The Extra Wants Control

"Yeah, fights between established contenders – the viscounts and counts to be," the vampire elaborated, his voice regaining a semblance of composure. "They crush each other to secure their seats. There are also alliances of people helping each other to secure nobility slots. Rumor has it, there\'s even a title above Count, The Marquis, that will be rewarded to the absolute best and exceptional.

That makes the competition for tokens fierce. And that\'s where we come in. We work for them, fight their battles, and they give us scraps of the spoils."

Neveah was now deep in thought over the newly acquired information, which was very interesting.

"Okay, then why were you people surrounding me, ready to attack?"

The previously quiet vampire eyes widened as he slowly blinked, genuine confusion in his eyes. "Attack... Attack you?" He said as if he heard the biggest load of bulshit he had ever heard in his 300 years of living.

" You attacked us!" He yelled only to be given a stern look that made hi shut up.

"Cough... We thought you were an employer, or at least representing one! We just wanted to get hired first and fast, to get some tokens."

" Scary bastard..." He mumbled in his breath and Neveah said," what was that?" He then quickly stammered, " It was nothing, I\'m sorry..." He then continued, " You suddenly started destroyed buildings. When you killed the first guy who attacked you because he was irritated at your behavior… well, we got angry too. And now... now here we are."

"..."Neveah stared at the vampire speechless. Sharon\'s voice, professionally formal said, "If that\'s their perspective they are not in the wrong."

Neveah just coughed awkwardly as he heard Sharon\'s words.

Then the last remaining vampire, clearly regretting staying and messing with this crazy masked man, nervously dropped all his tokens into the ice basket.

"Go," Neveah ordered, sending the remaining crowd hurriedly running away. Only the initial question-answerer remained, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

"Umm… since I was so helpful, couldn\'t you spare a couple of those tokens?" he began shamelessly scratching his head.

Neveah just unleashed a bit of heavy killing intent. The hopeful glint vanished in a flash, replaced by pure terror as the man ran away. The man didn\'t waste another second, bolting away at lightning speed, leaving Neveah mentally tired as he sighed.

Alone with the basket of tokens, Neveah again sighed deeply. A closer look revealed a new detail – the tokens weren\'t all identical.

There were wooden ones, some by iron, some steel, some of gold, and finally two were platinum tokens.

"What\'s the deal with this?" he finally asked.

Sharon\'s sigh, which was starting to get on Neveah\'s nerves slowly pissing him off, echoed in his mind. "Young master," she drawled, "everyone on the continent had a token given to them at the start of the tournament by the Queen\'s spacial magic. It would be a logistical nightmare to handle, count, and carry them all individually.

So, the queen implemented a system where when a certain number of the same token type as close to each other, they merge into a single, higher-quality one. Makes things much easier to manage."

"Nice," Neveah acknowledged, a begrudging respect for his mother\'s ingenuity, little does he know Verona was just being lazy but it worked out. As Verona\'s motto was Laziness is the mother of all invention, case and point people got tired of walking so they made a carriage. read-only-on-MvLeMpYr

Anyway back to Neveah... He frowned as a new concern surfaced. "One of my inhibitions was to work alone. How am I supposed to face territories and alliances with no army of my own?"

"That\'s for you to figure out," Sharon replied coolly.

Neveah just frowned deeply and gritted his teeth. "Wait," he thought, "I think I have that ability I haven\'t used yet. Time to get it back up.

Silence hung heavy in the air after his declaration.

"Aren\'t you going to ask what I\'m planning to do?" he asked curiously.

Sharon\'s cold voice , echoed in his mind. "The young master\'s business is his alone. I, as a maid, should not stick my nose in it."

But she thought with amusement, " Besides, I\'ll find out soon enough."

Neveah remained speechless, this woman is really unfriendly.

He sighed and turned away, his gaze falling upon the three corpses encased in ice. A resolute look hardened his eyes.

With slow strides, Neveah approached the bodies. The air around him grew noticeably colder. Dark traces of energy began to emanate from the Neveah\'s, wrapping around the frozen corpses.

The now cold wind picked up, a mournful howl echoing through the area. Whispers, faint and chilling, filled the air, morphing into anguished wails as the corpses rose from the ground, levitating.

Neveah\'s voice, deep and powerful, cut through wind ahe declared and ordered. "My decree shall give you life, in turn, you will serve me! Accept awaken and serve."

The shadows surrounding the corpses writhed violently for a moment before settling, revealing Three figures clad in sleek, black modern earth military suits. They knelt before Neveah, their eyes glowing with a grey light.

A satisfied smile formed on Neveah\'s lips beneath the mask. "Hmmm," he mused, "It worked! I can usethe shadow soldiers! I thought this wouldn\'t be possible with the condition needing to be two stars above them... it seemed like an impossible restriction that… that star system which I\'m no longer part of. But perhaps it\'s because I\'m far stronger than these two, that it worked anyway.

And it seems they are affected by my thinking on how a soldier should look like..." He glanced at the soldiers, their uniforms a reflection of his own subconscious mind.

"Well," he continued, a hint of excitement creeping into his voice, "at least I\'m not doing this alone anymore. Time for some more experimentation. Let\'s see what my limits truly are."

" Congratulations on finding a loophole, young master." Said Sharon.

" Thank you, dear~" said Neveah.