Revolution

For some unexplained reason, when Hollie looked into Seth’s eyes as he told her to announce the kingdom of his return, a sense of excitement started growing inside her, and her exhaustion disappeared. Her air energy swirled around the hall, extending over the entire capital.

Usually, one of the court officials would make the announcement, but this time it was Hollie herself that did it.

“People of Endora, King Seth has returned. Asteria’s teachers and leaders of the Knight Order, please assemble in the throne room for a meeting.”

Her announcement was short, but Seth didn’t care about it that much as he nodded with a smile and walked to sit on his throne.

Seeing Hollie walking to sit by the side of the throne, Seth smiled and made two new thrones next to his. His throne had a hulking, imposing, and simple design, but the two new thrones had a much more exquisite one, clearly made for women.

The one to the right of Seth’s throne was pure blue, while the one to the left was a pristine white. Hollie smiled briefly once she saw Seth adding the two thrones and understood Seth’s intention, sitting down on the white one.

“Thank you.”

“No need. I already told you we’ll rule this world together, and you two deserve to sit here a lot more than I do either way.”

Hollie nodded silently, a subtle smile appearing on her lips as the door to the throne room opened, and a palace official walked in, falling on one knee in front of the two.

He hesitated for a moment when he spotted Hollie sitting at the same level as Seth but knew it was not his place to comment about it and said. “Your Highness, My Lady, the people you requested have already started to assemble in front of the throne room.”

“Open the doors and ask them to walk directly inside. Don’t bother announcing their arrival individually. The meeting will begin once everyone is here.”

“Understood.” Replied the official and stood up to fulfill his order.

Since the Knight quarters and Asteria were not that far from the Palace, it only took about half an hour for everyone to assemble inside the throne room.

“Thank you all for coming.” Said Seth, silencing the soft whispers between the teachers, who were also his former students.

“I apologize for suddenly summoning everyone here, but there are a few things I must announce, and for various reasons, we’re already short on time.”

“That being said, let’s begin.” After his words, Seth created a complex map for every person there, asking Hollie to distribute them to everyone using her energy.

After everyone had a map, Seth continued: “That in your hands is a map of our kingdom. As you might all be aware, while the situation in the capital has changed, the same couldn’t be said about the rest of the kingdom.”

“There are still criminals all around the land, bringing pain and suffering to my people.”

“I asked you all to come here since I intend to fix that problem once and for all. I have marked the location of every gathering spot, village, town, or city of the kingdom.”

“Going around to fix these problems myself will take too long, but as Queen Maya likes to remind me, I’m no longer alone. I have you all and an entire kingdom to help me. That’s why I call for Asteria Academy’s mobilization.”

“Hollie here will be in charge of the process, but I’ll also explain a few things here. You will all separate your classes, form groups of four to six ascended, and have them travel to these places.”

“First objective will be the removal of the criminals. The identification and elimination of these criminals will be left to the discretion of the ascended, but I want no mercy in dealing with murderers, rapists, and slavers.”

“Once the criminals are taken care of, they will have to ascertain the condition of the villagers and work together to help them with whatever they might need, be it food, clothes, or even housing. That’s why the Knight Order will prepare a supply group to follow these students on their mission.”

Seeing Pearl’s hesitant expression, Seth smiled at her and said: “I know we don’t have enough creation ascended to handle creating houses for every village, so I want your class to have one member go to the biggest cities and towns. As for the smaller villages, an earth ascended to create simple mud houses would have to be enough for now.”

“A points system will be implemented to reward these ascended, but I’ll elaborate more on that later.”

“Understood, My Lord.” Replied Pearl.

“Good. Small bandit hideouts are on the way to these villages, marked with two crossed swords on your maps. I want the students to work together and eliminate them. If there are any prisoners in those bandit camps, I want them saved and escorted to the closest village.”

Seeing every teacher nod in understanding, Seth turned towards Sal and Winston. “I heard you’ve been hiring many people into your ranks. That’s good. I also have a mission for the Knight Order, and I’ll do the knighting ceremony for the ones who show the best results in this mission.”

“You’ll tell them to consider this their initiation.”

“Yes, My Lord.” Replied the two, falling on one knee in front of Seth. “We await My Lord’s orders.”

“Long have our borders been open for any criminal to freely pass through. That will have to stop for this kingdom to have a future. That’s why I want you two to coordinate your troops and move to secure the borders with both Oath and Wrath. Your numbers are still far from enough, so I’ve marked the places you must focus on.”

“Luckily, Oath and Wrath had already erected walls to prevent criminals from easily returning to their kingdoms. Now we must also make sure they won’t enter ours. I want you to work with Asteria and have a few ascended guarding those places, preferably one of each elemental energy. Make sure news doesn’t leak out about those ascended, so ask them to use their energies only if any ascended appear. Also, everyone that witnesses them use their energies must be eliminated swiftly.”

“Understood.” Replied both Sal and Winston.

“Good.” Said Seth with a sigh. “You two can stand up.”

After Sal and Winston returned to their feet and took a step back, Seth started speaking again.

“There are also some spots marked with wells on your map. Those are energy springs. I understand you all know what that means.”

“For the moment, we’ll focus on exploiting those inside the kingdom. Asteria will also be in charge of that. I know the vials supplies are starting to run low, so these will solve that problem.”

“When will we depart?” asked Alexa.

“I’ll give everyone a week to prepare, and exactly one week later, all the groups will depart.”

“The mission will likely take some time, so we must begin as soon as possible. Also, the teachers will not depart with the students.”

“Then what will we do?” asked Rebecca next.

“You will remain inside the academy and work on recruiting new ascended from the people that recently joined the city.”

“Also, things at the academy will have to change. Now that we have a decent number of ascended, the vials distribution will no longer be free.”

“We’ll introduce a point system Asteria. Students can use these points to exchange for vials and high shell knowledge. The knowledge up to the third shell will still be free, but after that, they will have to buy it with points.”

“We’ll introduce a monthly point distribution system, which will increase depending on their ranks in the Asteria Arena. Hollie will be in charge of putting the new system in place, so go to her for any further questions.”

Seth continued speaking about a few new reforms, mainly on the academy’s pointing system and his plans for restructuring villages, towns, and cities all over the kingdom.

Once he was done with the mission briefing, Seth spoke about the results of the far north meeting and his plans for dealing with the other kingdoms fixing their eyes on Endora.

The meeting continued all the way into the evening when Seth could feel everyone was getting restless.

“That’s about all for the official meeting.” Seth sighed, sitting up from the throne and walking towards his former students.

The serious tone of his voice disappeared as he said: “Now come and give me a hug. I missed you girls.”

Caitlin was the first to come forward, and Seth gave her a firm hug. After repeating the process with every girl there, Seth organized a small feast for everyone to chat about their time apart.

The feast ended late into the night when everyone returned to their room, leaving only Seth and Hollie inside the dining room.

“Are we going to remain passive to the other kingdom’s moves?” asked Hollie from the side, playing around with a glass of wine.

“For now we will. We’ll focus more on keeping our ascended hidden to give the enemy a false sense of security. We want them to come to us first, so I’ll deal with spies who might decide to infiltrate. I’ll brainwash them into giving false reports, and when they finally decide to strike, they’ll be in a for a tragic surprise.”

Hollie smiled and took a sip of her wine. “Does that mean you’ll leave again?”

“I will but not now. There’s still time until the others mobilize. During this time, I’ll focus on the kingdom’s growth.”

“Growth?” asked Hollie with one of her eyebrows rising, “What else is there to focus on? The kingdom is pretty well developed as it is now.”

Seth smiled and cleared the table, using his creation energy to make a large picture of one of the future cities from his past timeline, complete with huge skyscrapers, cars, a few planes flying above, and so on.

“For our time, yes, the city is quite developed, but I plan on making it skip a few eons into the future.”

“Ascended have their own path, the path of cultivation, but that doesn’t mean humans will be left behind. They have their own path to thread, the path of science.”

Hollie’s eyes started shining as she looked at the beautiful city depicted in the picture created by Seth and kept asking questions about everything there. Seth patiently answered all her questions, explaining little about the technology involved.

“These can all be made by using creation energy, but nothing is stopping the human population from doing the same using their own two hands, other than the lack of knowledge. Starting tomorrow, as everyone will begin their missions, I’ll start gathering a few smart teens and prepare them to become teachers in the new schools I’m going to build.”

“I have all the knowledge people need to build what you see in this picture. All I have to do now is distribute it to them.”

“Can I also attend these teaching classes when I have the time? I’m quite curious about this science.” Asked Hollie.

“Of course. It’s not that different from ascended knowledge; it’s just that instead of applying it by manipulating energy, as ascended do, it will be applied by manipulating the physical objects in the world.” Replied Seth with a smile, destroying the giant picture on the table and standing up.

“Want to have fun tonight? I must make it up to you somehow for covering for Maya and me.”

Hollie stood up with a nod, and the two returned to Hollie’s room, spending the night together.

On the morning of the next day, Hollie headed to the academy to supervise the mobilization of the students, and Seth started preparing his plan for a technological revolution.

‘Give me my first target.’