Chapter 2534: The Ten Permanent Institutions

"First item: adjust the Arcane Union to be a subordinate permanent institution of the Seventon Council. Please vote!"

Although tedious, Badijiaer still painstakingly confirmed the opinions of the 51 councilors one by one; integrating the Arcane Union into the Seventon Council had already been decided during the previous negotiations on the terms of the New Covenant.

Without a doubt, even Yinaolem, as the former president of the Arcane Union, cast a vote in favor.

Furthermore, as a transition, even though the Arcane Union is being adjusted into a subordinate permanent institution of the Seventon Council, it will still remain under the leadership of Yinaolem.

After this adjustment, the Deacons of the original Arcane Union will become civil servants of Netheril, and members of Level 4 and above will receive the title of 【Arcane Union Consultant】.

Ordinary members will remain ordinary members, but their status has improved compared to the "rogue cultivators" of the past.

"Second item: establish the Pioneers and Lords Affairs Department. Please vote!"

The so-called Pioneers and Lords Affairs Department is actually an office previously subordinate to the Seventon Council, responsible for the certification of Pioneer qualifications, the promotion of lords, and the coordination of related resources.

In the past, the new territory residents Xia Duo recruited in Seventon went through this channel.

However, this office did not even have the most basic permanent staff, usually being handled by the miscellaneous affairs staff of the Seven Towers, but now that it has been upgraded to an official permanent institution, it is more than a step better than before in terms of both reputation and Permission Level.

As for the voting result, it was, without a doubt, naturally passed unanimously.

"Third item: establish the Diplomatic Affairs Department. Please vote."

This was actually a permanent institution proposed by Xia Duo as a supplement; Netheril joined the Northland Alliance several years ago, and it is foreseeable that exchanges and cooperation with various countries will become more frequent in the future, so maintaining such a permanent institution is very necessary.

Perhaps to show the importance attached to Xia Duo's proposal, Badijiaer placed this proposal third among the second set of agenda items for a vote.

The result, of course, had no surprises; it passed unanimously.

"Fourth item: establish the Great Library. Please vote!"

This was also Xia Duo's proposal, and it does not require additional manpower; it can be directly split off from the Arcane Union and can be regarded as the prototype of a future Ministry of Education.

The main function of this institution is to establish public libraries in various places, especially the Great Library in Seventon, to collect all kinds of books as much as possible for the Netherese.

Of course, the specific management still needs to be studied and discussed; it will roughly continue the rules of the past Arcane Union Library, determining the scope of reading according to membership level.

Passed unanimously.

"Fifth item: establish the Councilor Secretariat. Please vote."

This institution was mentioned in Badijiaer's agenda outline; its daily work is to conduct investigations and research on issues submitted for discussion at meetings, in preparation for the councilors' reference.

At the same time, it must also conduct investigations and research on the current situation of Netheril, attempting to proactively discover problems and submit them to the Council for discussion and decision-making.

Besides this, this institution also accepts suggestions from the public; after all, not all Spellcasters are lords, and there are knowledgeable people among ordinary people whose Wisdom and right to speak also need to be respected.

As an auxiliary institution for councilors, it can actually be understood as an intelligence department; intelligence from the various countries of the Northland and even the entire Main Plane is within the scope of their investigations and research.

Of course, there is no need to deliberately mention this at a public meeting.

Without a doubt, passed unanimously.

"Sixth item: establish the Legal Research Association. Please vote."

This is not a non-governmental organization, but an official institution subordinate to the Council, mainly responsible for researching laws and formulating statutes according to the specific national conditions of Netheril, and then submitting them to the Council.

This is a crucial step for Netheril toward the era of written law; regardless of whether these laws can take care of everyone's interests, having them is better than not having them.

But it was also on this issue that the councilors had a disagreement for the first time; those in favor barely reached two-thirds, and fortunately, those opposed did not exceed one-fifth, which is to say, more than ten people opposed it.

This proposal barely passed; if it hadn't passed, because this was a plenary session, it would have immediately entered the lord voting stage, and those lords presumably would not wish to be bound by law after law.

As long as more than one-fifth of the lords opposed it, this new institution could not be established; in reality, the process of legalization based on written law would have been dealt a head-on blow.

And now, although the Legal Research Association can be established, there will still be plenty of arguing over specific laws later! The journey of ten thousand miles has only taken its first few steps, but in any case, progress is always good.

"Seventh item: establish the Resource Planning Committee. Please vote."

This institution is the result of a compromise between Xia Duo and the Seven Towers, and of course, it is also the result of a compromise between the Seven Towers and Xia Duo; the Sustainable Development Initiative is discussed under this framework.

For this, the Seven Towers needs to set an example by returning the mountain peaks of the Strait Mountains that were intercepted, while Xia Duo needs to give up the title of initiator of the Sustainable Development Initiative.

Other than that, there is nothing else; of course, this new institution has been given more comprehensive responsibilities by the Seven Towers, specifically used to plan and regulate resource extraction and even the Flow within Netheril.

For the time being, overly harsh laws and regulations will not be introduced, but in the future, there might come a point where even the extraction and utilization of resources within a lord's own Territory would require permission first.

This is undoubtedly a manifestation of the ambition of the Seven Towers, but for Xia Duo, it is not necessarily something to be suspicious of; the situation where one is not allowed to extract one's own resources is impossible for a very long time, or perhaps even forever.

But if the resource extraction and utilization situation across Netheril can be coordinated, it is undoubtedly a mutually beneficial thing for all parties at present.

Therefore, although this proposal had suspicions of centralization, it was recognized by most councilors and passed with a high number of votes; not a single person opposed it, and only a few people abstained.

"Eighth item: establish the 【Enforcement Guard】 team. Please vote."

Although it looks like a permanent institution, it is actually not permanently established; only the office is permanent, while the "Enforcement Guard" itself is temporarily recruited for specific events.

If a permanent Enforcement Guard team could be established, that step would truly be too large; even Xia Duo would not agree to establish such a team at this point in time.

But since they are moving toward the era of written law, law enforcement personnel are indeed indispensable; it is just that although these subordinate institutions and organizations still belong to the Council, the actual command power is to a large extent in the hands of the Seven Towers.

Furthermore, enforcement teams can easily turn into full-time combat teams; this opening is not so easy to make, at least not now.

In the end, this proposal passed without surprise, but the real contest is still to come regarding the specific setting of Permission Levels; the idea that the Seven Towers wants to maintain a truly permanent Enforcement Guard team is likely very difficult to realize.