Nerusia.

The Empress of the Night. That was what she called her. The horror of battlefields. The woman that ate men for breakfast, armies for lunch and Sects for dinner. But for the life of her, she could not figure out what to do with her niece.

Was every Druid this irritating? Did every one of them encounter this many ridiculous things? Was that why they used to be so ridiculously powerful? That made a twisted kind of sense. But even for Druids, Althea had to be something else. So was Nathan for that matter.

Nerusia had read actual records of Druids, met Fae royals, was married to someone cultivating the Law manual. The two idiots still left them in the dust. The speed of cultivation was one thing, the things they were experimenting with was quite something else.

Nathan hadn't been able to tell her what Althea was experimenting with in detail, but she had heard 'System and Great Mother' and knew it was something neither of them should have any hand in. But they did anyway, because this was what they were.

The reason she hadn't been able to talk to Althea about her Vader revelation was because she had been referring to Law's records. The library was a maze that spanned a prodigious amount of floors, but it had a lot of information.

There had to have been information on the Great Mother somewhere. The information of Vader might have been lost, but perhaps there could be something on the Great Mother remaining.

And she had been right. There were references to the Great Mother in the old journals. The thing was a tree. A powerful tree known as the most powerful Grandmaster as far as ten thousand years ago. The Solerian Empire had apparently taken permission from her to establish itself.

The tree also called any person that broke through to the Grandmaster stage and explained the 'reality of the Grandmaster stage'. Nerusia had no idea what that meant, and anything that could hold the information had been destroyed. In some places, quite conspicuous. There were torn pages, even a place where a page had been cut in half.

What she did know was that the information had been recent, at least relatively. A journal from Emperor Merad, the last Grandmaster of the Law family. The one that had died during the burning. The rest of the information had been purged.

To go through that massive library and remove every single piece of information on it...was an immense expense. Nerusia wasn't sure who had done it. Perhaps, the Great Mother itself or someone else. The Great Mother’s enemy. There was an enemy. The Druid mana's reactions to the strange attack told her that.

But...who was it? The information was scarce enough to make her want to pull out her hair. This was ridiculous. The Law clan was supposed to be a bastion of knowledge. Not a place with torn pages and censured information.

A sigh tore through her as she turned her attention to the girl before her. "Can you take care of this?" she said, waving towards Nathan's prone form.

"Oh-well-um-Empress-that-" the Viscountess stuttered. Nerusia sighed and tried to put on her most friendly expression while pulling her fog in. Glaring at her with flesh-eating fog seeping out of her probably wasn't helping the girl's confidence.

"I simply wish to know if I should cancel the rest of my day if you are unprepared." she said. "Considering that you just arrived, it may be that you are unaware of what to do."

"I...am unaware of things, yes." the girl said, taking a deep breath.

Nerusia sighed. Of course. Why did the brat have to faint now? Handling this would take far too much time. Cancelling the rest of her day would be harder than she would like. The third daughter of King Verta was visiting, and she couldn't really ignore the Verta kingdom easily.

The kingdom was at the same level as the Elara kingdom had been previously, meaning it would be irritating for an Empire to take over. With the amount of hubris their royal family had about their position, she was tempted to just destroy them. But it was still just a kingdom. Cancelling them might teach them some humility. The chances were low, but an Empress could hope.

The Verta kingdom would probably go to the Sel Empire to have them throw a fuss about it, but she had a few heads she could throw at them. The Elven Princess had done a good thing by keeping the assassination quiet. Now she had some potent political capital to hit back with.

sc

Althea

The answer didn't present itself to her just as she thought about it. In fact, it was starting to look like she just couldn't solve the System's problem. Not now.

The host is requested to provide a solution within three months.

Didn't she have more than three months? There used to be a few days behind those months. Or did sending her the memory consume more mana than expected?

Implementing a solution may take time. The System would also like to apologize for the unpleasant experience. There was an error within the host’s resilience. The host is warned to be careful of side effects.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Oh fine, she could try. The apology was nice. The warning, less so, but what else could she expect? This was just the way of the world. The chances of her actually finding a solution were looking low, though.

Feeling unusually chipper, she waited to see if the System had anything else to say.

There was no new notification. A refreshing lack of blue boxes covered her vision, letting her gaze at the clear land. Well, she supposed there was no need for one.

Althea stood up, picking up the staff as she started walking forward with a skip in her step. Didn't take long for her to realize that this was decidedly abnormal. The healing must have had an emotional effect on her. The side effect, the System warned about her?

Mind mana, of course it couldn't leave her mind without affecting her mood somehow. Althea's mood didn't dip from the revelation, if anything it seemed to enjoy it.

The world was happy. Whatever happened was good and happy. This healing thing was a pretty good drug. What was she thinking about again?

Althea stopped walking, looking around as she wondered what she was doing. Walking. To where? The answer eluded her. The thoughts were skipping through her head too fast for her to catch up. Althea jumped, extending her hand to catch a thought before she realized that was idiotic.

Oh, dear. This was bad. What was she supposed to do? Hmm. Whistling joyfully, she started jumping around, the wind surrounding her and ruffling with her air. What was its problem?

Did it want to play?

"Do you want to play?" Althea asked it mentally, miming telepathy. There was no response. For one, she didn't have telepathic powers, for another air mana wasn't sapient.

The mana continued to ruffle her hair as she reached for it. ‘Play with me!’ What playing meant eluded her, but it felt fun. That was what she associated with it: fun. Yes, fun was what she was going to do. The thought suddenly occupied her thoughts, dismissing everything else that had been cluttering her mind.

What should she do?

Althea jumped into the air for no apparent reason, then continued floating when she realized she didn't fall. The air mana supported her. That was nice. Perhaps it did want to play. Mana danced around as she moved with it.

The mana moved left, she followed. To the right, then. Then she switched it around. Moving left when it moved right. Moving up when it went down. Twirling around whenever she felt like it. The dance was...nice.

This was nice.

Althea smiled as she felt the high fade. The worries returned to her mind, but she ignored them. Just breathing in and out as she let herself relax. This was some kind of crazy thing, but it calmed her.

And right now, she could use some calming. Figuring out how to solve the world's worries could wait till later. Perhaps she should try some of those highly advanced, ridiculously complex and mostly idiotic dances she learned.

sc

"How are you doing?" a voice asked him as he came to. Nathan blinked, taking a moment to calm himself. Pulsie could wait a couple seconds. The headache couldn't. Calling on his mind mana, he examined his mind, making sure he hadn't done any permanent damage.

Not any that he could see. Now to check on the Countess. The connection was bright and stable at the edge of his senses, waiting for him to activate it. The Countess' parallel thinking brain was still in his mindscape. Nathan wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about it.

The thing was convenient. And it had been pretty useful when he had used it as a blueprint to reinforce her mind. Mind mana was too hard to control at this distance. The channel made it possible to do it, but it still wasn't easy.

The length of the channel itself was barely within his ability to cast across. Not a problem if he was just trying to project his consciousness. A big issue if he was trying to duplicate a spell he hadn't done before.

Healing using his mind mana was something he knew he could do, but he hadn't done it before. The Butcher of Continents had done it before, but that only told him it was possible. The rest of it was something he had made up on the spot.

Healing? Supporting the brain? How about just shoving mind mana wherever it looked like it was necessary? The thought process behind his decision was so childish that he felt like slapping himself

Nathan was surprised it worked as well as it did, but he would be surprised if there weren't any side effects. The mind was simply not made to withstand such reinforcement.

"Are you awake?" Pulsie asked.

"Yes." Nathan answered out loud. "I wanna check on the Countess first though-"

"Althea's fine. The county isn't."

Nathan paused, sighing as he turned vaguely in the plant's direction. The Empress had deposited him back in his room, making him quite familiar with his surroundings. That was nice of her.

"What happened?"

"The Empress took control of the situation after you fainted."

"And?" There was bound to be some problem. Pulsie wouldn't be panicking like this if there wasn't.

"And it was a mess. The refugees have a lot of opinions, and well, the Empress wants to hear all of them."

For a second, he thought that was a good thing. The Empress was hearing the people's complaints out. Then he realized Pulsie meant she was hearing every single one of their complaints. Perhaps at once.

"Where the heck are they doing this?"

"In the city lord's palace."

"Are there any signs of a riot, yet?" he asked, moving out, then realizing that he was way too far to reach in time. The Empress could teleport around in seconds, he couldn't. Perhaps the Empress hasn't done him a favor by teleporting him back after all.

"No."

"How long until there is one?"

"I don't think there will be." Pulsie answered. Nathan stopped walking.

"What do you mean there won't be one? I thought that was why you were worried." A hundred thousand refugees with complaints meant long queues. Just one person to address the complaints meant even longer wait times. That was a good recipe for disaster.

"The Empress asked for the complaints in writing. The problem is her recruitment." Pulsie said.

Nathan raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean by recruitment? Did she start giving the refugees jobs?"

"Well, kind of." The plant answered.

Nathan recognized what was going on. The plant was doing something else on the side and wasn't paying any attention to him. And that was making him panic without knowing what was going on. The Empress was experienced. Could be that she had already handled things and there wasn’t a problem at all. Not on her side. The council probably had opinions, and since he was back…

"Just give me a second of your attention and tell me what is going on, you idiotic bundle of leaves. Deal with whatever you're doing later."

"The Empress set up a bunch of new offices and an entirely new department to administrate things. The Ministers are not happy. In fact, one of them is on his way to complain about it. The Headman is with him too. I told them where you were."

Nathan rolled his eyes. Well, that was great. More work for him. But he really, really wanted to punch the plant a couple times.