When they finally arrived at the island, Han and Aki began their sweep throughout the entire island and its smaller counterparts.
Although not fully mountainous, Hokkaido and others had some very great features as well.
It acted as the barrier between the ocean and the land. With some measures, they were fully confident they would be able to turn the entire island into an absolute fortress.
As the main vanguard of the organisation, they were meant to establish bases around the world to recruit personnel who would be members of their newly formed branch.
And although Magnus loved the sight of the nature, his main base would not compromise its defences for vain beauty.
The order they received was a total annihilation of every living thing, excluding rare treasures which could be handy.
This included both opposition in the air, underground and on land. If it wasn't for his accidental discovery of Atlantis, even the entire surrounding ocean would have to be strictly controlled.
Although there were very mixed feelings about doing such drastic things, most followed the orders and those who did not either left or were relocated to other branches.
Replaced by the ones willing to do such acts.
And Aki was the perfect person for such work. Her ability to create curses and other various debuff or buff skills enabled her to annihilate any hidden seeds, even if they were hundreds of meters below.
Her soft touch could literally transform dozens of kilometers into a pure wasteland where nothing would grow.
They estimated it to be a 3 week project even when they calculated the risk of encountering stronger foes.
As Aki was annihilating all fauna, Han was either protecting her from pests or he was terraforming the surroundings to better fit their needs.
Although all of them knew what terrible ecological consequences could happen once even a huge lake dried up, they didn't mind.
With enough mana, they were basically gods. With terraforming being a matter of skill and imagination, it was easy to flatten undesirable active volcanoes, which would include redirecting the brewing magma beneath.
The other teams that were mainly focused on cleaning up or scouting ahead were doing quite well, with limited opposition capable of threat.
With their swift sweep, they managed to take care of the entire Hokkaido in just over 2 weeks and decided to first consolidate before they began terraforming the rest.
They set ablaze the rest of the world as the world learned of the destruction and drastic changes they had made.
Organisations hell bent on overthrowing or at least slowing down Magnus' growth were fanning the flames even more.
Magnus made no move though, nor any other representatives, as everyone seemed to not care about their surroundings and only concentrated on making a base as soon as they could.
Some bright minds had decided to follow along, as that level of aggressiveness was too abnormal. Including the 5 families that decided to let the Stonefellers be their representatives.
More specifically, they chose Caroline as the representative of the North American continent with various organisations fusing under the watch of the five families.
Soon, a behemoth named 5 lords of the North was created and it had almost direct control over thousands of smaller organisations.
As if not letting to be outdone, the Roman Empire was reborn anew, however it came with a twist as a young lad disrupted the crowning of the new Roman Emperor and split the European continent in half.
That young lad was Oliver, the disciple of Magnus. And as he knew that such action would impact the reputation of Magnus' organisation, which actually held no real name.
Be it a critical oversight on Magnus' side or his random decision. The world gave it random nicknames like the Justice, Guardians and even the strongest. Though eventually people would just call it blank for the lack of a name.
Albeit lacking in name, its prestige was so high that it was associated purely with Magnus, as there was almost no one else to associate it with except his disciples.
They, however, had more pressing issues, as they still had to take their homes back. The branch in South America wasn't doing the best with the lack of Sophia as its main backbone, which prompted other branches, including the European one, which fully withdrew from the continent to give them more manpower.
As the result of it all, Magnus had to bring Jeremy under apprenticeship as he appointed him to fully establish a branch in Australia.
Though the development of the Asian branch and headquarters went extremely well with the presence of two of his disciples as larger organisations chose the mainland instead of clashing with them for no reason.
The terraforming was soon entering the underground phase as Aki and Han swept through any cave system and completely filled them up or just demolished them.
People, although unhappy with the extreme choices which Magnus made, began their migration to the new island renamed to Beacon.
A Beacon to show the world that as long as that island and its base stands tall and strong, the world isn't under a definitive threat.
These people, unlike elites, couldn't travel the world freely and the notion of safety was plenty enough.
The Roman Empire was still amidst a civil war and the North American continent was a mess unless you joined an organisation.
Once Aki and Han completed their terraforming of the underground, they used the surge of new manpower straight away.
Roads, main cities slowly began to rise at an alarming speed. Materials mostly made out of spell synthesis or through the use of alchemy to change wood into pure metal.
The almost 'infinite' amount of resources, which included the rare metals found, soon gave rise to the capital of Beacon.
Not long after, the inner layer of the capital was completed, which was devoted primarily to nurture talent. As it would be known in the future as the Academy.
The outer layer was being built in hopes of creating a living area for more than a billion people. Though, that would take at least till the third month of the 'new' calendar.
Commonly used after the birth of mana or abm.
The incredible transformation was unique to Beacon, though as other areas of the world weren't doing that well.
Australia was still fine as its main problems were more internal as it was very isolated compared to the American continents.
The new attributes of now called 'mana beasts' had enabled them to travel across continents that weren't too separated with ease.
As such, it wasn't uncommon for newly born mana beast overlords to gather some following before migrating to other unoccupied parts of the world.
What further escalated the problems were occasional sightings of a feathered serpent in the South and North. Each time, massive destruction, which slowed down the establishment of the capital, followed its descent.
This further boosted the prestige of the newly established Beacon, as even Africa was suffering tremendously.
A new force emerged as a beautiful woman adorned by scarce clothing walked step by step through the continent. Anyone who was unfortunate to meet her was soon converted into her 'follower'.
So far, no one had a real plan capable of stopping her, as she seemed to be invulnerable and no one wished to try making Africa virtually an abandoned continent.
Make no mistake, though, that these were the only hurdles for humans as only 4.5 billion humans were considered combat ready.
And even with the training in the purgatory, hundreds of thousands of people were dying left and right.
This boosted the migration rates to Beacon, as they had to cap it at a maximum of 1.5 billion. Leaving the rest of the world and organisations with less than 3 billion able personnel.
Most of which were scattered, and the hordes of millions of mana beasts were tough to defend against.
Their efforts weren't futile, and eventually the Five lords of the North managed to establish their capital. What soon followed was an establishment of the capital in Europe as the warring Empire quickly come to a concession.
And although not considered capitals, the branches of the South American continent and the Australian continent were complete.
With the bare foundation being finally laid, Magnus finally made his move. After he finished his business in Africa, he purchased upgrades worth 2 months of points that the world desperately needed.
As he purchased the first one, the world trembled and, except for the established branches or capitals which were untouched, the Earth literally doubled in size.
Gravity doubled in an instant and this wasn't the end as he bought the second upgrade which reinforced the Earth.
Bygone were the days where humans or mana beasts could blast huge holes into the Earth and with it came a steep increase to terraforming.
And his final purchase was beacons. Every continent had one, even the African continent would receive one as long as a sufficiently large city or fortress capable of defending itself is built.
These beacons protected the capitals or branches as long as the populace gave out their mana.
Literally creating a giant out of millions or even billions of ants. Magnus was confident that even that pesky, feathered serpent wouldn't be able to break through the barrier created by the beacon.
It might even suffer some serious injuries if it ever dared to invade the Beacon capital.
Which was, of course, was the biggest.
The benefits didn't end there as it had a function of a shop unlocking a good amount of items from his original system and although merchant M might have seemed to have lost his allure; it was far from the case.
In fact, his random visits were always accompanied by items never before seen in any of the shops. Not even in the Beacon capital, which had some unique goods compared to others.
Merchant M had also brought blueprints needed for the advancement of crucial branches of civilization.
Including a way how to use forging, material synthesis and alchemy to create artifacts capable of things which he always offered.
This gave rise to the first real profession recognised by everyone. As such, Artifact makers were soon associated with the luck of meeting merchant M.
Everyone soon agreed to make an official neutral organisation in order to reduce the risk of a monopoly in case it would hurt the humanity's interest of getting stronger and surviving.
Although the terraforming operations on large scales had to be postponed until people gained actual power, no one approached the Oceans as they were now multiple times more dangerous.
No one knew what could hide in depths twice in the Mariana Trench and no one wished to find out.
Now, humans had finally established themselves, and their problem was expansion. Only 5 cities had the beacons necessary to defend them.
So, when humans wished to expand, they were met with a brutal response by mana beasts which gathered hoards of tens of millions mana beasts and just decimated the cities.
This created the emphasis on talent and powerhouses, which were needed in order to defend an important place.
But as they say, hard times create strong men and in this case even women thanks to the mana elites began popping up like mushrooms after a rain.
Cities were being built as the world entered a stalemate. Only broken by the occasional news that Magnus Fjall kept challenging the Roc which usually resulted in his loss, although no one really knew the details.
Though, people were certain that as long as the leaderboard doesn't change, the people in question aren't yet dead.
And number 23 Sophia Tlaloc was one of them...
And the sixth month, ABM was approaching as only a few days remained before the change.
Even the restless mana beasts had stopped their assaults on the newly developed cities across the globe to see what would await them.
After all, they knew as well, maybe even more, that the approaching threat was something truly foreign.