The Systemic Lands

Chapter 386: Day 803 (2) – Viewpoints 37

Chapter 386: Day 803 (2) – Viewpoints 37

The High Priestess

Curse that Michael and his foolishness. “Where to High Priestess?” Mohammad Hamidur Rahman asked me.

“Keep our heading East. We will retreat past Normandy to the Northeast of the city. It is remote and should be quiet until the Divine Empress is dead.” My cities had been destroyed by the Divine Empress. My people killed without hesitation.

I escaped before she should recapture me. I knew that Michael thought I would point her at him or his forces, but there was no need to. She was raging and destroying everything in her path. I had tried to set events in motion that needed to occur but for now it was better for me to step aside.

There had been hope I could chat with Champion Michael, but he clearly wasn’t interested in chatting. The amount of rage, anger, hate that he held for me was immense. He clearly had some thoughts about what I had done and hadn’t taken too kindly.

I had only intervened in Normandy with the hope to build a coalition and save the Protector. But both of them no longer trusted anything I said. The loss of the Protector was a heavy blow in my mind. The small airship rushed through the air.

It was unfortunate there had not been time to build another or evacuate more people. Well they could hide in the wilderness, but casting out my sight, the Divine Empress killed anyone she met in her path. If they didn’t have enough power, they weren’t even worth questioning.

She was heading East. She probably was hoping to use me to find her kid. I wasn’t going to do that. She could not be allowed to rescue the child no matter what. While I knew his location, I would not be sharing it with anyone. The Divine Empress thought to use me once again, but I would never allow myself to fall into her clutches again.

Years of unending torture, and being forced to reveal tidbits of information to keep her entertained when she was occasionally visited me was all she was going to get from me. I had more than paid the price with my limbs.

For now the Divine Empress would rage and seek out Champion Michael as he dilly dallied about like an idiot? Did he really think that she was just going to be passive and allow his people to finish whatever nonsense they were working on? I had tried to understand the technical drawings, but I was much better at reading people than design sheets.

Paper was static. When I looked out into the world using the sight of the System, it wasn’t just seeing things. I saw so much more and less at the same time. I did not have the immense processing capability that the System did to analyze things.

Even now its power was immense, and I was just a speck of dust next to it. I let out a sigh. It was unfortunate that things were going to get so much worse before they got better, all because one man refused to have a conversation with me.

I could tell even if I tried to stay out of range with the airship and talked to him at a distance, he would not listen to me. He had his own path, one I could not alter or change. So, I was going to wait out the storm in a remote corner of the world.

The Divine Empress would never catch us, or me. Being on an airship with loyal people would keep me out of the clutches of anyone wishing to do me harm. I could only hope I didn’t get any more commands I needed to follow through on.

Chief Administrator Clarissa

“So, Doctor, what is your summary?” I had made the rare decision to leave my command post to go visit the research outpost to speak with Doctor Katz in person. The development of the super weapon was critical to stopping the Divine Empress.

“It is going Clarissa. That much I can say. The knowledge was useful, but it is taking time to make sense of it all.” I waved my hand for him to continue. He looked as tired as me, but there was no rest for the weary.

“Energy exists on three axes based on the research done by the United City States. It is quite intriguing. Positive, negative, for life and death. Mechanical, ethereal, for nature and construct types. Then you have Material and immaterial that align with flesh and metal types.”

I wanted him to hurry, but I had come all the way out here to understand the progress he was making in person for a reason. Rushing things wouldn’t help. I had seen this before in meetings, rushing to the end, but missing the foundational information never helped anyone.

It was much better to get it all sequentially to make as much sense as possible. “Mechanical and ethereal act to influence the physical and energy aspects of this reality. That is why nature type disrupts long range sensing.”

I was not so sure about that. I had been boosting a couple people up with a high amount of Sense stat from the level 4 city of Neo Brasilia. I wanted a warning if at all possible before the Divine Empress showed up to kill me while looking for her child.

There was clearly a skill to sensing at long range, or a system skill that was needed. Whatever the diviners of the Dragon Empire were using, it wasn’t just the Sense stat.

“Positive and negative have to deal with how fluid energy is. The more positive the more fluid, while negative types tend to spread out from that type.” I nodded at this. It made sense with how attacks worked, and Doctor Katz pointed things out on the chart he had placed in front of me.

“Then you have material which focuses on energy being expressed and immaterial which is focused on energy being contained. This is the most critical aspect that I have been looking into. Containment. We need metal enchantments for containment, but then a layer of glass enchantments behind them for reflection.”

“The idea would be to build a chamber, most likely a sphere, and then stuff it with energy. Then create an opening and you get a beam attack out of that opening. We can include a barrel perhaps.”

“This has been tested?” I asked quickly before Doctor Katz could really get going.

“Small scale with basic energy types. That was the other thing I had to work out. What types are best to combine into a beam attack to create an annihilation effect. I believe the best two options would be nature and construct type,” he explained.

“Why those types?” I asked.

“They are aligned on the ethereal and mechanical axis. We want to stay away from the other two axis. That could create problems in generating a beam. I considered radiance and void types as well, but they would be a good back up.”

“So you have containment figured out?” I asked.

“Yes, layering enchantments. It is tricky and complicated. But it is possible if something is built the right way. They often used this technique for more complicated bombs they were developing, but the basics are all there. The hard part is getting the crafting crystals and working out the scale.”

“I will need to do several level 3 and then level 4 tests to confirm the amount of power produced and the parts to the containment structures. There is a ratio needed for how densely the enchantments need to be packed together and then there is enchantment interference. That is another reason why I want to go with my type selections.”

I nodded at this, only partially following along. The good doctor had made significant progress. Which was important. Now the big question. “How long?” I asked.

“I won’t budge on the testing. Since if we use level 6 crafting crystals, then I need to be sure we don’t blow ourselves up. But we are also looking at level 3 enchantments. That means we will need a high density of them. Very high density.”

“With the current number of resources, and providing I get level 5 crafting crystals to make level 6 crafting crystals, I could have two working cannons in forty to fifty days.”

“That soon?” I asked surprised and he nodded.

“Yes. That soon. But I won’t budge on the testing. It needs to happen for safety reasons.” That was fine. I was sending all crystals to the super weapon project and crafting crystals had become a priority for higher level grinding teams.

It was our only hope against the Divine Empress. As much as I would like to believe in Michael, this was the only path forward that I saw.

The Protector

I sat in my office looking at a map of the surrounding areas and thinking about the future. I had seriously considered joining with Champion Michael, but it was not the right time and aggression was never the answer.

The Divine Empress had blown through this city once already. She would not be back. I had time to wait. Time to build up strength.

It was clear that Champion Michael understood this, but what he didn’t understand was that protecting people was far more important than the power needed to do so. That was the problem. The people who climbed up the ladder of power were inherently selfish.

While I understood looking out for oneself. Taking that too far was not good. “Protector,” I looked up as President Chi entered my office. I nodded as he took a seat across from me.

“So, what was the decision of the Congress?” I asked.

“They have decided to support your plan. The vote was heavily split, there was a lot of outcry, but in the end it passed with a majority.” I closed my eyes and nodded at this. When the Divine Empress or Champion Michael returned I would be ready. While I would always be willing to have a conversation, the truth of personal power had not escaped my reasoning.

I had shared my insights with the Congress and left them to decide if I should be entrusted with even more power. With the Dragon Empire in disarray there would be time to gain strength to stop the Divine Empress.

I did not trust the Avatar to succeed and Champion Michael’s idea of fighting her as he was now was questionable. Perhaps he had another plan, or some scheme, but against pure power, only pure power would be an effective counter.

Asking for the vast majority of crystals produced by the various teams around the city, would harm our long term development plans. I wanted to focus on the economy for a longer period of time, but that was no longer possible.

If I could get teams taking out level 4 monsters, the cities income and ability to defend itself would skyrocket. That was the true gap in power. I had talked with Champion Michael about this, and he understood as well.

There was a gulf between level 3 and level 4 that was not easily closed. I had been hoping to have several teams grinding level 4 monsters so when the switch over occurred, my rise would be enough to stop all threats.

But it was not to be. We had to act now. Everything was coming to a head and the Divine Empress was acting independently. It was just bad luck she killed so many of my people and good luck that she had not killed more.

She would not do so again. No one would do so again. When she returned, I would be ready for her, and I would end her once and for all. Then I would turn my sights outwards to help all people. The immense suffering and death occurring was insanity and there was no need for it if people worked together.

“I will be heading out then to fight level 4 monsters. You know how to contact me if there is an emergency,” I told President Chi and he nodded. Time to explore some new zones and hopefully find an easy level 4 monster to fight and kill.