The Undying Magician - Book 1 - Chapter 36 - The Council Meeting (Patreon)

                                                      The Arcane Council Chambers

                                         Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 19 | Wednesday

In the center of the council chamber, surrounded by ten throne-like seats, each with a Class A magician seated on them, is a large sphere. This sphere has a screen on the surface of it, with a map, a call, and several documents of importance to the Republic.

None of the council members seated on the thrones say a word as the chairman – Artorius Hunter – leans forwards in his seat with his arms resting on his knees. The man has black eyes, with equally black hair and a strange outfit consisting of a pure black, sleeveless, combat suit made out of magi-tech enhanced arcadian metal and various red gemstones on.

Several seconds pass in silence before he finally leans back a little in his throne and states, “Continue.”

The man on the other side of the call displayed on the screen – commonly known through the Republic as the Healer General – nods his head before scratching his chin and beginning to speak, “As you wish, Chairman Hunter.”

Jacob Argent snaps his fingers, causing the map to focus in on one of the Warzones – the open battlefields and contested lands between the opposing nations and the Republic.

This particular Warzone is the largest one in existence.

The Grand Warzone, stationed in between The Republic of Arcania and The Collective Kingdoms of Rhia.

“My report is as follows.” the general states with a gruff tone of voice, “We have made some small progress on claiming the following positions.” He pauses as a point on the map at the center of the Grand Warzone highlights, “The Valley of Hope.”

He pauses again while a second point highlights on the map beneath the valley, “The Anchor.”

This continues as more and more points continue highlighting whilst he speaks, including one point directly beneath the northern lake bordering the two nations, one directly above the lake bordering between The Republic and Entaria, “The Northern and Southern Lines,” and one last point above the valley, “and the Fallen Tower.”

At this point, the man squints his eyes slightly whilst scaling the map out to include the Forgotten Pass, located north of the Grand Warzone.

“However, ever since the battle at the Forgotten Pass, the Warzone of the Forgotten has been on a decline, requiring us to send more and more forces-” he continues until one of the councilmembers states in an even and plainly bored sounding tone, “We don’t need a recap. Continue with why you called.”

The man who spoke is wearing a medieval styled set of magi-tech armor, with black and red gauntlets equipped on both hands. He has thick eyebrows, a short beard, and a rough appearance to match with his attitude.

The general clenches his fist slightly in irritation before turning to look at Lucas Wolf – the strongest enhancement magician in the Republic – and saying with a slight nod of his head, “I apologize, Chairperson Wolf, but this ‘recap’ is directly involved with my report. So if you don’t mind, I will continue.”

Lucas narrows his eyes and leans forwards, but before he can say anything else, another chairperson interrupts.

“Just ignore the muscle-brained neanderthal and continue your report,” Marcus Ashford – the current second strongest fire magician in the Republic – says with a dismissive look on his face.

Right as Lucas begins sputtering out of anger, the Healer General sends Marcus a brief smirk and says, “I think I will,” before continuing on with what he was previously stating, “Unfortunately, due to us having to replace the lost magicians at the Warzone of the Forgotten, we have lost some of our lead on the Grand Warzone itself. This has led to us losing the foothold we had just obtained there.”

“However,” he continues, cutting off one of the chair holders that was about to speak, “the Class S magicians, the Fallen Magician, Afvalder, and chairperson Winter’s uncle, Archibald, both managed to wound the Kingdom’s Class S magicians during the fight.”

The general turns his gaze back towards the chairman as he says, “Which has led to their disappearance since. And while that is certainly a common thing for Class S magicians – considering their tendency to disconnect themselves with the matters of their nations – we have heard some interesting news about it.”

At this point, a faint grin begins to stretch across the general’s face.

“Continue,” the chairman says, leaning forwards a bit in his chair.

The grin on the general’s face stretches even wider at this before he finishes, “The Class S magicians on their side have refused to respond to their leadership’s requests for help.”

Mutters of astonishment run through the gathered council members, only for them to stop once the chairman raises his hand.

“And what about Archibald and Afvalder?” Artorius asks without showing any emotion on his face.

Jacob’s grin fades slightly at that as he says, “Afvalder is still acting as he always does; randomly appearing at battlefields to take command without actually participating in the battles unless there is a Class S magician on the battlefield.”

The general pauses here whilst looking slightly away from the chairman.

“And Archibald?” the chairman prompts.

Jacob faintly sighs before turning back to the chairman and saying, “When we asked this last time, he expressed his explicit dislike of our constant wars and wished us the best.”

A loud crash echoes through the chamber from Lucas’s direction as he smashes the arm of his chair and shouts, “Damned bastard!”

“That said, he did at least state that he would defend us from any Class S magicians if they were to attack,” Jacob adds without even looking at the chairperson.

His added statement does nothing to satisfy the enhancement affinity magician who immediately stands up and shouts, “How long are we going to let these Class S magicians do-”

“Stop,” Artorius’s voice clearly rings through the chamber, prompting the man to stop speaking almost immediately.

Several seconds pass in silence before Lilith Marshall – the current strongest dark affinity magician in the Republic – speaks whilst sending a blank look towards Lucas, “It’s pointless to worry about the Class S magicians. They’re too powerful to be controlled by a country, and very few of them have any interest in the politics behind ruling them.”

Silence once again fills the chamber after she finishes speaking and calmly turns back to facing the orb at the center of the room, her long black hair swaying over her shoulder in the process.

“Yeah, my sister-in-law is right, ya know?” Alexis Luna suddenly interjects into the silence, drawing the attention of the other council members as she stands up from her throne and begins casually walking around the orb. “Doctor Archeron doesn’t give a shit about anything outside of his experiments.”

A shiver collectively runs down the spines of a few of the gathered chair people at the mention of the doctor’s name.

She pauses speaking for a second to twirl around before continuing with a glance at Blake Winters, “Your uncle, Archibald Winters, just wants to keep your family safe.”

Blake doesn’t say anything and just watches her as she continues walking over to Victor Umbra.

She then continues with a raised brow towards the man, “Your older sister, Dorothy Umbra, doesn’t seem to care about anything outside of you and alchemy.”

Victor just raises an eyebrow back and retorts, “What’s wrong with alchemy?”

Alexis twirls in place again and says, “Nothing. And she is helping us proceed with great strides in our alchemy.”

“But,” she stops twirling, “it isn’t directly benefiting our battles against the other Class S magicians.”

She then turns back around and starts walking back to her seat with her hands on her hips, drawing both Lucas’s and Alexander’s eyes to them in the process.

Once she reaches her seat, she lies back on it with her legs going over the arm rest and says, “And neither are the other Class S magicians. Unless you count Doctor Archeron’s space magi-tech items.”

“My point is that none of them are directly fighting for us, and all four of them generally want to be left alone.” She then turns to look around the room at the other chair people and says, “We also won’t be able to directly force them without going all out against them ten on one, one by one.”

“Soooo, we can either find some way to bribe one of them into helping,” she says with one finger raised to the ceiling, only to jerk her head over towards Theodore Hunter as he finishes for her, “Or we train our own weapon out of the current students at the academy.”

Alexis smiles wide and nods her head before saying, “Bingo! If all of our families were to pool together some more resources, and if we were to push the students far enough, to the point of even bribing them to go train in actual battle…”

Lucas slams his hand against the other arm rest of his throne, breaking it off as well while pointing towards he and snarling, “You just want more funds for your damned academy, don’t you!”

“Her ulterior motives aside, it won’t even be possible,” Alexander – the strongest wind magician in the Republic – says with a grin and a shrug, “not when the only talent levels that have ever become Class S have been level 5s during their mid to late fifties.”

He then looks at Alexis with a broad grin on his roguish looking face and finishes, “And by that point in time, we,” he pauses whilst pointing around at everyone in the room, “assuming we’re even alive by then, will all be retired.”

Alexis just shrugs before looking up at the ceiling as Artorius raises his hand and speaks, “Council member Alexis’s possible ulterior motives aside, her plan does have some benefits.”

He pauses to look at the care-free woman as he continues, always happy to find a way to benefit the Republic, “And it wouldn’t hurt to put more funding into the academy, allowing our next generation to grow even stronger.”

“So,” he says whilst turning to look at the orb in the center of the room, completely ignoring the general as he clearly gets irritated at being ignored and hangs up the call, “I would like to call a vote.”

Lucas simply glares at Alexis, meanwhile nearly half of the councilmembers – including the chairman – raise their hands for the vote to pass, leaving a greater majority of the votes as yeses thanks to the chairman’s count of five votes to each chairperson’s one.

Artorius looks around for a few seconds before standing up and declaring, “Then it’s decided. Every one of the nine families of the Republic must now provide a set amount of funding to the academy that will be determined at a later point in time.”

At the same time, Alexis – who had been staring up at the ceiling with her eyes closed, a wide grin on her face, and one hand raised – thinks, ‘I hope Amelia and her little friends enjoy this boost in training.’

“And with that, this council meeting is adjourned,” Artorius says, clapping his hands once, causing the orb in the center of the screen to flicker before shrinking down in size and lowering to a small stand on the floor beneath it.

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                                                                                    Nathan

                                               Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 20 | Thursday

“Now, remember that the more mana arcs you have, the more ‘limbs’ you can use to stretch and train your other mana arcs,” I hear the instructor of my Mana Manipulation class say from the front of the classroom as a strange feeling begins to emanate from the mana arc I am currently training.

Is this what she meant by ‘you will know when it’s trained enough to split’?

At that thought, a grin begins to spread across my face.

If that’s the case, then it’s about freaking time!

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