The next few years were plagued with troubles for Aegis.
Just recently, they found an ancient machine made by the Enlightened Ones, and most of the researchers focused on that machine.
The machine was wondrous, and they believed it was centuries ahead of their technology.
They dedicated all of their Pure Energy production to the machine so that they could see how it worked.
After weeks of injecting energy into it, they could watch the machine making one gram of level four material.
The technology was revolutionary!
It opened their eyes to how Pure Energy was supposed to be used!
They had been mistaken about so many things in the past!
The researchers felt amazing…
But they were the only ones who felt amazing.
While the researchers believed they were making progress in understanding Pure Energy, the Right Arm had troubles.
Leonard Spark, the new right arm, was having difficulties with his job.
It was his job to make the people believe in the Champion.
He did so by making them feel safe and cared for.
He loved helping people, and this role was perfect for him.
Yet, recently, more and more cities acted awkwardly in front of him.
He wanted to help and spread the glory of the Champion, but the cities refused his help.
They just said that they had everything under control.
After a while of this happening, he decided to eavesdrop on some conversations.
What he heard shocked him.
People were saying that he was extorting them!
Apparently, he was going from city to city, offering his services, but as soon as a city accepted the service, the yearly tribute of the city would increase as compensation for his help!
Why would they even do that?!
The devotion of the people was much more valuable than a bit of Zephyx!
The Right Arm tried to rectify the misunderstanding.
He told the people that he was only doing this out of the good of his heart.
However,that made him even more suspicious.
What person saved so many people for nothing in return?
If these people existed, there wouldn't be any poor people anymore.
There was always a payment.
The Right Arm being so adamant about his selflessness just made him seem overeager.
Why was he pushing his help on them so much if there was truly nothing he gained?
Nick knew the new Right Arm, and he knew that he was about as pure and selfless as they came.
However, that was unbelievable to most people.
At some point, it got so far that the Right Arm promised that he would check in within the next year to make sure that the tributes didn't increase.
Yet, when he checked in the next year, he was shocked to find that the city's tribute had been increased by 3%.
Everyone treated him politely, but he could tell that they all believed he was a liar.
If the Right Arm was not the one responsible for the increase in tribute, who was?
Only he had been present.
The Right Arm checked why the tribute was increased in Aegis' database.
The increase was ordered by the Left Arm.
The Right Arm checked the other cities he had helped as well, and it was the same every time!
Whenever the Right Arm helped a city, the tributes the city had to pay were increased by the Left Arm!
Naturally, the Right Arm asked the Left Arm what this was about.
The Left Arm just said that the tribute was based on the city's Zephyx production, and these cities produced more.
It had nothing to do with the Right Arm.
It was just a coincidence.
What they didn't know was that the cities had some "luck" after the Right Arm helped them.
The number of Specters they caught within the next year increased by quite a bit.
But that was also just a coincidence and had nothing to do with the Right Arm.
Yet, as all of the cities kept talking about their increased tributes after the Right Arm helped them, they started to see a pattern.
Whenever the Right Arm helped a city,the city would need to pay more tribute.
The Right Arm and Left Arm had a disagreement about how to proceed.
In the end, the Left Arm decided to give the cities a grace period after the Right Arm visited.
For the Left Arm, this was just an unimportant discussion, which wasn't related to the troubles he himself was facing.
Over the past years, the Left Arm made several wrong calls.
Usually, everything worked out fine when he gave an order, but recently, there had been more and more cases of things going wrong.
Misjudged levels of Specters.
Specters that escaped from chasing Extractors working for Aegis.
And every time, it was due to something unforeseen and unusual.
This made the Left Arm feel frustrated.
The old Left Arm had never made such mistakes.
Was he that much worse than the old one?
Everyone told him that it wasn't his fault and that nobody could have foreseen that something would happen.
But as the person in charge, the Left Arm felt responsible for these mistakes.
By now, the Left Arm was already questioning the intel he had received about the secret Adversary the Inferno and the Icestorm were chasing.
Some time ago, Aegis found traces of a new Adversary, and the Inferno and the Icestorm were supposed to find and capture it.
Yet, whenever they had a lead, it led nowhere.
For the past years, they had been chasing this Adversary, and they felt like they were really close to catching it.
But that was how they had been feeling for three years.
It was like the Adversary was just out of reach.
Meanwhile, the newest Shield, who had replaced the Wall, was under even more pressure.
Within the last five years, he had been caught off guard by Death three times!
Every single time, he just barely managed to escape with his life intact.
But it had been close.
Even worse, Death vanished almost immediately afterward.
Whenever Death attacked, all of Aegis mobilized,but it managed to escape every single time.
However, the person who had it the worst was the Champion.
The new Left Arm was constantly making mistakes.
And even worse, the people of the world were losing faith in the Champion due to the Right Arm's reputation.
The Champion felt his power falling almost every day.
Everyone except for the Tinkerer was suffering.
But that would also soon change…
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The author's . If he gets more than 1000€ per month, he will increase the number of words in the chapter.