Ascension of the elder

"Now do you feel lucky punk?"

As she said this Susan let her lightning dragon move away from her palm and it approached Martin while circling around in front of his face.

Martin didn't know what to do in this situation; he thought that by showing his strength as a mage he could force Kyle to reveal his information without having to give anything up himself.

To his shock Kyle had 2 mages beside him who used stronger branches of magic than he did and Susan seemed to be able to use it in ways he hadn't heard of before.

Kyle watched this for a moment longer before he decided to play good cop. He placed his hand over Susan's and let her lightning magic flow onto his hand. With his advantages he was able to take control over her mana and switch the control over so he could dissipate the lightning dragon which was threatening Martin.

Susan pouted when Kyle took away her toy before she went to Maria who had already dissipated her own attack. Martin collapsed back in his seat feeling relief and shock in equal measure.

Draken and Seamus were no less shocked than Martin as they were aware of the rules in the empire and if they were made aware of how strong Maria and Susan were there was no way they would release them to do as they pleased.

Martin had however noticed how Kyle had taken command and also how everyone was following his lead. Martin had done his own investigation before this meeting and understood that Kyle was relatively low key compared to the young lords of other houses, even his own cousins were better known than he was.

"So are you gentlemen ready to discuss the situation in a civilised manner or will this have to get unpleasant?"

Kyle had returned to his own seat and had his hands clasped in front of him like he was in prayer, when he asked the question he pulled his hands slightly further apart and in one hand was a glowing and gentle golden light while in the other was an evil looking purplish mist.

For added effect Kyle decided to show some theatrics, the golden light was just a mass of light elemental mana while the purple mist was a mass of dark magic. Both of these groups of mana had been weakened so they could be clearly seen.

Martin was having a nervous breakdown when he saw this, with no focus and almost instantly Kyle had called up a condensed form of elemental mana from what is classed as a higher branch than his own.

"Calm down Kyle we were already prepared to discuss what you called us in for."

Draken decided it was time to diffuse the situation; he had spent a fair amount of time dealing with Kyle in the last few years as he believed was an up and coming grandmaster within his guild and he didn't want him to make any missteps.

Kyle knew Draken had been looking out for him even though he didn't have to, in order to protect himself Kyle had 'steel lotus' keep an eye on Draken in secret and found he had been pulling strings to prevent outsiders or others within the guild from interfering with him so he had a good impression of him.

Kyle had also investigated the other 2 and was sure they weren't involved with the conspiracy from before so he decided to approach them now before details of what was coming up got out.

"Okay let's start for real; the empire is going to cut off the northern lands because of a mass beast incursion cutting through near the Berreth Pass. We can't stop the incursion but I have people reinforcing the towns nearby. I can't go into details until you agree to join with me."

Kyle laid the situation out as quickly and concisely as possible, this news shocked those present. If the empire cut them off without reinforcement it would only be a matter of time before the cities in the north began to fall.

"Why would we join with you kid?"

Seamus spoke up at this point, he may be brash and quick to anger but he wasn't stupid so he knew Kyle had something up his sleeve to entice him and the others.

"I'm going to take control of this city and eventually the whole northern territory and I want your guilds to get in on the ground level. I will offer sanctuary to all of your members. In case you are wondering I have an abundance of mages who can help in the defence along with some other secret projects which will help."

Kyle was laying it on thick because even if they choose not to join him he didn't fear their retaliation anymore as everything was coming to a head.

The guild leaders were still seated and were thinking about what Kyle said. Seamus and Martin didn't know Kyle and were struggling to decide which the best direction to jump was. Martin was leaning to Kyle's side surprisingly as he saw how powerful Maria and Susan were and thought this may be an opportunity to become stronger.

Draken was the first to move as he liked Kyle and Maria, standing up he moved around the table before he knelt to Kyle.

"Okay Lord Kyle I'm in, do I need to swear an oath to you or do you want to place a seal on me."

Draken understood the issues with what Kyle was planning and knew that while Kyle wasn't worried about people knowing he was beginning to move he still wouldn't want everyone to know the details.

"Welcome aboard Draken, I'll put a seal on you but it'll be the secret seal we discussed before. Can you explain it to these gents before I place it on you?"

"Of course simply put this seal only prevents you from sharing secrets to those without this seal within them."

Seamus and Martin were once again surprised by the versatility of these people. Where did they come from and why didn't anyone know about them?

Seamus had seen Kyle in the markets on occasion from when he was out looking for unusual minerals and ores. The last time he had seen him Kyle was roundly beating the guards of Willem Miles who had come to cause trouble. Seamus liked this kid when he saw him defending the store holders.

"Okay then Draken I'll place the seal on you and then you need to look outside to understand what I mean when I say we can defend ourselves."

Draken didn't understand what Kyle was saying but accepted the seal placed upon him none the less. Kyle implanted the key to the illusion arrays at the same time so Draken could see what was hidden before his eyes.

After a moment Draken stood up and quickly checked himself over. He couldn't feel any restrictions placed upon him which would be an indication that he was placed under a slave seal.

"Remember to look outside."

Kyle gently reminded him while everyone who came with Kyle were grinning maliciously as they knew what was coming. Kyle was thinking to himself 'this never gets old'.

Draken moved to the window and looked outside. For a second he didn't notice anything, the streets were the same the building were also the same. He did notice that there were 2 large square buildings in the distance which he couldn't remember.

As his eye's travelled up he noticed that there was something large and grey in colour in the distance. It wrapped from the right to the left without a break and was huge, taller than any other buildings in town.

Draken's mouth was open wide at this point while his pupils had shrunk almost to the size of pinheads.

"MOTHER HUMPER!!"

He exclaimed when he saw this before he turned almost as if he was on a pivot and looked at Kyle with shock and awe.

"How did you hide it?"

Draken could only ask that as he knew there were arrays that could conceal things but not at this level.

"I made some changes, so do you think we can defend ourselves?"

Kyle asked with a cheese eating grin on his face which irked Draken but he decided to go along with his new lord.

"Yes I don't think anything will be able to threaten us."

"Thank you Draken, now I hate to pressure you but Martin, Seamus you need to make a decision."

Seamus and Martin now felt the pressure to agree climbing, Martin was already close to crumbling but on seeing Draken he decided to take the leap but before that he wanted to check something.

"If I agree would I be able to continue my mage training."

His eyes drifted to Maria and Susan as he wanted to be stronger.

"Yes we will give you what you need to progress, I won't explain it now but you'll be required to train with my household for a while."

Martin was happy with this concession, he didn't realise Kyle would have insisted on this anyway so it was a win-win.

Martin knelt to Kyle and also received his seal and looked over the city from the window. His reaction was more amusing than Draken as he straight up fainted when he saw what was outside.

"He really fainted; I only thought that stuff happened in stories."

Kyle was amused when he saw this. If this was enough to shock Martin into unconsciousness he couldn't wait until he began training with his forces.

Seamus was the last left and he had one question he wanted answered.

"Why do you want us to work for you?"

"I'm impressed you're the only one to ask that question. Simply put you guys will form the infrastructure of our new empire. The other unions all follow your leads so if you're on board they will be too and we can begin making improvements almost instantly."

Seamus digested this for a moment and found this was a good answer. If they were allowed to improve the infrastructure a lot of things would be possible as long as they could survive the upcoming troubles.

"Okay I'm in."

Seamus did the now familiar bow and received his seal before looking out the window. His reaction was to begin shaking all over. 'How could they build all this without anyone knowing'?

"Excellent so that's the leaders all sorted. Let me introduce you to my representatives. Maria you'll be in contact with Draken, Randall with Seamus and when he wakes up Martin with Alena. What you need to do is give any information or requests to these reps and we'll deal with it. Also if you have any people who you want to bring in give them their names and we'll check them out. Anything else before we head out?"

"Can I have cookies?"