The Queen of Spring and Autumn was lying comfortably on a giant red cushion as soft as a cloud nebula.
Gold and silver dominated the most beautiful high elven terrace ever built. Intricate details filled every inch of the wooden floor and low walls, and the golden leaves of the World Tree surrounding it gave everything a comfortable atmosphere. The highly enchanted greenish blue skies of the high elven homeworld soothed one's soul.
She didn't take in the scenery. Her mind was away from there, checking on the war raging on her border planets. She sometimes sent commands to her people and allies but never acted directly.
Wars were nasty business but also valuable training opportunities. High-ranking Guardians let the young bear their teeth for a while before personally getting involved. That helped everyone, even the losers since this was not a war of annihilation.
Suddenly, a notification took part of her attention away from the war.
| You can no longer receive reports on Feng Shen
| Reason: Official Multiverse Alliance's active monitoring engaged
That was unfortunate, but at least she could recover a resource. "Return my favor for putting Feng Shen under B-tier monitoring."
| Favor returned
| Favors remaining: 2 + 1
| Favor surplus detected. You have one Standard day to use it or give it to someone else
The Queen's mood soured as she was reminded that she still hadn't earned a third favor.
Only impressive actions that benefitted the Alliance could increase someone's favor limits. She had done a lot, enough for having already earned over fifty second-tier favors. However, none had been impressive enough to increase her limits.
At least at the two-favor limit, she was given time to dispose of any extras. Those who had ever only earned one favor weren't given the privilege. If they held onto a favor when they could've won another, the new one was thrown away without them ever knowing about it. Yet, if they did anything to earn a second-tier favor but didn't have any at the moment, they were only given a single first-tier favor, and their limit didn't increase. It was a cruel system and the reason she had asked for someone to lend her a favor.
"Send surplus favor to my third consort," she commanded. He had been the one to lend it to her.
| Favor sent
| Favors remaining: 2
Now, to use more mundane resources to keep getting the information she wanted.
"Send a message to Tun Three: Find out who is actively monitoring Feng Shen for the Alliance and redirect their reports to me."
| Message sent
There was no answer, of course. Saelihn Herfie was A-rank, and everything in her messages was private. However, while no one could check the contents of any message sent to her, the system checked and logged the sender's identity and authorization before checking the target's. Her enemies wouldn't know what her spies had said, but their identities would be exposed.
An annoying state of affairs but one that also benefitted her—her enemies' spies suffered the same—so no one wanted to change it.
She was currently blind to Feng Shen's actions, but she made a point of automatically recording all logs she received—and she kept those records outside the Guardian System. Doing so was theoretically illegal, of course, but all A-ranks did it. If they were called out on such a minor offense, it meant much worse stuff was coming, and no one would be stupid enough to forewarn their enemies like that.
Saelihn raised her hand and connected her mind to the backup recording orb in her room, one floor below. A moment later, she was surprised at the reason the boy was now under official Alliance active monitoring. She was also very happy about it; it would let her extort the drow a little more.
"Send a message to the drow Thiarchy: the Drow Maiden is harboring a Void Herald. The Herald is her human charge. I'm willing to negotiate my silence."
Saelihn had been handsomely paid to monitor the Drow Maiden for the drow. However, an A-rank couldn't buy monitoring of another race's Titled C-rank, not for one or two favors.
D-ranks were fair game for a second-tier favor, though, but no drow had ever reached two favors. They were always too absorbed in surviving their wars to do anything worthy for the Alliance. Targeting the D-rank Human Rising Star was the best way to get information about the Maiden because she was his official mentor under the system. The drow also told Saelihn that the Maiden would contact the youngling in a year.
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It was marvelous to get paid to do something and find an opportunity to gain even more while doing that thing.
The high elves officially killed any Void Herald on sight and revealed the identities of any Void Herald they knew about to the multiverse. It was a cultural thing, though the queen personally liked to dispose of other races' Void Heralds for more strategic reasons. They usually had a lot of growth potential, and other races gaining more powerful people was never good.
However, she had more to win this time by letting that one live.
Allying with the drow had proven better than expected. They were terrific fighters ready to sacrifice themselves for a cause—as long as they knew the risks and accepted the possible losses beforehand. Now, she had something to make them apply themselves even more.
Drow culture was a confusing mess which she had no interest in, but she knew they valued their Maiden, hence the reason she had been sent to safe harbor. Now, the Maiden was willing to fight to protect the boy. Revealing his identity would put her in danger; therefore, the drow would pay to keep her safe.
Indeed, an instant later, she got a message.
| Drow Triarchy (B): What do you want?
The queen smiled.
She wouldn't betray the drow, but she would have to be way too stupid not to use them as much as possible.
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"She's exploiting us," a drow triarch said in the small metal room at the core of Tar'Shalon.
The white Receptacle of Wisdom floated in the middle of the room, between and above the three triarchs. Invisible tendrils connected each mind to the orb holding the accumulated wisdom of countless drow. One day, the triarchs' minds would also be pulled into it to add to the drow greatness.
"The price she asked for would humiliate anyone," another triarch agreed with the first.
"Yet, the sacrifices she asked for are not too high if we ignore what we should perceive as shame," the final triarch in the room pointed out.
None of them actually felt ashamed or humiliated—every drow learned to shed such useless feelings early in their infancy. They were only discussing how they were expected to feel and basing their reactions on that. They had learned that the Multiverse Alliance didn't like dealing with beings that were too hard to emotionally manipulate, so they pretended sometimes.
"Not a high price indeed," the first drow agreed. "The extra protection we have as we fight side-by-side with the high elves, limited as it might look to them, is the best we've had in the latter half of our existence. It gives us an enormous surplus of newly produced children and surviving warriors. Even if we increase the sacrifices as she asked of us, we will be at least twice as strong as before we attacked the True Enemy in less than one Standard year. Maybe three times if the Vessels of Hope keep growing at the steady pace they have shown after consuming the Receptacles."
"The high elven queen might expect betrayal," the second pointed out. "We should act slightly unreasonably at random times and renegotiate the terms of the alliance after we grow stronger. She'll believe us to be ready to turn on her."
"I agree," the first said. "If we show enough anger at the humiliation now and double the power we had when we first became her ally, she'll feel compelled to throw some scraps at us to keep our efficient war machine at her side."
"I agree," the third concurred.
The drow knew better than to let pride cloud their judgment but had learned how to pretend. More importantly, they had learned how to do that while also coming out on top.
It had taken them long to grasp such subtleties, but it was worth it. Every time they came even slightly on top of a deal, they grew stronger.
Accumulation would lead to everlasting survival.
The Triarchy accepted the high elves' offer with a carefully worded passive-aggressive message and immediately changed topics.
"The Maiden has disobeyed our orders," the second said.
"Yet no other Observer has accused her," the first pointed out.
"She knows things about humans we don't," the third mentioned. "We should trust her judgment."
"I agree," the other two said immediately.
Another matter had been resolved. Other matters demanded their attention.
They kept deciding the fate of their entire race.
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Daiyu Chu Hua was kneeling naked in the middle of the mystic formation inscribed on the obsidian floor of the glass-walled room. All kinds of researchers were outside, looking at her shame, trying to pry the secrets of mana from her body and soul.
She felt even more ashamed because she was crying in front of them.
'For the people of the great Chinese Empire,' she thought for the thousandth time, trying to strengthen her loyalty and make everything less horrible.
If she had known her exalted body would be used for this, she would've never agreed to join the tutorial. Her father had insisted, called it a unique opportunity for the Daiyu family. He wasn't wrong, but while he enjoyed the benefits her sacrifice gained her family, she suffered for the nation.
Lightning came from the formation and rampaged through her body. She bit her tongue again to at least not further shame herself by crying out in pain.
She tasted blood.
"Stop protecting your soul," a brisk male said through the speaker on the ceiling for the hundredth time.
Daiyu Chu Hua wanted to comply; she really did.
But she couldn't.
She couldn't allow herself to go through so much pain again. Her soul had suffered too much the last time, and she unconsciously used qi to protect it. No amount of orders or attacks could change that. Her conscious mind couldn't overcome her sense of self-preservation.
"We'll try again," the voice said.
'For the people of the great Chinese Empire,' she thought for the thousandth first time.
Pain coursed through her body once more.
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Sai, Alicia, and Marzia kept silent for a few moments. The Drow Maiden had ordered them not to mention her existence, then suddenly disappeared with Shen.
Sai finally broke the silence. "I think she did something to him. He looked shocked for a split second, then they were gone."
He had never seen the cultivator so shocked. Had it been an illusion of some kind? Or had his mind been invaded somehow?
"Shen is still on Earth," Marzia said a moment later. "The number of D-ranks on the planet remains the same."
"What do we do?" Alicia asked, proving she was as lost as her facial expressions suggested.
"Before that, what happened to you two?" Marzia asked instead of replying. "Where is your equipment? Where are our front lines?" She looked around.
Alicia looked sideways and hugged herself.
Sai tensed, then sighed and said. "Shen is not as bad as I thought, but not as good as I hoped either. He said nothing about it, but I guess he concluded the best way to kill a lot of enemy D-ranks was by also killing a few tens of thousands in our front lines. Alicia, I, and a few others survived the explosion, but it wasn't... pleasant."
In fact, Sai had no idea how his mind wasn't broken after so much pain. He credited it to the changes the Alliance forced on the Guardians' minds.
Marzia stood up straighter and said firmly, "Tell me everything about this explosion. I can't do damage control without knowing exactly what happened."
"Carl was nearby but didn't make it," Sai said somberly. "I'm sorry."
Marzia froze in shock. She kept silent for a long while. Then, she looked straight into his eyes and whispered, "Shen killed Carl?"
"To be fair, we were fighting a losing battle and wouldn't have lasted much longer," Sai softly emphasized. "Carl wasn't fighting for some reason, but he was watching from up close. He would be next after we fell."
Marzia hugged herself while tearing up.
She didn't seem to care for damage control anymore.
Nobody said anything else until a few Guardians and cultivators arrived next to them.