Free Citizens

As far as Lorist was concerned, there were only two major events in 1783 of the Galintea Continent Common Calendar that truly deserved his attention. The first was the Second Prince's already-completed coronation ceremony. Although the grand ceremony was now in the past, the unpleasant incidents during it and the wariness displayed by the Second Prince had caused the relationship between the Four Northern Families Alliance, led by the Norton Family, and the Second Prince to shift from friendly détente to tension and confrontation. This foretold that the future Krissen Empire would become an arena where two factions battled for supremacy. Until Lorist, the State-Protecting Sword Saint, and the Second Prince, the empire's emperor, determined who was superior, the empire's situation would not calm down.

The second major event was the completion of Bear King Palace outside Raging Bear City's East Gate. After three and a half years of construction, the painstaking labor of nearly two hundred thousand workers, and the meticulous work of several thousand skilled craftsmen, the magnificent Bear King Palace was finally finished. In this world of the Galintea Continent, there were no feudal rules against exceeding one's station. As long as a territorial noble had enough money and power, they could build a palace larger than the imperial palace as their residence. It displayed the strength of their family, left behind a famous family legacy for their descendants, and engraved their name in history. The Mercury Palace of the Handra Family and the Summer Palace of the Fulendo Family were examples.

What left Lorist both amused and exasperated was that when he had decided to build Bear King Palace, he had not intended to construct some great palace that would be remembered throughout history. His original purpose had been to solve the problem of overproduction at