Overgeared

“Our people have once again received His Majesty’s favor.”

The king of the water clan bowed as the cheering crowd watched. He was ready to bow even deeper, but Grid stopped him.

“How much are you going to humble yourself in front of your people?”

The eyes of the king of the water clan were dark. He smiled and said, “Does being humble count when one is courteous to a great person?”

It was a shame that Siren was still dependent on the empire despite receiving their support for so many years. He even felt guilty toward Grid.

“I am sorry to be indebted to Your Majesty every time.”

Grid shook his head. “The enemy who invaded your clan this time was too high level. Had they targeted the empire’s cities, they would’ve done a lot of damage. Siren was just unlucky.”

The waters around Siren were inhabited by a large number of powerful monsters. Grid had always been grateful to the king and people of Siren for thoroughly protecting the kingdom from those monsters and supplying the empire with specialties that couldn’t be obtained on land.

Noticing Grid’s approval, the king and his people bowed deeply. “I’m just grateful to Your Majesty.”

Grid realized just how high these people regarded him, and how influential of a figure he was to them. He carefully considered what to say before speaking up.

“Why don’t you take this opportunity to send talented clan members to the capital to study? As you know, the capitol is home to the Magic Tower and the Sword Tower. Recently, the great sage Sticks has been systematically researching new training methods, and he’s planning to offer a course on them at the academy.”

“If you are talking about new ways of training...” the king trailed off. His face paled. The techniques used by the woman who had sacrificed her fingers to the silver sword adorned with skulls seemed to flash through his mind.

Sensing the king’s confusion, Grid explained the concept of spiritual roots and cultivators. He added that he would send troops to protect Siren to replace the dead fighters, and also ask Euphemina to build stronger barriers.

The king thought about it for a while before nodding.

“The young people of the kingdom will gladly accept the precious opportunity Your Majesty has given them. Attendant, prepare the talent screening test right away. We must make thorough preparations so that His Majesty won’t be disappointed.”

“There is no need for that.”

Grid pulled out the Emperor's Sword. He activated Barbatos’ Vision to quickly review the status windows of the hundreds of thousands of water clan members. It took a lot of time, but Grid was patient.

The God Hands pointed fingers at thousands of young clan members. There were cries of surprise from everywhere. Many of those pointed out were famous for their talent.

Siren’s nobles looked at Grid with disbelief and admiration. They were shocked because of what they’d just witnessed. “You have a very discerning eye.”

Apparently, all those people that Grid pointed out were very talented—about eight thousand water clan members in total. The people had no idea that there were so many talented members within the nation with the potential of becoming equals.

The young people, who had been born as commoners and hadn’t had the opportunity to show off their talents, were also impressed. The emperor of the empire personally recognized their talents, which the nation didn’t know about. They felt like main characters in a fairy tale.

“The empire will be responsible for dealing with any obstacles that may arise when the water clan members operate on land. You shouldn’t worry and instead devote yourself to studying.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty!”

The young people of the water clan tribe and their families smiled from ear to ear. The hope and enthusiasm in their eyes made Grid happy.

‘This is it. I want to keep seeing sights like this.’

Grid remembered the days when he would fight to the death and felt very rewarded.

***

he didn’t refuse the

when I tell him

bitterly because he missed the princess. The nobles, who were from different factions, threw their glasses and got into a fight. The youths cheered enthusiastically. Maybe they were lightweights, or maybe their emotions were different from humans. The water clan members were very loud, as if they had forgotten Grid

always be a

out of his thoughts and went out

nor moonlight reached. There was something distinct and enigmatic about this city. Pink and blue sparkling seaweed softly illuminated the deep seawater, making Siren quite

the low houses. He rummaged through his inventory. He took a look at the loot from

[Spirit Stone]

that holds spiritual energy, used as consumable when activating certain formations or bans, or when refining

from spirit stones, gradually recovering a total of 50,000 spiritual

stone

worthless. It had many uses, and it restored quite a considerable amount of spiritual energy. Given that Grid’s spiritual energy was

to the clothes that the dead woman had been

[Hwajamsa Ceremonial Clothing]

Defense: 0

a robe made from the thread of a silkworm endowed with fire

energy into it and train it, the higher your fire

itself

because of this outfit

performed quite well. Grid contemplated gifting it to Irene, only to change his mind.

performance was also worse than expected, but at least the item was capable of self-repairing. As an experiment, he injected all of his 8,000 spiritual

more to

semi-permanent. Just as the description of the ceremonial clothing explained, it wasn’t known how much the performance would soar

much defense it can have. Seeing as it had 0 defense when it was dropped, the amount of defense must be consumed every time

the cultivators couldn’t be looked down upon. Grid’s expression became a bit serious as he injected mana, not

The defense power

the clothing of cultivators could also be classified as a treasure. Of course, not all cultivators would be able to wear this type of clothing. The woman that Grid killed today

clothing must be a rare

‘Hwajamsa Ceremonial Clothing’ to train it. The defense power of the

‘Annihilation energy works best.’

but the recovery speed

of power, then Annihilation energy would drain rapidly. He’d been surprised when he saw just how much Annihilation energy had been consumed when he massacred

20,000 Annihilation energy into the ‘Hwajamsa Ceremonial Clothing’

[The training has failed.]

it couldn’t cope with

“Um...”

the clothes enough time to be

of clothing aside. Then he examined the four

[Ten Thousand Death Swords]

worshipers of a divine tree in a most brutal way and sprinkling their blood on the

offspring belonging to the bloodline of the Four Auspicious Beasts were

four surviving beasts had their heads cut off while they were still alive, and their heads now adorn the hilts of

melted silver of the Demon World, which contain human souls,

blood must be offered as a sacrifice. As the amount of sacrifices increases, the power of the Four Auspicious Directions Blood

fully utilize the