Chapter 149. Mad Empress?
In the Crystal Cube world, Catherina waited a moment until she became certain Cedric no longer had anything to say.
Once she no longer saw any messages from Cedric, Catherina fell into thought, ‘Although the creator acted like he's supporting the old guy hiding in the Temple, he has actually given me several extremely important pieces of news.’
‘First, there's the news that the old guy might target me because of my internet project. Honestly, I already expected this, which is why I happily agreed to share some of the profit with Elisa. Besides showing respect for her achievements in bringing the internet, it's also so she can help me balance Lacius. Although we've reached a deal and I've been consistently sharing my profit as promised, there's still a chance he might get greedy and target me, after all, the source of that profit is the human territory under his control. I just never expected he'd target me, but for a different reason.’
‘But the second fact is the most important one. Although he didn't say it explicitly, the creator has just mentioned that old guy’s weakness. I am unsure how important this faith is for him, but if it's enough to make him crazy, that means it's definitely pretty important.’
Catherina began to concoct some plan while fulfilling Cedric’s task.
If Cedric knew what Catherina thought, he'd definitely look like a wronged wife.
He never planned to give that much information. Who knows what Catherina will do with it.
Just the mess involving the human kingdoms and empires right now is enough to give Cedric a headache.
If the first-rate forces under Catherina and Lacius actually fought, Cedric feels his head might've burst from the stress.
Thankfully, Catherina didn't immediately make any direct move to target Lacius.
As time passed, the efforts of both Catherina and Lacius became evident.
Using the spies he had deployed long ago, Lacius began to influence the overall situation.
The Temple also became directly involved and helped mediate the conflict.
With the Temple’s two-pronged approach, the situation in the human territory slowly came under control.
After a few years of back-and-forth exchange.
During this time, news of a kingdom’s fall spread around the world, and many people who had grown dissatisfied with their respective kingdoms and empires began to launch a rebellion.
Some are purely rebel forces consisting of suppressed civilians, while others are actually led by either the Temple or the Demon Cult.
The chaos caused the kingdoms and empires to become too busy to get involved in other kingdoms’ messes.
Ultimately, during a mediation facilitated by the Temple, Juliana’s kingdom agreed to cede a quarter of the territory they had seized to the fallen kingdom’s royal family. Additionally, the Temple intervened by aiding the kingdoms and empires in suppressing their rebellions, thereby enhancing its reputation.
Along with the propaganda Catherina spread online, the Temple's influence within human territory continued to grow. In his secret chamber, Lacius sensed the boost in his faith energy with contentment.
Though he appeared pleased, he pondered, ‘It appears Catherina is already aware of my need for living beings’ faith.’
‘Considering that both she and Elisia are heroes from another world and appear to be quite close, Elisia was likely aware of this as well.’
Ultimately, Lacius shook his head, ‘Well, it doesn't matter much. At most, I’ll kill them when push comes to shove.’
***
Shortly after the unrest in human territory had settled, Juliana made a bold move that captured the world’s attention.
With her kingdom far larger than the surrounding lands, she declared it an empire, the Starry Sea Empire. She organized a public ceremony to symbolize her empire's reach into the sky.
Thus, the initial two empires and six kingdoms structure in human territory has changed to three empires and five kingdoms.
Among them, Juliana’s empire is smaller than the other two ancient empires. Even so, its economy is absolutely solid due to its maritime trade.
Recently, Catherina has also become involved in the maritime trade business. However, because Catherina mainly trades between the northern part of human territory and the dwarven territory, it doesn't affect Juliana’s empire much.
With the riches, she funded her army and collected resources for her magical research.
At the same time, she has married several men, raising the children without magical talents to help manage the empire’s territory, while secretly contacting demon cultists to create demons and let her children grow quickly by killing demons.
She used those who are against her as fuel to create demons, which kills two birds with one stone.
With her hard work, the foundation of her empire steadily grew stronger.
Once Juliana reached 110 years old, her research bore fruit, and she abdicated as an empress.
Following her abdication, her daughter, the one she has chosen as her heir, rose to the throne.
***
Inside the Divine Space, Cedric watched as Juliana stepped down from her position and began conducting research while teaching her successor.
As Cedric watched her research, his interest was piqued.
What Juliana researched was actually a technique to allow other people to inherit the user’s power.
When he saw Juliana’s research had finally found several seemingly plausible directions, but her lifespan is nearing its end, Cedric decided to help her.
Cedric first bought 3 Level 4 lifespan fruit for 300 GP. Each fruit let her increase her lifespan by 10 years, which should bring Juliana a total of 30 years.
Holding the lifespan fruit, Cedric used the [Divine Intervention: Dream] with only a bit of energy remaining and pulled Juliana into a dream.
During her experiment, Juliana suddenly feels herself growing sleepy.
By the time she opens her eyes, she has arrived in a place surrounded by clouds and golden light.
In front of her, a majestic figure with an ever-changing figure held three fruits, which they handed to her.
The figure gently nodded at Juliana and said in a voice that sounded like the mix of many people of varying ages and genders, “I have high expectations for you. Take this fruit, which can extend your lifespan by another thirty years.”
After she heard it, Juliana saw the surrounding scenery distorted and shattered.
Before the surroundings completely shatter, Juliana heard the figure’s voice, “May you achieve success.”
Back in her laboratory, Juliana woke up with a jolt.
On her hand, there are three fruits that she has seen in her dream.
“Is that real? What happened just now?” It took Juliana a moment to wake up from her stupor. But once she did, Juliana quickly connected the clues and gasped, “Is that the creator?!”
She held the three fruits before eating one.
The moment she ate it, she felt her body regain some vitality.
From someone with one foot in the coffin, she felt herself become a bit younger.
Upon sensing the effect, Juliana quickly consumed the other two fruits and looked in the mirror.
After eating all three fruits, she looked much younger, with most of her wrinkles disappearing.
Looking at herself in the mirror, Juliana’s eyes filled with tears. “Ahhh… This… Now I should have enough time to finish my research. As long as my research is successful, my empire should be able to stand for a long time.”
“May the creator bless my endeavor.”
For the next five years, Juliana continued her research.
At first, she only consumed large quantities of magical animals and water-element magical resources during her research. But soon, her progress advanced, and to break through a bottleneck in her research, Juliana took an extreme approach and began experimenting on prisoners.
As her lifespan slowly came close to its end again, Juliana’s research continued to progress alongside her desperation.
Her bottom line slowly grew lower. From a death-row prisoner, she now took prisoners with blessed power and even sent people to kidnap the blessed from other kingdoms.
In the final stages of her research, she even experimented on her own descendant.
Although she only targeted those who were willing and tried to be as gentle as possible, some of them still died.
Only when Juliana was almost 130 years old did her experiment succeed.
Looking at her teenage granddaughter sleeping calmly on the operating table, Juliana smiled with relief. “I finally succeeded. With this as our main inheritance, my Starry Sea Empire will never lack top-tier combatants. As long as they aren’t too incompetent, every succeeding emperor and empress should always have Level 4 blessed power.”
***
Inside the Divine Space, Cedric watched the slightly deranged Juliana and felt a bit lucky. “Damn it, why did she become deranged like Lacius? Thankfully, I only gave her 30 years’ worth of lifespan, and she’ll drop dead soon. Handling one Lacius is already bad enough for my heart.”
“Still, as expected of a deranged genius, she actually successfully created a way for others to inherit someone’s power. I thought I’ll need to send someone to continued her research after she died.”
Cedric has been observing Juliana during her experiment, and he’s already pretty familiar with it.
Juliana called the result of her experiment the Power Inheritance Ritual.
As the name implies, it’s a way to let someone inherit the user’s power by gently channeling the user’s mana into the target’s body to help raise the target’s level.
Still, due to the limited time, the ritual is still a prototype with many serious side effects.
Among them, the most serious side effects include leaving the user half-dead from severe injury after the ritual and preventing further level advancement unless a miraculous recovery occurs.
The inheritor’s level also won’t reach the user’s level.
Because the ritual works by circulating the user’s blood into the target’s body and the target’s blood into the user’s body in a constant loop. It’s achieved by having both users manually circulate blood in their bodies using their water element blessed power.
This also imposes serious restrictions.
First, both the user and the target must be water element blessed and quite skilled in water manipulation.
Second, the target must have traces of the user’s blood, which means the inheritor must be a blood-related parent, child, or grandchild. The lower the blood relationship, the lower the efficiency.
For example, if the target is the user’s children, then they can probably receive 10-70% of the power. But grandchildren can receive only 5-60% of the power, depending on the ritual’s progress.
Third, there is the limitation of the target’s blood type. Both the user and the inheritor must have the same blood type. After all, their blood will be constantly circulating in both of their bodies.
Thankfully, Juliana has been giving birth like crazy since she ascended to the throne, even until she finally reached menopause. Through the sheer number of children and grandchildren, a target who fulfilled all requirements was finally found.
Feeling the end of her life, Juliana began preparing to help her grandchild inherit her blessed power and take over the throne.
Juliana’s eyes also narrowed as she recalled the few ministers in her court.
Although she has abdicated, her political power remains immense.
Now that she’s mostly hiding behind the scenes, Juliana has caught traces of spies from the Temple and the Demon Cults that infiltrated her court.
After listing their names, Juliana secretly looks for suitable people who can replace them before continuing to prepare for her impending death.
She first began to introduce her granddaughter to many nobles and officials to help her ascend the throne seamlessly.
Then, Juliana prepared some baits and traps for those people so she could handle them all at once.
For example, she started a rumor that spread through the empire's upper echelon, claiming that she, as the empress, had a special manual that she used to advance to Level 4 quickly.
Of course, that's fake. Juliana advanced quickly because of the resources she spent on her training. The amount is probably enough to bankrupt a small kingdom.
She also used Cedric’s lifespan-fruit reward as leverage to spread news that she possessed a method capable of extending lifespan.
If Cedric sees what Juliana does, he'll definitely stop her.
Faking a faster Level 4 method is alright. But anything about lifespan is very likely to pique Lacius's interest.