Ch 59: District Upgrades and Seclusion

"Oh, I have something for you." Right before they headed upstairs Vivek stopped his son.

He handed him a stone disk. When Balduer took it, the disk's size changed to fit his hand and the edges even molded into his fingers. One side had a circle with 12 runes in a circle, a few runes were repeats of others in the circle. The other side had a full 21 set of runes.

"They couldn't keep putting it off without seeming incompetent could they?" Baldeur recognized the communication disk.

"Haha, nope. I doubt the city elders are happy with how long it took them to get the array up." Vivek said.

The pillar that the duke's family lived in controlled several functions of their district. The Source Winds the pillars took in powered them but a few resources were needed to activate the more complex ones that the city builders had built into the pillars.

The first set of arrays were utilities. Power, sun orbs, water, and waste disposal. These could be powered by other nearby pillars until their primary one came on line. The mist around the district pillar had retreated about 200 years ago but the district pillar didn't take control of its utilities until around 100 years ago and it officially became a district.

The next set of arrays were quality of life arrays. The first was a communication array that allowed these communication disks to act like early cell phones. They could only do simple texting and calls.

The next array that could be activated was an information array. It was a very simple version of the internet, though people couldn't create their own websites. In fact there were only two parts of the information array. One was like Wikipedia that shared general knowledge as curated by the city elders. And the other was like a message board similar to Reddit.

People could start their own threads for others to comment and share information on. But it was moderated by the duke's people.

The last quality of life array was a short range teleportation network. It could take hours to get from one edge of a district to another. Small stations around the district would allow people to move instantaneously from one point to another.

Most districts took around 50-70 years to get these arrays up and running while their district took nearly 100 years. The official reason for the delay was the lack of resources but Baldeur and Vivek had discussed this a few times before and had a different theory.

The Nievok family never had good control over the district. Once the quality of life arrays became active, it would become even harder for them to establish their authority. So they delayed activating them.

Unfortunately for the Duke, the city elders didn't care if he had his desired level of control. He either had to progress the district or be replaced. It was the city elders that put his family in power to begin with.

Of course once the quality of life arrays were active, the Duke could then activate the security arrays in a few yers. Less information was known about these arrays but they involved surveillance and the ability to stop invading armies from the worlds on the other side of the gates.

But in the past, Dukes that weren't able to establish full control over their districts before the quality of life arrays were activated were never able to gain that control even hundred of years later.

The city elders were a council of important and powerful organizations and families. Zeerous Trade Company and the Explorers Union each had a seat on the council. These groups liked to have power in the districts for their own interests. So many of them preferred weak dukes that act more as administrators rather than rulers.

Of course even the city elders had to bow down to the true rulers of the city.

The Seven Monarchs were the ultimate authority in the city. Each one represented a different Source. It was rumored that a few had multiple Sources and that those with long lived Sources were a part of the original explorers of the City of Gates.

The city elders ran the day to day operations and made most of the laws and regulations in the city. The monarchs only stepped in when a majority agreed on a direction which wasn't very often.

"I already input the contacts for the rest of the family." Vivek said.

Baldeur touched the center of the disk and light formed a menu with different names.

The father and son then went upstairs to join the rest of the family in sleep.

The next day Baldeur contacted his Divinus teacher, Jaya Revka, to see when he could advance to the third choir. Luckily she was able to get a few others together the next day to help him and a few others advance.

After that he spent a few days with his siblings before going into seclusion to advance in a few more areas. The family had a room in the basement that was warded off from the rest of the house to allow them to advance in peace.

First up was imbuing a wand to use with his Mana. His parents had bought him a wand made from ivy that had unicorn hair embedded in it. It had also been bathed in moonlight on three different Mana rich worlds. They had consulted an expert on wand making to get what should work best for him.

Baldeur was grateful that they would put such care towards him. It made him worried that his future goals might cause them too much trouble. But that was all the more reason to become powerful, so that he could protect them from any threat.

The process should have taken him four days to complete but since he knew advanced techniques and had done this many times in his second life, he was able to infuse six spells into the wand in one day.

The next day he took to push his Qi to the next realm and entered the Soul Refinement Realm. Each of the nine realms had stages that he would have to advance through. The one he currently entered was the Soul Enrichment Stage. Once his soul became stronger, he'd be able to manipulate it further.

The two previous realms were the Body Tempering Realm where he strengthened different parts of his body to more easily use Qi, and the Qi Tempering Realm where he strengthened his Qi veins, meridians, and dantain to process higher quality Qi more efficiently.

In the next realms he would refine his body, Qi, and soul all at once in different ways.

The last two days he experimented with his staff. He had enough experience and ability to give his wand eight spells if not nine but he decided to use those slots on his staff. But he didn't infuse Mana spells into it.

In the cavern where Sariel's Sonata was, were texts that explained how Mana, Anodular, and Divinus could work together.

Using that knowledge he placed two spells onto his staff. The first was a Song of Mass Heal with Divinus. The second used the power of the Rising Sun. He would be able to add that power to any spell being cast around him.

Both of these spells would be empowered by his Mana. They also wouldn't require his concentration to cast. This would allow him to be able to cast a different song while the Song of Mass Heal was also being cast.

Such spells usually required a lot more resources and power to infuse into items.

Once he came out of seclusion he sat his parents down to discuss something that made him more scared than facing a demon lord.

Moving out.