The Fourth Realm (The Ten Realms Book 4)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Your identity checks out and well. There are no other options left to us, so, you’re it.”

  “No pressure at all,” Erik said.

  Xue Lin didn’t offer any consolation as she shook a bell.

  A woman appeared through a side door.Looking at her, Erik couldn’t see through her level and he could tell that while her Mana systems weren’t as developed as his in terms of Mana gates, it was a step further in overall cultivation. The same went for her body cultivation.

  “This is Olivia, she is the commander of the Blues Lotus forces here, and now all of the guards. She is currently getting everyone ready to leave the city.”

  “Good to meet you Olivia,” Erik said

  Chapter: Movements

  “The staff of the Alva Healing House in Vermire have arrived and the previous group are returning. Jen from the Healing department has already sent people off to the higher realms to assist the adventurers to gain more practical information when dealing with different injuries and increase in overall experience for solving complications that come with mana and body cultivation,” Jia Feng said. “It is possible for us to increase our skills in the first realm without the need of rare resources, we just need more information and practical application.”

  Healing was one of the few skills that didn’t need better materials, only worse or different injuries to increase in skill level. As long as someone continued to learn about the human body their level could increase dramatically.

  It was how Jen had been able to reach the mid-level Journeyman level in healing and there are a dozen others who had reached low-Journeyman level skill in healing.

  “Tan Xue is now an Expert smith, Taran is a high-Journeyman-level smith, and there are seven other smiths at the mid-Journeyman level. Fehim has reached the low Journeyman level in Alchemy and there are a dozen high-Apprentice-level alchemists.

  “Zhou Heng has increased the ability of the clothing workshop. His trained tailors have reached the mid-Journeyman level; he has reached the high-Journeyman level. Shu Wanshu of the woodworking department has also reached high Journeyman, with his people at mid-Journeyman level.

  “Qin Silaz has just reached the mid-Journeyman level in formations but most of her people are at the high-Apprentice level, with only three others as low-Journeyman level. It is a heavily theory-based course, and although Qin is forging a path, there are still plenty of questions they don’t yet have answers to.

  “We have collected a great amount of material but as we can see, having a person of higher skill levels will pull up the others in the department by helping them learn better techniques faster,” Jia Feng said.

  “How has the search for Experts gone?” Delilah asked.

  “We have been able to find a few people but trying to convince them to come to Alva and confirming that they are of good good character is the hard part. Many of them are used to having powerful forces fawning over them.” Jia Feng sounded dejected.

  “We do not need to take the ones who everyone else wants. We want the outliers, people who don’t have a position of strength, the ones who have made a name for themselves on their own hard work and the people who don’t care about games but want to increase their abilities. We have Expert-level workshops and resources that are almost impossible to find in other realms. That is why they should come to us. If we’re just bringing people interested in wealth, as soon as they have made enough money from us, they will move on to the next person to offer them more money,” Delilah said.

  Jia Feng winced at her words and cupped her fist. “Council leader’s words are correct. I am sorry. I was blinded by their prestige.”

  “Honestly, if there are strong people of the Apprentice level or Journeyman level, they are a gem to us. It will mean that we do not need to train them on the basics and with what we have here, they might be able to increase their Strength faster. And if they are younger, they will feel a greater attachment to the place that took them in and taught them.” Delilah’s words were basic truth but Jia Feng’s eyes widened; a faint flush appeared on her face as she made to speak once again.

  “We have all been busy. This change will not be easy to go through,” Delilah said, saving Jia Feng from having to say more words of apology and embarrass herself. “We are all doing jobs we didn’t think that we would be doing. We need to help one another and we will do so, as a team.”

  Although they were members of the council, they all had their own areas of expertise before they were council leaders.

  “Egbert, what is the current population of Alva?”

  “Our population has rapidly increased with the Adventurer’s Guild and the traders heading to the higher realms. There are currently five hundred cases under review, with our population in Alva reaching six hundred and another three hundred outside of Alva, not including the army in the Fourth Realm,” Egbert said.

  “Very good. It seems that for now we have been able to stabilize Alva. Upgrading to the fourth tier of workshops and departments will take time and a lot of wealth to do so. So, in the meantime, we will have to work with what we have, look to recruit more people to Alva, and gain more opportunities for our people to grow. Is there anything else that we need to talk about?” She looked at the council members.

  Jasper raised his hand. “The Adventurer’s Guild has increased to three thousand current members and we have even more applicants. Right now, most of the people are working in the other realms to earn more money, meaning that we will need to make special requests for people to come back to Alva if some of our students want to go to the higher realms and need security. We still have adventurers training with the dungeon battlefield and others who are teaching their fighting art or learning at the academy as well. I think that organizing trips after the different semesters might be for the best—take groups of people to different places in the realms without having to pay exorbitant fees.”

  Delilah looked to Jia Feng.

  “We can talk afterward,” Jia Feng said.

  Jasper nodded as Delilah looked around the room, seeing that there was no one else with points. “Very well,” Delilah said.

  Delilah got up and stretched. “Well, I think that should be all for our meeting, thank you all for your continued efforts.”

  The others stood, stretching and working out the kinks from having to sit for so long. Outside of the dungeon core meeting room, one could see the academy, which had undergone another set of revisions. All of the different buildings were now tier three. A large two-story building stood over the growing fields, the first growing house. They only had a limited amount of land that they could grow on and they had covered the free land in farms and doubled the size of the Alchemy garden.

  The rest of Alva was filled with crops in different stages. Once they had covered the ground, the blueprint office and the farmers got together, wondering whether they could build upward instead of out, creating a second floor to increase their farming land. It added a new challenge as the plants on the first level would be getting less light, the farmers were excited to work with creating strains of plants to work in low-light areas while the formation department was working to create formations that could recreate natural sunlight.

  In the fields, different monsters moved around. These were from the Earth’s Divinity Temple. As they moved through the fields, they released Earth and Wood Mana, increasing the nutrients in the soil and in the plants, increasing the speed that they grew. It meant that even with the increase in land, the time to harvest decreased and the farmers could focus on their projects. A field of trees had been started. There were regular fruit trees and then synthetic trees that the farmers were experimenting with.

  Alva was no longer a place that was grasping at anything and everything to try to grow. Now, they had the ability to take their time and plan. They had matured and grown steadily. Now there were more people who weren’t originally from Alva than there were people who had been from the small village in the wilderness.

  Still
, everyone had heard the stories of Erik and Rugrat, how they had brought people to the dungeon and put everything they had into increasing the strength of others and Alva as a whole.

  One only needed to look at the academy, a kind of institution that was unheard of in other places and something that people definitely couldn’t just pay a fee to enter. In the rest of the Ten Realms, they would need to dedicate their life to the people who taught them, being a sect’s pawn under restrictive oaths for the rest of their life.

  In Alva one could learn to advance themselves but no one demanded any oath other than to keep Alva a secret.

  The council members talked to one another and started moving out of the room. Delilah found Jasper as they were leaving.

  “Have you been in contact with Elise?” Delilah asked.

  “Periodically. She set up a new trade route in the Second Realm and she headed to the Third Realm. She should be in the Sky Reaching Restaurant. It seems that she had thoughts of expanding our influence there. She took out a sizable loan from the Alva treasury,” Jasper said.

  “Happy not to be dealing with all of it?” Delilah smiled.

  “You have no idea.” Jasper grinned. “Much happier managing things and letting Blaze deal with all of the meetings and the like.”

  “You’ve both increased the size of the Adventurer’s Guild rapidly, that is nicely done.”

  “Yes but we’ve got plenty of applicants. We have to limit how many we bring in to keep up the standard that we’ve created.”

  Delilah nodded. The guild and the traders were the biggest borrowers of money. They also purchased the most goods from Alva and had the greatest profits. Alva now had the financial capital to go up against a powerful sect in the Second Realm in terms of wealth. In terms of population, they would be able to compete with some of the weaker sects in the Third Realm. This showed just how strong they had become.

  Jia Feng approached as Delilah said good-bye to Jasper, leaving them to talk as she headed for the academy to read the latest books that had been purchased from the Third Realm. She smiled and waved to people as she moved through Alva.

  If one tried to commit a crime, then the oath that bound them would incapacitate them, needless to say, there was no crime in Alva. Other places didn’t use oaths as it was seen as a big hassle and if the stronger power players killed a few of their subjects there wasn’t a backlash. Without an oath, it created a double-edged sword; with it, the people at the top had to do what they thought was best for the people under them and the people under them would follow the laws that they passed.

  The policing force was a few people who didn’t want to be soldiers or adventurers. They were older in their years but they were still powerful. There were only ten of them but their Strength increased rapidly. They were allowed various resources to increase their Strength so that they would be able to deal with any issues within the population, should any issue arise.

  They were also a neutral force that only listened to Egbert. He acted as their judge and commander as well as teacher.

  Many people wished to get the positions but very few were accepted, needing to be older to have experience and an education and Strength.

  They also served as a regulatory body for the government to make sure that everyone was doing their job. Even with oaths, there might be something that wasn’t covered and people were able to steal some funds.

  Delilah pulled out a pad of paper and checked to see whether there was anything else she needed to do and then checked her planner. She was free for a few days. A smile crept up on her face as she put it away and looked at the library ahead of her.

  Her smiled turned somber. I hope that Teacher and Rugrat are safe. They were the strongest people she had met but with everything she heard from the Fourth Realm, it was hard not to worry.

  ***

  “I hope that we are able to come to many more agreements in the future!” The man laughed and his eyes danced in joy at the deal they had made as he bowed to Elise.

  “Pleasure doing business with you.” Elise bowed to a man wearing flowing robes and a medallion on his chest to show what trading company he belonged to as she saw him out at the entrance to the Sky Reaching Restaurant.

  He took his leave, chatting happily to his cohort about his successful deal.

  Elise turned, looking at her aides. Matt came out from a doorway he had been behind.

  “Another deal made. I really do have a lot to learn from a trader of your caliber.” Matt laughed, cupping his fists.

  “Jackass.” She rolled her eyes at his jokes as he laughed and followed her through the restaurant. “I heard that you’re going to be leaving the Division Headquarters?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been stuck up in here making plans for people for a long time. My designs are getting stagnant. I’m going to travel to a few other cities I have heard about and check out their designs and architecture. I’m also interested in studying item design and blueprints. A building is a lot of work but it’s a lot of repeating yourself. I’ve had more people from Alva requesting me to make blueprints and technical drawings for weapons, clothes and armor. I want to see what other crafters do to make these drawings or blueprints and see if I can adjust my style. Why try to recreate the wheel when I can use what others are doing?”

  “Are you sure that the Sky Reaching Restaurant can survive without you?”

  “I’m pretty sure. Manager Yi is rather capable and she has already brought the men of the Division Headquarters into her hand. I was wondering if I could talk to you about another matter though.” Matt’s voice turned serious as they reached the back gardens of the restaurant, the private area where the people of Alva stayed.

  Elise looked at him with interest.

  “While you are traveling the Third Realm, would you be able to find other locations where we can put more Sky Reaching Restaurants? They can act as stops for the traders and adventurers, as well as information gathering centers and generate an income. We have a large income here but we are limited by our size. If we were to make more, we would also be able to act as the banks for the people of Alva,” Matt said.

  “You sure that you don’t want to be a trader?” she asked.

  “I have plenty of money and I want to grow stronger.” Matt’s playful smile fell away. “You might not have seen it—the risks that Erik and Rugrat take all the time, the way that they’re able to smile after it all, as if it were nothing and hide all that they’ve done from everyone else. They hold the weight of Alva on their shoulders and I want to do everything I can to help them. With blueprints, it can help those of a lower level to increase their skill and ability or at least should help some.

  “I want to make Alva strong, stronger for them. Also, I want to find more information on my summoning class and gain more creatures that I can summon.”

  Elise nodded. She had seen Erik and Rugrat when they had defended Alva the village. She had heard of their fighting from the people on the special teams, from Delilah and now even from Matt. While she had been sitting back and growing her trade network, even now they were fighting. If it wasn’t for them, they wouldn’t have gotten to this stage.

  “We were lucky to find them,” Elise said.

  “I also want to see if I can find any more people from Earth. There’s no knowing where they are but it is worth looking to find them if we can.”

  ***

  Olivia got a message from one of the scouts that she had sent out of the city. She had only sent the strongest, the reserve force of the Blue Lotus. They were kept hidden and moved between Blue Lotus locations frequently, a hidden trump card that moved before they were discovered so people wouldn’t know the abilities of the new group.

  They were also the trainers of the guards of the Blue Lotus locations, making sure to keep their skills in top form and increasing their skill constantly.

  She was confident in their abilities, which were only slightly less impressive than her own.

  Her expression darkened. �
�Roi!” she barked. She pulled out the black armor with faint blue sections and a lotus embossed on its front. She started putting on her leg guards as the door opened.

  A tall man with crystal-clear green eyes opened the door.

  “Commander.” His deep voice was powerful, even when speaking quietly. He knelt and saluted Olivia.

  “The enemy has started to move.” Her voice was chillingly cold as she put her boots on and tightened them with quick movements. She was still feeling the effects of the concoction but with her powerful Body Cultivation and Mana gathering ability, its impact had been weakened.

  Roi’s hand clenched as killing intent leaked out from his body. Someone weaker than Olivia might have been sent into a state of shock and covered in cold sweat.

  Instead, she simply pulled on her breastplate and pulled the ties, sealing it up. “Alert the others and ready the guards.”

  “Yes, Commander,” Roi said. The killing intent from before had disappeared, which was even worse than letting it leak out. It showed his control over his emotions. A person blinded with emotion would be a liability. One who could use them, who could make the enemy think that they were soft, could lead the enemy into making a fatal mistake.

  He stood as Olivia pulled on her gauntlets.

  “We might have to run now but the Blue Lotus doesn’t forget,” Olivia said.

  “Yes, Commander,” Roi said. His green eyes were cold now. A switch had flipped, turning him from man to guard.

  Olivia pulled on her helmet as he turned and left the room, sending out messages.

  She looked out of her window out at Tareng city and the desert beyond that was shrouded in darkness.

  Chapter: Run

  The door to the compound that Erik and Special Team One were resting in opened as Xue Lin entered.

  Erik and Storbon were lounging next to the fire, both of them grabbing their rifles as her guard’s hands touched their weapons.