Haha, I should stop doing stupid shit like that. Okay, maybe in a few thousand years. My view is magnificent at this time. The castle has a dark pit in the middle. A massive pit in the middle of the palace, what use is that? I want to say dungeon, but that seems too easy an answer.
I spin around and see the Tower. A quarter turn later I see a triangle sticking up over the mountains. I get chills as I peer into the sea. Turning further, I see a massive smokestack far out into the blue. Is that a man-made tower in the ocean? There are wooded hills further east. My mapping process takes priority as it uses the automated part of my mind to fill in a lot of new areas.
I start falling and don’t resist the wind pressure this time. The qi ball landed near the Capital walls, and I skydive towards it. It explodes outwards, forming a huge, faintly white cushion. I land with a solid sounding PFOOM, bouncing over the walls and landing on the streets, clad in a thick cloud of ‘I’M NOT HERE’ qi.
Perfect infiltration, as usual. Alarm bells are rung around me and I move out of the way of some marching soldiers. I pull up the map I just made and move towards the castle. There are a few buildings I need to examine closely. I would regret it forever if I didn’t quickly scan any libraries around. I seem to have landed inside a residential district. The roads are narrow and the buildings tower three stories high over the network of small streets.
I scan a house or building now and then, sweeping an extremely thin net of augur through the entire structure. This takes some mental effort, but it’s the quickest way I know to search for large quantities of paper.
I hit gold when I look over the detailed mind map of a church-like building. I make my net of augur grow smaller and denser as I scan in more detail. Scanning the boxes and shelves full of paper, I map where they are located. I scan a book in detail, reconstructing the pages in my head. It’s a handwritten alphabet with twenty letters. That seems like few, but each letter has a large number of possible strokes added to it.
The local language is very tone and intonation based, so I immediately suspect that these additional… I forgot. Shit, how do you call the difference between ‘e’ and ‘é’?
Accents!
These additional accents must indicate tone. I plug those parameters into a comparison process. All it does is compare speech with written words while making notes of similarities. Those notes are the information I need to read this stuff. It begins chugging away at the recorded book and I route the notes it makes to a visual overlay process. The words slowly start to become legible before my eyes.
My general language process, which is running in its minimized form all the time, unless I am talking or being talked to, puts out an error. I check it and see that some accents indicate a vocal change, like transforming an ‘e’ sound to an ‘ah.’ I plug that possibility into the comparison process, and suddenly I can read everything.
That single change increased the speed of language recognition from ‘slow’ to ‘done near instantaneously.’ Pumped, I start reading the book.
It’s religious drivel about how the dungeon provides, sigh. I don’t mind religion, but this isn’t even an interesting read. The dungeon provides all, and we all should live in its magnificent glory. It knows all, so there is no need for us to get any smarter. That’s what it comes down to.
I delete the entire scan from my memory, only keeping the language files, and begin running over the rooftops. I circle to the left, going west to the coast instead of straight to the large, round castle near the middle of the city.
A single large building is especially interesting to me. It has the symbol of a book plastered on its outside, so that’s a pretty good indication that there are a lot of books there.
During a random warehouse scan I find a chest filled with accounting books. I check a dozen random books in the building but only find pages filled with numbers. I’ll come back when I have more mental storage capacity; knowing about the economic details of this world will be useful. It’s a shame that it’s a bit much to store for my current mental cultivation.
I could read through all the numbers and compress the data to a smaller format, but that would take time I am not willing to invest.
Streets become wider and the smell improves a bit as the neighbourhood gets richer. The book building is located in between the commoners’ and nobles’ district. The wind parts for me as I run across the roofs. I alternate between making many, many smaller steps and steps powerful enough to collapse lesser buildings.
I soar across a large plaza as I construct sheets of qi on my arms. Sending the wind under them allows me to perform a rudimentary form of gliding. Doing this at my normal running speed is useless, I need to keep close to the ground to exert enough force through my legs. I can’t run too quickly inside a city, so it forces me to take it easy.
I land inside gardens, kicking off from massive stone floors or large ornamental rocks. One last leap shoots me up at a forty-five-degree angle, allowing me to cross the canal running through this part of town. I land on the book symbol building and quickly scan it.
Jackpot!
The next half hour I spent in a daze of scanning books. The following half hour is spent in a daze of reading and categorising information.
I blink and look around. People walk past me as I stand in the middle of the street. Did it get busier all of a sudden? People not only ignore me, but they also tend to avoid me. Maybe there is some basic instinct in all sentient life that someone with a much higher power base shouldn’t be messed with?
I think that ‘I’M NOT HERE’ works in more ways than one. I might not be here, but that does not mean that there is suddenly room to walk through the place that I am not in.
Ah, nearly forgot, my conclusions. High school diploma!
There are two types of books. Immaculately written fonts inside perfectly made books indicate that it is, obviously, a dungeon-won book. Crappy binding and handwriting suggest that it is a non-dungeon book.
The dungeon books are filled with all sorts of information up to a college level. Overall, a very solid scientific foundation that is a great start for any civilization. The handwritten books are chiefly research notes of lonely people. The rest is historical or religious books and documents. There does not seem to be a flourishing scientific community inside this kingdom.
I gained nothing new but got a few formulas and concepts of higher efficiency or accuracy than my own deduced science. I had a few theories about quarks and gluons that were a bit off the mark. I did do some tests, but staring at colliding particles all day is not my recipe of fun. I mean, it needed too much power to automate. Yeah, let’s go with that excuse.
I sigh deeply and move on, going straight to the castle this time. I pause near a few noble houses, but I only find more of the same books. I even found a few of the books Selis and Ket sold in Peak City. I chuckle as I think of the trouble Selis’ family must be in right now.
I read through some of the nobles’ correspondences, starting to form an image of the current state of this place. Selis’ family is really not doing well.
The castle gives me the impression of a massive circular cake. Towers stick up from it here and there, but the few balconies and stairs can’t disguise the fact that it looks like an enormous frosted piece of confectionary.
I lick my lips unconsciously and jump over the large walls surrounding the castle gardens. A few leaps later, and I am staring into an abyss. There is a massive hole in this city. It’s like a reversed Tower. A scan tells me that there is an entrance to my right. I run along the inside of the castle wall, landing on balconies, wall running here and there.
I pass by a single man standing on a ledge. This is nothing special, but his aura makes me halt in my steps. He feels like a rock smothered by filth. Instead of going with the flow, this rock keeps still and steady, no matter how much shit streams over it. A thin crown, brooding and contemplative expression, and rich clothes clue me in on this man’s identity.
I stop a
single balcony over and study the fellow’s aura. An idea springs to mind, so I take a minute to calculate some potential future paths. I then shove this information, along with some other titbits, into a coin-shaped piece of jade. I scratch a symbol of a human face on the coin. On its forehead is a circle, on which I scratch another smaller face with an even smaller coin on its forehead, ad infinitum. That should clue him in on how to use it.
I gently toss it towards the still man, landing it on the balcony railing next to his hand with a clink. I grin as the startled figure looks around as he picks up the coin. Seed planted; I move on.
Looking down, I see a dark entranceway in the side of the black wall, surrounded by a platform and two stairs going up. Figures walk across the walkway, the castle beginning around five metres back of the precipice. I see gleaming rows of armoured men and women walking in step, marching soldiers carrying large boxes and sacks, along with tired looking slaves.
Yeah, they are slaves. I see a beastkin stumble and fall to the ground, spilling goods everywhere. A large human approaches, picks up the sack, and kicks the beastkin over the edge. This event gets ignored by everyone present. There are a few hundred people walking in and out of the dungeon, but no one even bats an eye.
Everyone in the kingdom knows that the Capital does not have a dungeon. I see that plants, beans, meat, grains, and other foodstuffs are the main product being carried out. This entire thing is probably a lifetime deal for all involved. I don’t think the people here will ever be allowed out. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so few rumours about the dungeon in front of my eyes.
I have to give the ruling class credit though, claiming that all the food is imported is a great way to keep food prices high and maintain fiscal dominance no matter what other people do.
I cast a qi wire to the falling figure. I cover him in a balloon of qi and pull. A freezing spell later and I pull him into Tree, placing it with the other frozen figures. Can’t save everyone but I can save the ones I see. I hope that these folks I saved understand what abuse of power does. Let’s hope none of them restart the cycle.
I start designing propaganda material in my mind as I begin moving toward the sea.
Chapter twenty
Ruminations
‘…w ould have to word it bloody carefully. Or not carefully. And have some random asshat write it down. My handwriting on a proposal guarantees that it’s going to be burned to shit immediately.’
The king stands in silence, looking down a dark pit. The visual spectacle of the never-ending hole is quite fitting. His thoughts are doing the same thing. His only free time of the week is usually spent in this fashion. All the king’s alone time he spends staring at the tool that keeps power in the hands of his so-called subordinates.
‘The economic angle would be the best, I think. Have some of my lesser-known allies praise the possibility of squeezing out the last fucking bit of money still left to the general populace. Make it a festival that encourages spending money, maybe. One free day a year is not too fucking much, right?’
Rubbing his beard slowly, the First Defender mulls over this possibility. He has been trying to claw back some shreds of power and control after his grandfather squandered it all. Now the royal family has no more say in how the Food Dungeon gets exploited, causing food prices to rise even further. Quotas keep rising while less and less money is sunk back into the all-giving miracle that is the dungeon hidden in the middle of the Capital.
‘It will take a few months or years, but I think that with some careful manoeuvring, I can guarantee a single free day per year for our labour force. Then those ass-licking shit-stains of nobility can never get rid of me. The recent chaos is starting to sway public opinion against me; that should fix it.’
There used to be professional armies raiding the food dungeon daily, guaranteeing that the massive city around the castle could get fed. The fact that easily won dungeon food is being sold as an imported good, with the correspondingly higher price, is a small evil. To the king, it seems better than letting everyone starve. And better than shovelling more money into the hands of the noble faction with a transportation monopoly.
‘It’s a shame that the dungeon religion is taking root even deeper, it encourages the common man to be content with his fucking ass-monkey shitty way of life. This entire ass-wipe of a kingdom hasn’t changed in thousands of years, in part thanks to the mages’ stalemate. Those pompous arrogant idiot-’
A tinkling sound interrupts the king’s spiralling thoughts. He looks up from the dark abyss to the source of the noise.
‘A green coin?’
He lifts the small, semi-transparent item from the balcony railing. A simple visage with a circle on its forehead is engraved on one side. The other side is blank. Looking closer, the king sees a rather small picture of the coin itself on the face’s forehead. Squinting while peering at the small thing, he sees the same picture on the small engraved coin once again, seemingly going on forever.
He twirls the coin through his fingers for a bit, looking around for the source. Nothing seems out of sight. The soldiers and slaves are still delving with hurried steps. It seems rather organized, it’s just a shame that the resting areas in between decads and the lobby contain more fighting between the noble’s factions’ forces than what happens inside the dungeon itself.
He looks suspiciously at the weird object, and with a shrug of his shoulders, puts it to his forehead.
YOU ARE HERE → ·
Massive letters float next to an arrow pointing to a small dot. The king freezes as this image appears inside his mind like he is visualising this image by himself. He jerks the coin from his forehead, and the image disappears.
‘What in the fucking bloody hell hells of all hells…’
Slowly and gingerly, he lays the coin against his forehead once again.
YOU ARE HERE → ·
Narrowing his mental eyes on the dot, the mental image zooms in and expands into a field of text. The king stands there for an entire minute, engrossed in reading the clean text now visible in his mind’s eye. He then nods his head once.
‘All correct. That weird % symbol means one part of a hundred. So that means that a single person holds power over ten thousand. Around four hundred thousand people in the Capital, around four hundred people hold absolute power. Stagnation for thousands of years, immense discrepancies in monetary distribution, no progress of the mind, the common people are placated by force or religion, all correct.’
Having confirmed the factuality of the starting point, the king tries to zoom back out. The big arrow and the words come back into view. Making this picture smaller allows him glimpses of threads running away from the starting point.
He takes the coin away from his head and stares at it again. Something is going on here. He senses none of the ill intentions usually cloaking the members of his so-called advisory group from this weird phenomenon. Another shrug of the shoulders later and the king is looking through the coin’s contents again.
The text, arrow and dot grow even smaller until he sees an entire web sprawling from the beginning. Zooming even further and the king sees even bigger words.
CHAOS
CENTRALIZED - DECENTRALIZED
STABILITY
Four words mark the four extremes of the web, like the arrows on a compass. The starting point the king just zoomed out from is far to the left, well into the ‘CENTRALIZED’ piece of the chart. It is a third of the way to stability. Concentrating on these half-known words cause the meaning to appear with clarity.
‘Correct once again. Heavy centralisation… nice word… combined with forced stable peace. Why am I being shown this?’
The king zooms in on the starting point once again, this time keeping track of the thin lines radiating out from it. He decides to follow one at random, one going towards the stable and decentralized piece of the chart.
‘Educating the masses? Won’t work unless that dungeon religion gets thrown out of the Tower-damned w
indow.’
He follows a line going straight up towards chaos.
‘Foreign invasion is unlikely to happen with the stranglehold the mages have on all the kingdoms surrounding the factional seas. May they all have a long sit on the Peak…’
Another one goes towards absolute chaos and centralization.
‘Yep, total chaos and a higher concentration of power would happen if I disappear, allowing the nobles to run free.’
A line of more chaos and heavy decentralization guides to king to another possibility.
‘Democracy? What is that… Elected rules? Laws applicable to all? How would that ever fucking work? Wait, there’s more here… Parliament? Voting? This is… bloody interesting.’
More possible paths are laid out in front of the king’s eyes as he follows the trails one by one. It’s like he’s being shown all possible paths that his kingdom can take from its current point in history.
Then, when he has seen them all and has read all the information available on the chart, another line appears. It goes straight towards the middle of the chart, perfectly in between chaos and stability. Perfectly in between centralized and decentralized power.
Another possibility is played out in front of the world-weary statesman. It takes him a few minutes to read through this alternate path.
The king stands there, watching over the hidden dungeon for a few hours without moving. The only thing he does is stroke the green coin in his pocket occasionally. Then, he suddenly turns around and walks back into the castle, a gleam in his eyes.
⁂
“Is this all the food we have?”
A big-boned boy stares at a small stack of supplies with a sad frown. He licks his lips as he shuffles closer. A large metal bar smacks against his forehead. He rebounds from the floating metal ingot as it circles a set distance around the food.
“More at floor thirty.”
A glare as fierce as the sun is directed at Ket. He only shrugs as he orchestrates a small storm of floating metal. Ket suddenly freezes in his movements, metal clattering to the stone floor of the room in between decads.
The Dao of Magic: Book II Page 17