Surviving The Fourth Natural Disaster - Chapter 1: Independence

Chapter 1: Independence

Baima Town is an attractive place, with white and red wall tiles, green grass, and flowers.

Hill strolled to the castle. He would have a come-of-age ceremony today and then bid farewell to the town.

Hill’s identity was actually a bit awkward. His father, the Earl of Perast, married three wives, each giving birth to a son, and he was the middle one.

According to the rules of the Salar Kingdom, when the non-first-born child reaches the age of 16, he would take a sum of property and leave the family.

The mother of the Earl’s first son, Manton, was of noble birth. As the daughter of the Duke of Klar, the dowry was even more generous. It was a pity that the body was relatively weak and died shortly after Manton was born.

The eldest son had a powerful family, and the Earl had to be more careful when choosing his second wife.

He was reluctant to choose a wife among the minor nobles, so he took a liking to Melanie, the daughter of the Court Archmage Oberstein Frank, who wasn’t in the Aristocratic System.

Melanie, a fair-skinned and beautiful mage with long golden hair, was a deathly temptation for the Earl.

So, with Earl Perast’s handsome face, rich, and romantic pursuit. A beautiful and simple female mage was quickly moved by the Earl’s courtship and finally made up her mind to marry him. Unfortunately, she regretted it within two years.

The entire Earl’s Castle was refusing to accept this marriage. Everyone thought she would definitely attack the eldest son Manton. Including the husband who claims to love her the most, after Hill was born, he started to be wary of her.

However, no one ever thought that in the mage’s world, there would be no women fighting for favor and power, scheming against each other. Melanie plunged into alchemy, bought an out-of-town manor with her son, and lived in it, never seeing her husband again.

Hill only saw the so-called father at the annual New Year’s banquet until he was 12 years old. It is a pity that when he was 12 years old, Melanie’s alchemy experiment failed, and the magic backfired. She died a few months later, and Hill had to return to the Earl’s Castle.

Count Perast was indifferent to this son and immediately threw himself into the selection of a third wife. He no longer dared to marry a lofty Female Mage. It has been 12 years. He has had enough of the days of making the nobles laugh at him.

This time, the people in the castle finally returned to the familiar pace. The young and beautiful little wife postponed the time of Manton’s coming-of-age ceremony which should have been held at the age of 16 to after the age of 20. Whoever made Manton not live up to everyone’s expectations for his qualification was still far from being a formal knight.

Most people, in the absence of pressure, pursue comfort and enjoyment. Only when there is pressure will they work hard, so Manton began to work hard every day.

Hill was leaving anyway, but if 14 years later, the 30-year-old Manton has not become a knight, his inheritance depends on whether Edgar could become a knight.

Of course, if the earl was unlucky to die before that, Hill could also come back to grab the title. After all, in this generation, Hill was the only person above the knight level.

So in order to reduce trouble and keep his ears quiet, Hill seldom used spells in the castle, so these people thought he was still an Apprentice Mage.

Manton also tried to win over Hill but unfortunately, the method was clumsy. Hill showed a lofty and indifferent look to get rid of him and just wait for the coming-of-age ceremony to leave the castle. The stepmother observed it carefully for a while and found that he really just wanted to leave. She was silent.

He rushed to the out-of-town manor overnight, and the indifferent mage grandfather sensed his mage-level spiritual power, gave him a storage ring with satisfaction, and left, leaving no room for Hill to speak.

Hill, didn’t even get a chance to respond to his grandfather who had not met him for a long time. Then, he packed up the manor angrily and put away all his mother’s things. The storage ring was huge and could contain a lot of spellbook.

He actually understood that being a mage was a self-taught profession, and after his mother led him in, he should see more and learn more. There was nothing wrong with Frank doing this.

As a grandfather, Frank’s love for him was already in the ring, which contains a lot of precious materials, large sums of gold coins, enough books for a library, and the most important building materials for the magic tower, which was A high-level magic tower core that Hill couldn’t buy even with money.

but, Hill wailed in his heart! : “Dear grandfather! I’m a warlock! I don’t even know my bloodline!”

Yes, Hill’s years of meditation turned a corner when he was about to step onto the avenue of the Mage, and he awakened to become a glorious Wood, Earth, and Water Warlock. He didn’t know if it was because he traveled through time and space to cause the change. He was a Civil Engineer in his previous life, and he added water after awakening in this life.

In the list of all Hill’s spells, Earth into Mud and Mud into Stone could be listed in front. As for Summoning Earth Element, Wood Element, and Water Element were in the back. In the middle are Earth Shields, Earthquake, Slow Motion, Natural Growth, Summoning of Nature Companions, and Purification.

Hill knew that his bloodline was definitely not bad, and not everyone could have so many spells at the beginning of Warlock Awakening. And since his awakening, his body had begun to grow stronger day by day, and his seemingly thin body contain powerful strength. As a Warlock, his strength was almost comparable to that of a Full-Fledged Knight.

When awakening, he saw a big bear roaring to the sky in his dream, and he knew that his main bloodline must be a bear. The Bear Clan was basically the earth type, and it must be an equal bloodline to coexist, so Hill had been thinking about what was the big bear partner that had wood and water type.

He was very curious about his bloodline, but he could not find any clues after reading all the books in the castle and out-of-town manor. Finally came an archmage who might know, but still got nothing.

After that, he issued an order to Lina, the housekeeper of the manor, to wait for him at the entrance of the manor after packing up all his luggage. Hill, who was full of frustration, could only walk back to the castle in the morning light.

Earl Perast had not woken up yet, only the awakened eldest son, Manton in the castle was working hard to train accompanied by several illegitimate children. Hill ignored them and went back to the room to tidy up.

A few days ago, the butler had already told the earl’s plans for him. The earl gave Hill two choices: a lord with a small fief in the Earldom or a Baron without a fief but with a development order. He chose without hesitation. Baron. What a joke! Staying in the Earldom, there will be trouble waiting for him in the future, whether magic was not fragrant or alchemy was boring, Hill was not in the mood to find this kind of trouble at all.

No one in the Earl’s Castle knew that Hill was a mage. Apprentice mages were not uncommon among nobles. It takes a lot of time for mages to grow and consumed countless resources. Hill, who had a cold relationship with the Earl, would definitely not get much property from the separation and would not be taken seriously.

But if he was a bloodline-inherited warlock, he would definitely be given to the great nobles as a stallion in the name of marriage.

Hill just wanted to run away as far as possible, find a place to go to the grandpa Archmage, and counseled about this.

After tidying up the room, Hill did not wait long to see the housekeeper who invited him downstairs. The Earl and lady and family members were all waiting for him to eat together. Hill slowly walked down the stairs, and the large dining room was full of people watching the fun. After eating his not-so-delicious breakfast in silence, he followed the group to the conference hall.

The Earl stood in front of the hall, facing Hill in the crowd, and said with a smile: “Dear Hill, my cherished second son, at the most important moment of your adulthood, I canonized you as a Baron in the name of Earl Perast. Baron Bolaño!

I give you 20,000 gold coins as a father and allow you to take all your mother’s property. I hope you will add glory to the Perast family as Baron Hill Perast Bolaño! “

As soon as the voice fell, Hill heard the suddenly amplified whispers, and the people watching the fun couldn’t hide their surprise at all.

Earl Perast’s annual income was about 50,000 to 60,000 gold coins. The status of a baron without a fief was very high in the eyes of commoners, but a Count with a fief could be canonized once a year, which was generally used to win over great knights or nobles they could win over with a fief. No Great Knight appeared this year, and it was normal for Hill to be a baron.

But the earl didn’t even give his son a fief! The sum of the property Hill received was not as much as the Earl’s two-year annuity.

Hill knew that the Earl felt that Melanie’s property was enough to compensate him. Although the Earl was not afraid of the Court Mages, he did not want to cause trouble.

But he disliked this son very much, which was proof that he was terribly rejected by his wife. As long as Hill was still around, everyone would not forget Melanie’s story. He would never keep this son in his fief. Hill was also an apprentice mage, and he would definitely not choose to be a little lord.

The Earl always thought that Melanie was just an apprentice mage who knew how to do a little bit of alchemy and even killed herself. With the property left to Hill, it would be worth at most 100,000 gold coins, so after Melanie’s death, he generously called him Son. And invited him over to the Castle himself.

Before becoming an adult, Hill did not want the Count to discover that Melanie was a mage with a storage ring.

With Manton, the eldest son of a powerful mother’s family, if the earl wants to distribute money to other children, he could only divide it in his annuity. So for this disliked son, he didn’t want to give Hill too much.

The sixteen-year-old coming-of-age ceremony that should have been held before the canonization ceremony was completely ignored by the count.

Generally speaking, children who were separated from their families will receive generous compensation at the coming-of-age ceremony.

And Hill, he didn’t even have a rite of passage.

Everything today was just to make everyone understand more, and there was no need to treat Hill in the face of the earl in the future.

Hill didn’t care about this at all, he looked at the subtly changing atmosphere in the hall lightly.

From now on, the dispute within the family was reserved for the third Lady and Manton to continue their war!

Hill only took away 20,000 gold coins, and Edgar and his possibly born younger brother would be able to share several hundred thousand.

Hill saw Manton’s eyes suddenly sharpen, and the little brother Edgar had truly become his enemy from now on.

And the beautiful young stepmother’s eyes twinkled, and everyone understood that even though Edgar would get a lot later, she wanted more. The Castle of the Earl of Perast must be very lively in the future, leaving enough talk for the majority of people.

Hill didn’t want to continue paying attention to these people and things, got the Baron’s document from the butler, thanked the Earl for the canonization, and simply turned away from the castle while everyone watched.