Strongest Mage with the Lust system

Chapter 702  Hiring an Emperor Mage

For over half an hour, the demon trioʼs screams filled the city. While elves were usually kindhearted, that depended on the people they were dealing with.

For demons, especially the ones who had massacred their kin, they didnʼt have a shred of kindness or pity in their hearts. In fact, they were filled with so much anger and hate toward them that they enjoyed listening to their mournful screams.

Ashton looked around and saw all the elves had cold sneers on their faces. He then looked in the direction where he felt the person torturing them was with a look of appreciation on his face.

If this person had killed them too along with everyone, the elves would be grieving their losses now, and their morale would be at an all-time low. But by publicly torturing them, the demon kings no less, he was indirectly reducing their pain while telling them the demons werenʼt as horrifying as they imagined them to be.

He also understood why he didnʼt take action right when the demons attacked. Knowing the demon invasion was ongoing, although the elves were vigilant, because they hadnʼt personally witnessed the kind of destruction demons caused, they didnʼt have enough sense of danger or prepared to go all out to defend their city even at the cost of their lives. The fact that they knew reinforcements from the central plains were going to come also added to this.

This was why many of the Four Star elves rushed to take shelter in the city lord manor instead of going toward the wall to help.

Still, he couldnʼt help but shake his head and think, ʼIf you had already prepared them for this type of situation, there would have been no need to act like this now.ʼ

After taking out the demon core of the three demons he killed, he returned to Garfield Mansion, and a cold look filled his eyes when he saw that Esther, Amelia, and others were already out of the underground chambers.

”Ashton…” Mina began to say but stopped when she saw him ignore them and head to his cultivation room.

While she, Amelia, and Esther watched his retreating figure with blank looks in their eyes, Anna clenched her fists, her eyes becoming moist with tears.

After a while, Salthor, Zorn, and Rexʼs cries died down as the invisible power suppressing their lifeforce vanished, letting their souls depart the world of the living.

[Repair the city walls and start sending out people to clear the demons from the nearby area. Also, tell them about the War Temple and that they are free to join the Green Leafʼs battlefield.]

The elderly voice sounded in Elenaʼs head, to which she promptly nodded, ”Yes, granny.”

…

In their room, Gene was looking at her grandmother, who had her brows locked together in thought.

She didnʼt want to disturb her, but after a while, she couldnʼt hold back and asked, ”What are you thinking so deeply about, Granny?”

The granny didnʼt respond for a few moments before she sighed and said, ”Iʼm thinking if we should leave this city and go to the battlefield. The Central Plains Alliance has already set up the War Temple.”

Gene raised her brows in concern and hurriedly said, ”Why, granny? Didnʼt cousin Max say he would bring you healing medicine to help you recover? Also, how do you know the War Temple has already been established? More importantly, if we go there, it will be easier for those from the Thunder Family to find us. We shouldnʼt take the risk.”

Granny silently heard her barrage of questions. When Gene stopped speaking, she said, ”Max indeed promised, but… If he could find something to heal his father and send it back, he couldʼve found the healing medicine for me too, but since he did not… I can no longer place all my hopes on him.”

Sighing, she continued, ”As for how I found out they have already set up the War Temple, it was the elven emperor just now who told me and advised me to go there.”

Gene opened and closed her mouth a few times before saying in a low voice, ”But grandma, the Thunder family…”

Granny nodded, ”Thatʼs why I am hesitating.”

”But just sitting here is not the solution either. Our people are waiting for us to save them.”

…

After waiting for more than half an hour, the crowd thinned out a bit. Since they couldnʼt waste too much time as the demons could attack again anytime, Max and others pushed through the crowd and arrived in front of the exchange counters.

Max was surprised to see there was no one manning the counters, but as soon as he stood in front of it, he understood why it was the case.

Zoop!

A formation inscribed on the counter lit up and formed a projection of a screen in front of him.

[Please place your Merit Plate in the indentation of the counter in front of you.]

Max followed the instructions.

A pulse of formationsʼ mana enveloped the Merit Plate, and the screen in front of him changed.

[War Merits: 107,500]

[Please select what you would like to exchange your War Merits for:

Mana Stones.

Mana Crystals.

Spirit Fruits.

Formations.

Magic Spells.

…

…

Body Forging techniques

…

…

Bloodline Purification Potion.

…

…

Hire an instructor.

…

…

Maxʼs eyes lit up when he saw the long list of resources available. Around him, he could hear other peopleʼs joyous cries when they saw the same.

ʼNo wonder demons wanted to stop the establishment of the war temple. With so many resources at their disposal, humans, especially the talented ones, would improve by leaps and bounds.ʼ He mused.

Feeling the impatience of people behind him, he gathered his thoughts, and since he no longer wanted mana stones, he clicked the second place, mana crystals.

Immediately another, smaller screen appeared in front of him. [Exchange Rate: 2000 Merits for 1 Crystal]

[How many do you want to exchange?]

Seeing the exchange rate for one mana crystal, he realized just how much wealth Leo had given him.

ʼNo wonder very few people can use mana crystals to cultivate. Even with the discounts that must have already been applied to all these resources due to war, they are still so expensive.ʼ He thought,

A few minutes later, Max walked out of the exchange hall and went to the place they were waiting at before to gather and realized he was the first one among his group to come out.

While keeping Veranaʼs advice in his mind, he spent most of his war merits, 100,000 to be exact, to hire Alton to give him personal guidance. Although he wanted to hire Lady Verana herself since she was the strongest being present as far as he knew, the price of just one hour of her time was a mind-boggling 500,000 war merits. So, he went for the second-best choice, Alton, who perfectly fulfilled his requirements and was a lot less expensive in comparison. For 100,000 merits, he managed to hire him for two hours.

From the rest of the merits, he wanted to buy a better movement technique, but those that were in his budget werenʼt better than his [Phoenix Wings], and those that were better required a lot more merits, and to use them, he needed to be at least a Five Star mage.

So, he used six thousand merits to buy a random teleportation talisman to escape if he happened to be in a situation where he needed to escape.

He could buy a good defensive artifact or even a grade six defensive talisman, but he chose the teleportation talisman because if he met an enemy who forced him to go on the defensive, then no matter how tough his defenses were, they would eventually crumble.

Half a minute later, Emily arrived, her expression indifferent, not showing whether she was satisfied by whatever she bought or not.

Seeing him waiting, her expression softened, and as she came beside him, she opened her mouth to say something when Lily, Sera, and Martha came over.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Lily had a calm look on her face, just like Martha. Unlike them, however, Sera looked excited.

”It seems you managed to buy the spell Wyomin used.” He smiled at her.

Sera nodded her head, her excitement spilling over as she said, ”Yes, I did. This is an amazing spell. Once I master it, I will be able to help you recover to your peak state no matter how exhausted you physically are. It can also help recover mental energy but not as much.”

”Congratulations!” Max smiled, gently caressing her cheek. Sera leaned her face in his palm, feeling happy.

Max then turned his gaze to Emily, ”What were you say—”

Swoosh!

”Holy hell! The war temple indeed does not have a false reputation. It has almost everything.” Pauline rushed over, loudly exclaiming.

Emily looked at her like she was looking at someone stupid.

”Hey, pervert, want to know what I bought?” Pauline, ignoring her, asked Max, eager to tell them her purchases.

Before she could speak, Martha said, ”Let me guess. You must have bought bloodline purification potions and spirit materials to repair and increase the grade of your battle armor.”

”...”

Paulineʼs excited face froze for a moment before she nodded, ”Yeah, you are right, princess. It seems your royal family knows everything about us.”

She then turned her gaze to Emily and said with a smirk, ”Once I reforge my battle armor, Iʼll be able to easily fight mid-stage Five Star demons, and handling high-stage ones shouldnʼt be an issue either.”

After she calmed down, Max once again turned to Emily, but before he could ask her, he felt a tap on his shoulder. ”How long are you going to make me wait?”