Divine Emperor of Death

Chapter 5342: Paperwork

Davis’s avatar had been kidnapped by Mingzhi and taken back to the Administration Department, where he chanced upon a mountain of documents awaiting his review.

"..."

Even though he knew the backlog would be tough to deal with, he didn’t expect a few mounds to have formed in the chamber, leaving him a bit dumbfounded.

"Don’t get any strange ideas about running away." Mingzhi’s voice echoed from behind.

Davis came out of his reverie. He didn’t turn to look back but shook his head as he walked toward the pile of documents stacked all over the place, dodging them like they were walls.

After arriving at the main desk, he took the [Acknowledged] seal from the surface of the desk and gazed at it before setting it down and gazing at the [Overturned], [Decommissioned], and [Delayed] seals.

Even if Mingzhi or relevant authorities had disapproved of the documents, he would still have to decommission them to dismiss the proposal or overturn them if he wanted it to happen. Should she or others approve something he didn’t like but didn’t want it to be reconsidered, he could always delay it as well. As the Patriarch and the Emperor of the Davis Family, all the power was gathered onto him.

Davis knew if he could not maintain and utilize this power properly, then his Davis Family would degenerate year after year.

Beginning to take this seriously, he clenched his fist lightly before he soundlessly sat and started working on the first few sets of documents placed on the desk, which he supposed were the most important to look at.

As expected, it contained documents regarding treasury, finances, defense, alchemy, formations, and many more.

The treasury report listed outgoing funds first. Several branch families from the Alstreim Family and Loret Family had requested extra allocations after claiming losses from recent trade disputes in the marketplace. Davis checked the attached ledgers against the central records and found three of the claims inflated out of the thousands. He stamped the [Decommissioned] seal on those and moved the remaining two to the side for later verification.

Both families could be considered the Davis Family’s branches, and there were a few bad actors trying to take advantage of the coffers. He was sure Mingzhi had caught them and punished them already since these claims were rejected in the first place.

However, he supposed she had no time to do it personally, so the subordinates in each family might’ve done it.

The finance documents that followed were thicker. Monthly accounts from the court of the various Departments and the Harem Council, tax tallies from the outer territories in the sanctuary that could not even be considered a drop in the water, and a separate sheet on immortal crystal expenditures for rewarding wages and exchanging them for contribution points, creating training grounds, and many other activities, including even the expenditure of the branch families.

One page showed a sudden spike in spending under the name of a junior steward from one of his half-siblings’ families in the Loret Family. Davis marked it with the [Delayed] seal and wrote a short note for an audit with a flick of his finger.

Defense reports sat underneath as he dug past the ones above.

Border outposts outside the Sanctuary sent word of minimal activity from the bandits who had mostly been subjugated by the Reaper Soul Legion, Zanqua and a few others. Still, there were many from the allied families who were also participating in defense duties as a part of their training. Two garrison captains of those families asked for additional weapons, and a third requested permission to hire outside mercenaries for better navigation and perimeter control.

Davis acknowledged the first two requests for armaments without consideration because there were plenty of them just rotting or waiting to be recycled by Sophie for her practice. The mercenary request received the [Decommissioned] seal. The Davis Family did not need outsiders walking into the Sanctuary or learning more about it.

He worked through the stack without speaking, his focus never breaking. Paper rustled with fine sounds. The seals left clean red marks, and sometimes blue and rarely yellow. Mingzhi stood by his side like a faithful secretary, intending to advise him if he needed help but could only watch the growing pile of processed documents with a bit of disbelief.

She didn’t know her husband was this suited for desk work!

Mingzhi couldn’t help but smile joyfully, "Alright, you stay and finish the work before your main body comes out. I’ll go see master and Lydia. Hopefully, she doesn’t bully master. On the other hand, if you get bored, take a look at the marriage proposals over there."

Davis laughed wryly, "Does it even matter?"

His eyes still didn’t leave the desk, nor did his hands stop moving, throwing afterimages.

With his soul’s capacity working at full force, he barely needed a moment to understand the content, and he didn’t read thrice if it was already approved.

"Take a look. You’d be surprised." Mingzhi giggled, "I’ll say that there are quite a few who finally understand that they’re running out of time to gain your attention."

"Oh? Did anyone else take a look at these marriage proposals?" Davis finally stopped and raised his head, asking offhandedly with some amusement.

"Of course, they’re curious. I have a mailing list just for them when it comes to matters like these. There are some new ones after you came back. I will deliver it now."

"Haha."

Davis laughed lightly as he watched Mingzhi collect the new information from the list of marriage proposals with some kind of light-attributed scanning device that appeared like a jade that was capable of image projection. He pondered for a few moments as he suppressed the curiosity inside him, intending to look at the marriage proposals later before returning to work.

Hours passed.

Many sections came one after another.

For alchemy, there were requests for rare herbs and furnace time in the inner cauldron hall, which Dalila rarely used. It was mostly for his children and branch family members to use and practice, but only authorized and talented alchemists could keep their access after the free trial was over.

For formations, repair orders from the recent destruction caused by the Desolate Era were piling up. There were also proposals to add a concealment formation over the treasury, and a bill for formation flags purchased from an outside master.

Davis noticed this person was the Fiend who ran around their family like a little boy trying to get attention from Nadia. It seemed like his Davis Family was gifted some formation flags at the Exalt Grade that were still undergoing checks from Lest Mistwalker, but also needed his help since they appeared to be death-attributed.

The bill- was apparently a meeting with him, but there seemed to be no hurry.

After dealing with the main formation matters, he went on to the main structure documents. It listed cracked walls in the east courtyard due to a fight between Lucian and Azariel earlier this morning, a request to expand the training grounds for Empyreans, and plans for a new guest hall. Davis stamped [Acknowledged] on the wall repairs and the training ground expansion.

However, the guest hall plan went under [Delay]. He felt like the family did not need another empty building.

Still, he laughed as he saw the new mansions or palaces of his wives dominating the documents.

Everyone wanted their own palace after Bylai started to personalize one for them. He felt it wasn’t a bad thing, but he sighed a bit, thinking it would’ve been great if they could all stay together. In the end, there would be cultivation problems because of the vast difference in their Laws, and constant fighting over him might make him want to run instead, so he supposed this would be great from another perspective.

Then the last important documents in his immediate vicinity were the ally subsidy documents. This program was intended to raise the cultivation standards of the allied families.

However, his lips twitched as he saw Fenren ask for an exorbitant number of Peak-Level Immortal Crystals while citing a reason such as poor harvest because of re-anchoring of the Sanctuary from the Lower Realm Space to the Upper Realm Space. Then he sent another one for the Desolate Era.

"This damn wolf... he thinks this is funny, doesn’t he?"

Davis laughed as he approved it even though Mingzhi or someone else rejected it.

These were mostly from his friends asking him for more stuff. It seemed like they collectively decided to prank him from one of their gatherings that he didn’t have a chance to attend since he had kicked them down and left them, stating that they were weak and wouldn’t be of any help, but he decided to approve all of them anyway since he was in a good mood.

With a stamp, he kept deciding the fates of everyone here, finding it a bit thrilling and novel.

He supposed that over a few dozen stewards or house heads who had pocketed from the disaster of the Desolate Era or taken advantage of the Davis Family’s kindness were going to be arrested and imprisoned for their greedy crimes.

He raised his hands and stretched his body ever so lightly before waving his hand and bringing over the stack of marriage proposals from the side.

They landed on the desk, making him quite intrigued.

He could already tell the ones on top might’ve been intentionally placed by Mingzhi and maybe others. He didn’t use his senses to peek, so when he reached out and retrieved the first two marriage proposals from the two stacks to his left and right, he was momentarily stunned.

[Bing Luli] | [Jaisi Alstreim]