A/N: Sorry, we got one chap again today! I was in a 3-day exhibition for my day job. Had to, like, stand up and talk to people the whole day. T_T I lived off my stockpile/backlog the past week so now I gotta try to recover some.

We should resume better update rates soon!

...

___

Time passed, everything moved forward, until the awaited Improved Token Guard was completed exactly 37 days after Princess Naia left.

With Kahonn’s leadership and the guidance of many other toolmakers and array scholars, they managed to do the incredible.

In terms of appearance, it was a bit bigger than the usual Token Guard, and was now as big as a woman’s shoebox. There were certain mechanisms made of various minerals and gems, all with embedded arrays on them. There were also a lot of patterns, energy sources, and the like on the surface of the box itself.

To the layman, it looked like a box with a hodgepodge of doodles and patterns. To those who had some knowledge of tools, it was a wonder.

This was partnered with a wooden disc of sorts that fit the hand, and its margins had similar motifs to the box.

Kahonn sent an aether letter to the ministers, informing them of this upgrade, and everyone headed to the center to see it. There, Kahonn led a meeting to explain the new tool’s mechanics.

The toolmaker was flushed red, but his eyebags were huge, indicating he hadn’t slept at all, but he was kept standing by his passion.

"This is the main box where you can place the token. It is more than big enough for you to place the original token guard," Kahonn explained to her.

The Lord Token was now in an existing Token Guard, and it would actually still be part of the new one’s mechanism, working as a box within a box.

Basically, the outer box was more of a translator, adaptor, or mod that connected with the original tool, adding the functions that they needed.

"With this new tool, you should be able to be apart from the token, but still control it. As for the distance, from what I know, it shouldn’t have a limit because the ’signal’ does not depend on a medium like air. The node it connects to is the Lord herself."

For most, the concept of the Token Guard was just to prevent the Token from merging with people. This was basically only what people know it for.

However, it was actually deeper than that. The Token Guard basically wrapped the powerful aether in the token with its own type of protection. Rather than simple isolation, it was leaning more towards ’control’.

This also meant that they could—in theory, once upon a time—modify a lot more things than the proximity of the Lord and the Token.

This included allowing the Lord to take control of the Panel even when the Token was out of their hands, and even if it was in another territory altogether.

It was interesting because Kahonn didn’t really understand this before. He just built them as he knew from the inheritance, not really knowing the reasoning behind how things worked.

Thanks to about a dozen other people periodically helping him out, sometimes at different stages of the process (depending on the person’s expertise), they managed to figure out how to alter anything significant.

Next was the testing phase. They placed the Token Guard containing the Alterran Token inside the new add-on tool, and then Kahonn handed the engraved disc to Althea.

Garan held the new tool and went to the other side of the territory. A few minutes later, Althea willed the [Lord Panel] to come out, and lo and behold, it really did!

"Can you see all the panels, Milady?" Kahonn said, voice a pitch higher due to excitement.

She nodded, eyes filled with interest. Althea could feel the disc on her hand emanate some sort of energy, as if receiving a signal.

Her eyes were sparkling, and then she turned to Kahonn. "How far can it go?"

"As long as you’re inside a territory, you can open the panel," he said. The Lord and Territory system was much more complex than the system everyone had.

It was why only humans started out with the tokens, and some other races received them by occupying human territories. They’d later find out that it wasn’t that the elves favored humans; they just had the best compatibility with that particular form of energy.

This meant that some tools working very closely with the Territory System would also be subject to its limitations.

This limitation was that Althea still had to be within a territory if she wanted to open the Lord Panel outside of Alterra, as the power of the system was the strongest in these anchor points.

Another thing they had to consider was that no one could transfer items between warehouses anymore when she was gone, so they would have to do everything manually while she was away. The satellites had to be made aware that their backup resources would be a lot more limited than before, so they had to stock up more.

Anyway, the new tool was very impressive. However, technically speaking, it wasn’t really too miraculous, at least in the standard of Alterra, which had given birth to a lot of other things.

In terms of thought, it was more like a router, rerouting the command from the token to a now separated Lord. It was quite genius, and it was the people with IT background who thought about it.

Regardless of the technicalities, it was just what Althea needed so the contribution points granted to those involved were not small.

Anyway, like this, they finally prepared to head out the next day.

...

They did not hide that they were heading out, but of course, they did not announce where they were actually going. Anyway, over the past month, hundreds of mercenaries had gone out to explore. The two of them leaving wasn’t that unbelievable.

They were sent off by family and friends towards the Mercenary Hall, and it was just the two of them this time.

They did not bring any powerhouses with them. They could only rest assured to leave Alterra if there were powerhouses ready to guard it, no matter what.

There could be plenty of accidents, and someone could wage war with Alterra again. Well, of course, they had a lot of powerhouse slaves this time, but as parents, who could always be completely assured?

Not to mention, now that she (and a lot of other mercenaries) were away, they had to do a lot more coordination so the satellites could wage war with others on time.

Anyway, they had plenty of protection charms. If they were lacking, her space was full of the materials needed to make new ones. They were also elementalists.

The Alterra Region was practically a hub of elementalists. Outside and further away, elementalists were rare, and their status was not to be taken lightly. Even if they annoyed people, others might be willing to side with them in hopes of recruiting them into their forces.

They had planned and prepared as much as they could over the past month or so, and their goal was to get back to their kids as soon as possible.

Speaking of the children, they were also there, carried by the parents who would soon leave them.

The babies’ eyes were glassy with tears, and their cheeks complete red from crying. They instinctively knew they wouldn’t see their parents for a while

"Mamaaaaaa....Daddaaaaaa..."

"MAMAAA! Dungoooo! Wuuuuu!"

Their little voices are tiny and cracking, making people’s hearts break.

The couple hugged their soft children, remembering their warmth and love, knowing it would energize them for a long time.

"Be good, my children," she told them. "We will see you soon."

...

The group entered the mercenary hall under the eyes of many. Pretty much everyone who had been in Alterra was familiar with the couple, but this was the first time they saw them actually using the Hall.

Maybe they could see them visit occasionally, but actually using it...was big news!

Two ministers! Leaving together! Why!?

Most were just worried. What would happen if they encountered danger? Only the two of them were going?! Where were their guards!? Those useless bastards—

At the same time, many thought that they were therefore disqualified as the Lords, because no Lord would go so far away.

The couple just greeted those who greeted them politely, though with curious eyes sticking to them the whole way. The couple ignored them and headed to the panels to see the missions.

Before heading here, Garan had naturally chosen a few missions they could take. Since they could not control whether a mission was taken before they did, he simply chose a few options.

They chose to head far, far west first, to the desert area, for the Elyssian Stone. Princess Naia mentioned the item here had the most records, so it was likelier to be more accessible than others, assuming it was real.

Further, they had already proven that those undead cores had plenty of use for Alterra, so they ought to study it a bit more and gather a few more samples along the way.

There were lines and lines of missions there, until they saw one of the missions. It was also the one that he found most practical, an escort mission heading near their target location.

Like this, the couple gave their children one more smooch, saying goodbye to their families and friends, before heading into the array, hand in hand.

They looked at each other and smiled. It was time to finally go on a trip together.