Gary and his small army of cultivators were hiding out in the mountains. They were waiting for the two dukes' army to pass by.

They were going to start an avalanche to crush as many as possible, and slow them down.

The army arrived, and the plan went off without a hitch.

One of the dukes was even mortally wounded. He was forced to use an artifact to clone his body, and transfer his consciousness. This greatly delayed their army, and lowered him back down to the Sky Scraping stage.

By the time their army got moving once more, Gary’s had already returned to the capital, and manned the walls.

Duke Duke Irontree, now unquestionably the leader of this rebellion, realized that a siege would take far too long. He decided to challenge Gary to a duel for the fate of the kingdom. Gary, feeling a bit arrogant, accepted the duel.

The duke called for his ally Duke Duke Tintree, now weakened due to the avalanche, to meet him in his tent just before the duel was set to begin.

Tintree, they all look the same, inbreeding, walked into irontree’s tent, and kneeled in front of him. “I’m ready brother-cousin.”

Irontree nodded, and absorbed Tintree’s energy. The two had merged into one united being, permanently. This gave them a power boost that they were certain would help them kill Gary. This had always been the plan, but Irintree expected to have had to fight Coppertree, not Gary.

The two mages met in front of the gates. Gary stood there casually. Irintree took on a battle stance. Once they were ready the duke flew towards Gary sparks flying from his body.

Then his head exploded. In Gary’s hand was a hand cannon.

It was the strongest artifact the heavenly prince had given him. Gary had no intention of playing fair. In the time that it took to set up the duel, he had snuck his army around the enemy. As soon as he killed Irintree he ordered his army to slaughter anyone that didn’t surrender. The demoralized army mostly lived.

Now the only authority in the mage kingdom, Gary, declared that his word was absolute, and that all the land belonged to him. It seemed that it was the beginning of the reign of a new Mage-Tyrant.

The neighboring Tersid Mage Kingdom warily eyed these developments, and prepared itself for a potential war in the future.

Gary began by disbanding the council of nobles, and executing the vast majority of them. He seized all of their lands, and created a new congress.

This congress would be elected by the peasants, and commoners from among them. Those who chose to run would be educated, and fed. Gary hoped that by providing a democratic council he would not appear as tyrannical. He also needed a way to know the grievances of the public in order to understand what he needed to address.

Gary wanted an educated, but ‘loyal’ populace. To achieve this he began to create public schools. He began scan-training teachers in special ‘enlightenment’ rooms.

Scan-training? Yes, well if you’ve noticed, thank you very much, Gary has learned runes. He is a turbo-special rune boi now. So, this is an advanced runic formation that scans data into minds, at the cost of 10 years of their life, but Gary doesn’t mention that, or ever feel the need to.

Temporarily until he can normally train proper educators. He’s not a monster.

They would teach the new guiding ideology of the kingdom: Garyism. A mix of all kinds of ideas. Most revolving around doing what Gary wants you to do.

One small problem was the religious schools. These schools were run by the cult of the thunder god. This cult was quite popular, and while never acknowledged as the national religion, many of the peasants, Caleb, and Cara included, believed in it.

Gary needed a way to discredit religious schools. Perhaps it was time to cause a schism within the cult.

Gary knew exactly what he needed to do.

All religions have ideas, and all ideas have their detractors. The cultists believed that the ideal form of existence was to be honest, contented, and patient. Good ideas if one were to practice them in their proper form sure, but the folk, bless their hearts, were taught the ‘idiot’ or slave versions of these to keep them down, man.

Gary doesn’t care he’s trying that too, but he needs a way to knock the church down a few trillion pegs.

Gary meets with the Myriad League of Malcontentz. They are a group of extremists within the cult that believe in the opposite god to the thunder god.

The Zazz, is the spirit of freedom, compassion, and determination. To Zazzers the best value in life can be found by being loud, proud, and unyielding. That’s so true!

Gary offered them money in exchange they would be louder. This was a great deal for the both of them.