One week later.
The area surrounding the Valley of Mist was mostly devoid of vegetation except for the occasional shrubs which peeked out of the ground, displaying their tenacity to grow in a place highly deficient in minerals and water.
The point where this barrenness transformed into lush vegetation was a common attraction that some travelers made sure to see before being on their way.
THUD
With a loud sound, a contingent of 1000 people suddenly appeared in this place which only ever saw footfalls amounting in the hundreds in any particular year.
These people had all donned hoods which hid their faces, while wearing clothes made of a material that seemed light but flexible.
The instant they appeared, each person looked in a certain direction before disappearing again one by one.
After a few moments, the group rea.s.sembled in the same spot and disappearing again after casting a tornado spell to hide the signs of their feet on the ground.
This entire occurrence was completed without a hitch in the span of a few seconds after making sure that there was no one observing the area where the larger group had arrived.
Meanwhile, in the Royal Palace of Lanthanor.
The catacombs under the Palace were one of the best-kept secrets so far mainly because of the fact that they hadn"t been used much in recent years. Yet, with the advent of King Daneel, this had changed.
First, the a.s.sembly line which was made up of zealots who enjoyed to sit at a table all day and enchant trinkets was located in one of the three large underground rooms which had been filled only with cobwebs until a few months ago.
Now, there were roughly 1000 people present in the room adjacent to the one with the a.s.sembly line.
In this room, multiple tables had been set up on which display trinkets which had been blank until now filled with images one by one.
Although they seemed to be from different angles and viewpoints, they all had one similarity: all of them were pointed at the valley which was known as the most dangerous no-trespa.s.sing zone in all of Central Angaria.
In this room, around 2000 people had been gathered who were all respectfully looking at the King of Lanthanor who had been waiting for the trinkets to activate and receive the live feed.
"As you can see, our soldiers have successfully set up the communication eyes all around the Valley where we suspect the Eldest Prince to be hiding. It is your job to keep an eye on the display and note down each and every anomaly you see. I have no intention whatsoever of breaking my promise to the people of Lanthanor; the Eldest Prince will hang. Will you all help me to achieve this goal?"
"YES, MY KING!"
"Good. Now get to work."
With these words, half of the people in the room exited the underground room while the other half made their way to the positions already a.s.signed to them.
The half who left reached the third underground room in the catacombs to find piles of Ether blocks waiting for them.
With gleaming eyes, each of them grasped one before sitting down on the mats provided and beginning to train.
Although all of them had low-grade potential, they had never had the resources to train themselves and had also been kicked out from the army for performing poorly in the evaluations.
After taking a glance at this room where so many people were all training frantically, Daneel nodded to himself before making his way back to the situation room.
The day on which the Withering Leaf Sect had provoked the Kingdom of Lanthanor by brutally murdering their spies had been spent by drowning themselves in wine.
Although it was his first time drinking, his top-potential body had made it so that his endurance rivaled even that of Luther and Robert.
This fact had amazed them to no end, ensuing in a drinking compet.i.tion which had been a draw.
As for Kellor and Faxul, it turned out that they had the least endurance of them all as they had collapsed after just the first few gla.s.ses.
Since ascending the throne, this was the first time that Daneel completely let himself go and allowed himself to waste an entire day by doing nothing and putting everything to the side.
The next day, he had been quite surprised to see that his mind seemed clearer while the burden that he always felt seemed to not put as much pressure on him as before.
It was not that the weight of the burden had decreased. In fact, it had only increased due to the newly added guilt that had only lessened so far.
It was Daneel who had changed. By proverbially letting his hair down, Daneel had managed to take a much-needed rest to relax from the extreme tediousness of his position.
Thus, making a mental note to himself about the effectiveness of a break, he had wholeheartedly thrown himself into planning for their counter-attack.
When he and the rest of the commanders sat down to build a strategy, they realized that there was one thing missing: information.
Lanthanor was out in the open, visible to all. Thus, it was easy to track those coming in and out of the Kingdom if one was willing to spend enough resources.
The Withering Leaf Sect, on the other hand, was located in a place which was blank in all the maps in Central Angaria.
Daneel had even asked Eldra, who was currently busy learning the ways of governance and adapting herself to being Queen.
Eldra had already told him about those observing her like hawks; thus, Daneel knew that he had to tread carefully whenever he wished to activate his "puppet".
Yet, sharing information was trivial. On his order, Eldra had gone and perused all the information pertaining to the Valley of Mist in the records of the Kingdom of the Elves.
The only additional information he had gotten was that Eldinor had also managed to glimpse cargoes entering the woods, yet unlike the case with lanthanor where it had been a trap, those instances had been genuine.
Thus, Eldinor had sent a contingent inside with an Exalted Human Level Mage, who had vanished without a trace.
Realizing that what was inside probably wasn"t something they could handle, Eldinor had also cla.s.sified the area as a no-trespa.s.sing zone while also marking it with a red flag to show that it was possibly the location of a secret faction.
This information had gotten Daneel thinking. With teleportation as the norm for transporting goods, why was there a necessity to transport something inside by foot?
Again, he had no information.
Frustrated by this, he had hit upon a bold plan.
The display trinkets which he had made to facilitate his ascension to the throne were still functioning, as he had taken care to make them as rugged as possible without bothering about the cost.
With these as the base, Daneel had set out to make a stockpile of communication eyes and display trinkets by using the a.s.sembly line"s help with which he could make a web of observation around the entire Valley of Mist.
Although it was an enormous expenditure, he felt that it was crucial especially when he was about to go to war.
After this, he had compiled a list of people kicked out of the army who had also been affected by the Eldest Prince"s crimes in some way.
By employing them with the promise of giving them unlimited training resources for a set duration, he had succeeded in making his very own surveillance web.
With the enormous expense of each display trinket and communication eye which was in the hundreds of Gold Lans along with all the Ether blocks used by the surveillors, the treasury of the Lanthanor Kingdom was almost close to becoming empty.
Of course, the main dent had been the two initiatives of the school and the healer academy which were still running on a loss.
Regardless, as Daneel entered the treasury with the giant-sized doors, he couldn"t help but sigh seeing the spots where there had previously been piles and piles of Ether blocks, Gold Lans and Ker Gems.
Just as the other factions had predicted, his initiatives were putting a high financial strain on his Kingdom which would definitely spell disaster if he did not do something about it.
Indeed, war was costly, and there was no way Daneel was willing to begin the war with the Withering Leaf sect while having a treasury filled with dust and cobwebs.
Creasing his forehead, he ruffled through the plans he had made in his head to use his knowledge from Earth to refill the emptiness in front of him.