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After about an hour, the upgrade was finally completed and the brilliant golden light faded. Haru looked up at his palace. After Angel City ascended to become an Imperial Capital, it also expanded, becoming extremely grand, over a thousand meters tall, worthy of being an Imperial Palace. Right on cue, a system prompt from the GM appeared before his eyes.
[Your territory Angel City has been upgraded to become an Intermediate Imperial Capital, the territory directly under the imperial capital has been expanded to 10,000 kilometers, and the sphere of influence has been increased to 50,000 kilometers!]
[The Dynasty Heart's defense value has been increased tenfold!]
[Your kingdom's influence and prestige value in the Endless Continent has greatly increased!]
"Ten thousand kilometers of direct territory…" Haru's eyes narrowed slightly. When Angel City became a Primary Imperial Capital, part of the Dark Forest still lay outside his coverage area, but now, the Imperial Capital swallowed it whole.
No Dark Forest exists on the Endless Continent now, only a kingdom named Great Aetherium. His capital now truly unified the four vast regions under its shadow—the Death Swamp, the Wilderness, the Endless Prairies, and the Andes Highlands.
"That's insane," He muttered, half in awe. A capital ten thousand kilometers in diameter was truly beyond his imagination.
Something like this never existed back on Earth and even here on the Endless Continent, only the other local Empires' imperial capitals could compare to it. It could only materialize out of nowhere because of the GM's mysterious powers.
"Shame I don't have the resources to go straight to an Advanced Imperial Capital…" Haru sighed, pulling up the updated status panel, "Still, stopping here for now isn't the worst of my worries."
[Aetherium Kingdom]
[Territory level: Intermediate Imperial Capital]
[Direct Territory: 10,000 kilometers in diameter]
[Sphere of Influence: 50,000 kilometers in diameter]
[Buildings: Warehouse, Residential Buildings, Noble Courtyards, Small Elven Gardens, City Walls, Watchtowers, Crafting Forge, Furnaces, Moats…]
[Special Buildings: Angel Reincarnation Pool, Elven Mother Tree, Holy Light Temple, Altar of Faith, Space Teleportation Magic Array, Holy Monastery, Dragon Island, Golden Beamon Palace…]
[Current Faction: Bright, Good, Lawful]
[Next level: Advanced Imperial City]
[Upgrade requirements: 50 billion units of Wood, 30 billion units of Stone, 20 billion units of Refined Iron]
[Current Status (Warehouse): Invincible]
"Next level up requires a clean hundred billion units of resources…" Haru checked and found that he only had a collective twenty billion units, "Meh, we seem to be a 'little' short. Even if we strip Death Swamp bare, that won't be enough, which means the rest can only come from wars with the native empires."
He thought of something and asked the GM, "Why does the status panel still show the Great Aetherium as a kingdom? How exactly do I establish an Empire?"
[Since the Angel City is already an Imperial Capital, the Aetherium Kingdom has fulfilled one of the two conditions required to become an empire. You can now simply establish an empire by upgrading the Dynasty Heart into an Imperial Heart.]
"Upgrade Dynasty Heart, how do we do that?"
[By fusing it with Dynasty Heart Fragments. It can speed up the upgrade progress!]
"Got it." Haru took out a pile of [Dynasty Heart Fragments] from his storage ring, sixty-eight in total. The Royal Army destroyed sixty-eight dynasties across the Endless Prairies and the Andes Highlands.
"Let's see if that's enough to push Dynasty Heart up to Imperial Heart." He murmured and walked into the newly expanded Imperial Palace.
After the upgrade, this palace was easily large enough to hold hundreds of thousands of people at once. Even the Golden Beamon God Zylo, several hundred meters tall, could stroll through the halls without shrinking his body.
Haru gave the vast interior a quick once-over, then headed toward the core, where the [Dynasty Heart] stood like a massive golden stele.
"My Lord!" Three figures stepped out of the void, cloaked in golden divine light, and bowed. They were all Zodiac God Angels—Stella (Virgo), Gemina (Gemini) and Vespera (Taurus). All of them were assigned to one task during peacetime, that is to guard the Dynasty Heart.
Unlike some idiots, Haru never left the Dynasty Heart unguarded. Even if all the Gods were locked in battle, multiple peak Demigod Tier Four-Winged Angels would always stand guard here because once it was destroyed, he would lose the qualifications of a Castle Lord. That would result in him losing the ability to recruit troops daily, which was a kind of loss that couldn't be measured.
He gave them a small nod. Compared to the rest of his Angelic, the Zodiac God Angels came wearing golden armor, equipped with a golden shield in one hand and a golden spear in the other, their radiant wings blazing like sunlight. In terms of visual impact, only the terrifying, corrupt aura of Fallen Angels could stand beside them.
Haru said casually, "Stay on your guard."
"As you command, Lord Almighty!" The three bowed in perfect sync and faded back into the void.
Haru stepped closer to the golden stele of [Dynasty Heart], clutching the fragments in his hand.
[Detected Dynasty Heart Fragments! Do you want to integrate them into the Dynasty Heart?]
[Yes] [No]
"Yes." The fragments turned into streaks of golden light and sank into the Dynasty Heart one by one. With each integration, Haru could feel the 'luck' of the Great Aetherium tick upward. As more and more pieces merged, that subtle rise became a surge.
A kingdom's luck was a concept hard to explain, but impossible to ignore. It kept the weather stable, thickened the life force within the territory, extending the natural lifespan of the citizens and amplified the amount of mana in the territory.
In short, the greater the luck, the longer a kingdom could endure across generations. In desperate situations, that luck could even be 'burned' to blunt disasters, but if luck truly dried up, a calamity usually followed which could be a massive natural disaster, an unstoppable enemy, or some other terminal blow. Thus, a kingdom's luck wasn't mere decoration, it was their foundation.
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