In one of the one thousand rooms in the City Hall, a room at the fourth floor, the sole room in the highest floor, was filled with makeshift furniture and was littered with tons of papers.
The room is the largest room in the entire building but due to the littering it appeared the smallest among all.
In the center of the room, in front of a large window which is giving the view of gates, the very place where a protest was carrying out a few minutes ago, a large wooden table was laid out with a black chair.
The table was also completely covered with reports, hiding the supreme quality of craftsmanship it was created with. There was no storage unit in the room, one of the reasons for such clutter, and had huge sofas on both sides of the table along with two seats in front of the desk.
The room was painted in white and with wooden furniture it was the most premium room, but now it has become the most abused room where only Bai Changming works. Only a few people ever come here, another reason no one dares to clean it in his absence.
Soon followed by a click sound the black painted door opened and Bai Changming entered the room with his group.
Selena was in a new maid uniform with a lot more frills. She was wearing long white socks and was gorgeous as usual, she entered the room just behind Bai Changming while looking intensely at the Class 5 blue Mana Stone, playing it with it as she was just itching to do so during the whole week.
Behind her was a young woman who would appear more beautiful than even Selena and others in Top 10 Beauty Rankings if she could remove her frown.
She was quite tall, around 5' 8'', had a fit body endowed with a pair of modest breast, slender and sturdy hips, and long legs. As she moved her long wavy blonde hair oscillated behind her straight back as she preferred them to keep them unchained while keeping two bangs at the front.
Her beautiful jeweled light blue eyes were behind black rimmed glasses. Even while frowning her angular face was not something anyone could hate, making many wonders how pretty she would appear when she drops her cold persona.
While dressed in traditional white long-sleeved shirt, black skirt, and black heels she was clothed no different to many secretaries in the City Hall, but no one treated her as one of the many because of her identity as the exclusive secretory of the Governor of the Dragon City. Also, her being indifferent to everyone didn't help her image any further as cold woman who is hell bent to complete only her given tasks. Her terror has reached to such a level that now she has become the Ice Witch of the Dragon City, cold as winters in the Great Desert in the Wastelands, punishing anyone who comes in her way.
She looked at the mess in front of her and frowned a little with irritation "You either give us access to this room or make sure to clean this yourself. I cannot believe that you managed to surpass yourself this time, is this is a paper factory or your room."
"Don't worry about the small things now. Come on sit, make yourself home, just ignore this mess for now, I will clean this up after we are done."
Shaking her head upon hearing the exact line she heard last time she decided to give it up on this topic like always. She tip-toed her way to the seat in the right and cleaned some papers on desk before sitting down to her seat.
Last person to enter the room was Bai Xiang, former Governor of Dragon City and current Head Advisor. He was an old man with a long beard. He was tall and had strong physique which supported him all these years. He was a little bit tanned and was wearing white traditional Immortal clothes laced with golden embroideries sewed by his wife who is cultivating at the Bai Clan HQ, a treasure he makes sure to clean up daily with care and loves to wear it every single day no matter the occasion.
He looked at the mess and willed his Immortal Qi to sort it out as needed and placed the sets on the corner of the room.
Looking at this Bai Changming, who by then had already sat on the chair behind the desk, whistled and looked in wonder "Even after seeing this so many times I cannot believe how useful the qi is."
"If you want to learn, I could teach it to you."
"Sigh, it is impossible for me learn this at least in this life time. Well, we will talk about it soon, first of all, please make yourself cozy."
Bai Xiang nodded and moved towards the remaining seat but paused and looked at Selena lying on the sofa and rubbing the mana stone to her cheeks with ecstasy with a visible irritation.
"Selena, you are an Elder now, aren't you? Have some decency for your age and status. Just see how badly dressed you are as an elder, people will say that you want to seduce men now! Don't think that if Bai Changming will not say anything other members of clan will not. Stop being an embarrassment to the Clan now."
She broke from her trance and looked at the old man while lying down with a blank gaze, Bai Changming interjected a bit to help his favourite helper of the week.
"Uncle just let her be, she is tired from dealing with my mess."
"...You are too lenient on her Ming'er."
Puffing her cheeks a bit Selena huffed at him "You old freak, you should not care what I am wearing now but care about what type of clothes your precious Yu'er is wearing nowadays. Teach her some 'decency' before teaching me okay? At least I wear complete clothes unlike daughter of someone present here."
"You!! How Dare You!"
"Oi Sis, don't drag others here."
"You are also with him? Do I have to remind you how much of the per-"
"Cough. Ahem. Uncle it's a new generation now. It's her choice what to wears. You know that you cannot stop them nowadays, just learn to ignore it or people will react even more."
"..."
Bai Xiang just sat down and brought out his phone from his storage ring. To prove her wrong, he looked at the social media of his precious daughter but soon silently crushed his phone before bringing out another replacing it as if nothing happened. He acted as if nothing happened, Bai Changming smiled helplessly at him and decided to give him a chance to escape this embarrassment while stopping Selena who was marking him as her new prey with her cat like eyes ready to screw him over.
"Sis, are not you tired, enjoy the mana stone. It is your reward and when you will be done with it I will give you another one. And you two, now I am all yours and I guess you must have many questions now, throw them at me and I will do my best to answer them.
"Mr. Governor was that all done by you?"
"Ah come on Alicia, I told you so many times to call me Mr. Bai or Changming. Don't be so distant. And for the answer to this question, I will say that besides the lightning bolt everything was done by me. I mean, how could I have even created that thing, it was a total accident."
"...What about the altar there?"
"I found it by chance."
"You didn't feel reporting this as per laws?"
"Nope, I found it and it was mine. Anyways only I can stay there without any problem, even Selena needed a mask made by the Ancestor to stand there. What's the use of telling others about it and let it be sealed forever. And on that point, did you make sure to bury it."
"...I cannot go against this order even if I felt like total shit by destroying an ancient relic with my own hand."
"Well, I guess the bonus this month will help to remove some of the bad feeling you may have."
"You want to bribe me for this?"
"What? You don't need a bonus?"
"When did I say no, give me double this time as I even have to deal with 'real' explorers who got whiff of that site."
"Of course, I will give you thrice to compensate for your hard-work"
"That will be for the best."
"Okay, anything else?"
"No. Not for now."
"Okay, your turn uncle."
"...Alicia you are surely bold to part in the corrupt practices in front of me."
"Head Advisor, what about the Governor who started this?"
"Cough. He is in wrong to offer it, but you are just too greedy to actually accept it. You should have denied taking it and stick to the codes laid down by your predecessors."
"Mr. Xiang, this is an arrangement between me and him, it will be better if you would stay away from this and find Selena or some other scape goat if you want to show off your superior ideals. I am not paid to listen all this."
"Uncle let's move on from this. As she said, it is between us and I don't see anything wrong about this. I am paying her for her work, officially, not bribing her to do any illegal thing."
"Sigh...As you wish."
Calming himself he looked at Bai Changming and used his Immortal Qi to scan his body for 10th time in this day. Bai Changming could have stopped him but decided to let him to it once again.
"How marvelous.... this is really an Immortal Body but the energy inside it is just different. It feels...more alive. What kind of energy this is?"
"This is mana, a different type of energy. Actually, the spots where the dark aura resides nowadays are remains of old magic system, they were taboos punished by Heaven, but due to the punishments their remains remained even when Magic System vanished from the Universe."
"...A different type of energy, a different type of system, and a different type of ascension. So, was that lightning tribulation part of your ascension and now you are an Immortal?"
"Yes."
"But how? No, why do you know about this in the first place?"
"An ancestor of Bai Clan taught me all this, I don't know the name of the ancestor, but he helped me a lot when I was judged as waste at that time."
"Ah, that....sigh. Then did you met ancestor when all of you went to pay the respect to the burial ground. Hm, we do have a few ancestors still living there, but I don't know what is their purpose for doing all this."
Bai Changming had always put the pot of his strangeness on the head of some dead ancestor but after hearing that they do exist he felt a little troubled and decided to make another scapegoat in case of an emergency, being famous as a genius or as a waste is not the goal for him who just wants to live a lazy blissful life. He can deal with being a waste in public eyes even if he gets boycotted from his clan as he knows that when next generation appears everyone will forget the old one but if it spreads that he became an Immortal, a feat normally achieved in 700 years, in only 25 years people will go crazy just like Arcadia.
Thinking of the cult which established in Arcadia during his last days and Umbra going to the same direction his smiling face twitched with a depression only he knows the pain of.
Looking at his darkened face Bai Xiang knew that this nephew of his also don't know the reasons a old ancestor is doing all this and decided to console him a little.
"Don't worry so much Ming'er. Ancestor would never harm you or anyone from the Bai Clan. They must have reasons to do so."
".....Yes, that must be so. But it feels a little unsettling after becoming a chess piece of a person in higher power."
As he finished saying this, he turned towards Alicia totally surprised. For a split second, just for a single moment, he watched her grinding her teeth in anger when he said the last sentence. While Bai Xiang and Selena could have captured this change in her expression like him, they were totally engrossed in their things and could not watch her expression which reverted back to original indifferent ones as soon as possible he noticed it.
He looked at her with concern.
"Alicia, you have anything to say?"
Looking at him with her usual cold and indifferent face she remained as stoic as possible and gazed at him with a pair of light blue eyes which flashed with pity for a mini-second.
"I don't have anything for now."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"You uncle?"
"Ah, a little thing. When will you talk about all this with the clan? And does your family even knows about it?"
"You have not told anyone else right?"
"Yes. But will it not be better to appear as the youngest immortal in history and get back your prestige. Your family will be proud too."
"No, we cannot do that. At least not at this stage. Old Ancestor has many enemies who wants to go for his teachings and even Bai Clan will not be able to deal with them."
Visually shaken by his nephew saying strange things like Bai Clan not being able to deal with the things in current age he went silent and thought about only place even Bai Clan cannot afford to offend.
"Hm, are they from the outside?"
"Yes. They will chase after me if this gets leaked out, to keep it a secret Ancestor and I planned to appear as an average cultivator of Dao Realm to everyone. With this I will be able to do the things Ancestor asks for me without attracting them to my exact position. It will remain like this until I become powerful enough to handle them"
"Are you really fine by this?"
"What?"
"I mean, are you fine by this. Due to ancestor arrangements, you will be forsaking all the reputation and power you could get."
"Ah, that thing. Honestly, uncle, I don't care."
"You brat!"
"Hahaha, don't be so jumpy. I really don't care the wealth and fame now. I am okay at doing things Ancestor wants me to do and live a long life in Dragon City as a Governor."
"Sigh, even after becoming an Immortal your lack of motivation still remains. Maybe ancestor got you in his plans because he knew your true nature more than us..."
Smiling widely at this he said "That might actually be true. So, please don't tell anyone else about this, just tell others I have reached Foundation realm just like an average cultivator. I will declare it to the world when the time is right."
"Okay. And did the Ancestor told you to do things in Dragon City. What exactly he asked you to do?"
"I cannot tell you everything Uncle. But he mainly gave me task of promoting new technologies and do other things at Dragon City. None of that will harm anyone living in Dragon City."
"But you didn't do anything besides a few things since you came here."
"Cough. I am the Chairman of Starlight Corporation too; with the guidance of Ancestor it was not difficult to create a company like it."
"You, the Chairman of Starlight? Come on, don't joke like this now bro!"
At the sudden inclusion of Selena in the conversation who was not even able to look anymore at the mana stone as her eyes glued to him with shock even greater than what she felt when the huge lightning bolt strike him.
While Alicia was not even amazed at it as if Starlight Corporation was a small shop in her neighborhood Bai Xiang was nodding as he felt that a few things in his mind finally made sense. He ignored the elder of Bai Clan who is acting more like kids nowadays and looked at Bai Changming to verify some of his theories.
"So that's why Heng Merchant Union personally invested there?"
"Yes, aunt was the one who pitched it that Heng will invest there officially, not through any agent when I asked aunt for help. Of course, no one at clan knows this, besides ancestor, you, and Selena, even aunt decided to maintain silence as the ancestor is involved."
"Since when did that woman became so sensible."
"..."
"Don't look at me like this, everyone knows how much of a chatterbox your aunt is. So mainly your task is to help promote technologies for now?"
"Yes. In fact, I should have been in a forest somewhere during the tribulation, but I made a little mistake, and all this happened, normally I would have told you all this after the work was done here. I just hope that Ancestor is not too angry with me for this event...."
Nodding at him Bai Xiang relaxed a bit and stood up.
"I get it. Don't worry since an Ancestor is behind all this, I will not tell anything to anyone else and will wait for you to tell the others before opening my mouth. I will make sure to block every information I can.
But in exchange of that, from now, take me into the loop if something major event will be going to happen so that I can plan accordingly. Even if I am not your guardian, I am your uncle, the only person you are connected with blood here, feel free to ask for anything, even if it does not relate to the mission given by Ancestor, I would be glad to help personally from time to time."
"Thanks for this. I will surely ask for help if needed. Who knows, maybe me getting the tribulation in the middle of city was planned by Ancestor so that I could get your help."
Bai Xiang smiled at this but soon retracted his warm smile and looked nonchalantly at Alicia "Well then, I am leaving now. Alicia, you are not coming?"
Alicia looked at him and Bai Changming before shaking her head "No, I have a few questions I want to ask. I will come back later."
"It's fine. Just come back as soon as possible, kids here now only listen to you...sigh."
Then he went towards the Public Relation Office on the second floor with a newer plan in his mind.
Looking at the old man leaving the room Selena relaxed sat up and stretched like a cat. Finally, she throwed a questionable gaze at Bai Changming.
"If you are wondering since when I became the head of Starlight Corporation, didn't I tell you about my friends. It was created with them; you will know more about this and other things later. Okay?"
"Mhm, I am even more curious about your friends now. Just what kind of people designed and made all these things, are they all crazy inventors or respectable masters working in silence for the world?"
His lips twitched at the thought of members of Umbra behaving like true masters and felt that it is better to not tell her how they really are, or her short-lived dream will be driven to death.
Alicia looked at Selena "Miss Selena, I would like to talk with him privately, will you please give us some space."
"Eh?"
While Selena was dumbstruck at this Bai Changming frowned a bit. He was not frowning at her demand but that she rarely even asks for anything like this, in fact it was only the second time she wanted to talk with him alone.
He looked at Selena and nodded at her, signaling her to go out for a while.
".... You. You are really lenient towards her; old man was not wrong about this."
Bai Changming just smiled normally and refused to explain any further.
"Sigh, I guess I will look around for a bit. Have fun talking in 'private' you two."
Bai Changming relaxed a bit as Selena jumped down from the window behind him and looked curiously at the beautiful woman in front of him.
Now he looked curiously at the beautiful woman in front of him. With out the glasses and with a little bit of upkeep he always felt that she could become a Diamond rank influencer in Snapgrap, he always wondered why she wanted to do this deary job where he literally made her do all the things he was supposed to do while gaining hate meant for him.
He also wondered why he hated the thought of her going away. Maybe he is attracted to her appearance, or maybe he is just dependent on her. But he knows very well the fact that he is able to the system missions while not being bothered by the happenings in the Dragon City because she was the one who managed everything when he was not here.
She looked at him, with the usual blue cold eyes.
"Should I call you Drake or Mr. Carter now?"
"Anything is fine, but, Drake will be better."
"...Why did you use this surname, why not any other?"
"Why, is there anything wrong with me using this surname?"
"No, it feels weird for the Young Master of Bai Clan to use other surname."
"Ah. Actually, everyone at the Head Branch of Bai Clan is allowed to have an official secondary name. This happened during the age of enlightenment when people from many realms married into Bai Clan. Since they were from other realms where languages were quite different, they didn't want to forsake the name and surname they carried here, but they had to at least forsake the surname and take Bai if they want to enter the clan. To solve this, we simply decided to allow everyone to use a different name of their choice if they are adults."
"That is...quite progressive for your clan. But why Carter?"
"Hm, don't know. I had a choice between Wilson, Carter, and Pierce. I picked Carter just by chance back then."
Of course, he didn't tell her that he decided on Carter as System threatened him to take this surname or do a few more missions. Even if he hated that kind of coercion, he was lazy at that time and didn't care much about surnames anyway, so he decided to take Carter as the surname for his alternative name. System also paid him by giving him some rewards, some of which still lies in his storage ring unused.
Looking a little lost Alicia muttered "...Is that so...Okay, then what about that white bolt?"
"It was a lightening tribulation I had to face for my ascension. I had to face it to become an Immortal under Magic System."
"...Then what powers did you get under this system."
"You are interested in it? Then why not asked it with others back then? And here I thought you were indifferent towards everything just like always."
"It is not that I am indifferent Drake, it is that I do not care for the things you all cares for."
"Is it not the same thing? Since you seem to care about nothing besides your job everything is meaningless for you."
"No. I am not even interested in this job. I am interested in you. I am working here to watch over you in some sense. I am interested in the Dragon City because I am living here. And now I am interested in your magic, so could you tell me more about it?"
"Wait, you are interested in me!?"
She laughed a little at his shocked appearance as if she robbed him from his very soul by a single sentence.
But soon she knew something was wrong as he was not only shocked as his whole body was shaking. He broke out from the trance and looked at her with little panic, or that was what she felt, but actually he was looking at the blue screen from the system which came online with a bang just now.
He felt a searing pain passing through his entire body, a pain less severe than the first time System appeared but was bad enough to make his eyes red as he held on screaming as the pain was too intense even for whole body which evolved into a higher level being yesterday.
The blue screen in front of him was just filled with symbols he didn't know of, but he had a feeling that gibberish in front of him occurred due to Alicia.
But Alicia didn't know that the broken System of his was having spasms, she stood up and held his hand to check his condition with a little panic in her eyes.
As she held his hand the strange screen vanished, and everything returned to usual as if nothing happened in the first place.
Bai Changming sat back on his seat tiredly with a feeling as if his heart was about to jump out any second now. He looked at the ceiling while huffing for a few breaths to stabilize himself. Soon while looking up, he gritted his teeth at this interference from the system, and silently decided to extort at least one top equipment for this suffering.
While he was going from various emotions like fear, relief, and anger he was not able to look at Alicia who was still standing while touching his right wrist with her right hand. She was not looking at his hand now, since the moment she touched him she only looked at something above his head.
Slowly she increased her grip over his wrist shakingly, attracting Bai Changming's attention towards her. He was left with his mouth open now, not because of the fact that somehow, due to some reasons, he was not able to remove her grip, but because that the always cold and indifferent Ice Witch was crying with a strange face.
At one moment she was shedding tears of happiness but at another moment she cried in pain. In a single minute he saw so many expressions from her that he was just speechless.
He soon got over it as he knew that the system of his must have harmed her in some way. He formed a magic spell to soothe her body and mind as an emergency remedy.
But before he could do anything Alicia withdrew her hand abruptly and wiped her face with her handkerchief gracefully while blushing with a little emberassment.
She was changed woman in a minute. Usually, she treated Bai Changming less coldly than others but it was still enough for others to feel that she does not respect even her boss. Bai Changming didn't care for it as she was doing her work as intended. But now since she opened her eyes, he could only feel endless complex emotions from her blue eyes.
"What happened, our young master is shocked now?"
"...Damn, just who the hell are you?"
"I am your secretory Alicia, for now."
'Hey System...Did you fried her brain or what? Answer me you freaking useless thing! She was my secretory damn it! My right-hand person here! Not some test subject for you!'
"Sigh, even your silly face is kind of cute now."
"What the heck!?"
Ignoring his bewildered expressions, she just shook her head and stood up. Her cold blue eyes were now filled of a kind of warmth only available for Bai Changming which made him shudder as he never felt this much heat from opposing gender since her aunt took him for that hellish photoshop, no, this gaze even felt even more intense than that.
She removed her glasses and bent down. Her natural pink hearty lips were just mere inches away from his left ear which went full red due to her sudden action. A pleasant and soothing aroma filled his entire being as Ice Witch transformed into a Holy Goddess in front of him. Her eyes sparked as if they came into life after a long time. Her lips arched into a smile as she looked at him. Soon she came so close that her wavy light blonde hair touched his face which troubled him a bit. He decided to pull her back but was stopped as his whole body trembled when she blew a warm breath at his ear.
"Drake 'Carter', was it fun having a System and deceiving people in the name of a fake Ancestor?"
His pupils shrank as the ancient aura formed around him, but this time it was not majestic, it was completely deadly. Tens of swords formed from the aura locking to each major organ of Alicia threatening to kill her any second.
Alicia pulled herself back looking at him face to face. She smiled at him and released his wrist. She slowly stroked his emotionless face with her long cold fingers while he was prepping up his attack.
"What? You want to kill me now Drake?"
Looking at her flashing a teasing smile Bai Changming took a long breath and called back the aura.
He surely got angry as it related to his golden finger being exposed but her smile had a mysterious calming effect which made him cool down.
"Sigh...What do you really want Alicia? It was not your fault that you know about it, and killing you for knowing this does not make any sense. Name your price for keeping your mouth shut."
"Any price?"
Looking at her mischievous face he gritted his teeth in anger "...Yes"
"Well then. First of all, give me a free pass."
His lips twitched as he wondered why she is asking for something what she already have.
"Don't you already have it? What else do you want? My seat?"
"No, I meant free pass in the group you talked about with Selena."
"...It is only a simple group. Do you want to waste once in a lifetime opportunity to extort me by asking for this?"
"Yes."
"Well then. No problem. I will take you with us. Just be ready tomorrow morning. Anything else."
"Another thing, don't ever sacrifice yourself for others. I mean even in the situation where whole Universe may be saved with your death, do not ever sacrifice yourself like a saint."
"...Well, it is not bad for me. I want to live a long life after all. But, are you sure? This is the last demand? You are really not making a good use of this opportunity."
"I am fine with this. Just promise me these things and I will even help you to establish a proper Ancestor to deceive people."
"Fine..."
As the strange deal concluded Bai Changming tiredly looked at her smiling face. Suddenly he got a feeling that this new Alicia is even more dangerous than the Ice Witch as she had a charm to convince everyone to follow her will.
Only time will tell how right he was.