Book 3: Chapter 325: The Shadow of Calamity Creeping Forward

Because of her research into the "Flesh Plague" and the "Royal Curse," Sylutia had spent most of the past year delving into the properties of the "Bloodline" Path, experimenting with the secret arts and knowledge she had previously obtained from Clovante.

Currently among the Blood Clan, aside from her, only the two sisters Carmilla and Catella possessed the same inherited knowledge. The three of them often gathered together, discussing their experiences in cultivation.

After living in the Blood Clan territory for nearly half a year, the relationship between the three had become quite good. Just as Carmilla had been drawn to Sylutia back then, Catella gradually came to enjoy conversing with this young girl as well.

Within the Blood Clan's rigid hierarchy, her status was unique, and it was difficult for her to have so-called friends. In the past, she'd had a highly competitive relationship with Carmilla. Even as blood sisters, they occasionally quarreled. However, Sylutia's position was quite suitable.

The other party was not a member of the Blood Clan system and would not influence or interfere with her power within the Blood Clan, yet she equally mastered the Blood Clan's secret arts and hidden secrets. Many thoughts and ideas suppressed in her heart could be discussed with this young girl.

In fact, Catella was preparing to carry out a certain degree of reform within the Blood Clan, and she had encountered quite a few problems in the process. On normal days, there was basically no one she could consult with, since even a slight leak of such matters would trigger all sorts of issues within the Blood Clan. Discussing them with Sylutia was far less problematic.

This outstanding graduate who had studied at both the Mage Alliance and the Hidden Grove Alliance was not only knowledgeable and broad-minded, but had also served as a stationed mage for a region and was considered a direct disciple of a Named One. Whether in terms of vision and theory or practical experience, she far surpassed traditional Blood Clan lords, giving Catella new inspiration and insights.

After returning to the tower in the afternoon, Sylutia had originally planned to rummage through materials for inspiration on researching curses. Just then, a palace maid came to the tower and rang the bell.

Descending the stairs, Sylutia opened the door.

"Good afternoon, Princess Sylutia." The Blood Clan maid bowed respectfully.

"His Majesty Catella has prepared refreshments in the palace and invites you to a small gathering. Princess Carmilla is also present."

"I understand. Take me there." Sylutia thought for a moment, picked up the parasol in the room, and followed the maid toward the palace.

Passing through deep, winding corridors and several palaces, Sylutia arrived at a small courtyard within the palace. It had a lawn, grapevine trellises, a small white pavilion, and two apple trees.

The sisters Carmilla and Catella were currently seated in the pavilion. Both wore elaborately designed long dresses in identical black-and-white color schemes, and even their hair was styled in the same manner. If not for familiarity with their temperaments and subtle differences in their movements, it would be difficult to distinguish their identities by appearance alone.

"Ya, you've come." Carmilla waved to Sylutia.

"Good afternoon, Ya." Catella held a teacup, savoring it slowly, and gave a simple nod.

Arriving at the small table, a maid pulled out a chair for Sylutia. The young girl then sat down, and Carmilla recommended the freshly baked snacks on the table.

"These are made by the chefs imitating a snack recipe I had at Gras College. Ti Ya, try them."

Sylutia nodded and curiously picked up a light pink macaron, placing it in her mouth.

So sweet. This level of sweetness had already exceeded Sylutia's comfort zone. After a few bites, she found it too cloying. But judging by the expressions of the two sisters, they seemed quite fond of this level of sweetness.

As expected, racial talents differ, she silently quipped, then picked up the tea on the table and took small sips to wash down the sweetness in her mouth.

Afterward, the three discussed recent events. Despite being in the distant Blood Clan territory, Sylutia could often receive news from the Mage Alliance thanks to the communication equipment in the tower, so she was not isolated from changes in the outside world.

"Currently, the plague within the Alliance has largely been brought under control, though the losses remain enormous." She spoke of the situation she had recently learned about.

"Oh, so the Mage Alliance isn't that impressive after all." Carmilla commented with disinterest.

You've also studied the characteristics and circumstances of that Flesh Plague, she had originally estimated that the Mage Alliance would need another year before they could even begin curbing the plague's spread.

"So how did they deal with birds, snakes, rats, rabbits, and other creatures spreading the plague? Even if Transcendents retreating into infected zones must promptly take potions to suppress the plague virus, we would also carry trace amounts of the virus, and once we come out, we'd infect others." Carmilla inquired.

"There was no other way." Sylutia answered.

"First, they erected isolating wire fences across the region to prevent the free movement of wild animals. As for birds, patrolling airships were tasked with hunting them down, and spatial barriers were set up in every town. Those barriers required only very low intensity, just enough to block large birds."

"As for the carrying and infection problem, every time someone exits an infected zone, they undergo a week-long quarantine observation, during which they take small doses of 'Blood Copper Tincture' to ensure the plague virus is cleared from their body."

"Additionally, a large number of Mechanical Puppets were deployed this time to maintain order within the infected zones. As metal Mechanical Creations, they cannot be infected, and can be operated by mages wearing fully sealed protective suits to inject medicine into the infected, provide treatment, and perform many other tasks."

Although it caused great panic at the beginning, the Mage Alliance also learned and summarized much experience when facing the plague, then practiced it step by step. By now they already had very mature response measures and management methods. That was the ultimate reason they could bring the plague under control.

"Impressive execution ability." Catella mused.

The current system within the Blood Clan was still a relatively ancient feudal nobility system. For example, if she as Queen wanted something done, she would generally issue orders to the various great noble lords, who would then organize manpower within their territories to carry it out.

Under such a system, each lord actually had considerable autonomy. If they were not diligent or merely paid lip service, it would lead to matters being inadequately executed or greatly compromised.

In times of war, this system worked fairly well, because each lord had their own fighting force and served as a small autonomous command center. They only needed the Queen to order an attack target and have a marshal as the central coordinator, and the battle lines could largely be maintained and continuously expanded and advanced.

However, in peacetime, this system was not so effective for economic development. It relied heavily on the Queen's or monarch's personal prestige to make the nobles comply with issued decrees. With a monarch of slight prestige, many nobles would privately defy some decrees or simply ignore them altogether.

After all, for these economic development decrees, there was always a variety of excuses to delay, and the monarch would find it difficult to mete out punishment for such orders, as that would incite tremendous hostile resistance and shake the foundation of rule.

To solve this situation, several generations of Blood Clan monarchs had established many new official positions, stationing their trusted confidants as 'Royal Envoys' in various Blood Clan territories to monitor how well local lords executed decrees.

However, such a system still couldn't be called perfect. First, the monarch might not have so many loyal and trustworthy confidants. Second, these 'Royal Envoys' stationed locally for a long time could easily be corrupted by local lords and collude with them.

Later, the Blood Clan monarchs consolidated many noble fiefs, no longer granting them out, but instead appointing different royal butlers to manage various regions, collect taxes, and train legions and soldiers loyal to the monarch.

This system indeed strengthened the monarch's power, but as the territories and affairs requiring management increased, the monarch's energy hit a bottleneck. Yet if they completely ignored territorial affairs, the interests of these regions would be encroached upon by local royal butlers, and ultimately even more overseers would need to be added.

"How does the Mage Alliance handle such problems?" Catella was curious.

"Well, it's actually a bit complicated." Sylutia recalled her internship experience in the Finance Department.

"You can think of it as the Mage Alliance's various regions not being independent, but a living entity connected to the entire Alliance. Every day large amounts of goods flow in and out, financial funds flow in and out, and all of these must be registered and accounted for."

"In other words, the flow of every piece of information can be traced. If someone wants to cut off a portion of it, it would trigger incomplete upstream and downstream records and discrepancies in account reconciliation."

"In this way, corruption problems are greatly reduced."

"Furthermore, the Alliance has established a Central Inspection Department and audit bureaus in various localities to monitor the flow of funds and resources, ensuring they are not misappropriated or embezzled." Sylutia answered.

"Building this system requires a large number of educated clerical staff and a controllable, stable logistics system." So even if other organizations wanted to learn from it, they likely lacked the conditions.

"Finally, the power in each region has been professionally divided. There no longer exist positions like 'lord' that could grasp military, administrative, and financial power all at once."

After hearing Sylutia's description, along with some supplementary information from Carmilla based on her own observations, Catella gradually came to understand what a vast and complex system the Mage Alliance now was, with a number of personnel and institutions far exceeding traditional feudal states.

As she spoke of this, Sylutia thought of some things from her childhood. Unfortunately, she had been young then and had not been exposed to the family's specific affairs, so she didn't know what kind of system operated within the "Sun Dynasty."

If she compared it against the history she knew, the current "Sun Dynasty" could be said to be the most powerful and prosperous dynasty in this world's history. Even the Blood Dynasty at its peak could not compare. In ancient times when fairies ruled, the fairy kingdoms might have been stronger than the current "Sun Dynasty," but back then fairy rule was relatively loose, without a complex, unified management structure. Fairy Monarchs would often directly issue orders to all fairies.

That's right, the Fairy Monarchs were powerful enough that they needed no intermediate administrators and could directly communicate with and command their millions of fairy subordinates. At that time, intelligent beings were still relatively simple, and fairies would naturally obey the orders of upper-tier fairies and monarchs, without additional scheming or ulterior thoughts.

Therefore, the era of fairy rule could not serve as a reference model.

The leisurely afternoon tea time passed quickly.

....

The next day, while Sylutia was tending to the garden roses at her residence, Carmilla came to find her.

"Ya, did you cultivate these?" She noticed these roses were slightly different from the "Blood-Dripping Roses" planted in the Royal Court, seemingly slightly improved, with the reddened parts of the petals more vivid, giving the illusion of dripping blood.

"That's right, it's been a long time since I practiced my gardener abilities. I happened to have some free time now, and I could also research secret arts related to the 'Bloodline' while I'm at it." Sylutia turned around.

"Cultivating Blood-Dripping Roses requires fresh blood. I remember you don't particularly like that method." Carmilla recalled the first time she had told Sylutia about cultivating Blood-Dripping Roses.

"Well, mainly I felt using other people's blood was somewhat evil, so I used my own blood." The girl blinked and raised her wrist, where a faint, almost invisible wound marked the snow-white skin.

"Ah." Carmilla felt a pang of heartache seeing it. She herself couldn't bear to ask Sylutia for blood, yet this girl was using it to grow flowers.

Probably guessing what Carmilla wanted to say, the girl explained.

"Actually, I didn't use much. As a gardener, I can make the plant actively absorb it, so the loss is very low. About a small cup's worth of blood per day." She raised her pinky finger and made a gesture.

"But this feeling is truly wonderful. I can perceive its growth and absorption through two methods: the color spectrum the plant displays, and sensing my own blood flowing within the plant. Occasionally, I can even use my blood to slightly influence the plant's growth." Sylutia pressed a finger lightly against her jaw, recalling.

"Cultivating this way seems to yield very good results, somewhat beyond my expectations."

Sylutia raised her hand to show Carmilla the Blood-Dripping Rose she had cultivated.

【Blood-Dripping Rose】(Fourth Tier · Rare)

"Selected from the Blood Clan Royal Court's Blood-Dripping Rose species, after self-improvement its characteristics have slightly changed. It simultaneously contains the 'Verdant Nectar' and 'Bloodline' Aspects. If it can reach Fifth Tier, the two Aspects within will perfectly fuse, producing a wondrous effect."

"No wonder 'Princess Teana' was so fond of gardening in history." She didn't know why other gardeners didn't adopt this method. Although it consumed blood, considering the world's thirst for power and resources, there was no reason to abandon such a secret art.

Wait, it seemed some gardeners did do this. She remembered that in her early years following Lady Franne, she had heard the other mention that some rather evil gardeners would use plants to extract enemies' blood to cultivate fruits.

Perhaps it was because they couldn't bear to use their own blood. Although using enemies' blood didn't consume oneself and could easily expand scale, it completely lacked the delicate perception of feeding with one's own blood, like nurturing one's own child, and allowed the plant to develop in a desired direction.

Watching Sylutia immersed in it, Carmilla felt somewhat helpless. She wasn't worried about Sylutia losing control, just felt a bit heartbroken. She herself had previously been unwilling to ask the other for blood, yet now Ti Ya was using it to cultivate flowers and plants.

"Um... Ya." Carmilla stepped closer, as if having made some resolution.

"What is it?"

"Could you give me a little blood?" As she said this, Carmilla lowered her head, feeling like she had never experienced such an embarrassing and mortifying moment in her life.

"Of course." Sylutia raised her wrist, gently pulled back her sleeve, revealing skin as white as snow.

Seeing this, Carmilla felt her earlobes flush red. This was a normal Blood Clan behavior, so why was she so nervous now? Had she been assimilated after living in human society for so long?

She forced her emotions and expression to calm, then carefully grasped Sylutia's wrist. Her nail lightly touched the thin wound, and beads of blood seeped out, slowly flowing down the wrist. The trail resembled a touch of red plum in winter snow, and Carmilla couldn't look away.

She took another deep breath, pressed lightly with her finger, and manipulated these blood beads to float up, condensing into small blood spheres. Then she sealed them into a small blood-colored gem. With a slight shake, the transparent crimson liquid inside gently rippled, refracting a beautiful luster.

"Thank you." Carmilla stored the blood bead properly and bowed in gratitude.

"No need for such courtesy." Sylutia shook her head slightly.

Afterward, the two walked through Sylutia's small garden, strolling and enjoying the scenery while chatting.

"Something strange happened recently in Mandra's territory." Carmilla brought up the news she had received that morning.

"Oh, what happened?"

"I heard that at a local restaurant, shortly after entertaining guests, all the guests who had dined there suffered a poisoning incident."

"Food poisoning?"

"That's right, it's said they ate cooked monster flesh and blood. Some low-tier Blood Clan members immediately felt weak all over, something was wrong."

"You know, Blood Clan members are especially sensitive to their own 'Bloodline' Aspect. Ordinary people might overlook this strange weakness, but they wouldn't consider it normal."

"Very quickly, everyone discovered that all who had dined there showed similar symptoms."

"Afterward, the restaurant was urgently shut down. Currently the territory's physicians are treating the poisoned. They say it's their first time encountering such a bizarre poisoning incident, but fortunately it isn't fatal, merely causing weakness." Carmilla said.

"Wait." Sylutia stopped walking.

"You're saying whole-body weakness, with no other visible symptoms?"

"That's right, why?"

"I have a bad feeling. I hope it's not that thing." Sylutia recalled the strange "Gray Sludge" she had seen in the Hidden Grove.

Could it be that this strange microorganism from deep within the Shadow World was now appearing in Blood Clan territory as well?

"I think we need to go to Mandra's territory and confirm the situation." Sylutia told Carmilla about her past experience in the Hidden Grove Alliance.

"...It's a highly concealed microorganism, or you could understand it as a kind of plague, and it has the ancient 'Fungal Threads' Aspect characteristics. It's extremely difficult for other beings to detect, and equally difficult to resist."

"If that's truly the case, I need to quickly have Catella mobilize troops and seal off and isolate the entire Mandra's territory." Carmilla also realized the severity of the matter.

"There's no time to lose. Let's prepare to set out." The two stopped strolling and began to act.