Damon's Ascension-Chapter 145: Value Of The Relays

So entry into the Chaos Realm was necessitated because even though our universe has ’merged’ with some sectors of the Chaos Realm, the mixed-up laws and rules are causes for concern, necessitating the construction of the Grand Relay.

The Grand Relay was like a train station, and the mega-station allowed one to access various services before actually taking the ’train,’ which was actually a portal that led to one of the constructed bases within one of the 15 linked sectors.

To access these portals, one had to head to one of the 10 minor relays spread around the Grand Relay.

And to talk about this, we would have to talk about why Geisha Vritu was now in trouble and had somewhat implicated the elf race.

Politics was a minefield, and the way to succeed was by having more wits than your opponent, or at least, more information. Being ignorant before your opponent, or even your ally, in politics was the fastest way to get toyed with.

Geisha had tried to pull a fast one over the human race by utilizing their ignorance as a new species, but she ended up falling flat because Damon - and Felicia - had done the relevant research.

Because you see, these ten minor relays that one could say controlled access to the Chaos Realm were overseen by a representative from one of the top ten species each.

So the 1st Relay was for the dragons, the 2nd Relay for the phoenixes, etc. This meant that the 4th Relay they were in right now was overseen by the elves, and naturally, Geisha was the one appointed to handle it.

So the 5th Relay that Damon and Felicia were currently looking at through the window actually now belonged to their human race...

So why was this a problem?

Let’s talk about the benefit of controlling a minor relay first. Apart from having access to the safe zone bases in certain allocated Sectors, those other species without a relay have to first of all register at a relay of their choice.

Then when registered, they pay a small fee in Essence Coins to enter, justified by the relay owners as they provide intense support and a lot of miscellaneous assistance to teams or individuals entering.

This is usually worth the money, so most species did not complain.

The first benefit was that anyone who used a relay had to, upon return, report all their gains and activities within the Chaos Realm to the relay. This was nominally to gather information on the Chaos Realm, which even the Universe Will endorsed, so complaints here were useless. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

It was also to prevent you from pocketing any excess Chaos Essence as you were to ’deposit’ it in the relay before going back, and you would be paid your due in Essence Coins on the spot. As for the items you got, there were no rules requiring you to sell them by force, but you had to hand them over for a brief appraisal so that they could understand their ability and add them to the database.

As for forced selling or seizing, it was almost nonexistent because each relay was competing with each other for more people to sign up there. If people got wind of such behavior, the loss did not make up for the gain, even if it was a special EX Chaos Item.

The second benefit was that each relay took a small 0.1% tax on Chaos Essence mined. The tax was initially set to be higher, but it caused many beings, especially explorers who could barely scrape by, to become reluctant to enter the Chaos Realm.

"I should go and risk my life with little to no chance of success to come and cough up my hard-earned resources to you because of what? Even if I can’t enter the Chaos Realm without your damned relays, can’t I squat at home and do nothing?"

This issue had even caused alarm to the Universe Will, and furious about its reduced income, it almost seized back the relay from the IUAS. The IUAS had to work hard to appease it and remove many of the other rules it put up to exploit lower species, because you could be sure there were more than just this.

The tax was also reduced to 0.1%, making it a matter of using quantity to beat quality.

These were the main benefits, minus the control of the Safe Zone fortress on the other side, which also had its rules and ways of fleecing explorers of their hard-earned money.

So now, the gaffe of Geisha was clear.

When the human race docked in the Grand Relay, they should have been met with a worker of the relay and led to the 5th Relay to take over, but rather, it was diverted, and they were made to enter the 4th Relay directly.

Then, appearing before them, Geisha offered to lead them through the processes, which seemed normal since they were the grand human race and could even stroke their egos a bit. That was why even with Damon’s imperious commands, Geisha acquiesced and even humbled herself despite being far stronger than the current Damon.

So why do this?

Looking at the above, three reasons can be deduced.

Firstly, to know what the human race was up to. The universe was not yet aware of the deficiency of the human race, so they still had in mind the picture of a race about to shoot to the top.

That naturally made them curious when they found out through various means that Damon led a crew of the top human awakeners at this time to travel to the Chaos Realm.

What are these fellows doing? Just stay at home and grind your tutorial Essence instances for the next 20 years like good children, why are you running to the endgame zone when you are still in the early game?

Naturally, everyone wanted to know, and by having them register at their relay, the Elf race would be able to find out when they came out.

Secondly, to capitalize on this talented race. Compared to other lower species on the ranking, the kind of Chaos Essence the human race, especially this small elite group, could mine would be astronomical, or why would everyone in the universe pay them so much attention?

Even 0.1% taken away could greatly enrich the elf race and see Geisha get more favor and power from the Elf race’s council, so it was worth the gamble for her.

Thirdly, and likely most importantly, the 5th Relay was currently being managed by the elf race.

One shouldn’t be surprised at this. When the Behemoths were in 5th place, they naturally managed the relay well, but after handing it over 2 months ago to the human race, they had cleared their people out as part of the arrangement, but there were no human race people to come and take over.

So the question was, should the 5th relay be left empty? Of course not, it was a crucial instrument of the IUAS, and they had contingencies for if one of the top ten were not around to handle various duties.

So the elves, the ones who handled most daily affairs of the IUAS while the others couldn’t be bothered, quietly slotted themselves in without telling anybody.

They knew it was not that the human race was incapable, but because they were unaware, but how was that their fault? The right thing to do would be to inform the human race, but oh would you look at that, they were going through their 20-year grace period and likely would not be interested in the Chaos Realm for now.

20 years of managing an extra relay was too good for the elves to do a favor for the human race.

And even if they were later caught, with the profits in hand for 20 years and the righteous position they had on the high ground, it would suffice to pay some compensation to the human race to ease tensions and let the matter rest.

But Geisha, and the elves miscalculated, because who would have thought that the human race had issues that required them to head into the Chaos Realm only 3 months after being introduced to the IUAS? That was certainly breaking many records.

On top of that, the Prime Rep was not an ignorant guy intoxicated by power and swamped with work, but was even aware of these political overtures. However, the elf race couldn’t be blamed, who asked Damon to have avatars that were fully independent and autonomous if need be, as well as the human race’s high Mentality value, allowing him to process information as fast as a computer?

Even worse, the one who got prime rep was not a typical average loser in a western-like society now thrust to prominence, but a cunning young African politician who had a father that taught him how to maneuver political landscapes like a fish in water.

Truly, the elf race had burned themselves on this one, and the consequences were not simple.