Bertha was not paying close attention to the world's operations. She had just set up the structure of the world government and let her low-level incarnations manage everything.
For immortals, creating incarnations was extremely easy; they could pop as many low-level incarnations as they wanted. Even rank 11 incarnations wouldn't be difficult for someone like Bertha. The incarnations she allocated to manage the world were mortal rank 9s and 8s, so they literally didn't cost her anything noticeable.
In this world, the supernatural system is tightly controlled. Anyone wanting to reach even rank one must be granted permission by Bertha's chief incarnation, a rank ten immortal mage.
Bertha usually only allows those who deeply believe in her vision to advance. Anyone trying to advance, however, will not be allowed to live among the mortals.
In Bertha's view, immortals are a danger to nature, so anyone who reaches rank one and above must move to the sky continent, a place specifically designed for immortals.
As a result, the highest-ranking mages in the mortal areas are rank 1s, who have given up on trying to advance further, and rank 0s, who are not much more powerful than strong mortals. In practice, very few mages exist.
...
The mayor raged when he saw what the gangs did. As the man responsible for the security of Bright City, something like this happening without him being able to stop it questioned his suitability. "I'm going to hit back 100 times harder!" the mayor said to himself.
...
The police began going after the gangs much harder, visiting all restaurants, checking all kitchens, and arresting all the cooks in a restaurant, even if only one of them had the powder.
The reaction was so fierce that people started throwing away any powder-like material they had; even simple flour became a risky thing to hold on to.
The mayor, a wood elf, only targeted humans and didn't touch wood elves at all.
The humans noticed this and were complaining, and soon, some began protesting publicly.
This troubled the mayor. He had permission to kill anyone who had the powder, but regarding those who protested peacefully, he could not just arrest them.
Bertha may look like a brutal oppressor, but in reality, she is just trying to protect animals, whom she considers the most helpless.
When dealing with those who 'murder' animals, she acts ruthlessly, but when people are just protesting, she does not approve of violence against them. The mayor knew this, so he let his cops observe and not suppress the protesters. Of course, if any of the protesters became violent, the cops wouldn't mind arresting them.
The mayor also prohibited protests near the police headquarters, which was built on massive trees; the mayor himself was usually in the police headquarters. In reality, humans who are not good at climbing trees aren't even able to break into the police headquarters, as it is atop large trees. Some just shouted a bit on the ground and left when they saw nobody cared.
The mayor didn’t execute those who were only implicated and didn’t personally have the powder. Still, he executed any chef or cook who was personally and undoubtedly caught with meat powder. Again, it outraged many humans, but they knew of the existence of Bertha, the immortal wood elf with invincible abilities, so few dared to go beyond peaceful protests.
Are peaceful protests really useful? The answer is yes if there are some receptive ears; however, the mayor wasn’t receptive to protests. He didn't change any of his policies due to the protest. The reason he released the cooks and chefs who didn’t personally have powder wasn’t that the protest was successful but that he wasn’t allowed to execute them, as they were innocent.
The protesters, however, saw this as a win.
For a dictatorial government, the worst they can do to themselves is to give in to protests. To truly suppress protests, one must quash hopes of the people; people must believe that nothing will change with protests. Only that way would the protests be truly suppressed, and gradually, people would become numb to everything.
However, if the government changes its stance because of protests, the people will become hopeful that change is possible, so more would be encouraged to come out. The mayor's actions, even though he wasn’t persuaded to release the prisoners because of protests, were interpreted by many as releasing prisoners because of protests.
Many more came out, and soon, the streets of the city's human areas were packed with people shouting.
The mayor was helpless. He couldn’t suppress them, so he could only allow the protests to run their course. As long as the protesters remained only in human areas, who cared?
Unfortunately for the mayor, the gangs, who were angry at him, were not dumb. They knew that protesting in human areas was useless, so they secretly led the protesters to enter the wood elves' areas.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Worse, some hitmen from the gangs started provoking everyone into becoming violent. And it worked.
People started setting fire to the trees, which were the residence of wood elves. Terrified, thousands of wood elves fled the city; some were caught by the gangs' hitmen and were killed.
The mayor was beyond furious when he saw the corpses of wood elves.
He brought the forest patrol and also removed many officers from the anti-powder unit, creating a large force that he called the "Protest Investigation Agency," or PIA for short.
PIA, comprised of over 10,000 police officers, began knocking on every door, looking for the murderers.
Again, with the provocation of the gangs, the people didn't talk, and so the police were unable to find the perpetrators.
The mayor put up a massive reward for anyone who leaked info regarding who murdered those wood elves. The people were mad, but still, a few contacted the police through a secret method.
In general, humans are tribalistic and have collective thoughts. Once a critical percentage of the population believes in something, it becomes a collective belief that is extremely difficult to speak against.
However, not all people will subscribe to the collective beliefs. There will always be some revolutionaries who are brave enough to move against the general trend. This is not to say that the ones who move against the general belief are always right, but they are definitely braver than the general population.
The mayor, now having a good grasp of what happened, was frustrated. He could arrest some low-level hitmen of the gangs, but arresting higher-ups is difficult.
First, the chiefs are not out in the open; the mayor doesn't know their identity.
Second, they would create massive chaos if he tried to go after the gang leaders and many innocents may die.
So, he just ignored the incident for now and asked the special management unit to send agents.
The Special Management Unit is managed by the state and is under the governor's command. Its cops are at least rank 0 mages, and its chiefs are even ranked 1.
The rank 1 agents usually leave for the sky continent, but there are a few at any given time.
The situation in Bright City is still manageable by the normal police; the mayor can defeat the gangs completely, but that would increase casualties. Bertha's incarnations might question him.
So, it's best to dump the hot potato to the state. Even if the state refuses to come, he at least has an excuse; he could say, "I called the state, but they refused to help, so I had no other choice."
...
The state approved the request, and a unit of 5 rank 0 officers was sent; they arrived in only ten days.
After they reached Bright City, they didn't ask for help from the local police; in fact, even the mayor didn't know of their arrival.
One day after the rank 0 officers arrived, the entire city was shocked. Over 1,000 people were arrested without being able to put up any resistance and were transferred to the city's tree prisons.
...
"They arrested over 1000 people by themselves?" the mayor asked in shock. He didn't even imagine that five people could arrest 1000 people by themselves.
"Yes, Mr. Mayor! They said that all of the core members of all powder gangs were arrested," the police captain said.
"Look into it!" the mayor said. The captain bowed slightly and left.
...
After looking into it, the mayor was completely speechless. It was the first time he had seen the special management unit act, and it was overwhelming.
Always, when a mystery is solved, everything becomes easy. Before, he could not find the gang leaders because they were like needles in a haystack. Finding a few hundred people among millions is difficult. But now that he knows their identity, a little investigation displayed all kinds of ties they had with powder. Many cold cases may be solved if they investigate and interrogate the gang leaders.
"They are not on the same level at all!" the mayor was in deep thought.
In his youth, he tried joining the special management unit, but one of Bertha's incarnations rejected him. At that time, he was very angry at her and felt he lost a great opportunity.
As time passed and he won the position of mayor, he thought that if he had been accepted back then, he might never have reached such a high position. Now, however, after seeing the special management unit, he again started regretting it.
"What is a mayor's position in front of those people? They can overturn all I have in a few days or even a few hours!" he shook his head.
He feels small in comparison. Unfortunately, he has no choice. Bertha's incarnations are the only ones who can grant him the right to embark on the road to immortality, and one such incarnation has already rejected him.
To this day, he doesn't know why he was rejected, but he had no way to contest or appeal it.
Sighing, he went back to his work.
Now that the gang leaders have been arrested, security has been increased to the maximum, as the underlings may try to retaliate against the police. Still, because those five arrested all the higher-level gang leaders, there is nobody left to lead the low-level gang leader.
Without a leader, those chaotic, low-level dealers will be busy fighting themselves.
Only time can tell how it all will go down.
...
"You are not suitable!" Bertha said to a young wood elf boy.
"But, my lady! Please, becoming a mage has always been my dream!" the boy said. He is from a super-rich wood elf family, which already has a few mages. But even mage families could not teach their art to their descendants without Bertha's approval.
"Your heart is not aligned with mine! There is no point in you becoming a mage!" said Bertha.
The wood elf boy sighed, with his head down, stood up, and was about to leave.
"Wait!" Bertha's incarnation said.
The elf boy looked curiously.
"You are suitable! Go to the next room and wait for me!" she said.
The wood elf boy, confused, asked, "My lady! Thank you!" He didn’t say more for fear she would change her mind again and left.
Bertha smiled.
When she told the boy that he was not suitable, she was just testing his heart; the boy got very upset, but he didn’t develop any anger toward her. If she felt the slightest anger from him, he would have been rejected, but he only felt disappointed in himself and was not angry at her.
This was a very big positive in her evaluation. She would reject anyone who is hateful, revengeful, and cruel; she only accepts those who are respectful toward others, forgiving and care about nature.
How talented one is is not even in the equation! Talent can be granted with talent pills, which Rachel has tons of.
Rachel's basic ability to produce pills is not gone; it is still there. Technically, talent pills are unproducible by Rachel, but that is before rank 11.
To begin with, the reason Rachel's main body doesn't allow talent pills to be produced is because she feared the formula to be leaked.
Rank 11 incarnations can get security approval and produce talent pills.
Her Rachel has gotten the approval and can produce talent pills.
"Next!" Bertha's incarnation called in the next one to the room.