I trigger the entire surveillance system in the Citadel to shut down after releasing my Noble Vibrations that have been refined and amplified these past few days.
While they still feel quite raw and unfiltered in my eyes, at least I have a small amount of control over their strength and the speed of their flow.
Just four days ago, I couldn't even sense the fluctuations—every Noble's waves felt the same, including my own.
To amplify things even further, I reactivate my borrowed stats but only pull 45%, leaving the remaining 20% available for the generals, as I do not want to interfere in their duties right now.
I could easily complete this building project without a single borrowed stat while in my Noble form, but I feel the need to push the limits and complete this task quickly and efficiently.
The moment I do, a divine aura and immense mana control output pour down on the Citadel with even more astounding pressure than my first outburst. In doing so, all of the remaining 1st Class Lords near the central tower who were holding onto their consciousness give in and pass out—especially once I fly closer in the blink of an eye.
A green, white, and purple streak floods through the sky until I reach the central tower. I use a simple ether command to open its front door and walk inside to see a fully stripped tower.
There are thousands of demonic servant avatars standing at attention, ready to take my orders again, and somehow still cognizant despite my overwhelming aura.
I open a telepathy channel with all of them and receive simultaneous updates and inventory counts for the taxes they've collected. An additional 58,703 Low Quality Ether has been taken from the many citizens around the Citadel, with many paying more than their usual tax to show their support for the new, dangerous Lord.
The servants took my words very seriously and did not take any dead worlds as payment. However, they did manage to collect a few hundred 4th and 5th Class worlds that still have many system users on them.While this is usually not a profitable model for demons, as they cannot form labyrinth contracts on any worlds below 3rd Class, it is very beneficial to me.
I look down at one of the servants in the front row with 50 worlds on its world token and speak aloud for all to hear.
"Very good. Everyone, send your profits to this avatar and return to your posts. Thank you all for stripping the central tower as I've asked. Starting today, I want new guard posts established around the tower. I will be creating new Citadel commands to work as automated defenses, but I want to make sure no one enters any longer. That includes all of you."
There is a pause, and I watch streams of ether-powered telepathy channels form between many of the guard squads after my statement. I listen in as they negotiate positions and swap out their posts among random districts to ensure they have more people surrounding the central tower moving forward.
Additionally, ether systems are opened as the profits from the last few days' taxes are sent to the servant I pointed out.
I nod and open the door I came through, and the thousands of servants flood back into the streets to return to their posts.
The one remaining servant wears a blank expression, as its avatar is set in default mode, but I can tell underneath it is quite nervous.
The data from my instincts, Noble Vibrations, and avatar history tell me this was once a 2nd Class Armored Ape. I remember fighting a similar race in dungeons long ago, but I haven't run into any of this race in person yet. It was forced into slavery about 1,500 years ago. The only reason I chose it to stay is that it is strong-minded and my new Noble sense tells me this is a very loyal and intelligent being that stands out from the rest.
"What's your name?"
It stands alone at attention as the door to the outside closes.
"Rukor, Sir. That was once my name. I haven't spoken it in longer than I can remember."
I smile and float upward, grabbing the makeshift prison I created days ago with telekinesis to carry with me.
"Good, Rukor. Come with me. I have an additional important job for you to do."
The servant follows upward, as there are thousands of kilometers of empty space inside this tower, high up into the sky.
My memories from Andras Vermillion start to move through my mind as I recall that on the top floor of this tower, there is a vault only available to demons. In the same room, there are trading platforms and a headquarters for the Citadel Lord to watch over the city.
It's not meant for anyone else to see, but after what I'm about to do, it'll be meaningless to hide it anyway.
We make it to the top of the tower, and looking down past the servant that follows, it just looks like a massive green square hole—about 500 kilometers wide and roughly 5,000 kilometers high.
The divine energy slowly swirling within is just as dense as the clouds outside, but with no floors separating the inside of this massive structure, it does feel as though I'm staring down into an abyss.
I don't hesitate to open the ceiling up and let the earth magic prison float up into it beside me, but Rukor halts in place, not entering the forbidden portion of the central tower meant for the Vermillion Family demons only.
I motion for him to follow.
"Come on, the others are still healing. It's just you and me. Follow—this is an order."
The servant floats up with me, and I store the portable prison in an empty room on the first floor of the upper portion of the tower.
We begin walking through corridors in the green halls of the demons' private suites.
It takes a few minutes to find the room in the back of the prior Citadel Lord's memories, but when I see it, I know this is the room I need to enter.
Using a simple ether command to open the door isn't hard, and when we walk in, the only thing before us is two large trading tables similar to the ones in the Ogre Conglomeration's trade palace, a large sleeping pod—about 30 meters long—that looks similar to an enormous containment case, and at the very back of the room, there is a door with an ether command lock on it.
If I wasn't using my all-seeing eyes and divine craftsmanship, it would just look like the normal back of the room. However, with the flick of a finger and an intricate pattern of ether arrays being unlocked with my mind, the back door opens, and a single black box remains behind the door.
"Here it is..." I whisper to myself, motioning for the servant to stand back while I walk forward and place a hand down on it.
It activates a transfer command that begins trying to tether to my body like it's an avatar. However, with ease, I summon a large amount of white ether and thick green threads from my palm to stop the process and mimic what the command should receive while placing my item storage on the other end of it.
[19,856,011.0 Low Quality Ether Received!]
[50.6205 Medium Quality Ether Received!]
It rests in my item storage, unassimilated, and I grin as this is the personal vault of Andras Vermillion's ether stores. While a large majority of the profits from world trade and Lord exploitation have been sent to the Grand Citadel over the last 12,000 years, this Noble Demon has accrued quite the personal fortune.
He had over a million low-quality ether on him, along with the nearly 80,000 worlds that I drained upon his death, but this vault has wealth nearly 70 times that value.
I nod and lift my hand from the black box, now completely empty, and walk forward, allowing the fake wall to close behind me as I look over to one of the trading tables.
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"Transfer me the worlds you've collected."
Rukor does exactly as I ask, and I place a hand down on the table, simulating a much different ether command to receive these worlds, making them integrate with the token on my palm rather than my item storage.
A few notifications ring in my mind, and my world token rises to [106,149] after receiving the few hundred additional 4th and 5th Class worlds. I feel a small, barely noticeable rise in stats as the 131 billion system users on these worlds are added to the worldwide connectivity system.
"Very good. I want more worlds like these... 3rd and 2nd Class worlds are fine too, as long as you can get a good price. But I think the quantity of lower class worlds is far better than the higher class worlds that have their Ether values over inflated by the buffs they grant avatars."
The servant's aura shows that he is confused by my words, though the trading table displays a new window in front of him as I transfer 1,000,000 Low Quality Ether into it from my storage.
He hasn't even transferred the ether profits from Ellipsia Citizens yet, but I shake my head before he can speak.
"Use the ether collected from taxes to buy even more. Do not worry about the remaining resources left on worlds; the more important detail is to find worlds with as many system users as possible. –And also, the pure quantity of worlds is important too. The more you can buy the better. I will be busy for a while... but I would like this entire balance spent by the end of the week once I check in again."
The avatar's eyes widen, not entirely comprehending why I would want to burn 1 million low-quality ether for worthless worlds, but he nods and accepts the trade offer.
"Understood. It will be done."
I smile and begin walking toward the door back to the hall.
"Good. That is all. I take it you can command others within your ranks much easier now. They will respect you as a leader now that I have personally given you this task."
The servant just nods as we walk back to the main floor of the secure upper floors, but my mind is elsewhere.
Inside my worldwide connectivity system, I send another 1,000,000 Low Quality Ether down to Bri as a pending trade for her to accept any time she sees it. As Qi is already an extremely valuable commodity, dividing this ether into parts and selling them to High Class worlds will certainly make back the cost of goods she must have paid to get me the resources for my craft. A message arrives with it stating that information about Soul Weapons will be sent once I gather enough data.
I open the ceiling to the stripped tower's insides and let the servant walk himself out.
In the few minutes while I wait, I organize all of the materials in my mind and spread my aura to fill this entire empty tower.
The blueprints I visualized the moment I upgraded my divine-grade craftsmanship skill still hold their quality. However, now with this new sense available through my Noble Vibrations, I can see everything even clearer.
The moment Rukor leaves the tower, I activate my Astral Form to make this task even more efficient.
The confused servant feels another shiver ripple through his avatar, as the second the door behind him closes, the entire Citadel shakes.
The cold vibrations rippling through the Upper Realm feel almost as intense as a Realm Wave...
However, not a single Lord is conscious enough to feel it.
Even down in the Exile Zones, over a hundred thousand kilometers away from the central tower, Lords feel the atrocious aura of an evil being.
Many who have been slaves down in these zones for millennia, far enough away that Ava has not yet brought them back to the access point, believe another Realm War must have started.
However, inside the tower, I grow to over 10 kilometers in height and pull out all of the items Bri transferred to me, along with 12,000,000 Low Quality Ether from my storage.
From this release of power, I gain far more control and perception over my environment as well.
I can see the sleeping Citadel and feel it wobbling, threatening to lose balance from the tension I'm putting on it.
Along with this, the green Divine Clouds in the atmosphere swirl around the inner few districts of the Citadel much faster than usual, seeping in through the Central Tower's walls as I begin to manipulate the structure itself using ether commands and my craftsmanship skill to prepare for the real challenge.
Once the surrounding district's clouds are pulled inside, the density of divine threads is over 20 times normal. I seal the outer walls by imbuing large amounts of this excess divine energy, along with 1,000,000 Low Quality Ether for privacy and structural integrity.
It is my craft, so I'm able to see through it, but to those looking from the outside in, this is an impenetrable structure.
Even the 1st Class Demons on the top floor, if they miraculously had their melted minds restored, could use full-powered attacks on a single point of these walls for a hundred years, and it would be futile.
Next, I split the empty room into four even square towers. Within each of these towers, there are 1,000 floors, creating 4,000 rooms in total.
The structure itself is made of pure crystallized mana, divine threads, and an additional 1,000,000 Low Quality Ether to withstand the pressure.
Now, all of the rooms have an equivalent amount of divine energy inside, roughly 20 times the normal atmosphere's limit.
However, this is going to change drastically, and this part is going to be the most difficult and time-consuming.
I'm going to make the bottom floor have a similar pressure to the Lower Realm, and each incremental floor up to the top of the tower will have slightly more pressure to withstand.
Within each chamber, there will be pure mana and ether to absorb. In Arie's chamber, it will be a special blend with Demonic Soul Energy instead.
The remaining 10,000,000 Low Quality Ether will be split evenly in this process—2.5 million each. A large majority of the raw mana and demonic energy materials are used in this process too.
Every floor will be densely packed with what feels like a liquid bath of energy-rich, yet easily absorbable, substance. It will be physically impossible to move to the next floor until every drop from the previous is consumed or processed.
–
The Citadel has stopped shaking, as no divine energy, mana, or ether can leave the tower anymore after I sealed its outer walls.
However, the ferocious Noble Vibrations only become more intense and chaotic as my crafts go on.
While Seraphel did show me the basics, teaching me to control and begin to understand the bare minimum, I'm unknowingly unsealing my Noble Vibrations even further. Using my Vibrations to aid my instincts in such an immense craft has begun to give them a unique purpose.
However, I don't think about it like that at all; my only focus is completing the task at hand with all the resources available to me.
Once I take out all of the pure mana and demonic energy from my storage, along with the hundreds of thousands of fragile luminite fragments, one wrong move could ruin the craft, and I would have to start over.
I carefully pull out the blood samples Bri provided of the generals and simultaneously monitor hundreds of dashboards in my divine craftsmanship interface.
Each floor needs many of these luminite crystals to be synced to a blood-bonded technique to trigger a teleportation once a series of ether commands are fulfilled.
–
While all of the earlier stages of this skill were rather straightforward—entering in dungeon loot and pressing craft to retrieve a desired result—the divine-grade skill is entirely different.
It's as if I'm creating a living machine.
The deeper I think into the results of what I strive to create, the clearer, more precise, and more intricate the craft becomes.
Without the clarity of my Noble Form and the control over my surroundings that my Astral Form grants, it would be impossible to pull off this craft.
I feel as though every single particle is shifting to my will, being carefully altered and fit into place.
Surprisingly, the bottom floors are quite simple. Draining areas of space is easy as long as the structure and walls are dense enough to withstand it. Creating the top hundred or so floors is by far the toughest part.
Some of the floors reach pressures over 200 times that of the outside clouds. This is not because it's necessary, but because I want my generals' assimilation process to be as impactful and seamless as possible.
While I could make the top floor the equivalent of the outside Realm, that would not properly prepare them for the dangers we're going to face.
Flashes of the shadowy, long-horned Demon Lord that called himself Miriel Vermillion come to mind—not only from my own conversation with him when he suppressed my aura and system from a mere video call alone, but from the fragmented memories of Andras and the Demonic Cyclops who only remember him as a figure to fear and follow orders from without question.
This is why I spend over a full hour perfecting the ascension chambers within the central tower.
Once it is finally complete, I disable my Astral Form and use my creator access to teleport from floor to floor, carefully inspecting all 4,000 rooms with fine detailed analysis using all of my perception.
My mind feels as though it's on fire after another hour of theoretical mental stress testing goes by.
I come to the conclusion that I need to let the tower sit for a few days and come back to it to make sure nothing has changed. The generals will be in this tower for a long time, so I need to get proper data on how time itself affects the structure.
Satisfied with the results, I use an exit command on the top floor to teleport out of the controlled structure without leaving any gaps.
Then, I let out a long sigh with a smile and pull the remaining 5,856,011 Low Quality Ether from my storage.
Without any hesitation, I allow it to seep into my true body, deep into the depths of my mind, to sit in the pool of active ether being slowly refined by my consciousness. It does give off a temporary warm and stimulating rush, but it settles quickly as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. The only difference is it feels the pool I can pull from to create mental attacks and physical barriers has grown far deeper. There's over 7 million Low Quality Ether available to be used within my being now.
I attempt to do the same with some of the Medium Quality Ether, but something instinctually blocks me from doing so.
I leave the 50.6205 Medium Quality Ether in my item storage and decide to ask Ember about it once he's done training with Zashen.
Then finally, I take a few deep breaths and activate the suppression technique Seraphel taught me to reign back my violent Noble Vibrations into my body.
It feels a bit different than it did a few hours ago, and instantly the pressure in my mind feels much hotter than before, but I'm still able to hold them back.
Once I open a window on the top floor of the central tower, the total Citadel blackout that lasted two hours comes to an end.
A very small number of Lords see me slowly flying through the sky back to the High Orc Tower. I am back in my 20-meter-tall Demonic appearance, but those who do glance upward look away just as fast.
No one dares to get involved with this new terrifying and unpredictable Citadel Lord.
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