NOVPUBAmy didn't hold back when it came to the banquet for the nobles.
In fact, she had even listed the help of the local lord for this matter since he was jointly hosting the banquet.
Though she did make sure that the lord didn't have too much say in the banquet since he was from one of the three factions that she invited. She just made sure to give his faction a bit of a step up when it came to the auction later, but not enough that it would have a significant effect.
The lord didn't mind this since he did have to cooperate with the Adventurer's Guild in the end.
The existence of the Adventurer's Guild in his territory which had a dungeon was significant.
For that reason, the banquet was being hosted at the lord's manor.
When Lin Fan arrived, he could see that the nobles were separated from each other.
It wasn't that they were avoiding each other because of a difference in class.
It was that they were separated because they were in different factions from each other.
But all of them seemed like they were interested in him.
Since these were nobles, they naturally cared about their rank and how others reacted to them. As such, there was someone who had been set up at the entrance that announced everyone that arrived.
That included Lin Fan.
That was why all of them looked at him with interested looks the moment that he came in.
As discussed with Amy and Sirius previously, his identity as an A Rank Adventure was announced for everyone. As such, they all looked at him with interest since every noble would want to have an A Rank Adventure in their territory.
That was how Lin Fan was able to make his way into the circle of the three factions of nobles.
Though it was clear that they didn't want to talk to each other with how they avoided talking to him while he was talking to another noble.
It was strange how they were all willing to wait their turn until he saw the way that they positioned themselves. It wasn't that they were willing, they were actually competing behind the scenes to be the next one to talk to him.
But Lin Fan just pretended that he didn't see that.
Instead, he focused on the nobles that were coming up to talk to him.
Since they were coming to talk to him, there were many nobles that he was actually able to talk to.
From them, he was able to learn more about the division of nobles in the Kalos Empire.
The factions were divided in a way that they all followed someone that was their figurehead.
The first division between them was whether they were centered around a noble or a royal.
Of the six factions, there were three noble factions and three royal factions.
The three noble factions didn't follow the royal family since they saw them as weak and replaceable.
In this Kalos Empire, there were four different dukes that stood at the peak that had power that could rival the royal family. The only reason that the royal family was the one that ruled over the Kalos Empire was because they were the descendants of the heroes.
The four ducal families were followers of the hero that had founded the Kalos Empire.
Though their ancestors were followers of the hero that was the progenitor of the Kalos Empire's royal family, that didn't mean that these descendants were the same. After a while, the dukes started harbouring ambitions to take the place of the royal family.
That was all but one duke who remained neutral.
The rest formed the three noble factions of the Kalos Empire.
The other side supported the royal family, but they were split as well.
After all, it wasn't as if the royal family itself was united since there were many different issues that the royal family had to deal with as well. The most pressing out of these issues was the power struggle between the successors.
The current emperor of the Kalos Empire was someone that loved women and had created quite the harem for himself. As such, there were many children sired and all of them had ambitions of taking the throne.
The three royal factions that formed were all those that supported a separate successor.
They were centered around the princes that were most likely to win the succession race.
These were the first prince, the second prince, and the eighth prince.
As for why the first prince wasn't named the crown prince yet, it was all because of the pressure from the other factions.
Because the royal power was split between these three princes, the emperor had no choice but to not name anyone as the crown prince. Because of these six factions, the emperor basically had no real power anymore.
So that meant that the invasion of the cultivation continent was something that was proposed by these six factions.
Well, it wasn't completely because of the six factions.
There was a part of it that was related to the emperor.
He had suddenly proposed this one day, which led to the six factions debating over it and finally coming together to support this decision.
This was supposed to be information that was closely guarded by the six factions, but Lin Fan was able to open some lips with his abilities.
It wasn't that he forced them to talk, it was just that it was quite easy for him to slip some more powerful alcohol into their drinks while they weren't paying attention. This was alcohol from the cultivation continent, which was stronger than the wine that they drank here.
When they were under the effects of this alcohol, their lips became much looser and they were more willing to divulge information that Lin Fan wanted.
As such, he was able to learn quite a bit about the invasion plans.
But he made sure that no one was suspicious of him by stopping himself at times.
He made sure to split out the information that he got from these nobles so that he only got pieces of information from each of them. These pieces weren't big enough that it would draw any attention, which allowed him to sneak under the radar.
However, that also meant that he wasn't actually able to get any information that was too deep. He would still have to dig deeper to find more information about the invasion that he wanted.
Other than this, Lin Fan also learned a decent amount about the three factions that had arrived for the auction.
They were the factions behind the first prince, the second prince, and the southern duke.
The four dukes were split into territories that they were granted by the Kalos Empire, split into the four different cardinal directions. The three dukes that wanted to take the place of the royal family were the dukes to the south, the north, and the east.
It was only the western duke that was still neutral in this matter.
The two factions that were behind the two princes were less about having Lin Fan follow them, but rather go to the capital to work for the two princes. It seemed that they were quite loyal that they wanted to send him to the capital.
However, Lin Fan could tell that there was also greed that was in their eyes when they proposed this.
It was clear that they would earn some kind of commission from sending him to the capital to the princes. It wasn't as if these nobles would do something that would cause them to suffer a loss, but they would act in a way that seemed like they were doing the best thing for him.
They wouldn't forget to leave a good impression on Lin Fan while sending him to the princes.
The faction that followed the duke seemed to care more about their own benefits that they tried to lure him to their own territory.
It seemed that the duke didn't give as many treats to the nobles that followed him, but there was still a reason why they followed him.
When they talked about the duke, they were all filled with respect. However, Lin Fan could also see that there were traces of fear in their eyes and voices when they talked about the duke.
This just showed him how much power the dukes had.
Though that did make sense since the dukes were planning on taking the place of the royal family.
If they didn't have enough of a foundation to do this, they wouldn't have created factions around themselves for this purpose. 𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒑𝒖𝒃.𝙘𝙤𝒎
With the way that things were set in this Kalos Empire…
"It's the western duke that will decide how things will go, right?" Lin Fan couldn't help thinking to himself.
No matter how he saw it, it really seemed like it was all up to the neutral western duke that would decide the future ruler of the country.
After all, if he lost his neutrality and supported a faction, the delicate balance of the Kalos Empire would be broken and it would start going down a path that couldn't be stopped.
Once the western duke broke his neutrality, it would result in a civil war in this Kalos Empire.
That was why Lin Fan was thinking about how to contact the western duke.
The more that he disrupted the internal situation of the Kalos Empire, the more that he would disrupt their plan to invade the cultivation continent.
Everything that he learned today was valuable information and they didn't know that this information went to an enemy.
