Prologue
Orun hung high up in the sky as always, sending light and warmth down to the streets.
The massive statue of Orun, the God of the Sun and Light , under the illumination of sunlight, stood shiny and gleaming at the shrine, exuding an air of magnificence.
Nornak, the capital of the Akan Trade Alliance, was the largest trade and port city in the Elysium Continent.
This city had the largest amount of shrines dedicated a pantheon of deities, earning the city the moniker: The City of Shrines.
It also had the most academies on the whole continent, among which included seven of the top ten highest ranked ones, causing it to also be known as the Academic City.
This was the most popular and populated city on the Elysium continent; it had a population which numbered almost one million.
Over here, businesses flourished and people came and go. The amount of gold coins circulating in the daily economy of the city usually amounts to millions. Countless mercenaries, swordsmen, adventurers, artisans, peddlers as well as the common folk and slaves each with their own dreams and aspirations.
The bards often sang about how this city was a favored land of the deities, a land rich with wealth and prosperity…
The fourth largest waterway on the Elysium Continent, the Blank River, silently nourished the Planka Fields and entered the seas from the east part of the city, giving rise to a bay filled with hidden treasures and a great maritime armada.
The vast and rich Planka Fields, thanks to the abundant sunlight, produced various goods including honey, allowing the city to grow larger and larger thanks to the yearly harvest.
187 years ago, one day, out of no nowwhere the Duke of the old Adox Empire, Akan Nornak suddenly announced a seceding reform that led to the relinquishing of the hereditary feudal lord system and the adoption of a republic system. Serfdom was also abolished, liberating up to 400 thousand serfs. This seceding reform greatly startled the various nations on the continent.
Greatly advocating trading and freedom as a means to develop the seceded nation, Duke Akan Nornak rallied seven other merchant dukes to secede to stand under a banner, forming the Akan Trade Alliance and began to trade with various other countries. This was later recorded in history as the Great Akan Reform.
The newly-founded nation and trade alliance embraced freedom and openness, causing hordes of wealth-hungry people and slaves to flock over as well as inciting jealousy from various other powers.
The Trinite Empire and the Adox Empire, two of the five great empires of the Elysium Continent entered an alliance and declared the Great Akan Reform to be rebellious and illegal and proceeded to invade the Planka Fields, starting a war the lasted more than a hundred years.
The newly born Trade Alliance however did not back down. Rallying countless slaves under the banner of freedom, they met the invasion with similar appalling force. For more than a hundred years, blood stained across the Planka Plains.
Two Adox emperors, more than ten dukes from the Trinite Empire and countless elite soldiers from both Empires fell at the Planka Plains to the forces of Nornak City. However, the whitish green flag of the Akan Trade Alliance stood proud and tall.
Over the countless years of war, the trade alliance grew stronger. With 175 thousand warriors and clever and malicious plots, they dealt the empires a heavy blow that brought down the Adox Empire and heavy weakened the Trinite Empire by killing the two Empires high-tier warriors, winning themselves Fifty years of peace and sending the Adox Empire down the path of no return.
Following the Trinite Empire's last emperor's death by wicked plots, the four princes and princess started an internal power struggle for the throne, further crippling the already weakened empire and allowing the trade alliance to be free of their threat and to rise and prosper. Within fifty years, the trade alliance apexed and became the top superpower on the Elysium Continent. The influence the alliance had on trade throughout the continent was immeasurably great.
Nornak City, the city that persisted, the capital of freedom. Originally, it was known as the Seawatch Fort. To commemorate the great deeds of Akan Nornak for fending off the two Empires invasion, the name was changed to Nornak City. To accommodate for rapid economic development, the Akan Trade Alliance commissioned for fifty six other districts to be built outside the fort's walls as well as a new wall surrounding the newly-built districts, dividing the city into the outer walls and the inner walls.
But Akan himself didn't call the different sections of the city that. He termed the inner part the Upper City Section and City Centre. The east outer part was called the Academic Sector, which contained about twenty academies of various disciplines. The northeast part of the outer city contained the Naval Section, the Port Section the Business Section, which occupied the most space, and the Camp Section which was where non-residents usually resided. To the northwest of the city was the Garrison Section and the rest of the east and south parts were the Residential Section.
Although Nornak City was the capital of the Akan Trade Alliance, the alliance 's highest council was not responsible for the city's management. Instead, the city's management was handled by a mayor in the City's centre who was elected once every five years by the union management. After the mayor's five-year term, the management collects evaluations from one representative from every district and decides if the current mayor will take on another term.
The Trade Alliance was faced with powerful underworld forces which resulted in sky high expenses during the time of its formation. So, to prevent corruption and to streamline the administration process, they set up a brilliant new policy from a mercantile perspective: They legalized the gangs and put them in charge of the security, taxes and hygiene of the various districts of the city. This achieved multiple things. Firstly, each and every gang kept each other in check and prevented the rise of an uncontrollable major gang. Second, this decreased the city management's expenditures and human resources by a huge fraction. Lastly, it also made the gange easier to manage and handle. For example, should the citizens of a district be unhappy with the management of the mafia in charge, the city management will remove the said gang with the cooperation of other gangs.
Initially, this policy was not met with much favor. However, that all changed within three years. The security of the area was greatly improved and the crime rate greatly decreased as well. The expenses saved from having to suppress the gangs went to the development of infrastructure, further improving the living standards of the city residents.
This result greatly surprised the decision makers of the alliance and it also prompted many kingdoms to reevaluate the management of the city. The conclusion was that the effectiveness of the syndicates' management greatly surpassed that of the many kingdoms' own officials, who were great embarrassments in comparison.
This was Nornak City, a haven for merchants, filled with vigor and rife with many curiosities. Some called it heaven while others called it a city of devilish temptation and deprivation.
During the day, the streets were filled with the sound of rowdy merchants and the shrines resounded with hymns of prayer, while the nights were full of merry debauchery. This was Nornak city, the city where there's no sleep.