"You said raid teams, so there are more than one?"
"Yeah, there are well over a hundred raid teams all filled with elites of the Province. The most outstanding is the Stardust Raiders, or Burning Stardust, as we call them, led by Xasha himself. The most accomplished is the Shadow Corp, as they have the most merit points for finding dungeons and other resources during their scouts. There are others who stand above the rest, and a few rising stars who have everyone keeping an eye on them. Me personally, I'm aiming for the Roaring Raiders led by Flame Emperor Saxon of Draconic City. They take on the most dangerous dungeons and ruins we find and are second only to the shadow corps in merit points."
Lusha's eyes shone. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Even the Devos family only had one raid team and a team of reserves. One should know that raid teams of made up of mages Thorium Realm or higher. A single raid team can have up to 1000 members.
Now, this man was saying there were over a hundred thousand Thorium Realm existences in the raid teams alone. The number of Thorium Realm cultivators in the Army was not a part of that 100,000 number. He released a cold breath before walking away from the man with quick steps. He needed to find Fitzroy and warn him.
"Fitzroy!" Lusha burst into Fitzroy's mansion and shouted with all his might. "Get me a drink." He barked at an attendant passing by. The Devos Family had their own estate in Stardust City, not much smaller than the one in Imperial City. Almost every branch of the Devos Family had a mansion in the Devos Estate.
The Von Lotus Family has a similar estate inside Stardust City, not too far from the Devos Estate.
"Boy, stop shouting. I'm right outside." He heard a voice behind him. He ran back outside and turned to see a garden he had not noticed. Every plant inside the garden was of the purification affinity. This astonished him. These things were supposed to be so rare that they could only be happened upon, never sought after. Yet there were thousands of these plants here, casually growing in a random flower garden.
"Come over here and stop staring, you're making me look bad." He heard his brother's voice again.
He walked along the path and found Fitzroy sitting lazily on a bench by a small lake, feeding a baby energy beast as they frolicked and jumped from the water to catch the treats he tossed.
Lusha stomped over. "Fitzroy, did you know that kid has over a hundred thousand highly trained Thorium Realm practitioners under him?"
"A hundred thousand?" Fitzroy chuckled, "it's closer to half a million than a hundred thousand."
Lusha grabbed his collar and asked in anger. "You knew? How could you allow this to happen?"
"What was I supposed to do, stop them from cultivating? Even if I had your mind, a forcefield protects this place that we couldn't break if the entire Henosis joined hands. The thought of impeding them never crossed my mind. Besides that, is that kid not impressive?" He asked with a bright smile.
"Impressive? You have time to be impressed? What if he decides to destroy the lot of us for annoying him? What if he takes rulership of the continent? Who can stop him? The entire Henosis combined only has a little over half a million Thorium Realm cultivators, and that's only with his help. Before that, it was only a few tens of thousands."
"Exactly? You think he wouldn't use his knowledge to help his own organization too? Don't be naïve. As for whether he would ever attack us, I'm not worried about it." Fitzroy released his brother's grip and returned to feeding the energy beasts, or rather Fantasma.
"Loyalty." was all Fitzroy said.
Hearing those words from his brother, Lusha finally realized what those words meant. "Loyalty," he repeated.
Another three days passed and the auspicious time had arrived. Everyone had assembled in a conference center to the south of Stardust City. Xasha stood in the center of the room with Ari and Alexi standing on either side of him. He couldn't help but notice the suspicious gazes of the crowd as they looked towards him.
He was sure they had a shock after spending several days inside Stardust Province. Be it the beastmen, the Imperium, the military might, or the property. They now knew without a doubt the gap that existed between Stardust Province and the rest of them.
Once everyone entered the room, Xasha spoke up. "Welcome everyone to my Stardust City. In light of the new information I shared with you all, I'm sure you all have questions. I understand, I'm still having a hard time believing it as well. Ask me anything you need to know. I will try to answer them as best I can."
Unlike before, instead of sharing the speaking platform, each person stood up from their seat to ask questions. There was the option to ask two follow-up questions, going in alphabetical order based on the name of their province.
The first to stand up was a lady. "Before all that, what is this place? I thought we are to share everything with other member states, so what is this disparity between you and us?"
"I don't understand your question. What have you seen here in Stardust City that is not available to everyone else here?" Xasha asked casually.
The lady froze, not quite sure what to say. There really was nothing here they didn't have in their provinces. But even with this, the picture was quite different.
"Let's straighten this out. The only difference between mine and your provinces is the concentration of Imperium. I proposed several years ago to connect our provinces' forcefields and share our mana equally. You all know well the response I got to this proposal. I was accused of all sorts of nefarious things and was turned down promptly."
Xasha glanced at those around the room. "What you're seeing now is the consequences of your decision. You could be as powerful as the Stardust Province, but you voted against your best interests. Do not blame me."
"But, but. Even the moon forest and the moon gardens in every residence in your cities. You gave us a few plants each while you have a massive forest for yourself." The crowd all nodded in agreement with the lady's sentiment. They were all shocked by the volume of moon plants owned by Stardust Province.
"Did you think we happened upon billions of moon plants and only spared you a few seedlings? We found those plants, each by chance. Some were but seeds or seedlings from dungeons and ruins or in the land we cleared to create our province.
"Our practitioners risked their lives and, in some cases, lost their lives to acquire those plants. Our team of herbalists spent over a decade budding, grafting, and nurturing seedlings until their Valdis ran empty to create what you see. It did not come overnight. The only reason you all don't have a moon forest of your own is solely your decision."
The crowd remained silent. Even the lady took her seat. She was still upset, but this time she was upset with herself and she was not the only one.
Xasha didn't wait for the next question. He declared, "I did not call this meeting for you all to voice your grievances but to discuss the new information about the continent and discuss the future. That discussion begins now. I'd like to introduce you to the sources we got the information from. You may ask your questions directly to them."
Xasha, Ari, and Alexi activated their mana weapons, from them, three shadows shot into the sky. One was a little girl, the other a naked woman, and the third was a fairy whose body was made of lightning.
"Nice to meet you, humans. This Celestial is called Xandria."
"I am Harpy Queen Mylyn."
"I am Umi."
The people were shocked to see remnant spirits talking. Some guys directly got up and escaped the Assembly hall thinking this was an ambush.
Mylyn and Xandria burst out laughing. The two had become great friends. Seeing the two remnant spirits laughing together and acting so 'human', most people calmed down.
"Ash, I really don't know why you want to help these traitors and cowards. You can't be too sympathetic and sentimental, sometimes in order to move forward, you must shed dead weight." Xandria held nothing back as she addressed Xasha.
"They can't be considered dead weight yet. This is all new to them. Understandably, they would be confused. I acted no different from them when I was just exposed to this information. But after this assembly, when they have learned everything they need to. If they are still resistant, I will not bother you about helping them again."