Lucien spent the next stretch of days doing something he found deeply satisfying.
He buried Spirit Mountains.
He stood over one of the deeper sectors beneath Lootwell's greater territory and looked down through layers of opened earth, law-cut bedrock, and prepared channels where dozens of Spirit Mountains now rested below the ground like sleeping titans hidden beneath the skin of the world.
He had gathered them over the years.
Some had come from the ruin expedition. Many from the resource sites. Some were taken from the enemies.
Individually, they were treasures.
Collectively, they were not enough.
Lucien had already understood the scale of his problem.
He governed a population spread across worlds and territories so vast that old methods of counting had begun feeling insulting.
He had more than ten billion people under him now.
Against that scale, even abundance looked temporary if it was not turned into a system.
