Lord of the Magical Beasts

After understanding the complicated situation, Yang Ling started preparing for the future. He instructed Goode to secretly gather important items such as armor, weapons, and rations, while he personally made a trip to the barbarian and elf tribes, once again recruiting a hundred barbarian warriors and fifty elf archers. Coupled with the one hundred hunters he recruited in Wissen Town, he now had a few hundred more guards in his hands.

After some consideration, Yang Ling split the many warriors into four camps in order to enhance their battle abilities. The swordsman camp and knight camp were helmed by Casey, while Yang Ling personally took charge of the vanguard camp and the archer camp for the time being.

At Goode’s suggestion, Yang Ling also set up a logistics camp. They were personally led by Goode, and their responsibilities included supplying armor and rations. As an ex-commander of war preparations for the empire, Goode was extremely familiar to the logistical needs of an army. Under his command, the logistics camp quickly took off.

Yang Ling had more than two hundred ferocious barbarians, two hundred elf archers, and nearly three hundred high level swordsmen, coupled with the majestic castle and the decently sized Magical Beast army. Yang Ling believed that unless his opponents sent an army of ten thousand or more to attack the town, it would be hard for either empire to successfully invade. The only problem was that they did not have too many Spellcasters; there were only a mere fifty of them, including Goode and Sofia. Otherwise, they would be even more powerful.

Originally, Yang Ling had thought about expanding the Maze Formation to cover the entire castle. But after seriously calculating the number of Essence Crystals he would need, he had no choice but to give up. Wissen Tower was too large, and without ten thousand Magical Beast Essence Crystals, there was no way that he could construct such a massive Maze Formation.

Hunting or purchasing tens of thousands of Magical Beast Essence Crystals was unrealistic. He pinned his hope on the mineral crystals, hoping that he would one day discover a crystal mine that he could claim as his own. When that time came, he would have no problems expanding the Spirit Gathering Spell Formation to cover the entire castle, much less the Maze Formation.

After giving clear instructions to his subordinates, Yang Ling closed himself in and started training. Recently, he had begun to feel as though he was at a bottleneck. He believed that he could advance to being a mid level Spirit Wizard if he charged past this bottleneck.

In order to guarantee his safety while he was training, he ordered Argus to lead the personal guards to heavily defend the villa he was staying in. He also summoned the Horned Bee Beasts, the Evil Eyes, the Unicorn, and the Withered Tree Warriors to protect him.

Now that the situation in Wissen Town was getting more complicated, it would be more difficult to detect if any experts or heaven-ranked assassins were secretly infiltrating the castle. He didn’t want to be stabbed in the back while he was training.

After sitting down cross-legged, he looked at the Withered Tree Warriors around him which had turned into ancient trees, then looked at the six-foot-tall Sapling of the Tree of Life not far away. Yang Ling had a thought. He tried to do two things at once, circulating the Wizard Power in his body while he recited the psychic mantra. Slowly, not only did the rich spiritual energy in the surroundings enter his body, the ancient trees formed by the Withered Tree Warriors also released bolts of pale green light.

With his mind clear, he could feel the spiritual energy that was welling into his body growing increasingly richer. The green life force that he was absorbing was also more thick and pure. The two energies circulated around a mysterious path after they fused, their speeds getting faster with every circulation. With every passing day, the energy would cleanse his bones and meridians.

As time passed, Yang Ling felt more comfortable, as though he was riding on a cloud. Slowly, the whispers of the barbarians disappeared, the rustling of the forest far away vanished, and his awareness became hazier. If someone were to walk past now, his body would sometimes appear red, sometimes dark green, and sometimes it would slowly fade away entirely. There would even be times where he would vanish where he sat…

Sometime later, when a cold wind carrying flakes of snow blew past, Yang Ling felt a streak of cold and slowly opened his eyes. All he saw were the snowflakes dotting the sky. The far away Terras Forest was a piece of white, and the ancient trees formed by the Withered Tree Warriors were also piled tall with snow.

Winter has finally arrived!

He had just opened his eyes when he felt that there were many people at the door of the villa. Walking out, he found Casey, Sofia, Murbaqi, and the rest pacing anxiously.

“Yang Ling, you’ve finally come out! There would have been trouble if you came out any later!” Yang Ling had just opened the wooden door when the pacing dwarf Rumi shouted loudly, “Poor me, I’ve had nothing to drink for the past month… Oh god, who’s more pitiful than me?”

Looking at the depressed dwarf Rumi, Yang Ling shook his head. “Why are you all here? Just what has happened?”

“Yang Ling, the Evening Primrose Bar has been trashed!” Seeing Yang Ling finally come out, Sofia pounced into his embrace without hesitation, tears covering her face. If not for the fact that Yang Ling could not be disturbed while he was training, she would have charged in long ago.

Someone trashed the Evening Primrose Bar? Yang Ling was very surprised. In Wissen Town, what blind fool would have such guts? Could it have been that leader…?

Yang Ling was confused, his expression dark. Goode quickly explained, confirming Yang Ling’s guess.

His training session had taken a full month and a half. Two weeks ago, a noble by the name of Steve had brought a team of three thousand Black Armor Guards, claiming to be the Leader of Wissen Town as appointed by the king of the Banto Empire. He announced that from that day on, the area within a five thousand mile radius around Wissen Town would be his personal territory.

When he arrived at Wissen Town, the so-called leader Steve had immediately unleashed a fearful rain of blood, mercilessly massacring the troops and adventurers that came from the Rossi Empire. The factions from the Rossi Empire did not back down. Instead, they hid and recovered in the Terras Forest, occasionally slipping out of the shadows to assassinate Steve’s soldiers.

From that instant, swords filled Wissen Town. Many died on the streets every day, causing the people of Wissen Town to become very fearful.

Perhaps the black armored warriors were cautious of Yang Ling’s massive abilities, or perhaps they simply hadn’t reached their planned time of attack. Either way, Steve did not dare openly deal with the average citizen when he first arrived in the town. But after he expelled the factions from the Rossi Empire and victory was basically at hand, he finally revealed his evil intentions and started imposing exorbitant taxes on every household.

Merchants were required to pay taxes, loggers were required to pay taxes, hunters were required to pay taxes. In fact, the so-called leader Steve did not even let an infant go. Taxes were paid by the person. Even if an old person had died, he would have to pay taxes if he hadn’t been buried yet. Without Yang Ling’s support, the townspeople did not dare speak out against this despite their raging anger.

At the start, Steve had not dared to mess with Yang Ling. But now that he had collected more and more crystal coins, his appetite became increasingly larger. He set his sights on the profitable Evening Primrose Bar.

One night, a few Black Armor Guards made the excuse that there was a dead fly in their rum and brutally assaulted the bartender John. They even tried to molest a young hostess. After being stopped by the barbarian guards, a few hundred prepared Black Armor Guards suddenly appeared out of nowhere, manically attacking the barbarian warriors. Luckily, Casey arrived in time leading a big army after he heard the news, saving the frightened female hostess and heavily injured barbarians just in time.

Even though they had managed to save the people, the Evening Primrose Bar and the alcohol refinery had been smashed to a pulp. The violent Black Armor Guards even shamelessly announced that they would capture the people in Wissen Castle.

Capture the people in Wissen Castle?

“Hehe, great, what a powerful leader!” Yang Ling gave a cold laugh as he held Sofia, who had spent much of her energy on the Evening Primrose Bar and refinery.

There were two kinds of villains in the world. The first would repent after being taught a harsh lesson; the second would only become worse no matter what lesson they were taught. They would not learn until they saw the inside of their own coffins. Clearly, this leader that feared the strong and bullied the weak was the latter.

After deliberating for a moment, Yang Ling thought of an idea for a counterattack, an extremely clever idea.