"Codex: The Imperial Diet
The Imperial Diet is the national legislative body of the Fire Nation, the Sacred Phoenix Kingdom, and later the Sacred Phoenix Empire. It consists of two Houses: Congress, which is the Lower House, and the Senate, which is the Upper House.
The purpose of the House of Congress is to represent the citizens of the Fire Nation, in which citizens elect their own representatives from their own Administrative Territorial Units, so each territory and every part of the population is represented in the Congress.
The Imperial Congress has 300 members, of whom 150 are elected among qualified people and 150 are appointed to the position by the Fire Lord from all sectors of the Fire Nation's government, starting from the Military and ending with the Imperial Cult. The Imperial Congress prepares and passes the Laws that are then passed to the Fire Lord, it also discusses and creates aspects with the budget, funding, or all matters in the Empire.
The second chamber of the Imperial Diet is the Senate, or also called the Landsraad, which is essentially more powerful from the two chambers. The Landsraad is the body that represents all Aristocratic Clans of the Sacred Phoenix Empire, leaders of the species, major organizations, and also the branches of the Empire.
Meanwhile, the Lower House is deciding on the Laws of the Empire and other matters; it is the Imperial Senate that decides the future and direction of the Empire. At the same time, the rise of the Kingdom and transformation into the Empire led to the creation of a new generation of Imperial Aristocrats, who, while having limited administrative and military power over the matters of the nation, still remained influential figures.
Mainly due to the fact that all Imperial Aristocrats were given titles and fiefs for their personal power and merits performed to the Fire Nation. Thus, the second name of the Imperial Senate was given as the Landsraad. Within the Landsraad, the Aristocratic Clan could relate with one another to either negotiate trade agreements, create alliances, or conduct kanly, which is the formalized process of vendetta or feud.
At the same time, there is also civilian representation in the Imperial Senate, as each Province is electing two Senators into the Imperial Senate. The Senators are elected from the Imperial Provinces of: Homeland Province, Central Province, Southern Province, Northern Province and others.
The Landsraad is governed by the High Council, which is led by the Grand Chancellor of the Empire. It presided over issues such as the forms of Kanly and whether certain Clan should be banished for breach of the Great Convention or for not upholding the standards of the Sacred Phoenix Empire.
Motions within the Landsraad are also passed by voting. The overall number of Votes is 200, among which all are distributed between the various branches of the Empire."
- Guide to the Government of the Sacred Phoenix Empire
***
Fire Nation, Royal Capital Wei-Jin, Several Hours Later
It certainly wasn't easy to slay adult dragons.
Due to the combination of luck and the very own arrogance of the Bronze Dragons that came to the Fire Nation, most probably with the intention to raze it to the ground so they would be able to correct the Timeline, Aenarion was able to win.
Even then, everything considered and blessings of the Aeldari Gods, he was still severely injured by the Chronormu's last resort that hit him pretty hard in his stomach, leaving him with a huge wound that was bleeding.
And the last words that the leading Bronze Dragon shouted weren't just some random words of cursing, but the Bronze Dragon was attempting to curse him with some Curse as a last-ditch effort.
Fortunately enough for Aenarion, he bore the Divine Protection of the Aeldari Gods and the entire Pantheon, so he was immune to the Curses and Black Magic, which were weaker than the Gods that cast the Divine Protection on him.
"Dammit... this was a rather close one."
Aenarion muttered as he controlled the Chi in his body to speed up the healing, which would still take some time due to the state of the injury and the remaining Arcane Magic that Chronormu passed onto him.
Controlling the Chi in his body to stop the bleeding and also to contain the Draconic Magic in his body that was creating havoc in there took some serious effort from him, as he really needed some fast healing.
The fact that for the last hour or so, he has been constantly using the Hellblaze, including his own Fire with the Cosmic powers of Light and Void, the toll on his body was enormous. That wasn't something anybody could really withstand as the Void was especially destructive, even by the users of the Void.
The Void can consume life or meld with it, but the latter often has unperceived consequences. When a soul is consumed by the Void, an echo of the Soul is all that is left behind. Neither in the physical nor in the spiritual sense of the word would these echoes be considered alive.
The echo is merely a twisted reverberation of the anguish left behind by the Soul as it is consumed. These twisted echoes of the dead are merely the distorted reflections of once noble spirits.
When the Void is invited into a heart, it ends in madness. Wielding its power creates a hunger for more power, which can be a trap. Once someone starts using the Shadow Magic, they will belong to the Void. The ark power would flow into their very own beings, and they would feel the maddening whispers flooding their thoughts, giddy and raving.
Wielders of this power can also receive terrible visions from the Void, including visions of the future which can seem true but are actually strong and intoxicating lies that lead to madness, as the Void cannot fully see destiny, and will do everything it can to shatter the will and sanity of its wielders, using their fears and loves to achieve its goals.
The voices say many things, from lies, to things that are true from a certain point of view, things that sound true, and things that one would wish were true.
Aenarion was able to counterbalance by using the Light, which, as the opposite of the Void, was able to balance things out while also, at the same time, nullifying the negative effects of the Void.
He looked at the corpses of the Bronze Dragons that were being fished out from the sea by the Navy of the Fire Nation, while the army was already securing the corpses that fell on the ground, as the corpse of the Dragon was considered a priceless treasure in Azeroth.
If there was one thing that was thriving in the Fire Nation and which was even more advanced than the rest of Azeroth, then it would undoubtedly be the profession of the Alchemist.
Alchemists, also known as chemists, are Potion Masters and Artificers who have chosen the path of Alchemy as their profession. They took on the positions of trainers, apprentices, and masters.
Alchemists used herbs to create strange, magical brews that heal, empower, and produce a variety of positive effects like resistance against the elements, increased regeneration, mana restoration, and many other effects that are sometimes really mind-boggling.
Sometimes, the most powerful Alchemist could also transmute mystic materials into rare and exotic new forms. Though this was reserved for the most powerful and skilled Alchemists, as the art of Transmutation was the peak of Alchemy.
Most Alchemists thought they could handle the Transfiguration, which was basically the same thing as Transmutation, with the only difference being that, when it came to the Transfiguration, the effects were only temporary and wouldn't really last long.
Meanwhile, the effects of the Transmutation were permanent ones. That was making the Transmutation the pinnacle of what the Alchemist could achieve.
The Fire Nation, even before their arrival at Azeroth, had incredibly developed the discipline of Alchemy, and after Aenarion became the Fire Lord, he opened the archives of the Fire Nation and also the Grand Spirit Library that the Fire Nation had conquered to speed up the development of Alchemy.
The Alchemists of the Fire Nation were producing potions that were able to speed up the regeneration of people; they were able to heal injured people and cure diseases as much as they wished.
For the Fire Nation, the existence of the Alchemy was one of their trump cards when they were negotiating with the Quel'Thalas, because once they started incorporating the elements of the Azerothian Alchemy, the Alchemy of the Fire Nation was getting even more advanced.
One of the major distinctions between the two branches of Alchemy was that the Alchemy of the Fire Nation was far more scientific than that of Azeroth.
Dragon corpses were one of the most prized Alchemical ingredients that the High Elves of the Quel'Thalas would pay anything to obtain. Though it wasn't like the High Elves wouldn't be able to hunt the Dragons by themselves, but it was extremely hard to even find one Dragon outside of the territories of the Dragonflights.
To say that the Dragons were not really leaving their designated territories would be the understatement of the year.
"If I can absorb their Blood Essence, it should be able to increase my power to the geniue Champion Level."
The flesh and blood of the true Dragons were something that would strengthen his physique and Chi tremendously. It was also one of the reasons why the Dragon Hunters of Earth almost hunted down the Dragons to extinction.
There were not many ways of increasing one's Chi by whole levels in an extremely short time, aside from a few methods. And coincidentally, eating the flesh and blood of Dragons was one of the ways that was safest, strongest, fastest, and without the side effects.
Aenarion flapped his wings as he descended down to the port of the Wei-Jin, where Esdeath was already waiting for him, with a relatively disappointed expression on her face because her opponent attempted to escape.
"Soon enough, you will have your opportunity to hunt a Bronze Dragon. Those overgrown lizards won't stop trying to exterminate us because, most apparently, the existence of the Fire Nation is the disturbance of the One True Timeline, and as the guardians of the Timeline, they would do anything in their power to erase us."
The Fire Lord said to his wife, because he knew exactly what was bothering her, and it seemed that the fact that Nozari was attempting to escape from the fight with her, wasn't really sitting well with Esdeath.
If there was something that his wife hated more than anything in the world, then it would be escaping from the fight.
That was her big no-no.
"Can you heal me a bit?"
Aenarion asked his wife because he wasn't planning to postpone the journey to Stormwind at all. Even though he was injured, the journey to Stormwind would take them around two weeks.
Plenty of time for him to heal several times over and over.
Even though his wife wasn't the best healer around, she was still skilled in the area, mainly in the art of Combat Healing. She learned to heal herself mostly due to continuous fighting, so that she could fight longer and harder.
Esdeath controlled the water around them to start healing him and also accelerating his own regeneration, which was already pretty fast.
"During the journey to Stormwind, let Alchemists take care of the corpses of the Bronze Dragons, and also send messengers to Quel'Thalas that we could sell them one of the corpses if they pay us well."
Aenarion said to one of the officers, who immediately ran to relay the orders of the Fire Lord, as they were of the utmost importance. Aenarion wasn't planning on putting the journey to Stormwind on hold because he saw no reason and could recuperate on the ship.
It was rather unfortunate that the Magical Defenses around the Wei-Jin were still in their infancy, and what already existed was far from enough against a fully-grown adult Bronze Dragon.
Aenarion was sure that the High Elves of the Quel'Thalas would pay a lot for the corpse of the adult Bronze Dragon. Such a thing was essentially priceless for anyone, especially for the Mages and Alchemists who would pay anything to get their hands on the corpse of an adult Dragon.
He had something that was more valuable than the Dragon Bodies, actually... their very own souls, something that he had captured through the Blessing of the Aeldari Pantheon, and all of the Dragon Souls were his to devour.
The Hellblaze was right now restraining the Dragon Souls of the Bronze Dragons, several of them, those who were not sacrificed to the Aeldari Pantheon. These six Bronze Dragon Souls of the Hero-Level Dragons would serve as his ticket to the Champion-Level.
As much as he understood from the Grand Magister Belo'vir Salonar, the so-called Champions were something akin to a transitional stage between the Hero Level and Legendary Level.
In the current Azeroth, the number of Legendary Level powerhouses was not many Legendary Level powerhouses. The most well-known ones were King Anastarian Sunstrider or Archmage Antonidas.
But the raw power was not everything.
For example, Medivh, the Guardian of Azeroth, was a living Demigod, but even he would be extremely hard-pressed to fight against Anastarian Sunstrider due to the Sunwell. The Sunwell that was supplying their target with infinite Mana, Stamina, and as the King of the Quel'Thalas and Patriarch of the Sunstrider Dynasty, who created the Sunwell, god knows what else.
The journey to Stormwind won't be postponed, and he would heal on the deck of the ship; in the first place, his injuries were actually not that bad, and Esdeath had already healed the worst symptoms and wounds that he had.
The rest would be healed by the doctors on the deck of the airship.
***
Azeroth Continent, One Week Later
Grimoire Heart.
The Royal Flagship of the Air Fleet.
The Royal Flagship was an enormous airship, much larger than anything that the Fire Nation had ever constructed, as it reflected the power, grandiosity, and all the advancements of the Fire Nation achieved.
Including the newly created Orbal technology, as the Grimoire Heart was teething in it, and the Airship, which was a state-of-the-art piece of the most advanced technology that the Fire Nation possessed.
Capable of housing the entire entourage of the Royal Family and many, many soldiers and guards, including the entire detachment of the Phoenix Crownsguard and Imperial Bending Legion.
The airship consisted of a central hull at whose sides were located two larger, elongated parts jutting forward.
It seemed to be kept flying by several large magical glyphs floating near it, with a pair of them being located behind it, at the ends of the protruding sections, something which makes them highly reminiscent of propulsors, and an even more massive one sitting under it.
The hull's shape is that of a real boat, possessing an arched, pointed lower part, ending on the front in a dark section that houses the Fire Nations's Royal Symbol, with an open zone right above it, where the main hall seems to be located.
The hall was topped by a dark, arched roof reminiscent of a capsized hull. On its back part sits yet another similarly shaped tower sprouting from the main hull and going up several meters. This tower ends in a massive observation deck protruding forward, complete with large windows.
At the tower's sides, on the dark roof, were a pair of large, wing-shaped ornaments jutting upwards; a similar pair of wings is also present on the airship's protruding sections, with one of them adorning each outer side.
The two attached sections of the ship feature frontal, protruding, dark parts reminiscent of rostrums, each adorned with a light motif, somewhat similar to a stylized, monstrous head.
Both the hull and the two adjacent sections feature linear blank parts, where a multitude of square windows were lined up one after the other, which are highly reminiscent of hatches.
For the past week, Aenarion was healing from the aftermath of the fight against eight Hero-Level Bronze Dragons that attacked the Fire Nation. He was already almost perfectly healed as he was on his way to Stormwind, with the entire Fleet of the Fire Nation and one of his wives accompanying him on the journey.
At the same time, now that he was completely recuperated from his injuries, he could start the most important thing that he had on his to-do list. This would be rather an arduous process, but he got the instructions on how to do it from the Asuryan, the Phoenix God.
Because of the Hellblaze that was a combination of the Light, Void and Fire, he could refine the Dragon Souls into the pure Soul Power that he could absorb and strengthen his very own Spirit.
It was rather a dangerous process, but one that could provide a lot of benefits. For the Benders, the capacity of their Chi or Spirit Energy was one of the deciding factors of their strength, at least when it came to the amount of Chi that they could control and how long they could fight.
The stronger the Spirit of the Bender was, the more powerful the Soul, the more Spirit Energy one was able to possess and accommodate within their bodies. Simultaneously, the Chi also became more powerful and denser, and overall, it was much stronger.
Yet, strengthening one's Spirit was extremely hard, and one either needed to have really high talent and aptitude or spend an entire eternity meditating to try to strengthen one's Spirit.
And as the last method was finding various methods of artificially increasing the quantity and quality of one's Spirit, like through various Rituals, Elixirs, or other kinds of Artifacts.
And now, he was using such a shortcut to achieve the realm of the Champions. Aenarion was rather desperate to reach the Legendary Level as soon as possible, or at least before the opening of the Dark Portal.
Even though the Legendary Level was very rare nowadays, soon enough, Azeroth welcomed the new grand age, which was the Age of Heroes.
Countless people would reach the Hero Level; many would become Champions as they would take weapons into their hands and pioneer the offensive of Azeroth against the Horde, Undead Scourge, and Burning Legion.
All three factions produced Demigods, some more than others, such as the Burning Legion, which had multiple of them. Aenarion knew that if he didn't want the Fire Nation to become just a piece in the tapestry of history, he needed to get much stronger so he could protect his nation.
And this wasn't limited just to him, but also to many other people within the Fire Nation.
Esdeath and Azula were both training to not end in the hopes of achieving the peak of the Hero Level, as both women were acclimatizing to the new environment, as they were thriving in Azeroth.
Previously... it was hard for the Benders to achieve even the realm of power, which was the Hero Level.
Aenarion, for all of his blessings and genius, achieved the Hero Level only by accident when he was on Earth; Prince Iroh, meanwhile, due to his extensive understanding of the Fire Bending and Chi Manipulation.
There were other cases, but too few.
Meanwhile, on Azeroth, the number of people who fell into the category of Hero-Level could be numbered in tens.
Many tens.
Now...
It was the best time for the development of the future.
Aenarion summoned the Hellblaze Flames into both of his palms as he then mentally released the six Hero-Level Bronze Dragon Souls. The Bronze Dragons who reached the Hero Level were far more powerful than the average person who managed to reach the Hero Level by any piece of luck.
Dragons were forces of nature.
If some average Hero-Level Mage on Azeroth could destroy some random town, then some of the most powerful Hero-Level Archamages who were very proficient in their Magic could, under the right circumstances, cast forbidden spells that were powerful enough to obliterate metropolises like Tokyo or New York, from Aenarion's first life.
Such was the power of the Magic in Azeroth.
He understood that the Archmages or Magisters were like walking Nuclear Weapons in Azeroth. Aenarion understood that this was also the reason why the Magic reigned supreme in Azeroth, but at the same time, it wasn't everything.
It wasn't like any Archnamge could come by and start casting continent-destroying Spells right and left and blasting everything into oblivion. Things were not really working that way, because that was just pure bullshit.
He pushed the first Soul of the Bronze Dragon into the burning flame of the Hellblaze, as the flames started doing their job and they were breaking down the dragon's Soul and turning it into the pure Soul Essence, which was being then turned toward Aenarion, who was using his Chi to absorb the Soul Essence.
The process was rather lengthy, and just the first Soul required him around one entire hour to completely refine and absorb. However, the results were very good because his Chi has been increased considerably, which was a nice thing to happen.
Soon enough, he moved on to the second Soul of the Bronze Dragon and started repeating the same thing. Fortunately enough, the entire process was once again without any unforeseen side effects, albeit it was a bit longer than before. However, once again, he could feel his Chi being strengthened to a huge degree.
At the same time, Aenarion even considered having either Esdeath or Azula obtain one portion of the Soul Essence from one of the Dragon Souls, but in the end, he decided against such a thing.
Compared to him, both of his wives were farther from the peak of the Hero Level, and using the Soul Essence wouldn't have that big an effect on them as they could grow naturally.
Aenarion needed the Soul Essence from the Bronze Dragon Souls to reach the Champion Level.
According to the Grand Magister Belo'vir Salonar, reaching the Champion Level required a certain degree of Mana in their bodies, or rather, in the case of the Bender, it would be the Spirit Energy, the Chi.
The Divisions into the Mortal Level, Elite Level, and Hero Level were solely decided on the amount of Mana or Inter Energy the said person possessed. Yet, at the same time, it was also an undeniable fact that if one wanted to progress, one needed to control the power in their bodies promptly.
It could end rather fatally for them.
Thus, Aenarion continued with the absorption of the Soul Essence from the refined souls of the Bronze Dragons, and after every single portion of the Soul Essence that Aenarion had assimilated, his power increased at an exponential rate.
He was already feeling that he had already reached the Champion Level that the Grand Magister Belo'vir Salonar described after he had assimilated the fifth portion of the Soul Essence.
Right now, after finishing the assimilation of the fifth portion of the pure Soul Essence, he felt several times more powerful than before. The power of his flames has increased exponentially, and now, even when he summoned the small whisp of the Phoenix Flames through the Bending, it had a considerable amount of power.
He would need to properly acclimate to the new power, but fortunately enough, due to his very vast knowledge on the topic of Firebending, he didn't have much power in controlling the fire, and his Bending capabilities were essentially the same.
Aenarion was one of the most skilled Firebenders in the entire Fire Nation, if not the most skilled Firebender in the entirety of the Fire Nation.
Given his rather young age, it was a very considerable achievement, though now that he dispersed the "ordinary" Phoenix Fire and conjured the Hellblaze, he noticed that the Hellblaze seemed to be...
Agitated?
He didn't have any other possibility of the description for the state of the Hellblaze as he could sense that neither the Light nor the Void were listening to his commands as smoothly as before.
Soon enough, Aenarion found the reason for that.
Right now, Aenarion's Soul was strengthened tremendously; it was at least four to five times stronger than before, which meant that he could technically channel more powers of the Light or the Void.
One needed to know that both Light and Void were sentient to a certain degree, and both of the fundamental energies of the Cosmos had some self-consciousness. As if they were sensing that his Spirit could now support more, thus when he created the Hellblaze, he didn't even notice that the quantities of both Light and Void had increased a lot.
"Well... something like this could be expected... and the Blessing is fading away, which slightly complicates the entire situation. It would probably last another one year or so..."
Aenarion muttered because the main reason why he could safely use the melding of the Light and Void was due to the Blessing of the Asuryan, the Phoenix King, and the unique properties of his Soul that stemmed from his transmigration.
Now, due to the fact that his Soul became much stronger to the point of being able to channel more of Void or Light, in some sort of irony, the Blessing from the Asuryan, the Phoenix King, got much weaker.
So, he would need to learn to use the Hellblaze independently without the Divine Blessing with the Fire as the intermediary between the Light and the Void.
Which would be a pain in the ass.
Yet, it would also be a progress on his path to the much greater power than he has right now.
***
Azeroth Continent, Weeks Later
It didn't take long for the Airfleet of the Fire Nation to arrive at the sovereign territory of the Stormwind as they finally crossed through the ocean and the wilderness of Azeroth, reaching the Redridge Mountains.
The Kingdom of Stormwind, also called the Kingdom of Azeroth, is a human kingdom controlling much of the southern continent of Azeroth, from Elwynn Forest and Westfall to Duskwood and the Redridge Mountains.
The Kingdom of Stormwind was originally founded 1,200 years before the First War by the descendants of the Arathi bloodline, who had migrated south from the nation of Arathor.
Traveling past the rocky mountains of Khaz Modan, their journey finally ended after many long seasons, and they settled in the northern region of the continent they would name Azeroth. In a fertile valley, they founded the kingdom of Stormwind, which quickly became a self-sufficient power in its own right.
The Stormwind was the militaristic powerhouse of Azeroth; even though its population couldn't measure up to that of Lordaeron, which had something about 15 million citizens, the Stormwind didn't even have a population of 10 million, as its numbers were lingering around 8 million.
Which was still a lot compared to the population of the Fire Nation, which numbered around 3 million. Stormwind was a pretty isolationist nation; most of its foreign relationship were with Kul Tiras and Dalaran from the human nations.
Though the Stormwind had a very deep and strong friendship with the dwarves of the Ironforge, and they enjoyed a good relationship with the Gnomes of the Gnomeregan, aside from that, the Stormwind was mainly taking care of their own matters and nothing else.
Aenarion stood on the deck of the Grimoire Heart together with Esdeath and Jiang Wei, the Commander of the Phoenix Crownsguard, who stood guard a few steps behind them for the entire time as the two Royals were chatting.
It was really ironic that many forgot that the Partas Tribe was more royal than the Northern Water Tribe that clashed against them. In the past, the Partas Tribe was being pushed away from their territory by the Northern Water Tribe as, in the end, the Partas Tribe was just too small in number.
"We should be nearing Stormwind City in a few hours."
Aenarion said to his wife as he was observing the outskirts of Redridge Mountains that were beneath them as the Airfleet of the Fire Nation, consisting of Grimoire Heart and more than twenty other vessels, advanced toward the location of Stormwind City.
"Perhaps we should have focused more on the scouting of the area... did you see those tracks? That should be the movements of the Gurubashi Troll Tribes, and this didn't seem to be their standard migration pattern. This is rather way out of their typical territory."
Esdeath pointed out that this was something that Aenarion, too, noticed because he knew that the current timeline was somewhere before the Gurubashi Troll War. Even before, they got the reports from the Onmitsukidō that the Gurubashi Trolls were behaving strangely.
At the same time, they had even seen the trolls moving around the Redridge Mountains, which was far from their habitat. It was clear that the Gurubashi Troll War would erupt at any moment, and in fact, this was greatly playing into their hands.
Aenarion was pondering over the how to get the Fire Nation involved in the Gurubashi Troll War, because he wanted some benefits.
The Gurubashi Tribe, a remnant of the Gurubashi Empire, was the strongest tribe of jungle trolls. They reside in the capital of Zul'Gurub and control rather large swaths of territory within the continent of Azeroth.
They controlled fertile lands and also the mountains that were rich in minerals and ores that were needed for the machinery of the Fire Nation.
The trolls were the original inhabitants of Azeroth, yet they were also one of the most primitive and barbaric species that one could find in the vastness of the continent, and many looked at them with great disdain, hatred, and disdain.