God of Tricksters

After a moment, the maid came and brought Richard into his room. The room was spacious. It could even be called a house for a small family with everything needed inside from the bedroom to a bathroom.

Richard hurriedly walked to the bathroom to take a bath. At the same time, he released his Magic Power, surrounding himself with an illusion that looked like he was taking a bath.

Meanwhile, the real Richard was sitting on the toilet with a smile on his face.

He waved his hands as many Skill Cards suddenly appeared. These Skill Cards were from the 'failed' experiments earlier.

It wasn't that he failed, it was the prince who deemed him to have failed. What he did earlier was envelop the cards with an illusion so that no one could find them and make a panicked face to show the answer.

The prince was the one misunderstanding that expression. In other words, he never lied to the prince.

The only reason why the prince wouldn't suspect him was because he had misunderstood everything he had said earlier.

One in four people? There was no such a thing. If he wanted to upgrade a skill, the chance was one hundred percent. However, because he asked for four people, the prince thought that way.

He panicked? He only showed that expression to make it look like he had failed. He just hid the fact that the cards were hidden inside his clothes. Because of the bruises and callouses on his body, the prince couldn't help but agree, thinking about the brutal torture he had to endure in the past.

'Smart people easily misunderstand things. I can take advantage of that. And the prince seems to be useful since his ambition is big.' He smirked playfully and glanced at the cards. 'And with this, I can get more cards for my own use.'

He paused for a moment and muttered inwardly, 'The fun is about to begin.'

…

While Richard was taking a shower, the prince gathered his executives, including the prime minister.

"Prime Minister. I won't hold back this time. From now on, I'll also be handling the government." Prince Karl stated with a serious expression.

"Mhm?"

"Listen to me first. I have a guy who can upgrade skills, meaning the first person to be known to have the ability to get stronger in the current situation. By sacrificing Skill Cards that are useless right now, we can make people get stronger and gain their loyalty. And it's possible to get an A Rank or even S Rank Skill with this. Do you understand the meaning of this person?"

"!!!" The Prime Minister's eyes brightened. "Prince, you…"

"Lexon Group has been approaching the Empress Palace, so we're not going to go down without a fight. I want the secretary of state for defence to find Skill Cards from all around the country. Whether it's in a normal house or the storage of the ruined temples, I want you to gather all Skill Cards from them.

"I also need to announce the plan for exchanging their Skill Cards with some support from the royal family. We'll gather all the Skill Cards to increase our own strength."

After listening to his rough plan, the Prime Minister immediately added, "If that's the case, we can't do everything at the same time. First of all, we have to gather the Skill Cards first by mobilizing the military. This will pique someone's interest and begin to be looking at it.

"Once we have them figured out about the skill upgrade, we can start informing the people to bring their Skill Cards to us. This will also make the others know that we can give them more strength.

"Now that they're hooked, we'll give them bait by announcing that we'll also help other influences to strengthen their forces in exchange for their favors. We'll make them owe us, and gradually, we'll approach the union with this. I'm sure that the members of the union will be interested in this skill upgrade.

"It's at that time that we can get the big fish. If we do it all at once, we'll be destroying ourselves since they're going to force us to hand over this person."

As expected of the Prime Minister, who had been working in politics for a long time, he surely knew how to work with this advantage.

"But there is one problem. If we want to get the people from the union, we have to set up a base in the Netherlands or even Germany. Of course, we have to bring Richard there. I'm afraid they're going to force us…"

"No!" The Prime Minister shook his head. "Please remember this, Prince. We're going to strengthen our forces in this place, including from other countries like Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. With this, they can't demand him from us easily.

"And don't forget that the people from the union are strong. We can simply ask them to go to us, considering they have to cross the dangerous ocean… Only those with strength and money will come to us. In other words, we will catch the small fishes first from all around us before the bigger fishes from the union."

"!!!" Prince Karl finally understood the entire scheme. "As expected of you."

"Not at all. I'm simply doing my job." He smirked.

Both of them were truly like sly foxes who had planned their rise in the union. Even without them agreeing on their cooperation, both of them knew that if one rose in the union, they had an obligation to bring the other one.

This was the mutual agreement between them that had been formed just by meeting each other.

"In that case, I'll let you handle the details." Prince Karl nodded.

"I understand. Please leave it to me."

They had come up with a plan that would indeed trick the union. It should be enough to rival the power coming from the Lexon Group.

However, no matter how sly they were, they didn't realize that they were playing in Theo's palms this whole time, to the point they looked like a mischievous kid instead of a sly fox.