The Cygilites had entered Cygislax. Leeros quickly said his goodbyes, knowing that Akhenamen would undoubtedly get deeply busy having to settle all his people. And indeed he was.
?
Swiftly organising Cygislax into a sort of pyramidal city in different stratums, each one having a different purpose and housing different Cygilites. The Ancestors would live on the first stratum, where they would be charged with training and helping the newly born Cygilites to settle in.
?
The Beyonders would live in the second stratum, where they would be tasked with reforming the Cygilites armies and military formations using knowledge granted to them by Akhenamen’s memories.
?
The Thrones were granted the third stratum, where they would be tasked with turning the entirety of Oleron into a fortified place that even the gods at their full might would have been unable to breach. Akhenamen had also obviously granted them access to future technologies, defensive constructs, artillery, and more.
?
The Authorities however, were quite peculiar as they had never really been true strategists. They could single-handedly wipe out any faction without an Authority. But they weren’t really suited to actually make plans or a strategy.
?
As so the Authorities did not have a stratum but all of Oleron, they were pretty much told they were free to move around or sleep where they wished. The only rule being to not bother the resting Ulgatoth.
?
Cygislax was gonna be given, for a start at least, the shape and strategy his future self had used and considered as the most appropriate for warfare. He didn’t doubt he would be able to improve it at one point, but it was the result of the greatest Cygilites' engineers working tirelessly on making these designs. So if they started with that… what height would they reach?
?
To understand the change that would happen through Oleron in the following years it needed to be explained. Oleron would be turned into one single massive defensive position. A line that would never break or allow any invasive forces to go through.
?
Oleron would become a trap. Once Project Rebirth was launched and during its expansions, the Cygilites would be constantly given stronger and stronger adversaries to stop Akhenamen from helping the players too much. And he knew that asshole of a system would at some point even allow the invasions to appear directly in Oleron. So it couldn’t just be an unbreakable line. But an unbreakable cage, too.
?
One that would make the enemies realise they had massively fucked up the moment they appeared. Oleron would be fully terraformed into the most fortified place in this universe. And Akhenamen knew that even at the end of the Final Battle, that title was still not his. But this time it would be.
?
And at the center of those defenses, forts, walls, trenches, or shielded bunkers, would stand Cygislax. The Cygilites' greatest defense. While Cygislax stood, Oleron would never fall. Oleron could be pierced, broken, and shattered, but Cygislax itself had to be as well defended. No… even better defended than all of Oleron put together.
?
Cygislax would become a city that would make people believe that its true strength lay in its peaks, but actually came from its depths. Every stratum would become a fortified position able to defend itself not just from outside attack but even from attacks launched from the other stratums.
?
Each stratum would be specially engineered to act as a boost and a perfect fighting ground and defensive position for its inhabitants: Ancestors, Beyonders, Thrones, etc. All would have their own specially designed stratum.
?
Immediately, he added all those changes to his new system tab : [Territory]. It was a tab reserved for rulers of any size or level. Even a level one could unlock that tab if he governed a territory. It actually gave an actual map of Zenthia showing claimed territories, public alliances, public commercial deals, etc.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
?
Anything a ruler could need was on this map. Except for what was done in secret. For that, one would need spies and secret agencies. It was only showcasing “public knowledge” after all. And now the map also showed that the territory of the Cygilites race (shown as a soft glowing green color) had expanded from just Cygislax to all of Oleron. Which, by itself, took a good 3/10 of the continent.
?
The biggest territory, however, belonged to the Merfolks who owned almost all of Zenthia's inner sea. This tab also allowed him to see his territory’s stats according to the System when comparing with the other empires and kingdoms, not just of Zenthia but of the entire universe.
?
Akhenamen did believe he was the only one who had access to the full extent of the Territory tab, as most factions on Zenthia shouldn’t be aware that there were… other inhabited planets. The gods no doubt knew but were forbidden to talk about it by the System.
?
For a very valid reason, he wouldn’t get into it for now; he was already too busy. The Cygilites' stats went as follows. They were surprisingly simple.
?
The stats were pretty self-explanatory, each representing exactly what you’d believe they meant. Leadership was the only exception as it represented a mix between his own personal strength, leadership capabilities, and his counselors. Which were still unappointed.
?
A stat could not go above 11. Ten is the current highest achieved in any given category. Having eleven in a stat pretty much meant you were at such a level that the System itself couldn’t really fully categorize your level.
?
And to give a good idea of how hard raising a stat was, even during the final battle, the Cygilites, the strongest faction from Zenthia, only had around 7 Military. And even on a universal scale, no more than twenty or so factions would have dared face the Cygilites.
?
Their highest stat had been Leadership with 11, because of his own absurd strength and status as an Aspect. Not even because of his actual leadership. He was just that strong to represent an eleven based on his strength alone.
?
The Universal Ranking, UR, was, as its name implied, a ranking involving every faction recorded in the System, which meant MOST developed races all over this Universe. Considering there were millions of factions, if not even more, his ranking was actually pretty good.
?
He also remembered a nice metaphor he had come up with to explain the difference between every stat point gained. Earth was at one military point. A race with two military points could wipe out Earth in a few weeks at most. A race like the Cygilites with three could destroy its days. The Authorities alone would be enough to shatter continents.
?
“DAD!”
?
His daughter’s loud voice took him out of his own mind, staring at the small girl holding on to his cloak.
?
“You’re getting too busy! Can we go do your quest now?”
?
“What do you mean, Syllena?”
?
“You have a world quest to complete! Shouldn’t you do it fast, which you can as you’re one of the strongest on the continent, and THEN start getting lost in developing Cygislax and your people? And that’s not counting the fact you still have millions of Felinids souls in your possession.”
?
“... I guess that’s true. Alright. Ascylla, tell everyone I shall be busy for one week at most, but will most likely be back sooner. I have a promise to fulfill.”
?
Akhenamen knew Syllena was right. He had been postponing this quest for too long despite the rather huge promised rewards. His body flew out of Cygislax before Ascylla could even answer. Flying being jumping, as Akhenamen still didn’t know how to fly.
Using his Tri-Astromath constructs as launching and landing pads. Literally jumping over the desert at immense speed toward his map’s destination. A map showing him the location of the Primordial Moon Essence located in Oleron.
?
Around him, he could spot some of the fauna of Oleron. He had never really been bothered by them as they all, bar a few exceptions, obeyed Ulgototh, who was an ally to the Cygilites. Gigantic desert worms, massive scorpions, sand krakens, even a few dragon nests, and Elder Ravagers moving around the sea of sand.
?
Oleron was terribly dangerous even for Thrones. However, the Cygilites' alliance with Ulgototh allowed them not be attacked constantly by his subordinate. One could wonder why Ulgototh wasn’t the one who owned Oleron. The answer was simple: he wasn’t interested.
?
He had been sleeping for thousands of years and would like to keep sleeping. Ruling stuff? Too annoying and boring. Sleeping was his favorite activity, however. And as he was an elemental, he naturally got stronger as he aged, so why bother trying to rule over a territory when he could propose an alliance with a powerful race who would be allowed to live and control his desert while he peacefully slept under their most protected location?
?
Ulgototh was clearly the winner of this exchange. A well-orchestrated plan with one goal in mind…TO SLEEP! Just a few kilometers away from Akhenamen, a humble well made from natural stones. A dark hole, which seemed to glow a gentle blue color, was waiting.
