Alexander Smith
Alex let out a sigh of relief as he finally breakthrough to the third major realm. Given his family's current financial success in the lower realm, he could have reach this step earlier if he had use supporting cultivation resources lavishly to speed up the progress. Stacking up cultivation resources to speed up cultivation speed might be a normal practice for the rich and power clans but that only applies to those with mediocre talent.
Alex's nominal master has explicitly warned him and Joshua never be blinded by short term gain leading to a major complication, years down the road. With his grade three cultivation talent (another privilege secret revealed to him by his master), he will never face any cultivation bottleneck before hitting the fifth major. Although his high cultivation talent allows him to enjoy a smooth sailing experience at the lower cultivation major realms, it does come with one hidden danger. Progressing to quickly will lead to a shaky cultivation foundation and this will limit his future growth down the road. Just like building a high rise building, there is a limit how high a skyscraper can go when the foundation has not been properly laid. With a solid foundation, the sky is the limit.
This is one hidden danger Alex has no reason complain about. The majority of the cultivators out there have worry about progressing too slowly causing them to miss the best time to breakthrough to the next major realm. He would have been buried alive by the scorn and hatred of the cultivation world if he ever dares to "boast" about such an "inconvenience".
"Congratulation bro for finally hitting the third major realm!" Joshua declares loudly the moment Alex steps out of his room. "Outside of the royal family, we can now contend against any of the noble families. Even the two dukes will have to be wary of our family now."
"You need to reign in your excitement. It is always good for our enemies to underestimate us. I don't see a need to reveal Alex's cultivation realm unless it is absolutely necessary." Edward quickly interjects to keep his cousin's excitement in check. "But you are right, I am so much more at ease now that Alex is in the third major realm. We have so much more options on the table now. In another Earth month, even the royal family will no longer be a threat. As long as we don't misplay our hands and the entire kingdom gang up against us, our family will finally become untouchable in the local area."
"We should stick to the plan." Alex joints in. "There is no reason for us to rock the boat too much with all the new development that's happening back on Eldorin."
Now that the sect has open up space colonization, Alex's family doesn't have much of a choice but to revise their development strategy. In the original plan, the idea is to grow their territory on Varune over time, expand their influence over other noble families before overthrowing the royal family as the local sovereign. It is no longer worth the trouble now that his nominal master has an entire star system in his possession. As such, Jean has generously bestowed upon his family a large territory.
The star system that has yet to be named has two planets in the goldilocks zone. The third planet is almost similar in size to Venus in the solar system while the fourth planet is almost the size of Uranus. The fourth planet can be ignored for now since most of its parameters to sustain life are largely out of range and will take years of terraforming effort to make it habitable. The third planet on the other hand only needs minimal intervention and the surface area will soon be habitable. The gravity of the third planet is almost similar to Earth and the atmosphere will be breathable after another few months of adjustment. Once the first stage of the terraforming is completed, it can be classified as a desert planet. Ten freshwater super lakes have already been created to become the planet's first oases and the cradle of life where human habitation will begin. Just like back on Earth, the environment will be highly unpleasant but great civilization like ancient Egypt has once flourish in such an environment. There is no reason the same can't be achieve on this desert planet especially when its new inhabitants can rely on their cultivation strength to overcome any difficulties.
Due to Jean's generosity, one of the oases belongs to Alex's family. Living it undeveloped is not an option unless the family wants to forgo future generosity from Jean. Their territory on the desert planet is vast and his family easily build a kingdom a few times larger than Varune or even an empire. Fighting over that small island is no longer worth the effort for his family. Now, the only snag in the whole equation towards his family's grand imperial ambition comes down to population. The whole craze over immigrants has escalated a few notches ever since spaceship technology matures.
Fortunately for Alex's family, they now have their own permanent avenue to obtain immigrants. Not only does the nobles on Varune underappreciate the population they have, the same applies to the entire world of Hycean as well. Sure, the numbers of new immigrants His family can secure aren't anything to shout about right now but once the family's new plan has been fully implemented, it should theoretically be possible for them to secure at least a million new immigrants each year.
The first important step to this new plan involves taking over the Barony of Milton. They need the port town access the entire world. If not for the fact that Charles is a petty egoistical self-entitled noble that can't be trusted, Alex would probably consider working with his neighbor instead. Without the open conflict, it would save his family from a whole load of problems, greatly accelerating their development plan. Contrary to an ideal scenario, his greedy neighbor had been plotting against his barony the moment something worth stealing is revealed. It is probably for this same reason that his neighbor has been delaying declaring war on his barony to conquer it.
Right after the third pirate incursion, Joshua has lobbied for the royal family and the two dukes' protection. The spirit stones and alchemy pills are just icing to the cake. What truly got their attention are the spirit batteries. The royal family and the two dukes managed to keep their expression in-check when the spirit battery's function was first introduced but the nefarious greed in their eyes was plain obvious. That is even when his family has been cautious enough not to introduce anything high-end. The spirit batteries given as bribe is only useful to those in the second major realm. For those in the third major realm, it would at best replenish a percent of their spirit energy reserve. Regardless, those so-called high nobles are behaving as expected and has in fact fell right into his family's ploy.
To keep up the act that Alex's family has a secret channel for spirit batteries, the family has "sneakily" been sending out a caravel in the middle of the night sailing away from the barony every three months. For those with cultivation below the third major realm, ships are the main transportation ferrying them across the vast oceans on Hycean. Second major realm cultivators have the ability to take flight but given their spirit energy reserve, they would have run dry before reaching the next island.
In any case, three mysterious third major realm cultivators started to shadow the caravel less than an hour after it has set sail. Once the bait has been taken, his family's caravel activated a scroll that instantaneously teleported the ship away. It will only sound plausible if the family has taken measure to shake of any pursuit. The scroll energy signature will reveal that it is only a level two teleportation scroll. With a range of less than a hundred mile, it will give the three third major realm cultivators false hope that the caravel escape direction can still be found. Over the past twelve months, those three third major realm cultivators have been frantically searching for the caravel all over the ocean each time it left the barony without any success. After two weeks, the caravel will then return "sneakily" under the cover darkness. However, none of these three third major realm cultivators could ever imagine that the caravel has each time teleported back to a hidden basement under the family's fortress and spent two weeks idling there before returning. Finding the ship has never been possible in the first place.
"Those high nobles have failed to discover our trade channels four times now. I do hope they won't give up until Joshua and I reach the third major realm too." Joshua wishfully says. "Those high nobles are no different than bandits and only respect strength. The three of us revealing our strength should be more than enough to intimidate them into leaving our family alone."