Arriving in a cave hidden in the middle of the woods, Sage went outside and shifted into the immaterial form of the Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel. He’d already changed his Master Seal after arriving back on land, but this choice of body was just too useful to give up. While it was a bit large, having an intangible flying form was just such a powerful option. After changing forms he flew up into the air, gaining altitude as he traveled in the direction of Lionheart Town. He got a nice bird’s eye view to better appreciate the changes.

Lionheart Town’s vast transformation from back when he was a child was immense. A few small mountains were placed quite close to each other and there was a small city that somewhat looked like its back was up against these mountains. It made the city look more defensible, but the mountains were mainly the backyard of the Lang Clan. At least that was the case in the past. Later, the Lang Clan was wiped out and the mountains became free game for everyone in the city. They didn’t dare to touch the mines or start new ones, but they harvested the Spirit Plants and other natural treasures that grew in the wilds.

As Sage moved into range of Lionheart Town he was free to admire the changes that the new Lang Clan had wrought. No longer was it a small city next to small mountains. It was now a giant wooden fortress with a small city nestled up against the wall as if seeking shelter. The mountains had been used as a foundation and incorporated into this huge wooden wall, forming a complete ‘circle’. The placement of the mountains wasn’t perfectly circular and the ‘walls’ had been grown to match up with the peaks of the mountains. From the outside it truly appeared to be a gigantic wall of wood with only the top of the wall having a bit of green poking out, just enough to cast shade down to the base of it. From Sage’s vantage point he could see how very different it was on the inside of that wall.

Rather than a wall on the inside it looked more like a forested basin. The canopy at the top of the wall expanded inwards, sloping down as it did. The area in the center of the giant wooden wall looked like an immense arena or coliseum that had been overgrown with trees. Of course, that was only how it looked from above. Upon getting closer it would become apparent that all of these trees were actually buildings and just like in Golden Cricket Cove they were hollow on the inside or they had grown into the shape of huge treehouses upon their limbs. Sometimes it was a combination of both, the interior of the tree had a series of stairs and pathways leading out onto the largest branches where it would then grow into the shape of a building that looked as if it was resting on the branch.

The area inside the wooden wall was much larger than Lionheart Town outside it was. The population of the Lang Clan was also much smaller than that of Lionheart Town which helped contribute to the huge forest looking uninhabited. In fact, the majority of the Lang Clan lived up against the tallest part of the huge wall where Lionheart Town was. That’s because it was also the location of the former Lang Clan home. The great hall and ancestral tombs had been preserved and were now the most heavily protected place in the whole city.

As Sage approached the city he took a few minutes to enjoy the view, noting that the Utili-trees still existed in the city, enhancing the infrastructure. Yet there was a difference from Golden Cricket Cove as they hadn’t replaced all the buildings, only added the trees to provide water, sewers, heating and cooling. The idea being to draw more people to Golden Cricket Cove in order to fully experience the wonders of Banyan Building while making their home in Lionheart Town forbidding and unfriendly. They also didn’t want to form any animosity with the other residents of the town so they gave them some benefits in the form of the Utili-trees and the tall buildings at the edges of town that acted as Airship docks.

Many Airships filled the skies, with quite a lot of traffic entering and leaving the city from these docks. Instead of just one of these docks like in the past, there were now almost a dozen of them spread throughout the city. There were also a few Airships docked to long branches extending out of the Lang Clan’s wall, but they were confined to a short stretch of wall. All of this air traffic was also the reason why after getting a good look, Sage descended towards the ground. He switched back into his human form and approached the city on foot. As the creators of the Airship it was not unexpected for the Lang Clan to have very strict security in the skies. They didn’t allow anyone to fly over the center of their home and anyone flying too close would find teams of Dragoons moving to intercept them.

Sage fought his desire to return directly to the Lang Clan as he knew he would likely get caught up in things. Instead he spent a few more hours just walking around Lionheart Town to see how things had changed and observing how the other ‘powers’ in town were living. To him it felt like a lifetime ago when he was worried about appeasing these groups and maintaining his rule of the city. He wasn’t there long before he faced up against a force organized by Hei Bai and was forced to run for it once again. There wasn’t enough time for him to form a deep relationship, good or bad, with the locals of Lionheart Town. So, he spent a little time now to see what sort of relationship had developed between them and the ‘overlords’ of Lionheart Town, the Lang Clan. He was also interested to see whether or not the people thought of them in such a fashion and he was pleasantly surprised.

He’d already learned his lesson about trying to collect deep intelligence on his own, but just for general opinions he didn’t feel the need to release agents into his own territory. He would gather specific details later and only wanted to get a general feel for the climate among the people. Were they disgruntled? Angry at any specific groups? Were there any dangerous rumors going around? What he found was not any of these things. Instead the main concerns of the people he ran into was all gossip about the latest episode of a drama that had been playing on the screens all over the city for the last few months. The clan had followed his suggestion, using a model from early television with a single ‘channel’ and curating specific programming for every hour of the day aimed towards different interests.

They played controlled news in the morning, local interest pieces in the afternoons, and entertainment in the evening. The shows during daytime hours were the least interesting, giving good news and highlighting happy local stories to help build camaraderie and morale without encouraging anyone to skip their work day. In the evening they played episodic sitcom-esque television shows, and overnight they just played soft music over logos and advertisements for local businesses. Lastly, on the weekends they played movies and the most famous and highly regarded series from the Inner World. Since all the best stuff was concentrated on the weekend, the people could spend the whole week being excited and talking about it.

It was pretty basic, but for the commoners who couldn’t even access books in large numbers and only rarely saw a live stage show it would take more than a decade for them to get over it. Finding out how fixated the people were on entertainment it meant that they weren’t angry at their rulers nor were they suffering any great hardships. Or at least the media was doing a great job at making them forget about those issues.

Exactly as planned, I suppose. That’s a win.