Lya was still curiously peeking at the glowing mushroom town that seemed to have "grown" out of the swamp overnight. She was about to get closer to see those luminous mushrooms when her gaze met the familiar emerald gel lump in the clearing farther away.

Her little face flushed with the embarrassment of being caught spying, but it quickly turned to excitement. She took a few short, eager steps and tried to run toward Chen Yu, "So His Majesty is here too, I knew—"

Before she finished, her foot somehow caught on a raised stone. "Ouch!" she cried as she landed hard, plopping down on the still-damp earth.

Chen Yu was already used to her curse of "must trip on arrival." He was too lazy even to blow a bubble; only his curiosity deepened about why she and Casimir had come all the way out here to a shipyard site so far from the Royal Capital.

Casimir walked forward with measured steps. He first nodded slightly to the fallen Lya, then turned to Chen Yu and performed a graceful, standard vampire salute, hand over chest.

"Your Majesty, I and Bishop Lya have been following destiny's warning and your decree, searching across the kingdom for souls with potential who might be touched by trials."

Bishop?

The Slime was puzzled jpg

Lya had only recently joined the Great Slime Religion, right? How did she already convince these vampire followers and become a bishop?

Could she have a natural gift for playing prophet?

Lya had already scrambled to her feet, dusting mud off her skirt without noticing Chen Yu's suspicion. She nodded eagerly, forcing a solemn expression to echo Casimir's words.

"Yes, yes, that's right. Casimir is right. We were originally in the Royal Capital's square... recruiting followers, and seeing if there were any special people."

"Then... then I suddenly felt it, a big dark patch to the northwest, like a huge cloud of bad luck."

"So we followed that feeling here, and unexpectedly found a glowing mushroom town."

Casimir helpfully added, "Bishop Lya's perception is very accurate. Our original plan was indeed to search densely populated areas, but her destiny warning could not be ignored. So we changed course and followed the sign until we arrived here."

Chen Yu understood in his heart.

Good thing Casimir arrived a bit late and didn't see him conjure those houses with magic; otherwise, with Casimir's zealous nature, he'd probably kneel and shout about miracles on the spot and faint from excitement.

Within days, exaggerated rumors that His Majesty could wave his hand and make a town appear would be flying all over the kingdom.

As for the "bad luck" they mentioned... Chen Yu scanned the surroundings.

Strange. The weather was fine, construction was going smoothly, the slimes were full of energy. Where was any dark patch of bad luck?

At that moment, Lya looked toward the Anvil, who had been standing beside Chen Yu, stroking his beard and listening to their conversation.

Her little face instantly turned even more serious, even a bit terrified. She pointed a finger at the Anvil, her voice trembling: "I-it's him! His face is so dark... I can barely tell he's a dwarf. Those black clouds—so many of them—are wrapped around him!"

The Anvil had been pondering words like "bishop," "bad luck," and "dark," but when Lya pointed and said his face was so dark you couldn't tell he was a dwarf—a face already darkened by the forge's smoke—his expression actually went even darker.

Li Ye, seeing the Anvil's change in color, squeaked and zipped over to hide behind Casimir, only peeking out half a head, her voice even louder: "Okay okay... worse day..."

Casimir patted Lya heavily to reassure her, then turned to the Anvil and asked, "Ahem, Master Anvil, please excuse Bishop Lya's bluntness. Your vision is like most people's; could you perhaps recall if you've felt some... unusual pressure recently, a bottleneck, or a premonition of a major challenge looming?"

"Pressure?" the Anvil muttered.

I've been eating and sleeping poorly in the kingdom; how could I not have pressure?

He tried to play it off, but was he supposed to say he had no pressure? Building a Floating Fortress counts as pressure, right?

Meanwhile, Lya instinctively glanced at the Merchant Alliance, her look seeking confirmation.

The gel body under the Merchant Alliance swayed slightly, as if to give consent.

Given permission, Lya slowly moved out from behind Casimir, drew a deep breath, then opened her arms and tried to describe as clearly as she could: "What I saw wasn't ordinary dark clouds. Inside were a huge, huge ship!"

"It sails on a raging, black sea. The sky is filled with clouds, lightning flashing through them, thunder roaring! The wind is strong and the rain is heavy, like everything is being torn apart! The big ship rocks and rocks in the black water... like it's about to be swallowed by a huge wave at any moment!"

When the Anvil heard the word "huge ship," his face immediately shifted from dark to solemn. As one of the chief engineers of the Floating Fortress project, "huge ship" immediately conjured the Floating Fortress in his mind.

This is bad!

Could the construction of the Floating Fortress face major trouble, unimaginable difficulties and disasters, which is why this little bishop saw bad luck?

Casimir, however, shook his head slightly and offered a different perspective.

"Trial calamities usually relate directly to the trial candidate; they are a concretization of one's destiny and path. The raging sea and the ship's peril seen by Bishop Lya may not directly predict disaster for the Floating Fortress project itself. Rather... they may symbolize you personally, who is facing a crucial Extraordinary trial."

"That ship struggling in the waves could very well be a projection of your own fate and craftsmanship."

"An Extraordinary trial?!" The Anvil was stunned at first, then a surging, indescribable excitement erupted from his chest like a volcano.

His eyes widened, and his voice changed from excitement: "Father God above! I... am I to be examined for becoming an Extraordinary Craftsman?!"

Chen Yu also began to understand.

"So the unprecedentedly complex task of building the Floating Fortress itself functions as the trial content for the Anvil's potential ascension to Extraordinary Craftsman."

Casimir bowed slightly to Chen Yu, his tone admiring: "Your Majesty's wisdom runs deep; you hit the mark with one phrase."

But this also implied, indirectly, that the Floating Fortress was far more complicated than anyone imagined.

It wasn't just a massive engineering project; it was a life-or-death examination for a top craftsman attempting to break into the Extraordinary realm.

Among all Extraordinary professions, Extraordinary Craftsmen are arguably the rarest and most elusive.

Their trials are unlike a warrior's, which require defeating powerful foes, or a mage's, which demand understanding profound spells, or a cleric's, which need unwavering faith.

A craftsman's trial has no fixed pathway. Whether a trial is triggered or passed largely depends on being favored or tested by the gods or fate.

Some dwarf forging masters, despite peerless skill and widespread fame, might spend their entire lives never obtaining that elusive chance in destiny.

While some young dwarves, perhaps in an accidental forge session, unwittingly knock on the door to the Extraordinary.

It is said that craftsmen at that level can turn decay into miracle: one hammer strike can transform scrap iron into refined steel. They can even fuse will, faith, and the forces of nature into the veins of metal, bestowing the created object with power and spirit beyond mere matter.

Even in the southern kingdoms, the dwarf nation famous for forging—the Forge Mountain Kingdom—never had more than ten Extraordinary Craftsmen at any time.

In the history of the Copperfire Clan, only one such Extraordinary Craftsman had ever appeared.

This revelation sent the Anvil into raptures. He rubbed his calloused hands together, spun in place twice, and babbled incoherently, "Thank Father God, thank His Majesty, thank... thank the swamp and that huge thing we don't even have a shadow of yet!"

His face flushed with excitement, his eyes glittering with an unprecedented light, as if he had grown decades younger.

At that moment, Lya suddenly went "eh" again. Tilting her head, she looked at Chen Yu with puzzled eyes and whispered, "Your Majesty, that little dark shadow on your head seems to have grown bigger?"

Chen Yu froze. I have bad luck too?

That can't be right. He's still far from being a legend; he shouldn't trigger a trial so quickly.

While he was puzzled, a hurried message suddenly came through the Gel Network, from the eastern border of the Dark Realm.

A moment later he finally understood why Lya said he had "grown darker."

After an internal coup and purge of the Thoth faction, the newly ascendant Caldwell faction of the Misty Bay Harbor Merchant Alliance suddenly showed an unprecedentedly harsh posture.

They recklessly launched an all-out war despite the Southern Territory's recent defeat.

The Merchant Alliance's two most elite land legions—the Coinminters Legion and the Blood Oath Legion—suddenly massed and thundered toward the Gold Lionheart Fortress.

This key pass connecting the Alliance's western border with the Dark Realm fell after brief resistance; Yano and Galvin led their legions in retreat back into the Dark Realm.

Now these two well-equipped Merchant Alliance elite legions were pouring past the fortress, heading into the heartland of the Dark Realm.

In fact, the Merchant Alliance's three main religious pillars are the gods of trade and wealth Gildor, the Sea Goddess Ethera, and the war god Usca.

The two legions' names come from these deities, symbolizing the Alliance's foundational union of wealth and military power.

However, the Merchant Alliance's truly dominant force isn't its land legions, but the Storm Fleet that dominates the archipelagos and the southeastern coasts of the Mainland, nearly invincible.

But the problem is, the Slime homeland is essentially a landlocked inland dominion with no sea access. Even if the Alliance's fleet could navigate inland along rivers like the Jade River, it still couldn't reach the Slime Kingdom, which is surrounded by swamps and mountain ranges.

On the continent, nearly all powerful kingdoms and forces are distributed along coasts or major rivers to take advantage of water transport and trade.

The Slime Kingdom is the exception: its core lies deep within inland swamps, which renders the Merchant Alliance's naval supremacy useless—and that is a major reason the Alliance has always found conflict with the Slime Kingdom frustrating.

Even so, the Coinminters Legion and the Blood Oath Legion of the Merchant Alliance are still nothing to sneer at.

According to detailed intelligence from Yano, the Coinminters Legion attacking Gold Lionheart Fortress numbered only about a thousand, but every soldier was an Elite Professional. It was bona fide a Silver-level legion.

These troops were clad in enchanted armor, armed with excellent enchanted weapons, supplied with abundant magic scrolls and potions, and even accompanied by massive magical constructs.

Who knows how many gold coins were spent to create such an elite legion.

After assessing enemy strength and the fortress's defenses, Yano and Galvin barely hesitated. They decisively chose to abandon Gold Lionheart Fortress and led the garrison in an orderly retreat back into the Dark Realm, using the complex terrain to defend.

Fortunately, thanks to their decisive choice, the legion did not suffer unnecessary casualties.

Before retreating, they filled the empty fortress with traps and destroyed parts of the main roads leading into the Dark Realm, effectively slowing the Merchant Alliance's advance.

Despite the Alliance's aggressive momentum, Chen Yu was not overly alarmed.

In fact, he had long expected an all-out conflict with the Merchant Alliance to break out sooner or later.

After all, every gold coin the Slime Kingdom earned and every trade route it opened had nearly always been wrested away from the Alliance.

For merchants who valued profit above life, such a challenge to their fundamental interests was absolutely intolerable.

Moreover, from Chen Yu's understanding of the Merchant Alliance—a loose coalition of many guilds and noble families—no matter how fierce their current posture is, once their legions suffer a sufficiently heavy defeat in open battle, internal contradictions and mutual distrust among the factions will quickly fester, morale will plummet, and the offensive will falter.

The Alliance's legions are not as unified and resilient beneath the surface as they appear. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Having sorted out his thoughts, Chen Yu hopped lightly and turned to Casimir, asking, "Casimir, how did their talent discovery plan go over those days? Any gains?"

A smile appeared beneath Casimir's pale face. He bowed slightly: "Reporting to Your Majesty, the plan proceeded very smoothly."

"With Bishop Lya's assistance, you helped two Professionals touch and initially pass their respective trials, successfully advancing them to Extraordinary Professionals."

Chen Yu was curious: "Oh? Which two, and where are they now?"

Casimir's expression became a little complicated. He cleared his throat.

"Unfortunately, the two new Extraordinary Professionals are currently attending the Winter Academy's... Adult Literacy Class for further study."