Nathan looked at the papers arrayed before him in irritation, his boredom clear on his face. Althea did not know what she was more irritated by. The fact that he was treating it like a chore, which it was, or that he couldn't be bothered to participate.

"Are you done with that?" she asked.

"No." he replied, staring at the exact same part of the stage. The cheeky brat was just stalling for time!

"That’s a shame." Althea said. Nathan's eyes narrowed, looking at her with suspicion.

"I suppose you'll just have to do them tomorrow, along with the tomorrow's pile." A smile stretched across her face as Nathan's eyes widened.

"Wa- tomorrow?! I thought this was just for one day!"

"I have to practice fighting. And you need to practice administering. "she replied.

"Why?" Nathan groaned. "I did not volunteer for this."

"No, you were just unlucky enough to be the next in line." Althea smiled. The situation was very simple. Althea was leaving, her brother was five, and Nathan was the only relative around. So naturally, he would be ruling the county in her absence.

Althea wasn't that worried. Mira would handle most of it, the Ministers were around to scream Nathan's head off if something went wrong, and he was more capable than he tried to look.

Even though he hadn't had administrative training, he was smart and knew how bad things would be if he messed up. That was more than most nobles could say. Not to mention she would be just an orb call away if he needed anything.

Perhaps he would solve the administrative issue so that he would have less work to do. There were plenty of papers to provide encouragement.

"How is it that the Diery family does not have a single other relative?" Nathan asked. "Fifteen thousand years should leave a lot of relatives, not few."

"Oh, there probably are." Althea said. "I just don't trust any of them. And you're the only one of them that has a connection to Diery county. I would rather have you govern than some noble that might not care for it."

A grunt escaped her companion as he turned his attention to the piece of paper again.

"The landowners of Deadre demand that her grace, the Countess Guarding Diery, reject the City Council's unreasonable and ridiculous suggestion to reform the upper city." Nathan read. "I haven't seen this suggestion."

"The City Council hasn't formally submitted the suggestion yet. "Althea said. "The protest just arrived before the suggestion."

Nathan paused, looking at her. "Are they usually this transparent about having spies?"

Althea looked into his eyes, suppressing her giggles. "Yes. The City Council is a public position, there is nothing stopping council members from divulging the council's activities. In fact, they are supposed to find out people's opinions about their suggestions and report to us."

"Should I be worried?" Nathan lifted the paper up.

"Yes, they'll start screaming at you about it the second I am gone." Althea smiled. "The landowners' council owns most of the abandoned mansions in Deadre. Now that the city is growing in population, the City Council wants to cut the mansions down instead of extending the city limits."

"That sounds unadvisable."

Althea looked at him curiously. "Why? I would have thought you would support increasing living space. The landowners don't even live there, the mansions are simply lying vacant."

"Yes, but taking private property like this is not a good idea. There would be severe, justified concerns from people if we did that. There is a history of nobles taking whatever they wish, and it generally does not bode well for the fief's populace." Nathan noted.

"Reading up on the subject, have we?" Althea taunted, knowing full well where he had gotten information from.

"The Emperor has fallen in love with homework. Perhaps you should warn your aunt, your grace. Perhaps she can still reel him in" he said.

Althea scoffed out a laugh.

Nathan raised an eyebrow.

Althea paused.

"That was a joke, right?" she asked, wondering if she had gotten it wrong somehow.

"Yes."

"Well, you seem surprised that I laughed…"

"Vanessa does not find my jokes funny." Nathan stated.

"I do." Althea replied, turning her attention back to the problem, and papers at hand." What do you suggest we do about this problem?"

"Expand the city?" Nathan asked more than answered.

Althea smiled, and pulled a few papers from her spacial storage.

Nathan looked at them.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Are those…city plans?"

"Yes, the city was much larger before the burning. There are few records about what happened, but most cities of the Solerian Empire were burnt during that time." she said. "Deadre was among them. The palace survived due to its defenses, but the city was not so lucky. Sentinal was, thankfully, spared."

The burning had been one of the first topics she had researched. The event just seemed to have too much influence on the present. The information was horribly limited, but she still succeeded in finding some information.

The history she had been taught had told her about how bad it was, but the reports she had seen were something else. The Diery family had still been an Archduchy then, and they’d gotten reports about what was happening.

Seventy-three percent of towns, cities, and civilization in the Empire had been razed to the ground. The Zun Empire's location had originally been a collection of kingdoms.

An unexplained event, that left behind huge amounts of Grandmaster stage energy, had turned the entire area into a desert that did not grow any food. The people towards the center of the area had been entirely destroyed by the magical wave, and even those farther away were affected.

Not a single person present remembered what had occurred. Or at least that was what the reports said. Althea suspected that there were people that knew more. The Emperor of Zun, Emperor Le, and Duke Zerolian’s father, the Grand Duke, who were all alive then, might know. But that was for later.

Nathan had still been studying the city plan. The plan of the ancient city.

"The city can't be replicated." he stated. "There is no way we will be able to build the structures mentioned here. How did they make a spherical building in the first place? The city is a hill! The building would roll down the slope"

"Magic, I would guess." she answered. "And no, there is no chance that we can replicate it. But it does give us ideas to work with. There are more schematics in the vault, numbers, and plans for architecture we thought lost. The Solerian family should have something similar." Althea said.

"I would like you to see what can be done. There is a chance that we will need to expand the city before I return. Try to make sure there are at least some magical defenses in place."

"The method of making magical defenses was lost long ago." Nathan said, scrunching his eyes at her.

Althea smiled. "Not anymore, it isn't. As I said, there are a lot of things in the vault. Now, I have a battle to go to."

Althea winked as she walked out, heading to the garden.

sc

Pulsie

The three girls stood in front of him, their mana collecting as they prepared to fight. Why, and how, had his garden become the place to duel around? The Druid glade was a private sanctuary and a place for meditation.

Not a place to hold classes and fights.

The garden had been specially arranged! The arrangement left large gaps i between the plants, but that was for people to meditate in! Not fight in!

Isa shot towards Althea, a great arc of sword energy forming behind his familiar instead of in front of her as one would expect. Pulsie groaned. That tactic was not going to work. Althea was far too sensitive towards mana to fall for it.

A little wind mana rudely shoved itself into the formation of sword mana, disrupting the entire cast. And then the ground erupted below Isa's feat, a tongue of fire shooting upward as it attempted to swallow the Viscountess whole.

Sword mana curled around her, cutting the flame away, but it was clear that Isa had been unprepared for the attack. A blast of wind shoved her away onto one of the trees as Pulsie winced. For the tree.

Isa was used to being shot around. The tree was not used to humans being shot at it. Pulsie would certainly not like it if any humans collided with him.

Space mana floated around as Vanessa made her move. Shooting forward, just like Isa, she made more feints. A coil of space wound around Althea's head. A blade of space towards her neck. An arrow towards her heart. And finally the very thin wire to trip her onto the ground. Had he had eyes, he would be rolling them.

Had she learned nothing from her friend's failure? The attacks were fast, and a lesser mage would be overwhelmed by them. But Althea was not any mage, frankly, she was a walking mana monster masquerading as human. As he had told Isa yesterday, speed wasn't everything.

Training one's reflexes was something even the most common soldier did. Even children were trained to do it. Reacting a little faster to a beast's claw could end up saving your life. Or that of someone you care about. Mana sense was one such reflex. Althea just took it a bit farther than some.

As he watched, Vanessa fell to the same trick as Isa, Althea barely moving as mana dealt with both of them. The two of them did not seem to realize that their attacks were rather easy to parry under certain conditions.

Like when a certain Countess could make an interfering shield around her. A simple cast of will and the surrounding mana that would try to override another's cast. A simple trick like this was not enough to take control of the spell, but it would easily destroy it if a caster was not careful.

Mana was exceedingly hard to control, and would escape at the slightest nudge. The stronger your will, and affinity with it, the less likely it was that the cast would fail.

"Come at me together." Althea asked her companions.

Isa and Vanessa looked at her with narrowed eyes, and then shot towards her together. A cloud of dust arose around them, threatening to block his vision as their attacks converged on Althea.

As expected, she blasted pure mana outward, using her will to try to move all mana in her surroundings outward. The purer forms of mana did not exist in nature easily, mana had the tendency to take the form of its surroundings. But any elemental mana could be converted to pure mana. That was why such a blast worked.

The blast was accompanied by the formation of more attacks by the duo, trying to strike at Althea before she could form a response. The attack failed. Althea dodged their attacks, already having sensed them coming, and struck Vanessa with a staff.

A groan split the air as Vanessa tried, and failed, to react in time. Althea did not relent. Wind blasted her onto a tree, fire dangling in front of her. The meaning was clear. Had this been a life and death battle, Vanessa would have died.

Isa attempted to land a sneak attack, only to have her attack swatted away by Althea's staff.

"How?" she groaned, clutching at her stomach that seemed to have taken a greater blow than he thought.

Pulsie took the opportunity to gloat.

"As I already told you, speed is not a preferable method of attack. Mixing it will yield significantly better results."

Althea sighed as Isa's eyebrows scrunched.

"What Pulsie means is that your speed is easy to counter. As long as someone's senses are strong enough to see your attacks coming, and are fast enough to strike back, you will fail. Or it will turn into a battle of endurance, where you attempt to tire your opponent and whittle down their defenses. That is disadvantageous since speed is inherently exhausting. I used a tenth of the mana you did." Althea said.

Isa frowned.

"Verest uses attacks just like this." she stated.

"Yes." Pulsie said. "Verest also matches his attacks with power. The attacks you have are the same attacks over and over, and are easy to counter. Verest's attacks are also the same, but they are not easy to counter, they contain things that you cannot replicate at your stage. There are forms of mana out there that you haven’t come in contact with. I doubt Althea would be able to effect Verest’s attacks, even if she were of equal cultivation to him. Have you learned how he does it?"

A blush spread through Isa's cheeks.

"I do know a few of the techniques…but I have not been able to grasp them well."

"That is all right." Althea consoled. "Learning takes time, and you haven't been learning long."

"Yes." Pulsie drawled, looking towards Vanessa, who sadly seemed to have fallen unconscious. "Althea here hasn't even started on her style yet."