Soul of Searing Steel

In the northern region of Mycroft continent, the second Sunday of March of each year is used to mark the end of the days of cold winter days and the arrival of true spring. At this time, both civilians and noblemen would choose to invite their relatives and friends over to their places. They would hold a grand gathering in order to celebrate the arrival of the warm wind. They would sing and dance, holding the celebrations as if they were releasing all of their energy that they had been holding in during the entire long winter in one go.

From the fortress at the border in the South all the way to the Wallachia's territory furthest in the North, from the plains in the west all the way to the Shining Sea in the East, everyone disregarded their identities as they were cheering for the arrival of the new year. They were all looking forward that everything would be smooth and successful in the new year while all disasters would stay clear of their future as well.

The howling of the wind from the distant seas and the dark tide that was surging in the Imperial City temporarily had nothing to do with the Moldavia's territory in the North. The residents in that territory had already gotten used to the ruling of their new count. Even so, some of the old folks were still holding on to the past when the previous count was still in power. However, along with time pushing forward, lesser and lesser people said that anymore. Slowly, everything had stopped saying the term 'new count'. They had naturally recognized the young warrior as their one and only 'Lord Count'.

Meanwhile, at that time, back in the liege's residence located in the main city, Joshua who was now respectfully called by his people as their 'Lord Count' was currently waiting for his lunch to be served.

Today, the Radcliffe family had no more side family members. Joshua and his cousin Chris were the only two remained in the entire family. Ever since the warrior killed his miser of an uncle who also turned out to be Chris's father, that young man who had the dream to become an alchemist no longer dared to show himself in front of his own younger cousin.

Well, maybe it was way beyond 'no longer dare to'. Because Chris was currently missing in action, as if he just evaporated from this world. Even though Joshua had hired some muscle to look for Chris, there was no slightest clue as to where he currently was after so long.

So now, most of the areas in the liege's residence were just empty. Other than the servants and the guards, there were only four people. Joshua had made an assumption that, over the past 400 years, this generation of the Radcliffe family would be the generation with the least number of family members in their entire family's history.

However, although the number of people was relatively little, he still had Ying and 03 to accompany him. Even though there were not many of them here, however, there would be no problem for them to hold a gathering dinner in celebrating the arrival of spring.

After waiting for a while, sitting right by the side of the table, Joshua heard footsteps. He looked up and saw that Ling came to the table with a roasted whole pig that was larger than his body. He approached the table slowly with roasted pork in his hands.

This whole roasted pork was golden red in color. Well, the pork looked tenderly red, along with golden oil dripping from the surface of its skin. The pork was giving off an exquisite fragrance that only tasty food would do, along with steamy heat coming right off from the skin of the pork. The meat looked fresh and tender. It would really stir up one's appetite.

Well, this pork was actually the Wild Boar King from the Dark Forest. A few days ago, Joshua went out to hunt by himself, and he single-handedly took down the Wild Boar King and brought it back to be cooked. Although, the hunters in the North had been claiming that the meat of the Wild Boar King was bizarrely tough. Even swords and blades could not cut into its meat. Hence, it would be impossible for anyone to consume it. However, that was for regular normal people. After the meat had been handled with some special method, the quality of the meat had become much tender and soft. The toughness of the meat was just right for the Joshua though. It was extremely chewy for him.

"Not bad, Ling. I had not expected that you're also a good chef other than a good assistant in handling the official works."

Joshua had never been stingy in praising others. He was expressing his surprise towards the young male Divine Armament's cooking skill. "You're worthy of being recognized as the ultimate butler."

"Haha, thank you for the compliment, Master." Upon getting praised, Ling seemed obviously happy. While he was carrying a plate of large roasted pig, he did not seem to be tired. After all, he was a Divine Armament. Although his body was small, his body also had the strength of a Silver-tier being. He spoke with a hint of pride, "Actually, my memory core records cooking information from the far South, Eastern plains, and almost all other regions across the Empire. The mage who wrote the database for me once traveled through the entire Mycroft Continent. He had gathered all sorts of food cultures and entered them into my memory core."

As he was saying, he leaned forward slightly. His right eye was slightly narrowed, and by the corner of his mouth carried a hint of a smile. "It will be much more wonderful knowing that my cooking can delight you, Master."

"Well, you don't have to behave to respectful towards me. At ease. Be yourself a little."

Being able to enjoy good food, Joshua was really having quite a good time, especially since was expecting the opportunity to eat all sorts of great food. Revealing a smile on his face, the warrior waved his hand and informed the young male Divine Armament saying, "Come, please have a sit."

According to Ling's introduction, there was also a saying about this fully roasted pig- In the myths in the Mycroft Continent, the great wild boar was a symbol of relentlessness even when one was in a desperate situation. Regardless of whether it was for the ferocious tigers or the hunters, this creature would fight to the last moment of life. Hence, the opportunity to taste food that was made from the raw meat of the wild boar would only be savored by the bravest of all.

Upon receiving the euphemistic praise from his own weapon, Joshua would of course naturally take it all. He was filled with joy as he began to operate the food placed before him with the small steak knife he was provided with.

Putting the golden roasted meat into his mouth, he could also sense that the fat on the meat was not greasy at all. It was fresh and delicious. However, after tasting the roasted meat for a brief moment, the warrior had noticed that something was not right.

Ying, Ling, and, 03 sat in their own seats, next to him. They were smiling as they looked at him. However, none of them had lifted the forks and knives on the table to enjoy their food.

That was certain as the two Divine Armaments did not need to consume food at all. Meanwhile, 03 was a magical projection. Her true body was the runic core, which only needed to draw the magic energy of the surroundings in order to function. Hence, she did not require food as well.

That made the situation a little awkward. Being looked at by three of his people as he ate, even Joshua felt a little uncomfortable about it. However, he was a big-hearted man after all. Although he felt that the situation was not quite right, he could still finish the entire roasted pork, leaving only the bones behind, nothing else.

The food intake of a Gold-Tier warrior depended on how much they wanted to eat. If the energy was not really completely saturated, he could swiftly digest all of the food supplies to provide his initially energized body and also store the energy for future use.

In any case, this slightly strange spring gathering was finally over. Ling and the other lady servants were clearing the plates off the table and started picking up the dining tableware. In the meantime, Joshua took out his notebook and roughly looked at his planner. After that, he slightly nodded and muttered to himself, "Yesterday, the auction back in the Imperial City has ended. If nothing goes wrong, Alphonso should have made the purchase of the evil items that got Fort Ares destroyed by now. He should have sent it to me through teleportation by now."

Putting his thoughts on that, Joshua could not help but let out a sigh."Compared to annihilating the Dark Tide and sealing off the dimensional rifts, this is probably the easiest time to protect the world. Saving fifty thousand to sixty thousand people can be so easy as well. This is so unreal though."

"Master, do you have something to get? I can get it for you!" The silver-haired young girl sitting aside stood up and spoke to Joshua full of enthusiasm. Although she did not understand what did Joshua meant by some sort of evil item that got some sort of fortress destroyed, however, she knew that it was something important that Joshua would want to do it.

"I'm counting on you."

Ying was willing to help. So Joshua felt that he had no reason to hammer her enthusiasm. He just nodded and let her go do her thing.

For the noblemen who had some assets in their family, they would be equipped with a communication circle and a teleportation circle that can send small items, messages, and storage crystals. A while ago, the North still had numerous dimensional rifts to cause distortions in time and space. Because of that, they could not build normal teleportation circles in the North. However, with the aid of Nostradamus, the dream of having teleportation circles across the lands of the North was almost complete.

This type of teleportation circle that were used to teleport small objects under ten kilograms would generally require only a single mini-scale teleportation circle in order for the teleportation to run smoothly. If runes could be optimized into it, people would be able to teleport things continuously. Speaking of all that, this had not yet considered the presence of magic energy being much denser than the other places. Under all those circumstances, teleportation processes would become much easier to operate.

03 was sitting by the side, looking at the master and his servants interacting with each other. She blinked her blue eyes for a bit and smiled gently. After that, she switched off her projection function and stayed inside of the runic core that was placed in the cart all alone. The radiance of the magic power was flashing on. It seemed that the A.I was having some thoughts.

Not long after, Ying returned with a book in her hand.

"So it is a book. It's not some sort of tetragonal trapezohedron or a silver key."

Joshua looked at the book that looked ordinary and yet with a strange presence that only beings like Joshua who possessed the power of Order could sense it. The warrior slightly nodded his head and said, "According to the information from the previous life, this should be called the Book of Eibon, right? It does seem a little odd."

After all, this was the evil spellbook that was carrying the possibility of destroying an entire fortress and caused the event [Fall of Ares]. Upon thinking about those gigantic dhole worms that had the power level of an Upper Gold tier beings that had attained the pinnacle of the Gold tier, the warrior could not help but feel a little excited. He stood up and he was ready to take the book from Ying.

However, something strange had happened.

Before Joshua could approach Ying, along with Ying's surprised voice, that book that seemed to be made of goatskin or ape skin actually shook on its own. After that, it broke away from the hands of the girl and fell onto the floor.