Reborn as the Genius Son of the Richest Family

Chapter 1332: Adapted talent

Loren kneeled towards Michael. "My leader. I can never repay the gifts that you have bequeathed upon me. However, let it be known that I will offer my life in order to try and live up to your expectations."

Watching this, even Michael was surprised. He didn’t think that Loren would be that powerful, or even that talented!

[Loren]

[Red Mankey King]

[Talent: SSS-class Rise of the Kingdom of the Primates.]

Michael was sure that Loren didn’t have that kind of talent before. Otherwise, his Golden Nose would have immediately alerted him of another SSS-class talent in the demi-human kingdom.

Which meant...

Did my Nascent Influence do something to him?

Was the fact that Loren adapted to the near-death circumstance that the Ersatz assassins left him in allowed for that extreme change in talent?

This was the same thing that happened with the talents in the Mining Estate. Somehow, once he had allowed their bodies to adapt to the radiation in their surroundings, they had awakened incredibly powerful talents that they otherwise wouldn’t have.

At first, Michael thought that the situation in the Mining Estate was special. They were quite emaciated and lacking nutrition, causing them to have stunted growth. Michael thought that they awakened their talent only once he gave them the food and nutrition in their bodies to awaken their latent forms.

But it seems that things were a lot more complex than he thought.

Perhaps, if he ’adapted’ a person who was in a terrible and dire and deadly situation, then they would awaken into something a lot more powerful.

This excited him to no end.

"Brother! You’re alive!" Rowan rejoiced. His older brother looked completely different from his form before. But that brotherly look hadn’t changed at all.

"I am... he saved me," said Loren.

It was at this point that the Mankey King looked towards Michael. "Leader, would it be possible for you to bequeath that same power to my younger brother? Would you save my entire species?"

Behind Loren and Rowan, thousands upon thousands more Red Mankeys kneeled on the ground, restrained.

Unlike Loren, these Red Mankeys weren’t able to awaken themselves from the brainwash of the Ersatz assassin. And if it weren’t for the Shadow Orcs binding their arms and feet, they would have immediately attacked Michael and the other humans.

Michael eventually nodded, accepting Loren’s request. "Yes. Do not worry. I will not leave anyone to the hands of the Ersatz. From now on, this entire demi-human kingdom will be under my protection."

The few demi-humans, those who had hid in their own homes, those who had watched their own men and soldiers massacre their own kind... they had finally found the courage to get out into the open.

They saw everything that happened. And they saw Michael as a beacon of hope. Something to cling towards in the face of absolute helplessness. After all, their entire kingdom was a mess. They didn’t even know if they had a Monarch in the first place!

Speaking of whom, Michael looked around the Sacred Tree.

And there, deep inside the trunk of the gigantic tree, he saw a small Light mana signature.

Someone was in there. Someone trapped. And someone who was barely clinging to life. Dark mana started to pester this small figure, like rot worsening an injury.

A golden magic circle appeared beneath his feet, before he descended into it and disappeared from sight.

He reappeared inside the very Sacred Tree itself.

Here in the darkness, he could see nothing. But he did hear something. Scratching. As if someone was trying to claw themselves out.

This must be the Monarch.

The Ersatz must have captured the Monarch from the very beginning and replaced her with their own spy. And from there, they could easily sow chaos and destruction in the demi-human kingdom.

He wondered what kind of terrible situation they had left the Monarch in. probably emaciated. Lacking food and water. Chained and shackled without anywhere to go.

Michael conjured a small light as he approached the Monarch.

And as he got closer, he saw something weird.

The Monarch had her own light in her hands. Magic? No, wait... that’s... that’s...

"YES!" the Monarch screamed to the top of her lungs, cheering as she watched something from the phone in her hands.

Yes, a phone.

The Nymph looked like they weren’t even imprisoned at all! She was in tip-top shape, with no signs of struggle. She had barrels of water beside her, with even more sacks of wheat and fruits and vegetables.

And she was so engrossed with what she’s watching that she almost didn’t notice Michael approaching.

"What the..."

The Nymph Monarch started, looking at Michael with shock and surprise. "Will you finally let me out? You... you Ersatz bastard?"

Michael had his jaw wide open, unable to answer because of the absurdity of the situation itself.

"I’m not from Ersatz... I’m here to save you... but it looks like you don’t seem to be in the need of saving."

The Nymph tilted her head at him. "Oh. What about those evil humans?"

"They’re gone."

"And my kingdom?"

"We saved them."

"Oh, that’s good, that’s good. I was so stressed about what’s happening outside that I couldn’t even focus on the game."

Michael glanced at the phone in her hands. And the screen was projecting one of the baseball games back in the Nation of Reborn.

She was watching baseball...

"Whew! Now, I don’t have to worry about—"

"Wait a minute. Can you please tell me what’s going on?"

The Nymph shrugged before answering Michael’s question straight up.

As it turned out, the Ersatz assassins did kidnap her. But they knew that they couldn’t kill her, so the best they could do was imprison her in the Sacred Tree.

"Thankfully, they didn’t see my phone. I don’t think I would have survived here, in the darkness, without my entertainment. Whew."

Michael didn’t know how to deal with this Monarch. They were... too strange. What kind of Monarch acts so nonchalantly at being kidnapped?!