Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Chapter 87: Cookies and Concerns

"Amaryll?"

When Arwen finished scouting the forest and the realm for resources and such, he went to the kitchen where Amaryll usually is, when she was not in the treasury with Uncle Dior.

The kitchen was shabby and grease-stained before Ken came to Everlight, but now the kitchen was turned into a sleek, professionally designed place. All the old utensils and dirt-stained counters had been replaced by spotless silver from the treasury. Besides the utensils, Ken also helped to reduce the work of cooks and workers in the kitchen by introducing them to many types of equipment from his time.

At the far end of the kitchen, Arwen saw Amaryll and her goblin sidekicks making some new meat dish. Compared to before, Amaryll now seemed like she understood the mumbling of the goblins and occasionally kicked their bottom when they tried to steal or eat the whole dish.

"Oh Arwen, have you finished scouting?" noticing Arwen at the entrance Amaryll cleaned her hands using the towel on her shoulder and walked towards him.

"Almost,"

"So are you hungry? Is that why you are here?"

Arwen smiled as he shook his head

"Do I need to be hungry to see my little sister?"

Amaryll pitched Arwen's cheek without answering and Arwen retaliated by pinching her nose

"let's het ae taste za these anyar dishes while sat playtin"

(let's have a taste of these new dishes while she playing)

"Don't you dare, greeny" seeing the goblins sneaking around behind her, Amaryll threatened them with a firm voice as the goblins growled at her and walked away from the dishes

"kahn sat saw lan"

(shit she saw us)

"Come on, I've made something for you" Amaryll led Arwen towards the table where the dishes were lined to serve.

From the table, Amaryll picked up a tray and handed it over to Arwen. Without even Arwen noticing a smile appeared on his face when he saw the tray on his hand, it was cookies.

Arwen loved cookies when he was little, he still remembered the times his grandfather brought him cookies from his travels around the kingdom. However after his grandfather passed away, Arwen didn't have cookies or anything he loved for a long time as the humans started to hunt down elves more actively.

"Stop looking at it and eat" Amaryll picked one cookie and put it into Arwen's mouth forcefully. There were no chocolate chips or anything fancy inside the cookie but flour and butter Amaryll brought from Emir and produced in Everlight yet it was the delicious thing Arwen had in his lifetime.

"How is it?" Amaryll asked with a gentle smile

Arwen was still chewing the cookie as he answered

"It's greeaat..."

"Now off you go, I have a kingdom to feed" Amaryll literally pushed Arwen out of the door by his neck.

The people laughed at Arwen and Amaryll and continued their works. After leaving the kitchen Arwen started to roam around the castle corridors before bumping into Uncle Dior.

"This looks delicious" Uncle Dior grabbed a cookie from Arwen's tray and put into his mouth

"Nice to see you too Uncle Dior" Arwen rolled his eyes

"Oh Don just finished talking with Joel, you should go meet him now" as he took another cookie and walked pass Arwen

Arwen knew he can't go meet Don with a tray full of cookies and just when he was thinking about what to do, he saw a couple of women cleaning the floors as he grabbed many cookies as he can and shoved it into his pockets and walked toward the women

"My lord" seeing Arwen the women greeted him with a smile and a bow

"Here share it with your friends and eat" Arwen placed the tray on the hands of the woman before him as she reached her hand out dumbstruck.

"Thank you" the woman was shocked and surprised at the point that what just happened seeing Arwen giving them cookies and rushing towards the throne hall.

Arwen dusted away the cookie crumbles on his mouth and entered the throne room to see Don sitting on his throne while Arrora stood beside him. Knight was ruffling his mane sitting on his own throne beside Don,

"Don, Knight, Arrora" After spending much time with Don and Knight, Arwen grew quite comfortable calling them by their names

"So Arwen is everything alright?" Knight asked while still playing with his mane

"Yes and no, me and my team almost finished scouting the kingdom except the deep forest and there are no places to gather marble stones anymore"

Don was not surprised by Arwen's report, he always knew the resources left behind by former occupants of Dragon King would eventually come to an end. Until now they had no need to buy woods and stones from the outside world to build because they've had small marble stone deposits around the kingdom and a small dead forest to gather wood.

"Also the number of magical beasts in the forests increased in numbers, Reghys said she will look into the matter"

Unlike the resources, this was a problem for Don. Although the magical beasts develop intelligence over their lifetime, in their early life they are no different from an ordinary mindless animal. If they were left alone, they could grow in numbers and even attack the people of Everlight but since Reghys said she would look into it there was no need for Don to intervene.

"Stones and metals we can take from Emir but now the problem is lumber?"

Arrora voiced her concerns and Arwen nodded his head. Everlight was surrounded by massive forests but the elves would not like the idea of cutting the trees in the forests since they see the trees as a living being and have a natural instinct to protect the forest and nature. Besides the elves, Don also didn't want to cut the trees because first, the forest was a part of this realm and made Everlight elegant. Second Don had enough grasslands and empty lands to build so deforestation would only make the kingdom look more empty and third, he had a feeling that someone or something is living deep inside the forest and didn't want to mess with it yet.

"Tell the dwarves to build the remaining buildings using bricks and stones, I will put someone to buy the lumber we need from the outside," Don said leaning on his throne.

Finishing his report Arwen nodded and left the throne hall.

"Are you coming to the opening of Steel Chick?" Don and Knight looked at Arrora at the same time when they heard Arrora and the amusement in her voice while mentioning the tavern's name.

"And don't worry, I've already mentioned to the dwarves that you don't drink"

Don shook his head "so I'll be the most boring person in the tavern if I come"

"Aw come on,it'll be fun" Arrora seemed like she didn't take no for an answer.

"Don't look at me, it's my cheat day I'm going to eat all the oily food Amaryll prepared for me as much as I can and get a good night sleep" Knight said when he saw Arrora's gaze turning towards him

Seeing both of them have no idea to come, Arrora stood behind Don without saying anything while cursing them inside

"Alright I'll come with you" just by looking at her face, Don could see she's cursing him inside and realizing that this was the first time she's asked something of him, Don decided to go with her.

"Wonderful" Arrora said as she couldn't help but show her beautiful smile.

Eventually, Knight left the hall for continuing his training while Arrora went to train herself leaving Don behind.sitting alone on his throne, Don closed his eyes and checked his cultivation level to find that he met a bottleneck which means energy barrier between a lower level and a higher level in the cultivation.

After breaking through to the star level using the apex, Don was able to reach the peak of the low-level star level without the help of the apex but now it seems he needs to use the machine again to break the bottleneck and enter into the mid star level.

Don's current power was now can be compared to mid-level grand master's or even greater but he had no idea about what levels did the life energy cultivators reached since the life energy started to replenish in the world.

Regardless of their levels, Don had to increase his power if he wanted to make his move against powerful kingdoms and he knew that. Until now besides Don, Knight and Reghys were the only people who could fight a grandmaster on their own. Arrora was a peak-level great master, while Arwen was a mid-level great master. Surprisingly little Elrond had just entered into great master level with the help of Apex just like Glacia.

All the soldiers in Don's army were at least at the mid-level master and they continued to grow in power thanks to the Apex. However, they were all more powerful than the normal mid-level master because the soldiers of Everlight were hybrids between the life energy and battle energy in other words they use bound energy.

Don was shocked when he first saw the report by Arwen indicating everyone's cultivation level,they were cultivating faster than Don and Knight themselves. Don and Knight had to use pure battle energy created by Apex which is very costly since to output pure battle energy, the apex requires a huge amount of life energy stones.

As far as Don was concerned about the battle energy stones, he had enough stones as he didn't need to worry about it for a long time. The fights between arrogant young masters and heroic youngsters in the divine continent destroyed enough sects and families that provided the opportunity for Don and Knight to steal massive amounts of resources including battle energy stones. Also, Don had his fair share of fights, massacres, and adventures to collect colossal amounts of items and resources which are currently in his space ring.

After thinking about his cultivation, Don's mind reminded him of the things he needs to do such as recruiting a runemaster to permanently repair the teleportation array, recruit a strategist to make conquering kingdoms easier, and a lot less messy.

However, the biggest concern Don had now is, the magical fluctuations. While battling with others, he or Knight won't show any trace of magical fluctuations around them like the others in this world and now his army will show weird bound energy fluctuations that would certainly attract the notice of powerful sects and people including the Cold Moon Palace.

If Ken finished building the device Don ordered him to, all his problems will vanish in a second but now Don couldn't do anything but wait for Ken, Benedict, and Arya to finish building the device.