<h4>Chapter 723: Re-Decorating the Pce</h4>


    Lord Marshall had yet to be Earl Marshall. He was still waiting for an official reply from the Kingdom of St. Ellis. Still, as Abel would see it, there really wasn’t a possibility that the emperor would turn down an application from himself directly. With that in mind, his title would be Earl Marshall from now on.


    While he was still staying at Harry Castle, Earl Marshall became very busy with the administration work of Harvest City. He was the one in charge of all official affairs. Ever since Abel became the king of the duchy of Carmel, immigrants of the nobility ss started spiking up. Not only were there more professionals in different fields, but there were also more wizards that hade here to serve as guards and soldiers alike.


    As of now, there was an entiremunity of wizards outside the Harry Castle. Harvest City, especially, became a hotspot for where the wizards came together. Abel didn’t want to make any adjustments to that. To him, since Harry Castle was his home, he wanted to protect with as much assurance as he could.


    For Bakong City, it was up to Head Commander Hoover and the other knights to protect it. Abel wasn’t quite satisfied with their overall strength, so he decided to hide his battle fort 03 right on top of the pce. He did it to protect the teleportation circle that was inside the pce building.


    The Bet Family chose to move to Bakong City with Abel. However, instead of living inside the pce as Abel requested, the Bet Knight asked for arge mansion so they could live separately. Abelplied.


    Other than that, Abel spent the next two days setting up the teleportation circle inside his castle. When he was done, he connected it to the whole teleportationwork that the Wizard Union had ess to. This way, the duchy of Carmel became one of the few duchies that could move to other regions from the royal pce.


    For a few days longer, a lot more changes were made to the royal pce. Plenty of lighting circles were installed. Some of them were in the main hall, some of them were in the side hall, some of them were in the bedroom, the walkway. Even the kitchen (for the servants) had them in ce. To make things more ridiculous, even the underground room was installed with lighting circles of its own.


    To protect his treasure room, Abel decided to guard it with a special defensive circle that he made. Apart from himself and Burbridge, it was intended so that no one else would be able to open it.


    There was also a special room that was sealed inside the giant underground room. Without a short distance teleportation circle, it’d be impossible to ever know about this ce’s existence. And what’s so special about here? Well, inside this room, there was a spirit that Abel bought in the Lianty City Wizard Union branch with his points. He was powering it with the perfect gemstones that he made.


    The purpose of this spirit was very simple: to control all of the lighting circles that were inside the pce. Most people couldn’t see ces that would also cover nearby areas with arge number of circles. Usually, it’d be controlled by the battle fort 03, but if Abel had to use battle fort 03, it was always to work in the way that it was programmed to.


    That was a lot of resources Abel had put into the renovation. Actually, the amount hemited was enough to make several intermediate wizards go bankrupt. The pce he was building was one of artificial intelligence, which was the first of its kind that was ever made in history.


    No, there was a magic tower right next to his pce, but if it did get attacked, the battle fort 03 would be the first thing thates into aid. Even if the battle fort 03 wasn’t there, wizards at Harry Castle could alsoe through the teleportation circle.


    In times of emergency, the underground room would be a safe ce to hide. There was a room with both a seclusion circle and a defensive circle. Inside was a huge amount of “ration potion” in case any crisis happened. It was so well prepared, Abel thought that he was being too paranoid about being attacked. He could’ve built anything he wanted, but going with a mana-proof safe room was taking a step too far.


    These days, Bartoli became quite busy while acting as Abel’s personal butler. She was preparing for November the fifth, which was the day that the duchy of Carmel would hold a banquet at its royal pce. She was in charge of sending the invitation letters to everyone. Yes, everyone. The dwarves. The elves. The three kingdoms. The nearby duchies included the duchy of Thunder, the duchy of Laka, and the duchy of Koror.


    There were a fewplicated reasons for not inviting the other duchies. To begin with, instead of granting Abel the duchy of Carmel, the Kingdom of St. Ellis could’ve just given him the duchy of Keyen, which was a declining power that had barely any influence left. Stll, he was too powerful as an influential figure. If he wanted to build his own political influence, he could’ve formed alliances with the nearby duchies, and that would only be detrimental to the existing power bnce that the state had tried so hard to maintain.


    For this reason, Abel decided to not invite too many duchies over to his own banquet. He didn’t want to be perceived as a power-hungry dictator. He had other aspirations, and this was not part of what he was after.


    Speaking of which, Abel had pretty much stopped his search in the dark world recently. Most of his time was now devoted to wizard training. Other than that, he would use his spare time to make equipment and potions. He needed time to increase his strength. If he wanted to explore the cave inside Lut Gholein, he needed to be at least an intermediate wizard first. Without the “instantaneous movement” spell, it’d be extremely dangerous if he was moving in narrow, dark spaces that he wasn’t familiar with.


    Abel needed to care of himself a lot more now. He was not just a person, nor just a person that belonged to a family. He was a king. He had his own duchy to take care of, so all the supplies he could make before, he would now have to make enough for the state that he was ruling.


    Before Abel left the dark world once more, he decided to pay a visit to the pce at Lut Gholein. He was taking away all the art pieces he could inside his space portal bag. He wanted a surprise for the uing event.


    Tomorrow was a special day. It was the day that the duchy would hold its first banquet. It was the first banquet that the new king was holding, and the scale of it was grander than most events that people were familiar with.


    Even Burbridge hadn’t seen something like this very often. When he saw the invitation list, he was astounded by the names that he saw. For starters, there were the names of the emperors of the three kingdoms. While it wasn’t too likely that they woulde in person, there was still the possibility that their princes and trusted officials would make attendance.


    There were also important figures from other important ces. There was the dwarven Goff family, the ruling elven family at Angstrom City, the Liante City Wizard Union branch, and other very impressive people. Even some of the personal invites were all quite impressive themselves, since most of them were either master cksmith, head knight’smander and wizards from low to middle tier.


    “Hey, hey!” Burbridge yelled at one of the servants he was taking charge of, “Watch it! That’s the special realm statue the king has brought himself! It’s supposed to be an irreceable item, so watch your hands when you try to carry them.”


    Burbridge was thrilled. He was just about to take out the treasures in the treasure room and decorate them all over the pce, but while he was in the middle of doing it, the king decided to bring a bunch of art pieces he got from a special realm. The pce was starting to be a very cultured ce. Added with the extraordinary number of lighting circles, it also felt like the king wanted to build a museum.


    For the banquet tomorrow, the royal pce had ordered all sorts of different food ingredients. There were sealed wines that were stored in the basement, and even the grandmaster wine was prepared for some very important guests.


    After training them for about twenty days, the royal pce chefs had learned to create a new sort of dish. Upon agreeing to learn to make them, these chefs were all told to sign a magical contract for confidentiality’s sake. Seeing this was enough to make Burbridge put a smile on his serious look. Even in the smallest of matters, the duchy of Carmel was about to reach its most prosperous time.


    When Burbridge was busy with something else, a servant was looking around himself in a very anxious way. He was hiding a precious decoration piece inside his clothing. If he could sneak past the guarding knights, he would be able to sell it at a very high price.


    This servant thought to himself, “Come on,e on,e on. Don’t let me run into anyone, and I’ll be gold.”


    As someone who had served the pce for many years, he was very familiar with the locations nearby. By walking around in various directions, he was able to bypass the guards and reach a wall near the pce. Not a lot of people knew about this, but there was an underground sewage at the bottom of this wall. It was just big enough to fit one person.


    The servant thought that he was nevering back. He smiled as he readied himself to say goodbye to the royal pce, but as soon as he went outside the royal pce, Abel’s guardian spirit started to sh very rapidly.


    “The guardian has found someone who tried to steal a royal item. Pleasee and seize him!”


    This very message was sent directly to Abel and the battle fort 03 spirit.


    Abel shook his head when he saw this, “Trying to steal from a wizard. Wow, what is this person thinking?”


    And no, Abel didn’t bother to make the arrest himself. The battle fort 03 was here, so there wasn’t even the need for him to bother at all.


    When the servant climbed over the pce fence, he could see that the view in front of him was getting dark. When he raised his head to look for the moon, he saw that there was a four-metre tall metallic monster looking at him. It was pointing a super-big ballista at him.


    The servant felt weak. He just wanted to steal something, but that thing, whatever it was and whatever weapon it was using, was enough to take care of even a knight’s headmander.