God-Tier Villain

Chapter 74: Chapter 74

Then Soren elevating Bruce’s bloodline, breaking the shackles of his half-human, half-beast nature, handing him partial beast-transformation. And now Bruce was already starting on Lower-Tier Demon Emperor.

Enough to worry a man to death.

Soren glanced over. "Anxious?"

"Whatever is meant to be yours will come in time."

"The timing isn’t right yet."

Certainty like that put the light back in Jared’s eyes, he clasped his fists and nodded quickly, hiding a small delight. "Yes!"

"Hey, hey, hey, Master, what about me? Have you forgotten about me~"

Orathis scrambled over, rubbing its claws, wearing its most ingratiating face.

"Master, just evolve me a little bit. I don’t ask for much."

Then it began picturing its future self, kitted out in divine gear.

"I want the Innate Precious Feathers of the Ancient Heaven-Devouring Spirit Phoenix tribe! And the dragon horns of the Eastern Extreme Azure Dragon tribe, the ones that control natural forces! And the Void-Piercing Pupil of the Swallowing Sky Spirit Kun tribe! And, and..."

Bang!

"Aoooooo!"

"Master, if you didn’t want to give it to me, you didn’t have to!"

"Why would you hit me!?"

Soren’s punch sent it out of the ancient forest in front of the plaza, into a mountainside, down the slope, and face-first into dirt under a pile of rubble.

His eye twitched, the punch hadn’t been ruthless enough.

That’s what you call a little bit? You want every ability the Ancient Spirit tribes ever had packed into one dragon?

Soren composed himself and spoke coolly. "That ability only works on Bruce, who carries Beast race bloodlines, it’s useless for the Spirit race."

"Kill that idea of yours."

Though that wasn’t strictly true, with the Strategy Encyclopedia, covering Orathis in divine gear was entirely possible, but now was not the time.

Orathis shoved the rubble aside and popped its head out, spitting dirt, its eyes were resentful. "Master, you could have said that earlier!"

"Ssss... so painful~"

"My face is swollen."

"You have no sense of chivalry."

Soren couldn’t take it and threw another vicious punch, the fist force came through like a thunderstorm, Orathis took it straight to the forehead and got buried again by boulders rolling off the mountain, howling the whole way down.

"I have no chivalry for you!"

It pushed the rocks aside and shook debris off its head.

"Master, Little Dragon doesn’t have a proper family, but I do have an older sister."

"Though she’s even more vicious than me."

"She was sealed away earlier than Little Dragon was."

"Pity Little Dragon doesn’t know where."

"Maybe... maybe she’s already dead..."

Cursing under his breath, Soren took Ethel back to the main palace, Bruce was busy with the pill, Jared had no intention of sitting idle and went back to his own cultivation.

Half an hour later Lysara returned to the clan territory with a team from the mountain.

Selected clansmen took over counting and sorting the herbs and spiritual fruit they’d brought in.

The Ice Heaven Alluring Fox had never seen this many varieties in one place, and the excitement showed, they threw themselves at the work.

Soren had promised the herbs would go to their cultivation first, with types and quantities available depending on individual strength.

So they harvested like their lives depended on it, and trained the same way, anything left over got split two ways, one portion into storage, one to market for pills.

Black Dragon Mountain’s supply was abundant and its territory vast, a natural treasure trove.

Herbs alone weren’t enough, though, unprocessed, they were only raw material for pills and spiritual fluids, and eating them raw was inefficient.

Out of fifty thousand clansmen in the territory, only Ethel knew how to refine anything.

Everyone else was clueless, trading raw material at market for finished pills was the fastest fix, and no kind of long-term answer, pills and fluids ran several times, dozens of times, sometimes a hundred times the price of ingredients.

"Demon Emperor, why don’t we recruit people who understand pharmacology and alchemy to work for Black Dragon Mountain?"

"Wouldn’t that give us a complete chain? And..."

"Any excess pills and fluids could be sold, or traded for things we need more."

"Producing and selling it ourselves maximizes the profit."

"If our share of the market gets large enough, we could control the pill and fluid trade across the Exalted Continent, perhaps the whole Azure Spirit World, that puts us in a far more proactive position."

"Since the Demon Emperor’s goal is the Azure Spirit World, I feel we should be looking at the long term."

"We should run trial management and operations to the standards we’d use if the Demon Emperor had already conquered it."

Every eye in the hall landed on her.

Soren, Lysara, the newly appointed Alluring Fox Elders, the executives running herb collection and sorting.

The pressure got to her.

She shook her head in a small panic. "Ah, I was only saying whatever came to mind."

"If the Demon Emperor thinks it’s unreasonable, just ignore me."

Soren looked thoughtful.

"No, you spoke very well."

What she’d said made him realize her potential ran further than pharmacology, he started forming a plan to raise her further.

He looked straight at her and asked directly.

"Ethel, you understand pharmacology and alchemy better than anyone in Black Dragon Mountain, so I have an important task to entrust to you."

She gave a small nod.

"Whatever task the Demon Emperor commands, I will put my life on the line to finish it."

Watching her behave like that, Soren couldn’t resist running a hand through her hair.

"Just as you said, producing and selling it ourselves is the only way to maximize profit, and we start operating under a proper system now."

"So I plan to establish our own Alchemy Pavilion."

"You will take full charge of everything to do with it."

Ethel froze solid, petrified to an almost comical degree.

She had assumed he wanted her to refine some specific pillr f, oind a rare herb.

Instead he was handing her something this heavy?

She wanted to carry his burdens, desperately, she wished she could follow him every hour of every day doing everything she could for him.

But.

She’d lived isolated in Black Dragon Mountain since childhood, shut out by everyone, with zero experience managing or leading anything.

What if she ruined it all?

Would the Demon Emperor decide she was useless? Would he give up on her entirely?