Eruchea:-

Speaking of exotic trading partners, Harry remembered a few things about her.

First of all, her name was “Mo Loeng”. Turns out that the system had a very slight error when translating her name to English.

It ended up mixing up Japanese and Chinese when translating her name instead of Cantonese, which was supposed to be the actual language used.

Similarly, it gave Harry the Wangxiu name for the Demon country.

In Malonia, the place was referred to as Helheim, keeping up with the names of most other countries.

But the demons simply called their place Jukgwok (pronounced: Yukgwok) or Prison Country since it was difficult for most of them to survive without miasma, which was mainly present in Jukgwok only.

This was something Harry found when Mo Loeng herself revealed her name much later. 

She never bothered with it since she was used to the previous king using the Wangxiu pronunciation.

The same went with the country name.

Thankfully, she probably didn’t realise that Harry had messed up her name even further…

This planet, which was supposed to be completely different from Earth, seemed to have so many similarities with Earth that it had ended up causing several almost unnoticeable errors in the system.

But once this was found out, they were quickly fixed.

{A/N: That responsibility lies with me actually. I messed up and mixed up the Japanese pronunciation of Devil (Ma) and the Chinese/Cantonese (Mo) along with the Chinese word “Liang”…

And then, I decided to take this opportunity to make a couple more similar changes while dumping the entire blame onto the poor system…}

Also, she turned out to be a shapeshifting succubus and only used the form that Harry saw when she met humans.

According to her, her preferred form resembled more of a disgusting blob since that was apparently supposed to be pretty comfortable. (She didn’t actually show it but just told Harry about it.)

And it turned out that the demons didn’t like qi and Wangxiu too much.

The thing was that initially, qi wasn’t all that bad.

But once the humans started cultivating qi and ascending, they began messing with natural laws and taking control over the said laws once their comprehension reached a certain level. (As is normally shown in wuxia/xianxia with cultivators comprehending and gaining the power of “Laws”…)

However, once this happened, instead of becoming more open-minded (as one should be after learning about the supposed “truths of the universe”/ the number “42”), they tried reshaping the world into their own image.

Now, humanity was regarded as the supreme beings and the human form as the greatest and most sacred.

While beastly and demonic forms were considered unholy.

Such a thing would be fine if limited to a single or a few communities.

But due to the cultivation gods, nature itself now began reinforcing these ideals.

So, the more humanoid the form, the more painful it was if the being in question was a demon, especially a shapeshifter.

That’s why most demons didn’t prefer having humanoid forms and always kept their body looking very different from normal humans.

Because, even if a demon just had fangs or a weird skin colour or even just horns, the pain they felt was somewhat reduced.

And this was also why they hated qi.

Since those gods used qi, their control over qi was the greatest.

That’s why, once a demon or anyone for that matter started cultivating qi, they would get stronger but they would be doomed to transform into and live as humans.

Some demonic beings did still try it since it allowed them to break through their limits in strength much faster and easier.

But even these were either the very, very desperate ones or were on/near the level of demonic beasts. (Which were considered as mostly mindless animals by the demons…)

Because once anyone started off with cultivation, either they had to see it through or they were killed.

Either by someone else or by the so-called “Heavenly Tribulation”, which was the fancy term that the cultivator gods gave to the attacks they did using the laws of nature.

Basically, if anyone was going out of line according to them, they would chuck down an overkill bolt of lightning to get rid of them and declare that it was the heavens punishing the being for committing sins. (tl;dr: He annoyed me. So I killed him… But I’ll blame it on nature!)

Absolute BS!

But people believed it.

Thus, any of the supposed “Demons” or “Demonic Beings” that cultivators saw were actually just the greedy small fry who had run away and pretended to be bigshots after stuffing their faces with lots of qi… Or just some other crazy humans/cultivators who decided to mess around pretending to be demons…

The real bigshots of the demon world rarely ever bothered messing with humans like that.

Which sensible being would want anything to do with a power that they knew would end up taking away their identities?

The strong demons took pride in their identities and bodies as demons.

If cultivating qi to become stronger meant that they would need to give up their bodies and demonic identities, they would rather not go anywhere near qi!

Thankfully, the qi gods couldn’t mess too much with being that didn’t make use of qi.

That’s why, as long as demons maintained their original forms and shapeshifting demons remained in the most non-human forms while not messing with qi, their lives would remain pain-free!

The same went with other species. As long as one didn’t try to cultivate qi, those gods wouldn’t be able to do much to affect them.

Thankfully, no one seemed to have managed to gain complete control over nature yet.

Otherwise, the entirety of Etheldor might end up falling into a tyrannical rule under the people from Wangxiu…

Coming back to a few days after the name-granting ceremony, Harry finally led Brittney to the warehouse.

This was a place that not many knew about. Except for the ones directly involved, like the people from the royal palace and the treasurer etc.

Harry didn’t bother revealing Mo Loeng’s identity to Brittney since it would be more fun to watch her live reaction.

And fun it was.

Because when Mo Loeng arrived, she had sensed Brittney’s presence and disguised herself and her workers as humans using her Succubus charm/shapeshifting powers.

She looked like a completely normal blonde-haired woman with slightly tanned skin, a slim body and wearing an expensive-looking black dress.

Harry too was quick on the uptake played along with Mo Loeng.

But when they greeted each other, Mo Loeng turned her hand into goop mid handshake.

It looked like her hand melted onto Brittney’s, complete with what looked like blood and gore.

{A/N: Refer to Elfen Lied (manga) if anyone wants to see a melted/melting human…}

And this made Brittney scream like a demonic banshee who had woken up in the morning to Doom Guy staring at her with his guns fully loaded.

This was after the rest of the crew had left.

So both Harry and Mo Loeng ended up literally laughing their a*ses off while rolling around on the floor while Brittney too fell to the ground out of fear and shock.

Brittney’s reaction just felt too funny at that moment.

Naturally, it took a couple of hours before Brittney calmed down and managed to accept the fact that she had to do deals with literal demons every month.

But Mo Loeng helped with that by allowing her to not visit if she wanted.

She promised that if needed, Mo Loeng or one of her subordinates would be able to take care of the transactions by themselves.

The only thing that Brittney’s side would need to do is restock the export goods and collect the payment afterwards.

But since it would be too rude, Brittney finally steeled up and decided that she would try to improve herself and participate more often.

It just felt too rude on their behalf to not even show up for trading.

Once all this drama was done, Mo Loeng decided to finally get going.

As she waved towards Harry and Brittney, she once again started fake melting her hand, causing Brittney to turn pale while the other two cracked a smile after looking at the reaction.

Once she finally left, the two remaining people also decided to take their leave.

And just as they sat in the royal vehicle (the modified truck, which had been improved to look just a bit bigger than a large humvee), Harry’s shoulder was punched by a very annoyed looking Brittney, whose mood didn’t seem to improve even until she left the vehicle near her house.

It seemed that Harry had taken the prank a little too far…

But now, the major issue was over.

The other ministers’ jobs were easier to deal with.

Now, Harry would finally have more free time to do other things.

Several days flew by.

It took Harry some time to get used to not overworking so much.

But while he got used to it, he did manage to get around to doing some important projects.

The first was Dutch bicycles. Easy to mass produce and great for people to travel around the country on.

No more need for walking for hours.

And the second one was what he called the “Montgolfier Project”!

The fancy name was due to the information provided by the system.

And Harry was tempted enough by the name that he ended up making yet another fake manuscript to justify the use of the name.

‘I wonder if people would ever find out that I’m the one writing these books?’, Harry thought to himself.

Montgolfier was the name of two brothers, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Éntienne Montgolfier.

And these two were credited with the invention (on Earth) of one of the first things that transmigrator techies/scientist rulers tend to build for their countries.

Namely, the hot air balloons.

Yes, Harry figured that it was good to introduce flight early on before he got around to making more fancy items.

He did have one more project which he called the “Fitch-Fulton Project” that he had given to the ministries along with the other two. (The dutch bikes didn’t get a fancy project name though…)

The creation of the dutch bicycles was already done and those things were already selling like hotcakes.

But somewhat surprisingly, they managed to finish the preparations for the hot air balloons a few days before the third one.

Also, funny enough, Harry had been offered a “royal” bicycle by the ministries.

Basically, a gold plated bicycle encrusted with diamonds.

Naturally, the only thing that this resulted in was the poor guy who came to tell Harry about the offer being smacked in the face and getting kicked out of Harry’s office along with a strongly worded letter to the others, explaining the utter stupidity of the idea.

{A/N: In case you’re wondering, yes. Such fancy bikes do exist on Earth. The really rich might have such things.

I know it’s pretty dumb but it’s at least better than burning the extra money (as shown in Looney Toons), I guess…}

Harry did get a bicycle for himself though. But a normal one.

No traces of precious metals or stone were found on it.

So, after getting dressed in the morning, Harry took off on his bike towards one of the large open fields near the barracks.

It did feel somewhat weird to him when he thought about riding a bicycle in royal garments.

But Harry managed to suppress that feeling by reminding himself of the many people who cycled to work in formal suits back on Earth.

And within about an hour, he reached the testing site.

They had to set the site of balloon assembly to be quite far from the public areas.

The reason was pretty obvious though.

The balloon that was being used looked pretty stable but had never actually been used to carry people.

So, in case it decided to commit suicide on launch day, Harry decided that it was best to not involve many people.

Otherwise, if the balloon were to crash, the fuel tank would probably explode.

And even though Harry might be able to save many of the people, it would be too much if houses and stuff ended up catching on fire.

Sure, the system might help. But Harry didn’t exactly want a divine miracle.

That might lead to the system’s existence being revealed. And once that was done, life would probably find a way to become a billion times more difficult for Harry.

Hell no!

That was something that Harry didn’t even want to imagine happening…

By the time Harry arrived, everyone else had almost finished setting things up.

The security of the region was naturally very high.

This was to prevent unwanted people from entering and causing issues with the testing.

They would also help if the test ends up in a disaster.

Plus, Harry didn’t want the off chance of some spy discovering his tech.

Ever since he found out that the system could have errors, he figured that he would start being extra vigilant about this stuff.

The gods in charge were bad at their job and now, even the system they made turned out to be not as good as Harry had imagined it to be.

Life was tough…

But at least his system was pretty helpful when he really needed it!

“Good morning, Your Majesty!”, wished Frederick Kruger, while inspecting the balloon, as he saw Harry approaching.

He was the minister of Technology.

He would naturally be the first person on the scene if some new tech was being made or tested.

It was literally his job to be present at such times.

He could use subordinates too but since not much time had passed since his appointment, he decided to come himself.

Plus, he didn’t manage to hire many people in the short duration he had been a minister.

The handful he did manage to get his hands on were currently too busy doing office work, including his part.

“A very good morning to you too, Frederick!”, replied Harry as he looked at the big basket being attached to an even bigger balloon.

The basket and balloon had been made with the collaboration of the Housing and Urban Development and the Culture ministries while the fuel tanks and burners were made with the collaboration of the Resources and Technology ministries.

This was also one of the reasons why Harry was surprised by their speed.

Normally, ministries back on Earth might take months to figure out such things if they were told to work together. Especially if they were as new as the ones in his country.

‘I guess people did say correctly.

People from the olden days were much better than modern people.

These people know how to work together efficiently without causing much trouble.’, Harry thought as he marvelled at the level of sophistication with which the contraption before his eyes had been built.

‘The reason for the creation of hot air balloons being faster could also be that everyone was too excited by the prospect of flight, something that only animals or cultivators/magic-users could do until now.

Project three was pretty crazy by their standards too. But the idea of being able to fly probably felt like a bigger achievement to them.’

Once the final checks on the balloon were done, Frederick approached Harry to inform him that they were ready for testing.

“Your Majesty, here is a map of Eruchea with the route that we plan on taking marked on it.”

The map Harry received wasn’t very detailed.

It just had the general layout of the country drawn on it.

Aside from the palace and the guild buildings, no other specific buildings were marked. The other places just had a generalised label, like “commoner region”, or “inner district” etc.

But this much was to be expected.

These maps weren’t capable of updating dynamically like the digital maps back on Earth.

They were hand-drawn instead. And honestly, those cartographers under the construction team couldn’t really bother remaking maps every so often.

It was almost like asking an author to rewrite their book from scratch every time a new copy had to be sold instead of just printing out another copy of the first copy.

But still, these maps were designed in such a way that the lack of detail didn’t really cause them to lose functionality.

Finer details weren’t needed if the roads and the different regions were properly mapped out along with the very important landmarks.

But all of this was still not as necessary for this occasion since they needed to fly, not walk on roads.

And, therefore, the flight path had been properly marked on the map while keeping track of the winds and other weather conditions.

Just as Harry was done studying the map, Jeanette, Qing and Shin also came along to the site on their own bikes.

The plan was for Harry, Jeanette, Qing, Shin and Frederick to be the first people to fly, while the military personnel nearby remained on the ground.

Ideally, there should have been others too, who had helped build the balloon.

But the other ministries were currently too busy to worry about that.

That’s why Jeanette and co were able to get the seats.

Also, it was decided to conduct the first flight at five members only, instead of the ten-member max capacity of the balloon. This would ensure minimal damage in case stuff went south.

Ideally, it was a bad idea to involve the king in the test if one was going for minimal damage. But it was basically common sense that stuff was going to be like twenty times better if they did involve their ruler.

Not only because people would put in more effort to make it safer since the royalty were involved but also because Harry was skilled enough to easily rescue the passengers in case the testing failed.

Once the bikes were parked away properly, everyone stepped into the basket while last-minute safety checks were performed.

Jute belts were present inside the basket for passenger safety.

Harry didn’t have the materials for making the fancy modern-day safety belts so he just went with whatever came to mind first.

Once all of this was done, the burners were ignited and the previously limp balloon began straightening up.

This procedure had been tested several times during the initial development period so no one was particularly surprised by it. (Aside from some of the soldiers who were watching it for the first time.)

And after the balloon was standing high in the air, looking stuffed to the brim, came the fun part.

Slowly, the basket began rising up from the ground.

It was still tied to the ground with a thick rope so that it doesn’t go out of control very early on.

Still, everyone had an excited expression plastered on their faces.

This was yet another first for them.

For the first time in their lives, they were actually flying! And that too without any crazy powers!

No magic, no qi or any other type of non-human stuff. (Winged demons and stuff could fly.)

It was just them with a basket tied to a big bag like tube and an overly powerful gas stove in the middle!

How crazy was that!

This was also the first time they had properly felt the effect of gravity with their bodies becoming a little heavier as their altitude increased.

However, once everyone calmed down a little, Frederick instructed a nearby soldier to finally untie the balloon so that they could begin their main journey.

Once that was done, the output of the burner was increased to further increase the balloon’s altitude which was kept at a high where they could jump out to a nearby build’s roof without too serious of injuries. (About 2-2.5 stories higher than the average Eruchean building height.)

The balloon travelled near the outskirts of the country, close to where people could see it but far enough away that no one could get hurt.

Since this had been an open secret (Harry didn’t bother informing his citizens), everyone looked extremely shocked at the flying “monster”.

However, many of the people with sharp eyes (those who were hunters and such), managed to see Harry awkwardly waving at them.

He had forgotten to inform the masses and now was somewhat embarrassed since everyone looked scared of the balloon.

The ones who managed to catch sight of the people sitting inside did help calm others down though.

Since they saw that it wasn’t a monster but a new invention by their king, what was the need to be scared?

That’s why anyone who saw that started spreading the news to their peers.

However, even with the fear that had spread to everyone, once they found out the truth of the matter, their hearts lit up with pride and joy.

The fact that their king was flying only meant that they too would be able to do the same pretty soon.

And with so many cultivators and mages flying around the world, which mortal didn’t dream of flying?

Their country seemed to have embarked on the journey to smack those overproud energy users in the face!

The test flight was successful and Harry greenlit the production of hot air balloons.

They would initially be used only for military or royal purposes.

However, once their country grew sufficiently over the next few years, public use of the balloons would also be authorised.

Harry was disembarking the balloon when his eyes fell upon the tsunami that was barely being held back by the military.

‘The public was going to go bonkers anyway.

But it at least didn’t interfere with the initial testing thankfully.

It is the responsibility of their leader to calm them down.

Unfortunately for me, that role belongs to me only…

Those novels back home used to make isekai kingdom management look so dang easy!’