Chapter 832 – Remior’s golden century – A world reforged (Patreon)

The runes on the teleportation platform flashed with various colours, sending Percy to Twilight City – where Owain’s regional tournament was being held – in the blink of an eye. It was a reminder of how convenient it was to be living next to such an advanced facility.

The abundance of teleportation devices he’d seen on the Void Hand’s planets had given him the false impression that the structures were easy to build and maintain once a civilization possessed the knowledge and enough skilled technicians, but reality had proven very different.

Even after “borrowing” the best blueprints that he’d been able to get his hands on from across dozens of the most advanced planets in the universe, cross-referencing their designs and personally upgrading the winners with magiscript, Percy had still been shocked by how complex and resource-hungry the platforms were.

Every single platform required a hill of dimensional marble and years of work to create, as well as a lot of mana to keep active. Nesha and the other experts had only managed to craft a couple dozen platforms on Remior after labouring for decades, and that was also about the limit of what their blossoming civilization could currently support. Adding many more wasn’t worth it, as the ones they’d built had already bridged the continent’s largest and most important trading hubs, and the rest would only be wasting resources that could be invested elsewhere.

The one in Bogside City – where Percy and his girlfriend were staying – had been more of a personal indulgence, admittedly. At least at first. They’d built it at their own expense just to keep themselves connected to the rest of the grid. They’d sought out a quiet place to build their new life – or at least to rest and spend their rare vacations, since their work obviously forced them to travel a lot and regularly meet with people.

Percy and Nesha had agreed that the Alchemists’ Guild was way too busy for their needs, and she hadn’t even entertained his suggestion of continuing to live in the underground network of tunnels beneath the Fungal Spire “like a couple of savages”.

Returning to the reclaimed Camelot province – specifically the small town they remembered so fondly – had been the obvious choice. The territory had technically already belonged to Percy’s family before the abolition of the nobility system. The couple had also wanted to breathe some life into that place to thank the townsfolk for welcoming them during their hour of need. Bogside Town had always been small and poor due to a relative lack of resources and centuries of abuse by House Tantalus, so any new project had been bound to invigorate it.

The noble Houses – both allied and defeated – had complained about giving up their authority during the first few years after the war, and that group had even included Archibald. For all his love for and trust in his grandson, he’d been the head of a noble family for centuries and had never experienced a different system, so he had been understandably wary of the changes.

In Percy’s defence, he hadn’t asked the nobles to completely abandon their surnames, traditions, or properties. Those who cared about preserving their family’s legacy or matchmaking their children based on the bloodlines and affinities of their spouses were still free to do that in this new society, provided that the recipients of those “romantic” advances welcomed them.

Percy’s goal had never been to erase his planet’s rich history overnight. He’d simply wanted to give commoners a chance to pick surnames of their own, travel around the planet with as much freedom as anyone else, and have the same rights and opportunities as the former nobles.

To that end, he’d introduced a centralized government that was elected by the people every eight years and was responsible for providing education and financial support to communities that needed it. The government had also granted rights to its citizens across the board and was meant to uphold justice regardless of a person’s status. In theory, even if a rich and powerful White-cored mage like Periphetes were to harm a random Red-born commoner, he was supposed to be punished according to his crime.

The system still wasn’t perfect, as those who had been high-ranking nobles before its introduction had immediately hogged all the top positions in the government, and countless flaws and abuses had been discovered throughout the years. And that was without even mentioning the financial and educational head start that the former nobles had entered the new system with.

Luckily, some of Percy’s friends and relatives had also managed to claim a few of the most important positions through their own abilities, and the rest of the seats had also eventually reached more deserving hands.

A century later, there were already several people in high-ranking positions who had originated from humbler families without surnames, as well as plenty of younger people who had never even experienced the old system and had grown up in a peaceful Remior. At some point, the lingering complaints from the noble families had started to die down. Everyone had come to understand that even the poorest citizens under Percy’s new system lived better lives than the wealthiest and most privileged aristocrats of the past.

What Percy hadn’t foreseen – though perhaps he should have – was that his very presence in Bogside Town would attract lots of aspiring merchants and opportunistic bootlickers – who had obviously realized that economic growth and technological development tended to follow in his wake. While he and Nesha had originally chosen the place as an escape from all the political chaos, they had accidentally turned it into one of Remior’s largest and busiest settlements yet.

Even their residence hadn’t been spared from the changes, though that was admittedly their own fault. Percy and Nesha had rebuilt their already-rebuilt house dozens of times. It had almost become a ritual of theirs to tear the place down and redesign it from scratch every couple of years, incorporating new technologies developed on Remior or discovered during Percy’s travels.

‘I suppose it’s time to head to the stadium.’ Percy sighed.

He could have made it there fifteen minutes ago, but he’d chosen to linger near the teleportation platform to spare himself some of the advertisements. Perhaps he should talk to Micky about restricting the time they allocated to the corporations, since this was starting to impact everyone’s enjoyment of the events.

Nesha had yet to call him again, but she was probably going to do that quite soon if he wasted any more time. Still, he could probably afford to walk to the venue instead of flying towards it like a madman. It was only a couple of minutes away.

Twilight City had also grown a lot over the past century, though it was no longer the planet’s largest city. Funnily enough, the fact that it had already been so massive before the war had only served to slow its growth. The Black and White Syndicate – which apparently still existed in some watered-down form – had been hesitant to completely redesign their city. Percy had noticed that the fastest growing settlements tended to be those that had been founded more recently.

That said, Twilight City was still full of skyscrapers constructed out of magical or highly complex mundane materials and enchanted to the brim with magiscript. Closed metallic tubes used by weaker mages for public transport wove between the buildings, while hovercrafts and powerful mages flew overhead, casting shadows on the streets and parks below.

The Syndicate had tried very hard to maintain the city’s unique identity by preserving the historic black and white style that distinguished neighbouring districts, though the curfew on the white districts and the rules about flying inside the city had proven impossible to keep. A lot of newer districts had also been added to the outskirts of the city, and even the older districts had been upgraded extensively.

The people Percy met along the way all recognized him, as he’d obviously been forced by the circumstances to socialize a lot more over the past century than he would have liked. The statues that had been erected on every single settlement on the planet, the pictures printed on millions of books, newspapers and magazines, and the countless videos circulating the network would have made it impossible for anyone to forget what he looked like even if he hadn’t given everyone the Moirais’ Decree.

He politely returned the passersby’s excited greetings while rejecting their attempts to stop him and take pictures with him, tapping on his rWatch to indicate that he didn’t have time.

It was only after thirty or so interactions that he realized that some of the looks he was getting today were slightly off. Glancing down at his clothes, he remembered that he was still dressed in his lab coat, which caused a few beads of cold sweat to roll down his face.

‘That was a close one. Nesha is going to kill me if she learns that I went out in public looking like this. Let alone if I show up at the stadium without changing.’

He browsed through his mental database for a template that fit the occasion, eventually settling on one that his girlfriend and cousin might approve of.

Feeding the signal into his rWatch, he watched the purple crystal blink twice to indicate that it had received the information, before sending a wave of same-coloured light pulsing through the fibres of his lab coat. The very next second, his clothes shapeshifted into a stylish cyan shirt, a comfortable pair of matching loafers, and a pair of tan trousers. He even added a fedora of the same colour as his trousers into the mix, mostly to hide the orange glow on his forehead that still occasionally gave people the creeps, and used his Merciful Spring domain combined with the concept of Illusion to draw attention away from the vibrant mana glowing across his channels and around his body.

‘Much better.’ He nodded with appreciation as he kept walking.

Nesha had often told him she liked the combination of the light-coloured hat, his tied black hair and trimmed beard, so who was he to deny his lady some eye candy?

The best part was that the magical fabric of his clothes was still strong enough to block a White’s strongest attack with ease, despite how soft and fragile it looked. After all, Percy’s customizable attire was nothing less than the latest iteration of his Cloak!

Percy had been capable of slightly tweaking the texture and colour of his Cloak ever since he had obtained the Mimicry trait – which had happened over a century ago – but the modifications had always been limited by the quantity and underlying properties of the material.

That had all changed with the invention of Rune Watches – or rWatches for short – and smart clothes.