Back at the centermost region of the Capital, on the top floor of the Royal Palace, Heinrich was seated outside. He had moved his study to the balcony, where he could bathe in the afterglow of the setting sun and overlook the development of the kingdom.
Heinrich had a peaceful expression as if he had come to terms with the changes of the kingdom. A ruler shouldn't be inflexible. He had to be open to change. Only then would he be able to move forward.
"Rules are made to be broken, huh?"
Heinrich quietly thought as he gazed into the distant lands, where a silver line could be seen from the Lower District stretching into the north. It was the steel railway track to the Rainwallow City that's still under construction.
He had realized many things upon waking up from his long slumber. He had abided by the royal family's teaching, but at this moment, he truly thought it was outdated.
A higher wall will not protect humanity, nor would a strong grasp over vital resources develop the kingdom if it is not used correctly. The Crawford Kingdom had undergone more changes in the last three months than it did in the last four hundred years.
Would they still need to hide behind a wall, if they had powerful cultivation? The discovery of heavenly crystals had ensured that humanity was on the rise. Heinrich hadn't slacked in his cultivation since he awoke. He was driven to catch up to his wife quickly. He estimated it would take another two weeks for him to reach Transcendent if he devotes all his time to cultivate.
However, that's not possible. Someone had to keep track of the ongoing projects in the Capital, and he certainly wasn't willing to dump that work on others.
The Capital was experiencing its most aggressive development using steal and steam-powered technology, and it filled Heinrich with excitement. He was even tempted to tear down the wall for raw material, but he quickly shook the dangerous thought out of his mind. It was a pity that the production of their alloys couldn't be quicker.
Heinrich was glanced at a piece of paper on his study table, listing the information of the two sects: The Illusory Butterfly Sect and Bloodfiend Sect. These were the current enemies of the kingdom. One was responsible for the recent disaster befell on the Capital, and the other was suspected for the events of 17 years ago.
So far, the information they had on hand was too limited. They did not understand the extent of their strengths nor their numbers. It was strange how they had not known about these two sects before. But what was stranger was how the other kingdoms allowed the existence of these sects to grow to the point of threatening their own sovereignty.
Just what the hell had the Durham Kingdom and the Valaran Kingdom been doing!? And what about the other kingdoms? Were there more dominant forces in their kingdoms too? If there was, would they be a friend or a foe?
Heinrich narrowed his eyes but did not focus on anything in particular as he ponders in deep thought. Each kingdom had its own remnants of ancient ruins. No one could say for certain that there weren't any strong heritage or heavenly crystals lying deeper in those ruins.
Heinrich's concern was if there was, had it already been excavated yet?
A few sheets of paper were blown by a sudden gust of wind from the balcony, but a palace maid immediately leaped out and collected all the papers in midair in an instant, before placing it back on the table in an orderly and practiced matter. It was apparent that it was not the first time.
"Thank you, Jenna."
"Once again, I am not Jenna. I am Lily and it would be great if we can move the study table back inside, Your Majesty." Lily said with veiled annoyance.
The palace maid and corrected for the Nth time. Jenna was her mother. Heinrich did not seem to have heard her as he seem to be pondering an entirely different matter. At much consideration, he started to write a letter, before sealing into an envelope and passed it to Lily. "Send this letter to the Royal University's dean and have him come see me at once, Jenna."
Lily rolled her eyes and accepted. Nothing she said was getting through to the king.
While Elizabeth had Lily serve the king, she was assisting the people in the railway construction. Although Leon might have joked about, she had given it some serious thought after a period of time.
It was true that if they had more metal-users, it would certainly cut down on the construction time of all projects, but the most present issue wasn't cultivating a group of metal-users, but a group of experts.
With the strength of their enemies remaining unknown to them, they did not have the luxury to hoard the heavenly crystals. The crystals were first distributed to the Lancaster family and every member of the royal faction, before finally allocating some quotas to the other nobles.
A single Transcendent might have changed the fate of humanity in the past, but after 500 years have passed, they can't expect it to happen again. They weren't fighting the beasts but among themselves.
Heinrich rolled back in his seat for some brief relaxation, but not long after Lily left, a grumpy Elizabeth returned. He glanced at the blood on her armor, before casually asking, "Did something happen along the tracks, my dear wife?"
"En, some members of the Bloodfiend Sect were trying to sabotage the railway tracks. I tried to capture one alive to interrogate them, but then exploded into a pool of blood." Elizabeth nodded with a grumble.
"So, the sects are already making their next move, huh? Of course, they won't let us develop in peace…" Heinrich said, before raising an eyebrow with confusion. "But why the hell would they attack the railway tracks? They place more importance on the railway than the underground mines?"
Elizabeth was also confused.
Just what did these sects want from them?
…
Back in the 2nd Underground Floor, Leon continued his exploration with the hunting team. He could not detect any ants within 200 yards with his [Spirit Eyes] and began to suggest they split into teams of two to search the nearby buildings, before proceeding deeper. It would save them time, rather than searching each building one by one. After making plans to regather back at the same spot within an hour, the palace guards all picked their partners and left.
All the buildings at least suffered some degree of damages and half-buried, but there were a few that weren't. In addition to all the buildings leaning in a single direction, the rocky ground around these buildings wasn't smooth and was filled with web-like cracks.
From this, Leon could guess that the buildings may have been 'uprooted' from the surface of the floating city. As such, these buildings may be here, but the foundation of the floating city wasn't.
If his theory was correct, the foundation should be lying somewhere in the central underground region of the Human Domain. But then another question arises. How did these few buildings end up so far away from the impact point?
No matter how Leon tried to simulate a giant landmass smashing into the ground in his mind, he could only imagine the floating city turning into a large pile of rubbles in a seismic explosion, while the surrounding clusters of the earth get blasted into the skies before raining back down like meteor shower and the land get swept by a fiery dust storm.
Considering the state of these buildings, it goes to show how high the defensive properties of these buildings had been to survive the impact. Even an ordinary spirit artifact would not be as tough as this. That is to say that each of these buildings was equivalent to a high-grade defensive spirit artifact or higher, or at least they were.
Leon did not believe that the building relied on the defensive properties of its building material alone to survive. In fact, he thought that was simply impossible, not unless it was made of divine-grade material.
The building must have been enhanced with defensive runes. Since they were only equivalent to high-grade spirit artifacts and weren't true high-grade spirit artifacts, they were bound to have weak points.
Leon traced his fingers along with the damages of one such building and thought, 'This must be one of the weak points, where the defensive runes didn't cover.'
"Why did you suggest for everyone to split up and search?" Lilith suddenly asked curiously.
Originally, Leon wanted to search alone since they were an odd group of 23 people, but since he brought her along, he had to be responsible for her.
"It saves time," Leon answered simply.
"I don't think that's the real reason though. What's your real purpose?" Lilith tried to pry with a cute expression.
"Think however you wish," Leon responded impassively, before coming up with a question of his own. "How about you? What's your purpose for tagging along? I doubt it's because you are curious about history. Let me guess, you're looking for something here."
"How did you know!?" Lilith blurted in shock, before covering her mouth with wide eyes. But it was too late. She had already given herself away. Leon was able to get his answer from her words.
"I calculated with my fingers," Leon answered sarcastically in a nonchalant manner while mimicking the way a phony fortune teller do their calculations.
"…"
Lilith was stunned for a moment, before rolling her eyes.
She understood that asking stupid questions will be returned with stupid answers, but this fella was just too mean! She had blurted the question without thought just now.
"Hmph!"
Lilith stamped her feet, before walking off.
Seeing Lilith heading into a different building, Leon chuckled and enter the building in front of him under the assumption that it was the library. Libraries represent lots of books, lots of books represent lots of knowledge, and knowledge was power.
He also thought it was a pity if the runic technology of the Nova Empire was lost even though it was the runic technology that ended the ancient civilization. Learning from history to avoid repeating the same mistake was good, but this didn't mean that they should bury all the knowledge.
There were benefits to learning runic inscriptions. He had deemed it was not only useful in strengthening the kingdom, but it would also be useful for him to learn it. He was the only one that understood the ancient language and he already considered himself a jack of all trades in any case.
Seeing all the books littered inside the building, his assumption was correct.. With no one around, Leon began pocketing all the books into his Worldspace.