After reading the document, the new council member quickly realized that he might have made a mistake that would cost him his career, so he apologized.
The meeting then continued:
"How is the research on cracking the Reincarnation Spell that the leader of the Death Cult used?" asked Amelia.
One of the reasons that this cult is so hard to remove is because their leader used a special spell that allowed them to reincarnate after death: to be precise, the spell chooses a random person to inherit the memories, ideas, and beliefs of the previous Cult Leader.
Then, the new Leader will secretly start spreading the ideas of the Death Cult among the population. With this method, every time the Empire kills one leader, another person will just appear replacing him, making it virtually impossible to get rid of the Death Cult.
"So far, we only know a few things. First, the chosen person is always non-magical. Second, after being chosen, the non-magical person will also develop magical abilities. However, we have never detected any mana from the leader's bodies after capturing them."
"Could it be another power system unknown to us?"
"Most likely. However, this does not change the fact that we do not have any method to deal with the situation--especially since we know little about what power they are using."
"So, what should we do in this situation?"
"I think it's best to increase the manpower of the Division in charge of dealing with the Death Cult. Ask the army to intervene and lend some soldiers," said one of the Ten Rings.
"That's a good method. Let's discuss the number of people that will be allocated," added Amelia. After discussing and negotiating on the allocation of the army, the next issue was brought up.
Surprisingly, the council member who was in charge of this issue was Percy Weasly.
Dressed in a luxurious magical robe, he stood up and said: "There has been a rise in the number of N.E.E.T.S as the east called them in the Empire. According to recent statistics, 5% of the Empire's population does not work, study, go to school or contribute anything.
"All they do is play games on Skynet."
"5%? With a population of 50 billion people in the Empire, this is a total of 2.5 billion people. That's too high," asked one of the council members.
"We have provided free education, healthcare, and even provided great wealth fare to people to alleviate people from the worries of living cost, and to encourage them to contribute to the Empire, but this does not seem to be enough."
"We even prevented the widespread use of golems or robots to leave certain jobs open to these kinds of people, but now it seems to be useless."
"Do we know the reason for their behaviors?" asked one of the Ten Rings. "It cannot be just because of addiction. One Focus Potion is enough for them to get rid of this kind of addiction. Plus, they can easily get access to many psychologists in Skynet."
"According to surveys we did and analyzing these people, we came to the conclusion that they resent the fact that they are not wizards, but in the game, they can experience having magical abilities," replied Percy.
"So, it comes down to the class difference between magical and non-magical. Although magetech allows ordinary people to wield magic, it's nothing compared to real wizards."
"Adding to that the fact that the majority of wealth and influence is in the hands of wizards--who are the minority in the Empire, this has indeed become a problem," analyzed one of the Ten Rings.
"The issue we have to deal with now is those unproductive people, not the class problem that is plaguing the Empire," responded another Ten Rings councilor.
"We can just prevent them from logging into Skynet, forcibly stopping them from playing games all day."
"That's a terrible idea. I can already guess that if we did something like that, the suicide rate would drastically increase amongst these people."
"In that case, we limit the time that they log in, and pass a mandate to them that they have to work for a certain amount of hours every week."
"That could work, but I do not like this solution."
"Excuse me, but I may have a solution to this problem," suddenly said Percy. Everyone then looked at him, waiting for him to continue.
"As you all know, many people resented the mandate to donate their emotions to create the Lesser Stones. The Empire has received much critics for this reason, but now, we could use this situation to ourselves.
"We could use Skynet to gather emotions from these groups of people alone, not having to bother the general population."
"That's an excellent idea. These unproductive people can finally have real values, and the critics of the Empire will be decreased."
"It's better to announce to the public that this was the Arcane Emperor's idea, thus increasing his prestige and control over the Empire," said one of the Ten Rings.
Many people secretly cursed after hearing this, thinking why they did not think of this first.
Amelia nodded her head, "This is indeed a good plan." She then looked at Percy. "Do you have any other ideas regarding this subject?"
"Yes, Council Elder. We can secretly give these people Soul Link access to make it easier to gather emotions. However, to ensure their safety, more Soul Soothing Potions have to be given to them."
"Since this is your idea, you can be in charge of handling the process."
Percy immediately became excited after hearing this, while many people nodded at this young man's political talent. Of course, a few people despise Percy and think that he only got to this position because of how powerful the Weasley family was.
After Percy presented to the council, they spent the next few hours discussing the different issues of the Empire. After everything ended, Amelia sat in her office, pondering about the recent meeting.
'Most of the issues the Empire is currently facing can be summarized to the fact that it is too young, and many people have not forgotten the old days. Although the concept of countries was abolished, the older generations still identified with the old countries and passed these ideas to the new generation.
'In order words, not as many people identified as citizens of the Empire as they should; there is not enough unity.
'Adding to that the rapid advancement of magic and technology, the problem became more aggravated.'
Amelia paused as she tapped her fingers on her desk.
'There are currently two ways I can think of to deal with these issues: One is to wait. As time passes, these old ideas will slowly be forgotten, and people will slowly recognize the autonomy of the Empire.
'The other is to start an intergalactic war where we are forced to band together to face a foreign threat--just like the Dementors Invasion.'
After making a brief plan, Amelia sent the information about today's meeting to Edward, along with her thoughts on how to solve the current issue.
Here is a countdown until Edward reaches the next world: 9 chapters.
Title: Preparation
