They are standing in front of building, a shabby lord hall. This lord hall is twice as big as usual, same as the area of their territory which is 2 kilometres in diameter, an open space. Beyond that they saw vast forest to the north and an endless sea to the south.
There is also a transparent shield surrounding their territory 'must be the a shield during the protection period' - Qiu
The protection period only last for a day, it is the guaranteed safety for those who choose to explore outside of their territory for the first day.
Of course the resources they can get is rich but the the danger involved is also higher. It just depends on what you choose, whether you are smart enough to estimate your strength or not.
This is one of the challenges for the the first day. After this, outside of the territory will have nothing, you can't go anywhere and can only move around in your territory.
Anyway, you must be wondering how can they appear here together right?
The thing is, long before entering this newbie lord trial, they has searches for ways to take trial together, because honestly none of them want the other to partake in such dangerous thing alone.
After a period of searching, which actually didn't take that long at all, they finally found it in one of the books about lord, which is to sign a contract with each other.
In this lord world, there are three kind of contract between lord and this contract was personally supervised by Heavenly Dao. These contracts each has their pros and cons, with the punishment of breaking the contract being cripple at the least and obliterate at worst.
First is a master-slave lord contract. As the name suggests, the slave lord must unconditionally obey and must not hurt their master, they have no freedom means the master can do anything to them, the territory (command authority and decision making) and all the resources they have must be handed to the master to handled and they just do all kind of dirty works plus receiving punishment from Heavenly Dao if they break the contract. Clearly having no human rights at all.
For the second contract, it is the leader-subordinate lord contract. This contract allow the party sign as subordinate lord some kind of autonomy and can govern their territory themselves. Likewise, they also need to obey the order and must not hurt the leader, with all their resources given to the leader if ask. But this obedience is not unconditional, if the leader did something that cross the boundaries of subordinate, the leader also will be punished by Heavenly Dao.
As for the third kind, it is the spouse lord contract. The party who choose to sign this contract can choose whether to combine their territory or not. If they decide to combine, their territory lord hall, territory resources and area will be twice as much. Even the talent, authority and panel can be share.
If choose not to, their territory will just generate teleportation portal straight to the other territory. Both of them are free to go to each other territory, but they can't share the talent, etc.
This look like a good choice for those marriages couples and lovers right? But in reality, few lords nowadays will sign this contract.
The reason is simple, trust.
Yes, they simply did not trust each other enough with their territory. Because unlike, the master-slave lord contract and the leader-subordinate lord contract, the spouse lord contract did not have the restriction of not being able to hurt each other or must obey each other.
The absence of this restriction plus one sentence in the contract that some people thought were natural to happen was what exactly fuel some people greed. They take this opportunity to kill their spouse and inherited the territory to themselves, because according to the contract, if one of them was dead, the other can inherit all their legacy fully, even the talent and lord level.
Of course, without the precedent happening before human will not learn their lesson. The conclusion that the spouse lord contract is very dangerous is reach from the bloody stories of many predecessor who sign the contract in the early years.
So, it is hard to find a marriage couples or lovers who sign this contract now.
As for friend, no need to say anything, without even thinking, the answer is NO.
With all that said and done, our main characters of course sign the spouse lord contract.
Actually, Huang Xing also propose to sign the master-slave lord contract or the leader-subordinate lord contract, after reading about various bloody stories (because he want Qiu to have peace of mind and he didn't really care about the restriction, anyway he always obey Qiu in everything and it is impossible for him to hurt Qiu)
but one question from Qiu made him abandon the proposal to the sea.
"You did not trust me?"Qiu ask this calmly without any sign of anger or disappointment.
But just this sentence make him so panicked and his heart leap to his throat so much he still feel it now, making him qiuckly explain himself clearly, saying everything he thought of and the reason he proposed that.
After finished explaining himself, he look at Qiu face earnestly, seeing that he accepts the explanation and believes him, only than did he breathe a sigh of relief.
"Don't say such thing again, just as you trust that I won't hurt you if you became my slave or subordinate, you must also trust that I will trust you with my everything, no matter when or where". Qiu said so sincerely and firmly that he feel so happy and warm at that moment.
Actually there is something he didn't say to Qiu, the reason he thought about this proposal in the first place is because Qiu did not have memories, he can't measure how much Qiu trust him, so the idea was born.
Now that Qiu said that, he realises how foolish of him to even think that. Qiu is stil his Qiuqiu, even without memories. All these years growing together in this world should have make him realise that, the way Qiuqiu take care of him, loving him, protecting him, listening to his word, caring about his opinion, trust his judgement and etc did not change at all.
"And A-Xing, according to the book, these two contract still did not allow us undergoing the trial together. Only the spouse lord contract can, if we combine our territory together." Qiuqiu continued, saying gently while pointing at the book.
Looking at the pages Qiuqiu pointed at, he realise it, 'yes, how did I not think of this, tsk, how stupid of me, it only say here that a portal will be generated at both territories, allowing only the master or leader free access to go to their slave or subordinate territory, which means we still have to undergo the trials ourselves'.
Qiu look at his expression, knowing what he was thinking, he gently cup A-Xing face, making A-Xing look at him, saying gently and with a playful smile "Hey, no cursing at yourself, only I can curse you."
Hearing Qiuqiu said that, a smile broke at his lips with laughter almost spilling from his mouth, meanwhile Qiuqiu has laughed long ago from his own speech.
Looking at such a happy Qiuqiu, his heart beat so fast, 'I really hope he can always be this happy.'
....
With that, it is decided that they will sign the spouse lord contract after the lord mark conjure in their hand.
Lord mark is an inactived lord panel, need to touch to summon a panel, with only personal information that can be view before undergoing the newbie lord trial. It appear in the wrist of all qualified new lord.
After the newbie lord trial started the mark will disappear and you can summon the panel with just a thought.
As for the way to sign a contract before undergoing the trial, both party just need to overlap their wrist with the mark together and thought of contract, then the panel with the contract will appear. They just need to select what kind of contract and confirm it. Then the contract will take effect automatically.
This is also a normal ways some of the heirs from powerful family do to form their power and connection.
Before entering the newbie lord trial, they already has a group of death soldier guarding them. It can only be said that those who came from powerful background still has an advantage compare to ordinary people.
...