The conversation petered out after Wu Chen had offered his warning. There wasn’t any real way for me to reply without sounding boastful or sycophantic. I didn’t think my Realm could protect me from any of the more powerful Elves that were angered about the changes in negotiating with the Hindel, but I did feel my location might.

I was too isolated for anyone upset that they had to travel a small distance and dive underwater to negotiate with the Hindel to actually take a flight that would last days or weeks, or even worse a ship that would take months to bother.

I also didn’t want to ask for the Emperor’s help. It was too easy to find myself indebted if I did. And I was more afraid of what that debt might incur than the anger of a few faceless people.

Maybe things might have been different if the Hindel hadn’t informed me that their people who studied and understood Qi fluctuations had seen the stirrings of energy focused on the island. They believed the opening of the Mystic Realm was imminent. A month at most and access to that Realm would be worth more than revenge.

I would have canceled the tournament I was hosting if I had known in time. But it was too late now. Cultivators had gathered and paid their entrance fee. Food and drink vendors had purchased products and rented booths. We had figured out a way to mass-produce the communication tokens so that we could begin selling them at the event.

The time and money invested in building the arena and the underground waterway were also a concern. Not a large one. I would recoup those costs eventually.

The tournament would go on, but I wouldn’t be as invested or involved in the events as I would have liked to have been. I needed to divide my attention and make sure the area surrounding the rift was well monitored. When the Mystic Realm opened, I might not be the first to know, but I would know soon enough to put protections in place.

I didn’t have cultivators powerful enough to guard and hold the entrance to the Mystic Realm, so I had to use artificial means to protect what was mine. I had been forced to use the windfall from the Spirit Mine I had discovered to purchase protection.

The mine’s income proved to be substantial. The stones had been banked with the Sect, and an audit and prospectus of what was paid out and the projected payout had been forwarded to me via missive.

Spirit stone mines were unique formations. The stones grew over time, formed from a convergence of earth, fire, and water elemental Qi. If mines were carefully nurtured, they could be excavated forever unless you removed the spirit seed. Those seeds served as a Qi gathering formation. They collected and condensed the elemental energies from the environment to produce more stones.

I used the stones that had been banked to buy defensive formation arrays and flags. I purchased the strongest I could find. Arrays and formation flags that were powerful enough to withstand the attacks of someone at the Immortal Realm.

I had considered purchasing attack formations as well but decided against it. Instead, I settled on an array that would shroud the Mystic Realm opening in a fog bank of confusion, one that would randomly reset, making it hard for even the most talented Array Master to find a path in or out.

I would need to document and establish my Authority over the Mystic Realm. I needed to claim it as part of my territory and register my stake with the Sect. That would establish my rights as the sole legal entity and person in control of the realm. A process that needed to be done before allowing anyone to enter.

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The rest of the evening was uneventful once I had escaped the Prince. I did manage to discuss my communication token with a few people. Still, as I moved around the room, I realized that most of those in attendance were other cultivators who had decided to or had been pressured into searching for a Dao partner.

Each was certainly a Baron in their own right, but they didn’t have the connections or business channels I was hoping for. I would still try to sell my communication tokens, even if it meant opening market channels regionally instead of globally.

Once the evening’s entertainment had ended, I gathered Ja Fiat to return to Xiwang. I could have waited for morning, but I wanted to be on hand for the opening day of the tournament. It would be the only time I could spare until my claim could be sorted.

I had also made arrangements with Clement to negotiate on my behalf. It had meant informing him of the imminent opening of the Mystic Realm and explaining some of the information the Hindel had shared. The most relevant was that the Empire and Sect leadership were already aware a Mystic Realm was about to form. It was the reason Four Element Sect had been established.

He seemed almost gleeful in anticipation when I’d informed him of the event and asked him to file the pertinent claims and negotiate on my behalf. The more I interacted with him, the more I wished I could poach him and his services for my Fief.

The flight back had been uneventful. Nothing attacked us as we flew, and Storm’s increased perception made it easy for her to detect anything that might. Her warnings were early enough for us to avoid anything that might attack.

“Baroness,” Gwen said in greeting as we landed.

“Are we ready?” I asked without preamble.

“There have been a few hiccups, but we have managed to resolve them quickly. There has been nothing so serious that it might delay the opening ceremony,” Gwen reported without taking umbrage at my abruptness.

“What hiccups?”

“A few cultivators that decided not to wait for the Arena to open before challenging each other and fighting. A tamed beast that a cultivator was mistreating wreaked some havoc. It decided now was the time to repudiate the bond and escape. And a large carcass from some sea creature that blocked the underwater tunnel you constructed between the arena and ocean for the Hindel to use needed to be cleared.”

Inviting the Hindel to observe and participate in the tournament I was hosting would probably be perceived as another slight against those hidebound Elves that saw the Hindel as lesser. But I thought it would be instructive for my people to know how the Hindel fought and how they stacked up against Elven cultivators.

If the Empire chose to ignore the talents and skills the Hindel might share, that was their choice. I needed every advantage I could to give my people an opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families.

The communication tokens would help. But there would soon be a large influx of immigrants. People the Empire thought were disposable and were shipping to the island under false pretense. The Empire was using the island as an excuse to re-settle people that weren’t as productive.

They had lied to these people. Promised them a chance to gain land, businesses, and monies. They had paid for transport, staked them with a few lower-tiered cores, and washed their hands of responsibility.

What happened to these people when they arrived with nowhere to live, no jobs to earn money, and no way to return to the mainland was left to the Sect and the Barons that claimed territories on the island to figure out.

I had only two months before those immigrants, and my family arrived. I was hoping to recruit some of the cultivators that attended the tournament to help, but I had already begun working to solve the problem.

I had called for each of the towns in my Fief to expand. To create enough housing to hold five thousand new people. I had warehouses built. Resources stockpiled. Farms expanded. I funded and delivered storage spaces capable of holding years of animals and fish that were hunted.

Xiwang would expand enough to double in size. An endeavor hard to accomplish because the eight trigrams formation had to be extended as the town grew into a city. I wasn’t sure how many immigrants were earmarked for my region, and I could only hope I had planned the expansion for each town correctly.