"The paragons here today are numbered in the hundreds, yet the mage towers before you are twenty-four in number," Tide stated, his voice ringing clearly through the absolute silence. "That is to say, out of the forty sets of mage tower materials the world can ever sustain, twenty-four have already been consumed to craft the very spires you see right now. Towers that you all couldn't even afford to purchase, even if you emptied your national treasuries to the last coin."
The heavy, suffocating truth settled over the cloud-stands. The frantic anger and righteous indignation of moments before evaporated, replaced by a cold, stomach-churning realization.
Out of hundreds of paragon beings who had fought, climbed, and sacrificed to reach the summit of mortal power, only forty would ever hold the foundation of true dominion. And twenty-four of those seats were before them ready to be claimed even then they can't afford it. And it seems Tide already has a plan for these towers.
