Chapter 173

Wait, isn’t there some misunderstanding here?

However, this reaction sparked an idea in my mind.

Hold on, could this actually be a good approach?

Thanks to Han Jaeyeon, the malicious leaker of texts, Ardenia’s magical civilization was advancing by leaps and bounds every day.

No longer did mages have to perform all sorts of menial tasks for just one line of a spell or kill each other over a single formula. This was because superior knowledge of magic was being released without any restrictions, rendering the existing system obsolete!

But even with this wealth of information, there were clear limits to what could be achieved.

It’s like trying to learn from textbooks alone without a teacher.

Naturally, they’d run into roadblocks here and there, and many would even learn magic incorrectly due to misunderstandings of books or circles.

This wasn’t just one or two people—it affected tens of thousands… Improving this situation could make a huge difference.

I’ll have to do something about that later, I thought before speaking up.

“Alright, is your problem resolved now?”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

“Good. Keep working hard on your magic training.”

With that, I finished my meeting with Red and left the reception room.

“I’m going to see Flower,” I said.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I followed the maid down the hallway. The Guild Tower’s structure was simple—a square with an empty center—so no guide was necessary, but it’s always better to let her know ahead of time to avoid confusion.

“How is her appetite?”

“She eats about twelve servings a day, but… she’s still losing weight.”

“Keep sending her nutritious food. Contact all castles and tell them to send a variety of easy-to-eat meals.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I arrived at Flower’s room. She was sitting up on the wide bed, cutting into a steak on a small table when she saw me. She sprang to attention.

“Your Highness.”

“You don’t need to get up.”

She didn’t look good. Dark circles under her eyes and dry skin. Her body had become so thin that her muscles were clearly visible, like a model on an extreme diet.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m so tired I feel like I might collapse after eating. Your Highness. And not even needing to use the restroom yet…”

“I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

To be honest, I was really worried. I couldn’t be sure how this pregnancy would affect Flower, who was just an ordinary woman carrying a child with bloodline beyond human capabilities.

What if giving birth caused permanent harm to her?

If that happens… we’ll have to separate the biological components through surgery or something.

Just as I had this thought…

“Don’t say such things, Your Highness.” She said while gently touching her stomach.

We’d only been together for two weeks, but her belly was already noticeably swollen. It stood out even more because she was so thin overall.

“I’m… happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

She looked at her belly with eyes that seemed to glisten with honey.

In the end, I had to push back my plans a bit.

“Don’t you dare say anything about being emaciated!”

”…Emaciated?”

I laughed as Flower stared at me, confused by my words.

“Never mind. If you’re worried about the baby, eat even more. You want it to have some meat on its bones, right?”

My words made Flower look like she was about to cry.

It was rare to see such an expression from someone who was always so meticulous about everything.

“But I’ve been eating all day…”

“Eat faster. If you don’t get enough nutrients, it won’t just be bad for you—it could affect your child too.”

My words startled Flower, her eyes widening in surprise.

“Your Highness, if it’s bad for me…”

“It means there might be complications with the baby. Remember this: my bloodline is different from ordinary humans. You’ll need an incredible amount of food.”

This was a characteristic of bio-energy. Trainees who cultivated bio-energy required vast amounts of calories for both growth and maintenance. As a result, even highly skilled snipers or drop troopers—those who needed to operate independently—were often eliminated during the selection process due to their inability to sustain themselves without relying on others.

Unless they had unique biological adaptations, these trainees simply couldn’t maintain their energy levels effectively.

Determination filled Flower’s eyes.

”…Yes, Your Highness. I’ll do my best.”

I left the room as Flower started eating even more aggressively than before.

“How many disciples are with you now?”

“Ten regular rank and three high rank.”

“Double your numbers and keep food ready for them. If chewing is hard, consider blending it for them.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

After giving these instructions, I walked towards Hayes’ room while thinking:

Recovery sure isn’t easy.

It had been two weeks since we established our relationship, but my muscles and bones were still recovering slowly. My muscles had regained only eight kilograms, and my height had barely increased by one centimeter.

The pleasure was brief, but muscle loss seems endless…

Gaining weight was simple—just eat a lot—but turning that into muscle was really tough.

More than anything else, my strength was so great that it was hard to increase it with normal methods.

“Your Highness.”

“Yes, how is Hayes doing?”

The maid guarding Hayes’s room answered my question.

“She’s alternating between eating and training.”

“How much is she eating?”

“She eats 180 portions every day, but she still looks very thin.”

Still, as a knight, her appetite was far more aggressive than Flower’s. I nodded and went inside.

“Sigh… You’re here?”

Hayes, sitting cross-legged on the floor, raised her hand in greeting.

She wasn’t as bad off as Flower, but half of her face was also gone.

“The initialization potion I asked for.”

“Oh, thank you! It says it drops everywhere in the tooltip, but I couldn’t find it anywhere!”

Of course, since the initialization potion was a cash item, it wouldn’t appear on any drop table.

NPCs often appeared in main quests or side quests… but unfortunately, there were none in Ardenia.

Well… I guess that’s fine. With all this money coming in, it’s time to start investing.

As I pondered over the rewards from both main NPCs and useful sub-NPCs, Hayes drank an initialization potion. Seeing her now lightly dressed, I remarked:

“You’ve lost a lot of weight.”

“Gulp… Ha! Yes, even though I was eating so much, I kept losing weight! Can you believe it? Despite consuming dozens of wild boar legs, my chest size went down to F cup? Now my head is bigger than my chest!”

”…”

I let go of Hayes’ rambling and asked:

“What about your stats?”

“All mana power.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, everything!”

Unlike Flower, who still had a long way to go, Hayes had almost finished her transformation. She’d accepted the life factor as fuel for evolution, not pregnancy. The result was fascinating: A new organ had formed in her body—an enormous one.

It really is different from ordinary life factors.

Everyone evolved differently, but the effects of their life factors were usually the same. Life factors unlocked the potential within human bodies without guiding them in any particular direction.

Most importantly, it was impossible for a beginner like her to create an organ with such powerful effects so soon after starting bio-energy training.

Mana power, huh?

It wasn’t about increasing mana quantity but enhancing one’s ability to control it. Though unexpected, I quickly grasped Hayes’ intent. After all, I had considered various plans for utilizing atmospheric energy myself.

“I see. So you’ve already prepared a vessel?”

“Exactly. With such a large container ready, there’s no need to create or maintain a mana hole. If we just boost your mana power significantly… you’ll be able to grow your mana quickly.”

“I understand.”

Nodding, I pulled out a stack of papers from my robes.

“What’s this?”

“A physical representation of a mana hole. It matches the technique needed for handling large amounts of energy. However, I’ve only completed the first half, so you’ll need more practice later.”

“Create a cultivation method? Huh… Well. Not surprising from you.”

“No one else can learn it. It’s based on manipulating air.”

“What’s its name?”

“‘Late Bloomer’.”

Hazes’s face changed dramatically at my words.

”…Why?”

“Your sense of naming is…”

“Well, what else could I call it after ‘air’?”

We bickered for a moment before leaving the room. I wanted to keep playing, but there was no time.

“You’re busy, aren’t you?”

Back in the Guild Office, I touched the system interface in the corner of my vision and accessed the guild bulletin board.

In the past, we used to stack paper manuscripts in the office and work through them, but now I had scribes copy things onto the guild bulletin board instead.

Not all writers had good handwriting, so sometimes it was hard to read their letters. Plus, there were piles of manuscripts taking up space in the guild office.

“Rozelian wrote a new story… after the gate incident.”

I started copying it down. Even though the Empire’s literature contest was over, manuscripts kept coming in.

Their writing activities followed my orders as emperor, so nothing could interfere with that process.

Based on royalties from real-world sales, I provided various benefits and rewards for the authors while mobilizing dwarves to create large printing presses.

With Ardenia lacking entertainment options, reviving literature shouldn’t be too difficult.

“By the way… am I showing up too much here?”

Of course, there were already many such works, but between these hundred-favorite flops and the problematic bestseller, there was an enormous gap.

“Well, whatever. As long as it’s entertaining… And I’ve even resolved the copyright issue for Revenge.”

The story after the gate was like a second part of a novel sprouting new leaves.

It began with the emperor of the Human Empire holding a competition and the events that followed from there.

”…How interesting. It’s obvious you’re putting much more effort into making it engaging than your previous work.”

Rozelian seemed influenced by both my Earth novels and Yes’s writings.

Well, considering his subtitle was “Living as a Writer in a Fantasy World,” what else could one expect?

“Login.”

“Logout.”

I continued transcribing works one after another based on their popularity. With numerous other pieces to copy besides Rozelian’s, time passed slowly.

As I spent time typing out stories…

“Wow…”

The expected articles were coming up.

Of course, not all reactions were bad.

: Cha Noa: Wow. Even a Transcendent can get involved in scandals with dragons now.

: BarabaraBaramil: Flower’s eyes… sigh

: Boidi: So jealous. Wow. A dragon? And it’s called Flower? Isn’t this straight out of a fantasy?

I opened Killian’s inbox.

It was just like my other account. This time, I checked his MyTube channel instead.

“I knew this would happen…”

The filming for MyTube had pretty much stopped. There wasn’t much content to begin with, and with my day being so busy, I didn’t have the time or energy to maintain the channel properly.

And above all else, it wasn’t profitable.

I’d heard that if you had a popular enough channel, you could make thousands of dollars a month—but only if you devoted practically every waking moment to it. In the past, I would’ve thought, Who cares about making time for something like this?!

I can’t afford to waste my time on this. It’s not worth it.

The money coming in from web novels published across multiple accounts was beyond anything I could have imagined, and as those pen names gained more recognition, the earnings kept rising higher and higher.

Just by copying and pasting text each month, I was raking in hundreds of millions of won! Now, any extra writing I did on top of that needed to generate even more value.

Meow!

Cheddar meowed. I pressed his nose, and he looked at me and said:

“Hello, Han Jaeyeon. This is Gwanmokyeong from the Mercenary Command Center, a top supervisor. Can you talk now?”

My heart raced. It was the call I’d been waiting for all this time.

Let me reiterate: I already made tens of millions every month. The fact that I took time out of my day meant it had to be worth more than that.

“Of course. By any chance…”

The momentous event arrived right in front of me.

“Yes, that’s correct,” replied Gwanmokyeong, the top supervisor, kindly.

“Your mercenary registration is complete.”