The Start of an Ambition

The turning of pages was the only thing that can be heard. One page at a time, a man laying on his bed read the old leathery book within his hands with great focus.

Slowly flipping the pages of the thick antique book whose cover can barely be read, he does so at his own pace and leisure, only stopping to drink at the cup placed atop the desk on his bedside.

Finally, he turned the very last page of the book and read the final parting words of the author.

"God that was awful..."

in his library which he got around 230 years ago, a library that had around 30000 or so books containing all sorts of topics, he has accomplished a feat of reading every single one of them, and the book he just finished was the one he was putting off the very last.

It was titled 'The Accomplishments of the Great King Mayley', an autobiography about a king of an averagely prosperous nation from before, detailing his every achievements. Of course, this book of achievements were all written by the king himself in a heavily exaggerated manner.

Farhein of course knew about this 'Great King Mayley', he was known to be lazy and corrupt, letting everyone else do the work while claiming it to be his own.

His heir that took the throne after he died eventually drove the kingdom to the ground after a dispute with their neighboring kingdom about a small plot of land located on their borders.

He knows about all of this stuff thanks to the Great library he took when a scholar nation had a 'little' disagreement with him and he ended up destroying half their capital after putting it in a week of straight torment, killing their holy 'hero', and taking their prized library.

At first he did it out of spite, but eventually he came to realize that for a mostly solitary person like him, this form of entertainment in the form of thousands of books, adding to those 2000 of his original personal collection was a gold mine.

He got so absorbed in reading that he never event left his tower for 50 years straight, and when he realized that, he just walked out to check outside for a bit and walked back in, continuing on for about 200 or more so years up until now where he officially finished everything the library had to offer.

He stood up from his bed and stretched his body around, cracking his bones here and there to loosen up a bit.

He then walked off into his closet which was probably the size of two average houses combined with all sorts of clothing from different cultures and era placed in a neat and orderly fashion.

The room brightened up as he entered and an androgynous sounding voice that was calming to the ears greeted him respectfully.

"Good afternoon master, how may I help you today?"

"I want to change into something a bit more cool and classy, something befitting of me returning back to the outside world."

"So you've finished doing your hobby sir?"

"Yes, and I'm planning to go outside and look for a new form of entertainment."

"I see... well, let me see what I can do for you then."

The room began to move around with clothes passing by each other as the tower picks and brings him the clothes he might want to wear. Eventually, a set of clothes and accessories appeared in front of Farhein as the room stops to a halt.

he took off his comfy looking pyjamas as he proceeds to wear the clothing presented in front of him.

he wore a black vest underneath a dashing gray overcoat with white trimmings, dark brown pants that clung to his legs, and a pair of black boots. He then placed his prized brooch on to his chest. It was an odd yet cool looking symbol that looks as if the moon and sun was fused into one.

He stared in front of a massive mirror and admired the sense of style this sentient tower has. He looked great as his long brown hair flowed to his shoulders, his blue-green eyes staring back at him.

"Great job as usual Serine."

"Nothing but the best for you master."

"I would like to to have something to tie my hair back though."

"One moment please."

a small and cute looking golem then appeared from behind a small door from the wall rolling towards him, the golem then handed Farhein a brown elastic hair tie using it's cute little arms.

"Thank you"

the golem made a small sound of acknowledgement as it rolled back towards its station.

He then tied his hair to a small ponytail as he left his closet and walk along the tower halls.

"Serine, update me on the surrounding area."

"Master, since you left the tower to check outside 182 years ago, a thick forest was grown around us, giving us natural cover from the eyes of man."

182 years, damn that's a long time huh, add to that 50 more years and that would make it 232 since I last spoke to someone besides Serine and the others.

"The recon made in the surrounding 150 kilometer area suggest that this forest is about 80km wide with us located right around the middle. the nearest kingdoms are those of Carithan Kingdom, Wenelyn Kingdom, and the Holy Kingdom of Dragoon."

"Wasn't Dragoon and Wenelyn the only one around us before?"

"Master, the Wenelyn Kingdom had a civil war by the 90th year since you secluded yourself. It was lead by Ja-"

"Yeah, yeah, heard stories like that one before, don't need to hear the rest. Are we in any of their borders though?"

"Both Wenelyn and Dragoon has claims to this forest but due to the amount of dangerous monsters in the area, no one has really made a move yet."

"Okay then, between the three of them, who would you consider as the weakest?"

Serine pondered the question for a bit before answering back.

"From what we've seen, Dragoon has just gotten out of a war with their neighboring country Heyta 2 years ago, they used the pretense of faith and religion as a casus belli when it was quite obvious they were fighting over control of a seashore that would take away their country's landlock status. They lost both the war and large amounts of land, took heavy casualties, crashed their economy, and a civil war to distance themselves from faith to a more logical approach has began brewing among the populace."

"How about that Heyta, how are they doing?"

"I'm sorry but I've been unable to look deeper into them as they're out of our current range. But from what I've heard, they also had it quite rough, though not as much as Dragoon."

"I see."

"May I ask what you plan on doing next master?"

"Hmm... I think I wanna try and play king for a while."

"Oh, that's certainly something."

"Heh, I know."

As their conversation came to a close, Farhein finally arrived an the tower's front door. it opened automatically as he walked towards it and finally, after around 200 years, the light of the bright morning sun touched his face.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, taking in nature's fresh air after quite some time.

He walked a couple of steps forward to turn around and gaze at the tower he just came from. Pristine white bricks were stacked atop each other as the tower's walls with the conic roof having a light purple in color on top.

It stands at 45 meters high and 15 meters wide, using spatial magic to make the inside around 100 times bigger than it would seem from the outside. And also for something that was untouched for nearly two and a half centuries, not a speck of dirt can be seen smudged in its walls, I mean it is a magic tower after all.

"How do you plan on becoming a king then master?"

"Starting a new one from the ground up might be a pain in the ass so I might just take one from somewhere around here."

"So that's why you asked the status of the surrounding countries then?"

"Yup."

As Farhein already left the tower, Serine is now using telepathy to communicate with Farhein.

Farhein then raised his right hand towards the tower in preparation for something.

"Return to me Serine."

The tower glowed bright white and after a few seconds, shrank and formed around Farhein's right ring finger, materializing into a beautifully ornated silver ring with a small purple gem in the middle.

"I think Dragoon might be a good country to snatch up, what do you think Serine?"

"If it's just from those three choices then I would also conclude Dragoon to be an easier place to snatch up. But if we searched around the globe, no, even just this continent, we may be able to find an easier country to take over."

"Nah, too much effort, I'll just take over Dragoon."

"Master, I would like to let you know that being a king is no walk in the park, especially so if your taking over a country you have no connection with whatsoever, add to that being a highly religious country that would go to war for it until recently for that."

"I know, I know, I can handle that much, I just wanna be king as soon as possible, I'm already getting bored not doing anything."

"..."

As they're talking to each other, faint rustling noises can be heard coming from the bushes behind Farhein.

"There are three goblins sneaking behind you master."

"Yeah I noticed."

He sneaked a glance behind his back and whispered a spell to himself.

"Mind control."

It targeted the goblin with a club in front of the other two, causing it to momentarily jerk around before standing eerily still.

Their friend's sudden odd actions startled the two goblins before they were met with a surprise attack from their former friend.

A quick and hard downward strike to the head using the wooden club in his left hand was dealt to the goblin to his right, smashing his brains and ending his life immediately.

It was then followed up by a side swing to the goblin in the left, the defending goblin blocked it with his hand, severely injuring one of his arm.

In a panic, it tried to flee but was unsuccessful as he was suddenly unable to move from his position for unknown reasons. He let out a screech in despair as his former ally draws closer to him, club in his hand with the bits and pieces of their late friends blood and brain matter remaining on his weapon.

After the two goblins were killed by the one with the club, Farhein walked closer towards the battle and released the remaining goblin from his mind control.

The goblin snapped out of his haze, regaining sentience as he frantically looked around him. Seeing both of his companions dead with their blood in his weapon and body, the goblin panicked in confusion.

After a while his sight caught Farhein, which he then jumped forward to attack. But Farhein was calm and unfazed, catching the goblin in its face mid-air using his left hand.

"Mind Search."

His hand dimly glowed as the the goblins eyes rolls back in his head revealing nothing but it's whites.

After a while, he let go of the head, causing the goblin to fall roughly to the ground.

"Ice spear."

A meter long solid piece of ice materialized in front of Farhein and with a wave of his hand quickly penetrated the skull of the goblin lying on the ground.

"Sadistic as ever master, even paralyzing the fleeing goblin to avoid escape, well done sir."

"Please, they're just pathetic sub-men goblins, this is only a befitting end for the likes of their kind."

"If you say so. Where to next master?"

"Hmm, I think we'll take a quick detour to clear out a goblin nest. these things just annoy the living crap out of me."