Power, Politics, And The Promise Of Progress

It had been another number of days aboard the ships with a quick slowing of their pace as their ships passed by the port of Nova Carthago so that some ships could breakaway to resupply, and provide the verbal new orders to send a naval contingent to hold the Intin port.

Julius's current fleet would be remaining in the Bridget port city as their defenders with Julius and a contingent of his men returning to The Eternal City via land as the journey would only take a couple of days.

and allow Julius to see parts of Bridget he did not get to see before during his initial conquest of the nation from Roserun.

The gains from the reclamation war were steadily blinking away in Julius's vision but he'd yet to accept the message from the system not because he had no time, but instead cause he felt that if he held off at least until the city upgrades could be conducted he might be able to trick the system into believing that the nation was better off than it actually was granting him a greater boon when he finally claimed the rewards.

But his days weren't spent idly as the journey allowed his men to train alongside the sailors teaching them the basics of sailing.

Zeff, Julius and the newly acquired Germanic retainers meanwhile had been conducting almost endless bouts of combat on the decks, both to pass the time, and to lay down just where power truly lies, and the most important would be the training of their power levels.

This was the greatest challenge for a new nation.

The base power level would be established but the limit wasn't 100, with training special individuals could rise above this level, and nothing rose the levels faster than with real combat sure there were mock battles from time to time as training but the majority of the training was done solo against static targets so the power level raised slowly.

Julius as the supreme underdog in this continental battle royale would use every trick in his book to catch up as much as he could.

Thanks to his inheritance Julius was set as far as being able to maintain his lands and do what he could to quickly advance them but it would take him a decade before he'd be able to properly take on Visigoth, the only reason he'd won before was thanks to an ancient imperial mana formation, short of conducting archeological works and research to resurrect this lost art, Visigoth could theoretically steamroll his nation just as easily as they had done to Lunan beforehand.

But the general fear that Julius could whip out another one of those traps would keep the dogs of Visigoth idle until they could develop their own power, and recoup the losses they suffered from their war all while establishing control over their new lands conquered from the Herald Kingdom.

The last new bit of news came from his [World Map] the final holdout of the Kingdom of Carthage had fallen, Ramie now was supreme in that part of the continent.

A shocking development as Carthage was a Major nation, while Ramie was just a lesser kingdom in the game's lore but now the tables had turned.

While Visigoth was still locked in their conquest of the Herald kingdom that war should end in another week or two, then would follow a few months of peace until the arming process was over and all hell broke loose as the real game would start, but with his involvement just how would the timeline play out this round?

Julius's position now would be one of a lesser kingdom, his position was much better than just a few weeks ago when the Grand Duchy only covered 3 territories, but now with the incorporation of South Lunan and the rest of Bridget the territory that belonged to them would easily allow Julius to elevate his lands to become that of a kingdom if he so wanted to, but he had no immediate plans since his nation was not even a year old and that would still just antagonize his neighbors so humbling himself and his growing lands by remaining as a Grand Duchy was in his best interests.

Visible gains aside from the collected war assets, lands, and peoples would be the visible growth of his vassals.

7 of his Vassals were actively involved in this war so their status had been able to rise up higher than it was before, while the rest though not involved in the war had managed to even gain status in non-combat related areas.

-Current Vassal List -

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[Haddin Merja: 65 (+5) Power Level, 57 Intelligence, 72 (+2) Command]

[Bente: 52 (+3) Power Level, 39 (+1) Intelligence, 84 (+2) Command]

[Zeff: 98 (+3) Power Level, 42 (+1) Intelligence, 59 (+5) Command]

[Yusen: 84 (+1) Power Level, 69 Intelligence, 91(+2) Command]

[Givens: 75 (+5) Power Level, 36 (+2) Intelligence, 80 (+3) Command]

[Mirine: 5 Power Level, 81 (+2) Intelligence, 25 (+3) Command]

[Yuri Roserun: 91 Power Level, 58 (+1) Intelligence, 98 (+2) Command]

[Elheat Demasin: 96 Power Level, 70 Intelligence, 97 Command]

[Fihatri Lecter: 83 (+2) Power Level, 85 Intelligence, 90 (+1) Command]

[Ganid Voltaire: 30 Power Level, 62 (+2) Intelligence, 63 (+2) Command]

[Leman Berta: 84 (+4) Power Level, 52 (+2) Intelligence, 81 (+3) Command]

[Serena Dolfe-Carthage: 2 Power Level, 84 (+7) Intelligence, 74 (2) Command] ______________________________________

The gains of war were truly amazing in the span of weeks the growth of his vassals attained was equivalent to years of development through normal training means.

The great advantage was the huge boost for the none combatants like Serena and Miri who were members of the research committee with their boost the steady increase of Tech points would be enhanced allowing for the potential advancement to the 2nd tech stage faster.

With the gain of new lands and the introduction of the governerships and local mayoral ruling they could enact regular learning as a part of the position and in doing so more points would be earned.

Once the situation stabilizes and the new agricultural processes are implemented crop yield should increase allowing for some of the field hands to transition into other positions in the city, with hope the additional food would spark a population boom and with that possibly public education systems could be deployed.

However, all this was well into the future... With current events as they are there are surely to be more wars in that same timeframe which could hamper Julius's desire to make these educational reforms.