At this moment, the eastern sky had just begun to lighten. Aside from the fishermen heading out to sea and the few with urgent business, almost no one was awake.
Charles stepped out of the monastery gates—but this time, instead of turning toward the slums, he turned east for the first time, heading toward the only purified land in the South Harbor District.
In the dim light of dawn, he walked through old yet clean streets, moving eastward. It almost felt like strolling through an old city district from the 70s or 80s.
Before long, several streetcars with yellowed, aging exteriors appeared at the edge of his vision. Beside the tram stops, a few District Office clerks, small vendors, and Amazon women stood in separate lines, waiting for the doors to open.
These were powerstone-driven trams, used for travel between the South Harbor District and other districts. Liberl Port was enormous—relying on foot travel alone would take half a morning just to reach another district, making it impossible to get anything done.
And because of the high costs, there was only one morning tram to the central district, which the Amazon Company had negotiated for ages to secure from the tram company.
Thus, those who needed to conduct business there had no choice but to rise this early.
Charles didn’t seek special treatment, quietly joining the line. The morning wind carried a biting chill, and with his weak Constitution, he had to tighten his collar—no different from the bespectacled, frail-looking clerks around him. A lightly dressed Amazon woman glanced at them and let out a derisive snort.
Still, the wait passed without further incident. Soon, the tram doors opened, and the group filed inside one after another, purchasing tickets according to their destinations before finding seats.
Charles was lucky enough to snag the last available seat, while those who boarded after had no choice but to stand.
Once everyone was inside, the carriage became as cramped as a sardine can. Then, with a lurch, the tram rattled forward as the driver started the engine.
After leaving the tram stop, it immediately entered the section bordering the slums. Steel fences lined both sides of the tracks—to prevent both suicide attempts and deliberate sabotage by the poor seeking revenge.
Gazing out the window, Charles felt the stark divide: on this tram, people lived with at least one foot in modern society, if not outright 20th-century comforts. But beyond those steel fences, the isolated masses endured conditions worse than the Middle Ages. Even through the window, he could almost smell the rot and decay wafting from the slums, taunting his nerves.
And this was the same city.
The tram accelerated, finally leaving the South Harbor District behind and entering the neighboring university district. At once, stone skyscrapers loomed ahead, flanked by tidy streets lined with flower beds. Well-dressed young men and women walked the pavements, carrying backpacks, holding ice cream or milk tea, whispering sweet nothings with smiles—indistinguishable from any modern society.
The sight made Charles sigh inwardly. In the game, everything was artistically beautified, and the limited perspective softened the harshness.
But today, riding this tram felt like hurtling from a slave society straight into modernity—an indescribable experience.
Truly, on the spectrum of reactionary forces, compradors were even more detestable than warlords and tyrants.
Regardless of his thoughts, people began disembarking here while others boarded. The tram pressed on. The vast South Harbor District had only one stop, but in the university district, it made five.
It made several more stops in the Mithral District and Muse District. Finally, after two hours, it arrived at the central district.
After the conductor checked his ticket, Charles stepped off, steadied his resolve, and turned toward the Blue Dragon Bank.
This plan concerned his monastery’s rank. Failure was not an option!
The Blue Dragon Bank’s top floor.
A massive young blue dragon, Rahman, leaned against the huge one-way floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing down at the city below, searching for some amusement.
His azure body shimmered like the sky, scales fitted so tightly that barely any gaps were visible. The short, gleaming golden horn on his forehead was clearly polished with daily care. His draconic whiskers hung long and thick from his jaw, and each of his ten foreclaws bore a large gemstone ring, each a different color—flaunting both his unique taste and staggering wealth.
Now, his golden vertical pupils scanned the streets below, as if hunting for prey. Occasionally, his eyes flicked toward the distant sign of the Golden Dragon Bank, flashing with unmistakable envy.
He was royalty of the desert kingdom "Kingdom of Fahad", founded by blue dragons—a young prince. Still only a young adult dragon, he had been sent by the family’s elders to Liberl Port with a grand mission: to secure profitable investments, reverse the bank’s losses, and prove his worth. The final return rate would determine his standing within the family—and how much power he would inherit.
Several other young blue dragons had come with him, each a rival, each adding pressure.
The elder blue dragon lords of the blue dragon family were deeply crisis-driven. Years ago, they had invited renowned divination wizards to foresee how long their monopoly on powerstones would last. The answer? "A century, at most."
And so, the blue dragons’ sense of crisis sharpened.
A century? That meant in a hundred years, their dominance could crumble.
To humans, a century might seem an unfathomably long time. But to blue dragons, whose lifespans stretched three thousand years, it felt like telling a human, "You’ll lose your income in two years."
How could they not panic?
So, they mimicked the world’s wealthiest conglomerate—the bank founded by gold dragons—and established their own Blue Dragon Bank, hoping to sustain their vast wealth through investments.
So far, the results were... lacking. Though mighty and united, blue dragons lacked the gold dragons’ expertise in investment—or their ability to project overwhelming force worldwide.
After all, gold dragons had allies among other metallic dragons. But chromatic dragons?
At least their losses were still a drop in the ocean compared to their hoarded wealth. Otherwise, the Blue Dragon Princes’ anxiety would’ve soared even higher.
And so, under this shadow, Rahman and his peers had been sent to Liberl Port—to prove themselves.
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