Chapter 2200: Biggest Thorn
"I told him to go easy on them..." Emperor Rael murmured. "I hope he doesn't give them PTSD like he did Aggragor."
That being said, he didn't mind the PTSD.
It served as an excellent to control and manipulate Sage Aggragor by using his horrific fear of the man as a leash to turn him into an obedient slave who would follow his every command.
It all stemmed from the fact that Aggragor brutally trained him up when he broke through to the Master Realm during the second Martial Revolution. He figured that there was no better way to break through rust than these old retired warriors had accumulated by subjecting them to the Devil himself.
It was ruthless, but he needed to be reliable when the time came. Failure because of their rusty state was not acceptable. In that case, developing PTSD of Damian was an acceptable price to pay as far as he was concerned. There was no one else who could singlehandedly get a firm grip on them the way Damian could, and he would rather not have multiple Martial Sages overlook their training. He needed as many Sages available at all times.
"I was hoping that at least one Martial Master would break through to the Sage Realm before the war began, but oh well."
Even with the treasures of the Kandrian Empire, there was no way that breaking through to the Sage Realm would suddenly become easier. It was still an extraordinarily difficult hurdle to overcome.
More difficult for some than others.
It reminded him of Rui.
His son had refused to re-enter the manifold for more experience.
"Diminishing returns," he had told Rael. "I have already ground through most of the Martial Masters in the manifold for more than a year to get some experience. I have already embarked on powerful projects to fix my deficiency in offense. What I need is genuine, true combat experience as a Master. I have only fought against one Martial Master in a life-or-death battle. That is far too little."
It was a subtle way of telling his father to hurry up with the war.
It brought Rael's attention back to the documents on his table in his Royal Office.
Everything was going according to plan within acceptable margins of deviations. Rui's fiasco at the Panamic Martial Federation had caused more pressure to mount on the Kandrian Empire a lot sooner than he had calculated, causing him to accelerate certain plans ahead of time.
However, for the most part, everything had been on par with his grand plan.
"Soon." His eyes narrowed.
And he wasn't wrong.
The documents before him documented the investigative progress of the three Sage-level powerhouses into the Kandrian Empire. They came looking for mass Apprentice breakthroughs and had begun to gain awareness of some of the other treasures that the Kandrian Empire had begun employing on a large scale.
One by one, they would come to learn of all treasures.
And now, they had come to learn about the Kandrian Empire's second most noticeable treasure after the mass breakthroughs.
The Elder Tree Connection.
This was inescapable.
How in the world would they fail to notice that the productivity index of all ventures into the Beast Domain had increased by nearly two orders of magnitude?
The Kandrian Empire had begun reeling in massive hoards of supplies extracted within the Beast Domain. The yields per operation at all levels had begun to rise up to an entirely different level.
A large stroke of luck for a highly fortunate find happened once in a blue moon.
It didn't happen all the time.
Yet, the Kandrian Empire hit the lottery every single time.
The response of the Republic of Gorteau and the Sekigahara Confederate was as he expected.
Both President Raymond and the Nindo Clan called for an increase in all investigative efforts towards the Kandrian Empire, so much so that they redirected all the investigative efforts into each other and all to the Kandrian Empire.
"Fools." Emperor Rael shook his head with a smile.
However, the Britannian Empire continued aggressively preparing for war.
So much so that Emperor Rael could detect signs of an impending transition to a wartime society.
"Edward..." Rael narrowed his eyes. "As always, you are the biggest thorn in my side."
It was clear that Prime Minister Edward had seen through Rael's broader intentions.
The man did not order a single investigation into the Kandrian Empire.
Instead, he quietly convinced the War Council to prepare for the inevitable war with the Kandrian Empire to ensure that it wouldn't be able to overcome the Great Limit and go far beyond the reach of the Britannian Empire.
On top of that, he continued to pressure both the Republic of Gorteau and the Sekigahara Confederate to pull the trigger on the war.
If not for this man, Emperor Rael would have been much more confident in his ability to go ahead with his grand plans without any hitch.
But alas.
The presence of the Britannian Prime Minister singlehandedly reduced the probability of victory by twenty percent.
In times of war, a good strategist could make a greater impact upon war than any individual Martial Artist.
In his current projection of the future, it would probably only take the exposure of just one more treasure for war to be declared.
This meant that the moment the Divine Doctor or the manifold is revealed, war will be waged.
They could tolerate the mass Apprentice breakthroughs without wanting to wage war, with the hopes of getting their hands on the technique.
They could barely tolerate the clearly absurd success rates with the Beast Domain.
However, did they find out about the Divine Doctor or the manifold?
That was too much.
No amount of bribing of the Gorteau Congress and no amount of incentivizing the Nindo Clan
to continue the intelligence war would be enough. When it came to the bottom line of these powers, they would never allow the Kandrian Empire to rise above them.