The entire election lasted for more than a month, so when the ordeal was over, Ian breathed a sigh of relief. He wanted to celebrate with his family, but even his parents had already left and went on vacation to another universe despite his objections.
Eventually, he had to accept that his family had their own lives and that he had no control over them. So, he became a controlling protective freak and created countless protective measures for his parents in case something happened to them.
He went into a room where his aunt was waiting for him.
"That was a wonderful speech and a perfect display of strength," Amelia said with a smile. Through this election, Imperial Family's power will reach a new height, not to mention their popularity in the hearts of the people.
"You think so too," Ian replied, then sat across from her and poured a glass of wine for the two of them.
"How's it going?" he asked.
"Overall, things are going well," Amelia replied, showing him a bunch of data on the Empire's current situation.
"There should be a 'but', right?"
"Yes," she nodded. "There are two proposals that come up repeatedly in Council, no matter how many times I vote against them.
"The first is Merit-for-Crimes Act, and the bill allows the use of Arcane Merit to offset their crimes."
"That's understandable. Since these people have god-like powers, they naturally want to be above the law," Ian replied with a sneer. "Do you need me to send Ghost Squad to visit them?"
"No need," Amelia chuckled. "We already have a plan to deal with them."
Ian looked at the data and nodded.
The plan is to launch a system-wide media smear campaign against those who support the deal, or who are powerful arcanists trying to lobby the Senate to pass the bill. The Empire will reveal their identities to the public, destroy their reputations, and drag them into the mud.
"This is an excellent solution. What's the other bill?"
"Some people advocate legalizing the slave trade," Amelia replied with a frown. "Mainly clones and undead, but the list also includes other races and species."
"Get rid of these people," Ian said bluntly. "We are about to open up access to the Astral Realm. If we don't regulate this, once these people are able to control the entire plane, the underground slave trading business will flourish."
"This is my plan, I just need your signature."
Ian nodded and signed the order.
"The last thing is, we need to clean up Dark Star."
"Is it that time again?"
Empire is not Utopia. Although it has made progress in ending world wars, eradicating global hunger, and curing all conventional diseases, the human heart is ultimately unfathomable.
Therefore, things like crime and evil nature still exist and can be said to have become rampant due to the power of Arcanist.
Therefore, members of Think Tank came up with an ingenious idea: since crime cannot be completely eliminated, then control it.
So Empire secretly established a black market - a place where all evil Arcanist, slave traders, drug dealers, contraband smugglers, mercenaries, assassins, gangsters, desperadoes, and anyone who doesn't like to abide by strict rules and regulations are gathered.
No one knows that this Empire dark underground world was actually established by the government to control crime. Every once in a while, the government will "discover" this underground world and clean it up. However, a few months later, a new underground world will reopen, repeating the same cycle.
Over the past 20 years, Dark Star has been cleaned and reopened three times.
"Just go ahead and do it. If you need to mobilize Royal Guard, you can give the order directly."
"That's not necessary," Amelia replied. If the Navy can't deal with a planet full of desperadoes, then they are useless and need to be replaced.
The two continued to talk about business for a while, then stopped and changed the subject.
"I wonder how Susan is doing now," Amelia said. Although this little girl has parents, Amelia has always treated her as her own child.
"<Yu-Gi-Oh!>'s world itself is not dangerous. So, as long as she doesn't encounter any accidents in Void, she will be fine."
If something happened to her, they would have sensed it a long time ago. Therefore, Susan should have arrived at its destination by now and is studying those creatures to create and perfect Card Summoning Magic.
"What about you? Are you interested in visiting other worlds?"
"There are still many mysteries in this world waiting for me to solve, so there is no need for it at the moment," she replied with a smile. "Besides, someone has to stay and take charge of the overall situation."
"If you think so, that's fine. But don't let power control you."
"You know me better than anyone, I won't become like that."
She is now one of the people who wields great power in the Empire. However, despite this, she still persists in her magical research to ensure that she is as powerful as possible, while maintaining her curiosity and pursuit of knowledge.
The reason why she sticks to this position is because Empire is like her child, and she has watched it grow from scratch.
Ian and most Imperial Family members are not keen on running the country, so someone needs to keep an eye on it to prevent problems.
"That's good," Ian nodded and watched his aunt leave. Not long after, Itachi appeared in the room.
"What were the results of the investigation?"
"The gods summoned a Divine Grade weapon from the Outer Realm to descend on Material Plane. They used its power to tear a gap in our defense network and contacted a Arcanist named Chu."
A screen appeared in front of Ian, showing a new race with Crystal eyes.
"He exchanged information for the sacred Grace, which quickly increased his strength from Fifth Tier to Ninth Tier. According to our analysis, their plan may be for him to seize the throne and create chaos."
"How much information was leaked?" Ian asked with a frown.
"Luck The thing is that Chu didn't explain everything, he tried to bargain for more benefits," Itachi replied. Ian was relieved to see that the information about Floating City and some important matters were not leaked.
"Are you sure he's the only person they have contact with?"
"Chu didn't know anything about it, so we're still investigating."
"Use all the resources you need to get to the bottom of this matter."
"As commanded."
"How are the expansion plans going?"
"Everything is going smoothly, but we still need more time to build a spy network covering the entire universe."
"Any specific plans?"
"My goal is to control an existing organization. Unfortunately, this plane's top espionage faction has direct ties to some powerful Tenth Tier Ancient Gods, so we cannot control their souls or use any other form of means."
Believers are difficult to deal with because they have no fear of death. Even if you threaten them with their loved ones, they will not hesitate to commit suicide in order to ascend to the Divine Kingdom of their god and gain eternal peace.
"Take your time. Once we crack the secret of Soul Flame, we may be able to solve the problem of these gods controlling the souls of their believers," Ian comforted.
"Your Majesty, how is the progress?"
"I've made tremendous progress over the past 20 years. However, it's not nearly enough."
"That's such a shame," Itachi said before retreating.
"Morgana," Ian continued. "If the gods used Divine Grade weapons to penetrate the fog, shouldn't the relevant departments be aware of this change?"
"Yes. The energy used to maintain the operation of the fog will increase significantly, thus warning us."
Ian created three Tenth Tier Super-solid Aether Core to provide energy for the fog that protects Milky Way Galaxy. He also set up a special department for round-the-clock monitoring, so it is abnormal to fail to detect this invasion in advance.
"Find out what happened."
"Please wait." A few minutes later, "The energy peak was indeed detected, but someone neglected their duties and failed to report the problem in time."
Ian snorted, "Whoever it is, fire them."
"As you wish," House-elf replied. "If you had used state-of-the-art artificial intelligence in the department's systems, none of this would have happened."
"For safety reasons, it is better to use human processing in this case," Ian replied. Despite the current situation, data shows that in terms of security measures, using responsible people is safer than using artificial intelligence.
"What's my next trip?" he asked, changing the subject.
"Chris has made some progress in his research. You can go meet him."
"Okay."