The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 914: Offers & Schemes

“This is Sanctuary’s property, so the rule, it shall never harm a person does not apply to it, does it?” Vesperine asked.

When Damian did not reply, since it was given, she continued,

“So it is a weapon! You need the help of the board, which is supposed to include all countries, to help you find more land, resources, and power to continue your tyranny? You talk of peace and then build walls and giant weapons. All that talk is only for the naive civilians afterall.”

“Sanctuary protects, but we are not idealistic fools.” Sam’s face became dark as he shot back, “We tried for peace, but your king wouldn’t have it. We don’t have issues with anyone, and yet somehow we end up being a target for everyone by simply existing. Think whatever you wish, but our people’s safety comes first. Stay away from our borders, and we will pretend you do not exist.”

Woah! That was more direct than Damian expected the guy to be. With his over-cautious nature, he, as a keeper, would have never said stuff like that openly.

Queen Vesperine replied, “If you wanted to stay out of it, you should have thought about it from the very beginning! You stole our land and gave it away to these ungrateful ones! Used trickery or whatnot to remove my father! Oh, you don’t get to run away now! You will pay for this!”

The ex-queen of Faerunia and Hellstorm’s expressions darkened as well. Even if they were older and had a better understanding of Thaddeus, they could not forget that Damian was the one who killed him.

Before it got out of hand, Damian thought it better to change the subject.

“If there is still some confusion, let me repeat, The Exploration Project is of Sanctuary, and I will lead it personally. I am asking the board and through it to all of you if you wish to participate or not. Sanctuary will compensate all who lend a hand, even the researchers and mundanes who take up the jobs for exploring will be paid for their work by Sanctuary. The elite unit that will be tasked with clearing the dungeons will have the 60% loot by default, but will also be given more rewards depending on their performance. These rewards involve everything from monetary rewards, dungeon relics, the dungeons themselves, to land if we find it and build a settlement.”

“The Empire will spare some men if the mana contracts promise good rewards.” The Emperor stated.

Just being in a dungeon party that had transcendent would give the best chances to talented second rankers to cross that difficult barrier to third rank. It was a risk, but not big enough to miss this opportunity. Especially when land and dungeons were being promised.

“Just a second! You can’t do this using the Sanctum Research Board in the first place!”

“Girl, quit whining already!” Ilvanya’s annoyed voice surprised Vesperine. “Have you forgotten this is the Sanctum Research Board and not Faerunia Research Board?”

“Why don’t we just vote if this is an appropriate proposal for the Center Board or not?” Voidshaper suggested.

When no one said anything, Damian asked,

“All in favor of accepting to discuss and make deals for this proposal?”

Eleven out of twelve hands rose. Other than Vesperine, all were interested to listen at least. That forced the new queen of Faerunia to shut up.

“Well, that’s it. The Exploration Project aims to find and explore land, dungeons, and any useful resources at all while continuously installing the receiver network on the way. Connecting Malveria and everything that comes in between is the first step in that. The seven runic jets will fly in six different directions and try to remain on course using the navigation equipment we have created. Their job is just to find land. The flying ships containing thousands of crew members will follow behind and jump great distances using waygates and will remain on the discovered land while the dungeon team clears dungeons, and runic jets move on to find more land.”

“You will skip most of the ocean?” Vearon inquired.

“Priority is land,” Damian replied, “Once we have confirmation that there are no more bigger pieces of land, we will, for the sake of creating a world map and finding more dungeons, travel over the ocean.”

“So our speed for traveling the world is technically as fast as those runic jets can go,” Landbreaker added. “That’s significantly faster than I ever imagined mainland to travel and reach those lands.”

“Our?” Ilvanya picked up the easily overlooked detail.

Landbreaker glanced at her and then to all, “Finding more land and resources means better chances of surviving for mankind. Runebreaker has take up on himself to find a place for Shadowborn and Beastmen, just to give them a better chance at life devoid of discrimination and mortal threat. Frankly, that’s the kind of thing Highswords should have been doing, but we can’t. For these noble intentions, Damian Sunblade has Highsword’s full support in this Exploration Project.”

That surprised many individuals present. Historically, Highswords never partnered up with any country to do anything. Even when fighting dangerous monsters and aiding in disaster relief efforts, they just did their own thing and answered to no one. For Damian to have this honor was unprecedented in history.

Even if Highswords had a lot fewer members now, it was still a powerful organization. He only expected Landbreaker to join him, but the support of the whole Highsword was golden.

Damian smiled politely and bowed a little towards the two Highswords. Another thing that raised many eyebrows. In many stories of his origin spread in the mainland, not bowing before authority was always at the center of those. Some called it pride, some disrespect, but the fact was that bowing before people who deserved his respect was not that big a deal to him. It’s just hard to find people he could respect in this do-or-die world.

The approval of Landbreaker and Highswords greenlit the project stronger than any words of his offering rewards could do so. All believed, despite what their gods might say, that Landbreaker would not participate in schemes of power. The rewards mentioned will indeed be real, and their people won’t die through deceit.

After hours, Damian secured Hellstorm, Vidalia, Landbreaker, and a Faerunian transcendent mage who had sworn to Vearon. That was already pretty good.

Eldoris could not spare any more transcedents but made a deal for lending 3000 soldiers of various ranks in exchange for five dungeons of Damian’s choosing. The Emperor lent only 1500 despite having a lot more to spare in exchange for two 50 or above level dungeons. Faerunians only gave 1000 for two dungeons above 35 levels. Damian and Sanctuary were responsible for paying them for the contract duration, which was six months.

The promise of dungeons was absolute, whether Damian used the pathfinders of different nationalities or not. It was the cost of having these pathfinders under his order for six months. Even if he found no new dungeons, he would have to give from the ones already discovered by him.

That was good enough. Damian still planned to recruit mundanes to fill most of the flying ship crew roles, and Sanctum had thousands of soldiers. But Damian didn’t want to take more than 5000 Sanctum soldiers because this was a risky job. He would care for all his people equally, but Sanctuary already had the lowest army numbers; if he took too many, the everyday Sanctum duties might be affected.

Besides, he was planning to start with only a limited number of flying ships. He could make more while travelling, and after six months, when things calm down, and they see his success firsthand, the others would also want to make bigger deals.

Damian still had Malveria, which had a lot of physically strong Shadowborn ready to work. If he needed more, he could just recruit from there.

Initially thats what they had planned to do for the Exploration Project, but the need to level for Landbreaker and the threat of gods forced him to go this route. If they leveled like crazy in this journey, the transcendents of the other countries who crave power will be attracted like moths to flame. At that point, a potential war would not be something any high power would care about as much.

The biggest benefit of war was to be able to prove their strength and gain levels. If Damian scratched that itch for them, why would anyone wish to lose stability?

That was his thought process behind this proposal. Keep them busy and distracted, and work hard to push for their plan against the gods. He could not rely on just one thing; he had to find multiple methods to do this, and for that, Damian needed as much time as he could get.

At the very end, Damian played the last card he had prepared for the meeting,

“Before we leave, there is one more personal offer I would like to present for the Empire.”

The Emperor’s eyes lifted in slight annoyance. It was clear he wanted nothing to do with this project and was only joining to keep up appearances. But the emperor’s eyes grew serious when Damian’s gaze shifted from him to Moondancer seated beside him.

“Five-year non-fighting pure dungeon-work mana contract in exchange for gaining your powers back. What do you say, Moondancer?”