Chapter 175: Congratulations, You’re the Most Useful People in the World

The progress bar on Station 50’s main display crawled toward completion.

[SCANNING CURRENT CIVILIZATION]

Connected population records: Approximately 8.4 billion.

Groups indexed include humans, demons, dragons, and dwarves. Candidate optimization: 98%… 99%…

Lucian hammered Escape.

[DIAGNOSTIC SCAN CANNOT BE INTERRUPTED SAFELY.]

He turned on his father.

Regulus scratched his head with the hand that wasn’t holding the apple.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve said that two days in a row.” The bar reached one hundred percent.

Five assignments began to populate the projection.

[ENERGY KEYSTONE]

Recommended candidate: ASTRA. Compatibility: Extremely high.

Basis: Exceptional divine energy reserves and mana conduction capac-ity.

Astra looked up from her biscuits. “Oh.”

“No,” Lucian said. “There will be no ‘oh.’” The next entry appeared.

[ARCHIVE NODE]

Recommended candidate: SYLVIA LUNAIRE.

Basis: Knowledge of five ancient languages and the Silvermoon data structure.

Sylvia took out her quill. “I’d like to see how it weights the selection criteria.”

“Are you peer-reviewing your own prison?” The display continued.

[SOVEREIGN STABILIZER]

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Recommended candidate: ELEANOR SOPHIA DE SOLARIS.

Basis: Institutional legitimacy, holy-light lineage, and access to civil coordination networks.

[TECHNICAL MAINTAINER]

Recommended candidate: EVELYN WRIGHT.

Basis: Semiconductor expertise and compatibility with the Tower oper-ating system.

[SUPREME GUARANTOR]

Recommended candidate: LUCIAN VANCE.

Qualifying capabilities: 95.2 billion Spell Control; original Administrator Console access; cross-system integration.

A smaller annotation appeared in Lucian’s own interface.

[ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE FROM HOST ADMINISTRATION LOGS]

Reluctant to delegate. Prefers personally controlling every important component.

“Delete that.”

Unified System v3.0 proceeded directly to its assessment.

[LEGACY SELECTION ANALYSIS]

Ranking uses recorded capabilities and access privileges. Prophecy or bloodline curse requirement: None found.

Objective: Minimize catastrophic infrastructure failure.

No prophecy. No grand divine conspiracy.

An ancient recruitment program had searched its records and selected the five strongest applicants for five exceptionally shitty jobs.

Eleanor read her name without flinching. “What happens if I refuse?”

Vane stepped closer. He looked tired rather than pleased.

“That is why the modern Divine Realm stopped installing this architecture four thousand years ago.”

Lucian turned toward him.

“Nobody wants their best people turned into support posts,” Vane continued. “But for legacy networks like this one, we still haven’t certified a replacement with equivalent stability.”

Evelyn was already working through the options.

“There. Temporary emergency occupancy. Reversible support before permanent synchronization. It can buy us time.”

Buying time sounded promising.

Lucian wanted to know exactly who would be paying for it.

* * *

By afternoon, the candidate list had leaked beyond the palace.

Broadcasts carried crowds cheering in the capital. The captions were almost worse than the shouting.

ELEANOR, OUR ETERNAL STABILIZER! ASTRA, ENERGY SAINT OF ALL PEOPLES! THE VANCE FAMILY WILL PROTECT CIVILIZATION FOREVER!

Lucian watched the names of his friends disappear beneath their new job titles.

Later, walking through the Summer Palace, he heard voices drift-ing through an open window.

“May Astra protect us forever!” He stopped.

Astra sat on the sunny windowsill a few paces ahead, swinging her feet and eating a cream pastry. There was a smear of cream at the corner of her mouth.

Forever.

They said it like a blessing.

Vane came up beside him and handed over a time-sealed docu-ment.

[CONTINENTAL STABILITY WINDOW]

Time remaining under current conditions: THIRTY DAYS. Recommendation: Permanent allocation unless a safe alternative is certified before expiry.

Lucian read the last line. “Recommendation.”

“The system does not compel you to consent, Mr. Vance.” Vane looked down at the ten-year-old holding the document.

“But unless you give this network another way to carry its load, physics will not care whether you consented.”