Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 109: Great news!

Ethan glanced around and asked again, "What about Cicero and Bromir?"

Elynn sighed, half amused, half exasperated. "Prince Cicero knew there was a meeting today, so he went ahead and fell asleep in the conference room. As for Bromir, he’s out gathering intel in the Gleaming Forest. That place is massive—there’s no way he can cover it all by himself."

Ethan let out a long sigh, speechless for a moment. Then, with a helpless expression, he muttered, "What a bunch of slackers..."

Shaking his head, he turned and started making his way toward the conference room at the top of the castle.

"Come on, let’s go."

"Yes, Master!"

—

A few moments later, at the top of Emerald Castle...

Boom!

Ethan pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The first thing he saw was Cicero, fast asleep, snoring away. Meanwhile, Bromir was completely focused, meticulously organizing the gathered intelligence.

The moment Ethan entered, Eldorin immediately straightened up and bowed respectfully. "Honorable Lord, I offer you my sincerest greetings."

Roar!

Cicero stirred at the sound of Ethan’s arrival. The moment he saw him, his eyes lit up, and he let out an excited cry. In the blink of an eye, Cicero shifted into his juvenile form and bolted toward Ethan, crashing straight into his arms.

He wriggled around, nuzzling against Ethan, acting completely spoiled.

Clearly, he was in a great mood.

"Alright, alright, cut it out..."

Ethan chuckled, playfully ruffling Cicero’s fur before finally settling him in his arms. Then, turning his attention to Eldorin, he asked, "So, how’s the task I assigned you coming along?"

Eldorin nodded. "Lord, the mission is nearly complete. Centered around The Lost Realms, we’ve managed to survey roughly one-fifth of the entire Gleaming Forest."

Ethan’s eyes sharpened. "Anything noteworthy?"

Eldorin immediately began listing the findings. "Aside from the Ancient War Tree recruitment site we previously discovered, we’ve also located recruitment points for our Treant forces—9th-tier Treant Guards and 10th-tier Ancient Treant Soldiers. Additionally, within that region, we found two high-grade Enchanted Springs, an Upgrade Altar of Fire, and three Upgrade Altars of Earth. There are also several 6th-tier unit recruitment sites."

Ethan’s mind quickly processed the information.

A high-grade Enchanted Spring meant a recruitment site for 8th-tier Silver Pegasus Knights.

An Upgrade Altar of Fire meant access to 8th-tier Energy Elementals.

And the Upgrade Altars of Earth? Those were for 10th-tier Magma Elementals. Three of them, no less—that was a significant find.

But... that wasn’t what Ethan was truly hoping to hear.

"Not bad."

Ethan nodded in approval, then pressed on. "What else?"

"In addition to that, we found one large crystal resource site, two medium-sized ones, and five small ones. There’s also one medium-sized lumber resource site and three small ones. We located two small gem resource sites, and..." Eldorin suddenly hesitated.

Ethan narrowed his eyes. "And what?"

Eldorin took a deep breath, his voice tinged with excitement. "And... we discovered an extremely rare resource site—a medium-sized Magic Pattern Vein!"

"A rare resource site? Magic Pattern Vein?"

Ethan blinked, then instinctively turned to Cicero. "What the hell is that?"

He had never even heard of rare resource sites before. His mind was completely blank.

Sensing Ethan’s confusion, Cicero patiently explained, "Master, rare resources are even more valuable than the six primary resources."

Seeing Ethan still puzzled, Cicero continued, "Rare resources are incredibly expensive! In most cases, even hundreds of units of the six primary resources wouldn’t be enough to trade for a single unit of a rare resource!"

"And no matter what kind of rare resource it is, it’s always highly useful!"

Pausing for a moment, Cicero then added, "Magic Pattern Ore, if I remember correctly, is a magic-based rare mineral. It has an exceptional capacity for storing magical energy and is extremely durable. Because of that, it’s often used to craft weapons and armor for mages. On top of that, Magic Pattern Ore is ridiculously expensive—after all, no mage is ever short on money!"

"Seriously?"

Ethan’s eyes lit up, excitement flashing across his face. "What’s the production rate?"

"One unit every seven days... And I suspect that this isn’t the only Magic Pattern Vein in the core of the Gleaming Forest." Eldorin speculated.

"Then search the entire forest thoroughly!"

Ethan didn’t hesitate for a second. "Eldorin, you and Bromir work together—scour the entire Gleaming Forest as fast as possible! I want every inch of it mapped out and under Emerald Castle’s control. No secrets, no unknowns!"

"As you command, my lord!" Eldorin immediately nodded.

"Also, what about the defenses around that Magic Pattern Vein?" Ethan asked.

Eldorin’s expression turned slightly awkward, a hint of hesitation in his voice. "Lord Ethan... the defenses around the Magic Pattern Vein are a bit tricky."

Ethan raised an eyebrow. "How tricky?"

Eldorin sighed and listed the numbers. "From what I observed, the site is guarded by:

50,000 Tier-1 Pixies

20,000 Tier-2 Dryads

10,000 Tier-3 Elf Warriors

8,000 Tier-4 Elf Huntresses

5,000 Tier-5 units...

And... two Tier-13 Ancient War Trees."

"..."

Ethan was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "Yeah, okay... never mind. Let’s do this instead—Cicero, take some time to go with them. Wipe out anything in the Gleaming Forest that looks like a problem."

"Got it..."

Cicero had just nodded when—

ROAR!

A deafening dragon’s roar suddenly echoed from the sky outside the conference room!

In an instant, a massive Green Dragon came soaring toward them, its enormous wings blotting out the sun. But as it approached, its body rapidly shrank. Moments later, it landed on the balcony outside the conference room, its eyes gleaming with excitement as it turned to Ethan.

"Master! Great news!"

"I just won a Colossal Gold Mine from Behemoth!"

"R-Really?!"

Ethan shuddered, his pupils contracting as excitement surged through him. A Colossal Gold Mine—do you even realize what that means? In the world of Glory Lords X, it’s the single biggest source of gold from regular production! Every seven days, it churns out a whopping 600,000 gold!

Six hundred thousand. Every. Seven. Days.

That’s over thirty million gold a year!

And that’s not even factoring in other resources or recruitment discounts. Just in raw numbers, thirty million gold is enough to recruit two Green Dragons and one and a half Ancient War Trees! freewebnσvel.cøm

That’s an absolutely insane amount of wealth!

But with the increasing number of high-tier Creature Dwellings, recruitment slots were constantly getting pushed to their limits. Ethan was feeling the squeeze—hell, he was downright strapped for cash!

There’s a saying: the richer you are, the more broke you feel. And right now? That was him to a T.

No matter how much gold he had, no matter how many of the six major resources he stockpiled, it was never enough! It felt like there was some invisible black hole sucking everything dry, draining his reserves faster than he could replenish them.

Of course, part of this was because his standards had skyrocketed. At this point, anything below Tier 7 wasn’t even worth a second glance. Hell, even Elite Units below Tier 9 felt like a waste of space.

They were just... meh.

But Champion Units above Tier 9? Those things started at hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions of gold per recruit!

You get the picture.

No matter how deep your pockets are, they’ll never be deep enough for that kind of spending.

Still, no matter how painful it was, high-tier units were a must. The lower-tier ones? Useless. Not even worth considering. The only option was to scrimp and save, hoarding every last coin to invest in the real powerhouses.

And in a situation like this, getting a Colossal Gold Mine was a massive relief.

"This is amazing!" Ethan exclaimed, barely containing his excitement. Then, turning to Seraphina, he asked curiously, "How the hell did you pull this off?"

"I made a bet with Behemoth Balthazar," Seraphina said, a smug grin spreading across her face. "I wagered that none of his Tier 13 Behemoths could beat Orryn. And guess what? We won!"

"...That’s it? That’s all it took?"

"That’s all it took."

Ethan fell silent for a moment, then couldn’t help but ask, "Wait... who the hell is Balthazar?"

"The big boss of the Behemoth Lair in Fury Wasteland. A Tier 14 Ancient Behemoth," Seraphina replied casually.

Ethan froze.

"...The big boss? And he has a name? Wait, don’t tell me—he’s a Beast King Hero?" Ethan blurted out, his whole body tensing. His face paled. If Balthazar was actually an Ancient Behemoth Hero, that would be terrifying.

Because if he really was a Tier 14 Mythic Unit...

That meant he was at least an S-rank Crimson Ultimate.

An S-rank Crimson Ultimate... Ethan couldn’t help but drool a little at the thought.

Too bad it was just a pipe dream. That level of power was way out of reach.

At least for now...

"No, he’s still a long way from becoming an Ancient Behemoth Hero. But he’s strong—actually, even a little stronger than me! Still, give me some time to grow, and I should be able to take him down!" Elynn declared confidently.

"So, basically, he’s like Orryn—another Tier 14 special unit?"

Ethan’s eyes gleamed as he processed the information. Then he turned to Seraphina. "Seraphina, in that Behemoth Lair, are there any other Ancient Behemoths like Balthazar, or Tier 13 Behemoths that are way stronger than normal units?"

Seraphina tilted her head, thinking for a moment. "I think there are one or two more... but they were too weak, so I didn’t really pay attention."

"...Alright then." Ethan shrugged, deciding not to press further.

At the same time, another thought struck him. "Where exactly is this Colossal Gold Mine?"

"East side of Fury Wasteland," Seraphina answered eagerly. "Master, are we going to take it?"

"Of course!" Ethan nodded without hesitation.

A Colossal Gold Mine!

That’s pure gold—literally! Why the hell wouldn’t they go for it?!

"What kind of defenses are we looking at?" Ethan asked.

Seraphina rattled off the numbers without missing a beat.

"100,000 Tier 1 Goblins, 50,000 Tier 2 Hobgoblins, 30,000 Tier 3 Wolf Riders, 15,000 Tier 4 Wolf Raiders, 8,000 Tier 5 Orcs, 5,000 Tier 6 Orc Chieftains, 3,000 Tier 7 Ogres, 1,500 Tier 8 Ogre Mages, 800 Tier 9 Rocs, 300 Tier 10 Thunderbirds, 100 Tier 11 Cyclops, 50 Tier 12 Cyclops Kings, 20 Tier 13 Behemoths, and... 3 Tier 14 Ancient Behemoths."

Ethan sucked in a sharp breath. His mind went blank for a second.

"...Can we even take that?"

Tens of thousands—hell, even hundreds of thousands—of low-tier units? That was manageable. With tier suppression and the AoE magic from Elyra, Seraphina, and the others, they could handle that.

But hundreds, even thousands of Champion Units and Royal Units?

Not to mention double-digit numbers of Tier 13 Legendary Units... and three freaking Tier 14 Mythic Units?!

Who the hell was supposed to tank that?!

"No wonder this is the highest-yield gold mine in the game... The defenses are absolutely insane!" Ethan muttered, his mouth twitching.

With an army like that... maybe it was time to just call it a day and go to bed.

"We can do it! Absolutely!"

To Ethan’s surprise, Seraphina nodded without hesitation.

"...Seriously?" Ethan blinked.

His expression shifted as he grew serious. "Seraphina, there’s no need to push ourselves. Emerald Castle is already growing fast enough. We’ve got time. The key is to take things step by step and build a solid foundation."

"Master, I mean it! We can definitely take them!" Seraphina insisted, her eyes burning with confidence.

...