As the citizens of Kingsbridge City woke up the next morning, the first thing they read in the newspaper was the revelation of a mystery that had been nagging on their minds for the past five years.
Who owned Reborn?
Back then, there were rumors of it being a wizard, a hermit, or an overseas mogul.
And as it turned out, they were all wrong. Michael owned Reborn. This announcement sent waves of shock through everyone in the whole city, each of them expressing their disbelief upon finding out that it was only a child who brought them the magnificent cars and faucets.
The products sold by Reborn were so clever and far ahead of their time that many people found it hard to believe that an eleven-year-old child came up with them.
However, the evidence presented in the newspapers told the entire history of how the Reborn company started, and how it came to become what it was now.
It started when Michael invented soap and how it snowballed into a corporation that earned millions and millions of gold coins per month.
Many were impressed with Michael's ingenuity and his insight into creating such a booming business.
However, many more were surprised to find out that not only was Michael smart, but he was incredibly talented in magic as well. According to official sources, the Magic Tower once offered Michael the opportunity to become the Tower Master's personal student, an honor given only to those who had the talent to become a 7-star mage and above.
"The Vanderbilt family has truly produced a one-of-a-kind descendant!"
"It is truly insane how he has the talent to become a gifted wizard and a brilliant entrepreneur as well. Save some for the rest of us, kid!"
"And did you hear? The kid was also able to make the desolate Parched Lands into a prosperous territory!"
It was also mentioned in the newspapers that Michael started his own country in the Parched Lands called the Nation of Reborn. That was where all the talented demi-humans like Kong, Anne, and Thrain came from and where they manufactured the automobiles that were being sold today.
This sparked a lot of curious people to journey to the Parched Lands to verify the truth. After all, there were quite a number of unbelievable stories written in there such as the abundance of food and water, the presence of 'lightning bulbs', and a stadium made only for a game called baseball.
Thankfully for them, there was a very convenient Reborn bus ride that they could use that would take them straight to the Nation of Reborn in less than a week.
After they returned, there was nothing but praise and commendation for the Nation of Reborn. Many people described what they saw as a literal paradise, with stars landing on the ground at night to grace the nation with light.
Of course, they were talking about electricity, but most people had no idea what it was yet.
And perhaps what they mentioned the most were the demi-humans living in the Nation of Reborn.
They were all talented and gifted in their own ways, contributing their specialties to the nation in one way or another.
People thought that the Rebornians in the City were a special group of demi-humans, the one-in-a-million type of geniuses. But as it turned out, they weren't much different than the 5000 other citizens staying in the Parched Lands.
After hearing this, the local demi-humans no longer hesitated to join the Nation of Reborn. And soon after, they immediately received the benefits of becoming a Rebornian. They were given a chance to evolve and gain new skills from Michael, which he gladly made time for.
After their evolution, they gained so much more confidence and self-esteem within themselves once they found their innate talents.
They worked a lot better, they became a lot quicker in thinking, and they were even capable of using unique skills that no one had ever seen before.
This sparked a lot of change within Kingsbridge City where humans began to accept demi-humans as an equal species. Of course, this was helped by the Reborn company advocating for demi-humans to be treated just like humans without any discrimination.
They had a lot of programs to have humans and demi-humans interacting for a chance to dissolve any prejudice one had for the other.
There were festivals, gatherings, and friendly competitions that mixed both humans and demi-humans together.
Due to the positive reputation of the company, especially with the festivities in the market, many people washed away any biases and negative preconceived notions they had of demi-humans.
This generally led to a more harmonious living between the two different species.
Humans in the Kings region became so much more open-minded about demi-humans that Michael deemed that it was finally time for the next phase of his plan.
He decided to allow passage from the Dwarven Kingdom to the Queens region!
He and the Dwarven King had talked about this for some time now, and they both decided to let people cross the Dwarven Kingdom so that they could circumvent the rough terrain of the mountain ranges between the Queens and Kings region.
People no longer had to go through the perilous mountain ranges to reach the Queens region!
It would work just like a highway toll back in Michael's previous world.
People would pay a certain fee to enter the road connecting the Kings region and the Queens region through the Dwarven Kingdom.
They also had to use a Reborn automobile to be allowed entry into this 'highway'.
Of course, the profits would be shared between the two territories equally since the road would be trespassing in dwarven territory, while Michael bore all the costs of maintaining and creating the road itself.
Michael would have wanted to create a railway system to connect there, but he first needed the cooperation of the territory on the other side in the Queens region.
In the future, he would have railway systems connecting every territory from Kingsbridge, to the Nation of Reborn, to the Dwarven Kingdom, and then to the Queens region.
But for now, a flat concrete road would suffice.
This highway system would allow quicker and safer travel to other regions not only for normal people, but for businesses as well. They could transport heavier products to the other side of the country much easier.
Most of all, Michael would finally be able to start spreading the Reborn company to the rest of the country!