Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Oz (III)
Oz was the first kingdom I saw. But it wasn't the only kingdom in this world.
The citizens realize that this world had a limit, the limit of which was the sky. They had limited ground, around a total of 1 billion kilometers in land area. This wasn't enough as the population was around 16 billion people in this world.
Besides Oz, there were 3 more superkingdoms the same size as Oz, occupying around 150 million kilometers in land area, namely Faraday, Dalton and Hershey superkingdoms.
The kingdoms were established quite far from one another, with an average distance 5-10 million kilometers from border to border of each kingdom. This meant that between borders of kingdoms, unowned land spanned 5-10 million kilometers in area, and these areas are usually busy with moving bnadits, merchants and people travelling from one superkingdom to another.
Under each superkingdom, there were Provinces, and under these were Cities, and under these were Towns, then villages.
They had a centralized power ruling, with monthly tributes from villages to towns, to cities, to provinces, and to the superkingdom itself.
Due to the sizes of the lands, travelling by foot, or even travelling by vehicular methods by land was not suited. They, however, had public transportations ranging from different provinces, cities, towns and villages known as the Kanseki Maglev Trains. These trains could travel around the speed of sound, allowing one to reach their destination within the day even if it was one province at one end of the superkingdom's territory to the other end. Because of the special material present in the trains, the ride was smooth and quite protected.
Another method of travel was to use airboats for travel, which was able to travel half the speed of sound while maintaining structural integrity and comfort inside for the passengers. Airboats were usually used when travelling from one superkingdom to another, to avoid the long journey when on foot. At the same time, the Kanseki Maglev trains were restricted to be used only inside the superkingdoms' territory as a precaution against each superkingdom to one another.
From the basic information I gathered, I could already assume this was a separate realm, a realm existing in a different space than that of Earth's. They are theoretically in the same universe, but located in different dimensions, aka, the realm.
With this information at hand, this further made me worried. What if they decided to attack earth? Their current population is several times less than this realm's population. Furthermore, from scouring the memories, Espers like himself were either treated 2 ways in Oz superkingdom: Death or torture. The espers in this realm came from a group of people From Oz that attempted to overthrow the political system, which then resulted to almost completely decimating the population of Oz, plunging it into chaos. From being stronger than the 3 other superkingdoms, the playing field levelled and everyone had almost the same power and influence, albeit Oz barely hanging on.
Later on, this group of people were killed by the protectors of Oz, who were espers as well, but not before thousands of them managed to escape to the lands of the 3rd superkingdom, the Dalton superkingdom. This superkingdom had animosity against Oz, and seeing that Oz was currently suffering, it took the opportunity to recruit the espers into his kingdom. It wasn't just Dalton that did this. Even the other superkingdoms, Faraday and Hershey, did the same. After all, this was a way to control with power.
While the espers in these 3 kingdoms flourished, while in Oz, a different way of developing powers became the norm, with technological advancement, using the countless bodies and research data from espers who rebelled.
This happened more than 4000 years ago, and yet Oz was still thriving and becoming stronger and stronger, not far from returning to their peak. However, the 3 superkingdoms were not stagnant and developed in their own ways as well.
Technological, Magical, Techno-Magical and Magi-technological. These were the 4 developments of Oz, Faraday, Hershey and Dalton superkingdoms respectively.
With the casual information, I already knew that I should escape from the territory of Oz as soon as possible. After all, it wasn't friendly at all with espers, except those of the royal family.
As I was thinking about this, I was interrupted with a notification from the system.
<Host, please recall that you have a mission in this superkingdom. Failure to complete the mission will result to a decrease in 5 levels as well as closing the crafting/forging function of the system.>
.... Damn it, got no choice then, I have to disguise myself. I checked the abilities available for disguising, and I immediately chose the one under water support skill tree, [Auric Cover].
[Auric Cover, lvl 5
Allows the caster to cover up any magical fluctuations below (1*Skill level)-Tier skills and abilities. Completely hides the soul fluctuations as well.
Can only be discovered by people whose level is 2*skill level higher than the caster.]
I saw my balance reach a value of negative 19,000 points, indicating my debt to the system. Damn capitalist system.
Oh well, at least with this skill, I would be able to cast my abilities without alerting others of my status as an esper beforehand. at the same time, only those whose levels were 22 or higher would be able to detect the fluctuations.
As I nodded in satisfaction, another notification appeared from the system.
<Checking the laws of the realm...complete.>
<Upgrading Base system functions...complete.>
<Upgrading Battle interface...complete. Battle interface 1.1 is used in this realm.>
<Upgrading system map functions...complete.>
<Modifying system inventory functions... complete.>
Instantly, the interface changed its general UI, as well as the map.
Instead of only showing white dots all over, indicating that they were non aggressive organisms, the system map now displayed their current star ranking.
I tried it out and was surprised to see that the battle system finally works.
[Dark Gold Bear, 2.5-star
HP: 145000/145000
Non-aggressive, high vitality. Becomes aggressive when facing enemies threatening its family/community.]
[Snowfur Rabbit, 3-star
HP: 23000/23000
Fast, non aggressive. Contains the bloodline of [Divine Arctic Fox] and [Bloodfire Rabbit].
When targeted, exhibits extreme speed surpassing the speed of sound. It has a tough body.]
I was scared and surprised at the same time. I was lucky that the beasts I saw earlier and killed were originally non-aggressive. Weirdly though, why were they ranked so high even if they were quite weak in combat power?
After a few minutes of thinking, I realized it now. Beasts here had specialized powers and strengths when compared with that of the beasts on earth. On earth, strength was also just a factor of the star ranking; the beasts had specialties suc as the snake I saw in the desert whose specialty was the venom and the jumping ability it had.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone