The announcement went out at dawn on the third day.
Essim and Aisha drafted it together, sitting at the conference table on the fifteenth floor of the World Market Alliance headquarters—a building that hadn't existed when Essim left and now stood as the tallest structure in the City of Life.
Essim: Good morning, everyone. I am Essim, leader of the World Market Alliance. The City of Life is now open to the public. Portal ID: #id42877.
Hana: The WMA is accepting new members! Visit our main base for details.
Dion: Level 5 weapons: 10 EC. Level 10: 100 EC. Level 15: 500 EC. Level 20: 1,000 EC. Forging available up to Elite.
Laras: Come. Your family will be safe here.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Laras's endorsement alone sent shockwaves through the regional chat—she was ranked sixth in the event, widely considered the strongest sovereign in the region. Her public alignment with the WMA lent it instant credibility.
Within an hour, five thousand people had arrived through the portal. Within two hours, ten thousand. They came as individuals, as families, as entire communities—drawn by the promise of safety, fair trade, and equipment prices that undercut the system market by fifty percent.
They stared at the City of Life the way Essim had stared at it that morning: with disbelief slowly giving way to hope.
A former teacher from Hamburg proposed founding an educational system. A young entrepreneur from Lyon wanted to open a market chain. An artist from Prague envisioned an entertainment district. An ex-military officer asked about forming an Adventurer's Association.
Essim approved all of them. The city needed citizens, not subjects. People with ambitions of their own would build something more resilient than anything he could construct alone.
By noon, the island—now spanning over four thousand metres on each side—was dotted with construction circles as new districts took shape. Laras's City of Light, gleaming with holy energy, served as a secondary hub. Haikal's quieter enclave offered sanctuary for the elderly and families with young children. The WMA wasn't a single city anymore. It was becoming a nation.
• • •
Twelve people sat around the conference table in the Main Hall.
Essim and Aisha at the head. Takulani and Efan to the left. Haikal Emanuel, white-bearded and serene, beside them. Laras, calm and composed, her faint holy aura visible even in the well-lit room. Hana, Dion, and four other core members filled the remaining seats.
It was the first time all founding members had gathered in person.
"First," Essim said, rising, "thank you. All of you. What we've built in two weeks would have been impossible alone."
He meant it. The alliance now had eight thousand members, partnerships with the top five regional alliances, branch stores in ten cities, and a military force of twelve hundred Level 20 troops. It was the strongest economic entity in Region #1825.
"Now—compensation."
He produced fifty Blessing Potions from his spatial bag. Five per person. A hundred free attribute points each, usable five times. The table went silent.
"Brother Essim," Takulani said, his deep voice awed, "this is… extraordinarily generous."
"Isn't this basically a free level-up?" Dion sputtered, blue-haired and wide-eyed.
Next came the equipment—ten full sets of Level 20 Elite gear, each forged to +10 and tailored to the recipient's class. Laras received a Heavenly Light Robe with attributes that nearly doubled the standard values. Haikal's set emphasised Intelligence. Each package represented hundreds of thousands of Energy Crystals in forging costs.
The room was quiet with the particular silence of people recalculating their assumptions about what was possible.
Essim laid out the operational structure: trade routes, military coordination, territorial expansion, mutual defence pacts. Merging islands did not dissolve individual territories—members retained full control of their land and development. But they would function as a unified body when threatened.
The meeting lasted an hour. When it ended, twelve people left the table with the shared conviction that they had joined something that would outlast them all.
Outside, the city hummed with the energy of ten thousand new arrivals finding their footing. Children ran through the flower gardens Aisha had planted. A queue formed at the weapon shop, where Dion's team was selling Level 10 swords faster than they could stock them. Near the eastern gate, a group of former architects from Vienna was already sketching plans for a cathedral — not for worship, but because beauty, they argued, was as essential to survival as walls and weapons.
Essim watched it all from the Main Hall's balcony that evening, the three moons rising in their shallow arc, and felt — for the first time in two weeks — that the Ascendant Realm might not just be something to survive.
It might be something to build.
The World Market Alliance was no longer an idea. It was a nation in the making.