*Smash!*

A pristine glass vase shattered onto a clear marble floor, similar luxurious items littered alongside it staining the otherwise spotless room.

“That… bitch!” Thundered the Governor in rage.

To him this was a grave insult, for years he had been carrying out his plan perfectly, with everything going extremely smoothy he didn’t use to anything not going his way, but now following the princesses recovery his carelessness has already led to him suffering a loss.

‘I have been growing complacent’ The Governor thought.

Previously, despite her recovery, he did not view the Princess as a potential rival or threat at all in his path on taking over the throne, as everything had been coming to easy for him for the past year and as the Princess, he dealt with before was just a meek, naive little girl he believed that he could do anything he wanted with her only obediently following his wishes.

Now the reality was a slap to his face, the girl dared to not only defy him but to also plot against him creating a problem out of no were which he would now have to deal with the consequences of.

He knew that some of his dealings with the nobles that he requires control over for a period of time before he stabilised his new position depends upon the incentives to do so, thus he created a high tax plan under the Princesses name to not only gather the funds needed but to push the discontent from the people onto the Princess instead, shifting the displeasure from the populace to a new target.

As she was seriously ill and could barely look after herself, never mind view the matters of the Kingdom it was a great success, perfectly solving his issue for finding the resources to pay those greedy nobles.

Yet he now knew that this had made him to conceited as he had given the Princess an opportunity to screw him over with full use of the misleading information he had purposely been feeding the public over the years.

However, he knew that the truth would only be revealed if he could not ensure the complete compliance of the Princess which he previously had, but this was not so simple to maintain at the moment as he could clearly tell that the new Princess Talia is not some mindless puppet or young girl who he could easily manipulate similar to before.

‘That son of mine has made things more difficult for me again.’ He thought as he knew that the impression he had on the Princess was likely already well beyond recovery after the act his son committed, so he knew that it was pointless to try and win over her favour.

‘Well, looks like I’ll just have to ensure from now on she will be banned from leaving the Palace, I cannot allow for anything to go wrong at this phase, I will also speed up the expected sad decease of the Princess.’

The Governors mind worked swiftly after the recent introduction of new variables which could possibly derail his scheme.

Suddenly, two men in black walked into the room and said, “You have called for us?”

“Tell them that we have met unexpected complications and we will have to speed up the plan, it also looks like I will need more resources as we have lost the avenue which we have previously used to fill the coffers of those nobles, so I want to request for further funding.” Said the Governor.

“You said that you had it all under control, we have been waiting for so long as you have told us you will present us the full control of Alcaria without the need of more forceful means. We will provide your funding, but you better fulfil your promise bastard son of Thebia.” The raspy voice of the black-robed said before the duo left leaving the Governor trembling in rage.

His fists clenched tightly, the Governor said under his breath, “You will regret your comments, they all will for scorning me! In the end, despite being provided with the full support and resources of the family, none of my brothers will provide even close to a contribution in what I will bring in the form of a Kingdom!”

The Governor laughed maniacally at that thought as he picked up a bottle of wine stepping over the shards of glass on the floor he took a small sip as he savoured the taste.

‘Soon, this Kingdom will belong to me, then that father of mine will finally look me in the eye and acknowledge me as his son!’

Meanwhile, Talia has now found herself back into her quarters as she tiredly laid onto her bed.

After training alongside the trainees, and then having to follow around the Governor for over an hour only to return to have a lengthy conversation with Sir Gregory warning her to inform him if she was planning to pull off a stunt like that again she felt it was a long day.

Chuckling at the thought of the Governor's foolish expression after he couldn’t believe she would dare talk back to him, she knew that the man had obviously been greatly underestimating her.

Something she doubts he would do again, which was confirmed after she discovered the abrupt tightening of the Palace defences which was sole because the Governor was gravely concerned about her ‘safety’.

However, she knew that this was inevitable anyway so it was why she was so fearless in tricking the Governor despite knowing the likelihood of this occurring, regardless of her actions he would eventually discover that she had fully regained her sanity after inspecting the people she would be interacting with around the Palace, so she might as well act against him straight as soon as possible before he begins to up his guard against her.

And upon viewing the confident, irritating face of the Governor which looked at is he always had everything under his control contort into complete disbelief at the revelation that things were not going to go his way provided Talia with great satisfaction.

She knew that the only thing she could do to get herself out of this situation first and foremost was to continue to grow stronger, as no matter how vocal she could try to be, in the end, she knew that strength is the only thing that truly matters.

And at the moment, the Governor possessed the upper hand in this regard, which was why he was so fearless of her at the moment, so she knew that she had to reach a standard in which the Governor would be fearful of her before she could regain any sort of standing within the Kingdom of Alcaria.

Which was why straight away after finding herself alone within her room after a long day of events, she straight away accessed the game world, repeating the method she had used to reenter the world previously after the mechanical voice sounded again she soon felt her consciousness recede into her body as she felt herself once again found herself with completely different surroundings.

Looking around her location, she indeed found that it exactly the same as last time, that she found herself in the exact same location she exited the world from.

Thinking about her next steps on what to do in continuing to grow her strength within the game world, she recalled that she did indeed have rewards that she did not yet receive from her most recent completed quest.

Deciding to open it, she quickly found herself unable to contain her scream of delight as she had discovered one of the items she was rewarded with.

Sitting among her inventory was a bright red potion, besides it was the icon ‘Tier 1 Bloodline Potion: Created out of the bloodline of a Tier 1 Beast, upon consumption would improve the quality and purity of a bloodline the effect dependent on the strength of the user's bloodline.’

This was an especially rare item and difficult to receive as a reward at the beginning of the game, so Talia was thrilled she had received the potion among the rewards from the quest.

Straight away without hesitation, she drank the potion causing her to instantly feel a boiling sensation with her body as she felt the potion purifying the magical beast bloodline contained within her body.

*Alert! Frost Gecko bloodline strengthened, your bloodline has gone one step closer into reaching its peak. Attributes of your Beast Soul has been strengthened.*

The notification from the system lead to her in checking the newfound stats of her beast-soul and she wasn’t disappointed by the result.

Frost Gecko: Compatibility with Frost Dragon Bloodline 77%

Attributes: Strength: 12, Dexterity 13, Vitality 15, Intelligence 7, Willpower 8

Racial Skill: Ice Breath

Although the new-found attributes do not look too impressive in comparison to her new-found base stats from just the attributes she receives through levelling up, it was a decent increase for Talia as the bloodline of the Frost Gecko has yet to even reach the peak yet, so there was room for further improvement.

So for her, she was delighted with every increment to her strength, as in the end, a Frost Gecko was a Tier 0 Magical Beast, which meant it was considered the weakest among magical beasts so she cannot expect it to possess outrageous attributes even when its bloodline has been fully increased to its maximum capacity.

Already using one of the rewards, she found that apart from the Tier 1 Bloodline potion she has received a monetary reward of two gold and a great chunk of experience which enabled her to level up to eleven.

Although there was no magic tomb like the last quest which she was previously hoping for, the Tier 1 Bloodline Potion was already an amazing reward by itself never mind with the coin and experience alongside it.

Now finished looking through her rewards, she decided to explore Stonehead Town straight away to hunt for quests.

And she knew exactly the one right away to look for, and it was one involving a creature which everyone who had played fantasy game was familiar with, Goblins!