“Your majesty, may be in that case I could ask you a favor? We plan to go deep in Lori kingdom’s territory and may be you could provide us with additional useful information to the one Andrew gave, may be even some latest reports?”

Nick didn’t shy off to ask for help. In fact, his actions were in Nola kingdom’s interests as well.

“Alright, you’ll get it tomorrow morning.” King seriously nodded, “Is there anything else you need?”

“We were planning to restock on alchemy ingredients, but that is it. Of course, if you could give us advice personally, it would be priceless.” Nick grinned.

He had learned long ago one should listen to the people with experience and learn from them and the king in front of him was definitely one who could teach a lot.

“You’re a sly one, aren’t you?” King grinned back, “Alright, give the list of the stuff you need to Andrew and he’ll help you to purchase the necessary ingredients. Then come to my study tomorrow after noon and may be we can think of few ideas that could help you.”

“Thank you, your highness!” Nick was elated, for some reason he felt like the real king here and the middle aged man in front of him was only here to help.

Soon the dinner was served and for the next two hours the royal family and three guests enjoyed the local delicacies. As it turns out, most of the Andrew’s siblings were already married and lived in the city, but rushed here to celebrate this special occasion together with their parents.

Even though Nick didn’t feel like it, the presence of the two princesses from Sun and Lethe kingdoms was important to the royalties. In addition, his own fame was not small in the royal circles, since these people knew what, in fact, transpired in the Nestri empire.

When dessert was served, princesses turned to Nick and asked him to tell about his adventures on the Nestri continent, but when latter with furrowed brows fell deep in thought, princess YunYun came to help out. She, of course, understood that largest part of the story was a sad one and explained that the time they spent there was mostly terrible. As alternative she suggested to tell more recent story from the Eastern continent that was not reported to the palace yet and the offer was unanimously accepted.

For the following hour the whole royal family listened to her telling how they met rank six beasts, saved the doe and managed to destroy the secret base of the Holy Order. The story ended with everyone laughing to their tears when YunYun described how King Kong excitedly ‘played’ Nick’s invented game.

At first Nick was startled about these nice and warm people laughing about bloody massacre caused by him, but soon reprimanded himself, that this was a medieval world and he should’ve long stopped trying to use 21st century values to judge anyone around him.

When YunYun finished, people around the table were all still laughing, but this adventure was so unbelievable, it was hard to not question their guest’s honesty and she obviously understood that. She promised that soon king will receive report from his envoy since there were many witnesses who saw them coming out of the woods near the lake Tai together with the great beasts.

Another round of laughter followed Zia’s pouting about Nick already having five rank six beast friends and not having introduced her to any. Nick did his best to pacify this young madam and promised to take her to other continents later when they had free time so she could meet them. Zia was not satisfied and asked the king if there were some ‘random rank sixes’ somewhere around the capital Nick could quickly befriend to which king Spencer seriously replied that such beasts in Nola kingdom haven’t been sighted for many years and most likely were hiding deep in the jungle.

When the feast ended, everyone left in a good mood and even reluctantly. The locals wanted to hear more about adventures of these youths while the three guests simply enjoyed the hearty and joyful atmosphere.

As promised, early next morning someone brought over a report that looked more like a thick stack of papers and for the next few hours Nick, Zia and YunYun carefully studied it. All three of them understood how dangerous their idea was, but they didn’t consider to change their minds and instead decided to prepare more carefully.

Nick also instructed Andrew about the herbs he needed and, to his big surprise, prince came back already at midday with few servants carrying large sacks. Then prince suggested they could stay for a day or two more and Nick could do most of his alchemy here and this idea was accepted with great enthusiasm. The burning powders and primitive explosives they wanted to create were not that difficult to produce, but there was no telling what circumstances will they have in the Lori kingdom. In addition, if Nick and YunYun could work in such ‘safe’ environment, they could make more of the stuff and even of higher quality.

Then, in high spirits, Andrew led the small delegation to meet his majesty, this time in more official capacity.

“Alright, ask!” King sat back in his chair and looked at the tree youths in front of him.

It was a bit of a contrast to his image they had from yesterday, but this evidently suited king’s status more. Nick quickly gathered his thoughts and pointed out where king’s advice was needed.

“As we know, Lori and Sand kingdom gathered a large force to attack our southern border again. The three of us can’t be of much help on a large battlefield, but a strong, small and mobile unit can do wonders in the enemy territory. What we want to achieve is to stop the advancement of the Lori kingdom’s forces, at least for a bit, and make them partially retreat. Of course, it would be the best if their whole army retreated and the Sun kingdom only had to face the Sand’s army.”

Nick cleared his throat and continued, “We only know the general situation over there and have no real targets in mind yet, but we are capable of burning down medium and may be even larger structures and blow up some bridges as well, although I want to reserve the last part for when we catch up to the main army. Of course, we will not attack it directly, but our main focus will be the supply convoy. We would like your opinion on what targets should we focus, which cities should be our priority. Of course, we will welcome any other advice as well.”

Trio discussed this subject in the morning and Nick just voiced out the result of this discussion.

King was expecting something like this, but still silently thought for ten or so minutes.

“Your idea is not bad in general, but it won’t work if you want to achieve the goals you listed.” He looked seriously at the three of them and continued, “Simply put yourselves in the position of bishop and imagine some random building or bridge being destroyed in one city and then somewhere else. Why would you stop advancement of your army just because of that?”

Nick thought about king’s words and both cousins did the same. King Spencer didn’t interrupt them as he knew that for young people figuring out answers for themselves was much more beneficial than to spoon-feed information.

After few minutes Nick’s eyes lit up. He took out the map of the Lori kingdom and put it in front of the king.

“Your majesty, look here. What if suddenly a disturbing event happened at these three cities at once and soon after in three more, let’s say – these three?” Nick pointed at locations around the map, “If there were multiple such incidents that couldn't be ignored throughout country, bishop will have to consider a possibility of uprising or even revolution. He won’t be able to guarantee his own safety if almost all of his cities had problems at the same time. Even more, in your intelligence report there were mentioned weak forces of resistance in the kingdom itself and it is possible for us with such acts to ignite their will to fight.”

King nodded in satisfaction, “All of this is correct, but what are the most important aspects to consider in this plan?”

This time YunYun was the first to answer, “We have to strike everywhere at the same time, the targets have to be important and damage has to be substantial.”

“Correct! I can’t help you with the specific choice of targets, but they have to be some governmental buildings. Of course, in Lori kingdom’s case those would be temples of Lori goddess or residences of high priests – they are basically same as our governors.”

“So we will have to separate.” Zia didn’t like it. This operation already sounded like a hard work and no fun at all.

“Exactly.” Nick nodded, “We will split country in three regions, one for each of us and have some time to scout the exact targets to strike. Then we will attack at the same time and every night burn or destroy something in another city, but from the reports that bishop will get, it will look like the whole country is on fire!”

At least this sounded more ‘fun’ and Zia got her spirits back at least partially, but Nick was not finished yet and continued with his eyes shining brightly, “Then, we will gather in the capital and do something interesting there!”

Andrew and his brother crown prince Sebastian watched the whole discussion from the side and it seemed almost as surreal as the adventure story about the rank six beasts. These three youths were earnestly planning to cause chaos in the neighboring country and their father seriously helped them. And from the looks of it he even thought of this being a realistic plan!

“I guess there will be another thing we will need your help with, your majesty.” Nick calmed down, “We will have to reconvene in the capital, but we have no idea where or how. Could you suggest a place? I bet you have been there multiple times in secret.”

“I can do better than that.” King smiled back. He really liked the attitude and fearlessness of these three, “I’ll give you a contact person in capital who will provide you with a place to stay and maybe even some fresh intelligence as well.”

After Nick, YunYun and Zia left, Andrew and Sebastian asked their father in confusion, “Isn’t this too dangerous?”

But king replied with the same smile he had after Nick left, “You are looking at the whole situation in the wrong way. Do you think they will go back to the Sun kingdom if I say there is no chance for them to change situation?”

He paused and looked at his sons, “Alright, try to create a better team for the job – three incredibly talented Qi masters, one can be considered experienced alchemist, two of them have killed emperor Osman in his own bedroom and then left the continent without a scratch, one of them disposed of almost whole populace of Nestri’s northern pirates, two of them destroyed a secret base of Holy Order while wiping out over thirty Qi masters including two elders, one of them figured out the threat in the east just a few days ago and saved lives of thousands even though it might have been based on a lucky guess, one of them is a daughter of the prodigy of the Lethe kingdom and probably most talented Qi sword master from the Sun kingdom, one is a genius disciple of the Sword sect. I can still continue for a while, but I’m pretty sure even I don’t know half of their achievements and most importantly – all of those describe the same three people even though I could’ve described a team of dozen this way.”

King looked at stupefied expressions of his sons, “Let’s turn to more important points. Not only the Sun kingdom is our most important ally, our security strictly depends on their ability to hold off those southern bastards. Lori kingdom’s forces are attacking Sun’s southern border because it is geographically easier to conquer that part and the agricultural lands over there are much better. As soon as they achieve their goals in the Sun kingdom, they will try to expand their influence directly north till the Northern empire and that means swallowing the Nola kingdom whole. Thus, we will do anything in our power to help the Sun kingdom’s forces, in this case – these three youths. The funny part is – they only asked for advise! It is crystal clear that Nick could've asked us for some tangible support and he knows it, but he didn’t! And not because he was too proud or ignorant, but simply because he doesn’t need it!”

King turned serious, “Andrew, you made a good friend. He is a real powerhouse of this world already and I’m eager to see what he will achieve. Those psychopaths from the Holy Order have plagued our continent for centuries, but I have an inkling they are done, or rather – will be in a few years.”

Both of his sons could only gasp, not because of king’s evaluation of Nick, in fact, both of them held him in high regard. It was because how he said it. King Spencer’s intuition was legendary and no one could remember time when he was wrong! Could it really mean the secret sect which has survived hundreds or thousands of attempts to destroy them will be eliminated by a youth?