In a field in the Glass Empire, a man was sparring with another person. He was using a crude rapier and his opponent was using a great sword but it was obvious that the man possessed far greater physical capabilities than his opponent as the opponent was being pushed around by him. The opponent expertly spun and maneuvered himself to always perform a comeback no matter how hard he was thrown by the man’s hits.

A messenger came to the edge of the field and called out to the man “Lord Salam!” Yes, it was Salam, the officer of Abhad that Jade let go in exchange for the information about the settlements in Abuja.

The political situation of the Glass Empire was very complex. Not all the Lords (members with Mythical Grade races) agreed with the treatment of the members with lower Grades (called low grade members). Salam was one of them, he saw promise in some of the High Humans and trained them personally while providing all the resources they need to become high grade members (from Ancient grade up).

Whereas the changing of all human races to Boundless races could be considered a boon to some, it was a bane to low grade citizens of the empire since they now had no chance to improve their race grade because Boundless races couldn’t evolve. Even with that Salam still invested in High Humans and humans that showed potential. He believed they could still become great assets with enough training and research.

Sadly he wasn’t the Emperor of the Glass Empire, he was just a Lord and he could only assert his views on the people under him. The Emperor had a very different thought process. A race grade decides the starting power of a creature so if his Empire had more high grade members they would be superior to other settlements and therefore have a starting advantage over the others because they prioritized the race grade first.

He knew that low grade races could get as powerful as or even more powerful than a high grade race member. This became even more certain when all the human races became boundless. Sadly they all needed time, especially since en-code was no more, it would take a lot more time to improve their power, time that his Empire didn’t have.

Most of his high grade members, whether Mythical or Ancient, were very supporting of the discriminative and hierarchical society since it was similar to the life they lived before the apocalypse and was the same during the apocalypse for some. The Emperor knew their views might change in the future and he was also willing to change with them. But for now his Empire needed a lot of children from those of high grade races and a civil society didn’t help with that from his point of view.

Alas he wasn’t the only one in the world and he met the APT and Terrania which didn’t agree with his views and refused to trade with his empire. The APT would have even attacked his empire if Terrania wasn’t against the idea and refused to join them, he knew the APT had many Mythical grades, comparable to his own Empire but they had no Celestial grade so they didn’t dare attack on their own.

This further reinforced his view that the race grade was what mattered more. As time passed his empire would see the birth of more Mythical, Ancient and with chance, Celestial grade children. They would swiftly get more military might than the APT that only had a civil society and no Celestial grade, and Terrania that had only Ancient grades as the highest grade race. At that time he would wipe them out and come out the winner of the war, he would absorb all their research and development and his empire would gain power, people and territory like never before.

The major aim of the settlements was cracking the Quests for boundless races. For those at Ancient, High or Normal grades this entailed Quests that gave them rewards for each major or minor stat grade increase they got under Grade 5. These rewards were hidden but the few that got them got volumes of manuals that taught martial arts, magic or even technology depending on the nature of the individual and stat that improved.

The Boundless Quests for Mythical and Celestial grades was completely empty. There was nothing there at all. Only people like Mira that had reached Rank 27 which was the highest Rank of the human or ex-human races got a reward and that involved Pantheons which no one knew about. No one in the Glass Empire was Rank 27 so they didn’t even know of this.

Back to Salam

Salam called for a timeout and went to the messenger who told him “There are two Mythical grade people at the gate of your territory. One of them is from the APT, she matches the description of the woman named Funmi and the other woman is completely unknown. She seems like a Mythical grade.”

Salam thought ‘She must be a hidden warrior from the APT. Terrania has no Mythical grade members. *sigh* I wonder what they’re up to’. Salam said “What do they want?” the messenger said “They said they want a tour of the whole Glass Empire”.

Salam was incredibly confused and he said “What?” The messenger said “They said they want to know if the rumors of our society are true and see it with their own eyes instead of going by word of mouth”.

Salam sighed and said “They might have ulterior motives tell Hassan that I need his assistance and inform him of this situation”. The messenger nodded and swiftly dashed away.

Salam rubbed the bridge of his nose and thought ‘If I show them my territory and Hassan's territory it should calm down their nerves. It’s a good thing that they came here, if it was the other territories the Lords would try to start a fight and kill them for contribution’.

Salam told the person he was training that he was leaving and went toward the entrance of his territory. When he arrived he saw a silver bunny girl with cat eyes fangs and claws and a normal woman who he recognized as Funmi from the APT.

…