Elan could see several paths, but he had a sinking feeling that covering up everything would lead to more questions, not fewer. If they chose to follow the thread of information, it could pull everything apart.
Elan pulled out a piece of paper. “Turn around,” he said to Detrick.
Detrick did as he was ordered, and Elan used his back as a desk, writing out a hurried message. He turned to one of his Close Protection Detail people. “Take this to Alva. Make sure the Council Leader and Glosil see it.” He put it in the woman’s hands.
She looked at him and then at her leader.
“Go! We don’t have time!”
She turned and ran out of the castle.
“Get those other messages out pronto.” He looked to the assistants who had been jotting down what he had been saying. “Detrick, call up the realm Deputy Directors, get them into motion. Where the hell is Mistress Mercy? Is she doing this on her own or do others know about this? Look at discrediting her. Make it look like she is trying to get attention with outlandish theories. Dang, good find! I just hope we can get in front of this.”
Elan walked toward his Vuzgal office, trying to come up with plans and contingencies.
“Push back the meeting with Chonglu, but make sure he gets the latest information books on our current intelligence.”
“This is the third damn military exercise that the Vrunad Empire has done in the last month. Is their military so rusty that they’ve started to walk in circles? Maybe we should send a few of our people out there to help the feeble spinsters home!” Aditya threw the papers on the desk, causing the candle to flicker against the darkness that cloaked King’s Hill.
Even with candles across the town, alone, in the middle of the Beast Mountain Range, it felt darker.
Evernight watched and waited as Aditya breathed deeply and rubbed his tired face. “Sorry, just.... You know.”
“Indeed, I do, and so does the rest of Alva. They are hoping you can pull this off.”
“I wish I had the confidence that you do,” Aditya muttered.
“Don’t worry. Soon enough, people won’t be jealous of your Beast Mountain Range. They’ll want to get the hell away from it.”
“I feel so much better.” Aditya looked at her from under hooded eyes.
Evernight smiled. “What do you expect with Alva releasing so many powerful beasts? Already, mercenary groups are pulling from King’s Hill back to the outposts, increasing the number of people in their hunting parties. It’s spread everyone out more. While some people are scared, others are eager! With greater rewards and greater challenges, people are sure to get stronger, though the possibility of getting hurt increases as well.”
“Something that the other nations’ leaders have to think about. Rewards and losses come on a knife-edge. Nice if they can claim it all, but to fight us just to fight beasts? Few leaders would be willing to make such a foolish decision.”
“Fewer of them now that we have so many esteemed students,” Evernight added as she leafed through reports.
“The Beast Mountain Range Consortium is holding weekly recruiting events now. Hundreds have joined so far. Some are coming from other academies, hoping to get a better position now that the entrance bar is lower.”
There was a knock at the door. Evernight put the reports away and worked at her desk like a committed secretary.
“Come in!”
Pan Kun opened the door, dominating the entrance. “The representatives have arrived.”
“Good. Well, we should give them the good news.” Aditya pulled his jacket tight.
“Everyone wants an education these days,” Evernight murmured into the desk as she worked.
Aditya snorted and followed Pan Kun out of the room. “Old Quan?”
“He’s still in training. He sent word that he will return in three weeks.” Pan Kun said.
A week had passed since the mana wave and the world hadn’t collapsed. Yet. If Aditya were to reveal Old Quan now and then again in a month so much stronger, people were sure to be curious instead of surprised. Having the Alvan teaching staff should be enough.
They reached a large hall where envoys from different nations were gathered. Drinks and food were served by waiters as the envoys waited with their allies.
It was like looking at the political distribution of the entire surrounding area. Aditya pasted a meek smile on his face, greeting, smiling, and stopping just shy of groveling before the different envoys.
It took him some time to go around the room and make it to the front where there was a raised dais. There were people in simple clothes standing behind the dais, talking to one another in low voices. They didn’t seem to pay attention to the others in the room that were sending them curious glances.
Each of them wore the symbol of a teacher of the Beast Mountain Consortium.
The room grew silent. Not due to Aditya’s presence, but the demand of interest by the attendees.
“Thank you all for visiting King’s Hill. I will not waste your time. We, the outpost leaders around Beast Mountain Range, were as stunned as you by the mana wave that spread through the area. In the last week, there has been a surge in the number of powerful beasts. Mercenary groups have reported finding beasts up to level fifteen wandering the Beast Mountain Range.”
A wave of uneasy whispers and mutters passed through the crowd.
“We have increased the number of guards patrolling the trading routes. We expect that beast waves and attacks will become more frequent in the coming days. Though with all risks, there are rewards. We believe a small dungeon was the reason for the mana wave.”
The room seemed to close in on Aditya.
“The dungeon is small. The group that found it reported several Earth-type monsters inside. The weakest were level seven, and the strongest they saw before fleeing were level eleven.”
The noise rose, but Aditya’s voice carried over.
“We are not greedy here at King’s Hill. Our motto has always been to trade fairly with anyone. With this in mind, we will give each of the surrounding twenty kingdoms five open spots to the Beast Mountain Range Consortium. The five people you submit to join the school will get the highest level of education. They will be trained and tested with the new dungeon and the roaming beasts.”
The room settled down as the envoys drank in every word.
“This way, everyone can get a share of the bounty. We will accept any student that passes our entrance exam as long as we have a place for them, ensuring that the best among the surrounding kingdoms will get access to the dungeon.”
“Why do you think that your Consortium should hold the dungeon? The Westwood Academy’s teachers are the best in the realm!” one envoy asked.
“For that, I would like to introduce some of the teachers for the Consortium,” Aditya said, cutting off the envoys before they could get into a boasting match about their academies. He turned to the people behind the dais.
They stepped forward calmly.
“These are the teachers that will be working in the Consortium. Each of them has reached at least the peak of Apprentice in their given craft.” Aditya turned back to the envoys.
Their eyes were shining. Information, powerful crafters, fighting ability, tools, and gear… It was a nation’s foundation.
“All of them are contractually bound to the Consortium to give their students the best education.”
The envoys’ eyes thinned for a half-second at Aditya’s careful words, latching back onto him.
“I hope that this can put everyone at ease and we can work together fairly to use this boon to help us all. With the new materials, I am sure the best crafters of the area are sure to come up with some great items. The future generation will only grow stronger!”
Aditya smiled as the envoys copied him and clapped. If it worked, they could stop a war from happening and leave the fighting to the training halls of the Consortium.
“Please, if you have any questions about the courses for the t
eachers, they are here to talk with you.”
Aditya smiled at the envoys’ expressions. Were they hoping to take his teachers from him? They might be able to steal them from him, but they would never leave Alva behind. After all, what did teachers want more than anything? To learn more themselves.
8
Compressing a Solid Mana Core
Rugrat felt the power in his mana veins and his core rumbling. The mana around him was shaking.
His domain now reached out two feet from his body, compressed by the mana density. The lever on the wall had reached seventy percent, while the boxes of cultivation supplies looked like they had been raided by a starved bear.
Rugrat’s veins stuck out on his skin, moving like snakes, lit up by the mana driving through his body. Each breath created a vortex of mana. With each exhale, the light within his body increased. His Journeyman-level clothes had been torn to shreds, revealing his sweat-soaked body as his ribs and abdomen expanded and then contracted. The core at his center had gone from the size of a die [1]to a softball.
He didn’t pay any attention to the outside world. His eyes remained closed as he focused solely on the happenings within his body.
Just a few more. He watched more drops form around his core. He felt the pressure of his core wanting to expand and the draw of the mana wanting to compress.
He pushed on; he was so close.
Drops rained one after another into the core. It grew wider, stretching the walls of his dantain.
Rugrat felt like he’d gone all out on Momma’s Thanksgiving Day meal.
You’re not giving up now. Hold on!
He made another push. A single drop reached his core, and the fight for expansion and contraction had a winner. The shimmering liquid core, which had been rotating slowly, started to speed up. The spinning sphere of liquid pulled in more drops.
The liquid started to contract, pulling more mana inward.
Like a planet forming from the dust of space, the core compressed from a softball to a grapefruit and smaller. As it compressed, his domain increased; two feet became three feet, then four feet, then raced to ten feet.
Rugrat continued to draw in mana, compressing it through his domain, through his mana veins, and feeding his transforming mana core. The natural suction from the core removed the pressure that had been resting on Rugrat’s body.
His domain covered the entire room. With just a thought, mana congealed into a hand manipulating the lever, increasing the mana density by five percent.
Rugrat’s domain shrank slightly, but it soon expanded again, fighting against the increased mana pressure in the room. It reached out two meters in every direction.
The room looked peaceful as it fell under Rugrat’s complete control.
Rugrat inspected the changes in his body. His mana density had increased, and the core would naturally draw in mana even if he wasn’t doing anything. His mana veins had become stronger, though there were some tears. No, not tears. Smaller veins had spread through his body.
Rugrat’s new core looked like a shining purple gem with streaks of blue and white. Red glitter seemed to flash deep within its depths. Mana drops entered the area around the mana core, falling like rain; they nourished the core, becoming part of it.
He’d held back his cultivation for a long time and felt that he could cultivate for several weeks. Unfortunately, he had other things to do.
Rugrat created a mana hand and decreased the density of mana in the room. As he did, his domain expanded without the pressure.
“Da--” Rugrat devolved into coughing as his body cracked and ached. He collapsed backward. He used healing spells and pulled out a high Journeyman stamina potion. He chugged it, gasping afterward. “Shit, whole new level of dry mouth.” Rugrat moved on the ground, his body enjoying the movement as healing spells coursed through his body.
He cracked his back and stood up.
His domain was nearly ten times larger than before. Everything within twenty meters was in his range. It felt more solid, too, like he was using a hand made of mist before. Now, the mana was like an extension of himself. Rugrat reached out, using mana manipulation instantly and easily.
He created three flames at the same time. With just a thought, three flames turned into five. Then they changed their appearances from red to yellow to blue.
He set them spinning around him, dividing and creating more. He added in mana blades, spears, and arrows. Chains made of the elements appeared. It looked like pure chaos, but none of the spells touched anything in the room. They never bounced into one another. It was a complicated and complex dance.
Rugrat raised his hand, and everything froze.
He closed his hand. The spells unraveled and disappeared. The last two chains presented him with the box of supplies he had brought and disappeared into his storage ring with a wave.
Rugrat picked at his shredded clothes. His pants ripped, dropping Egbert’s head on the ground. He winced, taking a sharp inhale as he looked at the skull with a half-open eye. Other than new runes, nothing about the skull seemed to have changed.
“Looking good, Egbert.”
After a shower and a new change of clothes, Rugrat stepped out of the room.
“So, what happened while I was in there?” Rugrat asked the protection detail as he rested one hand on his new skull adornment.
Either they were blinded by the sight of Rugrat in his cowboy boots, backward hat, stringer undershirt, and oh-so-famous American short shorts complete with his duct-taped skull chain sash, or just having a mental breakdown. It took a few moments for the protection detail to throw their neurons back together as brain cells.
The leader of the protection detail passed Rugrat several information books. Rugrat opened them and took in all the information within.
“Hmm, that could be a problem with Mercy, though Elan is doing everything he can to cover for it. Erik’s still getting tempered. So it’s been what, a week working on cultivation? Shit! Time disappears when you focus on one thing.”
Rugrat tapped Egbert’s skull in thought. The Willful Institute was starting to pull back and consolidate even with sabotage and assassination among their ranks, with only some of it orchestrated by Alva. Chonglu was due to take command of Vuzgal in two weeks while kingdoms and nations banded together to attack the Beast Mountain Range.
Cai Bo’s people had been spotted in Vuzgal, looking at the Adventurer’s Guild.
There wasn’t anything Rugrat could do, and that was the worst part.
“Well, I guess I should go to school. I promised to teach some people. Everything is running fine. Okay, so guess I need a new project to work on with smithing. Let's get going!”
“So, this is King’s Hill?”
Lord Knight Ikeda sat straight on his mount as they approached the gates to the city.
No, it is a random village I wanted to go sightseeing in! Lord Salyn bowed his head to the Lord Knight. “Yes, Lord Knight Ikeda.”
“Such a simple place gave you trouble.” The leader of the Red Falcon Knights snorted, flicking his red cape. The other Red Falcon knights with him snickered, sending derisive looks in Salyn’s direction.
When he was last there, they had just one layer of defenses. They had doubled in size, adding a fifteen-foot wall. Only the major cities in the Ikku Kingdom had such walls.
Salyn held back any comments as the group of three hundred approached the gates.
Lord Knight Ikeda kicked his horse forward. The rest of his knights flanked him as they pushed through the traders and groups in their way.
People stirred in anger as the group forced their way forward.
“Who dares to butt in ahead?” a voice called from a carriage.
Lord Salyn felt a wave of déjà vu.
The carriage opened, revealing a young woman. She held up her dress as she looked out of the carriage in a huff. “Do you think that you are so important?” She stomped her foot at the passing knights and her eyes pinched together as she
seemed to recall something.
“You best be aware of who you insult, little miss. Do you really want to stand in the way of the Red Falcon Knights of the Ikku Kingdom?”
“Who is raising trouble in my line?” A group of guards wearing simple but well-maintained and repaired armor walked up. Their leader, a skinny man, had a sword handle sticking up over his shoulder. He and the other guards wore bored expressions as they looked over the Red Falcon Knights.
“You want to step in our way as well?” Ikeda grinned as he slowly slid some of his blade out.
The young mistress retreated into her carriage. Her guards positioned themselves between her and Ikeda’s group.
Salyn faded back, shooting Ikeda a questioning look.
With a few hand gestures, Ikeda held the rest of the force back, watching the approaching guards.
People around the two groups quickly moved aside, not wanting to be part of it.
“Cute sword,” the King’s Hill guard snorted. The others grinned slightly. The atmosphere became sharp in an instant. “Threatening a member of the King’s Hill guards. Well, we’d be well within our rights to maintain order cleaning up this little mess.” The guard looked over the group of knights with bored disinterest. “Doubt any of you would increase my level even. What are our rules, Rook?” The man rested his hands on his hips.
“S-sir!”
“I ain’t a sir.” The guard leader turned back as the others shot a look at the younger member. Another cuffed him on the back of the head.
“You stand in our way. In the way of our Queen’s will!” A Red Falcon Knight yelled.
“Rook!”
The new guard stood tall. “King’s Hill guards will enforce the peace. If you are discovered hurting or attacking people within the Beast Mountain Range or attacking an alliance member, then the guards will in turn hunt you down. If you cause unrest or rob others, you will have to atone for your actions with repayment or service.”
There was a flash of reflected light. The guard leader snatched a throwing blade from the air, inches in front of the young man.
Seventh Realm Part 1: A LitRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 8) Page 7
