NOVEL FROG Chapter 10: Future Plans
The tenth day of the third month of year 989957
Owen finished his morning meditation and started walking to the throne room.
His meditation room was close to the throne room, so he reached there quickly.
He entered and sat on the throne, and then looked around.
5 people were inside.
First to the right seat was rank 1 official mage Nell Kidd, the leader of mages in the kingdom.
Nell was handpicked by Alistair.
Owen could order Nell to do anything, but he has a direct line to Alistair if he thinks the order is inappropriate.
Alistair could overrule Owen.
Although it has never happened before, Owen still feels uneasy that he has no autonomy to order his mage commander.
Before, he was respectful to Nell, but now, he is only polite.
After all, both are official mages now.
On the left seat of the first row was Josef Santana.
He was the prime minister, managing the internal affairs of the kingdom.
Owen was satisfied with him.
Next, on the right seat of the second row, was Tristan Farrell, who was given the new position of commander of troops.
Commander of troops was a new position created by Owen's order.
Previously, the prime minister was the commander of troops.
But continuing with his decentralization agenda, Owen weakened the prime minister and created a commander of troops.
Tristan's position was wholly separated from the prime minister, only taking orders from Owen.
Next, on the left seat of the second row, was Phillip Fowler, Owen's assistant regarding matters of nobles.
Owen was unsatisfied with him, primarily because of what happened with Count Sykes.
Count Sykes rebelled, and this man didn't know in advance to inform him.
Owen let him be until now because he was busy with other matters.
Julius Jacobs was sitting on the right seat of the third row.
He was Owen's assistant in matters of surrounding kingdoms.
His position was not helpful.
Owen had plans to abolish it.
He has a lot of plans for the cabinet.
Today, the prime minister controls everything except the army, mages, and relations with nobels.
Owen doesn't like one person to be so powerful.
He plans to create a minister of external relations solely responsible for foreign affairs.
Other plans include creating a minister of treasury, minister of construction, minister of the royal staff, minister of law, and others.
Currently, the prime minister controls all of these areas.
In truth, the prime minister is too powerful.
Sure, he has to report everything to Owen, and all of the big decisions are made by Owen.
But he still appoints people who control almost every aspect of half of the kingdom's people.
The other half is controlled by nobles.
The nobles still have a lot of autonomy.
They must respect some general rights and obey the court, pay taxes to the kingdom, and other minor matters.
In other areas, they are unrestrained.
Owen dislikes this, too.
He wanted to change it, but any change regarding nobles would face fierce resistance.
It will require a lot of attention that he is unwilling to give it.
But in the long run, he plans to eventually dissolve nobles completely.
With so many planes, he said:" Let's begin."
First, Nell started talking," Your Majesty, the Blue Light Academy is asking for a certain amount of mortal resources. I have the list here. They give magic crystals in exchange."
Then he took out a large notebook with many item names along with explanations about the kinds and numbers all written in.
Owen took it and looked at it before giving it to Josef.
It is the academy's demand, so it must be met as soon as possible.
Also, magic crystals are useful to Owen.
Magic crystals are pieces of stone that contain a lot of pure energy.
There are three types of crystals.
Negative crystals, positive crystals, and magic crystals.
Negative crystals contain dark elements, which can only be used by demons.
Positive crystals contain light elements which can only be used by angels.
Magic crystals contain pure energy and can used by all.
They form naturally and also can be made artificially.
There are different ranks of magic crystal, from 0 to 10.
Of course, rank 10 is just in theory; in practice, almost all magic crystals in circulation are rank 0.
Some are rank 1, but above rank 1, their usefulness is limited to some limited areas.
One of the reasons is that rank 2 and above magic crystals are too rare and precious, Not really suitable to be a currency.
The biggest obstacle to mages' promotions is generally not a lack of root mana.
It is the need for pills, elixirs, magic treasures, and such.
Also, Mages can extract pure energy from magic crystals to meditate, but that's like burning a book to get warm.
The best way to gather root mana is by using root mana pills.
Magic crystals come in handy in making formations, making pills, making sealed spells, and any crafting that requires a lot of mana.
For Owen right now, rank 0 magic crystals are still useful, as he can buy some good weapons with them.
He does plan to buy a magic treasure with high offensive ability.
He can ask his ancestor, but he can't bring himself to because his ancestor gave him so much that he can't ask for more.
Next, Josef started talking," Your majesty, many young men willingly emigrated to Owen City to take advantage of your generous loans and incentives."
"Owen city now has a similar number of men and women."
"Family members of the deceased were compensated according to your orders."
"But, Your Majesty, we spent a lot of money in the last few months, so we will be in debt for the next few years."
Owen City is the former Sykes City.
After that disaster, only children and women remained alive.
Count Sykes was never found, nor was the mage that caused the disaster.
The Blue Light Academy ordered them to stop the investigations, which they did.
Owen is still bothered by not knowing what caused it.
He said," It's not a problem; I have a lot of plans which can increase our revenue in the future, next!"
Tristan said," Your majesty, we have replaced all the troops that died in the battle, but their training still requires more resources. We are patiently waiting for the first batch of knights to graduate."
Owen thought and told Josef," Borrow more money and increase resources for the knight academy according to the commander's demands."
Josef bowed and agreed.
For Owen, mortal money is as good as dirt.
Even one of the pills he eats daily is more valuable than the annual taxes of a city.
Over 1 hour later, Owen exited the throne room and went to the meditation room.
Rachel said: "Why didn't you announce your plans?"
Owen and Rachel talked a lot recently.
Rachel was lonely and bored, so she was always ready to talk.
And Owen, as a king, didn't have many close friends.
"It's not the time yet," he said.
"What are you waiting for?" Rachel asked.
Owen said, "I want to do all my reforms at once. I don't want it to be dragged out."
"It needs preparations. I want the knights to graduate from the Knight Academy and the new recruits adequately trained."
"After the army is ready, I will announce my order regarding nobles."
"With the army ready, any rebellion will be put down quickly."
Rachel said, "You are a mage. What can some mortals do? Why don't you use mages?"
Owen said, "Mages can't be used in mortal wars unless the Blue Light Academy allows it."
Rachel said, "Why should they reject your request?"
"They most likely accept my request, but I don't want to rely on mages to solve internal problems in the kingdom."
It makes me look bad in front of my ancestor. I am a genius, yet I can't solve some simple problems without relying on absolute power."
"You really care about how your ancestor thinks about you," Rachel said.
"Of course I do. Now, let's talk about pills. What should I use now?"
Rachel sighed and said, "It's time for a concentration pill."
concentration pill would increase the density of the magic core in Owen's aperture.
Owen opened the pill container, took a 'concentration pill,' and swallowed it without hesitation.
An incredible, relaxing energy entered his meridians and, with his guidance, reached his aperture.
The magic core in his aperture trembled and started shrinking.
After a few hours, Owen opened his eyes and smiled.
"I can feel my root mana becoming more pure! Rachel, your prescriptions are amazing!"
"Of course, I'm amazing!"
Owen laughed and got out of the meditation room.
He should visit Rose now.
After all, she is pregnant.
…
The twenty-first day of the eleventh month of year 989957
Alivia Logan was a rank 1 mage, currently the king of the Logan city-state, a neighbor to Robels kingdom!
Logan City was very different from all the surrounding kingdoms!
Here, every position of power was controlled by women.
Men were forbidden from any principal position within the city!
The reason that a city with a population of 100,000 like this was just one woman, Alivia!
She hated the system in other kingdoms, so she decided to make her dream kingdom here.
The words kingdom and king were chosen by her because the word queen was understood by everyone to mean the wife of the king.
The king's wife was the second highest position but not on the same level as the king.
It was inferior to the king!
If she chose queen and queendom, she would admit to being inferior.
For this reason, she decided to stick with the king and kingdom.
She was originally from a commoner background.
Her teacher taught her everything she knew.
She reached the rank 1 official mage without relying on any academy!
This is very rare but not unseen.
The conditions are simple: only reach the peak of first-grade mage apprentice, have the secret method and special spell, and you can try to advance.
Just, if you try like this, chances are that you die in the process.
People who rely on the academy use many methods to improve their chances.
But people like Alivia can only risk their lives and roll the dice.
Fortunately for her, she succeeded!
After Alivia, her master also tried, but she failed and died.
Alivia still remembers the sadness of that day.
First, she was happy that she was promoted to the official mage, but in the same month, her master tried and failed, exploding into a mist of blood!
She cried for weeks!
Alivia sighed and looked at the letter.
It was from the Blue Light Academy, inviting her to register with them as a guest mage.
The academy has been sending letters for a long time, but she avoided them as much as possible.
Now, they send a rank 1 mage to deliver this letter, so she can no longer avoid them.
"I don't like to go there at all," she thought.
The Robels kingdom was full of bad memories for her, so she didn't want to go.
But she also wanted to avoid angering the Blue Light Academy.
"I have to go through the motions," she thought.
The power of the Blue Light Academy was a significant deterrence to her.
She has no hope of even running if she is wanted by them.
Surprisingly, the rank 1 mage only gave her a date and location and left afterward.
"Capital of Robels kingdom, royal palace?" She thought.
She has many memories of that city.
She got back and prepared and, after 7 days, left for the capital of Robels kingdom.