People under the elemental church felt the great impact coming from the frontlines.
A lot of people felt unease at the situation. Sometimes, a person spreading false information appeared, but got quickly subdued by the law enforcements of the church.
Most didn't see anything in it. But Liam and the other elders, with a bit of wisdom, saw an underlying problem.
They appeared too often in a controlled manner.
Bit by bit, they chipped away at the confidence of the inhabitants.
Like a deep propaganda, they sometimes mentioned the parts of the truth with some being so blatant that they yelled about the saviour of humanity and how the higher ups' with their greed stopped them.
To Liam's bafflement, they managed to recruit hundreds to their cause.
Too sinister...
The elemental church had a swift response to it.
They labeled every person and future ones as traitors against humanity, and a new law passed.
In order to combat the doubts of the citizens. Sometimes, a veteran or two would return with many other on the battlefield writing letters to their families.
Especially newbies or younger generation. They had a chance to write home every week.
The public opinion shifted once again. After the implementations, the riots grew quiet.
Liam didn't know what the higher ups expected, but told the three unawakened elders to look out for hidden underground societies.
After all, they can grow in the span of a month to a behemoth.
A few years flashed by and they did find traces of societies. Or rather, two large ones.
They got a hold of some technology from the aliens, making them exceedingly powerful.
During those years. Liam and the three elders laid low with little to no traffic in their new city.
A lot of people didn't know it existed. In the background, they had a lot of progress.
Thanks to their hard work. The elders now could create grains themselves and found out that although not very noticeable.
It did push them. For them, who were very close to the awakened realm if they went to the frontlines.
It became great news.
Nevertheless, it ended there. The grains perfected their unawakened realm to the peak before lacking any use.
Liam got stuck and didn't know what to do during his first 3 years. Afterwards, he took inspiration from the liquid and its composition.
Then, he recreated it through the mana grains and had some progress.
A great news came from specific findings.
Grain mana and the different variants not only held unique properties, they also how they stuck to each other.
If he tried to create something like a cube. He couldn't do it with ice grains and fire grains next to each other.
What made it possible were multiple other grains that went through a sort of cycle.
At first, it didn't do anything, but when he combined them in a shape which helped the ones with good affinity to be close to each other and then adding a violent one to the mix.
It became a sort of bomb.
Great discovery, but very impractical. The use of the grains to boost apprentices into the unawakened realm became much better than giving them to be bombs that an awakened elder can throw a hundred of.
The problems Liam didn't mind. On the contrary, he saw it like a first prototype of a car.
Impractical, taking too many resources and barely faster than anything.
If he had a lot of time, he could use random symbols and then derive a pattern from those that worked.
In time, he felt that it would be a breeze to create an entire system out of it.
He didn't throw out thoughts of another avenue where he could use mana grains, though.
Bombs sounded nice, but he liked the auxiliary potential more.
Last time, he could only count on nukes. No human or anything else held even a fraction of use, like nuclear weaponry did.
Now he had the chance to create a moving nuke. With their thoughts and potential for growth.
Moreover, he had to tune the grains to create something to boost his mental power even more.
Liam grew sure that a breaking point had to exist. Where it would transform into something more.
Intuition told him that he wasn't that far away...
The few years weren't too kind for the frontlines. While the aliens did push back the vines and gave them breathing room.
All that free time turned into battles against the aliens.
They did gain a beneficial change from all of this. The technology of the aliens.
Right now, their technology would be close to medieval ages with a bit of magic.
Not even proper sewer systems.
So, Liam now had another whole pie to take care of.
As much as the few books that survived and remnants of the base gave the humans the idea of technological development.
There weren't any right geniuses born yet.
Instead of them, a lot of battling geniuses grew and held back the vines for centuries.
Liam, even if he forced himself to tap into his past life. He would gain inspiration at best.
A lot of the laws changed with mana. Or rather, they adjusted themselves thanks to the presence of mana.
What worked in the past would perhaps work, but at 100th of wanted efficiency.
Simple things like architecture. Liam got the hang of pretty fast, but to create magical jets that would shoot out magical nukes...
Too far away.
That's where he gained an accidental surprise.
The alien technology actually used mana as its source of energy and held some kind of generators.
They took in mana and turned them into pure energy he couldn't see with a normal vision.
He'd miss it if his eyes didn't enter another whole realm.
The mystical energy looked to be a realm higher than mana. With a bit of calculations.
To make a drop of the mystical energy, they had to take in 100 000 drops of liquid mana.
Whenever humans tried to open the generator, it would implode.
Liam's observation gave no fruit as well. It had some kind of cloaking anti duplicating technology in it.
In fact, the aliens seemed so confident in it. That they gave away a lot of weapons to the traitors over the years.
Yet, no matter spies or real lunatics. No one came close to cracking even the material.
Liam speculated that the metal alloy held a lot of resources unique to the alien world.
Although it could become damaged. High-level aircraft could become destroyed only with the cooperation of 3 awakened elders.
Elders at the awakened level already stood near the apex of the current world.
Out shadowed only be a few devil geniuses blessed by the godly spirits to get more power.
Most of them fought in the outer space. A place where they sacrificed hundreds of years of their life.
So, the weak people could live in peace.
The three unawakened elders didn't know much about the top tier powers, even the general awakened elder only knew some kind of rumours.
All they knew was that the strongest held the fort on the planet.
Some thought the strongest kept fighting against something hiding that would bring doom.
Others believed that the strongest would appear at the darkest hour. A lot of awakened elders also believed that it became a rumour.
Something to bolster the morale of humanity, no matter how dark the hour became.
Liam didn't think much about the strongest. Though, the odds of the strongest having a contract with the main god were very high.
To be strongest required either a once in existence time talent or a strong backer that would give them a way.
Liam liked to compare himself to the top geniuses who had to forge the path on their own.
With the mana grains and some strides in the right direction, he would become one to attain the great peak.
3 planets or realms meant that there should be more of them out there.
Aside from the strongest. The most famous awakened elders were on a list of elders.
The top 25 strongest.
It changed from time to time, but behind it stood the elemental church.
Whenever a fight happens and someone achieves something great. There's a chance of the top 25 strongest changing.
Not only it became the chance of having a blessing bestowed by the spirits, but a sign of glory.
Anyone who entered the top 25 for more than 3 years would be sure to be written down in history.
The location of the 25 elders always remained secret. No matter what.
To give the location of an elder to the enemy would become traitor.
Killing, plundering thousands of civilians couldn't come close to the harm that a fall of one of the 25 would create.
No one couldn't deny their importance.
If one falls and there's a promising younger generation, then it would be bearable.
But a fall of more than two top 25 elders, even the weakest ones, would create a power vacuum.
The size of the planet turned the battlefield into a global one and one powerful elder could only do so much...
Another 3 years passed and great news came from the frontlines.
They managed to fight back and gain a few more lost checkpoints with a great stalemate near the last lost checkpoint.
Days after the news came a dark hand undeveloped the peaceful lands...
The lunatics and the church of the Great One came and struck the world in one sweep...