The Runic Artist Chapter 49: Chapter 368 - Sourcing a Future

Read chapter 49 of The Runic Artist by Ellake on NovelPedia.

Nate checked the world-spanning runic array for the fifth time. In the years since his marriage, Galle had changed. The new status quo had resulted in an explosion of wealth driven by mana and, for the most part, the various countries and factions had followed the guidelines proposed by himself, Kiri, and Morgane. If he was being honest, most of them were Morgane’s ideas. Kiri was immensely skilled at accumulating wealth but only average, by her own words, at distributing wealth. As for Nate himself, he’d laid down a few requirements for Morgane to attempt to institute, rather than actually coming up with the how himself. He had joked on more than one occasion that he might be a decent artist, but he was a terrible Emperor. Being a figurehead though, that he could do, under duress of course. Not everyone had been willing to fall in line. The country of Jakiria, that had once existed to the east of Gashana, had been willing to bend the knee to Nate’s will in word but not in practice. Instead, they’d hoarded their wealth among the already rich and powerful, all the while attempting a research project to develop a weapon with the purpose of killing Nate. He knew this because he’d watched them do it on more than one occasion. The weapon itself would’ve failed utterly, but it turned out that the Devotees of the Artist had gotten quite a bit more organised over the years and had spies in Jakiria. When they learned of the plot, they declared a holy war and nothing would stop them but Nate’s word. So, he gave a few words. He told them to spare the populace, but the leaders of Jakiria were fair game. Thankfully, that was the only major event between the various countries and factions of Galle. It was not, however, the only major event to occur. Nate checked his mana concentration readings again, as he’d done every day for the last three years. “How much is it out by?” asked Kiri. “Still eighty-two percent,” replied Nate. Kiri just grunted like he was telling her it was cloudy outside. When Nate had created the mana fonts for Galle, he’d been very careful to design them so that the speed at which the portal in them widened would be consistent. The desired outcome had been a very specific amount of ambient mana that each one would emit. Either his calculations had been wrong, which he found doubtful, or the Source of Mana was releasing an increasing amount into their Reality and had been ramping up for the last three years since he first noticed the disparity. “Kali’Terra warned you it was worsening, didn’t they?” poked Kiri, rehashing an old debate. Nate nodded, allowing her to believe he was letting go rather than agonising over his failure to plan for this eventuality. He had expected an increase, even included that variance in his mana font designs, but the change in the concentration of mana around the Source was far outside any of his expectations. “So, we doing this or not?” she asked. “Got somewhere better to be?” he joked. “I promised to help go deal with a couple of monster waves to give Aisling and Evindal a break.” Nate nodded. That too had become an ever increasing issue. The beast tides were a frequent occurrence, their rate of breeding vastly accelerated by the increased ambient mana. Not a single year went by without most cities having to defend against a beast tide. Most villages had long since been abandoned, the sapient races of Galle flocking to cities where the new ambient mana was more than enough to feed, clothe, and house all. Cities that had once peaked at four or five storey buildings now towered at fifteen or more, the masses of humanity huddling together around the proverbial fire only to sally forth in great numbers to cleanse the zones around their cities. Thankfully, the new and improved Adventurer’s Guild was there to help. With the cities and nations of Galle connected by a portal network that now spanned the globe, the Gem-Ranked Adventurers, who had once numbered only a handful but were becoming more