Mixed Blessing System

Another ten days passed in the blink of an eye...

While Lothur and his women traveled with Blood, Smoke, and Cykad, things were better than ever for the Ritter family in Peters City.

Months after their leaders left, the family had received more than 60 Soul Bones sent by three groups of Lothur's messengers during that time.

These more than 60 Soul Bones had helped the Ritter family to become much stronger and increase the strength of their allied families, those closest to them, which were at their side of the operations inside and outside the Ritter Motor Company.

Through these Soul Bones, the Koch, Frost, Jansen, and Becker families had increased their strength, with between 2 and 5 people in each family benefiting from these bones sent by Lothur.

Individuals who had recently become Saints with the help of the resources given by Lothur on his previous trip to this province had once again strengthened themselves and reached the high level of the 4th stage.

Among those who benefited the most was Mabel, who now had 7 Soul Bones in her spirit and had reached level 23 in both soul and body cultivation!

As the representative of Lothur's interests and the current controller of the Ritter Motor Company, that woman had absorbed 3 new bones from those that had arrived at the Ritter family headquarters, thus reaching this level of power.

And under her command, the Ritter Motor Company was bigger than ever!

With the third auction of Ritter Motor Company shares held a few weeks ago, the company had raised 270 million gold coins for the 15% of the company previously offered by Lothur.

In addition, the old partners made a new round of investment after the auction, bringing an additional 135 million gold coins into the company.

With 405 million gold coins in hand, Mabel had already ordered the construction of 10 new factories and started to expand the company towards Lenz and Utrary.

With all of the Leopoldine provinces already having factory shops and Ritter Motor Company-related businesses in their main cities, it was time for the company to focus on expanding outside of the empire.

As such, Peters City became increasingly important, growing more and more as the company became more relevant and larger.

...

In Peters City...

The city's population had now surpassed 900,000. Still, even so, construction didn't stop around it, with new homes, businesses, and industries springing up locally.

Meanwhile, the number of Saints in this city had increased beyond the number influenced by Lothur. Now, more than 400 cultivators of this stage live there, along with 3 Sages.

One of these Sages was, of course, Mabel, while another was one of the Jansen siblings who had been helped by Lothur earlier.

As the strongest family in Leopoldine and one that should be protected, Lothur had ordered that some of the bones he had sent be given to this family.

As a result, this family now had five Sages in their ranks, with one of the two new individuals having come to this city to help protect the power core of the empire and his family.

With the recent auction of the Ritter Motor Company, the Jansen family had increased their position within the company. As such, they were eager to protect this place by holding a position at the company's headquarters.

Due to the local presence of these specialists, high-level professionals from all over the empire and even neighboring states came to this city to set up shop and provide the services that 5th-stage specialists required.

That's why the number of Saints in this place has increased so much recently!

However, while many high-level cultivators were taking care of their business in the city center and many ordinary workers were developing new areas of the city, things were a bit hectic at the Ritter family's headquarters.

In the underground building next to the city, more than 15,000 people were working to monitor the organization's spy network.

In the months since Lothur's last visit, 25,000 new vehicles had been delivered, and there were now more than 40,000 vehicles of various types circulating throughout the empire.

With so many cars circulating the empire, communications in the state had gone through the roof. Now, anyone could communicate with someone on the other side of the state cheaply.

This revolutionized the entire state to the point that the major local forces had replaced their old methods of communication and were now using the Ritter Motor Company network to communicate with their men across the state.

As a result, tens of thousands of calls came in daily for the Koch family-led group at this outpost to follow up on, which is why so many people were working there today.

But with so much information coming in, this busy place was getting increasingly important information!

At the moment, nothing very relevant to their leader had reached them, such as information about demons and the Seven Singularities. However, thanks to the Koch family's espionage, Lothur's allies had wiped out several groups that had attempted to act against their interests in recent weeks.

Not only that but with information from various powers, they could predict the best time for new commercial actions, new business niches for their people to develop, locations with the greatest potential returns for certain businesses, etc.

The possibilities were endless!

Through this and the allied forces of the Ritter family, Leopoldine gradually left its former position as one of the weakest states on the continent and became relevant for the first time in a long time.

If the expansion into the new states was done well, they could have critical information about their neighboring states in no more than a year!

By then, it would finally be time for them to help their leader with truly important information for Sage-level people!

But with all this growth, the Ritter Motor Company had obviously attracted the attention of some of the major forces on the continent, such as the Cultivation House and the Seraphim Church!

With so many coins at their disposal and a growing number of experts in Linn Province, the continent's greatest powers couldn't stand idly by!