The Path of Ascension

Matt’s first action was to send a message to Liz through the Ascender chat. She’d want to know what happened as soon as possible, and nothing beat Ascender chat in that regard. He told her to finish up what she needed and not to rush back because ultimately there just wasn't much she could do beyond being another pair of hands.

Matt could also admit to himself that he was feeling guilty about this being his mess and therefore his to clean up. His wife had been looking forward to her check in with her research teams for the last few years and he didn’t want to ruin that for her.

That taken care of, he turned his attention back to Soerilia.

Seeing a non-significant portion of the populace start to spiral, Matt threw 20 million MPS to his [AI], letting it support the planetary AI. It decidedly wasn’t specialized in the same way, but with enough mana and further enhanced by his Minkalla-granted Concept ability, it could manage, and it was good enough at raw data processing that it quickly connected to and usurped the local satellites and communication networks, which let it start tracking everyone watching for issues.

Matt didn’t need it to tell him about the half dozen riots already sparking off, but one of the administration team members had that handled, and he let his [AI] watch and give him updates about the situation.

Considering how badly things had gotten out of hand in the last decade, Matt half suspected the admin team to be incompetent but they handled things perfectly. It was clear they had a deep understanding of unveiling tactics as they moved to correct things before he could even give the orders most of the time. That didn’t mean Matt liked what they were doing. What they needed to do. When one of the team arrived at a gathering of people that was turning hostile, they came in with the weight of their cultivation fully unleashed and backed by their Domain.

For the unawakened mortals below them, it would feel like they had lost all control of their body and Matt didn’t think he could truly understand how they felt, but a part of his mind tried to imagine it. Not only was their world being turned upside down, but even their bodily control was being taken from them.

It had to be horrifying.

But at this point, they simply needed to pacify the planet as quickly as possible, which meant things like riots weren’t going to be tolerated. The rest of the population didn’t deserve to deal with the results of such gatherings and they didn’t have the luxury of a softer approach. With how populous low-Tier veiled worlds were, Matt would have needed another dozen hands to truly get things under control. But he didn’t and the shoddy excuse for clones he created for his announcement weren’t up to the task.

Matt realized he was still thinking like an Ascender and not like a Duke.

Sending a message to Lilly, he called upon some of his nobles who were waiting on his home world. They could be of assistance and this could serve as an object lesson of what not to do. He also called upon the unit of their personal guard that was stationed as extra security to Titan’s Torch.

Matt didn’t particularly like being able to use himself as an object lesson but waste not, want not. Zack would be proud. Well, not of the 20 million MPS usage but at least somewhat proud.

Running through the unveiling protocols, Matt decided to go off script slightly. Again.

Part of him rebelled after how their last venture into doing things their way had turned out but Matt wasn’t so weak of mind to allow a single mistake to make him second guess himself away from a better course of action.

With a thought, he found the leaders of the three strongest countries and paused as he realized he didn’t know any of them. The leaders he had started the integration with had all stepped down from their positions at some point in the last twenty years.

Finding those leaders wasn’t hard, it just took looking them up as individuals on the planetary AI instead of their positions, which is what he had originally done, but the mistake was indicative of his long absence and inattention. With a flex of his Domain, Matt pulled them next to his real body. He wasn’t so high in the atmosphere that he would need to do anything to ensure they could breathe, but he couldn’t do the polite thing and visit them.

Time was of the essence, and if he left the formation center he’d lose control over the construction. That wouldn’t be the end of the world, but he was working to extend the translation array such that it worked for any speaker, not just him. It was impractical and decidedly temporary, but he liked the message it would send.

Briefly lowering his perception to Tier 3 levels, Matt said, “I need the three of you to get on top of this. Ensure your replacements are acting properly. Maintain order and calm the populous down as much as you can.”

Matt was grateful that the three didn’t try to bicker or ask questions and just nodded which allowed him to send them back to their previous locations in seconds.

The former leader of the Joined Provinces of Turistia had actually been on vacation so Matt whispered into his ear that he could transport him and his family to his country's capital building when they were ready.

As much as he wanted to rush Westley Bakerfield along, his youngest child was panicking not only at Matt’s own display but the sudden disappearance of her father. Sacrifices needed to be made, and they certainly would all be putting in long hours, but a young child shouldn’t be the one to be making those sacrifices.

At least not as much as Matt could help.

Thinking of children, Matt winced as he saw the countries that were currently in daylight had people panicking as they tried to leave their work areas en masse to return to their homes or pick up their children, but their panic and sheer numbers meant entire cities turned into gridlock.

Matt would have loved to teleport each and every person to their home but that was beyond even his capabilities.

If some of his just-now-arriving nobles and guards had some spare time, he’d set them to do so but the situation should start to fix itself given a little time as people stopped panicking.

As he was assigning those newly arrived to various areas to put out fires, quite literally in some cases, Matt was pinged by his [AI] as local communication networks started to go down one by one. The ones that went down because they were simply overwhelmed he was able to direct his AI to take over some of the computing load, but others had issues.

Some systems had critical flaws and singular points of failure, forcing Matt or another immortal to intervene when they went down. Communication was one of the largest points of friction in the higher-tech veil worlds. It was seen time and time again that people started to calm down once they knew their families and loved ones were safe which let them stop reacting emotionally and start processing the situation more rationally.

In the countries that had been in their evening and night times, that was far easier. A lot of them were just huddling together for comfort, which didn’t make Matt feel good, but most of them simply needed to call family and friends, where on the other side of the planet people were trying to rush from work and causing accidents, which slowed everyone else down.

The second largest issue was the power generation plants.

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Most of them could run with minimum outside interference but as issues cropped up, Matt was forced to step in and prevent them from going down. He wouldn’t call himself an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but most mortal engineering was easy enough to follow, and when he had any doubts he accessed the schematics through his [AI] to fix any issues that came up.

As Matt put a power line someone had run into and destroyed back together, he found he didn’t have an easy way to manipulate synthetics like plastic and put that on a list of things to do later. He tried a few different things, including semi-melting and fusing the plastics with fire, but eventually settled on just using his Domain to stretch and overlap the remaining fragments. He would have much preferred to simply use something like [Synthetic Manipulation] though.

Thankfully, the world leaders started to help after the first few hectic minutes. They followed Matt’s lead and instituted their version of martial law, encouraging everyone to remain home, except those in critical jobs, while also giving short messages about how they had been tirelessly working to avoid this exact occurrence.

Matt would have corrected them if those people weren’t about to be out of jobs in the coming months. Sure, some might be voted in as local governors, but a fair few of them would never pass the psych evaluations required for such a position.

When people realized that their governments had been complicit in hiding the truth from them, there was another round of attempted riots but the various immortals managed to deal with them before things truly got out of hand, urging everyone to go home and not to gather.

Those admonitions, coming from people floating in the sky, worked unsurprisingly well.

It took close to three hours before things started to calm down but that only meant Matt and the others could start dealing with the real issues.

They started by broadcasting messages explaining the general details of the Realm and their place in it through every outlet they could. Those weren’t bad, but after watching once, most people went looking for more information and the administration team made it as available as was possible.

Documents, videos, voice records, all were there for people to start answering their own questions.

Matt felt too few people actually used the thousand page document provided but he couldn't force people to look past its size and search for the information they wanted.

The second major issue was when the administrators moved to start integrating the various world governments into a more cohesive whole after the first hectic few days.

A number of the leaders didn’t take that well at all and were summarily removed from their positions.

That could have sparked more riots but between the immortals moving around quelling issues and preventing crimes in a very public manner, ensured the average citizen was too terrified to try and resist even when their elected leaders tried to incite them. Not that they could do so easily. Communications networks were one of the first things they had taken control of, which prevented mass dissemination of such calls to arms.

On the fourth day, Matt, in a deliberate show of power, held a press conference with hundreds of the news outlets where he had initially stood miles above the planet letting his translation function serve as both a practical way to talk to so many disparate peoples but also a a backdrop of what the Empire was capable of.

He had considered creating a floor and walls to help people feel more at ease but in the end, after talking it over with Cato, he had decided not to bother.

Most of the questions were simple or repetitive, asking if Soerilia could be left alone or if the citizens who wished to leave could be allowed to move to a Republic world. They could, at least probably. Officially speaking, only those who were alive before the integration were guaranteed transport and integration back into the Republic, but the Great Power had historically been quite accepting of immigrants from worlds they lost in wars, doubly so when a Veil world was involved. Half the time, they even covered the full cost of transportation.

However, it was exceedingly unlikely that they could go to another Veil world, which was what they actually wanted. Living in the Republic on a non-Veil world would be functionally the same as living in the Empire, just without free Awakenings and free healthcare. In practice there was no practical difference whether their planetary administrator had a term limit of a hundred years or a hundred thousand.

One of the early questions was one Matt had hoped wouldn’t be asked because he didn’t feel equipped to answer it, but it still happened.

“What will happen to our local economies? Or rather planetary economy? If it's true that there are millions of worlds in this Empire, will our small world be able to sustain itself or will we quickly find ourselves in poverty as resources and people are siphoned off?”

Acknowledging that they could have asked a similar but worse question, Matt tried to give his best answer. “I’m sure that most people understand that economics are anything but simple, but I will do my best to make it easy to understand. I can assure you and everyone else that there are economic protections in place for both low-Tier worlds like Soerilia and for newly integrated worlds. That means your own local businesses won’t have to compete with foreign entities for a few centuries. I will also mention that most citizens will see an increase in purchasing power from their respective currencies to the Empire Credit. As for brain drain, that is unlikely to happen as you imagine it. Some people will leave Soerilia but they will have simply outgrown the Tier of the world. That happens with all worlds eventually and isn’t as impactful as you fear thanks to longer lifespans.”

At a reminder from Cato, Matt added, “I will also note that most of your citizens will see a drastic reduction in taxes. Both local and Imperial taxes for mortals are capped at 10%, and it will be a good five generations before Imperial taxes begin for you. The local tax in turn is to be exclusively used on local infrastructure and social services, and your baron can explain more of his personal financial policy when he arrives in the coming weeks.”

Matt internally winced at the mention of their soon to arrive baron; he had wanted to avoid reminding everyone that their leader wasn’t elected as that seemed to go over poorly with most of them, but thankfully the reporters were more interested in the tax reduction.

A few more follow up questions came about but nothing that was particularly onerous. He had no idea why one reporter used their question to ask about how the Empire felt about house pets but the segue opened up more esoteric questions.

There was one question that caught Matt off guard. “Reviewing the records, we find that you stopped a war between the Democratic Republic of Noricum and the Communists of the Greater South Plains when you first arrived but our station found you had participated in a war just months before that saw the deaths of billions with tens of thousands dying at your own hands. A play war, with spectators watching and recording everything, even channels devoted to comedic commentary. How can you be so hypocritical when they were fighting for far more valid reasons?”

Matt looked at the woman who had asked the question and inspected her. She was nearly shaking in her boots as she asked the question, her heart rate and blood pressure were nearing dangerous levels. There was also a firmness that he associated with people doing something that they knew was dangerous.

The other reporters shifted away from her, for a moment forgetting that they were standing on nothing, but Matt simply nodded to acknowledge the question. “Their reasons for fighting were their own and I won’t comment on it. I simply stopped the war like I wish could have been done for my war. But your comment about me killing tens of thousands is misinformed.”

Matt let his face harden as he continued before she could try for a gotcha moment. “The true number is more in the hundreds of thousands. The wars of the Great Powers span beyond your easy comprehension, as that war in particular was considered quite short on account of merely lasting two centuries. All participants are there willingly, soldiers who seek glory, status, or wealth as they prove and test themselves in the only crucible which truly matters. However, even with that, for all that I slew hundreds of thousands, it was across a war front of trillions. Trillions. Thousands of times more than all the people who live on this planet altogether, and those who I did kill, was strictly in the service of ending the war more decisively, with less blood shed. War will always exist, but it is my duty to end it, as above, so below.”

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Letting that statement sink in, Matt forced a smile and looked to a nearby reporter and prompted him for a question.

The press conference went on for another hour and by the end, things had gone where Matt had wanted. Mainly about what he was doing.

Not just how he was holding everyone aloft but the translation aura he was projecting over the planet.

Thankfully Soerilia had a history of magic stories, so it wasn’t too hard for Matt to tie cultivation to that preexisting framework which was said to help with acceptance. Only time would tell if that was true, but he was more than happy to take the time to understand the stories if it could help.

Thankfully, and despite him assuring her that she didn’t need to leave early, Liz arrived just a week into the mess. She had originally wanted to return and help him with the expected returning-home paperwork and she took the opportunity to playfully bemoan her good nature biting her in the ass. Matt was just happy to have his wife with him as she alone more than halved the amount of work he had to do.

Liz’s arrival made a few waves as well, and Matt got a bit of a chuckle as various talking heads and community discussions worked to try to figure out which was the ‘real’ Liz, and what was up with the golden bird on her shoulder. They didn’t bother explaining, because there was no real point, but he did enjoy seeing some of the very entertaining theories, and Liz enjoyed messing with the “real body” speculators by playing into their theories for her ‘tells.’

At the end of the second week, things had mostly settled down with most civilians returning to their jobs, which was when they started installing and moving people through awakening machines.

Matt was hopeful that with a media spin or two they could have most of the population on board, and while that did work, it wasn’t to the degree Matt had hoped.

Part of the problem was the numerous news stations that were too used to the old laws who decided to try and publish dubious reports about the horrors of awakening, all the while thinking they were toeing the line by suggesting the Empire couldn’t force them to awaken.

Key word being ‘try’. After their attempt was first noticed, the planetary AI was tasked with keeping a closer eye on the media and Liz gave them a warning to read up on Empire’s official media standards and guidelines. Most gave up after a few more attempts as their printers refused to print, their websites refused to update, their broadcasts refused to start, and attempts to hand write flyers ended with all pens suddenly having no more ink.

But most was not all. Some kept trying. And after a handful decided to try and address the public on the street like an old town crier, Liz decided enough was enough and started ordering arrests. That finally put a stop to it, even if many journalists grumbled about these laws corroding the integrity of journalism.

Only in one instance did any of the undercurrents of dissent turn truly bad. One town, undeterred by the warnings and interference, started sharing that awakening was evil and would lead to death. When that hostility turned violent towards the already awakened and several people were seriously injured at the urging of the ring leaders, they stepped in.

While there were numerous ways to handle integrating, there was only one way to handle such dissent.

They ruthlessly crushed it, thoroughly uprooting the burgeoning leadership and charging everyone involved in public trials.

Thankfully, a number of the people involved were not good people or otherwise had impure motives; they and the planetary AI had evidence of it all. It also helped that he and Liz were light with the actual punishments. Most of the true believers were simply given fines and community service, along with being moved up the queue for being awakened.

For those who had treated the exercise as a power grab, Matt and Liz were far less lenient. In those cases, they dug up every major infraction they had committed and charged them. Few people had sympathies for local tyrants who used and abused the power they held, which was why they made everything so public.

By the end of the third week, things had settled down to the point they didn’t expect any other major incidents before Baron Hastra was set to arrive, which meant they had to do their after action report.

Matt was no stranger to such reports; they had done them both with Luna and the army after every major battle but this was one where he and Liz would not come out looking good.

Even if, legally speaking, the fault didn’t lie with them, Matt absolutely took full responsibility for insufficient whatever that led Soerilia to the point it was at. He fully intended this report to focus on all the ways they personally could have intervened, because without identifying failure points there was no way to prevent them from happening again.

Isabella had returned from her auction and, having relatively less to do than everyone else, had taken the lead on organizing the after action.

She stood at the head of the table and looked down at the attendees.

“My Lady, my Lord, gathered dignitaries, let us start with establishing what brought us here today. The integration of Soerilia into the Sophron Empire was initiated approximately twenty years ago, by the Duke and Duchess Moore. They elected to go for a slower, more gradual reveal over the standard more abrupt approach. This process has been ongoing and while significantly slower than planned has had seemingly no truly outstanding incidents, until three weeks ago when Duke Moore was informed about a plot against his life by one of the original leaders read in on the secret. In the aftermath of that revelation the Lord decided to finish the unveiling in a more… typical manner. We are here to establish what went wrong that led to this outcome. To facilitate this, the Dukes have given everybody here leave to speak freely with no risk of repercussions and I will remind everyone that a good after action report is only possible when people exercise that privilege.”

When Matt heard the situation laid out like that he started to wonder if he had overreacted, but no. No situation where somebody plotted to unleash rift breaks as a distraction could be allowed to continue under his watch.

He was however somewhat saddened by how necessary that last comment was. Were they truly so scared he’d fly off the handle at a little criticism? He was criticized constantly and had always taken it well. It was an opportunity to learn from one's mistakes after all.

Seeing nobody object to her description of events, and having given appropriate time for somebody else to start, Isabella went first.

“My Lady, my Lord let us start with what prompted this whole ordeal. Despite not being the noble in direct control of the planet, the Lady and Lord started the unveiling. Secondly, and compounding that issue, is the Lady and Lord’s desire to go through a slower integration while neither had the time to personally oversee the process. Normally this would not be a huge problem as you did pay for an expert admin team, but well…”

Isabella looked meaningfully at Palom, the administration team's leader. The ten thousand year old man looked far from pleased for having attention drawn to him, his sickly looking complexion only growing paler.

“My Lord, my Lady, what seneschal Isabella is insinuating is, well, I don’t want to offend, and of course any theoretical issues are just a matter of inexperience and I’m sure you’ll never repeat them and—”

“Just speak your mind” Liz interjected. “If we couldn't handle valid criticism we’d never have made it as far as we have. Where did we fuck up?”

Palom looked far from reassured by her encouragement, but was also clearly too scared to gainsay anything even if he had disagreed. After taking a moment to visibly steel his resolve, he continued.

“Very well then. Both Lords, Lord Moore in particular, repeatedly impressed upon us the need for a light touch. Combined with the check ins on that very topic, prevented us from fully doing our job. We understand there was a desire to be gentle with the integration, but even that has its limits. Or it should. It’s very hard to say that when not one but two Ascenders are hovering over your shoulder constantly reminding us of how they want things done. We have dealt with such before but normally we are able to bypass or work around those lords but we are not so brave as to directly flaunt an Ascender's orders to their face.”

Matt was taken aback by that, not expecting the team they had hired to be so scared of them.

“Were we, was I, truly that disruptive?” Matt couldn't help but ask. “I remember saying that while I said we wanted a light touch, we wanted a smooth integration. If taken at face value those are sometimes conflicting but not egregiously so.”

Palom swallowed before nodding. “Extremely so, my Lord. Normally there are ways to work around overly involved bosses, but most of our bosses aren’t Ascenders. Your total absence the last decade was a boon to us more than the decade that preceded it.”

Matt had to sit back and digest that fact. He expected criticism, welcomed it, but that specific one hurt. He had dealt with an asshole boss back when he worked at Benny's Inn and hearing he had acted like Benny all those years ago was startling.

Still there was one thing he wanted elaboration on. “Then how did Lancor manage to get as far as he did? When I saw that, I took it as a sign that the entire integration was failing which is partly why I decided to do what I did. If the system is so flawed, I might as well just break it and start fresh.”

Palom shook his head. “Despite outward appearances Fabian Lancor had gotten nowhere. He was just a wannabe warlord. There is at least a handful of his ilk on every unveiling and they’ve never managed to be more than temporary nuisances. Typically we identify them early on before contacting the world leaders at all and stage their downfalls. The lords starting the integration themselves prevented that method but we could have and have before worked around that. It was more the Lord and Lady’s insistence that we act with a light touch that kept him in power as long as he was. Even ignoring the alternatives, his downfall was inevitable and well underway. A member of our team was always on standby, ready to at any moment, to disarm the bombs in case Lancor decided to initiate his plan early. Additionally we were only a month or two away from implementing our preferred solution. Namely putting somebody with the right moral character in the chain of command who had the power, authority, and prestige to reject those orders. We would then make the incident public and use that wave of public sentiment to oust Lancor and destroy his power base. I might add that even now there are two other world leaders with plans in a similar if less extreme vein and seven who are in the very early stages of creating similar plans. Or were. We have of course taken steps to remove said individuals now that we can act without unveiling constraints.”

Matt rubbed the bridge of his nose and counted to ten. He hadn’t realized just how badly he had messed things up. He had seen a situation and he had acted. That was what he did. That was what he was trained for. And that was the problem. He had reacted like an Ascender, with emotion and decisive action instead of like a duke. Somebody who had to consider the long term.

Liz asked a question while he was pondering that. “Are there any other plots that we should be aware of? Not that we don’t trust your judgment but at this point I’d just like to know.”

Palom looked like he was going to answer in the negative before reconsidering and saying, “The current King of the Rhapesh Kingdom is preparing his children to try to seduce Baron Hastra. We will of course be informing the baron but ultimately dealing with that is the baron's job. That ploy has actually worked in the local rulers favor a few times in the past, as the baron marrying a local can do wonders for the population's acceptance if handled right. Although I think in this case that’s not a viable option. The Rhapesh Kingdom's reputation is bad enough that showing them any such favor would only make things worse instead of better.”

With Palom finally done speaking Isabella called attention to herself. “I think that covers most of the issues from the administration's side. Mister Bakerfield, if you would give your perspective as a native of Soerilia?”

Westley Bakerfield, despite being in his sixties, looked good for his age. Part of that was him having reached Tier 4 before stopping his advancement and the other part was him being in a position where he had access to things like magical healing, personal chefs, and the best natural treasures or rare resources pulled out of the Roland zone.

“One thing that stood out from day one was the pacing of the unveiling. I obviously can’t speak for other veil worlds, but Soerilia and the bureaucracy we developed here feels slower than the feeling I get from the reports I had access to. The ten-year plan that was promised, even from day one, was either wildly optimistic in its timeline or Soerilia itself is just slower in such matters. I originally assumed that this was simply an untested procedure which is why the time estimates were off, but I genuinely don't believe that even with constant surveillance we could have met those original deadlines. That isn’t to say we as a planet didn’t drag our feet, some countries didn’t meet a deadline until it was clear punishments were incoming but others just felt unrealistic in their expectations. If I could have had one thing, I wish we had more direct evidence that could have been used to convince my congress and senate. They were hard to convince at times, which slowed things even when I tried my best to push through policies to be compliant with the integration demand.”

After pausing for a moment Westley added.

“That leads me into a second and possibly more important issue. While this look into the behind the scenes provides a lot of context, from our side of things this integration looked… sloppy. The two of you said you were our dukes, but then you didn’t really act like it. You had no guards, you looked and still do, look like young adults not remotely ready to lead a city, let alone a multi-planet, universe spanning duchy. In addition the two of you acted far too open with us and many times you personally did things that even somebody who ran just a business would delegate. None of that made you look like some magical duke we all had to obey. I tried to do my best after seeing another world and your ability to just bring us there but a lot of your behaviors didn’t encourage nations to just take orders and go along with the program.”

“I just tried to be friendly, make the shock less severe by not talking down to you. I was trying to treat you like—” Matt was about to say like people but stopped himself. It wasn’t often, but he had seen immortals who tended to treat mortals like children instead of fully capable adults but he knew saying that would derail the conversation. Instead he ended it on, “I would want to be treated.”

“Appearances matter my lord, and that’s true whether you’re in a democracy or feudalism. A leader needs to fulfill the role of a leader. You didn’t present yourself as a conquering duke, so to a greater or lesser extent depending on the leaders, you weren’t treated as one. Neither of you ever mentioned that the reason for our transfer was your own personal combat prowess, let alone that you were these Ascenders. A title which, based on Mr Paloms pallor, I suspect I still don’t fully appreciate the weight of.”

Matt winced but nodded. If he had known those seemingly small actions would hamper the integration to such a large extent he would have done things differently but he had neither a time travel Talent or a future sight Talent.

That thought made Matt remember they would need to report to their superior, the King of their kingdom, about the incident. Except they fell under the Emperor's purview as one of his direct subjects.

He was fairly sure Manny had known about this mistake when he mentioned not relying on his future sight but Matt couldn’t help but wish they had been warned. How many people would be suffering less now if they had?

That just made him think about Manny’s comment about people always suffering.

That thought was like a red hot blade plunging into his stomach and being twisted. Instead of suppressing those thoughts, Matt let the emotions run rampant. Let them evolve, twist, and transform as his mind wandered down the consequences of their actions trying to understand the impact of their actions in the abstract and the concrete. Matt genuinely didn’t understand how Manny, an incredibly empathetic and understanding person, could deal with this for not just a single planet but millions.

Matt didn’t envy the Emperor for this responsibility. It was heavy and couldn’t so easily be punched away as most issues he faced in his life. Which was the problem. These ducal problems couldn’t be punched and he and Liz’s assumption that any problems could be easily dealt with thanks to their power was both incorrect and self-defeating.

They went over a few more negative points, but they were fairly minor compared to the rest.

Thankfully, there were a few positive points to balance things out. “The Lord’s usage of a large-scale translation was surprisingly effective at pacifying the population. Having such a directly magical but beneficial effect has shown surprising returns on belief even more so than the typical displays of might used in unveiling practices. It’s a shame such feats are beyond the typical integration team, at least at such a large scale.”

Matt wished he could say he had only done that out of altruistic reasons, but that would be a lie. He had done it exactly because he thought it would have that effect.

Isabella then nodded to Westley Bakerfield. “Secondly the contacts made with the former world leaders is paying dividends in solidifying the opinions of the older generations. They are usually a situation that only solves itself when they age out but with their endorsements, we are seeing a significant uptick in support from that age group.”

Next, they went to what needed to happen going forward but that wasn’t as directed to Matt and Liz and was more directed to Palom, who seemed relieved he and his team weren’t being blamed by the two Ascenders for how the planet had turned out.

From there, it just came down to keeping the planet under control until Baron Hastra could arrive.

Matt had heard good things about the noble scion and wasn’t happy he was handing the man their mess but as Cato had said, they had larger and other responsibilities with the rest of the forming duchy.

When Baron Hastra arrived, Matt immediately felt the man's simmering anger radiate off him in waves.

The Tier 19 swept the planet with his spiritual perception, taking his time to go through each country as well as tapping into the planetary AI, before he came to where Matt was laying the foundation to create conduits between the two farthest continents.

“My Lord.” Seeing Phoenix Liz on Matt’s shoulder, Yarklan bowed a second time. “My Lady.”

“Rise, Baron Hastra. I must apologize for the mess I’m handing you.”

“My Lord is ever gracious, but your apologies are not required. I serve at your will.”

Matt raised an eyebrow, obviously enough that the baron would be able to tell his skepticism. “I would prefer you to be honest.”

Yarklan debated his next course of action for a moment before asking, “May I speak freely then?”

“Of course. For all our faults, we won’t shy away from criticism, and that is doubly so when we request it.”

Yarklan seemed to harden his will as he said, “Then you won’t take offense when I ask you two to leave immediately. I can not begin to right Soerilia’s direction with the two of you looming over my shoulder.”

Matt had expected Baron Hastra to ask for more resources, not to be asked to leave. But as much as it hurt his pride, he understood the Baron's position. Especially with the after action reports conclusion so fresh in his memory.

“That is acceptable Baron Hastra. Please inform us if you need any additional resources to fix the no doubt lingering issues that you will face as you take control. The administrative team is officially transferred to your control and their services are paid for the next two decades.”

Having said his piece, Matt turned and flew to the portal, not able to help but feel like he had just been scolded by a parent for something he knew he had done but wasn’t actually his fault.

That wasn’t true, this was their fault, but Matt still felt that way, which just made him feel even worse for feeling sorry for himself when other people were suffering far more because of him and his impulsive actions.

Stepping into the teleportation formation, a dozen Lizzes joined him and merged into a single body before they silently activated the formation, returning to Lilly.