Chapter 969: Sensitive
Earth was in a completely different state than the last time Leonel had been here. Where there had once been rubble and debris there were nothing but large stretches of greenery and nature. Whatever wreckage the Metamorphosis had left behind had long since been cleaned up, turning Earth from a concrete giant to a world that placed great emphasis on its natural beauty, something Earth, especially in comparison to other worlds, had a lot of.
The Ascension Empire had taken advantage of the boon between the Fourth and eventual Fifth Dimensions to cause this great change. In this span of time, Earth had experienced many Force Eruptions and natural phenomena of the like that greatly accelerated its growth.
Thanks to this, with just a small bit of help from humans who moved all the useless metals and artificial bricks out of the way, Earth was able to flourish in the way it was always meant to.
Like this, the only marks of old Earth and its technologies were the nine major populace hubs of Earth, one to each of the nine Provinces. This included places like the Imperial Capital and the Royal Blue Fort.
Outside of these cities and forts, there were only large expanses of greenery. There were trees that already rose up hundreds of meters into the air, there were precious herbs and grasses growing around every corner, and many beasts had been released from their experimental islands to populate and grow. Some of these beasts became food for humans, some became sparring partners, and others became a core part of maintaining the balance of Earth's ecosystem.
Just from this alone, the talent of Earth and its world was on clear and full display. It looked as though these resources had been growing for thousands, even tens of thousands of years. But, the truth was that these beautiful displays of nature had only been present for just a handful of years.
Still, these changes were absolutely nothing compared to Earth's two moons. The original still retained the name Moon while the second was dubbed Avalon by Emperor Fawkes.
Leonel knew little of the Moon and its colonies, but they were every bit as part of Earth and had also faced Terrain's attack those years ago.
Before, the Moon had to be terraformed to maintain a population. And, even then, this population was forced to stay within a climate controlled dome.
However, after the Fourth Dimension Descended, things began to change, allowing for the dome to be done away with and for the Moon to begin to gain characteristics of a world all to its own. This was in thanks to Earth's Fold of Reality expanding and beginning to encompass larger and larger regions.
Now, the Moon had unique herbs that even Earth itself couldn't grow. And, though it didn't have large bodies of water or oceans, it had begun to have its own self-sustaining lakes in addition to its own true atmosphere.
The people of the Moon also seemed to take a unique evolution path compared to the people of Earth. Though they still looked human, they tended to be taller, more fragile, and had stronger minds comparatively speaking.
Likewise, Avalon also underwent great changes. The Kingdom of Camelot was no more and was rather taken over by Secretary Marquis Pendragon.
The more primitive side of Camelot had been washed away in favor of more modern comprehensions. In addition, the greatest benefit Camelot brought—its population—was spread out and divided amongst the nine Provinces of Earth.
Ultimately, the people of Camelot weren't alien to the people of Earth and were easily accepted. After all, these were people created and based on themselves, how could they not assimilate well?
It could be said that the only real growing pain were the somewhat outdated and backward ideas of the people of Camelot. They had yet to learn of the progressivism of modern times. But, ironically, it was the retreat of Earth from a technologically central ideal that helped this assimilation work all the more.
In a lot of ways, the people of Earth felt like they were going backwards while the people of Camelot felt that they were being accelerated forward. This allowed the two groups to meet in the middle and reach a happy medium.
…
It was amidst all these changes that Leonel returned to Earth. Hovering high above the sky, how could he not be shocked? He hadn't expected such large, sweeping changes. In fact, he partly believed that he would come back to find the same dilapidated buildings.
At this moment, he felt like he had grasped a difference between his grandfather and him. Leonel believed that he was quite forward thinking and quick on his feet, even not hesitating to spend what an entire Kingdom would in a year just for a single month of progress. However, it was clear that working harder didn't trump working smarter.
In just a handful of years, not even quite year three, Earth's entire face had changed. And, Leonel was certain that his grandfather had planned it to be this way from the very beginning. There wasn't a single step that he had taken that was out of line of this goal.
Now, despite being a fledgling world, Earth was already in the Fifth Dimension, had no human Invalids to worry about, and had conquered all of their land without trouble.
Leonel had naively thought that while his grandfather was struggling with getting Earth back on track that he'd be able to make some headway toward catching up, but he felt more wrong than he ever had before.
Now that he was more sensitive to certain things, upon stepping onto his grandfather's territory, he felt a suffocating aura from all sides. He had to try twice as hard just to take in half the oxygen he normally would.
He didn't need to look around to understand that his grandfather already knew that he was here and that he was back… No, it could be said that nothing that happened within Earth's territory or Fold of Reality would escape his notice.
His eyes were everywhere.
Leonel's lip suddenly curled beside himself, his gaze turning toward the Imperial Capital before he shot in that direction.