It was already evening time, the sky had turned slightly red as the mild wind blew from the south. Sitting in the garden, which now was an empty field, Aditya was reading the reports when Julia came with tea and some snacks.
“Master, I have bought your tea.” Aditya nodded his head in a daze. He looked lost while reading the budget reports.
‘He completely has changed.’ Julia has stayed disguised as a maid with her husband for 2 years. She knew Aditya’s past habits better than anyone.
Aditya was a type of person whose entire life depended on alcohol and wine. In her 2 years of staying here, she has never seen Aditya, the former Dragon Prince come to the Castle garden. It was as if the Aditya that everyone knew and despised was gone.
The former dragon prince in front of her is a new person. Last night, Julia assumed that Aditya was doing all this because he wanted a budget for drinks. But after all the things that he did throughout the day, Julia has to admit that Aditya is now a changed man.
After returning to the castle, Aditya ordered Watson to sell all the wine and alcohol bottles that he has kept in his room. This was a huge thing for someone who was an alcohol addict.
‘Everything feels like a sweet dream. In a world where Aditya is a hard-working King trying to do the best for this country. If Aditya can stay then way forever, then I don’t mind being his wife and staying by his side all the time.’ While thinking about being his wife, Julia couldn’t help but glance at Aditya who was focused on reading reports.
‘No, No, no,….What I am even thinking?’
Even Julia herself didn’t know what she was thinking. ‘But now that I look closely, Aditya is really handsome.’ Previously Julia was so disgusted with Aditya that she never took a proper look at her face. Almost 99% of the time, Aditya was drunk and unconscious.
‘Maybe now that Aditya has started to change, I no longer find him disgusting as before.’ Julia was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the tea that was overflowing.
“Julia stop” Aditya’s words snapped the virgin maiden back to the reality where she found what a grave mistake she had done.
“Oh no. Master, I apologize. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t notice when the tea spilled on the table.” Julia quickly bowed her head and apologize. This was the first mistake she made in one year. After working here as a maid for 2 years, Julia now was a professional maid. She very rarely made any mistakes.
“Don’t worry, it’s okay” Aditya replied while checking if any tea fell on the papers.
“I will clean this table.” Julia was about to leave, but her master’s words stopped her.
“It’s alright. You can wash the table later. For now, why don’t you sit down and join me for a cup of tea?” Aditya already had finished reading all the budget reports. Normally these many reports would have taken at least 3 to 5 days to finish reading, but with his innate skill of instant learning, Aditya’s reading and processing speed have increased a lot.
After some hesitation, Julia took the chair next to Aditya and sat down. Julia then proceeded to pour another cup of tea for her master and for herself.
While Julia was pouring tea, Aditya suddenly remembered something from the past. “You know, back when you had just started working as a Maid, I remember you used to make lots of mistakes. You couldn’t even do the simplest things without making mistakes.”
“Master, please don’t mention my past mistakes.” Julia felt embarrassed remembering her past mistakes. Julia was the princess of the biggest noble house on this continent. Before coming here, Julia had lived the life of a princess. When she suddenly became a maid, Julia had a lot of mistakes compared to other maids. If it wasn’t for Watson covering her, she would have been kicked out.
“By the Master, how much taxes did you manage to receive today?” Honestly, Julia was really impressed knowing what Isaac did today. Seeing how Aditya was conducting his work, Julia had a feeling that her master who is also her husband will rise in power very soon.
Hearing the word Tax, a happy and innocent smile appeared on the young king’s face. “You won’t believe how many coins we managed to collect just in 5 hours.”
“First just from seizing all the assets of the Norlor family, we managed to earn about 100 royal gold coins. The public execution of Sam really created fear in others’ hearts. The plan worked like a magnet. Without even telling others, all the merchants, and shop owners of the city have paid their debts with taxes. Now we have over 306 royal gold coins.”
“This daddy is now rich. Now I have enough capital to start new plans for my Kingdom.” Julia was taken back seeing how innocently Aditya’s eyes sparkled when he held the white gold coin in his hand.
“I have given Watson the 6 royal gold coins to pay all the soldiers and yours pending salaries. I ordered him to use the rest on buying daily necessities for the castle, and also to hire 5 new maids and two chefs. This will reduce the burden on your shoulders.” Julia was touched to know that Aditya thought so deeply of her.
“I also have told him to buy some young and strong slaves with the potential to become stronger.”
“But master, why buy slaves?” Except for a few kingdoms, almost every kingdom on this continent allowed slave trading. Julia didn’t understand why they would need slaves.
“Julia, I am currently building this entire Kingdom from the beginning. I realized that other than you and Watson, we don’t really have any powerful warriors. And as the king, I can’t always go everywhere. So I am planning on buying some slaves with potential and train them to become a core part of our Kingdom. Though I realize that training the slaves will take some time. Consider this as an investment for the future.” Julia can’t help but feel impressed by how far Aditya was thinking.
The more she listened to Aditya, the more fond she was getting of her master. Without her even knowing, she was beginning to look forward to the future where Aditya builds his own Empire. While both master and maid were enjoying their tea, the maid who was the wife of the master in disguise suddenly had a question in her mind.
“Master, do you know about one of the seven fairies, also nicknamed the Goddess of Alchemy?” Hearing Julia mentioning one of his wives, Aditya without realizing straightened his back.
“I do know her but I never had the luck of meeting her in person.” Aditya replied when looking at the sky with a lonely look.
While he replied, he or no one at that moment knew what the goddess of alchemy was thinking.
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Soon, Watson returned with 7 slaves who were slightly different from the types of slaves that Aditya wanted.
Sitting on the old and rusty throne, Aditya sighed and looked at the slaves that his butler Watson bought for him. “Watson, who are they? I am sure you have a logical explanation for this”
Watson nodded his head and began to explain. “Young Master, I understand why you want to acquire slaves. I believe bringing them here was the best choice I could have made.”
Aditya didn’t interrupt Watson and let him finish his words. “As you must already know, their Mana heart was crippled. All of them here are Body cultivators also known as External cultivation users. Even with their crippled mana heart, their bodies are strong as First-order warriors. As long as we heal their crippled mana hearts, all of them will eventually regain their former second-order strength. I personally believe each individual here has the potential to reach at least fourth-order.”
Aditya sighed while rubbing his forehead. “Watson, the problem is how we’re going to heal their crippled mana hearts. In this whole world, no one knows how to heal a crippled mana heart.”
“Master, I think you’re forgetting about a certain person. Even if healing a crippled Mana heart is impossible to everyone, there is one being in this world who can do the impossible.”
“Okay, who is that person? And how we’re supposed to find this person in this world?” Aditya at this point had stopped thinking and had shut his mind down. He let Watson do everything.
Watson before replying looked at the 7 slaves standing behind. “You all can go out and rest at the training ground.” The slaves nodded and without making any noise left the room.
“Master actually that master lives in this city.”
“Really? Where?” Aditya became excited.
“Before telling you where she lives, let me tell you about her. That person is a genius at alchemy. At the age of 12, that person managed to defeat even an alchemy grandmaster. That person’s alchemy talents are said to be unrivaled in this whole world. At the age of 15, she became a legend. Her name spread far wide on every continent on this planet.” The excited look on Aditya’s face started disappearing cause from his words he already knew who this person was.
The door suddenly opened up as Julia walked into the room with a completely different expression than her usual self. “That person is known as the Goddess of Alchemy. And her name is….”
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