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228 A Step Down
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As one of the largest loan sharks in Lanthanor, Abrams had been sipping the costliest wine in the country when he had been notified of the message from the Palace which was inviting all the prominent people in his line of work for a meeting.
The only reason that he had been able to keep his business thriving for so long had been that he had always spent as much as needed to be kept up-to-date on the decisions of the government.
For instance, when all the wine importers and bar owners had been called to the Palace, he had guessed that the Kingdom would mostly impose sanctions, as it was common knowledge that Lanthanor was in need of money.
Hence, he had hastened to collect all the loans given to bar-owners before the meeting even took place.
His reasoning had been simple: if sanctions were placed, the profits in the business would go down, meaning that it would be more difficult for those who had taken the loans to pay the interest.
Usually, in the cases of other businesses, Abrams would have been happy at this as it would mean that he would be able to take over the assets placed as surety with the loan.
Yet, the problem was that here, the bars themselves were the surety.
Hence, if the business of wine did fall, the value of bars might also lessen, resulting in an overall loss for him.
In his life, "loss" was one thing he was determined to avoid no matter what he had to do.
It was this mentality which had enabled him to rise from the status of a slum-dweller to that of one of the richest individuals in Lanthanor with estimated assets of half a million Gold Lans(50 Million dollars, in Earth currency).
It was also this mentality which had made him branch out to almost all the Kingdoms in Angaria where it was allowed for outsiders to do business, as it was common sense to not place all eggs in a single basket.
After listening to the message, Abrams first contacted all the friends who were also in the same business.
On confirming that they had also received the same message, he started the inquiry into just what had happened in the Palace while looking forward to finally meeting the King whose idealistic schemes had led Lanthanor to a debt-laden for the first time in decades.
'He won't ask us for money, will he?'
As this thought floated into mind, he couldn't help but laugh thinking about the absurdity inherent in a King asking his subjects for money.
....
The next morning, 26 men and women entered the gates of the Palace of Lanthanor in carriages that were each more lavish than the next.
All of them were Ether-drive, yet the black boxes which were usually the mechanisms which drove such carts were replaced by artistic sculptures of mythical beasts such as dragons and phoenixes.
As for the carriages themselves, although each looked small, it was quite clear that they had been enchanted with the costliest enchantments that existed: space enchantments.
Like the carriage into which Daneel had jumped where he had the first fateful encounter with the Church of Rectitude, these carriages all had larger spaces inside than the size of the carriage that was visible to the outside.
The main thing that gave away this fact was that the carriages' wheels left deep ruts in the ground when this shouldn't have been possible if they were really the size and weight that they appeared to be.
Space enchantments were one of the trickiest and, thus, the costliest in Angaria. The smaller an object, the harder it was to cast space enchantments on it, resulting in the fact that making small pouches which were capable of holding a large number of things were impossible to make, at least for all the forces in Central Angaria.
Even the ones cast on carriages needed top-tier enchanters, with the cost for expanding a carriage of 10 m2 area to 20 m2 being over 100,000 Gold Lans.
Hence, these enchantments were only used in a few cases, except for in this situation where the only reason was to show opulence.
On entering the Palace while chatting amongst each other, the 26 people seated themselves in a large waiting room while waiting for the King to arrive.
Almost all of them had businesses in multiple Kingdoms, making it so that it was simple for them to shift base if needed.
In essence, they were like the businessmen from Earth whom governments invited and even tried to please because it would result in a growth in their country's economy.
After a few seconds in which some already started to complain that they were being made to wait, the doors opened to reveal a retinue of soldiers.
With the King entering the room, the 26 people only stood up and bowed by bending their back.
In a way, the salute showed just how much respect a person was willing to bestow to the King. A bow on one knee was the standard, which meant that the person giving the bow was a loyal subject.
As for this bow, it only meant that the person was respectful about the position of the man they were giving the bow to, but weren't ready to be ordered around.
After the King took a seat in the chair that faced all of theirs, he first looked around at all the faces present.
The combined wealth of the people in this room reached a staggering 10 Million Gold Lans.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "First of all, Lanthanor thanks you for being present in this meeting which will change both of our futures. Before I begin speaking about why I called you here, can I ask what the biggest problem is that you all are facing?"
A businessman, especially a loan shark which was the occupation that everyone in the room had, could tell when someone wanted something from the other party.
After all, they had built their businesses on deals where they had often been on the same side.
Hence, when they heard the King speak so cordially, they immediately sensed that he was going to ask something of them.
Realizing this, the first feeling that actually went through them was relief.
Abrams, in particular, felt very happy that the worst case of sanctions being placed on loans would mostly not come to be. This was because if that was the case, he would be among those who were majorly affected, as he currently had the most business in Lanthanor.
Taking a sip from the wine that had been served to him, he grimaced slightly at the quality before answering, "People who run without paying back their debt."
Indeed, this was the single biggest problem in their line of work. Even if surety was a must when taking a loan, losses were still incurred when a debtor left especially in cases when the value of the surety fell for some reason, like in the case of the wine importers and the bars they owned.
Hearing the answer, the King smiled before saying something that startled everyone in the room.
"I agree. Oh, by the way, do you think a Kingdom is something that can run away without paying its debt?"
After a brief silence, it was Abrams who spoke again.
This had been a notion that they had actually scoffed at, so seeing it become reality was quite jarring.
After all, a Kingdom was something that had the power to simply raise taxes to obtain as much money as it wanted.
Apart from this, there were myriad ways in which the King could go about procuring enough Gold to refill the treasury.
If so, why was he considering taking loans from them with an interest added on top?
"My Lord, I do not understand. Apologies if I sound rude, but I need these questions answered. You wish to take loans from us? Why not just raise taxes? And what's there to say that you won't use military force to make us 'forget' that we gave you the loan in the first place?"
The latter question was the second reason why the loan sharks felt disturbed. Kingdoms seizing their money wasn't something new; in fact, it was why they took care to spread out their assets as safely as possible.
"It is because I want to build something that can be trusted in the entire continent. A place where anyone can give their money without having to worry that it will be lost. To achieve this dream, I need an impeccable track record. And to kickstart this dream of mine, I am prepared to swear oaths to you myself that your worst fears won't come true."
What Daneel said simply shocked the loan sharks in the room.
A King taking a step down… to swear oaths personally?
This was something simply unheard of.
After all, Kings were individuals who usually saw it a beneath them to even interact so cordially with civilians such as them.
Here, they would actually be receiving an oath?
…..
A few hours later, the 26 people walked out of the room with indecipherable expressions.
Their net worth of 10 Million Gold Lans had been halved, but they only felt hope for the future.
Hope that the name "Bank of Angaria" would ring across the continent one day, and that they would be able to tell proudly that they were its first customers.
229 Banker
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On seeing off the loan sharks who had hopeful expressions on their faces, Daneel smiled before going back to his chambers.
Although idealistic notions were all well and good, at the end of the day, business came down to numbers.
Daneel had promised them that the gold and/Ether they would send over would safely be returned with interest if he was informed 6 months prior. The interest rate was set at 5%, after he had haggled it down from 10.
The deciding factor had been that of safety.
Both the war that had been won at the border and the display of top-tier power and talent by the King of Lanthanor were signs that this was a Kingdom that wouldn't go down any time soon. Besides, it had existed for centuries with very few instances where its existence had been threatened.
Thus, given a choice between given multiple loans which had a degree of risk in them and giving one loan which was as safe as it could be, it was quite clear which was more appealing.
In fact, Daneel had gotten this idea from the debt system on the Earth.
Although this was a very deep and intriguing topic that he had decided to study and analyze at a later date, there was a simple takeaway which he had applied here.
The safest loan was the best loan.
Here safety could mean multiple things. In the case of the Earth, individuals and corporations were almost always ready to give loans to the United States, both due to the stability of the Dollar as a currency(as this was the currency with which the loan would be repaid) and the record that the country had of not defaulting on its debts. Hence, having the power to receive loans with almost no interest due to these factors, the US took as much as it could, not caring about the fact that it was going more and more into debt.
This was because of the fact that even if it was in debt, that money which was taken as a loan that had to be repaid in a set period of time could be doubled or even tripled before that point came by making smart investments.
To make it simpler to understand, it could be parallelized to the scenario of a school.
In the school, there were a set of bullies who stole or took the lunch money of kids in the morning itself, before lunchtime.
Agitated by this fact, the kids decided to pool all their lunch money in the morning with the school clerk, who would definitely be able to keep it safe. All he needed to do was to give it back by lunchtime.
Being astute, after taking the money in the morning, this clerk went to a market and bought all the items required for making snacks like biscuits.
After making them at his home, the clerk came back to the school and sold the biscuits during the snacks break to either those who didn't need to fear the bullies or even the bullies themselves.
After keeping the tidy profit, the clerk simply gave back the original money he had been given for safekeeping to the kids during the lunch break.
In this scenario, the US was the clerk, the bullied children were the organizations, individuals and countries who feared economic fluctuations, loan defaulters(or other factors) and the bullies were these fears.
Daneel's goal was to build an organization which could be trusted like the clerk by Angaria.
As the famous saying went, "A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."
Hence, his first step had been to take a step back to personally swear an oath that the assets would be returned in whatever form they wished.
As the individual with the top-most talent in the entire Central Continent, his word was as good as gold notwithstanding the fact that there was also an oath on top.
All these things had finally managed to convince the loan sharks who were usually very strict with their money.
Almost each and every one of them had pledged over half of their assets, as the rest were not in liquid form to be moved.
[Achievement Unlocked: Banker
Banker: By using the knowledge from your previous life, you have embarked on a mission to build a bank that can bank for them all. Congratulations on becoming a banker!
5000 EXP awarded.]
At this moment, Daneel did not know whether to smile for earning precious EXP or to cry for being called a name that was used as a curse by many from his home planet.
Regardless, the treasury that had been empty for so long would finally be refilled with 10 Million Gold Lans worst of assets that he could use to further his goals.
After entering the Energized Training Chamber and taking a seat to continue his training, Daneel started to make plans for the scheme he had in his mind for helping people like Helena and the little girl whose embarrassed and cute expression still brought a smile to his face.
Yet, the hands that were going to be plunged into the red solution were stopped in their tracks when he casually asked the system to show him his statistics.
...…..
At the same time, on the grounds of the Royal Palace of the Black Raven Kingdom.
As two men watched on from the sidelines, a woman and a raven could be seen standing opposite each other on an open field in one of the sparring grounds in the Palace.
Unlike the raven which Elanev had fought against in the Battle Royale which had been bulky, this one was lithe.
Its agile body looked like it had been built for speed, unlike the other whose only goal was to destroy opponents by using its overwhelming penetrating power.
Hence, although it did not look as big, it was very long, with the length from the tail to its head being at least 3 feet.
It was only when the raven opened its wings did it become clear that this was a bird which was actually much larger than it looked.
With a combined length of over 6 feet, a single flap of the wings allowed the raven to directly fly up and catch an air current which it used to drift higher and higher.
As for the woman, on seeing the raven take to the skies, she only raised her hand to make 4 ice pricks appear in the air in front of her.
After a few seconds during which she scanned the skies, the woman's eyes sharpened as she realized that the attack was coming from behind her. Although she had been turning around frequently to check everywhere, it seemed that her opponent had chosen the perfect time.
Indeed, the raven swooped down silently with its wings aloft, like an assassin who was hiding in the shadows.
By the time she shot the first ice prick, the raven was already only a few seconds away from penetrating her neck with its sharp beak.
With a simple sway, this ice prick and the one that had been shot after it missed, making it look as if the woman would have no choice but to be impaled.
Yet, after a second, it became clear that she had only held them back for a final attack.
At the last moment before the raven's beak collided with the woman's neck, the last two ice pricks attacked from below, accurately striking their target and disappearing as if they had entered deep inside the raven.
As for its beak, it made its impact on the neck of the woman who gasped before clutching her neck and flying backward.
Both crumpled to the ground, while claps rang out from one of the men who had been watching the entire thing.
Yet, the man who accompanied him said something in a lazy tone which made the woman who had fallen on the ground glare at him as if she wanted to kill him.
"Meh. I could have killed it in the first try."
Hearing this, the man beside him who was bald with a handlebar mustache got an exasperated expression on his face before saying, "Sir, it's a spar! The goal is to understand each other so that they can fight better later on!"
Indeed, both the raven and the woman stood up massaging the spots where they had been slightly injured.
The ice pricks had been blunt, and the woman had been wearing a special trinket which produced a barrier that protected the neck area.
As for the raven, its beak had also been blunted by using rolled cloth.
Still unimpressed, Elenav, who had entered the Palace on making bold and blasphemous claims that there was nothing special about Black Ravens, shrugged before saying, "Still. I see no advantage whatsoever. Either match me up against a top-tier fighter of yours at my level that I can't defeat, or let me bond with a Raven to find out what's so special about it! Or you can simply admit that I'm right….."
230 The Black Raven King Speaks
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In the chambers of the Black Raven King, a man stood in front of a full-length mirror wearing armor that looked like it had been through a lot of battles.
Multiple holes could be seen all over his body where the material of the armor had had no choice but to give way to the piercing blows it had had to endure.
Blood could still be seen on the edges of these holes, as if it had been soaked in so much of it that some had seeped into its very being.
In a way, it represented the tenacity of the warrior who had worn it and continued fighting no matter how many injuries he had endured.
That was how the Black Raven King saw himself in the mirror: bruised, battered and bloody; but holding his head high because he had snatched victory by doing everything he could.
Sadly, the image only lasted for a few seconds before being replaced by reality.
In the warrior's place stood a man who spent all his day cooped up in the Kingdom, handling various matters while fearing about the future.
Indeed, he wasn't averse to admitting that he felt fear.
As a warrior who had been through many situations which should have resulted in his death, he knew that fear was a power which spurred men and women to fight with the best of their abilities.
Many times, it was this fear which allowed one to overcome their limits to step towards new levels.
Yet, before, he had feared that a blade would cut him down, rendering all his training and dreams moot.
Now, he feared that he would be remembered as a coward.
A coward and a fool who allowed the Kingdom he ruled to be manipulated to result in its destruction.
He wished that his fears could still be averted by simply plunging the blade in his hands into the hearts of his enemies.
Alas, that wasn't the case.
Looking around one last time and putting aside the fervent dream of being back on the battlefield without any responsibilities instead of having to handle political and economic matters, the Black Raven King let out a long sigh before heading to the Throne Room.
Their Kingdom was one built on the idea that power was absolute. People revered power, and those in the military were, in many cases, the most popular and wealthy individuals in the entire Kingdom.
Now, it seemed that someone had come questioning whether the offspring of their legendary god really did give a huge boost in power as claimed.
On reaching the Throne Room and seeing the damned old man who was responsible for everything standing there as he always did like a shadow that wouldn't go away, the Black Raven King felt the anger that he always bottled up rising up to affect him.
Before, he had actually been a moderately cool-minded individual who didn't resort to getting angry at every small thing.
Now, it was that bottled-up anger that often reared its head in the presence of that old man to give the illusion that he was a hot-head who could easily be manipulated.
His day would come, he thought for the millionth time before sitting on the Throne with the enormous Black Raven above him.
The two men who had been outside before to watch the spar between the woman and the raven were in front of him. One kneeled, while the other bowed.
After they stood back up, he said, "Hmm. My soldiers would have already torn you to bits if you hadn't gathered the attention of the people. They just want to do it … publicly. Still, I've stopped them because I don't want Angaria to think that the Black Raven Kingdom indiscriminately kills those that foolishly question the blessing of our deity. I have an offer for you, but I wonder if you are brave enough to accept it."
Hearing the words of the Black Raven King, a cold sweat had formed on Elanev's back.
He had known exactly how risky this whole scenario was, but he had been banking on the renowned pride of the Black Raven Kingdom to save him.
After all, from his journey, he knew that it was only by taking risks that one could grow.
Although he did have a backup plan utilizing something he had acquired by chance after leaving Lanthanor, he thankfully did not have to use it anymore because it did not seem like he would be killed in cold blood.
Getting back the same swagger he had had when he had commented on the woman before, he said, "Unless it is something that is unfair, I am ready to take any offer that fulfills my wishes. I've traveled far and wide for this, and there's no way I'll go back empty-handed without many others hearing about it if I do."
Perception was a powerful thing. If it really became known across the continent that someone who had come to the Black Raven Kingdom seeking to find out about the specialty of black ravens was either sent back without an answer or killed, it would make everyone think that someone was right.
As a prideful people, this was definitely something that the Kingdom would be unable to bear.
Hence, Elanev's confidence was well-warranted.
Yet, what the Black Raven King said next startled him, making him almost drop the facade of a strong expert looking for a rival.
"I will personally fight you in public after limiting my strength to yours using special trinkets. I will also only use a similarly leveled Black Raven as a companion. What do you say, Challenger? The Black Raven Kingdom never backs down from a fight. It is high time the continent is reminded of this fact."
...…
[Host status updating. Please standby.
Host status:
Host Fighter Level: Human-7(22%)
Host Mage Level: Human-7(22%)
Host Body Potential: A
Host Comprehension Level: ????
Host Condition: Nominal]
"System… why are there question marks beside the comprehension level? Playback all recent notifications."
[System does not contain enough data to assess host's comprehension level. Playing back:
Confinement completed. System congratulates host on breaking through his limit. Mageroot has broken through to the next level. Data insufficient, system is unable to assess and classify the level of host's Mageroot.
End of playback.]
Hearing the notification, Daneel's hands which had been about to plunge into the red goo to continue training fell to his side.
His comprehension had…broken through?
But how?
And why wasn't he feeling anything different?
After thinking for a moment, Daneel understood why this was the case.
Comprehension decided the ease and speed with which one could comprehend and connect with elementary particles in order to use them at their will.
The simple fact was that he hadn't cast any spells since this 'breakthrough', making it so that he had had no chance to experience whether there was any change.
Getting up, Daneel raised his hand in the air to try and conjure the same attack that he had used to defeat the Axelorian Commander: "Wood Cleaver."
Daneel was, after all, someone who had the talent of a legendary mage. Hence, although he had only seen Kellor's attack for a small period of time in order to let the system analyze it, he could still try and form on it on his own without the system's help.
The long, wooden handle which was the body of the axe was the first thing that started to appear.
This was when Daneel started to notice a difference. Usually, he would have already felt a resistance from the wood elementary particles in the air as he did not understand their patterns and behaviors as well as Kellor did. Hence, he would have had to resort to brute force, which would have ended up tiring him immensely.
Now, even as the handle was slowly being conjured, Daneel was rapidly understanding the very essence of wood which Kellor had taken years to grasp.
Although there were many aspects of wood, he understood that the one needed right now was sturdiness.
Layers and layers of particles, arranged in intricate patterns that added a resilience comparable to metal when the wood was thick enough.
Yet, just as he was about to delve deeper into the mysteries that he found fascinating, the particles that he had been guiding till now started to get out of control.
Soon enough, he realized that he would have to brute force it if he wanted to continue.
Stopping the conjuring, Daneel sat on the floor with an astonished expression on his face.
He had actually reached this point so fast!
There was only one explanation: his comprehension really had increased.
But why?
As he asked himself this, Daneel thought back to the moment before he had fainted beside Faxul in the Chamber.
Till then, he had been resisting the pressure from the entity which had wanted to destroy and consume him.
Yet, at the moment when the pressure had been removed due to the system confining it, he had felt … liberated, as if he were a flower that would only grow higher if it were stepped down upon.
That must definitely have been the moment of breakthrough.
As Daneel thought along these lines, another question appeared to him.
"System, is there any change in my training speed and time to becoming a Warrior because of this breakthrough?"
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