Spark City

More than two hundred years is a long stretch of history.

For those in the family who wished to follow him and could steel their hearts to persist in cultivation, Karl would provide a boost to their training. Although it was not much—only 1%—it still represented a glimmer of hope for breaking through to become a Level 7 Warrior.

However, just because power had not corrupted Karl himself did not mean it could not corrupt his descendants.

The sky is held up by the tall, or so many in the Taros Family thought these days. Those with talent might still persevere, but the majority felt their aptitude was merely average and gradually gave up on cultivation.

Initially, Karl provided a cultivation speed boost to every family member, but as time passed, he grew indifferent. He remained generous to those willing to train, but as for those who reached the level of a Level 2 or 3 Warrior and then chose to indulge in luxury, Karl's points did not come from thin air. Everyone has their own fate, and Karl had come to accept that.

As the five people arrived, Karl did not speak, for there were others yet to come.

After another moment, several middle-aged, sturdy men walked in from outside the courtyard, covered in the dust of travel. There were eight of them in total, representing all the Level 7 Warriors currently in Spark Town.

As for those who had reached the level of Level 8 Warrior, they did exist, but those individuals were the geniuses of the territory who had joined other factions at a young age. They rarely enjoyed the support of the territory, and Karl had no intention of calling them back.

Once everyone had taken their seats and turned their gazes toward him, Karl spoke slowly.

"The situation in the Anlan Kingdom has changed. I originally had no desire to get involved, but I have now broken through to the Saint Realm." Having said this, Karl paused. Seeing the expressions of wild joy on their faces, he continued, "I intend to move Spark Town to the west and establish a city."

"We await your command." The group was ecstatic, their excitement so overwhelming that their speech became slightly slurred.

Karl understood their thoughts. After entrusting the matter to his eldest son, he waved his hand, signaling for them to withdraw.

His eldest son had been managing the affairs of the territory for over a hundred years; as long as he gave the order for expansion, there would naturally be ways to see it through.

Karl did not concern himself with the details, but he pondered the fact that a Level 2 Territory could register one million people—twenty times the capacity of a Level 1 Territory—and wondered how to manage such a population.

The family, consisting of Karl's blood relatives, had no limit on numbers, but they had to bear the name Taros to receive the family's cultivation boost. Consequently, the number of people in the Taros Family had remained small over the past two hundred years.

However, the territory was different. A Level 1 Territory had a cap of only fifty thousand people. Even though Spark Town had nearly a million inhabitants, in reality, the only ones Karl could register were those who had reached the level of a Level 3 Warrior or had the potential to do so.

Now that the scale of the territory was increasing, Karl needed to fill this twenty-fold increase in capacity as much as possible, something the current Spark Town could not achieve on its own.

Therefore, expansion became a necessity.

"We will incorporate the nearby towns and villages; let's reach a population of ten million first. This way, the number of Level 3 Warriors will also increase significantly. As for whether we occupy an entire province later, we will see how things go after the city is built."

A city's actual population is usually only between several hundred thousand and a million, but as a city-level entity, it naturally encompasses the surrounding towns and villages.

In reality, without the basic medical care and favorable living environment Karl provided for the territory, it would be impressive for a town to have even a hundred thousand people.

It was not that Karl did not want to take a single step to control an entire province, but his foundation was insufficient.

Currently, he was the only Saint Realm powerhouse in all of Spark Town, and below him were only eight Level 7 Warriors. Dreaming of controlling a province with only Level 7 Warriors was nothing more than a fantasy.

After all, a territory relies on numbers, but according to the system's settings, the requirement for being registered is that one must sincerely acknowledge Spark Town, or the future Spark City.

Those who do not sincerely acknowledge it cannot be considered residents of the territory by the system.

This had been a source of frustration for Karl in the past. His own talent was mediocre, so his descendants rarely possessed high-quality aptitude. Even with a Battle Qi Manual that could lead one directly to the ninth level, he could not produce many Level 7 Warriors.

This situation was very common in the Yulan Continent. Many families declined because the person with the highest talent obtained a high-quality Battle Qi Manual, but their successors were unable to unleash the full power of that manual.

Generation after generation, their strength naturally grew weaker.

To avoid this as much as possible, many families chose to marry into other clans. Especially for the nobility, an accidental genius was often considered less valuable than a wastrel with noble blood.

Winter passed and spring returned. Karl watched the peach tree in front of his mansion; the flowers bloomed and withered, the cold winter passed, and they bloomed again. This cycle repeated three times.

Only then did Karl see his son.

"Father, Spark City has now been established. We are just waiting for you to choose an auspicious day to make the name of Spark City known," Lin said with an excited expression.

The establishment of Spark City was not difficult, as the foundation of Spark Town was already nearly a million people. It was merely a relocation, shifting the center of gravity closer to the heart of the kingdom.

In Lin's mind, his father was now a Saint Realm powerhouse and could not possibly serve as the city lord, so he himself was the undisputed first city lord of Spark City.

Within the family, his father did not value power, but he was not an only child. He still had several brothers, even if those brothers had not worked hard at their cultivation and had passed away long ago.

However, they had descendants, and among the five Level 7 Warriors in the family, only he and his grandson were Level 7 Warriors from his own lineage.

The descendants of his younger brothers also each had a Level 7 Warrior holding down the fort.

He was now two hundred and forty years old. Although a Level 7 Warrior's lifespan is extended, it is only two or three hundred years at most.

He did not have many years left to live. Although the town was large in the past, the power was limited, and Lin had more or less looked after the descendants of his brothers.

But now that his father had achieved the Saint Realm, such an existence would no longer be limited by lifespan. In the future, after he died, a hundred years would pass, and the bonds of kinship would naturally fade.

His father would be the high and mighty ancestor of the family, but who would hold power in Spark City?

It would depend on who was more capable.

After all, Lin was over two hundred years old. Once his own sons passed away, he would only value his grandson, who was also a Level 7 Warrior. As for the generation of his great-grandchildren, Lin himself did not pay much attention to them.

Putting himself in his father's shoes, Lin realized that living a long life inevitably led to a certain detachment from the bonds of blood and kinship.