A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale

426 dragonewt, dragon, drake followers gained

“S-so, to summarize, in one week, on the 31st, there will be a preliminary poll to teach everybody how voting works. I am sure many already know it through Loatryx, but the imperial family wants to make sure everrrrrrybody knows how it works. The clerks stationed there will explain everything you will need to understand about how to vote,” I explained after calming down.

The source of my anxiety? Well, naturally, it was my own father as he suddenly showed up in chat and got banned before my eyes! Who did it? None other than one of the people he trusted most: Mom. My moderator, Mom, timed Father once and then banned him from my chat for an entire day.

It’s as they say: give somebody an inkling of power, and they go crazy with it!

She was swift with it, as well! Although I had made her a moderator for my chat, she hadn’t done anything with those privileges, as most of the moderation was done by Skardvro and the other high-ranking members of Clan Nordor. Furthermore, we all knew who “Obsinite” was, since Neill had informed us that she had helped Father create an account to access my stream.

Mom did all of that while Father seemed so angry from the way he commented.

Well, I could understand why, since I had a feeling I was dragging my stream out. Three hours had passed, with me only mentioning the “Music Player.” Honestly, I never thought I had such a talent for doing “Chatting” streams to the point that I managed to entertain over 180k viewers. Sure, many of them were simply biding their time for the important announcement, but I still had 180k viewers! Good thing the dragonkin didn’t have an alternative to my stream to change to.

In any case, since Father’s chastisement reminded me of why Taim told me to do a stream, I’ve stopped shilling my own product and begun explaining things properly.

“Every dragonkin nest has a Loatryxian city where the voting can be handled.” I looked down at the piece of ice paper Tasianna had made for me, where she had written down two “cities” that I shouldn’t mention.

Those were the ones in Inferno Nest and Thunder Nest, as they were more like hamlets or smaller towns. Whether due to the nest treating these small towns as mere lodgings for their dragonewt servants or to the hazardous environmental elements, which made living there untenable for a large population, they couldn’t support a secure voting venue.

“For true dragonkin, you must vote in these designated cities aligned with your affiliation. For example, ice dragonkin and leviathans aligned with Frozen Nest clans are to vote in Iceskale Harbor. Marsh Nest denizens are to vote in Nurseholm Avincha. It should be obvious to the locals which Loatryxian city is considered the ‘capital of the nest,’ though even if you don’t, imperial wyvern messengers will spread the news,” I explained. “As for wyverns and dragonewts, you must vote inside Loatryxian territory. You may not vote inside Kargryxian territory. However, as per your home registration, your vote will count towards your stated nest.”

<DrinksMuchWine8: Hmm, so this is how His Majesty envisions it, huh?>

<Gunnifork: It makes sense. Some clans are more willing to control their dragonewt descendants to ensure proper results. Even with a wish to create an equal environment, unless you separate the voters, you can’t ensure aura skills won’t affect their decision>

That was the crux of the problem. Any type of [Benevolent Aura] or [Terror Aura] could act like a charisma skill, as I have used many times in the past. Coupled with the fact that dragonewts worshipped true dragonkin to the point they would prioritize the interest of their true dragonkin clan members over their own, it just made sense to separate their voting venues.

“Wyvern messengers and dragonewt officials will provide additional information, but I will summarize everything here. After all, not everybody has access to this stream yet, since the information towers still need time to be built all over Miononbolax and our colony on Altrust. The messengers will inform them,” I added. “Since this poll is to help you understand how the process works, I must also remind you of the rules. I do hope everybody still remembers them.”

It was rhetorical, since I was obligated to repeat them even if everybody knew them or not.

“Ahem, first, all imperial children are eligible for succession. Second, the candidate must be the dragon ruler of a nest, or have a current dragon ruler and 51% of the nest support them. Third, Loatryxians are allowed to vote, with their major cities all counting as a ‘nest’ when it comes to voting. However, their governors shall not have the authority of a dragon ruler, nor will they abide by the 51% rule. Every vote will count towards the total tally,” I read off an ice paper. “Concerning the nests, the ones eligible are Frozen Nest, Marsh Nest, Quake Nest, Dusk Nest, Sacred Nest, Storm Nest, Thunder Nest, and Inferno Nest—with both the Inferno and Volcano Dragon Ruler counting as two separate nests. Nine total, in other words. For Loatryx, they have Coral Beard, Shatter Scale, Surthtail, and Tyrant’s Descent, while the Loatryxian colony will have New Surth and Crystal Petal. Which cities and towns belong to which of these Loatyryxian cities will be elaborated by your territory governors.”

Man, so many cities, but I just don’t have the time to visit them… I let out an internal sigh. Honestly, if there wasn’t so much to do, I would love to wander around Miononbolax and get to know the various places here, but dealing with the immediate problem was crucial.

“Essentially, each Loatryxian town and city will have its voting venue at the local town hall. Those living in villages and hamlets will receive visits from imperial officials. Those living inside Kargryxian territory will receive a wyvern escort to enter Loatryx, so clans are ordered to ensure each dragonewt member receives their chance to vote.”

Considering how dragons nickname the imperial family as “tyrants,” despite how little sense it made with how much autonomy we gave our empire, we might as well be more forceful for the sake of a fair democracy. The people were allowed to abstain if they wished, but only at the voting venue in front of an official.

“That is all about how you will vote. Furthermore, once the polling is counted under His Majesty, Emperor Eltharion, and the Six Empresses, I will have another stream to announce the results,” I explained, feeling a bit parched after all that talking. “Since this is a preliminary poll, please consider this a chance for all dragon rulers to determine your candidate and to see which one your nest prefers. Please, do not consider this a reason to attack your own citizens’ opinions. This is to show the candidate in question that they must do more to obtain the support of the nest’s people. Kargryxians and Loatryxians, please, do not be afraid to vote! The imperial family earnestly wishes for everybody to express who they truly support!”

Also, Empress-Mother Gyadiosa will have dragoons and true dragonkin guarding the venues, so don’t try anything! I wanted to shout, but kept it to myself. There was nothing good in showing such hostility, even if it was just a warning. Once people arrive at the venues, they’d learn it anyway.

With the information shared, the stream would naturally die down as my viewer count started to nosedive. It reached a peak of 268k, but as I mentioned, the majority were only here for the imperial announcement. Well, considering the stream had lasted for four hours, it was good enough a time to end it for the day.

Once I said goodbye to everybody, I shut the stream off and let out a deep sigh before turning to Mom.

“You could have stopped me, you know?”

“And why would I?” Mom replied with a wide, genuine grin. “I would rather listen to my darling whelpling sing and have fun than force you into working. We have plenty of time, and your dragoon training was canceled today, anyway. You’d be just in time to meet Uriahn anyway after a quick dinner.”

“Well, not really, with how orange the sky is,” Neill stated from the side, stretching a bit. “But it was fun, as Empress-Mother Melloxtressa said. Ignoring the voting stuff for now, do you think the ‘Music Player’ will do well? Your audience seems to have liked it.”

“It’s all a matter of whether others are willing to share their music,” I answered. “I can’t be the only artist. We need more than just a handful of bands and bards. I can spearhead everything, but we need large artists to fuel the flame until the wildfire spreads throughout the continent. Once that happens, the ‘Music Player’ will become just as mandatory to have as the party function.”

“Furthermore, we will need throat singers,” Tasianna added. “Lady Hestia isn’t trained enough in throat singing and growling, so we need outside help.”

Couldn’t argue with that. I could imitate throat singing, but it was obvious I didn’t have the experience to write songs in them. Heavy metal songs weren’t my speciality either, so I did hope a few dwarven rockers would join the “Music Player” as well in the future, once we built an information tower in Ankor-Nazta. Leave it to the professionals, in other words.

In any case, with my job for the day done, I returned to my training routine and met up with Uriahn. Father would be angry anyway, so why bother poking the hornet’s nest at this point, right? Mom could deal with him… which she had to, since Father visited the subspace that night. Suffice to say, they got into another fight, but mostly ‘cause Father hated the fact that he got banned from my chat. He had forgotten why he got angry at me in the first place, thankfully.

After that, training went by normally, although if I could speak about one change, then it had to be about the streams themselves. The few streams outside of mine were starting to gain traction, and not just by a little, but in the five-digit counts. The independent reporters from a few days ago had completely transitioned into the roles of news anchors, similar to ours in Seurenk and Kreinika, and were being fully supported by their clan. Most of them were from Dusk Nest, but from what I saw, none of them were overly biased towards Taim.

I guess it made sense in a way, considering how this was essentially cheap news coverage. Sure, there was a fee to install the “Streaming” and “Recording” functions, but Miononbolax wasn’t poor, even if you didn’t belong to a well-known clan. Being able to access information on the other side of the city was invaluable, and most importantly, if important announcements, like the one yesterday, would happen, you could just open your party bracelet and watch it.

“Informational Guide On The Preliminary Polling Session” and “The Personalities And Potential Ruling Style Of The Imperial Children Explained” were the most popular right now, boasting around 200k viewers each, easily dwarfing my five-thousand-viewer chatting stream. Frankly, my making that announcement yesterday shot the popularity of this new technology into the stratosphere.

Taim, was this your plan? I started to wonder, although maybe I was giving him a bit too much credit. Technically, Father announcing the renewed structure of the succession battle was the trigger for the initial explosion, since people outside of Frozen Nest became aware of it.

At best, what Taim was capitalizing on was the fact that an important announcement was suddenly made before the wyvern messengers delivered it to people. As such, those who saw my stream knew about the preliminary voting session first. So, to those who would learn it later, they would probably ask themselves, “What if I miss something that isn’t announced through the messengers?”

When Father gave his stream, it was made when Coral Beard had gathered numerous true dragonkin, the various dragonewt clans from both Mionobolax and the colony on Altrust, visitors from our allied countries, and outsiders due to Neill’s return festival. A good majority learned everything when he appeared. Furthermore, a good number of people were also preoccupied with the three announced Event Quests.

So the popularity of streaming, the recorders, and the digital media guild rose after that day, but it also laid hills of gunpowder behind that Taim had now ignited.

“Representatives of the various nests and cities on Miononbolax have recently arrived in Iceskale, with all of them reporting to have booked a meeting with Empress Forminaxtrass and the guild master of the Digital Media Guild, Jadhund Heimunter. Our experts suggest that all of them wish to reserve the privilege to build an information tower in their city’s mana barrier,” Seurenk, one of our news anchors of “Frozen Nest News”, reported. “However, considering the project is co-owned by Empress Forminaxtrass, the next location after they finish the project in Coral Beard will most likely be in Dusk Nest.”

“Our experts also mentioned that while Thunder Nest has shown interest, they most likely won’t be able to build an information tower there due to the lack of a proper mana barrier in any of their large settlements. Their largest, Fortress Skalinzha, is built into a mountain like a dwarven hold, and doesn’t rely on a mana barrier due to the electromagnetic force protecting it,” Kreinika added. “If you have noticed in the recording, no members of Inferno Nest have come. Naturally, since the immigration offices probably rejected their entry. With the destruction of Thalaxarus’s barrier, we should thank our officers and dragoons for their continued service to protect our home from threats.”

… Okay.

In any case, what was important was that money was coming in, and this had fully satisfied Father’s investment. The wildfire of popularity wouldn’t die any time soon, since another important stream would happen on the 31st.

Though… despite this success, I was a bit annoyed since my “Music Player” was going under the radar. People were buying my songs, but Uncle Guyul had mentioned that nobody else had tried to contact him to add their music to our store. Such a damn shame.

I really should do a singing stream. Put on the karaoke mode. Gotta shill my own product, after all.

And so time continued to move with nothing spectacular happening. No attacks, no real threats, no nothing from the leviathans. It was so silent that it almost felt like they were “swimming with the fishes,” ehe.

Ignoring my wish to share this pun with people, my training was going okayish with nothing special happening, outside of one special moment on the night of the twelfth day this boot camp started.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Sacred Magic Lv. 9] [Tyrant’s Voice Lv. 6] [Storm Resistance Lv. 10] gained

Heaven’s Army: Summon the grace of the Goddess upon earth. Allows the caster to materialize twenty holy golems shaped in the figure of winged arvisian paladins, with ten of them being swordsmen, five spearmen, and five archers. If the need for an army isn’t needed, the caster may double the mana cost to endow twenty allies within the range of the magic circle with [Heaven’s Armory]. The strength of the golems and spell buff is affected by the caster’s Intelligence. The element of this spell will always be holy-aligned, unaffected by foreign skills or spell buffs that would change this spell’s elemental alignment

As the purple-shining moon graced this night with its gloomy light, my white-colored magic circle grew in size underneath me. It spread around me as the epicenter before it stopped its growth and started to gather light into winged-humanoid figures. When I called, “Heaven’s Army,” the spell finished, having materialized twenty angel-like figures clad in yellow-ivory armor.

Seeing this, Uriahn clapped with a genuine smile, “Brilliant, Your Grace! Only three-years-old and you have obtained [Sacred Magic Lv. 9]. Haha, it is shameful for me to admit this, but I still—”

“This is useless.”

“… Pardon?” Uriahn stared at me as if I had lost my mind, which made me look at him with a deep frown, disappointed.

“Think about it. Look at the size of these holy golems. Humanoid. This spell was made for humanoid mages and specifically to defend a holy mage. I suspect most holy paladins wouldn’t be able to make it to [Sacred Magic Lv. 9] normally, so Goddess Aurena invented this spell to increase a priest’s survivability,” I explained as I went up to one of the holy golem, knocking on their slightly shining armor.

I then pulled out my glaive and took the dragoon stance I’ve been practicing before using [Dragoon Jump] right in front of the golem, stabbing upward. As I sent the golem into the air, I grabbed them and stomped the air with [Air Walk] and [Dragoon Dive], diving into the ground like a meteor. With a loud bang, I threw the golem through the dust cloud.

Once I blew the smokescreen away, I pointed at the cracked armor. “This is top tier. This entire armor is influenced by my intelligence stat. I placed enough strength in those two attacks to heavily wound a rank B monster, but look,”—I snapped my fingers, prompting the golem to stand up as if nothing happened—“it doesn’t show much damage. As a golem, it can still move around. Honestly, this spell is more efficient in converting my intelligence into the golem’s vitality and wisdom than even my own custom spell, [Hydra]. And there are twenty of them. Hydra is probably still more durable since it’s a giant slime, but that’s beside the point. It’s a good spell. Worthy of the ninth level.”

“Then why call it useless? Those points you presented are known to any well-learned scholar. The shield wall made from ten of those sword-and-shield golems can defend you even from a rank B dragon, as long as your intelligence is high enough. A holy mage at that level should have plenty of intelligence-increasing elixirs and multiple different pieces of equipment to increase their stats. This spell is also flexible as long as you know how to command the golems.”

“Yeah, and that is the point, Uriahn. As long as you can command them, and as long as the golems can defend you. Can they do that in my dragon form?”

Uriahn shook his head, groaning a bit as he was starting to see where I was going with this.

“It’s useless for me. Not in general. I don’t need to summon golems because [Hydra] is far more versatile, even if it isn’t durable. Furthermore, even with Hikari controlling them, that’s still twenty golems. Far too many for a frontline fighter like me. Even if I fought like a mage, I’d rather focus on choosing the correct spell songs to support my teammates than send golems to help them. Also, [Hydra] can move autonomously. [Heaven’s Army] can’t,” I said as I stared at the stationary holy golems.

Wanting to test this, Uriahn asked me to lead my golem army to fight him. From two rounds of fighting, where I fully micro-managed every single attack in the first battle and then let the golems do their own thing in the second, he quickly came to the same conclusion I had guessed.

If I were to tell the golems to move forward and respond to any threats, they’d do just that, but they wouldn’t be able to properly fight without me giving them detailed commands. They were truly similar to Tasianna’s [Winter’s Golem] and [Slithering Frost Serpent], where they required her full attention; however, it made sense for her, since she was a pure mage.

That was why [Hydra] seemed “intelligent” as I copied the incantation wording Saori wrote into [Shadow Pack], when it was still a custom spell. The shadow wolves she would create with it had shown a modicum of independent analysis once an order was given. [Heaven’s Army] could create top-tier spell golems, but it didn’t synergize with my fighting style.

Fortunately for me, though, the spell had two different applications. Double the mana cost? Psshhh, please.

“Gravy, I need nineteen golems, please,” I asked my reliable monster room core. Once my orders were followed, I dispelled the spell golem army and recast [Heaven’s Army], only this time as a buff.

Heaven’s Armory: Only twenty individuals and golems may be chosen. The caster of [Heaven’s Army] may decide the armor type applied to the individual applicants. The caster of [Heaven’s Army] may decide the weapon type applied to the individual applicants. The strength of the various equipment is decided by the caster of [Heaven Army]’s Intelligence. The element of this spell will always be holy-aligned, unaffected by foreign skills or spell buffs that would change this spell’s elemental alignment. Armor Type: Heavy armor, speed-increasing cloak, magic-empowering robes. Weapon type: Highest Mastery-based skill, holy-aligned empowerment for all physical attacks, magical-empowerment for all non-dark-aligned spells

For a buff, the description was longer than the spell’s.

To summarize, it essentially allowed me to clad twenty people, living and non-living, or golems, in a shroud of holy armor and give them weapons, if they owned a “Mastery” skill. I could also decide to just shroud their weapons with a bright light, almost similar to [The Heir of Hope]’s [The Light] enchantment. The three armor types boosted their respective stats, with heavy armor giving you more vitality and wisdom, the cloak increasing your strength and agility, while the robes were made for a mage, so intelligence and wisdom.

Essentially, I may fully equip nineteen of my Obsidian Orchestra golems in full armor, and also give [Hydra] a set as well. Since the golems were actually controlled by slimes, I didn’t need to control them, since Gravy could give them orders. As such, I only needed to focus on what [Hydra] needed to do and give orders to Gravy. Far simpler than [Heaven’s Army]’s golems, although they all lacked proper fighting abilities. However, that also wasn’t a problem.

“Reduce the golems. Give the rest to the party,” Grimnir commented after I brought him over to see the spell, as I was thinking of giving a few golems actual armor to fight. “Tasianna, Saori, Ellaine, me, Vifi, Shayatierus, Bethlieranha, Regolustrus, and his five subordinates. That’s already thirteen. We include your [Hydra], and we’re at fourteen. If we presume the shadow armor Saori and her shadow pack use would conflict with [Heaven’s Army], then it’s back to thirteen. Include the Misfit and Biscuit brats, then we’re up to eighteen, since Haruka, Daichi, and Tamae are non-combatants now, and Tatsuya and Kyouya are part of the shadow pack.”

“… Hmm, yeah, that’s what I thought. The golems can act as good meat shields. I wouldn’t say it’s too late to become a tamer, like Saori, but I don’t have the time to train up all the slimes,” I replied.

“Then don’t.” He shrugged. “You got the right idea in how to use the spell, but you’re overcomplicating it with the golem. If you ask me, using them like an orchestra to boost your music capabilities seems fine enough.”

<Master, a suggestion.> Gravy’s message appeared on my party bracelet. <Instead of leveling the slimes up, maybe we can rely on spawning a more combat-focused puppeteer slime? Gravy shall handle the leveling process once you give me the chance.>

“Do we have enough mana even to summon one?”

<Plenty. Gravy has only been summoning weak slime up until now, after all.>

“Perfect. Then I’ll let you handle the choice. Try to find one that can think autonomously and is capable of learning weapon, or fist, skills.”

<Affirmative.>

Once that was settled, training continued until the day finally came to vote. Since everybody had the right to vote, the imperial family had to do the same. As such, on the day of the poll, Neill and Mom led the entire boot camp back to Iceskale to vote. Uriahn had to return to Sacred Nest for the same reason. Only Grimnir didn’t have any obligation to vote, since he technically wasn’t a citizen of Miononbolax yet, unlike Tasianna, Vifi, the twins, and the fire dragonkin who sought refuge in Frozen Nest. Their citizen applications were done ages ago.

With two recorders recording everything and streaming it for all to watch, it was a pretty hectic day as the plaza before the city hall was filled to the brim with people. Led by Uncle Alex, order was kept in check, and the process felt smooth, almost as if they’d been doing this for years now.

Per the rules I read, the true dragonkin had to be separated from the humanoid and wyvern voters; as such, Tasianna, Vifi, and my wyvern retainers had to vote in the lower city, while all true dragonkin must remain in the sky city until the voting booths closed in the evening. Due to our special privilege, where our ministers would handle the administrative duties, instead of the empresses, we were the only nest allowed to circumvent this rule. Otherwise, it would be a logistical nightmare to escort all our dragonewts down to official Loatryxian territory.

“I will lead everybody down. See you later!” Yuilengreil said as she led the non-true dragonkin members of my party to the lower city. Since she was a kirin, she counted amongst the lesser dragonkin, even if she was an empress.

As such, only Neill, Mom, and Forminaxtrass were here. Taim, apparently, had already voted earlier in the day.

Amongst them, I was the last to enter the voting booth. Seeing all my family enter and exit made my heart race, as I couldn’t help but believe this preliminary voting session was more important than its name suggested.

It was rude to ask people who they voted for in front of the voting booth, but I wanted to do it so badly. Who did Mom vote for? Who did Neill vote for? Who did Forminaxtrass vote for? … Okay, it was obvious enough who those three chose. Being too dramatic about this wasn’t exactly cute.

“Princess Hestia, please head into booth six,” the city hall clerk directed after I registered my information.

Walking into the city hall, I noticed that each of the six booths was guarded by Frozen Nest dragoons. As I entered my booth, the dragoons didn’t even acknowledge me, treating me just like any other voter, which I presumed was the case for all imperial members.

“Please put this on,” a black-scaled dragonewt bureaucrat ordered once I was inside, handing me a party bracelet to put on. He was flanked by two dragoons, though they were also members of Clan Kargryxmor, seeing how jet-black their scales looked.

It might seem a bit weird to have people inside the voting booth, especially for somebody from the U.S., but this was how Father wanted everything to work. Paper was scarce since the printing press hadn’t been invented yet, so voting in Peolynca was done either through raised hands inside a meeting hall or through the System. Yup, there was a “Voting” function just for these moments, and Loatryx had been using it for years.

Since Kargryx was an empire ruled by Clan Kargryxmor, our true dragonkin and dragonewt side acted as a neutral force during the voting process. They oversaw the voting process and ensured everything remained fair, using the authority of Father and the six empresses to protect our own clan members from bribery, threats, and blackmail. Sure, I had heard that it wasn’t always perfect since accidents would happen eventually, but the process could be trusted for the succession.

Mom’s huge workload wasn’t done for nothing, after all. The empresses personally vetted each dragoon and official, either personally or through their closest aides. Not to mention, trying to do anything fishy would garner Father’s attention, and unless you were suicidal, drawing the ire of the strongest living being on Peolynca was beyond stupid.

Please choose your desired candidate to become the next ruler of the Dragon Empire of Kargryx

A blue screen projected before my eyes once I attached my ID to the bracelet.

Kahalameet, Wendriosa, Phsothophus, Taimatrak, and so on, and so on. Everybody is listed here as expected… who do I vote?

My only real choices were Kahalameet and Wendriosa. I wouldn’t even entertain myself since I’ve sworn to remain neutral in the succession crisis. I had no intention of becoming the empress, and I’ve already made it known multiple times on my stream. Sure, people would vote for me regardless, but I was expecting something like 90% of Frozen Nest to vote for me. In other words, I was a prime candidate for the throne, and that wasn’t something I could change even with my own vote.

Yet, I would still swim against the current. I had to make it clear, even if nobody would learn about it. The possibility of a 100% approval rate was a possibility, but I would make sure it would always be stuck at 99.9%.

I was an idol. Not a ruler.

As such…

Kahalameet. Sorry, Big Sis. I will help you become a candidate, but I still vibe with Big Bro’s goal more. Maybe you can change my mind in the next polling session.

You have voted. Thank you very much for your dedication to Emperor of Kargryx, Eltharion Tyranoid Kargryxmor. May his black wings always grant you refuge and protection

Once I left the building, I let out a deep sigh as I reunited with my family, where I noticed everybody who left for the lower city had returned to the upper city. While true dragonkin were forced to remain here, anybody who had finished voting could move around again.

We spoke a little bit about the voting experience, with nobody expressing much worry about their choice. It was obvious that those who were close to me voted for me, after all. Neill voted for herself, knowing she could never win, and her mother did the same.

“The entire clan most likely did it, hehe. Though I’ll tell them to choose proper candidates next time,” Neill said with an embarrassed smile, knowing she shouldn’t be doing this. “Still, I want to at least see a one percent in my favor when the results for Quake Nest come out.”

Clan Gueillxar was originally from Thunder Nest, but they moved their official residence to Quake Nest when Yuilengreill married Father. Though that was only for the paperwork, since the de facto residence was in Coral Beard.

Continuing with who voted for whom, Forminaxtrass naturally chose her son, though she told me that her son voted for Kahalameet.

Once we finished catching up with each other, I also took the time to visit the clan’s mansion to see how Annaheil was doing, where I learned that they actually managed to concoct a prototype medicine similar to the one the Prince of Sloth had given her.

“The tonic neutralizes the symptoms of Raffarson’s for a day, but the illness always returns the day after. The tests show the medicine merely suppresses the flow of mana; as such, it isn’t a perfect antidote. With plenty of health and stamina potions, a person may resume a normal life, although they must abstain from using mana,” Yuilengreil explained while Tasianna read the reports on the medicine’s effectiveness. “Either we haven’t been able to perfectly replicate the medicine, or the original medicine was always meant to suppress the growth and flow of mana. The issue remains: the mana paths of somebody with Raffarson’s are still incredibly weak. My alchemists presume it is the latter. As such, we have started tests using medicine with your blood, dear.”

“Considering Amadeus managed to show signs of healing after he took ‘holy water’ with your blood, I’ve developed a recipe to take that into account,” Tasianna added with her eyes still glued to the reports. “There will be three tests. One done with only your blood, one done with your blood and ‘holy water’ directly from Aureolis, which we acquired through King Drangleic’s recent visit to our subspace, and, if any of the previous tests show promise, we will attempt to make medicine with holy dragon blood.”

“With the growth of the information tower and the development of a cure for an uncommon humanoid illness, the amount of influence Kargryx can wield over the world will grow,” Yuleingreill said with a sigh. “If Wendriosa becomes Empress, these two inventions will help her pave the way to the future she seeks. Soft power is quite effective.”

Once evening came, we all returned to Mom’s lair and rested for the day before resuming training tomorrow. Rhekk and the other true dragonkin were expected to leave today, but they told me they would remain until the results were reported. As such, the day went by uneventfully as the white moon replaced the purple moon of the Harvest season. Autumn was here, and with it, a stronger chill to welcome the new year in two months like a red carpet.

Surprisingly, but probably unsurprisingly, the counting was all done in two days. Honestly, with the System handling most of the complicated stuff, like preventing double voting, false IDs, and assigning each vote to its respective nest, it was done pretty quickly. Thank goodness for the Divine System!

With these results, I stopped today’s training once I was done with Tasianna’s. As I was setting my stream up, I noticed a certain stream receiving a noticeably large number of viewers.

‘Urgent News: Attack on Inferno Nest! The culprit? Prince Kahal’—ARE YOU KIDDING ME?