Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

However, the fact that he made even his subordinates worry for him made Simon think that he was not fit to be a leader yet. Simon glanced at the anxious face of Cecilia and felt responsible, he tried to give them an assured smile, only for their eyes to become even more dubious.

"What is it that you are hiding from us?" Irene asked. She glanced at him with those crystal blue of eyes of hers that seemed to have the ability to see through one's soul.

Knowing that he would only worry them if he hid it from them, Simon came out clean and told them about what he learned from the Lightning Draconic Serpent about the last overlord that he needed to subjugate.

Hearing the thing that was on his mind, even the maids showed troubled faces.

"Master what if we help you subdue it…".

"It won't work, the agreement that master made with the lord of the ancient treants binds him to achieve it on his own strength. If we were to lend our assistance, that would be equal to Master not being able to keep his words, do you want to disgrace master like that?" before Alice complete her sentence she was reprimanded by Annette and forced to think things carefully before saying anything.

,m "N-No" Alice hurriedly shook her head. The situation where her master would have to bow his head to someone else because of her was unacceptable to her.

It was as Annette had said, the agreement that he made with Aldebaran would mean nothing if he was achieving the objective with a borrowed power and in that case, all those words he said to Aldebaran would mean nothing.

What's more, Simon had made an oath at that time so using the Valkyries power was unacceptable.

"An Elder Dragon huh… it's not like there is no way" Irene who was silent till now, opened her mouth at this moment.

"Miss Irene what do you mean? There are only a couple of months remaining before the one-year agreement is up. if an elder dragon is as powerful as the Lightning Draconic Serpent says, then master going there alone might put him in danger".

Annette voiced her complaint, this was the first time she was in disagreement with Irene.

The latter calmly took her glare and explained "I'm not telling him to go against an elder dragon, that would clearly be suicidal. Unless it is also a lower dragon like that Earth shattering Dragon, even you guys would have trouble the way you are against one. That is unless you have forgotten the aura that is inside you".

Seeing Irene's gaze turn towards him at the end of her sentence, Simon locked his brows in a frown. What was the aura she was talking about? He didn't have to think long before the memories from the past surfaced back once again.

How should he put this, it wasn't very long ago when another person asked him that very same question. That person was very unreasonable, barged inside his dungeon and didn't listen to anything that others had to say.

The petite person that loved food and spending his money, was none other than Adalinda. It was not very long ago when she barged inside his dungeon and asked him a similar question.

He realised the aura that Irene was talking about. In fact, it was because of this aura that Simon was forced by Adalinda to go along with her antics. As much as he hated this aura, it also had its own benefits and that was the technique that came along with it.

[Ancient Draconic Compel], a legacy technique that was created by Adalinda and passed onto him by Lucine. The technique also made the user exude a dragon aura whenever executing this technique.

The aura that Irene was talking about was none other than the dragon aura.

"But will it work on that Elder Dragon?" Simon needed the [Ancient Draconic Compel] to subdue the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon at that time, he would be exuding a dragon aura to bring the latter into submission.

However, was that enough to also deter the Elder Dragon, the one protecting it from the shadows? Simon was a little sceptical since he cannot exactly imagine the power level of an Elder Dragon.

"Don't worry… if anything, that sassy woman bestowed you with an incredible gift. Since it's the technique she herself created, although extremely negligible, it contains the trace of her dragon aura. Even if the opponent is a genuine Elder Sky Dragon they would have to carefully weigh their options before engaging you" Irene explained with certainty.

"How powerful is she?" Hearing her words, Simon was inevitably curious.

"Even I'm not sure… however, she should be at least or more powerful than the woman you told me about in that Historia you experienced in the forbidden trail" Irene said giving an estimate. Since she hadn't actually fought against Adalinda, it was hard for her to give an exact estimate.

However, those few words were enough for Simon to get a clue as to how powerful she was. The woman that Irene was talking about was Yela who fought singlehandedly against an atrocity even while poisoned inside the [Historia].

She was powerful enough to split the horizon with the swing of her sword, collapse space and cause natural disasters all over the land.

If Irene was saying that Adalinda was as powerful as Yela, he had no reason to disagree with her. In fact, during their journey, he had been slowly suspecting that this woman was one of the pinnacle experts in this world.

If the [Ancient Draconic Compel] was created by her then she should also be from the dragon clan. Although Simon did not how powerful an Elder Sky dragon was, they shouldn't be as powerful as Adalinda right?

If the dragon aura is somehow able to make the guardian dragon a little apprehensive to attack or even scare them away, then he might have a chance to subdue the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon.

When he thought till here, Simon felt this concern that had been troubling him all this while fade away and with that, his mood also returned to usual.

No matter what, he has to first get powerful enough to subdue the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon, he can think about it when the time comes. For now, he still had a few months, besides that he did not think that Aldebaran would try to play cheap tricks like that.

There was definitely something that he was unable to see right now. Now that he was feeling unburdened, he apologised to his subordinates for worrying them and teleported to the [Workshop].

[Workshop] was the name given to the industrial floor on which Wisp resided. This was one of the essential places alongside the Main floor and Forest spring spirit village that must be absolutely guarded against any intruders.

Although in the case of the workshop, there were hundreds of Andromedas assembled and unassembled to guard it. However, it would be an incredible loss if the assembly line or the equipments that were made with rare and precious materials, get's damaged in the aftermath.

Simon teleported to the base of the volcanic mountain where the main factory line was located. the factories here as compared to before have expanded all around the mountain and were basically on the level of a small city.

Not only that, there were also new volcanic mountains and Mineral Mountains popping up every around the floor. Although there were no factories set up there right now, it wouldn't be long before it is being used to manufacture more Andromedas.

On that note, Cecilia also came to the floor to create more Mystical veins on the floor and redirect them towards the mineral mountains. All in all, the floor had seen many changes in the past few days.

Whoosh… the moment Simon entered the factories, he felt a burst of heat slam against his body.

BAM… BAM… loud clanging noise came from everywhere and wherever he laid his eyes, he would see a fully finished or a component of an Andromeda being manufactured.

Simon enjoyed looking at how the Andromedas were processed before meeting up with Wisp. As usual, the guy (note- the concept of gender does not apply to it) was incredibly busy keeping the factories working.

[BEEP-BEEP-BEEP] the wisp floated around him trying to tell him that it was happy he came here.

"Yeah I'm happy to see you too" Simon smiled, by now he was capable of understanding this weird and unique interdimensional entity due to the link he had with it. He could also tell that the bond he had with it is only getting stronger with time and as the null elemental gaining its spirituality.

"I'm sorry to burden you with this when you are already busy but can you make all these…" Simon touched the Wisp and thought about the things he wanted it to manufacture.

Since the Null Elemental was capable of reading his memories, it could also read the thoughts that were on his mind. Through that, Simon showed it some blueprints of the weapons/heirlooms that the Valkyrie uses.

Although it was impossible to create those powerful Heirlooms without the necessary items which are incredibly scarce at this point, it might still be possible to make a cheap copy of them.

He was aware that a copy is a far cry from the original, but it would still be better than having them use a [B] tier weapon that they were not used to. Plus, the Valkyires or a Hero's strength increases manifold when they hold the Heirloom that was meant for them.