Diana
“Well, that was anticlimactic.”
Diana Alvaro had just activated a set of four Epic grade F rank artifact spheres around one of the three Pillars of Conquest her force had conquered, each granted to her from the Yin Yang Sage instead of a Rare grade resource from the System. But, for some reason, there hadn’t been a single physical or magical sign of anything happening.
“Space magic of the non-weaponized variety generally is.” The Yin Yang Sage sounded even happier than usual, the level of excitement in her voice almost palpable.
“Shouldn’t I at least be able to sense some magic at play?” Of Latin American and Middle Eastern descent, with tan skin, brown eyes, and long brown hair, Diana was short, which often made people underestimate her, but she had the highest effective Magic stat of anyone on Earth, along with Legendary grade skills, so earning four Rare grade rewards hadn’t been that difficult. It hadn’t exactly been easy, however, so she didn’t want her hard work to have been wasted.
“Not unless you had at least a Law Larva of the space element.” The Yin Yang Sage entered into lecture mode, even while still sounding excited. “All you did was create a spatial beacon. The magic for the teleport will be provided by the System and the initiation of that magic will be on another planet.
“Three, two, one. Alright, they’re coming. You can disable the formation now and head back. They’ll be arriving somewhere random and I’ll send them your way when they get to Earth.”
“And you’re sure I didn’t just doom the planet?” Diana gathered up all four artifacts and put them in the spatial storage ring she’d stolen from the corpse of one of the twelve invasions’ leaders. “Though, why am I asking you? You’re the sketchy one.”
“I’m not sketchy.”
“You made me activate a beacon so another apprentice of yours from some other planet can come here along with two other people, but you won’t even tell me their names.” Diana held out her right hand and gathered energy into her palm before emitting it out, the elementalized mana then forming into a form that looked almost exactly like a pegasus, only made from somehow solid fiery light.
“There are rules I’m not allowed to break.”
“And that is totally not what a sketchy person would say.” Diana hopped onto the yang spirit and it took off into the air.
“Says the one person on Earth with a race and bloodline obviously not from anyone I brought to this planet.” The Yin Yang Sage somehow sounded like she was rolling her eyes.
“We already established this. I have no idea who my mother was.”
“Yet she came to my experimental planet, found the most talented man on it, and then had two children with him and left.”
“Again. I was four when she disappeared.”
“The gall of that woman. Messing up my perfectly good long term experiment.”
“For the better, obviously.” Diana ran her right hand through her long hair like a woman showing off hair products in a commercial. “You wouldn’t have found someone as awesome as me, otherwise.”
“I think you’re objectively the lesser of my two apprentices.”
Diana stopped her showboating and suddenly looked serious. “By how much?”
“Well, three of your skills were provided by her. That’s basically half your power. And she captured all the Pillars of Conquest on her world in a matter of months, while, after a year, you’ve only managed to capture three, even allowing two other native forces to take over one each.” The Yin Yang Sage sounded mock contemplative. “Granted, she found a much better partner than any of yours, but still, if I was going to compare your performances, she’d be a tiger and you’d be a gnat.”
“Hurtful.”
“You called me sketchy.”
“It’s such a good thing you have no actual practical power.”
“She found a loophole which allowed me to act so she could take over the wealth of a C rank.”
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That last part actually kind of stung. Diana had been hearing about this other apprentice since the end of the tutorial and, for a while, she’d thought the woman was made up, an attempt by the Yin Yang Sage to push her to train harder, but now they’d soon be meeting and Diana was kind of nervous. By all accounts the woman was impressive, but the scarier thing was how excited the Yin Yang Sage was for them to meet.
Diana wasn’t the best at reading people, but her impression of the Yin Yang Sage was that the ancient bringer of death basically had the personality of a stereotypical housewife. She liked blood, guts, and death as much as the next homicidal mass murderer, but she really got excited by romance and drama. So, as she seemed to view Diana’s life almost like how Diana would view a good book or TV show, the fact she was so excited for her two apprentices to meet smelled of trouble.
* * *
A couple hours later, Diana arrived at her base, located in what used to be Sydney, Australia, but was now the capital of her own nation, Florin.
After the tutorial, the Yin Yang Sage had dropped her in the area and, as none of the ancient powers of Earth were located in Australia, and the only Pillar of Conquest on the continent had been on the other side, it hadn’t been difficult for Diana to establish her own power in the area, the effects of a Territory making an extreme difference when competing against monsters.
Holding some of the most dangerous wildlife before the integration, Australia wasn’t much different after, and this had allowed Diana’s force to grow quickly through many battles to reclaim land.
“Sorry I’m late.” Having landed on the roof of one of the skyscrapers in downtown Sydney, Diana walked down the stairs to the top floor where the entire floor was taken up by a large sized conference room.
The room was where the Territory government had its weekly meetings and Diana was almost an hour late.
“Where were you, Di?” asked Ezra Walker, an Australian citizen with blond hair, blue eyes, and the type of body which made a lot more sense when you learned he was an olympic level triathlete before the integration. He was the head of the Territory’s third legion, responsible for thinning out the number of beasts along the coast.
“Training.” Diana smiled at everyone in the room. “I was almost about to break through to the next level in my cultivation technique and got caught up in the excitement.”
A few people in the room knew it was a lie, but even they couldn’t be sure as Diana’s Aura stat was quite a bit higher than any of theirs.
“Continue with the report.” Francis Davies was a middle-aged white man from the United Kingdom who’d been in Australia on vacation with his wife when the tutorial had started. Somewhat taller than average, he had brown hair, blue eyes, and a well trimmed goatee which made him look like a classic Hollywood villain, but before the integration he’d been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and had actually been liked, while after the integration he was a very powerful psychic. Diana had appointed him as the Territory administrator, so he was the one who led these types of meetings.
“The birds in the outback are growing into a problem.” James Robinson was from the United States, the son of a pair of Haitian refugees, and he was incredibly handsome, with a chiseled jaw and a perfectly shaped shaved head. Formerly one of the most famous Hollywood stunt men in the world, he had been the stunt coordinator of a major movie filming in Australia at the time of the integration, and now he was the head of the Territory’s second legion, responsible for thinning out the number of beasts in the interior. “We don’t have enough ranged attackers and their ability to fly has enabled them to dominate several areas with high natural mana.”
Mr. Davies turned to look at Diana. “Diana, would you be able to take a week to help?”
“The birds would probably be good training for one of my other apprentice’s companions,” the Yin Yang Sage sent while Diana was thinking.
“No.” Diana smiled at Mr. Davies. “I have some other things I need to do over the next couple weeks, but I should be able to spare some of my time and some extra manpower as well in about fifteen days.”
“Thank you, Ms. Alvaro.” Mr. Robinson nodded his head. He was the type to bring up problems to his superiors early, so the birds wouldn’t start becoming an actual threat for about three weeks at least.
Mr. Davies turned to look at the oldest person around the table, sadly also a man. Of the people high enough ranked in the Territory to be in the room, only about half were men, but of the highest military positions there was only one woman, the head of the first legion, but her legion was off fighting against one of the invasions in Asia, so Nitya couldn’t make it to the meeting. “Mr. Li, what about the movements of the other forces?”
“No big updates,” the old Chinese grandpa spoke calmly. “The Smith Family’s forces in North America are still fighting against the two remaining invasion forces from the Daybreak Empire. The Garcia Clan is consolidating its power in South America after taking down the Daybreak Empire’s third force, while our allies in the African Army are doing the same after we helped take down the two invasion forces there. And the Ice Giants from the Kingdom of Frost are still staying peacefully in Antarctica, treating any diplomatic visitor with the utmost courtesy.
“The Five Family Alliance in Europe has finished taking over the land of the Imari Merchant Union and is now focused on fighting the last remaining invasion in Europe, which we can now confirm is from a force called the Ultra Impressive Golden Legion. They seem to be a C rank force in the Evolon Galaxy Cluster, so, even though they have sent their best, it is expected the Five Family Alliance will either force them to run or annihilate them within the next three months.
“Finally, in Asia, the Chinese Communist Party is still fighting against the Lizardmen from the Kaori Kingdom in Mongolia. Our ally, the United Godless State, along with our own first legion, are fighting against the Flameborn from the Fiery Hell Legion in Pakistan. And the disparate forces in Russia are all being quickly enslaved as the Psionics from the Deep Void Empire are expanding their Territory the fastest of anyone on Earth.”
Li Dai-Zhao was the paternal grandfather of the woman who’d dated and spied on Diana’s little brother, and Diana hated him. But she had to admit the handsome 72 year old was effective at his job, so she’d reluctantly appointed him the head of the intelligence forces of her Territory.