Chapter 134: 134. Teaching a Lesson - 1
"Famir, Ryfin, take Ron back to the living quarters," Orion said, looking at them. "I am going to have a chat with Mike here."
"Let's go and take you to your room." Ryfin coiled his hand around Ron's shoulder and took him away. Famir also followed behind.
Seeing them go away, Orion turned his attention to Mike.
"Are there any arenas or places to fight?" He asked, looking at Mike.
He had a plan in mind that would make it easy to copy their curses and, at the same time, gain their trust. They were, after all, his servants now, and it wouldn't be very nice if they didn't even trust their master—him.
"Follow me, Young Master." Mike said as he walked towards the same passageway leading to the leaving quarters.
"Lisa, call all the personnel under me." Orion then turned to Lisa. "Ordered them to come to the room Mike is leading us."
Lisa nodded and quickly went to do what Orion asked.
Meanwhile, Orion followed Mike and appeared at one of the doors at the side of the passageway leading to the living quarters.
"Let's go in, Young Master." Mike opened the door and walked in. Orion, too, came inside and was surprised to see that it was a slightly bigger area than the conference hall near the entrance.
But unlike the conference hall, this area was empty. There was nothing in this place except for the white marbles placed on the floor they were standing.
"Mike, I know the void shuttle is big but can it really have this much space inside?" Orion asked.
He could understand the large space in the conference hall because that area was where the void shuttle was in a spherical shape, giving it more space. But what about this area? It came into the narrow side of the void shuttle, yet surprisingly, it had even more space than the conference hall.
"Young Master, these void shuttles have been made by the blacksmiths of our Darkwood Family," Mike explained the reason behind Orion's confusion. "But the basic design and structure of it have been spread to all of the three domains. As for the extra spaces, they were made using an ore called void stones. They are only found in Grimshore."
Orion nodded in understanding.
"So, how strong are you and your team?" He asked, looking at Mike.
He wanted to know their strength before he went around gaining their trust. He could somewhat sense their rank, but he wanted to know their exact strength. After all, he would be testing them here.
"I am at the platinum rank and all the others are at the peak of the silver rank," Mike said, though he wondered why Orion asked.
"Platinum rank?" Orion guessed this rank should be above the gold rank and he was surprised that all the others were at the peak of silver rank which meant they would sooner or later breakthrough to gold rank.
"Young Master, what are you planning to do?" Mike asked him at this moment, and his eyes appeared full of suspicion.
Although he understood that Orion had arrived at the iron rank and passed the family test, he didn't quite trust his 'Young Master'.
Like others, he also felt a bit of dissatisfaction about being assigned to the "trash" young master of the Darkwood Family. However, unlike others, he didn't show it on his face.
The mark of the "trash" young master had been rooted deep inside everyone in the Darkwood Family, and even if that young master had turned over a new leaf, it would take a long time for everyone to get accustomed to Orion's new status.
So, even though Mike wanted to genuinely trust Orion because he was assigned to him and Orion was their master now, he couldn't bring himself to fully commit to Orion.
Orion didn't know about anything going through Mike's head and vaguely answered his question.
"You will know." He said, waiting for the other members to come here.
A moment later, Lisa came with the other members of the group at Orion's command.
"Young Master, they are here." Lisa said, looking at her young master.
"Hmm." Orion nodded to her and then turned his attention towards the group.
He noticed that there were approximately thirty of them, and including Mike, they totaled thirty-one. But he saw their faces showing signs of anger. It was clear that they weren't happy about being suddenly summoned by him.
They weren't happy to be called by someone they didn't respect.
But Orion didn't care about that.
"Those who think I am not capable of leading you, not capable of being your master, raise their hands," he said, looking at each of them.
As soon as he said that, Mike narrowed his eyes. He became interested in what this "trash young master" wanted to do. As far as he knew, Orion had only recently upgraded his rank to iron rank, and he didn't know about his talents, so he was eager to understand Orion's motives here.
As for the other members, they started looking at each other to see if others raised their hands. After a moment, as if they all agreed on something, they turned to Orion and raised their hands.
Orion's face turned grim when he saw that all the members had raised their hands. Not a single one of them trusted him and this made Orion feel frustrated and a bit irritated too.
He felt that since they were assigned to him by his father, they should be obliged to follow any of his commands without hesitation. But it appeared they didn't take him seriously, or they simply didn't care about him.
Though he understood why they weren't afraid of him or why they boldly raised their hands without any fear, It was because his family had a saying that if a family wanted to become a monarch, then their servants too would have to be treated as emperors.
That was why, even though they were servants, they were provided with enough freedom to voice their thoughts and given enough power to leave their master if they were unsatisfied after a certain period of time.
This philosophy of treating servants with respect and granting them autonomy ensured that loyalty was earned through mutual respect and fairness rather than fear and coercion.
That was also one of the reasons why Orion wanted them to trust him. If they didn't trust him and chose to leave after a certain period of time, rumors would spread throughout the Darkwood family that he couldn't even retain his own servants, solidifying his reputation as a "trash young master."
This was also a type of test—a hidden test for the direct descendants of the Darkwood Family to see if they had what it took to attract these servants and keep them forever.
'I will have to teach them some lessons, it seems.'
Orion thought, looking at them.
"We will play a little game," he said, his eyes glinting playfully.
"What game?" Asked one of the servants.
"It's a simple challenge," Orion smiled mischievously. "I'll stand right here. One by one, if any of you can move me from my position, you're free to leave my command and join other young masters from the family. But if you can't make me move, then you'll remain my servants forever. What do you think?"