After the intense sparring session the banquet continued, a lot more nobles had approached Reign this time however and soon he was surrounded by them at all sides. Members and even leaders of powerful noble houses flocked to him in order to get acquainted with the new powerhouse their kingdom had acquired, merchants as well didn't wait before getting close to him, and warriors that were as powerful as Reign were always good to know and if they ever needed help they could perhaps ask him one day. Merchants always faced a great risk when doing big deals, their caravans might get ambushed by bandits, a foreign kingdom or perhaps even attacked by beats, there were times when they needed to deliver an order to a kingdom or even an empire that was far away and to get there the caravans needed to pass through multiple dangerous areas.
If they had a powerful individual like Reign helping them then it would be much safer and easier to do that, of course, those kinds of trades were pretty much impossible right now as the four kingdoms had almost completely blocked their trade routes, only the most important trade routes to other kingdoms were still usable, even though the coalition of 4 kingdoms was powerful they weren't stupid enough to block all the routes as the kingdom of Riplas exported a lot of food to other kingdoms and by blocking all the routes they would simply antagonize the other kingdoms.
If they did that then perhaps some kingdoms would even attack them from behind and that would allow Riplas to win, even though nobody wanted to fight a war right now, if there was a chance for another kingdom to attack and easily destroy another they would do so, the prospect of increasing their territory was always tempting.
Contrary to Reign, Lico didn't have many people coming to him, he was already a distinguished fighter in the kingdom and already had a network of friends and acquaintances, there was no need for any nobles to approach him in order to try and form a connection with him. The only people that were currently going up to him were his friends and leaders of some noble houses that had dealings with him, most of the others simply stayed clear of him and flocked to Reign as he was still new and hadn't formed any friendships or relations with anyone yet.
The brother and sister duo from the royal family hadn't left Reign's side ever since he had returned, Ian and Reign continued talking about mana and fighting while Ilena who was previously a bit silent had started jumping in their conversation as well. Reign was a bit surprised as the princess had previously been silent and when she spoke it was mostly for a couple of seconds before she would let the Ian and him continue the conversation, right now however she was the one that took the lead and even initiated a couple of topics as well.
In the eyes of the surrounding nobles, it seemed that Reign and the two siblings had a great time and that their relationship was good as well, nobody however noticed the dangerous glimmer in Ilena's eyes that would flash from time to time as she looked at Reign, neither did any of them notice the same happening with Reign as well. The king and the other powerful figures in the great hall were also oblivious to that, as was the prince who was standing right next to the two.
As the evening continued there were no surprised like the previous sparring session, Reign and Lico also came together and spoke for a bit, most of it was about their previous spar and the many skills and techniques they had used during it. Of course, neither one was willing to give a lot of information about their respective skills but they were still able to elaborate a bit on them, almost no skill that had been used were trump cards as only Reign's [ Rage of the Kirin ] and Lico's [ Tornado Lance ] could be considered as such.
The two mostly talked about how they manipulated and channeled mana and some of their understanding of the way of the sword, however, since the two used completely different kinds of swords it was a bit hard for them to truly talk about it with the other as the way they fought was different as well.
Reign relied on his incredible speed and power to deliver a flurry of slashes to his opponent, his unpredictable attacks usually gave his enemies a great headache and he would capitalize on it with a skill that he would perform at the right moment.
Lico on the other hand preferred to fight in a more stable and calm manner, he delivered fast and precise slashes while calmly defending against incoming attacks while trying to figure out his opponent's pattern. When he had enough information he would surprise his opponent by suddenly switching his fighting style, from calm and stable he would suddenly turn ferocious and incredibly fast thanks to his ability. Once he did so he would do all that he could to send attack after attack to his enemy without giving them a moment to respond.
That was what he did with Reign when he used his [ Tornado Lance ], a mere moment of carelessness made Reign helpless against the attack, and if not for his incredible speed that caught Lico off guard he would have been bombarded with attacks in a similar fashion to what he had done to Lico after that.
The two, however, had great respect for each other, Lico respected Reign because of the great talent he had seen in the boy and the fact that he had without a doubt gone through many battles even though he was so young. Reign respected Lico in a similar fashion, the man was without a doubt the most powerful swordsman he had gone against and the technique he had displayed during their initial clash was profound and above Reign's understanding, Reign was also a swordsman and he knew how hard it was to improve upon it, simply by clashing against Lico he was able to tell that the man was at least at rank S- when it came to sword proficiency.
As for the king and Lios, he had expected them to be incredibly powerful, not only did he already know that both of them had a greater amount of mana than him, but the way the two had intervened in the battle and managed to catch the attacks of the two of them was something that made Reign knew that even if he went all out he might not be powerful enough to beat one of them.
Eldar had previously warned them of the difference between someone that had gone through the first evolution and those that had not, he said that when it came to those in the first evolution they had no true weakness when fighting against anyone that hadn't managed to evolve, although Reign didn't quite understand what that meant he still knew that fighting against someone that had gone through the first evolution was an incredibly difficult task.
What Reign didn't understand however was why Lico still hadn't managed to go through the first evolution yet. During their conversation, he asked the man that question, simply by looking at the high proficiency that he had with the sword and the great control he had over his ability he should have become one by now.
"Oh, to be honest, the reason is the evolution mission, the one that was given to me is, well let's say it's a tricky one. Even if we were in times of peace I would still need some time in order to do it, and I did want to, I spent years creating a solid foundation for my house before I went to do the mission, but just when I managed to do so this damned war started and I don't have a chance to finish it right now."
Reign didn't ask what his mission was as that would simply be rude, everyone received different kinds of missions from the system for the evolution, some would be simple, some would be easy but took a long time while some were incredibly challenging, there was no telling what kind of a mission one would get either and that simply made it harder for people to do them.
Of course, there was also the option to simply not do the mission, once somebody abandoned the mission they could continue leveling up until hitting the wall again and getting a mission for the first evolution, the difference was that people that hadn't gone through the first evolution would have an incredibly difficult time doing even the easiest missions for the second evolution, upon doing them however they would evolve and they would simultaneously go through the first two evolutions.
Once again, one could also abandon the second evolution mission and continue leveling, doing that however would make the third evolution mission almost impossible to be done and the person would have to continue leveling without going through a single evolution, those kinds of people were many times weaker compared to those that were the same level and had at least gone through one evolution.
As midnight arrived the banquet was over, after the sparring session Reign was quite tired and hungry so he helped himself to the food as he had noticed many people had started eating as well. Lico joined him and together they had a good feast.
After the banquet ended Reign went back to his room and quickly closed it as he heard the door of the room next to him an opening, his maid tried entering the room but unfortunately for her, she was too late as Reign had quickly changed his clothes and gone to bed. Upon lying down he stared at the ceiling before flashing a ferocious smile.
"This is going to be interesting."
Ding!
[ Evolution missions have been decided for the player. ]
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