Granted Noble Title

The documents for joining the Keaton Kingdom and the Magic Beast Knights were issued quickly, arriving within a day at the inn where Lei Mo was staying.

Accompanying them was a squad of palace guards, bringing Lei Mo a royal decree—in half a month, the current king, Martin Keaton, would hold a ceremony to promote Lei Mo to the nobility!

Lei Mo would be enfeoffed as Viscount Franklin, and a small town not far from the royal capital would be renamed Franklin Territory, becoming his family estate.

This meant Lei Mo would become the first generation of the Franklin family, since he was the one using the name Franklin.

It didn't matter! Whether Lei Mo's surname was Bloodhoof or Franklin, it made no difference; in his heart, he knew his name was Lei!

Lei Mo had no intention of starting his own family for the time being; he knew deeply just how deep the waters in this world ran!

The reason for the half-month delay was merely for publicity, not for any kind of background check.

Lei Mo was using the identity of the Sunier Duchy, and as for whether it was true or false, who cared?

In these chaotic times, the destruction of a village or even a town was a common occurrence; who could verify the truth? Only the strong were the eternal pursuit.

And Lei Mo had indeed traveled all the way from the Seti Mountains, so there were traces to follow.

For the Keaton Kingdom, as long as he wasn't from the Lombardy Alliance, it was fine.

The Sunier Duchy was at least tens of thousands of kilometers away from the Lombardy Alliance, so it was unlikely to be a concern.

Lei Mo had already moved into the Viscount Franklin Mansion, waiting for the investiture in half a month; the mansion already had hundreds of servants and maids.

Lei Mo had also requested the young lady he met earlier; she was just a female staff member, after all.

She was sent to Lei Mo's mansion that very day, and Rachel Bella, looking hopeful yet somewhat worried, was appointed as the housekeeper the moment she arrived at the Viscount Mansion.

Watching Rachel, who had just been appointed as the housekeeper of the Viscount Mansion, looking at him in a daze.

Lei Mo awkwardly rubbed his nose; the nose ring that felt quite nice was already gone.

The atmosphere suddenly stagnated for a moment—

"I don't have any harsh rules here, as long as you serve me well."

Lei Mo spoke.

"You are in charge of everything else in the mansion!"

Rachel was pleasantly surprised; being given authority was not a promise made lightly.

"If you do well, I won't treat you poorly; who knows, I might even help you become a powerhouse!"

Lei Mo continued, and Rachel felt a wave of disappointment.

There was no hope for Rachel in cultivation; she was already sixteen, had not a shred of magic talent, and was only a first-rank warrior.

She had relied on her dignified beauty to land a job at the Knights' headquarters.

Now that she was the housekeeper of the Viscount Mansion, her life was complete, and her family was very supportive.

It would be even better if she could become the person by Lord Franklin's side!

As for being the Viscountess, Rachel didn't dare to think that far.

She was completely ignorant of Lei Mo's methods.

Lei Mo's own cultivation talent was indeed abysmal. But when it came to helping others, Lei Mo claimed that he bowed to no one.

At the lowest standard, he could allow non-Saint Realm individuals to exist eternally; an eternal soul could also be considered eternal.

If Rachel knew of these methods, that would be another story, but for now, Lei Mo didn't intend to tell her too much.

Lei Mo was already in the Saint Realm and had plenty of time; without the pressure of life and death, his talent was a bit lacking.

But wasn't there Franklin? Once Franklin reached the god level, both the runes on his body and the soul space within him should undergo major changes.

Lei Mo had made such a guess; there were too many guys who had observed the Initial Rune on Franklin's sub-bodies and cultivated to the Saint Realm.

Just the souls of various levels that returned to the soul space after dying of natural causes or accidents were an astronomical number; Franklin couldn't even tell if it was tens of millions or hundreds of millions—it was truly hard to count!

The accumulation of time was a terrifying thing; over these countless years, too many Tauren had died naturally.

There were already thousands of Saint Realm souls within Franklin's soul space; Saint Realm beings could live forever, and these were all accumulated from accidental deaths!

Previously, they had been muddled within Franklin's space, but now that the soul space had been activated, the Saint Realm souls had come back to life!

They were basically no different from ordinary people, only limited by Franklin's strength, they could at most reach the limit of the Saint Realm.

They could not become gods, so they could not truly leave the soul space; at most, they could linger within a certain distance of Franklin's main body or his eight sub-bodies.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and Lei Mo's Viscount promotion ceremony was held in the palace of the Keaton Kingdom.

That day, every famous family in the royal capital sent representatives to attend.

Just kidding, anyone who could subdue a ninth-rank magic beast was inevitably a powerhouse of the ninth rank or higher; even if there were discrepancies, the difference in strength wouldn't be large.

If it weren't for the fact that Lei Mo had just joined the Keaton Kingdom, he would have started as a Count.

Such a powerhouse was far more reliable than any family bloodline; coming to the ceremony to build a good relationship was something every family was doing.

If Lei Mo were willing, they would even offer their family's legitimate daughters; this was a world where strength was respected, and no matter how glamorous the appearance, the truth that the strong were supreme remained eternal.

Lei Mo had no intention of spending time on this; he repeatedly rejected the frequent hints, otherwise, he would have spent tonight and the next half-month in the bridal chamber.

The thought alone was terrifying; Lei Mo felt most at ease when cultivating. After the investiture ceremony, Lei Mo returned to the Viscount Franklin Mansion and closed his doors to cultivate, though he did not refuse visits from others, leaving them to be handled by the housekeeper, Rachel.

Everyone expressed their understanding; Lei Mo was not like the various noble families in the capital. For Lei Mo, great power was concentrated within himself, and cultivation was the very foundation of his standing in this world.

He told Rachel to receive all visitors without exception, and to inform him promptly if there was any news regarding the war on the front lines. This was merely a formality, however, as no information could ever escape the detection of the rune-based soul arrays within the estate.

For one month, then two, Lei Mo's cultivation progress was minimal, merely refining his life magic and fire-elemental magic to their absolute limits, bringing his warrior strength to the peak of the eighth rank.

During this period, a premeditated border skirmish was quietly unfolding in the northeast, near the border of the Lombardy Alliance.

An elite squad from the Lombardy Alliance, led by an eighth-rank powerhouse and nine seventh-rank warriors, raided an outpost of the Keaton Kingdom, slaughtering all two hundred soldiers stationed there.

It was not until two days later that a supply reinforcement team discovered the aftermath.

The Lombardy Alliance had never intended to keep this raid a secret.

The evidence pointed easily toward the Hoffman Kingdom of the Lombardy Alliance.

The Lombardy Alliance, much like the Seti Alliance, was composed of over a dozen kingdoms, named as such because they all bordered Lombardy Lake.

The Lombardy Alliance possessed three core kingdoms, while the Seti Alliance had only two; for thousands of years, the two alliances had been locked in constant warfare.

Small-scale conflicts occurred almost daily, and large-scale battles were not uncommon.

This border clash in the Keaton Kingdom was merely a microcosm of the larger struggle.

The two alliances had long since developed a blood feud.

Neither side would ever stop until the other fell; the conflict between them had been brewing for a long time, and these past two months had simply seen an escalation in its scale.