Chapter 156: Plotting behind the King's Back

While Azaroth and his retainers were setting up within the Glerian Kingdom. Azaroth's clone, Edwin, was roaming within the Sinyalian Kingdom.

He already had a deal with the Barret Noble House.

He could use the Barret Noble House's name to protect himself if he got into conflict with the Noble Families while doing the mission for them.

Jenson Barret put up his own condition.

Firstly, Edwin couldn't bring up the Barret House's name against any Dukedom or the Rhodes Noble House.

He specifically mentioned Rhodes Noble House because other than the Dukedoms, it was the only Marquis Ranked Family that had a 6 Star Warrior.

Jonas Rhodes' prestige was far above his own. He knew that if Jonas Rhodes wanted to deal with him, even mentioning Jenson's name wouldn't change anything.

If it did change anything, it would be Jonas's determination to kill. He might become more determined to kill Edwin.

Thus, it could be said that in a certain way, he was protecting Edwin.

Naturally, Edwin agreed to these conditions. He was aware of the limits of the Barret Noble House's prestige.

However, it had to be known that even though the Barret Noble House had its limits while operating within the Sinyalian Kingdom, these limits were quite large.

At the very least, the Barret Noble House could protect Edwin's life in the Sinyalian Kingdom as long as the king did not begin pursuing him.

This did assist Edwin quite a lot.

In each Noble Family he went, he poached the services of three servants and made them his eyes and ears within it.

He connected his Voice Transmission Array Stone with theirs and also handed with a couple of gold coins.

Using them, Edwin could find out about the general information within the Noble Families.

Naturally, he didn't instruct them to keep him up to date on all that was happening in their Noble Families. Edwin would have to continually filter out the important information from such a large amount of data.

Instead, he just gave that task to the servants he had hired. He asked them to only inform him if they had some valuable information.

Even if they didn't have information, they would still receive a monthly salary, but it would be reduced compared to providing him useful information.

Thus, these servants were quite motivated to find some useful information for Edwin.

In just a bit more than a month, Edwin's information network had expanded to 2 out of 7 Marquis Ranked Noble Families, 4 out of 15 Count Ranked Families, and 4 out of 25 Viscount Ranked Families.

Edwin was extremely satisfied with the Noble Families, where he planted his spies. Most of them were at strategic locations, and he could use them to his advantage.

He had an idea of how he should use them. But it wasn't appropriate timing yet. His main body, Azaroth, wasn't ready on the other end, after all.

During these days, he had hypnotized one of the administrators and made him control Kloras Town.

Each time he ran into a problem, the man would naturally ask Edwin for his orders. Thus, even though he was afar, Edwin was still successfully controlling Kloras Town. He knew everything that was occurring there and administered it flawlessly.

And now that he had successfully planted his spies in nearly a dozen of Noble Families with strategical territories, he was thinking of returning to Kloras Town and controlling it personally.

However, just as he was thinking of such a thing, Rein Schwarz gave him another information.

This time, the mission could be considered quite significant. After all, it was from a Dukedom.

When Edwin heard it was from a Dukedom, he was quite surprised and was planning to reject the mission.

Attempting to implant his spies into a dukedom would be trying to bite off more than he could chew. His identity might be exposed as well. Edwin felt that the benefits wouldn't be worth the risks. Thus he wanted to reject this offer.

Rein Schwarz soon added, though, "I found this mission from one of my contacts. It seems that Siluca Walsh is trying to secretly find a 5 Star Array Master as well as a 5 Star Alchemist. She has been trying to keep this information quite discreet. If you reveal your skills near her area, she would definitely contact you."

Edwin's eyes widened slightly, and he soon spoke, "Thank you for this information, Sir Rein. I will accept this mission."

Siluca Walsh was the head of the Walsh Dukedom! The Walsh Dukedom was quite famous in the Sinyalian Kingdom. It was the only one of the three Dukedoms with a matriarchal system and the only Dukedom whose head wasn't a 6 Star Warrior. However, this wasn't why Edwin accepted this mission.

He was more curious about the fact that she was trying to hire a 5 Star Array Master or Alchemist so secretly.

It had to be known that 5 Star Array Masters or Alchemists were very rare in the Sinyalian Kingdom. The King kept his eyes on all of them.

Thus, if any one of them accepted Siluca's mission, he would be the first one to know about it.

As a duchess, Siluca actually required the assistance of an Array Master or an Alchemist also caught Edwin's interest.

This suggested she was plotting something behind the King's back.

There was no other reason for her to be so cautious.

However, since Rein Schwarz had gotten his hold over this information, it was safe to assume that the King knew about it.

Also, the King must know of the entire situation so he could also anticipate Siluca's actions. Yet he wasn't stopping her…

Just what was he playing at?

To find out more about this, Edwin knew he had to dive right into this conspiracy.

What better way to enter this conspiracy than to become the Array Master that Siluca was looking for.

Edwin now had to depart for the Walsh Dukedom's territory.

~~

While Edwin was flying towards the Walsh Dukedom's territory, Azaroth gathered information from the Black Lake Sect's disciples over a drink with them near a bonfire.

Initially, these sect disciples didn't want to drink with Azaroth, but they immediately changed their mind when Tiana joined them and drank the entire glass before asking for more.

Their manliness was triggered when they witnessed a lady drink in front of them. In contrast, the men near Azaroth were making excuses like they were a couple of scaredy cats.

Azaroth grinned slyly as he watched them drink down bottle after bottle. One of his motives had been accomplished.

He then gave a signal to Tiana.

Tiana had already been given instructions for this signal. She understood her task a couple of seconds later.

While staring at the slightly rosy cheeks of these disciples from Black Lake Sect, she asked them softly, "What are all of you doing here?"

One of the Black Lake sect's disciples replied to Tiana, "We are here to kill the Frozen Spirit Foxes. For this mission, the sect has doubled the number of contribution points for each corpse and beast core of the Frozen Spirit Fox."

"Double? Why so?" Tiana asked in a curious tone.

Another disciple shrugged and spoke out, "How should we know? Maybe they wanted us to earn lots of contribution points and develop ourselves quickly."

Azaroth sneered when he heard that explanation.