Chapter 152. Blunder
After flying for a few days straight, Silvia arrived at the Great Dragon Academy, where Catherina resided.
She quickly sought an audience with Catherina.
Due to the emergency, Silvia tried to finalize the discussion and alliance with Catherina as soon as possible. This left her at a disadvantage.
Thankfully, for some reason, Catherina didn’t push her too hard.
Except for a vague condition, such as promising Catherina to do one thing in the far future that won’t cause much disadvantage to her Empire, or an expected heavy price, such as opening an autonomous city under Catherina’s control within the Starry Sea’s territory, most of the conditions are reasonable.
By the time she returned to the empire, Silvia was accompanied by a few Level 3 blessed from the Great Dragon Academy.
With subordinates from Juliana and assistance from the Great Dragon Academy, Silvia began to focus on stabilizing the empire, which had just lost a considerable number of high-ranking officials.
Although Juliana has prepared substitutes for those people she killed, they are only substitutes. They can’t seamlessly fill the void left by Juliana’s massacre.
The empress’s sudden death has also caused some problems. Even with the assistance of Juliana’s direct subordinates, Silvia is still so busy she wishes she could create clones to split up her tasks.
Thankfully, the Level 3 blessed for the Great Dragon Academy helped her, especially the few dragons among the Level 3 blessed who can serve as Catherina’s representatives and use the Adventurer Guild and Magic Association’s help.
While stabilizing the empire, the Stary Sea Empire’s palace has also been repaired, and Silvia held her coronation ceremony.
Although her empire is still under economic sanctions, it doesn’t stop the surrounding kingdoms and empires from paying her a visit. Except for the Temple, almost every force sent a representative.
Even the mermaids, dwarves, and elves sent some people to look at the new empress.
Some of the visitors sought an alliance, while most simply wished to observe the new empress and see whether she could sustain the newly risen empire.
To dispel their doubts, Silvia used her blessed power to create a massive ball of water in the sky above the palace, then exploded it, causing rain that showered the capital city.
When Silvia revealed her Level 4 blessed power during her coronation, almost everyone was surprised.
She was the youngest Level 4 blessed ever, with the second-youngest almost twice her age.
Almost at the same time, a single idea appeared in everyone’s mind, ‘Is it possible the seemingly fake news about advanced training methods is actually real?’
Amidst everyone’s doubt, the coronation ended.
In response, many kingdoms and empires prepared to send their spies to discover the method Silvia used to reach Level 4 at such a young age. None of them believed even talent could help anyone rise in power that quickly.
***
Reading a report about an influx of spies her subordinates had caught, Silvia massaged her temple. "I honestly don’t want to show off my Level 4 blessed power because I knew this sort of spying would begin. I just didn’t expect it to be this bad.’
"But if I get a chance to redo it, I’ll still choose to show my power. Otherwise, those kingdoms and empires dissatisfied with us will pounce at the slightest sign of weakness, and our situation will be worse than it is now.’
As time passed, Silvia slowly grew accustomed to her duties as an empress.
In addition to her work, Silvia also collected many men to marry. She still needs to increase the number of her descendants, which makes finding a suitable successor for the power inheritance ritual easier.
Every year, a new prince or princess is born, and as they grow up, they marry, further increasing the size of the royal family.
Silvia often spends time in Juliana’s laboratory to study the knowledge Juliana left behind.
She also creates several inventions. Although none of them are on the level of Juliana’s power inheritance ritual, one of the theories she developed has even caught Cedric’s attention.
It’s a theory for a training method that allows the user to absorb ambient mana for training, instead of absorbing mana from magical items with traits similar to their blessed element.
It’s not exactly a new theory, as many others have tried to create similar methods, but Cedric feels Silvia’s theory is the closest to being practical, thanks to the level 4 spell and power inheritance ritual that Juliana created.
Both the spell and the ritual are probably the most profound knowledge in the Crystal Cube world when it comes to transferring mana.
In the Divine Space, Cedric muttered, “Honestly, I want to help perfect the method, but I’m pretty busy preparing for the world’s next expansion.”
In front of him, there was a simulated sandbox of the Crystal Cube world.
“Even if I bought the Dream Flower Butterfly and the Dryad race, I’d probably have enough GP to almost double or even triple the Crystal Cube world’s size, so I’ll need to start planning now. Unlike before, doubling or even tripling the world’s size will require more thorough planning.”
“Then I’ll also need to race against time to create the new fairy race before the world levels up.” Cedric sighed. “Honestly, I’m starting to regret going on vacation, but I’ll probably die from stress if I haven’t done that.”
Cedric continued to tweak the sandbox, occasionally adding or removing species from certain areas.
Sometimes he also reshaped the terrain in the sandbox while contemplating their usage.
While Cedric worked his ass off planning for the world’s advancement, Silvia slowly grew older.
Unlike Juliana, who greatly expanded the empire during her time as empress, Silvia mostly tried to maintain the empire’s order and stabilize the situation.
After seventy years as empress, she finally found a suitable grandson to be the target of the power-inheritance ritual.
While walking through the palace garden, Silvia heard her trusted subordinate report on her grandson’s situation.
“Your Majesty, as you ordered, I’ve kept an eye on Prince Teo. Recently, he has once again secretly assassinated one of his cousins during his fight for a sea route. Although he has done it more cleanly this time, there are still traces that lead us to believe he’s the one responsible.”
Silvia lowered her eyes. ‘I really feel Teo is unsuitable to inherit my position. But there’s really no one else more suitable than him for the Power Inheritance Ritual.’
‘Perhaps the Empire really needs someone heartless to lead it after me. Still, I’ll wait a few more years to see if another, more suitable candidate appears.’
Yet after another decade, no one who met the conditions for the Power Inheritance Ritual appeared.
Feeling her weakening body, Silvia chose to begin her retirement plan.
Just as Juliana had slowly nurtured Silvia to become the new empress, Silvia began to take care of Teo, teaching him how to govern the empire and helping him kill demons to raise his level.
When the nobles and her children saw Juliana’s blatant favor for Teo, everyone panicked.
Although still young, Teo was famous throughout the empire for his extreme cruelty and ambition.
Some nobles and members of the royal family began to side with Teo, while small factions continued to send petitions to Silvia in the hope of changing her mind.
What a pity. Even after Silvia abdicated, there were still no other people suitable to be her inheritor except for Teo.
Bringing Teo to Juliana’s secret room, Silvia used the power inheritance ritual to slowly help Teo raise his power. She stopped only when Teo’s level reached the Peak of Level 3.
She brought the prepared resources and personally guided Teo’s advancement.
Once Teo successfully advanced to Level 4, Silvia once again used the power inheritance ritual to push Teo to reach the limit of Early Level 4.
Seeing her energetic grandson, Silvia returned and prepared for her official abdication.
Because she didn’t overexert herself, Silvia didn’t immediately die like Juliana. Although injured and weakened, she was still a Level 4 blessed, with a body much stronger than normal people.
After the ritual, she won’t be able to use her full power in combat, and her lifespan is damaged. Even so, Silvia looked more energetic.
Without the burdensome title of empress, she feels much freer than before.
She spends most of her time at her personal estate, tending her garden.
Meanwhile, the recently crowned Emperor immediately tries to consolidate his power by launching a purge against those who oppose his rise to the throne, especially those power-hungry family.
During the battle, Teo made a personal move while purging the house of a Peak Level 3 general who had kept sending petitions to Silvia to change her mind.
With the help of the internet and some witnesses, news spread that the new emperor from the Starry Sea Empire had also reached Level 4.
Although not as young as Silvia, Teo has also reached Level 4 at an unprecedented speed. He’s basically the third-youngest Level 4 blessed in history.
The second-youngest emperor has basically convinced everyone that the Starry Sea Empire has a method to let someone advance quickly.
It might or might not be the rumored advanced training method, and it might have serious side effects, because otherwise there wouldn’t be only one Level 4 blessed every 100 years in the Starry Sea Empire. But it still made some people greedy.
Once again, many people infiltrated the empire. But this time, when they faced the young and daring Teo, many of those infiltrators were quickly found and cruelly executed to instill fear.
After consolidating his power, Teo also suppressed other factions in the empire. Whether it was the nobility, the mega-sized merchant group, or the Temple, all of them had their influence and territory taken. The only faction he didn’t touch was the one under Catherina.
Whether it was land, factories, or towns, Teo began to reclaim much of the power Silvia had given up to stabilize the empire during her reign.
To ensure no one could go against his reforms, Teo also shifted the empire’s development focus to weapons, the army, and seafaring technology, which Silvia had pushed aside during her reign in favor of increasing the empire’s self-sufficiency and production capability as an aftereffect of the Temple’s trade ban.
Thankfully, after a few decades, the trade ban has greatly loosened, which is why Teo felt it was a suitable time to shift the empire’s focus.
Still, just like Juliana, he has made a dangerous blunder. He miscalculated the power balance among the world’s top powers.
Although the Starry Sea Empire has a deep alliance with Catherina, whose forces spread far and wide across the world, and is also the undisputed economic giant. When it came to pure power, the Temple was still the undisputed number one thanks to Lacius.
When Teo’s suppression of the Temple branch in the Starry Sky Empire reached the current High Priestess, she reported it to Lacius.
Lacius frowned when the new High Priestess woke him from his petrification, and his frown deepened after hearing the High Priestess’s report.
“It seems that easing their economic sanctions has made them more daring.” Lacius closed his eyes and sensed the massive faith energy stored within him. “I’ll personally teach them a small lesson to minimize unnecessary damage. I can also take this time to purge those Level 4 blessed that have grown a bit too close to reach Level 5.”
There’s also something Lacius didn’t say, ‘I’ll probably advance to Level 6 within the next century, so I’ll need to stabilize the situation so I can prepare with peace of mind.”
“You can go. I’ll handle this myself.” Lacius dismissed the High Priestess and spent a few days processing materials for spellcasting and reading reports on the Level 4 blessed in the world before flying to the Starry Sea Empire.