In the hidden chamber of the castle, in Moonshadow City, located in the Moonlight Kingdom, a mechanical puppet slowly opened its eyes.
"It's really handy," Maximus murmured as he slowly moved its arm.
After he receive a call from one of his ministers, Doran, and having nothing else to do, he responded.
Now, a part of his consciousness is in this mechanical puppet.
By connecting through his personal token and the continental array in the Arcane Continent, a portion of his consciousness can control this puppet.
"Let's change first."
The mechanical puppet began to squirm as it slowly changed to resemble his face.
Getting up, he saw himself in the mirror.
"It indeed looks alike. Pity I can't use mana."
As it's only a mechanical puppet, he can't use mana, which is a shame.
"Next time, I'll buy an alchemy puppet."
Last time, he was short of money, so he could only afford one alchemy puppet which is Edward, who manages the shop in Silver Leaf City.
After a bit of inspection, he headed toward his throne chamber.
"Your Majesty!"
The guards and maids were a little shocked to see him along the way.
After all, it had been four months since he was away.
...
A few minutes later...
Maximus sat on his throne as his ministers slowly entered.
Doran had already notified them that he was coming.
Seeing that they were all seated, he started.
"Let's begin with you, Landon. How is the people's migration here?"
Landon nodded and stood up.
"Your Majesty, the migration was completed a week ago."
"About 340.5 million people have successfully migrated to the Moonlight Kingdom."
"Thanks to the additional flying boats your Majesty provided, the one-year migration was shortened to three months."
"How about their living environment?"
"They have already settled in their new houses, thanks to Your Majesty's gracious spreading of mage and knight knowledge."
"All the people have become proficient in spells and are as strong as beasts."
"Building facilities in the kingdom were completed quickly."
"That's good!" Maximus praised.
Seeing this, Landon sat back down proudly.
Now that the people from Sunburnt Plateau are concentrated here, his kingdom can truly flourish.
"What about you, Tristan? How is the financial report for these three months?" Maximus pointed at Tristan, the one in charge of the kingdom treasury.
"Our main profit is from land rent. After more than 340 billion migrated here, the houses were rented for 3 billion gold a month."
"The spiritual land rent is 7 billion a month."
"As for the crops, it's 15 billion just in tax."
"For merchant tax, it's only about 1 billion."
"As for the expenditures, it's about 10 billion for monthly salaries to construct the kingdom's structure."
"There are currently more than 100 billion gold coins in circulation stored in Moonlight Bank," Tristan said.
"Oh? How can there be so much?" Maximus asked, puzzled.
He had only given 10 gold coins as a start-up for each citizen, even considering profits from the spiritual farm, there should only be 30-40 billion in the bank.
He wondered how the additional 70 billion came about.
"It's thanks to Minister Doran, your Majesty," Tristan said, not daring to take credit.
"Oh? Tell me, Doran."
"Your Majesty, after you left, although the kingdom prospered, the circulation of resources in our kingdom led to too much waste."
"Without outside resources, sooner or later some problems would crop up, such as having too much money."
"Although many merchants popped up to circulate this money, there were no high-end resources for people to spend it on."
"The value of the currency will begin to decline, which will cause a bit of panic."
"That's indeed a problem," Maximus nodded.
Maximus had already thought of the solution to this, which is to release the training resources he bought from the Myriad World Mall.
However, since he was busy with the trial, he forgot to implement it.
"Go on," Maximus urged as he was curious about how Doran solved the problem.
"I thought of importing resources from our kingdom and establishing a resource exchange through other islands in the cursed continent," Doran explained.
"What resources did you exchange?" Maximus inquired.
"It's the spirit plant, your Majesty. It's popular among various territories," Doran said excitedly.
"The cursed continent is barren and not suitable for large-scale planting due to the corrosive mana."
"Other territories that have set up formation arrays like ours mainly plant high-tier spirit plants, targeting mages and knights. So, our spirit plant, which is cheap and easy to grow, became popular."
"I see," Maximus nodded.
He had sighted as he overlooked this aspect.
He admitted that he didn't know much about the surrounding territories.
Especially the commercial ones, as he mainly focused on the power structure and dangers around his territories.
Anyway, he is not so short of that bit of gold that he will waste time thinking about it.
All of his attention is on training and his family.
If it were not for his kingdom still useful for the future, he wouldn't even bother with it.
"Currently, we are exchanging various resources in Berunn City, resulting in at least 30 billion gold in pure profits every month," Doran reported.
"That's good," Maximus smiled.
He understood that these profits were only from spiritual plants, and once people started studying mechanics and alchemy, the profits would increase significantly.
Now there is already 100 billion gold in virtual currency which is 100 million magic crystals per month.
Almost catching up with the income of the shop in the arcane continent.
"By the way, what is the current situation with the academy?" Before he left, it was almost finished, but I don't know its current status.
"The academy finished construction a month ago."
"Currently, we are conducting tests for people eligible to attend the academy"
"According to your majesty, only people with at least rank 3 rare talent are eligible for the academy."
"For others, we have already built training centers for them as per your instructions," Doran carefully explained.
"Hmm, how many people have rank 3 talent?" He indeed instructed to only accept at least rank 3 rare talent in the academy.
After all, with more than 350 million population, if he lowered the requirements, it would flood the academy.
The training center is for teaching basic knowledge and discovering talents for different professions.
Especially, he noticed that something is weird in Sunburnt Plateau or even the whole Cursed Continent.
His wives, who originally only had trash talent (mana compatibility), had rank 6 divine comprehension with other professions.
He figured that this should have something to do with the corrosive mana which suppresses people's affinity to the world, thus lowering their talents when born.
However, comprehension is different, as it's probabilistic; talent can be nurtured as long as there is an abundance of mana.
While comprehension is hard to change, even his cultivation manual 'divine consciousness' have limits when it comes to improving comprehension.
"By now, we have checked half of the population and found about 1.5 million people who at least had a rare talent," Doran said.
Maximus was a little shocked by the number; it seems that there are still many talented people in his kingdom.
Should he increase his criteria?
But thinking that even adults were tested, he knows that this proportion is even somewhat low.
Meaning only about 0.88% have at least rare talent.
In Aracne Continent, he inferred that this percentage will shoot up to at least 10% of the population having a rare talent.
After that, his ministers reported what happened in these four months.
...
An hour later, he finally came to the final point.
Which is why he specially came here.
"Now, with everyone present, I believe it's time to officially promote our kingdom to an empire," Maximus announced, observing their reactions.
"Of course, Your Majesty,"
"I have been waiting for this!"
"We're going to be an empire!"
They replied enthusiastically.
After all, Maximus was already the ruler of the whole Sunburnt Plateau, so it was only natural for the kingdom to be promoted to an empire.
"Then begin to reach out to the Etherium Embassy," Maximus instructed.
The Etherium Embassy was an organization similar to the Etherium Gold Chamber of Commerce and others.
While the EGCC mainly focused on business, the Etherium Embassy managed safety and order arious cities on the Arcane Continent.
For the cursed continent, they oversaw the establishment of empires.
After conquering a whole territory in the cursed continent, the ruler needed to inform the Etherium Embassy within five years.
Otherwise, they might be regarded as invaders from another continent or even worse, as a cult.
Officially registering with the Etherium Embassy came with many benefits.
Commercially, merchants from other places on the cursed continent could formally stay and trade in their territory.
This was unlike the current situation, where they could only trade in Berunn City, which had limitations.
Furthermore, being registered with the Etherium Embassy provided protection from other territories on the cursed continent.
Though Maximus wasn't worried about them, it could save him trouble in the long run.
Of course, there were also taxes involved, but they were insignificant compared to the profits and the recognition of his territory.
After all, in the future, his kingdom, or rather empire, would start accepting immigrants from other places.
Being an empire recognized by Eitherium Embassy will make things easier.
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