Once Lacius's army returo the Winter City, he ordered them to rest, while he returo the pace.

  This time instead of returning to the throne room, Lacius immediately entered his secret boratory.

  Ihe boratory, Hars be seen busy crafting a potion.

  Sensing someone had ehe boratory, Hars took a quid his eyes immediately widened, "Your Majesty, what happeo your arm!"

  Lacius ignored Hars's shout and instead poi the potion. "Focus your attention oions, don't waste any important material."

  Hars took a deep breath tain his posure and meically moved his hands.

  Ohe potion had been successfully created, Hars stored it in a gss bottle and pced it in a drawer. Then, he tio question Lacius, "What happeo your arm? How did you lose it?"

  "I uimated Yuma, and his attack has pierced through all of my defense and successfully hit me," Lacius answered nontly.

  After he answered, Lacius tried to ge the topic, "How many sleeping potions have you created?"

  Hars saw Lacius's undisguised attempt at ging the topid followed along, "I've created three potions while you left."

  "What a pity, we won't have the ce to use it."

  Hars asked, "Is the expedition a failure?"

  Lacius nodded, "Yuma has escaped and I actally killed his family. I guess he will take revenge anytime soon."

  Hars frowned and messaged his temple, "Ohey hear about this news, they'll definitely cause a mess."

  Lacius nodded, "that's right."

  Hars suddenly said, "Your Majesty, uhe hero's world where it has bee a norm for the children from the royal family to bee the ruler. We still have no pret of how the status of a king be formally ied."

  He tinued, "You have gaihe title of king by killing the first king, and those nobles might even try to learn from what you've done and do the same thing. Which should be one of the reasons why they started to cause a lot of problems retly."

  Lacius frowned, "What are y to say?"

  Hars said bluntly, "You should marry and have children! Just say it's the will of god to have the kingdom to be ruled by your desdant. Even if those nobles don't believe it, this will still increase the difficulty for them to bee a king and should make them a bit more cautious and cause less trouble."

  Lacius fell silent and pted Hars's method.

  Lacius felt most of what Hars said was right and that method was indeed feasible. Especially about mentioning it as an oracle from the creatod.

  Even if the temple of the creatod that Tsukiko led has beeroyed, Lacius must say he is truly in awe of her method as many people still have faith in that religion.

  A basi began to take form in Lacius's mind ahought, 'By doing this, I should be able to push the focus of this mess away from me to my desdant or somewhere else. This will grant me more free time which I could use for doing experiments.'

  'It's just… will the creator punish me for it?' Lacius wondered.

  ***

  Ihe Divine Space, Cedric has long since spent most of his attention cheg the Crystal Cube world and only occasionally went to study elven and dwarven anatomy.

  He has overheard the versatioween Hars and Lacius and fell into ption.

  What Hars said is right. Unlike oh where it's aowledged that only the royal family i the throne of a kingdom, the humans in the Crystal Cube world have never experiehe succession of a king through normal means.

  Cedric feels this should be the side effect of his involvement in forcefully advang the human civilization level from the Stone Age to what's basically the te Bronze Age. Then, the mess Lacius caused by starting a rebellion against Gratian further aggravated whatever the problem was.

  Even with his low sociology knowledge, Cedriew once Lacius died, the sacred kingdom would probably shatter into pieces.

  At first, Gratian successfully ied all human tribes and turhem into cities under his trol due to the suppression oeological level. Those tribes that still throw stones 't beat the copper oaught Gratian to make.

  As for Lacius, Cedri't too sure how he stably bee the king. But, it should have something to do with the chaos at that time where many city lords had just died, coupled with the support from the only remaining city lord, Yasu.

  But now, the situation is much more different. The kingdom has beeed and there are several ambitious city lords and hat also have a certain level of armed forces.

  Furthermore, some high ranking people still have records about how Lacius attained his throne. So, they'll most definitely learn from history and start a coup d'etat once Lacius shows too much weakness.

  Actually, he doesn't care whether the Sacred Kingdom split into pieces or not.

  But he is certain that if division indeed happens, a chaotic war will happen.

  Furthermore, if it became a tradition to do a coup d'etat to ge a ruler, Cedri't imagine how much headache it would cause him.

  So, even if Lacius doesn't agree to marry and have several children, Cedric will force him to do so.

  Even if that means he will o intervene, which might cause even bigger chaos.

  He is actually unwilling to intervene for now. Mostly because he is curious whether his ck of intervention will cause a better result or not.

  This is also why Cedric hadn't sent the tinuation of the trainihod to Lacius, even though he finally khat Lacius had done so many things just for the sake of disc the method to reach Level 2.

  ***

  Luckily, Lacius is determined enough to proceed with the phought of.

  Without a need for any push from Cedric, Lacius has spread the word of the god's oracle and begun colleg women as his wives and es.

  Although many people feel a bit doubtful upon looking at Lacius's old age. With the help of potions he especially created, Lacius successfully caused more than ten women to bee pregnant with his child.

  Luckily, Lacius has always kept the existence of potions a secret. So, in the eyes of the people, what he has done is han a miracle.

  The miracle of causing so many women to get pregnant at the same time while being at su advanced age is enough to make the people believe that it's a will from the creatod.

  After nine months nand spending a lot of preaterials to create potions to nurture his wives and the child. Lacius's wives began to give birth and he immediately dispyed his children to the public.

  When the people saw the eic babies that had many traits of Lacius, everyone cheered at the miracle of the god.

  Having dozens of children at the same time and having all of them survive is a miracle in this era. But, Lacius easily achieved it by stantly feeding his wives some potions used to nurture the body.

  'Luckily, I've ied this health nurturing potion while researg potions to extend lifespan. Although it took a lot of preaterials to make, and I barely let all of my wives drink them once a month. But, I must say their effects are super effective.' Lacius thought while staring at the civilians and nobles.

  Looking at the people shouting praises to the creatods, Lacius felt a bit envious, 'Even after most of the temples in the Sacred Kingdom were destroyed and only some temples in other cities have bee, many people still remembered it.'

  With the people's support, the nobles began to calm down and Lacius finally got more time to experiment.

  But the stability doesn't st long.

  A few days after Lacius's wives gave birth at the same time. Hars is busy at work due to the aftermath of several forest fires near Winter City that have go of trol.

  While talking with one of his subordinates if they have found a trace of Yuma, which he suspected to be the culprit. Hars suddenly fell unscious.

  Once Lacius left his boratory, he heard about Hars's dition and quickly went to Hars's room.

  Ihe room, there are two low leveled healers busy activating their blessed power.

  Looking at Hars who has turned pale and seems to be ten years older, Lacius ighe two healers and fed Hars with his most precious healing potion.

  The two healers were shocked by Lacius's sudden movement and wao stop him.

  But when they saw Hars's dition turer after drinking the potion, they became shocked. They wao ask Lacius what he had just fed Hars with, but they fell silent upon looking at Lacius's gloomy expression.

  Not daring to ask for any question, both of them went to silently tiheir work.

  Soon, Hars woke up with a cough.

  When both healers saw Hars had woken up, they tio activate their blessed power for several mio make sure his dition had stabilized, then quickly left the room.

  Being in the same room with gloomy looking Lacius has given them heavy mental pressure.

  Ign the two healers who leave the room as if they got a pardon, Lacius said, "Yetting too old."

  "I know." Hars replied with a ragged breath while coughing several times, "I am already g to my fate."

  Lacius's eyes narrowed.

  He uood Hars meant he should let him go. But, Lacius is unwilling to see Hars die without a fight. "Please rest for now, I'll look for a way so you live."

  Lacius exited Hars's room aed several trusted servants and guards to take care of Hars. He has also called granny Maude's only disciple to return to the pad told her to take care of Hars.

  After doing his best to extend Hars's life, Lacius sat in the empty throne room and began to look for termeasures.

  While biting his lips due to ay, Lacius finally decided to take areme approach.

  Thanks to studying Tsukuko's corpse, he already has a feeling about the differeween those at Peak Level 1 and those at Level 2.

  Right now, what's stopping him from reag the level is the ck of Peak Level 1 blessed as experimental materials.

  While closing his eyes, Lacius thought, 'None of the blessed I sent to train will be able to reach my level anytime soon. So, I o pce my sight on ready made materials.'

  He began to recall four blessed that should have also reached Peak Level 1 and prepared a pn to capture them.

  Initially, he doesn't want tet them because all four of them are city lords with extensive influen the kingdom.

  Lacius knew for sure that ohey went missing, their city would turn into a mess. Furthermore, none of them has earth or water elements.

  Although he use them to research the tinuation of the water ah trainihod that he has ied, it's definitely going to be much more ineffit pared to using the body of earth or water element blessed. But right now, he couldn't care about such a thing.