Into the fields of Summer - 89. The Platinum Prince 4

Dinner that evening was filled with excited chatter about the sparring experiences of the day. Mark and Troy observed the sessions and couldn’t stop talking about how amazed they were with elemental magic, both guys observed Erica and Lucy take on two silver level elves. Both vampires stood their ground but were outmaneuvered and defeated after almost an hour of sparring.

“It was really amazing!” Troy exclaimed.

“We still got beaten though” Erica huffed.

“We’ll get them next time” Lucy said then paused and then added “was a good spar though, training with these elves certainly got my blood flowing”

“Yeah...you’re right...next time we have to be more coordinated, the ones we were fighting were so in sync” Lucy said to her progeny.

“I’m excited for our sessions tomorrow” Luca said, they weren’t able to join the sparring sessions today due to the meeting we had, though Luca and the rest were able to observe some of the fights the rest of the vampires had.

“We have to make the most out of this...” Konrad chimed in. “We don’t know when we can get such a good spar, I’m sure Jetan will let us spar with the best of Akros tomorrow”

“Jetan?” Hashim asked.

“The head of Akros, he was in our meeting earlier”

“Ah, that’s like the elf version of Stratos right?” Patrick asked.

“Yes... yes...you can put it that way” Konrad replied.

“Ohh...Akros versus Stratos Huh?” Henry teased.

“Don’t get your hopes up... I’m the only one representing Stratos here... though long term hopefully we can get Stratos and Akros together” Konrad said.

“Well...you can always spar with Chris” Reza teased his husband.

Konrad shot Reza a surprised look and then set his gaze on me “I wouldn’t even dare”

“What? What do you mean?” I asked.

“He means you’re way stronger than him” Victor whispered at me.

“Ohhh...” I answered realizing that I was a Platinum compared to Konrad’s high Gold tier.

“Would take the lot of us to take Chris down” Konrad laughed a little.

“I’d really love to see you fight, Chris” Luca added. “I want to see how you handle yourself”

“I think that can be arranged, I can have Patri or one of my uncles set something for me that you guys can watch or maybe even join in” I replied.

“That would be so cool” Leo piped in. “I want to see you fend off multiple enemies at once”

“Well...I did beat Patri and Uncle Rehanmir together this one time...” I offhandedly said.

That remark made the table go silent.

“You what?” Luca asked almost stuttering.

“Uhm...I fought with uncle Rehanmir and Patri...they’re pretty good”

“And you won? Against the two of them?” Konrad now asking in surprise.

“But isn’t King ZoHal supposed to be like one of the strongest elves?” Luca asked Reza.

“King ZoHal is clearly someone who shouldn’t be trifled with... he’s clearly a Platinum level” Reza replied.

“Guys... what? It’s nothing big really... I think both my uncle and grandfather were holding back” I said awkwardly... I masked my discomfort with this level of attention with an awkward laugh.

I mean surely Patri and Uncle Rehanmir were holding back that time right?

“Wow...I would have loved to have witnessed that session” Henry mused while Stefano and Hashim that were both beside him nodded in agreement.

—-

Victor and I were now back in our room and cuddling together. I was still really horny but I’ll save the hot sex for later, I wanted to cuddle with my hot boyfriend for now.

“So what’s this I hear about you being ambassador?” Victor said in a teasing manner as he played with my hair while my head rested on his naked chest.

“Stop it...”

“You’ll be great Chris” my boyfriend said encouragingly.

“I don’t have a clue where to begin...”

“I’m sure your grandfather and uncles will have it sorted...they’ll be guiding you I’m sure...and I hope you haven’t forgotten that you have an experienced vampire politician as a boyfriend”

“Hmm...vampire politician eh?” I said in a sultry manner as I played with Victor’s nipples.

“Yeah...” Victor replied softly almost in a hiss as I started to lap on his nipple.

Talk of my ambassadorship was forgotten as we ended up having a very passionate night, I ended up with 4 loads before we slept... and Victor got another serving of my sweet blood as well.

Breakfast the following morning went by smoothly, and everyone was looking forward to the day.

Dad was going to spend some time with Uncle Selvenus and Matra while Mark, Troy, Raymond, and Erica were going to visit some nearby plazas and parks while the rest were going to take it easy before the sparring sessions of the day.

I, on the other hand, had a meeting with my Uncle Rehanmir at the Ministry of Civil Security. After showering and changing into a blue and silver military style uniform, Etalos accompanied me with Nomir as driver to the Ministry.

The drive to the Ministry went without a hitch, Etalos and Nomir got along well, during our drive to the ministry’s office, I learned that Nomir was apparently a gold level earth elf. He apparently spent almost a decade in a Kashi honing his earth magic skills and just a year ago crossed the threshold from an upper tier silver to a lower level gold, I then also learned that Nomir is not just a guard or driver but actually a member of the Royal Guard.

Nomir has at least finally slowly opened up to us, he’s been very shy at first, like me being a prince was such a big deal for him or something like that, but seeing me laugh and joke with my friends and Etalos seemed to ease the tension he felt.

We then reached a district in the capital that had wider boulevards, and it seemed to be the administrative district, both sides of the main road were flanked by large buildings around 5-7 stories high, most in either Greek or Roman style architecture. Etalos then explained to me that most ministries were indeed located in this district, while Yal’s spy office was rather special and had its own base in another neighborhood. I remember the drive from Yal’s Ministry and I could definitely say it wasn’t in the vicinity of this neighborhood, I checked the maps on my phone and found myself more than 4 kilometers from the palace complex.

Nomir then drove the car towards what seemed like a ramp headed underground, Nomir then explained to me that the parking and entrance for high clearance officials were accessible via these ramps.

The car stopped near a brightly lit entrance in what seemed to be an underground car park, the entrance was flanked by four elf soldiers, two on each side, all in light gray military style jackets.

Etalos opened the door for me and we both then walked to the large entryway, the large door was made of opaque glass.

An elf soldier approached us and asked “May I please ask for your clearance level, sir?” then he pulled out a glass tablet and I put my right hand on top of it. The elf seemed beyond himself and surprised? Uhm no...scared actually when the tablet went green and showed him my level 10 clearance. Only royalty had level 10 clearance...he knew the faces of the rest of the royal family so he connected the dots and after a second or two gave me a deep bow. “Your Highness”

The rest of the elf soldiers exchanged confused glances, they were put out of their misery by Etalos when he said “His Highness, Prince Christopher is expected by Prince Rehanmir”

That statement took a second or two to sink in, and then the three remaining elves gave me a bow as well.

The glass door was opened for us, and we were ushered through a very sleek and modern corridor. It was brightly lit and had white marble floors and had a black and gray color motif in the walls.

After a minute or so, we found ourselves in an elevator and our solder escort pressed “7” for us.

It did not take us more than 5 minutes to find ourselves in a large and well furnished meeting room.

Etalos excused himself and told me he’ll be waiting for me outside.

A male elf also in a grey uniform informed me that my uncle and the chiefs will be joining me shortly.

I have to admit I was nervous, I mean do I really need to be having this meeting?

After a few more minutes, my energy sensed the familiar aura of my uncle approaching. The door swung open and he was flanked by followed by three more elves, one of which was Jetan, the other a beautiful female elf, and the other an equally handsome guy.

“Good morning, glad you made it” My uncle greeted me with a hug. “Sorry to keep you waiting”

“No problem, uncle... it’s good to see you again”

“You’ve already met Jetan...“ Uncle Rehanmir pointed to the guy whose hand I shook. Then he introduced the two other elves that I did not recognize.

“This is Sadnar, the Chief of the Royal Guard” my uncle introduced the handsome brown haired, brown eyed Elurdeya elf. He was wearing a pastel blue shirt with silver accents, he was an attractive fellow that looked to be in his mid-thirties.

“Pleased to meet you, your highness” Sadnar gave a light bow before we shook hands.

“This is Alisha, Chief of the Civil Guard” my uncle introduced the attractive lady. She had light brown hair, green eyes and a hint of Turkish features, so most likely from the same tribe as Etalos. She was wearing a white top underneath her pastel blue suit that matched her pastel blue skirt. Alisha seemed to be in her early thirties.

“Your Highness” she said as she gave her own bow.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you” I said.

The four of us then sat and began our hour long meeting. Actually it was more of a briefing, the three chiefs of the bureaus worked for my uncle introduced themselves, their military and public service backgrounds, all three were apparently gold level elves.

During the briefing, Jetan discussed the operations of Akros as some sort of the realm’s version of the special forces. While Sadnar discussed the Royal Guard as the realm’s equivalent of an an army of some sort, I was briefed about their operations and training regimen.

While Alisha discussed at length the Civil Guard which served as the realm’s police.

My uncle and the three other elves then started to discuss the matter of elf interest back on earth, what I learned from them clearly helped me a bit put into perspective some stuff in my head, certainly clearing some confusion I had with the entire security apparatus of the realm.

The meeting ended after 80 minutes or so, and my uncle thanked the chiefs for their time.

It was only my uncle and I left in the room.

“I know it’s a bit much, but you’ll settle into your role soon enough” he smiled at me.

“I hope so uncle...I really am not sure I can pull this off”

“Believe me, you can. I know how you feel...goodness when I was still a deputy minister, during my first few meetings I thought I was making a fool out of myself, though apparently...looking back, I think I actually handled those times pretty well” My uncle smiled then dipped on his tea. “There will be times you think you’re making a fool out of yourself...but remember this Chris...usually we are our own worst critics, that’s not entirely a bad thing but don’t let it drag you down, the moment you feel you’re being a fool... try and remove yourself from the situation and look at the event from the perspective of a stranger...it’s not always that bad, at times you’ll realize the rest are maybe just as nervous as you. I reckon you did not notice how nervous Sadnar was or how Alisha was basically stiff as a board feeling your energy almost drown out the rest of ours in the room...Jetan wasn’t far behind but he’s good at hiding his emotions”

“Really? I didn’t notice...they all looked to be calm and collected”

“It’s because you were in your head...stop doubting yourself and open yourself to your surroundings. In your next meeting, feel out the people in the room, I bet they’ll be as nervous as the ones you met earlier, if not even more so” My uncle paused. “You’re meeting with the Treasury Minister after lunch right?”

“Yes”

“Then why don’t you and Etalos...heck... even ask your bodyguard to join us for lunch”

“Bodyguard?”

“Nomir?”

“Ohh...I didn’t realize he was my body guard”

“Well apparently he’s become your body guard... he’s been your driver ever since your Ascension, I think amongst all the other agents in the palace, he’s the one that’s least scared of you now”

“I’m not scary”

“Oh. Whatever you say young one” my uncle chuckled. “Okay... have Etalos call Nomir, we can eat in one of the restaurants nearby”

“Okay”

Lunch with Uncle Rehanmir in an upscale restaurant nearby was a joy. It was nice spending more time with my uncle. Etalos and Nomir seemed uncomfortable at first but seeing my uncle’s carefree side got them both to relax.

We ate our delicious lunch in a reserved room out of prying public eyes. We didn’t want reporters or fans to hear that two princes were out and about eating lunch. It would trigger a media frenzy, my uncle said, if any reporter caught wind of our presence.

I thanked uncle for lunch and so did Etalos and Nomir, then we were off to the Treasury Ministry which apparently was not that far from my uncle’s office. It was in a similarly designed large building, and going through the VIP security went with no hitch, aside from wide eyed security officers when they realized who they were dealing with.

A few minutes later I found myself in a meeting room. With six other elves joining me. Neyana, a gorgeous Elurdeya elf with light blonde hair and blue eyes was the Treasury Minister, she introduced me to her bureau chiefs. Under the Treasury Ministry were the following bureaus:

Procurement Bureau, Export Bureau, Banking Bureau, Taxation Bureau, and the Budget Management Bureau.

The set up of the meeting was similar to the one I had earlier in the morning, it was mainly a briefing of the operations of the Ministry of Treasury and also a discussion of elvish interest regarding businesses and trade back on earth.

The Procurement Bureau was in charge of importing goods from earth, from movies to industrial machines that could not be manufactured in the realm. Although the realm strives to be self sufficient, which for the most part it is, there are items and specialized equipment that are better off sourced from earth. As Patri said to me before, the supply chain was just too complicated for such stuff and was better handled by earth.

The Export Bureau mainly handled the sales of the realm’s gems and jewelry back on earth. I learned that last year the realm hit another record by selling more than 25 billion dollars worth of jewelry, gems, and precious metals on earth, that amount exceeded the realm’s imports of 20 billion dollars worth of goods and materials from earth, therefore the realm ran a 5 billion dollar surplus. All these trades are done through shell and holding companies back on earth, key operations are centered around the cities where the portals are located, namely, New York, London, Rome, and Guangzhou. The realm also had at least 100 billion dollars in reserves for instances the realm would run a deficit, but that seems highly unlikely for the time being.

I was utterly gobsmacked at the fact billions were mentioned as if they were spare change, and the more I learned about the realm, the more it sunk in that it was indeed spare change, because the government budget of the realm is actually 90 trillion crowns or roughly 9 trillion dollars a year, that’s larger and more than double than the 4.4 trillion dollar federal budget of the United States!

Though the realm does not measure its performance via GDP or have economic targets like growth as it focuses instead on the quality of life of citizens and uses key indicators on education, health, and overall happiness to measure success in governance and economic management, I for one am sure that the realm is in much better shape than most if not all countries back on earth. And did I mention healthcare and education here are free and that each citizen that earns less than 3x above the minimum wage receives 60,000 crowns a year as some sort of financial assistance and I almost forgot to add that the minimum wage is actually a living wage of 250 crowns per hour.

The various chiefs in front of me discussed at length the health and state of the economy.

I was a nervous wreck deep inside as these elves seemed to be very knowledgeable with what they were doing and I felt like I was a total nobody, what the hell was I doing in this meeting anyway? I then remembered my uncle telling me to open myself to my surroundings, and slowly I collected and calmed my thoughts and then it hit me, all six elves in front of me were even more nervous than I was! I lost control with my powers for a bit and some of their thoughts leaked into me, they were all striving to make a good impression on me, all of them were also rather shell shocked that such a young prince like myself would have such an imposing aura and to top that off, all of them actually thought that I was an intelligent guy, as I was able to keep up with their discussion and they were all thoroughly impressed with the questions I asked, they found my questions to be sensible, smart, and relevant to the topics at hand.

I left the meeting feeling better about myself and not just that, I actually enjoyed learning more about the operations of the realm.

Neyana gave me the contact details of the key officers of the Ministry’s operations back on earth. She especially made sure that the earth officers in-charge of exports and imports would introduce themselves to me.

With my detractor ring on hand, Etalos, Nomir, and I had a quick snack at one of the restaurants we passed by on our way to Yal’s Ministry.

It was mid afternoon when we got to Yal’s office, and walking past its halls reminded me of the first time I visited the Ministry, it was during that time I accidentally popped into the middle of an office full of elves, haha!

Yal actually welcomed me at the VIP

entrance, he was excited to introduce me to the world of “research and scholarship” as he called his spying activities.

We found ourselves in another meeting room and I was introduced to the chiefs of the four bureaus under Yal’s Ministry of External Scholarship.

I was more than surprised to realize the complexity of the ministry’s espionage activities. I mean not only had Yal’s agents infiltrated major corporations and start ups, but all major governments back on earth as well.

There were even agents that were inside Vampire and Werewolf corporations. Did I mention that they have informants from within the Vampire and Werewolf governments as well?! The four bureaus under Yal were the following: Corporate Research, which basically handles spying on private corporations, State Research, which handled spying on the US and other governments for crying out loud, then there was Community Intelligence, for monitoring the elf state for nefarious elements, and the V&W Bureau which unsurprisingly handled spying on the vampires and werewolves. Fuck how am I going to keep a straight face in front of Victor and August now.

The revelations made within that room completely astounded me. With just a few dozen agents, the realm is able to keep tabs on practically every major development back on earth.

All agents operating undercover on earth were all at least high silver level and were skilled with glamour and mind suggestion.

Gathering information from the vampires and werewolves were more indirect as it was too risky for an elf to infiltrate and be in constant contact with vampires and werewolves so the agents for V&W instead resort to befriending vampires and werewolves within their target organizations then that’s with whom they employ mind manipulation.

It is with this intricate and highly developed web of subterfuge that the elves have stayed several steps ahead of the rest of the races back on earth.

Aside from monitoring for possible threats and acquiring technology, the ministry was also in-charge of making sure that the realm remained hidden. Every effort made by the other races to trace and locate the elves were all subverted by elvish agents.

After the meeting with the bureau chiefs, it was just me and Yal that remained in the room.

“Fuck Yal... how the hell am I going to keep this all from Victor and August?”

“What? You know the ethos of our operations and we’ve done nothing harmful to their communities, all things we’ve carried out have been for the protection of the realm”

“Yal...you know what I mean”

“Chris...remember this, our operations are not directed to compromise or weaken their respective communities. Keep in mind that the realm’s and its citizens life and security are at stake, we should always be on the guard, can you imagine if a vampire or werewolf or maybe even a human with ill intent found about the realm?”

“No...” I paused “but what about all the technology we’ve stolen?”

“Stolen? Hmm...copied maybe, hehe, copied and improved!” Yal said proudly.

“Darn it Yal... you’re not making this any easier for me”

—-

We made it back to the palace just before sunset, and Uncle Rehanmir was able to arrange a sparring session for me.

I was escorted to a different training area, the location was outside for a change yet still within the palace grounds.

The sparring area was an elevated circular stage made of solid rock, it was large, at around 150 feet in diameter. The stage was surrounded by 12 thin stone pillars about 20 feet tall which I later found out were part of the shielding that protected the onlookers.

My entire entourage from earth were actually there to see my sparring session and so were Patri, Matra, and both my uncles. Zenfar, Sarad, and Jetan made it as well.

Having such a large audience kind of unnerved me, but oh well. It was however nice to see dad seated in the middle of Matra and Uncle Selvenus.

I approached the stage and was then joined by four elves in tight combat style uniforms.

I then look at my Uncle Rehanmir and asked “Four? Isn’t this a bit too much?”

He only laughed and shouted “you can do it!”

I’ve started to become rather skilled with energy reading, I sensed that the four elves were actually platinums.

What the hell?! There are less than a hundred platinums in the realm and now I’m expected to fight against four?

The elves I was sparring with all looked to be in their mid thirties. Two male and two female all with rather serious expressions on their faces.

The four of them took positions on opposing ends of the stage while I found myself on the middle, dead center.

And with a blow of a horn, it was off.

I couldn’t see them all at the same time so I heightened my senses and expanded it to cover the entire field. My senses were so sensitive I could even feel their heart beats.

All of them simultaneously attacked me, all launched into an elemental attack of their own. And fuck, all of them were of a different element!

The water elf launched a large jet of water against me, while the fire elf hurled fire balls on me, the earth elf on the other hand did not waste time and softened the ground underneath me and rehardened it, trapping me in almost two feet of solidified rock. The air elf flew up in their and hurled almost invisible blades of spinning wind against me.

You’ve got to be kidding me. I ramped up my energy and easily broke through my trap. I enveloped myself with an energy shield and all attacks on me were fended off.

However, that was just the beginning, the four elves were not stopping and kept their distance from me.

I was on the defensive. I was concentrating on keeping my shields up and the attacks were relentless.

The air and fire elves even joined forces and in a combination attack setting fire tornadoes against me.

The earth and water elf worked together and turned the solid chunks of broken rock around me into mud which they manipulated in their own ways against me.

I had to do something to disrupt their flow. I was battling against four elements while only having the knowledge of two.

With my mind I reached out with the air around me and sucked all the water vapor nearby. With that i conjured pillars of water to surround my shield. These towers of water were swirling masses of magically infused water that absorbed some of their attacks against me, however this was not enough, I remember what I saw from a session yesterday and I super heated the water and part of it turned into mist.

Although I couldn’t yet control air, I was knowledgeable enough with Fire magic that I can indirectly control wind flows with heat, and in seconds with careful maneuvering of heat around the stage the mist started to spread.

The mist also helped me see the attacks from the air elf, her attacks were the hardest to spot as the blades and air were nearly invisible.

The mist all caught them by surprise and gave me a few seconds to collect my thoughts and focus on offense instead.

Instead of having a spherical shield around my body, I ended up drawing it closer to my skin, as if to hug my body, now I was mobile while being shielded.

I found myself getting hit by a large fire ball but it just disintegrated as it hit my back.

Although visibility was poor, my senses still enveloped the arena, I knew where they all were.

With a flick of my hand I sent ice balls against the earth elf but he was fast and able to summon a wall of rock to protect him. Nevermind that, cause with another flick of my hand, a bolt of energy shot from my left hand to the rock shield and it broke into pieces, shocking the elf.

Visibility was returning to the stage now as the mist cleared, however it was now my time to go on the offense.

I jumped high in the air, almost flying actually, and took a deep breath and blew flames against my opponents. It was as if I was a dragon breathing fire.

My opponents struggled to protect themselves from that attack however i was far from done, I then conjured small fire balls across the field, all just a feet apart. Hit those balls and they will not only burn but explode, it was a minefield of fire balls. Not only were the fire balls covering the entire length of the stage but there were 20 layers of them, it was a 3-D minefield.

The water elf was careless enough to conjure a large water shield around him that it hit several fire balls, he found himself in the middle of a flurry of exploding fire balls.

The earth elf was however smart and used the mud around us and fashioned them into tentacles of mud, he even broke some stone and turned them into sand and he was then able to launch attacks using the tentacles of sand and mud against me, however with water magic I was able to freeze the tentacles of mud and with fire I was able to turn the sand into glass to the utter horror and surprise of the elf. I’m sure I gave him one of my signature smiles when I did that.

The fire elf unsuccessfully tried to hijack my fire balls so she then resorted to making blades of fire that flew through the gaps of my minefield, the air elf caught on and did the same with her own blades of air.

They clearly underestimated my skill as I was still in complete control of the fire ball minefield so I just put all the fire balls closer together and their blades started triggering explosions close to them.

The water elf had now recovered from his mistake earlier and with the fire balls now closer to me, he used the extra space he had to gather more water from the air, he was able to amass a large amount of water and then fashioned a large swirling mass of water towards me. He was also devious enough to infuse it with his own magic making the water mass stronger than it seemed, I however was onto him and with several hand gestures boiled his water mass away.

The steam from the failed attack gave me an idea. With a nudge from my magic, I turned the steam into ice crystals, all small yet sharp. One false move from my opponents and they’d cut themselves.

The earth elf surrounded himself with sand and went for a direct attack against me, and so did the fire elf as she protected herself from the sharp ice crystals with a layer of fire around her body, she was glowing bright red now.

However, with a quick punch from me the earth elf’s stone armor gave way and he flew across the stage from my punch. While with a flick of my finger, I hijacked the fir elf’s fire armor and used it against her and she ended up unable to move as the fire that encased her refused to budge.

The water elf was sneaky and took the time I spent with the fire and earth elves to use his water magic to burrow water tendrils across the stage, and I found myself wrapped with four magically enhanced water tentacles around me, the air elf took that as her cue to launch air bullets against me, and by bullets I mean small yet very powerful concentrated masses of air.

They clearly thought they now had the upper hand but my shields did not fail me. I was getting frustrated with these never ending attacks, so with a stronger nudge from my magic, I collected large amounts of water around me, and then crafted four humanoid creatures made of water, I infused them with a large amount of magic and set them free against my enemies.

All four elves were surprised when the humanoid water blobs started to run towards them.

The Magic I’ve infused in the water puppets of mine were enough to protect them from their attacks, and a minute or so later, all four opponents off mine were gobbled up by my water monsters. All four of them were clearly flustered with the way they were swallowed by my creations with ease.

And with a blow of a horn, I was declared the winner.