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655. The Empire's Age of Exploration: Jean Claude's First Guest
🕑 Added 2025-02-07 18:22:49 +0000 UTCThe room became eerily quiet as everyone processed this madman’s words. Was he a hero or a traitor? After treating so many injustices in magical academia, anyone could have become bitter after being proven correct after hundreds of years, especially after being proven correct in a circumstance with such dire consequences. Yet, Kroll still chose to help.
Simultaneously, he was also surrendering to the enemy and thus could be considered a traitor to his homeworld. Everyone had mixed feelings about his situation — except one.
“Virek, is this the decision of the Korak Empire? Do you want to betray us all?” Emperor Karak, his voice booming so loud that this illusion space trembled slightly.
Boom!
Virek stood up and, with one strike, destroyed his throne. He stared at Emperor Karak and yelled, “I’ve had enough of you belittling and attacking me at every turn. Do you want to go to war? Is that what you want? Tell me, and I’ll announce it here and now.”
Kroll was a brilliant mind and could be considered a generational talent. While Empress Serashi was the embodiment of magical talent in the physical form, Kroll could be said to be the embodiment of magic in the mental or spiritual form. The man’s understanding and view of magic and theories differed.
That’s one of the reasons the Korak Empire decided to give him asylum and even provided him funding for some of his experiments. As a result, Kroll has helped them develop their magical civilization, ensuring the nobles of Korak could preserve their power through magic. Before Kroll arrived, the Korak Empire was about to lose its status as one of the Three Empires.
More importantly, Virek had developed a friendship with Kroll over the years of working together. Kroll’s experiments were too expensive, and he only made any progress recently because Virek convinced the Noble Council to give him more money. Now that he was about to lose his friend, Virek was emotionally unstable and did not take too kindly to Karak’s words.
“What did you say?” Karak said as he also stood up.
“Did I stutter?”
“Enough!” Empress Serashi yelled. “Do you two think this is the time to be having a dick-measuring competition? Can’t you read the room?” The two looked at each other, steam almost coming from their ears. They snorted coldly before sitting back down.
“Do any of you plan to surrender?”
“The Sassy Empire does not have any coward,” Korak explained.
“You?”
“We will not surrender,” Virek responded calmly.
“That’s good,” Serashi nodded. No one wanted to give up their well-built power for a promise of some unknown mage or arcanist. And even if Kroll’s words are actual, these people still believe they could deal with Jean Claude, thus buying them enough time to prepare before his reinforcement arrives.
“Since we’ve come to an agreement, let’s discuss countermeasures,”
“What do you suggest?”
“A military deployment of all three Empires and all kingdoms,” Empress Serashi replied.
“This plan sounds doable, but who will control such an army?” Karak asked. No one would easily hand such power to anyone else.
“Who do we know is, without a doubt, the greatest military commander of this world?” Empress Serashi asked. Her words immediately elicited different reactions. Most people had a look of understanding, followed by mockery as they looked at Emperor Karak or the Sassyx Emperor's representatives. Meanwhile, Emperor Karak had an unpleasant expression.
“General Luk Dragonfist,” President Virek said with mockery.
The Sassyx Empire almost conquered the world, and they owed it to one man — General Dragonfist. The man was a military genius. Sadly, he failed in his conquest of the world, and there were two reasons why. The first was the rise of Empress Serashi — the magical prodigy. But the main reason was Emperor Karak himself.
He is a ruler who loves power. The allied force, knowing this, spread rumors and played political intrigue to turn the emperor against General Dragonfist, who everybody knew was a staunched loyalist of the Godblade Royal family. Ultimately, Karak removed Luk Dragonfist’s military power and was even imprisoned. The emperor wanted to kill him, but Luk had so much power and prestige in the military that he did not dare. Of course, this fact further increased his desire to eliminate the latter.
After his capture, the Sassyx Empire slowly declined. Karak Godblade was the world’s greatest warrior but not a military strategist. It took years, but eventually, the three empires recaptured their lost land, and the world returned to a three-way balance system.
“I can’t agree to this,” Karak said with clenched hands.
“What? Do you want us to let you lead the army?” Virek sneered, not hiding the mockery in his voice.
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Serashi said before these people started arguing. As expected, the overwhelming majority agreed with this plan.
…
Jean Claude looked at the elderly man behind the one-mirror glass. Kroll had his entire existence scanned and analyzed to ensure his surrender was not a ruse to infiltrate the tower. Once that was done, Jean Claude met him in a reception room with tea, biscuits, and snacks.
“I understand your custom does not include serving beverages for meetings, but ours does,” Claude said as he motioned for Kroll to sit down. The Language Translation Array in the room allowed them to communicate with no issue.
“I want to be direct,” Kroll said as he sat down without touching the food or drink. “Will you truly accept our surrender?”
“I considered myself a Lawful Arcanist, so, yes, my words are valid.”
“What if I ask that I won't be used as a pawn against my people?” Kroll asked, looking at him directly.
“Are you sure? If you accept to be my missionary to convince your people to surrender, I can offer you better treatment?” Claude asked.
“I’m sure.”
“Well, if that’s what you want.”
Kroll observed him, and with his experience, he could not tell whether the latter was truthful. “So, what is going to happen to me?”
“You’re the first to surrender, so I will give you choices,” Claude responded as he summoned a projection before him.
“Choices?”
“Like staying in this place and living a normal life once I conquered this plane, or you could work for me to help me govern it, or you could become my employee and participate in another plane conquest,” Claude responded while reviewing. “Ultimately, your fate will be decided after evaluating your worth. Huh?”
“Is something wrong?”
“According to your memory, you’re a genius that was studying plane exploration?”
“Is there a problem?”
“You’ve actually met the requirements for special recruit as an Arcanist.”
You mean I can become someone like you who can travel to the endless plane?” Kroll asked with shining eyes.
“You’re getting ahead of yourselves,” Claude explained. “To be honest, most of the upper echelons of your plane will only be used as cannon fodder in plane wars, while the children will become citizens and become Arcanist if they have the talents.
“However, there is a special recruit program for talents of your caliber. You will have to swear a binding oath of allegiance, but that will allow you to directly enter the Empire’s core.” The so-called core was the Faith God World instead of the Arcane World, which was a front for the empire.
“You would allow me to learn your knowledge?”
“The Empire allows the free dissemination of basic knowledge, but higher knowledge requires equivalent exchange. Of course, our basic knowledge is usually extremely advanced for most civilizations,” Claude explained, and his words brought more life to Kroll’s eyes.
“Unfortunately for you, according to the law, this plane belongs to me after its conquest, meaning your research is also my property, so you can’t exchange it for yourself.”
“I guess that’s…fair.”
“It’s not, but there have been many debates about the rights of plane conquest, and this was a new concession on the Empire’s part.”
Many Arcanists felt they should have more rights on the plane they’ve conquered, some even arguing for the right to enslave the people. However, the Empire disagreed and made a few concessions, granting the people more power and rights to ensure this new age's smooth development.
Comments
hector lyng
Thank you very much for the great chapter
