City of Desire [Kingdom Building]

Proofread by Thomas F

Vanis Lindgren

‘He accepted,’ I informed.

I didn’t have to inform her; she could sense it. She has the secondary control of the legacy.

A moment passed before the power descended.

It was something I had never felt before, something so grand that it suppressed me immediately. I was trying to recover from it when the whole core of Velvet Garden materialized. 

Intensifying that suppression.

“My god!” Mariha gasped as the core of the Velvet Garden emerged in its full glory, and it was shocking.

It had been nearly a century since I birthed the legacy, and I have made friends in synod. Some of them have shown me their cores.

Of all the Grade IV cores I had ever seen, not a single one could compare to what I am seeing now.

The thing that shocked me the most is that. This core is only a few weeks old. I have seen the cores of Grade IV thrones that were hundreds of years old and were weaker than this.

I had some fears that it might struggle to take us.

Since most thrones wait for at least a decade before taking a subject, but looking at its sheer size and feeling its power. I no longer have such a fear.

In front of this monstrosity, I am nothing; my legacy itself is nothing in front of it.

I could hear Lord Thorn saying something, but I chose to ignore him as I marveled at this colossus before me.

‘Look at the emotion scale; I have never heard of any current throne having such a scale?’ said Mariha. ‘Most Grade IV might not even have such a scale,’ I replied.

Velvet Garden is an anomaly in the legacies. Most legacies focus on one thing, two or three at most, but Velvet Garden has far more: a brothel, spas, a restaurant, a casino, and many other amenities.

Having seen the core and the vast scale of emotion laid bare, the other burning question at last found its answer.

How much essence does Velvet Garden harvest? Size is not everything.

The absorption capacity of the core also matters, and I can feel it has the capacity to absorb everything the massive space provides.

Tens of thousands of people visit Velvet Garden daily, and its core has the capacity to absorb them all.

It had truly shocked me. It blew my mind when I calculated the sheer amount of essence it could generate.

It is one of the things Thorn wanted me to find out.

I am not going to tell him, nor could I. I have signed the contract, which is enforced by the power of Velvet Garden. Once I become a subject, the power of my legacy will also be added to it.

It will be suicide to break the contract. I mean it in a literal sense.

The backlash would be powerful enough to kill me.

‘I thought, young Remus had been very generous with Lord Thorn, but now it seemed like he got the short end of the stick,’ I said, and Mariha laughed in response.

‘If he knew the sheer amount of emotions this monstrosity absorbs, he would really be mad,” she replied.

I laughed and looked at the core; there is one more surprise about it.

‘A sun, I didn’t expect it would be a sun,’ said Mariha, stealing words out of my mouth. To be honest, I thought its shape would be like a statue, a gate, or something similar.

They are rare and powerful legacies that have them, but the sun is on an entirely different level.

‘It shouldn’t surprise us, though; seeing’s its power,’ she replied to her own question.

A moment passed and then another; the sun kept blazing. It was nearly a minute after; it finally activated, and not the way I had expected.

The scroll, which is in my core, burned and transformed into the motes of light, which had formed into silver strings and began to cover the legacy.

Not just the outer part, but also the inside of it.

‘What is it doing?’ asked Mariha, with faint panic in her voice.

This shouldn’t have happened. He should have focused his power on the core of my legacy, and we would have submitted, and that would have been the end of it.

The threads are not painful, but I could feel them going through every part of the legacy.

‘What is he planning to do with the witchcraft?’ asked Mariha, feeling the same panic as I am. This is witchcraft; the power that even the truly powerful are scared of.

The power that could do anything. Less than two weeks ago, it had suppressed every powerhouse of the undead horde.

It was said that even the Knight had to run away to save his life.

I had thought the witch and her coven were working for the city, but with this finesse and familiarity, the spell is weaving through my core, and I now know I was wrong.

They are working for the Velvet Garden.

It made me frown; we were advised against taking the witches into the legacy, given the power they could tap into with the help of a core.

Now, I’ve uncovered that they are deep within the Velvet Garden, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Other than supporting, since I am going to be the subject of it. I really hope I become one, as what is happening now makes the legacy seem like something entirely different.

Soon, the strings covered the whole core, before they moved toward Silver’s sun.

They reached it before seeping into it.

The moment it did, I felt the suppression of the Velvet Garden on me. Earlier, it was a general suppression, but this one is targeted entirely at my core.

It’s so powerful that I felt my knees shaking.

I took a deep breath and controlled myself before letting it, submitting thoroughly. A moment later, after a hint of hesitation, Mariha did the same.

As we did, the power enveloped the core, gaining a total submission.

Now, he just needs to wait a little, and the process would be finished, but he did not. Instead, those strings lit up, and a moment later, something shocking happened.

The power of the Velvet Garden’s core surged toward my own.

‘What is he doing? Is he mad!’ screamed Mariha in horror. It filled my heart as well. He shouldn’t do this; he will destroy the core and my legacy.

…

Greltheaven

I moved the essence of Velvet Garden into the core of Vanis Tavern, through the strings.

I could have done this the conventional way. That way, I would have gotten its aspects and skills, but I want more.

I also want to clean up the mess his legacy has gotten into.

It is extremely risky, even for me, but I have to do this. I have to get everything out of this ordinary legacy.

Most importantly, make it an instrument of my power. I have plans, and Vanis Tavern will be essential for it to.

The power of the Velvet Garden entered inside and began to move through the strings. It took barely a few seconds for it to do that.

As it happened, I stopped and took a deep breath. Now, it is the most delicate part.

I would have loved to use the Parallel Mind here, but I didn’t have complete control over the skill. So, I activated the Still Mind to keep myself focused.

A moment later, I begin.

I brought out of the power of Velvet Garden out of the strings, directly into the cores of Vanis Tavern and Mariha’s Inn.

Despite the submission, there was resistance.

I could crush through it, but that will be counterproductive. It won’t bring the result I want; the merger of Vanis Tavern and Mirah’s Inn is proof of that.

They might have merged, but they didn’t produce the desired result. Instead, it made things worse.

So, I moved gently, but the resistance didn’t lessen; instead, it came at me full force. I could sense that Vanis and Mariha were trying to help, but despite being masters, there were some things they couldn’t do.

Time passed, and the resistance continued. I didn’t stop; instead, I continued, gently treating the core with the power of the legacy.

An hour passed, followed by another, and then another; it continued without any change.

It was at the fourth hour that things finally began to change. It was very faint, so I could barely sense it, but slowly the effects became bigger.

The power of Velvet Garden begins to merge with Vanis Tavern.

It doesn’t happen during the submission process. It usually takes decades and centuries.

Take Tranquill Bathhouse’s core; it had only around 1.5% of the throne’s essence, and it was its pawn for nearly a century and a half.

As more of Velvet Garden’s power merged with it, things began to get easier.

I didn’t only merge my power with it, I also took their power into my core. The ones that align with my vision, of course.

I would not pollute my core.

By the end of the hour, all resistance had vanished, and the power of my core began to merge seamlessly with it, bringing about the changes.

Big changes.

….

Mariha Baelir

Madness!

It is what I had thought a few hours ago, when he pushed his power into the core.

It is the last thing Thrones could do. The core rejects it, and half of them become unstable and are destroyed.

Here, the core had rejected it, and the rejection was hard. It would have also become unstable and exploded, but the colossal power of Velvet Garden suppressed that.

Still, merging power is madness when one is a throne and the other is a Grade III legacy, which had gone through a barely successful merge and is still unstable.

I thought he would use brute force, but he didn’t. Instead, he used the power gently in every corner of the core for hours.

Hour after hour, there was resistance and rejection, despite our trying to calm it.

I hated to do that, but there is no other option. If we didn’t help, we would be left with nothing. Helping him, there will be a chance of success.

Hours passed, and Lord and others kept asking questions, but we remained quiet. We tried to help, but nothing seemed to work until the fourth hour.

The power finally began to merge; it was very little at first, but slowly it increased, with the resistance lessening.

As it happened, I began to notice small things, and soon I could see it clearly. It is making significant changes in the core of Vanis Tavern.

The first important change is that our two aspects had stopped fighting.

The power of Velvet Garden had become a kind of cement. It calmed the power and made it coexist with one another, which they were unwilling to do before.

The second, the very shape of the core begins to change.

A change like that is something that takes decades and centuries, but here it is happening in hours.

The legacy had lost the shapes of the pillar and lantern. It no longer has a shape, but it is changing rapidly, and soon it will reveal its new form.

‘3%,’ declared Vanis.

The Velvet Garden’s power now makes up of 3% of the core.

Usually, it is not over 2.5% and that takes centuries. It is not more than that, because even after becoming a subject, the legacies try to maintain the purity of their vision.

The essence of the throne that they take must align with their vision, and the essence they bring should not be enough to overpower them.

Change them into something they are not.

Here, Silver is doing the opposite. He is moulding our legacy to his vision. Masters do not do that; it threatens the future of their own legacies, but here the man didn’t seem to care.

He is not stopping at 3%; looking at things, he plans to increase it further.

Minutes passed, and it reached 4%; I had never heard of a pawn legacy having 4% of its throne’s essence, but even here, he didn’t stop and kept increasing.

As it did, the shape finally came into view. A sphere, like the sun, but our legacy didn’t feel like a sun.

It feels more like a planet.

It’s not in its complete shape yet, as the changes are still happening.

Minutes passed, and the essence reached 5% of the core before finally stopping. It made me relieved because now the core is feeling different than before.

It has the same vision, but now it includes much more. Making its vision expand further.

I was watching it when the strings covering the sphere blazed brightly, and I couldn’t see anything else. It remained such for a few seconds before it began to dim rapidly.

Gasp!

The light entirely disappeared, along with the strings, but I do not care about that. I looked at the core and gasped as it underwent a complete transformation.

It is still spherical and colourful, but now the colours are refined.

The emotions of Vanis Tavern, Mariha’s Inn, and Velvet Garden moved beautifully and harmoniously. I only looked at them for a moment before looking deeper, through the layers of cloud.

Earlier, it looked like a planet, but now it is a planet. I looked past its atmosphere, onto the land.

There I saw a large pole. Although it is not as thick as a pillar, it feels more powerful, and it is attached to the lantern.

The lantern changed as well; it became more delicate and a little longer than before. It still burns with grey smoke, and there is gloominess in it, but it holds the promise of secrets.

These are my aspects, but they have changed. I could feel the influence of Velvet Garden in them.

I thought I would hate it, but I still felt the same alignment and familiarity, despite foreign elements added into them. It made me feel scared, but also excited.

‘You are feeling this too, right?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ he replied, with excitement, I had never felt from the old man.

He could also see the potential of it and felt the power from the new core. It is far more powerful than before; it feels more potent than those Grade III legacies I was so envious of.

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