Thankfully, Nathan's construct on the other side worked. Althea did not have any mana to use in his mind, making it quite safe from her influence. Hmm, could she call on mana through Nathan's body? That seemed like something that she should experiment with.

But now to see what was going on.

"What?" Nathan asked, unable to hide his irritation.

"I want to see what is going on." she asked, frowning. What had him so testy today?

The darkness abruptly changed to...a vision. Seeing through Nathan's eyes was disorienting. Not because it was hazy like movies would have her believe, but because it was...strange. There was a difference in the way he saw the world. The darker colors were deeper, the brighter ones were trying to blind him or something. And yet the vision lacked depth.

Like that time she stole Karen's glasses and wore them. The world was wrong. Just looking around gave her a headache. Shaking her head, she tried to concentrate on what was going on. A bunch of people, most of whom she recognized, were sitting around a table.

Althea tried to access Nathan's hearing, to see if she could hear what was going on. And then regretted it. Perhaps she should have learned not to play with this by now. The hearing was, once again, strange.

The sound was wrong. The voices were too low, the background too noisy. Like his ear was competing to keep each sound equal. Not like the human brain that would select and ignore certain noises.

Was it that whatever temporary brain thing the Great Mother had made wasn't able to parse through it. As it was, she would not be able to handle it. Althea imagined the vision fading, and only being able to hear. The construct's mana shifted, and she found her wishes followed.

That was a pretty good construct. More complex than anything she had tried before. But the hearing was much easier to handle when she was dealing with only noise, but it was still a bit much. There was no way she would be able to manage if she didn't have a way to isolate and select one sound to concentrate on.

Mana shifted in the construct as she tried to have her brain handle it. Even if the Great Mother's construct couldn't do it, her natural one had that ability. There was just one problem. The receiving station on her end was broken. Mind mana wasn't something she could handle. Althea tried to do it anyway. The construct was dissolving anyway.

'Hold.' she thought. The mana did not react. If anything, it started dissolving faster. That made sense. The mana wasn't hers, it was held together by Nathan's will. The more it encountered her will, the more it began dissolving, their two wills’ competing for the mana's control.

Then, to change it, she would have to displace Nathan's will completely and have hers take over before it collapsed. In other words, a coup. Althea concentrated on the construct, thinking about taking over. As usual, mana gathered, ready to respond to her command.

The construct started dissolving a bit faster. The mana inside was being affected. This was her brain, after all, directly connected to her core by the one meridian she had. There was no point in waiting around some more.

Althea prompted the mana in the construct to respond to her, forcing only one thought to remain in her mind. ‘Change'. The intent behind it would define what it would change to. Trying to manually define what it would do in words for a construct that she barely knew anything about was just calling for it to fail.

Mana followed intent anyway.

Nathan's will was displaced by hers as she felt the mana enter her senses. A ripple passed through it as it began transforming into pure mana without Nathan's will. Althea thought quickly, how could she keep it- the path. That could be the only way to do it. How could she-don't think, act.

The construct lost its shape before her eyes as she imagined her path forcing her will on the mana, lending wait to her intent. The construct dissolved anyway. But for a second, just before it dissolved, for a split second, the construct didn't.

For a second, the mind mana resisted the transformation. A smile spread across her face as she sighed. That...made sense. That was her path, after all, wasn't it.

Resistance.

Now, how likely was it that it was the exact path the Great Mother wanted her to have?

sc

Nathan had to admit, he was annoyed. Not at the Countess per se, though he had to admit, she was contributing. The council of Diery was even worse. A bunch of politicians. The kind that sat around debating even as the solution was clear.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Are we sure this is the way we want to go about it?" the Minister of Justice asked.

Nathan groaned. Yes, yes it was! The subject had been debated for the last thirty minutes, and every single member was doubting it. But of course, they did not have any other ideas.

"Perhaps we should wait to see how the situation develops. The policy could cause a lot of problems." Headman Schroff came with his doubts. If this meeting failed to come to any conclusion, it would be because this person was too reluctant to make them.

"No, we need to actually execute whatever we plan here. With the royal council meeting next week, that leaves us with far too little time to do this. As it is, we are cutting it close. I would have much preferred if the Viscountess had kept to the original timeline." he interrupted.

A frown took the Minister of Defense's face. "I detest this hurrying of the council. Just because the county is lacing in administrators, it is not reason to hasten such an important decision."

What important? Nathan wanted to scream the words at him as he looked at the single most irritating person that he had met in his life. If he didn't have the occasional good ideas, Nathan would have already kicked him out.

"The Countess has assured the Viscountess that she would be granted enough land to settle her people. The decision has already been taken, Minister. The only thing remaining is deciding what land it will be." he said.

The Empress had, for some fucking reason, decided that new nobles got to decide what land they got. That caused problems. That meant they had to give options. Nathan was of the opinion that they should just give her options that were various stretches of the same land with minor variations. The cities were there, and they wouldn't be moving.

If he'd known that he would have to give her options, he wouldn't have-well actually, he didn't have options on that. The cities were needed. Building them after the refugees were here was just asking for disaster.

A tent city would just be asking for beasts to come eat the hundreds of thousands of people not behind walls. There would be another beast tide before he could quit. The cities had to be made.

"Can we presume that this Viscountess, who apparently outsmarted a half-step Grandmaster and escaped with what has been hailed as a great bounty, will have the common sense to accept the land with new cities?" the Princess commented, speaking for the first time.

"No, presuming that others have common sense is just asking for them to prove you wrong." the minister of defense said. Nathan just looked at him. Stared at him, really. Stared at him until he grew squeamish and averted his eyes.

"I speak the truth. Just because the Viscountess has tactical capabilities does not mean that she will know why having old decrepit cities in her territory is a bad idea." the Minister replied, defending herself. "The thought of having one of those old cities as her capital would be the dream of any new noble of Diery."

"Then advise her." the princess said, her tone short. Nathan wondered if he wasn't the only one tired of this argument. The Minister's points would have been more compelling if he didn't repeat them thirty times a minute.

"That is improper." the Minister smirked.

The Princess' smile was predatory. "Yes, but is it illegal, Minister? Is it worse than her taking up decrepit old cities? Tell me, why is that such a threat, anyway? I have heard you go on and on about how bad it would be, but not once about why it would be bad."

The Minister scoffed. Even the Minister of Justice gave a sigh at this. Nathan had to admit, he had wondered much the same thing, but hadn't dared to ask about it.

"The cities are old, Princess. A few of them predate Elven civilization itself, their walls enchanted with spells so old we have no idea what they do. Can you imagine the cost of excavating such a city? Of clearing vines and beasts that populated the cities for-"

Nathan wouldn't call himself particularly intelligent, but he'd been practicing reading between the lines. The Minister of Defense, being the prude he was, had apparently taken to testing him on it.

"So basically you're worried that there are powerful monsters that have been feasting on this ancient magic sleeping in those cities. Or maybe some experiments that the Druids left behind?" he translated.

"Not just that, sir. There are legends to each city, and we wonder how many of them are true. That is why so many want them in the first place. The cities are our history, the pride of our people. There are many that would sacrifice their lives if it meant the people of Diery walked those streets again.

That is also why we hesitate. The decision to build a new city on the southern border instead of repopulating an old one was taken without council recommendation. There are no records of why it was taken. Just that the Count of the time thought it was a terrible enough idea to veto it."

Nathan could understand their fear, as much as it pained him. The last time he went around poking in the Diery family's vaults, he almost got mind manipulated by a seed. The Diery family had a penchant for keeping dangerous houseguests that could kill you if you weren't careful. If the Count had decided to not pursue this path, there had to be a reason.

"I think." he began, "That the Viscountess will be granted an advisor. The final choice will be hers, but if there is danger to it, then we must inform her of this."

And at this point he was past caring if the other nobles considered it an-oh fuck. What did the countess think? The Countess was a noble, who had grown up as a noble. A slight like this didn't mean much to him, but it might mean much to her.

Nathan coughed, drawing the attention of the others in the room. The council ranged from worried to bored at his decision, but they hadn't talked to him about it...yet. Protesting his decisions in open council was apparently a no-go.

What they did instead was approach him behind the scenes with the exact same fears and issues. That he now had to address multiple times, once for each member that wanted a private audience.

At least he'd caught it early this time.

"I will put this decision on hold for now. The council shall meet again tomorrow. Please take the time to consider any other issues the decision might have and bring it up tomorrow." he said.

The Ministers, the Headman, and the Princess suddenly looked very eager to talk to him, but he wasn't about to continue the conversation before he talked to the Countess first.

There were questions he had to ask her anyway, especially about what she had done to his construct that made him lose that mana. Core mana wasn't supposed to be taken over that easily.