Royal Palace

With the Holy Kingdom of Endora’s establishment, a lively atmosphere descended over the former population of the Blood Kingdom. Still, Seth had just returned to the ship and spent a short period in the company of his lovers.

A few days later, it was time for him to start working on his next project. After entrusting the system to monitor the people for anyone breaking the law, Seth had everyone vacate the former king’s palace.

Whenever the system would inform him of anyone breaking the law, he would teleport a small note to Sal and have him deal with the problem however he saw fit.

Sal started with a few warnings, now willing to give Seth a bad image, but after discovering his warnings did little to deter people, the harshness of the punishments started increasing.

With the law left in Sal’s hands, the building area in Maya’s, and the farming fields in Amen’s, Seth began working on building a palace worthy of his ambitions.

After mulling over a design for an entire day, the palace grounds occupied a slightly smaller space than the academy, only having two large buildings inside a massive courtyard.

The most prominent building, the Palace itself, only had four rooms.

The Main Hall - the hallway between the entrance and the other halls, doubled as a waiting area for everyone waiting for an audience with the king.

The Great Hall - housed the throne and doubled as an audience room. It was mostly empty, only having a flight of stairs leading up to the throne and ample space that could fit about a hundred people at once.

The Small Hall - served as a feasting area, only being occupied by a long table with chairs on both sides and a small throne at the head of the table.

The Treasury, which for now was utterly empty. It was supposed to house gold for everyone’s use once he finally installed a currency, just as the other kingdoms had.

The other building was the Royal Chambers, where Seth and his harem would spend most of their time. It comprised more than a hundred dormitories and toilets, a large shared bath, a kitchen, a large dining room, practice rooms, a library, reading rooms, and so on.

With him not having much space to work with, he even built a special room for Tiana, planning on showing it to her once everyone moved inside the Royal Chambers.

Seth estimated that building the Palace Grounds would take him just as long as the academy did, primarily because of the detail he had to put into making it. Since he was going for a grand image, the Palace itself would be built entirely out of pure gold. As for the Royal Chambers, which would also house his harem, he had to ensure the greatest level of comfort.

In the summer of the following year, year 676 of the Age of the Ascended, the Capital of Endora finally had completed its Palace, academy, housing, and farming areas.

His academy opening kept getting delayed, Seth finding himself busy with other projects.

With more people joining the workforce and their marble production speed not able to keep up, Seth had to find other jobs for the people.

At the system’s suggestion, he started forming a collective of departments specializing in the administration of specific government sectors, with which he dropped all responsibility on Sal and his order of knights.

Since having ascended providing food and everything else for the people inside the city was unrealistic, there was a high need for the general population to start working jobs.

To Seth’s own relief, his destruction source was finally healed. His progress in cultivation was also not bad since he kept consuming vials to help with his creation energy recovery, and he estimated he would break through into the fourth shell in at most half a year.

His students were in different stages of the third shell; Aleena and Henrietta were the only ones lagging behind. Aleena was approaching the threshold of breaking into the second shell, while Henrietta needed a few months to reach the third.

Now that there was no longer any need for him to worry about housing for other people, it was time to finally open the academy.

After having Hollie broadcast a new gathering message to the entire population, the city population gathered on Seth’s palace grounds, marveling at the beauty of the garden and the Palace itself.

Seth appeared at a small balcony of his Palace, created especially for occasions like this, accompanied by all the other ascended that came with him from the Oath Kingdom, except Lisa, who had not spoken a word to Seth since they had arrived.

He could see a striking difference in the people’s moods right off the bat. They no longer looked as slim and worried as before, some even smiling while casually conversing with others next to them, waiting for Seth to speak.

The people under 30 were the most excited out of everyone there since Seth had already declared that he would choose everyone with an affinity to become a student of the new academy, ranging from the age of ten years old to 30 years old.

Looking over the mass of people underneath, Seth smiled and had Hollie propagate his voice loudly.

“My People.” Proclaimed Seth out loud, just these simple words evoking a wave of cheers from everyone in the crowd. His recent deeds had touched the hearts of everyone living in the kingdom, inspiring a deep sense of appreciation and loyalty.

“We have gathered here today to announce the official opening of the Asteria Academy.” Stopping himself to allow the crowd to cheer once more, Seth explained briefly what it meant to be an ascended, the energies existing in the atmosphere, and so on.

“You will learn more once and if you get accepted by the academy. Behind me, we have the ones that would serve as your future teachers at the academy. Most of them have been my students in the past, so I can personally attest to their knowledge.”

After making sure to introduce everyone slowly, one by one, Seth’s face turned serious."A total of 4302 of you fit the required criteria to become an ascended, meaning you have the affinity for it and an age between 10 and 30 years old."

After giving everyone a moment to discuss and understand the meaning of his words, Seth continued: “That’s right. Over 90% of you will not be admitted into the academy.”

“Some of you might think this is unfair, but energy affinity is something each of you is born with and not something that can be changed.”

“Life is not fair and never has, but my promises for our kingdom still stand even if you can’t become ascended. You can get jobs inside the new departments founded by my knights or open your own businesses, earn food to feed yourself, get married and live your life happily.”

“That is the best I can offer you, and I apologize for not being able to lead you all onto the path of immortality.”, said Seth with a slight bow.

The ones in the know behind him had weird looks, knowing full well that Seth could change someone’s affinities, but they didn’t say anything about it, understanding it was unrealistic for Seth to give over 90 000 people an affinity.

Once the rowdy atmosphere calmed down, Seth continued: “Once you depart from here, if your age ranges between ten and thirty, pass by the academy gates and take a look at the long lists that have been posted there.”

“If your name is on the list, you can come tomorrow to officially enroll in the academy, where the other teachers at the academy will explain everything further.”

“If your name is not on the list, or you don’t fulfill the age criteria, you can come and put a work request with my knights from tomorrow onwards.”

“There will be a huge need for smiths, bakers, cooks, armorers, carpenters, weavers, farmers, and so on. Everyone must work and earn money to buy their own food, clothes, and other necessities.”

“A library would also be built shortly, containing knowledge in different professions. Now that most of you are already able to read, you can go and browse the books there, looking for a profession that would suit you.”

Seth planned to build different kinds of schools for everyone, but that would have to wait until he had enough people knowledgeable enough to become teachers."

“For everyone willing to start their own smithing shop, tavern, or any other kind of business, the construction will be taken care of by us. You can place a request with my knights, and you will be informed when the construction of the new building will be ready.”

Seth spent a few more hours explaining some basic things, announcing the introduction of gold as a future currency, and removing the bartering system that had been in effect in the Blood Kingdom forever.

After Seth had everyone leave the palace grounds, he looked at the amount of dirt left behind and turned towards Pearl and Henrietta.

“We’re also going to need paved roads.”

Pearl nodded with a bow, but Henrietta looked like her heart was broken, and she said: “Can we please have a vacation? I’m exhausted, and I’m sure Pearl is as well. She just doesn’t want to tell you.”

Seth chuckled and hugged her in his arms as he whispered: “Did I say now? We can take it slow and build the roads over time. I’ll also help whenever I have time.”

Feeling Henrietta nod in his arms, Seth looked at the other ascended there and said: “I’ll need everyone tomorrow on the academy ground to take care of the enrollment. I’d do it myself, but I can’t manage over 4000 people alone. We’ll gather everyone in the central arena and split them by energy types.”

“Maya, you will be in charge of water ascended, while Hollie will take the air.” After the two nodded, Seth turned towards Amen and Tiana: “You two will take care of fire and earth ascended.”

“As I have told you, you just need to give them some general guidance at the start and have them use the books in their classrooms to study independently.”

Everyone nodded, and Maya asked: “What about the other energies?”

“Alexa will take care of destruction, Leora of light, Pearl of creation, and Henrietta of time.” Seth sighed before continuing: “As for darkness and space… I’ll take care of it for now.”

Maya knew Seth was thinking about Lisa, so she sighed before nodding.

“If you are somehow busy, you can speak to others to take care of your responsibilities once in a while.” Added Seth, looking mostly toward Pearl, who he would also rely on the most in the near future.

After ensuring everyone understood their duties, Seth created a portal and dragged Henrietta with him. “Maya, Hollie, and Tiana, you come as well.” He added before stepping inside.

The three looked quite excited as they also stepped inside the portal, but to the other people’s surprise, a red-faced Aleena also walked inside before the portal could close.

“Her too?” asked Amen in amazement, but everyone else behaved as if nothing significant had happened and turned to walk out of the balcony.