Currently, we are around the southern borders of the demon territory. Our land is just a little further away from here and it's in the most danger should humans decide to launch an attack like they did last time. The western borders are occupied by a few of the lower ranking candidates who have allegiances with the higher ranks." Akog explained.

"The northern border is being occupied by the higher ranks while the eastern borders are being occupied by the mid ranks. It's closer to the sea so they'll need to fend off attacks by the sea monsters. In terms of safety, I suppose it's better than the southern and western borders since sea monsters are nothing compared to humans." He sighed.

"How many candidates are present in the southern borders? We need to understand our neighbours I suppose." s.h.i.+ro smiled.

Since they were planning on acquiring more territories to boost up Madison's ranking, they'll need to understand the nearby enemies first.

"The southern border is currently the home of ranks 72 to 67. There are four other candidates here excluding the princess. The main body of the candidates are in the centre of the continent. The western border is the home of ranks 66 to 50 due to its large size. The centre is ranks 49 to 25. The eastern border is from ranks 24 to 6 while the northern border is home of the top 5 ranking candidates." Akog replied.

"Hm… I see… I guess our plan to go up in the ranks is from southern, western, centre, eastern then northern. Though I don't think the higher ranks will let us have that easily so I say we leave the western. We'll immediately take the eastern and invade the centre so that it gives us a good hold of the south east territory. That way, there isn't any risk of being forced towards the human cities." s.h.i.+ro suggested.

"Are you sure we should aim for the easter borders? All the ranks there are near the top." Akog frowned since the easter borders has 18 rankers in total with their own backings and armies while they were just a small group in comparison.

"Oh we're not going to be attacking immediately don't worry. My plan is to begin the preparations for it such as cleaning up the southern borders first so that we are the rulers here then invade the east with the help of my fortress. I'm still getting the spirits to move to the fortress so it'll take another week at most. After that, I'll teleport it here and we can move from there." s.h.i.+ro smiled.

Seeing the doubt on Akog's face, Isilia shook her head since it was natural that he would doubt her claims.

"s.h.i.+ro perhaps it's better to show everyone here an image of the fortress so that it's more believable." Isilia suggested as s.h.i.+ro thought about it for a moment.

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"Ehhh~ but if I did that the shock factor won't be there when I bring the fortress here." s.h.i.+ro pouted since she enjoyed seeing the surprise on her party's face.

"We're surprised about what you do most of the time anyways. I'm sure losing one won't hurt you." Madison rolled her eyes.

"Che fine… Here's the blueprint of the city. If you want, I can reserve one of the islands for the demons if the time comes." s.h.i.+ro sighed and snapped her finger,

A holographic device appeared in the centre of the car as a full model of the fortress appeared in front of them.

Normally, her holographic blueprints would be semi translucent so that they could see the details inside but this one was a silhouette of orange which confused the party.

"s.h.i.+ro I thought this was a blueprint of the city. How come it's just a silhouette?" Madison asked.

"It is a blueprint. Zoom in and you'll see all the components. There's simply too many things that's why the blueprint became a silhouette." s.h.i.+ro shrugged since it was the truth. With the scale of the fortress, scaling it down to this size would just make it a silhouette.

"If it makes it easier, I'll break up the blueprint a little." s.h.i.+ro said while snapping her fingers.

The weapons that were on the fortress blueprint were suddenly highlighted in red and were detached from the fortress. Barriers were highlighted in green, houses in blue and so on.

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Seeing the blueprint become clear, the party was shocked by the scale of the houses compared to the overall fortress. It was no wonder that the blueprint was a silhouette at first since even the weapons were the size of hundreds of houses.

Navigating the fortress with the blueprint, the party was taken aback by everything that s.h.i.+ro had included and there was more being made with each pa.s.sing second.

Looking at the branch platforms that could house a few cities, the party collectively sighed.

"And you were worried about this not surprising us. I can't even imagine its real size in front of me since it seems unbelievable and you said that you made this?" Madison asked.

"Yup. I had some help with mana potions that I had found near Astral Horizons. They're 100% pure with no impurities so no lasting effects. They refill your mana to full and even increase the maximum capacity slightly. Though with my mana pool, that increase is negligible. I'm thinking of selling the potions on the fortress or just distributing it as army rewards since it not only refills your mana, allowing you to fight longer but it also increases the capacity. And the selling point, no lasting effects." s.h.i.+ro chuckled while opening a small portal to Astral Horizons.

Feeling the rush of mana in the car, everyone except for s.h.i.+ro and Isilia were caught off guard as she retrieved one of the vials that her drones have been collecting nonstop.

Showing the mana potions to the party, she closed the portal.

"Since when were you able to create portals at will now?" Silvia asked while a.n.a.lysing the potion.

"Recently. With the help of Isilia, I was able to make a teleport shrine of my own using nan.o.bots. Right now, I have markers placed on the mountain, the fortress and a few other places that I've already visited." s.h.i.+ro replied as Silvia nodded her head.

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"Every time we don't see you for a while, you pull out something crazy." Madison sighed while leaning back.

As the party relaxed for a little, Aarim checked the mana potion and compared a few of the notes in her book.

"Yeah I think it's the first of its kind. I'm not an alchemist so I wouldn't know but something like this is extremely valuable. I recommend not selling this in huge batches." Aarim sighed.

"Mn, I know. I was only planning to sell a bottle or two every so often with most of it being used in the military for their deeds. As for the alchemist, I was planning on asking Li Jian to see if he knew a trustworthy alchemist to do something with this potion since if we could refine or turn it into something else, it could be very useful." s.h.i.+ro replied as a potion like this was 'rare'.

Talking for a while longer, they soon arrived at a rather desolate city with little to no demons roaming around.

"This is our territory. As you can see, not many decide to stay here and those that do are only here because there are no other places for them." Akog sighed.

"We do have a small military but it's left over from the previous candidate that pa.s.sed on. If we want to secure our hold on the southern border, I'm afraid we'll have to do it manually rather than rely on an army."

"That's fine, I'm used to that method anyways. What about everyone else?" s.h.i.+ro glanced back at the party with a smile.

"I'm fine with that too. Most of my spells are designed to be one against many after all." Aarim laughed.

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"Same with me." Lyrica smiled. Looking towards the rest of the party, she saw that they all agreed so s.h.i.+ro knew that they were confident in facing an army which was perfect. Plus, even if they run low on mana, she had her potions to help. Especially for a healer like Silvia, as long as she had mana, everyone would continue to fight.

If anything, she was feeling a little sorry for the enemy.

"Oh right, do we want to kill the enemy or spare them? If we kill them, we might lose out on military power after all." s.h.i.+ro asked.

"Hmm… let's spare them if we can. If not, I suppose we can only kill." Madison shrugged.

Nodding her head, s.h.i.+ro made a note of that in her mind. She did have one concern though and that was the strength of the candidates near the top. If they were much stronger than expected, they'll need to be careful since one wrong move and they could force them to lead a suppression force themselves which could be quite bad.

Soon, they arrived at the castle.