CHAPTER 530: -47- NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE KING

Louis V spoke in a very calm voice.

But beneath the calm, there was an unmistakable resolve.

Charlotte knew what he was referring to—the Castel Domain. This monarch, keen on strengthening centralization of power, would never allow Castel to become the Church’s territory in the future.

"Lord Castel, I am aware that you have sworn oaths before the Divine Lord. Now that you and your family are about to become my directly administered vassal, I must know your stance before that," Louis V no longer hesitated, but addressed the main issue.

Was her previous oath still valid?

Charlotte had, in fact, already had an answer and thoughts on this matter.

However, standing there, she remained curious as to the extent of Louis V’s resolve.

"Your Majesty, if my oath from before remains valid, what would you do then?" Charlotte asked.

"I would not recognize the validity of the oath. You would still become my vassal, and the Castel family would still be protected by Valva. However, at the same time, I would not allow the Castel family to have the autonomous rights to manage the rare Transcendent resources that a directly administered vassal should possess. Instead, I would continue to enforce the contract between Bold and Castel, replacing the Royal Authority Contract between the Royal Family and Castel, and restrict other directly administered vassals from engaging in Transcendent trade with the Castel family," responded Louis V coldly.

Autonomous rights to manage rare Transcendent resources?

A thought crossed Charlotte’s mind.

On the Mireya Continent, all resources involving Transcendent forces were called Transcendent resources.

But only those rare in quantity, of extreme value, or those in high demand but with insufficient supply, were referred to as rare Transcendent resources.

For instance, the soul stone, a rare material used by High Order Mages for meditation; or the refined gold, the main material for making Enchanted Equipment; or those precious Demon Beast materials necessary for High Tier Alchemy and Magic Energy Transformation; and not to forget... Mithril, that the Castel family itself could produce.

Indeed, Mithril was also a rare Transcendent resource.

Though the price of Mithril was much lower compared to materials like soul stones, dragon crystals, and star cores, its high Magic-guided nature and malleability made it indispensable for Alchemy and Magic Arrays, and it had always been in great demand since ancient times.

And the low price was only relative; it was certainly more valuable than gold.

As for the autonomous rights to manage rare Transcendent resources, that naturally meant the power to freely manage these resources.

The New Moon Kingdom was vast, and there were many areas that produced rare Transcendent resources. However, not all noble families had the right to freely dispose of these resources, even if they were produced on their own territories.

Throughout the New Moon Kingdom, only the Kingdom’s directly administered vassals had such power.

This was also one of the Royal Authority Contracts between the Royal Family and its directly administered vassals.

Under this contract, the Royal Family’s directly administered vassal families could conduct transactions of their Transcendent materials with other parties on their own, including outputs not only from the vassal’s directly administered domains but also from their vassals’ territories.

During this process, the Royal Family would not interfere with the directly administered vassals’ handling of Transcendent materials, not even if they were sold to enemy states, for this was a right inherently possessed by the vassals.

In exchange for the contract, the vassals were required to transfer a portion of the rare resource output to the Royal Family unconditionally.

In return, the Royal Family would protect the vassals’ ownership of rare resources, and any war waged by other vassals to claim these resources would not be recognized.

Should a noble family indeed instigate a war, the Royal Family could even directly intervene when necessary, support the family with rare resources, condemn and sanction the warring family, and order them to cease hostilities.

It could be said that the autonomous rights to manage rare Transcendent resources were the most prominent power of the Kingdom’s directly administered vassals, as well as the most lucrative and most supported by the Kingdom’s Lords.

As for why this was the most lucrative power...

That was because the Royal Authority Contract of the New Moon Kingdom stipulated that only the Kingdom’s directly administered vassals possessed the autonomous rights to manage rare Transcendent resources, while the vassals below them had to hand over the management of Transcendent resources to their own Lords.

Taking the Castel family as an example, they possessed Mithril, also a type of rare Transcendent material. However, without the rights to autonomously manage Transcendent resources, the Castel family could not freely trade Mithril with other forces, but were obliged to sell only to the targets designated by the Bold family.

It could be said that this contract greatly restricted the Transcendent power of many noble Lords who were not directly administered by the Kingdom, and it significantly strengthened the Transcendent power of the directly administered vassals.

Some vassals with lower titles and smaller territories controlled even more types of Transcendent resources than higher-titled, non-directly administered vassals, all because of this very contract.

As long as Louis XV refused to recognize the Castel family’s autonomous rights to manage Transcendent resources, even if Charlotte wanted to trade Transcendent resources with other nobles, no one would dare to take the risk and trade with the Castel family under pressure.

It wasn’t just pressure from the Royal Family, but also from all the directly administered vassals in the New Moon Kingdom who collectively uphold the system for managing Transcendent resources.

For some Mithril, no directly administered vassal family would be willing to jeopardize their position. And even those bold enough would only conduct transactions in secret, while the trade price would inevitably be suppressed to an exaggeratedly low level.