Chapter : 651

He walked over to the grand map, his finger tracing the outline of the Ferrum Duchy. “She is still a child, Valerius. A formidable one, yes, but a child nonetheless. She judges a man by his history, not by his potential. Do not concern yourself with her perceptions. They will change. When she is forced to witness, day after day, the sheer, undeniable weight of Lloyd Ferrum’s competence, her worldview will either bend or break. And Isabella, for all her stubbornness, is no fool. She will bend.”

He looked back at the Headmaster, his eyes now burning with a fierce, ambitious light. “Let the Princess play her games. Let the nobles whisper their doubts. It is all meaningless noise. I am not interested in what Lloyd Ferrum was. I am interested in what he will become. A Commander at his age… it is only the beginning. His growth is a rocket ascending to the heavens. He has the mind, the will, and now, the resources.”

The King’s voice dropped, becoming a low, intense hum of pure, sovereign ambition. “I have seen the future in that boy, Valerius. A future where this kingdom does not just survive, but dominates. I do not want him to simply be a Commander. I want to see him ascend further. With the proper guidance, the proper challenges… I believe we will see that boy reach the King Level stage far sooner than anyone can imagine. And a King-Level user, loyal to our crown… that would change the world.”

Valerius stared at his monarch, his heart filled with a mixture of awe and a profound, chilling dread. The King was not just playing a game of politics. He was playing a game of gods, and he had just found his champion. The fate of the kingdom, and perhaps the entire continent, now rested on the shoulders of a quiet boy who had no idea he was the centerpiece of such a grand and terrible design.

In the grand cosmology of power that governs the world of Riverio, the concept of Transcendence is widely misunderstood. To the common soldier, the uninitiated noble, or even the average court mage, it is seen as a final, almost mythical destination. It is the peak of the mountain, the ultimate achievement for a spirit user, a binary state where one sheds their mortal limitations and becomes a living force of nature. To them, a Transcended user is a god, and all gods are created equal. This, however, is a profound and dangerously simplistic misconception.

For those who truly understand the nature of power—the ancient heads of the great houses, the grandmasters of the Mage’s Tower, and the monarchs who play the great game of nations—Transcendence is not the destination. It is merely the beginning. It is the moment a spirit user graduates from being a practitioner of magic to becoming a true weapon. It is the forging of the blade; the mastery of how to wield it is another, far longer and more arduous journey. Before this stage, a user is considered little more than a rookie, their power a flickering candle in a world of suns.

The true measure of a Transcended user’s might is not just the raw, destructive potential of their spirit partner, but the depth and density of their own Spirit Core. This is the engine that powers their abilities, the wellspring from which their will draws its strength. As a user grows, battles, and pushes their limits, their Core matures, becoming more potent, allowing for greater feats of control, stamina, and synergy. This growth is categorized into a hierarchy, a ladder of mastery that separates the gifted from the gods.

The first and most common stage is Entry Level. A user at this rank has successfully shattered the mortal coil, forming a bond with a Transcended spirit. They can command a force of nature—a storm, a tremor, an inferno. However, they are like a raw recruit handed a mythical weapon. They can swing it and cause immense damage, but their control is often clumsy, their power is a blunt instrument, and a significant portion of their focus is spent simply containing the overwhelming energy they now command, lest it consume them and everything around them.

Chapter : 652

Above this is the rank of Commander. A user reaches this stage when they have moved beyond simple command and have achieved true synergy with their spirit. They are no longer a master and a servant, but true partners, their wills and powers perfectly intertwined. A Commander can conduct their power with surgical precision, apply it to complex tactical situations, and even manifest it through their own bodies. They are not just warriors; they are generals on the battlefield, one-man armies capable of strategic, controlled devastation. Most kingdoms are lucky to have one or two such individuals in a generation, and they often serve as the ultimate guardians of the realm.

The next stage is Crown. At this level, the user’s will has become so dominant, so intertwined with the very fabric of their power, that they can begin to impose new rules on reality itself. They don’t just command their element; they become it. They can create unique, signature abilities known as "Authorities" that defy known magical principles, forging new paths of power that are unique to them alone. A Crown-Level user is an innovator of power, a true artist of destruction and creation who can single-handedly define the outcome of a major war.

Beyond that lies the hallowed rank of King. A user at this level is a sovereign of their chosen element, a walking, breathing law of nature. Their very presence can alter the environment around them, and their power is so absolute it can reshape landscapes. They are the ultimate trump cards of the great nations, their existence often a closely guarded state secret, their deployment a signal of a conflict that has escalated beyond all conventional means.

Higher still is the near-mythical stage of Emperor. An Emperor-Level user is a being who has begun to transcend their own element, their will now so profound it can influence the broader spectrum of reality. They are legends, figures whose deeds are spoken of in hushed, reverent tones, beings who can challenge the very heavens. In the modern era, only a handful are even rumored to exist across the entire continent.

And at the absolute apex, a concept so rare it exists more as a religious idea than a practical rank, is the Sovereign. These are beings who do not just bend reality; they are a fundamental force of it, as essential and undeniable as gravity or time. They are ghosts from the Age of Gods, figures of myth whose names have been all but forgotten. Not more than 0.0001% in the current age has seen a Sovereign and lived to tell the tale, and most serious scholars believe that achieving such a state is no longer possible for mortals.

This is the true path of power, a long and arduous climb from a wielder of magic to a force of destiny. Most who achieve Transcendence never progress beyond the Entry Level. But for those with the will, the talent, and the destiny to climb higher, the rewards are nothing less than the world itself.

The southern coastline of the Ferrum Duchy had, for centuries, been a place of quiet desperation. A long, mournful stretch of salt marshes and brackish mudflats, it was land that could not be farmed, forested, or even properly grazed. The air was thick with the scent of brine and decay, and the small, impoverished fishing villages that dotted its edge clung to existence by a thread, their fortunes rising and falling with the fickle tides. It was forgotten land, a footnote on the ducal maps.

Until now.

Under a relentless, brilliant sun, a new kind of harvest was underway. Lloyd Ferrum stood on a raised wooden gangway, his simple linen shirt clinging to him in the humid air, and surveyed his nascent empire. Before him stretched a breathtaking vista of human ingenuity: a vast, interconnected network of evaporation ponds, their surfaces shimmering like a thousand broken mirrors under the noon sky. The project, codenamed ‘Project Brine,’ was a testament to a logic so simple it was revolutionary.

Windmills, their canvas sails turning in the steady sea breeze, creaked a steady, rhythmic song as they pumped seawater from the estuary into the first set of shallow, clay-lined basins. From there, gravity and the unyielding power of the sun did the work. As the water slowly migrated through the system, its color deepened, from the pale blue-green of the sea to a rich, almost syrupy turquoise in the final crystallization ponds. Here, the brine had become so saturated that the salt was surrendering, forming a thick, crystalline crust on the surface—pure, white, and flawless.