Walking up to Catherine, he saw that she wasn't moving and was just looking at him in a daze, much like the rest of the people around.
"Catherine, lead the way." He used a voice a little stronger than usual as he didn't want to waste a lot of time here.
!!!!!!
"Y-Yesh! Young master!"
She jumped and hurriedly turned around and started leading the way into the building.
'She bit her tongue? She definitely did.'
Following behind her they walked through the long entrance hall, passing by the reception desk and going straight to the elevator. Entering the elevator they went straight to the top floor of the building.
After exiting the elevator they entered a big conference room. Looking around, he could see more than 30 people in business suits sitting around a huge table. Walking slowly to the head seat, he slowly sat down and closed his eyes. Catherine carefully stood behind his seat.
"Speak. What is it that you want?" Red asked quietly, but everyone heard what he said.
Company directors in business suits remained silent for a moment. From the moment he entered until now, all of them were stunned by the looks and authority emanating from him.
After a brief moment, one of them, who was sitting closest to the head seat, came back to his senses and slowly started to speak.
"Young Master, I'm sure you are already aware that our patriarch has recently lost his life in a plane crash, and the Vaelanor Group is without a leader at the moment. We called you here to discuss our future plans. While we feel great pain at the loss of our Patriarch and your father, we have to do something and take measures to prevent losing our status as one of the 4 great families now that we lost our patriarch."
He was the Vice President of Vaelanor Group, Kevin Halclow. Kevin was a burly man with a stern face and he looked quite intimidating. He looked like kind of a boss who would deduct your salary for the smallest mistakes and expect you to be happy about it. Short black hair and full short beard, expensive business suit and a permanent frown on his face.
"And what do you suggest?" Red asked calmly with eyes still closed.
"We think that we need to appoint a suitable temporary patriarch for the group first, as young master is still a bit weak in cultivation and not too adept at business. We think that this will help us temporarily, at least until young master is stronger." Replied the man.
"...Heh..." Red smirked. Opening his eyes slowly, he released his cultivation in the room, carefully controlling it to show it to the people around without killing them or destroying the building. He also avoided putting a lot of pressure on Catherine to avoid hurting her.
!!!!!!
Instantly, everyone opened their eyes wide in horror and fell to the floor from their chairs, unable to stand up or even look at him. They started shaking in terror as a terrifying thought flashed through their minds. 'Emperor's domain! This is the aura only released by Martial Emperors!'
They first thought that now was the time to take over the Vaelanor Group as the Young Master was a waste and it should have been easy to divide the business and wealth among them before other families decided to make a move on them. Now they were on their knees, unable to even look at the man. It seemed they had underestimated the Young Master severely!
Right after this they heard an archaic voice, sounding ancient and scary, like a demon straight from hell.
"Worms, you think you can control and use me however you wish?... Who gave you the courage?"
Red spoke silently and evenly, but those words with that voice were like blades cutting straight through their souls, leaving them even more terrified!
Catherine, while still able to stand because Red avoided putting a lot of pressure on her, was also terrified, and she started shaking. Her legs started to lose strength, and just when she was about to fall to the ground, she felt a warm energy supporting her to not fall and making her calmer. Red controlled his energy to do this as he didn't have any bad feelings about this woman.
"Now I will tell you what is about to happen. As you can see, I am a Martial Emperor, and killing you worms is as easy as blinking my eyes, but I will give you a chance. From now on, I'll be the leader and the Patriarch of my Vaelanor family, and this Vaelanor Group naturally stays under me."
Red lessened the pressure on them just enough so that they could look at him. Crossing his legs, he continued speaking...
"From now on you can only shut up and obediently listen to my commands, or I will take your dog lives and also make sure to make it painful. So, what is your decision?"
Red activated his Eyes of Chaos, and all of them who looked at his eyes felt like they fell into an abyss or a deepest part of hell. He controlled his eye power to just have minimal effects, otherwise they would have lost their minds and souls. Energy started to glow in his eyes, and there was an image of a black hole in his pupils with red color glowing around it in the shape of an 8-point star that looked like a compass rose.
Seeing this, they were terrified even more and unable to speak. Some of them even wet themselves. Red noticed that there was no way he would get an answer like this, so he removed his suppression from them and retracted his eye ability.
"Speak!" He said a bit louder this time.
"!!!! YES! YES! YES! YOUNG MASTER, NO, PATRIARCH! WE WILL FOLLOW YOUR COMMANDS WITHOUT QUESTION!!!"
They all started cowering and bowing their heads while still kneeling on the ground.
"Good, I hope you know what's best for you. Now stand up and immediately clean this foul smell. After that, sit down so we can continue this meeting."
"YES!"
Most of them were strong cultivators, so cleaning the mess they made with their qi was not a hard task. After that, they hurriedly sat down and became quiet like little children while not daring to look into his eyes.
Red looked at the man who was speaking to him earlier, Vice President Kevin, and commanded the system to open his status panel.
【 System Status 】
Name: Kevin Halclow
Age: 55
Appearance: 7.5/10
Height: 183cm (6'0")
Cultivation: Martial General - 7th Stage
Race: Human
Physique: None
Bloodline: None
Favorability: -20
Loyalty: 70
════════════════════
Description:
Vice President of the Vaelanor Group.
-See more.
════════════════════
'System, no need to show me "- Edit" anymore, I know I can edit anything.'
[Understood, Host]
"By the way, how is his loyalty 70 if his favorability is -20?"
[Host, those two are completely different things. Favorability shows how much someone likes you, while Loyalty shows how much is someone likely to betray you. The man in front of you dislikes you, but because of your greatly superior strength he wouldn't dare to betray you.]
[Sometimes scaring someone is enough to make them loyal even if they don't like you. But in such cases it's easier to lose that loyalty. For example, if this man were to meet another Martial Emperor in the future and gain his support, he would easily become disloyal towards you.]
'Okay, I can understand this much. Now, is there a way to make this guy fully loyal to me without editing his personal info? I don't like the idea on relying on the system to edit everything for me.'
[Yes, Host, I can give you a technique to make this person your loyal puppet and always follow your commands even if you command him to die. Using your chaos energy, it will be extremely easy.]
'Okay, give it to me.'
In an instant Red received knowledge and experience about this technique. It seemed that the technique was a newly created one by the system, as the main factor was using the chaos energy to enslave others. Waving his finger, nobody noticed that there was a small strand of chaos energy directly entering Kevin's mind. Kevin stiffened for a second and then relaxed.
[Ding! Control successful, target's favorability and loyalty increased to 100 - permanent. Target will now follow every and all of your commands without question as a fanatic servant.]
'Favorability is now 100 too? I hope this doesn't mean that he fell in love with me!?' Red felt a shiver down his spine just thinking about it.
[No, Host, there are different kinds of favorability and, if you don't explicitly want it, the favorability that will be modified with this ability will be similar to fanaticism.]
'Good!'
Red silently sent strands of his chaos energy to all company directors in the conference room, making them all fully loyal. He didn't include Catherine, who was standing behind him, as he was not fond of controlling other people's minds if he didn't have to.
He only did this to these people as most of them had a dislike or hatred towards him, and he was too lazy to manage the group and fish for betrayals as he wanted to have fun and not worry about these things. He still left them with their normal will and minds, so these people would continue to live their normal lives from now on, except they would listen to all of his commands and never betray him.
'Great, now, where were we...'
"As I said earlier, I hope you all know what's best for you. If you stay loyal to me and follow my commands, our group will prosper. As you can see, I am now a Martial Emperor. Becoming the 1st-ranked family in this empire will be easy. I will not meddle in the business a lot, I will only involve myself in major decisions."
"Yes, Patriarch! We will follow your commands!" They all said in unison, louder this time and full of loyalty.
"To show you the rewards that you can get by following me, from now on all salaries and earnings of everyone in our group will be doubled, including you directors and all our employees."
"Yes, Patriarch!"
"Another thing..." Red snapped his fingers and edited Kevin's qi cultivation realm to Martial King - 3rd Stage.
In that second everyone felt a strong burst of energy coming from Kevin. Everyone knew right away what realm he reached, and everyone was so stunned that they couldn't speak. At the same time, he activated his Emperor's domain to suppress the energy so that nobody would get hurt.
He snapped his fingers again and 5 more others, highest-ranking directors and seniors in the company, advanced to Martial King - 2nd Stage. Red didn't want to make everyone strong as that would disrupt the balance of this empire and would create problems. He didn't care for problems as nobody could threaten him, but he still didn't want to lose his time on stupid issues.
'This strength will be enough for this group to stay strong among the other families in the empire.'
[Host, I forgot to tell you this. When you forcibly advance someone's cultivation realm their cultivation realm will be stable however they will have just an average strength of someone in that cultivation realm. People who cultivate naturally and advance naturally have the opportunity to reach higher levels of strength at the same cultivation realm and also have a higher potential to advance more in the future without your help.]
[In the future, if you meet a good seedling who is talented and you want to train him into a stronger cultivator, it's better to provide them with cultivation resources and leave them to advance by themselves so that they can reach higher levels of strength. But for average people or people with low talent, like the people you just helped to advance, you can freely do as you wish since they are not destined to reach far anyway.]
'Okay, good to know.'
[Of course, Host, for your talented future wives, you can use dual cultivation to make them stronger without sabotaging their talent.]
'... Why do I feel like you are more excited about this than me!?'
"As you can see, I am quite generous to people who are loyal to me, so work hard from now on and I might give you more rewards." Red said slowly.
"YES, PATRIARCH!" All of them shouted loudly, especially the 6 of them who had just got promoted in their cultivation realms. Others, while feeling regret that they weren't picked by their patriarch, didn't dare to voice their complaints. They even felt that they should work harder to deserve the reward.
* * * * * *
[A/N: I hope you liked this chapter! If you have any suggestions, please comment.]