"Should I really help her even after getting this far?" he muttered, as he now was thinking of his power to be rivaling that of the Terases empire. so, he wasn't afraid of them.
Plus, he was on the doorsteps of repairing his scepter, learning more about his power, and starting growing it to higher realms.
As for Islinda, she was now an indisputable pillar of his empire, and one of his beloved ladies. He wouldn't let go of her so easily, and sending her away to her empire wouldn't be done without many guarantees to make her his at the end.
Islinda was busy arranging things back at his conquered regions when she had finally found the idea to gain more of his side. She hurriedly summoned all the merchants she knew of in the region under James' control, every single one she had ever dealt with.
This summoning was huge, and such a meeting was done in an open place in the garden of the palace. The garden was now totally crowded by the merchants, who answered her summoning without delay, thinking it was a grand occasion to have such a summoning here.
They all glanced at her, while she ascended a high stage, stood to face them, and finally started to speak.
"I gathered everyone here today so I will declare an announcement," she then paused, before a huge screen started to appear on her side. This screen was something that was carried over by many regular droids and men.
After it was fixed in place, it was lit up, and a desolate planet appeared in front of everyone's eyes. It was like any other planet or moon in any constellation in the universe.
"As you can see this is just a normal planet, inhabited, cold, and with no chance of living. However, there is something I wanted to show you all here today, so pay attention and look closely and attentively please," she then turned to those controlling the screen as she nodded.
The next moment, the planet showed a group of small cruisers landing on its surface. These cruisers started to let out many workers of different races. The first thing they did was to build a colony there, with conditions able to sustain life.
The picture broadcasted here was rushed forward, and the colony outer shape started to appear in front of everyone's eyes. Everyone here was quite familiar with this installation, as this was one of the classic standard mining installations used to extract ores.
After the building process ended, and the colony started to work, the workers started to dig for ores outside. The process of extracting ores was normal, went smoothly without any surprises, as they used the drilling machines used for reaching to the deep layers of ores in this planet, and then the first ore appeared.
The moment this ore appeared, a strange thing occurred! A very familiar, very exciting fluctuation occurred, and the next moment a huge space monster appeared there, outside the colony, just next to those workers, and it started attacking and killing everyone there, before destroying the colony, and then it left the planet, vanished in the darkness of the universe.
These scenes rendered everyone sitting here speechless! They couldn't believe their eyes, and Islinda was quite content to see this reaction.
"This occasion happened a week ago, and it wasn't a single occasion, but many places had the same happening. From that moment, I ordered a series of experiments to be done, and I have finally reached these conclusions which I gathered here to share with you all."
She was telling only half of the truth here, as this occasion was only a single one reported back by the sole survivor of this expedition, the one who was filming everything. She didn't give heed to such an accident before, but when she was deeply in thought, looking for a spark of inspiration, her mind reminded her of this, and then she started to rapidly act.
"I have tried one hundred times, on one hundred different planets, and found that planets with no ores had no ability to summon monsters. Only ore mines on planets or moons could summon these monsters to them.
The next thing I found out was that anywhere in the galaxy, as long as you are registered as a member of my empire, you will be able to summon these monsters, on condition that you announce this place belongs to us. If you didn't or did and lost it, then the monsters would cease to appear.
So, I gathered you all here today to open an exclusive citizenship program, that would be directed to help you all work outside out known inhabited planets, work outside our current empire borders, and still harvest the goods of these monsters anywhere you like, any number of time you wish, in exchange of paying a daily fee of ores."
She paused, before she glanced at them as she added:
"The fees are only ores, and we won't accept anything else. You need to know we don't accept bulky paying, only daily payment from anyone living inside specific planets. I will spread a list later on, and will be eligible to continue their honorary citizenship running and active.
The day you won't pay, this privilege will be cut off, and won't be resumed until the owner himself returned here and paid a compensation fee to us, one hundred folds of the initial price, and the daily fee will be leveled up to ten folds the last payment he was paying."
The words of her were really arrogant, and her claims were demanding, and very expensive, however no one here ever showed a complaining expression.
They were all shocked! Entirely shocked!
"May I ask something?" one of the oldest and biggest merchants here said.
"Sure, go ahead."
"Won't you ask for anything back from these monsters? Only the price paid for the citizenship? No limit on the number of monsters appearing on these planets?"
"We won't do this, only the price of citizenship is required, and of course the conditions to summon these monsters will be met by all of you. No matter how many monsters appeared in your own mining planets, you are totally free to monetize them."
"Great hand, really such a generous and great hand!" the merchant sucked a cold breath of air as he muttered, expressing the current mood of everyone. "I want to buy citizenship for me, and my entire merchant group!" he hurriedly shouted.
"Me too!"
"And me!"
"I want over a thousand citizenship!"
More and more voices hurried to join this contest, and that reaction was expected by Islinda, who just smiled watching them fight to gain citizenship.
"Calm down, everyone will have his turn to join us, and I will start preparing everything. In one day, a huge building will be tasked with this. So, don't be nervous, and I will make sure to share the news to you once I have finished preparing everything."
She wasn't generous, she was pretty evil! She prepared already a long ore list that all contained precious and very useful ores, essential to any war industry.
Plus, the main condition wasn't citizenship, but to grab a planet, declare its belonging to the empire, and then guard it for them!
Just like that she kicked a huge greedy invasion wheel, gained an enormous fortune back from it, without her empire to break a sweat or pay a penny!
In addition to all that, she used the empire term for the first time, and she made these influential merchants accept it, not comment or show their questioning to it, and above all made them all eager to join the empire, not the opposite!
Islinda was really a scary being when she put her mind into something, that was a fact!
She didn't hurry and tell James these news, as she was acting like a venomous viper, hiding herself, feigning weakness, and when her enemies would think they prevailed, she would show up and topple their doings.
She then got herself busy in finalizing everything here, while the news spread much larger than she expected. The next day, the whole grand sector was already aware of this declaration she made, and her speech was already recorded, sent to endless places, where all were shocked by this great hand!
And only few, selected few, saw the hidden provocation in the words of Islinda. However, despite knowing these provocations, understanding how tough and challenging the next days would be, they didn't hurry to act against James' growing empire.
After all, the recent alliance with the seven big forces among the top forces in this grand sector was known to all! James wasn't alone, and he was currently going to deepen the relationship with these dark forces without any doubt in the coming age.
And simply like that, with that speech, the whole history of this sector and this part of space was written by James!