Sacred hummed while slowly tapping her fingers on the armrests of her throne, forming a random rhythm. In front of her, several floating screens formed by light floated around, showing her various situations.
In one screen, several dozen young men and women were training, an incarnation of herself floating in the skies above them, giving them commands and encouraging them, while occasionally pointing out a flaw in footwork, technique, or just mindset.
Those men and women had been hand-picked by her to become the first generation of holy warriors, and they held a lot of potential. Of course, whether they would be able to realize that potential all rested on chance and their willingness to suffer pain for a greater future.
Her eyes shifted to another screen. In this one, Helen stood alone, holding onto two short swords, one in each hand. She was fighting against a large panther at least 6 meters in length. Her body glowing with divine light as she fought for her life.
Naturally, Sacred had an incarnation supervising Helen, giving out pointers and the occasional compliment. For as confident Sacred was in Helen, she wouldn't risk her life without some precaution put in place.
Sacred truly liked Helen. She was the perfect subordinate in her eyes. She was extremely talented, careful yet decisive, kind yet brutal when needed, and she knew what orders she had to obey without question, and which she could afford to question.
Furthermore, her loyalty was absolute. It was actually quite sweet, and Sacred was very, very pleased with herself for having picked up this little girl who would have otherwise been nothing but a rape-toy for some dick-for-brains elves.
With all of this in regard, it was no wonder Sacred spent so much effort carefully grooming Helen. She'd been the only one capable of surviving two doses of her power during her initiation as a priest, and that had been an immense benefit for Helen.
Naturally, now that over 10 years had passed since the establishment of Jade City, things had changed. All of her original priests had now undergone the second baptism of her power, increasing their power and status accordingly. 5 of them had even opted to begin training in the Sacred Path, as the soldiers had begun to call it.
In truth, the Sacred Path wasn't difficult to cultivate in. All one needed to do so was some effort, a smidge of talent, and a little bit of time. What was difficult to do, however, was excelling in it.
As one progressed further down the path, it would require more and more energy. If it was just that, then okay, but instead, one also needed to find their own path within this path, and that was incredibly difficult.
A path was more than just a direction. it was a belief, a moral code, a determination to do something, and an understanding of how to do it. The only one who had touched upon their own path was Helen, and even hers was still the basics of the basic.
Naturally, there were other roadblocks and bottlenecks within the path, and each one got progressively harder. Despite all her power, even Sacred couldn't circumvent this. In fact, everything considered, the Sacred Path was already a very easy thing to cultivate. After a thorough interrogation of the little demon spy, she'd found that the technique the demons used to become stronger was much, much more difficult, and relied heavily on the bloodline of the demon.
As for the elves... Well, even Sacred, who held little love for their race, found them a bit pitiful. Their path to strength was honestly pretty pitiful, as it was completely reliant on one's aptitude for magic. If one wasn't attuned enough, they would never be able to advance. Yes, they could become master swordsmen and archers, but comparatively, a single royal elven mage could obliterate a hundred master swordsmen and archers.
Her gaze switched over to the third screen. This screen was divided into many smaller sections, with each providing a bird's eye view of many smaller settlements, each founded around little temples.
Jade City had recently hit the 40.000 population cap, which wasn't surprising considering the massive migrations happening. Basically every human settlement that still retained a smidge of autonomy was doing it's best to come to Jade City, and naturally, Sacred was more than happy to help them out.
The other races had long since understood that something was happening, but they were still completely clueless as to what exactly. Sacred made sure that any rat that dared sniff too close learned that her wrath was not something a mere mortal could ever survive, even if they hid to the other corner of the world.
Sacred had even sent out her newly-made army a couple of times to some weaker elven settlements, and to great effect. The loot alone was probably worth their time, but the vengeance that came along with it was amazing for propaganda. Furthermore, the elven souls she'd gathered during those raids had been a great help for her Soul domain.
The human slaves freed in those camps were all extremely malnourished and often had their spirits completely broken, thus, the Sacred church had created several programs to help these people re-settle back into society, and to aid them in their recovery.
There had been a couple of cases of disdain towards these ex-slaves from those that came from better-off villages, but Sacred had mercilessly dealt with this disdain with a vengeance. In her eyes, anyone who prayed to her was worthy of receiving all the help they needed and should have an equal social standing in society. Things like sexism and scorn for those worst off was something Sacred would absolutely never tolerate.
However... She wouldn't lift a finger should harm come to pass to someone who refused to have faith in her. Furthermore, during the raids, several elves both male and female had been captured. Naturally, they'd been brought back to Jade City and sold off as slaves to be used for either hard labor or as sex toys. Considering that elves were praised for being the most beautiful race, it was highly unlikely for them to escape sexual abuse.
Sacred didn't help the elves. In her eyes, they were the natural enemy of her followers, and thus it was only natural that they either be purged or enslaved. However... children were a different story.
As long as an elf and a human had a child, no matter which was the male or female, and even if that child was born from rape, the child would be considered a full member of society. Any aggression towards the person would be met with the force of law, and if the law decided to be unfair, then the church would immediately take action and the punishments would not be light.
They already had many children in such situations. They were technically half-human, half-elf, and should they have been back in elven society, they would have met a fate worse than even that of a normal human, as they were considered abominations of nature.
However, in Jade City, they were just people. In fact, the church would gladly take them in to teach them, as they made excellent mages and priests, much more so than normal humans, even if their physique was often weaker.
There weren't any adult halflings, only children with the oldest being 9 years old, but Sacred still saw the possibility in them. If she could introduce some of that elven blood into human society, it would be a great benefit.
Almost all of those children were being raised through the church's effort, but a number of them had been adopted or kept by the human parent of the child. It was forbidden for the elves to raise the halflings, in fear of them being indoctrinated to the elf's side, but the human parent would have the option to have legal custody or to give the child to the church.
On the matter of law, Sacred had finally deemed it time to pass the reigns of civil matters off to both the church, which held power to act should something that displeased the Lord happen, and to the Grand Council, which was now finally taking shape.
The Grand Council was formed by representatives sent from all other councils, which would, in turn, be formed from even smaller councils. It was still a bit chaotic, but the basics of it were that each settlement, depending on its population, would send a number of representatives over to the Grand Council, and each of those cities held their own councils that helped rule it.
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The system was very democratic by nature, but there were still attempts at manipulation here and there. It was something unavoidable, and even Sacred Light couldn't do much about it. However, the moment anybody crossed the line in their bid of power, or if corruption was involved, the wrath of the church would come raining down upon the suspects. Thanks to a convenient lie-detection spell that almost every priest learned, it was impossible to lie to the church, hence the innocent would always remain that: innocent.
Everything was decided through votes, which made things a bit slow, but that was acceptable. Truth be told, a democracy of this level had never existed before in the continent, and it was a completely revolutionary idea.
It was because of this that several people voiced their desire for something more... monarchic in nature. However, they were the minority, and even they really didn't have much to complain about since their desired monarch, Sacred Light, had been the one to design the system in the first place, and she still held the reigns of power regardless.
The law was absolute, but the Goddess' words transcended everything. If she ordered you to kill yourself, you happily picked up the knife and offered her your own heart. That was simply how it was.
Sacred's gaze turned towards the fourth, and last, screen. There were no images on it, instead, it was filled with numbers and statistics.
"Hm... We're going to need a bit more iron this year." Sacred muttered before sending down a message to the church, which immediately acted upon it. She had designed this screen about a year ago, and it had been an absolute godsend. (hah, get it!?!)
The screen acted much like the Status screen of video-games, but instead of your statistics, it contained all the information that Sacred usually dealt with. Things like food amount, things needed, population count, crop status... It was all held within and gathered through a complex spell that read directly into her follower's souls to determine everything.
With it, every single secret of her followers was exposed before her. Although, she really didn't need those secrets, as there was absolutely nothing a mere mortal could give her other than faith that mattered. At most, she'd know of some stupid secret crush of a random brainless teenager dreaming of becoming a holy warrior and serving under the Lord's banner.
On the topic of banners, Sacred had been at quite a loss. She honestly just wanted to put two golden wings on a piece of fabric and be done with it, but even she could see that was the apex of uncreativity. Thus, she'd asked some of her more... creative subordinates for some ideas of their own.
She'd ended up with two golden wings forming a circle with a red background. Within the circle was a red scepter, which apparently represented the council, while the wings represented the church.
Overall, she was quite satisfied with it, and thus had given her approval for it to be used to represent the newborn nation. There was no official name for it yet, for Sacred still thought they should at least conquer a bit more land before doing so. Although, in reality, she was just clueless as to what name to use and thus was procrastinating.
"Hm?" Her gaze left the last screen to look back at the entrance to her throne. Now that the city had expanded enough, the temple she'd made her home had become unnecessary. Thus, she'd torn it out of the ground and brought it into a separate dimension that she'd carved over the years, which was what she hoped would eventually become her divine kingdom.
She'd created several space-time runes which served to allow anybody who had permission to enter the not-quite-divine realm-yet through the normal temples back down in the mortal realm. This also allowed her to be able to teleport to any of those places automatically, and the moment she finished building up her divine realm and making it, you know, actually divine, she would be able to use the earthly temples to spread her influence and light, gradually transforming the souls of those in it into golden souls, which would signify complete and utter allegiance to Sacred Light.
Of course, this would also have a massive benefit to both the land and the people. Under the Goddess' influence, the land would forever be extremely fertile, the people would basically be unable to be sick, wounds would heal much faster, the people in it would be stronger, and any hostile that entered the region would be weakened, and if Sacred Light chose to, completely squashed without her even moving a finger.
Hence, for now, she wasn't trying to expand her influence yet. It wasn't necessary, and it would be much easier to take the world by storm once she'd gathered enough people, created enough powerful warriors, and finished forming her divine realm.
Granted, she'd still created a couple of smaller villages, but that was mostly so that the city wouldn't overcrowd faster than it could expand. But, those were but small villages whose only use was to allow for a little more living area for her people, and to have more resources such as wood, minerals, and farmland. They weren't meant to act as true cities, at least not yet.
Compared to those villages, Jade City had turned into a true metropolitan. It was mainly built using stone and wood, but lately, there had been a push to build better homes and to allow for more commodities. Better beds, couches, furniture, and pottery had finally picked off about three years before. Shops had started popping up all over, and because of the high necessity, there were many blacksmiths and armorsmiths getting very rich through very generous contracts that the government gave them in exchange for their weapons and armor.
There were no walls yet, as they would only limit the city's growth, and the defense wasn't really needed thanks to Sacred Light's protection. Still, outside the city proper, many much smaller communities had been formed, all of them still part of Jade City, but still with a bit of autonomy. Those were the zones where the farmers lived, raising crops and livestock and then selling it for a good profit to the residential area, in exchange, they would buy everything they needed from the shops in the city.
Originally, when the city had first been founded, bartering had been the only way for trade. However, now that a government had been put in place, the church had created a standard currency of copper, silver, gold, and jade coins. 100 copper was 1 silver, 100 silver was one gold, and one gold was 100 jade coins. It was a pretty basic exchange rate, and the government ensured inflation was under control. Luckily, it was impossible to fabricate fake coins, as they were all made with a sliver of Sacred Light's energy, giving them a very specific glow that was impossible to replicate.
Sacred Light blinked a couple of times as her thoughts suddenly went off a tangent. She shook her head and refocused on the entrance of her temple.
A middle-aged man with silver hair and a shady face came in and immediately bowed before reporting. "My lord, our spies have successfully infiltrated the elven capital and the demonic court. While we're having a bit more trouble with the beastmen kingdom due to their excellent sense of smell, we should be able to plant our spies in high positions soon.
Sacred smiled slightly as she beckoned the man to her. With a shiver, he quickly walked towards the throne, where he stopped a couple of steps away from Sacred Light.
Lazily getting up, Sacred reached forward with her hand, putting it on the man's cheek, caressing it gently. "What a good boy-toy you are. I truly overdid myself this time."
Indeed, the middle-aged man had, once upon a time, been a demon noble who specialized in espionage. However, upon having his body destroyed and soul captured by Sacred Light, he had been forcefully reforged. His soul had undergone what Sacred called a 'remodeling', which basically meant he'd had a whole bunch of Sacred's divine energy shoved into his soul.
Due to Sacred's Ruler Domain, which had just recently hit the 40% bottleneck, her energy was able to completely remodel his personality, transforming him into a completely loyal servant which still held all the memories and experience of his past, but still considered himself a servant of the Sacred Light Goddess.
Then, Sacred had re-created the man's body and shoved him into it. It'd been a bit tricky, but because she'd been careful not to damage the soul during extraction, she was able to pull it off. Should a person die by normal means, their soul would be damaged, and it would be impossible to put them back in a body. Well, unless one wanted an undead.
"Y-yes, my lord..." The man stammered. Sacred found it kinda cute how embarrassed he got at being called a boy-toy by the one who had technically murdered, then mind-fucked him. It was cute in the way a little puppy would yip and yap over having his fur pet.
Releasing the poor man, who she totally did not enjoy embarrassing, she asked: "So, are there any problem with the current plans?"
The man took a couple of steps back to a safe distance before replying. "No, my lord. I've already received several reports from our spies saying where several human hideouts are, and where the highest amount of human slaves are. If we can act on those reports, then we could increase our population to over 80.000 people by the next two years".
Sacred hummed happily. "Great. Once the new year hits, I should have gathered enough faith to finally create a decent divine realm. The moment my people have it, it will be far easier to consolidate the lands we will conquer..." A smile rose on Sacred's face as she thought of finally getting down to conquering those annoying elves, beastmen, and demons.
As she was about to return to doing her godly things and whatnot, she furrowed her brows and looked at the middle-aged man. "What're you still doing here? Get out already, I'm sure you've got your things to do."
The man quickly nodded and retreated. His new body had been upgraded quite a lot from his previous one, and considering it had been made with the Sacred Path in mind, it held great compatibility with it, thus allowing for the man to rise in strength very quickly. He became something akin to the chief of the spy department, giving him even more power than what he had back in the demon king's court.
With a smile, he thought back to his previous foolish king. "Hehe... Your Majesty, you were truly foolish to consider My Lord as a possible ally. Your fall nears every day, and then, little Timmy will finally be avenged." The man snickered as he vanished into the shadows, leaving behind a gloomy foreshadow.