[Status]

Town Level: 1 (0/5)

Population: 534

Faith Level: 10

Army: -

Stone: -

Wood: -

Ore: -

[As lord of the city, the destruction of the City Heart would revoke your status as a lord and all access that comes with it, you can access different things pertaining to your city through the city heart.]

After a few minutes of the merging between his lord token and the cube, his hand was finally ejected from the cube.

However, he had not drawn out his token out with it, bit left it inside the cube, and this status tab appeared before Alec, adding itself to the list of tabs in his main system.

He didn’t even look surprised by what he was seeing, and that was because while the merging was going on, the magic cube, which he now knew as the City Heart—had been sending him various pieces of information.

They were useful bits of information that would help him in ruling the city and now he truly understood what the old man had meant when he said that all the answers Alec was looking for would eventually come to him when he came to his city.

Now, when he looked at the cube before him, he no longer saw it as some inanimate object, but as a very intelligent AI-like system deeply connected to him in ways even he could not fully understand.

He felt he should have been linked to the City Heart only to a certain degree, since it almost functioned like a butler to its castle lord, but with his system doing something to its programing, the connection between them had clearly become much tighter than it should have been—almost like the cube was his little kid.

Part of the information the cube had given him made him realize that, with its help, he could access all sorts of platforms, a few of them being the Player Market, the Origin Stimulus World, and the Lords Leaderboard.

There was still a lot more information he was trying to process he plan to take it a step at a time with them, however the most important basics he needed in order to rule, he had already gotten the hang of thanks to his City Heart.

“My lord.”

The Tier 2 old man, who had gathered a few other elders, finally entered the throne room, he bowed and pushed his hands forward, showing his respect to Alec.

“Speak,” Alec said almost immediately, as he had already known the old man was coming, all because the cube had made it known to him even before they entered the throne room, which was where the limit of his mental energy had fully covered.

_ _

Back on the island, the grading of most of the mages who had been brought over had already been completed, and the head recruiters had begun talking among themselves.

Some were even placing bets on which region’s latest recruits would be the first to raise their town to Level 2.

While they were talking, the old man, who had been ignored since the discussion started—soon frowned.

“Hey, I think it’s time for me to go now. Duty calls. There aren’t any more F-grade mages for me to recruit anyway,” the old man said.

They all waved him off casually, but the moment he stepped through his space door, they immediately began gossiping about him.

“What better things could a recruiter from the Wilderness Region possibly have to do?” one of them mentioned.

Most of them believed he had only left because he was jealous of the achievements they were listing and had nothing of his own to contribute.

However, the old man could not have cared less about what they had to say.

The moment he stepped past the space door, he appeared in a throne room far grander than Alec’s or even the Red High Orc own.

Even if the throne room of the two of them were combined, they still would not match the majesty of the throne room he had entered.

And with every step he took, his bent back slowly straightened, his body began to change drastically, and very soon even the haggard walking stick he had been using for support transformed into a sleek cane with a black body and golden trims around its edges.

Knights clad in full-body iron armor stood on both sides of the room, and as he walked past them, they all bowed slightly.

However, he simply walked up to the cube at the center of his throne room, with a flick of his left hand, the cube slightly rose into the air, and from its underside, a beam of light shone down, forming a holographic map of all the lands that stretched across the Wilderness.

Not only that, there were also tiny cartoon-like heads of the current lords positioned above their territories. However, the reason he had rushed back was certainly because of Alec.

He stared at Alec’s miniature head and couldn’t help chuckling.

“Such a crafty boy.”

Unlike the other human lords, Alec’s face was blurred. Though he could still tell it was Alec from his general features, however he just couldn’t help wondering what exactly Alec had done to cause this state.

The reason for this phenomenon was simple, he had lost his back access into Alec’s City Heart, and he couldn’t help feeling that he had been right about Alec ability to by pass the system all along.

When Alec had been graded as an F-rank potential mage, he had been staring right at him, yet he hadn’t seen even the slightest look of shock or disbelief on Alec’s face.

In fact, the way Alec carried himself afterward showed that he didn’t really care about the grade at all.

And the only reason a mage would act like that was if they knew they were better, either because they had found a way to deceive the system, or because they had simply grown numb to such things due to a very deep confidence.

Whichever it was, he just had a strong feeling that Alec was going to give him all the entertainment he had been craving for a very long time.

Though he was certain that, just as Alec had managed to deceive the grading system, he had also found a way to cut off the City Heart network from his spying.

And it wasn’t as if he could simply go over and ask Alec how he had managed to kick him—the master spy—out.

So he remained calm, since he realized that Alec was still connected to his territories as a lord beneath him.

“Alec Gordons, don’t disappoint me now that you have my full attention.”

_ _

“My lord, we humbly welcome you. I only wanted to ask that you take a tour of your new territory and let me know ahead of time your decision, to stay or leave.”

“And I’m not saying this to offend you. I simply want to know what your choices will be, so I can relay them to the other citizens, so they won’t raise their hopes too high about you staying,” the old man said, trying his best to make his intentions sound as humble as possible.

Even as he spoke, sweat dripped down his forehead, his fear clearly visible while he was trying his best to explain himself as hum

bly as possible, after hearing what he said all Alec did was raised an eyebrow in confusion.