The Path of Ascension Chapter 364

Chapter 364

Knowing they were teleporting back to the Empire, Matt had expected them to appear back on the Capital, possibly in Allie’s penthouse apartment, or somewhere awful and annoying as a prank. Instead, he found himself in a perfectly sealed room with dozens of high-Tier formations layered one on top of the other to a degree that even a Tier 48 would struggle to break out if he didn’t miss his guess.

His initial reaction was to panic, but he forced that reaction down when he saw that Allie was calm.

She thankfully explained with a sigh while impersonating Manny’s lecturing voice, “Any and all travel outside the Empire means time in the containment room Allison. Any thoughts to avoid the containment room means a trip to the room to see if any impulses have been buried. It’s for your own good and it’s standard procedure. Wah wah wah.”

That made a lot of sense, so Matt didn’t complain like Allie started to. He instead tried to connect to the EmpireNet as they waited to see what had been going on while he was away. Except his access was blocked. He should have expected that from Allie’s description, but he was still annoyed that there was nothing he could do but wait.

He was just about to ask how long they were going to be detained when a familiar face walked in. Melinda’s mentor, Baxter.

“Alright. Drop any veils you have, stop any spells, and please don’t complain. If you complain, I’ll start complaining. And I promise, I have more to complain about.”

Matt felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as the implications set in. If a Tier 40 something was complaining about this process, Matt wasn’t sure he wanted to go through with it.

It ended up not being that bad, as he’d gone through similar things before, but Matt still found himself a bit spiritually sore after two weeks of intensive medical tests. Between the rounds of rote questions, giving control answers and basic physical scans for any kind of implanted bugs, he was given a spiritual shakedown – literally, in one instance. The specific ways in which his spirit responded to given forms of trauma were measured for any deviation from his prior baselines, as well as any tell-tale signs of lingering mental compulsions or deep-implanted thoughts. He’d also need to have a few follow-ups some time in the next century or two, but no sooner than five years out, just to make extra sure they hadn’t missed anything.

That last part made him perhaps a bit more sour than he needed to, and when Allie exuberantly asked if anyone wanted to hit a club with her, he probably responded a bit more curtly than he intended.

She acted mock-offended, then in turn pitiable as everyone gave their actual pressing concerns. Zack wanted to check in on a few secretive projects he had going on, while Aster needed to start preparing for her own duchy’s arrival, as well as deal with her ice cream business after having been absent for a decade.

Matt and Liz played a quick few games of rock paper blade, but he lost, and so had to deal with the nobles that were no doubt waiting for them on Lilly. Meanwhile, Liz went to check on her bloodline research teams.

From the gloating look on both Lizzes’ faces, he was pretty sure he had been played somehow, but he was sure she hadn’t cheated in any obvious way.

Making a note to investigate the situation later, Matt resigned himself to dealing with the nobles.

Thankfully, Liz’s team was primarily based out of the Capital, and for all her complaining about them abandoning her, Allie intended to stick around the Capital for a few months. Or at least, use it as a base. What Allie considered ‘remaining close’ was more reminiscent of ‘checking in’ for most others.

Still, it meant Liz would catch up with him in a week or two at most, and while he would have dealt with the largest issues in that time, she would be arriving just in time to help with the drudgery.

After saying their goodbyes, Allie, after a bit of jokey cajoling, teleported them where they requested.

Knowing he just needed to get things done, Matt flew over Margaret’s palace.

Before he could even arrive, he was inundated with requests to speak with him.

Most were from nobles arriving to the slowly forming duchy, but they were nonvital, so Matt just pushed them off by a few days. Thankfully, most were understanding that he had just arrived back to the Empire after having been gone for a decade, but there were a few who were insistent that he needed to talk to them immediately.

Matt looked for Cato but found that his seneschal was off-world overseeing the delivery of one of the worlds from the Clans, but should be back in a day or three. Hoping that Isabella might be around to help, he saw that she was halfway across the Empire at an auction in Liz’s place, trying to buy valuable bloodline resources from a private collection that were being sold off.

Cursing his luck, Matt resigned himself to dealing with everything without any help.

In reality, the two seneschals had dealt with most of the problems that had popped up, but while they could act in their stead, they weren’t Matt or Liz, and there were things that the dukes needed to make decisions on.

He was tempted to check in on Titan’s Torch, just to see how they were progressing, but Matt knew that if he did so, he’d spend the next week going over test results. To resist, he just told himself that he had a month scheduled to visit the guild once this was over, and if he didn’t want to dig into that time, he needed to get through the paperwork.

Diving in, Matt trusted Cato’s ordering of the issues and just started from the top.

The very first issue wasn’t what Matt wanted to see, and if it was any indication of what was in the pile, it was not a good sign.

It seemed that when Matt expanded the island for his guild and tried to save the underwater ecological systems near it, he wasn’t quite successful. While things had seemed fine for the first decade, in the last ten years, the aquatic life had started a death spiral.

Cato had hired a specialist to come and fix the issue, but it was estimated that it would take another decade before things were both stable and returned to their pre-expansion levels.

He mentally kicked himself that he hadn’t just hired a specialist in the first place, and made a note to get some lessons on ecological sculpting sooner than later. He was sure he was going to create an island himself at some point, and didn’t want to create another environmental collapse when he did.

While that was personally annoying, that issue was at least being fixed. The majority of the remaining issues were ones that only served to anger Matt.

He tried to tell himself that these issues weren’t representative of his nobles and fief in general, but simply the worst of the issues that had built up over a decade. But it hardly helped.

One of his prospective nobles, not-yet-Baron Stevin Lin, had gotten black-out drunk on a neighboring ducal capital at a… Dynamic Extreme Tag tournament? He had to find exactly what that was, and was rather baffled at the result. He supposed it made for decent evasion practice, but what kind of entertainment was there in just watching some people chase each other when they couldn’t even use direct attacks to hit each other? Either way, while getting drunk would have been embarrassing, it wasn’t an issue that Matt would have needed to know about. Except, Stevin was very much rooting for the losing team, and when they had lost, his second feature had come out: he was an angry drunk. He had then proceeded to start a fight with a neighboring set of fans who were celebrating their team’s victory.

The fight had started a stadium-wide brawl that overwhelmed the local guards and forced the duchesses’ personal guards into action. While no one had died, thousands had serious injuries, and everyone’s fingers were pointing blame at Matt’s not yet baron.

Rightly so, but the issue was that officially, Empire nobles could only be charged by their own lieges or with their lieges permission. And unless Duchess Cynthia Barbant wanted to escalate the matter to the Emperor himself, she needed Matt’s nod to punish the idiot.

Initially, Duchess Barbant had only been pushing for monetary fines to cover the costs and a small punishment, but not-yet-Baron Lin had thrown Matt and Liz’s names in the Duchess’ face, trying to get her to back down based on their Ascender reputation.

Justifiably annoyed, Duchess Barbant was now pushing for the maximum possible punishments. She hadn’t outright challenged Matt and Liz, but the situation was only a hair away from her doing exactly that, which was undoubtedly Baron Lin’s intention.

Would Matt and Liz’s pride as Ascenders force them to interfere now that they had been challenged?

From the perspective of public opinion, Matt understood what Baron Lin was thinking. The reputations of Aiden and Lila were quite ferocious, after all. But knowing them personally, Matt knew neither of them would have interfered for such a matter unless it was to crush Baron Lin himself for trying to drag them into his issues.

Matt wouldn’t go that far, though he was seriously tempted after reading the transcripts of the encounter with the Duchess.

Instead, he just rescinded Stevin Lin’s noble appointment and sent Duchess Barbant a blanket apology offering to cover any costs that weren’t able to be seized from Stevin’s accounts.

He was tempted to do more, but he was already irritated and decided he didn’t need the stress of pursuing the issue further. His day had already been long, and it was only getting worse.

Viscountess Martha Yates had decided to take her planet’s relocation into her own hands, causing massive damage when she forcefully disengaged her teleportation tethers without going through the proper procedures.

This act outright destroyed the teleportation tethers on the three connecting planets. Repairing the delicate formations had a cost easily in the Tier 35 mana stone range.

Reading her excuse, Matt wanted to strangle Viscountess Yates. Her planet’s location had been temporary; they were simply using the Tier 9 world to extend their anchor deeper into chaotic space, but they had noted where her final location would be, which she had known about.

When a change in chaotic space eddies had blown in the proper direction, Viscountess Yates, trying to save a trip for a Tier 40, had disengaged her tethers to try and let the currents move her world for free.

Matt almost wished she had failed in her maneuver, because then he could have strung her up, but she had succeeded and moved her planet into the proper location. She even managed to reestablish the tethers, properly locking her world in place in a stark contrast to her leaving.

If she hadn’t ruined teleporters on three other worlds, Matt might have congratulated her, but now he needed to decide just how much her success weighed against her failures. Plus, the cost to move the planet had been part of the war reparations paid by their enemies, and the repair bill was, unfortunately, very much not.

Matt wanted to punish her, but he needed to balance that against her actually taking the initiative. Neither he nor Liz wanted nobles who were only able to follow orders. Viscountess Yates had also not shied away from taking blame for her actions in causing the destruction of the other worlds’ tethers. She had mildly implied that the late tether breaks were the fault of the other worlds because they hadn’t trusted a quick message to break the tethers, which further pissed Matt off, but she hadn’t outright stated it.

He was tempted to just remove her and replace her with one of her family members, but even Matt felt that was going too far, and decided to wait until Liz could weigh in. Instead, he gave her a provisional punishment of being forced to repay the damages. No matter what he and Liz decided, she would be paying them back for the costs, but further punishment could wait until Liz arrived and he wasn’t so angry.

A few other issues weren’t so bad, but just when Matt was thinking he had gotten through the worst of the cases, he came across a hot topic just weeks old.

Baron Thomas Lane had, in a blatant attempt to suck up to Matt, paid for all the orphans to spend time at the local PlayPen and use those local faculties. If their orphanages had been giving advanced combat classes pre-awakening like Matt’s had, that might have been a positive, but none of them had, and the PlayPen Director had rightly prevented any of those children from entering the rifts, which had sparked conflict between the director and Baron Lane.

Things had gotten so bad that several buildings had been destroyed, a number of children had rioted, those who had been there originally were angry about the influx and overwhelming of the local faculties, while the orphans were angry their hopes and dreams weren’t being lived up to.

In theory, giving orphans a chance to delve and advance at the local noble’s expense was a great idea, but the execution was so flawed, Matt was tempted to go punch some logic into Baron Lane.

Before that happened, he needed to take care of the children. As much as Matt didn’t want to do it, he overrode the PlayPen Director and authorized them to stay. At the same time, Matt set up a system where the children would be broken up and spread amongst ten other worlds to reduce the impact to the PlayPens, while he put out an open offer for anyone over Tier 10 who had teaching certifications and could spend a few years getting the children at least competent in the basics.

Matt also paid for a number of Tier 8 skills to be distributed just to ensure they were in a good spot, and not hurt by what should have helped them.

He wanted to do more, but the planetary AI was already warning him about overstepping the typical limits, and he needed to use his ducal overrides to shut it up. While Baron Lane was an idiot, he had tried to help the children who were most likely to slip through the cracks and remain in the lowest rungs of society, so Matt wasn’t going to be too harsh on him.

Doing something that helped people for the wrong reasons still helped those in need and mattered.

The children in question wouldn’t have starved or ended up homeless, the Empire wouldn’t allow that, but many of them might have been unable to join a guild or get a delving slot, which would have allowed them to improve their situations through their own efforts. There was always the white collar route of improving one’s self, but without a Tier or two behind them, they wouldn’t be as desirable candidates as others who had money to spend on advancing themselves.

Just as he was finishing up dealing with a Baron who was failing to deal with an invasive species of fungi, Cato, who had just arrived, caught his attention.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“My lord, the latest report from Soerilia has just arrived.”

Matt looked up, finding Cato bowing in front of him, and he was bewildered that it had really been three days of paperwork already. He had to wonder just how the Emperor did this all the time.

Matt closed what he was doing and opened up the files that represented Soerilia, thinking a change of pace might do him good. The first few years’ reports from the overseeing administration team were disappointing, but not unexpected. Soerilia was, on all accounts, failing to meet expectations on their unveiling process.

He wanted to blame everything on pure incompetence or malice of the leaders he had met, but most of them had been replaced. Not because of anything he or the Empire had done, but because they had simply aged out. Even if they hadn’t been elected officials with limits to their term lengths and the need to win elections, it had been twenty years since they had originally integrated the world.

That time meant very little to Matt anymore, but it was a significant portion of a low-Tier mortal’s life. It was a quarter of an average unawaked mortal’s life span of eighty years.

It wasn’t all bad however. The first five years of reports showed there was progress happening. Most of the positive progress was in the Roland method: they had created a basecamp and it had taken off with numerous people flocking to the city, but that was to be expected.

A large part of the Roland method was using the economic wealth that cultivation brought, the plethora of monsters that granted essence, and untouched wilderness that contained valuable resources to drive people into the area where the secret would be impossible to keep. Mana and Tiered items were better than a goldmine on those planets, and the untapped Natural Treasures the Republic had seeded on Soerilia were extremely valuable both on and off planet.

The saying that a secret wasn’t a secret if two people knew about it might not be technically true, but it was accurate enough in these instances. That was helped along by a few well-placed encouragements for people to start openly using magic in small but noticeable ways. Slow, but ever increasing exposure was key.

If only the rest of the planet was progressing as well.

A number of countries were going through recessions, or in one instance, an outright economic depression thanks to a variety of circumstances Matt didn’t have the time or mental space to properly delve into. The administration team had done what they could within the bounds of the remnants of the veil, and while that had prevented absolute collapse, it hadn’t fixed the problem quite yet. Their estimates put the issue at needing another decade at least to right itself without more direct intervention.

Matt could accept all of that. Things happened, and with so many moving parts, it was difficult to ensure everything worked properly.

What he found harder to accept was the plethora of new leaders who just outright refused to accept the facts as they were, and were effectively burying their heads in the sand.

One of the elected leaders of a midsized country had even attacked the admin who was overseeing his awakening. He hadn’t been able to hurt the Tier 15, but the act spoke of a deep issue in Soerilia and Matt wasn’t sure exactly what needed to be done to fix that.