Chapter 283: The Situation in the Kingdom

The sudden appearance of five figures caused a great uproar in the lord’s mansion in Dalaran.
It was a newly arrived servant who happened to see Donald and the others; not having seen the lord before, he didn’t realize it was the lord himself and immediately let out a scream as shrill as that of a dying turkey.
The scream triggered the mansion’s alarm, and the clear, resonant bell sounds echoed across Twilight Town.
In less than a minute, officials such as William, the leader of the militia guard, Barn, along with mages like Kelthas, Clinton, Maelis, and three Silver Mages—along with George and Bush, the leaders of the Holy Sword Legion who were training outside the camp, and Tik, the head of the intelligence agency jokingly named the Dalaran Central Intelligence Agency—were all busy handling matters in Windchime Village and couldn’t return in time. Everyone else rushed to the mansion upon hearing the alarm and surrounded it.
Even Catherine, who wasn’t very combat-effective, put aside her business matters and followed the stronger ones there.
However, when they saw that the intruders were Donald and the others who had returned after being away for a long time, they realized it was a misunderstanding, and everyone was relieved.
“Donald, you’re back?”
“Yes, Catherine! I’m back!”
The old mage frowned slightly and asked, “Has your strength improved again?” “Haha! Not only me—everyone has made significant progress. Carlisle and Vincent are already legendary Sword Saints!” This news caused everyone to gasp in surprise. Using their mental senses, they detected many people gathered near the mansion after hearing the alarm. Donald said, “Let’s go inside and talk.” He invited everyone into the reception room, then used a barrier to block external surveillance and recounted their experiences over the past period.
Regarding the Totem Continent realm, it had been top-secret before they left—the fewer people who knew about it, the better. But since they had returned to the main world and the safe passage between the two worlds had disappeared, it wasn’t a problem to let others know, as long as they didn’t deliberately spread the news and cause chaos.
“You mean there really is another world similar to the main world, and you even hunted down many true gods there?”
Even the usually calm old mage was shocked by this news, let alone Chris and Maelis.
After talking for a while more, realizing that Donald and the others still had matters related to the territory to discuss, the three Sword Saints—Carlisle, Vincent, and Abel—took their leave first.

After arranging for the three to rest, Donald asked, “Teacher, how is the construction of the Mage Tower progressing?” “It has already reached a stable scale. There are now 35 mages in the tower. The twenty-odd mages I knew from Stonehold Castle have all been safely located. Additionally, Chris has taken time to oversee the mining of magic ore in the Orc Valley. Kelsas is very helpful in refining magic gold ore; he’s now an essential member of the blacksmith shop!”

This was good news. Donald then asked about other aspects of the territory. In terms of economic production, it had far surpassed the established barony of Redmap Town. Aside from its flagship industries such as moonlight wine, black tea, icefish, and canned goods, agricultural and pastoral outputs had also reached the highest levels in the Northlands, thanks to the dual support of Moon Essence and the druid elves. William played a significant role in this; without his hard work, these industries wouldn’t have developed so rapidly.

For business affairs, Katherine was temporarily in charge of the territory. During Donald’s absence over the past few months, she had devoted herself entirely to this task, managing various business operations efficiently. Although she lacked the experience and foresight of her cousin Augusta, her ability to maintain order already made her one of the best business managers.

A trade route to Port Leyton had now been established. Recently, Augusta had personally gone to Port Leyton to oversee the plans… Cooperation between the two families of Port Leyton was already showing results—high-quality luxury goods and agricultural products from Dalaran were being shipped in bulk to other parts of the continent. These shipments generated tens of thousands of gold solars in revenue for Dalaran and Port Leyton every month.

While some were envious of the profits involved, the presence of the legendary dragon Nozdormu, the Eternal King, who resided in Emerald Dream not far from Port Leyton, served as a deterrent. Several greedy and bold pirate groups that attempted to attack ships departing from Port Leyton were dragged underwater by the sea beasts that arrived. As the maritime lord of Fallen Star Bay, Nozdormu could easily monitor the movements of those pirate ships at sea.

Due to these precedents, all the major factions eyeing these profits grew wary and hesitated to take action.

Finally, the military has those summoned warriors who conduct systematic and rigorous training for the recruits, and initial results have already shown promise—their morale and appearance can compare to those of ordinary royal armies. However, since they have not yet experienced a war, they cannot yet be considered true warriors. Only the Musketeer Guard can be regarded as elite, being a force for long-range combat with combat power far surpassing that of ordinary archers. The only drawback is that their firearms require crystals as ammunition, leading to higher consumption. Yet for the wealthy Thalassra, it is still affordable to support this group of musketeers.

With such a powerful military force, coupled with the newly built Arcane Tower and the deterrence posed by numerous mages, aside from an increase in foreign spies in Thalassra, no faction dares to provoke it.

Learning that everything in his domain was safe during his absence and was even developing better than he had imagined, Donald felt greatly relieved.

However, after the old mage informed him of the news brought by the intelligence chief from Goldthorn Auction House, Donald couldn’t help but frown.

“Has it already reached such a tense level?”

It turned out that during the four months he was away, the situation in the kingdom had changed significantly.

The cause was the worsening health of the old king, who could now only rest in bed and could no longer participate in kingdom affairs.

The crown prince, Andrew, was the first to raise his banner, calling on the nobles across the country in his capacity as the legitimate heir and aiming to take control of government affairs while sidelining the second prince.

But the second prince, Durian, was no pushover. Backed by the military and the Ansel family, this alone disrupted Andrew’s plans. Although support from nobles across the country was important, it was the military forces responsible for maintaining stability in the kingdom and protecting the capital that supported the second prince. Thus, the two princes each took control of military and political affairs and began to compete for control over various regions of the kingdom. This power struggle has lasted for two months, with no clear winner yet—whether a decision will be made depends on what cards each side still holds!