Michael easily got away after taking the light of dawn. He could feel the power contained in the treasure. In his previous life as well, the treasure had been under his protection. It helped him survive in many wars against the devils. Feeling the familiar power again brought a smile to his lips. Michael sped off in the direction of Redster. It was time that he took advantage of the situation.
Michael reached the city in a few hours. It was only a few years ago that he had to spend two weeks travelling between the two cities. Michael sighed thinking how he had to tussle with death to obtain the power that he had today. After reaching Redster, he stole clothes and money from the house of an official he knew and took a bath in the public bathhouse.
The bathhouse was empty at the time as it was already night. After taking a bath, Michael changed into some better clothes. To make sure that people would not know of his return, he stealthily entered his own house. Michael was still a bit confused as to what the world thought of him but after arriving at Redster and looking at the mourning flags, he more or less understood the situation.
He entered his official chamber before picking out a pen and paper. He wrote the entire plan on it and placed it by his parent's bedside. He did not want to return to his home just yet. There were things that would be easier to do as a dead man. Also, he was planning to create his own legend - one that spread across the entire plane. For that to happen, he needed to make certain preparations.
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The news of a human immortal-realm expert taking the light of dawn was known to all the plane within a few hours. No one had thought that the humans too would have an immortal-realm expert in the background.
When Ragnar heard the news, his expression turned extremely ugly. This was a political opportunity and Ragnar intended to milk it. After all, no one could deny that the human royalty was involved in shady business which allowed him to abuse his power and demand the defining treasure of humans. But now that the treasure was taken by an expert, the chance that Ragnar would get it was much lower.
The greatest impact of the incident was definitely on the political structure of humans. The Atrexia family received all support including those of Josses. No one wanted to be near them when the immortal-expert unleashed their wrath.
The nobles all extended their support to the Rageberg family. The Rageberg family took the opportunity and accepted the position. After this, several meetings of nobles were held. The purpose was the upcoming coronation of the new king of humans - Collins Rageberg. As for the Atrexia family, they were completely sidelined. Ragnar extorted a huge price from them and while this was nothing much to him - the Atrexia family had to empty their thousand-year-old coffers.
This led to a peaceful resolution of the incident. After 15 days, Duke Collins was made the new king of humans by the official ceremony. It was then that the Duke put forward his trump card - the forbidden forest.
It was a tradition that each ruling family established a city in their name which was made the focal point of their regime. This was the reason that there was an Atrexia city but no Miller or Zenid city. Only the ruling family could have a city to their name. The Atrexia city had been disbanded and most of the populace had gone to other cities. Duke Collins put forward the proposal that he would build the new city at the heart of the forbidden forest. This move caused shock among all the different nobles.
Before any other races could even get a whiff of this new proposal, the Rageberg family shifted themselves to the military base in the forbidden forest. They built a huge castle to serve as the ruling centre and activated the advanced formation. The construction of the city around the military base began in earnest.
Several people began their migrations to the new city as well but the entry was strictly controlled via the use of illusion formation. Only the commoners close to the Rageberg family managed to migrate to the new city easily. For all others, it was based on various bribes or promises of fealty to the Rageberg family.
This move attracted the attention of several other races. But it was naturally too late for them to do anything. The military base had been developed to the extreme with many people from the three families serving there. Thus, the entire forbidden forest was guarded very tightly making sure that adventurers from other races could not enter. The human troops could leverage the formation to beat up even strong experts.
This caused a lot of political unrest with the elves and the dwarves but it was mostly contained via diplomatic methods. The only thing that worried these races was that humans now controlled the forbidden forest and their ruling capital had become even safer. But it was not like that securing the ruling palace could increase the military might of the race too drastically.
But while these plans were proceeding smoothly, the entire establishment of the city would naturally take a lot more time. Chaos ensued and the lives of many people were disturbed. It was only due to having the military base that this controlled transition could happen. While all this was taking place, Michael was having a discussion with Karslon.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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Michael was currently in Karslon's private chamber as he was discussing his "resurrection". Karslon had been extremely intelligent and had not revealed the news of Michael's life lamp being intact to anyone except his family. This was because he had no idea why Michael was playing dead. He believed that Michael was planning something heaven-defying and needed to fake his death. Michael could only smile wryly when he heard Karslon's reasons.
After Michael recounted his experiences, Karslon spoke:
> Karslon : Michael, you have taken fancy of an otherworldly expert's eyes. No way you will die that easily!
Michael could hardly convince Karslon otherwise. Karslon was convinced that Michael had been chosen by some higher power and thus was destined to lead the plane out of the approaching calamity. The old man was quite stereotypical.
Michael ultimately gave up trying to convince him. He just started to explain his plan:
> Michael : Teacher, the people in the world are mostly commoners. For the rise of every hero, there needs to be an accompanying legend. While I have quite a few legends to my name, they are mostly popular among humans. For me to rise to a position to lead the plane, I will need the support of multiple races. The immortals and perfect-realm experts can be convinced via diplomacy. But the army and commoners need a legend to believe in. Therefore I am planning to create my own legend. I want to do a spectacular resurrection - one that is visible acrosss the plane. If I can truly rise from the dead, I can tell the people that the plane has sent me back for a reason - for fighting against the upcoming invasion. This will convince the masses to follow me and will make it take the upcoming invasion more seriously. What do you think?
>
> Karslon : Hmm. It is indeed a good idea to fabricate this type of story. But to do so, we need to create a disturbance that can be felt across all the four major empires. That is a very difficult task. Even immortal-slayers can only affect a few tens of miles with their aura. A distance of few hundred kilometers is pretty much how far a normal person can feel the presence of an immortal-expert even if the said expert is realeasing his immortal energy. To make a disturbance felt across tens of thousands of kilometers, there is only a single method - using a sacrifice ceremony.
>
> Michael : Teacher, what is a sacrifice ceremony?
>
> Karslon : The plane will in the earlier days was much stronger and could support people in cultivation and combat. It was possible for armies to be buffed or debuffed by the plane will. It was possible as long as one paid the appropriate price through a sacrifice ceremony. If we do a sacrifice ceremony, we can ask the plane will to create a disturbance across the entire plane. But to sacrifice so many treasures just to create a disturbance is too extravagent!
>
> Michael : Teacher, you have seen how the people have taken the information about enemies from beyond. Most of the people believe it to be a hoax. No one is taking this seriously as they should. If we manage to do convince them through this, it will save many lives. Also, the plane needs to be unified in facing the devils. Right now, we will scatter like dust in case their main army arrieves. Only through companionship and unification can we stand a proper chance. To do this, we need a leader. Someone who can look beyond their racial indentity and can think of the entire plane. As there is no one like that now, we will create one! It will be Michael Rageberg - the child of the plane tasked with defending against the devils. I will create the perfect image for the people to follow - the perfect image of a hero!
Karslon could only helplessly nod his head as he too understood Michael's vision. He was thinking:
Teaching disciples in a pretty expensive affair. I just have a single disciple but my thousands of years of savings are getting spent in one stroke! How do those other old fogies manage their expenses?
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Karslon started collecting the necessary treasures for the sacrifice ceremony. The requirement of a priest who could truly handle such an ancient ceremony was also to be solved. Ultimately, Mubal was selected for the job, mostly because Michael did not trust anyone else with this secret.
Mubal had been so shocked to see Michael well and alive that his jaw remained open for a few minutes. Michael had been his pride, the successor to his legacy. The news of his death had hit the old man pretty hard. Finding about Michael's circumstances, he could only sigh in wonder. To go through such an experience and still return alive was a testament to how much of a genius Michael was. It was not wrong to say that Michael was constantly walking the path of an overlord. Had he known the full extent of Michael's powers, he would have realized the error of his thought. Michael was not walking the path of an overlord - he already was one.
Karslon had to borrow appropriate treasures from other immortal experts. Many of them gave fake condolences but were internally quite happy as a genius under his wing died. Some were genuinely saddened by the loss of a good seed. But Karslon thickened his skin in front of everyone and asked for treasures citing how he was already riddled with grief and was in a very bad mood.
Lord Astang was quite sad at Michael's death. He did not think that such an intelligent seed would die like that. But there were some things that one could not overcome by themselves. He consoled Karslon saying that life and death were not in anyone's hands and anyone could die irrespective of their power or talent.
Karslon replied:
> Lord Astang, my disciple was meant to do big things. His death almost feels unreal to me. It is as if this is a low before a new high. I may be growing senile but this is what I believe!
Astang did not know to console this old man. The death of his disciple seemed to have hit him hard. Thus, he simply nodded and did not say anything. He took his mind off Karslon's words thinking that this was the result of grief. And just 15 days later, almost 2 months after Michael's supposed death - a golden aura descended from the skies.