There were eight councilors in total. At first, their powers had indeed been equal, but after all these years, five of them could temporarily be ignored. The reason was that those five councilors were merely there to make up the numbers, with very little real authority in their hands.
It would also be wrong to say they had no power at all. When a council meeting was held, the five of them gathered together and could barely count as one vote.
The remaining three councilors held real power. They were:
Puli's father, the Councilor of the Holy Realm. He was the oldest of them, supposedly already 179 years old. After becoming a councilor, he could no longer use his own name. Every councilor had their own medallion, following a tradition established by Emperor Okaz.
Even though the four kingdoms had split apart, Emperor Okaz's portrait still remained on the coins. That could never be changed unless a second empire was established.
The Council Hall's predecessor had inherited the council system established by Emperor Okaz. Originally, there had been eight councilors beneath Emperor Okaz, and there were still eight now. The eight medallions had been passed down to the present day: the Holy Realm, the Frost Serpent, the Rose, and so on.
Apart from the Councilor of the Holy Realm—the old councilor—the remaining two were the Councilor of the Frost Serpent and the Councilor of the Rose.
The Councilor of the Frost Serpent was cold and ruthless, truly like a cold-blooded animal. Yet his position was unshakable. When steam technology first appeared, he had overruled everyone else and forcibly recruited talents from the four kingdoms, gathering them together to study steam technology. That was how steam trains and the like had come into existence.
Almost every steam-powered product bore the Councilor