First Year In The Palace (5—Last Part)

Another 3 months passed before either Empress Shuna or the top 7 organizations, including the Feathered Valley Pavilion, could believe it.

Under Heian Ciemnosc's watch, and as the Feathered Valley Pavilion became used to the Empires's people moving in and out of their territory, carrying machinery, refined and prepared materials, and resources in and taking the raw ones out, time went on while no conflict unleashed between the top organizations. The Blauw Empire was also saved from trouble, and they would receive 2 to 3 resources and materials batches every month from the enterprises Empress Shuna built over a long period of time.

Coupled with the manpower the Empire sent inland to collect more resources and materials, the Blauw Empire was filling its storage like never before. It was a far cry from taking its whole space still, but it was going there. And once the machinery Heian Ciemnosc designed was ready to be utilized, the pace and efficiency with the Empire gathered inland supplies improved, leaving the Blauw Empire needing a few million more just to take care of the logistics so the 40,000,000+ workers wouldn’t have to stay and help to keep things clean.

As time passed, some workers couldn’t help it anymore, as there was a mix between cultivators and citizens. Some had to leave because of age or because they had to work on themselves more. Thus, after the 2nd month, Empress Shuna announced the possibility of civilians partaking in the gathering of supplies available. With this change, while the number of workers increased by a couple percentages only, it was kept strong and steady over the following several weeks.

The Blauw Empire’s civilians were seen coming in and out inland for the 3rd and 4th month, surprising even the Empire itself. Somehow, this made things much more peaceful than before. At least regarding the relationship between the Blauw Empire and the top 7 organizations. Especially the Pavilion, which had become used to sharing their time with some of the Empire’s workers. Over time, the workers formed a social hierarchy without actual leaders.

It was simply to have an easier time deciding who would go to the Pavilion and request entry and exit whenever they were returning with resources and whenever they wanted to have a little rest in their individual territory. For as passionate and sacrificial the worker might be for their beloved home, they aren’t robots, Colgova, or Perkanai. Those were still a rarity even in the multi-diverse Blauw Empire.

It wasn’t that the other organizations in the Region were racist, but they simply chose to recruit the mainstream Races, sadly refusing most others. Even then, these top organizations, and any other in the world, can make do with such choices.

When the 4th month arrived since Heian Ciemnosc’s arrival in the Blauw Empire, the inland northern forest was ‘filled’ with machines and transporting vehicles always coming in and out, heading towards the Feathered Valley Pavilion’s territory or the forest itself. Nonstop, all day and night long, the Blauw Empire gathered resources, inviting great attention to themselves.

However, while 6 of the top 7 organizations could no longer do anything with the Empire’s enterprises, they could try something inland. Nonetheless, nothing of the sort happened. As time passed, those organizations seemed to have understood they couldn’t do anything to these harmless, honest workers. But it didn’t mean that it was entirely tranquil between each other, especially between the Blue Emirate Grotto and the Feathered Valley Pavilion.

During the following 2 months after the 1st month, Heian Ciemnosc continued to witness duels and even a couple fights to the death from both sides in the neutral zone. The valley had some of its members killed in the latter, but the lives they took from the former were much grander. It was to be expected. The Pavilion was one of the 2 closest top organizations to the Second Step. On the other hand, the Blue Emirate Grotto was over the First Step’s peak level but not at the Pavilion’s heights.

Although the Pavilion began giving more weekly lessons to its members, precisely to showcase who was still atop everyone else in the Region, it experienced a shortage of higher-ups giving the daily, free lessons. However, the Pavilion’s Inner Members helped the Members with the things they didn’t understand or needed guidance. Consequently, the Members aided the Auxiliary Members in whatever they could help.

It was too early to show their mutual support’s efforts, but the Blue Emirate Grotto could feel something was brewing within the Feathered Valley Pavilion. Fortunately for them, to put it in some way, the Grotto didn’t have to wait for long to understand what was happening. In the 4th month’s last week, the Blue Emirate Grotto witnessed an unthinkable development. An Inspector challenged one of their purple clothed strongest experts, a Grotto Instructor!

The challenger was a Dantreulity realm 1st stage, recently broken into this realm a few years back. The challenged was an elder well past his prime, over 450,000 years old, with most of his hair gone gray and white. His cultivation base was also at the Dantreulity realm 1st stage. However, besides having more experience, the Grotto Instructor also owned an Artifact, a top-notch Mortal weapon, and had refined his techniques to the peak.

Yet, when the challenger started the fight, with not 1 feathered, flying Creature, but 2. The challenged was bewildered. So far, the Feathered Valley Pavilion could do this, but only the pale purple clothed or golden and purple clothed experts! Now that a purple clothed Inspector started the fight in this way, the challenger had to go all out! The elder’s Artifact and Mortal saber came out right away, flashing in the night, as the challenger flew and worked in coordination with his Fauna’s movements!

The Artifact proved to be troublesome, always entrapping 1 of the feathered Creatures along saber beams. But the challenger forced the elder to retreat, never injuring the flying Creatures other than with superficial wounds. The elder had more Neutral Energy in his Dantian, so the younger Inspector couldn’t battle for attrition. That wasn’t his plan either way. With a flashing bout of Neutral Energy, a thin but long Wind burst from a sudden uppercut motion from his left arm.

When it first happened, both sides didn’t know what it entailed, but when the elder received the attack, he was impressed by the aftershocks his body received, cutting through his purple clothes and prickling his skin, with some even superficially stabbing his body! The remaining half of the fight went on with the elder forced into the defensive, and from then on, he could only strike twice before being defeated.

In one last flashy yet efficient maneuver, the Inspector sent another 2 guided Wind bursts laterally towards the Grotto Inspector. After they flew downwards, arched and rotated left and right, and were about to strike the elder cultivator, the Inspector placed his hands together and raised them to the sky. A strange, deformed energy bout blinked into existence. At that very moment, one of the iconic Art moves from the Pavilion was performed by an Inspector! This shocked the other Grotto Instructors watching the battle even more!

The Art move flew down, instantly surpassing the 2 thin but long Wind bursts, shockingly reflecting on the older cultivator’s eyes right before everything went ‘bum’ and a small, distorted, transparent cloud formed around the area of effect. The 2 Wind bursts didn’t delay or slow down, crashing against the small cloud half a second later. In the end, what resulted from this combination was the Grotto Instructor kneeling on the ground, bloody, with one of the feathered, flying Creatures holding his left shoulder with its right claw.

Its claw was long enough that if the Creature clutched it, it would turn the elder’s heart into mush. The younger cultivator flew down and set his feet on the ground, slowly walking towards the helpless, alive, and non-heavily injured older cultivator. His left hand had another transparent bout energy wrapping around it. Stopping before the Grotto Instructor, he formed an impactful image. It became engraved in everyone’s eyes that night.

Needless to say. From that night onwards, the Blue Emirate Grotto’s members no longer came out a lot. In fact, they focused on hunting Fauna, collecting flora, and partaking in every available mission. No longer daring to face off the Feathered Valley Pavilion, it resulted in an even more peaceful time between the Blauw Empire and the inland territory. But one thing was for sure: the Pavilion didn’t become friends with the Blauw Empire, and even if they did… it wasn’t for free… And this difference in just a few months compared to hundreds of thousands of years… it was too much not to consider… However, everyone had their own agenda.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

… 5 months and a week passed like this, and Heian Ciemnosc’s first year in the Palace was completed. After the incident at the end of the year’s first half, things smoothly went as snow was spotted falling onto the organizations’ territories more and more. Meanwhile, the cold at the sea was increasing, but the storm above the Blauw Empire’s sky was still raging until the last days of the year.

Things also changed as the end of the year passed. The workers started spreading to other organizations’ territories. Not from the top 7, but the small fish at the shores, whose crops and rearing of Fauna were substantial for the Far East Region. In the 7th month of the year, Heian Ciemnosc started sending more workers there, whose number increased to 60,000,000. The vast inland territory was traversed by the Empire’s people, born at the sea.

However, they could only walk through small parts nearest to the shore and closest to the Feathered Valley Pavilion. The Blauw Empire was surely starting something divine. The top organizations could smell it, but with the secrecy and the increased counter-espionage, since Heian Ciemnosc arrived, it was impossible to catch a whiff of the Empire’s plans.

In the 8th month, Heian Ciemnosc increased the number of workers to 70,000,000 and began spreading them throughout the shore organizations nearest to the Clashing Dust. Heian Ciemnosc didn’t attempt to establish a communication or deal as he did with the Feathered Valley Pavilion. He didn’t bother to try and see if the Blauw Empire was now famous. He knew its situation well.

Instead, the Cult chose to exchange a few materials with the Blauw Empire to let them walk around their part of the north. Like this, Heian Ciemnosc secured the Blauw Empire’s accessibility to the northern inland, the most prosperous part of the Far East Region. Thus, the second half of the year brought many different Fauna and flora to the Blauw Empire, not only from the northern shores, but also everywhere else, consisting the Feathered Valley Pavilion’s territory.

It was a complicated matter whenever the Blauw Empire felt threatened by sudden cultivator teams showing up near them, especially when they were closer to the neutral zone’s borders. It was a long line from the east to the west, from shore to the Far East Region’s western border. Not everyone was from the Blue Emirate Grotto, and they even saw a few True Dragon House teams ‘accidentally’ bumping into the Blauw Empire’s workers in the Pavilion’s territory.

Nothing like a conflict came of it, but it was a good scare to whichever Blauw Empire worker team had to scout for another place to gather resources. After several months, the Blauw Empire’s citizens and civilians were used to the hard work. They still needed a cultivator’s help to move the heaviest and most complicated machinery pieces, but they were told by their superiors that the venerated assigned supervisor was already working with their Empire’s engineers to design a mass-producible set of machines for energy-less folk.

Additionally, with their usual conversations, chats, and even free time spent with the Pavilion’s teams sent out to protect them, the workers became more used to this lifestyle. If there was any accident, one of the protecting teams would bring them in a rapid transporting vehicle from their Covert Space bags straight into the emergency rooms, newly built this year, in their individual territory.

Naturally, some other things occurred, and by the 9th month, it wasn’t weird to see Feathered Valley Pavilion folk and Blauw Empire’s workers mingling together exactly as one would imagine how nature would have it. And at times, there would even be sudden clamors at night when the civs and citizens slept. People sleeping with other people in their tents became a common occurrence that was further ignored by the 10th month.

When only 2 months remained before the end of the year, the Blauw Empire no longer moved around, looking for more resources. It wasn’t a problem to keep expanding, but it wasn’t necessary. If this was the Blauw Empire from a couple years back, it would be struggling to keep such a giant number of workers getting paid. However, now, with the enterprises and the quick use of newly collected supplies. It was easy peasy.

As a result, with no further changes, the workers became used to their livelihood outside their homes. However, thinking for the non-cultivator, Heian Ciemnosc designed a policy, rapidly approved by Empress Shuna, to have these civs and citizens taking turns every 3 to 6 months, depending on their desires, to rest back at the Empire. It was obligatory. If not, there would be hardcore non-cultivators thinking they could go on indefinitely.

Thus, at the end of the year, whether they wanted to or not, they would have to return and spend time with their people, family, lover or enjoy the fruits of their earnings after a long year of hard work. They were paid well. Universal coins would work in any civilization but are only useful for both citizens and civilians. If they overworked more than what their examinations and physical and mental tests instructed, they were paid a little more, but not that much, so as to not encourage them to kill themselves slowly.

Without any interruption, time passed, and in the 11th month, it started to snow. However, snowing was just the ‘warning’ before the true snowing of the inland arrived. The pure energy in the Far East Region would ensure that any living being had at least a few months to prepare whenever winter came. And so, the workers were unbothered and preoccupied by it. Still, they did spend some time watching the slow and rapidly melting, warm snowflakes fall from the sky while drinking a warm beverage.

Heian Ciemnosc spent most of his time preparing Little Ish’s apprenticeship and training, immediate and for the future. He started teaching Empress Shuna about the Soul-exalting Old World parchment after the second month, when he planned to teach his little apprentice about it, too. They were both exemplary learners. Although the little girl had a few problems, he only taught her what she needed to prepare for.

He couldn’t go all-out since her Soul wasn’t formed, and her talent in that power source was pathetically awful. But she could start readying herself up for the things she would have to comprehend. Yet, Heian Ciemnosc didn’t let it take most of her time learning under his guidance. That would be a big mistake, one nobody would feel smart after realizing they ignored the possibility of delaying their pupil’s cultivation start.

In any case, Heian Ciemnosc’s tutelage proved top-notch for the little girl. After 3 months, Empress Shuna was surprised to know her little girl had managed to break through another realm again. Since Blauw Ishikyy took 1 whole month to break into the Ashes Apperception realm even when she was already at the peak of the Obsidiafying realm, Empress Shuna believed her daughter would need half a year to breakthrough again, considering this pace.

Empress Shuna didn’t mind since she knew a formidable cultivator even forced their cultivation base backwards if they had made a mistake, let alone retain it in a state for as long as possible, that was from the oldest books possible. Yet, when her daughter broke into the Spirit Birth realm 3 months later, she became ecstatic and proud. Then, when she called her daughter to the throne room with the rest of the Empire’s hierarchy, her cultivation base’s stabilization and foundation amazed them, along with her mother’s monarch's proud eyes.

From then on, if Little Ish had already thought Heian Ciemnosc was cool… Then, now, she believed he was the best. He made her become a cultivator that surprised everyone in her Empire’s hierarchy! She had read, mostly from the books her personal Imperial Teacher made her read hundreds of times a day on the first and second days, that only the greatest figures of her Bloodline accomplished such feats when they were young but not as young as her!

She liked the feeling and felt she could become addicted to it gladly. Fortunately, Heian Ciemnosc’s palms made it impossible for her to keep those thoughts and ideas. Especially since he started using his dark claws just to threaten to pinch her already flat bum flatter. She might be a little girl, but her instinctive nature to protect her body’s beauty was unquestionable.

After she broke into the Spirit Birth ream, Heian Ciemnosc allowed her to sit on the edge of his Ornament’s windows. She was now seen in her red, dull training clothes while workers went back and forth. It took them 4 months to realize why accidents kept happening when they were returning to the Pavilion’s individual territory or towards the supplies’ gathering sources. From then on, they only looked at Heian Ciemnosc respectfully and in fear and bowed to their princess.

They knew this was the assigned supervisor’s way. After the Blauw Empire and the Feathered Valley Pavilion became slightly more friendly, rumors about Heian Ciemnosc’s striking a deal with them rapidly flew everywhere in the working sites. The workers were thankful. Nobody expected an outsider to offend others so much for their sake. However, they also realized they were barely knowing their Empire’s assigned supervisor and the revelations were overwhelming for citizens and civilians.

Yet, while Empress Shuna was busy working with forming more enterprises and effectuating everything Heian Ciemnosc needed to construct as many things as he wanted outside the workers’ affairs, her daughter broke into the Ashes Soul realm 3 months after breaking into the Spirit Birth realm… Now, Heian Ciemnosc was talking. Empress Shuna started giving Heian Ciemnosc a more casual glance rather than an indifferent and royally cold stare.

Yet, not even 3 months later, when Empress Shuna was starting preparations in the entire Empire’s territory for the winter, for the citizens and civilians… Her daughter broke through again! Her Little Ish became a Crabstynian realm cultivator! At the age of not even 12!! This was crazy!

However, Heian Ciemnosc was just as astounded. This little girl’s cultivation talent was a definite one of a kind, but she had no Special Body whatsoever. It was pure talent… Besides that point… the little one worked really hard to cultivate, meditate, learn, and understand the truths of the world. She was unstoppable, and Heian Ciemnosc couldn’t know how much she skipped sleeping and how much she replaced it with meditation or cultivation.

It wasn’t just her stupidly perverted cultivation talent. She herself was the reason she could progress this fast in this short time.

…