Registree

Registree

Year 143

Weve made contact with a few secretly dissatisfied kingdoms, and of them, a few more agreed to establish covert trade relations. Rather than fly any national flags, the trade would go via ships that looked like, behaved like, and manned by pirates. Privateers, essentially.

We would also need to arrange with some independent islands to act as trading intermediaries, to cover up the paperwork and trail, disguising the origin of goods. Were some pariah state, at least, in the eyes of the 4 temples, but clearly not all kingdoms think so, even if they cant disagree publicly, given how far we are. I suppose were like a certain nuclear state in that sense.

It was also a good way to formally engage many out of work merchants that have already turned to piracy anyway. So, the FFA organised a project to convert a few of the smaller port cities into pirate-dens, where all these out of work merchants can start their new careers as state sanctioned privateers and merchants.

This was where the [Trade Lord], that young noble from before, volunteered to take up the task of changing the port cities for this purpose. One of the allied kingdoms was rather miffed, but we offered to compensate him for letting us run one of the port cities, in the form of tax revenues. Someone else was going to accept the terms anyway.

I spawned a few more artificial minds to track the ships that call on the ports. There was always a risk that real pirates would then come to these fake-pirate-dens, and the only way we could spot it is if we tracked the ships that were on our side, and those who were not. The crews could change too, so the artificial minds were there.

One of these fake-pirate-dens was in a swampy area, and Id imagine it looked like some pirate movie, complete with the mist and faint glowing lights that lurked in the swamp trees.

Swamps.

Thats a relatively new territory for me, in the sense that theres still a lot of research to be done on swamp-adapted plants. Ive used the [biolab] to analyse quite a few of the swamp samples over the past few years, and did gain some understanding, but my focus has been on anti-air weapons and expanding the anti air and anti-humanoid competencies of my beetles and spiders.

I do have the magic poop resistant plants from a few decades ago, so those also can be considered a type of swamp plants, but those are more of a freshwater-swamp type of plant.

The issue really, is really saltwater. These swamps are next to the sea and ocean, and saltwater tends to make the regular plants feel dry and quickly they would die. I also had to quickly barriers for my roots, so as not to draw too much salt into my root networks. My main body is adapted to all kinds of environments, and that also includes saltwater, so I could control my roots behavior to a certain extent. But maintaining a connection to the saltwater and swamp plants meant placing some filters in place.

If I want to ever cross the ocean, the first barrier Id have to pass is to develop saltwater-adapted plants. Thats ignoring all the other issues such as high underwater pressures, monsters, possibly underwater druids, underwater civilisations and possibly, even eldritch monsters.

Id probably start by finding a small island somewhere across the sea and attempt a small crossing. Conceptually that should not be so different from growing a root under the riverbed. Especially if the roots are deep enough not to be affected by the saltwater. Ne/w novel chapters are published at novelhall.com

Anyway, I digressed.

The demon king has not been spotted leaving the Eastern Continent. After the collapse of the blockade, and also from Lausannes experience on that continent, it turned out that a lot of small cities have managed to survive, as they went underground.

By Lausannes own measure though, about 70-80% of all kingdoms have been destroyed, the actual casualty rate is probably around 40-50% as most of the citizens have fled once the demons started to expand. This even included nobles and royalty, who fled to allied kingdoms, or those with blood relations on other continents. The few kingdoms that are left are usually maritime-focused nations, that had cities based on the islands, or those who built their cities into mountains or other easily fortified locations.

Yet, no demon king spotted. The demon drakes have been flying and attacking the maritime nations, and so far, only the demon-champion class giant drakes have been spotted. I used my magical sensors to try and understand whats happening, and couldnt detect anything either.

Also, that batch of heroes did arrive and attack the demon king, and they were slightly above level 100, all of them.

So, Im predicting that the demon king is either injured rather badly that it needs to recover, or theres some residual energy left by the heroes that kept the demon king immobile, or, the demon king itself cannot move by nature.

If its the last one, that would be a great relief to the world, but that certainly didnt align to the drakes.

No one has seen the demon king itself, actually. Only the heroes have dared venture close. Lausanne said. Now that shes back in Freshka, shes taken on the role as one of the Valthorns military trainers, together with Ardi. Theyve decided to put down their adventurers hat and settle down as educators. For now.

-

Lausanne when she was younger did not have much talent, I recall that I had to feed her so many memories and dreams before she developed combat sense. Or maybe she was just a late bloomer.

But somehow I think Arlisa started with a natural aptitude. Even as a 2 to 3 year old little girl, she seemed like she easily mimicked the movement of her mother. I wonder whether it was because it was her mother thats teaching her, rather than anything genetics or inherited, but somehow, something told me shes gifted.

I wonder if I concentrated my resources on her, would I make someone way stronger? Still, that family has been through so much, so I decided to look elsewhere.

Now that theres almost an entire continent under my observation, it was possible for me to spend more effort to spy and locate talent.

To most of the civilians, they thought I derived this ability to locate talent by some kind of soothsaying or predictive ability, but in reality, its just a massive network of observation trees, artificial minds to crunch the data, and then a layer of reviews. So, for very young children, I actually dont know anything, since the data needs to be gathered over a long period of time. This meant the earliest we drafted someone to join the Valtrian Orders early-stage academies and training camps was around 7 or 8 years old.

In a way, my observations of Arlisa constituted special treatment, from me. Which was partly why. just last year I started screenings for the children of nobles and those of retired Valthorns and Valtrian Orders, and so far, I spotted some hereditary skills. Indeed, most hereditary skills are transient, in the sense that they would transform into another skill at a certain maturity period.

That age differed by race, by skill, and by many other factors which I have yet to understand, and I needed a larger, larger dataset to form anything conclusive. I wanted to institute mandatory screenings of young children in a [biolab] at ages 3, and age 5, and then age 10, but from Patreeck and the other artificial minds assessment, such screenings would be resisted.

If anything, I needed to mask it as something else, and preferably, tap into faith and religion.

Already, the priests perform some kind of ritual on young children, similar to blessings. So, we decided to expand the blessing ceremony on young children, so as to include a ceremonial dip in a biolab.

Of course, the biolab would have to be shaped and formed to be compatible with the priests blessing ceremony. A baptreesm at ages 3, 5 and 10, if I may borrow from the religions of my world. The one aged 3 and 5 would be blessing with some additional nutrients and healing. The one aged 10 could be the coming-of-age ceremony.

I gathered my Patreearchs and Matreearchs to roll out the new baptreesm process. Again, ceremonies, processes and rituals were things priests loved. It gave them power, and purpose. For the people, it gave them peace of mind.

All for the purpose of gathering a massive dataset and assessment of the continents talent pool. This was a massive undertaking only Patreeck could handle, and even then I had to set up more artificial minds to take on the recording process, which led to me unlocking a new tree type.

[Unlocked new special tree type - The Registree.]

[The Registree is a library of data, and can store all kinds of information.]

The ship docked, and out came adventurers.

The cursed continent. They said.

The soldiers and Iasenos tensed up. That was a horrible way to start. The adventurers didnt look that interested.

Dont worry, were sailing off soon. A young girl hopped off the ship. The adventurers quickly climbed back up their ship, and then the ship started sailing.

Uh. You guys arent even going to come with me? The girl sighed, and then she turned to the soldiers. Alright, uh... hi. The soldiers looked uncomfortable, their weapons were ready and armed.

Iasenos put up a stern face.

They stared at each other for a few seconds.

Iasenos then started talking. All visitors from abroad are required to fill up the necessary forms. Have you completed your documentation? Do you have your papers?

The girl froze, and shook her head. I... uh...

Do you have a merchants trade letter, or an endorsement letter of your identity from your local authority?

I... no.

Are you travelling on a diplomatic license or a messengers assignment?

No.

Then Im afraid you must come with us to our detention center and answer a bit more questions.

She nodded. Okay. She was dressed also in typical adventurer armor and weaponry. At this point, I had not sensed her, only my artificial minds were monitoring the situation. In the detention center, she was interrogated by the Valtrian Order.

It was when she finally explained who she was, that the artificial minds sought my attention.

My name is Kei, Im uh... one of the three new heroes.

Iasenos paused as he processed the information. He quickly chased everyone else out of the room. New... heroes? The one from the second summoning.

...yes. Kei stared at the centaur. The centaur merely stared back. He was quickly using his familiar to reach out to other Valthorns in the region. He took a few deep breathes and formulated a mental response.

Why are you here, then?

Im here to claim the hero weapons. The one left to us by my predecessors.

Theres no such thing. Iasenos lied intentionally.

Kei frowned. I refuse to believe that. Take me to Aeon.

What gives you the right to demand an audience with our divine tree? The centaur played hardball.

Im a hero.

Prove it. A hero should be able to use star mana.

She paused and sighed. I... uh.. My [hero] class is still low. I cant use star mana yet.

Then what do you have as evidence of your [hero] status?

She thought about it for a moment. Well, star mana isnt the only hero thing, right? May I demonstrate? I do need to be outside, though.

Iasenos nodded. Come.

In the port city, the Valthorns building is a small one, an additional building built next to the existing local ruling governors building. Outside, there was a small field for the local recruits to practice.

She sat, and then floated. [Ship-mode]. Instantly, a magical frame appeared around her body, and it was shaped like a.... Shipgirl with a magical frame of cannons and guns at her side. I can transform into magical adaptations of my world, and itll get stronger when I level. Does that count as sufficient evidence?

She honestly sounded embarrassed explaining it. A shipgirl. Seriously. Who came up with that idea?

Iasenos paused. That could be just some sophisticated illusion magic, but very well. I will raise a case with the regional Valthorn leadership for further advice. Until then, take this. Iasenos gave her a wooden belt. Tie this around your leg. That way, we know youve not fled.

If I am a hero, I could just break it.

If you break it for any reason, then we know youre not a good person anyway, even if you are a hero. So, its in your interest not to break it.

Kei smirked. I see.