The Tales of Draconic Warlock

Yeah, I should skip those small kingdoms directly, not just the neighbouring kingdoms. As I said before that touring the neighbouring kingdoms would be problematic. They might attack me on sight. So I have to avoid them.

Though I may not be afraid of small goons but to survive this long, they too should have powerhouses like our kingdom. If not, it would have collapsed long ago.

So, going there would only attract unwanted attention to myself. I can go to other smaller kingdoms but they would be more or less similar to what I see here. So, there is no reason to visit them, unless they are unique.

Yeah, I don't have all the time in the world. I need to return home after a few years. Though there are mobiles to let my family know that I am still alive, coming home every once in a while is the proper way of saying hello to family.

So, I can't spend too much time out there. So, I should choose one of the empires, as that way, I can learn a lot more about the world than by visiting a lot of kingdoms.

The question that remains before me is now to select the empire that can give me the most. There are a lot of empires in this world after all and I can't visit all of them and I can't visit the ones very far away. So, the best choice is the Redthorne Empire.

It is a few kingdoms away from here and also a forbidden region.

Yeah, the empire borders a forbidden region, which kind of saves our kingdom and a bunch of other kingdoms from the empire's annexation process.

The Redthorne Empire annexed almost all of its neighbouring kingdoms, except for the ones that allied with other empires. If not for the Forbidden Zone, they would have annexed Glessaria and the surrounding kingdoms as well.

From what I read in the academy library, a forbidden zone is deemed to be if there are a lot of dangers in that zone. It could be because those areas could be home to powerful monsters or the location itself is not suitable for building settlements, like poison swamps.

Whatever the case might be, traversing through such a region could cause a lot of losses and most likely the losses aren't worth the profits that can be gained through that.

Yeah, if the area is filled with monsters, then eliminating them could get a lot of monster corpses, which can be used to increase the income of the kingdom/empire but to gain those benefits a lot of soldiers have to die.

Soldiers would die in battles but against many powerful foes, the losses would be too high. Soldiers after all were someone they trained and that means invested a lot of resources in training them. If the gains are worth the losses, then no one would cry but against the powerful monsters in areas such as those, there is no way that would be the case.

If it is an area filled with things like poison swamps, there is no way that people can settle there. They would die before they could settle down. Poison after all is the most dangerous thing in the world and continuously breathing poison, even high-ranking awakeners may not survive for long in such environments.

So no way, common people would settle in areas such as those. Explore new worlds at My Virtual Library Empire

So there is no other way around it but to classify those areas as Forbidden Zones and forget about them.

The forbidden zone near us is due to the presence of powerful monsters, a lot of them. Rumours are that the top monsters in that zone have crossed Tier-9. So, even empires that are said to have multiple Tier-9 and maybe people above Tier-9, wouldn't recklessly go into such areas to occupy the lands.@@novelbin@@

Sure, someone would brave themselves and barge into these zones for occasional gains but that would be for their individual reasons and they would have ways to escape if they are in a precarious position as the ones that would be brave enough to enter would be at least Tier-9 or an idiot.

The thing was that these powerhouses can't leave low-ranked soldiers during a battle but going alone means they don't need to worry about others. They can sneak in silently and leave after they gain what they came there for and if they can't they can escape as there would be no need to worry about any underlings.

Even if they are powerhouses that can do whatever they want, they still belong to the empire. So during peacetime, they could do whatever they wanted to but during wartime, they had to fulfill some conditions.

To control them, powerful empires should have various methods. Having powerhouses that can squat these powerhouses, in the direct royal family or artifacts that can control even powerhouses like them.

Yeah, I read about that in the Nexus Library.

Back then, there are devices that can be used to control people but there are certain limitations to them. The ones that would be controlled have to sign the power to control them on their own. They can't be coerced into doing so.

If they were coerced, then the item won't work and they can't be controlled. So, it can't be used for slavery purposes.

Normally talents were identified when they were still young and had them sign for control in exchange for resources to improve their lives. It only works with children who come from commoner backgrounds. No nobleborn would sign such a thing.

Commoners though, won't have such an option. To improve fast, they would need resources. So signing their freedom would be worth the cost to many.

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Also, since we are a few kingdoms and a forbidden zone away, the chance of them knowing that I am a top student would be very low. Even if they come to know about that, as they are very far away now, their concentration would not be much on the kingdom of Glessaria and its citizens.

Moreover, I am someone who just graduated and didn't even make much of a mark yet. So, the chances of them guarding against me would be so low.

In the empire, I would be one of many travellers that visit the empire from far away regions. It would be so easy to blend in.