As two days passed, Apex City's population surged up to two and a half million people. At this point, Alex finally released a general access mission that involved the acquisition of people from another planet. With the benefits he provided, the people signed up in droves regardless of their strength level. With the ability to instantly teleport to Apex City regardless of any spatial locks, the mortality rate of their citizens was ridiculously low, so people who were worried about dying while on the job were a significant minority.
Their job was to do the exact same thing that they had been doing on their planet, but on one of Scarlet Angel's planets. They were to aggressively convert people to their brand of Chaos energy and effectively convert them into citizens of Apex City. Regardless of how cult-like the whole situation seemed, Alex was intent on disrupting Scarlet Angel's reign and taking control over her planets.
To that effect, he'd already sent Felicia over as the vanguard to work with Magik and Kitty—who were already the leaders of a massive resistance effort against Scarlet Angel. Within the span of a single day, Alex was already expecting Apex City's population to skyrocket to a hundred million citizens.
Unfortunately, though, at that point, the Source of Chaos would become fully saturated, leaving Alex with no more capacity to take in people. To handle that, he set up the equivalent of a waitlist that people could be put on, and when the Source had more capacity, they would automatically be brought over to Apex City and become a level 0 uninitiated.
Second would come the logistics of handling such an exorbitant number of people. That one was even easier to manage. Everyone already possessed independent and isolated living quarters that were anchored to the Tower of Chaos. Unlike Alex's initial plan of setting up physical spaces for everyone, Wanda had helped him implement what could be considered dimensional isolation for each cottage that served as a citizen's residence.
Therefore, while every cottage was anchored to the Tower of Chaos, physical space didn't matter in the slightest. What did matter, however, was the Chaos Authority that each of those independent spaces could access. After all, despite having established an entire progression system that made people self-sustainable, Alex was fully intent on maintaining absolute control over every citizen. He did that by providing Chaos authority to their territory instead of the person directly, which could then produce Chaos Energy for them to utilize by tapping into their territory.
That was something only Wanda was privy to, not even Felicia. And Alex had no intention of publicizing that information. To citizens, the territory was merely an extension of their power and supplemented the Chaos authority that they possessed. Of course, if someone looked deeply into it and studied the relevant information, they would find out about it, but as long as they didn't cause Alex needless trouble, he didn't plan to intervene.
This system was also how every user of Chaos energy was providing their feedback directly to Wanda. Even a level 4 ‹Cardinal› like Felicia, who could create direct subordinates, couldn't enjoy the faith feedback from them as that was still provided directly to Wanda. A ‹Cardinal› was no more than a glorified battery for those subordinates to pull energy from.
Getting back to handling the influx of population, all Alex needed to rework was the City Square. He wasn't interested in directly expanding the square to accommodate more people, or even dividing it into subareas. If he wanted an actual magical city, it couldn't have such a simple common area.
To that end, he decided to establish a similar dimensional layering for every individual storefront in the square. From then on, the so-called market would become nothing more than a list of shops in every residence, where every store could simply be teleported to with a single thought.
Public interaction spaces worked in a similar manner. People could set up private rooms that could serve as meeting areas for multiple people. They could contact each other through Gaia, whom Alex was also planning to introduce in the next day or two. Unlike the non-magical people, Alex didn't expect to see much resistance when introducing Gaia to the citizens of Apex City.
"So, what do you think?" Alex asked Wanda after unloading his idea on her. After all, she would be the one doing the bulk of the work in implementing all of these things. At best, he would provide her some moral support. He could neither help her with energy requirements since that was all handled by the Source of Chaos, nor could he support her in setting up the complex magic structures that were needed to implement such complex magic.
"I think you're treating me like a beast of burden," Wanda said darkly. "What do you think I am? That goddamn AI you merged with?!"
"You're my wife, Wanda," Alex said seriously. "Whenever you need something, it is my duty to provide; likewise, I expect the same from you."
"Do you think handling a hundred million people is a joke? I gave you that number because it was an absolute limit, not because I wanted you to bring that many people in," she said with frustration. "I trusted you; if I'd known you'd do this, I would've said ten million."
"Come on," Alex said gently, pulling her into his arms and sitting down on a couch with her straddling him. "Don't be like that. I promise I'll make it up to you."
"Two years," Wanda suddenly said.
"What?"
"Take me to Gaia for two years," she said. "I want to relax and enjoy a normal life with you like Nat."
"Two…Gaia years, right?" Alex asked hesitantly. "I can't have you be gone for two actual years."
"I know; even I'm not that extreme," Wanda said, rolling her eyes.
"So you are aware that you can be extreme at times…"
"Alex," Wanda emphasized. "You recently increased the dilation factor in Gaia, which means we won't even be gone a full day."
"Fine, I have just the planet for us."
"I'm not doing any more work for you," Wanda got wary.
"What, are you going to do nothing but have sex with me for two years?" He asked with a chuckle.
"Ideally."
"Come on, help me set up the dimensional layering. I would do it myself if I could, you know that," he said, coaxing her by burying his face in her neck, eliciting a gasp as she wrapped her arms around his head and placed her chin on his head.
"That's cheating," she mumbled, shivering a little as he sucked and licked her collerbone.
…
Earth-68403D.
A mystic arts portal with red sparks instead of gold appeared in a nondescript two-bedroom apartment as Felicia stepped out of it, clad in her usual black bodysuit that revealed an ample cleavage. She faced two similarly dressed women in matching sets of black combat suits that were much more functional as opposed to Felicia's aesthetic-first design.
"Evening ladies," Felicia greeted with a smile, her eyes pausing on the mask that covered half of the blonde woman's face. "You must be Illyana and Katherine. I'm Felicia."
"Apex let us know about your arrival in advance," Katherine said warmly and offered a handshake. "I hope you didn't run into any issues with the portal."
"With your beacon, it was manageable," she said. "However, we must work together if we want to bring the others here. For the time being, I'm the only one aside from Apex who can create a portal to this planet."
"Yeah, despite our best efforts, we haven't been able to do anything to the planetary shield," Katherine said, sighing. "Yana is the one who will do the primary heavy lifting here."
"Shall we get started?" Felicia asked, turning to the silent blonde woman.
"Right now?" Katherine interjected.
"When else? You have an army of highly powerful mages at your disposal, ladies, don't get complacent now."
[Isn't she just the best?] Alex spoke in Katherine's head. [The single-minded focus that she shows when she is motivated is a sight to behold.]
"Our side isn't ready to receive such a large influx of people, Felicia," Katherine said patiently. "Apex told us that we still have a day."
"Is that so…" Felicia looked ill at ease and frowned.
[Tell her you'll help her create the portal. I'm going to sustain it for a prolonged period after that anyway.]
"Apex just told me that we can make the portal right now," Katherine said after a pause.
"Oh…" Felicia momentarily perked up before immediately deflating into a frown, finally ending up with a clearly forced smile on her face as she nodded. "Let's get moving."
Let alone Alex, even Katherine clearly saw the clear shift in Felicia's mood before nodding and turning to the blonde beside her.
"Yana?"
Wordlessly, Illyana led the two of them into Limbo.
As their surroundings shifted to the lifeless wasteland of Limbo, Felicia seemed to recover from her previous state and looked at Illyana with a raised brow.
"How'd you do that?"
"It's her mutant ability," Katherine jumped in. "She can shift to a parallel dimension at will. This place is called Limbo."
Felicia looked at Katherine with confusion. "Does she have some kind of problem with me?"
"Mmm…" A muffled groan escaped Illyana's throat, her eyes widening a little as if she wanted to explain herself. She quickly brought her hands up to her face, seemingly intent on removing the mask. Before she could grab it, however, an invisible rope seemed to get wrapped around her wrists and pulled them back. Within seconds, her arms were strictly restrained behind her back, forcing her elbows to touch, consequently forcing her to push her chest out.
"She's… currently dealing with some special circumstances," Katherine blushed, glancing at Illyana's chest before turning back to Felicia. "Don't worry about her ability."
"So Apex has a dildo in her throat, huh?" Felicia asked with a knowing expression.
"Mmm!" Illyana seemed mortified and grunted angrily, struggling in her bonds.
[You don't want me to embarrass you further in front of her, do you? Be good, now.]
"Yeah," Katherine nodded. "I'm too mortified by the thought of a cock in my mouth, so he's training her."
Felicia looked at Illyana's mortified face with some sympathy. "No need to be too embarrassed, he's done far worse things with me," she said.
"Are you gloating about that?"
"What? No," Felicia immediately responded, almost seeming a little agitated. "I'm just trying to get her to calm down a little."
[She's jealous of the fact that you two have a deeper connection with me compared to her. Now that I've satisfied your curiosity, stop prying and get to work. Plus, she isn't into women, at all. So don't think about that angle either.]
"Pity…" Katherine pouted sulkily before sighing. "Let's go, Apex just told me to hurry things along."
Felicia nodded, suppressing the complex emotions that threatened to erupt on her face once again.
***
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