Ascension of the elder

"Why don't you have an afro to?"

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2 Years Later

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"Jesus Susan that took a long time for that afro to grow out."

Kyle noted while looking at Susan's suddenly smooth and silky hair with a sympathetic look on his face. Susan glared back at him with apparent venom.

"Humph yes it is very strange my hair took that long to grow out like that, it's almost like someone was screwing with me eh Kyle."

Kyle couldn't stop a grin spreading over his face when he heard Susan complaining.

"Yeah it's almost like Alfred was asked mess with you as a punishment doesn't it?"

Alfred was the name the crystal spirit had taken for itself. As time passed the personality that inhabited the mana crystal became more distinct and eventually last year it had fully formed and decided to take the name of Alfred as it saw itself as Kyle's assistant cum butler. When Kyle had spoken to it about its choice of name the response was.

"It sounds like a proper butler's name in my opinion sir."

"So as my butler what will you do differently than previously?"

Kyle asked as he wanted to know what duties Alfred had decided to take on.

"I will buttle sir as I am your butler."

"..."

Kyle didn't really have a response to that as it appeared Alfred had picked up a good dose of sass from somewhere along the line. According to Alfred he was connected to each of the networked bastions but his concentration was currently focused on New Grange City as that was the central hub.

Once they move he will shift his personality to that location, the other bastions operate on an autonomous basis sending through reports to Alfred and flagging up issues that require his attention. Over time these autonomous systems are advancing eventually Alfred believes these will become permanently linked into him becoming remote versions of himself.

Back to Susan she was still glaring at Kyle after what he had said.

"So you had Alfred continue messing with me all this time. Elena did the same as me but she recovered in a couple of weeks why were you targeting me?"

"Simple Elena is just young and curious so she gets a spanking you on the other hand are a through and through pervert. The punishment must fit the crime."

"Did someone say spanking?"

"Oh hi Elena we were just talking about you."

"Yeah Kyle has been showing favouritism what do you think about that?"

Susan began to question Elena who started playing with her bottom lip while she thought about what Susan had said before looking Susan straight in the eye and responded.

"Yup I'm his favourite."

Susan simply shook her head at this, even with the passing of years Elena hadn't changed. Susan decided it was best to stop here and headed out to see Maria who was being run ragged with Kyle's siblings.

Maria had given birth to twins, a boy and a girl called Charles and Aria respectively while Ash and Lauren had a little boy they named Cedric who they said was so pretty he sparkled but Kyle couldn't see it himself.

The adults had found themselves a good babysitter in Kyle as simply being in his presence was enough to calm the children down when they were crying or being difficult. Kyle assumed this was due to his soul strength but Elena didn't have the same effect so it was a curiosity.

New Grange City itself had changed greatly over the last two years with the most obvious visible change being the large academy in the centre of the city where the city lords' mansion used to be. Taking only a few months to build this may sound fast but you should never underestimate cultivators when they are given direction.

This academy taught all the children within the city the first level of Kyle's technique without requiring them to take the secret seal. To receive the further levels of cultivation they would have to take the seal so many parents pushed them to take the seal for the better chances granted through strength.

The adults also began taking the seals until it almost became a stigma not to have the seal. You should never underestimate the power of peer pressure. This meant New Grange City was effectively entirely under Kyle and his allies control with the other noble families falling into line following the Black and Tor families.

With the construction of the academy and the various orphanages opened around the city the street children were now being looked after and with the seals were being indoctrinated into Kyle's forces. Another change was the disillusion of the family's personal forces.

It took Kyle a while to work out why the empire would only have garrisoned forces but allow the various noble houses to have what amounted to small armies at their beck and call. After talking with Bob and Winona with Susan chipping in now and then he worked out it was probably because they were worried about arming potential enemies at their own cost.

With the noble houses all paying to maintain their armies while eyeing each other they wouldn't have a chance to build a force to oppose the imperial family. If any group gained to large an advantage the imperial overseer would inform their superior and the imperial garrison would come in and slap them back down.

This was effective in maintaining a certain level of authority but it weakened humanity overall. Kyle absorbed the family forces into his own and with the seal they wouldn't betray him. The forces were trained and divided amongst his allies strengthening them to the point they were able to seize total control of the nearest cities.

Liam had also successfully found and reactivated the lost cities further north. This allowed Kyle to dispatch certain families to take control of these recovered territories. The reclamation was still ongoing as they had become overgrown in the intervening years but it appeared the beasts had no interest in the cities once they had been destroyed and moved on leaving only a small number behind.

Another change in New Grange City was the installation of a city wide mana attraction array. Kyle hadn't installed this before to prevent his enemies receiving the fruits of his labour and because if the beasts sensed this accumulation of mana it was entirely possible they would attack.

With the defences in place they should be able to face almost anything but Kyle didn't want to take the chance, but with the assistance of his falcon Rih he was able to test a means of blocking the mana leaks.

This array was based at the academy with extension pylons at each of the bastions. This made New Grange City a haven for those who wanted to train and cultivate. If you took one of the falcons and flew away from the city you could see what looked like a multi coloured heat haze over the city and all of Kyle's girls enjoyed it when he took them for an evening picnic overlooking their city.

On another note Alena who was Bruno's now fiancée had been developing various chemicals and potions looking for things that would assist their forces. Six months ago she had succeeded in producing a potion which when ingested would help in loosening the blockages in people's nodes. This wash allowed people to train at the higher levels faster without Kyle overseeing them freeing him up to proceed with his own training.

Kyle himself had progressed to the ninth level and planned to breakthrough soon as he was desperately curious as to what the next stage would entail. Even at his current level he couldn't even get a glimmer as to what the next stage would be. His conjecture still stood that as this was a radical shift until he went through it he wouldn't be able to visualise it.

Kyle's training was still largely the same with him training in the elemental magic's fire, wind, water, earth, lightning, light, dark and life. Recently he had upped his training in the esoteric branch of magic���s. So far he has discovered Space, null, void and additive magic. Space is related to dimensionality but didn't include time which was different than he expected. There did seem to be some elements which may relate to time but Kyle suspected that time was its own form of magic which while closely related to space was its own entity.

Kyle thought back to when he explained to Susan about space magic.

"Well using space magic we can increase a space within certain boundaries like a certain Doctor."

"Which doctor?"

"Who."

"Yes who?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"What?"

"Are you doing some kind of voodoo?"

"Yes we both do."

"What."

"Yes voodoo."

"Please make it stop!"