Grand Duke Merrick

The outer palace of the Lucian royal family also served as the daily office and council chamber for the twelve consuls.

At that moment, groups of elegantly dressed nobles emerged from inside.

Most of them had different expressions, and they only began to talk to each other after stepping out of the palace gate.

"Why is Count Merrick suddenly being promoted to Duke? The greatest contributor to the last war was only promoted to a hereditary marquis. Has the Emperor gone senile?"

A plump old man dressed in purplish-red clothes had just finished the investiture ceremony and was still confused about what was going on.

He found it hard to believe that Merrick had been made Grand Duke.

Among the high-ranking nobles of the Lucian Empire, marquises and earls are considered one tier of great nobles, while kings and dukes are in another tier, considered monarchs.

Since the Imperial Wars, the Lucian Empire has not established any vassal kingdoms, and has maintained its original three vassal duchies.

Even when a prince failed in the imperial succession, he was first granted the title of Prince, and then the next generation would be demoted to "hereditary Marquis" or "hereditary Earl".

Today, the Duke Merrick was suddenly appointed and the former Parik Province was granted as the territory of the new duchy, which is the first time in the hundreds of years since the founding of the Kingdom of Lucian.

"And this Duke Merrick is far too arrogant; he didn't even attend his own investiture ceremony."

"Viscount Luther, are you really not aware of this?"

Viscount Luther's old friend, standing to the side, shook his head speechlessly.

"Clear what?"

Seeing that Viscount Luther truly didn't understand, he explained the terrifying black light from half a month ago and the reason for the impending reconstruction of the palace.

It was only now that Viscount Luther belatedly learned of this, his face filled with disbelief.

"You mean, these all belong to Grand Duke Merrick...?"

Lister's stab that day could not ultimately escape the investigation of the nobles.

He quickly became famous throughout the empire, and Emperor Hughes was also reprimanded, proving himself to be pragmatic.

On that very day, in that destroyed side hall, he made promises to King Lister and made no further demands.

I no longer have any doubts about Count Yodi's previous slander.

After all, given Lister's strength, let alone stealing or defecting, he could easily break into the palace and rob it openly, and even kill the emperor himself without anyone stopping him.

Those so-called rumors are completely unfounded; his power, which transcends the limits of cognition, is the best proof!

Seeing that Lister had no intention of hurting him, Hughes immediately understood what Lister was thinking.

He could negotiate with everything except the Lucian Empire.

Seeing Hughes's resolute attitude, Lister finally asked for the player's final respawn point in the final war, and the Parik Province as his fiefdom, to facilitate the transmission of skills.

As for titles and ranks, they were of no use to him.

And if he were to become a king, even if Hughes didn't mind, it would certainly be the first goal in the hearts of all the emperors who succeeded to the throne.

Lister estimated that he was in the last period of his stay in Lucian, so he decided to just ask for a marquess title.

Of course, Hughes eventually granted him the title of Duke.

In a short time, the story, which originally circulated only in the Duchy of Will, gradually spread to City of Bode in different versions.

In the empire, even if you offend the royal family, you can't offend Grand Duke Merrick.

Logically, this statement, which was clearly derogatory towards the royal family and should not have been circulated, actually spread throughout all the noble factions within the empire.

Even powerful forces within the empire, upon closer investigation, would discover that this statement was also being promoted by the royal family itself.

As war draws near, the Parik Province, as the main war zone, is seeing an increasing number of Class Holder teams stationed there.

Meanwhile, players began to gather, preparing for the major event of Act III.

As for Lister, he is currently teaching players skills in the core administrative region of the Parik Province.

For new players, the rare skill costing 5 gold coins is still the most cost-effective option even in this version.

With gold coin inflation, even the cheapest rare skill from the Auction House costs 60 gold coins.

Furthermore, the Merrick Saber Technique here, once the required level is Lister, can be continuously upgraded up to A-level, making it undeniably attractive.

In the public chat, players have already found the answer to the question about the sword that was used in the palace that day.

It was indeed the Count Merrick struck, as they had suspected—no, now they should call him Grand Duke Merrick.

That was an incredibly stunning strike; even now, players still discuss it from time to time in the public chat.

Especially for martial arts players, the popularity of martial arts classes is gradually waning.

In the newly opened server rankings, five of the top ten are magic-based classes, while martial arts classes have temporarily fallen to the bottom.

Amidst the arguments among the players, martial arts players could only use Grand Duke Merrick as an example, fantasizing that their own martial arts build could achieve such power in the later stages.

Unfortunately, the reality is that each version has its own meta.

In the current game environment, especially with war looming, mages and classes with area-of-effect attacks have the greatest advantage.

Apart from that, Lister has been quite lucky lately.

I started paying attention again to the hundreds of pages of passive skills on the Auction House; so many of these passive skills haven't increased in price yet.

As for their origins, they are probably all from the first two acts, and players should still have quite a few passive skills in their inventory for now.

With the purchase of powerful active skills, the pooling of funds, and other activities, people gradually put some Skill Books and materials they no longer need on the Auction House.

This led Lister to discover two new passive skills.

I spent 80 gold coins to acquire these two passive skills.

"Should I study?"

"Yes."

[Qi and Blood Conversion (Passive, No Rank) LV1: Each point of Stamina attribute grants an additional 3 Stamina and 10 Health.]

[Heart of Learning (Passive, No Rank) LV1: Grants an additional 1% experience gain when gaining experience in a secondary profession.]

Neither of them are particularly powerful passive skills, and one of them is even a passive skill specifically for secondary professions.

There are dozens of these two Skill Books for sale at the Auction House, no wonder they're not selling even at rock-bottom prices.

After completing his daily "planting leeks" task, the first thing Lister did upon returning home to rest was to do his "daily lottery."

"Synthesize or not? Estimated time: 3 minutes."

"Yes."

A flash of white light appeared before my eyes, followed by a pile of visible waste.

"Crafting complete, gain 15 (+1) experience points."

After more than half a month of daily Alchemy Synthesis, Lister finally understood it.

My luck is just so-so. Apart from getting a piece of jewelry the first time, I've been getting nothing but alchemy failures for the past two weeks.

Fortunately, my current secondary profession level is very low, so I can only synthesize some Tier 3 material equipment.

Aside from the rare and highly sought-after accessories, they weren't of much use to him; his main focus was leveling up.

Six months later.

The war between Lucian and the Great Chu has entered a fierce stage.

Both sides were locked in a bloody battle, and due to the thrilling combat, more and more new players were joining every day.

The "leeks" (a metaphor for easily exploited investors) cultivated by Lister have reached a bottleneck.

"Skill Instructor Merrick: Can teach the skill 'Merrick Saber Technique' (C~A grade), currently taught to 15,504,312 players."

In just six months, the program has trained over ten million new players.

As expected, this was the time when a large number of players flooded in during Act III, more than the combined total of players in the first two acts.

However, compared to the first two scenes, the actual learning rate of this scene is not high among new players.

Unfortunately, the second and third acts were dominated by a surge of magic-based Class Holder, while the fourth act was the peak for mechanical players.

Lister couldn't change the version either; he could only do his best to cultivate new investors.

On the panel, the remaining experience points had already reached a staggering 2.3 billion. His current focus was still on Kavin's progress.

The Jiji guy on my shoulder was suddenly activated. Normally, he's only active for an hour a day and spends the rest of his time dormant.

It's strange today. Even though it's not its active time yet, it's flapping its wings and struggling to fly down from his shoulder, hovering around his palm.

Even after standing on his hand, he stomped on it twice more.

"Jiji ~, Jiji ~!"

It flapped its wings and circled twice before gently touching its forehead to Lister's finger, sending a surge of energy through it.

"Repair complete." -- Kavin Deer

So this is how Jiji messages are transmitted.

Similarly, Jiji the head of the chirp with your finger inputs a surge of energy.

I'm coming right away.

The next moment Jiji spun around in place again, and as the energy fluctuations on its body disappeared, the information was transmitted.