I had to let him be near, ready to intervene at any critical moment. I didn’t plan to bring him home. It was better to leave an army or more outside, acting as things would turn out and based on the developing situation.

That would give me more options, allowing me to flexibly handle any situation without much stress.

I can save this place and send the talents over

Good! Keep sending them here then I had to leave. If he could save this spot, and keep sending people over, then it would be great. Once sent anything, just let me know and I’ll pay the price

Sure

I checked the world here for the last time before opening a portal and leaving through it.

This world was going to be my crown jewel.

As I passed through it back to Earth, I opened the messages and started to check over the hundred teams I sent.-.

Few reached their targets and started to look around. Some found nothing suspicious yet, and the others found traces of a big army marching out of the tunnels.

Go and check these traces with caution. Try to get to that army and stay trailing them I sent to the ones finding the traces around the tunnel openings.

If they spotted the traces, they could track these to reach the main army.

I had to see where these forces were going. In the end, I hoped to draw a big map with cities and towns controlled by these forces.

After that, I’d make my move.

Any news? As I got to know the updates of my one hundred teams, I sent this to Leo.

They attacked towns and cities, controlling them he sent before adding, We are drawing a big map for the places they controlled. But their army isn’t that huge to control many places

There are more armies getting out I sent this to him, Are they controlling a circular area or a linear one?

Well… When I look at the map, I find that they are controlling zones in linear way from north to south

Good! my eyes flashed in the cold light, Keep watching them from far. Don’t risk to get exposed

Got it boss

So, they were trying to form a linear formation with towns and cities under their control. They were surrounding my kingdom. And if I guessed it right, then they were expanding from the ocean down at Texas up towards Canada’s cold lands.

But for what? Forming such a line around my kingdom wouldn’t help but to stretch out their forces.

That tactic would only help in one case, if they got a way to bring forth lots of forces to attack my kingdom. Like this, this line up would end up being the bottom of hell, a place that would be damn hard to reach.

If they had a way to do it, then forces starting from that line up would start to eat up my lands in big bites each time.

Even if I ended up surviving this, a new strong kingdom would lie at my borders, surrounding me like I was entrapped.

And for sure I’d end up like this with the Hector continent at the East and ocean lining up at my eastern shores.

If I let such a setting mature, I’d end up in great trouble. However this had one single solution. And I decided to go for it in the last couple of days before the start of the fourth quest.

“Lord…”

Just as I was lost in thoughts, a feminine voice came with extreme respect from my side.

“Yes?” It was one of the dragon rider girls. And she, like any other girls I met before, was acting shy and a bit nervous.

“There… Is someone who wants to speak to you.”

“Who?” I wasn’t in the mood to speak with anyone at the moment.

“They are… The youths back at the MIT campus… A girl there wants to tell you something.”

“A girl? MIT?” my eyes flashed with realisation before turning towards the direction of the MIT campus. “Thanks,” I just said that before controlling my chariot and moved towards the MIT campus.

That girl was the one leading the entire operation back there. As she asked for me, that meant they managed to breakthrough the power problem again.

I didn’t meet up with her or with the other two dudes with her for a long time. After the battle here, I didn’t see her around.

I thought she died, but it seemed this wasn’t the case. Luckily she survived.

But when I got to see her, I realised that the other two dudes who were with her died in the past battle.

“My condolence,” I said before closing this page, “have you cracked it?”

“Thanks lord,” she said while standing in the middle of the big place that once had that iconic ancient building of the MIT academy. Right now only less than half was present, and the rest was in ruins.

“We did it,” she pointed at a group of youths standing next to a table. It was covered with dirty piece of cloth, trying to make a surprise here.

“For the second time,”‘ she added in such bitter tone.

“Always the hardest time is the first. Once done, you can repeat it as much as you’d like.”

“That’s… True,” I knew she wasn’t feeling that much of joy thanks to the loss of her two friends.

“Show me,” I was impatient to see the result of what they reached. She snapped her fingers and the group of youths standing at the metallic table moved and removed the cloths off.

Underneath I saw something looking like a big capsule. It was made out of transparent material, showing many things inside.

There were wires, the monster core I gave to them before, and also few ores. “You used ores?” I came closed to better inspect this device.

“We did it before without using ores, but it yielded small amount of energy,” she explained, “this time we used the ores you brought, especially the ones which helped to augment the strength of anyone standing around it. These ores are really something! They augment any form of energy, not just stats.”