The Newbie God Is Summoning Heroes From Earth [World Creation/ Management]

With Hars currently bedridden, Lacius feels he doesn't have much time to waste. So, he decided to take the easiest approach to capturing the city lords.

He sent several messengers and invited those city lords into the Winter City for an emergency meeting.

In the messages, he also added that he has a secret mission for them and they will not be able to return to their city within a short time. He added the extra messages to make those lords prepare the city for their long absence.

Lacius knew such a cursory excuse would only increase the suspicion of those lords and their subordinates.

Once he captures the city lords and uses them as material, sooner or later, their subordinates will definitely feel something wrong.

But, all Lacius needs is just a short moment of peace. So once he gets his hands on those four, he can focus his attention on research.

Anyway, once he failed to use the four city lords to find the method to reach the next level, he too wouldn't have much time left in the world.

With the mindset of a gambler that has nothing left to lose, Lacius patiently waited for the city lord to arrive while spending most of his time crafting potions.

He is so focused on crafting potions to the point he decreases the amount of daily audience with the nobles. But, those nobles simply took it as Lacius grieving over bedridden Hars.

Thanks to his hard work at doing alchemy for the last few days. When the first city lord arrived, Lacius's stock of sleeping potions and paralyzing potions had reached close to a hundred.

After greeting the middle aged city lord and asking a guard to take the city lord and his subordinates to a guest room in the palace, Lacius returned to the laboratory and continued crafting more potions.

Two days after the first city lord arrived, the last city lord finally arrived in Winter City.

Lacius gathered all four city lords into the throne room and said, "We'll have dinner in the evening. Then, I'll tell you the details of the mission during the dinner. But, anyone who heard about it must join the mission. So, only bring some of your subordinates to the dinner."

"After the dinner, all of you must immediately leave the city through a secret path to complete the mission."

"Why is it so complicated? A city lord frowned.

"That's just how important the secret mission is. None of the details of that mission can be leaked before it's completed." Lacius waved his hand, "Everyone must be tired, you can rest for now and I'll send a guard to guide you to the dining room before the sun sets."

Although the city lords are confused, they still follow Lacius's order and return to their guest room. Once they returned to their respective guest rooms, the city lord discussed with their subordinates and only took one or two of them to join the dinner.

When evening arrives, the city lord is led by a guard toward a room that Lacius has specially decorated for the dinner.

Upon entering the room, they're greeted by Lacius who has sat on the main seat, "Good evening everyone, please eat to your fill as the journey to the mission site will be long and exhausting. We'll talk after everyone finishes eating."

Lacius pointed at the long dining table and everyone's sight immediately focused on the food.

On the table, there are twenty dishes entirely made of magical beasts and plants.

Both the city lords and their subordinates are in awe at the extravagances of the dinner. Without much nonsense, all of the city lord's subordinates quickly sat and began eating with gusto.

When Lacius saw all of the people in the room had started eating, he smiled in relief and also started eating.

After quickly finishing the steak in front of him, Lacius immediately stopped eating and picked up his cup.

He quickly emptied the cup and said he was full and only watched everyone eat the food in front of him.

Watching everyone eating, Lacius thought. 'I've spiked a single dish with a bottle of paralyzing potion and a bottle of sleeping potion. Those portions should take effect around this time.'

'Just in case, let's drink another portion of antidote.' Lacius refilled his cup and slowly drank it.

While Lacius sips his antidote, one of the city lord's subordinates falls unconscious and everyone is surprised.

The nearest city lord quickly placed his finger in front of his subordinate's nose and slightly relaxed upon feeling he was still breathing.

Lacius saw the situation had turned tense and laughed, "It seems he got drunk. The drink you've been drinking is a new drink called wine that I got from Red Leaf City. It took me a lot of money to buy the best wine from the merchant group there."

When everyone heard it, they laughed along and continued to eat and drink.

Although only two city lords have truly drunk the wine Lacius mentioned. But, the other city lord has at least heard about the newly risen luxury commodity and about its intoxicating effect.

Soon, everyone began to turn unconscious one by one.

When a city lord who has tried wine saw almost everyone has become unconscious, he felt something wrong and slightly panicked.

Before he could do anything, Lacius's sleeping potion finally took effect on that city lord and he fell asleep.

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When Lacius saw everyone had fallen asleep, he activated his blessed power and created a hole under the rugs below the dining table.

The hole he created is just big enough for two people to enter at once.

After pushing aside the rug, Lacius began to throw the city lords and their subordinates into the hole.

"Losing one of my arms is pretty inconvenient." Lacius sighed while throwing the bodies into the hole. Once he was done, he cleaned the rug and jumped inside the hole while using his blessed power to close the hole.

After sliding downward for a few seconds, Lacius arrived at a secret underground laboratory he had just created.

On his foot, there are ten people, which are exactly the city lords and their subordinates.

After killing the six subordinates who had no use for him, Lacius fed the city lords with another bottle of paralyzing potions and sleeping potions. Then, he restrained them with a metal handcuff and took one of them to experiment with.

Lacius placed his right palm on the city lord's abdomen and started sending his energy following the earth element training method he had created.

After circulating the energy once, Lacius frowned, 'Just like what I expected, the difference in element has become an obstacle.'

From his experiment, Lacius already knew that every person has a small difference in their energy circulation pathway. This difference made every person's pathway to be unique.

Normally the difference is miniscule enough, so he can ignore it. But, when it comes to people at his current level. The difference in energy path, especially for those with different elements, is incredibly significant.

Lacius took several sheets of paper that had been invented by Tsukiko and began scribbling on them.

Most of the scribbles consisted of numbers and basic math that Tsukiko and Yuma had introduced, while some consisted of symbols Lacius had made himself.

After doing calculations to modify his earth element training method so it could flow smoothly inside the body of that city lord, Lacius placed his hand on the city lord's abdomen and infused his energy.

***

While Lacius spends his time experimenting, Cedric is sitting on the edge of his chair while munching on popcorn.

Initially, when he saw Lacius invited those city lords, Cedric had a sense of Deja Vu and wanted to stop him.

He still freshly remembers what happened when Gratian invited several city lords for dinner. At that time, most of the city lords and their families got killed, while Lacius got some sad backstory and started a rebellion.

Cedric has watched Lacius and knows his motive for inviting the city lords for dinner is definitely unclean. He dares bet 100 GP that Lacius is scheming against those city lords and most of them might even die.

When the news of the city lord's murder got out, history will repeat itself and another rebellion for revenge will begin. The Sacred Kingdom might even split into several kingdoms due to this rebellion.

But after thinking more about it, Cedric felt having the kingdom split up might not be a bad thing.

Cedric looked at the [Divine Intervention: Dream] that still had some energy and thought, 'As long as I intervene and warn every party involved before the battle intensifies and causes too much misery. Having the Sacred Kingdom split into several smaller kingdoms should be able to force the humans to fill whatever hole is left when I accidentally increased their civilization level from tribes into kingdoms.'

"Right now, Sacred Kingdom is basically a monopoly business without any rival," Cedric muttered while recalling how he had once seen someone mentioning that monopoly business will stifle innovation while scrolling the internet.

Cedric then continued to mumble, "Just like how monopoly stifles innovation, necessity is the mother of invention. To not fall from the other kingdom, the kingdoms should've tried their best to invent new rules, advance their technology, or even perfect their governance, education, and other systems."

Although he has a feeling he might be mixing two unrelated things, Cedric still praises himself, "I am so darn smart!"

With that idea, he began planning how he would warn the humans in the Crystal Cube world to not cause too much NE to appear while preparing to observe the situation in the Crystal Cube once again.

That's when the System decided to show up and raise its presence.

[Friendly reminder. Your 'Divine Intervention: Dream' doesn't have much energy. So, you need to word your warning as concisely as possible.]

"I know," Cedric replied. "Now, if you have nothing important to tell me, please shoo away before you start endorsing another product. I am already poor enough as is."

[How did you know the System is trying to ask you to buy another 'Divine Intervention: Dream'?]

Cedric ignored the System while munching on his popcorn. 'The System selling things reminds me of something.'

'Now that I already decided to intervene before the Sacred Kingdom's split. Should I buy a lifespan fruit or tell the continuation of the training method to Lacius? He has gone this far, and having such a genius die from old age will be a waste.'

'But my gut feeling said something extremely good would happen if I didn't intervene in Lacius's attempt to reach a higher level.' Cedric rubbed his chin and asked the System, "Hey, what do you think about this gut feeling I have?"

Just like he expected, the System has heard his internal monologue.

[The System doesn't know. It might be your subconsciousness warning you about information that you have gathered but simply ignored, or it might be something more metaphysical like the ability to sense fortune and avoid misfortune, or perhaps it's caused by something else.]

'That answer is pretty vague', Cedric rolled his eyes and asked another question, "So, should I follow this gut feeling?"

[The System isn't sure. But, just choose whatever you want and leave no regret.]

"Alright. Thanks for the not-so-helpful help." Cedric nodded and sent his mental power into the Crystal Cube world to continue observing.

***

In the Crystal Cube world, several days have already passed with Lacius spending all of his time in the library.

Around him, several stacks of papers are placed neatly while Lacius spends the most focus he has ever used since his birth.

In front of him, the last city lord is already on his last breath from all the experiments Lacius did to him.

Even when Lacius has been shoving the city lord with healing potions, he knows the city lord can only last through another one or two failures.

This time, he has great hope for the energy circulation method he has just modified, and the training method didn't betray him.

Its circulation is already 80% complete, yet there is still no sign of failure in the city lord's body.

Under heavy pressure and expectation, Lacius followed the method he had calculated and almost successfully completed an energy circle in the city lord's body.

But after he finished circulating the energy through 95% of the city lord's body, it suddenly turned erratic and the city lord started spewing blood and breathing his last.

Looking at the failure in front of him, Lacius began to throw aside the stack of paper around him while screaming.

"Argg! I FAIL!!!"

His scream resounded throughout the silent laboratory while Lacius lay on the stone floor and seemed to quickly age from despair.