Chapter 42 The Sespina Federation

Evernya flipped through the first few pages of the geography book until she came upon an overhead image of the Sespina Federation. Wow, Sespina is huge! According to the scale, it spans well over 8000 kilometers in all directions! To be fair, the outer ring has a ton of empty space. I’m guessing that’s the wilds.

Without labels, Evernya found the image of limited use, so she flipped to the next page. On the next page, she found a map of Sespina, including cities and major roads. A line connected each city and another line encircling each city. She referenced the map key to find the circle surrounding each city was the border of their barrier, and the network of lines connecting each city was the portal station route.

Something isn’t right about this map. There’s barely any roads connecting each city? Some outer cities don’t even have any roads connecting them. Maybe they don’t need highways because of the portal network?

At least I somewhat know where I am. Druth is along the far northwestern edge of Sespina and one of the most remote cities. No wonder Meira didn’t want to travel to another city to take my Mage’s test. The nearest city is over 800 kilometers away and just as remote. Unlike a country from Earth, Sespina has its territory divided into three rings, with the city of Sespina at the center. The first two rings are much more developed, even including small towns and villages, but the outer ring where Druth resides is empty, aside from a few dozen cities scattered hundreds of kilometers apart. I won’t learn much more from this map on its own, so I’ll move on. At least the map gave a general idea on the geography of Sespina.

Evernya continued to read through the book but found the remaining of the book focused on physical geography, which wasn’t different from Earth. She skimmed through the rest of the book, disappointed.

How unusual. They ignored or glossed over a ton of areas. Did they censor it or is it unexplored? Maybe this book summarizes the geography, so they omitted areas. I guess I’ll have read another book to find out.

She set the geography of Sespina on top of the modern history book and levitated a book titled the Northwest to her. The first page was a detailed map in the shape of a pizza slice. The narrow end touched the cerulean origin while the other end reached the outer border.

Why are cities labeled one, two, or three? All the cities marked with a three, including Druth, connect their portal lines to a city marked with a two. While cities marked with a two have portal lines connecting to cities with a one and nearby twos. That must be how they organized the portal network. Threes, which are smaller cities, connect to the twos. Twos act as a hub for their area’s threes and other twos and ones. The only city labeled as one on the map is Buran, which is a city bordering the cerulean origin. Minea must be the tier 2 city connected to Druth through the portal system. It looks like if I want to use the portal network, I have to go through Minea first.

Evernya continued to read through the book, finding the climate of her region like what she was used to. The summers were hot and relatively short, while the winters were long and bone-chilling cold. Halfway through the book, she came upon a section explaining the numbering system labeling each city.

Interesting, so Tier 3 cities are any city in the outer ring, also known as the frontier. Tier 2 is any city with a population of over 1 million within the middle ring. While Tier 1 is one of the five ancient cities bordering the cerulean origin. Each tier governs the cities within their region, so Buran, being a tier 1 city, is in charge of all cities within the Northwestern region of Sespina. While Minea is in charge of every Tier 3 city connected to it via the portal network, including Druth. The city of Sespina at the center of the cerulean origin has governing power over all territory being the capital, but most cities function like a city-state unless otherwise ordered by the city above them.

She read further into the section, only for her claws to sprout, digging into the book in anger. Her tail slapped the bed as her thoughts raged. What the hell! Isn’t racism enough? Why do humans limit where we can travel too? Well, I suppose that isn’t entirely true since all Tier 3 residents need special permission to enter tier 1 cities. It’s still insulting they require all shifters to wear a locking silver tracking collar within the middle and inner rings. I understand they don’t want shifters to shift in a high population area, but still, it’s insulting! They treat us like we are seconds away from going berserk! To be fair, all the shifters I’ve met weren’t very nice, but I highly doubt any of them would lose control. Plus, they test us to ensure we have control over our shifts, isn’t that enough? What’s stopping a crazy mage from blowing up everyone?

The law is useless for me since I can’t fully shift. All it does is prevent me from sprouting my small claws. I doubt my tiny claws beat out a fireball. It looks like I won’t be using the portal service. I refuse to wear a damn collar! It would be humiliating! I already have a permanent reminder of my enslavement, but it’s far less noticeable than a big silver collar besides the black band doesn’t look too bad with my hair and skin tone. Unfortunately, all portal traffic from Druth goes through Minea, which is within the middle ring.

With how isolated this area is, I can’t even travel to other Tier 3 cities easily with limited roads. I guess I’m stuck here until I can devise a way to travel. Can’t I get certified or something that I can’t shift, so I don’t have to wear that humiliating collar? Somehow I bet they would force me to wear it anyway, just because I am technically a shifter. I wonder, can I shift my ears and tail? Just the thought feels wrong, but is it possible? If it was, why doesn’t every shifter hide their animal parts to pass as a human? Probably because it feels like an insult to my heritage to hide who I am.

Evernya focused on her beloved tail, like when she shifted her claws, she sent mana to the appropriate location, in this case, her tailbone. A moment later, it disappeared, but a broken feeling overwhelmed her instantly. Unable to take it any longer, she immediately shifted her tail back. She grasped her tail in her hands, stroking it lovingly. Even after returning her tail, her body trembled from the unnatural feeling of missing her tail.

I refuse to part with my tail ever again, even if it means death! It was unbearable to lose my tail for even a few seconds. Shifting my ears away would be pointless, since wouldn’t that make me deaf? It looks I’m not impersonating a human, not that I want to. I am becoming more and more disgusted by my former race. It’s not like humans were any better on earth. They just have a different target instead of each other. Only now, I have an outside perspective on human nature.

She continued to read through the book, but found nothing else of interest. After adding the book to her finished stack, she floated over a book titled Sespina government.

As she cracked open the book, her mind wandered. I wonder why none of these books directly mentioned the wilds. Is that considered an adult-only subject? I can see schools censoring the subject since it may freak out the students to know that a bunch of mana beasts surrounding them. At least, I think we are. I am assuming the wilds are non-civilized land, which seems to be about 90% of the outer ring. I am sure Meira can explain the subject better than these books. These textbooks only seem to give general information on each subject, which I suppose makes sense when you gear these books to a large number of students from multiple areas.

Evernya read through the approximately 100-page book in about an hour. Interesting, so each city is like a city-state. As long as they don’t make laws or pass judgment, breaking the laws set by the higher Mage’s councils, they can do pretty much anything they want. A tier 2 city oversees all Tier 3 cities in the area, while tier 1 cities oversee all the tier 2 cities in their region. They give the title of Magister to the members of a Mage’s Council while they call the head of each Council a high magister.

Each Council has five members, including the head, elected by the current member. It’s disturbing how easily a Mage’s council can become corrupt. To make it worse, citizens can’t fight back against a corrupt Mage’s council. The requirements to be eligible to be a council member don’t help either. You must be a minimum of mana grade Awakened 7 for a Tier 3 mages Council, but this requirement increases to the arisen stage in tier 2 cities and ascended stage for tier 1. To be eligible for higher mages councils, they must first spend at least five years on a lower-tier Mage’s Council. The worst requirement is that you must be human to be eligible. The policy doesn’t affect me as I don’t care if I’m ineligible because I have no desire to join the government in any capacity. Still, it sucks the policy prevents demi-humans who want to have a major role in government from joining a Mage’s Council. To be fair, I bet demi-human ran areas don’t allow humans in prominent positions of government either.

The highest Mage’s council comprises all the High Magisters of tier 1 cities plus the two members of the Sespina family, with the current head of the family being the leader of the Council. This Council only meets if an issue that affects multiple tier 1 region arises.

The scary part about this system is there is there is no term limit for the Mage’s council. The only way out is voluntarily abdicating or getting voted out by their fellow members. A council member could stay for centuries. Though, it looks like assassination attempts on tier 1 High Magisters aren’t rare, though they usually fail. The book only mentioned three successful assassinations within the last 500 years, but considering the lifespan of these people, that’s probably recent history. When you’re that powerful, you must be tough to kill.

Evernya halted her train of thought upon realizing something. Why didn’t I pass out after I ate? Normally I would at least feel drowsy within a minute of eating, yet I’m wide awake hours later. I guess another mystery to the ever-growing stack. It’s a miracle my brain doesn’t explode. I hope one of these days I’ll find a ton of answers. Though my brain might actually explode if that were to happen.

She shook her head at the absurdity of it as she shifted her thoughts back to the book. I hope I meet no more council members for a while. Better yet, how about never again! I meet one and an evil bastard enslaves me. I’ve earned my right to avoid them for life. Though I doubt it is a common occurrence to meet a council member.

The more I learn, the more I want to hide out in Meira’s territory for life.