This task was passed on to Milena, who understood why Kayden was doing this and took on this goal zealously. Kayden had no intention of being a present father; he would use these children.
"Kayden," Felix appeared on his shoulder as soon as he left the room. "I have an idea," said the cat, and Kayden waited. "A gigantic sequence of runes capable of isolating this entire city from moths. This will allow me to pass the level." The feline was obsessed with increasing his strength.
With this goal in mind, he studied camouflage runes all the previous years. His idea was not baseless and he showed Kayden several methods they could use to plug the city into a blind spot in the general mana flow.
Furthermore, he brought an artifact capable of rendering any being below the fourth realm invisible in its mana expenditure. Unfortunately, Kayden didn’t have or know anyone capable of making this artifact at the moment.
"Take some people and teach them the basics of blacksmithing. In a few years, we’ll move some of the talented kids into that division. Keep studying the runes and bring me updates. You have permission to add them to the city structure. Bring me any result," Kayden said, dismissing the cat and returning to training.
He already had a plan for his servants to be able to advance above the third level of the third realm, but it was a little different. His goal was to kill all the moths within a few thousand kilometers and then build a simple rune array on the crystals.
No moth had the intelligence or ability to understand the difference between mana and elemental mana. What Kayden would do is simply infect all three kilometers of his spiritual sense with electrical mana and kill the moths within a few minutes.
For every time he did this quickly, other moths would gather where the crystals were. But the surrounding mana would remain infected. In a few hours, most of the moths within tens of kilometers would die attracted by a high-density mana bait.
Once that happened, he would camouflage the crystals’ mana easily with some runes. This camouflage would not be completely effective and some would end up passing through by some chance of fate. To do this, there would be other runes aimed at killing these intruders. The best part was that the runes would be highly sustainable because of the crystals.
Furthermore, they would also work to keep people from the second realm prevented from rising from the abyss. In a way, the abyss was a protection for him to freely conduct his unethical and inhumane experiments, and he didn’t want that to change.
Kayden did some studies these years and concluded that the residual mana from the crystals would fall to the earth and increase its density. This would cause the average level of plants to increase first and, consequently, of animals as well. Maybe in a few centuries, they would have the presence of people in the fourth kingdom down there.
This would be great for your goals of producing someone with six rays capable of giving you some worthy challenge. Kayden placed the subject of philosophy and self-knowledge in the children’s teaching schedule when they turned eight years old, all so that they could develop a path.
A mage with six rays and no path was nearly impossible and even if he managed to do it, Kayden doubted he would present any challenge to him. Even someone with five rays and one path wasn’t something spectacular in his current parameters.
Slowly, time passed and the city developed further. Kayden learned four other concepts and easily subdued them with his path. His number of concepts would be monstrous in the second kingdom.
The babies had their mana awakenings. Kayden noted the time and characteristics of each one. Those who were able to awaken earlier were able to continue living normally, while those who showed a worse degree of talent were introduced to a diet based on low concentrations of mana.
Mana was added to their food secretly. This could lead to mana poisoning and consequently death, but Kayden kept the amounts low and would increase it progressively.
Furthermore, other studies were being done on these children. The things they received and how they spent their time were detailed and would later be related to their level of talent.
Kayden would not present the identification of natural talents as it was on the surface. This could discourage people with hidden talents. His talent target was wizards at age 12; anything beyond that would be killed or used as generic labor.
Two years later, children began to have enough intelligence to be educated. Kayden took special time to choose teachers. Furthermore, the time had finally come for Felix to finish the runes.
"You can begin", Kayden gave the order and then Felix injected mana into the rune sequence which was based on using mana from the environment and some mana stones they found to sustain themselves.
In a few seconds, the entire city became a ghost region to any spiritual sense coming from outside. It looked like just a spot with low mana in a large open space. The rune tree showed low mana consumption in the following minutes.
"No need to expand this outward. In a few months I’ll come up with something to clear a few thousand miles," Kayden said to Felix, and the cat just nodded. Now, his focus was on producing the artifact capable of hiding him. Felix had already found some people to carry out his orders. He just had to ask and it would be done. Furthermore, he nurtured them as if they were his toy soldiers. The average strength of the city’s people increased during these years.
Most people were in the second realm at this time, with only a few in the first rank. This was already the same as before, but now a part managed to increase a level because of the benefits given by the city.
The alchemy part grew considerably, reaching dozens of pills daily. Furthermore, food became easily accessible after Kayden established some farms with plantations. Only meat was a more expensive product.
A year later, Kayden already had nine concepts and finally thought it was the ideal time to clean up the moths. He learned the concept of dispersal so he could affect the mana of a larger region more easily.
During this period, he also introduced Julian to forced slavery, to prevent the man from trying to escape through the holes in the ceiling. He explained the situation to the three subjects in the third realm. The two humans just had to follow his orders like slaves, but Felix was a little different.
"I’m giving you the choice to stay and grow with me or just leave for the surface. With your current strength, you should be able to survive on the surface alone," Kayden said. He had already given this option to Felix a few months ago and, oddly enough, the cat chose to stay with him.
He was progressing more every day and soon he could advance to another level. He wanted nothing more than that, and Kayden was instinctively considered his pack and leader. It might take a little longer, but he would still break out to the surface.
"As soon as the moths start to die, you must be careful to eliminate those that are resistant. Use long attacks without exposing yourself too much", Kayden communicated to the three beings in the third realm around him.
It then began to change mana slowly. It started at a few meters and then slowly spread out. A layer of lightning elemental mana began to rise toward the moths. They didn’t even find the situation strange.
Some descended towards the mana and began to absorb it as if it were the sweetest nectar in the world. The layer continued to rise higher and higher, and within a few minutes, it was glued together with the crystal.
The poisoning process assumed that Kayden’s residual will was stronger than that of the animals, and he was proven right when the moths began to fall by the thousands. For every second, hundreds were falling.
On the ground, there were a few dozen people responsible for collecting these moths, which would become fertilizer for the crops. Furthermore, various experiments using their blood and flesh could be done.
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Logically, only a minimum quantity of all the moths that would die here would be collected. Because, for every minute that passed, the amount that fell was bizarre. It looked like it was raining.
In just 20 minutes, three entire kilometers were cleaned. Those resisters were completely decimated. Next, Kayden took out a treasure from his spatial ring: a fruit with fourth-realm mana.
Instantly, he began circulating this new mana to more distant places. The three-third realm mages extended this by a few more kilometers. Within seconds, the horizon appeared to have turned black.