The Training Hall was nestled away from the general population, hidden behind the walls of the Fort so that only those with the proper permissions could enter or make use of it.

Not so the City Hall. King Edward had insisted it be accessible to the public, like parts of the palace, and had donated an existing administrative building to the cause. After some construction, reworking the layout, and an infusion of mana, their central administrative hub was born.

Curson had taken one tour and moved her operations to the top floor. The two levels below that housed branches of the various Verilian institutions, those that would benefit from more data about the city, the public works commission, the city guards, and a few others.

The lowest level was open to the public for any queries they might have. Instead of hunting through a dozen different government buildings, or sending someone to quietly steal some records, a trained worker could query the Core and press the most up to date information onto paper for the citizen to leave with.

Convincing the King and the Council to store records in the Core had been easy. Convincing the Mayor of Verilia - a position Laurel hadn't even been aware existed – was harder. Her office was now on the third floor, despite insisting she should split the top floor with Curson.

Laurel found a respectable crowd for a government building when she arrived. It was still an administrative building, a dozen people waiting in lines at the various desks was a busy afternoon. The longest contained a few people she recognized as members of the Associated Press who worked with a few of the major publications around the City. Something she hadn't anticipated, reporters were some of the most avid users of the new system. Being able to query data about the city, even just the publicly available information, was like catnip to them.

Since she wasn't there for research of her own, she made her way around the central pillar towards the stairs. Another variation on the Core pedestal, this one held data about the city, available to those Laurel herself marked as trusted. It was also one of the main structural supports of the building, and had a diameter two meters wide. Laurel gave it a pat as she passed by and headed up to her meeting with Curson.

"We're already offering as many incentives as we can to members who are engaged in active teaching or taking apprentices. What else are you looking for?"

Laurel had a moment to observe the deep rings under Curson's eyes as the formidable woman leaned back to rub right where a sinus headache would form. "I know. It's not enough. We still have towns with no one to monitor the Core, or any beast waves that come in. We've kept it out of the papers for now, but one of the smaller hamlets way up in the mountains was wiped out by something. Most of the people made it over to the next village, but now we have refugees to relocate. And something that needs hunting, not that anyone can agree on what it actually was."

"I'll do some research and see if we have anything else. But cultivation has never been a fast path to power." Laurel saw her moment and pounced. "Speaking of which, Mansfeln wants more runs in the training hall each day."

"Mansfeln can get bent," Curson snapped.

Laurel's eyebrows rocketed towards her hairline. That was more attitude than the perfectly composed woman usually let slip out.

"Pardon me. There's no way that would work, unless I'm missing something?" She looked at Laurel hopefully, but she just shook her head and watched Curson's shoulders slump just the smallest bit. "I thought not. There are just too many draws on the same resource. Mana or anything else, it doesn't matter, there's never enough."

"It will get better when we reach a Capital The increased draw on the cosmic tides will have us back in a surplus."

"And are we close to reaching that stage?"

Then it was Laurel's turn to sigh. "No. I mean we're making great progress. But not enough. It usually takes decades, you know. I'm trying to race the Order of Decorra to finish in less than one. And it's just me and Martin. The others have started helping out on the smaller Cores, but they can't handle Verilia. Not yet."

"I know, I apologize for the outburst."

Laurel waved her off. "I understand. I'm frustrated too. At least we're getting close. The requirements aren't quite as obvious, but each Core that we connect to it gets a bit easier to push forward. The mana wants to find a connection, we just have to work with it."

They continued talking for the rest of the hour, filling each other in on all the magical parts of governing a country. And the thousand and one ways they needed to improve if they wanted to fend off the attacks they were sure would come.

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As a last point of order before she left, Laurel went to point out some good news. "The City Hall will probably be ready for another subfeature in a few weeks. Think over the list and let me know."

With assurances that she would be informed once the decision had been made, Laurel returned to the sect house for dinner.

The world might be falling into chaos and near-ruin, but the same could not be said for her sect. It was almost unrecognizable from her doomed start, her and Borin huddling together in an old farmhouse in the back end of nowhere. The thought hurt a little more today than usual, maybe because Borin had never even known City Perks existed, let alone seen one. She felt the guilt and let it pass again as she focused on the present.

Almost sixty voices twined together in a happy rumble over dinner. There were three full tables, filled with enough food to feed the small army that had set to devouring it. Poor Esther, having joined at the beginning, had finally caved and hired an assistant, who worked along with the rotating sect members doing chores to feed all their hungry mouths. And feed them she did. Laurel suspected she took the new flood of chefs in the city using magical ingredients as a personal challenge, each night would have been a feast day for Laurel in her youth.

One by one, the members trickled off for the evening. To sleep, to private cultivation areas, or quiet conversation elsewhere. Midnight found Laurel alone in the rotunda. Some days she preferred sitting on top of the sect house, occasionally she found a spot along the cliffs or a random place within the City that called to her. But most nights she ended up here, surrounded by the good feelings of her sect, with the main Core pedestal to rest her hands against.

Once she was settled and comfortable, she dove into the mana flows. It was night and day from when she had arrived, the area around Verilia well-tamed, even if a few secrets remained. Such things were healthy for any City. But it wasn't where she needed to be.

Her consciousness flowed forward, down the carefully crafted connections to one of the surrounding villages. Each location anchored her progress and prevented the wild mana from eroding the connections away. Today she was continuing the long trek south to Lanport.

The strategy went against conventional wisdom, as much as such a thing existed when each City core was different. Most developed in a circle, spreading influence and linking to first the closest ring of towns, then the next, and so on. Laurel's instincts insisted that wasn't the best way forward. So she listened. There had been too many battles won by a gut feeling in her past to do anything else.

She reached the edge of Verilia's current influence and gently pressed further. The same instincts told her she could hack and claw to subdue the mana, and that it would be a mistake. Mana wanted to flow. If she gave it a channel it would follow. So she slowed down, and inch by inch pushed closer to her destination. There was a small town ahead, it's burgeoning Core clear from the mana fluctuations.

It was tiny, only cultivated enough by roaming members of the Guild to prevent manifestations within the area of influence. The flows were unanchored, and only the low population kept them manageable at all. Through the darkest hours of the night, Laurel inched closer. With dawn and the end of her cultivation session both on the horizon, she reached the barrier of the Village Core's influence. To her senses it felt springy, like an elastic dough spread out to cover the whole area.

This was always the most difficult part. She could pierce through easily, her consciousness the tip of a spear powered by all of Verilia's mana. It would subjugate the new place entirely. Faster progress, but with no room for expansion or change down the line. If she subsumed the Core, this little Village would always be a Village.

Instead, Laurel poured power into the membrane, while tearing just the slightest hole for her mind to slip through. Her control was being stretched. She needed to maintain the connection to Verilia, maintain the town – who's name she didn't even know – area of influence, and she had to cleave it all together without destroying anything.

The first time she tried, years ago now, it had fallen apart immediately. It took days of focused cultivation to recover her lost progress. The second attempt had been similar, Laurel needing to abort it to avoid destroying the Core she was trying to link to.

But that had been years ago. She had practice and progress on her side, and the procedure was now rote. A thread of mana linked Verilia to the new town directly, and continued the web-like network by linking the new town to the rest of the nearby Cores that Laurel had already encompassed.

Laurel broke off the deeper connection and leaned back with a smile. Verilia's influence extended to yet another town. Not bad for a night's work.

A cup of tea appeared under her nose, the rich, heady aroma the perfect accompaniment to a night's progress. She didn't need to open her eyes to know who it was from. Laurel inhaled deeply before taking a sip of the blend, designed for anchoring herself back in her body.

"Congratulations," Martin said. "I felt that one. Verilia's definitely getting stronger."

"Thanks. Every little bit of area we add helps."

"I'm surprised we're not there yet. The Citadel was a Capital, if just barely, and the area and number of people were both smaller." Martin resettled in his own seat.

"I know. I've been reading everything we have on Core development, which is depressingly little. Mostly past sectmaster journals, and they all take it for granted what the requirements are."

"But you disagree?"

"No, I think they were correct in their time. I've been talking with Adam, he's basically inhaled half the mana theory resources we have already, and it seems likely the requirements have changed. The Order basically grabbed the mana infrastructure of our world, chopped it up, shook it around for a while, and then tried to regrow it from scratch. That left more scars than we first realized."

"So we're even more blind than we thought. Great."

"It means the other guys are too." Laurel took a deep sip of the calming tea, letting it soothe her throat and her mana channels at the same time. "When the others get here I'm hoping we can talk through what additional requirements we might need."

"You can't tell?"

"I can tell what the Core wants in order to grow. More land, more connections. Just more of everything, really. But I don't know if that's right. Jade's last letter seemed to imply she was looking for something. And Chirefi was cultivating the Core, even with the city-states not having the same kind of population network we do."

"Huh," Martin said.

He took a sip of his own tea. Laurel brought the scent to her own nose on a gust of wind, citrus and vanilla mixed with strong black tea. She held her cup out for a refill now that she was fully back.

"Maybe they all need different things. Maybe that's what changed. City Core cultivation was pretty uniform when we were growing up right? Nothing ever changed and everyone did things the same way. But you, Jade, Oro, everyone nowadays started working with the Core on their own, with different methods or reasons. Makes sense you're walking different paths."

"That actually makes a lot of sense."

"Oh fuck off, I do have some good ideas on occasion."

"Rare occasion."

Martin tossed a pillow at her head and they both laughed. Then they luxuriated in something they so rarely got to do, sit around and chat without purpose, until true dawn set in and it was time to put their students to work.

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