Ars nodded and explained.
"Even if they know you have such intentions, as long as you didn't make it official it's fine. But please understand that in family decisions, especially when they are related to the royal family, every member should be present, especially the household head."
Ars then made them a question, which left them a bit lost.
"Well, now I have a question for you guys. You won't be able to adopt all the orphan children that would appear in the future, that's what the orphanage was built for. So how do you plan to solve that in the future? And now that those 2 babies are part of our family, how do you intend to handle the possibility of succession in the future?"
They were all a bit flustered, but Olivia quickly decided.
"First this will be treated as an isolated incident, and second, adopted children will be loved like they were our own, but have no right to inherit the throne."
They all nodded, that was a good suggestion. Ars didn't pose more questions, and let the 4 of them and the maids droll on how cute the little girls were.
The meal continued, now with the queens slowly feeding the little girls, and with everyone in a good mood.
After the meal Ars decided he needed to know more about the metal the blacksmiths developed, and started moving towards the mining village.
After a while he arrived at the location, and quickly went to meet Nori and the other blacksmiths that were working on a new metal.
When he found them, they quickly welcomed him.
"Welcome your majesty, have you come to check the information on the new metal?"
Ars nodded, and replied seriously.
"Yes, and how are things around the village? Is everyone doing alright?"
Nori nodded back at Ars and talked about the changes in the village.
"Well these last few weeks have been different from usual, nothing bad, just different. The number of houses, the number of people mining increased, productivity increased, the number of guards increased, we built a bath and finally, the number of the medical staff in the local clinics increased. I also believe this applies to every village."
Ars was curious how they were operating the bath, so he inquired about it.
"How are you getting water for the baths?"
Nori smiled and started moving in a different direction, and after a while they reached a small canal with flowing water, and Nori explained.
"Shortly after your majesty left on your mission we acquired permission to build canals to facilitate our work, well not just us but all the villages did, we decided to build a bath house too so we could have an easier time cleaning ourselves."
Ars nodded and they quickly went back to the original direction, moving towards the blacksmith workshop.
Shortly after, they arrived, everyone was happy with Ars' visit, and welcomed him warmly. Nori and the other blacksmiths quickly showed Ars the new metal proudly. And finally Nori started explaining the new metal.
"We still don't have a name for it but, it's an all round improvement on the old steel. To start with its harder while retaining the normal steel flexibility, it also stays sharper for longer, it's more durable and more resistant to wear and corrosion. The only downsides is the difficulty in forging this metal, it takes longer and it's harder to forge the high cost and finally it's harder to sharpen it since it's harder."
Ars nodded, the more he listened to Nori explaining the more he thought that this new metal was more like a super steel, than a normal one. Ars couldn't help but comment.
"It's a very impressive steel, and have you ever thought about using it with different materials, like the fangs of some sea kings that are considered harder than steel and some metals that come in meteorites?"
When they heard that, they all started talking with each other excitedly, that was a possibility they didn't think about until now. Now with the proposal a whole new range of possibilities opened in front of their eyes.
After a few minutes Nori calmed everyone just by commenting on the difficulty of the acquisition of those materials.
"While that would be a very good idea, those materials are very expensive, and very hard to get your hands on, so even if we work with them in the future it will be on special occasions."
Ars thought about it, and gave them some hope.
"Well, that is true, but I can get a few sea kings fangs, and a few meteorites full of metal right now if i need it, but it would be a limited number, and you guys better make it count."
They all grew super excited again. Then one of them suggested.
"Before anything else, maybe we should master the creation of this new metal, that way there is a higher chance of completing the weapons with no problems, like his majesty said, we would have a limited amount of opportunities to try, and the more times we succeed the less materials we will waste."
They all nodded excitedly and started moving to their work zones to start mastering creating the new metal, leaving Nori and Ars behind. Nori, seeing this, sighed and looked at Ars, he also wanted to go, but leaving could be considered rude, he looked at Ars apologetic before muttering embarrassedly.
"Sorry , they simply got too excited, they didn't mean to be disrespectful."
Ars just smiled and laughed it off before answering him.
"There is no problem, I will leave now so you can go practice too. I can see by your face and your eyes constantly moving towards your working place that you also want to go. See you guys later when you master it, and good luck."
Ars started to leave, Nori smiled, and quickly moved to his work place.
Ars decided that it would be a good idea to check on the other 2 villages, so he quickly moved to clay village. Once there he quickly confirmed the circumstances of the village.
Like Nori said, they had also built a canal, the canals in both villages were not that long, since the villages were at most a few hundred meters from the river. And like in the previous village they had also had an increase in population, and had built the bath and the clinic.
After confirming everything in the clay village, he moved towards the last one.
The last time he was here he didn't see much of the ranches, and only saw some of the farms, now he intended to complete the visit.
Once he arrived, the representative of the village quickly noticed him.
"Welcome, your majesty, we apologise for the lack of a proper reception, but we had no idea your majesty would be coming."
Ars laughed it off, it would be more surprising if they had welcomed him, after all we decided to come around an hour ago with no warning.
"Don't worry, I wasn't expecting anyone to receive me, I was here to confirm the new buildings and if everything is doing well. And maybe see if all the animals and plants we bought are doing well."
The representative nodded at Ars, and followed with.
"Well, in that case I will show you the animals and the buildings that are being used, that couldn't be used before."
The representative quickly started taking Ars to the ranches where previously there weren't animals. When they arrived at the ranch area, they quickly saw a few young animals running around playing and the adults slowly eating grass around the ranches. Ars didn't need to be a veterinarian to determine that the animals were in good condition.
At some places you could see the ranchers taking care of the animals and interacting with them. The animal that was mostly shown interacting with the ranchers was sheep, the representative, smiled at Ars and explained why.
"Your majesty is probably thinking about what the sheep are being prepared for, and simply put, the island is quite warm all year round so we need to fleece the wool quite frequently. Thankfully, the sheep that were bought are a type of sheep that quickly grows its wool, so we still have a decently good wool at the end, if it was a bit slower, either we wouldn't be able to produce decent wool or the animals would suffer for quite some time so we could get decent wool. And nobody wants that!"
Ars nodded, he could understand what the representative was saying, but he couldn't help but comment.
"I'm pretty sure, they didn't choose these sheep because of the speed of the wool growth, instead they chose these sheep because of how big they are."
The representative laughed, he nodded, he agreed with Ars and added.
"Indeed, these sheep are bigger than normal sheep by almost 5 times, and they seem smarter too."
Ars nodded, it wasn't hard to see that. Some sheep would dislike being fleeced, but not this group, some of them even would wait their turn near a decent large patch of grass so they could eat while they were being fleeced. And Ars could almost swear he could see some of the sheep making a strange dance… Ars looked at the sheep and joked a bit.
"They do seem smarter than some people I met in the past!"
After observing the ranches, the representative took him to one of the buildings that were being used, the cheese workshop. There they could now see several cheeses being produced.
The representative quickly introduced the cheeses to Ars.
"Currenntly we are producing, cow cheese, sheep cheese, goat cheese, and finally a mixture of the milk of those animals to produce a few more different cheese, that change with the amount and the type of milk used."
Ars nodded and watched as a few workers were draining the cheese.
After that Ars said his farewells and left to go back home.
After a while he arrived back at his palace, where he quickly met his queens. When he found them, he couldn't help but smile warmly.
All of them, along with the maids, were pampering the 2 little girls. When Elia noticed Ars' arrival, she quickly welcomed him, but then looked back at the little girls before commenting indirectly.
"They are adorable, I wonder when I will be able to have my own."
That made everyone pause for a few seconds, while that wasn't as direct as Elia normally was, it was still pretty direct. But it wasn't just Elia that thought that, it was just most of them would prefer to have children a bit later instead of now.
Ars would also prefer to think about that a bit later in his life, so he dismissed the comment with a few words.
"One day you will."
After that they quickly kept doing what they were doing with the difference, that now Ars had taken the little youngest little girl to his lap, much to the displeasure of everyone else there, with the exception of the little girls themselves.
Olivia looked at him and declared.
"Thief… Kidnaper… He is trying to take my treasures away!"
They all laughed and after a while they prepared themselves to go rest. The little girls already had a group of rooms, besides their own, for each queen they had a room, basically each night they would sleep in a different room.
Ars couldn't help but laugh about the situation.
The next day he sent a soldier with metal from a meteorite and 2 fangs from a sea king to the blacksmiths.
Life went on for a few months, with Ars training harder and harder. He managed to raise his mastery of observation haki and awaken armament haki. But he couldn't even get a glimpse at conquerors haki. He managed to perfect his improved rokushiki and his seismic first. He also managed to increase his mastery of the super powers given him by the laboratory, they weren't at a very high level but they were above average. Ars could finally use their abilities well enough with almost no effort.
Lately Ars was also messing with the weather for fun, without anyone realizing. he played to the point that one day he listened to Tom say.
"This feels like the weather from the grandline… Brings back memories!"