try his best to suppress all information regarding Sophie and Azaroth.

Azaroth was eager to meet this individual. He knew that, like the merchants, he would turn up in a week or two with an excuse to buy land in Kloras Town.

What better method to verify Azaroth and Sophie's relationship than to go to Kloras Town and speak with Azaroth?

Naturally, even he had no idea that Sophie was living in Azaroth's mansion here in Kloras Town.

Otherwise, Sophie wouldn't even need to contact him and he would come running here presenting a business opportunity to Azaroth.

Weeks before Sophie had even begun packing, Azaroth had expected her arrival.

As emotional as this woman was, she would definitely come to visit him once she hears that he had become the Mayor of this town.

The only thing he hadn't expected was for her to have successfully sneaked out of Mesenana City. She managed to keep her tracks hidden not just from her father but from everyone else as well.

For that reason, he had to tell her about his plans ahead and make her contact the Vice-Head of Merchant Union.

~~

Meanwhile, Shun and Jonas soon reached Wrihull City. Shun went to the location of the totem.

He discovered that he couldn't relocate the totem from its current location. It was only logical, given that Azaroth created this totem while he was a Demon God. Even though Azaroth was near his deathbed at that time, the totem he made still weighed more than something that could be carried by a 5 Star Warrior or 6 Star Warrior.

Understanding that if even Jonas couldn't move this Totem then they had to contact the King regarding it.

Shun decided to be the one to inform the King.

He didn't plan to mention anything about Azaroth. Naturally, this was because he had gone to investigate Azaroth but found nothing.

Moreover, a new possibility had emerged in his mind and he couldn't really accuse Azaroth without good proof.

His relations with Jonas would suffer greatly since if Shun informed King about Azaroth, then the Rhodes House's reputation would take a massive hit. Moreover, there was a change that this could all be for nothing.

Jonas wouldn't easily forgive him if that occurred. And then he wouldn't be easily able to investigate Azaroth again.

After all, even if he had no proof of Azaroth's involvement, Azaroth was still his prime suspect.