Inception of the Matreex

Inception of the Matreex

Year 137

The demon king finally descended. [Demon King Raja-Naga has arrived!]

As the rifts predicted, he arrived in the Eastern Continent, and he quickly made his presence felt. The entire Eastern continent was in a state of war, as giant fire-breathing lizards and flying drakes ravaged the entire continent.

A time of war.

Lausanne is in the Eastern continent. A message for Jura to Laufen, she instantly broke down and cried. Shes not dead, but... she cant get out.

Laufen wept, and I could see her feelings through Patreeck. Worry, helplessness, anger, sadness. She wondered whether she was going to lose her daughter. She was far away now, and I cant reach her from here. Not when shes on another continent. Theres no way Jura could get there either. Theres no boat or ship fast enough, and unless we have the heroes teleportation array, I cant get anyone there.

She just went back to her home and just cried for a while. Some of the other ladies of a similar age from Freshka, her friends came to comfort her.

Jura on the other hand was just sad.

She wouldnt do anything stupid, right? Jura asked. Vissit novelbin(.)c.om for updates

I dont think so. Lausanne certainly didnt seem like the type to do anything stupid, but I dont know how much has changed in the past 30 years shes been away. She may have changed.

Yeah. She wont. Jura said, but I could tell from Patreecks data that hes worried too. But theres nothing much we can do. Not when shes on another continent. I could only hope shes wise enough to stay away from actually confronting the demon king. Very few have done that and survived.

-

The Demon Kings presence sent the Rottedlands into a frenzy. More demonic hybrids spawned, and the trade routes experienced more frequent attacks. But for now, the Valthorns and beetles have managed to hold them back, so the trade routes hold. A great relief, for our allies who feared for the worse.

The expansion and training of Valthorns, priests and young nobles continued. Just because the demon king arrived, didnt mean we have to change anything.

Alright. Demon King spawned. As nobles, what should you do? A lecturer, a former retired mayor, asked the crowd of young noble students. There were some commoners mixed in too, the attendants.

Prepare for war?

Well, yes. But how and what? What should you prepare? The lecturer asked. Food supplies are a common one. During demonic attacks, trade routes are frequently disrupted.

Some of this is basic common sense, but no one actually sat down and put a manual for dealing with demon kings 101. In some ways, this is a first step to that manual. I also had the instructors write down key teaching points for storage. Bit by bit, my library was growing, even if I didnt get skills for it.

Next up is actually village-defense. Demonic forces tend to attack places of large populations first. It is said they have an ability to sense living individuals, particularly large numbers. Of course, no one knows whether this is true, or they detect large cities by other means.

The crowd of nobles go oooooh.

So, theoretically, its better to focus defense forces in larger cities, since villages tend to be skipped, or only attacked by smaller forces. Unless they are so unlucky that they happen to be in their path.

The commoners winced at those words, wondering whether those villages will be left to die. The nobles just nodded in agreement. This sounded familiar.

I didnt pay much attention to the classes, since no untoward incident occurred.

-

As the borders saw more fighting, Ive awarded more upgraded classes to the Valthorns. For anti-air, Im really quite dependent on my beetles and spiders, and also my higher-levelled Valthorns.

The Valthorns had many practice rounds against flying foes, and I used my [dream academy] to give them more practice and dream-battle experience against aerial foes. Many of them woke up sweating and needed a separate [dream] for them to rest.

[Dream academy] allowed me more control over the contents of the dream, though its still just a set of parameters I could control. I dont even know what exactly they see in those dreams, until recently...

Because [Tree-Over-Mind] allowed me to gain an insight to the effects of [dream academy], the two abilities essentially allowed me to view the dreams in almost-real time. There was still a small time lag, but I could see how each and every Valthorn had a slightly different variation of the dream. The dreams itself tapped into their minds to bring up the desired effect.

Now, could I essentially stitch their dreams together into a mini-matrix?

Patreeck?

Possible, but I believe that will take up a lot of processing power. But it can be done, I think I can put about 30 people together.

I paused and considered the issue. Indeed, its been some time since then.

Many of us have abilities and powers, and though we labor hard at work in the school and Freshka, we do dream of visiting our new allies.

I agreed. So, first, I pulled together the senior priests, and those that have performed well. I defined performing well as those that were able to train new priests to a high level and guide them, or priests who were able to perform their social tasks and convert large groups to my cause, without relying too much on material rewards and lies. Even doing this assessment took a month, but eventually I appointed 5 more Patriarchs and Matriarchs.

This time, 3 of them were Treefolk, 1 was a centaur and one last one was a human.

With the appointment of 5 more, I then implemented a rotational shift. 5 of 15 Patriarches will be travelling to spread the faith, on two-year shifts. That meant, over the course of 6 years, all 15 patriarchs and matriarchs would have had their stint in the field. Like my young nobles, these experienced priests also need to stretch their legs and see how things are in the lands outside. Things may have changed.

On the side of the FTC, weve increased the admittance to the college. With more new allied kingdoms, it was important that they show some proof of their alliance. So, essentially, sending their young children to the FTC, so far away from their home kingdoms, is meant to be this act of trust. Its also leverage.

At the same time, weve expanded recruitment of instructors from all these new allied nations too, to cater to a growing student population. Freshka, the Capital of the Freshlands, is a large university town home to 3 large educational and training institutions.

Once this whole setup stabilized, I intend to set up satellite campuses and branch campuses for the School of Treeology and FTC, like how Valthorns have mini-bases throughout the Freshlands and my allied kingdoms.

The Valthorns, being a military wing, always had multiple forward bases for attacks into the Rottedlands, or various peacekeeping and social order assignments. These are centered around a main [Giant Attendant Tree], a relic of my earlier New Freeka days. The Valthorns always had Giant Trees as forward bases. They also act as recruitment centers and training centers, for orphanages that were previously under the Valthorns and Valtrian Orders jurisdiction.

Its ironic. Not long ago, in the days of New Freeka, I told kings and royalty, no special privileges and no special area.

Now, I even set up an entire school to brainwash, sorry, re-educate their children. Maybe some hero from my world would notice that this entire college setup is nothing more than a glorified luxury-grade reeducation and rehabilitation center.

I suppose life, even in a world of magic, has a way of playing tricks.

Still, the presence of so many young nobles and their entourage brought incredible economic vibrancy to Freshka. Various shops and merchants set up branches and offices to cater to their every whim, luxury restaurants, luxury goods, tutors and trainers, blacksmiths and craftsmen, all made good money serving young, impressionable nobles looking to impress and show off to each other.

Its also a good way to stimulate the flow of money and trade from these faraway nations to the Freshlands, as these faraway kings and queens would have to send stipends, pay for sustenance, pay for their servants.

Sending money through such long distances in the age of magic still required a network of merchants, people who were willing to trade goods, and so on. Often, merchants would make arrangements to sell goods to kingdoms, and the merchants also acted as their means to remittance agents.

At times, it was amusing to read the thoughts of these young nobles. At other times, it was just grating.

Still, a school life for the rich and powerful emerged, along with their attendants. Along with it, came clubs, and little fraternities. Some were on racial lines, like a club for human nobles, a club for elven nobles, a club for treefolks. Most of the smaller, less common races formed a combined club of their own.

Also, I made Thordrock as Vice Chancellor of the FTC, despite his rather shaky loyalties. I needed someone now, while I still trained my pipeline of future Chancellors, and gave him a set of guidelines to follow. I rather liked his pitch about unity of the Central continent.

Id also put him through a few trips to [dream academy]. I had hoped to merge his classes together, but instead he just unlocked an additional [Tutor] class. Itll take a while, I suppose.

Still, he really did started on the whole booze-and-wine appreciation and tolerance classes. Theres even booze, wine and whiskey clubs, and it seemed battle lines were drawn. The wine-club members had nobles from more conservative, old-families, and would view the other two as uncultured, the whiskey club seemed to be more urban-wealth, comprising the children of many lords and kings from major trading hubs, while the booze were more of the rest.

I suppose I added to the fire when we challenged all 3 clubs to make the best herbal-infused alcoholic liquor. Herbal beer, herbal wines and herbal whiskeys.

-

As the year drew to the end. The demon kings destruction of the Eastern Continent continued. The demon king resembled a large twin-headed demon-dragon with two massive wings, it had a wide range of elemental attacks.

Laufens still asking for more news on Lausanne, but we dont have many informants, and Lausannes not contacting us.

But I still sense my connection to the [Possession of the Devoted], and the drain on my [star mana]. So shes alive. The key is really avoiding the demon king. As long as she continued to stay away from the demon king, shell be fine.

I told Laufen that much, that I still sense her presence and that my familiar is still connected to her.

For now, the demon kings mostly wrecking the Eastern Continent, where the hell are the heroes? Maybe the heroes will be summoned in the Eastern Continent too?

Or would that be a bad thing, for them to be summoned there and face a full-powered demon king, when they are underleveled?

But if they spawn outside of the Eastern Continent, would the demon king follow them? Or maybe, it cant see them when they are still low-leveled, like how the earlier heroes managed to dodge the demon king.

Im betting next year. Jura said. Maybe the gods havent got ready yet.

I dont see why they need to wait so long. They didnt have to summon new heroes for 40 years, surely some of their power recharged. Thats speculation on my part, of course, that gods need to have their powers recharged. Its entirely possible that their powers work in weird ways.