115: Next steps

Half an hour later, Arthur finally stopped, still wanting more.

Having indulged in his Dragon Knight fantasy, Arthur looked at the bright moon in the sky, knowing it was time to return.

Joao's Dragon body was too conspicuous, so before returning, Arthur ordered him to transform into human form.

In human form, Joao looked like a young man in his early twenties. From this, it could be inferred that Stanley, who was copied earlier, must also have been a Dragon who had just come of age not long ago.

Yet, he was already among the top tier of the Legendary Realm, making Arthur sigh in admiration. Dragons truly live up to their reputation as Legendary species, possessing extraordinary talent!

From one perspective, Stanley was also an unlucky fellow. With his strength, he could have done whatever he pleased in many places on the Continent of Gods.

But he just so happened to come near Arthur, ultimately meeting the fate of being dissected.

Under the cover of night, Arthur led everyone back to Initial City. Except for Karona, no one knew that Arthur had gone out again tonight!

Now, with a Dragon, practically invincible in the Legendary Realm, presiding over him, Arthur's courage had grown considerably!

With this power, Arthur felt that he could scheme for more!

For example, the Kate Kingdom. If he could conquer it, the most direct benefit would be that Arthur could stably obtain at least 300 million gold coins in annual income!

Speaking of which, 300 million gold coins in income is double the current Kate Kingdom royal family's annual income of nearly 100 million gold coins.

The reason Arthur had such confidence was that, in his plan, if he controlled the Kate Kingdom, he would greatly strengthen the royal family's power and authority with his formidable strength.

This way, the royal family's income would naturally soar!

If it weren't for the fact that the entire Continent of Gods adopted a noble enfeoffment system, Arthur would have wanted to directly implement a feudalistic centralized power structure.

In that scenario, all the land and wealth across the nation would nominally belong to the king, and other nobles would only have titles, without fiefdoms.

Unfortunately, while doing so would yield a large amount of gold coins, it would be too unconventional for the Continent of Gods!

The consequence of such an action would be that the Doreen Peninsula would surely attract the attention of everyone on the continent, and Arthur would even become the enemy of all nobles!

This was not what Arthur desired, so this tempting idea merely circulated in Arthur's mind for a moment before he dismissed it.

However, gold coins were very important to Arthur. After careful consideration, Arthur decided that if he controlled the Kate Kingdom,

he would reduce the fiefdoms of various noble titles and reclaim them for the royal family.

Yes, merely reducing, not completely stripping, so other countries wouldn't react too strongly.

As for the extent of the reduction, in Arthur's vision,

a Duke's title would only be able to possess the fiefdom of a current Marquis, a Marquis's title would only be able to possess the fiefdom of a current Earl, and so on, until a Baron would only possess a village.

Overall, it would reduce the fiefdoms of nobles nationwide to approximately one-third of their original size.

With so much land, the royal family's wealth would naturally surge.

This is why Arthur was confident that the Kate Kingdom, under his control, could bring him at least 300 million in revenue.

As for the Orc Royal Court, Arthur would not conquer it, but rather expel it after plundering its wealth.

After all, those not of our kind are sure to have different intentions, so it's better not to mix them with the Kate Kingdom.

Of course, the above is only a relatively minor reason.

With absolute power to suppress them, Arthur had a high probability of bringing tens of millions of orcs under his command.

Such a large population is a very valuable human resource.

The main reason for not doing so is that the Continent of Gods has an Orc Empire relative to the Human Empire.

The northern part of the Doreen Peninsula is the dividing line between the human and orc forces on the Continent of Gods.

This is also why the Doreen Peninsula is ruled half by humans and half by orcs, without interference from other forces.

Under their very noses, if Arthur were to plunder and expel the Orc Royal Court, it could be attributed to a war defeat, and other orc nations would likely not interfere.

However, if all the defeated orcs were annihilated or brought under his command as slaves,

this would also be an insult to the powerhouses of the Orc Empire.

If a Demigod-level orc powerhouse suddenly found this situation an eyesore and intervened,

then Arthur would suffer more losses than gains.

So, all in all, Arthur decided that his future strategy for the two countries would be to bring the Kate Kingdom under his command.

The Orc Royal Court, on the other hand, would be expelled after its wealth was plundered.

To achieve this vision, dealing with the Orc Royal Court, which only involves plundering and expulsion, can be solved entirely through violence.

However, ruling the Kate Kingdom will be slightly more complex.

Arthur could imagine that if he controlled the Kate Kingdom and implemented the policy of reducing noble fiefdoms, it would certainly cause a huge uproar within Kate.

Even with the pressure of power, those nobles, even if forced to submit, would surely engage in some petty schemes.

At that time, the entire nation would certainly be restless.

Even if he could find out who was behind it later, it would needlessly consume a lot of manpower, material resources, and time, which would be detrimental to the prosperity of the country.

Therefore, Arthur planned to spend a few months infiltrating personnel into the core members of various nobles within the country before controlling the Kate Kingdom.

This way, even if those nobles made any small moves later, Arthur would know immediately and could punish them, killing a chicken to warn the monkeys.

In fact, to truly control the kingdom, it would be better for Arthur to replace those nobles with identical-looking figures purchased from the Portable Shop after eliminating them.

But Arthur was not someone who indiscriminately killed innocents. The wicked nobles in the Kate Kingdom had already been eliminated by Arthur.

The remaining nobles were all relatively normal, and some even treated their subjects well, so Arthur found it difficult to directly act against them.

However, although the evil nobles had been eliminated, among the remaining nobles, there were certainly some whose subordinates had bad reputations.

And Arthur's target this time was precisely these people. He planned to kill them and then purchase identical-looking individuals to replace them.

Of course, before killing them, he would use magic to hypnotize them and inquire about their daily habits and surrounding social relationships.

This would ensure that the cloned individuals would not be easily detected upon their return.

This way, Arthur would also know immediately if there were any disturbances among those nobles later.

This plan would probably take a few months, but Arthur was not in a hurry for the sake of better governing the kingdom in the future.

As for the personnel needed for the plan, Arthur intended to entrust it to the seven Human Sky Knights he had previously summoned.

The task of protecting Arthur and his family was given to the newly summoned Dragon Joao and the three (Melita), making a total of four Legends.

On the third day after Arthur summoned Joao, he put this plan into action!