Rise of the Demon God

He kept that broad smile on his face as he wished the Emperor once again. He turned back.

The white-haired man walked towards the table of the Princes.

"Happy birthday, Your Highness," he wished the Second Prince. 

"Patriarch of Qin, thanks for attending the celebration. I hope you have a good time ahead," Ming Qian thanked the white-haired man. 

"Of course. How can I not have fun when it's the celebration of the Royal Clan. It would be a fun night indeed," Patriarch Qin said, laughing.

"Oh right. Who is this young man? I don't recognize him. It should be my first time seeing him," he suddenly asked as he noticed Long Chen. "Is he someone from the Ming Clan as well?" 

"Ah, not really. He is the Prince of the Fengshu kingdom who is here to gain experience. He helped my third brother, who promised him that he would bring him to the celebration. And you know my third brother. He always fulfills his promise," The Second Prince answered as he smiled. 

"Ha-ha, of course. Promises are important," Patriarch Qin said, laughing.

He shifted his focus to Long Chen, who was minding his own business. "Young Man, you are lucky that you won the favor of his highness. Or you wouldn't even be worthy of stepping inside the Royal Palace. Be grateful to him."

"Anyway, I shall excuse myself now," he continued as he smiled before he left.

"That guy is pretty sensible," the Second Prince muttered as he shook his head lightly.

After everyone was seated, the atmosphere became silent as everyone started waiting for the Emperor's address.

After everyone was seated, the Emperor stood up and raised his hand. The people who were whispering also went silent.

Even people's breathing could be heard if one tried.

"As you all may know, today is my son's birthday. I believe you all think that I called you here for that reason, but that's only half true," the Emperor declared, stunning everyone.

Everyone here came prepared, thinking that it was a birthday celebration as per the invitation. No one had thought that there would be other reasons as well.

The birthday celebration was a lighter occasion, but when the Emperor was talking about other reasons to call all nobles there, that only meant the matter was so serious that it needed the presence of all important people in the Empire.

They were the only Empire on the continent, so they didn't need to worry about wars with other empires.

Thus, the matter that needed everyone here just be related to the Empire. That's what the thought process of everyone here was. They couldn't ask the Emperor in the middle, so they could only wait for him to explain while they came up with the conclusion of themselves.

'Is he stepping down from the position of the Emperor? That seems to be the reason. There should be no other reason he would need all of us here. Still, isn't the crown prince too young to be made the Emperor?' Patriarch Qin thought as he gazed at the Crown Prince who was sitting beside the Princess.

"There is no need to guess. I will tell you right now. In some ways, this is even more important than the birthday." Emperor Meng Lian said as he observed the stunned look of the guests.

He also noticed Long Chen sitting with the Princes. He did have incredible hearing, so he heard the exchange that took place between them. 

He knew that Long Chen was the Prince of Fengshu. Since he was the Emperor, he didn't bother about it. So what if Long Chen even knew about it. He didn't bother enough to ask Long Chen to leave. 

"You all know about the portals? Long ago, we established our first Portal with another mortal world. Today, we have portals that connect us to more than Twenty mortal worlds."

"We have yearly meetings with the leaders of other worlds where we have connections. You all know about this but what you don't know is the topic we talk about. I can't tell you about that still, but what I can tell you is something that was decided in a meeting yesterday," the Emperor said. Even though his voice sounded young, everyone could see how heavy the presence felt.

"The meetings with the other world? It's about that? Why is he telling us now? If he is being more transparent about these meetings, some big decision must have been taken that might change the course of this world?" 

The leaders of the noble clans had similar thoughts. They still didn't know what it might be about.

Even the Princes seemed stunned. They also didn't know about it.

The Crown Prince himself was watching his father, listening to his every word. His curiosity was evident on his face as if it was the first time he was hearing this.

Then the Third Prince seemed curious.

Long Chen was the one who was finding this information to be more useful, though.

Connection with close to twenty worlds? The chances of him finding Mingyu's planet through these portals increased by multiple times just now.

While he was thinking about plans to get to these portals, the Emperor continued.

"In the last meeting, we decided something significant. It was to decide the ranking of our Twenty worlds. The world of the winner in these rankings will get the right to mine various resources of the other worlds as much as they want for up to a year. I'm sure you can understand how important this is with that," Emperor Ming said.

"The right to take resources from twenty words for a year? W-what?"

"Don't we pay for the Immortal Crystals of the Fuxing World? If we can mine for a year freely, we can grow so much!"

"It's amazing! This will make our Empire so strong. We would become even stronger if we get that right!"

The silent hall suddenly turned chaotic as everyone exclaimed in shock at almost the same time. 

"As expected. You know how important this is. But as I said, it's not going to be easy. We need to rank one to get the benefits," Emperor Ming said.

"Your Majesty, if you take part, we shouldn't even need to worry. You're already so strong!" The Patriarch of the Gin clan laughed.

"Yes. With Your Majesty at our side, the top rank is ours already!" The Sword Might Sect Master grinned as he said. 

"We're going to be so strong now! We might even become the strongest mortal world with resources of Twenty worlds!" The Qin Clan patriarch laughed.

"Don't be happy so soon!"