Damned Healer

The Polar Circle Empire was located a bit north of the Neo-Britannia capital. Darian, Niara, and the twins flew over the sea, and after a few minutes, they spotted a vast mountainous region with several small temperate forests stretching all the way to the horizon.

Back in the 21st century, this area — now part of the Polar Circle Empire — was seen as the far north of the planet, known for its harsh and freezing climate. But after the rise of the new continents, Earth went through many other geological changes.

The biggest one was the shift in Earth’s axis. The Equator line, which used to mark the planet’s center and had the hottest weather, moved farther north.

Now, the hottest region on the planet — and the new Equator line — runs through the center of the Aeternum Atlantis Empire. That change completely altered the climate across Earth, which caused a lot of problems. But today, things were stable and everyone had already adapted.

Because of that, the Polar Circle Empire wasn’t frozen over; only its northernmost region still had that kind of climate. (See the map in the Auxiliary Volume)

The empire’s capital was located near the central region, close to the border with the Solar Federation Empire and the Celestial Order Empire.

That city wasn’t much different from New Arcadia Empire’s capital. Unfortunately, after the rise of the empires, a rule was put in place: there had to be exclusive cities for High Humans and their relatives, and other cities just for regular people.

The twins had asked about that back on the plane. Darian sighed and answered: regular folks were forced to live in isolated and very poor cities, so their lives would be harder... He only learned the real reason later, after Meru explained it to him.

"What triggers people to awaken isn’t as random as most people think. It’s more about... a creative mind and a strong will. Going through a lot of hardship and pushing through it makes someone more likely to awaken. The more High Humans there are, the stronger Earth and the empires become. So yeah, making regular people suffer is totally on purpose..."

The twins were stunned, while Niara didn’t show any reaction. In her universe, everyone had hard lives. Actually, that was pretty much the standard in every universe with power.

Centuries ago, Earth’s universe wasn’t like that, so people had more freedom to live their lives — maybe it could’ve even become a truly peaceful world. But everything changed, and with the appearance of the Spiritual Guardians came the consequences.

Lucy and Lucius took a deep breath. The problem wasn’t the empire rulers. If Earth didn’t produce enough High Humans, other planets would take advantage of it, and things would be way worse.