Mingtian District of Dragon City is a very special district on its own right. While covering about 20% of the size of the gigantic city whose total area is more than 52 million km² it is bigger than most of the ancient Dynasties and Sects in the whole Dao Realm.
But it is not special just due to the huge area it is covering as Lower District has even greater area, covering around 30% of the City, it is special because it is the only district where Bai Changming is considered as a good person.
To clarify, it is not that citizens of other districts has bad opinion of their Young Governor, they treat him neutral as he has maintained their status quo by taking in old governor and the rising star Long Shen in his rank. For them as long as the young man does not interfere in their life they will not go against his government and Bai Changming knew that well, he made Alicia perform various PR missions all around to make sure that his public image remains neither too bad nor too good.
Bai Changming wanted people to treat him as just a Governor with no power whose office was controlled by his subordinates. He was happy for most of the time as due to this campaign people eventually forgot his own existence and focused on their own lives, but through out the years he was not able to make people of Mingtian District forget him.
Now his image is so good there he has become a local celebrity. This irked him a lot, while he is okay from fame and reputation as he is trained to deal with them, main problem was that due to system missions he had to create a Secret Organization and had to do many things in secret, and love of Mingtian District became an obstacle for that.
One time he just went out in night to do an extra mission, he was walking silently but soon people gathered around him asking many things, making him eventually failing that time bound mission. Of course, that was at times when he was just a Warlock magician and was not able to make teleportation spells to travel but that event was the final straw which made him to book penthouse suits in top 10 hotels through out each District, total 50 hotels, where he now goes to rest before and after missions. Even after forming the teleportation circles throughout the city he still preferred to stay in Hotels most of the time due to the convenience of anonymity, they all know that a rich man called as Drake Carter is taking them on yearly rent and even gives 10 times the price while allowing other guests when he was not there.
There are two reasons that his popularity is so good in Mingtian District.
First is that he allowed Starlight Corporation to work there, gave them subsidies, and allowed the promotion of new innovations. That was something new for a governor to help promote the technologies for the common people.
He devised a ruthless PR campaign to reduce his positive image, removed his photos, told every single soul that he is actually a thrown away waste of the Bai Clan, and finally leaked some fake personal documents of Bai Xiang and established him as the patron of this revolution who was the one who designed all this, Bai Changming became a person who picked up the work of old ruling power and showed it as his, nothing more.
His goal of achieving a neutral image in the heart of every citizen would have achieved but second reason destroyed his dream.
The second reason was in fact not an external entity, it was the very company he helped in founding, Starlight Corporation.
Why was he remembering all this so soon in the morning?
The answer was quite reasonable, because the besides him preparing the tea was the main reason Mingtian District has good view on him.
The man is an elf bearing the features of Royal High Elf, the descendant of the Hero who saved the world in a distant past. Man not only got his tall lean body, dark brown eyes, and platinum blonde hair from his ancestor but also bears his name, Gildor, the name given to the Hero whose real name no one knew besides a few.
He was famous in Dragon City as the CEO of the Starlight Corporation but unlike other famous entities of his species he was known for his cruel past, not for the bright personalities common in Elves. Even now when he has mellowed out and did many good things for Dragon City, for Mintian District he is still a ticking bomb.
If only a few people at top knew about the Ice Witch of Dragon City, almost everyone knew about The Black Hearted Butler of Starlight Corporation. The CEO of a large tech company, famous, deviously handsome, towering at 6' 7'', he was prototype of 'Bad CEO' for many romance fantasy writers. Little did they knew that this 'CEO' was even more than just 'Bad'.
In a week since Starlight established and Bai Changming authorized formation of companies and free flow of innovation and funds he went on a killing spree.
As the right man of Bai Changming and bearing the Alpha Code-name in Umbra he was tasked with being the official face of Starlight Corporation, the major front for Umbra.
He was tasked with only keeping it alive so that it will remain as an average company through which Umbra will promote key technologies it invented as Bai Changming did not want it to earn money, he was content with his first business as only average. But with few more insane members of Umbra Alpha went into rampage and made Starlight Corporation into a Multi-Realm company powerful enough to face even Tier 1 Sects of the Union in economic and strategic value.
He achieved it by literally killing the opposition. He took over the others who introduced innovative ideas, he forced rich from Upper District coming to invest here to not even dare to invest heavily in others, he even forced innovators and scholars to join the company by making them sign 1000 Years Contracts, bounding many mortals with the company for their entire life.
Bai Changming was busy in his PR campaign and could not have thought that this would have happened in a single month of his absence. He punished him hard and made him stop but damage was already done to such a level that Bai Changming had to stop this officially as the Governor. Due to the sanctions he imposed he became a hero to the eyes of people in Mingtian District.
For the district, meaning Bright Heaven, innovation and education was strongest point. Even when there was no official way for innovators to start their own companies there were active guilds and merchant unions where many generations worked for millions of years. For them what Starlight Corporation did was an attempt to kill the essence of entire district containing more than 200 million people, that is why Bai Changming who stopped all this was favored so much that he was forced to go to hotels instead of his own home. And due to the presence of little mana node beneath his house he was not able to relocate it as system refused to help him relocate it.
And for Starlight Corporation and Alpha, they issued a public apology and removed all the restrictions they forced on the industry and even went back to form new contracts with the innovators they took in.
Or that was what appeared in media.
Only a few viewed the man who always wears black butler clothes with golden leafy patterns as the reformed young man who is now a good thing for their children and District as he has become a pagan saint for development in Dragon City. Many knows that the entire media is tasked with making a good image for him and still consider him and Starlight to be a threat for the culture of thriving innovation they maintained for all these years.
And they were correct. The man standing besides Bai Changming while serving a tea is the same Butler they knew. Cold. Ruthless. Almost mechanical. To make Starlight and Umbra prosper he will go beyond every limit possible, if he can even go beyond the limits his master has set what would be the moral and ethical boundaries of Mingtian District meant for him.
That event only forced him to take his activities to the shadows where no body was present to cry for help from the cold man who made Starlight Corporation rise in sky by sacrificing millions of lives and dream.
Bai Changming was wearing casual black graphic t-shirt and blue jeans today with a short haircut as he was tired with long hairstyle for now. He turned his head to look at the man in butler clothes serving a tea to him and sighed deeply while thinking all the troubles he has created for him.
"Gildor, when will you create some less trouble for me? Every time I meet you I am faced with new problems for me to solve. It is not funny anymore."
"...I am sorry Young Master."
"Don't give me your sorry. You are just too aggressive. For what reasons did you smack the people from Heavenly Realm?"
"....They bad mouthed you and Umbra."
Bai Changming looked at him amazement "You nearly killed the ambassadors of that woman just for this!? Then why are you not going against other people who call me this? Huh? And tell me, Gildor. Did they know about Umbra? No. They must have called Starlight shitty or so, but that does not mean that they said that about Umbra. And for how many times I have to tell you, Umbra and our fronts are not one and the same thing. Also, if you were so loyal to Umbra why scared them away? They would have brought some good things for us along with an opportunity to go deeper into the Heavenly Realm."
He paused and sighed "While you are indeed loyal to me and Umbra sometimes you are not in right mind Gildor. This is not the first time and will not be last time, due to you even my PR plan failed in past. I really want to remove you from Starlight you know, and is still thinking about it, don't you see that I am responsible for you here. That old man will come to beat me if he comes to know that his grandson is going against his ethos."
Gildor served the tea as if Bai Changming was just air. From the moving cart besides him he took out a tray containing biscuits and pastries for Bai Changming. After doing his duties he stood besides him and replied to him.
"In fact, he knows everything, I personally told it about all the things I did here."
"...Why are you still alive then?"
"It was sort of confession and a statement that I will not let anyone go against Young Master and Umbra. It agrees and has given freedom to do so."
"...Wait a minute. But when did you even go there? Weren't you always staying in this building?"
"I went their when you started your ascension."
"...Once again you are doing things as you like. Sometimes I feel that following Umbra or me is just a cover for all the madness you are doing. It must have great to just do everything you want to do in the name of 'doing' a damn mission you yourself created."
"I will never go against you. But Young Master, I must do these things for your own benefits. You are too passive."
"You are still very young; you will not understand why I am your so called passive for now."
"...Are not you only a year older than me?"
"Yes. I am only a year older. But looking at you going through your rebel stage in this age it looks like there is at least a 10 years gap between our mentality."
"...This is not a rebel age Young Master."
"Everyone going through it says the same."
"...But Young Master don't you really think that we could do more. We have power to do right things and help the needed. Why should we stop in front of the ones who stands in our way? I may have very well killed a lot of people but all of that was to help Starlight Corporation be the leader of innovation and remove the pests who were stopping the innovations while raking money at top. There are many more like them all around the world, till when we are sitting ducks like this? Is it not time to move beyond this Dragon City and show the entire Universe the true path of innovation and development."
Bai Changming didn't respond to this passionate plea and enjoyed the tea and snacks.
His eyes brightened as he savoured the tea. His whole body felt rejuvenated which very well told him which tea it is.
"I don't know why, but the world tree leaves do produce a type of tea I will never get bored of. Thanks for bringing in the fresh lot this time."
"..."
"Do you know what many call about your situation? Saviour complex. A kind of thought that you are the one who would be the hero who will bring in the justice and banish evils while saving population. In past we have seen many people, especially bright individuals, dying early due to this. They acted like a hero, without any consequences. Obeyed the orders of their superiors while thinking that they are saving people, they only saved their superiors in true sense.
These heroes did everything you would need to create a myth, but you know, only a few among the millions have living descendants in present. Most of them jumped to death and those survived became very thing they considered evil."
He stood up from the black chair in the middle of the highest floor in Starlight. The whole floor was a single room filled with exotic plants grown under the Immortal Relics designed to act as a superior grade garden. It was filled with plants from various realms made and had transparent walls and ceilings giving it an illusion that it is a garden in heaven. It was covered with a camouflage array too, making it impossible for the people below Immortal King to ever find it.
He looked straight at his eyes indifferently making his whole body shake due to the true nature of Magus Supreme who decided to exert his aura a little to 'guide' him.
"I do not care now what the hell you are cooking in your mind. If you want to help people open a religion, do not come here and ruin my plans. I took you in, not because I wanted, but because you begged. No hero will come from Umbra. We are not the saviours of the world, we are selfish bastards who are together to do experimental research. If you can accept and still wants to continue, great. If not, leave. I will never allow Umbra or Starlight to become a pawn for your ambition to save people."
"...Then what about that parasite thing? Didn't you tell Kenshin that Umbra was created to save people."
Bai Changming scoffed at his words "You believe it?"
"..."
"Sigh. You do huh. Even after all these years. Why cannot you see the truth? Do you really believe in the fake Ancestor I created? I mean, you were with me when I created that shit. Why cannot I deceive them once again? There is no goal to save people, Umbra was created to serve me, not others."
"...You lied to him?"
"Ahem. Actually, I did not made up a complete lie. Well, you know, one or two truths must exist for a good lie don't you? If parasites are not dealt with the whole Universe will die sooner or later. I don't even want to face them now, not once again, but I want to live Gildor, the son of the World Tree, I want to live and enjoy a long life lazily.
The whole Umbra was created to achieve it. While you almost wasted my plan by making Starlight this massive with other idiots, you helped me to create some of the technologies I wanted for my lazy retirement way sooner than I expected.
But from now, I will have to manage myself Gildor. I really hate how things are going on with Starlight. From today, you are to step down from your post as CEO. I will manage things from now.
Now go, help Selena and Alicia in their tour, they must have come downstairs by now."
While some other would have spoken against Bai Changming firing them like this Gildor only nodded and picked up the used cutlery.
He was only shocked not angry because he knew very well that his actions will lead to something like this since he went all out. For him it was actually a lesser punishment for his crimes.
As he moved the trolley to the elevator he stopped and looked back to Bai Changming.
"Young Master, since I met you, I knew that you are selfish. You are not a hero. But you are not a heartless devil too. You said that you wanted all these techs for enjoying yourself, but you also know that many others would benefit from it, you always had the thought of sharing it with others. You said that you will kill parasites or whatever you call these aliens to save yourself, but it will save trillions even if they are only a tiny bit as dangerous as you claim.
I know that you want to live lazily. But young master, with great powers come even greater responsibility. Till when you will hide from it. As your humble follower I want to help you accept your destiny, and until the day you drop your approach of no interference, I will do my best to show you that your true place is in light, guiding the people."
After saying this he entered the elevator which came to the floor and went down to be a guide for the rest of his day.
This time Bai Changming looked blankly at this, not due to his speech, he was amused to hear one of the famous quotes on Earth like this.
He shook his head and looked at the wide blue sky through the glass ceiling before laughing a little.
"This brat will eventually go down the hero path, just like we were afraid of. Old me must have also looked like him, full of spirits and ignorance, willing to do everything to improve the world as the chosen one blessed by the almighty system....
Now, I can just pray that he does not suffer like I did."