From the far-flung clutches of the Helona Frontier to the known world's world edge horizon of Inverisa. And from the pillars of Tenviet to the far reaches of the 7th hell, the Southern United Rucina's Confederation dominates. Sacred Lands, blessed by virtue and eternal glory great man and woman lives as almighty. The Confederation has endured through countless conflicts and crisis that birth peerless individuals to conquer and bring along a Golden Age. Yet those who followed and enjoyed the fruits their labours are but the weak whose degeneracy brought back dark times...
And here we will know more about the Confederation. In oversimplified terms of course.
Even under the leadership of the 5 deities or the Ansei A Jusei. The Confederation is alive simply by its sheer size and weight that refused to go down, ever-expanding and ever declining. And thanks to that, there are countless institution and governments in place to control the provinces in local or national scale. The controlling party that is permanent is so few you can count it with one hand and fingers to spare. Not counting the Deities, there are 2 longest-ruling party that governs the Confederation. Just to clarify, we're only explaining the party that manages to stay in power after thousands of years, not counting the one that's still centuries old, so 999 years don't count since we don't round the numbers here.
- The 16 "Great" Royal Families
The first to mention is the oldest and founding group, the direct descendants of Rucina and foundations that form this Confederation in the first place. Controlling the Core territories under their laws and traditions since the creation of this nation, they are the de facto leaders from Central and foreign nations would make contact with them first before they could meet the Deities. With each family holding one vote to determine the direction from where the Confederation is going in the Great Gathering that's held once a decade. But that was around a thousand years ago, and now only 13 /16 of the Royal Families gets to vote ever since the ascension of the 2nd Dragon King to the throne and as the Heart of jade, making him the first-ever Figurative Heart of Jade and start the Dragon Family's Hegemony where they hold 4 votes while still keeping the balance in check. As of now, the Royal Families rules Central and the other core lands under the Deity's watchful gaze.
If there is another event to note is during the War of the Colossus during the 15th century. Whereas the Hegemonic Dragon Family formed a mighty league with the other 14 Royal families to fight the Black Tiger Family junta led by the Black Tyrant Tiger King whose influence and powers manage to surpass even the Dragons and hold as much as 10 votes. So powerful have they become that his sons even infiltrated the Deities position and hold the seat of Heaven's Commandant and Custodian of Resources, it wouldn't be surprising to say that the Black Tiger family has unified the Confederation under one banner with one ruler. But in the end, they failed. The Black Tiger Family dissolved and was sent to exile in their realm which is soon to be the Rucina Underground level or the proto- eternal hell and the family rename as The Black Tiger Triad. In the story as of now, year 2800... The few black tiger family is beheaded by a revolutionary with the name of Taiga.
- The Spirit Pantheon
The ruling party in charge of all the people who follow the Spirit's words and keep the populace in check by teaching them the doctrine of eternity. With the Confederation being as it is, I dare say it is impossible to govern such diverse and humongous pool of lives with just a few people unless you're someone who's considered a God, like Rucina or by brainwashing the populace with a single doctrine and teaching... Or in this case, religion. Sure, there are many who's loyalty are minuscule with the spirits. But as long as they think the Confederation and the Spirit church as their leader then that's enough. After all, you'll be surprised by how easy ut is to please the oppressed masses with bread and circusses. Usually, unless you're the Libera church, the countless religion all living things follow would only have at most hundreds of millions of followers and around 3 billion at best if you gather all of them in one place from all corners of the world. But the Spirit Church is a bit special as if they have billions of followers gathered around already since they rule the most populated country in the planet. Not counting the ones outside the country, their influence truly runs deep and can only be matched by the Libera church alone.
Just like the 16 Royal family, they are also similar to a country as if they have their own laws, government, army, security, tradition, private territory, land claims, taxes in the name of tides and et cetera. With the only thing missing are a country name, flag and independence. It is also said they can easily break off from the Confederation and form their own Theocracy but... They don't, and what their final goal is still unknown even to their most devoted followers and Orders. Most of all, their leader too is still a mystery to even the Heart of Jade for they are not of this world... Perhaps maybe because they have no leader at all?
(Get the pun? Probably not... Mhm, anyways...)
Unlike many countries, the Confederation is one of the countries that people can easily become a citizen but... Just because its easy doesn't mean it's great, mostly because of extensive drafts, conscription and lack of proper governance if you're in the border provinces and heavy taxes you have to count yourself along with stuck up and corrupt beurocrats if you're living deep in core states. And ridiculously enough, even when there's actually a divide in their population the Confederation is called the most populated country is simply by counting the Registered population. And I can only wonder how they even do that? Did they clone- hold on...
What's that? It's because of neglectful series of long panning cultural integration and administration along with the pass of several reforms and policies that really fucked up the entire society and population chart creating some echo effect where the population would boom from central and spread like rabbits to all before rebounding back which cause many to not care about family ties since mothers could have around 16 kids thanks to the advanced magic, ridiculous abundance of food and agriable land to sustain so many, and healthcare systems so that's why many instilled governments placed always value family ties and family planning agencies to help curb the societal and huge internal problem for a while until someone can fix it but thanks to the higher up shenanigans, corrupt beurocrats and ignorant politicians, and greedy individuals many of the reforms sometimes fail to pass. And we can't forget one of the main factors this could happen is because of the abundant natural resources that focus on our livelihood like food, huge mountain agriculture field, interconnected land lakes and rivers in the core territories along with obedient client states or puppet countries acting as a natural barriers to first bear the full brunt of catastrophic disasters like tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, monster and human invasions so that we got time to prepare counter measures along with some foreign intervention, it's no surprise our population- hey! Stop it! We're not going to talk about that since it's too complicated! So... Where was I? Right.
Not counting the unregistered ones, which is also a huge problem. Their sheer size and administration is just too immense and impossible to document except for the top echelons of the country. This is where the concept of hidden countries come from, usually in the form of hidden districts or just squeezed between two giant mountains to form a city state to handle their own "citizens". I dare say the only thing not making them not foreigners is because they still toil and offer to the Confederation so no complains there. For example the entire Underground level of the Rucina city is filled by Unregistered citizens or more commonly refer to Exiles and they usually toil for their labours before freed... What they toil is a mystery though. While many countries have this problem, none of then are as bad as the confederation though. Sometimes other countries might just establish trade with an unregistered sector or part of the hidden Confederation and they won't suspect a single thing since what matters in the end is the results and riches that arrived at their hands.
Now then, if we're talking about The Rucina's Confederation I guess it's appropriate to talk about the nation named after the person huh? So Rucina... The man, the myth, the legend, ever so prevailing and so ridiculous that people almost thought he was just made up and fake propaganda from the past. But the people who's still alive from back then says otherwise. A man whose strength bring absolute obedience and terror to those who face him yet a great man destined for greatness beyond the stars... It's kinda hard to tell his story without telling how the world was back then which would cover a lot of things outside the Confederation so... Let's just peek at an old memory Rucina had why don't we?
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Hungry, hurt, desperate and in his last breath, Rucina finally led his feeling out as he cried to the heavens. Why is he born weak? Why is the world so cruel? Why did he have to live in a broken world filled with cruelty!?
As something approaches the wailing child, Rucina braces for his final moments. Only to find an eccentric monk, unlike any other people before him, he has no magic around him, even Rucina who was born weak with magic still has a layer of magic that can be seen but not him. It's like he was empty and a lifeless shell. But the eccentric monk moves like a living person and even more energetic than him even. He smiles with his heavy bush like beard shouting:
"Sup child! I heard you crying from miles away so I'm here to save yo ass!"
His bushy hair sways while he speaks and moves. Seeing good fortune has blessed him, Rucina felt conflicted... Must he suffer so much or just end it right here-
"Oh, and I don't care what you think but... Child, do you want to be stronger?"
Rucina eyes widened up asking:
"I can become... Stronger?"
"Of course! With my new super neo turbo ultra hyper mega multi ultra alpha extra uber prefix power! EVERYONE can do anything! Interested? I'm still going to make you learn even if you say no though."
By this point Rucina has reached the lowest of the low, the bottom of them all. But with that, he can't help but smile since... There's no other way than up.
"Yes! Teach me your ways teacher!"
"Uhm, good. But call me Shifu child. This is supposed to be like alternate china ye? Though the language is weird, there's barely any city or people, the land is horrendous and everything is shit here... Like people still shit in rivers, ugh!"
"China? What is that, Shi...fu?"
"Oh, that felt good. Now let the training montage begin! Though I mean I'm just gonna play music when you train."
Ignoring Rucina's question the eccentric monk just starts dancing weirdly when Rucina gets to his knees begging:
"Um, Shi...fu before we begin. I need to tell you I don't have any talent in magic so, please... Promise me you won't abandon me."
The eccentric monk picks his ears replying:
"Yeah, yeah, sure... And magic? There's magic? What the hell! Well anyway! I'm going to teach you something else!"