Chapter 3: First Step To Supremacy

Alexander wanted to safely survey his entire land. But as he stepped out of his house, his eyes were involuntarily drawn towards a giant circular platform at the centre of the settlement made by his people. The platform was about 100 meters tall with seven circular steps encircling it and at the top of the platform was a 20 feet tall pillar. The whole platform and pillar were pitch black in colour like that of the darkest night. Alexander felt strong compelltion to touch the pillar and lost control of his body, he in his controlled state ran towards the platform while ignoring the shouts of Anna. He quickly touched the pillar and then, all hell broke losse.

The land trembled and sun gave out a brilliant golden light which fell upon Alexander, even the stars could be seen in the background. A vast amount of knowledge entered Alexander's brain. Alexander now understood why he felt such a strong compelltion to touch the pillar. The pillar was the centre of his kingdom and by touching it, it bounded itself to him, making him the king of this land and all it's inhabitants his subjects. But not anybody can become the king by touching this pillar, one should also have the bloodline of the race of Kings to become a king. The land was truely vast measuring upto a 100,000 square kilometers but was somewhat lacking in resources.

But it could be easily solved as he had the complete control of the land, he could decrease the size of land in exchange for increase in amount of resources. This conversion was valid only upto the first opening of the realm gate. Then,

he would have to depend upon the conquered worlds for resources. But there was a catch not every world would give equal amount of resources, an unexploited world will give more resources than an exploited one. But the amount of land added will be the same as the size of the conquered world.

Further, when the first world is conquered, the fire of civilization will lit up at the top of the pillar containing the entire knowledge of the conquered world and the subjects can easily learn the knowledge by placing their hands on any part of the pillar. But in later stages of development, the stored knowledge can be assessed remotely by anyone who is a subject, the king has full control over the amount of knowledge available to his subjects. Alexander was quite satisfied with this arrangement as having complete knowledge of one field is better than having incomplete knowledge of many fields.

As he was filtering through the knowledge given to him, he came across the reason why he was behaving like an actual king, the bloodline of the king changed his thinking and to some extent his personality in order to make him a more competent king as not every one can rule efficiently. Alexander was shocked and vowed that he would control his bloodline and will not be controlled by his newly formed instincts. As Alexander was moving through the information put into his head, James followed by Anna reached the base of the platform. Anna anxiously called out, "Your Majesty, are you alright? what happened? What was this strange occurrence?"

Alexander could see that Anna was worried about his well being and also afraid of the sudden changes which had taken place. Alexander then turned his attention towards James and saw that James was tense and his eyes showed his willingness to combat any danger coming towards Alexander. Alexander was flattered by James dedication towards himself and tried to guess the reason behind it but ultimately dropped this line of thinking as he had more important matters to attend like placating Anna and talking to his subjects who were slowly gathering around the platform with a mixture of afraid and curious expressions.

Alexander ordered Anna to quickly gather up all his subjects as he wanted to address them. The subsequent gathering took almost an hour as some were working in the farms, hunting in forests, etc. Meanwhile Alexander was going over the information given to him, he found that the people living on his lands right now are not his subjects but are some sort of tenants and only when they have acknowledged him as their king , can they become a part of his kingdom.

Becoming a part of his kingdom, they would receive many benefits like having the power to access the fire of civilization and having their bodies healed to their peak condition as a person of their respective age should have. Also, there are some downsides also. They would become bound to the land and king and with the degradation of kingdom, their bodies will also degrade. They could not disobey the order of their king and with the death of the king, they will also die. Moreover, only those who are his subjects can remain on his lands or enter his lands. Alexander was awaken from his deep throughts at the sound of Anna's voice.

Alexander, " Did you said something, Anna?" Anna, " I am sorry for disturbing you, your majesty but all the people have gathered."

Alexander turned to look in front of him and saw a huge crowd of people standing in front of him looking towards him with curious eyes. Alexander had a fright at the sight of such a large crowd but soon composed himself and surveyed the people. Majority of people were wearing animal skins and Alexander wondered from where Anna, James and Glenn got their clothes from as they were pretty well made given their current circumstances.

Alexander took a deep breath and spoke, " I am the king of this land. My name is Alexander and I wanted to meet you. First of all, we are not alone in this universe, there are as many planets in this universe as there are grains of sand at the side of an river. And every moment immeasurable number of beings get born and die in this vast plane of existence. There are beings who can destroy this tiny piece of land by simply sneezing. We are nothing but ants or dirt to them. But I don't want to live in fear of such beings, what I want is to gain power and make these beings kneel in reverence in front of me. I cannot do this alone as I am a king. For those who don't understand, a king is a being who grows in power with the amount of worlds he has conquered and with his growth grows the power of his subjects and the richness of his lands which in turn benefits his subjects and the king himself. As the civilization advances,

the power of king increases. I can see that you don't understand why am I telling you this. The reason is that as my power decreases, this land will gradually turn to dirt and it's inhabitants will die."

The people were horrified and tried to run away but were stopped by Anna. Alexander gave Anna a grateful nod and continued, " There is no need to panic, to stop the vanishing of land all you have to do is to accept me as your king." All the people present before the platform knelt as one and quickly shouted, " WE ACCEPT ALEXANDER AS OUR KING."

Alexander felt an invisible wave of power seep into his body and felt invincible for a moment. Alexander understood that it was the power of acknowledgement which fueled the ability of Kings, the more people a king has under him, the more powerful the innate powers of a king is. But it does not mean that numbers are everything, if a god acknowledges a king as his sovereign, the power gained through this would be much more than acknowledgement of a trillion mortals.

Innate powers don't mean that a king is powerful in combat also. Bloodline powers are only useful in making the conquest and ruling easier but it is the personal power that truely matters as a god will never in his right mind would acknowledgement a weakling as his king. Thus, it is possible for subjects to be more powerful than their rulers but they cannot disobey their king's orders. As Alexander was marvelling over the new knowledge given to him, changes were also taking place among his subjects, their injuries internal or external were healing, they started feeling better than anything they have felt in their lives. They all looked towards Alexander in askance.

Alexander replied, " Acknowledging me as your king is not without any benefits as experienced by you. You all have been healed to your peak condition according to your ages." Then, he proceeded to tell them about the benefits given to them but left out the disadvantages as who in their right mind would tell a group of people that their lives were linked to the life of one single person.

These people will never let him out of their sights and all his dreams about adventuring in different worlds alone would come to an end, even if he could order them to stay away he would not sit well with him as he now has the responsibility of looking after them. Alexander was not a heartless person who would only use these people as tools, he will take care of them and in doing so would advance on the path of Supremacy with their help as there is no king without his subjects.

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