Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-178

Starfall Year 832, 7th of March, the main city of Moldavia, the liege's residence.

The three-story castle that was built with granite reared right in the center of the city, revealing a simple and heavy imposing manner. These uniformly fine stones were gathered fresh from the mining area by the side of the Great Ajax Volcano. In order to celebrate the ascension of their new lord and to pay their respects, the owner of the mining area had sent the best materials he could offer.

The black flags with golden sides were standing firmly and still on the two sides of the top of the castle. Meanwhile, the flags with the emblem of two hands bearing swords fluttered in the same direction as the wind. Right before the golden gates, guards in silver armor were standing in their posts. They were standing so still that they looked like statues made of marble.

In the liege's mansion, the attendants and they lady servants were walking in and out of the place, moving quite a number of things around. Some of them were hanging the portraits of previous counts onto the walls by the corridors and the aisles. They were also cautiously carrying the trophies that were belonged to the current young count- all sorts of heads that belonged to the daemons and sky dragons were carefully placed onto the walls of the main living hall.

Right on the top floor of the castle, there was a magnificently large study room.

The deep black granite tiles looked like a starless night sky, absorbing the light all around them. Meanwhile, there was a man sitting at the desk carved from the heart of the Steel-Core tree, looking at a complicated report.

A steel-core tree is a kind of tall pine that was very unique in the lands of the North. Its core was extraordinarily tough and rich with oil. With some simple treatment, it could become a very fine wood. Most of the handles and shafts on most high-quality weapons in the North were actually made of these steel-core wood. However, it was pretty rare that people would use them to make furniture.

The lamp made from pyroxene had enlightened the entire black study room. Joshua was scanning the documents with his eyes in a very swift manner. A few minutes later, he had completed reading the report and put it down.

"Some sort of Fire Dragon's Bloodline— putting up with crap."

His voice did not fluctuate at all. He did not seem to be angry. However, the words he used stated otherwise though. Joshua shook his head and crumpled the report sheets into a ball of paper, "Dragon-blooded warhorse that can gather fire elemental energy. If this is not the bloodline of the Fire Dragon, then what else can it be? Descendant of a white dragon?"

He even laughed. "Did the Mage Guild outsource this type of appraisal work to the other rogue mages out there? The standard of this report is so low… Even I can write a better one."

A few days ago, after taking a blood sample from Black, Joshua sent the blood sample over to the Imperial Royal Mage Guild through the mini teleportation circle that was newly set up at his place. However, he had never thought that he would get such a thing back from the Imperial Royal Mage Guild though.

Joshua knew that the awakening of Black's bloodline had something to do with him. As the Chaos Guardian and the Azurite in his possession, he had been slaughtering daemons and annihilating demonic things. Even though it was just the residue of the Order energy that was generated by the Azurite, that residue of the power could also benefit whoever or whatever was around the Azurite. Not to mention that Black had resonated with Joshua during the battle with the Black Rising. Black seemed to have experienced the baptism of the Order energy. Upon being corrupted by the presence of Chaos and getting purified after returning from the battlefield, the instinct hidden deep within its body had been further stimulated.

If a little more attention was focused on this matter, a simple test on the residue of the Order energy in the bloodline would have revealed all these things. In that report, the whole article only discussed things related to the gathering of elemental and magic powers. There was no mentioning of anything related to the bloodline. By the end of the letter, they only wrote the sentence [Identified as some sort of Fire Dragon Bloodline]. That had really confused Joshua. So was this an academic article or thesis done by the elemental mage or a bloodline analysis report?

However, truth to be told, Joshua had made a correct guess. Judging from some sort of perspective, this situation was actually caused by Joshua himself in the first place.

More than two months ago, he handed the [Marine Abyssal Spawn] over to Brandon the Holy Swordsman to be taken back to the Imperial City for analysis. Soon after that, the entire Imperial Royal Mage Guild was shaken up. Mages who were involved in the researches related to bloodline were attracted to this matter. So they grouped together to analyze the creature. They had also done some research on how the creature was forcefully transformed by Chaos energy. Currently, mages that specialized in other fields would have to replace these so-called experts that were obsessed with the examining the creature in their identification jobs.

However, even though the report only contained things that were irrelevant, it was still considered worthwhile. At least Joshua knew that the ancestor of his horse was originally an Old World Dragon, not some sort of Astral Dragon.

There was a huge difference between Old World Dragons and the Astral Dragons.

The Old World Dragons were referred to as the Beast Dragons, the Sky Dragons, the Bird Dragons, and many other species. Meanwhile, the Astral Dragons were referred to as the Colossal Metal Dragon and also the gigantic Pentashade Dragons across all of the multiverses. The wisdom of an Old World Dragon would equal to the wisdom of a beast. It would be a special case if one appeared to be much more intelligence than the others of its own kind. Meanwhile, Astral Dragons would normally have the wisdom that was equal or even far greater than the wisdom of a human being.

None of the existing myths and poems in the world had the slightest record about the origin of the Astral Dragons. They seem to have suddenly appeared just like that. Their existences just came out of nowhere in the history of men. They were like unsolicited outsiders who came from the other side of the astral world.

Upon resting his thought there, Joshua no longer got himself bothered by the identification report. He stood up and walked to the window and looked out, observing the flow of people from the downtown of his city.

The dispute in this world has not stopped at all. With the incident over the Dark Tide back in the North resolved, the next war was about to come.

"After the Dark Tide, it is time for the Berserk Dragon's Calamity."

Whispering to himself softly, Joshua looked very calm for the moment.

In the previous life, he was in the far South, present right at the center of that war. Meanwhile, in this life, he was currently in the North. He was half the continent away from the original spot where the Dragon's Calamity would happen. But even so, he could feel the ferocious presence of the Dark Tide. As he was standing higher than the spot he used to stand, Joshua could see things much clearer now. He could feel more deeply that the dragons were not the source that triggered this war.

The first patch, the first version of the Continental War was set in between Starfall Year 825 to Starfall Year 832, which was this year. With the orcs annihilated, Joshua was still merely a lone warrior in the far South by the same timeline. Even though he knew quite a lot of friends and he could easily form a party, however, he was still just an insignificant character in the game. So he was only familiar with some of the significant historical events. Many small details of small events remained unclear to him though. He only heard about those events back in the day.

However, the second patch, the second version began in Starfall Year 832. By then, Joshua had begun preparing to build a massive-scale battle party. During that time in the timeline, he knew more information and news. He already became qualified to join significant events. He even led his comrades into battle and conquered quite a number of powerful enemies. There was no need to say that in the same timeline in this life, he had already become an Upper Gold-tier warrior. He was destined to become a Supreme-tier warrior sooner or later. Furthermore, he had become a count who had full control over an entire territory. Because of this, the many things he did not know in the previous life was revealed to him. As long as he could proceed forward with his current pace, then he would definitely be capable to change the course of history in the future, preventing all the wars that yet to happen and put a stop to all things before they even happen.

However, regardless of whether it was a conspiracy between noblemen or wars between the nations, the warrior did not have the slightest interest in all that. Well, he had triumphed over all that I the previous life. So there was no point for him to challenge all that again in this life. The only thing that could catch his interest would be the culprit that orchestrated everything from the shadows, the Evil God of Chaos that was hiding in the void, the true source of all wars.

"Moreila has promised me that the rune dwarves will send a party over here in a few days to build the prototype of a rune factory. At that time, I'll only need to complete the design of the heavy enchanted armor together with the old dwarf and 03. It should be possible to make a complete product within a year or two."

Sitting back at the desk, Joshua took out a black notebook and began writing down his plans for the future. After he wrote for a brief moment, he went deep in thought again, "The resources near the Great Ajax Mountains should be enough to support the territory's initial industrialization of magic technology. However, the funding is a problem though. Hiring the right manpower with the skills to operate the technology is also a big problem."

03 was currently in the sealed room in the church. She was currently writing and copying information about most of the magic technologies in this world. However, the technical data and information from Karlis were too deep and hard to understand. With Joshua's current standard, he would only be able to understand the first level of all these information. Well, he estimated that even the old dwarf may not be able to understand how about them all. It seemed that it would still take many years if they really wanted to use the information practically for better purposes.

Just as Joshua was planning for his future, a pale blue magic circle started to radiate right before his desk.

The warrior froze slightly. However, he reacted again almost in an instant. Well, that was the simple communication circle that he specifically requested to be placed in his room. This communication circle and the main communication circle right on top of the castle were connected with the magic communication network of the entire Empire. However, for the time being, only two persons knew about his communication address. One would be the old dwarf while the other would be the Nostradamus who was recently setting up portals all over the place along with a party of his own.

Moreila had already contacted him not long ago. So the person that was contacting him right now should be the old mage.

As the communication circle was connected, as expected, Joshua heard the low-pitch voice of Nostradamus saying hello to him.

This time, the old mage contacted Joshua over the same matter about the portal in the North. Although most of the dimensional rifts were sealed, causing the element of teleportation to vanish, however, it was not always appropriate to construct a portal anywhere. This time, he wanted to inform Joshua that his apprentices had found a few suitable locations for building the portal. However, they were being rejected by the locals. So he would hope that Joshua could give the order to allow his apprentices to go into the lands across the territory to find more of these suitable locations without being interrupted.

Well, that was not a big problem at all. So Joshua agreed without even the slightest hesitation. So he made a promise saying that as long as Nostradamus's apprentices come, they would gain the approval.

The two continued on discussing the other issues in other areas. They were chatting more lively at the moment. As time passed, the call would soon end.

"… Other than that, Joshua."

Nostradamus's voice suddenly turned serious and doubtful through the communication circle. Then he slowly spoke, "I have an idea."

"Do speak your mind," Joshua replied casually.

"What do you think about my idea of starting up a Mage Academy in the North?"