Chapter 501: Upgrading Vita City-State

Draco's heart beat thunderously in his chest as he took in the details of what he was seeing, the women beside him were similarly silent, their faces warped in shock.

They were looking at something beyond the comprehension of any man, something that was far too grand and powerful to have been present at their level.

An Eternal item...

Forget the previous timeline, Draco was sure something like this should not have even existed in this one. Even the AI stated as much in the description that this was a level that should be impossible to achieve.

Origin was the cap, the undisputed cap!

Aurora seemed to be slightly higher, but was only useful for one thing, unlike Origin that was all-encompassing. In truth, one could see that Aurora and Origin were the same Rank, with the former being a fancy way of naming the peak of the latter.

However Eternal...? What did this mean?

Draco thought deeply and could only reach a preliminary assumption. Origin was the foundation of a universe, right? It was the cap of the Western Fantasy Universe, with Aurora being an aside for realm creation.

So, could it be that Eternal was the rank above the universe itself? For example, a Rank that surpassed the highest ranks of the Xianxia, Sci-Fi, and other worlds?

It would make sense given the kind of passives the Eternal Tree had. To affect other universes with ease, it would certainly have to be powerful enough to step out of them and treat them like pebbles.

The problem was the fact that the world of Boundless was undoubtedly a digital one. The universes the AI created should be it, and to 'step' out of them should be impossible.

The AI agreed with this, so could the Eternal Rank be the secret to making Boundless a real universe?

It might be possible, but more research would have to be done on that topic. For now, the Eternal Rank was something Draco could not touch. He was just beginning to even comprehend Aetheric Energy, much less jump all the way up.

Draco closed his eyes and connected with the tree. He felt a pulse of energy sweep out and cover the entire void. The quality of energy had been greatly enhanced and purified, making the energy-sensing species almost blackout from overstimulation.

Zaine, Hikari, and Roma also staggered greatly, their bodies flushed all over. It was almost as if they were intoxicated, which also served to make them quite lovely in a debaucherous way.

Since there should be no more surprises, Draco restored the various residences to how they had been before this incident and imprinted them on the tree. Now, should anything happen, the tree would automatically 'reset' the terrain to the image he had 'saved'.

Draco also discovered that he had much more control over the Inner Universe than before. At first, it had only granted him the basic power of a God, which was why he had been able to shape things with ease.

However, he could now feel the very laws of his Inner Universe through the tree, the four elements taking up most of the space as they were still integrating with it.

Draco noticed that Space and Time did not exist yet, which would require him to perform the second stage of the universe upgrade or the third stage of the area expansion upgrade.

The first stage of universe growth would introduce the four basic elements into the entire void - unlike now where it only affected the island - while the second would introduce the advanced elements like Lightning, Poison, Light, Dark, etc.

Naturally, the third stage would introduce the pinnacle elements like Space, Time, Gravity, Healing, etc. As for beyond that, Draco was not too sure, and even what he had now were mostly guesses based on how the world would develop and what it was lacking.

Draco opened his eyes and sighed. Gathering the necessary resources for the upgrade would be hard, as some were likely to be at the Divine level when he got to the higher stages.

However, this was not a matter he could solve as he was now. As such, Draco wisely chose to turn to his family and noticed that they slowly sobering up.

He smiled with amus.e.m.e.nt and explained what had just happened. Zaine and Eva frowned while Roma and Hikari seemed amazed. The rest were basically a mix-up of this.

"Alright, so what do we do now?" Roma asked curiously.

"You guys can live here for as long as you like or you can exit and do whatever you want externally. I'm going append all of you with a 'Soul Waymark' that will allow you to enter my Inner Universe from anywhere." Draco explained.

This Soul Waymark was just a name he had made up on the spot. When he connected to the tree, he sensed that its first passive, Throughout Space, was truly overpowered in that a passage could be created anywhere to the Inner Universe as long as the person had the permission of the tree.

Draco connected to the tree once more and created a sigil in the shape of the emblem for Umbra and the Morningstar Clan, then branded it into the minds of the women here, and even the children.

It caused no pain or discomfort. It just felt like they were more connected to this world, and it had become their home in the truest sense. This rather created a feeling of peacefulness and joy that was not lost on Draco.

"What about going out?" Eva asked.

The others looked curious, so Draco also explained how that would work. "You will be able to either exit at my current location or you can leave to worlds or locations I have connected to this world."

Draco smiled. "Here let me demonstrate, I'm going to head out to connect a few places. Soon enough you will see portals appear connected to those spaces near the edge of the island, so check them out. I'll make sure to label them."

The group nodded as they returned to the residences and settled their babies down now that there was no longer any trouble. Most of them were excited, for their children growing in such an energy-rich world would definitely increase their quality and talents.

Draco exited the Inner Universe with Eva and appeared in the foyer of the Aether Hall. The Evil Duo shared a look before heading down to the Anomaly Realm first.

Once within, Draco simply prompted the Eternal Tree to connect with this space, and the duo could feel the entire world tremble then settle after a few seconds.

Nothing looked different, but Draco knew that a waypoint had been created and a portal should have opened up in his Inner Universe. Of course, nothing changed inside the Anomaly Realm because the portal only needed to work one way.

It would be foolish to allow people to enter his Inner Universe through the connected portals, even if these worlds were only accessible to those close to him. After all, you never know what could happen.

Draco then left the Aether Hall with Eva. He gazed at Vita City-State from the sky and sighed. Now that he had established his Inner Universe and seen its potential, his interest in this wondrous city-state had waned greatly, yet it was still a necessary outpost for his guild.

Eva also felt the same way without either one having to say anything to their soulmate.

Nevertheless, he still intended to go through with his plans.

Currently, the next goal was to upgrade Vita City-State into Vita Kingdom, an act which was long overdue. The requirements for that were to own at least one other city and a few towns.

Of course, such a thing was needless since Vita could expand infinitely. Rather, what Draco needed was to have his population reach a certain limit, as well as diplomatic value and size.

Vita had long since ticked those boxes, only that neither Draco nor Eva had the money to pay for the upgrade. Currently, it was priced at 100 million platinum, an amount that even exceeded what multiple top-factions had been able to fork out during the Divine Auction when Aether Crystals had been sold.

However, Eva still had a few billion left and Draco himself could easily raise money if he were to hold another large-scale auction. In fact, Zaine was waiting for him to connect the portals, then she would head out to begin fleecing the various powers using her evil scheme.

By the time she came back, the various powers would be endlessly coughing blood while Zaine would be holding billions, possibly trillions of platinum.

Draco desperately needed that money because he was dissatisfied with the weak buying power of the main plane so far. If every power was like the Merchant Guild with hidden stores of billions of platinum kept over the centuries that they refused to take out, then almost 99% of the world's wealth was untouchable.

This forcibly created a situation where the value of money was inflated because there was little of it in circulation compared to how much actually existed. This at least explained why the old era didn't value platinum as greatly as this era did.

The moment Draco got that money, he would begin crazy investments to inject all that money back in circulation. Once people had more buying power, he could start pushing out his higher-quality goods.

By buying those goods, the average man could become stronger and more able to fight monsters of the same level, allowing them to also earn more money from the system, injecting even more cash into circulation.

Since he could practically make weapons for free - as well as potions - that money would all come back to him eventually, and he would then re-inject it back, endlessly strengthening the main plane and raising its level slowly towards the old era standard.

Draco was doing this not out of sympathy or kindness, but for personal gain!

If he strengthened the main plane, the main beneficiary would not be the Gods, the War Maniac Pavilion, or anyone else, it would be him and him alone!

Right now, Draco could only push his goods on his own people for low prices because he didn't have the heart to export them. The kind of prices people could pay for it was far below the value of the goods and the quantity alone would slowly overwhelm most.

Draco opened his menu and chose to upgrade Vita City State into Vita Kingdom. The AI naturally sent a few prompts in response to his input.

｢System to Player Announcement

Input detected for city upgrade to a fledgling kingdom. Begin assessment? Y/N｣

Draco naturally selected yes.

｢City-State has the following factors;

- Level ground: -10%

- High-quality constructions: -20%

- Abundant unclaimed land: -70%

- Uncontested Zone: -40%

- Aether Hall: +10,000%

- Linear settlements: -40%

- High tourist traffic: - 50%

- Significant investment value: -20%

- Great reputation: -5%

- Excellent government: -90%

- Abundant high-quality energy: -200%

Base construction cost (from Capital City to Fledgling Kingdom): 1,000,000 gold

Discount: 5,450,000 gold

Additions: 100,000,000 gold

Final cost: 95,550,000 gold

Upgrade? Y/N｣

Draco naturally coughed up the cash and watched as the entire region got enveloped in a golden glow. The system naturally ejected every person into the sky, various people shocked by their sudden circ.u.mstances.

At least the system was kind enough to make those who were n.a.k.e.d clothed, those who were intimate made modest and those who were emptying their bowels feel cleaned and unbothered.

It was then that the few million people ejected into the sky saw that Vita was glowing brightly, like a sun in the sky. It began to reshape and reshuffle itself, also expanding crazily.

Draco and Eva felt the energy of the city begin to drain at the Aether Hall especially, expanding it to become an Aether Castle, and it was clear that the upgrade would soon fail halfway if new energy wasn't introduced.

To this, Draco smiled and suddenly threw out billions of Aether Crystals onto the upgrading plot. This shocked all onlookers as their minds were blown by such an act.

Endless greed sparked in many, but the true powerhouses were not shocked. After all, they knew that Draco had hoarded billions of Aether Crystals after selling them the Advanced Spatial Creation Devices in the First Player Auction.

This was also why Draco had no qualms doing this, because he had already covered his ass for this day in the past. As such, he threw every single Aether Crystal he had on his person.

Eva also added her Divine Crystals into the mix when no one was looking. While such crystals were priceless on the main plane and even had value in the Divine World, she had access to infinite amounts in the Draco's Inner Universe, only that she couldn't condense it.

But absorbing it was not a problem, not to mention she could easily get Hikari to condense it for her with the Dragoness' high Spirit. Even Draco could make it for her once he mastered Material Refinement and moved onto Energy Refinement.

The infusion of so much energy was like adding mint to soda. The city-state exploded as it expanded rapidly, covering the entire Paradise Lands from front to back.

The various resources-rich Field Zones were getting converted into regions of Vita Kingdom, no longer accessible to the public and fully tamable now. They could be systematically mined, purified, or harvested.

With the blessing of energy from the Aether Castle, these resources would also never run dry, but rather regenerate after a short cooldown. Just like a normal MMORPG resource site in an engine-based game like in the old days.

There were a lot of new plots created in the three sections, with the outer taking the most in accordance with distribution previously set by the Administrator, Sublime Notion.

Various parties became excited as they envisioned themselves buying land and developing new enterprises or becoming residents of the ever-growing Vita Kingdom. Some even eyed the core area and dreamed about exploring it to discover what kind of magic might be hidden there.

Even the design of the huge Aether Castle alone made many hearts thump as they felt the pure rush of energy that filled the entire Paradise Lands from the Aether Castle.

However, their bubbles soon burst as the AI returned them to their situation pre-upgrade. Unsurprisingly, those who had been banging, shitting, or bathing could no longer muster interest in their activities as they exited their homes.

After seeing the differences, they excitedly rushed towards the nearest guild or city admin building to inquire about the prices of leases and requirements for residency. Some others rushed to the resource zones to harvest free loot, but were blocked from entering since they lacked the necessary guild emblem.

Their hearts fell and they were left speechless as to how Umbra wouldn't even let this small thing go. Other parties remained calm and waited for the dust to settle before moving out.

Draco and Eva floated downward with the core members and the citizens of Vita Kingdom. He then turned to them and spoke: "Alright, you all should decide the allocation of powers, resources, and land between yourselves. Also, the Aether Castle is now open to select governors and nobles of Vita Kingdom."

"This includes Sublime, the Five Generals, the core members of Umbra and the leaders of the Goddess Descendants and the Nshaw Tribe."

Draco faced Sublime. "You are in charge of everything. Settle the kingdom down in 3 months' time. After that, we'll work on further improvements in terms of buildings."

After all, Draco still had one Platinum Kingdom Upgrade Token that could send the Fledgling Kingdom straight to Divine Empire and skip all the ranks between, but it would be foolish to do that now.

He knew that managing a city-state and a kingdom were two different ball games. The last step to become a kingdom had been delayed not only due to money issues, but power as well.

For one, city-states could not war or be attacked, but kingdoms could. City-States could not have a seat in the Cario Continental Council, but kingdoms could.

There were also other things. Now, Draco could possess unlimited Rank 7 buildings, which was why he hadn't used his 5 Platinum Upgrade Tokens for the buildings before the upgrade.

He had initially planned to use them right after upgrading the City-State, but the chaotic nature of the upgrade made him decide to wait. Once Sublime stabilized everything within the next 3 months, he planned to do it.

Right now, he had to make use of what Davian promised him, which were the three votes in the Cario Continental Council as well as a permanent seat way back during his negotiations with all the powers.

This meant that the Vita Kingdom had one seat that was gifted and another that was due to their status as a kingdom. Each seat had 1 basic vote, giving them a total of 5 votes, which was just below some of the top Divine Empires!

As for the matter concerning wars, a few would have to be launched. Luckily, Eva had some Cassus Belli Waivement scrolls, so they could jump right into it whenever they felt ready.

As for the wars, they were necessary. The Vita Kingdom had swallowed up the entire Paradise Lands, so it could no longer expand using Aetheric Energy. As such, they would need to claim new Area Zones that bordered around the Paradise Lands.

This was different from conquering Field Zones, but it helped that all Umbra members had the Frontiersmen title which would make taking unclaimed Area Zones easy.

As for the ones already claimed by empires or kingdoms within... well, what would happen next did not need an explanation, did it? It was just the way of the world.

Not everyone was like the Nshaw Tribe who could be beaten back with some tricks. At the end of the day, military might was all that mattered as long as one followed the rules.