Cauis gave an awkward smile. He didn’t even notice what he was doing.

Anyway, the bespectacled man just shook his head and guided them into the gates. Alterra, at this time, obviously couldn’t compare to Holt yet in most things, particularly in size, strength, and development.

However, it just had that quaint charm that would make even ’cultured’ City people fond, sort of like having a small hometown one liked to visit every so often.

They entered with their entourage, and they were naturally looked at as they passed by. Such a group full of powerful people, led by such a beautiful woman (and Cauis), naturally would.

However, while they looked at them curiously (with a few people taking those small handheld flat boxes with screens again), they generally minded their own business. They did get a lot of offers for snacks, guiding services, and so on.

Since Cauis was there to guide them, there was naturally no need to do so. He did, however, tell them it was okay to get the ’free samples’, and while many refused to condescend, there were a few who did, and the latter was not disappointed.

They used the Broat carriages to go around at this time. There were similar services in Holt City.

In Holt City, in order to avoid the various accidents involving beast carts, only ’official’ beast carts, driven by tamers or professionals, were allowed to traverse the inner cities.

Anyway, city people’s levels were not low, and they ought to be fast enough even on foot.

This was the first time they saw a Broat used, however. As a food-specializing territory, they actually had used the broat milk in a few cuisines, but it wasn’t common, and the end products weren’t perfect.

One of the ladies there, Princess Naia’s handmaiden, belonged to a family of small nobles in the dairy business. She wondered if she could get the methodologies somehow.

As the cart moved and merged with the ongoing traffic, they were a little startled by the number of ’cars’, and the fact that they were so organized despite running so close side by side. Beast cars could not do this because they were so volatile. Here, they could see the passengers from other cars just an arm’s length away.

The people from the other car even waved at them with large smiles.

"..."

Then they saw how visually coherent the buildings were and how large the parks were. Most Lords would be eager to build on the land they were given, and very few would plan infrastructure like this.

And they were arranged beautifully too. There were plants they called bougainvillea climbing up certain walls, creating beautiful color along the wall, making people walking along pedestrian lanes smile.

Most of the buildings did not exceed four or five floors too, with several streets limited to about three floors. Some might think it was a waste of space, while it felt ’open’ and relaxing to others.

In the City, they had options to build, copy, and paste five-storey buildings. At the street level, if the roads were not very wide, walking along that street gave off an oppressive feeling, though locals did not notice anything wrong with it...until now.

There was no such thing here, which was interesting because they could see mid-rise buildings at the distance, indicating they did have that type of building available to them. This meant that the Lord actively chose not to build so high, sacrificing profit for comfort.

"What an fascinating place..."

The Princess really wished she had gone here with her husband and son. It was good to travel every so often. People like them did not travel much because many thought there was not much to see outside, living in one of the peak territories in the world.

It turned out there were still many interesting sights to see.

Sadly, her husband had too much work to catch up on after their weeks-long isolation, and her son was training elsewhere with his master. Her baby’s physique and level were also not yet allowed to go through teleportation arrays, so he’d have to wait a while.

Fortunately, their lives were long. It was just that Naia had a feeling this place had changed very quickly. Wouldn’t it be a pity not to watch it change and grow when you had the opportunity?

More importantly—

"This place may start forming aether crystals within a decade or two," she gave an offhanded remark that made everyone around her whip their heads in disbelief.

"Truly?"

"Truly," Naia said, and her tone indicated it was a statement rather than a guess.

There was no one who doubted her. It was a known fact amongst nobility that Princess Naia was an elfblood. Her instincts for these things were unparalleled in the city.

The visitors were amazed, and they looked around them, and the town, with complex expressions on their faces.

Aether crystals were things that formed naturally where a pool of aether stayed in the long term, and they would attach to certain minerals or crystals, eventually transforming into crystals one could absorb.

Most of the time, they were in the wild, but the quantity was very small unless some special circumstances allowed for the aether to condense there.

More commonly, they could be found in old cities, because aether gathered where vitality was. The stronger the territory and its people, the stronger the vitality was.

The quantity of crystals produced in cities was also small, but it could be replenished through time, assuming the territory stood strong.

Old cities boasted a dense number of people with power, and the city itself condensed aether to a degree. It was why the more powerful the territory, the stronger the monsters attracted to it.

This essence solidified and eventually formed aether crystals, which would in turn empower the citizens inside. It was a virtuous cycle, and it was how Cities retained their status for centuries.

The first crystals took decades to create, of course, and would slowly replenish themselves every so often. According to the Princess, with the rate Alterra was going, it might get its own aether crystal mine sooner rather than later.

Just this statement alone pretty much guaranteed that Alterra would become a City—and not too far into the future.