Ennobled

The paperwork admitting Lei Mo into the Keaton Kingdom and the Magic Beast Knights was issued quickly and delivered to the inn where he was staying within a day.

A group of palace guards arrived with it, bringing Lei Mo a royal decree: in half a month, the reigning king, Martin Keaton, would hold a ceremony to ennoble him!

Lei Mo would be made Viscount Franklin, and a small town not far from the royal capital would be renamed Franklin Territory and become his family's fief.

That meant Lei Mo would become the first generation of the Franklin family. After all, he was using the name Franklin.

It didn't matter! Whether Lei Mo's surname was Bloodhoof or Franklin made no difference. As long as he knew his own surname was Lei, that was enough!

Lei Mo had no immediate plans to found his own family. He knew all too well how deep the waters ran in this world!

The half-month delay was only for the sake of publicity, not to conduct some sort of background check.

Lei Mo was using an identity from the Sunier Duchy. As for whether it was genuine, who cared?

In this chaotic age, the destruction of a village or even a town was commonplace. Who could verify the truth? Only strength was an eternal pursuit.

And Lei Mo really had come all the way from the Seti Mountains. There were traces to prove it.

As far as the Keaton Kingdom was concerned, it was enough that he wasn't from the Lombardy Alliance.

The Sunier Duchy was tens of thousands of kilometers from even the nearest part of the Lombardy Alliance, so it seemed unlikely he had any connection to it.

Lei Mo had already moved into the Viscount Franklin Mansion, where he would wait for his investiture in half a month. Hundreds of servants and maids were already in the mansion.

Lei Mo had also asked for the young lady he'd met back then. She was merely a female employee, after all.

She was sent to Lei Mo's residence that very day. Rachel Bella arrived at the viscount's mansion looking hopeful, yet somewhat worried, and was appointed housekeeper as soon as she got there.

Rachel had just been appointed housekeeper of the viscount's mansion. She stared at Lei Mo, looking completely bewildered.

Lei Mo awkwardly rubbed his nose. The nose ring with its pleasant feel was gone now.

The air abruptly fell still for a moment—

"I don't have any harsh rules here. You just have to serve me well."

Lei Mo spoke.

"You can make all the decisions about everything else in the mansion!"

Rachel was a little surprised and delighted. Being given authority like that wasn't something people promised lightly.

"If you do a good job, I won't treat you unfairly. Who knows? I might even make you a strong warrior!"

Lei Mo continued, and Rachel's hopes sank again.

Rachel had no hope of cultivating. She was already sixteen, had not a trace of magical talent, and was only a Level One Warrior.

Her dignified beauty had won her a job at the Knights' headquarters.

Now she was the viscount's housekeeper. Her life was already complete, and her family was very supportive.

It would be even better if she could become Lord Franklin's bedmate!

As for becoming the viscountess, Rachel didn't dare even dream of it.

She knew nothing about Lei Mo's methods.

Lei Mo's own cultivation talent was indeed wretched. But when it came to helping others, he wouldn't yield to anyone.

At the very least, he could let people below the Saint Realm exist forever. An eternal soul counted as eternity, too.

If Rachel knew about these methods, that would be another story. For now, Lei Mo had no intention of telling her too much.

Lei Mo had already reached the Saint Realm and had plenty of time. With the pressure of life and death gone, his talent being a little lacking wasn't a problem.

Besides, there was Franklin. Once Franklin reached God Rank, there should be major changes to both the Runes on his body and the Soul Space within him.

Lei Mo had come to this conclusion after observing the Initial Rune on Franklin's offspring. There were far too many people who had cultivated to the Saint Realm that way.

The souls of all ranks who returned to the Soul Space after dying of old age or in accidents alone numbered astronomically. Franklin couldn't even say whether there were tens of millions or hundreds of millions. It was impossible to count!

The accumulation of time was a terrifying thing. Over these countless years, too many Tauren had died of natural causes.

There were already several thousand Saint Realm souls in Franklin's Soul Space. Those in the Saint Realm could live forever; all these souls had accumulated there because of accidental deaths!

They had once drifted aimlessly inside Franklin's space. 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, but because they were limited by Franklin's strength, they could reach no higher than the peak of the Saint Realm.

They couldn't become gods, so they couldn't truly leave the Soul Space. At most, they could linger within a certain distance of Franklin's main body or one of his eight offspring.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye. Lei Mo's viscount's investiture ceremony was held at the royal palace of the Keaton Kingdom.

Every prominent family in the royal capital sent someone to attend that day.

Come on, anyone who could subdue a Level Nine Magical Beast had to be at least Level Nine themselves. Even if that estimate was off, the difference in strength couldn't be great.

If Lei Mo hadn't only just joined the Keaton Kingdom, he would have started out as an earl.

A powerhouse like him was far more reliable than some family bloodline. Attending the ceremony to forge a good relationship was something every family did.

If Lei Mo was willing, they would even offer up their own daughters. This was a world where strength reigned supreme. No matter how dazzling people made themselves look, the strong ruling over all was the one eternal truth!

Lei Mo had no interest in wasting time on that. He repeatedly turned down the hints people kept dropping. Otherwise, he would have spent tonight—and perhaps the next half month—in the bridal chamber.

Just thinking about it was terrifying. Cultivating was what put Lei Mo at ease. After the investiture ceremony, he returned to the Viscount Franklin Mansion and shut himself away to cultivate. He refused to go out, but didn't turn away visitors; Rachel, the housekeeper, received them instead.

Everyone understood. Lei Mo was unlike the great families of the royal capital. His power was his own, and cultivation was the foundation that let him stand between heaven and earth.

He told Rachel to receive everyone who came to visit and to inform him promptly if there was a war on the front lines. It was all just a formality. What news could escape the Rune Souls' surveillance within the mansion?

One month, then two months passed. Lei Mo made little progress in his cultivation. He merely refined his life magic and Fire Element magic to the utmost and raised his warrior strength to the peak of Level Eight.

During that time, a premeditated border skirmish was quietly unfolding along the northeastern frontier near the Lombardy Alliance.

An elite squad from the Lombardy Alliance, led by a Level Eight powerhouse and accompanied by nine Seventh-Level Warriors, raided a Keaton Kingdom outpost and killed all two hundred soldiers there.

By the time a supply convoy discovered them, two days had already passed.

The Lombardy Alliance had never intended to hide this raid.

The evidence quickly pointed to the Hoffman Kingdom of the Lombardy Alliance.

Like the Seti Alliance, the Lombardy Alliance was made up of more than a dozen kingdoms. Both were named for their borders along Lombardy Lake.

The Lombardy Alliance had three core kingdoms, while the Seti Alliance had only two. For thousands of years, the two great alliances had been at war.

Small clashes broke out almost every day, and large-scale battles were no rarity.

This border skirmish involving the Keaton Kingdom was only a glimpse of the wider conflict.

The two alliances had shed too much blood to ever forgive each other.

Neither side would stop until one had fallen. Tensions between them had been brewing for a long time; it was only in these past two months that the conflict had grown in scale.