214 Doing things the old way

"Let's hear the good news, I'm tired of bad news"

Knight said with a frustrated tone

"So be it, the good news is, we found a way to remove the dark energy from your bodies"

"How?"

Knight's eyes brightened when he heard Reghys

"First we need to weaken the dark energy in your body, fortunately, we found that extreme physical activities would do just that"

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, you have to do things the old way, no more of doing things using battle energy "

Hearing this however, Knight frowned because he could guess that it won't be this simple to remove the dark energy from their bodies.

"So if we do some heavy liftings and things like that, the dark energy would go away?"

Reghys smiled and shook her head

"That's where the bad news comes in, the moment the dark energy in your body reach its weakest state, you must break through to the next level of your cultivation, in your case, the Sun Realm"

"Or?"

"Or the dark energy would absorb the energy in your organs and kill you eventually and also"

"Also what?"

"Also, you must not fail to breakthrough, if you fail, the dark energy would absorb the energy created in your body during your attempt of breakthrough and become strong, very strong"

She emphasized the word strong.

"And kill us, am I right?"

Reghys, Benedict, and Ken nodded as Knight and Don sighed.

"Don't worry General Knight, we will do our best to help you breakthrough"

"To increase your success rate, you need more pills that purify and strengthen your bodies"

Reghys suggested Don as he knew what to do

"Cat"

Catalie appeared before Don

"Tell Joel to come and find me"

The little girl was not in her usual cheery self as she nodded and disappeared.

"Poor girl," Benedict said after looking at her worried face.

"So get your butts out there and start working out"

Reghys rushed them out and walked after them

"Why are you coming? Don't you have some work around here?"

Knight noticed Reghys following them and he couldn't guess why because she rarely steps out of the apex room leaving the apex and other devices behind.

"I need to monitor Don since he's in a worse condition than you"

"Suit yourself"

Don said and made his way to the throne hall to meet Joel.

"Your majesty, General Knight, Lady Reghys"

When he entered the throne hall, Joel was waiting for him and he was drenched in sweat due to his training program.

"Joel, send word to your men, I need them to find alchemists who are in trouble, they don't need to be very talented, anyone who has some skills would do"

By saving someone in trouble, he could earn their loyalty and gratitude quickly than by recruiting someone who doesn't need saving.

Joel knew Don's strategy so he didn't need to ask any more questions as he bowed and left the throne hall to speak with his men.

"Now let's go do some workout"

Knight ruffled his mane and walked towards the door to reach the training ground while Don followed him behind.

After working out, he had a meeting with everyone to show the items that he got inside the dungeon.

As he was thinking about everything that he planned for today, the three of them came outside to see Arrora waiting for them.

"What are you doing outside?"

Arrora was surprised to see Reghys outside of the apex room

"Why? Can't I stay with him? Or did you buy that position all to yourself?" 

Reghys winked at her as Arrora frowned and slowly shook her head.

"What happened? Catalie said I'm not allowed to go to the apex room"

"We were repairing it with their help, I told Catalie to not allow anyone inside"

"Oh?"

Kight and Don didn't know Reghys could lie flawlessly as Arrora completely believed her.

"Can I go with Arwen to check the forest?"

Arrora asked Don as he could see she's avoiding direct eye contact with him and looking a little awkward.

"Why?"

"I wanted to check out the forests, that's all"

He didn't know why she wanted to go to the forest or why she was looking a little uncomfortable but he chose not to ask too many questions because girls like her might want to have some alone time to do something else other than following him around.

"Alright, you can go"

With a small nod, Arrora disappeared as the three of them made their way to the training ground.

As they reached the training ground, Knight saw some of the soldiers were sparing, target practicing with bows, and training their spellcasting with the help of Catalie because she might seem cute and harmless but she was a peak level grandmaster as well as a powerful mage.

Looking at his soldiers, Knight stopped walking

"What about some hands-on training? Don, are you coming?"

Knight planned to personally spar with his soldiers and replace the dummies with himself.

The evil grin on his face showed that the soldiers are going to have a hard time.

"Here take this and place it on your glimmer"

Reghys handed him over a transparent coin-like device as Knight took the coin and placed it on his Gillmer underneath his mane.

"What are you planning to do?"

Reghys asked Don

"Let's do some warm-up"

He said looking at the construction works happening where the dwarves were working.

Reghys nodded as they both made their way towards the construction.

"Your majesty"

"Lady Reghys"

"Me king"

"Guardian"

"sto's sep kine boss wen dotin ket?"

(what's the big boss man doing here?)

Along his way to the construction, people greeted him and Reghys with a respectful bow. 

The houses looked more elegant now as workers had painted the house with pearl white and they finished attaching the glass windows. There were already at least a hundred houses on this block while he realized that he needs to proclaim this huge block as the first district of Everlight and name it.

The beauty of this block was the natural elements like the small trees at each side of the pavement, the gardens before every house, the water fountains, and many things the elves created or grew.

While walking on the pavement, Don noticed the small saplings of white orchards and figured out where Arrora spent most of her coins.

"Me king"

Dhurisr and the dwarves saw him walking towards them with Reghys as they quickly came running to him leaving everything on the ground.

"Guardian"

"How's the work going?"

Don noticed many heavy types of machinery and huge blocks of marble stones lying around the place.

The demihumans and the humans were trying to break down the huge blocks of stones into small chunks using their heavy hammer.

If he could use the battle energy, he would break down the blocks of stones in one go without breaking a sweat. The workers clearly had not reached the level where they could use the bound energy to do these things and it worked in Don's favor.

"It be going great, me king, in a few weeks all o' us wou' have our own home ta live an' that includes those little green buggers as well"

Though the houses made for the goblins were not as big as the others, it had a certain charm and elegance to them.

"I need to stretch my body so give me some work to do"

Stodemar was startled as his eyes went wide in shock hearing Don because how could he give and order his king around like he does with his other workers.

Obviously, Don noticed the shock in everyone's eyes as he calmly said

"In case you didn't know, that was an order"

"Me king, why?"

"Just give him a dam work, Dhursir"

They were reluctant but hearing Reghys and Don's stern look, Dhursir swallowed a mouth full of saliva and looked at one of the huge blocks of stones.

"Vukog, give me king a hammer" 

Dhursir ordered the bull-headed demihuman.

The demihuman's big biceps bulged when he lifted the hammer and the hammer itself looked big and heavy. Only the strongest dwarves, orcs, and the strong demihumans like the one before Don could lift the hammer and break down the stone as the elves and others could not lift the hammer without using the bound energy.

"Heavy lifting and swinging, this would do, good choice"

Reghys nodded as Vukog put down the hammer before Don.

All of them were expecting Don to simply lift the hammer like a feather because a peak level grandmaster like him, it wasn't a big deal. However, when Don gripped the handle and tried to lift it without using any battle energy, he felt like he's trying to lift a huge block of stone itself rather than the hammer.

"Remember, don't use any energy, use only your body strength"

Everyone who frowned, noticing Don struggle , had now realized that he was using his raw strength and not the battle energy.

The hammer and the stones came flooding his mind with memories.

He almost forgot how it felt to lift heavy things without battle energy and the time he worked as a slave in a mine.

Remembering everything that happened in the mine, he gritted his teeth and put all his muscle strength to lift the hammer.

"Good"

Reghys knew he could lift the hammer without any help from the battle energy, unlike the others who looked surprised.

"It's time I swing this thing"

With the hammer on his shoulder, Don said, staring at the block of stone.

"Continue the work, he will bring the chunks after he finishes breaking them down"

Reghys waved the workers away and stood near Don to monitor him while he's breaking the stone.