Chapter 23: A Little Gaslighting

And as the dawn of the new day called the curtain after the spirit of holiday curtailed throughout the whole night, except for the great addition that came to the kingdom in the form of gifts that the usalian received—everyone went back to their assigned roles and works.

After the stunt that Nagan performed that day, Owen cast an everlasting soul link between the two of them, allowing both of them to communicate whenever and wherever they want within the soul link channel. And to make it even sweeter, the same soul link also used the ring that Nagan gave to her as the primary catalyst, to show their trust to one another.

"Hoppington, did you hear about the Queen and Patriarch discussion about adding more usalians?" Willow laid into the conversation between the rabbits gathering on their break time.

"Well, I happened to be one of the usalian that was tasked as the advisor within that meeting."

At some point within the night, Owen was suggesting to increase the numbers of usalian within the kingdom. Although, after some consideration, Nagan decided that it would be best to halt the increase of workers for primarily two reasons.

One, the usalians evolve and mutate through personal experience and stimulation of situation and environment.

Nagan already had some clear view on how the process worked after diligently observing the state of the expedition team members and their personality in contrast to the logistic team.

The usalian that had much more personal struggle or needs that haven't been fulfilled would adapt greatly to cater those factors. Being on the wayward world exposed to danger and challenges incentivize the usalian to evolve and grow more than those who worked as hard without much new stimulation and experience within the homeworld.

Adding more numbers to this growing ecosystem of incentives within evolution and adaptation would promote less of these specialized growth. It would be way better to ramp up the numbers after the currently available member of the kingdom possessed enough growth to become the foundation of the kingdom that will help the growth of the future usalians as not only a senior and potential teacher, but also a strong role model.

"Won't having more people just help us get things done faster though?" Mako gestured her hand in a curious confusion.

"It will, but it won't help us progress faster in the long term," Hoppington said. "Let's say that we got another twenty people, ten of them going to the logistics and another ten into the expedition team. As of now, we are motivated to get things done remarkably and faster, as we go through our personalized progress of the memory tree.

"Not only do we also need to guide the newcomers and help them assign their roles and foundation, we also need to impart them a proper level of discipline that the Queen and Patriarch instilled in us, which might take a while. There is also some potential factor that can dampen our growth."

"Well, it won't hurt to sacrifice some time and experience if it means that we get things done more as a unified force, right?" Mako jested with a grin.

"Mmm, which leads to the second primary reason."

The next generation of usalian would be based on the genetic traits and strength of the Patriarch. Nagan wanted to utilize this factor to their best by ensuring that every new generation would create a great impact on the kingdom.

And with how the {Primal Wrath} was considered to be a Primary Genetic Lineage Trait within the Usalian Universal Genetic Quotient Analyser, there might be something much more about how this whole genetical inheritance works with the usalian race than how a human biology work in general.

Nagan himself wasn't the best fighter nor a critical thinker back then in contrast to what he was now, yet the usalians possessed his battle instinct, critical thinking pattern, and even his habits to some extent.

"Which means that our juniors will always be better than us after every future generation." Hoppington gently reminded the curious usalians about the consequential impact in the future, donning her usual calm visage and gesture. "If we don't establish ourselves properly as the first generation, then our juniors won't respect nor consider us as equal."

"Urgh.. and at worst, there will be barely anything that we can do better than them…" Clover uttered with deep fear. "And then our worth within the kingdom will plummet into the abyss…!"

"We might get bullied by our juniors."

"They might sabotage our food…"

"They might take our shovels without us being able to fight back…"

"The Queen might not give us presents anymore…"

"Isn't Santa the one that gave us a present?

And thus, the usalians that were present within that conversation looked at each other with a silent understanding, uniting under one banner of the thought that they mustn't slack on improving themselves, in the fear of being irrelevant in the future.

"Hoppington," An usalian with the name of Vainya dragged Hoppington out of the group unnoticed, wryly snickering as she whispered, "Did you just gaslighted half of the kingdom? I doubt that those scenarios are even possible with how the imparting of memories works on usalian at birth…"

Hoppington turned around and then faced Vainya with the most delightful smile. "You know, emotional manipulation can do wonders if used positively."

"... Never do that to me, ever."

"You won't know if it's even coming."

Meanwhile at another location, within the outskirts of the expedition team, Nagan alongside the trio vanguards and Immortal Dragon Overlord were practicing the 'magic' that humanity used in the future era of destruction.