Chapter 96: Carter's Report

Alexander woke up and ate a hearty breakfast prepared by the cooks of his palace. Alexander got reminded of Glenn who cooked for him when he had just woken up after her reincarnation. Alexander searched through his trillions of subjects and found her after a few minutes.

Glenn had opened up a restaurant in one of the cities of Calamari Sector and was happily married. She also had one daughter. Alexander smiled but didn't try to contact her as Glenn had traumatic exprience with nobles and always maintained her distance from Alexander. Alexander did not want to bring tension in her joyful life.

Alexander summoned Carter to him. Jonathan Carter had become the right hand man of Alexander since the blunder of the the previous three Department Heads. Alexander now had new Department Heads but he was not able to meet them till now as he was quite busy. Alexander, in reality, wanted permanent Department Heads and he had chosen some people across the multiverse as his candidates. Alexander had decided that he would send his subjects to conquer those worlds while he would focus on his cultivation.

Carter arrived and bowed. Alexander asked, " How much time has elapsed since I went into seclusion?"

Carter replied, "It has been 10 years since you went into seclusion."

Alexander nearly jumped up from his throne in surprise. Alexander asked, "Has anyone discovered the realm gate? What has happened till now?"

Carter replied, " In your absence, we decided to follow the standard inflitration procedure. But we had to wait for the Kamonians to successfully develop their genetic fluid.....It took them one year with using the time ritual to develop the genetic fluid. They named it 'Enhancement Serum'. We lost hundreds of test subjects during the development of serum but the end result was satisfactory."

Alexander interrupted, " What are the side effects? To how many this serum has been administered? Are their any unseen long term effects?"

Carter continued, " The children feel high fever and slight pain in their bodies. As the body of child is in developing stage, the genes easily adapt to the serum and advance. The adults are on the other hand, feel intense burning and bone crushing pain. Some of the people with either low willpower or bodily strength have died during the procedure."

Alexander asked, " I can understand the concept of bodily strength. The body must be strong enough to withstand the changes done to it. What's the matter with willpower?"

Carter, " One cannot fall unconcious during the procedure. The person undergoing the pain has to remain concious during the procedure. If he falls unconcious, the body stops resisting and the person dies from the intensity of change."

Alexander, " Some species of star wars world are famous for their weak will power. Did anyone of such species decided to join the program?"

Carter replied, " Those people were the first to join as the allure of having strong bodies and probably longer lifespan was too much for them. After all, technology can only do so much in terms lifespan expansion."

Alexander snorted and said, " You have no idea about what can be accomplished through technology....There are worlds where people have become immortal by using technology. If I ever conquer such worlds, the ones with the most merit towards the kingdom would be awarded with such marvellous creations, I don't want the undeserving to receive benefits of immortality. Consider this conversation as our most guarded secret, Carter, you have no idea to what extent a person can go to achieve immortality.....They will not do anything against me or the kingdom but the amount of atrocities they would inflict upon the different worlds in order to amass 'merits', would make a hard man like you blanch in horror.....You don't believe me....I am their King. I am connected to them on a fundamental level. There is nothing that they can hide from me. I have seen the monsters hiding underneath their kind facades, waiting to be unleashed. I have read their thoughts, their desires, their believes. There is nothing, they won't do to not achieve their goals."

Carter said in a hurried voice, " Then, such men should not be allowed to exist, Your Majesty."

Alexander waved his hand and said, " There is no need to worry. I have manipulated the events to land them in positions where they would be of minimal damage to the society. The reason that I have not killed them yet is that they are extremely productive. None of them are in the army. The magical oaths of office make sure that they can't exploit the general public. Everything is fine but still, I will send a list of names and their locations to you. Now, continue with your report."

Carter let out a deep breadth and said, " Yes, Your Highness. The serum has the side effect of making the advancement of magus more costly. The cells become denser and more energy is required to awaken the magic cells but the denser magic cells are producing more magic so it is a good trade off. There is only one long term effect that the food intake has increased by a lot. All the other bodily functions are the same. There have been some incidents of people colliding with walls and poles in the earlier days of program. Some tried to bully the non-enhanced people but were quickly brought to heel....There is also a good news, the enhancement is hereditory so the next generation is born enhanced. In two years, we were able to administer the serum to all the subjects."

Alexander fell in thought and said, " Tell the Kamonians to research the enhancement of plants and animals, especially animals. I want to increase the gravity of the planet by ten times so that the people of the kingdom would not need time to adjust to the gravity of the cultivation world. Plants have the best adaptive ability among all the living beings and even if the flora goes extinct, I would be able to direct the force to regrow the flora of our kingdom. But, animals cannot be repopulated so easily. This will also give the magical research department to do something. The effect of increased gravity on magical plants would bring some changes in their properties. The magical plants would be grown on moon which has the same gravity as Earth so that no shortage of resources is exprienced. Now, Tell me about the inflitration."

Carter replied, " During the year when the genetic fluid was being developed, we send out more droids to scout the surroundings. We also send the droids to upper atmospheric levels to know the size of this world. We found the four continents as you, Your Highness had told us. We were able to also measure the size of this world. This world is 100,000 times more bigger than the earth. Around 70 percent of this world is covered in oceans. We also send out droids into the oceans but the droids were continuously attacked by beasts."

Alexander leaned forward as the novel never talked about the oceans of the Martial Spirit World, and asked, " Did you find something?"

Carter replied in a quiet voice, " We found the true horrors of cultivation world. When his majesty had told us about beasts here measured in kilometers, we were skeptical but deep inside the dark waters of the ocean, we found animals which were thousands of miles long and had hundreds of meters of width. The CQC fitted in the droids had enough intelligence that it returned after clicking a few images. We saw giagantic fishes, turtles, snake like creatures, crabs, etc. but we found abundant resources also. There were remanents of ancient civilizations at the ocean floor. Majestic palaces and cities which didn't register in the radars but were seen in the images captured by the droids. We saw some less threatening beasts ferociously protecting some glowing white lines...We later came to know that they were spirit stone mines present deep inside the earth. The droids captured images of everything and returned back. Also, the depth of the part of the ocean that we have explored is 1,000 kilometers."

Alexander asked, " What was your next step?"

Carter, " We were severely lacking information about this strange and new world. Then, the new subjects brought news that the annual awakening ceremony would be held in two months. The Kamonians had not developed the genetic fluid yet so we thought of sending the Ballastians to attend the ceremony in order to awaken their martial spirits.

We had examined their meridian system and found that their meridian systems were also made of metallic cells. We had theorised that it would take them much longer to advance in cultivation and their breakthroughs would be much harder than humans....."

Alexander nodded and said, "Yes!!! I have created them like this but the upside is that they would never stagnate in their path of cultivation. Maybe you don't know but there is an age limit which is most suitable for cultivation, after that cultivation and advancement becomes very difficult. The Ballastians will not face this problem but in return their cultivation would be much slower when compared to humans."

Carter nodded in understanding and continued, " We first planned to send grown up Ballastians to undergo awakening under de-aging potions but Samuel pointed out that we didn't know the effect that awakening ceremony would have on magical potion so we didn't proceed with that plan. Then, the children of Ballastian were selected to be send out."

Alexander snorted in amusement and said, " Did you manage to convince the mothers?"

Carter said in a desponent voice, " No, we were not able to convince the mothers and the plan fell apart."

Alexander, " So what did you do next?"

Carter, " We stared collecting information about this world. The Ballastian spies copied all the general information available in the public libraries of thousands of kingdoms and brought it back. As the geography of various kingdoms is quite different, they had information about the herbs, spiritual fruits, metals and beasts found in their kingdom and surrounding few kingdoms only. We copied all of it. We also copied general information present in the public libraries of the ruling Empire. As we had limited manpower, we only focussed on The Snow Wind Continent."

Alexander asked in perplexed tone, " We had a population of 80 quadtrillion at that time. How can we have limited manpower?"

Carter replied, " Only Ballastians were capable of entering the cultivation world at that time. The total population of Ballastians is only 60 Trillion. Moreover, not all Ballastians are suitable for spy training as they are very blunt.....After that we uploaded all the information on SQC and compared the images we had taken from the ocean floor with the information present in the SQC in order to identify the various plants and metals. We found many previously thought to be extinct plants and spiritual fruits. We also found many unknown metals which were not mentioned in the books. We collected samples of those metals. These metals were not present in the combined periodic table of all the conquered worlds and also, the books had no mention of these metals. We did not try to inflitrate the academies of the various kingdoms and empires as we turned to the other three continents for any information. As our spies were busy collecting information from the other three continents, we simply started collecting all the metals."

Carter continued after letting out a sigh, " We had under estimated the aggressive nature of marine beasts. They attacked the mining droids in waves after waves but the operation was hindered but not stopped. We had to deploy our orbital anti-matter cannons and station them near the mine. The cannons took care of the beasts and our droids collected their cores and DNA samples. We retreated back to surface after collecting a ton of each unknown metal, and from there to the kingdom. We travelled by high atmospheric flights to avoid detection."

Alexander, " How much area of the oceans have you explored till now? What did you find about the metals?"

Carter replied, " We had explored 40 Million square kilometres of the ocean. We have also found some caverns which led deeper inside but we did not go there as we had found enough resources in our explored area." Carter took out his datapad and said, " We have extracted 300 Billion spirit stones from the 400 big and small mines we had discovered in our explored areas till now....We also found that these mines are formed due to a unique cultivation done by a marine beasts. They take in large amount of spiritual energy from the surroundings, keep them inside their bodies for a few minutes and then release it in their surroundings....We came to know this after the cultivators of our kingdom advanced to Saint Realm."

Alexander asked in a shocked tone, " Who advanced to the Saint Realm in 10 years?"

Carter replied, " After the genetic formula was developed and administered, the best spies of our kingdom, inflitrated all the libraries of the various academies of the empires present on this continent. We copied all their knowledge on formations, alchemy, spiritual herbs and fruits and various metals....We had many close calls and were also revealed due to the various formations but the backups we send and quick thinking on part of the spies saved their lives and gave us few new captives....We have not encountered a Saint level cultivator till now but now that we have our own saints, we are confident that we would be able to fight back if we are revealed....As for having saint level cultivators, we initiated the time ritual and the spies who had the best martial spirits were given thousands of spirit stones to advance."

Alexander asked, " What kind of martial spirits did my people awake? Did you copy the awakening formation? How many people did you awaken?"

Carter smiled and said, " Yes, a small bribe to a low level kingdom officer was enough to get our hands on the formation diagram. The magic we did on him made sure that we were not double crossed.....We found that it takes way more magic to influence the cultivators and we need to supply magic continuously to maintain our spell. The Battle qi present inside their bodies instinctively resist the magic. We returned back to the kingdom and laid down the formation. As we didn't have any cultivators at that time, we used the spirit stones to awaken the martial spirits of all the spies that were deployed. It took one low grade spirit stone to awaken the martial spirit. The martial spirits awakened of the people of our kingdom are the various animals that we have in our kingdom. One of the spies had a rancor as his martial spirit. We have awaken 240 Billion people of the kingdom. Around 98 percent are children at seven years of age. Quite a few people are angry due to this."

Alexander, " Their anger doesn't matter. A majority of them have passed the idle age of cultivation. How did you determine the grade of the martial spirits?"

Carter, " We consulted the information related to advancement of cultivators. We compared their rate of advancement with the rate of advancement of our people and estimated the grade of martial spirits of our people."

Alexander, " How many Saints do we have?"

Carter, " We have 3,000 saints in our kingdom."

Alexander, " Tell me about the metals?"

Carter, " We extracted 50 unknown and 150 known metals deposits. Around 25 of those unknown metals were denser and stronger than quantum metal. We had lost quite a few of magically enhanced equipments in mining these metals. Our cultivators examined those metals and found that these metals contained high amount of spiritual energy. We tried to replicate the metals through Hephaestus. The metals we obtained didn't had spiritual qi but they were still denser and stronger than quantum metal.

We also found the extent of durability of quantum metal, one of those mega beasts shattered the droid made from quantum metal with a single qi enhanced blow. The quantum metal is vunerable to blows powered by qi. All the saint realm cultivators struck the quantum metal with qi enhanced blows but only slight dents appreared. We have theorised that the cultivators above saint realm are able to destroy the quantum metal.

We gave the quantum treatment to the strongest metal we had and the metal didn't reject it but surprisingly, readily absorbed the quantum rays. We faced quite a difficulty in compressing the metal but we prevailed at the end with copious use of magic. The melting point of the new metal is also quite high and it requires more magical power in molding it. We created a new droid and induced the same mega beast to attack it again with qi enhanced blow. The claw of the beast broke and it fled in fear.

We have produced 100 Billion ton of the new quantum metal but stopped when we realised that the amount of matter and energy extracted from our sun was very high. We did not proceed after that. We send a probe droid near the sun of this world and found that the sun was thousands of times more hotter than our sun. The droid melted before even reaching the sun. We used the already produced metal to make new probe droids and this time, the droid was able to land on the sun but with few scratches here and there.

We constructed thousands of mining droids and transporter droids for extracting the resources from the ocean bed. We are also planning to reconstruct the Hephaestus with the improved quantum metal. This is all that has happened till now, Your Highness."

Alexander thought for a while and then said, " Continue to mine the oceans. Also, send 500 Saint realm cultivators in the improved starships to stand guard over the operation and speed up the mining operation. We will first take everything of value from the explored area and then, proceed to other areas. Don't rebuild Hephaestus right now. We will be able to get the best metal of the Divine world in a few decades. Also, research the spirit gathering formulas. We need to have spiritual qi in our kingdom."

Carter nodded and said, " We will do as ordered, Your Highness."

Alexander, " I want 500 Saint Realm cultivators to come with me to a secret place. Choose the best cultivators available to us. I want our scientists to examine the poisonous mists surrounding the origin forest and determine whether our hazard equipments would fail or not. Remember, the mists thicken and become more poisonous as we venture deeper into the forest. Now go, we don't have time to waste."

Carter bowed and left. Alexander spoke out in a loud voice, " Tobby!!" A middle aged elf appeared before Alexander and cried a little.

Alexander smiled and said, " It's been quite a while since I have last seen you, my friend. How life has been treating you?"

Tobby smiled and said, " Life is good. Tobby is happy. Tobby's family and people are also happy."

Alexander smiled and said, " Tobby, I need you to bring me all the stockpiled dragon's blood. It's time for me to complete my last advancement. You and the most powerful elves will be coming with me."

Tobby smiled and said," It will be a honour to witness this moment. Tobby is going to prepare now." Tobby bowed and shifted away while Alexander smiled a smile full of anticipation.

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