The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 663: Things In Common

While the advisors struggled to find meaning behind the strange events that were constantly befalling Wistover, Dominic and the other Nobles were having a grand time on the main floor, with music provided by a combination of the Royal Guards and the Veiled Maids.

Alexis had been busy teaching her staff everything that they might possibly need to know to entertain guests, and one of the lessons that they had enjoyed the most was how to play various string and wind instruments.

It wasn’t entirely a selfless endeavour, as the primary reason that the maids were taught to play instruments was because instrument cases were almost always searched for weapons and contraband.

And with them as a distraction, much more could sneak through.

If the location that they were headed to was searching for storage magic, they could imbue it into a musical item case, which would naturally trigger the sensors, but leave them with nothing to find, as the case was only preserving the state of the instrument.

It was very similar magic, but it wasn’t an actual storage device.

And with everyone distracted by the maid, the rest of the team, including any infiltration elements that they required, could slip in undetected.

Unless the target was a Royal or particularly paranoid, it was an easy win.

Of course, if it was a Royal, who knew the trick and had enough security to ensure that nobody got past during a busy moment, or someone paranoid enough that they hired a massive security force, it would just annoy whoever got stuck in line behind them.

Fortunately, when it was the entertainment, they wouldn’t stay mad for long.

Today, they were playing lively tunes, but from an upper balcony, with the curtains closed so that the sound was muffled and became a background mood setting amenity as everyone drank and celebrated.

There was no need for them to overpower the conversation, this was not a dance hall. At least, not at the moment.

“Sir Charles, congratulations on your latest victory. What are the plans now? Will you be joining us in Mitfield at the end of the month?” Prince Damien asked, a fresh glass of rum in his hand.

“Actually, this will be my last victory.

Duke Dominic has offered me a permanent position here as the director of entertainment and head of arena events in Wistover.

So, going out on the high note, I will be retiring from the circuit and taking up the role of promoter.”

The prince laughed at his earnest tone. “Well, we can’t say that you haven’t earned the spot. But that’s a brilliant bit of marketing on your part, taking the job right after you’ve won the tournament.

The locals will practically worship you as you settle into the position, instead of questioning your credentials.”

The Mitfield Royal Paladins nodded along. It was an excellent way to start out his new career, and very similar to the logic that they had in proving themselves both on the battlefield and in the jousts before taking up their positions as Dukes.

It would let them get to know everyone, and be known for something other than academics.

Among their peers, that was fine, but with the older generation, being known for nothing but being a schoolboy was not exactly enough to impress them when it came time to negotiate trade deals or cooperative projects.

There had been an incident a generation ago where a young and visionary Nobleman had wanted to build a dam, a hydroelectric dam, to supplement the power going to the factories and city lights in Mitfield’s capital region.

Of course, the older generation saw no need for that. They had magitech, and Techno Wizards. What was the point of eliminating the magical half of things and relying only on the technology when it was clearly the inferior half?

So, he had fought for decades before another batch of young Nobles came along, and completely redesigned the whole project.

Instead of a simple electrical dam, they wanted to build a magitech dam, one that used the water pressure to drive a mana generator, which would store magic in a massive mana crystal array.

Then, the mana could be transmitted wirelessly to the capital through a set of magitech arrays, where it would power the magitech lights and storage stations.

It seemed like a whole extra step in his simple plan, but as he had been advocating for a dam for a very similar purpose for years, he enthusiastically supported the proposal, and they finally got it built over a decade later.

It turned out that the magitech generator had reliability issues, and required frequent maintenance by an extremely skilled Techno Wizard. But the project had the right idea, and when it was operational, Mitfield ran their capital almost entirely on stored mana.

At this point, a generation later, it was viewed more as a work project, keeping the Techno Wizards busy. But it was still working.

And that was the sort of cooperation that they were hoping to have from the start of their time as Dukes.

Not the middle.

Dominic didn’t know the story, but Alexis had made it very clear to him that making friends with everyone whose lands bordered his was important, even if they were not local.

Particularly if they were not local.

A Baron or Count under the Cygnian King would not cause a major international incident if they got into an argument with the Duchy. But if it was a Noble from Dagos, Mitfield or Axbridge, all of whom bordered Stansia Province, that was a very real possibility.

Fortunately, they all had a lot in common here.

There were no cowards, no academics, and no shut in isolationists among the Nobles of the region. Everyone who bordered Stansia Province had been to war in person, not just having sent soldiers on behalf of their holdings.

And that turned what would normally be a very stiff and formal event into something closer to a guardsman’s tavern that just happened to have a King and Crown Prince in attendance.