How Strong? Yes, Very Strong!

Where had my huge apostle gone?

Romain racked his brains to no avail, so he could only recruit the remaining four times.

The fourth was actually the steward, Seth.

The fifth was his attendant and cook, Bob.

The sixth was someone named Talma.

The seventh was called Barro.

Perhaps his luck had been excellent during the first three draws, because all four afterward were one-star apostles. Their panels were equally unremarkable, with 5E attributes, indicating that they were all ordinary people.

All right, then came the question.

Why were four of the seven apostles his own people?

And why did he still have to spend resources to draw them as apostles?

As for the other three, he had never even heard of them.

Romain pondered for a long time without finding an answer.

He entered the Apostle Management interface and saw the character cards representing the seven apostles arranged neatly across the blank screen.

He first opened Aaron's character interface. Upon seeing the complicated options for leveling up, skills, Exclusive Weapon, Job Change, tokens, relationship level, and more, he immediately frowned.

Leveling up was self-explanatory. Experience Books could unlock an apostle's attribute cap.

Skills worked the same way. Skill Books could improve an apostle's various abilities.

Exclusive Weapons were weapons specially forged for apostles.

Job Change determined an apostle's development path. There were many professions, including Vanguard, Guardian, Mage, Sniper, Specialist, Heavy Armor, and more, while these primary professions could be further divided into different subclasses.

Tokens involved the mechanic of drawing duplicate characters.

Relationship level represented the degree to which Destiny and the apostles influenced one another.

First, there were no Experience Books or Skill Books. He needed to use Extraordinary Resources such as Adamantine, Mithril, Mountain Copper, steel, and Magic Stones to synthesize the corresponding attribute Experience Books.

There were no Exclusive Weapons either. They needed to be forged from Extraordinary Resources.

Job Change was impossible for now, as it required prerequisites.

There were no resources for drawing cards, so tokens were out as well.

The relationship level, however, was rather good.

Romain's relationship level with Aaron, Green, and the others was extremely high, fluctuating between roughly 70% and 80%.

As for the other apostles he did not know, it was nowhere near that high. It was generally only 10%—Romain did not yet know how this relationship level was measured.

No matter what he wanted to do, it would require consuming vast amounts of Extraordinary Resources.

As a descendant of the Armored Breaker family, Romain was not unfamiliar with these extraordinary materials.

After accepting his investiture, his entire fortune consisted of more than twenty Gold Coins and the Extraordinary Resources he carried with him.

Extraordinary Resources all came from underground mineral veins.

Any mineral vein might produce Magic Ore, but only after refinement could it be called a magic crystal, or Magic Stone.

Adamantine, Mithril, and Mountain Copper could also produce various miraculous effects through magical refinement.

If used to equip War Knights, they would greatly increase their combat power.

War Knights were extraordinary beings.

Their ranks ranged from the first rank to the ninth rank, and ninth-rank extraordinary beings stood at the pinnacle.

Romain believed that with suitable terrain and circumstances, even the strongest ninth-rank extraordinary being could not withstand the frontal charge of one hundred fully armed, well-trained, fearless first-rank knights.

Even if one could withstand it and kill all one hundred first-rank knights, one would still die at the hands of the one hundred and first first-rank knight.

Still, battlefields were complicated, and the actual chance of success remained open to debate.

The gap between low-rank and high-rank extraordinary beings was not absolute.

High-rank extraordinary beings were often scarce.

The last famous ninth-rank extraordinary being was the Conqueror Emperor—the first Grand Duke Armor-Splitting had followed that Conqueror through the pass, which was how he had earned the rank of Grand Duke.

But they had all lived more than a hundred years ago.

At the height of his power, the Conqueror Emperor had wanted to carve out a sea route across the Nether Sea and build a magnificent fleet. He had brought a large force of elite troops and personally set out for some mythical place of convergence.

Yet while crossing the ocean, he had fallen gravely ill. His fleet was then struck by storms and terrifying sea monsters, and in the end, he never returned.

More than a century had passed, and this land had never produced a second ninth-rank extraordinary being.

Were extraordinary beings strong?

Yes, very strong!

Romain himself was also a first-rank extraordinary being.

He, Green, and Aaron, the three War Knights, could kill every person in Sigg Town. The main reason they stopped would be that they had grown tired of killing.

When farmers faced War Knights, it was like two thousand sheep encountering three tigers. They would only scatter in panic.

But what if they were two thousand wolves that would not flee?

There was no need for two thousand. Just fifty, or even thirty, facing the same three tigers would produce a vastly different result.

As long as the gains matched the losses, no sacrifice was unacceptable.

But if you expected gaunt, weak-willed farmers to make sacrifices, then that was your mistake.

The point of Romain's theory was that before a large-scale organized army, every extraordinary being had to lower their proud head.

Perhaps because this was a fantasy world.

The physical potential of this world's humans was actually incredibly formidable, far more terrifying than humans from his previous life.

There was no obvious threshold between ordinary people and extraordinary beings. Meet the basic requirements, eat well, train with purpose, exercise intensely, and as long as you did not cripple yourself, you would become a first-rank extraordinary being.

Therefore, world-class Weightlifting champions and boxing champions from his previous world would also be considered extraordinary beings here.

Especially certain heavyweight boxing champions. The power of one punch would be at least D-.

So in Romain's view, an extraordinary being's rank was unimportant. What mattered most was how to turn sheep into wolves.

Romain waved over a male slave and gave him a few instructions. The slave nodded and swiftly headed for Sigg Town.

Green sat cross-legged on the grass, wiping the greatsword in his hands.

Without raising his head, he said, "Is our Noble Lord going to favor his land again today? Please let it rest. It already has more than enough people serving it."

Romain did not care about the teasing.

"No. I am going to Sigg Town shortly."

Green froze for a moment, then a glint immediately flashed in his eyes. He knew Romain was about to cause trouble, so he sprang to his feet and dashed into his room like an arrow loosed from a bow. "Wait for me... Hm? Aaron, you were ready that quickly?"

Next door, Aaron stepped out of his room clad head to toe in gleaming armor. A trace amount of Mithril coated its surface, causing the entire suit to shine.

He held a fully enclosed helmet in his left hand and gripped the broadsword hanging at his waist with his right. In a calm voice, he said, "As a War Knight, one must always be prepared!"

"Bullshit! You just put that armor on, didn't you?"

At noon.

Romain led two fully armed War Knights and the steward Seth toward Sigg Town on horseback.

After receiving the male slave's message, Mol summoned all the residents and gathered them on the town common.

The people murmured among themselves while Mol constantly wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.

No one knew how long they waited, until the sun rose high in the sky.

They faintly heard hoofbeats, then saw four figures in the distance riding tall horses.

Hard horseshoes struck the packed dirt road with dull, heavy thuds, as though they were trampling on everyone's hearts. Like criminals awaiting a judge's sentence, everyone began to panic uncontrollably.

Romain reined in his horse ahead of time, slowing it to a walk as it approached the crowd.

More than a thousand people had gathered together. Romain's vision was filled with a dense sea of heads, and he knew that these people before him were his subjects.

His subjects!

That gave Romain a strange feeling in his heart.

Mol stepped forward, lowered his arms, bent at the waist, and offered a deep bow.

"Honorable Lord Romain Split Armor and honored knight lords, you must have had a tiring journey..."

Romain had a heroic appearance, with thick hair hanging loose around his shoulders like a lion that had just reached adulthood.

He trained year-round, giving his face sharp, defined features, and his voice was loud as well.

"Mol, is this everyone in Sigg Town?"

This was the first time the farmers of Sigg Town had heard their Lord speak, and also the first time they had seen the lofty Agricultural Officer bowing and scraping beneath the Lord's tall shadow.

Mol wiped away his sweat and said, "Yes, everyone from the villages is here."

Romain nodded. He had come today merely to make his position clear and prepare these people mentally.

He looked over the crowd before him. Their faces were numb and weathered, their necks hunched, their expressions timid. Yet faint glimmers still flickered deep in their stiff eyes.

Everyone waited in fear and anticipation for him to clearly state his intentions.

Compared with those truly numb and lifeless farmers outside, there was still a trace of vitality on these people's faces.

For decades, they had not suffered under noble oppression. Agricultural Officer Mol also acted surprisingly human, never being overly harsh on the farmers here. Though he was suspected of taking considerable profit for himself, he was not insatiably greedy.

Life was difficult, but they could always survive.

His appearance, however, was not particularly timely.

These Commoners had probably cursed him more than ten thousand times in their hearts and hoped he would get as far away as possible.

Yet on the surface, they still maintained humble and obedient expressions, fantasizing that this Noble Lord might show mercy and leave them a way to live in the days ahead—preferably by maintaining the status quo, where they only had to hand over half their harvest in taxes.

Romain dared to guarantee that if he truly issued such an order, these people might genuinely worship him.

Of course, even if he were a little harsher, it would be fine. Rather, that might make them feel more at ease.

It seemed his earlier actions had given them the wrong impression.