Chapter 2: The Plan

When the first ray of sunlight pierced through the window, illuminating the soft bed, Julian had already opened his eyes.

He sat up and looked at the scenery outside the window – mountains surrounded the area, and under the sunlight, the lush green forest exuded vibrant life. The crisp, melodious birdsong seemed to play a beautiful melody. Julian gazed intently at the beautiful scene before him, then revealed a genuine smile. It had been a long time since he had seen such a beautiful sight. In that closed soul space, although there were luxurious decorations and warm beds, one couldn’t see the beauty of nature or feel the warmth of sunlight. They say people only learn to cherish things after losing them, but now for Julian, he had a long time to enjoy this world again.

The Wraith Warriors had disappeared into the dark shadows at dawn, returning to their underground world. However, their efficiency was indeed high. When Julian walked out of his bedroom, what he saw was a clean, tidy corridor. Those moth-eaten curtains had all been pulled up, neatly gathered on both sides. The old, dirty glass had become clear and bright, shining like new – if one didn’t consider the spider web-like cracks on them.

The weeds growing on the ground and the cobwebs on the ceiling had completely disappeared, and the dull red carpet had now become bright and colorful. The Wraith Warriors had strictly followed Julian’s requirements, perfectly displaying everything they could do.

In fact, Julian only discovered the existence of these Wraith Warriors after he acquired this castle. Then, using his power as the Knight of Demise, Julian signed a contract with these Wraith Warriors, becoming their master. According to the Wraith Warriors themselves, the location of this castle was once the territory of a necromancer. In that distant era, this necromancer mastered a secret technique to bind others’ souls and created this batch of Wraith Warriors. Julian guessed that the necromancer probably wanted to create a batch of undead servants for his own use, but unfortunately, he went out once before completing this step and died in an enemy attack. So, these Wraith Warriors, bound by the secret technique but unable to obtain bodies, were stuck in this godforsaken place, neither here nor there. Later, as time passed, humans occupied this land and built a castle here, and the Wraith Warriors had to hide in the shadow world underground. Until Julian appeared and discovered the existence of the Wraith Warriors, their fate changed.

Because they were bound by the secret technique, these Wraith Warriors would not die or disappear, so Julian entrusted them to manage and guard his castle before his death, select powerful souls for absorption, and maintain the operation of the magic array for his revival.

From what he could see now, these Wraith Warriors had done a good job.
However, the only regret was that after the sun came out, they still had to hide back in the shadow world underground. This wasn’t because they were afraid of disappearing, but because of the undead’s natural fear of the sun. Even though the sun couldn’t harm them, it would greatly weaken the abilities of these Wraith Warriors. During the day, they were basically no different from air.

And now, Julian was the only human in his castle – in the young man’s memory, although there was an old coachman who came here with him, after sending the young man to the castle, the old coachman quickly fled, leaving this dangerous and eerie place, leaving the young man alone here.

It was clear that although this young man surnamed “Felix” knew the rumors about this place, the courage and persistence unique to young people made him not retreat. Last night, Julian also checked the belongings of the original owner of this body. It must be said that this heir of a fallen noble family was really poor. Apart from food, he only had a set of clothes for changing and a few books on continental history. Of course, the young man also possessed documents issued by those nobles regarding the granting of the fief, all of which were genuine and not forged. Perhaps the nobles had already considered that this kid wouldn’t live long there anyway, so wasting time and energy on forgery was meaningless, and they might as well give out the real proof documents.

This document stated that he – Julian Felix (for convenience, Julian simply combined the surname on the document with his own name, which wouldn’t arouse suspicion) had obtained the governance rights of this castle and the surrounding area. Like other lords, he needed to pay taxes to the kingdom on time and dispatch troops to fight for the protection of the entire country when the kingdom was in trouble. Of course, corresponding to this, he had the right to establish taxes within his territory, the right to conscript troops, and… the right of first night (this is not a typo, you know what I mean, hmm).

How utterly boring.

Seeing this, Julian pursed his lips. In his previous life, he had doubts about this right of first night, especially those nobles who had no interest in this rule at all. Although at first, it was indeed created to demonstrate the status and power of the lords. But in fact, most nobles were reluctant to exercise this power.

The reason was simple. As a lord, there were so many things to be busy with every day, especially those great lords who owned so many villages and towns below them. People were getting married all the time, and as a lord who couldn’t even finish his own affairs, where would he have time to run around exercising his right of first night? Moreover, stepping back, once the right of first night was exercised, if there were offspring in the future, there would be even more troublesome things. Nobles always believed that their bloodline was sacred and noble and inviolable.

Therefore, if commoners gave birth to offspring with noble blood, the nobles would have to take them back and raise them, which would become a stain on the nobility. And in this era, there was no way to verify the parent-child relationship between the two parties through DNA or the like, so there were also many examples of people falsely claiming to be the lord’s children in an attempt to extort money. For many people, once they were pregnant with noble blood, they could get money or even glory (after all, in the eyes of ordinary people, noble blood was also noble), so sometimes, those brides were even more eager for the right of first night than the lords who exercised this power.

Because of this, the right of first night had long become a system that existed in name only. After all, if nobles wanted beautiful women, they could get them by any method. And not all married women were beautiful, and it might even bring a lot of trouble, which would be unwise. So now, although the right of first night has not been abolished, its only remaining significance is to remind those commoners that they are still the property of the nobles.

This proof document was the most valuable among the items carried by the young man. Then there were a dozen gold coins and a short sword for self-defense – this noble descendant was indeed poor.

Although lords could also collect money from their jurisdictions, Julian knew very well that within the scope of his territory, except for the small town at the foot of the mountain, there were no other human settlements at all. Even in the surrounding mountains, there were only wild beasts, and not even bandits or mountain thieves could be seen. When Julian originally chose this place, it was just for rest and hiding himself, so in his view, it was better to have no human presence. But now Julian found that things might become a bit troublesome.

However, before that, there were more important things to do.

Thinking of this, Julian couldn’t help but pick up the young man’s self-defense short sword. Like other nobles, this kind of self-defense short sword had no attack power to speak of. From the jewels and gold threads inlaid on its scabbard, one could tell that this was something made primarily for aesthetics, specifically designed to deceive rich people.
As a Knight of Demise, what Julian needed most was his own weapon, and this short sword obviously couldn’t be used as a weapon. So, he needed something of better quality.

Thinking of this, Julian suddenly remembered that there seemed to be a blacksmith in the small town at the foot of the mountain. In his previous life, Julian had even forged some interesting little things there. Although seventy years had passed now, he thought that in such a small town, there shouldn’t be any particularly big changes. Even if that blacksmith had grown old, his descendants should have inherited the shop.

Time waits for no one. Once he made the decision, Julian had no intention of stopping his actions. Fortunately, that old coachman still had some conscience and left a horse for the young man before leaving. So Julian didn’t hesitate, he mounted the horse and rode through the mountain path, then arrived at the small town at the foot of the mountain.
However, what Julian didn’t expect was that his appearance immediately became the focus of the small town.

As a remote mountainous area, although Twilight Town couldn’t be said to be isolated from the world, it was definitely a place with very poor mobility. In such a place where almost no outsiders appeared, any unfamiliar face would become the focus of everyone’s attention and topic. Because of this, as soon as Julian entered the small town, he immediately attracted everyone’s attention.

“Look, it’s him, he’s the new owner of that castle.”

“Poor thing, so young…”

“May the Holy Grace be upon him… these days really…”

Pity, fear, sorrow, confusion, curiosity, all kinds of gazes shot towards Julian, then quickly withdrew. Julian didn’t mind their gazes, just leisurely rode his horse towards the blacksmith shop in his memory. Although such a closed small town had poor mobility, the only advantage was that there was almost no change. Even though seventy years had passed, walking on the street, Julian could still see many familiar buildings. Even the sign of the Rose Tavern was still hanging crookedly, without any change due to time. It was as if time had completely stopped in this small town, with no changes at all.

Because of this, Julian quickly found that blacksmith shop. Compared to seventy years ago, there were some new changes here. The original old wooden door had been covered with a layer of copper skin, and the wooden board on the sign had been replaced with new peach wood – for a small town with almost no changes, this change was already quite noticeable.

Standing at the door, Julian took a light breath, feeling the heat and the smell of steel forging from inside. Then, a smile appeared on his face, and he pushed open the door and walked in.
Then, Julian was stunned.

As the saying goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Today, Julian truly understood the real meaning of this saying.
From the outside, this blacksmith shop didn’t seem to have changed much from before, so Julian subconsciously thought that the inside wouldn’t have any particular changes either. But he didn’t expect that the other party was like a duck paddling water – the action was underneath.

The weapons, shields, and armor that Julian remembered hanging on the walls were all gone, replaced by pitchforks, hoes, and rows of hanging, dazzlingly bright… kitchen knives.
This wasn’t a blacksmith shop at all, it was more like a farm tool store.
Julian stared blankly at the figure swinging a hammer behind the kitchen knives and pitchforks, clanging and banging away at forging, momentarily speechless.