Idle Mage: Humanity's Strongest Backer-Novel

[Beneficiary]

[Morning Sun Federation]

Type: Governmental Office

Enhancements Available: 80+

Upgrade Paths: 5

Statistics:

Workforce Satisfaction: 75%

Work Efficiency: +45%

Security: Good

Talent Development/Attraction: +50%

Current Trend: Positive

Subsidiary Force: Crossford Tech Inc.

***

It's been roughly a month since Ashton successfully took in Manny, and his company, as his Beneficiary. While he didn't get any rewards for taking them in, this month had been very productive still.

First and foremost, the cult was completely purged. All of its believers had been arrested and imprisoned where doctors were working to neutralize their fanaticism.

Free from the dangers of the cult, the curfews and lockdowns were lifted. It was a slow and tentative move but it worked and slowly improved the mood of the citizens.

Now, it's like nothing happened. Fantasia was active again and its people feel satisfied. It hasn't been long since peace has returned but they have hopes that it'd continue from this point onwards.

During this month, Ashton was extremely busy. He doesn't even have time to sleep most of the time.

With him modifying some laws for a grand reform while also teaching all he knows to Manny when it comes to the new technology, it's to be expected that his schedule will be packed.

Thankfully, their progress was noticeable. At least their efforts were going somewhere visible.

By now, Manny was ready to take over the ARC City Project. Ashton had already given him the necessary tools and resources to start the project. As for the workers though, Manny would have to recruit people on his own. Ashton had placed his trust in him, hopefully, he knows what to do.

It wasn't just these two who had been busy though. Technically, everyone in the Federation was extremely busy.

With the enhancements he bought so far, the work efficiency of his employees improved by up to 45%.

The employees themselves couldn't tell that things have gotten different. If anything, the most they noticed is the fact that recently, the office had been rather productive and that's it.

Ashton added a lot of system-enchanted stuff in the headquarters as well as the branch offices which unknowingly increased the employees' work efficiency and workplace satisfaction.

It's a little overwhelming to think that there's still so much more he could add in due time.

As a result of the increase in work efficiency, the operations, and processes that the federation was responsible for, also became much faster. In turn, this is hastening the improvement of Fantasia as a whole.

The improvements come in tiny increments that are bound to stack up in time. So overall, the current trend would, of course, be positive.

His other beneficiaries weren't slacking either...

Mary, Alice, and Blake are currently still training. Though they're in it for a long haul.

Recently, Ashton developed a 'Game' using the VR Pods and the Simulation Zone of the System.

This 'Game' is based on his journey in the Outside World. From the moment City M was destroyed and transported to the opposite end of the world up to his return back home.

He included a lot of his experiences there. The enemies are based on the real enemies he faces during his journey back home. He also left out information about the Status Quo of the world there. Of course, he filtered some information that could potentially expose the existence of the System but for the rest, he left them in there.

And after he compiled all of this, he made the trio play in full immersion. Meaning that they won't be waking up unless they completed the game he prepared for them.

This is his way of revealing the truth he knows to them. More specifically, Alice and Mary. Blake doesn't need to be reminded but since he already knew everything but him knowing that Humanity never forgot his achievements, thanks to the existence of the Grand Archives, might allow him to settle down his past regrets.

So far, all three of them are still stuck in the very first area. He had seen their attempts and to be completely honest, they are doing much better than he initially did. That's understandable though since he was too young back then and too unprepared. However, this entire experience should still be extremely helpful to them.

Ashton had no idea how long they were going to take but it's fine, they can take their time, nurturing geniuses like they are was bound to be time-consuming anyway.

The more important thing he should pay attention to was the development of his own force and the reforms for the Federation as a whole.

In six-months time, Manny should be able to complete ARC City Project. By that point, the Federation should have all the available enhancements available, even better if it has been upgraded to a new state entirely.

The five upgrade paths available to the Morning Sun Federation are: Council of Saints, Roundtable Hold, Heavenly Thrones, 9 Guardian Pillars, and the Resplendent Dawn Council.

Each upgrade brings out different pros and cons yet all of them will allow the Federation to become a better leading figure for Humanity in a while. Of course, the requirements for each upgrade were steep as well.

Amongst the upgrades, Ashton picked the Resplendent Dawn upgrade path.

***

[Resplendent Dawn]

Hope never falls. Faith never wavers. Will never breaks.

+ 100% Work Efficiency and Workforce Satisfaction.

+ 100% Talent Attraction and Security.

Trend always remains positive.

Steadfast Domain - an all-protection dome that covers up the entire territory.  Uses Hope and Faith of its citizens as fuel.

Requirements:

Mysterious Rainbow Mageroot Holder

Citizen Satisfaction: 98%

1 ARC Core

System Dependent AI

***

This upgrade path will essentially change the federation to its best form.

The requirements are steep but Ashton believed that he could achieve all of this. Half of it, he already has — the Mysterious Rainbow Mageroot and the ARC Core.

As for the System Dependant AI, it's referring to Jerry in particular.

He won't lie, he had totally forgotten about Jerry's upgrade. He had been so busy that he didn't have the time to look after him.

Ashton already had the remaining materials needed for the upgrade and he promised himself that he'd get into it soon.

Now, for the last requirement, which might also prove to be the hardest to achieve. The Citizens' Satisfaction reaching 98%.

That is a very tall order. Especially that currently, humanity is still in the process of recovery.

In the meantime, the System had provided a way for Ashton to measure the current level of satisfaction of Fantasia's citizens, and so far the results weren't optimal.

The overall satisfaction only reached a measly 35%, which might as well be nothing. In fact, a few days ago, this was at 20%, which is at a very dangerous level, borderline hopeless even. The only reason why it improved was because of the riddance of curfews and lockdowns.

It says that the trend was on the positive side, meaning that it should rise a little bit more during the next couple of days, but honestly? That won't fly.

35% to 98% simply seem like a chasm, especially knowing that the higher it gets the harder it would be to increase it.

This is why Ashton needed to develop new ways to pacify the hearts of his people and reforge their faith in the Federation's power.

He had a lot of areas to improve upon: resources, food, shelter, entertainment, security, and so on. He also has sufficient time on his hands so he could slowly make his movements.

That being said, life hardly works in somebody's favor.

He should be expecting the unexpected. He knows that while his plans might be inclusive of many variables, something can still go wrong and he should be prepared for it.

It wasn't just him who was going to be busy. He shouldn't expect the invaders to stand still. In fact, he should always remain wary of them because Humanity is far from being their match currently.

Humanity's development had been thwarted time and time again due to the simple fact that there is no leading figure strong enough to secure it. Now though, Ashton was here.

And with him serving as the last line of defense, plus his several arrangements in place, Humanity can resume its development once more and could even go faster than before.

It's still going to be difficult to catch up to the invaders but so long as Ashton was here, it will happen. They just needed time.

Ashton was, of course, also looking for more talents to recruit. Again, the more Beneficiaries he has, the more rewards he will get. And the stronger they are, the better the rewards he will get, meaning that he could potentially get something so ridiculous to help with his overall goal.

The Talent Development/Attraction stat on the Federation's file represents the likelihood of employees developing talents toward their work or the Federation attracting Talented People to work there.

He's looking for diamonds in the rough who had a great attitude. So long as he deems them as having potential, he wouldn't hesitate to offer them a contract. Again, this is all for his overall goal.

All in all, he'd remain busy for the foreseeable future, and like many people use to say...

Time flies when you're distracted.