Deciding to break away from the Empire and form my own Kingdom wasn’t a simple matter. There had been months of meetings between my most trusted advisers and me. Meetings that were so secret that I hadn’t even allowed Ja Fiat to attend, and she had become indispensable in the running of my office.

Combine that with finishing and opening the Clan, building a House within the area I had set aside for the Clan, and expediting experiments with Spirit contracts while expanding the pool of people gifted with the Lodoicea food, and I had barely enough time to cultivate each evening.

I had decided to take Alpha up on her offer after long discussions with Clement, Aki, and Zui. I would accept the role of Voice and secede from the Empire, but only once Cultivator [Oaths] between the Hindel and I had been given. I refused even to consider leaving the Empire without assurances that the Hindel would inform the Empire that they had named me Voice and what that meant.

I even agreed to select a compatible Hindel to begin dual cultivation.

Clement had been tireless in his efforts to garner information during these months, finding the information needed to actually split from the Empire and the historical documents of those who had followed that path in the past.

A territory seceding from the Empire was a rare occurrence, but it had happened. Clement had found historical records of those events. And had summarized each instance that he was able to discover. His findings were rather surprising, the response from the Empire diametrically opposite the near militaristic control the Emperor exuded over the formation of Sects and Clan.

The Empire accepted the decision to break away with equanimity. The prevailing excuse was that it was too large to worry about small sections breaking away, but Clement had followed the money and discovered that those territories had been bleeding the Empire. Their decision to form an independent nation strengthened the Empire.

The only time they responded to these kinds of losses was when the seceding nation used their freedom to build up militarily and attack the Empire.

The Emperor reacted mercilessly, destroying the military that attacked and any Cultivator above the Qi Gathering Realm. Those nations, idiotic enough to attack the Empire, found themselves subjugated and returned to the fold. Vassals-states that were governed by a member of the Emperor’s family and forced to pay usury tithes so large that they would never be free of debt.

Any Sect or Clan that had conspired and allied with these new nations to wage war on the Empire found themselves completely destroyed. All resources, cultivation tokens, and martial techniques were confiscated and gifted to whoever was installed to rule. The Clans’ Writ of Investiture was auctioned. A Clan could not be dissolved, not once it had filed a Writ of Investiture, but that didn’t mean that the properties and people that were members of the Clan could not be destroyed or seized.

Three times a seceding nation had broken away, ignored by the Emperor and Empire, only to attack and find that the Emperor and Empire’s patience was not without limits. Those nations that followed had been more practiced and logical in their efforts. They had studied the history of those failed States and refused to repeat the mistakes those leaders had made.

They broke away but were quick to establish trade relations with the Empire once they had established a functional government.

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Dredging up the information on the nations that had been successful gave us a blueprint of what worked and how to proceed. The hardest part would have been finding a Kingdom stone. Much like the territory stone I had been awarded when I’d claimed my title of Baroness, a Kingdom stone would resonate across the territory I was claiming, tying my Qi signature to the land.

It would subtly alter the Qi that emanated across the Kingdom, charging it and injecting it with my personal Qi. In the process, I would become more grounded and more in tune with the land I claimed. I would receive flashes of insights if incursions occurred and subconscious urges to act and protect the land I controlled.

Alpha had gifted me with the Kingdom stone I would need. Where and why the Hindel collected these stones made little sense. Their society didn’t require or use them. An Alpha and a Consort were all that was needed to establish a ruling pod.

How Alphas, by their very titles, worked together across the range of their nation was one that made sense once you realized they had the Gestalt. Each Alpha was part of a council of equals, the Gestalt allowing them to reach a consensus that the nation, at large, was bound to. It had taken the Empire a long time to learn that lesson. To realize that one Alpha could not be played off against another. And that what one agreed to in a treaty, all would honor it.

In truth, if Delph Island wasn’t so isolated and bereft of known powerful Cultivators. If Clement hadn’t joined my House and been willing to stand as my Shield, I would have refused the Alpha’s offer.

As a Qi Gathering Cultivator, I wasn’t strong enough to protect and defend any claim I might make to rule a Kingdom. But it turned out that Clement wasn’t the only person I could rely on for protection. As a Voice, I could call upon the Hindel for help. With their new ability to traverse the land at will, that help was not an insignificant thing.

I did wonder if they would begin migrating to lakes and rivers that had no connection to the ocean and would consider offering areas where they could establish smaller pods. The entirety of the island had yet to be mapped, but I was sure there were lakes that could be offered as a testing ground. Places that the Hindel could settle as an experiment to see how sustainable it would be to live and survive in a more restrained environment. Perhaps where they could develop Pods in isolation, Pods that might be used to breed for coveted genetic traits.

Clement had talked to me about providing Lodoicea-laced food to the population. A nation of Body Refinement Cultivators would change how the island advanced and offer real benefits. The more powerful citizenry would be able to settle and control new areas that had been too dangerous for non-cultivators to visit.

But that strength came with dangers. A population that was able to cultivate required more resources. Fights between people would result in greater damage to towns, structures, and bystanders. And if a town decided to revolt, armed with the might of a citizenry army of Cultivators, it would require a strength of will to ignore the number of deaths restoring order might require.

Delph Island was large, easily the size of Australia. But when compared to the Empire that had expanded to contain an area the size of every continent on Earth, that size was insignificant. The island couldn’t afford to allow territories to secede. Not if it was going to prosper.

Without the population numbers, Sects, Clans, and Houses the Empire had to rely on, I would need every able-bodied citizen, especially talented Cultivators, to make this work. Until we could build our own infrastructure of Sects and Clans to call on, I would need to nurture the resources the island offered.

And those resources included the Cultivators. More importantly, I would have to factor in the Four Element Sect to any move I might make. The Sect would have to be recognized as independent, an outpost of the Empire, even an embassy. The Hindel might be powerful enough to move against it, but I had a feeling that might be the only move I could make that would draw a response from the Empire.

The land under the lake the Sect controlled was too important to fall into the hands of another nation. And to be honest, the less I had to deal with Profound Immortal or Immortal Venerable Cultivators, the happier I would be.

Let Four Element Sect and Patriarch Umbra deal with those headaches. I had enough of my own to worry about.