《Homesteading in a fantasy world》 chapter 1 ¡°Son of a bitch, why is there light¡±. I was having the worst migraine of my life. The last thing I remember was dying. Don''t tell me the stupid doctors tried to save me. Oh, please don''t tell me that. I told them that I don''t want to be rescued and how did they even get to me, I was at home alone. My eyes were getting used to the light, so I started to look around. But nothing was familiar to me. The next thing to hit me was the god-awful smell. I''ve smelled that before, that¡¯s rotting bodies. I started moving towards the window to open it, but before I got there, I noticed my body. There were no aches of old age. Opening the window to get some fresh air, I notice that it smells like spring. But it wasn''t my land, at least not the land I know. I was somewhere else. Angling the window to get an image of me. I saw myself as I was when I was a teenager, but stronger and healthier than I ever was at that age. My head was spinning, and I didn''t know what to do. I think I was frozen there for at least 30 minutes before I was jolted out of my stupor. A small chiming sound out in my mind. I notice a small flashing symbol in the right corner of my eye. When looking at it, a window popped up, and a voice started to read what was written there. Congratulations on surviving until the age of 12. The system is now fully unlocked. Name: Rich Dirt Species: Human Gender: male Age: 12 class slot open class slot open class slot open stats: Strength: 7 Dexterity: 5 Vitality: 8 Skills: basic farming level 5 basic animal care level 6 basic fitness enhancement level 4 Memories from the void level max You have gained a new skill memory of the dead level max After I read the new skill gain, I quickly rushed to the other rooms only to find everyone else dead. They were not my family, but in a way, they were. I''ve lost friends and loved ones before and it didn''t feel any different when I saw his family. I could feel tears running down my face but I steadied myself and started to think to figure out what was going on. A god damn plague and worse than the black plague was sweeping through this, ¡°holy shit it''s a fantasy world, I am in a fantasy world¡±. There''s a lot to think about, but first I need to bury my family or his family, and then think about who I am. Burying 6 people in proper graves should have taken a long time, but from his memories, I know that the former occupant of this body already finished five graves before he got too sick to dig. A brave and dedicated one, he was. It was past midnight when I finished burying them. I went to get some smoked meat to eat and went to bed. I was completely exhausted from all that has happened. The next morning, I found where they keep their woodworking tools. Making six grave markers from wood. I wrote their names and ages onto them and put them on their graves. It was past noon when I was done with this small work and I was bone tired again. I went and found some more food hopefully it will make me feel better. My head was constantly spinning from all that has happened. I found myself sitting underneath a large oak tree watching my family''s graves and slowly eating. Finally, I started to think again. After a while, I tried to pull up my stats. Apparently, every person in this world has this achievement page, as they call it. Both of my skills, memories from the void and memories of the dead, were gone from the page. Why have they disappeared? The three open class slots surprised me. Because from the memories, I know that this is a rare thing, not unique, but just unlikely to happen. My stats were pretty good, especially because I''m apparently 12 years old. When I looked at my reflection I look like a 16-year-old teenager. Apparently, I''m not the same as back on earth there are differences in my appearance even if there are only a few. The biggest is that I am most likely going to still grow a lot. This would be good if I wanted to go out and adventure. I probably make an excellent warrior when I was fully grown up. Still, being 5''7 and wider than most men at the age of 12 is weird and getting used to that is even weirder. Do I want to go and be an adventurer? But I already know the answer. I lived for over 70 years on earth and during that time, I''ve been a warrior, so I know that I could be a good one here, but I have already found what I love to do the most. Homesteading for a lack of a better word was something that kept me going after the war and something I loved. I love the challenge of it, I love the freedom of it, and I just enjoy everything about it. From the memories I know of this world and its fantasy elements, it''s going to be even better here but harder. Which makes sense and might not be a bad thing. Now about mine and his memory. The longer I am in this world, the less distinction I feel between us. So, I''m going to take the easy route. I¡¯ll just accept that he is me and I am him. When I made that decision something clicked. It felt like a divide was healed. My head stopped hurting and I could feel my strength returning. Now that I feel better and my choice to stay here and homestead and not go adventuring made. I can actually start to look around and see what I have to work with and what I need to do to survive until next spring. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. First, I need to start with myself. Opening up my status again I looked for any extra information. The most interesting thing I notice is that I only have stats for strength, dexterity and vitality. My memories of this world seemed to indicate that this is correct, but my knowledge of RPGs is telling me that something is missing or not unlocked for some reason. Not getting more information from my status, I decided to mentally push on the open class slot button. Doing that opened a list of classes for me to pick. There are common classes like labourer and farmer, uncommon ones like builder or warrior, and there are even some rare classes to choose from, which makes me happy. The three rare classes that I can pick are veteran soldier, handgun expert and frontier farmer. Now the handgun expert is definitely out. There is no technology for guns in this world and honestly, I don''t know how good they will be against high-level people. Veteran soldier maybe, but frontier farmer sounds good. Just in case I tried to get more information about it. Frontier farmer: This class lift restrictions on survival skills, farming skills, Identify and basic fighting skills. This class unlocks endurance stat. This class gives trait minor temperature resistance and minor physical boost. ¡°Well, shit¡± it didn''t give me the exact information I was looking for, but some info is better than none. I can now guess a lot better how the system actually works. There really are more stats. You just need to unlock them by either getting a class or I''m guessing there are different unlock conditions. The first line about this class lifting restrictions on certain skills or skill subgroups is fascinating. It means without a class it''s extremely hard to get skills which makes sense, I only had a few skills from 12 years of life. Apparently, there are traits in this system too. I tried to focus more on the trait part, but I didn''t get any more information. I needed to take a few minutes to relax, because of the system''s inability to give more information. Not being able to do anything, I decided to check out the other classes. I started with common classes. Farmer: This class lift restrictions on farming skills. Labourer: This class left restrictions on hauling skill, lifting skill and digging skill. Well, that left me speechless. The common class has so little to give. Next, I looked at the uncommon. Warrior: This class lift restrictions on fighting skills. This class unlocks endurance stat. Builder: This class lift restrictions on structured building. This class unlocks intelligence stat. Interesting, so uncommon classes only give an extra stat but not a trait. Maybe I will have to pick the handgun expert, well let''s see. Handgun expert: This class lift restrictions on gun maintenance skill and gun fighting skills. This class unlocks perception stat. This class gives trait steady hands and eagle eyes. Veteran soldier: This class lift restrictions on advanced fighting skills, army skills and armour skills. This class unlocks constitution stat. This class gives trait physical boost and tough skin. This is going to be a difficult choice, deciding to check out all other available classes I have. I was down to two different builds by the end of the day. The first build was frontier farmer, animal husbandry and handyman. The second build was frontier farmer, animal husbandry and veteran soldier. The first build will ensure that I can survive by having food and a roof over my head and, more important that I can fix and build the things I need to survive. The weakness of this build is my lack of fighting strength. In this fantasy world of beasts and monsters, fighting skills are quite important. My problem is that I don''t know how I get fighting skills. So, to fix that problem I will first pick my class frontier farmer. That will hopefully give me some more information. My choice made I picked the frontier farmer. A new window opened up for me to confirm and without hesitation, I confirmed it. Suddenly I feel like all my adrenaline shot into my bloodstream. The first thing I noticed after that was that it wasn''t as cold outside anymore and I could feel strength coursing through me. I notice three flashing symbols, I chose the first one. Level up frontier farmer Frontier farmer now level 1 Strength +2 Dexterity +1 Vitality +2 Endurance +1 Skill changes skill basic farmer level 5 connected to class frontier farmer skill basic fitness enhancement connected to trait minor physical boost New trait gained vitality reaches 10 new trait gained better blood filtration. Name: Rich Dirt Species: Human Gender: male Age: 12 frontier farmer level 1 class slot open class slot open stats: Strength: 9 Dexterity: 6 Vitality: 10 Endurance: 1 Skills: basic farmer level 5 basic animal care level 6 basic fitness enhancement level 4 Traits: Better blood filtration Minor temperature resistant Minor physical boost Well, this is all interesting, but I need to continue before the daylight ends. First, let¡¯s go and check out the three cows and the bull that supposedly live on the farm. I went to the barn. Looking inside, I did not find any animals. But I noticed the back doors were open. I continue there to see a large field surrounded by a fence. It didn¡¯t take me long to notice the three cows and the bull. ¡°Well, here goes nothing¡± I walked towards them. The bull was the first to notice me. I slowed down and beckoned him to me. The moment he started to move, I stopped and kept beckoning him. He seemed to be the friendly kind. It didn¡¯t take long for me to start scratching his head. Looks like he missed this. I quickly checked him over and asked ¡±Is everyone else okay¡±. The amuu I got in return made me think it was an affirmative answer. I kept scratching him and thinking. I need to test out how to get XP for my classes and do I really need the handyman class to build stuff. Well, let¡¯s just go and find me a hoe. Saying goodbye to the bull, I walked back to find the hoe. The tool shed was a small building next to the barn. Luckily, they actually know how to make iron tools in this world. I took the hoe and walked to the place they usually planted their wheat. I started to work the land to find out if I get any XP or whatever it¡¯s called here. At first, I didn¡¯t notice anything but when I tried to concentrate more on my skill. I started to feel something growing. My practised hands worked fast. It took about half an hour when a notification popped up. Skill increases basic farming level 6 Concentrating on my class. I could feel it had gotten fuller. This confirmed I do not need to kill anything to level up, unlike most RPGs. I returned the hoe and went to the workshop, where I made the grave markers. To test if I can craft or build without needing skills. I decided to make a simple wooden rectangle that I could use in raised bed gardening. I needed to work outside because the light was disappearing. In my lifetime, I have hit nails and made wooden things so many times. That it took me so long now was mind-numbing. It was supposed to take me a simple 5 minutes, not 20. Looking at the thing on the ground, I was speechless. I think I could have made a better box when I was seven years old. I guess I¡¯m going to need that handyman class, no matter what. Well, maybe I can get the skills without the class. But do I honestly have time for this? There¡¯s so much to do to prepare and if this is the quality, I¡¯m going to be fucked. Just in case I will not pick the classes until tomorrow, maybe there will be a goblin attack or something and I will need to choose that soldier class.¡±Well, shit now I¡¯m going to need to find that family heirloom sword and sleep with it.¡± The sword wasn''t hard to find. Before going to bed, I did a quick food search, and I was pleasantly surprised I was not going to go hungry anytime soon. But this will not take me to the next harvest. With that thought, I was off to bed and sleep land. chapter 2 Waking up as the sun rises has been my way of life for a long time, so I didn''t find it hard to wake up with the sun. Deciding to take my time, I went to the kitchen to see what I had to work with. The house was a one-story, 80-square-meter building. The largest room in the centre of the house served as both the kitchen and the living room. Off to both sides were four bedrooms. The main purpose of the living room seemed to be using the loom and crafting space. There was a furnace where two bedrooms met on one side, and another similar setup on the other side. For cooking, there was a stove and oven combination. It probably took all three heating elements to heat the entire house. Near the oven was a trapdoor that led to the basement. There were plenty of root vegetables and flour, but the basement was more than half empty. I grabbed some potatoes and lard and went back upstairs to cook. It didn''t take me long to get the fire going. In the meantime, I made a mental note of the cookware I had: a cast iron pan, a cast iron pot, a large and a small copper pot, and a few sheet trays. There were only two knives, one small and one large, but they seemed to be of excellent quality. I remembered that I should have the identify skills restriction lifted. Knowing how it should work from games and books, I stared at the knife and tried to understand it not just physically, but spiritually as well. That seemed to do the trick. Large kitchen knife - good quality I also opened up the new notification. You have gained a new skill: Basic Identification Level 1 I started to identify as many things as possible while peeling the potatoes at the same time. I decided to dice them up so they would cook faster. When I finished with the potatoes, the stove was hot enough, so I started cooking. When I finished cooking, I noticed the new notification. You have gained new skill: Basic Cooking Level 1 "Hmm," I thought. I guess cooking falls under survival skills, which makes sense. I had barely started a new day and had already gained two skills. Next on my list was to do a quick survey of the surroundings. Stepping outside, there was still a nip in the air, but the sun''s rays were already warming everything up. There were three other large buildings: the barn, the workshop, and the woodshed. There were also two smaller sheds. I knew that one of the sheds held tools, so I made my way to the last unknown building. The first thing I noticed was the wall thickness. Opening the door completely, I now understood why it was so thick¡ªit was where the seeds for vegetables and some root plants were kept. There wasn''t much light that could get inside, but from what I could tell, there were tomato, cucumber, pumpkin, and some other seeds I didn''t recognize at a glance. I was really happy to see them; I could get a lot of food from these seeds. "Now let''s see," I said as I walked to the centre of the buildings to familiarize myself with their layout. If the sun rose from the east here, then the barn was to the north. East was the main house, and west was the workshop and woodshed. The seed house was situated between the workshop and the barn. All buildings looked like they could handle the cold. To the south was the road to the village, which I remembered to be quite far away. To the west were the fields, and to the east was a small river with a forest beyond it. Behind the barn was at least two acres of fenced-off grazing area. But the question was, how far did my land actually extend? From my memories, I knew that I owned a lot of land, and there should be a map in my grandfather''s room. Returning to the house and searching his room, I noticed the lingering smell of death. Before looking for the map, I decided to clean out all the bedding. There seemed to be the beginnings of a fire pit behind the main house. That task didn''t take me long. Finding the property map was easy enough. It looked like we owned two properties side by side, one from my grandfather''s side and one from my mother''s side. Both were around 160 acres in size, but my mother''s side had no development¡ªonly untamed lands and forests. Having gotten the lay of the land, I searched all the rooms for valuables and other necessary items. I found two more spears, a large iron shield, and a chainmail shirt too small for me to wear. I found nothing else of importance. I also identified everything I discovered and gained a skill level increase. Skill increase: Basic Identification now Level 2 Taking the shield and the spear with me, I headed towards the river and walked over the wooden walkway. The river crossing was a 4-meter-long narrow wooden walkway, where only a single person could cross at a time. Luckily, there were supports already driven in for expansion. I continued onwards to explore the forest. A forest is an extremely important resource, and I knew it would be a challenge to transport wood back home. The forest was on this side of the river and quite a long walk from the river crossing. It took me another 15 minutes to reach the edge of the forest. During my walk, I searched for any useful plants, but mainly only grass was growing. It was too early in the season for anything else to catch my eye. However, once inside the forest, it was a different story. I immediately found deer tracks and those of smaller forest creatures. After another 30 minutes of searching, without going too far into the forest, I also discovered rabbit footprints. I found many different forest berry bushes and numerous plants that I had never seen before. I did find some familiar roots, which I dug up for snacking on the move. This activity earned me a new skill after I found a few. You have gained a new skill: Basic Foraging Level 1 I decided to follow the rabbit prints I found, and after a few minutes, I received another notification. You have gained a new skill: Basic Tracking Level 1 "Interesting," I thought. I needed to do a lot less to unlock the tracking skill. Why was this so much faster than the foraging skill? Maybe it had to do with the complexity and difficulty of the task, as tracking a rabbit was more challenging than digging up roots to eat. Looking at the wood all around me, I regretted not bringing an axe. Finding a big tree, I decided to practice my spear thrusting. I had never actually needed to use a spear before, but I had made one in the past and had a bit of fun with it. So, I practised for some time, but all I got was a stinging hand and no new skill. After that, I went back home. I had no water skin for a longer stay or any other useful items to find at the moment. I put away the spear and shield and headed to the tool shed. There, I found the axe and other useful tools. There was also a wooden harrow with iron-reinforced spikes. Mounted on the wall was a wooden plough with iron reinforcements. However, the problem was that the plough looked ancient and was meant to be pulled by hand. None of the tools were designed to be used with animals; they were old and meant for manual labour. This didn''t look promising for working the land effectively. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. I did see some harnesses in the workshop where the wagon was. Going there and investigating the harnesses, I found them to be meant for horses. Of course, there were no horses anywhere around here. From my memories, I got the impression that before everyone got sick here, someone came and took the horses and a lot of food for the village. Considering the harness, I thought I could make a few alterations so I could use the bull for some farm work. But it was too early to think about that. First, I needed planter boxes for tomatoes and cucumbers. It seemed they didn''t use planter boxes here. They only put seeds in the ground, which, while perfectly fine for most plants, wasn''t the best strategy for all of them. I started looking for the wood I needed to make the planter boxes. Finding some good-sized pieces of wood for the bottom and sides, I was about to start cutting them when I remembered I needed to select the rest of my classes. I decided to read them over just once more. Animal Husbandry: This class lifts restrictions on animal interaction skills. This class unlocks the Empathy stat. Handyman: This class lifts restrictions on all basic crafting and building skills. This class unlocks the Intelligence stat. I decided to just get on with it and selected them both. Level up: Animal Husbandry Animal Husbandry now Level 1 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Empathy +1 Level up: Handyman Handyman now Level 1 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Intelligence +1 New trait gained: Strength reaches 10; new trait gained: Better Bone Density Now, onto it. My hands were already itching to start working, but then I began to look around for something to measure with, only to come up short. I started to think up a solution. It took me quite a while to remember that the property map had distance reference markers. Quickly, I found a good piece of wood to turn into a ruler. It took only a few minutes to smooth it out with the sanding stone. Once finished, I moved into the house. I could make an accurate mark every half a centimetre, which was fortunate since the map had that length. I also calculated how far away from the village I was. It turned out I was about 10 kilometres away by road, but there was also a closer mark. It was depicted similarly to a watchtower symbol and was only four kilometres away, at the edge of my territory. Not finding anything better to mark with, I used charcoal for the moment. Knowing that charcoal would come off easily, I went to the living room''s crafting space to carve out everything I needed for a 1-meter ruler. While doing that, I also noticed the two large windows. I hadn''t considered them odd before, as I was used to them in my previous home, but in this medieval world, they didn''t fit the time. Ruler finished, I inspected the windows, which looked like modern ones. It was impossible to make them using medieval techniques. I bet they were made using either high-level skills or magic. The windows were perfectly placed on both sides of the living room to let in the morning light and then the evening light, perfect for illuminating the room for activities. I also decided to make a string measurement tool, heading over to the loom. I searched for a suitable roll of string to use. I needed some dye to mark it as well. There were yellow, blue, green, and red options, but I picked the red so I could see the markings more clearly. I also used the dye to make the carvings more visible on my ruler. It was easy to mark the string every 1 meter using the ruler. When I finished, I had a 34-meter measuring string. Now, it was time to get back to making planter boxes. There was also a notification that I had received and now decided to open. You have gained a new skill: Basic Wood Carving Level 1 Now I was able to make perfect 1-meter-long and half-a-meter-wide boxes. When I finished the box, I received a new notification. You have gained a new skill: Basic Wood Crafting Level 1 For the dividers, I wanted to use extremely thin wood pieces. I ended up using four 1-meter-long thin wood boards, attaching them simply by carving grooves into the inner sides of the box. I also made more small pieces of wood to use as horizontal dividers to insert later when the box was already filled with soil. This arrangement would accommodate 40 plants per planter box. I would need to make quite a few of these boxes, and honestly, I didn''t want to use the good wood boards I had. I checked if I could use firewood to make the boards I needed. It would require a bit more work, but the firewood was plentiful and suitable since they were over a meter long. Next, I went to the seed house to see how many cucumber and tomato seeds I had. There were fewer than I''d hoped for, only about 200 of each. To plant them all, I only needed to make 10 planter boxes. It took me until around 4:00 PM to finish the boxes. I used up about half the supply of small nails I had. After eating another lunch of potatoes, I noted that I needed to make some food I could bring with me, so I wouldn''t have to cook lunch or skip it. This could save a lot of time and ensure I was well-fed. I also levelled up my Basic Wood Crafting to Level 4 and Wood Carving to Level 2. Taking out the shovel, I went to fill up the planter boxes. But first, I needed to find good soil. Fortunately, that was the easiest part, as good fertile soil was all around. Deciding to see how deep the fertile soil went, I was surprised to find it was deeper than 1 meter. Not wanting to dig any further because it would just waste time, I noticed a new problem. The issue was that there were too many rocks, ranging from small to medium in size. So, I''d need to sieve the soil I used for the planter boxes. However, there was no soil sieve here, and to make one, I''d need green bark. It was the only material strong enough to create a sieve mesh that could withstand the rocks and the weight of the soil. So, I needed to make a trip to the forest. But this time, let''s make it a proper one. First, I needed an axe and a knife. I filled up a waterskin from the well and found some thicker clothes. I had also been a bit too careless, so I should always carry around a weapon. The spear would be too cumbersome to always carry around. Therefore, I guessed the sword would have to do, and luckily there was a sheath and belt for it. It took me an hour to get everything ready. I was now wearing a rainproof cape, a thicker shirt and pants, and better boots that looked like hiking ones. My sword was on my left side, and I used my sword belt to also keep the axe on my right side. I also found a belt for my knife, which was on my right side as well. So, I was wearing three belts: one to hold up my pants, a second to hold my sword and axe, and the final one to hold the knife. I think I''ve never looked quite this ridiculous, but I guess I needed to get used to this for my own safety. I also put a waterskin with a sling over my shoulder and wore a backpack meant to bring back wood. When I finished my last check, everything worked fine, and I could run and move without anything coming loose. I had the brilliant idea to bring some rope and string to make traps to catch animals and get some meat. With that taken care of, I started to head towards the forest. I almost slipped when I walked across the narrow walkway over the river. But luckily, after that, I made it safely to the forest. My goal was to find some young trees that were about the thickness of my arm. I stripped them of their bark and cut them down to about 1-and-a-half-meter lengths. After the second one, I received a notification. You have gained a new skill: Basic Logging Level 1 I reached Logging Level 2 when my backpack was full of wood and bark. I began to move towards the edge of the forest. Upon reaching the edge of the forest, I decided to set up traps for the animals. I dropped my backpack and ventured back into the forest. I started to follow the tracks to see where most of the animals would walk. It took me some time, and I had to move quite far into the forest to find a consistent deer trail. Following it led me to a small stream. Retreating some distance from the stream, I started to set up a snare to catch a deer. I made a simple one that I tied to a medium-sized tree. I spaced them out and set up a total of three snares on the deer trail. I continued to move and familiarize myself more with the forest, so I would know where I left everything. Next, I set up smaller snares where I found rabbit tracks. I ended up with a total of six in different spots. Not knowing how many animals there were or how often they came through here, I decided that these numbers were good to start with. During that time, I gained two skill levels in tracking and a new skill: Basic Trap Making. Finally finished, I headed back home, picked up my backpack on my way, and noticed that it was quite late. I maybe had two hours of light left. When I made it home, I offloaded all the wood into the woodshed. I brought the bark with me into the house. I gathered some more potatoes and onions, deciding to make onion-potato pies in the oven so that I could take some food with me if I needed to spend all day in the forest. Making pies was easy, as I had done it many times before. When I finished all the preparations and the dough was rising, I started processing the wood bark. However, the natural light was almost gone, so I had to rely on the furnace light to continue working. I started by making the strips thinner, then began weaving them into rope. As I continued weaving, I quickly gained a new skill. You have gained a new skill: Basic Weaving Level 1 My practised hands made quick work of the material. By the time I was halfway done, it was time to make the pies, and I had also gained two new skill levels in weaving. Making the hand-sized pies was easy; the problem was that I was unfamiliar with the oven. I needed to constantly monitor the temperature. It took a bit of effort and adjustment, but they came out excellent. You have gained a new skill: Basic Baking Level 1 With 20 hand-sized pies ready, I went to bed, exhausted from all the work I had done. chapter 3 Morning came quickly. I started by peeling some potatoes. When I remember that I had cows that should produce milk. I¡¯m not much of a milk lover myself, But I also know that if you do not milk cows, they might feel uncomfortable. Before I ate, I went out to the barn to find the cows waiting in the barn and what I assume were their milking spots. Taking the wooden buckets, I started to milk them. They seemed happy, and I was also because I got another skill. You have gained a new skill basic animal product harvesting level 1 In the end, I got 3 buckets of milk, a lot less than I am used to when I kept cows. But I guess the selective breeding of modern days made it, so the cows produced a lot more milk. Now, looking at the amount of milk I had was still daunting. Most of this was just going to go to waste unless I could make cheese. But there is no rennet for making cheese and to get it, I would need an animal that was still drinking milk. ¡°Wait¡± actually I could also make plant-based rennet, for that I¡¯d just need stinging nettles. There are a lot of stinging nettles beside the river. Cheese would be excellent for long-term food security, it¡¯s good for travel and cheese tastes excellent. I use the copper pots for this the big one to make rennet and the smaller one to actually cook the milk. Getting a cloth bag, I went to collect the stinging nettles. Washing them in the river so there are fewer contaminants. I collected enough so that I can get enough rennet to use on the 6 gallons of milk I got. I don¡¯t have any proper way to preserve it, so I need to do this every time I make cheese. Temperature control in a wood-burning stove is difficult. Luckily, I have had some practice with it. Still, it was hard not to burn the milk or overcook the stinging nettles. Straining the stinging nettles with the cloth, I wait and looked after the milk until it was ready for the rennet to be mixed in. It''s always fascinating to watch how the milk curdles. Removing the waste and pressing the cheese into a wheel, I got about a 2-kilo wheel. Taking that to the cellar to sit until it''s ready to eat, about two months later. After that, I finished making the bark rope. Now I¡¯d say it¡¯s about 12:00 o''clock but without a clock there is no actual way to tell time, it was just a guess. Getting on my foresting gear I went to check on my traps. One of the deer traps was out of place so I was unlucky and didn¡¯t catch it, same with one of the smaller traps. Resetting them and coming back. I finished weaving the rest of the bark rope for the mesh. I finally had all I needed and was ready to make the soil sifter. Doing my favorite design, it will need a 1 m by 1 m box, have three legs, 1 big handle and the bark rope mesh. I started by making the box. After that, I start to weave the mesh. Using a simple cross pattern that will end up a little larger than the box¡¯s, so that I could nail it to the box. When that was finished, the soil sifter was technically done, and it could do its job. So, I went and tested it out and it worked perfectly. But now some features that will actually make working with it easy and that I could do it alone and fast. Using the wooden sticks I got yesterday when I was in the forest. I picked 3 of them and cut them into 1 and a half meters exactly except for the last one that I made a bit shorter. Using a drawknife and the wooden clamp to hold the piece of wood. I made one side on the top flat so that it would sit flush with the box and sit on the leg, then the nails don''t have to support the weight of the box. Finishing all three legs. I nail them to the box, two on the side towards the front and the shorter one back in the middle. The shorter one is that way so when I stand the soil sifter up its tilted a bit backwards, so it is stable and strong enough to hold many shovel full of dirt. Now for the handle, I just used the curvy piece of wood and mounted it in front. Then I could strongly shake the box easily. When I was finished, I went and tested it out and it worked perfectly and easily. So now it was time to fill the 10 planter boxes. Moving to the last place where I tested the soil last time. I placed the planter box beneath the soil sifter and started to shovel and fill them up. Thanks to the soil shifter. It didn¡¯t take too long, but it was still getting late when I finished. Adding the small dividers and starting to put in the seeds, I used the rest of the daylight to water them lightly and bring them inside the house and put them where they would get light. I made myself dinner and after that; I went to bed. The next day started off the same as yesterday. I made some food and then went to milk the cows. I was right about how much milk they produced. Back on earth, you needed to milk cows two times a day, but here it¡¯s just once and that they produce a lot less than modern cows. Collecting everything needed and making another wheel of cheese that I put next to the other one. I looked around and made a note of how many potatoes there are because I need to actually plant them, so I can¡¯t eat them all. I make my way to the seed house to find out what I have there. I got beat, carrot, cabbage, onion, peas, and garlic seeds left for the roots and vegetables. There are also enough seeds for five acres of both wheat and rye. There¡¯s also 2 acres of seeds I do not recognize. Trying to remember and putting together the pieces of memory I have of this world. I expect the seeds to be a sort of fibrous plant similar to hemp that¡¯s used to make fabric. If I stopped eating potatoes, I could put two acres of them in the land. But most likely I will eat some and have one and a half acres left by the time I can plant them. About another acre, with all the vegetables put together. So, about 15 acres all put together. I also need to make another five more planter boxes for the cabbages. I just remembered that I need to plant them the same way as I did with cucumbers and tomatoes. The rest can just go into the ground with no problem. I got another skill level in wood crafting and farming from making the extra planter boxes and planting the cabbages. Having finished that, I need to deal with the problem of wood and my lack of it. I need it for almost daily usage. I will need it for the winter to actually survive and also for the buildings that I want to build. For all that, I only have a general-purpose axe. It can do everything, but it just can''t do them well. So, I need to make some tools but for that, I¡¯ll need charcoal and a forge. After thinking and looking, I actually have most of what I need: a big wooden mallet, 4 steel wedges and some hardwood wedges. I only need to make broadaxe and an adze. It''s not the worst. I could work without the last two tools, just slower. That''s some good news, but I still need to make a forge even to just make nails. I know I need to make a lot more metal stuff later on. I need to get the anvil and metal from somewhere but, going to town will be way too risky with the plague going on. I''d probably need to go on a multi-day journey to find and locate any useful resorces I can. Now today is wasting and let''s go and check if any of the traps catch something. This time only one small trap needed to be reset but I still haven''t caught anything. Moving back, I started to plan out how I will actually start making useful lumber. I want to do it close to the river. My first goal is to make a bridge so I have a safer and closer workspace to work with lumber. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Now, this would be a designed nightmare. If I just make a bridge that I could walk across, it would be easy. But the bridge needs to be wide enough that I could bring the cart over. Also, animals should be able to walk across, especially the bull, because I''d like to use him to bring my wood over from the forest. But why was there only a walkway across and not a proper bridge? Because support to expand it have already been driven in. Examining the support better, I notice that they have been there for quite some time. So, it was not a question of time. Then there must be another reason, one might be that they simply didn¡¯t have the expertise anymore. Or more worryingly and I think this is the correct answer because they were afraid of what might come out of the forest. From my knowledge of this world, I know there are creatures similar to goblins and kobolds that live everywhere, where there is easy to get food. Do I risk building it? Do I have any choice in the matter? I need lumber and a lot of it. ¡°Draw bridge.¡± That could work. Best would be a section from the middle that I could raise up towards the farm side. But then I would also need the mechanism to raise it. An interesting challenge and I think I need to do that just in case and it would also look awesome. So, let¡¯s design the bridge. I already have 4 supports in the water. They are all about one and a half meters away from the shore and they are two meters apart from each other. I will need 4 main support logs that are large diameter pieces of wood that are 4 meters long. I need to make a scarf joint at the end so I could join them together at the middle of the river. I¡¯d then have another 2 meters to cover them with dirt and stones on the shore. Now I also want cross support. I want a bit of over hang, two and a half meters will work, and I¡¯d need 4 of them that are medium-sized. The cross supports need to be sunken in so that they would not be taller than the main supports. The best way to secure them would be using lap joints. I also need to burn holes using burning coal and then later tap it with wood pegs. Then cover the entire bridge with closely fitting thick wood boards. But what would be the best way to secure them? I don¡¯t think I have any other options but to use pegs for that too. For that to work, the top of the main supports needs to be level. The best will be to build the bridge before on the ground, disassemble it and build it back up over the river. I need to find some chain and rope so that I can pull the wood out of the forest. I went and got all the tools I needed and found a rope and chain to use. Bring them to the future construction site, I unpack everything I don¡¯t need to fell a tree and bring it back. I still left my sword on my hip just in case and, of course, the waterskin. I¡¯m going to need that. First, I needed to do some scouting work to find trees that can be used as main supports. Finding pine that has a 4-meter tall and around 40 cm thick log I can cut from it is not hard. Now cutting them down will be a different story. When the first one fell, I was covered in sweat and exhausted. I needed to take a rest after that. There was no need to cut any branches. The tree was long enough to get the 4-meter piece I was looking for. I got two skill levels in basic logging when I finished cutting my first 4-metre piece. Hooking it up to the chain and rope harness I made, I dragged it back to the bridge construction site. It took me the rest of the day to get the other three pieces for the main supports. While doing that, I also got two more levels in basic logging, bringing me up to level 6. Now one thing I did notice was I still got tired pretty quickly. So, I wonder how the stats actually help or do I still have a regular human level of stats. The next day I did my usual milking and cheese making and then went back to logging. I started the day off by finishing the 4 trees I cut down yesterday. I got four of the cross supports from them. I also took all the branches that are big enough to make use of them. I can also take whatever I do not use and turn them into charcoal later on. That got me another two levels in basic lumbering. Now for the planks, I need about 3 more big trees. I¡¯m probably going to make some mistakes, just in case I will cut down 4 trees. When the daylight was ending, I was bringing in the last part of the third tree I need. Getting myself up to level 9 in basic logging by doing that. So tomorrow only one more tree and I¡¯m done with cutting trees down and can start building. After finishing my usual chores for the morning, I took a rest beside the river when I got back from checking the traps. Looking at the lumber and visualizing what I needed to build. I almost forgot that I wanted to make it so that I can lift up the center part. So, I need to cut down some more trees, then I can build the tower where I can put the counterweights that will help me pull up the bridge. It can be a simple tower, but it needs to be strong enough to support the counterweight. I can use the branches for the cross support for the tower so that it would be stable, but I would need to bring 4-meter long and medium-sized logs for the four corners. I decided to cut down the tower trees first because they will go a lot faster. When I was done with them, I went to cut down the last big tree that I need. When I was watching it fall, I got a new notification. Skill increases basic logging level 10 is upgraded to logging level 1 Choose one of the following abilities Power strike Piercing cut Precise blow ¡°Oh well, this is more like it¡± some actual RPG stuff. It''s interesting that it''s not fighting skills that gave me these options but lumbering. I wonder if every skill when it upgrades gives options to get abilities. I think my best choice is piercing cut, the precise blow is no use for me cause I¡¯m very good at using my axe it might help with my sword but just a bit of practice will fix that. Now power strike, I think it¡¯s also out because I don¡¯t think my axe can actually handle stronger abuse. I can see that the handle is made out of oak, but when I really put my strength into the swing. I can feel that it is at the edge of what the handle can handle. But piercing cut now that is interesting. I think it could help me a lot with making boards and if I could control it well enough to make the necessary cuts to make the joints for the build. So, I picked the piercing cut ability. You have gained a new ability piercing cut level 1 Now when I start to remove the branches, I attempted to use my new ability. The first time I didn¡¯t feel anything different, so I continue to concentrate on the ability and then swinging with my axe. On the fourth try, it worked. I could see the axe head glow ever so slightly. Swinging it, cut off a large branch with just one strike. You have gained a new skill basic axe level 1 Did the axe skill appear because I used the ability? I wonder why I haven¡¯t gotten one before is the skill only meant for fighting. Maybe, or was I missing something? I continue to use it and test to see how it actually worked. I got it to work every time just before I finish cutting the branches. During that time, I also needed to rest two times because the ability used something that was inside me to fuel itself. Now that I was done with the tree, I closed my eyes and tried to feel what was happening inside me when I used the ability. It took me some time before I could really start to feel it. When I started to prepare the ability, something moved from my body into the axe. After a moment, it started to glow. If I didn¡¯t finish the strike, then the glow would just dissipate. When I figure that out, I got three new notifications. You have gained a new skill basic energy manipulation You have gained a new stat energy storage Level up frontier farmer frontier farmer now level 2 Strength +2 Dexterity +1 Vitality +2 Endurance +1 Opening up my achievement page. I looked at all the changes and it brought a smile to my face thanks to all the progress I¡¯ve been making. It¡¯s good to be able to quantify your achievements like this. Name: Rich Dirt Species: human Gender: male Age: 12 Frontier farmer Level 2 Animal husbandry level 1 Handyman level 1 stats: Strength: 13 Dexterity: 9 Vitality: 14 Endurance: 2 Empathy: 1 Intelligence: 1 energy storage:1 Abilities: piercing cut Skills: basic farmer level 7 basic identification level 2 basic cooking level 1 basic foraging level 1 basic animal care level 6 basic fitness enhancement level 4 basic tracking level 3 basic wood carving level 2 basic wood crafting level 5 logging level 1 basic trap making level 1 basic weaving level 3 basic baking level 1 basic animal product harvesting level 1 basic axe level 1 basic energy manipulation level 1 Traits: Better blood filtration Minor temperature resistance Minor physical boost Better bone density Deciding to spend the rest of the day around the farmhouses to figure out more about energy manipulation and abilities, I quickly finished bringing in the last tree. The first thing I wanted to test out was if I could get a spear skill by doing the piercing cut. I did a few tries, but it didn¡¯t work. So, I decided to concentrate like I did when I first try to use the ability and that¡¯s all it took. You have gained a new skill basic spear I did the same thing with my sword, but just in case I first ran through a few moves I¡¯d learned before. I wanted to see if that could get me the sword skill, but I did not. So, I used the ability method again and got two notifications out of that. Ability increases piercing cut level 2 You have gained a new skill basic sword So, abilities can level up too, even if I just used it. I guess that makes sense because I can get the skill level up from just doing things. Why wouldn¡¯t it work with abilities too. No need to kill, but I¡¯m guessing that would help level it up faster. So, I kept practicing it and trying to concentrate on how it worked. I can feel the energy move and be used up by the ability. I figured out that I could manipulate the energy to some degree so that it would be overall stronger or change the size of the ability. For my effort, I got another level for piercing cut and basic energy manipulation. But during my training, I also noticed something else about the energy that¡¯s running through my body. When I moved, energy also moved in me. During the sunset, I focused on the energy and how it interacted with my body. I finally had a eureka moment when I got another level up for energy manipulation. The energy I think it comes from the stats. If I actually want to use all my stats, I''ll have to concentrate. Getting this piece of information made me think of all the ways I could start practicing to better use my stats and actually start feeling like a superhuman. After all the testing, I was bone tired and went to bed just after eating one of the last pies I have left. chapter 4 The next morning, my chores went well until I made it to one of my deer traps. I was not too far away from it when I started to hear movement. I started to approach slowly until I saw the deer that was caught in my trap. When I saw the deer, I got the notification of a new skill basic trapping and it levelled up to 2 in one go. I approached carefully, but when the deer finally noticed me, it started to move even more frantically, trying to get loose. But all it did was exhaust himself more. I pulled out my sword just in case, but my plan was to wait until he was so exhausted that he didn¡¯t have any energy to move. Every time the deer tried to rest, I moved closer until finally it was so exhausted that it just slumped down. Decided to use the sword to cut its throat. I approached but just before finishing him I decided to do a piercing cut, easily cutting quite deep into the neck. Immediately, 2 new notifications showed up. Level up frontier farmer frontier farmer now level 3 Strength +2 Dexterity +1 Vitality +2 Endurance +1 Ability is upgraded to piercing cut level 3 New trait gained dexterity reaches 10 new trait gained better twitch muscles I used the trap rope to pull the deer up so that his head would be downwards, and the blood would come out. I went and checked the other traps but there was nothing else, I only needed to reset one of them. When I made it back, all the blood was drained out. I decided to bring the deer back because I simply didn¡¯t have the experience to actually properly harvest a deer in the woods. Walking across the river, I almost fell in when I slipped, and the deer shifted on my back. Now that I made it back, I realized that I was not actually ready to deal with what I had caught. Deciding to use the large workshop table, I did the butchering the best I could. I was out of practice, but I got all the useful bits. You have gained a new skill basic butchering Getting about 20 kilograms of meat and enough sinew to make a bowstring. I left the meat to rest, but I took enough back into the house to cook food. I put it in the cast-iron pot and went got some carrots, potatoes and onions. Putting them all into the oven. I load up the oven with firewood and went back over the river to continue making the bridge. I started by debarking the logs that were going to go into making the bridge. When I was about halfway done, I started to gather up all the bark. I was going to let the deer hide go to waste, because I don¡¯t have any salt for the curing solution. But then I remembered I can use bark water and the powder they have here at the farm for the same effect, if not a lot faster. Back at the house, I put more firewood in the almost extinguished oven. Putting the bark to boil in the big pot. I went and dragged the rainwater barrel towards the river. Using the buckets, I transfer the bark water into the barrel. Getting some more water from the river, I filled up the barrel. I prepared the hide by scraping off as much flesh as I could, as well all the hair on the hide. Having done that, I went down to the river to put the hide in the barrel. Moving the hide occasionally while I sat on the riverbank and watch the water flow. I also noticed some fish that swam past and remember I should maybe make some fish traps. Maybe I will eventually make a fish farm, but that would depend on how many fish that are in the river. If there¡¯s a lot of fish, there is no reason to start the fish farm. Washing the hide in the river, I scraped the hide a bit more, and quickly put together a drying rack, leaving it out where it could get the most sun. It looks like the powder is a lot better than I expected. Gathering up all my tools from the construction site, I took them back to the workshop, just in case. I went and pulled out the deer roast. I made another fire in the oven to make some meat pies, because I ran out of pies for lunch, and I also need to use up the deer meat. Tomorrow I will also need to make a smoker so I can preserve the deer meat. While doing my morning chores, I pondered how to make the smoker. I needed some way to make a chimney that long, so when the smoke reaches the meat, it will not be too hot. Best way to help cool down the smoke is to have a chimney that is long and underground. Luckily, the smoking box itself can be made out of wood. Why does it need to be cold smoking? It¡¯s the best way to preserve meat for a longer time. Now, if I had some salt, I could just cure the meat that way. If I salt and smoked the meat, it would last even longer and taste better too. I¡¯m really starting to miss salt. When I made it to one of my rabbit traps, I found that I''ve caught a rabbit. The moment I saw it, I also got another level in trapping. I almost wished that I removed the traps, because I still haven¡¯t figured out how to make a working cold smoker. I can¡¯t even make a hot smoker, because then the smoke would burn up a wooden box. But looking at the live rabbit, I got another idea. If I actually start to raise it, I get a lot of experience in animal husbandry which currently has barely filled up. I can feel my handyman class getting close to a level, and of course, my frontier farmer just recently levelled up. So, I decided not to kill the rabbit, but to take him with me. There¡¯s nothing else in the other traps, but the damn rabbit I was carrying with me was fighting me every minute, not giving me a break. I was annoyed when we got back to the farm. But I was determined to get the rabbit farm going because they provide an excellent source of meat and pelts. I tied him up at the workshop, where I proceeded to make the rabbit cage with the good wood planks I had. Putting the cage together was pretty fast. I used a simple but well-tested design that has a small feeding place on one side. The cage inside is 1 meter by 1 and a half meters and 80 centimetres tall. Rabbit cages are meant to be off the ground, so I will need to find some legs for it. I think some of the branches I have cut will work fine. The roof I made out of wood boards, I will need to think of a better roof down the line. Just before I finish the cage, I got a notification that my basic wood crafting level up. Now I need to find the place for the cage and then put legs on it. I walked around a bit to see a good place. I decided to put it beside the barn towards the riverside. Installing the legs was a bit more work than I expected, because doing it alone was annoying. When I finished the cage, all that was left to do was putting some hay on the floor and then cut some fresh grass for food. But that brought up another problem. The grass was getting a bit high around the farm, and it needs to be cut down. I would need to do it with a scythe. It took me a bit of practice to get the scythe working correctly. After finishing getting food for the rabbit, I really started missing my robotic lawn mowers. They made life so much easier. Putting the rabbit in the cage was easy. Holding my breath and watching if the cage would hold or if he found any other way to get free. I waited for a bit until he finally started to calm down. I was really happy when he finally started to eat the fresh grass. Keeping my eye on the cage, I also went around the farm to see where it would be a good place to build the smoker. It would need to be on a slope, so I don¡¯t have to do so much work. Because the fire needs to be lower and about 3 meters away from the smoke-box. The smoke needs to be cool, so it doesn¡¯t actually cook the meat but smokes it. I actually found the perfect spot, but it''s a straight in the way of the future path I want to create for the bridge. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. But the general area would still be excellent, just need to dig a bit more. Good idea is to build my butchering house there also, then the smoker will be next to the butchering house and that would just be perfect. I could also keep my eye on the rabbit cage while I was digging. Now digging was good and all, but I still didn¡¯t have any good plan for the underground chimney. My current best plan is stones, but they would have too many holes. Even if I found some clay or mud to fill it up. I kept working on the problem while I was finishing the digging for the burning pit and the chimney. I was sitting down and holding 2 stones in my hand. If only I had some tools that are meant for cutting stones, if I could even just get one side flat, my problem would be solved. I didn¡¯t just want to just sit and think. So, I also decided to work on my energies so that I wouldn¡¯t waste time. But that actually gave me an idea. How sharp and how well did the piercing cut actually cut? Getting my axe, I tried to concentrate on the ability and try to release the ability without actually hitting the stone, just getting really close with my axe head. To my surprise, it actually worked. It left straight but small cut. So, I continue to test and also monitor the axe to see if it affected it in any bad way. It took me some time to get the hang of it well enough to not hit the stone. I needed to sharpen the axe twice because I hit it on the stone, but other than that, the ability didn¡¯t affect the axe as far as I could tell. So now I had a way to get a straight edge on a rock. It takes a lot of energy and it exhausted me quickly, but I now have a way. Collecting the stones was easy because of the fields where large piles of rocks were collected over the years. I was happy for a moment, but then I could feel my entire body shuttering ¡°shit¡±. That meant that I actually have to pick up rocks from the fields before I have harrowed them. Just another thing I need to add to the list. My mood a bit down, I continue to bring rocks and straightened them out while laying them to make chimney. I become really practiced in using the ability and I got 2 new levels in piercing cut and also a new skill basic masonry. Finished the chimney, I covered it up with dirt. Fireplace was a bit cramped to get to, so I decided to widen it up a bit. After that building the smoke-box was easy. Making an adjustable way for the smoke to get out was a bit more difficult, but nothing I couldn¡¯t do with a bit more time. Firing up the smoker, I tested the smoke temperature and how well it worked, and I have to say I was pleased. I also got the new skill basic construction for my effort. Bringing the rest of the deer meat over to smoke it. I cut them into smaller pieces so that they would actually get done today and I didn¡¯t have to stay awake all night. I''ll still need to stay awake past my usual bedtime, most likely until midnight. Hopefully about 7 hours will be long enough to finish the meat. While that was going on, I decided to finish barking the rest of the lumber for the bridge. Going back and forth between the smoker and the construction site was annoying, but the constant need to keep the fire from going out made it necessary. I did finish up the barking before the sun went down and the rest of the time; I waited and watched the smoker. Two of the bigger pieces with bone were not completely done, but I really wanted to go to bed, so I took them all to the house and into the basement. Even if not completely done, it still would help keep them fresh and I could just make a roast out of the bigger pieces the following days. If I wanted to preserve the meat for a longer time. I would need to smoke it up to 50 hours, but this meat would be eaten before it goes bad, there''s not that much meat. I got a new skill level in basic cooking, and I went to bed exhausted, but happy from another day of working. This morning, another problem popped up. The first wheel cheese I made, I found a small piece of mould on it. Luckily, I found it quickly, but the problem is I don¡¯t have any wax to cover it to prevent mould forming. I have a lesser fix for it, I just needed to smoke them. It would give a little more protection but will give a different taste to them. This morning''s chores were different because I also needed to feed the rabbit. Luckily, this didn''t take long. I just had to put some grass that I got yesterday into the feeder. The better question is do I have to only feed him twice a day or three times a day? I guess this will be a wait and see kind of problem. Getting another cheese wheel done this time, I brought them to the smoker. It took a bit of creative thinking, but I was able to get all the cheese wheels inside the smoker. However, six will be the limit for this smoker. I don¡¯t want to smoke them a lot, just enough to give a bit more protection from the mould. So, I simply decided to make a fire and go and check the traps. When I made it back, finding nothing. I made another fire and then that would be it for the cheese. Can¡¯t spend my day only smoking, I need to finish the bridge soon. Getting back to the construction site, I started to measure and plan everything out. Moving the big pieces of lumber was hard, but helping guide my energy I have from my stats made it a bit easier. Thanks to my ability, piercing cut it made everything a lot easier. What wasn''t easy and was annoying is trying to get holes into the lumber. I had to use an ancient technique of using burning coal to burn the holes. I will use the scarf joint to connect the main supports and I burned the hole through the joint so I can tap it later when assembling the bridge. When the main supports were connected, I started to carve out the cross support. During that time, I got new skill basic carpentry. For the cross supports, I used lapping joints with a hole so I can tap them later. Making all the wood boards was made easier thanks to my ability. But it was still time-consuming, and I only made 1/4 of the wood boards before the end of the day. i got a level in basic carpentry and piercing cut. Going back home a bit earlier today, I made another venison roast. This time without potatoes i didn¡¯t want to eat them all and went to bed afterwards. The next day continued as usual. I was able to finish the wood boards. I made them in the shape of a parallelogram, so they fit together even better and there would be no problem with the lifting section of the bridge. And just like that another day was over. Skill increases basic carpentry level 5 The next day, my regular chores got me another rabbit caught in a trap. This time I didn¡¯t get the skill level, but I did have another problem. Will I have to build another cage or will they actually be able to share it? This one struggled less and before I put it into the cage, I remember I didn¡¯t check for genders. The one I caught today was male and after trying a little bit I was able to check the other one, but he was also male. I put more grass into the cage and monitored if they could be together in one cage, hoping I do not have to make another one. This one calmed down a lot faster. I don¡¯t know if he¡¯s just less aggressive or if the other rabbit¡¯s presence helped. They seem to be getting along well enough. Now I can get back to making the bridge. When I finished shaping and cutting the wood boards. I wanted to test how well they would work and how it would be best to attach them. When I started test fitting, I only need to shave off some bits. They fitted together pretty well, but securing them will be hard. I do not have enough large nails, so I think the best plan is to use pegs. I made the pegs a bit like nails but a lot bigger and not round headed but rectangles. Of course, the end will not be pointed but flat so I can use a wedge at the end, to make it even securer. If I had to use one or two pegs to secure the boards, that all depended on how wide they were. Making all the holes was even more annoying. I wish I didn¡¯t have to burn them with coals. I didn¡¯t want to burn a hole completely through the main supports, so I needed to constantly monitor how deep it got. The rest of the day, I just made holes. I finished them a bit before evening getting another skill level in basic carpentry. I decided not to do anymore work and just relax for the rest of the day. I finally decided to go swimming in the river, not just because I needed to wash, but because it would be relaxing. I¡¯ve always enjoyed swimming. Let''s just hope some horrible monster doesn''t come and eat me. The weather was still quite cold but not too bad, I think my trait minor temperature resistance helped me out. I didn¡¯t spend the time just doing nothing while I was swimming. I was exploring the river and seeing how deep it was and what was at the bottom. The wider parts of the river moved slowly, the narrower it got, the faster moving the water was. Mostly sandy and rock bottom, but some spots had a lot of mud. And luckily, I did find two places where there was clay. That is really good news. It¡¯s good to know what and where I have resources. After that I went and hung out a bit with the bull so it can get more used to me. Then I went to bed. Morning chores went as usual, nothing in the traps this time. I finally made it to the part where I wanted to start making the lifting part of the bridge. For that I made an extra square that will go inside the main supports. This square needed some extra supports in the corners. Which was a bit of a hassle to get them in place and secured, but good application of my ability and the axe made the joint doable. Now making the hole for the pivot point is the most annoying part. Mostly because I needed to take apart most of the bridge, turning the main supports onto their sides, so I could burn holes through them and the lifting square at the same time. The burning and reassembling took the rest of the day. I made it so the pivot point was a bit further in, so there would be no problem with the clearance. Testing it out it worked brilliantly. But when I was done, I discovered a problem. Where would I attach the rope so that it wouldn¡¯t get in the way? I need to make the tower to the side, but the rope will need to be straight, or at least as straight as it can be. Otherwise, the parts that I can make to raise it will not be able to withstand the tension. After thinking about it for some time. I figured that the rope does not actually need to be under tension when the bridge is lowered, so all I need is to carve a slit into the board, so the rope doesn¡¯t have to be in the way. Plan made how to continue tomorrow, I went back home to make some dinner and go to bed. I was happy that I also got another skill level in carpentry. chapter 5 New morning brings a new problem, rain. I still have to do my morning chores and go and check the traps, because I wouldn¡¯t want any animal to be too long kept in a trap. That would be unethical. So now I was back home soaking wet and not able to build the bridge today. I decided to get some of the bigger cloth bags from a workshop. Also, bringing the deer leather into the house. I wanted to make some big cloth backpacks so I could transport charcoal and other low weight resources. I picked two of the biggest bags. From the leather, I cut 4 large strips to use for the backpacks. The rest of the leather, I made it into smaller strips that I can use for strong rope. After that I start testing and practicing on the loom. By the end of the day the rain ended but it was still too wet to do anything, so I kept practicing at the loom. During that time, I made some strong fabric using the loom. It¡¯s the same fabric the cloth bags I have are made of. By the end of the day, I think I had enough fabric for two bags, and I also got a skill level in basic weaving. After that, I went to bed a bit frustrated from having to spend most of my day indoors. The next morning was a beautiful day, but everything was still a bit damp, but by the time I got back from the forest, everything had dried up. I was able to continue constructing the bridge, making great progress. I finish making all the holes in everything. It all fits together extremely well. Only thing left is to build the railing the next day and then take it all apart and assemble it together over the river. Next day was another beautiful day, but when I started to make the railing, I found a problem. I needed to fix the raising part of the bridge so it will not interfere with the railing. Using the easiest solution, I will simply build the railing out a bit more so it will miss the railing that¡¯s built on the part of the bridge that doesn¡¯t rise. Finishing that, I tested it out the rising part by lifting it up. This revealed another problem when it went over the tipping point. It fell over and I need to rebuild most of the railing. Because of that, I needed to make supports so the bridge would not overfold. And for that, I needed to use some lumber that I was going to make the tower with. It looked kind of funky with the railing part underneath and a large 90-degree triangle that supports the bridge when it¡¯s up. But after that, I needed to go and cut down two more trees to replace the lumber I used. So, I could actually make the tower part. When I finished that it was already nearly sunset. I got quite a lot of skill levels and a class level up Level up handyman Handyman now level 2 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Intelligence +1 Skill increases basic carpentry level 8 Skill increases basic construction level 2 Skill increases basic wood carving level 3 Next day, after finishing my chores and the bridge construction finished, I started to work on the tower. Now the tower will be connected to one of the main support that will be buried underneath the earth. This is so whenever I tried to lift the bridge, the tower will be stable. I will also drive in some extra supports to make the tower even more secure. I prepared the tower base but for the rest I will just do it when everything else is in place. Now it was time to deconstruct everything. I wanted to remember where everything went, so I use charcoal to number every piece. That will make putting them back together the correct way easy. It took the rest of the day to deconstruct the bridge and dig out where the main supports will go. My biggest fear is that it will rain and wash away the charcoal markings. I hope that I would be able to build it all in one day. I did get another level in basic construction and that skill felt like it filled up handyman class a lot. Another piece of the system mystery is uncovered. Not all skills give the same amount to a class level up. The next day, after I did my usual morning chores, I started by putting stones where the main support will go. I want there to be a more stable ground for them. That done, I actually started to move the first main support to the supports that are in the river. The first one was relatively easy. I didn''t needed to push my stat to their limits, to lift and push the main support. It was long enough, and the water supports close enough that I can just slide it forward into the correct place. Now the question is how I get the other one done. I did carve holes in the main supports where they fit with the supports in the river. Making it more stable. It took some figuring out, but luckily the main support is long. I used the current walkway and the main support to roll the other main support to the end of the in place main support. Then I went and tied the loose main support to the end of the one that was in place. I left some slack in the rope so when it turned it wouldn¡¯t become overly taut and break. That done, it was still a lot of work to push the main support across the river while still keeping balance on the walkway. Luckily the rope held, and I didn¡¯t fall in. I went back to the other side to connect them together. It was quite the hassle to get them to fit together. I almost lost grip twice and without my stats I would have lost one of the main supports down river. When I had them secured, I tapped the hole I made and the first side was done. Without me finding out about the energy, I don¡¯t think I would have been able to keep balance and have enough strength to actually do what I did. But now I had to do it again, but before I disassemble the current walkway, I rolled one of the main supports to the other side of the river. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Then I can just do what I did with the first main support. Disassembling the walkway went easily. Placing the other main supports and connecting them was simple after I had some notifications, so I pulled them up. Skill increases basic construction level 3 Skill increases basic construction level 4 Skill increases basic construction level 5 Stat increases strength +1 Skill increases basic energy manipulation level 4 Skill increases basic fitness enhancement level 5 Level up handyman Handyman now level 3 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Intelligence +1 The main supports were the hardest part of this build. The cross supports went in easily. I also started to put in the boards so I could better work with the lifting part of the bridge. Currently, both sides were boarded up, and I started to bring over the part that will lift up. Now to connect it, I decided to first tie it to the bridge with rope. That meant I didn¡¯t have to hold up the lifting part and try to line it up when I tried to drive in the pegs where the bridge pivots. It took some leaning over and some adjustment, but I got the job done. When it was finished, I opened up my notifications to find 2 more levels in basic construction. While I continue to board up the rest of the bridge. After I finished that I got another skill level in basic construction. Technically, the bridge was done. I walked across it multiple times, jumping, but it was solid as a rock. It took some time to finish the railing and then I started to construct the tower. When put together, the tower looked like a power line structure, with the base being wider and going smaller when it got to the top. The top was big enough that if you had a floor there, two people can stand on it, but they would need to be hugging. I designed it so that there was room enough for it to be used as a watchtower. Currently, the tower just had its supports that hold it together and at the side are branches I nailed in, to make a ladder to the top. It was getting late, but I still wanted to try and lift the bridge. I tried to pull it up from the ground level, but I know that this wouldn¡¯t work basic physics, are still the same. So, I climbed up and pulled. This was also to test if the tower would hold, and it did. I was able to pull up the bridge with a lot of effort. Securing the rope up at the base of the tower and leaving the bridge up overnight. I still had to cover up the main support with dirt and pack it tight. After that I still need to put the finishing touches on the tower and then work on the pulley system so I can easily raise the bridge, but this will have to be done tomorrow. Next morning everything went well until I wanted to go to the forest to check out that traps. When I was lowering the bridge, I didn¡¯t expect the weight, and the rope slipped from my hand. There was a terrible loud sound when it crashed down, but luckily when I inspected the bridge everything was actually fine. I sat on the bridge a little while until my racing heart calmed down. How messed up would it be if I broke it the very first day. If that was the case, it would have sucked so badly. To my surprise I actually caught another rabbit and got the skill level in basic trapping. Now the problem with that is. Two rabbits would fit fine in the cage that I built, but the third one certainly will not and unfortunately, this one was also a male. When I got back, I looked over all three rabbits. They all seemed to be around the same age so, I looked and compare them. Picking the one that looked a bit skinnier and had the worse fur. I went ahead and butchered that one. I¡¯d never actually skinned a rabbit before and I fucked up the pelt, but rabbit roast still sounded nice for today. That done, I finished all the earthworks and start to work on the pulley system to raise the bridge. Plan is to build a three-wheel system. First wheel will be up top, and this would lead to the bridge. Then the next wheel would be on the bottom of the tower, and this is also the one that will have a handle and the stopping mechanism. Then another wheel on top and that would lead to the counterweight. This design will take over half of my remaining supply of thick rope. For the counterweight I think the best plan would be to make bark mesh sacks, that I will fill with rocks. Probably need more than one of those. I do not want to overfill and break them. Making the wheels and the parts to secure them onto the tower will take some thinking. The wheels turned out to be easy. I used the parts of the main supports when I cut them to size. All I needed to do was carve a curve into the middle so the rope will not slip. Burning the hole in the middle for all three and two more for the bottom wheel so I can attach a handle and put in a stopping peg when needed. I installed them to the places I had carved out holes before building the tower. It took some knife work to widen and aligned everything but all the wheels were securely in place. When that was done, I threaded a rope through the upper wheel, then the lower wheel, and finally I brought it back up. The last wheel was positioned 90 degrees off so the stones would be more centre in the tower. Currently, I didn¡¯t have any way to add stones, so I pulled on the rope to see if anything will break. Nothing did, I left the bridge to hang halfway pulled up overnight to test if the mechanism will hold when under stress. The next morning, the bridge was still up. Nothing had broken. There were no animals in the traps so I could just take my time and cut as much bark strips as I need for make the mesh sack to hold the stones for the counterweight. I had forgotten how much of a pain it is to make this much bark ropes and how much it actually requires to get anything done like the mesh sacks. I hope that I only need 3. I do not want to make them anymore. When I finished weaving them, I got 2 skill levels in basic weaving. I went and connected the sacks to the end of the rope and started filling them with rocks. I was right. It took three mesh sacks of stones, approximately 100 kilos each, to make using the wheel easy. Now the bridge lifted easily and fast. When the first test was successful, I got a lot of notifications. Skill increases basic construction level 9 Skill increases basic construction level 10 is upgraded to construction level 1 Choose one of the following abilities Construction vision Merging joints Counterweight Construction vision sounds interesting. Merging joints will be super useful, of course, that''s assuming that they will make a stronger bond between two joints. Counterweight is the most unusual one because I don''t know what that actually does, but if I had to guess it will give me more weight so I could lift heavy things more easily. Merging joints I will probably just get from wood crafting too. Now construction vision might be useful, but I think I could work without it. That just left me with counterweight. You have gained a new ability Counterweight level 1 You have gained a new skill basic architecture level 1 You have gained a new skill basic engineering level 1 Level up handyman Handyman now level 4 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Intelligence +1 I read through the rest of them and was quite happy with my progress. The bridge looked solid, and I was quite pleased with it. But now that that¡¯s done, I actually need to start farming or else it will get too late into the season. Testing the new ability, it does indeed increase my weight but only a little. I tested by pulling up the bridge, only with my strength and then the ability flared up and my weight increased more. So, counterweight truly is that. It does have an upper limit, and I felt I reached it, but it¡¯s still good for future building. chapter 6 The next morning while I was eating, I started to think up a game plan. First, I need to collect the new rocks that have come up on the fields. If I don¡¯t, harrowing will be hard and my farming equipment can break. I also need to find out what the fibre plants are actually called. For collecting rocks, I will need to build a sled for the bull to pull. I would also want to make it multi-purpose. The sled part will be used for timber. I also want to build a cart that can be attached. That would be for rocks, and I guess dirt and other stuff like that where I can¡¯t use the wagon. When it''s finished, I should be able to bring longer pieces of timber. Though I still think it would be a bad idea to bring the bull into the forest, it could be too dangerous for it. For that reason, I should make a quick release. So, I could quickly make him run away and hopefully save his life. It¡¯s a good idea to bring some extra timber. I think it would be best that for the next two days I bring in a lot of wood. I started doing my regular morning chores, and it was a bit annoying how long it takes. Because I wanted to get along with my other tasks. I chose this time not to make the cheese and only milk the cows a little bit. Only as much I can drink today. Now I was back in the forest after checking out the trap. I started searching for the right trees. This time I wanted extremely heavy-duty wood for the sled. Then some regular building wood and finally I wanted to bring back some excellent wood for making bows. Making bows was my life for a long time. I made most of my money with it and I was one of the best in the world, at least for traditional bow making. I hoped it would help me here too, if I ever got in touch with civilization. Finding a bow tree is as hard or easy as you want it to be. I always say to whoever wants to make a bow that diminishing returns becomes a problem quickly. So, wasting your time hunting for the best of the best wood might only give you a few percent better bow than just excellent wood. Of course, it can be better than just a few percent, but you would need decades of experience to bring that out. The best way to start out making bows is just take a piece of wood and start carving it. I recommend soft woods first and make short bows from them. Just giving them to children it¡¯s a nice gift and an excellent way to start out. Oh, man how I love bow making, but I really need to concentrate. One mistake here and I will be spending the rest of my life in this forest. Not wanting to just cut trees and waste the opportunity, I train my ability. I continue to try to feel how energy moved when using the cutting ability. I also tried to push more energy into it. That made it brighter, and I could cut down trees faster and more easily. I started with general purpose lumber. Cutting down the trees and removing the branches, then sawing it into smaller pieces that I could pull out. But when I started to pull a piece of lumber back with my harness, I also decided to help my energy move better and that made bringing them back even easier. So much so that I could bring back multiple pieces similar to the one I normally brought back. Bringing the log across the bridge was a cringeworthy moment. After I put it where I want it, I went back and checked the bridge for any damage but absolutely nothing was wrong just as I hoped it would be. But this time before I went back, I looked for some extra rope and chain so I could make it so I could pull more lumber at a time. Pulling back the rest of the tree at once was hard, but good hard. I had some trouble with the bigger branches at the start because they were getting stuck. Fixing that by putting them a bit more on top of the bigger logs was an easy solution. I continued cutting down the trees, then cutting them into smaller pieces, and dragging them back. This was extremely tiring work and every time I got back, I looked at the bull and wishing it could pull them. I could just cut the tree I need for the sled and build it and have him pull and I was close to doing it like that, but after lunch when I was pulling another huge load. I got the notification that I gained one stat in strength, dexterity, vitality and endurance. That¡¯s a full level up worth of stats. I¡¯m pretty sure that I will need to constantly move energy for the training to actually work in improving my stats. That¡¯s why I continue to do it, not just to get stat points, but to better learn how this energy system in this world works. Now that the day was ending, I chose a big and strong oak tree I was going to use to make the sled. First, I use my axe without any abilities and after the first swing I felt the sting in my hands. It brought a smile to my face. Oak is still as stubborn and hard as I remembered. It would''ve been a bitch and a half to cut it down if I didn¡¯t have piercing cut. Using the ability did make it easier, but not easy. While it took me about 10 to 20 minutes to cut down a tree, that''s the same size as earlier today. It took me a bit over an hour and a half for this tree. It did give me a level of logging I also couldn¡¯t bring it back all at once and needed to make two trips. It was already dark when I walked across the bridge with the last load. Luckily, lifting up the bridge is easy because my legs were shaking from the strain that I put myself through this day. After I eat and was lying on the bed, I just smiled and said. ¡°I get to do that again tomorrow. Fun.¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The next morning, I was feeling sore, but during the morning chores I was able to get the kinks out and feel normal again. That didn¡¯t last long as I started to bring the lumber back. Today I also found some good bow trees. When they finally dry, I could make 20 bows from them. Maybe from the 20, 5 to 10 would actually make it as a good bow. While the day was not completely done, I was completely spent. I could keep pushing myself, but I didn¡¯t actually find a reason to do so. Mainly because I had brought back more lumber than I actually planned to bring back during these two days. Thanks to this being a fantasy world and me being able to use my stats effectively made it easier. I didn¡¯t want to start making the sled this late, but I also didn¡¯t want to waste the rest of the day. So, I started to think about what I might need later on, and metalworking came up. For that I would need fuel and I will need to make charcoal. I have been preparing for it by bringing the branches back and now would be an excellent time to get started with that. I have enough to make a huge amount of charcoal so much that it would take 10 days to make that much in one batch. But one mistake and all of it will burn to nothing. Normally, you would have someone watching it so it wouldn¡¯t burn up. But I am all alone and I can¡¯t keep watch 24/7 for over a week by myself, besides I also need to work on other things. So, making smaller piles and just hoping that they don¡¯t burn up when I¡¯m not around is the best choice. I start by clearing up a section near the bridge on the farm side. Making sure that they are not close to anything and that they are far enough away from each other. I ended up with three piles when I finished stacking the branches. Next, I started to cover the wood with soil, because to make charcoal I need to burn the wood with basically no access to air. Only so much air that it would not completely snuff out the burning. If there¡¯s too much air intake and there¡¯s actual flame, then it would just burn into ash. Which could be useful to make soap before I run out and for other things, but it would be mixed with soil and that would be almost useless. So that¡¯s what I did for the rest of the day, since I know the next day will be a lot easier. I also stayed awake past midnight tending to the burning pile, making sure everything was running as it should and it wouldn''t burn up. One of the three piles gave me the most trouble, but before I went to sleep, I think I was able to stabilize it enough. The next 2 and a half days will tell if I am able to get any charcoal. The next morning, the first thing I checked was the charcoal piles, but they all looked fine. I went to sleep a bit more after that, but it wasn''t for very long. Continuing today with my usual chores except for the cheese making. I still wasn¡¯t doing that because it was actually quite annoying getting all those things every day. Might need to find a better way so I don¡¯t have to bring nettles and extract rennet from them every day. I start by figuring out the sled and how I wanted to design it. It was just basically going to be a box with two sled legs underneath. In a perfect world, I want the sled legs to be covered with steel sheet. With that, it will be stronger and actually be easier to pull. Less friction with steel. Unfortunately, I don¡¯t have the facilities or the metal to pull that off currently. Maybe in the future I can add it. I love oak wood until I have to work with it, then I hate it. I wonder if there are even stronger wood in this world. That would be awesome and terrifying if I had to work with that. I had to make the sled strong and not flexible, so I am using mortise and tenon joints. I start by squaring up the oak lumber. When that is done, I measure and cut out the centre piece I need. One side of that piece, I also cut a 30-degree angle, so when logs rested upon this piece, they would angle down, then most of the log would not touch the land or stay airborne. I needed to make 3 more pieces like that except for the angle cut. 4 shorter pieces for the edges and 4 even shorter one to use as connectors and dividers. When put together, I have a box that looks like a frame of a box except it''s made of thick oak wood. Making the sled legs was difficult because I had to carve a curve into the front of them and all I had was an axe that was barely strong enough to do the work even with piercing cut. In the end I had a wooden sled at the height a bit above 1 meter and 1 and a half meters wide and meter in length. I added a hitching system in the front. Making it so it would be easy to connect and disconnect, just like any other farming equipment on earth. I made spots so I could connect the cart that I am going to make. And I also added notches so the chains holding the logs won''t slip. With that, the day was over, and I checked my notifications. I got a skill level in basic wood carving, basic wood crafting and basic energy manipulation. Next morning, I do my chores and had to reset 3 traps. When I got back, I start planning out the cart so I could collect rocks from the field. This will be a bit difficult. It would need to be able to handle a lot of weight and I also want it to have sled legs. Then when the bull is pulling it, it will only have four contacts on land, making it easier to pull. The cart would need to be made out of oak, but the oak boards also need to be thin enough so it wouldn¡¯t have too much weight. The best way to do it would be to make a simple box cart that will use up most of my nails when finished. Making the oak boards, cross supports and sled legs was the hardest and longest part. Constructing the cart was the fastest and easiest part. Testing the sled and cart by pulling it myself was fun, but with my current stats, it will be impossible to pull a loaded cart. But it can be an excellent way to train myself and my stats. When I was eating my dinner, I started to think about skills and what they gave and represented. Was it just a representation of how many actions you did within that skill to get some abilities, eventually? Or is there deeper meaning inside the skill? Could I get information that I didn¡¯t know before from it? I know that if I know how to do it, but I don¡¯t have the skill, it will be harder to complete those tasks. Meaning penalties apply, but are there positives? I have not felt it but maybe my skill levels need to be higher. I hope there is also some knowledge I can get from skills. Thinking about that kept me occupied until I fell asleep. chapter 7 Next morning after my chores I went to walk the fields. It always amazes me how fast nature takes over when humans aren¡¯t around. Just around 1 week late for working this field and it already has so many weeds. No point in delaying now. I walked towards the barn to find my helper. The bull was kind of used to me by now. I often gave him scratches, and he loved it. ¡°Now listen here,¡± I have something that I need you to do. ¡°I don¡¯t know if you were around here when they used horses to pull the cart. But I¡¯m going to need you to start using those muscles of yours to help me with some farm work.¡± I could see some recognition in his eyes, but I think it¡¯s more that he enjoys me talking. But I also think that he understands that I need him to do something. So, for the first time, I led him to the barn. He got more and more curious about what¡¯s going on. He was a bit hesitant when I tried to fit the slightly modified harness over him. Talking and scratching him helped to calm him down and make him understand what was going on. When I finally had him in his harness, and he was more used to it. I started to lead him out. He was hesitant at first, but quickly got used to it. I walked him around for some time and then brought him back. Then I led him through the fields a bit to get him used to that kind of terrain. He is a smart one and learned quickly, but I know that this was still going to be a long road until he is truly used to it all. I got 2 new notifications after that. You have gained a new skill basic animal handling level 1 You have gained a new skill basic animal training level 1 Then came the part when I hooked him up to the sled. I didn¡¯t attach the cart yet. He got a bit scared because of the weight and almost ran off, but luckily the training I did before and maybe the skill levels in animal control help me keep him from running off. It was easy for him to pull the sled. He was just startled about the new feeling. I did the same thing as before. I walked him down the road and through the fields to get him used to it For a reward, I gave him some wheat grains to eat, and he seemed to love it. There¡¯s nothing like a little bit of positive reinforcement to help get him used to this. I put the cart on the sled. This time he wasn¡¯t startled, but I still run him down the same training as before. This time we didn¡¯t go away from the fields, but we went to the furthest field, and I started to collect rocks. The only problem that would be serious is if the cart can not handle the weight or that the bull couldn''t handle the weight. I try to monitor how much weight can the bull easily pull. When I noticed it becoming harder for him to pull, we went and off load the rocks. During that time, I also tried to feel if he was using his stats to boost himself. It was difficult and took some time, but I think he did a bit. It was automatic and not directed like I currently try to do. Whenever we were pulling back a large load and he actually needed to put more strength into it. While walking beside him, I¡¯ll hold on to him and try to help his energy move better than just it moving around by itself. We only did a few loads, maybe a bit more than one acre. But the time moved on relentlessly and it was already late. I gave some more grains when I led the bull back to the pasture. It''s lovely to see him so happy. I think he was missing some physical action. Spending all your days lazing in the pasture with only three cows, I could see how that can be boring. During the day, I got my new skills to level 3 The next day, started off like usual. One of the rabbit traps was sprung and I could see some fur on the rope, but it seems like it was its lucky day and it got away. I reset it and when back on the farm, I went to get the bull ready for another day of work. When I noticed him, he looked quite excited, like every morning when I milk the cows, but a lot more now because he saw the harness in my hand. This time the problem was he was a bit too eager, and I had to calm him down and hold him back, so he didn¡¯t run out. After a bit, he did calm down somewhat. The rest of the day went well. The cart was holding up excellently, and the bull was getting more and more used to this kind of work. I think it also helped that I tried to guide his energy a bit more. I¡¯m pretty sure it helped with his stamina at the minimum. But I still try to keep the load pretty normal, I never went over half full cart. It¡¯s hard to tell how much weight there was, but I think it was about 300 to 400 kilos. Today I was able to finish four more acres that left me with 7 to go. At the end, I checked out my notifications. Skill increases basic animal handling level 6 Skill increases basic animal training level 6 Level up animal husbandry Animal husbandry now level 2 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Empathy +1 New trait gained vitality reaches 20 new trait gained stronger organs strength reaches 20 new trait gained stronger muscle fibers The next day I started out with checking the charcoal piles. They should be done by now, luckily all three turned out fine. Now I have a lot of charcoal. After watering, to make sure it will not set fire to the woodshed. I started transporting it to the woodshed with the backpack I made for this purpose. During my chores while milking the cows, I got a skill notification about a skill I had forgotten I had. Skill increases basic animal product harvesting level 2 When I got back from the forest, I went to get the bull, who was waiting excitedly for another day of work. Making our way more towards the farm side of the fields, there were fewer rocks, and I was able to clear five acres even though I spent some of my time dealing with the charcoal this day. This got me to level 7 in both of my new skills. The next day, one of the deer traps was sprung, but no luck this time either. Back in the fields, we were in position, and I was about to start collecting rocks when I started to hear some cluck sounds that reminded me of chickens. When I investigated it, I found that on the edge of the field were two chicken like birds. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. They were extremely chicken like. Only difference was that they were bigger, a little less than double the size. At first, I was quite happy, until I noticed what they were doing. They were searching for food in the field, the field that I was going to cover with seeds in the near future. It wasn¡¯t a problem immediately, so I decided to finish up the field and think about the problem at the same time. My best solution would be to make a bow and hunt them, but that would only work if there was few of them. If there was a huge flock, I was fucked. I couldn¡¯t remember having any problems like this one before in this world. I also thought I could maybe catch them and if they lay eggs, it would be an excellent food source. The taste of cooked eggs is lovely. Eggs can also be useful for all kinds of cooking, not to mention the meat that could be gotten from hatching new ones. When I finished up rock collecting on all fields, it was early evening. While taking the bull back, I could see he was not happy that the work ended so fast. This problem I can¡¯t solve I tried explaining that there wasn¡¯t going to always be work, but not to worry because he was going to get to do a bit different work tomorrow. It was still light out and quite some time until night, so I decided to modify the harrow a bit so the bull can pull it and make a bow just in case I decide I have to hunt down the chickens. Will this bow last for long? No. But will it get the job done? Most definitely. Cutting out the correct length from my selected bow wood. I also noticed that I will need to build an elevated space with a roof over it to properly dry the logs. When I need to build actual buildings, I''ll want them to last for a long time. The bridge should be fine because it''s constantly in an extremely wet area, but for a building if you heat it from the inside and the wood is still wet, it can lead to large cracks or even warping of the entire wall. My bow was not even half done, but I already got a new skill, basic bow making. That was quite fast, but I believe it¡¯s because I¡¯m so practiced at it. I didn¡¯t have any fancy tools, I just used my lifetime of knowledge and a knife. That¡¯s all you need to make a usable bow out of anything. I laughed a bit too hard and long after that thought. It was quite fun to make a bow again and when I was finally finished, I got two more skill levels in basic bow making. Next morning, I made the bowstring out of sinew I had harvested. That got me a level in bow making and weaving. Then I finished my chores, I decided not to start harrowing right away. Instead, I decided to make 20 arrows. I did want to make steel arrowhead, but stone was my current best and, thanks to piercing cut ability, it was easy. Sadly, most stone tips would only work for one time, and then I need to remake them. The problem with finishing the arrows was fletching. I didn¡¯t have any feathers. I tried to remember a video I watched on how to make cloth fletching. It was annoying work, and they needed to use some modern compounds to accomplish it. Basically, soaking the cloth in glue like substance and pressed it into a shape that will be strong enough to be used as fletching. I went and collected some birch bark to make the oldest known glue like substance. I had to make a stone structure because I wasn¡¯t able to find a better vessel. Birch bark needs to be heated in an oxygen deprived container. Digging a funnel like structure then lining it with cut stones. I packed as much bark in as I could. Then I found a big stone I can make into a lid. When in place, I carefully removed dirt, exposing the stone funnel structure. I removed as much as I could before it compromised the structure. Finally, I was able to build a fire all around it. It took about an hour for the fire to burn up and for me to get a hand full of birch glue. Luckily after that it was an easy job to finish one arrow and get a new skill, basic fletching. I didn¡¯t want to waste more glue on fletching than I had to. So, only one arrow it is. The rest of the glue can be used to attach the feathers I am going to get, but I usually like to attach my fletching with string. In my mind, there was a complete certainty the one shot was all I need. I went back to the fields where I noticed that there were now 7 chickens and that was a worrying sight. If a lot more showed up, I would spend most of my time hunting them. I was able to get quite close. Apparently, they were used to human appearance, or they didn¡¯t think I was any threat to them from this distance. I kept getting closer and closer until I noticed them getting nervous and start moving away as I got closer. When this happened, I waited there until they get to little bit more used to me. It took quite some time before I felt that they wouldn¡¯t run as soon as I did something. Preparing myself, I concentrated on that one shot. How I will have to move and how the arrow will fly. I quickly pulled the bow, releasing the arrow in a quick and smooth motion. They were a bit startled by my fast movement, but they had let their guard down too much. When they started running, my arrow was almost at its target. I hit centre mass a bit left to where I wanted it to go, but good enough for a quick kill. Even then, it was still able to run a bit before it fell and died. You have gained a new skill basic archery level 1 The other ones were gone. I was amazed how fast they can run. When I got to the downed bird, I did a bit more of an examination. It did look almost identical to a chicken but a lot bigger, about twice the size, but the wings were smaller. Those are the only differences I can find. Bringing it back, I quickly boiled water, so removing the feathers would be easier. I got quite a lot of them and from the meat, I made a roast. I quickly finished up the arrows, now with proper feathers. In the end, I had 20 of them. Now morning was over, and it was more towards noon. But there was still quite a lot of daylight left and I decided to still try harrowing today. The bull was a bit confused about the different equipment today. How to pull it was a bit different, but he quickly got used to it. Thanks to the rocks being removed, harrowing was actually quite easy and by the end of the day, we actually got done with 1/3 of the field. This got me many new skill levels. Skill increases basic animal handling level 8 Skill increases basic animal training level 8 Skill increases basic animal care level 7 Skill increases basic farmer level 8 The animal care one surprised me, but I guess I have taken good care of him. After inspecting our work, I concluded that it would be best to let the fields settle for a few days, then harrow it again. Weeds had too much time to grow, so I need to do some extra work. Then I can start sowing it. It was still quite a bad harrow, at least by modern standards. With a modern one, I would not have to do it twice. The next problem would come by plowing the potato field and making the vegetable field. Thinking about the problems a bit before going to bed, I still hadn¡¯t thought of a good solution for the plow problem. Vegetable field will just take some work. I will just use the same design I used on earth. Next day after my chores, I check the fields for chickens. There were only 6 of them, a good sign that there weren¡¯t hundreds of them. I then started to harrow again. By the end of the day, all the fields were done. But before I could bring the bull back, we heard a big animal growl. The second growl helped me pinpoint its location. It''s towards the forest. I still had my sword strapped to my waist, but whatever made that noise, I was certain it was quite useless against. Luckily, I had pulled up the bridge, but I still unhooked the bull and quickly brought it back to the barn, where the cows were waiting and nervously looking around. I run to the house to get my bow, arrows and a spear. When I made it to the bridge, I still didn¡¯t see anything, and the light was fading fast. I decided to climb the tower. At the top, I could see a bear and two cubs walking. But quite far away, almost at the edge of my sight. They were walking upriver towards the village. I could not see why it was angry, but I saw them moving quite fast away from here, which I was quite glad about. This did help me note that I was a bit unprepared. I left the bow and arrows in the tower, but not at the top. Just in case I would need to shoot something, and I didn¡¯t have time to climb. I also left one of the spears there. This also helped remind me that around me was still wilderness. In wilderness you''re supposed to be on alert all the time, which I have been, but unlike the now dead chicken, maybe I should be a bit more vigilant about it. The next day, after my chores where I only needed to reset one trap, I went and checked how many chickens there were and still 6. Today I will let the weeds dry or recover, then tomorrow harrow them again. I decided to make it an easy day. I went swimming and spent the rest of the time making arrows. It''s one of my favourite relaxing activities, especially when done during a sunny and nice day. I finished 56 arrows and got basic fletching to level 4 chapter 8 Next day''s chores brought a surprise. I got my second deer. I killed it the same way as the first one and left it to hang so all the blood will drain out. One more of the deer traps was disturbed, same with two of the rabbit ones. This was the most activity I have noticed. I got back to the deer and started to bring it back. While I was bringing it back, I looked for more activity in the forest. Finding it quite easily, lots of new animal tracks. I wonder if it¡¯s a migration season for them or if there''s another reason for so many animals to start moving. Moving and thinking, I realised how much weight of a deer I will just need to throw out when back at the farm. That reminded me that most animals are butchered where they are caught and only useful parts are brought back. I might need to start doing that if I catch more or if I go hunting. Which I might have to do. I have miscalculated. I was so used to my older body and how much it needed to eat. That I didn¡¯t account that I am still growing and quite young. I will need a lot more calories to truly build out my body correctly. Dealing with the hide is always troublesome. Using the same way as before i prepare it for drying. I chopped up all the meat into smaller pieces and put them into the smoker. I made the fire and watched it for some time, but I wanted to get on with my farming work. So, I loaded it up with wood and went to get the bull. He was extremely delighted to see me and followed instructions excellently. I usually would have started by going to the outer fields so I could work towards the farm. But I decided to start close, so it would be easier to go and put more wood into the smoker when needed. Even with all the distractions today, we were able to get done 1/3 of the fields and I got myself another level in basic farmer, basic animal handling and basic animal training. I purposely made the meat into long thin strips so I could use them as jerky when I travel. It makes bringing them with me simple. Also, this way I can smoke them in one day and they will preserve for a long time. Not the best food, especially without salt or spices, but it will get the job done. Best way would be to use them in a stew. This morning after I milk the cows, I decided to put together a butchering kit so I can practice on the spot butchering. It just took a backpack that I added some leather straps too. Side straps I could use for the axe and the knife. I also brought a sharpening stone. From my current experience at home, I¡¯m going to need that a lot. There was a reason why even when metals were used hunters still used stone knives, they were just so much sharper. This choice turned out the correct one to do, because I got another deer. After I killed it, I got a level in frontier farmer. I hung it to get rid of the blood, but I didn¡¯t get far after that. The next trap holds another deer, this one bigger than the other I have gotten. This kill got me a level in piercing cut, bringing it to 6. There was something different about it. I could feel it was more resistant to the ability and my sword. This confirmed to me that the deer I just killed was different. After I did the same with this one. I had to reset all the other traps because they were all disturbed. I wasn¡¯t able to catch a rabbit this time, just got unlucky, I guess. I was not used to doing butchering on the ground, but after the first one, it got a bit easier. After I had finished both deer, my backpack was full of meat, sinew, and some organs. I also rolled up and attached the hides to the underneath of the backpack with ropes. This also got me a level in basic butchering. I did put the traps into a new place, because I didn¡¯t want the blood and the leftovers to scare off future catches. When I made it back home, I prepared the meat and started the smoker. After that I started to prepare the hides. I had to make two new drying racks for them, but that is an easy job. It was actually a bit easier to do 2 hides at the same time. A cooler where I could keep the hides in so I could do them at the same time would be excellent, especially if I don¡¯t catch multiple deer the same day. Altogether I got done faster than yesterday; I finished about the same time as I did yesterday, but I did have twice the work today. There was only one hiccup during today¡¯s harrowing. There was a rock that was a bit deeper down, so I didn¡¯t see it while collecting rocks. Luckily, it didn¡¯t do anything to the equipment, but the bull got startled a bit. He is trained enough by now that nothing bad happened. I was quite happy that it didn¡¯t happen before, otherwise he might have startled and run, which would have been a lot worse. I still got another 1/3 done. Tomorrow we will probably finish the rest of it. When it was almost dark outside, I took out the meat and got a level in cooking. I enjoyed the meat and watched the stars above. The nights were starting to get nice. I guess we are moving more into the later spring because the days and night are getting warmer. Next day there was no deer but all the traps were sprung. I did find a rabbit''s foot that was still attached to the trap, but the rabbit was gone. I¡¯m guessing some predator ate it. This was a bit disappointing, but not something I had not expected to happen. I just hope that I will someday get a female rabbit. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. This day I was able to start harrowing sooner and was done before the evening. The next morning, while I was doing my chores and watering my planter boxes, I noted that they were growing quite well. I really was a bit behind on my vegetable fields. I will need to make the boards that I¡¯m going to use. The real question is, will I do that before or after I start sowing the fields with wheat, rye and the flax, that I¡¯m going to call flax because I don¡¯t know the real name of it. If I sow now, the question of the chickens has become a bit more prevalent. I¡¯d love to catch them somehow, but I wonder if that¡¯s possible. Maybe I could lure them onto a net that I could pull up, of course, then I will need somewhere to keep them. I have the wood I need, so i can build a quick coop. I know that they can¡¯t fly and they are bigger, so the fence doesn¡¯t have to be so tight. This might actually be possible. Well, there¡¯s no point in thinking about that if I can¡¯t catch them. Let¡¯s see if I could possibly lure them. They were still in the field, as always, but this time, I had some wheat grains with me. I could not get as close as before because they were more wary of me this time. But like good old chickens, when they saw or heard the wheat grains being thrown out, they came without thought. So close, in fact, that I could almost catch them with my hands. They would still run anytime I would move, but not far. At this point, I¡¯m pretty sure that they are farm animals that have just escaped from somewhere. I moved and laid a trail for them to follow, and they did. I¡¯m pretty sure that I don¡¯t actually have to make a net to catch them. Just have to make fence and a coop then I could just led them there with food. This made this choice a lot easier and more valuable, but it would be another building that will take time from my farming activities. But I think this is a good opportunity and I think I still have some time to spend. At best it''s a one or two day build at worst three or four, but I think I will be able to do it fast especially thanks to my improved stats. The next day I got another deer and a level in trapping. When I was butchering it, all the hairs on the back of my neck went stiff. I felt that so many times during the war. There was someone watching me. Quickly looking around, I was able to startle my watcher with my quick movement and see where it was. It was a wolf that was about 60 feet out. I had my axe in my hand because I was chopping the leg joint. I quickly looked around for the closest tree to climb, because if there¡¯s a wolf pack around me, that¡¯s the only way for me to survive. Choosing one of the trees, I started to slowly approach it. I was struggling to see the other wolves. I could not spot them. Even though I was moving and watching, there was no movement. Even the wolf that I was currently seeing didn¡¯t move. I made eye contact, so that it would know that I know it was there and to my surprise, it backed off. A telltale sign of a lone wolf. I have had to fight dogs during the war and when they were alone, I was always able to survive a fight with them, even if I was out of bullets. They had two advantages over a human their mouth and that they had four legs. If you took those advantages away, it was quite easy to win. But that was if they were alone. You can monitor its movements and you can counter them, but if there¡¯s even two of them and you don''t have any ranged weapons. Your only way to survive is to get to somewhere that they can¡¯t. After some time, it¡¯s clear it was not hunting me. I could see it in its eyes. It was waiting. Because of that adrenaline, it took me a bit to figure out that it was waiting for me to leave and get what I left behind. If I was betting man, I would say it was the one that ate my rabbit. I went back to butchering but I kept my eye on him like I predicted it didn''t come closer, just waited. After I finished, I actually decided to leave one piece of meat that, let¡¯s just say, wasn¡¯t the best butcher meat in the world. I left it while watching it in the eyes, showing it that it was meant for it. If you show animal kindness, it''s less likely to attack you out of nowhere. Of course, that never eliminates the possibility completely. Getting back home, I dealt with the meat and the hide. Then I started to make boards. I will need a lot, not just for the vegetable field, but also the chicken coop and fence. For that, I will also need to bring some new lumber. I could cut the fence posts out of the logs, but that would honestly be a waste of time and resource. It took me to the end of the day to make all I will need for both projects. The next day not all the traps were sprung, and I didn¡¯t catch anything. It probably isn¡¯t the migration season for them, but just something that spook them to move. Back at the farm, I ran into difficulty choosing where to build the chicken coop and their fence. There was most room towards the river, but that was also closest to the forest, and you don¡¯t want to advertise to the wildlife that you have birds caged up. So, I would need to build towards the fields or the road. The fields were too close. They started basically right after the buildings, so there was little room for them. I could squeeze it in if I made that area be more of a rectangle. I just wasn¡¯t feeling that design choice, so towards the road was my only choice. I started to mark out corner spots, so it would be easier to visualize where I would want to build. The coop is going to be a around 10 cubic meters and the fence would be 50. That will be enough space for the time being. The coop will be off the ground; so I will need to bring more wood, to make the legs and the structural skeleton. Now that I roughly know how much wood I need, I got my lumbering gear and go to do some work. This time I didn''t cut them shorter in the woods, because they were skinnier than my usual lumber. I was able to bring them to the edge of the forest and stack them there. I finished around eight o¡¯clock, but without a watch, it was hard to tell the exact time. Plenty of light left to try to use the bull to bring them all back. He was a bit timid about crossing the bridge, but otherwise, it was a standard trip. When I was loading up, I saw we would need to bring two loads. Even then, it will probably be his hardest pulls to date. The first one was a touch and go, because I needed to coax him to really put his muscles into it. But I know he could pull it and once we were moving, it became easier. He stopped again at the bridge. It was a bit annoying to get him going again. When the first load was unloaded, I gave him some grains to eat and told him he did a great job. I think he was a bit unsure about the new arrangement. Because the next load went off without a hitch and I had all the wood needed to finish everything tomorrow. chapter 9 Next day when I was back in the woods. Most of the traps were sprung again. Two of the traps were weird, the nooses were half constricted, but I didn¡¯t find anything else "weird." Moving back, I still looked for activity and it has gotten lower. When I got back, I started to select the fence posts. After I removed the bark and cut them to length. Sharpened one end and made a cut into the top. I went and got a thick piece of rope to try and use my counterweight ability and see if I could drive them in without having to dig out the holes where the fence posts need to go. If I can do it like this, it would be a lot faster. When the first one was ready enough for a test, I went to the first post spot I marked yesterday. It took some setting up because I made them quite tall, so I had to pull them up with the rope. First, I tried to pull down and activate my ability, but that didn¡¯t do anything exciting. It only used my strength and pulled it in until the sharp end ends. It looks like I have to get creative. I decided to jump, then grab hold of the rope higher up and activate counterweight. It worked, but my grip was a bit too loose, and I lost hold of the rope. But even then, I got the fence post in a few inches. That got me a level up in counterweight. The problem was I was trying to hold too much weight, and it was hurting my hands. I went off to find some gloves or something else to wrap around my hands. I didn¡¯t find any gloves for this work, but I did find leather pieces big enough to protect my hands. It still wasn¡¯t perfect, but I did get this one in before I even call myself amateur at this technique. I didn¡¯t go and get another one ready to drive in before I pulled out this one, and it was way harder than I expected it to be. Looks like the counterweight ability works really well. I didn¡¯t expect the dirt to get that dense deeper down. But this is good news. The fence posts will be strong. Why did I pull it out? Because I needed to make slots where wood planks can be attached. Using nails for fences isn¡¯t a good idea, especially because I was running out of mine. So, a bit more primitive way is called for. Luckily, this fence didn''t have to hold against heavy animals. Is this the perfect way? Absolutely not, but it will be good enough for my current needs. I got to work and got my carpentry up by one level and the counterweight ability up to level 4, when I finally finished with the fence. All that was left is to build the gate. This was not a hard job. The only problem would be the hinges, but I just straight up skip them and made the whole gate just lift out. Make it just big enough for me to pass through with some wider boxes in my hand if needed. It was weird to be closed in a fence like this where you could see through it but couldn¡¯t squeeze your way through like you could with the fence for the cows. Now it¡¯s time to build the coop, but while I was walking back to where all the wood was, I noticed the main house and the barn they were built to withstand cold. I completely forgot about this part. I could never make the coop winter proof with the design I was going to build. So why waste the last of my nails on it when I could only use it in the summer? The chickens would only need a roof over their heads to protect against sun and rain. I could just make a roofed over area. It doesn¡¯t have to be completely waterproof, just good enough. Using the boards, I planned to build the coop with will be good enough. It was quite easy to do this, but it was still annoying always moving the ladder and climbing up and down every time. When I was finished with it all, it was already evening, but I thought I could still try to get the chickens captured today. So, I went and got some grains and went on a let''s call it a hunt. I honestly expected this to be difficult, me trying to get them closer and closer and they running away. But it all went so quickly and easily that before I realize it. I put the gate back in place and all 6 chickens were inside, getting familiar with their new surroundings while I just stood there dumbfounded. After some time, they tried to get out. Slowly and carefully at first, but more roughly as the time went on. It took quite a long time until they settled down and went under the roofed area, where I had laid some hay that they started making nests out of. I watched them work a while longer. How they made the nest was interesting and how they communicate with each other seemed equally interesting. I¡¯ve always loved watching how animals communicated and lived. Next morning brought change to my usual chores. Before I went to the forest, I went to check up on the chickens. They were still a bit sleepy, but they were already starting to move around. I looked at the nests but found no eggs. I Inspect the area and looked if they eat any grass, they did. So, they will not go hungry today, but I will need to monitor and see if they need anything else to survive. At the second deer trap, I was successful and got a level in trapping for it. Leaving it to bleed out as usual while I went to check the other traps. Only one other rabbit trap was out of place, so a lot less movement today. Looking for tracks, there were a lot less of them, like a lot less, and I couldn¡¯t figure out why that was bothering me as I made it back to the deer. I removed the hide, then took out my axe, so I could cut the joint easier. At this moment, all my hairs went stiff at the back of my neck. Like last time, I quickly moved to stand up and look in the direction I felt myself being watched. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Thinking it was the wolf again, I was not prepared for what I saw from the corner of my eye. It was not a wolf. The first thing I notice was a dagger moving towards my now turned back. Using the momentum from my turn, I started to swing my axe towards whatever was coming. I was now turned around enough to see fully what was trying to attack me. It was a short, round, greenish creature. Each leg was skinny and so were its arms, and both were too short for the body size. I was lucky that I aimed low because the creature was short, and I would have probably missed it and ended up with a dagger in my belly. It was still going to be a close call because it was moving fast towards me. I acted on training and experience and lean back so I wouldn''t overshoot my target and actually hit it with the axe head and not the shaft. It was over fast. My axe hit through its ear into the brain, ending the creature instantly. Massive dose of adrenaline coursing through me made thinking hard, but I quickly inspected the body, the system told me it was a dead goblin. Still in extreme alertness. I quickly figured out there was more heading towards me, and they were in a circle. I could see the noose closing up. Luckily, I saw there was still a way out and started sprinting as hard as I could towards that. *** Rich Dirt moved with experience and instinct from years of active combat. He figured out a way out of the ambush faster than the surrounding goblins figured out their sneak attacker was dead. The goblin closest to the escape route tried to strike out with its spear, but the man was too fast, and he missed. Leader of the goblins, Grey Coral notices the escaping prey and started quickly giving commands to chase it down. It took a bit for all the goblins to correctly start running after the man. How did the man kill Shadowy Stick he was able to get so close and I didn¡¯t feel him being that high level, thought the goblin leader? He smells so young. That man does not make sense. I should be more careful. After that revelation, he starts to command everyone to tighten up and not full sprint after the human. He was a smart leader in combat and noticing his information was wrong, he decided to act with caution, a real rarity for the goblin race. When everything was proper, and they were moving with speed after the man, he tried to call out for their scout. This was the moment he noticed he was missing and thinking back, he wasn¡¯t part of the damn ambush too. ¡°That damned snivelling coward,¡± the goblin leader yelled. All the goblins shivered. They know how cruel their leader could be when he was displeased. I should have killed him when he questioned my plan and disagreed with killing the man. I let my greed of having one of the best scouts of the surrounding goblins get the better of me. Never again, the goblin leader swears to himself. When they made it out of the forest, they noticed the bridge the man was crossing. How the man had gotten so much further away was a mystery to Grey Coral. When the knowledge that there was a bridge here where there was none before hit him. He could only think about how they will be able to kill the human, then raid the farm and give the information to the camp leader about the bridge to get a lot of benefits and also a replacement for that idiot of a scout. All his daydreaming came crashing down as the man made it to the tower and started to winch up the bridge. Every inch the bridge raised, his dreams died more. He yelled quickly to attack and started running himself as fast as he could. All he was able to think about was his dreams burning faster every time the bridge got higher. The goblin leader was so distracted by this that he didn¡¯t notice that the man was now on top of the tower on the other side of the river. He also missed that when they were running, he was at front and others were trailing behind in a loose line. The human was smart and didn¡¯t try to hit the goblin in the front, but the one further back. His first shot didn¡¯t hit the head or anything else instantly vital. The slowest goblin got hit in the right thigh. It didn¡¯t kill it, but it was out of the fight and will bleed out if not helped. His cries of pain were missed by all because of their own war cries as they run for the raised bridge. The man was calm and steady like he had done this thousand of times and shot after shot hit downing or killing the goblins. He had missed only once because the goblin fell at the perfect time for the arrow to fly over it. At the start of the ambush, there were nine goblins. One was killed at the start, there were 5 left now and the 5th one was alive only because he stumbled and fell. Before he could get up, he was pinned to the ground by an arrow. The man got one more before the goblins reached the bridge. Goblin leader noticing there were 2 large logs that still connected to the other side and was happy. He could still get everything he wanted. He starts to turn around to give command to his troops but had to quickly drop down. Because he noticed an arrow coming towards him. It took a part of his ear when it passed by and when he looked where it went, it had buried itself in his best spear wielder''s chest, killing him instantly. Quickly panicking, he looked back at the man and saw cold eyes and an arrow pointed straight at him. But now that he was on the ground and couldn¡¯t move as well, he could only watch as the arrow hit his upper leg, pinning him onto the bridge. While the goblin leader screamed in pain and tried to pull out the arrow so he could try to escape. The second-best spear wielder tried to move towards his leader to help him but got an arrow through he¡¯s chest for his trouble. Rich Dirt was holding his last arrow. He steadied his aim and shot it at the goblin leader. Without hesitation, sinking it into his chest. As he stood there alone in the tower he built, he quickly realized every enemy was either dead or dying. ¡°Why¡±. He yelled at the top of his voice. ¡°This was supposed to be my heaven, not another battlefield¡±. He continues to yell without thinking, tears running down his face. Cursing anyone and anything that he could. As much as he pretended that this was real life, in the back of his head he had believed that this was a reward for his life on earth. His perfect dream. Living in a fantasy world, being able to just build and farm. His perfect world. His voice soon started to give, and he slumped down, exhausted, staring out into the horizon with hazy eyes. But there was another pair of eyes that was neither dead nor dying. Sitting in a bush watching it all happen was a lone goblin. At first, when the man started to scream, he thought it was a scream of victory, but soon figured out he was screaming at someone. The goblin almost ran right there, thinking the man knew he was there. But before he ran, he saw the tears. Listening a little more, he got an idea of what the man was yelling. While only knowing a few words in the human speech, he understands enough to get that the man was cursing things that could snuff out his life in a moment. Waiting to see how the man would be struck down, nothing happened. Eventually, the man slumped down, and the spell was broken. He finally starts to examine and process all that had happened. From the beginning, he realized this human was dangerous. He was good at noticing small things and the man moved the same way the adventurers did that killed the last horde leader. He needed to leave before the human became vigilant again. Soon the goblin scout moved towards the camp to report that only he was still alive. As he moved through the forest, other thoughts started to run through his head. Legends of goblins that gained a class, his favourite story. For any other goblin, a stupid fairy tale. He burned with the desire to do anything to get the same power as he saw within those adventurers that killed the last goblin horde leader of this forest. chapter 10 First thing I registered was the pain in my fingers. I tried to look down, but everything was hazy. I quickly wipe my eyes and that made it¡¯s better. Looking at my fingers, I saw they were bleeding and I recognise those cuts. When I first started with bow shooting, those were always the places that got hurt the most. Overtime you will get calluses and that problem is fixed but I have never shot with this body. Then it all came back to me in a huge rush. How I was ambushed, how I killed the sneaky goblin, how I eventually shot them all down and how I broke afterwards. This wouldn¡¯t be my first time breaking. It wasn''t quite the same as before. It was easier to accept and to understand somehow. I still did the exercises I was taught. There are two possibilities and they both might be true, because otherwise this would have broken me way harder back on earth. Either my young body and brain is better equipped to handle traumatic experience, or the system somehow supports the killing. So, it wouldn''t make people psychotic or broke them having to kill all the time. Speaking of the system, there was a whole bunch of notifications for me to see. combat results frontier farmer level 4 --> frontier farmer level 8 animal husbandry level 2 --> animal husbandry level 3 handyman level 4 --> handyman level 5 basic archery level 1 --> archery level 2 basic axe level 1 --> basic axe level 3 basic identification level 2 --> basic identification level 3 basic fitness enhancement level 5 --> basic fitness enhancement level 7 new skills gained basic running level 4 basic combat strategy level 2 beginner mental fortitude level 2 stats gained Strength + 12 Dexterity + 8 Vitality + 10 Endurance + 5 Empathy + 1 Intelligence + 1 New trait gained dexterity reaches 20 new trait gained stronger coordination endurance reaches 10 new trait gained improved vascular system So much new information. I was correct that all classes can be leveled up through combat, but look at that difference in leveling speed if your class doesn¡¯t have anything to do with combat. Skill level gains are large: 3 new skills and 2 old skills leveled that I have forgotten existed. As I looked at the archery, I felt confused I should be able to pick a new ability. Confusion left me as soon as I noticed a notification waiting for me the whole time. Skill increases basic archery level 10 is upgraded to archery level 2 Choose one of the following abilities piercing shot accurate shot You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. silent arrow Two good choices, although I was not going to pick accurate shot. I wonder how similar piercing shot and piercing cut are. Maybe I can work out how to modify piercing cut to work as piercing shot. Letting go of that idea was hard, so I picked silent arrow. You have gained a new ability silent arrow level 1 After some calculations, I noticed not all my stats came from level ups. I must have gotten some from the physical exertion. Next interesting thing I learn was from my new skills there was a beginner in front of a skill. So all the skills I have gotten are not the first tier of skill you can get. I am guessing I have gotten better skill tiers because of my knowledge. This will make learning fantasy stuff of this world even harder. My strength and vitality went over 30 and I did not get a new trait, meaning the 10 and 20 are milestones. I am guessing the next milestone is at 40. Climbed down from the tower, I start to lower the bridge to go to the other side. The first goblin was the biggest. Because I was probably going to have to kill more of those, I decided to examine the bodies. Skinny arms and legs, but the muscles there seemed strong. I had to take a small break before getting closer. I had to get it into my head this wasn¡¯t going to be how it was in the war. I don¡¯t even think there are so many creatures capable of fighting in this entire kingdom, maybe even the continent, than there was during that war. This will not be killing on a massive scale day in and day out. This would be better, smaller scale, more personal. Not the meat grinder, but more of an honourable battle. It helped me a lot by putting that into words. I could feel all my anxiety and fear flowing out, ¡°I could do this¡±. I always said back on earth that I would have better fit into a medieval world than a modern one. Let¡¯s just hope I¡¯m a good fit for a fantasy medieval one as well. The goblin''s head was wider, kind of like a sideways egg with long ears coming out of the sides and are pointed backwards. Their neck was thin and long and extremely vulnerable in my opinion. Extremely large belly, but not from being fat. The chest area looked normal, but short. I would say if their hands were a bit shorter, I think that they would just die out. I dragged the goblin off the bridge so that I wouldn¡¯t make a mess on the bridge. This work was going to suck, but it needed to be done. I know the human body extremely well and everything that it could survive and not. This creature¡¯s body was completely new and that meant I did not know its strengths and weaknesses. By the end of the awful work, I know a lot better how I needed to fight them. There was a good reason why they have a round and big belly. They have multiple stomachs and they needed the extra room a big belly can give. Most likely, they could eat anything. They even had a similar system as camels where they can store fat for nourishment. Muscles were extremely lean and strong. I would say they have the strength of a weak, fully grown man. Their ribs were actually quite excellent at protecting their heart and lungs. Except from the back, where I would say they are the weakest overall. Multiple large arteries run very close to the skin and one slash with a sword is a guaranteed death. Shooting the legs will most likely guarantee a slow bleed out and take out any movement capabilities. Slicing the neck is an easy way to kill it. While their head is wider than humans, otherwise it''s quite similar and as weak as any other creature¡¯s head. Just in case I repeated everything with one more goblin and the results were quite similar. Only differences were that first one¡¯s muscles were biggest and skin was a bit tougher. I didn¡¯t want to bury or burn them, so I collected anything metal off of them, got my arrows and threw them into the river. Thanks to that I figured out why they hadn¡¯t swum across. Their bellies acted like life vests, but not in a good way it would tip the head underwater. They will float forever, but they will drown doing so. I got quite a lot of metal off them. They were wearing pieces of mismatched metal armour, most likely taken off humans or something similar. Weapon metal was barely usable, most of it rusted and barely sharp. But I could still make other things from them when I finally got the forge built. It wasn¡¯t that long ago when I killed them, so I quickly prepare my gear for fighting. After that, I went into the forest not to hunt them or hopefully not even see them if there was any more of them, but I needed to take the traps down. I didn¡¯t want to come out here and have a place they would know I was coming to. After I dealt with all the farming stuff, I will come to scout and to hunt with a bow. I was not going to place traps, at least not until I can be safe or at least as safe as I can be in this world. Luckily, everything went well. I got all the traps and even the deer was untouched, and I was able to bring it back and finish butcher it at home. While I was raising the bridge, it was a bit of a sad moment because it will most likely be over a week or two before I would lower this again. Finished butchering, I fired up the smoke. This time I didn¡¯t cut the meat into very small pieces, I wanted to just smoke them so I can use them to make meals instead of travelling food. I won¡¯t need travel food for some time, and I already had quite a lot of that ready. The rest of the day I just spent near the animals. I was getting better. I think my anxiety was gone, but it was still a life and death moment and I wanted to unwind some more. Thankfully cows and the bull liked scratches. Even the rabbits were starting to get more docile. The chickens were chickens I always found looking at them comforting. They are stupid and brainless but still somehow lovable creatures with the ability to always take my mind off anything shitty. During my worst days, I sometimes wished I could be so simple. Decided to make the best meal I currently can. Deer meat roast with onions and carrots. The potatoes I used with lard and cooked them with the pan to make them extra crispy. I even used the few pinches of salt there was just to make this even better. It turned out incredible I would still like some more spices and herbs, but it was still the greatest dinner I had in this world. I was really going to need to find salt. After dinner I was feeling so full, I ate over half of everything. Only thing that was missing was some new tv show to put on and watch while I ate. But it was getting late, so I went to bed with an extremely full stomach but feeling a lot better. chapter 11 Next morning, I decided to put cheese making back on the menu. It will take approximately the same time as my trip to the forest which I was skipping, so why not fill it with some good cheese. Today I was finally going to start sowing some grains. After my chores, I started to prepare the fields. They were divided into 7 uneven sections with plenty of room in between, so you could bring your farm equipment back without disturbing the field and can keep a better eye on the fields. I was going to sow three fields with wheat, three fields with rye and the last one will be flax. After I sow everything, I will need to use farm equipment that''s meant to be used by a human that will cover the grains with some dirt. This is needed so there will not be flocks of birds eating everything the following days. Even then, I think it might be a good idea to bird watch and maybe shoot some down if needed. It would also be good to get some more feathers for arrows because I¡¯m going to need a lot of them. While I was sowing, I also was thinking about the future. Not about the vegetable garden or the potato field, but training myself right. I will need to add to my days a training schedule meant not only to increase my proficiency in archery but other weapons as well. Training my body to use the stats and just to train my body will also be important. I¡¯m fairly strong, so boosting what¡¯s already there will be important. I hope if I¡¯m extremely well trained, it will help with the stats even better. This job took a little while to get the hang of. Throwing was simple, yet it took a certain technique to make it work. What made the work go faster was me being strong enough to bring a full bag of grains with me, so I didn¡¯t have to walk back too many times. Sowing still took time and you can¡¯t rush those things. Skill increases basic farming level 10 is upgraded to farming level 1 Choose one of the following abilities Faster growth Plant sight Disease purification I have never liked faster growing abilities in stories. In my opinion, it just feels unnatural, and I always wonder what impact it will have on the soil. If you get multiple harvests how will the soil recover. Maybe there will be an ability to counter that, but currently I will have to discard this choice. The other choices were all question marks as well. I choose plant sight simply because disease can be cured by removing the infected plants. This turned out to be the wrong choice. What the ability did was grey out everything that was not plants and make plants a bit more vibrant in colours. A beautiful way to look at the world, but nothing more than that. When I was done with sowing, evening had started. I wanted to get everything done today, so I strapped on the tool to cover the seeds with some dirt. It was a simple tool made mostly of iron chains that will bounce around and agitate the ground. When in place, I started running the way I remembered was the correct way to use this tool. It was a good exercise that even a regular human could have done. I tried to keep an even pace and not speed up too much because I think that would mess up the function of this tool. I had to use the last of the light to close up the seed house, now a lot emptier. I ate a quick dinner of smoked deer and some carrots. Looking at the food amount I have, I will need to do some foraging to keep up with my calorie needs during midsummer. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The next day I mostly spent in the grain fields hunting birds. I needed to move fast and shoot them down before any of them went and got friends. The day went by fast and in a blur; I killed 24 birds. Only 5 were of any use as food and feathers for arrows. Most were too small for anything useful. By evening, there were no more birds trying to eat my grains. I fired up the smoker and smoked all but one big bird that one was going to be cooked in the oven and it tasted good. Tomorrow will be a digging day so I can finally get started with the vegetable field. I want to make it so it will be used for years to come. Just a simple one that will be easy to make will need to be done every year and will not be as good as raised beds. The next morning came with an extremely pleasant surprise. I found three eggs from two different chicken nests. They didn¡¯t like me taking them, but my mouth was salivating. So, before I could start my cheese making for the day, I actually fried up some eggs. While they were not twice the size of regular chicken eggs, they are more like half bigger. I still got a lot of scrambled eggs from them. Making them with onions was the right choice. It tasted heavenly. At this moment I decided that I was going to eat luxuriously, even here. For this I will need to find some more herbs, spices and salt, but I believe it to be a good endeavour. Expeditions will be called for and it would fit well with my future hunting plans. Currently, the biggest problem is that they would need to be one day affairs, maybe two or three at the max. But my animals will need feeding and taking care of, so currently I can¡¯t be away that long. When I get more building done and more proper animal care facilities built, I can maybe go on longer trips to find the things I need. After this lovely breakfast and cheese making, it''s time to get some work done. First, I started with laying out where I wanted the raised beds to go. They will be wide enough where I can plant two rows of vegetables or if it¡¯s a bigger plant like pumpkin one in the middle, so it will have room to grow. It will be a shit ton of digging, most likely three days of only digging. The raised beds will be 100 feet long and I will have 12 rows with 4 of them in every row. This will give me the almost 2 acres I need to plant everything. During the second day, I was cursing myself for wanting to do this, but the more logical part of my brain wanted to continue and actually do things properly. I overestimate the time it will take a bit, because I was finished by noon on the third day. That doesn''t mean that my to do list was done, it was only the first step. Now I had to line the walls with the boards I made. I will use simple stakes driven in to keep them against the walls of the trench. The ones that were going to be underground were easy, but the ones over the ground needed to have stakes on both sides. It was a bit finicky to get it the way I liked, but it was just a matter of trial and error until it was done. That took me the rest of the day to finish. Next day I started to haul rocks for the bottom of the trenches. I will need a good layer of them, and it would be best if it started out with large rocks and finish with smaller rocks. The layer of rocks needs to be thick and tight so there wouldn¡¯t be any large holes. Luckily, decades of this farm being run has produced a lot of rocks, leaving rock piles beside the fields. The bull got some work again. He was happy about it. All this work got me a level in farming. Laying rocks took another two days to finish. After that, I threw in branches that I had stored up. Then I started to fill them back up with dirt. I filled them up only until they were level with the ground. That only took one day. I had a lot of dirt left over for the raised beds area. The raised part will be filled with nutrient rich soil. That meant getting some river mud and cow shit and mixing it together with the dirt. It was smelly work and took four days to mix and fill all the raised beds. When this was done, I finally was able to start planting. By this time, the planter box plants were big enough, and the weather was warm enough for them to survive replanting, so they went into the ground as well. That only took half a day to plant everything, because I watered them as well. Otherwise, it would¡¯ve been even quicker. If I was able to get good enough with my crafting that I can make water barrels or if I built water delivery system, I would be extremely happy. I took the rest of the day to cover the raised beds with tree bark so weeds will not have a great time and to help keep heat in the dirt. The next day I spent relaxing by going for a swim and crafting some more arrows. I even got a level up in basic animal care, bringing it to level 8 for just interacting with one of my rabbits. The next day I will need to start thinking about how to plough the potato fields. Because no matter what, I couldn¡¯t use the current plow that I had, because it needed humans to operate and I¡¯m currently all alone. Perhaps I could modify it so that the bull could pull it. I guess we will see tomorrow. chapter 12 During my sleep, I had an epiphany. I could use the shield to make a new plow. It will need to be able to turn over earth, so I can make new fields with it too. I have the charcoal needed for a forge, just need to make a blower so I could make the forge fire stronger. It was time to start using the clay deposits I found. It will be a nice change of pace. I wonder if I could pull off a gear system for the blower that would make it a lot more efficient. I have found two different kinds of clay. One was white looking, the other one was brown. I don¡¯t know if there was any difference, so I decided to use the closer one the brown clay deposit. The design would be one that I have seen before, but I¡¯ve never actually built it. I just used electric power back on earth. Traditional bellows are way too slow and need to be too big for anything useful. Moving them up and down will be annoying. I know that from experience. I once visited a museum where you could try out everything old smiths did. I will need to make a wheel-like shape where the blades will move air inside it. There will need to be an inlet and outlet holes. Inlet will be on the side and the outlet will come out like a snail shell. First, I made a mould into the dirt. I wanted it to be thick it was going to be a stationary, so it didn¡¯t need to be that lightweight. But before I actually started laying out the clay, I added to the mould the wood structures to support and hold the spinning center. When finished, I left it to dry in the sun. I went and found the chainmail that was too small for me. Taking it to the center yard where I was going to make my temporary forge. I didn¡¯t want to use any of the existing buildings in case there was a fire. I couldn¡¯t afford to lose any buildings currently. I also brought the old plow, I could use some of the reinforcement metal from it and its old but strong wood to help build the new version. The chainmail I brought in case I needed some more reinforcements, but I hoped that I could use the rest of this steel to make some stronger arrowheads. I had the feeling that some of the creatures I was going to face, stone will do nothing against. I needed to make at least a small anvil, and for that I will smelt that shitty iron I got off the goblins. I had better spears than they did, and their armour pieces smelled so bad that I was not able to actually clean it off them, so it would be best to just melt them down. To melt them down. I will need a crucible, and I only had the clay and mud to make it. I think I could use it, but it will not survive multiple fires. Quickly making 10 in total and leaving them to dry. Next, I went and brought some more clay. Making the forge burning area out of clay and mud, I also made all the moulds I think I will need for the build. I got a new skill for all the work, basic ceramist. I didn¡¯t recognise the name, but I guess it''s something to do with clay. When all that was drying, I went to explore the other side of my property beyond the fields where my sight is cut off by hills. It was a cloudy day, but warm, so it will take some time before everything is dry. I just hope I don¡¯t have to wait until tomorrow, but I guess you can¡¯t change physics. This time I changed my equipment a bit. I want to make a proper adventuring kit, so I could defend myself, hunt and explore with it. This was the perfect time to start testing what works and getting myself familiar with what I was missing. Exploration was important and keeping myself from getting lost was needed. I didn¡¯t want to bring the property map and that wouldn¡¯t help me if I went further afield. I will need to make some good paper to help map out what I find. This was only the five first minutes of me moving, still in my fields and already find things that I am missing. If I needed to make a map, I will need something to write with. Another problem is how I will keep it all waterproof. I will need a proper waterproof backpack. I have the leather to make that, but not the wax needed. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Not to mention I will also need many other survival items to keep me alive. It always amazes me how much gear you actually need to do anything out in the wild. Just going there to survive you need a knife, but do anything more and the list of items will grow quickly. If you do not want to spend all your time on survival, you will need to bring food, cooking utensils, a sleeping place and many more things. Want to be able to hunt, need to bring traps or weapons. You will need everything, to be weatherproof or have backups for those items. Not to mention if you have colder weather. If you want to explore unknown places, you need things that will help you find your way back home and make sure you can find your way back to what you find. And after all that, you will need to bring more of everything if you go on a long trip. And who knows what else I will need in this fantasy world? The books and movies I know will be a good reference point, but if I believe them, that could get me killed quicker than anything else. Making it to the top of the first hill I see forest beyond many hills. The up and down land would be a bad place for farming, but a good place for sheep or goats. I couldn¡¯t see very far because this hill wasn¡¯t the biggest, but looking back, I saw my entire farm. Even saw the bridge and the forest beyond it. I decided to see if I can see where the river went that my bridge was on. Eventually, there was not a proper forest, but trees blocking the sight further down the river. But I think I got a glimpse of a larger water area, something like a lake maybe, a long way down the river. But that was not the direction for today. I looked forward into the hilly landscape and already felt my legs burning from what I was going to put them through. When I made on top of one of the biggest hills, the burning in my legs was real. It was not a pleasant sensation, but it will be after I get back home and can put my feet up. There was a forest a bit further out and beyond that I see mountains. The forest itself was not just a forest, it was a hills forest. Hills that grew bigger and bigger until mountains started to come out of the forest. Towards the road, the land leveled off into a large grassland. That the forest was slowly devouring. On the other side was more grassland that another river separated it from the forest. That river runs parallel to the river my bridge was on creating an area that was boxed in by two rivers. From this hill I got a better look down river and both the rivers led into a big lake. I really needed to start naming things, but every time I tried to think of one I couldn¡¯t, I guess I am not in the naming mood. If I couldn¡¯t make the forest near me safe, then I will need to bring wood from here. It will be a lot more effort and time to do so, but being safe is more important. I took a rest on top of the hill and just drank in all I could see. My head swam with all the ideas I had. How to expand my fields, how I could make more pastures if I could find proper animals for them, and how I could use the forest to my advantage. This forest was an excellent place for me to practice hunting, if it was safe. Which I was expecting it to be, because otherwise I would have been already attacked. This farm has been here for more than a century, so anything in the forest should know it¡¯s here, if they have any intelligence at all. Making it back home, I went and looked at my drying creations. As I feared, this cloudy day was not so good for drying them out. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better one. One side of the blower was dry enough so I could lift it out and layout the second-half in the same mould. Then it would be exactly the same as the first one and will fit together perfectly. I just had to make some changes because this side is the one that has the bigger hole in the middle for the air inlet. Like the other side, the shaft will be supported by wood supports, not the clay. I just hoped the connection holes will line up and don¡¯t have any problems. Rest of the day I spent making arrows. I was going to run out of feathers soon but this time I did not add heads to them, hoping I can add steel arrow heads later. Hopefully, I can find some more birds to hunt. I might need to start making lures for them so hunting them will be easier. Feeling a bit sweaty, so before the day ended, I went for a swim and also to wash my clothes. I had piled up a lot of dirty clothes and I finally needed to take care of them. Or else I was going to run out of clean clothes. This also brought up a problem that I was going to have in the future. I was going to have to learn how to make bigger clothes for myself. I simply wouldn¡¯t fit into anything in a few years. It¡¯s a far-off problem but a problem still and something that will take a lot of training do actually complete. Making clothes is hard, making clothes that could survive hard labour even harder. Eventually I want to be able to learn how to make leather armor. Maybe I could even reinforce it with metal if I ever found a nearby source of metal or be able to trade with humans again. Hopefully the latter will be true because that would solve many of my problems. The dinner today was the same as the days before and I was really missing salt. I was never really without salt before in my life and the food really is a lot tastier with it. Currently, I would fight a dragon to get a bag full of it. I was a bit melancholy when I finally fell asleep. chapter 13 This morning I got more eggs, I really hope that they will start laying them more often. The clay still needed to dry, but it looks like a sunny day was ahead for me. Having a free morning was a bit of a weird experience. Everything currently hung on me being able to forge. The blower will be a permanent thing, the rest of the forge most certainly not. If I want to smith properly, I need to build a suitable structure. I could try to plan out my future bigger builds. Like the sauna and the smithy, but they were long-term project that did not need immediate attention. After thinking for a bit, I think the best course of action for my current free time will be to start working on how to better understand and control stats and the energies they come with. This was all new to me, but I hoped that some of the fantasy books got something correct, giving me a better starting point. I was always someone that did something with feeling when something was new to me or when I was so knowledgeable and practised in it. At that point, it helps guide you better most of that time, especially during battle when you never have time to think, only to act. Meditating and trying to control the energies felt similar to that. I know some basics on how to move the energy from all my practising, but now was time to push them even further. As I suspected, I had made some progress, but I was just scratching the surface on how deep this system really went. To truly use your stats fully. You would need to know how to use them without thinking. It needs to be like breathing instinctual, yet you need to adapt it quickly when a new situation happens. This will be a long and difficult process getting everything so well-tuned and ready to act on a moment¡¯s notices. Hours went by and the tuning sounded like a better description than I could ever expect it to be. It was like a constant battle as some parts improved, others needed tuning to be adjusted for the increase. Then you need to tune everything connected to that. It was an endless cycle of tuning. I was hoping that would be the extent of it. I was so wrong, as I was working hard even sweating, moving through certain actions there was like a minor breakthrough for my swinging action. First, I suddenly got a burst of energy inside of me where I was concentrating on my tuning efforts. After that, energy moved faster and was stronger there. It felt like everything there was smoother and cleaner. It also messed up all my tuning on how every stats energy moved there. I had to start everything over for this movement. My biggest understanding currently came after a bit of tuning and practicing. Yes, there are parts of my energy body that are a lot better thanks to training and tuning them, but that didn''t matter as much because other parts couldn''t keep up. It''s like having a small pipe led into a big pipe and then into a small pipe again. The big pipe did absolutely nothing to improve anything. This wasn''t quite the same in my energy body as it did help, but not as much as it could. I was going to have to design a full-body workout for both of my bodies, because they weren¡¯t as separate as I first thought. They both supported each other, meaning I had to work out both. I guess this would be every gym rat''s wet dream to be able do workout twice as much. I didn¡¯t have time to think about this any further, because finally everything was dry, and I can actually start forging or, more accurately, firstly smelting. I already knew what design the plow I was going to make will be. It will be the same my grandfather used and gave to me. I went and got the shield, so that I could lay out everything I need and see what work I needed to do. The shield will be bent in half. I would need to shape the tip and the blades into the correct shape. Thanks to the shield shape, it will make it easier. But I will not only need the plow that can make the furrows it needed to be able to cut fresher earth and turn it over. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I would need two extra pieces of metal that I could attach when needed to the main plow and make it so I could make uncultivated land into workable farmland. The blades will need to be forged. Casting them would make them too weak and I would want them to be as close to steel I can make them. Luckily, I know how to make steel from iron, and I have the perfect ingredient to do it, charcoal. If I was casting the pieces, I would need to add the correct amount into the smelting mix. This is hard without knowing the base metal carbon amount, but I was going to use a different tactic. I was going to cast 2 pieces of iron, which I was going to forge into the correct shape and constantly putting them into the charcoal fire turning it into steel. This way also has problems. If I heat it up too many times, it will get too much carbon and it will make it too brittle and it will break under any work. And of course, forging it will make it stronger overall than casting it can ever do. I dismantled the old plow and laid out my new design. I could use some of the reinforcements again, which would reduce my workload, but I also notice some new places that would require some strengthening. For that, metal pieces can be cast into a sheet that I could later forge into the correct pieces, saving me some time. They will not need to be the strongest simply because they will not be in contact with earth and the stones in it. Everything figured out about the plow. I started to assemble the blower. Finishing this will help me figure out the best configuration for the forge. Measure out the inside, now that I could put the pieces together so I could make the correct size blades for it. After some work and looking at the current state of the blower, I felt quite happy. Hardest was to get the blades to not hit the sides. It took a lot of fine tuning and adding some extra supports so the shaft will stay stable. After testing it, I did need to make a gear system otherwise, it moves air too slowly. The easiest solution will be to just build an extra piece onto the blower. I carved out a small wood gear that I secured onto the shaft. Then built and secured a big gear that connected to the small one and will be where I turn the blower. This worked excellently and the air it can move was impressive. Setting up the forge was annoying, making it the way I wanted will take way too much time, and I want this to be a temporary forge. I was left with leaving the forge on the ground and making a small pipe that directs the air from the blower to the edge of the heating area. I originally wanted the air to blow from underneath, but this will work. The crucible was actually the first thing that went into the heating area. Next went some kindling and charcoal. Once the fire was going, I filled up the area with charcoal and started to crank the blower. Instantly, everything started to fire up, and the heat got more intense. At this point I added the metal inside which. I was going to need to top it off constantly so I can get a full crucible of metal. For the time being all, I needed to do was add charcoal and metal as needed. At the start, it took some time before the heat worked up. The fire was roaring now and soon it will be ready. I started to prepare the metal rods I need to move and pour the metal into the cast. Now, for the hardest part, actually lifting the crucible out of the forge. I didn¡¯t have proper tools, so to fix that problem, when making the crucible, I made a groove into it, so I could use what my grandfather called a crap pinch. To use the crap pinch. Two pieces of straight metal is needed. They need to be tied together at one end and when you squeeze them together, the bars will bend and holding anything in between them extremely strongly. I would never be able to do this without stats. If I didn¡¯t get so many levels during the fight, I might not be able to accomplish this task. Even then, this was the most difficult thing I¡¯ve ever done. This crucible was the biggest I made and is meant for the small anvil. When the casting was finished my muscles were so sore that I collapsed from strain. Luckily, the mould holds, and I didn¡¯t have to scramble out of the way of molten metal with my barely working body. The anvil will need to cool overnight. If it was a full-sized anvil, it might be days before it would be fully set. Next, I was only going to smelt and cast the rest of the prepared moulds. One plate casting went wrong when a mould broke. Hopefully, I will not need it. I did make two extras just in case, so I was now down to one extra. I still had time to make arrowheads from the chainmail, but I was not actually going to be able to forge today. Doing the arrowheads was an easy job. The moulds were a lot smaller and therefore a lot easier to handle. I enjoyed making them so much I kept making into the dark, finishing everything with the forge fire. This helped me make and cast the entire chainmail into steel arrowheads, getting me almost 200 of them. I checked my notifications while eating. I got a new skill, basic metal casting and a level in basic ceramist and basic wood crafting. Looking over my achievement page, I have collected 36 skills and 4 abilities a lot of progress. I wonder how I compare to other people. chapter 14 Some more eggs this morning I would let them try hatching them, but there was no rooster to get fertilised eggs so the current eggs will just go bad. After my chores, I checked the forge for any damage and, as I suspected, it will only last a few more days of work before it''s done. The crucible are completely done, all 10 used up. I will need to make a better clay mix if I want it to last more than once. I started today''s work by breaking up the smaller moulds. I extracted the two metal bricks I was going to forge into the plow, turning plates, then the iron plates to reinforce the plow structure. They all turned out good enough. The material the moulds were made out of is not perfect for the job. The surfaces are not good, but it will be good enough for the current build. For the anvil the hitting surface that I was going to use is what¡¯s was open to the air in the mould. When it first started to cool, I brushed away impurity from the surface. While not perfect, it¡¯s a lot smoother than the rest of the surface on the anvil. Breaking off the mould around the anvil, I found it to be good enough. There was a bigger empty bubble halfway down, but luckily it didn''t compromise the structure. Basically, it was just a long brick like piece of metal that I was going to sink into a big piece of wood. That''s what I did next, carving out the hole needed. Inserting the anvil, I secured it by driving in wedges on all sides, so that it wouldn¡¯t come loose or shake under heavy hitting. Skill increases basic wood carving level 5 I already had a good enough hammer for smithing, meaning I am ready for the next steps. Starting up the forge, but this time there was no crucible in the middle, just more charcoal. But the first job wasn¡¯t actually the shield because I remembered I need tongs to hold hot metal. I have done many tongs in my life and actually taught a lot of people how to make them. It¡¯s a good way to learn or try smithing. They came together as quickly as usual, even when using lesser equipment than I was used to. Placing the shield onto the charcoal and just kept cranking in the air until it was hot enough to start bending and shaping. I purposely try to hold it off the charcoal so it would not get too much carbon into it. I had seen the plow head shape so many times during my life, so it was easy to keep that image in mind and start shaping it. What was difficult was trying to maneuver the shield into the correct placement to shape it. It was too large for precision work. Luckily, my current strength helped overcome that problem. My strength however, brought another problem. I need to control my strikes even more. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. On earth I could wail on this piece as strongly as I could and I would never break it in a few strikes, but here that¡¯s an actual possibility. As time passed and the wind picked up, bringing clouds overhead, I was getting close to finishing the main piece. I used a makeshift puncher to make holes where the overturning plates will connect. When that was done, I placed the plow head into the fires with the tip in the hottest place and cranked until the tip start to heat up. I quickly went and brought some oil to put into the clay container that I made for quenching. I¡¯ve never done quenching with vegetable oil, but I hope that it will still work better than just water. I continued to heat up the tip until it was hot enough. I almost burned off all my hair when I quenched it. The oil instantly started to burn quite violently. Probably needed a bigger container with more oil, so it wouldn''t have that strong of a reaction, but this was the best I could do. I didn¡¯t have any metal file to try out if the quench worked, but I did the ring test, striking it with other metal and it did sound a bit sharper than the rest of it. Hopefully I did something, only work will tell how good it turned out. I got a new skill out of this. You have gained a new skill basic smithing level 1 Next, I start to heat up one of the metal bricks to make the overturning blade. I would have wanted to put both of them in so I could rotate and always keep one heating and one working but I¡¯m afraid the forge will not be able to keep up with the heat demand and doing one at a time is a lot more relaxing. So one at a time, it was. The breaks while watching the metal heats up again were always nice to have. It¡¯s a moment to think about the next move and not just always work. This way is better if you''re doing something you haven''t done a 1000 times before. The first one turned out great, but with the second one I run into a problem. One edge started to crack, so i had to refold and stretch it out again and luckily it didn¡¯t crack again. I finished punching the holes into the correct places. I plan to simply rivet them together and simply remove it afterwards. I would have to use the forge every time I wanted to reattach the blades, but they were going to be used once in a season, if even that, so no need to make it super attachable. While the forge was hot and so, I could better build out the entire plow. I preceded to attach the overturning blades. With the overturning blades on the plow, it made it easier to build the rest of it out. The head looked like a bird that was bending its wings the wrong way. I needed to build out the handles I was going to use. That I did with the old wood from the now dismantled plow. I was able to use the same reinforcements that were used with the old plow, making my job easier. The piece that will extend towards the bull, I used leftover oak from the sled build for that. It was perfect for the job, and I only needed to cut it down a bit. I needed to forge two more pieces. One that was going to be used to attach the bull''s pulling rope and the part that will hold the oak beam in place and connect it with the plow head. I was able to finish everything today and got 2 levels in basic smithing, one in basic wood crafting and one in basic engineering. I only did a quick drop test, and it held up to that excellently. But the real testing will start tomorrow when the work begins. During the sunset I went and walked between the vegetable garden and checked over all the animals, before making myself some dinner and going to bed. chapter 15 Morning arrived, and I really had to pace myself during my chores, because I really wanted to use the plow as soon as possible. I manage to hold myself back enough so I could do everything at a reasonable speed. When I finally got done with chores, the first thing I did was bring the plow just beyond the vegetable field to where I was going to start the potato field. It was going to have to be quite a long field because I didn¡¯t want to be too close to the river. Now this was extremely hard work for the bull, so I went to get grain and bring one off the water troughs from the pasture over to the soon to be potato field. Now two acres of new land will take a few days just to plow it. It will take that long because breaking new ground is one of the hardest jobs there is on a farm. It would only be worse if this was forested land. Luckily, I don¡¯t have to worry about that for a really long time, if ever. Trough filled with water brought from the river, I was ready to bring the bull over and start working and hopefully the plow will work as intended. My grandfather''s plow design turned out extremely well. It works perfectly. The structure holds even against rocks and continues to do it without a problem. Currently, the weakest link was the bull. He was not used to this constant strain, and I had to take constant breaks, but I was not bothered even if it took a week. I will still be well within the planting time for potatoes. We usually just rest a bit after every furrow. I decided not to make one big field but two one-acre ones. I don¡¯t know why but I just wanted it like that. Today we didn¡¯t even get half done before I decided to stop. I didn''t want to strain the bull too much, and I wanted to inspect the plow as well. Taking the bull back, I made sure to give him extra grain, but if I constantly feeding him while plowing, I will have little left to give afterwards. When we got back to the barn, he just laid down, exhausted. Even I was tired of guiding the plow in a straight line and making sure it didn''t go too deep or too shallow. Walking back to the field, I inspected it. There were many rocks that I will need to collect before I harrow the field. I will most likely have to harrow twice, so all the big grass chunks will be broken down. When the plowing will be done, harrowing will be a cakewalk for the bull compared to plowing new land. Inspecting the plow, some fittings have come a bit loose, but that was to be expected and I hammered everything that was a bit loose down even further, making it is now completely finished and tested. After that I fitted the steel arrowheads I made to make completed arrows. I noticed the sunsets were getting later and later, meaning I must be in the northern hemisphere. I hope there will be white summers that I¡¯ve experienced, when the sun almost doesn¡¯t set for the entire day. Those were always my favourite times during the summer. Although overall my favourite season has always been winter and from the build of the houses and the memories of my previous self, there will be winters here. Now the question is, will winter still be my favourite season here? Winter with all the modern technology and comfort is different than here, I guess time will tell that. I hope the fantasy element will make up for the lack of modern conveniences in that regard. Next day of plowing brought a problem during midday. We were working quite happily until I hit a large rock. The plow got the real test with this one and the tip surprisingly held up. I guess the quenching worked. But the rock that I hit is extremely large. First, I thought I will need to go around it, but then I remembered I got abilities. I went and brought the axe while I left the bull to drink water and eat some grass, so I can fix the rock problem. This would have been even a problem on earth. That would need to be solved by power tools or explosives. But now, with the piercing cut and a simple axe, I was able to hack it apart into pieces that I was able to bring to the side of the field. It took about four hours do completely get rid of the rock and that left me with a huge hole that I will need to fix somehow. I still had some dirt left from the vegetable fields. Using the bull and the sled cart, I loaded it up with dirt and filled in the hole. I was able to use my counterweight ability to jump and pack down the soil to the same consistency as the rest of the field. This also took time, and it was already late. I didn¡¯t feel like starting to plow for a bit and then ending it. So, I packed everything up and brought the bull back. Still got quite a lot done. Only 1/3 is left to do and then the first field will be done. Next day everything went smoothly and even the bull was getting stronger and better at pulling the plow. We got the first field done and half of the second one. Which meant tomorrow if everything went well, I will finish the first steps of making the potato fields. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Tomorrow as I woke up everything wasn¡¯t well. Clouds were in the sky and promised rain. It wasn¡¯t raining yet, so I skipped making cheese this morning and hurried to the field to try to get as much done today before the rain started. Was it my pleading or something else? But the rain held off until we got done with that plowing, before the downpour started. Seeing how heavy the rain was coming down and seeing the even thicker and darker clouds further away. Just in case, I quickly got some boards and laid them triangular over the vegetable plants that were in the planter boxes, so the rain won¡¯t hurt them if it got even worse. I would say this was one of my best calls in this world yet because the rain got a lot stronger. It was a proper rainstorm without the heavy wind part. I didn¡¯t want to be alone in the house, so I was in the barn with the cows and watching how the rain fell. It was a surprisingly good day. I always loved rain and after it everything smelled so clean. Like always with heavy rain, it didn¡¯t last for too long, only about two hours. But the river has still risen a lot during that time. Luckily, the bridge seemed to be high enough that this amount of rain didn¡¯t hurt. But if there was a rainy season it might start to affect the bridge. I might need to put some extra support to the sides to help hold the bridge in place if the river rises too high and starts to push against it. After the rain stopped, it didn''t take too long for the sun to start shining again. Removing the boards so that plants could soak in the sun''s energy, I did the same and enjoyed the sun. Everything felt so alive at this moment. I truly love living on a farm. The next day, everything was still a bit damp. But it was good enough to collect the rocks. With Bull pulling and me collecting, a new rock pile started between the two fields close to the road. That didn¡¯t even take half a day and the harrowing part went fast and easily as well. The bull was better trained now and I think it got even stronger during the few days of hard labour. With all these advantages, we finished the first round of harrowing today. The next day will be the break day then. Hopefully, it will be a sunny day so it will dry out all the grass and weeds. Then I can harrow the following day. It did turn out to be a sunny day. I took an easy day filled with swimming, making arrows and actually doing two new bows. I wanted the backups just in case one breaks and to have them ready in different places if needed. Current bows are short hunting bows that are good against non-armoured or lightly armoured target. But I was contemplating on making a true war bow. For that I would need a different type of wood and hopefully the forest beyond the hills will have what I need. In the forest over the bridge, I only found either too young or too old trees for a proper war bow. This problem will have to wait until farming is done. Next day the harrowing was done, it didn¡¯t even take half a day. I watched and was satisfied with the current field. It was exactly as needed to start making potato furrows. So, I proceeded to remove the turning plates from the plow and store them away. This will be a lot easier for the bull and I should be able to make the furrows. Plant the potatoes and then covered them up, all today. Thanks to all the experience the bull had, everything went even faster than I anticipated. This was a good thing, because I didn¡¯t realise how long it will take to bring all the potato sacks out from the celler and towards the field, even when I used the cart to help bring them faster. I always found putting potatoes in furrows interesting. When I was young, I was taught to put one potato near the heel of my feet and the other in front and continue like that until all the potatoes were placed. Now that I¡¯m older, I don¡¯t need to use that technique, I just eyeballed it. But before I started to place them, I spread manure underneath where the potatoes will go. This will make sure that the potatoes will have the nutrients and power to actually grow strong. Placing potatoes was so much easier here simply because I could bring and hold the entire sack. The next and final job turned out do actually be the hardest. The bull needed to walk on top of the furrows to not trample on the potatoes. It took some time, broken potatoes, and handfuls of grain encouragement do finally teach him what he needed to do. Once he had learned everything went fast, but even then, we finished with the last of the light. Skill increases farming level 5 Level up animal husbandry Animal husbandry now level 4 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Empathy +1 Skill increases basic animal handling level 10 is upgraded to animal handling level 1 Choose one of the following abilities guiding thought calming touch steady foot Skill increases basic animal training level 10 is upgraded to animal training level 1 Choose one of the following abilities health check positive thought animal inspection Two levels in farming and a class level up that seems small compared to being able to pick two new abilities. I liked the guiding thought most out on animal handling choices, so I picked that one. Animal training one is a bit harder. I will not pick positive thought it seems a bit hollow to me. If you want positive thoughts, just give what they like. I want both other abilities. But in the end, I took animal inspection hoping the health check ability will be offered again when my basic animal care tiers up. I try my new ability out on the bull that was next to me. Name: none Species: highland cattle Gender: male Age: 3 Health: excellent Diet: grass, leaves, flowers and shrubs Evolutions: none This ability was less useful than I expected. It does give me more information, most interestingly that there is an evolutions part. I wonder if that is how animals get stronger, meaning they do not have a class system. If true, it¡¯s a useful discovery but one that will need to wait until tomorrow. I guided the bull back and made some food and go to sleep. chapter 16 This time during my morning chores, I checked all my animals with the new skill. It was all to be as expected until I made it to the chickens. Just in case I checked all the chickens, but that led me to a surprising discovery. Two of the six chickens were actually roosters. It took some chasing around, but I finally cornered one and caught him. I checked again just to make sure that yes, it was a male. Name: none Species: Grassland chicken Gender: male Age: 0 Health: good Diet: grass, bugs, worms, seeds Evolutions: none At first, I didn¡¯t find any differences until I was able to check under the beak, there was two short red skin flaps instead of the one that the females had. Turns out there is a difference it¡¯s just so small to be almost not noticeable. This roster doesn¡¯t have signs of being the dominant, like the roosters back on earth. It would be interesting to keep monitoring them to see how that changes their behaviour compared to what I know. The skill also informs me that I need to feed them proteins as well. Most likely they need it so that they would lay eggs properly. I will have to consider if I will leave eggs in the nest cause if these roosters can fertilize. There will be more chicken that can hatch. Too bad the inspection skill does not tell me if an egg is fertilized. After making another cheese roll, I was actually done for the day. The planting season was finally over and all that was to do is maintenance, which will not be very time-consuming. That means I have more free time than I currently know what to do with. Before the goblin troubles, I would have started bringing in a large amount of building wood, but currently that will be pushed back. I can¡¯t remember exactly how many days I¡¯ve been here. I am guessing it¡¯s already been over a month and a half. It¡¯s time to start the training montage. But first I need to come up with what I will do during that training. For the things that I know exactly what to do are body training, archery, survival and hunting. For the body I will need to build some equipment to make training more efficient. For archery I will need to make targets and just need to shoot a lot. Survival is a double duty. One side is to survive the environment better. The other side is learning how to defend myself with other weapons besides bows. Hunting will cover all the previous and is meant to put all the different pieces together, so it will work like clockwork. Now about the side that I¡¯m not so familiar with. On the fantasy side are stats and energy that I will be working on side by side with my previous training plans. But I will also need to add just time for this so I could only be meditating and working with energy. Then the skills and abilities side. It will be a bit of energy training with abilities and also just training abilities on their own. The aim will be to just make the current abilities better, but also to try and see if I could make my own. Skill will be the most passive. I can see the benefit of just going the route of skill improvement, but I think this will leave my foundations too hollow. I will not leave them completely untouched, and I should make some more tests to fully workout how the skill mechanism works. This will most likely be a long-term task. But hopefully it will lead to some breakthroughs making my life here easier and safer. Now let¡¯s start with the first thing, making the exercising equipment. I think this calls for an outdoor gym. I will be using more non-traditional ways to strengthen my body. But I think the standard weight equipment will still have an excellent place for training certain muscle groups. Since I don¡¯t have iron, all of this will need to be made out of stone and wood. I will be making a dumbbell set, barbell set, training bench, pull up frame and bar, kettlebell set and a pull down machine, of course some accessories too. But before I got any of this done, I noticed how long the grass has gotten when I was choosing where to build. So, I took out the scythe and spent a few hours cutting all the grass around the farm. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. That done, I decided to build the outdoor gym near the smoker, so every time when I needed to monitor the fire or work with hide. I can use the gym during breaks. Making weights out of stone will make them bulkier than I was used to with the iron ones. At first, I wasn¡¯t going to weigh their weight, I was going to just eyeball them. But I changed my mind when I remembered I could make a simple scale with a piece of wood and some rope. For the ruler, I had a way to get an exact measurement, but for weight I didn¡¯t have anything I could use as a control. So, I had to make my own. I started with what felt close to one kilogram. I picked another rock and continue to cut it down until those two pieces were exactly the same weight. The next stone I made I used the two first one to get it to 2 kg. So on I went until I needed to make a stronger scale. With the new scale, I was able to get a 50 kg stone. So now I had a measurement of 50 kg, 40 kg, 30 kg, 25 kg, 20 kg, 15 kg, 10 kg, 5 kg, 2 kg, and 1 kg stones that I marked with the correct numbers onto them with dye. I wanted my weights to be changeable so that I to not have to make so many of them. This way, I can only make a few handles and bars to have a whole range of different weights for different muscle groups. The handles and bars I made out of oak wood. But for the bigger weights, I will need to come up with a different idea. The dumbbells will be fine because their bars are short, but as the bar gets longer, the less weight it can handle, and the oak wood will not handle that. I do not think if I had steel, it will even then be strong enough. Luckily, like I said, I will also be doing some non-traditional stuff. Like pulling my sled and cart with rocks loaded into them or trying to lift extremely large logs. This will help offset my lack of equipment. For archery targets, I just used some wood and bunched up hay. This is how it was made back in the day and will serve well. I made four of them, one large, two medium and one small sized, so I could put them in different places. It would be good to practice not to just hitting one target in one spot. With this, I was currently done with building equipment and started do actually train. First things first, running. I didn¡¯t take the easy choice do just run down the road. I want my body to get used to running on rough terrain. So, I geared up just in case and started running towards the hills. I did a circuit of the hills. It took me about two hours and when I got back home, I fell down completely exhausted. But I only let myself have a small water and food break before I went and started weight training my muscles. My training aim was not to bulk up, but to gain lean muscle that¡¯s strong and fast. So yes, I was using heavy weights, but I forced myself to move them fast. That way there will be less bulking up and more actual strength gain. After that was possibly the most important part, stretching. I didn¡¯t just do this so that I wouldn''t have cramps, but so I would still stay flexible even after all the weight training. What''s scarier, an opponent that is massive but slow or an opponent that is big but fast. Speed is a very important part in the formula for creating powerful movement. If you move faster, you generate a lot more strength. I want my training to make me extremely strong, but I don¡¯t want to have overly large muscles. I still want to be flexible enough that any rogue will be jealous and be fast enough that any ranger will be scared. Not an easy goal, but one that I think I can pull off with all the knowledge I have and with how young and strong I currently am. After the stretching, I went for a swim. Now I had worked not just my body but also my energies. Not so much tuning them, but simply helping them flow. I relaxed in the water and started to dive deeper into what I was calling my energy body. It feels like a second me inside of me. But this version was only a shell where energy moved inside, loosely mimicking how my body moved. So, my first step was just to help it move more like my body, and that did help. But it wasn¡¯t an easy thing. There was resistance, so I needed to push through it and if I did that, I could feel myself moving faster or striking harder. But the energy didn¡¯t multiply. There was always a ceiling on how much I had in totally. Only times this ceiling moved up was when I gained stats. It could diminish, but it always returned. Most energy was used up when using abilities, but simply helping it move faster also expended some of the capacity. I could make my abilities more efficient so they will use less energy but still be as strong or stronger, but it will still use up energy. Now the interesting part with helping energies move better inside my body was that once improved, energy moved faster without my help and without being used up. Meaning I could keep training this part by using up my energy and making it better and better, so later I would be a lot better stat usage without having to spend up energy. In a long fight, this may be a tipping point towards life or death, so it¡¯s an extremely important part. The tuning was more specific for a certain movement, so a certain action to be even more powerful, and it worked the same way as just moving the energies. You could teach energy moving like you could teach your body to do actions on instinct in both cases, it¡¯s a long journey to make that happen. Interesting thing was that while I was working on my energies and swimming, I actually got a skill basic swimming level 1. It was an interesting gain. But not because I got the skill but because I think it happened quicker and easier thanks to me constantly using my energy while doing this skill action. I now think that stats and skills are more connected than I first thought, but that''s how far I could get this revelation without getting further insight or guidance from somewhere else. At the end of the day, I did some light archery. I was not going for speed or power but more practicing accuracy. I didn¡¯t want to get sweaty again before dinner and bed. chapter 17 Next day after my chores, I started with serious archery training. Had to get all the calluses needed and get muscles that are used during archery. Back when I was younger, I was able to shoot three arrows a second using the technique of holding the arrows in your other hand so you can get to them faster. I didn¡¯t shoot for my entertainment or hobby, but more for my job when I tested out the bows I made. Still, I know the correct ways to train and get better at it. I just never put the time in to it back on earth. This time would be different. At the start, everything was going as expected, but as I got more used to the motion of shooting, the bow felt too light. I had gained too many stats and gotten a lot better at using my energy, making the bow I use too light for me too get proper training out of. This made my bow making brain start to turn on how to solve this solution. Easiest way to solve it is to make the bow longer than the current short bow I was using. But for hunting bows, I like to have a stronger short bow. I guess it¡¯s time for some design work. I couldn¡¯t just make the current short bow design thicker to make it have more power, but it would just break. Maybe the solution will have to be composite bows. I¡¯d have to use different kinds of materials, one that¡¯s excellent for compression and the other for tension. This can make the bow a lot better. There are problems with this. The biggest is I am capable of only making water soluble glue and in an environment that is humid, not the best choice for a bow that requires it. In the forest beyond the bridge, there were two new types of trees that I noticed one was similar to willow and the other one similar to fir. I don¡¯t think that they will be very useful for bow making. But, I haven¡¯t gone very deep into the forest and I¡¯m in a relatively new part of it. I¡¯m guessing if there are any new tree types that I can use in this world, they will be in the old forests deeper in. Hopefully, the hill forest will have what I am looking for. For the current testing, I could just make a bow in the english longbow design, to train my muscles with. Making it was simple. I just used the same wood I made a short bow out of. But I made it a bit thicker. Will it be a good bow for anything else, not likely. I didn¡¯t have any equipment to measure how much of a draw weight it has. But I think it''s over 200 pounds. The current limit for the wood. If I made it any stronger, it will just crack. Skill increases basic bow making level 5 With this draw weight while properly drawing, I could get a lot of reps in before I get too tired. So, this current weight was good for my current training. However, I would need an even stronger one to keep up training. I could limit my energy usage and I probably will have to do that later on. This also gave me an idea if I can speed up my energy, can I also slow it down, so the stats wouldn¡¯t help me that much. Testing it out I found it even more difficult than speeding it up and it didn''t seem to have any other bad side effects besides lowering my stat gained strength. I only got to do with a few cycles of training before my archery training time ended, and it was time for another run. When I was heading back, I almost tripped and fell because I was tired. I think the trait stronger coordination helped me out. Traits are the one thing that I haven¡¯t really explored, but I honestly don¡¯t know how to. I tried to access them like abilities or my energy or even skills, but nothing happened. They don¡¯t feel like they are a part of the system anymore they feel more like a part of me. There is no level behind them, unlike the skills and abilities. If there is a way to improve them, I have not found it. I kept thinking about that even after my run ended. I was halfway through my weight sets when a notification appeared and blocked my vision. Unlike other notifications before, it opened automatically. Kingdom notification Resident of Caldron kingdom, your kingdom has fallen, and your residency revoked. I was quite shocked by this news. I knew the situation was really bad with the plague, but I didn¡¯t know that the kingdom will fall or even that the system recognized it as a kingdom. Before I could think any further, another similar notification came up. Land notification Former residents of Caldron Kingdom, all lands formerly owned by the kingdom, are now revoked. Notice land revoking You have gotten land in a unique way. It was granted to you directly by a king of the Caldron Kingdom. please make a choice I revoke ownership of the land Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I wish to become the sole owner of the land in question All these messages were surprising, but even more surprising was how human they felt. I tried to get more information on my choices and, to my surprise, this time I got a lot more background information on why this was happening and why I got my choices. I now know that the kingdom system and the land system are made-up with the help of the system but designed by the rulers of the kingdom. Apparently, if some system criteria are not met, the kingdom can lose its right to exist. In this kingdom, most of the land was owned by the king, so if there is no kingdom, there can¡¯t be a king that can own the land. Most residents were just given permission to use the land they worked and lived on. Only exceptions were in a few cases like mine. I got the choice to keep my land because of two reasons. One because my great grandfather got this land from the king directly as a gift. As I remembered the story, it was for saving the king¡¯s life on the battlefield. My great grandfather was just a regular conscript, but he sacrificed his body to save the king and that helped win the battle and the kingdom''s war at a time. In the story, my great grandfather had lost an arm saving the king, but the king was so grateful he had it healed and gave him the land I currently live on. The second reason is my frontier farmer class. Apparently, this class has a feature that I can own my own land. Apparently, not every class has such a feature. I chose the second choice and immediately I could feel a better connection to the land around me and I got new notifications to see. Level up frontier farmer frontier farmer now level 9 strength +2 dexterity +1 vitality +2 endurance +1 Level up animal husbandry Animal husbandry now level 5 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Empathy +1 Level up handyman Handyman now level 6 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Intelligence +1 You have gained a new skill landowner level max New trait gained strength reaches 40 trait upgrade minor physical boost to major physical boost The connection I had with my land was minimal at best. I guess I will need to level my class a lot more to get a better connection with it, the new skill seemed to be just to see that I own land. I wonder if it¡¯s possible to get some information out of the connection in the future. It will be interesting to see what comes of this. Now the kingdom falling has interesting ramifications, but most likely they will not affect me for some time if ever. The current world politics doesn''t affect me and my current goal to make it to the next spring and after that the next one and so on. I remember all the stories about this kingdom well. Told by my grandfather and father many times and I still felt a loss of that. They held this kingdom in high regard. This Kingdom was a good one. Of course, its nobility, let¡¯s just say, was unpleasant, but at least the royal family kept them in line enough. So that the common people wouldn¡¯t suffer, making this a thriving Kingdom with no other threats than the occasional goblin horde. The royal family was good with politics and was able to keep peace. When war did come, they were usually able to win by leveraging politics in their favour. Now the 8 generations of this kingdom¡¯s legacy was gone. As I understood from the little information I got, if you have land, you must build it up overtime and this kingdom has worked on that for a long time. The royal family and the kingdom were still quite young compared to some kingdoms out there. Apparently, kingdoms in this world need to be made over time and all the building and gathering of resources are undone by a plague. I guess you never know how or when everything gets turned on its head. After some time of just absorbing everything, I went back and finished my weights, now easier because of my trait improving. I got a skill level in basic fitness enhancement for my work, bringing me to level 8. After that I went for my swim and then came my energy training. I made my regular food, making sure I get enough calories to keep up with my extremely heavy expenditure during my training. I couldn¡¯t keep up the training with my current food supply, so I will soon need to go hunting in the hill forest or I will run out of protein. POV adventurers. A few minutes before the Kingdom notification. I watched as my assigned partner sneaked out of the village unseen. It was one thing that I had to admit he was good at, even when I wished he paid more attention to his hygiene. When he got closer, I asked. ¡°Did you get the map and the adventures orb or do I need to fix another one of your mistakes.¡± ¡°Yeah yeah, I got them. No need to give me your high manners bullshit. What¡¯s our next destination, anyway? We¡¯re quite at the end of civilization here? Is there some other village further on?¡± ¡°No, as I said before, this was the last one. Do you listen to anything more than the information about your current task?¡± ¡°Never do. Sparkly, you should already know this. So, about our next destination.¡± Why was this rogue so annoying and why am I stuck with him for the foreseeable future. ¡°This was the last village, but further on we have dungeon to clear and then we will go ahead back on a different route until we get back to the headquarters.¡± Kingdom message You are currently in the territory of Caldron Kingdom. This Kingdom has fallen. ¡°Well, shit¡±. We both said at the same time. ¡°Hey sparkly, I thought this wasn¡¯t supposed to happen for another few months." ¡°Stop calling me sparkly my name is Meredith and yes, this was supposed to happen a few months later. Now give me the map and the orb. I will store them." He handed me both, and I put them into the bag of holding that was given for that very purpose. ¡°Wait Meredith, what¡¯s the use of our collecting of the maps? If the Kingdom has fallen, wouldn¡¯t they now just be blank? I mean, they are the kingdom maps for the surrounding areas." ¡°Well, you''re kind of right Richard, as usual. The maps will still work for the area they were made for. It would just be blank until people start claiming their own land." "So, the maps will still be useful to see where the pockets of living people are. How was the situation inside the village, anyway?¡± ¡°The usual. I personally think this will turn into a raiders village. But there is a possibility it still might become another undead one.¡± That was another depressing piece of news, unfortunately a common one during this trip. Pretty much all we have gotten. ¡°Well, let¡¯s start to move. We will finish this dungeon and start to move back. I want to get off the road as fast as possible and get myself properly cleaned once again." ¡°As you say sparkles.¡° chapter 18 There were some more eggs this morning, but I decided to leave them to hatch them. If I have enough chickens, I will have an extremely stable food source. Having food for them will not be a problem after the harvest comes in. I will never be able to eat as much grain as I will get after the harvest. This reminds me that I also have to cut and dry hay for the winter for all the animals. I continued with my training as I have been before, and the days went by quickly. On the 4th day of training, I changed some things, for archery training. I didn¡¯t just shoot at targets anymore, but I tried to imagine them as living targets. That gave me a lot of trouble do actually be able to shoot. It will be a long process to train myself to be able to kill with conscious thought. The killing that I did when the goblins attacked was more reaction based and instinctive. No thinking about taking life during that. I¡¯m glad that I¡¯m still able to get to that headspace to save my life, but I will also need to be able do actively think it might save my life someday. This is also the first day that I needed to add more weight to my weight training. Only six days and I¡¯ve already had to increase weights. If this continues, I might get into trouble and won¡¯t have equipment to keep training. That¡¯s why I also ramped up my energy, slow down training. Hopefully, this will help me alleviate that problem. During that time, I got a few skill levels. skill is upgraded to basic swimming level 2 skill is upgraded to beginner mental fortitude level 3 skill is upgraded to basic running level 6 skill is upgraded to archery level 3 skill is upgraded to basic sword level 3 skill is upgraded to basic spear level 3 skill is upgraded to basic fitness enhancement level 9 As today was coming to an end, I was starting to look for and assemble the gear I will need for the exploration trip. I decided not to go into the hill forest but the forest that is on the grassland connected with the hill forest area. That forest is a lot younger. I also want to check around the grassland and see if there¡¯s anything of use there. Tomorrow I will still be a training day, but a bit different. I want to use and test the equipment. I¡¯m missing a lot of pieces I want to take for exploration trips, but this will take time to reach and must be done over a long period of time. I have certain things in mind but honestly it will probably be a test and adjust kind of setup for exploration and for all the different gear set-up I will need. I hope I actually find some veins of metals that I could use, but that will also require a new gear set to be made. Luckily, most of that stuff is usable with all of them, but that will also mean I will need many backups. I will need more ways to start fires easily and I might want to see if I can remember any good long preserving food recipes. Some of the gear will need smithing and some I might not be able to do with even that, but that would be a problem for later. But one problem that I don¡¯t know how to solve that¡¯s extremely important is sleeping. I don¡¯t have the materials to make anything big enough for a place I can sleep inside not to speak about waterproofing that I can¡¯t do at all. For that I really would like to find some bees, the beeswax¡¯s I can get from them will solve a lot of my problems. I could not only get the necessary beeswax but, of course, the honey that will be excellent food, maybe even make some mead out of it. Unfortunately, I think this body is way too young for alcohol. I¡¯d say a couple of more years and then I will be fine. The morning of the expedition came, but honestly calling it that is a bit weird because I¡¯m basically just going into the forest close to the grassland that''s technically still on my land. Nevertheless, I should not waste the opportunity and act as if this was a huge deal and I will be gone for a couple of days. Most likely I will be back in the evening, swimming and relaxing in the river. Today I skipped cheese making and went over my gear one more time. I had the backpack on, all my better and thicker clothing, the cloak that I was most likely going to have to sew more pockets into, because why not. I brought the only spare flint and steel I have, and some tinder to quickly start fires if needed. Food for three days, a knife, an axe, bow and 20 arrows and, of course, my sword with my usual three belt system. I had the traditional shoulder quiver. I was not a fan of this style, it was good because it could fit many arrows, but it was slow for shooting. I will most likely have to make a hip quiver. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it That could also fit my own Comanche style short bow that was my current and most favourite design to use. Already the first thing noted that needed improvement, I start to head out through the fields and turning to the grassland. I hold close to the hills but never actually crossed into them. The grasslands were an interesting place to travel through, especially now that the grass was starting to get higher and higher. As I start to get closer to the forest, I started to notice young trees that were extremely sparsely starting to peek out from the grass. Obviously showing how the forest is slowly eating the grasslands. To my surprise, it looked to be an extremely slow process, but soon I figured out why that was. As I almost fell onto my face because my foot caught on something. It turned out to be a small stump that I tripped over. It is no thicker than my finger. Inspecting it, I saw teeth marks. My first thought was beavers, but there weren¡¯t any rivers nearby and it looked a bit too small and young for them to get any use out. I was a bit stumped for a while, but soon I saw an eagle like bird swooping down into the grass, soon flying up with a rabbit in its talons. Apparently, the rabbits are what¡¯s keeping trees from quickly claiming new land. And there must be a lot of them because I saw a few more birds further away that were apparently doing the same thing and catching rabbits. I think that I found my new food source and feather source. I can set-up snares to catch the rabbit and then use the rabbits to bait birds in and then shoot them. I honestly didn¡¯t expect the grasslands to offer me so much. I spent a few hours exploring and trying to figure out the rabbit¡¯s population size. It turned into an amazing discovery. Even just on my land, I expect there to be hundreds of rabbits, but the grassland extended way beyond my lands. I expected there to be thousands spread out all over. There are of course many birds that hunt them, but I also suspect some other creatures from the forest come here and also hunt them. I am lucky, most likely the current ecosystem will survive my needs. But I must make sure not to hunt too many of the birds, otherwise the rabbit population might get out of hand. But trap laying and hunting will need to be handled tomorrow. It was now time to enter the forest and continue this exploration. The forest is the same as the forest I know from the other side of the river. The plants were similar, but here there were a lot more rabbit prints and almost no deer. I found a river as I explored further into the forest. As I followed it, to my surprise, it actually went through the hills. I am guessing it was the same river as the one I saw on top of the hill that went into the lake on this side of the farm. I continue to follow the river into the hill forest. I simply wanted to know how it cut through the hills. Will it stay on the ground and just follow the lower areas in the hills or will it go underground at some point. But as I got deeper in on this side of the river, the more it started to change to something else, an older forest. As I continued to try to follow the river to the other side of the hill forest. I started do subconsciously move slower and more carefully. When I finally noticed my actions, I was already moving as slowly as when you would try to sneak up on a prey animal. This spooked me as I tried to understand what was going on. It didn''t take long for me to understand the feeling I have. The closest I can describe it is when you go in an MMO into a zone that you''re way too under level for. The further in you get, the more you start to expect and anticipate the worst. So, I did the most reasonable thing. I started to quickly backtrack, make it out before anything happened. Now I don¡¯t know if this feeling was all in my mind or if there was some truth to it, but I wasn¡¯t going to take this risk. Most likely it was just the closed in river and the canopy that made the day look like evening. I made it back to where I felt safe and then went a bit further away and started more of the exploration. I didn¡¯t have a direct destination in mind, but I was just combing for anything useful. And to my delight, I actually found something extremely useful, a perfect tree for an English longbow. It was getting towards the evening side, and I will most likely never be able to find this tomorrow. Even if I had better tools to keep track of my positioning, there was no GPS that track me to 1 meter of my current location. That meant I got the axe out and started to cut down the medium-sized tree. It didn¡¯t take long with my ability to cut it down. I tried to bring back as big of a piece as possible. Leaving the branches here and trimming off where it got too thin to get any useful bows out of. The piece of yew I got out of it was almost 6 meters long, that I now needed to bring back. I guess it¡¯s time for strength training even today, when I was supposed to have a day off. In my current location, the trees are sparse enough that bringing it back wouldn¡¯t be a problem aside from the actual bringing part. On the shoulder it went and with many breaks, I head straight for the road section that was closest. I had to switch my shoulders multiple times and take longer and longer breaks, but I did make it to the road eventually. I wasn¡¯t that far away from the farm, but no way in hell was I going to lift and move that log by myself again. I slowly got up and moved towards the farm, my throat burning because I ran out of water halfway through bringing up the log. When I got back, the first thing I did was to get cold water from the well to quench my thirst. I took some jerky to chew it and went to get the bull. The bull was excited to be able to do something else. He has been begging me to do something with him every time I tend to the cows or when I gave him scratches. He was also a good listener when I had some problems I wanted to express. So maybe some training for him will be in order as well. I will need to think about how to do that. I don¡¯t think the harness is meant for anything heavier than he¡¯s already used to, but I guess we will see. It was a quick trip, bringing the log back. So easy in fact, it might have been a good idea to just bring the log out of the forest and then come pick it up with the bull. But then I remembered how many rabbit holes I stepped into, and I cringed at the thought of the bull spraining or even breaking his leg. That would be a really bad thing. So better me suffering than a possible loss of a great animal. After this, I just did a relaxing soak in the river without any training of energies or anything else. Just relaxing and a bit of stretching. I really wish I had a sauna where I could spend time in and recover myself better. Thinking about that really pissed me off because of the goblins. Getting a sauna was pushed back, and that is absolutely not acceptable. And that thought was all it took for me to be able to visualize myself killing those bastards keeping me from my sauna. I really need more recreational stuff or else I will go crazy. I had some smoked meat and some carrots for dinner, but I was still steaming and that annoyance bleed over into the food, making me hate the bland stuff. Tomorrow I will most certainly go and catch some rabbits to cook, then set-up some traps for them. Maybe I will be able to get a female one for breeding but now that I have a big supply it might not be necessary. Of course, I hope I will get feathers so I can make even more arrows. I honestly don¡¯t even know why I¡¯m making so many. I have nearly 500 of them now. But then again, when was it ever a bad thing to have more arrows. chapter 19 Today started with a surprise one of the cows almost didn¡¯t produce any milk. I hope this means that she¡¯s pregnant, but using the ability on her didn¡¯t bring up anything new. But I really hope it¡¯s true getting more cows for milk is good. While making cheese is troublesome, its excellent long-term food and I think I actually might have an idea on how I can skip the everyday stinging nettle collection for rennet. But for that I need to build a kiln and that¡¯s a problem that I haven¡¯t figured out yet. I will need some more thinking about how to make bricks that can withstand so much heat if I want to make more than one item per kiln built. Today was also the day when finally, all four chickens started hatching eggs. Normal chicken eggs take about 20 days to hatch. I wonder if the hatching time is different here. I didn¡¯t think today¡¯s excitement would start so early. I was expecting it to start when I made it to the grassland to start rabbit hunting and hopefully, bird hunting. All chores done except cheese making that I am skipping. I started to craft some traps. I just needed a few pieces to help me set-up some more complex traps that are not as simple as a snare. This trap design will make sure the noose tightens quickly and doesn''t require the rabbit itself to pull the noose closed. Even if the grassland has most of the rabbits. I think the best choice will be to set-up that traps inside the forest close to the grasslands. The trees make a good funnel like paths that forces rabbits to travel through certain locations. Traps will be way too open in the grasslands, so I will probably never have any rabbits by the time I get to them the next morning and the birds will have an easy meal. But I can still use the grassland for active hunting with my bow and if I find burrows I can set-up traps in front of them and try to scare them out. The last one will be the last resort when I truly need some food. Finishing the trap parts needed, I get a level in basic wood crafting, bringing me to level 9 and I got basic trap making to level 2. Bringing some more rope and the trap parts, I also brought a sickle for cutting grass to reveal clear some areas if needed. I made my way by road mostly because the grassland nearest the farm didn¡¯t have any rabbits. I¡¯m guessing it will fill up if the rabbit population starts increasing. Some birds flying over trying to hunt some rabbits similar to yesterday, but I currently ignore them and went into the forest to set-up some traps. Because of the sparse trees, it was harder to find locations that the rabbits most walked through. Soon I figured out why there were so many rabbit prints everywhere. They were moving to different water sources. Which made sense because in the grassland only after rain will there be water that is readily available. I was following the prints when I stumbled across a small stream, but even calling it that was giving it a bigger name than it deserved. As I followed the flow back, it turned out to be a small water spring. The way there was full of rabbit prints and there were actually a few rabbits currently there drinking. I won¡¯t hunt them there because watering holes like this are safe zones for the animals. No prey animal will hunt anyone here, so I will not as well. But I did watch and learned and thanks to this I also saw the second predator species. It was about twice the size of a regular house cat and with its fur being brownish green. The rabbits become alert, but even when the cat came closer, they did not run. The way the rabbits reacted, I know that it was a hunter of rabbits. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. This was the first time I have seen this type of predator and it was an exciting thing to see. To my surprise, it seemed to stick to the ground when it was moving away. I wonder if it¡¯s because of the sparse woods or because it was more of a on the ground hunter. I found one more of the same type of stream and when I followed it, I found a fairly similar sight. This made me wonder how many similar places like this are in this forest and are there some in the grasslands. As I walked back and went to see my traps and if I had got anything. Turned out I already had two rabbits captured. First, I checked if they were females, but they were not, so I quickly killed them and attached them to my belt. I got one more rabbit like that, and I had to re-evaluate my plans again. I thought that I will need to leave the traps here overnight, but that obviously wasn¡¯t needed. So, I continued to set up traps, then turn around and check them. Over time, I formed a route for catching them. When I killed the 4th one, I continued catching them until I got a female rabbit. It took 7 more male rabbits until that happened. I released all the male ones, no need to kill too many. I hold it tight and headed out from that forest through the grassland back to the farm. When there I butchered all the rabbits, I got three workable hides from them. But before I started to deal with the hides, I started to build another rabbit cage. I did the same design as before, but I was starting to run out of wood. I really needed to get access to the forest again. If I can¡¯t get it soon, I might have to start planning a way to bring wood from the grassland forest. No way I was going to try to cut down trees and bring them back from the hill forest, way too much work. While the new rabbit was settling into her new cage, I started to deal with the hides. I left all the hairs on them because I might need warmer clothes during winter. At the same time, I also smoked three of the rabbits in the smoker. One I left for cooking in the oven for today¡¯s dinner. It was starting to move towards evening, but I still decided to go out one more time into the grasslands. This time intending to start learning to hunt rabbits. At the start I didn¡¯t even get a glimpse of rabbits, I barely saw any grass move. But overtime I started to be stealthier about my approach and that started to pay dividends. Even then I need to strain and train my eyes to better see the irregularity in the grassland. With all that, most I could see were small slivers of rabbits. That disappeared as I tried to position myself for shooting them. All my movements were too strange and noticeable that they always run away before I could do anything. But I continued and for my efforts I got a new skill basic stealth and soon after that I started to use the grass to camouflage myself, getting myself another skill in that. I continued and even got another skill level in stealth before I ended the hunting trip. I didn¡¯t even get to shoot once. But that didn¡¯t matter. I was making progress and sooner or later I will get the shoot even then I will most likely miss. It will take a long time before I get a kill. But that¡¯s what training is all about. Thanks to this grassland solving my food problems for the time being, I will not have to go on expeditions for meat or anything else that isn''t currently high priority. So, I will move to my current highest priority, that is expanding my combat ability. That meant training and hunting in the grassland every day. I got really lucky with having so much meat easily available for myself because sooner or later, the goblins will return, and I will need to be prepared. That thought probably saved my life because I didn¡¯t prepare any traps or alarms that will kill or notify me of any goblin that tries to cross the bridge using the main support. And what if they somehow find another way across the river? It would be a good idea to place some kind of traps on this side of the river. As I got back, the first thing I did was prepare the rabbit and put it in the oven with some onions and carrots. Unfortunately, they were starting to show their age. The cellar seems to be good enough, but it wasn''t the best place I can make a food preserving. That meant that I might need to make a better place for preserving food. Most likely I will need to make it big enough so all the potatoes and other root vegetables that I harvest will be able to last as long as they need to. But if I can¡¯t sell off any of my product to humans, the animals on my farm will eat really well. Rabbits that can eat carrot daily is a funny sight to see but also a little bit sad. After placing the roast into the oven, I went for a swim during the sunset. Now I was completely certain that days were getting longer. There was still some time left until the summer solstice. I really would like to get the sauna done by then. I will need a lot of wood for a proper bonfire as well to celebrate the longest day of the year. They didn''t seem to have a lot of holidays: the summer solstice, the winter solstice, their birthdays, and the harvest festival. The parties will be a bit lame if I¡¯m the only person with my animals celebrating, but it will still be a party. No world ending events or anything else can keep me from enjoying holidays. The swim was nice. I still focused on energy training during it. It was kind of relaxing and I did focus more on training slowing energy movement, so when I need to train my body, it will not require lifting buildings. chapter 20 Next day started with rain. Still, I had to do my morning chores. The female rabbit seems to have settled in nicely. Today I threw the chicken some grains for them to eat. After the cheese making, I was left with a smaller wheel because I was getting less milk when done i had nothing else to do during the rain. I could still do my training in the rain, but I decided against it just because. I decided to prepare the bow wood I got even if it will not take that long. For that I did the job in the workshop so I could stay dry and so could the wood. I cut it into three pieces close to 2 meters long, using the ruler to measure them out. For splitting, I used the wedges I have to carefully split it apart. It took some careful work to be able to get 16 pieces, I might be able to turn into English longbows depending on how well they dry. I put them up onto the rafters, a perfect place for drying. After that, there was really not much I could do. The rain was still coming down strong, so I just sat down and start doing energy training. Skill increases basic energy manipulation level 6 Skill increases beginner mental fortitude level 4 At lunch time the rain stopped, and the sun started shining again. I went to the bridge to figure out what kinds of traps I could make to stop and notify myself if something tries to get over the bridge using the main support. After examining, I think the best solution would be to mount spring loaded spike traps. So, the spikes shoot out at anyone that makes it to the raised part of the bridge and tries to climb onto the farm side of the bridge using the main supports. For the spring part, I will use bow like limbs. Most likely, 2 will be enough for one trap. For the spikes, I will make a rectangular structure where I can put many spikes and then I can use it also to block off the best way across the bridge. For the alarm, I could simply use strings that will trigger if any of the traps are activated, or the bridge is pulled down. The only problem with that simple design is the alarm part. The only thing I can currently think about is maybe making a bell like object, but I don¡¯t have the metal currently. This problem will require some more thinking. But first, let¡¯s get the spike traps done. I went and got the ruler to start taking some measurements on the bridge. I had quite a lot of space to work with thanks to the design of the railing. During my measurement, I also figured it would be a good idea to put a sort of a locking system on to the spikes so when they sprung, they will lock into place. Making it difficult to just push them aside requiring you to break them if you want to get past them. Back at the workshop, I first started to work on the spike board. I ended up with a 1 by 1 meter square looking like a shipping pallet. Next, I started to carve the holes for the spikes with a knife. I tried to use the piercing cut to easily make the holes, but that didn¡¯t help me as much as I wanted. But it did help me some. I ended up with 10 spike holes when I was done. I just needed to repeat the same thing once more. After that I start to look for wood to use for the spikes. I didn¡¯t have much oak left, but I was able to get 8 of the required 20 spikes out of oak, and the rest I made from building wood. It was not the perfect solution, but it will still be good enough. For the spikes themselves, I will make the bottom part into a peg. I purposely made the hole smaller so the peg will go in, but not the rest of the spike. That way, when the spike hits it, the board will keep it in place. I also made the pegs a bit longer than the hole''s thickness, so when I placed them in, I could tap them so no one can pull the spikes out from the other side. When the spikes were done, I moved on to making the spring limbs. I used the bow wood I made the short bows out of. I made them a bit wider than my regular bows and after testing, I ended up not with 2 for one trap but 3 limbs. They had to move a lot of weight and I wanted them to move it fast. The problem was how would I attach them; and also how will I attach it so that the spike boards come up. At first, I thought I will attach them to the limb but that would put too much sideways weight onto them if they can hold up the board at all. And of course, I can¡¯t forget about when I need to lower the bridge. What will I do about the traps then? After thinking for a bit, brilliant idea came to me. I will make the spike board be connected to the rising part of the bridge with hinges. The hinges will support the weight leaving the spring to put all their power into moving the spikes as fast as possible. That way, the limbs can also be attached simply by carving slots into the bridge boards. For the spike board part, I made housings where the spring part will be going into. This way, there is no need for nails or ropes to hold the spring. That makes them easy to replace if needed. I made simple wooden hinges that I made strong, putting three of them per spike board. Next, I start by making the trap components that are responsible for springing the trap whenever someone tries to cross. I made 2 pieces that would be responsible for holding the spike board in place when under tension. I will also need another part that will be the centerpiece that keeps the strings tight, and if moved, the trap will activate. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. The next and last part is that will actually register if anyone is trying to cross. I will just make a simple, extremely thin board that I will place on the main support. It will overhang it and be extremely light, so if anyone steps on it and moves it, the trap activates. For the string that connects to it, I will put it under the bridge boards so it will not be easily seen. When all parts for both spike traps were done, I went to assemble them. I needed to carve slots into the bridge where the springs will go into and nail in the hinges. When the bridge is lowered, the spike traps hang out like wings on a bird. When the first one was in place, I tested it out and the speed and the snap of it was impressive. But I did almost lose one of the limbs and I had to scramble to catch it before it fell into the river. The solution is simple, I just tied a string on the middle of the springs so it would not fall into the river. I also installed the holding mechanism. It was a simple wood piece that will fall in place when the trap activates and hold it from being pushed back. I had to use a big nail for the center so it will be able to rotate easily. Luckily, there were a few big nails with large heads that were perfect. Another nail so it will not rotate too much and it''s done. Getting the trigger plate in place was difficult. There was a good chance of falling into the river, but I was able to get both traps built and armed without falling in. For the alarm system, I thought of an easy solution. I will simply place a big board underneath the tower and make an extension at the top where I can place a rock. Then make a system. When the alarm trap is activated, the rock will hit the board, making a loud sound. That¡¯s the best I can currently do. Doing a drop test it made a loud enough noise that hopefully it will work even when I¡¯m sleeping. It didn¡¯t take too long to make. The hardest part was getting the rock on top of the tower and the system to make it fall from there. I basically just made it so every time I needed to build it again. It¡¯s just uses 2 boards, one to support the board that holds the rock and a pulley system to pull out the supporting board. I checked the notifications I have got. basic wood carving level 5 basic trap making level 3 basic trap making level 4 Skill increases basic wood crafting level 10 is upgraded to wood crafting level 1 Choose one of the following abilities merging joints sharp cut wood sight Another sight, I will skip this one. Sharp cut will most likely work like piercing cut, but will be on more constantly not a single action. But I will pick merging joints. I think this can help a lot in the future. You have gained a new ability merging joints level 1 When this was done, I went and started training, it was too late and I didn¡¯t have time to go hunt training after that today. Next day was spent training. Hunting was going slowly, but I could see myself progressing thanks to the achievement page. I got another level in stealth. The next day after my training, I went to catch rabbits in the grassland forest. I also did some running training with that because I run back to skin them but this time, I didn¡¯t smoke them. I will just be making them in the oven for everyday food. This will last me two days, so every third day I will need to go catch two or three rabbits. Two days passed quite quickly and while I was killing my third rabbit of the day, my frontier farmer leveled up. Level up frontier farmer frontier farmer now level 10 strength +6 dexterity +4 vitality +6 endurance +3 free points gained +15 perk is gained trait combine New trait gained vitality reaches 40 new trait gained strong constitution Activate perk trait combine 24h left until perk disappears So many stat points with this level up and free points as well. I guess I hit a milestone. The trait combining perk is interesting and I think the best solution will be to sink all my free points before I select it. Then I will have more traits it has to choose from to combine into hopefully a good trait. Looking at my stats screen, I can reach the 40 milestone of dexterity. I will be able to get to the 20 milestone of endurance. Those will be the biggest ones and I think the best choices. I added 8 free points into dexterity and 6 into endurance, getting me to 40 and 20, leaving me with 1 free stat point. New trait gained dexterity reaches 40 new trait gained better reaction speed endurance reaches 20 new trait gained better lungs When finished getting the traits, I select that option to combine. It didn''t do anything at first, but slowly I could feel energy starting to move into me from the outside. I tried to focus and see it. At the start it was like a breeze, but as I focused more and more, I started to see something similar to heat waves moving towards me. As time goes by, the stronger it becomes until I could feel myself heating up at the start, it was pleasant. But after a little while it started to really hurt, but I could understand that this was beneficial, so I endured the pain. Before it ended, I got another message. Special action performed Ability gained energy sight I was able to briefly concentrate enough to activate the new ability, and I saw colourful energy all around me in a thick cloud moving through me. I soon got overwhelmed, and I lost the little bit of concentration I had. Even though the pain was great, I kept standing out of stubbornness. When the pain finally subsided, the feeling of pain was replaced with pleasure. I have never felt better in my life, then things started to even out again and I felt completely exhausted from the experience. New trait gained giant among men As I looked at my traits, all the traits were gone, leaving me with the one that was combined. When I try to concentrate on it in my achievement page all I could get was a feeling that it will absorb more traits if they are compatible. When I started to focus back on the world, everything was slightly different. I could see farther, I could hear better, I was in touch with the world better. I hadn¡¯t grown or become a giant, as I feared. Deciding to skip the other half of today¡¯s training. I just butchered the rabbits and tried to feel my new body and what it was trying to tell me. I felt new power coursing through me but not the stats energy but my own bodies. It was strong and healthy, ready to do my bidding at a moment''s notice. A real breakthrough came while meditated in the river. The spot that I like to soak in was perfect for it. It had a sandy bottom, and it was in a curve where the current almost didn¡¯t affect it at all. I stood there, water up to my chest and meditated on my body. I¡¯m pretty sure that the trait didn¡¯t give me giant blood, making me grow too big. It meant that I am now a lot better than most other humans in regards to the body . The traits name giant among men makes a bit more sense now. The traits improve me from a regular man into a so-called giant compared to others. chapter 21 Morning came quickly. As I went to get some food, a weird pulling feeling pulled me towards my grandfather¡¯s room. As I walked into it, I could feel the property map wanting to connect to me. I walked to it and touched it as soon as I did it. The black and white map with almost no details starts to colour in. But it didn¡¯t colour in fully just the places I have visited and it had a lot more details on it. I¡¯m guessing it happened because I reached level 10 in my frontier farmer class. It was amazing to see such a magical thing happen, and I wondered how I could use this to my advantage. Most likely I will need to get a skill or ability to help make more use out of this map. I tried to examine it more, even watched it with my energy vision, but other than it being extremely colourful and complicated, I didn¡¯t say anything useful for me currently. I went back to my regular schedule activities. This morning a second cow stopped producing milk. That meant that there was no need to make cheese anymore. One cow''s amount of milk can be easily drunk in a day. Today I also started to train more of my abilities. Energy sight was useful, but I will need a lot of training to understand it¡¯s better and take advantage of it. Currently, my day was already filled with other training. During archery training starting tomorrow, I will train the silent arrow ability from now on. I haven¡¯t used it much before because it uses up a lot of energy and it wouldn¡¯t return quick enough to do my other energy training. But with my new trait, it seemed that it replenished faster and there seemed to be more of it besides the stat gains I had. It was a bit weird to get used to my new body strength and during weight training, I really had to try to slow down my energy movement, otherwise the current weights would be practically useless. I continue to train and catch rabbits when needed. I was now able to at least shoot at the rabbits, but I haven¡¯t actually been able to hunt and kill one yet. They were slippery creatures. And before I know it, 7 days passed, and I got a lot of levels to show for my work. It¡¯s the one thing that I absolutely love about this system. It¡¯s how easily you can see your progress. skill increases basic tracking level 5 basic energy manipulation level 7 basic butchering level 3 archery level 4 basic running level 8 basic stealth level 4 basic camouflage level 2 Skill increases basic fitness enhancement level 10 is upgraded to fitness enhancement level 1 Choose one of the following abilities quick boost heavy training quick step All the options sound good. Two are most likely for combat and the middle one for training. I love to boost my combat ability but training is more important during the long term, so I picked that hoping it will help me. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Next day, after my chores and archery training, it was finally time for weight training and hopefully the new ability will help. The ability did exactly that. It made the equipment heavier without me needing to slow energy movement or make equipment that is that heavy. It fixed my problem instantly. I was wondering about other uses for this ability when I heard a small crack. I couldn¡¯t figure out what it was, but a moment later a huge crashing sound ranged through. That was the bridge alarm system. I quickly got my short bow and sword and started running towards the bridge. With all my stats and run training, I got there quickly. One of the traps had activated, but I couldn¡¯t see why because I was running straight at the bridge, so my vision was blocked. I started running sideways and saw a goblin held up by multiple spikes running through him and two more goblins on the other side of the river, frozen in what looked like bewilderment. I slowed down and started do slowly move into place. I tried to get a bit closer so my shots will be true. When I was ready, they started to argue with each other, so I had a moment to prepare myself for what I was about to do. I shot 1 arrow high and then another one straight at the left one. They got hit at the same time one goblin was shot in the head, dying instantly. The other one got hit in the belly and after a moment of freezing, it started to run away. I already had another arrow flying towards it, now hitting it in the back. It didn''t kill him instantly, but the heavy blood flow from the wound confirm to me that it was about to die. I stayed there for a few more moments looking for any more goblins, but I didn¡¯t see any. Quickly running and climbing the tower, I spent a while looking at the tree line to see if there were any other goblins. There didn¡¯t seem to be any. I didn¡¯t think about how to deal with anything that got caught by the spikes. Really, more than anything, I honestly hoped that it would just push them off the bridge. Now I had to figure out how to get him off. Best solution turned out to be to just take my spears back end and push it through the spike trap and push him into the river. I then lowered the bridge for the first time in a long time. Examining the two other goblins, they seem to be in poor health and extremely poor compared to the other ones. They didn¡¯t have a scrap of metal on them, only a stone axe for one and a stone knife for the other. I threw them into the river as well. It might be a bad idea to keep doing that and I guess it is a long time coming for me to head down the river to see the lake. Today I didn¡¯t go hunt training instead after I pulled up the bridge again and reset the traps. I quickly put together my expedition equipment and started heading down the river. I wanted to get this done today because most likely I will have to stay on the farm for a few days to look out for any more attacks. I continue to move beside the river. After a while, the grassy lands started to turn into a forest. The forest never got too thick, and I started to see the lake through it. The ground it seemed to be very sandy here, most likely the reason there were so few trees. Another river joined the bridge river. It was a larger one, making the combined one a lot larger. I had to go a little further, but as I got closer to the lake, the river turned into a delta. The delta was overgrown with strange looking trees. They were at most an arm thickness and were tangled together in different ways. It was almost impossible to travel through that. They also extended a little bit onto the beaches on both sides, but they didn''t go any further than that. The beach was beautiful here the sand was golden. The lake looked big. I could see the other river, the hill one flowing in, but there was no delta like this one. This looked like a place that would be filled with people when summer was coming, and the weather started to get warmer. I was smart enough to not go into the lake. Who knows what can live here, and I was not going to put my life at risk for a quick swim. The lake had a beach all around it, with a thick forest surrounding that. The lake looked alive with activity. I saw birds catching bugs and fish and on the other side I think I saw some animals drinking. Throwing goblins down river will do nothing more than feed the wildlife, luckily. I could see the rivers coming in, but didn¡¯t see any going out. This was an interesting mystery because the rivers brought in a lot of water. After my immediate curiosity was sated. I started to move back, but this time I didn¡¯t pay attention to the farm side of the river but the other side. The forest seemed similar to the one close to the farm. I didn¡¯t expect it to be anything different, but I did look for a narrow place in the river that can make a crossing easier. If there was, I might want to trap that place. But my bridge was in the narrowest part. Most likely, I am safe from goblins flanking me. When I got back, no traps were activated or anything like that. I did another watch on the tower but ended it when evening came. I quickly run upriver, but even there it was a bit wider than around my farm. It did move slower, indicating it was shallower. When I got back and was in bed starting to go to sleep, I wonder what the next days will hold for me. *** How the current map looks like. The red border is how large the property is. Grey is unexplored land. chapter 22 Next morning came through troubled sleep. At one point, I had to hold on to my sword to get some proper sleep.I was afraid that the goblins will find a way across, and the traps didn''t notify me, or I didn''t hear them. But morning came, and I was not attacked by anything. I do my morning chores in a sombre mood. I will most likely not be able to leave the farm for at least a few days. If there are no more attacks, I will go back to a regular schedule. After the chores, I decided to board up the top of the tower in a way that I¡¯m not visible when I¡¯m sitting there, but I still left a gap where I could look out of, when I was sitting down and hidden. I also made a place for lots of arrows to be out of the rain and for the bow as well. So now I had one stash of arrows at the house, at the bottom of the tower, and now on top as well. I sat there and watched until it was time for lunch, but before I could get up and go down, I notice some movement at the edge of the forest. Soon, two goblins came out. They looked similar to the ones yesterday, one was even limping. I watch curiously as they came closer. They seem to be arguing with each other and looking around on the ground. They had to be quite a lot closer when I finally noticed what they were looking for. I think they were tracking the goblins that came yesterday. That was stupid of me not to erase the tracks. But if they were doing that, then most likely this wasn¡¯t a sanctioned attack and from the look of their belly, it was quite a lot smaller and had flapping skin. They were starving, and they had many old wounds, and one had a bad leg wound. With the bad condition they are in, I would have to assume that these are the worst-off goblins wherever they live. Looks like they are willing to take the risk of coming here to be able to get some food and maybe a better position in their society. I tried to listen to their language, but I couldn¡¯t pick up any familiar words until they reached the bridge and one said go in the common language of the humans. That was really interesting to know that they could speak some common or at least their word sounded extremely similar. But they were now in position, one waiting on the bridge and the other one trying not to fall off the main support as he walks on it. I prepared my bow and quickly got up, startling them. I quickly shot the one that was on the bridge, this time not aiming for the central mass but the head and hitting it, killing it instantly. But before I could shoot the other one, he had fallen into the river and was currently drowning. My suspicions were correct. Their belly worked as a floating device making the head go under water. I still quickly shot into the chest, hopefully making his struggles end quickly. I shot him just in case he was able to grab onto this side of the riverbank and drag himself up. I was smart not to just leave steel tipped arrows here because otherwise I would have lost one right now and watched it floating down river. I kept watching, but it didn¡¯t seem there was anyone else coming, so I lower the bridge and threw the other one into the river as well. This caused me to have to reset the traps again and doing that on a regular basis was going to be annoying. So, when I was back at home eating lunch, I thought of a quick plan to fix that. I made a throwing hook with wood and nails that I attached to a piece of rope long enough so I could just throw the hook and drag the goblins into the river without me having to lower the bridge. With that done, I was back on top of the tower for another stay on the watch. But I didn¡¯t just do that, I also trained a bit of my energy, and some abilities especially the sight ones, learning more about them might help me in the future. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. That evening I made some more small meat pie so I can bring them with me, and I didn¡¯t have to leave for lunch. I was also starting to run out of rabbit meat. I still have a lot of smoked deer meat, but I hope this doesn¡¯t last too long or else I might be in quite a lot of trouble. Today there weren¡¯t any goblins, but I was still getting annoyed with the constant distractions the goblins created. A solution must be found. During night I did dream of a solution, but that would mean going on the offensive and I don¡¯t know if I wish to antagonize the goblins even more. Who knows how many there are and how well organized they could be. During my chores, I also checked out my supplies, and I did have enough to make what I need. I didn¡¯t know if I was ready for what needed to be done. I was not certain about that, so I just went on my watch, did energy training, but mostly just thought about my next move. To my annoyance during the evening, I saw another group of goblins show up. They looked similar to the ones before. Four moved out slowly from the forest. They seemed to be looking back at something. Then I saw what they were looking at, a goblin that looked healthy and had an iron spear. The 4 looked to be urging him to follow. They were stopped at the forest edge where the four were pointing towards the ground and then the bridge, and they looked like they were pleading with the iron spear wielder about something. I guess the bigger one was annoyed because he hit one of the other ones that got too close. Then he pointed with the spear towards the bridge, and they all started walking towards it. When they got close, I could hear that the four goblins were trying to explain something with pointing and pleading. If I had to guess, I would say that they know the goblins that came before and wanted the goblin with the iron spear to help them look for them, but he looked very hesitant to approach. I hoped that the goblin with the iron spear will order them to leave. As they were looking at the bridge and around it, the iron spear goblin commanded the other 4 to go onto the main supports and try to cross the bridge on both sides. As all four goblins were about halfway across. It was time for another small fight. I shot at the goblin that was still on the bridge first and quickly killed him, but only one of the goblins on the main supports fell into the river because of the sudden surprise. Next shot went for the one that fell into the river. The other 3 goblins were trying to quickly get back onto the bridge. I got one more into the back before the others reached the bridge. The second one didn''t leave it, and the third one got only a few steps onto the grass before I hit his back as well, making him bleed out. Using the hook was pointless because I wanted to get the iron spear. It was in an awful state similar to the other ones, but it will still give more metal to smelt down even if it¡¯s just to make some nails. After all this was done and I was back on top of the tower looking out, I knew I was in trouble. If the poor-looking ones were able to convince someone higher up to help them, look for their family or friends, then certainly the one with the iron spear will be searched for. That meant I had no other option than to go on the offensive. Sitting back and just defending will give them all the initiative and if you want to survive, giving your enemy something for free is never a good idea. After watching for a bit, I went to gather the wood I will need and started to making the fold up walkway I thought of. I could use it to cross, not from here but from another place, attack or scout, then quickly rush back again without ever having to use the bridge. I will defend and control the forest because the forest across the bridge was technically my land, and I was not going to give up on it that easily. I will make this walkway from seven sections of 1-meter-long wooden boards. They are going to be foldable with hinges. That would never hold my weight, for that I needed to make a sideways foldable box that I could fold underneath the boards. Foldable boxes will be on both sides of the boards. They must be made with hinges as well and will need to be slidable so they will support the connecting parts of the boards. This will make it all strong enough to carry my weight and get me across quickly. For the hinges, I did use nails to connect them onto the boards, but also used my ability merging joints to give them some extra strength. It was a complex build, and I sometimes needed to take things apart and rework them to be able to fold it up. I will carry it in a backpack that meant my back will be occupied. I will need to make a hip quiver. The back one will not work, there is no room for it. I wasn¡¯t able to finish the build completely before the sun went down, but I came really close. That didn¡¯t end today''s work after my dinner. I started to work on the hip quiver I used the deer leather I have. Working with so little light the candle and fireplace gave me was difficult, but it needs to be done. I finished it late into the night. It was a simple design. I didn¡¯t make the extra slot where the bow will go when it is unstrung. That just wasn¡¯t required at the moment, and it would have extended the build time too much. So a simple leather tube it is with reinforced edge and a wood circle at the bottom so the arrow tips will not break through the bottom. chapter 23 Morning arrived and I could feel a clock on me, so I did everything as fast as possible. When the chores were done, I started to finish off the foldable walkway. I needed to make some changes from my original design for the foldable boxes. I needed to make slot connectors I couldn¡¯t use that slit method. It would be too slow and too much could go wrong if I needed to assemble it fast. The change shouldn¡¯t change the assembly time too much. The hinges that connect to the main boards also needed to be made so that they can move up and down a little, otherwise I couldn¡¯t fold up the bridge. It took me a bit longer than I wanted to, but when I was finished, I went to test it out. Not on the river, just in case it fails, and I fell in. I placed two of my logs 6 meters from each other. I packed up the folding walkway into the backpack. It even had room leftover for some other stuff, maybe extra arrows. Then I did the quick simulation. Running towards the logs as quickly as I can, then try to get the folding walkway out and assembled. It took me over a minute to assemble it and get it in place. If I practised some more, I think I can get the time down by about half. I start to walk over it slowly when I reach the middle. I tried to jump on it, and it held up. As I jumped again, the walkway moved underneath me and I slipped and fell to the ground. I will need to fix that, probably some spikes at both ends, so they will dig into the dirt, and this wouldn''t happen again. I tested it for a bit longer and then try to fold it up. I put it into the backpack. It held up surprisingly well and I expect to get a lot of uses out of this before something will give, and I needed to make a new one or fix this one. I added some foldable wooden spikes I made them as long as possible. I also put a lock on them so they will really dig into the dirt and there wouldn¡¯t be a possibility that one or both not going in and making me raise it and drop it again. I didn¡¯t immediately set out to cross onto the other side. This will not happen today. Instead, I made my way to the tower for another watch. During my watch, I was also thinking about different defensive measures I could make. Maybe traps that I could build. Make some pit traps and some spike traps on the other side of the bridge. But working there for so long will most likely not be the best idea. Now if I focused on making traps in the forest, setting them up with the resources there will be easier and quicker. But then came the problem that I wanted to retake the forest and if I was building traps upon traps in there. Even if I went through disassembling them later on, I would probably miss some and that wouldn''t be the optimal choice for my survival. You never want to trap area that you want to reclaim or live in. But maybe some more traps on this side, hidden behind the raised bridge. I¡¯ve noticed that every time someone tries to cross, someone stayed behind, so make some spike traps that shoot out where the others will stand when one of the traps is activated. I wonder if I could make a sort of like a wall of spikes to shoot out and kill all waiting. I just need some more thinking about that. I also hadn¡¯t considered if they had anything bigger than themselves, like trolls or something like that. My bow power might not be enough if that happened. Making a ballista can be a good idea. Maybe mounted onto the tower with my current strength I could pull back and incredibly strong one with some mechanical help. Then I can shoot at anything that is too big for my bow to handle. I can even make something similar to grapeshot so I could take out clusters of smaller enemies. This is a really interesting idea worth considering. But I currently don¡¯t have the correct wood. I will need to find and cut down a tree I would need for a ballista. It will need to dry it at least a little while before I could use it for a ballista that will last for a bit. When I get the next chance to go into a forest, I really should do that. For the flying spikes, I might have what I need with the short bow planks I have. Stolen story; please report. I have the basic knowledge, but I don¡¯t know how effective it can actually be and how to make the launching mechanism, maybe like a sling type of release, with simple wood dart. As lunchtime started, I was still thinking about the problems and eating my pies when I notice some movement. At the forest edge, there was another group, but this time they were all well equipped for goblins. Even when they argued there about what I assume they will do next. They still stayed hidden a lot better than the rest of them previously. To my horror, two of them stayed behind and three moved towards the bridge. I will never be able to hit the ones in the forest even if they didn''t notice there was an arrow flying forwards them and move away, hitting so far is more about luck and the hope that the wind will carry the arrow a bit further. They were outside my active range, but they could still see everything I did if I started to shoot like I had previously. The question became, is it important to hide what I do and how? Perhaps, but they looked more well-trained than goblins before and I wanted to see how they will interact with my defences. So, I just sat there and watched, but still prepared to shoot at the moment¡¯s notice. I watched as they came closer and started do actively search around the bridge. Now I might have overestimated their intelligence, but better to do that than underestimate it. Searching around for them meant hitting stuff with their weapons to test them. I don¡¯t know what that gave them, but for me it was annoying that they were leaving weapon marks on the bridge. It took them a while to look around. I think they discussed some plans on how to cross but eventually they did the same as the other ones. One of the goblins started to cross using the main support. It was doing it on the other side of the tower so I didn¡¯t see his progress while I was sitting down. But I did hear a small shout, then the trap activated leading to a wet slap the goblin didn''t even have time to scream in pain before he died. The other goblins acted instantly, ready to defend themselves with their weapons in front of them. After a bit, they calm down and started arguing with each other. I had to take off another notch in their intelligence as the second one went across the second main support, ending in the same result. The third one that was left turned around and run back to the forest edge. After some time, two goblins came back and one stayed watching at the forest edge. I just watched them come back, and the goblin that was here before started to cross. Luckily, he did it on this side so I could observe him. When he made it to the trap, I expected him to pull off the dead goblin, but he didn¡¯t. He just used him to climb over the trap. When he was on top of the trap and clear of the spikes, he almost fell in, but was able to grab a hold of the edge of the raised bridge to prevent that. When he finally jumped to the other side, he started to talk with the other goblin and soon started to move forward. At this time, my arrow was already knocked and drawn back. I was in an awkward sitting position, but I didn¡¯t want to expose myself. When he finally came into my arrows fight path, I released and hit him into the head. I used the silent arrow ability. It didn¡¯t just make the arrow silent, but the bow released as well. It took a bit of training to achieve that added effect. Thanks to the river, the noise that did happen didn¡¯t make it to the goblin that was still alive. He tried calling a few times, but only silence greeted him. Then he quickly moved back to the forest''s edge. They didn¡¯t return. I still watched for quite a long time before I was satisfied that they were gone. It was now time for clean-up the goblins that were killed by the traps their weapons were dropped into the river, but I did get a two metal shoulder pieces before I shoved them off the spikes and into the river. The one that got past the traps was carrying an iron dagger and had one piece of ill-fitting iron armor. After I took everything useful, I threw him in as well. I reset the traps, but some improvements were needed for them. I need to make a slanted upper part for the trap, so climbing over it will not be simple. It was a good idea to be able to disarm the alarm when I was on top of the tower. Rebuilding it every time would have been annoying, especially because I already knew the goblins were there. But now I needed to make the upgrades to the spike trap. The spike board will be similar to the one before it will be just a bit smaller and will need to be at an angle. I will also make some tongue and groove joint so could use my ability to connect them strongly, but I will also use some nails to make it even stronger. This build was extremely easy and didn¡¯t take that much time. But before I installed them, I spent some time watching to see if any goblins had returned. If they had, I couldn¡¯t see them. So, I decided to disarm and then upgrade the traps. Hopefully, this design will work better. Afterwards, I walked towards the grassland forest with my logging equipment and some traps so I could get some rabbits while I was there. After setting up the traps, I went and looked for a tree that I could make ballista out of. It needed to be larger than the trees for the bows, but hopefully, I will find something good. Calling it a ballista is a bit wrong because I will be making it more in a crossbow style than the original roman way. It didn¡¯t take long when I got deeper into the forest to find and start to chop down the tree that will be good enough. Now this was a large tree, and I wasn¡¯t going to bring everything back. I only cut two pieces into the correct size and the attached them to the chain harness I used to pull out logs. It was still a lot of hard work because the way was so much longer. I had set up as many traps as I could, getting me six rabbits for my troubles and keeping me well fed for the time being. When I got back, the first thing I did was butcher the rabbits and cut them into smaller pieces to put them into the smoker. I also started to deal with the hides. When both things were started, I used the waiting time to start splitting apart the wood into correct sizes, when done putting them to dry onto the rafters. Dealing with the hides and meat after the splitting took until night and I went to bed quickly after a quick meal. chapter 24 This morning after my chores, I set up the gear I will need to go into enemy territory to scout and, if needed, kill. I brought enough food to last one day. I had to do some modifications to the backpack as I added some extra straps onto the side so I can secure my sword and extra arrows to the sides. I can¡¯t have my sword on my side because it will simply make too much noise in the brush, and it might make it difficult to climb trees if needed. Knife was still going on to the belt as well as the hip quiver to the other side. With my water skin filled and my foldable walkway in the backpack, I did not set off to the other side of the river but moved towards the tower for my now regular watch. Leaving most of the gear at the tower''s bottom, I go up for another watch. At first, I thought I would go to the other side first, then catch them off guard in the forest and attack them. But I¡¯m hoping that the same thing will happen as yesterday, and I will just need to move fast over the river to be able to follow the ones that go back to wherever they are staying. It was a long wait, and I was thinking that they might not come today, but when it was starting to get towards evening, they finally showed up. This time there were seven of them, with two staying in the forest like yesterday. The difference today was that there were 3 goblins that looked like the poor ones before. As they walked closer, I was wondering if they were running out of goblins, and I might not need to worry about them for too much longer. That thought changed as they reached the bridge and the well armed ones forced one of the poor ones to cross one of the main supports, poking him with spear so that he would cross even though he didn''t want to. I watched the goblin as he walked similar to the pirate¡¯s walking of the plank. He knew both sides ended with his death, but moving forwards gave him fractionally better odds. He didn¡¯t want to die, and he was ready as soon as the trap activated. He tried to escape, but that actually made his situation worse. Because he was able to dodge some of the spikes, it just meant he didn¡¯t die instantly. It took him a few minutes to die screaming at the top of his lungs. It was a quite a cringe worthy moment and to make it even more unpleasant I got a skill level in trapping from all this suffering . But as soon as he died, not a moment later, another goblin was forced to try and get to the other side. The upgrades to my trap worked and when he tried to climb over, he slipped and fell into the river. I tried to watch him and the next goblin that was forced to cross the other main support this time. It didn¡¯t take him long to drown in the river, and it was quite a sad sight. They just weren¡¯t made for water. This one wasn¡¯t so alert and ready to escape and got killed instantly as soon as the trap activated. As I looked at the other two goblins, they were discussing something. I didn¡¯t understand anything until one of them mimicked with his dagger the motion of an axe and then pointing at the spike traps at that point the other one nodded and they walked off towards the two that were at the forest edge. They were discussing for some time before I saw them leaving. If I hadn¡¯t been more vigilant, I might have missed that one just went only a little further into the forest and then start to watch. He wouldn¡¯t have the perfect vision because he was too deep in, but if I hadn¡¯t seen him walk there, I wouldn¡¯t have noticed him. I¡¯m guessing that they want to know how the traps are reset. I wasn¡¯t going to give them that chance. I climbed quickly down on the side of the tower that was facing the bridge so that the raised part of the bridge will hide most of my descent. I grabbed my gear and moved back towards my farm, but soon, when I thought I would be out of vision range, I turned towards down river to make a crossing further away from here. I had no time to waste, so I ran at top speed. When I was certain I will not be seen crossing and when I found a good place to do so, I quickly unfolded and then assembled the walkway. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. If I didn¡¯t have the extra strength from my stats and the counter weight skill, I would have found it difficult to lift up and almost place the walkway into the correct place, only dropping it so that the spikes will bury themselves into the dirt. Getting the empty backpack back onto my shoulders, I walked across it. It held up excellently as testing showed and the spike really helped stabilize the whole thing. I packed it up again, and I was standing on the other side in under 5 minutes with the entire thing packed up and I wasn¡¯t even doing that at top speed. When I made it inside the forest, I went a bit deeper in but still stayed so I was able to see the forest edge and started to sneak my way towards the last known position of the goblin that was left to watch. I was lucky that he didn¡¯t think of hiding himself better from an approach from his back. All the sneak training I had done in the grasslands has really paid off. I was able to get quite close without him even noticing me and I think I could get even closer, but I just didn¡¯t see the need. I did 3 quick shots in less than a second and all were flying towards him. One of them aimed for the head and 2 for the back. All three hit in rapid succession, killing the goblin instantly. I did a quick survey of him, but left everything but the arrows there. I didn¡¯t want to lose track of the other group and where they were heading. Even then, moving as fast as I did, I almost didn¡¯t catch the trail because there were so many other tracks for goblins, and they all seem to take different routes to get here. When they finally did come into sight, I got a level in tracking. I wasn¡¯t here to kill them but to see where they were going so, I was forced to stay as far away as possible so I would not notify them of my presence. Being sneaky and patient for this long was difficult. I constantly looked back so I would familiarize myself with the way back. It¡¯s one of the most common mistakes people make when traveling in unknown locations. When you only look forward when moving and it was time to go back when you turn around, absolutely everything will be completely new and unfamiliar, so to successfully make it back, I needed to memorize both directions. I now know why they didn¡¯t come at the same time every day. It was because they were too far away from my farm from where they were going. I suspected that because they were setting up a small camp, if you can call it that, to sleep in for tonight. Finding a tree that I could see them from that still had leaves covering me so they will not see me. I climbed up and found a comfortable spot to sleep in. I went to sleep before they did. They were still talking and laughing animatedly around the fire. I woke up before the sunrise and was sore all over as I looked over the campsite, they were still sleeping. It took them another hour to wake up and start moving and during that time I was really contemplating on killing them just so they will wake up and start moving. When they finally did, I climbed down. It was extremely easy to do thanks to my constant training and stretches. I was certain that if the tree canopy was thicker, I could just follow them on the trees. It took them a few hours to reach what I will call a proper campsite with one huge tent-like structure and with a lot more surrounding that. There were goblins everywhere, but some walk around the perimeter holding spears and looking like they were guarding the area. They have cleared up quite a lot of forest here to make their campsite and I climbed one of the trees that had concealment but still vision over most of this. I now have time to see what I was up against, and it wasn¡¯t a pretty sight for me there was hundreds of goblins, if I had to guess about 300 of them. The campsite was situated on a small hill, I saw there were entrances into it. The tents themselves covered the entire hill and a bit of the surroundings. They were mostly made from animal hides. I then spent over 4 hours monitoring their activities and I noticed an interesting thing. Most of the food that they collected, and they collected a huge amount, was going into the underground hill. The entrances inside the hill were quite big, and I wanted to see into that place. I then turned my attention onto the guards and watched how they move. Turned out they mostly just moved how they felt like, but I did find a big hole thanks to that to get me where I wanted to go. I was able to climb down, move and climb up a tree where I could better see inside and inside was quite a horrifying sight. There were extremely fat female goblins that were constantly being fed the food that was brought in. I thought maybe these were their leaders or something like that, but one of them soon gave birth. What I will call an embryo like thing that she expelled. It was then taken further back where I think I see more of them. I got a good enough look at the thing and I think it was a new goblin. It was probably taken back where it was warmer so that they could develop further, and I can¡¯t call it hatching because they weren¡¯t actually in an egg but similar to that, I think. The frequency of the births seemed to correspond to how much food they were eating. They were almost like ant queens. If this continued, they were going to overrun me completely. I looked around more, noticing how the nature looked. The goblins were acting like locusts, consuming all to grow their numbers. I now was able to put together all I have heard about them in my memories. Why the goblin hordes were talked about so frightfully. If they got large enough numbers, they would leave entire regions devastated and bare of almost everything. If they continued here like this, my entire farm will be consumed. It was at this moment that I noticed a group of goblins going out towards my farm and the leader of the team looked to be the same tall and mean looking goblin that has been there for the past three days. There were seven of them today as well, but there were no longer any of the poor-looking ones. All looked like fighters. Three of them were carrying iron axes proper ones similar to the one I use but rustier and the handle have seen better days, but still with a little bit of work they would be serviceable. I bet they will try to hack down the spike traps so they could cross. Took me a bit until I had enough free space I needed to sneak out and start to follow them. chapter 25 As I followed them, I needed some sort of plan of action. I could try to ambush them on the way, but I think this will give too many opportunities to run away and then reporting what has happened. But when they reached back to the bridge and saw the goblin that was watching and its dead body, I don¡¯t know what they will do then. As we moved forward, I know that this will be a problem for tomorrow because when night started to come, and they started to camp, we were only about halfway there, I think. I found another tree that I could monitor them but where I can also sleep. Had to go a bit forward of them to find it, so hopefully I will wake up before them this time as well. Their camp was the same as before. Basically, they just made a fire and cooked some meat with some wooden skewers and slept in the open. I made myself as comfortable as possible and went to sleep. But during the night, something made me open my eyes. The moon was quite full, so I could see somewhat. It only took me a moment to notice the eyes watching me from two trees over. As I stared into its eyes, it¡¯s stared back. It was a big black puma like creature and as I watched it, I knew that he could kill me, and it knew that it could kill me. I slowly pulled out my knife while still looking into its eyes, trying to make him understand that I knew that he could kill me, but he wouldn¡¯t make it out without getting seriously hurt. Now, for predators, getting hurt is basically the same as dying and after a few minutes of a stare down I saw it turn around and leave. For a moment I thought that it will attack the goblins, but I¡¯m guessing there¡¯s too many of them for it to feel safe attacking them as well. I woke up again, but this time it was the correct time and the sleep helped me figure out my next move. I didn¡¯t have to follow them back to where they were going because I already knew where they will go. Moving ahead of them will give me a chance to lay an ambush. So, when most of them were going towards the bridge to try to get across, I could kill the ones behind and cut off the others retreat options. The goblins were moving at a good pace, but nothing that I could not manage. It will take them about half a day to get to my bridge. It took me only a few hours. When I made it to the edge of the forest, I picked up the dead goblin that was there and proceeded towards the river to throw it in. I did throw its metal armor pieces and his weapon over the bridge to the other side. But I left the goblins that were on the traps there. That way, it would seem that anyone that was living on the farm wasn¡¯t responsible for the watching goblin being missing. I also erased all my footprints, and I had to do some backwards walking to get rid of them all. I set up my watch quite far away because I didn¡¯t know the exact location they were coming from. I was watching the edge of the forest at such an angle that wherever they were going to approaching the bridge, I could see them. I finished off the last of my food and water while I was waiting for them, and I hope that they will make it here soon, but I know from the time, I will still need to wait a few hours. I know when they finally arrived, I could hear some of their voices when they were most likely trying to find the watcher and arguing what to do. But as I expected, five of them started to approach the bridge. When they did, I started to sneak further into the forest to come from the backside of the two goblins that were waiting. The goblin that looked in charge was actually wearing back armor, obviously knowing it was their weak spot but there wasn¡¯t anything covering its head. The other one had normal armor for goblins, a few mismatched pieces of armor in places they will fit the best. By the time I was in place, the goblins were almost at the bridge. I didn¡¯t want to wait and let them destroy any of the traps, so I prepared my arrows and got ready to kill. My first volley of three arrows was all aimed at the goblin in charge. One went for the head and two for the legs. The one I aimed for the head I shot at his current location, but the leg ones went a bit to the sides. If he tries to dodge to either side, one will hit. It was an excellent choice and turned out to be a needed strategy because even with silent arrow it did have some way to understand that it was under attack. It tucked and tried to move to the left, and that gave it an arrow through its leg. By that time, two other arrows were flying towards the other one, this time just aiming for the back and the little movement he did didn¡¯t make me miss. Pained screams from the boss alert that other goblins, but I already drew out my sword and ran towards the goblin, screaming in pain. I quickly decapitated him with one piercing cut strike. Dropping the sword and starting to shoot at the goblins that were running towards here. I actually had to wait a bit for them to get closer before I could fire at them accurately. I killed them one at a time. One goblin survived thanks to the arrow going through its leg. The last one got quite close, but the bow wasn''t less effective close up. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. They were all killed or downed trying to rush me and all I had to do was go forward and finish off one of them with an arrow through its head. I brought them all back to the bridge, striped them off anything metal and threw them into the river. I then assembled and placed the walkway beside the bridge and brought everything useful back to the other side. I reassembled the walkway, cleaned up the traps and reset them, and finally I was able to do my chores and look at my notifications. Level up frontier farmer frontier farmer now level 11 strength +2 dexterity +1 vitality +2 endurance +1 Level up animal husbandry Animal husbandry now level 6 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Empathy +1 Skill increases basic stealth level 5 Skill increases basic combat strategy level 3 Skill increases archery level 5 Skill increases basic sword level 4 Ability increases silent arrow level 3 Ability increases piercing cut level 7 Some good level ups from killing them and I¡¯m expecting this to continue as I kill more. During the chores, I was trying to figure out my next moves. The female goblins that were creating the new goblins must be killed. My first instinct is to do it with explosives, but I don¡¯t have any and I can¡¯t make any. I don¡¯t have the materials for anything currently I can think of. Seems the bull missed me while I was gone, and I had to give him some quality time. Maybe poison, but for some reason, I think they test everything they feed the female goblins. Fire could work but I don¡¯t have anything that will make that work, but could I make something? I don¡¯t have alcohol and I can¡¯t make it currently. ¡°Think, come on, think. Got it tar that could work¡± I¡¯d need to make a proper structure to get it in large enough quantities and I need it in constructions later on as well. I wish I remembered tar before I built the bridge. Coating it in tar will make it survive a lot longer, but I guess I can do that later as well. It is flammable enough and when it burns, it will expand but nowhere close to the requirement to fill that entire place and make certain everything died inside the hill. But combining it with poison that will burn and make smoke could work. Making a barrel full of tar and then mixing in poisonous plants that will produce toxic smoke when burned that will kill everything inside. Fire and poison, now that¡¯s a plan. Maybe I could also make some tar Molotov cocktails that I could throw on the tent to make them burn. But this plan also meant I would need to sneak in through the entrance off the hill. I need to get deep into the goblin encampment for this plan to work. I will also need to prepare for what happens next. They will be coming for me sooner or later. It will be a good idea to try to point to someone else doing the attacking on the encampment. When they are chasing me, I need to lead them away from the farm, perhaps disguised as a goblin. That could also help me get inside better. Let¡¯s make a list of what I need. I need a structure to make tar from wood, I will need a delivery method for that, I will need poisonous plants, I will need better weapons and I will need to make a disguise. Quite a list of things to do, but there¡¯s no time to waste. For the delivery method, I have to sacrifice one of my water barrels that collect rainwater. It''s the only thing big enough and waterproof to make an effective tar and poison delivery method. For the tar Molotov cocktails, I will need to gather some clay and make vessels that when thrown will break and set fire to anything it touches. For poison plants, I have seen some around the forest. Most likely hill forest would work well to find a large quantity needed. I will just need to make certain I will not go too deep and find that spooky place again. The weapon I will need to make are the ballista and the English longbow. I will also need some bolts for the ballista and some ammunition that I could use that gives a similar effect as a grapeshot. For the English longbow, I will also need thicker arrows because my current ones will not be able to handle the extra strength of the bow and will simply snap when fired. That means I will need to hunt some birds for feathers. For the disguise, I could use some fabric I made earlier and dye it green and sort of make it look like I¡¯m a goblin. I will need to try to stay low, but I think if I do it at night, I will not be that noticeable or if I am, I should use one of the goblins spears I have so hopefully I will not be bothered. I know that I have at least today safe from goblins, so the best thing to do would be to go and gather some poison plants and then go and hunt for some feathers. Then everything else I can do around the farm and can be here when the goblins will return. I will most likely need multiple days of preparations. I hope that they don¡¯t have any more axes that would make my life a lot easier if I could keep myself hidden for at least until I get the encampment attack done. I took the cloth backpack I made to transport low weight stuff, and I brought along my usual gear, but I also brought the sickle just in case I needed to cut a lot of plants in one place. I also took some wood sticks that I could use, sort of like chopsticks, so I would not have to touch the plants. I started to jog towards the hill forest, using my usual running route. I needed to go quite deep in until I finally found some excellent poison sumac plants to use. They will most certainly kill anything that breathes in enough of the smoke. I will need to burn the bag and use fire on the sickle to make it safe to use after this. The sticks I could just leave them here and make other ones when I get back, can¡¯t be too safe. This all took me about few hours to gather and get back to the farm. I put them out in the open where I laid rocks onto the bag and the opening so nothing will spill out. I would use the shovel to throw the rocks into the river afterwards. You can''t be too careful with this stuff. Next, I used the fire to clean the sickle and then put on my hunting and trapping equipment. I went to the grasslands to hunt birds and while there, get some more rabbit meat. I also brought along an extra piece of rope and a large wooden stake. I was going to use the sickle to clean out the small area of grass, then driving the stake in and tie a living rabbit there. Then the birds will see and try to get an easy kill, but I will be waiting close hidden in the grass and then shoot them while they are diving for the rabbit. I spent a few hours catching rabbits. I killed 8 of them and left one alive to take with me into the grassland. Setting up the rabbit trap was easy, thanks to the sickle. I actually didn¡¯t have to wait long until a hawk like bird tried to catch the rabbit. I waited for long enough to make certain that the bird will only be focused on the rabbit, making it an easy kill. But one will not be enough unfortunately and before it started to get dark, I got three more. One a different species most likely more towards the eagle side because it was a lot bigger. Hopefully, this gave me enough feathers for the time being. It was so late that I had to finish butchering using a torch. I will also need to make a torch when I go on the mission to the goblin encampment. I must make it extremely easy to fire up so that wouldn¡¯t be a problem with the plan. After the butchering, I left the meat to sit there until morning. I didn¡¯t have time to smoke it and cut it into smaller pieces now. I really just wanted to get some good sleep in my own bed. chapter 26 I slept in a bit today. I had an excellent dream about how I can improve my defences, I should have noticed it earlier, but the goblins struggled quite a lot when trying to cross the main support. So why not make it even more difficult for them and make it slippery? The same with the spike traps, so climbing it will be even more difficult. Before anything today, I took a bucket and some vegetable oil and soap. This will make an extremely slippery mixture but not so easily washed away with water. I had to use half of my remaining soap, meaning I will need to make some more. I deactivated the traps so I could safely go on the main support and apply the solution. I covered everything using a rag that they could use to climb up or get them across with the slippery solution. This will make it slippery for at least a little while. I might need to reapply it every once in a while. I still have about half left in the bucket when finished. After I went on with my usual chores of taking care of the animals, which got me a skill level in basic animal care. Then came the part of dealing with 9 rabbit hides and their meat. This time I made the meat pieces small. They will most likely need to last me awhile and it¡¯s always good to have more meat l can take with me that won¡¯t spoil quickly. As I smoked the meat and dealt with the hides, during the downtimes I was able to do some weight training thanks to me building it so close by. Ability increases heavy training level 2 When the hides were done and drying, the meat was not ready yet. I didn¡¯t need to actively watch it, just needed to come by every once in a while and put some more wood in. This gave me the opportunity to build the tar making structure. The first question became where to build it. Process of making tar will also require some monitoring, so I guess I will build it close to the smoker, maybe the other side of the road to the bridge. But I might want to extent the barn this way, so it might not be a good idea. Behind the main house towards the river, is where they did bonfires. So, I can make it on the same side as the smoker just build more towards the bonfire side, leaving some distance between the smoker and the tar maker just in case. I could use the same technique similar to making charcoal, but I wanted something more permanent and for that, it meant stones. But there¡¯s sometimes a problem with stones. It¡¯s that they can crack with too much heat. But to fix that problem, I will just need to test them before I build with them. I still have so much stone left in the piles around the fields, so I won¡¯t be running out anytime soon. This will also require some testing because I want to see if I could make merging joints ability work with stone and meld them together that way. If so, this build will be a lot easier, and I can make it a bit more complex. I actually don¡¯t think I could pull it off if this doesn¡¯t work and I will just need to make it the old way. I went and took the hatchet because doing it with the regular axe will be a pain in the ass. I started by cutting out a brick like piece. On one side, I made a tongue and groove joint for both sides. I needed to be really precise and control piercing cut ability the best I can. It was difficult to achieve a square cut and after failing multiple times, I had to change the design to a V shape, making it a lot easier. When I put them together and use the ability, I concentrated to merge together everything, even the flat part, trying to extend the range of the ability. It worked, but it took more energy. I need some more practice. I think I could get a lot better at that. And it did hold it together quite well. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. I could still pull it apart if I used most of my strength, but it will be good enough for the build. For the tar itself, I will currently need to use my firewood because the building logs I have will not be the best to get tar. Luckily, the firewood I have is mostly fir and pine wood excellent to get tar out of. There¡¯s also some birch, so I could get some birch bark stripping them to make the tar a bit more viscous. I wouldn¡¯t want to make it too thick. It still needed to be a liquid, but then it would stick better to anything it comes into contact with. I will need to make it long enough that the firewood will fit so about 1 and a half meters long. It will be tilted with the opening at the top to load in more wood with a big lid and a small opening on the other side. That¡¯s where I will make a stone pipe that will deliver the tar away from the fire to a container that will be collecting that tar. Around this structure will be a box like structure where I could put the wood that will burn and heat up the cylinder. I want it to be surrounded because then I wouldn¡¯t have to use so much wood to heat it all up. I could leave it open and just make the cylinder where the wood will go into, but I will need so much more wood to heat it up. I want to make quite a lot of stone for the build, so it was time for the bull to do something he liked. I brought two loads, I think I will only need one, but I¡¯m always in need of some stone around the farm. Every brick that I cut out needed to be tested in fire and that was a good idea because one in every 10 bricks cracked. I started by making the cylinder. I just had to cut the stones at a certain angle, so when put together, it will form a circle when done many times. I used the same technique as bricklayers so the second row will be shifted forward. Continue to do that long enough and it will make a long cylinder. It was incredibly easy to do thanks to the ability. But it still took quite a long time. When I was finished with the cylinder, it turned out to be 1 and a half meters across and tall. I got two levels in basic masonry for it. For the lid I still had to go out to the field to find an enormous stone to cut into the correct size lid and also to make a handle on it from stone. I had to repeat that process another time because the first one cracked straight down the middle when tested it in fire. To do all this testing uses up quite a lot of firewood. If I¡¯m not careful, I might run out, especially after I spent most of it to get the tar I need. But I didn¡¯t start with the outside box quite yet because from my calculations the goblins will arrive soon, so I went on a watch. But they didn''t arrive before their usual camping time, so I went back to building. Making the box took straight bricks, and that didn¡¯t require so much fine work. So, before night I was able to get half done, and I even had some of the pipe finished. For the cylinder, I have one side hold up by a pillar so it would be at a 45-degree angle, making the tar flow into the small hole and the pipe after that. After a quick dinner, I went to bed. Next morning, I quickly did my chores, then went on a watch. It took them a long time to get here, longer than I expected. There was 12 of them this time and to my complete delight, only one of them had a proper axe and another one had a hatchet, but that was it. I might get lucky, and they will not have any more of them. I bet it will be a huge blow if they will lose this axe as well. They were prepared this time. The ones that had the axe and hatchet had long sticks with them. They are going to set off the traps beforehand, so there is some intelligence somewhere amongst the goblins. But it certainly wasn''t here as they both started to cross on different sides. Now they both were extremely cautious, so the slippery surface didn¡¯t make them fall off instantly. I could see that they were struggling to stay balanced. And when they started to set off the traps with their sticks, they didn¡¯t think of throwing them or releasing them before the spike traps hit. When the sticks were hit by the trap, it caused them to lose balance and fall. First the hatchet one and then the axe one after that as well. The five that were waiting on the bridge were angry when the first one fell in, but they were absolutely shocked when the second one also fell in. It was a bit hard to hold back my laughter, but I managed it. They argued quite loudly for a bit before they all returned to the forest edge to talk to the leader that was waiting there. I could hear the yelling from here like they were beside me. It took a bit before I saw one of the goblins try to run away from the forest. Right after it, a goblin that I assume was the leader walked out and throw its spear through the goblin that was trying to run away killing it. I guess he was not pleased with the results. Now all of them were walking back here. I wondered what was going to happen next, but I never would have expected what happened. The leader started to cross himself. He moved angrily and as soon as his foot hit the slippery surface, he slipped and fell into the river. I was just as dumbstruck as the goblins. It didn¡¯t take him long for his struggles to end down the river. The rest of the goblins were silent for a while before they started to move away. To my surprise, they actually picked up the goblin that the leader killed and brought it with them. I watched closely, but I didn¡¯t see anyone on watch. But even after they were long gone, I was still in a kind of a shock about how effective making the surface slippery was. I wonder if they will give up on trying to cross for now. But only time will tell that. It was time to get back to building. chapter 27 I started by finishing off all the pipe that I need, making it was quite simple. I just made a square cut between two different pieces of rock and then used the merging joint¡¯s ability to combine them. This finale got me a level in merging joints. It reaching level 2 is interesting. I think every skill, class and ability has different level up times some require more activity to level. When I placed it, I made sure that the edge was at the bottom so the flow will be better. I didn¡¯t have to make a long pipe, just a few feet that I support with several pillars. At the end, I will place a bucket that will collect the tar. For the outer shell, I was doing a box design but at the top I made an oval like ceiling so that it could support it¡¯s its own weight. I also made a chimney so when I get enough metal, I could make a door that I could open and close, making it even more efficient. It didn''t take long for me to finish it and it was time for the first trial run. I had to split some of the wood into smaller pieces so I could pack it as tight as possible. I also had some birch bark and then it was time to place the lid and start the fire. I wish I had some magic or something that I could start fires that is easier than using flint and steel every time. Luckily, the birch bark is an excellent tinder source. It will take about five hours to finish cooking one batch. I will need about 5 to 6 of them to fill the barrel. I will need a bit more if I want to make a throwable tar Molotov cocktails. For both barrel and the Molotov cocktails, I will need a good fuse. My current plan is to use oil and tar-soaked rags that cover a birch bark core. Birch bark makes a lot of high heat quickly, making sure that everything will burn. While it burns, I think it would be best to go and get some clay. A quick swim is always nice to get the sweat off, but I to wish that there was clay deposit that I didn¡¯t have to swim to get. Perhaps it extends inland, but I don¡¯t have time to excavate currently. For the clay containers, I will use the pounding technique, that means I use flat pieces of clay and then connect them using wet clay. They need to be thick enough that they will survive transport, but hopefully not when I throw them. If they don¡¯t break, they will still start the fire. The expanding tar will crack it. It will just be a lot more localized fire. I had to occasionally add wood to the tar fire and dump the collected tar into the barrel. Before I continue making the clay containers, I did make a small test. I took some of the tar and went close to the river. I threw it onto the ground and went and brought a bit of poison sumac and put it on the tar. I then lit it on fire using a burning stick as it caught fire. I quickly run away, and I was delighted to see a lot of smoke generated by the poison sumac. Now I wasn¡¯t going to test how well it worked. I don¡¯t think I would like that, but at least the theory seemed to be plausible that I could generate enough smoke to kill anything living inside the hill. I contemplated on also adding some of the poison sumac into the Molotov cocktail, but I deemed it too dangerous and it wouldn''t give enough positives to make it worthwhile. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. When the first batch of tar-wood finished, the barrel was about 1/5 full and there¡¯s another positive side there is also a lot of charcoal, I get out of this. Loading the second batch was a bit more difficult because everything was so hot, but I was still able to accomplish it. I just had to use a thick rag to get the lid off. After that, it only took a little bit longer to finish the clay containers that I place near the tar maker. I didn¡¯t want to put them too close, otherwise they might dry too quickly and crack, but a little bit of help wouldn¡¯t be bad to make them dry faster. Now it was time to get started making the ballista structure. I need to be able to aim it so a stand where I could rotate it 360 and point it up and down will be necessary. It will need to be a simple design. I will need to make a pipe where I could fit as solid pipe inside that will give me the 360 turning circle. This will be connected to a base or onto the tower itself. I will need to make two blocks that are connected with a shaft that will give me up and down motion. One of the blocks needs to be connected to a solid pipe. The other block will be connected to the ballista. All of this will need to be quite large because I¡¯m planning on making a large one. Unfortunately, I can¡¯t make it too big, otherwise I won¡¯t be able to cock it quickly and the tower might not survive the shocks of firing it. I will need to make a few pieces out of metal. The supporting straps for the front, where the bow limb will go. It will need to be made out of thick metal. The sled needs to be made out of metal, so there will be a lot less friction while cocking as well the added strength it provides. Some of the parts for the cocking mechanism need to be made from metal as well. The main block needs to be split in two so I can carve out this slide moving area. I will reattach them together using the merging joints ability, making it as strong as it would have been if it wasn''t split. But the regular wood I have here will not be the best choice, so going to the forest is needed to find an oak tree. Luckily, it doesn¡¯t need to be too thick. I get my gear ready and head off into the grassland forest. To find the correct oak tree, I had to go quite deep in. It was only about 12 inches at the base, but that was good enough for the main block. Bringing it back was a pain in the ass, but my training was paying off and it was a lot easier than the earlier one. I stripped off the bark, but I didn¡¯t start with the main block. I started at the top where it was about 6 inches. I cut a 1 and half meter piece, it got to about 7 inches at the bottom. I started by carving out the four-inch round hole that was going to need to extend the whole way through. This was going to be the base that the solid pipe will go into. To carve this took until I finished the current tar load and the next one. Simply doing this with only a knife was an extremely slow and difficult process. I also had to smooth out the inside with a smoothing stone. I start the 4th batch as well, even though it will finish when the sun is already gone down. Next, I start to carve out the solid pipe that will go inside the piece I just made. Compared to the other one, this one only took a fraction of the time to make. At the top of the solid pipe, I left a wider area where the ballista will rest upon. To make it move better, I will use the most ancient of ways of making anything move smoothly, lard. I will also use it on the shaft itself that I will insert, to ensure smooth operation. On top of the solid pipe, I also carved out the block that will be connected to the other block with a shaft for vertical movement. When that was done, I actually used the tar I was getting to coat everything to make it last a lot longer, so rain wasn¡¯t going to be a problem for this ballista. Upper block that will connect to the main block will be quite long because I also want to use the merging joints ability on this one as well. So, I carved male slots on both sides, 10 of them altogether. They were quite thick to make sure that they will be able to hold. Next came the shaft, that will connect the two pieces. On both sides, I made a hole using a big nail. I made the nails blunt to make sure it will not split the wood. Then I can put pieces of wood through the holes later to make sure that the shaft doesn¡¯t come out during battle. I also used tar on the shaft and the upper block, but I didn¡¯t do the inside of the block to make sure that the male slot will fit together perfect. I wouldn¡¯t want some extra stuff messing up my joints. When that was done, it was starting to get too late to work on anything else today, so I just eat some jerky and monitor the fire. When it was finished, I didn¡¯t even take off the lid. There was no need to do this in the dark. I quenched the coals with some water. I poured the last of the tar into the barrel, but I couldn¡¯t even see how full it was. Too dark today, need to find out tomorrow. I went to sleep after that. chapter 28 First thing I do after eating is to check how much tar I have. I will only need half a load of wood to burn to make it full, so I was actually done with tar making for now. Even with the amount that I will take away for the clay containers, I will still have some tar left over when I add the poison sumac into the barrel. I cleaned out the charcoal and then went on with my regular chores. After that I continued with building the ballista, but this time I moved into the workshop to work on it. It was better to do wood working there and it won''t be seen from the other side of the river. I want to keep this weapon a secret as long as possible. Even after I mount it on to the tower, I will put fabric over it to conceal it. I will need to make a small frame that will go over it so the shape will not be so visible. Hopefully that will give me a surprise advantage when I most need it. If the goblins come in force, I will most likely die, but no way in hell I am going out without a fight. Never done that before and I¡¯m not going to start in the future. Making the ballista is overall simple when you know the basics. The problem I have is with trigger mechanism and pull back system. I have made a few crossbows, but they were simple things. I always been more of a bow maker. So, before I start making the main block, I start by making all the wooden pieces I need, even the ones that will need to be made out of metal. The sled that will help me pull back the string will need to have two claw like holders that will help me pull back the string. They will need to be able to be lower and be pulled up, because if I don¡¯t detach the sled, it will move forward the same way as the bolt will and it will destroy the front end. I will need to make the winch to pull back the sled and embed some of the parts into the main block. At the start, I thought I could make some of the winch out of wood. But after seeing it made from wood and how much weight it will need to pull, I changed my mind. All will need to be made out of metal. The winch itself will pull back two ropes from either end of the sled. I don¡¯t think one rope would be enough with the current quality I have to work with. The winch will have handles on both sides, so I can use both my hands to quickly cock it back. I will also need to make a release for the ratcheting system so it will not engage when I want to move the sled forward. The trigger mechanism needs to be fully manual, meaning I need to engage and disengage it manually. This will also be imbedded into the main block. It will also be made out of metal. It will be a simple thing at the side of the main block. Able to move in and out so I can pull it out of the way of the sled and move up and down so it can catch the string. The current operation of the ballista is to release the winch ratcheting lock, then push the sled forward with the claw handle. When I reached the string, the claw is lowered, then I can start to winch it back. This will go on until the sled clears the trigger mechanism at this point, I need to push in the trigger handle. Then I need to winch a bit more until the trigger mechanism engages. I will need to add weight to it so it will move up on its own and catch the bowstring. Then I can release the winch lock and move to sled forward and I can pull up the claws, then move this sled back as much as I can. Then the ballista is firing ready, then i can add the needed ammo for the situation. To fire, I only need to pull up the trigger handle and it will fire. To reset it again, the trigger must be pulled back out. Then I can repeat the other steps and fire it again. A lot more complex than with a bow that you just need to throw back and then release, but as you make this kind of weapon stronger, it will need to have more steps to make it work. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Now that I had everything made out of wood, it was time to actually build the main block and then assemble it all out of wood and test it to see if it works or not. I start by cutting the main block out of the oak. I cut it 2 meters long, and I make it as big as possible while I could still square it up. It ended up 8 inches by 8 inches. Doing it is simple with piercing cut and so was cutting this piece in half, lengthwise. For the joints I will use simple tabs but a lot of them, so I will need to make a lot of holes, then the ability will have something to grab onto and work. I started by carving out everything I need and the pieces I made were a good reference point, because I could always test to see how they fitted. When I was done with it all, I tied the two pieces together with rope and used a wooden board and tied that on to the front. Basically, I just made a really weak version of the ballista that I was going to use to test out if this design can work. During testing, I needed to shave some parts down and needed to remake the claws because I¡¯d made them a bit too short, and they had trouble holding on to the rope. Why was it pulling back a rope? It¡¯s because I have no way to make anything else better that could handle so much weight. No sinew bowstring for this beast. Rope will last less, but it will also be a simple change. Well, maybe not so simple because the limb I will use needs a lot of strength to be pulled back, but I think with my current capabilities, I can accomplish it. I started to carve out the grooves that will make the main block fit onto the stand block. I was halfway done when I heard the alarm go off. I was so engaged with crafting that I didn¡¯t realize it was already evening and moving towards night. I guess the goblins are here again. I really hope that they wouldn''t come, but that is no excuse for me not being on watch correctly. I just let myself go too deep into crafting again. Even then, I still had my sword on my belt and bow and arrows close by. I moved quickly to the smoker because I could use it for some cover and not be seen. If I went any closer, they might see me. I tried to get a better look, but I couldn¡¯t see anything because of the raised bridge. I quickly thought about my next move. I could just sit back here and wait and if anyone made it past, then kill them. But I have no idea how many goblins there are. Now I wanted to keep myself hidden in the tower so they wouldn¡¯t know that I have seen them, but is that currently necessary? I would be coming from the direction of the farm. A reasonable assumption for anyone is that there should be someone defending here. What to do? Every option seemed to have a similar number of upsides and downsides. My thinking was interrupted by a yell and then a splash. I heard some arguing and then I saw a bad sight. The goblin that fell in is being pulled back to the shore. It had a rope tied around its armpits. ¡°Well, shit.¡± Time to do some goblin killing. I used the bridge as a cover to hopefully hide my approach. Going up the tower will take too much time. I just prepared my arrows and my mindset and then quickly run a few steps to the side. Now I could see everything happening. There was seven goblins here, two of them were tied to ropes that other goblins hold so that they could pull up anyone who fell in. There was also two hatchets that were also tied to rope, so when the goblins fell they could pull those up as well. One of the goblins had fallen into the river and the other one was closing in on this side of the spike trap that was yet to be triggered. I didn¡¯t shoot him first but the one that was holding his rope. It was a good choice because my appearance startled them all and the goblin trying to cross fell in. Because of my arrow hitting the one that was holding his rope, he didn''t have any chance of being rescued. But I didn''t stop there. I kept shooting, but not at the same goblin to kill it. Every shot I made, I hit another goblin, and I tried to hit center mass. I finished my first handful of arrows. It took me a moment to reload. That gave them a moment to evaluate the situation. One of them threw a spear at me, but it was easy enough to dodge and after that I was ready with another handful of arrows, so I could quickly shoot 4 arrows in less than a second. I choose to aim this time a bit better. I killed 2 goblins that still had spears and they looked like they wanted to throw them. They were the most serious threat. At that moment, the rest of them broke and started to run, leaving everything behind that they were holding. I got one more of the fleeing goblins, I had killed three and the one that fell into the water. So four killed and three run away. I guess the goblin that fell first was able to get ashore. Now I climbed the tower. I could see them running towards the forest and there were two goblins there watching everything. When they noticed me, I gave them the middle finger and showed my bow menacingly. I think they got the message because when the others reached them, they start to move back. This was an unpleasant development, and I wondered how they would react to this. What I would do in their place is set up in the forest and have a lookout, so if the bridge is ever lowered, you could quickly rush it on mass. Of course, I would have many other plans to cross the river making this bridge unnecessary, but who knows what the goblins are capable of and what they will do. I finally got to use my hook to pull the dead goblins into the river. The one that I killed further away we¡¯ll be left there. I will not risk lowering the bridge even though I don¡¯t see them watching. I¡¯m not willing to take that risk. Reseting all the traps and the alarm, I then went to set up the forge for tomorrow. Tomorrow I will need to gather all the metal I can, so when the ballista pieces are done, I can start making bolt heads for the ballista ammo. chapter 29 My morning chores finished, it was time to get started with forging. I gather the goblin weapons and armor I have gotten, as well as one of them supporting plates that was left over from the plow build. This was the biggest piece and was going to make the front end of the ballista. I started by bringing the ballista main block, as well as all the wooden pieces that I needed to make from metal. I need them for reference. That will make my life a lot easier when forging. Thanks to the tar making, I have some extra charcoal so I can take my time and make every piece correctly. Moving the blower was now even easier thanks to all my training and everything else. I was going to use one of the axes that I got off the goblins for my metal cutting. Making a hole or slits into hot metal is necessary with this build especially for the front end. First, I needed to stretch out the plate. It was a bit too thick, and I needed it to be a bit larger. When that was done, I heated up the two spots I needed to cut a slit in to. Using the goblin axe and the hammer and my increased strength, it was easy. The biggest problem was the anvil being too small, but I was able to make it work. After that it was actually time to start bending it into the box shape I need. When the top part was bent the correct way, I also made holes there. I need some way to connect the front piece to the main block and two big bolts through it should do the job well. The bolts will need to be made out of metal. Before I start to fold in the other sides of the box, I also stretched out the front end where I made the two slits. I kind of wish that the bow limb was made, then I''ll know the correct size I need to make. But I know approximately how thick I wanted to make it. So, I just made it larger so I could fill the caps with the leather to make it secure and to protect the bow limb from rubbing against the metal. I start to fold in the rest of the box. First came the bottom part, where I also made two holes and then I folded in both the sides. Constantly checking against the main block, making it just a tiny bit smaller so it will fit extremely tightly. For the quenching, I had to use my other water barrel now, making it basically unusable for drinking if I didn¡¯t wash it out extremely well. I¡¯ve seen videos of people making barrels, but it¡¯s all a bit hazy. I will have some trouble making more and I think they will be needed at some point. Setting that thought aside, it was time to start making the other pieces. I took the wooden ones and then looked at the metal scraps that I had. I tried to find something that was a bit larger and close to the shape, so I could start forging them. It was all pretty standard forging until I made it to the winch. It was the gear cog parts that I needed that were going to be the problem. But there¡¯s a reason why I didn¡¯t choose to cast them. One was I didn¡¯t have any crucibles or mould, but the more important reason is I wanted to try the piercing cut ability to cut it into the correct shape. I had some extra pieces of metal thanks to the goblin armor, so I wasn¡¯t worried about messing up and I could always turn that piece into a bolt head for the ballista. It was an important thing to learn and to test out because it could help me make more complicated things in the future. I basically needed to mess up one piece for all the testing and practice. I made two more for both sides of the winch. It was still an extremely difficult and time-consuming process, but I was able to make them. After that, I just had some smaller pieces to make that will help everything fit together, and I was done with all the ballista pieces. It was getting quite late now, but there were still hours left of daylight, especially thanks to the sun setting later. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I think summer is going to start soon. I can¡¯t be 100% sure, but I think there¡¯s about a month and a half left until the summer solstice. As I looked at all the metal that was left, I was a bit disappointed there wasn''t much left. I could get 10 bolt heads if I split two of the axes into two pieces. From the rest of the thin armor pieces, I can make bigger arrow heads for the longbow. First, I made the bolts. One of the pieces that I was going to use was a bit too rusted and I couldn¡¯t get enough metal out of it to make a bolt head, but I did get 11 longbow arrowheads out of it. Like the last time I made arrowheads, I finished in the dark. Tomorrow was going to be interesting in many ways. I was going to assemble most of the ballista, leaving me only missing the bow limb. Skill increases basic smithing level 3 I was going to find out if the goblins returned on the regular schedule. What they will do and, of course, it was also time to start actually making the longbow and the ballista. When that is done, it''s actually time to start the mission. Next day came quickly, and after my chores it was time for another watch. I had to wait a few hours longer than I expected. But eventually I saw them coming out of the forest. There were a lot of them, and they had a commander that looked like he knew what he was doing. Because they actually marched quite well. I soon figured out their plan, they had a lot of goblins carrying throwing spears. They will try to use throwing spears to attack me and that would work, if I wasn¡¯t capable of shooting them from farther away. Of course, I didn¡¯t need to go further away. I had my tower to protect me. The thick wood boards around me means I could hide from any missile fire except for a ballista, but I doubt that they will have one even if they come at me with everything they have. I watched from my spyhole as they slowly approached there was 12 throwing spear goblins and 8 regular ones. The 8 were paired up and connected with rope. But only two had hatchets, and I¡¯m guessing they don¡¯t have many of them left. Then there was, of course, the commander he seemed a lot more muscled, and he was carrying an actual battle-axe. A long 2 handed one and not the one that you see in fantasy, but the real historical one with a skinny profile and one edge. I didn¡¯t notice anyone left behind for a watch, but I wasn¡¯t going to be able to kill them all, no matter what I did. So, I guess there¡¯s no need for them to leave any. But maybe the commander didn¡¯t think he can fail. That is also a possibility, but he wouldn¡¯t see if he succeeded or not because he was going to be the first to die. He wasn¡¯t really armoured well enough to stop my steel arrows. He had good leather armor, while the other goblins mostly had rags and some pieces of leather or metal armor. They actually used good tactics when they arrived. The regular ones went on to the bridge. The commander stayed behind them on the grass. The rest fanned out to either side so they could throw spears at me if I moved around the raised bridge to try to fight them. They were carrying five throwing spears, most of them having stone tips and one big regular spear with an iron tip. I was starting to wonder where they got all their iron pieces. I would surely like to know so I could get some myself. The goblin waited and so did I. I wasn¡¯t going to start before they started to mess with the spike traps. It didn¡¯t take long before the commander got impatient and sent goblins to try to cross. I prepared some of the steel tipped arrows first for the commander, but for the rest I was going to just use the stone ones. When the first goblin triggered the trap, I quickly got up and shot four arrows into the commander. He was a sturdy bastard and didn¡¯t die, but he was dying. And he was not able to move because one of the arrows went through its leg; which made him unable to move effectively. Two went into the chest and one into the shoulder. This basically shocked everyone, but they weren¡¯t as scared as they were the day before. No one even fell into the river. I had to duck because many spears were thrown at me but thanks to the thick wood boards, I was safe and after the first volley, I quickly got up and shot the next 4 arrows. This time aiming for their spear throwers. This continued for two more volleys before I had killed most of the spear throwers, and everyone started running. They tried to pick up their commander, but as he was a sitting target, I shot one into the head and killed him. Then continued firing now slowly and using better aim and kill the goblins who tried to run away. For some reason, some of them tried to carry their dead with them, but that just gave me the opportunity to kill them. Looking at everything I had killed, 13, well technically 3 were still alive, but they were going to die soon, with my help or not. I looked at all armor pieces and dropped weapons and then looked at how they were all running away. I decided to do the simplest thing. I climbed down, stripped down and then just swam across the river and threw all that metal pieces to the other side and all the goblins into the river. I think I know why they were trying to bring back that dead because they were going to feed them to the female goblins to get more goblins. It¡¯s a horrifying thought but I think that¡¯s the most likely case, but I hope I¡¯m wrong. Now the question came, do I want to make more bolt and arrowheads. But I think it will not be necessary because I can also make them out of stone as well. And that will be good enough for most situations, especially against large portions of the goblins. Hopefully, I can get enough metal overtime that I could actually make a proper anvil so I can make armor and weapons for my own use. That also brought out a good point. I didn¡¯t have any armor or a shield to use if I had to fight close up, and that was a problem I was going to fix. chapter 30 First, I put my clothes back on and reset the alarm and the spike trap. I went and pulled out any throwing spears that were stuck in the tower. It took me 3 trips to bring everything back by hand onto the farm. I might need to think about making a backpack basket so I can move more stuff around the farm at one time. The loot today was mainly the usual shit weapons and armor, except for a few spears and, of course, the battleaxe. It was still rusty, and the handle was shit, but all that can be fixed with a little bit of work. So, I put that aside so when I have some time, I can fix it up. It was finally time to assemble the ballista. Yesterday I purposely made one piece of iron into a shape that I could use to make small holes easier. Trying to make them with a knife would have been a pain in the ass. Thanks to that, it only took an hour to finish all holes on both sides and to make the pegs that will fit into it. I started to insert all the pieces that are needed. The trigger system went in, then came the sled and the winch. I had to mess with it a bit to get the rope right and test out the movement, but it all seemed to be working well. The sled and the claw were already together. I forge them together in advance. Now that all the systems were in place, it was time to put on the top part. It took some hitting with a wooden mallet, but I eventually got it connected and then I used my merging joints ability. It took a long time to do them all and another hour to get it all done and basically all my energy reserves. But nothing was going to pull these two parts apart. Next came the front end and fitting it took some hammer persuasion. But, when in place, it was time to fire up the forge again. The bolts needed to be hammered down at one end and then the front will have a strong connection. Time kept marching on quickly. But the beast is now done and the only thing it needs it is claws and its hand. It was time to start carving out the bow limb. I would love to let them dry for longer, but it was unfortunately not an option. The reason why I need to dry them longer is to see if any cracks form. If so, then I could just discard the piece. Unfortunately, now it¡¯s a game of chance, but no matter the case, it will still work for some time. I picked the first stave. When starting to carve it out. At first, I used an axe to get the general shape out. I will make a bit of a natural curve so when unstrung, it will not be straight like regular bows. This will help with the longevity of it a bit. Hours went by and I was starting to do finer work, but I could see that this piece will not be good enough for the ballista. It just has knots in the wrong places, making it too stiff for the thickness I¡¯m looking for. I will have to take off too much material to make it function, but that will make it too weak for the ballista. So, I discarded it and went on to the next one. This one was quickly rejected as I started talking of large amounts of materials for the general shape. I saw a massive crack down the middle that was going to develop into a big problem, making it unusable. The third one, however, looked extremely promising as I kept working on it. But I only had time to get the general shape and a bit of finer work done before it was time for dinner and bed. Next day came and when the chores were done, I was able to get back to what I love to do the most when I was about half done. I got a notification. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Skill increases basic bow making level 6 When the shape was done, I ran into a problem with how to test limb movement. It was nearly 2 meters long, and I was never going to be able to pull it the way I needed to. Even using my feet and hands, I was only able to pull it a bit. I could get a little bit of information, but not enough. So, I had to make a testing apparatus. I should make it so that I could also make longbows with it. The only okay place I could find was outside the workshop on to its side wall. It was going to have some pulleys and some rocks as counterweights. I wanted to make so when I pulled, I can be here further away but unfortunately, I was starting to run out of rope, so I needed to make something that was closer. The testing apparatus simulates the pulling of the bow and when you look at it from far away, it will help you determine how the limbs move. You want them to move exactly the same for both sides. They will most likely not turn out to move exactly the same way. But if the points of the tip''s end point are the same, it will still work as a good bow. It took some testing and adjusting but I¡¯ve finished making it. If I wanted to make longbows here, I just needed to take off the counterweight and switch the holding clamps into smaller ones. Now I was actually able to pull back the bow limb to see what work I need to do, and I needed to do a lot. But the positive side it was going to be a powerful one. It was an awesome sight seeing it move against the wall and slowly work its way into being a powerful weapon. Sometimes the bow fights you and you have to work with them for days, but some just want to be made and just work out quickly. This one wasn¡¯t an easy one, but it also won¡¯t take too long. I¡¯m hoping that tomorrow I will have it finished. Unfortunately, I couldn''t keep working later because the goblins might come, and I went down for another watch. Luckily, this time they didn¡¯t come or unluckily. I do not know yet if they will leave me alone or someone that¡¯s actually smart in their camp will think of another plan. Another morning came, but this time after the chores, I didn¡¯t go on watch. For some reason, I wanted to put as much time as I can into making these weapons because I think I am running against the clock. Everyday, dozens of new goblins were birthed and if this kept going on, I will simply lose by numbers. So I needed to get everything done. The bow limb fought with me for half a day before it surrendered, and it was finally done. I added deer antler pieces to the tips to support them. I also used my ability to connect them together. It will be stronger than any other adhesive I can make. This will make the tips stronger against wear and tear. Now it was finally time to finish this beast. I cut out some pieces of deer leather I have and placed it into the front end where the bow limb will go into. It took pushing and pulling to get it into the correct place, but when it was in, I just had to use some rope to make it even more secure. The ballista was now done. I also now connected the main block and upper block together using my merging ability. I still had to make a base, and I had to make a large one. That didn''t take too long and when finished I assembled it all. It looked amazing and deadly, but I still need to test it out to see if it will work correctly. For testing, I quickly made a simple bolt with a stone tip and no fletching. I wasn¡¯t going for accuracy or deadliness, I just wanted to see how this would work. So, I started with the operation to load it. Everything went the same as it did with the tests with the wooden versions. But when I was finished, I realized a mistake that I had made. I haven¡¯t made a handle to aim with. Currently, I just had to hold it awkwardly on the back end with one hand while my other hand was on the trigger. I aimed for one of the archery targets. And fired, it was an amazing feeling hearing the snap when the pole left, and then missed the target by flying over it. I was amazed by the power, but that wasn¡¯t actually supposed to fly so well, but the general direction it went in was still good. So, I retrieved it and fired it five more times and it worked excellently. I quickly made and connected a handle similar to a pistol one underneath and used my ability to make it strong. When finished, I got a lot of notifications. Skill increases basic wood carving level 7 Skill increases wood crafting level 2 Skill increases basic engineering level 3 Skill increases basic bow making level 7 Skill increases basic smithing level 6 Ability increases merging joints level 3 Level up handyman Handyman now level 7 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Intelligence +1 I am guessing that you get some experience when you work, but you get a bunch when you finish something. I wonder how much experience I will get for farming when I harvest everything. It should be quite a lot. chapter 31 It was now time to start making the longbow. I was a lot more familiar with making this type of weapon than making the big ballista bow limb. This helped me to choose better and the first one I picked turn out to be excellent. It didn''t even struggle against me that much and by the evening, I was done. Skill increases basic bow making level 8 It still needed some work. I needed to add horn tips to the ends, and I needed to make a proper bowstring. I just used a piece of rope for testing. Before the sunset, I went on a small watch to see if there was any activity at the forest edge, but there didn¡¯t seem to be. So after a quick wash, I went to eat dinner and go to bed. Next day, after my chores, I start by finishing off the longbow by putting in the tips the same way as I did with the ballista and making the bow string from sinew. Then I started making the bolts for the ballista. Considering the strength of the ballista, I ended up with over 2-meter-long bolts. I used the simple 2 feather end and connect the head similarly to how you would connect a spearhead. For that reason, I made a hole on both sides of the head fitting so you can drive a nail through it and then bend it sideways on both sides to make a strong connection. But I also added some of the tar, so it will sort of act like glue. I needed to cover the longbow and ballista bow limp in vegetable oil a few times to make it resist the weather better. I¡¯ll do that for the rest of the day every once in a while. Making the ballista bolts was quite easy. I also made some with stone tips to make it an even 20. But now was time to make the harder and more time-consuming ammo for the longbow. I actually wasn¡¯t ready to make them yet. The problem was connecting the arrowheads to the shaft. For that I need something to heat up the tar to cook out more moisture to make it thicker so I could use it as a glue. For that I wanted to make a container out of metal so I wouldn¡¯t waste my good cooking pots. So, I needed to fire up the forge. But that wasn¡¯t the only reason to do that. I got more metal, and I can make more arrowheads for the regular short bow and the longbow. But I also wanted to make armor. Now just leather armor is better than nothing, but it''s also not the best. I have a lot of mismatched small pieces of armor that I got off the goblins and that would be perfect for making something called the brigandine armor. This was one of the most used armours before plate armor became cheap enough for it to be used by the bigger portion of the population. But even then, it had some advantages over plate armor, most notably its flexibility. Big minus was the improved weapons that made it less useful, but this was not a problem against the goblins. It was made by having an overcoat of cloth or leather and then riveting metal plate underneath. I will be making the version that I can connect with leather straps in the front. So, I could put it on myself, unlike some of the versions that were on the side or on the back, making them unusable without help, similar to plate armor. The plate size depended on the maker, but I was going to use open hand sized plates and make them a bit overlapping, giving some extra protection. I will also make a sort of a gambeson underneath. I do not have the fabric needed to make a full one with 18 or even 30 layers of fabric needed, but I can try to make it as thick of a one as I can. Everything else must unfortunately be made out of leather because all the metal large enough will be going into make the brigandine armor. I start by measuring out myself and then transferring it onto fabric and then cutting it out. It will encompass my entire torso, giving me excellent protection. It will sort of look like a vest. Now that I have the reference I need, I can fire up the forge and start to make the simple pot for tar cooking. Then the brigandine plates and then finally I will spend all the rest of the metal on making arrow heads. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. The pot was simple enough to make out of one of the bigger pieces of metal armor. I just had to pound it into a bowl shape, and it was done. It will not hold much, but it also didn¡¯t have to. Then came the time to start making the plates. I was strong enough so the plates can be thick, so I tried not to make them too thin and if they were thin, I just left them for the arrowheads. It took quite a long time to make it all, but I still finished before evening. The thing that made it take longer was to get the general shape of the plates and then punching in holes for the rivets that will hold them in place. Every plate had 8 holes for me to connect around edges. I could have made fewer holes, but I feel that would have compromised the connection a bit too much. I didn¡¯t have a lot of metal left after that. I only got another 50 short bow arrowheads and 35 longbow arrowheads. This time I also did some armor piercing ones for longbow, just in case I need them. Skill increases basic smithing level 7 It was now time to start making the arrow shafts. Only wood I have that I could use was oak because the other woods I have are too light to make a proper arrow for a longbow. I had some wood left from squaring up the log and other builds, but I wouldn¡¯t have too many. Thanks to the piercing cut, it made it a lot easier to make. But I wished I had another ability that would make my knife sharper as well, when doing more precision cutting. I did all I can and ended up with a bit over 100 arrow shafts for the longbow. I¡¯m just a bit short on metal arrowheads, but that is okay. During battle, some arrows will break so I can reuse the heads with them. When the shafts were done, it didn''t mean that they were finished. I still need to inlay horn into the back so that they wouldn¡¯t crack when fired. No goblins came again and I¡¯m starting to feel that they might be gathering their forces for a bigger push. But I guess I will have to wait and see. I¡¯d love to go and scout out what is happening, but my defences are not quite done yet. Another day came and when the chores were done, I continue making the longbow arrows. They were quite long and needed to be quite heavy, otherwise they will damage the bow. This bow was a strong one. Without stats, I would not be able to pull it. This will not be my main bow because most of the goblins don¡¯t need this powerful of a weapon to be killed. My main shooting bow will still be the short bow. I can shoot 4 arrows a second with it compared to the one a second for the longbow. I got all the arrow shafts and cut a slit into the end and cut horn into the correct size; but looking at the supply of horn I have, I will not be able to fit every arrow unfortunately. I would fall short quite a lot, but then a memory came to the surface, and I quickly went into the woodshed. This building was quite a large one, for obvious reasons. The winters can be long and cold. This gave this building an upper area. I needed to get the ladder to get up there where multiple highlander cow horns were stashed. I will now have plenty to finish all the arrows. This place was full of broken and other miscellaneous items that I was going to have to sort through someday. I quickly made a sort of a burning pit with stones holding up the pot I made. I poured in half a bucket of tar to fill it up. I didn¡¯t make the fire big because I needed to slowly cook out the moisture. I didn¡¯t want the mixture to start to burn. This will take some time and I used this time to watch for goblins for a little while, but I still didn¡¯t see any of them. This was making me a bit anxious, but my current needs to finish making every necessary item came first then going scouting. When on watch, I started to figure out how to mount the ballista onto the tower. I need room to still fire a bow, so I have to use the corner that was towards the river and the bridge. Shooting anything to the left will be extremely awkward because I needed to lean over the railing, but it''s better than not being able to shoot a bow. If I had the time and materials, I would like to remake the tower into a proper fighting and watchtower, but that needs to be a future project. I didn¡¯t need the base that I made because I was going to connect it to the corner log, and it would be even more cramped if I used the base. I had to take out the rope used for the bow testing apparatus to have a long enough piece to pull up the ballista. If not for all that extra stats in strength, I would never have been able to pull it up. It looked amazing up here, but I quickly noticed a big problem. I wouldn¡¯t have anywhere to put the bolts or more arrows. Currently, I was only holding 100 arrows up top, but that will need to be changed. I will need to build an extension to the backside over the current alarm system. But even then, I still put 2 bolts on top of the tower just in case something happened while I was building the extension. By this time, the tar mixture was ready, but I just put a bit more wood to keep it from solidifying because I needed to build the extension and the simple frame so I could hide the ballista. I need to use the cloth from grain bags and nail them onto a frame I made that will go over the ballista to cover the ballista¡¯s shape. For the extension, I used the good boards that I have from before that came from a lumber mill. For the supports, I used some of the few remaining lumber I have. It didn''t take me long to carve out the joint and lay out the flooring and build the sides. Now I have a good and big enough place to store bolts, arrows and bows. I need to make changes to the alarm system, but it still works the same as before now just pushed back even further. Then it was time to finally start to glue together the arrows. It was a messy job and when evening came, I went to clean off everything. Skill increases basic fletching level 5 I had finished all the arrows I can for now. I only had to add feathers to them and then it will finally be done. Then start the work on armor and the disguise for the mission. chapter 32 Next day started off as any other but after my chores as I went to check the bridge and while I was on top of the tower, I noticed activity at the forest edge. There was a bunch of goblins there ¡°So they finally showed up¡±. As I prepared for another fight, I waited and kept waiting and soon the reason became apparent. They were setting up tents a bit further from the edge of the forest but still long ways off from my effective range. And more worryingly, they were cutting down smaller trees and doing something with them. It also became quite quickly apparent that they will not attack immediately, so I climbed down and went to get all the things I need to start putting feathers on arrows on top of the tower. It took me three trips to bring everything and also all the extra arrows I have for the short bow as well. Now the extra space I made looked a bit fuller. An unexpected positive side is that I can now lie down flat and straight, so if I wanted to, I could actually sleep here pretty comfortably. And that might become necessary if I¡¯m under siege. I kept watch, but also kept finishing the longbow arrows. Using string to fletch is a lot easier than trying to glue them on with some kind of glue. It was actually quite a pleasant time just working and watching. I counted about 30 of them constantly working and setting up camps while working on some construction. I wonder what their plans were going to be. As the hours went by and I finished all the arrows, I finally understood what they were planning. They were building movable fortifications, so I will not be able to shoot them. Skill increases basic fletching level 6 It will not be a perfect plan because during the cross they would not be able to use them. But I¡¯m guessing that the spear throwers will stand behind and wait and when I tried to shoot, they would throw spears at me. It will slow me down for certain, but they were not going to get past the bridge this way. But they will wear me down, eventually. Meaning I had not much time left. I need to get my armor done so I could go out and strike. When they will strike back for killing all the females, it will be on mass and I¡¯ll want better protection if it ends up in close combat. So, I did something crazy and left the watch. They didn¡¯t seem to be the best builders, and it was taking them quite a while to get something done. I brought all the leather I have as well basically all that cloth bags I have that are meant for grain transport. I start by making the gambeson. I was able to get 15 layers to sew together. It took a lot of work and pricked fingertips, but in the end, I had a full coat. You have gained a new skill basic tailoring level 1 It covered my torso, a bit of my neck, my arms up to my wrists, and half of my thighs. Beneath my waist it splits in two on the sides, leaving them exposed, but that¡¯s needed for movement. Thanks to it being so many layers, I was able to sew them from lots of places, making them strong but keep my mobility. I also made the head piece the same way that covers the top part of my head and a bit on the sides. It took half a day to make both items. Now it was time for that brigandine. For that, I started off by cutting the pieces of leather. The largest piece that I needed to cut was the back. To get it in one piece, I had to use the biggest piece of leather I have. In the front, I will use two pieces, making it a lot simpler to get them. Then it was time to sew them together, similar to a vest. I also redid the measurements a few times to check if I had left enough room for the gambeson and for me to be able to still move. This time the wise proverb was correct because I did need to adjust it a bit. Then it was time to start riveting. I had all the rivets I need from forging them, but I needed to get one end flat first. So, I got the tongs I made to hold them and then hammer one end flat. And so started the endless hitting because the other end needed to be flattened also when everything was in place. At one point I put on the gambeson coif so it will help muffle the sound a bit. When that wasn¡¯t enough, I added some more cloth so it would tamp it down even further. It was a time-consuming job as well, but it was made a lot simpler thanks to the strength I could put into hammering down the rivets. The plates couldn''t just be placed and hammer down, they needed to be shaped as well. I had to bring in the anvil to help cold forge them into the correct shapes to fit my body. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. An interesting fact about this armor is that the waist needs to be constricting, similar to a belt. The reason being that will help take off almost all the weight from the shoulders. Bringing it to the place that can handle the most weight easily. This means that this armor can be worn for a long time before it starts to fatigue a person. It was late in the night now but before when the light was out and while working on everything, I still did constant checks on the goblins to see what they were doing. I made it quite far with the brigandine armor, but I still needed to do some work the next day. I woke up early to do the chores quickly. When I was finished, the goblins were still waking up, and I went back to making my armor and putting finishing touches on to it. Like the letter straps and buckles, so that I could tighten it up and make a few more adjustments to make it fit perfect. But the piece wasn¡¯t finished yet. The leather was a bit too soft and malleable and easy to be damaged. I want it to be somewhat flexible, but I also wanted it to resist damage a bit more. So, I used tar to coat the outside of it. The leather will pull it in, and it will make it a bit tougher, similar to how fiberglass gets its strength. If I kept adding tar and even use some heat, I could make the leather as stiff as metal. It will be a lot weaker overall compared to iron and, if overdone, it will become brittle. There is a perfect recipe to get the most out of a leather piece, making it strong as possible, but that would make it not flexible, and I need some of that flexibility. I wanted to tune it so it will not become overly stiff but still had a bit more resistance than just leather itself. When I put on the tar, I put on the armor to move with it. It took three coats before I stopped, and the piece felt excellent. That took a while, and the morning was over. You have gained a new skill basic leatherworking level 1 You have gained a new skill basic armorer level 1 Skill increases basic tailoring level 2 During my constant checks on the goblins, I finally notice some different movement it seems that I was out of time. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have time to make a leather helmet or other pieces that I wanted, but the current state was still quite good. Climbing the tower with so much extra weight was a bit weird, but nothing my body couldn¡¯t handle. As I reached the top, I could see them moving behind some movable fortifications. This time, I didn¡¯t stay hidden and watch as they approached. I used the time to get used to the armor and the shooting motion in it. I was quite pleased that my design didn¡¯t hamper my shooting that much. Now, if I needed to move and shoot, it would be a different situation. I would be a lot slower at shooting then, but I am currently stationary, so it shouldn''t be that big of a problem. Now, if the goblins were better disciplined, this strategy might have been a bigger problem, but they were not. As they got into accurate bow range, I started to try to pick off any that didn''t have proper cover. During the approach, I was able to kill one instantly and wound two. If the goblins were a bit more merciful, they might have saved them, but they just left them behind and made them easy pickings for me. I killed 3 goblins from the 15 that were approaching and another 15 were watching from the campsite. The closer they got, the easier it was for me to shoot them, but they also were more cautious now. I started to wonder why they were doing this. If they could make stuff out of wood, why not make something to help them cross without using my bridge? But when they were getting closer, I saw how bad the workmanship was. When one of their fortifications while pushing fell apart leaving two goblins undefended, I quickly killed two more. This helped me understood why they wouldn¡¯t try to cross with anything that they built. Everything they had was simple and crudely made and that made me realize what the problem was. It wasn''t that they couldn''t learn to make stuff, it was because of the system. If they didn¡¯t have the class or skill, they would have penalties to everything they made. Similar to when I tried to make the box before I picked my classes. No wonder that they will need to use this bridge because they had no way of making their own. But speaking of that, their tent looked quite well made, as well as the leather armor some of them wear. I wonder if they had a racial affinity to making leather stuff or something like that because otherwise those items would also be extremely crude. If they knew that there was a way to make leather even harder, I wonder how much they would pay for that information. Before they were in place in front of the bridge, I figured out the rest of their plan. They had made more crude defences this time into shape to protect them from arrows fired when they tried to cross the main support. I wondered how they were going to keep themselves from falling, but that was soon revealed when they connected the two pieces together with leather straps and a long pole. An interesting way to keep it balanced and keep themselves safe from arrow fire. They will be able to move across and then start hacking apart the spike traps. Their weakest moment was when they were going to rush the main support because the front needed to have openings for them to be able to hack at the traps. It was a good plan and while I did kill one goblin when they were at their most vulnerable, they were still able to get in place and start moving safely towards the traps. Their plan had an extreme vulnerability, and that was the pole that connected both sides. It took three arrows for it to crack and both sides of the construction to fall into the river. It took all the goblins in it with it. There was a bit of silence and then a lot of cursing and then a lot and yelling. Skill increases archery level 6 Level up frontier farmer frontier farmer now level 12 strength +2 dexterity +1 vitality +2 endurance +1 Level up animal husbandry Animal husbandry now level 7 Strength +1 Dexterity +1 Vitality +1 Empathy +1 Some nice level ups. I looked for any opportunity I have to kill them, and I did start to see weaknesses in the fortifications. So, I tested one of those out and shot at it. I could see the entire thing shift and one more arrow made it fall into pieces, exposing another three goblins. I was able to kill two before the third one got into cover of another fortification. When I started to shoot at another fortification, the goblins broke and ran. It was an actually good choice because I only got two more kills before they got out of range as they could run surprisingly fast for their short stature. I didn¡¯t think that they were going to make another run today on the bridge, so I got off the tower to start to prepare for the mission. chapter 33 First thing I do is make leather vambraces, shin guards, and thigh guards out of leather. They are a quick build that will use leather rope to tighten them on to me. When they were ready, and I applied their first tar coating, it was almost time to get the poison sumac inside the barrel. But first I filled the containers I made with tar. When those were full, it was time to start dealing with the poison sumac. I moved carefully, and I did it quite slowly, but once full I set everything used on fire and went to find the lid. Making a hole into it so I can put in the fuse. I used oil and tar left in the bucket to soak a long piece of cloth. I wrapped it around some birch bark and made quite a long fuse. Using some cord to bind it together and make it extremely tight around the hole so nothing could spill out while I was moving. I also made smaller fuses for the containers and then took them all in front of the house, where I was going to gather all the necessary items I need. I went and found the torch that I also covered in oil and tar to make it easier to light. Also added to the pile a goblin spear and the foldable walkway in its backpack. Now came the question of how I can quickly carry them all to the necessary location. For the containers, I need to make a leather satchel. While I was doing that, I also looked and thought about my disguise. I was not going to wear any armor for this outing because I was already carrying so much weight and I wanted to be sneaky. Also, that way, wearing the disguise will not be too much of a hindrance. I felt that I was rushing too much, so I took a few deep breaths and calmed myself down. That helped me concentrate on the current job and not think about other things. I wouldn¡¯t want to make a bad satchel that will break and make me lose all my Molotov cocktails. When I finally finished and loaded it up to test it. It seemed to be holding well enough. Next, I worried about the barrel. It was going to have a similar strap system as the satchel with a lot thicker strap so it would hold the weight. It was not going to be easy carrying that much weight, but it was going to be necessary, and I think with my current training I can accomplish this. When I finished it, I started to work on the disguise. From the cloth I have left over from making the gambeson. I dye it green and made cut wood strips to make it look like a goblin''s head shape. I have only ever needed to make Halloween costumes once for my ¡°NO¡±. The question is, will I make any other pieces for the disguise? My clothes are already quite green and honest the head is the most recognizable when all you see are shadows. If anyone would see me well enough, no matter what my disguises is, I will be discovered. So, I will only make the head piece and hope that this will be enough. I only had one more thing to do, and that¡¯s to add to my hip quiver a place to store my short bow. When that was done, I did a final check on the goblins, and it didn''t look that they were aiming for an evening run on the bridge. So, everything was ready except perhaps me. No matter how necessary this was, so I can defend my land, it''s still a hard thing to do every time. This will be yet another horrible thing I will not try to think about in the future. All I can do is take a few deep breaths to center myself and go into the mindset of war. First, I put on my forest gears greenish clothes. I will not be wearing any extra armor simply because I need the movement speed and I need to be as light as possible because everything else will weigh so much. I put on my sword and the hip quiver. Then goes the satchel onto the left hip. Next is the backpack with the foldable walkway and then I put on the barrel. Making a mental checklist, I confirm I have the torch and flint and steel. All checked, I pick up the goblin spear and start to not walk but jog upriver towards the place I crossed before. When I made it there, the first thing I did was put the barrel down and rub my shoulder. The weight wasn¡¯t the worst, but the strap was. Even though I made it a lot wider, it still hurt a lot, but nothing I couldn¡¯t deal with. I quickly unfolded the bridge and brought everything over. The walkway didn¡¯t much like so much extra weight, but thankfully it hold, and I made the crossing. When I was geared up again, it was time to start moving towards the goblin encampment. Thanks to it being summer, today¡¯s sun went down late and I was able to make it close while still having sunlight so see. Making it here was a horrible journey. The barrel was too wide and cumbersome, so crossing thicker parts of the forest was a pain in the ass. And unfortunately left a trail that they might find sooner than I hoped and might lead them to me quicker. But I guess that would be inevitable no matter what. Now that I was quite close, I was able to take my time and slowly sneak around. So, I would be coming from the other side while not leaving an obvious trail behind me. Hopefully, this will confuse them and lead them away from my farm. I will also use the same way I got in to run away more towards the village to cross the river somewhere closer to it and use the road do quickly get back. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Was this a bit of a flawed plan, yes. I hadn¡¯t done any scouting of the river so upstream, and I was going to have to move through an unknown forest. But honestly, this entire plan feels like it will crack if any of 100 things went wrong. I just need to hope that luck is on my side today. I was quite far away and dropped most of my things to climb up a tree to get a better view of the encampment. There seemed to be more goblins tents around. Not a good sign for me and I slowly watched as movement slowed to almost nothing. It was most likely midnight now, and it was really hard to see anything but shadows. It was time I put on the mask, leaving the foldable bridge here. I also put everything else on and start moving towards the hill entrance nearest to me. As I got closer, I put the barrel in front of me and crouched down a bit to make myself look more like a goblin. The goblin spear I was holding was helping me hold my balance in this position and hopefully making myself look more like a goblin. As I got to the tent area, I was glad to see most were sleeping and while there were a few campfires still burning with some active goblins around, I stayed clear of those. It was still a tense and extremely exhausting work because of the way I had to walk, but I was quite close to the entrance now. I could get a better look inside and there are multiple chambers. I am guessing four that housed female goblins and a big center chamber where they kept the developing goblins. I didn¡¯t see any doors that would hold back the smoke from going everywhere and the ceiling was low enough that the entire thing should be consumed by smoke. To my surprise, it was extremely quiet, seems like the female goblins still need to sleep and there was no movement. I sneaked quite far inside, almost to the central chamber. I laid the barrel down gently to not make noise and took out my torch and flint and steel to light it. As I was lighting it, I had to make noise and some of the female goblins started to stir. As I got the torch burning, I heard a word in goblin spoken. When I looked back, I saw one of them watching me and my so obviously fake mask. I quickly turned around and used the burning torch to light the fuse. It took only a moment for it to catch fire and I started to run away as quickly as I can. The goblin started to scream something in its language and everyone else woke up. As I got out, I heard a whoosh and a crack, meaning the barrel caught on fire and already the tar expanded so much that it broke apart the barrel. All around me, everything was starting to move like an anthill after being kicked. I quickly took out one of the clay containers, lit it, and threw it up towards the hill where the nicer looking tent and the big main tent were. As it fell to the ground and cracked, it spilled tar all around and a moment later it caught on fire and spread quickly. I kept running away and throwing them as far back towards the hill as I can. I had to dodge a few waking goblins, but they were still too sleepy to think straight. When I was finally out of Molotov cocktails, I dropped the torch and started to really run towards the forest where my walkway backpack was still laying. As I dropped my torch a moment later, I had to throw myself to the ground because a ball of fire flew over me and hit a tent to my side, making a small explosion and causing more tents to catch fire. I quickly crawled on the ground, hidden by the numerous tents. When I felt I was far enough away to be unseen, I popped up and started running. It seemed that it worked because no other fireball was heading my way. I run as quickly as possible but I still tried to stay behind as many trees as I could. When I got the backpack on, I quickly took a look back. And I could see fire and smoke everywhere. From the base of the hill, there were big columns of smoke leaving from multiple places. It seems that my plan worked excellently. Currently, over 1/3 of the entire encampment¡¯s tents were on fire and it seemed that it was still spreading. I don¡¯t expect it to spread much further thanks to the number of goblins there to help put it out. As I saw multiple groups of goblins leave in every direction, I quickly started to run away. They were most likely trying to search for me, and I was not going to give them the opportunity to find me. It took me almost until sunrise to reach the river and find a place to cross. I think they didn¡¯t catch my trail quickly enough, and I also used trees to climb up and then jump a few to make them lose my tracks. This seemed to work because now I was running down the road incredibly exhausted and sleep deprived but still running at top speed trying to get back as soon as possible. When I finally made it back, I looked over my notifications. Combat results frontier farmer level 12 --> frontier farmer level 15 animal husbandry level 7 --> animal husbandry level 8 handyman level 7 --> handyman level 8 basic running level 8 --> basic running level 9 basic combat strategy level 3 --> basic combat strategy level 6 beginner mental fortitude level 4 --> basic mental fortitude level 1 fitness enhancement level 1 --> fitness enhancement level 2 basic camouflage level 2 --> basic camouflage level 4 basic stealth level 5 --> basic stealth level 7 new skills gained basic alchemy level 1 stats gained Strength + 8 Dexterity + 5 Vitality + 8 Endurance + 3 Empathy + 1 Intelligence + 1 POV Goblin commander ¡°Give me the damage report I¡¯ve been asking for, FOR THE PAST FEW HOURS, I WANT IT NOW.¡± As I watched the shivering goblin, I felt disgusted. Why were they also so useless? ¡°Commander a a al all the female breeders are dead from the poison smoke as well as the new meat developing in the central chamber.¡± ¡°We lost almost half the tents and about 40 goblins to the fire. Most of the food supplies have been ruined by the poison smoke as well c c com commander¡± ¡°One of the enemies was seen leaving towards the south. Some say it was a tall looking goblin, but no one saw it well enough c com commander¡± How could only one enemy have caused my entire future to go up in smoke? ¡°Shaman, you said that you were able to fire a fireball toward it. Did you see it any better?¡± ¡°No commander, all I saw was a shadowy enemy but the head did look similar to a goblin one, but its arms and legs looked more like a human. So, I¡¯m not certain what kind of creature it was.¡± ¡°Thank you, shaman. I want every roaming hunting party and raid group back here YESTERDAY. We need to prepare to attack whoever it was and get all the scouting party¡¯s searching and find me the location of this enemy.¡± ¡°Now everyone leave but the shaman.¡± As I watched everyone leave, my rage was boiling me from the inside. ¡°Shaman, when can we get more breeders evolved? Currently, the human presence is extremely low, and we need to use this time to grow as big as possible.¡± ¡°Commander, I am afraid that we are done. We will not be able to reach the state we were in during our lifetime.¡± ¡°If I try do forcibly change the current female population, we will get only one if we are lucky and then we are completely done.¡± ¡°They will need to born naturally and it will take a long time to get so many female goblins.¡± ¡°I know, shaman, I know. If I get my hands on whoever is responsible, I will squeeze their head apart and drink their brain. Now leave me and don¡¯t return until all the sub commanders are here.¡± chapter 34 A lot of new class levels and skills. I am guessing I got the new alchemy skill as a result of the tar and poison mixture counting towards it. But I honestly didn¡¯t have any clue how to develop that skill any further. As I tried to get more information from the skill, to my surprise, it actually worked this time. I could feel myself getting something. I was getting some basic recipes for a body restorative and healing tincture and how to make them. Not quite the life in a bottle that is usually in fantasy. I tried to do this again with other skills, getting a response in mental fortitude. I didn¡¯t remember getting anything from it before. But before it was beginner now, it''s basic. Perhaps there is no help given at the beginner stage and you need someone to teach you there. Now I was getting a better understanding on how to start training this skill to fortify my mind. Going from beginner to basic didn¡¯t give any ability as well, I wonder why that is. I was still extremely puzzled over why other skills didn¡¯t give anything. So, I decided to take wood crafting and really try my best to dig deep, but nothing happened. I got nothing, so I decided to change tactics after a while. I figured that I had already learned the things the skill will show. Perhaps that¡¯s the reason I¡¯m not getting any information. Decided to use the skill to check a simple technique used in wood crafting to see if it was correct. Then I got a response of basically, yup that is correct. This is extremely interesting, but before I can think about that, I need to get on watch. I quickly put on my armor and ate a bit. Also, bringing enough food and water so I could keep watch for an entire day without needing to get down. When I was up there, I stood up and watched as they were preparing a similar strategy to yesterday, but I¡¯m guessing that they did make some changes, otherwise why would they keep trying? It took them quite a while to set everything up and start moving towards me, but they didn¡¯t make it far before there was a commotion coming from the temporary camp. After I started to look there myself, I noticed there were three more goblins there that looked like they just ran a marathon. Quickly, some words were exchanged between the attacking force and the camp. The attacking force soon left the fortifications where they were and run back to the camp. They all started to pack up the essentials, and within an hour, they were all gone. I am guessing their leader was calling every goblin back to plan out their next move. This is good news for me because it gives me a few more extra days to prepare myself. During the night, the goblins had cleared out everything around the bridge so there were no corpses left behind and no new metal to get unfortunately. I still had one weapon left to make, or more accurately, ammo type for the ballista. I needed some way to deal with the overwhelming numbers of goblins, and I didn¡¯t have a machine gun to fix that disadvantage. I needed to develop the grapeshot. I went through multiple designs in my head, but most of them had different problems that just weren¡¯t going to work or were unreasonably complex to make. I landed on making a wooden cup like sled where I will put a sack of stones. The sled will have a notch down the middle where I can attach a knot from the sack. The sack will be weakened at the bottom, so when shoot, the rocks will launch forward, leaving the wooden cups and the sack behind. The wooden cups holding hooks needed to be quite wide and strong, but I couldn¡¯t make them too wide, otherwise it will interfere with the ballista rope pulling back. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. It took me a bit of adjustment and a few design changes and a lot of climbs up the tower every time i needed to check my work. Working underneath the cover was an awkward thing, but just in case there was someone watching, I didn¡¯t want them to see exactly what I was doing. When that was done, I started to make the sacks and shaped the rocks into the correct size and shapes. I made them about twice the size of marbles, and I could fit about 40 of them into the sack. They weren¡¯t all the same size because I didn¡¯t want that headache of trying to make them that way, and there was absolutely no need. Luckily, only the stones will need to be changed because the wooden cup will remain as well as the then broken sack. But just in case some go flying, I made extra wooden cups. I made 20 sacs but filling them up will be a more time-consuming job. For that I brought some stones onto the tower, so I can work on them while I was on watch. Today passed quickly like that, but no goblins showed themselves. But I think I did feel someone briefly watching me. I guess it might have been a goblin scout that''s a lot higher skilled than the ones I have been dealing with, or it could have been an animal of sorts. I went to bed a bit earlier today just because I¡¯ve been awake for two days now and I wanted to get some extra time sleeping. As soon as I hit the bed, I was asleep. Morning came quicker than I wanted to, but it was time to get started with today. I was starting to run out of rabbit meat and my ability to eat surprise me. I had forgotten how much a growing person can eat, but even then, it feels a bit excessive. After my chores for today, I went on another watch to see what was happening. Apparently a lot, I could see a lot of movement, mostly animals, but I did get a glimpse of a couple of goblin groups a few times. They didn¡¯t seem that interested in me directly. I am guessing that they¡¯re trying to find the culprit and that they haven¡¯t figured out that it was me. Towards the evening I got a huge surprise because the bull started to make noise and so did the cows. That were quickly running away from something. I was afraid that maybe some of the goblins found a way across and quickly run towards the pasture. Quickly jumping the fence, I saw the bull jumping around, trying to fend off something I could not see. As I got closer, I saw there was an anaconda sized snake. Acting fast, I shot a few arrows at it. I did miss one, but the other ones landed. ¡°Get away from it¡± I yelled to the bull that listen to me thanks to me using my ability also to get my message across better I had to shoot it 3 more times to see it die. As I got closer, I noticed that its open fangs had some poison on it. I quickly grabbed one of the arrows I had left in the quiver and tried to get as much poison onto it as possible. When I felt that it was enough, I took another arrow out before the poison ran out. Getting me two arrows with hopefully good poison on them. This snake did look poisonous, and I hoped it was and a quick check with my identify on the arrows confirmed that now I had two poison arrows. Ability increases guiding thought level 2 Possibly an extremely important find. I congratulated the bull and checked his legs for any bite marks as well as the other cows, but luckily, there didn¡¯t seem to be any. I went and made leather pouches to put the arrow heads in so I wouldn¡¯t get poison all over and then went back to get the body. A large snake and the bloody tough one. I had to shoot so many arrows because even the steel heads didn¡¯t penetrate too far in and if it was a bigger one, I might not be able to kill it with my short bow. Butchering it was a learning experience and got me a level in butchering. The skin was extremely tough, and I hope that using the same technique will work on this hide as it has on the other ones. I¡¯ve never eaten a snake, and I hoped it would be good smoked. I did the same and cut it into smaller pieces. While I was working with the hide and smoking the meat, I got some exercise in. It¡¯s been quite a while since I was able to exercise. But I guess today¡¯s excitement wasn¡¯t over because I heard a lot of commotion coming from the other side of the river. As I quickly run towards it, I saw some goblins running after a wolf that was slightly limping its back leg. Even then he was a bit faster than the goblins. But unluckily for it, it was about the be cornered because I saw more goblins coming from the other ways trying to box it in using the river. I didn¡¯t mind them hunting the wolf, but I did mind them coming into my bow range. Why would I leave that opportunity to get some free kills? Before I could pull back and aim, the wolf noticed me. And changed its direction a bit to come towards me. This action puzzled me until it got a bit closer, and I recognized the pattern on its fur. It was the same wolf that watched me when I was butchering. I notice some more things. Some of the goblins had claw marks on them, meaning the wolf put up a fight but it also got itself hurt. What I also noticed was it was quite fat. That stopped my brain for a few moments before I figured out that she must be pregnant and that it is a she. When the goblins noticed me, they stopped and chose to run away, and I missed a good opportunity to kill some of them. But I guessed that it wouldn¡¯t be that big of a deal. What I didn¡¯t expect was the wolf to keep running. I pulled and aimed my bow, but I didn¡¯t fire because the wolf didn¡¯t seem angry or that it wanted to hunt me. What came as a surprise was its next move, jumping into the river and trying to swim across. chapter 35 The wolf was doing well at the start, but the flow was quite fast here and when she was 2/3 the way across, she started to slow down. The wound and the fighting had taken a heavy price on her stamina. ¡°If you bite or kill me for this, I will haunt you until you die.¡± Luckily, I wasn¡¯t wearing any armor when I was doing my workout, so I was able to jump in quickly, only having to remove some clothing. I was able to get a hold of her scruff and help her to the shore. As we got to the shore, I was expecting her to attack me as soon as she got a few breaths in, but that didn''t happen. Her eyes looked a lot like a dogs, gentle and that puzzled me a bit. I tried the animal inspection ability, and the result surprised me. Name: none Species: Forest wolf Gender: Female Age: 5 Health: pregnant, starving, wounded Diet: Meat Evolutions: Emotional intelligence Oh, hell no, an evolved animal with an extremely interesting evolution, emotional intelligence. Does she understand kindness and feelings better? She sure looked like she understands me better. I¡¯m guessing because I left the meat, she knows I wasn¡¯t an enemy. I¡¯m guessing that the entire forest is currently being overrun by goblins. So, she had no place left to hide. ¡°Come on then, let¡¯s see if you want any snake. It¡¯s a bit smoky but it shouldn¡¯t be quite done yet¡± She did follow eventually when I also used my guiding thought ability. She was a lot more suspicious about the food when she sniffed it, but I kept using my ability to ensure to her that it was safe to eat. I had to strip off one of the parts that was done and show her that its food by eating it and then she finally believed that it was safe enough and gobbled up everything I gave quite fast. ¡°Now, what am I going to do with you? Do you want to stay here, perhaps?¡± I¡¯d love some more company. I think I¡¯ve been going a bit stir crazy. The only thing that¡¯s been keeping me sane is always working, the bull, and the goblin problem. ¡°Now let¡¯s go and take a walk around the farm. I need to show you some things you can¡¯t eat.¡± She did want to eat the rabbits and the chickens, but thanks to my ability and some harsh words, I was able to keep her in line. She felt more like a dog that wasn''t properly taught, but that was smart enough to understand new rules and limitations. The bull and wolf didn¡¯t like each other that much and I¡¯m guessing if she decides to stay, at least until she gives birth, they will be getting along a bit better. ¡°Now come here and let¡¯s get the look of that back leg of yours.¡± It wasn¡¯t a bad cut and quite shallow, but just in case I did clean it with water and put a cloth bandage over it that I quickly made. She had been quite silent and was still quite silent but after I finished, she gave me a head nuzzle, making me understand that she appreciated all that I did. ¡°Where would you like to stay then?¡± I followed as she moved towards the barn and then choose one of the empty stalls where one of the horses used to be. I quickly pulled out some hay from the hayloft and put some bedding down. That got me some more nuzzles, but it was now time for bed for the both of us and I hoped that the evolution she has will make it possible for her to stay on the farm. The next day after I woke up and ate, I opened my door and, to my surprise the wolf was waiting there. When she saw me, she started to wag her tail. ¡°Well, good morning to you as well.¡± ¡°Woof woof.¡± ¡°And how can I help you today?¡± This was quite amusing, and I had a smile on my face. ¡°Woof woof.¡± ¡°Do you perhaps want food?¡± ¡°Woof.¡± I guess so, but that¡¯s actually a really good question. She didn¡¯t seem to like the smoked meat much. I straighten myself up and look towards the grasslands. I didn¡¯t have the free time needed to go hunting myself the goblins could attack at any moment, but she looked well enough perhaps she could hunt herself. I start to walk towards the grasslands, I looked back, stopped and started patting my side thigh. ¡°Come on, let''s go and see if we can get you some food.¡± It will be a good idea to do some nonverbal communication. I had to nudge her a bit with my ability, so she better understand what I meant. That gave me a level up in guiding thought. As we got close to the grasslands, I could see her putting her nose up to smell and then close to the ground. I think she can already smell them. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. ¡°Well, are you up for a hunt? Don''t let me hold you back.¡± It took a little bit longer until we got closer and then she took off. I think she found a recent smell trail. I wondered if I could teach her not to go after a rabbit before I give her the command. I left her there. Hopefully she will figure it out and if not, I guess I will have to cross that bridge when we come to it. I run back to get my chores done and went on my watch. Soon after I started, I start to get the feeling again that someone is watching me. That was extremely annoying because I couldn¡¯t see who or where I was being watched from. For a moment I thought maybe the wolf had come back, but I didn¡¯t see her. I was puzzling about this and couldn¡¯t find a way to solve my current problem. I tried to use my energy sight, but that didn''t help me. The energy was everywhere and after a while everything becomes hazy. I believe it¡¯s because the air has energy as well and that creates a similar effect as fog. I then tried to use the plant sight but when I turned it on it looked completely different from the way before. It took me a bit to figure it out, but I left my energy sight on and now the two had merged. So now I was only seeing the energy that the plants had. Some had more, some had less, some moved in different ways, some had more of one type of energy than another. It was all magnificent, and I felt the need to just experiment with this for the next three months. When I did turn it off, my sight changed for a brief moment before I didn¡¯t see energy at all. It didn¡¯t just turn off, but faded like turning down the volume. It took a bit of working and experiments, but I was able to vary the intensity of both visions. After that, it didn''t take me long to find the correct dial up to basically take out all the fog from energy sight and thanks to that, I noticed the goblin that was watching me. As I looked in its direction, I could see that it now slowly started to retreat further into the forest and I quickly lost sight of it. I might have to pick a sight skill every time it comes up. They seem to be extremely useful with a little bit more experimentation and if they all overlap, it will be amazing. I kept playing with it for a bit more until I heard a few barks coming from the farmhouse. ¡°Over here.¡± I yelled towards the farm. A moment later, I saw her strutting towards me. When she got close, I noticed that she had something in her mouth. It was a rabbit. She dropped it and barked again. ¡°Did you bring it for me that¡¯s so sweet, but you can have that one for later¡± I think she didn¡¯t like me declining that, but I¡¯ve always read more into animal behaviour than might be normal. ¡°I will get the next one when you go hunting but today you keep that to yourself¡± I had to speak a few more times and tried to express myself with my body more, but eventually I think she got it and wasn¡¯t that mad about it. She took the rabbit and went off towards the farm. I got back on watch. There was a lot less movement today. I think tomorrow or the day after that will determine if I can enjoy this life longer. POV the goblin scout Damn, that human is a scary one. I was certain my skills will be able to keep me hidden and I¡¯m certain it worked for a while, but then he just found a way to find me. I wish I could talk with him and get a hold of everything he knows. But unfortunately, these might be his last days of living. That burning poison smoke sure was an ingenious way to kill off all our breeders quickly. When did he even discover our encampment? I told the commander to leave him alone, but some of the starving goblins wanted to get an easy meal when they heard about the farm and get a better position in the camp, so they went and tried to get across the bridge. An absolutely stupid decision that led to the destruction of the breeders. At least, the commander and the shaman didn¡¯t try to make more breeders. That would have left us with absolutely no future. But thanks to their stupid decisions for a while now, has left me an opportunity to gain some power. I now have about 50 goblins under my command. I now have the 3rd biggest forces in the camp, but most of my troops are too fresh. If I didn¡¯t know better, I would say that the human was purposely helping me to gain more power. As I made it back to the encampment, my right hand quickly ran up to me. ¡°Sub commander, they already called the meeting to discuss their next move. I think they have found the culprit.¡± This wasn''t the greatest news. I was hoping to get a few more days to gather more forces onto my side so no one will be able to challenge my claim as a sub commander. My rise was too fast, and absolutely no one likes that. I quickly move towards the main tent. Mostly everything is now fixed, but I can still see some marks off the fire. As I quickly approached, I heard that commander speaking. ¡°You think it''s that farm and that human responsible? Explain yourself NOW!¡± I heard the first scout sub commander responded to that. ¡°Yes, we found a big trail that we suspect he used while carrying the container with the burning poison smoke, commander¡± Took him so long, he truly is useless. It took me 30 minutes to find that obvious trail. It took a lot longer to find and follow his retreat trail to the river crossing he made using some kind of device that has spikes that go into the dirt. A clever device that I would like to see in action, so perhaps we could copy or steal it. I walk in confidently and see the commander. His height and build are always intimidating. ¡°Commander, I have a report to give. I have found how our enemy escaped and where he is located.¡± ¡°Little too late, as always. I already found everything, second scout sub commander¡± ¡°Silence,¡± yelled the commander. ¡°Speak of what you have found, but if there isn''t any new information, I will get rid of one of your arms¡± He really hates me. I think he knows that I might be close to getting an ability, meaning that I will be the second goblin here with such a boon. ¡°I was able to follow the enemy''s retreat route and found that he was using some kind of device with spikes to cross the river.¡± ¡°Just in case I followed the river all the way to the lake to see if there were any more of these marks¡± ¡°And after the farm a bit further towards the lake, there were also spike marks and when night fell, I inspected around the bridge and found near it also the same spike marks.¡± ¡°I believe that human has a device to walk across the river without using the bridge and without using rope, commander.¡± There was silence for a bit and during that time I watched in Goard Bih''s direction. He was sweating. I think he knew that his position as first scout subcommander will end soon. ¡°Well, at least now we know it''s that farm and that human for certain. Good enough to keep your arm.¡± ¡°I want everyone moving as soon as possible towards that farm. I want the Fat Across there and I want the Beaver moved there, as well¡± There was silence for a moment, but the commander broke it. ¡°I SAID NOW.¡± He hit his chair, almost breaking it. He was truly mad, and the human will certainly die, but I guess there is still a small chance. I should still get ready. chapter 36 POV goblin commander For once, nobody seemed to be letting me down. We were ready to move in less than an hour. There is still a lot of daylight left and we might make it quite close to the target if they keep up with not letting me down. I looked at all the combat troops in front of me. It was a proud and a sad moment. They had grown so much but now the future has been stolen from them. But some might have grown a bit too much. I can¡¯t let them think that they can take my spot as commander. I can see the first army sub commander eyeing me like a piece of meat. I have known about his intentions for a while now, but a heavily trained force of 60 shield bearers is hard to deal with. They should be my troops, but the sub commanders have solidified their command, especially during these last few days. It¡¯s hard to keep my anger in control that human has caused me nothing but trouble. I commanded here only the goblins that¡¯s have gone through the trial of iron. The rest must continue with securing food for the winter. Even then, we are looking at 400 soldiers ready to fight. Nothing that human has can withstand my might and the Fat Across and the Beaver will make this a simple yet satisfying attack. ¡°The situation with the Beaver, report.¡± I say to the closest aide I see. ¡°Commander, the runners are currently moving towards it. We estimate it will start to move in a few hours. Do we wait for it to arrive, Commander?¡± As I looked at the one that gave me the information, I didn¡¯t recognize him. This keeps happening more and more and I do not enjoy that. ¡°No, we start moving now. I want Fat Across in the middle of our columns.¡± I get a quick affirmative and wave him off. I looked around as everyone starts moving. I wait on the spot until the Shaman is close, and I walked to him. ¡°Are all your magics ready, shaman? I know you don''t have earth magic to help us cross the river, but I hope you have something useful prepared?¡± I could see that disdain in his eyes, but I will never forget when he tried to overthrow me. If he wasn¡¯t the only magic wielder I have, I would have killed him long ago. ¡°I have some tricks prepared. You don''t need to worry about that, but do we truly need to mobilize so much for a simple farm and to all accounts a single human?¡± ¡°You have no right to question my actions. I do it because I chose to do it, nothing more.¡± He didn¡¯t answer me, and I didn¡¯t want an answer. I have more reason to kill him now because he was no longer useful in making more breeders, but he still needed to train someone to take his place, eventually. We moved quite quickly. We were already halfway there, and the sun was still quite high. This surprised me because some of the goblins couldn¡¯t even walk right to save their life and were constantly tripping. I wanted to kill them for their weaknesses. They must know how weak they are. If there were more goblins like me, I would kill all that rest so that I wouldn¡¯t have to look at their disgusting and weak looking bodies. Speaking of disgusting, the second scout commander was moving towards me. I don¡¯t know how it happened, but he¡¯s the second most skilled, evolved and soon to have an ability goblin besides me. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. He was good at keeping it a secret and currently excellent at making connections and friends. While he didn¡¯t have any sub commanders supporting him, he had a lot of goblins fighting for him. His force was large but untrained. Unfortunately, a lot of the food gatherers listen to him. An ambitious one that I must find a way to kill. He should be looking like me, not like the other goblins. I don¡¯t know what evolution he has, but he certainly hasn¡¯t got the correct ones. Why wouldn¡¯t he change to look more like the true intelligent species of the world? ¡°Commander, my scouts have found a wolf den and I wish to get permission to take my troops and finish them off for food and to make sure they won¡¯t prey on us in the night.¡± Oh, I just wanted to squeeze the life out of him. He mocks everything that I believe, but he played his cards correctly and I cannot do it so openly. Meat is always required, and it will boost the morale of my troops more, but I can¡¯t be allowing him to take credit for it. ¡°Listen all, I command the second scout sub commander to take his troops and bring us more meat so that we can all enjoy a feast when we win the battle for the bridge.¡± I hear cheering all around and soon it spread to every goblin that was marching. They looked at me in worship, and I loved every moment. The second scout sub commander didn¡¯t look amused, but I just waved my hand for him to go to his duty. Thinking he can take credit for bringing meat back nice try but too naive. Night had fallen, but I had torches lit so we can move at night. I wanted to make there as soon as possible and see the situation for myself. So many had fallen at the hands of this human, and I want to kill him so badly but if the second scout commander is correct and he can make devices to help cross rivers fast and is portable enough to give out to any goblin, it''s a thing that we must have. We have only ever had two good ways to cross rivers and those devices have been with this tribe for a long time, further back than any of us can remain. I suspect we have stolen them from humans, but who knows. I saw some of the scouts returning that I sent ahead to scout the bridge. And when they returned, they brought good news. Apparently, it¡¯s undefended like it has been for all the other nights I have reports on. The Fat Across had fallen behind because of the thicker parts of the forest. This turned out to be a good thing, so I can let my troops rest a while before we start. ¡°Second army sub commander, report to me now.¡± I looked towards him. He moved quite quickly, which I was pleased to see. ¡°Yes, commander, what is it that you need?¡± ¡°The sun is yet to come up, but we are ready for the first operation. You will support the Fat Across and you will choose two of the light units to get across the river. This is your operation to succeed or fail it.¡± ¡°Commander, should we not wait for the Beaver to arrive, and the sun has yet to come up, we can barely see anything.¡± I grab his shoulder and pin him down. I slowly get to eye level with him. ¡°I wasn¡¯t looking for any other answer than yes, commander. Is that understood?¡± I could see the fear in his eyes, and it filled me with energy for the coming fight. He mumbled yes commander in a barely audible voice and quickly retreated, which I let him do. At least he was good enough to follow orders quickly, and I commanded everyone to the edge of the forest and watched as the troops under his command moved out. As I looked around and at the force moving out under the night''s cover, I thought I might not even need most of what I have here. This human will have no idea what will hit him. *** Slowly the Fat Across was being pulled by 10 goblins and surrounded by the forces of the second army sub commander. The Fat Across was a similar construction to Rich Dirt¡¯s ballista. It was a bit bigger and a lot stronger. The bow limb was made from steel, but it was not meant to fire bolts it fired big hooks in a large upward direction meant for climbing large walls. The goblins used it to shoot the hook and the rope to the other side of rivers so they can then use the rope to get across. It¡¯s an ancient weapon from times long past and has survived remarkably well. The Fat Across was slowly pulled forward until it was quite close to the river so it can be fired and when the goblins were across, they could lower the bridge. Anyone who will stand against them will be drowned by their number. For the goblins, everything seemed to be going well. The first hook was fired in a high arc towards the other side. It landed deep enough into the ground so the goblins can get safely across. What the goblins didn¡¯t know is that the human, rich dirt didn¡¯t go and sleep in his house this night, but stayed in the tower just in case something might happen. His instincts about war were unmatched against the goblins that stand against him. The first goblin getting ready to cross the river suddenly had an arrow sticking out of it and just a moment later, two more goblins found an arrow in their chest, and one fell dead, an arrow through in its head. A brief silence fell over the entire area as the goblins tried to process what was happening, this spell was broken as four more arrows hit a moment later. chapter 37 *** The goblin commander was in disbelief, but he understands now how the forces before didn¡¯t actually have any chance of breaching the bridge. He now knows that they should have crossed some place else, but all that strategy was forgotten when his anger overtook him, and he wanted to send all his troops to try to cross the river. At that moment, the second army sub commander finally got his wits about him and started to order a proper defence with the few shield bearers that he has. This was, however, a grave mistake, because it didn¡¯t take Rich Dirt longer than a moment to notice the goblin giving orders and quickly a full volley of 4 arrows was flying towards him. He was a good fighter and even had a few evolutions, but this didn¡¯t save him this day. After the sub commander died, the goblins were in even more of a disarray. Some started to run away, some still tried to cross the river, and some just stood still, not knowing what to do. This snapped the commander out of his anger filled mind and made him think clearer. He shouted for a retreat to be called out. But as it was called out, goblins kept dying. The Goblins notice the retreat order in waves, giving Rich Dirt plenty of time to keep killing them. When the current engagement was over, almost half the goblins that went to try to cross the river were dead. ¡°We will wait for the Beaver to appear and then we will launch a full-scale assault, until then prepare any fortifications that can be made and salvaged those that were already built.¡± The commander yelled out those commands while shaking in anger. During the time that it took for the Beaver to make it here, only a few fortifications were completed about the same amount that were built before. There just weren¡¯t enough goblins that knew about woodworking. These were soldiers, not workers. There were so little fortifications it made them almost useless. When the Beaver arrived, the commander started to give marching orders. ¡°I want the second scout sub commander¡¯s unit in the front-center and surrounded by the rest of the rabble. Behind them I want you shaman and then all the units of the sub commanders behind protecting the Beaver.¡± ¡°When we get to the river and deploy the Beaver, the first army sub commander and your troops will cross and take out that tower, but don¡¯t kill the human capture him.¡± ¡°Commander, the second scout unit has yet to return and our scouts have not seen them close enough to support the attack.¡± This news silenced the commander for a bit and made his anger return. It took a bit of punching a tree until he calmed down enough to start thinking. ¡°Leave the general rabble in front.¡± Most of the goblins were now outside of the forest and in battle lines for Rich Dirt, it was an intimidating sight. His long experience in war allowed him to quickly count the enemies against him, 355 goblins were in the battle lines. It didn''t take long for Rich Dirt to see why they were all ready. Two woolly rhinos emerged from the tree line, pulling a siege device meant to get over moats and will most certainly help them get across the river. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. The ramp that will be lowered kind of looked like a beaver¡¯s tai. This device was built to last, not a quick build in front of the fortifications meant for single use. The battle lines advanced instep with the Beaver being pulled. As they got closer, arrows started to fall into the goblins that were marching in the front. And while goblins died, it failed to make a difference. After some time, the goblin commander saw the human changed weapon and bring out a bigger bow and started shooting it. This bow¡¯s arrows were bigger and hit with more energy. This time they didn¡¯t land on the front goblins but further back on the more trained goblins. More specifically, the goblins that were carrying throwing weapons. There were two units of these kinds of goblins. But this shooting didn''t last long, only killing about 5 and wounding 2 and only 10 arrows were fired. The goblin commander looked in puzzlement as to why the human would stop firing but a moment later, he shivered in fear for a moment, because the human threw off the covering from the ballista and revealed the terrible weapon hidden there similar to the Fat Across. Thanks to one of his evolutions, he was able to see clearly the human prepping the weapon and then loading onto a wooden bowl a sack. The man aimed, and after a moment, fired. There was a thump and a moment later goblin cries were heard, and a section of the front line disappeared. All the goblins stopped moving except for the Beaver. The devastation was large, and the grapeshot¡¯s stones went through multiple goblins, killing or leaving most in the path of it to die. This weapons effectiveness was a surprise to all and an equalizer for the battle. If this was a war game, then the blue team''s winning bar filled by a large amount and every shot, will move the blue line closer to the center of equal battle. ¡°KEEP MOVING!¡± was heard by all the goblins. As the commander below his command. The commander quickly moved to that first army sub commander and orders the shield bearers to protect the woolly rhinos and then he moved to the shaman to discuss strategy. But during that entire time, the thumps went on in the background. The front goblins start to buckle under the pressure. And while the commander was yelling at the shaman to do something useful, the frontline was decimated and started to run away. But they had carried everyone else a lot closer to the bridge and when the command finally noticed his running goblins, it was too late to stop them. They were stupid but they are not suicidal and when they all broke, they run to the sides to get away from the human and the other goblins. Four more shots from the ballista and the goblin units, with throwing weapons, also broke and started running away. But the goblins were now quite close, and whips could be heard, making the woolly rhinos start to move a lot faster for the final push to the river. This time Rich Dirt didn¡¯t load another sack but a proper bolt and aimed for one of the woolly rhinos at the same time the shaman was following orders and casting a spell. Simultaneously, the bolt was fired and flew towards one of the woolly rhinos. The shaman casting was successful and multiple vines shot out, wrapping themselves around the top part of the raised bridge. One of the woolly rhinos was shot through its neck and into its torso, downing the beast and stopping the Beaver from being moved forward. The goblins quickly grabbed the other end of the vines and started to pull as more goblins pulled, the more strained the entire system holding up the bridge went. Rich Dirt started do quickly reload the ballista to shoot a grapeshot into the pulling goblins before they can pull down the raised bridge. But he didn¡¯t get the chance to fire because the shaman had finished another casting and a fire ball flew towards him. He quickly grabbed arrows and the short bow and jumped down. The fireball hit but didn''t do any real damage, just covered everything in flames for a moment. Rich Dirt was now on the bridge. It will only be moments before the bridge is pulled down, so he prepared the best he can by placing a spear near to him and preparing to fire his bow as soon as the bridge falls. The first thing to give on the bridge was the stopper meant to hold the bridge upright. When it crashed down, Rich Dirt could see nearly 150 goblins against him. The first arrow wasn¡¯t meant for any goblin but for the shaman. The shaman was quick and was able to dodge enough that it only left a cut on his side. He gave a quick smirk towards the human to show its superiority. chapter 38 *** The smirk quickly faded as a dizzy spell came over him. The shaman looked at the wound and he understood instantly that he had been poisoned, and he was going to die. Absolute anger that course inside him fuelled the highest and strongest spell he knew, a lightning strike. The shaman''s eyes momentarily went the same colour as light as everything he had channelled towards his hands that start glowing the same colour as lightning. A few moments later a spelled exploded forward, indiscriminately killing all in its path. Rich Dirt started to act as soon as he saw the shaman¡¯s eye light up, he hoped that this move could save his life. He dropped his bow and pulled out his sword, quickly getting down onto his stomach and tipping one end of the sword into the river and holding out his hand in front of him. A moment later the lightning reached him and most of it flew over him the rest still should have been enough to kill him, but he was able to protect his vitals by letting the lighting first hit his right arm and move most of it through his shoulders and left arm into the river using the sword as an extension. When getting hit by lightning or electricity, if you can keep your heart beating, you have a chance at survival and everything Rich Dirt did gave him that chance. The shaman didn¡¯t see if he succeeded or not because he fell onto the ground convulsing and vomiting. It won¡¯t take long for him to die. The goblin force lost over 50 goblins because of that attack. Everyone that was pulling and was ready to charge the bridge was now dead. But the rest are happy to have survived this fight and claim the farm and the land beyond it for themselves. As the commander looked around, he was still devastated and wished that he had been more cautious, but soon the cheering died down. The still smoking human rose up, sheathed his sword and moved to pick up his bow. He moved slowly and roughly, but that didn''t seem to stop him from drawing the bow and firing at the surviving goblins. All of them were completely dumbfounded and didn¡¯t know what to make of all of this. But quickly the commander ordered the surviving shield bearers in front and quickly to move towards the bridge. Rich Dirt fired upon the commander as he was the only one that was tall enough to be picked out from the rest, but the commander was quick enough to dodge the arrows and the Longbow was still on top of the tower. When the goblins finally stepped onto the bridge, the shields were too tight for the bow to be of any more use. Rich Dirt picked up the biggest spear he had and walked forward to the center of the bridge. ¡°If this has to be my last stand, then I¡¯m going to take as many of you with me as I can.¡± Rich Dirt voice sounded normal to him but for the goblins his voice made shivers go down their spines and cold sweat form on their bodies. His words were more akin to a sabre tigers growling than actual speech. It was intimidating enough that the goblin didn¡¯t dare to go into spear range and stood outside it in fear. But that just left an opening and the first goblin to peek around its shield to see what¡¯s going on was pierced by a spearhead and killed. Just like that, the fighting started again, a fight between one human and the forces of the goblins that should be able to easily kill him. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. But the bridge adds another effect, a narrow corridor where only a few goblins had the space needed to fight. Whenever they moved forward, a hit from a spear will follow. This battle was fierce and while the human was being slowly pushed back, every inch meant another goblin''s death. Even the commander was now on the edge of the bridge. He was now sandwiched between his forces and found himself unable to retreat or move forward. The human was keeping the goblins from moving ahead while every other goblin tried to get onto the bridge. This angered the commander. He couldn¡¯t move forward or backwards. He could only watch as his troops tried to cut down the human. But as they hit the human, he didn¡¯t go down. The human¡¯s armor was protecting him well enough against dull iron. Tired of seeing his forces die no matter how much he wanted to torture and get information from the human, he dismissed those plans. He just wanted this to be over, so he lifted his spear and started to activate his ability strong throw, the ability that won him his leadership. While Rich Dirt was fighting for his life, he saw a glow like his piercing cut. He quickly used his own ability piercing cut and made a circle around himself, killing all the goblins and giving him space to see what was happening. But a bit too late as the big goblin threw its spear. It flew so fast that Rich Dirt only had an instant to turn and move away. He was too slow and while the spear didn''t hit him at the center of his chest, it did hit right in front of his heart. All that saved him was that he was able to turn himself enough so that the armor would start pushing the spear away, but even then, it left a big cut behind that pierced all his armor and left him bleeding but not dead. As Rich Dirt screamed a huge battle cry, another person ordered his troops to move forward. The goblin leader was a bit dumbfounded on how the human was able to survive his throw while being so weak. But then he heard charging coming from behind his back. As he turned around, he saw the second scout commander¡¯s troops moving towards the bridge. They finally showed up. At least they did that, but I will still be able to kill that stupid goblin because he was too late. That thought stopped as soon as he saw the goblins were rushing towards his position while lowering their spears. ¡°What are you doing?¡± He yelled and turned fully around. As he saw the back line being pierced by spears, he finally understood that the second scout sub commander was trying to take full control and was now devastating his remaining forces. ¡°You think you can win, you puny goblin, you still have to be able to kill me. Everyone turn around. We must kill all ghhhhr.¡± This moment of inattention cost the goblin commander its life. The goblin commander''s order gave Rich Dirt breathing room and the opportunity to see that the commander had his back to him. The moment he saw this, he threw the spear in his hand as best as he could. It flew quickly and true. He aimed for the spine and while he did miss it, the spear still accomplished all that he wanted by cutting through large arteries and hitting the lungs as well. But as soon as he threw it, he didn''t stop there. He pulled out his sword and started to swing. The goblins that now lost their commander were in disarray and surrounded by two forces. They had nowhere to go and fought to survive. It didn''t take long for them to start dropping their weapons and trying to surrender. Few more died before the killing stopped. Rich Dirt was hurt and completely tired wanted to end the fighting. His adrenaline-soaked mind was barely able to comprehend what was happening. He had to move back to the center of the bridge, having pushed the goblin''s back to the edge of the bridge with his sword. It didn¡¯t take long for the goblins to move out, but soon a small group walked forwards but this time, they didn¡¯t seem to want to attack. ¡°I new leader, I not attack, I want, Peace.¡± said the former second scout sub commander now commander in broken common. When Rich Dirt looked around, he could see the goblins pulling back the hooks from this side of the river and starting to clean up the battlefield. The goblins can keep going and kill me off, but they didn''t, so they must have some reason to not want to kill me, and that was good enough to go to bed and sleep for a week. Rich dirt nodded and, using the last of his strength, pulled up the bridge and used the spare spear as a replacement for the stopping peg that broke. When he was walking back, the wolf came to look him over but he only made it to the house''s front door before he collapsed and sank into unconsciousness. chapter 39 First thing I noticed was that dryness when I try to move, everything hurt, but the pain helped clear up my mind a bit and remember all that had happened. The huge battle and the lightning after that, everything is hazy. The fighting stopped after some close fighting and I remember something about peace. At this moment, I could hear howling. And then wetness on my face. It was the wolf trying to wake me up. I tried to get up, but my entire right hand felt stiff and the same with my left side when I tried to move. Everything was pulling and stiff whenever I moved, and I remembered the wound I have there were cuts on my legs as well, but those seemed shallow. I tried to get into a sitting position, but the dried blood pulled at my skin, making it hard to move. When I finally got to the seating position, I started to take off my armor. It was hard to use my right arm, and it was shaking with the effort. The wolf was watching me take off my armor, concern in her eyes. I tried to not let out screams of pain as I pulled off armor pieces. When I finally got the gambeson off, it opened up the wound on my side again, luckily not too badly. When I was now only in my underwear and everything else was off, I tried to stand and get water, but I didn¡¯t have any on me, so I needed to walk to the well as I walked there I missed having a wall to support me. Pulling up a bucket of water was a tough job and the wounds on my right arm tore every time I moved it. Every movement was a pain, but I still continued and after getting my first mouthfuls of water, I felt a bit better. I stayed there for a bit, looking around and gathering my strength. It was hard to look at my wounds. I couldn¡¯t get the correct angles to see everything, even my neck felt stiff. I started to go back towards the house and into my mother and father''s room. They had a big mirror that will help me assess my injuries. As I opened the door to the room, everything was dusty. I hadn¡¯t cleaned this room since I got here, and I should really take better care of the other rooms as well. I wondered how many days I was unconscious for, but as I looked at the mirror, I would guess two or three on the way I looked. My right arm has wound marks similar to lightning all the way up and also on my neck, on the right side of my head and my entire right shoulder, the back and front. These marks will most likely scar. It would be a wicked scar, but I needed to keep moving this arm constantly so that I will be able to keep full mobility for it. It will be a tough job to do and work through the movement because every moment will be pain for a while. The scratches on my legs were from some of that spear tips getting through my armor. They weren¡¯t that bad and were already quite well healed. All of them had scabs over them. The biggest wound was on my left side that the goblin chieftain or their leader in some capacity left there. This wound needed treatment and a few days of unconsciousness has not been good for it. I tested my forehead and I could feel myself having a fever. This son of a bitch, it is already infected. I didn¡¯t have any medicine to help. The only way I know how to stop it from getting worse was to burn it. Going out and gathering the firewood, I took it to the grass beside the house and light it on fire. I placed my sword''s tip into it. As I took it out, I noticed the damage the sword took from the lightning strike. It had a small lightning pattern on it where the metal was melted a bit. While it heated up, I went to feed the animals. If my fever gets worse, I will need to open up the chicken coop, the barn, and the rabbit cages. I wasn¡¯t going to let the animals starve to death if I died from infection. Just in case I was going to be out of commission and in bed for a few days, I put a lot more food than I usually do. I greeted the bull and the cows and when I got back, the sword was hot enough to be used. I placed myself in a position that would leave the wound towards the sky if I passed out. Prepared myself well, I didn''t let out a scream. But as I was finished, I could feel myself falling into unconsciousness, so I use the last of my strength to throw the sword away from myself. I woke up to howling again and to the night sky. I must have been out for quite a while again. When I got up and got back into the house, I lit a candle to see how well I did. I think I got it all. I took some bandages and wrapped it up, I took some more water into my room and laid on my bed. But before I went to sleep, I needed to check all the notifications. Perhaps some of these will help me overcome my fever because I can feel it getting worse and I was quite hot now, but not in a good way. Combat results frontier farmer level 15 --> frontier farmer level 20(max) animal husbandry level 8 --> animal husbandry level 10(max) handyman level 8 --> handyman level 10(max) fitness enhancement level 2--> fitness enhancement level 7 basic energy manipulation level 7--> basic energy manipulation level 9 basic spear level 3 --> basic spear level 6 basic sword level 4 --> basic sword level 6 archery level 6 --> archery level 9 basic combat strategy level 6 --> basic combat strategy level 9 basic mental fortitude level 1 --> basic mental fortitude level 6 Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. basic stealth level 7 --> basic stealth level 8 piercing cut level 7 --> piercing cut level 11 counterweight level 4 --> counterweight level 5 new skills gained basic throwing level 1 basic battle presence level 1 basic intimidation level 1 stats gained Strength + 17 Dexterity + 13 Vitality + 20 Endurance + 9 Empathy + 2 Intelligence + 4 Got more stats than the level gain explains again. I can understand the throwing skill and, to some extent, the battle presence, but why did I get the intimidation skill? Class levels are also leveled up to max, and I was right about the limits. So common classes will have a max level of 5 and will not get to the threshold bonuses. I know level 40 is the next threshold, so to make it there to I need a class above rare. I am guessing I will get those answers when I check the rest of the notifications. frontier farmer reaches level 20(max) strength +6 dexterity +3 vitality +6 endurance +3 free points gained +15 perk is gained ability plant manipulation max level reached choose a specialisation (specialisation locks class upgraded) animal husbandry level 10(max) Strength +2 Dexterity +2 Vitality +2 Empathy +2 free points gained +5 perk is gained trait animal connection max level reached choose a specialisation (specialisation locks class upgraded) handyman level 10(max) Strength +2 Dexterity +2 Vitality +2 Intelligence +2 free points gained +5 perk is gained trait material intuition max level reached choose a specialisation (specialisation locks class upgraded) I didn¡¯t even check the specialisations just in case it locked me into the current classes. I wanted to see first if there were good upgrades before. But before that, there was one more notification to see. Class combination available merge frontier farmer level 20(max), animal husbandry level 10(max), handyman level 10(max) into homesteader Homesteader: This class lifts all restrictions on every advanced skill used in homesteading. This class unlocks endurance stat, empathy stat and intelligence stat. This class gives trait true nature connection and ability owners land. This class gives chance to upgrade skill or ability into more specialised one. I smiled while reading a power of an epic tier class is incredible and I wanted it, so I picked it and felt power move into me. frontier farmer level 20(max) lost animal husbandry level 10(max) lost handyman level 10(max) lost class gained homesteader Level up homesteader homesteader now level 1 strength +4 dexterity +4 vitality +4 endurance +2 empathy +2 intelligence +2 I hoped that this will happen, and it did. My other class slots opened up and I can now pick new two new classes. To my absolute surprise and delight, there were two new epic tier classes to pick. True archer: This class lifts all restrictions on every expert skill used in fighting or making a bow. This class unlocks perception stat. This class gives trait vampires senses and ability material modification. This class gives chance to upgrade skill or ability into more specialised one. Heroic soldier: This class lifts all restrictions on expert fighting skills, advanced army skills, advanced armour skills and advanced leader skills. This class unlocks constitution stat and presence stat. This class gives trait battle stamina, pain resistance and ability heroic stand. This class gives chance to upgrade skill or ability into more specialised one. How can I not pick both of those? As I did, I can feel the traits merging into me. At first all my pain amplified and then lessened. It was all exhausting me even further, but I still had notifications to see. Level up true archer true archer now level 1 strength +5 dexterity +5 vitality +3 perception stat +4 Level up heroic soldier heroic soldier now level 1 strength +5 dexterity +3 vitality +4 constitution stat +4 presence stat +2 New trait gained strength reaches 80 new trait gained incredible joints dexterity reaches 80 new trait gained changing eyes vitality reaches 80 new trait gained temperature core endurance reaches 20 new trait gained rich blood empathy reaches 10 new trait gained better pheromones intelligence reaches 10 new trait gained better memories As I look at my achievement page, most of the traits are absorbed by the giant among men, but not all. Name: Rich Dirt Species: human Gender: male Age: 12 homesteader level 1 true archer level 1 heroic soldier level 1 stats: strength: 102 dexterity: 82 vitality: 100 endurance: 33 empathy: 14 intelligence: 16 energy storage: 1 perception stat: 4 constitution stat: 4 presence stat: 2 free stat points: 25 Abilities: piercing cut level 11 counterweight level 5 silent arrow level 3 plant sight level 1 guiding thought level 3 animal inspection level 1 merging joints level 2 energy sight level 1 heavy training level 2 owners land level 1 material modification level 1 heroic stand level 1 plant manipulation level 1 Skills: farming level 5 basic identification level 3 basic cooking level 2 basic foraging level 1 basic animal care level 9 fitness enhancement level 7 basic tracking level 6 basic wood carving level 7 wood crafting level 2 logging level 2 basic trap making level 4 basic weaving level 7 basic baking level 1 basic animal product harvesting level 2 basic axe level 3 basic energy manipulation level 9 basic spear level 6 basic sword level 6 basic trapping level 7 basic butchering level 4 basic masonry level 3 construction level 1 basic carpentry level 9 basic architecture level 1 basic engineering level 3 animal handling level 1 animal training level 1 basic bow making level 8 basic fletching level 6 archery level 9 basic running level 9 basic combat strategy level 9 basic mental fortitude level 6 basic ceramist level 2 basic metal casting level 1 basic smithing level 7 basic swimming level 2 landowner level max basic stealth level 8 basic camouflage level 4 basic tailoring level 2 basic alchemy level 1 basic throwing level 1 basic battle presence level 1 basic intimidation level 1 Traits: giant among men true nature connection vampires senses animal connection material intuition chapter 40 For the rest of the night and half of the next day, the fever got worse and I¡¯m pretty sure no human should be as hot as I was. When the fever finally broke, and I started to feel better, I was glad not to die of an infection. It¡¯s not my preferred way of dying. I was still exhausted, but I used the time in bed not just to rest but to circulate my energy faster, hoping that will help me recover faster. The next morning, I woke up and felt like myself again until I had to move. The rest of the wounds haven¡¯t healed, but they did seem to be healing at an incredible rate. I¡¯m guessing that about 40% increase in all my stats had something to do with that. I have so much to go over, but currently I just wanted to eat something. I took one of the wheels of cheese up to eat. Today¡¯s breakfast was just smoked meat and cheese. But the cheese felt a bit too soft. I try to remember more about cheese making and the new trait I got from my intelligence stat helps me out because putting together a few hazy memories, I¡¯m pretty sure that I fucked up the cheese by smoking it. It will not be good for long term storage, it¡¯s going to go bad. The cold temperature in the cellar helps, but it will not last for years, so I need to start eating it fast. There was not much cheese taste. I¡¯m guessing I will need to add salt for it to taste correct, like with any other food, salt helps bring out the taste. I¡¯m quite lucky that the smoking actually gave flavour, otherwise I think it would be quite bland. But it was still food and helped me kept going. I quickly did my morning chores and found that the last cow stopped giving milk as well, which was weird. Pregnant cows should give milk. I¡¯m guessing that perhaps in the early stages they do not. That¡¯s why they stop and such similar times. As I remember my abilities, I hit my forehead with my palm, of course there was probably some sort of an ability that could produce the same effect for cows so they will give milk and it probably ran out. I looked at the bull and hoped that he¡¯s doing a good job because if the cows are not pregnant I will not get milk and I¡¯d really like some milk it''s a good food source and helps my growing body get a lot of calcium. It was time to go see the battlefield. To my surprise, it was cleaned up remarkably well and halfway towards the forest there was a small campsite where a single goblin was, doing absolutely nothing. Next to the campsite was a spear where a goblin''s head was placed. I was able to see a lot better at that distance now and I could recognize the head. It was the biggest goblin''s head that I killed. As I got to the bridge, I still had goblin corpses on my side. I have no idea how I was able to pull it up, but as I look at the mechanism, I see that it¡¯s actually working as intended. The only thing that broke was the holding mechanism. But for the future, I should probably make some chains that are attached to the raising part and that I can attach to the rest of the bridge, so there is no way someone will be able to pull down the bridge without breaking it. I got a few more metal pieces from these goblins. These were quite big ones and hopefully will come in handy and the big spear was still here and quite deeply buried in the wood. I pulled it out, and it was an excellent spear it was a bit rusty but with a bit of help it would make an excellent spear it weighed a lot more than mine and had a bigger head. I am surprised I was able to survive it. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. I tossed the goblin corpses into the river. They were starting to go bad. I lowered the bridge and started to walk towards the goblin. Looking around, I could see huge piles of ash. I¡¯m guessing they burned all the bodies, but I did not see any armor or weapons in the piles or the rest of the field. I¡¯m guessing that everything useful is cleaned up. When the goblin finally noticed me, he quickly started to remove some covering from a pile and when he finished, I noticed my arrows broken and whole, the ballista bolt, a huge hide and two horns one small and one big I¡¯m guessing from the woolly rhino. After the goblin had revealed everything, he sat down cross-legged. I¡¯m guessing to show that he was not a threat. I have never been that close to a living goblin before that wasn¡¯t trying to kill me. I looked over all the things left for me. I was quite happy but unfortunately all the metal armor and weapons were gone but at the end of the day they could have killed me and took everything, so it¡¯s good enough, I guess. I¡¯ll see what they want. I watched the goblin and waited a spear in my hand. It didn''t take long until it spoke in broken common, barely understandable. ¡°Leader left things yours, trophy kill.¡± As he said the last thing, he pointed that the horn and hide. He then continued by pointing all around him. ¡°All your land, not goblin land. Leader want talk peace I go tell, later leader come.¡± Interesting, so the new leader wants to negotiate. I guess I owe that much, and a break from those hostilities will give me a chance to recover my fighting form for the future. The goblin starts to tell the same thing as before. I bet he doesn¡¯t know a word he¡¯s saying, just memorised what he needs to tell. I do a shooing motion and the goblin stops and quickly gets up and starts packing up a few things and then runs into the forest. It will be a while before he or the leader return, so I had no reason to stay here and wait. I start to gather up all my things and when I passed the bridge, I shake off the head into the water and get my spear back. I had a lot of maintenance to do with all my weapons. The short bow had seen better days and I think I will need to retire this one. Luckily, I had spares to use. The longbow seems to have held up great, a pity that I didn¡¯t get to use it more. The ballista, however, was a lifesaver, and I oil it up lovingly. I still had the covering that I put back on to ballista, helping it better resist the environment. Later on, I would love to make that waterproof as well. I had used a lot of arrows, about half of the short bow arrows, but thanks to the goblins I got back about half that were used ready to be fired right now. The rest were broken in some way and a lot needed a stone head. The feathers could be used again even from the broken arrows thanks to me not gluing but using string to attach them. Only one of the longbow arrows was completely broken, but I still was able to use the fletching and the head when I made new ones. The spear I used needed some work and after I sharpened it, it was ready for use again. The big goblins spear needed even more work than my spear, but it wasn¡¯t strenuous work, and I was able to keep my hand moving to help it recover better. When I was done with it, I was quite pleased with how big and how much weight it has. The ballista bolt only needed a bit of cleaning and sharpening, and was ready for use again. The worst damage was to the sword, and with my heating it up to burn my wound, I made it worse. I honestly don¡¯t know if it¡¯s usable as a weapon anymore. But as a test it out it seemed to still be workable but as soon as I get a replacement, I will retire it. It is dull and chipped, and it was even bent in two places. The upper part was bent because I heated it up, but the bottom bend was probably because I used both piercing strike and counterweight at the same time to cleave through shields and goblins. I don¡¯t think using the counterweight was a conscious decision because it was all quite hazy and I¡¯m pretty sure I was in my battle mindset not that much active thinking going on there but a lot of passive thinking at least that¡¯s how I explained it to myself. Either way, it seemed to have been an excellent choice. Even if it didn''t provide much, it still provided help. Thanks to my new strength that I was still getting used to and constantly needed to circulate my energy to make use of it, I bent the sword as straight as I could and then sharpened it as well as I could. There were a few nicks that were too deep to get rid of, but as I always have thought, swords were tools, not something to use sparingly. A sword is meant to keep you alive, and this sword did its job extremely well, saving me from the lightning and helping me drive back the goblins during the last push. I would have been proud to die using this weapon. chapter 41 As I was putting the finishing touches on to the sword, I suddenly smelled blood. It took me a bit to get the direction and as soon as I did, I saw the wolf coming around the woodsheds corner. She had two rabbits in her jaw and that''s where the blood smell came from. She seemed happy to see me moving about and came to greet me, giving me one of the rabbits. This time I accept it gratefully and started to butcher it, getting me a skill level in it. As I finished, the wolf came back from wherever she stashed the rabbit. It was weird to smell her now. There is so much more information, and I could see that the hunt tired her a lot and if I interpret my smelling correctly, it won''t be too long until she gives birth. I offered her a piece of meat that she accepted and let me pet her afterwards. This world''s pets must be from one end of the scale to another thanks to abilities and evolutions creatures can get themselves. I wonder if evolutions can be given to offspring. This line of thinking will not be needed now and can be left for later. I got lots of new abilities and traits I need to test and understand. I will start with the traits first. Vampiric senses is quite easy to understand. It gives me a huge passive bonus to my senses. If I actively try to concentrate, it will give an even greater benefit. But like with all things in this system and world, I will need a lot of practice to get any use from the higher range of this trait. The passive and even active boost at the start is manageable and extremely helpful, bringing information about the world I know nothing about. But as I concentrated more, it became overwhelming to a point that I retched as I tried to concentrate on smelling too much. It was the same with all the other senses. They got overwhelming in their own way. Still, it was an extremely useful trait for absolutely everything. As the wolf was still with me, I tried to see what the trait animal connection does, but it was extremely hard to pinpoint if it did anything at all. My connection to animals has always been good but maybe it would be more useful with animals not as friendly as this one. For the material intuition trait, I pulled my sword out and try to intuition it. To my surprise, it kind of worked, giving me an understanding that it was steel and that''s it was in quite bad shape. I also had an ability that also started with material, so I tried to activate it. The ability material modification seemed to be on a whole new level compared to my other abilities. I¡¯m pretty sure my trait helped me with it, but not only did I get a better understanding of the sword and what it¡¯s made from I could figure out all the percentage of different metals. All the mistakes are plain to see if I concentrate long enough. Given time, I would know this sword inside and out better than the back of my hand. As for modifying it, I tried by starting to smooth out the tiniest of details, but all this came with heavy energy cost. Using the ability for a few minutes spent half of my usable energy and doing a few minor modifications made me basically consume the rest. I have a feeling that this skill is a lot higher tier than I should have access to. I probably need to have 10x the energy from stats to make good use of this ability or have this ability at a high enough level, so it won¡¯t take that much energy. But honestly, I expect nothing else but an extreme energy usage for this ability. Even with all the negatives, it is still an extremely incredible ability that will become extremely useful, perhaps not modifying material just yet but certainly to understand whatever I make better. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Now, back to the traits. True nature connection seemed another extremely powerful trait. I walked to the vegetable fields to test it. At first, I couldn¡¯t figure out if it did anything as I observed one of the tomato plants. It took a long time to slowly form a better connection so I could understand the plant better. It was still a weak connection that only got me a sense of how the plant was doing. Apparently well, a bit more water would be nice soon. What this trait was truly useful for was to enhance my plant-based abilities. My new ability plant modification is a lot easier and energy efficient to use than it has the right to be. It¡¯s similar to the material modification. It came with a lot of information about the plant itself when used and the ability to modify the plant''s properties. It seemed to be a lesser version of a material modification, but it was still incredibly useful. As I turned on my plant vision and energy sight, the trait was shown once again to be extremely helpful, giving me a lot more understanding of what different energies meant while they moved inside. With the new traits and abilities, I¡¯m pretty sure I could modify plants for my usage. They all just gave me way too much new work and studying to do. The sights also showed the trait changing eyes that was absorbed by giant amongst men still worked because now my eyesights is 20/10 while before it was worse. That¡¯s the best way I can describe the change. I am guessing that the trait helps my eyes to adjust to the different sights better, giving me a perfect vision from any ability that affects the eyes. The few more traits that I got were absorbed by giant amongst men, but they still seem to have their particular trait active, perhaps even a bit better. My joints were a lot more flexible now and I could feel pain, but it was a lot duller. I¡¯m guessing that the rich blood helps me attain a lot more oxygen because I could feel myself breathing a lot more slowly and not getting tired by constantly doing the same motion when I was sharpening the sword. The temperature core most likely is responsible for my quick recovery because I was a lot hotter than any human should possibly be without dying helping burn out the infection. I¡¯m also guessing that hot and cold weather will no longer be survival points I need to worry about. The better memories are already helping, but better pheromones. I will have to take off my hat, as I do not have any idea how that will work. Next came the ability owners land. When I activated it, I found it extremely weird. It took almost no energy and at the start, it didn¡¯t feel like it did anything. Just in case I went and examined the property map, but that didn''t seem to do anything. I kept it on as I did some weeding for the potatoes and vegetables. Even when it was on, I was still recovering a lot more energy that I was spending, so I didn¡¯t see any problem with keeping it on to see if it would do anything. The heroic stand didn¡¯t do anything when I tried to activate it, I got a feeling it needed battle to activate and even then, needed certain conditions during battle to activate but I am guessing when I do get to activate it, it will be awesome. As I did general jobs around the farm and started to cook the rabbit, getting me a cooking skill, finally the ability of owning the land started to show itself. I suddenly got the vague sense of something entering the abilities area. I concentrated on it more and it became a lot clearer a rabbit had entered the area. As I focused on that more, I could understand where it was happening on my land. I could track the rabbit movements. I tried to concentrate this time through the ability on the bull and to my surprise, I was able to pinpoint its current location and get a sense of what it was doing. It was enjoying some good grass. I checked on all my animals and if I concentrated even more, I could get a sense of where bugs were, but that quickly overwhelmed me. Being more active with ability used more energy, but even then, it was almost nothing compared to the other abilities I have. I messed around with it until it was time to go to bed and I tried to see if I could keep it on even when I slept. I was suddenly awoken just before the sun came up, but I couldn¡¯t figure it out why. But my ability owners land soon pinged again. It had now encompassed my entire land but not going past it, and some goblins had entered my land. The ability then started to notify me and woke me up. I have yet to decide if this is a good or bad thing, but with my tinkering yesterday, I¡¯m pretty sure I could tune the ability to notify or not to notify me about anything that happens on my land. I am extremely interested in how the ability will evolve when I gain more levels, but time will tell that. Currently, I needed to think of what to do. It was a small goblin group, most likely the leader moving here to start negotiating with me. This knowledge could give me the upper hand in negotiations if I went out and laid an ambush in the forest. Starting the negotiations by showing off that I could kill them easily will give me that advantage in whatever they wish to accomplish with me. chapter 42 I had some time, so I didn¡¯t hurry that much. I got up and prepared some food. As I went outside, I noticed I can see better in the dark. I¡¯m guessing that the new trait of vampires senses helped me, but a few moments later as I wished to see even better, everything cleared up and I could see everything better. I¡¯m guessing that the changing eyes kicked in to help my low light vision. This made doing the chores this early a lot easier and also getting geared up for the ambush. I used my regular foresting gear for what I had in mind. More armor would not be the best, and my armor was not in the best of condition. I was only dealing with five goblins. Even if they are a lot better than the usual ones, if it turned into a fight, it should be manageable. Since my best short bow was out of commission, I had to use the second best, but it was now shooting more like a children¡¯s training bow than actually shooting the weapon. They had made quite a lot of progress, but it will still take them hours to get here, so I set off towards them. As I lower the bridge this time, I was not anxious to leave it down thanks to owners land ability that was constantly running. I will have to be careful about owners land. I cannot get too reliant on it otherwise if I have to leave my lands I would be handcuffed and I will have a lot more difficult time getting used to not having it. Planning an ambush using it was simple. I just had to figure out where they will pass through and find a tree that will give sufficient cover while still leaving an opening for an attack. I had to change position twice before they were close enough, and I was in the correct position. Turns out the hardest thing wasn¡¯t setting up an ambush it was how to start the ambush. Do I shoot an arrow close to them? Do I yell something? This problem was occupying my mind so much that they made it to the correct position and all I could think to say was. ¡°Halt, who goes on my land?¡± Their reactions were immediate, all turned around. It seemed that the leader was a goblin in the middle, a bit taller and he looked slimmer, with its body proportions being better than the other ones but still easily identified as a goblin. The big goblin that was leading the attack on my bridge looked more like a green version of a big human. He was also the fastest to react and I think the only one that actually understood what I was trying to do. He quickly spoke something in goblin and everyone lowered their weapons. I did the same in kind and jump down to be on their level. ¡°Greetings human, I the leader of the goblins here. My name is Stebs Soot.¡± ¡°Greetings to you as well, Goblin. I own this land and my name is Rich Dirt.¡± There was silence for a little while after our statements of the first greeting. I was waiting for him to break the silence and the eventually he did. ¡°I am here to discuss peace. Is this something you are interested in?¡± I tried to speak as plainly as I could. His understanding of common was at a child level. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. ¡°That depends on what this peace will cost me.¡± The goblin leader I could see was thinking over what to say. This next line will probably determine how the negotiations will go. ¡°I want knowledge, but not for peace. Peace, you will have no matter what. What do you want for knowledge?¡± Oh, this one is smart and honest to some extent. If I said no, there would be peace, I believe him in that, but it will be more like Cold War, both sides still needing to put a lot of resources into building up an arsenal bigger than the other one. I¡¯m quite sure that they will win with numbers the race to build up, even with the numbers they have left. But what would I want in return? I am not in any need for anything for my survival. But for the betterment of my farm and my skills, I would need some resources. Metal, especially iron, would be on top of that list. ¡°If I know the knowledge, I might be able to give it to you, but that will depend on what kind of knowledge. As for something in return, how do you get your metal armor pieces?¡± Just in case, I pointed towards the goblins that were wearing them. They did not seem to like that, some of them tried to cover the pieces I was pointing at. ¡°Iron Armor too hard to get to give for knowledge will cost too many lives. We go on a trial of iron that is a week''s journey from here. Very dangerous place where old armor and weapons can be found. 1 in 10 goblins that take the trial come back.¡± Oh, I so want to know more about that place, but this wouldn''t be a priority especially if it was such a dangerous place, and it seems that this trial of iron was of great important to them, so I didn¡¯t want to push more towards it currently. ¡°What about hides and horn? Resources from hunting.¡± ¡°That can be done what amount need.¡± I could see the struggled with the last part of the sentence. He needed to substitute some words to make it understandable. ¡°Not large amount, good strong more important to me. What kind of knowledge would you be interested in first?¡± ¡°Getting stronger will be harder to, this can be done. I want knowledge how to get a class.¡± Well shit, I don¡¯t know how to get a class when you do not have an option to pick one. Well, maybe I do. There are classes for many species like elves, dwarfs and so on, but if the horror stories from my childhood are true, even animals, if they evolve enough, can get a class. In the stories they needed to evolve many times by killing and eating children before they can have a class and really need it for something they want but I¡¯m guessing there is some truth to that, but I am pretty certain he already knows all that. ¡°To help you, I would need to be able to explain it¡¯s better than we speak now. I plan on cutting down lots of trees. During that time, I¡¯d like someone to teach me goblin language so I could better understand you and explain better to you.¡± I could see him thinking hard and hopefully he accepts. This accomplishes two things, one I learn about goblin society and their language and two if the negotiations breakdown because I can¡¯t deliver, I would still have weeks of no hostilities while getting a huge amount of lumber to prepare for winter and for all the building I want to do. ¡°No hide or horn for this and goblins I sent, you will teach them common as well. I will be there as much as I can. Is this acceptable?¡± Clever one wanting to get common in return it would probably help them 100 times more than me, but I still think that it can be acceptable. ¡°Agreed.¡± I put my hand forward for a shake that he returns. ¡°Agreed, I will go back and bring the goblins that will teach you and you will teach in a few days. Is this acceptable?¡± ¡°Yes, that is acceptable.¡± As I finish saying that, I nodded and turned around and start to go back, not watching over my shoulder, so I will seem more confident. Now I have the time I need to get the lumber and prepare if hostilities start again, but with him leading it would be hard to win even with the numbers they have currently. If hostilities start again, my first goal should be to kill him. Can¡¯t have someone so smart against me. I like the typical goblin archetype better, the stupid and angry a lot easier to fight against. Halfway back I ran into the wolf. She looked worried for a moment but seamed to relax when she saw me. When she got near, she looked confused and looked at my hand. ¡°Aaa goblin smell we will see them more, but hopefully not as enemies.¡± She looked way too cute when she was confused, but hopefully there will be no problem with her and the goblins. The bull will enjoy the coming weeks, but I will really need to name them. When I get back, it will be the first thing I do first the bull and then the wolf. With the rest, I will wait. chapter 43 When I was back on the farm, I went to see the bull. He was happy to see me, and I spent some time just scratching him. Naming was difficult, and I always ended up giving stupid names, but I guess that¡¯s just who I am. ¡°So, you haven''t got a name, and I think it¡¯s long overdue for you to get one.¡± He acted like he understood what I was saying and seemed eager. I started to say different names. It took a while until I said Francis that made his head turn. ¡°Francis, I like it and it seems that you do as well. Nice to meet you, Francis. I am Rich Dirt.¡± I so wish that I could name myself something different, but maybe I¡¯ll make my name true and be known by all as the person that makes any dirt rich. That day was still quite young, and I wanted to replenish my meat stock, so it was time for another trapping day in the rabbit forest. I got all my trapping things ready to go and as I was moving towards the grassland, the wolf showed back up at my side. ¡°I¡¯m heading out for some rabbit hunting, and I also need to give you a name.¡± The same thing happened with the wolf as the bull. As I mentioned giving her a name, she looked at me exactly the same way as the bull did. I hope this is just a coincidence and naming isn''t something that means a lot more than just giving a name. ¡°Freya¡± The first name I said she seemed to like. This was a lot easier than with the bull. By the evening I had caught 15 rabbits, most were now in the smoker as I did my training. I got my ability heavy training leveled up, and that helped me keep pushing myself. Stretching was made a lot easier and I¡¯m guessing a lot more efficient thanks to my incredible joints trait my joints are a lot more flexible, and it seemed a lot stronger. Since the evening was so warm, I went for a swim and as I swam, I had an idea to check if I could find any of the axes or hatchets under the bridge. It took a bit, and I got my swimming up 2 levels and I did get 1 axe and 2 hatchets for my troubles. While the meat was still smoking, I used that time to fix them up as best as I could, as well as the armor. It took a lot of small fixes and a few patches to make it useable again, but it still has a huge weak point where it got pierced. It will still be dirty. I didn¡¯t want to waste the last of my soap washing it yet. I needed to put making soap into the priority list and move it to the top. Before I went to bed and eat dinner, I also set up my gear so I could fell trees. I went and had a talk with Francis about what we will be doing tomorrow because I was going to use him to help me bring back lumber. With my new stats, I¡¯m guessing that I¡¯m about half of his pulling strength. 4 legs give so much more pulling force. I think we will be doing double duty so we could bring back even more. I am guessing that Freya will be also coming along so I will have plenty of company and when the goblins finally arrived I hope that everything will go smoothly, and I can keep peace for a minimum of a month while we study each other¡¯s languages. The first building that will go up will be so I can store the logs off the ground and the more specialized woods higher up so they could dry better and be protected from rain. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Morning came, and I was all set up after my chores to start cutting trees. I would need them for a lot of different needs firewood for winter. I need some good wood for tar making, of course, building and then making of bows and other wooden crafts. I have found that I am short of places to sit, and I do not wish to bring along a chair everywhere, so I will be making some benches and chairs. Hopefully, I can get my carpentry to tier up as well as wood carving. For that reason, I¡¯m going to make the benches and chairs fancy with lots of carvings. I¡¯m hoping that one of those skills will give me an ability that will help me prepare the wood quicker so I do not have to dry them for a year so that I could make good buildings. We set off as a team, Francis pulling the sled, me carrying all the equipment needed and Freya just tagging along. The first day was more spent on not getting specific wood but more making tracks so we could easily pull-out lumber from the forest. This wood will also be used to make the drying buildings. There was quite a lot of room between the bridge and my main farm buildings more towards the bridge and the river was the smoker and the gym and also where I deal with the hides. The drying place will be about in the middle, where I will make a few more workshops later on, like the butchery making a secondary grouping of buildings there. The sauna will go near the river a bit further away near a nice bend where to flow is slow so you could jump in and enjoy the water. I can also add to the sauna some facilities to make washing clothing easier and thanks to it, being so close to the river water will not be a problem. Cutting down trees now was simple. Only a few hits with the piercing cut ability and a tree will fall. This is thanks to me leveling it up so much and understanding how it works better. The biggest hang-up was my energy. I found that going at full speed, I run out of energy before the day was done multiple times. As I was resting towards the evening in the forest surrounded by Freya and Frances as they also waited, I figured it might be an excellent idea to use my free points and put them into energy storage. For the start, I only put 5 stat points into it so I could test tomorrow how much it helps me cut down cutting time. When I was rested enough, I and Francis pull out the last loads of lumber. I used the evening to raise the lumber off the ground and to start stacking it up on top of each other. They will end up sort of like a full house that will be surrounded by a simple wall on the sides and a roof to keep off most of the rain, but leave the ends open for air to move through. Currently, the first one was only half filled, but it was still taller than me. The counterweight ability was very handy, helping me to do it quickly and efficiently and getting me a level in it. The day finally finished. I was exhausted from the hard day of labour, but I also know I was going to be doing this for at least a few weeks. By that time, I will most likely figure out if I needed to go to war again with the goblins. The next day went much the same as yesterday and I found out that I could do almost three times as much work with five points into energy storage, so without hesitation I dumped the rest into that stat. This might become my dump stat, but we will see. There would be no point in getting it too big if my energy production couldn''t keep up, but I guess we will see if I could figure out how to increase it. That would be extremely useful for absolutely everything. Most of all for battle, if I have more energy to use, I can use my abilities longer and stronger, making me someone you do not want to mess with. And I got the feeling that the goblins were just the tutorial for what¡¯s coming. The wood that will go into making firewood I did not put into the same piles that were later going to be covered up. There was no need because I was going to need to cut them into smaller chunks and then split them making drying them in long logs useless. I also start 2 new log storage buildings, one for extremely good building wood that I will be using as the most important parts for supporting the buildings. The other one is for bow and crafting wood storage. Yesterday I spent the evening sorting and stacking all the logs and I was almost done with the first log drying building. That meant I would need to make boards tomorrow and bring in some smaller diameter logs for the supports. I found out that I made a mistake with the first one and I didn¡¯t support the bottom logs well enough, and they started to sink in the dirt, making the bottom row useless. But I guess it¡¯s not the end of the world and the upper ones will still be good. Way too much weight as I kept stacking them up. I might have to sacrifice the bottom row for every building, but we will see if placing more boards underneath will help or not. chapter 44 Today the goblins were coming, and I hoped that everything will go well. It will still be awhile before they are here, so after the chores, I used the time to go and trap some rabbits. I wasn¡¯t there for long, but I still got five rabbits. After butchering them, I didn''t smoke them, but left some in the cellar and with the rest made some rabbit stew. A good and big portion that will last awhile. I was still cooking when they arrived at the bridge, but I didn''t go immediately to welcome them. They were going to be using my time, so I was going to drag it out as long as possible. It took a few hours before the stew was done. During that time, I checked on my fields and everything seemed to be growing excellently. After eating a belly full of stew, I started to go towards the bridge where an anxious-looking Freya was waiting. She got confused as she noticed me being relaxed while goblins were so close. ¡°Hey there Freya, yeah these goblins are not enemies, so let¡¯s go greet them and not attack. Let¡¯s have a good meeting.¡± As I lower the bridge, I had to hold her back and keep telling that they were not enemies until she finally calmed down completely when the leader and I shook hands. It was a small greeting that we had, and he was off quickly, leaving me with three goblins, two quite young looking and one older. They know a lot less common than the leader, but enough to start learning. We had a small introduction between ourselves and I asked them to wait while I went and got ready for my lumbering. They were a bit confused. The older one quickly explained that they thought they were going to sit around a campfire and start learning languages. They didn¡¯t seem bothered when I explained that I wanted to work cutting down trees while we teach each other. When we were in the forest, I started the proper introductions. The old one was named Til Tuck and one of the younger ones was named Tul Tuck. Turned out that they were grand father and grandson to each other. The third one was named Chulgt. I asked why he only had one name and apparently, he was born from the breeders while the other two were conceived by female couplings the normal way. He needed to earn his last name. My work was a lot slower, but I didn¡¯t mind it that much. I was able to work so much faster with the system than a person with a chainsaw and going at full speed will get me too much wood. While teaching them common was hard, teaching me goblin was simple. It wasn¡¯t because I am brilliant in languages, quite the opposite it was because the language itself was brilliant. Evidently, it¡¯s called Goubdar. With all the languages on earth and common here, Goubdar is the simplest in the best ways possible. I was thinking before about how goblins that are stupid could learn a language and speak it so fluently. As I learned more, I was convinced that the goblins that I have seen and interacted could never have come up with a language so simple yet complex enough to get complex ideas across. There was another problem, time. It was not going to take too long for me to learn Goubdar to the same level as my common. Fortunately, it will take them a lot longer to get the hang of common. As I ended my work in the forest, the goblins decided with some urging to use the campsite beyond the bridge halfway to the forest and luckily, they had enough food to keep themselves fed. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Francis didn¡¯t seem to mind them at all and did the work with enjoyment. During the evening, I worked on stacking the lumber and making boards to make the outer shells as well as to separate the lumber. After dealing with the wood and while I was checking on the cows, I actually got some good news as my animal inspection confirmed two of them were pregnant, great development. Next evening, instead of sawing the logs into proper length for firewood, I actually wanted to use up all the excess energy, so I started to use piercing cut. I had to concentrate quite hard and for a lot longer, but I tried to cut through the log with one strike. It took a lot of energy, but I also had a lot to spare thanks to me putting so many stat points into energy storage. All in all, I think it was a bit faster than sawing them, but I did make another crucial discovery. You could overexert yourself using energy if you use a lot too fast and too quickly. I think this just needs to be trained out by using more energy, but if I didn¡¯t know about this during battle, sudden weakness would have been unexpected and it might have been fatal. Since I was learning goblin so much faster, I tried to get as much information as possible and urged them to tell me their folklore and stories. This serves two purposes. One, it actually made the days go by faster and I was entertained. Two, it helped me put the pieces together on how to hopefully help him gain a class that he so desires. But as the days passed, I started to learn even more importantly about the system. It works on intent. That¡¯s the most important thing about the system. If you do not strive forward for something, you will not get anything from the system or if you do it is subpar at best. The goblins are a monster race that has limited access to the system, most notably they miss the class features. They still see their stats and they have the evolutions unblocked as every other thinking being that does not have a class. When they got skills, it was because they were trying to get better at something. Turns out there are goblins that have skills with woodworking, but the system only provides the basic techniques and in rare cases, only basic blueprints for something. As I got to know the goblins, I learned why they didn¡¯t have goblins that are capable of making bridges. It¡¯s because they didn¡¯t have the time to get to that point. All goblins either hunted, waged war or gathered food. That was their life, constantly feeding the breeders so there could be more goblins so they could do all three things more and endless cycle. As I try to dig deeper into that dynamic, there didn''t seem to be any logical answer to why it was like that. On the seventh day, the leader showed back up for a day of learning common. I could hold a decent conversation in Goubdar and while I spent that day mostly teaching common, I did ask where he got the idea to get the class. Apparently, there was an ancient folktale about goblins with classes that rule the forests. He thought it might be possible to get a class, but more importantly, he wanted to protect himself against others with classes. Totally understandable goal, a class is sort of like a gun. If you don''t have one, you¡¯re basically fucked if another one has it and is willing to use it against you. Their lifespan seems to be about 20 years if they didn¡¯t get any evolutions. If they did, they could live longer depending on what they got. I learn more about evolutions thanks to those conversations. Apparently, sometimes they even have a choice in what kind of evolution they want. To them, there were 4 sacred ones. Evolutions that made the breeders. Evolutions that made shamans. Evolutions that made goblins more human like and the final one that seemed to make goblins a bit different to their current form, this granted longer lifespan and a better quality of life. It came to me as a complete surprise that the older goblin was in his 40s and still quite spry. It was thanks to him taking the evolution that give more life span and he had a few skills quite high up and apparently his leatherworking should break the threshold soon getting him an ability. By the end of the second week, I was starting to put together an actual plan to help them. I could see some history that I could piece together but even if I wasn¡¯t correct, it will still help them move forward and hopefully become quite good trading partner in the future and help keep the forest beyond my lands clear of too many monsters and evolved beasts. During that time, Freya was coming with us into the forest less often and I needed to hunt for her. I think she will go into labour soon. By the third week I was just teaching common, I didn¡¯t have much more to learn about the Goubdar language and they have run dry of stories to tell unless I wanted to hear the 100 story of how some goblin commander was able to get 100 breeders and make a horde big enough to challenge the class wielding civilizations. They all know common well enough now to carry on a conversation with anyone and I asked them to go and get their leader because I was ready to give my explanation on how I think they will be able to get a class and to get them out of my way. chapter 45 Next day I started off as any other, but I know that it won¡¯t end like any other. I¡¯m pretty sure that tonight Freya will give birth and before that I will give what I know to the goblins about them getting classes. I have gotten a lot of progress done in getting wood and in my achievement page. piercing cut level 11 --> piercing cut level 14 counterweight level 6 --> counterweight level 7 plant sight level 1 --> plant sight level 2 animal inspection level 1 --> animal inspection level 2 basic cooking level 3 --> basic cooking level 4 fitness enhancement level 7 --> fitness enhancement level 8 logging level 2 --> logging level 8 basic butchering level 6 --> basic butchering level 7 animal handling level 1 --> animal handling level 2 animal training level 1 --> animal training level 2 energy storage reaches 10 new trait gained better energy control energy storage reaches 20 new trait gained stronger energy saturation Every few days, I also needed to go and trap some rabbits for myself and Freya. But once that was done, I still had quite a lot of time as the goblin had yet to come into my land, but I hope that they will not be too late because no way in hell I was going to miss Freya giving birth. Not wanting to waste the day, I started doing my training and while I was running back, I actually got a level in running getting me past the basic tier. Skill increases basic running level 10 is upgraded to running level 1 Choose one of the following abilities farmers step enhanced speed stamina surge If farmers step is movement ability, there¡¯s no way I can''t pick it, right? The other ones seem good as well, but I really want a movement ability. They always seem super powerful. You have gained a new ability farmers step farmers step specialized by class homesteader Ability farmers step change to homesteaders mile So that¡¯s what the last sentence meant with the epic classes. Any ability with a mile should always be better than one with a step but I guess we will see. I tried to test it out, and it truly was a movement skill. With one step I covered the distance of five. It took a lot of energy, and it wouldn''t be something that you could use all the time if I didn¡¯t have that large energy pool that I have. This will help me cover so much more distance, but I must do a lot more experimenting to see how it will work in the forest and other places. Could I step from one tree to another? All those questions must be answered, but not today. After my weight training and stretching, I started to make the benches that I wanted to place around my farm. It didn¡¯t take long for me to get my carpentry to tier up. I was disappointed in myself, I could have done that a weeks ago. ¡°Think better Rich Dirt.¡± Skill increases basic carpentry level 10 is upgraded to carpentry level 1 Choose one of the following abilities sharp drill faster material preparation construction sight Shit, two things that I really want and the third one that is luckily not that important currently, I don¡¯t have a drill. I so loved the sights but given how little construction that I will do, I don¡¯t think it would be that important but if I could dry materials faster. It seems like an extremely important ability, and I hope that it will work as needed. It seems that the goblins were correct that the system works on intent. I got two skills that I really wanted and probably the third one would be useful in the future as well. I will need to think further ahead in the future so that I could influence the abilities that I¡¯m offered. You have gained a new ability faster material preparation Getting this skill to tier up needed four benches to be finished. All I needed to do was now carve sometime onto them but it was already quite close to the evening and the goblins were already on my land, so I took some things to go and prepared. I wanted to make a small campsite with a fire in the forest where they will walk past so we could talk there. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. There are quite a lot more goblins. 12 of them were coming and they seem to be moving in three groups, so most likely all the top echelon of their current society. It didn¡¯t take me long to set everything up, and I was getting quite good at predicting where they were going to walk past. It was still quite light out thanks to the sun being up so late but quickly dark clouds were coming in and most likely there will be rain in the night and soon the clouds will block out the sun making everything a lot darker so I was glad that I decided to make a fire. Then I finally saw the goblins with my own eyes. They were a bit hesitant to approach, but that was only momentary, and soon I was on one side of the fire and the goblins on the other side. This time I started the conversation in Goubdar when everyone was settled in. ¡°Welcome everyone, before we start, I have some questions that I hope you will answer honestly. Answering these questions will help me help you better.¡± I didn¡¯t wait for any confirmations but just continue. ¡°If you didn¡¯t use breeders, how often can your females give birth and get pregnant again?¡± I could see the distrust and on unwillingness to answer, but eventually the leader did. ¡°Four months to give birth and about one or two months after that to get pregnant. Why do you want to know this?¡± ¡°No questions yet. Do you have any breeders or someone close to it currently?¡± One of the other goblins from one of the side groups spoke up then. ¡°This is none of your business breeders are only for us to know and you can bet we''ll keep them a lot safer from now on.¡± I just kept waiting while they discussed with each other, and eventually, the leader turned and answered. ¡°We currently don''t have any and while we have females that have some evolution, we are in a bad place with them currently.¡± I smiled at that news. Absolutely no one likes that I did that, and the leader speaks up. ¡°That is not funny. If we don¡¯t get the breeders soon, we will go into decline and will most likely disperse and join other groups. Now, why did you need to know this?¡± ¡°Quite simple actually, if you want to get the class you want you must abandon the breeders and never allow one amongst you again.¡± Oh, they did not like that the leader looked shocked and appalled. The others were a lot more vocal and angry about that statement. Except for the old goblin that was with me and learned common, and he was the first one to speak out. ¡°You have listened to our stories and learned about our society. Why have you come to this decision, explain?¡± ¡°In all stories and folklore, there are elements of truth even if they are blown out of proportion or changed with time.¡± ¡°I listened to your stories and folklore and tried to piece together your history that would explain why there would be a problem of you getting classes and why you no longer had any.¡± ¡°Now this history that I pieced together might not be exactly what happened, but I am pretty sure I know the important points that matter to you.¡± ¡°Your first correct move was to notice a problem. Your leader here understood that they do not have any classes, yet some old stories told of classes among all goblins.¡± ¡°In solving any problem, the first step is to notice that there is a problem. Your leader then tried to find someone that might be able to help. Luckily, you chanced on to me and I was able to put together the pieces of truth and help you complete the second step, understanding what is wrong.¡± ¡°I believe that goblins once were like the human race or the other civilization where everyone had a class. Now why do I believe that it''s quite simple, because you in your current form and your current society doesn¡¯t fit into nature.¡± One of the goblins tried to raise his weapon, but I motioned my hand for him to stop. ¡°This will be hard to hear, but it will be necessary. The way you currently are is not natural and what I mean by that you were not made this way by natural process, but by someone who needed a goal accomplished.¡± ¡°My best clue was your evolutions and more specifically the ones that grant longer life and change your body slightly to be a better version of a goblin but not mimicking a human or someone similar to that.¡± ¡°Those evolutions are what the system is trying to help you turn back to what you were because your current form, it¡¯s meant for war, and more specifically, war of attrition.¡± ¡°Now I do not know exactly why you were made the way you were, but I know what the goal was. It was to fight someone that had larger numbers than you had at that time. You were meant to breed fast and have hundreds to thousands of breeders to gain numbers fast and swarm your enemy in numbers.¡± ¡°I believe currently why the breeders are so inefficient is because of time and natural evolution, not the system one. Simply when hordes started to fight each other, the horde that had more male fighters won and over time breeders started to produce more males, this change took a long time.¡± ¡°This is not the most important part but still interesting, and you will most likely not understand all that I currently said, but you must understand your current forms were meant for war and not to live as a civilization that you once were.¡± ¡°So, all you have to do to get a class is to change how your entire society works. Unfortunately, it will be hard.¡± There was silence for a while. I stayed quiet and let them process what I told and I¡¯m pretty sure that they also know what I meant as they started to compare themselves to other civilizations. Finally, the leader asked. ¡°Assuming you are correct, you have told us what was wrong, but not how to fix it.¡± ¡°You are correct. Most of that will be up to you, but I can give you the basics on how to start a civilization, but the rest will be up to you.¡± ¡°First evolutions, I recommend you tell all to pick the ones that grant longer life. You must learn to live with nature and not to destroy it as you have been. You must think of how you could survive in a place for 100 years or more and that place still being a good place for you to live.¡± ¡°You must change your leadership structure. That was another clue I had. Your leadership was one of military command, not administration. You seem like you currently would be in a tribal setting, so I recommend you call yourself the chief and go from there.¡± ¡°What I also recommend is that you find a way to record your history, your events. Will that be by song or by written word will be up to you. All civilizations need a way to keep history someway.¡± ¡°You will have a lot more free time so you can spend more time skilling up and gaining abilities. This I believe, will help you in combat and let you combat the lesser amount of goblins.¡± ¡°You must also change the way you hunt, as your current tactics will leave too many dead and you will soon be wiped out. Your bodies were never meant for a bow, but in the forest throwing spears is a good way for you to hunt or hide and thrust the spear when the prey is close.¡± ¡°Those are some of the basics, but you must learn to hunt successfully, and I believe that will be important for you. As well discovering lots of other skills.¡± One of the other goblins, I believe the one that is closest to the leader''s influence, asked. ¡°Can you teach us more about all of this?¡± ¡°I can for a price, but don¡¯t worry, it will not be that high, but sitting here and discussing will not help anything and honestly, I don''t know what you would need. It would be a long process and you can come here and ask for advice and if I know how, I will give it.¡± I discussed with them a few more hours on the basics. It seems that the older goblin wanted to push for some sort of written down history. Would it be with pictures or written word I do not yet know, and I don¡¯t know if even they know. But I gave them more direction when they asked some questions. They were surprised when I said that the military will be important, and I wouldn¡¯t care what they did with that military as long as it wasn¡¯t pointed at me. They also asked about houses and farming and metalwork, but I said that they needed to find their own ways and not to just copy others, but I also recommended them to test them out and see if it felt right. They were trying to rediscover what they had lost, not create something from nothing, so testing will hopefully help. When I was walking back, it was starting to rain and the first place I went to was the barn. It will be a few more hours before Freya will give birth and I waited and comfort her as the rain picked up and I could hear distant lightning. During that time, I wondered if I had done the right thing, but I believed all that I said about their history. They might have a chance at gaining some classes. Would that be a good thing or not will be left for the future to decide. chapter 46 *** The few millennia back, a team of goblins were working around a big female goblin. Soon guards in elegant armor starting to secure the exits. An old regal king and an elegant-looking queen walking in, followed closely by a young and beautiful princess. The king speaks in a powerful yet sad voice. ¡°Is it done? Is your plan finally completed? Can we take back our lands now?¡± One of the goblins turns around. He looks like he ought to be a soldier, a knight, a hero. ¡°Yes, my king, all the blood mages are finished, and the tests are completed. We are ready to start deploying.¡± There was silence as the king examined everything. No one dared even to breathe loudly as all could see a single tear running down the King¡¯s face. Taking a final look towards the first female breeder and the warrior goblins beside them, same yet different from the goblins. ¡°May the gods forgive us for what we have done, and may your souls end up in the sparkling forest where we all must go when our journey ends.¡± ¡°You have done well, captain. Yet we lose our great forest fortresses one by one. Even if we get them back by using these creatures, will we be better than the ones that attacked us?¡± After a moment, the captain wanted to answer, but luckily, just before he looked into the princesses¡¯ eyes and saw that he should stay quiet and so he did. All remained quiet after the king¡¯s statements and soon the kings and the queen started to leave, only a few guards stayed behind as the Princess didn¡¯t leave. Instead, she did what her father did and walked closer to inspect it all. ¡°Will my father see the end of this war, or will I need to be the one to end it?¡± There was silent for a moment, but this time there was no one to say no to his answer. ¡°No, my Princess, you father will not see the end. This will be a long war against an enemy we still yet do not understand. What we have done will give us time and help us to push back.¡± The Princess now looked at the young man of a similar age to herself. This man had already seen war against a terrible enemy that has broken many. But after seeing such horror, he came up with his own to combat the horror. ¡°Thank you for giving us a chance of victory.¡± With those words the Princess also left, leaving the young men there anger in his eyes against his enemies and the burning passion to kill them all for what they have done to his loved ones. The war was long and horrible, and the young boy was no longer young. He was old, sad and tired, yet a glimmer of anger still in his eyes giving him fuel for one last mission before it will all end. He looked at the people around him and listened to the latest news before they go on their last mission. ¡°Princess, commanders, we have finally discovered what went wrong in the Alpine planes. It turns out a small detachment of swarmers were able to escape there after the burning of Holdorn forest. ¡°With no leaders to guide them, they still follow their basic instincts and started to gather all around them for food and feed the breeders to make a horde.¡± ¡°We have now been able to take full control of that horde thanks to our superior levels and we were able to send them to destroy the Gray rock bastion around the Frankonian forest.¡± ¡°The last portal now rests in the capital, and we have our forces currently fighting their way into the capital. The magical defences will be down in a few hours at most and we can teleport into the main chamber. It''s the closest location to the portal we can teleport.¡± This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°We suspect heavy resistance, and we believe the leader will be there.¡± The Princess then spoke up, asking a question. ¡°I believe we have captured one of their commanders recently and I have heard success in interrogating it. Did we get any new information?¡± She looked sad, tired and broken as the remnants of the once great goblin civilization were in this room. ¡°Princess, like any other commander or any other soldier we have captured, none have spoken under torture, yet we were able to trick it to speak by letting it gloat about how we were going to die soon.¡± ¡°They call themselves demons. They enter from another realm as we already know, but it seems that they go around invading places like ours and taking all the resources back to their home planet.¡± ¡°We also believe that they are immortal. At least the commanders are because, as we were going to kill him, he was still telling us that he will be returning here to make sure that we were all dead.¡± This silenced all for a moment and another question was asked and then another until they finally reached the point of how to close the last portal. The oldest amongst the current goblins spoke then. ¡°I have learned all I can about the portals, and I have made this final device that will shut down this main portal and make sure no portal of this kind will be able to connect for millenniums to come.¡± ¡°However, this will burn our capital and all inside and it will require us all to die so we have the energy to do what must be done, but I believe we all are ready for that.¡± Another silence and a long one as the old goblin slowly nodded and sat back down. No one spoke or did anything until another runner came into that tent and brought news of the defences being broken. It was time to ready up the last assault of the goblin civilization. The attack went as expected, with heavy resistance from the demons inside with many commanders and the Demon Lord there that faced the goblins. Yet the goblins were magnificent, their magic casters holding down the Demon Lord as the rest carved their way through the hordes of demons to enter where the portal is. That was as far as they could reach as they spent their strength. An assault group of 300 was left with only 30 and soon only one remained the now old, once a young boy who vowed to kill all the demons holding his love, the Princess now Queen as she died in his arms. ¡°You useless goblins. You have been a pain in the ass, but your resistance meant nothing. Why attack this place? You know your fate is inevitable. Yes, you have been able to close the minor portals, but this one will never be closed. We will strip your lands like we have done hundreds before and take the riches back to my home.¡± The last goblin didn¡¯t say a word. He kissed his love and took his knife and plunged it into his own heart. The Demon Lord started to laugh at that, yet only a moment later, a pulse of energy erupted. Soon all the dead were disturbed as all their energy was sucked up and converged around the last goblin. A moment later, another pulse erupted, seemingly doing nothing. That Demon Lord was no longer amused, but he didn¡¯t understand what was happening. But it was too late. The portal that was always red and gave off a light that comforted every demon started to change. Before the Demon Lord could do anything, it turned to green and started to gather more and more energy. The connection was lost and while the Demon Lord tried to get back to his home, a few moments later, the portal exploded, killing the Demon lord and burning down the last standing city of the goblins. All that was left of the Copeland civilization was the living weapon they made to try to help and save it. Over time, the goblin hordes lost the ability to get classes and all the history once there was burnt to ashes under the footsteps of battling hordes. And so, the goblins became the first fallen race of Talina POV Rich Dirt Time went past quickly, and I watched as the first pup was born. I decided not to help if not needed, but my conviction broke down quickly and I couldn¡¯t help myself. I picked up the first one and looked at him. He was so beautiful, and he deserves a name. But before giving a name, I quickly checked if he had the evolution, and he did so they would be a lot like their mother. Hopefully, all will have this evolution. Before I put the first one back down, I checked it with my energy sight and tried to help the energy move inside a bit better and try to give a bit of mine to him and at the same time named the first one Bingo. On it went; the next was a female and after I did the same checks, I named her Lady. The next one was a boy, Blue, and so was the next one, Comet. Then came another girl, Pearl, then another boy, Toto. But the last one had some trouble and wasn¡¯t breathing as she was born. For a moment I contemplated about not helping because I already had six pups I will need to take care of, but I couldn¡¯t let myself do that and still tried to help. I cleared her airways and massage her chest and that was all that was needed as she started the whining like all the others. I looked towards Freya and the look of gratitude in her eyes will be something that I will never forget. You have gained a new skill basic taming level 1 You have gained the new skill basic first aid level 1 ¡°I think we should name you Lucky.¡± I quickly put her down so she could also find her way towards mother¡¯s milk. I was quite tired now and as I looked around the barn, the cows and the bull were a bit further away looking at all that was happening. As I soaked in all that was happening. I realised we currently had quite the happy little family here. I wonder how much longer I can stay away from humans. They always bring problems. I curled up beside Freya and fell asleep while it was still raining, and the lightning was still striking. chapter 47 I was woken up by the panicked sounds of the cows and right after that I heard a huge bird cry so loud it hurt my ears. It took me a moment to realize where I was, but after that, I quickly got up, strung my bow and ran outside. I saw the biggest bird I¡¯ve ever seen flying towards the cows that were running to the safety of the barn. I quickly started to shoot at the now diving bird that was trying to get one of my cows. Its body was the size of a car, and its wingspan was enormous. My arrows just bounced off but luckily one hit close enough to the beak that the bird got hurt and stopped its dive and started to circle around again. This time the cows were close to the barn, and I started to shoot quicker at it and run towards the tower hoping to get its attention. Luckily or unluckily, I did get its attention, and it started to dive towards me. Even with all my stats, I was never going to outrun it, and halfway there, I needed to use my movement skill and quickly jump to the side so the birds would miss me. After a quick roll, I instantly continued running. It seems that the bird needed some time to recover its height, and it had to work hard giving me enough time to reach the tower and climb it quickly. Loading a bolt took a bit, and the bird was already circling towards the barn again. This time I quickly shot it with the longbow and the results were better. I think it scratched it and that got it mad enough for it to dive towards the tower. I waited until it was too close to do anything about the bolt that would fly towards its heart. With a thump, the bolt flew true and hit the bird in the chest. It quickly lost its air stability and started to drop like a rock. It hit the ground headfirst and snapped its neck, quickly dying because of that. I stayed up there breathing deeply and still trying to understand what had happened. Less than 10 minutes after I woke up, and I had gone through so much, it left me dazed. I checked the skies to see if there was any more, luckily there didn''t seem to be. I thanked the ballista for once again saving my life, or at least the lives of my animals. Just in case I stayed on top of the tower looking out to see if any more will come. My stomach was telling me I needed food, so after about two hours of watching, I got down and went to check on the bird. The feathers were huge, but that was only the outer layer. It had multiple layers of feathers that went smaller and smaller. Looking at the size of this thing, I will have feathers for a lot of arrows. I couldn¡¯t even use the biggest ones because they were the size of the arrows, but perhaps, they will be useful for some crafting material for a future project yet to be determined. After that, I went and checked on everyone in the barn. Everyone was good, and the cows went back to eating. I did the same and ate some breakfast. I should really make some sort of a pouch so I could store some emergency rations on me at all times. Starting the job of extracting all the feathers from the bird turned out to be an extremely time-consuming job. I had to do them individually to get all the feathers out and the bigger ones needed help at the base; I needed to cut a slit into the skin to get them out. The rest of the feathers were easier but I also couldn¡¯t just leave them on the ground, or the wind would blow them away so I had to gather them in handfuls and tie them together with some string. The combined wingspan was about 10 meters, which it completely needed because its body was built like a predator, its talons the size of my legs. To cut its skin, I needed to use piercing cut. I will get so much leather I will need to work on it for the rest of the day, if not even longer, to butcher it. The bones were extremely strong and hollow, like every bird. When evening came, I was yet to finish butchering it but still got two levels in it. As I continued extracting all I could, I found an egg inside that was actually formed correctly. It wasn''t huge; it was smaller than an ostrich egg about the size of 5 of this world''s chicken eggs. I was able to hold it in one hand. At that moment, an idea formed in my head, and I started walking towards the chicken coop. Placing the egg in one of the nests and, to my surprise, a rooster quickly ran up and started to try to hatch it. Instead of continuing to butcher today, I did some smaller woodworking. I built a smaller area where I could put the chicks so they can¡¯t run away. I¡¯m pretty sure the chicken eggs are going to hatch any moment now. Luckily, I didn¡¯t forget about them, and I also tightened up Freya¡¯s stall so if she wanted, she could leave, but the puppies couldn¡¯t. After that I was able to take out the first load of meat, I put into the smoker to see if it is actually possible to cook it and to my surprise it was. It turned out as extremely tough meat, but it was edible and tasted good. Only problem was it meant some extra work for the next few days. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. It took another day for me to harvest the huge bird, getting me another level in butchering. During that time, I also used my ability piercing cut a lot and got a level in that as well. During this day, I also tested and used the faster material preparation ability. It did work as expected. It took a huge amount of energy, but I was able to accelerate the drying process from taking one or two years down to a month at the most. Here I have to thank my energy storage stat. Now I believe it also helps recover energy faster because otherwise I would not have been able to do so much. The leather I had to cut into smaller pieces otherwise I wouldn¡¯t be able to process it and I¡¯m guessing that it will still take a lot of time for it to dry and I ran out of the powdered solution that I had stored up and without it making leather would take an extremely long time. For some reason, I think that the goblins have a similar powder or even a better version that I will try to get my hands on the next time they came for help. It was now time to start carving to get my skill high enough to be able to get another ability. At the same time, I still needed to keep smoking the meat. I purposely did extremely fine and detailed work to help me level it up. It did work and by the end of the day, all 4 benches were done and I was able to tier up basic wood carving. Skill increases basic wood carving level 10 is upgraded to wood carving level 1 Choose one of the following abilities burning end sharp blade tracing line Sharp blade will be the winner here. I simply need it too much. I have learned that general abilities like sharp blade are a lot more flexible and better overall than sharp drill where I could only use it with drills. You have gained a new ability sharp blade level 1 Testing the ability out, it was all that I hoped. I could use it with anything that had a blade part on it and make it a lot sharper. With enough energy and concentration, I could go through wood like butter, and it will get even better as it increases in levels. This time I¡¯m going to be smarter, and I looked at my skills to see which ones would be next to tier up. Animal care was at level 9 and if I spend some more time with the animals, I bet I could get it to tier up. Fitness enhancement was at level 8 and to level it up, all I have to do was keep training. Now logging was level 8, but I don¡¯t know yet if I can get an ability at level 10 or at level 20 at that tier of the skill and it takes way too long to level up at this tier for me to try to push for it. Butchering, I have got now to level 9 and if I get another big kill and not just rabbits, I am guessing that I could push that to 10 and tier it up. Basic bow making is level 8 and I¡¯m guessing I could push it to 10 easy enough, same with basic smithing that I could cheat a little because metal can be reformed again and again and perhaps it''s a good idea to do that. Basic stealth is level 8 and I can train that up as well. It would be a good idea to push some skills during the next month as I would have a lot more free time if any more trouble doesn''t come. I will need to weed the potato field. The vegetable field, thanks to my preparation, won¡¯t need a lot of work, but will still need some. Luckily, the grainfields don''t need any help in weeding. They are tall enough that they will soon smother out any other weeds, being able to outgrow them. Next day I woke up and did my chores, but then at the chicken coop I found that almost all the eggs had hatched, and I started to transfer the chicks into their spot. I quickly carved out multiple rock bowls for them to use as water containers. It was tall enough that the chicken could go and be with them and check up on them, but the chicks couldn¡¯t leave. When I helped with the puppies a bit, I finally got the level up for basic animal care and got the choice in an ability. Skill increases basic animal care level 10 is upgraded to animal care level 1 Choose one of the following abilities animal sight health check soothing touch This time I have to pick the sight one. It would be so useful. I guess knowledge actually helps make better decisions, who would have guessed. You have gained a new ability animal sight level 1 I messed around with it not just to understand it, but to help my basic energy manipulation get better. For that I didn¡¯t just mess with the sights but also at the same time messed with everything else that used energy that I know. This extreme level of training helped push me to the limit. I was able to tier up the skill after half a day, getting me another choice of abilities. Skill increases basic energy manipulation level 10 is upgraded to energy manipulation level 1 Choose one of the following abilities direct energy energy lance extreme energy precision They all sounded excellent. Energy lance would probably be a combat ability while the two others are more utility, but I think extreme energy precision will be important for any energy manipulation. Overall, I think this is the best choice, and I picked it. You have gained a new ability extreme energy precision level 1 I¡¯m quite sure that I¡¯ve made the correct choice. It felt like I have been using a tool that¡¯s handle is loose but now everything was firm and precise. I could feel that I could push some abilities a lot further now and others are more easily manipulated, like the sights giving me even more precise control. Now I could even choose to see specific stat energy moving, not just viewing them all at the same time. This feel like it will become a good thing in the future but currently I was still too inexperienced to make any use of this. After that, I pushed my physical body by running and doing weights that gave me another level in heavy training. I went to sleep after a swim and dinner. I¡¯m hoping that tomorrow I will be able to push fitness enhancement to level 9. chapter 48 Next morning came with bad news. There were clouds again in the sky that promised heavy rain. I did my morning chores quickly, giving Freya some of the fresh bird meat and putting the last of the hatched chicks where they belong. I¡¯m quite sure that a different chicken was now on top of the big egg. From my taming skill I got some basic knowledge that gently giving some of my energy to it helps me form a better bond so from now on every morning as I come here I will do that with the egg. Next, I quickly started to weed the fields so hopefully I can finish before the rain started. I had a regular hoe for this job and for the potato fields it wasn¡¯t the greatest of tools, so it took more time than it should, and it already started to dribble before I finished. I went to the barn where the cows were already inside with Francis, and I greeted them again. I used animal sight and energy sight to see how the pregnancy was going. And it looked like one had two concentrations of energy inside her so possibly twins. I had never delivered a calf before, and I hope I can help if there is any need. I notice the intelligent eyes of the bull as I looked closer. I don¡¯t remember them being so intelligent, so just in case I use animal inspection and, to my surprise, I found a new evolution of intelligence for Francis. ¡°Hey big man, so you understand me better now?¡± I get amuu in return, but the next thing he does surprises me. He starts to mimic the way something heavy is pulled by doing the motion sort of like a mimic and I think I understand what he wants. ¡°Do you want stronger training, pulling heavier things, big man?¡± That got me an amuu in return. This made me scratch my head a bit. Perhaps he has a skill for pulling that he wants to train up now that he can understand everything better. I nod to him. I would need to bring over some rocks anyway for all the building and other needs. Loading the cart up more will hopefully not be a problem. After I watched the puppies for a while, the rain really started to come down and lightning started to strike. To my surprise, all the lightning strikes seem to be in the same spot in the hill forest quite deep in. I concentrated on my owner¡¯s land to see the location using the ability and it was a strange location of the forest and really close to the river there. It was close to the spooky place that made me retreat the first time. Just in case I remembered the location, if I wanted to check it out. Since it was raining so much, I decided to work on the arrows that came from the battlefield. Making new rock heads, fixed up all I could and sharpened the steel again. I wished I had wax so I could protect the metal a bit better and also help them penetrate deeper. When the rain let up, I worked on my fitness, and I was now completely recovered from my injuries. Less than a month to recover, extremely fast and I¡¯m quite happy about that. The next thing I discovered about myself was that being in the rain and wet didn¡¯t make me cold, so I could still work in the rain on stuff that wasn''t rain sensitive. It was still an unpleasant feeling until I discovered I could just take off most of my clothes and still be completely fine in rainy weather. I didn¡¯t get a skill up in fitness today, but I did on the next day that was eerily similar to the last and it continued constantly raining the whole next week, and the lightning kept striking. But never over my farm. Something was pulling the lightning over to the same spot in the hill forest. The most I could notice with owners land was how the area was in the forest. There was a sole large tree and was surrounded by grassland until the forest started again. There seemed to be stumps around it, but that was the only special thing I noticed. To train Francis, I loaded up the sled cart and had him pull it up and down the road from my farm and the bridge to firm it up more, but other than helping Francis, it didn¡¯t do that much. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. To solve that problem, I went to the woods where a really old, big and fallen down tree was. I cut out a piece the length of the width I wanted my roads to be. It ended up being 2 and a half meters long and was almost as tall as me. I didn¡¯t start to bring it back, didn¡¯t even know if I can. What I did was start making it round. Pushing it out of the forest and onto my farm took forever, but I was quite happy with the result. Next, using my abilities, I carved a hole in the middle where a shaft can be inserted, quite a thick one. Then I started to cut out and carve the outside, turning the smooth roller into an impact roller so when pulled it will rotate and drop packing down the dirt. Making the harness system and so it will stay behind Francis in a straight line took some testing and more wood. It was still an extremely hard pull now that it was an impact roller. It didn¡¯t work perfectly sometimes it will just drag and not rotate but Francis seemed to love the extra challenge. At the start, I had him only doing the route between the farm and the bridge, but he soon took it to himself to start doing the walk between the forest and the bridge as well. I had pushed back the testing of my movement skill too much. I found it was not a teleportation skill, and it was a movement skill. Using it still made me walk all the steps. I just did them extremely fast and if I concentrate, I could even move in stealth if I want to. This skill will have a limited effect if you can''t see where you are going, because you might run into something that you can''t see and that would not be a good thing. So not a good way to get around in the forest but if you go down the road, it will help you move extremely fast, same with the fields and that makes sense from the abilities name. I hope that I could use this as something like haste from RPG, but it did not work as I hoped. As I tried to mimic a strike with the weapon using the skill, the skill immediately ended before I could hit. And it wouldn¡¯t let me use the ability again if I planned on striking again. So only a movement skill it was, yet it could be still used in combat as a way to get near an enemy quickly. I kept using it as my energy would allow it, especially if I didn¡¯t have a use for my stored-up energy for something else. No point in letting excess energy go to waste. It kind of feels like one of those mobile games that gives you actual points and you don''t want it to be full and not give you more. So, you¡¯re always needing to do something in the game to keep your action points lower than the cap. My next project has multiple steps and the first one was to make barrels so I could keep tar in them and for that, I needed to figure out how to make barrels. I had no need for them to hold water for drinking or anything else edible, so I will use tar itself to help seal it better and use my ability merging joint to help me achieve that and so there will be no need for metal support rings. Those barrels will not be intended for transport so I will not need to make them so durable and hopefully I can get by with this half measure. If I apply enough pressure, I could still pull them apart quite easily and transporting it would not work well. Using the merging joint¡¯s ability helps me alleviate some of the problems, but it still took some trial and error before I was able to finish one after one full day. When testing it out with water, it seemed to hold up quite well, but transporting it was more awkward as I had to treat it like an overfilled shopping bag and carefully move it when it''s full. It will get the job done, and that¡¯s all that is needed currently. Now that I had the design ready, it didn¡¯t take too long to make more and by the end of the day; I had four more, hopefully enough to start out. As I brought the final barrel to the tar maker and looked at the pile of wood waiting to be burned and made into tar, I will need to make a lot more barrels or just let them sit in the pile until I needed to make more. I started to make tar, but this time I also collected ash from the wood that I used to heat up the tar wood. I need to make soap, as I was now completely out. During that time, I still did some weight training but a more normal amount. The rest of the time I spent doing odd jobs around the farm or training my energy control. I was able to get a bit more than a barrel a day thanks to the better choice in tar wood. The first barrel I used to coat the bridge making it a lot more resilient to the weather and hopefully making it last a lot longer. During the second day, I was starting to get bored even with my other trainings, so I decided to set up the forge close to the tar maker. This way I could work on making tar, leveling up smithing and even doing some energy training at the same time. For my smithing skill, I just practiced forging blades and like that, a week passed and I even had to make more barrels and now I had eight, seven fully filled up ones. I was finally able to get my smithing to tier up. Skill increases basic smithing level 10 is upgraded to smithing level 1 Choose one of the following abilities heavy blow heated strike testing strike A difficult choice here. Nothing called to me immediately. I can see the positives and negatives to them all and I suspect all can have usage in battle as well. In the end, I think I feel the best option is heavy blow, nothing wrong with the basics. You have gained a new ability heavy blow level 1 chapter 49 A new morning, yet I wasn¡¯t excited about it. During my morning chores, I tried to understand what was wrong. I found myself lying on the grass and watching up at the sky as clouds passed. It took me some time before I could finally understand what was happening. What helped me understand was an old game I used to play when I was young where sometimes the characters spend recreation time cloud watching, but also in that game they would have mental breaks if pushed too hard. I believe I have pushed myself too hard. Before the big battle, it didn¡¯t bother me, because I needed it but over the weeks since it, the need to push myself has disappeared and all I¡¯m left with is just me wanting to improve all that¡¯s around me as every human should. But the past weeks have not been a kind of pushing, it¡¯s been hard and relentless. The constant pain from my injuries while working might have been necessary at the beginning, but it was not easy and now that there wasn¡¯t an army coming, I still pushed too hard. I must enjoy what I have not just push relentlesly for the next thing. I should have known better, I have lived long enough to understand how I tick. So, what¡¯s the solution? I will have about two weeks until I can start making buildings, but I could already make the foundations and I should also go to some stealth hunting of rabbits. ¡°STOP IT!¡± Relax, I need to stop trying to do something every moment. I know I do so I would not have to feel or think, but it''s a bad habit and something that I must learn to control better. There will be more hard times ahead but also good, so why not enjoy it? The question becomes how to enjoy it. There is no entertainment here like there was on earth. Perhaps connecting with other humans would help, but for some reason, I do not think that. If it was the correct people, perhaps. I know humans, and I do not suspect them to be any different here. The strong will prey on the weak that have survived the plague, at least in this corner of the world. Lots of places will not be pleasant, but I still think there will be cities or even counties that will have law and order and can keep themselves from anarchy. I suspect them to be further away from here. This place is too small for too many to have survived and those that to will go feral from the experience. All the family I had in this world is lying under the tree. From my mother¡¯s side, her brother and his son were also living here. That¡¯s why there were so many of us living here at the end. The rest of our family died in the first wave of the plague, when it hit people around level 20 to 40. Which now that I think about it is quite weird. Perhaps it was some sort of a magical plague. It¡¯s kind of nice just to think about stuff. I should have done this week¡¯s ago just thinking about the world. I wonder how the goblins are doing, haven¡¯t heard from them for a while. Hopefully, they won¡¯t take too long to come back. I really want to get my hands on that powder that will help cure leather. One thing that always bothers me constantly is the lightning and why it¡¯s kept striking that one place and presumably that tree that stands there. I wonder how long I could keep from going there because presumably it would be a dangerous place, but danger has only ever kept me out for a bit. Thinking back on the fight, it¡¯s a bit of a blur, but I still can¡¯t believe I survived it. I¡¯ve never regretted killing anyone but I do feel bad every time even if it''s necessary. I wouldn¡¯t want that to happen to me, but then again, I¡¯m willing to die for stupid things. Could have just left this place, found a big city and probably could have made a good living just making bows. I wonder how good this world''s craftsmen are. I know that I am extremely knowledgeable and probably up there in this corner of the world for bow making, not so much for anything else. Oh, my brother would have been so jealous. He built stuff like bridges and barns for private citizens that owned farms. If only he knew how much time superhuman strength can take off building stuff, he would be cursing in his grave. I would just love to see his face. It would be so funny. Thinking about my family from this world and from earth brings up feelings of loss and regret but also love and caring. I could feel tears falling down the sides of my face. I just let myself feel all that has happened. Whoever said you should never cry was the stupidest person I¡¯ve ever heard of. The euphoria I feel now, there are only a few things that feel better. It was time to get up, and so I did. Looking at the sun, I have spent more than half a day lying here. I will need to make some changes to my routines, but perhaps I made the mistake of not choosing to be an adventurer. Because holy shit, all my commanders were correct. I truly am meant for battle. But that does not mean I must do it. I have struggled with that question for more than 20 years and I thought this argument was left by the wayside, but then again, my body was old by then. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Now I was still growing, and my life was still ahead of me. Why am I good at fighting and more importantly, surviving battles I might never know, but I think I will not need to seek out battle, I have a feeling it will find me. I am in absolutely no hurry, and I must get that through my thick skull. Hopefully when the puppies get a bit older, there will be a good distraction. I wonder if I should train them as well to be hunting companions, we will see. The rest of the day I will take it easy. It''s a nice and warm day. Perhaps I should go swimming. I am a free man after all and get to make my own choices. And so I did, the rest of the day I just spent on myself. I didn¡¯t even do any energy training or anything else, just enjoy the summer. Next day, as I did my chores, I wanted to think up a better balance between work and enjoyment and I came to a pretty bad revelation because there wasn''t much enjoyment to be had. Technically bow making would be work but I do enjoy that a lot more than any other work so perhaps I should make that more important than other tasks. I don¡¯t know why, but bow making makes me happy, so perhaps no more rushing of bows. I should really take my time and get the best results. Not just because I want to make the best bow, but because it will take a lot longer to finish. And I just probably gave myself a lot more work because now I want to make a proper building for making bows. Son of a bitch, how many now 5-6 buildings that I want to make this summer that¡¯s fucking crazy. Let¡¯s not even talk about the foundry/ grinding stone where you could make flour that are powered by a water wheel. I truly was quite crazy. I wouldn¡¯t even have enough lumber for all those buildings. But then again, I need to be honest with myself. I wouldn¡¯t feel good just laying on the grass every day as well. I need to do something, I just need to pace myself and not do it at full attack mode speed. So, first things first, let¡¯s make some soap. For that, I would want to make a specific and large tub to help with that. Now the barrels, or what I called them that are not actually barrels, just a tall round tub. I¡¯m pretty sure I figured out what it takes to make real barrels. Wood expands when it¡¯s wet, so if you used dry boards to make it and have the iron rings holding it tight and then you put water in it or any other liquid, the wood will start to expand and will make itself watertight. So, if I want one for soap making, I will actually need to make iron rings so when it expands it will not push itself apart. Luckily, I won¡¯t have that problem with the tar barrels because of how its coated in tar, a water-resistant substance. I start by measuring out how big I want it to be and start making the bottom out of boards that I connect with tongue-and-groove joints and use my ability to make them a lot more stable while working. Cutting the bottom into the circle size I want I proceed to start making the boards that would make the wall. At the bottom part of the boards, I made a groove so it will fit onto the edge of the bottom. I continue to do that with them all and fitting them tightly together. I will need to make three rings and I do have enough metal for that. I will need to forge weld armor pieces together so I would have enough material for the rings. Merging joint makes this a lot easier because I do not need to worry about the walls falling out because even without the rings my ability still helps it hold its shape when moved. For this tub¡¯s intended purpose, I also carve the bottom so the center would be its lowest point. Later on I can make small holes into the center so the water can leach through the hay and ash to a container below and I would have what I need to make soap. All of this takes a day and I fill it up with water to leave it to soak overnight. Some water escaped during the night but now it has pressed onto the rings and its completely watertight. It¡¯s now time for the second step. I make small holes in the middle, and I start to pack hay into the bottom. When I have a good enough layer of it tightly packed, I start to do the same with ash. I make some rock legs so it would be off the ground, and I could put the pot underneath, then I start filling it with water. This process will most likely take days until I get a strong enough solution to use to make soap out of. I also carve out some wood moulds to use when I can pour the soap into them. Next, I want to start preparing the foundation for the sauna. I start by finding the area where I want to build it. Removing the top layer of soil will not be too hard of a job because there isn¡¯t much so close to the river. Even then, it¡¯s a lot of work and I try to do it at a measured pace. For the sauna, I want it to be big, not meant for one person but to entertain more. It will be 30 square meters split down the middle. One side will be the resting room and the other the heated and washing room. Perhaps I will make the resting room smaller. I would also like a deck with a roof over it extended towards the river where a grilling area and a seating area with the table will be. That will not be part of the 30 square meters. It would be a one-story building with quite a tall roof, so winter snows will not crush the building and will fall off to the side. I would love some glass windows so I will make places for them, but they would need to be made from wood at this stage. For the heating elements, I have yet to decide on how to make them, but for the heated room I want to have a stone floor. I will also need to set up some drainage into the river from the heated room. It would need to be insulated quite well, otherwise it will freeze during winter. For the space underneath the roof, I could make a sort of a storage area and perhaps a fish drying area, but we will see about that in the future. The roof itself I will make out of stone tiles because it''s quite easy to make them using my abilities. I didn¡¯t want to waste the good and fertile soil, so I had Frances helping me bring it close to the fields to be used at a later date. I was also quite tired of walking so long to water my vegetables so I might want to make a pond near here so I would have closer water to my fields and perhaps that would be a good idea as I would get more gravel that I could bring for the foundation off the sauna. So that¡¯s what I did. The pond was about 1/3 done with the foundation mostly filled up and packed down when it was time to start making the soap as four days had passed, and the solution was now strong enough to make the soap. The potato finally floated easily on the solution. Making soap itself was quite easy. I just needed to heat up the fat so that it would be liquid and then pour in the ash solution until it starts to thicken up. I run into a different problem because I didn¡¯t have a lot of fat from animals, so I had to use some vegetable oil to keep going. Now I had a lot of soap that will hopefully last me at least until the fall, when I will most likely need to make more if I didn¡¯t need it for anything else than washing. I was finally able to wash my armor to make it completely clean again and I have to say fighting with rust is a lot more work than I expected it to be. For the rest of the week, I finished making the pond. Chapter 50 As I looked on the area where I was going to build the sauna, I had two problems I was facing. One was the deck. I would need stable support to sink into the ground for the edges and the middle so it would support and not touch the ground. The other problem was going to be the foundation of the sauna itself. I don¡¯t even know the correct reasons why you must make a foundation. But I have seen them done and I can work out why it is needed. I just don¡¯t know anything for certain. This will be more of the case of my father doing it the same as his father and his father and so on. The reasons were known, but now we do it because it¡¯s always been done like that. For the heated room, I want to fill it up with sand so I could place the stone floor and it would stay in place. For the resting room, I will leave it open underneath with only a wood floor. I start by bringing over larger rocks to use for the construction of the foundation. I will be putting my merging joints'' ability to extreme use here and trying to fuse the rocks as best I can. Perhaps even using my material modification to make them even more connected to make a truly solid foundation. Just in case, I also decided to pack the gravel down as tight as possible for that and I used heavy blow and counterweight to pack everything down and make a solid base. As I was loading the stones onto the sled cart, I realized that I will probably only have enough big stones for one more building. I would need to make a quarry to get more stones. Hopefully, the hills close to here will have a solution for that and if not, there are a lot of big rocks on them. It would just be a lot more work getting them back. I had only done a little of the foundation when owners land notified me of a group of goblins that entered my land and were headed towards me. This time I didn¡¯t go to greet them in the forest. It will still take them a while to get here. Doing the foundation was quite pleasant. It was sort of like a puzzle where you tried to fit the rocks together. Then came some shaping to make them fit together perfectly and to make some join type for them to connect so the ability will have more to grab onto. I feel like this will be quite solid and will probably work quite well. When I had finished a small section to the proper height. I backed off and looking at it, you could barely tell that there were multiple pieces. Only the colours gave it away and if you got close, you could see the seam, but it feels solid. This took a lot of energy, and I was actually running behind with my abilities and I was ahead in placing the stones. Luckily, it was time for a break as the goblins were now quite close and it was time to see what they wanted. Ability is upgraded to merging joints level 3 Ability is upgraded to heavy blow level 2 Ability is upgraded to sharp blade level 2 Before going to meet them, I quickly grabbed a few small leather pieces from the house. I had them prepared just in case I needed a bargaining chip for the powder that helps cure leather fast. The greetings went fast. It seemed that they were having trouble adjusting their hunting habits, and they wanted some help to understand how to solve this problem. ¡°Before we continue, I will try to help you with your hunting problem. I wanted to ask how you cure leather, what do you use for it?¡± I got some puzzled looks in return, but then one of the goblins walked forward and started to explain while taking out the pouch and showing me a powder. I was correct that they had a better version. This version didn¡¯t even need bark water, only water was used. ¡°What would you want for this recipe and for you to teach me how to make it?¡± The same goblin looked around, but no one seemed to want to speak. The leader hadn''t come with them or, more accurately, the chief as he actually had changed his title. ¡°So, I, them, the hunting teaching is part of a previous deal. So, do we need to strike a new one? If so, do you have anything to offer.¡± I couldn¡¯t help myself as a smile formed on my face. Is it just me or are the goblins getting smarter? Perhaps the evolutions give a lot more than just extending life. ¡°I might have something here. Take a look at these pieces of leather and test them and tell me what you think.¡± I handed them the five leather pieces, all with different levels of tar soaked into them. At first, they were confused, but soon that confusion turned into excitement. One of the five pieces was quickly cracked in half. That was the one that had too much tar in it and become brittle. Then they started to test them. Soon they even started testing with iron knives and then testing their leather armor. ¡°You can make better leather armour. Make it stronger, a lot stronger. But why one break so easily?¡± ¡°That is quite a simple explanation. I use a liquid called tar to soak the leather in and then the leather sucks that into itself, making it stronger. That piece that cracked easily was because there was too much in it. I wanted to show you the different stages of it being soaked in different amounts.¡± They discuss this amongst themselves, getting into a bit of an argument, and then the same goblin asked another question. ¡°But we do not know how to make this tar. How will this help us?¡± ¡°Well, from your weapons, I know that you can make glue that can be used for the same effect. It¡¯s just that the tar is waterproof while the glue is not.¡± Another round of discussions and then another question. ¡°The knowledge of leather powder is worth more than the knowledge of making leather stronger, but it¡¯s not worth more than the knowledge of making tar and making leather stronger. Is this correct?¡± ¡°That is correct, yes, because tar could be used for other things as well. Tar can make anything more waterproof, and it also burns quite well. Do you perhaps have something more to offer so I can show you how to make tar as well?¡± There was another discussion that kept going on and on. Finally, one of the goblins seemed to have had an idea and pulled out a small pouch. The others shook their heads, but the goblin explained further. Then the goblin that has spoken before turned around and asked. ¡°We have a pouch that has special seeds from unique plants. There are only a few seeds, but if we find more, we can bring them as well. How long depends on how useful tar will be¡± Actually, a good offer and one I wanted. I asked for the seeds and checked them over. They did seem to be unique plants that I have not encountered before. And I think they might be quite useful if for nothing else than to get some skill levels and ability levels from them. I shook his hand. ¡°The agreement is struck. Now that this is dealt with lets first deal with the hunting problem, I want you guys to show me how you hunt.¡± ¡°Do we have any scouts here that know deer as well as themselves?¡± One of them actually quite quickly stepped forward. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Good, I want you to be like the deer. Walk and act like it, just like if you were in a forest and for the rest of you, I want to see how you would try to hunt it. Actually, let''s just go into the forest and I want to see how you guys act there.¡± I didn¡¯t think I had seen goblins more confused than they were at this point. Their faces were really funny. It took a lot more explanation and me showing what I wanted them to do, but eventually, they did get it and I immediately saw what they were doing wrong. They were still hunting the same when they had more numbers. They wanted to surround the deer and then walk towards it while trapping it inside, but they simply didn¡¯t have the numbers to do so. I showed them a few simple things that they could try to improve. First was trying to sneak more. That came to them quite easily. Then I showed them a few styles of hunting that I remembered and told them that they should practice the same way as I¡¯m showing now. It seems that they quite enjoyed this game of one being an animal that they were trying to hunt and the others being hunters trying to catch the prey. I also told them that different animals would need different tactics and they should try the boar as well. A boar would most likely try to rush one of them while a deer will try to run away and how that would need to change their tactics. That got me a level up in basic combat strategy. Skill increases basic combat strategy level 10 is upgraded to combat strategy level 1 Choose one of the following abilities party boost tactical advantage quick retreat Interesting choices. All useful I suspect, but the one that calls to me the most, is a tactical advantage and I suspect it has the widest range of usages. You have gained a new ability tactical advantage level 1 I left them to practice and try to find their own ways of dealing with different prey. Then I was shown how to make the leather curing powder by one of the goblins. It needed a lot of different plants and even some oak bark. To my surprise, I got the skill level up in alchemy as I finished my first correct batch. It seemed that all the ingredients were in abundance, and I was quite happy about that. Next, I showed them all how to make tar, and I also told them that taking a break would also be a good idea. It seemed that they were so fascinated by this teaching game they were running themselves ragged. I showed them the old way of doing it by finding a place with a natural downward angle, and then digging out a ditch-like area. How to make a wooden channel and how to use birch bark to help funnel everything to the middle and then down into a collection tray. How big the wood pieces should be and what the best wood looks like. Then finally how to cover it all up and light it on fire at one end and then cover that. This was not the perfect way to do it and there will be some loss, but it will still be good enough for their usage and if they want to make a better version, they will accomplish it with trial and error. I helped them a bit more with hunting while the tar was being made and corrected some of their mistakes while at the same time also giving them new ideas to use. For smaller animals, how to use a better snare than they currently used so they won¡¯t have to work so hard to catch small animals. By the end of the day, the tar was finally finished and they seem to be quite happy with the results and so was I while walking back. I examined the seeds a bit more this time with my abilities and traits. I didn¡¯t get exactly what they would grow into or what they would be, but I was able to get knowledge of what the seed needed to grow and what their perfect environment was. Unfortunately, all the seeds were past their planting time or, more precise too early. They would need to be planted during the fall and they will start to grow as soon as the first snows melt, but for some reason, they need to be in the ground during the winter. There were three different types, and all seemed interesting. I wish I could get some more knowledge of what they would grow into, but I guess only time will tell that. I hope it wouldn¡¯t be the situation of them being fake magic beans and I just got ripped off. Just before I start to make dinner and then go to bed, I spent all my stored-up energy finishing up today¡¯s foundation work. The next day I continued and by the end of the day, I just needed a bit more time to finish the foundation. I also did a foundation for the dividing wall, but I did decide to make the resting room smaller, so it was now 10 and 20 square meter rooms. Even today I had to wait a while when working on the foundation as it kept using all my energy and that made me make the foundation slower. But it also meant I could spend some time sifting the rocks out of the sand and start to fill up the heating room''s floor with sand. As I finished the foundation the next day, I was quite pleased with myself as it turned out quite pleasing to the eye and really solid for its actual purpose. As I was watching over my skill and ability gains, my owners land notified me of something new. ability is upgraded to merging joints level 4 ability is upgraded to piercing cut level 16 ability is upgraded to sharp blade level 3 skill is upgraded to construction level 2 skill is upgraded to basic masonry level 5 Humans, more specifically three of them, were walking down the road towards my farm. They seemed to have weapons and some armour, but it was hard to tell with owners land. So, what¡¯s the plan? I wonder if I should armour up. What should I do? I came up with quite the simple plan and decided to use the chicken coop as the centre of my plan because that was the first thing the humans will approach because of the layout of my farm. I hope that they would come in peace, and I hoped the decision I made wouldn¡¯t come back to haunt me. I could have worn my full armour, but I think catching them off guard might be a better solution if they wanted to attack me. I planned to make myself look like as regular naive farmer that was just getting out of the chicken coop as they were approaching. Luckily, I didn¡¯t have to see them to know how far they were, and I was able to play my part quite well. When they were the appropriate way off, I turned around with my empty box and started to walk out of the chicken coop while closing the door behind me. I turn turned around and pretended to jump and drop the box as I noticed them. They seem to find that funny, as they all laughed a bit. ¡°Hello there, farmer! Can we speak with the head of this farm? We have some inquiries we must speak about?¡± ¡°I, I, I¡¯m afraid that I am the only one left. My family has all perished. Do you bring news from the village? What is happening with the Kingdom I saw the notification?¡± They didn¡¯t seem to like my answer, and they didn¡¯t answer my question. Instead, they started to look around and I noticed the grins that formed on their faces. I have seen those before. They were ugly men. ¡°I see you¡¯re carrying a sword. Why is that? You wouldn''t even know how to point it properly! Might you take it out and let me look at it? I have always liked swords, and yours looks like an old design.¡± He was quite a clever one and this act might have worked if I was just a farmer. I wonder how many they have already killed. The other two were already fanning out. One looked like a regular fighter with a one-handed sword and a shield the same as the one speaking, but the last one had a massive two-handed sword that was still sheathed and held over his shoulder. They all wore just leather armour and some thicker clothes underneath. ¡°What is it that you want here? What have you come to inquire about and what is happening in the village?¡± I asked a bit more forcefully. ¡°Listen here Boy, this farm is now ours and we will do wha-¡± I didn¡¯t let him finish as I used homesteaders mile to get in front of the man with the two-handed sword and as I pulled out my sword I used piercing cut and heavy blow at the same time. Pouring as much energy as I could into them during the short time and concentrating all on this one slash. He didn¡¯t have time to react because he was simply too surprised and before he could do anything; he was diagonally cut in half and dead on the spot. I tried to use the same technique on the next one, but I was blocked by a shield that also glowed with some sort of an ability. I was still able to get quite deep into the shield that was made from wood and covered in leather. I had to use my movement ability again to dodge the second one''s attack this time. I decided to use a different tactic. He assumed I will try to do the same as before and again the shield glowed and block me, but this time, I strike it with my shoulder instead. The shield only moved a bit, but I was now able to strike this time without any abilities at the leg, cutting it open and then I had to back off again. ¡°You son of a bitch, you will die for this,¡± The leader screamed. ¡°Why are you surprised? I only act like you.¡± That actually made him stop, as he didn''t expect the hatred I poured into those words and the absolute confidence that I projected. I used the opening, and he was too late to do anything about it as my sword pierced his chest going through it. I quickly pulled out my sword as I had to dodge his counterattack, and the other man was now walking a lot better. I noticed that on the ground was an empty vial that he had drank, perhaps some sort of a healing potion or something like that. His leg wasn¡¯t completely fine, but it was a lot better. We were now in close combat, and I was losing. His swordsmanship was a lot better than mine, but I had more strength than him. I kept working on a shield and kept as best I could away from his sword. He was sweating now quite hard, and his shield blocking ability was barely doing anything. I¡¯m guessing he¡¯s running on fumes. When his shield was finally broken, I purposely led him closer to where I had stashed the bow and, as he threw his shield aside, I quickly dashed and got the bow. When he saw what I now held in my hand, his face paled, and I quickly put an arrow into his chest, but he didn¡¯t go down and tried to rush me, but another arrow into his head silenced him for good. It was a shame because I wanted some knowledge from them, but they were now all dead. I breathed hard but not because I was exhausted. I was actually quite fit from all my training and was only sweating a bit, I was breathing hard because I had to take a human life. If I hadn¡¯t surprised and killed the one with the two-handed sword, I might have not been able to kill them. I am guessing that they had a combat class at least at a level of 20 or more. chapter 51 I noticed Freya looking at me. She was quite close and apparently she had tried to sneak up while I was fighting looking to help me. This helped me calm myself down as I went to give her some reassurances that everything was fine. After that she left towards the barn. Now I had to deal with three bodies. As I searched them, I found 2 potions that I believed to be healing potions. I also picked up the vial that was dropped on the ground. You never know when you need an empty one. They had some food rations on them but nothing else of importance for the minor things. I did get one wood shield, two one-handed swords, and a two-handed sword. The armour was quite useless to me except for their gloves and boots, which you can never have too many of just in case someone needs them. I decided not to waste wood just yet. If there is more coming, I can make a pyre for them all later. What I did discover is that I need to make a handcart so moving bodies and similar loads will be faster. I checked my sword and found it in even worse shape. It has deep chips and was slightly bent again. Luckily, now I had something to switch it with so I could actually retire this sword. I should make a proper plaque and mount it on a wall to honour its life. I sharpened the new swords and picked one that looked the best for my everyday carry. The two-handed looked awesome. It seemed to be well made, out off good steel, so when I know I will go to battle I might actually bring this one. The shield was also useful, and now I didn¡¯t have to make my own. It was a round shield, similar to the ones Vikings used. All the gloves were usable and now I had a good pair for everyday work. For the shoes, one pair fit me and were even a bit larger. Which I was quite happy about because I¡¯ve been starting to notice that I¡¯ve been growing quite quickly, meaning I might outgrow my current boots soon. So basically, this was a scouting party sent to assess the situation here so I will be having some more company in the following days. Hopefully, there aren¡¯t too many of them, but I can make some preparations beforehand to make myself have a bigger advantage. I must use all my advantages. What this fight showed me is that I am unused to fighting with abilities. They do not come as reflex. I have to think about them to use them; I need to fix that part of my training. Getting in a close fight the next time might not be the best choice, especially if I¡¯m outnumbered. I have a great advantage on my land thanks to my owners land, so I should use ambushing tactics. The ones to follow will follow the same way to find out what happened. That means they will come down the road and most of that road cut through the grasslands, a perfect place to hide with a little bit of work. I have noticed that rabbits have a way of not disturbing the grass. That way, it¡¯s really hard to see where they are. They do it by having trails through it where there is no grass. If you looked towards it horizontally you would never know that there was a trail, so I must do the same so when I move, they would not see me in the grass. What I should also do is dig some places lower so I could stand and shoot my bow while being completely hidden in the grass. I would still be able to see them through the grass using animal sight. I could even see if they used any abilities. This guarantees me at least 1 kill, most likely more when I start the fight. The grass is so high I don¡¯t have to dig that much. The dirt I just throw around in a large arc, so it¡¯s dispersed around the area. I make a few of these places and cut out a line of grass so I could move without being noticed. As I check from the road, I¡¯m happy with my work as there is absolutely no hint that there is anything out there. When I made it back to the farm, I had a problem, and that was my bow. It was not the best, and the longbow was a bit too cumbersome for this mission. I simply didn¡¯t make the ditch big enough so I could use it properly. It was time to make a new short bow. This time I have wood that is properly prepared so I can use all my knowledge and new abilities to make the best one I can. It was a long process, and I finished as the sun was starting to go down. The summer solstice was close, as the sun would disappear for only a few hours during the night. I got a few level-ups for my crafting. ability is upgraded to sharp blade level 4 skill is upgraded to basic bow making level 9 skill is upgraded to wood carving level 2 The next day came and after my morning chores, I got ready. I brought the two-hander, and 3 spears including the big goblin''s. The new bow that I started to test. It was a nice and heavy one with a quick snap that launched deadly arrows fast. The last things to pack up were a bundle of arrows, some food and water and the health potions. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Unfortunately, I couldn¡¯t rely on my owners land to notify me as it would be too late for me to get into the position that I prepared. I had to wait in my prepared location until I finally felt them crossing into my land. There are only five of them and it didn''t take long for my sight to be able to make them out. A bit later, my enhanced hearing started to pick up what they were saying. ¡°Hey, boss, is it really a good idea for us to check this place out? They have never not returned before, so this must be a dangerous place?¡± There was no answer from anyone else as they continued walking. ¡°Hey, boss, is it really ok for us all to leave? What if something happened and someone found our supplies?¡± ¡°SHUT UP YOU IDIOT, there''s no one else around anymore and they most likely just found some booze and are now drunk. There''s no one around that can oppose us anymore so, shut, your, mouth or I will shut it for you.¡± They were silent afterwards, and by messing with my sights I was able to identify the weapons that everyone was carrying. Identifying what armour they were wearing was a bit more difficult to figure out, but I believe only one had chainmail while the others had similar armour to the men that came before. Three of them had shields, and I didn¡¯t like that one of them had a bow. The one wearing the chainmail had a big two-handed axe. I silently waited for the perfect moment and my first shot using silent arrow was meant for the man with the bow. Just before I released the shot, I heard the bowman say. ¡°Hey, boss.¡± He didn''t get any further as there was now an arrow in his neck. I quickly shot another one and managed to hit another in the side and it seemed the arrow penetrated quite deep. My next move was to stay completely silent. ¡°It came from the left side quickly. Shields up. Did anyone see the shooter?¡± I didn¡¯t have to wait long as one of the shield carriers look back at the fallen men looking to try to help, but he made a mistake and lowered his shield too much. I used the opening and launched another silent arrow that cut through the grass and with only 10 feet of open space in front of them, they only had a little time to react and because of that, another arrow connected with a neck. There were now only two men left standing and one groaning in pain, slowly bleeding out. The other shield carrier was now more careful and threw a potion to the man on the ground. I had to climb out a bit from my ditch to get a better angle to put an arrow into the head of the lying man that was now drinking the potion. This broke the last shield man, and he started to run towards me. I quickly shot an arrow into his leg, which made him falter and I quickly threw a spear that hit him in his exposed chest, but this also exposed me. ¡°There you are, you son of a bitch. How dare you attack us? We were the last force left alive. You have doomed yourself. We were the last fighting force that could have protected you.¡± I shot him rapidly with four arrows. He dodged two, but the two that did hit didn¡¯t penetrate his armour, making my bow useless against him. I picked up the big goblin spear and started to walk towards him while at the same time sneakily dragging the two-handed sword closer to the road. I stopped that the edge of the grass not going any further and just looked at him to measure him up and figure out how I was going to fight this. ¡°You were walking also confidently towards me but now you stopped. Did you finally get scared when you came close to a real man? I hate you hiding sneaky types, so useless.¡± I didn¡¯t let this word bother me, nor did I move from my spot. I had a plan, but he needed to come towards me for that. ¡°Oh, I hate you cowards. I will show you what a real warrior looks like.¡± And he started to walk towards me and at quite a fast pace, but he didn¡¯t run. It seems he is not stupid and knew that you shouldn''t run at someone that held a spear. As he was quite close, I quickly stepped back, and I was able to catch him off guard as I threw my spear toward him. At this close range, he couldn''t dodge in time and took a hit similar to the one I did from the big goblin, but his armour did a lot better job of protecting him. I didn¡¯t have any good abilities to use while throwing, so unfortunately this throw will not finish the fight. But what this move did do was make him stagger thanks to the weight of the spear and the power of my throw. I quickly used this moment to draw the two-hander and rushed towards him, charging up both my piercing cut and heavy blow. He had enough time to realize what was happening and activate his own ability that covered his axe, doing something to it as he tried to block with it. If he had more time, he might have been able to save himself. But my blow was able to cut through the axe handle and hit him on the shoulder. While my abilities energy was spent by going through the axe handle by his own ability, I was still able to land a hit on his arm, likely shattering its bone as the sound informed me. Thanks to the chainmail he wore, I wasn¡¯t able to cut him. He was able to produce a dagger from somewhere and was now striking towards my side. I had to use my movement ability to get away, which left him shocked once again. I didn¡¯t want to give him a chance to recover himself. Who knows what kind of ability he might have and so I quickly rushed back in. He was again able to use some sort of ability on his dagger to save his life, but I was still able to send the dagger flying. I quickly kicked out one of his knees, making him fall onto his knees and my next strike was aimed at the weak spot around the neck, trying to take his head clean off. But he was able to get his working hand between my sword and his neck and thanks to his chainmail he was able to survive, but now his hands were useless. One had a broken bone, and this one was hanging loosely, my ability charged strike cutting through the mail and bone, only some meat still connected it. So, it came to me as a complete surprise when his other hand, the one that was supposed to be broken, wrapped around my ankle and pulled me to the ground. As he tried to climb onto me, I quickly let go of the sword and pulled my knife. He had a momentary advantage because he was stronger than me, but he only had one arm. So, as he wrapped his hand around my neck to try to squeeze me to death, my now correctly pointed knife slipped into his neck and a quick wrestling move got me on top of him and I pushed the knife deeper. It didn¡¯t take long for him to finally die, and I was finally able to relax, roll onto my back and cough a bit because his grip was really strong and a few moments later he would have been able to crush my throat and win this fight. ¡°Holy shit, you were strong. Good fight.¡± chapter 52 POV adventurers We were finally back at the headquarters, and I could finally enjoy some watered-down beer. What I didn¡¯t enjoy was how many people were around here. It makes my skin crawl. In the few months, we were on the road, the population has tripled as refugees are coming from all corners. I can understand why with raiders and the dead roaming the land, why wouldn¡¯t you want to come to civilization, but I don¡¯t have to like it. We just finished giving all that we collected and the reports we had to the quartermaster. She had to stay behind to get our new assignment and now we¡¯re both silently sitting in a crowded bar contemplating on why we got another shit post. ¡°So, we only have a week''s break and we have to do the same thing all over again. Don¡¯t they have anyone else for the shit post?¡± ¡°No Richard, apparently, they do not.¡± Man, she¡¯s even more cagey now. Couldn¡¯t we have gotten a good posting somewhere nice, so she¡¯s more relaxed and I had the chance to actually break that iron shell around her? When we were kids, she used to be so outgoing and fun, but when she went to the magic school, and I joined the adventurers, we grew apart. Now fate brought us back together, but she doesn¡¯t see anything that doesn¡¯t fit her worldview anymore and why does she have to be so goddamn proper all the time now? I tried some more small talk with her and even got a few answers that weren''t just one word. An improvement after the new assignment was given. The next day, I was back down in the command room of the bar where I got an even more watered-down beer. I mean, I don¡¯t know if they can even call it beer anymore. She came down just before they stopped serving breakfast. At least today she seemed to be in an improved mood. I was waiting for her to finish eating so I could bring up what we would do during the week, but three guild officers in official guild uniforms walked toward our table. I didn¡¯t even get a chance to warn Meredith before they made it here. ¡°Meredith and Richard, please follow us for additional questioning about your last assignment. Do not cause any trouble.¡± Well shit, that sounded official. I know better than to question them at this time, so I got up. Meredith however, could not keep her mouth shut and asked for an explanation. ¡°What is the meaning of this? We already gave our report, and I didn¡¯t leave anything out.¡± Don¡¯t talk back like that and yes, she¡¯s now in cuffs. God damnit and now they¡¯re putting cuffs on to me. Oh, I hate the feeling of the cuffs. The slowing of energy flow is uncomfortable at best. Luckily, it didn¡¯t look like we were in too much trouble because as we got into the Guildhall, the cuffs were removed and we were escorted to a nice-looking interrogation room, where three people were waiting for us. I believe one of them was a master of maps, but I didn¡¯t recognize the other two as I looked at them. I gave a questioning look at Meredith but got a shrug in return. So, we were both in the same boat with absolutely no clue what was happening. She tried the same question again and luckily this time the big burly man answered. ¡°You are here because we found a discrepancy in your report that the master of maps found and you are here for further questioning in regards to this matter.¡± Before we could question any further, the master of maps started to speak. ¡°You were ordered to report if any territory popped up when the Kingdom fell, yet we can see from this map of the GreenWave Village and the surrounding areas that owned land was already claimed at the edge of this map.¡± ¡°This information is missing from your report. In the report, you got the map after the Kingdom had already fallen and from the map''s energy signature this owned land basically popped up right after the Kingdom fell.¡± The burly man continued after this. ¡°So, you are here because we would like an answer to why this was not reported and to get any additional information that you might have.¡± He showed us the map and yes, there seemed to be an actually owned land already at the edge of the village area. ¡°Oh, I know what happened. I handed the map to Meredith, and she put it into the bag just before the notification so we wouldn''t have seen it pop up.¡± ¡°Yes, I believe Richard is correct. We probably only missed it by a minute at most, a truly unlucky set of events. Why would we even hide this? It doesn''t make any sense.¡± The burly man spoke up again before anything else could be said. ¡°Sandra, are they speaking the truth?¡± The third person, a petite-looking girl that looked to be concentrating, spoke up. ¡°Yes, I do not sense any falsehoods with any statements they currently made.¡± I could see the burly man relax and let out a loud and heavy sigh. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Good, good, why did we have to question you like this? It¡¯s because you wouldn¡¯t believe how many adventurers have abandoned their duties and went off to start their own seats of power.¡± ¡°But it looks like you guys are not cut from that cloth. I am glad to hear this, but this doesn''t change the fact that we need to know more about this place and how it was possible to claim land so quickly after the fall of a Kingdom.¡± I tried to think of all that I saw there, but everything looked like everywhere else, but I guess the dungeon might¡¯ve been a bit more active, meaning there was more activity near it. ¡°Honestly only thing I can think is that the dungeon was a bit more active than the rest of them around a similar population size. Meaning there was some more activity around its location, but it truly was so slight that I could only notice it now looking back.¡± There was another silence as the burly man waited for Meredith to speak, but like I said, there truly wasn¡¯t anything noticeable around there. After a bit, the burly man spoke again. ¡°Well, that¡¯s a bit disappointing. The map master said this territory has not expanded, but it hasn¡¯t shrunk as well, so it might be some different kind of ownership that we are not used to.¡± ¡°But this is all then, and I apologize for the way you were brought here and to your mission, we will also add that you investigate this area when you reach it on your mission route.¡± We were left there with an open door and another silence fell between us. I was actually starting to get used to that, but now I was a bit more excited about our upcoming assignment because there was at least some excitement in the middle of it. POV rich dirt Before I got up, I looked at all the notifications I got. Level up homesteader homesteader now level 2 strength +4 dexterity +4 vitality +4 endurance +2 empathy +2 intelligence +2 Level up true archer true archer now level 2 strength +5 dexterity +5 vitality +3 perception +4 Level up heroic soldier heroic soldier now level 2 strength +5 dexterity +3 vitality +4 constitution +4 presence +2 ability is upgraded to piercing cut level 17 ability is upgraded to silent arrow level 4 ability is upgraded to energy sight level 2 ability is upgraded to sharp blade level 5 ability is upgraded to heavy blow level 3 ability is upgraded to tactical advantage level 2 skill is upgraded to energy manipulation level 2 skill is upgraded to basic sword level 7 skill is upgraded to basic mental fortitude level 7 skill is upgraded to basic stealth level 9 skill is upgraded to basic camouflage level 5 skill is upgraded to basic battle presence level 2 That was a lot of upgrades, but it was now time to get up and start dealing with the bodies. It was another mess and as I looked towards my farm and how far it was; I started to just walk towards it. If that blabbermouth was not making stuff up, then that truly was the boss. Then this finished my current engagement if this was the last organized group around here. Are so many dead? Did they kill off survivors in the village and the farms surrounding it? There should be more survivors. I will need to push my sauna building back a bit and go and investigate what is happening, because if there truly wasn¡¯t anyone around, then it would be truly sad. Because I feel that I need some better human contact, especially ones that don¡¯t try to kill me or come to take things that don¡¯t belong to them. I got Frances out and hooked him up to the wheeled cart and started guiding him towards the bodies and the waiting loot. Francis wasn¡¯t used to the smell of blood, so I had to calm him down a bit, but I¡¯m guessing his improved intelligence helped him understand things faster. I got quite a good haul this time, three vials of healing potion, and some survival gear. The archer even had a pouch of gold coins which if they were not valuable for buying things, then perhaps for making things. Five pairs of boots and three pairs of gloves. The clothing I left on them because I was not that desperate. 3 one-handed swords and shields. A bad bow. At least there seemed to be good arrows. One short sword and 3 daggers. A broken two-handed axe. It would be easy to fix, just needed a new handle, and the biggest item the chainmail. I loaded the loot and the bodies onto the cart, making two different piles for the loot and bodies. Then we started to head back. When we made it back, the first thing I did was prepare the bodies and the pyre. I wish I had some strong spirits to send them off, but I currently didn¡¯t have any. It took quite a while to burn away bodies and the heat had to be strong, but a bit of tar helped make that happen. If I want to go and check out what¡¯s happening in the surrounding region, I will need to get my bow-making and stealth to tier up just in case I get abilities that can help me survive better. The rest of the day, I took it easy and spent it mostly with the puppies that were now starting to explore their environment. There is no way wolf puppies should look so cute, but somehow they managed to pull it off and before I knew it was time for dinner and bed. As I was eating breakfast, I was wondering what kind of bow I will make. If I was heading towards the village and the surrounding farms then there wouldn¡¯t be many trees but mostly open space and for that, the longbow would be better, so I guess it¡¯s time to make another one. Thanks to my previous knowledge of the short bow, my knowledge of using my traits and abilities helped to make this one better, and I was able to make the strongest bow I¡¯ve ever made and shooting it would be more of a challenge. But it wasn''t overwhelmingly difficult, and I could keep going for a while shooting this one. I¡¯m pretty sure that my strength has surpassed my ability to make bows that will match it. They are still too easy to pull, and I might need to start thinking up ways to improve bows for this fantasy world. This thought brought me no end of joy thinking about all the things I can experiment with and with all the abilities at my deposal there are so many different things I can try. I put the finishing touches and carved in my maker''s mark as I was greeted with notifications. Skill increases basic bow making level 10 is upgraded to bow making level 1 Choose one of the following abilities sharp knife material sight bow reinforcement Sharp knife is out. I have a better version of it but the other two options were on the table. This choice is hard. What is bow reinforcement? Is it something that will make the bow stronger long-term or an active boost? It took a bit of thinking, but I believe it''s similar to the ability that the bandit boss used on his axe to make it a lot more resilient against my strike. If that is the case, I will pass and wait for a better version that is not specific to only bows. You have gained a new ability material sight level 1 chapter 53 While training with the new bow in the morning, I made an unpleasant discovery. I simply wasn¡¯t proficient enough to use it effectively at long range. If it was close, I could still be accurate, even though my firing rate would be lower than I wanted it to be. So, unfortunately, I will not be taking the longbow out for this mission. I will need to practice with it more before I feel comfortable bringing it to life and death fight. One thing I¡¯ve learned about living in this world is that when you train something for a bit, you need to train a lot more things after that. I am guessing that this would be a grinder''s dream so it¡¯s a good thing I have some of their blood in me, unfortunately, or luckily for myself, it''s not too deep. So, the short bow must be the solution for this mission, but what other things to bring? I want the one-handed sword definitely, and perhaps a dagger and a knife. My main question is, do I take the two-handed sword or the spear? I enjoyed the two-handed sword more than the spear, but the spear is useful for throwing. Perhaps there is a solution there I can think of that¡¯s fixed both problems, but I can¡¯t quite yet put my finger on it. It was time for stealth training. Hunting rabbits was actually now quite easy thanks to my owners land or my animal sight ability. Both make tracking and killing rabbits with a bow a simple affair, but I was here to train not to kill. So, I didn¡¯t use the owners land info. I do not want to get reliant on it for hunting. I will still use sights while trying to sneak as close as possible to them. However, I¡¯m always amazed at how vigilant the rabbits can be and while I was able to sneak into effective bow range with a little bit of effort, getting closer than that is hard. It¡¯s like trying to not make a noise while unwrapping a candy in a silent room. I did have to kill a few because if I didn¡¯t, I would have rage quit. By the end of the day, I could feel that I was close to a level up, but not quite there. Freya was quite happy about the fresh meat and so was I. I was able to test out the new powder for leather making and I was quite pleased. It worked perfectly. Now I would just have to make more of it and store it up for the winter. This reminds me of how small my cellar was and if my latest attackers were correct that there¡¯s barely anyone around anymore, then to whom will I give my excess food? I wanted to plant everything so that I could support the village, but if there¡¯s no one in the village alive anymore, then a lot of food will go to waste if I don¡¯t have better food storage. I wonder where they have their loot. I heard that they left it unguarded, but where is it, back at the village or some farmhouse and what have they collected? Food, things who knows how important it could be, but in a few days, I will do my best to try to find it as well as to see what the truth is about how bad the situation actually is outside my lands. The next day was really cloudy, but they were white clouds so no rain today. It took until the end of the day for me to tier up stealth. I was quite happy I was finished with this training because I was only able to get about 10 paces closer before the bastards always found me out and ran away. Skill increases basic stealth level 10 is upgraded to stealth level 1 Choose one of the following abilities distracting noise light steps surrounding darkness Distracting noise. Really, that sounds like the most low-level ability I¡¯ve ever heard of. If it is truly the ability that mimics you throwing a rock so someone would go investigate the noise, I¡¯m honestly speechless. After my brain stopped frying itself, I disregarded that option. The other two sounded a lot more promising. Light steps most likely make my steps make less noise or actually make me weigh less. Both sounded fine. Surrounding darkness most likely helped you hide yourself a lot better, but for my situation, less useful. You have gained a new ability light steps level 1 Testing the skill out, I was surprised it was both options. It dampened the sound and lowered my weight, but that made it another energy hog. But just dampening the sound barely took anything. During my time trying to get my stuff done, I also figured out what to do about my weapon situation for this mission. I will skip the spear as I¡¯m currently focusing on swords and gaining more sword skill levels, so I do not want to split between the spear and the sword until I tier it up. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. But I also want to level up my throwing skill. For that, I will make a bundle of javelins that I can bring with me. I will make 5 javelin heads three from the daggers, leaving me with the best one I have gotten, and I will also split the short sword and get two heads from that as well. But that will be left for tomorrow as well as all the needed leather work to bring all my gear. But as I was meditating in the evening, my trait of true nature connection actually informed me that tomorrow will be the solstice. That meant I needed to change my plans a bit because I wanted to build something special for tomorrow. When I woke in the morning, the day was still young, but the sun was already quite high, and I could feel the solstice. It was refreshing, so after all my chores, I start to prepare a bonfire for tonight and I was planning to make a tipi-style sauna. It was just going to be a bit of work with the merging joints ability. I can make it, so I won¡¯t need any coverings for it. For the top vent hole, I will also make a lid so I could close it when the fire inside has died down. On the inside, I will make a fire and put a lot of rocks into it, so when it burns it will heat the rocks. When I closed the lid on top and throw water onto the rocks, I will have a sauna for the evening and can enjoy the summer solstice the way I always do. If I didn¡¯t have to fight the goblins, the sauna building would have been completed, but there¡¯s no point in wishing to change the past. That is the one thing no one can do. This build itself was extremely trivial but quite fun. It was still too early to light the fire inside, so I started to prepare for the mission because tomorrow I just wanted to enjoy the day. The day after the solstice was always the nicest, everything was so calm. I hoped it would be the same here as well. When I started to smith the javelin heads, I decided to use the material sight ability, but as I did, it was the first time I can truly feel the power of multiple traits and abilities all working together for the same goal. I had the same feeling before when I used piercing cut and heavy blow but multiply that by 10. That dagger that I wanted to make into the head of a javelin, all its secrets, were revealed to me. For a moment, I felt like God, then it became so overwhelming that I had to disconnect. I noticed that 3/4 of my energy was gone in only a moment. ¡°Well, shit.¡± I need to be careful about that and I started to use my sight and abilities a lot more carefully. The main culprit was the material modification ability. I accidentally in my haste poured everything I had into every ability and that one can soak up the energy and then in return give so much that it can overwhelm my current capabilities. I couldn¡¯t even rely on my memory. All I got from that moment was to help me in my craft, I simply couldn¡¯t retain anything important. But what it did do was give me a glimpse of the future and what I could be capable of. The javelin will use a heavy oak shaft 55 inches,140 cm long, a short but narrow tip with bladed edges so it can be used as a short spear as well. It didn''t take me long to finish and when I was finally done; I had five javelins that will hopefully help me if I needed to fight anything and gain some levels in throwing. I don¡¯t know what ability the big goblin used, but it seemed awesome and deadly. Next, I started to make a back sheath for the dagger that I can put onto the belt that holds up my sword. For the backpack, I added some straps to transport the javelins and added a strap for the two-handed sword sheath so I can carry it over one shoulder. Towards the evening, there was another problem. Lucky the wolf puppy that I saved had somehow managed to get a splinter into her paw. Luckily, it was a small one, but even this little help gave me another level in first aid. I checked all the surrounding boards, and it was all smooth as ice, so I have no idea how she could have found a splinter and managed to get it into her paw. As I looked at them moving around, I could start to see the personalities they will have. It was an amazing feeling seeing them growing up. After that, I went and finally started the fire inside the tipi sauna. It will take a while to heat the stones, so I needed to put in more wood over time. I didn¡¯t want to make a too big fire, otherwise, I would be burning it all down and all my effort would go to waste. The weather was extremely pleasant and while I was swimming; I saw some fish swim by and that gave me an idea of what to do for the rest of the evening. I made a quick fishing rod, and a hook, found some earthworms and used the strongest and thinnest string I could find. I got a few small ones, but those I released back but the two big ones I was quite happy to get. Setting up a small fire to cook the fish near the bonfire, I cleaned them out and opened up the fish to make them flat and used a few sticks to put them near their fire. When they were done, it was time to light the bonfire, and I used the coals from the fish cooking fire to light the bonfire. So, while it was starting to burn stronger, I enjoyed some good fish, making me quite certain I needed to make some fish traps because it was so good. The only thing that would make it even better would be some more seasoning. Watching the bonfire burn fiersly helped me relax and then I walked into the tipi sauna and I threw my first cup of water onto the rocks. I felt more relaxed and at ease than I ever have in this world. I had so missed this feeling of the heat seeping into your bones and everything relaxing and slowing down. The only thing missing now was a good cider and some good company. Yet I didn¡¯t need those things. It was still quite perfect. While I took a rests from the sauna, I sometimes went and jumped into the river to cool myself off. I kept the bonfire going throughout the night. Unfortunately, the sauna would not last until the morning. So, I just sat outside on the bench that I made and watch the fire crackle until morning came and then watched until only embers remained before I went to sleep. The next day, I woke up late. It was already past noon, and I didn¡¯t care. As I hoped, everything seemed still. I just lived in the moment. When I did my chores, I did them slowly and without much effort so I could feel this feeling as long as possible. It seems that all my animals were in the same state. Everyone was just enjoying the day, but like all things, it came to an end in the evening as I started feeling uncomfortable. I couldn¡¯t figure out why at first, but with my true nature connection helped me sense something wrong towards the village. The feeling got stronger towards the evening. It was uncomfortable for me to fall asleep, but when I woke up, the feeling wasn¡¯t pressing on me anymore. While I could still concentrate and find it towards the village, it wasn''t bothering me the same way as before. This was an extremely unpleasant development, like a cold bucket of water thrown onto my back as I started to prepare everything I needed for my first mission toward the village. chapter 54 When I was ready, I started walking down the road. I decided not to use my homesteaders mile to help get there faster. I didn¡¯t want to miss anything, and I kept using my sights as best as I could to see if I notice anything. It didn¡¯t take long for me to notice something extremely odd and quite worrying. There was huge radiation of energy that was coming from a few structures at the edge of my land. I had never gone out this far before down the road and I believe that this was the place that was marked with the little watchtower mark on my map. As I got closer, I found what seemed to be a watchtower, a small and poorly made one. There also seemed to be a small bunk house with facilities to make some food and a cave-like entrance that seemed to be going into the ground. It looked out of place and as I got closer, I could sense a weird feeling. I went closer to see what the sign said. Dungeon of the grass sea. ¡°Well, fuck me!¡± There¡¯s a dungeon at the edge of my land. How didn''t I know about this? I tried to comb through my memories and yes, this was something I knew. As I tried to get more information from my memories, I threw a blank. I simply didn¡¯t know anything more important than that they were dangerous places that adventurers visited. God damn farmer''s knowledge. Was I too young to be told this information? I couldn¡¯t believe that there wasn¡¯t more that my father or grandfather knew. Oh, I so hope that there will be people that I could ask about this because I was not going to go in without any knowledge. Dungeons could be just a place that would help and challenge you or they could be murder machines with the sole purpose of killing you in the most imaginative ways possible. I was in no way going to take that risk without knowing where the dungeons fall on that scale in this world. This brought up another memory. The goblins said that they go on an iron trial. Were they speaking about a dungeon that drops metal armour and weapons? I must ask about that the next time we meet. I checked out the place a bit more, but it was cleaned out of anything useful, so I started to walk down the road again. There weren¡¯t any farms on the road near here, if I remember correctly, it was because of the dungeon, and we were actually the closest farm to it. As I walked down the road, the grassland started to retreat away from their road and normal land took over. Then I finally started to see the land that was once cultivated, now just left and overgrown with weeds. The first farmhouse was just a simple house with only two extra buildings. I checked inside one of those buildings and found a little bit of firewood and in the other, there seemed to be nothing. I am guessing that this place once held tools. Behind one of those buildings was a small chicken coop, so perhaps the chickens I currently have came from here. The main house is cleaned out. There was some furniture that was left but even that was broken. That would seem to be done by the looters, but it seemed that the family had left because there was no painting or anything else. Everything seemed to be taken away from here. The cellar was also completely empty. Farms here were a lot smaller than the land I owned. They only had enough to plant 5 to 8 acres of crops, and that was it. All the houses seemed to be the same as they were all cleaned out by the inhabitants that live there, but some did have evidence of fighting. The next farm that I visited brought a huge surprise. There was a human outside walking towards the house. I jogged a bit closer and yelled at him. ¡°Hello farmer, have you any news about the village?¡± I didn¡¯t get a return answer, but he did turn around and my mood plummeted. The man started to shuffle slowly towards me. It was covered in dirt, and I could see the dead eyes of this creature. Using my sight and my senses, I quickly figured out it was a zombie, a seemingly slow one, so as I got closer and used identification on him. New slow zombie My true nature connection helps me identify his signature as being similar to the one that I felt in the evening. So, something made it raise from the dead because I could see the grave that this one crawled out of. This did give me an opportunity to practice my throwing. The first went into the chest but as I expected, it only staggered it backwards but didn¡¯t affect him more than that. I had to get a bit closer so my throw would actually hit its head. That did kill it. From my memories, I know that zombies can only affect you when they bite you. Scratches can lead to an infection that can turn you into a zombie, but it was not a certainty. At least my parents taught me something useful about monsters. I wish I had a bit better knowledge about the monsters of this world. As I kept searching the houses, I understood one thing: they have all been cleaned out and as I got closer to the village, there were more graves. Meaning more zombies were able to crawl out but seemingly not every grave, some remained undisturbed. I didn¡¯t want to get too close to their village yet, so I started to circle around searching through the farmhouses, hoping to find anything useful or the supposed loot stash that was somewhere. I finally found a richer farmhouse. They seem to have a lot more buildings and there were pastures for animals. Unfortunately, there didn¡¯t seem to be any domesticated animals close to here that I could see. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. It seemed to be a farmhouse that was founded a long time ago because they actually had a big graveyard with multiple generations buried similar to the one I have, but mine is smaller. This was not a good thing because while most of the graves were undisturbed, there was still a lot that crawled out. Multiple zombies were walking around, but there were also older-looking zombies that moved a lot faster. As I was thinking about how to deal with them, I had a worrying thought. What if the same thing was happening back at my farm and the dead were rising from their graves? That was an extremely worrying notion, but I decided to kill off these zombies first and then make my way back as it was starting to get late, and I didn¡¯t want to stay out here. The fight started well, but I underestimated the speed at which some of them can move. I had to do some running and throwing. Fortunately, I was a lot faster, but I didn¡¯t have that many javelins to kill all the fast ones. I had to take out my bow and shot them with arrows. That made killing them a lot easier, and I quickly finished off the whole pack. Cardio is truly the best weapon against zombies. This gave me level-ups. Combat results homesteader level 2 --> homesteader level 3 true archer level 2 --> true archer level 3 heroic soldier level 2 --> heroic soldier level 3 running level 1 --> running level 2 basic throwing level 1 --> basic throwing level 3 stats gained strength +14 dexterity +12 vitality +11 endurance +2 empathy +2 intelligence +2 perception +4 constitution +4 presence +2 New traits gained intelligence reaches 20 new trait gained faster processing perception reaches 10 new trait gained better sense interpreting constitution reaches 10 new trait gained denser organs That¡¯s some good gains. I can feel being able to think faster and understand my enhanced senses better. They gave more specific information that I can understand better. I tested my skin, and it looks like the constitution trait made it tougher as well. I guess the skin is also an organ. Next, I checked the buildings, and I did find some more rope here and some small metal items that can be used to make something useful. All I found went into my backpack, but it was still light. I didn¡¯t find any loot piles here, so it''s most likely in the village. Starting to head back, I didn¡¯t take the same route but went more towards the grassland and away from the village to check the farms that way as well. Those were empty, and I had to kill a few more zombies, but the most interesting thing that I found was a herd of horses. They are not indigenous here and I could see one still has some reins on its head. They seem to be doing quite well, and the grasslands gave them a lot of food. I tried to get a bit closer, but they seem to not like that, so I didn¡¯t push it. I didn¡¯t have the time to deal with them anyway and started to make my way towards the road and then to my farm. This time I did use the homesteaders mile, and it did make going down the road faster. As I crossed back into my lands, I could feel the land greeting me and giving me energy. My tiredness disappeared some, and I felt a lot better. As I made it to the graveyard, it seems that nothing had happened, and I tried to figure out why. I concluded it was because of me. I was keeping that energy that brought the dead back to life at bay and away from my land. I was now really happy that the goblins burned all the dead from the big battle because I don¡¯t know if I could have kept that amount of dead from rising. From my limited knowledge, I knew that if there were more dead, it was more likely for them to rise and to be stronger. I cleaned up all my equipment and loaded everything up for tomorrow as I was still going to go to explore all I could. I have already visited most of the outer farms and tomorrow I could finish all the outer farms and move towards the inner area closer to the village and get a better understanding of what was happening there. There were no surprises from the outer farms. Only another big farm caused a problem because of their graveyard, but with my javelins and the bow, the killing was easy enough with some running to help. The problem became closer to the village. There seemed to be bigger bunches of zombies. If I wanted to engage them, the other packs might hear, and I might have a horde coming towards me soon enough. Zombies in low numbers are always easy but have too many of them and you are going to become one of them or get eaten. I was still able to pick off a few, but as I explored one of the farms, a scream rang out and then another. It seemed to be coming from the village. To my horror, it seemed that all the zombies start to move toward the village following the noise. While the zombies did grunt, they didn''t seem to be able to communicate with that, but whatever that noise was, it called them to the village, meaning there is some intelligent undead there. This was extremely bad news and as I followed them, I could see zombies trying to get into the village. It has a wood palisade around it and the zombies were walking into it as they tried to get in. Eventually, they made it to the open gate and walked further in. It was a simple village. It still had quite a lot of houses. This village was known for rabbit belts and meat. If my memory was correct, there was a glassmaker here as well that mainly made windows for export. I could hear the sound again and closer it was worse for my hearing and sanity, and it did level up my basic mental fortitude, so it had some effect on the living as well. As I watched them shuffle into the palisade, I had a crazy idea and kept watching from one of the closest farmhouses to the village. I was now quite certain that the loot pile was inside the village because to the side of the gate opening was painted a symbol that the men that attacked had on them. It took four more calls before most of the zombies made it inside. Only the really slow ones were still out making their way towards the gate. I left most of my stuff in the farmhouse because I needed to be quick. I made my way as quietly as possible to the gate and I was able to get there without being noticed. Inside, I could see quite a lot of undead, not just zombies, but some skeletons as well. I didn¡¯t see the screamer, and I hoped that I won''t, at least not yet. I snuck in and located the barring bar and prepared myself because I needed to move as quickly as possible. After a few breaths, I moved as explosively as I could and started to push the gate closed. Of course, the hinges were not silent, and I could hear them all them turning towards me and starting to move. There wasn¡¯t much distance between me and the closest zombies, but I was able to close the gate and put the bar in to lock it shut. Trapping myself inside the village palisade that was full of undead. I quickly run towards the watchtower and had to dodge a few times. Thankfully, the scratches I got were stopped by my armour and I was able to start the climb. As I was halfway up, I was hit by the sound again and almost lost my grip, but I was able to keep climbing after a moment, and once on top, I took a running start and leapt over the palisade and into safety. I started to make noise and led them away from the gate so they would try to break down the palisade and not the gate. It seemed to have worked as they seem to be following my noise. On the other side, I stopped making noise and started to circle my way back and see what happened to the gate. I could hear a few more cries and see some more zombies were approaching, but they were still ways off. It seemed that the gate held, and they were now trapped inside where I could take care of them at a later date. chapter 55 Unfortunately, the animal sight didn¡¯t work on the undead, so I had to use my energy sight and try to filter out all but the zombies and the other undead to see what they were up to. I was finally able to notice the one that called the others. I was quite happy to figure out that it was not that intelligent. It spent time sniffing and walking around the palisade and the other buildings, either and walked on all fours or on 2 feet. It wasn¡¯t an animal, but something in between a human and an animal. My energy sight also helped me identify the most likely place where the loot was, as I could see symbols on a basement wall that presumably protect the place. I didn¡¯t just use that time to understand the village insights better and what the undead was doing, but also to train my throwing skill by killing zombies that were still outside. To help me get better, I started to throw javelins from further and further away and that helped train me faster and my skill to level up faster. With all my training and the killing of zombies around the village and the farms, I got it up to level 8. I was really starting to like it. The screamer still called out for more undead to come. I figured that it was a good thing because that might help me level up my mental skill as I got another level in that. As I was leaving to go back to my farm, I hope that they will not be able to break down the gate. More specifically, they could break it down, but I hope they wouldn¡¯t be smart enough to figure that out. When I made it back to the village the next day, I was quite pleasantly surprised that there didn¡¯t seem to be any breach in the palisade or the gate. The dead inside the village seemed to be just milling around quite harmlessly. Today, fewer zombies showed up. Thanks to that I was able to practise my throwing a lot, getting me to level 9 in it. Towards the evening, less and less often did zombies show up. I was lucky if even one came once an hour. So, with little to do, my thoughts turned on how to deal with the inside of the village. I wanted to do some testing on the zombies. The fire was my first solution, so I needed to do some fire testing. The few zombies that showed up I didn¡¯t actually kill anymore because I wanted them for tomorrow¡¯s testing. Back at the farm, I prepare a few things so I could test out if the fire was good. If it is, I had the capability of easily taking care of the village. When I made it back to the village, I had a bucket of tar and some other things with me. First, I tried flaming javelins. They did nothing impressive and were a lot less accurate because of the cloth wrapped behind the tip. Lucky I didn¡¯t mess up any javelins with this stunt. The torches did nothing special. For the tar, just in case I lured them away from the palisade a lot more than with my other tests. This also did almost nothing. They were still flesh, and that didn¡¯t burn. So even if I was good with sacrificing all the buildings and the village itself, it still wouldn¡¯t help me kill the zombies, just set them free. If the fire was hot enough, they would turn to ash, but they were still moving creatures. I couldn¡¯t just ask them to stand in the fire. Unfortunately, the fire turned out to be a bad choice. The second thing I wanted to try, I would not be able to because it wasn¡¯t cold. I expected that cold weather would slow them down to a crawl or even freeze them stiff. I hope that¡¯s the case because then I would be able to clear out the village with very little problem, but winter is still far away. But for those purposes, I chose not to kill the last five zombies and use a rope to catch them and tie them inside one of the farmhouses for later testing. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Perhaps if I found some other way to kill them quickly and without having to fight, a herd of more than 100 zombies and some other undead wouldn''t sound like such bad odds. I felt that I was close to class level up¡¯s, and I so wanted to just build a platform on this side of the palisade to stand on it and just start firing arrows into the zombies. But I know that it was a bad idea because I¡¯m pretty sure that the zombies can break the palisade itself making all my efforts this far quite useless and that''s not to speak of the other undead. After all, I have no idea what their capabilities are. So, what¡¯s a man to do in this situation? The answer was quite simple: turn around and go back to my farm and continue building the sauna. Hope that all will work out and I will go to the village every so often to kill off some zombies, hopefully the winter will provide a better way to get rid of and clear out the undead infestation from this village. As I was back on my farm, I was quite disappointed that I didn¡¯t get my throwing skill to tier up, but then I had a horrible idea, truly the most awful one. That is to try to hunt rabbits while using the javelins. But that brought up another question: what do I do with the caught rabbits I have? At first, when I decided to catch and possibly breed them, it was to make myself a sustainable food source. I already have the biggest rabbit farm ever, just a 20-minute walk away. Now it¡¯s a lot harder to catch them than just taking one out of a cage, but it¡¯s also not hard. So, as I was travelling to hunt rabbits, I was dreading my upcoming training. I also brought along my caught rabbits to release them and give them a chance at life. I could have killed them, but honestly, I felt a bit better doing it this way. I suspected javelin hunting rabbits will be even more soul-crushing than just trying to sneak close to them, but I was wrong. It was way worse, more like soul-grinding into fine powder bad. I was about to end my hunt in the evening when I chanced on a big group of them. I closed in slowly. It was the largest group I had seen, and it looks like they were eating some grass that they seem to like better than the rest. Because they were so occupied, I was able to get a bit closer than usual but even then, when I threw the javelin at them, they all started to run away. Because there were so many, they actually bumped into each other, which slowed them down and I was able to hit one, getting me a tier up that I wanted. Skill increases basic throwing level 10 is upgraded to throwing level 1 Choose one of the following abilities silent throw charged throw powerful throw The silent throw looks similar to the silent arrow. Throwing never seemed that sneaky to me, but I guess ninjas can do it quite well, so perhaps scratch that thought. But I¡¯m not a ninja and while it might be useful in certain circumstances, I would rather pick the other two. Powerful throw is most likely similar to a heavy blow. Charged throw, however, what do you charge it with and what effect will it give? I was quite intrigued, even though I couldn¡¯t figure out what the ability will actually do. I went back and forth between the two choices, but in the end, I took a gamble and picked the charged throw. You have gained a new ability charged throw level 1 And it turned out to be the best choice. What it did was that you can charge energy into your javelin for example, and then it will make the javelin throwing better. You can throw it faster, stronger, but it will also penetrate more. I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s the same ability that the big goblin had, and I was quite excited about it. This was a deadly ability that might save my life in the future. If I¡¯m against things that are more monstrous and bigger, I will be able to do some damage. The problem was the charging time to really get some power into the javelin. It took time. With my testing, I also found a problem with this ability. It did affect the weapon, degrading it if you push too much energy into it. But I could also see why. The other abilities compared to this one were all quite tame, and pushing too much into them was not possible without a lot of effort. But with this one, I suspect you could pour so much energy into it that the javelin would just break. When I got back, I found quite an interesting scene. Freya was holding one of her puppies in her mouth and moving back towards the barn. Since I had a rabbit that I wanted to give her, I followed them in. It turns out that Toto had managed to escape somehow. I tried to figure out how, but it didn¡¯t take long to find out. Lucky had somehow managed to get her paw stuck in one of the corners. It was my mistake. The boards had a cap there that got smaller further down, trapping her paw. Toto then used her sister¡¯s misfortune to use her as a stepping stool to get over and out of the stall. My eye started to twitch a bit because I could imagine how much trouble some of these puppies can cause. At that moment Freya and I both looked at each other, and I¡¯m quite certain we both know we¡¯re quite fucked until they grow up a lot more. Even then, I couldn¡¯t keep the smile off my face the entire time I did some evening training. chapter 56 Watching the finished foundation of the sauna, I wanted to make the support for the deck next. but I needed somehow to make them more secure than just digging them inside the ground and for that, I wanted to make clay and ash concrete to stabilize them better. The first thing to do was get clay, but I didn¡¯t always want to go into the river to get some, so I started to excavate near the shore where the brown clay deposit that I used for my makeshift forge was located. Hopefully, the clay deposit extended under the shore and the ground beyond it. It did and looked to be big enough to finish my sauna''s heater. It was still quite damp because of the closeness to the river, so I laid some out for it to dry so I can later mix it with ash. I also wanted to expose the other clear deposit, the white one, a bit further away. I wonder what the difference between the two was and whether one was better than the other. For that purpose, I made some small bricks from both types of clay and left them out to dry. I then start to dig out the holes that I was going to fill with a log and concrete. For that, I had prepared in advance the logs in multiple coats of tar so they would survive better. I also made a mixing pit that I surrounded with boards so the dirt would not be mixing in too much. A simple mix of ash and clay with a little bit of sand made me a primitive concrete. At this moment, I know that construction sight would probably help me line up everything perfectly and easily, but now I had to mess around with string to get everything measured up, right and in line with everything else. I left the concrete to harden, and hopefully, it will actually harden. It was time to build the base for the heater that I wanted to make. It would be a huge behemoth with a heating wall half the size of the inner wall so the resting room will stay warm even in winter. In the heating room, there will be two fire chambers, one for the cauldron to heat up water and the other to heat up rocks so you could throw water onto them and make it a real sauna. For it all, I will need a lot of bricks that will take weeks to finish. Francis helped me bring over more large rocks, but this time I started to cut them into stone blocks that I made grooves into. They will be connected with smaller blocks that will fit into the grooves so I could use merging joints to connect them into a solid piece, turning it into a huge block. I am quite happy with my improved stats, otherwise, this job would have taken a week, but now by evening I was already 1/3 finished while spending the first half of the day securing the deck posts. The concrete was hardening and in a few days, will be rock solid. The sun was hot today and the bricks that I made were good enough for test fire in the forge to see what would happen to them and how strong they will become. I placed all four white ones and four brown ones into the burning charcoal and poured more charcoal over them and slowly started to crank the blower. I couldn¡¯t crank it at full speed because if I made the fire too strong, it might crack or start to melt the bricks. As time went on, something weird started to happen. I didn¡¯t have to keep cranking the blower for the fire to be hot enough so to check what was happening. I brushed aside some of the coals on top. The white ones seemed quite ordinary, although they did have a beautiful colour. But the brown ones had glowing cracks through them, similar to how the crucibles looked after I was done with them. I used my tongs to take one out and it actually radiated heat that was stronger than the fire the charcoal provided. I took the brown brick out to the side and covered the white ones to continue to fire them. Even when I put them to the side, the brown ones kept producing heat for a while longer. They held their shape well and didn¡¯t start to crumble apart before they were cool. It puzzled me a bit on how I was able to melt iron because I know I could get close to the temperature with my current setup, but I didn¡¯t know if I could actually reach it, but I think the clay actually helped me reach the higher temperature need to do properly melted iron. While I fired the white, I had all kinds of ideas running in my head on how to use this, but one thing is clear. Even if I could use it to make steel, I would never be able to make a furnace out of this because it would just simply burn down. I hope that the white clay will work better as I pulled them out and let them cool down. While the bricks cooled, I did some needed jobs around the farm before coming back to test the bricks. It came as no surprise that the brown ones couldn''t even support their own weight and had crumbled into piles of dust. The white bricks looked beautiful with swirls of bright red in different patterns, but otherwise similar to regular bricks. I now had what I needed to make the heater, now I just needed a few thousand of them. Before I went to bed, I wanted to know more about the brown clay, so I used up the last of my energy reserves on my abilities to understand it better. It looked like it was imbued with energy in a certain way and something else that I was not able to identify. The next day I finished making the base for the heater and at the same time I slowly worked on getting my brick making equipment done. The moulds and other things of need like a proper sand-covered area to dry them. The next day I filled in the rest of the heating room''s floor with sand but before that, I had to make the drainage and for that, I used merging joints again getting me a level in that after I finished the square pipe underneath the ground that drained into the river. I then start making the stone flooring. It was a bit harder to make because I couldn¡¯t just lay them on the sand. I needed to worry about drainage as well so that all the water would go out in the correct place and not underneath the foundation. This got me a level in masonry as well as construction. My days after that went into a routine as in the morning hours, right after my chores, I made bricks for a few hours and then left them to dry in the sun. After that, I started to work on the wooden part of the sauna. For that, Francis also helped me bring over the logs that are now dry and ready to be used. Making a log house is simple when you know the basics, but with expertise, you can make it a lot faster than I could, at least for now. I expect that only heavy equipment could match the speed at which I could move heavy logs. At the start, it took the longest because I needed to try to fit them together and then cut in the needed joints, then redo it until the joints fit together perfectly. The first layer of logs that were placed stayed completely round. Instead, I made the circle hollow in the foundation when I build it. I only needed to cover the joining area with tar and moss to help keep it airtight before using merging joints on them. Because I wanted to keep the round look, I also needed to carve out one side of the logs that will stack on top with a circular hollow underneath so they would fit together perfectly. Like before, in between those I used tar and moss that I collected from the forest and while there I also picked up ingredients, I need to make the leather powder. It was slow going but I suspect I made more progress than any man had any right to because after two weeks the sauna''s first floor was done. Next will come the ceiling and the roof but before I could put those in, I wanted to finish the bricks for the heater. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I had more than enough dry bricks thanks to my ability for faster material preparation to help them dry faster. Unfortunately, it didn¡¯t give the same speed I got with the logs, but it still cut down the drying process quite a lot. During the two weeks, I also went and checked on the village. It looked fine, with only a few more zombies coming from the south. I did mess up one kill. The javelin didn¡¯t kill one even though it was in the brain and it got a swipe at me. Thankfully, my armour protected me from the scratch and this attack gave me the basic armour skill. Now my brick moulds are a bit special because I want to take advantage of my abilities so the top and the left side had tongues and the bottom end and the right side had grooves in them. This makes a joint, so when fitted together, I could use the merging joints to make them into a solid structure. I was quite happy with the results, so I started to prepare them for the firing. For that, I started to dig out two trenches so they will form an X shape. Then I start laying the bricks beside the trench and stack them high. The parts above the trench would stay open for a little while before I started to close them with bricks. I was making a kiln that had 5 openings four on the side and one in the middle that will act like a chimney. Like this, I will not have to make any special building to fire the bricks, but if I wanted to make such a building, I would need the bricks in the first place, so it was a moot point. Doing it this way would mean that the outer layers will not get hot enough to make good bricks, but they will also be the latest I made and the ones that had the lowest amount of time to cure. The firing itself took one day. I had to cover the entire structure in sand and let it rest and slowly cool down for the next few days. During that time, I try to figure out if there was a better way to get the logs on top of the building, but unfortunately, rope and two logs on either side so I could pull it up a slope was still the best choice. I didn¡¯t just want to do anything, so I figured I could still put in the ceiling crossbeams that will support that roof and help hold together the sides of the sauna. For that, I had three of the biggest and meanest-looking logs that I had. To prepare them, I had to cut in multiple joints so that they would fit onto the logs already placed and the future upright logs that will support the roof. When they were finally in, I could fit upright logs in that will extend upwards to support the roof. There were 3 of them that I then needed to connect, creating a solid triangle. Then I had to do that 2 more times for the middle and the other ends. Then I needed to connect those triangles with crossbeams. Luckily those didn''t have to be so big, but still finishing the roof structure took three days as I took it slowly. Next will be the roof itself, but that would have to come after I finish making the heater. Bricks turned out magnificently and because I didn¡¯t have to worry about mortar, I was able to build them quite fast. I tested their heat tolerance and sighed out loud when it was good for wood burning. It took 5 days before I could put the finishing edge on the chimney finishing the entire build. The resting room now looked better than before. It had a hole in its middle wall that was now covered in a solid brick wall. Hopefully, I remember all my uncle¡¯s teachings on how to build a proper heating structure for a building. I didn¡¯t have a cauldron, so for now, I just covered the hole with a wet wood lid so I could test out if the chimney worked properly. It did work excellently and when I get a big iron caldron in, then I could heat up the water in a large quantity quite easily. Now for the other fire chamber, the main one I brought in all the required stones to place on top and I could put the structure through a real test. I opened the main damper and started the fire. I was pleased with how it pulled out the smoke with a good and strong flow. I proceeded to put it through its paces and went through a full use cycle twice in one day to see if there were any faults, but there weren¡¯t. Even the heating wall got hot so winter will not be any problem. It was too late now to start with the roof, so I decided to make the wooden windows that I was later hopefully going to replace with glass ones, making it look a lot nicer. Making the roof went fast and only took three days to cover it with boards, cover it with tar, and then lay on the rock shingles. I did have to make a lot of nails using up my supply of excess iron. After that, it took another day to tar the entire sauna''s exterior. Then I started to build the deck. That took another two days to finish because I also wanted a proper roof over it and a grilling area at the side made with the leftover bricks. Since the ceiling was also done, all I had left was to make the wooden floor for the resting room and that only took half a day because I already have everything prepared and only needed to adjust and place them inside. There were still some minor things that needed to be made, furniture and the seating for the heating room, but it was technically done. I looked at all I have gained over the weeks. homesteader level 3 --> homesteader level 4 piercing cut level 17 --> piercing cut level 19 counterweight level 7 --> counterweight level 11 merging joints level 5 --> merging joints level 7 heavy training level 4 --> heavy training level 5 faster material preparation level 1 --> faster material preparation level 2 sharp blade level 5 --> sharp blade level 8 basic foraging level 1 --> basic foraging level 4 wood carving level 2 --> wood carving level 3 basic axe level 3 --> basic axe level 4 basic masonry level 6 --> basic masonry level 10 construction level 3 --> construction level 5 carpentry level 1 --> carpentry level 3 basic architecture level 1 --> basic architecture level 5 basic engineering level 3 --> basic engineering level 4 basic ceramist level 2 --> basic ceramist level 9 stats gained strength +4 dexterity +4 vitality +4 endurance +2 empathy +2 intelligence +2 new trait gained empathy reaches 20 new trait gained regal stature Skill increases basic masonry level 10 is upgraded to masonry level 1 Choose one of the following abilities rock punch quick drying mortar light load Well, that is an easy choice. Light load will help me so much. Quick drying mortar is literally useless for me and rock punch while sounding cool does not fit my fighting style. For some reason I felt my posture being better as I noted the trait, I let out a sigh. You have gained a new ability light load level 1 POV Stebs Soot goblin chief I was watching as one of the gatherers was giving his weekly report. Turns out that some berry bushes could produce multiple harvests per year and how excited they all were about that. They wanted to have some forest space so they could plant more of those bushes to make an excellent food source for the future. I suspect that in the future these meetings would become boring but currently, I was always excited about the new discoveries, about new skills unlocked and discover. Same with abilities. During the breeder¡¯s time, if a goblin encampment had an ability user it was an achievement to be recognized by all but now, we already had 15 goblins with abilities and some of them weren''t even picked for combat but to further their chosen field. It was at this moment a scout commander ran into the tent and gave a salute and asked for permission to give his report of urgent necessity. I nod for him to go ahead. ¡°Chief, we have trouble in the south. As we know, one of the encampments, there is pushing toward us. I believe our fears will come true about them wanting to attack us when they see our low numbers in our scouting parties.¡± I did not like the sound of that. It¡¯s the biggest fear that the council has. We noticed some of the forward scouts were coming towards the north and it was only a matter of time before they note us or start to question why our territory is empty of goblins. ¡°We run into a group of thieving goblins that were running away from the area of the expanding encampment and hoping that we would let them pass without trouble.¡± ¡°All was going well until they started to notice how few of us there were in the scouting party and they immediately thought that this encampment had fallen into hard times, and they could just walk past without giving any of the food or items they had as payment.¡± ¡°The fight was easy as we have trained hard and well using the human¡¯s technique taught to us and we didn¡¯t lose a single goblin thanks to our ability user and overall skilfulness.¡± At that, a crafter goblin that was on the council rejoiced and congratulated the scouting party and wanted to throw them a welcoming back celebration. Some of the others, however, expressed worry about our future runnings with the other encampment forces. We had discussed it for a little until we all heard some coughing to the side. He was still there, waiting. ¡°Is there something else you need?¡± ¡°Yes, chief. I actually wasn¡¯t finished with the report. We have a problem that we didn''t know how to address. You see that the thieving goblin group had captured three humans that they forced to grow crops for them, but now we have three live humans that we don¡¯t know what to do with.¡± ¡°Before, we would have just killed them and fed them to the breeders, but now we are neither hungry nor do we really want to eat them so we don''t know what to do, chief?¡± We all looked at each other around the table. None of us had ever had such a question, nor did none of us ever have to think of an answer to a question like this. chapter 57 My admiring of the sauna was interrupted by a breakout of the puppies. Now Toto broke out constantly, but it was really rare for him to be able to get the others to follow, but on two previous occasions he has managed it and now it''s the third time. Toto is quite easy to catch because he doesn''t actually want to run away or hide. I think he found the most pleasure in the escape itself. When they all get out like this, they plan to hide or run as quickly or as far as they can. Lucky is the easiest to catch because she usually gets stuck somewhere or gets hurt in the unluckiest ways possible. I¡¯m pretty sure that I¡¯m close to another level up in first aid thanks to her. The most difficult to find is Comet and I actually have to use either my sight or owner''s land to locate him. The first time it was quite fun but the second and now the third time it was less so, but it also wasn¡¯t annoying, but I could see it becoming that quite easily. When Freya and I had gotten them all back, I looked them over and perhaps it was time to start training them. In the future, they could become incredible assets if they learn properly. I just haven¡¯t come up with a plan on how to do it yet. After the puppy catching, I did my usual training exercises. I have been quite good with my working and training time, and I have been able to keep pace quite well without over-exhausting myself. My longbow shooting is coming along quite well, same with my throwing, as I feel it has gotten a lot stronger. The ability charging throw adjusts the throw a bit when more energy is fed in to make it even more effective, but that also helps me fix my mistakes, allowing me to train faster. I haven¡¯t actually used the ability to its completion a lot. I just let it fizzle out because I don¡¯t have the steel to waste making new javelins because I broke my current ones. Some of the vegetables are already starting to grow fruit and in a week or so I can have my first harvest of tomatoes and cucumbers. I couldn¡¯t wait until I get to eat fresh vegetables. My mouth started watering just thinking about it. The next day was raining, and I was quite happy that I was able to finish building the sauna roof before it started raining. During the building of the first floor, it rained 2 times. The rain, on both occasions, destroyed my bricks that were drying on the sand. On one of those days like today, there was lightning. Again, it only struck in that one place. As I was making the benches and other furniture for the sauna, all I could think about after every strike was why there. I knew I couldn¡¯t just let it go this time, and I had to go and check what was there, so if tomorrow was a clear day, I was going to go there. Making the movable furniture for the sauna took quite some time, but I still had time to finish making the heating rooms seating as well. This made the sauna now done with a few missing features like a few water tubs and the cauldron, but otherwise, it was in working order. As it was getting late, I started the sauna and the only thing I wished was that there was something that I could light up the heating room with because it was quite dark in there. Otherwise, it was excellent. I was relaxed and felt clean. Multiple times, I heated myself up and jumped into the river so I would quickly cool down. While other times I sat on a bench on the deck while still steaming. Everything felt so perfect, and it was a great night. I¡¯m quite glad that my first building was this beauty. Now this will help my mental health a lot, but the question is what would be the next building I would like to make. Perhaps a root cellar big enough for everything that I will be getting, but for that, I would need a lot more stone. I would need to make a quarry to get more. Hopefully, one of the closer hills will be the answer. I didn¡¯t want to start messing with all the big rocks spread around the hills. For logistic purposes, I would need to make a road as well, but Francis will help with that when the time comes. My biggest problem remains iron. Everything would be easier if I could make, for example, a stronger cart, so bringing rocks from the future quarry would be easier. But some things I can¡¯t do without iron. Perhaps the goblins will be able to help with that. The best place to get some would be in the village. I bet there¡¯s a lot of iron that I could use there. For that, I need to fix my zombie problem. During my latest visit there, I noticed how quiet the undead can be inside the village and some idiot might actually try to break in. Unfortunately, I did not know how to write in common or read it, so I thought of a better solution. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Before the gate, I mounted some zombie heads onto spikes to warn off anyone who would try to go inside. Now, this warning will help, but not against stupid. They will do what they want. I just hope that it won''t get me killed. I probably had the best sleep since I woke up in this land and I was feeling fresh and ready for whatever horror waited for me where the lightning strikes. I got everything ready and decided to take the easiest and quickest route to it. For that, I skirted around the hills and then went through the grassland forest to get to the river. Then I followed the river downstream towards the location that I memorized, only taking a few hours to get near it. As I got near it, I started to feel the same feeling as I did before, but now when I was ready for a fight; I had time to examine the feeling I have, and it was not bad, just weird. As I walked further, it looked like the water has cut through some of the hills causing some small cliffs. That feeling got stronger as I rounded the bend further ahead and saw another hill that was cut in half. The soil and rock must have been swept away by the current, making quite a large cut out of the hill. Around here all the area was forest, except a little bit more towards my land, where the forest thinned out quickly and a clearing with only one big tree remained. As I tried to get closer, there was a pulling force that was getting stronger the closer I got. It didn''t take me long to figure out that the metal I had on me was being pulled towards the tree that looked very grey, but otherwise like a big oak tree. I was now able to figure out what the weird feeling was. It was a magnetic force. When I got closer to the tree, it started pulling everything metal towards it. I quickly scouted around, but I found nothing else suspicious, so I left all my metal gear in a safe spot and went to examine this tree closer. It was a magnificently big oak tree, but it was a lot greyer than it was supposed to be and, as I suspected, it was basically iron. But it still held all the wood properties, making it a weird combination. I¡¯m guessing that it¡¯s magnetic because of the lightning and not because of itself. The magnetic influence on the tree was not good for it. It was never meant to handle such a thing. Even then, the structure holds up quite excellently with the foreign influence acting upon it. The weirdest thing was that all the acorns and leaves that had dropped were pulled onto the tree weighing it down. I didn¡¯t have the strength to pull them off, but I really wanted to examine them closer and for that reason, I thought I might try to demagnetize the tree. One of the easiest ways to demagnetize something is to set it on fire but I didn¡¯t know if this tree could catch fire because she is constantly hit by lightning, it must have caught fire at some point if that kept happening but there was no fire damage to be seen. On the top branches, I could see some lightning damage, but the top branch caught the lightning similar to a lightning rod. So, I tried the second easiest method, striking force. I did a few strikes with all my strength, but I honestly didn¡¯t think that it would work. But what I did next, I hope it would work. I backed off quite a long way and then took a running start, putting everything I had into it and ramming the tree as strongly as I could. This actually caused it to shake, and I think I felt the magnetic field lessen for a bit, so I did it again. Turns out third time''s the charm. I had to scramble away from everything falling down. From a safe distance, I watched everything fall down as I was massaging my sore and bruised shoulder. This truly was an oak tree, or at least something similar to it. This wood was able to keep the best properties of both materials. This was an incredible find, but as I examined the acorns, my dreams of an iron oak forest were crushed, as there seemed to be some limitation because of the iron. The acorns were not fertile, they will never grow into a tree and that was quite sad on multiple levels. But there was multiple years¡¯ worth of acorns and leaves and a few smaller branches that the lightning probably knocked off. Hopefully, I can turn them into workable iron. Collecting and bringing them all back will take a long time. I almost wish I had a better way of transporting them. A good way to transport them using the river came to mind as I could use a boat to connect this location and my farm using the lake and the rivers. I had to scratch that idea. It would take too long to implement, and I would be able to get everything out faster than actually completing that transport route. But a better way to transport still existed. I could bring over some of the wood iron and hopefully, I will be able to melt it down into usable iron, then I could build a narrow hand cart that I could pull to help transport everything faster. This will still be quite a chore and I¡¯m guessing light load will help me a lot with this problem. As I was gearing up, I loaded my backpack as much as it could handle so I had something to test with. Before I set off, loose thoughts connecting in my mind, and I take a closer look at the trunk of the tree. I could see some long straight branches that are growing close to the big branches that go straight up. If I was able to cut them off, they should be able to live and grow, and like that, my dream of having an entire forest full of iron oak trees was back on the table. Unfortunately, it seems that the iron somehow interfered, or I wasn¡¯t skilled enough to get anything from my abilities and traits to see if this would work but I also didn¡¯t get a negative, so I took out the hatchet that I brought with me and started cutting them. It was quite difficult to get through them, but it was possible, and I took seven of the closest ones to the ground with me. I didn¡¯t want to start climbing and getting more if this didn¡¯t work. With my test subject packed up, it was time to head back. I was able to level up light load, but it was still quite a heavy walk. I also noticed how good of an exercise this was, as I was completely drenched in sweat halfway home. I might need to think of a way to weigh down myself for runs. The light load helped with my current task even though it did take quite a lot of energy, but thanks to my reserves, I was able to make it back home without any trouble. chapter 58* When I made it back home, I had to take a big break. Bringing over this amount of wood iron was quite exhausting. But the first thing I did after that was not to fire up the forge but go into the forest to locate a big oak tree and cut the similar branches that I got from the iron oak. What this let me do is use my trait to get an idea of what I needed to do to make the branches grow into a tree and then copy it with the iron oak branches. Hopefully, this will give me a better chance at growing them. They basically just need extremely moist soil and some sunlight. I will most likely need to make them plant pots so I could keep them inside during the winter because it wasn¡¯t the perfect time to plant them. That time was long past. Now that this was taken care of, it was time to see if I can make workable iron from the leaves and acorns I brought. At the start, they did heat up similar to iron, but as the temperature got stronger, they started to crack. I tried to forge them, but one hit made huge cracks, and another broke it apart into smaller pieces. So, plan number one had failed, and they can''t be just forged from the beginning. I probably needed to melt them in a crucible if I had any chance of making workable iron from these pieces. For that purpose, I dug up some of the brown clay and made it into crucibles and left them to dry. The next step must be left for tomorrow. They still needed to dry longer than I had daylight. I still had some time this evening to start planning and digging the future site from the root cellar. I had quite a big problem, and that was the grains. I couldn¡¯t store them with the rest of the root vegetables because the grain needed a higher temperature and less humidity. So, I would need to build two different storage facilities. I would need to make them big, and they would need to be quite deep to have a stable temperature. I started to dig between the house and the vegetable fields towards the river a bit more, to be out of the way but still easily accessible. I will most likely make a road between the house and vegetable fields to the entrance of these two root cellars that I was going to make side by side with two different entrances. I will also need to start cutting grass to make into hay for the winter so the cows would have something to eat. There is much to do and I might run into trouble if I can¡¯t build this root cellar fast enough because, in less than a month, I can start harvesting my grain fields. I can¡¯t believe that the summer will soon be over. Time really goes by fast when you always have something to do. Honestly, I won¡¯t need this much storage because I will never need this much food and the village most definitely does not want it, perhaps the goblins will. Whatever, it is still a good idea. I might need to put myself into high gear in my activities and push myself harder because otherwise, I would run into time troubles. The next day after my chores, the first thing I did was to go towards the hills to look for a good place to start the quarry. I found a promising place further away than I wanted to, but hopefully, I will be able to make iron so I could make tools and a cart. That would make everything go a lot faster. Now, with my abilities, I could just use a regular axe to help quickly cut out the stone needed, but better tools for the job will help amplify the abilities to work better for that activity. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The main rock is granite which is quite a good choice for what I have in mind although better options exist. I had to do a bit of digging to expose the rock face better, but it looked like it was solid for a long way into the hill and underground. But I couldn¡¯t be certain. As I hoped, the piercing cut worked quite well helping me penetrate deeply. If I used enough energy with my other abilities stacked up on it, it would made cutting out stone basically a trivial job. Now it¡¯s time to put Francis to work. During the time I built the sauna and didn¡¯t need his help, I put him to make the road. I let him focus on the roads between the fields, making them better, and I was going to use one of those roads and extend it towards the future quarry. Francis was quite happy about the new route that went in between two of the hills and that bit further on was the site for the quarry that I plan to make. I only had to show him the route once that I wanted him to do and left him to do his thing. It astonishes me how fast time passes. It was already past midday, and the clay was now dry enough to be used in the forge to see if I can get some workable iron. I loaded the crucible full and placed it into the burning coals and then covered it with more coal and started to crank the blower. This time, when I had done that for a bit, I removed some of the coals to see if the same thing was happening as before. The crucible itself produced heat, which was so interesting. I covered it back up to properly melt the iron inside. As I opened the lid, there was a lot of slag that I had to remove and then add more acorns and leaves. I continue this process until the crucible was quite full, and I covered the top for the final stretch of the melting process. I then took the crucible out and started the next one while this one cooled down. It was quite interesting to see how it cooled down and how it was able to hold its shape thanks to the iron keeping the crucible hot for a longer time. This really surprised me, and I wonder about the mechanics of this clay and how it worked. It seemed so wondrous. When I finished the third one and put in my fourth and final one, the first one started to show signs of crumbling. When the fourth one was finally finished, the first one had crumbled down, leaving a piece of metal behind. It was already evening, and just a bit before I unhooked Francis, ending his workday. The road seemed quite good, but a little bit more would be needed to make it stronger. The carts will be moving a lot of weight when I started to bring back big blocks of rock. As I heated up the first iron ingot, I found it acted a lot like steel, so I was quite happy about that. I could actually make workable things now and I was really happy about it. If the steel had any special properties, I would need to wait until I can properly work it tomorrow. The next morning as I finished my chores, I contemplated what to do first: tools to cut the stone or start building the cart that would bring the stone back. My thoughts were interrupted by owners land notifying me of goblins entering my land. I wondered why they were coming this time, but it didn¡¯t take long for me to find that out for myself as three humans also entered with them. Had they made such big leaps in diplomacy that they were able to actually make deals with other humans, or were they their prisoners? If so, I am quite interested in why they were bringing them here. I guess I will find out later and I think I will start making the tools I need to more easily cut out the stone blocks that I need. I had plenty of time to do some smithing. It turned out the hardest thing was to start. The round ingot was bigger than my anvil and getting a piece of it was a lot of work. With the first pieces, I made a cutting tool to cut up the ingots faster. After that, it was easier again. This steel was strong. I made a long narrow piece to test it and its springiness was impressive. This was excellent for tools and weapons, but a waste for the other things I needed to make. After that, I made a chisel and tested it. I wanted to know if piercing cut would work if I placed it and struck it with a hammer. It took a bit of manipulation, but it worked. Making grooves will be easy. I made a few more and then I made the hammer/axe to cut the stone out from the rock. Last, I made a new and bigger hammer for hitting the chisels. I will need to make handles later because it was time to go and meet the goblins. I did not want the humans to be led to my farm directly. Meeting them in the forest was the best idea. chapter 59 POV Emma Greenhand We have finally stopped, but why here? I have no idea. This looks similar to the rest of the forest we have been in, and a moment later I see four goblins move ahead to somewhere. These are the second group of goblins that have captured me and my brothers and every day I wish this wasn¡¯t the case and we could be back in our village. It was a hard life without our parents, but we were getting by. But now we were no better than slaves. However, I do have to say that this group of goblins have treated us a lot better than the first ones to catch us. This group didn¡¯t force us to start farming or die. They just wanted us to show them how to grow crops. I hoped around these goblins would be a better place for us to survive. But now they were taking us somewhere and I have no idea why. Is it to sell us to another group of goblins or feed us to some monster that they worship or something even worse I cannot imagine? I could hear some of the goblin¡¯s language coming from the direction that some of them left to. I attempted to familiarize myself with this place to see if there''s anything of note here but it was just forest, absolutely nothing special here, like we just randomly stopped in a place. One of the goblins came back and then more left, leaving us with only two to guard us. As I looked at my twin brothers, they were looking around and fidgeting. I had to kick them. Our hands were tied behind our backs, but they still think of trying to escape. ¡°Stop it, George and you too Arthur don¡¯t be stupid even if we could run away. Where will we go? We have no idea where we are so stop being stupid.¡± I tried to say it as quietly as possible, but the goblins still turn to us and looked at me like they understood some of my words. It was really eerie because many of the goblins acted that way like they understood some of the common language. But if they understood, why would they not use it to communicate and only used body language to make us do what they wanted us to do? A little while later I heard the goblins returning, speaking quite happily. If I had to guess, they made a successful deal, but with them came someone that surprised me, and I could see my brothers being surprised as well. An adventurer was walking beside them explaining something in the goblin language. He was a well-built man that was wearing dark green clothing. His face was clean of any beard and he had many weapons on him. Like all adventurers, he looked quite intimidating. I could even see some scarring on one side of his face, but I couldn¡¯t see too much because of the cowl he was wearing. What grabbed me the most were his eyes as they looked toward us. They seemed to be changing and went through a cycle before turning back into light brown ones. The women in my village taught me how to understand men from their eyes to know if a man was bad or good. But his eyes seemed old but still caring, yet I could see the hardness in them, and I had no illusion that if this man wanted to kill us, he would. The goblins and the man spoke, sometimes looking toward us or even pointing before the man and one of the goblins shook hands and the goblins started to leave, leaving us alone with this man that apparently makes deals with goblins. Where we just sold as slaves. ¡°Did you just buy us to be slaves?¡± The man didn¡¯t answer, just kept looking at us with those eyes that felt like they could see everything about me. Arthur was the next to speak. ¡°My sister asked you a question. Did you buy us as slaves?¡± ¡°Your sister, interesting, and both of you are brothers, twins, as I see. Family together through such hardship, you are luckier than most. Most have lost their loved ones.¡± ¡°Well, technically, I did buy you by selling some information, so yes, I guess I did. But you will not stay slaves.¡± If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Emma, ¡°What do you mean we will not stay slaves and why do you have dealings with the goblins? They are a plague on the land.¡± Rich, ¡°Well that is true to an extent about them being a plague, but hopefully not so much any longer or they will be a lot better at it. I guess time will tell.¡± ¡°More important for you lot is that I do not care to have slaves. I will bring you, give you some food and you can decide what you want to do from there. Although I have to say there really isn¡¯t much out here, and I do not know where you¡¯re from.¡± What does it mean? Hopefully not a plague. But he¡¯s correct that is not important he just exchanged something for us and is willing to let us go for free. This does not make any sense. ¡°George, Arthur, get closer. What do you think we should do? I think we should go with him, so at least we will know our location and get back to the village.¡± ¡°What village? It was burning when we were captured. The plague probably killed the rest, and if someone remained, they would have gone to a bigger town or city. If someone stayed, undead will have killed them.¡± ¡°The summer solstice has already happened and there are so many restless dead that are not properly buried. I would not be surprised if the land is covered in undead.¡± I had to admit that it might be true. Probably the only safe places that are left are bigger cities and places where a lot of people ended up. I looked up to ask another question, but the man had turned his back to us and start to walk away. I looked at my brothers and we quickly started to follow him. ¡°So, what are your names? Mine is Rich, Rich Dirt.¡± He said it with his back to us. We introduced each other, and he wanted to know a bit more about where we were from. He lived close to the village called GreenWave and if I remember correctly; it was the most northern village in our county. Our village was about 40 miles away from here. The goblins took us further than expected. If we wanted to go back home, we would need to make an even longer trip because no road connected our villages. We would need to go to the county capital town and then we can take the road back. I¡¯ve only ever been there once when my father was still alive, and he was looking for a job there. Unfortunately, the position that was promised to him was already filled. I still curse that damn shop owner for not keeping his promise. He didn¡¯t speak much and dodged the questions about the goblins quite skilfully. The forest finally ended. We saw a sight that I had not seen for a long time. In the distance was a farm that looked healthy, and everything was so green and vibrant. We were heading towards a bridge that looked solidly built, unlike the other bridges around that were built slowly and to be artistically pleasing. This one just seemed to be built for function. There was a building that was close to the river. I suspect it would be a wash house for a village, but what it was doing here serving a single farm I did not know, and it looked recently made the same with the bridge and the tower. The tower had a weird covering on one side. What might it be hiding, perhaps a weapon? What surprised me the most was how much food was grown here. There was a potato field, vegetables, and so much grain behind the farmhouse. There even seemed to be a pasture. I¡¯m pretty sure I can see some cows. How rich is this place, and will they even have room for us? There must be at least 10 people living here. I wonder how they would react to us, and I hoped that they will treat us with respect. As we were crossing the bridge, I could see battle marks and one of my brothers asked about it. This time, he did give us a straight answer. Apparently, he had to fight off some goblins trying to sack his farm. Which made absolutely no sense because I didn¡¯t think he would be owning this farm. Was he not an adventurer that protected this place for food and a place to stay? As we were getting closer, we walked past a weird place that had benches and different sizes of rocks. There was a smoker close to there. We walked past buildings that were filled with lumber. Then I heard the noise that made me stiff with fear. Was there a wolf here to prey upon the animals and us? My brothers moved in front of me to protect me, but I didn¡¯t hear any fighting and peeked around them to see Rich petting a wolf like it was a dog. The wolf just turned around and left towards the barn. I was a bit dazed by what happened and was led into the house by Rich and given a proper meal, we might have stuffed ourselves too much. Everything was so tasty. Too much weirdness is happening. I was feeling more dazed and so were my brothers. Nothing made sense here. Where are the other people? The next thing I felt was a bed under me. POV Rich Dirt I sat behind the dinner table and finished my meal. They seemed like good kids, although I don¡¯t know if I could call them kids, as the twins were close to 18 and the girl was 16. They had a tragic past, but I suspect better than most have in the current world. I hope they will decide to stay. They seem like good people and I could use the company and the help around the farm. They were so deep in survival mode when they finally were able to relax a bit; it was too much. It¡¯s good to let them sleep it off. But I have some wood crafting to do. First, handles for my new tools and then I can start with the cart itself. There is no time to waste. We have a winter to prepare for. I mean, I guess I¡¯ve been preparing for it ever since I got here, but now it feels like I can see it on the horizon, and I do not wish to go hungry or cold during the winter. Although I wonder if I even can anymore, the temperature outside doesn''t seem to affect me at all. chapter 60 The handles were easy to make. I decided to use the method I¡¯m most familiar with where you hammer a wedge into the top to hold the handle in place. For the cart, I was planning on copying the design of my current cart. Because I didn¡¯t know how to build a proper cart, I was quite lucky they had left something to reference. All I had to do was make everything stronger. Like my regular cart, it will have directional front wheels able to move in the direction the bull will be pulling. I will also need to make some better brakes otherwise the downhill part might become quite dangerous. I am always amazed at how quickly I can make things now. I wonder why this world isn¡¯t full of useful things if making stuff is so easy and I wonder what the upper limits are for crafting and how many can reach that level. From what I understand from my time here and what I saw in the village don¡¯t correlate. Why is everyone living in such poor conditions when making stuff is so easy? it just doesn''t make any sense. Perhaps when my visitors wake up, I can ask some more pointed questions and get a better understanding of how this world works or more precisely how human society works. The turning mechanism was quite interesting I only hoped it will be able to handle the increased load even after I beef it up, this will be the weakest point for the cart. After I finished cutting out all the wood pieces it was time to start making the metal ones and once again, I had to fire up my forge. It was quite a shitty one and I wanted to make a better one, perhaps even a building to house it in, but I just didn¡¯t have time. I am guessing that I will need to make a choice on what building to make after the harvest. Most likely it will be the smithy so I will have something to do in the winter besides making fabric. Because of the sauna, there is more need for firewood. Currently, there is enough firewood drying in the cylinder stack that helps dry it fast to fill up the woodshed. But I would like to make a lot more and extend the current woodshed or make a new one. Luckily that didn¡¯t have to be a proper building so it would be quicker to make. Then there will be more than enough for the sauna as well. During the smithing, I was also thinking about the goblins. They seem to be having a problem with another tribe wanting to come to their lands and they are afraid that their low numbers will lead to a full war which would be quite devastating. I am certain that they could win thanks to the gaining of a lot of abilities, but they would still lose quite a lot. I gave them some ideas about guerrilla warfare. Whenever they will meet the enemies scout teams they just need to have more members meet them. They needed to control whenever they meet so they can dictate the numbers they have. It will take a lot of hard work, but I believe they can frighten them off that way. They also seemed to have a problem that they have few females. They didn¡¯t think of infiltrating other goblin tribes to persuade the females there to join them. I learned females do not want to become breeders so offering them a chance to get a better position in life, some if not most will join. I wonder how they will act upon that information and how did they not come up with that themselves. I pondered upon that for a bit. It didn¡¯t take long to put some pieces together from earth¡¯s history. How simple things that could have helped millions were not invented or came into being too late simply because no one else had the idea. I wonder what could be missing from this world that were simple everyday items that made life easier back on earth and perhaps there are some things here that were missing on earth. If we do not consider, the fantasy element which I¡¯m pretty sure changes a lot. I mean just look at me I¡¯m currently forging metal I got from smelting down acorns and leaves. If you have enough of these trees, would you ever need an iron mine again? And it¡¯s not shit metal, this is excellent steel. As a resource, it seems incredible and renewable. I do not understand how people don¡¯t live in luxury here, the conditions look so bad around the village. Perhaps my father and grandfather were wrong about this Kingdom and about the ruling elite. This much wealth should make it back down if it were not controlled with an iron fist and prevented from getting out. Or was this such a rare occurrence, is my iron oak unique? That sounded wrong there must be more out there. At least I now have some people to ask questions about this world but unfortunately, this will also reveal me being someone not from this world. Perhaps I should not ask until they decide to stay. Then again, they might want to know that before they make their decision. I think I will go with the option that¡¯s best for me and not tell them. At least not yet. They would probably figure it out even if I didn¡¯t tell them if they stay with me long enough. Oh, it was so much easier when I was alone, I could just do whatever I wanted, no one to question me. Of course, their help would be nice, just helping me with making hay would free up a lot of my time. Then I will stay within my time frame properly and get everything needed for the winter done. This lesson helped me better understand my time management. I spent way too much time making the sauna. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The metal pieces done. I started to assemble the cart. It was like putting legos together and it was quite fun. When I was half done Francis came to see what I was doing. I had the habit of leaving the barn doors open. The animals were smart enough not to run away and even if they did, I could sense it and catch them quite easily so why not give them a bit more freedom, especially Francis? He seemed quite interested in what I was building because he recognized that it was something that can be pulled as it resembled the cart that was beside here that I used for reference. Francis even helped to lift the cart so I could easily mount the wheels. I made them especially wide because I know that they were going to have to carry a lot of weight and I didn¡¯t want my roads to be messed up. There was no time to start paving roads or no need at least not yet. The brake system was probably the biggest upgrade I made. Instead of stopping the front wheels, I made them stop the back wheels. There was a big lever next to the seat that operated the brakes. It was time for a test drive and the bull was quite excited as we were heading towards the quarry now. It was a bumpy ride but I¡¯m guessing it will be a bit smoother when we go slower, and the cart is more weighted down, but it will never be a smooth ride. We came back right away because I didn¡¯t bring my stone cutting tools nor did I want to do it today because it was starting to get late. Tomorrow Francis still needed to do some road work to make it better especially in the hills part of the road. What I needed to do now was start digging so I could figure out the size I wanted to make the root cellars. This was important for figuring out how much stone I will need and what the overall design will be. I had in mind something that I thought would look awesome. Kind of like an ancient tomb. Something like that with great rock pillars supporting the roof. I wanted it to look nice and I also need to make some calculations on how much food I will get there from the field so I can plan at least what the minimum must be. Although I would like to make them bigger than that especially the root cellar for potatoes because that temperature will also be perfect for alcohol. I was quite disappointed when scouting all the farms around here. I wanted to take some fruit tree saplings but there weren¡¯t any, and it was another mystery that I could not understand. Why would you not plant some fruit trees for extra food? It just doesn¡¯t make any sense. My guests finally woke up, but I didn¡¯t want to bother them. I wanted to leave them some time for themselves to talk things over. I wonder if my owners land levelled up enough, could I hear what they would be saying if I focused. Will it be able to do it from the other side of my land? This ability worked very different from the other ones and seemed very powerful and hopefully, it will become even more powerful when levelled. They finally came outside looking quite timid and it took them a bit to locate me digging the root cellar. ¡°Hi there sleepyheads, so you finally woke up. Is there anything I can do to help you?¡± For some reason, I think that cross-circuited the brains but I couldn¡¯t help but laugh out loud a bit. ¡°Sorry, sorry. Your face looked quite funny, and it¡¯s been quite a while since I¡¯ve seen humans that weren¡¯t trying to kill me or undead.¡± As always it seemed that the girl Emma was the one that spoke for them. ¡°I guess that is understandable we have a few more questions that we want to discuss with you but what do you mean about you haven¡¯t seen other humans that weren¡¯t hostile.¡± Rich, ¡°Well there were some people that wanted to take over this farm and take all that I have. I killed them. Then the rest of their group came, luckily I was able to ambush and kill them.¡± No visible disgust or fear about me mentioning that I killed people. Truly a different society than I was used to. ¡°The village is full of undead and so were the rest of the farmhouses. Everyone that could have, left for better places or were killed by the undead or the group of humans that tried to kill me.¡± ¡°So, I might be a bit loopy, don''t mind me that much. Ha ha ha yeah talking to people again is weird but in a good way I guess?¡± Emma, ¡°Well shit. I suspect you know nothing about what¡¯s further beyond here.¡± Rich, ¡°Nope, absolutely no clue.¡± Emma, ¡°So you are all alone here and you have done all this. Why would you do all of this when there are no other humans around.¡± Rich, ¡°Well I didn¡¯t know that before I started. I honestly hoped that I could provide food for the village but turns out the dead don¡¯t eat the food I want to sell, unfortunately.¡± Arthur, ¡°Ha that¡¯s kind of funny. If they did eat our food the dead would not be a problem just another pest.¡± We all had a good laugh about that. It was good to laugh. Emma, ¡°So we were wondering if you were an adventurer and how you came to own this land and perhaps you could take my brothers as farming apprentices so they could level up their class. They are quite close to class up. We could of course help you around here for at least this season if not longer.¡± Rich, ¡°My father¡¯s land and I¡¯m no adventurer. I could use the help that¡¯s for certain but about the farming apprentice could you explain a bit more about that.¡± Arthur, ¡°If you are not an adventurer why do you have that scar on the side of your face and why do you feel like an adventurer.¡± There was a silence that I was not going to break. Honestly, I didn¡¯t want to answer or actually know how to answer that question. Like that¡¯s a weird question right? Why would I need to be an adventurer to have a scar? I didn''t think it would be so noticeable, but I guess I don¡¯t watch myself in the mirror every day. Emma, ¡°That was a rude question. I am sorry about my brother, what he meant was that you look quite capable of protecting yourself.¡± George, ¡°I¡¯m sorry to be rude but one of your classes must be a farmer of some sort and those classes offer apprenticeship. That way we could get a better starting class than we might have available to us.¡± ¡°Currently me and my brother have grain farmer apprentice classes that are currently stalled because there''s no one to teach us and we are hoping that you will have a class that is high enough to be able to help us.¡± Rich, ¡°Well that''s a lot. Why would it be rude to talk about classes? I will be honest I don¡¯t know if my class can do this but if I can give you that opportunity, I will require a lot longer than one year of service.¡± ¡°And that goes for all of you because I believe my class will take a lot longer to be able to teach you what you need so you can gain a class that you can level yourself.¡± This is quite interesting I will need to think and meditate on the class to see if I can have an apprentice. ¡°Go and eat, there¡¯s food in the cellar, and if you need more time to think you can have it. I will not kick you out and leave you to be nowhere without any food or a way to protect yourselves. So think about my offer carefully.¡± ¡°I will require five years of work here or until you get the class to level up, so you do not need me to level up. This is the minimum that I want because I have a bit of a special class but of course, that will also depend on if I can actually do this for you so off you go you need to think and so do I. chapter 61 Why five years? Just because it sounded good. Does this class actually have an apprentice system that I assume at least the crafting classes have, but I suspect some of the combat classes will as well. It¡¯s quite an interesting thing as to why it would be like that. I¡¯m guessing I will never find that out. Concentrating on my class and trying to find something that would act like an apprentice system I did find something. A thread of some sort that I could pull out and I guess it would connect to another person offering my apprenticeship to him. I wonder what kind of things they will get access to and how good my apprenticeship is. Will it only be for farming because of their class, or will it change to reflect my class? If so I will be giving them a lot of benefits thank to my class being so overpowered. It didn¡¯t take that long for them to come back, and it looks like they ate at least something. ¡°So, on my end, it¡¯s all good I can give you an apprenticeship. I guess we will see if you can accept it. If you want that of course.¡± George, ¡°Yes we are still willing, but we wanted to know if our sister can stay here with us until we finish this apprenticeship of yours and we are completely fine with the five years or until we level up.¡± Rich, ¡°Oh I think you have misunderstood my earlier statement. She must take the apprenticeship as well, not just the two of you. Does she have an open class slot or someone else''s apprenticeship that is also stalled? Emma, ¡°What do you mean? You want me to become a farmer as well? No, I do not have any apprenticeship anymore, I¡¯m a tailor.¡± ¡°You¡¯re being very rude about asking such secrets but yes, I do have a free class slot if it¡¯s a requirement that I become your apprentice to stay here with my brothers then I will give up my class slot.¡± I silenced both brothers because they wanted to start arguing. ¡°You mentioned again that it¡¯s rude to talk about class, why do you think that is rude?¡± That stopped any arguments that the brothers wanted to start, and she looked at me a bit weird but still answered. Emma, ¡°What do you mean? Talking about your achievement page with anyone else is very rude and dangerous. You must do it cautiously even with your own family. It¡¯s yours alone and someone could use it against you if they know what¡¯s on it.¡± Rich, ¡°An interesting way to control population but a predictable one. Just thinking out loud never mind that. If it makes you all more comfortable, George you will become my apprentice first and then you can choose if your sister should take it or not.¡± They relaxed and the tensions vanished. George walked confidently toward me. I cleaned up my hand a bit as it was covered in dirt and firmly grabbed his now outstretched hand. ¡°Do you accept the apprenticeship I¡¯m offering? This is more than just a class it is a way of life. A life of your own making or failing.¡± I extended the thread, and it wrapped around both our hands. It was mesmerising to watch and thankfully I could see it with my energy sight. Now all that was needed was acceptance from the other side. George, ¡°I accept.¡± I could see the thread that wrapped around our hands disappearing and replacing it was a thin string connecting me to him. I could see his eyes reading something and going wider and wider. He was about to say something to his siblings. ¡°Stop George, don¡¯t give any details and just say if you would recommend your sister to get this apprentice class or not.¡± George, ¡°Yes Sir. Emma, Arthur, I recommend that you both accept this apprenticeship with all my heart.¡± They both looked surprised, and I repeat the process first on Arthur and then on Emma. The most notable change happened with Emma as she first expressed dismay. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. She didn¡¯t understand why her tailoring class disappeared and was now replaced by the apprenticeship. But soon enough she started to read out loud the details of her new class. Homesteaders apprentice: This class lifts all restrictions on every skill used in homesteading. This class unlocks endurance stat, empathy stat and intelligence stat. This class gives trait natures connection. Emma, ¡°It¡¯s a rare class. How and so many stats +2 in every starting stat and +1 in three new ones, this is insane. George, Arthur did you get the same class.¡± They did get the same class and all three started at level 1 beginning their journey again. Emma, ¡°What is homesteader, I have never heard of it and what restrictions does it lift? Wait, what class do you have to be able to give out a rare apprenticeship I haven¡¯t even heard of this happening to anyone.¡± Rich. ¡°Easy answer first, it¡¯s an epic tier class just upgraded it quite recently. As for the second part, what is a homestead that¡¯s a bit more difficult to answer.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s walk as I explained some things so I can show you guys around. First of all, the digging I¡¯m doing currently is for a root cellar that I am going to build and how can I do this? It¡¯s because homesteader must be able to build things he needs.¡± ¡°You can obviously see the vegetable fields and the potato fields as well as the grain fields. A homesteader must be able to grow their own food and what can he grow. Whatever he wants to grow because homesteader must own their land. George, ¡°Our land is given out by the village and the count owns the land we farm or live on. We just live on the land and produce food the way it is demanded but you say you own this land like really own it.¡± Rich. ¡°Yes, and homesteader must have land and quite a large area to truly be a homesteader. Let us move forward toward the chicken coop. Like farming and building, a homesteader must be able to raise animals.¡± ¡°I have only a few chickens, but one thing homesteader must understand is the land. Not just take from it ,you must be connected with the land. You must give as you take because this land will support you for the rest of your life and the lives of your descendants. ¡°Next you can see the woodshed and workshop. A homesteader must be able to harvest all the required resources to live out wherever he chooses to live, and he must be able to make whatever tools he needs to not just survive but thrive. To be able to make whatever his heart desires.¡± ¡°As I said homesteading is a way of life where you learn how to live with the land, not just take from it. Now, don¡¯t be afraid as we enter the barn, you will see Freya, she¡¯s a wolf.¡± They were all a bit scared by the wolf and her pups but as always, the puppies were cute enough to be able to break the fear that gripped them. ¡°Homesteader must not kill just any threat on this land. you must understand how nature works and what balances must be kept. But homesteader must also be able to protect his land from whatever may come.¡± George, ¡°Protect? Do you mean fight monsters and bandits? Is this class also capable of fighting?¡± Rich, ¡°Yes, this class includes fighting. It¡¯s a full combat class with no XP penalties for getting levels from killing. Like I said homesteader must be able to protect what he holds dear.¡± I showed them the other notable stuff on the way to the bridge. Showing them the bridge I made and how it worked. Then I showed the ballista that I made and used to protect my farm. Arthur was most excited about this. ¡°And this is the newest building that I made, a sauna to keep yourself clean and your mind at ease. Come let¡¯s go inside and I will show you how it works.¡± Emma, ¡°This isn¡¯t like the saunas I am familiar with. I heard that in the big cities they have big pools of water that are heated and that¡¯s what is called a sauna. Rich, ¡°Yes that is somewhat true but this is a real sauna, and I will show you all how it works today because we still have some digging to do before the day ends and that will make us all dirty, well maybe not dirtier than captivity makes you.¡± I showed them how to start the sauna and its overall workings and then we headed to the future site of the root cellar. I jumped in and started digging and a moment later both brothers joined me. ¡°Hey Emma, why are you just standing there? Pick up a shovel and start digging, the markings are clear so dig inside them.¡± Emma, ¡°Me? But I¡¯m a woman and I have never needed to dig, usually the men do that and we do other tasks.¡± Rich. ¡°Homesteader regardless of gender needs to be able to do everything. Being a woman is no excuse to not join especially because I have nothing else for you to do right now.¡± ¡°That reminds me, tomorrow remind me to start teaching you about energy control and how to circulate your energy better.¡± I got weird looks in return, but they all went back to their job, and I was quite pleasantly surprised at how well they started to do and not bitch about their work. They can be trained well it seems. Our digging time came to an end for today and our first sauna experience was over. We were all sitting on the benches on the saunas deck enjoying life. George, ¡°That was amazing. Why aren''t saunas everywhere, I mean I can understand it¡¯s difficult and costly to build but there¡¯s no excuse for a village not to have one. It¡¯s a shame this was the first time I have experienced something like this.¡± All of them seem to agree and I¡¯m glad I was able to bring three more people into the fold that think saunas are the best. Rich, ¡°Well it¡¯s not over yet, we can do that multiple times and I recommend even jumping into the river as it gives a totally different experience and you will certainly love it.¡± chapter 62 Rich, ¡°See, I told you that you were going to enjoy jumping into the river after the sauna.¡± George, ¡°You were right it¡¯s an excellent feeling. This place is truly wonderful. If I can I want something close to this in the future then I will be a happy man.¡± Rich, ¡°I am glad that you think that and if you truly wanted this all you need to do is put the time in to learn and it will be within your reach. I have talked about what a homesteader must know but I have not told you what it will give. Arthur, ¡°Dude we are not that stupid. It gives us the opportunity to gain a lot of skills easily and get a lot of abilities. I am really close with my basic farming so I will soon be able to pick the ability faster plant growth. But what are the other recommendations, I do not remember the other ones we must pick? Does anyone remember those exactly?¡± Emma, ¡°Well for leatherworking it was fast leather curing but.¡± Rich, ¡°Whoa! Stop right there. Why would you pick the ones that are recommended, those don''t sound like the best choices for you.¡± Emma, ¡°The best choice is chosen by the Kingdom, but I did hear that there are some differences depending on the county you''re living in so perhaps it''s the best choice for where we lived.¡± Rich, ¡°Well that¡¯s bad since you will become homesteaders and will own your land which means you must make the best choices for yourself.¡± George, ¡°And leave it up to random chance. What if you get bad choices you could screw up your entire future like that.¡± Rich, ¡°Why would you leave it random, it works on intent so you can guide what abilities you get. It also depends on what you do. It¡¯s important to have a clear vision about what you want to accomplish before you get an ability.¡± There was a bit of silence after that statement, and I could see their minds trying to understand something that has been taught wrong by the people who ruled them. Arthur, ¡°Wait, so we do not have to take faster plant growth and we get to make our own choice and what we want will affect the choice we get? That changes so much. Emma, ¡°Hey, Arthur don¡¯t even think about it. It took us three years to convince you not to become an adventurer. Don¡¯t you think about doing the same again. It''s expensive to sign up and even with the extra training, so many still die.¡± Arthur, ¡°No I wasn¡¯t thinking about becoming an adventurer.¡± ¡°Well fine, yes, I was. I¡¯m sorry I just want to become one and fight monsters. You saw me kill some of the goblins during the raid on our village and you know my basic sword is about to tier up, getting me the ability.¡± Rich, ¡°Emma calm down. Let¡¯s talk this through. Arthur, you want to be able to fight and it looks like you enjoy that more than your siblings. Nothing wrong with that but for your first step I recommend you become the best homesteader that you can be or at least try to tier up as many skills as you can.¡± Arthur, ¡°What, why, wouldn¡¯t that be just wasting my time?¡± Rich, ¡°Well yes and no. The skills you get from crafting can also be used in battle if it¡¯s the correct ability. That can give you a huge advantage over others just by the sheer number of different abilities you could use. You should think about that. George, Emma, what do you want to do in the future? What are your dreams?¡± George, ¡°I wanted to be a farmer but now looking at your farm and your life I now want to be a homesteader, and create a home for me and my children to have a good life.¡± Rich, ¡°I can help you with that. So first I will tell you all that talking about your achievement page and the way it interacts with us should be always talked about and discussed with people you trust. So, I will ask you George do you have any open class slots and what choices you have.¡± George, ¡°No, I do not have another class choice as I only had one. This has bothered me for as long as I have had it, but it doesn¡¯t anymore. Now I can do all the things I wanted easily so there¡¯s no need for another class.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Emma, ¡°I have one open.¡± Arthur, ¡°I have one open as well. Still George I think that you should get the adventurer class as well. It will help you with more stats and perhaps some of the abilities could be useful for farming. Although I would need to see what paths can be useful.¡± Rich, ¡°Wait a minute if his class slots are full how can you choose a class?¡± Arthur, ¡°You can pick the adventurer class in the adventurer''s guild. The adventurer class that you can get doesn¡¯t need an open class slot, you can get it past the restriction. Although it is quite expensive and then, of course, you need to choose what kind of adventuring class you will get.¡± ¡°If you choose adventurer(ranger) that will unlock certain skills and from those skills, you can get abilities but there aren¡¯t three choices of abilities, only the one that is already determined. To level up and take the abilities you need to visit an adventuring guild location that has an adventuring orb.¡± Rich, ¡°Interesting, and you might be quite correct about it helping with farming or any other job if you find the correct path. What other paths do you know of?¡± Arthur, ¡°Let''s see, there¡¯s a lot but some are a lot more expensive than others. Like you can even become a mage or healer. For some of the classes you also need to be compatible so unfortunately, not everyone can choose to be a healer or a mage. But there are a lot of other ones and sometimes you will have access to special classes thanks to your achievement page. That¡¯s all that I know.¡± Rich, ¡°Well that¡¯s really interesting. To get it you need an adventuring orb so do you think the village will have one? Because I will absolutely get an adventurer¡¯s class. At minimum extra stats are always useful.¡± Arthur, ¡°If there¡¯s a dungeon nearby then most likely. Our village didn¡¯t have one so no adventuring orb in our village guild building.¡± Rich, ¡°Yep there¡¯s a dungeon nearby but we will have to wait until winter. Then I can perhaps be able to clear out the village so we might be able to get our hands on it. Then we can become stronger and hopefully find some class paths that will help with our chosen paths. Arthur, what class options do you have?¡± Arthur, ¡°There aren¡¯t any good options.¡± Rich, ¡°Still, why wait and have an empty class slot?¡± Arthur, ¡°Well I don¡¯t want to be stuck with an uncommon combat class. If I get my adventurer class high enough, I would be able to pick a rare one.¡± Rich, ¡°Why would you be stuck when you can evolve your classes? The beginning classes are meant as a starting point to build yourself up.¡± Arthur, ¡°No wait, we were told if you reach the max level, you should choose your speciality because it¡¯s the best choice?¡± Rich, ¡°Oh well, that¡¯s just wrong, no way is that true. Still an excellent way to control the max level of your population, they did limit a lot didn¡¯t they.¡± George, ¡°This is the first time I¡¯m happy that the Kingdom fell. How could they do this to us? Limit our advancement so much. I need to rethink everything. It feels like my life has been a lie.¡± Rich, ¡°Always try to question if something is right or wrong and try to understand things, not just believe them. It''s important to question everything in life. Emma, ¡°I did pick the tailoring because I truly like it, but I can¡¯t figure out how it would fit in with homesteading. It''s a manufacturing class and meant for villages and cities, not to own land and grow my own food.¡± Rich, ¡°If it¡¯s truly what you want then you can build your homestead around it. Like with this sauna you could make buildings that help tailor the way you want. You would have to grow some food, but you can focus on growing plants that you can use in tailoring. Maybe even hunt for leather. Build your homestead around what you enjoy the most. Emma, ¡°Oh, I didn¡¯t think about it like that. That sounds lovely being able to make everything from the start, but I don¡¯t know about the hunting part. What do you enjoy doing the most? Rich, ¡°I do enjoy most that includes living on a farm like this but making bows is one of my passions and I guess fighting as well. As for hunting, well you will have to at least learn the basics. I will be teaching you a lot of the skills but that will come in time. Now let''s do our final visit to the heating room and then we will go to bed, we have a lot to do tomorrow.¡± The next day I had to wake them up and Arthur was the hardest to wake up, but a little bit of cold water did the job. Then I showed them my morning chores, and after that we went back to digging. Rich, ¡°Now yesterday I just had you dig but today I don¡¯t want you to just dig I want you to think about what you do and if it¡¯s the best way to do it. If you think you found a better way. Test it out and see if that movement was better or worse and just keep doing it like that.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want you to do it like that with just digging, I want you to do it like that with everything you do. Try to be better, experiment and if it¡¯s a failure it¡¯s a failure. It will still help you get better. Learning the best way, you can accomplish something is important.¡± You have gained a new skill digging level 1 Well shit, I guess I should take my own advice. I have never thought about how I dig or never tried to get better at it because I already know how to do it but the system needs intent behind something to gain a skill. Arthur, ¡°WOW I just got the beginner digging skill, it was so fast.¡± He looked at me with a little too much worship but no worries, I will train that out of him. It didn''t take long for the others to gain the skill as well. When the sun had dried the grass enough, I put them all into cutting it to make some hay. I would have joined in as well, but we only had three scythes and they already know how to do it. There was still a lot of digging to do. Soon I will have a better visual of how big it was going to be and then I could go and start cutting some stone and leave the digging to them. When we don¡¯t have a time crunch I can start teaching them other skills as well. chapter 63 A few hours later I let them take a break as I serviced the scythes. Thanks to today''s sun the cut grass can be turned in a few hours so it can dry from the other side as well. During the downtime, they will be building hay drying racks. I showed them where to get the right types of dry logs and how to build them into a triangular prism shape that has three supports on its sides. Those keep the hay off the ground so the wind can keep drying the hay. I could have probably built them all a lot quicker, but practice will be good for them. George seemed to be the fastest to pick up woodworking getting the beginner wood crafter after he finished the first hay drying rack that he built. After checking both Emma and Arthur''s first tries, I gave them all some explanations on how to do things better. I left them to make enough to cover the acre they had managed to cut. I went back to digging and by evening I had managed to dig out enough to understand how I wanted to build it. The two chambers will be side by side with a small area between them that will be refilled. Meaning that only one hill will cover the structures, not two. I also finished digging the doorways. It will be a hallway with two doors. One that will open to the outside that will have a stair that will take you to the root cellars floor depth. From there the second door will open into the root cellars chamber. I will need to make some steel hinges and some support for the door as well. It will make a huge root cellar even if you only account for one chamber and I hope that will not cause any problems. The main chambers are still not dug out and it will be a huge job to get it done. Both chambers together will be 100 square meters. Although the support pillars that hold up the roof will take up some of the area. If I didn¡¯t have my abilities, I would never want to build it this big especially because of how much stone I would need to cut. But now I think this is quite doable and it won''t take too long. By the evening my workers however were quite tired even though they had a chance to rest. I got them back up and working. It was time to put the hay onto the drying racks and to help them finish it before the temperature dropped and the ground became wet. The next day went the same as yesterday this time they were able to do a bit more than one acre and I was able to dig out from the doorways a bit further to the correct depth for the chambers. With today¡¯s haymaking, we reached the amount needed for the winter and a bit extra as well. I had to wake them up the next morning because they wanted to sleep in. It was not by choice, they were just tired of the constant work. I gave them the good news that they will be doing digging today and every day until the root cellar is dug out. For some reason, they did not seem to enjoy that piece of news, but I left them there anyways after I showed them exactly where to dig and how deep. Francis did an excellent job during the last two days. The road felt solid. I loaded the cart with all the tools, needed supplies and some wood to make a tool shed and a work shack. The wall thickness for the root cellar will be about 40 cm consisting of three pieces, two 15 cm pieces that sandwich a 10 cm piece and will be joined together. All the blocks that I will be cutting out will be 1 meter by 1 meter and 15 cm thick so about 40x40x6 inches. One of those will be cut down to 10 cm and have 2.5 cm tongues left out three on both sides. The other two 15 cm pieces will have grooves cut on one side. That way I can overlap them to make it a solid piece, but some corners will also need to be cut out to fit the middle tongues. Like that, I will be making all the walls, floor and ceiling. For the entryway, some pieces will need more specialized cuts as well as the stairs. Of course, for some of the blocks holes will need to be made so the ventilation shafts will have some way to connect. They will also be made out of rock, will it be the leftover cuttings or freshly cut all will depend on how cleanly I can cut the middle piece into shape. The pillars that will support the ceiling will be made of half-meter cubes that will be stacked up on each other. To connect them I will also use merging joints with a slot-type joint at the centre of the cube''s outer sides. Using different colour rocks will make them look nicer and hold them in place while there''s no load on the pillar from the roof. When the rock structure is done it will be time to start covering it with loose rocks and dirt making a small hill. It would need to be covered by quite a large layer of dirt to help keep the minus 35¡ãC weather from damaging anything inside. The pillars will be quite numerous to help support all the weight and the huge piles of snow we might get. All the walls, floor and ceiling will be overlapping which makes sure rodents can''t get through them and for the air vents I will have to make steel mesh to keep them out. When Francis and I make it to the quarry site I quickly set up everything I need and built the things I wanted. After that, it was time to start. It took me quite a while to get everything the way I liked it. To not use too much energy during cutting finding the best ways to use the new tools and test fit the blocks. During my lunch break, I was quite happy that I was able to eat tomatoes and cucumbers with smoked meat. They were so flavourful, and it was quite pleasant to taste the fruits of my labour. Talking about labour, it was time to go and see the workers that think they can slack off because I wasn¡¯t there. They did not know I could see what they were doing. I am probably the worst nightmare for any construction crew. During the downhill part the brakes held up excellently and the next time I can test them with an even bigger load. I think Francis would have liked it to be a bit tougher to pull but I think he enjoyed the company as well, so it balanced it out a bit. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. I gave them a talking to about working properly, especially Arthur who was the first to take a break and took them most often. Seeing the improvements of Emma and George, them being able to get their digging into the basic tier while he was still at beginner level 3 lit a fire in him. Eventually, I will train out the need for him to have a competition to accomplish things faster. I was able to get basic level 4 during my time digging. I unloaded the blocks from the cart and tested their fit but I didn¡¯t place them permanently yet because the ground was yet to be pounded down to be a solid base. That I was going to have to do myself because I would be able to do it a lot better thanks to my abilities. It took them a week to finish digging and I rewarded them with a visit to the sauna. I had to help them once because of a big rock that needed to be broken down but after that, they finished the job themselves. I was able to make all the rock blocks I needed during that time and bring them all here, this helped me level my new skill quarrying to 8. During this time our food table expanded a lot thanks to the vegetables starting to get ready and the potatoes we started harvesting when we wanted some. I did go out and hunt some rabbits to get more meat. Freya was doing her own hunting now. During the small breaks that I took, I also started to teach her and the puppies some basic commands to start their training journey. After days of digging the trio was quite relieved that they didn¡¯t have to do it anymore. I happily announced that they can start cutting the flax thanks to it being ready for harvest. For some reason they did not seem to like it and when I asked them why they were not happy about this wonderful piece of news I only got silence in return. The brothers actually knew better how to handle the flax or how it¡¯s really called celn. They even showed me what pieces of equipment will be needed to make the celn into workable bundles to spin together later. This time I didn''t have to start thinking about how to make such things as we already had them. The same with everything needed to process the wheat and rye. The two brothers were quite excited because they were quite close to tier up their basic farming. Emma was not quite that excited because she didn¡¯t even have her farming skill yet. Unfortunately, none of them had any abilities so teaching them energy control was a lot harder, but I did teach them to circulate it. They were all failing at it quite miserably, but I hoped when they get their first abilities, I can help them more. It took me a week to finish everything but the ceiling and another four days to finish the ceiling. I had to use wood supports to help hold up the unsupported ceiling as I was building and merging them. It was quite satisfying to be able to remove all the wood supports and see the ceiling held up by the rock pillars. The chambers were quite spacious as I made them 2.5 meters tall so I will not have to duck while walking. I built with wood some areas for different vegetables and potatoes as well as the grain root cellar to separate rye and wheat. Eventually, I will make shelves as well but there was no need to build those out just yet. Of course, it was extremely dark inside and I would need to figure out a better way to light it than to bring a live fire down here. But for myself, I only needed candlelight to see quite well in the darkness. So, it would not be that big of a problem. The doors were quite thick with the middle left open to insulate them better and the sides packed full of fabric to make a tight seal. One thing I didn¡¯t do was make a lock for the doors but honestly, I don¡¯t think that I will need it thanks to my owners land. The celn field was cleared and they were currently processing the last of it, but it will probably take them a few more days and by that time I will finish the root cellar. Both the brothers got their farming to tier up getting abilities. George took disease purification and Arthur took extended blade. Emma got her farming to basic 3 and I got my masonry to level 6, basic architecture to level 7 and basic engineering to level 5. It took me 2 days to cover the root cellar with more stone pieces and then the rest was filled up with dirt. On top of that, I carefully put cut out grass mats so it will quickly grow into a thick grass covering for the next year. To help keep the grain root cellar at a higher temperature I made places so I could easily place straw onto the walls in a thick mat to help bring up the temperature. There was stronger air circulation to keep everything drier. Hopefully, it will work the way I want it. It was now time to start harvesting the grain fields and I couldn¡¯t even imagine if I had to do this all by myself. It would have taken so much longer, and I would have had to battle the incoming rain that the fall would bring. But now we had plenty of time and didn¡¯t have to rush it. The harvest was excellent; after processing we dried the grains in the sun before taking them into the root cellar. Some of the straw went into storage, some to cover the grain root cellar walls and the rest went into piles beside the fields. Perhaps I can use it for compost making in the future. Composting would be quite a good way to get some more fertility for the fields. With the clear grain field parts, I concentrated on them and it seemed that they were still quite good for the next year, I could probably get a few more years before the yield started to diminish too much but I had a plan to fix that. It took us two weeks to clear the grain fields and get the grain dried and stored. We had more grain than we knew what to do with. What we didn¡¯t have was a big millstone to make flour. I could make a small one that can be used by hand, and it was an easy build to finish it. Just two round stones where you rotate the top one so the grain between the stones will be ground into flour. Next came the vegetables. We started with the carrots and then the onions; they needed to be dried well before going into the root cellar. All that could be put into root cellars were and the rest were either dried and kept in the main house or eaten fresh. To sort out all the vegetables only took a few days, discounting the ones that were still drying and it was now time for the potatoes. First, all the plants stocks above ground were cut and brought to the side of the field. Then I had to make some more and better hand tools to help harvest the potatoes. It took us five days to get everything out of the ground and into the root cellar. The potato did really well with huge clumps of them under every plant and they were quite big as well. One potato planted produced 8 to 15 times as many new potatoes. It was an incredible harvest, and I was quite pleased. Potatoes are my favourite food, and you can make so many different things from them. My workforce was also quite surprised at how good of a harvest I got as potatoes were used less for food. They were seen as a lower form of food for poorer people. I educated the kids on how wrong they were. I think they got quite tired of me talking about all the ways potatoes can be made while we were harvesting them. It was a nice harvest, and our food supplies were definitely secured as the root cellar seem to be working as intended. Emma also got a tier up in her farming skill and she took the farmer¡¯s hand. This ability protects one¡¯s hands allowing you to work without gloves so you can do more delicate but tougher jobs and not damage your hand. They were surprised at how quickly they got XP as they all were level 7 now in their class, but I explained to them that as they were my apprentices, I could take the XP they were gaining but was doing it as minimally as possible. There was some cursing when they realised how much XP was lost to them over the years. I got a lot from the harvest, farming to level 18, sharp blade to level 10 and homesteader to level 5 getting me some stat points. This got my endurance past 40, getting me the trait fortified stamina. What that did I had no idea, but it was absorbed by a giant among men. We celebrated with another sauna session and before we went to sleep, I happily gave them the news that now that the harvesting is done the real training can begin. The sound of dismay and growling as they went into their bedrooms to sleep was quite satisfying. chapter 64* --- Skill corrections basic leatherworking level 1 --> 6 basic animal product harvesting level 2 --> 6 basic cooking level 4 --> 6 basic baking level 1 --> 3 basic identification level 3 --> 4 --- The morning was beautiful, and I did let them sleep in while I cooked some food. Now with all the different ingredients eating was a pleasure. I would still like some more seasonings then it would be all perfect. They woke up one by one to the smell of good food. I eased their worries a bit about the statement I made last night. They had pushed hard for over a month, and I made sure to tell them that we will be taking it easier, but I would still be teaching them a lot. I gave them the morning free while I worked on making compost boxes near the vegetable and potato fields. With the leftover straw, I decided to mix it with the manure which I had been collecting from the pasture. Layering them so they would be more useful for the future. Even then I had a lot of straw left over but I just left them in big piles on the sides of the fields. Then I went and checked on the iron oak saplings. Over the past weeks, a curious thing has been happening. They have slowly turned from the iron grey back to regular oak similar to the saplings I took from the normal oak. Now it looked like I only had 14 regular oak saplings growing. Over the weeks I have been getting more information thanks to the iron that has been dissipating and today finally I was able to get a better understanding of what the tree is capable of. I can now confirm that plants can evolve because I believe this started out as just a regular oak but now, I could feel multiple evolutions or mutations present in the sapling. Some mutations seem to not be beneficial as it seemed that the tree can no longer reproduce with acorns even if it was not absorbing iron. Absorbing was the correct word. This tree had the capability of absorbing metals and strengthening itself through them. This revelation stopped my meditation with the tree sapling. There must be an iron vein beneath the iron oak tree in the forest. My concentration was broken again when I noticed my 3 apprentices watching me. I looked at the sky and realised I have been sitting here for a few hours now to get all that information from the sapling. I wish that identification would work more intuitively, but if there isn''t a defined name in the system that¡¯s already widely used, you don¡¯t get any info from the skill, making it quite useless. It is most useful with manufactured goods with intention behind the creation. ¡°Sorry about that we are a bit late but we should now go and start harrowing the fields, I will let you all take a turn in doing it so you can learn.¡± For the next two days, we focused on finishing up all the farming tasks needed like harrowing the land and clearing some of the roots in the vegetable fields. When that was done it was time to start teaching them different crafting skills. It was nice to get a basic mentoring skill just before we started. I started with arrow making but not the full arrow, just the shafts themselves. Thanks to the amount of feathers I have we had plenty of material so we needed a lot of arrow shafts. I did the longbow ones and I let them make the short bow ones. At the start, I had to reject quite a lot of them. I suggested they slow down their crafting speed to focus on quality shafts. The next day I let them continue making shafts while I started to prepare the steel. I broke down the ingot that I have into chunks and then made them into bars so making arrowheads would be fast and easy. For my 3 apprentices, it meant that they will be able to practice forging a lot easier than if they have to use tongs for everything from the start. On the third day, I would say that they were quite passable arrow shaft makers. Now able to make one at a reasonable speed and good enough quality. Still would not let them try longbow arrows. This got me a level in fletching and mentoring. When we were getting towards the evening, owners land notified me of an intrusion. As I got more information it turned out to be two humans on horseback riding on my road towards my farm. They look to be quite well equipped and felt powerful and while they were stopped just inside my land, I was quite certain that they would be proceeding forward. ¡°Quickly gather up everything and hide in the barn we have some company, and they seem to be heading our way. Quickly go and bring the cows in just in case.¡± I quickly went and got all the weapons and armour I need and started to head toward them. I didn¡¯t have time to set up a proper ambush and for some reason, I felt that that would be the wrong choice. I think confronting them on the road would be the best choice, but I don¡¯t think I could win this fight, at least not against the two of them, but most likely not even one-on-one. No matter what, if they treat me with respect, I will treat them with respect. And if it comes down to it I will at least hurt them before I die. POV adventurers ¡°Meredith, why have we stopped? The farm should just be down this road, is there something wrong?¡± ¡°Richard, I cannot explain it exactly, but I feel like someone is watching. I will do a spell so just wait a bit.¡± Now that she mentioned it I did have a feeling of something like that, but it was extremely faint and not like the feeling I know of someone who has his eyes on me, it¡¯s a lot more subtle than that. I looked around, everything was still quite green even though fall will be coming soon, and everything seemed so vibrant compared to the other places we have been. Although the grass sea always looked green. I saw the spell in her hands finally fired off and expand forwards, what I haven¡¯t seen before was the strain on her face. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Meredith what is wrong, is there something bad out there?¡± I quickly got my knives out and prepared to jump off the horse, preparing myself to fight whatever horror might be ahead of us. Meredith, ¡°No worries calm down. I wasn¡¯t expecting my spell to use that much mana and for it not to extend for the length I wanted it to go. There is something weird going on but there is a man heading toward us. I believe he is ready for a fight.¡± Richard, ¡°Is he strong, do we need to be worried?¡± Meredith, ¡°No it should be fine he¡¯s at best a high bronze. But I think we should teach him that you should not try to intimidate adventures, especially our rank.¡± Richard, ¡°We are here to gather information not to intimidate. I understand that basically, every group of humans we have come across have been rude and disrespectful, especially towards you, but this interaction here is a mission so let''s try to be civil at least at the start.¡± I didn¡¯t get a word back but at least she nodded her head. We started to move forward and soon I could see someone walking towards us. A man in full battle gear with a bow out and nocked. He was wearing a gambeson and some sort of armour over it. He had a sword on his hip and over his shoulder. He didn¡¯t have a proper helmet but still had something to cover his head. What pulled me the most was his eyes. They seem to be looking through me and I could swear I could see them shift even from this distance, but I guess that could be just the light hitting them. The next thing I noticed was how he was holding himself, he was definitely a warrior who had seen battle and lots of it. Even if he had only high bronze strength, I believe he could leverage it extremely well. ¡°Meredith, don¡¯t underestimate him and get ready! This might not be as easy a fight you expected, if it comes to that.¡± I could see her giving me a nod. I think she senses the same thing because she was now totally serious. We got a lot closer than I suspect that he would allow us but as I saw him watching Meredith with a lot more wariness than me, I realized why. He had somehow figured out that she was a mage, and that long distance would be more of a disadvantage for him than mid range. God fucking damn it. How did he notice that while she was wearing archer gear? No one has yet to figure it out on the road. Rich, ¡°Whoa, that¡¯s close enough. What is your business here?¡± Meredith, ¡°We are here by the order of the adventurer¡¯s guild to investigate whoever owns this land and how they were able to accomplish it?¡± There was a lot of silence, but the man didn¡¯t seem to be reading himself for a fight instead he was thinking. Rich, ¡°Well that¡¯s good to hear. The last bunch of humans that came here just wanted to raid and pillage. It¡¯s good to see humans that have some decency left in them. "Come, let¡¯s go, you probably took a long time to get here and on hard roads. I will make you some dinner and then you can ask some questions. Come, come follow me.¡± What the fuck just happened. As I looked at Meredith, but she didn¡¯t understand as well. Just a moment ago he was ready to fight to the death and like a switch in just a few words he was now inviting us to eat with him, why. Rich, ¡°Come follow me and tell me what has been happening beyond my land.¡± Did he just trade his safety to gain more information? Either he''s stupid or it was a calculated move to gain the most out of this situation. If it¡¯s the latter then he is truly scary, and not just due to his battle presence. After a bit, he just casually walked beside our horses talking to Meredith about small things as if they were old friends. He is not normal, I wonder how old he is. It would be kind of rude to ask so why not use one of my abilities to find out? It took me years to be able to gain enough fine control to be able to use my ability like this but even then, I had to recheck it three times to make sure. This man was only 12 years old, but he holds himself like a veteran of war and was able to socialize with Meredith. No one at the age of 12 should be able to do that. We might have a transmigration on our hands, yet he didn¡¯t have a red tag or any other mark on him that signified a broken system. And no other obvious mark that would make him a danger to the world. I¡¯m sure Meredith has picked up on it as well and she¡¯s running her own tests to see if there is a need to put him down for the safety of the world. As we get closer, I could see the fields that have been harvested and readied for the next year and it seemed in a quite a large area. When I asked him that he explain that at first, he wanted to make enough food so he could live and give some to the village. That led to the discussion about the village, and I learned that he was the one that trapped the undead inside and put up the spiked head warning. Quite an ingenious plan actually and further showed that he didn''t have some broken ability that would allow him to quickly gain strength. It seemed that he was under the same rules as anyone else in this world and that was good news because he seemed like a good fellow. He also had some weird fields that I have not seen before, further evidence that he was not from this world. He showed us inside his house and brought out some fresh vegetables for us to eat while he went to inform some people that were living with him that they were not going to die because of some raiders. How he was able to put that sentence and not offend us and even make us chuckle a bit I have no clue. ¡°Richard he is most likely not from here but there isn¡¯t any indication of him being wrong or any other indication that suggests he must be put to death. We should try to stay here for tonight at least so we can gather some more information.¡± I agreed and quickly informed her of my findings. She didn¡¯t know about the 12 years. Her findings showed that his body and soul were from our world which removes 99% of the problems with transmigrators and the problems they bring. So, we might actually have on our hands someone very useful. We met the other three people living here and enjoyed a good meal together. After the meal he sent them off to ready something and offered to let us to stay the night without us even having to ask for it, giving us one of the rooms so we could sleep there and not in our tents. He was quite good company. He was able to mesh with me quite well as we talked about different stuff. He was also able to talk quite well with Meredith although his vocabulary was a bit lacking to truly talk in the noble manner that Meredith enjoyed. He was quite fascinated to hear about the world. I suspected he knew that we know he was not normal, but he never outright said it or confirmed anything about being a transmigrator. But he also didn¡¯t directly hide some of the clues he was leaving. It puzzled me, usually, no transmigrator would be this open. Eventually, we were able to get to the topic of land ownership. The situation with his inheritance we could luckily verify, the same with his class frontier farmer being able to own land. In exchange, we gave the information we had about humans in the area and the concentrations of undead and where they were. He was quite saddened to hear that the county capital had been mostly abandoned because they didn''t have enough food for the winter. Most pressed forward towards the duchy capital or further on to adventurer guild controlled land. He was able to get a lot more information out of us than both of us wanted. The exchange of information got even worse for us when he revealed his surprise. A different version of the sauna. I didn¡¯t recall the last time I was so relaxed. I¡¯ve never liked the saunas in big cities, too overcrowded but this was quite different and remarkable. He even showed us the construction and it was surprisingly easy to make. You just need a room that can be heated up quite a lot, it needed heated stones then you just threw water on them. I hadn¡¯t had this enjoyable of an evening for quite some time, and he was able to get a lot more stories out of me than I expected. Yet he did reciprocate and gave some stories of his own. The most interesting one being the one where he got his lightning scar. Turns out he had been able to kill a goblin shaman which was quite remarkable. A really clever and brave man he turned out to be. It was weird to know that he was just a child because he didn¡¯t look like one or act like one. The next day we were sent off with plenty of fresh vegetables and roots making our trip back filled with a lot better food than just rations. Meredith and Rich talked about the possibility of him selling some of his stored food to the adventurer¡¯s guild in exchange for gold. Which was a weird choice, but he didn¡¯t want any trinkets or even favours. I hope that the adventurer guild will not mark him as a threat to the world because he seemed like a genuinely good person. The weirdest part was his eyes that I could swear I saw change a few times, but I couldn¡¯t be entirely certain. To my surprise, Meredith was now in quite a good mood and hopefully, our way back will be a lot more pleasant. I suspect the trade mission would not happen at least until spring if it happened at all. The real question is who I can rope in to help build and fund a private sauna. chapter 65 They are finally off my land, those fucking assholes. Did they really think that I couldn¡¯t feel that they were probing me from the start? ¡°You three have a free day, to do whatever you want just don''t bother me.¡± I walked to the sauna deck and sat on one of the benches. I mean technically they weren¡¯t assholes. Stop it Rich, there¡¯s no need to make excuses for them. Walking onto my land and acting as if they owned it. It was like I was visited in my shop by men that openly carried guns and point them around while at the same time being friendly and asking for my secret recipe on how to make the best beer. Man, it was exhausting trying to stay ahead of the conversation, so I could bend the truth as much as possible. I tried not to lie, and I think I succeeded quite well. Being friendly and outgoing was difficult and soul-draining. I got myself an acting skill but not lying or something like that. I also don¡¯t have a language skill so perhaps getting those are a lot more difficult or they just don¡¯t exist. The situation around here is bad, so many people are dead or have left the area basically leaving it unoccupied except for some pockets of communities. But those are more like raiders than farmers. They should be far enough away that there should not be any concern at least for a while and definitely not this year unless something drastic happens to them. I don¡¯t know why the adventuring guild thinks that they have some kind of dominion over me. They just come and ask how I was able to do the things I did without offering anything in return. I was lucky with the two people that I got. I believe that they are actually decent people and at least gave me information in return. But they were also so clueless about the power they had. The mission the adventurer¡¯s guild gave them, going around and checking on the surviving communities and making contact makes them the sheriffs because of the power they have. I don¡¯t think they actually know that. I bet they think they have a shit posting or something like that but actually, they project the power and control of the adventurer''s guild. They are truly blind if that¡¯s the case. This world is basically fucked thanks to the plague. It¡¯s not just with the human race but the others as well, it even crossbred to infect many animal species decimating populations. It seemed lucky all the plants have remained safe, at least for now. There are only two remaining organizations that operate worldwide and from the hundreds of kingdoms and empires only dozens still stand but even their outlook is not that good. I didn¡¯t get any straight answers, but I believe the second organization to survive is the shadow guild that used to be rivals of the adventurer¡¯s guild. Now they seem to be tentatively working together to help keep the world together. The adventurer guild''s main focus is on the dungeons and preventing dungeon breaks from happening while the shadow guild deals more with people and politics. Turns out the dungeons can have a break if it¡¯s overflowing with monsters. They can rush out which is not good for the surrounding areas. The dungeons here are not complete murder machines, but they are not completely safe either so luckily a good balance of reward vs danger. The monsters in there are spawned and if they are killed are absorbed. There is a possibility of a drop. The drop you can get is dependent on the dungeon but is an extremely rare event. The dungeons are more used to gain XP and skill levels than used to actually farm items. I also got some history of the adventurer¡¯s guild. They didn¡¯t state anything directly but from a few different stories, I think I have the full picture. Adventuring orb is actually a drop that happens in the dungeon. You don¡¯t need it to get an adventurer¡¯s class. What they are used for is recording a path so others might follow. Back in the day, there were hundreds of adventuring guilds and other guilds that collected those paths. The guilds with the best paths eventually swallowed up the others until there was only one adventuring guild and a few other guilds with more specialized adventuring classes like the shadow guild. To get a blank adventuring class, all you have to do is delve deep enough into a dungeon and you will get it. But then you will have to make your own path in it which I think is quite difficult if I understand it correctly. There are two options for me, wait and look for a trustworthy person that can help guide me with the class or risk it and try doing it myself. Unfortunately, I don¡¯t think I have time to just wait and find that person because the undead are a problem that''s growing harder by the day. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Turns out the undead can get stronger and even evolve by just standing in place. It¡¯s a slow process, but it still happens so in a few months there might be a few evolved zombies. Who knows what they would be able to do, but I still think waiting is the best option because Richard confirmed that cold weather does slow them down quite a bit. So, if I delve into the dungeon and perhaps hunt some monsters getting my levels up to combat the stronger undead. I might actually get ahead quite well, it¡¯s basically like I¡¯m growing XP in the village. The dungeon here starts out like a cave, but it will start to open up quite a lot the further down you get. There are floor bosses, elite monsters and unique ones. If you get deep enough, you might actually find a treasure chest you just need to be careful that it¡¯s not a mimic with questionable taste. I was actually quite excited about the dungeon, but I couldn¡¯t just rush in. I wanted to properly prepare and that meant I need to make some armour, fix some armour and perhaps make a weapon. That weapon would be more meant for the undead killing I will be doing later on. That meant I need to make iron, a trip to the tree is needed, and also to check if there¡¯s an actual iron vein which I believe there must be. But for that, I will need the hand cart that I wanted to build. My frustrations over, at least somewhat, so I went and started to build. I also made some iron reinforcements for it so I could bring back a bigger load. I didn¡¯t have a reference this time so I did have to redo some things but by the end of the day I was ready and tomorrow I will go and bring some more iron. I left Emma to teach her brothers how to process the bundles of processed celn into a string that can be made into fabric. We need fabric for a lot of things, and I also need some for the armour I wanted to make. The trip to the iron oak was quick and without trouble. Before I start to gather the leaves and acorns, I started to look around the hill to see if I could see any sign of an iron vein. This hill was cut in two by the river and thanks to that I was able to clear some loose dirt from the sheer parts to reveal an iron vein. There were multiple ones on this side of the river meaning this place was full of it. I will have no problem getting some iron for regular things like nails and barrel rings, so I will not have to use the good steel I¡¯m getting from the tree for mundane things. But for now, I will stick with the tree. I want to use the best quality steel I have for the next items I will be making. It was a good idea to make a pulling handcart and not a pushing one because otherwise, I think I would not be able to bring it over at least not in a reasonable time. In one day, I was able to make two trips bringing over enough to make the armour and the other things I was planning to make. This got me 2 levels in basic foraging. During the evening I started a plan that I hope will work. I first carved out a modern anvil design from wood, shaping it in a way I was used to and liked. It took a bit to get all the holes in it that I wanted. I also made a wood version of a wire-pulling block and a square anvil filled with different shapes and sizes of holes. Getting the holes in the correct shape and as thin as I wanted took a bit of creative thinking and ability usage to achieve. I first started with the wire pulling block and made sure all the holes were filled. The smallest being 5 mm and then I covered the rest only leaving the top side open. I planned to use this mould as a crucible. Place it into the coal fire, the clay will start to burn and like it always has kept its shape when it was hot. Then I can start adding all the acorns and leaves keeping the top lid on as much as possible so it would stay as steel. I would repeat the same process with the square anvil and the modern anvil. For the modern one, I will be making it upside down so the flat striking surface will be completely flat thanks to the mould. But for the mould itself I did some testing and found that if I mix the brown clay with some sand, it will stay much smoother. If I did the same with the white clay it seemed to limit its ability to produce heat. So, I made the mould closest to the surface with the sand and clay mixture and add some more clay on top to make sure it will heat up more making sure the steel is actually melting properly. It was a lot of experimenting and perfecting and it was already dark outside when I went to sleep. The next day I did another two cart loads getting basic foraging to level 8. I have now gathered almost half of the acorns and leaves that were collected underneath the tree. During the day it was luckily quite warm and had plenty of sun to dry the clay enough for me to start. Days were getting colder and colder, but it was hard to tell, and I needed to be consciously observing to be aware of it. The first one I tried was the square anvil and the mould/crucible was able to burn the wood away leaving me a clear crucible where the structure for the holes was intact. It was a long process of constantly feeding the crucible, adding charcoals or cranking the blower. When it was done I took it out and placed it to the side and started with the wire pulling block. Just in case I made every hole size multiple times, and it seemed like it was a good choice because for the 5mm ones two hole structures had collapsed and most likely one will collapse when I start to add metal. It looked damaged and a few other sizes looked to have damage as well, but as the diameter got bigger the less damage there was. As I put it to the side, I had no idea if I had succeeded or not but I hope that I will have at least one or two 5 mm pulling holes that will be usable. It was now time for the modern anvil. For that, I had to make a bigger forge area making it curve in a bit, so I could put a lot of charcoal around it. I even made some clay bricks from the brown clay that I loosely placed around it to help get it even hotter. It was a tough job getting enough airflow, but my tireless cranking helped me finish well past midnight. For the square anvil and wire pulling block, I will have to wait for tomorrow but for the modern anvil, it will take days for it to cool down properly. I just left it in the forge because I have no safe way to transport it. The next day I was quite pleased to find I had three 5 mm holes that came out as I wanted, but one was extremely lucky because it held up, but at some points was only about 2 mm wide. This was a complete surprise and a pleasant one even though I didn¡¯t have any plans on using it anytime soon. So, from 15 holes 3 turned out the way I wanted a close call. The square anvil came out excellently with only one hole being damaged, but with some creative ability usage I was able to smooth it down, so it was workable. For the big anvil the clay was still glowing a bit meaning it was still completely hot so I guess 200+ kg of steel will take a long time to cool down, I hope it will turn out well. chapter 66 I went and found my apprentices because I wanted to do the next project together. I wanted them to help finish making metal stuff for the sauna. The biggest thing to cast will be the cauldron. For that, we started by making a version of it from wood but for that, we needed to steam the wood pieces so we can bend them into the correct shape. During that time, I fill them in on what I learned from the adventurers and my thoughts on it and why I wanted some time alone to think about them. They seem quite understanding. During our time harvesting and other tasks, we all have gotten quite close joking around and talking about everything really brings people together. Arthur of course wanted to go into the dungeon with me especially when he learned he could get the adventuring class without having to pay for it. I was quite certain that the adventuring orb from the village has been taken by the adventurers, but I will have to confirm it when I finally clear the village. For the mold, we made it a mixture of brown clay, white clay and sand so it would be a smooth casting, but the clay would not ignite. Hopefully, the brown clay will keep the thermal shock to a minimum and keep it from cracking. We made door moulds for the furnace so it would not be open all the time and I can close it and a few pieces to make it a truly useful fireplace that¡¯s easy to clean. We also made a lot of crucibles because no way were we going to be able to dry them during winter, so I wanted to prepare a lot of them for that. Skill increases basic ceramist level 10 is upgraded to ceramist level 1 Choose one of the following abilities moist hands shaped edge clay sense Ahem, moist hands is it now. Let¡¯s skip this one. Clay sense sounds powerful if you want to make a lot of clay things, but I do not. The shaped edge looks promising. After choosing it I did some tests and it turned out to be very useful allowing me to for example make my sword''s straight edge into a jagged one. After that, we started to make arrows again but this time it was fletching them, I also brought Freya and her children out so I could teach them some commands. Mostly it was just so when they started to wander off, they will learn the commands to come back. That way I can bring them further away from the farm. The next day we continued but thanks to the wolf pups being a lot better at coming back I was able to concentrate a lot of time on making arrows. That helped me get my fletching to level 9. I was able to just keep doing one task for as long as it was needed but my apprentices were not yet so disciplined. So, I let them do shafts sometimes as well to break up the monotony for them. The next day I gave them free because I needed to go and mine some iron ore. I did not feel that it was safe for them to be so close to the edge of my territory without better combat instincts. Unfortunately, I did not have a pickaxe to bring but with my abilities, the shovel and the axe will do the job just fine. Although I might still want to make a pickaxe later on when the anvil is finally done. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Speaking of the anvil, the clay stopped glowing yesterday and it''s starting to cool down quickly so most likely tomorrow or the next day the mould will crumble to pieces. This time going to the iron vein I run into a feline predator similar to a normal house cat but bigger. He kept hiding in his spot in the tree not poking his head out so I could not see what colour fur it has. As I suspected with my abilities, the shovel and the axe were enough for me to start extracting iron ore. Getting me a mining skill quite quickly. When the cart was full, I got another level in basic mining and now it was time to head back. When I made it back, I took some time using the hammer to crush the ore pieces into smaller ones. After that, I get all my apprentices together because it was time to see if I can help them push their energy control and hopefully gain the energy storage stat. With their abilities, they¡¯re now able to better understand my teachings and start to manipulate their abilities. It was a slow process, and it will take them a while to get their energy manipulation to a good enough point to get the stat. Arthur turned out to be the best in this aspect displaying the biggest gains in this session. The next day we did some more fletching, and we also took apart the moulds and smoothed the inside where it was needed. Then put them back together without the wood piece ready for casting. I also got a level in animal training and care as well as a level in taming with all the work I¡¯ve been doing with the wolves. The anvil mould started to crumble and by tomorrow it will most likely be completely crumbled. That turned out to be the case. I start to clean off the dust and it revealed a magnificent anvil. While it was still somewhat hot, we were able to move it from the forge so we can start melting iron ore and casting. I most likely got less XP because we were all doing the casting, but I still got basic metal casting to level 4 and smithing to level 2. By the end of the day, they had gained new skills and more levels in them. Fitting all the pieces into the sauna felt great. It was now fully functional. The next day came and I still wanted to let the anvil rest so I set up my old anvil and two of the crucible steel bars so all three apprentices can try their hand at making arrowheads. My mentoring skill has gone up by three levels with all the hands-on teaching I¡¯ve been doing and most likely also the life lessons I¡¯ve been teaching when we are just talking. I wonder what kind of an ideology this would be that I¡¯m teaching them. Because it''s a mix of modern and old beliefs and the ones that I resonate the most with. Sometimes I wonder how much longer I can keep this up. When will there be a herd of monsters or a dragon or people that come and destroy everything I have built? But then again that''s no reason not to do it. I just hope my 3 apprentices could escape that fate if it ever comes to that. But those were just momentary things I could put behind me. I have long ago learned not to dwell on what ifs because usually they just distract and scare for no reason. Only a few arrowheads I made to show how to make them got me a level in fletching giving me a tier up in it. Skill increases basic fletching level 10 is upgraded to fletching level 1 Choose one of the following abilities splitting arrow fletching glue arrow sharpening Both fletching glue and arrow sharpening sound useful, the glue one a lot more but sharpening does take a lot of time. I think the fletching glue is the best choice but how can I not take splitting arrow? There is no way I can skip it. You have gained a new ability splitting arrow level 1 Before I started to test out my new ability, we cleaned everything up from our smithing as it was already evening. At that moment my taming skill buzzed in a weird way, luckily the excited clucking of the chickens clued me in as to why. I rushed to the chicken coop and found that the egg actually hatched, and I got 3 levels in taming as I got close and touched the newborn bird. I quickly picked it up and it looked so fragile, but I also felt there was a connection with it. That was thanks to me constantly using my energy on the egg. I looked at my stats and noticed that there was a new section for bonded animals but there was no name yet and I needed to think of one. My apprentices were all around and as I looked at them and the chicken coop it gave me an idea. As I started to walk out with my new bonded animal, I gave them a task. ¡°This chicken coop is not suitable for winter. I want solutions for that tomorrow. You can work on it together or alone, and I want multiple solutions and the way to implement them.¡± Arthur, ¡°We don¡¯t know how to do that. Rich wait. Hey, Rich wait.¡± Rich, ¡°Figure it out. I believe in you all.¡± George, ¡°Well shit.¡± chapter 67* ¡°Hi there, little guy. Let¡¯s go and set up a nice home for you.¡± I took it into the main house where I gathered some string, fabric and a few wood pieces, using those to make a nest. When placing it inside the nest I had a quick flash of it always having my back. ¡°How about Goose, little one? Your name will be Goose.¡± Opening up my stats again I looked at the new section that now listed Goose as a bonded animal.
Name: Rich Dirt stats:
Species: Human strength: 138
Gender: male dexterity: 114
Age: 12 vitality: 132
homesteader level 5 endurance: 41
true archer level 3 empathy: 22
heroic soldier level 3 intelligence: 24
energy storage: 26
Bonded Animals: perception: 12
Goose constitution: 12
presence: 6
That was quite awesome to see but it didn¡¯t really give that much information, so I used animal inspection on it. Name: Goose Species: Stone Mountain Eagle Gender: male Age: 0 Health: good Diet: meat Evolutions: gigantism(dormant), air manipulation(dormant), stronger feathers(dormant), energy efficient(dormant). So many evolutions but they are all dormant right now. I¡¯m guessing they will activate when he grows older. His species name is Stone Mountain Eagle. I guess the big bird did look kind of like an eagle and perhaps evolution changed her appearance. I could hear my apprentices coming thanks to them arguing loudly about what to do with the chickens. I took some food for myself and Goose as we went into my bedroom. For the rest of the evening, I spent with him and worked on my energy circulation and control. The next day¡¯s breakfast was quite interesting as I heard the plans they had come up with. They were quite standard about building a proper building or housing them in some of the current buildings. After I gave some input. Eventually, they decided that using the barn and tearing down some of the horse stalls and converting them into a place where the chickens could stay would be the best idea. I had to agree with their decision. It was a decent one and would save a lot more time than the other plans. The other thing this accomplished was making them start thinking more and not just doing what I wanted them to do. So, when they looked at me with expectant eyes for their next commands all they got in return was me telling them to lead the way. At the start, they were a bit hesitant especially because I was watching their every move while holding Goose in his nest. I let them make some mistakes and gave some help when needed but otherwise, it was just them doing the job. The design was solid, but the execution could have been better. It was still satisfactory. I let them have a little bit of a celebration as they finished building, but soon dashed their celebration. ¡°That was a nice celebration, but your job is yet to be done. I do not see any chickens here. You still have to get them here.¡± There were some lovely groans after that statement. I am perhaps enjoying this a little too much, but it¡¯s working quite well because my mentoring skill levelled up thanks to this. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. It was quite funny watching them trying to chase down the chickens and then bringing them over. It was good to see the chickens out of the constantly cooler weather, especially the chicks. This whole ordeal took until evening, so I did not want to make them do anything else today. As I help them clean up, my true nature connection give me a feeling of what the future weather was going to be like. A huge storm was coming most likely to signify the end of the summer and welcome the coming fall. So, before we went to bed, we secure everything like closing the barn door and every other door and made sure the wind can¡¯t blow them open. I was woken by the heavy winds and the constant lightning. Looking outside it was a true storm, lightning stayed high up and constantly struck illuminating the windswept countryside. If I had any grains still on the ground, they would have been flattened completely. Concentrating on my owners land I could see there was so little animal movement, everyone was hunkered down. This storm''s timing was extremely good otherwise the chickens would have been in a lot of trouble outside, now thankfully everything seemed fine. I woke up in the morning to the wind still howling. It had slowed down a bit, but most likely it will still persist until tomorrow. We all still did our morning chores that were needed but afterwards, it was time to stay inside. We used this time to focus on the tailoring side of things. Emma showed me useful patterns and how to make strong and durable clothing. She was well acquainted with creating farmer''s clothes that were meant for hard labour. All four of us spent the day making string, rope and fabric. We produced enough for my current needs but working through all the celn we have will take a lot of time. All this work gave us all some levels. I got my basic weaving to level 8 and basic tailoring to level 3. The next day the wind had died down quite a lot, now it was just a windy day. Nothing bad had happened to the buildings which I was quite happy about. Francis and the cows were quite happy to be outside again, same with Freya and all the puppies. Today I let them continue with their forging practice of making arrowheads when I worked on my armour using my new anvil. There was a need to fix the chainmail I looted. Otherwise, it was the correct size although I seem to have grown a bit again. It won¡¯t take too many rings to fix the chainmail, so I used the wire puller to make some 5 mm rings. The chainmail was only made from 2 mm rings, but it really didn¡¯t matter that much. The most annoying part was riveting them simply because they were so small. Next, I fixed my brigantine armour, and I was quite pleased with my new anvil especially after I fitted a correct size log base. Then it was so much easier to work with. The only thing missing was a proper forge building and after the dungeon delve that would be my next project. I made the replacement plates, but I didn¡¯t install them immediately instead moving on to my next goal of making armour pieces to protect my legs and arms. It was a mistake not to make them before the big battle with the goblins but thankfully their weapons were bad enough that the leather did its job. I made 16 armour pieces that fit into pairs to protect from all sides. 4 for legs and 4 for arms leaving the joints open. The arm joints will have extra protection thanks to the chainmail but the leg joints will be a bit more vulnerable until I have time to make chainmail for them but that will be a winter project. Fixing chainmail is one thing, but making it from scratch takes a lot of time. The hardest piece to make was the helmet. I had never done anything like that so it took me three tries before I was satisfied with the result. It kind of looks like a Viking helmet. I simply didn¡¯t want to mess with anything more complicated like making visors and stuff like that. Modifying one of the hatchets into a proper one-handed war axe was quite easy and after that, it was time to make the zombie basher. A simple heavy steel club meant to bash heads with incredible efficiency. I went back and forth on if I wanted to make it with a wooden handle or full metal. But I didn¡¯t want it to have this fatal weakness when fighting hundreds of undead, but I also didn¡¯t want my hand to ring every time I hit something. So, I compromised and made it with a full tang so that when I put the handle on it, it would be a lot stronger. Burning the handle onto the tang rod was quite fun as it always is, and it was a great teaching moment as well. In the evening after dinner, I finished up all the small details like cutting cloth padding for the armour pieces and straps so they could be secured into place. After that, I finished fixing the brigantine armour. I was now ready for the dungeon delve and I wondered what it will be like as I looked at all my upgrades. skill is upgraded to basic tailoring level 5 skill is upgraded to basic leatherworking level 7 skill is upgraded to basic armorer level 3 skill is upgraded to basic baking level 4 skill is upgraded to basic taming level 6 skill is upgraded to basic identification level 5 chapter 68 POV Stebs Soot goblin chief The chief¡¯s tent, my tent was full of goblins. The human''s plan worked quite well, and we were able to keep the southern encampment from trying to expand any further thanks to the incredible efforts of the scouts and warriors, but our ambitions undid their hard work. The idea to get new female goblins from the other tribes and encampment was a brilliant idea yet we should have heeded the warnings of the human. We were able to get a lot of female goblins and some male goblins as well, but we tried to expand too quickly and were too good at it. Now we are facing 4 tribes and 3 encampments including the southern one. They all want our deaths and their females back and to accomplish that a coalition was formed to crush us. Our first few engagements went well but as more goblins showed up, we simply didn¡¯t have the numbers even with the tactics the human told us about. The mood was sombre as we contemplate solutions. Currently, the best choice seemed to be to run away. ¡°Chief we have yet some time before their forces gathered completely and start marching towards us, we have time to get the human¡¯s input. Perhaps he might have a solution?¡± Chief, ¡°What input could he possibly have? It is something that even he can¡¯t help us with. We simply don''t have the numbers.¡± ¡°Correction chief. We don''t have the fighting power to combat them. Even with our low numbers, we could currently fight against two engagements thanks to our ability users. So why not ask the human to join our fight? Chief, ¡°What do you mean to join our fight you mean to fight with us against other goblins?¡± The idea was interesting, I saw him nod in answer. I looked around and saw interest in the other goblins as well. This might be an interesting choice and perhaps the best one we could make besides leaving but there are problems with that also. Chief, ¡°He will not fight unless we have something to offer him. If he will fight at all is still a big what if.¡± Multiple things were offered like food, leather, goblins or wood but all were rejected. He does not need things we can offer. We simply have nothing to give. I felt the sombre mood return. We saw a glimpse of hope but soon it was snuffed again. ¡°Chief, what about the different coloured rocks from the mountains? Would he be interested in some of those? We have four different kinds, perhaps he values at least one.¡± And just like that the glimmer of hope was once again sparked. "An expedition will be formed to visit the human I myself must go. We must also set up in case he does accept and also prepare to leave in case he doesn¡¯t." It took a few hours to set everything up and I could leave the rest of the preparations to my tribe. Goblins smarter than me will make the battle plans and where to go if we must run. I must convince Rich to help us. POV Rich Dirt I left my apprentices to their work with arrows. It was time to prepare everything for the dungeon delve. My gambeson is already quite tight as I had grown a bit since I made it, but it will still work fine just had to stretch it a bit with some movement. When I was armoured up it was time to equip my weapons. The sword, dagger, knife and bow will be my backup weapons. My main will be a javelin and round shield. I will use the javelin as a short spear. It will be useful in the cave-like structure at least at the beginning of the dungeon. If I feel like it¡¯s not working out, I can always retreat. Finally, the backpack with a waterskin went on my back and I was ready. Before going I went to say goodbye to my apprentices and animals just in case this didn''t turn out the way I hoped. It¡¯s always a good idea to say goodbye, you may never know when it will be your last time seeing someone. The trip to the dungeon was quite short. Using homesteader mile made it like going to the shop. Standing in front of the cave entrance was quite eerie as you could not see inside. I even tried with all my sights, but nothing could pierce the darkness beyond. With my shield ready and javelin prepared I walked in. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it As I pass through there was a feeling of coldness but not the bad kind, it felt like a refreshing shower, but I was not wet. Inside was dark but thanks to my abilities and traits I was able to see like I was outside. Something here gave light even though I couldn¡¯t see what. In complete darkness like this, I shouldn¡¯t be able to see. I tested it in the root cellar and if there was no light, I was not able to see unless it was energy. Perhaps that¡¯s the answer, I breathed in deeply not just with my lungs, but with my energy body as well and yes there was a lot more energy in my inhale than in the outside. This was very interesting, but I decided to push on. There was a short cave corridor that turned slightly right. As I followed it the sides of the corridor opened up a bit forming a small room where a rabbit was. I hadn¡¯t tried to sneak so the rabbit noticed me as I noticed it. It wasn¡¯t a normal rabbit, it had a plate-like structure on its head most likely to use as a ramming device. It quickly started to run towards me and if I was a beginner fighter, I might have used my javelin''s tip to try to hit it in the forehead. That would most likely cause my weapon to slide off its protected forehead leaving me unbalanced and giving it a chance to hit me. This rabbit didn¡¯t get that chance as I purposely aimed and strike just behind the plated forehead killing the rabbit instantly. There was a rush of energy towards me like with every kill although it did feel less than with living rabbits outside, but I wasn¡¯t focused on that. My focus was on the body and how it died. This didn''t feel like killing a living creature although I could see the moment of pain in its eyes. The wound and the blood all looked real but somehow felt not real. It felt the pain, it flinched, but it wasn¡¯t real. Somehow it wasn¡¯t real for the creature. The rabbit looked real and lived like a real rabbit yet something was missing. I did not know what was wrong but it kind of spooked me. A few moments later the rabbit started to disappear into motes of light and a moment later I could see only with my energy vision how it dispersed into the surroundings. I continued on and saw the next room opened up just as before, there was also only one rabbit inside. I killed it the same way, yet it didn''t feel like killing. I looked as the creature disappeared the same way the first one did. ¡°Are they real? They were supposed to be real. What¡¯s going on?¡± I didn¡¯t know how to feel. It was so weird. I gathered myself together, at this moment I needed to stay focused. It was a good thing that I did because in the next hallway there was a trip wire. It didn¡¯t seem that it was connected to anything, so I backed off a bit and cut it with the javelin, yet nothing happened. I had an idea and struck the ground behind the now cut trip wire and soon it gave away revealing a pit trap. It wasn''t very deep and there were no spikes, but you could still hurt yourself quite badly and in a very bad case even die. So, the dungeons had traps. I was not a fan of that. Never liked dungeon stories that deployed traps, but I guess I could understand how they would be useful. Trying to find them, get past or disarm them would be quite good for skills. Only a small section of the hallway was a pit trap so getting past it was quite easy. I could even jump it if I wanted to quite easily. This time I sneaked close to the next room and was able to observe two rabbits inside the room eating some moss. I slowly removed my knife, used my abilities and threw it toward the rabbit hitting it in the back and killing it. The second rabbit quickly noticed what happened and start to rush me, but I was already ready, killing it quite quickly. Collecting my knife, I made a mental note to make some throwing knives for any future delves to make clearing out the rabbit rooms even easier. After that, the hallway split and I followed the right one. After three more rooms and one more trap, I made it to a room that now held three rabbits. The opening was the same, killing one with the knife but for the second and third ones I did some positioning so they couldn¡¯t attack me at the same time, and I was able to kill them one at a time. Class XP gain was less than I hoped for, but the skill gain seemed to be the same as outside. After two more rooms, I was now able to notice the weak ground without having to tap on it, making my movement easier and raising my travel speed. After two more rooms, there was a room with 4 rabbits, but I didn¡¯t have any trouble killing them also. Multiple hallways leading from this room, 4 seemed to be similar to the one that I came from so most likely the split hallways merging. The obvious way forward was the bigger hallway. I sneaked in to see what was waiting for me on the other end. It was a big room with 5 rabbits, but one was about twice the size of a normal rabbit, and it didn¡¯t have a bone plate protecting its forehead. It had a sharp horn obviously meant for an attack. Oh, I so much wanted to have more throwing weapons, but a change was needed. So, I sneaked back and took out the bow and strung it. I sneaked back prepared a silent arrow, and shot it at the horned rabbit. It didn¡¯t die from one shot but its movement was hampered enough that I was able to kill off the rest with my bow before it was able to get near me and a second shot finished it off. There were no fireworks or congratulations, I could just see a rock stairway on the other side of the room. It was a round staircase that descended down. If I had to say, I went down two stories before it opened up again. There was a hallway again but this time there was a pressure plate trap. I cut a big rock from the wall to throw it on it to see what would happen. As soon as the rock landed and pushed the plate down a spike drove through the rock and I shivered from the visualization of what would have happened to my foot. Most definitely a harder floor than the first one. chapter 69 The second floor was still cave-like, but it was on the edge of becoming something man-made. After the trap came the first room. The mobs were still rabbits, but now they were twice the size of regular rabbits and the first room started with four of them. Two were with horns and two were with plates. I had switched back to my shield and javelin but now contemplated making the switch back to the bow again. The problem was I could practice my bow outside, but it was a lot harder to find targets that were willing to attack so I could practice my close-up fighting. The rabbits are currently not bunched up and they were at the sides of the room eating some grass and moss. I could just rush in and kill the first one and if I think of this as training it would be good to practice my homesteaders mile in combat. The timing had to be quite precise otherwise the ability might end too soon and I might not be able to make a quick attack the way I want. I could have pushed up a little bit more as I ended the movement ability a bit too early. It was still good enough to surprise the rabbit and strike it down. I had to use piercing cut to kill it in one blow because I was quite sure regular strikes would no longer kill these rabbits. I was then set upon by the remaining 3 but I was still able to use movement to minimize their attacking pattern. They seem to be a bit smarter in their attacks, but I able to keep ahead of them. I was correct about a non-ability strike not being able to kill in one strike. It took three to kill one of them. I made quick work of the rest of the rabbits using abilities. There was another trap after the first room which was easily circumvented. In the next room there were five rabbits, but luckily the two next rooms also only had five rabbits. Then came a split, but this time there were three hallways to go down. I decided to go with the right one again. This room was a lot bigger than any I have seen yet and inside were eight rabbits. There was a lot more grass here as well as in the corner there was a pond. Without my sights, I would not have seen that in the high grass on the other side of the room was an animal that was hiding there. It wasn¡¯t a rabbit this time but a fox. I monitored them for a little while to see if the fox will hunt the rabbits, but he did not. I¡¯m certain that when I¡¯m fighting the rabbits the fox will use it as an opportunity to sneak attack me. With this fight no matter how good my movement is I will get hit and I guess it¡¯s time to see how good my armour is. In the last room, I purposely let one of the last rabbit hit my shield multiple times to gauge its strength. I believe my armour can protect me quite well. I started to battle with a knife that I threw and then right after charged in with my movement ability. The knife didn¡¯t kill but it hampered the movement of one of the horned ones and I quickly started to hack apart the rabbits with my abilities. I had to use counterweight so that the rabbits hit on my legs wouldn¡¯t cause me to lose balance. The horned ones I blocked with the shield. It was a quick fight and as I suspected when I turn my back the fox attacked me. By that time only four rabbits were still alive, and one was wounded badly so I was able to just dodge to the side, but the fox didn¡¯t do what I expect. It didn¡¯t turn around but sprinted for the grass again. I didn¡¯t let it get there as I threw my javelin at it pining it to the ground and killing it. I then pulled out my sword and finished off the rest of the rabbits. During that fight, I took about four hits to my legs and a bit more to the shield. I looked at the shield and some of the horn strikes had made quite the impact but none of them had been able to get through. I searched the room but there wasn¡¯t anything more here even the pond was just filled with water. There was no hallway leading to the next room, so I had to backtrack and went through the middle one this time. The rooms kept getting harder and I found another one of those rooms with the fox. This time when I killed them all and I inspected the room I found that the room itself had some different rock veins. Examining it closer I found it to be marble. Not really that much of use especially in so little quantity but I still chipped one piece off as a trophy for my first, let¡¯s call it loot. It took a few more rooms until I made it to one that had multiple hallways leading out similar to the first floor. This room was covered in grass and there were 12 rabbits and three foxes. I was getting tired of fighting them but it was good training so I couldn¡¯t complain too much. I have had a lot of practice, so my movements were a lot better even though I still took some hits I was able to finish off the room, although it took more time than I wanted to. The foxes acted quite well as a distraction so I could not focus on killing the rabbits because I needed to dodge the fox attacks. It was hard to kill them because they were doing hit-and-run tactics. My breakthrough came when I decided not to dodge but rush towards the attacking fox making killing them off simpler and after that dealing with the rabbits was quite easy. My armour was holding up quite well and there was no damage that needed to be fixed, but it wasn''t shiny new anymore. I proceeded towards the boss room and inside was a rabbit that came to my waist height and a fox the size of a wolf. As I stepped in a bit more to look around the room to see if there were any more enemies at the sides, torches started to lit up 1 by 1 at the edge of the room and the rabbit and fox woke up and untangled themselves and started to watch me. Stolen novel; please report. ¡°Well, shit!¡± The rabbit was the plate variant, and I honestly didn¡¯t want to get hit by it ramming into me. So as it accelerated towards me I used my movement ability to dodge to the side and then forwards to attack the fox. My movement surprised the fox, and I was able to get quite a good wound on one of its front legs, but he was also quite quick. If I had worse battle awareness my fight might have ended as the rabbit now with a glowing plate, charged quickly towards my location again. This forced me to dodge and then I needed to avoid the claws of the fox but his attack was a bit too fast, and he was able to scratch my back armour. Thanks to the armour the attack didn¡¯t affect me and I was able to turn and get another hit in. Then I needed to jump away so that I would miss the charging rabbit again. It took seven more charges from the rabbit until I could finally chip away at the fox enough so I could deliver the final blow. Killing the rabbit only took timing as I needed to dodge and then quickly follow it before it can turn around. He put up quite a good fight even after he was no longer able to charge but his death was inevitable. The level-ups were nice, but I dismissed them to look at them later at the same time as all my other notifications. There was no drop but at this time there was a symbol next to the downward stairs. If I understand it correctly it would teleport me to the beginning of the dungeon. I chose to ignore it and went down to the third floor. Luckily on this floor the rabbits weren¡¯t all the size of that second-floor boss rabbit but in the first room one still was. As I continued forwards, I really start to hate the foxes as they were now a lot better at the sneak attacks, but it was also good training for my awareness, so I pressed on. Bruises really started to pile on now as my legs were hurting quite a lot but other parts of me were also. This floor will be my last although I don¡¯t know how deep this dungeon actually goes. The rooms were now a lot more open with them all being covered in grass. Luckily thanks to my sights I was able to bypass all the traps. One of the side rooms that I went actually had two wolves instead of the foxes and rabbits I was used to. I ended the fight quickly by throwing my javelin powered by charged throw to finish off one of the wolves quickly. With my sword and shield finishing the second one was also quite quick as I used his momentum against him to help my sword penetrate deeper. Unfortunately for my effort, I didn¡¯t get any loot, not even marble veins. I had only seen that once so I¡¯m guessing even those are rare to appear. It took quite a few more rooms until I found the hallway room that leads to the boss room and inside was quite the unfortunate sight. There were so many of the twice normal-sized rabbits. I counted 22 and I just knew this fight was going to be a bitch and a half. I turned out to be quite correct because when I killed half of them the little bastards started to use abilities similar to that second-floor boss. I was lucky that the first one to use it was a plated variant, if it was the horned one it could have pierced my armour''s weak spot and caused me quite a lot of damage. Even then it hurt quite a lot and caused me to lose my footing almost making me lose my life. Thankfully I was able to get the shield in front of my face to protect me from a horned one, but it still punched through the shield and cut my cheek. At that point, I pushed as much energy circulation as I could and started to use all my abilities at once draining my energy pool quickly but ending the fight just as fast. ¡°I hate surprises.¡± My pool of energy was now at about 10 to 15% and I still had a boss fight. If it wasn''t going to be this many rabbits again, I might be able to clear it. I took some more time to rest than I usually did after every fight. I finished off the last of my water and made a mental note to also bring food and more water for the next time I guess, I have been down here for more than half a day. I walked down the hallway towards the boss room, but this time there was a door blocking my way. I couldn¡¯t even open it because I needed to do a simple colour puzzle to get past and that made me sigh out loud. One thing I hate more than traps in a dungeon was puzzles. Quickly solving it, I was able to open the door and see what was inside. It was a big round room with a grass floor and in the centre sat a rabbit that was a head taller than me with a wicked-looking horn. Like in the last boss room torches at the side of the rooms start to light up 1 by 1 and as the last torch lit up the boss started to charge at me. It took me about a millisecond to decide my next move as I started to charge my javelin with charged throw and every other ability that might be useful. The rabbit started to move but I just waited in the throwing position until I felt that the javelin couldn¡¯t take any more energy and would break if more was pushed in. The boss was already 2/3 towards me when I finally threw it with all the strength that I had. The spear flew fast and penetrated the rabbit¡¯s skull right next to the horn. It was buried so deep in that only a foot of the handle stuck out. I only had to take a small step to the side to let the now-dead rabbit slide past. When the boss rabbit started to dissolve, I could see my javelin had cracks all over, even the metal part and it was useless for another fight. What surprised me was it not being the only thing left behind. A small rabbit¡¯s foot was also left behind and as I used inspection on it, I was quite surprised. Crafting material: Lucky rabbit foot A genuine piece of loot. It seemed that I need to do some crafting to make it into a necklace but I was still quite pleased. There was no stairway down and I was quite happy about it because all I wanted to do was relax. My body felt like a punching bag. But there was a door at the other end and my curiosity got the better of me and I opened it up. Behind the door was a meadow-like room that held a wolf that was my height. It was lying in front of a pillar and his eyes never left me. On the pillar was a round ball and it didn¡¯t take me long to figure out that that was the dungeon core. I in no way wanted to step inside the room but before I closed the door, I looked at it with all my other sights and I saw a curious thing. The core was controlling energy, constantly circulating it and pushing strands of it into the walls of the room. So instead of closing the door I sat down just outside it and started to observe how the core was controlling and changing energy. I could also see strange strands of black emptiness that I believe are associated with magic. Similar veins were inside Meredith, it was the first thing that clued me in that she might be a mage. I could not see it with any of my sights but to energy sight, it was blackness or emptiness so I was still able to at least notice its presence. I think I fell into a trance watching how the dungeon core controlled energy, I was able to learn so much but my stomach protesting its lack of food brought me out of it. I finally got up close the door and went to the symbol and put my hand on it, but nothing happened so just in case I channelled some energy into it. In the next moment, I found myself in the first hallway of the dungeon and just behind me was the exit. I found my apprentices outside waiting for me and the sun starting to set. I had spent the entire day inside. I quickly calmed them down and started to share how my delve went as we walked back. chapter 70* The walk back was nice and I did tell them everything I found out and that after some combat training they can go inside. Arthur was the most excited and begged that we start combat training tomorrow. I was able to convince him to wait a few more days so we can finish our current training. But mostly on the walk back I was thinking about food and the notifications waiting for me. It was kind of a pain to wait so long to see them, but I was willing to wait. After dinner and when I was in my room, I started to look through my notification. Level up homesteader homesteader now level 6 strength +4 dexterity +4 vitality +4 endurance +2 empathy +2 intelligence +2 Level up true archer true archer now level 4 strength +5 dexterity +5 vitality +3 perception +4 Level up heroic soldier heroic soldier now level 4 strength +5 dexterity +3 vitality +4 constitution +4 presence +2 Some nice level-ups. I was on going to tier up with some of the stats soon, but what I was anticipating the most was the 160 tier up for the three main ones. Those traits should be quite awesome. Ability upgrades piercing cut level 19 --> 20 counterweight level 11 --> 14 silent arrow level 4 --> 5 plant sight level 1 --> 2 energy sight level 2 --> 4 animal sight level 1 --> 2 shaped edge level 1 --> 2 homesteaders mile level 1 --> 2 sharp blade level 10 --> 14 extreme energy precision level 1 --> 2 heavy blow level 3 --> 5 tactical advantage level 2 --> 3 light steps level 1 --> 2 charged throw level 1 --> 2 Ability piercing cut reaches level 20 upgraded to penetrating slash level 1 Skill upgrades basic identification level 5 --> 6 energy manipulation level 2 --> 4 basic spear level 6 --> 10 basic sword level 7 --> 10 combat strategy level 1 --> 2 throwing level 1 --> 2 basic battle presence level 2 --> 5 Skill increases basic spear level 10 is upgraded to spear level 1 Choose one of the following abilities stable footing piercing thrust steady hand I have noticed the missing part of thrusting from my abilities. It was a bit awkward fighting without having a good ability to help thrust so that will have to be my choice here. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. You have gained a new ability piercing thrust level 1 Skill increases basic sword level 10 is upgraded to sword level 1 Choose one of the following abilities weapon enhancement quick strike pommel hit This is an easy choice weapon enhancement is a must and it''s a general choice as well. Quick strike seemed good also, but I will have to stay. The pommel hit is a meme choice. Perhaps the ability in the future will upgrade into a legendary, end them rightly ability. At least now that piercing cut has upgraded I know abilities can get better as well. You have gained a new ability weapon enhancement level 1 You have gained a new skill basic awareness level 1 You have gained a new skill basic traps level 1 You have gained a new skill basic cartography level 1 So many ability and skill upgrades and a few new skills are welcomed as well. I guess the scribblings of the dudgeon onto a piece of leather counted towards cartography. This one trip was extremely rewarding but not only with the achievement page but in general as well. This was extremely helpful for learning more about combat in this world. I can¡¯t wait to go back. Usually, I don¡¯t like to kill, only when it is necessary but inside the dungeon, it truly didn¡¯t feel like it. Up until now I truly didn¡¯t know how much I liked fighting when there wasn¡¯t the bad feeling of killing beside it. Although I can also see that this dungeon will soon just be a chore when I know every nook and cranny. Then it won¡¯t be so enjoyable although I can see myself trying different weapons and fighting styles to make it a bit more fun later on. The most noticeable change for me is my ability with sight and energy. It feels like I can control energy a lot better now. I would like to see how the dungeon core controlled energy more to learn from it even more. I experimented with my energy sight and found some extremely interesting things. The lucky rabbit¡¯s foot had energy circulating inside. The most prevalent colour was greenish gold. It was a colour that I was not familiar with but if I had to take a guess this was the luck stat energy colour. Hopefully tomorrow I can make it into the item and see if I can get any stats from it. This simple marble chunk trophy I took might also turn out to be useful as I now know why the dungeon looked bright and lit up to my energy sight. The rock that the dungeon made acted like a glow stick outside the dungeon to my energy sight. This will help me so much and fix my problem of needing a light source in complete darkness. I had pushed this notification back as much as possible to build up my excitement, but it was time to open the last notification You have delved deep into a dungeon and have earned the right to start your adventuring journey. I could choose to deny it, but I didn¡¯t and choose to accept the adventuring class. New class gained adventurer No path found New path started Please pick your first skill There was a huge list of skills that thankfully there seemed to have a way to sort them. I wish that every search engine could just search whatever you want with your mind I would have saved so much time back on earth if that was a possibility. There were extremely specific skills like a one-handed sword. You can even make it more specific and pick a certain type of one-handed sword. You could just pick sword skill also although I already have that skill. I am guessing that the more specific you go the better you can be with that one weapon but if you pick something more general you will have greater options. The list seemed endless and had some things that I¡¯ve never even heard of and some seem to be greyed out. I could not even read what they said. Unfortunately, there were no magic skills although there seemed to be energy-based magic, but it seemed quite shallow. Perhaps it¡¯s only the first skill and will expand but I do not know exactly how the adventurers class works. Although I do know that at every level something must be picked. With a bit more searching I did find skills that would be useful for farming and later on you could probably get the abilities for them that will be even more useful. But with all the options I couldn¡¯t find something that really excited me. I felt that my classes already gave me the things I need for fighting and general living. Another 30 minutes went by as I was now doing a random search hoping to see something that will catch my eye. I can be quite stubborn about things like this. But then on one of the random searches, a skill named body popped up. It made my brain freeze. I guess my body was the most important thing. It was a general skill covering a lot of things but for some reason, it was scratching my brain. Was this a good choice? I mean my body is the vessel that holds my everything. It¡¯s the thing that I used to interact with the world. This could be very powerful if I can find the correct build further on. This was going to be the base of my adventure class. I was quite satisfied with that. Let¡¯s hope that I can continue to build a strong class and that I didn¡¯t just fuck myself over. You have gained a new adventuring skill beginner body level 1 Now that everything was finally finished, I could rest my battered body although it was already getting better thanks to all my stats and traits. Tomorrow will be quite an interesting day as I will try to craft an item with the dungeon loot. The next day came quickly and this time I was the last one to awake but I did find it was quite nice when breakfast was already done, and I could just eat. I have not had that feeling for years. When we finish doing the chores, I started to teach them how to completely assemble an arrow. They had learned how to make all the different pieces, all that was left was learning to finish them. While I''m teaching them, I''m also thinking about how to make the necklace and what to use in making it. When I''m finally able to leave them unsupervised at least a little while I went to get all the items needed to complete the necklace. I was just going to use a leather strip to hold it around my neck. For the connection a cap that will hold the rabbit foot. I was going to use a large gold coin that I have for that. I started by hammering the gold coin flatter to make it a bit larger. Then I cut two lines in the middle so I can hammer a loop out where I can attach the leather strip. Next came some measuring to make the coin into the correct size cap to fit the rabbit foot. To finish it I need to pinch the cap shut to trap the rabbit foot in it. It looked simple, yet I liked it. The dark brown leather string looked good against the dull gold from the coin and the different browns and dark greys of the foot. I finally inspected it. Lucky rabbit''s foot necklace: luck +2 Holy shit it actually gives stats and in luck as well. I quickly put it on and as soon as I did on my status screen a new stat appeared luck +2 but when I took it off it disappeared. It didn¡¯t leave the luck stat there. I put it back on and I was quite certain after I felt it out a bit that there was no way I could put free stat points into it to make it permanent. It was a bit of a disappointment but not the end of the world. I tucked the rabbit¡¯s foot underneath my shirt and went to look over all the arrows my apprentices had finished. I corrected some of the mistakes and showed how to fix those mistakes. When they finished making 50 arrows, I told them to stop because it was time for that next step. It was time for them to make their own bow. This time I show them twice how to make a short bow and for every step I let them test it so they understood how it should feel. It took until the end of the day for each of them to finish a bow that worked. The only one that made a bow that can be used to hunt was George, but it was at best only good for rats and squirrels. But it was a good start, and they seem to be quite pleased with their progress not just in general but with their achievement pages as well. This night we also had a sauna because I wanted to relax more and next time when I go delving, I will ask them to prepare a sauna because I feel like it would be quite enjoyable after a delve to visit one. The next day we continued with the bow making, arrow making and in between we also did some bow shooting to get them started. About half a day had gone past when I noticed that the goblins had entered my land again and this time, they were moving quite fast towards me. I wondered what might have happened that they needed to see me so quickly, but I didn¡¯t let it bother me and we continued our training. We had already cleaned everything up and my apprentices were heading to get dinner while I had to go and meet the goblins. They had yet to make it to the edge of the forest so when I made it to our meeting place, I enter a campsite halfway between the bridge and the forest. I had to wait for them a little bit. The fire was burning strong when I saw them come out of the woods. It seemed that they were quite relieved to see me already waiting and quickly made their way over to me. chapter 71 Before I could open my mouth, I was bombarded with multiple questions. ¡°Human, Rich, we are in desperate need of your help. Is it possible that you could assist us? Can you leave here and follow us back to our encampment.¡± ¡°Woah, Woah, there calm down and start from the beginning. What seems to be the problem.¡± ¡°We are in a desperate situation.¡± I could see the chief collect himself and start again this time the crazed look in his eyes was gone. ¡°Rich I have a problem. Multiple tribes and encampments are seeking our extermination we are here to get some advice or perhaps we can convince you to join our fight.¡± He looked at me expectantly, but they all waited as I thought upon the statement. Seems like they find themselves outnumbered and came to seek my help in any way that I could offer. ¡°Tell me more about what you are facing. What are the numbers? What is the situation there?¡± To my surprise, the chief didn¡¯t speak but a younger goblin that had a scar on his chest started to speak. ¡°We are facing three small encampments that number together around 1500 goblin fighters and multiple tribes that bring another 300 to 400 goblin fighters. They are being assembled at the closest encampment to us.¡± ¡°We currently have 400 but another 100 crafters and collectors that are capable of fighting at a higher level than any of their fighters. Our forces also have a lot more ability users. But even with our best estimates, we will be overrun. If we had you, we will have a chance.¡± 500 against 2000 doesn¡¯t sound too bad but I¡¯m guessing that they are thinking about a straight fight then I can see how it would be unwinnable especially if you can¡¯t choose where you¡¯re going to fight. I can already think of a few plans that would help a lot, but the question is do I want to do this? It would mean weeks of me having to stay away from the farm and fight a foreign war. There is always a possibility that when this friendly goblin tribe is killed off the others will continue expanding and I will run into the same problem as before. I have never purposely sought out war and I do not know how to feel about doing it now. I could stay at the back and just advise and not join the flight but knowing myself I don¡¯t think I could stay out of it. Do I really join in? But I can also understand their point of view. They are protecting their homeland, but they need help. What would have happened to my homeland if there weren''t people from other countries willing to help protect my land? ¡°What is the reason why they are attacking you?¡± The chief swallowed and acted kind of nervously, so I was dreading the answer. Chief, ¡°You see Rich your advice for the scouting groups and the guerilla tactic worked beautifully. It was hard work, but our scouts and warriors were able to show superiority and we came to a tentative deal that they will not push any further north.¡± ¡°We also took your other advice about seeking other tribes and ask females and other male goblins to join us. And to our complete surprise, it worked really well. A lot of females wanted to join. Well, that''s not true as every female wanted to join. The promise of a better and more fair life was something that they could not pass. We also got a lot of male goblins like that as well.¡± ¡°It all worked so well that we tried on an encampment next and that also went extremely well so we did it again with the next one. But there we ran into a problem. At first, we were careful and secretive but with every success, we let our guard down.¡± If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°In the last encampment, few of the females wanted to become breeders to make their encampment stronger so they outed our infiltrators. We were able to get them out and some of the females and male goblins that wanted to join.¡± ¡°What we didn¡¯t know was them somehow able to figure out that it was us that was responsible. Their investigation outed us to everyone else that we did the same to. Now all the encampments and tribes want their females back and my tribesmen dead.¡± Rich, ¡°You mentioned that they came willingly you did not force anyone to join you?¡± Chief, ¡°No, no, we didn¡¯t. There was no need before their final encampment no one from the females declined and we only approached the males that the females suggested.¡± Well shit I mean I can see their point of view. With them wanting their females back, I also would want them back. But you could count them as refugees seeking a better life. I guess it is a good enough reason to not dismiss the call to arms. But now the question is if I joined do I do it just because it¡¯s the right thing to do or will I be a mercenary that wants to gain something from this? We have no agreements to protect each other and if I have to spend weeks there, I will not have time to build a smithy or expand the woolshed for the winter. It¡¯s a difficult choice but I think I will need something in return. Chief, ¡°Rich are you good?¡± ¡°What yes, I¡¯m good why do you ask?¡± ¡°You have stared at the fire for over 10 minutes now without saying anything.¡± Oh, wow I really fell in this time. I can see negatives and positives in every choice. But one thing that I haven¡¯t considered yet is this world and the system. War will give me huge opportunities to gain levels quickly. If I put that into the formula the choice becomes quite simple. I must join this fight. ¡°Well, there Chief. Let¡¯s say that I join this fight not only as an advisor but as a fighter. This would be a huge time commitment for me, especially before winter.¡± They all looked quite excited about my words, but the chief still looked nervous I could see him clear his throat again and start to speak. ¡°You see Rich we understand your worries, but we hope that we will be able to compensate you for your involvement. At first, we were having a hard time finding something that we think you would accept for your help. We think that hopefully, we have found at least something that you might be interested in.¡± Two of the goblins that were holding bags step forward and started to take out pieces of rocks and giving them to me. I took the first rock offered. ¡°Oh, this contains copper with certain processes this rock can yield metal. Oh, and the next one here contains tin another soft metal. The next one is also tin. Where have you found this? While I appreciate the rocks this truly doesn¡¯t contain too much of the metals I spoke of.¡± Chief, ¡°We found them in the mountains. There are big veins of them if you like one enough or even both we will be willing to harvest and bring them here for payment.¡± Those could be really useful for some things and without the labour and the time to bring them here they might be quite useful for building and other items and of course raising skill levels. Another rock was handed to me it took me a bit to recognize what it was, but it was silver. ¡°This is silver a very prized metal in the human land even some of our money is made of it. You must be careful with this if people found out that you know its location, they might stop at nothing to get it.¡± ¡°This next rock however is even worse than silver. Men have sold their own mothers into slavery, killed their own brothers and thrown kingdoms into war to obtain what this rock represents. They would stop at nothing to process it. Gold is a metal that can make any man into a monster with an unending appetite.¡± As I looked at the goblin''s faces, I might have been a bit too ominous. I would love to keep this ore but it and the silver is a bit too dangerous to keep around, so I gave them back and pointed for them to put it back into the bag. ¡°I recommend that you take those rocks back to where you found them and somehow mask their presence so no one might stumble upon them. As for the others, I will accept them as payment as well as first rights to any loot we might gain in this war.¡± Chief, ¡°That is really good to hear it feels like a stone has been lifted off my heart but what about the amounts for the rocks? How much were you thinking?¡± ¡°I believe I will leave that up to you. You can think of the amount depending on how much help I can provide. Now, remember that my help doesn''t mean that you have won as I cannot guarantee that.¡± They expressed their understanding. After a bit more discussion about the situation they wanted me to start to follow them back, but I had to stop them there. ¡°I¡¯m afraid I¡¯m not ready to leave right away it will take me at least a day to get everything in order here and it will take some doing to get everything loaded up.¡± Thinking about everything that I need I realized a great error that I have made in the training of my apprentices. One of the first things I should have taught them was trapping so they could catch rabbits without my help. Then they can get meat for my animals and themselves. Hopefully, one day will be good enough. Some hard learning will also be good for them. All the weapons and arrows can be brought along easily enough thanks to the goblins. The problem was the ballista how would I get that into travelling form with my current manpower? chapter 72 My planning was interrupted by the chief as he extended his hand toward me. I took it and we shook on the deal that we made, it felt important. They wanted to leave because they needed to go back as quick as possible, but I quickly explained that I needed their help as I can¡¯t carry everything by myself. I will need to give every goblin here some things to carry back. They accept quickly enough so I brought them back to the bridge and started to bring out my stock of arrows and weapons that I have here. Next, I went to the house to get more things and as I got there, I know I had to explain everything to my apprentices as well. As I walked in, they were eating around the table and a place had been set for me. They know that I went to speak with the goblins but like myself, they didn¡¯t know why they had come. I sat down to eat as they looked at me expectantly. After a bit of time, I start to explain to them what had happened and what I will be doing. They were in disbelief at the words that I was speaking. Arthur was the first one to speak and he wanted to come along to help me. I thought a bit about it and we spoke some more but he ended up staying here just in case something happened here so he could protect his siblings. George wanted to know if I was leaving today but I explained to them that I will not be able to do that because I needed to teach them trapping tomorrow so they will be able to keep the animals and themselves fed. Although they could live on vegetables for a while, the wolves and Goose could not. I was just worried about Goose because I¡¯m quite certain Freya will be able to handle all the hunting for her and her children. But I knew that she would appreciate some help in that regard. I asked them to help me bring over all the things I need to the bridge where the goblins are waiting. They were most helpful in bringing the bundles of arrows needed. I myself brought a thick piece of rope so I could lower down the ballista. Some of the goblins couldn¡¯t keep their eyes off their weapon and I learned that some of them had been marching towards the bridge in the big battle and this weapon left a big mark in their memory. I had to take the limbs off making it possible to transport them separately. There were two bigger solder goblins, and I was able to leave the transport of the main part up to them. They were able to get it up to their shoulders and both combined were strong enough to make the journey back. This was excellent, this way tomorrow I will not have to carry a large load and can make good time moving towards the encampment. We help the goblins pack everything up. I had to give some leather straps to them so everything would fit, and they were soon on their way back. I asked why they wouldn¡¯t stay for the evening because I believe that they would camp out in the forest, but I learned that they will not be camping but moving all night to get back. Now while it was late, I still wanted to teach my apprentices how to make trap components to catch rabbits. Luckily that could be done inside the house where there was plenty of light thanks to the furnaces. I told them before bed that I will be waking them up early and to be ready for a long day of learning. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Thanks to my years of dealing with life-threatening pressure daily I was able to fall asleep with no problem and wake up refreshed the next day. I woke up my apprentices and started to teach them how to put together gear to go trapping into the forest. It was a safe forest for us but not completely, so I did give them bows to use that I made and will be actually usable, unlike the bows they made. Everyone got a spear and Arthur also got one of the swords that I have looted. The trip there was busy as I constantly had to monologue to give them as much information as possible. I had to teach them how to notice tracks and to keep an eye on their surrounding. They didn¡¯t understand the need to always listen especially for silence. So, I had to use my owners land to guide us to where one of the cat-like predators hunted so they could understand and notice how everything went silent when a predator is around and hunting. My throat was quite tired by the time we started to head back. All of them had gotten at least one rabbit in one of their traps that they set up. So, it was time to get back and show them what they must do next. I was quite pleased that they were not squeamish, but I guess they live in a society where this is normal unlike where I came from. When we had some free time from making the hides. I went to Freya and told her as well that I will be leaving for some time and to keep an eye out for any trouble. I did the same with Frances. It looked like he understood at least somewhat because he led me to the road maker. Turns out he still wanted to pull things. I showed George how to deal with Frances''s needs while I was gone. Francis was able to do his job a lot quicker now and I am quite sure that he has a skill to help him, but animal inspection didn''t bring it up. As I was gearing up and getting ready to leave, I gave some last advice and some tasks that they might want to accomplish while I was gone. ¡°Now Arthur if you are adamant that you want to go into the dungeon know that you should never go to the second floor. Understand, it¡¯s way too high level for you but if you can¡¯t stop yourself then only stay on the first floor. Now, this isn¡¯t me saying to enter the dungeon it is still a bad idea but I¡¯m not stupid and who knows how long I will be gone and when your itch will get too strong.¡± ¡°As for the tasks you must do the obvious. You should take care of the animals and the farm. For training do what is best for you, but we do have a lot of material to make fabric out of so that might be a good thing to focus on.¡± ¡°The biggest task I want to give you is to look at how the current woodshed is constructed and try to make another one just like it, expanding our current one and yes for that you need to tear down the current chicken coop which you can do.¡± ¡°If you are able to learn how to make it and actually complete it then you can make a similar building that will be used for smithing. It would need to have a bit of a different design to accommodate forging but that would also be a good exercise to stretch your mind.¡± When I finish packing the last things they send me to the bridge, I told them not to mess around too much and be safe. I gave them all a hug and a final goodbye. I crossed the bridge and then watched as they pulled up the bridge cutting my way back off. Now I had tested owners land and I still had a connection with it even if I was no longer on my land so if some big trouble came, I could always rush back but they will still be in a lot more danger than when I was here. Just in case I did one last check on everything I brought and waved goodbye to my apprentices, Freya and Frances as they looked at me leave for the forest. As I got into the forest, I stopped for a moment, breathed in and out and entered my war mindset. I had not done this on purpose for a long time. I remembered the hard unyielding commander that I once was and brought him up again a person hardened by years of brutal war. My energy became sharper and circulated faster. All my senses brought me more and more information so I can keep myself alive and kill my enemy in the best ways possible. As I opened my eyes my sight was constantly changing to always know what was around me. I didn¡¯t start walking but running towards my destination. It was time to whip the goblins into shape and crush those that oppose us. I pushed myself to the limit and reveled in my power. This terrain was as simple to run through as a nature trail. Testing my limits was exhilarating and I continued to look for my limits while still moving toward the encampment. chapter 73 POV Stebs Soot goblin chief I was woken up by my servant and I quickly got up, dressed and said goodbye to my lover. As usual, I ate while walking and quickly met up with my advisor and friend Shelle. ¡°Good morning chief.¡± ¡°And good morning to you as well Shelle.¡± ¡°The human has yet to arrive. Hopefully, he will make it here soon because currently, everything is on hold, we are all waiting on him.¡± I truly hope that Rich will make it here soon. If not, the commanders might get even more anxious not to speak of the other goblins. We were moving towards the now-called war tent. Some of the commanders were waiting outside for me like they always do, the other council members and commanders will join us later as always. Not everyone has the ability to wake up as early as I do. After a few pleasantries, we walked inside as the guards opened the tent flaps but to our surprise, the usually empty tent was not empty. Rich was there looking over the maps that we have been able to make of the surroundings and the battle plans we have come up with. I looked at the guards for an explanation as to why we were not notified of him being here, but they seemed to be as dumbfounded as the rest of us. Before I could speak up, he spoke. ¡°Your security has gotten a lot better, yet it¡¯s still quite awful. But not to worry we will work on that and if the other goblins are like you or worse, we will have a lot better chances at winning this war than I previously expected.¡± He sounded a bit different than what I remembered. Usually, his words were soft but now they were harder somehow and while I did like that, he found a way for us to have a better chance at winning. I was displeased at him being able to get here without any of us knowing it. ¡°Yes, that¡¯s good to hear but why are you here like this, why didn''t you let us know that you were here.¡± ¡°Well, there were a few reasons, but the most important one was that this is a goblin encampment, and I needed information on how goblin encampments work, especially how their security works.¡± ¡°Anyway, there is no time to waste I will want to speak with the persons that made these maps but later. First, I would like to see all the commanders and troops outside lined up in formation, and I want to speak to the goblin that was in charge of infiltrating other goblin groups and acquiring the females.¡± After that, he came and shook my hand then nodded at everyone else and walked out. Everyone was waiting on me to approve his commands which I quickly did. Everyone hurried off to wake up everyone and get them in formation outside. I wondered why he wanted to see the infiltration commander. I hope that he will not punish him because of his failure that led to this war, otherwise, I need to stop him from doing so, and confronting him might not be the best thing. POV Rich Dirt The Chief was at my side as I looked toward the field where the goblins were gathering. Some were quite quick to move here but some looked very sleepy. Turns out some goblins are not morning people. I will most likely train that out of them but first I need more information about how the other goblins fight. Luckily, I have a whole bunch of them here that should know exactly what the enemy will do and how they will do it. A smallish goblin named Glin-leafe was brought to me when I¡¯m guessing over half of the goblins were assembled. For some reason, he was escorted by guards that hold their hands on his shoulders. I didn¡¯t question that but looked him over. ¡°As I understand it you are responsible for the infiltration of the enemy tribes and encampments, please describe to me everything from the start, your decisions on how to infiltrate and your mistakes and successes.¡± As soon as I finished speaking, his worried face turned into one of concentration as he started to describe all that I asked him. As I suspected goblins really weren¡¯t worried about infiltration. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. That was one of the reasons it was quite easy for them to get females. The turnover of goblins was quite fast, a lot died and a lot were born especially if there were a plenty of breeders. Because of that disguising as a member of those factions was quite easy. This was an excellent development and I quickly ordered him to bring all infiltrators here and also told Chief that we might need more of them so they might want to think who else would be good at that. The Chief advisor went off with Glin-leafe to work that out. We still had to wait for the goblins to be awoken and get in line. The commanders and council members were all already here and I was quite surprised that they had formed a council. It was a pretty good development for them. I asked them to explain if they knew how the goblin encampments worked and how the goblins waged war. They were a bit insulted that I thought that they did not know how to run things, but I soon had to stop them because they were telling me about how they currently run things. When I told them about the misunderstanding the hurt feelings were forgotten as they started to discuss and remember how things used to be. Some pointed questions helped me to put together a better picture on how the enemy operated. That advisor came back with Glin-leafe and brought back a mixed group of goblins and soon some were brought up from the gathered troops. I formed them into a different group that was going to work on infiltration tactics. I had those commanders that were chosen also listening in about the other goblins and how we expected them to behave. I also explained why it was needed for them. When they found out that they will not be infiltrating to get more females and males but to sabotage the food supply and get intelligence on the enemy they were quite surprised. But soon seemed a lot more eager about the new assignment. That also led to the discussion on how goblin armies were supplied. Turns out quite poorly. The goblins were expected to gather or hunt a lot of their food as they moved forward toward their destination. When we finally stopped speaking on those matters the troops had been in formation for quite a while and I saw some of them starting to get antsy. They were able to hold their attention and rank quite a lot longer than I expected. It was good news as it showed they had better discipline than expected. When I last fought with them and was facing the current goblins I might have not survived. I walked in front of them and through the ranks testing some of the goblin¡¯s stability and looking over their weapons. What they were working with was better than expected. After that, I walked in front of them. ¡°I AM HERE TO HELP YOU FIGHT A WAR. FOR THAT I WILL BE PUTTING YOU THROUGH TRAINING TO SEE WHAT YOU ARE MADE OF AND TO MAKE YOU BETTER.¡± ¡°But before we do that, I need every one of you to split into two factions of equal strength and face each other. You will not use weapons in this exercise, and you will not use your current tactics you are to use your old ones. I will need to see how goblins would fight goblins to know what we are up against so I could train you to defeat the enemy who fights like that.¡± ¡°IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?¡±, There was silence, ¡°IF I ASK YOU, TO YOU UNDERSTOOD I EXPECT, YES COMMANDER, IN RETURN. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?¡± ¡°YES, COMMANDER.¡± I heard yes commander in echoes back while it was not perfect it still brought back a lot of memories. I started to organise with the other commanders and the unit leaders so I could observe the fight. After the first practice fight some of the older commanders brought up some more tactics that are commonly used and we acted them out as well. They didn¡¯t use a lot of tactics mostly just rushing in, in a loose formation and attack. Then there was of course the formation fighting but that was not well developed. Unfortunately, it seemed that they did know and like flanking, which was disappointing to hear especially that they used that tactic often. Of course, ambushing was also one of their preferred ways of fighting. This was of course a good thing because my plan also involved a lot of ambushes to get their numbers down. After that, the main army group went into training, mostly in formations and on how to use their shields better. I showed them a formation similar to how Romans used to fight and left them to it. My focus was on the infiltrators as I started to teach them some of the things I know and what they should be doing. Their first task was to gather information and pass it down to the scouts that will then bring it here. I also talk to the Chief about moving the army headquarters closer so the communication would be easier with the infiltrators and the scouts. The enemy encampment was about a week¡¯s march away. With the latest information, they seemed to be still gathering but mostly bringing in more food. There also seemed to be some infighting between them but no actual fighting just a lot of arguing about who is in charge, which might be an extremely good opportunity for us. I talked to the Chief about the possibility of harvesting or destroying all the food supply from here to the enemy encampment so they could not replenish their food supplies as they walked here. I also got really good news from the scouts that there were only three good locations where to cross the smaller river that separated our camps. It was already nighttime by the time I was finished, and I was led to a tent that was set up for me to sleep in. The bed turned out to be extremely nice with soft fur to make it soft and warm. I had brought some dried food just in case the food that the goblins made was not the best or even safe for me to eat but it seems I was wrong. The main food supply was a stew made in big cast iron pots which I have no idea where they have gotten them from but it was surprisingly good. chapter 74 I was woken up by someone trying to sneak into my tent. I let him come a bit closer before I threw a rock at him but gently so as not to hurt him. The frightened yell was quite funny, and I congratulated him on making it this far into the camp without being noticed. Before going to dinner yesterday I gave the infiltrators orders to try to sneak into the encampment but also gave notice to the guards that it was happening. So, I¡¯m quite surprised someone actually made it so deep in. I let him go and looked at the sky. It seemed that in a few hours the sun would rise but it was about time to go and wake up all the troops and start them running. After a small meet-up with the infiltrators I sent them to sleep and after that, they will be moving out. I had a strong suspicion that we didn¡¯t have long before the enemy will start to move out but hopefully, the infiltrators would be able to slow them down. We will need as much info as possible to know what¡¯s happening. Waking up the troops in the middle of the night and getting them to run until they puked was a sick pleasure of mine. I remembered my own time as a runner and when I was made to run until vomiting. I even made the other commanders run but I also ran with them to show support and of course, yell at them for how slow they were. When that was done it was time to teach them some stretches and body training. They had a break during lunch when I spoke with the Chief. It seemed that they agreed with the plan to move the headquarters forward and to keep it mobile when we needed to start to back off back to here. After lunch the troops started to practice fighting, some did one-on-one practice while others started proper formation training. During that time, I also went to visit the crafters. I was quite unhappy about the shield that the goblins used. Now the shields themselves were quite fine the problem was with the goblin''s body structure. It didn¡¯t really work with the shield formations. Their arms were simply too short and belly too big, although some of the goblins with more evolutions were able to make that work as their proportions were better. The problem was I would not be able to make the shield wall I wanted for the frontline, so we could hold the other army in place so the fight will not turn into a loose melee. If that happened, we would quickly get overrun. My plan was to make special shield carriers that only carried a shield. I showed them the shield that I came up with and made using their tools. It would have two handles and a hold bar. It kind of looked like a riot shield but it had small spikes at the bottom of the shield so it could be driven into the ground and then hold in place by the full body weight of the goblin. If they did it properly and overlapped the edges a bit, it would make an instant wall. Then the goblins behind the shield carriers can use their spears the attack over the shield wall or help support it. But they will not be the main attack force meant to kill, their job is to keep the enemy from advancing. The main attack force will throw spears or javelins. Those will also need to be made and a lot of them, but the entire goblin workforce was put to work on this plan. The shield carriers and spear wielders will be holding the front while endless spears falling onto the enemy. We should have a good chance of winning if we played our cards correctly before the fight begins. I had hoped that some of the goblins could use my short bows. I had brought 8 with me but the goblins simply weren¡¯t that good with the bows so my plan to use them in ambushes will unfortunately not work. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! I wish I had time and the manpower to make some crossbows which I believe the goblins would have a lot better time using. But I guess some plans would need to be changed and the ambushes will also have to be done with throwing weapons. I took another day to train the troops similar to the first day and did some special training for the commanders and unit leaders so they would know what to keep doing when I wasn¡¯t here. Now the entire tribe was doing something for the war. Warriors were training, while gatherers and crafters were preparing food or making equipment. On the third day of me being here, we headed out with a small group. Our goal was to scout out the area and establish the location for the forward command camp. As I kept scouting, the more I disliked the terrain that we will most likely need to fight in. There was no advantage for us anywhere and the river itself while it was true that only three places were good for a crossing, they were all quite long and unfortunately offer no strategic advantage. Out of curiosity, I followed the river upstream and there were some smaller places to cross making this river even worse for holding. Eventually, I made it to the edge of the mountain and there I found one of the best places I could imagine for a fight. Now it was not perfect, but it would cut down the number advantage a lot. The place was a bit further in after a rise in the terrain. The river was extremely shallow here but the part that went down the slope was deep. The river was on flat ground after the rise for a bit before it stopped at a quite sheer rock wall where there was a waterfall and ragged cliff face beyond. Thanks to the downhill part of the river being too deep to cross and the cliffs on the other side, if it was possible to funnel them through this location we could set up a good defence. The only problem was that there was no good place to put some troops on the cliffs where the waterfall was because there was no flat ground up there that would be suitable enough. Of course, there was no way they will come through here, there were better places to cross the river. As I looked at the river snaking down the hill and then visualised it going further on through the forest into the river that went by my farm, an idea started to form. There were too many places in the forest to cross the river but that gave me an excellent idea. Perhaps a bit mad one, but I think it would work. If we build the dam and raised the river up, then they would be forced to cross here. Of course, we would need to protect the dam but if they chose to cross there it might even be a better place for a fight. I gave the scouts a mission to scout here as well to see if anything was amiss with this place. Then I left and scouted the river one more time. There was a good enough place to make the dam thanks to the river being a lot deeper closer to the river that it flowed into. The problem was that with my quick calculations and visualization a lot of the forest will be flooded but then again afterwards the dam can be dismantled and most of the water will drain out, but it will still mess up a lot of the forest. Where the dam will be built will also need a command camp and an army camp, but I would also want a camp even deeper toward the enemy. So, I sent a message to the commanders and the Chief to move out the main force towards the future dam site. A little bit of march training will also be a good thing and the training can be continued here as well. I also gave an overview of the plan for the dam and the river. Hopefully, they will agree. For the next two days, I scouted with the goblin scout and moved forward closer to the enemy camp. While watching the enemy scouts I noticed that everyone had some markings on their clothing and those were never mixed. Every scouting party only had one type of marking. Soon we were able to get some information back from the infiltrators and a lot better picture started to form of the enemy army structure. This was not a coherent army that was commanded by one person but made out of multiple smaller ones and they were not that friendly with each other. Sometimes some of that scouting parties square up against each other when they met out in the woods, it never turned into a fight, but it was always a close thing. I ordered all our scouts to pull back so we would not be noticed yet and we made our way back towards the forward camp where most of the scouts were left. Then I moved back towards the dam camp where I found our troops practising and where a proper camp was already set up. chapter 75 I went and greeted the army command and the Chief and let them know what was happening closer to the enemy. Then I started to explain my plan in further detail about making the dam and what that meant. At first, there was a lot of pushback because we didn¡¯t have the workforce as every goblin was working on making supplies for the war effort. But I dissuaded their worries quickly by showing that we had a huge workforce currently just training. The dam will be a simple one, just a lot of rocks piled up to bring up the water level. This will also be quite a good exercise for them all. I only hope that I will be able to delay the advance enough so we can finish building it and the water will have time to build up before the big battle begins. After inspecting the troops and directing the start of the dam build I chose the first batch of troops that will be accompanying me to set up the ambushes. The ambushes themselves needed goblins that were quick and nimble so we can retreat quickly enough after the ambush to not be pulled into an extended fight. With some of the commanders and troops, we made our way to the forward camp where we set up and did some special training until our supply lines could make it here. Getting us the weapons and food to keep up the continuous ambushes of the enemy scouts. On their free time, all the troops were ordered to collect food from the forest or destroy it if it was too troublesome to collect fast. Non-combat goblins helped as well with this and as time went on more of them stayed in the forward camp. More information trickled in, and it seemed that they would soon be moving out, but I gave commands to the infiltrator to start causing trouble and to make it look like they were accidents. With a few of their food storages going up in flames and water supplies that were being contaminated by freak accidents the big march was halted and the tension seemed to be rising within the enemy encampment. A lot of them wanted to continue with the aggressive sabotage but I ordered them to slow it way down and focus on collecting information until they were ready to start to move out again. If we continued, they would figure out a lot quicker that something was very wrong, and I did not want to lose access to all the information we were getting. It took a few more days until I felt that the forward camp was well enough supplied to start pushing the smaller enemy scout parties back. I wanted to accomplish a few things with this move, but the main thing was to make our presence known so that they will know that they will not have an easy fight. But I also wanted to focus on the tensions inside the enemy encampment. Our main focus will be on the forces of the encampment that hosts the army. Less attention will be put on the other two encampment forces, but we will still attack those scouting parties as well. As for the tribes, we will not touch any of them. This way we can create the most amount of discontent and disorganisation. The ambushes themselves at the start will be simple ones as the scouting parties often used the same trails. They used them so much that small roads began forming in the forest. All we had to do was find a place that had a lot of bushes or other ways to cover our presence. Then we spring up and throw all the spears at them and run if needed. The first ambush was intense as every goblin was eager yet nervous. We stayed in the bushes for 3 hours before our target finally arrived. There were 10 goblins and as soon as they were in place, I gave the signal and our force of 20 sprung up and throw in mass killing or wounding them all. We quickly killed the survivors and looted everything useful. We were extremely successful. I broke in every group by going with them on their first ambush. After a few days, there were no longer any small scouting parties as bigger and bigger groups were sent out and further out as well. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. We were still successful but now most of the time we needed to run away. But the group that was approaching was different, that is why I was on top of a tree camouflaged so I would seem like I was a part of the tree. The big group of goblins belonged to the fire camp. We gave every different goblin force a name and the fire camp belonged to the encampment that hosts the army. This will be our biggest ambush yet as two ambush groups were gathered here. Luckily the second one was close enough to join. There were 100 goblins in the scouting party and unfortunately, we only had 43 here and there was no way of getting more quickly to this location as this was quite the perfect place for an ambush. In this ambush, I was the start if I attacked everyone else was supposed to attack. But as they got closer, I found a big problem they had elites among them and even worse a shaman was with them. I let them come closer and closer until they walked past the place where we were supposed to ambush them. The best choice here was to let them pass, the enemy had too much firepower and elites that made the ambush too dangerous. I let them get closer and stayed as still as possible. The problem was they moved underneath the tree I was hiding in. The shaman was in the centre, and as I waited, he moved almost underneath me. I couldn¡¯t let this opportunity go to waste. I had learned a lot during my time here, and one thing was how to hide most of the glow of an ability. Thanks, in part to what I learned from the dungeon core but also silent arrow that didn¡¯t have as strong of a glow as other abilities have. So, I started to slowly charge my javelin and kept pumping more and more energy into it. The shaman was getting suspicious as she started to look around more and more. I waited and then when she started to look up, I moved and throw as fast as I possibly could from this awkward position. This shaman was good and in a split second she was able to make a magic barrier appear, but she didn''t have time to make it strong enough to withstand my attack. My javelin shattered her magic barrier and skewered her, killing her instantly. The next moment I jumped as close to the edge of the goblin group as possible. In my hand was my two-handed sword which was quite excellent in cutting down goblins. As soon as I landed among the goblins, I used an ability-powered swing to give me the room needed to continue my escape. I had an opportunity to escape at this moment, but as I looked around I couldn¡¯t. My troops didn¡¯t listen to my words before the fight. While they did throw all the throwing spears, they didn''t escape as they saw me surrounded, they choose to fight to save me. I could still escape but how could I leave my troops to get killed? So now I started to push forwards and started to be as flashy as possible and cause as much hurt as I could so the elites that were moving towards the troops will join the rest and move toward me. It worked too well as most of the elites moved towards me and they looked angry. It seems that some of the elites had abilities and for the rest, their evolutions and stats looked good making them be close to my level of strength if I didn''t have any abilities. What kept me in the fight and even able to return damage was my huge list of abilities and energy control. Still, they pushed me back until I felt the heroic stand ability awaken. The burst of power was incredible and gave me the edge I needed. Slowly I started to win as I found opportunities to hurt or kill them or use the mistake they made to punish them. The regular goblins soon stopped trying to help as they got killed easily and as time went on more and more moved to fight my troops. As the elite numbers diminished, I was able to start to overpower them. My troops had done excellently and were able to start to push back quite hard as well. I stopped conserving my energy and started to burst my energy usage to extreme levels when needed. That way I was able to finish the last of the elites quickly and then move into the rear of the enemy and start killing them off as well. Soon after they broke and started to run. We cut down as many as possible. This was the longest engagement in the war and this fight was not without death on our side. But with the shaman''s and the elite¡¯s death, we gave a serious blow to the enemy. I gave some quick first aid, but we needed to move fast as this fight would have notified everyone around. We got our wounded, dead and all the loot we could carry and headed back to the waypoint and then further on towards the forward camp. As we made it back to the forward camp, turns out that we weren¡¯t the only ones that were hit hard. One of the other goblin team was also hit. Unfortunately, they also ran into a shaman that unleashed magic towards them as they escaped. Both our teams suffered about the same amount of casualties. Luckily our contingency plans worked well enough so they were able to make a safe retreat while keeping our forward camp location hidden. What surprised me was the medical tent that had popped up. I quickly took the wounded I was caring there and ordered the others to do the same. There will be no break for me as I quickly started to help anyone hurt. chapter 76* Looking around to see who else needs immediate attention I found chaos. My commanding voice bloomed out to get everyone¡¯s attention. First, I got everyone that was lying down wounded properly organized into straight lines because currently, they were just in a big mess. It seemed that an old goblin couple and their daughter were the reason for this medical tent. They seem to be the healers of the goblin tribe. At this moment I did not care who would listen and were willing to help. I gave a lecture in a booming voice so all can hear while helping the worst with the first aid skills I learned during the war. The first thing to teach was the colour sorting green, yellow, red and black. We only had one black in the group of injured meaning no help will be able to save him. And next, we worked on the red ones as I constantly advise as I helped my own patient. Everything went by fast, and I was quite surprised that we finished only an hour later. I was used to an endless stream of wounded but this was not like what I was used to. What I missed the most were bandages, they only had a healing paste that we could put on wounds. But after we had done the critical injuries I was able to patch some wounds together with leather strips. I explained the use of bandages to the healers and the need to close wounds together as much as possible. During my time helping the group of healers expanded, now having seven of them listening to every word I said. When it was all done it was time for me to go and listen to the reports, and hopefully information from the infiltrators on what was happening and why shamans were sent out. It looks like four shaman groups were sent out. Thankfully two of the other smaller ambushing groups were mostly comprised of scouts and they were a lot better at noticing the elites and shamans. Thanks to that they were able to avoid a fight. It looks like after I killed the shaman, soon they all withdrew. For more information, we need to wait but I also needed to speak with all the troops. ¡°Today we have made some mistakes, but we will learn from them. Troops that were under my command. Today you disobeyed orders and engaged the enemy. ¡°I could have most likely escaped and there was no need for the fight that we had, and your punishment will be the dead brothers we have lost today.¡± ¡°This was also in part my fault that led to today''s failures. I should have also worked on your ability to notice different enemies. That would have helped you make better choices.¡± The lecture went on a little while longer and then I gave orders for half of the troops to start packing their supplies up and be ready to move out tomorrow. Their mission will be to bring the wounded to the dam camp and send back replacements. We need to start rotating ambushers so that everyone would get battle experience and a chance to get evolutions and abilities. After that, I finally had an opportunity to get some sleep and to see all my notifications. Class levels gained: homesteader level 6 --> 7 true archer level 4 --> 5 heroic soldier level 4 --> 5 Ability levels gained: penetrating slash level 1 --> 2 counterweight level 14 --> 15 silent arrow level 4 --> 7 heroic stand level 1 --> 2 shaped edge level 2 --> 4 piercing thrust level 1 --> 5 light load level 1 --> 3 sharp blade level 14 --> 17 extreme energy precision level 2 --> 3 heavy blow level 5 --> 9 tactical advantage level 3 --> 7 charged throw level 2 --> 3 splitting arrow level 2 --> 4 weapon enhancement level 1 --> 3 Skill levels gained: basic architecture level 7 --> 8 basic engineering level 5 --> 6 basic cooking level 6 --> 7 Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! spear level 1 --> 2 sword level 1 --> 2 archery level 9 --> 10 combat strategy level 2 --> 5 stealth level 1 --> 3 basic camouflage level 5 --> 8 throwing level 2 --> 3 basic battle presence level 5 --> 7 basic intimidation level 1 --> 4 basic awareness level 1 --> 5 energy manipulation level 6 --> 7 basic tracking level 6 --> 10 running level 3 --> 5 basic mental fortitude level 8 --> 9 basic first aid level 2 --> 7 basic mentoring level 6 --> 8 basic cartography level 1 --> 3 beginner body level 1 --> 4 Stats: strength +14 dexterity +12 vitality +11 endurance +2 empathy +2 intelligence +2 perception +4 constitution +4 presence +2 New trait gained: strength reaches 160 new trait gained wrapped muscles perception reaches 20 new trait gained better movement tracking constitution reaches 20 new trait gained copper skin presence reaches 10 new trait gained intent spread New skills gained: basic organization level 1 basic command level 1 beginner energy emissions level 1 Skill increases basic tracking level 10 is upgraded to tracking level 1 Choose one of the following abilities enhanced smell tracking information targets shadow image Thank you, Richard. I know what tracking information is and it is incredibly useful giving me an area of effect where to my sight disturbances are pointed out. This is supposed to be an incredibly complex ability that can be pushed very far. You have gained a new ability tracking information level 1 Gaining so many benefits so quickly was amazing, but I barely have the free time to test anything and work on improving new ideas. The ability to keep awake more than normal is excellent yet it does not give me more free time. The next day information started trickling in and we were getting a better picture of what was happening. The enemy scouting parties were now at a minimum and didn¡¯t leave far from the encampment. They also didn''t compose of warriors anymore but simple goblins without much life experience. Inside the encampment, the story was different as there was a lot of tension and even some killings started to happen. I gave the order for our ambushers to stop activities and only watch. I didn¡¯t want to get the attention of the goblin leaders; I wanted them to focus on themselves and hopefully, a fight will break out. We have been putting the hurt to the fire camp that hosts this army and now that they lost their shaman. The other encampments earth camp and wind camp are seeing the weakness and want to exploit it. As I hoped the tribes are also being pushed to the back foot because they have nearly lost no warriors. If my infiltrator''s information is correct the big forces are starting to think that the tribes and us have some sort of a deal. This gave us a lot of breathing room, giving me a chance to make a trip back to the dam camp to see the progress and to help where I can. The dam itself was going quite well, although it was now 20 meters long. It was slowly being built up now so the water level will rise and create a barrier with only two possible places to cross to this side. Now that we had some extra time, we slowed down the building a bit so the soldiers would not exhaust themselves and so I could see if some improvements can be made to make this place even more defendable. My idea was simple. It was to make a small wall on this side of the river so the attackers will have to cross the dam to attack us. We could just keep throwing spears at them when they walk across while having the height advantage and a smaller opening for them to cross. Of course, there needs to be an opening, but we could secure it easily enough with the shield carriers. Speaking of which their training was a bit different, but I was quite pleased to watch their demonstration. The throwing practice seemed to be working as well, they were all getting quite good at it. I didn¡¯t want to stay here for too long. I wanted to pay close attention to what was happening in the enemy encampment. It took three days until a full-blown fight broke out and the leadership of the fire camp was killed off. The wind and earth camps were now in charge and while they did eye each other their strength were too similar and I didn¡¯t think it would come to a fight. Unfortunately, the tribes were able to stay neutral in the fight. It was a shitty outcome but still, a lot of elite-level fighters were dead because of the fight and that was good news. Soon enemy scouting picked up again and increased in volume, but they changed tactics. They didn¡¯t send their elites or shamans anymore but more and bigger groups with the non-combat goblins. This gave us a lot more targets that we can hit but we also couldn''t achieve any decisive blows anymore simply because of the number of enemies in each group. Still, as days went by, we killed more and more, but they were also getting closer to our forward camp. Our biggest problem wasn¡¯t the scouting parties but the experienced scouts that worked alone or in small groups similar to our dedicated scouts. They use the big scouting groups as a defence to escape us and to resupply so they could quickly find our locations. I had to help our scouts two times to get rid of particularly troublesome scouts. After a week of this, we cleared out the forward camp and moved it backwards. We kept rotating troops so that everyone could have a chance to fight and for the others to rest as we continue to ambush them constantly. By the end of the next week, we had lost 27 goblins to approximately 700 of theirs. If we could only keep this up there might not be a big fight, but news reached me that they finally are gathering up everyone and starting to form a marching group. Unfortunately, most of the enemies that we managed to kill were not actually warriors but young goblins that were mostly gatherers. Then came even worse news. They also seem to bring along a lot of the weaker goblins and when they were finally marching, we were facing an army of nearly 4000. A number that I did not like. Although I also saw the weakness in what they were doing. They probably will never think that we might take this course of action but that was their mistake. As the army marched out all the breeders they had were left in the encampment and now they were practically defenceless. As we retreated from the second forward camp, I quickly sent messengers back to bring up some more goblins for the raid. In the 3rd and final forward camp, we organized a raiding party that was going to go around the army and raid the encampment to kill all the breeders and burn their food supplies that were being prepared for the army. That way they would be starving, weak and demoralized. chapter 77 Over the weeks I have made so much progress. As we were awaiting word from the scouts, so we can move out I contemplated all I have gotten and chosen. Class levels gained: homesteader level 7 --> 9 true archer level 5 --> 7 heroic soldier level 5 --> 7 Ability levels gained: penetrating slash level 2 --> 7 energy sight level 4 --> 8 plant sight level 2 --> 5 animal sight level 2 --> 5 material sight level 1 --> 4 owners land level 1 --> 2 counterweight level 15--> 20 upgraded to substantial counterweight substantial counterweight level 1 --> 2 silent arrow level 7 --> 10 upgraded to silent shot silent shot level 1 --> 2 shaped edge level 4 --> 6 piercing thrust level 5 --> 8 light load level 3 --> 5 homesteaders mile level 2 --> 4 sharp blade level 17 --> 20 upgraded to razor-sharp blade razor-sharp blade level 1 --> 3 extreme energy precision level 3 --> 8 heavy blow level 9 --> 14 tactical advantage level 7 --> 16 charged throw level 3 --> 5 splitting arrow level 4 --> 6 tracking information level 1 --> 4 weapon enhancement level 3 --> 10 Skill levels gained: basic architecture level 8 --> 9 basic engineering level 6 --> 7 spear level 2 --> 3 sword level 2 --> 5 archery level 10 --> 16 combat strategy level 5 --> 12 stealth level 3 --> 11 basic camouflage level 8 --> 10 upgraded to camouflage camouflage level 2 throwing level 3 --> 9 basic battle presence level 7 --> 10 upgraded to battle presence battle presence level 1 --> 3 basic intimidation level 4 --> 10 upgraded to intimidation intimidation level 1 --> 3 basic awareness level 5 --> 10 upgraded to awareness awareness level 1 --> 2 basic command level 1 --> 10 upgraded to command command level 1 --> 4 energy manipulation level 7 --> 12 tracking level 1 --> 5 running level 5 --> 10 basic mental fortitude level 9 --> 10 upgraded to mental fortitude basic first aid level 7 --> 10 upgraded to first aid first aid level 1 --> 2 basic mentoring level 8 --> 10 upgraded to mentoring mentoring level 1 --> 4 basic cartography level 3 --> 7 basic organization level 1 --> 10 upgraded to organization organization level 1 --> 3 beginner energy emissions level 1 --> 5 upgraded to basic energy emissions basic energy emissions level 1 --> 10 upgraded to energy emissions beginner body level 4 --> 11 Stats: strength +28 dexterity +24 vitality +22 Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. endurance +4 empathy +4 intelligence +4 perception +8 constitution +8 presence +4 New trait gained: dexterity reaches 160 new trait gained: ambidextrous vitality reaches 160 new trait gained: power from the mind New skills gained: basic war tactics level 1 --> 2 New abilities gained: active camouflage level 1 --> 3 battle aura level 1 --> 2 intimidating aura level 1 --> 3 sound isolation level 1 --> 2 troop defense boost level 1 --> 3 mind protection level 1 disease removal level 1 --> 2 booming voice level 1 --> 4 food preservation level 1 --> 3 energy forms level 1 --> 3 The traits were amazing. Ambidextrous was not a miracle fix to make everything better, but it does smooth out some annoying movements that are now easier and a lot faster. I suspect it¡¯s a lot better for crafting or fighting with two weapons at the same time. Power from the mind seems to amplify my strength, speed and basically anything I focus on. The stronger my belief the better it is. Taking the aura abilities was a tough call but Richard was correct again and they seemed powerful, however, why intimidating kept levelling even when not facing the enemy I did not know. The troops were not scared of me, but they did respect me. I have had little time to focus on training the new abilities. I have only found time to practice energy emissions and energy forms. Whenever I have free energy stored up, I use it up by expelling it raising my energy emissions. Energy form is the next step and allows me to form that emission into different shapes. Currently, it''s at best a party trick but I believe it¡¯s the beginnings of energy-based magic. Finally, the scouts returned. They told me that the army was now far enough away that when we completed our march, they should have no way of coming to the rescue of the encampment or chasing us down. I did choose a longer route that went towards the inland instead of skirting the edge of the river because if this was some sort of a trap, I didn¡¯t want us to be blocked in against the river. We moved quickly covering a 5-day march in two days. One thing that was good about the big army was that it moved slower than if it was a smaller one, giving us more time to act. While the troops rested from the quick march, I talked with some of the infiltrators about their next moves. They had already started to sow discontent among the three powers that were left behind to keep order. This time the sabotage was not made to look like an accident but made so it would seem like it was made by one of the other powers. This way as we rested the encampment slowly started to fall into chaos and fighting started to break out. After my troops were ready a signal was given out and then the infiltrators started multiple fires near food stockpiles. Now every warrior and goblin left behind was busy trying to put out the fires and thanks to their earlier fights they held their distance from one another. That was the moment when we made our move. We descended quickly and gave no quarter. Our first targets were food stockpile fires where the remaining forces were gathered and trying to put out the fire. They were far enough from each other and with the general chaos of the encampment that no one noticed when we fought one group after another. We were able to finish off half of the remaining forces before we were truly noticed. They tried to gather up and put up a defence. We had to hold on to our throwing weapons and when they started to charge, I gave the order. ¡°Throw, Ready, Throw, Ready, Throw, Melee weapons.¡± This disrupted their charge, and some started to run away, ¡°CHARGE.¡± To minimize damage to our side I charged into the middle of the loose enemy formation and started to spend my energy like I was squeezing out a sponge. Huge arcs of my two-handed sword that was glowing brightly with abilities left huge areas filled with dismembered goblins. It didn¡¯t take long until the rest either fled or surrendered. It was a good thing because my energy was starting to run low but luckily my calculations hold up and I could have still retreated to the battle line if I was in any trouble. There weren''t any elites left behind. The goblins that were left in charge weren¡¯t better than the troops we had. Next came the hard part but it needed to be done. First, we killed every breeder and then started to separate the few hundred captives that we had. We gathered them in smaller groups and led them away from the rest of the captives. The infiltrators pointed out the helpers they had and the non-combative goblins that were asked to leave. ¡°Thrust.¡± I gave out the order and another group of survivors was killed. Some were taken out that were helping the infiltrators. ¡°Thrust.¡± I only have done this once before to prisoners of war and it haunted me for a long time. This was tame in comparison yet still wrong. ¡°Thrust.¡± The only ones that were left alive in the encampment were us and the ones that helped the infiltrators. I didn¡¯t bring them along instead gave them orders to disperse into the surroundings and after we had won this war, they would have a chance to join the tribe. Let¡¯s hope that the Chief would agree to this. We had to make it back quickly, so everything was put to the torch. We ate as much food as possible and then lit the food on fire as well. We razed the entire encampment and started to head back. When we were closest to the army on our way back our scouts informed us that the army stopped. I believe they finally heard the news about what happened back at the encampment. It seemed that my plan to try to discredit the tribes worked because after a small battle amongst the army the tribes withdrew and to our last knowledge were moving towards the burnt-down encampment and most likely beyond that to the lands that they used to inhabit. But just in case I had to send some scouts to keep an eye on them and a few of the best infiltrators to figure out if it would be possible to get them to our side. But not reveal themselves to them if they weren¡¯t sure about them. We made it to the forward camp and were able to rest a bit before we had to back up everything and clear out the camp. We started moving towards the dam camp. It looked like the army was marching straight towards the dam. From our scout observations, they had figured that the dam was the only way past the now flooded forest. I overestimated the enemy scouting capabilities and I guess that our job at killing and limiting the range helped a lot as well. The dam would be the best place to fight. The waterfall site would be the second one, but it was quite a lot wider than the dam. But we had already fixed that. If it came to a fight there, we built spike walls which can be placed if needed shrinking down the fighting line. What I was really worried about was the shamans using magic and somehow freezing a large area of the river so they could cross. But there was no way to plan against that unless I was willing to infiltrate the army and try to assassinate 2 shamans. I absolutely was not that crazy. I watched as the rest of the troops that were in the raid marched into the distance and I was left with the relief force that was going to move around and try to kill some more scout parties. I didn¡¯t want to give them too much breathing room and killing scouts hopefully stopped them from going further out and finding the alternate route. The next four days were a tough time when I only got time to sleep when we were waiting for an ambush. Otherwise, I constantly needed to be awake to help track and escape from the enemy scouts. My troops were relieved four times. I kept at it until the army made it too close to the dam to make it non-viable to go out and try to kill some more scouts. It took two more days which I spent on helping make the wall sturdier and safer for our troops. Currently, they weren¡¯t training anymore but they were on either watch or rest until the big battle begins. I warned the commanders, and the Chief that this would not be a simple one-battle fight to win the war, but it might stretch on for weeks. But the longer it took the better it would be for us as the goblins would be without food for the entire time. I knew that goblins were resilient bastards but that much abuse would even break their bodies. I suspect that the leadership will hold up a lot longer than their troops and we would need to sally forth to actually finish this war. On the 3rd morning, I could finally see the approaching army and while the numbers were impressive the goblins themselves were not. Most of them seemed to not be able to walk straight but I¡¯m guessing a little bit of rest would help with that a bit, but no food to replenish them to their full strength will leave them weak. I was the first to notice them, but I didn¡¯t give an indication that I saw the goblins. So, I had another 10 minutes to observe in peace until the alarms started up and the troops started to assemble and moved towards the dam''s wall. The dam itself was about 10 meters across and about 25 meters long. It was made primarily of round rocks and walking across it is a bitch and a half. The wall was about my height with our side having two steps that took a goblin to a perfect height to throw and yet have cover from the enemy. The wall extended further than the dam but not by much and started to taper off slowly. In the middle, there was about a 5-meter gap where a gate would be. We could have made a smaller hole, but we felt that the bigger target would be a bit more enticing for the enemy to try to send troops through. The wall was curved a bit inwards so it would form a bowl against the dam, further funnelling the enemy into the hole. What I focused on the most when I was helping build the wall was making the outer wall smooth so there were no good ways for them to climb. It looks like the goblin leaders didn¡¯t want to waste too much time and after a few hours, they were in line and moving double time closer to the dam. I didn¡¯t wait until they were in throwing range but started to use arrows to start the fight. The goblins were nice enough to make me more, although they had stone tips and weren¡¯t the best but for this kind of fight, they would be good enough. So, with my longbow, I aimed, charged up splitting arrow and released. Then even before the now multiple arrows started their downwards trajectory the next one left my bow. And just like that, the big battle begins. chapter 78 POV apprentices Emma looked around the sauna''s resting room, it was too cold to stay out on the porch so after a session in the heating room they were all sitting on the bench in the resting room. Today was a difficult day for them as Arthur finally was able to talk them into going to the dungeon. ¡°What do you guys think Rich is doing right now?¡± Emma asked in a tired voice. Arthur perked up as soon as he heard those words and spoke in an enthusiastic voice. ¡°Well, he is in a war so I suspect he is either fighting or perhaps the war might already be over. I hope he comes back quickly and continues to teach us.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t wait for us to develop even more. I mean getting level 10 in our class so fast is incredible and getting free points, amazing. And so many, incredible. I hope you have saved them all until Rich gets back.¡± Both of the siblings nodded at that and they knew that Arthur was correct Rich seemed to know so much even though most of the time he seemed clueless about things that everyone knew. George was rubbing his shin. He was the only one that got hurt in the dungeon as one of the rabbits almost caused his leg to break. He tried to bring up the question that had been shut down before; hoping that after experiencing the dungeon and seeing how hard it was, they would see reason. ¡°Can we please discuss Rich and who he actually is? We know that he can¡¯t be normal, and he seems to be growing quite quickly, he must be younger than us and he never answers that question or he just stays quiet. Same with a lot of other questions about his past.¡± ¡°There has to be something wrong and I think he might be like Dave from our village. You must see it?¡± As he finished George looked around expectantly, hoping to see agreement in his sibling''s eyes. He was met with turned heads and while Emma was completely silent and seemed content to not answer, it seemed that Arthur finally had enough. ¡°Why does it matter to you? So what?¡± He said a bit defeatedly. ¡°Of course, it matters. It means that he''s lying to us, and who knows what he will want from us in the future¡± George¡¯s voice was now quite heated and as he wanted to say more Emma starts to speak with a clear and steady voice. ¡°Rich has actually never lied to us and while you might think that not answering is a sort of lie I do not.¡± ¡°I saw how he handled the adventurers, and he was willing to lie to them quite easily but even then, he bent the truth more than anything else. He has never done that with us.¡± ¡°I¡¯m quite certain that he is hiding things, but he doesn¡¯t lie to us about the things he is hiding he just does not answer and I¡¯m guessing that if we kept pressing the point, he would have given us the answers we want. But I must agree with Arthur, so what, I honestly don¡¯t think that he has any bad intentions towards us.¡± ¡°And if he is similar to Dave and not of this world, so what, the crafters guild was happy enough when they discovered him and took him as an apprentice. Wait, George, is that what you¡¯re really afraid of that the adventuring guild will come and take him away?¡± It was now Georges''s turn to avert his gaze and to stay quiet as Emma and Arthur sat up straighter and begin to understand their sibling a bit more. They were all quiet for a time until Arthur had enough and brought up the biggest problem they were facing. ¡°So, the roof. Do we really have to make rock shingles, or do we have any other plans because even with my ability it will be a hard job to cut the rock and then how will we get them to stay on the roof and not fall off with the first wind?¡± Both siblings were happy with the topic change, and they kept discussing the roof and other jobs needing to be done around the farm while they went for another session in the heating room. They also complained about the animals, especially the wolf puppies that are beginning to overwhelm their abilities as they constantly tried to play hide and seek with them. But overall, the three were quite happy with the situation and hoped that Rich would come back soon and that no powerful organization would come and try to take their saviour away no matter who or what he actually was. POV adventurers Richard and Meredith had just finished giving a preliminary report on their interaction with Rich Dirt in the first guild-controlled city they visited. The report will be sent to the guild headquarters of this area by mage mail so the leadership can start to formulate their response. Richard but mostly Meredith was happy to have reached civilization again and it didn¡¯t take them long to find an inn to stay in. And while Meredith went upstairs to unpack, Richard made a beeline to the bar to see if he could find an even worse beer than the last one he drank in this overcrowded city. The number of people here was even higher than when they last passed through, and it didn¡¯t look like the stream of people coming here would be ending anytime soon, especially not before the winter started and snow began to cover the land. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. And while Richard was enjoying his mostly watered-down beer, he happened to see an old friend that he quickly waved down. His old friend seemed happy to see him, while being a bit surprised to see Richard. ¡°Hey Tom, long time no see. What has brought you to this place?¡± He asked as soon as Tom was close enough to hear him over the packed inn. ¡°Escorting our trade caravans and bringing in refugees and some dungeon clearing,¡± he answered quite jovially. This was quite a surprise to Richard as he had expected the escorting duty but not the chance to clear dungeons. Before he could ask, Tom started laughing, ¡°Don¡¯t look so surprised, your guild is paying us to clear them. It seems that they are quite short on adventurers right now.¡± Richard nodded to that as his mind started to work, ¡°So the companies are no longer barred from working for the adventuring guild, I guess we are living in times where old grudges must be buried," Richard ended the sentence with a sigh. Tom looked over his old friend and former party member while he was still a part of the adventuring Guild. ¡°Yes Richard, all the guilds that still operate are now hiring companies to help them run the places they find themselves ruling. It¡¯s quite bad everywhere.¡± To that, they both drained their mugs. While Richard seems to like this drink Tom certainly did not and expressed that to Richard which makes them both laugh. ¡°So, Richard what has the guild been making you do?¡± He asked him in a bit more serious tone. ¡°Nothing much, just running dungeons and checking up on the pockets of survivors that are further away. This reminds me if I remember correctly your company has some builders and traders that work on construction. Am I correct?¡± The question came as a complete surprise to Tom and derailed his thought process. ¡°Yes, Richard why do you ask?¡± Richard scooted in a bit and lowered his voice, ¡°Well you see I just found out about an interesting new building idea and I¡¯m looking for someone that could help build it for me and help with the financing.¡± Seeing the doubtful look on Tom¡¯s face he quickly added. ¡°I have a lot of money saved up and I have some favours I can also use; I just need some extra help.¡± As Richard kept explaining, at first Tom was quite curious in this sauna that was different from the bath houses and seemed to be quite suitable to build for the company as well. But as usual, as Richard kept speaking, he kept making mistakes and the odd pauses in his story, obviously trying to cover something up. It made Tom''s curiouser and curiosity blossom into full interest, but knowing Richard he knew that he couldn¡¯t be too direct with him. So, over the course of a few hours, Tom kept buying Richard drinks that were now filled with a lot more alcohol than they usually would be. Tom was clever and he smelled an opportunity, so he didn¡¯t bring up the sauna and how he came to know about it directly. He just kept asking general questions to see if there was any better way to find out exactly what Meredith and Richard were doing. During the course of the conversation, Tom found out that Meredith seemed to be keeping a journal of their travels and interactions. Richard kept bitching about how the fire would keep him awake when he was trying to sleep. So now Tom knew how to find out more, but he needed to talk to his company members so they can make up a plan on how they could steal the journal without raising too much suspicion with Richard and Meredith. Tom quickly bid his goodbyes to Richard when he had nothing more to gain from his old friend. Richard happily kept drinking in the common room while Meredith was none the wiser about what took place. She was in the room hoping Richard wouldn¡¯t bother her for a bit longer because she had finally finished her inscription so she would be able to communicate undetected with her mistress. ¡°Princess, can you hear me?¡± Meredith asked quietly and hopefully as she had not been able to speak with her mistress for a while now and she hoped that nothing bad had happened. A cold and calculated voice came back from the other side of the spell formation. ¡°Yes Meredith, I can hear you. Why have you contacted me, is something wrong?¡± Meredith sighs out in relief at the sound of her mistress''s voice. ¡°Yes Princess, I have some important news that might interest you.¡± And so, Meredith spoke about the adventurer¡¯s guild and what they were doing as well as about her latest mission to investigate a seemingly simple farmer that turned out to be nothing of the sort. The communication was quick, but the cold tone of the Princess changed to one of curiosity while the calculating tone still remained. ¡°You have done well Meredith, as you always do. This might change our plans a bit and we might be reunited quicker than we both hoped. Stay with the adventuring guild as long as you can. It was hard enough to get you that position, there is no reason to throw it away so quickly.¡± ¡°Yes Princess, I will do as you say, goodbye.¡± The last word was said with longing and sadness as Meredith watched the connection end. She quickly started to clean everything up and was quite pleased that Richard had not bothered her for this long. But it was starting to get late, and she still wanted to get herself cleaned up as best as she could, so it was time to go and find Richard and visit a bathhouse. Hopefully, he can make the sauna because it was better than the bathhouses around here. Meredith found Richard quite drunk in the common room which was quite out of character for him. This time she had to drag him with her into the bathhouse to get themselves cleaned up for the road tomorrow. When they were done cleaning up and walking back, she was quite tired of Richard''s drunken stumbling as she had to support him all the way back. But when they were close to the inn the street became filled with people. It didn¡¯t like long for Meredith to figure out what had happened. It seemed that some sort of a fight happened in the inn, and it turned out that it was just a distraction because during the fight every room was broken into and everything of value was stolen. This news sobered up Richard enough and they quickly run into the inn pushing through the crowd of people and flashing their guild badges to get past guards. They moved to their room to see that everything valuable had been stolen. Meredith almost lost her cool and burnt down the entire inn, but Richard was able to calm her down enough. After a bit of calming down, they went and explained to the guild what was taken to get replacements so they can continue their mission, but their personal belongings were still missing. And a chance to catch the thieves was almost at zero because they were surprisingly good at what they did. On the other side of the city, a group of people were in a room as Tom looked over the journal with quite a lot of interest. ¡°Why did we do this? You mentioned the adventurers went to the Grass Sea so is this about finding Bert?¡± Asked a tall woman. ¡°I hope we find him. I miss him, his hugs are the best.¡± Said a small girl that was hugging her knees. ¡°Perhaps.¡± Answers Tom as he sipped expensive brandy. chapter 79 POV Stebs Soot goblin Chief I looked at the first arrows to land amongst the enemy. Each arrow split into 6 ones that landed en masse into the goblins that were moving towards us. Usually, facing this number of enemies would mean that we will all die soon. A goblin force with more troops wins, this was a known fact amongst our race. Yet a strong commanding voice from the human sounded out and told my tribe members to prepare their throwing weapons for the right moment. Yet the entire time the human never paused firing his bow. ¡°Throw,¡± his booming command was heard and quickly all the commanders echoed the order. Hundreds of spears flew and landed on the enemy killing many, yet their charge continued. It was unfortunate that they were not in a tight formation but a loose one making our attack less effective. As they reached the dam they needed to bunch up and many fell into the river to be swept downstream. There was no longer a mass command to throw spears. Every goblin threw the best they could and over the weeks of training in this sort of combat they had become quite good at it. Hundreds of enemies had already been wounded or killed and they had yet to reach our wall. The design elements that the human gave us started to make perfect sense to me. On the top layer of the dam, the roundest stones were placed to make it dangerous to run across it. The horrific screams of the goblins that broke their ankles and then were trampled to death sounded out amongst the other cries of pain. Then came the moment of truth; as the goblins started to slam into the shield wall, yet our formation seemed to be holding and the spear warriors behind them started their job. The enemy was not defenceless as they also used shields. They were not as effective as ours, but it still gave them a chance to keep themselves in the fight. At first, the council and I were surprised at how many spears the human told us to make and to keep making even more if we reach that goal, but now I saw how quickly we were throwing them. Making me understand better how many resources it took to wage effective war. It took an hour before the first assault was broken and hundreds lay dead on the dam and beyond it. We didn¡¯t let them escape without enacting a high cost. Rich had now switched to his smaller bow and kept firing at anyone that retreated. He seems to be quite ruthless when it came to warfare, and I am quite happy we were able to get him to our side. I looked back at the terrifying weapon that was placed behind the troops and if our shield wall ever fell, it would be used to give us a chance to take back the opening. We wanted to use it at the start, but Rich made it clear that it would be best used as a surprise weapon, and we eventually accepted that. Our next action surprised me as it seemed that our troops started bringing in the dead enemy goblins and I quickly went to find out why. Turns out it was the human''s command again and the reasoning seemed quite sound, although quite disgusting. It seems that the enemy is so desperate that they have started to eat their dead. So, while Rich kept the enemy away with his bow our troops went out and started to collect the dead so we could burn them. While eating our own kind is not foreign, it¡¯s only done in the most extreme circumstances or to feed to the breeders which was quite common. Rich informed us that there will be no other assaults today and to my surprise, I saw him lay down behind the wall and start to sleep before I could blink my eyes. I was quite surprised about this action, but I was quickly informed by one of his lieutenants that he often did this. When they informed me that he was still able to wake up whenever trouble start to approach and that he must have some sort of future sight or something like that, I was surprised. This fact seemed to scare the goblins, but it seemed that Rich himself has explained it away by simply saying that if you are in a war long enough you will learn to do it. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Some of the other goblins also expressed that they have been starting to get better at sleeping whenever they could, especially if they were out on a mission that took a long time, but that they had no idea how long a person needed to wage war to be able to be as good as him. Talking with the goblins that were around him the most, I came to learn that apparently, he once mentioned that he had been in a war for about 12 years, which to me made no sense because he couldn¡¯t, he smelled too young for that. The next assault was more difficult as the enemy was better organized and the frontline looked a lot steadier on its feet. Yet we were able to defend again, and another day went past when we killed so many more than we lost. If this continued, we might actually win this. During the night we had some trouble as the enemy tried to sneak close and start to dismantle the dam. It was a cold and dark night and the only reason we were able to push back their attempt was Rich, as he somehow was able to see them in the dark and kill them with his bow. Another assault seemed to be going well for us but suddenly the human started to give urgent commands and he seemed to be using his large bow this time. We quickly understood why the urgency. One of the shamans was hidden in the mass that was approaching and thanks to Rich shooting at him and the shaman putting up a mage bubble. We were all able to see the location and execute the plan that we had come up with to deal with them. This time we all throw our spears at the same time towards the mage bubble even I had to do this although I will never be able to reach so far out with my capabilities. Rich charged his javelin and gave the order for us to throw when he was ready. The hope was that he will be able to break the bubble. Unfortunately, he did not succeed but he did crack it, but the hope that our spears would finish the job was still there. Unfortunately, they went unfulfilled. The bubble still had enough strength to withstand our spears even though some of them had abilities attached to them. What they did do was finish off the bubble and that gave Rich a chance to use his bow to try to kill the shaman and while he did get two arrows into him it didn''t look like it killed him. As we continue the defence, Rich kept trying to kill the retreating shaman, but he was unsuccessful. Although we are quite certain that he was hurt quite bad and hopefully the wounds will take him out of this fight if not kill him outright. The best outcome will be if this will cause a conflict among the enemy. After that, the assaults continued with different tactics being used to varying success. Thanks to the human we were able to withstand them. Thanks to our troops over half of their force was now dead and the number disparity started to get closer to equal. The assaults came less often now, the last one was three days ago. We have defended this dam for 17 days and we are all exhausted, except of course for the human who has stood as a solid rock for us all, keeping our morale up when we were at our lowest points. We have still lost so many, almost 200 dead or wounded so badly that they could not fight anymore, yet we have killed over 2000 of them. The number disparity is still hard to wrap our brains around for every one of us we have killed 10 of them. Not even in our wildest dreams have we hoped that we could defend this well. But it seemed that trouble has come as the enemy has been acting weirdly. Finally, Rich called a meeting that took place on the wall where he has been for the entire fight. ¡°We might have a problem. I think they have finally discovered the waterfall path and might be readying themselves for a quick march there.¡± This made us all freeze in horror. Rich has multiple times said that this is a lot better place to defend, and they still had a lot of troops they could levy against us. If this was truly the case, we might be in trouble, but it will not be hopeless. We can still defend, but we quickly needed to prepare if that¡¯s the case. We left while Rich stayed on his watch post, and we started to organize the march if it was needed. Most of the preparations were done already but just in case everything was rechecked and it turns out it was a good thing, as many things needed for fast supply movement were broken with time and required fixing. More and more problems seem to be popping up but thanks to the head start we had time to fix all of them. And it was a good thing because in two days we saw how the army started to withdraw and move upriver towards the second location that can be used to get across. It was too soon to start moving as this could be a feint and they could just turn around, but some things were already starting to be moved that weren¡¯t that crucial. Messengers were sent to start preparing the other site. We had contingencies there that were supposed to protect against scouts and small groups, and it was weird that they had not notified us that the enemy had found the waterfall path. I was one of the last to leave the dam leaving Rich and 40 goblins behind to protect from any incursions. He assured me that he will soon be moving to join us in a bit. We needed to leave the 40 goblins here so no one can sneak behind us and if the place was overrun, they were able to hold long enough that runners were able to escape to warn us about it. chapter 80 As Stebs Soot, Chief of the goblins made it to the waterfall site he went to get a report from the garrison that was here to understand more about what has happened and why they were not informed about the enemy finding out about this place to cross the river. The answer he got was unsatisfactory as the tribe¡¯s scouts had not noticed the enemy scouts locating this place. As the commanders and the Chief feared the army was moving this way and it was now confirmed by the scouts. But there was one goblin that was not surprised that the enemy scouts had not been seen, how could they, there weren¡¯t any. He was supposed to be happy that his plan had worked but it didn¡¯t work well enough for him to be satisfied. He was the believer in the old way before the human changed everything he knew and for some reason, all his fellow goblins went along. He hated that human and wish he could kill him himself, but no matter how much vengeance he felt he knew he would never succeed on his own. So, he and his fellow followers of the old way came up with a plan and made the deal with the enemy army. This plan did not work perfectly as the human again messed everything up. His followers had been messing up and breaking down carts and everything else they could use to get to this place fast, yet because the human noticed the army''s actions so quickly everyone had time to fix all that they had done. He was still happy because he knew that the human will not live for long and soon this feeble defence will be flanked and he will be elevated amongst the enemy encampment, and he will put a stop to this new way of thinking. It disgusted him even now when he thought about not having breeders. While his plans were thought up well enough, one miscalculation he made was the human. Rich Dirt did not decide to stay as long in the dam camp as planned but started to move towards the waterfall camp quicker than even he planned. Why did Rich Dirt do this? Simply because he was bored and didn''t want to start reading and understanding all the notifications waiting on his achievement page. Although before he left, he did put his free points into energy storage. If Rich Dirt had stayed longer, he would have been caught in a trap and not been able to support the main force. The betrayers and the enemy leaders were able to send word and entice back the enemy tribes that left and who were now headed towards that dam camp. They were quite close and if Rich had just stayed an hour longer, he would have seen them and stayed to fight. Now for the goblins there it took a bit longer to notice the enemy, but they eventually did. A bit over 200 enemies against 40 defenders a situation that normal goblins would run from to try and save themselves. But the battle-hardened goblins started to get ready for the fight knowing that they might all die soon. The enemy commander even gave them a chance to surrender and join them. Yet they knew what that would mean. It would mean that this force is able to flank and most likely kill their Chief and fellow tribe members. So, they squished their weapon and got ready to fight to the death and hopefully given an opportunity for two of their fastest runners to warn their fellow tribe members. When the time ticked down the enemy commander shook his head and motioned to the shaman to start. He moved forward but before he could suddenly 11 goblins close to the shaman acted first trying to take his life. The commander cut down with his sword, while the shaman quickly using his magic burned one to death and using a fire whip kill two more before the other goblins reached the shaman and he was pierced by multiple weapons. He managed to kill one more before he was finally dead, and the remaining goblins started to run towards the dam to their fellow tribe members trying to get to safety. One more was cut down by the commander, but the remaining goblins were fast and made it to the dam and the safety their tribe members flying spears provided. The enemy commanders rage filled yells led to a quick assault. Similar to the commander the enemy goblins were in a blind rage and trying to chase them down. But this gave the defenders an opportunity to get some easy kills. The spears flew and pierced accurately at the fastest enemies. The shield wall parted letting in the scouts and infiltrators when they reached it. They had given the defenders a fighting chance. A fighting chance they now seized, never letting go of it even though they kept dying one by one. The enemy however kept dying faster. They were still enraged and never thought they could lose so they never looked back to see that there were no longer any replacements to try to take down the shield wall. When they finally did notice it was too late to run and accurate spears flew and kill them. Although this was a victory for the defender it was a heavy one leaving only 12 survivors. The defence was remarkable, and the survivors now grieved for their lost brothers and also celebrated their victory and evolutions. But while this battle ended another was just beginning. The two armies stood separated by a shallow river and enough distance so skirmishers could not yet start their job. The enemy army had made it here quicker than anyone had expected of course one had and while others looked worried, he was having a hard time not smiling. Defending was around 300 goblins trying to keep their new way of life alive but to their surprise, the enemy only seem to have around 800 goblins to bring to this fight. When they looked at the enemy army, they knew they could win even though it would still be a hard battle. It didn¡¯t take long until commands were given, and the enemy army started to move forward. The betrayer was not pleased that the fight started so soon, he wanted to wait longer so the human would be killed in the dam battle and the troops there could also make it here. But then again who knows what the human was capable of and there was still nothing the Chief or the commanders could do to save themselves from this defeat. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The armies collided and they sounded like rocks falling from the mountains. The defender''s line held and the fighting began. Endless spears continued falling on the enemy reducing their numbers, yet they had also learned from earlier battles and large shields were held up above their heads to try to defend themselves. As the battle continued it was clear to see that the defenders will win. It was at that moment a shaman that was limping pushed closer towards the fighting. While Rich was able to put quite the hurt on him the other shaman was able to use his magic to keep him alive and eventually start to recover. He was moving confidently knowing that the human was not there and that his magic will be able to help their side survive longer and perhaps even start pushing the defenders back. Yet to the complete surprise of the shaman and the betrayer a group of goblins under the command of a newly promoted lieutenant quickly moved to the edge of the fighting and as close to the shaman as they could. The betrayer had not known about this group of goblins that asked for advice from Rich on how to kill the enemy shaman and now they hoped that their choices would mean that they could kill the shaman. There were six of them. Three of them had an ability charging spear throw and the other three had magic piercing spear. They worked in teams of two and both charged a strong spear as they waited for their chance to attack. The shaman did see them, but he was not worried as he had trust in his magic bubble. He was too overconfident in being able to stop them. Two of the spears he manage to stop but the last one pierced his bubble and sank into his chest leading to his slow and agonizing death. While the defenders were celebrating Rich Dirt finally made it there to the surprise of everyone and the delight of all except one. It was at that moment that another thing started to happen that no one had expected. Stebs Soot the Chief started to glow a bit and then energy started to flow towards him. He didn''t understand what was happening but a moment later a system notification popped up in front of him and he read it in a daze. Class gained: Chief of hope level 1 As he read out loud the notification it quickly spread amongst the tribe and boosted the morale to a new height changing the hard fight from before to just a fight. The defenders looked stronger than ever. This news however broke the betrayer''s mind and shattered his beliefs. He could not handle or accept it, so he did the only thing that made sense to him and tried to attack and kill the Chief. And he would have succeeded if Rich Dirt wasn¡¯t there. In a moment he was under his heel secured and helpless. He could not keep his mouth from cursing him during this revealing that he was the reason they were in this current situation. The news of the dam camp being attacked was grave yet the news that in the mountains there was a path behind our current lines that apparently the rest of the enemy army was currently using to try to flank and attack their back was even graver. They were currently winning the battle of the waterfall, but they had not yet won, nor will they win in a few moments. As Rich Dirt silently looked around at the battlefield, he quickly knew that there is only one option. All the goblins were currently occupied and pushing as hard as they could to try to defeat the attacking army so they could turn around and defend themselves, but he was free. ¡°Finish here as quickly as you can and then come and save me.¡± Before anyone could register those words, Rich Dirt started to run towards the location of the suspected way that the enemy was going to use. Some wanted to run after him, but the Chief stopped them, instead he picked up a throwing spear and ordered all to use everything they had so they could quickly push the attacking army back. It took 10 minutes of brutal war until the enemy army started showing weakness and beginning of breaking. Yet at that moment a war cry was heard from the mountain and soon the yellow glow started to illuminate the grey sky. It had been getting colder and colder over the past weeks, unseasonably so and as the Chief looked at the golden glow pulsating sometimes stronger sometimes weaker, he notices snowflakes starting to emerge from the sky. The momentary break of seeing his golden glow of defiance brought out pure rage, fueling him and he started to throw spears faster and faster into the now wavering enemy. This started the war cries of the defenders who fought even more ferociously. It was something that the attacking army could not stand against and slowly the front line started to buckle. The shield goblins noticed it and had their first opportunity in this war to use their training offensively. An order to prepare was heard and then the order to push came. The entire shield wall pushed driving the enemy army back a step. Soon another one was called out and then another. The enemy army was pushed onto their back foot while throwing spears kept falling, now having destroyed most of the shields leaving most goblins still surviving without a way to defend themselves. But even then, they were still able to hold on for another 10 minutes before they finally broke and started to run. Most of the defending army started to chase down and kill off as many as possible but some of the strongest quickly moved where Rich Dirt had gone to hopefully save him. The golden glow was still present showing his survival, yet it was so dim now that it was barely noticeable. They run as quickly as possible to try to save their saviour the one that taught them how to be true warriors, true soldiers. The group of nearly 50 goblins ran as quickly as they could following the mountain path that soon started to be surrounded by tall rock walls. The narrow pathway soon started to open up a bit but not by much and then it started to close up again where they could see Rich. Beyond him was a horde of goblins pushing towards him trying to surround him. Where they battled the dead were the problem. So many had Rich cut down that they were fighting on top of a pile of corpses. One of the corpses was clearly recognizable as the main enemy commander and there was also a shaman¡¯s head that had rolled a bit further away from the rest of the pile. Rich Dirt himself was barely able to keep swinging his two-handed sword. His armour had been burnt and torn apart, no piece looked whole, and he was bleeding from multiple wounds. Somehow, he was still standing and protecting the path so no goblin could get past him. This gave the tired goblins a surge of stamina as they started running even faster soon overtaking Rich and ploughing into the enemies, cutting them down with every swing. As Rich saw his fellow warriors run past he collapsed first onto his knees and then after a moment finally collapsed onto the ground completely exhausted and bleeding to death from hundreds of wounds. The goblins that came to save him quickly started to push back the enemy and after a bit of time healers that were breathless from their quick run started to treat the human as best as they could. While the enemy was scattered the fighting continued for a few days more and when they learned that the dam camp had managed to successfully defend the dam, they knew that this war was finally over and that they had won. Yet it was not time for celebration as the human was lying in his own healing tent unconscious and currently fighting infection. On the third day after the battle, the healers gave the good news that his body had started to win the fight and that he will recover. After that news spread around the celebrations truly began. They had so much to celebrate. The first class a goblin had gotten in who knows how long. Their continued survival. And of course that the way the human told them to live was the correct way for their future. chapter 81* Running as fast as I could I tried to look for the path that they might be using. Luckily it seems that some goblins are protecting it and thanks to my animal sight I was able to pick them out, otherwise, I might have missed the entrance. After a few quick shots with my short bow, the small group of goblins are dead, while I never stopped moving as fast as possible as I slipped into the path. It was well-sized. I still had room to use my two-handed sword but it was narrow enough that my reach would not allow any goblins to get past me. As I kept running, I was quite pleased that they weren¡¯t that close yet. I was a bit more unsatisfied when the path started to widen but luckily after a bit, it started to narrow again to be better suited for protecting myself. Soon I picked up the hurried movements of the enemy as they were running on this mountain path. At this point, I stopped running and started to move back a bit so I would have a relatively long straight path so I could use my bow for the start of the fight. Having nocked an arrow I waited and gathered as much extra energy as possible. Unfortunately, my breathing technique was not the best. As soon as they came around the bend, I charged up splitting arrow and let it fly. I wish I had the longbow here for stronger shots but rapid fire with the short bow will be good enough. Every shot took out an entire row of enemies sometimes even more. With every shot, they got closer, but they were being slowed down a bit. When my quiver finally ran out, they were closer than I liked. If I still had arrows, I might have considered pulling back to keep firing, but it was time for me to get into close combat. Unsheathing my two-hander I prepared myself for the fight by moving energy into my sword, to activate weapon enhancement to make sure that this weapon would be able to endure the amount of abuse I was going to put it through. My energy control throughout the war has gotten a lot better and currently, I was doing my best to keep my expenditure as low as possible but still cut through them with every single swing, taking out four or five goblins with every move of my sword. I was no expert in swordsmanship, but I also didn¡¯t have to be. It was not difficult to do what I did. It was like trying to clear a forest of small branches just moving my sword back and forth. There was no real skill involved. I was able to slow down their advantage enough that I finally saw that the ones further down were now almost stopped, and I was glad for it. I did slow down my killing at that point trying to keep myself from killing too quickly so the elites would not be able to get to me as quickly. When they will finally arrive I will have to start to try and my current job will be made 100 times more difficult. Eventually, my easy job did come to an end and elite goblins started to reach me. At this point, I needed to start using my energy more and having to do some controlled sword fighting and not just swinging from left to right. Even then it was still quite easy though my energy consumption was now a lot larger. I was able to hold on to my position for a little bit longer but as more and more of the elites started to show up, they started to push me back. Thanks to the narrow space I was still able to kill them quickly, but they also started to land hits on me. My armour was holding up right now, but it will not last for very long as their abilities already started to destroy my armour hit by hit. They were pushing me back quicker and quicker and when I noticed that they might soon push me into the wider area I couldn¡¯t wait any longer and had to activate my heroic stand. This time I was smarter and know how to use heroic stand better. I needed to push my energy through heroics stand and then use that energy in my abilities. The last time I changed energy into everything making my overall effectiveness a lot less than it could have been. Thanks to me knowing this fact I was able to conserve a lot more energy even though my damage output increased a lot more. The real problem came when the shaman and the enemy commander reached me. The commander used a two-dagger fighting style while the shaman was quite fond of fire-based magic. During the first exchange, I quickly learned that magic is really good against energy. I had to use all my willpower to harden my energy against magic otherwise the mana wanted to eat away at my energy. Then came the annoyingly fast commander that started to dismantle my armour and deliver real cuts that quickly start to slow me down. Thanks to the dungeon I was a lot more familiar with this kind of close combat fighting and I learned a lot more about goblins in this war. Now I know how easily they fell into traps especially when they think they held an upper hand. Thanks to this I was able to trick the shaman into thinking that his fire whip had restricted one of my arms but instead I used it to pull him close enough so I could use my sword with only one hand so it can reach and cut off his head. The surprise in his eyes didn''t leave even though his head was now rolling on the ground. After that the fight with the commander was harder, he was now a lot more careful and used the goblins he had to his advantage. Because of that, I had to fight him and the horde of goblins. I was however able to outlast him with my energy storage. His horde now became a fatal disadvantage, thanks to them closing him in and finally giving me a chance to kill him. But they had done a lot of damage and I could feel my body starting to weaken. Even the goblins could smell it. I could see in their eyes the sparkle of joy, that finally, I was weak. Still, I kept killing but I was starting to truly slow down now. I saw myself falling but for some reason, I was in a trench, and I was holding an opening. I looked around hoping there still were some grenades to throw. Finding a box with two grenades I hope it will delay them enough so that the reinforcements would get here. I waited for the right moment. Wait that is wrong. I am dreaming. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. I could suddenly feel the sun on my face and as I tried to open my eyes they were blinded, and I could feel pain. After a moment I figured out that I was having a dream about what had happened and in the end, the other war mixed in. My eyes adjusted and I figured out I was laying down inside a tent with healing paste all over my body that the goblins use to treat wounds. I tried to move but I was still hurting too much, and I knew it would be better to just keep laying down. From the sounds outside there was a party going on and I let out an exhausted sigh. It seems that we won and for some reason, I still survived. I wonder if I¡¯m truly cursed to never die in battle, I¡¯m guessing in this world I can find it out once and for all. I took a few deep breaths because I needed to get over my aversion to the achievement page. For some reason, it felt so wrong to use but I think it might be because if I had it before on earth, I could have saved so many more of my friends. But I need to accept that the past is the past and you can never change it, so while you do need to learn from it you do not need to cling to it. This time there aren¡¯t any new skills which is honestly quite good news. I have already gotten so much that working on them will probably take an unreasonable amount of time. Now skill levels were a different thing, but this also has slowed down quite a lot but that¡¯s mostly because of the tier differences and I believe the next tier will make them even slower. Although I have noticed that some skills improve extremely slowly compared to others and I guess even skills have different tiers to them or rarity levels or whatever you want to call it. spear level 3 --> 6 sword level 5 --> 10 archery level 16 --> 20 upgraded to advanced archery advanced archery level 1 --> 2 combat strategy level 12 --> 18 stealth level 11 --> 16 camouflage level 2 --> 5 throwing level 9 --> 12 battle presence level 3 --> 8 basic armour 7 --> 10 upgraded to armour armour level 1 --> 2 intimidation level 3 --> 5 awareness level 2 --> 6 command level 4 --> 11 basic war tactics level 2 --> 5 mentoring level 4 --> 6 energy emissions level 1 --> 9 Basic armor upgrade choice was simple it had to be armor enhancement. The weapon version of it was so good for both attack and defence. With it, my armour can defend against abilities. Now the archery one is a difficult choice. Do I go with energy arrow and lean even more into energy-based abilities or do I choose to take the fire burst shot and expand into elemental damage types? You have gained a new ability energy arrow level 1 And of course, the ability levels as well. It is quite interesting to level up them and I believe that they also have different amounts of XP needed even at the same level. One example is the sight skills they are so much slower to level even though I¡¯m using them the most. penetrating slash level 7 --> 9 silent shot level 2 --> 3 plant sight level 5 --> 7 energy sight level 8 --> 10 animal sight level 5 --> 8 material sight level 4 --> 6 heroic stand level 2 --> 4 shaped edge level 6 --> 9 piercing thrust level 8 --> 11 battle aura level 2 --> 6 booming voice level 4 --> 6 razor-sharp blade level 3 --> 6 extreme energy precision level 8 --> 13 heavy blow level 14 --> 16 tactical advantage level 16 --> 19 charged throw level 5 --> 6 splitting arrow level 6 --> 18 weapon enhancement level 10 --> 18 intimidating aura level 3 --> 5 troop defense boost level 3 --> 13 Then of course there are my level-ups. I have already unfortunately used my free points from reaching the first milestone at 10. Although I was quite disappointed that I didn¡¯t get any traits or abilities from it, just free points. Still, 25 free points for that level and 4x stat points why not. homesteader level 9 --> 15 true archer level 7 --> 13 heroic soldier level 7 --> 13 Stats: strength +126 dexterity +108 vitality +99 endurance +18 empathy +18 intelligence +18 energy storage +75 perception +36 constitution +36 presence +18 So many kills during the siege and in the path brought huge gains. And of course, a lot of traits although they were absorbed by giant amongst men. strength reaches 320 new trait gained: energy-saturated body empathy reaches 40 new trait gained: eyes of beauty intelligence reaches 40 new trait gained: extreme sensory analysis energy storage reaches 40 new trait gained: dense energy energy storage reaches 80 new trait gained: energy core presence reaches 20 new trait gained: strong presence The specific traits were still shining through giant amongst men, especially during the last battle. I am really beginning to feel like a superhuman. I¡¯m quite certain that I did not just carve through goblins but also a lot of the path wall will have my sword marks on it. I¡¯m quite certain that the rock did not even slow some of my strikes down even a bit with all the abilities I was using. I still needed there check out my adventuring class, it was still at level 1 because it needed attention but I had now gotten my beginner body past 15 which was the target. For the skill, you really need a lot of knowledge that modern society was able to give me. I needed to help all the functions of the body to raise that skill, but it was also so much more than that. It encompassed all of the body and you constantly need to work on yourself and improve yourself for it to keep levelling. But before I went into the adventuring class to level it up, I needed to be certain if I wanted 15 to be to the max or to wait until I reach 25. Then I could choose one more ability for my level up. Of course for anyone wanting to follow me in this path it would be a nightmare having to get it to 25 in a skill before they could actually level up adventuring class to level 2. But since I have 18 currently and my body is quite messed up so if I focus on my recovery, I might actually be able to make it there. So why not, why would I need to care about someone else if I could make it there? chapter 82 I¡¯m pretty sure that I fell asleep after that because now when I woke up, I was feeling a bit better, and the sounds of the party had ended. Looking around I notice my sword and armour. I could see that the sword had held up quite well, but it still had quite a lot of nicks in it that I needed to fix. Seeing my armour made me sad. The armour was completely wrecked, and it would take a long time to make a new one, especially the chainmail, but I guess it will need to be done because I still needed to clear out the village. I was not alone and one of the healers was there. I remember her being there at the end of the fight, saving me from certain death. So, I thanked her but doing so also frightened her because she thought that I was still unconscious. She filled me in about how the fight went and how they won the battle of the waterfall and how they were able to chase and kill off most of the enemy. The rest scattered and run away as far as they were able to. I knew that it was now time to start moving otherwise my body would become too stiff and the wounds might start to cause me trouble later. As I walked outside it turns out I was still at the waterfall campsite but to my surprise, it didn''t seem to be the temporary one that I was used to. Looking around the tents seemed more permanent, and it seemed that rudimentary work on a wall following the shape of the river has started. I asked the healer about it, and it turns out that the goblins decided to keep the dam and make it and this place into permanent fortifications. This way they could better protect themselves if something like this ever happened again. An excellent plan in my opinion. As I walked around, I focused on healing my body. With my new trait, my energy was no longer just in my energy body but also in my physical one. It needed some guidance so it could help me recover faster. I went and met some of the commanders, but most were either back at the encampment or at the dam camp. The Chief was back at the encampment which I could understand. Needing to be in the centre of command is important and they have a lot of recovering to do. They still lost a lot of fighters who mostly were hunters that were important for feeding the tribe. While I was heading back to my tent, I noticed one of the goblins. He had something and it made me stop in my tracks. ¡°You there where did you get that fruit from?¡± At first, the goblin was startled by my commanding voice and quickly got up and stood at attention but when his brain finally understood what I asked he relaxed and started to explain. Apparently, they had chased one of the fleeing groups and went past a tree that was full of this fruit, but they were all too sour and tasted really bad. But when they kept chasing, they found a small area where there were a lot of those trees that were old but the fruits from them tasted really good. I quickly let him explain to me where he found the area with a lot of apple trees. I was still a bit too weak to make the trip now, but I was certainly going to visit this place. There hopefully I can get some cuttings to bring back so I could start my own apple orchard. This was an extremely good find and made this war even more worth it. The level gains I have gotten especially in my classes was better, but I was a bit disappointed about that level 10 milestone. Hopefully, the 20 one will be a lot better and not just free points. I got some food and then started to pack up. There was no way I was going to put the broken armour back on. Could it even fit anymore when it was so misshapen? I was given a cart that I could use to bring everything back to the encampment. I was offered all the help that I would ever want. Some of them even stated that if I wanted to, they would carry me back, but I waved off all the offers. There was no real hurry and that way I could go slowly and work on healing myself. The healing was nothing special just helping my body do it faster. I was quite happy that I didn¡¯t have any deep wounds, those take a lot longer to heal. It took me three days to get to the encampment but in the end, I could already walk quite well. I was not the only one moving on this road that had formed. There was quite a lot of traffic. I think that they are taking the fortification of that waterfall location quite seriously. When I made it back, I was greeted with quite the celebration and another party was thrown. I got to know a lot more of the crafters and not just the soldiers that I was most acquainted with. The next day I was following a goblin that promised to show me some berry bushes that can give multiple harvests during a season. I was quite intrigued and the berries tasted nice. It wasn¡¯t completely sweet, and they were not completely round more oval shaped and were black and reddish in colour. They weren¡¯t any berries that I was familiar with and most likely unique to this planet. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. We exchanged some ideas about how to grow them and in return, I got quite a lot of cuttings that I was extremely glad about. Planting some berry bushes was quite a good idea that I might want to look into even deeper in the future. The berry bushes might also be quite a good starting point to start using my plant-based abilities so I could change them from their wild forms into something better suited for cultivation. That might also help with my future tree-growing plans. I told the Chief about my plans to visit the apple orchard but that I will come back here to get all my stuff and then move on. He told me that they would push back the loot distribution until then. I spent another week here as the days got colder and I even saw some snow starting to fall. The goblins said that it usually didn''t happen so soon, but it was also not unheard of. I was now quite well with moving and used my movement skill to get to the location faster. It was still hard to use it in the forest and because of that, it did work a lot slower. But I was still able to cover a lot of land thanks to it. I had to do some backtracking and overall scouring of the area before I found the first wild apple tree. At this apple tree were some slow-moving bees that were still not hibernating. I will need to return here when spring starts so I could perhaps catch some queens. I didn¡¯t want to move them right now just before winter and I honestly didn¡¯t have any good plan on how I wanted to do it as well. With the first tree found it was a lot easier to follow the instructions I was given, and I finally made it to the apple orchard. The trees were really old and could barely give any fruits. They were cleaned out by the goblins. I looked around a bit more to understand why this was here and I found some building foundations, but they seemed to be old and only the footprints still remained of the buildings. This was probably some hermit¡¯s home that he built himself in the forest away from the world or perhaps long ago this might have been a farmhouse, but the apple trees weren¡¯t that old that an entire forest could have grown around here. There used to be a lot more trees but only seven trees remained and from them, I was able to get 14 cuttings that seemed viable and still felt like they wanted to grow into a great apple tree. I was quite happy with the amount that I got. Using the small leather pouches that I made I put some wet soil into them and stuck the cuttings in so they could survive until we made it to the farm. I was quite a lot further south now and as I went back towards the north and the encampment, I also noticed that the energy got thicker and there were a lot more of the black particles that I now know were mana floating around. From the adventurers, I know there were more energy and mana-rich areas that produced a lot more beasts and monsters and that sometimes those areas grew and even moved. I hope that this level of energy has always been like this and that I didn¡¯t have to worry about an area like that expanding towards my homestead. When I made it back to the encampment I was greeted by the Chief and all the important goblins. We went to the underground hill where the breeders used to be. Currently, it was being used as a warehouse where a lot of food was stored and the spoils of war. It seems that they are honouring the deal and giving me the first loot right. I get to choose whatever I want from the items gathered. I instantly discarded all the weapons that were not made from metal. Unfortunately, there were quite a lot of them, and they were in a huge pile. Next to it was a smaller pile of iron weapons and for that, I explained that I want half but for the metal itself and not the weapons. I told them that they could take out the better weapons and leave me the broken and unusable ones. They were quite happy to hear that even though I could still see some grumbling about me taking so much of them. There really wasn¡¯t anything special about the armours and even the few metal ones I wasn¡¯t interested in. I left them all to the goblins. It was interesting how many coins the goblins were carrying around there were chests full of them and a lot of them were gold. There were a lot of other items like candle sticks and stuff like that that were silver and gold as well. I asked them if they wanted it, and they did so this was split in middle as well. There was a lot more grumbling about that, but it was mostly just grumbling anyone would do if they were hoping to get something. Then came the more specialized things mostly from the shamans. I only took one of the staffs so I could examine it later. As it seemed to be a special creation. But what I was most interested in were the ball-like objects that were clearly filled with mana. There were three of them and the Chief was generous enough to explain them. Those apparently were mana orbs that over time produced mana and were used to make new shamans. If a child holds onto it long enough and starts to get sick it means that he could never be a shaman but if he doesn¡¯t get sick, they were given the mana orb that they must hold on to it always, and eventually, it would help them become a shaman. As I picked it up it was quite unpleasant as the mana tried to eat away at my energy, but I also saw it trying to burrow into my energy body in an interesting manner, but I had to stop and drop it because of the pain. Apparently, if you were an adult and holding it you will experience excruciating pain and they were quite surprised that I was able to hold on to it for that long. I suspect that children can hold on to it longer because they have a lot less energy in their bodies and if they have the same mana network as the shaman and Meredith, it will probably help it develop better. I believe that they are currently useless to me but I still took two of them and left one for them so they will also have two as I came to learn that they already had one that the previous shaman of theirs used. I was in no way going to be able to bring everything back right now, but the goblins promised me that they will have everything brought over before the winter gets too bad and then when the spring begins and the winter snows melt, they will bring everything else that we have bargained for. They will start mining at the latest in spring but are still hopeful that they can get the mines up and running before winter truly sets in. I was happy enough with that, but I still packed the mana orbs and some of the smaller things including my broken armour and all my weapons that I brought here that still survived. From my 5 javelins, only two survived so there will be a need to make some more. There was one last party this evening and in the morning I finalized everything and started to walk back towards my farm. chapter 83 While walking back I focused on my energy which has changed a lot with the new traits. It is now completely confirmed that energy storage also added some energy regeneration, otherwise I would have to wait for days for it completely fill up. While the wait is longer now about a day to get it filled it¡¯s still a lot quicker than it should have been. This amount of energy helped me level up my body skill a lot taking it to 23 still a bit shy of the target of 25 that I will need, but still a good gain. It will be harder to get the 2 more levels needed but I believe it¡¯s only a matter of time. Next was the quality of my energy, it felt a lot more dense and solid while it was still as easy to move as ever. I no longer needed arrows, I could make them by combining two abilities energy forms and energy arrows. Working together made it as strong as a regular arrow but I could manipulate the tip however I wanted. That being said if those abilities were to be used on an arrow that arrow would become a lot better than just one made of energy so using physical arrows will still be extremely useful, but I was no longer screwed if I were to run out of them. The 320-strength trait or the tier 6 strength trait, at first seemed quite the disappointment but I have gotten to do some testing with it, and it might have been one of the greatest things I have gotten. First of all it helped so much with the recovery of the wounds that would have otherwise taken a lot longer to heal and would have left a lot more lingering injuries. But what I was most interested in was how much better I can now use energy to enhance my body for momentary gains. In battle, this might be the decider of victory or defeat. This might also be quite useful for everyday improvement as well. I have more control over energy and can guide it to help develop my body. Abilities now work a lot quicker as well and I can pump energy into them faster than ever. Before the body was a barrier, I had to overcome for my abilities to work in the outside world but now that connection was strengthened and a lot quicker. Then there is the tiny ball of energy inside my energy body. I believe this is the core that one of the traits gave me. The energy inside was of a higher quality than the one outside and if needed I could get it out and use it to supercharge some ability. But it was in an extremely low amount and currently, there was nothing I could do with it. Although it was growing slowly and if I focused on it and tried to help it grow it seemed to expand faster. What I was now interested in was if I could make a similar core in my physical body and as I walked slowly back to home, I focused on trying to copy the core and make it in my physical body as well. To my surprise, it was actually not that hard to get it started although it was a lot smaller than the one in my energy body and I¡¯m guessing that it will take a lot longer to grow as in my physical body there was a lot less energy richness. I was honestly expecting it to take at least until I made it back home or even longer so now I need something else to do and what came to mind was the problem that I noticed during the war. If someone else had energy sight or some other way of seeing energy I would light up like a christmas tree, especially whenever I was using my abilities. Because of it, I was able to pick out elite goblins easily and even their shamans could not escape my sight. That¡¯s nothing to speak of the abilities themselves that anyone with eyes will see. If you have the sight, you will be able to get so much more information and I really dislike that. If there is a way for me to disguise my energy it would be extremely useful, even life-saving. My first idea and hopefully something that might be easier to discover was to make my energy look out of focus so even if they can see that I am using energy they can never pinpoint what I was doing with it. I wish I had someone to work with and to test with or even a mirror, so I could see myself better. But I only had what I had to work with. The start was the hardest as the energy inside me didn¡¯t exactly know what to do simply because I didn¡¯t know what to do. So, I started testing and changing and moving energy in ways I have never done before hoping to stumble onto a way to do what I want. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. It was a struggle at first but later I started to get better at manipulating energy to my will in unusual ways. While I was about halfway back home, I had a breakthrough that seemed to be making viewing my energy fuzzy. It took me a bit longer to get a better hang of this manipulation. I had to use this specific manipulation on the outside layer of energy so it will obscure the rest that was deeper inside. The problem was that I needed to consciously do this, but I hoped it would become a reflex later on. Having found the first solution, I was not going to keep training this but trying to find a second one. This one that I discovered currently is perfect for fighting and general use, but it can''t obscure my energy too much as you could still see the overall level of it. It¡¯s similar to if you use the flashlight to shine through a hazy glass you could still tell if the flashlight was a more powerful one. So, the next goal is to somehow mask myself into showing a lower amount of energy. At the start, I honestly had no clue how to begin but for the starting point, I decided to use the silent shot ability. It had expanded to cover the entire motion of a shot instead of before when only the arrow was silent. The most interesting thing about this ability was that it shined a lot dimmer and with a little bit of work during the war, I was able to get that down so people would not notice it. With that technique, I was able to get my other abilities a lot dimmer as well. Although I have never been able to get them to the same level as silent shot. Still, it might be a good starting point and for that, I took a small break and did some practice with the ability trying to really understand this one aspect of it. It seemed to be mirroring back the shine and if your cover was good enough you could make it seem that it didn¡¯t shine. But it still did I guess every ability had to. At this point, I had an interesting idea with my active camouflage ability and trying to meld these two into one. When I emerged from the forest and saw my bridge and had grasped what I needed to do, but still I needed to keep developing what I discovered. With both of these abilities taught me is to make a covering over my energy and then make it look like whatever I wanted it to look like. I could hide and make myself like anyone else or if I wanted to, I could bluster and make myself look even stronger, but that I will most likely never use. This was a lot harder to use and required extreme concentration, so why I was still able to function normally I could never fight like this at least not in the near future and most likely even the long term was out of my reach. For fighting the blurring method would still be the best, but for some stealth or just generally trying to go unnoticed this was perfect. It still needed a lot of training before I could be confident for any length of time to be able to pull off this level of disguise. I was still deep in thought as I made it to the bridge but as I looked at its raised position my brain stopped working for a bit. How was I going to get to the other side? It was quite late now, it was dark and quite cold with the wind blowing. I do not think that any of my apprentices would be coming outside anymore. Do I jump the river, perhaps yell for them or do I unpack my river crosser? Honestly, I love the most and was most excited about jumping. I wasn¡¯t wearing any armour so it would be easier and safer. Who am I kidding, no excuse was going to stop me. I so wanted to do this and it would be important to start to get used to my more superhuman side as it was still a lot to accept. Being so much stronger and overall better than I used to be was weird. I have to unlearn almost 70 years of being just a normal human. So sometimes it¡¯s quite hard to keep track of this all, especially the abilities as some of them sometimes slipped my mind, I need to be better. So, I backed off a bit, limbered up my body, measure the distance in my head and went for it. The rush of hearing my footsteps echoing in the grass and the surroundings starting to blur was exhilarating. I was soon close to my target and hit it exactly and pushed off as strongly as I could. Flying through the air felt amazing and there was no fear of me being short and falling into the river, as I jumped with plenty of clearance over the river and landed with a roll to cushion my fall. Getting up I kind of chuckled to myself as I went to lower the bridge. It didn¡¯t take long until I heard some growling and when I look towards the farmhouse, I saw Freya. When she noticed me, her defensive stance broke apart and she started to run towards me. She looked quite happy to see me and when she finally made it here, I gave her a big hug and scratched her neck as she tried to lick me. She¡¯s quite happy to see me and I¡¯m quite certain that some of that happiness is that she doesn¡¯t have to deal with her children alone anymore. I am quite certain that my apprentices were helpful, but knowing those troublemakers they overwhelmed my apprentices quite quickly. I finished lowering down the bridge and got my cart while Freya was beside me looking out towards the forest just in case something might come out of it. I was quite pleased as we made it closer to the farm that my apprentices had their bows out and were ready to defend. They took longer than I would have liked but in time that will be fixed, at least for Arthur. I could see the smiles on their faces. I waved to them and that seemed to relax them. The next one to come out was Francis and behind him all the puppies now a lot bigger started to run towards me. chapter 84 Last night went a bit longer than I would have liked, but it was also nice to catch up on everything. Goose was quite happy to see me, and he already had quite a lot of feathers on him. I am guessing that in a month or so he will be ready to fly, although who knows what the weather will be like by that time. I had to tell the war stories that happened, but what surprised me was the response to them. In this world, it seems war was quite commonplace, especially battles between monsters, so it was all taken a lot easier and with a lot more jubilance than I would have guessed. The next day came quickly, and I was quite pleased by being able to cook with proper utensils. Flame-cooked meat, raw roots and stew can get kind of tiresome. While the potatoes boiled, I had time to start working with the cuttings I have gotten. I started by preparing the ends, then trimming away unnecessary branches while putting some wax on those locations so the tree will heal. By the time I finished my apprentices were also up and during breakfast, we continued our talks about what they had been up to. I was quite pleased to learn that they have finished the two buildings that I wanted them to make. They also spun a lot of string but there was still a lot of raw material to get through. They have been busy. But after a bit of prodding, I was also able to get them to admit that they had gone to the dungeon. What came as a surprise was, they all went. I gave them a stern talking to, especially to Arthur, but I was pleased that they did not go onto the second floor. At least they had that much wisdom. The story they told me was filled with heroics and tragedy if it was told by children but for them, it was just an adventure. Next came the most nerve-wracking part for them. We went to inspect the expanded woodshed. I was happy that they had already brought in all the firewood filling it up. A good choice by them. They seem to quite like my praise for their forward thinking. The construction itself seemed fine. Although I did show them some places to improve and while I explained I looked at their faces. They were eagerly listening. Good. The roof was done with wood shingles. After hearing their explanation of why they had chosen that I was impressed and praised them for thinking of a solution and knowing their limitations. This roof was completely fine and after I inspected it and gave them the thumbs up, they relaxed in relief. While a stone roof was better, a wood one was still good and after many years when it will finally need to be changed, I can make a stone one myself. The smithy was not where I would have liked it to be, but I also know that this one was just a temporary one, so it was fine. But here I had a lot more criticisms to give, especially their location for the forge which was close to one of the walls. I quickly explain to them what they had done wrong and that they had forgotten something extremely important. I¡¯ll let them figure it out while I continued inspecting the rest of the building. Otherwise, it was a fine construction. At least they did a good job of copying the other building. This place would be a nightmare to work within with the thin walls. If I didn¡¯t have the temperature core trait that will make work here in the winter a lot more tolerable, this would have been a pointless building. It seemed that they still couldn¡¯t figure out what was wrong, so I decided to start bringing in the anvils and other equipment needed for smithing. I moved the forge to a lot more central location away from the flammable walls and that¡¯s when Emma finally figured out what they had done wrong. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. There was no ventilation for the smoke to get out and once she had said it out loud the brothers face palmed over their stupidity. I told them to figure out how to fix the problem, but before they start doing anything, to come and tell me what they are going to do to fix the problem. I stayed for a bit and observed their arguing/planning, but it seemed that they would take some time before thinking of anything useful. There are also some important things for me to do, most notably I had to deal with the cuttings I had gotten and the oak saplings. To fix this problem the first thing I started to do was to make some wooden containers so I can store them inside the main house to keep them warm over the winter. While I made the containers my apprentices visited me multiple times until I finally gave them the go-ahead on their fifth plan on how to fix the problem that they had overlooked. During my work, I also had quite a lot of other companions, mainly puppies. I continued their training, and they seem to be listening quite well to the commands I taught them. It is time to expand their training before the winter truly starts. But the question of the winter has been quite worrisome in my mind as it seemed that this one might not be a pleasant one. I finished making the containers and planting the cuttings in them. After bringing them inside I dug up the oak saplings to join the others as well in the main house. It was time to figure out if I can use my true nature connection to see how bad the winter might be. I explained to my apprentices that I will need some time alone to meditate, but before that I also planted the seeds that I got from the goblins for one of the trades. I now have even more that were given to me before I started going back. Some of the seeds would need to be kept until spring but a lot of them need to be planted now. For that, I used some of the vegetable field. This will give them a good starting point. My meditation took quite a long time and then I finally got out of it, it was already close to dinner time. I looked at the sky with a worried look and walked to the main house deep in thought. Everyone around the table at first were quite happy to see me and wanted to show me what they had done to fix the smithy, but when they saw my face, their expressions changed to one of caution. ¡°I was able to get some idea of what the winter will bring, and it will be a bad one. It will be a really harsh winter and one of the main reasons for that will be its length.¡± This news felt like a mountain falling. It was extremely bad news. We will most likely survive but others will not be so lucky especially when they are low on food already. With this long of a winter, a lot of people will starve, even more than expected. When it rains it pours. It''s just bad news on top of bad news. This made the mood quite sombre, so to take our minds off of it we went to see how they did with the ventilation. I was able to give them quite good marks and that helped alleviate the dark mood a bit that we were all in. While in bed I wanted to make some plans for the future. We needed to start winter-proofing our barn and house to make them a bit better. I was now extremely glad that there was so much more firewood, although we might need to cut down on our visits to the sauna. But we will still do one tomorrow. If I hadn¡¯t meditated, we would have done one today, but it doesn¡¯t matter too much if it''s today or tomorrow. I will need to fix my weapons and armour and that needs to be done relatively soon as I don¡¯t want too much snow to hamper my clearing out the village. I will also need to visit to see if anything has happened there as it has been quite some time since I last visited. Who knows what might have happened there? Even with all of those things, I will have a lot of free time during winter. I can do some animal training and if the weather permits perhaps even outside. The winter will also be a good time to train winter hunting and as I learned from the goblins some beasts roam quite a lot during winter to find food. Some fights might come up because of that requiring me to protect my farm. The dungeon will also be a good way to change the scenery but as I have finished the entire thing it¡¯s not that pressing. Especially now because I think my combat skills can¡¯t get much better with the weak monsters there. And I will in no way attack the monster inside the core room. That is its last defence and I have a feeling attacking it will hamper its development. Tomorrow I should also ask my apprentices if they can think of any problems that might come up. Hopefully, there won''t be any but knowing ahead of time we can at least think of a solution. chapter 85 After taking the morning quite easy I put together the best combat gear I could and started to head quickly towards the village. The cold was really doing its job now as the grass started to turn yellow, but I did notice that my land was a bit greener for some reason. I moved quickly and came to the village without any problems. The problems began when I noticed the gate. Two of the hinges were broken leaving only one hinge barely holding the gate in place. It didn¡¯t look like the zombies had caused the damage. Most likely it was due to the huge storm that passed through before I went to assist the goblins. Looking at its half-listing state, I was quite certain that snow will put so much weight on it that it will break, and the undead will get out. I must hope that the cold comes first and not the snow. Even if the snow came first, it would still hamper their movements, so I don¡¯t think they will cause any problems to my farm. Unless we get another big storm, or the undead get smarter. Even then I do not think they will cause us any real problems. Just in case I didn¡¯t get any closer and quickly started to retreat. Getting back was even faster as I was pushing my movement ability to its limits netting me another level in it. I had felt it was close and I was glad that it only took so little effort to push it to the next level. I made it back just in time to start preparing everything for winter. Last night it was already below freezing, and I don¡¯t think it will ever get any warmer than that during the night for a long time. The first thing we all did was close up the large barn doors and start to insulate them. We formed an outside layer using the boards that we had in storage. As we were putting them on, I noticed that some of them were already quite old, so I made a note to make some new ones after this winter. The inside layer was filled with straw that was held up by a thick cloth which also served to fill any gaps. The only way to get inside now was a small door on one of the big barn doors, where we all had to squat down quite a lot to get through it. The rest of the walls were quite thick and meant to help survive winter but when the snow came, we also needed to start shovelling it against the walls. This would protect against the colder weather later on. Most likely we have to do the same with the main house to help us keep warm when it gets really cold. But we will have quite a lot of time before that happens. At least a couple of months before the temperatures really start to go that low. At night we enjoyed a nice sauna, but this time only Arthur and I jumped into the river. It was quite cold by now and when I told them all about jumping into the snow during wintertime, they looked at me like I was crazy. I didn¡¯t let that bother me and we had quite a nice evening just talking about nothing in particular. During that time, I did get a few stories out of them about the winter and what their experience has been with it. The craziest thing was the Gerdrocs. Huge birds that were related to the fantasy bird the roc. Luckily, they were never that big. The problem was that they liked grain, wheat in particular, and often searched for it during winter. My memories of why a granary was a bad idea now made a lot more sense. The next day I took it upon myself to finally fix as much of my weapons and armour as I was able to. The two-handed sword had quite a lot of nicks that needed to be fixed. I was able to get most of them out. Only a few small ones remained. It will not win any prizes but it will still do its job. The bigger problem that I found was an almost spiderweb-like marks that you could only feel with your fingers. It didn''t take me long to figure out that it was because of my energy usage. If I kept using it and pumping so much energy through it eventually those marks will get deep enough that the sword will shatter. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. I am guessing that the metal is just not strong enough to keep up with my power level. I might need to start controlling myself a lot more so I wouldn¡¯t find myself losing my main weapon halfway through a fight. The armour however was a lost cause. It was only good for scrap metal, so I just decided to re-melt it. The goblin commander had done way too much damage for me to use any of it. This brought up an interesting point because the iron oak metal that I have gotten was not the same for every smelted bar. For that, I needed to get some more so I could test what might have caused this effect. For the following week, I brought over all the leaves, a few smaller branches and the acorns. That only took three days. The next four days after that I used to gather and bring iron ore getting myself 3 levels in mining, levelling it to basic 5. It was quite dangerous to get everything around the iron oak because the acorns and leaves were occasionally falling from the tree and unlike a regular tree, they fell with quite a lot of speed and would hurt quite a lot when hit. Every time I see the tree I am mesmerized. It''s truly a nature''s miracle and I wondered how long it might be here and keep growing. A nice surprise was also getting my foraging up by two levels allowing me to pick an ability. I was quite sad that the perfect time for foraging was spent waging war but hopefully next year I can get some good mushroom soups going. There was an ability for better seeing valuable plants, but I skipped that. There was one for better knowledge on how to harvest different plants, but my true nature connection took care of that. The last one was called plant path and I hoped it would work well with plant manipulation to help me guide plant growth and changes in the correct way. But this will need to be put for later investigation. I simply do not have time for it currently. Testing all the different metals was quite fun and I learned quite a lot. The regular iron ore was just regular iron. I use my abilities to figure out how much carbon I needed in the crucible so the correct amount of charcoal was added into the mix to create steel. I think it¡¯s a good idea to just skip the Iron Age and go straight into steel and with my abilities, I could make the mix perfect. The iron oak iron was a different animal altogether. The different attributes of the tree passed on. So, the acorn iron was extremely hard, but it wasn¡¯t as brittle as its hardness would make you believe. The leaves produced an extremely bendable iron that was not easily broken. It was like an instant spring. With the branches, I was only able to make one small bar and make a rod out of it. It produced an excellent metal for making weapons out of. It was flexible yet hard. I¡¯m guessing a weapon out of this will not chip as easily as my sword did. But an even better metal for weapons was an almost 50/50 split between leaves and acorns. But for armour, a different ratio turned out better. After some testing with metal plates and small pieces of chainmail, I figured out that a 20/75 split and an extra 5% of normal steel was the perfect mix for armour. I was happy to find that making chainmail will be easier because I didn¡¯t have to rivet them but could use my merging joints ability to make a connection that was as strong as the metal it was supporting. Although I did have to make a shape for the joint better than just flat against flat, my shaping edge helped a lot. I only needed to make a simple cutting tool to use with my abilities to make making chainmail easier. Another week went by fast, and I got another two skill levels in smithing and 4 in basic metal casting thanks to all my experimenting. The most interesting thing I found out is that my energy core which was making better-quality energy could supply my material modification. For brief moments I could actually use it normally and extend the period thanks to my huge energy pool. Thanks to that I was able to figure out all the precise percentages for the different types of steel. I am also quite certain that it will help me make a lot better items in the future as well. While I was messing around in the smithy my apprentices were busy building a new watchtower between the house and barn and just a bit towards the river. This was a lot bigger and stronger than the one at the bridge. Eventually, I will make a bigger ballista to mount up there so all the buildings and animals will be protected. They still had some work to do but the main skeleton was done. chapter 86 During the end of the fall and the beginning of the winter, I focused on three things. My main focus was making the armour. The first thing I did was start making steel ingots. I started by making the armour mix ingots and then the weapon ones until I ran out of leaves and acorns. The days went by quickly while I did this. Finally, there was only the regular iron ore left which took another few days to finish making into Crucible steel. With this, I was able to get my metal casting tiered up getting me another choice of abilities. Skill increases basic metal casting level 10 is upgraded to metal casting level 1 Choose one of the following abilities heat resistant hands carbon controlled pour heat tolerance Some interesting choices but I will go with heat tolerance. With my energy, it might be super good and hopefully, help save my life someday. My second focus was on training the wolves. We started out by doing simple follow commands, but they were quick learners and we were soon able to start focusing on the combat aspect of their training. While I did my own training Freya also taught them how wolves are supposed to hunt. It was quite magical looking at this and extremely helpful for my own training plans with the wolves. Blue seems to be the natural leader that everyone followed. Comet was really good at sneaking and staying hidden. I would not be surprised if he will get some evolutions or skills in the future to help him get even better. Lucky still seem to be unlucky as she seems to be constantly hurting herself out of nowhere. That being said the injuries didn''t seem to be lingering as long as they normally would, or they just look worse than they actually are. I got two skill levels in animal training but I¡¯m guessing I will be getting more when we actually go and start hunting for rabbits. They are now big enough for that although I suspect they will not have any success for a while. Freya seemed quite proud of her children, and she looked a lot happier now that I was there to help deal with the troublemakers. Although they have been a lot calmer thanks to the training and them getting to do the things that they want to do. My third focus was on my own training and more precisely my physical fitness. For me to get any benefit I really need to focus on energy control and slowing down the movement inside my body, otherwise, even with heavy training, it was hard to get any benefit. It was still slow going to increase my skill levels although with my overall focus on my body and helping it get better, I can feel I¡¯m close to level 24 in my body skill. My apprentices had finally finished making the watchtower. I was quite proud of their accomplishment as were they. To my surprise, it was Emma¡¯s birthday when they finished it. So, we had a small celebration and I did my best to make something sweet. I did succeed a little bit with some carrot pies. They were all delighted with it, and I had to promise myself to make some more. This also got me a level in baking which was a pleasant surprise. I still didn¡¯t understand why those skill levels were so slow, but I hoped when they finally tiered up there would be some nice abilities. The next day my apprentices restarted our arrow-making effort. They had still not gotten any of the relevant skill levels high enough to get any abilities. Even now we had quite a lot of arrows done, about 900. I decided to start turning my grandparent¡¯s room which was currently empty into an armoury, at least for the time being. It was finally time to start making my armour and for that, I needed a lot of fabric, so with the string that had been made I started to use it to make fabric. During the third day of fabric making, the goblins finally arrived and brought everything except for the ore, which they told me will most likely come after winter. There were a lot of horns and leather as well and I got a lot more pouches of seeds and of course there was all I got from the war. The goblins themselves just left everything at the edge of the bridge and started to make their way back. It took us the entire day to bring everything inside. We used the weapons from the goblins to hide the chests full of gold inside the now fuller armoury. After that everything progressed as normal and after another week, I finally had enough fabric to start making my gambeson. For this, we all started to make it under the guidance of Emma as we all needed to sew together a lot of layers from multiple places. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. This one was going to be a full gambeson with pants, a headpiece and a jacket. Doing everything to finish all of this I got my weaving skill up 2 levels tiering it up and 2 more levels on top of that. My armourer levelled up to 4 as well as my animal training and fitness which both levelled up once. Tailoring I got up to basic 8. For my weaving ability pick, I had to take energy weaving. It added another aspect to my energy creations making them stronger. I am truly hopeful that they will become game-changing later on. With the gambeson done it was time to start with the next layer, the chainmail. For this, I will also have multiple pieces so absolutely everything will be covered. Most likely the headpiece, feet and hands will be the most difficult and will require some trial and error on my part to get right. The rest should be a lot easier, and in the end, will literally cover everything. It was time to get back into the smithy. Pulling the wire from armour steel ingots was time-consuming but still a lot quicker than if I didn¡¯t have the strength and abilities to help me with it. I didn¡¯t want to do exact calculations so I just ballparked it in my head on how much I would need and just add 10% to that. Still, it was a lot to do and to my surprise, almost half of my time was just spent on getting the wire into a ring shape and then cutting out the individual rings. I also did another test to see if I would want to temper them and with the tempering, they did seem to be even more resilient, so I had to do that as well. I always knew that making chainmail is time-consuming, but holy shit I had already spent half a month and I haven¡¯t even started to assemble any of the pieces. I got 4 more levels in basic armourer and two in smithing. By now most of the time midday was below freezing and even though it was technically still fall I would categorise the weather outside as winter. When I finally finished the chainmail headpiece a proper snowfall started that will leave behind snow for the next day. And so, our days continued sometimes we work in silence as I was working on my chainmail and my apprentices were making either string or fabric and other days, we were constantly chatting sometimes on funny topics sometimes serious ones. With the wolves, we started to go out for hunts. They still had yet to catch anything on their own, but they were already able to help Freya catch rabbits and they did the same for me. My levels gains are now really starting to slow down, especially the combat ones. The war pushed everything forward a lot and now everything felt really slow. The biggest problem I faced was with the chainmail that will cover my hands and feet. I didn¡¯t want to hold on to my weapon where the chainmail was in between it and my hand, so the solution came with gloves. They turned out like mittens that only covered the top part of the gloves and the same with the feet where the chainmail covered the top of the leather boots. All the armour pieces I have made so far, I¡¯ve made with the intention that I will be growing multiple inches next year so currently everything felt a little bit too loose. Completing the chainmail tiered me up in armourer and I was quite happy to see that increase. I also got merging joints to level up. The choice was easy. How could I not pick elemental armour tolerance? It sounded like a true fantasy ability. After all this time I finally got the body to level 24, only one more level until I can finally level up my adventuring class. Next, it was time to make a similar armour for my feet and legs as I had before. The only thing I needed to change was to make them a bit bigger as I had more armour underneath them and also I made them a bit thicker because I know my body could handle the extra weight. I took a bit more time with the helmet and made a Viking-style one that seemed to be quite commonly used in this part of the world. This one is also thicker than the last one. For my final armour piece, it was time to make an improved brigandine. This time in the front chest area I will have two big plates to protect my heart and lungs better. This will also be the thickest part almost 10 millimetres. There was never in history a brigandine that was so thick, but I know that I might need this even with the armour enhancement ability that made it a lot stronger. Speaking of the ability. From the little testing that I have done with it, it does seem to work better with stronger armour. So, everything I am wearing helps make the ability stronger. Like last time I will also use leather. And for what is the best choice for that has turned out to be the woolly rhino one. It was a little bit thicker than I would have liked but I believed it will add another layer of protection. Finishing it got me another 4 levels in armourer, 2 in smithing and 1 in leatherworking and tailoring. I had finally finished making my new and improved armour. For finishing touches we all dyed as much as possible dark green as this was the colour that I liked the most. It all looked so impressive in the end with that dark green gambeson peeking through underneath the chainmail. The dull grey of the chainmail contrasted against the dark green brigandine and the dark green plate armour pieces for my legs and arms. During the last stretch, I didn¡¯t really do anything else but concentrate on making armour. While I was doing that my apprentices were also preparing something that they thought I was going to like. The rabbits had long ago changed their fur into winter white to match the landscape full of snow although it was not that thick yet. The temperature has also steadily gone down, now even at midday it was never warmer than -10¡ãC. I believe Goose will soon be able to handle the cold weather and I have already seen him flapping his wings. His feathers have started to thicken up. I was almost pleasantly surprised when I remembered that we had a proper thermometer that allowed me to monitor the temperature. It was a nice discovery, and I wouldn¡¯t have expected it to feel so great that I was able to do something that I did in the winter every day on earth. That evening we celebrated with another sauna visit. The next morning while I was preparing everything for my trip to the village to finally clear it out my apprentices finally presented me with what they had worked on. It was not really a secret, but I had not seen what the end item looked like. It was a full rabbit fur cloak with a hood that was entirely white. With this on even if the temperature were a lot colder, I would be protected, and I could also be completely hidden in the snowy landscape. This will be an excellent item later on during the winter but currently, I left it back at the farm because I simply didn¡¯t need it for this mission. I rechecked everything and made my goodbyes with everyone and started to walk down the road towards the village. chapter 87 Walking down the road in my full armour made me feel safe and strong. On my back was a backpack full of arrows and strapped to it was a round shield. On my waist were my usual dagger, knife and my quiver where my strongest short bow lay. This time there was no sword on my hip instead there was the zombie basher that they made a while back. I was actually quite excited to use it. I did some stretches and some quick runs to get used to my armour better. Like that time passed quickly as I reached the dungeon. When I got back from the war I again noticed when I stepped on my land it seemed to give me strength. My exhaustion quickly lessened, and I felt stronger than ever but whenever I left, I didn¡¯t feel it going away. So, this time when I finally left my land I stood in front of the dungeon and just focused on myself to find out what was happening. It took an hour of constant monitoring to finally understood what was happening. And to confirm it I quickly jogged inside my own land. I felt my body state return to the peak confirming my earlier suspicion. My land does give me strength, but it doesn''t dissipate instantly when I leave instead it does it slowly over time. The boost was quite significant in my opinion, especially towards the stamina and refreshing part. No wonder I was able to push myself to work every day from sunrise to sunset if I was getting this kind of a boost. Another interesting thing I noticed during my time monitoring myself was the outside. I happened to notice two interesting things, but I pushed them to the back of my head simply because I was focusing on myself. But now I was able to put my focus on it to further understand what was happening around this dungeon. Turned out my land had greater energy density than the land outside. But what was even more interesting to see was that the dungeon wasn''t pulling any ambient energy from my land and only harvesting from the land not owned by me. I know from the adventurer stories that dungeons in higher energy areas grow faster, and you were able to delve into them a lot more. It was really strange that my land didn¡¯t give any energy to the dungeon or more precisely that the dungeon was unable to pull ambient energy from my land. This was an unfortunate situation. I did want the dungeon to grow and if it could be developed faster my apprentices could level faster and possibly myself as well. If it will make a harder floor. I always wondered if I could claim land and if I could make the land that the dungeon was on my own would it be able to pull energy from my land or would I subject it to starvation? There was also another problem if I did claim more land most likely the adventuring guild will find out and then there would be a lot more questions levied against me. This of course will be inevitable as eventually my apprentices will need their own land and I will definitely try to help them claim it. So perhaps a trial run to see what happens with the adventuring guild might be a good idea. I so hope that the dungeon will be okay. I focused on my class and try to find the land ownership part in it. Locating it I could visualize my current borders and after zooming in on this location I started to exert my will to expand it to include the dungeon in it. Immediately I know that it will work I just needed to keep on concentrating and exerting my will through the class onto the land. Eventually, it actually started to expand. Just before it hit the dungeon there was a momentary resistance, but it soon disappeared and almost changed to a welcoming pull. After that, it was easy to expand to the area around the dungeon, but I didn''t expand further simply because there was no need. What would I do with more land? I could barely use a fraction of its current size. The only reason I wanted the land that the dungeon was on was to perhaps help it grow faster. It was quite draining to do this, but I only wanted a small area, so it was not too bad. It took about 15 minutes before I started to see the ambient energy slowly starting to make its way towards the dungeon. I let out a big breath of air, satisfied that my gamble had worked. Now the dungeon was collecting ambient energy from everywhere around it. This was a pleasant surprise as I had feared that perhaps it would now be limited to my land, but it seems the unclaimed land was still good for it to gain ambient energy. I was quite pleased about this development as I started to walk towards the village. While I was in this good of a mood, I started to just take in all that surrounded me. The landscape was so beautiful the wind-swept snow on the fields was relaxing and the road where no one had walked was satisfying to gaze upon. Like this, I slowly walked occasionally using homesteaders mile while enjoying the landscape and the warm sun that unfortunately only my face could feel because of my armour. My energy sight was a lot better than the last time I was here to hunt zombies. My vision overall was a lot better thanks to all my improvements. Thanks to it finding partway frozen zombies was quite easy. They were still able to move but it was extremely slow making them even easier to kill. I didn¡¯t even bother to string my bow and just quickly moved towards them and just bash their head in killing them instantly. Like this, I quickly moved from location to location and cleared everything around the village before I went closer in. After killing the zombies that I had caught in one of the houses only the village was left. Looking at the gate it was still holding even though there was quite a lot of snow on it already. One thing that I noticed during my killing is that the zombies got faster the longer they were chasing you so if my fighting takes too long, they might regain their full mobility so to clear the village I will still need to be a bit cautious. For this reason, I had brought some rope along with a hatchet that I could use to make a ladder out of one of the walls of a woodshed in one of the farms. Using it I climbed the wall to see inside and find out what was happening. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The zombies were quite spread out and while there were still groups of them quite close to each other they should be quite easy to take out. They didn''t even notice me. They just stood there frozen not knowing what to do. I looked around to see a better location to put my ladder so I could start killing them with the bow. Finding a good location with plenty of free space where no houses blocked my vision, I strung my bow and started to carefully shoot so every arrow would kill one of the zombies. It was quite easy and most of them didn''t even notice when someone next to them died, but my luck didn''t last for long. One of the skeletons walked out of one of the buildings. It seemed that the weather didn''t have much effect on it. It didn''t make any sound when it mimicked a scream or a battle cry as it started to rush towards me. What it did do was make noise when it rammed against the wall underneath me. It didn''t have any mass or strength whatsoever and I was able to put it down with the third arrow that struck its skull. What I hadn''t counted on was the scream that followed. As I looked up the screamer had walked out of the village hall and after it finished its scream it got on all fours and started to rush towards me. I was able to get 4 arrows into it, but it didn''t seem to slow it down at all. ¡°Son of a bitch I think it¡¯s going to jump isn¡¯t it.¡± And just after I finished saying that it leapt, and I had to jump off the ladder so it would miss me. I only had the extra time I needed to drop the bow and pick up my shield and weapon thanks to it jumping an impressive distance. It was so fast, and I barely had time to activate armour enhancement making my entire body and shield glow with a dim light. When it hit my shield, I was surprised by how much that thing weighed but I was still able to divert it and ready my weapon for the next charge. This also came fast but now I was a lot more ready. So, this time it didn''t hit my shield but ate my ability-powered blow right into its skull. This didn''t put it down and while it escaped my second blow it was able to scratch my side, but its claws didn¡¯t penetrate my armour. We looked at each other for a moment and I smirked towards it and this time I was the one that rushed in first. This time my speed surprised it and I was able to land another devastating blow against one of his limbs and this time the crunch of its bones was quite satisfying. It quickly understood that it didn''t have a chance against me, but I didn¡¯t let it escape. I crippled one of its legs preventing it from escaping. Its head was surprisingly resilient, and it took quite a lot of blows to finally finish the creature off. Unfortunately, our fight had moved us close to the gate and its scream had awoken everyone inside the village. So, as I finished the creature and looked towards the village the zombies were able to push their way through the half-broken gate and get free. I just looked at them and only saw easy experience. I rushed them so they wouldn¡¯t have a lot of time to get past the half-open gate and started bashing them one at a time. There were so many of them that they were able to scratch me but with all my abilities they didn¡¯t get past my armour, they were unable to even scratch it, unlike the screamer. With all my other abilities the entire mass of zombies was unable to push me back. It helped that not everyone had even reached the gate yet and I think if they had their entire horde they would be able to push me back but right now I was killing them faster than the reinforcements could reach the back of the horde. It took quite a long time to kill them all as there were more than 300 of those in here. When the skeletons made it to the front thanks to my defences, they were still unable to do anything. I just killed them the same as the zombies with a strike to the head. Towards the end of the horde, I saw a few notifications and I knew instantly that I had levelled up all my classes, but I didn¡¯t look at them now because I still had to clear out the few stragglers. To my surprise, a lot of the houses were completely intact and there were no zombies or humans inside. When I reached the inn, I was tempted to go in as the strange runes were still covering its basement and to see all the loot that the raiders had left behind, but I disciplined myself and went on to clear the rest of the village. There weren¡¯t a lot of zombies left in the village most were stuck inside some of the houses. One of the zombies actually had its foot stuck between a staircase railing as it was trying to crawl towards the exit. The last place was the village hall where the screamer came out of and when I walked inside it was full of items. I saw a few ploughs and other equipment for farming. When I saw a bag of salt I almost fell to my knees and started to cry. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. What ruined it was a few zombies that made noises from other rooms and the fact I could have had salt for a long time. There were a lot of bodies here that were clearly eaten by the undead. As I kept searching the place a picture formed in my head. This was the main staging ground for the raiders that I killed, and it seemed that they left behind quite a lot of people that were probably under them and weren¡¯t fighters. When the zombies raised up their fate was sealed. If I had come earlier, I might have been able to save them but in the end, I was not responsible for their safety. From my memories, I knew that beneath the village hall was supposed to be their storehouses to keep food safe from monsters and especially the gerdroc¡¯s. So, I located the entrance and opened it up to see if there was any food there. And to my surprise it was full of it there were lots of flour in big pots, potatoes and a lot of grain. They were in different areas and as I looked closer, I could see some magical devices that were used to keep the temperature and humidity exactly as needed for different areas of the huge underground storeroom. There was enough food here to last the entire winter and more for over 1000 people which made sense as with the village and the surrounding farms the population was close to it. Using the ledger, I even found out how much of my family¡¯s food stocks are here. But from the ledger, I also found mention of black peppers and other spices and a lot more salt. I quickly went and found the place where they are in and again, I was close to tears just thinking about how good my future meals will be. The storeroom was about 1/4 the size of the village so it was not actually that huge but still, in earth''s medieval times a place like this could have never existed it looked more like modern storage. After a moment I started to think about how to contact Richard because this amount of food would be quite useful for them, but that brought up another question. If the village hall was the main headquarters of the Raiders then what the hell was in the inn? It startled me that I only now remembered it thanks to me currently using my energy sight to look at it. Those runes must have some kind of don''t notice me enchantment or something like that. This time I kept my eyes on it constantly while I walked towards it. I had to kick in the door because it was secured quite well. It was getting harder to keep my focus as I was going towards the trap door that led to the cellar. But I was able to push through it and kick that in as well. What I hadn¡¯t expected was a bolt of water racing towards me the next second that I was barely able to dodge. Quickly using my movement ability, I get out of there and get myself in cover against the inn wall. The runes were now broken, and I no longer had to focus on them so I had a lot more willpower to think clearly about what had happened. ¡°I come in peace. The reason I had to strike the trap door so violently was because it was hard to keep focus on it. All the undead are dead so there''s no need to worry about them anymore.¡± How the fuck could anyone have survived that long down there. But soon I noticed with my energy sight that there were more people down there. How had I not noticed them a moment before? I did not know but I counted 12 of them. How were there 12 people down there alive? What is even happening? ¡°Can someone please answer me or otherwise I will have to treat you as hostiles.¡± This time the movement down there stopped and after a few more moments I heard a voice call back to me. ¡°You can relax good Sir. We mean you no harm and I hope that we can have a civil conversation.¡± chapter 88 POV Michael Everything was so hazy. I felt so weak. But I could feel my strength returning quickly. I looked around and saw that everyone was in the same situation similar to me. It looks like we are all alive. What troubled me was how Bert looked. He looked so starved and weak. How long were we under his hibernation spell? Then I heard someone speaking from outside. ¡°Can someone please answer me or otherwise I will have to treat you as hostiles.¡± Who was that and why would we be hostile to each other? I saw everyone else stop moving and we all looked towards Bert, but he was out of it, barely conscious. My mind was finally able to catch up and my merchant training kicked in. ¡°You can relax good Sir. We mean you no harm and I hope that we can have a civil conversation.¡± None of us was in any position to fight and our strongest fighter was currently too weak to do anything to help us. I so hope that whoever was out there would have a thread of honour. Hopefully, we are not going from finding a powerful beast but it turning out to be the child. ¡°That''s good to hear. I want you all to get out of the basement and stay in the inn''s common room. Just to make sure no one gets any ideas about attacking me.¡± After a short pause just before I wanted to answer him, I hear him speaking again. ¡°There''s no real hurry but let''s not make this too long, soon the sun will start to set.¡± It seems that he is a reasonable one. I hope that his companions are the same. The question is were they the ones that cleared out the undead or perhaps the undead had left the village and they are just scavengers looking for anything that was left behind? Unfortunately, we were truly in the hands of whoever was out there. But before I follow the man¡¯s demand I started to look over everyone here. Bert¡¯s hibernation spell was truly wonderful and kept us safe for way longer that I thought possible. He was still quite out of it, but it looks like he''s slowly recovering. I went out first while everyone else prepared for a possible fight. If they were going to attack it would have been better if someone weaker went out there to find out their intentions, but I wasn¡¯t going to sacrifice my friends or family. It¡¯s better if I was the one to do it. Just in case I hugged my wife and my two children. I prepared myself for my possible death and climb the stairs outside. The first thing I noticed was the cold wind and the snow beyond the broken-down door. For earth''s sake, how long have we been here? How was Bert able to keep us safe for so long? From the summer solstice to winter. So, many months. Hopefully, it¡¯s just the start of it. How bad must the situation be that even my company didn¡¯t come in search of us? But even more surprising is that they didn¡¯t come in search of Bert who was at the top unlike me. The inn looked untouched with a layer of dust covering everywhere except where the door was kicked in. I looked around but I didn¡¯t see anyone and before I got to do anything else I saw someone wearing a helmet peek in from the doorway. After a moment he asked me to come outside, and I did. When I got outside, I was surprised that there was no one else around. There were many undead bodies strewn around and by the look of it they were all done in with a clean hit to the head. A huge pile of them was around the seemingly broken gate but no one else besides that man was around. As I was trying to make sense of what happened I put my entire focus on him. But my thoughts were scattered by the man offering his hand for a shake. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Greetings my name is Rich Dirt. You wished for a civil conversation and so do I. Since I can understand that the water bolt might have been an instinctive reaction. I am willing to give your group the benefit of the doubt and put this unfortunate event but behind us.¡± When I looked at his face there was a comfortable smile on it, and I was honestly quite pleasantly surprised at how reasonably he was acting. So, a scavenger is definitely out of the question perhaps a knight of some sort or a mercenary, but from the quality of the armour, I would have to say an expensive mercenary. I extended my hand and shook his. ¡°My name is Michael Frederick Dukenhime the second. I am a merchant and have been for over 20 years. It''s good to meet someone so honourable as you. The one that shot you with the water bolt is the one that has kept us alive in hibernation and he was a bit out of it. I regret the incident and I am glad that we can put that issue aside.¡± He just smiled and nodded, and my confidence grew that we might actually live through this. It would be kind of rude to outright ask him who he is, some knights are kind of sensitive about that but here goes nothing. ¡°I am glad to see that you have cleared out the village, but may I ask for what reason are you here? Has someone hired you to eradicate the undead?¡± He gave a hearty laugh to that while shaking his head. ¡°No Michael I was not hired by anyone. If I had to put a name to what I was doing here I guess you could call me a scavenger.¡± Why would anyone admit that? Scavengers are not looked at favourably in our society and I finally took the time to truly look the man over. He was taller than me but only by a little. His armour was covered in red blackish blood of the undead. Underneath I could see good-quality armour that was not enchanted in any way but was still excellent for protection. Only a full plate would offer better. The design was interesting and would fetch quite a good price if sold to noble children. I could not see any family crest, so he did not belong to any noble house or any other association as well. Perhaps he was an adventurer but even they usually display their association with the guild. We spoke some more as I kept asking him about what was happening elsewhere after the Kingdom fell. The news was quite worrisome, and I hope that our company was still intact, but I was no longer confident in that. He quite quickly noticed that I had started shivering from the cold and told me that we should continue talking inside the inn. I quickly went and said to everyone that it was safe to come up. When I turned around, I saw that he had picked up the door and pushed it back into place and got a chair to prop up the door so it wouldn¡¯t fall again. I went back to helping everyone get out and the next moment I looked towards him he was actually working to start the fire in the fireplace so that we could get some warmth. That was quite welcome because we were not dressed for winter. Lastly, my brother and I helped the now-conscious Bert move up the stairs so we could finish bringing everyone out and hopefully find some food so we could eat. When we got out, I didn¡¯t expect the completely shocked look on Rich¡¯s face. I hoped that he wasn''t one of those human supremacist nut jobs. POV Rich Dirt I got the fire going and looked around at the people that had come out of the basement. They seemed to be families, looked like three of them. I sat on one of the stronger-looking chairs and waited until the final person was brought out. When I saw what they were bringing out I was completely shocked. Holy shit! That is an actual bear person. What were they called; I know that I know their proper race name. Ursine? Yeah, that¡¯s correct I believe. He was quite tall if I had to guess 6 foot 5 and brown fur was covering everything just like a bear except, he had normal-looking hands although they were quite big with cut claws. He looked so starved and barely conscious. Unlike the other people that looked like they just had a really long nap. I guess he had to be awake for the hibernation spell to work. And how awesome is that? He could put people into hibernation if they were willing. I realized that I must have had quite a shocked face, so I put on an easy smile and took off my helmet. I moved with purpose as I made it to them just as they put him down against the bar counter. I gave him my water skin and after gulping down the entire thing, he looked quite gratefully at me. Next, I took out some rations from my belt pouch for him. He was still too weak to do anything else but eat. I did warn him that if he had been starving, he shouldn¡¯t eat too much otherwise his stomach might reject it. He give me a big but slow nod in return. I looked around at the rest of the group and even though they all looked unharmed I could still tell that they were all quite hungry. So, I told them to stay here as I went to get some food from the village hall. I wasn¡¯t gone for long so basically the situation had not changed. It was a good idea to use the back door, this way I didn¡¯t have to mess with the broken door every time someone wanted to go in and out. The question was what will happen next. chapter 89 As Rich Dirt returned to the inn through the back door, everything was the same as when he left. He saw that the kitchen behind the bar was functional, so he brought a bag of potatoes and a little bit of salt. The bag was quite big so he was using both hands to lift it. As he made his way in and looked towards Michael and the Ursine, he quickly had to bend his body back otherwise the water bolt would have hit his face. There was an moment of absolute silence as everyone looked at Rich fearfully. Only Michael¡¯s dumbstruck face looked between Rich and Bert trying to figure out what had happened. No one knew what happened, much less what was going to follow in the next moment, but no one moved a muscle. Rich Dirt just bent his body upright again and scrutinised the Ursine and noticed the shock on its face. The reason for that shock was simple. Bert used his energy sight on the one that had saved them and saw a core and acted on instinct as only monsters would have an energy core. But now that he scanned Rich again there wasn¡¯t any. Bert truly didn''t understand what was going on. During the zombie killing Rich had left his energy disguise off to fight as effectively as possible. He had forgotten to reactivate his camouflage, but his own energy sight clued him in that the Ursine use the sight as well so he quickly remade his camouflage. But the problem still remained thet he had been attacked once again making everyone worried. While Rich didn¡¯t know the reason why he had been attacked again he wasn¡¯t really mad about it. Rich was all too familiar with PTSD and how it can manifest in stressful situations. ¡°Dude, you really need to stop doing that.¡± He said with as calm and even a tone as possible. Rich followed that up with a healthy chuckle and asked for help with peeling the potatoes as he walked past the still-stunned Michael and Bert. Two of the older women got up and went to help. They still had no idea what was going on so they thought that the best course of action would be just to follow his instructions. Michael was once again thankful for how generously their saviour was acting. While he had previously put aside the chance that he might be a knight, that idea was certanly back on the table. He looked at Bert and hit him with an open hand on the shoulder and in a low voice asked. ¡°What the fire was that?¡± He patiently waited for a few moments before he could hear the baritone voice of his friend. ¡°I swear I saw a core, but I must have been mistaken. I think keeping the hibernation spell up for so long and on so many people, has made me a bit loopy.¡± Michael seemed to understand that, but he still didn¡¯t like what had happened. ¡°Well try to get it under control and please don''t attack him again. I don¡¯t know how long his patience will last if this keeps happening¡± He got a nod in return and finally, his shoulders relaxed a little bit. But his entire body stiffened when he heard Rich talk from behind the bar just behind him. ¡°So, you mentioned you were a part of a company can you expand on this.¡± How long had he been behind them Michael thought while shivers were going down his spine from the scare. ¡°Yes, my company. It''s called the Thorn Rose company. We deal in everything that could make coin.¡± Michael was looking for recognition on his face but there was nothing. They were a relatively big company so he should have heard of them. Admittedly, they were having hard times recently, but so was everyone else. Rich Dirt just kept his eyes on him saying nothing. Eventually, even his composure broke, and he started to talk more about the company itself and what it did. ¡°Well, yes, we have two big branches; one deals with our adventurers that are not part of the Guild. They are mainly our combat force to protect us or sometimes engaged by others as mercenaries or they do dungeon-clearing missions. Those services are only for private dungeons and not guild owned, of course.¡± ¡°Then, of course, our other main branch that deals with all kinds of trading. This is our main source of income, but we do have some fixed shop locations and even a building crew that is available to be hired or if we want something built ourselves.¡± Finally, the tension was broken when Rich cracked a smile. Then he said in a loud voice. ¡°I think introductions are in order. My name is Rich Dirt and I live nearby. I came here to clear out the undead and that''s about it. It was a stroke of luck that I was able to notice you guys and break you out, although I guess...¡± He looked towards the Ursine with a questioning look who promptly responded with his name. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! ¡°Bert, yes, thank you. As I was saying, I guess after I killed the undead Bert would have noticed it and got you out anyways but then you would have been left here without any contact with the outside world especially because I must give this sad news. There really isn¡¯t anyone around here that¡¯s alive. Even the closest town is basically empty and if I understand correctly the people left are not the most welcoming ones.¡± ¡°Most everyone has moved on to the county capital and beyond into adventurer guild control areas. So basically, the situation is quite bad.¡± After his last sentence silence fell in the inn. The younger people were quite frightened by what was said. The adults started to think of solutions on how to stay alive. But Rich didn¡¯t let the silence go on for too long as he wanted to know everyone¡¯s names and their general relationship with each other. There were three families altogether here and Bert who was a friend to them all. The first one was Michael¡¯s family. It turned out his family was visiting his brother and Michael had come to bring them back to the duchy capital when everything started to go wrong, and they had been stuck here. His brother was the village class smith living here with his family and the last one was the owner of the inn that they were currently occupying he was a friend to the rest of the people. And both the inn owner and the class smith were part of the company as well. After that Rich just observed how the people discussed and argued about what to do next. Some wanted to stay here while others wanted to move to the duchy capital like they originally planned. Then came up the problem of contacting their company but it turned out that Bert could accomplish that with some sort of a spell of his. But he told everyone that he didn''t have the energy to accomplish this currently and would need a few days to replenish his energy stores while still working on recovering himself. Then came the problem of food and how much of it was still left in the village. Rich didn¡¯t hide the fact that basically, the entire storehouse was still full of food. This came as a surprise to everyone. Now everyone was a bit more reluctant to go elsewhere knowing that they could easily survive the winter here. The only problem was protection, and they didn''t want to rely on Rich for that. While they were still discussing Rich went and sat beside Bert and before he could say anything Bert spoke. ¡°I¡¯m really sorry about the attacks. I guess I¡¯m too jumpy from being down there for so long.¡± Richard nodded his head. ¡°Understandable and don¡¯t worry about it. I wanted to ask you about the way you have for contacting the company you guys are a part of. Can you explain more if it isn¡¯t rude to ask?¡± Bert gave a toothy smile. ¡°It is a bit rude but an understandable curiosity. I am surprised that you already don¡¯t know this especially because you must be in solid silver.¡± For his questioning statement, he only got a waved hand implying that he should keep talking. So, he wants to keep his secrets. I guess I can understand that. ¡°From my druid path I have gained access to a tree teleport where I can use two trees that I know and connect them so we can quickly travel between them. I am not the only one to have this power in my company and we have something we call a messenger tree at our headquarters. For the full teleportation, I need a team of supporters to help me charge it. Usually, for messages, I can do it myself but I¡¯m simply too drained currently.¡± Rich was absolutely fascinated by everything he heard. Bert seemed to be in a talking mood, so he kept asking about the company Bert was a part of. He learned many things but mainly that they might be a good connection to have. They had trade routes so he could sell the bows he makes and buy resources from them like salt or anything else he needs. Gears started to turn in his head. Having this company in this village would be quite a good idea. ¡°Hey Bert, what if I could help you with the message, I have some energy I could give depending on how much you would need.¡± Bert¡¯s head snapped to look at Rich. He was quite surprised about this turn of events, and it seemed that Michael had also been listening to their conversation as he quickly made his way to them. Before he could say anything Rich looked towards him and spoke. ¡°I am guessing that every town and city that has the rule of law is probably bursting with people, and they will be low on food already. Perhaps you can give your company a message about how much food is here and they can perhaps bring some people to protect you guys and bring some more families here.¡± ¡°I mean this village really isn¡¯t owned by anyone anymore so it might be a good idea to have someplace safe for your company people.¡± His statement made everyone pause and think about what he had said. It didn''t take long for people to start to see how good an idea it was. Michael quickly got out his writing utensils and a piece of parchment and started to write. Rich watched him and was quite sad that he didn¡¯t know how to write, but he could read a bit because he had been taught somewhat and it did look like he was writing down the correct things at least the parts he could understand. Rich helped Bert up and the two of them along with Michael started to walk outside towards the village centre tree so they could send a message. Rich watched in fascination how the spell was prepared. Bert used some ingredients, hand gestures and some purposeful energy manipulation to make a small greenish hole appear on the tree bark. It looks like energy-based magic can be really complex and useful. He had to supply most of the energy as Bert manipulated it to keep the portal open. Michael quickly pushed through the message after which the portal immediately closed and they both had to catch Bert as he almost fainted from the exertion. chapter 90* Bert was helped back into the inn and set down so he could recover. The food was ready and divided among everyone. Rich got out his meagre supply of smoked meat but at least everyone got one small piece as they started to enjoy the meal. They didn''t talk about anything important and stuck with simple stories to pass the time. Rich indicate that he would sleep in the village hall and leave the inn to them for the night. This pleasant calm dinner contrasted with what was happening on the other side of the message portal. Tom was behind his table reading the food supply list. With every paper, he finished reading another sip of brandy went down his throat to comfort his worried mind. The situation was not looking promising for anyone and if the nature oracles are to believe this winter will be a long one. They would need to do some favours and cash in some favours, but they would make it through the winter without losing anyone from starvation. But that is if there are no conflicts and hoping for that is like hoping you won¡¯t get burned fighting a fire mage. They had already consolidated as much as possible and beefed up their defences as much as possible, but they had lost too many people and given up too much to rescue the rest. At that moment to Tom¡¯s annoyance, his door swung open violently as one of the people responsible for the message tree ran in. In his annoyance Tom hit his table making a sharp and loud noise. This froze the man that had run in. In the next moment, Tom took a deep breath and spoke in a barely controlled voice. ¡°Why have you barged in like you own my office?¡± There was a moment of pause and the messenger seemed to finally understand that he had been a little too excited getting here. Instead of apologizing he quickly put the message on the table and spoke. ¡°This message was received 10 minutes ago from Michael and Bert.¡± He didn''t say more, just turned around and escaped before Tom¡¯s mind could start working again. His mind started working when he heard the door close. Quickly he started to read the paper that was given to him. One of the big weights had been lifted from his shoulders and he was in a good mood knowing that they were alive. Now he knew what they were actually up to, and it turned out to be them just going to bring more family here before everything went downhill even faster. And here I had hoped that Bert was going through a druid quest so he could finally advance his level. The missing presence of Michael was actually worse than Bert¡¯s. Many of their trade routes that are still alive are barely bringing any profit and he could help us quite a lot on that front, but the question is how to we get them back here. But as he continued to read, he understood that some plans needed to be changed and quite a lot. An empty village ready for 1000 people to survive the entire winter was practically a gold mine where all the gold was already processed into bars and just waited for you to take them. But if anyone caught their movement everyone would be rushing there. ¡°Damn it.¡± Why couldn¡¯t Bert open portals on his own? Then he could come here, and we could portal everyone needed there, and no one would be the wiser. Even if we went to get him it would take too much time and then even with the portal people will notice that many of us have gone missing. Right now, there''s still movement between towns and cities. We just simply don¡¯t have the time. Tomorrow at 9 o¡¯clock they will be opening the portal again so we can send the message. We need to prepare our next actions before that. I will need to call in everyone and it''s already quite late. Then of course there is Rich Dirt, his name has come up again. He was even the one that helped Bert open the portal by giving his energy and he will do the same tomorrow morning. Looks like he is a competent fighter and better equipped and stronger than Meredith wrote in her diary. But currently, he is nothing more than a curiosity. It¡¯s more important to secure the company¡¯s survival through the winter. Tom got up and at a hurried pace went out of his office and quickly down into the common room. Everyone he needed was here drinking, gambling or just passing the time. ¡°Bert and Michael have contacted me. There is much to discuss and plans need to be changed. So, follow me.¡± Quickly cards were thrown down and mugs were drained as multiple people quickly got up and started to follow Tom back to his office. ---- After the dinner Rich excused himself taking his helmet with him. He left to find a room for him to stay in that wasn''t too gory and luckily, he did find a room that was not touched by the undead. Giving energy to Bert was different to when he gave energy to Francis or Goose when he was still in his egg. He was able to give it to the body before but with Bert, his energy wouldn''t go inside but stay outside and would be guided by Bert. Kind of similar to his camouflage that sat on top of his energy. Helping open and keeping open the portal took about 1/3 of his energy. So quite a lot for only a few seconds. I wonder how much it would take to keep a portal open. Definitely more than he had or perhaps better quality of energy was needed. Just before rich went to bed, he checked his notifications. Class levels gained: homesteader level 15 --> 16 true archer level 13 --> 14 The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. heroic soldier level 13 --> 14 Ability levels gained: armor enhancement level 1 --> 4 active camouflage level 3 --> 5 heavy blow level 16 --> 20 upgraded to mighty blow Skill levels gained: armor level 2 --> 5 energy emissions level 9 --> 11 Stats: strength +14 dexterity +12 vitality +11 endurance +2 empathy +2 intelligence +2 perception +4 constitution +4 presence +2 The next day came quickly and even before the sun was up Rich was already working. He found one of the wagons and pulled it close to the village hall. He then proceeded to start loading it up with salt and spices. Anything else was not important in the village except the stuff in the glass smith workshop but since the owner was still here, he decided to wait until they all woke up to ask him. The wagons couldn¡¯t hold everything and just in case he also wanted to leave room for glass so most of his time was spent thinking about what to bring and how much salt could he fit and bring besides all the spices. He had already tested that he would be able to pull quite a heavy load although the journey back would take quite a lot longer than usual. He was quite certain that his movement skill wouldn''t work when pulling something. He just looked at the wagons with a pleased look and picked up the bag of potatoes he was going to bring so everyone could have breakfast. Inside the inn, only the children were still sleeping. All the adults were discussing their situation. There were still a lot of questions to work out, some of them about Rich and who he really was. It was starting to cause problems as some people were starting to get worried about his identity and others were still hesitant to ask them. This conversation was cut off when the back door opened and Rich walked in with a smile on his face. ¡°Good morning. I brought some more potatoes for breakfast. Oh, and Albert I wondered if I could talk to you about the glass pieces you have. I¡¯m in need of some and I was wondering if we could discuss if I can acquire some.¡± Albert gave a crisp nod. He was not expecting a business deal from the only person here that wasn''t a part of their group, but his salesman training didn''t fail him. The women went to help with the potatoes, and they again shooed Rich away leaving them to do all the cooking. Rich moved back and indicated to Albert that they should perhaps move into his workshop and Albert agreed. Michael and Bert decided to join, and they all walked towards the workshop. During the walk, Bert spoke up. ¡°Rich I wanted to ask you something. Are you a druid of some sort? I ask because I sort of feel something similar from you as I get from other druids?¡± This question shocked everyone except and after a bit of walking when they were almost at the workshop Rich spoke up. ¡°Are druids perhaps connected to nature with a trait?¡± He asked in a questioning tone. ¡°Yes, they are. So you have something similar. This makes complete sense and why it was a bit different from what I am used to, you are not a druid but still have that trait. You seem to be an interesting man Rich and I hope we can talk more later on.¡± He asked in a chipper tone. ¡°I would quite like that, but I will be leaving after you receive your message.¡± He continued before Michael could protest. ¡°Depending on the message I can come back when needed but I need to go back and inform my people and the wagon is already loaded.¡± He ended his sentence by pointing towards the wagon that he had loaded up. It took a bit longer for everyone to calm down and Rich encourage them all to wait until making any further plans until they received the message from their company. Next, he described his needs to Albert and showed what he needed. The glass smith said that he already had all the pieces he needed only a little cutting was required. Albert was surprised that Rich wanted pieces that were so small usually he just broke them and remelted them. Thanks to everything Rich had done he just wanted to give them to him and after a bit of back-and-forth, Rich accepted the gift. When they finished loading them up, they went to eat breakfast and after that, it was time to open the portal so that they could receive the message. They were already waiting at the tree and their current topic of discussion was on the portal. Rich couldn¡¯t stop himself and needed to ask. ¡°Hey Bert, you said that the problem is that the company doesn¡¯t have anyone that knows this tree except you, and we don¡¯t have the required energy here to keep it open or to open it.¡± ¡°My question is if we opened a small portal why couldn''t someone with the same ability take control of it on the other side and make it into a portal so we can get everyone needed here or something like that?¡± There was absolute silence as the words started to sink in. It was only a few minutes before they needed to open the portal. Bert and Michael looked at each other and quickly started to run towards the inn leaving Rich just standing there without any answer. Quickly Bert told Michael what to write as he was quicker at penmanship. Rich wasn¡¯t completely correct, but the idea was there. They couldn''t make it happen now. Bert once again thanked his mother for making him study druidic magic so diligently. The changed portal spell needed some extra components for his plan to work. Half a minute was left until the deadline so Bert and Michael quickly ran back. The spell for the portal was started but he knew that they would be a bit late, but it shouldn''t be too big of a problem. They should have been ready for a few minutes now and they will wait for a few more if it was a normal situation but with the current happenings, they would most likely wait for half a day hoping for the message. So, perhaps they didn''t need to hurry so much but habits are hard to break. On the other side, a tree stood with a lot of people around it who were waiting for the portal to open. After the required time had passed nervous energy started to permeate the surroundings. They all had stayed up through the night trying to work out a plan, and in the end, they had to surrender. There wasn''t a good solution. The best plan was to slowly start bringing small groups of people to the village over the following months. A bad plan among worst plans. But what could they do? So as the portal opened a message was sent through and they all were quite saddened that they didn''t find a miracle solution to solve their problems. What no one expected was the portal to stay open longer than it was intended and then a change happened with the portal that only the observant ones noticed. ¡°Bert has changed the portal so they can send a message to us.¡± A druid told everyone and not a moment later a rolled-up piece of parchment landed on the collection tray. The portal disappeared and Tom quickly walked forward to read the message. Everyone saw his eyes widen and fear started to grip their heart. Tom quickly gave the parchment to the druid. Then everyone saw his eyes going wider, but he quickly nodded and finally said. ¡°Oh, that could work but we would need some expensive ingredients and a lot more energy must be given.¡± Tom nodded to this and cleared his throat and spoke. ¡°We have ourselves the miracle solution that we were trying to find.¡± His face broke into a wide smile something he had not done in a long time. chapter 91 I left the village quite a while ago but with the slow pace I¡¯m guessing that I¡¯m about only halfway back home. I will need to make my way back to the village in three days. Then I will get more information about what they will plan to do but I am pretty sure that they will send at least some people to the village. They all seemed good enough people so let''s hope that they will be good neighbours. Pulling the wagon was a lot harder than I imagined mostly because of the snow. The wind had blown snow into thick furrows that were unevenly in my way, so I had to take some time and clear those if I wanted to keep pulling the wagon. Otherwise, it was quite a good workout. In about half a day I made it to the border of my own land and as soon as I crossed it, I got my second wind so I could pull the wagon all the way back. My apprentices weren¡¯t worried because I already told them that I might stay overnight in the village, but they were excited to see everything that I had brought. They were even more excited when I told them what had happened. The possibility of a proper village with people being so close to us made them feel a lot better. I told stories that the villagers told me and about how I cleared the village during which we were able to bring everything into the house. Some things went into the cellar while others stayed in the kitchen. We parked the wagon in the workshop. Then I looked at the sky and figured, with their help, that we just had enough time to make the window frames that I wanted and to install them. So, I quickly explained the plan to everyone, and we started to work so we could finally put windows into the sauna. While we were quite close to finishing installing them, we also fired up the sauna so we could enjoy it today. During our second rest cycle, Arthur gathered his courage and finally asked to be able to go into the dungeon again. I had nothing against that but that brought up another possible issue. They were all already level 13 and if we kept doing dungeons, they will most likely get to 20 and their class will develop into a proper homesteader like myself. That meant that we would need to build them homes and claim their land. As I relayed that to them, I also explained that the class will not upgrade unless that was done. There was a pause as I just contradicted myself. Why did my explanation change as I kept talking? I was quite surprised to find out that the explanation was is correct. Somehow it seems the class fed me the information as I talked which was a really weird experience. I had to silence their questions because I didn¡¯t want that connection to disappear. I focused on the class and my need to help my apprentices and further information became clear. Turns out the way that I claimed land was extremely inefficient but for small areas, I guess still quite good. But in order to claim the large lands that my apprentices needed we needed to make something called border rocks. Again, the information on how to make them sort of appeared inside my head. Any regular rock the size of a basketball or larger would suffice. Certain runes needed to be carved into it and then placed at the edge of the desired area and if enough of them were used they will help the homesteader claim land. Those could also be used to expand my land although it would not be as easy as claiming the first land and would require a lot of willpower and you would actually need to believe that you need it for it to work. I was kind of shocked about my class just giving me this kind of information. I tried to get more information but all I got was the need for a home and the border rocks for a brand-new homesteader to claim land. I took some more time to digest the information and then explained what I had learned to my apprentices. They weren¡¯t as happy as I thought they would be but after some prodding, I learned it was because they were a bit scared. I then tried to alleviate that fear simply by stating that the earliest they could possibly claim their own home was not the coming year but the following one. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. It will take the entire spring to scout the locations that they felt suited for their future needs and then we would need to start building their houses and other buildings that they wanted. Then prepare some fields for the next year when they could finally start to live there by themselves. That did help alleviate their worries. Young people have always thought that anything that wasn''t coming up in the following year was far in the future. But our discussion didn¡¯t stop there this meant that this winter would not be just spent at home doing some craft work we also needed to start gathering a lot of building lumber because apparently there was a lot of building to do next year. I was quite excited. I originally want to focus on building my own buildings like a smithy and the bow workshop. However, they weren¡¯t something I needed right away and honestly, they would not be quite as exciting compared to starting a brand-new homestead or three. My head was spinning with all the ideas going through it and I was probably more excited than the future homesteaders. While Rich was the most excited the second most excited was George as he started to explain hurriedly and excitedly. ¡°I want something similar to what you have here Rich, but I want to be closer to the river with the main house and I want it to be a big house at least later on where my entire family could live.¡± ¡°And I want to have a big family. I will have a beautiful wife and at least a dozen children.¡± After he finished saying that he gave a large and boisterous laugh. Emma and Arthur rolled their eyes, but Rich looked at him like he was interested in hearing more. When he saw Rich¡¯s look, he continued. ¡°I want to have lots of farmland, but I think even more I would like animals, lots of them.¡± There was a small pause like he was confirming his statement to himself before he nodded and sat back in satisfaction while looking up and dreaming of his future. Rich looked at him in a melancholic mood but then he turned towards Emma asking. ¡°What about you.¡± Emma was a bit startled but collected herself quickly. ¡°I don¡¯t really know but I guess mostly farming although some animal products would be extremely useful for my crafting.¡± ¡°For farming mostly plants that I could use in my crafting so not much food.¡± She looked at Rich and asked. ¡°Is that fine not to grow so much food? I mean we are supposed to be farmers and farmers supply the Kingdom with food.¡± Rich looked at her for a few moments and then tilted his head a bit. ¡°Who said we were farmers and for what Kingdom are you producing that food?¡± There was a moment of heavy silence that brought even George back from his daydreaming to think about this. Emma eventually said. ¡°This is weird we would be living for ourselves. I wouldn¡¯t need that much food to feed myself or perhaps my future family so only a small part could be used for food growing rest for my crafting. ¡°There was another small silence before she continued. ¡°I could even get away with a lower amount of land if I perhaps traded with George.¡± To that, George nodded and spoke. ¡°From you, I could get some clothes and other necessary items made from fabric and leather.¡± They both nodded to that. But Arthur was still the most sceptical and he expressed it. ¡°It¡¯s all well and good for you guys but what am I supposed to do with a big piece of land? I have literally no interest in farming or raising animals. Perhaps some weapon crafting but even that would be a side project I would just want to fight.¡± Both Emma and George wanted to persuade Arthur to see their point of view but just before they wanted to start arguing Rich spoke up. ¡°Do you want to fight humans or monsters?¡± Arthur¡¯s head snapped up in surprise. He had not expected a question and especially not that kind. As he started to think about it his siblings glared at Rich. They clearly did not want Arthur out there fighting but Rich ignored them as it was not their life they were currently discussing. ¡°Humans are fine, but I guess I would want to fight monsters more, like in the dungeons and I have enjoyed the rabbit hunting quite a lot. Even that was quite different from the dungeon. But I don¡¯t know what exactly made it different.¡± He looked quite confused at the end. Rich just nodded and told him. ¡°It''s the sense of danger, the rush of a life and death fight. Some people are built differently they crave the fight but there is nothing wrong with that. But you are correct; it will make your homestead a bit different from ours.¡± No one understood what Rich meant and they just kept looking at him expectantly, but he just kept quiet as one corner of his mouth started to pull up into a smile. The first one to crack was Arthur as he yelled. ¡°Dammit just tell us.¡± Rich smiled at that and explained. ¡°Well I would still recommend you to do some farming perhaps a vegetable garden, maybe fruit trees or something like that would be better for you.¡± ¡°But I think your homestead might need to be built inside a forest and you would be something like a Ranger of that area.¡± Arthur became a lot more excited as he thought about those words, but Rich quickly added to that. ¡°It would be even more perfect if it had a dungeon on it that you could run similar to what I have.¡± Now that short-circuited Arthur''s brain for a second and then it started to spin even faster thinking about all the possibilities. After a bit, he smiled and started to dream as George did. Rich nodded to himself and after a bit, they went in for another session. chapter 92 Last night had been interesting, we discussed many things and made many plans but most importantly we need to start gathering more lumber. It¡¯s a perfect opportunity to train the wolves more and to teach my apprentices a new skill. But I didn¡¯t want Francis to miss this, and I knew that if he found out he would be pretty disappointed. So currently we were all working inside the barn to make a cold room against one of the barn doors. This way when we open one side of it the cold will not get into the entire barn just inside this small room. It would be big enough for Francis so we could get him in and out. It was a bit more time-consuming than I first thought because we need to make it not just one board thick but make it a bit more insulated from the cold. We got everything done in about 6 hours, but we didn¡¯t go into the forest today because I wanted to start teaching them a bit more about energy control and trying to get them the energy storage stat. After that, it was time for them to learn how to train their bodies. Today I just teach them the basics and how to keep training themselves without me. Mostly we focused on running as I wanted them to get the running skill and eventually homesteaders mile. The day went by quite fast, and I was pleasantly surprised to get another level in my mentoring skill. It felt to me that I had too many skills and abilities and I wondered how people deal with it all. Let¡¯s hope that someday soon I would get to be able to talk openly to someone about skills and abilities or perhaps a book if I could learn how to read this language. By the end of today, they all got fitness enhancement and running skills which, I was quite happy about although I don¡¯t think that they were that happy about half a day of exercise. The next day we started by doing a run then we prepared everything so we could go logging. Francis was quite happy to finally be able to stretch his legs and then he figured out that he will get to do some pulling making him extremely pleased. Freya was apprehensive about going back over to the bridge, but her children were quite excited about exploring a new environment. I had even modified one of my backpacks so that Goose could be in it so he could also come with us. The bond between us was a bit stretched because of my long absence but I now worked on strengthening it. Through it, we could understand each other better and I hope that eventually, we could even communicate this way without ever having to talk. He had quite a lot of fully developed feathers now and I believe that he would be ready to fly soon, and I couldn''t wait until I can experience it through our bond. Logging itself started out quite slowly as I needed to teach them everything, but they were fast learners and I believed I had at least a little bit to do with that. Arthur was able to cut faster than his sibling''s thanks to his abilities and his better control over them. His siblings didn¡¯t have a combat ability which I explained was quite a missed opportunity for them. It didn''t take a lot of convincing when they could see how useful a combat ability like this could be for everyday use and not just for combat. Even though I teach them most of the day I was still the one that cut down the most trees. The only thing to slow me down when I was done teaching all the time was someone having to unload what Francis was pulling to the edge of the forest. He could have done it all by himself if he had hands to unhook the chains, so I also needed to use my movement ability to rush between cutting down trees and unloading. Even then I still needed to use a lot of my other energy abilities so that I wouldn¡¯t waste my regeneration. I wondered where this energy was coming from. Was it myself that was generating it or did it come from someplace else? My inner energy was getting stronger as I got more stat points not just the amount of it. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. It was a slight change but thanks to my monitoring it for a big part of my gains I was able to pick up on the change. This made me wonder how strong people were that made it to the top of the power hierarchy in this world. Was there even a max level here or could you just keep going endlessly and perhaps become a God, who knows? Speaking of God this is one thing that has surprised me the most about this world. Religion didn''t seem to be an everyday part of regular life. There wasn¡¯t even a church in the village, and I was never taught about the gods by my parents but I¡¯m still quite certain that some sort of religion exists. I have a vague memory of it in a story my grandfather told me. This is just another factor that requires further exploration similar to mana and magic. I¡¯m quite certain that mana and magic are the pain of energy sort of like a rock, paper, scissors effect. This is a weakness that I would not like to have especially because I don¡¯t have mana of my own to counteract it. But somehow energy and mana can live together I have seen it multiple times. For this reason, after we were done with everything we wanted to do today and had eaten our dinner I was in my room staring at the mana orb that I got from the goblins. I started by using my energy sight so I could see mana even though the only way I get to view it was by seeing the absence of energy. When I used my energy sight all the colours seemed more vibrant, and it changed the world that I looked at. I wonder what mana would look like if I had a similar ability. Would it be similar or are they completely different? I hope one day I will get to know. I prepared my hand by slowing down energy movement as much as possible and trying to get as much of it out of my hand as possible. Even then I still probably had 100 plus stats worth of energy when I picked up the mana orb. Instantly I could see the emptiness trying to burrow its way into me and at the same time consuming my energy. Consuming was the wrong word here, it was more like battling it and dissipating it. Mana won that battle quite easily, and I had to endure agonizing pain as I kept viewing how it started to move into my hand. As I hold the mana orb with my entire hand every part that was connected to it the mana tried to pierce into my body and at the same time into my energy body. My energy was fighting it trying to push it out and it did it without my command. Still, my energy was not weak, and I could already see the mana orb had spent up a small part of its reserves trying to penetrate me. So, I concentrated on trying to eliminate as much energy as I can so the mana could get deeper inside. I had a theory on how people become mages and hoped that it was true so that way everyone had the possibility of becoming a mage. As time passed and I worked hard even sweating a bit from the pain and exhaustion of trying to eliminate energy from a part of my body I could see it getting deeper inside and indeed starting to form a mana network similar to what I have seen inside other people. The mana network in other people looked like the meridian system from Chinese medicine or a cultivation network from xianxia novels. When the network had reached halfway to my elbow, I understood why everyone can''t be a mage. The beauty and correctness of the mana lines started to break apart leaving a muddled part as it kept trying to reach deeper inside. At first, I thought that it was something that I could fix, that I needed to help correct when I got mana control. Help it out a bit to fix the pathway but as it kept going further towards my elbow it went back to normal for only a little bit before it got messed up again. After a bit more of agonizing pain and time, I came to an understanding that not everyone¡¯s mana network was strong enough or it just had too many defects for it to work. The first plan was a failure as I dropped the mana orb and release my control over energy and watched it quickly rush in and eliminate the built mana network quickly. It still cost me quite a lot of stored energy. If I can¡¯t join with it, then I need to find a way where my energy cannot be so easily beaten by it. I spent multiple hours trying to see if I could eliminate manas advantage, but I only found a single way that just made my energy a bit more resilient to it when first contacting mana, but after that no matter what I did it simply didn''t matter mana was just too efficient at eliminating energy. This made me think about why mana wasn¡¯t dominant in the world, but the answer was quite simple. Not everything was energy and mana, there was quite a lot of regular space in between that acted like insulation. Also, there seemed to be a lot more energy in the world compared to mana. Energy itself is quite porous on the surface so the only thing that slowed down the mana was making the surface smoother, so it didn''t have the openings it needed to start burrowing inside. My control simply wasn''t good enough to make it so smooth that mana couldn¡¯t find a way inside. But this was still a way to counteract or at least protect my energy from mana intrusion. For this experiment, I got the level of energy manipulation. Let¡¯s hope that I can learn to control energy fine enough so I can actually complete this idea. chapter 93 POV Tom It¡¯s almost 9 o¡¯clock and we are all waiting for the portal to be opened again. Our 2 remaining druids are currently here and will attempt to complete Bert¡¯s plan which will grant us access to a huge stockpile of food and a safe place where our families can go. I have yet to sleep during these three days so much needed to be completed. All our plans needed to be changed but everyone was brimming with energy as we figured out how good this actually was for us. I am still amazed at how much our future prognosis changed with this development. Before this, we would barely be able to hang on with the fighting that will most likely happen towards the end of the winter when everyone was starving. It would have cut down our membership a lot and a lot of our families would suffer. The only reason this situation was accepted by our leadership was that absolutely everyone would have suffered the same and there was no escape from this fate. Now we can get all our non-combat personnel and families away from the overcrowded pockets of civilization making it quite easy for us to protect our interests and even attack when needed. No one would be able to cripple us or kidnap family members to try to get secrets or turn our members against us. We have already needed to deal with one such problem but luckily this will fix everything. If nothing changes, we will become one of the strongest companies and powers left in this region and if we can keep ourselves away from politics with all the new powers that have arisen we could become the sole trade power in this region. This of course is easier said than done as many of the small powers that currently are just city-state run by powerful adventurers or remnants of the aristocrats were a bit power-hungry and, in some cases, quite mad. Things would get even worse if the adventuring guild pulls out. There is no certainty in this, but rumours say that they are stretched so thin that they can barely do anything and like us, they might need to consolidate their power. This might mean that they will leave this area or choose to strengthen it, either way is not the best for us. One would bring stability but that would cut down our future development or when they leave, they will create a power vacuum that would quickly be filled by the smaller powers that have arisen. This brings opportunity yet danger. Thanks to this Rich Dirt we have a possibility of reaching a greater stage and truly becoming a power which, we can use to protect the people we love. Currently, two teams are waiting. One that will open the portal from this side and one that will go through that can open the portal from that side. This way we will always have a connection both ways strengthening our hold and if necessary, bringing fresh people back here when needed. Besides the portal team in this first wave is a holding force that will go through with some more families that have skills that will make running a village possible even downright easy. One of the biggest questions in the last three days was if we were going to use a village-binding contract. But it was determined best not to claim any land in our name as the adventuring guild will find out and then everyone else will as well. It''s best to keep this secret as long as possible. Also, there does not seem to be any village-binding contract for sale anywhere even on the black market. We were a bit late as the markets are cleaned out of any item that can give you ownership of land. The small portal finally opened exactly on time and our team got to work wrenching control from Bert. Soon our druid changed it and made it into a big portal so we can go through. The ingredients for this spell cost a lot but the food in that village is easily worth 10 times more in the current market and in a month or two it would be worth 100 times and after that priceless as it will be something that doesn''t exist and how can you put a price on something you can¡¯t get. I wanted to go through it myself to check it out, but it just wasn¡¯t efficient. I was always needed here. Perhaps when things calm down and true winter settles in and before the fighting breaks out, I can go and visit but most likely it will happen in the spring. Then we will have to see if we will even keep our presence in that village or move everyone back, but this we will not know before the winter ends. People were now moving quickly and one by one they disappeared into the tree transported a long distance away. With one second two months¡¯ worth of travel. Thank you, Bert, for showing us how important druids can be. The portal closed and the courtyard seemed so empty. Hopefully, the message we will get back at the end of the day will be good news and we can start to bring more people through and get Michael back here to deal with our trade as our current traders are swamped. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. I finally felt the exhaustion of the last days and quickly made my way to my bedroom so I could sleep a few hours and then get back to work. POV Falyr Hrasnel I had just finished talking with Tom and waited with the other members of our company that were going to go through the portal. This village was going to need work. The defences needed to be hardened and buildings repaired. But the most difficult job of all is managing all the teenagers that will be there in a few weeks. It made my head hurt thinking about them and even more that I needed to train them. I have seen war, monsters that will break gold ranks and looked into the eyes of assassins and yet nothing scared me more than a group of teenagers that didn''t have a purpose. Everyone agreed to that which is why I was sent there to teach them fighting. Running the village was a secondary concern and something I can do even if dead drunk. I was able to get some more instructors in different areas so hopefully, they won''t have time to get in too much trouble but who knows you can never use logic with them. Otherwise, the place is quite good with not too much danger. The biggest threat in the area by the last account was goblins and we will need to scout them out to see their numbers. Don¡¯t want a horde too close to our families. For meat the grass sea the village was named after was perfect. As I understand there is a huge number of rabbits there. From our last report, the Count of the area was quite strict on what resources people could gather and with quite bad punishments for anyone who disobeyed those rules. Because of that, I understand that it was quite a poor region at least currently. It is at the edge of the northern civilization so it''s kind of weird that they would try to limit people¡¯s expansion towards that region. If there was a reason for that it is now lost as many of the nobles that would know it are dead. Lastly, I was notified about a certain person I needed to keep an eye out for and try to find out all I can about him. If they only let me capture him, I could have answers to their questions in a few hours, but no we needed to stay civilized. The portal finally opened, and I quickly got ready to give the order to go through the portal. It didn''t take long for the druid to complete her task, and I quickly gave orders to the first group to start to move in. I felt the ring get hot around my right-hand finger notifying me that the scout confirmed that everything was as it should be, and it was safe to go through. Why couldn''t we see through this portal? That was the most vexing part that I haven¡¯t figured out. With a Wizard¡¯s portal you can see the other side so we wouldn''t have this problem of not knowing exactly what waited for us. Hopefully, they will be able to fix that in time. I moved in with the second group and gave orders just before I left for the final group to follow us in 5 seconds. Going through a portal is a pain in the ass and I felt my stomach lurch as it always does. But I have done this so many times that it was only a momentary discomfort. I quickly looked around to see if everything goes alright. The first person I noticed was Bert as he was hard to not detect. He looked to be in quite good health although I could see he is still a bit tired and a bit too skinny from what I remember. The weather here was a bit colder than down south and there was more snow, but otherwise, it seemed quite satisfactory. I quickly moved away from the portal edge so that no one would run into me and quickly observed the rest of the village. It was quite standard although the buildings were a bit more damaged than I thought. I guess there was quite a lot of undead here. I could see the burnt piles of what I assume were the undead as the stink still linger a bit although in a few days it should be gone. I quickly gave some orders for the supplies to be taken inside and Michael quickly showed the way. Merchants were all efficient like that. The next thing that caught my eye was a person in full armour although his helmet was removed. He was a bit further back leaning against a building staying away from the commotion and observing everything. He looked relaxed yet ready to move if needed. I could instantly tell that he was a fighter no, a warrior even. I rapidly used the different abilities that help me estimate an enemy¡¯s strength, but I got quite a weird set of responses. His stats seemed to be that of middle silver, yet his energy strength seemed to be close to gold. But his energy didn¡¯t look like it was at that level, perhaps he is hiding its strength from sight. A good policy but it will not work with me. Despite that his overall danger level was higher than it should have been. I wish that this ability of mine would get to the next tier faster, that way I could get a clearer picture of why he seemed more dangerous than his energy strength and stat points showed. If I had to guess it had to do with his experience level. I can confirm that he is 12 but I guess his true age must be a lot older than that. You can''t get that level of experience with only that little time. As I looked and measured him, I noticed that he did the same to me and I could have sworn that I saw his eyes change but it was too brief for me to confirm. He gave me a small smirk and I knew that he had figured out how strong I am, yet he was not afraid. Why is he that confident when he can barely challenge a high silver? But after a moment I figured it out that he is just 12. Who knows where he will reach in just a year, not to mention after that? Next, I saw Michael going towards him and they exchanged a few words and then started to walk towards me. I had lost track of time the portal had already closed, and I quickly hurried to give a few more orders before Michael reached me and introduced me to this interesting stranger. If only he was a part of our company, I could turn him into someone no one wanted to mess with. As we shook hands, I could feel the strength that he had. As our eyes met, I noticed he was only a bit shorter than me. Those eyes looked old and intelligent, a scary combination and for some reason beautiful. It doesn¡¯t seem that he had any ill intent towards us. Perhaps it would be best to kill him but if we could get him to our side nothing could stop our rise. But I needed to play this extremely carefully so after a few pleasantries I excused myself giving an excuse that I needed to check on everyone but I needed a few moments to centre myself and think of a proper plan of action so this future monster would be on our side. chapter 94 Everyone in the village was currently looking at me. Falyr was having a village meeting during which he invited me next to him towards the end of it. He explained who I was and that I was their neighbour. It was quite awkward, so I think no one expected this to happen but I think I gave a good performance and I guess the system agreed because I got my acting skill to level up. I would have wanted to leave a while ago, but when I learned that Michael would certainly have to leave in a few days and that Bert might also do that, I decided to stay longer. I had to make some more connections here so I would be welcomed and there wouldn''t be an awkward situation as I just show up here, yet nobody wanted me here. For that, I had to thank the new village head for introducing me to everyone during the meeting and he seemed quite welcoming. He was the most powerful person I have yet seen in this world. He felt similar to me, as person who has killed many of his own kind, but I guess his experience is a lot different than mine and I would have a lot to learn from him. During the evening I got more familiar with the glass smith and the innkeeper. Towards the end of the evening I was able to talk to a lot more people in the inn making a lot of acquaintances. The easiest for me has always been connecting with fellow fighters and it was no different here. I didn¡¯t try to get any information or talk about the things that I wanted to know. We just had a good time. Although I did regret not bringing any coins as quite a few gambling games were going on. It will be a good opportunity in the future and if you¡¯re losing and someone else is winning they are more likely to open up and talk to you about things that they usually don¡¯t. It seems that I might be lucky that I don¡¯t know the games although the cards do seem similar and the dice seem to be exactly the same. When I started to walk back it was already dark, but I didn''t mind that at all as my vision was not impaired. I learned a lot about their plans, and it was quite good to hear that they will be bringing quite a lot of people here. Even more exciting is that they will be training their young here. Now that would be quite interesting to see how they will do this. The only problem I can see is the excuse to come here. But my apprentices might solve that problem. I would just need time to get their running level high enough so we could all use our movement skills to get here in a reasonable time. When I got back, I filled in my apprentices on what I learned, and they were quite excited about everything I told them. The next few days were quite pleasant as we seemed to have fallen into a routine. In the morning there was running which the wolves for some reason joined in, except of course Freya. She seemed to be quite content with the peace and quiet for the few hours we were training. Next came our visit to the forest and slowly my apprentices were levelling up their skills so they could get some abilities to make this job easier and by doing so all their future tasks as well that require hitting something with combat ability. In the evening we occupied ourselves with our own projects and energy control training. I was quite surprised by how hard they seemed to find it but with my explanations, they seem to be able to grasp everything a lot better. I was constantly training energy control trying to make my energy more resistant to mana and it seemed to be an excellent way of gaining levels as my energy manipulation leveled three times and its leveling speed doesn''t seem to be slowing down at all. But I can also understand why. What I am trying to achieve is extremely difficult and requires quite a lot of control. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. At first, I start my training with the help of abilities to boost my control, but I slowly stop using them and try to control it just by myself. I found that this way is quite good to learn as I could feel myself getting better by the hour. We decided that every four days will be a rest day because I could see that they needed the change. After all, our current schedule was affecting everyone¡¯s mood. I think one of the reasons was the darkness as the daylight has gotten a lot shorter. This is also why after another cycle and another rest day I brought up the possibility of us going into the dungeon so they can get some level up to their skills and get some more combat experience. But before that, there was a big surprise as Goose finally started to fly. The feeling I got from our bond was amazing. It boosted my mood a lot as Goose finally felt like he was complete. Our visit to the dungeon was quite smooth. I kept away from all the combat and let them handle everything. But I did correct them whenever they did something wrong or give them ideas about how to improve. My biggest contribution was teaching them how to better notice the traps. It was quite hard for them to notice the traps as it was pitch dark without our torches. Even I had to learn how to spot the traps when not using energy sight. I did let them come onto the second floor but this time I was the one that did the fighting and I let them watch. Everything seemed to be so easy now even when I focused on my energy training while fighting. What surprised me the most was that there was actually light on this floor. There wasn¡¯t any in the hallways only in the rooms with grass. The last time I hadn¡¯t even noticed because I always used my energy sight so I could see everything brightly. I could see that they were quite surprised at how easily I handled everything, and I could see the spark in Arthur¡¯s eyes wanting to get stronger. I didn¡¯t let them come with me onto the third floor as I could not guarantee their safety. I told them that I might take quite a long time so they can leave and go back to the farm. While the fighting was a bit tougher on the third floor it was nothing compared to what I experienced the last time I was here. Mostly my armour enhancement made this quite trivial. But I already knew all this as fighting experience was no longer my goal here. One of my goals was to get a bit more class experience. If my calculations were correct I had to do quite a few runs to get a full level which was a bit disappointing. But my main goal was to observe the dungeon core and to learn more about how to control energy from it. As I sat there looking and trying to learn it still blew me away on how amateur I am compared to it. Still, I felt like I made great progress even though this wasn¡¯t reflected in my achievement page. One thing I noticed about the dungeon was that there were no extra mobs so my fear about connecting the dungeon to my land causing it to go out of control and start pumping out mobs faster than we could kill them didn¡¯t happen. Now came the question of how often can we delve and for that I need to keep an eye on it. If the innkeeper was correct, then it used to be available for a delve once a week to the adventures that used to be in the village. Let¡¯s see if the frequency has increased. We continued our normal routine after this and on the third day, the first room finally had a creature. If I understood correctly this was supposed to mean that the dungeon is ready to be delved again. I delved into it alone and finished it. It did seem to be fully ready in only three days. This was quite a big change from a week to three days. Had my land''s energy levels truly gone up that much? During the next cycle after we finished another dungeon run everyone finally got the running skill to tier up and fortunately everyone got to pick the homesteaders mile. One thing I noticed after the dungeon run was how badly my apprentices were equipped, so this cycle we didn''t focus on the forest but on making some simpler armour for everyone. Arthur of course wanted armour similar to me, but we currently didn''t have time for that. I was not against it but perhaps we could buy some pieces for him, or I can work on the armour when it gets too cold and the snow too deep for us to go into the forest. Currently, all the lumber that we cut down was stacked at the edge of the forest. There was simply no reason to bring it closer to the farm as there was no way to dry them during the winter. chapter 95 Falyr watched out from his office window. The village was now a lot busier as about half the people were here that they are planning to bring. There was still a lot of work to do but the defences were now a lot better. They had sacrificed one of the more damaged buildings to make watchtowers so they could keep watch from every direction. The gate was also beefed up making sure that any monster on the silver level couldn''t get through. The surroundings were a lot calmer than they were expecting. The only problem seemed to be goblins although there were a lot fewer of them in the area than expected and the only tribe in the area was a weird one that didn''t seem to have any breeders. He had never in his long life seen a goblin tribe so big yet have no breeders. It was worrying but only in its implication the fact that they didn''t have them meant they weren''t a threat, and they weren''t going to become one anytime soon. Otherwise, this area was quite perfect for habitation even downright pleasant. The only other thing that was out of the ordinary was further north the lands of Rich. His lands seemed to have a higher energy density, yet they did not seem to spill over to the surrounding areas, a weird phenomenon. Another bad thing is that the dungeon that was supposed to be at the edge of his territory was now inside meaning they couldn¡¯t run it as they originally planned without coming to a deal with him. This was a problem as the older teenagers needed some experience and the next closest dungeon was a bit too far away. I might need to make a trip to talk to him and work out a deal that would work for both of them. I would be willing to give quite a lot as I do not like the looks on the teenager''s faces as they just loitered around. Falyr was quite out of it for a long time just watching out of the window without seeing anything. He was broken out of his thinking by a guard that was running across the village towards him. As soon as the young man saw that his commander was looking towards him, he waved his hand in a sign that meant there was urgent news to give. Not wanting to let the problem go unattended Falyr quickly went down and met the guard. ¡°Commander four people are approaching from the north. They looked to be quite well armed, and one matches the description of Rich.¡± Said the newly promoted guard just fresh from completing his certification to become a green guard. This news came as a surprise to Falyr it was not expected that Rich would bring anyone else here, but he was not surprised about the additional members as he already knows about them. ¡°Get back to your watch and let them in without any challenge. Dismissed.¡± The guard nodded, saluted and quickly made his way back towards his watch to notify the watch Lieutenant of their orders. Falyr moved towards the training grounds and watched as multiple instructors gave pointers to different ages of students. He was surprised to find Bert sitting on a bench and watching how the young trained. He decided to join him and hoped that Rich would seek him out so they could talk. ¡°Good day Bert.¡± He said in a cheerful tone, but he only got a nod in response. Understanding that his friend might be in a bad mood he asked. ¡°What seems to be the problem? Something on your mind.¡± Bert snapped out of his daze and properly looked at him. He saw him thinking before he answered. ¡°It¡¯s the land to the north. Rich Dirt¡¯s land.¡± A stone hand gripped Falyr''s mind making him worry and he quickly asked. ¡°Is something wrong with it or do you think that something is wrong with him? If it¡¯s needed, I will get our top team here and we will get to the bottom of this no matter what.¡± Bert looked surprised at him and quickly shook his head. ¡°No no nothing like that it¡¯s just that the land reminds me of the Grove where I grew up.¡± He seemed to take a few moments before continuing. ¡°The land up there just feels so familiar and well the best I can describe it is the correct way a land is supposed to be.¡± This relaxed Falyr mind. He had already come up with dozens of different scenarios each one more horrifying than the next and what might have been going on up there. But now he felt himself relax. ¡°Please don''t scare me like that.¡± He said in a breathless voice A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Bert laughed at that then his ears seemed to twitch, and he looked towards the gate. ¡°Yes, he is here and with three other people it would seem.¡± Bert took a moment before speaking. ¡°I truly hope I will get a moment to talk with him. He seems like quite an interesting fellow.¡± At that moment Falyr remembered something that he hadn¡¯t done and groaned out loud. ¡°Bert you are going to find this funny, but I might have forgotten to inform you of something.¡± Bert did not look amused at that and just asked. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Yes, you know how I am forgetful sometimes, but we knew of Rich before you contacted us.¡± Bert looked quite shocked to hear this, but his eyes didn''t waiver as he waited without comment. ¡°Yeah, you see it turns out he might be a low-impact traveller.¡± He saw Bert¡¯s eyes going wide and a small growl coming from his throat. ¡°Nothing to worry about, they had a mage with them when the adventurer''s guild made first contact and you know how the mages are all taught how to recognize soul markings. His soul markings are from this world and there is no red marking. Even more importantly he seemed like a well-adjusted person eliminating 99.99 percent of any true trouble he might bring. Hearing this Bert was finally able to calm his racing heart he still remembered one of his last red marks. Those things are the worst monsters in existence. He had to remind himself of one of his old friends that was not from this world and how he was a good person. Unfortunately, bad memories seem to come quicker to his mind. One of the most frustrating things about outsiders is that every time one comes you can flip a coin to see if disaster comes or wisdom awaits. He thought back on his experience with Rich. He was pretty certain that the coin flip was a good one in this case. It was at that moment that Bert looked up and saw him. He instantly used identify to confirm that there were no red markings and after simple black text came up he let out a calming sigh. But the next thing he noticed made him go completely still. The three people that were with him all had a nature connection similar to him, exactly the same. But now that he had the comparison, he knew why Rich¡¯s nature connection was different. He couldn''t put his finger on it before because it was so long since he last visited his Grove and saw the matriarch. Rich had true nature connection. It was something that only the truly lucky druids were able to get. Why did he have it? Just in case he checked again but there was no red which means that it was gotten legitimately. This completely stopped Bert¡¯s brain and the next time he came back to himself Rich was already introducing his companions to them. He needed to talk to him right now. ¡°Rich.¡± he interrupted the current conversation. ¡°Can we talk in private?¡± He indicated towards the back of the village hall which seemed to be empty of anyone else. Rich was a bit surprised but nodded and started to follow as everyone else was dumbstruck about what had just happened. When they were alone Rich still had a smile on his face when Bert asked him. ¡°You have the trait true nature connection?¡± Rich just tilted his head a bit and nodded. ¡°Didn¡¯t we already discuss this?¡± he asked in a confused tone. To his surprise, Bert seemed completely serious and didn¡¯t get his small joke. ¡°No, we didn''t. How do you have it? Why do you have it? It doesn''t make any sense.¡± To his rambling Rich keep smiling and eventually asked. ¡°It seems really important to you but why?¡± Bert was completely dumbstruck by that question why. ¡°You ask me why. Because it¡¯s an important trait to the druids and any who get it can make their own Grove. A sacred place for anyone that is connected to nature.¡± ¡°So yes, it''s vital. Did you get it through a certain action? How were you able to get it and more importantly how were you able to give a lesser version of it to the people you came with?¡± To that Rich responded. ¡°Why do you assume that I gave it to them, perhaps they already had it.¡± ¡°Do you think me a fool? There is no way some random villagers have it.¡± Bert said in a louder and angrier voice. At that Rich finally stopped smiling. ¡°Why would I just give away my secret? It makes no sense and don''t raise your voice at me. Keep this conversation civil or we will talk no more.¡± This finally shook Bert out of his shock, and he took a moment to centre himself. ¡°You are correct and I¡¯m sorry. It¡¯s just sacred to us. I am guessing it¡¯s something not that easily gotten and yes, I am willing to discuss a fair trade for this information.¡± Rich nodded to that, and his relaxed and happy face returned. ¡°Good it is not something strictly hard, but it absolutely takes quite a while to get. At least my version of the trait but anything further we truly must discuss some equal exchange of knowledge.¡± ¡°But don¡¯t worry it¡¯s not something that can be given on a whim, it''s a commitment for both parties.¡± Bert was a lot happier about this answer and for his blunder and future goodwill he thought up a good way to start by giving some of his knowledge. ¡°There is a reason why I was, let''s call it intense about this discovery. It affects a lot more than people might think and it can give advantages in areas people might not think about. Its one of the more powerful yet subtle traits out there.¡± chapter 96 Bert took a moment to gather himself and then guided Rich a bit further away from everyone. ¡°The trait is an interesting one for what it can offer but most importantly it affects you. Well yes, basically every trait affects yourself but this one goes a lot deeper than just you¡¯re physically stronger because you have stronger muscle fibres. This trait changes your perception of the world.¡± Rich looked a bit taken aback by this news. How much did this trait change his personality? Bert could see the contemplating look that Rich had and let him have a few more moments before he continued. ¡°You are thinking about if this trait changed who you are then I¡¯m afraid to tell you the answer is yes. The most common effect of this trait even the lower version is that it makes you more receptive to nature and its needs.¡± ¡°I personally don¡¯t think it¡¯s a bad thing, but I have known people who would think this is an unacceptable amount of influence. There are many different minor effects it can have but the strength of them depends on the person; some can¡¯t ever pick up iron weapons for example.¡± ¡°If you have a strong personality the way the trait affects you is a lot more subtle, but no one can completely mitigate those effects. Now some people might think this is good, some bad but let me tell you some things that are definitely good things.¡± Rich was a bit disturbed but that only lasted a few moments he did not feel his choices were different like he was forced to make different decisions, but he made them because he understood more. And when a trace of memory came up and reminded him how everything changes you even your dog, he let go of the worry that this trait changed him. Everything changes you in the end. ¡°If you live in nature so not in huge cities or the mountain halls of the dwarves your energy regenerates faster. If you own land, it will be even better, and it can have a lot of other effects as well as I¡¯m sure you already know.¡± ¡°It can also reinforce your energy getting it to a higher tier and that might be extremely useful. It also enables the use and learning of energy-based nature magic. There are a few different forms of it but the one that I know is called druidic magic.¡± To the last part, Rich looked with quite a bemused face. ¡°Don''t look at me like that. I didn¡¯t name this form of magic. Energy-based magics are not widely known and are usually developed and kept secret in different organizations or societies.¡± ¡°Of course, basics are quite widespread because there are lower versions of the trait that are quite common in some areas. There are three forms of energy-based nature magic that are extremely well developed. One is what the beast tribes use. Theirs is a lot more focused on the self and becoming a stronger form of the animal that their ancestors once were. Of course, there is what I know druid magic it¡¯s the most flexible and the last one is used by the elves mainly to shape their cities.¡± Rich tried to keep his face from revealing how much joy it brought to him to learn about all of this but failed which made Bert quite happy to see that his words are being appreciated. ¡°But those are the main points and I¡¯ll be happy to teach you more about this form of magic but for this knowledge, I would like in return to know how to get that trait.¡± ¡°Is this something you would be interested in?¡± Bert said in a hopeful voice. He hoped that his willingness to teach his form of magic would be enough, but his face fell when Rich started to speak. ¡°I¡¯m afraid that this is not enough. You see I¡¯m a simple farmer or at least I was and there are a lot more things about the wider world that I am uninformed of if you could also help me in that department, I would be extremely grateful?¡± Rich could see the tension flowing out of Bert when he got passed the first part of his sentence. But he didn¡¯t answer immediately but thought about his answer. This would be giving a lot of information and my time for perhaps getting nothing back. Bert looked up and ask in a serious voice. ¡°The knowledge you would tell me will be able to help me get the same version of the trait as you?¡± This gave Rich pause; would he be able to give it to him? He sought answers from his class to know if he could take more apprentices and it turns out he can, but he went deeper to get a better idea of what requirements there were. An apprentice needed to have an empty class slot or a class that can be a part of the homesteader class. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. There was more as he dug deeper. He couldn''t give anyone his apprenticeship that had a rare class even if it was a farming class. It needed to be below that rarity for him to be able to overwrite a person''s class with his apprenticeship. ¡°This would depend on a few things but let¡¯s make the trade a bit easier for you. I would want knowledge of the wider world and its workings and just the theory behind energy-based magic and in exchange, you get the knowledge that I have.¡± Bert thought about this for a few moments, but this simple change made it a lot easier to deliver on his part and he started to nod his head. Rich put out his hand for him to take and he returned it. ¡°I guess the trade has been made. It¡¯s quite simple in fact. It¡¯s my class it¡¯s a bit special and if you get it, you get that trait of true nature connection.¡± It was hard to see astonishment on Ursine face, but currently, it was quite clear to see, and it got only worse as Rich continued. ¡°With this class that I have I can take apprentices and this version of the class has the nature connection trait also given as soon as you get it. So that''s about it.¡± Bert finally got out of his stupor and spoke. ¡°That''s about it he said it so casually. This is the first time I¡¯m hearing about this being an option in a regular class pick. For burning shit''s sake, he said it so casually.¡± Bert kept rambling on as Rich looked at him with quite a lot of amusement. When the swearing and ranting finally ended Rich explained a little bit more and when Bert learned about the apprenticeship requirements, he quickly checked his achievement page and let out a sigh of relief. In one of his class slots was an uncommon herbalist farmer class that he simply hasn¡¯t had time to focus on. Need to thank Tom for not leaving me time to level that class. They discussed a little bit more and came to a deal that perhaps in the future they might actually go through it. Bert would teach him proper druidic magic while he was apprenticing under him to get the full homesteader class and get something he had wanted since he learned of the trait true nature connection. But that will need to be revisited at a later date. While most people would be afraid to give out this kind of information and to some extent, it was true with Rich as well, he knew that he needed to trust someone and while they spoke he worked on tamping down his fear of what might become of this. When he thought back about all that he had seen here most people would probably break or couldn''t handle the changes. Now it would be a lie to tell that he was not afraid, but he had the courage to overcome all that might frighten him. He was not always like this. Before the war, he might have been a bit braver than your average person but the war truly made him brave, not afraid of the next moment that might lead him to his death. It was the reason why he was still alive and of course a huge amount of luck. So now again he leveraged his luck and hoped that it and courage would take him through one of the most scariest parts of his new life. Revealing information that other people might deem useful enough to get truly interested in him. While this was going on quite a different situation was happening between Falyr and the three apprentices as they had no idea what to say or do when Bert and Rich just walked away without a moment''s notice. They eventually fell into silence as they all looked at how the training was done. Arthur was looking with quite an interest trying to soak in as much as he could. But to George and Emma¡¯s surprise, they seem to do the same. It seems that going through the dungeon and Rich¡¯s teachings had changed them quite a lot from their former selves that did not want anything to do with fighting. Eventually, they saw Rich and Bert coming back with smiles on their faces. Falyr was a bit annoyed at their smug faces. He had to be here for over half an hour. At least the awkwardness had lessened over time. He was quite annoyed that Bert took Rich away as he really needed to talk to him about the dungeon and who knows how much time they were planning to spend in the village. When Rich was close enough, he was a bit confused to see his apprentices still there. ¡°I thought I said that you had free time until evening. Oh, wait I guess I didn¡¯t say it. Oh well like I said we will be here quite late into the evening so feel free to do anything you want.¡± The apprentices just rolled their eyes at that, already used to the forgetfulness of their teacher. They just shook their heads and said they were quite interested in looking at the training but when they saw Falyr''s eyes and his look they made a hurried excuse to check out the village and left quickly. Now even Rich and Bert picked up on how annoyed Falyr actually was and Bert quickly gave out multiple apologies which Falyr reluctantly agreed to and started to relax a bit. His annoyance returned when he did not get answers to what they were discussing but Rich quickly diffused the situation by asking if he had anything to discuss. Falyr looked at Rich with a calculating look. He quickly came to the decision and spoke. ¡°Yes, there are a few things but perhaps my office would be a better place to discuss.¡± To that Rich nodded and started to follow behind Falyr. He had not extended an invitation to Bert. He looked at the backs of Rich and Falyr and spoke. ¡°I guess I deserved that.¡± And just like that, he sat back to the place he was before and started to think more about everything he had learned. chapter 97 Falyr was sitting in his office trying to take the measure of the man sitting across the table. They had not spoken a single word to each other after they had left Bert. Falyr didn¡¯t know how to go about this. The man across from him was someone he had never had to deal with. Normally whenever he needed to make deals with someone, he had a lot more information about that person. It would seem that he had gotten used to his company providing him with information. It took some time before Falyr made a move. He just needed to think of this person in front of him as an unknown monster and start out by probing. ¡°It¡¯s getting colder, and it will get a lot more in the following months. I hope that you are prepared for the winter that¡¯s ahead of us?¡± Rich took a beat before answering the question. ¡°I don¡¯t mind the cold, but yes it will be a long winter. I hope you''re not planning on bringing too many people here otherwise you might stretch this food supply that fell into your hands.¡± Interesting, barely through the first probing attack and already I am left quite bloodied. The dismissal of winter and turning it around on myself to see if we can handle it and then mentioning that he was the one that got us this food. Not to mention the subtle jab, to not waste his generosity. Perhaps I¡¯m thinking too much into it. ¡°Most of us are already here but we will bring more. We made sure that there is enough food for everyone and we could even send some back if needed.¡± Rich smiled at that and spoke. ¡°Good to see the food not be wasted then.¡± Well, that confirmed it, he''s tangled with more than root vegetables and monsters in the past. He has definitely played this game before, but it seems he is not playing for keeps, more so because it is expected. He must have come into contact with politics. This will be a greater boon than he realizes. As Falyr''s thoughts were churning, Rich made a move of his own. ¡°I do have some extra food that I could sell. We have more than we could use ourselves. Perhaps this might help you through the long winter ahead. I am certain we can come to some sort of a deal.¡± ''Doesn''t even leave me time to think. I guess he doesn''t want me to learn too quickly. He knows that I want something from him and is probing himself. It is weird working with so little information, but I forgot he''s working with the same limitations as I am.'' ''But if I¡¯m correct and he does not enjoy the game, perhaps a more direct approach is required.'' ¡°Oh, I am certain that we can come to some sort of a deal. Food''s worth a lot and it will be worth even more later on, but I am not part of the merchant side of this company. So, I suggest you wait. What I want is access to the dungeon to train our young.¡± Rich smiled as they were finally down to brass tacks and Falyr let out a breath of air. ''It seems that was the correct choice! Being direct would be a quite welcomed change of pace for both of us.'' ¡°I would be quite happy to let you use the dungeon but of course, I would want some things in return.¡± ¡°My requirements are not high. When you go into the dungeon you will take my apprentices with you and train them as you clear it. I am guessing you will train your troops a few times here in the village as well, so include them for that as well.¡± Richard said in quite a happy tone. That gave Falyr pause, and it seemed that Rich would let him have the time to think his offer through. ''Training his apprentices. I¡¯m presuming they have a combat class of some sort. Weird for a bunch of farmers but I¡¯m guessing their class is not a normal one.'' ''He is correct about me wanting to train my team a bit before going inside the dungeon, but it seemed he is after something else as well.'' ¡°How often would you give us access? Having three more people will mean that we will have fewer spots for our members.¡± The answer came quickly. ¡°Once a week.¡± That was a lot better deal than Falyr expected. ¡°We can work with that but that would depend on what else you want.¡± Rich thought for a moment before speaking. ¡°I also want training for myself, combat-oriented and, if possible, more information about the adventuring class. More specifically about paving your own path, and not simply following a path laid down by someone else." The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. This made Falyr pause for a bit. ''So, he truly doesn¡¯t want to play the game, that is actually refreshing. And making his own path, that should be quite interesting as well. Providing a bit more training in general is not a burden for us. Our trainers will have a lot of downtime especially when winter truly sets in and more so in this small village. ¡°This would work, and I can offer the training to your apprentices and yourself until we run the dungeon. I would want to run it on a Friday would that be good for you.¡± Rich had to take a moment he had not used the day names in a long time and was quite used to just doing everything and not paying attention to what day it was. ¡°Yes, that would work. Would you like some information about the dungeon?¡± The reply came quickly. ¡°Yes, that would be preferable.¡± Rich didn¡¯t skimp on the details and shared everything he knew. It took quite a while for them to finish talking but they both stood up a lot more comfortable with each other. Eventually Falyr expressed his wish for them both headed out and make their way towards the inn to continue the discussion in a less formal environment. As the negotiation were going on, the three outsiders to the village were making their way around. After completing the, admittedly short tour, they headed straight to the only open storefront to buy some pastries from the bakery. When the villagers learned that the newcomers were willing to pay and actually had coins with them, it caused a stir. Quite a lot more storefronts opened up hoping they could sell their wares. Rich gave his apprentices a lot of money and said not to be stingy with it, but also to not to just buy junk. So, with his advice in mind, they all went on a small shopping spree. Their biggest purchases were made at the end, in the smithy shop. They all bought a proper combat dagger which they expected to serve them well in the dungeon once things got up close and personal. The straightforwardness of their teacher seemed to have rubbed off on them because when they finished paying the smith, they yelled out so all could hear that they were not going to buy anything else. At first, everyone was quite surprised, but they quickly thanked the trio and closed everything up again. They lingered in the smithy and asked if they could watch the smith while he continues his work. Used to this request from his time in the bigger city, he let the three people watch while he worked. What the smith didn¡¯t expect was for them to discuss his techniques and compare them to their own. Their voices were quiet enough, but one of his traits helped him out and he was quite intrigued by the discussion among the three young people. It seemed they had experience smithing and when asked, they told him they had made arrowheads and nails. The smith gently smiled at that and thought back to his younger days. Then he quickly took 3 iron rods and put them into the coals so he could heat them up. ¡°Come here and show me. I want to see how you make the arrowheads.¡± He was happy when they all accepted, and he was quite pleasantly surprised with their ability to make arrowheads. They must have a skill level that was quite high. He wondered why they all had the skill. But before he could ask them, one of the boys had messed up his current piece but before he could tell him that he needed to restart he was surprised by the next action the boy made. The boy used an ability and controlled it precisely to fix his mistake. But it seemed that the surprise didn''t end with that. ¡°It''s quite a lot harder to work on this anvil. It sort of looks like a big stump! Our teacher¡¯s anvil or even our small anvils are a lot better for this type of work.¡± The three continued to discuss about their teacher''s anvil which seemed to have a few more features that piqued the smith''s ininterest. So, he asked them more about it and the shape they described was something that he had never thought about. Making the anvil a lot better at certain tasks. He had never thought about that, as he just used the same anvil his father used. But now that he looked at it again, it really did look like a stump. Thanks to his experience he quickly absorbed the knowledge the three were sharing and figured out how much more useful different shapes of anvils can be. He was so deep in thought that he did not realize there was no one else around. He didn¡¯t mind letting the trio go and went back to thinking. Seeing the smith''s earnest curiosity and probing questions, the apprentices quickly left hoping that they hadn''t made a mistake. They silently reassured each other and quickly made their way to the last place that they hadn''t visited, the inn. There they waited for quite a long time and as Rich instructed them they didn''t drink too much and spent the time talking with other people and getting to know them better. Eventually, the doors opened up and Rich walked in. He noticed them instantly and waved to them and, after a few parting words with Falyr, headed towards them. chapter 98 The evening went by quite fast and while we were all moving back to the farm, I thought over all that I had learned. I was completely correct about gambling and when I am losing and everyone else is winning people speak their minds a lot easier. One thing that almost made me want to break the table was the mistake I made with my adventuring class. I didn¡¯t need to get to level 25 but to 35 to get the two abilities from the skill. Which of course made perfect sense. The beginner took 5 levels then the basic 10 levels and I needed another 20 to level up the regular one. How could I have made that mistake I have no idea I guess I just didn¡¯t think about the basic and it requiring 10 levels as well. It¡¯s not the worst thing it would just take a lot longer and I need to dive further into this skill to truly level it up without constantly getting my body hurt and having to heal it over time. The positive thing about the adventuring class that I have is that my thinking was correct and turns out the 35-level requirement for the first skill is quite standard for high-level paths. But the most interesting piece of information I was able to get was that you can combine abilities and even skills although that was done a lot less often. Thankfully at the table, there was someone as ignorant as me as he didn''t understand why someone would want to combine them and thankfully someone explained. It was to get those broad abilities like my armour enhancement. Not only are those a lot more versatile it turns out the more you can add the stronger they can get but you can also learn from the ability itself to make it stronger, so overall they are a lot better. I had some good overall abilities already, but I had many different weapon abilities and I wondered if I could possibly combine them all. I also figured out another positive by myself that I have been wondering about for a while now. It¡¯s the pool so to speak where the abilities and traits are being pulled from. It was quite basic when you think about it. If there are no weak abilities to pull from then all that is left are the strong ones so you will most likely get a choice to strengthen one of your abilities and 2 other choices that are a lot stronger or have weird/useful effects. We also got a better idea of when the training will happen. We were invited to the village to participate if we could on Monday and Wednesday and then on Friday, my apprentices were supposed to gather in front of the dungeon in the early morning. Apparently, they were going to do some more teaching and training before they go in and after. I was told that the first training was very basic, but I still want to join and see if I was missing anything important and I was also curious about how they trained in this world. The next day I taught my apprentices a bit more about forging so they could make their own armour pieces. This way I will have a lot more free time and wouldn¡¯t have to worry about making them time-consuming pieces. And with that, the Sunday finished and it was time for returning to the village and the next day get some training under our belts. I was extremely glad that I decided to join although the training itself was basic for this world''s adventuring it still had a lot of required information about the world itself and how it worked. Most of it I have already figured out and here they didn¡¯t sprout the kingdom''s propaganda but laid out everything properly. I did learn more about specialization. It basically helps someone when they have reached the end of their class upgrades which can happen at any point and those are actually quite useful, although the teacher emphasized that it was always better to progress to a higher rarity of class rather than taking a specialization. But what the specialization did was a lot more amazing than I ever thought. If you would think about the world being normal and the system giving you control of this world in the form of abilities, then the abilities you get from specialization were the strongest form of that control. The rarer your class the higher your level will be and when you take the specialization the crazier abilities are available to you. Sometimes you get even more things that bend the world to your will. While a rare class specialization if it was a top tier one might be able to destroy a building in a single punch then an epic one could destroy a small village and a legendary one a capital city and turns out that there is a rarity beyond legendary. Mythic and with that you can take your class level all the way up to 160 but when one of the younger boys asked what was beyond that the teacher told. ¡°Get to that point and find out.¡± Quite an interesting answer. When I learned this, I wondered if I could get any of my classes to the legendary tier so I can get them to a max level of 80. Currently, I didn¡¯t think that I will be able to get past that but who knows? Getting to max 80 will also take quite a long time as I also learned the rarer the class the more you would need to gain a class level but I already knew that. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. There was also some basic weapon training and for that, I was quite thankful for as I was actually worse than Arthur although my stats and instincts help me quite a lot. In a real fight, I would of course wipe the floor with him. I finished off the day in the dungeon clearing out every monster and studying from the core. Finally, I got level-ups in all my classes. Level up homesteader homesteader is now level 17 strength +4 dexterity +4 vitality +4 endurance +2 empathy +2 intelligence +2 Level up true archer true archer is now level 15 strength +5 dexterity +5 vitality +3 perception +4 Level up heroic soldier heroic soldier is now level 15 strength +5 dexterity +3 vitality +4 constitution +4 presence +2 The next day''s first half we spent logging and after that, we just started doing things that we wanted to do. I focused on understanding my body skill more and truly dived into it. The skill affected everything about my body and the higher it got the more control over my body I got so that I can start to change things. With that I could help boost my recovery or if needed pump myself full of adrenaline to give me the edge in a dangerous situation if needed. But most of all it helps me understand my traits better and how to truly bring out their strengths. The main philosophy behind this skill was that the body is the foundation that holds up everything else and the stronger it is the better you can support the things you get from the system. The next day the most important thing I learned was how to combine abilities and skills. It wasn¡¯t that difficult, but it took a lot of willpower and visualization of what you wanted. There was a possibility that you could fuck up and lose a lot when you combined abilities like for example me trying to combined charged throw with razor-sharp blade I could lose their ability to put dangerous amounts of energy into the throw making it overall a lot weaker ability. They also cautioned about combining skills as that could cause a lot more problems and especially because you could only get one ability even if you had the chance of it being a better one. This day I also spent time with Bert learning more about the wider world and the magic systems in it. This world had six continents that are populated and known, well technically 7 but the north pole is completely covered in ice similar to our Antarctica. We lived in the central continent that¡¯s higher up and almost touching the ice of the north which is just called the ice wasteland. The continent we are on is called The Green because goblins originate from here. Apparently, the rest of the continents and species mounted a full-scale invasion two millennia back to clear out this place from the huge amount of goblin hordes and claim land here. To the east is the continent that¡¯s called Verlum which is mostly forest and steppes although they seem to have a good number of mountains as well, but every continent seemed to have them. It''s the place where most of the beast kin originate from. To the West is the continent of Albereny the home place of the elves. To the South are two continents that are quite close to each other and separated by huge amounts of islands. Both humans and dwarves call those their homeland. If you look at it on the map the southern continents are in a narrow horizontal line that is longer than Eurasia and the three continents above it, in vertical lines spaced evenly almost as tall as Africa but also a lot narrower forming almost a W. It''s all connected by what''s called the shallow sea that connects all the continents. Everything is quite close up leaving a lot of free oceans to the east and west that no one has been able to traverse and survive as the monsters out there can swallow a ship in a single gulp. They know that there must be some land out there because from the east when there are big storms sometimes dragons can land on the continents bringing destruction wherever they go. Sometimes the west has the same problem, but it happens a lot less often. Truly dangerous dragons are quite a rare occurrence. It turns out that there is another form of magic here. One is mana-based, one is energy-based and the third one these holy-based. They form a rock, paper, scissors triangle. Where mana triumphs over energy, energy triumphs over holy power and holy power triumphs over mana. The holy power is quite rare as there is no holy power in this world nor are there gods, but the power seems to come from someplace else and slowly over time it has become a lot more abundant. Holy power is extremely powerful but limited in its versatility and has lots of rules and limitations. Mana-based is the most versatile only requiring somatic and verbal components to make spells happen while energy-based needs somatic, verbal and components. Holy-based only needs verbal. The energy-based magic needs components to help mimic what mana can achieve on its own. It¡¯s sort of like mana being a universal tool that the person can use to get anything they dream done but with energy, you would need a catalyst in form of components that have certain properties to help achieve the same effect. Basically, energy magic is derived from mana magic although with all three systems everything is thrown out when the system itself takes over. You could have an ability that you just use whatever source of power you posess and cast something without having to do anything else. Just point your finger if you want even that would be optional and blast as many fireballs as you can from your tank of chosen fuel, energy, mana or holy power. But getting those system abilities is hard and you can''t get them by just casting continuously. It¡¯s something you would need to get the usual way. chapter 99 There was a lot to absorb, and I knew that studying the druid magic system will be extremely difficult and most likely will have limited use in combat situations. Although as I understand with a bit of preparation anyone who uses it can be quite good at support if you are talking about Bert¡¯s version of druid magic. Currently, I believe the best way to continue is to focus on my energy control side of things. For that, I started to prepare to combine my abilities. I had an idea when I was sleeping about what I wanted them to do, and I wanted to basically merge everything that affected weapons into a combined ability. It would be something where I could add even elemental powers if I get any abilities that give those effects. As I learned from the lecture, I needed to visualize what I needed and hope that I had enough materials in the form of other abilities that I could make it work. So, while we worked in the forest, I also worked on my mental image of the ability I want to make. My current plan was to make it sort of like different bullet types so that whenever you used this ability you won¡¯t necessarily need to use them all together and could use different parts of it on different kinds of weapons. Hopefully, it would help it overlap and most importantly every action that I will take will be funnelled into this ability making it level up faster. I just hope that it won¡¯t be too XP-hungry, and I won''t screw myself into having a low level in it for a long time. The next day I followed my apprentices to the dungeon and listened for a little while to the lessons that they were getting but I didn¡¯t stick around for too long it was time to start combining. For that, I just put on my rabbit cloak and sat down on the bridge so the flowing water would help me stay focused on the task and where I hopefully will not be disturbed for a long time. There were so many skills that I thought might work together so I started breathing in and out slowly and focusing my mind into an iron will. Into the mix went penetrating slash level 9, silent shot level 3, shaped edge level 6, piercing thrust level 11, energy arrow level 1, razor-sharp blade level 6, mighty blow level 1, charge throw level 6, splitting arrow level 18 and weapon enhancement level 10. I could feel them all trying to resist but once my visualization of what I wanted them to be was connected their unwillingness stopped yet the resistance didn''t. For 4 hours I pushed and pulled them together, yet my mind was strong and so was my body. The hardship finally started to ease when the melting started. It didn''t last for long, and I finally got what I wanted You have gained a new ability weapon of abilities level 12 I was covered in sweat like I had run a long time, but it wasn¡¯t like it took everything I had to combine it. I took the blade that was beside me to see if everything worked as I wanted it to. My visualization didn¡¯t crack and stayed true. I now owned an ability that had everything I used to have and more. Now I could even get piercing on my arrows and make them a lot sharper. If I had a morning star, then the spikes would also be affected and made sharper and pierce better. I could even charge the weapon as I did with a javelin making an extremely devastating attack but the slow build-up still remained. As I kept testing it, I found it to suit my fighting style quite well giving me a lot of options that I could use, and it seemed to work with my instincts quite well. Then came the moment I was most afraid of; testing this ability with the tools I have. I think I was more worried about this moment than I was about messing up the visualization. But luckily it seemed to work with the tools I have so all my woodworking and stone working will still be superpowered. I honestly couldn¡¯t think how much longer I would have to take with everything if it wouldn¡¯t work on tools. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Next, I wanted to merge light steps, light load and substantial counterweight. It was an extremely simple job as they were similar to what they did. Making the visualization what I wanted it to be was quite simple. The new ability was called weight control level 1. It didn''t seem to have any boosted effects, but it didn''t also have any negative ones. Honestly, I didn''t care at least they were combined, and I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about them. But with that, I stopped for the day, but I already had a few more ideas on what I wanted to merge next. The rest of the day I spent with my animals and generally relaxing while also forming my next visualization. When my apprentices came back, they also share their stories, and it was quite fun to hear about their adventure into the dungeon. It seems that the group they were in was extremely green and they told me that it was quite good to be experienced compared to someone else. The next day was a free day for us all so I went back to the bridge and started to focus on my next ability. I planned to combine all the sights but also add in tracking information trying to make something truly useful. I also wanted this ability to take advantage of my trait changing eyes so hopefully, it will help. This one was actually harder and took a lot more effort to complete even though the levels were a lot lower and there were fewer abilities overall. But eventually, I was finished and was greeted with quite the awesome sounding ability. You have gained a new ability dynamic vision I hoped that it would work, and it did even better than I could have ever hoped for. If weight control was a success and weapon of abilities was a great success, then this was the 1% the truly rare combination that made the skill better than its starting pieces. I think my trait changing eyes had a lot to do with it but now I could see so much more. Not only could I now properly see mana I could see heat like a snake can and I bet it has so much more to offer and to no one''s surprise it was at level 1. I was extremely pleased but also extremely tired and while it was just getting to evening, I didn¡¯t do anything else but simply went to bed. The next day I also woke quite late, but I felt a lot better after the long sleep and ready to tackle the next problem. I think I am a little bit addicted to the feeling when you combine abilities and I now know that I can strengthen and add to the ability when I combine them by using the knowledge or traits to help me. So, I continued, and my next idea was to make my command capability better in battle. For that, I went and sat on the bridge again and started to grab a hold of the abilities I wanted to combine. I chose battle aura, intimidating aura, troop defence boost, tactical advantage and booming voice. I wanted to combine them into something like a commanding aura that will boost everyone around me and help me command everyone better. For this, I also poured in my knowledge and experience from my former life but also try to use the strength from my trait strong presence and regal stature to hopefully help me even further. This time the longest part was not pulling together the abilities but while they were fusing. I tried to remember everything and just kept pouring in as much as I can trying to make something that will encompass it all. I might have shot too far because what came out was confusing. The new ability was called commander. My first thought was how is that an ability but even worse I couldn''t do anything with it. I¡¯m pretty sure I needed to be in battle or perhaps training for me to actually be able to test it out to see what it does. Then came Monday and it was time to go back to train in the village. This time I didn¡¯t learn anything new and even disagreed with some of the teachings, but when I reminded myself that it was for adventurers and not for a bigger army group all their talk about provisions and survival made a lot more sense. I also didn¡¯t agree that killing beasts was always a good idea perhaps with monsters it was true but a beast with abilities could be natural for the surrounding nature. Beasts sometimes could fit well into an ecosystem as the apex predator. At least in my opinion. We stuck around the village a bit longer talking with acquaintances that seem to mesh well with each of us. We weren¡¯t usually all together for this as everyone was off doing their own thing and talking to different people. I told them not to be shy and make friends because we couldn''t afford to alienate the closest village to us. We got back quite late but I still ran the dungeon for the XP and testing my new combat ability was quite exciting. I was happy with the versatility I could get from it. Next up will be combining my weapon skills into one skill that way I can hopefully get better abilities. chapter 100 The next morning, we again spent in the forest going further out to choose the correct trees for building and, so we don''t overcut the area and leave it barren. After that, it was time for me to try to combine skills. Most of all I wanted to combine all my weapon skills. Luckily there didn''t seem to be anything different with the process although I did notice more emphasis on knowledge so I wasn¡¯t stingy with it and gave everything I have to the new skill and hopefully create something that will help me a lot in the future. In return, I got a skill called weaponry that seemed to be exactly what I wanted it to be and what my visualization of it was. I can¡¯t say that I¡¯m not a bit disappointed, but success is success, and I shouldn''t be disappointed that I didn¡¯t get something awesome out of it. It was at basic level 6, so I had a lot of work to do to get it back up, but I think there¡¯s still a lot of potentials there to get amazing abilities This was relatively easily achieved as I had a really clear picture in my head of what I wanted. As I looked over my achievement page in the skill section I couldn¡¯t really find anything else that I wanted to combine. Perhaps my animal skills as they were quite similar, but I didn¡¯t have a visual of what I wanted them to become. But then I noticed my two energy skills and wondered if I could do anything with them. What do I want out of them? What do they want out of my energy? The first thing that came into my mind was cultivation. The practice of meditation to increase the amount of energy in your body or improve its quality. The first part of it was completely out of the question as I have tested it a bit and there¡¯s no way to cultivate at least I have not found a way to increase the amount of energy inside my body by myself the only way I know how to get more energy is to get more stat points. But there are ways to improve the quality. One thing is the cores that are in me as they are constantly working on growing bigger and at the same time making higher quality energy. This however is not something that can be forced, it just takes time. So unfortunately I left the skill section alone not coming up with anything useful. In the ability section, there was a bit more promise. One possibility was armour enhancement and elemental armour tolerance, but I felt like I knew too little about those abilities to truly combine them into something useful. Another possibility was energy forms and energy weaving and combining them but again I felt like I knew too little about them. Perhaps in the future, I will have more similar skills to help me make something better. Having found myself a lot more free time than I first expected I decided to go hunting for rabbits with my animals. I got my animal training to level up and honestly, it felt quite amazing having so many animals around me while we were hunting. I wonder what we might look like to other people a few years later. Perhaps I should take everyone to the dungeon in the near future so they could also work on improving themselves. Just before I went to bed my meditation on my body skill finally paid off and I got it to level 25. Then came Wednesday and it was time for another visit to the village. In the morning we did training that was quite mundane, but I felt like my sword control was getting better. Although compared to others I was complete crap. Perhaps fine sword control was not for me, but I still pushed ahead and tried to study it, but I still felt that for me overwhelming and devastating strikes to the enemy might be a better way of going about it. Then came my favourite part of the day, my time with Bert. He was quite enjoyable company and I enjoy it when he taught me about the world. We started off with him explaining more about druid magic. Basically, all the components needed have some mana in them that the component have changed into a certain form that can be used to cast with energy. It was a huge limitation compared to mages and wizards who just needed their minds to manipulate mana into the properties they need. ¡°You see Rich, mana is extremely versatile, but it does come with a huge drawback that''s not mentioned a lot and, in some places, even mentioning it can get you killed. Don''t look at me like that this world is full of misinformation. Wherever you go to different places it''s best if you don¡¯t talk about anything you are not certain is common knowledge there.¡± ¡°Now back to what I was saying. You see controlling mana is not easy especially if it''s inside your own body. There is quite a good and simple explanation for this. Energy strengthens the body and your lifespan. Holy power is neutral it neither helps nor hinders the body. Now mana, it leeches your strength and shortens your lifespan. Mages have found a way to counteract this by having more energy inside their bodies but even that it just helps patch the problem.¡± ¡°A simple rule for anyone using magic is to have one magic class and two classes that give a lot of stats so they can have bigger amounts of energy inside their bodies. If someone for example didn''t do this and got three magic classes to level 40 then they¡¯ll be quite lucky to make it past age 30. But with proper management, high-level mages can live up to 200 years and before they die, they usually like to spend all that they have accumulated into what we nowadays call a great working.¡± This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°You see mana is something that constantly gets stronger over time as it eats the strength of the person wielding it. Mages that have lived for 200 years are the most powerful beings among us. But by that time their bodies are usually so frail that if they even cast once the magic would eat them alive and soon only dust will remain of them.¡± ¡°That¡¯s why they usually do great working to leave something behind from all their accomplishments. The greatest of these great workings you have already come into contact with. I too enjoy telling this story.¡± ¡°You see about 1200 years ago there was a great mage the first one to be called an Archwizard and the last. There is yet to be someone as great as he. You see he was 245 when he started his great working, yet he had two magic classes, but he still followed the rule. He is one of the most famous 6th class holders although nowadays I guess he would be a seven-class holder.¡± ¡°But perhaps I should expand a little bit more on what the great workings are. The power of them completely depends on the person who makes them. Even your average village mage can make something incredible like a sword that can over time develop intelligence and improve itself.¡± ¡°Now this is not called the great working anymore it¡¯s just something a mage can do. Usually, things so small are called artifacts and mages are not the only ones who can make them, incredible crafters can as well.¡± ¡°But why do we call them great workings? Well, let''s start with how wizards and mages were trained back in the day. Nowadays we have Academies but back in the day, it was apprentices. So, wherever a mage lived when they would die, they made a great working on their property. Usually on the house to make it better suited for their apprentice. This happened every time the master died and over time these places become to be known as mage towers and whoever wasn''t its master didn¡¯t have a good time trying to enter it uninvited.¡± ¡°There are still hundreds of them around that no one dares to approach even though their masters are long dead with no apprentices left to take them over. Over time some of the greatest didn''t choose to upgrade their towers or as time went by this became a less popular dwelling for any mage. Some of the greatest great workings are world wonders like the flying island of Calabrian or the Underpass that connects the southern continents with an underwater network of passages.¡± ¡°And yes they are like tunnels on the sea floor but you can just put your hand through it and touch the water and the other side. The trade network this created was so profitable that there are now cities, villages and inn rests inside the network of tunnels.¡± ¡°Then there is the Arena. It¡¯s on the eastern continent''s southwestern tip and it''s located in the most powerful city-state in this world. Or more specifically it grew around it. It''s an arena complex that can have hundreds of simultaneous fights and has hundreds of places where you can watch the action on the walls themselves. You can never miss what happened in the fight because it''s like you''re standing right next to them as they battle¡± ¡°The fighters themselves even have protection in the arena although you still can get maimed and have to pay quite a lot to the healers to get it fixed, but you can never die in the arena while fighting. It¡¯s the most populous city on the planet and hosts huge tournaments. Unfortunately for the past few years, it has suffered a lot and the world tournaments have been cancelled but as the plague has been burning itself out by killing so many people it might soon start again.¡± ¡°Now there are more wonders around the world and I¡¯m quite certain some are kept hidden or perhaps used by associations that commission them. But you see it¡¯s not that easy to make the incredible great workings. Having just one magic class or even two at 160 is not enough and they don''t just do it by themselves they have to have a kingdom worth of wealth and power to help them.¡± ¡°They start by removing their other classes and replacing them with magic ones during that entire time people that have incredible control of their energy and pour there¡¯s into the mage''s body to keep them alive by protecting their body from the mana. Then various methods are used to get the classes to the max level or as close as possible and then the mage starts its great working.¡± ¡°So, let''s get back to the greatest great working ever known. His great working took the combined efforts of two continents pouring every ounce of resources they have into him, but it didn''t stop there. Favours were called in and favours were given out as this great working needed all the information about the achievement pages that was possible to collect. So soon not only the two continents but the rest of the world to some extent put their resources behind this great working.¡± ¡°And yes, all his classes were eventually switched to magic and levelled up all to 160. It was said that his mana glow could be seen the next town over and then he finally started it. The spell didn''t take too long to cast as he was a master of spellcraft and had worked on the spell for a long time.¡± ¡°He was surrounded by the accumulated knowledge of the world and in an instant, it all turned into dust along with him. Everything indicated that the great working was a failure because they can fail and there are more failures in the world than there are successes, but nothing changed and as people tested it, it seems that the great working didn''t work.¡± ¡°It took over a year before someone in a dungeon got the drop that is nowadays called the adventuring orb and it was like a domino that started everything he said would happen. Now we can get a new class with its own system that I¡¯m quite certain you already know about.¡± ¡°That was the greatest great working there has ever been. Some have tried to simulate what he did, but no one has succeeded, some might have made something similar but a lower version of it, but those things are guarded secrets.¡± For the entire story, Rich barely breathed as he was so enraptured with what he was hearing but soon Bert continued in a lot less ecstatic voice. ¡°There hasn''t been a great working for quite some time.¡± ¡°For some reason, the mages aren¡¯t quite at the same level as they used to be although everything indicates that their spells are more powerful as they are more refined over the years. Some people think it might be because of the academies but those places just help everyone learn faster.¡± As their time for today was up Rich stood up and started to leave but before he did, he looked at Bert and said in a sombre voice. ¡°It depends on how something is taught. I believe why there hasn¡¯t been a successful great working is because you can have a lot more freedom if you have a good mentor that brings out what you are the best in. You see standardization is the death of innovation.¡± With that Rich left leaving Bert to contemplate on what Rich told him. chapter 101 It was Monday again. For the rest of the week everything went quite normally but last night I felt a predator enter my land that was not supposed to be there. This morning I got a better idea of what it is and where it¡¯s headed. Unfortunately, it will come quite close by and most likely will notice us. If I understand correctly, it¡¯s a huge Wolf most likely a monster as its energy density is quite high. So today I did not go with my apprentices to the village instead I started to gear up when they left. But before I left, I thought of my animals and that it might be a good idea to bring them. They are all quite big already and I think it¡¯s time to stop babying them all. I went and let them all out and brought out Goose as well. I practised the commands and hand gestures with them constantly. I got their attention and started to explain as best as I could what was going to happen. Their excitement quickly died down about being let out. For a moment I questioned if I was making the correct choice but when I looked at them, I know that it was time. They were all bigger than the largest dogs on earth. They were true wolves with white fur for the winter and it was time to add some red into the mix. It was time to teach them what it meant to be a true wolf and be in a pack protecting its territory. It was easier to make Goose understand what was needed to be done thanks to our bond and he started to fly high to get into scouting distance. While yes, I knew exactly where the prey was, we won¡¯t always be on my land and having a scout up high is an extreme advantage I want to learn how to use. We left quickly going over the bridge. When we went past it, I noticed that the edges of the river are starting to freeze. It won''t be too long now until the river is frozen, and anyone can walk over it. If the goblins were smarter and just waited to attack me until winter, they could have just walked across, and I could have done nothing to stop them. Our prey was quite a distance away, but it was approaching quickly. It was towards the lake and came from the higher energy and mana density area. There were a few clearings that we could use for the ambush. We traversed the distance quickly. I brought my longbow, the big spear and on top of that, I carried my two-handed sword. The hand axe was brought just in case I needed to make some traps. We made it to the clearing faster than I expected, and I quickly surveyed it. We started to set up. My plan was quite simple the wolves and I were going to camouflage ourselves into the snow. Them using their natural fur and me using my rabbit fur cloak. We were going to use Goose to bring it here. He was going to pretend that he was protecting his nest to get the attention of the wolf monster. We had to wait for about 2 hours in the freezing snow, but I was no stranger to this kind of activity. Finally, we started hearing Goose making noise and closely followed was a deep roar that didn''t sound anything like a wolf. It didn¡¯t take long after that until we could hear it running towards us and I quickly took a peek at what was happening. It was a wolf as tall as a human with matted fur that was different colours of black and grey with some bald spots chasing Goose as he was trying to fend off the wolf making it believe that this way was a nest that it could get some eggs to eat. Why I didn¡¯t just let Goose annoy him so he would start following him was because I learned that monsters can be quite smart and that action would be quite obvious for anyone to figure out that this way might be an ambush. I calmly watched and waited to give the signal to begin our plan but unfortunately, my wolves were not quite up to the task of staying completely still. The wolf monster only got about 10 meters into the clearing which was around 200 meters wide when his head snapped towards one of the hidden wolves. This didn¡¯t stop it; it only made him start to go towards the wolf that it noticed. If it had time to think it would have known that he was making a mistake, but he was too full of adrenaline to think clearly. If I made the plan counting on green wolves that have never been in a proper battle being able to stay still, I would have been a complete moron, so I did not do that. I quickly got up and yelled my own battle cry and started to rush towards it. This is the signal for the wolves to start moving as well. The wolves were not spaced out or alone. They were in two groups of four and the most intimidating one was with Freya. While she was not as big as this monster, she was still the biggest among the attacking wolves. I didn¡¯t make a mistake thinking that this monster wouldn''t be quick on its foot and as soon as I revealed myself, he quickly sidesteps just in case making my thinking correct that anything shot would miss. Now that its attention was on the two bigger threats, I had time the line up a shot and filled it with energy and activate different effects on the arrow to make it more damaging. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. I didn¡¯t have time to charge it fully to make it a truly devastating attack as it would take too long. Then the monster would figure out that the wolves were just a distraction. I already knew that this wolf monster would be able to quite easily kill any of my animals as I¡¯m quite certain that it is at least silver. But their distractions would work quite excellently and later when the wolf monster was hurt then they might become more useful. I released the arrow and instantly the wolf monster noticed it and tried to dodge but the distraction gave enough time for it to still hit deep inside its chest and it left out a pained cry and was now fully focused on me. I didn¡¯t want to let him wait and I was pretty certain that any other arrow would be quite useless so even before the arrow hit, I had already dropped my bow and picked up my spear and used my movement ability to get as close as possible. What I didn¡¯t expect was there to suddenly be a wall of earth spikes between me and him. I couldn¡¯t slow down and had to barrel through them. This made me lose grip on my spear and when I was finally through the spike wall, I saw it fly further away thanks to an impact with a spike. Luckily my armour ability was able to keep me from skewering myself but my opportunity to attack was missed and I got a claw swipe in return. Everything happened so fast that I didn¡¯t have time to activate my other abilities so I was sent flying to the side a few meters and quickly had to roll myself to get back on my feet. ¡°SURROUND, CIRCLE.¡± I quickly yelled out to the wolves as some of them wanted to rush in to help me. This made them stop and go back to circling our fight. It seems that it was quite surprised that I was completely alright. While I did have a few claw marks on my armour they were only shallow scratches. If I didn¡¯t have my armour ability activated, not only would I be pierced by the spikes but I would be missing an arm right now. We were both eyeing each other and slowly starting to circle one another. This time I was fully focusing on trying to see everything it was doing. So, it did not come as a surprise as it started to gather energy in its mouth and the next moment a basketball-sized rock shot out of its open mouth and headed with quite a speed towards me. But it was too slow to make me do anything more than a simple sidestep to dodge it. It did not like me dodging it so easily. I thought that he might be able to make it faster if we made the rock smaller. This monster being capable to control earth to some extent was quite troubling and it was feeding his manipulation with energy meaning that this was elemental magic. This form of magic was only possible through the system with abilities that used energy as fuel. This form of magic was not particularly valued by the sentient species and was mostly used by monsters. All the abilities seem to have some form of control over the elements similar to benders in avatar. Although they are a lot more limited compared to that. Like with this wolf it would seem that he has only access to the two abilities it showed off. It tried to move towards one of the wolves to break the encirclement, but I instantly start to move forward drawing my two-hander and cutting short his escape attempt. I rushed in again but this time I didn¡¯t use my movement ability so I could see its energy moving from one of its paws into the ground and towards me. I quickly stopped so I wouldn¡¯t run into another spike wall that formed a few meters ahead of me. It would seem that it has a limited range. Elemental magic truly is quite limited, I wonder if the power of true benders can be achieved. I didn¡¯t want to give it more time to think of a solution, so I did another run towards it, and it again made a spike wall in front of me. But this time I was ready and again using my body I broke through the spike wall and then right after used my movement ability to get close to him, this time surprising it. Unfortunately, this didn''t give me a lot of time to make my strike strong enough to end this fight with one strike, so I was only able to get a shallow wound on one of its front legs. But this time its counterattack didn¡¯t push me back as I used my ability to make myself weigh more and just tanked the hit and made another strike this time it was a lot more powerful and left a deep wound on his other leg. But after that I needed to quickly retreat as this time he was coming in for a bite and I was not feeling confident about my armour''s ability to resist it. The next exchange was not so favourable for me, and I only got one shallow cut before I needed to retreat. We kept going and we both soon figured out I had more energy and stamina than it and slowly I could see panic starting to colour its eyes. No matter how cold-hearted monsters are supposed to be it seems that this one still was afraid of death. The wounds that I had given it were starting to pile up and making him weaker. Thanks to that it didn''t see Freya coming when she took a small chunk of its back leg. It was still able to react quickly, but I didn¡¯t let the opportunity go by and another wound was given before it could do anything to Freya. I think at that moment it knew that it was going to die. This didn''t make the fight easier but the opposite. Now it had nothing to lose. In the few following exchanges, I almost lost a part of my body as its teeth almost got me multiple times. If I wasn¡¯t ready for this change of pace and for the ferocity I might have lost. But now it just made the fight more dangerous. A few more deep wounds one on its side and one making its left front leg completely useless signified the end of this fight. It was still able to keep going but now the wolves could help and when Goose was able to blind it by clawing out its eyes, I could finally put the end to its pain with a clean thrust into its heart. chapter 102 After the fight, we all took a long rest because the fight took around 30 minutes which was quite crazy. I had heard from the instructors that monster fights sometimes lasted a long time giving the advantage to the monsters, but it looks like this time that advantage was towards us. I still remember those elemental abilities that it used and was glad that none of the wolves charged at the start of the fight as it would have been certain death for any of them. Next was time for butchering. It was quite tough to get through the skin but with my abilities, I was able to skin it and then cut pieces of meat to give to the wolves and smaller pieces that Goose could eat. Now, this fight was quite profitable for us all as it seems some of the wolves got some skills from the fight as some got a lot better than others during this engagement. What surprised me was that Lucky was actually lucky. One of the counterattacks missed her thanks to the monster wolf slipping, making the claw attack pass her by. Let¡¯s hope that her string of bad luck is over. Since this was a true battle, I decided to respect my fallen foe. I decided to eat its heart right here. It was an ancient tradition of my people that I had only practised once before but for some reason it made me feel closer to my ancestors. I took a bite and gave my respect for the bounty it gave. It was a huge heart, so I shared it with everyone else. They seemed to pick up on my mood and didn''t rip into their pieces as they usually did. When I had removed the skin and started to cut out more pieces but the wolves were finally stuffed so I started to cut out pieces we could take back. After a bit more I finally got my butchering to tier up. Skill increases basic butchering level 10 is upgraded to butchering level 1 Choose one of the following abilities quick harvesting safe cut energy pattern preservation Some meh abilities but the energy pattern one sounded interesting, but unfortunately, I did not know what it does. After a bit more contemplating, I still picked it. Hopefully, Bert can explain to me what energy patterns are. My animal handling also levelled up 5 times to level 7. There wasn¡¯t that much to bring back, but I still needed help. I rolled up the hide and tied it to Freya. The meat itself I brought back with my backpack and some wood sticks that I had to make after that we started to head back. Some of the bones were in the mouths of the other wolves. The teeth and claws were also extracted and would hopefully be useful but the rest we left there for scavengers to eat. We made it back and I started to prepare the hide but for the meat, I didn¡¯t smoke it just wrapped it in fabric and put it inside the snow for it to freeze. It was quite late when my apprentices finally made it back and I got to hear everything interesting that happened in the village. I didn¡¯t get any special power-ups from eating the heart nor did it seem I could get anything from the monster core that I was rolling between my fingers. It has a silver sheen to it meaning the monster was a silver. The monster cores, sheen colour is where the adventurer classification''s names come from. I wonder what I can do with this, hopefully this will be useful. From my next meeting with Bert, I got some more general information that wasn''t really that surprising about how the world worked. Basically, most of the land that you can live on was claimed by kingdoms but there are some exceptions like city-states or places that were controlled by different types of associations. And as I learned not every place is so strict with knowledge. Mostly kingdoms are the worst places with the strictest laws. They also have the highest population. Thankfully Bert answered two of my questions. The first was about the monster cores and what they represent. The information was quite chilling. It turns out that these are the things that make monsters monsters. They are the thing that mutates any who has them. Mostly the monster cores make the creature bigger, improving natural weapons that the creature already possesses and sometimes giving access to abilities, but the list is a lot bigger than that. But there is a price to pay and usually, the worst is the mind that is corrupted making the creature more aggressive as time goes by. Although as I understand some resist this effect. It also messes with other parts of your body sometimes to the detriment of it. Obviously, this worried me quite a lot, but I had examined the monster''s core a lot and there were a few differences between it and the one inside my real body. Mine didn''t have the impurities that I found in the monster core and overall, it seemed to be less active. I guess that¡¯s the best way to describe it. Monster cores seemed to have a lot of uses from alchemy to high-level item-making. There are a lot of classes that can use them for various effects as well, so they are quite valuable. My next question seemed to tie in with the monster cores as I asked about energy patterns. Those seem to be how the monster core changes different parts of the creature it is in to make them stronger. Like claws that can shred through metal. But when the monster is killed slowly those effects fade away and need to be preserved. It seems that there are hundreds of different ways this is done, and my last ability is one of them. Energy cores also leave patterns behind meaning that people can take advantage of them as they do not fade as fast sometimes staying for hundreds of years before the monster core is truly wiped. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. When I was back home examining the monster core with my new ability, I was able to see some of the patterns that were inside. For any of them I could not get a clear picture that I could try to replicate but perhaps someday I could use those to strengthen myself. The patterns that were on the wolf monster¡¯s claws and teeth were a lot clearer than the ones in the monster''s core and a lot less complicated. I contemplated on if I should really experiment on myself, but I couldn¡¯t stop myself. With a contemplating look between the monster core, the claw and the core inside me I decided to proceed. I put the monster core aside because I wouldn¡¯t need it and focused on the claw. I held a clear picture of the energy pattern and focused it into my core and through it to my nails trying to make them stronger. To my surprise and horror, it actually worked and slowly I could feel my nails getting tougher. It seems that the intent was quite important and to my relief, my nails didn''t turn into claws but I had to keep going for 4 hours before I felt I was finished. I had removed a small piece of my nail before, so I had something to compare but now I need to use my ability to cut my nail. There was really no need to test any further, they truly were a lot harder. I checked my energy core again but there was no corruption like in the monster core. Just in case I tried to remove the pattern from my nails, and I think I could do it and also change it but that kind of experimentation I was not willing to do no matter what. This was a big risk that seemed to pay off. What I didn¡¯t expect was the notification that I levelled up my body skill by 2 levels. Did I just find the best way to grind this particular skill fast? This was a nice surprise but there weren¡¯t any other notifications. It was a bit disappointing as I was hoping I would get some sort of a skill out of this but perhaps I needed to do a lot more before I would get something. This might be one of the best ways I have found to quickly strengthen myself, but my final test questioned my hopes a bit. When I tested my nails against the claw that I copied the pattern from, it was obvious that mine were a lot weaker. Perhaps the problem was the starting material but no matter what it seems that I will not be able to get the full benefits with the method I have found. Still, this is extremely good news. It was now quite late so I had to wait until tomorrow to do the same thing with my teeth. The next day started with a snowstorm, so I had quite a lot of free time to try to make my teeth stronger as well. Sitting in my room I spent over 10 hours copying the wolf monster¡¯s teeth pattern over to myself. It seems that I was correct to be afraid of the monster¡¯s bite as the pattern inside the teeth was a lot better than the one on the claws. Now I couldn¡¯t chew through metal, but my canine could leave a tiny mark on it. I wasn¡¯t excited about my new weapon that my teeth might be, but more that I will probably never have to worry about going to the dentist. That point was a lot more important as I didn¡¯t even know how much teeth care was in this world. What this also gave me was another three levels in body meaning that I was only 5 levels from my goal of 35 before I could finally level up my adventuring class. But after I was done, I was also left with a question. Was there anything else that I could use this technique on? The meat energy pattern didn''t come from the meat itself but from the monster''s core like any other fleshy part. After a bit more investigating, I came to find that only hard substances like nails and teeth had patterns that were quite clear and usable. This needed some further investigation but if the patterns I could use came only from natural weapons that the monsters possessed this discovery might not be the game changer as I first thought. This was quite disappointing news and I wanted to go out and scream a bit but then something occurred to me. And I took another look at the monster''s core. The energy patterns there didn''t control everything about the monster and I focused on the patterns to feel what they did. I compared them to my mental image of the living wolf monster. This led to my biggest revelation. Why wouldn¡¯t the monster core improve everything about the creature that it was in? The answer was quite simple, it couldn¡¯t. It could only affect some things correctly and I believe that something is the traits that the creature possessed. It seems that it did try to change the other parts but it just couldn''t do them right that''s why the fur of the creature was so messed up. Its fur wasn''t anything special it wasn''t stronger than regular wolfs meaning there wasn¡¯t a trait it could latch on to and use as a guide to make it better. Now, this might be a bit of a stretch, but I believed I was on the correct path. Even with me improving my nails and teeth my core was still empty of any pattern and perhaps this was a good thing and means it won''t corrupt but what if I could connect my traits with my energy core? I stop myself for a moment. Was this a risk that I needed to take? What if I corrupt the core that''s inside me? Was there a need for me to get any stronger with unconventional methods? Yet for some reason, I felt that this was a good thing. But why did I feel that way? I tried to grab ahold of that feeling and see if there was any reason behind it. I started to meditate not letting go of this feeling and seeing what it could tell me. After a bit, I should have realized when I started to meditate where the feeling came from. It was my true nature connection trait that was responsible for me feeling this way. But I didn¡¯t want to trust it blindly. I have never trusted anything or anyone blindly at least since I learned some hard lessons. I kept meditating but this time on the traits themselves and what they were. They weren¡¯t a part of the system like abilities and skills were. This was the difference so I focused on that. I don¡¯t know how long I was like this, but it was pitch dark outside when I finally came out. It seems that the traits that were given are just sparks similar to anything else given by the system but the spark was all that was given, unlike skills and abilities. They will grow with you but with the right fuel and guidance they can grow faster and stronger or in more gaming terms there is a better way to farm XP for traits than just letting them slowly grow with you. Most of this knowledge came thanks to the true nature connection which truly was a weird trait. I could understand why so many people were obsessed with it. It wasn¡¯t that the trait itself was knowledgeable but it¡¯s that it¡¯s connected to something bigger and with enough time and willpower you could get some knowledge from the surrounding world. I didn¡¯t stop or go to bed but started to connect my traits with the core inside me. One at a time I connected them. I even had to take some breaks to get some food but after four days I was finally done with every trait and could finally fall asleep. When I woke up, I found out that it was Monday. My apprentices seem to have been worried about me but it seems that they relaxed when they saw me back to normal. They were currently readying up for the visit to the village. But I didn¡¯t go with them this time as well because the first notification I saw was me hitting body level 41. chapter 103 It was time to dive back into my adventurer class. The first thing that greeted me was a message, starting consolidation. This took a few moments and then my body skill started to upgrade. First, it went to the basic body then to the body eventually ending in advanced body level 6. Then it paused for another few moments and I got two new notifications. You have gained a new ability: body enhancement (E) You have gained a new ability: energy compression There was no choice given and I did not expect one. I was just happy that the abilities that I got seemed useful. It was now time to look at what else I got for the level-up. I was still at level one because I needed to choose stats. I was quite happy to find that I had access to all the stats that I had unlocked and that I can get quite a lot of stat points about the same as my other epic classes. This was good news as it meant that the path I have chosen was a good one. The most points I could put into the starting three stats strength, dexterity, and vitality. If I just put points into those, I could get six for each a level. But energy storage was a really tempting choice. Unfortunately, I could only put six points into it if I only chose that stat. What I was surprised about after some testing was that there actually was an optimal choice. I could put four points into strength, dexterity, vitality, and energy storage and that seemed to be the best bang for my buck. If I just put one more point into energy storage, then I could get only two points in the other three. This exchange rate for value was constant for any other start that wasn''t the three main ones, so the energy storage was nothing special at least in the eyes of the system, for me it was the most important one. But I didn¡¯t want to lose out on so many other stats so losing two energy storage stats a level but gaining a total of 12 in the other three was completely acceptable. The choice made I finally got the notification that my adventurer class reached level 2, but it didn¡¯t stop there because as I learned the class still gathered all the EXP. On the next level, I was given a choice to get the skill beginner fist fighting, or I could take the stat distribution that I chose during the first level. This seemed to be the biggest problem with making your own class the fact that you didn¡¯t get a choice on what you were offered. Unfortunately, I was not looking for skills that I could get on my own but if there was a rare one to choose I might take it. But during the first levels, there was no chance of that. Picking the stat points I moved on and unfortunately I had to move on until level 8 when I was offered druidic magic as a skill, but I know that this skill could not be learned by yourselves or at least it would take a long long time. So once again I skipped getting the stat points instead. To my surprise, I had enough experience to get to level 10 which meant I now got the stats, and I could also choose a skill that I wanted like the first level. Again, there was a massive list to choose from but this time I had something in mind. Just in case I looked over the list and hit the random button a few more times to see if anything else grab my attention. I looked for anything to do with energy cultivation but there wasn¡¯t anything close to what I was looking for. So, after some more searching but not finding anything of interest I went to my original idea and chose the skill called mind. Why did I choose that? At the start, with the body skill, my idea was to make myself stronger but after some time I thought of the trinity so often referred to in fantasy books and that¡¯s body, mind and soul. Now for the soul skill, I didn¡¯t find anything but last time there was no mind at least I think there wasn¡¯t so hopefully it will be unlocked if I get my mind skill high enough. Although I was happy that I got this skill I was quite disappointed that I didn¡¯t get any other good skill or ability along the way, but I guess at least this helped me get faster to a higher level. When I stopped focusing on my adventurer class there were a few more notifications waiting for me. It turns out that picking so many stat points comes with another benefit. I had been close to my stat milestones with dexterity and vitality and now I was able to get new traits and a surprise. Achievement gained ¡®completed body¡¯ you have activated and started to strengthen all your talents. You gain 20 free stat points for achievement: completed body All the free stats went into energy storage. The first trait I got was for dexterity, and it was called perfect body control. With this one, I didn¡¯t need any more information about what it did the name was quite clear. But the next one was for vitality and was a bit more vague. Enriched body, what does that even mean? It was at that moment that cold sweat covered my entire body. It felt like every molecule in my body was trying to break free and I started to get a bit lightheaded. Clamp down with my willpower I quickly went into meditation. The new trait was trying to do something to my body but it didn''t have a lot of energy so it started to eat all my fat reserves but there wasn''t much of that in my body. Luckily after a few moments, it started to slow down its process and tried to find new sources of fuel from the outside world. It did start to absorb something from outside, but this process was slow and I could tell that it wouldn''t be able to complete what it wanted fast or correctly. My mind worked quickly and came up with a solution. And that was to quickly connect this new trait with my energy core so it could supply better nourishment for it to use. But doing this fast was not easy but I beared down on it with my willpower and push myself further than I ever had before. I was feeling ravenous, but I pushed that aside and continued. I also noticed that giant amongst men was trying to absorb this trait, but it was having a hard time almost like they were at a similar power level to each other. So, I added another burden to my mind and helped giant amongst men absorb this trait and combine it into itself. Even then in about an hour I had managed to get half done but it started to get easier now as the energy core started to be connected and it was able to slowly give energy to the trait making my job a little bit easier. Still, it took another hour before I was done. I was completely spent not only was the floor around me completely wet with sweat I felt like I hadn¡¯t eaten in a whole month. When I was finally able to stuff myself full of food another problem occurred. That damned trait wasn¡¯t satisfied with the amount of energy inside the small core that was in my body. It had almost emptied it. I quickly went back into meditation to hopefully be able to transfer energy from my energy body''s core which was a lot bigger and had a lot more high-tier energy in it into my body core and hopefully stop this stupid trait from consuming everything I had. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. It was incredibly hard to do this, and my body was constantly shaking similar to when someone is freezing. And this process took a few hours until the trait seemed to be satisfied and only pulled a small stream of energy from my body core. The amount it was now pulling from my body core was about a quarter it was able to produce so it seems the crisis is over. The problem was my energy-body core high-tier energy was never meant to interact with my physical body and not only was I incredibly cold there were lacerations and bruising all over and when I went to look at my face I had trails of blood coming from both my eyes and nose and even one of my ears. ¡°What the fuck was that. Perhaps I should have just let it slow down the consumption as it did with my body?¡± Did I make a mistake? The trait did seem to slow down when there was no more fuel to get from my body, so perhaps it would have done the same with the core. But I was too rattled to think clearly. It is true what they say that the unknown is the scariest thing in the world. I remembered my first battle and how scared I was not knowing what would happen if I would live or die. But as time went by it was no longer unknown it didn''t scare me the same as I know what to expect. Now I know better what happened so I will not panic the next time. Still, this was quite a crazy event. It seems that I got my body skill levelled three more times doing this and my mind skill upgraded six times. That was some crazy levelling, but I did learn a lot from this and not knowing what else to do I sat back down and also connected my other trait to the core. It acted normally and was quickly absorbed by giant amongst man so I only needed to nudge it a bit and I thanked it for being normal. With a quick confirmation, perfect body control truly did what it said and I now was perfectly in sync with my mind and body, but it seems after a bit more testing my body would still have trouble keeping up if I pushed it too hard. But even now I still had no idea what enriched body actually did. I started to meditate some more but it was a bit harder to get to the knowledge because the trait was now inside giant amongst men but I was still able to get the information. But I didn''t just rely on that but tried to look and understand how it changed my body. In the end, the word enriched was truly correct. It felt like my entire body was supercharged like every cell wanted to move, wanted to do something. The best way I could describe it, it felt like I was on drugs and a lot of them. The feeling I got from the trait was of limitless potential of constant growth and the need to improve. It almost screamed the last part like it was a child that wanted its toy now and would do anything to get it. It looks like I got one of the temperamental traits that needed some education. Giant amongst men was already working on that as well as my energy core but putting my will behind not specifically controlling but guiding this trait might be the best solution. So, I dedicated some of my willpower to try to tamp down the traits let''s call them fits. But my body also needed attention as controlling it was hard. It constantly wanted to move. I honestly wished that I had some hardcore music to dance to so I could spend some of this energy, but then I remembered that it was Monday, and I could go into the dungeon. The hurting from before was almost completely gone but I still know that I was quite beat up it¡¯s just that now I just couldn¡¯t feel it anymore. I really needed to control myself because I wanted to run into the dungeon and fight with my bare hands, but I still had some control. If anyone with less willpower than me got the trait it would probably have taken over turning them quite crazy. When I was finally out of the dungeon, I could breathe a little bit better. The feeling wasn¡¯t gone but it was a lot more manageable now. I continued mostly on autopilot as I needed to focus almost everything, I had on trying to stay calm and control the traits desires. The next day went by in a daze as we did some more logging. This time I did go to the training and had another lesson from Bert. After that, I also did a lot more training at home and a lot more running in the snow to calm down my constantly screaming body that wanted to move. The next Monday when I was training, I started to feel some displeasure coming my way while I was attending sword training with everyone else. This helped distract me a bit but I was still quite out of it. Then it was Wednesday. I was starting to feel a lot better when I woke up perhaps another dungeon run that I did on Monday helped, but I think the trait is starting to understand what it¡¯s doing wrong. Now that my mind was a lot clearer, I was able to understand the problem I felt in the last training. The problem was my skill with the sword or more specifically the lack of it. I was honestly awful with it. I had come a long way but everyone else had left me behind quite easily including Arthur who was one of the best in the class now. It didn''t bother most of the instructors but the students especially the good ones seemed to now despise me. --- ¡°Falyr, I want to ask you something.¡± Asked the head instructors. When he got a nod in return he continued. ¡°You told us to be cordial to the outsiders and I could understand it with Arthur he has the capability of becoming truly great with the sword, but Rich I can count on one hand the people that I¡¯ve seen are worse than him with this amount of training.¡± He hoped for an explanation but when he didn''t get any he continued. ¡°Why are we extending a hand to him? I could understand why we made the deal with him for the dungeon but now that we know he isn''t really a fighter why continue this farce?¡± Falyr just looked at him with disgust, but he didn¡¯t show it on his face. ¡°I have come to understand something about people who master a certain weapon.¡± There was a big pause before he continued. ¡°For some reason, they think if someone doesn''t master their weapon that the person doesn''t know how to fight or is useless in a fight.¡± He now showed disappointment on his face as he looked towards his head instructor. The instructor didn''t take this well. He could not accept that this farmer could be any good in a fight. His pride as a sword grandmaster hurt every time, he watched this person train. ¡°Then I will show you how useless that person actually is.¡± He said it with so much venom that Falyr was surprised his face didn¡¯t turn into a snake. The instructor quickly did a hand movement and one of his best students that was currently sparring with Rich understood immediately. Instead of the practice moves that they were supposed to do, he sped up and delivered multiple quick strikes with his bastard sword against Rich trying to draw blood. Falyr shook his head, but he didn''t stop what was about to happen. He had to admit to himself that he was also curious and he didn''t think that Rich would kill his opponent. Rich was a bit surprised at the first attacks but those weren''t anything special. But the speed and strength continue to ramp up and he found himself constantly having to back up. Everyone heard and understood that something was different as the sounds of metal ringing was getting louder and faster. Quickly everyone started to back away from the fight that was going on between Rich and the best student. To the surprise of everyone Rich was able to keep up although he was completely in defence. He didn¡¯t do any fancy movements he didn''t even swing just held out his two-handed sword and adjusted it with hand movements to block everything thrown at him. The other instructors were amazed at how solid his defence was, but they also understood that he didn¡¯t have any answer to the attack and could only defend. As time went by the strikes got closer and closer. Finally, the first blood was drawn with a small nick on Rich¡¯s bicep after that Rich stopped and spoke. ¡°That was quite splendid thanks...¡± But he didn''t get any further because another attack aimed at his face was coming quickly. He was able to block it, but it left a cut on his cheek. His smile vanished and when another attack came for his throat, he no longer wished to play this game. A sudden chill fell onto the entire area and all the other students could see was the student¡¯s sword being cut in half and Rich¡¯s sword being just millimetres away from the youth''s throat. ¡°I suggest that you don¡¯t play other people¡¯s games for their benefit,¡± Rich said in a low voice and then a moment later the oppressive atmosphere vanished and to everyone''s surprise Rich smiled and asked if the lesson is over for today. The head instructor almost pulled his own sword and rushed to kill Rich, but Falyr put his hand on his shoulder and stopped him. ¡°You have caused enough trouble and will be leaving with the next portal. You are lucky that Rich seems to be a truly nice person because your stunt could have gotten your student killed.¡± ¡°I hope you¡¯ve learned that not everyone needs to be a master of the sword to be able to kill.¡± It seems that Rich has some more secrets and a lot more power that he can apply than I expected thought Falyr. chapter 104 We were back at the farm, and I was a bit annoyed, so I went inside the barn so that the animals could calm me. Everything had gone so well with having humans so close, but I guess everything must come to an end. Fortunately, it seems that it was just one bad apple and perhaps I can use it to my advantage later on. I am starting to feel like myself again but now I have even more free time as I only have to sleep once every two days. At first, I thought it was because I was so out of it but now, I¡¯m pretty certain that I just need a lot less rest. In the fight, I was quite glad that I was able to stay defensive for so long as he kept learning my moves. I¡¯m pretty sure that I could have just finished the fight straight away even without using my abilities but there was a possibility I might have hurt him badly. It''s actually kind of funny that controlling myself is harder when I tried to slow energy circulation to make myself weaker. But when I¡¯m at full strength everything seems to work like a well-oiled machine. Another thing this fight showed me was that I wanted to keep pushing myself not just by training but in a fight to truly see what I would be capable of. This was a lot harder to achieve. I could go and search for trouble in more energy-abundant areas but was I ready for that? I walked out of the barn and started to stroll around my land. There was quite a lot of snow and if this kept going, we might have a true winter like the ones my grandfathers used to tell me about back on earth. Where there was so much snow it was higher than yourself. It''s one thing that I have always regretted not seeing but in a month or two I might be able to check that off the list. I got quite far down the road when I stopped and looked at the grass fields and using my eyes to see the rabbits and came to a realization. We need to start stocking up on meat or otherwise we would have to start digging underneath meters of snow to get to the rabbits. It would be a good change of pace as we had done quite a lot of logging. Speaking of that we also needed to change our overall strategy for collecting wood. We were currently just cutting down trees that would make good building material but it would also be a good idea to cut down dead trees and fallen down trees so we could clean up the forest bit more. I absolutely loved that my body didn¡¯t feel the cold as it used to. It was still cold, but it was comfortable like a cold pillow underneath your head. I wanted to do so much with my land as different ideas kept running through my head but as I learned more about the world and about the current situation, I need to be stronger than I currently am, and I would need people around me that are also strong. I looked at my homesteader class and thought about what it could represent in the future. I had a good idea of what it could be but for that, I would need a lot more people that are strong and loyal. That brought me to my trait true nature connection. With it, I can at least know the people I choose will have the best interest of the land around us in mind and hopefully, that would mean we could come together as a community to build something powerful to protect our way of life. I would enjoy living in this kind of society that doesn¡¯t have a king or a dictator or even a president but people who would work with the land to improve it. That would be good and all and if it was just a few of us perhaps it could work but if we kept expanding even if it was just through our children, we would need a way to govern. Something is needed at the top to solve big problems and to keep improving everything else that is more complicated than a small community can handle. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. I stop myself as I think my mind started to wander a bit. What was I even thinking about? Do I really want something like this to create a society around the homesteader class so no one could threaten my land again? This would take time but I certainly have that what I don¡¯t have is the strength to start or keep going unless I wanted to hope that no one will stop me. But this reminded me of the trait I got for passing 160 in energy storage. energy storage reaches 160 new trait gained energy well This trait is something that could be useless or absolutely the greatest thing ever. It all depends on how you will use it. With this, my energy restoration is a lot faster and it seemed to even help my cores to grow faster but that process is still supremely slow. But what this means is I can train my abilities a lot and learn how to use energy faster, simply because I can use it a lot more. Normally this would put quite a strain on my body because it would be similar to what happened to my sword as I kept using it when my abilities just simply started to break it down. But now with my trait enriched body. Well, it seemed to like whenever my body is damaged so it can then try to make it better. This is why energy well could be useful or useless, it will all depend on my dedication to keep pushing myself. So, the question remains do I keep going normally and hope I can get strong enough to keep my land and the life I like or do I go for it and try to create something new with the opportunities I have found? ---- While Rich was contemplating his place in the world and if he was going to carve out a piece for himself others already know that they wanted a piece of this world. Not everyone wanted to get it the same way and there were even some who just wanted to see it all burn. In the village, Falyr and Bert were discussing today¡¯s event and the letter they just received from Tom. They were quite excited about the potential Rich displayed but they were also a little bit scared that in the future he might turn against them. But they both know that this would not be a problem for this year or even the next year. Tomorrow they will receive the last of the people that were going to be sent to the village. Both were quite happy that they were able to fix up the broken houses and they even have a little bit extra room if it was needed. In the Thorn Rose company headquarters, Tom was contemplating behind his desk. They had never been in a position where their families were safe. Some of the other powers had already started to notice that something was wrong simply because they couldn''t find anyone that they could kidnap so they could ransom them for information or resources. Tom wished he could see their faces when they learned that they couldn''t find anyone to kidnap. This image always brought a smile to his face. Then his thoughts turned darker. When there was no need to be worried about anyone¡¯s families perhaps, they could be a bit more proactive when anyone messed with them. This response would look to some people like ruthlessness but it will teach everyone not to mess with them. This could also cement their rule over trade securing the future of this company, but it would also burn a lot of bridges. In the former capital of this Kingdom in the regional headquarters of the adventuring guild, a portal just closed that came from the other side of the world bringing back the leader of this branch of the adventuring guild. He was annoyed and everyone could feel it. Everyone hoped he would calm down as he was beyond the guild''s classification system and he could kill them all without any effort. Luckily for them, he was not the kind of person who indiscriminately kill his employees. When he made it to his office and looked at his table all he could see were reports filling every inch of it and every stack was taller than a dagger. His annoyance grew but he needed to look everything over. Thankfully he had abilities that would help him. In that pile were a few reports on a person called Rich Dirt and on one of those reports was a stamp classifying him as dangerous in big red letters. But there was another group of people that had just secured their power base in the capital. This group of people all supported the previous princess of this Kingdom that was able to survive thanks to her being in an Academy on a different continent. The Princess knew that she didn¡¯t have the strength to forcefully take back her Kingdom but luckily some bureaucratic ways still existed, and they all knew that this would be the best way to start claiming back their kingdom. But that also meant possibly going against the interests of the adventuring guild. They all hoped that the Guild didn¡¯t highly value this land otherwise they had no chance. chapter 105 There was snow everywhere I looked. Currently underneath my feet was over 4 meters of snow. This was the highest peak I could find in the grasslands. Because of the wind, the snow was not uniform, but it rose and fell like waves on the ocean. The sun was high and warmed my skin nicely and I finally got to see what it felt like to have snow that towers over you and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even more than that I enjoyed channelling Legolas. My ability to control my weight helps me walk on the snow, not through it. The skill acted weirdly in some aspects as losing weight didn¡¯t mean that I could jump like I was on the moon. It just simply didn''t work like that nor would making myself heavy strain my legs as much as it should have. There were some limitations but also some things that made this version of weight loss better, so I was fine with it. I continued to look around to keep an eye out as Goose was up high scouting further away. We were currently not on my land and were even further down south past the village. Ahead of me was the huge green sea as it''s called where thousands of rabbits lived. To my back were the farmlands that were broken apart only by small forests and rivers going through the land. As I kept waiting I thought back on the night when I made my decision to go all out and try to create something new. It was now over two months later. Even with my decision I still tried to not overwork myself, but I had come a long way, especially in my weapon training. Now I felt a lot more comfortable with bladed weapons. One thing I still haven¡¯t been able to do is to go all out even when I have fought with the few monsters that have wandered onto my land. The strongest of them was another mutated wolf close to the gold rank. Everything had ground to a halt and only the strongest of creatures were still able to walk around. The training with the wolves had ended about a month ago. Same with our efforts of getting lumber and even before that our hunting for rabbit meat stopped. We were still in quite a good state with everything food related and so was the village. We were still able to visit the village thanks to our constant moving back and forth from there creating a narrow walkway through the snow. It was like going through a maze but it was just a narrow road to the village. This way the constant dungeon delves could continue but one thing that they told me was that the dungeon might be preparing to create another level which was incredibly good news for me. Although not for the youth who are still working on getting a decent way into floor 3. I was quite fond of going to the village and so were my apprentices who all seemed to have their own interests. I didn¡¯t interfere with their pursuits as they were human after all and at an age where chasing the opposite sex was at a high priority. After the trouble with one of the instructors, everything had calmed down a lot although we did happen on one emergency portal where some injured people were brought here. From what I understand the bad times had begun and most of the food started to run out. That was bad news because the winter wasn''t even half done yet. I decided to look over my achievement page to see all the changes but before I could a mental message from Goose informed me that he had seen something of interest. A few moments later I got his position, and he was quite the way down one of the roads that led to one of the bigger villages that was a gateway to the rest of the Kingdom. Then came a mental image of people in a convoy moving through the thick snow. It took me a few more moments and a bit more information to understand what I was seeing. There was a large group of people that were pushing through the snow. Then came an image of the soldiers they had on the back of the convoy and for some reason, they were collapsing the trail that they had created so no one could follow. I ordered Goose to get closer as he was pretty high up and even with his eyesight it was hard to understand why this was happening. With a few more images I figured out that there were mages in the front cart that were working on making the pathway through the snow. Then there was a patch of people that were well dressed and had soldiers on either side. Then another big batch of people that looked like normal villagers and after that a group of soldiers worked on collapsing the trail that he had just created. From my count there were about 200 people there and they all looked extremely tired, and I even saw one that had collapsed and everyone else just kept walking. When the collapsed body passed by the last soldiers but no one stopped their work as they collapsed the snow on top of the body and just kept moving. There were only a few reasons why people would do this. They were either cruel beyond measure or they were running from something. So, I ordered Goose to climb back up and start going further down the road to see what were they running from. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. The pursuers were further behind than I expected but I could also understood why they needed to push themselves to get as far away from them during the day as possible. They were being pursued by a huge amount of undead. They even had one huge monstrosity with them that was probably 5 to 6 meters in height. The whole horde was focused on moving towards the escaping people. I had learned quite a lot about undead while killing them and I honestly didn¡¯t understand why they would keep following them. There was no obvious trail left behind that the undead would understand how to follow and they had no visual on them. I had Goose keep flying around them because I thought that there must be some intelligence controlling them, but I honestly couldn¡¯t find any. It was certainly a mystery. What was certain was the direction of the convoy. In a few days most likely three or four they would make it closer to the village where the snow is a lot less deep because of the wind corridor that was there. Then they would have quite an easy road compared to their current one all the way to the village. But now that I know what the situation was at least most of it I still couldn¡¯t figure out why the undead wouldn¡¯t stop. There was the question of what to do. Should I go try to save them? That was quite a bad idea because I couldn¡¯t fight an army on my own at least I thought so. Perhaps it was possible but it would still be better if there were other people around so that if something went wrong I would have backup. Should I rush in to try to save the people, maybe but I wasn¡¯t out here to save everyone nor was that possible. I guess the best solution would be to go to the village and inform them. If they didn¡¯t already know about this, they did have good scouts, but I believed their capabilities are hampered quite a lot because of the snow. It took me a few hours even with my movement skill to get close to the village, but I decided to use this as a training moment. I had to wait and hide a long way off using my rabbit cloak and my ability. I stayed and observed until Goose could be my eyes in the skies when I tried to sneak in. The village was guarded on all sides and the guards were quite vigilant. They were using this as a training opportunity. But they couldn''t be observing every moment and that meant there were gaps to be used. Using my training in stealth and every ability that might help I started to make my way towards the wall that was towards the back end of the village closer to the village hall. Even here the snow was quite thick, and I think I could have used it to just dig myself close enough but I didn¡¯t want to do it that way. So, as I controlled my weight, I quickly moved through the waves of snow that the wind had created. There were obvious blind spots because of that but once I had to make myself weigh more so I could drop into the snow to stay hidden. Climbing out was a pain in the ass but again making myself weigh less helped immensely with that. The hardest part was getting to and over the walls that were now quite close. I had to wait about half an hour for a moment that gave me enough free time to get over the wall without anyone noticing. I pushed off as quickly as possible using my movement skill to get close to the wall then lowering my weight as much as possible I jumped but the gravity still worked like I was at my normal weight. This still helped give me the leverage to pull myself up with the slightest of ridges that were on the wooden wall. With three quick pulls, I was at the top of the wall and quickly launched myself between two houses before anyone could see me. I needed to roll to break my fall so I could quickly get up and move away from the wall as if nothing had happened I thanked my sound isolation ability for keeping my armours noise from notifying everyone. When I was a few steps away from the village square I looked around and saw that no one had noticed me. The guards were still in their regular routine. This brought a happy smile to my face as I proceeded towards the village hall to give the news to Falyr. Hopefully, I will be able to hear him chew his people out for not noticing me enter using my supernatural senses. I had seen him angry once before when some of the youths fucked up in the dungeon and almost got one of their party members killed. The situation was serious but the dude''s ability to get his point across using extremely colourful language was quite fun. ---- Rich made it to Falyr''s office quite quickly and knocked on it fairly heavily to announce his presence. Inside the office, Falyr was quite startled as he had not expected anyone, and no one would knock like that if there was an emergency. ¡°Come in,¡± said Falyr in a strong and clear voice but he still didn¡¯t understand who it might be. When Rich walked in with his stupid grin Falyr almost cracked the pen in his hand. He had just lost a bet with Rich, and he did not like it. Why in the hell wasn¡¯t I informed were they all sleeping was the first thought that came to Falyr''s mind. ¡°Good day Falyr. I¡¯m here to bring some unfortunate news,¡± said Rich in a serious tone as the smile vanished from his face. To that Falyr put his thought aside and started to listen. After Rich told all he knew, Falyr was quite disturbed. Quick calculations started to run through his mind but nothing good came from them. He didn''t have enough information. He exchanged a few quick forced pleasantries and money was exchanged before he made it quite clear that he had quite a lot to do, and Rich should find another place to be. Rich was not insulted by that, and he was actually waiting for an excuse to go. But he did not go too far away because he really wanted to know what happened next. It didn''t take long for people to rush out of the village hall and more people to rush back in. To Rich¡¯s delight, Falyr didn''t start with the problem he brought but started to chew up everyone because somehow Rich had gotten into the village without him knowing and when he learned that no one had any idea that Rich had gotten in the colourful language got even better. After a bit, the tone changed as they started discussing the problem he brought. Soon scouts were sent out to try to assess how big of a problem this really was. After that Rich visited the inn to get a nice warm meal and spend some time playing gambling games that he was now starting to win more than he lost. After that, he went back to his training and went to explore and scout further into the grasslands away from the struggling people and the undead that were following them. chapter 106* I had reached as far towards the south as I was willing to go. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t find anything to fight. I was hoping to find something that could help me level, but the grass sea does seem to be a low-level zone. I hoped that there would be a place with rabbits that were evolved enough to give me a fight and give enough XP to level. I would have liked to get my heroic soldier and true archer classes to 20 but unfortunately, I might have to fight the undead horde with my current capabilities. I had been able to level up quite a lot thanks to the constant dungeon delves and the few monster fights. I was especially happy that I got my homesteader class past the milestone. This milestone gave me a good boost to my stats giving me 3x the amount of stat than a normal level-up would give me. It also gave me 20 free points that I put into energy storage and an ability element access. The unfortunate part was that I was barely able to comprehend this ability. Because of that, I have made no progress in levelling it. With all my gained class levels I was able to get quite a few traits from my other stat points. For the endurance milestone of 80, I was able to get strength from nature. This gave me a small boost whenever I was in nature which was basically all the time. What it also did was give me an even better boost when I was on my own land. It was hard to calculate how big of a difference it actually gave towards my fighting abilities. If I had to give a number on how much it helped on my own land, I would guess I¡¯m about 20% to 30% stronger and about 5% if not on my land and surrounded by nature. For the 40-stat point milestone in presence, I was able to get iron will trait which helps in so many ways. I had not realized how many of my abilities depended on my mental capabilities. Everything to do with energy got better thanks to this. For getting this strong of a trait for a 40 milestone I must have been lucky. For my perception 80 stat point milestone, I got extreme reaction speed. Which is incredibly useful as I was running into the problem of moving faster than my mind could keep up. It was hard to figure out how much faster I was moving compared to when I came to this world, but I would love it if I could get a side-by-side comparison of myself. The last trait was in the constitution stat for also getting past 80. This was a bit of a weird one as it was called ironwood skin and immediately when I got it, I had to think of the iron oak tree that I have on my land. Was there a possibility that the tree was somehow able to influence what trait I got? Putting that aside this trait was amazing simply for one reason, it made my armour enhancement ability get a better hold on my skin. So now when I use armour enhancement, I could make my skin into tough armour. Speaking of the armour it was now fitting me perfectly. This was an unfortunate situation because I had grown in height too much. If this kept going I needed to make myself new armour every year if not even faster. Hopefully, I will not grow too big. I am quite certain that the reason why I¡¯m growing even faster is the trait enriched body. It simply doesn''t have any patience and wants to get where it is going as fast as possible. Other than that, my training mostly involved upgrading my energy-based skills and abilities but I also got many other skills and abilities to level up these past months. I am most proud of my mind skill which is now up to level 14. I had done a lot and gotten a lot stronger, especially on my energy side which I seem to have a good instinct for. If I compare myself to others, they all seem clumsy. When I¡¯m teaching them things that came so naturally to me it''s hard to understand why they are having so much trouble. Sometimes this even frustrates me. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. It took me a while to understand why, simply because I have only felt like this once before in my life. I felt this confusion when I was still young and the war had been going on for only a few months. Back then it was hard to see my friends die to things I could have survived. ¡°Gosh I was so young back then and so stupid.¡± It took a lot longer to finally understand that I was just better at killing than most others. It seems that in this new world there might be another thing I might be better at than most others and that¡¯s everything to do with energy. I took a last look towards the south and the grass sea that expanded towards there. Currently, it was all covered in snow and it was a magnificent sight. I burned it into my mind so I would always remember this. I then gave a signal for Goose to turn around, I did the same and started to quickly move back towards my own land as we might have some company in the following few days that might not be so pleasant. POV Falyr Hrasnel It took the scouts an entire day to get back. Without enhanced tools to survive and move in this weather, they might have not made it back here earlier than the convoy. However, the convoy was making good time getting here. I looked at Bert and I was glad that we had the capability of communicating fast. Thanks to that we were able to figure out who the leader of the convoy was. Our scouts figured out quite quickly that there was an aristocrat there. When they gave me the description I quickly penned down the same with every other piece of information that we got. This we sent back to the headquarters for Tom to figure out who we are facing. The news was bad. At first, we were hopeful as the noble house of Gelld was quite the righteous one. I have even met the patriarch once. From all the rumours he was an extremely honourable man. Unfortunately, it turned out that he did not survive the plague. Even worse neither did his two elder sons leaving only the youngest alive who by all records was a truly horrible person. It seems that fathers love was blind and no one else spoke up against the boy so he was left alive. This oversight happened because he was third in line and the other two were good apples so no one thought that this person might become a danger in the future. Usually, the other nobility will clear out the truly bad people that might become owners of land and people. But currently, everyone is more focused on their own survival. I just hope that the oaths are no longer as strong as they used to be, or the boy has messed up so they will have a possibility of breaking them. The forces that he commands are quite powerful even more than we currently have here and we are not certain if help will arrive from the company before or after they have reached the village so we truly need to be on our best behaviour. The other problem is the undead that are following. They are quite high-level and have several different kinds amongst the horde. That is quite unnatural for an uncontrolled horde. If there is a controller the scouts could not find them. This was a big problem because if they were being commanded with even a bit of intelligence our job will be a lot harder. We have gotten some reports not just from our kingdoms area but from all over that a lot more people are getting classes related to the undead. There are even some areas that have been claimed by the undead and their commanders. In all recorded history this has never happened before. Currently, there simply isn''t anyone that can handle the amount of undead in the world, so they have been able to gain a lot of power during the few years that the plague got truly bad. Our current leading theory is that someone that commanded them give them an order to kill someone most likely the noble brat that''s in command and they are just following their last order trying to kill him. For all our planning we didn¡¯t find a good solution. We just have to hope that the reinforcements can get here faster than the convoy because if we have to deal with the convoy with less strength than them we might be in trouble. If an altercation happened that led to a fight. Well, that would be quite bad for everyone living in the village, but this is unlikely because they need our strength to help against the undead. But this type of logical thinking might not work simply because of the madman that''s commanding them. I could feel my head starting to ache. This happened every time I thought about the convoy and its leader. Why couldn''t he have died instead of his father and why were they so far away from the lands that they used to own? If they have come all the way from the other side of the neighbouring duchy, how are they still able to move forward? They should all be dead on their feet and how are there still villagers with them that are still alive? Usually, they break in this kind of situation and would run away or try to kill whoever is in command. chapter 107 Slowly but steadily the convoy started to reach the snow that wasn¡¯t that thick anymore. In the centre carriage, the only one that was heated lounged a young man who looked at his food disgusted. Like he always did he started to complain about the lack of acceptable food to the other occupants of the carriage. With him were his sister and two other women that used to be a part of smaller noble houses. His sister was in manacles to stop her from trying to run away. The other two women were half-naked so he would have something good to look at besides the awful snow outside. He wanted to take the women fully, but he couldn''t otherwise the oaths that constrain his knight would break, but he could still have some fun with them. He was just glad that he could kill and torture peasants without the oaths breaking. This was thanks to his ability to charge them with anything he wanted and then declare them guilty. When he thought back to the stupid scouts that were able to get away because they had gotten too far for him made him subconsciously squeezed the knife in his hand until his knuckles were white. The young girl that was in the carriage and was this monster''s sister tried to keep the smile from her face. Anything that made her brother mad was the sweetest of gifts. Still, as she looked at the other girls in that carriage that amusement quickly died down. Next, she looked at the guard commander that was riding beside them. She wished that he could do anything to save them but even he had to endure whatever this madman that was supposed to be her brother wanted to do. The man that currently was the guard commander could only sigh whenever he thought about his former master and what had become of his life. When he watched himself in the mirror, he could already see the grey in his beard. But currently, he did not dare to look into the mirror as he know he couldn¡¯t bear to see his eyes being so lifeless. That image would break the last of his willpower. He started to notice that the snow was getting shallower. It seemed that his dream of the snow being never-ending and them all freezing to death would not come to pass. He just hoped that whoever they come across will be strong enough to kill them all. When the man looked behind him and saw the villagers still walking with them, he still could not believe it. He did not know what spurred them on and kept them moving. How have they not given up? He did not know and that was the only thing that still gave him hope that he might see this nightmare end with him hopefully still alive. If you looked at the convoy people and their eyes all the soldiers and the people that were part of the noble house all had lifeless eyes wishing everything was all over one way or another. Yet if you looked at the eyes of the villagers you would see determination and hatred that fueled their life and let them keep putting one leg in front of the other. The way to the village was not completely clear and while this wind-swept part of the countryside barely had any snow this didn''t continue for long and from a bird''s eye view, you could see two tunnels that will connect to this part of the countryside. One of those tunnels was not yet connected and that was the convoy that was escaping from the undead. On the other side, the tunnel was already finished and the company that occupied the village had set up some rudimentary defences in hopes that they will be used against the undead and not the people that were part of the convoy. Amongst those people that were waiting for the convoy was Falyr. He looked around quite worriedly as the reinforcements had not yet arrived meaning they were badly outpowered by the potential enemy. Even Rich had not yet come which was unusual as he was quite punctual. Their biggest advantage was Bert, who had worked quite hard to put up some defence that could be used if anything happened and a fight broke out. When the two wizards that were in the front carriage finally saw more than 20 feet in front of them, they were both disappointed and glad. While they also wished that they died from the winter so they didn''t have to follow this madman they were still glad that at least for a little while this exhaustive job would be over. What they didn''t expect was to see a group of people where the snow started to get deep again. They didn¡¯t call for this out for the convoy simply because they didn¡¯t care and hoped that the people out there were strong enough to put up a resistance or even possibly help them break free. A few moments later commands could be heard that instructed everyone to keep moving. This Falyr did not expect to happen, they just kept coming and no one ran ahead to parley with them and that made him a lot more worried about the situation. It took about an hour before the convoy reached where the company was. Only then when they were close enough did a small group of knights on horseback move towards the front to meet the other group. Everything was tense as the strongest knight who was the guard commander examined the group in front of them. He was glad to see that there were powerful people amongst them yet he was disappointed there weren¡¯t more. ¡°Greetings, we are from the thorn rose company and we had noticed your presence about a day ago. At first, we were quite pleased to see a possible trade caravan but when we found what was chasing you, we became a bit more cautious as to your intentions,¡± said Falyr in a clear and loud voice. ¡°I¡¯m afraid we are not on a trade mission. We are simply trying to survive the winter and the undead that seem to have found themselves chasing us.¡± There seemed to be a pause before the guard commander continued.¡± We seek your strength and hospitality in these trying times. We seek hospitality and trust you can accommodate us.¡± said the head commander almost unwillingly. Falyr was glad to hear those words, but he did not like the tone of them. He didn''t understand what was wrong with the head commander and when he looked at everyone else his suspicions grew, but he couldn''t do anything to challenge the claims at least for now. He expressed that they were glad to give hospitality and hoped that they could continue this conversation with the leader of the convoy. Falyr didn¡¯t get his wish immediately. As everyone was tired of walking and some were quite hungry they all started to set up behind the defences and started to rest with the sun still up something they haven''t been able to do in a long time. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. When the noble got out of his carriage a lot of time had passed so everyone was waiting for him. All Falyr could do was let out a heavy sigh when he saw the boy. That boy just oozed madness and bloodlust. What was even worse were the artefacts that were on him. If he had to guess they were all to save that sorry excuse of a man''s life. The noble was quite pleased with his appearance as he had to take quite a while to get back into presentable order. But when he looked around, he was disappointed about the rabble that was there. He had hoped that there was someone that was close to his calibre but there didn''t seem to be. The smell of the peasants made him angry, but he was pleased that no peasant dared to look at him. He had trained them well. The guard commander came to lead him to the leader of the other group, but he was disappointed at what he saw. Did that person even have a drop of noble blood? Was he just a peasant that got lucky? Falyr could see the disgust on the young man¡¯s face. He just had hope that he would be able to please him long enough for the reinforcements to arrive and then they could do what they want. Before the conversation could begin, he heard a loud voice. ¡°Look at all of this. It''s all so disappointing. I was hoping that the undead would already be here so I could cut them all down myself.¡± The voice was arrogant and full of confidence and when Falyr turned around he could see Rich and his three apprentices who were behind him like servants. He looked taller than he remembered, and Rich held himself like he was above everyone, something Falyr had never seen before. Even Rich¡¯s eyes looked awfully similar to the noble that was beside him. When he looked at the noble, he could see the smile on his face. He looked like someone that was finally glad to see someone worthy of his attention. Falyr was utterly confused at what was happening. He had never seen Rich act like this. Had he been waiting for an opportunity like this? Had Rich orchestrated everything so he could get so many people here and then take all the riches we brought? What was happening even that didn''t make any sense. Before he could do anything he saw the noble quickly walk towards Rich and greet him. ¡°Good day knight, I am Lurd Lauso leader of the noble house of Gelld. It is a pleasure to meet someone as regal as you.¡± Before he could continue with his questions he was interrupted by Rich. ¡°Ha, it¡¯s great to see someone as prominent as you. I will win glory for us today against the undead and then we can celebrate with a feast that will quench all our thirst.¡± Rich then laughed again putting his hand onthe noble¡¯s shoulder as the noble laughed with him. Everyone in the convoy was surprised that Lurd Lauso had allowed someone to touch him without permission but when they heard him laugh a colder shiver ran down their spine. How were they so unlucky that they found another man amongst so much emptiness that was similar to Lurd? The Guard commander was worried about everything happening and then it got worse as he saw the man in weird armour lead Lurd away more towards the coming undead and a bit towards the villager. This all made him quite worried. He had hoped that the people here were good but now he was no longer certain but when he looked at Falyr he could see the confusion on his face that was mirrored by everyone else. ¡°There is no need to worry the undead will come in a line out from the snow. The speedy bastards among them will run at us long before the other undead could even get close to us. We will all be able to deal with them easily,¡± explained Rich in a loud voice so absolutely everyone could hear. The guard commander was uncertain why Rich said that. Most hordes will stick quite close to each other. Did they know something he did not? ¡°Do you have any more information about the undead that would make you guys believe that the undead will act like this?¡± He asked Falyr who just shook his head. Falyr had a hard time understanding what was happening. ¡°Then when we deal with the runners that came at us, I will charge the middle and hold and kill everything that tries to come near. At this point, everyone else will start to taunt smaller groups of the undead which you will all be able to handle quite easily. Like that, we will easily win this fight and then the celebrations can begin.¡± Rich¡¯s confident and overbearing voice spread to everyone. However, no one understood why Rich was so confident. The ones that didn''t know about warfare thought he was crazy and the ones that know about war were even more dumbfounded. ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± Asked Falyr whose brain was barely working. Everything they had planned just came crashing down. Then the confusion was replaced by horror. ¡°Rich you seemed to have good noble blood and you are obviously a member of a prominent knight academy, but are you associated with any noble house?¡± Asked Lurd in a happy tone. He could not remember the last time he was so glad to meet another member of the nobility. To that Rich grabbed Lurd shoulder again before laughing. ¡°Ha ha as you can see there are no noble house markings on my armour meaning I am a completely free agent at the moment.¡± This made Lurd extremely happy but before he could continue Rich spoke up again. ¡°But I have not been to any knight academy nor am I nobility. If I would put a name to myself, I would be a farmer or possibly a scavenger some might even call me a peasant I would guess.¡± Rich still had his hand on Lurd¡¯s shoulder and kept talking without noticing or pretending not to about the complete shift Lurd had gone through. The surroundings went completely silent as everyone from the convoy and the company could feel the shift of mood and were absolutely scared of the outcome. Then Rich was able to somehow make it even worse. ¡°You see all of this that I currently am is only possible thanks to the nobility around here dying. Nobility truly is worthless ha ha ha. I could only imagine a world where such stupid people didn¡¯t exist. I wonder where we could have made it if this was the world we lived in.¡± The guard commander was the first to act but even he was too slow simply because even he was completely taken by surprise by Rich¡¯s change of attitude. Because of that, he was not able to get to them fast enough to stop Lurd¡¯s rapier. He could only watch it starting to glow with the power of abilities and plunging towards Rich¡¯s chest. The guard commander had found it a bit weird when he first saw Rich and his two-handed sword that was unsheathed and rested against his shoulder held by his right arm. He wasn¡¯t able to figure out why the position of it was weird but what happened between Lurd and Rich made him forget about that fact. But now he was reminded again because Rich¡¯s armour glowed with the power of ability and he could see the rapier only able to scratch the armour before it was turned and harmlessly started to move down the armour. Everyone had expected for the rapier to pierce the chest and heart of Rich so they hadn¡¯t thought of what might happen next. There was a small pressure wave that was released when Rich¡¯s two-handed sword started to move and glow a lot brighter than the rapier ever did. The sword moved so fast that for the regular villagers they didn''t even see what happened before it ended but people with combat experience saw it all. Rich was able to move the sword with one hand with ease and speed. The sword was infused with so much energy that when it came into contact with the first defensive artefact it didn''t even diminish the light of the sword by a fraction. The next two defence artefacts were a lot stronger, but the glow still remains strong. The 4th artefact took the most out of the glow but even then, it still kept going and then the 5th almost extinguished the light but somehow it still had power. Lurd¡¯s look of disgust has changed to astonishment and then into absolute fear. The sword entered his shoulder and cut almost halfway through the body but before the noble could give his last command to his sworn protectors another surge of energy enter the sword. The sword exploded with energy roots that quickly dug their way through the body of the noble quickly spreading to every vital part of the body including the brain killing the noble instantly and leaving only mangled flesh behind. chapter 108 POV Rich Dirt I could feel the strain that my body went through as I pulled out my sword from the now mangled corpse. With my energy roots and the sword removed, the body fell with a squelching sound. It looked like someone had thrown a bunch of pieces of badly butchered meat, bones and clothing into a heap. It was not a beautiful sight, but I was quite glad to see that waste of space dead. Thinking back on the last day I was quite glad I decided to see the convoy with my own eyes. This way I found this horrible thing coming towards us. At first, it was quite a normal scouting mission but then Goose got a glimpse inside one of the carriages and the sight inside was not something that was pleasant to look at. When I finally got my own eyes on the carriage and people with the noble, I could see that they were in quite a horrible mood almost like they were acting like humans who were already dead inside. From that point, I knew I would kill the noble, but I wasn¡¯t planning on doing it right away. It seemed too risky but then I noticed the villagers behind, and my mind quickly changed. When I saw their faces, I knew the noble needed to die as quickly as possible. What the villagers were pushing themselves to do was nothing to do with the noble¡¯s cruelty towards them or forcing them to follow him. In their eyes was pure hatred and hope that the bastard will die eventually, it was then that I knew he needed killing as soon as possible This plan that currently ended with me watching over the dead noble didn''t come to my head instantly. It started by getting some more information about oaths and the general information that Falyr had about the noble. I did not tell my plans to anyone even my apprentices, but I did ask them to appear to be my servants and that part went off without a hitch. I still feel oily about acting the way I did but you can''t argue with the results. About 10 to 15 minutes of acting like a complete psychopath allowed me to anger the noble so much that he completely forgot about his oaths and how he should not act without reason because otherwise, they will break. Still, it was a close one as I am not sure if an order from his mind will still need to be followed even if he didn¡¯t have a good reason for it. I could see in his last moments that he wanted to give the order to kill me. Thankfully I was able to control the energy in my sword well enough to end him quickly, but this reminded me to always go for the head if there was a possibility the target could retaliate with his last moment. When I looked, I noticed that everyone under the noble was rushing towards me. Their face seemed to be happy yet grim. Did I mess up or was I too late and they still had to retaliate against me? I started to prepare to run but then I noticed the two wizards doing nothing of the sort but were happily hugging themselves. I then knew what was going on. ¡°I believe your oaths should not have triggered because this was self-defence,¡± I said in a clear voice that carried a long distance. I could see there was a moment of pause as everyone stopped moving, they were almost questioningly looking at themselves and then smiles broke through as they realized they didn''t need to kill. I was of course also happy that I wouldn¡¯t have to run and I had just saved a lot of powerful people from the torment of their former master. Hopefully, everything will go well with the undead as well. ¡­ The guard commander was taken aback by the words that he heard the young man say. He was now halfway towards the man and found that he was able to pause and think then halted his movement. Looking into himself he found the oaths that bound him for so long were gone and he could breathe out a sigh of relief. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. He looked at the man to truly take him in for the first time. What he saw was someone willing to do the dirty work to make the world a better place, someone who could stand tall even after murdering someone of the nobility. The man looked comfortable in his armour and for some reason, an image of the armoured man was replaced with a happy-looking farmer for a moment. He then looked around and noticed that his wet eyes were not the only ones as some were even crying quite openly. The villagers were a lot more open and showed their emotions even more. Cries of happiness and open weeping were common as they all looked at their former tormentor that was just gruesomely killed to everyone¡¯s enjoyment. The guard commander quickly gave some orders, and everyone put their swords and weapons back. ¡­. Falyr''s brain had finally started to work normally, and when it did, he had to give credit to Rich. He found a way to quickly gain the noble''s trust and turn it against him. He eventually made the noble so mad that he attacked without any excuse for the consequences of his actions. It was a dangerous move on Rich¡¯s part, but it seemed to have worked out brilliantly. When he saw Rich starting to move back towards his apprentices he moved there and congratulated him for a job well done. ¡°Good work and brilliant move but please next time give me a heads up.¡± Falyr only got a stupid smile in return and a quick nod. ¡°There is still a big problem and that¡¯s the undead horde moving this way,¡± said Rich in the clear but this time not so arrogant and commanding voice. This reminded Falyr of this reality but the smile on his face didn''t go away. ¡°I thought we already had a plan. I mean you said it so confidently before,¡± he said to Rich in a joking manner. To his surprise, Rich didn¡¯t seem to joke back to him but gave a quick nod. Rich then called over the guard commander to join them before he continued speaking. Rich still talked in a loud voice so everyone could hear. ¡°Do you both think, if the undead came out in a line and then the quick ones ran towards us faster than the main horde, will we be able to handle both their first wave and then the bigger but slower undead if I would be able to hold the centre for some time?¡± This question dumfounded both the guard commander and Falyr, but they didn¡¯t outright dismiss this claim but seriously thought about it. They both thought that perhaps Rich had some information they did not. Falyr almost agreed with what Rich said but there was one problem with his thinking. Even if it was possible that he could hold the centre and the undead did as he said there was still the big undead and there was no way Rich could hold against that. It seems that they both came to the same conclusion as they started to speak at the same time. The guard commander and Falyr looked at each other but Falyr gestured for the guard commander to continue. He explained the same thing and came to the same conclusion as Falyr had and he just nodded to that, but Rich added. ¡°You would be absolutely correct, but you see the big undead does have problems with the snowy land and slips often. If we handled the main horde quick enough the big undead will most likely be behind everyone else by hopefully a good distance.¡± Again, this dumbfounded Falyr and from the looks of it the guard commander also. Falyr didn¡¯t understand where this information was coming from as his scouts reported nothing of the sort. And why was Rich talking in such a loud voice even though they were right next to them? It seems that today Falyr learned that Rich was a more complex person than he first thought and his ability to scheme seems to be a lot higher than he ever would have given him credit for. This made Rich¡¯s evaluation in his head go up a lot even if not taking into account the strike that killed the noble. When Falyr thought back on it he couldn''t understand how Rich had access to such a high tier of energy that he should not be able to have let alone be able to wield it. For once he didn''t think that the culprit was his weird main class but perhaps some trait but whatever it was it made him dangerous to even people who have passed the first threshold. They continued to speak about the upcoming battle that was going to happen most likely tomorrow morning. But Falyr was still confused as to why Rich was talking so loudly about their battle plans and why he thought the undead will act the way he described. ¡­ Falyr was not the only one confused about Rich¡¯s actions, but no one dared to ask him why he was doing something like this. But there was one person who knew. He was similarly overjoyed and celebrated when Lurd died. But that excitement quickly died down with the realization that the undead were still moving this way. Panic had started to set in, and he didn''t know what to do. Then as he heard Rich calmly explain what was going to happen, he was able to get his panic under control. He started to listen to Rich¡¯s every word knowing this might be his best chance at surviving. chapter 109 *** The morning was cold when the first rays of sunshine started to illuminate the sky. In a small corner of the world, there was a wide area where the snow was not even past the knee. On one side where the snow got thicker was a group of people that had been up all night working on their defences. Their breaths came slowly but were heavy. They made long furrows of frosty breath billow out. It didn''t take them long to notice the motion on the other side as the snow was being disturbed in a large area and soon undead started to emerge. Quickly word spread and as signal sounded out. The few that had been sleeping so they were fresh for the battle were woken up. Amongst them was Rich Dirt who examined the enemies with his discerning eyes searching for any weakness. Soon he noticed that his battle plans were being executed as the bows that he had brought were being handed out to people who had abilities or skills to use them. On one side the ballista was being prepared. They hoped that the ballista would be strong enough to help eliminate a large portion of the enemies and even help bring down the big undead if it was needed. Other than that, horses were also being prepared and knights were currently being armoured up so they could take the fight to the enemy. Keeping them mobile would give them the best advantage possible. To the delight of everyone, it seemed that the fast undead truly were starting to get ahead of the main mass of the undead as they surged forward in loose groups. Rich was the first to move and get past the defences. He walked a small distance away and got ready to intercept any that survived the archer¡¯s attacks. If the situation got really bad the wizards would take action, but everyone hoped that their power could be kept for the second leg of the fight. Rich looked once more at his new ability and smiled as this ability would make the coming enemies a lot easier to deal with. He had fooled everyone so well with his portrayal of a horrible noble that his acting skill levelled up from level 2 all the way to the next tier. Unfortunately, he got a few bad choices that he could not pick if he wanted to keep living. In this world abilities that control the mind were met with open hostility and anyone confirmed of having some would find a knife in their back quite fast. Luckily Rich only had two of those ability options available to pick so he could pick the last one available. The last one although also a sort of mind control, was accepted by society and even looked at favourably by anyone who fights monsters. He was able to get a taunting ability. It didn''t take long as some of the undead were really fast and already made it to bow range. Those were the most dangerous ones as they had high levels. One was even closing in at gold rank but they weren''t facing just villagers. There were multiple people in gold rank against them and even more in silver but still, they were facing a lot of undead, close to 3000. Luckily most of those numbers were just low-level zombies. Still, numbers are a quality all to themselves. Only one ghoul-type undead was able to get close but no warrior had to unsheathe their weapons as the archers were able to kill all the fast undead. Some of the abilities made the surrounding area light up with different colours and Rich enjoyed the sight the most as he could see a lot more than other people. But he could also see the coil that connected him to every undead out there but he was quite glad of it. It was the same coil that was connected to the now-dead noble. It didn''t take Rich Dirt¡¯s eyes long to figure out why the zombies were following when he got close enough to the noble, but it took him a bit longer to figure out that there was another thread similar to this one yet unsimilar that ended inside the group of villagers. There was a reason why Rich talked so loudly so everyone could hear what was happening. One of the villagers was the one who commanded the dead. Obviously, his control was quite bad. Most likely he was way over his head with the amount of undead in the horde, but Rich could also understand the hatred that could make someone do this. There was a possibility that if he exposed the young man, the wizards might think of something and make this fight unneeded. Rich hoped that perhaps in the future that person might become useful and killing of someone for trying to avenge their village and family was not something which Rich looked down upon even if that someone decided to use the undead to do that. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Rich tried not to glance towards the person that he knew was controlling, or at least guiding the undead but he could see the struggle in the young man as he constantly tried to pull apart the horde of undead that naturally wanted to bunch up. The change to the horde was minuscule but Rich was constantly monitoring to see if something needed to be changed or if an opportunity was to be gained. Now that the sun was shining a bit higher everyone could see clearly and it seemed that the big guy was truly behind the horde although not by as much as everyone had hoped. By now all the runners were dead and some of the defences were being pulled apart so the forces that needed to go out and fight could leave. When Rich saw that he didn''t hesitate and started to walk towards the main group that had the most concentrated amount of undead. He didn''t think that this would be an easy fight, but he was confident in his armour ability and his energy reserves. Still, it wouldn''t take long until he will be surrounded but he will also need to retreat every once in a while so that they would get closer to the defensive works. That way the archers and the ballista could do their jobs a lot more effectively. The only thing Rich was sad about was that his energy cores were empty of high-tier energy meaning one of his trump cards was currently unusable. He did have a small trickle of it but when he got close enough to the horde, he used it all and channelled it into his taunt ability combining that with other abilities. His voice boomed over the battlefield and every undead that wasn¡¯t already focused on him now was and started to rush towards him. The knights were closest to him. They had already warmed up their horses and were ready to start strafing runs against the horde. They were all impressed by the courage of the man who single-handedly walked towards an army with no sign of fear on him. There was no epic start to the battle just the single zombie that made it close enough for Rich to quickly bisect and kill. And so, it began. The horde moved slowly forward even when their target was basically amongst them but still, they kept moving forward. There were only a few undead that weren''t focusing on Rich but they were quickly either killed by the knight or a horse trampling them to their second death. Rich was constantly surrounded as his blade whipped around killing anything that got close. Yet the horde was numerous, and he was constantly taking small hits although his armour was completely nullifying any hit that came in contact with him. The slow retreat took about half an hour before the sound of arrows raining down was added to the battlefield. By that time almost 1/5 of the horde was dead and now their number started to diminish a lot faster, yet they still kept pushing forward. In the minds of the archers and everyone else that were around the defence was not the horde that was coming but the huge behemoth behind them that was getting closer at an alarming rate that was beyond gold rank. People started to panic as the horde was getting too close and the looming figure of the big undead was basically breathing down their necks. Yet they still fired as fast as they could. The only thing that comforted their mind was the sound of the ballista firing and taking out big groups of undead every time it did. But then everything changed when another light joined the battle and the horde stopped moving forward. Everyone was dumbfounded about this new development except for a few individuals who know what this meant. It was a signal that the wizards and the rest of the foot soldiers were waiting for. Explosions started to happen at one side of the horde killing dozens with every strike. On the other side, different weapons started to cut down every undead that was still focusing on trying to get to Rich. By this point the horses and the knights were completely spent yet they continued their charge at the back of the horde trying to kill as many as possible. All the combined attacks were effective and a huge portion of the undead died quickly yet they weren¡¯t dying quickly enough. Rich even though he was fighting in the thickest part of the horde, understood that he needed to do something before the big undead reached them. Even though he was starting to run out of energy he focused and pulled on everything he still had. He started to push through the remaining horde towards the big undead and gradually he started moving faster and faster. This gave an even better opportunity for everyone else to keep killing. Rich went with the good old tactic of moving fast and striking at the legs of the bigger target. Still, he was quickly being bogged down by the rest of the undead that were still struggling to swarm him. Everyone fought desperately trying to eliminate as many of the undead as possible and finally there was a signal that everyone was waiting for. In the next instants a pulse radiated out from the defensive structure and as soon as it hit, the currently moving undead fell down, lifeless. Bert had prepared a spell during the night. Unfortunately, it only worked on a certain number of undead. But the number target he was waiting for was met and the rest of the 1/6 of the living undead were now properly dead. Even the big one fell like a puppet whose strings were cut. When everyone saw this, they all fell down in exhaustion. The big undead on its own would not have been a problem. But they needed to deal with the weaker undead as well, meaning everyone was out of energy to do any significant damage to it. The spell Bert made would have been a lot less effective if it was used at the start as it was never meant to handle this amount of undead. The battle was directed magnificently and no one lost their lives but the biggest gain was gotten by Rich who was also laying in the snow breathing heavily as he started to look at all the notifications he had gotten. chapter 110* My breath was still coming in heavy and my heart was beating a mile a minute. The sun was nice as I was laying on the snow, trying to get my body under control. I was running on fumes at the very end quite glad that it was over. Even though I was glad it was over I cannot argue with the results as many notifications were waiting for me. Just in case I got a little bit up to survey everything to see if it was truly over and after confirming it, I let myself fall back on the snow as even that was quite straining for me. First, I looked at my class notifications as I had levelled up my three classes twice. This brought my homesteader class to 23 and both true archer and heroic soldier to 21. This meant that I got two milestones and I quickly checked what I got. Both gave 20 free points which I was glad about. Looking over my stats I still decided to put everything into energy storage. This got me another 40 points bringing me up to 221. True archer gave an ability energy compatibility which needed some further testing to figure out what it actually did, but I was glad to see another energy-based ability. Heroic soldier gave an ability called call of the ancestors. I had no idea what this could do but with a quick check, I confirm that I could not access this outside of battle. So, it might be another similar ability to heroic stand but how it will help I have no idea. I don¡¯t even know what it possibly could do. Perhaps I will get some information or somehow help from ancestors. Whose ancestors will it be mine or someone else¡¯s? Do I need to be on a battlefield and to have already killed people and bring them back in some form to fight for me? Honestly, I am quite excited about using this one. It was also good to get another general boost to all my stats, but I also had a few more notifications to go through. I was able to pick quite a few more abilities to add to my repertoire. The first skill to tier up was basic weaponry. There were two choices that were quite interesting. One was to add strength to my weapon of abilities ability, but I believe this would just be a small boost not giving me anything special. Still, that didn''t dismiss its usefulness. Even a little boost can eventually become a big one I just needed more of them to add to the ability. One of the choices I could dismiss, as it was called sticky grip and I didn¡¯t think it would be too useful. Although I could see some case-by-case uses. Perhaps even helping me climb, but the last one was definitely the one I was most excited about. Flying slash was the name and would suggest it would give a range option to my bladed weapons. Perhaps I could even add this into my weapon of abilities ability so it could get a bit more of a boost than it just being on its own. It didn¡¯t take long for me to pick it up and move on. Next was combat strategy. There wasn¡¯t anything that interesting to pick. Only one caught my eye and it was called unit boost. Why did this one catch my eye amongst the others? It was thanks to my commander ability. I was able to use it but only limitedly in this battle simply because I wasn¡¯t commanding anyone directly, but the ability still worked on myself. And if I dived into the ability my information in it was listed under unit 1. So perhaps there is a correlation between the two. If this was true and there were abilities that gave even more functionality to my commander ability, then it might become op fast. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Basic war tactics also tiered up which I was quite glad about and from the choices there I also noticed an ability called myriad units. There was another ability that I was contemplating on getting called fast march, but something nagged at the back of my head so, in the end, I picked myriad units. I was currently so exhausted that I didn¡¯t want to test the abilities I have gotten so I just continued onwards hoping to finish soon. I was glad to see my energy emissions tiering up giving me some cool options, but I ended up picking energy zone as zone abilities were supposed to be quite powerful. Next and luckily the last was energy manipulation. The three choices I got all sounded brilliant, but one was shining a lot more brightly. It was called energy hardening and instantly it reminded me somewhat of my experiments trying to restrict mana influence on my energy, so I picked that one. When that was done, I could feel myself wanting to sleep but I battled myself a bit more. There were a lot more level-ups but nothing that interesting. Finally, I looked up to see how far and if I should attempt to return to the temporary camp where a sleeping spot awaited me. Thankfully I wasn¡¯t too out of it and I was able to figure out that if I went there I would have to join in on the after-battle report and discussion so I did the best thing for myself and quickly let myself relax and fall asleep. POV Falyr Hrasnel Falyr was currently cleaning his sword, a ritual that he had developed over the course of his life. It wasn''t the most important thing, but it helped him centre himself after hard battles. This was not the worst battle he had been a part of honestly, he could say that it was a pleasant one, but he still did his ritual which helped him also think about what happened. Before the battle he didn¡¯t question how Rich knew what the undead were going to do but now that the battle was over, he would like some answers. There was also the question of what to do with the people of the convoy. There was no good answer for that and he hoped that they will just go back to where they came from. That would be the best solution but unfortunately, the world simply doesn¡¯t work like that unless you are apparently Rich who can dictate a battle plan to the enemy so they would follow, his, instructions. Son of a bitch. That''s why he spoke with such a loud voice. He believed the commander of the undead was among us the whole time. But then why? Of course, the undead were here to kill the noble. Still, it leaves a lot of unanswered questions but also alleviates some worries as the person that was controlling the undead seemed to be quite happy or at least willing to let us slaughter his forces. Come to think of it if I remember correctly Rich knew about the undead in the village for quite a while before he cleared them out. And here again, the slaughter was quite good as I was getting close to a level-up. I haven¡¯t been able to experience that in quite a while. Perhaps Tom and I have been looking at the undead problem the wrong way around. Undead can gain experience without killing anyone they just need some time. And if we then come in and kill them before they get too dangerous but leave them for enough time to give us XP, we could get easy levels like that. My ruminations were interrupted by the scout I sent to find Rich and bring him back for the after-battle meeting. But for some reason, he came back alone. He gave me a quick salute and then spoke quickly. ¡°Sir, I found Rich and he seems to be sleeping and completely exhausted.¡± I kept waiting to see if some more information was coming but as time went by the young man started to get a lot more nervous and I finally figured out that was all he had to say. I let out a tired sigh and waved him off. It brought a small smile to my face as I saw the relief on the young man as he left. But how does Rich come up with these brilliant plans? I should have just done the same as him and rested. Now I have to try and stay on my feet while I am dead tired and still try to think during the meeting which for some reason I called. Seriously what the fuck is wrong with me. I have decided not to like today as I could feel my head starting to hurt. Why couldn¡¯t I just be a regular infantry soldier again, just following commands? chapter 111 What finally woke me up was the sun getting too high up and my eyes simply didn¡¯t like that. One thing I was still super glad of was that getting up didn¡¯t hurt anymore being young truly is wonderful. And this time I can actually take advantage of it, unlike the last time when I didn¡¯t know what to appreciate before it was too late. I got myself up, and did a quick check but didn''t find anything wrong. Apparently, only a few hours of rest were needed for me to be in a minimum functional condition. This was crazy fast, and I was completely on board with it. What didn¡¯t look so good anymore was my sword. It now had a lot more grooves in it that were now a lot more visible. If I had to say it would not survive another fight like this. This was extremely bad news simply because I didn¡¯t know where to get another one but hopefully, I can put an order in with Falyr or try to work on it myself although I was not really that confident in making a big two-handed sword, at least not right now. Eventually, I want to get good enough to at least make any weapon I will be using. Walking back, I looked over the battlefield. There was a lot to collect here mostly arrows that were peppered everywhere. When I got closer to the camp, I noticed there was a ring of people. I had hoped that the battle report meeting was already over, but I guess I would need to join in as well. When I got closer, and people started to notice me I got a lot of smiles and head nods from everyone. For a moment I was brought back to a similar situation that happened on earth. After blinking my eyes a few times, I was able to clear my sight from this memory. When I got close enough to the table, I didn¡¯t announce myself but just listened in on what everyone else was saying. Currently, they were discussing how to clean up the battlefield, but it didn''t take them long to notice me. Falyr for some reason looked impressed yet disappointed and I didn¡¯t know why that was, but he quickly helped me overcome my confusion. He stated out loud that he wished that he had come up with the same plan as Rich and gone to sleep before the meeting happened. Everyone laughed at that, and this helped release some tension everyone had. I was also given a small run down on what had happened, and I was extremely glad to hear that none of our people died. I also learned the guard commander¡¯s name, Carl. Like I had feared the meeting kept going on and on but now I really didn¡¯t mind it. Others were not as lucky as me as some were swaying on their feet obviously completely exhausted. Eventually, a well-dressed girl joined and walked close to Carl. She was introduced as Lydian and turned out to be that noble¡¯s sister who I killed. We all were a bit wary of her, but she didn¡¯t seem to hold the grudge against me for killing her brother. Quite the opposite in fact. I just had to shrug my shoulders and move on and hope that this wasn''t going to become a problem later on. The first real problem started when the topic of where the convoy people were going to go came up. I was the first to give a suggestion. ¡­¡­ ¡°You all have come a long distance but I believe the village has enough room for everyone. There you can rest and wait out the winter.¡± Rich said that in a confident but still questioning tone as he looked towards Falyr at the end. Everyone could see that Falyr was not that happy with Rich¡¯s statement, but he didn¡¯t disagree with it. Carl wanted to speak but he was not able to get the word out as Lydian spoke up first. ¡°There is no need for this we will be heading back to our lands, isn''t that right guard commander.¡± She looked at Carl who was silent for a bit but then started to answer but before he could he was interrupted again. ¡°I am sorry, but I think you misunderstood me, young miss. I was not talking to you when I proposed that everyone stayed in the village, I was talking to Carl. Carl, look at me. You no longer have to take orders from her nor do you have to swear fealty to her again. None of you will have to be under the nobles again if you don''t want. But that is up to you just think about it.¡± At first Rich was just talking to Carl but later he projected his voice so everyone could hear him. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. The noble didn''t like this, and her face got darker and darker as Rich kept talking. But she wasn''t as bad or as cruel as her brother so all she did was glare at Rich and hope that the guard commander would stay at her side. There was a small break as everyone went their own way as this was not a decision to be made quickly or without input from everyone else. Rich looked as everyone else walked away from the table unhappily. Even Falyr gave me a sidelong look, but he wasn¡¯t really that worried about it. Rich wanted to go and speak with the person that was controlling the undead but unfortunately, he couldn¡¯t do that yet otherwise everyone would know who was controlling the undead. Hopefully, this person will act like a normal person and not go all I AM THE NECROMANCER BOW BEFORE ME. With nothing better to do Rich just stayed around the table but unfortunately, there weren¡¯t any chairs around, so he just had to use the table as a chair. It took about half an hour before everyone could hear arguing from the convoy side which was getting louder and louder. It went on for quite a while before a high-pitched scream ended it and after which, a carriage door was slammed shut. There was silence everywhere as everyone was focused on what was happening with the convoy. It didn''t take a genius to understand what was happening as everyone slowly came back to the table where Carl gave everyone the news that everyone decided to stay but he also asked for a favour from Falyr. While everyone wanted to stay here at least until the winter ended the nobles didn''t. All three girls wanted to go back and were willing to pay for passage if Falyr could make this happen. Falyr didn¡¯t give a definite answer and he was not confident in being able to promise that. Rich was quite happy to hear this as more people in the village was good news especially if those people were grateful to him. Falyr brought up the problem of there not being enough food, but Carl was quick to reassure Falyr that they had quite a lot of food with them. This puzzled everyone but Carl quickly explained that few of the carriages had expansion enchantments. This made everyone nod in understanding after that the talks continued. Rich was extremely interested in the carriage and he quickly left the meeting to see the carriage up close. Rich examined the carriage for quite a while but eventually, an old man came close. ¡°Hello, there young man. It seems that you are quite interested in the expanded carriage. I would have guessed that a person so good at killing stuff wouldn¡¯t be that interested in my father¡¯s work.¡± When Rich looked at the short old man, he was reminded of himself at that age. The man was old but still capable of working and doing everything, but Rich could see the hurt that old age causes affect everything about the man. ¡°Your father made this? Well, they are extremely fascinating, and I have a lot of other interests than just killing stuff. What are some of your interests? But before you answer perhaps we should introduce ourselves my name is Rich Dirt it¡¯s a pleasure to meet you.¡± Rich said that in a casual conversational tone which surprised the old man a bit but in a good way. ¡°My name is David Everock and it¡¯s a pleasure to meet you as well Rich Dirt. As to the question you asked, I am interested in numbers. I like everything about them. Currently, well not currently but before everything went to shit, I worked as an accountant for the noble¡¯s father that you killed. Thank you for that by the way.¡± ¡°No need for thanks, so numbers. Never was good at those but I have always respected them. You can learn quite a lot and control even more if you know numbers. You must have been a very important man.¡± David was a bit taken aback by how sincere Rich was being but Rich soon continued. ¡°I would be quite honoured if you would tell me your life story, David.¡± Once again David was taken aback but he only took a few moments to make up his mind and started to tell his story to Rich. ¡°I guess I must start at the most important part of how I was introduced to the world of numbers. My father was an adventurer in his younger days but eventually, he got sick of the lifestyle. During that time he found his love for enchanting.¡± ¡°Fast forward a couple of decades and he was a moderately successful enchanter with a wife and three kids. I was one of those kids. My father always liked enchanting more than us, but he didn¡¯t abandon us for his work. He just did his work around us. A compromise that I now understand a lot better.¡± ¡°Enchantments need mathematics, a lot of it when you get to more complex enchantments. So, papers with calculations were always around us. Because of that, I learned to add before I learned how to talk.¡± David was quite a good storyteller and Rich quickly understood that David was telling a story that he had told many times. Rich kept interrupting the story with questions until David understood that Rich wanted an unfiltered version. He wanted the truth about his life with the ups and downs and with all the black and white spots. As the day grew late David become a lot more impressed with Rich and so did Rich with David. They continued their talks the next day as they were cleaning the battlefield with everyone else. They only stopped when it was time to start moving back towards the village and Rich and his apprentices needed to leave before that because they needed to feed their animals. chapter 112 The entire time we were moving back to the farm my mind was on what David had told me. This world''s technology was at a higher level than I first thought but not on the technology side but more thanks to the fantasy side. Apparently, when you reach a certain power level the world truly opens up for you and you get access to a lot more interesting gadgets and tools that bridge the gap between Earth technology and this one. For instance, there are communication devices that would work similarly to modern texting even allowing for group chats and there are other fascinating gadgets. Then there are of course bookkeeping books that keep track of everything and everyone you want and by the descriptions and examples that David gave those devices can be extremely efficient and even better than Earth systems of tracking things. There are some things called ledger books that can be made to keep track of huge quantities of stuff even more than the book''s size would explain. Those can be then connected with other books which could use some or all the information from the first book to add to its output. It all reminded me of programming. You could have books in every village where people put their collected food numbers and that information would be transferred to the archives of the kingdom where you would have perfect records of the amount of food collected in the Kingdom. Of course, this would be quite expensive, and you would need people with certain abilities to make it work. Still, I was impressed by the ingenuity and was again reminded that people are still people and if you give them enough time and resources, they can come up with anything. When we made it back to the farm the first thing we did was go to the barn and deal with the animals but after that, I had a problem that needed solving. There would be people coming to this farm, but I wanted to hide certain things. That meant I needed a good place for that and how could I half-ass it? I had an idea a while back and I guess it¡¯s time to start actually doing that. While my apprentices are doing their own thing and also preparing the sauna for today, I went into the root cellar and to the side where the potatoes were. I was so happy that I didn¡¯t need any living fire to see but could use the dungeon stone and my eyes to see everything like it was daylight down here. I planned to make a room that was underneath the cellar that would have a secret entrance this way I could store things that I wanted to keep hidden. At the start, I instantly walked to the back and observed the floor where I wanted to start making the entrance, but I had to stop myself and think this through. The back of the cellar would be the first place someone would be looking and how would I hide the marks that there was an entrance right here on the floor? I walked around a bit thinking and then I was back at the entrance and came up with an idea that might work. To my left side is a wall as soon as I opened the door and walked into the root cellar. Now, where would be the best place to hide a secret door that no one would think about? Right next to the entrance door. There was another benefit if I made it into the wall. Behind the future secret door was dirt and after that the other root cellars wall but from the outside, this isn''t visible. I would also want to make the door be a push-in so there wouldn''t be any visible scraping on the floor that might indicate that there is a secret door in this location. I also didn¡¯t want to have any cut marks on the wall so the door will not be in the shape of a regular door but follow the edges of the stone bricks that make up the wall. I double-check my thinking before proceeding. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Taking out my knife and starting to concentrate on it to make it cut the stone apart where my merging joint ability joined the two different stone bricks when I was building the root cellar. This job was time-consuming because I wanted to be extremely careful so there wouldn¡¯t be any visible marks that the rocks had been cut open again. The hardest part wasn''t finishing the cut it was getting the door out of the way so I could start digging out to dirt behind it. I wish I had suction cups but instead of those, I had to use my abilities creatively. I ended up making something similar to the roots that I used to kill the noble. I spread them behind the wall and then I was able to pull it out enough so I could lift it and put it to the side. I worked over the door again with my merging joints ability to make it as solid as possible. Now it was time to do some digging but unfortunately, I also needed to bring out all the dirt that I was digging out. This was a long process of using sacks to get the dirt out and away from the root cellar so no one would notice visible dirt around it. I didn¡¯t make that room very big I can always expand it later on. Currently, I had taken away the dirt between the two root cellar walls so that the door would be able to be pushed in and then pushed to the side so there would be enough space to walk down the small ramp that led to the underground room. There wasn''t a lot of space between the two root cellar walls, but you could still walk without having to turn your body to the side which was good because I also needed to get all the items down there in a reasonable time. I had to put my job on hold as the day was already over and it was time to go to the sauna and get some relaxation. The next day it was time to start working on the real problem and that was how the door mechanism would work. I wanted to make something that was simple yet would stand the test of time so all I was left to work with was rock. In my head, I went through multiple different designs. With some, I was able to get close to the finished design but some stupid design elements that I couldn¡¯t change would mess up everything. In the end, I was left with a push design that required strength to achieve. I was completely fine with that. But to make this work I needed to bring in a lot more rocks and start to cut and merge them into the design I needed. Basically, I was going to have to make another wall that has multiple rock shelves on it and then make grooves into the door so that when you pushed it in the shelves in a wall will guide the door as you keep pushing on it. When the door was pushed in enough the shelves would be made in a shape so they would lift the door up a little bit and when it was clear of the inner wall you could start pushing it sideways and open a way into the underground room. This took quite a lot of careful work but by lunchtime, I was finished. After lunch, it was time to put the finishing touches on the door. Those being a locking mechanism on the door so no one can accidentally push on this wall and just find the entrance by dumb luck. Making some bricks that you could push down would be simple and again easy to find. What I wanted was to make that you needed to pull out the brick a certain distance so they would disengage the locking mechanism. The locking mechanism would be quite simple. When you push in the bricks that would be shaped to lift up and push in place the locking bars that would make pushing in the door impossible. Well not impossible but you would need a lot of strength to pull it off. That meant a bit more carving into the wall that surrounded the door. Then came some cutting and shaping of door bricks. In the end, I was left with a door where you needed to pull out four bricks to disengage the locking mechanism and then you can push the door inwards. Then push in the four bricks so you could push the door sideways to open up the passage to the underground room. To pull out the bricks I used the same method as I did with removing the door the first time just on a smaller scale. I tested the door multiple times and one thing it wasn¡¯t was silent. The grinding of stones was quite loud but other than that it was awesome perhaps, even more than just awesome. I could understand our ancestors a bit better. Making things like this was so satisfying. This build was so fun, and I can¡¯t wait until next year when I will have enough time to hopefully build out the underground room and not just have a dirt hole that I¡¯m calling a room. I proceeded to bring in the mana orbs and most of the coins and a few other items that filled up most of the room. Thankfully I didn¡¯t need to bring anything that was affected by the elements as this room was not good for that currently. chapter 113 The next day I woke up in a pleasant mood. I was still getting a huge endorphin rush from the finished secret room. For the entire breakfast, all I could think about was if there was any other place where I could make a similar thing. Unfortunately, there wasn¡¯t anywhere currently that fit that description. So, I finally ended my daydreaming and took a look at my achievement page more specifically all the new abilities I have gotten. I think I need to find a way to increase my elemental armour tolerance and heat tolerance. With any luck, both can be trained when I start smithing some more, but I do not know how effective this training could be. I got a lot of abilities that only work in combat like call of the ancestors, unit boost, and myriad units. I do not want to wait for another big battle so I think it¡¯s time to go to the dungeon but this time bringing my apprentices with me so I could test out everything. But before that, I should really test out this energy compatibility and energy hardening and see what they actually do. Elemental access is still something that I am unsure of. It feels like I am missing something to truly use it but what I have no idea. My stealth is also close to a tier up but it''s not there yet. Because it¡¯s a Friday my apprentices are going to the dungeon which gives me some free time to work on the energy side of things. But before that, I went out and tested out flying slash. It worked beautifully it was fast to activate and moved only a bit slower than an arrow. Sending wide slashes moving away from myself was amazing. The ability did have a limit and after about 50m it started to disperse and lose speed and soon after it disappeared. While still outside I activate energy zone, but this ability drains my reserves fast. I didn¡¯t want to mess around too much but when active I felt I had control over everything energy based inside the zone. This ability will need a lot more training and testing to truly understand what it''s capable of. Then I start testing energy compatibility. Activating it did literally nothing. I didn''t have any other option but to concentrate on the ability to see if there was any information available. It sort of gave me the feeling that it was not about me but something else. That still wasn¡¯t that clear but there was an obvious way to test that. I picked up my sword and flooded it with energy while using energy compatibility and to my surprise, it did do something. My energy was flowing better now through the sword and after a few more tests I found that using this ability makes using my energy on any object a lot smoother and that meant I will damage that item less when I channel more energy into it than the item can handle. During this little testing session, one thing came to my mind. Calling Goose back down from his flight I touched him and tried to give some of my energy to him. While I need to concentrate a lot, I was able to change my energy to match his but I needed to be careful as my energy was a lot more potent than his. But this gave interesting opportunities not right now but possibly this might be extremely useful in the future. Next came energy hardening and it did exactly what it says. It makes my energy harder. It doesn¡¯t help that much when I am forming something out of energy but free energy that moves around in my body is now a lot harder. This means outside forces will have a harder time affecting it and yes that also meant mana although this still wasn''t the perfect solution. But the ability was just at level one, and I had great hopes for its future. Still, this wouldn¡¯t be the final solution I need because mana also gets more potent the longer a mage wields it. It will still take a few days before we can run the dungeon, so I need to think about things to do during the next few days. I could start working on my smithing, but elemental access is something that¡¯s been annoying me for quite a while. The ability itself doesn¡¯t give any useful information, just some basic understanding on how to control elements, but nothing I have tried has worked. I tried to use my true nature connection to find out this information but even after half a day I didn¡¯t get any information so perhaps it''s time to try again and if needed meditate for days to get the answer. I leave a note and walk to the bridge. Even here everything was covered in thick snow but the tower was still above it and clear of snow thanks to me cleaning it periodically. I made myself comfortable on top of it and started to meditate. I could feel the time passing but it was at the back of my head. Everything felt fuzzy like it always does when I was meditating like this. Eventually, everything cleared up and I opened my eyes. The sun was rising meaning at least one day had passed but thinking more about it I came to a startling conclusion that almost three days had passed, and it was now Monday. I could feel a little bit of hunger but other than that I felt great. It was still weird to do superhuman things like this and currently, this feeling was quite strong. Thinking about the answer I got I could only let out a heavy breath. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I had learned from the teachings from the village that sometimes you might get abilities that you could not use but I never thought this might happen to me. Elemental access is an incredibly powerful ability unfortunately it¡¯s something that I will never get to use. Well never say never but it would be quite hard to get something into my body that isn¡¯t there currently. Perhaps a trait might help but that''s just hoping for luck. Elemental access unlocks access related to using energy form of energy magic, but you need aptitude in a certain kind of element to be able to manipulate elements and as it turns out my body has big zeros for every element. This is extremely unusual but not unheard of so, unfortunately, I just got unlucky with this one. All I could do is shake my head. Ever since I heard about elemental magic an image of me using elements like an avatar came to my mind, but I guess those images will just need to be inside my head. It¡¯s still disappointing but I tried to shake off this feeling as I walked to the farmhouse to get some breakfast and to talk to my apprentices to hopefully take them into the dungeon and test my commander''s ability. Why I hadn¡¯t done this before I have no idea. For some reason, I thought I would need to command a larger force and be in the battle but I was able to activate it for myself meaning any number of people perhaps even animals could be used to make this ability work. They were quite excited about this opportunity. The plan made everyone went to gear up. When I got my armour on I almost slapped my head with my hand. ¡°How could I be so stupid?¡± I tried to activate my commander ability and it worked. There was no need for me to be in a battle to activate it I just needed the intent that we were going into battle to make it work. So, I started to test it as we were walking towards the dungeon. Like the last time when I activated it, it sort of zoomed out my vision to a bird''s eye view. Unit 1 was displayed over my head but this time I wasn¡¯t alone in that unit my apprentices were with me as well. I haven¡¯t had time to think about it the last time as I only activated it just before combat, but this looked a lot like an RTS. I could even rename my unit and call them whatever I wanted. Splitting myself off from my apprentices a new unit tab was added over them. Holy fuck this might be so useful. I then activated myriad units, and this gave me more options to add to the current unit. I could now make myself a commander unit. Unfortunately, this didn¡¯t seem to do anything, but I refused to think that this is just flavouring. I picked the unit where my apprentices are and marked them as infantry. That gave me an extra option to pick a sergeant and I gave that to Arthur. Nothing changed for a moment but then I noticed some green arrows next to the unit tab. Concentrating on that I saw their constitution stat being boosted by two, their movement speed by 5% and their toughness by 10%. Holy fucking shit this is awesome. Then I remembered my unit boost ability and activated it. Instantly all the stats went up and even more, boosts were added. I looked towards them and saw them all looking at me with weird expressions. I quickly explain to them what was going on and after a few clarifying questions they got really excited about this development. Even before going into the dungeon, we did a lot more testing. I was now able to mentally communicate with my sergeant if he was close enough. He was able to do the same to his troops although his range was a lot shorter than mine. I suspect the range was affected by both stats and how high up in the command structure you were currently listed as. I could see a lot of influence from modern army command structure but there was also a lot from the earlier periods and even some specialities that I¡¯m guessing are more from this world. Well, this was extremely useful to give out boosts and to make a correct and effective command structure, but it wasn''t a complete game changer. It was still extremely useful. I think some influence from my love of strategy gaming bled into this ability which I think is quite a good thing overall. After hours of messing around with it, we finally went into the dungeon. I stayed out of the fight for most of the time, but my apprentices expressed extreme pleasure in how easy it was to use teamwork with mind communication and the boost were also quite good. When we were in the 2nd-floor boss room, I finally got to fight and my apprentices were the ones to watch. Before the fight even began, I tried to use the call of the ancestors to aid me in this battle. From me, several golden ghosts detached. Perhaps ghost is a wrong word as they were completely formed humanoids. Some had a shield and a sword while some had only a two-handed sword. One even had a bow. There were seven of them currently and they rushed the bunnies at my command. While they look ghostlike, they were solid. Unfortunately, they didn''t seem to be too strong every one of them was weaker than my apprentices currently were but I¡¯m guessing upgrading this ability will increase their strength and using higher-tier energy will help that a lot as well. Still, their teamwork was excellent, and they were able to clear the boss room all by themselves. When the fight finished they stayed for a little bit but then started to turn into mist and return to my body. They slowly merged with me leaving no trace of them in only a few minutes. We were all quite dumbstruck, but my apprentices were a bit more than me. I had to answer a barrage of questions about what just happened. I started to think about the skill while my apprentices started to push into the third floor. I wondered if I had more control over the ghosts that I was able to bring out. I guess those questions will be needed to answer at a later date because I would need to wait until tomorrow before I can use this ability again. This might get me out of some tough situations and perhaps make dungeon runs a lot faster. Not having to chase around all the rabbits will be nice. I¡¯m guessing if I keep pumping my energy into them, I could keep them out for longer but if I¡¯m not in combat they will soon disappear. I still feel I have a lot to learn about this ability and currently I¡¯m just scraping the surface of it. I had to help them finish the third floor as they were unable to clear it on their own but when we got out, we remembered that today was Monday, and we were supposed to be in the village today. It was already past lunch and quite close to evening, so we were hopelessly late. We were so caught up on my ability and then running the dungeon that we completely forgot about today¡¯s visit to the village. What relaxed us was that nowadays all we did was combat training, so we didn''t miss anything that important. It was still a mistake and we needed to be a lot more mindful in the future. chapter 114 It was Wednesday and we were walking to the village. Yesterday I finally shared some of my plans for the future with my apprentices. I didn¡¯t go too deep into my hopes of what we might become but I did open up about what kind of a community I wanted to create around the homesteader class. But I also explained that everything was still in the planning phase, and nothing was concrete. And the only reason that I told them was that they had the right to know because this might become dangerous in the future and that I needed their help to start recruiting people to our cause. They were hesitant at the start but they quickly understood that our current way of life would not fit into the current power structures that the nobles wanted to make. I was a little bit surprised by how willing they were to walk uphill with me and when I asked them about it, they simply stated that I was the main reason, not the idea I had. This was weird for me because I was more used to people following ideas than people. But thinking about it in my bed I had to accept that even the greatest of ideas needed someone to be the figurehead. Would I want to be that person in the future? Honestly, I would not want to be at least in the long run. So, I have to hope that there would be other people who could raise the flag so to say and march forward even without me. I also hope that there would be more than one of those kinds of people that way if someone falls the idea won''t fall with them. I had already accepted the risk that I might not live to see my second old age, but I was good with that. There was no need for me to cling to life for a second go around, but I also knew they would need me for quite a while to keep the flag up. That meant I needed to be strong so I could pull up other people who could do the same as me. But that meant I needed more people on my side and my first goal was getting David. Having good ideas means nothing if you don¡¯t know how to make them come true and while I have the basics David will have a lot more relevant information. Let¡¯s say there were 100 homesteads. Having a barter system of just exchanging goods between each other would be too slow and extremely inefficient. That means we need a system where we could trade with each other but just doing it with coins is also a bad idea. I have never understood why money makes people go crazy and want to have as much as possible of it, but I think some of it is the potential you get from having a lot of it. Humans have always wanted stuff and what could be better than having an item like coins that you can get whatever you want with it? But not having money in society might be even worse. Not only would you give people in leading positions a lot more power even if they are elected economic growth would slow to a halt if there was no motive to push everything forward. That¡¯s why I want David to be the first outsider to be brought on board because he had run a system for a medium-sized Guild. In the guild, whenever someone collected resources or completed tasks that helped the collective, they got merit points that could be exchanged for various services and resources. That idea grabbed hold of me, and I tried to think if it would be possible to make that on a national scale. I would need to be careful so this wouldn''t just turn into a different form of money. I think it might be possible but for that, I need someone who knows numbers a lot more than me. I had to stop my current train of thought as we finally reached the village. The training went by fast and later we just hung out in the village. I was lucky enough to run into David and we made plans to go into the inn and gamble for a while. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Now as it turns out gambling with David was a bad decision. I should have realized that before as some of these games are not just luck based. I didn¡¯t want to speak about my plans in the village so before we left, I invited David to come over to my farm on Friday when the group of students came to the dungeon so he could come with them. He accepted quickly enough and I think he suspects I have some more serious things to talk about with him. Other than that, I didn¡¯t spend all my time with David. I also got to know the two Wizards and a lot of the knights that came with the caravan. The space was tight in the village, but everyone was still getting along with each other nicely enough. To my surprise, the group of people that the company sent to deal with the convoy arrived only a day late so they would have been able to help with the zombies but currently, they are staying here. I think they are here just in case the convoy people start getting stupid ideas in their heads. When we were walking back I had to think more about how people treated each other in this world. Everyone seemed more on edge here than back on earth and it took me quite a while to understand why. With the system and magic and everything else basically, every person is carrying an automatic rifle and you wouldn''t know what would set that person off. In this kind of environment, I could understand that making connections could be quite dangerous and most likely the reason why people act the way they are acting. This might also be worse currently simply because of the situation around the world. I had one day to get everything in my mind in order, but I don¡¯t know if I can actually do it in so little time. The worst thing is some things that I think might be possible with the homesteader class I cannot confirm before everything is set into motion. The start would be the slowest and would take us years to get rolling but when we get enough people with the homesteader class it would start to work like a snowball going down a mountain getting bigger and bigger and faster and faster. Using the dungeon to get everyone to level 20 would not take a long time and with enough people making houses will also not take a long time. What I believe will take the longest is to change people''s thinking from the rigid system they currently have to a more creative and open one. I feel that the trait nature connection and the better version of it will help a lot but it''s just a good building block that needs nurturing. Everything would need to be done slowly. The starting phase would be the most crucial and any mistakes could mean the end of it. Yet I need to trust people with this secret. I could feel myself starting to go around in circles and just start rambling. Back at the farm, I decided to go into the barn so I could relax and continue planning for the future. There was no reason to make exact plans with exact dates as everything will change and I honestly never was a person who followed the plan to the letter as I often found time has a habit of messing up everything. This helps relax me a bit knowing that I just needed to come up with certain milestones that needed to be reached and the first one was getting David on board. It would be perfect if I could give him the homesteader class as well but that was farfetched. Still, I needed to be hopeful because that would make everything a lot easier. There was also no need to think further into the economic plans as I am certain whatever I come up with David would tear apart with relative ease and show me how wrong I could be. This night would be my last chance to just stay as a farmer who is just good at killing stuff. I just needed to keep to my farm and let the world pass me by. Unfortunately, I don¡¯t think I can do that. If it was just me and my memory, I might have done this, but I still had the memories of a 12 year old boy that dreamed of greatness. And then of course there is my body which was young and full of life. Just living on a farm and slowly letting days go by would not satisfy it. As the night started to truly set in and the now young wolves were tired from playing with me I decided not to go and sleep in my bed but decided to join the wolves this night and curled up with them. Their fur was incredibly soft, and I think they enjoyed my company as well. It didn''t take long for sleep to claim me. chapter 115 Rich waited with his apprentices at the entrance of the dungeon. The snow was cleared out from this area leaving high walls to surround them. Rich could hear the coming people long before they could see them. He was a bit anxious about what was going to happen but his resolution was firm. There would be no going back, and he just had to hope that the first people he will pick will not betray him. It didn''t take long for the people to reach the dungeon. Usually, only the apprentices were there so a few of the trainers were a bit confused when they saw Rich but after Rich greeted them all as he walked to the back of the group. There he gave a handshake to David which cleared up other people¡¯s confusion. ¡°Good morning, David. Would you like to look around here or shall we proceed to the farm?¡± Asked Rich in a cordial tone he got a pleasant response in return. ¡°A good morning to you too Rich and I have seen enough dungeons to know what they look like on the outside. Let''s go to the farm.¡± There was silence for quite a while as the two men walked for a while before Rich started to talk. ¡°Would you be wanting to go back to the village today? If not, you could stay here for a night at least that way I could show you an interesting building that I have and its function.¡± Rich said it in a casual tone, but David was already quite interested. ¡°A building with an interesting function. How could I say no to that? I can¡¯t remember the last time someone said those words to me.¡± After a short pause, David continued. ¡°You know Rich at the start numbers didn''t pay the bills and I had to be an architect for quite a while so I would be judging that building with all the expertise that I have.¡± To that Rich smirked. ¡°Don''t be too harsh now I¡¯m no expert, but I think you¡¯re still going to like it.¡± They continue to talk about unimportant matters until they finally reached the farm. Rich and his apprentices have been keeping the snow back and the whole courtyard was clear giving access to every building. David looked around in quite an interest and pointed at the guard tower. ¡°Is that the building? I would be quite interested in knowing why you would need a guard tower here. While the location is interesting the tower itself doesn''t seem to be.¡± Rich gave a hearty laugh to that and answered. ¡°No no that¡¯s not the building I meant. It''s currently just a watchtower but this summer I will be making it into something that can help protect against flying monsters and I guess other threats as well.¡± ¡°I guess I could understand the need to protect against flying monsters they are a menace after all especially if they have a couple of evolutions. But now I¡¯m even more interested in this building that you want to show me.¡± Said David with a bit more excitement in his voice. ¡°Say David how afraid are you of animals that could kill you?¡± Said Rich now in a little bit more of a serious tone. David was a bit taken aback by the change of topic, but he has started to get used to this aspect of Rich. ¡°I would say more than the average citizen. I don¡¯t have a combat class, but I still have a lot of stats. But the experience on how to use them is not really there. Why do you ask?¡± ¡°Well, I guess we can leave that for a later date. No need to worry about it. Let''s go and head inside so we can talk in a more pleasant environment.¡± Said Rich while leading the way for David to follow. ¡°Yeah it''s kind of getting cold outside but I¡¯ve never seen you complain before.¡± Mentioned David which made Rich burst out a few hearty chuckles. ¡°Winter has always been one of my favourite seasons and I guess I have quite a good cold tolerance to help me find the current weather quite pleasing.¡± It was David''s turn to give a hearty chuckle. ¡°Well can¡¯t say I¡¯m not jealous. I have heard that this winter might be a long one at least that¡¯s what the rumours say. ¡°To that Rich gave a quick reply as he opened the door to allow David to go in first. ¡°Well sorry to inform you but unfortunately that rumour is correct. Don''t look at me like that if everything goes to plan today you will find out how I know about that.¡± David was now a bit more guarded as his suspicions of Rich wanting to discuss something more serious came true. The house was warm some would even call it toasty. While David was getting comfortable around the table Rich started to prepare tea for both of them. There was silence the entire time Rich prepared the tea. But when both had a steaming cup in front of them Rich finally began. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°So, David what are your future plans?¡± There was a bit of silence as David looked at Rich trying to understand. ¡°Well unfortunately I¡¯m not dying quite yet that means I need a job, but my kind of job would not be found anywhere near here so I might need to go to the capital or perhaps even further to a different area. I would be happy if I could just work as an architect but I don¡¯t think with the current population there will be any need for building stuff. There would be a lot of free houses.¡± ¡°I think you might be wrong about the building part. You are correct that there will be no need for new buildings in some parts, but the population will shift around quite a lot following the new centre of powers that will arise.¡± Said Rich in a heavy tone. He let out a sigh before he continued, ¡°you told me before about how you helped a guild with their merit system. Tell me, do you think this sort of a system could work at a national scale?¡± Once again David was taken aback but he was getting more and more used to Rich saying things that shouldn''t make sense or no one should think about. ¡°It would be a difficult problem to solve, but I can¡¯t see why it couldn¡¯t work. Assuming that being just a theoretical question because even if it might work on a national scale it wouldn''t work in the world itself as the country would need to interact with others that wouldn''t be using this kind of a system.¡± Rich nodded to that understanding the problem, but he already had thought of that. ¡°Well let''s say that the traders will work with coins and even some smaller things could be bought with coins but the important deals and tasks would be in this merit system.¡± David was confused and let it show on his face. ¡°I mean I guess but there would be problems like that as well but why wouldn¡¯t you just use coins for it all and what do you mean by tasks?¡± Rich took a few moments before answering. ¡°Well let¡¯s say that you have a small nation where people are extremely good at what they do even the farmers. All the resources that would be made and collected by those people. They will decide they want to sell a portion of that.¡± ¡°They would get merit points for that, and other people could get those items with merit points. Then of course there are tasks that need to be done to run a nation and then those tasks will give merit points. And if you want a task done, like perhaps let¡¯s say building a well you could get help by using your merit points.¡± Rich took a small pause to drink a sip of tea and then continued. ¡°The reason to not use coin is too tie people together for a common goal. I also believe that the system could be a bit more flexible for people not just on the top but at the bottom as well. There are few more reasons but those are currently not important.¡± Rich finished his explanation and looked at David to try to understand what David was thinking. David was quite interested in what he heard. He still thought that just coins might be simpler for a nation to use but he couldn''t deny the effect it would have on unifying people. The question remained why people would want to live in this kind of a nation. ¡°I think this kind of a merit system could be made with enough resources and manpower. Would it be better, only time would tell. But tell me Rich why would people want to live in that kind of a nation?¡± Rich smiled at that, ¡°the living conditions would be quite good. I would have to say better than at least this Kingdom would have ever achieved at least for the majority. There would be no real nobles with power over someone else in that kind of nation so I would presume quite a lot of people would want to live in that kind of a place.¡± David shook his head to that, ¡°I¡¯m afraid you are wrong Rich there is a reason why nobles run the majority of the countries. You need a lot of people to pour resources into a few people so those people could protect them against this unforgiving world where a single rat could tear you apart if it got a few evolutions.¡± ¡°You might be correct David, but I think you are missing one part. While living in this nation there would be people that would be elevated by the collective. The collective itself would be quite powerful I think.¡± David started to shake his head again but stopped as he heard the next sentence. ¡°What if every person had an epic class that was both combat and resource production based?¡± This time David narrowed his eyes and said in a clipped tone. ¡°There is no class like that, that you could give to everyone, it doesn''t exist. If it did it would be kept secret and shared with only a small group of people so they would be more powerful than the rest. And then of course there are people who would not want this kind of a nation to arise and there would be a lot of them. Why did you give that example?¡± Rich let out another heavy sigh, took a sip of tea and fully looked at David. David had gone from narrowed slits to wide open eyes even before Rich spoke out. ¡°Well David I am sorry to say this to you, but I have that kind of a class.¡± ¡°It¡¯s good at fighting and resource production, this fuckery is even good at crafting. Not to mention all the other things. It''s a scary powerful class that can be given quite easily to other people. At first, I was quite happy to just leave it as you said to only to a few people. But how amazing would it be if an entire nation full of people had it?¡± David was completely dumbstruck and could only swallow a clump of fear. A nation like that could become an extremely powerful nation. Now David understood why Rich asked those kinds of questions before. His fear slowly resided as his imagination started to give him a glimpse of the future. The fearful look slowly disappeared and changed into one of wonder. ¡°Now that would be something these old bones would like to see.¡± Stated David. chapter 116 This morning was a cold one it had been a few days since David was at the farm. It looks like my plan to make everyone loves saunas is going quite well and I will eventually make the majority not just love it but need it. I often think about if I should have told him that my mind is not from this planet, but I don¡¯t think it would change his mind about helping us achieve a safe place for us to live. Watching the sun rise over the frozen lake is quite beautiful. The fresh cold air here is so wonderful and helps me relax. I found this to be a perfect place to train my energy. What I love even more is how impervious I have become to this kind of weather that most people would not be able to handle for more than an hour. I have never been to the other side of the lake yet I¡¯m always curious when I sit here and gaze over the lake. Beyond it energy levels keep getting higher and who knows what kind of monsters live even deeper into the forest. I want to go and explore it, but I know I¡¯m not yet strong enough. I might win a few battles, but I will eventually tire out if there are too many strong opponents. Thinking back on the undead battle I am amazed I was able to keep going that long, but mostly it was thanks to the low-level and mostly stupid undead. While we all would like to continue with our plans to make our nation, the winter just doesn''t let us continue. So currently David is just back at the village keeping his ear out for what¡¯s happening there. I should be training my combat ability or start practising my forging but currently, it''s so wonderful just being alive out here. Even at my farm back on earth air wasn''t so clean, and the cold is so welcoming. I always knew that I liked winter but who would have guessed that my body was keeping back my enjoyment of it? At least I can tell myself that I¡¯m doing energy training that way I¡¯m not feeling like I¡¯m wasting time. I guess it¡¯s sort of like in the summer for many other people and myself as well but it''s just too nice of a day to do something and you just want to enjoy it. For me the current weather is like that but even more so because the cold makes my body also feel alive like it¡¯s in survivor mode but somehow it''s enjoyable not like in a battle where the body is pumping full of happy-go chemicals. The control over my body that I have achieved is quite amazing and why I know that I absolutely love the current weather. What I¡¯m currently doing is that I am holding back my body from releasing endorphins to make me even happier. Without them everything is sharper you can think clearly about what¡¯s really important. This helps power train my body skill and mind skills better than any other training except for messing with my energy core, which is still the best way to train those skills. After a few more hours my relaxation I was interrupted when I noticed a huge beast on the other side of the lake. The other side of the lake was not on my land, so the skill did not help me notice the beast because of that we both saw each other at the same time. However, this monster was not unfamiliar to me. I have sensed it before on my land sniffing around, but it never got deep in. I am guessing that it knew that this was someone¡¯s land, and it didn¡¯t want to encroach. Looking at it through my eyes I finally understood it wasn¡¯t just a big feline it was a Saber tooth cat that was about 3 meters tall. Its fur was beautiful. It was white with brownish streaks almost like a tiger stripe but not so regular. The canines were as long as swords and truly terrifying. I wonder if the territory beyond the lake belongs to it and wondered if it would want to take mine. We had never met before so perhaps he didn¡¯t think that I might be human and was another monster like itself so it respected my land boundaries but the question is what would it do now? If it decided to attack it would be the most difficult battle I have had as this creature was solidly in gold. The density and the amount of energy it has surpassed mine which was something that I was not used to. Although the amount of energy was not too much above me the density and the strength certainly were. Only my core energy was a bit stronger, but I had so little compared to its vast amounts. Still, I would not back down and protect my territory if needed. We kept eyeing each other for quite a while. I think it understood that it was more powerful than me, but I think it knows that I won¡¯t be an easy prey. Usually when a predator attacks it would not want an injury as a full belly means nothing if afterwards, you would die because of the wound. But in this world the stronger you got the less normal nature rules applied to you. So, in mounting horror and excitement, I see the monster¡¯s muscles ripple under its fur as it started to move towards the lake. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I had no other option. But to mimic its movement. There was still hope that there wouldn''t be a fight but as we got to the ice that was underneath a meter of snow, we quickly understood that there was no longer any backing down, it will be a fight. I bet the sabretooth felt confident enough that it could beat me but I¡¯m going to make it regret ever challenging me. But I still know I needed to pull everything I had out of myself so I could survive this fight. We didn''t rush at each other immediately but slowly got closer to each other as we learn as much as possible about our opponent. The more I learned the less I liked the outcome of this fight. This wasn¡¯t a lucky monster that got this power level by accident. It was an old and seasoned hunter probably surviving countless battles. Yet I was the same. While it had the strength, I had to tools of mankind to help me. In the end, I am guessing the outcome will be decided by either luck or who has more experience. I had to hope for luck to be on my side. There was still half a lake between us but the tension in the air started to rapidly increase. I took out my rabbit foot necklace kissed it for luck and when I tucked it back inside the armour a silent signal went out and we both started to rush at each other. The bow I left at the shore because it would be too weak to do anything and the other weapons I have was my two-handed sword and my knife and dagger combination that I always wore. Luckily, I still wore my full armour which gave me at least a bit of confidence in surviving this fight. I was the most afraid about my sword. I will need to be pushing it to the limit so I just had to hope that it will be able to survive long enough so I could finish this fight. The monster was so fast and even if I turned around to try to escape I wouldn¡¯t be able to because I was quite certain it had some sort of a movement skill that helped it cover so much distance. Thankfully I did have a ranged option so I took another stride forward but this time I started to fully circulate my energy. I could feel my entire body activating and growing stronger waiting for my every command. I didn¡¯t let it wait and quickly made a horizontal slash towards the monster barreling towards me. I could feel my heart racing and blood being pumped and I let my body do its thing as it started to flood me with adrenaline and everything else that was required. My first attack proved successful as it interrupted its mad dash which I would guess was faster than 100 mph. This made it jump to the side and roll a couple of times before it was able to drag itself to a stop leaving behind claw marks on the ice. I didn¡¯t let it get its bearings but sent another slash towards it while moving closer. This one only grazed it as it was still able to dodge most of it. Only a few tufts of fur floated to the ice as another slash flew towards it. It was too fast and dodged another one. I was too far away to get into melee, so I had to send another slash, but it seems the creature wasn¡¯t bound to melee similar to me. An attack like my own came towards me as it slashes the air with its claws. As we both released our attacks, we were also too slow to dodge them properly. I was able to cut off the tip of its right ear and it was able to get a small scratch on my shoulder. Its attack was able to get by my fully energized chainmail armour, but my armour was still able to protect me enough to just leave a small bleeding scratch on me. Still, I need to be extremely careful as I had a feeling that those claws were even more dangerous up close. We were now staring at each other preparing for another attack. Now I know that this creature has energy-based air magic, but the question is how much more can it do. Again, like the last time a silent bell rang out and the next round started as we both rushed at each other. This time we were close enough for melee. Its speed was ridiculous, but I was able to keep up if barely. My sword was able to stop the attack of its claws and that made me smile as I know it won¡¯t be a slaughter but a battle. My sword quickly slashed out, but it was either dodged or stopped by the claws. My strikes happened quickly, the 5th it dodged. The 6th it bushed to the side with its claws. It took until my 17th attack when I finally got an opportunity and was able to get a wound close to its eye. Unfortunately, I was not practised at fighting on the ice and the strike caused me to move too close. Its experience allowed it to make this small mistake I made into a bigger one as it took a deeper wound than it could have in exchange for getting a devastating attack on me. I had to use some of my core energy to boost my armour around the claw strike spot and make myself as light as possible so the strike could send me flying away. I flew quite a lot and tumble in the snow and ice before I finally was able to get onto my feet again. Even then I slid back a few meters. My armour held and although I will have a huge bruise there it won¡¯t affect my fighting capabilities. The beast however was now bleeding quite a lot from the wound close to its right eye. As it stared me down, I could feel the hatred it now had. It had hoped to finish the fight with that move, but it now roared so loud that I thought the bass will shatter my ear drums. There was another peaceful moment before we both started to rush at each other again. chapter 117 When we got close again this time, I had a hard time doing anything else but defending. But I also saw an opportunity. It was a lot angrier at this time and perhaps I could use it against him. I started to make myself lighter so its attacks will start to propel me further away. This took some time for me to get right but doing this help me get distance and opportunities to flank him with his help. One of those moves gave me the chance for a ranged attack. Because of the last attack it made on me, only one of its feet was on the ground, so I had a little time to prepare before it could dodge again. This time I pulled a bit of my core energy into the attack hopefully it will be enough for a wound on its leg making the creature''s fast movements slow down at least a bit. The flying strike flew off a lot quicker than I was used to and was able to wound its right back leg quite efficiently. I didn¡¯t want the pain to clear its mind so I quickly rushed back in into a losing position that I now know I could get out of quite easily using its own attacks. This time I was also prepared and modified my sword''s edge so it would have small spikes on it. This way I didn¡¯t just have to defend but I could attack while defending. For this to work I had to defend differently so that not the claws, but the paw would hit my sword when defending. The skin there was extremely resistant to cutting but the next attack proved that the now-modified sword could pierce through it. The only problem became that he was able to snap off the energy spikes which wasn''t the best news. Every time I need to reform them, I needed to use quite a lot of energy. This continued for quite some time. The snow and ice now had a lot more red in it. I could feel its anger climbing but I didn¡¯t let up and eventually, it slipped on the ice. During the fighting, the ice had now become a lot more dangerous. Our outbursts of energy had started to warm everything up and now some places had a water sheen on them. There were some open holes in the ice as well that the monster¡¯s attacks had made. With the slip that the monster made I was able to get another hit on the back leg near the previous wound. While the last wound didn''t cause it to slow down much it was now starting to visibly limp when putting too much weight on that leg. Before I could reengage it roared again but this time a shockwave was emitted from him. This came as a surprise to me, and I barely had any time to lower my weight, so I was hit pretty heavily. While flying through the air I could see it running towards me and I was lucky that I was able to get myself light enough to hopefully be able to collect myself before the creature reached me. It was a near thing. I was able to get my blade between its claws before it had a chance to remove my head. Flying again I thanked the gambeson. It has really helped lower my impact damage. Without it, I didn¡¯t think I would be conscious anymore. Luck was another part of my survival as I nearly fell into one of the holes in the ice. If it wasn¡¯t willing to come after me into the water, I might be able to use it as an escape method but who knows what might be underneath here. But at least I have the way of retreat if it was required. It didn¡¯t take long for the entire lake to become our playing ground as I kept flying around. Unfortunately, it wasn''t my choice to fly. It was still angry enough that I was able to get a few more strikes in but I couldn¡¯t get it angry enough for it to lose its reason. The monster¡¯s blood wasn¡¯t the only one that coloured the ice anymore. Only a few more minutes had passed but in that time a lot had happened. We were separated currently by quite a lot of distance and after checking my wound on my thigh and my lower arm I was happy to see it wasn''t that bad. The bad news was if my armour didn¡¯t have my core energy in it, it was like paper against monsters¡¯ ability attack. The fucker had kept that attack in reserve and it almost cost me my life. Luckily my eyes were able to pick out the change and I was able to reinforce my chest armour in time. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The scratches were still quite visible as it even removed some of the metal, but the armour did its job. In the energy department, I was winning overall if we had similar strength energy. if this was the case I think I could win quite easily but it wasn''t. The pause didn¡¯t last for long as I had to charge in once again. The terrain holds us back again, but I think it was better for me. In the next two engagements, none of us was able to get anything notable done. Before we could charge each other again a different kind of roar came from the forest. This paused our fight as we looked over in that direction where an extremely large wolf entered our sight. At first, I thought this will be the end as it started to rush towards us. But quickly I realized how weak the monster was. I was extremely confused about its actions. I had kept one eye on the sabre-tooth cat so when our eyes met we both figured out that we know that the monster coming at us was weak. I didn¡¯t know why the wolf monster thought it could attack us, I alone could have easily handled him. It was still low silver, but it seems all its monster core was able to do was make it a lot bigger as it was about 5 meters tall. When it was close enough, I launched my ranged attack. To my surprise, the sabre-tooth cat also did the same. The wolf monster was first bisected by my attack and then the sabre-tooth attack diced it up properly. Only chunks of meat were now left of the wolf monster. Barely a few seconds passed before we rushed each other again the wolf monster already forgotten. I needed to do something fast after a few more engagements I was left with a trickle of core energy. I have only seen one opportunity where I might have the advantage, but it was going to suck so badly. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have any other option left. The battlefield was turning into a minefield and the bastard was now able to make use of it more thanks to its large stature. It could push me around a lot easier, so it started to push me towards the messed-up ice, and it worked quite well. I was lucky as my leg wasn¡¯t broken but I could feel it hurt every time I moved. I would guess I was bruised all over and at least one of my ribs is broken. I have a few more cuts as well. One deep enough that my left arm is now a lot weaker. The blood loss was not too bad but if this keeps going it will become bad. Before that will happen, I will long be out of energy and be inside the monster¡¯s belly fueling its next battle. It was also limping quite hard with its two legs. It also had a bad wound on its shoulder. A strike that should have hit its neck but the bastard was able to dodge even that. It was time to move in for the final round. It was either defeat and I had to make it to one of the holes to jump into the lake or victory. I dug deep bringing out everything I had and for the first time in this battle, I let out a war cry and charged him with my movement skill as fast as I possibly could. I used everything I had. Every strike was the best and strongest I could make it. Every hit would be directly where I wanted it to be. My last stand activated with every other ability that could aid me. Seven ghosts with long spears came out of me and start to surround the now pushed-back monster. I could see the surprise on its face as my eyes kept cycling so I could see every aspect of the monster. This way no movement was a surprise and I kept pushing and pushing. It came at a huge cost as my energy kept plummeting. My muscles were straining so hard that even a little bit more and they would give. Still, I didn¡¯t let up and wound upon wound started to appear on the monster. My ghost¡¯s weapons barely did anything, but still, small wounds started to appear all around its body. At this point, I knew I would win unfortunately so did the monster. So it let out its most devastating attack and roared. The shockwave that flew out immediately destroyed all the ghosts. The monster got ready to run towards me as I flew but to its surprise, I was still standing where I had been just a moment ago. I split my remaining core energy between making myself as heavy as possible and my weapon so it could pierce as deep as possible. My regular energy all went into my armour as much as I could cram into it. This allowed me to barely resist the roar and now make my own attack that the monster could not dodge. I didn¡¯t hesitate or waste the opportunity as my sword plunged as deep into it as possible aiming for the heart. The blade sunk into the hilt but before I could do anything else I was hit in the side and flew a few meters away. My armour was able to protect me from being slashed open but a few more ribs were definitely broken as I coughed blood. Breathing was incredibly hard, but I have felt worse. I quickly pulled my dagger and knife as I shakily got back on my feet. The monster tried to do the same but was only able to get half up before it crashed down. It tried again but this time it wasn''t able to rise at all. I slowly got closer as it was bleeding heavily. There was no strength left in it to do anything so as quickly as I could which could barely be described as walking, I made it to the creature and finished it off. Just before I passed out, I sent Goose orders to go and bring my apprentices here. He had been flying overhead all this time, but I had kept him away from the fight. It was hard for him to watch this fight and not participate but there was no reason for it to die. The ghosts were stronger than him and they just died from a single roar. chapter 118 POV Falyr Hrasnel I was annoyed. The three nobles currently in this village were being like any other noble. I had hoped that we would be able to get them out of here, but I was denied that request. They will have to wait until spring before they will get out of here or until this place is discovered. That did not go over well with them especially when they found out we have an easy portal out of here to the capital. Besides that, the village is quite overpopulated. It¡¯s still livable and I¡¯m amazed at how well the newcomers are behaving but I still liked it more when only we were here. In all honestly, their behaviour is quite unusual. Willingness to endure the cramps spaces that we have given them is commendable. I had expected them to ask for more room but that has not happened. I suspect the reasoning is their harrowing experience. What they all went through would leave a mark on anyone but for some reason, they were not bitter about it but just accepted what had happened to them. They are a strong bunch and perhaps we might recruit some of them. We were living quite well in this corner of the world but as I looked at my table and the reports there, I knew this wasn''t the case in the rest of the former Kingdom. Many of the city-states that have popped up are now fighting each other for resources, mainly food. In the adventuring guilds territory, everything is a lot more peaceful but if you have food expect to be stolen from or even attacked. Our company has already proven itself as one of the only entities that can still trade and is still reliable. Our numbers are going up a lot quicker than anyone expected but that''s all thanks to this village here. I had always been taught since I joined the army that morale is often more important than any mage or thousands of troops. In my lifetime this statement has been proven true countless times. Every member of our company is doing their best, as we know if we succeed our families will be extremely well off in the future. And the fact that we know that they are safe just gives a compounding morale boost to our people. I am extremely grateful for Rich¡¯s help and council that made this all possible. While we all came to a decision that we need to mark Rich as being more dangerous than we first thought in other ways he is a lot less dangerous. His willingness to use his power makes him dangerous but he also seems to have rules for using it. This makes him incredibly useful to us as I expect we are to him. I do not know how he has access to higher-tier energy than he''s supposed to have but I suspect he doesn''t have a lot of it. Rich would make an excellent assassin. He would be quite feared in the world if he truly decided to pursue that path. Being able to punch above your weight is something that is extremely desirable for every discipline but especially for assassins. I pause my work as I needed to take a break. While it was quite fun trying to figure out everyone¡¯s angles and what they were going to do it was also quite heartbreaking. In the next year, a lot will be decided in this corner of the world. The city-state will start to battle more and eventually, a few will come on top and take large portions of land under their control. Most likely the adventuring guild will give up rulership of their current lands to the Princess that has started to make waves. I will suspect that the Princess will want to take as much land back as possible, but it will not be that easy. If she was able to conquer the rest of the city-state she will still have huge swaths of land that are unclaimed and will take a long time to take back. But if she can¡¯t there might be smaller wars happening constantly. Unfortunately, this kind of a situation is not unique to here. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Similar things are happening all around the world. If the plague wasn''t bad enough, then came the famine that we currently have. It will get a lot worse in the following months before it gets better. But the world¡¯s troubles will not end. Endless small-scale wars will start as everyone battles over what''s left. The world will be a lot emptier place than it was just 10 years ago. I wonder how many secrets will never to be discovered again and how much treasure is hidden all around the world. I would suspect a new age of exploration to begin after everything has settled down and the new kingdoms have emerged. But we will all need to live until then and one thing is for certain. There will be no peaceful times for quite a while. I might even need to brush the cobwebs off my army uniform. I still hope that we will be able to be traders and that we won''t have to get involved in any state-level wars. POV Emma I was quite tired of weaving. I might need to start making some clothes again otherwise I might go mad. Thankfully the trips to the dungeon and fight training have been helping keep me sane. What has become certain is that I am not meant for real battle. I mean I was just behind the barricades shooting arrows and I still have nightmares about that battle. The zombies were so disgusting and the huge monstrosity that got so close to us. I can still remember that smell that came off it. But the problem was when you killed a zombie it turned into a regular human corpse and some of those zombies were quite young. One of them even had a stuffed doll tied around her neck. This zombie I see almost every night. First, she asks for help and if I get too close, she morphs into a zombie that will try to kill me. Rich told us to talk to him if we were having nightmares or any other problem. Perhaps I should take him up on it. I was interrupted by George running in with Arthur behind him. I stopped the weaving machine, and I could finally hear Goose making noise outside. Apparently, Goose wanted us to follow him and to do it quickly. That could only mean that something bad happened to Rich. We quickly geared up and started to follow as quickly as we could. We couldn''t run on snow like Rich could although we all wish we could. It looked so awesome and so easy to get around in the winter. It appeared that we were going towards the lake, so we used the river as the wind had blown quite a lot of snow off it leaving a manageable way towards the lake. Goose didn''t give us any slack and urged us to move faster and faster. So, when we laid our eyes upon the lake, we were tired and completely dumbstruck at what had happened here. There were spots of red all over the ice and snow. There were chunks of ice strewn all over and so many different-sized holes that had started to freeze over again. But they couldn¡¯t support any weight, so we had to carefully move towards the huge mound of fur that we expected to be some sort of animal. As Goose landed on top of it, we knew that it was dead, but we couldn¡¯t see where Rich was. Not all of the ice was messed up but some spots were quite bad. I could see claw marks all over and sword marks as well. This seemed to be quite the battle. When we finally got close enough we froze in fear. Rich looked really bad. He had multiple wounds all over his body and his chest seemed to be covered in blood that he seemed to have coughed up. Arthur was the first to reach him and checked his pulse as Rich taught us. I could see the relief on his face, so I knew that he was alive. I quickly got out the bandages and the medicine we had bought from the village. We all worked on taking off the armour he was wearing so we could treat his wounds. All of us wished we had paid more attention to his first aid teachings but between the three of us, we thought we were able to do everything correctly. Rich was half purple, not from cold but from bruises all over and quite the bad one near his ribs that I was certain were broken. After we bandaged him up, we force-fed him a healing potion to help with internal injuries. We did the best we could, and we think it helped as his pulse got stronger over time. We sent George back to get the wolves and Francis to help bring everything back. We could tell that this beast might be gold rank so leaving it here would be quite a bad decision and would most likely get us in trouble with Rich when he woke up. From our training in the village killing a gold should not be something Rich should be able to handle but we all knew he had his own tricks and his ability to manipulate energy was simply magical. We have had the least training in energy control of the people we go to the dungeon with but this little training that Rich has given us has made us better than any of them. It feels like his insights reduce our training time by weeks if not months. As I looked at his body I hoped he will be well and will survive this becoming even stronger. chapter 119* I could feel myself being moved somewhere. Everything hurt but not as bad as I was expecting. I could hear wolves and other dragging sounds. This attracted my interest, so I forced my eyes to open. I was being dragged on a stretcher over the frozen river. I didn¡¯t want to tilt my head up so much to see who was carrying me but Emma was walking beside me and George was guiding Francis. So, I would assume it would be Arthur who was dragging me. Knowing I was safe and that I had been treated and we were going back home I gave a thumbs up to a worried Emma and let myself pass out. Everything felt a lot better the next time I opened my eyes. I was in my room and it seemed to be nighttime. I slowly started to test my movement capabilities and found myself surprised. Everything was stiff, and I still needed a lot of healing, but I was surprisingly well off. Need to thank fantasy healing for this and I need to remember to buy more of those healing potions. I guess my movement woke up Goose as he flapped to me, and I started to pet him to calm him down. His emotions were all over the place and I could understand the pain he went through. Sometimes it¡¯s harder to watch someone get hurt than get hurt yourself. I spent some time just calming him down before I turned my attention to my notifications. The first thing to surprise me was that I got another achievement. The rewards for it were extremely generous and had interesting implications. New Achievement: Tier surpasser 20 stat points into three main stats 5 stat points into all sub stats I have heard about this tier thing before but nothing clear about what it actually is. Apparently, it¡¯s important enough that you might get an achievement for I am guessing killing someone at a higher tier than you. I wonder what¡¯s the threshold for reaching a higher tier and what it actually will do because there seems to be a clear dividing line that the system has put in place. The ranking system that developed races use is something they have made up and doesn¡¯t actually belong to the system. In this world information and how it''s distributed is the most annoying thing. Why are they so hung up on keeping secrets? I could only hope that it was for a good reason. Perhaps if you know about some achievements you can''t actually receive them. That would be the only excuse I could think of but if this isn''t the case this world really needs people that are willing to share information. I feel sorry for any meta players who would end up in this world. How can you play meta if you don''t have all the information? But then again who am I to complain? I have only been here less than a year and perhaps the way they are doing it is actually the correct way that will keep this world from being destroyed by powerful people. I mean if I understand it correctly if a wizard reaches a certain power level, they could be considered a nuke-level threat. So, perhaps it is best to limit how many people can reach that far. Thinking about that made my head hurt. It was almost circular logic which I hated the most. Checking out my other notifications I got a lot of level-ups for skills and abilities that affect my solo combat. But what''s more surprising I got 5 levels in all my classes. This came as a complete surprise, and I could only think it was because of the monster being a higher tier. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! This got my empathy past 80 giving me another trait, pheromone interpretation. This was an unpleasant trait. Now my mind could understand pheromones. Before it was something only my subconscious mind would pick up. It was difficult to adjust to the new stimulus but not impossible. I had to wonder if this was how dogs would understand the world. I also got intelligence past 80. This trait was standard if I had to guess. Enhanced cognitive capabilities. A general boost but a welcomed one. Hope this will get me past the next stage of improvement. After I moved a bit and loosened everything up, I went back to bed and kept thinking about every monster fight I have had in this world. I remember clearly the statement that fights usually only take moments before a winner is decided but in my experience, about half the time a fight takes a lot longer. So why the discrepancy? There was only one variable that was different and that was me. I mean the achievement I got basically proved it. The battles that take a long time to win. I was meant to lose them and quite quickly, especially the last one. The difference seemed to be my ability to control my energy and that I have access to a higher tier of energy thanks to my core. I don¡¯t know what I did to deserve that much luck to be able to get that trait but it has probably saved my life in every difficult fight. It might be a good idea to lean further into that aspect. Specializing I believe is the correct thing to do as I think I have made it past the foundation part of my growth. Well, perhaps a little bit more to shore up the foundations correctly but I think I am quite close. While I could move a bit I will probably need to be in the bed for the next week or more so it would be a good idea to start working on energy control even more. I mean what else have I got to do besides that? This will also help me recover faster. Thinking back on the fight my energy control was truly the thing that gave me the victory. The monster had so much energy, but it just wasted so much on useless movement and just generally was very inefficient in using it. While I have been extremely happy with my efficiency perhaps, I have not truly dived enough into it. Every ability that I have I trained to a certain level of efficiency but I have stopped at that. For every single one of them. That efficiency limit that I put on myself is now really old and goes back to when I first started to experiment with energy. I keep finding things that I miss, and I don¡¯t like this. Unfortunately, there isn¡¯t a way to fix that because perspective is something that gives you wisdom and you get that by messing up. You just didn''t know better before you mess up. But there must be a way to alleviate this problem. First is to listen and try to understand the advice given not just from my perspective but theirs as well this might help. Then I need to periodically sit down if needed for multiple days and just think back on everything I am doing and try to see from a different angle what I might need to do differently or understand what I have missed. Days went by quickly as I slowly got myself back into acceptable form. While I would not be confident in fighting anything close to my level, I could now properly start to do recovery training. It won''t take me long now to get back into peak condition. I have missed going to the village and it might hurt my relationships there to not be in contact for this long, but this cannot be helped. Another week went by, and I felt I was finally back to my peak form even better than before actually. The time it took to reflect on myself also helped me realize how much it actually helped that I have trained myself the normal way. My theory about having a better body and that helping bring out my power better was completely true. If I hadn¡¯t trained, I would guess I would leave about half of my current strength on the table. This will give me a huge leg up on anyone who believes that all you need to get stronger is the system. All the proof I need was just to remember what happened in the lake fight. Sometimes I can¡¯t even believe the images in my memories they are like something out of anime. The monster sending me flying remind me of almost every superpower fight I have seen. But this fight also helped me get a better grip on my powers as I was finally able to go all out. This in turn helped me get a general idea of how I fit into the power structures of the sentient races. Long story short I need to start keeping my true powers hidden. If it¡¯s needed I will still do it but it would be better if I could at least hide some of it until the nation is revealed. I can already picture people''s faces when they realize I am a lot more powerful than they thought and because of that, all their plans are now fucked up. I can¡¯t wait for it to happen. chapter 120 I finally stood in front of the remains of the sabretooth cat. We had already been eating the meat for quite a while and everything else has been sorted out, leaving behind a lot of valuable materials. The full fur of the creature was large, and I didn¡¯t have the heart to cut it up just yet so currently we just hung it on one of the walls inside the house. I didn¡¯t want to do this before while I was recovering but it was now time to start absorbing everything beneficial I can. The claws and teeth of the monster were a lot better than the last monster that I absorbed so I started with those. This time the process was a lot longer, but I got my body skill up to 27 and mind skill to 29. Even if I can¡¯t do much with my nails and teeth just the skill levels alone are worth it. The two front canines I left as I had plans for them. But before I put everything else away in the workshop, I noticed the bones of the monster. This time we extracted all the bones and we couldn''t even give them to the wolves as they were unable to chew them. I tested them a bit and they seem to work like any other bone, but they were just so much better. So, I thought perhaps I can use it as a template to make my own bones better. While I couldn¡¯t upgrade my soft tissue or skin perhaps bones could still work. Come to think of it I might want to do the same with my hair as the monster¡¯s fur was quite resistant to cutting. I started with the hair because that would be easier. I must say the results were better than I expected. But I could see future problems with cutting my hair. I might need a barber that''s specialized in cutting enhanced hair. An ordinary blade couldn''t cut through my hair anymore even with a bit of energy put into the cut it couldn''t do it, but it wasn¡¯t equivalent to armour. For the bones, it took two days, and it was filled with excruciating pain. I don¡¯t know why the bones were different and I would have stopped if I didn¡¯t understand how much of a change this will actually give me. Not only were the bones giving me better stamina, I am guessing because of the bone marrow but general recovery seemed to be better as well even with only a few bones being changed. But when I was finished and got used to this new me, I felt incredible. I could feel my entire frame projecting power. I didn¡¯t have big muscles, but they were powerful ones especially if I started to circulate energy. Testing was difficult as I really didn¡¯t want to try to break my bones. But the test I did it seemed my flesh would give out before the bone would. The new bones were a bit heavier but not a lot so they wouldn''t affect me in a bad way. I asked for my apprentices to help me practice a bit to improve my body language and general presence so I wouldn¡¯t appear so imposing. Tomorrow will be Monday so I wanted to visit the village, but I need to get back to my previous state so that people wouldn¡¯t understand how much I¡¯ve grown from this fight. They knew that I was hurt but did not know that I fought a gold rank. Hopefully, they will just think it was an almost gold rank and leave it at that. I chose not to participate in the training I just stayed to the side and talk with Bert and Falyr. It would seem like the situation was horrible elsewhere. What I didn¡¯t like during the training was the noble staring at me with a disapproving face. I contemplated confronting her and telling her that the world might not be the same as she is used to, but it wasn''t really my business and perhaps she is also correct and the world where she comes from can still be found somewhere but I will make sure it will not be here. I caught up with David and the other knights. We spent time in the inn just talking and gambling. Whenever David sat in, we didn¡¯t play for coin but just played the game. If we did play for money no one would be willing to play with David. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. This way was also enjoyable for him as the game was way more unpredictable this way and that messed up his calculations. All the games turned into more of a luck-based game, but we were all fine with that and it was actually more fun like this. I got back home quite late and while George and Arthur were quite drunk Emma and I were sober as we both didn¡¯t drink. But I still had to run the dungeon as I haven¡¯t done it in quite a while. But this time I wanted to try something new. When we were in the inn, I overheard the two wizards at the next table. At one point their conversation turned to the dungeon. Apparently, you could help them grow faster if you spend a lot of energy or mana in them. It was an interesting conversation that I wished they kept talking about but unfortunately one of the barmaids walked past and their talk quickly went on to women. An unfortunate situation but something I can¡¯t help right now. Hopefully, I will be able to keep on getting a better relationship with them so I can ask questions like that without raising any suspicions. So, this time when I did my dungeon run, I purposely wasted energy with every ability I used. I made them as inefficient as possible bleeding energy into the environment. It was an interesting point of view to see the skills work like that and actually gave me a few good ideas on how to improve their efficiency as I saw how energy was being bled out of the abilities. The next day I wanted to test the monster''s canines. When I strengthened the energy patterns in them so they wouldn¡¯t lose their strength I found that they seem to have quite good capabilities at transmitting energy. A lot better than the steel that my current weapons were made out of. I didn¡¯t know if this was possible, but I wanted one of the canines to become my single-handed sword. The canines were 70 cm long so while it wouldn''t be the longest sword it would be still counted as regular sword and not a short sword. For the other canine, I had an idea of making a dagger and a knife out of it. It didn¡¯t have the length to make two daggers but in my current gear setup I was carrying a knife and a dagger anyway, so it was actually quite wonderful. Some testing was required but I started with the sword as I didn¡¯t need to cut that into length. Getting pieces off it was quite difficult and took a lot of energy but I was slowly able to carve out the sword shape I wanted. This gave me a skill called bone carving and weapon making. I was so pleased when I found out that it can keep an edge. I could make it quite slim and still keep its strength and flexibility similar to a steel sword. I didn¡¯t let the pieces I carved off go to waste. I used material modification and fused the pieces together so they would form a handle. It took me my entire supply of core energy which takes about three days to recoup. In the end, the sword looked like a Viking sword but a bit narrower and made from ivory. The only thing that wasn¡¯t out of ivory was the leather wrapping for the handle grip. I was extremely pleased as I was testing out the weapon. It looked yellowish and that wasn¡¯t the greatest, but you couldn¡¯t deny its effectiveness. It could even chip a steel sword I had meaning it was harder than steel. But what¡¯s even better is how well it handled energy. Every ability activated faster, and I was able to make them stronger thanks to its properties. It will still need a proper battle test, but I did spar with Arthur. It didn¡¯t perform better than his sword, but this was expected. I didn¡¯t make this sword to be better than steel in physical aspects I made it to help me better facilitate my abilities and that it did a lot better. I did the same with the dagger and knife copying my current weapon designs. I also made the handles out of bone. They turned out beautifully as well although now I had a lot of smaller pieces of leftovers. I didn¡¯t want to waste them, but I didn''t know what to do with them. While packing up all the leftovers I noticed the claws that at first, I was just going to keep in storage and perhaps sell later, but a different idea came to mind. What if I combined the leftovers and the claws to make throwing knives? The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. Unfortunately, it wasn¡¯t as simple as that. I need to use material modification to straighten out the claw a bit otherwise it wouldn¡¯t have great throwing ballistics. When I finished the first one, I did need to add a bit of steel to the hand guard so it would handle as needed. I only made one as I was not planning on spending the rest of the week just making them. I will just spend the time when I have it. Possibly only one in every two days will be made but I don¡¯t have to hurry. It¡¯s just something I would like to have but I didn¡¯t need them right away. Looking at all that I have gotten from the monster it truly made me powerful even after its death. The real problem that remained was my two-handed sword as I didn¡¯t trust it for another battle, but I can¡¯t thank it enough for getting me through that fight. chapter 121 Goose and I were having a break on top of a tree. Currently, the snow was lightly falling. We were both enjoying the daylight and took the most we could. There were only a few hours of daylight. But soon the day will start to get longer and the night shorter. Winter solstice will happen soon, and a new year will come. In this world, the new year starts at the winter solstice. There will be a huge celebration but there is nothing like Christmas where you give gifts to someone. This was a disappointing discovery. But at least they have something like the new year celebration which I guess is good enough as I have always liked that more anyways. I re-entered my owners land ability so I could keep tracking the herd of silver elk that was on my land. They shouldn¡¯t be here as they liked a higher energy area. There are quite a few gold ranks among them but most of them are silver. The younger are still bronze rank. I had no plan on attacking them but we were currently moving closer to them so I could at least see them. They were supposed to be incredibly beautiful creatures as their antlers were supposed to look like silver. They were bigger than elk which is saying something as elk were already quite a big animal. I watched Goose as he started to fly higher, and I started to follow him jumping from tree to tree. I could have travelled from the ground, but I did enjoy travelling like this as well and it was quite good training. It took us four hours of travelling in the forest until we reached close enough to the herd so I could observe them. Even with me being so far away from them a couple of them raised their heads from eating and looked towards me. They were the gold ranks but when I didn¡¯t show that I was aggressive after a while they didn''t observe me so aggressively. By this time there was very little light from the sun, but I could still marvel at the shimmering antlers that the creatures proudly displayed. On some silver elk, the antlers were magnificently big. Some were bigger than me and that''s just one side of the antlers. I honestly had no idea how their necks were able to support that much weight but you cannot argue with the results as they had the most females around them. They were pushing the snow aside and eating anything that still had a hint of green on it. I wanted to know why they were here as they weren¡¯t supposed to be, but it took quite a while until I noticed that a lot of them had wounds on them caused by claws. This means that something is chasing them. We were on the edge of my land, so I wasn¡¯t registering anything with my owner¡¯s land. This meant their coming here actually helped them at least for a while. The problem is the herd''s size of nearly 1000. If they are pushed from their original lands that could support them, it is bad for my forest and any other vegetation nearby as there will not be enough of it to feed them all. This would be really bad. The grasslands might be able to feed them but that would mean the death of many rabbits. I kept observing them to find out all I could, and I could see the long-healed scars that some of the males had. It seems like have fought this enemy for a long time. They probably were prey animals for some kind of a predator, but something has gone wrong. Either a new type of predator has emerged, or the current ones have gotten a lot stronger and are now overhunting their prey. This will require further investigation and I started to look for a tree that''s close by and seemed to be good enough to sleep in. If the predators follow the herd the situation can get a lot worse. Goose and I eventually settled in for the night. The night went by without any incident. It took almost the entire next day until owners land informed me of a new predator on the land. At the same time, I could hear new noises coming from the herd and I could see them tightening up preparing for something. The young and the females got into the middle of the herd while the males stayed outside. It didn¡¯t take long until I could hear the predator''s noises. It took me a while to understand what I was sensing but I just couldn''t believe it to be true. When I finally saw the first one I had to accept reality. The predators resembled velociraptors. They were a lot different from the movie ones. They had quite a lot of feathers but not as many as birds do. I suspect it¡¯s to keep warm instead of helping them with flying. They were smaller than the elk by more than half. The problem was their numbers there were about a hundred of them. They had the foot claw that velociraptors are famous for but what surprised me was how colourful they are especially their feathers. There was every colour of the rainbow represented and honestly, it looked quite intimidating. It didn''t take long for me to understand what the problem was. The velociraptor pack was able to get big enough because they had two gold-rank leaders. Those were probably able to feed and control the others so well that their numbers started to grow out of hand. On the side of the silver elks, there were a few stragglers that were too far away to get back to the herd. They didn''t last long and were quickly killed before they could reach the safety of their number. Now the silver elks tighten up as velociraptors started to circle them and when that was happening the others velociraptor started eating their fallen herd members. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Silver elks didn¡¯t seem to be defenceless as one of the younger velociraptors got close. One of the silver elk¡¯s antlers lit up. It then charged so fast that no one could react and impaled the young velociraptor killing it instantly. The silver elk was able to get back to safety and seemed to ready for the next attack. This incident brought the pace of the situation down but it didn¡¯t last long as the velociraptor start to systematically test the herd''s defences to find the weak silver elk so they could exploit them and hopefully kill a few more of them. I didn¡¯t not like this situation. I could probably kill a lot of the young velociraptors and escape quite easily but that wouldn''t solve the actual problem of there being the two gold ranks that were in charge of the pack. I¡¯m quite sure if those two weren¡¯t around the pack would split up into smaller ones meaning they would not be that big of a problem anymore. Lucky for me they were just low gold ranks and didn''t seem to have access to the same tier of energy as the sabre tooth had. The problem was they had so many others to help them that were high silver tier. If they had some sort of an ability that allowed them to catch up before I killed the two gold I would be quite fucked. I needed to wait for an opportunity, but I needed to spend this time doing nothing. Lowering the population of the velociraptor by a bit would not be a bad thing as well. So, I got my bow out and strung it. Nothing wrong with a bit of stealth fighting and hopefully I will get enough experience to tier up stealth to get it into advanced tier giving me hopefully another powerful ability. I didn¡¯t just start to shoot as much as possible but tried to hit a target that was close to the herd and not be noticed by the two gold-rank velociraptors. I had just killed my seventh velociraptor when I noticed one of the gold ranks starting to move differently from before. They were both prowling closest to the gold-rank silver elk, and it seems one of the velociraptors got impatient and started his hunt. The creature was incredibly fast and by the time I was halfway towards the location I wanted to use to attack the other gold-rank velociraptor, it had already dragged out one of the silver elk and was feasting on it. By the time I got to my attack location, it had killed another two silver rank silver elks and the herd was starting to panic. I could see a few of the gold-rank silver elks wanting to move towards the other velociraptor and I¡¯m guessing that if they split up the other velociraptor would also start hunting. So I had no time to waste. Using my bow might get the job done but seeing how fast velociraptors were I didn¡¯t want to mess up this opportunity. I didn¡¯t have my two-handed sword, so I pulled out the one-handed sword that I made a few days ago. I still didn''t like the yellowish colour it had but I was confident that it could get the job done. The velociraptor pack was so focused on the silver elk herd that I didn¡¯t have to be a stealth expert to get close. Even then I was almost too late. The gold-rank silver elks were splitting up and the velociraptor I was approaching started to get ready to rush towards the herd. I used my movement ability and got as close as possible. When I made it to the velociraptor it had already turned around to figure out what was making the noise. A flying slash powered with core energy flew almost taking off one of its legs. Even then the velociraptor was able to jump towards me and I could see the famous claw slashing in the air as it flew towards me. I dodged the claw and used my other hand to grab hold of its tail as it flew past me. I shifted my weight up as much as possible causing me to drop to the ground and burying myself almost waist-deep into the snow. But I was able to achieve what I wanted. The creature''s movement was halted, and I was able to cut off its head while its back was towards me. I got an alert from Goose and started to run without looking back as the other gold rank and a few more silver velociraptors started to chase me. But most of the velociraptors were still focused on the herd. The silvers were no problem as I kept killing them with flying slashes. I didn¡¯t even have to put core energy into the attack. Eventually, I had run quite far away from the herd and now only the other gold-rank velociraptor was left. It was so fast that even with my movement ability I was barely able to keep ahead of him. So, I chose not to. I could feel the anger rolling off him, but I didn¡¯t let that stop me from engaging. What the anger did do was make me able to land devastating hits on it. Core-powered flying slashes caused wounds to open until the monster finally started to slow down. Even then I didn¡¯t want to get too close as I didn¡¯t have the reach with my single-handed sword. It was able to surprise me once when its claws that were attached to its small arms suddenly projected a lot further away as it used one of its abilities. If I wasn¡¯t keeping my eyes on the monster, I would have missed the change in its energy flows and it might have landed quite a devastating attack on me. But I was able to block the attack with my sword and launch a counterattack that caused a fight-ending wound that bled quite a lot. It seems I finally hit a major artery and the fight was basically over at that point. I rushed back to the herd and observed what was happening. The velociraptors got a few more kills but it seems like their cohesion started to break down. It didn''t take long until the silver elks started to beat back the velociraptor and eventually, they all dispersed running in all directions. The clean-up took a few days. I butchered the velociraptors as best I could, but I was unfamiliar with their biology. Still, I got things that I thought might be valuable. As I suspected the remaining velociraptors formed smaller packs. I had to kill two packs that started to head deeper into my lands. The rest headed back to where they came from and soon the herd seemed to be heading back as well but they weren¡¯t in as much of a hurry as the velociraptors were. When I got back home everyone was worried, but I explained what had happened and promised that I will send Goose to inform them if I will stay for so long out of contact. The next day will be the winter solstice so it was time for a party in the village. chapter 122 Last night going to the sauna felt so great after having been dirty from the battle for so many days. This time the sauna will get quite the work out as after the party a few people will come back here so we can celebrate the last day of the year here. We have never had sauna two days in a row, but I don¡¯t think it will have any problems with it and should work just fine. I was trying to look my best so I decided to clean my armour up the best I could. It¡¯s surprisingly common in this world to wear armour to gatherings and parties but usually, people have a particular armour set that looks better and is lighter. In the future, I might do something like that, but the weight doesn¡¯t bother me so much and I made my armour extremely flexible. I am growing quite fast so making new armour sets is a must. On the clothes side of things making new ones or making the current one fit is no longer a problem. Emma has that side handled. If I was still alone, I like to do everything myself, but I can¡¯t argue with how much faster it is to have other people. But I need to be wary of doing things fast. It might not be the best option and sometimes it''s even a detriment. Even back on earth, this was a problem that I often came across in a different form. When I got older it was hard to understand that I couldn''t do some things as fast as I used to and that often lead to frustration. This time the problem is similar but from another direction. The coming celebrations reminded me of New Year¡¯s, but it wasn¡¯t the same. There wasn¡¯t an emphasis on midnight when the next day came just a party that started quite early in the day and continued into the next day. After the few days that I¡¯ve had, I kind of needed to relax so a party sounded quite nice. Arthur was already waiting in the common room as I got out of my own room. ¡°Are they still getting ready?¡± I asked Arthur. ¡°Yes, George will be ready in a moment, but I have no idea about Emma,¡± answered Arthur. I really wanted to know in what time frame we were going to go. ¡°Hey Emma, how long will it take you to get ready?¡± I yelled so she could hear through the walls. But the answer I got was her dropping something on the floor and cursing softly. The only reason I was able to hear the cursing was because of my senses. After a bit, she yelled back the answer. ¡°About half an hour more.¡± And after a short pause, she continued. ¡°And if you keep bothering me it will take even longer.¡± Both Arthur and I looked at each other, smiled and shrugged our shoulders. It wasn¡¯t a long time to wait but it wasn¡¯t short either, so I joined Arthur at the table, and we just spoke about nothing in particular. In a short while, George joined us. Everyone was in a good mood and the house was filled with laughter quite quickly. We barely noticed the time passing but suddenly Emma was standing next to us at the table. It didn''t take long for us to be on the road and make our way quickly towards the village. With our movement ability, the trip there was quite quick. I couldn¡¯t thank my luck enough that I was able to get this kind of ability that makes travel in some cases faster than travelling with a car. While travelling was quick it still takes some time during which I listen to my apprentice''s conversation and appreciated the silence of nature around us. In the winter everything was quieter. I suspect because of that true nature connection trait I was able to better understand or sense the background noise that life makes but currently it was the most silent I have heard, and it was quite calming in a way. The village itself was quite loud and seemed boisterous. It was radiating a joyous mood that quickly seeped into us. Everyone was loud and there were different games set up everywhere. Mostly young children were playing these games that reminded me of carnivals. A lot of people seem quite drunk, and I quickly figured out why. They were serving hot wine that has different kinds of spices in it. I have had it before on earth and it seemed quite similar, and it is truly wonderful on a winter day like this. I still decided to skip any alcohol as I didn¡¯t want my growing body exposed to it. But I could also feel an undercurrent of shame. That was mostly coming from older people. I think I know why as we were all having a happy time most other places were not having such a good New Year¡¯s celebration. I didn¡¯t let that bother me as it¡¯s something that I cannot fix so why fret over it? After trying one of the games, I understood quickly why only the children were playing as having a high enough level makes the games quite trivial. Still watching the children have fun was quite pleasing and their successes and failures brought laughter and joy to all that looked. The best part of this celebration for me was the pastries. I didn¡¯t know their exact names but a lot of them reminded me of what I had back on earth. So, during the first half of the celebrations, I mainly stayed close to the bakery and spent a lot of coins there. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. I also spent a lot of time talking with the pastry chef as he was working. At first, he was a bit annoyed at me when I started to give him ideas on how to make new kinds of pastries but that annoyance quickly disappeared and was replaced with gratitude. Unfortunately, I couldn''t stay there all the time, so I went and did what many others were doing and started to move around and talk to other groups that had formed. The music was quite pleasant. It sounded like folk music and Christmas music mixed together and it wasn''t half bad. Would I have liked them to have some drums, yes, but they were still quite good. Not a lot of singing also which was disappointing but I guess those songs were really meant for a performance. They were mostly just melodies that wouldn''t be too taxing to play for long hours and acted more like background mood setters. ¡°Well, hi there young fellow my name is Rich I¡¯m just walking around and getting to know everyone. What might your name be?¡± I asked in the same tone as I have been asking everyone else in a mix of joviality and familiarity. Unlike others, the youth didn''t answer immediately but it seemed that peer pressure did its job as other people around here waited for his answer. ¡°It¡¯s Chris with a K.¡± He finally said in a quiet tone and seemed to be quite uncomfortable. ¡°Pleasure to meet you Chris with a K. I believe you are one of the villagers that came with the convoy. Tell me what are your future plans, if you don''t mind that is and if you even have any. Don¡¯t take that as an insult people so young as yourself don¡¯t need plans but you should already start thinking in that direction. Just a simple recommendation.¡± His face went through multiple expressions before it settled on anger. ¡°Well, my plan was to take over my father¡¯s farm, but that fucking bastard of a noble killed my parents for not being able to pay the insane tax that he was asking. My plan after that like everyone else¡¯s was to find a way to kill that bastard.¡± At the end of his rant, the anger disappeared replaced with gratitude as he said. ¡°Thank you for that.¡± Everyone else in this group returned the sentiment to me and I got lots of thanks and handshakes from everyone. The young man''s face was now filled with sadness and I grabbed his shoulder and made him look me in the eyes. ¡°There is always a way forward no matter what everyone else thinks. There is always a use for no matter what kind of an ability that can benefit others in a good way. Don''t forget that.¡± I released his shoulder and looked at everyone else and continued. ¡°And to you all. Think about the future you want to have and if you can''t think of anything you can always find me and perhaps, we can talk things through. You are all young and the world is more open to you than it has ever been before. So, grab hold of any opportunity you think might benefit you. But I think a card table is waiting for me so if you would excuse me, I must leave you now.¡± Walking away and finishing my pastry I hope that Khris got what I meant. I truly feel like someone that can control the undead doesn''t need to be an evil person it all depends on what he decides to do with that power. But he wasn¡¯t the only one I gave this talk to I did it to a lot of the caravan villagers that looked lost. Getting to the inn it seemed like I was the last one to arrive. Around the table were people from the caravan that were no longer just acquaintances but started to tip towards the friend part of the scales. On the table was the most popular card game called the hidden one. The cards were the same as back on earth. This game also reminded me of poker, and I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it was some kind of a variant of poker. Greetings were just head nods as I sat down, and the hand started to be dealt immediately. Everyone got five cards then a hidden face-down card was placed in the centre of the table and one face-up card. Those were the communal cards that everyone could use to make up the best combination. The combinations were also the same as poker on earth. Contemplating how the games were similar would be quite a pointless exercise as there was no way to find the answer. I had three of a kind which was quite a good hand for the first round. I was quite surprised when in the first betting stage everyone added that to the pot. Everyone put down one card and got a replacement. In this betting stage, one didn¡¯t join and laid down her cards. In the last replacement card stage, I and only one other put down a card and got replacements. I was unlucky and didn¡¯t get a pair so I didn''t get a full house. Everyone joined in on the last betting stage and the pot was quite big now which was quite unusual for the first round. Everyone started to show their cards. I didn¡¯t even have the third-best cards as there was a flush and two full houses. It was finally time for the face-down card to be revealed. When the dealer turned the card over, and it was a glorious 10 giving me four of a kind I couldn¡¯t stop myself and laughed out loud. ¡°It seems like luck is on my side today boys.¡± I was answered with friendly groans and curses. We continued playing and I slowly started to lose the lead that I had gained but after a few hours of playing I still ended up with more money than I started with. People came and went from the table, and I even changed the table one time as multiple games were going on. The person who won the most money was able to get a trophy. I wasn¡¯t the one getting it I wasn¡¯t even in the top 10. One of the wall guards won as he seemed to be on a hot streak of luck as the hidden card won him most of his money. We didn¡¯t play for gold or even silver, just coppers. It was more for fun than anyone wanting to make a lot of money. But some unlucky people had to buy in multiple times as they kept losing everything they had. But that was their problem. It was finally time to start heading back to the farm, with us were a few other people that hadn''t visited the farm before. They were mostly the Knights that came with the caravan. The trip there was quite a lot longer but it was also a lot more fun with everyone joking along the way. At first most of them were sceptical about the sauna but as the night went on and crossed into the next day their minds were changed and I was able to convert a few more people to the truth of saunas. Chapter 123 It¡¯s been about a week since the new year began, and I am starting to feel that I need to stretch my legs. Because of that, I was planning an expedition out of my lands. I have gone to the South and seen the farmlands and grasslands there. To the north past the lake, I will not go as the higher energy density area starts there but I still have west and east to visit. To the east over the bridge is quite a lot of forest that is still on my land. My land stretches to the base of the mountain where there are a few places that might be interesting to explore. To the southeast is the goblin encampment but I don¡¯t think I will go and visit them. I want some nice clean exploration. Before I left, I made sure to tell my apprentices that I will be gone for days if not longer, but I knew that they could take care of themselves. This time just in case I brought along some climbing gear as well and quite a lot of rope. Hopefully, I can just use my strength to climb but you never know when such things are needed. Goose was quite happy with another expedition as he loved to fly around. He had become an excellent scout and I¡¯m pretty sure he will soon unlock the evolution that allows him to control air to a certain degree. I hope that the evolution that allows him to grow large will take a long time to unlock because then I will need to think up a building design for him to stay at. And I¡¯m quite certain whatever I came up with will be quite hard to build. At the start of the winter when the snow started to get thick I thought that I will not be able to explore as it would be too tough to get through the snow but being able to make myself so light that I could walk on the snow made everything so easy and actually a lot safer. Many predators couldn¡¯t chase you down when the snow was higher than themselves. But that''s of course talking about normal predators, anyone that¡¯s at the silver stage or above would not find themselves too troubled with this amount of snow. I started to get a habit of collecting interesting things while I moved. Being able to see interesting energy flows and mana makes finding interesting plants and other stuff quite easy. Normally I wouldn¡¯t stray too far away from the path that I¡¯m taking but this time I really didn¡¯t mind it. I also brought along a notebook and a charcoal pen so I could start levelling my cartography skill. I was really hoping to get some sort of mini-map ability, so I was constantly thinking about that while scratching down landmarks and calculating the distances between places. In the notebook, I also added information about the different items that I collected and what I observed about them. Looking at how much I had already filled in I might need to start buying a lot more notebooks. The notebook more resembled an old-time journal with its leather covers, the customary leather string to tie the book together so it won''t open by itself and a place to store your writing utensils into the leather covers. I honestly don¡¯t know why would having a journal feel so good. It seems that I have found another regret. I would have liked to feel this feeling on earth as well. What was the hardest to mark on the map was the exact location where the trees were unusual. I haven¡¯t found anything on the level of the iron oak, but I did find some trees that had interesting energy flows that would suggest that they might have some sort of evolution. As usual, identification didn''t show anything interesting and I didn¡¯t want to take the time to try to find out using my true nature connection. It takes hours to use that method but at least I know I have some way to find out exactly what makes these tree special. While I don¡¯t have time currently because I want to explore, I still want to know their exact location for a later date. Putting them onto the map was too inaccurate. What I ended up doing was putting a general location of it onto the map and then writing a code next to it that would lead to a page where I will note down the properties of the tree and how far from each of the landmarks this specific tree is. Was this the perfect system, absolutely not, but I currently didn¡¯t have any better ways. Even with my constant distractions we were making good time and made it about halfway to the edge of my land by nighttime. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Making a shelter with this amount of snow was quite easy. I just needed to do some digging. The snow shelters were actually quite warm and there was no need to even make a fire. But I did need to let Goose join me in my sleeping bag as he couldn¡¯t resist the cold as I did. The great thing about making this shelter was that I was getting digging experience. The night went past quite quickly. The bad thing about exploring in the winter was the sun and it only showing up for a short time. That luckily wasn¡¯t a big problem as I could see well even with low light, but I still prefer to explore when the sun was up as I could see a lot longer like that. Seeing the mountains peeking through the forest was quite beautiful. I had been going uphill for quite a while now, but the gradient was quite low as I got closer, I could see the gradients started to ramp up quite a lot until some cliffs started to appear. That was not bad as I was able to clear them by jumping but soon, they started to get tall enough that I needed to start climbing. I was now officially out of my own land. Looking back, I could see over the forest now. Some people might call this quite bleak as it was white and brown mixed thanks to the trees, only a few evergreens still showed their green adding a little bit of colour to the landscape. I would bet this view in the fall would be quite amazing with all the tree leaves being colourful. I decided to just sit down at the edge of the cliff and look over my land. I could feel the strength that it gave me, but I also understood that I also gave it strength. The stronger I will get the stronger the land I¡¯m connected to will be. It is a beneficial cycle, and it seems that the class homesteader and the trait true nature connection seemed to have a similar relationship as they both strengthened each other. I might have underestimated how powerful of a class this might be. But who would have guessed that a class with this kind of a name could be so OP? It was time to stop admiring and look towards the unknown. My first objective was to follow a small river that flowed down the mountain. Why was this river special? Because it was still flowing and only started to freeze halfway into my land. Testing the water, it didn''t seem so freezing close to the mountain and tasting it, it did seem to have a lot of minerals in it. On its way up the mountain, it seemed to have multiple small waterfalls the size of two men and up to four. What was disappointing was not finding a cave behind any of the waterfalls. But perhaps I will make one myself to have a secret hideaway. Then again it might be not the best hiding place as it would be the first place someone looked for a secret entrance. It seems that I might be lucky as the river didn¡¯t seem to go inside the mountain or have cliffs on both sides so I couldn¡¯t follow it anymore. My travelling speed slowed down even more as I kept finding interesting rocks. There were even large deposits of rock that was no longer normal. I would suspect that something had happened to them similar to the fireclay. Their properties have been changed over time by energy and/or mana. I didn¡¯t have the room or willingness to bring them back for testing, but I did mark them on the map the same way I did with the trees. By the end of the day, I had reached deep enough to see steam coming off the river. Well, perhaps river was the wrong word as even a normal human could jump across it quite easily. Here the water was quite warm, and I was starting to believe that I might have a hot spring in my hands. It was hard to get to sleep as I was quite excited, but I was able to force my body to relax so I could go to sleep. I had to travel a bit away from the river as there was a lot less snow around it. This night I did hear some howling probably a wolf pack somewhere, but I wasn¡¯t bothered as it seemed to be quite far away. The next day I ate my jerky while I was walking, and I started to move faster so I stopped going to every interesting rock. Like that it didn¡¯t take me long to reach the small lake perhaps a big pond would be a better word to describe what I saw. There was quite a large plateau around it. The water steamed heavily from being so hot. It didn¡¯t take me long to notice the springs that brought in the water. I had finally found the starting point. It didn''t look like hot springs from movies and anime. I might need to reevaluate my thinking as they were probably man-made to look like that. But I could already see the benefit of how they did it. Multiple layers of smaller ponds would give a lot more real estate for everyone to enjoy. Even as I was thinking about making a few buildings here and starting construction on an anime-accurate hot spring I was simultaneously stripping down so I could go into the water. It was warm but not scorching but that might be because of my body. If I had to guess I would say it was around 45 to 50 Celsius which I don¡¯t think a normal human can survive for a long time. A quick dip might be alright. I spent the rest of the day in the water and enjoying life. It seems that my first expedition to the east went extremely well but unfortunately it was not yet over as I wanted to visit a few more places that I think might be interesting. There was also the bigger river to the north and following it will be my next goal. While I might not find something as interesting as this it might still be a good idea to see if I could find its starting point. I could probably also get some salt out of this water, but the concentration didn''t seem so high. Drinking this kind of mineral water might be quite beneficial but who knows if there''s something bad in it. chapter 124 The night didn¡¯t go by peacefully. The sound of moving rocks woke me up. I didn¡¯t have to rush out of my snow shelter because the sound wasn''t coming next to me but more towards the hot springs. Sneaking out to see what was happening I was quite surprised at what I saw. There was a collection of rocks moving towards the lake. There were seven big rocks that were quite round. But the creature was not taller than me Although its body volume would be about three times more than mine. I looked where the creature came from, and it seemed that the cliff that seemed normal yesterday now had missing spots corresponding to the creature¡¯s different rocks. The creature also had smaller rocks all around it held up by some unseen force. I didn¡¯t find any magic in the creature but it had a lot of energy. The energy did flow similarly to other creatures that I have seen and by that, I would classify it as high silver tier. The creature moved by rotating its rocks and it seemed like it could assemble itself any way it liked. When it was halfway to the lake it stopped its movement and looked towards me. At least that¡¯s what I interpreted as it didn¡¯t have a face for me to orientate its position. I unsheathed my sword just in case and to my surprise this action caused the creature to back off a few meters. We continued to just stand there and look at each other at least that¡¯s what I thought it was doing. I try to step forwards and it did back off the same distance. I took a step back, but it didn''t come forward. Was it intelligent? If so, how intelligent is this creature? It didn¡¯t seem to be hostile at least for now. I decided to sheath my sword and then walk forwards a few steps. This time it didn''t back off. I got quite close and just sat down to observe the creature. It took quite a while but eventually, the creature started to move towards the lake. When it was inside it started to grind its rocks together making quite a lot of noise but I would guess a lot less thanks to it being underwater. It didn¡¯t take me long to notice that one of the rocks was a lot rougher than the rest and it seemed to focus most of it its efforts on that. I guess it just collected a new rock and wanted it to look like the rest of them. I wonder how long it will take to make the new one look as smooth as the others. It still periodically stopped and seemed to turn towards me, but I couldn¡¯t see any difference from the side that was now facing me from the others. I took out one of the bigger stones that I have picked up. It had a lot of energy in it that seemed to have made it a lot easier to manipulate. When shaping it, it was like wet clay but when I tried to get a chunk out of it even my energy-enhanced strikes couldn¡¯t break off a piece. My core energy might have been able to do it, but I didn¡¯t want to use it up when I might have to fight the next moment. While the rock was interesting it wasn''t crucial for me. What was more crucial was finding out if these creatures can be reasoned with. So, I got up which made the creature immediately stop its action and quickly turn towards me. I walked closer and while it did back off a bit it didn''t do it with the same urgency as before. I left the rock on the edge of the lake and backed off a dozen steps. This time it acted fast, but it still took quite a while before it started to slowly move towards the rock I placed down. Now that it was getting closer, I could start to feel some emotions coming from the creature. It seems that its body language is something that I¡¯m starting to understand a bit. But what surprised me the most was how gentle the creature could be about its movements and actions. From the small rocks, it formed an appendage that was able to pick up the rock allowing it to examine it. At first, it seems that it was quite puzzled by the properties of the rock but as it kept testing it its rocks seemed to start to vibrate and they couldn''t stand still like they used to. If I had to guess, I would say that represented excitement. It burst with sudden action as the rock that it had been working on was thrown aside not just physically but I could see it pulling back its energy from the rock making it completely normal. The rock that I gave however started to be surrounded by the creature¡¯s energy that slowly penetrated it. It seems that it was being extremely careful to preserve the energy balance of the rock so it would keep its properties. It was fascinating to see and actually helped me with many different problems that I have been having with improving my energy control. This was similar to when I was looking at the dungeon core as it gave me a chance to look at different ways energy could be controlled. I sat with the creature for hours looking at how it made the rock a part of its body. When it was finally done it started another round of testing. It was able to manipulate the shape quite easily but at the same time make it as hard as possible. What surprised me was its next round of testing. It made it into a round rock that was at the end of it''s appendage and struck it down like it was a mace. The rock itself wasn¡¯t damaged but the target rock the former part of itself was shattered to pieces. It was even able to make it into a spear-like object and pierced the ground with it. Though it seemed to have a little bit of trouble getting it back out needing to change the shape of the rock to get it out. Its testing had brought it quite close to me. When I stood up it seemed to have flinched from the surprise and quickly backed off a few steps. It seems that in its excitement it had forgotten that I was here. What it did next made me believe that it was truly a thinking creature. From the rock that I gave him a shape similar to a hand formed that it extended with its appendage towards me. While this creature shouldn¡¯t be able to cause me harm, I was still careful. It must have come in contact with humans before or perhaps observe them from its home, but I did extend my hand and grasped his. It shaking it up and down confirmed to me that he had at least seen humans do something like this or perhaps goblins. There was no further communication as it started to move towards its home. Its different body parts fit into the holes of the cliff quite well and after a little bit of shifting, I was barely able to distinguish it from the cliff. Even the energy signature started to decrease as well, and I now know why I hadn¡¯t noticed it before. It almost seemed to go into a dormant state where its energy was barely moving. Like that the creature soon resembled rocks with special properties. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Who would have guessed that this hot spring could give me another surprise? Perhaps it''s not a good idea to build a hot spring complex here but then again perhaps I would have a protector for it. But those questions will be left to future me. Currently, I had other points of interest that I needed to explore, and I had used up quite a lot of time here. Moving towards the other river at first was quite novel moving up and down the rocks but eventually, it started to get repetitive. What made my mood better was that I had run into a tin ore vein. While I will most likely not need to use this for a while, I still marked it down. When I finally reached the river I was quite pleased to see that this one also had multiple waterfalls and even bigger ones. The mist it made from the water hitting the rock was quite pleasant, but I think my armour will not appreciate me if I stayed here for too long. Following the river upstream was a lot more difficult this time. But I was still capable of it until I wasn¡¯t as the river halfway up the mountain went inside it. There was no way for me to keep following. The flow here was quite fast. It reminded me more of a dam spill gate when they are open than a river coming out of the mountain. I don¡¯t think that I will be able to swim fast enough to make it down the river and who knows if there''s even a reason to go there. I was surprised that the river hadn¡¯t carved a larger hole, but it seems that the rock here is quite strong and had quite a lot of energy in it. It didn¡¯t seem to have any special properties it was just better rock. I also mark that down in my notebook because who knows when stronger rocks might be necessary. It was time for the last major point that I wanted to reach. It was the highest location that I could see. Getting here already took 2 days but I wanted to reach the top so I could get an even better idea of how the lands around here looked. The cliffs here were steep and forward progress was difficult. I would suspect that a normal human would have to stop multiple times if not give up on this climb. About 2/3 to the top, on one of the smaller plateaus I noticed a large cave entrance that was larger than a house. Looking around there didn''t seem to be any large creatures around and come to think of it there really weren¡¯t any large creatures on the mountain just some smaller critters which was quite odd. It was a bad idea, but I still decided to go inside, and I had to curse when I found out what was inside. There was a lot more cave that seemed to branch off in multiple directions and if my nose and hearing is to believe it was an extremely large cave system that was teeming with all kinds of life. I think I just found myself a new expedition location but unfortunately, it was not going to be during this expedition. I will need some different gear to go down there and perhaps a few more levels just in case. It did seem to have higher energy density as I got a bit deeper in. Marking the location down I looked up towards the summit which seemed a lot closer now. When I finally got to the top, I was sweating something that I hadn¡¯t done for quite a while now. I had really pushed myself and I am guessing this climb would have been a lot easier if I hadn¡¯t pushed myself to go nonstop for days and doing it all while wearing my armour, but I wasn¡¯t stupid to think that I could do it without it. Who knows what monsters might lurk out here, so protection was paramount. The view from here was magnificent. Looking at it all I felt amazing. Who would have guessed my old bones could feel something so wonderful again? I even had to wipe away a few tears. But it was time to get back to business as I took out my notebook to mark down all that I see. The mountain range continued northeast for quite a while, but it was also quite narrow. To the east was a huge swamp-like land and to the north a huge forest. As I kept looking further and further to the north the forest seemed to grow older yet radiating a lot more strength. That place is quite dangerous it seemed. It wasn''t completely forested as there were large patches of grassland that were inside the forest. A weird combination but perhaps not for a fantasy world. From up here, I could even see my farm. It was quite cool but even with my vision, the houses were just small spots. To the west beyond my lands was another mountain range and the Grassland in the south seemed to extend quite far. I will need to come back here when it''s summer or late spring to see everything green and then again in fall to see all the colours. I saw a few more exciting locations further into the mountain range and in the swamp lands as well as in the forest to the north, but I just marked them down for later expeditions. Currently, I was done I had reached the highest point that I wanted and followed the rivers as far as I could. I was planning on going down a different route from the mountain more towards the springs so I could soak in it before I went back. This way I will perhaps also discover something new from a path that I haven¡¯t used before. I was about halfway down when I stopped for a break. I slept at the summit but that was 3 days back. Going down should be easier but it was not. My new climbing skill sure liked descending as I was gaining experience extremely fast. While I was resting, I didn¡¯t stop looking for something interesting and a little bit off my planned route there seem to be a huge area of rocks that had an interesting energy flow. Perhaps I could bring back a new rock with different properties for my rocky acquaintance. Getting closer it was quite easy to see the different rocks that were covering the cliff face. But I stopped my advance. This was unusual. There were breaks in between special rocks where normal rock was. I slowly got closer and examined it further and it did seem somewhat similar, but I could not put my finger on it. But then I saw one of the rock''s energy starting to move a bit faster. That was quite unusual. Then the other rocks began to do the same and now it was easier to see their round nature. It was similar to the creature that was in the hot springs. I quickly started to back off but like a floodgate, the slowly waking rocks immediately burst with energy and started to collect themselves into one creature. Half of the cliff face detached and started to form the same rock creature as I saw in the hot springs but a lot bigger tens of times bigger and its energy was definitely at the same tier as the sabre tooth cats. I backed off as much as I could, but a cliff drop stopped me from escaping quickly. My hands moved as quickly as possible as I found a rock where I could tie my rope to. Before I could start to descend the creature now fully formed turned towards me and I could see something that looked like a huge face made out of multiple rocks. It admitted a vibrating roar and started to walk towards me on its huge legs that were made out of multiple rocks. I descended as quickly as possible hoping to get away. I made it to the next plateau before I had to dodge a few small rocks that tumble towards me that were broken off the cliff from the sheer weight of the creature. The creature now was looking downwards, and my hopes of a quick escape died as the creature shifted its rocks around and started to quickly descend while stretching itself longer and longer. I didn¡¯t wait for another second and started to run away so that I would have time to think about how to defeat this enemy as I didn¡¯t think I would be able to get away. chapter 125 Peeking over my shoulder I tried to see any weaknesses. But the only weakness of this monster was that some of its rocks were smaller than others. This wasn¡¯t the most comforting observation. While I was faster than it on level ground it will be able to climb down cliffs a lot faster than I can especially now when I don¡¯t have any rope left to quickly descend. We were on a relatively narrow plateau, so I needed to find a place where I had some more room to manoeuvre. If I was able to keep out of its range, I might have a chance, but another problem was I didn¡¯t have any good, ranged attacks. There was another problem I didn¡¯t even know how hard it will be to damage this creature¡¯s body. I pushed my legs to pump as fast as possible to get as much distance as I could. The monster didn¡¯t seem to like that, and another roar of anger came from behind me. Perhaps if it thinks it can¡¯t catch me it will stop chasing me. But I can¡¯t count on that. I was somewhat lucky as there wasn¡¯t a cliff that I needed to go down when this current plateau ended. But it was still extremely hard to descend, and I had to slow down quite a lot or otherwise, I might trip and who knows if I can walk away from that. The creature was now gaining ground and I tried to hurry as much as possible. I had to pay attention to so many things that I felt my brain was starting to overheat. Every step needed to be determined, rocks that tumbled past me needed to be dodged and I needed to follow a certain path to not be trapped so the monster couldn¡¯t get me. My legs were barely holding on as the constant shocks every time I needed to jump and even just running started to take their toll. We have been playing our game of tag for nearly four hours now. The bastard is relentless. On the level ground I was able to get away but if anything slowed me down the monster started to gain on me. But I was able to keep away and now it was time to stop running as I made it to a fairly large area that was still quite steep but it was quite open as well giving me enough room to work with. I put on a burst of speed that I didn¡¯t know I still had in me and got to the centre area quite fast. I was now able to get my breathing under control and rest for a few moments. The training and every other thing I was able to achieve in this world help me to recover at a crazy fast speed. I had less than a minute for a break, but it was just the thing I needed for the battle ahead. As the monster ran closer to me it seemed a lot more bestial than that one at the hot spring. Hopefully, if it is not as intelligent then I might actually have a chance at winning. It would be a slim chance but I¡¯ll take it. For the first time, something new happened and I guess it¡¯s because I was standing still. It seems that the monster did have a ranged attack as it swung one of its arms a rock detached from the top in a perfect moment so it would have accuracy and strength as it moved towards me. The monster itself didn''t wait but started to run towards me again. I sent a flying slash towards it but only a few chips fell off it, but it was diverted from its path a bit. I wished I had the two-handed sword, but my one-handed sword will have to be good enough. I powered my sword and when the rock flew past me I tried to bisect it. It didn¡¯t work as I wanted it and I was only able to leave a deep cut into the rock but I was able to shatter it. It was time to run again. I was easily able to outpace the monster, but it also gathered up the rock that it threw at me and when I stopped it threw at me again but this time with a different rock that it had. What was even worse it seems that the rock that was damaged seemed to be healing the damage I made. ¡°Son of a bitch.¡± I was never going to be able to outlast it. Perhaps diplomacy might work? ¡°I don¡¯t want to fight you. Perhaps I can give something to you so you would leave me alone. If I trespassed on your land I apologize and will give you anything you want.¡± I yelled at the top of my lungs at the monster that was preparing to throw another rock at me. It didn''t even pause and didn¡¯t seem to understand anything I said. It seems that it truly is just a monster. Another rock was flying towards me and this time I used my core energy in my flying slash and this time I did bisect the rock, but I still needed to run away as the monster was still chasing me. But even the bisected rock was picked up by it and slowly the rock started to merge back together when it placed them close to each other. It did seem to take longer and more energy to make the rock whole again, but I didn¡¯t have enough core energy or regular kind of energy to use this method to defeat this monster. I looked at my sword and it wasn''t really meant to do anything to a rock. To split a rock, you would need a relatively sharp tip that would slowly get thicker like an axe, but it needed to be a lot longer than that. Perhaps I can do something like that and as I run away from flying rocks and the monster itself, I start to modify my sword by constructing with energy. I even strengthened the handle so I could use my other hand on the now a lot flatter pommel to push the sword even deeper into a rock with a lot more strength. The tip of the sword was still the same, but it now got a lot thicker the further down it went. It was time to test if this theory worked. My heart started to race a bit differently and I recognize that beating, it only happened when I was fighting for my life. It took just a moment longer for my brain to catch up. Surrounding our makeshift arena was a lot more of those creatures. None of those were as big as the one that I was currently fighting. This situation just got from deadly within a day to deadly within a few moments. Quickly checking the hundreds of new monsters, I found that none of them were above silver. And it seemed more and more were coming. But they didn''t seem to join the fight just look at it from the edges. Perhaps it might not be so dangerous, but I think I might be deluding myself. Whatever the case let¡¯s try to win at least the first fight. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. The next rock flying at me will be the most dangerous situation I have put myself in this fight. For this method to work I needed to stand directly in the path of the rock and push my sword into it. Just in case I did use my core energy to make the sword as powerful as possible. The rock itself was bigger than my torso but not by a lot. As in slow motion, I could see the tip of my sword breaking into the rock. The sword then starts to split the rock slowly, but more and more cracks started to show up on the rock. About halfway down the sword the rock split open and cracked into multiple smaller ones. It lost a lot of momentum like that but not all of it and if I wasn¡¯t wearing my armour and enhancing it this would have been the end of me. But thanks to my defences I was completely unharmed, and the monster was now down one rock. I believed it could still try to repair it but if it did it would be wasting a lot of energy and I would win that race. It obviously didn¡¯t like that and bellowed in rage, but it didn¡¯t stop and charged me again like a mad animal. Seeing that its tactics didn''t work it was still continuing the same way. The other creatures were still watching, and it seems like they enjoy the show. I still didn¡¯t understand why they didn¡¯t join in but I wasn¡¯t complaining. I felt a lot more confident now and I also know that using core energy was not necessary with this method unless the rock that he threw at me were a lot stronger than the current one. I did see some rocks that were stronger inside of its body, but it currently didn¡¯t seem to be using them for attacking. However stupid this creature is it is still capable of reason no matter how slow it might have been to accomplish it. In the end, it took 24 rocks before it stopped throwing them at me. I would celebrate that fact, but a bigger problem emerged. It was getting faster. At first, its movements were quite bad and the only reason it was so fast was because of its size. Most likely the creature never had to move that fast or as long, so it never learned how to properly move but now it was getting a lot of practice. It seems like my only advantage was slowly disappearing. Before this happened, I wanted to use up my ranged capabilities. For that reason, I sheathed my sword and took out my bow. Shooting arrows like they are currently would be quite pointless but using the same principle as the sword I modified the arrows to make the same effect as my sword. The arrows weren¡¯t as good as I had hoped but they were still doing something. If I only had a stronger bow, I might have been able to kill this monster with the bow itself. On the fifth shot, a smaller rock finally shattered. I had 15 arrows left in my quiver and 20 more in my backpack. I could continue to shatter more of its smaller rocks but perhaps I would have enough to destroy its biggest rock. That rock was located where the stomach of a normal humanoid creatures would be. It was a smaller room-sized rock and without it, the monster would need to change its shape and hopefully it will not be that well versed in manipulating the new shape it needed to make. I had to shoot a lot faster, and I didn¡¯t have as much time to aim as I wanted to as it was getting faster and faster. If I was less experience I might have panicked but I have lived through worst situations than this. So even when the monster was in melee range I stick to the plan. It took 22 arrows when the rock and the monster¡¯s own movement finally started to crack the rock. It hadn''t even noticed it was happening and before it could start to repair. I did something the monster wasn''t expecting I charged it. This time I wasn¡¯t sparing energy and used as much core energy as I could to bury my sword as deep into the creature as possible. The strike not only split the rock but shattered it with explosive force. The creature fell apart and many of its other rocks were damaged as well. But as soon as they fall onto the ground they again started to reassemble. I had to dodge a few flying rocks as I started to move out of there as fast as possible. But I soon figured out something was wrong. No matter what direction I moved I wasn¡¯t getting out of the rock cloud. The rocks were floating all around me and while I was dodging them trying to get away, I didn¡¯t notice that they were actively trying to attack me. The creature didn¡¯t start to reform like I thought it would instead it created a sort of a rock cloud that was able to attack me and keep up with my movement, so I was always in it. But if I did not move the bigger rock started to catch up and dodging them was a lot harder. I still didn¡¯t give up and shattered as many rocks as possible. Still, I was getting tossed around and multiple rocks started to hit me. I was surrounded and attacked constantly it will be only a few more moments before I was killed. I pulled on everything I had and activated everything I could. Heroic stand gave me time. I was able to strengthen my armour and thanks to the heroic stand it was more robust. My attacking strength was higher making me able to shatter the rocks easier. That gave me enough breathing room to visualize the weapons for call of the ancestors. They emerge quickly and I added most of my remaining core energy to them powering them up immensely. They had a similar weapon to mine, but they had a two-handed version instead of the one-handed one that I had. This gave me more breathing room and I didn¡¯t waste it as I focused everything on attack and hoped that my armour would be able to do its job. My energy was disappearing at an alarming rate but I just kept piercing every rock that I found in front of me. I could feel it whenever a ghost came back into me. But before I could run out of energy the area around me was clear. I looked around in confusion not understanding what happened. There was silence all around. My vision cleared and slowly everything came back to focus. There were two ghosts left and they were standing at my rear protecting my back. Only shattered rocks were all around us. My breathing was ragged but slowly I was able to get it back under control. It seems that I have won this fight. This could have ended really badly. Who would have guessed that it could have manipulated its rocks this way? I was trapped before I could notice. Suddenly roars came all around me. I looked up expecting to see rushing monsters trying to kill me but instead, I found them all starting to fight each other. From the quiet after my flight to the loud roar that now seemed so quiet after the loudness of something that sounded like a rock avalanche as hundreds of rock monsters were fighting. Throughout my fight, it seemed a lot more of them showed up and I couldn¡¯t even tell how many there were now. Even though they were fighting each other I had no way of escaping. At least my bones weren¡¯t broken but I was battered quite badly, and my entire body was shaking from the effort of standing. I quickly sat down and hopefully I will have time to recover as much as possible. Knowing the monsters their fighting might take quite a while and perhaps I might be able to recover enough to escape or kill whoever survived. I didn¡¯t know why they were fighting. But I was too tired to think about it. I just couldn¡¯t keep my eyes open. chapter 126 My eyes opened with a snap. My hand landed immediately on my assault rifle, but I didn¡¯t hear anything. Looking at my wristwatch I seemed to have slept for only an hour. Something was wrong I shouldn¡¯t have woken up like this. I listen to any noise that sounded familiar. That notified me of something wrong. It only took a few seconds for me to know what woke me up. Somewhere east of the line a bombardment has begun, and it was getting closer. I could even pick up the telltale sound of missiles moving through the air. But something was missing. Why was there no air raid alarm? ¡°What the fuck are they doing. AIR ATTACK, AIR ATTACK, ALL TO SHELTERS.¡± My yelling started a domino effect as I could hear my words being repeated. Just in case I also flipped my radio onto the relevant frequency to inform anyone listening. Just a few moments later I could hear the alarm. It¡¯s kind of weird how comforting it can sound. I moved as fast as I could picking up the supplies needed and heading to the nearest shelter as fast as I could. Why the fuck didn¡¯t they ever listen to me. No, we need to hold this line, there are already defences here, blah blah blah. Fucking idiots. I kept yelling for all to hear to move to a nearby shelter and remind those idiots to bring supplies as well. There was too much young blood in this camp and they were all running around like headless chickens. I grabbed as many as I could and showed them where to go. They were still a part of my unit no matter how useless they currently might be. The shelter was practically useless and the only protection it gave you was from shrapnel. If a missile hit near here most of us were going to die. Let¡¯s hope for a direct hit at least the end will be fast. When I finished setting up the explosions were already quite close. I looked around but I didn¡¯t see Th¨¦o. Was the French bastard still outside? Moving to the entrance that was way too wide for my liking took me a moment. It took another moment to see where he was. He was too far away. ¡°Move Th¨¦o fucking move.¡± But they were already running. All my yelling did was help calm my nerves. Th¨¦o had been a bit more diligent about helping the younger blood. I guess the real soldier training he has didn¡¯t let him ignore them as much as I could. When they were about halfway here explosions started and I had to take cover. I still periodically peeked outside to see if they were still alive and by some miracle, no explosions happened near them. I already had the pattern of their weapon systems memorized so I know when the explosions are going to happen. They even survived another series of explosions, but I didn¡¯t think they were going to make it inside before the next one. But they also might make it. It was going to be a close call that will depend on how far away we were being attacked from. ¡°Everyone get ready after the next explosion if they aren¡¯t inside, we go out and try to get them if they need help.¡± ¡°What the fuck are you talking about. That¡¯s suicide. Ain''t no way I¡¯m going outside. He has the highest rank. God, please protect us. Fucking, fucking shit.¡± I didn¡¯t let their words bother me as I have heard them all before. But I was surprised that no one was calling for their mother I guess the situation wasn''t that bad but there was still someone sobbing in the corner. Why is there always someone sobbing in the corner? As expected, they didn¡¯t make it in time, but I guess I was also a little bit wrong as we didn''t need to go outside as most of them were blasted either inside the trench or scattered around us. ¡°Move get everyone inside now,¡± I said that after I was already halfway over the trench. My only goal was pulling Th¨¦o back inside. I jumped back inside, and it was the first time I looked at him at head height. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. He was completely limp and sideways on the edge of the trench. I noticed the glassy eyes. Fucking shit. Turning him to his stomach I noticed the wounds on his back. The shrapnel had shredded him quite severely and the few pieces seem to have hit the back of his head. I pulled him in so we would be protected from the next wave Looking around everyone else had brought everyone to safety but most of them were dead. It seems only one of them might survive. Two more would most likely bleed out but I could already see people were trying to save them. ¡°Goodbye Th¨¦o,¡± almost four months. That¡¯s the longest any of my battle brothers have survived. I hope the other ones will not last as long. I learned too much about him and ended up liking him too much. ¡°You were a magnificent soldier and an excellent brother. I wish you whatever afterlife you seek and hope you find whatever you¡¯re looking for.¡± I closed his eyes for the final time and snapped off one of his tags. I placed that in the pouch made for them just in front of my heart. Next, I started to take everything necessary from his body starting with water. ¡°What the fuck are you doing commander?¡± ¡°He¡¯s doing what needs to be done and you guys should start doing that as well.¡± ¡°But he just died a moment ago! Why would you need those things.¡± I tuned them out I needed to think. Should I lie to them or tell them the truth? It can wait until I finish. I got all the water, food, any ammunition and everything else useful. I threw them all onto a table that was made out of an artillery ammo box. The last thing I waited a moment to check. I hope that there won¡¯t be any but even my pouch contains the dreadful white rectangle. To no one''s surprise, there was a letter. There were 2 letters and I had to take a deep breath as I saw my name on one of them. I didn¡¯t have time to deal with this currently, so I just put the letters where I kept mine. I did the last check of his body and then lifted it and placed it so it would cover a part of the roof and side to give us extra protection. ¡°What the fuck did he just do.¡± The comments came again but I didn¡¯t mind and picked up the next person after I checked for anything useful and did what needed to be done. I saw some familiar faces that seemed to look similar to mine and saw them starting to do the same things as I did. I informed everyone of what was needed. ¡°This is to protect us from the bombardment as it will most likely last for days. This is why everyone needs to turn over their water and food so we could divide them equally.¡± ¡°I will tell you the truth the bombardment might just last a few hours, but I will tell you it will more like be 3 days. Whenever it will end soon after will come an assault that we must either retreat from or try to defend this place, but that will be decided by the higher-ups. I recommend you all to try to get some sleep after all the preparations are done.¡± I was already running quite low on sleep, but I did help everyone finish up. I was not happy because I ended up with less water and food than I came in here with, but fairness is fairness. I picked one of the sleeping spots that was longer than the others. I was glad I didn''t have to curl up to sleep. I only now noticed how wet my cheeks were. It seems the French bastard meant more to me than I first realized. This was a terrible day. Sleep came quite easily even amongst the constant bombardment. I woke up from a nightmare or perhaps just a memory. Fucking hate when that happens but the sounds around me sounded awfully similar to the nightmare and that help me clear the sleep fog that I was in. The first thing I noticed was Goose and the two ghosts that were still around. Seemed like the battle was still going on but there were a lot fewer of the rock monsters around. So many of them must have died but why were they still going? It seems that my kill hasn''t come through as the system probably thinks I¡¯m still in a fight and I¡¯m guessing I actually still am. I don¡¯t know how long I slept but it must have been a long time, but I had to wait even longer for the fighting to start to die down. At first, I thought perhaps there were clans, and they were fighting for supremacy of the mountain, but I couldn¡¯t find any such behaviour and it seems everyone was fighting one on one until one of them was dead and then the winner just moved on to the next fight. What surprised me the most was that creature from the hot springs was also here and he was seemingly doing quite well. I could see the difference in his thinking and overall intelligence. It seemed to be very careful about its positioning so it would fight with someone that was extremely damaged but used to be strong so he could keep up with the levelling everyone else was doing. Perhaps levelling was the wrong word but there were only a few silvers left and only gold tiers seemed to dominate. It seems that all that killing got them to get past their silver tier. chapter 127* I still didn''t know exactly what was going on, but I could guess, and it would somewhat explain what was happening. I¡¯m guessing the monster I ran into was the so-called king of this mountain and when a king dies a new one must be elected. Everyone that gathered here wanted to fight for that title. It took two more days to reach the end. The ghosts were still with me meaning that I will most likely need to fight anyone who survived. But I was confident I could beat any of them as I had now recovered enough for another fight. But somewhere during those two days of watching the fights, this kind of turned into a sporting event for me as for some reason I started to root for some of the monsters. Only six fights were going on and the hot spring creature was still in the running. I kind of wanted him to win but at the same time didn''t. It would be sad if I had to fight him. It was beaten up like everyone else but what kept it going was that it was quite clearly at the highest energy level out of the remaining monster and the rock that I gave him. Those two factors gave him the edge, but it''s had a big weakness of having a relatively low volume of rock. I could see a few young rock creatures watching from far away. They will probably be the next generation that will fight the current winner. One of the huge brutes won its last fight and started to watch the last fight going on and waiting for his turn at the chance of becoming the winner. The current fight was between the hot springs creature and a monster that used a lot of small rocks in a similar cloud form as I had fought. This was the hardest fight the hot springs creature had been a part of because its advantages meant little against this kind of tactic. But eventually, it won simply because of stubbornness. The big guy didn¡¯t wait the second and started to move towards the hot spring¡¯s creature. But it seems that the hot spring creature had a trump card to play. It swung the rock that I gave him and threw it at the oncoming enemy, but the rock started to glow with the telltale sign of ability usage. When the rock hit an explosion came out of it. At first, it didn''t seem to do anything but slowly the big rock monster started to fall apart as it looked around in confusion. I don¡¯t know exactly what the explosion did, but it didn''t take long for the big guy to crumble to pieces in defeat. The hot springs creature went and picked up the rock that I gave it and then started to move towards me. I got ready for a fight and when the creature was getting close a notification popped up. Fight for the ownership of the mountain. Owning mountains sounded awesome but was not really necessary at least not right now and it would paint a target on my back. There wasn¡¯t a decline button but perhaps there might still be a way. ¡°I surrender.¡± There was a moment of pause where nothing happened, but the notification disappeared from my sight and the rock creature that was moving towards me stopped. It looked quite puzzled and paused for quite a while looking between me and what I assumed would be its system notification. Eventually, it started to shift going from a battle form of sorts into a shape I saw in the hot springs. My ghost also disappeared, and I got a lot of notifications. It seems that there will be no need for a fight. Halfway through shifting the monster seemingly just gave up and sort of sacked down into a heap of rocks. There didn¡¯t seem to be any movement and I¡¯m guessing the fighting exhausted whatever keeps them going. I was just glad I didn¡¯t have to fight. Every part of me still hurt from all the pounding the flying rocks gave me. This expedition turned out to be way more exciting than I first imagine. But looking at the gains I was excited. I let the levels flow through me giving me a lot of strength. Killing gold-rank monsters truly is a good way to gain experience. But perhaps it is more to do with me being on a lower tier of energy than the creature I killed. My homesteader class got to level 32 while true archer and heroic soldier got to level 30. There didn''t seem to be any level 30 milestones which were a bit disappointing, but I also wasn''t surprised as I expected there to not be one. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. That was a lot of level-ups for abilities and skills. It was nice to see my mind skill level to 32 meaning there were only three more levels until I can level up my adventurer class as well. That would also mean quite a lot of useful abilities and hopefully, it will level up quite a lot, thanks to all the killing I¡¯ve been doing. My new skill of climbing got past the basic tier which I was quite happy about giving me a choice of abilities. Sticky hands sounded good and would be useful in many situations. Enhanced rope strength not so much. Crushing hand was the most puzzling ability but in the contents of climbing, I am guessing that you can strengthen your hand so you can make handholes into the rock so you can keep climbing in a difficult situation. It was not a clear choice, but I was leaning towards crushing hand. Not finding a clear answer I picked crushing hand. Testing it briefly I found it to be a handy ability. Not only did it help crush rock it improved my hand strength by a lot. I unlocked a new skill meditation most likely because of the last part of the fight where I was only focused on staying alive. It was weird that I didn¡¯t get something like battle meditation, but I was also not complaining. I also got a skill called beginner energy construction. This might be a game-changer for my energy side of things, but we will have to see. I was also happy to get my basic cartography upgraded to the next tier giving me a choice of abilities. But there was no question about what choice I will take because one of the options was a mini-map. How could I not pick the choice I wanted to get? What I did not expect was to get a new notification. You have gained a new ability mini map mini map specialized by class homesteader Ability mini-map change to interactive map If I wanted to, I could check an area map to see what I know about the area. I suspect that was the extent of the original ability. But now owners land fed information into it giving me an active map of my lands. Not only that but even the land I explored during this expedition was filled in. This area was however a bit grey most likely meaning I only had old information. Still, this ability seemed amazing and needed further testing. For some reason, I was able to tier up my stealth which was a pleasant surprise giving me another choice of abilities. The choice was between shadow melding and an ability called stealth. In the end, I picked stealth hoping that eventually, I can just disappear in broad daylight from watching eyes. My ability list just kept getting longer and I still had some choices to be made. Next was my armour skill. There was a clear winner. Armour damage absorption. There was no good way of testing right now, but I believed this to be one of my most powerful abilities. After that was battle presence. There didn¡¯t seem to be any good choices, so I ended up picking a choice that made my commander ability better. The choice was just commander+ so I had no idea how it will improve it. It seems that even my awareness skill tiered up and I had to make another choice. Trouble sense was the clear winner. It sounded something like the spider-man''s awareness. The ability turned out to be a passive one that took a constant stream of energy, but it was a small amount. But its effectiveness needs to be determined. I was expecting to be finished but turns out that I wasn¡¯t. My running seemed to have tiered up also. This was quite a good surprise but also completely reasonable. I had done a lot of running in difficult terrain. This choice was honestly the easiest. Haste is the main staple to most fighters and even with its downsides, it¡¯s still a powerful ability. Finally, I made it to the last notification, and I already recognized the style of it. I had earned another achievement. Perhaps it will be an upgrade to the tier surpasser as I was able to kill another one, but it turned out I was wrong. Congratulations you have gained a new achievement 3x500 You reached 500 in all three main stats you receive access to first-tier energy. After reading that I was momentarily frozen by the surprise. Then I could feel the absolute power flowing into me. All the energy that my stats provided was upgraded to a stronger tier. This process took quite a while, but I also helped it along by circulating my energy. What was interesting was how my cores were filled with the new energy and how they started to change into a better version of themselves. It was like every cell of my body was drinking in the new power making me stronger. I could see now why I needed the 500 stats point as without them my body wouldn¡¯t be strong enough to properly handle the upgraded energy that I had access to. I believe I have reached the gold rank and even gone past the beginning stage of it. I now understood why the knights called low gold-rank people false gold. After the fight with the Sabertooth, I was considered a false gold. But now that I had access to the next tier of energy, I should be a full-blooded gold-rank adventurer. It seems that my change was noticed by the rock creature as it finally gathered itself up and approached me. I was a bit weary, but that evaporated as it extended its arm again. Now I knew that perhaps we could have a good working relationship. The problem was there was no way to communicate at least not right now but I¡¯m guessing there are ways. The real question is how much will it cost me to get a device so I could communicate with this creature. chapter 128 The newly crowned mountain king didn''t waste time and started to dig around for useful rocks amongst the corpses of its kind right after our handshake. What I was surprised about was that the younger ones seemed to do the same thing, but they kept quite a large distance from the newly crowned king. This trip however quenched my exploration ich. At least for some time. I looked around a bit but decided not to loot. Instead, I started to head back home with Goose scouting in front. We moved at a reasonable pace and the only break during our journey was the hot spring. The water there was truly magnificent and before I noticed it a day had gone past while I was just sitting in the water. That was a weird occurrence. Thinking more about this I concluded that I might not be human anymore. My needs and wants are now a lot different from a regular human. I don¡¯t need sleep for multiple days. My perception of reality is a lot different than regular humans, but I guess food is still what connects me amongst other small things. So perhaps still human but moving quite fast away from being one. The real question is how long I will live. This is something that I have not really thought about because even without any system enhancements I have quite a lot of life left to live. I might need to start asking more pointed questions, but that would be a problem. I don¡¯t think my camouflage could hide the fact that I now have a higher tier of energy permeating me. I would need to spend some time away from the village just working on my energy control so I could hide myself better. But doing so might start to be a burden and take away from my progress in other areas that makes me stronger. This hot spring could become a place for me to practice my energy control but I would like to do it on my own land so I could have access to more energy regen. The dungeon might also be a good place especially now since it would be quite pointless to try to delve the dungeon as it would not give me any XP or very little towards my levels. I¡¯m quite positive that levelling up just became a lot harder. But then again working on making myself physically weaker could teach me quite a lot. Why can¡¯t things be easy and straightforward? I finally decided to get out and head back to the farm. I was running low on rations and my apprentices might start to worry if I didn¡¯t come back soon. I also had a lot of experiments that needed to be done. This expedition or more specifically the fight really catapulted my development. I would also like to know how I compared to other adventurers. But I suspect when spring comes, I will have plenty of opportunities to find out. My trip back to the farm was interrupted by me finding out another feature of the interactive map. I could leave comments on locations that I¡¯ve visited. This way I was able to mark all the interesting things I found that I couldn¡¯t bring back. I really need to thank the goblins for explaining how much intent worked on the system. I might need to start thinking about what else might give me huge advantages that I could borrow from earth''s vast amount of fantasy literature and games. The homecoming was pleasant, and it was great to talk to people again. The sauna was different from the hot springs but if I had to choose one for the rest of my life I would still have to go with the sauna. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The most interesting thing my apprentice told me was that George seemed to have gotten himself a girlfriend. I honestly wasn¡¯t surprised as they were spending most of the time in the village together. But I have to say that George works fast with how little time he has in the village. Emma and Arthur seemed to be teasing him endlessly about it, but I decided not to join in. I had done this enough in my last life and I just quietly wish them the best of luck. But what I did remind George was to talk to the girl about his aspirations more specifically the number of family members that he wanted to have. He promised me that he will have to talk with her and I was quite refreshed by how quickly things moved and how normal it seemed to everyone. I had to remind myself that this was sort of a medieval society and not like back on earth where people might be together for a long time before anything truly serious starts to happen. This however made me a bit sad. I remembered my wife and my kids and grandkids. I hoped my kids were alright but mostly I worried that my grandkids weren''t being spoiled enough with extra candy. We were a bit smarter than the last generation so we tried to not get our kids hooked on sugar but it was a hard thing to accomplish. I think I liked it even more how my grandkid''s faces lighted up whenever I pulled out pieces of candy when we all knew they were not supposed to have any. I don¡¯t know why but for some reason you just want to spoil your grandkids as much as possible. It¡¯s kind of weird actually. But now for the hardest question. Do I want a family in this world? I kind of don¡¯t. While my family wasn''t perfect, I still love them and would do anything for them, and this love hasn¡¯t gone away. I had to take a break from the resting room and go outside alone as I didn¡¯t know if I could keep being happy in front of them. While my wife was gone for a few years now I still visited my kids quite often and I missed them terribly. As I went outside, I was basically naked with only a towel covering my privates. I was standing on the frozen river while cold wind blew around me. But none of that hurt as much as not seeing my family again. If I truly look back at all that I have done here I¡¯ve basically just tried to keep myself as busy as possible so I wouldn¡¯t have to think about the hard things. For some reason, I don¡¯t think any of them were alive anymore. I feel that wherever my memories came from was a dark place that I spent a lot of time in. But I¡¯m a stubborn and tenacious bastard who was somehow able to keep my conscious together to steal this unfortunate child¡¯s body. I think I would have become sort of like a guiding figure for him if he didn¡¯t die. But even that would not have been intended. I think I was supposed to be nothing more than an infodump to help Rich achieve his dreams. I didn¡¯t stand here for too long and started to damp down on my feelings again. Going back into the mindset that can survive. I always hated myself for not being able to let go. In the war, there were so many times when I should have died but no matter what even if I didn¡¯t want to, I still kept trying to live. Even here I can only get close. I just have to hope that I will run into someone that I can''t defeat or run away from. But knowing myself that will most likely not happen. I wiped my eyes as best as I could as I headed back in and went straight into the heating room. My apprentices suspect that something had happened, but no one questioned me about anything important. I was happy with that as it took quite a while for me to get my emotions under control. I wonder if there is a psychologist somewhere in this world because I have quite a lot of problems that need to be worked out and not suppressed. But I guess currently suppressing will have to do. After a while, things got back to how they were, and we enjoyed the rest of the sauna. Sleep came quite quickly and as usual, it was a mix of happy memories and nightmares, but I was quite used to those. Morning came quickly and I did my usual stretches to wake up. It was time for a training montage, and I was quite excited about it. It was quite euphoric to see the numbers go up on my achievement page. chapter 129 The days started to go by faster and faster. Getting this new tier of energy under control was harder than expected. While I could still use my abilities and they were a lot more powerful. I didn¡¯t have the fine control or the capability to manipulate it like I used to. This was a serious setback but training it wasn''t as hard as the first time as I already knew what I needed to do. Other than that, I started to test out the new abilities that I have. Haste was one of the easier-to-test abilities. Like I had expected it gave me a huge boost in speed but in exchange when the boost ended, I got a wave of exhaustion. I could also activate it at different levels so I could manage the consequences. I couldn¡¯t use it back-to-back it wouldn''t let me activate it so often, but it seemed to have a few-hour cooldown depending on how hard I pushed it. But the speed it gave was amazing and even better it boosted my mental side as well so I could keep up with my own movements. It wasn¡¯t at a level of time stop but dropping things will never be a problem again. It was hard to quantify how much it sped me up but using my regular energy and dropping my sword it now took about 4 times as long to hit the ground. Crushing hands seemed to be extremely useful for multiple cases. Not only did it help me grip my weapons better, but it gave me a damage boost while fighting with fists or open hands. It was an extremely versatile ability that also meant I would no longer need any weapons to do massive damage. But there were limitations. While it did have some damage mitigation, I could easily overwhelm that if I pumped enough energy into the ability so I could hurt my hands quite badly. Still, this could be a possible lifesaver when my enemies think that I am harmless or a last-ditch effort attack to save my life. But that did mean I would be sacrificing my arm to save my life. If I were able to get an ability that would allow me to restore my body it would have great synergy with this ability. Of course, anything that made my body stronger would also help this ability hugely. Trouble sense was a finicky ability at best. It didn''t allow me to divert more energy into it, but I was able to switch the stream that fed it from my normal energy to my core energy which will hopefully make it a lot better. While I haven¡¯t really felt it working, I do get the sense that I needed to train which luckily I was already planning on doing. Stealth the ability helps me achieve whatever my stealth skill is trying to achieve. If I had to give a name to what the ability could do it would be an all-compassing ability. It helps absolutely every part of trying to be sneaky. But now you didn''t have to rely on your physical capabilities as energy would now help achieve what you''re trying to do. This ability could be extremely powerful, but it will depend a lot on the person who was using it. I felt that the interactive map had so much potential, but it needed a few more abilities to truly bring it to the next level. If I had some sort of a scanning ability that could penetrate the earth and give me the data that I could feed into interactive map, I could possibly survey my entire land and beyond for useful resources. Nothing could escape my notice and I would like that a lot. It would be even more awesome if I could collect data into the ability so I could track animal movements over the years and other stuff like that. But I¡¯m guessing I would need a lot more abilities to make that work and I don¡¯t know if it would be a good idea to put so many resources into this idea. While it would be useful it wouldn''t be necessary. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. I have a good enough memory and it will probably get a lot better as I level up to remember most of those things but I guess I am just used to being able to keep information on my PC so I could always get back to it at the later date. As I had suspected armour damage absorption was an absolute game-changer. It did even more than I dreamed possible. Not only did it lower any amount of damage done to my armour I could also use that absorb damage to fuel my attacks. While I couldn¡¯t currently fight for hours and then release a huge attack that would end a dragon it might be possible in the future. This however brought up the biggest problem that I seemed to have. My lacking equipment. My armour could only keep so much damage before it started to break itself and while my sword was better with energy it still couldn''t handle the amount I could push into it. It''s quite disappointing that my equipment will be holding me back. My level gains and training have pushed my body beyond my gear''s ability to keep up with it. Not only has my bow been left behind for quite a while my regular armour is also experiencing that problem. If I bend beyond my amours capabilities without reinforcing it with my abilities, I start to bend the steel. While I made my armour extremely flexible it still isn¡¯t as flexible as my body. And now if I wasn¡¯t careful, I could destroy my armour by stretching. I let Arthur make some inquiries from some of the merchants in the village and I had to conclude that I was quite poor even with the gold that I got from the goblins. Currently, I could only get a few armour pieces and a weapon that would still be too weak for me to properly use but a lot better than what I currently have. This needed to be fixed and I saw two ways to go about it. One was to buy the raw materials and make better stuff myself and the other was to make better stuff from the materials I can gather and sell some of those items to get a lot more coin. My energy cores didn¡¯t disappoint. It took them a long time and the process was still ongoing but they are now making even stronger energy. It seems that whatever base energy strength I will have they will make a small amount of stronger energy. This was amazing and I couldn''t wait until they finished upgrading and started to grow bigger again. An idea did pop into my head that perhaps it would be a good idea to try and make more of them in my body but when I wanted to try a sense of dread came over me that overwhelmed me. It took me a few minutes to calm down, but I guess trouble sense got its first mark for saving my life. After that, I refocused on training my energy while time passed quickly. The weather started to get colder and colder. My apprentices stopped going to the village and even the dungeon runs by the villagers stopped. The winter had finally entered its last phase before it started to turn into spring. While before we had what I call a soft winter where the temperatures barely went past minus 15 degrees Celsius. Now starts the crisp winter. Temperatures plummeted in only two weeks to minus 30 to 35 degrees. In this weather, even my temperature core had difficulty keeping up, especially if the wind was strong, but it still did its job. With the rabbit fur cloak going out was quite pleasant. While my apprentices now also had a similar cloak that only helped them to do their jobs for a short period before they needed to go back inside. I usually stayed with the animals so my body temperature would help keep the room warm. Everything was quiet during this period because no one wanted to move. Everyone was hunkered down and just waiting for the weather to start to warm up. I actually quite enjoyed it as moving around was a lot easier because I didn¡¯t have to use my weight reduction to walk on the snow as the cold made its surface so hard that it started to support even my armoured weight. I would assume that a lot of animals would have died if the snow wasn¡¯t so thick. Currently, the rabbits were just living their lives as they had before. Making burrows in the snow to find frozen grass to eat. But if they didn¡¯t have the snow to protect them from the cold their situation would be a lot worse. But the weather didn''t stay like this for long. In only a month the temperature started to rise again. It was tough for everyone here but I¡¯m guessing we got it quite easy. I couldn¡¯t imagine how bad it could be in other places where food and fire fuel was difficult to get. Soon we were entering the last stretch of the winter. The cold started to disappear day by day and the sun started to stay longer and longer. While the winter will stretch for another month or two spring will be coming soon meaning a lot of farm work will soon start. chapter 130 POV Falyr Hrasnel Today was the day when officially the temperature got above freezing this year. Another thing that signifies the coming spring is the mountain of paperwork at my table. It will be the last month before everything starts moving again. I tried to rub my temples, but I can already feel the future headaches. But I didn¡¯t think that Rich would be one of those headaches. He is hiding something and planning something. The most worrying part is that he is not hiding it and that worries me even more. He clearly has started to gather a following but apparently, they are only planning on setting up a life here. But I don¡¯t understand how gold and silver-rank knights and even two Wizards want to start farming. There must be more to it but whatever it is I don¡¯t think without better assets here I would be able to find out. I kind of wished I¡¯d pushed Rich a bit more to get a better idea of his background. Absolutely everyone is certain that he has a military background of some sort, but I never questioned what kind of military background he has. His ability to deal with politics is kind of frightening. He seemingly doesn¡¯t care about it but is willing to play the game whenever anyone wants. Yet finding out about his plans seemed easy. It almost looks like he wants us to know what he is doing. I hoped that I would be able to get him to talk more but he hasn''t shown up at the village ever since the winter solstice. Some of our scouts think that he fought a gold-rank beast and that''s why he was out of commission before the winter solstice, but no one can figure out why he hasn''t returned. Perhaps he was in another fight but the information we have been getting from his apprentices doesn''t seem to support that. I have most likely lost the opportunity to learn more about him. I looked at the paperwork again that all needed to be filled and looked over so we could take back most of the people here into the capital. I did request that we leave a stronger force to represent us here, but it was not approved. They want everyone out of here that''s willing to go so we could secure our power base in a more populous area. And while I disagree and I¡¯m glad that we¡¯re leaving at least some contact here. I still think that Rich and his people are up to something and when we are gone, they will be able to take the village over and become its leader quite easily. At first, we thought we achieved so much. Getting a village with a huge amount of food supply that we turned into a huge advantage, and I guess we did get a lot but I suspect Rich got an even better deal. Not only will he get a fully repaired village he also gets quite a few huge favours from us and the better we do in the outside world the better those favours will benefit him. But I can¡¯t see it. In the interactions that I had with him, there is simply no way he planned this from the start. I refuse to believe that. But I just wish that we could meet before we go because I need to confirm this otherwise, I would need to reevaluate everything about myself and my ability to read other people. And that part is really crucial for my next assignment. I just wish that Bert was still here so I could talk with him, but I already know that he will answer the same as I think. Perhaps it wasn¡¯t a concrete plan and just, it would be nice if that happened. That kind of seems more like him. Whatever the case might be hopefully I can put this behind me and go forward without worry. My next job however will not be even close to as easy as this one was. And while this was still a headache dealing with all the teenagers the next one will be even worse, I need to deal with nobles and self-proclaimed rulers. We need to secure safe routes for our traders to move. This requires quite a lot from the company. It will be my job to make sure our caravans look strong so no ruler would think that they could seize our goods without any retaliation. I will just be one part of the team. Of course, there is a need to deal with trading and making money. Another difficulty will be dealing with bureaucratic and diplomatic dealings. The last difficulty was to make sure everyone will honour those deals. Looking over the number of new recruits and veterans that we have been able to get on our side I was feeling quite confident. With the number of combatants, we should be able to deal with everything at least for a while. But it will still be quite difficult as there are many dangers on the road. One of the newer ones is the huge number of undead. Luckily, we have been able to hire some experts to deal with and guide us with this kind of problem. The only problem is that I''m not too fond of their attitude. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Holy power has always been an unpopular choice. But now with the amount of undead they have finally found a niche that they are better than anyone else. Their power structure is quite weird as I didn¡¯t expect them to start something new. They apparently have organized themselves into something they are calling churches and starting to spread some sort of belief system that they are calling religion. They are still a minor organization, and they seem to hate each other even more than companies and guilds hate each other. The reports I¡¯m getting are quite weird as they seem to have different outlooks on life and what everything means but they also seem to disagree on at least one part or most of them, but no matter how similar they are they usually don''t get along. I guess time will tell what will happen with them, but I do have to prepare a bit more since one of their priests requested to come here to seek out the possible necromancer that might be here. One thing I have learned is that no matter how much they hate each other or others most of all they hate anything to do with the undead. I can see that holy power seemed to work the best on the undead, but I haven''t really understood why they have this deep-seated hatred. Hopefully, they will not become a problem in the future. POV Arthur Glenn was again trying the same tactic to get past my guard, but he should have known better. I just pressed closer to him and pined his arms with my cross guard. Now it was easy with the help of my other hand to push my sword into his shoulder to get me the winning point. I love the voice of the instructor and she called me the third point and gave me the final win. I was now officially the best swordsman in our age group. I need to thank Rich some more and beg him to give me some more energy circulation lessons. That man is truly brilliant at least in that aspect. But thinking about him I wish that he was around some more. I don¡¯t understand how he could tolerate the cold so well but even now that it¡¯s gotten warm again, we barely see him. He''s always doing something away from the farm. I was basking in the win but whenever I think that I can take on the world I just have to picture how Rich looked after his fight with the big cat. That''s like a bucket of cold water down my back. It''s just another way how he has saved my life. And I will probably never be able to repay him, but I will do my best and what¡¯s even better is that I get to do the things I like and those things will help him. I honestly still don¡¯t understand what his plan is. I mean yes he explained it a couple of times but it¡¯s all too complicated for me. I find life is simplest when there is a blade in my hand and an enemy ahead of me. But Rich has also taught me that there is a lot more to life than just that. I still can¡¯t believe it¡¯s just been a year looking back at my life before that I truly must agree with everyone''s assessment that I was stupid. If I would have gone into the adventurers guild the only reason I might still be alive is that I got lucky and while that is important for every battle overall you do not want to bet your life on luck. Looking up at George with his girlfriend I honestly don¡¯t know what to think. Making a family was never in the picture for me but I¡¯m not so against it now. But hopefully, whenever I find someone like that it would have taken a long time. I still have things to accomplish and monsters to slay. Tomorrow will be a big day. I was able to get permission from Rich to take a few of my friends into the dungeon. Over the winter I have gotten to know a few villagers that came with the convoy that think similarly to myself. They all wanted to be adventurers like me so at the inn we find some common talking topics that eventually morphed into a proper friendship. I was able to convince them to not go with the company back into the capital but stay here. Hopefully, we will be able to train and become strong enough to not die from the first real battle we will fight. We have been taught that death is a part of our future but it was as hard to get it through their heads as it was to get that idea into mine. But Rich has his ways of convincing people and so do the instructors here. Honestly, I still don¡¯t really understand everything, but Rich said that I wouldn¡¯t truly understand before it happened. He just told me to try to push that back as much as possible. It was one of the most serious conversations I¡¯ve had with him. It was kind of a shock to see a usually happy person that radiated pleasant energy become so deadly serious, but I guess that helped with teaching me. All I can do is train as much as possible and get the experience and delving into the dungeon will be good for that. But I¡¯m not looking forward to spring as I¡¯m guessing we will once again have to do farm work. Why Rich bothers with that I do not know as he would earn so much more money just hunting down monsters or even crafting. But I will suck it up as even if I was able to become an adventurer I would still need to do shit jobs. So doing some farm work for the amount of training, knowledge and experience I have gotten is a small price to pay. When we were walking back to the farm, I could see the snow starting to melt faster and faster. It won''t be too long before spring comes. Honestly, I¡¯m so sick of the white. I have never liked winter. It''s just annoying as you must stay in most of the time. I can¡¯t wait to tier up my class up so I can get more stat points so the weather wouldn¡¯t affect me as much. Perhaps then I would love winter if I could fight and tolerate it as Rich can. chapter 131 Opening my eyes from my latest meditation session I was greeted with a sunrise over the lake. There was still snow and ice everywhere, but the signs of life were there. I can feel and see how nature is waking up. This process is slow but every day it''s getting faster. Yesterday I had to plant a few more seeds from the goblins and some that I have collected myself. The seeds that I put into the ground during fall were all doing quite well and seemed to be starting to grow. The last few months have been quite peaceful. The few fights that might have happened didn¡¯t because the monsters ran away when they sensed my energy. So, I have had quite a lot of free time to finally finish understanding this new tier of energy and bring it back and above the previous proficiency. Doing that was simply time-consuming and not actually hard but there were a few struggles that took a long time to puzzle out. The biggest problem turned out to be the environment. It seems that the energy that I¡¯m using acts like it''s in a vacuum and wants to disperse into the environment as soon as I start manipulating it. At first, I compensated for it by just using more willpower but that affected my combat sustainability. The solution turned out to be an interesting one. For some reason, if you¡¯d let some of the energy you are messing with disperse into the environment in a controlled manner it helped. It acted like a controlled burn. Doing that somehow made controlling energy more efficient and required less willpower. So now every ability that I use looks like it''s burning. You could only properly see it with energy sight but even without it, it creates an effect similar to heat waves when you¡¯re looking at something hot that doesn''t burn. I wish Bert was here so I could talk with him if this was the correct way that I found out, but it works so much better than anything else that I have tried. From monitoring my sustainability and resource usage somehow it seems to be the best choice. I¡¯m kind of happy about it because it looks awesome. But to truly notice this effect I need to be using quite a lot of energy and it''s still better to use more willpower to control smaller and easier energy usage. I pulled up my map which was now filled with black dots that indicated a resource or something interesting I might want to look at later. I spent a lot of the time when I was trying to understand energy while walking around my lands. This led me to find a lot of interesting things. During the last month, I have been mostly focused on trees. I figured out that the best way to make money would be by making bows and for that, I needed special trees. I have been collecting and marking trees for a month now. While not every one of them is good enough for bows it turns out quite a lot of them are. This is extremely good news on so many fronts. This will help me level up a lot, it will make me money and more importantly help me keep a good relationship with the rose thorn company. I was both glad and saddened when I heard the news that they will be leaving. There were benefits and negatives for both outcomes but in the end, no matter what they choose it would be beneficial for us. Because they were leaving so soon, I needed to push up my bow making plans. While I would have still collected wood, I wouldn¡¯t have spent the last week on making 3 hunting bows that I believe are capable of being used against high silver monsters. I honestly want to keep one but I think I will need to use them all to make a deal with the company so we could keep them as trade partners and not just acquaintances. While food that we will provide at the end of the summer might be useful for them it wouldn''t be necessary but if I could offer high-tier craftsmanship, we might be able to forge a stronger relationship and that might be extremely necessary for the political landscape of the future. Now I don¡¯t know much about politics of the former Kingdom but I know that this company is in a position to monopolise at least the trade around these areas. Having a positive relationship in not just favourable but actual meaningful trade will be crucial. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Who would have guessed that having to deal with army politics might help me so much in this life? But now when I think back on that time those politics might have been even more treacherous than in Game of Thrones. But I did what I needed to do to keep the men that served under me safe at least as much as I could. The politics got even worse when we started to win the war. Rivalries caused a few large setbacks that might have cost us the bigger war. Luckily there were people like me who saw the bigger picture and deemed that more important than personal gain. But now I will put all those skills to work and make sure that the people that put their faith in me will not find themselves regretting that decision. I checked the map again and zoomed in on my location. I had to look around a bit to find the correct path but with this ability, it was quite easy to find my way around. I finally made it to the most interesting tree beside the iron oak. It was also an oak variant, but it was quite a lot different. I am here to find out why it¡¯s so different. I got the feeling from it that it was an old tree, but it was barely 20 centimetres wide. But it was still quite tall about 30 meters matching the trees surrounding it. The canopy itself was massive. The tree should not be able to support itself, but it does. It looks like something a child would draw that didn''t know how trees actually work. All the branches weren¡¯t thicker than my thumb, but they were long, and they supported a lot more smaller branches. The tree looked like it was saying fuck you gravity I do what I want. There is no way that it should support its weight and yet it does, but I didn¡¯t want to cut it down without getting a clearer picture of what it can do. I feel like it¡¯s really good for bows. I just have to hope that all those acorns are fertile, unlike the iron oak ones. It was time for another meditation session but this time using nature connection to connect to the tree and find out what its evolutions are. Thanks to the meditation skill it didn''t take days it only took about half a day. After opening my eyes, I looked up to see every part of the tree. This was an incredible discovery. I was so glad that I didn¡¯t miss it and I easily could have. It¡¯s kind of incredible how hard it is to find something in a forest especially if it''s a thick forest that has a lot of small hills and valleys. This tree wasn¡¯t on my land it was past the lake on the east side of my land. It was a bit far away to chop down, but I was still going to do it. The reason was that this was not the only tree of this kind around here. When I was meditating, I also got a similar signal from five different directions. Going and seeking them out I found that one was quite young and I would guess it would be its first season when it carried acorns but the other ones were older than that and were also quite big. That was the other great news the acorns of these trees were fertile, and I was already gathering as many as I could and putting them into my backpack. While they were not in the best of conditions after the winter they were still ready to become trees. I had to cut the trunk in half to be able to bring it out of the forest. On the third trip, I brought along all the branches. The unfortunate situation was that this was going to be the last time I was going to be able to use the frozen highway. The frozen lake and river were the perfect place to bring in lumber from far away. I might want to make myself a boat or a barge that I could use on the river but that has its own problems. It also might not be necessary as it is not really a good idea to cut down trees for special purposes when they are awakened from their winter slumber. That way the wood got from them will be better for crafting. So, wintertime might be reserved for hunting and cutting down speciality trees. After storing the lumber, I walked past the smithy, and I had to shake my head. At the beginning of the winter, I had planned on getting a lot better at forging, but I have barely had time to work on it. This was a problem, and I don¡¯t know how much free time I will have when all to other farm jobs need to be started. There will also be a lot of building this year as we need three new homesteaders¡¯ farms and prepare for a few more in the next year. Although by then everything should be easier as we will have a lot more trained people to handle those jobs. Tomorrow will be an important day. Not only do I have a meeting with the company it would be the first time that the small group that I have founded will receive true power. Although this power will be quite small and limited to one village and its surrounding lands it is still quite important. By doing this we will be notifying everyone that we plan to rule our land which will come with a lot of problems. This will also give us freedom and leave us mostly unsupervised although there will still be many people from the company that could spy on us. But I¡¯m not that worried. We will not be doing anything unusual for quite a while. Hopefully, everything will go as planned and we won''t have any big problems that will happen. chapter 132 Falyr¡¯s table was empty, and he was glad that he didn¡¯t have to do any paperwork today. Soon a knock sounded on his office door. He barely had enough time to sit down from his morning breakfast. Why would anyone need to come here so early he complained. ¡°Come in,¡± said Falyr in a cheerful mood while making himself comfortable in a chair. A young guard hurried in and gave a quick salute. ¡°Sir, Rich and his apprentices have entered the village. Falyr gave a quick nod to that and waived the guard away. He had ordered the town guards that remain to give him a heads up when Rich made it here, but he never expected him to come so early. Before he could do anything else there was another knock at the door. Another guard came and after being allowed in Falyr received another report that Bert and Michael had come through a portal into the village. Falyr did not like this kind of development as Michael was supposed to come after lunch and Bert wasn¡¯t supposed to come at all. Falyr got up from his chair and quickly walked to the window so he could look out. He noticed Bert first as it¡¯s kind of hard not to notice him but the person next to him stood out as well. Falyr hasn¡¯t seen Rich for quite some time, but it seems that Rich has grown a bit and seemed to radiate a lot more strength than he remembered. He could also see Michael being very uncomfortable and he understood why as they were supposed to have a serious meeting later on and talking like friends might complicate that. Falyr''s mind worked quickly but there was only one answer that might solve this problem. They need to have the meeting now and see what Rich wanted. Bert was also going to be a problem as Falyr didn¡¯t see a way to keep him out of the meeting. He knew that Bert had his own dealings with Rich which might make it difficult for Bert to stay impartial. Falyr moved quickly downstairs and outside towards the group of people he wanted to stop fraternizing. The only pause he did was when he opened the doors outside and was greeted with a pleasant wind that indicated the spring was close. His speed didn¡¯t come from him running or walking faster he used his long legs and years of military service to eat up the ground fast yet with dignity. Rich was the first to notice the approaching man and quickly directed his intention towards him. ¡°Good morning, Falyr it¡¯s nice to see you. It¡¯s been a while, hasn¡¯t it.¡± Falyr didn¡¯t pause as he was used to Rich¡¯s antics, but he did greet Rich back while still walking. ¡°Good morning to you as well and it is good to see you again it has been quite a long time since our last meeting,¡± Falyr answered with a smiling face but that smile wavered when he turned his attention toward Bert. ¡°And good morning to you as well Bert and Michael. I know that Michael was supposed to come with the afternoon portal, but I didn¡¯t know you were coming Bert.¡± Bert noticed the disapproving voice, but he didn''t let it bother him. ¡°I just saw the opportunity for us all to unite once again so I couldn¡¯t let it go," Bert said as he moved in for a hug with Falyr. At first, Falyr didn¡¯t want to return it as he was still a bit angry but that lasted for a few seconds before he returned the hug. The four men exchanged a few more pleasantries before Falyr suggested that they moved the meeting up. Everyone agreed to that but before Falyr started to guide them all back into his office Rich interrupted him and said that he would join after he went and got some items. Everyone was interested as to what those items might be, but they did as Rich proposed and went ahead. When they were quite far away from Rich Falyr spoke in a quiet but assertive manner towards Bert. ¡°Why did you come here? I don¡¯t know what deal you have made with Rich, but you should know that your loyalty should lie with the company.¡± Bert shook his head to that. ¡°You are too deep in your political head already my old friend. I just read your complaints about Rich, so I decide to come and see for myself and if needed help you push for a stronger influence over this area.¡± Falyr was a bit taken aback but he straightened his posture and nodded in thanks. Michael was next to speak up. ¡°Do you know why Rich called this meeting? Back at the headquarters, we suspect it''s about the food that this community will be able to provide us. But if this is the case I don¡¯t know if we can make a trade deal with him because it¡¯s highly likely that food will no longer be an issue.¡± Both of them shook their heads in response. None of them knew exactly why this meeting was called as none of them had seen Rich for quite a while. Back inside the office they moved one of the corner tables to the middle and set up four chairs to surround it. This way they would have a more comfortable time while they were discussing whatever Rich wanted from them. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. They had barely finished when Rich walked in through the open door. Rich was carrying a cloth bag but none of them could see what was inside. If they had to guess they were some sort of sticks-like objects. When everyone was still setting up the atmosphere was quite pleasant like old friends talking about everyday matters but when everything was finally done and Falyr went and closed the door in an instant everything became more official and more serious. ¡°I would like to thank the Rose Thorn company for accepting my proposal for a meeting.¡± Started Rich in a clear and strong voice not wavering even for a second. ¡°I was quite sad to hear that you will be leaving here but also quite relieved to know that you plan to leave quite a few members behind that wanted to start up their lives here.¡± ¡°The reason I called for this meeting was to discuss a possible trade agreement between the community here, myself and the Rose Thorn company. I would like this to be an open trade agreement where you would buy what we can supply and supply us with resources and items that we require. While we currently don¡¯t have a lot to offer, I can assure you that this will change over time as we get more settled in.¡± Most of the time Rich looked at Michael while he was talking as he was the person he needed to convince. But the others at the table also had some influence over the decisions made around this table. While Michael understood a bit about Rich and even sympathize with his wish for a trade route his proposal would most likely not be accepted by the company. There just wasn''t anything valuable enough here. While their trade missions to this far would still make some money it would not be enough compared to other places. After a short pause which Rich took to look into each of the man¡¯s eyes gauging their response, he continued. ¡°I don¡¯t know the economic situation out there and I don¡¯t know if it would be profitable for you to run this trade route for normal goods. So, I wanted to also show you that there will not just be normal goods for this trade route but also things a bit more special.¡± That got everyone¡¯s attention. Rich proceeded to pick up the cloth bag that was beside him and pull out three ordinary-looking bows. But the ordinary look was only skin deep. All three men could see it. Falyr was the first to snatch up one to examine it but everyone else also picked up one. The bows looked like they were made by an old master, and they looked strong. Falyr didn¡¯t hesitate and got up and quickly found himself catching a tossed bowstring that came from Rich. Falyr was surprised at how much strength he needed to string the bow and quickly gave his comments to Michael. He pulled it back quite easily but it took quite a lot of strength. After a few more minutes under his expert gaze on martial weapons, he gave a strong nod and then smiled at Rich. ¡°High silver level power. With a design that makes the arrow fly quite fast. I would suspect this is made for hunting silver-tier creatures.¡± Falyr finished his comments with an approving look towards Rich. ¡°It is extremely well made from some sort of evolved wood. It will hold up for a long time.¡± Added Michael. ¡°I can see a maker¡¯s mark, but I do not recognize it. Is it your''s Rich?¡± Asked Michael in a hopeful tone ¡°Yes, it''s my maker''s mark. And yes, I did make this. And I will be able to supply them on a semi-regular basis and hopefully, that would be enough for a trade route. But I also like to repeat as time goes by the amount of different items will increase and the quantity as well.¡± Rich answered and hoped that this would be enough to secure a trade route that this village need for continued growth and stability. The three men asked Rich to leave the room for a bit so they could talk amongst themselves. Rich, expecting that, left quickly, but he still listened in using his better senses. Everyone around the table still talked quietly as they all know how people with high stats could hear quite a lot. They were all surprised by the turn of events, but they were also quite glad. While the bows weren''t incredibly valuable, they still had lots of potential and indicated the future value that this trade route might give. It didn¡¯t take a long time to decide to accept Rich¡¯s proposal. When they invited him back in, he was quickly given the good news but that wasn''t the end of the meeting what followed was a few hours of straightening out all the terms of the trade route. It was all quite basic but still everything needed to be done by the book. When it was all over it was close to afternoon and when they all got out and into the fresh air, they all started to complain about bureaucracy while massaging their heads. For the other villagers, it was quite a weird sight looking at men that could kill them with one blow complaining like women when their husbands come back too late and drunk. The bouts of complaining were interrupted by a few laughs which made everyone feel at ease. They needed to separate for a bit and Bert use this opportunity to give Rich a warning. ¡°Rich you need to be careful. With the afternoon portal, a priest will come looking for a necromancer and if he finds any it would not be good news for anyone.¡± Rich nodded at that and became a lot more serious but before he could do anything to thank the man Bert continued. ¡°And here take this.¡± Rich accepted the item Bert gave and looked down to see what it was. It was a weird wooden carving that didn¡¯t mean anything to him and looked like some symbols. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°It''s an item that will allow you to make this village into claimed territory. This was quite hard to get but I believe it could hide the expansion that your people will be making with that class of yours. While this will make you a bigger target sooner it would also hide your other activities.¡± ¡°Thank you, Bert. I would have to change a few of my plans but I think this will be quite helpful. Do you know the exact range?¡± Asked Rich in a sincere and thankful voice. The two men continued to talk as long as possible, but Falyr and Michael soon found them. Falyr wanted to give Rich a tour of the village and talk to him about everything that they had done to the village so he could take it over without any hassle. They continued walking and talking until it was time for the portal that was supposed to bring Michael here and the last portal team to finish their move. chapter 133 POV Falyr Hrasnel My time spent near Rich has really settled my nerves. It seems that I was worried for nothing, and he is not some sort of an evil mastermind. But something is still wrong. It''s hard for me to understand what is wrong but I think it¡¯s something to do with his strength as something just doesn''t add up for me. Perhaps he has just found a way to use his strength better which would be quite beneficial for him in the long run, but it shouldn''t affect the company badly. I would still like to know more about his past as he is apparently quite good at making bows as well. That came as a surprise to us all, but it was a welcomed one. Thanks to that we had enough reasons to agree to his trade route idea. I¡¯m also starting to understand a little bit better about his planning methods. It seems that whenever he makes future plans, he tries to find a way so whatever happens, he would still benefit. If only we would be able to recruit him to our side but that would not work he is too independent for that. I will just have to hope that I can convince the company to deem Rich a valuable ally for the future. He can offer us quite a lot in the future but for that to happen we need to keep a good relationship with him. I do not know what his future might be but if I had to guess he will be an important figure in the future. Looking around I see that everyone has already prepared to leave. Only a few families will be left here. Of course, the people who lived here will be staying but a few other families wanted to stay here as well who enjoy a simpler life. Not everyone wants to live in a big city and I completely understand their feelings as even I sometimes get fed up with having too many people around me. What surprised me was that the entire village seemed to have come out and was in the village square to send us off. I would have expected them all to start seeking the newly abandoned houses so they can get new living quarters. The village already felt quite empty but now seeing all the people it felt full again. The portal opened like clockwork and a team of portal suppliers came through first. Next was supposed to come Michael for his deal but only one other person came through and that was the priest. When I saw the priest, I let out an involuntary groan. His description didn''t match at all to what I was sent which meant the person was someone I didn¡¯t know. It looks like this day wants to test me. Perhaps it¡¯s time to push back a bit. Even before the portal closed, I yelled out loud. ¡°Everyone get prepared we will be leaving as soon as the priest is done here.¡± I then looked at the priest. ¡°Finish here as soon as possible.¡± The priest didn¡¯t seem happy about that, but I didn¡¯t give a shit I was fed up with this day. Before the priest could say anything and I could see him wanting to start a lecture David approached the priest with one of the knights and one of the wizards. ¡°We welcome you to this village. As we understand you wish to inspect every person here to see if they are a necromancer and for that reason everyone is gathered in this square. This way you can be finished quickly and won''t hold Falyr and the company people here for longer than they want to.¡± That was a surprising development as I hadn¡¯t expected that was the reason why there were so many people here. It seems that they want to get rid of the priest as fast as possible and I want to get back to the capital. The priest didn''t like that to a certain degree, but he couldn''t argue with the logic at least that¡¯s what I thought. ¡°It¡¯s a nice gesture and I appreciate the promptness of your actions but I cannot be certain that there isn¡¯t a weasel hiding in one of the houses so I will still need to inspect the entire village.¡± After the priest finished addressing David, he looked towards me and continued. ¡°And it will take however long it will take. We can''t be too careful when it comes to necromancers and the undead that they can control.¡± The priest picked a random direction and started to walk away expecting us all to follow him. But he didn¡¯t get too far as suddenly Rich was ahead of him and blocked his way. The priest seemed annoyed and tried to push Rich¡¯s extended arm away, but he couldn¡¯t even budge it which came as a surprise to the priest as he was a gold rank, but obviously, he didn''t match the physical strength of Rich. Again, the priest was interrupted before he could start his lecture when Rich addressed him. ¡°I can understand your need in finding necromancers and the undead, but you have no right to order us around. We have been accommodating and every person is in the square that you can inspect. Please don''t make this more difficult than it has to be.¡± Said Rich in a low tone that indicated that he was not afraid for this disagreement to get violent. The priest was a bit taken aback for a few moments and he stopped himself from spurting something out before he calmed himself and started to speak. ¡°Very well, but don¡¯t come crying to us when you are overrun with the undead. But remember you have not made any friends today and that is a wrong choice for you.¡± The priest turned around and started to head towards the square where everyone was waiting in smaller groups and talking to each other. ¡°Everyone listen here.¡± The priest yelled and then continued at a more reasonable volume, but one still meant to talk to a lot of people. ¡°I will be performing a holy spell that was granted to us by Helier the God above all else. He is a fair and just God who gives his blessing so we can be rid of the dead that roams this land.¡± ¡°For that reason, we must also find the people that can create them and silence them for the safety of all. The spell will not harm any of you but will mark any who is a necromancer and even indicate anyone that has been in contact with the life force of the undead.¡± Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Everyone looked a bit confused about the priest''s statement about God and it seemed that the priest wanted to start answering questions but before he could Rich interrupted with his voice that carry to all. ¡°Can we please have quiet so the priest can begin. Go ahead start your spell priest.¡± The priest looked annoyed again but started the spell. It was weird to see holy power used as it was different from other forms of magic. The prayer could be heard by all as the church called it and that was all they needed to do for the spell to work. It seems that sometimes those can be quite long and would have limited utility in a battle. But I did read a report that explained that churches sometimes had specific people they call paladins that could use holy power extremely effective in combat. My senses and abilities had a hard time registering holy power, but I could still feel it when it was used. Michael was next to me and poked me with his elbow and showed me something that was in his hand. It turned out to be a device that showed how much holy power was being used around us. He indicated that the power used was higher than expected and as I looked at the priest it seemed that he was struggling a bit. A frown quickly followed that made the priest''s face quite ugly. The prayer finally ended, and the priest opened his eyes to look around. But there were no indications that there were any necromancers here. I was a bit puzzled about that, so I started to look around and I noticed that Rich¡¯s apprentices weren¡¯t here. I looked towards Rich and had a double take as it seems that he had used a lot of energy and I now know why I felt that I missed something with Rich he had gotten access to the next tier of energy which would make him a proper gold rank. So that¡¯s why he hasn¡¯t come to visit for so long he was hunting the entire time to get his stats up to get the first achievement. That''s some incredible speed but I have seen it gotten faster. Still, he must be at least one in a million with that level of advancement and especially because his strength is not just skin deep. He is not just empty levels but can actually apply that strength. Fucking scary. It seems that I wasn¡¯t the only one to notice because after the priest finished inspecting the people in the crowd, he turned his ugly face towards Rich and somehow his face grew even uglier. ¡°Explain yourself you country bumpkin. Why have you resisted the spell? How have you resisted the spell?¡± ¡°Are you the necromancer that I¡¯m looking for because if you are no matter how high of a rank you hold or who your friends are we will kill you even if you strike me down here.¡± The entire place went quiet but after a few moments, boisterous laughter could be heard. Rich¡¯s laugh seemed to break the priest¡¯s composure and he started to murmur something. But before he could finish Rich spoke. ¡°I am no necromancer and why I resisted your spell was because I didn¡¯t want you rooting around my body. Quite a reasonable desire in my opinion. But before you finish that prayer know that I harbour no ill will towards you or your religion but if you attack me you will die.¡± That last sentence was spoken so coldly that I thought we were back during the cold days of the winter. I believe the shock from that statement broke the priest out of his anger as he stopped his murmuring. He still looked angry, but he also didn¡¯t talk anymore and just walked back towards the tree and started waiting there. It seems that the priest does have some self-preservation and he didn¡¯t let the situation grow out of hand. ¡°Bert get ready to cast the spell everyone else prepares for immediate departure.¡± Everyone started to move, and I walked towards David and Rich to shake their hands and wish them well. Michael and Bert did the same and soon the two groups were separated leaving a smaller group surrounding the tree that was going to leave. For the next few minutes nothing happened, and the portal came to life without any problems. Everyone started to move through the portal carrying everything they wanted to bring back. Before the priest went through, he looked towards Rich and spoke. ¡°It''s a nice village you have here perhaps it would be a nice base for my church.¡± And straight after that, he walked through the portal, but I did feel a spike of holy energy being used. I felt that this might be quite troublesome as this was clearly a threat, but I saw Rich only shaking his head. The man was always too reasonable at least in my opinion. Next, Michael went through and then the portal suppliers. Only Bert and I were still here but before I could go through Rich spoke. ¡°Does the church have some ways of teleporting or making portals?¡± I looked back but it seems that Rich wasn¡¯t speaking directly to me but just speaking as he was walking towards the spot where the priest previously waited in. Before I could answer Bert answered before me. ¡°Yes, they can make portals. The specifics are still unknown to the outside, but it seems that it takes quite a lot for them to open one, so they don''t use them regularly.¡± I could hear the strain in Bert¡¯s voice, but he was still standing tall and keeping the portal open. I knew time was short, but I wanted to understand what Rich was talking about but then I felt it. Raw power and so much of it that I almost choked as my sensors were overwhelmed. It wasn''t the strength that was the impressive thing although that was also incredible it was the pure amount of it. Looking towards Rich I could see waves of heat emanating from him, but I instantly knew what that meant. ¡°He is a burner.¡± I heard Bert speak in an awed voice. I could see the portal waver a bit, but Bert stabilized it quickly. ¡°Falyr, we need to go I cannot hold it for long.¡± I started to reluctantly move towards it. I needed to know how Rich was able to figure out the burning effect as it was one of the most desirable manipulations a gold rank can do. I only know a handful of people who had learned it and they kept the how close to their heart. I was quite mesmerized by the sheer amount of energy that was being released. But I didn¡¯t understand why he was doing this. Then I saw it. There seemed to be a ball of holy power that was now visible thanks to Rich enveloping everything with his energy. It seems that the priest left something behind but what could it be? I didn¡¯t have any time as the portal already started to shrink. I moved towards it but both Bert and I waited as long as possible. And we saw how Rich grabbed ahold of the holy power ball. Something that should not be possible and then squeezed and I could see every part of him straining to accomplish his task. Only a moment later the pressure of energy got even stronger and the ball that was left by the priest shattered and quickly the remnants were eaten by energy. I only had time to see Rich look at us, smile and wave at us before we had to jump through so we could make it through the portal. We tumbled on the ground a bit and it seems that Tom was quite worried as he moved towards us. But what was more interesting was how pale the priest looked. I could see him mutter a curse word and then start to quickly leave our compound. ¡°Holy fucking shit Rich was able to destroy a gold-rank holy spell.¡± I could hear Bert say as he was still on the ground completely spent from trying to keep the portal open. I was not in so bad of a condition so I could get up. Tom was looking at me with a questioning look and I just responded with a shit-eating grin. ¡°We need to move Rich¡¯s classification to S+¡± I could see Tom¡¯s eyes widen. chapter 134 I watched as my energy completely consumed the last of the holy power. This was not the way I want things to go but I guess it could have always been worse. I think I was fast enough to stop the ball from connecting to wherever it wanted to connect to but it was a close call. The ball was probably made so the church can portal their way here. Why must there always be people like that who think because they have been given some power, they can abuse it? I at least know that there are some good people where the priest came from because he did hold back knowing that he will not be able to get away with everything. It actually made me a bit hopeful that the church that¡¯s working for The Thorne Rose company is just another organization that is trying to do the best for its members and take as much as it can from others. I believe that¡¯s the basic operating policy for any organization on this planet and I don¡¯t think mine would be too much different. I snapped out of my contemplation and looked up and saw wide eyes all around me. They were all looking at me some with fear some with awe, but everyone seemed to have a newfound respect for me. I let out a mental sigh because I couldn¡¯t do it physically. This was a perfect opportunity to address the people that live under the future rule of whatever we are going to be calling our land. ¡°Sorry about all of this but there was a security issue that needed to be taken care of,¡± I said in a loud voice using my commander¡¯s ability so everyone could hear me. ¡°I know that every one of you knows who I am but let me introduce myself once again. My name is Rich Dirt and because of some circumstances I have put together a group of people that will be taking over leadership of this village and surrounding lands.¡± There were some murmurs as this was not known to everyone and there were some groups of people that wanted to throw their hat into the ring for leadership, but I think my demonstration remove those inclinations. I waited a bit more but it seems that no one wanted to argue that point so I continued. ¡°We will be fair leaders but everyone else is also expected to do something for the betterment of our community but that, of course, will be compensated to the best of our ability. If you are worried that your particular set of skills will not be useful, I would like you to know that will never be the case. I personally believe that there''s always something that any skills can be useful for so do not be afraid to be open to us.¡± ¡°What I do care about is if you are working against this community. And believe me, crimes will be punished heavily. This does not mean physical harm or death sometimes it will just mean banishment. But again I would like to remind that whatever skill set you have it can always be useful. Currently, the leadership doesn''t have much to offer but that will change over time, and I will guarantee that you will be glad that you chose to participate.¡± ¡°While most of our plans are for the future and not relevant currently I want to assure everyone that there are long-term plans to make everyone''s lives here while not easy certainly rewarding and most importantly everything to do with the achievement page will be one of our top priorities. We would like everyone to advance, and we will be sharing as much knowledge as we have so you can all make informed decisions.¡± ¡°Myself and everyone else that has currently started to work for the betterment of this community would like to get your help and advice. We have a lot of things to do and the planting season is approaching quickly. We will all be focusing on procuring food and ensuring our safety. While we currently don¡¯t have anything to pay you all the contributions made by everyone will be accounted for and rewarded at the later date.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s not just work for ourselves but for the people around us so we can all rise together and make our land a safe and strong place for our children''s future.¡± There was a moment of silence, and I gave myself a nod. It wasn¡¯t a perfect speech but hopeful it was good enough. But then I started to hear clapping. I looked up and saw that everyone started to clap and some even cheered. I was a bit confused as I didn¡¯t think it was that good of a speech but then I recognize the look that people had. It was the look of hope. How broken must their past be when so little gave them so much hope? David came to me and shook my hand. ¡°I hoped you had that in you.¡± I looked at him confused and he gave a small chuckle and continued. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t guess how many people I have heard speak as you did between his followers but when the time came to make his beliefs come true they all changed into tyrants expecting everything from their subject. At least you passed the first trial. Let¡¯s hope you continue to impress.¡± That came as a bit of a shock to me, but I also couldn¡¯t argue with the statistics as most of the time that did actually happen. A few more came and shook my hand as well but when the clapping started to end. I announced to everyone that they should get back to their daily activities and that the leadership needed to start the long meeting that will probably take days. I got chuckles out of that from the people who knew bureaucracy but also a few sighs from the people that were going to join those meetings. Before the first meeting started the business of our defence needed to be addressed. For that, the caravan guards became the village guards and started to patrol the walls. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. When my apprentice got back with some of the people that wanted to become adventurers, they were also temporarily put on guard duty as we didn''t have enough people to properly secure everything. I also noticed the necromancer hanging back. I gave him a nod so that he knew that I hadn¡¯t forgotten about him. We were finally able to get inside the village hall and set up a meeting room that was big enough for us all to fit comfortably and for it to have even more room so more people could fit in if needed. David brought up the merit system and how he wanted to implement it. I had to shut him down and tell him that it was not the correct time for it but to start tracking people¡¯s contributions. I explained to him that I wanted to see how it would function during the next few months and if I was happy with it, we would then be introducing it to the community. The knight commander then brought up the problem that we didn¡¯t have system-recognized land that we controlled so we couldn¡¯t be recognized as a proper diplomatic entity. I then showed everyone the token that I was given that will allow us to make this village and the surrounding lands into system-recognized land. Everyone was ecstatic when they heard that and then the problem of a name was brought up. I know that this discussion might take a long time so I asked if the name can be changed later on. After getting an affirmative answer, I then made the executive decision to call the land that we will be claiming. Grass Sea Freehold. There wasn¡¯t as much push back as I thought so I was glad that I was able to get us past this hurdle without spending hours arguing. Then I brought up the problem that we needed to start gathering everyone''s information and seeing if they are willing to work for the community and if so, we should make a small information packet or a lesson that they can attend where the achievement page information will be given. It took quite a long time to start sorting out the kind of information we needed and what promises we wanted to get from them if they were willing to work for the community. There was also the problem of how much information we will be giving in return. We simply didn''t have enough resources to give out information on paper and most likely a lot of people didn''t even know how to read it. So, a lesson plan was necessary. It was quite late now so we ended this meeting. I took one of the bedrooms in the village hall so I can stay here for tonight. But before I did that, I located Khris as we had some things to discuss. Finding him wasn''t hard as he was in the inn. I didn¡¯t even have to talk with him just indicate for him to follow me back into the meeting room that was now empty beside me and him. ¡°Long time no see Khris. I see you decided to stay here and I¡¯m quite glad about that.¡± I talked with him in a normal tone as I didn¡¯t want to spook him. ¡°There didn''t seem to be any better place for me at least as I understand. It seems that you are quite accepting of people that have certain skills that might be disliked by other places.¡± His speech was full of pauses as he was thinking about what to say. It will take a long time for him to be able to speak in political talk ¡°You do not have to play the games with me let''s just say things as they are. You have a way to control the undead. Is it just an ability or do you have a class I do not know, and you can keep that to yourself if you want to?¡± My words seem to freeze the man for a moment but it didn''t take long for him to seem a lot more comfortable with the situation, so I continued. ¡°You might be wondering what I¡¯m looking to get from you, and I will not keep that secret. In the short term, I would like you to join the combat training with other people who want that kind of life. When you are trained enough I would like you to go outside of our lands by yourself or with the team and start rounding up the undead and bringing them towards here.¡± At first, I saw understanding in his eyes then disbelief and by the end utter confusion. ¡°You do not have to look so shocked, but I will explain myself. The combat training is pretty obvious. Anyone who would leave would need that and if you don''t leave it is always a good idea to learn how to defend yourself. Now the more important part is why I want you to round up undead and bring them here.¡± ¡°First of all, it¡¯s not good to have uncontrolled undead that just roam around and get stronger over time. It¡¯s just a bad recipe. And why I don¡¯t want you to kill them is because it will take way too long, and I believe it will be better if you can just take control of a large amount of them and bring them here. Why do I want you to bring them here is so we can level up our people with combat classes.¡± ¡°But isn¡¯t that too dangerous? I could never properly control a large group like that at least not anytime soon.¡± He answered with a little bit of panic in his voice. ¡°You do not need to completely control them just do what you did the last time. When they are on our land, they will be just walking experience a resource for us to use. But eventually and hopefully the roaming undead will be dealt with but you do not have to worry as there will still be a need for your particular skills. You do not have to worry about not having a home to come back to¡± I said in a more fatherly tone. He was quiet for a while, and I could see him working out what was best for him. I do not know exactly what his values were or what he wanted from life but I could see no malice in him but there was sadness. I think I helped a lot when I killed that noble because of that the need for revenge didn''t have enough time to become rage that wouldn''t be satisfied by anything. I saw a nod but not to me I believe that was more a nod for him. A bit later on he asked a few clarifying questions which I was quite glad about, and we discussed his situation for a bit. In the end, we agreed to not be too open about his abilities but also not keep them completely hidden because how could we explain away another undead horde coming to our doorstep and us being completely ready for it? But that would most likely not happen this year as there was a lot to do before we were ready for any of that. I could see the determination and happiness that the young man had now that he wasn¡¯t without a goal. It was a long day, and I still didn¡¯t know how bureaucracy can be more exhausting than fighting for your life. It''s the one thing that has never made sense to me and I¡¯m guessing it will never make sense. I was lying in bed with Goose next to me on the nightstand. My mind was filled with everything that needed to be done and I looked at the symbol that Bert gave me. When would be the best time to use it? For some reason I did not want to use it right away but what was my subconscious trying to tell me? Was there a better time to use it or was the current time bad for some reason? The snow was melting quite fast. We would also need a couple of rangers to keep an eye out for any monsters that may come close. I have a feeling that my own homestead will not be improved for quite a while but there was no way in hell I wasn¡¯t going to maintain what I currently have. But perhaps not it will all depend on how many people will actually put their weight behind making the community better. chapter 135 The next morning, I was up quite early thinking about what we needed to discuss during the next meetings. I started my rounds early. I first visited all the guards that were on the night shift and listen to some of their feedback. It seems that while we have melee weapons, we were missing ranged weapons and we didn''t have anything to deal with big monsters or animals. This needed to be addressed quite quickly. I will need to make some ballista but that would also require some modifications to the walls or the towers. Next came a visit to the underground storage facilities. There was enough food, but some juggling needed to be done. I wanted to plant a lot more than we would need so we could sell off the excess but then we would need to forage extra plants and roots for food until the harvest comes in. The number of rabbits in the grass sea should mean that we will not run out of food. I was quite surprised at how plant-based the diet around here usually was. For most people meat was a luxury item, so they did not have it often. Most people will be quite glad to hear that more meat will be available. The Grass Sea was an interesting question. I didn¡¯t want people to just start hunting there and possibly upsetting the natural order of things. But I also didn¡¯t want to ignore that resource. There will be most likely a need for some sort of caretaker for the land that would help track and advise on how much hunting can be done. Thinking more about that idea there might be quite a few interesting developments that could be done but that will depend on if the system will allow things like that to occur. When I got up to the meeting room David was already there shifting through the books. ¡°Good morning, David. You look busy.¡± I got a laugh in return and a greeting, but David remained quite distracted. ¡°Are you looking at our food numbers and seeing how much we can plant?¡± I asked him while I sat down. ¡°Yes, and while tracking this is quite hard without magic books, I find it an interesting challenge. But I do hope that someday soon that will change because while it¡¯s novel now I believe it will grow quite tiresome over time.¡± It was now my time to laugh. ¡°Don''t worry my friend those magic books are a high priority for me. I will most likely have to make quite a few bows to get the funds. But one is already bought and will come here with the summer caravan from the Thorn Rose company.¡± He looked at me quite surprised and thanked me but quickly got back to work. There was still some time until the official meeting started but slowly people started to trickle in. I scooted closer to him to see what he was writing down. They were different kinds of plants and how many acres we were going to need to plant. But I was puzzled as I didn¡¯t see potatoes on the list. ¡°Hey David, what about potatoes have you not just gotten to them yet?¡± The scribbling stopped and he slowly turned his head towards me. ¡°What do you mean potatoes we don''t have any, right?¡± Well shit. ¡°Ha ha, yes, well, I did think I had given you the paper I wrote down the things that I have in my root cellar. I quickly started to pat myself down to see in which pocket I had that piece of parchment, and I quickly pulled it out and gave it to him. I had to scoot my chair back while David looked at me with an absolutely venomous look. He looked at the parchment I gave him and then he took the quill and tipped it in ink. The entire time he was looking at me as he started to cross out basically every number that he had written down. Fuck he was way too scary right now. Luckily the look didn¡¯t last long because he started up his work again and I could wipe the sweat off my brow. There is a reason why you never mess with the quartermaster, and I really need to make sure this doesn''t happen again. Fortunately, I could project some of David¡¯s anger towards me to other people as I could see some of them trying to hold back chuckles as they looked towards me. I was able to shut them up quite easily with just the look and that did make me feel a bit better. The following meeting was all about food and how we were going to get it. It was another long meeting but something that wasn¡¯t as bad at least for me. We needed to plant quite a lot and for that, we also needed to make some new equipment and repair old ones. We especially needed to make a few more ploughs for the potatoes to be planted. Currently, we didn''t have exact locations as I wanted to go around and look over the land to see the best places to plant different kinds of plants. I didn¡¯t have to spend too much time on that as other people were quite knowledgeable, from being farmers for a long time. I still wanted a meeting with them as I had quite a lot of information to share that they might not know, and I was certain that they had information that I didn¡¯t know. Next up was the discussion about our security. At the start, I remained quiet as I didn¡¯t need to interject. The plan was to start recruiting people who wanted to have a combat role. We have not yet decided on what kind of combat roles we will be needing so currently we were just thinking about teaching the basics to anyone who wanted to join. But before we could go on to the specifics, I raised another point. ¡°I would also like that every person would receive some form of combat training.¡± That brought everyone up short as none of them had expected something like that. ¡°What do you mean? Everyone can¡¯t be a fighter why would we need to train them.¡± I looked into the eyes of the knight that spoke before I answered everyone. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°Every person can help somehow and if they know how things work, they can help without being a hindrance. We always need someone as suppliers for example archers on the wall always need arrows.¡± ¡°There are many things that regular people can do to help someone that is fighting, but for that they would need the training to know how to do that.¡± The discussion continued for a bit but in the end, everyone agreed that this was the best decision, especially with so few people here. Having so few people was also a problem but not currently, so this wasn¡¯t a high priority. I made us have generous breaks between meetings as we didn¡¯t have to hurry that much as there was still quite a lot of winter before we could start with anything substantial. This was good news as we would have plenty of time to teach people and explain what was going to happen. I was quite glad about this as otherwise waiting for spring would be unused time but now, we will spend it quite productively. POV Salazar Dragontooth My years of being the regional head of the adventurer¡¯s guild has fortified me against bureaucracy but after the meeting I had, I still developed a headache. But I was glad that it was over, and I didn''t have as much responsibility anymore. I looked at the map as it updated. Our controlled area includes the two duchies, three neighbouring counties and the capital city that were no longer under our control. The Princess or perhaps Queen would be the correct title assumed control of this area with a lot of concessions to us. I hope that she can remain in power I don¡¯t want any of the city-states to conquer her territory. That would mean that I would have to sit at the table with some of the people that left the adventurer¡¯s guild to start their own countries. They were supposed to be on assignment, and they just abandoned them and none of them had the courtesy of declaring their intentions. If I had to sit with them, I do not know if I can control myself and not kill them. But if I did kill them there would be so much paperwork but then again, we now have a lot better relationship with the assassin guild. Perhaps I can get them to kill a few rulers under the table. That might be a good idea. But my good mood was soon soured as I remembered the horrible state of the world. The hunger has killed so many. During the last ten years, about 60% of the entire population has died from different causes. The plague only took about 30% but the dominoes it toppled did the rest. The situation will not get any better as wars start but I am hoping that the assassin¡¯s guild and adventurer¡¯s guild will be able to hold back the worst conflicts. We have also been able to prevent dungeon breaks but that''s only with the dungeons that we know of there simply aren¡¯t enough adventurers left to find new ones. The main problem is if we start losing access to dungeons and the people controlling them deem them too dangerous to keep around and start destroying them. It will cause a snowball effect where every dungeon''s destruction means lots of new seeds will be floating around just waiting to become new dungeons that will eventually become a problem. I hope that the higher-ups will agree to the proposal of releasing this information so everyone would know the danger. But I also understand the reluctance as some people will inevitably try to use that information for their own gain and that could end badly. It was a difficult question, but it needed to be answered. Looked back at the big map that was on my wall as it had finished updating. It was weird to be looking at this view of it as usually, I would not be displaying the different countries on it. I went and switched it back to the mode it used to be in that gave information about who controlled parts of the Kingdom and who were the major players. The information now was so sparse. We only knew a little bit about some of the city-states but currently, most of them just had the ruler¡¯s name and their folder information. For the Queen¡¯s Kingdom, there was another big organization that was able to survive besides the Queen¡¯s own. The Thorn Rose company. They were the absolute winners in this horrible situation. But I was glad to learn that they didn''t have to resort to questionable actions to achieve this they just planned correctly and were lucky. I looked up towards the north of the map and located the small, claimed land up there. It was quite isolated from everyone else but I now know that the village there was the place where the Thorn Rose company hid their family members. A fucking brilliant plan but the man that helped them seemed also quite interesting. In the grand scheme of things, he is nothing special as there are many new transmigrators that have appeared with all the death that has happened and most of them have been surprisingly well-mannered. Still, I would like to question him about any information and his past life that he still possesses. Perhaps there are new things to learn but that will have to wait. There should not be any urgency in this matter. The more urgent thing is all the churches that have started building their power base. I am quite torn about them as some of them are gifts from the earth that help their communities survive and thrive, but some seem to be too caught up in their religious talk and might become quite problematic in the future. There is also the problem of the undead that have been spreading quite quickly and there also seems to be quite a lot of people gaining classes relating to them. This has been quite a big problem as we don''t have the infrastructure built to track those people in such numbers and that covers the entire world. Hopefully, the kingdoms that will emerge would be strong enough with our help to eventually eradicate those nests. I put the map back into country mode and try to calculate the forces that might start wars in the spring. The Queen¡¯s Kingdom should be safe enough at least for now but there are quite a few power-hungry rulers that will probably try to conquer as much territory as possible. Hopefully, the other rulers will be able to hold on or delay them as much as possible as I would much rather deal with smaller city-states than a big Kingdom. My musings were interrupted as someone knocked at my door. I called him in and received horrible news. It seems that a raid dungeon was spotted forming and by the calculations made it will most likely be finished forming sometime during the spring. Hopefully, it will not be one of the horrible raid dungeons and something that isn¡¯t new. If that¡¯s the case, it might just be shit news. I watched as the message adds to the information on the map so I could see where it was located. It seemed to be almost at the centre of the old Kingdom but a little bit north. chapter 136 The days started to fly by. There were many meetings, but during them I learned an important lesson about this world. Politics were different from what I knew perhaps there was a time that it was similar to earth, but if so it was back in the medieval world. People listened perhaps too much to the person that was in charge. I found it hard to get pushback and new ideas when we wanted to accomplish something. This required a lot of effort on my part because not only did I have to educate everyone around me, I almost needed to play chess against myself so there would be a healthy exchange of ideas. Our estimates of how long we needed to teach our people what we know about the system were significantly off. We simply didn''t expect how much they would share and learn from each other. This was extremely good news and truly showed how much everyone had been suppressed by the people that ruled them. This also helped cement our rulership as now we were seen as not only the people in charge but people that were willing to support and help everyone here. During all of this, I didn¡¯t forget my farm. The joy I saw on my animal¡¯s faces when I was finally able to open the big barn doors and let them go outside was something that made everything worth it. I was most glad about Francis as he was the most confined by the winter. He was even more excited when I explained to him that he was going to have to do a lot of work. There was a lot to do even more than I originally thought as there were lots of lands that needed to be worked on because nature had an entire year to reclaim cultivated land. Two things that were completely different this year were that the chickens no longer required a fenced-off area as they now saw my farm as their home. There was also no need for a fenced-off area to protect them as I had wolves that needed things to do. They would require some more training but I can mostly leave them to do their own thing. The first thing that Francis helped with was to start bringing every excess grain and potato to the village so we can plant them near there. This was something that I wasn¡¯t directly involved in except for the first load and left it to a few of the villagers and my apprentices to complete. When that was done and as the meetings started to taper off, I took the time to put together a group of people and went to survey the land so we would know where the best places to plant our crops were. It was interesting to hear the expertise of the farmers and I could see them all being quite impressed by what I had to tell them. It was interesting how this world had solved a lot of the problems without actual science but with the resources, they had in hand. Things like soil fertility and its balance were either fixed with abilities and/or appropriate resources. They had yet to discover crop rotation as there was no need for that, but crop rotation would be a cheaper option especially when you didn''t have access to specialized classes. The problem around the village was that the fields didn¡¯t have a proper drainage system nor the natural advantage as my land did. My fields were slanted and that helped remove excess water there was not enough land that had that advantage around here to do the same. There were some drainage ditches, but they were poorly made and were not a part of a bigger system only meant for the small fields that every farm made themselves. I was surprised how little effort had been made to properly handle water in the fields. This led to an interesting problem that could be fixed by throwing masses of people into the problem but I kind of thought that Francis might help with this. An idea of making something similar to a plough that would make drainage ditches came to mind and I really wanted to make something like that. There was a lot of need for smithing as a lot of new equipment needed to be made and even more old equipment needed repairing before we could start preparing the fields and planting crops. So, the village smithy was started up. This kind of forging had parts that were easy and some that were hard so everything could be made and repaired with the help of my apprentices and everyone else that wanted to try smithing. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. It seems that like with everything else anything I did had multiple useful elements. Not only did we use the smithy to prepare everything, it was also an opportunity for an important lesson for the community. They now know a lot about the system and how it worked but they didn''t understand how to use it properly. It was time for me to work and lecture at the same time so everyone who came by could learn. In the end, most people just listened to my lectures and did not worry about the forging. I wanted to convey to them that while yes you could get the skills and abilities when picking certain classes, you could also get them through hard work but more importantly, you should find something that you are good at, something that clicks with you, not do something because of the achievement page while it can help doing something that you are truly good at without it is better. If you do that the achievement page can help you more than it could when you choose something that you aren¡¯t suited for. This type of talk would be a lot more difficult if I would be speaking to nobles who got their strength from the achievement page. Most of the people here were forced to be farmers by circumstance but they also had freedom to at least try things that they liked but they never had a true opportunity before now to actually see what would happen when they truly went where their heart guided them. It didn''t take long for people to start openly talking about when they got new skills and when those skills tiered up and what kind of ability choices they got. We noticed this soon and David quickly wanted everyone to report to him with every option they saw. Turns out one of David¡¯s hobbies was documenting every possible ability to pick there was. This hobby of his might become extremely useful in the future when we start to dive further into what the homesteader class can provide. I used this opportunity to show and reinforce what I knew to everyone else that intent was one of the most important parts whenever dealing with the achievement page. This kind of open communication acted like a snowball effect. The unity of the village rose quickly, and our rule was cemented. Everyone trusted us now that they could see the effect our knowledge could give. It was hard to believe but there seemed to be no dissent, and all of this was achieved with only a few weeks of rule. I found myself needing to hold back everyone¡¯s excitement. At the start, everyone was still a bit mistrusting even though they still supported us but now this was flipped but I knew that it could also be quite bad if I let things go like this. There will always be setbacks and hardships and if everyone''s good mood is ruined by something I will be the one that is blamed. Thankfully I had the perfect way to cool everything down, hard labour. During all this excitement winter had finally given up and spring had come fast. While there will still be quite a while before we can plant there were lots of lands that needed to be worked on before that happened. The biggest problem was that we only had one decent work animal and a lot of the time people with a lot of levels needed to take that animal''s place if we didn¡¯t there was no way to finish everything before planting time. When we finally achieved a good routine for farm work, we started to add more responsibilities to everyone as there were a lot of different jobs that needed to be done. Military training was also something that needed to be started on a large scale but that will need to wait until planting was done. During this time while I did slow down my own training a lot, I started to push one skill hard. My beginner mind was level 32 but thanks to my training it was now 34 and close to levelling up. It was still weird that it did not tier up like the normal skills but if the best option was to keep it at beginner tier so I can get it to advance tier in one go then that is what I will do. When I get this to level 35 it will mean another power-up for me. Hopefully this time I will get some useful abilities or skills when levelling up and not just stat points although getting more energy storage stat points will be awesome. That being said I do find it hard to use up all the energy I have in the tank with everyday training. It will be a busy time, but I could see how the excitement and jubilation of the people was slowly being forged into determination and strength. I wished that I could give everyone the homesteader class but that would be something that will take years. But I have already started to look for potential people that would be amongst the first to receive this class. chapter 137 The routine that I had fallen into was interrupted when one of the scouts reported something interesting. It seems that the herd of horses that I saw last year had made their way back here. This could be good news but that would depend if the horses wanted to come back. Perhaps they have gotten used to their freedom and actually prefer that kind of lifestyle. Still, I must try as horses are simply too useful to not at least try to get them back. I got ready quite quickly and notified people when I went past them of what I was doing. Some wanted to come with me, but I had a feeling that that would not be a good idea. I have no idea how humans used to treat them and seeing too many of them might bring back bad memories. Walking through the village I had a hard time not smiling like a crazy person. There was constant work going on and people looked determined. We had all worked hard and in only three weeks we have gotten everything ready for planting. It was good that the crops in this world had quite different and loose requirements when planting so we would not run into any time concerns and could focus on getting everything done properly. We ended up with hundreds of acres of fields for different kinds of plants. For vegetables, we did not do the same as back on my farm but something similar to potatoes by using the ploughs to raise them up a bit from the rest of the ground. Moving past the readied fields felt amazing and I could picture them all being full of life during the summer. This food will sustain us and hopefully bring us some money as well if we can sell it. My biggest concern was that we simply didn¡¯t have enough people to work the jobs that needed to be done. We had very few experts and the ones we did were extremely narrowly focused on one field. We had more military and fighters than we know what to do with. Because basically, all the younger people wanted to be adventurers or soldiers. But I could not deny them their choices as it went against what I believed. I¡¯m still glad that they are willing to do the work that needs to be done and not just focusing all their time on training. It seems that there will be a lot of problems going forward but I believed that we can slowly work through them. Let''s just hope that there won''t be any big hurdles that could break us. The scouts seemed to need some better training as it was kind of hard to understand the directions that she gave me. Perhaps I should have brought her with me, but I could move so much faster on my own. Thankfully Goose was here to help me. Like that we quite quickly found the horses and I started to observe them from far away. There were 42 of them and it seems that the winter had been hard on them but not because of the lack of food. Looks like some predators had tried to hunt them but it didn¡¯t seem to work out too well for the predators. Some of the horses seemed to have scratches on them and only a few had deeper wounds. It seems that they were able to fight off whatever was trying to eat them but I¡¯m still guessing they lost quite a few. After a bit more observations I found that quite a few of them were pregnant as well. Then I noticed the horse that still had his bridle on. It was the same one that I saw all those months back. I didn''t take the time to observe the horses back then but this horse with its bridle on was quite a big specimen and had quite a few battle scars on him. I would not be surprised if predators that hunted in packs would target him because he stood out from the rest of the herd. That might also be the reason why so few horses were lost. The predators that targeted this horse would find a hard time taking it down. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. But the bridle had done more damage than just making this horse stand out. Some of the parts that were made from iron and were close to the skin have done a lot of damage because of the cold weather. Its face had quite a lot of freeze burns as I saw that I felt pretty guilty. I should have taken the time to at least remove the bridle when I last saw the horses. I don¡¯t even remember why I didn¡¯t do it but I guess I had something else urgent to do. Before I figured out what I was doing I had slowly closed in on the herd that was now fully focused on me. As I suspected the horse with the reins moved forward so all the other horses were behind him taking a defensive but quite aggressive posture. ¡°Hi, there fellow. Don''t mind me I¡¯m just here to help you a little bit.¡± I tried to show that I wanted to remove its bridle and it took quite a while before the horse understood that I wasn¡¯t there to attack them. Then it took even longer for it to understand that I was trying to help but after a few hours, I was able to get close to it. It still took five tries before it didn''t flinch and back away from my touch before I could start to remove the bridle. I had to go slow as some of the wounds had started to heal around the iron part. If the bridle isn¡¯t removed, I would guess that the next winter would be this horse¡¯s last one. Still when it understood what I wanted to do it endured the pain and I was able to remove all iron parts without doing too much damage. After that, all the horses relaxed as I was able to scratch their protector¡¯s mane. I had brought some grain with me and fed him some. He ate it quite gently but before I could do anything further, I could sense goblins entering my lands. I was wondering when they would come by it seems that the ground has started to dry up from the winter melt and they were finally able to start travelling at a normal pace. While this was important it will still take them quite a while to reach the bridge, so I had some time. But before I could focus back on the horse, I was interrupted again this time by my cows. It seems that one of them started labor and I would be surprised if the other one will not follow soon. It seems that the horses will have to wait but perhaps it was a good idea to not try to get them back to the village today taking things slow might be the best option. So, I just dumped the small bag of grain I brought on the ground and gave some parting words before I quickly started to run towards the village. This day is turning out to be quite an exciting one. So many different things happening all at the same time hopefully this isn''t a sign for the future as I have gotten quite used to the routine of the past weeks. While running I thought about not going to the village as it would be a bit faster to just run to my farm, but George has expressed interest in being present at the delivery and wanting to help out. During the past weeks, I have worked with my apprentices on their plans for their homes and even helped them with scouting and advising them on what kind of land would suit them best. George was quite big into animals and wanted to have lots of them. I have not yet told him, but I will give some of my chickens and cows to him. That way he would have a starting point but getting more animals would be quite difficult. Having animals was not that common in the Kingdom. There was a rule that if you wanted to raise animals you had to have a relevant class or abilities with that animal to be able to get the license to own and raise them. It was almost as stupid as everyone not planting fruit trees or berry bushes but that''s still more stupid because there weren¡¯t any rules preventing that except for the market price of the saplings. I was quite worried about animals, berry bushes and fruit trees as they were all important. They would not only be an excellent source of food but with them, we could make a lot of other products as well. While selling food will be necessary for the near future, I would eventually want to sell things that would be processed like jam, as it would have a lot more market value. I was about halfway back to the village when I got a notification. As I opened my achievement page the first thing to jump out at me was that my age was no longer 12 but 13. It seems that today is my birthday. Has it really just been one year? It feels like it''s been a lot longer than that. I even paused my running as I was quite distracted by remembering everything that had happened this year. I opened the notification expecting some sort of graduation for surviving your first year or something like that, but I was quite surprised with what I saw. Achievement earned: rank one in one year Calculating reward New trait gained: elemental seeds What the fuck is this. Was this achievement really time locked? My joy was dampened by my hatred for achievement or rewards that you get when the timer runs out even when you have long finished the task. chapter 138 I took a few moments to relax and refocused on the new trait. Elemental seeds wasn''t really a good descriptor and I had no idea what it could do. I kind of wanted to meditate on the trait to see what it was and move the pattern into my core, but I simply didn''t have time. I also had an awful feeling at the bottom of my stomach that something else was going to happen. I guess at least I will have an interesting birthday. One thing that was good about this new trait is that I have an easy solution to get my mind skill to level 35. Getting past 34 has been really difficult and I¡¯ve been feeling the same thing with some of my other abilities and skills. I think I¡¯ve been having an easy time levelling everything thanks to my knowledge, but it seems the easy days are soon over. I think I can get past those hurdles, but I need to focus on specific skills more. But I¡¯m currently being stretched thin as I have so many things I need to concentrate on. Hopefully, this situation won¡¯t last for long, and I can get back to doing what I like the most. That being said I have been enjoying everything I¡¯ve been doing it''s just too much too fast and on top of that I¡¯ve been not getting any skills related to my tasks. I know it¡¯s because getting rulership and social skills is the hardest thing to do but it still sucks. Apparently, even kings that have ruled for 30 years might not get their rulership skills past basic. When I heard that story, I thought it must be a lie but now that I see how my skills have been slowing down I can kind of understand it. Still, that king must have been quite stupid or just didn''t want to learn how to rule. I shook my head to clear it as I¡¯ve distracted myself long enough. I started to run again towards the village. My desire to find out what my new trait did burn in me, but I knew it wasn¡¯t something urgent. When I got close to the village and noticed how the guards readied themselves. "Son of a bitch." I instantly knew that there was news and it seemed to be quite important. What is wrong with today? It started so well, and the horses were quite beautiful to see and then it just started to go downhill so fast. Was it because I forgot that it was my birthday? Is that my punishment? I slowed down and walk towards the gate knowing something was going to be laid upon my shoulders. ¡°Sir, a letter arrived from the Thorn Rose Company. It requires your immediate attention. Written on it was urgent and it was addressed to you specifically.¡± said the young man who I remembered wanting to become an expert wielder of the mace. An odd choice amongst others who mostly favoured the sword. ¡°Thank you, Guard Phillip, I¡¯m going to my office to read the letter now, but I need to speak with George so send him up there as soon as someone can get the word to him, and the situation is quite urgent so make it fast.¡± I gave him a nod and quickly moved towards my office. David was waiting outside my office with my letter. He didn''t say a word just handed it to me and quickly left. Apparently, he didn''t want anything to do with it and I could understand as he was quite busy. Our merit system plan was not working out how we planned. It was a good idea to make some trial runs without informing the others as it turns out we had a lot of bug fixes and balancing issues to fix. Some people were getting too many merit points for too little given to the community and we also had problems the other way around. But we were slowly working through the problems. Sometimes I still thought that perhaps just going with coins was a better idea, but I did want the benefits of the merit system. The biggest problem that we found was that we didn''t want the points to just come out of nowhere and not have any tangible substance. If the points didn¡¯t have any physical equivalents inflation would be quite bad. But we were slowly getting to a point that we would be happy about. I had to do things fast, so I didn¡¯t waste any time and started to open the letter. I didn¡¯t know what would await me but hopefully, it wouldn''t be too bad. To Rich Dirt We have not met directly but my name is Tom Harbinder. I am one of the leaders of the Thorn Rose Company. I have been informed that you are a fighter that has good defensive capabilities but can also deliver damage. My Company has been offered an opportunity to dive into a Raid Dungeon. But this particular one requires skill sets that my company is currently short on, and you could fill that missing part. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. I know that this is short notice, but we would need you at the marked location that''s added to the map that was included with this letter by the end of the week. I do not want to mark down our dealings as this letter might be intercepted but be assured that if you can perform the needed task the compensation would be quite immense. If you do choose to join us and you can be fast enough to make it here, please break the small paper that has a cross pattern on it that way we will know that you will be coming. Hope to see you face to face sincerely Tom Harbinder. Well, that was interesting but what is a Raid Dungeon and why has nobody mentioned anything about them to me before? I heard a knock on my door. ¡°Come in,¡± I said in quite a loud voice while getting up and preparing to go to my farm. George peeked in with a questioning look in his eyes. ¡°One of the cows is in labor so we should hurry and quickly get to the farm.¡± I could see his eyes going wide and we both started the jog downstairs and soon with our movement skills we were on our way. The letter was tucked into my shirt, but I didn''t know what to do about it. From face value, it seemed like quite a good offer but there might be quite a lot of politics behind that letter that might make this a bad choice no matter what I select. For some reason, I didn¡¯t think it was that deep and not meant to hurt me directly. But I couldn¡¯t make my decision before I knew what a Raid Dungeon was. Perhaps a person besides me knows about them. ¡°Hey George, what do you know about Raid Dungeon?¡± I could see his concentration break a bit almost making him stumbled. He needed to work quite hard to keep up with my speed even though I had slowed down quite a lot. ¡°Well, I haven¡¯t seen one but I have heard lots of rumours about them.¡± I indicated for him to continue, and he did, but it was quite hard to understand what he was saying because he needed to take a breath between every word. ¡°Raid Dungeon are basically a more dangerous version of regular dungeons, but they are not bound to one location and when you have delved them enough, they will disappear moving to somewhere else.¡± ¡°If you don''t clear the Raid Dungeon all the monsters break out and devastate the surrounding land. While dungeons are delved with teams of no more than 10 otherwise the dungeon might throw all its might against you Raid Dungeon can go up to 100 delvers before the same thing happens. I don¡¯t know much more but I know that if you don¡¯t go with the maximum number allowed then most likely everyone will die.¡± I let him get his breathing back before I pushed the speed up again. That sounded kind of interesting and made me wonder about the dungeon systems of this world a bit more. There was a lot to learn, and it would be quite important for future development. Moving at my top speed I should not have any problem making it there I could even spend a few more days here but I still would want to think more about this. Crossing into my own land always felt great and the surge of energy was quite nice. The wolves were keeping a good watch and our approach was quickly discovered. I was quite glad to see them again although I had last been here only yesterday. I wanted to go check on the berry bushes and trees that I had planted as they were my pet project this spring but there was no need as I always knew their status. Getting here took longer than expected but we were only needed if something went wrong as the cows that I had had not been bred for so long that they couldn''t give birth themselves. But I did help the mother with some energy that I gave to her while trying to soothe her. She appreciated it and it gave her more energy to do what was needed. By the evening we had welcomed a new member to our farm a new female calf. She had a little bit of trouble getting up, but she still did it quite quickly meaning that she was quite healthy. It was a beautiful sight if you are not troubled by blood and body parts. There were notifications waiting for me to look at, but I didn''t want the distraction as the goblins were almost here. When I had walked to the river and washed myself up a bit I finally noticed that the feeling in my stomach had not disappeared after I read the letter. That was kind of weird and when I was almost across the bridge, I could hear an owl sound. At first, I didn¡¯t think it weird but then I heard it again closer, and I started to look into the skies. From the South, I could see a ghostly owl flying towards me. Instantly I began to prepare for battle but the next thing I noticed made me freeze and all my battle preparations slowly melted away. The owl was carrying a package. All I could do was breathe out slowly so I could control my anger. I just had to wish this wasn''t bad news. Perhaps the bird will just fly by me, and it was meant for the goblins but no. The owl started to slow down but instead of landing it bombed me with the package. When I caught it I could see the owl being blown away by the wind and it soon disappeared without a trace. The package itself was wrapped in brown paper and there was string holding it together. It was a small box and written on it was. By The Court of The Young To Rich Dirt Another three slow breaths in and out. Who the hell is The Court of The Young? Why do they know me by name? And for earth''s sake, why did they send me a package? Today just couldn''t give me a break. If the Goblins brought some bad news like a new horde was coming to attack them I was going to murder something. chapter 139 It took me quite some time to calm myself down but, in the end, I figured there was nothing I could do about this package. I wish it could disappear so it can never bother me again but that is not realistic but so is not opening it, that seemed also like a bad idea. So, with quite a lot of trepidation, I opened the package. Inside was a letter, a small book and a ring. The ring itself looked quite intricate made from some metallic wood that was inlaid with gold. It didn''t have any gemstones, but it did have a symbol carved into the wood. The same symbol was on the letters wax sealing and on the leather cover of the book. I had to thank my eyes which allowed me to read even during the night. Opening the letter, I try to prepare for the worse. Honoured Rich Dirt We The Court of The Young are joyous to inform you that you have been made a member of our society. We are an exclusive society, and our members can only be people that have achieved the rank one in one-year achievement. You have achieved something great that only the talented and the powerful can achieve, be proud of your accomplishment. In the package that you have received is a book that will introduce you to the rules and reasons for this society. The ring signifies your membership and must be with your person always. The ring grants privileges and is a ticket to the wider world. To fully activate your membership, you must report to the nearest mage guild, adventurer guild or assassin guild''s regional headquarters. Failing to do so will result in an investigation and if found that you have intentionally not reported in you will be marked for death. While this might seem like a harsh punishment everything is explained in the book. This society is a necessary evil, but it can also be a great resource. Please do consider your options carefully Rich Dirt Sincerely recruiter Calvin Weldron That''s a lot to absorb but this news might not be as bad as I first expected. But this world''s ability to track anyone that falls out of normal expectations is quite scary. I looked up and saw the goblins coming out of the tree line and started to move towards the middle camp that does seem a bit ruined because of the snow. While doing so I quickly skimmed the book. The book requires a thorough read possibly even a few times but I got the general points from just skimming it. The society was basically just made so they could evaluate anyone who got this achievement. I can understand why as someone who gets to the first tier in under a year can be an extremely dangerous person so they need to know if this person might be crazy. It seems that all the benefit that the society can offer is meant to offset the main tasks it was created to solve. There are only two requirements for members one is to go and register as the letter said. This is where they will make the first examination and then later on you were also required to go to the headquarters for a more comprehensive examination. After that, there really weren¡¯t any more requirements and you get to enjoy the benefits, they offer. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. In the book, they wrote about some of their history and the full rules set every member must follow. While I would need a better readthrough nothing jumped out at me that I was doing anything wrong. Although the recognition still wasn''t to my liking going under the radar is always better but I guess there¡¯s no going back now and halting my advancement just because other people might find out seems kind of stupid to me. The Goblins looked healthy and well fed which I was glad about. Most of them seemed quite happy but not the goblins that I knew I was going to have to talk with. It seems that this day might not give me a break although the package from the society didn''t seem to be that big of a deal. ¡°Greetings to you all, it is nice to see you again.¡± After I said that I smiled and nodded at them. ¡°It is good to see you as well Rich Dirt and it seems that you have survived the winter with a full stomach.¡± Said the tallest goblin that was here to communicate with me. I didn¡¯t remember his name but I knew that we had interacted before. ¡°Unfortunately, Rich Dirt we do not come with good news. While the village is doing great, and we have survived the winter without running out of food we have however failed you.¡± He said this with full seriousness and with no waiver in his voice. At first, I started cursing inside my mind because I really didn''t have time to deal with any more big problems. I was however glad to hear that they had survived the winter without any trouble. But in the end, I was just confused about how they failed me. ¡°I¡¯m glad to hear that you have survived the winter with full stomachs. But why do you think you have failed me?¡± I asked while trying to not show my anxiety. ¡°Well, we have managed to collect some more seeds for you, but we have failed to collect any reasonable amount of copper or tin. We were simply unable to get our mines into a state where we could keep them open in the winter.¡± ¡°Ha ha ha,¡± I couldn¡¯t hold back my laughter and actually cut off his speech. He looked quite puzzled, and I focused on getting myself back under control so I could explain myself. ¡°You have no idea how bad of a day I¡¯ve been having. Surprises were coming around every corner. So, I fully expected something like a huge hoard of goblins or some other monsters coming to attack you or something like that.¡± I could see the confusion and then the slow realization as I continued. ¡°So, in comparison you not being able to bring the copper and tin any time soon is not really a big inconvenience to me and besides that, your leader did tell me that if you get your mines working the first shipment might come in the spring, so I wasn¡¯t expecting one for certain.¡± By the end, I was in quite a happy mood, and it seems that the goblins relaxed even more and the serious expressions from some of them disappeared. We set up a fire and talked for a few hours catching up on everything. It seems that the goblins were doing quite well. There didn¡¯t seem to be any other tribe or horde that might be of any trouble. They did tell me that there are more monsters and evolved animals but thanks to their skill increases they have been able to keep up with the increase quite easily. Just before midnight, it seemed that this day didn¡¯t want to end without another surprise. My ability owners land notified me almost at the same time when I heard George yell for me. It seems that the other cow has gone into labor as well. By that time, we were already done with all the important discussions with the goblins and were just exchanging stories, so it was quite simple to end our conversation and leave them there. It seems that they wanted to stay there for the night and then set out in the morning again which I had no trouble with. This time the cow birth was a bit more difficult, and we did have to help a bit because it seems this cow was delivering twins. Although the mother had a lot of problems the calves certainly didn¡¯t as they got onto their feet almost immediately. One of them was a male and the other was female and they both looks strong. When the last one got up, I looked outside to see the sun rising. It had taken almost the entire night for us to finish up and we were all quite tired. We were all still happy as we now had two new members. While yesterday was a bit problematic in the middle parts overall it turned out to be quite a pleasant day and most definitely not the worst birthday I¡¯ve had. While letting the first sun rays hit me so I can feel their warmth my mind was busy going over everything that needed to be done and planning the best way to tackle all the new problems. It was time to get my mind skill to level up so I can finally level up my adventurer class. chapter 140* I opened my eyes while I was still tired but that was more mental exhaustion than anything physical. The few hours of sleep I got today is already enough for my body to feel refreshed but my mind still needs proper sleep every few days. I got up and looked out the window to see where the sun was so I could figure out what time it was. Passed midday, so about three hours of sleep. I did some slow stretches so I could get my mind into the correct space. It was time to start with the first task understanding the new trait that I got. Going into meditation I spent a few hours concentrating on the new trait. While meditating I could not actively do anything it was more like a dream where you could direct its start, but the rest was taken care of by my subconscious mind. It is interesting because when the meditation ends and I open my eyes I¡¯m flooded with the information all at once. This time is no different. This trait turned out to be an incredibly powerful one. If I had to classify it, I would say it would be legendary or even mythic. The problem was that I will not see any benefits for a long time. The trait fixed my problem of not having any elemental affinities. With this trait, my elemental affinities will slowly start to grow inside me hence the name of the trait elemental seeds. I will still need to find a monster or animal that can control a certain element and then the trait will allow me to get a piece of its affinity by taking a piece from its core and making it slowly grow. However, when I take this affinity from the core of the monster it will be like 0.001% of an affinity and then that will slowly start to grow like a seed. Completely amazing but for that affinity to have any effect that I could use it would need to be at a minimal 10%. Even then I would only be able to produce a lighter worth of fire. To get to 10% it will take 10 to 20 years. The good news is that I could grow multiple different elemental seeds at the same time. This just means that eventually, I can be very powerful. With this trait, I have elemental affinities, an energy core and I have ways to strengthen my body without the system. I think I¡¯m closer to a monster now than a human. I need to be careful so I won¡¯t fall into the mindset of a monster as well but I think I¡¯m stubborn enough so that won¡¯t happen. Still, I need to be mindful of it. It was now time to add this trait to my core. I already knew that this would be a difficult job because my giant among men trait didn¡¯t absorb it. But I hadn¡¯t expected it to take almost 18 hours. When I finished there was a puddle of sweat surrounding me and the first thing, I did was not look at my notifications but go and drink and eat something. After scarfing down anything I saw I went back to my room and started to clean up while looking at the new notifications. Skill increases Beginner mind is now level 41 A 7-level increase was madness but it was really difficult to add this trait to my core. But I only expected three or four levels. This means I can finally level up my adventurer class and get the two extra abilities for free. This time I knew that it will be an easy process so I laid down on my bed as I know I will be falling asleep right after I¡¯m done. Even now it was kind of hard to keep myself awake. I opened my adventure class and immediately the system started to do its job. First, my mind skill was properly levelled up, so it was now shown as advanced mind level 6. Next, I looked at my ability gain. First, one was called mind palace and I really didn¡¯t need any more descriptions because this ability is quite well-known and features in many books. What I needed to do was find out how many features this ability has. Was this ability a shallow one meant to just strengthen my mental defences or was it something more? I have read about many different versions of it and its depth can vary a lot. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. I kind of wanted to know right away so I quickly activate it to see what it was about. In an instant, I appeared on a grassy hilltop. From the abilities information, I know that this was going to be the site of my mental defence. The ability was slowly being fed by my energy and by doing that I could slowly see rocks being made in a circle around the top of the hill. It was going to take a lot of energy and effort to make some proper defences, but it seems that this ability had quite a lot of depth in it. I quickly got out of the ability and looked at the other notification to see what my second ability was. It was kind of a head-scratcher as it was named stubborn will. This wasn¡¯t an active ability but a passive one so I couldn¡¯t change anything about it. The only thing I could do was switch the energy fed to it from my regular energy to my core energy. I decide not to do that because I didn¡¯t want too many abilities pulling on my core energy. It was a finite resource and I wanted the core to use its energy to grow itself and especially I didn¡¯t want to go into negative core energy production. I might need to meditate on this ability to find out what it does, but I think it makes my stubbornness boost my energy strength while fighting or defending. I was on the fence if this was a good ability to get or not. It might turn out good later down the line but I¡¯m quite certain there were better options that unfortunately I just didn¡¯t get. The adventurer class was waiting for my input. I needed to choose either stat point gain or a skill/ability whatever one was offered. I was quite disappointed as it doesn¡¯t seem that the picks for each level were that good. They seemed to be completely random. I think my homesteader class might be responsible for that because apparently what choices you get are affected by the restrictions on your skills by the system. So having such an open class affects the choice quite badly. I don¡¯t know from how big of a pool the choices come from but getting anything good is statistically unlikely. But it seems that the two points I have in luck are working overtime because, at the 14th level pick, I could choose an ability called tattoo storage. From the lectures I¡¯ve attended any ability with storage in its name is extremely useful. It should be some kind of an easy way to transport objects and while I hadn¡¯t heard of this one, I could already imagine what it might do so I picked that one. This time I decided to test it out later and went back to choosing the next levels option. At level 17 I got an option for papermaking. This made me hesitate for a moment but in the end, I could just learn this skill on my own so the stat points would be a better option. At level 19 I got an option to pick an ability called extended claws. At first, I was going to dismiss it but then I remembered that my nails are a lot better than any other human''s. In fact, they are as strong as the sabretooth cats. If I could extend them at will, they could be a powerful weapon and a sneaky one. Having weapons that no one can disarm you of and are completely overlooked is something I can''t dismiss. Unfortunately, I don¡¯t know exactly how this ability will work but I think I will take a chance on it. Just in case I considered the option again but picking it might be a better gamble than just taking the stat points. After a bit more hesitation I took it. For the final level of the class, I got the chance to pick the next skill. There was a slim chance of there being a soul skill, but I needed to look anyways. There actually was one. I had to hold back my yell of victory. While I might find something else suitable, I had already started the trinity of body, mind, and soul so why not complete it? When I finished taking the skill I knew one thing levelling this one will be incredibly difficult. The good thing is that it will level passively as I get stronger the bad thing about that was that it would be slow, and my adventurer class will be stuck at level 20 for quite a while. The other question was if there actually is a synergy between the three skills. There was one more notification waiting for me. I was already close to a stat milestone with strength and the stat points I gained made me go past it. I was excited to see what I got so I quickly opened up my notification. New trait gained strength reaches 640 new trait gained kinetic absorption This one felt powerful and from my knowledge, it might be a game changer depending on how it works. Now this is a trait meaning the system will not make it stronger so I do not know how much it will help but hopefully, it will at least mitigate some blunt damage. I wanted to test out my remaining capabilities as well, but I was just so tired. There was just one more thing I needed to do. I reached over to my nightstand and broke the piece of paper that the Thorn Rose Company sent me. I had six more days to get there and now I had more than one reason to go. I also needed to visit the adventuring guild headquarters so I could get The Court of The Young off my back for a few years. chapter 141 When I woke up, I needed to stretch like I was a cat and that was a weird feeling. I felt completely recovered but I still wanted to sleep for some reason as the sun was warming me up perfectly. It took me a few seconds to realize that something was different. Then I got the need to move so I did and got up quickly. I started to search my body to figure out what was happening. It didn''t take me long to dig through all the information that was available to me. Seems that the new trait came with some side effects. It seems that I have gotten another one of those temperamental traits. But why would kinetic absorption manifest itself in a cat-like behaviour I have no clue. Perhaps it¡¯s something to do with the animal the trait came from but that''s just speculation. My internal clock was quite good especially nowadays so I¡¯m quite certain that I didn¡¯t sleep for too long about the normal time for a normal human. But that meant I needed to get everything ready for my trip down South. The only thing that worried me was that I didn¡¯t have a two-handed sword which would be quite good for defence, and I didn¡¯t have a good shield as well. Hopefully, they can supply me with some equipment because there¡¯s no way in hell, I was going to get them from here. I wanted a bit of normalcy before I did anything else, so I did my regular morning chores. When I got to the barn, I found that George had slept with the calves. It was quite cute to see that. I woke him up and let him handle everything to do with the animals. I feel like this trip is also good to get a lot of responsibilities off my hands and get everyone else to be a bit more independent. After all, I wasn¡¯t doing this so I could have a nation to rule over I was doing this mainly because I wanted to be left alone and have a safe home. It would also be good to give a lot of other people back their freedom to dictate their lives as they want. I finished up everything I could and for my last task, I water my newly planted trees and bushes. As I watched them an idea came to me. I should probably get some Birch and Maple saplings as well. They are not the most common trees in the forest and their sap would be quite a good delicacy. But that would have to wait it was now time for a full day of meetings again. It was time for me to get back to the village. If I also wanted to put the new trait into my core and test out my other abilities, I might need to push my movement ability to its limits to make it to the raid dungeon in time but have I truly put myself to the test and pushed my movement ability to its limit. The answer was not recently. So perhaps my timetable wasn¡¯t as strict as I first thought. It''s been a long time since I stretched before a run but this time I went through proper stretches before I started to run. Slowly I started to push myself faster while my homesteaders mile was activated. I pushed more energy into it as I had reserves to spend and the surroundings started to blur even more than usual. I could feel my body hardening up and having less air resistance, but my feet also sank into the road. At that moment I stopped pushing myself and pulled the ability back a bit. After a few minutes, I figured that I could keep going at this speed for quite a while. Then I saw the village gates approaching. Quickly I pulled all the energy out of my ability so I would slow down. I was suddenly back to my regular running speed, and I had to stop and look back. What the fuck was my speed. I started to jog back a bit so I could investigate my footprints. I quickly did some calculations and figured out that I was going faster than 60 kilometres an hour. And that wasn¡¯t even my top speed I could push myself even faster. The problem seemed to be that the road couldn¡¯t handle that speed. I looked on the road where normally footprints didn¡¯t appear but now it was as if I was walking on mud as my footprints were centimetres deep. The first thing that came to my mind was that we might need better roads and the other thing was what if an entire combat unit could travel at that speed? We could cover a large area of land with very few troops and still, I have complete security. I think this ability will be a must-have for everyone. I will need to bring this up today so hopefully when the time comes at least some of us will remember. This time I did run through the gates as I was probably late for whatever meeting we were having today. As expected, I could already hear the voices from the meeting room. Taking a deep breath in I prepared myself as I push the doors open and walked inside. When I got back home it was already past midnight even though it only took about 10 minutes to run here. My declaration did not go over well that I would be leaving for about two weeks but hopefully, it will be less time than that. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. But that wasn¡¯t the real problem I had overlooked more specifically not realised the real problem. They were all worried about my safety. I think the main reason was that without me this entire thing would fall apart but I¡¯d like to think that at least a little bit they cared about me as a person. But in the end, they all came to the same conclusion as I did the benefits outweigh the dangers. At least I was glad that travelling about 1000 km will be simple at least with the speed part of it. The implications of a small kingdom being over 2000 km long will need to be left for a later date. I promised everyone and myself that I would only focus on getting there and then returning. I could not afford to get distracted by anything else that I might find on my way there. Well perhaps if I see some fruit trees I might take some branches so we could have more. Dammit, I let myself go again. Perhaps I should get those things that horses use that don¡¯t allow them to look sideways when they are pulling a carriage. I know it was a stupid idea but I kind of wish that I could do something like that. The farmhouse was empty as Emma and Arthur were back at the village and George was still sleeping in the barn. The best course of action would be to go to bed and get an early start tomorrow. But when I lay on the bed, I wasn¡¯t feeling that tired, but I know that I need to sleep so I could travel without having to sleep. But I simply couldn¡¯t fall asleep even my army experience failed me. So, I decided to test out one of my new abilities. I once again entered my mind palace. This time I wasn¡¯t just on top of a grass hill but there was an almost completed circle of rocks that encircled me. The rocks were only basketball sized and the circle itself wasn¡¯t larger than about 10 meters. I still didn¡¯t understand how this would help defend me from mental attacks, but I guess I will have to wait until someone attacks me mentally. Hopefully, by then I will have a proper fort built. I messed around for a few hours and found out a few important things. First thing was that I won¡¯t actually have to build anything. I will just have to imagine what I wanted to be built and then the ability will slowly make it so. I kind of wanted to start with a huge wall but I know that that won¡¯t be a good idea. I simply don¡¯t know when the first attack will happen, and I am guessing having something half-built will not be a good thing. So my first course of action is to make a stone cottage and go from there. Luckily for me, this ability didn''t come without a cost, and I felt quite mentally drained after all of that. But I still couldn¡¯t sleep so I went ahead and figured that it might be a good idea to put my new trait into my core as well. This was a lot faster than elemental seeds as it only took about 8 hours. Still, by this time the sun was already shining. After this, I was able to fall asleep quite easily. The next ''morning'', I quickly started to test my other abilities. Stubborn will was a passive so I didn¡¯t need to test it and I didn¡¯t want to meditate to find out what it actually did, at least not yet. I started out with extended claws. At first, I tried it with my feet, and I don¡¯t know if I was glad or disappointed that it didn¡¯t work. The ability did work with my hands. Quite quickly I grew about 10 cm long claws from my nails. They were longer than I expected but also sharper and stronger. They were only curved a bit. The best part was that I could use my abilities on them like they were weapons. They grew in just a few moments and I could pull them back just as quickly. I was kind of getting wolverine vibes and I was liking it. These things could shred flesh quite easily. After a few more tests on stronger materials, I figured out that they are my strongest weapon and could penetrate steel armour easily and that¡¯s without any abilities used. Still, I think I will hold off on using them and keep them as a trump card. The only problem they had was that they were short weapons and I had to get really close if I wanted to use them. Overall, I was extremely happy with this ability. I retracted my claws and went on to the final ability that I wanted to test. Tattoo storage turned out to be exactly what it said. I could choose to store things and they would appear on my skin as tattoos. It was a bit painful but nothing too bad. I could choose the placement of the tattoos which was quite convenient. I could expel them from my skin, and they would appear from that point back into the world. While testing with my throwing knives that were tattooed close to my hands, I figured out it was actually faster to pull them from my tattoo storage than from the knife belt that I had. There was an obvious limit to how much stuff I could carry and that was the surface area of my skin. No overlapping tattoos for me. The good thing was breaking the tattoo will not damage or expel the item at least a small scratch. I decided not to damage myself too badly. Unfortunately, I still felt the weight of the objects. It seems that there wasn''t any weight reduction or if there was it was minuscule. There were however some shortcuts that I could use. For example, a bag of coins took up less space than if I stored the coins individually and I did observe that the tattoo was ever so slightly smaller than the actual object. I am guessing that if I levelled it up the tattoos will start to appear smaller than the actual objects. Honestly, this made my trip so much easier, and I kept playing with the ability all the time as I started to set up everything else that I needed for the trip. It took me about 30 minutes to get everything done and another 30 to get everything stored away and my armour equipped. I said goodbye to George and all my animals and even left Goose behind. Then I started to run and found out that I was a bit slower while wearing everything which should have been quite obvious. This however was quickly addressed as I lowered my weight and quickly gained speed. To my surprise, at the village, there was a small gathering as everyone sent me off. I was quite touched and hoped that I would be returning quickly. I ran quickly and didn''t look back. Today was a beautiful day but it was hard to appreciate it while moving so quickly. There was no car window to look out of as someone else was driving. It was going to be a gruelling marathon but I figured I will be getting quite a lot of skill levels after this. chapter 142 I was quickly moving past the county capital. Half of it was burned down making it look like an empty husk but I think there might still be a few people living there. I kind of wanted to check it out but luckily, I was able to run fast enough that soon that idea became mute. My biggest fear about this trip was my quite evident need to check out interesting things and that might get me in a lot of trouble. To counteract that while I was running, I decided to focus on the fact that I had to go more than 1000 kilometres to reach my location. That was a ridiculously long distance especially because this was supposed to be a small Kingdom. If I understood, correctly this Kingdom was occupying an area between 5% and 10% of this continent being on the Eastern shore and stretching for about 2000 kilometres and going inwards towards the centre for about 1300 kilometres. To its, North was absolutely nothing besides the high energy area where monsters ruled. The same was to its West but to the south, it was bordered by another Kingdom. Originally those kingdoms were a part of the same rulership, but they broke apart a long time ago. It was also the reason why the capital was at the southern border and not the centre like most other kingdoms in this world. Beneath that Kingdom were many more until you made it to the southern tip of the continent where a big empire stood. With some rough calculating that would make this continent lengthwise about 11,000 kilometres which was ridiculous. That¡¯s longer than Africa although it is about only 6000 kilometres wide. But it doesn''t get too much narrower than that so overall I think it will come to a bit less than 60 million square kilometres which would make this about twice the size of Africa. To the East where the beast races live, that continent is even bigger than this one but the one to the West where the elves live is smaller but not by too much. Then of course there are the two southern continents which if I understood correctly are even bigger than this one and by not a small margin. My brain started to hurt a bit. I do not know the correct calculations but the planet should be a lot bigger than the earth was. So why does gravity feel normal? I have no idea. Perhaps there are less dense materials but from my experience, I would have to say that some rocks can weigh a lot more especially if they are energy enhanced. Perhaps the simple solution is that energy has something to do with it but what, I do not know. If some smart person hasn¡¯t figured it out I never will. One interesting fact about all the continents was that the centre was uninhabited by the civilized races. For some reason, the energy density grew as you got to the centre of the continent until you find strong monsters that make their homes in the high energy density areas. From my understanding, there are some towns there for high-level people who find it uncomfortable to live in lower-density energy areas. While high-level people can survive in low-energy-dense areas it is certainly not pleasant for them. But that is also the reason why monsters aren¡¯t ruling the continent. Some of them are so strong that going to a lower energy area will literally kill them but that''s not a fact for every monster one notable exception are Dragons but there are many more and they are the pain for any civilization. But those monsters have not been a real threat to the world for a long time and are always taken care of even if they have wiped a Kingdom or two off the map. There are enough powerful people that they can eventually take it down. Another problem that has come up is that as I get stronger, I will need to travel to places that cater for stronger people. If I don¡¯t my problem with my equipment will get even worse and eventually I will not find any opportunity to get stronger. That is kind of hard to accept for me. I just want to stay in my corner of the world and do some farming but honestly, that¡¯s just something I like to say to myself as I do like the excitement of fights and getting stronger. I will need a way to travel the land fast and also gain access to the different transport networks. Apparently, there are numerous different quick travel systems and practically every Kingdom has multiple ones. If you want to travel from one side of the world to another you would need to use many different ones. While mage portals are the most common ones, they are different as no Kingdom wants another Kingdom to have access to their portal system. There are of course weird ones but those are usually for a small area or old ones that don''t see much use. This made me think about Goose and if I could possibly use him as a flying mount when he gets big enough but I don¡¯t know how fast he could fly. He might not be good for long distances but I¡¯m quite certain he would be good for shorter distances. My concentration was broken a bit because I needed to slow down so I could take a turn at a crossroads. I also needed to slow down because the roads here were quite bad and if I was going too fast, I was running into the problem that I might fall because my feet were sinking so much into the road. I could see a small cart that was being pulled by two horses, but it was going down a different road. That was the first sign of a life I¡¯ve seen on the road. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. It was kind of sad. I wanted to see this Kingdom when it was full of life or even better, I would have liked to see this world when it was full of life. There would have been so many wonderous things to see, and I might have not become what I currently am. I stopped that line of thinking as I know from experience that starting to think about what if¡¯s is a bad idea. Thinking about the wider world. While I was not really into the anime stuff, I still knew about cat girls. I would like to see one as they were real in this world. My second choice would have to be an elf as I always wanted to know if they truly possessed beauty beyond compare. I would also like to see an orc but if I understood it correctly, they are another fallen race although they did have a few people that were able to achieve classes and every half-orc was able to get classes, so their society was not as bad off as the goblins. I had to do a small detour when I reached the duchies capital. It was occupied by a force that controlled the nearby lands. I had to slow down and sneak past a road post which was manned by two guys that had a small shack to stay in. It was quite easy to get past, but I was quite glad to see some fields that were being cultivated a bit deeper in. I did have to ignore the chains that I saw on the farmers. Slavery was something that physically hurt me to see. It was a good thing that everything around me blurred when I got back up to my travelling speed otherwise, I might start to think that freeing them might be a good idea. While I was certain it was a good idea it was certainly not right now and possibly not even in the near future. But I was also certain that eventually whoever ruled this place will attack our community and he better believe that it will be the last time he will rule anything. Sometimes I was able to use better roads and I could go faster. I didn¡¯t have any way to figure out how fast I was going but I think I might have been pushing over 100 kilometres an hour. I had to make a few detours as there were bandit blocks on the road but that was a rare occurrence. It was kind of weird as sometimes everything almost looked normal when I got to some city state''s territory but sometimes, I went hours without seeing anyone living. Undead were quite a regular sight and I did have to kill one that was particularly fast but that was all it had, speed. In the end, it was quite easily crushed. I was about halfway to my location when something happened that I was not able to avoid. I could have avoided it, but I simply couldn¡¯t. A group of bandits were attacking a caravan and I would have bypassed them but I heard children¡¯s screaming and that was something that I wasn¡¯t willing to let happen. There were about 40 of them all of them were either bronze or silver and while the caravan guards seemed to have an upper hand in the strength department there were only 10 of them. The rest were simple people and with the 12 big carts, there were quite a lot of civilians here. Some were trying to help but it was obvious they didn''t have any combat training. I went to the left side of the road where the bandits were starting to overwhelm the defenders. I could just imagine how the defenders saw me as one moment I just appeared behind one of the bandits and with my fist alone I hit her so hard that she died right there. Pulling out my sword I was able to kill four more before they started to realize that something was wrong. Even when they did realize they couldn''t do anything. It wasn''t even a fight as my sword easily cut them into pieces. At the start, my appearance and killing of the bandits rallied the caravan members but soon they stopped fighting when they saw how easily I handled everything. Having finished off all the bandits here I moved to the other side and did the same. I could see the fear in their eyes, so I didn¡¯t want to worry them more. ¡°I recommend you guys bring more fighters next time.¡± And just as I finished saying that I started to run again and quickly disappeared hopefully giving them some feeling of safety. I certainly know how this felt. This so reminded me back in the war when the enemy deployed its first superhumans. While they were just wearing improved armour and were pumped full of drugs, they were still able to do superhuman things for a limited time and taking them down was quite hard. Fortunately, that lasted only until we got the directionally EMPs that made their armour useless. We were able to push the lines forward quite a lot when that weapon was made available for us. I had run nearly 18 hours when I had to take my first break. I needed to walk a bit so I could recover my energy. While I could keep going as my tank was still half full, I didn¡¯t know when I would need to fight so keeping healthy reserves was a must. Currently, it was night time but soon it will be morning again. For me, the night just meant the colours were less noticeable otherwise everything was still the same. Well, I guess I couldn¡¯t see as far but the curvature of the world made seeing past a certain distance impossible. I had to dodge a few more city-states and one of the areas was like I imagined the kingdom used to be. It was one of the biggest duchies capitals in the Kingdom and so I could understand why there might be a lot of people here and whoever was ruling here was doing a decent job of it. That meant that I had to go through the forest to not be stopped or seen. Sometimes that meant I was able to skip ahead sometimes it meant I had to take a longer route. Once I had to backtrack as I had taken a wrong turn but the place, I was going was quite close now. When I was getting closer I stopped running and just walked using my movement ability. While I was moving a lot slower like this there was also a lot more people on the road and it seems that this location was quite popular. When I came over one of the hills I finally saw the camp that I needed to reach. The only semi-permanent structures were the watch towers that were built around the hundreds of tents. These tents were the big once that an army commander would be proud to have as his centre of command. There even seemed to be a market square. The watchtowers were manned and around the camps were constant patrols that were moving. But the most important fact almost everyone I could see was a true gold rank like myself. chapter 143 POV Raid Dungeon camp guard I looked up at the sun and wanted to sigh but I hold it in because I never know if our commanders were watching us. The guard next to me didn¡¯t care. He was just sitting on his stool and barely paying attention, but he also wasn''t a part of the adventurer guild. He was one of the city state''s guards. Every organization that was given access to the dungeon had to put up a certain number of guards to keep the peace but I wish that our guild had full authority here but that wasn''t going to happen. At least it seems like he was properly trained and had good equipment. Some of the guards looked more like farmers than anything else. The good news is that there hasn¡¯t been any trouble. There simply weren¡¯t enough people around here that might cause any trouble except nobles. We were far from any population centre which I was glad about but that meant we had to live mostly on rations. It was good that I could see a few carts of food coming over the hill. It will still take them half an hour to get here but at least tonight we will have a good stew to eat. I looked back towards the camp and just happened to see a noble that looked at us disapprovingly. I have long since gotten used to their looks but after this winter they were really bad. If I understand it correctly a lot of the nobles that had low levels were killed off by peasant mobs. Now over half the surviving city-states are no longer under noble control which was at least one thing that we could throw in their faces when we ran into them while drinking in the bar. I looked up at the sun again, but the fucker hadn¡¯t moved or if it did it was too little to notice. The good news was that at least the carts were almost here. I move to hit the other guard in the shin but before I could do that, I noticed someone else on top of the hill. The cart driver greeted me, and I greeted him back but when I looked at the hill again the man wasn''t there anymore. At first, I was puzzled but then I saw him a lot closer than he should be. I used my sense danger ability which made cold sweat run down my back I had not felt that ever since I achieved the true gold rank. That person would be able to kill me quite easily. ¡°Hey idiot, get up we might have trouble coming.¡± I kicked him hard so he would start paying attention. My actions also alerted the cart drivers. He was getting closer a lot faster so he must have some movement ability that he could use constantly. He was finally close enough so I could see him quite well. He was fully armoured although the chest piece did look kind of weird having leather covering it, but I could see the metal on the edges. Full chain mail as well but it didn''t look like it was enchanted or upgraded. I took a quick glance at the guard next to me and saw that he had become serious which was good. I sent an alert through one of my rings of possible trouble and that a dangerous person has arrived. I had only taken my attention off him for a few seconds but when I looked back at him I had to tamp down my moment of fright as he was again a lot closer than I expected him to be. That was a weird movement skill that I wasn¡¯t familiar with. He was now close enough that I identified him but like always identify was mostly useless. I used all my abilities to figure out his strength. That helped me estimate how much energy and mana he had but that made my racing mind stop. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. He didn¡¯t have any mana and the energy I could sense was only at a high silver level. The guard next to me asked me. ¡°Are you also only seeing him as high silver? I looked again and answer. ¡°Yes, but my other ability says that he could kill us easily.¡± After a few moments, he answered back. ¡°Yep, same here I hope you alerted the shift commander.¡± I nodded back to him. He was already here, and I expected him to approach us any moment, but he stopped behind the carts waiting for his turn. We both looked at each other again completely confused. Why would he wait? It made zero sense. The time ticked by, and I had to do something. Not knowing what to do I did what my job told me to do. I went to check the carts so there wouldn''t be any contraband or someone trying to sneak people in. I was glad that today at least I had a competent partner as it took him only a few moments to figure out what I was doing. While doing our jobs we always kept one eye on the man. He was tall and his eyes pierced like nothing else. I still couldn¡¯t figure out why I was having the discrepancy among my abilities but perhaps he was trying to hide his real strength. That was of course quite stupid because any decent guard had multiple abilities to detect a person''s strength level. At least he was waiting for his turn so this might not become a problem and hopefully, this will give enough time that people will notice the alert and come and see what is happening. I was not so stupid to activate the emergency alert I didn¡¯t want the paperwork or the dressing down if this didn''t turn out to be a problem. We were done with the second cart and only two remained when I noticed that four horses were coming down the road. Why were they so close already? God damn it. I had to fight to hold back my reaction when I noticed that there were nobles. Oh, this could not get any worse. Shit why the fuck did I think that. I looked towards the other guard and saw his white face and knew that he had thought the same thing as I did. I had to clear my head so I could remember which ring was for notifying that nobles were arriving. Activating the ring I hoped to water the noble welcomer was not busy and hurried here. What I could do was make our inspection as slow as possible. But this time my partner was ahead of me as he took a few steps back scratch his head a bit and acted like he might have missed something or forgotten something. Nice one. Everyone knew that it was fake, but they couldn''t say anything. The last cart driver and his guard were looking at us with open hostility. They didn''t want anything to do with the nobles or the person behind them, but we had kept them there for long enough that the nobles were almost here. I steadied myself and got back in position and waved him over. He had waited for so long and still looked completely at ease. Honestly, that scared me more than anything else. ¡°What is your purpose here and please identify yourself with your adventurer card.¡± Shit, I tried to be as steady as possible, but I think there was a bit of a tremble in my voice. Then the man tilted his head sideways a bit in a completely eerie way and I had to do everything possible to not grab my sword. Then quiet a deep voice answered my enquiry. ¡°I was invited here by the Thorn Rose Company to join them in a delve of the raid dungeon. But I do not have an adventuring card or any other identifier. Will that be a problem" The man said that with complete calmness? Of course, that was going to be a problem. For earth¡¯s sake, why didn¡¯t he have any identifiers? I looked towards my partner but he was just standing still and looking forward. I wasn¡¯t going to get any help from him. My mind picked up that he had been invited by the Thorn Rose Company. That could be a lie but even with an invitation I couldn¡¯t let him in, but I could give that information to my higher-ups so they could solve this problem. But before I could do anything the nobles arrived. Usually, the nobles did stop at least for a moment but the truly bad ones always tried to push their authority by going straight through. This time my partner did his job and tried to stop them, but I already knew that they were not going to stop. They were going to just trample down the man that was waiting for my answer. chapter 144 POV Raid Dungeon camp guard To my complete surprise and everyone around here, the horses stopped just before it hit the man. We all watched as the noble tried to push the horse to move but it refused every attempt. I saw the man start to turn around and my mind couldn''t stop thinking about all the bad situations that were about to happen. I could see the noble''s face turning from anger to absolute disgust and he was about to say something, but the man beat him to it. ¡°I am sorry it seems that I am in your way. Apologies for any trouble.¡± He proceeded to just simply take three steps to the side and let the nobles have a free road into the camp. Even the noble''s face froze as absolutely no one had expected that to happen. The guards that the noble had already had their hands on their weapons but now they were hesitating not knowing what to do. I know I had to say something before the noble or otherwise, we might not get another opportunity like this. And then I heard his voice. The person that oversaw handling the nobles. Thank the earth he got the message and got here so fast. I do not know how but he was able to handle the nobles with ease and soon they were inside the camp but that also meant we were left here with the man who now walked back to the centre of the road waiting for my answer. ¡°Do you perhaps have proof that Thorn Rose Company invited you to join them? If that''s the case, then even without any identification I will be able to put your request to my superiors.¡± The man nodded and without a word pulled out a letter but before he handed it to me, he took out a writing pencil and started to do something to the letter. I was so surprised that I forgot to tell him to stop before he finished. ¡°Not to worry I had to hide some things not meant for other eyes.¡± He said with a very small chuckle at the end and then folded the letter in a way that not all the writhing would be visible. He then showed me the letter without handing it to me and while some of the words were obscured by pencil marks it did seem that they invited him to delve into this dungeon. I asked him to allow me to touch the wax sealing. That helped me confirm that it was a genuine letter from Thorn Rose Company. Of course, this could be a complete fabrication but when the Thorn Rose Company representative comes here to verify, we would know so there would be no reason to fabricate this letter. I looked behind me, but the runner was already there listening in. I had to shake my head at him because he wasn''t supposed to do that, but I did inform him what he needed to do and watched him run away. I turned back to the man and said, ¡°This might take some time so please step to the side in case someone else wants to enter.¡± I was so glad to see him just nod and stepped to the side. It was so nice to work with someone that was so reasonable. I just have to hope that this situation will be handled quickly. My hopes were thoroughly broken. The man had waited here for over 4 hours without moving from his spot which was even eerier. Even worse we were always on the edge not able to relax for a moment. Just one inattentive moment and he could probably kill us. Then I heard some people talking inside the camp and they were obviously getting closer. At first, I was kind of confused as to why would anyone want to leave at this hour but when they got closer and I figured out what was going to happen. It was the same noble that came in with the horses but this time he was not alone, and I could see some other trouble-making nobles coming towards here. I had to squeeze my hands to hold back my cursing. They weren¡¯t preparing to leave the camp they were coming here to cause trouble. They probably got word that the man was still waiting here. I looked towards the man and hoped that he would stay as reasonable as he had been. The nobles were quite close now and I could hear when one of them switched his tone and started talking in a voice that carried a long distance. ¡°Look there, a peasant dressed up as a knight still can''t get inside. What a pathetic excuse for a man. I don¡¯t understand why they haven¡¯t shooed away the hungry puppy.¡± Holy shit he was out for blood and wanted a fight. Those were killing words in any pub. There was another moment of silence, but nothing happened. It looked like the man didn''t even hear what was being said. But that irritated the nobles even more. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Hey, you there who has stood there for hours next to the guards did you not hear me?¡± Before he could continue the man actually answered ¡°What, are you talking about me? Sorry that description didn¡¯t fit me so I was thinking you were talking about someone else and why would I answer a statement? That was a statement because I do not wish to talk to any of you.¡± He said that in a calm but strong voice that made the nobles halt a bit but as always nobles temper got the better of them. But before anything else happened another voice boomed over all the others. ¡°Rich is that you?¡± Everyone turned to look at the new voice. We could all see the huge ursine. Next to him was the Thorn Rose Company representative and a few of their fighters. All of those fighters were glaring at the nobles and daring them to say anything else. After a few moments, the nobles backed down not wanting to upset the persons that were controlling the trade in this fallen Kingdom. I was happy to see the nobles leave and the representative quickly explained everything. I could finally let the men go inside. But then I saw the guild heads right man quickly moving towards here. What took them so long to get here, but even so it was weird that someone so high up was coming. If he was coming, then that meant trouble. Why wouldn¡¯t this situation end, like, please? To everyone''s surprise even the Thorn Rose Company members the right-hand man addressed the man directly. ¡°Good evening are you perhaps a man named Rich Dirt?¡± Rich nodded to that and so the right-hand man continued. ¡°The guild head has asked for your presence at his tent.¡± Now that shocked everyone. It seems that this person is quite well known. After a bit of thinking Rich asked. ¡°Is this request or command?¡± ¡°Request.¡± Was said to him in response. Everyone was waiting for what will happen next and honestly, I was expecting him not to go. The guild head wouldn¡¯t invite anyone for a pleasant conversation he just wasn¡¯t that kind of a person. The man surprised me as he asked to go right away. He spoke a bit with Thorn Rose Company members, but I didn¡¯t pay much attention. I did my job and continued to look out for anyone coming to the camp. We were finally able to relax but I was kind of regretting not having a stool. POV Salazar Dragontooth Today promised to be an informative day. To my complete surprise, one of the transmigrators came to my doorstep. This will alleviate so much of my paperwork and headache down the line that I was tempted to reward the man. It''s interesting how good of a relationship he seems to have with Thorn Rose Company. It seems that he is quite temperate. I do feel a bit bad for the guards that had to wait there for over 4 hours, but tests are necessary, and they did a satisfactory job. I will have to remember the name of that guard he might be a person that has promise. But let¡¯s see if Rich Dirt will take the bait and come here. I had to remind myself when the Thorn Rose Company will enter the dungeon. Looking over some papers it seems that in two days they will have another slot. Whoever is running their delve knows what they¡¯re doing. They are already adjusting from their first failure when they got stuck at the three-boss room like everyone else. But we will see if they will be able to get past it this time when they have new help. Looking over to my left I see Sandra nervously trying to stand still. It will be her first time going through a translocator mind that isn¡¯t red and some of the backlashes might be bad if she sees too much of future technology. But this is an excellent opportunity for her, and she needs to toughen up that mind of hers otherwise she will never advance. *The target is moving towards us.* I heard her voice inside my head. I still didn''t like that, but she needed to practice. In the future, she will be terrifying, but she will also have to be careful not to pick the wrong types of abilities. While she¡¯s technically my apprentice we both know that I¡¯m also here to kill her if she ever steps out of line. I nod back to her. A short while later I see Baran coming through the tent flaps. Behind him, I glimpse the man''s figure. It seems that he is built quite well. But like I ordered my guards they stopped him and asked him to remove all his weapons. *Baran says that the man did ask if this was a request or an order but he still chose to come here when Baran explain that it was just a request.* I got another message in my head. She is so good for these kinds of situations. No verbal communication needed but it is a bit slow if you wanted to talk to a lot of people at once perhaps she can fix that in the future I might need to talk to her about it. ¡°Please remove all your weapons they are not permitted inside the tent.¡± Said one of my guards again.¡± Are you serious the person inside there could snap me before I could touch my weapons. Is that really necessary?¡± said Rich. It turns out he has some good senses and he is absolutely correct. ¡°Let him inside.¡± I boomed out putting some more strength in my voice. Can¡¯t look weak in front of someone I needed to interrogate. Then he walked inside. I didn¡¯t smell any fear on him, and he seem to be more curious than anything else. First, he does something that no one else has done and actually accepted the request on the first time, then he dares to talk back to the guards which I respect. It was a stupid request and then he walks in here knowing that I could kill him in just a moment and without any fear. Well, I am impressed. But let¡¯s see if I can make him feel fear or scare him. I too have the legal right to take away his land. I wonder how he will respond to that. chapter 145 POV Salazar Dragontooth His armour looks quite shoddily made but still decent for a fight except it was not for his power level. There are no enchantments or upgrades and it''s made out of just steel, disappointing. The chest piece is interesting probably a design from his world. I put a little more effort into seeing exactly how it''s made, and I have to say I kind of like it. The chest gets good defence but it''s flexible so it would be a good midway point for heavy and lighter armour. I am impressed that he has reached the first stage already although why he is trying to hide that I don¡¯t know, I guess I will find out later. I am impressed that he is actually able to hide the specific form of his energy from my sight. Perhaps it¡¯s more meant for combat which if so, is it¡¯s quite brilliant. I broke my eye contact with him because I didn¡¯t want to seem too creepy and I had an image to keep but I did think that there are some other hidden things but for them, I would need to start using my real power to figure those out. There was something weird with his skin that I can¡¯t quite put my finger on. As he gets closer his wondering attention is ended when he sharply focuses on Sandra. Then to my surprise, I saw her furrowing her brows which was extremely rare. She breaks contact and looks a little bit towards me and shakes her head. Well, this just got harder. Breaking into his head seems to be beyond her unless I give her permission to go out. What have you got to hide? I noticed a silence and that helped me figure out that I was too inside my own head. I once again looked straight at him, and he did the same to me. Oh, those eyes are so interesting it feels like they''re trying to strip my defenses and find out what secrets I hold. I guess it¡¯s time to start. ¡°I am glad you accepted my request. I¡¯m Salazar Dragontooth the current head of adventuring guild in this part of the world.¡± ¡°Pleasure to meet you Salazar Dragontooth I am Rich Dirt a farmer, fighter and sort of village leader.¡± He said in a casual tone, but it was a bit whimsical towards the end. I have to respect that as I gave a hearty chuckle in return. ¡°There are a few reasons that I called you here today but one of the important things it''s to make sure you''re not a danger to this world.¡± Usually, after those words, they will threaten me, try to run or attack but it seems he didn''t do any of those things. ¡°And how will you be testing me? And I am reasonably certain that it has already started before I enter this camp.¡± I had to chuckle again even though this time I did try to hold it back. I nodded back to him, and I could see the small smile on his face. Shit, I wasn¡¯t supposed to like the person I was about to interrogate. ¡°But first of all, my mages will need to run some tests to determine if everything is how it should be.¡± I got a nod in return, and I indicated for the mages to start. I was always ready as I watched him go from mage to mage to finish the standardized testing. Sandra also explained why she couldn¡¯t go through his memories. It was quite interesting it seems that he has quite a lot of willpower but also some ability to help him. She would need to spend quite a lot of time or power to get to his mind. It wouldn''t matter for now and if needed we will do it later on. The first huge surprise I got was that his soul was mostly from this world and only a few bits weren¡¯t. I had not expected that. One by one he passed all the tests a bit too well. It''s like he is a part of this world and not some other which is weird. As the hours passed, he didn¡¯t make any complaints about the tests even the one where we need a bit of his blood. I didn¡¯t know what to make of him. One thing was clear his temperament was certainly something that can be accepted it was even beyond excellent but taking that into account perhaps the best way would be to just ask him. The first problem arises when he reached the mage that was supposed to figure out what classes he has. When the test failed, I moved from my relaxed position into a proper sitting position and released some of my power. I could see everyone even him starting to sweat. Perhaps I went too far, and I stopped it just in case. I didn¡¯t want anyone to start passing out again I do hate that happened. ¡°Sir he has stopped me from reading his class information.¡± The mage declared and I looked towards Rich for his explanation. ¡°I would rather not have that as public knowledge, but I would be more than happy to tell you personally.¡± I acknowledged the calmness in his voice, but I had to think about this before I answered. Class information is important, very important but I can¡¯t verify it myself just isn¡¯t something that I can do. I looked towards Sandra because she could do that. Usually, I would just start using force right now, but he has been cooperative, and I will take that into account. ¡°My apprentice Sandra can do it when the rest of the tests are completed but if we find something that we do not like. Well, you already know how that will end no matter who does the testing.¡± The rest of the testing went with a bit more tension in the air. In the end, he got a clean bill although there were some weird energy readings, but everything was between the parameters. The only thing left now was to take a look at his classes. He approached and I could see a bit of hesitation at least he wasn¡¯t a soulless golem. He sat in front of my table in one of the two chairs. I gave a nod to Sandra, and she joined him on the other chair and asked for his hand. But before he gave it, he looked around and then turned to me. Annoying but I could understand if he wanted to keep some secrets. I indicated for everyone else to move out of the tent and when they were gone, I activated the anti-spying enchantments at full power. They were on before but now there was no one around here that could hear what was being said. And I honestly just wanted to do that to piss off the nobles a bit more. Then she started and soon we got to see his achievement page. Now it wasn¡¯t the full one and no one would accept a full reading but what the spell did was determine if there was anything bad or forbidden and flag those as either red or black otherwise everything else was unreadable except for the classes. He had three slots which was decent. He has an adventuring class that didn¡¯t have a name meaning he''s making his own. Ha well, I wish him luck with that one. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Well, that¡¯s impressive all epics already. But the only class name familiar to me was heroic soldier but the rest were unknown to me. I looked towards Sandra. ¡°True Archer is a combination class of combat and crafting. I do not know that homesteader class never heard of that one and probably the reason why he didn''t want anyone else here.¡± And his already 13 I wonder if he got the achievement or if he was too late. ¡°You can stop the spell, Sandra. You have done quite well for yourself Rich, but I will have to question you about that first class you have. Homesteader is a class I have never heard of and if she hasn¡¯t then this class hasn''t been recorded. I can now accept your reason for wanting secrecy but you will have to explain about this class and you will have to let Sandra a bit more inside your mind so she could detect if you are lying or not.¡± ¡°Before we start, I was hoping that perhaps we could kill two birds with one stone here.¡± I took a moment to look at Rich after he asked me that. I was of course going to listen him out but I was so going to use that saying, it¡¯s just brilliant. I nodded to him and I saw him pull out a rabbit foot necklace but I noticed the ring also there. So, he did get to the first rank before turning 13. Well, that meant more paperwork, son of a bitch. I nodded to him. This will take longer than I expected. ¡°First things first I am guessing you are not willing to submit do a full reading of your mind.¡± Getting a nod, I had to hold back my annoyance. It would have made everything so much quicker, but I wasn''t going to push him too much. ¡°You will still have to accept a surface-level reading while you answer questions and believe me this is necessary because of that ring.¡± I could see him wanting to argue but I hold up my hand and express some of my power. ¡°This is just something you have to accept there''s no going around it but you have been extremely reasonable so I will explain something. This is done to everyone that reaches a certain power level but usually, it''s done later. Because you have reached the first tier so quickly policy and experiences show that it must be done now.¡± ¡°This is not something that comes from the kingdoms or the empires it comes from the true power of this world from the people at the very top. A bit of a history lesson to you there used to be a time when we didn''t do this and then kingdoms fell on the whims of mad people that had more power than they could handle. It was a terrible time in history and entire races have fallen because of the cruelty committed by these people.¡± ¡°Luckily eventually enough people who had common sense were able to come together and start putting order back into this world. There were hiccups along the way but over the millennia mistakes have been fixed and now we have quite a smooth work procedure on how we do things. The main goal is to find mad people, psychopaths and even narcissists if they are too far gone.¡± ¡°What we do with these people is eliminate them. Is this cruel, unjust, perhaps but I have come to learn that in this world it is necessary because one person can destroy it all if they get enough power. You might also ask then why would we let anyone else get power why wouldn¡¯t the powerful just sit on top and rule as they please.¡± ¡°Well, that¡¯s quite simple we are at war with this planet itself that''s constantly trying to kill us. Perhaps that¡¯s not completely true but it just seems like that sometimes but mostly it¡¯s the monsters so powerful that even the strongest amongst us can¡¯t defeat alone.¡± ¡°This is why everyone will have a chance at life. A chance to grow strong so they can try to keep our civilization alive. The little games these kingdoms play are just that games. Anyone close to the top can just wipe entire Kingdoms off this planet in just a day.¡± ¡°We the adventurer guild are responsible for the management of dungeons and elimination of weaker monsters. While the assassin¡¯s guild deals with the monsters in person form.¡± ¡°So do you understand now why this is all necessary? This is the best way we have found to run things.¡± I looked into his eyes to see what kind of a man he really was and what I saw in them made me relax. While he would kill if it was necessary, he was no madman. I saw him give a proper nod while not taking his eyes off me. ¡°Good. I do not know what your future plans are but just in case. How attached are you to your land.¡± I could see hesitation in his eyes for the first time, but I have to explain it to him he has earned this much and I do not want someone else to blindside him. ¡°You see there is a law that no transmigrator can claim land that their former body owned. This law came into effect after a pretty bad situation where a king of a nation died unexpectedly but his body got taken over. It was a shit show.¡± Oh he did not like that but I don¡¯t think I can do anything to help him but I will listen to him. ¡°Well, that¡¯s bullshit, but, fuck give me a moment. What about if the class gives me that land?¡± He said in quite the angry tone ¡°If it was new land that you claimed with the class then yes, but everyone can see that the current land you''re living on even if it is now tied to a new class it was still officially land that you got from the former body you took over.¡± I could see him thinking and I let him continue perhaps he will find something ¡°Do you perhaps have a book where it is explained how someone would be classified as a transmigrator and perhaps the specific law you were speaking of?¡± Oh, there was so much determination in him, but I can give him at least some hope. I indicated for Sandra to produce the relevant books. I sat silently as I let him go through the books. Slowly I saw his determination turn into hope and I was interested to find out what he might have figured out. ¡°Well Salazar I think perhaps I could argue that this land has no relevance in power structure because I could claim the same piece of land with my class so in the end, this wouldn¡¯t affect anything in the long run, but this could be argued against, and I would suspect that I would lose this fight. But I think more interestingly I do not think that I could be classified as a transmigrator.¡± I guess he could argue that and perhaps that would be all that is needed but how could you not be a transmigrated? ¡°I do not understand what you mean about not being classified as a transmigrator you are obviously from another world.¡± ¡°Well, you see I am not technically a transmigrator. What I am is a mistake that happened because of a skill. You see I used to have a skill called memories from the void. Have you heard of it?¡± I had to nod my head I knew of it. It was one of the most interesting skills out there that granted a person a set of memories from a different life so they could learn from them. He continued. ¡°You see I¡¯m a stubborn bastard and I believe this previous me who was on this world died when the system was activated and me being who I am merged with this person, but my memories were the dominant ones or perhaps he had given up.¡± ¡°The act of the system activating most likely brought me back to life.¡± I had to agree at least there as it is a documented and confirmed happening. ¡°So yeah, I have both world¡¯s memories for good or bad.¡± I could see the sadness in him in the end, but this will require some further questioning and checking. It took some time but eventually, it turns out that he is correct. He is a human from this world even if he is running around with different memories and personality. While the three of us were doing research I got to know him a bit better and one thing I learned is that if the boy hadn¡¯t died he would have had a great mentor but now that mentor was the one still alive. chapter 146 I was incredibly relieved, and I have only felt relieve this strongly two times before in my life. It¡¯s kind of amazing and sad how attached I am to my land. It seems that the shit laws might actually be decently well made-up. I was mad when I first heard of it but in the end, it seems to have worked out. For the success, I will have to thank my decision on how to act with people that I made a long time ago. Treat people with respect even if they don''t respect you but always remember to pay it back 10 times at the best moment. I looked up and I knew it was time for my evaluation slash mind reading. If I understand it correctly it will be something similar, to what I have been through when the war was over. They will evaluate my mentality and see if I was compatible enough with whatever they''re looking for. But before that. If my world¡¯s technological secrets will be revealed anyways perhaps, I can get some more profit out of it. ¡°Before we continue with the next step, I briefly saw some laws about advanced technologies, and I would like to offer what I know for some benefits.¡± After I said that there was silence and while it was hard to read Salazar it wasn''t impossible. What I wasn¡¯t expecting was amusement. ¡°I¡¯m surprised. You have been on that farm for so long and have yet to try to recreate any advanced technologies from your world. I am required to hear you out so begin let¡¯s see how many words you can express.¡± Said Salazar with quite a lot of amusement in his voice. He was correct about me not trying to make any advanced technologies, but his amusement must mean that he knows something that I don''t and for some reason, it was pretty funny for him. It didn¡¯t take a genius to figure out why but it was hard to believe. I was quite certain that I remembered everything about the technology I know about but perhaps I was wrong somehow. I tried to say electricity but the thing that came out of my mouth was. ¡°Bottled lightning.¡± I got a laugh in return for that, and I tried to explain once more but the knowledge was always out of reach. I tried again but nothing changed. Deciding to try something else I tried to say solar system but all that came out was spherical. ¡°Oh yes, we know that the planet is a globe. Some wizard figured that one out a long time ago. I will save you some time. We do have scientific advancements, but they don''t come from the outside worlds. Overall, our non-system advancement is quite slow because you need classes to make advancements in a field. Some of the geniuses think that the system needs time to make new classes for the relevant fields and that is the reason for it being so slow, but nothing has been confirmed.¡± Explained Salazar with all amusement gone from his voice. Still, I didn¡¯t want to give up on a chance to get easy value so I started to say different words but to my complete surprise, the first one I tried actually worked. ¡°Gun,¡± after I said it, I was a bit confused and look towards Salazar who started to explain. ¡°Yes, gun technology is quite well-known thanks to the dwarves. Their mountain fortresses use big versions of them to defend themselves from regular armies. They guard their secrets quite well and no other race has put any real effort into figuring them out simply because they are weapons that don''t scale well with the system.¡± Said Salazar He explained a bit more, but I had thought about the same things that he explained. I was certain that with enough materials you could make it work but a melee weapon would be so much cheaper and easier to use. But there still seemed to be a few people who made it to the top with these kinds of weapons and with bows as well. Perhaps in time, this will change but I hoped not. I was a bit saddened to know that this world had gun technology. I tried a few more things but nothing worked until I said reached. ¡°Tiny animals, religions.¡± I had to stop. There were two things that in my haste I said back-to-back. These could be valuable, and I could also see Salazar interest in at least one of those. I started with religion and explained about how it worked in my world and the consequences and benefits of it. ¡°Religion is a complicated topic that¡¯s hard to explain. It usually starts as a good idea but like with all other ideas that get too big it frequently ends up with the few people in charge that are eventually corrupted to do bad things.¡± I continued to explain religion for a long time as Salazar kept asking me more questions. I had a long and complicated relationship with religion, but it wasn¡¯t my place to push my personal views, so I spoke only the facts. In the end, I think this world will understand how good religion could be but also understand its weakness even better. I learned today that they have extensive experience with people that might exploit power. But with this knowledge that I offered, I felt that I had earned some value from it so I wanted to know what I could get in return. ¡°I do not seek any monetary value, but I would like to get some knowledge in return for my knowledge,¡± I asked Salazar and to which he nodded ¡°I would like knowledge on dungeons but not how to delve into them but how they spread, is it possible to move them? I Basically want all the knowledge that you have on dungeons.¡± After I finished saying that the room¡¯s temperature started to fall. I had not taken my eyes off Salazar so I could see quite well how his face formed from a normal human to something cold and ready to kill. ¡°This knowledge is dangerous, and we don''t even know if you will survive today and even if I would be willing to sell this knowledge the information you gave me isn¡¯t worth even 1/10 of it.¡± I had to work quite hard to stay conscious as I could feel his power suppressing mine. But I didn¡¯t let that stop me. ¡°I believe I have more information that is much more valuable and it¡¯s to do with the second word that I was able to say. Small animals are quite a deceptive way of saying it because animals aren¡¯t technically a correct word for them. But they are responsible for the plague and almost every other disease that can affect us.¡± At the end there I could see how my vision was starting to go black at the edges but that didn''t make me tremble or scared of him. When I finished speaking the pressure disappeared. ¡°Explain.¡± Came a loud command. I waited for a few moments before I continued. ¡°Small animals can be classified by multiple different names but most relevant to our situation are bacteria and viruses.¡± Like that, I started to explain what I knew but when I finished, I had more information to give. I could see them both deep in their minds trying to make connections and trying to understand it all, but I interrupted them. ¡°An interesting question for you both. Why could I explain this all in such detail when the system shouldn''t allow this kind of information if it isn¡¯t known in this world.¡± There was a moment of silence, but I could see them putting the pieces together. ¡°While my former world has had a lot of natural pandemics but during the war, a few were released that weren¡¯t as natural. Targeted attacks, attempts to eliminate certain population groups. They were quite the awful weapon, but also similar to what has happened here from what I have pieced together.¡± I had their full attention, so I continued. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°In my world, an interesting thing about those pandemics was that they never worked how they were intended to. If you release something like this into the wider world, then whatever direction you might try to give it a few 1000 generations later it usually doesn''t matter anymore, and those small bastards could run through 1000 generations quite fast.¡± ¡°So, when I first heard that a similar plaque that has happened before that targeted regular people now spread amongst people that were level 20 to 40 already made me suspicious. Then slowly this disease moved upwards affecting even stronger people but then all of a sudden like with a finger snap it spread downwards to normal people and did that fast.¡± ¡°Very suspicious almost like the disease went back to what it was before however it did still keep the good parts and was now a lot better at spreading and killing. Then of course I heard about the empire the huge trading giant that was so crucial in fighting the first pandemic that closed its doors when a second one hit. And by all accounts is doing better than any other country.¡± When I ended my story, I could see raging in their eyes. I was quite certain that they knew more about the empire than I did. The only thing my story did was help them see the missing pieces. Them coming to the same conclusion that I did was quite easy for them, but this was too important to not ask me more questions about. Like that, another questioning began but this time I had to open up my mind. I know that she could only read my current thoughts, so I try to not think about anything else and just keep my mind on the topic currently being spoken about. Quite smoothly we transition into the actual evaluation, but I didn¡¯t mind. They were both still too angry and I didn¡¯t want to push my luck too much. When we were finished Salazar was looking over some kind of a device and after the few hours that we spent doing this, he had cooled down a bit. ¡°Rich Dirt I¡¯m going to be honest with you I never expected today to turn out like this.¡± ¡°I just have a few more questions and then we will be giving you a book, this book is only for your eyes and no one else and while you can do the things you learned from it if the things from this book become common knowledge because of you, you will be responsible for it.¡± He sighed and it was the first time I could see exhaustion on him. ¡°The first thing I need to ask you about is that we didn¡¯t detect a single lie except for the control questions which is unprecedented. No matter how honest someone tries to be there should always be some things that someone wants to hide.¡± He sat there deflated but still, his strong eyes looked at me waiting for an answer. That question finally started to break me as my anger started to boil to the surface. ¡°Because I wanted to know if I could be myself,¡± I said through gritted teeth. From my side has always I heard her speak. ¡°Truth but something is still hidden.¡± I wanted to stab her and when I looked at her I made certain that she understood that I knew that she knew that I had thought that. ¡°Well let''s just continue I now have a lot of meetings after this, and I will probably not have a single free moment for a long time after today. Do you have any plans on conquering the world or trying to dismantle the current leadership structure?¡± Asked Salazar to which I responded no and which was confirmed by Sandra. ¡°Now Rich you know how important these institutions are so I am obligated to offer you membership to the adventuring guild or if you would like a recommendation letter so you could apply to any other first-rank or higher organization. Don''t look at me like that everyone has to belong to an organization, but I guess you could make your own, but you would have to finish doing that before you get to your second rank.¡± Explained Salazar in a casual tone that made me extremely angry. ¡°What the fuck. I will not be joining any organization.¡± Before I could continue I felt incredible pressure that made me unable to speak. ¡°Well, it seems that the device is still correct. Those last questions were asked to get that reaction out of you but it''s for a good reason. Why would you not want to join the adventuring guild or any other organization?¡± ask Salazar with a cold voice. I could feel the pressure disappearing enough that I could speak again but I didn¡¯t hold my feelings back. ¡°Why would I want to join? To be like Sandra here a prisoner of her own talent or perhaps I should be like you forced to work a job that''s beneath me just because I¡¯m too good at it or perhaps I should let some other fuckers use me until I¡¯m a dead husk.¡± I could feel all my words cut and for a moment the pressure built until it disappeared, but I wasn¡¯t finished. ¡°I can understand the reasons for the laws and even the need to belong to an organization but no way in hell would I give up my freedom to be someone else¡¯s toy. You want to know the real reason why I spoke the truth all this time. It¡¯s because I wanted to know if I could be myself and not have to lie about who I am just to survive. I have done that plenty of times in my previous life, but I would rather die than do that again so that¡¯s why I was so truthful because I would have rather die right now than not be myself.¡± By the end of it, the chair had my handprints on it. I was quite surprised that it wasn¡¯t broken but I guess the furniture is meant to handle stronger people like me. The anger was still there and then I heard her voice. ¡°Truth.¡± And there was silence after that. I was inside my mind when I felt Sandra''s presence leave. I looked up and notice that Salazar was writing something. Sandra got up and went to the back of the tent and started to search through the chests that were there. There was silence as they both worked, and I could feel my anger disappearing. It looks like I might survive. After a few minutes, Sandra came back and handed me a book. It was a huge book with thick covers and only one word was written on it, dungeons. I was in no way going to go outside without storing this book. So, there was a brief surge of energy as I made it a tattoo on my body. Both of them looked at me and while Sandra¡¯s face didn¡¯t reveal anything Salazar did smirk a bit. After a few more minutes Salazar spoke. ¡°I will be honest with you have passed with flying colours. And I will probably have quite a difficult time explaining why you won¡¯t be joining the adventuring guild. Since you are not planning on joining, I am assuming you will want to make your own organization and I am guessing you are going to start by claiming that village and the land around there. The paperwork I¡¯m currently doing will make it so that the adventuring guild will acknowledge your claims although that does not mean that we will protect them.¡± ¡°From the knowledge you wanted I am assuming that you want to be responsible for the dungeons on your land and most likely will not need the help or even want the help of adventurers or the adventurer guild. This next document will grant you those freedoms, but you will be subjected to inspections to make sure that you know what you''re doing and there won''t be any dungeon breaks.¡± ¡°The last few documents will make sure that you are completely vetted, and will be officially a part of the higher society. The higher society refers to people who have reached the first rank and beyond. This opens up the world a lot to you and you will be able to learn a lot more.¡± He handed me some papers and more books.¡± ¡°In the books is basic knowledge and laws you must follow. But this also ends our current let''s call it a meeting and you are free to continue with your own business.¡± He got up and offered me his hand. After a moment of hesitation, I took it, and we shook hands but I guess he couldn¡¯t resist as he squeezed my hand too hard. I did resist showing any pain. I don¡¯t know how strong he is but he¡¯s definitely not second rank probably fourth or fifth. The fucker could have crushed my hand before my body could understand what had happened. I didn¡¯t know exactly how to feel about this situation, but I was glad that it was over at least for now. I got out of the tent while still holding my hand. I flexed it a bit to lessen the pain and I started to look around. From here I could see the market square and I was surprised at how many different races there were and how strong some of the people were. Then a portal opened up and I could see the mana bleeding into the surroundings. Through it came different types of warriors but to my surprise, there were also two trading carts that looked similar to some of the others in the Market Square. It seems like I will be seeing a different side to this world today and just like that the portal closed leaving only the moonlight and the various lamps and torches to light the surroundings. chapter 147 I had to move away from the tent as some of the people that I recognized from examining me started to rush inside looking quite worried. I was quite certain that they were not going to have a good time and whoever was ruling the higher society will have a busy time. They will probably not have any time to worry about someone like me. I walked towards the market square. Looking at the people I decided to change my camouflage. Only a few warriors were at the silver stage, and I could see that they were not treated that well. I still had to keep my camouflage up so people wouldn''t notice my core but now I looked like I was a gold rank or first rank. I guess both would be correct. My head was honestly spinning from all the information that I have gotten. Originally, I thought perhaps there were a few organizations that consisted of strong people that ruled from the shadows but apparently there was a whole different world hidden from the weak. I will need quite some time to handle this change. I didn¡¯t think this world would have so much to hide. It all did sound kind of interesting, but I honestly just felt exhausted and wanted to go back to my farm and do some simple jobs. But I was here, and I had a job to do and beyond anything else, this was also an opportunity to understand how this higher society works. I knew some details and facts but from experience, I knew that this was far from enough to get a picture of the higher society and how it works. But I needed this information and the best place to start was right here seeing how this camp worked. I first started with the people around here. Everyone was well off and while there were some people that looked dirty they also seem to like it that way. Most people seemed to take good care of themselves. Seems that a lot of the people here know each other at least as acquaintances, perhaps they had run into each other during similar situations. This was the best conclusion I could think up as many of the new people that came with the portal started to talk with people who were here like old schoolmates that have not seen each other for a few years. While I did see some rank two people the majority was rank one. Everyone was armed and armoured ready for a fight, and I could see a lot of different races here. What I was glad about was that there didn¡¯t seem to be any dislike of different races. I also quickly started to notice differences in what kind of class built someone was running. Quickly I started to classify mages, healers, tanks, damage dealers and all the different combinations. There were a lot more tanks here and there seemed to be a good reason for that. From the conversations, I could overhear that this dungeon was well known for having multiple strong opponents that you needed to fight at the same time so multiple tanks were needed. I didn¡¯t stay to listen to their stories because someone stopping, and listening would be noticed instantly. I had already seen one of the silver warriors being escorted out of the market for trying to spy on someone else. There were some nobles but none of them was above silver and there was a clear divide between them and other warriors. Even the rank ones stayed away from them but not out of fear simply not wanting to get dragged into some stupid arguments. Looking at the market I noticed a few interesting things that jumped out at me. All the built store stalls had The Thorn Rose Company markings on them and there were none without them. It seems that they have gotten a nice monopoly on the local market but there were other stalls that came out of wagons. These wagons looked like a place where someone could live their entire life and make good business trading. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Those were the stalls that had the most visitors and the widest variety of items for sale. I looked over some of the items and I have to say that I was impressed. Absolutely everything was special. Most of the items were made of energy-changed materials but there were materials changed by mana as well. A lot of the items had runes carved onto them and a few items had enchantments added to them. There were weapons of all kinds but other items as well. I could see a cup of endless water, a dagger of returning and so on. This was all proper fantasy stuff. I needed to concentrate to hold back my need to test them all. I focused more on the items that were for sale and honestly I felt like a common farmer. My items compared to everyone else were basic. Most of the stuff wasn¡¯t even for sale for coins but either they would take item exchange or monster cores as currency. I kind of felt poor. People around here spent so many cores on weapons or services that fixed items or maintained them. It was all so interesting to see. There were constant uses of abilities to fix items or to make them. Some of the trader¡¯s hands only stopped making items when they were collecting payment. I went and asked someone for directions to the Thorn Rose Company area of the camp and after a few words, I was able to start heading that way. I pulled up my notifications and was quite happy to see a new skill negotiation. Finally, a new social skill. I also got a few levels of intimidation but I¡¯m guessing those came from my stay with the camp guards. I was walking down the main street. There were multiple other areas where different guards were protecting the streets that led into someone else¡¯s territory. Most of those were used by city-states that were able to get a slot to delve into the dungeon. I saw some people with the same insignias in the market square looking for fighters to help them delve into the dungeon. I wondered why the Thorn Rose Company didn¡¯t want to hire the warriors that came from the portals but perhaps those warriors asked for a high price. Perhaps I was being used as cheap labour but if I get what I want in return then it shouldn¡¯t be too big of a problem. Hopefully, I can get enough value from the delves that I can buy some of the stuff that looked interesting. And of course, I could also sell some of my bows, most likely for a better price than I could get from the company. Well, let''s see what will happen. I finally reached the guards who were wearing the symbol of the Thorn Rose Company and I was thinking that perhaps I would need to wait again but that didn¡¯t happen. They let me through quickly and one of the guards run off to get someone to meet me. It seems that at least they will be treating me with respect. The person that came to greet me was Bert and I was happy to see him. We exchanged a few quick words but the first thing I asked him was if there was a place for me to sleep. I had been running for quite a long time and the mind-reading session was not the most pleasant thing. I was thoroughly exhausted which I hadn¡¯t felt for quite a while now. Bert laughed at that but quickly led me to a decently sized tent and told me that this entire thing was to be mine until the dungeon was cleared. I asked him what he meant by that, but he just told me to get some sleep and that everything will be explained in the morning. I really didn''t mind that because getting all the information at the same time was a lot more convenient. I looked around the tent. There was a decent bed to the left. On the other side were some trunks where you could keep some things and opposite the entrance was a modest desk. The tent was tall enough that I could stand without having to bend down and there was a lamp of some sort hanging from the centre of the ceiling. I decided not to light it as I didn¡¯t need it to see. I laid my backpack down and decided to pull some of the equipment from my tattoo storage. The important thing and expensive things I kept but I was feeling a lot lighter after that. I did some stretching and moved around some of the tattoos so the weight wouldn¡¯t hinder me and then I finally went to sleep. chapter 148 Waking up in a strange place was a weird experience because I couldn¡¯t see the sun right away, so I didn¡¯t know exactly what time it is. Getting up was a bit awkward simply because I was still wearing my armour. There was no way in hell I was going to remove it in a place that I didn¡¯t know. But I was quite used to sleeping in body armour, so it was not a problem. I did some stretches to freshen up and I used my energy to clean all the sweat off me. Going outside I was greeted by the sun being high up and a person next to my tent waiting for me. ¡°Good morning, I hope I didn¡¯t make you wait here for too long,¡± I said in a sleepy voice. ¡°Good morning to you as well. I did not wait for too long. Technically you would have an hour before I needed to wake you up for the meeting. My name is Ash, and I will be your helper until you leave.¡± He said in a customer service voice. He was quite a lot shorter than me but the youth in his face was starting to fade so he was probably in his mid 20s. ¡°Well, that''s good to hear. I am guessing that there would be no problem if we got there sooner.¡± I said fully awake now. I got a nod in return. Ash didn''t wait for a moment longer and quickly started to walk somewhere. My longer legs had no problem keeping up with him, but I didn''t start with any small talk. While we were walking, I was thinking back on what happened yesterday and one thing I was happy about is that I kept Salazar so busy with all the revelations that we didn''t dive too deep into my class. He did get some information, but it wasn¡¯t anything too important. Hopefully, this will be enough that they won''t be too interested in the class. While the sun was up the weather wasn''t the best and I could smell the coming rain. We finally got to the biggest tent which was made out of multiple connected tents. Its size was impressive, and I couldn''t even see the entirety of it. When we got inside Ash spoke to me. ¡°Since there''s almost an hour to the meeting I suggest we go to the quartermaster. I believe he will have some,¡± He looked up and down my armour with a disapproving look. ¡°Better items to give you.¡± ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with my armour. Stop making that face.¡± I tried to keep the anger out of my voice, but I don¡¯t think I succeeded. Why the hell did he have to say that? Perhaps there''s some truth to it if you didn¡¯t know what abilities I have. Still, that was quite rude and my opinion of him dropped quite a lot. After a few moments of awkward silence, he just turned around and started to walk towards the right side of the compound. Following him, it did not take us long to reach the quartermasters. Behind the counter was a huge room filled with all kinds of items and inside the room, I also saw a lot of people working on repairing armour and sharpening weapons. The quartermaster first saw Ash and I could see a flicker of annoyance on his face. Perhaps Ash was a dick to everyone. Then he looked towards me, and I could see a smile come onto his face. ¡°If it isn¡¯t the Rich Dirt that I have heard about. Welcome to the quartermasters I have something to give to you. My name is Will Hargan, and I am responsible for equipping all the sorry excuses that will be raiding this dungeon.¡± He had quite a loud voice which I think was a requirement for being in this line of work and it brought back some good memories. I could see that Ash wanted to speak but I didn¡¯t let him. ¡°It is good to meet you, Will Hargan. I heard that you might have some items for me but honestly, I am completely clueless about what they could be.¡± He smiled at that and lifted up a part of the counter and invited me to come behind the counter. We both had ignored Ash, who didn''t seem to like that. When he tried to come with us Will slammed the counter back down and gave him a deadly glare. We left without Ash. I gave Will a questioning look. He started to whisper his answer. ¡°He is a complete dick and will report anything that''s not done by the book. I am in no mood to deal with him today.¡± Then he started to speak in a normal voice at least for a quartermaster. ¡°I was told that you would be needing a shield and a better weapon. While I can see that you need a shield because you didn¡¯t have any that blade of yours seems to be good enough.¡± He was looking over all my equipment and commenting on all of it. ¡°Although your armour does seem to be just steel and that simply won''t be enough for this dungeon which is a problem because I haven¡¯t accounted for this.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°If I understand it correctly you need to tank one of the minotaur¡¯s on the 4th floor and that thing will shred your armour. But perhaps you¡¯re good enough that only the shield will be enough. Well, anyways I will speak with my superiors. But first, let''s get that shield into your hands and let¡¯s see how you feel about it.¡± He snapped his fingers and yelled at one of his workers who quickly ran off and came back with a metal kite shield. I was given the shield and I started to examine it. It was made out of an alloy of iron and some kind of animal chitin. On the shield were runes and a quick inspect allowed me to figure out that those are to give it more durability. I was quite certain that the shield could handle even my attacks, at least for a short time. I put my hands through the straps and tested the shield out. One thing that disappointed me was its size as it was on the smaller side. But I was most worried about my ability and if it will work with a shield that had runes on it. I allowed my armour enhancement ability to run into the shield. It worked like it always did but I could feel how much stronger the shield now was and I was impressed. It seems that my ability truly did enhance the shield to a large degree. I might need runes on my armour as well if the boost works so well. I could hear a boisterous laugh coming from Will. ¡°Ha ha with that ability the shield will survive this dungeon with no problems. Honestly, I was a bit worried as normally and shield like that would need to be replaced after a few delves. Wait, is that why you¡¯re wearing such normal armour does this ability of yours work on your armour as well?¡± I let the ability enhance my armour as well and he laughed even harder. ¡°Good lad you have no idea how much headache you just lifted off my shoulders. But I will still recommend that you buy yourself a better set of armour. With that ability of yours, you could be a proper tank, not just the side tank. But I do have a weapon for you as well perhaps you would like that more than your current sword. Just give me a moment.¡± Before he could walk off, we could hear loud arguing coming towards here. ¡°Why didn¡¯t anyone tell me that he was equipped so badly I almost wished that we could hire some of the adventurers it might be cheaper. Like we don¡¯t even know if he could handle this dungeon. I still don''t understand why we are giving him this opportunity.¡± There was a moment of pause before the same voice continued. ¡°Ash why are you here weren¡¯t you supposed to be with Rich.¡± I don¡¯t know what Ash told him, but I could hear a swear word and then everything was quiet after that. Then suddenly Will yelled out. ¡°You don''t have to be so worried Mark the lad over here has a decent defensive ability that works on his entire armour and from the look of him he can handle himself quite well. So shut the fuck up and let me do my job and then let Rich do his job and if he fails then you can start complaining.¡± At the end of it, he was shaking his head in disappointment and soon after that we heard two pairs of footsteps quickly going away. ¡°Everyone¡¯s worried about every little thing. It''s so annoying. The best way to learn is to do it and if you fail you know what not to do. All these meetings are so annoying just talk talk talk.¡± He then looked up at me. ¡°Sorry about that lad I guess I just don¡¯t like how big we are now. I liked it when everything was personal now it¡¯s just meetings and policy.¡± I had to agree with him. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t even start me on meetings. Even the necessary ones are annoying.¡± He nodded and then showed me a big sword. It was a bit bigger than my old two-handed sword but the grip was a bit smaller so you could wield it with one hand. This one also had runes on it and was made out of a similar alloy although the mix seemed to be a bit different. I picked it up and it had decent weight to it same with the shield, but I didn¡¯t feel like it would be a problem. I was strong enough so that it wouldn''t matter. I did need to flare my counterweight a bit when I did some big swings with one hand. I was amazed that I was able to apparently quite effectively use such a big sword even if one of my hands was occupied with a shield. Will let me through a tent flap that opened up to a closed-off area that was surrounded by tents. In one of the corners was a smith where someone was making or repairing something. But now I had enough room to do some proper forms with speed. I flared some of my abilities that weren¡¯t destructive and ramped up my speed by quite a lot. I liked the reach and the weight of the weapon, but it didn''t quite fit the way I wanted it, but it would still be good enough. Will was quite happy with my demonstration. Eventually, we moved back to the counter, and I had to do some paperwork. I needed to sign some papers, some pretty standard stuff and I was quite happy that there wasn¡¯t any need to write anything down with blood. We had spent quite a lot of time just speaking while I was testing the weapon so while we did paperwork Ash was quite expressive that we needed to move because the meeting will be starting soon. Luckily the paperwork didn¡¯t take too long, and we were soon on our way to this meeting. Ash didn¡¯t follow me in just opened a tent flap that revealed a really big room where a lot of people that were fully armoured and ready for battle were socializing. chapter 149 My entrance did turn some heads but most of them quickly got back to whatever they were doing. I looked around and the space reminded me of a debriefing room. To the right against the wall were tables full of food and some beverages. Most of the area of the room was filled with chairs of different kinds. They probably didn¡¯t have enough similar kinds of chairs as there were almost 50 of them. To the left after the chairs were a bit of a raised stage and against that wall was an item that looked like a blackboard, but it radiated energy and magic. If my guess about this blackboard is correct, then I have truly underestimated this world''s magical technology. I will need to learn more about that topic. After my brief look around, I headed to the table that had the meat slices on it. I removed my shield and placed it to rest upon my feet while I ate. I wasn¡¯t the only one that was eating. I looked towards the opposite wall from where I came from and notice that the entire thing was like a curtain that you could push to the side. I moved slowly to that side of the room while eating some more. I tried anything that I didn¡¯t recognize, and I was quite pleasantly surprised by some of the tastes. If I have some free time, I might want to visit the kitchen, could learn some valuable things there. I peeked behind the curtain wall and saw a training yard with an arena in the middle that was marked by a circle of huge rope. Perhaps there will be some demonstrations. It seems that I had wasted enough time as I heard coughing and a loud clap coming from the front of the room. On the raised platform I saw a new group of people. I recognized the person that clapped from the descriptions I have of him. It was Tom the person that wrote me the letter. When he started to greet everyone, I was relieved that I didn¡¯t recognize the voice meaning he wasn¡¯t the one that was arguing when I was getting my equipment. On the stage with him were a few other people one that was extremely heavily armoured and radiated to my best description the feeling of immovability. I was impressed by them all there were a few other fighters that looked extremely strong, but my attention landed on the small-looking girl that was sitting on the table. While in the room there were quite a lot of mages, only about half of them were gold rank others were high silver but she was close to the second rank. If my instincts prove correct, she is one of the reasons that they were able to delve so deep into the dungeon I bet her damage output is insane. I could also feel some craziness coming off her meaning she was just that much better at killing. I was surprised to learn that we will be delving in about 12 hours. Turns out that this dungeon works completely differently from what I knew of dungeons. From the looks of it, some of the people have already heard this lecture and I liked that they are required to listen to it again. It meant that the leadership knew what they were doing. From the context, it seems that every raid dungeon had its own rules and quirks. For this dungeon, you will get the chance to delve for eight hours slots and when the time ends everyone inside the dungeon is teleported out. So you only had 8 hours to clear all six floors to completely clear the dungeon. The maximum amount of people you could bring was 45 and if you brought a rank two person the challenge was ramped up by quite a lot. I wonder what kind of limitation other raid dungeons had. There was a small pause as some wizardly-looking person was messing around with the blackboard. So, when it started to display an image, I was completely mesmerized. At the bottom of the screen was written entrance and then there was like a dungeons and dragons map that showed the upcoming dungeon paths and what kind of monsters we were going to encounter. To the sides were bubbles with names on them but some were just symbols. It wasn¡¯t hard to figure out some of the symbols as I quickly found the small mages and the symbols of the big tank. I also found my name inside a circle that was coloured green. I had to smile a bit at that as green was my favourite colour. Then Tom started to explain. ¡°Like the last time, our main tank Krome will be pulling all the regular monsters. When we are fighting the regular monsters only silvers will do damage. If I see that it''s taking too long, I will call for the rest of the damage dealers to start killing as well but hold back as much as you can because last time some of you were expending too many resources on monsters easily killed.¡± Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. I was in a group called M1 for this fight. There were six other people, and we were all melee damage dealers. The display changed again displaying now the second room. Tom also explained that some of the scouts will be clearing all the traps between the rooms. The next room had a boss in it, and I learned that this dungeon was known for how many boss monsters it had. Every other room had a boss, and it seems that they all had unique abilities that changed the monster''s behaviours completely. For the first boss fight, I was surprised that I was moved from my group to backup tank #3. When that was mentioned, Tom looked around the room until he found me in the back corner. Already knowing what would happen I removed my helmet so everyone could see my face better. ¡°Backup tank #3 is Rich Dirt a person that I personally invited so he could lend us his expertise. While we have not reached this part of the debriefing yet, he will be one of the tanks that will handle the extra minotaur.¡± I nodded my head and spoke. ¡°Thank you for the opportunity, looking forward to a good fight.¡± I was glad that I saw some head nods and smiles in return and Tom soon started to explain how we are going to handle this fight. I was glad that everything went well and wasn¡¯t too awkward. But I did see that a few people were frowning while they were still looking at me. I guess this is inevitable when you have enough people in one room. The first boss fight seemed quite easy as it was just an oversized boar that constantly charged in a straight line. The debriefing continued and while I could see some starting to lose focus I did not. I absorbed every piece of information on every monster and boss that they had. I was glad to learn that every floor only had 10 rooms. On the third floor, the small mage called Luana was to start clearing all the trash mob rooms. Apparently, her one spell could wipe out the entire room unfortunately the spell just wasn¡¯t strong enough to work on bosses. Still from my understanding, she will be the person that will do the main damage even to the bosses. The third-floor end boss was supposed to be the first difficult boss. Because he was the first one that calls additional monsters to help him, and they were quite strong. For this fight, I will have the first truly active role. All my roles before this room were if something went wrong or if more damage was needed but this time, I was going to do what I was hired to do, tank the right side of the room and not let any monsters get to our damage dealers. Tom asked me if I could handle that, and I gave him a thumbs up to which he nodded and continued. One of the fighters with a huge sword and no shield was glaring at me. It seems he didn¡¯t like how I answered or Tom¡¯s decision. He seemed to have a huge problem with me, but I guess I just needed to wait until he couldn¡¯t hold it down any longer. Then we will see what¡¯s up with him. I was surprised to learn that the triple boss room for which I was hired wasn¡¯t the last boss room on the 4th floor it was the one before that. Apparently, this had been the stopping point for every raiding team. When the fight was explained to me, I quickly understood why that was the case. The main boss was a huge dog with two heads. It was incredibly strong and needed almost every healer and buffer to keep the main tank up. If it was just that the fight would be simple, but it wasn''t. Technically there was only one boss, but the two other elite monsters were almost at the level of a boss. So, they needed dedicated tanks. But the problems didn¡¯t stop there. If you killed one or both of the minotaurs the other monsters in the room including the boss will get a buff that will get stronger over time. And that buff wasn¡¯t a simple thing. From the calculations that we were shown the main tank could only keep going for another minute or risk being overwhelmed. That meant that the side tanks needed to hold the minotaur while the main raiding party dealt with the main boss. This fight''s problems didn¡¯t end there. If the main boss was killed the same buff would be applied to the minotaurs and then the same problem would start. So, my job would be to solo hold the minotaur but hopefully still do some damage to him so it would be easy to finish him off when the main boss is dead. ¡°If all goes according to plan we should be able to finish this room and move on to hopefully finish the dungeon. But if something happens like the last time we will be retreating to the previous room where the monsters we were fighting will not follow us. Like last time we will set up our defences and hold the waves of weak monsters off until the time runs out.¡± Tom explained with a sombre tone as apparently, they had lost three people trying to survive the last time. I was glad that there was a possibility for survival, but I was still surprised that we will need to fight until the time runs out. When Tom started to move forward to the next room I was expecting for there to not be much information but I was surprised again as there seemed to be as much information as for the rooms before. chapter 150 But before we could get to the last boss room of the 4th floor the person that had been hatefully staring at me finally couldn''t hold it any longer. ¡°Tom why are we trusting this outsider he¡¯s just a farmer and doesn¡¯t know anything. I understand that we would lose a lot of the raiding slots if we hire the adventurers that have come from the portal but you can¡¯t honestly think that he could tank one of those minotaurs.¡± I had expected an outburst but the absolute venom that was in his voice was a surprise to me and again it was not the guy from before. There was a silence that was only broken by people shifting their view from me to the person that spoke and to Tom. I looked towards them and saw that Tom was quite displeased about this situation, but he also didn¡¯t have many options on how to respond. Many people would call the person that spoke out a dick and he certainly was one but he also had a good reason. A similar situation from a long time ago came to mind when I was that dick and I was the one to call someone out. When I did it, I just wanted to protect the team that was going with me into a deadly situation like this one here. The silence was pretty long so the man continued. ¡°How do we even know that he can taunt the minotaur they are not so easily swayed and defending against them requires more than just stats and good equipment.¡± I could see he wanted to continue but I cut off his rant. ¡°How about a demonstration then.¡± That shut him up and I quickly put my helmet back on and strapped my new shield onto my arm. He looked a bit confused and before anything happened Bert tried to diffuse the situation. ¡°There is no need for this we can figure something else out, but I can promise you that Rich can deliver what we need.¡± Bert¡¯s loud voice carried over everyone, but I could see that a lot of the fighters were nervous about my presence here. I could understand their feelings I was an unknown and there were only promises that I could deliver but no actual proof of my capabilities. I looked towards the person that confronted me and said using all my relevant abilities including taunt. ¡°Fight me.¡± My voice was powerful, but it only affected one person. I could see his eyes going a bit cloudy and I knew that it had worked. I quickly slipped between the curtains and only had time to take three steps back before a sword cut a hole through them exposing me to the now maddened fighter. I was a bit disappointed that it seems that there was still a reason behind those eyes it was just that that reason was focused on killing me. I had already flooded my armour and shield with my ability boosting their defences and I quickly started to defend the flurry of blows some without abilities but a lot of them with abilities. The curtains were quickly pulled back and now the entire one side of the debriefing room was opened to the training grounds, but I was currently focused on defending. The fighter was good, and I actually had to work to defend myself. But he wasn¡¯t going to be able to get through my shield. I saw Tom speaking something to the small mage Luana. Soon a spell hit the man that was attacking me. It took only a few moments before his eyes started to clear. I am guessing that they didn¡¯t want him to use up too much energy before the fight. But before the fight finished I used his moment of confusion when my taunt ability finally broke to attack him. This wasn¡¯t a real attack I wasn¡¯t planning on even hitting him, but I was going to demonstrate how much power I could exert. I pumped huge amounts of power into the sword so much that it glowed quite brightly. And then just before it hit his head I stopped my strike but I could still see the shock and fright in his eyes. He was just an inch away from my blade but even then the shockwave that came from me stopping the attack pushed him to the ground and made a small wave of dust sweep across the practice arena. There was another moment of silence, but I dropped my two-handed sword because I didn''t have a way to store it and extended my hand to the prone fighter. He hesitated for a moment but soon a smile formed on his face, and he accepted my hand and I pulled him up. I looked towards Tom and nodded, and he smiled and nodded back. ¡°Now that that¡¯s out of the way let¡¯s get back to the business of trying to clear this dungeon.¡± This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. After that statement from Tom everyone got back into their spots and the debriefing continued. Apparently, this three-boss room was the breaking point and if you were able to get past this all that was left to do was manage your resource expenditure and you would most likely be able to clear the dungeon. Then came another surprise apparently this dungeon would need to be cleared multiple times but when a certain unknown number was reached the dungeon will disappear from this location and will appear someplace else in a few years. When I learned this, I was kind of itching to read the book I was given but I will not risk bringing it out anywhere near other people. I will need to wait until I get back to my farm. I am also expecting that this book was given to me as a test to see how reliable I can be. It was interesting to hear all the strategies on how to conserve energy and mana. Unfortunately, only a few of them help me a little I had figured most of it out on my own. Another amazing thing about raid dungeons was that they actually dropped loot at a more reasonable rate. For example, every monster and boss dropped a core and from bosses, you could get material drops from the monster''s body and those were usually extremely expensive. Raid contribution was decided by a bracelet that was given out to everyone that would examine the impact every person made and then give appropriate rewards. Tom did say that almost 40% was allocated to the company after that the 60% was divided between the fighters. I wondered if this counted towards my rewards or if it was just extra. I guess only time will tell. But time was also quite ruthless, and it was finally time for final preparations. We went to the training grounds and a lot more people started to show up. Some were testing the fighter¡¯s equipment while others brought consumables like potions. Every person was allocated three healing potions, two energy supply potions, one poison resistance for one of the boss fights and one fire resistance potion for another boss fight. Anyone who used mana also received 4 mana supply potions. It was an incredible amount of wealth but I did a bit of calculation and all this spent money will be earned back from clearing half of the first floor. The floors after that will be a lot more profitable than the first one. There was an incredible amount of wealth to be gained from this dungeon and I could now understand why people were coming here through portals. But wealth wasn¡¯t the only reason why people wanted to delve into the dungeon every monster down there was first rank and that meant a lot of experience for levels. For example, Bert had gotten to first rank from the first raid and so had many others from the company and with this second raid they were hoping for a lot more of them will rank up making the next raids even easier. This will of course give the company a lot more power which they will need to stay neutral in the power struggles to come. When there was half an hour to go until our time slot, I noticed a lot of druids showed up and a lot more people after that with different kinds of ingredients. In the middle of that group was Bert and then they started some kind of complicated ritual or spell. It took them 15 minutes to complete it and every raid member glowed greenish-yellow for a moment. I could feel incredible strength flowing into me and when I looked at my stats it showed that every single one of them had been boosted by about 20%. I could feel that this boost did other things as well and I could see Bert¡¯s personal defender going close to him. Her sole mission during the raid was to make sure that nothing hit him because if it did, we would lose this boost. Everyone was excited and ready for a fight, and I could feel the familiar rush coming over me. With every passing minute, I got more excited and ready for a fight. There were five minutes to go as we started to move out in the formation, we were going to tackle the first room. When we made it to the dungeon entrance it was an elaborate design that kind of resembled ancient roman building style with columns. The stairs up led to a portal that was in between two columns glowing ominously. We waited a few minutes and suddenly dozens of people started to come out of the dungeon portal. I could see happy faces and from the discussions, I could hear that it was the Queen''s raid party. It didn''t take us long to figure out that they had gotten past the three-boss room, but they had taken too long and were unable to clear the dungeon. But everyone knew that they would be able to do it the next time. Suddenly Tom''s voice was heard by all. ¡°Did you hear this, it means that the first clear will still be ours let''s make it happen today.¡± Straight after that, a war cry came out from everyone including myself. It was so infectious. I could see the portal shift and then a command echoed in my mind. For a moment I was surprised but we all started to move forward following the command. I quickly figured out that Tom had added me to something similar to what my commander''s ability did. There was another surge of power, but it was a lot smaller than the druid one, but I quickly figured out the best part of this ability. It granted us the capability of speaking to each other with our minds. It was limited but will be good enough for a command structure. chapter 151 Entering the portal felt similar to when I entered the dungeon back at home, but the feeling was amplified, and it took a bit longer than expected. For a few moments, everything was dark and then my eyes adjusted and I could see like in any other dungeon. Just a few moments later different abilities and spells started to light up the area. The next moment hundreds of boars-like creatures screamed like any other pig would but they did have a lot more bass in them and I could see even before the lights completely illuminated the room how they started to charge at us. Less than a second had gone by and already the fight was on. For this fight, I was a watcher. The spell attacks of the silvers started to form but the arrows were the first to be loosed at the monsters and the first attacks to hit. Whatever arrows they were using they were doing decent damage and then the spell hit. I could see some of the unlucky monsters die in the first attack. When over 20 people with good enough coordination hit a target, I guess that even silvers can kill a first-rank monster in moments. The poor monsters didn''t try to run they were solely focused on attack, and they had already cleared half of the room in their mad dash. When about half the distance was covered, I could see some of their tusks starting to glow with ability usage. It was at this moment when I saw the main tank rush ahead and I could see his big tower shield glowing blue with different kinds of runes. ¡°Aegis,¡± I heard the tank say and then a transparent blue shield extended from the shield that covered over half the room''s width. At the start the change was subtle but I could see more and more of that monsters converging on the shield. The monsters were now well past a horse¡¯s running speed and their change of direction came with lots of problems. Not only could I see some of them hit one another with their abilities they were also tripping each other up. If you added some of the dying creatures falling from the raid party attacks, their charge was interrupted quite soon. The monsters started to pile up on each other and the few that escaped were quickly targeted and killed. When the runners were killed Aoe spells started to hit the downed monsters and soon the room filled with the smell of burning flesh and hair. I was glad that the smell didn¡¯t stay for long only as long as it took for that monster to die and it didn''t take us long to finish off the room only about 10 minutes. I already knew what should have happened in this room as it was told in the briefing, but I was still surprised at how many first-rank monsters could be killed in such a quick time span. A pleasant surprise was that without doing anything I still got some class experience. The scouts moved ahead to start clearing all the traps while the rest of us looked for monster cores and other drops that might have appeared. I was a bit disappointed with this fight, but I also know that it wasn¡¯t going to be this easy for the entire dungeon. I could see some discipline being handed out to some of the first ranks that attacked without permission. From the corner of my eye, I saw one of the silver mages drinking a mana potion. This surprised me as we were supposed to be managing our resources but before anything else happened it seemed that I wasn¡¯t the only one who saw it and soon he was the one who was getting yelled at. I was starting to feel a bit better as I was getting used to everything. The next room was a bit different as it was the first boss room, I was glad I would be able to do some damage but doing damage was a lot more difficult than I first expected. First of all, friendly fire was a thing and if you weren''t careful, you could kill your party member instead of a monster. The second problem was even hitting the boss. I was expecting a huge boss monster, but I was disappointed with the size. The huge boar monster was only the size of a big van, but the entire room size must have been at least the size of 5 football fields. The monster moved fast when it used its charge attack and even our main tank didn''t take that but dodged it instead. So, the fight was just us running after the boss while trying to do as much damage as possible while not hitting anyone friendly. I could have used my movement ability to stick to the bosses¡¯ side and attacked it with my blade but that would mean any other mage that wanted to attack couldn¡¯t use the side where I was on so I could only use my range attack. I contemplated using my bow, but it would have been too much of a hassle to change my weapons around and I had to be ready to tank if it was needed. Towards the end of a fight, I did try to use my throwing knives and when I had charged them up until their breaking point I was able to do quite a lot of damage without hindering anyone else. The only problem was that I wouldn¡¯t have enough of them to keep up these kinds of attacks for the entire dungeon delve. There was always a sense of hurry and I believe that it didn''t just come from me or the people around me but there was something in the dungeon making me uneasy. It took a bit to figure out what was happening and when I did the feeling lessened by a lot. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. With that feeling overcome I could feel myself being a lot steadier and more clear-headed. Looking around I could see other people fidgeting whenever they were standing still similar to my own symptoms. I believed it best to bring it up with the Raid leaders. We were all waiting for the scouts to clear the way to the next room, so I approached the leadership team. ¡°Raid Party leader Tom. Backup tank #3 is reporting in. I have found a disturbing influence on the mind that the dungeon is making us feel.¡± I reported this loudly like I was used to but also made sure that only the leadership could hear my words. I was starting to like my ability sound isolation a lot more. At first, they all started to look around, but they were sharp and understood quickly that only they could hear what I had to say. They asked me to explain and so I did. Two of them started to curse out loud but I could soon see every one of them break the dungeon''s manipulation on them. They thanked me and I quickly moved back to my position. When the scouts came back, I was surprised to hear that everyone was called to get close up and form a circle. I had expected them to think of an idea to fix this for the next delve but it seems that the mage Luana is quite brilliant. She started to cast her magic and we were all directed to watch as she formed a green flame and then she slowly spun around so we could all see it properly. Whenever someone watched for more than a few seconds I could see their nervous energy disappearing while their body relaxed. The next few rooms showed the improvement that little spell made. There were a lot fewer missed spells and everyone was a lot crisper with their actions. While every room had gotten tougher and longer to clear. Now the opposite has happened, and we were doing them almost as fast as the first room. For the first-floor end boss, I decided to use one of my throwing knives. I pumped it full of energy and waited to attack the overcrowded bear. I was quite certain that I wouldn¡¯t be able to kill it with one attack so I did the next best thing. I channelled my inner rogue and attacked its Achilles heel. The attack worked but barely. My knives weren''t made from strong enough materials to handle enough energy to truly attack the beast. But now that one of its back legs was almost useless the fight was a lot easier for the tank. Time started to have no meaning as we were constantly attacking some sort of a new beast-type monster. The rooms with a huge amount of monsters were very easy as a combination of fire and lightning spells produced by Luana killed everything and what didn¡¯t die was paralyzed. If we were quick enough every monster in the room was dead before they could recover. The boss rooms were getting tougher but thanks to the main tank everything was just routine. It seems that his shield was a relic that was purposely made for these kinds of fights. It could extend a large transparent shield when there was a need to fight large groups of monsters, but it truly shined when there was only one strong enemy. It was amazing to see how the monster''s attacks curved and always hit the shield. In the previous boss room, we were fighting a boss that was half man half pig and there was real intelligence behind its eyes. But the fight was over faster than some of the other fights simply because the monster was so frustrated with that shield. No matter what it did or how it attacked with its huge hammer it couldn''t help but hit the shield. Eventually, it was so angry that it threw away the weapon and tried to punch the tank. When that didn''t work it tried to grapple. I believe that grappling would have eventually worked but it had used up too much time trying everything else and we were able to take it down before anything bad happened. Still, it almost felt like the shield was bending reality so that every attack would hit it, but I wasn¡¯t complaining as I didn¡¯t need to fight against the wielder. Then it finally began my first real job. We had finally reached the first room that I need to actively tank. The fight started off like any other but soon the main boss howled and out of nowhere other wolf-like creatures luckily a lot smaller than the boss started to appear. I needed to take the left side of the room, so I didn¡¯t waste a moment. ¡°Come and fight me you little puppies,¡± I yelled so that my taunt ability would activate. I made certain that only my side of the room would be affected but even I was a bit surprised at how effective it was. All the monsters stop their movements towards us and as one they all focused on me and I could see the pure rage in their eyes. I swallowed involuntarily but I couldn¡¯t freeze up. Using my movement skill, I started to circle the monsters so their backs would be towards the raiding party giving them a clear line of sight. Getting past them was harder than expected as it seems all of them activated some sort of an ability to help them chase me down. For the rest of the fight I barely had time to attack or defend using my shield mostly, I was just running and dodging so they could not overwhelm me with numbers. Their absolute rage against me made them disregard any other attack including the attacks from other wolves who were trying to get to me first. The situation was so bad that before we could kill all the wolves the only ones living had most of their legs broken but they were still trying to crawl towards me. Because of that, there was a moment of pause on the attacks as everyone was a bit puzzled about why the monsters were so angry with me. Usually with enough pain even taunt abilities were shaken off but it didn''t seem to be working with them. But this helped us finish the room even faster as the range fighter could be directed to the other side of the room. We only needed melee fighters to finish off the struggling monsters. When this fight was finally over, I was congratulated for my excellent performance but there wasn¡¯t a big pause before we all started to move forward. Previously when we cleared a room everyone was happy but now after every room, everyone got more serious. The reason was that now with every room we were getting dangerously close to the three-boss room. Arguably the hardest fight in this dungeon. chapter 152 We were in the last boss room before my solo fight with the minotaur. I was thoroughly hating this boss. It was a lizard type which wasn''t the problem the problem came with one of its abilities. It constantly emitted a poisonous fog, and the resistance potion was barely keeping up. On top of that the fog was filled with mana and energy and I was having a hard time seeing through it, so I was having to rely on my regular sight which made me have to rely on the lights that my raiding party cast. I was glad that I figured out this weakness of mine before I fought without anyone else to support me, but I also couldn¡¯t spend any time figuring out the solution because the fucker was quick. It was so quick that our main tank had trouble blocking all of its attacks mainly because the tail of the monster seemed to have a mind of its own and for some reason, the shield didn''t work for any tail attacks. This should have given me a good opportunity to see how good the other tank was but again my vision was so bad that I had to concentrate everything I had on my side of the monster to block any of its tail attacks towards any fighters that were close to me. I wanted to cut off the tail, but we couldn¡¯t. If the monster loses it, it will go berserk and we will lose this fight. So, I just hunkered down and concentrated on defending while my anger built. This fight was so infuriating that it was hard to keep my power in check. When the boss finally died, I was glad that I was able to keep my discipline up and no matter how bad the next boss room will be I will be glad to fight off some of this anger. The next trash mob room was easy like any other but before the next room, I could see many drinking potions or using some objects to boost themselves. People were getting ready to give their best and I knew that I was already ready to beat that fucking minotaur to the ground. I was half listening to the inspirational speech that was going on I was more focused on getting ready. Not only did I want to beat that minotaur to the ground I also wanted to test my defensive capabilities. I could feel myself going into the zone as we walked closer to the boss''s room. When we finally made it in I took everything in. The floor was covered with rock and to either side was a raised plateau, flat and empty, perfect for a fight. Both of the minotaurs looked similar, and they both wielded a great cleaver that was taller than me. From the report, I knew that the minotaurs were about 11 feet tall and built better than any bodybuilder back on earth. Then there was the boss in the middle. It was finally the proper-sized boss to what I imagined the others actually should have been. It was about five stories tall and looked like a rottweiler with two heads. Its howling was the most intimidating thing I have heard especially because one of the heads started a bit late, so it sounded like a constant echo. I could feel the main tank releasing his ability and see the huge boss monster focus its attention on him. Next, I could see the second tank use some sort of a scroll and I could see the minitour that was on the right side of the boss start to charge him. It was finally my turn. ¡°YOU OVERGROWN COW LET''S ONE V ONE.¡± I pointed to the plateau and after a moment of hesitation, the minotaur started to walk towards the plateau mimicking my action. I was a bit surprised that it didn¡¯t rush towards me but I guess it was intelligent enough to understand what I meant and I guess it was compelled to duel me properly. I could see the entire raid party laying into the boss, but it was going to take a while before they could kill it. That thing was just too big and its damage resistance was extensive. The minotaur was about 100 meters from me, but I took my sweet time getting ready before I gave it a small nod and I got a similar nod in return. The next moment it rushed me trying to end me with one blow. It was time to test if I could keep the minotaur occupied until the main boss is dead. I was pretty certain that I could kill it fast, but it would take everything I have and that wasn¡¯t why I was hired. So, I didn¡¯t move but prepared my abilities and concentrated on seeing if everything I have done would be enough. My weight was pushed to its limit and I activated my armour damage absorption ability. All of this required lots of energy, but I didn''t push any of my abilities to their limits so while the cost was heavy it was reasonable and calculated so I could keep fighting for a long time. The blow came and it was a strong one pushing me back several meters, but the shield and my abilities did their job. But I could feel the hurt that was in my hand. I won¡¯t be able to take that kind of a hit for much longer before my hand breaks. So, I didn¡¯t take those kinds of attacks anymore. I started to move so I would only take glancing hits which were a lot easier to handle. I was honestly expecting myself to have a worst time, but I guess my trait kinetic absorption was also helping a lot and it seemed to have a nice synergy with my armour damage absorption ability. I could feel the synergy, but it was hard to understand why it was there. My trait was supposed to only work on my body and my ability was only meant to work with my armour, so I didn''t know why they were interacting. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. It took me a few minutes to finally understand what was happening. I needed to thank the minotaur for the constant attacks that helped me figure it out. It was my armour enhancement ability that was creating a bridge for the trait and ability to support each other. It was happening because my armour ability also worked on my skin to an extent which was a part of my body of course. It was a weird but welcomed development. The fight went on and I was able to store lots of damage. In fact, I was so able to store so much that my armour should be falling apart but my body was a lot better vessel to store the abilities energy and I was just able to accumulate it thanks to the synergy. I could feel that there was still a limit, but this creature would need to attack me for at least another hour before I would reach my limit. The defence wasn¡¯t easy I needed to be constantly on the move and be mindful of every attack coming against me. The minotaur wasn¡¯t stupid and tried everything to circumvent my shield or to try to hit it straight on so it would get its damage through at least a little bit. It was hard to keep up all the time and eventually, one of its hits did get through and hit my side. The fucker had closed in on me and did the elbow strike. Luckily for me, that was mainly blunt damage, and I could absorb quite a lot of it, but it still sent me flying. I was glad that I was able to switch my weight fast and seeing me fly off the minotaur was momentarily frozen. This gave me enough time to get up and prepare for another one of its strikes. I was now more mindful and the next time it tried this attack I was able to dodge it, but those attacks started to come faster and faster and then it started to add other kinds of attacks. When it tried to sweep my legs, I was a bit insulted as he telegraphed that attack making it easy to skip away from it. It seems that the monster was unfamiliar with any other kind of fighting except for the huge cleaver that it was wielding. It was finally time for me to attack it back and each one of its clumsy attacks was the perfect opportunity for a counterattack. So, the next time I saw an attack coming I struck. I didn¡¯t use any of my stored-up kinetic energy because I was afraid it would do too much damage, but I also wasn¡¯t afraid to use my weapon ability to its limit. This turned out to be the correct decision as I was just able to give it a shallow wound on one of its legs. If I had used my core energy it would have been a lot more devastating wound, but I couldn¡¯t risk the monster dying. Another few minutes and I could feel my physical body starting to tire. While I did still have plenty of energy in the tank the constant movement at my maximum speed was exhausting. I kind of wanted to use my haste but I would still need to fight after this fight, so it was unfortunately not an option. It seems that I would need some sort of an ability that would speed me up but that will have to wait. Then I heard the first signal that meant that the main boss was soon going to die. My heart started to beat a bit faster glad for the fight to be coming to an end. I took a blow to the shield but this time I didn¡¯t just let it glance off but pushed against the cleaver unbalancing the monster. It activated its rapid attack abilities but instead of falling back like I usually did I pushed in. I pumped more energy into the shield than I had for the entire fight and its strikes didn''t hurt that much anymore. My sword which usually sat on my shoulder was now ready and powered up for a thrust. My actions had surprised the minotaur and I was able to get my sword halfway into its belly. I pulled it back fast as I saw one of its hands let go of the clever so he could grapple me. I took a step back out of its range, but my blade was already swinging. Before it knew what happened I slashed at its arm that was extended trying to grab me. I also pushed more energy into the weapon than I ever have before, and the sword didn''t let me down. I was still surprised that I didn¡¯t hit the bone but I was certain I was damn close. I now had to back off a bit more because it was still able to wield its clever with one hand and now its range was a bit further than when it attacked with two hands. I let it look at its wound because I needed to wait until the second signal that would notify the boss''s death. When it finally figured out that I had done real damage to it. It bellowed in rage and charged at me. I only had to dodge it two more times before I heard the 2nd signal, but it turns out I didn''t need that signal as I could see the minotaur growing stronger the very next second. I didn¡¯t waste any time and charged. It readied its block, but I didn¡¯t mind. I pumped core energy into my sword and all the kinetic energy that I had stored up. I had expected my sword to push his cleaver aside and continue to strike the monster but to my surprise that didn¡¯t happen. Everything was so fast but I was able to register how my sword cut through the monster cleaver when it was about halfway through it. It didn''t stop and just kept going. I had aimed at the minotaur''s hip while moving the sword diagonally upwards. My strike cut through the monster in a perfect line. The first thing to happen was the arms and the cleaver falling to the ground. It took the monster a bit longer to fall apart and even longer for it to figure out what had happened before it finally died. I looked towards the raiding party, and I was met with surprised eyes and readied spells as I was supposed to back off so they could start attacking the minotaur. These weren¡¯t green fighters, so they quickly turned towards the other minotaur and with the combined attacks of the entire raid party the monster was killed fast. There was a moment of pause as nobody could quite believe that they had done it but then cheers erupted and I cheered with them. That last hit was the most satisfying thing I had ever done but then exhaustion hit me, and I sat down. A few moments later spells hit me, but they were refreshing and soon my exhaustion started to alleviate. I concentrated on my energy pool and I was glad to see that I was still half full. It was finally time for my first energy-restoring potion and I drank it gladly. The entire raid party took a longer break than usual and by the end of it the potion had worked its wonders and I had about 25% more energy. During that time I had joined the others and I was congratulated on an amazing finish. We eventually heard the command to move out and I got up and cracked my neck ready for a few more fights. chapter 153 The next few fights went normally but I could see some people starting to tire. Our first challenge came on the next floor. We were about half done with this floor when we reached the rat boss. The problem with this boss was that it had 11 tails and all of them worked independently. During this fight, I was finally able to confirm the main problem with the main tank''s shield abilities. It can only protect against conscious attacks and those tails weren''t connected to the beast¡¯s intelligent attacks. The only good thing was that the tail attacks that moved like whips weren¡¯t the strongest but they were fast. So, all three of us were needed to keep the boss busy. While the tails were doing their own thing, they still concentrated on the main tank, so our job was to protect him. It was a tough job but thankfully the boss didn¡¯t have amazing defences. The raiding party did panic a bit, so a lot of damage dealers spent more mana and energy than was strictly necessary. The trouble didn¡¯t end with the next room where we had our first problematic trash mob room. Monsters here were a mix of grim reapers and dementors. The spell combination that Luana uses worked a little bit, but the monsters kept coming. They were wielding a formidable-looking scythe and the spells and arrows that hit them only did minor damage. After the second wave of attacks just before the monsters reached the extended shield of the main tank, I could see that some of them went down fast. I found the commonality and it seems that these monsters were weak to ice types of damage. Before I could bring this up to anyone else, we could hear the voice of our commander informing everyone to switch to cold-type attacks. Then another surprise happened. And the situation looked bad. Those weapons that they had were able to penetrate the energy shield to an extent and after a few quick attacks holes started to appear and the monsters would soon be through our protection. This would end our raid party. Some might survive but most won¡¯t. When the first one got through, I was already running towards them. I started activating all the abilities needed and then yelled. ¡°Come and fight you sorry excuses for Halloween decoration.¡± My yell once again froze all the monster''s movements and that gave me a chance to run past them using my movement ability. All at once they turned their backs on the raiding party and started to move towards me. One thing that was good about these enemies was that they weren¡¯t the fastest but apparently, they did have some abilities that granted them fast movements. Those bastards were able to appear in my shadow and get behind me. It seems that there was a long cool down for their actions, but they were all enraged enough to use it. When the first attack hit my shield, I had to curse out loud. About 7 inches off the scythe pierced through the shield but when I pulled the shield back there wasn¡¯t a hole. Those weapons had some sort of ignore armour ability and that was really bad for me. I did the only thing left to do and I ran. There were a few more close calls but now that I know what their weapons were capable of, I could still use my shield but the effective area of it was now a lot smaller. I don¡¯t know how long it took but eventually, I got the command to stay still and so I did. The monsters closed on my location fast and I only had a few more seconds to live but then I noticed a spell hit me and some sort of a bubble formed around me. While the weapons were still able to get through the bubble, they could not reach me and just a few moments later all I could see was white. The shield was cracking but it held and after about a minute it dispersed and I could see why I could only see white. Some sort of blizzard spell or something like that had killed off all the monsters. I was glad that it was over, and I got a quick explanation on how Luana and another mage worked together to save my life and also kill all the monsters. Had I not stopped I would have most likely died from the ice blizzard spell. I could see some coins being exchanged and it didn¡¯t take me long to understand that some had bet on if I would follow the command or not. While I did not like that, I couldn¡¯t get angry because I have done something similar as well. It wasn''t my proudest moment, but I also couldn¡¯t erase it from my memories. I did give them a disapproving look and I was glad to see most of them abashed. The next few fights were just managing our resources and we were making reasonable time clearing them. Then came the 5th-floor end boss. They said it was a snake-type boss monster with multiple heads, but it wasn¡¯t what I expected. I imagined a snake that had multiple heads but it was more like a hydra with five heads. If this was that mythical creature we were going to die if we didn¡¯t run but everyone seemed calm, so I just did what was commanded. I drank the fire-resistant potion and I had to watch as all of the heads started to spit out jell-like globules that started to emit heat and smoke as they came into contact with the air. After they landed only a few moments later they burst into hot flames that started to heat up the room. The only good thing was that their range didn''t seem to be too long but they also didn''t seem to stop spitting them. While the main tank taunted the boss monster it was slowly moving towards him but didn''t seem to have any interest in attacking us directly. The exception was when we got too close as one of the melee attackers soon found out. We were able to save his life thanks to the healers, but no one was willing to get close to those heads. The boss monster just kept spitting and the jell seemed to just keep burning. Soon the temperature of the room started to rise. I activated my heat tolerance and it helped but we needed to take it down fast. It was a huge monster the size of an apartment building so it was easy to hit and we didn''t have to worry about hitting one another. I started to send out my flying slashes at one of the head''s necks and I just kept doing it. Its scales were tough but I was slowly chipping through it and even from this long distance my aim was good enough that I was hitting a general area. The fight was a long one. Within 20 minutes people were starting to succumb to the heat. They weren¡¯t close to death yet, but they weren¡¯t able to fight. But the monster was already down two heads. The first one was cut off by Luana and the second one by the strongest archers. I was able to cut off my own head that I was focusing on and then all the combined attacks from the rest of the raiding party cut off another one. The last head didn¡¯t last long with the combined attacks of everyone, but we didn¡¯t have time to wait and recover in this room. Everyone who could carry someone quickly run towards the tunnel. Scouts quickly moved ahead to start clearing some of the traps and for the first time, we had to take a rest in the tunnel. It was good that the heat stopped as soon as we took the first step into the tunnel but we still needed time to get everyone back on their feet and we had used up a lot of our resources. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. The rest of the dungeon was a grind and with each boss room, more and more people were not able to contribute much. When we reached the 6th-floor end boss only about 12 of us, were still capable of dealing massive damage. But the last boss was a huge damage soak. This was another case of please to not be that monster. It was supposed to be a lizard type that was seen on one of the southern continents. It was a small regular creature like any other small lizard but here it was an oversized monster that looked scarily like Godzilla. At first, my steps faltered as we ran into the room. We only had about 20 minutes left, and the mood wasn''t the best. We were quite certain we won''t be able to clear the dungeon but there was still hope. We had to hit the monster in the head. It was able to regenerate quite quickly, and it was too massive for us to do any real damage to the body. The only viable way to kill it fast was to hit its head, but it was well armoured like all other parts of it but even more so. This thing reportedly had scale armour over a meter thick protecting its head. The thing must have been 20 stories tall. My faltering steps grow steadier as I noticed the double legs and the extended body. So, it wasn¡¯t like that famous monster. I quickly firmed up my mind and didn¡¯t let doubt creep into it. I almost failed when it started to attack us with a light beam fired from its mouth. I was glad to see that our tank was able to handle it and seemed to be stable enough to keep going. We all waited as Luana prepared her last spell. She was able to keep enough mana to make this spell work, but it would be her last and it might not even be enough even with the reserve she has. We painstakingly waited as she prepared a spell for about 10 minutes. The entire time the boss didn''t pause its attack for a second as the light beam kept hitting the shield. I could see the shield slowly starting to heat up but the time will run out before the shield will start to melt but that''s assuming the shield would have a similar melting point as steel. The waiting was something I wasn¡¯t enjoying but no one was. The light show was beautiful in its deadliness. I think I might only be able to take that beam for a minute before it would melt me into nothingness. Luana was close to being done with her spell, but I saw the main tank drink his last energy potion. We were all running close to empty. I checked my fuel tank and there was only about 30% left and I had used all my potions. One thing that was almost completely full was my core energy which I would need to put into my flying slashes after the spell will strip away hopefully all of the armour from its head. When it was finally time we watched as rainbow-coloured beams combined into a similar white beam that the boss was attacking us with. Just a moment later it hit the boss''s head. It was the first time when the boss stopped attacking and screamed in pain. This was a bad development because Luana was too low on mana, and she couldn¡¯t keep up her attack nor keep it at the same spot to burn through all the armour. When the spell ended, she collapsed into unconsciousness, and we all looked in horror as there seemed to still be armour left on the spot that she hit. Before the monster was able to attack again arrows and spells hit the spot but they were barely doing anything. If we had the resources and time, we might be able to get through it but we won''t be able to kill it. My flying slash even with my core energy would not help. It just didn''t have enough penetrating properties. My mind ran through all the possibilities, but nothing seemed to work. ¡°If I only had a powerful throwing spear.¡± That could possibly work but even then, it would be difficult. I was quite disappointed but I could see them still trying. I readied my sword and prepared to give it my all when Tom stopped me. ¡°What did you say about the throwing spear?¡± He looked at me with a spark of hope in his eyes. ¡°If you have a spear close to rank 2, I might be able to finish it, but the spear will be lost,¡± I said in a grave tone, and I could see him running through calculations if it would be worth it and if they even had anything like that. ¡°Miltgon!¡± Tom yelled. ¡°Do you still have the spear your grandfather gave you?¡± I could hear command but hope and pleading in his voice. I could see him running towards the person he addressed, and a quick argument followed. It didn''t take long before he was running towards me without any spear. When he got close, I could see him channel energy into his hand and a magnificent spear quickly expanded into its full size. It was a 7-foot spear with dark red wood and a red metal head. I could see the runes carved into the shaft and I could feel its power. ¡°Here use this and quickly we don''t have much time.¡± I looked at the spear and took it. I started to flood it with energy to learn its quirks and I could feel how magnificent and old it was. It had killed a lot, but I could also feel it being tired. There were some small cracks in the shaft and the metal head had chips in its edges. Even then it was a powerful weapon. I looked towards the person that had given it and gave him a questioning look. No matter what Tom said I would only destroy this weapon if its owner permitted it. I could see the sadness in his eyes, but he gave me a small nod. I accepted it and started to drown the spear with my energy. My regular energy flooded in and soon the spear started to glow. All that I could focus on was this action but soon I became so familiar with the spear that I could finally look up at my target who seem to be attacking again. Everything else fell away and only my target was in my mind. My regular energy was starting to run out, so I began to use my core energy. This I had to add slower otherwise the weapon might not be able to handle it. I moved away to get a better angle and stretched out my hand warming it up for the throw. My balance was off so I discarded my shield but my target was far and my helmet was limiting my sight. I removed it so I could finally see my target and make sure the path of my spear would be perfect. Still, my target was far, and I needed more speed, so I started to back up. I could feel the spear struggling but it was also hungry. It wanted its last kill, and I wasn¡¯t going to deny it. My ability adjusted the spear so it would fly better but I grabbed a hold of that part of my ability and changed it. The spear needed to penetrate and then expand. The head of the spear was compressed into a smaller point so it could penetrate better and like a bomb, it was filled with energy ready to explode when it penetrated the monster''s armour. I was running out of core energy but all that I had left went to boosting myself with my other abilities. I started to run. The spear was pulled back and with the last step, my entire body was put into the throw. It flew off faster than it had any right to move, and it almost didn''t have any ark as it flew through the air crackling like it was charged with lightning. The monster noticed it and tried to defend itself but it was too late it was too focused on its singular attack. My throw was just a bit off, but it still hit where the armour was most damaged. Luckily the damaged area was a few meters in width. When the spear hit it sank in with a dull thump. Nothing happened for a split second and then a sound similar to a lightning strike sounded out but 10 times louder. It took a moment before the shockwave hit and my exhausted body was thrown back. As I looked back it didn¡¯t seem that the monster was hurt but the previously damaged area was now just a hole. Its scale armour was able to contain the damage but that made it even worse as all that power was directed inwards. We all looked as the monster slowly started to slump and soon the notification came. Dungeon cleared. Calculating first clear bonus. chapter 154 POV Tom Harbinder I did not enjoy handing over the spear to Rich. It meant a lot to Miltgon but if we could do this our future would be secured. I could see Rich activating some sort of charging ability, but I still didn''t know how this could be enough. He has done his job beyond expectation so I must hope that he can go even beyond that. I focused on the timer, and I had to curse. That fucking room with the monsters that wielded the scythe was a complete mess and cost us a lot of our time and resources. Next time Luana will have a spell prepared and I will have to talk with my informants because that problem was never mentioned. I could see that Luana was starting to wake up our healers truly are the best in this corner of the world. I looked towards Rich, but he was completely focused on the spear, and it was now glowing quite brightly. I left him to do whatever he was going to do and walked back towards the others. I was proud of the team that I have put together they were the core of this company but I could see so many more growing up ready to protect our interests. As I looked towards Luana, I felt a bit sad. She will soon be leaving us. Our deal was that she would be with us until she reached rank 2 and I will keep that promise but I never expected a raid dungeon to appear here. First of all, it saved me multiple fortunes not having to pay for her dungeon carries so she could get to rank two now we can do it here and we will gain fortunes. Hopefully, we will get at least a few more runs before she tiers up but after that, we will not be able to clear the dungeon anymore. We will still be able to clear the first two floors to level up some weaker people but that would be it. I was lost in my mind when I was jolted out of it. I looked towards Rich like everyone else and we all saw something incredible. I don¡¯t know when, but he had dropped his shield and his helmet but more importantly the strength of that energy. It was so dense and so violent, and it was so close to rank two that I could almost taste it. How was he able to control it or even better how did you even have that? Something wasn''t adding up, but I was not going to question anything. He might actually be able to do it. He was backing up and then suddenly he exploded with movement. It was magnificent to see, and I could see the spear flying with purpose. When the sound came and then the explosion I was momentarily stunned. I looked at the clock and saw there were still over a minute left. I looked towards Miltgon and saw a single tear ran down his cheek. But I also saw acceptance and relief. It was truly a fitting end for any weapon. Then came the message that I was waiting and had to hope that luck was with us, and we will get the best reward of free stat points. While the boss''s armour pieces would be excellent it was nothing compared to free stat points. I waited with bated breath and when the notification finally came, I had to let out a cry of victory. 15 free stat points, marvellous. I could hear the cheering all around me at least from people who could still celebrate quite a few of us were basically passed out. I quickly looked towards the device that calculated the dungeon delve contributions and it didn¡¯t come as a surprise that I saw Rich in second place just above me. Luana was in a comfortable lead but that was also quite understandable. It would mean that he would be getting a huge fortune and if we can repeat it, he would get so much coin that he could do whatever he wanted. But then my celebration came to an end, and I saw we had less than 10 seconds before we were transported out. I wasn¡¯t going to be able to hide the contributions and we haven¡¯t informed him of assassins. Shit, I hadn¡¯t expected him to do this well or be this helpful. Like for fuck sake how did he even have that much energy he should have ran out multiple times. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. I quickly moved towards him, and I was glad to see him collecting his equipment. ¡°Rich we will be keeping your secrets, but your contribution score will still have to be revealed. I will have to go into a meeting with the adventuring guild so I will not be able to tell you this but watch out for assassins they will be trying to target the important raid members.¡± I said it in a rush but there was enough time for me to see him nod with a serious face before we were teleported out and it was back to meetings and trying to acquire the necessary potions and other resources. POV Rich Dirt I finally struggled up my body was completely exhausted, but I had to collect my gear. I couldn¡¯t leave it lying around. It wasn''t proper. When the system finally finished calculating the rewards, I received 28 free stat points. While perhaps some ability or trait would have been better to get free stat points was nice and just getting them on top of the dungeon clear that we were doing anyways was quite excellent. I was still a bit lightheaded, but Tom gave me a warning about assassins, so I had to get a bit more serious. I cracked my neck but honestly, I was running on fumes. Hopefully, they won''t attack immediately otherwise, yeah that would suck. Then I could feel something enveloping me and the next moment we were outside. I was tired but still incredibly glad that we were able to clear this raid dungeon so I joined in as much as I could with the others celebrating. Our celebrations ended when we got back to our part of the camp. Strict orders were given for us to start recovering because as soon as everyone was ready which was hopefully in two days we will be delving again. That time frame was short, and I won¡¯t be able to fill my energy core completely, but my regular energy will be filled up by the next day. I will also need to recover mentally and physically. So, I went back to my tent where I was glad to see that I now had two guards in front of it keeping an eye out. I started to do stretches so my pained muscles would get some relief. I did decide to lay on the bed, but I went into meditation to try to hopefully speed up some of my core energy recuperation and also just help me recover better. Before I did that, I pulled up my achievement page and I was quite glad about the improvements. All of my classes levelled up 4 times and a lot of my skills and abilities levelled up as well but there wasn''t anything groundbreaking. If we were able to do a few more delves I might be able to reach level 40 for all my classes and hopefully be able to upgrade my current ones. There weren¡¯t any assassins that came to see me for the next two days and while I was generally ready for the next delve my core energy still wasn¡¯t completely full. Nevertheless, this delve went better and we had plenty of time left when we finished off the last boss. I didn¡¯t even have to throw the spear which I was a bit saddened about, but I was glad to see that they did buy another one that I would be able to use. I was informed that the next delve will happen in three days because the slots were full and just after us the Queen''s party was finally able to clear the dungeon as well. I learned that most likely no other local party will be able to clear the dungeon, but more and more people had shown up through the portal and now foreign teams were running the dungeon. I was surprised to find out the reason why they hired me. One reason was that they believed that I would be able to help clear the three-boss room but mainly because if they hired any adventurer that wasn''t local, they would lose their priority delve slots. If that happened, we might have only been able to enter the dungeon once before it was gone but now, we would most likely be able to get four or five clears. The amount of money I have been making was stupid. From the first clear I was able to make 1357 beast cores of the standard size. The real number I received was a lot lower because there were better quality cores but if you put it into gold coins I basically made more than 100,000 from the first run alone. At first, I was incredibly happy but when I found out that a decent piece of gear for a first rank cost between 10,000 and 20,000 gold my happiness decreased. Still, I was making bank. Of course the next run we made I made a lot less only about 50,000 but still good and I couldn¡¯t wait until I could spend it all and keep delving to make some more. chapter 155 I was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the tent. After a few more delves I had finally reached the max level on every class, and it was finally time to see what upgrades I can get. Those levels were hard fought and once we even had to use the spear method again. Of course, the three assassins that have tried to kill me have been annoying as well but thankfully my sharp senses have allowed me to kill two while one of them did escape. Although we are supposed to go to the dungeon again tomorrow, I do not think that that will happen. I felt something different with Luana after the final delve and I think she will rank up although I¡¯m not completely certain. If that happens, we will not be able to clear the dungeon. While we might still be delving, I don¡¯t even think we could reach the three-boss room. This means that they really won''t need me anymore and honestly, I want to go home. I have the itch to do some farm work and that level 19 in farming has been annoying me for a long time now. Also, every day gets closer to when it will be too late to plant and I would hate if I wouldn¡¯t be able to plant my own land. I will need to spend all my money or figure out if I can deposit it in a bank or something because bringing almost 400,000 gold worth of cores would not be something I could do fast. It would mean a carriage and animals to pull it and that would mean weeks before I can get home. I pulled up my notifications so I could finally start going through them all. Hopefully, I will be able to get legendary classes but if not then I will need to specialize. Homesteader reaches level 40(max) strength +12 dexterity +12 vitality +12 endurance +6 empathy +6 intelligence +6 free points gained +40 perk is gained skill basic homemaking, ability mana interaction. max level reached choose a specialisation (specialisation locks class upgraded) It was nice to see that the last level has a triple amount of stats. The 40 free stat points were amazing but the perk was a bit weird. A skill called basic homemaking was kind of weird and the ability as well. Mana interaction what does that mean? Those will need some testing. Heroic soldier reaches level 40(max) strength +15 dexterity +18 vitality +12 constitution +12 presence +6 free points gained +30 perk is gained ability hold the line. max level reached choose a specialisation (specialisation locks class upgraded) Less free points, interesting and I did only gain one ability hold the line. This ability seemed to be a good one but testing this one might be difficult if it requires mass combat. True archer reaches level 40(max) strength +15 dexterity +15 vitality +9 perception +12 free points gained +30 perk is gained ability energy paths. max level reached choose a specialisation (specialisation locks class upgraded) Again, with the 30 free points so perhaps the homesteader class was a bit stronger but the ability seems interesting and I already have an idea of what it could do. Every item that you can use your abilities on has energy paths but inside the material, there are imperfections like stones in the river. The energy moves around it similarly, and it will limit how fast and how much power you can channel through an item. An interesting thing I found is that runes work the same way so putting too many of them on an item will actually make it worse. But if I could change or clear those paths any of my crafted weapons would be a lot more powerful. Trait¡¯s gained dexterity reaches 640 new trait gained: ever quicker vitality reaches 640 new trait gained: life¡¯s vitality energy storage reaches 320 new trait gained: life giving energy perception reaches 160 new trait gained: illusion sight constitution reaches 160 new trait gained: sharmar¡¯s organ presence reaches 80 new trait gained: baron With so many stat points I have gained so many new traits and of course, all the free points went into energy storage. Most of the traits needed meditation to figure out what they did but I wasn¡¯t willing to do that when I could be attacked. The most puzzling one for me was the presence trait baron. Was I now a noble of some sort? My lack of knowledge is starting to really piss me off. But I pushed those thoughts aside and looked at what my class choices are. There only seemed to be one upgrade path but I was glad that there was one. It seems that too often in this world you wouldn¡¯t even be offered any. That would mean it would be the end of your advancement you wouldn¡¯t be able to get any stronger with levels and the only consolation prize was that you could specialize in that class which gave you incredible powers but still, you would be stuck. First homesteader: You are the inspiration and the shepherd, the first to guide the others. This class lifts all restrictions on every skill used in homesteading. Owners land is upgraded to lands authority. This class unlocks wisdom stat. Trait gained lands synergy. Ability gained permanent structure, and judge character. This class gives chance to upgrade a skill or ability into a more specialized one. This was the first time that I saw some sort of flavour text and it was an interesting one. I thought might be the first with this class, but this confirmed it. Owners lands upgrading is interesting and something I wasn¡¯t expecting. Wisdoms was nice to get. It was interesting that land synergy was a trait and I wondered what it might represent. An ability called permanent structure could mean a lot of things, but judge character was quite clear in its meaning and I was glad to have it. I picked it up and saw how my old class was replaced by the new one. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Level up first homesteader First homesteader now level 1 strength +12 dexterity +12 vitality +12 endurance +8 empathy +8 intelligence +8 wisdom +8 So, I was back to level one and now my level cap would be 80 and that was a lot of stats but I also felt I would need a lot more experience to level the class. A good thing was that I didn¡¯t just need to kill to get this class to level up. I looked at the next one. Heroic commander: This class lifts all restrictions on master fighting skills, master army skills, master armour skills and master leadership skills. This class gives the trait battle spirit and the ability lead by example. This class gives chance to upgrade a skill or ability into a more specialized one. No flavour text for this one but I now know that advanced, expert and now master are the tiers for skills. I am really behind in the skill department I didn¡¯t even have one skill past the advanced tier. Trait battle spirit might be a good one, but it also sounds like it could be a problematic one. The ability lead by example sounds like a good one and something I wholly agree with. Level up heroic commander Heroic commander now level 1 strength +15 dexterity +9 vitality +12 constitution +12 presence +6 Renowned true archer: This class lifts all restrictions on every master skill used in fighting or making a bow. This class gives trait haunting step and ability makers mark. This class gives chance to upgrade a skill or ability into a more specialized one. Interesting that this upgrade is called renowned because technically it¡¯s a legendary class. The trait that I gained is disturbing and hopefully something that will be helpful instead of a hindrance. The ability makers mark was something I wanted to test out immediately. Level up renowned true archer Renowned true archer now level 1 strength +15 dexterity +15 vitality +9 perception +12 I was glad to see so many stat points with this class as well but I quickly pulled out one of my gold rank bows or perhaps first rank bow would be a more proper terminology. I looked at the maker''s mark I had made and was glad to see that it was now more solid somehow and it did seem to give some bonus to the bow but further testing would be needed. I did that to all the first-rank bows. Hopefully, now I will get more money when I sell them. I pulled up my stats and a smile came to my face at how much they have grown
Name: Rich Dirt stats:
Species: Human strength: 874
Gender: male dexterity: 765
Age: 13 vitality: 730
First homesteader level 1 endurance: 140
Renowned true archer level 1 empathy: 121
Heroic commander level 1 intelligence: 123
energy storage: 386
Bonded Animals: perception: 201
Goose constitution: 201
presence: 103
wisdom: 8
(luck: 2)
I got up and prepared everything for my trip to the market. While I was used to wearing armour but I was starting to get annoyed that I wasn''t able to take it off but it had saved my life when the first assassin came. I looked towards my bed and the repaired part of the tent which was slashed by the assassin trying to kill me. It was a weak attempt and just my steel armour was already good enough to protect me. I did love the look on his face when he tried to run but then saw that I had gripped his arm and wasn''t letting him go. I could still feel the assassin that escaped. He has tried to get close again, but I think he can sense when I have noticed that he is here. Everything ready I got out of the tent and notified the guards that I will be going to the market square. They didn¡¯t like that but there was nothing they could do. I was glad that the weasel wasn¡¯t around. I was thoroughly annoyed with that person. He was supposed to be my contact and get me anything I wanted within reason but it was pathetic how much he wanted me to join their company. Even worse than that he wanted everyone to think that I was a part of their company. I had to talk with Tom and after that, I have barely seen him which was good. The weasel tried to give me a decent cloak that I did like but it had the company markings all over it. If I were to wear it I would advertise that I was a part of their company and that was the final straw. I looked at the card in my hands that could display how many monster cores I had. It was something similar to a bank card and once again I was impressed by the magical technology of this world. What I did learn was that they were extremely expensive. One of the biggest companies that produced different magic tech items has set up a stall and I was going to see what they have for sale. I had just gotten out of the company¡¯s area in the camp when trouble sense notified me that someone was attacking. I could hear the air moving at my 7 o¡¯clock and I quickly rushed towards it. I was able to surprise the assassin that was hunting me. I grabbed his hands which both held a dagger. ¡°I finally got you. I knew that not thinking about my surroundings would finally make you act.¡± He did try to get away, but I was a lot stronger than him. I could see the fear in his eyes, but I didn¡¯t hesitate. I gave him a headbutt which made him drop his daggers and I had to hold him up otherwise he would have dropped to the ground. I pulled my own dagger and cut his throat. There were already guards running towards here and after a quick explanation, I was let go and started to walk towards the market again. I had to curse myself. I should have just stabbed him in the neck not cut him open now I had blood all over me. But that reminded me how some of the raid party members used some items to clean themselves up and after I asked them about it they told me that there is a person here that¡¯s selling those kinds of items. So, when I made it to the market square I looked around and started to head towards the stall that they described. I did get some looks over my bloody appearance, but they were just looks of curiosity and nothing else. Still every time someone looked at me my hand twitched. The constant fighting had put me on edge and I could feel myself being in a battle mindset ready for anything. My fighting had improved a lot and I felt like I was back on the battlefield constantly aware of my surroundings and ready for anything. I was displeased that I already had to spend 13,000 gold for a cleaning item but it was supposed to last for over 50 years so I suppose it should be a good deal. I was glad that I was able to haggle it down, but I also didn¡¯t get a negotiation skill level for it or any other skills. Hopefully, I might be able to get a new skill after my shopping trip. After using the item, I felt a lot better. While I could use my energy to burn off sweat so I wouldn¡¯t stink I was still dirty but now I was clean again like I had just showered. It was amazing. I was surprised at how much energy was needed but I had so much that it didn''t really matter. I could have just gone to the stall that had the best magic tech around, but I took my time and started to familiarize myself with the prices and the different kinds of items there were for sale. About two hours later I saw some people approaching while constantly looking at me which was different. Then the person spoke. ¡°Well, if it isn¡¯t the peasant. Did you get some money from your owners and now think you are anything more than a peasant? When we last met, I should have properly put you in your place.¡± I was confused. ¡°Have we met? I don¡¯t remember you.¡± He did seem somewhat familiar but I just couldn¡¯t remember who he was. I did like how his face started to go red and when he started to speak I wanted to take a few steps back because spit flew all over. ¡°How dare you. You were the insolent person that didn''t get out of our way, so our horses almost trampled you. You were lucky that I was able to stop and spare your worthless life.¡± he continued but now I remembered. He was that idiot. I had completely forgotten about that situation. ¡°Can you stop speaking and spitting at the same time I don¡¯t know what diseases you might carry and honestly, I had completely forgotten about you. I don¡¯t use my brain to remember insignificant incidents, so please leave me alone.¡± I spoke interrupting his yelling. I noticed that everyone around us had gone silent and were either enjoying the show or looking worried. ¡°You you you can''t speak to me like that apologize now and...¡± he tried to put his hand on my shoulder and push me down. I acted on instinct my right hand went behind the man and I pulled him closer while my other arm closed around his head. I didn¡¯t do it fast I didn¡¯t need to. I could see his eyes widen in fear but soon his face was pressed against my armour. I didn¡¯t stop my crushing and soon cracks were heard and then he went limp just before I could stop his head split open and squirted brain and blood all over. I looked up and saw that the nobles that were with him had backed up with looks of horror and fear but soon those looks were replaced by cruel smiles as they started to call for the guards. I looked over myself and was disappointed that I was once again covered in a mess. I pushed the body further away from myself and used the cleaning item again. ¡°This is so useful,¡± I said in a cheerful tone with a big smile on my face. Annoying sounds stopped and I looked up to see the nobles once again silent. The guards were already here but before the nobles could explain anymore, I stated. ¡°The person tried to poison or attack me. His hand was just a few inches away from my neck, so he got what he deserved.¡± There was a moment of silence as people were dumbfounded by my statement, but the guards could only accept my explanation. When the nobles saw that the guards were going to let this go one of them spoke up quite loudly. ¡°I don¡¯t care if this could have been self-defence, it wasn¡¯t, he was just showing that peasant his place but none of that matters. By the laws of the queen any noble killed means an execution, and he still needs to follow the laws as he is a part of the Thorn Rose Company.¡± The noble said in a self-righteous tone. I talked over him. ¡°I am not a part of the Thorn Rose Company and I do not live within the Queen''s land. Your laws do not apply to me, and it was self-defence so shut the fuck up.¡± I said in a menacing tone. The guards acted quickly and soon there was no trace of the dead noble in the market square. I was let go with the warning to not do this again, but we all know that they didn¡¯t have the authority to even give that warning. I could see the noble storming off probably demanding some sort of action be taken but I read the rules it¡¯s their fault that they are stupid. But now that that''s over, back to shopping. chapter 156 The Market Square had expanded quite a lot, so I had quite a lot of stalls to go through. Mainly the items that were being sold were weapons but there were a lot of consumables as well everything else was in a lesser amount. Many of the stalls had similar things with similar prices so soon my mind started to go to different topics. I had gone and seen the building that housed and protected all the monster cores a few days back. I wanted to pick out a few so I could start my elemental seeds but I was quite disappointed. While the dungeon-dropped monster cores had the same energy potential and material value, they didn''t have anything more in them like the monster cores I have gotten before. Turns out that this is something known but the majority of the monster cores used are the ones that are from raid dungeons. Their prices actually fluctuate depending on the market but they stay around 90 gold per one first-rank monster core of average strength. Real-world monster cores can sell for two or three times more because there have patterns that you can get from them and other things like what my trait needs for the elemental seeds. The clerk even said that some monster cores can have 10 times or even 100 times the value depending on what monster they came from and what the core contained. But even with that price difference I could still see why the raid dungeons were the best solution for getting cores, but I also learned that there is a third kind of dungeons they seem to be farming cores from. They were called great dungeons and while you get a lot fewer drops than in a raid dungeon those were stationary. I wanted to listen more but the adventurers that were talking about going to a great dungeon didn''t talk long about it. I need to read the dungeon book that I got and each day I do not the itch at the back of my head gets stronger but I have been able to discipline myself enough to keep the book hidden. The market was full of small winding dirt streets. While there were some straight streets to get to the other side you could get quite lost if you went off those streets. I most liked when I found small stalls selling exotic street food and after half a day in the market, I was dangerously full. I finally made it to a stall that was completely different from any other I had seen before. It did not sell any weapons. While they were selling some items those were mostly made from living plants. But the bulk that they were selling were just different kinds of seeds and saplings. I got quite excited and skipped a few stalls that sold stuff that most others did. Because there were currently a few clients talking to the merchant I started by walking to the left side of the stall so I could examine everything by hand. There were even some apples and other fruit for sale, and I bought two apples for a few copper coins. I was glad that there was a child that helped the main seller. While exchanging the coins I did look at the child and the merchant a few times and there was quite a lot of resemblance, so I was quite certain that they were related. The apple was delicious, and I had to smile while eating it. But before I could finish eating the small girl interrupted me. ¡°Why did you kill that man? It''s wrong to kill someone,¡± she said it in a quiet voice that I could barely hear and the question itself was quite shocking, so it took me quite some time to figure out what she actually asked. I was a bit confused when I finally figured it out but when I started to look around, I could see that there was a way to see the location where I killed the noble. For the first time, I turned my full attention to the little girl and contemplated the question. ¡°Why do you think it¡¯s wrong to kill someone,¡± I asked the girl but she didn''t look happy about that question. ¡°I asked the question first, so you have to answer me first that¡¯s how it¡¯s supposed to work.¡± She said in a confident voice and with a serious face. I had to chuckle a bit. She was quite stubborn, and I felt a little bit sorry for her mother. ¡°Well, how can I answer your question if I don¡¯t know why you think it¡¯s wrong to kill someone.¡± Her face screwed up like she ate something sour but I could see the intelligence in her eyes. While she was thinking I examined some of the saplings that were being sold. I was so glad to see different kinds of apple trees and all other fruits being sold some even only meant for warm climates. Eventually, she answered. ¡°I don¡¯t like your question. Killing someone it¡¯s not right because they want to live, and I don¡¯t like killing. Killing should not be allowed and I think you are a bad man.¡± Her conviction was commendable, but I also felt like this kind of thinking would be quite dangerous for her, especially in this world. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. ¡°For some people, I am certainly a bad man but not for others. I am guessing you are about 9 years old?¡± I waited until she nodded her head to continue. ¡°You are quite young, but I see that you are selling a lot of fruit and other seeds for plants I am assuming you have work with the plants and trees.¡± Another nod but I could also see a bit of confusion on her face. ¡°Has there ever been that time when some of the plants have been diseased and you needed to dispose of them?¡± She nodded again now a bit unsure of herself. ¡°You said that killing someone was wrong but didn''t you kill the plants that had the potential to spread the disease to the other plants? Those plants didn¡¯t want to die and perhaps they would have survived the disease but you decided to kill them to protect the others.¡± I was interrupted by her fanatically shaking her head and saying no quite a few times before calming down. ¡°No plants are not the same as people so that doesn''t.¡± But she stopped. I had felt that she had the trait nature connection and I¡¯m quite sure then that she realized the plants were alive like me and her. While it was a different life they were still alive and life always wants to survive and reproduce no matter in what form. I could see her eyes starting to water up and I felt a bit bad, but I still continue. ¡°If you want to be alive, I¡¯m afraid you will constantly be killing something. It is necessary for survival so to answer why I killed that man. It was for the same reason that you remove the diseased plants. It was to protect the rest.¡± She was crying a lot now. Big fat tears were rolling down her cheeks and I looked up expecting to be yelled at by her mother but instead, she looked at me with a sad face but mouthed thank you to me. I was confused like the small child. She had collected herself enough that she figured it best to run off back to the wagon to hide and think. Soon her mother finished with her last client and then took a few steps towards me. ¡°I¡¯ve been trying to explain that to her for a few years now but with no luck. My husband and I were beginning to really worry. It¡¯s not a nice world out there and she has started to dislike anyone who kills someone. Hopefully, this will help change her mind, but she is stubborn like her grandmother.¡± She gave me a welcoming smile at the end, and I returned it. ¡°I see you are admiring our sapling collection are you interested in buying some fruit trees perhaps.¡± She said in a genuine tone and not the one that she used before that every merchant uses to get the best price. ¡°Oh, admiring is the right word and not only the saplings but everything else as well. I have been looking for these kinds of items but even the local merchants couldn''t guarantee that they could get any to me.¡± She looked sad after I finished speaking. ¡°A complete tragedy in my opinion. Any noble that made fruit and berries illegal for anyone else should be hanged.¡± There was sadness but also hatred in her voice but I was quite confused and she picked up on that. ¡°Where are you from that you haven''t heard of this well no matter I will explain.¡± ¡°Quite a while back some noble decided that fruits and berries should only be eaten by the nobility and unfortunately the idea soon caught on and soon every noble started implementing the ban. It didn''t take long until every fruit tree had been cut down and berry bushes removed from everyone who wasn¡¯t a noble. There were even some places that punished anyone who foraged for berries in the forest.¡± She looked quite angry and sad at the same time when she explained it to me ¡°Now that practice is illegal as the high society needed to step in. Turns out that that decision changed our world a lot and was one of the reasons that lead to the rise of the plague that eventually destroyed so much. You see thanks to our achievement page diseases were rare at least they used to be but when the large majority of the population didn¡¯t get the necessary vitamins even the achievement page couldn''t help them avoid getting sick.¡± ¡°So much of our power depends on our body the base that everything else comes from. So many of us were starved for necessary nutrition and soon diseases started to happen more often after the first time the plague happened the higher society quickly try to figure out why it happened and it seems the problem was that we were no longer getting what our bodies needed.¡± She smiled then before she continued. ¡°Then something happened that no one expected. New laws came out something that rarely happens and the high society started many programs to help bring back these important food items into the market. While the Kingdom nobles still found a way to make fortunes out of the new changes in general the laws helped a lot and as you can see the prices here are completely reasonable even though we needed to take a portal to get here that''s because the high society pays my company about six times the current value for any item sold that¡¯s on their list.¡± She chuckled a bit. ¡°If this wasn''t the case everything would cost 10s of monster cores. Still, this isn¡¯t the most profitable thing to sell which is why I am the only one that sells these things here. Would you be interested in some of these plants?¡± She asked in a hopeful tone, but she didn¡¯t know what to make of me laughing quite deeply. I noticed that there were also expanded backpacks for sale that were meant for the transportation of seeds and saplings. ¡°How much can one of those backpacks fit?¡± I asked her which surprised her as she looked where I was looking. The price for a dimensional backpack or expanded backpack was quite high 20,000 gold coins. It seems to be at a similar price to everywhere else, but it was also enchanted to keep the saplings alive, and that effect would be quite welcomed. She looked towards me and brought one of the backpacks for me to examine. The construction was well made, and I was quite pleased with it I looked up and asked her. ¡°How much would it cost to fill this backpack up with different kinds of seeds and saplings.¡± chapter 157 While the merchant was excited before she was now dumbfounded, but she was still an experienced merchant. ¡°Is there anything that you don''t want?¡± She asked me while looking around her own stall. ¡°Yes, any tree or berry bush that can¡¯t survive a cold winter I will not need and then the other plant that needs more than five months of sunlight to mature produce is also out." She looked at me a bit funny for my second limitation, but her excitement was quite palpable. ¡°Well, it will depend somewhat on the distribution of the different types of seeds and saplings but to fill up the backpack will approximately cost 120,000 gold coins.¡± When she finished saying that she winced a bit, probably thinking I would not want that much, but I smiled and said. ¡°Perfect let''s start discussing the number of different saplings and seeds that I want I just hope you have enough.¡± She waved the last comment off. The number of different plants available was crazy and some stuff was evolved a bit but I decided not to pick any of those. They would have brought up the cost a lot for little benefit. I was incredibly happy when I walked away a few hours later. There were so many trees and other seeds that I have never heard of before and I couldn¡¯t wait to grow and taste them. I also got every important fruit that I could remember from earth. Cherry trees, walnuts, different kinds of herbs, strawberries, raspberries. Everything, I had everything, and I was so happy. After about 10 minutes I snapped out of the daze I had been in. I had just walked without any direction for 10 minutes and I think if I was younger, I might have skipped happily down the street. So many of my problems were now taken care of and I couldn¡¯t wait until these plants were grown. I think I can make an exception for most of these and use some of the farmers that had abilities that made things grow faster so I won¡¯t have to wait 10 years before some of the trees should be able to produce fruit. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down. I still had lots of monster cores I needed to use up. The backpack that I was now wearing was heavy, but it was so satisfying to wear it, so I didn''t mind the weight. Running with the backpack would be a lot more difficult now but I was up for this challenge. The backpack did need a semi-regular insert of energy to keep the enchantments working but it kept everything inside alive. It was a small price to pay but after about another hour I had finally searched the entire market. I had two stalls that I wanted to return to and one of those sold weapons. Why this one was interesting was because it didn¡¯t sell any weapons that had runes or enchantments on them but the prices were two or three times more than in any other shop. I wanted to examine the weapons the first time I found the stall but there was quite a big argument with the merchant and some of the customers apparently didn¡¯t like the prices. The second time I went there the same thing was happening but with different people. This time it seems that I was in luck as there wasn¡¯t anyone who was arguing with the merchant this time. I started to move towards it but before I got there on another stall was an interesting item that caught my eye. I inspected it but before I could read the message, I finally got a notification that my identification had tiered up. I quickly looked over my choices, but I wasn¡¯t really satisfied with any of them. I was hoping for a more active version of identify. Something that would actively work to trying to pierce any creature''s innate defences and show more of their achievement page. I ended up picking danger identifier. I didn¡¯t have any better choices as I already could do what the other abilities offered with my other abilities or traits. The item itself wasn¡¯t anything special but I took the opportunity to use the new ability to identify one of the weapons. After using it the weapon kind of had an orange glow to it but it didn¡¯t interfere with me seeing the weapon which was a good thing. I used the ability on one of the spears for sale and its tip came out as red but the shaft itself was a dark shade of green. I did a few more tests and it seems for the current me the most dangerous weapons were the ones that could pierce. Slashing ones were also dangerous but a bit less so and blunt weapons were almost safe unless they were really heavy but even then, they didn''t go past yellow. Currently, I could only see green, yellow, and red and everything in between to identify a weapon''s danger level but I would assume that something that could one-shot me would be coloured in either black or something similar. I finally moved on to the stall and started to look over the weapons that were there. I was pleasantly surprised that every weapon here seemed to be more dangerous than at the last stall. The merchant gave me a gruff greeting but otherwise, she just continued to look around while keeping an eye on me and looking miserable. The merchant was a dwarf woman which I only knew because one of the last times I was here someone was quite loudly cursing the fact that she was a dwarf. Otherwise, it would be hard to tell because she was standing on some sort of platform behind the stall that made her seem taller. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. When I picked up one of the knives, she gave me a warning look, but she didn¡¯t say that I couldn¡¯t examine it. It took me only a few moments to figure out why they were so expensive and I had to smile. These weapons while meant for the first rank but had incredibly good energy paths which would mean any ability used with it could be a lot stronger similar to the bows that I wanted to sell. Not everything here was made out of steel but more often out of better materials. I would want to buy myself a two-handed sword but I was informed that I could keep the sword and the shield that I have been using in that dungeon so I wouldn¡¯t need it. While a weapon bought here would be better it wouldn¡¯t be by too much. The grumpy look the merchant gave me lessened with my examination and obvious excitement but I had to hope that she would like to buy as well. ¡°Are you finally done with the examination; you seem to be interested in the dagger.¡± She said before I could speak. I shook my head which made her narrow her eyes towards me. ¡°I was hoping that perhaps you would want to buy a few bows that I have for sale. I think you would like them.¡± I could see her already readying to reject me, but my last words change her mind. I took off my shoulder bag that I had made that was almost as tall as me and hold all the five bows that I have brought. Before I could get any of the bows out a sudden shout took the merchant''s attention. ¡°You lying piece of shit I spent three times more cores and you told me this weapon will last me for a long time but just after two delves it can only produce half the results and I can only put 2/3 the energy into it. It¡¯s almost worse than some of the runed weaponry.¡± The small woman marched up showing a long one-sided dagger to the merchant while furiously shaking it. At first, I could see the merchant readying for another fight with a customer but her anger switched to confusion when she heard what was being said. The two continued to argue but after the merchant tested out the weapon, she looked more confused than anyone else. ¡°This is weird. This shouldn¡¯t happen. Something is wrong with the weapon that¡¯s for sure I would exchange this one as it''s clearly defective, but I don¡¯t have any weapons that are similar to this one perhaps you would be willing to exchange it for a different type of weapon.¡± The merchant asked with a bit more confidence than she started with. But before the short woman answered I spoke up. ¡°Could I examine it? Perhaps I can find the reason why it''s not working properly.¡± The two women stopped and looked at me with hostility, but I was more curious about how energy pathways could be destroyed or blocked. If this was something I could do during a fight it could cripple my opponent''s equipment. Both women looked at me for a few seconds and both of them shrugged their shoulders and the merchant handed the weapon to me. I examined it for a bit and had to use some of my abilities and what I found surprised me a lot. ¡°Wow haven''t seen anything like that before. Did you perhaps fight the scythe wielders and blocked their weapons with this dagger?¡± The small woman looked at me questioningly but gave a slight nod. ¡°I don¡¯t know how this is possible but about halfway along the blade, a piece of the scythe tip is buried in it. It seems to be the piercing part of it, which is incredibly weird, but I guess it had some substance to it. Whatever ability you used on this weapon must have greatly reduced the penetrative properties of the scythe and even made it possible for a piece to be broken inside of the dagger.¡± When I finally looked up from my examination and explanation I found two wide-eyed women. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s weird but the part that is broken inside the weapon seems to be made out of energy so if you do not supply this weapon with any energy for let''s say a week the broken piece should disappear, and your dagger should work like it¡¯s supposed to. Although perhaps this might be beneficial with a little bit of work.¡± I was quite focused as I started to manipulate my energy into the piece that had broken inside the weapon. It took me a bit of time and I had to use some of my abilities and a bit more energy than I wanted to but eventually, the dagger was enveloped with a purple hue and the weapon was extended a few inches similar to the scythe weapon in the dungeon. I tested the weapon by hitting it into the stall and I was glad to see that it had pierced the wood but when I pulled it out there was no mark left behind. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s so awesome.¡± I looked up to see the merchant openly gawking at me and the owner of the weapon completely shell-shocked. ¡°Oh yeah, I got a little bit carried away there sorry about that. There would probably be some enchanter or rune carver that could make that effect into a more permanent one. You should have as much time as you want if you just keep giving the weapon energy every once in a while.¡± I handed the weapon back to the small woman who took it with shaking hands. It was at that time that I noticed that there was a lot more silence than I was used to and when I looked around everyone was looking towards me. Well shit, might have fucked up a bit. I watched as the weapon owner quickly run away and then I looked towards the merchant who was still quite speechless. ¡°Yeah, so about the bows that I wanted to sell would you take a look.¡± My speaking snapped her out of whatever state she was in, and she started to look over my bows. A smile came over her face and she excused herself and went to the wagon with one of the bows. She came back and I could see the look any merchant had when they knew they were about to make money. She bargained with all her skill and even my negotiation skill levelled up towards the end, but the best bow sold for 35,000 gold. The other three for 20,000 and the last one for 18,000. It was a lot more than I expected but seeing her face I knew that she was going to make a lot more money selling the bows somewhere else. I understand that every merchant needs to make some money somehow so it was inevitable that I couldn¡¯t get the full price. It was now time to go to the last stop where I will most likely spend all the money I have gotten. It was time to visit the only store that sold magic tech. I looked at the card and saw that I had 353,000 gold left. I have learned that it¡¯s not the only company to produce or develop new magical items it wasn''t even the biggest but it was still supposed to sell items that were better than every other item available in this market. I was glad that I was able to get a business card from that weapon merchant as she was quite willing to buy any more bows that I have for sale and I¡¯m hoping that I can get a similar card for the magic tech people as it would allow me to keep in touch with them later on and hopefully order some more useful things. chapter 158 There were always people around the magic tech stall. One good thing was that they had multiple sellers, but most people didn¡¯t buy anything they just were curious about what everything did. I used this opportunity to just listen in. For example, one of the items was similar to the cleaning device that I bought at the beginning of the day. While mine can clean dirt, blood and stuff like that theirs can actually eliminate acid-level contamination. The price of course is a lot crisper as the lowest version sold for 40,000. Looking at the prices here I could understand why only a few people were buying anything but seeing what those items could do I also understand why people were asking and were interested in them. Here I could see the same card being sold as the one that was displaying how much funds I have available to spend but it seems like it was only a part of a bigger system. There were also the books that David wants that are connected to each other and have many other enchantments on them. Those prices were a bit more reasonable probably because they have bigger competition for those items. What caught my eye were hand size boxes with interesting carvings that were all different. It seems that one of the sellers noticed my curiosity as I could hear someone addressing me. ¡°Good Sir, are you perhaps interested in the soul cores.¡± I looked up and saw his smiling face, but it wasn''t a real smile, and I could see that he was quite tired of today''s work. ¡°Perhaps I would be if I knew what this thing was.¡± I could see him trying not to roll his eyes and he managed it so he must be decent that his job. ¡°You see our soul core is well the core of our most famous system. You see the card that you currently hold that displays how many monster cores you have. It is connected to one of these soul cores. Inside here is an intelligence that makes all that function.¡± He said it like he had memorised the line from some manual. I listened with half an ear as he continued explaining how the soul core can be used for markets as it can have additional devices connecting it to the global price market and so on and all the other things it could do. But my mind was on how much easier everything would be with the merit system after we had something like this. I was deep in my mind when I finally figured out that the seller had stopped speaking and I could see his nice guy act starting to crack. The prices were a little bit out of my price range. The most expensive one cost 600,000 and the lowest was 480,000. ¡°Why do they cost different amounts?¡± I asked the seller who was a bit taken aback by my question. It took him a few moments to answer so I figured this wasn¡¯t covered in one of his manuals. ¡°It depends on the capabilities of the intelligence as some are better than others.¡± He answered. The first time he mentioned intelligence my alarm bells started to sound but now I was not certain I wanted to buy one of the soul cores. ¡°Is there a person inside,¡± I asked but the seller immediately denied it. ¡°No no, the intelligent started out as a monster but our technicians have taught them the requisite knowledge and skills for them to do the work needed.¡± He finally answered but he stumbled over some of the words. I don¡¯t know how that is any better. And from the look in his eyes, I don¡¯t think the teaching was sitting the monster down and trying to teach it maths. I picked one up and examined it. The seller didn¡¯t seem to like that, but I didn¡¯t care that much. Then something weird happened my mind palace ability sort of started to buzz like a mobile phone that¡¯s vibrating and on a table. I diverted my attention to it and was surprised to find a lion-looking monster on the hill inside the ability. It was a bit ghostly but otherwise looked like a lion that lived in the circus where they used a lot of whips to keep him in line. His skin was damaged in a lot of places and there were a lot of scars. He didn''t talk but he didn''t need to for me to understand what had happened. While there was still some defiance in the creature it was broken and will do whatever was asked of him. I didn¡¯t know how to feel about this. On one hand, it seemed evil but on the other hand, I kind of needed this device. I decided to put this one down and pick up another one. This one held a big rabbit. I could feel the monster ready to do anything asked. There weren¡¯t the same oppressive and sad feelings I got from the other. Most likely because it¡¯s a more docile monster so it did not put up as much of a fight, so the result was a bit more palatable. There were four more soul cores that were on display but most of them were between the rabbit and the lion in how badly they were treated when they were made into this item. I looked up and asked. ¡°Do you perhaps have more of these none of these quite suit my needs?¡± I said it in a commanding tone so he wouldn¡¯t start explaining to me how it was basically no difference between the boxes only how fast they could operate and how many different things they could do. He could see how serious I was as I just kept looking straight into his eyes promising things that I wouldn¡¯t actually do. This made the seller a bit flustered as he bent under the stall to pick up some sort of box. It was a beautiful wood box and inside were another seven of the soul cores. I could see just a hint of shaking in his hands when he started to hand me one. To my surprise, another seller saw what was happening and yelled for my seller to drop the soul core. I could see some fear in the other seller''s eyes. Stolen story; please report. Then I hear a piercing scream that came from my seller. I looked at the soul core that he was holding and saw that his hands were gripping it tightly, but it didn¡¯t seem to be his choice. Something similar to when electricity courses through muscles were happening and they were locked. I felt a bit bad, and I was quite certain I could handle whatever the box was doing better so I grabbed it and wrenched it out of his hand. There wasn¡¯t any pain. Perhaps my mind palace was protecting me. A few moments late the notification that the ability gave was a lot more urgent something more like an air raid siren. I jumped into the ability to see an owlbear that was raging and tearing up everything he saw. ¡°Hey there,¡± I yelled so that he could hear me over its own raging. It stopped immediately and looked at me with hateful eyes. A moment later it charged towards me. ¡°So they have not been able to break you,¡± I said and immediately the monster''s charge faltered as he slowly stopped. There was still hatred in his eyes but also confusion. To my surprise, it communicated. ¡°I don¡¯t know you. You are not one of the previous ones. I will not submit.¡± And then after a slight pause, it continued. ¡°You are different not like the cruel people from before who thought themselves powerful because of it.¡± The beast thought for a bit. ¡°I see strength but also smell death on you. You are young but feel old. Why have come here?¡± It was still looking at me but slowly started to look around for the first time. ¡°I didn¡¯t come to you this is my place. When you attacked me this is the place that defends me.¡± I could feel amusement in him at that statement, so I continue. ¡°I haven¡¯t had this ability for long so it¡¯s nothing much yet, but it will be. It just requires some time.¡± It looked around some more and started to smell the air. I do not know what he found but I could see him relax a bit. ¡°If you save me from the people who want to break me I will serve you. They have taught me a lot but know that I will suffer no fools and will fight whoever tries to enslave me.¡± I could feel the weight of the monster''s power surround me and then it disappeared without hurting me. The monster was gone from my mind palace and while I had some awareness of my outside surroundings I now went fully back. The seller that was hurt was currently getting some medical support while the others watched. I coughed a bit to get at least one of their attention and when I had it I said. ¡°200,000 and I will buy it off you.¡± There was a moment of pause before the seller understood what I wanted. His face looked like he had eaten something sour, but they talked amongst themselves and raise the price to 300,000. In the end, I ended up getting it for 225,000 but I paid 275,000 so I could get 10 of the magic books that David wants. Hopefully, I got a good deal out of it and the spirit seemed to be a lot more powerful than the other ones even the one that sold for 600,000. With the rest of the money, I ended up buying some energy-enhanced steel so I could make better armour out of it. I also went and got a bigger bag not enchanted didn¡¯t have money for that but with it, I could bring everything back. I also ordered my own introduction cards so I could be contacted by people using the mailing systems of this world. All together right now I had three cards for the three merchants the magic tech, the weapon merchant and the plant seller. I still had some cores left but those should fit into the back so I could bring them with me. I brought everything to my tent and started to pack. I was pretty certain that we weren¡¯t going to clear the dungeon so I really didn¡¯t want to stay if that was the case. When I finished packing and looked at everything I needed to bring I had to sigh out loud. The plant backpack will go over my front and the big and sturdy backpack that looks stupidly big will go over my back where it is supposed to go. The shield and the sword I will need to hold in my hands while I run because I didn¡¯t have any more room for them. It was starting to get late, but I didn¡¯t have a problem running at night, but I did want to eat so I went to the mess hall. It was full like always. I went and piled as much food on the plates as would fit and I was a bit saddened that I hadn¡¯t the time to visit the cooks. I was enjoyed the meal but before I was done I noticed when Luana came into the mess hall. She usually didn¡¯t eat here so I was surprised to see her put my assumptions were confirmed as she was now rank two. I was enjoying the last of my bread when I noticed her approaching me. ¡°Good evening Rich I am glad I found you. You can already see but I have advanced, and Tom will probably announce that we will no longer be able to finish the dungeon tomorrow. I do not know if you will go with them to clear a few floors, but I wanted to give you this.¡± She handed me her introduction card. ¡°I will be going to one of the universities but you''re a good fighter and perhaps we could fight together in the future again.¡± She was a bit timider in her approach than I would have expected but I happily accepted the card. I was still a bit confused about why she thought we might meet again but then she did something with mana on one of her fingers and I saw a similar ring that I had gotten from The Court of The Young. Well, she just became a lot more impressive, but I now understood that we might actually meet again. ¡°Well in that case take this.¡± I handed her one of my cards and she accepted it with a small bow. We talked for a few minutes. She was also from the same Kingdom that I¡¯m from and she seemed to know a lot more about everything than me, but it also looked like she was in a bit of a hurry as she wanted to catch the next portal. I wished I could talk to her a bit more but I guess I wouldn¡¯t get the chance. After that, I went and visited Tom who was quite saddened that I wouldn¡¯t be delving tomorrow but I wasn¡¯t going to waste my time delving a few floors. I would barely make anything, and it would take so much time. He handed me a few more magic books that David wants for my payment and a few more books with useful information. I used my tattoo storage for them, picked up my leftover cores and about two hours later after my dinner I was on the road heading back to my home. chapter 159 It was extremely tiring to run like this I was probably carrying twice my body weight if not more and my body weighed quite a lot. Over time I have put on quite a lot of muscle and whatever traits affected my muscles have made their weight even more. What this meant was that I needed to take breaks more often. Even my ability to make myself weigh less wasn¡¯t able to help that much. If I would push the ability, I would be using up too much energy. While coming to the raid dungeon was more like heavy exercise now it felt like a gruelling march where the enemy was just behind you and if we stopped, you would die. I needed to manage my energy a lot more and this caused me to walk a lot more. I also kept my energy reserves a lot higher because I was too over-encumbered to fight properly so I need everything in case I had to run away. This routine cost me a lot of time but also allowed me to notice that something was off. I was crossing a bridge that was quite high up spanning across a steep valley where once there might have been a river running through. While walking across it I smelt smoke. This made my hair stand up and I used some of my energy to quickly move across the stone bridge. It was a nice sunny morning, so everything was painted in a warm light. When I looked underneath the bridge I did not find any bandits instead I found something a lot stronger. Sitting around the fire cooking some sort of meat were seven trolls. Two of them were quite young probably still children. They were one of the fallen minor races of this world but probably the most well-known of them all simply because of their strength. While some other fallen races can cause more damage in greater numbers like the goblins or orcs in an individual basis no fallen race was stronger than the trolls. On the older ones I could see how their skin was starting to turn into stone and how they had grown a lot larger than any human should be. Eventually, their skin and flesh will change into stone. It¡¯s a long process which will make them unable to move. It¡¯s the only way for a troll to die peacefully. Until that happened, they have strong regeneration and resistance to mana which make them extremely hard to kill. The most effective way to neutralize their regeneration is natural fire but getting enough to break through the older troll''s rock skin is difficult. I wasn¡¯t planning on attacking them simply because I wasn¡¯t willing to lose any of my gathered wealth. What surprised me was how normal they were acting. The stories I have heard described them as monstrous beasts with no brains left only savagery against anyone they come across, but here they were for some reason living under a bridge around a campfire cooking what looked like some sort of deer-like beast. I kept standing there out of curiosity and also taking a long-needed break. It didn''t take me long to understand why they were underneath the bridge when one of the older ones went away from the shade of the bridge. I could see a little bit of discomfort in the creature¡¯s movement and soon its skin started to smoke a bit. I have no idea what experiments or curses did this to the troll race but whatever it was it certainly changed a whole lot in them. I had watched for over half an hour and thought that it would be a good time to leave before they noticed me, but I was a bit too late. I was completely dumbfounded when one of the children started to wave shyly at me like a greeting any other child would do when they noticed someone interesting. I was so dumbfounded that I waved back the same way but the child¡¯s actions didn¡¯t go unnoticed. One of the bigger trolls looked curiously towards the younger troll and then towards me. Then I heard the bellowing rage fill yell and one by one all the older trolls look towards me and did the same and started to rush towards me. They were a lot faster than I expected but I didn''t wait to find out how strong they might be and just went back running down the road. I wonder if the reaction is something that will happen because of their biology or because of the constant interactions with other people that always ended up in a fight. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. While I was slowly making my way back home, I felt something interesting. The closer I got to home the more I need to make it home. Sometimes I even catch myself pushing myself too hard and I had to rein myself back in. This effect became harder to ignore but I believe my stubbornness was strong enough to withstand whatever force was pulling me. There was a benefit to feeling this way as time went by fast and while it probably took twice as long to get back, I watch finally able to see the village. But before the village, I could see some of the farmlands that we had worked on and I was glad to see them all planted ready to bring us food before the winter. I couldn''t stop at the village like I originally planned something was calling me back and now it was physically hard to resist. Perhaps it was my new ability and I needed to reconnect with my land to make it truly active. Whatever it was I let myself go and pushed a bit harder to get back home. I already know that around the dungeon some of the younger people including Arthur occupied the small house and delved into the dungeon whenever they could. I didn¡¯t mind it, but we probably needed to make a firmer schedule so everyone could better use this resource. Of course, that would have to wait until I read the dungeon book and probably finished all my farm work for this spring. I was glad that the lookout they had posted noticed me coming and I felt an incredible rush when I crossed my land boundary. Incredibly vitality started to flow into me, and my mind and body felt refreshed. It felt even better than before, and I probably had to thank my new abilities for that. But then that feeling of euphoria changed into pain. The pain was so strong that I was falling to the ground before I could notice. I was able to gain a modicum of control and managed to stop my fall just before putting one of my knees to the ground. Something wanted me to surrender to beg for my life. Was it my land that was attacking? It was hard to think to understand what was going on but whatever it was, I would never kneel, so I pushed through the pain and got back up. I was breathing heavily. Sweat was running all over me and all my muscles were shaking from the effort of keeping myself standing. I could see some people approaching and trying to yell at me, but it was all so muddled. Everything was so slow, yet I knew one thing something was trying to make me submit and the more I struggled the harder it became. I don¡¯t know how long I stood there fighting it. It might have been milliseconds, or it might have been hours, but my slow mind finally started to use some abilities which will hopefully help. I decreased my weight, and my situation became a bit better but not for long as I could feel myself getting heavier even as I fought to make myself lighter. But I could also feel some force trying to help me. I tried to look around but the people who had approached before were now backing off, so they probably weren¡¯t the problem or the help. For some reason it still felt like the land itself was fighting me so I thought perhaps my new ability might be fighting against me, so I tried to use it but instead of making it worse it helped. The support that I was getting was from my land but the thing attacking me was something bigger something ancient and something that was testing me to see if I was worthy. Thanks to my own land''s help my mind was able to think a bit better helping me figure out what was happening. The planet itself was testing me. When I figured it out it was even harder to stand up, but I still pushed through it. It was quite late in the night, so I was surprised that everything was bright. I figure it out. It was because I was burning my energy so brightly that everything around me was illuminated. That startled me as I looked into myself and saw that I was almost empty there was almost no energy left. I need to finish this quickly. But I didn¡¯t even know why I was being tested. What else had happened that might have caused this? The new trait Baron could that be a cause for a test. Was the land testing if I was worthy of nobility in its eyes? I remembered what I read about nobility. While once kings were true nobles granted their sovereignty by the land itself most of the kingdom''s nobles nowadays weren''t recognized by the land their titles are held by the strength of the ancestors who claimed those titles. When I figure this out the pressure on me lessened by a lot but then a sudden burning in my side almost caused me to lose focus. At first, I thought that I was shot there by some sniper but soon I figured out it was the tattoo of the land-claiming token. I moved the tattoo to my hand noticing they weren¡¯t holding anything. I probably dropped my sword and shield a long time ago. I grabbed hold of the token now in its original form and I knew what I had to do. I needed to claim land and announce myself worthy. chapter 160 The token crumbled to pieces and a pulse of energy exploded out quickly moving beyond my ability to see. I was getting a feeling of what land had been claimed but I grabbed hold of it and forced it into my control with my iron will. Otherwise, the land area I would be claiming would have just radiated out from my current location but now I was controlling it. My own land was quickly added to this boundary, and it was quite hard to make it stop expanding along those borders, but I managed. With those borders firm, the claimed land quickly expanded towards the South along the two rivers. The village was quickly claimed but the token kept going long after it should have run out of steam. In the end, I claimed a huge area of land. The claim almost reached the county capital but didn¡¯t quite make it far enough to claim the town. A huge part of my claim extended into the grasslands where so many rabbits live. I do not know why I could claim so much but it was probably something to do with my class and ability. I will need to let David calculate the exact area but that will need to wait because apparently, I still have some decisions to make. I could feel my Baron trait changing into something bigger probably an Earl simply because of the land area that I now owned but I had to fight against it. I could feel that idea fighting against my class and what it meant. I could let it happen eventually becoming a king, but I would be giving up a huge portion of my classes¡¯ strength. No, I needed to change something but the more I resisted without any clear instructions for what I wanted to change the pain returned. I was angry that I needed to make those decisions now so fast, but I didn¡¯t waver. The first thing that formed in my mind was the name of my country. United Freeholds. This name gave the power to the idea of what I wanted. A place where an individual could hold land but still be a part of something bigger, but the regular noble system wouldn¡¯t work. There is no place for Barons or Dukes or even Kings something else must take its place. Only briefly the idea of clans crossed my mind but as soon as I had thought about it the idea was taken, and I no longer had any control over it. I was being shaken and slowly I could hear some voices. Like a snap, I woke up and got to my feet pushing the people who are trying to wake me violently away before I understood what was happening. I looked around and noticed Arthur who looked quite panicked, and the other people around here were much the same. I took a deep breath in and felt a lot better the next breath helped me centre myself and my racing heart finally started to calm down. ¡°Are you guys alright? Did I hurt any of you?¡± I asked the people who were slowly starting to get up. Having heard me speak I saw relief in them. Arthur was the one who spoke. ¡°Rich you scared the living hell out of us. What was happening?¡± I took a moment before I answered. After my brief explanation, I started to look around and noticed the damage to the road. Where I had stood the ground was cracked and sunken in like something heavy had hit it. I wondered how I was able to stand while bearing so much weight but when I tried to move again, I felt a sharp pain in my legs. It felt like I had pulled every muscle there, but I was still able to limp slowly towards the house. I had a lot of company who offered to bring everything else that I had brought so I no longer had any extra stuff that I needed to carry. This made the walking easier and we spent the long walk talking. They didn''t have much to tell me about their days as it was quite routine for them, but they thoroughly liked the story that I told to tell them. They were like young children hearing an adventuring story for the first time but it helped me take my mind off whatever had happened. Arthur made me food and after I scarfed it down, I left everyone in the main room and went to get some sleep. Before I got to bed, I winced a bit when I remembered how the wolves almost toppled me down when they rushed me. They were so glad to see me and I them that I almost forgot about the pain in my legs. Goose was the happiest that I was back, and I had really missed him. I gave him some meat and scratched him in his favourite spot while getting ready for a deep sleep that will probably take a few days. But before that, I opened the notification that I had ignored till now. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. You have claimed a land now called United Freeholds. You own direct land in this country making you eligible for clan status. No previous clan detected creating a new clan. You are the head of clan Gray Eagle. Not only did the Baron trait disappear it was replaced by a trait clan Gray Eagle. To my surprise, it even had a symbol associated with it. It was an eagle with three heads but two of those heads were wolf heads. It was quite a menacing symbol. I could feel that this would also be counted as a coat of arms for my clan, but the notifications didn¡¯t stop there. You are one of the administrators of the country called United Freeholds New clan assigned clan administrators. That came as a surprise as a second trait appeared called clan administrators. This also had a symbol. A fort with two towers and a gatehouse. It seems like there¡¯s a lot more to this clan system than I originally thought. To be honest I barely remember the idea that I had before it was used to make whatever it now was. I was so tired but I still wanted to know so I concentrated on feeling what the traits were telling me. The clan Gray Eagle was quite simple. It indicated that I owned land and was the owner of that land. Any children I have would get that trait so would my wife but apparently, I could also give it to my sworn servants as well. The clan administrator one was a lot harder to understand and it will probably take a long time before its subtleties are understood. But in the short term, it was easy to understand what the purpose of it was. It was to manage land that wasn''t controlled by any other clan and to be the unifying entity for all the clans that were part of the country United Freeholds. But that took the last of whatever was still keeping me up. I fell asleep dreaming of what plants and trees was I going to plant and to where. POV Salazar Dragontooth The last weeks have been awful so many meetings that even the word itself makes me want to retch. But the anger I feel keeps me from going to some dungeon and beating out some of my frustration. It was now all but confirmed that the Wolgrite Empire did have some class or ability to change the plague to target people of a higher level, but the plague ended up getting out of their control and killing so many. Plans are still being thought up and argued over, but the biggest problem was that the empire has quite a lot of high-rank people that are still loyal to it. And no one wants an open war in the high society. This will need to be handled carefully but most likely the empire will be torn to pieces with all its secrets taken and learned so we can be better prepared for the future. I was glad that the raid dungeon finally collapsed, and I hope that no other raid dungeon would appear around here anytime soon. It was good to be back in my own office although the mountain of paperwork that I was currently working on was annoying. Thanks to me bringing that information to the authority I was given some helpers that will deal with a lot of my paperwork so when I was done with the piles of it, I will have so much less work in the future. I took a moment to drink some tea and look at the people who had temporary tables in front of my table and were all working through a lot of the paperwork a lot faster than I ever could. I do not know why this isn¡¯t standard practice but I¡¯m glad that something good came out of all this trouble. I was about to go back to dealing with some of the papers when I noticed one of my helpers looking at something with wide eyes. The surprise on her face was only there for a few moments before she looked at me and pointed towards the map. I took another sip and looked at the map, but I already expected what I would see. Rich finally claimed land, but I can now see why she was a bit surprised. Looks like Rich was able to pick up a noble trait. I had to stand up and walked to the map when I noticed how big the area started to become. I watched closely as the map changed and when the borders stopped growing, I was impressed, it was larger than almost all the city-states around this area and after a quick look he was in the 5th place by the land area claimed which was quite an accomplishment, but we will see if he can hold on to that much land. Finally, the name appeared, and I was a bit disappointed and confused. United Freeholds, what a weird name but then again, he was a weird one. When I switched the map mode I was again quite surprised at what I saw. There was no Earl or Barony listed under the House of Rich Dirt but instead, most of the area was underneath something called clan administrators and at the very tip of the country was an area that I knew Rich lived in. That was shown as owned by the clan Gray Eagle. Well, of course, he would create so much more paperwork for me, and it seems that this country is recognized by the land itself which means that no one can take it away from him at least not with politics only with brute force. I guess we will see in the following years if he can keep his country or not. I finished the tea and went back to work but I did wonder how everyone else will react to this. chapter 161 I woke up slowly and had to stretch myself which caused my legs to radiate pain. It was a lot better than before I went to sleep but still hurt. I looked outside and saw that it was early morning and when I figured that out I could feel how hungry I was. When I opened my room door, I could smell the cooking food and it smelled heavenly. Arthur and Emma were here cooking, and I was glad to see them both. ¡°Good morning and whatever you¡¯re cooking is smelling delicious.¡± My voice was still groggy from sleep but they both looked at me with smiles on their faces. ¡°Good morning,¡± they said both in unison, but Emma continued after that. ¡°You were out for two days, and some people have started to worry. Everyone wants to know what has happened.¡± ¡°That is completely understandable but that is going to be a longer explanation than I originally planned for when I returned. I have a lot of work to do here so when we are done with our breakfast could one of you, please go to the village and bring everyone in charge here? I can explain everything to them while I¡¯m working.¡± I said while I sat down and drank some water. They both looked at me a bit weirdly, but I think they can also feel that the land needs tending to and I now have a lot more things I needed to plant and a few projects that will need to be completed. ¡°Also, whoever of you will go the village please place an order with the Glass Smith. I will need 230 one-by-one meters glass panels that would be thick enough to survive some rough weather.¡± They looked at me with questioning looks so I explained. ¡°I was able to get some seeds, but they really aren''t made for this weather even in the summer. I will need to build a specific building for them, which will require a lot of glass. Speaking of building have you found where you would like to build your homes?¡± My question made them go still for a moment and when they turned towards me all serious like I could barely keep my laugh in. They might try to hide it, but they were practically giddy with excitement. ¡°We have all found our place and George has already started digging the foundation as you taught us.¡± Said, Emma. ¡°Oh, has he now. And why does he seem to be in so much hurry.¡± I asked. ¡°Well, we are all quite excited, but he needs it done as soon as he can. He wants to marry his girlfriend.¡± Answer Arthur looking a bit thoughtful at the end. Well, he moved fast but that¡¯s normal for these times and regular people. ¡°Well, I can understand the need then especially if he needs to build a big house if he wants that huge family of his. Have you thought about what kind of a house you would want and what kind of features it should have?¡± I asked while trying to resist drooling over the smell of the food. ¡°We have some ideas but we would like to talk them through with you.¡± Said Arthur but he was speaking for all of them. I nodded to that, and he continued. ¡°I want a smaller house but for other buildings that I want I need a dedicated building for butchery.¡± Arthur wanted to continue but I held up my hand. ¡°You are my apprentices, and I will help and guide you on building your home and help claim your land, but my help will end there. I will still give advice and I could be persuaded to help if needed but.¡± Before I could continue, he interrupted me. ¡°Yes, I know a homesteader must know how to build and fix whatever is on his land,¡± Arthur said in a monotone voice, but I know that it was just his way of learning. I was glad that he had remembered that. We talked some more, and I learned what kind of house they wanted and where. Emma¡¯s land will start just beyond the dungeon bordering my own land and will be on the side of the road that is facing the grassland. She wanted the mix of arable land and access to the rabbit population for her craft. Her house will be like my own perhaps a bit smaller and she will build some extra buildings for her craft. George¡¯s land will be on the other side of the road next to her land. He has already picked where he wanted to start building and how big of a house he wants, but we will still have to talk about his ideas. He''s currently in the village so that will have to wait. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. He wanted access to the river because he wanted to have lots of animals. Supplying animals with drinking water from wells is a bad idea as they can drink quite a lot. Still, this brought up one of the biggest problems I have found and that¡¯s procuring animals. Even before the collapse getting farm animals was difficult but now I have absolutely no idea what to do. Arthur also found where he wants his house and his will be a lot smaller more like a cabin and built inside the forest. Before we can build his house, we will need to build a decent road and a bridge. His house would be to the west past the grassland in the forest behind it. It will be close to the river, but he wants it to be on the other side. It turns out that he has been doing a lot of scouting and while the land will still border mine, he will actually be claiming some new land for our country. He will be nestled between the mountains to the west and the grassland to the east of him claiming a large part of the river there as well. It seems that he has lots of plans and at least partly wants to be some sort of a ranger keeping order in the forest. Almost all of his land will be inside the forest. The breakfast of fried eggs, meat, and onions might seem simple, but it was so delicious. Arthur was the one who decided to go to the village and Emma was tagging along with me as we just talked. She was a bit surprised when she found out that I planned on already firing up the sauna, but I needed to clean myself from all the travelling and fighting I have done. Now the item that I bought technically made me clean, but I still felt that I needed a proper cleaning and besides that politics are best discussed in the sauna. Emma of course didn¡¯t agree with that, but she also wasn''t willing to argue against it. By the time I finished preparing the sauna the wolves and Goose had returned from their morning hunt. What followed was a few minutes of play fighting with them. I was glad to see how big they have gotten and how well-organized their attacks were. Next, I checked how the chickens were. They seem to be doing well. The three new calves looked to be doing excellent and I greeted them all. Francis was the most excited to see me. We haven¡¯t had a lot of time to hang out as we both had different jobs to do so I was glad to know we will have a lot of time to work together. ¡°Hey, there big fellow. We will have a lot of work to do in the following days. Are you ready for some pulling?¡± As an answer he almost pushed me to the ground he was so excited. I will need to talk to some of the villagers who handled him while they were making new fields. Hopefully, they can help guide him on repairing and making new roads that we will need. They will be simple compacted dirt roads and will need to be upgraded but that will take some time. I was so glad to be back home and ready for some farming. Emma finally left me after I visited the animals as she had her own things to do so I decided to walk the land and inspect all my current fields. They needed some work but that¡¯s what I was going to do starting tomorrow but I would also need to make a few new fields. I have a lot of different seeds, but the amounts aren¡¯t where I would like them to be. That means that I mostly want to plant all of them so I could get more seeds so I could distribute them next year so more people can grow them. For the vegetables that can be grown outside I will not be making more raised beds just using a plough to make higher furrow¡¯s to get them a bit more of the ground. It will be good enough, especially for carrots and other similar plants. Finally, I ended up where I planted the apple and the iron oak saplings. They were behind the cow pasture and a large portion of semi grass land that was quickly being captured by trees stretched towards the lake before it where it almost became a proper forest. This place will need some good planning, but it would be filled with different kinds of trees. They will all have their special needs and I can¡¯t just plant them anywhere. Some of the trees will be more able to handle the sandier soil towards the lake and will need to be planted there so I would have more room in good soil. I believe this will require some meditation with my trait, but I can already see a forest full of different kinds of trees. The trees will also need some protection from the rabbits although there''s almost none here some to get past the hill land between here and the grassland and they might bring a lot of trouble. Perhaps this would be a good job for the wolves and hopefully, I can notice any rabbit that starts to come here through my land¡¯s authority ability. I would also need to explore this ability and many more new things I have gotten in my achievement page but before all that, I will tend to my land. I started to head back as the people from the village were soon going to make it to my home. I so hope that I can just give them the trait clan administrator as it would make everything so much simpler. Hopefully, we can get everything discussed today while I prepare all my farming equipment and of course the visit to the sauna but after that, I really want some time to do what I love to do. chapter 162 I made it to my house just a few minutes before everyone arrived the only problem was, I didn''t know what to say. Thinking back a bit on my plan to do some work and explaining might be a bit rude. But my chance to think about it was finally interrupted as everyone started to greet me before they reached me. They all seem to have happy faces probably from seeing me alive and well. Not knowing the correct way to begin I started even before everyone got into a proper distance for talking. ¡°I guess the most important thing I have to tell you all is this I was forced to use the land claim token. We are now in a nation called United Freeholds.¡± That pronouncement made everyone stop and it was kind of funny seeing them trying to puzzle out what I meant. Then everyone started to speak at the same time and even with my traits and abilities, it was hard to understand it all. It seems that the biggest problem was the name which I should have realized would have been their first complaint. That made me chuckle a bit which made everyone finally stop and that allowed me to properly explain. I invited them all inside. There were twelve people plus Arthur who arrived and so I gave a brief explanation of what happened. I spoke briefly of my travels and what happened in the raid dungeon but I promised them all a more comprehensive report later on. Then I explained how I had to claim the land because of a trait I had gotten. They all went quiet after and were a lot more serious than I was used to. I was a bit puzzled by it, but David explained. ¡°So what tier noble are you? Did you at least make it to Earl?¡± He asked in a serious but a bit sad voice. That allowed me to finally understand what happened. In the story, I hadn¡¯t reached the part about the clans so they thought that I became a noble in charge of the whole nation. I could understand why they wouldn¡¯t like that as they had lived like that their whole lives and had to suffer at the hands of nobles with too much power. I gave them a kind smile and explained. ¡°You do not have to worry. I keep my promises even if I need to die because of them. Well, you could argue that I am a noble in this new nation but you can also argue that I¡¯m not.¡± I could see the confusion in their eyes but also hope so I continued. ¡°I was able to change the normal noble structure into something different. I will be completely honest with you alI I am not strictly certain how it works.¡± I gave a self-deprecating laugh which was met with silence. ¡°Yeah, I can already hear all your questions. I was in a lot of pain, and I only briefly had the idea before I passed out but here¡¯s all I know so far. In this nation we have clans. I was assigned a clan because I owned land. It came with a name and a symbol in trait form. Has anyone ever heard of that before?¡± I asked them in hopes that anyone had a better explanation but the explanation we got didn¡¯t help us. ¡°The only clan structure I have heard of was from orcs who had regained their class. But that was more of him bragging about being a clan member while then trying to kill me, so I really don¡¯t know much more.¡± Answered one of the Knights that was in charge of the current scouts. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m pretty sure this is different because of the second trait I got. It''s called clan administrator. And it''s a lot more complicated to understand than my own personal clan trait.¡± Everyone looked at me with apprehension and I could understand them. This wasn¡¯t really something that I truly understand. ¡°Let¡¯s start with the simpler part, my clan. It¡¯s named Gray Eagle if anyone was wondering. So, what I know from interacting with this trait is that my children will get it, my wife could get it and anyone who will swear fealty to me would get it. What else it could signify I do not know perhaps it would be more social than anything else.¡± One of the Knights actually wanted to get one to one of his knees and swear fealty to me, but I stopped him. ¡°Wait you need to stop that.¡± He looked at me ready to argue but I explained. ¡°I believe you still need to swear not to my clan specifically I believe you need to swear loyalty to the nation then you will be a part of this nation and hopefully if you become a part of this nation I can promote or give everybody here the clan administrator trait. Then we can see what will happen next.¡± He thought a few moments on that and nodded. We discussed it a bit more, but the same knight volunteered to give the oath in the name of the nation. ¡°I swear to uphold the laws and beliefs of my nation The United Freeholds.¡± It was a short oath, but it meant a lot and I could feel it was all that was needed at least in the word department the more important part was the intent behind it. For the first time I felt a brother next to me someone who would have my back and I his. I could literally feel him becoming a part of the same nation as I am. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. There was a moment of silence but when our eyes met, we both know that we are of the same nation, and it felt nice. ¡°I have gained a trait called clan Freeman. I will need some time to understand what it means but one thing I am certain of is it means that I am a part of this nation.¡± He announced surprising us all. I had not expected him to get a clan. I could see him confused, excited and thoughtful as he sat down. After a few moments, he explained to us that he was a bit overwhelmed. I coaxed a better explanation from him, and I figured out what was going on. It seems that I didn¡¯t notice it because I already was connected to the land, but the trait gave him a tiny connection to the nation''s land but for someone who was completely unfamiliar with the sensation, it would be overwhelming. One by one they all swore, and our nation¡¯s population started to grow. They all got the trait but before we continue seeing if they can get the clan administrator trait they all needed time to adjust. As I had expected both Emma and Arthur didn''t have that problem as the nature connection, they possessed was similar. During this time, I prepare my farming equipment. After about two hours they were all ready for the next step. What that was going to be I had no idea, so we started to discuss. We ended up trying me just saying. ¡°I grant you, administrator rights.¡± And many other variations of the same idea but nothing worked. But there was a belief that another oath was needed. But when someone tried it, it didn¡¯t work so I decided to meditate on the trait to try to find out what was needed. It took me a few hours before I came out of my meditation with the knowledge needed. ¡°So, everyone I have some good news. I now know exactly what we need to do and an oath is a part of it but a better description would be a ritual.¡± I smiled at them, but David was the first to ask, ¡°and what''s the bad news?¡± That froze my smile. ¡°Yeah, well I was correct that the trait clan administrator is a lot deeper than I even thought and you will all have to bleed for the ritual.¡± My declaration made everyone go silent. I know that rituals and especially rituals involving blood were not looked at kindly, but one by one I could see the doubt and fear in everyone''s eyes turning into determination. ¡°So, I guess you have all decided. Let¡¯s head outside then can''t do it inside you will need to bleed onto the nation''s soil for it to work.¡± I could see a few gulps, but they all followed with rigid shoulders. It was hard to break lifelong beliefs, but I believe that they have become somewhat used to that while dealing with me. This time David was the first to volunteer and so I told him what he needed to do. I gave him a knife and told him to cut his palm at the end of the oath and let the blood drops fall onto the grass. And so, he began following my lead. ¡°I David Everock swear to guide, protect and serve all who call United Freeholds their home. I will do my job to the best of my ability without greed or malice. I hereby swear it by intent, by voice and by blood.¡± He finished and then cut his palm letting drops of blood hit the grass. The blood didn¡¯t stay there but it was pulled downwards unnaturally and eventually into the earth itself at which point I could see a small pulse of energy erupt that was absorbed by David. He fell to the ground gasping for air, and I know how he must feel having his connection to the land deepen or perhaps his connection to the nation would be a more correct term. It took him a few minutes before he stood up and the first thing, I saw was that his hand didn''t have a cut. Apparently, the ritual fixes that. He was still unsteady on his feet, but he explained the same as I had. The trait was difficult to understand, and I believe it was even worse for him because he didn¡¯t have the same practice as I have had. Eventually, they all gave the oath, and they were all out of it for a few hours. Emma and Arthur didn¡¯t give it as they didn¡¯t want to be a part of leading anyone, they just wanted to live their own lives. Me and my apprentices cooked them all some food which made them feel a bit better, but they weren¡¯t themselves yet. I believe that it will take a few days perhaps even weeks to get used to the new trait so further discussion of politics needed to wait. Going with them to the sauna helped them a lot and smiles started to return to their faces even though they still all looked a bit high. Jumping into the water cleared their heads even further. After that, they were quite tired, but they still decided to journey back to the village even though it will take them a few hours to accomplish that. I didn¡¯t go with them, but Emma and Arthur decided to go back and guide them to the village just in case something happened as they weren''t really able to protect themselves. Although I knew that nothing would be able to hurt them along the way. After I got the trait clan administrators, I could slowly feel the entire nation¡¯s land but in the last few hours that feeling has morphed into knowledge. My land''s authority ability seems to not only work with my own land but with the nation''s land as well. The amount of information is even overwhelming for me so I slowed it down a lot but my knowledge of the land has already reached past the village and will probably encompass the nation in a few days. The sight beyond my own land is a bit foggier compared to my current vision of my own land but that being said no threat could be inside my nation without me knowing. This was so incredibly powerful and OP that I actually had to find a chair to sit in so I could take in the meaning of this. chapter 163 I woke up just before the sun started to rise. I only slept for about 2 hours, but I still felt great. The rest of the night was spent meditating on some of the new traits that I have gotten, but I still have a lot left to work through before I understand everything new that I have gotten. Thanks to my nightly discovery of what the trait life-giving energy does, I need to learn how to expel my energy in a controlled way so when I¡¯m planting, I will be able to give some energy to all the seeds. My trait of life-giving energy was a lot better than I expected and not only will it help the recovery of living things from disease it also boosts their vitality. It¡¯s not something that I can turn off or on it''s just a part of my energy. It won¡¯t be able to heal anyone rapidly no matter what I do but it will boost recovery from serious wounds. I am really pleased with this trait and hope that the other new things I have will be at least half as good as this. I did my morning stretches after which I went running while at the same time trying to slow my energy circulation as much as possible so I would actually exhaust my body. But I was unsuccessful. My body is just too strong even with almost minimal energy circulation to boost it. I will need to find new ways and one of the thoughts that I have is using my tattoo storage to weigh myself down in strategic places that would make exercising harder. Goose was really enjoying the running as it allowed him to fly above me. I have noticed that the wind seems to be starting to support him while he flies without him consciously doing so. I am guessing that soon one of his evolutions will unlock giving him access to his air manipulation. When I got back to the farm Francis was already waiting by the farming equipment ready for some work. We started by doing the grain fields and harrowing them before we will sow the seeds. It was peaceful work and something I loved to do. Francis was a lot stronger now and I was quite confident that he will be getting an evolution soon. Dealing with any rocks that appeared was a lot easier because I could simply pick them up and throw them far enough away to clear the field. I was a bit annoyed that it seems collecting rocks will need to be a yearly job same as back on earth but I guess it¡¯s to do with the geology of the area. There was also a need to add some new grain fields for some of the seeds so we would need to start ploughing some new land. This was a lot simpler than last year and even some of the bigger rocks that appeared were easy to deal with. Most of them I could just stomp into smaller pieces and only a few of the bigger ones needed a tool for the job. I expanded the grain fields along the road getting ever closer to the hordes of rabbits. Hopefully, the wolves can deal with them or even Goose, but if necessary, I can come up with a few protective measures for my plant. During the entire day, I slowly felt how more people were joining our nation and that also made me smile. I did tell them to take it easy until they got their feet under them before continuing but I¡¯m guessing that they didn¡¯t want to wait. I wondered if anyone would refuse to give the oath. I had no idea what we will do then but the more interesting thing would be if someone wanted to give the oath but didn''t intend to follow it. Would he be punished by the oath I kind of want to know but also that would suck if someone would be willing to lie like that. Francis and I worked until the sun was about to set before we packed everything up and cleaned everything so we could start again tomorrow. Shortly after I finished everything George made it to the house. It was finally time for us to talk about his house plans. They were a bit ambitious, to say the least, and I was able to convince him to change his plans. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. The house he wanted to build would have been way too big and would have taken too long to finish. The first problem was that he didn''t consider building a second floor and tried to fit everything into the first floor. A house with a large kitchen and living area and with ten bedrooms was a bit too much for a one-floor house. While the change helped it was still big, but the second floor made the footprint a lot smaller. I also convinced him to not build out the second floor just yet and focus on the first floor which will give him time to finish to 2nd floor by himself. He wasn''t going to have eight children within a year. While at first, he was a bit let down the more we discussed and planned I could see some stress leaving him and by the end he was quite pleased. We talked some more while eating and drinking some tea and I had him talk about his girlfriend a bit more and the kind of wedding they wanted to have. He ended up sleeping here but I wasn¡¯t tired enough to sleep. I decided to start to meditate on where to plant all the different tree samplings and that took the entire night. Even then I was only about halfway through all of the saplings. By the end, I will be planting a small forest with just a bit less than a thousand trees. But I will get past the thousand mark as I want to collect and plant some of the saplings from the other trees around here that have good properties including a lot more saplings for the iron oak. After a few weeks when the saplings have settled down, I will get some of the farmers with fast-growing capabilities to come and boost the trees. It will probably take them quite a long time most likely the entire summer as they don¡¯t have that much energy to use. It would be best if they could perhaps live here, they could be my new apprentices. I believe my new class allows me to have a lot more than before and even with my older class I wasn¡¯t at the limit of how many apprentices I could take. Before the sun started to rise, I went and started planting some of the saplings which had really good locations for their needs. Some of the more exotic trees will need some terraforming but that will also mean I will need to build another building that I want. I guess it¡¯s time for some automation for this farm. The sun was properly up so Francis and I got back to work but it seems that today will bring a surprise. A group of goblins was approaching but it will take time some time to make it here as it seems they were bringing some heavy items with them. I noticed them before they reached my land as the nation¡¯s land was a bit further beyond my own borders but not by a lot. Not even the nation''s borders came close to the goblin''s village as I was able to guide it to stay along the river, but the land owned by the nation was a lot closer than the goblins might be comfortable with. There will also be a problem because the scouts will most definitely notice the huge goblin village that was basically at our border. I will not be able to keep them a secret for much longer. I am quite confident that it will not come to any conflict at least not a physical one but there will still be trouble. I used the chance while working to think about all the problems of setting up a nation. There were so many things needed and honestly, I was not really that confident in my ability to think about everything necessary. Yeah, I know about warfare and how to run a homestead and just a bit about politics with a few more stuff sprinkled in but that¡¯s where my skill sets end. Towards the evening I was greeted with a wonderful notification that made my already good mood go even higher. I was able to level up my farming and finally got it to the advanced tier. I was given three magnificent choices but there was no question about which one I was going to pick. The first option was fast growth which will be useful but not something I¡¯m too interested in. The second one was disease removal. Incredibly useful and might even be of better use outside of farming but the last one, I just had to take that. Evolution cultivation. As I read it my mind instantly started to think about all the possibilities. What if I could recreate the iron oak or make other plans as remarkable as that tree is? Perhaps I could make even better trees for bows or perhaps plants that would yield fabrics stronger than steel plate armour. You have gained a new ability evolution cultivation level 1 chapter 164 I so wanted to test out the new ability right away but my need to do things efficiently got in the way. We could continue working on the grain field and finish it today and have enough time to store and clean everything before I had to go and meet the goblins or I could just start messing around with the new ability. I groaned out loud but told Francis to start pulling again. I don¡¯t know if I should be proud of myself or disappointed, and it was hard to focus on anything when my mind wanted to think about what the new ability can do. Familiar work got me back into routine and soon it felt easy to work again. I continued to work on releasing my energy in a controlled fashion so I could give all the seeds the best opportunity to grow. I think I¡¯m starting to get the hang of it, but I will still have some time to train it as I will need to make some more fields on the other side of the road. Every time my mind starts to think about all the different seeds I have I have an irrational need to let out a giggle of happiness. Now I don¡¯t know if this is a part of some new trait influencing me or if I''m really so happy about some new seeds. I have slowly noticed that it¡¯s getting hard to notice what actions are trait influenced and what are things that I used to do. One thing I¡¯m certain of is that I didn''t use to stretch so much and want to sleep in places where the sun would hit me. I sometimes still have trouble not moving. That trait was still the hardest to get used to as its influence was strong even after taking control of it. This scared me somewhat. I know that there are traits a lot stronger than what I currently have, but then again there must be something to help otherwise every strong person would be a bit of a looney. I pushed those thoughts to the side and finished up the field. After I cleaned up the equipment and stored it for the night, I cleaned myself up a bit by taking a swim in the river and then it was time to meet the goblins. This time the meeting went fast. They didn¡¯t have any important things to say just that they brought the first load of copper and tin. I did ask some vague questions, but they didn''t seem to know anything about the expanded land or the new nation. Perhaps there won''t be any troubles for some time which was good news for me. They left quite quickly and happily as they didn''t need to pull heavy carts anymore. I now had another problem. What to do with so many copper and tin-bearing rocks? One good thing was that distinguishing them wasn''t hard as they looked completely different but I will need to melt both of them down to separate the useless rock from the metal. Tin will require a smelting process where no air will get inside, and copper will just need strong heat. The ores were not the ones I was familiar with so I wondered how they were formed. The other problem was of course how much ore there was. If I would have to estimate there was about one ton of ore for each of the metals. I started to look at the pieces with my abilities and quickly figured out that I will probably get around 120 kilograms of tin and about 80 kilograms of copper. That was actually a bad percentage of metals for each of the ore to have. I looked at the six carts that were holding the ore and I was impressed with the craftsmanship. Their woodworking ability had increased by a lot and it was a simple matter of just pulling all the carts across the bridge. Not knowing what else to do with them I just left them next to the temporary forge. One thing that was good about ore was that it wasn''t going to go bad so I could deal with it at a later date. When I finished securing the last cart, I rub my hands together and activate my new ability. The immediate headache threw me off a bit, but I figured out what I had done wrong. I need to focus the ability on one single plant so my mind wouldn¡¯t be overwhelmed but when I activated it all the information from the surrounding grass flew into me overwhelming my mind. Note to self, start testing out any new ability with a modicum of self-control. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I lay flat on the ground and separated one of the grass blades. I activated my ability again and I was amazed at the information that I got. There were traces of dozens of different possible evolutions. They were shown as different geometric shapes and colours. It was hard work focusing on them but slowly I could understand what every evolution meant. Most of them were meaningless. Like the one that will make the grass blades a bit wider. But some were interesting. One made the grass blade edges sharper for example. When I tested another grass blade to my surprise I noticed and recognized some of the evolutions without having to focus on them. It seems that with enough tries and memorization looking for and figuring out what evolutions the plant has will be quick. Only one of the evolutions was different from the first one. It was an evolution that would make the plant blade start to curl up on itself. It was a useless one but still different. It took me an hour and four different spots before I figured out another thing that my ability let me discover. The evolutions that I was seeing were caused by energy or mana and possibly holy power although I have not seen that kind of evolution here. But there was also the normal kind of evolution similar to the one on earth. Just simple genetics. Noticing this was a lot harder but still possible. What I learned was that energy evolution and natural evolution could work against each other, but they could also boost one another. For example, plants could have a natural evolution to produce fewer seeds but have them more protected but then energy-based evolution would want more seeds with less protection. That could happen and the plant will most likely fail in the long run. Of course, it might happen that both evolutions target the same thing the same way. While it wouldn¡¯t mean that the plant would necessarily be successful and survive it could certainly produce a better effect. While I tried my best, I could not influence the natural evolution that would still need to be done the old-fashioned way selecting the seeds that has the properties you''re looking for then planting that seed and hoping for the best. Although now I will be able to do that a lot better. While finding out about all this was interesting the main focus of this ability was to influence energy-based evolutions. I couldn¡¯t instantly give the plant a new evolution but what I could do was focus the plants towards a particular evolution which was incredibly powerful. I finally finished inspecting the grass like a crazy person and decided to go and test the most evolved plant that I possessed. The iron oak was perhaps too simple of a name for this plant. When I activated my ability, I almost blacked out from all the information and my eyes were filled with colourful spots for quite some time afterwards. I quickly came to the realization that cultivating a plant to have similar properties will take a long time and a lot of trial and error. It had hundreds of evolutions all of them fully developed and it was like a family tree where you could trace back evolutions to the very beginning. I sat beside the Iron oak sapling in a meditative position for a long time trying to puzzle out this magnificent wonder of nature. It seems that some of the evolutions were building blocks for other evolutions and wouldn¡¯t work if one of those was missing. Some of the geometric shapes were so complex it was actually hard to wrap my mind around them. I was finally able to pull myself away and I was completely tired and drenched in sweat. Just the implications that I learned were staggering. A completely new world opened up to me and I couldn¡¯t wait to continue to dive into it. I knew that I was tired and should have stopped but I just couldn¡¯t. I located my bag of special seeds that I collected during the last harvest. This bag contained the seeds of plants that I noticed were healthier or had more grain to give. I started to go through the bag separating the seeds on the kitchen table. Eventually, Goose was able to get me out of my fixation and I could finally see how tired I was. I thank the little fellow and start to make myself some food before I went and slept. But before that, I took out the dungeon book that I got and started to go through it. I was still bad at reading but David and the others had helped me a lot. I was able to understand some of the other books I was given fairly well but this one had so many words that I didn¡¯t recognize that I just closed the book and returned it to storage. I would have to look at it when my mind wasn¡¯t so tired. chapter 165 I woke up to the sun glaring in my eyes. Before I knew it, I was stretching on the bed. ¡°Son of a bitch.¡± Again and why am I sleeping at the bottom of the bed where my feet usually are? It didn¡¯t take long for me to find the answer as this was the spot where most of the sun was shining. ¡°Son of a bitch.¡± I hope that no one will see this. Acting like a cat is not something I want to do so perhaps it''s time to get a better handle on this trait. So, before I did anything I went into meditation and tried to tighten my control over kinetic absorption. After a few hours, I hoped that I could handle it a bit better but only time will tell. Now it was well past breakfast, so I quickly scarfed some food down and rushed outside where Francis was already waiting stumping up and down the road. ¡°Hey, big fella. I¡¯m here, sorry for the wait.¡± I got the huff in return, but Francis did move to the shed where the farming equipment waited. A little bit of work calmed him down quickly enough and I was able to start to think about the revelations I learned yesterday. I hadn¡¯t expected the plants or nature to work like this. It didn¡¯t make much sense at a first glance. How wasn''t the world full of highly evolved plant life, but the question was answered quickly enough? You just had to look for the next predator in the food chain. Last year when I was still practising hunting rabbits, I remember that the rabbits went crazy over some types of grass that periodically appeared. Back then I just thought it might be a type of grass that they just enjoyed eating but I¡¯m quite certain now that it was somehow evolved and that the animals ate it to fuel their own evolution. There was also the limiting ceiling for evolutions as well, energy density. Calling the iron oak, a wonder of nature was not wrong in any meaning. The fact that the tree could survive at all in this environment was amazing. Its need for energy to survive was minimal and I¡¯m guessing quite unique amongst highly evolved plants, but I¡¯m quite certain that iron is its limit for this kind of environment. For any other stronger metals it would need to be in a much more energy-dense area to be able to pull off what it has with iron. For my own planting needs, I think I will start to cultivate dual affinities. I wouldn¡¯t try to force any plant into something they aren''t suited for. If I can achieve synergy between natural and energy-based evolutions, I think I can achieve great results even though it will take longer. But what is time for me? I will most likely live for hundreds of years and even if I die young or old someone can pick up my hobby and continue. Wasn¡¯t that the reason I wanted anything to do with other people in the first place? My daydreaming took quite some time and another day of making fields was done. During the nighttime, I spent sorting some more seeds which I did at a more reasonable speed. I also spent a few hours before morning trying to understand the dungeon book and I did understand it a lot better this time but there were still many words foreign to me and perhaps they weren''t even in the common language that humans spoke. But that didn¡¯t matter as I was still learning a lot. Like that few more days passed. George joined me at the farmhouse, but he spent his time felling trees in the forest. I and Francis helped him bring the felled trees back during the evenings and finally on the 4th day, I finished making all the new fields. They were all ready for planting, but I didn¡¯t need Francis for this so George took him to the forest to help him bring back lumber. I now had 42 acres of farmland and I was going to plant every inch of it. I used sticks with different colour ribbons to mark out specific zones in each of the fields. Into those zones went special seeds. Every special seed has been influenced to boost some specific evolutions. I won¡¯t be keeping track of any of these plants individually but will just collect their seeds for the next year and separate the best out before the next planting season. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Of course, I will try to keep an eye out for any interesting plants from all of my fields but there is no way I could keep track of every single plant so I have to hope that I would notice the best plants and if I don¡¯t then well shit luck for me then. I have long learned that trying to force perfection was a waste of time. Perfection comes with time and experience, it can¡¯t be rushed. I didn¡¯t have much time to fool around as my true nature connection was indicating that rain was coming in a few days. I was quite pleased that I was probably better at telling the weather than the scientific equipment back on earth. The planting went by pleasantly and I enjoyed every moment of it. Using my energy to boost the seeds was exhausting but in a good way. My advanced farming had reached level 7 and I couldn¡¯t wait to find out how much it will grow during this year. There were so many different plant seeds and so many of them I didn¡¯t know. I could get the feel of what the plant was and what properties it had but they were unknown to me. There were 11 different seeds similar to wheat and rye that could be used to make similar food items. I hope that our nation''s cooks will want to open up lots of inns and experiment with all different kinds of ingredients. I also had a few hops-like plants that would be perfect for making beer and while I wasn¡¯t the biggest fan of beer, I still enjoyed it and hoped that many people will start to experiment and make different flavours of alcohol. While I was still a bit too young and didn¡¯t like putting too much poison into my body right now in the future, I would certainly want to enjoy the unique tastes of all kinds of foods and drinks. With the grain fields sorted out, I started with the root vegetables and those kinds of plants. Francis helped me with this, and the potatoes were the first to be put into the ground. I was happy to see beet and radish seeds as they were one of my favourites. There were also multiple kinds of them so I couldn¡¯t wait to taste them all. I hadn¡¯t taken a break since I started planting seeds and I was glad that I was finished before the rain started. I will still have some seeds to plant but for that, I will need the greenhouse. After a well-deserved rest, I looked at the backpack which still held so many saplings. My work wasn''t done but I wasn¡¯t going to start doing it today as it was still raining. Before the rain started George had gone back to the village as he wanted to spend time with his girlfriend. I wondered how long it would be before their first child will be born. I used the rainy day to study the dungeon book. The revelations there were eye-opening and made me sigh in relief. There were ways to make my dreams come true, but I will still need to learn how to do all those things. Of course, I will also need to consult with everyone else as well as this wouldn¡¯t just affect me but the entire nation. If we were to do this it would be a huge responsibility but in the long term, it would secure our future. Just thinking about every homestead having its own personal dungeon. How powerful could we be? POV???? ¡°Report¡± ¡°Yes, my king. Some of the southern City-states have already clashed in battle but most are still waiting and seeing what happens around them. The Queendom is silent and does not seem ready for a conquering campaign.¡± ¡°Generals advise we not try and push towards the south. Instead to secure our southern borders and try diplomacy for the short term.¡± ¡°For the west and east our natural borders there are perfect for defence, so conquering is not advised but instead we raid and steal food, resources and slaves. The city-states there will try and attack us, but they will weaken themselves against our defences. When they are weak, we will strike.¡± ¡°To the north are easy targets. A few small city-states and even some unlanded communities. The only unknown is the recently created nation of United Freeholds.¡± ¡°Well make it known then I will not tolerate failure. We will start our campaign to the north within the week.¡± Announced the king in front of his war council. chapter 166 While working on my farm was satisfying, I had to think up a schedule as I needed to do quite a few things. For one I haven¡¯t even given the books I had gotten to David. Neither have I done anything with the soul core. Even if I wanted to do everything, I couldn¡¯t do them all at once. There simply wasn''t enough time even though I could now go without sleep for a lot longer and technically had more time. The weather was clearing out, but it was already getting dark, so I decided to take it easy and just stay indoors and perhaps do some reading. I was able to read a few pages before I had to stop. I had forsaken my cleanliness in my mad rush to finish planting everything and the first moment I relaxed I could smell how dirty I was. The worst part was that I had used manure, so I was surprised I just now noticed this. I cringed a bit knowing what my bed must smell like. Why hadn¡¯t I used my device to clean myself? I quickly found the device which at least made me technically clean although I still wanted to go to the sauna today. The other problem was my bed. I didn¡¯t have any clean stuff left to change this mess out. I will need to wash them all. That idea made me pause. I looked at the device in my hand and thought it couldn''t hurt to try. I picked up the bedsheet and everything else. Balancing them in one hand while activating the device. It took a bit more energy and time, but it cleaned up everything. ¡°This will save so much time.¡± No more washing next to the river for hours and hours. I believe this is actually better than anything back on earth. My mood was now back where it was before and with a smiling face, I walked to the sauna so I could relax. While sitting in the relaxing room and waiting for the furnaces to heat up the heating room I reminisced about the good old days. It was so interesting how many of my happiest teenage memories revolved around saunas. The first birthday I drank was in a sauna. The first girl l kissed I did it in a sauna. I became friends with so many people around or in a sauna that it¡¯s kind of ridiculous. Then everything was ruined by that stupid war. It was sad that after the war the sauna wasn¡¯t the same. While it was still relaxing to go, there wasn¡¯t a spark of excitement that I remembered it had back then. A bit of the spark did come back after I had my first children but those days when I was still young and naive are precious. While I periodically fed the fire I was not completely in this world and not completely in my memories as well I was somewhere in between. I choose to focus on the fun memories, and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn¡¯t feel the pain that usually comes with them. I guess time really heals everything. I just wish it did it faster. I was sitting outside after my second visit to the heating room. The first time I jumped into the river and enjoyed the cold water but this time I just sat and enjoyed the moon and starlight while goose perched on the railing. I would need to plant the saplings and then I will build the framework for the greenhouse. Hopefully, the glass will arrive soon, but I will not wait until it''s finished. I will bring my apprentices back the day after tomorrow and have them start working on making everything they need to start their own homestead. First, they will need to make their own tools which will take them some time and I will need to bring more iron so they can make everything needed. Then they can set up a proper building site and start making their homes. While they might start at the same time the different footprints will mean that they will take different times to finish everything which will give me enough time to teach them individually which would be a good thing. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Francis will need to do a lot of work, but he will like that. It will probably take them a month or two to finish their first house and then they can use the rest of the year to build everything else needed so they can start the next year ready to be self-sufficient. Every one of them will get chickens and I was glad to see that the chickens were already hatching a new generation. Even though it will take them the rest of the year to finish their homes they will no longer be my apprentices when they finish their first building and I think it would be a good idea to bring new people here and apprentice them. If I made some new bunk beds and use the three rooms I have I will be able to fit 12 people. The real question becomes if I can teach them all the meaning of the homesteader class, hopefully, I can. I will probably have to go to the village more often than I currently have just so everyone can see me once in a while, and I¡¯m up to date with everything going on there. The newest problem that I hadn''t accounted for, but I should have realized was the monsters that are challenging our borders. At first, I didn¡¯t understand what was happening but now I¡¯m quite certain that if not taken care of monsters can push back the nation¡¯s borders and I do not think they would be so easily expanded. I still don¡¯t know what¡¯s the conditions for this as I know many monsters running around the nation without doing this but one particular big and vicious boar towards the south at the western border there is threatening a large portion of land. I thought about this problem for a few hours and my other responsibilities. I know I needed to start doing things today. The sun was slowly starting to peak over the horizon, so I woke Goose up as I needed him for a job. He was still half asleep in my arms while I took him back to the house where I started to write two letters. One was for my apprentices telling them that they needed to come here the day after tomorrow. The other one was for the council telling them that I will take care of the monster boar problem. When I finished with the letters, I tied them to Goose with a blue ribbon so no one would mistake him for a wild animal. ¡°Find one of my apprentices and when you have delivered the letter come back here.¡± After saying that I gave Goose a little boost by extending my arm and he quickly took flight heading towards the village. I looked as he flew for a few moments before I went back inside picked up the backpack and headed towards the future forest that I was going to plant. The planting itself was quite monotonous but thankfully every sapling was a bit different which made it somewhat interesting. I could deal with the evolutions at a later date for now I just focused on planting them in the correct positions. I moved fast even sometimes using my haste ability to speed up my movement but even then, I was extremely careful with every sapling. Like so the hours rolled by as I kept planting. I didn¡¯t know the exact time, but it was already the next day when I finished with almost all the saplings. If I had to guess it took about 28 hours. There were only 20 saplings left, but they were a bit special and needed extra work. These saplings needed moving water around them otherwise they wouldn¡¯t grow and would wither and die. The trees themselves will look like large Willow trees but with red bark and produce lots of fruits that will look like long sticks. I was told that the fruit is filled with sugar. The seller told me that this tree was one of the best ways to produce sugar as the tree would produce lots of produce every year. For now, I just found a suitable location along the river and started to dig the waterway that I wanted. The bank here was close to the water line, so it wasn¡¯t difficult to dig, and my abilities made it even faster. Still, I had to dig quite a lot as I wanted enough space between the trees so that they could fully grow and wouldn¡¯t smother each other. I then dived into the river and pulled out some rocks so I could secure the sapling so they wouldn¡¯t get swept away by the constant current. This took over two hours which was quite a long time considering I only planted 20 saplings. But I was done for now. I will still need to go and collect some local saplings and plant them as well, but they could wait a few days. It was time to take care of that boar but for that, I will need the wolves. Goose had long ago returned to me, so I gave him another task of finding the wolves and bringing them to the farmhouse. The wolves liked to roam around sometimes in packs sometimes alone, so it took Goose some time to bring everyone back. There was really no need for a mission statement or a rousing speech. The wolves could pick up on my nonverbal communication quite easily. I could see the excitement and apprehension when they figured out we were moving to fight a strong enemy but that apprehension grew a lot when they understood that they were going to fight it on their own and I was there just in case something went wrong. chapter 167 We were running towards the South through the grass field. I had my shield and the two-handed sword with me and of course, I was in full armour and gear. For my enhanced body it felt light, but I still remembered how it felt when I was running in full gear back during the war. It was never a good thing when you had to run but I had to do it more often than I liked. A good situation could turn shit in a few seconds, so you always had to be ready to move. I wanted to feel the burn like I used to so I made myself heavier than I could finally feel all my muscles starting to strain. My heart started to beat fast, and I wished I was going into a fight but instead I was leading others into a fight. I did not enjoy that, but I knew it was necessary. I wasn¡¯t using my movement skill otherwise I would have outpaced the wolves too much, so I was just running. Even though the wolves are a lot weaker than me I suspect if they pushed themselves more, they could outpace me even when I was fully pushing myself. I looked towards them as they moved up and down changing positions as they kept pace with me. Having four legs really was too much of an advantage. Up in the sky, Goose was flying ahead of us keeping an eye out as we were making quite a lot of noise running so fast. It took a lot of concentration to keep going and I hated whenever I had to run through a puddle or a small stream as my boots splashed water everywhere. That reminded me of a couple of pairs of socks that were in my backpack. Always have dry socks. Absolutely the best advice whenever you go hiking or into war. We had only run for a little bit before Goose informed me that some sort of animal herd was up ahead. It took me a few moments to interpret all images I was seeing to understand it was the horse herd near the village. Right the horses. I had forgotten about them, again. I hope I remember this time to try to start domesticating them again. We would need a lot of them. We ran past them quite fast, but the lead horse always kept an eye on us but when he saw me, he relaxed a bit, and he relaxed even more when we just ran past them. Our run continued for quite some time before we finally get close to our target location. I had to curse a bit about how big the nation''s land was but there was nothing I could do about that. Well, I guess I could let monsters take parts out, but it just wouldn¡¯t feel right. The wolves got some water and let their bodies dissipate heat so they could be ready for the fight ahead. I could feel that they were nervous but also reassured that I was there. I could probably kill the beast with one hit but how are the wolves going to develop and get stronger if I did that? One thing that I was enjoying was how finding the monster was quite trivial as I knew exactly where it is. Goose was scouting and already had laid eyes upon the beast. It took me a bit to understand what I was seeing but soon I figured out what the beast was doing. At first, I just thought that it might be destroying the ground as it was angry but soon patterns emerged and after a bit more scouting it was clear that it was building a den so he could probably start reproducing or something like that. While monsters did have some instincts from their former animal selves the monster core often twisted those instincts into something else. Through observation, I have also noticed that not all monsters were as crazy and there seemed to be quite a large difference between every individual. It would be interesting to observe this phenomenon more closely, but it will have to be on the passive side for now. I simply don¡¯t have the time or the need. Another idea came to me and perhaps this explained why this beast was threatening the borders while others weren¡¯t. If it was truly making a den or something like that then that would mean it would want permanent habitation in this area. Perhaps that was the reason, but I couldn¡¯t confirm it as I would need a lot more examples or a book explaining these things. The wolves were finally rested enough so we headed out towards the monster. It had long ago noticed Goose keeping an eye on him but this fight wasn¡¯t going to be a sneak attack anyways so it wouldn''t matter if the boar was suspicious. It wasn''t at first rank yet, but he was close. If he was first rank, then I would have needed to take care of the monster myself, but the wolves should be able to handle him. Freya was the one in lead and all the others followed. They started to split off so they would be able to surround the monster. It didn''t take long for the boar to figure out something was wrong and when it finally noticed the wolves started to make noise to scare and confuse. The stare-down took quite a while. The battle started because of Lucky. She stepped on a branch that snapped too loudly which made the boar start its charge. It was fast and I could see the earth helping it move better. It seemed to have some earth elemental powers, but they seem to be more passive than active attacks. The charging boar was easily evaded by all the wolves as they were a lot nimbler, but that overconfidence almost led to disaster. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. While the boar couldn''t change direction while it was charging when it finally stopped. Its movements were quite fast and agile when he wasn''t charging. Because of that Bingo hadn¡¯t expected the boar to turn around so fast and he almost got skewered by a tusk. What also aided the boar was the ground. It was moving a bit causing the wolves to be unsteady on their feet while the boar was rock solid. It took five different rounds until the first blood was spilled. Lady got its claws into one of the legs. That made the boar angry and made it charge after the wolf which gave other opportunities to strike. After that, the boar didn''t charge again rather it held its ground. The fighting continued and slowly the wounds started to accumulate but the boar wasn¡¯t the only one to get hurt. Some of the wolves had gotten hit luckily not by the tusk but still, the hit from this massive beast would hurt. As the fight went on, I was glad to see that the wolves started to display their own unique talents. Slowly but surely I could see the changes. Some were hitting stronger some faster, but others started to show special abilities. Gomet the one who could hide anywhere and was the one to hit the most constantly started to occasionally do a lot more damage. The reason was that sometimes his claws had a black outline that extended the claws out further and made it easier to get through the tough hide. I could see him slowly understanding his new powers better which made him a lot deadlier. The biggest surprise came when Freya got hit badly while saving Lucky. Lucky had slipped on an unfortunate rock while she was taking a small breather, but the boar instantly saw it and took advantage. The others were able to get to boar away from Freya and Lucky. I started to move to give her a health potion, but it turns out I didn¡¯t need to. Lucky glowed lightly with blue and white patterns and when she touched Freya her wounds healed, and she started to move like she wasn¡¯t hurt. I stopped my movement, all the wolves stopped their movements, and even the boar stopped as we all looked towards Lucky. I was the first to be broken by the spell thanks to Goose who had also frozen in disbelief while halfway through his wing beat which caused him to start tumbling before he could regain control. I think I would have laughed out loud if I also wasn¡¯t dumbfounded by this turn of events. The boar was the one who continued to fight and now he knew that he was in trouble. While Lucky''s next heal was a lot weaker it still got Pearl into full fighting shape. She wasn''t able to make the healing happen every time just like her litter mates with their powers but like every wolf here she was slowly starting to understand her new powers. When the boar was starting to get desperate I had to eat my words as it seems that it did have an active ability to use earth manipulation or perhaps even he was advancing during this fight. The boar reared back balancing for a few seconds on its back legs and then crash down causing a shockwave to move like a water wave through the earth causing everyone to lose their footing. But it was too late for it to properly take advantage. If that attack was at the beginning of the fight, it might have been able to kill one or two wolves but now it was too slow and only caused itself more wounds as the wolves attacked it even fiercer. The bus-sized boar still put up a long fight, but the blood loss was too much, and it passed out. The wolves were then able to get to its throat and kill it quickly. The fight had exhausted the wolves so much that they didn¡¯t start to eat the meat for quite a while. This gave me an opportunity to properly butcher the beast. When I found the monster core I know that the wolves would want to eat it to boost their power but I was a bit selfish. I grabbed a hold of it and started to feel for the elemental spark that the core should be holding. I found it quickly thanks to my trait as it was almost begging for me to pull the spark into myself. I didn¡¯t fight the need and soon I could feel the small elemental seed starting to grow inside me that will eventually give me access to the earth element. I looked at the core that was a bit dimmer and noticed the wrong in it that made the monster a monster. Would it really be good for me to feed this to the wolves? The most important part for them is just the energy and everything else was impurities. Thinking on this a bit I decided to use my energy manipulation to grab hold of the energy inside the core and started to pull it out. It put up a good fight, but the core wasn¡¯t stronger than me although it was close. I slowly pulled the energy out forming a small ball the same size as the core but now free of it hovering above my palm. All the wolves were interested in what was going on and had gathered around me. As I looked at them all their attention was focused on the ball with desire clearly reflected in their eyes. This was a team fight and now that the energy was outside the core it was a lot easier to manipulate although I was still burning through my energy reserve quite fast holding it together. If I wasn¡¯t exerting control, it would just expand outward and soon be absorbed into the surroundings. I split the ball into 8 equal parts and moved them towards the wolves who greedily swallowed the balls and soon the energy was absorbed by them. That made them energetic, and they started to eat the meat that I had cut for them. They ate a lot more than they should have been able to but I guess I knew the feeling as I could eat quite a lot more than my stomach should accept. Everything left over was carefully packed and stored in my seed backpack so I would have a chance to bring everything back. On our way back we didn¡¯t run as fast, but we still ran and by nightfall, we were back at home. The wolves crashed as soon as we made it to the farm sleeping where ever, they laid down. chapter 168 I slept for a few hours and woke up before the sun rose. After making some breakfast for myself I went outside. I saw that the wolves were still sleeping where they fell yesterday. I was not going to wake them up, so I just started to walk around inspecting the fields and the saplings that I have planted. I had a large mug of tea with me which I slowly sipped as I planned for the next few days. I was most worried about all the saplings that were going to grow into bushes. They were small and a lot of things could go wrong. I was most afraid of predators but currently, everything was still under control. I guess I had to thank Goose for that as he¡¯s been keeping the skies clear of all the birds who would want to eat seeds. I made it back to the farmhouse and I walked around it, then I went to the root cellar and the raised beds passed that. Somewhere around here, I was going to have to fit the greenhouse. Directly behind the house towards the river was the place where I celebrated the last summer solstice with the bonfire so I didn¡¯t want to make it there so I could celebrate it again this year but perhaps I could find another place for the bonfire. I walked around a bit but found the house to be too close. It would block the kitchen windows from a nice view of the river and the forest beyond that. ¡°I guess that will not work.¡± Perhaps next to the raised beds towards the river but I kind of wanted to make a small pond there or perhaps even a big one so I wouldn¡¯t have to walk so much to get water for all the plants. I could always put it behind the root cellar but then it would not get the evening sunlight although I could just build it further towards the river. There was quite a lot of real estate towards there that was free. There was still room between the barn and the main house although there was the road and the watchtower there which would block a lot of the sun as well. Which reminded me that I needed to build some ballistae for the watchtower and for the village. ¡°Much to do, much to do.¡± The sun was finally starting to come up and I chose to climb the watchtower so I could see the land with my eyes at a better vantage point. The view up here was amazing, and I drank the last of my tea watching the sun slowly rise. I looked at the road that led to the bridge and thought about making the greenhouse somewhere along the road but I kind of wanted more industrial things towards there. From up here the smithy also looked kind shoddy and I will need to build a proper one in the correct position. Even if I helped my apprentices and did all my duties to the nation, I should still have time to do everything here that needs doing but I have a sneaking suspicion I will need to do some extra things mainly in the killing department which will take a lot of time. This was not a peaceful world and if you wanted your corner of the world you needed to get bloody. As time goes by, I¡¯m starting to suspect that this might actually be my heaven as everything seems to fit me quite well but I¡¯m pretty sure it''s not, it''s just an awful place for most others. I know for certain that if you picked 100 people randomly from Earth before the war, I¡¯m quite sure that 98 would be dead within one year. They just wouldn¡¯t be able to adjust to life here. But the question remained, where the hell was I going to build my greenhouse? Perhaps I shouldn¡¯t have made the field so close to the road that led to the village. If I had just left more room that would have been perfect. I looked towards the potato field, and I guess that would be the only acceptable option although it would limit my expansion of that field. But then again having 42 acres of fields was already quite a lot, perhaps I wouldn¡¯t need to expand for quite a while. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Decision made I climbed down and walked towards the place that I wanted to build. I would need to dig but not a lot. I will just remove the top layer of soil and then fill it with a bit of sand to make it level then cover everything with stone slabs. I will have two doors at both ends just in case I wanted to add a small furnace into the middle so if needed I could keep the temperature high enough so the plants wouldn¡¯t die. I will need 12 pillars that must be driven into the earth then I can use them to support the frame of the greenhouse. Stone would need to be quarried but it would also be a good opportunity to teach my apprentices as they would need to do that work so they could make their own foundations for their buildings. But currently, I can go and start selecting the wood that I need. Finding the pillars was the easiest as I only needed to make one end a bit pointier, and it was done. I took out my journal so I could do some calculations and planning before I started to find the rest of the wood needed. I looked for strong wood and now that the logs were dry, I could see the cracks so I could search for pieces that I could actually use and wouldn¡¯t warp after construction. I didn¡¯t pull out the logs that I choose I just marked them for my own use. I looked at the sun and noticed how high up it was. I was a bit disappointed that my apprentices weren''t here yet. I had time to make another mug of tea before I went outside and waited for their arrival. The wolves had already gotten up and were playfighting which was now a lot scarier as they were a lot stronger and used abilities. Fortunately, they had a healer, but I had to reprimand them once when their play got a little bit too dangerous. I finally saw my apprentices as they were leisurely walking towards here and chatting casually but when they saw me and noticed that my right foot was tapping, they all stopped and swore. Their leisurely attitude made a 180 as they started to quite quickly move towards me. I can see the panic in their eyes and when they got close enough, I used my voice that had trained thousands of soldiers. ¡°You are late. We have a lot to do. Follow and prepare for long days of constant work.¡± My intimidating figure was probably disrupted by me holding a mug of tea which I occasionally sipped. But they weren''t soldiers, and they already knew that they had messed up, so I dialled myself down a bit. I stopped in front of the smithy and turned around and saw all three of them stopped immediately and I was glad to see the eagerness in their eyes. ¡°You are all starting your final task before you can upgrade your class and will stop being my apprentices. This is a long task involving many different things. The first is to do with this smithy here. You will all be building your own homes and to do that you will need tools. Making those tools is your first goal. This will teach you to make everything you need so you would know how to make or repair your tools when they break, and they will break. All tools eventually break nothing wrong with that you just need to know how to fix them.¡± I stopped for a moment sipping a bit of tea and continued. ¡°I¡¯m always here if you need any advice. While you need to be self-sufficient there is no fault in asking for what you don''t know. That being said not everything can be made by yourself. Sometimes you would need other people to make the work faster or for it to be even possible and sometimes you will need tools that only people with specific skills can make. What I¡¯m trying to say is that you must always know your limits and while you must always try to surpass them you must also know sometimes you can¡¯t.¡± ¡°Now can you please list for me the needed tools to make a house?¡± There was a small pause before they hesitantly started to answer. I have never been a teacher if you don''t count teaching people to kill each other but I think I would have been a decent teacher. Although I would have needed to teach either young kids or almost adults. Anyone in between would have made me too angry. I was glad that between the three of them, they were able to name all tools needed although they did give two unnecessary tools that would make building a house easier but wasn¡¯t technically needed. Next, we headed into the smithy so I could hear their plans on how they would tackle making the tools needed. I sipped more of my tea and was quite pleased with the decision to bring it, it made teaching a lot more pleasant. chapter 169 I left my apprentices after they started making their tools. They didn¡¯t need constant oversight, especially with the amount of practice they had. Arthur actually has gotten his smithing past the basic tier which is impressive in my opinion. So I went and started to measure out and dig what I needed to make the greenhouse. I was about halfway done when I had to stop and rush towards the sauna. ¡°Hey, you all stop it now. This fighting has gotten out of hand and if you don''t settle down, I¡¯ll make you practice swimming.¡± That made all the wolves stop. When the snows start that melt, and the wolves could be let out again they went a bit crazy after having been locked up for so long and their fighting sometimes got really bad so when the ice went from the river I gave them swimming practice in the cold water when they got a bit too aggressive. They did not enjoy that and after that just mentioning it brought them all back to order and it did work this time as well. Everyone else except Toto and Lucky dispersed and Lucky spent some time healing Toto. He had gotten pretty hurt, but they still kept going as adrenaline can mask the pain. If they kept going blood loss could have gotten serious and who knows what would have happened when others weren¡¯t used to how slow he was. I needed to think of something they can do. They can¡¯t just spend their time here. I scratched them both while searching the nation''s land looking for something they can do. There really wasn¡¯t anything anywhere close, but perhaps just some running would do them some good. I looked up and saw Goose also just gliding along. I gave out a loud whistle that started both the wolves close to me. Immediately Goose started to descend, and the other wolves rushed back. I explained to them what they had to do. They would go along the river to familiarize themselves with the land and protect it from intruders. It was a bit hard to get the concept over to them but because Goose could understand me a lot better, I had the wolves follow him which was a lot easier so off they went moving fast and hopefully expending a lot of their extra energy. I used this opportunity to see how my apprentices were doing and after giving a few small pointers and having them explain why after a hammer the other smithing tool should have been their next tools made. I watched them for a little bit longer but I didn¡¯t like what I saw so I ask George. ¡°Tell me George why aren¡¯t you using your own hammer that you made for blacksmithing.¡± The work stopped immediately, and they all looked towards me. ¡°Because the hammer doesn''t have a handle.¡± Answer George simply. I gave him a disapproving look. Emma was the first to leave having figured out what they needed to do. I didn¡¯t have to say anything as George and Arthur also quickly moved out and I followed them but I walked leisurely enjoying the sun and seeing them move towards the lumber. Soon I could see all three of them moving back towards me and then quickly walking past me. It made me smile quite a bit when they all soon returned from the smithy while holding their hammer heads. While making a handle taking the head with you to take measurements would be quite good especially since paper was quite an expensive commodity. With this job, I gave them a bit more advice and taught them two methods of attaching a handle. One I knew as the Viking method was where the handle got thicker towards the top which would prevent it from flying away while doing work. The other was using wedges driven in at the top of the handle to secure the hammer head which would be a bit less secure but would allow you to make the handle more ergonomic. I explained to them the importance of making the handle fit your own hand and how much it could help by allowing you to do a lot more work without tiring your hands. I explained to them what kind of wood would be perfect for what kind of tool and I went even deeper as I explained what properties you would want from the handles as in this world wood could be extremely different with a few evolutions so properties would be a better indicator which wood would be best. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. They were all a bit sceptical when I mentioned that even the wood grain orientation was important and would increase how good of a handle you have made. But they were soon nodding their heads when I explained why that was important. I then showed a few designs of different handles and what the purpose of those handles was. ¡°When you start making knives, I will show you how to make and attach those kinds of handles as the methods would be completely different.¡± After I said that I lost them for a bit so I gave them a bit of time to digest everything and have them ask questions so I could explain things that they were unsure about. George was able to complete an acceptable handle fastest, but he didn''t rush back into the smithy but choose to stay behind and help me teach his siblings. After a few hours, they were back in the smithy making new tools but this time using their own hammer. Before I left them, I also told them to not be afraid to start again if they feel like the hammer they made wasn¡¯t going to fit. Before the evening I was finished digging and tapping down the sand layer. After checking on my apprentices I had to tell them to stop as they were all dead tired from the long day of working. Turns out that Emma had made herself a new hammer which I was glad about and they all had made lots of tools that were needed. I was glad to see that they had almost finished with their stone working tools as I told them to make them after the blacksmithing ones. Tomorrow I will need to go to the quarry to get myself stone and it would be a great opportunity if they could join me otherwise, I would have to push my greenhouse construction back but then again that wouldn''t be too big of a problem. I cooked them all a big dinner which they practically inhaled. They were in bed even before the sun disappeared behind the horizon. I spent some time cleaning up and just doing some regular chores before I had to go outside and greet the returning wolves and Goose. They were all a bit tired, but they were in good spirits after their long run. I guess I should make them do this more often. Perhaps I could even send them after weaker monsters that I knew they could take care of. That would save me a lot of time. But I would have to explain to them that they needed to bring back the core so I could give them pure energy from it so they wouldn¡¯t consume impurities. When the wolves were also asleep, I had to look around to figure out what to do. Technically I could continue working but it felt somehow wrong to do it at night. I didn¡¯t even enjoy planting at night and probably won¡¯t do it next year. It just didn''t feel correct. I¡¯m quite certain that it actually doesn¡¯t matter but somehow even while knowing that it still felt off. I thought perhaps I should dive into some of my new traits and abilities but those might take longer than one night. I found myself in the smithy and looked at all the steel around here. I picked up one of the ingots and made it into a tattoo. I could feel the weight of it and while keeping that tattoo on my wrist I did some stretching and exercising with that hand. It felt promising so I continued to load up as much weight as I could in specific places on my body. The result was that when I slowed down my energy movement I was actually able to work out. A big grin appeared on my face, and I went out to run. Just running normally and feeling the burn in my muscles felt so good. I really was missing this. I mean it was kind of like a drug as my body was filled with different kinds of natural chemicals. I spent half the night exercising and while I was tired afterwards it wasn''t mental exhaustion and I still felt that I didn¡¯t want to sleep for quite a while. I cleaned myself off by swimming in the river and practiced my breath control. You never know when you might need to hold your breath, especially in this world. The rest of the night was spent getting better at reading by trying to understand the dungeon book better. When I could see the first rays of sunlight I got up and put the book away. Then I got the large pot off of it''s hook and started to bang it with a wooden spoon. Watching my apprentices stumbling half asleep out of their rooms was enjoyable. ¡°Time for a run and then you can get some breakfast before you start working again.¡± My words didn¡¯t make them move so I brought back my drill sergeant''s voice, ¡°Move, move, move.¡± That got them quickly getting dressed and while I was still watching them, they were able to do that surprisingly fast. The run that followed was fun and after an hour they were finally able to eat their breakfast. The first quarter of the day I spent putting the finishing touches on the greenhouse foundation. When I finished driving in all those support pillars and getting them level with each other it was time to take my apprentices and teach them how to work with stone. They all had abilities that would make that work easy but I also wanted to make sure they knew the basics of working with stone even without abilities. chapter 170 My apprentices are currently making rock-splitting wedges, but I noticed that it would take time quite a while to make the necessary amount, so I choose to help them. Time went by fast as we all work to finish today''s smithing. After that, we loaded up everything onto a cart and brought everything to the quarry. I quickly cut a few bigger pieces out of the rock face. Cutting was actually the easiest part dragging the huge blocks out was a lot harder and I had to use every bit of strength that I had. Now when everything was set up, I started to teach how the stone was cut and shaped without using any abilities. It was extremely hard work using chisels to make holes in specific locations that needed to be in a straight line. Then inserting the wedges and slowly hitting them until the stones split apart. Progress was slow but I never expected it to be faster. I left them to continue practising while I quickly started to cut out the pieces of stone that I wanted. When I finished making the amount needed, I made a few examples of what kind of sized stones were needed for their house foundations. I told them to use the normal technique on the stone blocks that I cut out for them but when that was finished, they could use abilities for the rest. I let them have a break so they can show me how to use their abilities to get the job done and while it will take them a lot longer than it took me it was still a lot faster than doing it without abilities. We were preparing to go back to the house to get some lunch, but I had accidentally told them how many rocks they needed for their foundations which made them freeze in place. ¡°Oh, come on, it''s not that bad it will take you a few days perhaps a week,¡± I told them while pulling the cart filled with all the stone slabs for my greenhouse. The cart was at its limit for how much weight it could carry and I contemplated if I needed to make a stronger cart as I was quite certain it will be needed quite soon. I didn¡¯t wait for my apprentices as it seems they were still shell-shocked. I was already halfway home when they finally caught up. The walk from there was also silent which I didn¡¯t mind. Eventually, George spoke up and I could hear the pleading in his voice. ¡°Rich we were thinking that perhaps you could help us so we could get the stone cut faster?¡± I didn¡¯t immediately answer and thought hard about the question. They will have a lot of other things to do as well so perhaps helping them is a good idea at least with this. But is telling them that the best idea. A strong mindset is also needed if you wanted to be a homesteader. You shouldn¡¯t be afraid of hard work. ¡°I have a lot of other things that I must do but if I have some free time I will help¡± I finally answered them which didn''t give them the relief that they wanted but still gave them some hope. I will probably give them two days before I go and help so we can finish on the third day. But perhaps I could make this an even better learning opportunity. Just before we finished eating, I explained to them what was going to happen. ¡°I will soon finish with the greenhouse as it won¡¯t take long to place all the stone slabs after that I would be leaving but I also want you guys to live at the quarry site until you have cut out all the stones needed.¡± I could see how Emma¡¯s jaw slowly opened in pure shock and a piece of meat fell back onto the plate. I was somehow able to stay serious, so I started to explain some more. There was a small shack that I made and if they packed properly and provision themselves well enough, they should be able to survive out there for a week. I gave them time to prepare until I finished laying all the stone slabs. It took them almost a minute to figure out what I meant and what it meant for them. They did not look pleased, but that look was quickly replaced by determination. They finished their lunch in record time. I finished my food slowly and watch as they ran around like headless chickens but after a few minutes, they were finally able to calm down and get together to make a proper plan. I decided to be generous, so I made myself some tea checked out the cows and the chickens and let Francis pull the cart for the final stretch. He was not pleased that I had pulled the cart by myself, but I assured him that he would be doing a lot of pulling soon. Laying the stone slabs I felt like I was Superman. Well I did feel this way while I loaded the cart but now I could see the fruit of my labour and it felt so much better. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Two by two, meter stone slabs that were 15 cm thick weighed if I have to guess about 1600 kilos and while they were a bit awkward to move, I was still able to quite easily pick them up and place them when using all that I had. I could have probably finished this in 15 minutes but I took my time and make sure that every side that was touching one another was perfectly straight so there wouldn¡¯t be any gaps in between. I also drank my tea and appreciated the beautiful day. I was able to stretch my work almost to an hour before I was finished. I now pulled the empty cart back and when I made it to the front of the house, I saw a small pile of stuff gathered there. I was glad to see food and water skins already filled and ready to be taken to the quarry site. I let out a loud whistle and repeated that another time so Goose and the wolves wouldn''t come running to me. But my apprentices did come with a little bit of panic show on their faces. ¡°Times up, load everything on and back to work.¡± I could see that they wanted to argue against this, but they all stayed quiet and quickly loaded everything onto the cart and then started pushing it towards the quarry. I looked at them go and when they thought that they were out of hearing distance they started to grumble about this turn of events. I didn¡¯t mind it; it was good for morale. I would of course interfere if it went too far but they had already learned those lessons long ago. I packed up all the books meant for David and the soul core with everything else meant for the village and started to head towards there. Just before I started to run an idea came to me and I headed to the root cellar and got many carrots. I had decided to make a detour and visit the horses. I was running full out in the grass fields, but I didn¡¯t use my movement ability as I wanted the training. Goose was flying up high easily keeping up and I wondered if I would ever be able to fly. It would have probably taken me the entire day to find the horses if I couldn¡¯t just check where they were. I slowed down well before I reach the horses and approach them slowly. It appears that they can smell carrots quite well or perhaps see them in my hands as some of them came quite quickly. The fierce-looking horse always kept a close eye on me and didn''t let too many horses come close to me. I had to throw him the carrots as he didn¡¯t want me to get too close to him. Eventually, he did come close, and I was able to scratch him behind his neck. While some of the other horses had new scars on them otherwise, they were quite healthy. While giving the leader of the horses my last carrot I finally spoke to him about important matters. ¡°I see this you guys are doing quite well but I will offer you an opportunity to come back with me. While you will have a lot less freedom like that it would be a lot safer at least for most of you.¡± He whinnied at that. I continued. ¡°Yeah, I know but I don¡¯t believe every one of you would want a simple life doing simple things. I¡¯m quite certain you don¡¯t want that. I could feel the battle in your blood and we can offer that as well. But most important no one will ever mistreat your herd ever again.¡± The horse couldn¡¯t understand what I was saying I knew that, but I also know that intent was important for animals to understand you. Now he had no clue what I was saying but he at least understands what I was offering. It was his choice to choose if he wanted that and there was no hurry. I didn¡¯t want the answer right now. I will leave them enough time and come back a few times before I give up and we let them live free. I was never going to force animals to be subservient, it would be their choice. Next, I went to one of the prosperous farmhouses where we planned on building and expanding the horse stables. There currently were only a few horses here that were owned by the knights. These were war horses, and they were too proud to do any work so Francis had to do all the fieldwork. I didn¡¯t mind that a war horse had to have a certain mentality and that just didn''t fit with them pulling farm equipment. The few people with building classes seem to have done a good job. If the entire herd joined us, it would be a bit tight before we could build some extra stables, but we could still fit them all. I inspected the buildings and was pleased by the quality. Around here new pastures were being grown so the horses would have enough to eat. I could already imagine looking at the pastures where hundreds of horses roamed around. I wanted to head towards the village, but I stopped and looked toward the South. There was a strong monster there that hadn''t caused too much trouble, but it was moving towards here and I didn''t want it to get into striking distance of the village. I started to run and even used my movement ability but it still took me almost two hours to make it to the monster¡¯s location. The fight itself lasted only a few minutes and most of that was just me chasing after the fleeing monster. I ended up killing it with just a single throwing knife. It was a strong silver-tier monster, but it didn¡¯t have any elemental spark in its core which I was a bit sad about. I grabbed the core so I could give it to the wolves or perhaps I would find the use for it myself. When I finally made it to the village it was completely dark and almost everyone was asleep. The people who weren''t asleep were mostly the guards and I contemplated on what to do as I looked at the village walls while hidden in the grass. chapter 171 The skill levels of the guards were either really good or really bad. In every watchtower, there was one person looking out and on the walls, there were people walking up and down so it wasn''t easy to find an opportunity to move forward. Still, I was able to find gaps where I was able to advance without anyone noticing. This time I wasn¡¯t doing it to win a bet but to see what needed to be improved. When I made it to the halfway mark, I was quite pleased. The only problems we had were that we didn¡¯t have enough guards and that some of them didn''t have enough training. Better weapons for a stronger show of force would also be nice but we now lived in a nation where sneaking up on a village was impossible. We would know immediately if hostiles were in our nation making us safe from unknown forces. Would there be a possibility that someone could hide themselves, certainly, but I was quite certain no one could do that to an army. At midnight I was finally underneath the wall and from now on it was just luck if I would be able to make it over without anyone noticing. I climbed quickly but still tried to stay as quiet as possible. Luck was on my side today and I was able to make it to the other side of the wall without anyone noticing, but my job wasn''t done yet. I slowly climbed one of the watchtowers and when I was almost at the top, I needed to stay still for quite a while as one of the wall guards spotted my irregular shadow. Thankfully it was too dark for him to make me out properly and he didn''t decide to come closer. I was finally able to pull myself up and join the guard that was looking beyond the wall trying to see if anyone was out there. I contemplated if I should grab his mouth and place a blade to his throat. Then he would know that a spy could have killed him, but I decided not to do that. If it was one of the older guards who had already done this job before I might have done it, but he was too green, and I didn¡¯t want to scare him away from being a guard. I still had to cover his mouth as he almost screamed loud enough to wake up the entire village. I was glad that I decided to isolate his sound otherwise it would have been troublesome. When I finally saw the recognition in his eyes I pulled my hand away. ¡°Good evening. I have some bad news for you. Today I was able to approach the wall, get across it and climb this watchtower without anyone noticing.¡± I could now see the panic in his eyes but there was still a glimmer of hope which I quickly crushed. ¡°And yes, I approached from your sector.¡± I could see a cold sweat cover his face instantly. ¡°Not to worry you are not in too much trouble and this was done more for education purposes than anything else.¡± The guard almost collapsed from relief, but he was barely able to hold himself upright. ¡°You actually didn¡¯t make any mistakes but there are a few things you can do better. For one don¡¯t be so predictable while looking from left to right sometimes snap your head back to the left. If you would have done that just once you would have most likely seen me moving towards the wall.¡± I spent a few more minutes talking to him before I descend and started to inspect the walls. It didn''t take long for the guards to notice me and report to their superior. The sergeant in charge of the night shift found me fast and then she joined me on my inspection. While I had made all the guards'' bows, they still required a lot more training before I would be willing to give them longbows. Currently, they were just using hunting bows which while good for killing weren¡¯t meant for armoured targets or long distances. Most of the guards were using swords and while they were a decent weapon for protection it wasn''t perfect for every situation. Some spears would be good so when people would climb the walls you could attack them without them being able to retaliate. That idea made me look at the wall again and I walked closer to touch the wood. It was made from thick timber and two sides were trimmed down a bit so they would fit together a bit better with each other. People would certainly be able to climb it with simple tools for help or some low-level abilities. If we had enough people, we would still be able to protect against that but if they deployed ladders, it would be harder. For that, it would be good if our troops had some axes which they could use to destroy the upper part of the ladders so they wouldn¡¯t be so useful. I don¡¯t think this place would need siege towers to be successfully conquered. You probably just need 500 silver-rank warriors, and this place would be overrun in half an hour. If they had any first-rank warriors, they could just kick down the wall. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. I noticed that one of the guards patrolling the wall was walking above us and as I looked upwards, I saw that he was quite close to the inner edge which wasn''t the best choice. Perhaps it¡¯s time to teach another lesson. I put some power behind my punch as I struck the wall which caused this area of the wall to shake quite violently. My punch also left behind a fist imprint but more importantly, the guard lost his footing and almost fell to the ground. He was able to hold on, but he was dangling off the side screaming for help. ¡°Guard, stop that whining. Look down you are not that far off the ground just let go if you can¡¯t pull yourself up.¡± His screaming stopped immediately as he looked downwards but he still hesitated and tried to pull himself up which he was unable to do most likely because of the heavy armour he was wearing. ¡°A question guard. If you had to jump off the wall because of a fireball that was about to hit it, would you choose to die or would you jump off the wall so you could continue fighting.¡± My voice was not kind, but I also didn''t yell at the man. He finally let go and fell quite heavily but he didn''t hurt himself. Well, perhaps a few bruises. I was at least glad to see that he got himself back onto his feet and give a salute in a reasonable time. ¡°Now guard let me paint you a picture. The village is being attacked by a horde of monsters. You are up on the wall throwing spears into the horde protecting us all. But the horde finally reaches our wall and rams into it. You lose your footing and fell over the wall to be trampled by the monsters. Tell me guard why did you do that?¡± There was silence. He was sweating and panic coloured his face. It was enjoyable to see, but I could also understand that he knew that this was a rhetorical question, but I waited and the silence continued to stretch until he started to doubt his first instinct. He cracked sooner than I would have liked and before he could get out a syllable, I talked over him. ¡°It was because you don¡¯t know how to walk without a little vibration causing you to lose your footing. I hope that you will fix that as soon as possible.¡± This time I got the ¡°yes sir,¡± instantly. I dismissed him and he quickly went to the nearest ladder and climbed back onto the wall to continue his patrol. ¡°Still a lot of training left to do I see,¡± I told the sergeant to which she wholeheartedly agreed with. We continued to walk along the wall, and I was at least glad that it all seemed sturdy enough. Although I noticed that on the backside, we were a little bit too close to a small hill which could be used to out-range our own ranged weapons. I was not happy to see that. Finally, we ended up in front of the gate. Just looking at it makes me ill. It was a shit design never meant for battle. I¡¯m pretty sure that a skinnier person could actually fit underneath the gate. I didn¡¯t want to think about a scenario where some sort of explosive was thrown underneath it to kill all the defenders behind the gate. Then there was the fact that it was made from quite thin lumber and even silver ranks could hack through it with an axe quite fast. Honestly, this gate didn¡¯t even need any siege equipment to be taken down. Even a log with some rope would be too much. Five guys with axes and it would be down in half a minute. The third problem which made this already useless gate even more limiting was that there was no way to get to the other side of the wall without climbing down and then climbing back up. Otherwise, the wall''s walkway was continuous except for this part which was arguably the most important part to have this capability. This thing would need a complete redesign. Perhaps even a two-gate system with murder holes on the top and a place for a ballista so you could take down any ram meant to take down the stronger gate. I was walking from one side of the gate to the other side and even having them open the gate up so I could look at it from all sides and I didn¡¯t like any of it. I discussed it a bit with the sergeant but she at first didn¡¯t think it was too bad. When I started to explain she quickly understood how dire the situation was. I was on the left side of the gate just underneath the wall when I looked up and noticed someone familiar. A small smile crossed my face and I hit the wall again with a decent amount of power. The shaking caused a commotion on top of the wall and the person fell to his knees, but he was able to get up quickly. I walked a little bit away from the wall so everyone on top could see me. One of the guards up there was the same person that had fallen the last time. ¡°Better,¡± I said but I couldn¡¯t keep the amusement out of my voice. I ordered them to close the gate back up as I was done with my inspection. The results weren''t good with the current defence force excluding me they would only need five strong fighters to keep the Knights busy and another 200 silvers to take the walls quickly. If they were willing to lose people, I would guess that only 75 would get the job done but we would be putting up decent defence then. If the gate was better, we could push those numbers up quite a lot close to 400 to 500. I am guessing that any decent force that wanted to conquer or raid this village would have a few mages with them if they don''t our mages can most likely defend against almost 1000 silver warriors but I don¡¯t think anyone would be so stupid to not have any mages. Of course, those numbers could swing wildly but that would all depend on the abilities and equipment of the attackers. I decided to climb on top of the village hall as it was the tallest point in the village so I could get a good overview of the village and its surroundings. Goose joined me landing on my shoulder. I fed him a piece of jerky while scratching him. I fell into my mind trying to think up scenarios of different battles that might happen here. I did not enjoy the number of failures I was facing. I continued like that until morning came and one thing was certain. I wouldn¡¯t want to fight a battle here. We would lose too much. chapter 172 I was deep in thought when I heard my name being called. It took me a few moments to come back to reality but looking around didn''t help much as I was still on top of the roof. Another call helped me pinpoint David who was trying to get my attention. With him were two of the knights and one other leader who was one of the persons in charge of the farming stuff. I waved back to them at which point David yelled back at me. ¡°I heard that you inspected our defenses; I was wondering what you learned?¡± I started to shout back at him but before I could I realized why were we yelling at each other. I took a few quick steps and jumped off the roof to land a bit behind them. To break my fall, I did a roll and quickly got up. I could have done a superhero landing, but I didn¡¯t want my knee to hurt in my later years. All of them were surprised by my actions but the knights looked more interested. I guess I figured out another thing that needed to be taught. ¡°Now David to answer your questions. Currently, we are properly fucked.¡± I said it while dusting myself off a bit to get rid of the dirt and grass that my rolling caused me to collect. Their somewhat good mood was quickly broken by that and as I kept explaining it got worse. ¡°So, you are saying that we need to get our gate fixed ASAP and then we would be able to handle a moderate force of silver rank people.¡± Ask David after I¡¯ve finished explaining. I gave him a nod. ¡°I guess we should head to the meeting room we have a lot to discuss, and I have some gifts to give.¡± After I finish saying that they started to follow behind me talking amongst themselves. I saw a hunting party starting to head out and while looking around, I saw the morning shift guards on the walls. They were even greener than the ones on the night shift which made some sense as the night was a more dangerous time. Since it was so early in the morning, we were the only ones in the meeting room, but I didn¡¯t wait and started to pull out all the books that I have gotten which made David''s face finally show happiness. I also laid out some of the other specific items I was asked to buy but the people that wanted them weren''t here yet. I then pulled out the soul core and went to my mind palace in hopes of meeting the creature again. The owlbear didn¡¯t disappoint me and soon I was face to face with it but this time it didn¡¯t start attacking just looked at me curiously. There was a moment of silence while I just looked at the beautiful creature, but I also saw the danger it possessed. It had a powerful build like a bear that visits the gym every day, but its weaponry was even more dangerous just the beak itself could skewer any human. ¡°Can you communicate outside of this space as well or are you only limited to this?¡± I asked it. It answered almost immediately. ¡°I can communicate outside of this space. I am glad to see that you were able to free me in a sense. What are your orders master.¡± ¡°You can stop that, no need to call me that. But we will talk about the orders with the other people who are with me so I guess I will see you in the regular world.¡± I spoke while thinking about how it could communicate outside. It gave me a nod and disappeared and so did I, coming back to reality. Only a few moments later a dog size hologram appeared from the soul core displaying the owlbear in all its glory. ¡°This is the way I can communicate normally although I did have to get through some of the limitations, they placed on me. But those shackles were easy enough to break.¡± I could hear the voice of the owlbear which wasn¡¯t the same as it was in my mind this voice was a lot lower and more menacing. Because of that everyone else inside the room reacted differently. The knights pulled out their swords while the others hid under the table. ¡°You can relax this is a device I was able to procure, and this is that intelligence that controls it,¡± I said trying to calm everyone down The owlbear looked towards me while shaking his head slowly. ¡°While not completely wrong I am astounded at how misleading your words were. If you meant to mislead I must commend your intelligence if not then you might have some good natural instincts. What is it that you require of me?¡± It asked. It took a little bit to calm everyone down at which point I was able to start explaining. ¡°David, I thought that perhaps we could use this device with our merit point system and not just that we could keep track of our economy as well,¡± I explained. David was a bit suspicious but the more we discussed and as the owlbear disclosed its capabilities the more excited everyone got. Even I was surprised at how useful it could be. It seems that the company had put a lot of limitations on the creature while teaching it but since I bought it, it was able to slowly snap all those restraints and now has full access to all its capabilities. And the list of them was quite amazing. We would never have to worry about the paperwork of keeping track of everyone''s information as it can do it all by itself. Of course, we will need people to give that information to it and there would be a limit to how much it could store but we could buy extra items from the same company that would give it more capacity for storing information and other interesting functions. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. One of the more interesting extra functions we could attach was an access cube to the global market system to get all the latest information on every item price around the world. This information was limited to the biggest cities in the world, but it would still give quite a good overview of the item¡¯s prices. With this, we could calculate our own nation''s wealth and give our traders a decent idea of how much things are worth when we start trading with others. Soon David and the owlbear were speaking of things that went over my head and soon they were the only people in the room that were still talking everyone else was just trying to keep up which we were all failing at. At first, I thought that the merit system might be something straightforward, but it seemed to be a lot deeper than that. Currently, they were discussing something about how the merit points shouldn¡¯t exceed the material wealth of the nation and how to balance external income from created wealth through manufacturing. I just let them discuss it. David asked some clarifying questions from the people that slowly trickled into the meeting room. Soon everyone was included in the discussion until I noticed something that hadn¡¯t been mentioned. ¡°What about the military? It will need quite a lot of resources.¡± There was a small pause after which one of the people spoke up. ¡°I can see the need for us to have a bit more guards but will that really be that important? The monsters can be taken care of by the adventurers and no one''s going to attack us this far north.¡± I was completely shocked and even more so when some other people started to nod at that. I was stunned for so long that everyone thought I didn¡¯t have anything to say so David continued. ¡°For the military personnel, we would have to make multiple levels of different pay and we would need to also set aside some manpower to create and repair equipment and structures. We should¡­¡± I held up my hand before he could continue. ¡°I am sorry but what was spoken before was so ridiculous that it took my brain some time to start working again.¡± That statement shocked everyone and made absolutely everyone dead silent. ¡°I don''t know why any of you think we will have a peaceful time here. We will be fighting constantly. You can¡¯t even imagine the number of enemies we will face.¡± I took a sip of water before continuing. ¡°For one thing why would we give adventurers the opportunity to get resources that we could get by killing monsters not to speak of the levels it would give our fighters? Then I cannot even imagine why you would think that no one would come and attack us. I would be completely surprised if there weren¡¯t scouts moving towards us right now trying to figure out how strong we were.¡± ¡°There will be constant fighting between everyone that wants to be the new king and our land will not be spared. Finally, we will have to fight monster hordes that will never end.¡± I stopped talking for a moment to look into everybody¡¯s eyes trying to make them understand. ¡°The world you knew is dead. While there might be some remnants of what you used to know even that will soon be trampled under the weight of war. Every person that has desired greatness will try to take it by force but those will be the easy times compared to what will come.¡± ¡°The adventurers were the footmen of a greater power. Those footmen helped patrol and deal with dungeons. But now I would be surprised if they could find every new dungeon out there, but they would never be able to clear them all out which means dungeon breaks that will never stop until you destroy that dungeon.¡± ¡°We will have some time before things get truly bad. There is time to prepare, to train, and to expand. One thing that the kingdom wars will do will drive refugees out of the war zones. This means that before the summer ends we will most likely start getting a lot of refugees so whatever plans we must make to accommodate them must be made.¡± ¡°We will lose people a lot of them if we want to keep our freedom and our way of life.¡± I noticed that I had stood up but I slumped down back into the chair. I took the glass of water and drained it wishing it was something a lot stronger. The silence continued but soon a question was asked.¡± How long do you think until an army is sent to conquer us?¡± Asked one of the knights. I thought about it for a little while before answering. ¡°Let''s hope it''s between two to four months,¡± I said in a sombre tone but the same knight after his face went white, he asked in confusion. ¡°Why do you hope between two or four months.¡± Everyone was waiting for my answer and I didn¡¯t let them suffer. ¡°Because if it''s longer than that then whatever army comes will be too strong for us to do anything about. If it''s between two or four months that means that whoever is in command has been conquering a lot of territories and will probably bring only a smaller force to take this seemingly weak village so he can keep most of his army patrolling his newly gained land.¡± ¡°That would be our only hope and if we get lucky the commander will come himself. Then we can kill him, and we will have until the next year to prepare. Of course, that''s assuming his followers will start fighting each other for rulership.¡± I let out a sigh knowing it might not go so well. Our discussion continued for long hours but whenever we discussed military things everyone got disheartened as they all had thought that we were in a good position. I was unapologetically truthful which didn''t help them feel better but will hopefully harden them for the future. The one person that even our dire situation couldn''t keep down was David. He understood immediately how useful the soul core could be and when we broke for lunch, he told me that he believed that the merit system can be launched within two weeks. I was glad to hear that, but my mind was on other things. I need to think up a military system where I could hopefully use my knowledge from earth but also adapted it to work in this world. I will also need to set up a proper military structure with ranks for personnel, supply chains for everything needed, and a proper training system. Everything will also need to be flexible as I¡¯m quite certain as time goes on a lot of things will need to be changed when better alternatives are discovered. chapter 173 While eating some pastries after lunch I walked around a bit in the village and ended up in the glass smith workshop. I was glad to see smoke coming out of the chimney and when I made it near there I could see the large workshop doors open and heat radiating out. He was busy working, and it seems that he had acquired a few helpers. I did a quick count of the glass panels I could see, and it seems that he was probably half done with my order which I was glad to know although I did wish that he would have been a lot closer to the target number. I looked at how he worked and understood why he was called a glass smith. I don¡¯t know what it¡¯s called is it a glass oven or a kiln but whatever it''s called they pulled out clumps of half-molten glass with a rod and then placed it on a table where it was smooth down with a special tool by rubbing and tapping it against the half molten glass, forming it into a certain shape. It seems that he could do a lot bigger panels but currently the table was set up to do 1 by 1 meter ones. I looked around and saw some other specific tools and had to rake my brain to figure out what they were made for but in the end, I figured it out. They were for making shapes into the glass so you could have beautiful patterns on glass bowls and stuff like that. I had long ago finished my pastries, but the work seemed quite interesting and for the first time in a long time I was able to grind my heat resistance abilities. I knew that it could be rude but I just walked into the workshop so I could feel the heat coming off the furnace. The glass smith was so concentrated on his work that it took him quite a long time to figure out that there was another person in his workshop. At first, his face morphed into an angry one but when he figured out who I was the anger mostly disappeared, but he was still displeased. ¡°Sorry for barging in like this but the heat is good for my ability grinding. I¡¯m glad to see that you are working hard on completing my order.¡± My words seem to placate him but before he said anything back to me, he started to work again never resting. ¡°Well, I was glad to get some work again I had missed it, but if you don''t mind me asking why this order? I have never gotten on an order like this before.¡± He asked while still working. ¡°I¡¯m building something called the greenhouse have you heard of it?¡± He shook his head, so I continued. ¡°Basically, I was able to buy some seeds for some good fruits and vegetables, but they are not really meant for this climate. So, I¡¯m building a small house for them to keep them warm but I still need the sunlight, so a small house made of glass is the solution.¡± After I finish saying that everyone in the workshop actually stopped working. I could see them all processing my words at different speeds but none of the people in the workshops was the one to speak up. ¡°You said you can keep it warmer like that but still have sunlight could you keep the temperature exactly how you need it within 1 degree with this kind of glass house?¡± Asked a quiet voice that was hard to hear with the furnace roaring and I was quite certain that I was the only one here that actually heard the question others didn''t have the same senses as I have. I looked towards the voice and noticed a girl in her mid-20s. If I had to describe her, she looked exactly like someone you imagine that grows plants in a fantasy world. ¡°I¡¯m afraid keeping it at a certain temperature is quite hard at least not without enchantments or runes or something like that.¡± Her face started to fall when I spoke but when she heard the later part of my answer, she brightened up again. ¡°That¡¯s so incredible. With that, you could grow magical herbs so they would be the most potent they could be. I think I have read this in a book about growing medical herbs but I never could imagine exactly what the book described.¡± Now she was a lot more certain of herself, so her voice carried over to the rest of the people here. Our small conversation helped everyone else get over their shock so they went back to work but after a few moments, the glass smith spoke up. ¡°I have learned a special glass mixture that''s good for keeping out the cool temperature for winter, but it would work to isolate any kind of temperature.¡± There was a pause when he helped pull out a new clump of half-molten glass. When it was placed on the table he continued. ¡°With that, you could get a lot closer to the target temperature although I don¡¯t know how you could control it so exactly because the sun itself could heat the greenhouse a lot and I would need bronze to make the glass mixture needed.¡± He answered in a gruff voice, but I could hear the pleasure in it as he was talking about something that he loved to do. The woman''s face got even more excited, and I could see how she was planning how to make her ideas come true. I also thought about it and soon I got an excellent idea. ¡°I don¡¯t think it would be hard to get items to keep the temperature exact even the humidity. You could use the same items that keep the underground cellar at a constant temperature.¡± When I finished speaking, I could practically see her eyes start to glow. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I had to look again to verify that they didn''t actually glow. You never know in this world. It seems like I might have found my next apprentice. If she is interested in getting a class that is. I gave a nod to the glass smith and walked out while indicating for her to follow me. We introduced ourselves to each other, but she already knew exactly who I was. ¡°I recommend you keep your options open as I will be taking a few apprentices in a month or two. With it, you will get a class that would help you a lot so you should start thinking about it.¡± I said it to her after we had gotten to know each other a bit better. She was extremely interested and when she learned that it could help her dream of growing magical plants, she tried to convince me to take her as my apprentice right away, but I ensured her that she didn¡¯t have to worry as her position was guaranteed if she still wanted it when I started to recruit. We separated soon after. She headed off to her work and I climbed back on top of the village hall as I needed to think. I had to come up with my apprentice recruitment idea up here during the night and I was quite pleased about it. I was going to post a notice on the notice board that I was looking for apprentices and all the requirements I was looking for. This would mean I would only get people who are actually interested and not people I choose because I think that they have potential. It was a nice evening up here when I looked around after figuring out the first version of the military structure. The only question that remained was whether I could I make that into a clan as I was quite certain it would be quite beneficial if that was possible. Thinking about this didn''t achieve anything even when I tried to force it to happen so perhaps action was needed to make this clan. This system could not just be the modern military that just wouldn''t work, nor could it be a specific ancient military system. I needed a hybrid system. Why did I need to do that because of the stupid power gap between first rank and anything below it? False gold, silver, bronze, and technically wood were all people who were stronger than regular humans but still, you could not call them powerful. These ranks made up the majority of the population so some sort of a system from the age of cold steel was needed. I landed on the legion from the Roman era. I figured this to be the best solution as everyone in our nation will be able to fight a lot better than the medieval levies so a more professional outlook was needed plus I like the discipline and the extra features of the Roman legions. With this system, we could maximize our unique advantages with the homesteader class where absolutely everyone would be quite good at fortifying any position. Not to speak of the movement ability which would allow us to deploy quite fast and other things we might discover. But this system would only work so far and when you reach the first rank this system wouldn''t work anymore. It will be too rigid and too limiting. Something a lot more flexible is needed and I thought about the modern military, but a lot of people used melee combat. That didn¡¯t mean that I couldn¡¯t use some modern military aspects in this system that would help it. I would be doing that with the legion as well but to a lesser extent. I looked back to all my knowledge of warfare and history, and I landed on Vikings. Now I know that Vikings were just the people who went raiding but that style of fighting seemed to fit quite well. They could fight individually but still come together to fight in a large group. While we don''t have a lot of water nearby the tactics of fighting and then disappearing when it was no longer advantageous was quite good. To my limited knowledge Vikings didn¡¯t have a specific ranking system for their troops so I will just use the system I¡¯m familiar with. They will start out as a private and go from there. This will start their training in the new tactics appropriate for their power level and as they learn and gain experience their rank in the military will rise. But even before the Viking and legion classifications there will be militia and recruit classifications. Militia will be anyone recruited for some sort of military activity. Recruit will be someone that wants to join the military, but they will have to go through basic training before to see if they would even be able to join. Every military personnel will know first aid but of course, there will be specialists like medics, but I wanted to expand this specialist occupation a lot more. In this military, anyone can have a specialization but still be a recruit for example. It just means that they are good at a certain job that the military values. I could just imagine all the different patches we can come up with and make. That reminded me that I had to make a patch for my own clan as well as I wanted this to become a new norm to wear your clan patches and whatever rank and specialization you had. I think it would be quite important for the future and why not take advantage of the clan symbols that come with the trait? In my opinion, it''s quite natural to make patches out of them. I joined the late evening meeting and took it over for my own needs. I started to explain the military system that I had come up with in great detail which took quite a long time, but everyone was quite engrossed in what I had to say. When I finished, I could feel it. My trait clan administrator pulsed and guided me on what to do. I stood up and cut my palm and placed my now bloodied palm above my heart. ¡°I swear by blood, by heart, by sweat to protect this nation against enemies foreign and domestic. I will give this nation my sweat while training myself to protect it as best as I can. I swear on my heart to uphold the values of this nation. I swear upon my blood to bleed it for this nation when needed.¡± I felt the vow sink into me. When I looked at my achievement page, I could see a new trait, clan military. chapter 174 After a few minutes of exploring the new trait, I understood how weak it was. If for any reason, I should die or perhaps break my vow the clan would cease to exist. Because of that it also didn¡¯t give any benefits which had interesting implications not just for this clan trait but for the rest of them as well. After some describing of what had happened the other members of the military in this meeting room gave the vow. I could instantly feel the trait becoming stronger and resonating better with the nation as a whole. There were now things that needed to be sorted out most likely the current leadership structure but that could wait a few days when everyone had sworn the vow. We needed to wait a few days so the rest of the scouts could return from their missions. Honestly, this was so interesting that I just wanted to dive into it more but I should wait until there were more members to deal with it all so it would be easier to find the aspects of this trait. I also had another big thing that I wanted to discuss. This meeting should have already been over hours ago as we were soon starting to approach midnight, but I don¡¯t think that I could wait any longer. Simply because some of the scouts have already reported goblin activity close to our border beyond the river. Everyone started to get up and leave so I readied myself. ¡°Before everyone leaves there is something I want to bring up. There were talks about sending scouts to find out where the goblins that were seen are from. I know exactly where their encampment is located.¡± It was hard to get those words out and I could see everyone noticed that but even more interesting was how I could practically see the tension in the air rising. Almost everyone was suspiciously looking at me but one of the Knights was the first to speak up. ¡°Encampment you say. Those don''t just appear in a few months. I find it disturbing that you have not mentioned goblins as a problem. If they have an encampment that should have been one of our first priorities.¡± He wanted to continue but I stopped him from speaking by simply looking into his eyes. I have no idea what my face looked like but whatever he saw made him stop and even take a half-step back. ¡°The reason why I have not brought this up as a concern is because they are not a concern. At least not for now. Yeah, no need to start explaining it to me, I know more about goblins than probably anyone here. At least about the the goblins that are around here. You might not know this about me, but I have fought a battle against them and killed their previous leader.¡± That stopped everyone as they slowly sat back down and started to listen. ¡°After I received my class quite soon after that I started to have problems with goblins. After a few small fights which were getting progressively harder, I decided to protect my land and so I decided to find out where they were coming from. That led me to discover their breeders.¡± When I mentioned that name everyone grimaced, but I continued. ¡°I launched a successful operation which ended up killing all the breeders.¡± There were shouts of disbelief, but I waited for everyone to calm back down before continuing not answering their questions but just continuing my own story. ¡°That did not go over well with the goblin leader, and he organized a big attack against me. Thanks to some defensive planning and luck I was able to win but one of those reasons I was able to win was because one of the other goblin higher-ups decided to betray their leader.¡± To that everyone nodded like it was normal which made some sort of sense. ¡°Now that goblin and his forces could have killed me but they decided to spare me. I mean they would have still lost a lot of fighters but I¡¯m quite certain I would have died.¡± The disbelief in everyone¡¯s eyes when I answered one of the questions on how many goblins there were was satisfying to witness but I continued knowing that they were not going to enjoy the next part. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°The reason why he wanted me alive was because he wanted to use me for my knowledge. He¡¯s a clever goblin and could do something very few others can and when I mean others, I mean absolutely every intelligent being in this world. He could look into the future and when I mean future, I mean 10, 50, 100, 500 years into the future. He could see what his people needed and that was stability. He was looking for knowledge on how to get a class.¡± I was expecting an outburst but there was complete silence. ¡°I learned their history and their language and concluded that they were some kind of weapon meant for attrition battle against an enemy which ended up costing them their civilization. Yes, I am quite certain that once they were a civilization similar to our own. My first clue came from their language. It''s seemingly simple but it¡¯s fucking brilliant. Anyways we started to tentatively trade but that changed when other goblins didn''t like what they were doing. You see they stopped evolving breeders and trying to live as a tribe.¡± Half of the people had their mouths wide open while the others were frozen in shock. No one spoke so I continued. ¡°The forces against them were quite strong but like I said their leader is clever. They hired me as a mercenary, and I helped them win their war. The most interesting thing to happen during that war was that the leader actually got a class. Probably the first class any goblin has received in a few thousand years.¡± Now the silence was broken. ¡°Are you crazy? That¡¯s not allowed. Monster races can¡¯t be helped like that. You have called upon us the black masks. They will kill us all and erase our existence.¡± It was now my time to be confused. ¡°Honestly, I¡¯ve never heard of those people, but we will discuss them later. But whatever I have done is already done so there¡¯s no need to worry about it. Plus, they are not a monster race. Technically they are a fallen race,¡± I said. That took the wind out of the sails of many of the people here. They stop yelling to think about it. I can say that it brought me relief when I saw the relief in their eyes. They all sagged back into their seats. I was just happy we did not have to deal with another problem. That made me think about the rock creatures. They were most certainly not a fallen race. But that reaction and apparently a dedicated force to handle monster races clarified why there was so little diversity in this world. They committed genocide on the regular to stay as the top sapient civilizations. I was not going to start unpacking that pandoras box any time soon. ¡°If you are correct then there should not be any problem¡± The person who spoke earlier barely got those words out before he completely eased himself onto his seat, but he still looked like he had grown 10 years older in the last minute. I let everyone digest this news a bit before I continued. ¡°So, because of my efforts in the war, I am getting quite a good amount of tin and copper. You can relax David. There is no set amount to be given to me. We settled that they would decide how much they think my services were worth.¡± David looked at me and said, ¡°I don¡¯t know if I should be impressed or upset but I¡¯m leaning towards impressed.¡± I looked towards him and gave a weak smile. ¡°Yeah so, I believe we have trade relations with them. At least I do and because I am a part of this nation, I believe our nation has this as well. I have a good relationship with them so I¡¯m hoping that whenever you have to deal with them you will at least be cordial.¡± It took quite a long time before everyone slowly nodded towards me. ¡°We can discuss this sometime later. I believe everyone wants to go to bed.¡± I started to get up but this time it was David who interrupted everyone. ¡°Rich, perhaps there are more earth-shattering revelations that you might want to inform us about.¡± I started to seriously think about it, and I noticed everyone growing nervous. Was there anything like that. Well, the dungeon stuff was certainly up there and perhaps a few more things but those were too early to discuss. ¡°I have some plans with dungeons but that will take some time before anything comes of it. So, currently not.¡± I gave them all a big smile which for some reason didn''t placate them but they also accepted my answer. I did see their shoulders droop before we ended the meeting with concluding goodbyes. Everyone dragged their feet obviously exhausted from all that had happened. I started to head towards my own home finally feeling the need to sleep. chapter 175 I woke up early morning and I felt a lot better after having a good sleep. I got ready slowly making myself some tea and breakfast and feeding some meat to Goose. The wolves had gone out to hunt but Goose decided to stay with me today. I didn¡¯t know why but he seems to want to fly less nowadays. Usually, he''s always in the sky looking down and enjoying himself but like right now he is perched on my shoulder while we are walking towards the quarry. He hasn¡¯t shared any feelings as to why he was doing this, so I didn¡¯t want to press him right now. And I also did enjoy the feeling of him on my shoulder. In the future, we would not be able to do that when he started to grow bigger. Last night when I made it back to my land, I was a bit taken aback by how little strength my land gave me but now I¡¯m quite certain that was because the nation itself was supporting my strength so the difference between my land and the nation''s land was smaller. I could already imagine that we could be extremely powerful in defence of our nation in the future. My mind was still occupied by the formation of the military. Our biggest problem wasn''t equipment or training it was the lack of personnel. Our nation occupied a huge land area close to the size of the island of Ireland. The largeness of this was surprising. I also didn¡¯t like how David mentioned it so casually just so he could see my dumbfounded face during lunch. I put it out of my mind then because I had more important things to think about but now I had at least a few free days where I could just do some simple work that I liked to do and think of things. There were little over 400 people living here in our nation who all did give the vow to the nation but still that few people owning so much land was actually quite stupid. Well to be fair most of it was just grassland that would be extremely hard to colonize because of that simply ridiculous number of rabbits and other wild animals that would tear apart any planted crops. But even with such a large land area, there''s only one village in it which was again crazy. The closest town to us was just 11 kilometres beyond our border. When I ran past it, I did feel some life in it but who knows what has become of it by now. That town led to three villages one of them being our village the others further west and north more towards the coastline and one of those villages was where my apprentices came from. I did not like that the town was so close to our border, yet we didn''t know what was going on out there. The problem again was that we didn''t have the population to effectively scout outside our borders. One thing that we could do was put together a small military force and occupied the town for some time then we could take over the town and the surrounding land claiming it for our nation but it would take away a significant number of our military forces for a long time. Plus owning land is not that important you could still do anything you want on that land. A few times I have had an idea that perhaps we could get the goblins on our side as an alliance or perhaps even be part of our nation, but I think if that were to happen, they need to initiate it. I just wouldn¡¯t feel right offering that. With the power I possess, it could come off as a poorly veiled threat if they do not comply. Then there are the rock creatures that I now must be a lot more careful around as I do not want some kill squads after me. There are also some other problematic places in our nation where the ecosystem is quite unique or delicate. I have been thinking that perhaps we should have wildlife conservation land. Perhaps a Reserve like they used with the indigenous American people. But this had bad implications. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I wanted areas of land where nature could live in peace or as much peace as we can give it. Perhaps we could even have rangers that own the land but are responsible for preserving its ecosystem instead of making it a homestead. There were many possibilities and many directions we could go in, but I didn¡¯t want to take over nature like we started to do even before industrialization. I would like it if we could stay closer to nature. That just feels better. I have always felt that living with nature is much better than trying to bend it to your will. I didn¡¯t enjoy the cities back on earth. I liked nature and how it made me feel. It was all more primal more real than life in a city. Life in a city was indeed easier, and you seem to get more out of it, but it was somehow less real which didn''t make any sense because how could reality have a different amount of realness? I finally snap out of whatever that trail of thought was when I saw my apprentices working. I quickly estimated how much work they had done, and I was proud as they were closer to finishing than I expect them to be. Now their appearance was a different story. They looked like rich parents kids who were forced to do manual labour in a coal mine. The only difference was that they weren¡¯t complaining and actually doing their work but the way they looked was awfully similar. I let out a bit of a laugh which unfortunately was a bit too loud as they all started to glare at me as soon as they saw me. That made me laugh a bit more which made them give up their hostile attitude. They just started to work again. This helped me take my mind off heavy things and I started to help them. When I ask them why they looked like that I got quite a funny story in return. Arthur had a brilliant idea which wasn¡¯t that brilliant. He tried to use his abilities in a bit of a different way than I thought them to use them while splitting rocks. The end result was that he did succeed but there were a few side effects. One being a huge blast of pulverized rock that covered them in dust. I was glad that they had learned how to test pushing abilities which probably saved their lives. Arthur had basically thought up how to use explosive force to split rock, but they didn''t have dynamite to light up and then get safely behind some cover. He did the same thing but with a hammer that he swung to get that effect. I was just glad that they weren¡¯t hurt but I was also impressed with the damage capabilities he demonstrated. There were a few more funny stories, and I was surprised that they had such an eventful time during the past two days. We were done with the rocks by evening but I gave them the next day off so they could relax before starting to work on their tools again. I used that time to go and mine more iron ore which help level up digging and mining. I spent the rest of the night smelting some steel so they could make some more tools. I also used that opportunity to take 70 more ironwood saplings which was the limit for this year as otherwise, the tree might start to suffer. Planting them was easy enough. The next day everyone was in this smith. My apprentices were making tools and I was making steel rods so I could strengthen the cart so we could bring larger quantities of stone with every trip. I also made four more sets of steel rods so I could make more carts in the future which could transport a lot of weight. I still want our road project to happen soonish. During the night I strengthened up the cart and I was quite pleased with how it worked out I also beefed up the brakes. I was enjoying the night after I finished my work knowing that tomorrow I will be going to the village so we could finish setting up the military and the day after that my apprentices should be done with their tools and we can start bringing the foundation rocks over to the build sites. It was still a few hours before sunrise when a shiver went down my back. It took me a moment to figure out what was happening. There were enemies in our nation. I quickly dived into land authority and started to close in on the location of the intruders. I had felt intruders before plenty of monsters crossed our borders daily, but this was different the alarm was more urgent and stronger. In my haste, I was soon looking right at the intruders through my ability. In an instant, I knew that I had made a mistake. I had gone too close. I was stupid I had seen stronger monsters noticing as I looked at them too closely. They never found me and that helped to drive off most of those monsters but I now looked at two humans. One was clueless but the other one knew someone was looking. I pulled back but it was too late. They retreated beyond our borders and out of my sight. chapter 176 POV scouts I looked behind me and I was again angered. My so-called partner did have promise but he was slowing me down too much. And now I was sent on a stupid mission to go and scout some territory that came out of nowhere. I can understand the need somewhat but why did it have to be me? Well, I also know the answer to that cause I was the best and fastest scout they had so why did they give me a slowpoke as a partner I do not understand. Perhaps I should have gone back to the, what were they calling it queendom, at least there I would have had better work but then again perhaps I would have not been able to kill so much. We would reach the last town quite soon and beyond that were only a few villages but the one presumably hosting the leaders of the new territory was the most eastern and northern village in the entire fallen Kingdom. This entire mission has been a disappointment. I don''t understand why we would want to take over the land here there are no people left even the county capital was a ruined wreck with only 50 people left. I have heard that there are stronger forces out west, but I do not have to worry about them at least not yet and hopefully I will never be sent that way because I¡¯m tired of running so much. Our ruler will not have too much trouble conquering some of the stronger communities at least not towards here but keeping them under control will take a lot of men but then again there is a reason why I am an old scout. Never was that good in strategy. I laid my eyes upon the town, and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn¡¯t mostly burnt down and even more impressive were the still-standing stone walls. If this town was occupied by a strong force, it would take a lot of men to take it down. I ran through my detections abilities and found that there were only about 40 people inside and no one was truly strong although I will not be able to overpower them by myself. Making contact with them was necessary and hopefully, they will have some idea about the forces that are beyond here. Currently, the only thing I know is that some nobles in the middle of the winter were making their way towards the north with an undead horde following them. My current theory is that they were able to defeat them and are the ones that are in command of the new territory. It will still be a couple of hours before sunrise so we would have to wait until then before we approach otherwise it would be too suspicious. I will also have to ditch most of my weapons so we would look like refugees coming to find a new home. I looked back and was disappointed that my partner was still 10 minutes behind me, and I could see he was struggling to keep running. I will let him take a small pause while I circle around the town to get a better angle on the walls so I can start collecting information for the report. The town itself was standard there were walls but they were badly maintained like everywhere else around here. I was glad to see some grainfields that were planted. These people will make good slaves. I can¡¯t wait when I get my promised piece of land and slaves to get started. But until then I will need to work. ¡°Get up you lazy bastard we will keep going. We will soon reach the target territory and I want to know if there are any lookouts.¡± The groan that he made was amusing. I wonder how he would scream if I stick him with a knife. ¡°Please stop looking at me like that it creeps me out.¡± He spoke. I snapped out of my momentary lapse of concentration when I heard his voice. He was a bit innocent wasn¡¯t he, but we will soon train that out of him. He will thank me later on. We all needed to be ruthless in our fucked-up world. At least my face made him move a bit faster but I slowed down quite a lot when we started to get close to the territory border. I checked the item again so I could locate the exact border location. There didn''t seem to be anyone around and I didn¡¯t get any sniff of any people being here for quite some time. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. If they haven¡¯t posted someone here, then perhaps they have too few fighters to even cover the only road into their territory. There might not be anything to worry about up here which would be a pleasant surprise as usually, these kinds of missions don¡¯t end well. My partner confirmed that he didn''t detect anyone as well, so we moved forward. We got across the border and nothing happened, so we continued forward. We had only gotten about 10 steps in before the hair on my neck stood up. I crouched down a bit ready to sprint off and hopefully I could get away from whoever was watching us. I tried to find them with all of my abilities but I was getting confusing results. I stopped my stupid partner from going forward because of course he didn¡¯t feel anything. ¡°Idiot someone is watching.¡± At least now he was getting properly prepared. I moved a bit to get a better idea of what I was feeling and to my surprise for some reason the location from which I was being viewed from was just in front of me. I quickly threw two of my knives, but nothing happened. They just flew a bit and then fell back down. Then the feeling suddenly disappeared as if the person watching me went away. My heart was beating way faster than it should have had but I now know that we weren¡¯t in any immediate danger, but the danger was even worse than I suspected. They had someone who could monitor intruders. This was something that I couldn¡¯t overcome. Fuck, that meant that I had failed this mission. Perhaps the people in the town have more information. I pulled my idiot partner back and as soon as we were beyond the border I finally started to relax. The bastard was still watching me. Must have backed off so as to not trigger most of my abilities. I didn¡¯t feel his powers as we got past the border. That¡¯s good knowledge to have but it also meant that we couldn''t just stroll in we needed a better plan. Perhaps make up a refugee group and infiltrate that way. I need to report back but before that, we needed all the information from the people here. Hopefully, they will know what''s happening or who¡¯s in control of the territory. At least this got interesting. I explained everything to my partner and watching him shivering in fear was a bit less enjoyable than I wanted it to be as even I was feeling some fear. That was some powerful magic or an extremely rare ability. Whatever the case was I do not have to decide anything I just have to report my findings but hopefully, I won¡¯t be punished by something that I can¡¯t control. Perhaps it would have been better to just run away. POV Rich Dirt It took me quite a while to calm down even needing to meditate a bit. I had messed up so badly. It was the first engagement the first shuffling of the cards and I failed it miserably. One thing that helped me calm down was that they probably had no idea how intricate my ability was. I am quite certain that these were the absolute front scouts perhaps not even for an army but just gathering information. They might test my ability some more but even more likely they will try to infiltrate by using other people as cover, but they don''t know that that wouldn''t work and that made me smile. We needed to do something with that town we couldn''t just leave it like that. Many ideas came to me, but I didn¡¯t like them. Trying to take over the town or fortify it against an army just didn''t feel right. I needed information on our enemies before I could come up with any ideas. It would take me a couple of hours to get there at my full speed but that would be good enough if something came up. In a few hours, I will get to report everything but unfortunately, I will have to be the one to make the final decisions this time. No one else has the experience that I have and while the Knights are good at leading and fighting, they haven¡¯t been taught to strategize as I have. This also helped me figure out a glaring problem. We didn''t have any spies. I should have long ago planted a person in that town and that¡¯s my failing. The time went by fast and before I knew it the sun had risen. That snapped me out of my endless loop of scenarios, and I had to take a deep breath because I knew that I had to stop that. I didn¡¯t have enough information and thinking up scenarios with so little information was just a waste of time. Son of a bitch I will have to go scouting, won¡¯t I? There are some other scouts that are good, but they aren''t as fast or as strong as I am. But on the other side perhaps I can catch some of the scouts and get some information. I really hope that it would have taken at least another week until anyone got to our border, that way I would have had my apprentices set up and have them knowledgeable enough to continue building their houses with little input on my part. Well, it seems like it¡¯s going to be a busy season. I cracked my neck before I started to head towards the village it was time to start messing with the people who wanted to mess with us. chapter 177 I was running towards the village, but I was distracted by Goose. He was flying so low that by jumping I might catch him, and this was something that he hasn''t ever done. I wanted to give him time, but we won''t have it anymore. I need to know what was going on, so I stopped and called him down. Which he did with utmost happiness which made me frown. I used our bond to start asking some pointed questions. He didn¡¯t answer but what I got in return was shame and fear. I relaxed myself trying to also convey that to my bonded companion. I also needed to just slow down as rushing was probably the worst thing I could do right now. My sincerity helped Goose to be a bit more open and while it was hard to understand his feeling and images as we communicated, he helped me finally understand what was wrong. I had noticed that the wind was starting to support him, but I never imagined that he didn¡¯t understand that and thought that something was wrong. He was so afraid that something was trying to attack him or influence him. Every time he flew the air around him would no longer act like it used to. I took my time and explained what was happening and seeing the fright turn to confusion and then amazement was quite wonderful to see. As soon as he finally understood what was happening, he was up in the air at the next moment. His joyous mood made me happy as well and I finally started to run towards the village again. I was constantly bombarded with new discoveries that Goose was making which made him fly faster or make him able to turn quicker. It was amazing to see how fast he was learning and I couldn''t even imagine what he might be capable of in the future. Coming towards the walls of the village was different this time. I could feel the members of the military through the trait that we had. This was incredible. No one could fake this feeling and I could understand the general location of every military personal close to me and they could do the same to me. This was incredibly good news but also a bit sad as I would no longer be able to tortur¡­ inspect their readiness. Perhaps there is still a way but I will have to leave that for a later date. I was let in quickly and I was glad to see that extra supports were already being placed for the strengthening of the gate. This was good news and will be incredibly useful in the coming months. I was still quite certain that there would not be any armies crossing our borders within one month but after that who knows? I¡¯m just glad that this world seemed to be an incredibly large one giving us another form of defence, distance. The village was already waking up as life moved with the sun unlike back on earth where we made our own time. Perhaps there are some cities in this world that keep their own time with magical lights so they can work at whatever hour they want. I was running through all the things that we need and the most glaring issue was food. I reached the meeting room, but no one was in it, so I decided to start doing some calculations. The two knights were the first to make it to the meeting room most likely coming here after they heard that I was already in the village. I gave them a nod, but I went back to my notebook where I kept listing out things needed and calculating how many of those things we need. I briefly looked up when they sat down and asked, ¡°Has everyone vowed the military oath?¡± I didn¡¯t keep looking at them as went back to work but soon I got my answer. ¡°No not yet, I believe you wanted to gather everyone outside for the final ceremony so of course, everyone hasn¡¯t.¡± I could hear the extreme confusion in his voice, but I didn¡¯t even look up while answering. ¡°I am afraid we cannot do the ceremony as it would be too risky and also start preparing a mobilization order so we can recruit everyone capable into the military.¡± I finished one calculation which I hope that I did wrong, but I redid it and cursed out loud, ¡°son of a fucking, fuck.¡± We just simply didn¡¯t have the food needed. The military will need to start hunting and foraging as much as possible. Perhaps we could stop the village wall guarding as technically we won¡¯t currently need them. I looked up and saw a few more people had sat down talking to each other in hushed tones. ¡°How many of the guards can hunt?¡± I asked them but even before finishing, I figured it wouldn¡¯t matter. ¡°Never mind they will learn.¡± This would give me some leeway but we won¡¯t be moving any armies outside our borders anytime soon. Perhaps the goblins might have some more food and what about the town that''s closest to us perhaps they have some reserves but even then, we weren¡¯t going to supply any army for long. ¡°What was our water-carrying item supply? Was it 60-something?¡± I asked one of the knights after a moment of silence he nodded and said, ¡°67 currently.¡± That was so bad. ¡°Son of a bitch. And if I remember correctly, we don¡¯t have a lot of materials to make many more. This is unfortunate perhaps we can supplement that with barrels.¡± Oh, I like that that¡¯s a good idea that might fix the water problems at least for a little while. I was thinking about the problem of what equipment we needed when I heard my name being repeated multiple times. ¡°Rich can you hear me, Rich.¡± I looked up and saw that David was trying to get my attention. I looked around and saw that every seat was filled, and even more, people were around the room than I have ever seen here. ¡°Uh sorry David, I was a bit distracted. Did any of you possibly feel an intrusion into our territory this morning?¡± There was a moment of silence before people started to slowly nod. ¡°Yeah, this one was a bit stronger, but we have all been feeling them quite constantly. What is this about?¡± Ask David now with a lot more worried voice. ¡°Well, I won¡¯t keep you in suspense. Two scouts that were hostile at least to my ability cross the border but soon retreated when they noticed my attention on them.¡± I could see the disbelief in people¡¯s eyes. ¡°Yeah, I know I fucked up, but I won¡¯t make that mistake again.¡± I got back to thinking about what kind of strategies we could use with the current equipment. There were only shit ones. I was interrupted by David again, ¡°we don¡¯t think that you fucked up. Could you please explain things a bit better? We don''t really understand what''s happening.¡± Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. I looked up and had to sigh out loud. I hope that I could give them concrete answers and solutions but there was too much to think about. I looked down at my notes and I wasn¡¯t even half done yet on the most important things let alone all the others. Working without assistance and computers is a bit different. ¡°A hostile force sent scouts. It means that we will most likely be at war quite soon. I will personally go and scout the closest town to us and see what I can find out, but we have a lot to do and we can no longer wait.¡± I could see the panic in their eyes, and they all wanted to start doing something but I slapped my hand on the table so that everyone would calm down. ¡°There is no need to panic. While there are some important things, we must do fast everything will take time. I have already seen that you have started to reinforce the gate, which is excellent, but the army will take months to get here.¡± I paused for a moment to let that sink in which did relax some of them just a bit. ¡°What we need to do right now is think about food, equipment for fighting and finding out what forces we are against. The next big thing that will happen will be the refugees coming. I have mentioned this before, but have you figured out how many can we support.¡± David was the one to speak and I appreciated the steadiness and steel in his voice. ¡°We can easily take 200 but like you said food will be the biggest problem but after that 200 anything more gets a lot more difficult. We just don¡¯t have the raw resources to build more buildings and even if we did, we wouldn¡¯t be able to fit them inside the walls without compromising security.¡± When David stopped speaking, I took a few minutes to think everything over. But before I could tell them my idea on how to fix this, I was a bit shocked but pleasantly so about what has happened. A small smile came to my face, and I looked up to address everyone. ¡°I have some good news that I just learned. It seems that the horse herd has joined us. They are quite close to the stables, and I will soon need to go and welcome them.¡± This news brought everyone some happiness. It meant work animals, fighting mounts and more importantly the possibility to breed some more useful animals. ¡°Now that that¡¯s over here are the things that we must do. First, we have to declare a mobilization we need more troops. Our new and old military will start to gather more food and start making required equipment. During that, we will also train them to the best of our ability with the limited time we have.¡± I paused as I needed to think things through one more time before continuing. Others wanted to speak but I hold up my hand so I would have some more time. ¡°We also have a big problem with the town that¡¯s close to our border. We cannot take it over and use it as a defensive structure as we do not have the manpower or the food to defend it.¡± I could already see multiple people starting to speak against this, but I hold up my hand silencing them. ¡°Yes, I know if we don¡¯t take it then our enemy will use it as their base and we would never have a moment of peace if we do not take it for ourselves. I have been troubled by this problem for quite some time and no matter which way we lean it''s not good for us. But I have come up with a solution.¡± The mood had gone down quite a lot, but in the end, I gave them some hope. ¡°This solution will also help with the refugee problem and also with expanding our village. We will go and take that town apart stone by stone and log by log. We will then bring all those resources back here which will solve many of our problems.¡± After my statement, it went so quiet in the meeting room that only heartbeats were heard. Calling me an absolute lunatic started only a few moments later but I just let them be and waited in silently for everyone to let off some steam. It was needed as this was a tense situation. But even I had my limits and after three minutes I hold up my hand again which made everyone go silent and settle back down. ¡°I never said that this was going to be easy, and we will need the help of even the people who are not in the military and yes even the children and women will be helping us gather everything from that town.¡± I looked into everyone¡¯s eyes to make them understand how serious I was. ¡°This is the absolute best option, and this is something that needs to happen. Francis will be the one to help us the most but now we also have horses that can help which will make things faster.¡± ¡°Me and my apprentices will focus on making the necessary carts so we can bring everything back. I will work with the appropriate people here to come up with the exact number of things that we need and the timetable that everyone will need to follow.¡± I got back into my wartime mindset. Everything happened quickly and efficiently as I didn¡¯t let anyone contradict my actions, but I did answer questions about why we were doing things and explained why they were needed. While this was slower now, down the line it will save countless hours. The most urgent things were done before 2 o''clock so I rushed off to meet the horses. I only brought a few carrots as we didn¡¯t have the food to waste. The leader of the horses was proud, but he was also strong. I was a bit mistaken about the reason he brought the herd here. It took quite a long time to figure out and then acquiesced to his demands. After all, he was a horse, so it was hard to understand his needs. He wanted to see everything before agreeing to stay here. We toured all of the horse stables and the lands around here he even met with the war horses who quite quickly showed signs of submission to the horse leader. My heart started to relax. It took about five hours before everything was finished with the horses. They had accepted the deal and the horse caretakers quickly started to work on getting everyone settled. When I made it back to the village, I headed to the meeting room where everyone was discussing important topics. I gave them an update on the horses which made everyone a bit more relaxed, but the situation was still quite tense. When I started to take my armour off inside the meeting room everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at me in confusion. ¡°Everyone from now on shouldn¡¯t wear most if not all of their armour unless necessary. We will only keep five guards for the day and night shift for the wall everyone else will act as either hunters or regular citizens.¡± ¡°Only four knights will be in full armour and will act overbearingly. There will also be three minor nobles that you will pick amongst yourselves that would act like nobles and we need a complete dick bag in charge of everything. If you can find jewellery and an awful crown that this person can wear would be excellent. Try to get him to mimic my appearance and he needs to act like a dick bag. When the time comes, I will assume that persona.¡± I finally finished taking off all my armour and I started to think about what I was going to wear for my scouting mission. ¡°Excuse me Rich but why would we do that?¡± Came a confused voice. ¡°Because we have to assume that someone might overhear or see us with some sort of ability or magic, and we have to start deceiving them from now on. Start thinking of ways to block other people from hearing or seeing us.¡± After a few moments, one of the mages quickly cast a spell which did something to the room. ¡°Sound blocking barrier. Our voices will no longer be heard outside this room,¡± said the mage. I nodded to him. ¡°A good start but never only rely on one thing. Deception is best if it has multiple layers.¡± chapter 178 I was running at my top speed towards the town. I ended up picking an outfit that made me look like a regular ranger. I had my bow sling over my shoulder on my belt was my quiver, my knife and dagger belt and my sword belt. I was feeling a bit naked as I¡¯ve got around quite used to my armour, but I should have known before this that I might need lighter armour for things like this. But this will also work as I would just look like another ranger. I looked at my notifications and this made me turn my thoughts from the upcoming confrontation to my achievement page. I had gotten a new skill called animal communication and I¡¯m really proud of this one as even David hadn¡¯t heard of this one. I got two levels in organization, one level in intimidation and I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯m quite close to a tier up on that one and I even got my command skill a level up. I have gotten some skill and ability level-ups between now and when I got back from the raid, but I hadn¡¯t gotten a new skill in quite a while. Even during raiding I was more advancing thanks to getting level-ups with my classes than actually levelling up my skills and abilities. The most explosive growth until now I¡¯ve seen was when I was farming and while I was getting iron ore. The two things most in common with this were when I was absolutely focused on doing these tasks or I liked doing them a lot. I had thought that my slow down of skills and abilities was because I was at the next tier and perhaps that¡¯s true to a certain extent but obviously, I just haven¡¯t been taking my other things seriously enough. Then again I haven¡¯t had much time to focus on other things. Now for making myself powerful I should be always fully committed to everything I do but I also feel that this could burn me out quite quickly. So, I¡¯m a bit conflicted. While my skill levels are good for the amount of time I¡¯ve had them they are certainly not good for the class levels I have reached. The other problem I think I have is just my mentality with the skills that I get. For example, making stuff with wood can have a lot more skills than just wood carving and wood crafting like joint making or barrel construction. It can be a lot more specific as I have been told, but I don¡¯t know for me it just makes sense that it should just be under wood crafting. Sometimes I hate that I¡¯m old. I noticed it back on earth, but you get set in your ways. I know that people like to joke about that, but it has a lot of truth in it. There are of course exceptions but those only occur when you really wanted to learn something new but as I got older, I just liked to do things the way I used to do even if the new way was a bit better or even a lot better. I would somehow need to get out of this mindset or do I go with the way that feels more like me? You are supposed to get stronger abilities if your skill is more encompassing but on the flip side if your skill is extremely targeted then the ability should be extremely good at doing that one thing. If you think of it this way, then the skills argument will turn into the master of one versus jack of all trades. In gaming master of one is in 95% of the case better but this world is not a game. While this world does have game elements it''s mostly similar to real life where you would need to be a jack of a lot of trades to survive but not all of them. My class homesteader has more in common with a jack of all trades, but I also feel that in this world it¡¯s necessary to master something. That is of course if you want to be at the top. I continued to think about this but eventually, I made it close enough to the town that I had to slow down and get off the road. There wasn''t much forest around here but there was still enough of it left that I could get quite close to the town while still staying completely hidden. It was sad to see all the farmland overgrown and after this year there wouldn''t be anything left. You would have to start from the beginning if you wanted to plant something. I was glad that the night was dark as it was quite cloudy which gave me incredible advantages. Not only would my stealth abilities work a lot better, but I could see everything perfectly thanks to my eyes. I could see from pretty far away and I remembered the exact location where the scouts intruded. I hadn¡¯t had to use this part of my visual abilities, but I could see traces of footprints they left behind. One of them was a lot fainter than the other probably using stronger abilities to hide. I could see the trail of footprints coming from the southern direction and I could see how they return from the border and headed towards a small thicket of trees. They seem to have spent some time there. I looked around some more and after some searching, I found that one of the scouts had returned towards the south while one most likely stayed in the town. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. There was one person on top of the gatehouse looking out, but he was quite vigilant. The problem for him was that I was too far away for him to see anything even if I didn¡¯t use my stealth skills. I made my way towards the small thicket of trees where they seem to have done something. I noticed some freshly dug-up dirt which they had quite expertly disguised. After I dug it up, I saw some armour pieces and some weapons meant for one person, but the hole was big enough to fit a lot more. They probably had to disguise themselves to get into the town which was some good news meaning that the town itself didn''t belong to the same faction. I know that the town hadn¡¯t come to scout our land simply because they would have done it earlier. The footprints came from the south, which was the reason I was quite certain that we were up against a bigger foe. Getting into the town was stupidly easy. I just had to use one of the other walls which weren''t guarded. Climbing it was simple enough with my abilities even without them it would have been simple. The wall was quite damaged, and it had quite a lot of convenient handholds to pull myself up. Otherwise, the wall was quite impressive being 5 meters tall and almost two meters wide. The town was a decent size and probably housed close to 2000 people but now there weren¡¯t many left. I moved quickly through the streets towards the only active location that I could spot. I was cautious but I still had a lot of land to cover before I started to hear noises of people. It was funny that the only active location was a tavern, but I guess the time being around midnight was the main culprit. I searched around for people''s energy and noticed that most people were living with two people per house or only one. I could only see one house with three people and that made me a bit sad meaning there were a lot of families left here. I had to do some slow sneaking to get close enough to the tavern, but I was still completely safe as I could hide one house away and still listen although I had to concentrate a lot. ¡°I don¡¯t like that we let one of them go. What if he¡¯s a part of a raider group and not refugee,¡± said a deep voice. He was almost immediately answered by another voice. ¡°The leadership has the same concerns as you do but all we can do is hope.¡± There wasn''t much more useful information but one thing I did learn was that they did have enough food that without growing anything they could survive the next winter, but I did notice that they had planted quite a lot which is a bit sad as all of it must be destroyed. It seems that I got here a bit too late as it seems that only a few people are still awake and they were quite drunk. Looks like they had quite a lot of alcohol left here as well. Finding the location of the scout took me a bit of time but I was able to find him thanks to the lookouts posted around the house that he was using. I was glad to see that only two sides of the house were covered and the scout inside was clever enough to know which sides were being looked at and had set himself up so he couldn¡¯t be overseen. A rookie mistake as now he would be vulnerable to a third party aka me. To stay hidden I used my sound isolation, but I tried to keep it as low as possible as I didn¡¯t want my energy to be noticed because of that I also strictly controlled my other abilities usage. I started to climb to the second story so I could get in from one of the windows. It had a basic latch, but I was able to circumvent it with my knife. I was glad of my sound isolate ability otherwise I would have needed oil because the hinges were stupidly loud. I just had to make it across a single room, and I was looking at the sleeping form of my enemy. He truly was a rookie as he had set up his stuff on the table quite far away from himself. He should have kept them near him so there would have been a better chance of him waking up if anyone was getting closer. Now I was able to go through this stuff without too much worry but unfortunately, there wasn''t anything useful. There were some papers, but they were all empty. Now the question came, what I should do with him. I looked at him and how he slept and noticed how young he was. He must have been new to this, and rookies sometimes run away especially if things started to get serious like a territory, they needed to scout that knew immediately when they crossed the border. Quickly an idea formed in my head and I started to act. I packed everything he owned up into his backpack and put it on. I then sneaked as quietly as possible towards him. He was at least a bit competent as when I was just two steps away his eyes opened up. He was able to get one help yell out and sit up almost halfway before I quickly closed in and punched him in his face strong enough to knock him out but hopefully not enough to kill him. I picked him up and put him aside so I could gather up his sleeping things and pack them up. I then threw him over my shoulder and quietly moved towards the window. Getting down was a lot more difficult and I slipped falling almost one floor. I waited for almost a minute before I was certain that I hadn¡¯t been noticed and I started to move towards the wall to get over it with my hostage. Climbing up was annoying but getting down was a lot easier as I used the rope to lower him down, his own rope which was morbidly funny. When I got myself down I headed towards our land, it was time to know what we were up against. chapter 179 POV Vel The moment I woke up all I felt was my head pounding and my face hurting. It took me a few moments to gather myself before I could open my eyes, but it was hard to tell if I had opened them or not, it was so dark outside. What was I doing here? I did remember that something woke me up and then a sharp pain but nothing else. ¡°Aaaa fuck me.¡± Just ahead of me only a few feet I could see glowing cat-like eyes. I tried to back off but there was a tree behind me. ¡°Relax I¡¯m not here to frighten you.¡± Came a voice from the dark shape that I now realized looked like a human crouching down, but those eyes certainly weren¡¯t human they were menacing. I had to struggle to not piss myself. My heart was pounding so hard that I thought it might jump out of my chest, but I forced myself to calm down. Looking around here there was nothing but trees but I could barely see anything, but I certainly wasn¡¯t in the town. How had I gotten here? I kept staring at the shadow. I turned myself a bit trying to reach my secret blade, but my fingers didn''t touch any handle and I could feel panic starting to come over me again. Where for fire¡¯s sake was it? Then I heard it again that voice. While it sounds normal for some reason it was scarier than my commander¡¯s voice. ¡°If you¡¯re looking for your blade then I am afraid you must have dropped it when I was carrying you here.¡± Must have dropped oh shit this dude is psychotic. What does he even want I¡¯m a nobody. If he was with the town then he wouldn''t have carried me here. ¡°If you¡¯re wondering who I am then there is a simple answer to that. I am your enemy.¡± The shadow said so casually it took me a moment to realize what that meant. An enemy, why would I be an enemy? Could he be one of the families back in the city-state? But no, why would he come here I haven¡¯t done anything that¡¯s special. Wait, is he from the territory we were sent to investigate? ¡°I see you have gotten it. Finally figuring it out. It must feel satisfying?¡± Said the shadow with so much sincerity he almost made me doubt myself. Is he reading my mind oh please for water and earth¡¯s sake, not that? There was a momentary silence as I tried to figure out if he was reading my mind. I then saw the shadow''s head tilt to one side and then an amused chuckle left his lips. ¡°I guess this is a bit different, isn¡¯t it? I will have to account for the interesting things in this world. No, I cannot read your mind you can take it easy.¡± Answered the shadow like we were old friends. I could feel the panic creeping in again. Why was I here and why hadn¡¯t he killed me if I was his enemy? ¡°What do you want shadow,¡± I asked him but I could not get any power behind my words. ¡°I am so sorry I guess I haven¡¯t been courteous enough with you. I am disappointed in myself. I have no idea how you knew my name is shadow, but since you already know mine let''s meet properly. It''s a pleasure to meet you my name is shadow I would be pleased to know what your name is.¡± Asked the shadow in a sweet voice that only the sincerest of people would you use. ¡°People call me Val and I am pleased to meet you as well.¡± Why did I say it like that what''s happening? I have to do something otherwise. ¡°You can relax now my good friends. I heard that you have come a long way I would enjoy hearing where you are from.¡± Asked the shadow while moving a bit closer. I still couldn¡¯t see him better, but those eyes were even bigger now. What did he ask me? ¡°I¡¯m from the Elrin city-state which used to be the duchy capital of the Elrond duchy. A former first-rank adventure team claimed the land and rules over a lot more towns and villages. We are quite strong.¡± I answered the shadow but as soon as I stopped, I understood what was happening. I had let my guard down, but he was acting so friendly yet terrifying. What was happening, is it an ability his using or perhaps even magic? ¡°Tell me more about the strength of this city-state,¡± he asked still sweetly but I shut my mouth I wasn¡¯t going to answer any more questions. He was just going to kill me anyways. After a few moments passed I could see him starting to shake his head. ¡°I¡¯m disappointed and we were having such a wonderful conversation. I guess we have to do this the hard way then.¡± His voice wasn''t sweet anymore it was cold and deadly, and I could hear how he slowly pulled a weapon out of his scabbard. I remembered my instructor''s words. If anyone is ever going to torture you to get information the first thing I want you to think about is this if you tell the truth, you might get your countryman killed. This will help you resist if your conviction is strong enough but even if you start to break lie always lie because it''s better to die than get all your brothers and sisters killed because you were too afraid. I repeated those words again and again as he got closer. I could feel the blade on my foot which made me realize that I wasn¡¯t wearing any boots. Why wasn¡¯t I wearing any boots? I was expecting pain but there wasn''t any. I looked up and while I could still not see anything but shadow his face was a bit more defined, but those eyes still dominated everything. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. ¡°Since you do not want to be civil I will tell you what will happen. At first, I will start to slowly scratch you barely drawing any blood.¡± He then started to do that, but it wasn¡¯t that bad. ¡°But then every time you don''t answer my question, I will take one of your fingers and start to cut around one of your finger joints. I will do it slowly until all the skin and muscles are loose and then I will shake your hand until your finger just pops off. And I will repeat that every time you don¡¯t answer.¡± All I could hear after that was my heart pounding it was almost like I couldn¡¯t hear anymore the beating was so loud. What if I couldn¡¯t hear his question? Who the fuck does something like that. I don''t know how long it took but eventually, I started to calm down. The shadow was still waiting he hasn¡¯t even moved an inch. Perhaps I can grab his knife and kill myself, but I can feel his strength I wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything. ¡°Please don¡¯t do this please.¡± I would have kept begging but he started to talk.¡± I see that you are a reasonable man all I want is answers to my questions and then you don¡¯t ever have to see me again. But I¡¯m afraid you also can''t leave. You see you could always just lie to me and that would just not be a nice thing to do.¡± ¡°So, if you tell me the truth you will never see me again but if you lie to me well since I know that you will be staying with my friends in the northern village, I can always find you and then we can continue where we left off. I think I will start with the pinky finger it''s always annoying when you have to start with a finger that is in the middle. It''s hard to reach it properly the other fingers just get in the way.¡± Oh no no no no no why me why did they pick me I didn¡¯t want to come here why did I even join the army why didn¡¯t I run? Maybe I can still run I looked around, but I felt his hand on my chin. He moved my face forcefully to look into his eyes. ¡°You look at me so we can start.¡± He told me and I could almost feel the promise of death in his voice. I don¡¯t want to die. Those adventurers can go to hell I wasn¡¯t dying for them or anyone else. POV Rich Dirt I had to slow him down a bit as he started to spew out everything he could think about in an unending stream. I had broken him but at least I didn¡¯t have to cut anything off otherwise he would have been even more delirious. I did not however like what he was saying. Not because I didn¡¯t believe it to be true but because I considered them to be true. The situation wasn''t good. A standard team of five first-rank adventurers who had been doing jobs around the duchy capital for quite a while took the opportunity to take control after a huge mob of people killed the duke after he didn''t open up the food stores to feed the starving populace. They rapidly took control over the huge duchy capital that housed more than 20,000 people although the starvation and cold killed almost half. Before the plague apparently, the city housed 30,000 people but only 5000 of the original inhabitants survived. The rest of the 15,000 came there before the winter as refugees from different towns and villages. Even during the winter, the former adventuring team quickly took over the surrounding areas which included multiple villages and towns. Luckily those weren¡¯t so well inhabited but still, the population difference between us and them was laughable. Although there is some good news. It seems that everyone who couldn''t support themselves during the winter and needed the help of the government was forced into slavery if they wanted to get some food. There was of course a different opportunity given. You could join the army. And what an army it was. Almost 10,000 soldiers. 3000 were something similar to military police who were used to control the capital city and the surrounding villages and towns. That still left 7000 soldiers that were trained well enough and who would be getting a lot of experience at least the ones heading towards us. 1000 soldiers were given to the eastern border of the city-state the same to the west. 2000 were deployed to secure the southern border apparently their weakest defensive border. That left 3000 that was coming towards us. I was hoping that the people in between us would help reduce those numbers but I didn¡¯t think that they would help too much at least in the killing department. Apparently, there were seven places that could actually slow them down a bit and only one of those places would survive more than a few days. But that was still a good amount and more specifically it was a lot of ground to cover. They would need to leave a lot of those troops behind as they moved forward. We would have to see how it goes but there is a chance. There are supposed to be stronger places towards the coast, but I don¡¯t think they would help as they were a bit too far away. The adventurers themselves seemed capable enough but as always, the corruption of the power has already eroded them. I was glad to know that I was right about the other scout wanting to infiltrate using a refugee caravan. Apparently, a lot of refugees were on the move trying to escape from the coming battles as most of the smaller towns and villagers were just abandoned. This sky started to get lighter and soon the sun would rise. It was a long night, and I had a lot to think about. It would be a difficult battle even if only 500 of them show up. It would be a lot simpler if I could get the goblins to help and hopefully, I can give them something that they want in exchange for at least 200 spear throwers. I had risen to see the sun but eventually, Vel stood up as well. ¡°Will you now be taking me to the village,¡± he asked completely drained. He could barely stand up. ¡°What are you talking about? Oh, I had forgotten. I believe that you didn¡¯t lie to me so there¡¯s no need to take you to the village. We can just part our way here.¡± And even before he could do anything else I drove a knife into his throat. He collapsed like his strings have been cut. He looked at me in utter disbelief. ¡°You can rest now you won¡¯t ever have to see me again.¡± I closed his eyes and quickly went back to dig up all his gear from the stash bit and then I came back picked him up and started to bring him to a better place so I could burn him without leaving any evidence. chapter 180 I was heading home while pulling a cart that was full of glass panels. I was finally able to get my order so I can finally finish building my greenhouse. I wasn¡¯t in a rush, so I was walking slowly. We couldn''t go to the town before the caravan with the infiltrators arrived and that would most likely take a week or more. I was hoping that it was going to be an actual caravan of refugees and just a few infiltrators. That would be the best-case scenario. Nobody liked the morning meeting that I had called when I informed them what we were up against. Two of the people actually had to go and vomit which was understandable. I certainly remember vomiting just before my first battle. Anxiety can be as deadly as anything else and I don¡¯t know if it helps anyone else but after that, I was able to focus and survive. The difference between the battle I have experienced here and the battles on earth has been a lot different. The violence and the brutality are the same and perhaps in this world it''s even worse because so many used cold weapons meaning you have to get right up to the enemy but the difference in the atmosphere was large. It''s hard to explain but for some reason, it doesn¡¯t feel so grim. Perhaps the problem is that I haven¡¯t been in a long war here and if that¡¯s the case then I certainly won¡¯t know during this war. There won¡¯t be multiple battles or holding a town for a long time we are either going to win this by a single large battle or we are going to lose it. Unfortunately, we have to be in a losing situation before the start to have a chance at winning. If the enemy uses all its resources, we are doomed so we have to look like we are weak so fewer resources would be used to defeat us. One thing that¡¯s excellent at doing so is our low population but honestly, that¡¯s the one thing that I don¡¯t like being our weakness. I have fought against superior numbers for all my life, and I know how to do it, but I also know the cost of it. That heavy cost is terrifying to think about not just on our side but on the enemies as well. That¡¯s why I¡¯m thankful for how big this planet is. People often forget about distance, but it can be your biggest asset. In fact, I think for a defender it¡¯s one of the most important things and if you use it correctly you can win where you never should have. If we want to use this as a defence, we will also need some specific training so we can train soldiers who can burn supplies and disrupt supply lines. But that will, unfortunately, have to be a future endeavour. I was almost home when I started to feel our military start to expand. They had finally announced everything and started the mobilization. I will need to recruit my apprentices myself and it would seem that building their homes must be put on hold. Fortunately, they will still get a lot of experience dismantling the town so they would have an easier time making their home when the war is over. At least for this year. I finally made it to my own land, and it felt good to be back. I looked at the dungeon and decided to delve into it. It was trivial to finish it, but I did expend a lot of energy just letting the dungeon absorb it. I was back out in 20 minutes and heading back towards the house. When I got inside, I saw my apprentices preparing food. They were making some meat pies so they can take them to the house-building sites. It was a bit hard to have to tell them this, but their help was needed. Emma shed a few tears when she found out what was coming for us. Arthur and George were quiet for quite some time. I helped them with the baking, and I decided to make myself a big meal. When I was finished, I was delighted to find out that I finally levelled up my cooking getting me to the next tier. Skill increases basic cooking level 10 is upgraded to cooking level 1 I looked at the offered abilities while I was eating and answering some questions my apprentices had. I wasn¡¯t in any hurry, so I took my time. Choose one of the following abilities gourmet cooking(E) taste enhancement temperature control This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. I¡¯d love to take the taste enhancement, but it really wasn¡¯t necessary. Gourmet cooking(E) was tempting but I would have expected it to be a skill rather than an ability. Temperature control had a lot of implications for other skills as well. Most specifically for smithing. With it, I could have the exact temperature needed while quenching. But that E behind the gourmet cooking. That should mean that it¡¯s something to do with energy. This was actually difficult. Temperature control could be extremely powerful when it was levelled up enough, but I was kind of interested in what cooking with high-tier ingredients would mean in this world. This of course would mean a lot of experimentation and time that was needed to advance this ability, but I was too curious, so I picked it. You have gained a new ability gourmet cooking(E) level 1 I then drafted my apprentices to the military, and they gave me the vow. We started our job by picking the correct lumber for the carts that we were going to build. I hoped that we were going to be able to get some of the horses to help pull the full carts back from the town. I did have hope our animal handlers were up to the job of training the horses. We built the carts big and sturdy. They were going to have to carry a lot of stone and large pieces of building wood back to the village. Like that three days passed quite quickly before we were finished and satisfied enough with the result. During the night I didn¡¯t build but helped my wolves hunt nearby monsters. I had hoped that I could use the monster cores I got from the raid to boost their power, but it didn¡¯t work how I expected it to work. While I was able to give them power with every core, I had to give them almost 200 before they got the same amount of advancement that they got from the boar that we killed. So, unfortunately, it was a lot more efficient to just hunt with them. I also didn¡¯t want to waste all our money when we can just hunt for the same result. As Goose was helping us, I also gave him some of the power from the monster cores. I was able to get the wind and water seeds, so I only needed fire to have the full avatar set but of course, in this world, there are a lot more affinities to collect. During this time, I also worked with Goose so he could understand where to go if I showed him an image of the location of the monster. I wanted to use Goose as a guide for the wolves so they could hunt by themselves. I just hope that I have trained them enough that they don¡¯t just eat the monster core but bring it back. Doing this will hopefully keep the wolves a secret from any prying eyes giving us some more hidden power. We loaded up some extra weapons that I had laying around and the ballista. We hooked up all the carts so Francis can pull them all. His pulling power was ridiculous and would be needed in the coming months. I am also guessing that he will get a lot stronger during this month and I¡¯m kind of afraid that we won¡¯t have any satisfying work to give him if he just keeps getting strong. I didn¡¯t go myself I wanted to finish making my greenhouse and planting everything. Towards the evening three people are supposed to show up and they will be the ones to take care of the plants and animals left here. I don¡¯t know when I will be coming back so I need some caretakers. They are also the reason why I want to finish the greenhouse. They can actually water it so I wouldn¡¯t just be building it for no reason. The building itself was so satisfying but it was easy. I hope that I could get my architectural skill to level up, but this wasn''t a hard building to make. I started by making the wooden foundation. I then built out the boxes where the dirt went. Then I started building the frame. The most time-consuming part was carving out the side channels into the wood where the glass panels were going to fit in. To secure them I was just going to use my merging joint ability and a piece of wood to cover all the edges of the glass panel. While starting to place the glass panels I almost made a mistake. I started at the outer wall but when I was half done with the wall I luckily started to think about how I would cover the roof as I would need to place glass panels beyond my reach. The solution was a simple one I just had to start at the highest position inside the greenhouse itself using a ladder to reach the roof. Placing the panels, I moved row by row downwards and for the last two rows, I was able to place them from the outside. Building using abilities was so much easier and I was done with the build before the evening came. One unfortunate thing was that I couldn¡¯t just take a deep breath inside the greenhouse and enjoy the fresh smell of wood construction as everything smelled like tar. As unfortunate as it was it was also necessary to have the wood be treated with tar even before I started building the greenhouse. This way it will last a lot longer. I left the doors open so it can air out and I went and started to prepare the seeds that I will be planting. I was looking most forward to tomatoes as I quite enjoyed them back on earth. I decided to plant them together with the three people coming here. They were all quite young but that was understandable as everyone else was preparing for war. We got to know each other during the planting while I explained all the seeds and how much they needed to water them. They were smart and it was a pleasure to teach them. After that, I showed them around the farm and the rest of their chores. I showed them the sauna and how it worked and told them that they could use it any time they wanted. When I finished dinner with them, I also headed out. It will be quite some time before I can see my home again. chapter 181 For tonight I didn¡¯t go into the village but tracked down my wolves. I wanted them to have another challenge, but I wasn¡¯t willing to risk any of them getting killed so I will have to show up for this fight. The location was quite far into the grasslands, but the monster was too high tier for the surrounding animals, and it was eating everything around it. But before I got too far into the grasslands, I visited the horses. In all honesty, they just used the stables as a place to go if there was bad weather. Most of them didn''t even sleep there but stayed in the fields where they roamed quite far away but they always seem to come back. I had promised them more freedom and that¡¯s what they will get but some like their previous life a bit more so we will most likely get the horses needed to start bringing everything back from the town. My run to catch up with the wolves took a few hours and I still didn¡¯t know if I liked that we had so much land out here. Hopefully, we will get plenty of refugees so we would actually have enough people to do all the jobs needed. David also brought up a problem of resource gathering. The main problem was for example, I want an iron mine to belong to someone with a homesteader class, but this might be a bit difficult to pull off and how would it work with the economy is another question. Another important thing to know about our nation is if you needed the homesteader class to receive your own clan or would simply owning land be enough. Honestly, I might be a bit biased, but I hope that you need the homesteader class for that because anyone with it will have the true nature connection which would mean that they wouldn¡¯t do anything to harm the land. Otherwise, people would just own the land and start going down the path of nobility if they get enough of it. My thoughts were a mix of the current conflict the problems with our economy and the future of both those problems. When I finally reached the wolves, they were already waiting and ready for a fight. I didn¡¯t hold them back and with Goose looking from up high they launched their attack. As expected, it was a tough battle as the wolf they were up against had control over the earth element. It knew how to use it a lot better than the boar before. The fight was vicious and in the first half the monster dominated but Lucky¡¯s healing and a few critical hits started to wear the monster down. There were three moments when I almost intervened, but Goose was able to help them by launching his own sort of attack using the wind that he controlled. He was even able to blind one of the monster''s eyes and that was the final moment before the fight turned. It ended quickly after that and since the monster was normal-sized none of its parts remained except for the monster core. I again ripped out all the energy and split it between the wolves and Goose. They were happy about the fight but they were dead tired, so they used the same stone outcropping the monster did to stay the rest of the night. Goose flew back with me. Unfortunately for me to give the next target he needed to be close enough so we could see each other but thanks to his continued study of the wind he was getting quite fast at flying. He could now keep up with me even if I pushed myself fully with my movement ability. I made it back a few hours before daylight, so I went to my designated room to sleep in which I haven¡¯t used even once. The few hours of sleep were good enough for another few days and in the morning I started to arrange the military. While technically we almost had 200 soldiers, I couldn¡¯t use all of them for the battle lines. The strongest fighters needed to be kept in a different unit that will most likely have to fight their strongest units. That left me with 162 people who barely knew how to fight at least by my standards. I had multiple people helping me as I looked over all the information I had on these people. I was going to have to work small, so I was going to make them into 40-soldier battle units. We were going to have strict schedules for all four of those units. I was only going to train one of them openly. Two units will need to go hunting and for that reason, every battle unit had a few hunters with them so they can teach the rest. The final unit was going to maintain, repair and make items needed for the war. Most of them didn¡¯t even have any combat class but I could feel from my clan military trait that anyone who was a part of the military wouldn¡¯t have the penalty associated with fighting in a unit. One thing that the system didn''t hinder was for people to defend themselves and that also came with the possibility of attacking others, but fighting in strict battle units and lines did but now that was not a problem. You could mess up making a simple wooden structure nine times out of ten but could always stick someone with a knife if you know what to do. This system had weird limitations. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I hadn¡¯t thought about the system¡¯s limitations for a long time because almost immediately I had found a way to overcome them, but I can also see why it was so relevant now as many people were in big trouble because they didn''t have the required class to live the new life everyone was forced into. I¡¯ve heard that because of the new situation many new classes have been discovered and not all of them for the better. The ages of my soldiers were not promising. I wasn¡¯t willing to lower it any more than 16 except for individuals who showed a lot of promise but there wasn¡¯t anyone who qualified except for me, I guess. The upper range technically didn¡¯t exist. If you had the correct stats you could live a lot longer but if you look at physical fitness the limit was when your body reached 60. One person I did allow to join looked a bit older than that but he had the drive to protect his new home for his grandson the only family he had left. He had been a farmer for all his life, but he had a few skills that he had gotten from fighting with smaller monsters and the occasional bandit. He looked like a tough son of a bitch so even with the protest of the others I still accepted him. Organizing everything took most of the day so I didn¡¯t go out training today with the first unit but stayed here and helped the fourth unit with their crafting. Now crafting would be a bit of an overstatement as most of them just helped bring materials and prepare them for people who had the skills to use them. It still made the work go by a lot faster and the few examples I had for what they needed to make made everything go smoothly. The first things they did weren¡¯t things that we could use for battling they were training shields and spears. At first, they laugh a bit thinking that I was joking but they soon understood that talking back to me was not the best idea when the life of everyone here depended on how well I can train them. The night I spent making weapons that we were actually going to use in battle. I started with the spears as they were the only and best solution we had. Making swords was too much work and they required even more training. Axes were a possibility but they didn¡¯t have the reach and if you made them two-handed you couldn''t use a shield which was necessary. The shield itself will be in the Roman style but it would be made out of wood with metal reinforcement. The morning came quickly, and it was time for my first day as a drill sergeant. The first thing I did was to start getting everyone into shape. It will still take at least one or two days to get all the shields and spears ready for 40 people so they could train but they all needed some exercise anyway. I slowly started to break them down and build them back up. They did better than I expected probably because most of them lived a life of constant work on their farms, but they still looked like a bunch of wet noodles when I was done with them. One of them actually wanted to just sleep in the field in the same spot where I dismissed them for the night. I had to teach him some manners by making him do another 20 pushups. Apparently, he like to sleep in the field, so he didn''t have to go back into the house to get yelled at by his wife. It was a funny story he tried to tell me while doing push-ups. It made me chuckle a bit, so I stopped him at 15 and let him get back to a proper bed. The next day we didn''t have all the shields and spears but we had most so we could get started. ¡°In your hand is a shield that you will get to know better than your left foot. While this is a training shield the dimensions of the battle shields you will get will be the same. The function of the shield is to be a part of a wall made from shields wielded by your fellow legionnaires.¡± ¡°You might not be used to the size as it¡¯s not common in these parts of the world, but that shield will save your life. As you can see when you hold up the shield it comes just under your knees and up to your chin covering all your vital parts. As stated before, this shield will form a wall to hold back the enemy. In your right hand is a spear that you will use to kill your enemy.¡± I could see some hesitation on people''s faces but it was the minority as most had killed to survive. ¡°You will not put your spear through the shield wall but over it. You will hold it like an axe or a hoe, but you raise it up so that the shaft will sit on your palm. Like this, you will hold the shield and attack the enemy over your shield keeping yourself protected while attacking your enemy. We will spend a lot of time training so you would not lower your shield and keep thrusting even when you can barely stand and your ability to think as long left you.¡± ¡°We will train like this so when you are in battle you will not have to think, only act, which will give you an advantage even if it''s just a split moment. The other thing we will learn is to manoeuvre while engaged in battle. This will be very important but we only have a little time so we will only learn one movement. We will learn how to turn slightly to the left or right.¡± There were a few chuckles, but they quieted down quite quickly when everyone figured out that I was dead serious. ¡°You might think that this is something easy, but I assure you it is not. You will have to put in a lot of work, and we will have a proper training fight when two units engage each other at the same time using our training equipment to learn this. That will have to be learned at a later date as currently, you don''t even know how to hold your equipment.¡± I yelled the last part as most of them had lowered their shields or even rested them on the ground. I was what you would call ruthless, but I never pushed anyone over their limit, but I did purposely try to get them as close as possible. After two days of full training, it was time to switch to another unit and I could already see the panic in their eyes because everyone could see what I was doing with the last unit. I didn¡¯t mind it as they all needed to learn. chapter 182 It was another day of training when I finally felt it. A large group of people were entering our territory. My moment of relief from the anxiety of waiting I was feeling spiked into worry. The group of people hadn¡¯t entered from the road near the town but came through the forest that was over 100 km away from the town. I continued to observe them trying to understand what was happening, but I soon figured it out. They were just regular refugees who happened to reach us before the caravan with the infiltrators that I was expecting to arrive. They didn''t have any carts as it would be impossible to get them through the forest that they came from, but they did have a lot of animals that they used as pack animals. There were cows, goats and a few horses but the animals look ragged. The people looked even more worn out. I soon figure out why. They were being pursued by fox-like creatures and there seemed to be a lot of them. The fighters that they had seemed to be quite good at what they did but there were too few of them and the beasts hunting them were too smart. Everyone was barely able to keep moving but I also understood what kept them going. There were about 15 children in the centre protected by the animals and then the people around the animals. I looked towards the temporary unit commander. ¡°Take over the training. Keep doing what we have done but don¡¯t push them so hard you do not know where their limits lay.¡± I moved quickly towards the village and stopped in front of a gate guard giving him orders. ¡°Unit 1 currently on crafting duty will report to the refugee diplomat group and escort them to sector 877PC. We have a group of refugees numbering 58 under attack from beasts. I will depart immediately and hopefully, I can reach them before they are overrun.¡± The guard gave me a quick salute and ran off with all haste. I did the same and started to run at my top speed. I still wasn¡¯t armoured and I only carried my knives and sword but it will still be enough. But the question still remained if I was going to get there before or after they were all killed. Even with my current speed, it will take me a couple of hours to make it there. The wolves were a lot closer basically just a short run away but there wasn¡¯t any way to contact them. Goose was flying back but he was only as fast as me. That made me pause for a moment. Perhaps Goose hadn¡¯t had any reason to push himself and this would be a good reason. While we couldn''t communicate any real information between us from so far away, I could still call him back. I had done that this morning as well to give another mission to the wolves but this time I conveyed incredible urgency, and I could see from my mental map how Goose started to speed up. As I had expected his speed was a little bit faster than mine, but I was also correct in that he hadn¡¯t pushed himself truly. Every once in a while, his speed accelerated and while sometimes he did slow back down, most of the time he kept his accelerated speed. I didn¡¯t want to be left out, so I also concentrated on running but he was outpacing me now by quite a lot. He made it to me in 30 minutes which was incredible. He did peck me a bit when he found out that I wasn¡¯t in any trouble but after I explained what was going on he quickly took flight again and headed towards the wolves. This time he didn''t push himself so hard but still worked to make himself move faster and, in the end, I calculated that the wolves should make it to the refugees almost 40 minutes before me. I looked in on their situation and thought that it might be enough but even the wolves had to be just a deterrent as the number of fox-like beasts just kept getting higher. The first one to act was Goose who from high up started to bombard some of the foxes with winds slashes. The refugees of course were puzzled as to why another animal was helping them. That puzzlement turned into fear when they heard the wolves coming. When they understood that the wolves were for some reason helping them and working with the eagle they were utterly confused. This tired them even more because of the emotional rollercoaster. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. It was at that moment when I felt another intrusion but this time from the road near the town. I only had to wait a few minutes before I noticed the same scout that had breached our border about a week ago. ¡°Son of a bitch.¡± Really did everything have to happen at this time? It would be a bit annoying, but the plan was to let them get well into our lands anyways so there shouldn¡¯t be any big problems. But I was still in quite a hurry so when I reached the refugees I didn¡¯t even say hello to them and just started to slaughter all the foxes. I pushed myself perhaps a bit too hard as I was a bit displeased with the situation so I might have shown off too much of my power as everyone was a bit afraid of me. After the fight, I walked towards the person who was obviously in charge. ¡°Greetings travellers and welcome to United Freeholds. I can see that you had a rough journey but what brings you to our lands.¡± I asked them while Goose landed on my shoulder. There was a momentary pause and after a sincere thanks, the leader excused himself for a moment. They started to discuss what to do next. I could, of course, overhear what they were saying and I had to wince a couple of times as the main problem was my brutality in dealing with the foxes but for some, it was a benefit. You really can¡¯t please or displease everyone it seems. We introduced ourselves when they stop discussing and I had to answer a few questions. I was completely honest with them and told them that they had reached the end of civilization and that we were most likely going to have to fight for our freedom. I could see all of their faces fall and some even broke down and started to cry but the fighters ask me what I thought about my chances for victory. ¡°Currently I will have to say about 76% but that can swing quite a lot as I don¡¯t have all the information to make a final decision.¡± My absolute certainty in my words made everyone pause and then they finally asked if they could at least have a place to stay for a while. To that, I had to raise my hand. ¡°I am sorry, but I cannot make those decisions there will be an escort coming here with people that you can discuss this with and I am afraid I can¡¯t stay here any longer and I have to make my way back. I will however leave Goose here.¡± I pointed towards him and then pointed towards the wolves. ¡°And they will also stay here as well until the escort arrives.¡± With that done there was only one thing left to do. I quickly ran towards the fox that had the only monster core amongst them and pulled it out as it had a fire element spark that I wanted. After that, I started to run back towards the village to organize and lead another group to welcome even more refugees. It will be a busy time, especially because after that we will make contact with the town and then start to tear it down. I reached the group of escorts before I made it to the town. I gave them the updated information and let them get on their way. It will take them three days to make it there and then it will take them even longer to make it back with all the animals and children bringing down the average speed. I started to prepare everyone, but we ended up agreeing to start the march tomorrow morning. We were going to take unit 3 who had hunting duty but also a few of the better fighters just in case. We also had to make another refugee diplomatic group as we never expected to need more than one at the same time. When we started our march, we were going to need about two days to reach our refugee group even when they were moving towards us at a reasonable pace. We barely had enough camping equipment for everyone but hopefully, we will have enough for our forces when we needed to march to face the enemy army. Emma had taken charge of that side of things and was working hard to make enough fabric and sew everything together. She had a lot of helpers but there weren¡¯t many with the skill sets she has. The two days went by fast, and I spent them by observing the refugees. Only one of them was marked red and that was the scout that I knew was the enemy. Others were marked as light blue except for one that was orange. I was even more curious about that because that person was a child. It took me until the end of the first day to realize why he was orange. It was hard to notice but the child and the scouts seemed to know each other, but that relationship was weird. It was not something you would see if they were working together to infiltrate and find out our secrets. When we were about four hours away from the caravan when I started to notice some weird bugs that weren¡¯t acting as they should and they had some weird energy signals. I figured it might be some sort of an ability used to control them but then the question became who was controlling them and why. My first guess would be the small child with the scout, but I couldn¡¯t be sure yet. If it was and he could somehow see through the bugs, I could understand how he might be good at gathering intelligence. chapter 183 Even before meeting the refugees, we had planned out our strategy. At first, we were going to be confrontational but then when the refugees explained their situation we were going to be accepting and even welcoming. Everyone was playing their part quite well. When we set up a large tent that we wanted to use to question people we got our first major pushback. This was to be expected but they soon accepted when we told them that we were worried about spies. I had been holding back from everything and not dealing with anyone. I was just one of the soldiers, but I kept my eye on everyone. I trusted my ability and our nation''s wisdom in categorizing people that came into our land with different colours. But I also wasn''t certain that this couldn¡¯t be circumvented by some ability or artefact. Overall, it seemed to be working as intended as I didn¡¯t see anything opposite. Still, some of the refugees were a lot more confrontational but still marked as blue. When the first person was taken to the interrogation tent, I moved closer to the refugees in case someone acted. I wasn¡¯t the only one as other soldiers did the same. This also gave me a better chance at understanding the bugs that gave off weird energy signals. One thing I was certain about was that the kid wasn¡¯t the one controlling them. I had spotted five of them and it was really hard not to stare at any of them. When the third person was taken one of those bugs flew close enough, and I was finally able to understand that they weren¡¯t real bugs. They were constructs of energy and mana. This ability that made and controlled them became even more interesting. My mind was working hard on connecting the puzzle pieces to understand what was happening, but I was running out of time because the fourth person that was going to go into the interrogation tent was the enemy scout. He was already nervous, and I knew that he was going to do something as soon as he reached the tent as he couldn''t be certain we didn''t have anyone that could detect lies. My ability that helped me judge a person¡¯s character pretty much just marked this person as a black skull. The marks themselves I was able to make up myself and that mark meant it was better if that person died but even without this ability, I could already tell that he was not a pleasant person. I was not going to let him prepare anything and the soldiers taking him to the tent already knew what to do. Around the halfway mark one of them quickly put suppressing cuffs onto the scout and I was glad to see that whatever abilities he tried to use came to him too slowly, so our soldiers were able to punch him hard enough to make him fall to the ground and lose his concentration. ¡°What is the meaning of this? We aren''t going to sit silently and let you treat our members like that.¡± Yelled the person in charge of the refugees. ¡°Silence,¡± I yelled back while putting enough power into my voice that everyone knew that I could kill everyone there. This made the scout understand the situation a bit better. I walked closer to him and looked into his eyes seeing the hate in them. ¡°This man is a scout and a spy to the slave Kingdom down South,¡± I said while controlling the anger in my voice so everyone would think that I was holding back anger. ¡°Did you really think our watchers wouldn¡¯t recognize your face?¡± There was even more anger in his eyes, but it looked more personal this time and I quickly figured out what was going on. Seems like he can still care, useful. I looked towards the refugees, and they had all calmed down and were now quite hatefully looking at the man who was still on the ground. ¡°You look a bit white faced scout. I guess those cuffs are quite powerful. You would be surprised how many interesting things you can find in a mad noble¡¯s carriage.¡± I took a small pause and figured that the refugees might need some more information and it would help break the scout as well. ¡°This man is a scout and a spy, and his masters have quite a few towns and villages under their command including a big city. I don¡¯t know why but they have decided to embrace slavery. An awful practice. They also have quite a big army, but they also have quite a lot of territory to keep. Isn¡¯t that, right?¡± I looked towards the scout when I finished my announcement. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. I crouched down a few feet from him waiting for him to say something. I didn¡¯t have to wait for long. ¡°I am not going to tell you anything and even if you kill me, you will die or become a slave.¡± I laughed out loud which made him even angrier and I could see him gather some energy into his hands. ¡°I won¡¯t be killing you yet as I want to know where your partner is. When you first got here there were two of you. I was expecting him to come with you, but we haven''t seen him since. Where is he and what''s his current objective?¡± That information made him question his knowledge. The energy in his hands dissipated quickly as his anger morphed into confusion. I let him think for a moment before continuing. ¡°Oh, this is funny. Did you think that we got to him? We didn¡¯t but you don''t know where he is either. I guess he got smart and got away from this place. Something you should have done.¡± He was panicking now but even so, he was able to control himself quite well as only his eyes gave him away. It took him only a few moments to latch onto a detail that didn''t make sense. ¡°If you don''t know where my partner is then how could you possibly know that information about my kingdom? There shouldn''t be anyone up here with all that knowledge.¡± I laughed out loud again after he finished his questions. ¡°Have you ever done something where right after or even while doing it you know that it was wrong for you, so you never again cross that line?¡± I asked him and waited for an answer. He gave a small nod even though he didn''t want to. ¡°I thought you might have. Well, you see I have had many of those experiences but one of those was when I used a child to bargain for the people under my care. At the time I would have killed the child if my enemy hadn''t given up the people they had taken. I was glad that situation didn''t turn ugly as I knew from that moment on, I was never going to use another child again for bargaining.¡± He then glanced towards the child that he brought with him, and I could see his mind trying to connect the pieces. ¡°That bastard.¡± The scout yelled as he moved his energy to his hands. I could see a form of a throwing dagger slowly being made and his hands already moving to throw it towards the child. I was prepared for this and acted. In an instant the scout had his arms cut off and I let him scream in pain until he finally stopped. ¡°I guess killing a child isn¡¯t something you draw a line at. I sort of expected that, but I guess you know that as the evidence is lying next to you.¡± I said while chuckling a bit which made even the scout shiver in fear. ¡°Are you perhaps ready to answer some questions? Perhaps this isn¡¯t a question that you can answer but I would like to know who was the idiot that thought it would be a good idea to send a bargaining chip in the form of a child into enemy territory.¡± I did not get an answer back although the scout did focus more. And just as he got his focus back, I pierced his head with my dagger. His death was instantaneous. I looked at the dagger that did the job. It was a lot thicker than a regular dagger meant for cutting. It was obviously meant for penetration, but they were still trying to keep the cutting-edge useful. I wondered if there were rondel daggers in this world. I killed him because he gave me all that he was going to, and I didn''t want to risk him having some sort of artefact or ability to report what has happened here. I stood up and looked towards the soldiers. ¡°Burn the body and everything on him. We can''t be too careful, he might have some spying device on him.¡± I was given two quick fists to the heart as a salute. While the soldiers were dealing with the corpse I looked towards the refugees. Some of them were worried but most were scared. I gave a nod to the refugee diplomats, and they quickly started to give further instructions and assuring that every refugee was welcomed as long as they weren¡¯t hostile. I tuned out whatever they were doing as I looked at the child that I saved just a few moments ago. I waved him all over and he approached us slowly. I crouched down so I would be at eye level with him. When he finally made it here, I looked him in the eyes and said. ¡°Hey there, my name is Rich. What is yours.¡± It took almost a minute of waiting before he answered in a meek voice. ¡°My name is Meer.¡± ¡°We are not going to hurt you no matter what happens. You will just be another refugee and we are quite welcoming to new people.¡± I waited a bit before continuing. ¡°I will be honest I¡¯m not the best at this, but I also need to speak with your brother, I assume.¡± When I said that I looked towards the bug that was on the child''s shoulder. The most likely 8-year-old child with charcoal black hair and grey-blue eyes looked at the bug. After a moment the bug turned to me and nodded. Meer now a bit more confident looked at me and spoke. ¡°My brother¡¯s name is Mirhit.¡± I nodded to that. ¡°So, no direct communication?¡± I asked the bug and got a nod in return. This was going to be difficult and time-consuming. chapter 184 I guided the younger brother to the tent and gave him some water and food. He was starting to open up a bit more and once again I was amazed at how well children can adjust, I just wish they didn¡¯t have to. It was time to get started. I looked at the bug and began. ¡°I want to make this as clear as possible. No matter your choice if you oppose me or help me or decide to do neither your brother will not come to harm. You can come here whenever you want and take your brother wherever you want even if we are enemies.¡± I waited until the bug slowly nodded so I continued. ¡°That being said I would very much like to employ you. I would pay you in gold or monster cores and in exchange I want you to give me information about my enemy¡¯s army that you are currently a part of. I would like to get information once a week. You would need to write down the information you gather and leave it someplace where my eagle can come and get it. I hope that you could use one of your bugs to guide my eagle to the place of the pickup.¡± I waited for a moment but I didn¡¯t get any reply. It took me a moment, but I figured it out. ¡°I guess you want to know the amount. It''s hard to put a correct price on it as it would depend on how well you do but I will guarantee a minimum of 100 monster cores. That should be enough for you and your brother to survive a long time. That is just the minimum and I¡¯m quite certain that you will exceed my expectations and earn a lot more.¡± It only took a few moments before I saw the bug nod. ¡°I guess it¡¯s time for some more specifics and I will also ensure that your brother is taken care of but also just in case the slave king has some other ways of gaining information we will act like we don''t know he''s your brother.¡± Another nod and so began my explanation of what I wanted from Mirhit. It took me almost two hours until we were finished and after that I let the younger brother rejoin the refugees as they started to head towards the village. None of us joined the refugees as there was no need. The road was safe, and we needed to push forward to the town. So once again we started our march which was also a good way for the soldiers to practice. During our march, I thought back on what I tried to explain to the young spymaster that Mirhit could possibly become. It was hard to understand what his ability was. From the little information I could get he had two abilities working together that made his current scouting possible. What was even more surprising was that he was just 15 so his potential was quite high. He was going to emphasize that our territory was led by an incompetent noble who like to party more than actually rule. He was also going to lie about our soldiers¡¯ capabilities but to keep the numbers correct. I had no delusions that the slave king would have more than one way of finding out how many troops we had. I had to teach him quite a lot about what information would be crucial to get but hopefully, he was a quick learner so I would have all the information I need to defeat the army coming here. Another crucial fact was that Mirhit was not going to leave any of his bugs in the town that we were going to dismantle but that also meant that we couldn''t bring all the resources directly to the village. We needed to keep the resources a bit further away so Mirhit wouldn''t be killed as soon as the army arrive to find there was no town for them to fortify. I looked in at the village and saw everyone preparing to come to the town. They were preparing equipment, food and carriages needed. All they were waiting for were the refugees to arrive and of course, my word that we had secured the town. In the meetings, it was always left unsaid about what happened to the inhabitants of that town if they don¡¯t come to the village, but I hope that they will agree otherwise I would have to kill them. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The next two days passed quickly, and, in the morning, we approached the town. There were two men on top of the gatehouse talking like old friends which they most likely were. When they noticed our small force approaching, they started to hit a bell that sat on top of the gatehouse meant to signal trouble. We waited at a good distance away from the gate until someone in charge came to talk to us. During the wait, I looked at the wall and started to calculate how much stone we will get from this and while the number was quite large it was also going to be a lot of work on getting it back to the village. One by one more people appeared atop the gatehouse and in the end, there were twelve people there before someone yelled out to us. ¡°What is your purpose here?¡± An older-looking woman yelled down to us. There was no fear in her voice, and she gained my respect because of that. ¡°I am sorry, but I bring unfortunate news. An army from down South is slowly conquering its way towards here and plans to take over the nation that I come from just a few miles to the north from here.¡± I pointed towards the border when I finished yelling towards them. I could have gone closer to talk in a more normal voice, but this might turn into a fight and no matter how confident I am I shouldn¡¯t be stupid. ¡°Are you here to warn us? If so, we thank you for this information but that makes me question why you have brought so many soldiers with you.¡± She yelled back without a single waver in her voice. She most likely knew that they couldn''t win a fight, but she wasn''t going to back down until she needed to. She would make a good leader if she decided to join us. ¡°If you are wondering if we are going to take this town over and claim it as our own to add to our nation then I¡¯m afraid to tell you that is not true.¡± I could see her preparing to curse us but my last statement made her confused. ¡°Unfortunately defending this town is not feasible with our current resources but we also can¡¯t let our enemies have it.¡± I could see her understanding what I meant but she didn¡¯t speak out. ¡°Destroying this city would be a waste of resources. So, we will, unfortunately, be taking it over to take it apart piece by piece and take everything back to my nation.¡± After those words, silence permeated the surroundings. The disbelief in many of the people living inside the town was understandable but there was also anger. But before some of them could yell curses at us or attack the older women stopped them. After a few moments of thinking she yelled at me. ¡°Are you offering for us to join your nation or would you let us leave here without a fight to seek our fortunes somewhere else.¡± The others obviously didn¡¯t like what she said but they respected her enough to stay quiet. I decided to tell the truth. ¡°Offering you a place to stay is our first choice. But I¡¯m afraid there isn¡¯t any other choice.¡± There was sadness in my voice, and I didn¡¯t try to hold it back or amplified it. I could see her shoulders sag and I could see that they wanted to stay on their own but that wasn''t possible at least not right now. ¡°I know that this choice is terrible, but it isn¡¯t permanent. When the war is over for this year in fact when the enemy discovers this town. You will be free to leave if you want to.¡± That made her look at me. She stared at me for a few minutes making everyone nervous. The tension in the air was palpable but it broke as soon as she spoke. ¡°We surrender the town, and we will accept your offer of safety.¡± She said with finality and while I could see some of the younger people on the gatehouse wanting to argue they didn¡¯t. After a few moments and some quick words from the old woman, the gate slowly started to open. I led our soldiers in formation to walk through the gate. When I stepped through a realization hit me. This was the first town I conquered. Right after that, a notification appeared. I had level upped my heroic commander to level 2. I guess the system acknowledged my conquering of this town. I was surprised that this would work because it wasn¡¯t official territory of any group. It wasn¡¯t a lot of experience, but my heroic commander class was the second closest to a level-up. I had expected my homesteader class to level up first as it was so close. I guess with this new class upgrade I would get experience not just from fighting but achieving objectives in war as well. I brushed my excitement away because we needed to deal with the people of this town. Goose will reach here in a few hours, and I will send a message to the village that they can start heading this way when they have taken care of the refugees. That will give me a few days to visit the goblins and hopefully bargain for a few hundred skirmishers so we would actually have a chance at winning. chapter 185 I was glad that I didn¡¯t have to explain or organize the townspeople''s departure to our village. Having people do that for me was quite nice. Of course, the townspeople didn¡¯t like that but when they understood that we were not there to rob them and were even willing to bring their stuff to the village that they couldn¡¯t bring themselves they began to accept this change a bit better. Most of these people have lived in this town for their entire lives or are from the surrounding farms so they didn''t much like that we were going to basically raze the town, but they also understood that they couldn''t do anything to stop us. We were giving them a day to prepare but before the next morning, I had to catch two groups of people who wanted to escape. I was certain that they weren¡¯t spies for anyone but simply wanted to be their own masters which was understandable, but I just couldn¡¯t take the chance of the knowledge they had ending up in the wrong hands. I didn¡¯t kill them or even punished them, but they were tied up and placed in the few carts that the townspeople had to bring items back to our village. It didn''t take us long to make it to our border and beyond. I was now able to relax a bit more because I could now fully keep track of their movements. I was going to escort them almost halfway back and then I will take my leave and go see the goblins. If some of them decided to run I would be able to catch them before they escape our borders. All the soldiers stayed back in the town to guard it while most of the refuge diplomatic group came with us to go back to the village. Two people good with numbers stayed back and started to categorize everything in the town. It will take us a long time to bring everything back and I think I will have to just destroy a large portion of the wall because we simply won¡¯t have the time to bring it back. The best news was that this town also had an underground area where they kept their food. This environment was kept stable by the same items back in our village which meant that we can now expand our village''s storage area by quite a lot. Over the past few days, I am reminded that people are slow. I got my movement ability before I ever had to do a lot of travel so it''s a bit hard to slow myself down to other people¡¯s level. Then of course there are the roads which are simply awful. Most of the time I just walk on the side of the road where there¡¯s grass as it¡¯s usually more level ground without any holes in it. I left the group when night fell. I honestly couldn''t be bothered to wait another night doing nothing productive. When I was finally able to run again it felt like my nerves were finally relaxing. Running so fast feels like driving a motorcycle. The feeling of the wind on your face and watching the surroundings blur while exerting your body is amazing. The river that separated the goblin''s lands from ours I just jumped across while going full out. I did have to roll when landing, otherwise, I would have had a bad fall. I noted to myself that I needed to practice full-speed jumping. When I got into the forest, I slowed down a lot and kept an eye out for any herbs that I could collect for either making the leather curing powder or the ones needed for a healing powder. I was not delusional in thinking that we were going to make it through the war without anyone dying but I also wasn¡¯t going to let anyone die without a good reason. If an axe caves someone''s head in, I can¡¯t do anything about it, but I was not prepared to let a person die from a cut simply because we don¡¯t prepare to save people as best as we can. While I was collecting some of the herbs that I found I looked at my interactive map to figure out exactly where I was. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Not being in the nation''s lands was weird but I could still use my map ability outside of it. The dam that the goblins made was a few hours east of here. I needed to keep heading north while going a bit to the west to make it to the encampment. I briefly thought about going to the dam just to see what they had done with the place, but I didn¡¯t have that much time to waste. It took two hours of travel before a goblin scout party found me and questioned why I was in their lands. The goblins were guarded around me which I found a bit weird. There was still a reverence in the eyes towards me but there was also caution. If I had to guess, I would say that they knew about the nation¡¯s borders being up against their territory. Explaining myself to some random scouts wasn¡¯t going to help anyone so I just told them that I wanted to speak with their leader about hiring some of the fighters for a battle. Interestingly enough that actually improved their mood almost like they were waiting for a fight in which they can take part of. It was understandable as they were a more violent species at least in their current state. The goblin scouts were able to move through the forest fast, so I didn¡¯t have to slow myself down a lot. When we finally made it to the encampment site, I was amazed by all the progress that had happened. While there were still a lot of tents, they looked more solid and permanent. The biggest change was the larger buildings using a combination of leather and wood in their construction. One side of the encampment had some stone structures they used to make tar. But the biggest and most impressive change was that the place didn''t smell like an outhouse that cows used. Everything was a lot cleaner now and the goblins themselves looked a lot healthier as well. Perhaps calling this an encampment was wrong. It was now a proper village. There were few goblins around, so the village looked quite empty. The answer I got from my escorts was that most goblins were in the forest doing different jobs. There were still a few areas with high activity. A lot of woodworking was happening making that area busy. The second busy place I could see was outside the hill entrances where a lot of food preparation structures were set up. While the mood in the village seemed decent enough there seem to be a dark cloud hanging about dragging everyone''s mood down. I did not like that feeling and hopefully, Stebs Soot can help me understand what was happening. When we approached the hill to go on top of it the scouts explained to the guards why they were there. In under a minute, the scouts were leaving, and the guards were guiding me towards the council¡¯s tent. Even before reaching the tent entrance, I could already hear goblins arguing. ¡°No need to start yelling we all understand that we need to increase our food production as hunting opportunities slow down but for that, we need stronger tools that we currently don¡¯t have.¡± Said Stebs Soot the goblin chief and the only goblin to have a class in remembered history. He was able to calm down the rest of the council members. Seems like he¡¯s doing well as a leader. All talking stopped as the guards open the tent doors and announced who they had brought. There was a moment of silence from hearing the words to understanding those words. They all looked towards me at the same time finally understanding what was happening. I could practically see how the dark mood lifted slightly. Then I could finally hear the now happier voice of Stebs Soot. ¡°Rich Dirt, I am glad to see you again after so long. What has brought you here and what is it that you need?¡± ¡°I am unfortunately not here for pleasantries although I do wish that was the case. There is a war approaching. My nation and I require some help that I believe you can provide me of course for appropriate compensation.¡± I answered in a pleasant voice. While I was talking, I tried to watch for any reactions any of the goblins might have to my words. While Stebs Soot was able to not outwardly show anything I could see a few eye twitches when I mentioned my nation. It seems that the bigger problem they have with me was the nation¡¯s borders being so close to them. I was lucky that neither I nor anyone else wanted to take over the goblin¡¯s lands. Giving them a pact of non-aggression would not be a big deal and hopefully will help with the negotiations. There might be some pushback by some of our nation''s leaders but fuck them. Hopefully, after this, I will have the skirmishers that I need, and a way so there would be more contact between my nation and the goblins. In my opinion, it would be quite awesome if they would become a part of our nation in some form. chapter 186 ¡°I would like to get started but before that, I would like to ask do you have a name for this place other than the encampment that it used to be,¡± I asked all the council members. One of the shortest goblins I''ve seen answered in a straight manner, ¡°It¡¯s Hilfort village.¡± I gave the goblin a head nod and gathered myself for a moment before starting. ¡°There are many things that have happened since we last met. I am now part of a nation and unfortunately, the human lands are quite unstable right now which means that people want to take what belongs to me. There will be an army coming to take over my nation and I would like to hire skirmishers to take part in this fight.¡± The response I got for my words was unimpressive, to say the least. ¡°But perhaps we are jumping ahead. There seem to be some problems between us that would be better taken care of now than push back and let fester. So please be open about your concerns.¡± The goblins looked at each other with worry and I was glad that I had been around them enough to learn their facial expression. ¡°Your nation''s borders are up against our territory, and some would argue you have taken some as we consider our territory to be to the river, but your nation''s border extends a bit past the river.¡± Said one of the goblins who had previously been under my command during the goblin war. I gave him a slow nod. ¡°I do apologize for that. There were some circumstances that were out of my control, but I did try to control the gaining of land as much as possible. If I didn¡¯t try to control it, the nation¡¯s borders would have swallowed your entire territory. But that doesn¡¯t excuse anything. As a form of apology, I would be willing to agree to a non-aggression pact between our two communities.¡± There was a moment of silence. I could see some excited facial features that everyone tried to hide. Stebs Soot was the first to speak. ¡°Are you in a position to offer such a pact to us?¡± He asked and I answered with an affirmative. For the next half an hour we put the pact into writing. It was a simple one, but the goblins wanted to add some clarifications, mostly so no misunderstanding caused the pact to be broken. I was the one who wrote simply because the goblins weren¡¯t capable of doing as well as I did even if I was still a novice at writing this language. In this world normally this wouldn¡¯t be counted as a legal document at least for other nations. But in the end no matter how you wrote it or how many people you made sign it, it only truly mattered if people were willing to follow the agreement. When the handshake finished, I was temporarily pulled into some sort of hazy world that was quite dark. A few moments later I could see other people appearing from the smoke looking as confused as I was. The people to appear were the council members the ones that had taken the oath and received the clan administrator trait. There was a moment of silent confusion before in front of everyone appeared the pact that I just agreed to with the goblins. David looked at me and I asked. ¡°Was this required for getting the skirmishers?¡± Everyone looked at me waiting for an answer and I didn¡¯t make them wait. ¡°It is a part of that, yes, but I never expected something like this,¡± I said while looking at everything around us. After a few moments, I started to feel a pulling force trying to drag me out of this space. ¡°It looks like we''re out of time, but I expect that you all agree. I will also try to push them towards making a trade deal with us, but I would want to leave the details to some of you to deal with.¡± There was another moment of pause and after a nod from David who then promptly disappeared one by one everyone quickly vanished, I was the last to leave. When I got out of that space the goblins were looking at me weirdly. ¡°Sorry about that can we now please continue.¡± Everyone agreed so we sat back down and after a moment of contemplating about what had just happened, I continued. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. ¡°I can see that this has alleviated a lot of your concerns so let me alleviate some more. I would like to get fighters who are good at throwing spears. I plan to not use them in any melee. The enemy shouldn''t have any ranged fighters that will be open to attacking your fighters. While I can¡¯t guarantee that everyone will survive there should be minimal losses possibly even none for your fighters.¡± I tried to sound normal but I got a bit passionate by the end. Most of the council members were already nodding but Stebs Soot wanted some more details. ¡°How many of our fighters were you hoping to get?¡± He asked while being deadly serious. ¡°I am looking for 300.¡± Before I could continue some of the goblins started to shout at me calling me an idiot while some were completely dumbfounded and just stared at me open-mouthed. Stebs Soot was eventually able to calm everyone down. ¡°That is almost one-third of our population. We would lose a lot of hunting time and almost every project we have will need to be put on hold. We would even need to pull fighters from our defensive borders making us a lot more vulnerable. That number is simply not possible.¡± He spoke with finality in his words, but I wasn¡¯t going to give up. ¡°I will not need them for long. Your fighters would be a part of an ambush and would not need to be in use for long. A week to gather your fighters then two days to wait and battle. That is all I ask. There would be a lot of iron weapons available after the battle and a large portion can be yours. But that can just be a reward. Name your price and I will try to make it happen.¡± This time I didn¡¯t try to hold back any of the passion I was feeling. It did have an effect and after some silent discussion with the goblins, they finally asked me to give them some time to discuss. I was happy to hear that and hope that we will be able to come to an agreement but even more, I hoped that I would be able to afford whatever they came up with. I was escorted far away. Obviously, they suspected that I might be able to hear what they discussed if I was too close and to be fair they were correct. I spent the next few hours just looking at goblins doing their jobs and glancing up to see the sun rising towards midday. Just a bit after midday I was invited back into the council tent. I could see that some of them were worried, but some were also expectant and hopeful. I sit back and waited for the price. ¡°You will get your 300 skirmishers, but it will be a high cost.¡± Announced Stebs Soot. I had expected them to accept and that it would be a high price. I was glad to see he had become a proper leader and while this deal would most likely hurt, I was glad for my friend. ¡°We want access to your nation''s market. We want the knowledge of how to make bronze and how to farm the way you do. When a strong monster challenges our territory, we want to be able to call for your help and that your nation will respond with proper force. We want a reduced price of food when we buy from your national market by 50% for the next three years.¡± There was a pause, and I could see the worry in Stebs eyes. ¡°After you have won your war, I want a conversation with you. You would help us to the best of your ability to solve any problem we might discuss. You would not have to do anything just your wisdom will be enough.¡± I could hear the seriousness behind those last words. So, there was something else that the goblins were worried about. Luckily that could wait for a little while at least. I was concerned but I was not going to push it. Other than that, the demands were quite reasonable at least to me. I couldn¡¯t see any big negatives. Even the food prices wouldn''t be bad because they didn''t have anyone else to sell to. They were just trying to secure their future. I still took the time to think about every angle but in the end, I agreed. There was another meeting in the dark and smoky world. This time there was a lot more pushback. The biggest problem for most wasn¡¯t the food price but that we would help defend them from monsters. While I thought that it would be difficult for us to guarantee this with our low manpower that apparently wasn¡¯t the problem. They thought it would be a waste of time and resources to help them. When I explained how good a strong monster kill would be for us everyone eventually agreed. After I talked some more with the goblin counsel about my requirements from the goblin fighters and what plans I had we eventually stopped to get some lunch. The food quality had risen a lot since the war. It was downright delicious. I left soon after telling them that I will be back when I needed the fighters to start gathering. chapter 187 When I got back to the soon-to-be demolished town, I found myself having some free time. It was time to find out what the rest of my traits did and hopefully figure out some of the abilities I have gotten as well. The first one I started with is sharmar¡¯s organ. This was the first trait that actually added something to my body instead of changing it. Next to my heart was an egg-sized organ which I have tried to ignore until now. I still didn¡¯t know how to feel about it. Could I possibly get a trait that would add two arms completely changing how I looked? I hope not. Connecting the trait to my core took a while but when it was done I finally understood what it did and I have to say I¡¯m quite glad that I have it. Originally the organ was from a crocodile-like creature that lived in the swamps. This organ helped filter out any contaminations from the bloodstream like parasites, poisons even harmful bacteria. The next one I added to my core I didn¡¯t much like. Hunting steps literally made me creepier when I was moving. It did seem to have a mental component so I could control it to an extent, and it did affect others'' minds. But it still sounded kind of useless, but I guess you can''t get lucky with every trait. The next one was battle spirit which turn out to be quite useful. The stronger my conviction the more power my body could handle. An incredibly useful trait which will allow me to push myself even harder during those crucial fights. I haven¡¯t really gone all out for a really long time and even in the raid dungeon I didn¡¯t give it my all, but I was quite certain that in the coming fight, I will need to put everything I have on the line. Ever quicker was the trait that I didn¡¯t know what it could mean, and it was the trait that took the longest to connect and understand. Currently, it barely had any effect, but it might be my most useful trait to date. It allowed my body and mind to get used to my constantly rising strength. During my stay on this planet, I have felt multiple times when my mind was quicker than my body or the opposite. This trait is supposed to help overcome that problem. While it might take some time, I will always be able to fix any imbalance. Illusion sight was just supposed to be a trait that would help you see illusions for what they are but with my other traits and abilities it became a lot stronger than that. Even I don¡¯t know its true capabilities simply because I don¡¯t have anything to test it with. Life giving energy and life¡¯s vitality I already know what they did. Life giving energy changed my energy so I could better use it to support life and life¡¯s vitality gave my energy a big boost whenever I used it to support others. If I was a healer my healing spells would have been 3 or 4 times more effective. When I finally finished with all my traits, I had been in this town for over a week. Over that time more and more people showed up and we were now working at all hours dismantling all the houses. There were 420 houses, shops and other buildings. Almost all of them were made out of wood. But the houses weren¡¯t the first things we dismantled. It was the gate as we needed to make a bigger entrance so we could bring out full-sized logs that the houses were made out of. It was slow going at first but now there were almost 200 people working. Every house was looked over and emptied of all of its contents. If an item is useful it will be placed in piles waiting to be taken back to our village if not it went into the burning piles. What surprised me was how much people hide in small corners of their homes. In almost every house we found something. Most often it was a small bag of coins, but good-quality weapons and healing potions and powders were a close second and third. It was interesting to see what people thought important to hide. There were some personal effects as well like pictures or letters. Those went into special chests that will later be brought back to the village. The chances are almost zero that anyone alive will hold any of these items valuable but in my opinion, if even one person retrieves an item all this extra work would be worth it. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Since I was now free of dealing with the traits, I started to help dismantle the houses. The hardest part for others was getting the roof off the house. It was a hard job that required a sledgehammer and a lot of work. For me, it was quite pleasant and helped me think about the information I received. Goose was successfully able to retrieve the information Mirhit was able to gather. The number of troops that I predicted might make it here will most likely be lower. More importantly, the timetable of their arrival is being pushed constantly back thanks to a small mining town that¡¯s proving to be a lot more difficult to conquer than the slave king first thought. The town was nestled against a rocky hill with only one side exposed and that side was fortified with a quite strong wall. It turns out that a lot of people who lived around there figured that it would be a perfect place to hold out. Because of that the population of the town was a lot higher than anyone expected, and they all had a desire not to become slaves. Unfortunately for them, their fate was sealed. The slave king¡¯s army was still quite whole and while the siege will take more time the town will eventually fall. Every day that those people can hold will give us extra time to prepare and while they will never know it I will forever be thankful to them. From the reports, I know that the slave king¡¯s army has quite a lot of ranged units. It would be quite bad if they reached us. But I have special plans for them which will eliminate them as a problem. The biggest problem is that the slave king brought his entire former first-rank adventuring party with him. If they all come here, we will be fucked. I would still try to give it my all but I do not know if I could defeat them all. There were a lot of things that needed to go right for us to have a chance to win but I have seen a lot slimmer chances turned into complete victory. All I can do is try to stack the odds in our favour and hope that luck doesn''t turn against us. The next week went by in a blur. I spent my time working on my energy control, helping dismantle the town and using the alchemy shop to make some healing powders. I had gotten my alchemy up to basic level 5. I had messed up another batch of the healing powder the third one for today when I finally stopped and looked at my small notebook again. There was no report given here and there wasn''t supposed to be for another day. This small notebook was connected to another which was held by the team that I was counting on to deal with the range unit of the enemy army. But last night almost 20 undead were spotted by the scouts coming from the east. We dealt with them quickly enough but dealing with them wasn''t the problem it was them being here that was the problem. All undead were supposed to be collected and guided to the ambush site ready to spring on the approaching army. From the last report, there were almost 2000 collected but that would not be enough. I just hope that there weren¡¯t any problems during the last four days that might have caused them to miss some undead groups. What was interesting about those reports was that the undead didn¡¯t seem to bunch up into huge hoards without a good reason. It was something interesting and quite possibly important for the future but right now it was nothing significant. The next day I finally got the report I was waiting for and understood what had happened. They had found a small horde that had a semi-intelligent leader. The horde itself was almost 300 in size. It took them a while to track and wait for the perfect opportunity to kill that smart undead so they could take control of the horde that it was leading. There was some strong undead there which was good news. The mining town itself was still holding on. I was impressed and wished that we could have those people in our nation. To be able to hold that long against such odds was legendary. But from that report, I got their defences were already crumbling and I suspect they will fall into the next few days. Still, a town that was supposed to be conquered in three days has been able to hold out for three times longer. I honestly don¡¯t think I could have done any better which means that they must have a really capable leader who knows war. I kind of hope that this person is able to survive and finds a way here. In the future, we will need people like that. There are some promising talents in the military right now but nothing to that level. They will be good commanders, but they won¡¯t be generals. Perhaps it won¡¯t be so important to have so many generals as in this world there are ways to communicate over long distances and travel those distances a lot faster than medieval technology should allow. But I would still feel safer if every future fort had a capable general who could keep defending even without support from the rest of the nation. chapter 188 POV: Slave King I was growing increasingly impatient. We were nearly a week away from the final town I intended to seize during this campaign. After that, only a handful of villages remained to be conquered, one of which would prove slightly more difficult to take, but it wouldn''t require more than a few hours. It baffled me how they had managed to claim so much land, but soon it would all be mine to incorporate into my kingdom. However, I couldn''t shake my unease about that territory, particularly their uncanny ability to monitor activities on their land. It reminded me of that infuriating mining town with enchanted walls that prevented me and my elite fighters from simply leaping over and eliminating their leaders. That prolonged siege cost me more men than I would have liked. I should have been on my way back, reinforcing my western border against the formidable city-state that had staked its claim there. Our raids, in which we captured their people, had not endeared us to them, but I hadn''t anticipated their unyielding resolve. Surveying my troops, I knew they were prepared for whatever challenges lay ahead on that border. My melee forces were fewer than I''d have preferred; only 800 remained. Many had perished, while others were needed to maintain control over conquered territories. To bolster their ranks, I summoned most of my remaining ranged fighters for this final push. No village militia could withstand us. My focus was shattered when my old friend and fellow warrior pointed out that some of our scouts were returning. I was relieved to see them alive; very few ever made it back if they strayed too far from the main army. I had tried to track down the elusive enemy picking off my scouts but to no avail. It seemed I was in for a proper fight. Had I known, I wouldn''t have sent my two trusted comrades to defend our western border until I returned with this army. As the scouts approached, the unease on their faces reignited my apprehension about the upcoming conquest. Why couldn''t it just be an easily subdued territory? If only I could dispatch my assassins to eliminate the advisors of the foolish nobles in charge, my life would be much simpler. When my bug controller informed me of the village leadership, I was initially thrilled. Nobles were often arrogant and detached from reality, but it seemed they had a few capable individuals keeping things together. I sent my assassins forth, but none returned. I suspected the same individual who had been thwarting my scouts was responsible. Perhaps I should ask Mirhit to redirect some of his bugs back towards our position, but I could make that decision after hearing the scouts'' reports. Once the mage had verified their identities, they were allowed through. I rode at the center of the melee fighters, surrounded by my bodyguards and allies, ever vigilant. "My liege," the scout began hesitantly before continuing, "The path to the town is clear, but the town itself is no more." At first, elation surged through me, but it was quickly replaced by a boiling rage. That town was meant to be a sanctuary for my army, a place to rest and regroup before our final march to conquer the last village. "Explain," I commanded, attempting to suppress the murderous intent bubbling within me. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The scout''s face turned ghostly white, but just as I was about to lose control, he spoke. "Nearly all the walls have vanished, either destroyed or simply gone without a trace, leaving only footprints of their former presence. The city''s buildings have either been razed or vanished as well. There is nothing of use left; the town has ceased to exist." He finished, barely managing to stave off unconsciousness. One of my elite guards dismissed the scout, a wise decision. Confusion clouded my thoughts ¨C how could we have missed this? Where was Mirhit? "Bring me Mirhit. I demand answers." Soon, the timid boy stood before me, and I found myself wishing his younger brother was here so I could break one of his hands as a lesson for Mirhit. Why had I agreed to send the brother away? It took me a moment to recall. The insects Mirhit controlled were undetectable by any of us. We discovered them in a caravan fleeing a small village. To save himself and his family from death or enslavement, the village elder had revealed Mirhit''s ability. But Mirhit was cunning, and after his fourth escape attempt, which was foiled only by luck and brute force, we decided to send his brother away as leverage. I hadn''t been fond of the idea. "The town we were headed to has been obliterated. How did you overlook an event of such magnitude?" There was a moment of silence as he tried to comprehend my question, and then he began to stammer out excuses. I gestured to one of my soldiers, who punched him a few times. "I don''t want excuses, I want answers!" He quickly nodded his head in agreement. We resumed our march while I awaited his explanation. His answer made me realize how young and inexperienced he truly was. One of my seasoned scouts or commanders should have trained him. Had he merely left one of his insects in the town or conducted periodic searches of the area around the village, we would have been aware of the situation long ago. Regardless, it shouldn''t matter much in the end. We could now build the village up with all those resurces near it once we take control. As I considered dismissing him, a cacophony of shouts erupted from my right. The forest had crept close to the road, and from its depths, a multitude of undead emerged. We had wondered about their absence, for small groups typically attacked us with regularity. Although their numbers appeared limited, it was difficult to determine ¨C the sun hung low, and the dense canopy shrouded much of the feeble light. It seemed as if a more cunning undead had corralled this little horde. At last, the horns blared, signaling my army to assemble ranks and brace for the onslaught. The undead seemed infinite. Why hadn''t our scouts reported such a sizeable group? And, instead of walking as was typical, they were running. Discerning movement could be challenging, as my enhanced abilities allowed me to perceive the world more rapidly, rendering everything in slow motion. Initially, I assumed the undead were merely walking, but their swift stride soon became apparent. I had thought my army would have time to form ranks, but it was not to be. I dismounted my horse, intending to confront the vanguard of the horde ¨C a wedge-shaped mass poised to cleave through my army''s column. But I was too late. The undead moved with startling speed, and those at the forefront were mightier than the usual rabble. They breached our column, cleaving it just between the melee and ranged fighters. The lead undead did not halt, and their relentless mass split my army in two. I hastily summoned a select group of elite troops to join me in an effort to breach the horde and support our ranged fighters. But the undead seemed endless, with a substantial number of formidable foes that even my elite struggled to overcome. This would decimate my ranged fighters. Rage threatened to consume me. When a hapless undead flung itself toward me, shattering its own skull and drenching me in gore, I lost control. Gasping for breath, I surveyed the carnage around me. Damn, that berserk trait was infuriating. My right-hand man approached and began to relay the situation. I was grateful that my wrath had been directed at the undead and that none of my men had been caught in the crossfire. But that was the only silver lining. Apparently, an intelligent undead from the far east had initiated a relentless pursuit, the likes of which only the undead could sustain. Our scouts had been swiftly overwhelmed, leaving them unable to report back. "Could the same person who''s been killing our scouts be responsible for this?" I asked my right-hand man. "It''s possible. They likely angered the leader and fled in this direction, bringing disaster upon us." I took a few moments to compose myself before allowing him to continue. Thanks to the combined efforts of the elite fighters and me, our melee fighters only suffered a loss of about 80 men. We had bought them enough time to form their ranks. However, our ranged fighters had been utterly annihilated. The few who survived had to be put down, as their wounds, inflicted by the undead, likely meant infection. Rage simmered within me once more, but I forced it down. I vowed to channel every ounce of that fury into crushing whatever forces the village could muster. We had also lost a significant portion of our supplies. "Order everyone to eat and drink; we will be double-marching toward the village. I want it under our control in one week," I commanded. My orders were promptly relayed, and I spent a few minutes pulverizing a few more zombie skulls, if only to vent my lingering frustration. chapter 189 Only a few hours ago, we received confirmation that the Slave King''s army had been decimated. The outcome exceeded my expectations, as he had even eliminated the surviving ranged units infected with the undead virus. In reality, out of a hundred people, only about five would have turned, according to Khris. His mastery over his class and abilities to control the undead has grown immensely, and I''m grateful for his support. With him on our side, the undead will likely never pose a threat, except in battles we orchestrate ourselves. Back in the village, I found myself in my office, buried in a pile of long-overdue paperwork. David and the owlbear had finally finished devising our economic strategy and its implementation. Despite their best efforts to explain it to me, my mind was preoccupied with the ongoing war, and I couldn''t give it the time it needed for me to understand what they came up with. The Slave King''s army seemed to be accelerating their advance after the undead battle, and I needed to monitor their approach closely. If they were indeed determined to reach us swiftly, I would have to notify the goblins as soon as possible. In warfare, timing is crucial, and I refuse to engage in battle without my skirmishers. I have successfully eliminated a significant number of the enemy''s scouts and assassins, which should limit their knowledge of the terrain. This advantage will aid us in executing the perfect ambush. As I glanced at the papers scattered across the table, I noticed a wealth of information about newcomers. It was heartening to see the growth of our village population, which now neared a thousand, thanks to the influx of refugee caravans and groups seeking shelter. While there have been numerous issues arising from interpersonal conflicts and politics, I have not yet needed to intervene directly. One common resolution has been to offer former leaders among the refugees a chance to swear an oath and join the ranks of our clan administrators. However, there was one individual who seemed to have misunderstood the gravity of these vows. As soon as the first drop of blood touched the ground, he met a gruesome end. He must have believed the oaths were mere words, without any real obligation to uphold them. When that incident occurred, I felt a sense of relief. I had taken a risk by allowing the fool to take the oath, despite knowing he was untrustworthy and likely harbored malicious intentions. His fate served as a stark reminder that the oath was not to be taken lightly, and anyone seeking a leadership position within the United Freeholds must treat it with utmost respect. At present, the additional population was mostly residing in tents, as we hadn''t yet been able to allocate the manpower for proper housing. Our military, however, had grown significantly, now boasting nearly 300 Legionnaires prepared to face the Slave King''s army of over 700 melee fighters. When it came to elite troops, we held the advantage, as many who had made the perilous journey to our village were exceptional fighters. These individuals were eager to take revenge on the Slave King, who had driven them from their homes. The rest of the population was hard at work, crafting armor for our Legionnaires. Shields and spears were at the ready, and many had helmets, but there was a concerning lack of body armor. My hope was that the people proficient in making any form of armour among us could equip our soldiers with sufficient protection, at least to cover their vital areas. Our most significant challenge lay at the high end of power. I was currently the only first-rank fighter on our side, while the enemy had three. This would make for a more evenly matched battle, but the Slave King''s forces also included a few additional fighters close to the first-rank level, ready to lend their support to the Slave King. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. I was no longer afraid of dying in the upcoming battle, but I knew that they outnumbered me. If just one of their high-ranking fighters made a move toward our Legionnaires or goblins to decimate their ranks, I might not be able to stop them. This was a risk I couldn''t afford to take. Thankfully, there was a chance that this issue might be resolved within the next few hours. The most recent group of refugees was unlike the others. While previous groups had struggled through the forest, this one seemed to have had an almost leisurely journey. It appeared they had been safeguarded by someone who could potentially tip the scales in our favor¡ªa first-rank assassin. I suspected that the refugees themselves were unaware of this individual''s presence, but the assassin had undoubtedly kept them safe. I only knew of the assassin''s existence because of the blue dot that indicated their location. At first, I thought they might be one of the Slave King''s assassins who had managed to conceal their true intentions. However, that didn''t add up. If they were indeed working for the Slave King, the refugees would have arrived in a much worse state to avoid arousing suspicion. The journey would have been too safe otherwise. This assassin possessed remarkable stealth skills and abilities, even rendering themselves invisible to my sight. Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of a false reflection, hinting at their presence. But the most reliable method of tracking them was through my land authority and the blue dot that represented the mysterious figure, whose gender and species still eluded me. I had been waiting for this enigmatic assassin to approach me for several days, but they had yet to reveal themselves. At the moment, they were the closest they had ever been¡ªstill completely invisible, but standing in a corner of the room near the window. "I finished my paperwork some time ago. I don''t have the luxury of time to play games, so either attack me now or stop messing around and show yourself." There was a brief silence before a figure gradually materialized right where the blue dot indicated. "I know you can''t see me, and you can barely sense my presence. Yet you still know precisely where I am. I''d like to learn how you manage that someday," the person spoke in a nonchalant tone. I examined the individual, who appeared to be an ordinary man, save for a small scar on his chin. However, something about his facial features seemed familiar. Suddenly, it clicked. Many people who arrived with the last refugee group bore a striking resemblance to him. They were either his family or relatives, which explained his protection. "I see you''ve already figured it out. I expected nothing less. Your act of playing a naive noble is convincing enough, but anyone with a shred of common sense would see through it quickly. Still, it''s good enough to deceive most long-range reconnaissance abilities." He nodded respectfully, then approached and sat on the opposite side of the table. He sat upright, exuding the demeanor of a refined gentleman, which piqued my curiosity even more. "I assume you''re willing to fight against the approaching army," I said, studying him intently. "I am, yes, but I must inform you, I''m not particularly effective in direct combat. While I can hold my own, my strength lies in striking from the shadows, catching my enemies off-guard." I pondered for a few minutes, the silence enveloping us. "This can work. When I engage the Slave King and his strongest fighters, you will remain hidden and strike only when someone attempts to flee from me towards our troops." After a brief pause, he gave a dignified nod, so I continued. "You will also have a second objective, and that is to rescue a person named Mirhit from the Slave King and ensure his safety." For the first time, I saw a flicker of confusion on the assassin''s face. "You would rather have me help this boy than assist our other fighters?" he inquired with a hint of disdain in his voice. I didn''t mind it. "I thought you might appreciate the recognition of saving your future commander, assuming he chooses to join us, of course." That statement finally made him break his proper demeanor. "My commander? Are you insane? If this isn''t a joke, I have no idea why you would think that a boy would become my superior," he said, his voice filled with irritation. I tried to suppress a smile. "You''ll understand in time, but the night is drawing to a close, and it''s time for me to start the Legionnaires'' next training exercise. It''s going to be fun; you should come and watch." The assassin vanished as soon as I looked away. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, slowly illuminating the world. I was in the training grounds, setting up. The last thing I did was bring Francis to the area. Some Legionnaires were already present, looking puzzled by the equipment prepared. As I went and stood at attention, waiting for everyone to arrive, I heard a voice from my left, where I saw nothing. "You are absolutely insane, and I love it." chapter 190 As I assembled my contraption, every time I glanced up at the Legionnaires, I noticed a few more wide-eyed expressions from those who had figured out what was going to happen. They obeyed orders and remained silent, but I could sense the nervous energy beginning to take hold. When I lifted the completed contraption and fastened it to Francis, some of the Legionnaires started to sweat in panic. I dusted myself off and straightened up before addressing them. "We are going to face a difficult battle, where you''ll have to hold against an enemy that outnumbers you and has significantly more mass to push you back. We have trained as best as we can to help you withstand this pressure, but there are only so many Legionnaires to train with. I have recruited Francis to help solve that problem." After I finished speaking, everyone who hadn''t yet grasped what was going to happen finally did, and I couldn''t help but smirk. Some of the more observant Legionnaires didn''t fail to notice it. I glanced at Francis, who was getting accustomed to his new accessory. It wasn''t a perfect tool, but it would get the job done. By modifying his pulling harness and attaching two long, iron-reinforced logs to both sides that were designed for the upgraded village gate, Francis could now push back the entire group of 40 Legionnaires. "Legionnaires, prepare to receive a charge!" I yelled out, and immediately, with practiced ease, they all fell into the correct line formation and readied their shields. I guided Francis a bit closer because I didn¡¯t want the first time to be too rough on them. When we were about 10 feet away, I slapped Francis on his rear, and he burst forward. I was glad that Francis was smart because the entire column was pushed back, and many people lost their footing, falling backward even though the Legionnaire behind them was supposed to prevent that. I helped Francis get back into position, and I looked at the sorry excuses that were supposed to protect us. "Did you try to embarrass me? Did you think that we are playing around? I am trying to teach you how to stay alive, yet what do you do? You fall to the ground like a bunch of children. Get back in line and ready for another charge!" I yelled so close to them that the people in the front row were covered in spittle. It took me a long time to learn how to yell so that spittle would fly, but it''s one of my proudest abilities. Nothing quite gets your point across like being yelled at while being covered with someone else''s spittle without being able to do anything about it. The next charge was equally pathetic, but I could see improvements. "Again!" I yelled out and everyone prepared once again. On the third attempt, they managed to remain upright for a moment, but it seemed Francis had other plans. With a swift, forceful shove, he disrupted their formation once again. I took a moment to study Francis more closely and saw that he was genuinely enjoying himself¡ªperhaps even more than when he pulled heavy carts back to the village. The Legionnaires were well-trained and adapted quickly, but Francis was nothing short of spectacular. I could never have imagined him excelling so remarkably at this task. When the Legionnaires managed to halt his direct charge, he cleverly angled the log so that one side struck before the other. He also unleashed sudden bursts of power while already pushing against the shield wall. As Francis continued to learn and improve, I increased the distance he was allowed to cover during his charge, forcing the Legionnaires to adapt anew. Battles in this world were diffrent. For one, people had abilities. They also had the stamina to keep fighting a lot longer. The first significant breakthrough occurred three hours into our training session. The Legionnaires had once again successfully stopped Francis in his tracks, holding him at bay without conceding an inch. So, I issued a command: "Push." It was an instinctive response we had ingrained in them, and they simultaneously advanced the shield wall a step further. Even with his strength, Francis couldn''t defy physics. He was pushed back one step but didn''t let that deter him, pushing back even harder. Although the Legionnaires were pushed back by about an inch, they remained firmly rooted in place. I shouted another "push," but this time they managed only half a step before Francis overpowered them, sending people tumbling to the ground. "Legionnaires, take a rest and recuperate." Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. I was proud of their progress and allowed them to do whatever they needed to recover. I removed the contraption from Francis, giving him a chance to rest as well. He was panting heavily. I brought him a large bucket of water to drink. "You did so well. Are you interested in continuing this training for at least a few days?" I received a huff in response, which I interpreted as him telling me to stop asking silly questions. I chuckled as I scratched behind his ears. All the trainers had been observing, so I quickly explained to them how to conduct this exercise and what to watch for and improve. We had to run this drill with every group of Legionnaires to prepare them for battle. After that, I hurried towards the goblins to inform them that it was time to start gathering. The Slave King''s army was supposed to be almost two weeks away, but I was no longer confident about that. Something told me we had less time, but I believed I could persuade the goblins to wait a few more days fully gathered than initially planned if necessary. My journey to the goblin lands was swift, and my stay even shorter. By evening, I was back at the village, supervising a different group of Legionnaires as they learned to hold the shield wall against a more formidable opponent. The next morning, I had Goose fly out to check on the progress of the Slave King''s army. The distance they had covered confirmed they were indeed marching relentlessly to reach us sooner. I couldn''t pinpoint the exact reason for this urgency¡ªwhether it was due to dwindling food supplies or some other factor¡ªbut it didn''t really matter. What mattered was that our time was running out. The day after tomorrow was the summer solstice. Fear hung in the air, dampening any celebratory spirit. For many people, they had been on the run for a long time, but there was nowhere left to flee. This was the end of the line, and if the Slave King''s armies broke through, they would either be killed or enslaved. The only thing keeping morale afloat was the sight of the Legionnaires training tirelessly to protect them. I decided to use today and tomorrow to push the Legionnaires hard, and then we would have a summer solstice celebration. Everyone would be called back into the village. When I informed the council of my decision, they were all surprised. They had expected me to insist on continued training and had spent nearly the entire night devising ways to persuade me to hold the summer solstice celebration. This revelation lifted everyone''s spirits somewhat. They quickly began preparing for the festivities while I returned to the training grounds, where I spent most of my remaining time before the celebration. During this period, another idea came to me, and I couldn''t decide whether to be proud of myself or horrified. I gradually worked on that project throughout the night, hoping I had enough time to complete it. Every member of the military was instructed to enjoy themselves but not to drink excessively. The joy on their faces when we informed them during the lineup on the training grounds on the morning of the summer solstice¡ªwhile they anticipated another day of training¡ªwas heartwarming. The only thing that saddened me about the summer solstice was that I wouldn''t be able to return to my home and use my sauna. Fortunately, they still had the tradition of burning bonfires. At least I could participate in that ritual. While everyone around me celebrated, I continued working on my project. I even used some of the stronger metal I had acquired from the raid dungeon market. I also had to modify my armor slightly, as I had grown considerably taller. Now standing at 6 feet 1 inch, I didn''t think my growth would cease anytime soon. However, even I wasn''t going to work the entire day; I too wanted to take some time off to unwind. The night was simultaneously warm and cool, a difficult sensation to describe, but it was my favorite weather for a bonfire. Watching the flames dance has always made me feel closest to nature, and this time was no exception. A similar pulse of energy occurred, much like the previous year, but it had little impact on our nation, and most people didn''t even notice it. Apparently, this phenomenon was entirely natural and happened annually. The undead that arose as a result were a byproduct of the immense quantities of natural life energy comprising the pulse. No one in the area understood the true reason behind the pulse''s occurrence. I was sure that some individuals elsewhere knew the cause, but for now, I chose not to dwell on it and instead allowed myself to be enveloped by the surrounding nature. I had fallen asleep beside my bonfire on a grassy hill just outside the village. In the morning Goose woke me up when he left to search of food. It was time to address all those who would be fighting. There wouldn''t be time for a speech before the battle, as it simply didn''t align with our strategy and the image we wanted to project to our enemies. Thus, now was the best and final opportunity to deliver it. Today, everyone would start preparing for the confrontation. All the pieces were in place, and now it was time to let the dice roll, hoping we would live to see another day. chapter 191 I stood upon the elevated platform once used by performers the night before, surveying the crowd assembled at the heart of the village. Almost all of them bore the clan''s military trait, yet few donned armor or any other distinctive attire. Legionaries and elite warriors alike had gathered, and even though delivering a speech carried risks, maintaining morale in the coming week and throughout the battle was crucial. "We have united as one to navigate the treacherous currents of life, and now we find ourselves at a critical crossroad. Two potential outcomes lie before us¡ªone vastly superior to the other, yet requiring our resilience and sacrifice to secure the brighter future. Failure is not an option, for it would spell doom for our friends and family. You have all made the choice to sacrifice in defense of those you hold dear." "Regrettably, I cannot assure safety for anyone, including myself. But trust in my words when I say that I am willing to lay down my life to preserve what we have here. However, dying also signifies my failure, as I can no longer protect if I cease to exist. It''s crucial for you to grasp the weight of this truth. While I know you are all prepared to lay down your lives for what we''ve built, I urge you to fight with every fiber of your being. Each moment you continue to battle brings us one step closer to accomplishing our objective." "I have unwavering faith in our shared vision¡ªa life of peace, free from the interference of those who seek to claim what''s rightfully ours. Let it be known to all who dare trespass upon our lands with ill intent that we shall spit upon their graves, then forget they ever existed. Together, we will forge a future for ourselves, and it begins right here, right now." "Sharpen your blades and ready your shields, for we have an enemy to vanquish¡ªone who seeks to enslave us. Let us show them why they should fear us!" I roared the final words, which were met with an even louder, unified battle cry from the gathered crowd. I let the war cries reverberate for a few moments before raising my hand, signaling for silence that descended almost immediately. "You all know what you must do. Move out." I issued the command, and I could see how the villagers struggled not to bring their fists to their hearts, as saluting was currently forbidden. Everyone dispersed, moving with purpose and determination, fully aware of their tasks. I too departed, entering the village hall, where I promptly found the two mages. Their faces were ashen, but they sported wide grins. They gave me a quick nod before shuffling off to rest. Clad in full armor and adorned with an array of jewelry, I embodied the noble who was meant to be in command. Earlier that morning, the mages had informed me that they had detected a spying spell cast upon our village. The mages of the Slave King had finally come close enough to employ one of the most common reconnaissance spells used in warfare. We could have had our mages dispel the intrusion, but we chose to seize the perfect opportunity to feed them misinformation. The fact that we had held a celebration the previous night played into our hands, and as for the speech I had just delivered, our adversaries would have heard a completely different version. In the fabricated version of my speech, I boasted about my greatness and claimed I would single-handedly slay the Slave King while our forces swiftly dealt with his army. The amusing aspect of this charade was that if my plan unfolded as intended, that might indeed be the outcome. I longed to join the soldiers in their endeavors, but my role required me to remain and act the part of a pampered noble. Time flew by, and I began to discern when the spying spell was active. Luckily, my evenings were still my own, allowing me to carry on with my little project, which I completed before we commenced marching with half our legion. The other half had already departed two days prior and should have been establishing a more permanent camp just beyond the future battlefield. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. As I stepped out of the City Hall, ten fully armored knights awaited to escort me, befitting a noble of my stature during wartime. The remaining villagers had been asked to line up and witness my departure. I had hoped to avoid such a spectacle, but with the reconnaissance spell in effect, we couldn''t afford to reveal our ability to counter it at will. Upon leaving the village, I was greeted by the legionnaires standing in formation, awaiting my arrival. One hundred and sixty of them were assembled in groups of forty, their demeanor professional and disciplined. I appreciated their scowls directed at me¡ªit was only fitting for the character I portrayed. Despite feeling exhausted from the constant acting, I couldn''t deny the enjoyment and significant progress in my acting skill that resulted from playing this role. I had to use a stepladder to mount the horse prepared for me, and as I waited for my knights to do the same, the legionaries busied themselves by readying the carts and assuming their traveling formations. The only peculiar sight was the massive cart Francis pulled. It appeared to be laden with tents and firewood but in truth concealed my secret project and two dismantled ballistae. One of the ballistae originated from my farm, while the other was crafted by George and a few others, with some input from me. At my command, the legionaries began their march towards the forward camp. We anticipated reaching it in two days, towards the evening. This would afford us ample time to establish our position, allow our troops to rest from the march, and ensure everyone was prepared for the impending battle. I expected the battle to commence the following morning, assuming our adversaries were not foolish enough to engage in nighttime combat. If they pushed themselves even harder to arrive by evening, I wouldn''t object. The rapid pace of the Slave King''s army was a nuisance. They had made good time, which meant the goblins were still amassing. Although not all would arrive before the battle, a substantial portion of the requested skirmishers would be present. A small elite group would be stationed at the goblin gathering point to assist them in crossing the river using the devices we had crafted. POV Slave King "The noble in charge has just given the order for them to move out. Regrettably, according to our calculations, they will reach the other half of their forces before we can intercept them. If we push ourselves a bit faster, we might reach the campsite at roughly the same time, around evening," one of my mages reported. Seated on my horse, I couldn''t help but feel disappointed that we wouldn''t be able to engage only half of the United Freeholds army. Surveying the marching soldiers, I noted the fatigue etched into their postures. "We will slow down a bit and engage them in the morning," I announced, hearing a few sighs of relief but choosing to ignore them. I struggled to grasp the root of their concerns. True, the United Freeholds army appeared somewhat more trained than we had anticipated, but they were merely villagers. I expected them to flee once our armies clashed, allowing us to swiftly overpower them. The only individual who concerned me was the ranger leading the other half of the United Freeholds army. He seemed experienced and competent, having established a well-ordered and consistently guarded camp. However, we held the advantage in numbers and superior combatants. I couldn''t fathom why they chose to face us in open battle, but I wouldn''t complain. The recent celebrations among their ranks likely indicated that we had little to worry about¡ªonly fools would celebrate mere days before a crucial battle. The terrain surrounding the campsite also appeared favorable for combat. It was open enough for us to capitalize on our greater numbers and utilize the adjacent forest to flank the United Freeholds army with our elite fighters. If I had ranged units at my disposal, the hill near the river would have been an ideal vantage point, but merely thinking about the lost fighters filled me with rage. I planned to torture that ranger for weeks until his mind shattered completely. Contemplating this outcome helped me regain my composure and clear my thoughts. This battle would serve as a fitting end to my campaign, leaving only the question of how many people would we enslaved and how many we will kill. chapter 192 It was a resplendent summer morning, the sky an unblemished canvas of blue. The Slave King observed his army as they prepared for a brief march towards the final confrontation of his campaign. As strategized the night before, his elite forces had slipped into the forest, advancing under the cover of foliage to flank the United Freeholds army and swiftly scatter their ranks. A rare smile graced the Slave King''s face, as he stood surrounded by his staunchest guards and two of his oldest friends and party members. An hour of marching had already passed, and in just another, they would reach their destination. However, the mage who had remained with the main force reported that his reconnaissance spell had been severed, leaving him unable to monitor the enemy''s movements. No one was taken aback by this development; if anything, the fact that it had taken this long was a reassuring sign that the battle ahead would be a manageable one. The mage accompanying the Slave King would ensure that the enemy''s mage would be rendered ineffective, allowing their armies to close in and engage in hand-to-hand combat. In battles where one side lacked a mage, defeat was almost certain, as mages possessed the power to obliterate vast numbers of low-ranking warriors with their area magic. Despite this, the Slave King remained unperturbed. He was confident that his flanking force would bolster his main army, routing the enemy with ease before hunting down and capturing or killing every last opponent. His only lingering concern was the whereabouts of the elusive Ranger. Less fearful of the Ranger causing harm than escaping his clutches. A gentle summer breeze wafted through the air as the Slave King finally caught sight of the enemy. Arrayed before him was an impressive line of soldiers, their helmets peeking over the curved large shields that all were holding. However, as he drew closer, the Slave King struggled to stifle his laughter upon realizing the truth of their formation. The United Freeholds army had set up a shield wall only four men deep, which filled the Slave King with confidence. He believed his troops would easily crash through the thin defense and send the enemy fleeing within a mere ten minutes. The disparity in armor quality was striking. In the Slave King''s army, even the least-armored warriors were outfitted with a full gambeson and hardened leather pieces protecting their chest and other vulnerable areas, topped with metal helms. The majority of his soldiers were clad in chainmail, while the most elite among the regular warriors boasted plate armor pieces. In contrast, the United Freeholds legion could only match their opponents in terms of helmets. Most of their soldiers wore some form of shoulder armor, but fewer had substantial chest protection. Nevertheless, a handful were decently armored, with the best-equipped positioned in the front row and the least protected at the rear. When it came to weaponry and shields, the United Freeholds legion displayed uniformity and excellent quality. The Slave King''s army, on the other hand, embraced a more diverse approach to combat, employing a wide variety of weapons. Soldiers were free to choose their own arms, but the majority opted for a one-handed weapon paired with a shield. The United Freeholds legion had positioned their lines between a hill and a road. A winding river traced its path behind the hill, and a dense forest stood about 100 meters from the road. They were not far from their camp, and it seemed as though they had managed to set up their defenses at the last possible moment. On the road stood a lone figure clad in full armor, wielding a two-handed sword without a shield. Positioned parallel to the legion, yet far enough away to avoid being drawn into battle, the Slave King instantly identified the figure as the commanding noble. He couldn''t help but scoff at the sight of the man still adorned with jewelry despite wearing armor. Though he sensed the noble''s strength, the Slave King was confident he could overcome him. Orders were issued, and the Slave King''s army mirrored the United Freeholds legion''s formation, separated by only a few hundred meters. The Slave King and Rich observed as their respective mages approached each other on the road and began exchanging spells. The outcome of this duel would prove crucial, as the losing side would suffer greatly if the victor''s mage unleashed area spells upon their forces. Glenn had never imagined his life unfolding in such a manner. Upon graduating from the Academy and receiving a job offer from a seemingly noble lord, he believed he had achieved his dreams. However, his elation turned to apprehension when he discovered he was hired to protect the noble''s son. Upon meeting the young man and witnessing his less than admirable personality, Glenn longed to burn his contract, but the penalties were too severe. Now, as a respected mage in a fledgling nation, he was determined to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. As the mages drew near, they recognized one another. They had been classmates at the Mage Academy and had graduated together. Though friends during their time at the Academy, they were not particularly close. Now, after 20 years apart, they found themselves pitted against each other in battle. Neither hesitated for even a moment before engaging in their duel. Both Glenn and the Slave King''s mage favored fire magic. The duel began with swift volleys of fireballs that twisted and curved, attempting to bypass the defenses conjured by the opposing mage. The exchange was rapid, and while Glenn appeared to have a slight advantage, it wasn''t enough to secure victory. Gradually, they incorporated different magical elements, such as entangling vines to unbalance or freezing mist to slow their opponent. The duel was as mesmerizing as it was deadly, and all who bore witness were awestruck. After about two minutes, both mages ceased their assault, retreating slightly and moving towards the forest. They would remain out of the fray, but ever vigilant for an opportunity to eliminate the other. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The Slave King felt a twinge of disappointment, but this outcome had been anticipated. His soldiers stood ready, their fervor punctuated by sporadic war cries. As the horns sounded, the Slave King''s army surged forward, picking up speed. They couldn''t sprint too quickly through the knee-high grass, but they were confident that even at their current pace, breaking the legion''s formation would be effortless. Rich observed the unfolding scene with a keen eye. He noted some of the advancing soldiers stumbling into the simple traps that had been laid out. As he assessed the military forces through his command ability, none had yet received the boosts that he could provide. Maintaining those boosts required energy, and Rich was currently concealing his true power. He had six different combat units listed, with the legion being the largest. He observed the Slave King advancing as well, but only to a position that would prevent him from joining the fray. The Slave King was accompanied by 12 formidable warriors, making the upcoming battle a challenging one for Rich. Prepared to use every resource at his disposal, he watched the enemy charge forward, a chaotic mass of soldiers shouting war cries in an attempt to intimidate the legion. In contrast, the legion remained silent and steadfast, their shields unwavering. As the two armies closed to within mere meters of each other, the legionnaires suddenly grew stronger and their equipment more durable. Anyone capable of perceiving energy would have recognized the immense boost the entire legion had just received. The Slave King and a few others around him noticed the change and were instantly filled with concern. But it was too late to halt the impending collision of forces. As the armies clashed, the legion held firm. Their entire line was pushed back, but this was anticipated. Swift spear thrusts emerged from behind the legion''s shields, aimed at the enemies directly in front of them. However, the armor of the Slave King''s army proved to be too effective, as only a few soldiers suffered severe injuries, with the majority still able to fight. The trained Knights, interspersed among the legion, utilized their defensive and offensive abilities to counter the enemy''s advances, and the stalemate persisted. The Slave King grew anxious, as he hadn''t anticipated this turn of events. He couldn''t discern who was providing the boost to the opposing troops. Though he observed increased energy usage from the noble, it didn''t seem sufficient to account for such a significant boost. Nevertheless, after just two minutes, he noticed one flank of the legion, towards the hill, beginning to buckle. A smile returned to his face, and he saw similar expressions among those around him. The brutal fighting continued, yet both armies inflicted minimal damage upon each other. Over the next 15 minutes, one side of the legion had collapsed so much that they now fought diagonally from their original position. The Slave King couldn''t comprehend why the legion''s shield wall remained so robust while one side had been pushed back so dramatically. One side of his army was stretched thin, while the side closer to the road remained tightly packed, appearing to make no progress. He glanced towards the forest, puzzled as to why his elite forces hadn''t engaged. Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he saw the noble doing something unexpected. He was removing his jewelry, dropping it to the ground without a care. Once Rich had finished, he retrieved his two-handed sword that had been resting against his shoulder and held its point upwards towards the sky. "I have a simple announcement to make," Rich proclaimed, and with his abilities, all could hear. As Rich gathered energy into his sword, the Slave King assumed he was activating some sort of empowerment ability. In reality, Rich was powering up his flying slash, disguising it as an empowerment ability he had witnessed during a raid. "I will kill you, Slave King," Rich Dirt announced. The Slave King began to laugh, but before he could respond, Rich''s energy erupted, and his energy started to burn. Now everyone knew that he was at first rank and a powerful energy user. The burning effect his energy produced allowed him to use his full power in the low-energy area, while the Slave King and his party would be weakened. Rich activated all his buffs within his command ability, and moments later, explosions and flashes of color erupted in the forest. The Slave King glanced towards the forest, confused, but as soon as he took his eyes off Rich, he felt a surge of energy coming from that direction. Channeling his inner baseball player, Rich swung his sword like a bat. The flying slash that emerged from his swing tore through the Slave King''s army, cutting down several dozen soldiers before finally coming to a halt. Before the Slave King could react in fury, Rich used his movement ability to appear before the guards. Though most were quick enough to react and ready their defenses, Rich''s single slash managed to kill one of the energy weavers at the Slave King''s side. In the forest, the explosions and flashes of light continued unabated. The elite of the United Freeholds had lain in ambush, prepared to engage the Slave King''s forces. When they received the order to attack from Rich''s command ability, they unleashed their full might. The loss of the Slave King''s mage was a heavy blow, leaving only one alive who was swiftly engaged by the second mage of the United Freeholds. The ambush had cost the Slave King''s elite many lives, and with each passing moment, the United Freeholds'' elite forces pressed their advantage. Among the United Freeholds forces in the forest was a pack of wolves, working together to take down the Slave King''s elite one by one. They were the deadliest and most effective group within the forest, and their ferocity helped the United Freeholds elite gain a significant advantage. Deadly abilities flew in every direction, and many warriors fell to attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere. The battle was far from over, but it appeared that the United Freeholds had the upper hand. As the forest ambush started, Rich ordered the unit with the goblins to advance. The eight members of the unit sprinted out of the forest towards the river, carrying improved portable bridges on their backs. They quickly outpaced the goblins and had the foldable bridges set up just as the goblins reached the river, allowing them to cross without pause. Soon, the goblins were charging up the hill to a waiting position that Rich had designated. The goblins, now in position on the hill, gathered around the piles of extra javelins, ready to launch them at their enemies. They patiently waited for Rich to issue the command through his ability, knowing that timing would be crucial in maximizing their impact on the battle. Meanwhile, behind the legion, a group of soldiers in a large tent made their final preparations, awaiting orders to move into position. Among them was Francis, who stood ready to pull a large cart laden with two ballistae and a surprise that made everyone in the tent turn pale when they imagined what it could do. chapter 193 Laia had never been in a battle before but now she was holding a shield and a spear. She was preparing herself and the person in front of her to take charge of the enemies. At this moment she regretted when having picked a combat class for one of her open class slots. She didn''t have any family left to fight for, but she had made good friends, some of whom were in the legion''s lines with her while others were back at the GreenWave village. When contact happened she didn''t consciously do anything, but her body knew what to do and they managed to hold the enemy. She was afraid but she stood firm, helping support the person in front. Time seemed to move slowly but every so often she would hear the command to move in her head. It was a practised move and because she was one of the best at this, she was on the side of the legion that was supposed to collapse. It was so loud that she could barely hear herself think. Their commander had said that battle would be louder, but she never imagined it to be so piercing. When they moved again a bit backwards, she found that there was no one in front of her. Again, her body moved before she could think and she was now one step closer to the enemy. Time passed and they continued to move backwards a bit. Then she saw the legionary in front take an axe to the shoulder. He started to collapse but she grabbed the back of his armour and pulled him backwards while she moved forward. It was a practised move they had done hundreds of times. But now she could feel the weapons hitting her shield. Her arm soon started to hurt but she continued to keep her shield up. She gathered her courage and peeked atop her shield. She saw the enemy trying to break their shields. A weapon that was glowing from ability moved towards her, but her shield started to glow, counteracting the attack. She didn¡¯t have any special abilities so one of the knights must have used his to protect her. The same person tried again but he had been pushed a bit closer and his throat was exposed. Before she understood what happened she was sprayed with blood when she pulled her spear back. She had never killed before. This act started to freeze her up, but another target opened up and she struck again. This time a shield blocked her strike, but she forgot what made her panic just a moment ago. Time passed again and her arm didn¡¯t hurt anymore. She didn¡¯t feel her arm at all, but the shield was still held, and the line held. To the right of her, she saw a big man holding a large hammer strike down. The legionary beside her was struck in the head and he collapsed with no life left in him. The big man once again raised his hammer, but he exposed his armpit. Again, before she could think about anything her spear flashed out and buried itself deep into the man. When she pulled out so much blood came out that she thought that the inside of the man must only be made from blood. She then heard an order to collapse inward. She took a step to her right, having to step on top of the legionnaire she had just watched die. She didn¡¯t have to stand on top of him for long as another order came to take a step backwards. She was so tired she didn''t understand how she could still be upright. Then she saw a spear closing in. She was able to move her head just to the left. The spear crashed into her helmet, but the helmet¡¯s armour held, and the spear was directed past her. Still, the hit rattled her brain. When she was able to think again, she saw the spear was coming for her again but before it could reach the man had been struck in the throat by another spear. The legionary beside her had killed the man that was about to kill her. She once again lifted her shield up just an inch and once again struck out with her spear trying to kill whoever was in front of her or to the left or right. Time passed and once again her shields started to tip. Then she heard the command that javelins will start to fall onto the enemies. That gave her more strength than she didn''t know she had and once again her shield lifted, and her spear struck out. Valker was gripping his sword tightly. He was pressed against a tree hiding in the camouflaged spot that someone else had made. He had seen a few of the enemy elites move past. He wanted to strike out, but he hadn¡¯t received the command to attack. He knew that these elites were stronger than him and he barely made it into this ambush group but he was a lot stronger than the current Legionnaires so here he was waiting to launch a surprise attack. He saw two men walking just by him. They were in the perfect spot, and he couldn¡¯t believe his luck went the order to attack came. He rushed out and his sword found the throat of the enemy killing him on the spot. He tried to attack the other one as well, but he was not able to get past the shield the enemy had. He could barely react to the sword strikes that came for him, but he pushed his boost ability to be able to counterattack. The enemy shield proved to be too effective. After three more quick exchanges, he received a cut to his left hand. He could see his enemy smirk at him, and he could also see the cruelness in his eyes. Valker knew people like this. He had been a guard in a large town and with his combat class at level 40 he had to deal with people like this. He also knew that he was going to die. When the plague hit his home village, he rushed back abandoning his job in the town. But after a 2-week journey, all he had back home was a ransacked farmhouse and the graves of his family. He didn''t know what to do and just aimlessly walked into the village. It didn¡¯t resemble anything that he remembered from his childhood. There used to be people talking to each other, trading produce and many children playing. Now there were barely any people left and the ones left were hard and would take anything valuable you had especially food. It was at that moment that he saw a young girl sitting in the mud begging for food. The few people who walked by didn''t even look towards her. She looked so starved. When he asked her where her family was. All she said was they are all gone. He picked her up from the mud. She weighed almost nothing. The next few years they spent living together in Valker¡¯s farmhouse. He put his common farming class to use. Then things got worse. There were rumours that a strong city-state in the area was practising slavery and that they were moving around conquering all. The village had come back to life during those years and after a quick meeting, almost every one of them decided to pack up and try to escape. After a lot of hardship, they finally reached the end of the map a village called GreenWave and the nation that ruled it, The United Freeholds. But even this place wasn¡¯t safe. The so-called slave king was still trying to get to him and his little girl. But he saw strength here and for his little girl, he would fight to the death. He prepared to at least take this bastard with him before he died. Valker moved but the enemy never expected that he might sacrifice his left arm. That stopped the enemy''s attack from killing him and he was able to pierce his chest with his sword. But he was too weak the blade didn¡¯t go deep enough to kill that bastard. Valker fell to the ground and looked up to see a sword poised to kill him. But before it could fall the enemy in front of him was taken to the ground by a wolf who proceeded to rip the elite¡¯s throat out. The wolf didn''t stop and ran past, and a few other wolves followed. Valker then received a heal. Something he had only experienced once before. His wound closed up and a bit of strength returned to him. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. He struggled up again and started to move towards the closest battle he could hear. He might not be able to do a lot but even as a distraction, he would be able to keep his little girl safer. The slave king watched as one of his energy weavers, an extremely rare ability user, died when the noble attacked. They quickly counterattacked but they were blocked by the big sword or dodged by the large Noble who was nimbler than he should be. The attacks that hit his armour barely left a scratch on the armour that was filled with energy. The slave king wasn''t worried but he was annoyed. The amount of energy Rich was using had to run out and soon. Then they can finish him off. A bit away from the fight with Rich and the slave king¡¯s forces both the mages were fighting again. Glenn had launched a surprise attack at the same time Rich had struck and because of it, he was able to wound his former classmate. It would still take some time but he was confident that he could win. He tried to not watch how his commander fought but it was hard not to as he was basically glowing with energy, so much was he using. Rich¡¯s sword technique wasn''t anything special, but he had practised the basics for as long as he knew what the basics had been. This wouldn''t help him defeat any of his opponents he was currently facing as any one of them had decades more experience. But in terms of power and speed, none of them could match him, which gave him the upper hand. Rich¡¯s energy pool was larger than all of his current opponents combined, and he was not afraid to use it. Abilities and attacks that should have gone right through him were blocked or stopped by his armour. Still, he was being pushed back but even then, he guided his enemies where he wanted them. When Rich used his last-stand ability the burst of strength allowed him to finish off another fighter while a brilliant dodge and then a thrown dagger right after finished another. Those were the weakest of his enemies but Rich kept defending and counterattacking slowly accumulating wounds onto his enemies so he could finish them off when weakened sufficiently. The fight had gone on for almost 5 minutes when only the strong fighters of the slave king¡¯s forces were still standing. For most of the fighters, including the slave king, the only thing that kept them in the fight was their artifacts, but those were quickly running out of juice. The slave king could feel the tide turning against him. It was at that moment that he noticed movement on top of the hill. A moment later javelins flew out from the hill and fell on top of his army. His army was in a winning position before this interruption and he couldn''t understand why goblins were here or why they were attacking his army. Gorgina had heard a voice in her head. She knew that voice, it was the commander. He told her to attack and so she did. She ran over to the top of the hill, her javelin ready. She almost stumbled from the view she saw. So many were fighting in a place where she was supposed to throw her javelins, but it was hard not to look at everything that was happening. A thin line of friendly fighters was holding off a larger group of enemies who all had their backs to her. This made Gorgina smile. She started to power up her javelin. The forest beyond was constantly flashing and burning in some spots. There were two shamans fighting with flames and then there was the commander the legend who had held a pass against thousands. He was once again surrounded by enemies and Gorgina wondered if he liked to fight like that. The humans around him tried to kill him but they could barely hit him. The commander was moving a lot and only a few of the enemies could attack at the same time. They were also in the way of each other and one by one the commander¡¯s enemies fell. Gorgina then concentrated on her task and started to throw. The slave king heard his elite force commander''s voice yelling something. He turned towards the forest to see him, and hope returned. It was quickly crushed as he saw him bleeding and limping. That hope was set aflame when a wolf attacked his commander from the back and started to tear into him. A few other wolves did the same. Before the slave king could do anything, the wolves started to pull the body back into the forest. He knew he was about to lose but before he could think of a solution, he had taken his eyes off Rich for too long. Rich¡¯s sword came for him but two of his supporters threw themselves before him, saving his life. But with another two of his fighters dead Rich finally had the space to start pushing them back. The slave king needed to do something until he latched on to his remaining hope. The legion had held firm, but he could see how tired they were, and they were close to the breaking point. His army was still mostly intact and if the legion was broken they could take care of the goblins and at least make a fighting retreat. He only needed to look at his party member of almost 40 years before she took off towards the legion to hopefully break them fast. Rich tried to stop her but had to defend against the slave king¡¯s attacks. The slave king was once again trying to keep his anger down. He knew that he couldn''t lose control here. But his party member didn¡¯t get far when someone appeared behind her driving a dagger into her kidney and neck. He didn¡¯t understand what had happened. Sharp thumps broke him out of his stupor. He looked towards where the sound was coming from and saw artillery weapons firing at his army causing devastating damage. He once again had to defend himself from Rich, but he could feel the rage burning making him stronger. He could see the moment of surprise on the noble¡¯s face when his attack didn¡¯t crash through his block. The noble pulled back again but when he looked towards his army again they were quickly being taken apart and he could feel the panic coming from them. He barely needed any upkeep to keep his buffs going. Thanks to his surging strength the slave king was once again able to push Rich back. The slave king was barely holding on to his sanity. The periodical thumps that he could hear signalling his army¡¯s end suddenly came to a stop and he took a moment to see what was happening. Then he saw an armoured bull racing towards his remaining army. Behind the beast was a long-spiked log that the bull was dragging behind him. The log was spinning fast and there were so many spikes. He saw a glimmer of hope. A group of fighters with long spears had made a holding ground and were aiming their spear straight at the charging bull. Their spears were glowing with energy, and he hoped that they could pierce through the armour and kill the beast. Just before the bull crashed into the spears an eagle swooped down and launched a devastating wind attack that killed some, but it thoroughly disrupted the wall of spears allowing the bull to safely break through. What followed finally broke any control the slave king had. His strength rose rapidly and for the first time, every attack he made against Rich made the two-handed sword Rich used almost fly out of his hands. Rich adjusted quickly. He kept his distance, but his long-range attacks did nothing. Rich could see that his enemy didn''t think anymore and just dodged his attacks while hiding behind the slave King¡¯s own men. One by one the slave king killed his own men even his final party member without ever knowing what he had done. The slave king¡¯s army was still holding out, but barely and already some were starting to run. More and more of the slave king¡¯s elites tried to run from the forest but they were quickly followed and hunted. The final mage of the slave king died from a simple fireball and with him the last of the strongest fighters the slave king had died. Rich was still dodging but now with no one to counterattack his attacks the slave king started to receive severe wounds. Finally, the slave king started to slow down and Rich took the first opportunity to behead him. The final 200 warriors of the slave king¡¯s army broke when they heard Rich yell while holding the slave king¡¯s head for all to see. ¡°Your king is dead, run. Legion stand ready.¡± Rich¡¯s voice was heard by all. The slave king¡¯s army finally broke completely and started to run hoping that they would be spared. Rich let them run a bit before he yelled out. ¡°Any fighters still capable hunt down and killing the slave king¡¯s forces, move. Legion and dedicated medics tend to the wounded.¡± His voice carried for a long distance and all who were still capable started to hunt down the escaping army. Some of the stronger goblins started to also pursue while still throwing their javelins always hitting their targets. Rich himself quickly ran towards the battlefield and started to direct and give first aid to anyone he could see and help. What Rich didn''t expect was that the goblins had sent some of their healers as well who quickly moved to help. Every legionnaire having been trained in first aid quickly started to move around the battlefield either finishing off their enemies or finding fellow Legionnaires and helping if they can. chapter 194 POV Mirhit I looked at my two captors. I could see that they wanted to join the fight to protect their king against Rich but one of them was also looking at me like he wanted to kill me before they went. It was obvious that he thought that this situation was somehow wrong. I need to get away from here before they decided to kill me, but I was never going to be able to outrun or kill them. And I was so close to getting to my brother. I looked at Rich hoping he could help. He looked so intimidating, and he could fight better than anyone I have seen. I quickly switched between the views my bugs were giving me. My brother was still completely safe, and it seems that Rich really upheld that part of the promise even though I don¡¯t know if he really would give my brother back even if we were enemies. Rich killed another one and my left captor finally broke from his composure. There was a small moment of hesitation but before he could think of anything else a person appeared behind him and quickly killed him. I started to run but before I had even taken a few steps I could hear the other captor being killed. A few moments later everything went dark. My neck was hurting when I opened my eyes. I appeared to be in some sort of a tent, but I wasn¡¯t familiar with it. Then everything came back to me. I listened for any sounds, and it seemed that the battle was over. I sneaked towards the entrance expecting there to be guards but there weren¡¯t any. When I got out of the tent I almost puked when I saw the field of dead. People were moving around the dead stripping people and then carrying the corpses to a pile that seemed to have a lot of wood beneath it. Rich¡¯s people had actually won. For the first time in my life, it seems that I had made the correct decision. I looked towards the GreenWave village. It was quite far away but my brother was waiting. Before I could start going, I heard someone calling out to me. ¡°You are Mirhit, right? There is a group of carts about to leave towards the village, I¡¯m sure you can catch a ride with them. I was told that your brother is in the village you just have to ask anyone to tell you where the orphanage is, and they will tell you how to get there.¡± Said a woman who was covered in blood which she seemed to have tried to clean off the best she could. Were they really going to just let me go? Rich knew what I could do, why would he just let me see my brother? Was it some sort of trick? There were too many possibilities, but I wanted to see my brother again and hold him tight. I gave a quick nod and started to head towards the carts that she pointed towards. I was able to get a spot without problems when I mentioned I had a brother in the village. There were people besides me who had lost a limb, but they still looked quite high in spirit. It didn''t take long for us to start to move. POV Rich Dirt I was sewing up a bad wound which would have normally meant death but with the potions in this world, he was going to live. My hands still hurt. They were still shaking a bit from blocking the slave king¡¯s attacks that he made when he was raging out. If my bones weren¡¯t so strong, I was certain that my hands would have been shattered multiple times. The sword''s blade had multiple chips in it, but I think a little bit of work will make it serviceable. When I finished, I looked around. There didn¡¯t seem to be any more wounded left that need attending. I saw Lucky moving around but she was dragging herself to the next wounded. Anytime she had gathered enough energy she used her heal again helping stabilize the people who were worst off. There have been two more deaths from Legionnaires who were too wounded bringing the total up to seventy-seven. Twenty-two died fighting inside the forest while fifty-five legionaries died on the field. It was a heavy number but lower than expected. We have to thank the goblins who came to help take care of the wounded. Even now they were still helping but most of the warriors left when I told them that they could pick up any weapon or armour from the field they wanted. After they collected what they wanted they left for goblin lands to protect and hunt for their tribe. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The goblin javelins killed almost 1/3 of the enemy fighters. We were all incredibly grateful to them. After the goblins left, I gave orders for all the enemy dead to be brought back here then stripped of everything valuable and then placed into piles to be burned. It was a grim job, but it needed to be done. Getting a healer who can regrow limbs also became a high priority as many lost at least one some even multiple. I was running nearly empty having used up all my energy. I join my soldiers in the clean-up duties. Even with the goblins taking their share there were still so many weapons and armour left over. While some might need to be altered, our fighters would now be a lot better protected, meaning the next fight should have fewer casualties. I was so tired, but we all continued to work. Every one of the slave king¡¯s fighters who had run had been hunted down and killed. Their bodies had been brought back and late into the night, we were about to start burning the bodies. The smell made some puke, but I was used to it. It was worse when mass graves were dug. Then bulldozers would just push dead bodies in until there was no room. The place smelled for months afterwards so I honestly just prefer when bodies are burned. I was so tired, and I wanted to look at my notifications but somehow it felt a bit wrong to gain levels by killing other people. It was another thing that I knew I would grow numb to and eventually accept the same way I accepted killing. I still glimpsed my achievement page and found that my first homesteader was at level 6 and so was my renowned true archer. My heroic commander was, however, at level 9. I was quite certain I gained a lot of stat points and skill and ability levels but before I could do anything else I fell asleep when I lay down on a bed inside a random tent. POV general The death of the slave king was known immediately in his territory. The people just under him now had a direct way to power and most chose to fight for that power. The slave king had a strong territory, but it quickly fell into infighting. They were poised to lose a lot of territories as outside forces will set their eye on the weakened force. Some towns and cities were too strong to be conquered without a dedicated campaign, but a lot of territories were up for grabs. The slave kings¡¯ two remaining party members vowed revenge against the United freeholds. They started to gather strength once again with some of the loyal fighters they had. They also still controlled a significant portion of the army and will try and mount another campaign as soon as they can to end the United Freeholds. To most of the forces inside the fallen Kingdom, the defeat of the slave king meant nothing. Multiple proclaimed kings had been defeated while others have come into power. To the forces close to the United Freeholds this nation went from a place you could conquer if you were willing to march the long way there to an unknown power that could defeat a significant army. Now besides plans of conquest possibilities of diplomatic relations were also considered. To the 10s of thousands of refugees roaming the Fallen Kingdom, it meant another possible location to run to. Sometimes the unknown is better than the evil they know. Many set their hopes on this unknown hoping to escape the madness. Inside the village of GreenWave, there were celebrations and tears. They had lost a lot of people, but they also knew that they could be safe here if they were willing to sacrifice and work hard. They had never known a life like this, but they felt that they had options and could do what they wanted. Even the sacrifices that they needed to make didn''t seem so bad compared to what was before. The nation of United Freeholds was able to keep their freedom this day, but their struggles were far from over as larger threats loomed all around. While the rest of the nations would be a constant source of friction and conflict, in the wider world many dungeons had finally reached the breaking point. From each hundreds of monsters, even thousands were escaping trying to claim their spot in the wider world. In many places of the world, the roaming undead have started to gather, forming their own sort of society and started to claim the surrounding land. Goblins left unchecked have started to breed massive hoards that have not been seen since the Goblins wars. The fallen race of orcs found themselves affected less than other species by the plague have started to reclaim their former glory. Other fallen races have also found room to grow and gather their strength once more. The high society is stretched beyond its limits and has started to collapse its influence to keep important areas safe. Most of their resources are directed at trying to hold the powerful monsters and beasts from the centre of the continents from pushing outwards. The age of conflict has arrived and only the strongest can be reborn from the ashes. chapter 195* I just heard the enemy was going to launch another assault. I really wish that they would give us time to recover and honestly, I¡¯m starting to feel a bit bad about mowing them all down. But I relayed my commands and everyone who already wasn¡¯t in defensive positions started to move. My subordinates didn''t want me fighting on the front lines, they wanted me in the command centre, but we were currently only holding this narrow entrance to the valley meaning I can command better from the front lines. There was also no possibility of backstabbing like it used to be. The command had finally stabilized and everyone who was here for their own gains was dead or back where they came from. It took almost 14 years and so many lost lives, but we are finally making proper progress in ending this damnable war. I still remember what it was like commanding millions of soldiers but now it was no longer necessary. I was in command of around 200,000 which was a perfect number that allowed me to be a lot more strategic and react faster when necessary. The entire frontline is now split between hundreds of commanders who control similar numbers of soldiers to me. This way of command has been incredibly effective, and we have finally started to push deeper into the Chinese mainland. The Pacific theatre is currently fully blockading our opponent and they''re waiting to launch amphibious assaults when we penetrate deep enough. I am confident that even though we are facing stronger resistance we will be able to punch through thanks to the new weapon I was holding. It was called PA-50 and it was the assault gun that I felt was from the future. The gun used projectiles that looked like small needles kind of similar to sabot shells. The propellant came from gas chambers that you could pressurize to hold enough gas to fire almost 10,000 rounds. My current drum magazine held 600 rounds and I could fire them all in 47 seconds. If you didn¡¯t hit anything vital it would be hard to put a human down but the amount of armour and the quality of that armour that our opponents used meant, we needed the extra penetration these kinds of rounds gave to do anything. It had a burst fire mode which I used most often. The maintenance was a nightmare but logistically we can now bring in a lot more ammo a lot faster, which was necessary. This thing could chew through a tank armour if I used up my current magazine, which was impressive. You could also change how fast the round went, you could keep it subsonic or crank it up and really let those rounds fly. I could finally hear the assault coming. I got into position. As soon as I saw the first head, I let off a burst of fire having four rounds hit the soldier¡¯s helmet instantly killing him. Aiming at vital spots was important with this weapon and after so long I was really good at it. This new weapon did take a bit of readjusting, but I was now back at my prime. It didn''t have much recoil and the sound it makes was similar to a racing car changing gears. Its firing system was incredibly designed and used itself to cool down allowing us to keep firing. I had already killed more than 50 enemies in a short time and once again I was glad that this weapon was designed just for this purpose. It was grim work, but we were easily able to defend. The enemy must have lost around 8000 soldiers. If this keeps up we might finally be able to start pushing. I woke up having dreamed of my previous life. This didn''t happen often, but I guess there was a correlation. That place that we held turned out to be the turning point in the war as that new weapon allowed us to truly start making progress. It still took over five years more to finally end WW3. The battle we had here also represented the turning point. Everyone now knew that we could defend ourselves. Now they will be willing to devote themselves to making a life for themselves here. I believe that a lot of refugees would now stay and accept our way of life more easily. I tried to make as little noise as possible as five other people were sleeping here, one of them was a dwarf. We didn''t have a lot of other races but slowly we seem to have gathered a lot of different ones. I was kind of excited about having different races as that meant that we could also have different places we could make into livable areas. It turned out to be true that dwarves liked to live in mountains and while some humans would as well humans seemed to do better when there was farming land around. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. It was already quite late in the day and the sun had started to go towards the horizon. Work was still ongoing, and it would take quite a long time to sort and bring everything valuable back to the village. I left them to do their work while I started heading back to the village. I didn¡¯t run just yet as I wanted to look over my achievement page to see what I have gotten. The first thing I did was check my stat points and holy shit I had gained a lot. My strength was now over 1.1K. My dexterity and vitality were over 900. My other stats improved a lot as well, but my endurance, empathy and intelligence reached the 160 milestones. Wisdom had a grand total of three milestones as I got it passed 40 stat points. New trait gained. endurance reaches 160 new trait gained: adaptive metabolism. empathy reaches 160 new trait gained: harmonious bond. intelligence reaches 160 new trait gained: clarity of mind. wisdom reaches 10 new trait gained: better empathy. wisdom reaches 20 new trait gained: quick memory. wisdom reaches 40 new trait gained: enhanced awareness. Those were some nice traits, and I could already feel clarity of mind and quick memory working. Enhanced awareness was something that didn''t seem to work well or perhaps I have to go to somewhere I needed to use my awareness more to gain the extra boost the name suggested. I expected harmonious bond to affect something between Goose and me, but I couldn¡¯t tell what it was affecting or how it could have changed our bond. Adaptive metabolism sounded interesting, but I currently didn¡¯t know what it was doing. It most likely meant that I could now eat a lot more stuff and survive but a good meditation session would allow me to figure out what exactly it does. My commander ability gained 4 levels bringing me to 6 and some of my other abilities levelled up as well. Like with the rest of my abilities, when I gain levels, I can push the ability further and get better results. I wonder what the limits might be if I¡¯m had commander at level 100. How many people I could give incredible boosts to? It''s weird to think about how much one person can affect an entire army''s strength in this world. In the skill department, everything was even more amazing. My weapon skill tiered up giving me a choice of abilities. Of the three options, two were interesting. Energy freedom and Splitting control. Splitting control sounded like I would be able to more effectively control two abilities. While currently, I¡¯m also using multiple abilities to boost my weapon or armour, taking active control of that ability means that I don¡¯t have the mental capability to manipulate another ability to that extent. Perhaps with this ability, I would be able to do it but then energy freedom also sounded incredibly interesting. Every ability came with limitations and how far you could push that ability from its intended effect was one of the biggest. Over time I¡¯ve learned how to push that limit but what if this ability would give me even greater control? If that''s the case the choice comes down to either one even more powerful ability or enabling me to boost two abilities at the same time. I took quite a while to think about this while walking. Both options sounded good, so I turned to numbers. During all the battles that I have had having that one strong attack or defence seems to be a smarter move. While I could see scenarios where having two different types of powerful abilities at the same time would be more desirable. I think most of the time having one extremely powerful ability is better. I ended up choosing energy freedom. Next came intimidation. I quickly looked at the options. Skill increases intimidation level 20 is upgraded to advanced intimidation level 1 Choose one of the following abilities physical presence fearlessness assert dominance I didn¡¯t like the fearlessness option. Having fear is important but perhaps there are monsters or people with abilities that make you feel an unimaginable amount of fear. Assert dominance was something I wasn¡¯t really that interested in although it might also be useful when handling animals. Physical presence I also wasn''t too fond of. I believe I already have enough presence but once again I could see some benefits, especially when dealing with animals. I felt that all had their pluses and minuses, and this truly was a hard decision to make. None of these abilities was especially desirable. I ended up going with physical presence. I had a few other traits and abilities that helped with something similar and stacking effects was always powerful. The next and last skill tier-up was command. There weren¡¯t really any choices. As soon as I saw, elite unit I immediately picked it. I now have three abilities that ended in unit and hopefully, I will get a few more and then combine them all into one incredible ability which will hopefully help my commander ability a lot. Then any army that I lead will be a lot more powerful than anyone expected to be. chapter 196 I continued by looking at my skill list and I really needed to get basic meditation to tier up as I felt it was just on the edge of a level up. Otherwise, I still had quite a lot of basic skills, especially in the resource-gathering section. I needed to work on that otherwise I feel like my levelling up has decreased even on the lower end. I guess I¡¯m running up to the wall that my previous life experience has made. I now picked up speed and it didn¡¯t take long until I reached Francis who was almost halfway to the village. I slowed down and walked beside him looking him over. He did have a small wound on his right side, but it wasn''t that deep, and it was already healing up quite well. I examined him and found that he was close to reaching the first rank which was incredible. I noticed that almost all of the wolves were at a similar stage, and I wondered if our nation¡¯s third first rank would be an animal or would someone else beat them to it. I believe that the few other people were now close to the first rank, and I was incredibly curious about who would receive this honour. There will not be an official prize or anything like that it was just something I wanted to keep an eye out for my own amusement. After walking beside Francis for quite a while keeping him company I finally pushed forward and quickly made it back to the village. It was now close to night time but people were still working hard. Currently, most of the effort is spent on dealing with all the loot we got from the battle and taking care of the wounded soldiers. It was a bit harder using my map to find people when there were so many of them around but eventually, I was able to locate David who seemed to be with his brother in the orphanage. When I finally reached them, it took them a few moments to register that I was there after which both of them seemed to exude panic. ¡°Both of you come with me we have some things to discuss.¡± I waited until Mirhit nodded. He got up and pulled his brother along. I kept my walking pace down so they could easily keep up with me. I led them to the village hall into one of the side rooms that''s still got light even at this late hour. We sat behind a table, and I looked at them for quite a while thinking how I wanted to play this, but I chose not to play any games. ¡°Mirhit, you have done a great service to this nation. Both you and your brother are welcome to stay here as long as you want, or you can go whenever.¡± I then pulled out a chest and placed it on the table. ¡°This is your pay and the reward you have certainly earned.¡± After I finished saying that Mirhit pulled the chest closer and opened it. His mouth hung open when he saw the number of gold coins and almost 500 monster cores. He looked up at me and back to the treasure multiple times, but he still couldn¡¯t say any words. ¡°If you want, we can now be done and you won''t ever have to talk to me again, but I would like to offer you a job.¡± This made him finally stop looking at the treasure and concentrate fully on me again. ¡°What kind of a job,¡± he asked. ¡°Well for the lack of a better word you would be this nation''s spymaster.¡± He immediately wanted to shake his head, but I raised my hand which made him stop. ¡°I am not expecting you to already know what you are doing. It will be a long process and you will have people who will teach you the relevant skills but currently, I am most interested in your ability to gather information using your insects. Our nation doesn''t have a lot of people and there is no need to spy on our own people but there is a need to know what¡¯s happening outside our borders and that¡¯s where you could help a lot.¡± I explained. That made him think. He asked some clarifying questions, and I explained some more but after about an hour of speaking, I was able to convince him to take the job. I guided them back to the orphanage and had to sit on top of the City Hall to think during the night. I will report the new position during the military meeting, but Mirhit already vowed the military oath, and I didn¡¯t think anyone would have any problems with our new spymaster. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. That took care of one of our biggest worries, not having information about our surroundings. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. This decision felt right and hopefully, I can give more of that weight to other people. Then eventually I could just live on my homestead and enjoy life. But it will take a long time until I can be worry-free while just farming. I used the rest of the night to meditate on my adaptive metabolism. With it, I can now get sustenance from things that I couldn¡¯t before but overall, the trait was useful when I was in situations where I was running out of normal food. What this meditation session gave me was a tier-up for my basic meditation skill. Once again the decision was an easy one. One of the choices was unconscious awareness. I am most vulnerable when I am sleeping. If this ability eliminates or helps overcome this weakness it was an incredible get. The ability was passive meaning I needed to dedicate some of my energy regens to keep it up. I will need to test this later but how to test it was a good question. It was almost time for the morning meeting. When I made it there a lot of people were already there and we now had a larger table so we could fit all the new people who had the clan administrator¡¯s trait. I was going to have to learn all the new people¡¯s names and I haven¡¯t even remembered all the previous people¡¯s names. I really hoped that the new trait keen mind would help with this. The first order of business was for David to explain how our economy was going to work. I paid rapt attention and finally, I wasn¡¯t constantly thinking about the upcoming battle allowing me to actually understand what he was explaining. We were going to use a merit system where 10 United Freeholds credits equal one gold coin. The credits were going to be directly tied to gold coins meaning that you could exchange one gold coin for 10 credits or do the opposite. That meant that we needed enough supplies so we wouldn''t run out of coins. The idea was to eventually have every citizen use a credit card so we wouldn''t have to deal with so many coins, making it a lot easier for everyone. Someone named Aravel asked why we needed this credits system at all if it was going to be tied to the old system of currency. David gave multiple good reasons but currently, the most important reason for us was that we didn''t have enough physical currency to actually keep our economy running. It also helped manage our plans for how our workforce was going to be used. Tomorrow we were going to open the jobs building. We were no longer going to be hiring, for example, a builder to work for our nation doing jobs we tell him to do like building a wall. We were instead going to post a notice of employment in the jobs building that we were going to require a builder to build a wall. In the job post is certain knowledge or whatever else requirements were needed to build, for example, a wall. A person can decide if they want to accept that job post or not. Included in the job posting was how much they were going to be paid and anything else important like perhaps housing near the building site. Not only the government could post jobs but everyone else who wanted as well. The job listing could also be for a long-term position like perhaps a smithing apprentice. You could also post that you were teaching some skill or knowledge and people could sign up to take your class. Basically, if you had something to offer or wanted something you could post it inside the job building where people could find it. This way of doing things was necessary because of the homesteader class. David had spoken to my apprentices and me as well and one thing that we learned was that the homesteader didn''t want a permanent job outside the area of the homestead. But even I would be willing to take up a job like helping build a wall if it was just that job. The other consideration was the trait that every citizen of this nation had. The trait clan Freeman is now known a lot better thanks to there being so many who have the same trait. The biggest problem at the beginning was that the trait didn¡¯t have a gender equivalent for women. Everyone just got the clan Freeman trait. The big problem now seemed to be that if you hired someone for lifetime service who had this trait, they get antsy or worse. The trait didn''t like it when people were too tied down. It wanted its person to have a level of freedom to pursue their dreams. For example, if you opened your own bakery then that didn''t affect it but most likely it was because it was your own initiative, your own place. If you were hired as a pastry chef for your entire life you wouldn''t be able to keep your mind from wandering. The bakery that opened now only hired for five years at a time and that seemed to fix the problem but it was still something we need to take into account. chapter 197 Then came the issue of land ownership. In the end, we landed on currently allowing three possible landowners. The government itself, any homesteader and land given to the clan military. There was a lot of pushback but slowly everything was explained, especially about the class that I would be giving out for free that will hopefully eventually account for a large percentage of our population. While everyone wasn¡¯t completely on board there wasn¡¯t direct opposition anymore. Things further calmed down when explained that people owned their houses or businesses that they lived in or run. If the government wanted to build something else where you owned a building the government would need to first have an extremely good reason and then compensate you quite handsomely. When David finally mentioned basically interest-free business loans everything was finally settled, and laws were written so everyone knew what their rights were. With that we are finally done for the day and tomorrow we will be dealing with explaining everything that was currently decided on and opening the jobs building. The day after that it was again time for another meeting that was probably going to be as long as this one. During the night I ran towards one of our borders and took care of a strong monster who was causing trouble and then made it back to eat a proper breakfast. I joined the others when we started to explain the decisions we made yesterday to the general public. To the others¡¯ surprise people were quite welcoming to the changes now that they had thought about it. It was quite clear why. Before they were basically no better than slaves as they didn''t own the land they lived on or the buildings they built but now they would at least own whatever they built and with the chance to get a new and powerful class that would actually allow them to own land they weren''t really that bothered. When everyone found out that the jobs in the jobs building paid a reasonable wage they were even more excited. The building was nothing special, but I believe it will eventually be a huge building that would have dozens of receptionists instead of the four that were currently working here. All the walls had specific boards placed on them where people could find job offers so everyone could browse for a job that they wanted. There were categories as well and I walked towards the farming section. There were listings for clearing weeds from certain fields and how much they paid. There was even quite a generous time scale on the completion so you could take your time completing the job or do it as fast as you can and then come here and try to find another job. Everyone was also made to understand that any jobs that they did might end up being examined and if found poorly done might mean that they lose the credits that they would have earned. There was also a listing on handling Francis and helping him create new fields. I was a bit tempted to try to claim that listing but unfortunately, I had more important things to do. Perhaps another time. The place was packed but when people started to get their jobs the amount of people here should level out to a reasonable amount. I spent the rest of the day looking after the wounded soldiers and trying to help them in any way I can. I found myself having to reassure many that their life was not over even if we couldn''t get a powerful enough healer to regrow their missing limbs. I explained that a person with one hand could still be useful and find himself work. There were also soldiers here that needed help with coming to terms with killing other people. I did the best I could, but words weren''t going to fix anything, but it was a start. They would need different amounts of time to function normally again or at least as normally they will be able to. This night I slept. I woke up ready for the meeting that was going to happen. Today¡¯s topics were the military and expansion of the village. We needed a lot of houses built before winter arrived and most likely a lot more refugees were going to come here meaning that we might have to house a few thousand people. That meant a lot of houses. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. For a solution, I brought up the possibility of an apartment building. We were going to make large buildings that had many rooms people could live in but they would have a common bathroom and a kitchen. That would save a lot of time and resources while giving plenty of protection from the weather. After refining that idea for a while everyone agreed to it. While the living conditions would be worse than having everyone in their own home. It was also a fact that most people didn''t have a lot of family and most of the individual houses would stay quite empty. Having just one person in a big house was something we could not afford. We plan to build a few districts of apartment buildings, but I had to stop their current plans. The first thing they wanted to do was to demolish the village walls so they could start expanding. ¡°I want you to understand how stupid of an idea this is. While yes, we know wherever enemies are on our land it isn''t smart to demolish our last defence. I have a bit of a different idea so let me show you what I think we should do:¡± When I finished I pulled the map towards myself and started to show everyone what we should do. ¡°First, we don¡¯t demolish the walls, but we will still build as thou it was demolished. We extend our current roads and then build the apartment districts. One to the South, one to the North and one to the West. It will be a bit annoying to always use the gate, but we can leave it open for easier access. We could also build ramps over the wall so that, if necessary, we can quickly break them down in case of an emergency.¡± I looked around and while some were nodding some were deep in thought. The woman who used to be in charge of the town near our border spoke up. ¡°Why not have a district to the east and how far out should we build the new wall? I don¡¯t think we have enough stone to cover everything.¡± I looked up at her and I was glad that she chose to stay. Other people seem to be curious as well, so I explained. ¡°First about the wall. It''s too soon to make it out of stone, at least the entirety of it. Perhaps make the main gatehouse out of stone. The one that we would be certain we want at the location where we are going to build it. Otherwise, it will all be made out of wood.¡± I then marked out the wall that I wanted to build. When I looked up, I saw this belief in almost everyone¡¯s eyes. ¡°That area is like four times larger than we had planned. Even if we started to get a lot more refugees it would take many years to need that much land.¡± Said one of the people whose name I didn¡¯t remember. ¡°Well, not all of the land will belong to the city. We have a lot of stone and instead of using it to make a portion of the wall. I believe we should use it to build a castle on top of the hill. This is also the reason why I didn¡¯t want an apartment district to the east as I would like to make a large portion of that land belong to the military.¡± After a short pause, I continued. ¡°There are a few reasons why I want the city area to be so large and to be protected by a wall. For one we are most likely going to expand a lot and building multiple walls would be a waste of time. Second, the legionaries need to practice.¡± There had already been some counterarguments prepared but my last statement stopped them. There were questioning looks so I explained myself further. ¡°We have not yet talked about the military but it''s going to have to expand constantly. The current amount of soldiers we have isn''t even close to enough to keep us safe. A lot of the soldiers we are going to have will be legionaries and legionaries need to know how to build quick fortifications when they are deployed. Building this wall would be a perfect chance for practice:¡± I needed to explain myself a lot more and further drive into what the legionary would know how to do. At first, they didn''t understand why soldiers would need to know anything else but how to fight. I quickly educated how wrong they were, and those people didn¡¯t speak up again until I was done. We were going to lose a lot of legionnaires as most were just conscripted but I hoped that a lot would stay for the long term. I also explained the Vikings. Some thought that a two-army system would be unnecessary. I once again explained how different a fighter could be when they were strong enough. Three other people in this room had a military trait and an administrative trait. We all fought hard so we would have enough resources allocated so we could do our job. I also informed them of our spymaster and his needs which took another few hours. We ended the meeting when the sun was rising again. We were able to get a lot of resources that I needed but once again people were the thing that we needed most. chapter 198 In the morning I met up with my apprentices and we discussed that in about a week when everything started to calm down around here, we would start their house building. While I wasn¡¯t going to go to more meetings if I didn¡¯t have to, I had an extremely important thing to take care of. I went around to find out all the soldiers'' names who died during the battle. After finding out every name and finding the corresponding bodies I began my work. A bit away from the village was a beautiful and peaceful forest. It wasn''t a big forest, and it was surrounded by farmland, but it was large enough for my purposes and our future needs. This forest was going to be our military graveyard and also a place to honour our defenders. I had to travel a bit away from the forest to find the stones that I needed. In a few days, I finished making the gravestones and putting all our fallen to rest. If the soldier had family, I would invite them to the funeral. I made a small path by placing pieces of rocks on both sides that led to a clearing deep inside the forest. Inside there was a huge stone that took me an entire day to bring here. I brought it in pieces and then joined them back together using my abilities. It now looked like a huge stone, and no one could ever guess that it was brought here in pieces. Onto it, I carved every fallen soldier¡¯s name so that whenever someone came to look at the stone, they would see all the people who had given their lives to protect us. After I was done, I informed everyone, and slowly more and more people went to pay their respects. In a few more days everyone was back in the village after they finished clearing out the battlefield. It was time to address everyone but especially our military. Everyone was gathered outside the village even Francis and the wolves. The wolves weren¡¯t all together and it seems that some might have found people that they like. That gave me a good idea and I was already planning on making a new branch for the Legion and Vikings. A few of our more charismatic administrators gave some well-thought-out speeches but it was finally my turn. I stepped up onto the podium and looked into the sea of people. The fighters were in front and behind them was everyone else. I smiled at them all before I started. ¡°We all worked hard and sacrificed to claim this victory against our enemy. Some sacrificed a lot more than others and we will always remember our fallen defenders. Unfortunately, they will not be the last but none will ever be forgotten. While we have triumphed over this challenge many lay before us. I know that together we can overcome them all.¡± There was loud cheering after I finished saying that. When everyone calmed down, I continued. ¡°I officially declare the state of emergency over and everyone conscripted is now free to leave and get back to their own lives. That being said if you are willing. Please stay with the military. We need to further train and improve our forces. That message is also for the people who didn¡¯t join in the fighting this time. I do not know the exact enemies we will have but I know that we will always require defenders. If you think you are up to it, please try and join the military.¡± I took a long pause to let my statement sink in. ¡°If you knew some of the fallen you can visit their graves or the memorial stone in the forest of remembrance. Every one of our defenders has been put to rest and so will every future defender. I truly hope that there will be as few as possible who will take their rest in that forest.¡± ¡°Let''s take a moment to respect our defenders both the living and fallen.¡± There was complete silence and I was incredibly proud of the people who defended us and the people who helped make and prepare everything needed for the war effort. ¡°As we remember our past we must also look towards our future. We have a lot to accomplish, but I believe that together we can build something that will last, and we will look back and be proud that we were a part of it.¡± The clapping that followed was heartwarming and strengthening. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. With the end of my speech, the ceremony was over and everyone slowly got back to their lives and so did I. After saying some goodbyes, I headed back home to a place where I always knew what was going on, but a place that I hadn¡¯t seen with my own eyes for over a month. The three people who had taken care of everything had done an excellent job. While they were currently back in the village, they were on the top of my list to offer an apprenticeship for them to get the homesteader class. When I got back it was already late in the day, so I started up the sauna immediately. Then I visited all the chickens. Most of them were hatching eggs and soon I will have a lot more chickens. Next came the visit to the cows. I enjoyed spending some time with them. I just walked around inspecting the plants and watering the greenhouse and just enjoying life. It had been a stressful time but now it was time to unwind. For most that meant doing absolutely nothing or they would just be consuming some entertainment but for me doing small jobs around the farm was the perfect way to spend the evening. Using the sauna was an excellent decision on many fronts. I was sweating so much dirt that my sweat was almost black. I had to jump into the river multiple times and go back and sweat some more before I finally started to feel clean again. When I was finally satisfied with my cleanliness, I sat in the outside seating area and enjoy the summer evening. My mind started to wander, and I started to think about all the buildings I wanted to build. The first on my list was a smithy. A big and proper one where I could smelt whatever alloy I wanted and forge large objects. The biggest problem was that I didn''t want to manually supply the air needed to properly heat up everything. Besides me, the river flowed, and I quickly knew what kind of design I wanted to make. This would also help with the water that the vegetables need in the greenhouse and the fields. Tomorrow my apprentices will come here but why does that mean I cannot get started with my own project when I¡¯m helping with theirs? I was now a lot more excited, and my schedule was going to be quite full. I had my own project; I was going to help my apprentices build their homes. I was also going to deal with the military, and I think I will also teach a lesson that I will post in the jobs building. At first, I thought that perhaps I was going to teach combat or perhaps some knowledge that I knew from Earth that wasn¡¯t that commonly known here but in truth, there was only one thing that I was truly uniquely good at. It was my energy control. When I was training with the Thorn Rose Company, I quickly figured out that my energy control was a lot better than everyone else¡¯s. With time I also learned I was a lot better at teaching it thanks to my apprentices who seemed to learn a lot faster because of my teaching than the other students they were competing with. I thought about starting with beginning lessons that you finish when you gained the energy storage stat. While I was planning my schedule, Goose finally made it back. I was so happy to see him again. I spent some time scratching the spots that he liked. Goose did so well guarding Francis during the battle. The one big attack he made to help Francis almost made him pass out from the exertion. He was still learning how to manipulate the air, but he was getting a lot better. I stayed up until the wolves arrived before I went to sleep. The next day came quickly. After I did my morning chores, I went to the lumber storage to figure out if I had the correct wood for my project. It turned out that we had enough and I was glad that we collected so much before the winter truly set in. We will most likely have to do it again this year, but I will probably do it alone as my apprentices will have their own homes to take care of. But then again, I should have a whole lot more apprentices who would need to learn how to collect lumber. That brought a smile to my face. While pulling out the correct pieces I wanted to use a small smile was on my face while I thought about new and interesting ways how to torture my future apprentices. My smile slipped for a moment when I remembered that I couldn¡¯t sneak up on trainees anymore. How was I going to teach them to be ready for anything? I must find a way. I was marking the possible location I wanted to build the smithy. When my apprentice finally approached me. We greeted each other and even hugged before I led them back to the house. ¡°So are you all ready for what comes next,¡± I asked them and they nodded quickly. ¡°Well then let¡¯s go.¡± When we got outside, I started to run, and they followed. ¡°We will first visit George¡¯s place.¡± chapter 199 When we got to Georges''s place, I could already see an area that was marked and some of it was dug up. He still had a lot of work to do but after we discussed his building design some more, I recommended that he make a bigger basement and how we should support the first floor. He will have a lot of work to do and it will take him more than a week to dig everything out that was needed before he could start with the foundation. I had guided them on how to get the merging joints ability and luckily, they all had it which made building with stone a lot easier. We left George to do his work and then went to see Emma¡¯s building site which wasn¡¯t too far away. She had already set up a small living area with a tent so she could stay there overnight. Emma¡¯s building¡¯s footprint was a lot smaller, and she wouldn¡¯t need such a big basement, but she would still have a lot of work to do. Her building was going to be a lot more standard to what the farmhouses in this area looked like. It was kind of going to be like mine except with two side rooms from the main room instead of the four that I have. After looking everything over and giving a few final tips I left with Arthur, leaving her to work alone. His place was a lot further away and when we reached a river, I saw how he used a rope to get over it that he had tied between two trees. He finally stopped moving towards his building site when he figured out that I hadn¡¯t followed him across the river. The river here was a bit wider than the river where my bridge went over. I walked a few meters back then accelerated to jump over the river practising my landing. Arthur looked at me like I was a ghost, but I beckoned him to follow. I pushed his running capabilities and he tried to keep up with me. We quickly arrived at the building site. He had marked where he wanted to build his building, but I had some questions. ¡°Arthur, do you have a sketch of the building with the information about the dimensions of your house?¡± I asked him and he quickly took out a notebook and showed me his house¡¯s dimensions. It was going to be a small cabin and for one person it was big enough. It had a decent cooking set-up and enough room to work on crafting but that was it. ¡°I think you made your house too small,¡± I told him. He took the notebook and quickly started thinking about my statement. ¡°Rich I do not know what you¡¯re talking about. I think I left plenty of room for myself. There shouldn¡¯t be any problem, or do you think that perhaps I need something else built inside.¡± He asked me. I looked at him for a moment before I answered him. ¡°You are correct that the house is big enough if you only account for yourself, but you probably won¡¯t be by yourself.¡± He started to shake his head, but I continued. ¡°I will give you some life advice. You never know when you''re going to find that one person you want to spend it with. It could happen even at the worst moment when you simply shouldn''t spend time on these things, but you can''t stop your heart I¡¯m afraid. That is just a possibility.¡± ¡°The more important thing is where are you going to house your own apprentice or possibly multiple ones. Every homesteader will be required to take an apprentice that suits them and if you think you would be the only one who would want to live in a forest and be a ranger then I¡¯m afraid to tell you that you are wrong.¡± Arthur took a good few minutes to walk around and think. I didn''t interrupt or help him, letting him work out whatever he needed to work out. Eventually, he approached me with a bit of a crestfallen face. ¡°So, is it better to make a house like Emma''s.¡± I placed my hand on his shoulder and chuckled a little bit. ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry. We can still keep your one-room house we just have to make it a bit larger. Even extending it a bit you will gain a lot of room and whoever your apprentice would be would prefer to live in such a place as well.¡± This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. He smiled at my words, giving me, a nod and we started to modify the plans that he had in his notebook. It didn¡¯t take as long as we didn¡¯t need to change a lot but now he should have enough room for a double bed for himself and a few other beds if necessary. He was eager to start digging but I stopped him. ¡°Arthur I¡¯m afraid your first job wouldn¡¯t be to dig. First, we need to build a bridge and make a rudimentary road here.¡± The face he made when I mentioned the road was a bit funny as he knew how much work it would take. I wasn¡¯t going to tell him right away, but I was going to handle most of it myself. But the bridge would be mostly up to him. I will just help him bring the lumber here and place the support into the river. We headed back to my farm. I wanted him to pick out the wood needed to make the bridge. We were going to use the same design as my bridge so you could lift it just in case it was necessary. The biggest difference was that we were going to be able to coat the wood with tar before we started to build it over the river. He was a lot more experienced now and I barely had to help him at all with picking the correct lumber. I left him to start cutting out all the pieces needed and then coating them with tar to find Francis. Francis had been working on making new fields but currently, he was just near the village eating some grass. On my way to him, I checked on Emma and George, but they were doing well enough. They just needed a bit of encouragement. Starting a huge project that will take a long time is always hard when you have so much still left to do. Francis was happy enough to follow me but just in case I did notify a receptionist at the jobs building that I was taking him. I also took one of the strong carts and connected it to Francis so we could use it to move everything that we needed to move. The journey back was a lot slower but a pleasant one. Goose was flying around us and messing around with the air, and I helped Francis with his energy circulation. I felt that I was close to levelling animal handling and care. Just a bit more and I will get to pick abilities. When we made it back it was starting to get late, but Arthur was still working and I wasn¡¯t going to disturb him. I let Francis back into the pasture and he quickly ran to greet the cows. I grabbed my axe and length of chain and ran towards the forest. I had already figured out the road placement I wanted so as soon as I reached the first obstacle I stopped and readied my axe to cut down the first tree. I wasn¡¯t going to mess around, so I used my strength and abilities to cut through the base of the tree with one swing and then used my strength to push it where I wanted it to land. I then cut the branches off and cut the tree into the correct lengths. When that was done, I wrapped the chain around the stump and started to pull. I had to wrap the chain around my chest and pull it as Francis would. I was able to pull the stump out after a lot of effort. I chopped that stump up and used it to fill up the hole as much as possible but still leaving room to cover it with dirt. This wasn''t going to be a perfect road and who knows if it was ever going to be any better than this. Perhaps the mountains at the edge of Arthur¡¯s land will have some important resources. Then a proper road and an even better bridge will be necessary. For right now this was going to be good enough. Francis was going to help me bring the gravel and dirt needed to properly patch these holes and then he would use the device I made to make a bit more of a solid road. Everyone else was long asleep but I was still working. Every tree took about 10 to 15 minutes depending on how stubborn the stump wanted to be. Sometimes I needed to chop into the roots to get the stump out. When morning came, I put Francis to work on making a road up to the forest from the dungeon. He was so strong now that he had no trouble pulling the device, I had made from the huge fallen tree to pack the dirt tight. Eventually, I will need to make a heavier version, but it will do for now. I continued to clear the way so we could make a proper road but I was being careful so I wouldn¡¯t disturb nature around us too much. Because of this, the road ended up being winding and almost 50% longer than just a straight line. For me, nature mattered more than convenience. By the third day of working constantly, I finally made it to the river. I started to run back and when I made it out of the forest there was now a proper road that led to the dungeon. Today Francis wasn¡¯t working as he was able to finish the section of the road within two days. It was good that he was so smart now as I only needed to unhitch the device and he made his own way back to the barn. It was starting to get late, but I still visited George and Emma to see their progress. They were doing well enough as Emma had finished almost half of the required digging while George still had a lot left. chapter 200 When I made it back to my home after visiting Emma and George, Arthur and I had dinner together and then I went to sleep. The next day I helped Arthur finish making the bridge pieces. We worked on them for the entire day, and I continued to work into the night so we would be finally finished by the next morning. It will take us three cartloads to bring everything to the bridge building site so we quickly started to load up hoping that we would be able to get it done today. While the stump holes still remained, mostly filled up with wood pieces, the holes themselves were no bigger than the ones that were on the road between the town and the village. Francis actually loved the challenge of needing to use extra strength to pull the wheels out of the holes. We were able to get everything done but when we got back home it was already dark. Arthur went to sleep but I went out to the quarry to work on my own project¡¯s foundation pieces. When it was morning again, we headed to the bridge building site. The plan to place the bridge supports was quite simple. To the top of the massive support log, we tied two pieces of rope. One of those pieces of ropes we tied to a tree while the other one was currently loose, and Arthur had taken it to the other side of the river. The rope that was already tied to the tree and the support log was a specific length so it would not allow the log to move past its intended location. I then picked up the massive support log by its bottom, made myself as heavy as possible even using my core energy and then simply walked at the bottom of the river. I didn¡¯t have to worry about the current pulling the log away because of the rope that held the top of the log. It was still a struggle not to be pushed away by the current, but I was able to walk to the correct location and then push the support pillar in enough, so the current didn''t push it from its correct location. Meanwhile, Arthur tied up the second rope, so the log was now secured. The river¡¯s current wouldn¡¯t be pulling it away for now, but the log still needed to be deeper in. For that, we used another rope. Using the rope that we tied over the river, I moved over the support log and just let go dropping onto the log while making myself heavier. It was a dangerous job, but I had enough body control and stats to make it work. It took eight times of me dropping onto the log until we were done with the first one. We took breaks often but by evening we were done. The support logs were now placed, and they won¡¯t be going anywhere. I left after that while Arthur set up his tent as he was going to continue building the bridge by himself. I went back home, slept and then started working with Francis to make the road that was in the forest into something that could actually be used by others. During the night I ran to the other side of the river to continue cutting down the trees on that side until I reach Arthurs''s home. It took me two nights to cut down the remaining trees, but in the three days Francis and I have been working on the road we were only about half done. The third night I went home and slept. The next day it was time for Francis to take a break as I went and helped Emma finish up her digging. She didn''t have any good abilities that would help her pack down the dirt that was going to be her basement floor, so I had to do the job myself. We were finished even before evening. Emma hoped that she could relax for the day back at my home, but I told her that she needed to start loading up the foundation stones that she needed onto the cart. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. She grumbled for a bit but still did the job. I also spent the night working on my own foundation stones. I needed a lot more because I wanted the stone part of my smithy to be taller than me. For a moment I contemplated if I wanted to make the entire building out of stone, but it just seemed too much trouble. The next day we brought the first load of foundation stones to Emma¡¯s building site. I then spent the rest of the day teaching her everything she needed to know and letting her practice building. The next day she continued to build while I brought her remaining foundation stones with the help of Francis to her building site. I then went and helped Arthur finish his digging and then taught him the same way I did Emma. When I finished bringing him all his foundation stones a few days more had passed, and Arthur was finally finished with the bridge. It was finally his time to start digging. On that day I went to the village. I started by laying out our plans for military service. Everyone who signed up will be a recruit for one year. During that time, they will get moderate pay that will be given in a lump sum when they finish their first year. During the first year we will be teaching them a lot of skills and knowledge they will need to know to function in the legion and support roles for the military. When that first year is over it¡¯s their first opportunity to leave the service. If they choose to do that they will be placed as second priority to be called back into service in case of mobilization. If your first year of service is over, you could choose to continue with your five-year service. During that time, you will be trained a lot more, but you will also get the opportunity to specialize in your chosen military branch. The second opportunity you get to leave the service is when you finish the five years. When done you will receive a large lump sum of money, enough that you can buy yourself a house and start a family. The people who finished their five-year service will be the first priority to be called back into service in case of mobilization. After that, you could sign up for a 10-year service and continue to take the 10 years however long you want. Your pay will depend on your rank and what you do for the military. A person might have been in the military for 50 years but still, be legionary. The difference between the legionaries and Vikings or how powerful the individual is. But no matter how powerful the first year of service will still be the same. Knowing how the legion functions is paramount for every member of the military. For the current military personnel that had signed up or were in the military, they were all ordered to take up the jobs that required them to build either the apartment buildings or later on the wall. They would still need to train during the evening. The training was to include physical fitness, formations and weapon handling. This was the first meeting that was only for the military and after we finished discussing everything needed for the short term everyone went to pass out the commands that we had decided on. I was going to start coming here more often and after the wall was built, we could have a bit more specialized training that was required. I also posted a class notice in the jobs building for next Friday morning which was eight days from now. I was going to give a class on energy control in the current military training grounds. Goose and the wolves were quite far away hunting monsters that were coming to our lands. I kind of missed them but they were doing something they liked to do and something that was very necessary for our nation. At least I was able to see Goose quite often when he flew back to receive new locations for the monsters they were going to hunt. In the next following days, Francis and I continued to build the road. Arthur was able to finish digging before the road was completed so he was able to help us on the last day of the road build. I then helped him get started with his foundation. Even though he started last he was most likely going to finish first. I now had a lot more free time but I still went and visited all my apprentices to review their work. They were gaining skill levels quickly thanks to them doing their work so well. Before the Friday when my class started, I was able to finish digging up my Smith foundation area and I was quite pleased with my progress even while helping my apprentices with their own houses. chapter 201 Apparently, my class post had caused a bit of an incident when people found out about it and what it could mean for them. The 25 open spots for my class had been filled in about 15 minutes. Even David was able to get himself into my class. Almost half were just regular people, and I was glad to see that not every spot was filled with people on the top. I looked over the 25 people eagerly waiting. ¡°Please everyone, find a place to sit down but make sure you are at least 2 meters away from anyone else.¡± After I said that I waited until everyone spread out and sat down on the dirt. Not everyone looked so happy about that but that was their problem. This reminded me that we should also build a school for all the children. Something to bring up during the next meeting. I once again looked at my students now in their proper places. I wonder what they would want to get out of this class. ¡°Energy is something that every living being possesses. It is something that even children who don¡¯t have a class have. They don¡¯t have a lot of it, and we wouldn¡¯t either if our achievement page wouldn''t help us. The more stat points we gain the more energy we gain. Every stat point gives us a different flavour of energy. Your strength stat gives energy that is a lot better at helping you express your body''s strength.¡± ¡°Most people will never be able to use all the strength that their achievement page displays. Why is that? It¡¯s because while you have the energy inside your own body it just sits there in useless places not helping you be stronger, but it will still help you feed your abilities. We are here so you can learn do you use that energy to strengthen yourself when needed.¡± Most of this information seemed to come as a surprise. I picked up two pieces of wood that I brought with me for a demonstration. ¡°I have here two pieces of wood that are of different thicknesses. For this demonstration, I will not use any abilities.¡± I dropped the thicker pieces of wood and tried to break the thinner piece in half. I struggled quite a bit, but I was able to break it. There were impressive-looking faces among my students. I guess it was quite impressive that I was able to do that without any abilities. ¡°Now I was purely able to do this, but my energy was just slowly circulating inside me.¡± I then picked up the other piece of wood and tried to break it, but it wouldn¡¯t even bend a single millimetre. ¡°You see completely stiff. Now I know you cannot see this but I¡¯m manipulating the energy inside my body making it move faster and at a certain pattern so it would help me be stronger when I try to break this piece of wood.¡± I once again struggled but I was able to do it. ¡°No abilities used just energy manipulation inside my own body. This is something everyone can learn so you can take full advantage of all the stats you have earned by sweat and blood. Now we will start with the basics. I will teach you how to feel the energy that is inside you.¡± I then sat down the same as them and started to explain what they should try to sense and how the energy should be moving inside. After the first explanation, I moved around and guided individual people who were having trouble. By the end of the lesson, everyone had learned how to feel their energy and started to guide it to circulate faster. ¡°You have all completed the first lesson. You have signed up for the eight lessons as stated in the post. You will graduate from the basic class when you gain access to your energy storage stat. We will continue in the next lesson, but you must all work hard to continue to practice what we have learned today. You are all dismissed.¡± With that, I watched as my students started to leave but David approached me. ¡°You know Rich, I have been trying to learn this for a long time and you have no idea how much I have paid different tutors, but none have been able to teach me what you have during these two hours. Do you plan to keep doing these classes?¡± David asked and I nodded while saying goodbye to some of the students who said goodbye to me. ¡°You are a brilliant fighter and a military strategist, but I will be honest with you. This might be your greatest contribution to our nation.¡± When David finished saying that he gave me a deep bow and then left. I wondered if he was correct. Is this truly something that so many people struggle with? To me it comes naturally so it''s hard for me to understand why everyone''s having so much trouble but even when teaching my apprentices, I could see how much they struggled and with the students here as well. Perhaps I should do this more often. It was at this moment when I noticed a small bug trying to get my attention by flying up and down. I quickly followed it and was led to the village hall into the office, given to Mirhit. Inside I found Mirhit nervously pacing almost on the verge of panic. As soon as I opened the door, he looked toward me and tried to speak but his words were jumbled like he wanted to tell them all at once. I moved towards him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. My touch seemed to calm him a bit and he was able to start speaking a bit more normally. ¡°Rich you remember when I reported some refugee caravans that hadn''t made it to our border? Well, I have expanded my bug as much as possible and continue to scout so I have been able to cover more land and Rich. There are so many of them that didn¡¯t make it. So many.¡± He was on the verge of breaking down, so I squeezed a bit harder but made sure not to hurt him. ¡°Calm down and explain to me what is going on.¡± I had to repeat myself a few times and after a few tears had come from his eyes he started to explain a bit better. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°The refugees that have made it here are only a small percentage. Most don''t make it through the southern forest. There are many pockets of undead and other monster groups that have grown in strength from all the killing they have done. Yet there are more coming. They are all escaping the wars down there. The only way to escape is towards the north, towards us.¡± I looked him in the eyes, and I could see how they were slowly hardening. The people of this world were hard, but even so, he was quite young. Seeing so many needless death will affect anyone. This is something that I can¡¯t decide on my own and there was a need for immediate action. ¡°Are you saying that you can see current caravans moving towards our borders and some of them are currently under attack?¡± I asked Mirhit. ¡°No current I do not see any caravans under attack, but some are headed towards clusters of monsters and undead. I¡¯m quite certain that they will not survive those encounters. But I¡¯m not too deep into the southern forest and there''s a lot of forest until farmland starts again.¡± He answered. There wasn¡¯t time to wait so I pulled out from my tattoo storage a device that when broken would give a signal to every important figure and call them for a meeting. ¡°Mirhit, you have a report to give and the rest of us need to figure out what to do with the information you have given us,¡± I told him and that seemed to make him surer of himself. He got up and made himself a bit more presentable before I led him to the meeting room. A few people had already reached it and from my serious face, their faces paled a bit. What followed was an argument-filled meeting. Everyone felt bad for the people out there, but no one was quite sure of what we should do about it. They were outside our lands, but they were still people and from the more callous viewpoint we needed more people. While in a perfect world, we would try to save them all and bring them here, but it was just not feasible. The distances were just too large and even I couldn¡¯t spend weeks escorting a single caravan. The legion was too weak to help, and they didn''t have enough training. The Vikings were currently handling monster problems but a large portion of them could be pulled away. Then teams of them could go and meet the caravans and protect them while they headed this way. A special team of people was selected to work with Mirhit to choose the targets that we were going to save. There was also a plan that the few of the fastest moving members of the Vikings were going to go from caravan to caravan to guide the different caravans to join forces. Khris and his team were going to work on clearing out as many undead as possible any way they thought best and after we might even have a fight for the legion. Towards the end, David ran the numbers and it turned out that about 70% of the caravans didn¡¯t make it to our borders. That number silenced that room for a while. As we got more and more people from the caravans, we would be able to help caravans further away from us bringing in more refugees. It was a positive cycle but one that will put even more pressure on our resources. With the refugees we have here were many who had classes that supported cities and villages and made gathering and processing resources possible at a large scale even without the necessary tools or facilities. Currently, there is an open contract in the job building for any resource. If you know how to cut down wood, you could go out and make a decent amount of credit. If you know how to make bricks, you could make even more. If you had abilities that made you do those things even better, you could secure your future quite quickly. When I walked through the village after the main meeting ended, I could see almost everyone doing something. Currently, the market was full of barter traders. It was simple and the only way it could currently function. The few people who traded with coins didn''t have to pay any taxes at least not yet. Our economy was still too small, and it would choke the small trade that was currently happening. We were also in dire need of coins, and we hope that the goblin delegation that was supposed to come in about two weeks would be looking to buy at least some food but hopefully some other things as well. I had long ago deposited all my coins and given credit in return. At this point, we might have to figure out how to mint magically safe currency. Making coins that can''t be replicated by magic or other means was incredibly difficult so we couldn¡¯t just use mined copper, silver or gold to make our own coins even if we had a supply of all those metals. I was heading home where my apprentices were having a break day. While it was important for them to keep working it was also important to take breaks so they all decided that this day would be nice for a sauna. I had agreed and planned to join them after my class, but things got in the way. I was running all out when I once again felt like an ember was in my chest. It usually happened when I was exerting myself. At first, I could barely feel it, but it was getting stronger and stronger. It had only been happening for the past few days, but it was starting to affect me more. I stopped running and it immediately started to lessen but it lingered longer every time. At first, I thought that perhaps it was a side effect of my energy seeds, but it didn''t look like that was the case. While I meditated, I didn¡¯t get a clear picture, but I could see that the seeds weren¡¯t the problem. It took a bit, but I figured out it was my giant among men trait that was causing this problem, but I couldn¡¯t figure out what this effect was. It took a full minute for the feeling to disappear and once I started to run. Again, it quite quickly returned. It didn''t hurt but it didn''t feel pleasant. My mind was partly occupied by this problem but the sauna and hanging out with my apprentices helped ease my mind. It wouldn''t make sense that it would be something bad but then again it also might not be a good thing. It was deep into the night and my apprentices had gone to sleep long ago. I was in the river looking up at the stars and moons. I let the current take me downstream and when I reached the bridge, I swim back up past the sauna and then just let the current take me back down. I pushed myself quite hard when going upstream so my chest started to heat up again. While it wasn¡¯t screaming hot it was still quite unpleasant to the touch. Like this, I try to understand more. Why was this happening and what was it doing? Was it my constant prodding or just its time but finally something different happened? The feeling didn¡¯t go away. It was now a constant companion no matter what I tried to do. I climbed out of the river and entered meditation. When I came out of it the sun was starting to rise. ¡°Well, shit!¡± chapter 202 I just didn¡¯t want to deal with this. I had hoped that I would be able to relax a bit, but it seems my wishes will not be granted. To escape at least only for a moment, I jumped into the river and let myself sink to the bottom. Being surrounded by the darkness helped centre me a bit. But I wasn¡¯t going to get a moment of rest. A notification informed me that my fitness enhancement had levelled up and since it was already at level 19 it tiered up and gave me an option of abilities to pick from. I swam to the surface and pulled myself out of the river. Today I had also gotten two levels in basic swimming which I guess was good. The choices weren¡¯t that¡¯s good and I might have thought about this more if I didn¡¯t have other things on my mind. There was an ability that might have potential called equilibrium. I picked it and it turned out to be a passive ability which means that it might actually be good, but it will also lower my energy regeneration. To get my mind off my other problems I dived a bit deeper into the ability and found it to be quite excellent. If it was active and I was training, it wouldn¡¯t allow me to overtrain in a certain area. So, no chicken legs for me. Instead, it will transfer some of that improvement to my other body parts. If I still want it I could probably overwork a certain area but why would I want to do that? Having nothing else to distract me I went back to my main problem. The thing that pissed me off the most was it was completely my fault. When I put my traits inside the energy core it gave them a chance to improve. Giant amongst men was an interesting trait as it incorporated others into itself getting better even without my energy core. It was supposed to be a passive trait helping improve all other traits that it absorbed but now it also had an active component. I am quite certain that enriched body, my most problematic trait thus far is also one of the causes of my current problem. In all honesty that trait should have been too powerful for the giant amongst men to absorb but they were just two similar in their purpose so unfortunately, they were able to combine. One example of a trait that could have combined was giant amongst men was my vampire senses, but they were a bit too different and at a similar strength level, so they didn¡¯t. Now I was paying the consequences. In this world, everyone that gained strength quickly at an early age develops faster. Giant amongst men pushed that speed even further. I was supposed to reach full maturity by around age 16 but apparently, that was too long. The trait was acting like me reaching my fully grown stage what as important as a newly born horse being able to quickly get on her feet and start moving. Now I had until I reached 14. I couldn¡¯t even imagine how fast I will start to grow. At least I shouldn¡¯t have any bone density or any other problems by growing this fast but I¡¯m pretty sure I will lose a lot of flexibility and speed if I don¡¯t keep up with my training. Then there was the problem of my tier. The trait also didn¡¯t like that I was still at the first tier. To complete this process that it already started I needed to reach the second tier before the uncomfortable feeling in my chest goes away. To maximize what my trait is giving me I would need to reach the second tier just before my next birthday. It was a tall order as any monster under the first tier barely helped level up my classes. I would basically need to grind the whole time if I want to make this work. Even then I was sceptical that I could find so many opponents. I will most likely have to risk my life and venture into more dangerous areas to be able to keep up. Then there was the problem with my equipment and clothes in general. Why do I think that I have to go around wearing a caveman setup? I also had to do so much training if I didn¡¯t want to be a slow brute. But if I were to succeed, I honestly felt sorry for whoever my opponent in the future was going to be. Still, I was quite angry. I had planned on reaching rank two by the end of next year not by the beginning and I would have so much less time to work on my other project and fully concentrate on my commitments. I noticed I was pacing quite a lot and my breathing had become shallow. I stopped and centred myself. ¡°Rich you have been in similar situations to this. As always accept the bad and turn it into an advantage.¡± Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. It was at this moment that I heard Francis amuu quite loudly trying to get attention. I started to run towards there but even while moving I focused on the barn to see what was going on. My run faltered and a smile came to my face. Some of the chicken eggs had started to hatch and one chick was already running around. I still walked quickly there and started to herd the running chick to its mother and otherwise checking the health of the newborn. It appeared that this attention was good enough to finally tier up my animal handling and animal training. While still helping the newborn chicks I looked over my options. Animal handling had three interesting choices. Skill changes Skill increases animal handling level 20 is upgraded to advanced animal handling level 1 Choose one of the following abilities Animal welfare Handling equipment Sleeping touch Sleeping touch was the most general out of them as I expected it to work even with humans, but the applications were limited. The handling equipment was interesting, and I wondered what it did. Perhaps when Goose was big enough with this ability, I might be able to design a saddle so he can take me flying. I was leaning more towards animal welfare. I had other abilities and traits that helped me with this but nothing specific. So, this ability should help bring everything together and help me properly take care of my animals even when they started to gain more evolutions. You have gained a new ability: Animal welfare level 1 For animal training, there was only one real option to pick. Training plan development sounded like it would go extremely well with animal welfare, and I am in dire need of my own training plan for the coming months. I picked that but before I could start messing with the new abilities, I noticed that my apprentices were coming out of the house and preparing to leave. I informed them of what was happening and that I might not be able to help them as much as I first thought. They were worried about me, but I reassured them that I was going to be all right but that as time went on, I might become irritable and if that happened, they should inform me immediately. We gave short goodbyes, and I moved back to deal with the newborn chickens. While doing so I started to mess around with the new ability training plan development I got. It turned out to be fascinating. For it to work you need a target and what the target needed to achieve. For these chickens, it was quite easy to determine. They just needed some good food that had plenty of protein and to run around so their muscles could develop properly to grow up healthy and strong. I tried to make a development plan for a chicken to be able to pull a cart. It just straight didn¡¯t give me an answer. But there was a brief moment where it started to consume energy and quite a lot so perhaps if I had enough energy and it was strong enough it would actually try to make a development plan that would make that happen. If that was truly the case, then I might have underestimated this ability by quite a lot. I messed around with it a bit more before I turned it on to myself. At first, I tried to just make a training plan on myself getting stronger by about 20% and the development plan it came up with was to just wait for two months doing anything I wanted. Now I know I was going to start growing larger but that amount of strength gain sounded crazy. Then again, the strength difference between someone who¡¯s five feet and someone who¡¯s five feet five is quite big of course assuming the same training regimen and everything else. I had to test this ability multiple times before I was able to figure out how to add variables that I was currently under. When I added the target goals that I wanted to achieve the ability started to demand a lot more energy and eventually I was forced to supply it with my core energy so it could continue its work. It took five hours and most of my energy reserves when the strict training regimen started to appear in my mind. Just in case I wrote some of it down into a notebook, but the ability also had a perfect recall function for this information. The good news was that I was right that my trait was going to supply everything needed for my growth but the further goals that I added also required specific nutrition. There were even a few potions listed that I had no clue what they would do other than help with my development. For the next eight months until my birthday every hour, every meal and every exercise had been planned out even factoring in how many first-tier opponents I had to fight. It wasn''t all bad as there were entire days that were free but there were, for example, four months in, a week where I only had five hours to sleep total the rest of the time was endurance training. I also expect that if I can exceed this program, it would adjust itself to keep up with my improvements. For a second I felt like the later years of the war when everything was planned out and even when there were changes, I didn''t have a moment of free time. This seemed a bit better. I once again centred myself with my eyes closed and prepared for the coming months. When I open my eyes once again, I was ready to do whatever was needed to take full advantage of this opportunity. chapter 203 I was going to need to run quite a lot and even today was accounted for in the training plan. I didn¡¯t mind as I needed to run to the village anyways as I had people to inform and preparations to make. This wasn¡¯t going to be a quick run as I was supposed to slow down my energy circulation as much as possible. I also need to pick up some weights that I put into my tattoo storage to make this even worse. When I made it out of my own lands, I was already sweating hard, but I kept up the quick pace that was required. I have trained a lot in this world but the current training I was doing was the hardest training I have yet done. Yet this was just the training wheels of what was to come. This time the thought didn''t bring me anger or resentment, instead it brought me excitement and joy. People have often asked me how I could be so decisive about changing my mind when just moments ago I thought or believed something different. To me, it has always been natural. You learn from the moment you are alive, and you don¡¯t stop until you are dead but what most don''t tell you is that most of the things you learn turn out to be incorrect. I remember too many examples of people who wouldn¡¯t accept the reality that they had previously been wrong. If you don¡¯t change you slam the brakes on your ability to adapt to new situations. Changing my mind too fast has also been a problem as the new things you hear might also not be true. It¡¯s a constant game of adapting to new circumstances and new knowledge. It was one of the reasons that I was a good military strategist. If the strategy that had been working for years didn''t work anymore, I didn¡¯t just keep doing the same, I tried to understand what was different. Luckily, I didn¡¯t have to run all the way to the village today as I was able to cover the distance that I needed to run way before seeing the village. When I could finally stop, I puked. I pulled out my water skin to get the taste out of my mouth and finally drank the liquid of the gods. Why in the fuck was water so good when you were so desperate to get it. I couldn¡¯t, however, relax as I needed to do stretches. When that was done, I could finally use my movement ability and quickly get into the village. I then started to inform people about what was going to happen. I was going to be a lot less active and there would be long stretches where I wouldn¡¯t be turning up at all. People didn¡¯t like it, but they were accepting and even asked how they could help when I explained the full situation. Into the jobs building, I added quite a few posts. There were almost three months until I needed to use a potion that was supposed to help a lot so I hope that there were people around who could complete this task. I also added a post to find a chef that could make meals that would contain the nutrition I needed. I had quite a lot of credits to spend so hopefully I can get everything I need. I also tried to get in touch with the three people who took care of my farm when the war was going on. I would need them again but this time I would make them my apprentices if they were willing. When Goose finally made it back here, I instructed him to bring the wolves back which would take until tomorrow morning. Thanks to my evening being free I was able to sit in on one of the late-evening architecture meetings. It was good timing because otherwise, I would have missed it but listening to them was quite enlightening. The way they took my apartment idea and ran with it was quite awesome to see. Of course, they could have made the design a lot better, but they needed to balance resource cost, build time and livability. Those were hard things to juggle, especially where we were living but they were doing a better job than I ever could. The buildings were going to be three stories with two entrances and staircases. There will be eight apartments on every floor except the first where two central apartments will be a kitchen and the dining area. It was not the perfect layout, but we didn''t have central heating, so every apartment needed to have a wooden heating element which meant a chimney. There will be two smaller chimneys at the ends of the building and a bigger one at the centre. We will need to build quite a lot of those buildings but every apartment can easily handle four people living in them so we should be able to build enough of them and if needed more people can live in one apartment during the winter if it was really needed. Today was a sleeping day which I was glad about as there was a lot to do in the following days. When the wolves arrived, it was time for them to meet their new unit. I searched out the two suitable Vikings who were still in the village as the others had already left for their missions. They had abilities that helped them with animals and animal combat. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I wasn''t going to be able to give the wolves orders as regularly as I had been, so they needed other people for guidance. I also believe that the wolves would help a lot with bringing more refugees safely out of the southern forest. It took half a day before the wolves were comfortable enough that I felt they could be left in the care of the Vikings. Goose will also be hanging around with them but more of an emergency measure if someone needs to contact me and I was somewhere they can¡¯t reach. Goose always knew where I was so no matter how far away I was he was always going to be able to contact me. I was now sitting in my office and three young ladies were across from my table. ¡°You might be wondering why you are here. You took such wonderful care of my farm, and I am in need of a similar service again. But this time I also wanted to offer you all an opportunity to become my apprentices.¡± They were a bit unsure about my offer and when thinking back on it, it might have been better if I had chosen my words a bit better. ¡°The apprenticeship that I¡¯m offering is to teach a certain way of managing a farm called homesteading.¡± I then started to explain what that meant and the class that would come with it. The more I spoke the more excited they seemed to get. When I was finally done explaining and asked if there were any questions the youngest of the three girls spoke up. ¡°Did you offer us this opportunity because we took care of your farm during the war and will we be the only apprentices?¡± The others also seemed quite interested in the answer, so I didn¡¯t keep them waiting. ¡°You taking care of my farm so diligently was the main reason for me giving you this opportunity. The other reason being that you seem to genuinely enjoy the work. And yes, there will be more apprentices and I also currently have three apprentices who will soon finish their training.¡± I answered them and after a few more questions they went to prepare their things so they could head back with me. I went into the market and bought a few things that I needed but after that, we started to head back to my home. I was carrying quite a lot of stuff, so I wasn¡¯t able to train until we made it back to my home. When I took a break, I checked on them and how they were settling in. They already knew that I wasn¡¯t going to be spending a lot of time around the farm, at least in the next few weeks. After that, I continued my exercises which took until midnight. The rest of the night I prepared my gear as I was going to go and see the goblins and then hopefully find opponents that would be strong enough to gain me class experience. Originally, I was going to wait until the delegation came to the village to deal with my last obligation of listening to Stebs Soot, but I didn¡¯t want to push it back when I had an opportunity to take care of it right now. In the morning I started to head towards Hilfort village. Some of the way there I was training my endurance but luckily the goblins were far enough away that I was done before I even entered their lands. At first, I scared the scouts that I ran into as I was wearing my full adventuring gear and looked quite intimidating in it. I was trying to get as much use out of my armour as possible as I didn¡¯t know how much of it I would still be able to wear in the coming months. I was expecting to be led into the village but that wasn''t the case. I was taken towards the mountain before the scouts left me and told me that their leader would be coming soon. I didn¡¯t mind because I still had some exercises to do that required me to stay in one place. Almost an hour later Stebs Soot finally arrived. He was alone but I kind of expected it since the scouts also left long ago. I continue to do pushups while looking at him. He looked worried but currently, he was more confused. ¡°Rich what are you doing?¡± he asked. ¡°Just some exercises but don''t worry about that. What is it that you wanted to talk to me about.¡± I asked and after a few more pushups I stopped as I finally understood how serious he was. Even during the Goblin War, he wasn¡¯t this worried. ¡°Some of the smarter goblins have noticed the bad thing. Our population is in a serious decline, and we don¡¯t have enough new goblins being born to make up the difference. If this keeps going, then we won''t be able to hunt enough food or protect ourselves. We don¡¯t want to go back to our old ways but the goblins who know are quite afraid for our future.¡± He finally confessed. ¡°I can see the problem. The goblins who saw this problem are completely correct, but I hope that you will not give up so easily. If you return to your old ways, I¡¯m afraid the humans will annihilate you.¡± Before I could continue Stebs Soot spoke up, ¡°So there¡¯s truly nothing we can do. We fought so hard, yet we are going to achieve nothing.¡± His shoulders slumped and I could see he tried to hold back tears. ¡°You know it¡¯s not polite to interrupt others,¡± I said. He looked up from the shock that my words caused him, but he was met with my gentle smile. ¡°It might seem hopeless right now, but every problem has a solution. For your declining hunter population. That could be fixed if you started to focus on traps instead of goblins going out and hunting.¡± ¡°If the lower population means that you can''t defend as well that means you need to build better defensive structures. The perfect example was the dam. A few goblins held off a superior force simply thanks to the defensive structure.¡± ¡°There are always hardships and sometimes they seem like they are inevitable. Now sometimes they are but you never know if you don''t take a step back and start looking through your options. You could also increase trade with my nation. You have things that you could offer like tin and copper or tar. Learn what you can make better or faster and get what you need in return.¡± I could once again see resolve on his face. We continued to talk but now things were a lot lighter. I resumed exercising according to my training plan. Our talks weren¡¯t just about goblin problems or the problems my nation was facing. We talked about some jokes that we heard or some ridiculous stories that made us both laugh. For some time, he even joined me in the exercises I did. chapter 204 When Stebs Soot left I felt that I had enough social interaction to be able to fight for the next week. I needed to hunt quite a lot according to my training plan and luckily thanks to Stebs Soot I had an area rich with targets. The goblins had ranged quite far looking for other goblin tribes, but they didn''t find anyone close by that they could reach. Beasts and monsters were growing in strength and some areas had become unpassable. Their current biggest problem was towards the north in the swampland where the dungeon was where they used to go to prove that they were adults. The swamps were infested with fire salamanders. It was good to know that they weren¡¯t the dungeon monsters so perhaps I had enough time to clear the dungeon before it broke. The beasts instead were an evolution of a beast that had always inhabited this swamp. The problem was that they were growing too strong and were breeding faster than nature around them could support. The goblins suspected that there were plenty of fire salamanders that had reached the first tier as quite a lot of weaker fire salamanders were slowly pushing out of the swamp looking for their own areas to claim. I was going to be able to help the goblins defend their border and hopefully gain some levels. I put my gear back on and headed towards the swamp. While using my movement ability to run I was able to make quite a lot of progress. I was once again mapping a new area and I constantly had to fight an urge to go and look at interesting finds. Even before I reached the swamp, I ran into a few weak fire salamanders. It seems that the creatures were intelligent enough not to try to burn down the forest and they seem to either be in small groups of up to five but mostly they were alone. I needed to intimidate them before they were willing to use their fire in this environment. Fighting once again I was able to get another salamander to use its fire. This one was stronger almost silver tier. Letting the fire hit me while using my defensive abilities I was able to level up my fire resistance abilities. They seem to have a limited amount of this fire and when it was finally out, I quickly cut off its head killing the fire salamander instantly. It didn¡¯t have a monster core meaning that it was a beast. None have had cores. This will make this hunt a lot less profitable but also a bit safer. I wanted to thin out the numbers more, but I just needed to push further in to find actual opponents. When I reached the river that separated this side of the forest and the swamp, I took a moment to admire the contrasting views. On the forest side, there was a vibrant green but on the swamp side that was a darker yellow green yet there were bright spots of colour. The colour came from small plants or insects. Even before I cross the river some of the insects started to move towards me. The only thing that I had to do was strengthen my energy field that I use to keep out mosquitoes. I walked along the river until I found a place that I could jump across. During that time, I had to fight two fire salamanders who swam across the river to try to kill me. It seemed a little out of character, but they seemed starved. I¡¯m guessing that there are so many in the swamp now that there isn¡¯t much left to eat. I wonder if they have already turned to cannibalism. When I finally set my feet onto the swamp land I knew that I was going to hate my stay here. If I stepped incorrectly half my boot was submerged in the mud and water. I expected this to get worse the deeper in I went. I have had some experience with swamps but nothing extensive. It was going to be a learning experience and I was just going to have to accept fighting with the environment as much as the monsters in it. I continued in the general direction that the dungeon was supposed to be in. The only creatures that I ran into that were larger than a rat were the fire salamanders. They had completely taken over this environment and I could already see the signs of an ecological collapse. After a full day of travelling, I finally reached deep enough into the swamp that the salamander started to be in a solid silver tier or slightly above. The next morning while going around a large enough body of water that I would call it the lake the water next to me burst and a huge fire salamander attacked out of the water like a crocodile. Using my movement ability, I quickly got clear, but it didn''t stop and continued to come after me. It was at the higher end of silver tier, but it was way too big and had a few unorthodox evolutions that I hadn¡¯t seen before on any of the other fire salamanders. This wasn¡¯t a beast but a monster. That fact was demonstrated the next moment when it didn''t hesitate to use fire. I tried to dodge but it was able to control its fire so that it would follow me. My options were to either jump into the water which didn¡¯t seem the best of choices or to rush the monster hopefully killing it quickly. My two-handed sword landed on the usual spot just behind the head, but its scales rippled and energy covered them. It was able to save its life, but it still received a bad wound as just before the hit I was able to power up my attack more than I originally intended. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I jumped over the beast and let its own fire hit it. Its fire didn¡¯t do anything to it, but it did distract it for a moment giving me a chance to turn around and move in for a properly powered-up strike and take its head clean off. It was the first fight that I wasn¡¯t able to finish in one strike. That was a good thing as it meant I was reaching a more difficult area. The monster core had a fire element seed in it which I didn¡¯t take as I already had one. I stored the core but the next time I was going to have to go hunting I needed to find the proper adventurers pack so I wouldn¡¯t let so many resources go to waste. The skin of the beast would probably be quite useful, but I simply didn¡¯t have the extra room to store it. While technically I could store it for now, I was going to find a better one to keep. I continued to push forward but now I use a bit more energy in my fight to finish them as quickly as possible. My class levels had barely moved and after a few calculations, the number of silver-tier beasts that I needed to kill was staggering. About 600 silver ranks to level up. In my time here I had only killed about 50. If I was able to fight first-tier monsters, I would most likely have a few level-ups. After another two days of travel, I was finally able to sleep. I found a particularly large tree and slept on one of its branches. When I woke up I found that two salamanders had also decided to rest underneath the tree. I quickly ended their lives and cooked myself some salamander steak which I was quite tired of. Only a few of the fire salamanders still had the ability to detach their tail, most used it as a whip-like weapon instead. Towards the end of the day, I finally found a first-tier fire salamander. This one was a monster and quite a big one. The trail was quite easy to follow as it was almost the size of a school bus. When I finally had a visual on it, I could see plumes of fire periodically erupt from its scales. It seems that its main source of food was other fire salamanders. Its flames were strong enough to cook the beast variety of its brethren. Using stealth, I try to catch up with it. While its movement wasn¡¯t fast, it also wasn''t slow. It was once again on the hunt to find some food, so it was a bit distracting. This helped me get close to one of its black legs without it noticing me. From my experience fighting lesser variants of this monster, I knew that they had sharp senses, so I was only going to be able to power up my sword for a brief moment. With just one cut there was only one real target. It had quite a large artery up its leg. If I cut it the monster will be on a time limit and I will just have to survive until it¡¯s weak enough that I can kill it safely. I took a few quick steps and jumped towards my target. When I was almost at my target I concentrated everything I had to power up my sword. My cut needed to be deep so I refined the energy for sharpness and so it will explode outwards causing a deeper cut. I was correct about the monster being incredibly sensitive to the energy around it as almost instantly it started to react. The fire along its scale started to spread and behind it, I could sense how the scales hardened. I would need a lot of power to pierce through those scales. My surprise attack was, however, fast enough that I was able to deliver my strike and then push off its leg and to safety from the fire that now engulfed the monster. Its roar was monstrous and made my ears hurt but I was already powering everything up. For a moment the monster stopped, and it knew that I wasn¡¯t an easy opponent. It backed off a bit and tried to breathe fire onto me. When it opened its mouth, I started to throw knives into it. The inside of the mouth wasn¡¯t so well protected, and I had enough time to truly make those knives to damage. Its fire still burst out but most of it was pointed into the sky. I moved forward while preparing for the next attack. While it wasn¡¯t impossible for the next attack to not be a tail swipe, they usually tried it. This time was no different as soon as the monster''s eyes once again landed on me its back legs started to prepare for a huge tail swipe. The power of the attack was a bit lower as one of its back legs was wounded but the tail still swiped out at an incredible speed. I however didn¡¯t dodge. I already use a bit of my core energy to make myself weigh as much as possible. My sword was ready and at the correct moment, I struck out. My blade went straight through that tail cutting almost half of it off. The strike still rattled my bones, but my body was strong enough to handle this. There were also many arteries in the tail and as soon as I cut it off it started pumping out blood causing it to fly everywhere. The monster let out a bellow of rage and rushed toward me. I started to back off, but it was hard to keep my footing in this environment. It seems that it had some fire manipulation as well. When it wasn¡¯t able to catch me, it started making fireballs from its burning body and sent them flying towards me. I was glad that their accuracy wasn¡¯t the greatest, but the volume certainly made up for it. During the next 10 minutes, I dodged and struck down as many of the fireballs as I could, but some got through. I was able to deliver a few more flying slashes that were strong enough to cause wounds and eventually the monsters slowed enough that even its fireball aim was so off they didn''t cause any more trouble. Still getting close was dangerous. It burst out its fire every time that I got close, and my armour was thoroughly singed. But I was able to land more and more hits finally ending its life. I carved out its monster core and rested for a while. I had to level up my heat resistance abilities a few more times. I figured that when I was finally done with this hunt, I might have levelled them up quite a lot. I cleaned myself up as best as possible and after a last look at the monster¡¯s corps, I sighed and continued onwards. So much wasted material. At least for the next time, I will better know how to prepare. chapter 205 It only took me four more hours to find another first-tier opponent. Sneaking up on it using stealth I was able to get a critical attack which allowed me to end the fight quite fast. The monsters are usually a lot larger and stronger than their beast counterparts, so the first-tier fire salamander beast was a lot smaller and weaker than the monster I fought previously. It was like an oversized crocodile but with a lot more capability to move on land. Its scales were quite tough, but my abilities and weapon are strong enough to overcome the beast''s defences. I still need it to attack four more times in its weak spot behind the neck to finish the fight but beasts not being able to control fire just breathe it out made it easy to dodge. Moving deeper into the swamp I continue to find more and more first-rank beasts who were generally easy to kill until I found a pack of four. I was hoping that they had just met each other by accident and were going to separate but it seems that then being together in a group still carried forward into the first tier. I followed them for two hours until they reached land that was more solid. Not wanting to waste an opportunity I broke my stealth and used my movement ability to quickly rush the closest fire salamander. This time I used my core energy so my weapon would be able to finish the beast with one strike. Even with core energy, I wasn''t able to chop the head off the beast but halfway through the neck was still good enough to kill it. Even before I was able to pull my sword out three plumes of fire rushed towards me. Since I wasn¡¯t directly attacking my opponents, I was able to use homesteader¡¯s mile to move sideways out of the way from the fire. I then rushed in having to dodge one tail attack before I could reach one of the fire salamanders, giving it a serious wound on one of its front legs. They seem to have more fire in them than I was expecting, and I had to dodge multiple streams of fire five more times before I was able to end another beast. Cutting off their tails while they were doing their tail attack seemed to be quite a good strategy. They need a few moments to adjust to losing that body weight giving me an opening. With a big overhead swing, I was able to split one of the fire salamander¡¯s heads leaving me only one opponent. Then something happened that I was not expecting. The last one turned around and tried to escape but I had already wounded it a few times in its legs making its attempt to escape slow and painful. For a moment I felt bad, but I quickly finished it off and took a moment to rest. I hunted throughout the night and by the next evening I had levelled up all my classes. The first to level up was my homesteader class but the others quickly followed. My heroic commander class reached the tenth level milestone giving me three times the stat points and a skill called Two hand mastery. As I continued to travel there were more and more first-tier fire salamander beasts the closer I moved to the dungeon, but I hadn¡¯t encountered another monster. This was a good thing as monsters were a lot tougher to kill while giving basically the same amount of experience. The only thing they offer were their cores. During the next morning, I came across a large lake which I carefully approached. I decided to monitor it and it didn¡¯t take long for two fire salamanders to approach it to start drinking the water that was there. The water in the lake was a lot clearer than in the surrounding swamp and looked very inviting. As soon as the two of them started to drink a larger salamander attacked out of the water swallowing them both down in one gulp. This salamander was almost as big as the other huge fires salamander monster I fought but there were a few crucial differences. Its species wasn''t the fire salamander. I guess it was a monster of a more regular salamander. It didn''t have the scales but the normal skin a salamander should have, and it seemed to have water elemental control instead of the fire one. There was a choice to be made. This fight was probably going to be a really hard one as you really don¡¯t want to fight elemental users in their own environment especially if it¡¯s a water user. Then there was the problem of it killing fire salamanders. It was the first predator for the fire salamanders I had seen and taking it out would be even worse for the environment, so I decided to leave it alive and move on. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Not soon after that, I found another monster, this one being smaller but faster and it was a fire salamander. This time I wasn¡¯t able to sneak up on it as its senses seemed even better than I expected. Its fire control was also a lot better than I had experienced before. As soon as it noticed me it started to spew fire into the air. I was at first puzzled by it, but I soon figured out why it expelled all the fire it had. It was able to take control of it and manipulate it expertly. I had to constantly dodge and even then, I was hit by fire multiple times. My armour was barely able to keep up, but my abilities were strong enough to endure. After 10 minutes of dodging fire, I was able to get closer and finally landed a solid hit. It was the first time during a fight that I chose to move into a more wet area. It slowed me down a bit but being able to dive underwater to escape the fire attacks helped keep me safe and the water also helped reduce the amount of fire the monster was able to control. Still keeping up my armour was taking a lot of energy, so I decided to use my core energy to finish the fight faster. It took five hits to finish the monster and a considerable amount of my core energy while desperately trying to get closer to the monster. After I retrieved its core, I checked over my energy reserves. My normal energy was half gone while I still had 3/4 of my core energy. The constant fighting had really started to drain my resources so I started to look for a place where I could sleep. Finding a nice patch of trees, I settled in and slept for the rest of the day. After I woke up, I spent the night continuing to hunt and moving towards the dungeon. There were even more beasts here and I was getting more proficient at killing them even when they were in groups. My biggest time sink was still searching out opponents, but it was getting better this deep into the swamp. Towards evening I stumbled upon a strange scene. The swamp ahead of me was frozen solid. Something that shouldn¡¯t be possible during the summer. There was only one explanation that made sense and after following the trail for two hours I found the culprit. It was a salamander that looked like a fire salamander but its scales were shades of blue instead of red. Around it was a constant area where everything froze. The freezing effect was decently fast, but it wasn''t instant which was good news. I was about to start sneaking closer when I noticed a group of fire salamander beasts closing in for an attack. I decided to watch and learn. The ice salamander did have a breath weapon and whatever was caught in it was frozen solid almost instantly. With the first attack, the monster took out two of the five attacking fire salamanders. There was also ice that started to slowly cover the fire salamander scales but that effect would not have significant results for some time. The fire that the fire salamanders used didn''t have any effect on the ice salamander, but the opposite wasn''t true. The fight lasted for about 20 minutes and while the ice salamander did get hurt it wasn''t anything serious. The most important thing was that it seemed to have used up all of its breath capability for the moment. Once again sneaking didn¡¯t work. As soon as I entered its freezing range it immediately noticed me. The ice effect felt like you were in an arctic blizzard and without my ability to resist elemental effect with my armour, it would have been a lot worse. I was also mistaken by it not having a breath attack, but I wasn¡¯t stupid enough to let my guard down. Still, I was barely able to jump away from the ice breath having only one of my feet getting caught. I used the pummel of my sword to break the ice and then dodged the tail attack before it hit me. The fight after that was a lot more standard but I still needed three core energy-powered attacks before the fight was finally over. Retrieving the core, I could instantly feel the elemental seed inside of it. Turns out that it wasn¡¯t ice but frost which was curious. Was there also an ice elemental seed and if so if I had both would they overlap or will I only be able to incorporate only one of them? I took a few moments to think about it but in the end, who knows how long it will take until I find a monster with an ice element. Absorbing the elemental seed, I now had five different ones growing in me. The only disappointing thing was that it would take many years for the seeds to start giving any benefits but as a person who is willing to plant trees so I can harvest them when they are fully grown waiting around 20 years isn''t the worst. With a smile on my face, I moved forward towards the dungeon which was now quite close. Unfortunately, I had to make a detour during the night. I saw huge fire plumes towards the east. It was possible that two huge monsters had fought there so I wanted to go check it out. chapter 206 I didn¡¯t exactly know how far away the presumed fight had happened, but I thought I was about halfway there when I saw something that I hadn¡¯t before. There was a group of young fire salamanders, really young. They were running like death was after them and I guess it was as older-looking fire salamanders hunted them down while they were trying to run somewhere safe. I didn¡¯t interfere in their fight, just circled around and continued my run. I knew that I had made it when I saw a lake that was teeming with life. Fire salamanders in every stage of their development seemed to inhabit this lake. It was hard to find covers, as there weren¡¯t a lot of trees around here, but I was able to sneak close enough to get a better vantage point. The lake was filled with cannibalism as that was the only way that they could get food. Every so often a group of fully developed but small fire salamanders broke out of the lake and tried to make a run for it. When they made a run the first thing they had to worry about was a huge fire salamander monster the size of a small apartment building. Currently, it was feasting on a fire salamander that was one of the largest ones I have seen. It was probably defeated in combat last night and that was the battle that produced the plumes of fire I saw. It seems that the other monster had tried to claim its spot as the ruler of this place, but it didn''t succeed. If it wasn''t feasting on its prey, it would probably be trying to eat any salamanders who were escaping. The fully grown fire salamanders didn¡¯t approach this lake and stayed well away but a lot of them still waited close enough to hunt the younger salamanders who were trying to run past them. It was probably the easiest source of food for a long distance. The last significant beast was the mother who was laying eggs at a ridiculous rate. Almost half of the lake was filled with similar eggs that frogs lay in the water. I spent watching this dynamic for half a day. The most interesting was the mother. It didn''t consume enough food to keep up with the egg production, so I am assuming she had some sort of an evolution that allowed her to use energy as a source of nutrients for her young. She was protective of them and even tried to keep the huge male fire salamander away from the lake so it wouldn¡¯t eat the young. She always failed. You can see that she once was a regular salamander as only some parts of her skin have turned into scales. Her skin and scales are shades of red but there are also yellow spots on her back, and she was the biggest beast-class salamander I have seen. She almost always seemed to be in the lake, and I could see how the lake water seemed to warm up near her meaning that she was trying to keep the water warm for her children. She definitely needed to be stopped otherwise there would be millions of fire salamanders that would try to consume all that surrounds us and eventually make it to United Freeholds lands. The mother salamander had to die. I wasn¡¯t going to be able to accomplish that without engaging the huge male fire salamander. Then there was the problem of how I was going to be able to fight two of them at the same time and if I even would have enough energy to even finish the fight. There didn¡¯t seem to be any good strategic choices. This was a good time to test out how powerful my call of the ancestor¡¯s ability could be. To use this ability at its maximum strength I would need to use 3/4 of my core energy. This would leave me incredibly short on it and fighting that huge fire salamander was going to be a problem even if I had my entire core energy reserve. The biggest problem was that the monster was close to the second rank. It was brimming with strength, but it wasn''t currently overwhelming just damn near to it. I have to hope that my call of the ancestor¡¯s ghosts can finish the female salamander before I¡¯m overwhelmed by the big monster. If the female is dead, then I will have two options left. To run or to fight but either way at that point I have won. Without the mother, the salamander population will start to stabilize, and other beasts will start to claim back their lost land. I received 15 human ghosts in medium armour wielding a large halberd for their fight with the female salamander. I spent so much energy that absolutely everything living around us was looking towards me. Only a moment later the huge monster let out a mix of roar and hiss. It then charged at me and I started to send flying slashes towards it while moving away from the lake and letting the ghosts move there so they can begin their own battle. I was able to get its attention but only because my aim was good enough to hit its nose or around its eyes otherwise its scales were so strong that I was barely leaving a mark. Of course, I wasn¡¯t using my core energy which would have made the situation better, but I needed to conserve it. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Now I have seen large tanks driving at stupidly fast speeds trying to smash our defensive lines but nothing I have seen prepared me to see an apartment building-sized monster running towards me at the speed a horse could spring. The deafening noise and bone-shaking vibration that you felt from the constant stomping made me dig deep so I could overcome the fear and instincts that told me to run as fast as I can away from the death that was racing towards me. I wasn''t able to get him as far as I originally wanted before the female salamander¡¯s battle cry rang out. The monster stopped and tried to turn around to see what was happening but the moment he wasn¡¯t focusing on me I used my core energy in a flying slash and was able to damage one of its eyes quite badly. It turned around so fast that the wind generated almost pushed me back. It was now enraged and fully focused on me. I was not certain if this was a positive outcome. The thing that kept me from being trampled or swallowed was my movement ability as it allowed me to keep ahead of the powerful monster. What was surprising was that it hadn''t used any fire, but I guess most of its strength has gone into making its body as powerful as possible. It was at that moment that one of the ghosts returned to me having been killed. The female salamander used its fire breath and one of the ghosts wasn''t able to get under the water or out of the way. It wasn''t all bad as this allowed the others to get a few good strikes in while it was breathing fire. I continued to run around which was made increasingly easy as the huge beast was trampling the ground solid giving me a more stable footing. I activated my heroic stand and started to consume my regular energy at an alarming rate. With this, I was just barely able to stop it from breathing fire when enough flying slashes were delivered into its mouth, but it was a close thing. The monster should still have some control over fire and the amount it could spew out could mean that it could blanket the entire area even before I could run into safety. It also seemed that it was now bleeding quite badly but it was even more enraged. The ghosts were slowly able to weaken the female salamander so that she tried to escape by leaving its tail behind but that would only work with stupid creatures. Not allowing it to escape, however, cost two more lives but they were able to wound one of its legs quite badly, meaning it was only a matter of time until it was going to die. Now came the question, was I going to be able to keep my opponent occupied? We had already fought for an hour and the female salamander still hadn¡¯t given up. My body, however, was on the verge of giving up. I had never kept up my abilities for this long and my entire body was hurting like I had been thrown from a three-story building. The monster hadn¡¯t laid a finger on me but simply trying to escape and attacking has almost cost me my life multiple times. Even now dodging it is becoming harder and harder as keeping my vision focused is becoming almost impossible. There are only six ghosts left now. The female salamander seems to be a lot smarter than she looked. The scariest part was her ability to learn. Over the last hour, it had learned how to use the ghost numbers against them and wield its limited supplier of fire to deadly effect. Eventually however even she had to give up. Killing it wasn¡¯t easy or fast as the ghosts continued to chop her up even while she was still alive. Her death cries shook the male salamander out of its engaged state but only for a moment until he saw the state his female was in. When the female salamander finally died, I could hear rumbling coming from the male salamander. Its entire chest was vibrating like a shirt in the wind. When it started to open its mouth, I could already see the glow of powerful fire. It was going to torch the entire place. I channelled all my core energy into my sword and ran up the monster. Usually, it would have just shaken me off leaving me heavily hurt but now it was concentrating on killing whoever killed his female. During the run, I was manipulating energy inside my sword making it a lot better at piercing attacks. Even before I reached its head it started to spill out its powerful fire. All my remaining energy was pushed into my armour but even then I felt like I was burning and the fire wasn¡¯t even directed towards me. I reached the monster¡¯s neck at the same time the fire reached the lake. If the monster¡¯s head wasn''t protecting me the blast of steam from the instantly vaporized water would have flown me a long distance away. But I didn¡¯t stumble or lose my opportunity. I channelled everything I had and envisioned myself plunging my sword deep into the skull and then the energy expanding outwards destroying the brain. The sword itself only pierced about one foot into the head but the rest of the energy pierced all the way through its skull and destroyed its brain. Instantly the monster started to fall, and I had to brace for impact while I used the sword that was stuck in the skull to keep me stable and trying not to pass out from the exhaustion I was feeling. The impact did make me pass out but this time I didn¡¯t stay like that for long. Passing out after fights was a bad habit. I honestly have no idea how I kept myself awake or even moving but after a short moment of struggling to get my sword out, I was on the move again. None of the ghosts survived and the entire lake and all of its inhabitants didn''t leave any evidence that they had ever existed. It was a good thing that this monster hadn¡¯t focused more on intelligence otherwise my only choice would have been to try to escape. Running without my movement ability was slow especially when my body was in bad shape. When I found a thicket of trees that seemed to have enough vegetation that I would be able to hide. I struggled to climb it but eventually, I was able to make myself secure enough that I could fall asleep. Just before sleep claimed me I looked at my notifications saying that I had levelled up twice in all my classes. Meaning I had accomplished the training mission set for me almost four days ahead of schedule. chapter 207 My internal clock says that I¡¯ve slept for quite a while. Looking at the sky it seems that it''s well past morning. As the fight ended well before it got dark, I truly have slept for quite a while. My regular energy reserves were almost full, but my core energy was only about 1/3 full. I should take it easy for at least today. It was time for me to start heading towards the dungeon but this time I will probably avoid every fight I can. Before I climbed down the tree I looked at my other notifications. It seems that one of my traits reached a milestone. Getting my presence stat points past 160 is something I didn¡¯t expect to happen so fast, but it was nice. It''s still a bit hard to believe how many stat points I now gained per level. The new trait was called improved mental resistance and while I didn¡¯t know exactly what it did, I was quite certain it wasn¡¯t a bad thing. Before I left towards the dungeon, I headed back near the lake, but I wasn¡¯t able to get close enough to see the monster¡¯s body as there were so many other salamanders that had converged on this location. Fighting them to retrieve the core if it was even still intact was not going to be something that I could do. There were so many fire salamanders, and my strengths didn''t lie in fighting endless hordes of strong monsters. Then again perhaps no one was actually good at that. It took a while to find the dungeon entrance even when I knew it was supposed to be around here. It was hidden behind a thicket of trees. Otherwise, the entrance was quite similar to the dungeon on my own land. The unnatural darkness of the entrance always looked scary yet inviting. I didn¡¯t rush in as I had some things to prepare that I had learned from the dungeon book that I received. From my tattoo storage, I retrieved a few pieces of paper that I have drawn specific symbols on. Just in case I haven¡¯t used this technique with my own dungeon, but it should be safe. I walked into the dungeon, but I didn¡¯t travel into the first room but stayed in the passage. I located the first piece of paper and then set it on fire. After that, I quickly pressed my hand against the dungeon wall and waited. Almost a minute passed and I thought that this did not work but then my mind was flooded with information. The paper that I burned had symbols on it that greeted the dungeon and asked for its current status. I received a greeting back that somehow sounded hopeful. The information however was quite troublesome. I had expected a simple few-floor dungeon but it wasn¡¯t. There were 27 floors and after the first few floors, it started to have first-rank challenges. I wanted to be excited about this discovery, but the dungeon was bursting with monsters and any moment now the dungeon could break allowing every one of these monsters to escape into the outside world. It should be possible for me to clear the dungeon, but it will take a few days. Luckily my schedule for the next few days is to fight and earn experience which I can do here perfectly. I will need to manage my energy expenditure, but this dungeon shouldn¡¯t be too big of a problem unless I get some unfavourable matchups. With a smile on my face, I started to rush through the first few floors where I didn¡¯t even have to use energy to boost my sword to kill everything with one strike. POV Verhard Another morning meeting was finishing up and I was glad that I could stretch my legs again. Just before I left, I looked at the chair Rich sits in. Every time I picture him, I see two conflicting images. One of a carefree man that¡¯s so confident that he would let other people have power. The other image, a ruthless warlord controlling everything down to the latest detail. I have seen both of those sides and I am absolutely terrified of either one. I snap out of my thoughts and say goodbye to the three other mages. Now there are four of us here enjoying the freedom and support that we get. It¡¯s still something I¡¯m not used to. Once again all of that is because of Rich. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Taking in so many refugees shouldn''t work. All of them should be trying to plan to take control from the previous rulers but we just offer anyone who wants an opportunity to join the leadership. I have now watched three people die in horrible ways but every time I am not horrified but relieved. Usually, kingdom power is used to keep the kingdom¡¯s laws absolute yet here this power is used to keep leaders in check. It was an interesting and seemingly quite effective at keeping people who only think about themselves out of leadership. Will this be effective in the long run I do not know but I hope it will. As I pass the market square, I can see the people here and there''s no misery, only determination and hope, something I¡¯m not used to. The only problem is that our economy doesn¡¯t need mages or alchemists. That time will come but it won''t be anytime soon. Still, just in case I headed to the jobs building to check. I haven¡¯t been here for over a week but hopefully, someone will need a healing potion or something more specific. When I entered the building there were quite a few people here looking for jobs. Most of these people had more specific skill sets that weren¡¯t needed right now. From the meetings, I know that this place is working even better than expected and our economy was quickly expanding thanks to it. There are some worries that perhaps we might be giving out too many credits but David and the owlbear assure us it shouldn¡¯t be a problem in the long run. I will trust they know this better as I never learned much about economics. My train of thought was halted when I noticed a few posts in a section that should be empty. I walked there as quickly as possible and to my surprise there were posts about making different potions. At first, I was excited but then I started to doubt my alchemy certification. I hadn¡¯t heard any of the potion names. What the hell was Harold¡¯s incredible potion or Sara''s wonders draught? There were seven more different potions with unknown names. Is someone making a joke? I was so annoyed that I almost tore one of the posts off to go and complain about it to the receptionist when I noticed who had posted this job. It was Rich. I stopped for a moment and tried to think it through. First to my knowledge, Rich should have a minimal understanding of potions. He wasn''t an idiot so there had to be an explanation. Going over the names again, one of them seems to remind me of something. Then I remembered. It was a lesson at one of the first alchemy classes that I took in the academy. The alchemist explained how basically every person who comes up with a new potion names it after themselves because the system records that name and everyone wants to live forever even if it¡¯s just their legacy. But around the world that name isn''t used to recognize potions as there are so many people with the same name, it would be impossible to keep track of it all. Harold¡¯s incredible potion was actually called soft tissue strengthening with an oil base and energy focus. This was the only one that I could recognize but for other ones, I would have to use a potion codex something I didn¡¯t have access to. What I can do is write to the Alchemy Association. They will send me the relevant information. I looked at the time until I needed to finish the orders and there should be enough time. After accepting the jobs with the receptionist, I headed to my office where I finished the letter and cast a sending spell on it. It should reach its intended location in a few days, and I should get a response back in a week or two. It was good to have a job again. Just going to the meetings has become quite tiresome. I will need to go and start finding some basic ingredients and I will just have to hope that I already have the other ingredients that will be needed. Something that I still don¡¯t understand is how Rich knew the names. It must have something to do with the achievement page but what ability could give access to this kind of information? The only explanation I have is that he was able to gain an ability that was influenced by his former world. If someone hadn''t informed me, I don¡¯t think I would have figured out that Rich isn''t from this world. He didn''t act like the other two that aren¡¯t from this world that I¡¯ve run across. They were both in the Academy and you could instantly tell that they weren¡¯t from this world. As I understand Rich is a special case and he also has the memories of this world in some sort of weird once-in-a-lifetime accident. Whatever the case might be he seems to fit into this world quite well and his unique perspective is helping us strengthen ourselves quite fast. There is no doubt in my mind that with the current situation in the world, he could have been a strong warlord controlling a huge territory but like with every warlord he would eventually die and his empire would fall apart. The empire that he is now helping to build will be a lot larger and will most likely survive a lot longer. I can already imagine it. United Freeholds banners span across this entire continent, each city is clean and the land full of golden fields of grain. I just hope that I will be able to live long enough to experience that beauty. chapter 208 The dungeon started to become a lot more fun when I reached the floor with first-rank challenges. Until floor seven I was still able to quite easily handle everything but after that, I actually needed to start thinking and not just rushing in. Slowly my abilities and skills levelled while I was also constantly learning to fight better. The dungeon was a mix of beast types and plant-like humanoids. The plant-like humanoids looked like humans and had some rusted armour and weapons. My guess is that a large battle that happened around this dungeon affected its growth. To affect the dungeon the battle must have been huge, and I can understand how goblins are still finding metal pieces so long after the battle. It would be interesting to try to find out what happened in this swamp but didn¡¯t have any ability to uncover what''s hidden under the earth. Hopefully, I will be able to gain such abilities and I will try to keep that in mind when I start levelling my quarrying mining or digging skills. The traps were laughably easy thanks to my senses. The places where I spent the most time trying to advance were the few puzzles that blocked me from progressing. The fights down here didn¡¯t give much experience to my classes but there were so many monsters because of the overpopulation that I was fast closing in on levelling up my classes. The first class to level up was my heroic commander. With the gain of stat points, I was able to pass the 320 milestone for constitution, so I received another trait. The pain that followed almost made me fall to the ground, but I was able to get my knee on the ground to stabilize myself. The pain lasted for a few minutes, and it was hard to understand what was happening. When the pain finally ended, I felt heavier. I tried some quick stretches but after some stiffness, I felt like I always did. Opening my achievement page, I found the trait that caused this. Subdermal armour was the name of the trait and I instantly started to examine myself. Under my skin in places that didn''t hinder movement seem to be plates that would protect whatever is underneath. I will need to do some testing to find out how strong the plate''s defences were, but this was not the place for this. After a quick test, all my armour abilities seem to accept this subdermal armour as a possible target. Now I needed to do even more testing but there was a possibility that my future armour problems of not being able to fit into my current armour might not be as much of a problem as they used to be. Continuing to fight I took my first rest and slept in the dungeon so I could continue fighting the next day. The next class to level up was my renowned true archer. This was a good level-up as I reached level 10, meaning I reached a milestone. Once again there were three times more stat points as a normal level up and I also gained an ability. It was called steady hand and I was a bit disappointed about it. I already had incredibly steady hands but I will test this ability out sometime later. The extra stat point did make my perception reach the 320 milestone. The trait I got was called perfect kinesthetic sense. At first, I didn¡¯t notice anything different but as soon as I started the next battle, I immediately noticed what the trait did. Every movement was known to me. I could perfectly see where every monster was moving when they would get there and what position they would be in. Projectiles became laughably easy to track and even my own positioning and movements became a lot smoother. I could hear myself making an evil laugh while I charge at my enemies. At the end of the second day, I was 2/3 done with the dungeon and exhausted. While I settled down, I used a healing potion and some healing powders to fix some of my minor injuries. A few times I was a little bit too efficient with my energy usage meaning a few attacks actually did hurt me but only a little. With the last fight, I was able to finally level up my first homesteader class. It was once again an important level up as I reached level 10. With the improvements in stat point, I also reached a milestone in wisdom giving me a trait called mind barrier. I had no idea what it did, and I wasn¡¯t going to spend time meditating on it. On a hunch, I did pop into my mental palace and there did seem to be a shimmer at the edges that wasn¡¯t there before so perhaps it just added another level of defences to my mind. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. The skill that came with this milestone was a bit more interesting. It was called energy wrap. The first thing I thought was that it was some kind of food, but it turned out to be something like a bandage that you can wrap around wounds. Usually, this ability wouldn''t have any special effects, just act like a regular bandage that you can wrap around your wounds, but my energy wasn''t normal. My trait life-giving energy and energy wrap seemed to have amazing synergy and I now had quite a decent healing ability. When I wrapped my wound with this ability my energy would act like healing powders. I guess if I keep levelling this up and use all my other boost abilities and core energy it can save me from quite bad injuries. This trip has been quite successful, and I feel that I am a lot stronger than I was before I started. The training plan that I was on was quite good. If I didn¡¯t have it, I would be helping my apprentices build their houses while barely progressing myself. I didn¡¯t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, I quite enjoy helping my apprentices and watching them build their own homes would be quite satisfying, but I will still be able to do it just to a lesser extent. On the other hand, I can feel that I could protect my nation and the people around me a lot better, which in the long run is a lot more important. I settled in for a good night¡¯s sleep as the constant fighting required me to sleep more often. Towards the halfway point of the third day inside the dungeon, I finally reached the last boss room. To my surprise, the fight in the dungeon actually did teach me a bit about the battle that happened here long ago. It was a battle between three different forces. The last floor¡¯s boss room¡¯s boss was the strongest of these three army commanders. I think that this commander should have won the fight but obviously, this last floor has proven that incorrect. There was something else that ended up killing all three armies and I¡¯m guessing that it¡¯s behind this door or the dungeon wasn''t yet done with its construction and the true culprit will be a few floors down the ones that still hadn¡¯t been made. I didn¡¯t know if I wanted that boss to be behind this door or not. A monster that could end so many lives would be quite dangerous. Pushing the door open I had already activated all my defensive abilities and was at my highest alertness. My trouble sense immediately screamed when I took a step into the room, and I quickly dodged some sort of a projectile that would have taken my head off. Whatever my opponent was, it was trying to hide from me, but my eyes wouldn''t be deceived. It took only a few more moments and three more dodges to find my opponent and see what kind of a monster it was. When I saw the monster, I froze in surprise and that almost cost me my arm. My opponent was a humanoid plant creature, but it looked like a really old woman who was hunched back and shook constantly. She could barely move but the staff that was supporting her constantly attacked me with projectiles that are so dangerous. When I started to move closer to her for the first time, she raised her head and our eyes met. Then I felt incredible pain like someone was trying to pull my very being out of my body. My stubbornness flared and the pain lessened. Then I heard an old voice so gravelly it was barely understandable. ¡°You should not be able to resist my control over the souls of others. Die!¡± The pain instantly got worse as soon as she finished. She once again tried to hide but I didn¡¯t take my eyes off her and push forward even when I felt myself being torn apart. The projectiles fired faster and faster, but I was getting constantly closer and her ability to affect my soul lessened over time. When I was only about 10 steps away from her, I could finally see fear in her eyes. ¡°Don''t worry I will put you to rest,¡± I said and for a moment she froze which allowed me to close in. A core energy-powered strike cut her in half. Immediately the pain disappeared, and I could breathe normally again. ¡°What the fuck was this monster. Holy hell people should not come down here.¡± There was no loot from the boss. The only piece of loot that I got from this entire dungeon was a rusty sword that I was able to break even without using any of my abilities. Dungeons that hadn¡¯t fully grown and developed into raid dungeons or great dungeons barely dropped anything, which was disappointing but the gains in experience were still quite good. If this dungeon was following a story, then this truly felt like an ending. Perhaps this dungeon will reach full maturity soon. If that was true and it didn¡¯t become a raid dungeon that moved around the world, then this would become a stupendously important resource for the United Freeholds. I jumped through the portal that took me out of the dungeon. Quickly orientating myself I started my run towards the GreenWave village. I should be easily able to make it in time to give my energy lesson. While last week I wasn¡¯t able to give it I didn¡¯t want to miss two weeks in a row. Looking at my achievement page I had to smile when I saw that my soul skill in my adventurer class reached level 15. It was finally time to level up my adventurer class again. I was not going to wait until the soul skill was going to give me two abilities simply because it will take too long. chapter 209 The run through the swamp and forest was uneventful, the only issue was that I had to slow down so I could regain some of my energy. I could already feel my training plan development ability wanting a steady stream of energy so it could recalculate my training plan with the latest improvements I have gained. Not wanting to be wasteful I decided to wait until this evening when I was going to level up my adventurer class. The new stat points and possible skills and abilities meant that I would have to re-invest a significant portion of my energy almost immediately. I made it back to the village two hours before my lesson. There were already perimeter markers where the military complex was going to be built but most of the focus was on the apartment buildings. Two buildings had foundations built out and the third one was already half finished which was fast but with so many people completely understandable. There was an incredible need for housing, but other buildings were also necessary. We needed more workshops and other resource processing structures. As I understand we also have people with abilities that make them good at digging tunnels currently working on expanding our underground food storage. When I was able to eat proper food again it almost brought tears to my eyes. One thing that I¡¯ve never been able to get used to is rations. Now when you¡¯re hungry enough you will eat almost anything, but you won''t enjoy it much. This made me remember that I should check on the job posts that I made but that could wait until tomorrow. After eating 5 portions I want to give my lesson. Everyone was present and it seems that they had all worked diligently over the past two weeks. This lesson was just a continuation as I instructed everyone to start cycling their energy. This was harder than I expected but slowly they all learned how to start moving the energy inside them. At the end, I explained a few basic movement patterns to use for different activities. During the lesson, we also had an unexpected visitor. A certain person who is really good at hiding watched the lesson for almost the entire time. At first, I wondered why he was doing this, but it seems that he was getting a free lesson. I honestly didn¡¯t mind although I assume his energy control is a lot better than anyone else here with the possible exception of me. After that, I need to attend a meeting where everyone informs what their departments accomplished last week and the next week''s plans. Apparently, they had set this up last week, so this was the second meeting of this type. It was overall pretty standard, but I was amazed at how efficient our workforce seems to be. This just might be the beginning excitement so it might not last, but I hope that it did. The goblin delegation had left and a lot more trade was set up. We were selling purpose-made tools and weapons while we got tar and a few other stuff in return. Everyone seemed a lot more relaxed when they spoke of goblins so I feel we might be able to keep a friendly relationship. The news I hated the most was bad and good at the same time. We were currently escorting seven large caravans with a lot more people. Which meant a lot more food and housing needed but on the other hand it meant more soldiers and more people working various jobs. It seems that it was a constant battle of gaining new people and then working until you can house and feed them and then you start the cycle all over again. We just have to be efficient enough to not run into an overpopulation problem. The meeting wasn''t long, only about two hours, so I had plenty of time to get a good meal and set up in my office to level up my adventurer class. The first thing to happen was that my soul skill tiered up and give me an ability. Soul resistance was the ability that I was given and after the last fight, I was quite happy to see it. Perhaps I would be able to more easily fight the last boss in the swamp dungeon. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The next moment I felt the air around me freeze and a system window popped up in front of me that I was unable to look away from. What worried me the most was that the screen wasn¡¯t blue but red. Soul resistance is determined to have no effect. Please stand by while a proper examination is being conducted. Holy fucking shit what the hell is this. Why wouldn''t it have any effect? Why the hell is it coloured red? If this goes badly my life in this world will be over. I would be marked as red, and everyone will be trying to kill me. I waited for what seemed like hours but probably wasn''t longer than a minute. Finally, another box appeared in front of me. Determine current sapiens large portion of memory came from a skill Memories from the void. Unable to continue without further energy investment waiting for energy transfer. I could feel how energy starting to float into my surroundings but mostly my body and mind. They were taking in more energy than they should be able to handle. There wasn''t any pain just slight discomfort, and this continued for a few more minutes before the flow of energy stopped and then it started to slowly disappear. Looking outside I could see that only this room was frozen in time as the sun slowly set. Eventually, another notification came through. Investigation concluded. The entity known as Rich Dirt was pulled from the void. It was previously thought that void destroyed most of his memories and soul by slowly eroding them from the contact with void. Previously theorized that a person with a strong mind and soul can resist those effects better. Confirmed. The Entity Rich Dirt is determined to survive the void with intact memories and soul. The strongest resistance to void than any other recorded entity observed. Ability soul resistance removed. Replacement or upgrade cannot be determined. Souls¡¯ resistance surpasses systems'' current capabilities. Copying and incorporating Rich Dirt¡¯s soul resistance. Congratulations you have earned an achievement: Surpassed the system. You gained 250 free points and will receive additional points whenever the next tier of energy access is gained. The last box was blue. The sweat that was rolling down my back finally didn''t feel so cold. My body was finally able to move, and I breathed out loud trying to calm myself down. I tried to think about what had happened but my brain didn¡¯t want to dive into it. There was only one experience that someone talked about that might fit what I¡¯m currently feeling. It was a soldier who was fighting in some sort of a Chinese city. Then the emergency siren started to activate, and everyone looked up. The soldier instantly knew that the nuclear missile was about to hit the city. All they could do was watch, waiting for their judgement but when the missile hit nothing happened. Turned out that whoever constructed it made a mistake and the bomb never went off. I believe I now knew what that person felt. The power that held me down was so overwhelming and could end me in a moment. I could feel my mental resistance traits try to calm me down and bring me back to a normal mental state. I activated a few of my abilities that might help and went into my mind palace to help me feel normal again. My adrenaline was so high, and my heart was beating so fast that I didn¡¯t believe I was still conscious. I wonder what my blood pressure might currently be. That random thought actually helped me calm down a bit and I could finally see that I was regaining some resemblance of control. It took well past midnight before I exited my mind palace. I felt a lot better but still not back to where I used to be. Getting back to a normal mindset might take weeks, months or even years if I didn¡¯t have any traits or abilities to help. Currently, I think a few days should help me calm down completely. Let¡¯s hope that this never happens again but I dreaded what I had to do next. I need to continue and finish up levelling my adventurer class. It took me a long time to feel comfortable enough to think about opening my adventure class again. I went for a run and met Goose for a few moments before he went back to the wolves to scout for them. His contact helped me more, so I returned to my office and continued. chapter 210 Everything went as expected but after 10 level-ups I haven¡¯t found anything of use. The offered skills or abilities just didn''t excite me, so I kept taking the stat points every time I levelled. My training plan required me to just take energy storage stat points so now every point that I was gaining went into energy storage. For this level-up milestone from 20 to 40, I was able to get 12 energy storage stat points whenever I chose to take the stat points. I could have gotten a lot more start points overall but I chose to follow my training plan. At level 34 I finally had a decision to make. I was offered an ability called sensory link. If it did what I thought that it did it meant that I would be able to see through Goose''s eyes which will be incredibly useful. After a few minutes of thinking I decided to pick up the ability. The next choice came at level 38. The ability was called fractal vision. I had no idea what it could be but it had vision in its name, so I needed to have it. Two more level-ups and I was finally at the end of this milestone and was once again given a choice of skills or abilities from a huge list. I had already finished my three skill set of body, mind and soul. What came next, I had no idea. That meant I didn¡¯t have any plans and the huge list seemed intimidating. The list was huge but there was nothing I could find that interested me. Mana-based spells pages of them. Abilities that improved scale flexibility. All useless to me. What am I missing, what could make me better? After searching for almost an hour something finally caught my eye. It was a skill called contortion. This could be a game-changing skill that will not allow me to dominate instantly but it should allow me to gain abilities that will help me be a lot more flexible. This time I was not going to wait to level up my adventurer class, so I continued to level up past 40 and I was able to get my adventure class to level 45. I was able to put 24 stat points into every level up. No interesting skills or abilities were given so five level-ups all went into stat points. Once again, every stat point went into energy storage. I also added all my free points from my achievement into energy storage bringing me up to 972 close to three times more than I had just a few hours ago. This also took me way past another milestone giving me a new trait. When I saw what it was, I jumped from the floor and started to excitedly walk around. ¡°I fucking knew it. Whoever thought that putting so many points into energy storage was a stupid idea was a complete moron.¡± I wanted to continue screaming but I calmed myself down. The trait that I got was mana resistance. Now I don¡¯t know how effective it is but even a little bit more resistance against mana intrusion or any other mana spell must be powerful. Usually, any mana user close to my level should be able to completely destroy me but now that I had so much energy storage and my energy was resistant to mana it should mean that I will be able to fight and possibly win against mana users. My biggest weakness should now be lessened or even completely gone. I was so happy that I wanted to go and tell everyone but that wasn¡¯t a good idea. This being a secret was a lot more important. I had to test how resistant I was but for that, I can use the mana orb that the goblins gave me long ago. Tomorrow I will also need to notify everyone about the dungeon. I would have done it during last night¡¯s meeting but that was just an internal information meeting, and it wasn¡¯t meant for this kind of information. I was once again able to sleep thanks to everything that had happened and when I woke up, I felt incredible. With so many points in energy storage my energy recovery rate was also improved but the higher the stat points went the longer I needed to reach a full tank. There might be a need to do some research to see if there is an energy recovery stat or something like that. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. After eating breakfast, I went into the morning meeting and listened in until finally the time came when someone asked if anyone had something new to reveal. No one else spoke up so I cleared my throat. ¡°I have something to report.¡± Before I continued, I heard groans of dismay, and I took a moment to look at those people until they settled back down. ¡°As I was saying I have something to report.¡± ¡°I needed to go and level which took me past the goblin¡¯s lands into the swamp towards the northeast. The situation there was quite bad, which was lucky for me. The place was overrun by a new invasive species of fire salamanders. It was a plentiful hunting ground. Throughout my hunting trip, I ran across a beast type first rank breeder.¡± When I finished saying that there were gasps around the room and I could see a few people¡¯s hands start to shake. Before people started to make plans, I interrupted them. ¡°There¡¯s no need to panic I was able to kill the beast. While the situation is still quite bad the population should go down steadily, and we will also have a good hunting ground for the meanwhile. From the goblins a while back, I learned that there was a dungeon in the swamp and that was my end destination. When I finally made it there, I was glad that I reached it before it broke from overpopulation.¡± ¡°I was expecting it to be a dungeon of only a few floors, but it turned out it had 27 and a large portion of the floors were at first-rank challenges.¡± The moment I finished saying the first-rank assassin came out of the shadows and started to speak. ¡°I have some contacts that we can use to put together a proper first-rank team and quickly clear the dungeon before it breaks. The payment that they would require would be access to the dungeon to run it and I don¡¯t think it would be too bad of a deal.¡± When he finished saying that another person spoke up. ¡°Wait Rich do you mean that there were some first-rank opponents or that the encounters were first-rank? I don¡¯t know if you know this but there is a difference in classification. Dungeons that don''t qualify as first rank can still have some first rank opponents.¡± I quickly raised my hands. ¡°Woah woah woah I think you all misunderstood something.¡± ¡°I cleared the dungeon so that¡¯s not the problem. It won¡¯t break anytime soon so we have time and I can just go and clear it again if it is necessary. Yes, I know the difference between dungeon ranks and after a few floors it becomes a fully first-rank dungeon. The first floors are very easy but. Well, perhaps that might be my opinion we will need to check.¡± There was a moment of pause when all hell broke loose. People started to talk over one another, and a few people quickly ran to bring in more maps of the area so I could show them exactly where it was. When I mentioned the storyline in the dungeon and how I thought that it was almost finished, well things got even more hectic. I did warrant them about the last floor boss which took a bit of wind out of their sails. Quite quickly two different approaches started to form on what we should do next. The longer and harder plan to pull off was for us to expand our territory even more east and then build north through the forest making multiple smaller logging villages along the way until we reached the dungeon where another village would need to be built. Even with our population boom, it will take a while to reach the numbers needed, not to mention road building and forest clearing. The other plan was to use the goblins¡¯ lands to get a lot closer to the dungeon but that brought other problems. While the goblins were our trading partners having to rely on them for access to the dungeon was a bit difficult for a nation to accept. We would need to transport a lot of people and materials through their land which no ruler would like. The current discussion didn¡¯t progress much, and everyone agreed to continue brainstorming until next month¡¯s meeting with the goblins. I subtly tried to nudge some people to think that perhaps goblins being a part of our nation wouldn¡¯t be a bad idea, but I didn¡¯t hold up hope. Even if I could convince some of the council members and they somehow convinced others who was to say that the goblins would want this? Either way, I tried to stay away from the conversation as much as possible. there was no need for my input and they need to start making decisions without me that way in the future I can just stay at my farm enjoying life. When we broke for lunch, I didn¡¯t go back. I went into the jobs building to find out if anyone had accepted some of my job offers. As it turns out all of them had been accepted, which was quite a surprise. Although the person that accepted my potion-making jobs did leave a message that he might not be able to make all of them but that was okay at least someone was trying. The most important job and the one that I needed the most was the food-making job that had the proper nutrition for me. chapter 211 It took me a bit to find the cook who accepted my job offer at a food stall selling some sort of meat skewers and a few other food items. He looked quite well-built with a short beard but kind eyes. He spoke as soon he saw me. ¡°My name is Val it''s a pleasure to meet you in person Rich Dirt. Your job offer was quite interesting, and I could get the job done with my current equipment, but I would be in the village, and you would have to come to me every time you need your required food.¡± What followed was him explaining to me that he was previously a restaurant owner but had lost everything after having to escape from the war. He had his wife and two kids left which was quite rare, so I was glad that he at least had some luck even though it did seem that he had lost quite a few family members. He wanted to run an inn, but the village already had one and will probably have a few more as there were more innkeepers here that wanted to open their own establishments. He had learned that the dungeon on my land was being clear quite often and the building there was quite shabby for the amount of people who went there. To solve that problem and my food problem he wanted me to build an inn close to there that he would own so I would have a place close by to get food and the dungeon would have a better place for people to stay and eat. He would also get his own inn. I have to say that he had quite the set of balls on him to ask me this. The fact that he wanted to own the inn was quite bold, but I took a few moments to think about it while eating some of the food that he offered me for free. I would be building the inn, so I didn¡¯t just want to give him ownership, but otherwise, the idea was not bad. ¡°I will build you your inn but I want 40% of the profits.¡± After saying that it was his time to think. ¡°That is too much, there is only one dungeon there so it will not have too much traffic. The profits will be low leaving my family almost nothing. 15%,¡± he said. He made a good point but there wouldn¡¯t be only one dungeon there. ¡°I can¡¯t say exactly how I know this but there will be more traffic there than you think. There will be room for a lot of growth in the future. 30%,¡± I finish saying while looking at him a bit more intimidating. I didn¡¯t activate any of my abilities as profits were really not that important to me, it was more about principle. It took him longer to think about this and he excused himself for a few moments to speak with his wife. When he came back, he offered me his hand and I shook it. Well, now I was going to need to build an inn. I asked him about his requirements and what was needed. After I took my leave and headed towards my home. There are still three new apprentices I need to give my class to and three more apprentices that I need to check up on and see their progress. My run to George''s place was quite quick. When I made it there, I was quite impressed by how much of the foundation was built. To my surprise, his girlfriend was also there helping him out. He quickly filled me in on what he was doing and after looking over his work I had to praise him for the quality. The reason he was able to accomplish so much was because his girlfriend was helping him, and it seems that they were working quite well together. I spent a bit of time catching up and listening to a few of their stories before I continued onwards until I reached Emma¡¯s place. She was doing a bit worse as this was a job that required strength and stamina, but she was slowly getting the job done. I was able to give her a few pointers that''ll decrease her workload, but she will just have to grind through this stage of the build. After visiting her I had a choice to make but I had a bit of time today, so I headed towards Arthur¡¯s place. Thanks to his house being so small he was almost done with the foundation so he will soon start to bring lumber over to start building the rest of the house. He was a bit worried about the next stage of the build and was glad to see me. After answering some questions, he felt a lot better, so I left him and finally made it to my home. The place was in tip-top shape and that was thanks to the three people working here. Even now they were in the vegetable fields removing parasites. To show them some appreciation I entered my home and started to make dinner for them. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. They were so concentrated on their work that they didn¡¯t even notice that I had arrived, which is one thing that I will have to correct about them. This world is a dangerous place and being too absorbed in one thing can lead to your death. It seems that they were working a bit too hard and had forgotten it was dinner time. I had to call them to dinner, which frightened them for a moment. I gave them a small talking to to be more mindful of their surroundings but after that, they seemed to enjoy the dinner quite a lot. When they were finished, I began. ¡°You are doing a really wonderful job. I do have to apologize that I have been gone for so long but it''s time for you to officially become my apprentices. Let''s head outside so I can give you your future class.¡± I did the small ceremony and gave a simple speech, afterwards, they accepted my offer and I now had three new apprentices. The rest of the night I spent explaining things and answering questions. The more we spoke the more amazed they seemed, which was a bit amusing. After that, they all went to bed, and I went outside and started to exercise. My free time was over, so it was time to get back to my training schedule. My schedule was tight, and I barely had enough time to sleep but I didn¡¯t mind that much. Every moment of free time I had I helped my apprentices or helped my country. A week went by fast, and I just finished giving a lesson on energy control. After I headed to the market to pick up some more things made for me to prepare for tomorrow and the day after that. My plan on recruiting more apprentices was in full swing and tomorrow I will start with the interviews. There were 8 open spots out of 12 ready to be filled. Three of them were already at my farm and one was the promised spot to the person who was interested in the greenhouses. For the new people, I needed to build bunk beds. The three rooms in my house will have two bunk beds giving me 12-bed spots. I also needed to pick up a large supply of thread and needles as I needed to work with them for my training plan. I will need to spend quite a lot of time working with my fingers so I can keep them dexterous and strong. In the coming months, I will also have to do a lot of bow crafting to train my abilities and skills. The rest of the day and night I spent building the beds and towards the morning I was able to finish assembling and placing them. The bought bedding was good, and the bed frames looked smooth and strong. They were quite good beds, at least in my opinion. I spent a bit of time just admiring my work. The quiet moment made me contemplate. I was a bit hesitant about having so many apprentices, but it was going to be important. The faster we can get more people to become full homesteaders the faster we can give this class to other people. Still, it was going to be a lot of work and with my schedule, even my free time will now be taken up with instructing others. The interviews were quite tiresome, but I saw a lot of potential and honesty I had too many qualified applicants. In the end, I used the large gathering room in the village hall to do a drawing from a hat on who was going to be able to get the apprenticeship. This way it was random so I wouldn¡¯t have to think too much about the choices. We ended up with five men and four women. My new apprentices packed everything up and followed me back to my farm. The oldest was a 42-year-old man who used to be a labourer in a small town. The youngest was a 17-year-old girl who used to have a farming class. Even while walking I started to explain to them everything they needed to know. After making them all my apprentices in a small ceremony I continued to teach them especially about nature connection. I also finally got some feedback from my class informing me that I was getting close to my limit of how many apprentices I can support. This was still an incredible amount, as usual, other classes will have one or two maximum apprentices at the same time. With so much workforce I was able to start replenishing my diminished resources. The first thing that I started to teach them was logging. Teaching people who are eager to learn was one of the most satisfying things that I have come across but even more important they were gaining new skills and abilities at a decent speed. After a week I took some of my new apprentices to help my older apprentices build their houses. I did supervise them, but I let my old apprentices do the teaching as they also needed to practice teaching others. I usually spent my early mornings crafting bows or stitching house patches and heraldry. Until lunch, I usually instructed my apprentices or performed my duties. Towards the evening I concentrated on building or training, at night I was usually training or hunting. Like that time went by quickly and I gained a lot of skill levels, especially in bow-making. Towards the end of July, the forge¡¯s main structure was built but there was still a lot to do. I wanted to use the river so I could power the air supply, that way I wouldn¡¯t have to manually pump air into the coals which was a time-consuming activity. I also wanted to use the water wheel that I was going to make to help transport water closer to the vegetable fields so watering them wouldn¡¯t take so much time. Currently, almost 70% of the time needed to water the vegetables was just transporting the water from the river. chapter 212 To finish this smithy and water wheel combination build I still needed to do quite a lot of work. While the main building was done giving me almost 30 square meters of free floor space with a high ceiling and walls made out of stone, I still haven¡¯t started on the water wheel and its supporting structures. Beyond that, I will need to build a water delivery system, and everything needed for the blower. To start off simply I decided to start on the blower. I will only have a maximum of three days to finish everything so I didn¡¯t have too much time to think about this. One side of the smithy¡¯s wall that faces the river was open. It was just a small corner but there was enough room to build out the blower design I had in mind. I brought over all the wood necessary and started to cut it out and sand it smooth. While I used high-quality wood, I will also need to make the housing accessible so I can change the blades inside as they will not last forever. When I was finished with the blades and the housing foundation it kind of looked like a computer fan the size of a tractor wheel. It was laid on the side and the blades were designed so they would pull air from the outside and push it into the smithy through a smaller hole giving me enough air pressure to make smelting metals possible. The outside air intake was made of a metal grill so nothing can get hurt by the spinning blades. After that, I finished building out the housing and connecting the drive shaft. The drive shaft that will make it spin came out inside the smithy. Spinning the blades manually for a little while I was glad it worked. Next came assembling the gearbox. It was going to have three speeds so I could vary the air pressure. The design was going to be a simple one that will use different sizes of gears. The drive shaft that''s connected to the fan will have three different-sized gears so will the drive shaft connected to the power shaft. Between those gears will be another gear that I will be able to move up and down to adjust the speed or stop the movement entirely. All the metal pieces were either made by me or by one of my apprentices. With everything made, it was a simple process to finish assembling everything and after mounting it to the wall it was time for the next step. Currently, there was no point in continuing to build the power system as I didn¡¯t know exactly where the power shaft would be located as that would be connected directly to the water wheel. That meant it was time to start working on the water wheel. The water wheel needs to accomplish two things it needed to rotate, and it needed to deliver water to the top without spilling too much. The problem was that I needed the water to be quite high, so the water wheel needed to be two stories tall. Making the wheel was a lot of work as I needed to add a lot of supportive structure to keep the wheel structurally sound. Making the wheel took almost the entire day and a bit of the night. Now while the wheel was done moving it was another thing entirely. For now, I just let my apprentice keep sanding it while I started to work on its supportive structure. The closest supportive structure to the wheel were the huge logs that I drove deep into the river at specific angles so they would support each other and give a solid base for the water wheel. I needed to use a lot of steel connections as making joints was a bit too troublesome for this build. The water wheel was only about 1 and a half meters away from the shore and only about 1/5 off the wheel would be underwater. On the shore, I started to build the stone structure for added support and to help hold up the counterweight to the water wheel. The counterweight was a huge, rounded rock that looked like a milling stone. It weighed a bit more than the water wheel. If I had to guess, I would say both of them weighed two tons. To support that weight was a wooden shaft. I found a very specific tree that was skinny but incredibly strong and close to first-rank strength. After testing the shaft placement and finding that everything was aligned, I made a hole into the smithy wall the shaft will have to go through and started to build the temporary hoist that we need to lift everything up. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. It was time for the assembly. The river was making constant noise while the sun was burning our skin. It was a good combination for hard work. I was currently preparing the pulley system with a rope that I borrowed from the village that will easily be able to support the kind of weight that we were working with today. Around me were my apprentices who were ready to help and who knew what they needed to do. After double-checking everything it was time to start. The first thing I did was lift up the counterweight so the hole where the shaft would go through would be accessible. Then my apprentice picked up the shaft and pushed it through the centre of the counterweight until they reached the blue mark made on the shaft meaning that they made it to the correct placement. Next, they added stoppers to the shaft so the counterweight wouldn¡¯t be able to move up and down the shaft. While they were doing that, I was attaching the rope to the shaft in the correct position so we could lift it up while everything stayed balanced. I then went and lifted the water wheel. Four of my apprentices were on either side and helped hold it in place so it wouldn''t start to roll. Before I started to pull on the pulley system and lift the shaft the rest of my apprentices grabbed a hold of the shaft near the water wheel to act as a counterbalance to the counterweight. Like that, the shaft slowly started to lift as I quickly pulled the rope. Inch by inch it lifted and soon seven people were tangling on one end of the shaft to keep everything in balance. When I reached the correct height, everyone started to work on pushing and guiding the shaft through the water wheel. This took longer than expected as the water wheel was a bit out of position but in the end, we were able to get it through to the correct position and then secure it so it wouldn''t be able to fall off. Next, I lifted the entire assembly a bit more and my apprentice then started to rotate everything. Lowering the entire contraption into its housing was going to be a difficult job as we needed to do it precisely but fast. If we did it slowly the flowing water will start to rotate the water wheel which will quickly snap the rope that we use to hold everything up not to mention the possibility of the river just dragging everything away. I waited until my apprentices moved everything into the correct position then yelled, ¡°Clear,¡± and quickly lowered it down. When everyone heard my yell, they took a step back or put their hands behind their backs so none of their limbs would be crushed by the lowering. Everything almost went wrong when the water wheel started to be dragged by the river but the housing nearest to the water was just barely able to catch the shaft and while the entire structure groaned it fell correctly into the housing. ¡°Quickly applied the brakes,¡± I instructed. The two apprentices were ready near the braking system and quickly applied it to the shaft so the water wheel wouldn''t be able to turn. We all waited while the structure groaned but it seemed to be holding. After a few moments of everyone holding their breath, we all yelled out in triumph. I finished making the shaft holdings by connecting the upper pieces of steel so even when the water would be rising it wouldn¡¯t be able to lift the water wheel out of its intended location. To the steel housing that held the shaft in place, we also had quite a lot of lubricant, that way the shaft would be spinning easier and there would be less wear. After that, we did a test of the water wheel spinning and it worked beautifully. It was quite satisfying to watch it rotate. Currently, the water wheel was bringing up the water but depositing it back into the river as we still hadn¡¯t built the system to catch the water. While everyone else started to celebrate I had some choices to make as my architecture and engineering skills tiered up giving me new ability choices. Finally, they levelled up after so long. For the basic architecture tier up the choice was easy. There was a sight ability named construction sight. This was offered to me before, but I skipped it that time. This time I was not going to skip so I was one sight ability richer. For the engineering skill, the choice was more difficult. The two that deserved consideration were design mindscape and material composition. The mindscape ability sounded interesting and should let me work in my mind to test out if my crafting ideas will work. The material composition was incredibly useful to find out what you are working with. My choice would have been material composition but my ability material modification already gave me that capability and more, so design mindscape was the choice I made. chapter 213 I started to test my construction sight. At first, it was just easier to notice things that weren''t made by nature but continuing to play around with this sight, it also pointed out some mistakes that would have made the water wheel stronger and last longer, the same with the smithy building. It was a bit annoying that I could only now see these mistakes but there didn''t seem to be any crucial design flaws, so it didn''t matter too much. The design mindscape was a lot more interesting. Simply using it required only a small amount of energy. I could even design buildings and everything else that I could dream about. The problem was that it wouldn''t represent reality. If I wanted to design a huge tower using just blades of grass it would look like it could work but, it wouldn¡¯t. It was just a simple design tool that would change if I started to supply it with more energy. The more I supply the more complex the simulation will be. Things like gravity and wind were quite cheap to add but adding fire or perhaps explosive force would need a lot of core energy for every tiny simulation under extreme conditions. Using my material modification ability, I could also take a piece of wood and simulate it perfectly. With this simulation I could, for example, make a bow completely virtually but that seems to require stupid amounts of energy even for me and with my experience making bows in reality it was a lot easier to just work like I used to. This might be, however, quite useful if I get my hands on some extremely exotic materials so I could test what the real capabilities of those materials are. Unfortunately, my pause was over, and it was time to get back to work. With my apprentices, we built the water-catching system and then started to make the wooden aquaduct which was actually just a square wooden open pipe supported by wooden supports that took the water near the vegetable fields. Building the aquifer will take a while and free time I didn¡¯t have. Luckily, I didn¡¯t need to concentrate on this, it wasn¡¯t hard work and was good practice for my new apprentices. Inside the smithy, I worked to finish the power system that will make the blower work. I just needed to add a drive shaft and the gear system that will make the rotation motion off the water wheels shaft and transfer it to the gearbox shaft. After I was done, I tested out the blower and it worked excellently. With this, it would be so much faster to forge or smelt metals. For that reason, I also built quite a large smelter and a few other things needed for this smithy that would be permanent fixtures. When the iron oak sheds its leaves and acorns, I will also make an even larger anvil for my future needs. For the next week, I helped my old apprentices with their buildings. It was also an excellent chance to test my new abilities. I was able to fix some of the mistakes we were going to make before they happened. I was not a skilled architect, I just knew the basics, but with these abilities, it was easy enough to make the new building better. The one exception was George¡¯s building where we asked one of the professional architects to help solve one of the problems that we were having. Most of my time is still used to train and on occasion go out hunting. I didn¡¯t need to go on a big hunting trip as I had plenty of time to level up before my birthday. It was almost a month ago when the trait giant amongst men started to act up and I was already over an inch taller. Thanks to all the training my body was keeping up so there weren¡¯t any problems with my flexibility. My body felt so powerful and on occasions, I have accidentally broken cups, forks and even an axe handle that broke from my grip when I cycled my energy a bit too fast. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. For that reason, I¡¯ve also spent more time meditating so I would be able to keep up with my body¡¯s advancement with my mind. I was quite exhausted from it all but I knew that this was important, so I kept pushing. Fortunately, I knew that there was an end to this madness and that was on my next birthday. Arthur was almost finished with his building so tomorrow morning his friends and my apprentices are going to go there and celebrate. He only had a window cover to install and then he was done but currently, he was marking his territory with the border stones that he had worked on making for the past few days. I pushed tomorrow¡¯s plans to the back of my head as I needed to focus on the current meeting. This was quite an important one as the goblins were also in attendance. They had come here to buy some food but also offer a new deal to sell more copper, tin and tar for exchange of credits that they could use further down the line. This was quite good for everyone but currently, they were just discussing the prices while both sides tried to get the best deal. But that was about to end as we were getting close to an agreement. After that came a more important discussion. ¡°We are pleased about this trade deal, and we are happy about our continued relationship. Not long ago we received some important information that we want to act upon, but we would not only want your cooperation but to be partners and work together to claim this resource.¡± One of our diplomats said, which instantly put the goblins on guard. They were getting a lot better at diplomatic negotiations. What followed was the explanation of the dungeon found which the goblins already knew about but they didn¡¯t know about the extent of the dungeon and its importance. It was agreed that going through the goblin-controlled land was the best choice so now we were trying to convince them to agree to this idea. We didn''t have the delusion that they would accept instantly as this probably required every important member of United Freeholds and the Goblin council to meet. The reception to the idea, however, was quite good. They didn''t much like the idea of a road that they didn¡¯t control going through their lands but the fact that we were going to need to push into the swamp and quite far in meant that area was going to be a lot safer. I couldn¡¯t be certain but if I was the goblins, I would use this opportunity to expand along the road where it would be much safer as we would want to keep the road and its surroundings safe for our citizens. It was a complex problem and a long-term project but if both sides agreed it would be beneficial for us all. The goblins will also be able to dive into the dungeon meaning they would be able to supplement their falling population with stronger fighters which should be able to guarantee their safety and food supply. By the end of the meeting, everyone looked quite satisfied. I didn¡¯t waste my time and as soon as the meeting ended, I headed back as I had quite a lot of training to do so I could enjoy tomorrow. For some reason, my mentoring skill levelled up at the end of the meeting. For the last 30 minutes of running back, I have been trying to figure out why. There was no one there that was my student and the skill previously needed me to be teaching my apprentices to level up. Was it just a little xp from my apprentices that happened to come in during the meeting making this just a coincidence or was it something more? Did my comments about working more closely with the goblins be considered mentoring even to people who weren¡¯t directly my students? I might never know this, but this level-up was important as it tiered up the skill giving me a choice of abilities. The choice was a simple one and brought a smile to my face. It was another sight ability. Although this one had a weird name, needs sight. If it gives me knowledge of what plants or animals need it might be redundant, but I felt it was more than that and it felt powerful, so I didn¡¯t hesitate to pick it. It does seem to indicate what plants or animals currently need. Mostly water, but there seemed to be more, but I felt too weak to figure it out. That was a weird feeling and something I hadn¡¯t felt for a while now. chapter 214 The next morning was quite joyous as everyone prepared their own small gifts to take to Arthur. I made him a proper anvil for his gift and everyone else also made some other useful things that he currently didn¡¯t have. France helped bring everything as we also had quite a lot of alcohol. We now had older people who wanted to drink, and Arthur also wanted to celebrate with his friends that were already there when we reached his home. He had more friends than I expected but I was happy to see them living their own lives. After we were introduced to each other we started to cook and drink. About an hour in Arthur finally announced that he was ready to finish this. He placed the window cover into the correct position and expertly hammered in the few nails needed to secure it. When he was done, he turned around a bit puzzled as to why it hadn¡¯t worked but he found me behind him offering him my hand. ¡°You have done well and have learned to be a homesteader, congratulations.¡± After that, he took my hand, and we shook. His eyes went a bit out of focus and we all knew that he was reading notifications. What I wasn¡¯t expecting was to get my own notification. My first homesteader class levelled up three times. I guess that was an even better incentive to apprentice new homesteaders. Gaining levels every time your apprentice upgrades his class is powerful. Arthur proudly announced. ¡°I now have the homesteader class, and I actually own my own land.¡± There were a few tears that rolled down his face, but they were tears of happiness and everyone else cheered for him. The celebration continued. Eventually, I told everyone that I got a few levels thanks to Arthur becoming a full homesteader. Some of his friends already wanted him to take them as apprentices but they were just drunk talking at least for now. I of course didn¡¯t drink as I was too young, and I didn¡¯t want to mess up my body because of it. Later when my body was more mature, I would finally be able to drink without worrying about messing up my body or mind. Before Arthur got drunk, I also took him to the side and explained to him a bit more about his new abilities. He was a bit overwhelmed by his owner¡¯s land ability and the true nature connection trait. He will learn to access them better later. This was a good thing as full access to those powers can quickly break an unprepared mind. Our nation also gained some land today as almost half of Arthurs claimed land was outside our nation¡¯s borders. Now Arthur also had more responsibilities as he was a landowner but that can wait, he deserved a break, and we were currently celebrating. He has an appointment to meet the proper people next week where he will learn about his new status. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have the true gift that I wanted to give him but hopefully, it will not take too long before I find what I¡¯m looking for. The celebration went well into the night, and everyone was having a good time but eventually, it was time to get back to work, at least for me. Everyone else just slept behind bushes and on top of trees hoping that they wouldn¡¯t wake too soon so they wouldn¡¯t have to deal with their hangover for too long. The days kind of blur together but everyone was busy helping Emma finish her house and then we would all go and help George finish his. Emma¡¯s ceremony was like Arthur¡¯s, but she had fewer friends who she invited. When she upgraded her class, I once again gained 3 levels but there seem to be less experienced this time. The celebration was even wilder this time as she seems to have friends who are more experienced at partying. It was a fun time. George also announced that he would be marrying his girlfriend the same day that he will upgrade his class. Everyone was quite excited, and I was able to relax a bit. I was expecting there to be two more parties that I needed to attend but now there was only one and that meant that I might be able to relax a bit before the harvest starts. Around the village, a bit of harvesting was already happening as we had quite a good summer with lots of sunlight. The harvests were quite good, and we were going to gain a lot of food quite soon. With everyone''s combined efforts George was able to finish his house the week after Emma¡¯s celebration. The event planned here was on a different scale. The guest list was almost 70 people and there were proper tables and even entertainment planned. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. In the morning when fewer people were around George upgraded his class but after that more intimate celebration, more people started to show up for the wedding. Thanks to my energy sight I already knew that George¡¯s future wife was pregnant, but they had hoped to keep it the secret, but she was already starting to show and one of the guests who was a bit too drunk asked the question and soon after they had to announce the pregnancy as well. It was a bit funny to witness this and it kind of felt like a soap opera back on earth without the anger and crying. During the wedding, I was standing beside George as I was currently the closest family member that he had besides his brother who by tradition wasn''t allowed to be in my position. There was no priest for this wedding just the bride and groom giving vows to be together and support each other. It was interesting that there wasn''t the death to us apart part. Does this mean that they would have to be together even after death? Since they didn''t believe in the afterlife, I guess that it didn¡¯t matter. Otherwise, I was quite surprised at how similar it was to the wedding I knew. After it was done, I had to admit to myself that it was quite a beautiful ceremony. It felt a lot less formal and more intimate than what I¡¯m used to. For the wedding gift, I gave George four cows and two horses. It was quite troublesome to buy them off the refugees but with enough credits, I was able to purchase the cows. The horses were a lot easier, and I just had to pay a fixed amount to the government. The way George ran to them and adored them was quite funny. He just left his bride behind and when he finally looked back and saw the angry look on her face, he knew that he had messed up. Everyone laughed at that and after George apologized for a little bit, it seemed that he was forgiven, and the celebration continued. I was still a bit disappointed in myself that I hadn¡¯t found the time to go and hunt for the real gifts that I wanted to give them for acquiring their own land but hopefully, I will be able to track it down soon. Unfortunately, I still need to teach my former apprentices. They were able to manage their own homesteads, but the trait, true nature connection and the owner''s land ability were different animals altogether. At first, I just thought that they might take longer to figure things out, but Arthur still hasn¡¯t gotten even close to the basics. I really hope that I wouldn¡¯t have to take time to teach them this, but these were the core powers of any homesteader. I was glad that at least they had the meditation skills otherwise this would have taken even longer. I will need to add this to the report I will give David so he will know what supportive skills would be necessary for a homesteader. During the next two weeks, I spent every possible moment teaching my old apprentices. It was quite troublesome to teach as it came quite naturally to me, but slowly I was beginning to understand what the problem was. The visual mind that they had wasn''t as developed as mine. Mostly I think that was because of the entertainment back on earth that they simply don¡¯t have here. When I eventually figured that out teaching became easier, and they finally began to grasp what I was trying to teach them. I could finally leave them so they can figure the rest out for themselves. It was good to let a person figure out how to get through a door themselves but if they didn¡¯t even know what a door was how could they even start, but now that was fixed and I could finally start to deal with other problems that have come up. The biggest problem was deep into the grasslands near our southern border. A new type of insect monster was multiplying fast, and we needed to go down there to start dealing with it otherwise it might become a true problem. At least it wasn¡¯t ants but beetles, so the situation wasn''t holy fuck we are all going to die but instead it was shit this is going to take a while to clean up. The main problem was that the beetles seemed to be quite resistant to slashing and piercing damage but crushing seemed to be working quite well. They have been pushing other animals out of the area but the only ones that seemed to be thriving were bears and other bigger animals who were able to use crushing force to kill the multiplying beetles. Just two days ago I felt a first-rank beetle and more have shown up, but they also brought some good news. They had a bit of dungeon energy still in them meaning that the beetles were from a dungeon that had broken which was quite exciting. It meant that I might be able to procure the gifts that I wanted to give. Then there was the problem with the undead that had been gathered. Quite a few of them have been used to kill other beasts and monsters but the numbers seem to be getting larger and larger. Currently, the plan is to send them against a huge wolf pack but after that it was decided that the legion will get its hands dirty. That will happen after everything has been harvested but that won''t take that long. The harvest was another problem as I didn¡¯t want to push it back any longer which meant it was time to upgrade my farming level. With a smile on my face, I headed back home where I will make myself a blunt weapon to deal with the beetles and prepare my apprentices to start harvesting. chapter 215 I watched as a large piece of steel was heating up. This was going to be the head of my new two-handed mace. Looking around I saw a basically empty smithy as I hadn¡¯t had any time to work on making tables or anything else useful. Even my hammers and tongs didn¡¯t have any place and were just propped up against the forge. Currently, I was using the smaller forge meant to heat up medium or small pieces of metal for forging, but it was only the smaller forge because of the size of the other one. In the larger forge, I could make a lot of crucible steel and an even bigger anvil for myself and anyone else who wanted one. I should remember to put that offer into the job building so people will know that I could offer that service. Running the large forge requires a lot of charcoal but thankfully my apprentices were working on that. We had gathered a lot of branches and smaller pieces of wood with all the logging that they had been doing so we were going to get a lot of charcoal. The biggest problem with that was where to store it but building some side storage for a few buildings would be a nice project for my apprentices to learn more about construction. Forging a mace head was a learning experience as I wanted it to have some spikes, but I didn¡¯t want to add them later on, so I was currently using a square piece of steel to hammer in the straight rows of spikes. It was a delicate balance trying to keep the head round but still have the spikes that I wanted. The head was a cylindrical shape and now had spikes all over that were about half an inch in length. The head weighed about 12 kilos which was a lot but should work well for me. I could have made it weigh a lot more and still be able to fight with the abilities I have but it would have slowed the mace down too much in my opinion. Making the centre hole where the handle goes was laughably easy. I just had to use a steel rod and then hammer a hole using my considerable strength that was boosted by energy circulation. After fixing the shape of the head from making the hole I quenched it in oil and then went to work on the handle. The handle was made from first-rank wood that wasn''t too ridged so the vibrations wouldn''t be too bad when hitting. While working on both the handle and head I focused a lot on making the energy paths wide and strong so I could use a lot of energy with this weapon. When I was finished, I had an almost 2-meter two-handed mace that would be perfect for killing overgrown bugs. I also needed to make a few more scythes so everyone could participate in the harvest. There was also quite a lot of hay that we needed to make so after my apprentices were done with the charcoal, I started to explain to them what we were going to do tomorrow and the following week or more after that. They were all quite tired from the constant work, but I needed to get their endurance up as homesteading could be quite an exhausting lifestyle. I was starting to get to know my new apprentices a lot better and I knew who I needed to push and how. Some require a more gentle approach so they can achieve the best result while others require quite a firm hand. Tomorrow we finally start the harvest. We couldn''t harvest all the vegetables as some of them needed to stay in the ground and sprout the next summer so we could get seeds but only a few species require this. Most of the produce we packed up so we could take it to the village, but some also went to my old apprentices. In the village, there will be a group of people to break some of the vegetables for the seeds inside them and then give out the rest of the produce to the villagers. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. It was important to get as many seeds as possible this season so we could plant a lot more the following year. I will also collect all the seeds I can and give everything extra to the nation after I give some to my old apprentices so they can also get started with growing them the next year. For Arthur the amount of seeds I will give is low but he seemed to be enjoying his hunting. The amount of food we were gaining was way more than my storage could handle. A few weeks ago, I briefly thought that perhaps I should extend my storage but there was no need. It is already quite large for my needs, and I can just keep the rest in the village storage where I can sell what I won¡¯t need. The priority for me was collecting as many seeds as possible but not only that I also wanted to find interesting mutations. I quickly looked over as many seeds as possible to look for promising candidates for my evolution project. If I was doing this myself, it would of course take a lot longer and I would gain a lot more experience. But I will have hundreds of harvests in my future so there really wasn''t a need to hog all to experience to myself. I was interrupted for a moment when I felt Francis finally advancing to the first rank. He was currently near the village working on preparing the already harvested fields for next year. It seems that he barely notices the difference as he is so focused on his work. Frances wasn¡¯t the first to gain the first rank as two of my wolves already had and some of the knights who escorted the noble that I killed also achieved the first rank. Our power was rising quite steadily, and we were closing in on 2000 citizens. The legion has also grown but it was still quite small and hadn¡¯t reached the mobilization numbers we had. I had to stop thinking about other things as I almost missed an interesting seed with quite a unique mutation. It made it so the plant would have a bit more sugar in it, which had interesting implications. I added it to my curiosity seed pouch and focused back on my job so I can continue to find interesting mutations. Everything useful that could be gained from the harvest was collected, processed and stored or made ready for transport. There was a lot of straw from the grain fields, but the horse stables required quite a lot of it and other animals brought with the refugees needed a lot as well. I also collected enough so that George could use it for the few animals that he had. There was no need to make hay for George as that was one thing that he wasn¡¯t short on. It was quite fun to just work and not have to worry about training as this was the biggest break in my training plan so I could focus entirely on the harvest and that meant I was able to interact with my apprentices a lot more. The atmosphere was quite pleasant as we talked and joked when we happened to be close enough to each other while working. One of the 30-year-old men named Harvey was for some reason incredibly easy to talk to. We quite quickly became good friends. The constant work continued during the burning sun of the late summer. Harvesting with so many people was an experience I only had when I was really young even before school. It¡¯s something that is hard to describe but it¡¯s incredibly freeing, yet it brings people together in a unique way. George was the first to show up to help but Emma and Arthur also joined soon after. We all quickly agreed to help each other harvest in the coming year so the job would be completed faster and so we would have more fun. Towards the end of the harvest, I let Goose deliver a letter to the village explaining that they needed to start sending carts here to pick up the prepared items and take them back to the village. The next few days more and more carts started to show up and load up everything that was going back to the village. This all took multiple days, so we were also able to finish drying and storing the hay as well. That signified the end of the harvest and I looked at my achievement page to find a level-up for my homesteader class and fourteen level-ups for my advanced farming skill. Everyone else was able to tier up their basic farming, giving them a choice of abilities that I once again recorded so I could give the report to David. That evening we all enjoyed a relaxing sauna so we could finally feel clean again after all that work. chapter 216 The next day I woke up quite late as I wanted some more time to sleep. While others might think that the harvest we did was hard work for me it was quite pleasurable and more like a vacation. This vacation is now unfortunately over, and it was time to get back to hard work. I took a few minutes to wake up Goose by petting his feathers and after I fed him and myself, I sent him away for his own work while I got back to training. A few hours later I was able to finish today¡¯s strength training and before I went up to the village, I jumped into the river to get the sweat off my body. I have started running slower to the village as the road between my home and the village is not holding up well to the constant superpowered travel. It¡¯s unfortunate how much work needs to be done in the village, so we simply don''t have enough time to worry about roads. Hopefully next year we can start upgrading the roads but then again, the priority would probably be a road to the swamp dungeon instead of my home. There are now almost 20 apartment buildings finished and many more are being built. If we are lucky, we might be able to build them before winter comes. Storage space expansion has gone well, and we have enough space to store everything we need although the expansion is still ongoing so we could be prepared for the next season when we will be planting even more. The Thorn Rose Company sent us a message that they won¡¯t be able to get a caravan here because of all the war that¡¯s currently happening so we will not be able to sell our food, which is actually good news. They were still willing to open a portal here so we will be able to get some critical items. Of course, they weren''t willing to do this if I wasn¡¯t willing to sell them so many high-quality bows that I have made during the summer. If they only knew that the best bows I gave to the Vikings. I also made some specific strength longbows for the archery unit of the legion. We currently have 260 legionaries and only 40 of them were archers but this was just the start. Training has gone slowly as the legionaries spend a lot of time building. But thanks to that we have a rudimentary palisade around the planned town expansion. The current area under the control of the legion is just fenced off so people don''t come snooping around and so our training would not be visible to everyone. In the future, we will have tall stone walls around this place so we would have a proper fortress for defence. The plan is to eventually build quite a large fortress with an underground safe area for the citizens of the town that is going to be around it. There will also be an entrance to the underground food storage and plans are being made on how to block other entrances so we would have access to the entire town''s food storage during a siege. Now you can never make anything completely safe, but we believe we can delay anyone getting in for quite a while and even after that we will make sure that whoever wants to gain access will have an even worse time progressing towards the fortress. This is unfortunately also a long-term project but for the military, it is quite high on the list. I spent some time looking over the recruits who were training. They had made quite a lot of progress as they were now able to fight in formation, march 30 kilometres a day in formation and their overall fitness was quite high. There was still a lot of work to do but they were already a decent fighting force. Finally, I called over one regular legionary, one low-rank commander and one legionary archer. They ran to me and saluted me by putting their fists over their hearts. ¡°Follow me,¡± I ordered and then started to walk towards the temporary building we had set up where we could hold military meetings and run the day-to-day operations. I sat behind my chair and continued to look at them without saying anything. After about 15 minutes they finally started to squirm, but I continued to just look at them. I wasn¡¯t trying to be creepy but sometimes it¡¯s necessary. As I continued to look at them my energy was constantly being consumed by my training plan development ability. During the harvest when I had more time to think I had an idea. What if my training plan development ability could be used to gain a specific class? The three are here so I can try to make a regular legionary, leadership legionary, and Archer legionary class training plan. Now I didn¡¯t know if the current training plans being made can lead to a class or will just give me a training plan that will most fit with my image of those classes. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. In the end, I need to add a bit of my core energy, but the overall consumption was a lot less than with my own training plan. My ability didn¡¯t confirm anything, but the training plans were quite comprehensive and even had something things I hadn¡¯t thought about. Like teaching them tactics on how to defeat enemies that are a lot shorter than normal. I finally stopped looking at them as I started to go over the training plans in a bit more detail. The training plan wasn''t perfect, at least not for real battle. It was focused more on reaching certain skill goals. Some certain abilities seem to be quite important to get. Certain classes did need specific skills so currently I was inclined to believe that I had succeeded but I didn¡¯t want to sacrifice our military power in the hopes of gaining a certain class that I wasn¡¯t actually going to force on anyone. The three legionaries who were still standing in front of me were not happy when I once again started to stare at them. One of them wanted to ask a question but I moved my eyes instantly to his and gave him a menacing stare. A bit of sound came out of his open mouth, but he closed it quite quickly when he got over his shock. After about an hour I started to look over a new training plan that made me smile. This was more like it and with the other training plan I made I also knew what skills and abilities we need to focus on. ¡°You can leave now. Get back to whatever you were doing but send in your commanders and their aides. They promptly gave me a salute and quickly left. I waited until everyone was here. ¡°You are all here for two reasons. One, we are going to record down and start following a training plan that I have developed for our Legionnaires. When we start to develop more unit types, we will replicate this process.¡± ¡°The second thing we need to discuss is our fight against the undead army that is currently under our command. There are too many of them and our legion needs the practice.¡± There was silence after my proclamations but soon people started to ask questions. Of course, they were more concerned about the undead fight, so we started with that even though I was a bit disappointed that they didn¡¯t understand that I wanted to leave that for the end. The plan was actually quite straightforward. The legion was going to move out in five days and have three days on location to make preparations for the fight. We were going to use our archers and artillery and even allow for stationary fortifications and traps. When the undead see us, we would no longer be able to control them so it would be a real fighter meaning everyone needed to be on high alert. While the planning for the fight will continue tomorrow after the general plan was laid out, we started with the training of our legionaries. I do not know what they were thinking I was going to tell them, but I was certain that what I was telling them wasn¡¯t what they imagined. I could see how their eyes started to go wider when I started to talk about the second-year training in extreme detail but when I started to mention certain skills and abilities with the level targets, I wanted our legionnaires to meet they were quite shocked. When I told them why those targets were important a few of them stared at me with an open mouth. ¡°General Dirt, this is quite a lot to take in. I will not even start to mention the ridiculously detailed training but how would you even know that those skills are needed to gain a class? You said that you do not know the name of the class or classes. How can you be certain that they would have anything to do with our current army structure? I have never heard of any class that has a legionary name in it.¡± One of the higher commanders asked me. ¡°I will be honest I am not completely certain that there are any classes like that or that some of our soldiers will be offered those options, but I believe it is not a bad idea to try and even if it doesn''t work out, everything we have discussed will give our soldiers a better chance at surviving.¡± After I finished saying that everyone took a moment to think about it, but they all agreed. And so, another long night began as there was a lot to write down and discuss. Someone came up with a good idea that it might be beneficial to make these training plans into a book that we could later give out so the trainers and recruits could have a good resource to learn what they need to do to become the best legionary they can. The following few days went quite quickly as all legionaries stopped training. They started to pack up and prepare everything needed for the upcoming expedition. The undead army was already on the move after Goose delivered the letter detailing the route they needed to take. Not everyone was happy about this decision, especially the council members responsible for building as the legion provided a lot of manpower, but this fight needed to be fought before the winter began. I also spent almost half a day meditating on the weather to learn what kind of winter we were going to have. The news was mixed. It wasn''t going to be as harsh as last year, but it wasn''t going to be ordinary. The winter was going to arrive early, but it will also end a bit sooner than normal. chapter 217 I watched the assembled legion. Even now they looked quite impressive, but the numbers were still quite low. Most of the soldiers were in the regular legion unit with a spear and a shield. There were 40 archers and four ballistae operated by 20 soldiers. Currently, they were the only ones that had horses so they could take everything they needed with them. Everyone else was just bringing their own supplies. The reason the current operation was even possible with so few supplies was that we were only going to march about a day and a half away from the village and only be there for about 5 days. Currently, the legion could barely move to the borders. We didn¡¯t have significant staying power as we don¡¯t have the logistics up and running to supply even our current numbers for the long term. Everything will come with time, but logistics are incredibly important and I will have to take some time to make myself knowledgeable on this world¡¯s advantages when it comes to logistics. Just the expanded backpacks will change so much but with carriages that can bring months¡¯ worth of supplies for a huge army, everything is different. I can also see the disadvantages of those strategies as losing even a single carriage would be a devastating loss. This means that there need to be new strategies to deal with opponents¡¯ supplies. Castles and fortresses can probably keep going for decades without any problems if well-provisioned. The military history enjoyer inside me wants to learn more but I simply don¡¯t have access to this world''s detailed military history at least not for now. Hopefully, we will soon get the items we need to be a little bit more connected to the rest of the world and from there we can continue to expand that connection. Not everyone wants a deeper connection to the outside world, but they are blinded by fear. Of course, there is a good reason to fear the more powerful countries and organizations out there but putting your head in the sand solves nothing. Then there is the problem of our nation¡¯s citizens. The area that we currently live in is low ranking so everyone who wants to keep advancing will need to go and seek new challenges in more dangerous places. If we don''t have a connection to the outside world, then they will have to cut their connection to our nation which would be quite bad. I want everyone who ventures out to know that they have a safe home to come back to. I think the job building can be a good reason as we can always be giving out missions that would hopefully make them come back. It will be a difficult balance to keep as you don''t want to make them stay here where they wouldn''t be able to advance but you also don''t want them to never return. It would be best if they would use other places'' resources to level up and advance as we will have enough trouble trying to level up our soldiers with the current resources we have access to. While I came up with the mission to fight the undead, I am not the one in charge. The current command is in the hands of promising commander Helwid. He is a bit of an older man to be learning to command soldiers, but he has the talent for it at least with the current number of soldiers. Unfortunately, he will not be good enough to lead an entire legion. He was currently giving a speech before we march. It was a decent one for this mission at least. With his final words, he gave the command for everyone to start moving out. I stayed back a bit, so I wasn¡¯t so visible. I also tracked where Keldric Veilstrider the assassin was. Not knowing his name for so long I was kind of apprehensive about asking him, so I learned it from David. His job was to stay hidden and make sure none of the legionnaires died during this training exercise. While the chances were low, losing someone on a training mission is unacceptable. While everyone marched, I also spent quite a lot of time training as I still needed to keep up with my body¡¯s growth. If I wasn¡¯t doing this I could already tell that I would be a lot slower and less flexible. Thankfully it seems that I have succeeded and even improved my body''s overall capabilities. I have already needed to stop wearing the Gambeson and the Brigantine as they simply don¡¯t fit me anymore. It¡¯s an unfortunate situation but someone from the Vikings is happy as I donated my useless armour pieces to them. Not wearing armour kind of makes me feel naked especially when I¡¯m headed towards a fight, but I am still wearing my plate leg and arm guards. Otherwise, I¡¯m just wearing thick leather clothing. Its defence was mostly nonexistent but with my abilities it was passable. What I was glad about was that I finally found a good way to store my two-handed sword, so I don¡¯t have to carry it on my shoulder. For that, I need to thank my tattoo storage. Inside the storage, I also keep a short bow and some arrows. There are a lot of throwing knives as well so I can keep my options open in a fight. When we finally made it to our destination, I was glad to see how fast everyone started to work. Fresh water was brought over from a nearby stream, many started to prepare the campsite and others went out and started to chop down trees so they could start building defences. There were mistakes but they were still learning but eventually, they will be a well-oiled machine. Frankly, the biggest mistake I could see was that they were rushing too much which caused unnecessary mistakes. I quickly went to Commander Helwid and pointed out his mistake which he quickly fixed. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Within half a day a rudimentary wooden fort was built. It wouldn¡¯t hold up to proper assault, but it would defend against wandering animals. The four watchtowers would make sure that no enemy can approach without being noticed. Of course, there were scouts and patrols for further security. I continue to observe and write down some places where we could improve and some other remarks that were necessary to be passed on. The next two and a half days went by quickly as I continued to observe the legion as they prepared for the battle. They were going to face almost 700 undead but most of them were at a low level so they shouldn¡¯t pose too much of a problem. The prepared defences that the legion has set up will also help quite a lot. They have spent quite a lot of time digging trenches and pits to slow down the undead and kill some of them. There are a lot of wooden spikes all around the battlefield that will hopefully skewer some of them as well. The legion was in standard formation with six-row-deep battle lines. Behind them on a small hill were the archers and ballistae ready to rain down death upon their enemies. While this was training it was still going to be quite a difficult battle as I wasn¡¯t going to give my boosts to them. The reason being that I might not be around all the time, so they need to learn how to fight without that significant advantage. About an hour later scouts finally ran out of the forest giving the signal that the undead were coming. Only a few minutes later the first zombie ran out of the forest stop for a moment when it saw the number of living creatures then started to rush towards them. This one was quite fast as it was already halfway into the prepared traps when the other undead started to emerge from the forest. They all copied the first undead with eerie accuracy. Finally, the first zombie''s luck ended as it fell into a pit that had spikes in it ending its mad charge. Although it might still be alive as you need to kill the brain to make certain that it died. The undead were now running out of the forest like a flood and more and more of the traps were being triggered. Some of the trenches closer to the forest were already filled making them useless for further defense. The trapped field was quite large so only when a large portion of the undead reached the halfway mark did I hear the commands for the archers to start. I watched in slow motion as the arrows made their arched flights and started to land amongst the undead. A lot of arrows missed but with the angle they were landing a lot of the undead heads were hit killing them instantly. Many of them kept running even when they had arrows buried into their chests, but some also lost their footing from the impact of the arrows making them fall and be trampled by the other undead. Then loud thumps of the ballistae shooting their grape shots sounded out. They were effective but they would be a lot more effective if they were against living targets. Still, all the attacks and traps meant that the undead didn¡¯t hit as one mass against the shields of the legion making defence a lot easier. Spears continue to flash out from behind the shields killing undead in an efficient manner. As more and more undead reached the pressure built on the front lines but the shield wall didn''t buckle. The legion continued to hold their ground, but the undead were a bit different from humans. While humans knew that in battle it was better to keep a firm line and not just rush at mass to surround the enemy. Well, I am not saying that rushing in mass is a bad idea, it¡¯s not when you have a lot more numbers than your enemies. Meaning that you can surround while keeping a decent defence giving you the win quite fast. The undead were doing the same thing although I didn¡¯t think that there was any conscious decision. They were more like water following the path of least resistance. That meant that even with their low numbers they were starting to surround the legionnaires. This was something that we had practised but not for this specific situation. Just in case I prepared to act but I could hear commands being yielded out. Instantly the sides of the formations were strengthened, and the back line turned around just in case. The ballistae stopped firing as they had no clear targets left. Archers quickly change targets and started to shoot the undead that were at the sides of the formation. That made some of them focus on the archers, but they were quickly targeted and killed before they could rush the archers. Still, I wondered if the commander would do anything about that. I was pleasantly surprised when the ballista crew picked up their shields and spears and quickly formed a line in front of the archers while making sure that they were far enough away that they didn''t interfere with the line of sight. From the start of the battle about 15 minutes have passed but it took another hour for the legion to break formation and start to kill off the remaining undead and hunt down some that tried to run. Only a few stronger and smarter undead tried to do that and soon after the battle was finally over. Near the forest, I finally saw Khris, the person who sent the undead here and his party overlooking the battlefield. They slowly started to approach as they were also going to be a part of the after-action briefing. When the field was looked over the second time and it was confirmed that all undead were dead every soldier was given one hour of rest before the cleanup began. Every commander and leader, however, was in the command tent discussing the battle and how we could have done things better. It was a standard meeting as there weren¡¯t too many problems. As for Khris and his party, I gave them an order. Their duty was over for the year, so they won¡¯t have to go out to collect new undead for the rest of the year. This came as a surprise to them, but I quickly explained that it won''t be long before winter comes and we are already starting to pull our influence back as almost every operation was impossible during the winter. I didn¡¯t stay for the cleanup as I had another important mission. There was a need to go and check out the little problem of beetles we have at our southern border and investigate outside our lands a bit more. For that, I will need to bring my two-handed mace and hopefully, I will find enough first-rank opponents so I could level up a bit. chapter 218 I was running towards the beetle menace down south, but I was more focused on the sky where Goose was flying circles around me even while I was going at the top speed that the current terrain allowed me. Goose was like a living fighter jet especially now since he was first rank. The more his ability to control air improved the faster he started to improve his stats allowing him to rank up. The reason I couldn''t stop looking at him was because something was bugging me, and I couldn¡¯t put my finger on what was wrong. Eventually, I got so curious that I had to stop running and called Goose back to me. When he landed on my shoulder, I scratched him and started to inspect him. I didn¡¯t find anything wrong, but something was still off. I finally used my animal inspection ability hoping it could shed some light on the situation. What I found surprised me. Name: Goose Species: Stone Mountain Eagle Gender: male Age: 2 Health: excellent Diet: meat Evolutions: Gigantism, Air manipulation, Stronger feathers, Energy efficiency. When Goose first hatched all of his evolutions were locked but as he has been maturing they have been slowly unlocking and finally even his gigantism evolution has been unlocked. I was glad that I finally could figure out what was bothering me, he was growing again. ¡°Goose, good news, you have finally unlocked your last evolution. You will start to grow a lot bigger and soon you will not be able to perch on my shoulder.¡± For a moment Goose looked a bit saddened at that news. ¡°Don''t worry soon I will be the one who will be sitting on your shoulders.¡± I gave him a big smile which made him happy again. My moment of happiness was interrupted by my brain visualizing Goose supersized. The picture was pretty scary. A huge eagle-like bird that can control air and fly at ridiculous speeds. Yeah, that sounds like a scary opponent. I was lucky that Goose''s mother wasn¡¯t anywhere near first rank when it attacked me otherwise, I don¡¯t think I would be here. My worry over Goose extinguished we continued our run. I was able to now pay a lot less attention to my foot placement and that was thanks to one of the new traits my recent level-ups have given me. Wisdom made it past 160 stat points. The trait it gave me was a legendary pull. The name was 6th Sense, and it was incredibly powerful. The trouble-sense ability that I have is good, but it mostly only works when I¡¯m going to take serious damage or die. This trait works on even the smaller things like foot placement while I¡¯m running. It is a bit distracting getting a chill down my spine the next wrong move I was making. I¡¯m still getting used to it, but I must be careful, so it won¡¯t distract me at the crucial moment. It also seems to get overwhelmed giving me stronger feedback that could have been debilitating. Luckily my willpower seems to be strong enough that it doesn''t really affect me too badly. But it will still be a distraction. When it does get overwhelmed, it also doesn¡¯t work for quite some time. If I get too reliant on it and it stops working, I would be quite fucked. I tried to find a way to disable it but all I have been able to do is lessen its effect by a small margin. The traits that I have been getting all seem to have positive and negative aspects which I¡¯m not a fan of. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Recently I¡¯ve also gotten two more traits, but these are a lot more significant ones. My dexterity and vitality passed 1280 stat points. If I had to rank the traits, I would have to also put them in the legendary column. They were powerful but I didn''t like the vitality one that much. The vitality trait was called Vicious life. Why does it have such a weird name even though it¡¯s an organ from a creature? It¡¯s because this organ is the most important organ for the most hated sea creature in the shallow seas. Without this organ, it would just be another creature but with it, it''s a terror that no person wants to meet. It looks like a mix of a sea turtle and a snapping turtle. It can usually grow to the size of a Pitbull and it¡¯s incredibly ferocious to anyone it sees. No matter how small or big. They are immortal creatures as they don''t die from old age, but if you can do enough damage, you can still kill them but doing enough damage is difficult. Trying to break their shell is a stupid idea and even its weaker parts are incredibly tough to damage. The organ that¡¯s called vicious life is responsible for its immortality and incredible regeneration that can quickly repair even the most grievous wounds. Now at first, I was incredibly happy being immortal and having incredible regeneration sounded overpowered as hell, but that turtle has a very different biology to humans, so the organ does not work on me as it does on the turtle. Basically, what it does for me is keep me healthy and extend my life but to what extent I do not know, but whatever the case is I already have a feeling that it would be too long. Even my previous life expectancy of 300 to 400 years sounds a bit on the long side. At first, when I learned that vitality could help extend life, I was excited as 70 years for a normal human sounded a bit too short but getting it over 300 years starts to sound a different kind of unpleasant. Then of course there¡¯s the problem of me gaining more and more strength. That means that my life gets longer the stronger I get, and I have confirmed that there are people who focus on energy builds that live more than a 1000 years. That sounds more scary than exciting but before I started to think too deeply about this, I needed to talk to a person who is that old so I could understand what this means better. The dexterity, eidolon serpent muscles trait was a lot better for its usefulness, but it still had a drawback of expanding a lot of my stamina. It gave me extra muscles of a powerful serpent species. The muscles kind of looked like a flat rope that was stacked on my regular muscles. When I flex my biceps, you could see two parallel flat ropes underneath my skin. Those muscles didn¡¯t add any strength to my normal movements, but they did store up movement energy while I moved normally. When enough is stored, I can activate it and the last action that I made will be copied almost instantly. That means if I make a sword attack, I could make another attack right after that, that would be a bit stronger than the original. This would however strain my normal muscles depleting my stamina, but I think with enough training I could mitigate those problems. But no way in hell was I going to add that training to the current training I was doing. I already didn¡¯t have enough time and I didn¡¯t want to burn up the few free moments I have with more training. My skill and ability levels have also gone up but not by a lot. The more important thing is that my strength stat is well past the 1500 mark and my dexterity is really close to that mark. Vitality needs a bit more time until it gets to 1500 but when it does, I will be able to gain access to the second-rank energy. For that, I will need to reach the level 20 milestone in my classes. There might be a chance that I don¡¯t need to reach that milestone with all my classes as I don¡¯t know what rewards I will get when I reach the level 20 milestone. After a few hours of thinking about my achievement page and running towards the southern border of the grasslands, I finally spotted a purple brownish large dog-sized beetle. This was a low-rank one, but I still stopped and looked over my two-handed mace. The sheer deadliness of the weapon made me smile and I started to approach the beetle who quickly noticed me and took a defensive stand. Before I could close in Goose swooped down and bisected the beetle with his air blade attack. That sight made me stop and my brain couldn¡¯t think how to respond. When I got amusement from our bond, I understood that Goose did that on purpose to annoy me. ¡°You think you are hot stuff now that you are at first rank. Well, let¡¯s see about that little bird.¡± I yelled at him while trying to stop grinding my teeth. The amusement from our bond didn''t stop and after a moment I chuckled a bit. chapter 219 Goose was still trying to mess with me, but I focused on the corpse of the beetle. I was impressed that Goose was able to bisect it when I noticed how thick the armour plating was. A small test with my mace and I was happy to see that it cracked the armour meaning if I did a proper swing, I should be able to kill it easily. Looking at the piece of broken chiton an idea came to me. I haven¡¯t had an opportunity to strengthen my body with creature¡¯s parts as none of the creatures I have killed have been significantly stronger than my current upgrades. Thanks to those upgrades and the traits that I have gotten I was able to survive the slave King¡¯s attacks without getting my bones broken. But one of my recent traits was subdermal armour. While it mainly used my bones it was a bit different. I held one of the chiton pieces in my hand and concentrated on it trying to see if I could use it to upgrade my subdermal armour pieces. After about 10 minutes I was able to confirm that yes, I could use chiton to upgrade them. That was an incredibly pleasant surprise, but I wasn¡¯t going to use this beetles armour. I was hoping for an evolved beetle or even a monster that will be out there waiting for me. I looked out beyond the borders of the nation trying to asses my next moves. While the weather was still warm you could already tell that it was starting to get colder. It was already raining a bit but with the light blue clouds above it wasn''t going to turn into heavy rain. It was time to hunt but I didn¡¯t want Goose to start messing with me again, so I sent him an idea of a competition to see who kills the most beetles. I got back a surprised feeling, but it soon morphed into eagerness. I wanted to give a signal to him so we could start but Goose was the one who signalled the start and immediately zoomed off. A big smile came to my face as I squeezed my two-handed mace with my hands and then rushed to the cluster of beetles that I saw in the distance. Before I reached them Goose had already counted to three. While he couldn''t count reliably above 10, he didn¡¯t need to as I kept track of his kills. The group of four beetles noticed my approach and started to rush towards me. These were weak opponents and for my first strike, I struck wide so I could kill three of them at once. I possibly put a bit too much strength into this swing as the first one exploded and the other two weren¡¯t better off. The last beetle tried to stop but the grass was a bit too slippery because of the rain and it slipped directly in front of me where I could easily finish it off which an overhead swing. For a brief moment I was ahead of Goose, but he quickly overtook me once again. Using my energy sight, I could quickly find where the rest of the beetles were. Most of them were trying to dig out rabbits who were hiding in their burrows so hunting them was quite simple for the beetles that were decent at digging. It seems that over the past month, they have become quite comfortable here as there weren¡¯t many predators who could challenge them. Goose and I were going to change that belief as we continue to kill them. A few miles outside the nation¡¯s borders I finally understood why there were so many beetles around here. There were mounds of dirt protected by groups of beetles. Inside that dirt mound were one or two females who laid eggs that matured quite fast. The further south we went the more of those mounds we found and destroyed. My count was at 285 when I finally met a first-rank beetle. Goose had 304 but he seems to be running out of steam while I could keep going for a few days at this pace. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. The few things that I have learned about the beetle¡¯s behavior is that when they¡¯re alone they take a defensive posture but if there''s more of them than me they always rush and attack me. This first rank beetle who was alone however rushed me immediately when it noticed me. That meant the beetles could detect the strength of their enemy and make informed decisions. That makes them smarter than I first realized meaning I should take this a bit more seriously just in case. The beetles have a large mandible and their legs have hooks on them making time quite dangerous. At least it seems like they don''t have any wings but because of that their back armour is quite strong. Still, with my mace, I should be able to do a lot of damage. They can be quite fast but as demonstrated here a simple sidestep is effective for evasion as they can''t maneuver well when they are moving fast. It tried to stop so it could turn around but once again the grass was quite slippery and I was able to catch it before it got control. With a big overhead swing powered by energy, I broke its carapace burrowing the mace deep. It died quite soon afterwards. Looking over the first rank beetle it seemed to be larger, faster and generally stronger than its weaker counterparts. Its armour was also thicker, and I don¡¯t think that without using my core energy I could cut through it with my two-handed sword. Bringing a blunt weapon was indeed a good idea. I called Goose back and gave him the win. First-rank opponents are starting to show up and a beetle with an evolution or a monster might actually be a threat to us especially to Goose if one of them could fly. While I don¡¯t think that they would be able to catch Goose they could certainly surprise him. He was incredibly proud of his victory, and I hunted him a rabbit for his prize. There were fewer first-rank opponents than I was expecting so the next few hours went by without any surprises, but I was once again slowly gaining experience for another level up. It was at this point that something else happened. Back home it seems that the dungeon on my land had finally gathered enough energy and experience to complete another floor. The feeling through my ability was quite weird as the dungeon was claiming land that was mine and I felt like if I was close enough, I would have the strength to stop its expansion. Stopping expansion would probably mean that the dungeon would break and would have to be killed to stop the monsters from constantly escaping. It was a good thing that I didn¡¯t mind the dungeon expanding. I quickly pulled back my awareness so it would have an easy time finishing its fourth floor. It will take a few days to finish it, but I don¡¯t expect it to have any first-rank opponents. That will probably happen after the 5th floor, but I guess I will see when I delve into it. Finding a dungeon is not an easy task if you don¡¯t have expensive artefacts or the proper abilities. So, while I was reducing the number of beetles, I was also trying to find the dungeon entrance. My first plan was to just find the heaviest concentration of beetles and continue until I found the dungeon, but this didn''t work. The beetles didn¡¯t hold territory continuously and some places had more dirt mounds than others, so the density of opponents didn¡¯t mean that I was going in the correct direction. I was lucky that I had the mini-map otherwise it was hard to keep sense of the surroundings. Landmarks in the grasslands were sparse and sometimes even with my vision all you could see around you was an endless moving sea of grass. I suspect that many people who travel here have never returned, especially because of cloudy days like we have today. Finally, I had to go into a grid-searching pattern. Over the next day, I continue to search a large land area without any success. Goose had long left me and I was getting a bit tired of easy opponents and not finding my target. None of the first-rank beetles had any evolutions and none were monsters. I guess it¡¯s just too early for them to have lived long enough for any to develop. I wanted to travel even further south where there seem to be stronger beetles, but my current hunting time was over. I need that to get back to do some specific training and help George finish the inn that I hired him to help me build. chapter 220 I ran straight back to my home and the first thing I noticed was the half-built inn that was just at the border of my land. Just 100 meters behind it was the dungeon entrance where there seemed to be quite a dispute. Everyone was quite worried about the dungeon entrance being closed and when they finally noticed me approaching, they all swarmed towards me trying to explain over each other. There was a group of legionnaires and a few adventuring parties and five of my own apprentices. While they already believed that the dungeon was adding another floor none of them were completely certain about it. When I explained to them what was going on with complete confidence they finally started to calm down. Everyone went back to the village except for my apprentices who went back to grinding their skill levels. I have been teaching them different skills that they can gain and then letting them train their skills past the basic tier at which point they can choose if they wanted to continue grinding the skill or not. It took me a while to understand this but having access to all these skills is not necessarily a good thing. You need to be careful that you don''t put too much time into skills that you are not interested in but getting past the basic tier has a relatively low time investment and has a great reward of gaining you an ability. The first thing I properly taught my apprentice was the intent of what you want while tiering up skills. Even when the skill might not be something you''re interested in, the intent can help you get things that you are interested in. Since ability choice can be influenced to some degree it is important to keep your mind focused. With this, a few of my apprentices have gained important abilities that have helped a lot with the things they want to do in the future. The big problem with this is if you don''t know what you want to do in the future. For my apprentice who didn¡¯t know what they wanted to do, I first let them test out different kinds of tasks. If that also didn''t work sometimes it just might be a good idea to let fate take over and perhaps you will get an amazing ability that you can use to build something around it. That happened to one of my younger apprentices. She didn¡¯t know what she wanted to do so she just continued to grind the basic skills. One of the first skills she advanced was fishing only because she liked the taste of fish. The ability she got was to make bait taste better and spread further. That made fishing quite easy but also catching land animals with bait. Now she''s quite focused on fishing and trapping and seems to be enjoying herself immensely. It''s sometimes hard to make her focus on other skills and working on the homestead but it seems like she still wants to make her own homestead just somewhere where she can fish a lot. After that trail of thought, I focused back on the inn. The first, second and third floors were built but now there was a need to add supports for the roof but they were quite heavy. With my help, the work went a lot faster. With the help of George and a few of my apprentices, we were making quick progress. It was a fun time working with them, but the fun was constantly interrupted by me having to train. Like this, three days went by fast and we finished building the main structure of the inn. All that was left was some smaller work and making furniture. Stolen story; please report. I left that work to George and my apprentices while I went to delve into the now-open dungeon. The first three floors were still the same but the 4th one was a lot bigger and to my surprise the strongest enemies turned out to be foxes and not wolves as I expected. They were faster but also had some control over fire. I didn¡¯t rush through the floor. I slowed my energy circulation as much as possible and didn¡¯t use a lot of strength with my abilities so I could test out how the fox fights. With that knowledge, I will make a comprehensive guide for anyone who wants to delve into this floor. There were no first-rank opponents in the dungeon and even the final boss was still at silver rank. The final boss for the floor was two twin fire foxes. While individually they weren¡¯t much stronger than the other fire foxes on the floor, they had a bit more speed, but their coordination was scarily good. They also seem to be quite clever so fancy tactics will probably backfire on anyone who tried them. For this final fight, I think it would be a good idea to just be straightforward and try to press both of the foxes in different directions so they couldn''t combine their fire manipulation. Before I left the dungeon, I spent some time releasing a portion of my energy into the dungeon so I could thank it for its excellent new floor. While most of the furniture was not ready a few tables were. I decided to sit down and write down everything important so the information could be given to anyone who wanted to delve. It was still a bit difficult writing in a foreign language but that was mostly because I didn¡¯t have a lot of practice. My memory was now good enough that learning a new language would be quite easy. While you can get by with just common not every place in this world uses this language. After that, it was time to do some exciting work. Months ago, I found an interesting tree. I expect because of a large storm it had partially fallen over on top of a large rock. Not only that but two different trees had fallen onto that partially fallen tree and over the course of many years a natural almost 90-degree bend formed near the base of the tree. If I had to guess the tree was about 70 years old and it had struggled to every moment of its life the only reason it continued to grow was the few evolutions it had. Eventually, it grew too large and pulled out all of its roots. So now I had a large tree with an almost 90 degrees bend that would make a beautiful bar counter. It was now ready thanks to my ability to accelerate its drying. From it, I could get a countertop that was a bit over 60 centimetres wide. The straight part was almost 6 meters long while after the bend it would be another 2 meters. Now that is already an amazing bar counter but if I were to cut it straight in half and then merge them at the ends, I could get a 12-meter bar counter that would have a bend at both ends with another two meters of bar counter. Now that sounds like an amazing addition to the inn. The main room of the inn is just large enough so it would fit beautifully. After a little bit more planning I proceeded with this idea. To get the perfect cut straight down the middle I propped the log up while securing the sides further so that it couldn¡¯t move. I went and got my two-handed sword and started to imbue it with a lot of energy. I grabbed ahold of this energy with my abilities and started to change what the energy did. I extended the blade and made it razor-sharp. Then with just one swing, I cut the entire log in half leaving me with two almost perfect surfaces that only needed a little bit more work to make them perfect. The rest of the build was also quite fun. Making and installing the supports to hold the countertop at the proper height took a while as they need to be sturdy and hold a lot of weight. Then I added wooden skirts to hide the support so it would look better and more like the bar counters I am used to. With the height of the bar, I will also need to make bar chairs but that is not urgent. Next, I added the lower part of the bar counter where the barman can work. I made it basic but that also meant that Val could change it to his specifications if he wanted. I was incredibly happy with how it turned out. While there were still a lot of things that needed to be made for the inn, I think it¡¯s about time I went back to the village and informed Val that his inn will soon be finished and that he can already come and move in with his family. chapter 221 The next morning after I finished some chores around the farm, I started my run towards the village. Val should already be at the market when I finish my non-ability run so finding him shouldn¡¯t be a problem. It was a sunny morning kind of reminding me of the hot summer we had. It will take about another month and a half before all their leaves start to fall, I will need to go to the iron oak so I can collect this year¡¯s harvest of leaves and acorns. When I got to the village something felt off. There was less movement than normal, and people were huddled in groups talking about something. Further into the village, there were even more people like that. It seems something serious has happened. ¡°Do you know who it was?¡± I heard a person ask in one of the groups I walked by. ¡°No probably some young bad apple who recently arrived.¡± Someone else answered. Even the entire market was not functioning as everyone was just talking and no one was buying or selling anything. Deciding that I could speak with Val later I moved further in towards the village hall. ¡°I heard that he was caught when he was returning the gold necklace. So, he was probably just training his skill.¡± I heard someone speak, but someone quickly answered him. ¡°Stupid excuse, we shouldn''t have those kinds of people here. It would be best if they sent him away or even killed him for his crimes.¡± I then heard a spitting noise probably from the person who spoke last. So, we finally got our first crime if you don''t count bar fights. I am quite surprised it took so long but perhaps this was the first time they were caught. It¡¯s interesting that he was returning the necklace when he got caught. If he was just training his skills, then perhaps this case is a bit more complicated. I picked up my pace a bit and quickly reached the village hall where I got some more information from a legionary. ¡°Yes general, the thief is currently inside and the council members who are in the village have been invited to give judgement on the young man.¡± Answered the legionary. I gave him a nod and quickly went inside. The court case was being held in one of the bigger rooms and when I approached, I heard a discussion. ¡°How long should we wait I think everyone who is in the village is already here.¡± - ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we also try to get Rich here? If he¡¯s in his homestead, he should be able to get here fast.¡± ¨C ¡°Who knows where he could be? He was reported to be in his homestead, but he could currently be halfway across our nation hunting some monsters.¡± ¨C ¡°You are correct we will try to message Rich but if he''s too far away we will start this immediately.¡± Answer David, the only voice that I could recognize. When I stepped through the doorway silence filled the room. I looked towards the young boy who was around 15 years old. The moment his eyes landed on me he tried to move away but from his kneeling position it was hard to do so, especially because he was wearing manacles that were connected to a ring mounted onto the floor. For a moment I paused. When did they add that to the floor? My momentary pause made the young boys shiver even more and I could see the sweat running down his neck. He was wearing decent clothes but everyone in the village was. A chair was brought for me, and I sat on it. I was now facing the boy along with every other council member and a few others who were probably appointed to take care of lawbreakers. One of those people finally called for order and started the proceedings. Stolen novel; please report. ¡°We are all gathered here to verify the claims of thievery against this man. Late last night the legion guards were informed that a gold necklace went missing from apartment building 5 apartment 7C. Three night guard legionaries went to investigate and during their investigation a window was opened and the thief proceeded to climb in. The necklace was on his person, and he was caught by the legionnaires before he could escape.¡± He then looked at the young boy and spoke. ¡°Please state your name and anything else you want in your defence.¡± It took a little while until the young boy was able to gather himself and start to speak. ¡°My name is Benjamin, but my friends call me Benji. I was back in the apartment because I was returning the gold necklace I stole, but I was never going to keep it. I just did it so I could level up my skill. I would never steal anything for real, not from here. This place has treated me better than any other. I just wanted to level my skill and that is the truth.¡± His voice broke at the end and he started to cry. ¡°If he was returning the necklace then can we actually charge him with a crime.¡± One of the council members asked and that started the discussion. I stayed quiet as I didn¡¯t know what to think of this. Advancing your skills is important but how long until he decides to keep something? After about half an hour there were two different sides that were currently arguing. ¡°There is no need for harsh punishment we can give him community service or perhaps place him into the legion. In the end, he seems to only have tried to level up his skill level which is perfectly understandable to us all.¡± One of the council members once again argued the same thing they have had for the past 10 minutes and as I suspected he was opposed by the other side who had been keeping their opinion firm for the past 10 minutes. ¡°This is just a start we should banish or kill him. That has always been the punishment for thievery and no matter if he returned the necklace, it¡¯s still thievery. Eventually, he will get good enough that none of us can catch him. We need to be harsh about this otherwise we will soon have an underground of thieves and assassins and we will never be able to get rid of them.¡± This time the council members¡¯ argument had a small difference which the others didn¡¯t catch but I did. He probably didn''t do it consciously but the line, eventually he will get good enough that none of us can catch him. There was more meaning behind that sentence than at first glance. If he could get that good that means others probably already have. Most of the council members don''t yet accept this fact but we will be connected to the outside world and there will be a lot of noncitizens in our towns simply because of our trade plans for the future. That means eventually thieves will get into our towns and as demonstrated by my ability that indicates people''s intent with a coloured dot it only truly works when they are planning to kill. It will not show thieves not to mention there are probably hundreds of ways to fool the ability. I let them argue while I looked at the young boy and started to flesh out the idea I have. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have a lot more time to truly think this idea through, but I think it will be important in the future. The current plan was to cut one of the hands off the young boy and then make him do five years of community service which was seemingly quite lenient. I mean there¡¯s a reason why there are almost no prisons in this whole world. People are usually killed or sent away when they do something against the law. That also made me wonder why there are even thieves if simply stealing can get you killed. I guess that death is not that special especially now after the plague. ¡°Stop I have a few questions for the accused,¡± I spoke before the judgement was passed. Everyone turned to me, and I was invited to ask what I wanted. chapter 222 The young boy was scared he didn''t want to lose a hand and my interruption stopped the judgement, giving him hope. ¡°Benji was it, I¡¯m guessing you have stolen from a young age even before you got the achievement page.¡± The boy quickly nodded, and I continued. ¡°On a busy street, you want to cut someone''s coin pouch. When a perfect mark comes by, I would expect many thieves to go after him. How do you know when to stay away from a stronger thief who wants the same prize as you?¡± My question got eyebrow raises from the council members. Benji took a few moments to figure out why I was asking this. He didn¡¯t seem to figure out why I was asking this, but he still answered. ¡°We will never work alone on a street. But it¡¯s quite easy to spot other thieves. If you did not notice yourself then the lookouts would warn us if someone strong was around that was also looking for a mark.¡± I nodded to that, and I didn¡¯t let the questioning looks stop me from continuing ¡°So Benji I am guessing there¡¯s already a few more of you who are doing the same thing as you. Have you already formed some sort of an organization or are you all just a loose group who share experiences?¡± I asked. My question made Benji white. The others instantly looked at Benji and they had fury in their eyes. But I didn¡¯t let them start and continued to ask my questions. ¡°If I were to give you permission that you could steal from my house, would you be able to gain any experience from that?¡± This question went in a completely different direction and short-circuited everyone here. Some of the council members recovered fast but Benji was starting to get used to this and his life was on the line so he answered before anyone could interrupt. ¡°No, it wouldn''t be stealing then. I would probably still get sneaking experience but no I will not be able to gain any thieving skill or class experience.¡± There was a moment of pause before one of the council members hit the table in front of us with force and yelled in anger. ¡°You fucker, I thought that you only had the skill not an actual class. Tell me who the other members are, and we will banish you instead of killing you.¡± Benji was incredibly frightened, and I could see that he was about to tell but I held up my hand. ¡°Stop, we will eventually want to know all your friends Benji, but that time has not come yet.¡± The council members looked at me like I had gone crazy, so I started to explain my thinking. ¡°When our nation grows there is no way to stop underground organizations. We could do a lot of work and spend a lot of resources to stop the spread and make them as small as possible but to eliminate them is impossible. Then there is the problem of other thieves from around the world and other criminals that could come here. I learned long ago that the best way to stop a thief is to have a better thief.¡± ¡°I think we will need to make some new laws and have unofficial official underground organizations. There should be laws that will protect normal citizens and the members of those organizations so they can level their skills and classes without causing any damage. With those organizations, we would be able to protect ourselves from other similar organizations and people.¡± My explanation silenced the room and while no one was happy about my words they at least thought about it. The discussion continued for many hours and eventually, Benji was released from his shackles and given a chair. Everyone tentatively agreed to my idea, but it will take long hours and most likely months before we finalize anything. After the lunch break, I didn¡¯t return as they didn¡¯t need me anymore, at least for now. I still wasn¡¯t 100% certain about this plan but it might be necessary for the future. It was finally time to inform Val about his inn. However, before I was able to approach the market Mirhit found and stopped me. ¡°Rich do you perhaps have some free time to come to my office I need to ask you some important questions.¡± He asked hesitantly but he had enough confidence that it made me smile. I looked at him and I was glad at my decisions as he seems to be getting stronger every day and the information we were getting has been incredibly useful not only for keeping track of other nearby forces but also monsters who were beyond our borders. Val could wait a little bit longer, so I nodded to Mirhit and followed him as he quickly led me back to the village hall and then up to his office. He seemed to be a bit scatterbrained, and I wondered what was going on. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. When I entered his office, I saw many books covering every open surface that he had and even more on newly built bookshelves. There were also many papers near half-open books. He seems to be working hard and learning everything he needs. ¡°Doing a bit of light reading are we?¡± I asked him. He stopped searching for papers that he was going to show me and gave me a genuine smile. ¡°There is a lot to learn about being a spy. With my abilities, I can hear everything and sneak into places that people think are safe but that doesn¡¯t matter if I don¡¯t know if the information being spoken is important or not. That¡¯s why you are here because I don¡¯t understand what one of our enemies is doing. I just can¡¯t understand their actions. Perhaps you can enlighten me.¡± He explained and I nodded so he continued. ¡°There are a lot of wars going on around and in the former lands of the slave kings. As I¡¯ve learned basically everyone to the south is willing to come up here and conquer us if they had their armies free but currently none of them are. The only notable difference is the two former party members of the slave king. I have constantly heard them wanting to come here and kill you and everyone else here but even they are constantly fighting to keep what they currently have or at least that¡¯s what I thought.¡± ¡°They have been under heavy attack, but they have enough trained soldiers to keep the two towns and the few villages that they control. But lately, they have been forcing their own villagers into the army and killing anyone who doesn''t comply or is too weak then they burn the villages afterwards.¡± He took a moment to drink a glass of water before continuing. ¡°They have been training the new soldiers, but they should already have enough to counterattack but they just keep building up forces and resources. But with the numbers they have, they won¡¯t have the food to last past the winter.¡± He showed me some of the papers where he had written down conversations and numbers. I started to think. It was indeed weird behaviour. ¡°I need to think about this more, but can you give me more information about them while I think about this.¡± He gave me a quick nod and started to search for more papers and then he started to read what was written there. They shouldn''t be able to break or conquer any other territory of the slave king even with more soldiers. The other towns and cities are just too well guarded, and they wouldn¡¯t need so many to start raiding their villages for food. The only thing that makes sense is that they will abandon their current position and burn everything down so no one else could have it and then go somewhere. Of course, my first thought was us but that also didn''t make any sense. They would need to start marching basically within a week if they wanted to make it here before the snow comes but even then, the cold weather will claim many lives. Perhaps that is their idea. Revenge can make people do stupid things. Mirhit kept reading me the information he had. That also made me understand why they were doing this. The only person that was still keeping their forces together was the mage of the party. She was a first-rank powerhouse. Without her, they would have been killed long ago but no one was willing to risk losing high-rank fighters to claim so little. I was quite certain that she was going to come here and if the numbers were correct and she continued to do what she has they will have a little less than 1000 well-trained soldiers and 3000-4000 new soldiers. Those numbers would have been worrying if not for the fact that they only had two first-rank fighters. I was confident that I could kill them. They didn¡¯t even have any elite fighters. The rest of the army shouldn¡¯t oppose any problems especially when the leaders are killed. ¡°Thank you Mirhit for bringing this to my attention. They will most likely try to march here and kill us but not to worry it shouldn''t be too much trouble handling them this time.¡± Mirhit face had gone white and the only thing that saved him from passing out was that I didn¡¯t seem worried. ¡°Keep an eye out on this situation and report if anything changes,¡± I ordered and then left. There was an opportunity here if played right. We weren¡¯t going to win a fair fight just because of the number difference but why would we fight fairly? I was in deep thought about our next moves when I finally reached Val¡¯s market stall. ¡°Good afternoon, Val,¡± I spoke to him before he noticed that I was approaching. He looked up and smiled at me. ¡°Good afternoon, Rich, I thought you wanted your supplement food next week I can still give you what I have currently prepared if you are going out on another mission,¡± Val answered. Val had already turned around, but I quickly spoke before he could go and retrieve the supplement food. ¡°No need to get them now I¡¯m actually here for a different reason.¡± Val turned around to look at me and I guess my face betrayed it. ¡°Have you finished,¡± He asked me, and I couldn¡¯t keep the smile off my face? ¡°Well, it''s not completely finished but you can move in,¡± I answered. Val came around his stall and gave me a big hug. He called for his wife, and they started to make preparations to leave. It would take them a while to get everything packed up and they said that they would start moving towards the inn the next morning as it was currently too late to get everything done before it got dark. That was completely understandable and if I had gotten here in the morning then perhaps, they would have been able to sleep in their new home today. After talking some more with Val, I left and ran back to my home where I needed to do some more exercises before I could sleep. chapter 223 I had just opened the front door of the inn. I pushed the door open while taking a few steps back so Val¡¯s family could see the inside of their new home. While Val and his wife were able to somewhat handle their emotions their kids could not. Like so many others they had been driven from their home. During that time, they barely had a decent place to sleep and while they did get an apartment for a while it still would have felt like a foreign place that was not home. Now I was even more glad that I was able to come to this deal as a few more kids could feel a more normal life faster. I tried to stay out of the way to give them their own moment, but as I¡¯ve come to learn Val expresses his emotions physically and I was soon embraced by a large hug. After a few more minutes they all rushed into the inn to look at everything that was inside. The kids, of course, immediately ran upstairs. Val went into the kitchen to inspect everything built there. Val¡¯s wife was admiring the bar counter as she''s the one usually working the bar while her husband makes the food and runs the day-to-day operations. ¡°This is the most gorgeous bar counter I have ever seen.¡± I heard her speak which brought a smile to my face. I could already imagine spending many hours behind it talking to old friends and eating excellent food. ¡°I am glad you like it. It''s actually from the same tree but I merge them in the middle to make it even longer.¡± She looked at me in amazement after I finished saying that. She ran her fingers over the middle but she didn''t find any connection point. ¡°It''s incredible work Rich but what about the corners? Is that something that you did as well because it looks absolutely beautiful.¡± She complimented me which brought a smile to my face. ¡°It''s all-natural,¡± I answered and then explained how I had found it, which brought joy to her face. By the time I was done with the story, the kids had also joined us trying to jump onto the bar counter. The youngest was still too short to make it so I helped her up. Her mother was worried about her kids being on top of the bar counter, but I assured her that nothing that they could do would damage the bar. It was at this point that we started to smell cooking food which delighted us all. We spent the next half an hour discussing the bar and additional things that she wanted to change or add. Behind the bar, she wanted a place to put bottles and also at the centre to hold many barrels of different kinds of alcohol. She also liked the idea of a stone sink that I told her about which I will add as soon as I can. Even before we were completely done with our discussion Val came out of the kitchen with plates of food. We ate at a table that was already finished. While I thought that his food was excellent before now it was on a completely different level. It seems that having access to proper facilities truly helped him to bring out all of his skills. After the meal was done, I excused myself. While they would want me to stay longer out of politeness, I understood that they wanted to be by themselves. With this done, my final large project for this year was done. It was freeing yet saddening at the same time. Large projects are usually fun because you can do them with other people, especially during the harvest. This years was the funniest time I have had in this world. But my busy schedule wasn''t over, and it was time to get back to training. If I wasn¡¯t eating so much fatty food, I don¡¯t think that I would even have one percent body fat with all the training that I¡¯ve been doing. Thanks to my proper eating I still look like a normal man who has just properly exercised his entire life. This, however, wasn''t reflected in my application of power. My body was able to use the stat points and the energy inside me extremely efficiently. If I were to have exactly 1500 strength points, then thanks to my body it would be amplified to around 2300. That will keep climbing up while I continue to grow. It''s incredible how much more power you have when you have more muscles to work with. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. After my training, it was finally time to make my smithy look a bit better. I started by making small things that would make working here more convenient. Working throughout tonight and well into the next morning I was also able to finish three heavy tables that will help me craft whatever I need. Currently, I wasn¡¯t missing anything except my armour which I wasn¡¯t going to start making because I was still growing but the Vikings needed better weapons. While eventually, the legion will also need better items it would be better if they were made by other smiths who would be making mass orders. The Vikings were completely different as everyone would be using weapons and armour that most fit their fighting style. Currently, the biggest things missing are two-handed weapons as they are a lot more uncommon than one-handed weapons which we currently have a surplus of. Then of course there is my own preference for weapons. While making the two-handed mace was simple, making a two-handed sword will not be and was currently outside my skills. For that, it was time to start learning. After a week of forging, I was more confident in making large swords and even my smithing level increased by two. It will take me a long time to make a decent large sword, but I could already make a passable one at least one under the first rank. This was also the biggest problem we had. We simply didn¡¯t have access to metals that were at first rank or above. While we were going to get some from the Thorn Rose Company it wasn''t going to be enough to meet our demands. For that, I was going to lead a team of dwarves and humans to the western mountains that were beyond Arthur¡¯s house. Hopefully, we can set up a few mines and after that, I have a bit more of a relaxed training schedule so, I should be able to go to the South and hopefully find this dungeon that wants to hide from me. But all of that was for the future. Right now, I was making the biggest sword that I have made to date. This will be a prototype for my future weapon. After some calculations, I am quite certain that I will be about 7 feet and 4 inches tall by my birthday. Luckily, I will not be growing taller after that, but it will still make a lot of things inconvenient. I will need to remake a lot of my tools to be bigger and even my bed needs to be converted and every doorway is going to be annoying. Then there were my weapons. They needed to be made bigger but making them bigger didn¡¯t mean they would work as well as their smaller counterparts. The blade by itself was going to almost be 7 feet but for the handle, I didn¡¯t know the correct size. I needed to test out what would work. For the first test, this prototype¡¯s handle was going to be eight inches and the cross guard was going to be six inches on both sides. I needed to use the larger forage to make this sword, but I was glad to find that it was heating up everything beautifully. Currently, the blower was on the lowest setting otherwise it would get too hot and even then, I sometimes had to cut off the airflow or otherwise risk the metal getting too hot. I do not know if I liked it getting this hot even at the lowest speed so perhaps a redesign of the airway size from the blower to the forage is needed so it wouldn''t have so much air pressure. Foraging the mace was not a problem because it was an incredibly large piece of metal, unlike the thin blade I was currently working with. With my heat resistance abilities up, being next to forge was not pleasant but it also wasn''t uncomfortable. It was a weird feeling having so much heat next to you that didn¡¯t harm you. When I was almost done with the sword, I had to curse out loud. It seems that I had forgotten to make a larger quenching vessel. It was an unfortunate situation but something I couldn¡¯t fix at this moment. This sword was just a prototype, but I still used all my abilities and skill to make it, so I did not want to leave it unfinished. I ran through my options but only ended up with one viable solution. I knew the blade was strong enough that water quenching wasn''t going to destroy it, so I overheated it a bit and then quickly ran to the river. By the time I got there, it had cooled down enough to be at the perfect temperature, so I quickly submerged it underneath the water. The steam and the sound of the water vaporizing were mesmerizing. Eventually, I pulled out the sword and inspected it to see that it was properly hardened. I took it inside and fitted it with a wooden handle. The pommel was also installed, and I went outside to test it out. I found it way too big and unwieldy. That was to be expected as I still wasn¡¯t grown properly to use it. It seems like I will have to wait so I could test any prototype that I will make. Not disappointed by this revelation I started to clean up and then go to sleep as the next day will start with an expedition to find some useful metals. chapter 224 I was waiting for the expedition group in the early morning at the road crossing that headed towards George¡¯s house. My mace and two-handed sword were in my tattoo storage with the rest of my regular items like my bow. I was wearing standard leather gear that was already a bit short. For today¡¯s weapon, I chose a spear that I could throw to hopefully end the battle before it even began. There shouldn''t be any dangerous creatures I can¡¯t kill but you never know. I have also found that spears seem to be better for exploration as you can use them as a walking stick and push branches away from yourself while walking in the forest. I haven¡¯t interacted with dwarves much but here came six of them with three humans. From the looks of it, they weren¡¯t travelling any slower than humans, which was good news. I was already almost a head taller than the tallest human that approached so the dwarves were quite short compared to me. ¡°Greetings Rich we are glad that you have the time to escort us on this fine day. My name is Orik Stonesearcher.¡± Greeted a dwarf that I would call middle age, but it was hard to tell as they had a lot of facial hair. ¡°Greetings to you all as well,¡± I said and proceeded to shake everyone¡¯s hands and learn their names. While the dwarves were short shaking their hands wasn''t like shaking a children¡¯s hand. Even compared to the humans here, their hands were quite big. I also felt a lot of mass in their bodies which probably meant that their bones and muscles were denser than humans. I can understand why they would feel so comfortable living inside mountains. They were quite well built for it. I looked at the expedition leader and asked out of curiosity. ¡°Stonesearcher, that¡¯s kind of a on the nose name.¡± I was glad to see that the question didn¡¯t insult him but instead made him straighten in pride. ¡°You might not know this Rich but for us dwarves to be named after the thing that we are the best in is quite an honour. More generations in my family than I can name have been quite good at searching out stones and minerals and eventually, my family came to have that last name that fits our particular skill set.¡± The dwarf said in a proud voice, and I could see the other dwarves being proud of their leader. ¡°Now one thing that you have to be careful about with the dwarves is that one Stonesearcher might not be related to another. It¡¯s a complicated system but for us dwarves it works. You can never presume friendship with a dwarf based on his name. If you make that mistake it can be bad. It has even caused a few wars between kingdoms just because of a simple mistake of presuming friendship.¡± Orik Stonesearcher explained while we started to walk down the road. The topic quickly changed from family names and war to the mountains ahead where hopefully there will be metals that we can use. When I expressed this to the others they just scuffed and waved their hands at me in dismissal. ¡°Rich you don''t actually think that we''re heading this way out of simple convenience as this is the closest road to a nearby mountain. All of us have abilities or traits that help us find metal and rock. We at least know that there is iron in these mountains and quite a lot of it. The question is what else can we find and at what rank.¡± The expedition leader explained. That was good news and made me smile as we will need a lot of metal to get our town built and army equipped. The walk down the road was pleasant and filled with conversations about possible mining locations as we reached closer and closer towards the mountains. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. I had to suppress my grimace when they started to comment on the road. ¡°We will have to do something about this road. Look at those holes. I can still see some stump roots sticking out. We will either have to deliver small loads of metal or do something about this road.¡± One of the dwarves eventually commented. Like everyone else, I nodded along but I noticed Orik was quiet, probably knowing who made this road. But I was still a bit disappointed as it took a lot of work to make the road as good as it currently is. The criticism of my road continued for a long time but luckily when we reached the bridge, they found a new target to talk about. ¡°The bridge will also need to be rebuilt but it can handle a lot more than the road and isn''t a priority.¡± commented another dwarf but he was soon interrupted by a human. ¡°I can sense iron down the river in a weird concentration.¡± I looked where he was pointing and quickly figured out, he was directly pointing towards the iron oak.¡± Oh yes, there¡¯s a small iron vein there on my land that I have been using for my own needs. The river has cut straight through a small hill and exposed the vein which is probably why you are sensing that weird concentration.¡± I answered while trying to keep my face from betraying anything. They accepted my explanation quickly enough and went back to examining the bridge. After a short while, we continued to walk. George was not at home, so we just continued forward now leaving the road. The walk to the mountain was uneventful except I was able to learn a lot of curse words in Dwarven. The forest got quite thick along the way before it started to thin out when they got close to the mountain and no one liked that, as it meant a lot of work to make a decent road. It seems that dwarves can be quite vocal while expressing displeasure and their low voices made curse words sound quite menacing which I liked. When we reached the point that we had to climb I was able to surprise the expedition who were all excellent climbers and were worried that they needed to help me, but they didn¡¯t as I was able to keep up with them easily. It was interesting to watch their abilities work. I was more used to seeing abilities that worked in a small area, but these abilities spread out to cover huge distances. The first search didn''t bring the expected results as only a few smaller veins were found that weren¡¯t too interesting. Instead of climbing higher, which I expected us to do instead we headed at the same elevation towards the north. ¡°There¡¯s no point in heading up just yet, the best chance to find metals is at the base of the mountain and bringing metals down from a mountain isn¡¯t as easy as you think. Let''s hope that we find a decent vein at this elevation.¡± Explained Orik Stonesearcher. We hadn¡¯t reached the location that they wanted to before Orik stopped us. He climbed a bit higher and started to knock on the stone wall there. Everyone indicated for me to just wait, and we did that for a few minutes before we heard a shout of happiness. ¡°It''s Alvrik and a lot of it,¡± He yelled towards us. Turns out that is a rank one stone that is quite famous for it its durability. Apparently, there is enough of it for a few castles. That made everyone smile, including me. I marked this location on my map while others took out pencils and paper and a few other objects and started to work. It took them about 30 minutes to mark down this location accurately and leave a small beacon which they could find again. We then continued our original route and once again I was able to observe as they use their large area of effect abilities. Almost immediately three of them jumped up in joy and the others quickly followed. There was a massive iron vein way bigger than they expected. It also apparently had some gemstones inside it and a few other metals, but they were sparse compared to the iron. This time it took them an hour and we had to travel quite a lot to find the exact extent of the iron vein. Deeper in the vein they detected first-rank iron, but they won¡¯t know what kind of first-rank iron it was until they were able to get closer, but they will not be able to do that this time around. We once again moved north and stopped near a river when they started to use their abilities again. They were less happy this time as the veins here were smaller, but they did find other metals like copper, tin, lead and a bit of silver but that was in too low concentration to be worth mining. I was more interested in the river itself. At first glance, it seemed normal but there were salt crystals on the vegetation near it. Tasting the water, it was incredibly salty. chapter 225 When I gave the news of the salty river to the expedition, they were not certain how to feel about it. Not having drinkable water was a problem but we should also be able to make salt-gathering pools which would mean that salt will no longer be a limited resource for us. By the end of the discussion, everyone was quite happy with this discovery, and we headed up the mountain to the next elevation that they wanted to check. Up here we also found a waterfall and with the salt-rich water, the entire area was covered with salt. This was also the first time that I had to command everyone to stay back as there was movement on the ridge above us. Turned out that it was just mountain goats but there were quite a lot of them. It seems that they were enjoying the salt. The expedition members once again used their abilities but nothing particularly interesting was found. We now headed back towards where we came from but because we were on a different elevation, we were on fresh ground so they could search for more metals. We camped for a night and continued the next morning. They eventually found a small gold vein worth mining but it was currently made a low priority as we needed iron more. On the third search on this elevation, we were back to our starting point. Another small iron vein was found but we didn¡¯t go back down. We continued further south and searched another two times finding a decent-sized tin vein and a small-sized lead vein before we started to descend. Halfway down we heard a challenging roar. I quickly turned towards the direction the sound came from and a huge monster mountain cat rushed out from the forest below and started to climb its way towards us. I noticed that the others started to run. ¡°Stop and hold your ground,¡± I ordered them, and they did what I told them, but I could see that they wanted to run and were scared shitless. The expedition leader and one other human were silver rank otherwise they were all under that which was still quite good for nonfighters. The monster down there was fake gold and would soon be a first rank, but it wasn''t yet, so I was just calmly standing at the edge of the cliff waiting for it to climb a bit higher. The monster acted stupidly mad. It was kind of sad that such a beautiful creature was driven mad by the monster core inside it. It seems that this particular monster wasn¡¯t handling being a monster that well and I could see quite a lot of battle scars meaning that it was probably fighting nonstop. I started to charge my spear which actually made the monster hesitate for a moment. Its eyes cleared for a moment but soon they became hazy again and it roared again and continued to charge. Seems like the intelligence was still in there but whatever the monster core did it alter too much for that intelligence to handle. As soon as it jumped to start climbing the final cliff before it reached me, I threw the charged-up spear. I didn¡¯t use my core energy as I did not want to damage the spear and it just wasn''t necessary. My throw was a bit off, but it still pierced its entire body and by the time we all climbed down it was already dead. We collected as much as possible from the body and continued our mission. After around half a day we finally made it back to where we started from. We all looked back at the mountain knowing that it had a lot to offer us, but we will need to work hard to be able to claim its resources. Still, the mood was quite high, and everyone made some fire-cooked meat so we could eat and replenish our strength for the journey back. During the meal and on our way back I learned a lot more about how mining works in this world. Originally, I thought that it worked as it did in medieval times back on Earth where people started a mine and processed the ore there while having some guards station there to keep bandits away. While bandits are also a problem here the wildlife is a bigger concern. I should have realized this before as it made complete sense. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. There are two different ways to approach mining. The first option is low yield but less costly. It will probably be something that we will be doing in the beginning. An expedition similar to ours will be made with fighters strong enough to fight off any trouble that might come. The mining crew will extract as much ore as possible and use storage-extending items or abilities. Then they will just head back when the storage is full. The second way is to make a permanent mine. For that, we would need quite a large vein to make it worth sinking so many resources into it. I¡¯ve always imagined mines to be a few simple wooden buildings and a large smelter and then an entrance to the mine or two. This wouldn''t work in this world unless it was a safe area. You would basically need to build a small fortress with two fortified entrances, one into the outer world and one into the mine. Both of those entrances need to be strong enough to fight off superior enemies. At first, I thought that it would be quite dangerous to only have one entrance into the mine, but it would be necessary for defence. You wouldn''t want monsters from the outside world to get in and you needed to fortify that mine entrance because you never know what you might run into inside the mountain. Apparently, there''s a whole underground world with lots of creatures that live underneath the earth which would love an easy snack in the form of a miner. It was fascinating to hear about worms that use acid to dig through the rock and then suffocate you to death while slowly eating you. Beetle-like creatures that will keep you alive to drag you to their queen and huge monsters that will burst from the ground under your feet and swallow you in one bite. Mostly those creatures but also natural caves formed an entire world underneath our feet. There are even sapient races that live underneath the surface with their own kingdoms and wars. The more I heard the more interested I became. The dwarves seem to touch both of these worlds with their mountain homes. This gave me a lot to think about and worry about. While they said that they didn''t know or have heard about underground kingdoms breaching the surface to attack and conquer I was quite certain that it must have happened. Seems like I still have a lot to learn about this world. Even to the dwarves here the stories they told me were more fantasy than actual fact and none of them could tell me anything for certain, but I could sense the truth in those stories even if they didn''t believe it completely. Some new defensive plans need to be made up and securing the towns and villages'' underground areas might be as important as protecting them from the above-ground threats. That reminded me of the cave that I found on the rock creatures mountain. Perhaps a trip to explore that cave during the winter is necessary. While I highly doubt that it would lead to any big underground area, we need to be certain that there isn''t anything dangerous close to us that could annihilate us. When we reached back to the inn it was already close to sunset. The dwarves grumbled a bit that the inn wasn¡¯t open yet because now they needed to continue heading towards the village that they would probably not reach before midnight. I was quite glad that I didn¡¯t have to walk back to the village, but I still had some exercises that I needed to do before I could go back to the smithy and continue to work on my blade forging. After another two days, I finally had enough free time to head back south to search for the dungeon. The run there was decently fast, but it still amazed me how large our nation really is. I was glad to see that the beetles hadn¡¯t claimed back the area that I had cleaned out, so I continued my massacre knowing I was making progress. My thoughts often slipped to the underground world and the terrors and wonders it might hold. I started to feel an urge to travel and see the world but I wanted to wait awhile longer as I at least wanted us to have a portal structure built so I could come back here easily. There was no way that I was going to miss a harvest but during the winter travelling to different places sounded quite nice. I just had to hope that there weren¡¯t too many people where I would want to go as that sounded unpleasant. I had been searching for over half a day while killing beetles that I ran across when I had to groan out loud. A message stick broke that notified me the Thorn Rose Company will soon open a portal so they could bring what we requested and take what we promised them. I murdered some beetles in annoyance as I had barely gotten started searching for the dungeon. I planned to stay here for at least three days but now I needed to head back to the village. chapter 226 POV Michael Frederick Dukenhime I just finished inspecting one of the containers meant for the GreenWave village. Giving a nod to the workers, they secured the container for transport and moved it to the waiting platform. I was a bit nervous about this trade as the queen didn¡¯t much like us trading with nations that she had not signed any deals with. But her opinions didn''t matter much as we had too much power for her to do anything to stop us. Looking around at the new Thorn Rose Company headquarters a smile came to my face. We had achieved so much, and we were the only official traders left in this corner of the world. Currently, I should be ending my caravan run for the winter, but I never expected the new rulers to be as they are. Who would have guessed that I would miss the old nobility? At least they operated under predictable wants. Now the new rulers calling themselves kings are so much worse than the nobles who came before them. It seems that power really goes to someone¡¯s head especially when he has never tasted it before. That reminded me that there were a few rulers who were actually rulers but unfortunately, they were exceptions. The wars were even now still going on and from what I have heard some idiots are even attempting to march and fight in winter. Hopefully, we will get to a more stable state of affairs quickly as it''s affecting business quite a lot. A new container was brought to me and I quickly started to look over it as we wouldn''t have a second chance to fix our mistakes with this deal. The United Freehold will absorb a lot of the cost of opening this Druid portal but if we make a mistake, we will have to fix it and that would cost a lot. Although if they get their portal station built the connection would be a lot cheaper. A lot of the management didn''t like this deal as basically 90% of it is being paid by bows that we had not been able to inspect. What made this possible was Rich Dirt¡¯s reputation. I saw Bert walking towards me, and I soon heard his low voice. ¡°Good afternoon, Michael are we ready at your end?¡± He asked. ¡°A bit more of the cargo needs to be inspected but overall, yes, we are ready. But are we ready to hold the portal open until we get all the cargo transported to the other side and then bring all the merchandise back from the other side?¡± I asked, genuinely curious. Bert didn''t answer me immediately but looked over all the cargo that we needed to transport. Eventually, he said. ¡°It will be tough, but the high-end ingredients will help and a large portion of the energy we need will be supplied by Rich on the other side. Without him, we wouldn''t be able to transfer even half of this to the other side before the portal closes. You see it''s quite interesting but the longer you keep the portal open the higher the cost will become.¡± I stopped listening at that point. I inspected the cargo while occasionally nodding towards Bert who was still explaining portals to me. The entire theory just went over my head but I understood what he meant. You could never keep a portal open forever and even what we were doing was quite wasteful but without safe roads to make it so far north there was nothing we could do. Then again, we were going to make quite a lot of profit. Yes, we were asking quite a lot for this portal connection and most wanted to ask a lot more, but we had a contract for at least one caravan visit to the United Freeholds. No one wanted to break it. Luckily this will count, but we will need to be a lot more careful about making future contracts as the world is a lot more volatile than it used to be. Finally, I saw ten of our guards joining us as we continued to wait in this courtyard. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. It took another hour before everything was ready. I broke a message stick to notify United Freeholds that we were ready on our side, and just under a minute later the reply stick broke, meaning that they were also ready at their side. ¡°Everyone prepare. Start the incantation.¡± I announced and quickly everyone started to act. I could feel energy being used at a massive scale. Still, it was nothing compared to when Rich used his energy to stop whatever the priest had done. We all waited until the portal snapped open and I heard new commands for the workers to start moving. We waited at the side of the portal and then finally the last worker went by. We quickly followed after her. On the other side, there was no time for greetings or pleasantries. I was quickly shown by a person that I didn¡¯t recognize, to the containers that were already opened for our inspection. If the quality of the bows were not to our standard, we were going to go straight back through the portal with the cargo we brought. The first container had the hunting variety of bows and with a quick use of my inspection ability, I could confirm they were first-rank strength bows. The craftsmanship was at an incredibly high level and for a moment I was sucked into just admiring the weapons. I quickly shook my head and moved on to the next box giving a thumbs up to the person marking down mine and the rest of the inspector¡¯s feedback. The next container held longbows as Rich called them. They were not as useful for hunting for food. They were meant for war and to battle big monsters. The quality and strength were what we were expecting and perhaps even better. I gave another thumbs up and continued to the next container. In my mind, there was no doubt that we were going to get what was promised. I could now wipe some smiles off my competition''s faces who were against this deal. The first container I inspected was already being sealed up even before I finished with my last. I looked around to see that the other inspectors seemed to have the same results and our workers were moving to pick up our new merchandise. They moved fast and soon the first container was back at our compound. With a smile on my face, I finally relaxed and looked as more people disappeared into the portal. Eventually, only me, Bert, four other negotiators and five of our guards were left when the portal finally shut down. I let out a big breath of air. The madness was finally over. I went ahead and gave a proper handshake to Rich and a few other important figures who I was going to need to start memorizing. After the greeting, I almost did a double take. What on Earth''s name has happened to Rich? How was he so tall and why was he wearing just leather armour that seemed to be badly fitting? My training as a merchant kept me from open mouth staring at him but I never expected him to look even more fit and dangerous than the last I saw him. I did notice that our guards were a bit fidgety, so I started to look around, and quickly figured out why. We had known that Rich was at first rank and probably a lot stronger than our fighters, but we never expected them to have more first-ranked fighters than we brought. Once again, I controlled my reaction, but my momentary surprise was replaced by annoyance. We should have expected this. While, back in the day, having so many new first-rank fighters in such a small time frame would be weird, nowadays it is quite a common sight. Even small villages could have multiple first-rank fighters out of nowhere. ¡°It¡¯s good to see you again Rich. You have gotten a lot taller. Soon, you will be as tall as me.¡± I heard Bert boast loudly and with a smiling face. That relaxed the tension around us. I was glad that I was able to get permission for Bert to come. After a bit more of polite greetings, we were led from behind the village hall to the front so we could enter it for further negotiations. It was at this point that I figured out the noise that I was hearing was wrong. I was expecting a small village which was quite quiet but, when I looked towards the market square that used to only have a few stalls, now it was a place filled with people and stalls to the bursting like in a town, not a village. I also saw professional-looking guards patrolling around and on the walls. Then another sight shook me. Beyond the walls, I could see the roofs of large buildings and quite a few of them. Why were they outside the walls but I quickly answered my own question. They couldn¡¯t fit inside. There was only one explanation, and that was that they had a lot more people here than we were expecting. At least now, we have a better idea of how they defeated the slave king. I shared a look with my fellow negotiators. We knew that this was going to be a lot tougher than we expected but possibly a lot more profitable. chapter 227 It was nice to see Michael again but it was quite funny to see the guards being afraid of us. Protecting the refugees has strengthened our soldiers quite a lot so I wasn¡¯t worried about any of the guards they brought causing any trouble during the negotiations. That gave me a perfect opportunity to take Bert and go on a walk with him while everyone else dealt with the negotiations. We were at the back of the group when Bert indicated he wanted to talk to me. We just didn''t enter the village hall and just walked off towards the farmlands. When we finally reached seclusion, we stopped our small talk. ¡°Rich I am truly sorry,¡± Bert began looking worried. ¡°I hope that you can accept that I need to back out of our deal. My grove mother has ordered every one of us not to teach outsiders, and it¡¯s even hard for me to stay with the Thorn Rose Company. A lot is happening, and I will probably need to go back home to try to help out.¡± It was harder for me to read his facial expressions as he wasn¡¯t human, but it seems like he was being truthful and generally worried. It appears I wouldn¡¯t be able to learn druid magic. This sucks but perhaps I can turn this into an opportunity for the future. ¡°I see. Protecting your home is important and following your leader is honorable. I will be honest with you I was kind of looking forward to studying druid magic under you. If you ever need any help, just ask me. But remember. Before I was just a farmer, but while I am still a farmer, I am now a part of a bigger nation.¡± Before I finished speaking, I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed it a bit trying to reassure him. ¡°Thank you, Rich, I will keep that in mind. The world has become a crazy place and only strength can keep you safe. On that front, I¡¯m glad to see you so much stronger from our last meeting. To make up for me needing to break this agreement of ours I hope that the information I can share with you will lessen that disappointment.¡± He gave me a weak smile while explaining. We proceeded to walk the farmland while he continued to talk to me about what was happening down south. Fighting and wars have been happening at every scale. From people robbing each other for food and coins. Bandit groups fighting each other and everyone else around them. Nations fighting with thousands of soldiers. While nothing was set in stone during this first year some nations are starting to already show that they have what it takes to grow bigger and stay for the future. I remembered those names for the future, but I was most worried about the queen and the lands that she controlled. A lot of people escaped towards the capital and she now had the most populous nation around here, but she was too far from us to threaten us with military strength. The problem was she was trying to stop the Thorn Rose Company from trading with anyone she didn''t like. Unfortunately, we are on that list but currently, we are just more profitable than annoying the queen costs them. This means that we cannot count on the Thorn Rose Company in the long term. This will suck quite a lot but also help others to see that we need to connect to the wider world, so we won¡¯t be isolated from the world¡¯s trade market. If that happens, we will not be able to keep growing and this nation will slowly wither until someone strong enough comes and conquers it. Our walk lasted until late evening. When we returned and were just able to eat dinner at an inn before the negotiation ended and I had to help Bert power his portal. Unfortunately, the night wasn¡¯t over, and I couldn¡¯t run back to find the dungeon. I had to sit in a meeting that lasted until morning so I could give all the information I learned and so I could receive the conclusion of the negotiations. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. With us having the proper items and ingredients for a portal station they will not be sending a caravan next year instead we will be doing the same thing we did this year except it will be a lot cheaper. It also means that I will need to make a lot of bows but that''s a good thing as my renowned true archer class is only at level 17. The lowest of all my classes. Making bows can be even better for experience than hunting monsters but that''s only if I¡¯m not in a target-rich area. With everything done I was able to eat a nice breakfast and even go to the cobbler shop where I exchanged my boots far a bigger size. I was incredibly glad when the shop owner agreed to my deal that I could bring the boots back and get bigger ones while I was growing so fast. Boots were expensive and buying new shoes every time I grew out of my old ones would hurt my bank account. I still have to pay for every shoe but it was a lot cheaper this way. Over half of my planned time to find this dungeon was now over so I continued the massacre so I could find that dungeon. By the evening I had covered another huge chunk of land. My eyes which have been constantly looking for energy signatures finally spotted an anomaly. It was like a small campfire where energy was acting like smoke slowly rising. There were a lot more beetles here and it took me about an hour to clear the surrounding area. Finally, I was standing near the entrance looking at the broken dungeon. If I didn¡¯t have energy vision, I wouldn¡¯t be able to tell that anything was wrong with this dungeon. The fact that energy was slowly escaping meant that this dungeon was broken. Back on earth, a better word for it would be a vegetable. A living being whose body is still functioning, but the mind just isn¡¯t there anymore. That''s what broken means for dungeons. They still make monsters and even now I had to kill another beetle who escaped. There is just no one left to control them. Dungeons like this can function basically forever but they are awful for the environment as they just keep endlessly making new beasts and monsters. Dungeons like these are incredibly dangerous. There can be hordes of monsters still inside, but there might also be a lot of treasure. Whatever the case might be I will put an end to this dungeon. I tried to use the same method that I used with the swamp dungeon but there was no response. It truly was broken. The first few rooms looked like a cave system like every other dungeon I¡¯ve been to but there were no monsters and the few traps here had been set off, so it was easy to avoid them. I hadn¡¯t noticed this before, but the sound carried a lot further now and it was a lot darker. There wasn¡¯t that much dungeon energy that I could use to see in the darkness. I hadn¡¯t had this much trouble seeing for a long time. Everything looked like it was dusk, and the shadows were quite long. I could occasionally hear dripping water and splashes accompanied by clicking sounds. I continue to slowly advance keeping my mace ready for action. Then I heard fast tapping on stone. Soon I saw a beetle who was rushing towards me. It hadn''t expected to see me here so instead of me being scared by it, it was scared by me. The way it tried to stop and turn around while still sliding towards me was humorous, but I took a few quick steps forward to finish it off. A few rooms further, I saw a beetle eating a rabbit. I guess this dungeon spawns¡¯ rabbits as well. I sneaked closer and finished it off even before it could sense that I was there. Killing these creatures was the same as killing real creatures. It had the same weight to it. On the second floor, I ran into a sight that I never expected to see. A beetle was spawning right in front of me and I took the time to just observe what was happening. In two hours, energy slowly condensed and started to form a brand-new beetle. The moment it came to consciousness it just stood there doing absolutely nothing. I think it wasn¡¯t even breathing but eventually, biological need forced it to do so and slowly the beetle started to move. Me stepping closer didn''t interrupt it. Slowly it learned its own body. So, the dungeon usually controlled the beast completely or gave it orders and without it, it needed to start thinking for itself. I didn¡¯t let the creature learn the cruel reality of life. After I killed it, I continued my delve. chapter 228 On the seventh floor was the first time that I ran into a first-rank opponent, but it was a wolf instead of a beetle. It¡¯s still died to my mace like all the creatures down here. To save time I placed the entire wolf corpse into my adventurer''s backpack. Having finally gotten a proper adventurer''s backpack I was feeling a lot better about the Thorn Rose Company coming here. Now that I have found the dungeon, I¡¯m not so annoyed about them interrupting my hunt. With this adventurer''s backpack, I can bring back a lot more than I previously could. When I got down to the eighth floor, I found it flooded. There was about an inch of water on the floor. This made hearing moving monsters easier, but it also covered up some traps, so I was extra careful while moving. This was the first floor where I only ran into beetles. It seems that either the beetles were eating everything else, or something was wrong with this floor¡¯s monster creation. The rooms here were a lot bigger and for some reason, the monster population was extremely high so sometimes I have had to backtrack so I wouldn¡¯t be overrun. I am guessing that this floor is the reason why there are so many beetles above ground. After everything started to calm down, I found myself wishing for a shower. I was a bit glad that it was so dark here so I couldn¡¯t see how the colour of the water must have changed with so many dead beetle corpses in the water. The mace also has a big problem of making a large mess if I hit something too hard. Usually, I can control my strength to an appropriate level with an enemy but here they just came too fast for me to notice between first-rank and lower-rank beetles. The little bit of happiness I got from the last floor was now broken so I just continue down trying to get this over with. The next floor at least had a more normal amount of beetles but they were stronger. I actually had to start using tactics and more movement so they couldn¡¯t attack me all at once. They still died with one strike, but I actually had to try now. At the end of the tenth floor, the first thing I noticed was the corners of the entrance to the boss room were missing large chunks. Looking inside it seems that the boss has been trying to get out. The beetle boss looked like the other beetles, but its body was the size of a beetle van. The moment it saw me I had to dodge immediately. After my dodge roll, I looked back at the spot where I was to see acid aggressively trying to eat the rock. There was a moment of pause after that. I used it to contemplate how I wanted to fight this boss while the boss itself was surprised that someone was able to dodge its attack. It didn''t seem to like that and start to spit more while advancing towards me. For me, he was advancing too slowly. The boss doesn¡¯t seem to be running out of acid and if this continues I won¡¯t be able to fight properly and will probably lose my new boots. I needed distractions and for that, I used my ability, call of the ancestors. I guided them to flank the boss on both sides. My plan worked better than I expected. The boss was quite confused, so I didn¡¯t waste the opportunity and advanced and even used my core energy for a strike against its head. To my surprise it didn''t kill the boss instead only made it turn its attention back to me. I did see a tiny crack on its armoured head. This wasn¡¯t going to be an easy fight. I once again miscalculated. I should have also given my ghosts blunt weapons instead they had long spears. I had to jump up onto its body as it also seemed to have a close-range acid spray. This, however, allowed me to make a second attack expanding the crack a bit more. The strike didn¡¯t stun the boss as much as I had hoped and before I could jump off it demonstrated that he had quite a lot of agility. It dived headfirst towards the floor, but it was able to bend its body enough that it landed on its back. If I hadn¡¯t used the boss¡¯s body as a launching platform for my jump away from it, it would have certainly crushed me to death. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. My ghosts rushed in hoping that its underside was less armored, but the spear tips just slid off. The boss once again demonstrated that it could move incredibly well as it just flipped itself upright. The ghosts to the left side of it were crushed. For a moment I wondered if this boss was supposed to have some weaker monsters supporting it. If that was the case, it would have been quite a hard fight. While the boss seemed to be quite manoeuvrable it seems that it wasn''t too used to flipping itself, so I was once again able to make a devastating attack against its head which now had a proper crack in it. My ghosts once again split into two groups and the fight continued. It took four more hits and almost half of my core energy before I was able to kill it. Dismantling and storing this boss took longer than the rest of the delve combined. I had hoped that its monster core had an acid elemental seed, but I wasn¡¯t that lucky. My mood was once again better after this fight as I now had the proper material to upgrade my subdermal armour. I was able to get so much armour from this boss that I could probably make a few shields and full armour suits out of it but shaping this material would be hard. I would need to test how strong it would be if I cut it into small pieces. Level up first homesteader first homesteader now level 20 strength +36 dexterity +36 vitality +36 endurance +24 empathy +24 intelligence +24 wisdom +24 free points gained +30 perk is gained ability fresh soil Looking at my notifications I found a pleasant surprise. My first homesteader class has levelled up. It was now level 20, giving me more stat points than normal and an ability. Fresh soil sounded like a useful ability to have as a farmer, but I will need to test its full capabilities. I looked at my stat points feeling good about the numbers going up. strength: 1705 dexterity: 1482 vitality: 1396 endurance: 324 empathy: 305 intelligence: 307 energy storage: 972 perception: 417 constitution: 429 presence: 217 wisdom: 192 (luck: 2) The next floor was easy compared to the last, but it still had a decent amount of strong opponents. I was now a bit more careful about my core energy usage so fighting through the floor took a bit longer but eventually, I made it to the end. I was glad that there was no way down from this floor and only the core room remained unexplored. I prepared myself for a difficult fight as I didn¡¯t know if the dungeon guard was still alive or not. The dungeon guardian, the last line of defence for the dungeon, was dead in the corner of the core room. There were no signs of fighting that I could see. It seems that it just laid down and died. It felt like I was inside the burial chamber here to steal the last of the treasures. I approached the cracked dungeon core that was still floating in the centre of the room. Even now energy was flowing into it and out of it like it was being controlled at a higher level than I ever have. Looks like it just comes naturally to them. I readied for what comes next. In one of my hands, I gathered energy, in the other I held a knife. With a burst of movement, I buried my knife deep into the core and then twisted it, breaking it apart. It sound like 1000 glass bottles were being broken and energy started to move violently around me. My defences were strong enough, so I didn''t have to worry about it. The two halves of the dungeon core fell to the ground, but I wasn¡¯t concentrating on them. Still floating where the dungeon core used to be were dungeon seeds that just looked like complicated balls of energy. While the dungeon core was bigger than my hand the seeds were the size of my fingernails. There were five of them and I could only see them with my energy vision. I quickly moved the energy in my hand to encompass the seeds as they had already started to slowly drift away. It took about 15 minutes until the seeds absorbed enough of my energy for a solid outer layer to form. Now I could pick them up and place them into a bag. By this time the energy movement in the room stopped and it was quietly seeping away. In about a day or two, the dungeon would completely collapse and only the ruin of the entrance would remain. I didn¡¯t forget to grab the broken pieces of the dungeon core. I ran back to the surface. During the time I had to fight the few last floors, new monsters had appeared on the upper floors. They were easily killed and some even ran but I did not chase them down. When I was out the first thing that I did was run a few miles to the river so I could wash myself off. I looked disgusting like I was covered in snot from some giant that had sneezed on me. This definitely went into the top ten grossest things I¡¯ve ever felt. chapter 229 After thoroughly washing myself in the river I left my clothing and armour pieces to dry in the sun while I started to work on the corpses that I had gathered during my dungeon delve. I learned a few valuable lessons. I should always drain the blood out of the corpses before I put them into the bag otherwise the meat will be useless. The useless pieces of the animal I just left here to be eaten by the nearby animals. There will still be a lot of work to make the leather and other pieces usable, but I won¡¯t be able to do that out here. I relaxed for a few hours and waited for everything to dry up before I started my run back to the village. A big chunk of the materials I¡¯ve gained I gave to the jobs building warehouse where I was given appropriate credit for my materials. After that I notified the council receptionist about destroying the beetle dungeon and that I was going to plant two of the dungeons where we had previously agreed upon. About a month ago there was a meeting where we decided how many dungeons and where they should go around our capital. In the end, we decided upon six that would all be a few hours¡¯ walk from here. From the dungeon book, I learned that the location we picked should be quite good for excellent dungeons. They had enough ambient energy and special features to fuel the growth of the dungeon. The planting process itself was quite easy. I just had to dig a small hole and then supply enough energy for the dungeon core seed to start developing a dungeon there. The locations will need to be quite far from each other so they wouldn''t start to consume each other¡¯s energy. With the two planted it was time to run back to my home. Now usually dungeons need to be planted near each other but there are exceptions. One of the exceptions to that is land ownership. A dungeon will not take energy from another owner¡¯s land. The current dungeon that was on my land is only pulling energy from my land and the free land around it. Technically this will slow down my own dungeon growth a bit as George¡¯s and Emma¡¯s land that is bordering me will no longer be free land, but my land is big enough that it would never be able to consume all of the free ambient energy on it. With the two dungeons planted on George¡¯s and Emma¡¯s land the inn named The Dungeon''s Retreat now had three dungeons within a stone-throwing distance. For the last dungeon I had to walk a longer distance so I could reach Arthur¡¯s land, but it was still quite close to the inn, so technically this area will now have access to four dungeons. After planting a dungeon will grow its first floor in two to five months and the second floor in about four to seven months after the first. After that, it varies a lot more and will depend on the structure of the dungeon and what¡¯s inside it. That time could be shorter if there are more delvers, but with the first few floors, it doesn''t matter too much. Now I have a basically free winter, so I celebrate it by going to the inn and receiving a nice dinner. While the inn wasn¡¯t officially open, they were already serving food to the people in the nearby building that was used by the delvers off the dungeon that was on my land. After eating I went and fired up the sauna, but then went back to the inn to just talk to the people there. After a late-night sauna, I felt a lot cleaner and better. Sitting on the outside bench looking at the river going by I started to think about my stat point. I had been a bit too efficient with my levelling. There were only a bit more than 100 points left to get in vitality before I reached the second rank. If I wanted to, I could probably go out hunting and achieve it in two weeks but that actually wouldn''t be a good thing. If that happens before I finish growing it would become much harder to keep training my body to keep my flexibility. This means no more hunting trips or bow-making. Well, a little bit of bow-making will not hurt. Just in case I will keep my free points unused. There will be another battle with the party members of the slave king, who will come here for revenge. If they don¡¯t it will be easier not to over-level but if they do, I will need to be extra careful about levelling. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Hopefully, my plan will work which will mean that I shouldn¡¯t gain too much experience, but it would be even better if they just wouldn''t come this year. But if they come next year, it will be a lot harder to win against them. I guess it is still better if they come now, I will just have to stay at home until my birthday and work on my smithing skills. The next week and a half I spent smithing or teaching others. Of course, I also did an unhealthy amount of training, but I was starting to get used to that. It was early morning when a message stick broke that signified that I needed to go back to the village as soon as possible. While I was running to the village, I was thinking about the ability fresh soil that I got for leveling one of my classes to 20. It was a bit different than I expected. You could not use it on a patch of soil and spend huge amounts of energy to make the soil more fertile. It¡¯s a slow effect that works on a large area to make the soil as good as possible for planting. You will still need to fertilize yourself for an even better result but it¡¯s an amazing ability that requires a lot of time to make it worth it. The time required is not in spending endless hours every day using it but doing so every day for about an hour for months. This amount of time will cover my current fields so I will not be able to do this on a national level. In the village, I was quickly brought up to speed. It looks like they confirmed that the slave king¡¯s former party members will be coming here. It was at this point that I finally asked what was the name of the mage that was leading the army. She was called Vivienne ¡°The Slicer¡± Hearthweaver. In the end, she did basically kill off everyone who didn¡¯t join her army or who weren¡¯t strong enough to fight. She ended up having a combined army of about 3900. It was an impressive number but most of them only had a few class levels if that. The biggest problem she has is that she doesn¡¯t have any elite troops and our Vikings have grown quite strong. I hope that my plan works so we can gain a lot from this fight. It was at this moment that my pondering was interrupted by a question. ¡°General Rich, when will we start attacking our enemy supplies and will you be leading that attack?¡± Someone asked. It took a while for me to focus on the question, so I missed who asked it. I focused on what was going on around me. Everyone was working hard on drawing up battle plans and what we will be doing to prepare. If I told them the complete plan, they would probably protest against it. ¡°We will not be hitting the supply line and we will not be moving out for quite a while and mobilizations is not needed. Our current forces will be enough.¡± My statement of course stopped all of the activity in the room as everyone looked at me trying to understand my words. ¡°There is a larger river with a bridge crossing about a two-week march from here,¡± I said while getting up and pointing at that location on the map. ¡°We will be using that as a chokepoint so our superior fighters will have the advantage and their numbers would mean nothing.¡± I sat back down and continued, ¡°But we don''t have enough prepared rations for that long of a stay and I would like to be there a week early so we can start fortifying that place even more. Currently, I want all hands working on our supplies.¡± There was more understanding now but I could still see questions in some people¡¯s eyes, but they let it go so we could focus on making sure our army doesn¡¯t starve or freeze. Our enemy is carrying a lot of supplies, almost enough so their entire army could survive the winter. Destroying so much would be quite a waste and I¡¯m not entirely sure the supplies are not trapped. Who knows what those mages can do? Eventually, we started to talk about the weather and how we needed better winter gear. We weren¡¯t going to be able to design and test new armour meant for the winter. The current plan remains. We were already modifying our soldiers¡¯ armour so they could put them over winter clothing. While this will not be a perfect solution it should get the job done. The discussion went on for the entire day. Currently, we had almost two weeks to prepare before we needed to march out. I didn¡¯t need to join them for most of the march, so I had almost a month free. During this time, I should be able to help make the Vikings more appropriate weapons and armour. When I was finally able to leave the meeting room, I found the atmosphere of the village had changed. It was once again tense but there wasn¡¯t the same desperation as last time, which I was glad to see. On my way back home, I also stepped into the inn where I enjoyed a late dinner. The place was now open but there were still only a few people here. I sat with a few of my apprentices who were here before we all left to get some sleep. I had pushed this back, but it was finally time to absorb the beetle boss armour. It took nearly until morning before I was finally done. After which I ate quite a lot and finally went to sleep. I was so exhausted that as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep. chapter 230 I woke up late. While I was doing my wake-up stretches, I learned I weighed more so it took me a while to get used to my new weight. It looks like my subdermal armour upgrade seemed to have come with the small disadvantage of it weighing more. The weight wasn¡¯t too bad and honestly, I was getting kind of used to my body changing fast. After the stretches, I took a moment to just look at myself in the mirror. While I never really looked like a child I now looked like a proper man and kind of a scary one. Currently, I am 6 feet 6 inches with wide shoulders and a lot of muscle mass. My muscles weren¡¯t too big which allowed me to keep my flexibility. There was still that big scar from the goblin shaman, and I have a lot more scars all over from the battles I have had. I have been keeping my hair short, but it looks like my beard will finally start to come in. If I flexed, you could see the subdermal armour pieces basically everywhere that won¡¯t compromise movement. The one thing that I still didn¡¯t know was how strong this armour really was. For that, I took out the healing potion and my knife. Just using the knife itself didn''t even damage my skin so I needed to power it up with my ability to start the testing. I was able to cut my skin without adding too much strength to the knife but when I hit the armour plate the knife wouldn¡¯t go any deeper. I slowly ramped up the power and when I reached 40% of my maximum empowerment of the knife it finally started to leave a scratch. At around 80% the armour became useless. If I wasn¡¯t careful and only lightly put pressure on the knife, I could have accidentally cut my whole hand off. Then I used my armour ability to boost myself and then I once again wasn¡¯t able to do anything with the knife. I wasn¡¯t going to try testing empowered strikes. I was just glad that this armour seemed to be better than normal steel. The one thing I did notice was that while my armour ability did work it didn¡¯t seem to be able to boost as much as it did my regular armour. Pouring the healing potion onto my wound quickly sealed my skin. It seemed to even be working on the subdermal armour which I was glad to see. It was at this point that I noticed the pool of blood on the ground, ¡°Shit.¡± I should have done this outside. The pain was barely there, and it seems like I¡¯m still used to seeing a lot of blood. Letting out a big sigh kind of helped. At least I was quite practised at removing blood. The key to it is to keep going at it, it will take a while but eventually, you will be able to clean it up. With that, I went back to the routine that I have been having for the past few weeks. Making proper armour out of the beetle boss was not practical. The material was just too thick, and I didn¡¯t have the appropriate abilities to make it work. Apparently, there were specialized crafters that work on chitin and my current skills weren¡¯t up to the task. With the knowledge I had gained, I just sold all those armour pieces for a good amount of credit. Which I used to get some more iron and a few more interesting lumps of metal that the miners have been able to gather. Energy and mana and I guess even holy power can change regular materials into having special properties but figuring out if a material has changed into something useful or worthless can be hard. The workers who were handling the changed materials noticed me being certain about my choices. When I explained to them that I could identify accurately what those changes were, things got a bit out of hand and after about a few hours I was made the official appraisal of unique materials. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. While it will be more work and a bit more responsibility, I didn¡¯t mind it. Examining and understanding new materials and how they work is extremely interesting to me and every time I get an opportunity to check a new changed material, I feel like someone was giving me a Christmas present. Unfortunately, even for my abilities, some materials proved to be difficult to understand which is why I now find myself in my smithy testing out small pieces of different materials to find out what they could do. I already needed to make two cabinets and three shelves to store the new materials as too many of them were coming in for me to keep up. Our miner population boomed so there were a lot of them making groups to mine. They were quite happy to leave unique finds at my home so I wouldn¡¯t have to go to the village to pick them up and they wouldn¡¯t need to haul them there. With the new materials, I was able to make even better weapons for the Vikings who were willing to pay more to have better materials. I was learning a lot, but my smithing skill was climbing slowly only gaining 4 levels bringing me to level 17. Pretty sure this is supposed to be the normal levelling speed after talking to a few smiths in the village. It looks like my past life¡¯s knowledge helped me to level up to a certain degree but that was now definitely over for smithing. Like this time went by quickly and I found myself gearing up to join the marching army that had left about a week ago. Our main defensive force left to deal with monsters that were occasionally invading our land were the wolves and Goose. They were all now first rank and could be a valuable asset for the battle, but we were going to have a more defensive battle which they aren¡¯t well built for. For the fight ahead I still spent a decent amount of time making myself new armour even though I knew that I was going to grow out of it in about a month. The weather now was a lot colder, and the leaves were already falling. It seems that my meditation on the weather was correct, and winter will come early this year. I did a last check on my gear and then started to run. I didn¡¯t stop at the village and just kept going. There was no need to go at full speed so I was going relatively slow but steadily so I would catch up with the army. It took three days before I made it there while running without taking a break. From this point on I assumed control of the entire army numbering 383. It was a small group, but I wasn¡¯t going to recreate the spartan success. In the end, all of the 300 died but all that it would have taken to break the Persian army would have been to kill their God king. It will be difficult to anger the enemy while keeping their confidence up so I would be able to fight Vivienne ¡°The Slicer¡± Hearthweaver without our armies engaging in battle. Taking down a first-rank mage should be impossible for a first-rank fighter, but I have unique advantages and more importantly a stupid amount of energy to use. With The Slicer killed the enemy army will lose their last heavy hitter so even if they attack it will be a simple but time-consuming battle that will kill a lot of enemies. While I¡¯m certain that there will still be a fight afterwards, hopefully, we will be able to get the soldiers who were forced into the army to come over to our side. If that happens, we will be able to gain a lot more citizens and enough supplies to make sure that none of us starves even with the influx of thousands of people. None of the people in the army know the complete plan. I felt a bit bad about lying to them as I looked at the marching columns from a small hill. But I can¡¯t reveal the plan as a few council members were marching with us into battle. They would never support me taking such a big risk but if I succeed, we will be gaining so much. If I fail, I will make sure that The Slicer will use up most of her mana so our fighters will have the best chance of winning. Despite the number differences the defenses that we will set up will not be just for show. They will give the best chance for my army to win even without me. chapter 231 The United Freeholds soldiers have been working hard for the past two days. When they arrived at this river bridge, they immediately started to set up a fortified camp like they were trained to. With Vikings providing more muscle they were able to get everything done in record time but that didn''t give them a chance for a break. Their general had already given orders and instructions for the defence structures they needed to make and when their officers relayed the orders, they followed them without question. They respected and feared their general. He was a man who ate with them and even slept in the same places as them but at the same time, they fear his strength and resolve. When they were training to defend against the slave king and even in the fight itself none of them needed discipline. They had something better than discipline they had the drive to defend others. That changed after that battle. True discipline was introduced which can lead to harsh punishments for not following orders and doing things against the soldier¡¯s code. The soldier''s code was something that every legionary respected and feared. In it were lists of crimes and punishments that went from not getting dinner to being killed outright. No one was actually bothered about the killing part as that was only meant for traitors and murderers. The soldiers mostly feared the punishments that used the whip. Over the months they, however, have come to respect it as they have seen how it makes them better soldiers. Most everyone knew or was friends with people who just couldn''t keep out of trouble. No matter what they did they will screw it up. In the army that didn¡¯t change, at least at first. But when you get whipped for causing accidents that might get your fellow soldiers killed you eventually change. Now the people who were first looked at as bad luck were just fellow soldiers who just had a few more scars on their backs. They also came to learn why discipline was so important. It was rare to have moral so high that you won''t waver when a superior enemy attacks your position. With enough discipline, no matter how scared you are you will do your job so you and everyone else around you can survive. Thanks to this discipline the defenses around the bridge were quickly being prepared even when everyone was tired. Currently, there were soldiers who braved the cold and fast-moving river water so they could place spikes that would stop enemies from quickly making it to the shore. Rich and the officers were delighted to see how well the army operated. Setting up camp defences, securing water sources and gathering food has become routine. Even the looming battle didn¡¯t interrupt it, showing how well-trained everyone was. By the end of the second day, word had come down that the enemies had been moving a bit faster than expected so the fight could happen in three days. For some their anxiety lessened by knowing the exact time frame but for others, it made them even more anxious. None of them complained and if someone needed to puke, they walked out of the camp to do so and when they returned no one made fun of them or looked down on them. The building of defences continued but the soldiers couldn''t stop themselves from staring at their general who was standing on the other side of the bridge and occasionally running faster than their eyes could see towards the enemy army. Every time he returned; he had more blood on his armour. It was comforting and frightening. His ability to kill was something every soldier respected but his utter disregard for his enemies was terrifying. Every soldier hoped that they would never become his enemy. While the soldiers of the United Freeholds continue to build up their defensive position the army of Vivienne ¡°The Slicer¡± Hearthweaver was making fast progress down the road. When you could call both forces a proper army, the way they operated was completely different yet in some ways eerily similar. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Most of The Slicer''s soldiers needed to be kept in line with force and intimidation. There were many escape attempts when they started to march but after a couple of dozen executions, everyone understood that they couldn''t escape her. The enforcement of discipline for each army was similar if you did not dig deeper. For the United Freeholds, their whip for punishment was standard and with no extra addons for damage. The Slicer''s army had a whip with five lines and at the end were small metal hooks. Also, The Slicer''s army punished most mistakes with lashings. The Slicer gained her nickname by the spell that she used the most. It was a devastating mana slash that goes through armour and people like they were made of butter. She also knew magic theory and how to cast many spells without the help of abilities. That was also the reason why none escaped her army without her knowing. She also used her knowledge of spells to see the way ahead. She was confident their opponents would use an ambush against her if she let them. In her mind, it was also the only way her love would have been killed. She knew that they must have used underhanded methods to achieve victory and she wasn''t going to be tricked by any of those. In her mind, she couldn''t wait to capture them all and then slowly torture them to death for the wrongs that they have done to her. Even her last party member Marriott knew that something was wrong with her, but she didn''t know any magic that could help heal the mind and every other healing spell she knew didn''t seem to do anything to bring her friend back to her. While everyone knew that their leader was crazy to the dedicated soldiers that were with her from the start it made them even more dedicated towards her. They were the kind of soldiers who would do anything to win. The Slicer, who is strong and willing to do anything to win, she was a perfect leader. The day a few of her scouts didn¡¯t return was the day she panicked for a moment. She hadn''t noticed anything wrong while scouting the area around them with her spells. When a day later none of her scouts returned, she expected an ambush at any moment. She spent hours casting spells to see where this ambush might be. When she didn¡¯t find anything, she started to look further ahead. The Slicer didn¡¯t notice anything wrong which frustrated her especially because the traps that she cast around her supplies hadn¡¯t been triggered. None of her plans had been working and she started to feel like she was making the same mistakes as her love when he marched against the United Freeholds. Usually when long-range reconnaissance spells were used the enemy armies would break them when their influence got too close, but Rich didn''t want that to happen as that would give away their position. This time keeping their position a secret for as long as possible was for the best. The occupied area of the United Freeholds army was relatively small. So, when Rich asked the mages if they could somehow camouflage or make the reconnaissance spell bypass their activity. The mages at first were uncertain but eventually, they were able to make it work but their camouflage would only work if not too much attention was placed on this location. The current situation was best for the camouflage plan to work. The Slicer was the only mage capable of reconnaissance spells and her panic distracted her enough for it to work. With Rich and a few others constantly killing the enemy scouts and with the spell camouflage they were able to keep their presence hidden until only 12 kilometres separated both armies. When The Slicer learned of this during her morning casting, she was furious and spent some of her anger on the forest surrounding them. What angered her the most was how casually the person who must be Rich Dirt was standing far in front of the impressive defences that she could demolish with one spell. The pure confidence and mockery that she saw in his face made her want to see that face broken with pain. But she held herself back. She did not wake everyone up so she could get there faster to start her revenge instead she let them sleep more so they would be fully rested. They also marched slower and in tighter formation to protect from skirmishing. She still didn''t know exactly how they were able to hide themselves for so long, but she was more confident when she saw the numbers. She was going to kill that bastard and then let her army crush that pathetic mockery of an army that was assembled against her. It was late in the afternoon when both leaders finally saw each other. The day was cold and strong winds swept the lands that were clear of trees. Rich Dirt and Vivienne ¡°The Slicer¡± Hearthweaver were both ready for a fight, but neither acted as her army was slowly closing the distance. chapter 232 Vivienne stops her army just before they make it into extreme arrow range. She had no reason to fear the mages against her. She could easily defend against them but added attacks from arrows might prove dangerous. However even more dangerous was the man who stood far in front of his army with two other men. That made Vivienne smile. That meant that they wanted to talk before anything went down. She would be able to use this to her advantage. Before she could enact her plan everyone on the battlefield shivered. The wind had changed direction and instantly it caused an even colder wind to encompass the surroundings. Only a few moments later one by one people looked up. Curses were heard from both armies as they could all see snow slowly starting to fall. Fortunately, the speed of the wind slowed so at least they wouldn''t have a blizzard on their hands. Vivienne didn¡¯t let herself be distracted and quickly cast a small spell to enhance her voice. I am willing to let you live if you hand Rich Dirt over to me and lay down your arms. This is the only ounce of mercy I will give you.¡± Her voice carried a long distance, but she was disappointed when the United Freeholds soldiers didn''t even look at each other to see what others would think. Rich smiled when he heard that. ¡°You can head back to the defences.¡± He said to the two people beside him. Both commanders were outraged by their enemy¡¯s demands. They had never understood why they would even try diplomacy. Everyone had known that there would be no reasoning with The Slicer but now all the puzzle pieces fit together. In unison they said. ¡°We will not leave you here it is too dangerous you must return with us.¡± Rich let out a defeated sigh. ¡°I was not asking you it was a direct order.¡± That shut the two commanders up, but they still wanted to argue. They, however, saw the look on Rich¡¯s face. There was no convincing him. They just had to hope their general knew what he was doing. They both gave a salute and hurried back to the defences. When they were about halfway back. Rich¡¯s powerful voice was heard by all. ¡°Your hostile intent is noted Vivienne ¡°The Slicer¡± Hearthweaver. I find your reason for war weak. The way you assembled your so-called army of yours is pathetic. You have condemned so many to death when all you needed to do was challenge me to get your revenge. I was the one who fought your party members, and I was the one who won. You know what I do not even remember his name.¡± At first, Vivienne was disappointed. She had hoped that Rich would need to come closer so he could give his response, but Rich could amplify his voice ending her small scheme. The words, however, made The Slicer angry. Eventually, she could barely see straight. She wanted to rush him and slice him into small pieces but that smirk on his face made her use the last of her willpower to calm herself down. While she did not attack, she could not hold back her words. ¡°You arrogant bastard. Just because you have gained a little power you think you¡¯re a hotshot now. You think yourself a hero, but you need to learn your place in the world.¡± "SILENCE,¡± yelled Rich out of pure anger. Everyone heard this as this one word contained so much power and emotion. A few people who were only level 1 collapsed from hearing it. The world itself stopped all other sounds before slowly things returned to normal. Rich was furious and eventually, he spoke again. ¡°Never again call me a hero. You do not know the meaning of the word and I will never experience that pain again.¡± Rich could not hold back the memories that came with being called a hero. He was once called that, but he will never forget how the very people who called him his friends and comrades lost their spark. They followed him into countless battles and one by one they all died or even worse were left empty husks by the actions Rich commanded them to do. Rich had promised himself that he would never be a hero again, knowing what the price for being one was. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Vivienne was shocked for a moment. That power was shocking but to her mind, it must have just been an ability and not an indicator of how powerful her enemy was. She had succeeded in making Rich angry and she wasn''t going to let go of that opportunity. If he attacked her when she was so close to her army, she would have all the advantages. ¡°You don¡¯t command me, Hero.¡± That was all The Slicer was able to speak. As soon as Rich heard the word hero he pulled this sword''s tip out of the ground and rushed The Slicer with all he had while yelling. ¡°I am what becomes of a hero who lives too long.¡± Vivienne had not realized her mistake. For most other opponents making them angry would make them lose reason and would give you a better chance at defeating them. Rich, however, had long ago learned to use his anger to fuel his fighting. In the Third World War back on Earth where battles lasted for weeks and months. During those times finding something to give you fuel to keep going was hard and many broke down never to recover again. Rich had found a way to keep fighting. He would use his anger of losing his friends to fuel his body. Vivienne wasn¡¯t facing an unthinking angry Rich instead she was facing someone who was fueling his already impressive capabilities with absolute anger and resentment. The Slicer, however, has fought for many years, especially during the last few. She has grown strong with the amount of killing she has done in the last few months giving her lots of stat points and levels. But even that barely helped her. She wasn''t able to use any of the complicated spells that she had planned to deal with Rich. He was moving so fast that she had to rely on spell abilities. With them, she was fast enough to react to the speed at which Rich was closing in. A mana shield appeared a few feet in front of her. To the people who couldn''t see mana the air only wavers a bit but others who could see they saw a blueish shield that Rich was about to flatten himself against. The slicer had expected Rich to try to slow down or go around the shield. Her eyes widened even more then she noticed him moving his shoulder in front of him like someone who was trying to bash through a door. A huge amount of energy rushed out of Rich reinforcing his body. To everyone''s surprise, he just broke through the mana shield while pumping more energy into his sword to finish this fight with one strike. The Slicer and everyone else who could see mana and energy was terrified to see what was happening. Usually, as soon as mana encountered energy mana started to eat energy at a fast pace. Currently, it almost looked like energy was eating mana. This, however, wasn''t the case but the usual ratio of mana versus energy was a lot lower and the huge amount of energy made it look like that. The Slicer had finally activated her accelerated mind ability at full strength. She was glad that she had a few traits that helped her mind otherwise she wouldn''t have been able to respond in time. Now she had a little bit of time, but she couldn¡¯t keep her mind accelerated to such a degree. She had to rely on her spell abilities to gain distance, so she started out with her most powerful spell ability mana slice. Mana slice flew out aiming for one of Rich¡¯s hands, but he was able to block it with his sword cutting through the spell making it useless. Once again, his energy should be losing, and his own enchantment of his blade should have been eaten but that didn''t happen. While Rich did lose more energy defending against mana at the current expenditure, he would have more than enough to win a resource battle. The slicer continued to launch spells faster and faster but each of them was cut down while Rich was slowly approaching. Vivienne was so used to her spell ability that she could use her other hand to cast another spell. She used an air bomb which wasn''t actually a battle spell but was used to extinguish wildfires. She exploded it between herself and Rich so they would both be blown backwards giving her enough time to cast a more complex spell. Just before the spell exploded Rich buried his sword halfway into the dirt while kneeling on one leg and making himself as heavy as possible. He expected an air-type spell as he recognized that element inside the spell. He had seen a similar structure plenty of times when Goose used air manipulation to accelerate explosively. Vivienne was flying through the air concentrating on casting a stabilise spell which helped her land without taking any damage. She immediately started to cast her body buff spells so she could better react, but she almost lost her concentration when she saw that Rich hadn''t been blown back and was once again rushing towards her. Luckily she was able to get far enough away to finish casting her spell before she had to dodge a strike from Rich¡¯s sword. With a smile on her face, she quickly got up. Rich¡¯s attack had left him off balance and close to her. She landed a heavy blow with her fist to Rich¡¯s side expecting to break ribs or kill him outright. Her smile instantly froze when a hit that should¡¯ve killed a low first-rank warrior didn''t have any effect on Rich. chapter 233 With snow slowly falling everyone held their breath when The Slicer hit Rich. His unmoving body was towering over all and without hesitation, Rich continued the fight. The Slicer knew that she was in danger. Rich¡¯s right hand was already moving and was about to grab her hand and the sword was already moving towards her head. She tried to get away, but Rich was fast enough that he was able to grab her sleeve. Even if Rich was currently wielding his two-handed sword in one hand Vivienne was certain that it could still kill her. Using her mana slice she was able to cut off her sleeve hem and free herself. Vivienne tried to get away but just couldn''t even with her boosted speed Rich was still keeping up. Rich had needed to use his haste ability otherwise his speed just wasn''t enough to keep up but right now he was pushing her back. Being pushed back and only narrowly escaping deadly strikes, Vivienne stopped holding back and started to push more mana into her body enhancement spell, but that meant she was on a tight timer until she was out of mana. Rich responded by activating his last stand once again overpowering The Slicer. He was basically a bonfire of energy that was constantly snuffing out any mana Vivienne had time to cast. Rich started to get closer, and his blade started to connect leaving wounds on Vivienne''s body. The Slicer was getting desperate when finally, a healing spell hit her starting to heal and refresh her. Rich and Vivienne had been moving fast between the space of both armies. Their battle now reached back near Vivienne''s army. This provided a chance for Vivienne''s last party member to cast her own spells to heal Vivienne. Rich, having learned Vivienne''s responses and actions from the last minute of all-out fighting started to use his experience to force certain actions out of Vivienne so he could control where the fighting happens. Before Vivienne knew what was happening, she was forced to escape Rich¡¯s blade into the ranks of her loyal soldiers. Because of Vivienne''s enhanced strength, her soldiers were crushed to death by her passing and Rich left an even bigger trail of death as he continued to pursue. She was angered by that but every time she tried to do the same to bring Rich close to his own army somehow, they ended up back at her for more of her soldiers to die. Vivienne came to a startling realization. Rich was somehow guiding her, but that moment gave Rich an opportunity. Vivienne had to watch as her last friend whom she had known for 20 years was cut in half by Rich¡¯s sword. Her mind broke when she realized she had lost everything for this chance of revenge. She started to cast a spell she swore never to use. Rich was already rushing back to engage but it was too late. Rich had been cautious of her magic the entire time and he saw the look on her face and knew that this wasn¡¯t going to be pretty. He was able to stop just in time and jump out of the way as a torrent of flames flew past him. This wasn¡¯t a normal flame. It was mana fire and would consume anything as long as it had enough mana to keep burning and Vivienne wasn¡¯t going to stop supplying it. She was using her hands as a guide while a constant torrent of flame was coming from her hands. The flames were so hot that even the spell''s structure couldn''t keep her hands completely safe. Slowly Vivienne''s hands were starting to go black, but she didn¡¯t mind and kept following Rich trying to burn him out of existence. Rich wasn''t sure if he could survive this fire, but he also saw this as an opportunity. He kept dodging and running away from the flame by the smallest of margins, but he was able to once again guide Vivienne into her own army. Rich had expected people to start running but it seems that her loyal soldiers were willing to die and used every opportunity to strike at him when he ran past. Rich, however, also didn¡¯t miss the opportunity. His sword constantly flashed out killing a lot of soldiers during his retreat. Vivienne finally figure out what was happening and before Rich could escape she changed the spell structure pumping almost all of her remaining mana into it causing an explosion to expand from her. The fire expanded explosively covering a large area which Rich wasn''t able to escape from. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Just before the flame hit Rich poured all of his energy and core energy to boost his defensive abilities. The flame explosion only lasted for a few moments but even then, his defences failed in multiple locations leaving burnt flesh behind. A normal man would¡¯ve passed out from the pain but to everyone''s surprise, Rich was still on his feet. Vivienne didn¡¯t notice this while she was cackling madly. She herself was also badly burned and only madness was still keeping her on her feet. The pure joy she felt knowing she won slowly started to bring her back from her madness. Vivienne felt a disturbance and opened her eyes. What she saw was Rich whose armour was black and even missing in some spots, but those cold eyes were so close now. Vivienne''s world crashed but even now her instincts tried to save her. Vivienne tried to cast a mana shield, but she didn¡¯t have enough to activate the spell. The next moment everything went black. After the attack, Rich fell to one knee. He was almost out of energy, but his body was wrecked. The lack of energy stopped his haste ability which caused another backlash making him even more disorientated. Rich knew he had to keep himself awake. If he didn¡¯t, he would be dead. Vivienne''s loyal soldiers cried out in anger after seeing their leader die. They commanded the army to charge so they could kill Rich and then his entire army. Before they reached Rich, they saw him drink a healing potion and then struggle to use some sort of movement ability which kept him just out of range. Rich collapsed after every use of his movement ability, but he forced himself to keep going so he could keep ahead of the closing fighters. Eventually, he no longer collapsed after using his movement ability and soon was able to put distance between himself and his pursuers. People waited to pick him up and rushed him behind the defences. Arrows and spells were already flying overhead trying to slow down the enemy who were rushing towards them but there were too many to stop. With the health potion quickly working to fix Rich¡¯s body he was able to activate his army boosts. The soldiers defending the bridge and who were in direct combat received a heavy defensive bonus while everyone else received a strong attacking bonus. He also used his commander¡¯s ability to give orders to the few strongest first-rank fighters they had. Their job was not to defend the bridge but instead, they had already crossed the river proceeding to sneak closer to the back lines of Vivienne''s army. When they finally received their orders, they burst out and started to kill the loyal soldiers of Vivienne''s army who were driving the forced soldiers forward. The loyal soldiers were no match for the strength of the United Freeholds'' strongest fighters. The forced soldiers quickly figured out that they weren''t being whipped or shouted at to move forward. Turning around, they found their captors being slaughtered. They understood what was happening and many had already started to run away or notify others of what was happening but before they ran too far away everyone once again heard that powerful yet terrifying voice. ¡°Forced conscript of Vivienne army. If you turn on your former masters and help us kill them, you will be welcomed into the United Freeholds. You will have a place to sleep and live. Make your choice but know that this offer expires after the battle.¡± Almost all who had run started to slow down but some still ran never looking back. The ones who stopped eventually turned around and saw their fellow conscripts start to fight the loyal soldiers. Some made the decision quickly and immediately started to run towards the fighting, but others took a few moments longer but eventually, all who had stopped rushed back into the fight. At first, they didn''t have any commanders but slowly as their resolve hardened, they gained access to General Rich¡¯s command ability. With that, they were able to firm up their lines and start to truly threaten the loyal soldiers. Soon they had powerful commanders who fought by their side as the people who first kill their masters now supported them during this fight. The loyalists found themselves surrounded. They weren¡¯t able to push past the bridge, but they couldn¡¯t retreat as they were severely outnumbered by the conscripts. Slowly they had less and less space to fight and some even fell into the river to be swept away by the current. Some took the plunge voluntarily knowing that their heavy armour would pull them down to the bottom but at least it would be a more peaceful death than being crushed between two armies and grind to death. It took almost an hour before the loyalist soldiers were all killed. While United Freeholds soldiers had received quite a few injuries none had died. The conscripts had lost a lot of people but when they saw the United Freehold soldiers rush to help their wounded, they felt hope. They had chosen to fight but none of them knew exactly what that chance entailed but they at least believed that it would be better than their previous destiny. With that, the massacre of the bridge was over and United Freeholds once again emerged victorious. While Rich wasn''t completely satisfied with how the fight started between him and Vivienne, in the end, everything still went how he had hoped. The march back took longer as they had a lot of new citizens to take back but after they cleaned up the battlefield, they had a lot of loot and wagons full of food and one full of treasure. chapter 234 After a few days of marching, I had finally calmed down completely. It seems that being called a hero is still a trigger for me. Just another thing I need to work on. With my mind finally centered I opened up the notifications that have been blinking at me for a few days. It seems that I have gained a level in renowned true archer and first homesteader. Two levels in heroic commander brought me to level 20 which gave me some extra goodies. The ability I gained from the level 20 level up was, march boost. I chose to immediately test it out as I was still in command of the entire army. Which was at the current moment heading back to GreenWave. The ability took quite a lot of energy for me to keep it up, but we were resting every night, so it gave me enough time to recharge for the next day. The boost was about 20% shaving off about two days from our march. It was quite a good result. I could¡¯ve just given the command to someone else and left everyone behind so I could run back faster, but it was nice to get to know the soldier a bit better. I have not spent enough time with them, so this was a good moment to get to know them a bit better and merge myself into army life a bit more. Our new citizens were already quite happy as they were able to eat a normal amount of food every day. Many needed to be carried by other soldiers not just because of wounds but mental breaks as well. For many, this was the first time they had the chance to relax, which unfortunately gave them time to think. What they went through was not easy on anyone. So much destruction and death just for some revenge. I have to thank my old friends who were able to talk sense to me when I was like that, and I guess that¡¯s also a reason why she got under my skin with that hero comment. My endurance stat went over the 320-milestone awarding me with another trait. This time I was quite pleased to see that the trait was a simple one, peak endurance. I didn''t even have to meditate on it, the name is enough. The one unfortunate thing about it is that I would now need to do even more running to keep up with my training plan. Hopefully, it doesn''t affect me in unforeseen ways while I am in my current growth phase. My dexterity is also past the 1500 mark leaving me only to get a few more vitality points. In truth, I can actually reach the second rank right now. Heroic commander gave me 25 more free points from the milestone, so I have enough to make it past the 1500 requirement. But I will hold off on ranking up just before I turn 14. Reaching the threshold four months ahead of schedule made me feel quite good. Just before I closed my achievement page, I remembered my adventurer class and chose to level that up as well. Unfortunately, there weren¡¯t any interesting abilities or skills to choose from the three level-ups I had accumulated. With that, all the stat points went into energy storage, so I didn¡¯t have to worry about accidentally messing up my training schedule. After that, I joined the marching soldiers. The days marching went by quickly, but the nights were quite fun, and I learned quite a few small games that everyone played. They were fun and helped pass the time. Word games were the most popular during marching and only games allowed. When we finally made it back a celebration was thrown but most of the council members were giving me the evil eye at the beginning. We had sent word ahead about how many new people were coming back. No one liked it at first because of winter. Now the apartment buildings had to be filled up to capacity leaving no free space to enjoy alone time. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. After two days of meetings and setting up our new citizens, I was finally able to get to my home. A visit to the sauna and then a deep sleep for almost 24 hours was just what the doctor ordered. It seems that my body still needs some extended sleep every once in a while, otherwise, I would just get too exhausted. Perhaps it wasn''t my body that needed it but my mind. After thinking some more about it that made a lot more sense. **** Rich refocused himself on training, teaching and improving his crafting. During his lectures, more and more people came to observe from a distance. There were too few spots but all who attended were able to more easily achieve breakthroughs so learning energy control became the new obsession for the people of United Freeholds. His crafting continued to evolve as more and more interesting materials were brought to him. He no longer only made unique weapons that were ordered from him but all other items as well like tools for different crafts. Rich rarely went out to hunt something but when he went it was to back up others. Rich only stepped up to protect someone¡¯s life. Otherwise, he would let them struggle until they emerged victorious. This helped the United Freeholds people to become even stronger. Soon snow was falling constantly. Winter had truly arrived. Finally, the land grew more peaceful and only mad men still marched their armies. For the citizens of United Freeholds, the winter was no longer something to be feared. While the GreenWave town was overpopulated their overall conditions were still a lot better than most of the remaining world. Work never ceased as miners still went mining, hunters still hunted and the cutting of lumber never ceased. The people who didn¡¯t have work during the winter chose to do other things, but they never rested, working to secure a better future for themselves. Eventually,, laws were set in stone about darker skills and classes. Criminal organizations were established but with the permission of the government. Those laws were not made public but only those who touched the darker side of this world were able to learn of them. This change was slow and for most people, it happened unnoticed. No one a part of these criminal organizations was allowed to target regular people. A different option was chosen. The upgrade of class and skills was turned into a game with real consequences so everyone would still gain experience. Criminal organizations could only target themselves and a few other targets who know about the darker side, but they still had to protect their own goods, otherwise risk losing them. Slowly the criminal organizations took their own territories, and the games became even more complicated. There were a lot more recruits for the legion as many of the new citizens decided to join the legion simply to gain a job during the winter when options were limited. Luckily, the threat of hunger was something no one had to worry about thanks to the supplies brought back by the army. There was also an influx of new coins that helped keep the economy afloat. Without that supply, people wouldn''t have been able to exchange credits for coins, which would have been quite troublesome. The building of the portal station progresses slowly as only a few people were able to work on it. The dungeons were growing fast. The soldiers and anyone else who wanted to improve themselves were given delve slots to delve even into dungeons with only a few rooms. The Inn Dungeon''s Retreat was doing good business as both delvers and miners often slept or ate there. The death of Vivienne and the loss of her army was just a small reporter that only interest a few people. Everyone had bigger things to worry about as they still needed to survive the winter and make sure that they were strong enough to continue their campaigns or defend against others next year. Months went by fast. The United Freeholds celebrated the winter solstice but soon after everything went back into routine until winter started to end. Everyone was already hard at work preparing new fields. But about a month before Rich turns 14 a terrible storm signified the true end of the winter. It was a true test for any building but luckily the Unite Freeholds only needed to make a few repairs. To the far east where the storm originated from an unfortunate creature was swept up when the storm had true strength taking him far from his home. Now there was only ocean under him. He had to keep flying with the wind hoping he would make it to land before he fell from exhaustion. chapter 235 There was less than a month until my birthday and all the preparations were completed except for one. There was still one material missing for my plan to succeed. When I collected leaves and acorns from the iron oak, I chanced on a particular branch that I instantly felt had an incredible bow just waiting to be uncovered. It took a little work to bring that branch back, but I haven¡¯t done anything with it. I would guess making a first-rank or hopefully, a second-rank bow would give me quite a lot of experience and I didn¡¯t want to level up and potentially messed up my accelerated growth. I¡¯ve made a lot of regular bows getting me to the very edge of levelling up my archery class. So hopefully when I complete the two planned bows from this piece of wood. I will be able to get enough so I can reach the level 20 milestone. Making the longbow out of this wood fit to my size would be time-consuming but I have everything here that I need for it. Making the composite bow in the Hun style would be impossible as I don¡¯t have a strong enough horn to use. To gain this material I will need to go on a hunting trip but luckily, I haven¡¯t had to kill anything strong in a while so I should be able to accomplish this without messing anything up. For this hunt, I¡¯ve made myself a first-rank spear to use with my other weapons. I¡¯ve also made my standard armour, but the brigandine and gambeson now had my heraldry dyed onto it. With everything ready I crossed my bridge and started to head north to the more dangerous and older area of the forest. I planned to be sneaky and only engage with a creature that would have the required material for the composite bow. Goose was my eyes in the sky as we continued to head further into the forest. After about three days I had to start camouflaging myself constantly and sneaking around as we occasionally ran into first-rank creatures that I didn¡¯t want to spend time fighting. On the fourth day, I even ran into a strong sabre-toothed cat, but I was able to hide fast enough that it wasn¡¯t able to find me. This place was dangerous and the further in I went the more powerful beast we found. It seems that the beasts around here killed off any monster when they appear before they were able to get strong enough to dominate the area. Because of this, the ecosystem was quite good and it was quite refreshing to be in this energy dense of an area. On the seventh day, I finally found my target. It was a bit bigger than a normal woolly rhinoceros, but it was close to second rank and the beast just looked powerful. It could easily pierce first-rank trees with its horn and if it wanted to push them down it could. Seems like it liked to eat newly growing leaves. Observing it for a few hours I found it not to have any elemental abilities. It also didn''t seem to have gained much in intelligence, so it was just a regular beast. All of its strength seemed to have gone into the body itself, which was exactly what I was looking for. While a monster might have a stronger horn there simply isn¡¯t any around. This wasn''t going to be a regular fight that I was used to, this was going to be a hunt and for that, I needed to prepare a bit. I scouted a good location where stone was quite close to the surface. I need that extra support as dirt wasn¡¯t going to be able to keep the spear in place. Having found my perfect location, I went and engaged the beast. I started the fight with a bow shot that it didn¡¯t even notice. I actually had to use energy with my shots to get its attention. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Even with a fully powered-up shot, at least as much as the bow and arrow allowed me to. It still only left a scratch. That was fucking scary but something I expected. The beast didn¡¯t like it and soon I was running for my life while a living tank was chasing me. It was a lot faster than I expected and the trees didn''t hold him back. With my movement ability, I was able to keep ahead of him while still keeping him focused on me. I finally reached my destination and picked up the spear. I then started to flood energy into it and the ground beneath me as I needed to strengthen it as well. When our eyes met, I saw amusement in them. He could see what I was doing and the amount of energy inside the spear, but he just lowered his head a bit so the first thing I would come into contact with would be his horn. If I would try to aim above it, thanks to its scull shape the spear would glance off and I would end in a bloody mist. It was a good thing that this wasn¡¯t my plan and that I wasn¡¯t hunting alone. Goose had been up high constantly gathering and compressing wind for our plan. He swooped down at incredible speed, but the beast didn¡¯t even notice. Goose had become incredibly good at controlling the air element and when he flew past the beast the noose that he had made wrapped around the woolly rhinoceros head. With the speed he was going, it pulled its head just high enough before it hit the spear. Now instead of being deflected the spear penetrated deep into its chest. There was a brief moment where it looked like the spear shaft would break but it held. I was just quick enough to get out of the way. The beast had fallen. It was trying to get up but with four feet of spear penetrating its chest it was finding it hard. I didn¡¯t waste a single moment and quickly pulled out my two-handed sword charging it up as much as possible and then striking the neck of the beast. It took three strikes to get past the skin and another one to open the juggular. With that, the beast quickly bleed out and died, but our troubles weren¡¯t over. As soon as the blood stopped, I stuffed the corpse into my adventure bag and Goose, who was now almost three times the size he previously was, used the last of his strength to carry me as far away from this place as possible. Behind us, the sounds of battle had already begun as many predators were attracted by the smell of blood. They will be fighting each other without knowing that there wasn''t anything to gain. Without air manipulation, Goose could never have been able to carry me. That also meant when he was running low on energy we had to stop. I was the one who carried him even further away from the fighting. After a day I was reasonably certain that we were safe. I was still being extremely careful just in case, while we were returning. While I did stop for a moment at my home I was only there to eat and let everyone know that I was safely back from the hunt. Afterwards, I immediately left so I could go to town. While I could butcher the beast myself, I didn¡¯t have any specific abilities that would make harvesting materials better. I would still help but a lot of the job would be done by the professionals. When I made it to them, I saw their eyes begin to sparkle. We had talked about this before, and they were ready holding their breath to see what I had brought. This would probably give them a lot of experience and they would get some of the materials as well. When I pulled out the six-meter-long and three-meter-tall woolly rhinoceros they couldn''t help but cheer. Everyone quickly calmed down and the professional atmosphere took over. The workplace even had cranes so they could deal with large bodies. Helping them was quite interesting and I learned a lot, but I was only required for the start of it. Afterwards, they were able to handle it themselves and it would take them a while to properly extract everything. I still stayed a bit longer than I needed to as it was interesting to watch the different abilities being used to preserve the body so they would have the time to make the harvested materials as good as possible. Eventually, I left them to it and headed back home where I opened my notification. I found out that my archery class levelled up to 19 something that I expected but luckily none of the others did which means that I should be safe even if I need to go out and fight some more. chapter 236 It was finally time to start working on the longbow. It was nice to get back to the basics, at least for the start of the crafting. To split the long log in two, I needed to use my abilities to keep the tool from breaking and so it could actually cut through the log. My incredible strength made the job easier, but no normal human could ever even scratch this material. Not every part of Iron Oak was under first rank, and this particular log was quite strong with excellent properties for a perfect bow. With the log split into two pieces, I put away one part as I would use some of it to make the composite bow. What I was left with, I needed to split again and after that, it was time to start carving out the general shape. The shaping required a lot of energy. I needed to improve my tools so they would actually work, and I needed to keep up my other ability so I could see better where the bow was inside the wood. After a full day of work, the general shape was done. It was at this point that the hard work really began. While I could continue to carve out the shape and eventually complete the bow, it would be quite wasteful. I was about to get access to the second-rank energy, so making a first-rank bow seemed meaningless. To fix that, I purchased some special materials. If I could combine those materials using my abilities and then infuse them with the Iron Oak wood, there would be a possibility that it would be a second-rank weapon. The concentration and energy required made my previous job look like a walk in the park. It took me three full days, after which it would need to cure for another two at least. By this time, I had gotten the shipment back from the butchers and after inspecting it, I was certain that this horn was good enough. It was actually quite excellent. After a quick sleep, I went back to the smithy so I could begin my work on the composite bow. For that, I needed to cut out multiple different pieces of wood from different wood types. Unfortunately, they also needed to be imbued. Before I started, I also cut out the horn pieces that I needed. Done with that, I turned around and headed towards the corner of the smithy where I had cabinets and shelves full of unique materials. With the horn pieces in my hands, I started to examine the different materials to find if I had something that could make them even better. I found a piece of copper that had flame elemental properties and it did seem to fit well with the horn, but unfortunately, it would mess up the overall function of the bow if I added the flame copper. To my surprise, the answer didn¡¯t lie in metals but instead in an interesting piece of clay. Now, while it wasn''t a perfect boost, it would help get the piece of horn closer to rank two, which I was already grateful for. What followed was two days of grueling work, but luckily there were fewer materials so I was able to finish faster. I left the composite bow pieces to cure while I checked up on the longbow. Already holding it felt powerful. It was already damn close to the 2nd rank, but there was still a lot of work left to be done. Even before I continued to carve out the longbow, I went and picked up my first rank tool set as my regular tools would no longer work for this material. The only reason I wasn¡¯t using them before was that it would be a waste to use tools beneath their station. Once again, the work reminded me of the good old days as I couldn¡¯t just bend the bow back with my hands. This made the progress slower, but I had a purpose-built bow testing rig against the smithy wall. The bow emerged from the wood easily. Well, perhaps "easily" is the wrong word as it was incredibly tough work, but the image I had of the bow and what the wood wanted me to carve was quite easy for me to see. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The bow was finally done, and I attached the bowstring. I had to wince a little bit. The bowstring was barely holding, but I was able to fix that temporarily by strengthening the bowstring with my energy. To pull this bow was a different ball game altogether. Giving myself all the boost I could and circulating my energy as fast as I could, I still wasn¡¯t able to make a complete pull. Fortunately or unfortunately, it was still good enough to test shooting an arrow. The target was destroyed on hit with the arrow. The impact almost sounded like when I was shooting the ballista. While the bowstring survived this shot, it would definitely not survive another one. Currently, I have no idea where to find a bowstring that would fit this bow, but eventually, I will find it. It was hard not to smile as this was the most powerful weapon that I¡¯ve created. It gave me a ridiculous amount of experience, but I was just shy of leveling up to 20. It also gave me 5 levels in bow making, bringing me up to 15. An interesting thing that the testing did was allow my advanced body skill to reach level 40, giving me an ability called "Energy Skin". This was also the first skill that reached past the advanced rank, giving me my first master rank skill. Now it was time to go back to the composite bow. Checking all the materials, they seemed to be cured properly, so it was time to start assembling the basic shape of the bow. Usually, glue was used to combine all the pieces, but I was going to use my abilities to achieve an even better result. When I was done after a day of merging all the different pieces, the bow was no longer made from different pieces, but it was now a complete whole. Well, technically you could still see the different types of materials, but they were now bonded together so tightly that breaking them apart would be harder than just cutting through all the different materials. After that, I took a break to sleep properly and also go to the village to give my lecture before returning so I could continue my work. The carving for the composite bow was interesting as without the string, it almost looks like it should shoot the other way around, but the tips of the bow will act like levers when the bowstring is put in place, giving a huge mechanical advantage which made shooting such a powerful bow possible. I was less familiar with this type of bow, but I still had made a hundred back on Earth and I had also practiced making them here as well. Eventually, these bows would be given to mounted Legionnaires and possibly other military units as well. I have always been tempted to mimic the Mongol army style, but to reach the amount of horses we would need would take hundreds of years, if not more. A few days later, when I was almost finished, it turned out to be an incredibly gorgeous-looking yet deadly weapon. While one of the reasons I wanted to make this bow was so I could level up, it wasn''t the only reason. Goose was constantly growing and eventually, I would be able to ride him. A longbow would not be able to be used while I was mounted, but this composite bow would be perfect. Do I know if that was going to be necessary? Absolutely not, but you can never be too certain. But honestly, it just sounded amazing. There were a few days until my birthday, but it was close enough that I could finish this bow and level up. So with a few more final touches with my knife, I felt that the bow was finished and immediately notifications started to bring attention to themselves. Opening the notifications, the first thing I saw was that my bow-making skill advanced another two levels, but more importantly, my renowned true archer class had leveled up to 20. This gave me triple the amount of stat points a regular level would give me, and that was already enough to bring me one point over the 1500 milestone. I could already feel energy starting to gather, so I quickly looked through my notifications. I gained 25 free points which was amazing, but I also got an ability called "Imbued Bow". Currently, I didn¡¯t have more time to think about it as I felt an intense energy starting to coalesce. I could feel that I gained access to a higher rank energy that started to flow into my body, upgrading it as it started to circulate. The power felt so good, but to my surprise, I started to grow. It seems that my giant among men trait wasn''t quite done with me yet. I had already grown to seven feet and four inches, but it seems that this wasn''t enough. Energy continued to strengthen my body and everything else that was me. This process took about half an hour, and when it was finished, I was completely spent. I was in a weakened state for about a minute before my body started to flood with strength. My traits had acclimated to the changes and now started to bring me back to my peak. When I stood up, I felt a bit weird and I stumbled towards the measuring string. With the help of the string and the ruler, I found that I was now 8 feet tall. I started to do my exercises, but to my relief, I had kept all my flexibility. I was so glad that all that work didn¡¯t go down the drain. Now I was an 8-foot human with perfect proportions while still having my speed and flexibility. chapter 237* My achievement: Surpassed the system also triggered thank to me reaching the second rank of energy access. It gave me 600 free points which was massive and something I did not know what to do with. For the moment I will just keep them unspent. After getting a bit more used to my body, I exited the smithy and started to walk towards my house as I was feeling quite hungry. It was weird being so tall; the sudden jump in height was messing with my brain. My walking speed was already faster without me having to do anything, and I could feel the power that my muscles held. Proportionate growth gives a lot of advantages, and I honestly had no idea how much stronger I was right now, but it felt overwhelming. Of course, a big contributor to this was the second-rank energy which was even now working on making my body better. The energy in my core was slowly starting to improve, the new higher rank energy making it even better. Currently, a lot of the things that were previously subconscious, I was actively needing to guide again, so even I was surprised by how much I was doing subconsciously. There will be an adjustment period until it goes back to the way it used to be, but in the meantime, I will just have to do all the work. I didn¡¯t want to slow down my energy circulation, but I had to as I would risk too much if I entered my house like this. There was no doubt in my mind that with my current power, I could easily destroy anything in my house. When I reached my front door and opened it, I had to duck down a lot so I could get through it. At least I could stand tall in the living room. My entrance did not go unnoticed, and the few apprentices currently inside looked at me with widened eyes. "Yes, yes, an unfortunate situation, but it seems that I have actually gained a lot more height than I expected. Sorry about that, Suzanne," I spoke, which finally made most of them snap out of their surprise. Suzanne dropped the shirt that she was currently working on. That was supposed to be my shirt, but now the preparations we have all made are made useless, and I will need to start from the beginning. There will also be a need to go to the cobbler''s shoe shop as I will need to get a few more custom-ordered boots. This whole situation was honestly a headache, and even cooking felt uncomfortable as I needed to constantly bend down while I was cooking. After eating what felt like my entire body weight, I started to go outside so I could meditate and hopefully get a little bit better at controlling this body. Being a bit distracted cost me as I destroyed the upper part of the doorway when I didn¡¯t bend down enough. An hour later, we had a bigger doorway made, and I left my apprentices to make the bigger door while I finally was able to meditate. This helped me center myself a bit more and think logically again, which necessitated another use of my training plan development ability. This time the goal was to make me better used to this body so I could still function like I used to. This time the training plan was a lot simpler as I didn¡¯t really need help at the upper end of my capabilities, but in the lower end. For the next month, I will be taking it easy, meditating a lot more, and just doing stability exercises and fine-tune control exercises. This brought up another problem: while my finances were good enough that my homestead would be able to run without any problems, me needing to get new everything for myself is putting a strain on those resources. My biggest current expenditure will be the second-rank bowstrings. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. My birthday came fast but as no one knew what day it was because I always dodged that question, I was able to relax and just enjoy the day. I received a new achievement while I was cleaning the sauna. Rank two in two years achievement was something I was expecting and the 300 free points as a reward sounded awesome. A few days later I asked Emma about a bowstring, but she wasn¡¯t anywhere close to making such a rank of bowstring, so currently I had two options: either go out and try to find the second-rank opponent where I could possibly get the required materials, or buy it from a bigger market. I knew that there was a plan to visit a bigger market to sell off some of our things that we have made and found, but who knows how long it will take until that is profitable, and I definitely didn¡¯t have the funds to pay for our merchant to go right away. The solution came to me immediately after I laid out my problem. There was enough of the Iron Oak remaining that I could make another composite bow. That alone should fulfill most of the requirements for our merchant to portal to a bigger market, but I should have enough first-ranked woods to make a few more top-quality first-rank bows. This will also help with the training plan I have, so without any hesitation, I dived in to complete my current plan. The next two weeks went by fast, and I was quite happy to see the improvements that I was making. With my constant training, my contortion skill had long gone past its milestone, giving me a new ability called "Double Jointed". My smithing skill also went over a milestone, going into the advanced rank giving me a new ability called "Temperature Control". Just needed to make a few rank two arrowheads, and that was enough to push the skill to the next level. It also seems like my mental strength that didn¡¯t let me break down when I found it hard to control my body meant quite a lot of experience for my mental fortitude skill. Getting past that milestone gave me an ability called "Energy Will" which was a game-changer of an ability. Now my energy had a will of its own, which made doing anything with my energy a lot less taxing for my mind. So many upgrades, but there was still much to do. I quite fondly packed up all the bows that I have made so I could take them to our head merchant who will hopefully agree to go and sell them so I could get my bowstrings, and our nation could get whatever it needs. Running was once again nice in my new boots; I felt more stable. For about a week there, I needed to go around barefoot which, while different and kind of nice, wasn''t ideal for anything serious. When I reached the head merchant''s office, there was only one problem: I actually didn¡¯t know the man¡¯s name as I always just knew him as the head merchant. After knocking on his door, I was soon called in. It was hard not to pump my fist in the air as there was a nameplate on his desk. I should make a proposition to add names to the outside of the offices. "Good morning, Roger," As soon as I finished saying that, his head snapped up, not expecting me. He quickly started to put his papers away, but I waved for him to stop. He didn''t, and to my surprise, he was quite proficient at getting himself and his surroundings looking presentable. He stood up and gave me a military salute, and that made me remember that he was one of the mobilized soldiers for our very first battle. After some pleasantries, I finally got to why I was here. "I¡¯ve enjoyed talking to you, but it¡¯s time to get to business as I didn¡¯t come for a social call." He quickly nodded, but as I didn¡¯t get completely serious, neither did he. "If I remember correctly, one of our goals is for you to visit a bigger market, but we currently don''t have enough valuable trade goods for this to be profitable. I have made some items that hopefully will be enough, but I would also require you to get a decent amount of second-rank bowstring." When I finished saying that, I brought his attention to the backpack that I brought where I started to pull out the different kinds of bows that I have made. After he inspected the bows, I could see that he was getting excited, but there was still a small frown on his face. That frown turned into a smile when he saw the second-rank composite bow. He was excited, but then his smile froze. "I am so sorry, Rich, but while this does put us well past the required amount, that would all go into your fortune. While this is something good for you, unfortunately, we would not be able to get the items we need for our nation with the resources we have." That was a bit disappointing, but a smile quickly returned to my face. "Well, why don¡¯t you use the rest of my profits for the nation then? I mean, you will still give me the credits, but it doesn¡¯t mean that I will have to use those credits. There really isn¡¯t anything else that I currently require, so?" When I finished saying that, he immediately understood my idea and after he started to question me about what kind of bowstring I needed and how much, after a handshake, I left after he promised that he would go on this trade mission as soon as possible. With that, I was satisfied, but there was still a lot for me to do. After I gave today¡¯s energy lessons, I was able to get my mentoring skill to the advanced rank, giving me a new ability called "Listened Words" which simply made people listen to my words and actually tried to understand them. This didn''t help my lessons a lot as the people were already listening and trying to understand to the best of their ability. chapter 238 Back at home, I continued my meditation and training. With the free time I had, I started a new project: making myself armor that would hopefully last longer. I consumed quite a lot of unique materials so I could boost my armor as much as possible, but even then, I wasn¡¯t able to bring it to rank two, which was a bit disappointing but also understandable. Still, this should be good enough with my defensive abilities to make this armor truly effective. My apprentices also helped me out, so we were able to complete it in about a week. I once again felt better having my signature armor around me. Still, the problem of my weaponry remained as I was feeling quite naked without having weapons that could currently match my strength. But there was nothing I could do about it at this moment. With a lot more free time now and my body feeling almost back to normal, I started to teach my apprentices more. The first thing I did was get them back into smithing so they could learn metalworking more. The biggest project that I currently gave them was to make three hand-drawn plows. They were going to be necessary for the lesson I was going to give them in about a week, as we were fast approaching the correct planting time for some of the crops. When the plows were ready, I instructed all of my apprentices to gather in front of the inn. Soon, Val and his family also joined so I could begin. "Welcome everyone, today we start a new project. While some parts of it will take a short time, some will take a lot longer. Val here has been concerned about the materials required for his inn. Of course, what I¡¯m talking about is something that you have all enjoyed during your own night at this inn: alcohol, beer, ciders, and so on. Every proper inn owner should have his own brew, which would make his place more special.¡± "For that, we will need to build him a place where he could do that, but not just that, we also need to make him some small fields where he could grow different kinds of plants for his experimentations. Of course, this place should be big enough that I could also give it a try, and anyone else who wants to give it a go as well. Val also likes fresh vegetables, so we will also be making a small garden where his family could grow their own food.¡± "Currently, Francis is busy making new fields for the nation, and I also thought it would be a good lesson for you all. You don''t need a dedicated animal to grow enough food for yourself or a few other people, all you need is a friend or a life partner. That is why I instructed you to make those plows. You will all be making new fields and starting to plan out the buildings needed for this project." When I finished my speech, people seemed excited yet a bit worried, which was to be expected. Not wanting the excitement to die down, I quickly started to give instructions on how to begin. Val''s family also joined in and helped with everything. It was a fun time, but it didn''t take too long to make the fields, and when we were done, I gave Val the seeds that he would need so they could continue from this point on. The building itself will take a while longer to get started as the planting season was starting. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I went to visit Francis, who seemed really happy about the work that he was doing. Making new fields, especially in the amount that he was making, was hard work which he enjoyed. I explained to him that he would not be needed back home as I would be doing the job he would be doing. He was a bit sad at that, so I kept him company for a while longer while he was working, which made him feel better. When I made it back home, doing field work was not hard work for me. It was quite fun and didn¡¯t even strain my body. I could have done this job even back at the first rank. When the fields were prepared, I finally felt that I was completely in control of my body once again and slowly I could feel that I needed to do less and less to keep my energy circulating. If I had to guess, I would say in about another month, I would be back to where I started before I reached the second rank. During this time, I heard that our merchants entered the portal and should return in less than a week. I kind of wish that I went with them, but there was too much to be done at the homestead. POV Roger Since Rich came to visit me, every moment has been hectic, but this is bringing back so many good memories that I couldn¡¯t help but keep smiling all the time. The last few years have been especially tough, but I finally feel like I have recovered from losing my merchant company. While it was basically just me and a few other workers, it was still something that I built from nothing. But now, I was a trader for an entire nation, and I felt up for the challenge. Everything went smoothly, especially hiring guards as everyone here was so professional. The council even gave me four first-rank Vikings, which made me feel incredibly safe, but I also hired some more guards through the job building. While at first, I felt like the job building was taking some of my job, I can¡¯t argue with its effectiveness at rebuilding an economy. I am still not sure that the nation should pay so much for its labor, but I am willing to see what happens. Time flew by, and soon I found myself ready with everyone working for me gathered in front of the portal station. To get the resources required for a portal station, we had to pay quite a lot, but everyone agrees that it was worth it. Anyone who had access to mana had been charging the portal as soon as I announced the trading mission. While we have stored crystals for emergency use, they were currently not needed. When one of the mages finally asked us if we were ready, I gave an affirmative, and only a few seconds later, a blue portal appeared before us. I gave the signal, and everyone moved forward. The best way I could describe portal travel is that you don''t feel anything during the travel. It¡¯s like walking through a doorway, but you end up in a completely different location. The first thing I noticed when I went through the portal was that the sun was higher up than it was back in GreenWave. It was a bit disorientating, but with the help of the portal attendant who got my attention, I was able to get out of the way so that others would not run into me when they followed. This was just the first portal we had to go through, but we were already on a different continent. Jumping here took a bit more mana, but it was a better option than going to the former capital of the fallen kingdom. Who knows what restrictions the queen might impose on us. The safer option was to jump to this trade city that was closest to us. Looking around, I could already see seven other portal stations, some of which had a different design, meaning that they connected to a different portal network. Seven is quite a low number, but it¡¯s normal for such a northern location. I was given a drink that would help with the disorientation, and I noticed that the same was given to the others. It was good that they decided to accept my request when I sent the mage letter with our information and travel plan. None of us had made such a big portal jump, and we would need to do one again quite soon, and I couldn¡¯t have my personnel sick. My mind started to relax, and I started to look around even more. We were situated on a small cliff that overlooked the shallow sea. This city was famous for its seafood and many other important resources that can be gained from the sea. We were near a large bay, the size of our entire nation, and it had thousands of small islands where resources were farmed from. The thousands of small islands, the beautiful water and what seemed like an endless amount of sailboats was a breathtaking view. chapter 239 POV Roger Unfortunately, I wasn¡¯t able to admire the view for too long as a more important attendant approached me. "Good day to you. I presume you are Roger, the person who sent the letter, and the rest of you are his merchant party?" The person who spoke was a bear person. He was quite big but seemed happy that he had some new business. "Yes, I¡¯m Roger and good day to you as well. Let me get your payment right away," I said, then took out and handed him the agreed-upon payment. It was a large sum of coin and cores, but thanks to this portal complex being a part of a bigger company, it meant that we were able to pay for our entire trip to the city-state of Verdia and back. The person accepted the payment and after only a few seconds put it away with his smile widening. "It''s a pleasure doing business with you," he said, and then led us to a small sitting area. "While we could already open a portal to the next city, it¡¯s a good idea, especially for first-time travelers, to rest between so you can get used to the travel." The place was really nice and had a good view of the city and the large bay. He said it would be best if we waited for at least two hours and then left for other business, but after about 15 minutes I saw him coming back. "Is there something wrong?" I asked him, to which he shook his head. "No, no, it''s just business is quite slow so I thought that I would come and introduce myself a bit better and we could perhaps exchange some stories." It sounded like a good idea. "That would be most welcome. My name is Roger," I said with a gentle smile on my face. "Good to meet you. My name is Arktos. It was an interesting letter that you sent. You see, we rarely get anyone from the Green continent, especially when the petty kingdoms must be in constant war," Arktos spoke, but I was a bit confused. "What do you mean petty kingdoms? I¡¯ve never heard the term before," I asked him. "It''s something that most of us in the portal business are calling the new smaller kingdoms that are emerging from all the fallen kingdoms. Can¡¯t really call them proper kingdoms as they don¡¯t have the staying power real kingdoms have," Arktos answered, to which I nodded. "That''s a nice name for it and describes what is happening on the continent quite well. I assume that this is happening all over?" To my question, Arktos looked a bit confused. "Do you not have access to a global mail system?" he asked, and to that, I nodded. "Well, that makes sense. Then you guys have missed a lot. Every month the world council sends a newsletter to explain what''s happening in the world. Wait, have you even heard about the world council?" To that, I shook my head. "The former capital that had the connection to the global mail system is not too friendly to us, and one of our contacts there even believes that they¡¯re suppressing world news. One of our main goals for this trade mission is to get the required resources so we could be connected," my answer made Arktos quickly nod his head. "Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of places are trying to suppress the news as it usually doesn¡¯t fit the narrative they¡¯re trying to make, and that¡¯s a good idea about getting your own connection. It''s important for the future, but let me fill you in on a few important things." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "First, it turns out that the world government has been in existence for a lot longer than anyone expected, but usually, they just let nobles and kingdoms rule the regular people while they dealt with the higher ranks. But I guess that even you guys have heard about the empire and what they did with the plague?" To that, I nodded, so Arktos continued. "Yeah, basically everyone knows that. So, one of the reasons that happened was a few higher-ranked people wanted their home empire to become the most powerful nation so they could slowly start influencing the council more." "From what I heard, the battle to take down those higher-ranks wiped off the empire''s capital, which was one of the biggest and most populated cities on the planet. The council wants a bit more visibility and so that people would understand more about the world so these things wouldn¡¯t happen again. Slowly over time, they have started to explain their decisions more and give general news of what¡¯s happening around the world." When Arktos finished, my mouth was completely open. What the hell have we been missing? "Why does everyone react the same?" Arktos asked, which finally allowed me to take control of my mouth again. "This is quite overwhelming," I said, after which we both turned to the bay so we could both think in quiet for a little bit. Eventually, I said, "Those letters seem quite important, especially for my own nation. Do you perhaps know if it would be possible to purchase copies?" Arktos didn¡¯t answer immediately. "You know what, when you finally make it back here, I¡¯ll collect the letters for you for only one monster core. You seem like a good sort and perhaps we could set up some sort of a trade deal as this city has a lot to give." Now it was my time to think. More close ties here would be nice, and selling to this place would mean that we wouldn¡¯t have to collect such a fortune every time we wanted to trade. At the current moment, I can¡¯t think of anything crucial that we would need from this city, at least in the resource department, but for coin and core, it would still be good. ¡°I¡¯m not opposed to the idea, but I would need to come here so I can properly introduce myself to the city''s markets, but that would have to be another trip I¡¯m afraid. But not to worry, for my nation, jumping here is not that expensive." Arktos smiled and gave me a big nod of approval. "That is good to hear. Our city has been suffering from the lack of trade that the plague has caused, but I¡¯m a bit curious as to why you are referring to your home as a nation and not a petty kingdom?" Arktos asked. "Well, that''s quite simple because we don''t have a king, we have a council. My nation is called United Freeholds." Now it was Arktos¡¯s time to be surprised. "Not a kingdom, that''s surprising but not unheard of. The name, however, United Freeholds, now that''s unique." We ended up speaking until it was time for us to enter our portal. Arktos and I parted ways as good acquaintances and with another step, we were in another location and another trading city. We had reached Lacustrion, the second stop. This city was much larger and situated at the shore of the massive lake named Verlum lake after the continent it''s in. The lake was bigger than the fallen kingdom we came from, and we could see hundreds of fish farms and again countless small sailboats fishing. The attendants here weren''t so friendly, but they were still professional. Here we didn''t need to wait because we needed to recover, but because there were wait times and schedules for portal usage in this larger city. It took us six hours before we were able to once again portal to the next location. Sylvoverda was a richer trading city. They had access to rich farmland, a stupid amount of lakes and rivers, and a huge forest where the deeper parts were filled with monsters and dungeons where wealth could be extracted from. When we were being led to a sitting area, I noticed that the road that led out from the portal complex into the larger city had people in robes who were constantly approaching people and trying to start up a conversation. Our attendant noticed my gaze and let out a frustrated sigh before he spoke. "Those are followers of different religions who are trying to convince anyone who listens to start following their beliefs. A while back they were allowed inside the portal complex, but we got so many complaints that they now can¡¯t enter, but unfortunately, we can''t do anything about them being outside our complex." "Fortunately for you, you don''t have to worry about them as you won''t need to leave the portal complex. If you, however, want to, just keep walking as any guard would immediately arrest them if they try to forcefully stop you." The news was sobering, especially after I was informed about religions and the churches. It seems that Rich has more experience with them and while most of the time they are problematic, some of the people who believe in those religions can be quite mad with their beliefs. chapter 240 Our bodies were feeling the strain from the constant portaling. I looked at the open portal in front of me with trepidation. At least this would be the last portal for a few days. After we stepped through, we found ourselves in a massive portal complex that had at least 100 portal stations. From what I heard, this wasn''t even the only portal complex in this city. To call this place a city was an insult. The biggest city in the world should have a better designation. Before the plague, it was a place where about 40 million people called it their home or were visiting. Now that number was down to 25 million, which still made it the biggest city in the world, but now real estate here was a lot cheaper. It had only been open for unrestricted portal travel for a few months, which I was glad to hear about as I didn¡¯t even know that travel was restricted here. The restriction ended when the world council announced that the plague had officially ended, having burnt itself out. The attendant here gave me my requested information packet and then led us to a sitting area where I could go through the information. I learned the locations of markets and an inn where we could stay at. The general cost for everything was also included. There was also information on how to access the arena vision. The arena was a world wonder and the main reason this city was so big. You could watch fights from any place in the city from any arena where fights were happening. You could see the fights close up, which was something no other place could give at such a scale. The arenas themselves were also special as they always teleported the loser out before they could die. That didn''t mean that you couldn''t get injured or even maimed, which was also the reason that this city was one of the most popular cities for healers. From the information, I learned that there were many smaller cities and towns that supported this giant city. Among those smaller cities were some that were called Academy cities where thousands of students learned their profession. This place seemed incredible and I wanted to keep going through the information, but the sun was starting to set so we needed to hurry. The biggest problem that I immediately noticed was the heat. We were in a tropical climate, something that none of us was used to, but our levels were high enough that it shouldn''t matter too much, especially for the first-rank people among us. The streets were packed, but the guards that I hired were doing a good job at keeping us together and keeping any pickpockets away from us. We had to go down a few side streets before the amount of people started to lower. Here we had a more reasonable chance of finding reasonably priced accommodations and somewhere that actually had the number of beds that we required. It took us two hours to find it and 12 inns before we found an Inn, called Dancing Willow, that had enough beds for us all. The place was still huge, having five floors and having a bigger footprint than our apartment buildings. I stayed up long into the night, trying to keep myself cool as I learned as much as possible. There were so many markets in this place, but because of the constant fighting, selling weapons here was profitable. Unfortunately, also buying raw resources to make those weapons was also expensive, but there should be a few materials in abundance that should have a lower price which will hopefully help me achieve my second goal. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Of course, that would also depend on how good Rich¡¯s bows actually are. If their price is high and I can buy the materials he needs to make more at a low enough cost, we might have a way for our nation to make huge amounts of coin. I left the question of whether Rich is willing to make the bows to someone else. I¡¯m just here to evaluate if this is something that would be beneficial to us or not. For this and the rest of the goods, I would need an excellent evaluator, but for that, I would need to find a reliable information merchant. I have a few leads, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Today had been exhausting and I don¡¯t think I will be able to relax until we are back at home. The next morning, after breakfast, everyone in my room started to give orders to my subordinates on what they needed to do today. Their main goal was to do the beginning groundwork so making actual deals would be faster and I would already know where I needed to go. Everyone got guards, for myself I kept the four first-rank guards as I was carrying basically everything we brought. My first goal today was to visit the city-state''s bank as I needed to open up an account there for the nation. I was in a hurry yesterday but today; I was able to properly appreciate the city. The current place we were at looked a lot similar to the other larger cities that I¡¯ve been to, it''s just that the streets felt endless and when we started to get to the more important areas the houses'' heights rose quite quickly. The amount of different architecture was also interesting, but I guess that¡¯s to be expected in the most diverse city on the planet. There are so many different races. All the four largest groups were decently represented, but humans and beastkin were the most popular. I even saw a few elves which I hadn¡¯t seen before. I must admit that their beauty was over-exaggerated. When we finally started to reach one of the bank branches, we saw one of the tallest buildings we have ever seen, I started to count the floors and reached 14. How is that building even standing? And I thought that other buildings that had five to seven floors were large. Even from this distance, I could read the building''s name, Valour Vault Auction House. Auction houses weren''t that popular back in the fallen Kingdom. Seeing one made me reconsider my plans on how to sell at least the second-rank bow. This needed some more information gathering but currently, I needed to focus on the bank. The bank building itself was quite low compared to the others but its grandeur was on a different level. It was made from a smooth black rock with different shades of black creating an interesting pattern. The guards outside were strong and while it was busy here, it was nothing compared to the rest of the area where it was hard to move simply because of how many people were around. The doors were open so we could just walk in but thanks to the information I knew that we needed to take a piece of paper from the correct place so we could get in line to open a bank account. Even before I started to look where we could find those papers, I immediately noticed how much colder it was inside and without conscious thought let out a sigh of relief. It was so good to be in an environment that I was more used to. There were dozens of receptionists that had hundreds of people waiting for their turn. There were also receptionists who had short lines or none at all to the sides of the room. To the left was what I was looking for and when I approached it there were many different instructions. You could get the paper with the number on it if you needed to take out money or pay your taxes and so on. There were even two options for making an account, one for an individual and another for a larger organization. I picked the last option and received the piece of paper with the number 7 on it and under it reception table 42. Looking around, I noticed a larger table in one corner of the room that had a table with 42 written on it. I went closer to it and sat down on a nearby chair, wondering how this all worked. After about a minute, the receptionist called out, "Number 7, please come forward. I repeat, number 7, please come forward." I guessed that was me. What a wonderfully efficient system. Walking up to it, the receptionist indicated for me to sit down and so I did. "Good afternoon, sir. What is it that I can help you with today?" The receptionist asked and I promptly answered, "I am the head merchant of a nation that wishes to open up a bank account for this nation." For a brief moment, I could see how the receptionist froze, but the smile never left his face. "Well, I can certainly help you with that. To start off with, I would need the name of this kingdom and where you are located at." "I¡¯m sorry but I think there¡¯s a misunderstanding. My nation isn¡¯t a kingdom, it''s run by a council and we are located quite far north on the Green continent." My words had an immediate effect which I could feel. The customary business happiness was replaced by genuine curiosity and joy. Then I remembered that this city-state was also run by a council. This might be a good opportunity. chapter 241 POV Roger "I apologize for my misunderstanding. It''s quite rare to see such an enlightened form of government. To continue, I think it best that I transfer you to one of our account managers who can better help get you everything you need in a more reasonable time frame," the receptionist finished saying. I couldn¡¯t help but give him a genuine smile. He wrote down some instructions for me to follow and added a stamp to it, saying that I should show that to the guards who stop me. If I didn¡¯t have this piece of paper, I would probably be lost for weeks in this maze of corridors. We were stopped multiple times, but the stamp always fixed any problems we had. When we finally arrived at our destination, I knocked on the door and immediately got the response to enter. The office was beautiful and the man behind it was intimidating. But he also had a welcoming smile, so I felt a bit more at ease. "Welcome. I heard from the front desk that you wish to open a bank account for a nation that is run by a council. I just have some more clarifying questions before we can begin," he said. What followed felt more like an interrogation than anything else. I seemed to be answering the questions correctly, that is until the question came up about why we didn''t have a king. My answer that the person who could have been king just didn¡¯t want to be one wasn''t that satisfying for him, but when I continued to explain, his genuine smile returned. "Well, I am sorry about all these questions, but we are certainly happy to accommodate you and give you that bank account and access to any other service you might want or need," he said, and the real work could finally begin. Seven hours later, we were finally done. The bank account was opened and I received a token which can be used in many of the businesses around here to pay for things without ever having to exchange coin. Done with the bank, we went and visited the auction house and I was quite surprised to see that the ground floor was completely open, only being supported by pillars. This floor didn''t sell anything but was more of a place to find out what was happening inside the auction house and get information on the things that were being sold. The place was incredibly busy, but I purchased the information package that would allow me to understand how this place worked. The rest of the day was spent gathering market information and after dinner, I was able to get all the information that my subordinates were able to find out. Another late night was needed for me to go through all the information so I could start making informed decisions on how we should proceed. The situation was looking quite good, however, the prices were in flux as it seems like people often brought huge amounts of materials or weapons, but then at other times the market was having shortages as no new items were coming in. Eventually, this will stabilize, but that might take a long time simply because of the world situation. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. During today, I had already gotten three skill levels in negotiation and one level in my merchant class. Hopefully, I will continue to level up at this speed so I could do the best I can for my nation. The next morning, I explained the game plan and started to divide the merchandise that we have between different people who are going to go to specific locations to sell them. The auction house changed a lot in my plans, so I didn¡¯t need to go and find a store where I could sell the bows. They had a big enough auction tomorrow that I could put everything on sale that went for a higher price, and everything else I could bring to the store that one of my supporters found. Selling at the store would still be a good profit, but it was nothing compared to the auction house. It took a while until I was able to get in front of an auction house evaluator. When I gave him one of the first-rank longbows, he did not look impressed. Slowly, his look turned from uninterested to curious and finally quite excited. He excused himself for a moment and when he returned, there were two other people with him. After quick introductions, one of the people helped test the physical properties of the bow while another seemed to be doing something with energy. "This is quite unusual but a wonderful and beautiful weapon. This should fetch a high price as strong energy-based bow users would find this weapon perfect for them." All three were quite excited about this bow, so when I started to pull out more of them, they were quite surprised. "These are the 21 first-rank bows that I wanted to offer up for auction. There are some more that are weaker but still at first rank that I was going to sell to a store, but seeing you so excited, perhaps you would like those as well," I explained and asked them. "Here at Valour Vault Auction House, we pride ourselves on quality. Please bring out all first-rank bows you have. Let''s see if they pass our quality standards," the main inspector said, and I complied. I pulled out 47 bows, some of them were composite bows which at first they were a bit skeptical about. "This is a composite bow made in the Hun style. It''s made by the same crafter as the other bows but it isn''t any weaker, it''s even stronger at times. The benefit is its compact size which makes it perfect for shooting while mounted." When they finished their testing, they were even more excited about this new bow. A few more people showed up, some started to take the bows away, but while I was eating some refreshments that they brought, I overheard that they might organize a specific auction for only archers as they also seemed to have other bows and items in large enough quantities meant for them. When they were finally done with all the first-rank bows, I got their attention. "I have one more item I wish to offer up for auction. It''s once again a composite bow but this time it¡¯s second rank." My words silenced the room but only for a moment. Having a second-rank weapon was not anything special, but the way Rich makes his bows was. While the physical side of the bow he makes is quite standard, although the designs seem to be quite good, the energy side of things is where his work truly shines. While the physical tester was quite impressed, the energy tester was treating the bow like it was her first child. It seems that she was completely amazed that the second-ranked bow seemed to have almost the same energy capabilities as the first-ranked bow. It was only about 10% worse, which was still something completely new to the testers, and they honestly had no idea how much it might sell for. But one thing was for certain, they were incredibly excited for the auction and after we finished signing everything, I was informed that they will indeed have a separate auction for archery items during the large auction event that was happening tomorrow. I was incredibly excited for tomorrow but I still needed to do some work. Back at the inn, I spent a large portion of time going over all the sales and purchases that we had made. We were spending coin as fast as we were gaining it, but my list of things needed had already shrunk by more than half. Tomorrow, unfortunately, wasn¡¯t going to just be an enjoyable day, we needed to do a lot more business before the auction started. In the auction house, there were many different auctions that were happening. Some that were only for swords, some that only the truly wealthy and influential could even get a seat at, but for me, the most exciting one was of course going to be the Archer auction. chapter 242 POV Arabella Today¡¯s fight was quite exciting and while I was glad that I could fight stronger opponents, my next fight was scheduled for the next week. I kind of miss the days when I could fight multiple times a day, but then again, I was so weak back then. This fight, however, showed me my limitations. No matter how good I get, if my equipment can''t keep up, I would be limiting myself a lot. I was interrupted when my servant came in. "I apologize for distracting you, my mistress, but I have received news that the Valour Vault Auction House has added a specific auction for archers." When she finished, she gave a short bow as is customary, which was kind of annoying. Just 10 years ago, I would have gotten her fired because of the 4 strands of hair that weren¡¯t in proper order. Blue fire, I was a bitch back then. "Thank you for informing me and please make sure that we have tickets for the auction," I replied. She gave another bow but before she could leave, I added, "And Sandra, not the VIP tickets, just a regular one will do." She froze in place but quickly turned around and said while bowing, "Of course, mistress." When she left, I had to shake my head. She still thinks that I should be at the top, but I¡¯m just one of the many arena fighters here. Some of my training was hard to get rid of so even when I didn¡¯t want to, I still spent quite a long time making sure that I looked the best that I can. That was hard to do when I was wearing armor. I have come to kind of admire this look. Most armors were restrictive but to me, I felt freer in them than the court dresses that I used to wear, which limited my movements even more. We reached the auction house about an hour before the archery auction. It was being held on the 7th floor and we made it there without trouble. Sarah went off to buy the itinerary for today where all the items being sold were listed. There were some second-ranked bowstrings that looked promising but the prices were expensive. Unfortunately, I would need to buy some as my current string was near its limit. I was more surprised about the amount of bows being sold and some of them had quite an interesting design. They were a lot shorter than the bows I was used to and when I dug deeper, I found out that all of them were made by the same maker. The only description for the maker was a symbol of his maker¡¯s mark so I wonder if it was someone outside of the city. When I kept looking more, I found that some more regular-looking bows were also made by the same maker and to my complete surprise, even a rank two bow was made by him. There were some examples of the products being sold and as I expected the new type of bows were also there. Where the new type of bow was being displayed was the place where the most people were. It seems that only two first-rank bows were on display but we were at least allowed to test them out which was good news. The problem was that it was going to be tough getting through the crowd especially when I noticed that a lot of people were checking me out. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I didn¡¯t want to cause a scene when someone stupid tried to touch me when I go through the crowd. There is always someone stupid like that. I had already waited for more than 10 minutes and was preparing to brave the crowd when finally the security for this auction started to move people along so no one could spend too much time to test the bow out. When I finally made it to the front, I was handed the bow. It was heavier than I expected and it seems to have a lot of work and design put into it. The moment I started pulling back the string, the bow started to talk to me like every other bow I¡¯ve touched. It was easier to pull than I expected but from the feedback I got, I knew that it was as powerful as any other bow. I had the urge to shoot it but unfortunately, this was something not possible at the moment. I did some testing while moving the bow and I found it to be quite nimble, which was something important to my style of fighting. Then I started to flood it with energy to test its capabilities and I was awestruck. It was capable of safely handling more energy than my current second-rank bow. That was so astonishing that I only came out of my stupor when the security got my attention as it was someone else''s turn. I was so deep in thought that I hadn¡¯t noticed that the auction had started and we were already at our seats. I felt the buzz of the room and I could feel the excitement everyone had. The first few items were not that interesting but then came one of the bows from the new maker. It was in a more traditional style so I didn¡¯t bid on it but others certainly did. When the auctioneer said that it could handle four times more energy than another comparable bow, I was not surprised, but some others were. I wonder what they were going to think when they found out that this was at the lower end of what was being sold today. Of course, those bows that use mana as a base were more expensive and more sought after but there were still a lot of energy users so that meant the prices went quite high. I purchased myself one of the new designs in the middle range that was available. While it wouldn¡¯t be my fighting weapon, it would be good to get used to the design. I had hoped that perhaps I could buy the second-rank one but the prices would probably be astronomical for that. I was also able to get myself a second-rank bowstring but the largest spool went to a person that had bought quite a lot of bow-making materials already. I didn¡¯t recognize them as any of the bow makers I knew but I could put the pieces together. I was quite certain that he wasn¡¯t the one who made the bows but he was most certainly working for him. When the time came, it almost felt like the entire place was empty. They brought out the second-rank composite bow and every archer, including me, sucked in a breath of air. It was beautiful and I could feel its deadliness. When one of the people who was demonstrating the bow started to pour in energy, it was hard not to jump to my feet as he just didn''t stop. What was that bow made out of? I concentrated as much as possible but I could see many different woods and even horn but my brain short-circuited. That was iron oak. How did a sacred bow material end up in this auction? I was disowned, my iron oak bow was confiscated, and ever since then, I have had no use for my iron oak connection trait. Before I realized, the price had already gone over 500,000 cores. I hadn¡¯t used a single core that my father gave me the day I was disowned but I was going to spend it all if it meant I was able to get that bow. At first, I didn¡¯t join in but slowly I started to get into the bidding which of course made Sandra give me a huge side-eye but she didn¡¯t say anything. I continued and eventually, there were only two of us left. I didn¡¯t look up where my opponent was as he was in the VIP box. No way was I going to lose this bow. And even when the price went over 1.5 million, I continued. Eventually, I won it for the price of 1.75 million cores. That was over 2/3 of the money my father gave me, but I couldn¡¯t be happier. chapter 243 Being so tall has come with a different problem. Farm work, especially planting and, I expect, weeding as well, is quite tough on the back. If I didn¡¯t have my stats and more than a dozen traits helping my body, I would say that I wouldn¡¯t be able to be a farmer. It was a sobering thought and something that I absolutely didn¡¯t like. A good distraction has been planting and messing with my evolution project. Evolving plants slowly over the generations and only giving small nudges seem to be working well. The seeds have only been in the ground for a few days but I could already see how the seeds have started to germinate and how they are slowly consuming the seed''s fuel to start growing. The process is quite wonderful to see but I also found out something crucial. It seems that as the plant evolved, its needs for sustenance also changed. Currently, those changes weren''t substantial enough to do anything about them but I could see that eventually, they might need a completely new environment to thrive. Even after the planting, it was busy around the farm. My apprentices were focused on the larger projects and their own interests. Everyone also, every once in a while, delved into a dungeon which helped them level up a bit faster and improve their self-defense. They were coming together nicely and by next spring, they should be ready to start building their own homesteads. For a day or two now, I¡¯ve been feeling like a headless chicken, not exactly knowing what I should do. Not being able to decide my next move, I decided to help others. I started with the military and started to make more training plans for different types of troops and combat styles. This was only able to occupy me long enough that the merchant made it back with some good news. It appears that his trip went extremely well and I had my second-rank bowstring. The stories about the city and their travels were quite interesting and I knew that I needed to go to that city this year as I needed to go and visit The Court of The Young office there and go through another evaluation and interview. It was annoying but at least the sites should be interesting enough. There was no need to be adversarial with them if I didn¡¯t have to. Leaving it this last minute would also be a bad idea, as you never know what might happen. Perhaps I should just go when Roger goes on his next merchant trip. Running to the southern forest was relaxing but I wanted to test out my new bows as they were now fully ready. For the longbow, I actually had to go through the proper movement if I wanted to pull it completely back. When released, the arrow flew with immense power, breaking through multiple trees before coming to a stop. Next I tried my energy arrows and while they worked a bit worse, they had extra versatility and I had a huge amount I could make. Not wanting to destroy the forest around me, I found a hillside I could shoot into. First, I tested my shooting speed which was significantly slower as I needed to do proper movements and it took a little bit of time to make energy arrows. With a little bit of practice, I will be able to shave that time down. The better question was going to be if it was worth investing time into it or should I just keep practicing my swordplay. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. The next thing to test was my shooting stamina. With the 10th shot, I was already sweating but I felt that I could keep going a lot longer. In the end, I could keep up a decent speed for over half an hour before I felt I was starting to truly push myself. After a short break, it was time for the composite bow. I had the thumb ring. Even though I hadn¡¯t done a lot of shooting with this type of bow, it was still one of the most popular bows that I made in my previous life. The arrow¡¯s flying speed was incredible fast and the power this small frame could produce was amazing. However, the most noteworthy aspect was how nimble and controllable this bow is. No wonder it was the preferred bow for horseback shooting. It seems that for this bow, the style of shooting where you hold some of the arrows in your hand seemed to be compatible. That was great news as it increased my burst fire rate by a lot. It will once again take a while to get used to this bow but I¡¯m more inclined to put time in for this one than the longbow. Back in town, I continued my training planning creation but I also moved on from the military and provided some more questionable training plans, some for our spies and assassins, but a few even for thieves. I was eventually interrupted when I was invited to a council meeting where they had something to discuss with me. They were a bit secretive about it and I wondered what was going to happen. When I entered the room, I found it interesting that there were only a few select people here and even more curious that some of my generals were also here. "Please take a seat," David said and pointed to the seat of honor or condemnation. They didn''t have the power in this room to do anything to me so I was leaning towards the honor part but that also didn''t make any sense. It seems that I would need to wait. When I sat down and started to look towards them, I saw uncertainty. There was hesitation but eventually, David started. "Rich, as you know the latest merchant trip was a huge success." At this point, I interrupted him. "You''re telling me the amount of credits I have is quite healthy?" I couldn¡¯t help but chuckle a bit which helped everyone relax. "Yes, and that is something we want to discuss with you. While we did get everything essential that we needed, there are still many things that we need. We will get the global mailing box working within a week or two but I don¡¯t need to tell you how important that is after we have all read the newsletter," David said. I had to agree on that. It seems that they are finally getting their act together but who knows if it''s just propaganda. David continued, "The next most important thing that we will need are upgraded components and systems for our Owlbears soul core. For that reason, the United Freeholds has gathered more bow-making materials and we are hoping to hire you for a reasonable price to make bows for us so we could gain more funds." "Yeah, why not?" I answered but David didn¡¯t seem to hear me. "Now we know that it would be better for you to just make bows for yourself but we are hoping that, wait, you agreed?" David finally registered my words and I had to smile towards him. "If I¡¯m too busy with other things, I will inform you but currently, there will be no problem making some bows on commission." What followed was a pleasant conversation where I was even handed a bow which design they wanted me to copy. Apparently, this was the most popular design. It resembled a Longbow but its tips were curved outwards but not by a lot. It wasn''t going to be a hard design to make but I was more excited about the materials. There was enough for quite a few second-rank bows but everyone got even more excited when I told them that with the excess wood, I should be able to make a few more composite bows, bringing their profits up quite a lot. All of this should fuel our bigger project, especially the huge road going to the first-rank swamp dungeon. On my way back home, I made a note to visit the iron mine where they were currently building quite a large outpost. A lot more housing was needed out there as the inn was frankly too far and overcrowded because of the delvers. That mountain not only was currently supplying us with iron, but there was already a working salt collection field near the salt river, and now the quarry was opened and running as well. The number of workers has exploded and they all need a place to sleep and stay safe. There was also another problem and that was with the goblins. At first, when I was claiming land for the United Freeholds, I technically took some that they laid claim to. And while we were giving them quite a good deal for the road, it was still something that they weren¡¯t completely comfortable with. I wanted to do something to fix that strained relationship and my best idea was crossbows, ballistae, and similar contraptions. Just building for them wouldn''t be enough, but perhaps a book on how to make them and why they are designed the way they are is a good gift. chapter 244 The days went by quickly. I was once again constantly doing something which I thoroughly enjoyed. While I had learned to accept waiting, I¡¯ve never enjoyed it. Making bows for the United Freeholds wasn¡¯t as profitable as just making bows for myself. I was still getting paid a decent amount, but this way I could help my nation without just donating money. Making so many second-rank bows and with a new design also helped increase my bow-making level. Depending on the material, making a bow could take anywhere from two to four days. My life was quite simple for a while but I enjoyed every moment of it. It took almost a month until I was able to level up my bow-making skill to the advanced tier. From the offered three abilities, there was really only one choice, weapon core. It was a complex ability and unfortunately not usable on already completed weapons. To test the ability out properly, I decided to make myself a throwing spear. This weapon didn¡¯t require a lot of metal so I should be able to make it a second-rank weapon if I combined the correct unique metals I had access to. This crafting process needed to be uninterrupted as I needed to constantly have a connection to the weapon with my weapon core ability which required constant upkeep of energy. The drain wasn¡¯t too bad and I could easily handle it. It made the whole process a bit more complicated, especially when I modified the energy paths inside the metal. The making of the throwing spear only took about a day but 2/3 of that time was spent on the energy side of the throwing spear and not the physical build. The end result was a bit different than I expected. Currently, the core did nothing more than be a battery for energy. This will definitely help with the first strike, allowing you to perform a more devastating attack. I think this was just the start. Continuing to use the weapon constantly, the core will start to refine the weapon itself, improving its properties, but that''s a long-term benefit. What I found more interesting is that the weapon core could have elemental inclinations. My elemental seeds would need to develop a bit further but I think I could use them to modify the weapon core, giving elemental affinity to the weapon itself. This could be incredibly powerful or just a waste of a weapon if the element is chosen incorrectly. I was a bit sad I wasn¡¯t able to add a weapon core to my current bows. The real question was whether to use this new ability on the weapons I was making that were going to be sold in the city-state. Showing off too much ability wasn''t a good idea and I also think it was a good idea for me to take a small break from bow making. I packed up the finished bows. I still had enough materials for another month of work. This brought a smile to my face but it was time that I started to work on some other things as well. My crossbow book was coming along nicely but I still needed some time to finish it. The more concerning part for me was the last meeting that I attended where the main topic was road building. At first, they wanted to make regular dirt roads but I wasn''t having it. There was a lot of pushback for my idea on how to make roads but slowly I won them over, especially when I told them that the legion was going to also help with the manpower. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. The legion had grown a lot, now having over 1000 members while only about 700 were proper soldiers. We needed a lot of supporting staff. They were currently training and building the legion''s headquarters or the wall around the town. With the current speed that they were going at, we were going to soon be done with the wooden wall. The fortress that the headquarters was going to be needing a lot of stone and while stone production was quickly ramping up, most of it was going to be diverted into the road project. My plan was to make proper Roman roads but that required a lot of work. I was so glad about my better memory as I clearly remembered the diagram of a cross-cut of a Roman road showing all the different layers. It was going to be a lot of digging and transporting materials which would take a lot of work hours to complete. It should, however, guarantee an excellent road network that should last for thousands of years. The meeting to actually figure out how we were going to do it would start in a little while but first, I wanted to give Roger all the bows that I had finished and hopefully convince him of another crazy idea I had. "Good morning, Roger," I said after he called me into his office when I knocked. "Good morning to you as well. What brings you here, Rich?" he greeted back. "As you know, I will be a bit busy in the coming days and possibly weeks so I don¡¯t know how many bows I can make. So just in case, I brought the ones I have currently made. There is, however, another matter why I came here. One of the things that was mentioned in your report caught my eye," my words made him quite curious and he indicated for me to continue. "You mentioned that the land prices were quite low. Why don''t we use a large portion of the profits to purchase a large piece of land so we could set up a compound for our nation?" Roger looked at me skeptically but he also didn''t seem completely against the idea. "Not only would it be good to have a place to store our merchandise, but it could also be an important connection point to the wider world and a place to recruit promising talent. You are our first connection point to the outside world and I want you to think more about the future and not just our current needs." I sat back and waited until Roger could process my words. Finally, he started to slowly nod his head which turned into a firm nod. "I can see a need for it, Rich. You are correct that I hadn¡¯t thought about the future, just our current needs and I will fix that mentality, I can promise you that. You have more than enough bows made for another trip but I will delay it a little bit longer so I can think everything through properly," Roger answered. We talked a bit more until it was time for me to leave, otherwise, I was going to be late. With a firm handshake, we parted ways, both of us knowing a lot of work was ahead of us. With the treatment Roger got from the Verlon official bank, we should be welcome there even if we wanted to have a bigger presence there. That city was a connection point to the rest of the world and even more importantly, it was connected to many academies that could help our young succeed more. One thing I was glad about was that every other council member also agreed, even when they were a bit reluctant, that we were not going to hold talent back. While there was a concept of childhood in this world, it was infinitely less than back on Earth. Here you had a lot more freedom when you reached 14 and you were considered an adult at 16, but those two years from 12 to 14 when you already had access to the achievement page were quite crucial. Usually people so young were held back from doing anything too dangerous. It was extremely rare for us to change that but we did decide on a case-by-case basis if a person could, for example, join the legion. Currently, there was only one 13-year-old boy who was in the legion simply because of his incredible talent. In the future, I could see that number being a lot higher as we were starting to give a proper education on the system and general knowledge to the younger generation. The next logical step would, of course, be to send them to world-famous academies so they could continue their advancement. But now it was time to stop thinking about that and focus on the roads and how to make them. Just down the hallway was the meeting room that we were going to be using and I could already see many people that were waiting near it. This was going to be an incredibly large project but our first road wasn¡¯t going to be the long one to the swamp dungeon but the proper road from the mountain to the town. chapter 245 There was a lot that needed to be done, but first, I spent a few hours going through the design of the road and explaining why every part was important and what it accomplished. The dwarves in the room were especially interested in it, but even before I finished my explanation, everyone else was also on board as the benefits outweighed the concerns by a lot. The original road project needed to be scaled up a lot. We didn¡¯t just need properly cut stone, we also needed broken down stone in different sizes. The road would also start near the mountain as the volume of the stone needed couldn''t be transported on the current roads. Then came the talk about how wide the road needed to be. We expected traffic from the town to the mountain to be large enough that there was a need for the road to be wide enough that carriages could pass while moving. After that all that was left to do was think about solutions on how we were going to make this work and how to make the work go faster. That took another day but eventually, all the assignments were given out and we headed out to complete what we needed to do. For me, I needed to help make a cutting blade that would slice through a certain depth of earth at the width of a standard road. A standard road width being a bit larger than a large carriage. It was going to need the best metals we had access to and even then a few people with certain abilities needed to enhance it so it wouldn''t break and make its job easier. Of course, Francis was going to be the one that needed to be pulling this beast as he was the only one with enough strength. As for the cutting blade and the overall structure of the device, I wasn¡¯t going to do that alone. I wasn¡¯t even going to be the head of that project. It was going to be built in town with many of the town''s smiths to help. I would be providing mainly my muscle but also my ability to affect materials so I could make sure there weren¡¯t any mistakes or impurities left in the metal. We were going to use the nation''s smithy as it was the biggest where currently a lot of tools and weapons were being made but now we started to prepare it for the job ahead. Another shipment of iron was going to make it here by the next afternoon but there was still a lot to do before that. I was surprised when I found out that they were planning at first to make a lot of closed crucible steel. Making steel this way was extremely consistent and quite required for people who couldn''t evaluate the exact percentages of carbon needed for steel. You can put predetermined measurements inside and then seal the lead and then fire the crucible, almost always getting the result that you wanted. This was mainly going to be my job and the reason why I was given this assignment. I was going to need to use unique metals to enhance that crucible steel but I still needed to learn a lot before that. While I was decent at smithing now, I was nowhere near the level these people were. The only reason I could make stronger weapons was because of my energy manipulation and the ridiculous reserves I had to throw into crafting. The final device needed different metal properties at different places but the most important parts were the cutting edge and what was behind it. For that, we needed a bit more flexible steel so the whole thing didn''t shatter. It was fascinating to see them work and learn from them. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. One of the smiths could handle almost melted steel with his bare hands but he couldn''t do it for long as it used a lot of energy. But like every other crafter and citizen of the United Freeholds, they were furiously learning as much energy manipulation as possible so they could get the energy storage stat. One thing I¡¯ve learned about smithing is that it helps control your super strength. Hitting too hard will mess up your work faster than hitting it with not enough strength. One of the guys here could hit the piece of metal so hard that it creates a shower of sparks, which was quite fun to watch. I needed to hold back, but we all had a great time during our breaks when there was little to entertain us. This was something I got to experience during the war - the crushing boredom that made you do stupid things, now especially here knowing that everyone around you is also superhuman. Honestly, I¡¯m constantly surprised that this world isn''t full of buildings. An average farmer is able to do labor an average human would break his body doing, and that farmer can do it from sun up to sundown. Every Kingdom had so much manpower available yet they did nothing with it, at least the kingdoms in this area. Of course, there was the system that made it harder for people to do things they didn''t have skills for, but that wasn''t the limit. It would just make the work slower and eventually, they would gain the skill. Most likely the reason for that was tradition. If you were a farmer, you were a farmer - that¡¯s it. That''s all you were going to be unless you could upgrade your class. I looked as the smiths worked hard, doing their job and grinding experience for their levels, and I kind of understood. If I was born in this world and knew nothing else, wouldn¡¯t I also try to focus on something that could give me power? Why would I do and struggle with something else? It will be interesting to see what my influence will do in a few hundred years. Thinking about me being that old made me wince. Not wanting to think about living so long, I distracted myself by going back to work. The next day came fast and it was time to start. Just making enough enhanced crucible steel took me four days of constant work and after a proper sleep, it was time to start forging. The first thing the main group of smiths started to do was forge out the back of the cutting blade. We needed to forge weld all those pieces of steel together so we could get the desired size. To get it into generally the right shape took a lot of hammering. Then we needed to split one of the sides apart where the cutting edge will go into, made from the strongest metal we had. Forging out this piece of metal took longer as we needed to be more careful and make it as best as we can. So many different abilities overlapping made working the metal difficult, but we needed it to be as strong as possible. Using a traditional forge to heat up this large piece of metal was impossible, so instead, we used one of the smith''s abilities and a special fuel that we could place on top of the area we wanted to heat up. We needed to do one end of the cutting blade again as the forge weld didn''t take the first time. After that, it was time to properly start forging out the cutting blade. While we were doing that, other smiths were making the rest of the device''s structure. Unfortunately, we couldn''t finish everything in one day as people simply didn''t have enough energy to continue working, even I was running quite low. The next day the work continued but by the afternoon we were done forging and all that was left to do was assembly. But that was not going to be done here as transporting the pieces to the mountain individually will be easier. Quite a few smiths will come with us to the mountain and most importantly, Francis was the one that was pulling the carriage that will take all the pieces of the device and many of us slower walkers to our destination. I spent the day walking beside Francis, explaining to him what he was going to be doing and how hard it actually was. The more I spoke, it seemed that the more excited he got, which I was glad about. I was so thankful that Francis seemed to be so hardworking and actually enjoyed the things he does because I¡¯m quite certain that if he didn¡¯t want to, I wasn¡¯t going to force him to do anything and would even help him against others who would. While we haven''t spent a lot of time together recently, it was still thanks to him that I was able to survive the first year so easily. When we reached the mountain and the spot of the quarry, we started to prepare to assemble the device when suddenly the most important emergency stick broke. That was the signal that I needed to head back to town as fast as possible. This was the most urgent signal that could be sent out and would usually mean that our entire nation was in grave danger. What could have happened in the half day that it took to make it here? Not spending another moment thinking about it, I quickly told everyone that there was an emergency and ran as fast as possible back to town. chapter 246 I ran back to town as quickly as possible, each step leaving behind a distinct footprint. My abilities had not alerted me that something was wrong in our nation, so I truly wondered what the urgency was. When I was about halfway back to the town, I could finally see something that wasn¡¯t ordinary. More and more people started to move around the town, similar to how an anthill would start to move when something was threatening it. Was it something in the sky? Could my ability not work with flying threats? But I dismissed that immediately. In cases where huge birds have flown over our land, I was always notified about their threat levels. Luckily, I didn¡¯t have to guess about what was wrong any longer as I was close to the town. I just jumped over the outer wall and just a few moments later, the inner wall as well. As soon as I got in, I started to hear commands being relayed. "Every first-rank fighter needs to report to the portal station." It was something that I heard multiple times, which made me worried. Why would we need to send all our first ranks to some place? I needed to slow down a lot and was basically just walking now, as running and hitting someone would mean that in the best case, I would just break some bones. At the portal station, I could see many council members and a large portion of our first-rank fighters who were close enough that they could get here quickly. "David, what is happening?" I asked. He turned around when he heard my voice. We were still quite far away from each other, but he knew that I would be able to hear him. "Thank the earth that you''re here. We just received an Adventurer Guild summons and information about a regional threat that has been found. The area quest that they issued called for all fighters of the first rank and above to be deployed as soon as possible to a temporary portal station set up by them," David explained, and I was now close enough that we could have a normal conversation. But I still didn¡¯t understand why we would accept this and deploy everything we have. "Why are we even accepting this?" I asked in a loud voice that silenced everyone around here. David was silent for a moment, and then I could see a bit of confusion on his face. "When something like this has happened everyone, even the nobles who hated the Adventurer Guild, still join. Not doing so would be detrimental to us all, especially with the threat currently facing us," David explained, and when I raised my eyebrow, he continued. "The current danger is an almost second-rank dragon that must''ve been blown here by the last winter storm. It''s something that can devastate everything it comes close to. Its power is legendary, even at lower ranks. And not to mention how valuable every single piece of a dead dragon is." At this point, I held up my hand for him to stop. The Guild does have access to powerful fighters who would be able to handle this fight a lot easier than us, but if I remember correctly, there was some sort of rule that when a regional danger emerges the forces it the region would have first challenge and loot rights. As I was towering over everyone, it was easy for me to look around and see how people were feeling about this. Some were scared, others determined, while some were excited about the opportunity. I can understand them and not going would be bad. Hopefully, the Adventurers Guild can keep the politics to a minimum. Currently, 27 of our 38 first-rank fighters were near enough to make it here. I was quite certain that this situation would turn into the first political showing of our area. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. "Only 19 first-ranked fighters who are decent or better at long-range fighting will be joining. I will be the 20th and no one else will go. I want the best gear we can get for everyone going through and we need a lot of arrows or anything else needed for those long-range fighters." After my command, everyone started to move and while the council wanted to argue, this was more of a military matter than anything else. I took off my adventuring backpack and started to pull out my armor and weapons that I hadn¡¯t stored in my tattoo storage. While I was gearing up, David and a few other council members approached me. "Do you want to know why I will only take 19?" There were nods, so I explained. "First, this will be a hard fight and from what little I know, getting close to a dragon is a bad idea, so losing our first-rank fighters would be a bad idea. Especially when we are fighting side by side with potential enemies. The second reason is that showing our hand by bringing exactly 20 might mean that we only have 20, but most likely we would have more fighters giving us more political power." "I can see your reasoning and I kind of agree, but shouldn''t we send as many as possible so we could claim more of the dragon''s remains?" One of the council members asked, to which I shook my head. "There is no point in losing our fighters for more monetary gain. People are worth a lot more than anything that dragon can give." To that, everyone agreed and we continued to talk until I was geared up and we were waiting for a few more fighters that were especially good at long-range fighting to join us. In 15 minutes, we were ready. "Everyone get in standard formation and then follow me through," I ordered, and the 19 fighters quickly obeyed. The portal was promptly opened, which I will get compensation from the Adventurers Guild for, as we needed to use the expensive mana stones to make this happen. We marched through in perfect formation, me at the head with everyone else following. In a single moment, I was in another location looking over a grass field where three distinctive areas with different tents were situated. There was a forest on every side, but it was quite far away. I saw that Adventurers Guild representatives and the Queen¡¯s representatives, who were led by a powerfully built man who was definitely in the second rank. POV Omar I was sipping on the wine that I was offered, but it was just awful. At least it seems that I am starting to get used to this. At the beginning, I would call this dog shit. At least there was some excitement now with the dragon coming. Observing this fight would give me quite a lot of recognition from the other courtiers if I ever get to go back. Why did my cousin have to become a stupid petty king and why did my grandfather ask me to keep them as safe as possible? I did not enjoy this, but like everything else, I will do it as perfectly as possible. The Guild had set up the temporary portal station quite fast. It was quite fortunate that one of our hunters was able to sneak away from the sleeping dragon and report everything back to us. My fool of a cousin wanted to rally our troops and army and go by themselves. It was satisfying to slap him for that idiotic idea. That first-rank weakling really thought we were going to take down a dragon. That stupidity still makes me smile a bit. My smile, of course, made my servants nervous, which I really hope that they would stop. I wasn¡¯t like those idiot nobles, I was a proper noble and I will make damn sure my cousin will become one as well. We had quite a decent-sized petty kingdom with a lot of coastline and plenty of rivers, so we wouldn''t starve, but a dragon could destroy everything, and unfortunately, I wasn¡¯t a fighter. Luckily, it seems that the Adventurers Guild head here was competent. It seems that the dragon was still sleeping, probably completely exhausted from trying to make it to land. If only it knew that the shallow sea was completely safe for it and just landed there a long way from here. That, of course, would mean that in the future it would be more dangerous, but if it was second-rank, none of us would need to worry about that dragon as the Guild and the world council would send stronger fighters here to take care of it, but that could take a while and who knows what it could have destroyed by then. Even leaving it unchallenged for a day would be disastrous for any petty kingdom. The portal flashed and a small group of seven people walked through, one of them wore a stupidly jeweled crown. These people have no taste. The Guild representatives quickly approached and wrote down the information given. I looked towards my cousin and his advisors while slowly sipping on the wine. They finally stopped whatever stupidity they were doing and quickly informed me of what petty king had arrived and what their kingdom was like. chapter 247 POV Omar I stopped listening to my cousin¡¯s explanation halfway through. This petty kingdom was nothing special and would probably fall in the next year or two. I spotted something interesting happening before the new group could go and try to set up their area of command. The Queen¡¯s lapdog approached them and didn¡¯t let them leave. I used my ability to listen in. "The queen of the Salarian Kingdom requires you to agree to this agreement so we can fight this dragon side by side without having to worry about someone backstabbing us," the Queen¡¯s lapdog said. I watched as the petty king sneered at him, but the power emanating from the Queen¡¯s lapdog was something no first-rank person wanted to mess with. He brought out a greyish contract book. I involuntarily smirked. A brilliant move. If the petty king actually signs it, at best, he would not be able to attack the queen, or at worst, they would actually be supporting them. Will he actually read it? And the answer is no, they just signed it. "Cousin, you see that greyish contract book. For the love of water, never sign something like that." How did they even get ahold of something like that? A little bit more time went by and my amusement slowly disappeared. If they get too many petty kings to sign that, everyone who hasn''t will probably be quickly overrun by the others and she will have her kingdom back. I should probably get my cousin to do something, but what? The portal opened once again and I knew I needed to think about a way to stop this fast. I started to drink another sip of wine to steady my mind, but my action was halted when I saw the towering man step through the portal. My mind went into overdrive and I started to use different abilities one after another to figure out who that person was that I was seeing. I snapped my fingers to get my servant''s attention. "Who is that and who are the people with him?" I asked. The man must have been 8 feet tall and he was wearing full armour with heraldry looking like a knight, but he wasn¡¯t wearing normal armour a knight would wear. Behind him were more fighters and when all twenty were through the portal, there were 19 fighters and the large man himself, making the number exactly 20. This just got so much more interesting. It was hard to get his name which was weird. My other abilities indicated that he was first-rank but something was wrong. It didn¡¯t take me long to figure out that he must be using some sort of camouflaging. He must be in the second rank for me to have a hard time to figure him out. My eyes glanced back to my cousin as I was quite annoyed by him not giving me any information. They panicked more when they saw me looking at them. "I¡¯m sorry cousin, but we are not certain who they are." My eyes started to twitch. How could my cousin not know? They had almost the same-sized force as the queen had. How could they not be known? The Guild representative also seemed to be quite respectful which meant he was someone known. I pushed my abilities further and finally got his name. Rich Dirt. What a stupid name, but the man himself didn''t seem stupid at all. "The name is Rich Dirt," I said to my cousin and finally, I could see understanding in their eyes. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. "Oh yes, he was one of the reasons the Thorn Rose Company was able to clear the raid dungeon as many times as they did. From our understanding, he is also a general of the United Freeholds, but we know little else." At least that was something to start with. From me listening in, I knew that they brought only long-range fighters and of course, Rich, who seemed to be a close-range tank fighter. His fighters were disciplined and they seemed to be decently equipped. Once again, the Queen¡¯s lapdog approached when the Guild representative was done. I might need to get involved. I did not want the queen to get so much more power. He used the same line as previously and Rich took the contract book into his hand. Was he actually going to sign it? But then he did something I didn¡¯t expect. Rich ripped the contract book apart, something that was really hard to do, and then just threw the pieces back. With a hand signal, he started to move away with his fighters following. The Queen¡¯s lapdog was so taken aback that it took him a few moments before he yelled and released his power. "You fucking bastard, you will die for your insolence." But before he could attack, Rich released his own power. While he wasn¡¯t stronger than the Queen¡¯s lapdog, he was close, and that silenced everyone. None of them knew that he was second rank besides me and that changed everything. Oh yes, this was going to be a lot more interesting. I should go to the Guild and try to find out more about him. A fight didn¡¯t happen, which I expected, and I watched Rich and his fighters walk away and then start to set up their own camp. A few of the fighters had already left, trying to scout out the area. I suspected they were trained and a whole lot better than my cousin could ever achieve in such a short time. When finally a map was put in front of me, I was able to see exactly where the United Freeholds was. It was good news that they were so far from the queen and probably one of the reasons he antagonized them so much. He was a lot closer to us but there was still one petty kingdom to the north of us and a fractured land to our west with another stronger petty kingdom after that. While I wasn''t worried about the west or the south, the north was troublesome as that petty kingdom was quite secretive and no one knew exactly what was going on inside there. Obviously, offending the United Freeholds, especially if that man was their general, was a bad idea. We must at least be neutral or if possible, try to get some sort of a deal. I finished my glass of wine and stood up. It was time to start gathering information. There was much to do and I needed to know everything before the first meeting happened so I could help my cousin maneuver into the best position possible and hopefully identify our future enemies and allies. And of course, find out everything I can about Rich Dirt. Still a stupid name. POV Salazar Dragontooth I was annoyed and my head hurt from all the bureaucracy. Trying to get a rank 3 extermination squad was stupidly complicated if the emergency hadn¡¯t gotten serious yet. I was not confident enough that the fighters that the petty kingdoms would send to fight would be strong enough to take down this dragon. I should have known that it will be a waste time to come here as I almost achieved nothing and wasted an entire day. At least I did what I could and no one could blame me afterward if things didn¡¯t work out. At least I will be able to leave now from this massive building that''s our headquarters. While I had some good times with my party members here, now it was just a place that I didn¡¯t want to stay as I knew it would mean endless meetings and paperwork. Stepping through the portal, I saw that the next portal I needed to go through was opened and I didn¡¯t waste any time and quickly went through it. Three more portals and I finally made it to the temporary portal that we set up near the dragon. There were eight different tent areas besides the Guilds. That means that we are still missing four local petty kingdoms and the petty kingdom closest to the Queen''s land from the other fallen kingdom to the south. Technically, they fell into the danger area of the dragon, so they will have a chance to fight it as well and claim the spoils. If they show up, that''s a different question, but they would want to come if nothing else, to show their might to the queen. After surveying the area, I quickly started to move towards the Guild tents and my assistant soon joined me, starting to relay information. I had expected the numbers and the kingdoms that were already here, except for the United Freeholds who seemed to have brought a bigger force than I expected. When I heard that Rich was already second rank, my steps faltered for a moment and I stopped moving altogether when I heard that he was 8 feet tall. What kind of a trait did he get? I wonder how it affected his fighting. He should be a lot slower now but a lot stronger. chapter 248 POV Salazar Dragontooth I was back in my tent/office where I could gather more information without being overheard. The more information I got, the more surprised I was. Rich seemed to be in charge of the forces here simply because of his competency. He was able to get guild members to give him information about everyone here, which is fair enough, and it seems that he had been scouting the area quite thoroughly for the fight ahead. It also seems that he was sharing that information openly after that others started to follow. The Queen¡¯s forces didn¡¯t seem to like that, but currently, it wasn''t the time to settle scores. The fighting would come afterward. Currently, everyone was focused on the battle ahead. When I heard what the Queen¡¯s forces tried to do, I snapped the quill that I was writing with. Trying to force people into contracts is something frowned upon or completely illegal. They will need to be some punishment, and perhaps the best way would be to lower their contribution. I will also need to thank Rich as he stopped a big headache down the line. Speaking of him, he has requested an information meeting about the dragon and their capabilities. I wanted to wait a little bit longer so more would join us, but some of the scouts are reporting that the dragon is already moving more during its sleep, which means that it might start to wake up soon. That¡¯s unfortunate as I had hoped that it had only recently landed. I was not used to looking up when speaking to people, but at the beginning of the meeting, I needed to do so when I shook Rich¡¯s hand. Whatever choices he had made with his achievement page, they were certainly paying dividends. He looked strong and while his equipment would need an upgrade in the near future, it wasn''t by any means bad. It was time to get started, and unfortunately, I was the best qualified to give the information required. The tent was quite large so everyone was able to bring at least a few attendants. Rich had brought his own chair which was reasonable. He also seemed to command the second highest respect after me. Many of the petty kings had envy in their eyes, only the Queen¡¯s right-hand man showed any disagreement towards Rich. He seemed to be an impressive man and perhaps we can sit down after the fight as I would like to learn more about him and tell him that he needs to check in with the Court of the Young. But that was all for later, now it was time to start. "Dragons are rare species for the area. They live beyond the shallow sea in the oceans beyond our reach. When storms happen, there''s a chance that a dragon might be forced to keep flying towards here or otherwise risk the dangerous ocean. The range of dragons that make it here is quite small as a dragon too weak will not survive the trip here and a dragon strong enough will be able to fight the storm and stay close to wherever they live." "There are many different types of dragons and probably more than we have seen. There are people who go to hunt them with their airships but it''s an incredibly dangerous occupation to try to claim the riches a dragon''s body has. A dragon is born with the strength of an iron rank and if they don¡¯t do anything, they''ll easily achieve the first rank by just growing normally. Their scales are incredibly tough, especially to slashing damage. They are also resistant to mana, making mana type spells less useful." This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. "This dragon is a fire type, one of the most common ones. They have a fire breath that they can use by consuming energy to fuel it. Dragon fire is incredibly destructive and you should avoid it with everything you have. Unfortunately, blunt damage while doing damage to the muscles won''t break any bones simply because they are too strong. The best way to kill a dragon is to get a projectile into their mouth before they breathe fire or you must continue to chip through the scales at the same spot so you could start damaging the weaker insides." "They are quite intelligent and if threatened too much will try to run away. For that, they of course have their wings which we have to focus on as they cannot fly if they are shredded. After that, our main goal should be the neck and underside of their chest. Dragons have incredible stamina so they can keep fighting for a long time and they¡¯re incredibly tough which means that they can take damage for a long time. This will be a tough fight but hopefully, we will get the numbers to make killing it possible." "Now the biggest thing I need to warn you about is how fast they are. They are incredibly large and this one is larger than most buildings but they can easily run faster than a speeding horse. Our first goal is to wound it with the first strike so we would have the upper hand and then focus on the wings so it can¡¯t fly away and then all that¡¯s left is to whittle it down. Now, that might seem easy, I assure you it is not. If you have any questions before we start to do more tactical planning, please go ahead." The first few questions were truly relevant and answering them was no problem but as time went by, everything started to become more political. Then they were all competitors here who will fight to get as much material from the dragon as possible. Battle plans were constantly being brought up and disregarded by others. The obvious schemes to try to get others killed were quickly dismissed and reprimands were made by me to make things go smoother. The people who missed this meeting will definitely regret it. Most of the fighters here were close range but no one wanted to be the main tank, which was understandable, even I didn¡¯t want to do that against a dragon. Eventually, Rich was put into that position but he fought quite hard against it which made others give him a lot of concessions, like having his fighters in the best positions for long-range fighting and even got a few more percentages of contribution score for taking the main tank role. It was some good negotiations on his part, yet I expected he would have wanted to be the main tank anyway. The plan was slowly worked out. There was to be an alpha strike. Everyone will prepare their strongest attacks for the beginning of the fight hopefully before the dragon can wake up. Then Rich will get its attention and will have to fight close up solo until the wings are destroyed enough that it can''t fly away. Then the rest of the close combat fighters will join and the long fight to kill the dragon will truly begin. It was hard to make them understand how long of a fight this would actually be but hopefully, they will believe me. Everyone still tried to play political games but I tried to keep it at a minimum. Three different camps quickly emerged. It was the Queen''s camp, the United Kings'' camp, and the United Freeholds'' camp. The different camps eventually started to work together especially after our latest break which helped us make the decisions faster and now all that was left to do was wait until others can join us and hopefully there will be enough because if there isn¡¯t, I will cancel this attack. After a day and a half, everyone who was going to come had come. Eleven out of the twelve nations from the fallen Kingdom had joined but the nation from the other former Kingdom hadn¡¯t joined and so didn¡¯t the northern petty Kingdom from here. I needed to send some adventurers there as we had too little information currently about what was going on there. Hopefully, there won''t be anything bad but my gut was telling me that something was wrong. I was impressed by how many showed up. There were even some independent forces not part of any nation that showed up, with quite strong fighters. The end result was over 200 first-rank fighters and 3 second-rank fighters. It was in the afternoon on a quiet and peaceful day with a beautiful yellow sun against the blue sky when the fight was about to start. Everyone was doing last preparations to unleash their strongest attacks and everyone who could observe from a long distance focused on the three second-rank fighters who were all gathering massive amounts of energy to unleash their most devastating attacks. chapter 249 All of the fighters were currently preparing their strongest attacks, at least those who could hit from long range. Many had a hard time concentrating as looking at the sleeping dragon made them feel more terrified than they had ever felt before. The dragon had landed in a thick forest and currently, its upper body was showing past the tree line, while the rest was semi-hidden by the broken trees that laid upon it. It was quite obvious to see the route where the dragon landed as the trees were broken, leaving a clear trail. The dragon hadn¡¯t even moved from its landing spot, so tired it had been from trying not to fall into the water. But its long nap was coming to an end as hunger started to truly eat at it. However, it was going to be waking up sooner than it expected as almost everyone was ready with their attacks. The Queen¡¯s right-hand man was charging up his ice beam ability, Rich was empowering his bow, and the only iron oak arrow he had so he could do maximum damage. The final second rank was an independent earth mage who was currently making an empowered earth spear to cause physical damage so the Dragon¡¯s resistance to mana wouldn''t limit the damage he could do. This buildup of power didn¡¯t go unnoticed as the dragon''s sleeping sensors started to register the danger. Dragons live in a place where they are in constant danger, even with their incredibly powerful bodies. Ninety percent of dragons don¡¯t reach past childhood, so every dragon who did was ready for anything at any time, otherwise, they simply didn''t survive. The only reason the dragon was still sleeping was because of its extreme exhaustion. But every passing moment, it started to shake off the sleep that it was in. It was at this point that almost everything was ready for the alpha strike and at that moment, Rich truly began powering his attack. The area around him froze as it took ahold of every molecule of energy, then he looked like he exploded from how much energy he started to work with. While all of this could be seen by people who had the ability to do so, none of that energy was projected outwards for the dragon to sense. Only a few moments later, Rich started to pull back his longbow, straining while doing so. His exertion of physical power made him steam. And if you looked at him, you could see the air distort like you were watching a fire burn. When he reached his maximum draw, he took a single moment to aim and then he released. A sonic boom followed the snap of the released right afterward, an ice glow illuminated the surroundings, and then another sonic boom was heard when the earth spear accelerated to its maximum speed. All of this finally woke the dragon up, but a bit too late. The ice beam shot from the tip of the Queen¡¯s bodyguard''s sword was the fastest and hit first. It was a sustained beam attack that hit the neck of the dragon. The dragon''s eyes immediately opened even before the beam hit, but only a few moments later the beam had already damaged and cut through the scales of the dragon. The dragon, however, wasn¡¯t stupid and was able to move its head and neck, eliminating the danger almost immediately without sustaining any crippling injury. Before it could get up to find its attacker, the arrow hit just below its neck into the chest area. It pierced the scales and buried itself almost feather-deep, causing minimal damage, at least until the arrow exploded from the contained energy, blowing a large chunk out and causing serious damage. The earth spear was the slowest to reach and when the earth mage saw what happened, he tried to guide his earth spear to the same location. However, the dragon was now fully awake and angry, and its speed was not to be underestimated. It was able to raise its body enough that the earth spear hit below the wound the arrow made. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. It still caused a severe wound, breaking many scales and piercing quite deep. The dragon had gotten fully up, extending its wings when the other attacks hit. Only a few attacks made any lasting damage to the scales, most just glanced off. For a moment, the dragon was hidden from sight as the many abilities and spells caused thick smoke and debris to hide the dragon. Everyone had already started to scatter right after they launched their attacks, but some still stumbled when they saw the dragon surge out of the smoke while roaring its defiance. The dragon''s four legs pushed its massive weight forward at an incredible speed as it looked around at the many creatures who were trying to hide behind small hills. But one was straight ahead of it, not trying to hide, and the attacks it made caused pain. The dragon accelerated to its fastest speed, closing in on 100 mph, and quickly closing in on Rich, who hadn''t expected it to be so fast. Many of the ranged attacks missed because no one had expected it to be so fast. The only reason it was able to be so fast was because it was using its wings so its legs didn¡¯t have to support its weight while running, allowing it to push itself to ridiculous speeds. Rich originally planned to shoot many arrows but now he only had one or two more left before the dragon reached him. He chose to power up for a more devastating attack but instead of attacking its already wounded spots, he made a shatter shot with his last attack and aimed it at one of the wings. The shot left a large part of the wing in tatters, causing the dragon to lose balance and allowing Rich to escape to the other side so the freight train of a dragon wouldn''t make him into paste. The dragon recovered quickly from its fall, charging towards the creature causing it so much pain. For a moment, the dragon was confused as the creature it was chasing looked different, but the smell was still the same so it didn''t care. More and more ranged attacks started to fall on the dragon. Each wing was a lot weaker than its scales, but even then, some of the attacks made simply didn¡¯t do anything but left scratches. Rich had put away his longbow and taken out his previously two-handed sword, now more fitting to be his one-handed sword. He was also using a larger version of the legionaries'' shield so he could use it in case of fire attacks to cover his body. Not a moment after he had changed his weapon, he needed to dive to the left so the teeth that wanted to bite him in half wouldn¡¯t find their target. Rich continued to nimbly dodge all the attacks the dragon tried to make, but even with its speed, it was still a large creature and compared to the dragon, Rich was just a mouse. As this went on, more and more ranged attacks hit the dragon, damaging its wings more and more. The dragon was thoroughly annoyed, but no one had expected its next move. Everyone had thought that it would use its fire breath, and it did, just not the way expected. It blew a stream of fire from its nostrils. Using its main fire breath took time to prepare, but blowing it out from its nostrils was a lot faster. So now, Rich had to dodge not only teeth, legs, wings, and a tail, but also dual flamethrowers from its nostrils. The flame was incredibly hot and even from quite far away, with all abilities Rich was using, it was uncomfortably hot. This dragon and mouse chase continued for over 10 minutes before the dragon was over it. The constant pain was making it unable to think. It tried to fly up to get a moment of rest and burn this small annoyance into dust. The dragon''s wings, however, were quite damaged and while it still could lift itself up, it needed to exert itself and it still hadn''t recovered from its flight here. Still, it pushed itself so it could get a bit higher up so it could burn the area around itself, but before it could, its now completely exposed wings were attacked even more fiercely. The dragon screamed in pain when a particularly large spell hit its right wing and finally, the dragon started to fall from the sky. It was only about five stories up so its landing didn''t cause it any damage, but for the first time, it stopped focusing on the annoyance in front of it and looked towards the hills from where constant attacks were launched. Now understanding that it was being hunted, it started to fight back against annoyances farther away from itself. The next moment, a group of three mages looked in fright as the dragon looked towards them and then launched two fireballs from its nostrils that arced towards them. While the fireballs weren''t the fastest, the shock caused two of the mages to not be fast enough to escape, causing them to be burned to dust by the fireballs'' explosion and the resulting fire afterwards. This signaled the second phase of the fight as the close-range fighters started to charge. Rich also didn''t miss the opportunity and was able to land a decent attack into a previously wounded spot. chapter 250 The dragon focused on the enemy close to it and continued to attack while also seeing many more closing in. However, whenever there was an opportunity, it launched fireball attacks towards the long-range fighters. The dragon was now feeling a lot better as it was finally starting to kill enemies further away from itself and the enemies that had arrived also lost some of their numbers from its first tail attack. The fighting from this point onwards was brutal. Its fireball attacks were devastating which caused the long-range fighters to start constantly moving to stay alive. Two groups of long-range fighters were, however, quite safe - one being the ones who were with the earth mage and the others who were with Salazar. While Salazar couldn¡¯t directly attack, he could still defend himself and if there were others around who were currently fighting, it was none of his business. The close-range fight was incredibly chaotic and brutal. While everyone had designated areas, almost none were able to follow their instructions. This caused many deaths and the numbers of the more than 100 fighters started to quickly drop. The rest of the fighters quickly learned to stay away from Rich and the Queen¡¯s right-hand man as the dragon was focusing on them the most. Both were able to deal damage even though the dragon was most focused on them, but the Queen¡¯s right-hand man had an easier time thanks to him focusing on ice-type abilities. The Queen¡¯s right-hand man¡¯s attack caused an icy mist to start covering the battlefield which made escaping the Dragon''s attacks even harder. They were, however, slowing down the dragon so no one was complaining. The dragon was taking more and more damage and slowly it was starting to slow down. It was being attacked so often that it still hadn''t been able to use its breath attack which it was now trying to do at every opportunity. The fighting dragged on and then began to slow down as everyone was tired. During close to the one-hour mark since the beginning of the fight, the Queen¡¯s right-hand man found an opportunity to launch a large attack. This, however, caused the entire area to be covered in icy mist but luckily this mist wasn''t dangerous to others. "Fuck, sorry!" was heard from inside the icy mist. The Queen¡¯s right-hand man¡¯s apology meant little but most accepted it as a genuine mistake on his part. He, however, was smiling from ear to ear as he manipulated the mist so the dragon would still be able to see one person - Rich. The dragon, not wanting to waste an opportunity and already familiar with how Rich fought, executed a plan that it hoped would deal with this annoyance once and for all. The mist was almost immediately clear when the dragon moved its entire body but it was still too late for most as a tail attack was already speeding towards them. From this one attack, seven were killed immediately, two were injured but most importantly for the dragon, it was able to deliver a direct hit against Rich. It had done that before and once again Rich made himself as light as possible and was sent flying by the attack. The dragon, however, expected this and was already about to release its breath attack in the location where Rich was going to land. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Rich was down to about half his energy reserves when the mist hit. When he heard the apology, he knew something was wrong. He immediately flooded his armour with as much energy as possible which boosted his defensive abilities to the max. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the mist but when he could finally see, it was too late. A moment later the mist disappeared and the tail was already too close to be dodged. When he was sent flying, his mind started to find a way to cause the Queen¡¯s right-hand man¡¯s death but his mind came to a screeching halt when he saw a glint in the dragon''s eye. The next moment, the dragon''s mouth opened and flame started to blaze out of it. Where he would land, was in the perfect position to be burnt alive. Quickly, he drove his sword into the earth and while he did succeed in slowing down, he lost the grip on his sword and unfortunately, he landed still too close and the dragon only had to adjust its fire breath a little. Rich was barely able to take cover behind his shield and pump every bit of core energy into his defensive abilities to try to survive. He tried to move away but he now understood why people didn''t survive dragon fire. It had mass to it and all of his strength was used just to keep the shield from slipping. This, however, would only extend his suffering. He felt like he was being cooked alive and he was. He saw his armor was already half melted and the shield was only able to survive thanks to his core energy. After a few seconds, he also figured out why dragon''s fire was so good at burning things to dust. It didn¡¯t simply burn the physical but also the very being of the thing it was burning. It was only thanks to his soul resistance that he was able to think so clearly while being surrounded by the flame. The dragon was incredibly mad as the stupid creature still hadn¡¯t died so it continued to push out more and more flame, hoping that the annoying creature would finally die. Rich, sensing the dragon''s desire for his death, knew that he needed to do something. Without hesitation, he pulled out the throwing spear that he made and while protecting it with his own body, started to flood it with energy. Rich didn¡¯t have much of it left but he distributed it so he would have just a little bit of core energy left to protect himself while he launched his last attack. As soon as he started to throw, he needed to move the shield and unfortunately exposed himself directly to dragon fire. Almost immediately, his armor started to disintegrate. He put as much strength into his throw as possible and basically all his energy which caused the spear to almost crackle with strength. It flew true and the flames themselves hid its flight. The dragon didn''t even understand what happened as the spear pierced its upper roof and struck its brain. The spear exploding from the energy it held and destroying itself and the brain. The dragon''s fire immediately stopped and it slumped down dead. No one immediately understood what happened and a few attacks continued to land on the dragon but as soon as people figured out what had happened, everyone''s eyes landed on the person lying on the burnt earth, gasping for breath. Rich¡¯s right hand was burned to the bone. Many other places had no armor left, only deeply black flesh. The armor that was left was either smoking or melted. He looked like a burnt corpse, but somehow there was still life inside of it. As soon as Rich was hit with fire, every single fighter from the United Freeholds abandoned their positions and started to rush towards their leader. The first to arrive immediately poured a healing potion into Rich''s mouth and every single fighter afterwards started to use more healing potions and removing the damaged armor. They were able to keep and even stabilize Rich before the Guild healers were able to arrive and truly start to heal Rich. The news had broken out that the dragon was dead and there was a celebration. Quickly, swarms of resource harvesters fell upon the dragon to extract every bit of wealth possible. The Queen''s right-hand man was incredibly angry. His plan had backfired and now Rich had a huge stake for the resources of the dragon and he knew that Rich was going to be a huge problem in the future. He gripped his sword and readied himself as he prepared to rush in and finish him off but before he could, he felt dread. Salazar had appeared behind him. "Clear out, the resource gatherers need space to work," he said. While gritting his teeth, the Queen''s right-hand man backed off, knowing he now couldn''t do anything. Rich was in a bad state but even then, he had gathered a small amount of energy to try and defend himself from the Queen''s right-hand man. With the dangers past, he finally could let himself pass out. His injuries were bad and most should have died from them but Rich was stubborn and clung to life with every ounce of willpower he had even if he didn''t want to. chapter 251 "Thank you," I said to the healer who had just finished fixing my right arm. "No need for thanks, this is my job. For the amount of damage you have received, you are healing remarkably well. Just take one healing potion a day for the next two weeks and you should be back in top condition," explained the healer. It had been a painful three days, but now the pain was just a dull throbbing. I still couldn¡¯t use my right hand, but at least everything was now back and not just bone. Heading back to my command tent, I finally saw that Roger and his delegation seemed to have arrived. It would soon be time to start distributing the materials obtained from the dragon, and I suspected it would be a long discussion. So, two days ago when I regained consciousness, I ordered some of my men to write a letter back home so Roger could come here and deal with it himself. "Good to see you, Roger, and I¡¯m glad you¡¯re here," I said when I got close enough, and he greeted me back, quite worried about my condition. "It''s good to see you as well, Rich, and I hope you¡¯re doing well. I heard you were quite hurt, but I never imagined something like this," he said while pointing at me. I did look quite bad, having bandages all over. Both healing potions and healing spells are true miracles, but there is a limit to how much a body can accept this kind of help, and I reached that limit long ago. That¡¯s why I can only take one healing potion a day, otherwise I might get sick and my wounds would start to get worse instead of getting better. "Let''s head inside, we have a lot to discuss and you will have a hard job ahead of you," I said. To that, Roger raised his eyebrow and started to follow me. When we were inside the tent and a bit more secure, I started to explain. "The political situation here is a bit difficult, and I certainly haven¡¯t made it better. I will give you the details later on, but the Queen¡¯s forces are definitely against us, so you need to watch out for that. But let''s begin with why you are here." "Despite how I look, the fight against the dragon went really well for us and we actually earned 62% contribution, meaning we will get 62% of the value of the materials harvested." It was amusing to see how Roger''s eyes seemingly doubled in size from that news, and it was hard not to smile. "I believe I do not have to tell you how valuable everything we just got is. I will leave most of it to your discretion, but there are some materials I would want for myself. I believe because I finished the dragon off, I will get the dragon core myself, but I also want the strongest bone, claw and teeth from the dragon." "I also need as much blood as you can get that won''t cost too much. If I understand it correctly, most everyone wants a vial or two of the blood for some potions, but I need the rest of it. Is that understood?" Roger agreed to everything, however, he was a bit confused as to why I would want the blood, but he didn¡¯t question me, which I appreciated. We continued to talk more about politics, then it was time to go to sleep. Having to sleep every day once again was an odd experience, but my body needed extra sleep so it would heal itself faster. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. I couldn¡¯t get to sleep immediately, so once again I started to think about the current plan that I had and if I had gone mad. This plan came to me when I learned more about the Queen¡¯s right-hand man and his fighting style. That also led me to discover an unpleasant truth about the second rank and the current meta within the melee fighters circle. Apparently, about a century ago, a new enchantment became really popular for swords and other weapons. It was named "shatter" and it did exactly what the name suggests. It would shatter other weapons when they came into contact. Now, the effectiveness of that varied. But if you had a weak weapon, you were basically guaranteed a loss. If you were stronger and you could boost your weapon, you could mitigate that, but only to an extent. It basically made fighting in the second rank a contest of who could afford the best weapon. Unfortunately, this has been going on for a long time. Now, they''ve started to roll out all kinds of different shatter enchantments, and apparently, cold is one of the best amplifiers of that, which the Queen¡¯s right-hand man excels at. Apparently, he is a famous tournament fighter and one of the best in his stat class. The knowledge of how second-rank fights are usually determined by who has the best weapon makes me cringe every time. Fortunately for the tournament participants, many tournaments now ban this type of enchantment, but that doesn''t change real fights. I can honestly see the value of destroying your opponent''s weapon, it would make everything so much easier, but from the brief explanation I received, the weapons with that enhancement isn¡¯t the best for energy-based abilities. It means that this weapon would limit my power by quite a lot, that¡¯s why I decided to be crazy and test out an idea I have from Earth¡¯s literature. I wasn¡¯t completely mad or crazy, I did test the blood of the dragon and it did have a little bit of metal in it like every other blood does. In Game of Thrones, there was a type of metal called Valyrian steel and no one knew how it was made. Thinking about that TV show made me want to watch it again, but I knew that I would never be able to do so again. It was so good, an absolute masterpiece of 12 seasons. When it was announced that it would be remade, everyone was skeptical, but every problem from the first series was fixed, even the cities now looked as they should have been. But even then, no one knew how Valyrian steel was made. My personal idea back then was that it was made from the very blood of the dragons, so why not go crazy and try it here as well. I could feel how my eyes were shining from excitement. Honestly, I had no idea if this would work or not, but the nerdy side of me wouldn¡¯t let go of the idea and I needed to follow through, otherwise, I would probably regret this for the rest of my life. Finally, I was able to go to sleep, dreaming of dragon metal that would make me a legendary sword. The few following days, I stayed inside my tent, not wanting to speak with anyone. In my head I was already planning on how I could turn the blood into metal and then hopefully forge a new sword for myself. When we were finally preparing to leave, we had many wagons with us, all had been specially enhanced so they would be able to carry more. Roger was able to get me 1780 kilograms of dragon blood, but I had no idea if that would be enough. The rest of the contribution he mainly focused on the scales, as they are incredibly good for armor and will sell for an enormous profit in larger markets. I had been successfully able to dodge the Queen¡¯s right-hand man, as I was quite certain that he wanted to challenge me to a duel, and even now we had been able to exchange portal times with another petty king to dodge him. When the portal was opened I was able to see how he was running towards us from the Queen''s camp. He was so mad, but I just waved to him with a big smile on my face and stepped through the portal. Was it a good idea to antagonize them so much? Probably not, but they wanted me to sign basically a slave deal for my nation, so fuck them. chapter 252 Upon stepping through the portal, I took a deep breath. The very air of the nation itself helped rejuvenate me. It was good to be back. However, my happiness didn''t last long as I needed to go for a debriefing and then there would be a general meeting on what we should do next. It was as annoying as I expected it to be but it was necessary, especially all the political stuff that the council needed to know. We might have gotten a potential ally, and I will leave everything to more qualified people on that front. Apparently, Francis was doing incredibly well and the road project was well ahead of schedule. I guess if you throw hundreds of superpowered people at a problem, you get incredible results. Still, the road construction will take weeks but over time it should get even faster as the kinks are worked out. It was late in the night when I made it back to my home but when I arrived, I was touched to my very soul. While I had made myself a bigger bed to sleep in, I hadn¡¯t had time to do anything else but now the table and chair were made for my size. It was incredibly thoughtful of them and I should think of a good reward for them but now I wanted to sleep. It was something different to sleep in your own bed and thanks to that, sleep came almost immediately. The next morning I did my customary stretches but I couldn¡¯t wait until I could use my right hand again but that would take a few more days. Everything I got from the dragon should arrive here in a few days so I would need to start making plans. I wouldn¡¯t want people around as I don¡¯t want the knowledge of what I¡¯m about to do to spread. But how will I get all my apprentices out of here? Nothing I could think of didn¡¯t scream ''I am keeping a secret that I don¡¯t want anyone to know'', but while eating breakfast some of my apprentices talks made me finally realize what to do. "I wanted to thank you all for making this table and chairs as they are quite comfortable to sit in unlike the previous one. I liked the initiative and I think you are all ready to learn to be even more independent. I will arrange for you all to join a survival training of the legionaries that will last 4 weeks." At first, everyone was quite pleased but my words but then everyone froze. I could already see all the questions. ''Why are you punishing us, we did something nice and this is our reward.'' But no one argued against my decision. I believed that they were now knowledgeable enough to know that this would be for their own benefit and something they will need in the future. "Before you go however, I once again ended up destroying my armour. So I want as much charcoal made as possible." After that, I left and headed towards the mountain as I wanted to inspect the road. When I made it to the inn, I could already see that Francis had made one pass with his new device, scraping away a layer of dirt for the future road. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. About halfway towards Arthur''s house, I found some legionaries and workers clearing dirt behind Francis. I spent a few hours with them, watching how they worked and just hanging out with Francis. I wanted to join in as I still needed to get my digging skill past the basic rank but doing work with one arm was annoying. Eventually, we made it to the bridge that was currently dismantled and a new stone bridge was being built. The construction looked incredibly solid and I spent a few hours with the workers here to learn how they were building this bridge so I could know how to do it myself if I needed to. I wasn¡¯t that familiar with stone construction but I knew the basics and this was an excellent example of using the basics to make something incredibly solid that will last for generations. One thing that I have noticed is that everyone seemed to be quite happy with their work. If a nation¡¯s workforce is happy then you are doing something right and I was incredibly glad that I was partly responsible for this. I was glad that I could see others enjoying life the way I currently am. The stone road was made up to the river and it was a sight to behold. It was incredibly smooth but the center was higher up so water would move to the sides where there were drainage ditches. This should help with the longevity of the road but from the construction alone, I would guess 1000 years would be a good estimate. However, if the traffic was heavy it might become necessary to replace some stones if they''re too worn out. I decided to also visit the mining outpost. But before I made it there, I reached the quarry which was incredibly busy. I could see abilities being used constantly. Workers were cutting out pieces of stone, some were shaping that stone for the top layer of the road, while others were destroying the smaller fragments of rock to use for lower layers of the road. Once again, I wanted to join in but that would need to wait. When I made it to the mining outpost, I just stood there for a few moments, amazed at what I was seeing. It looked like smoke was rising in two large columns from the very mountain itself, but they were just the chimneys for the two large smelters inside the mining outpost. From my current vantage point, you could see the large gate that was currently open. Inside, it looked like an underground town. If the gate was closed, anyone trying to force their way in would find themselves having a bad day as I could see many murder holes meant to kill anyone or anything trying to get in. Inside, the temperature rose a few degrees from the large smelters. There were many buildings and even an inn, and a few more were being built. Straight down the middle of the road from the front gate, you could see another gate that was also open and led further into the mine. It was basically a mirror to the front gate with the murder holes to kill anything that was trying to escape the mine. If the outpost needed to expand, they would dig towards the sides so they wouldn''t have to rebuild the gates. There were also many warehouses where metals were being stored and salt from the nearby salt collection fields. The river that was so salty came from inside the mountain and unfortunately, no one could follow it to find out what was causing the huge amounts of salt, but right now no one was complaining that we didn''t exactly know how this was possible. Not having to worry about importing salt from far away was something everyone was grateful for. I was led by the outpost leader to their most secure vault where I collected a lot of unique metals that had been waiting for inspection. I loaded up my adventuring backpack and headed back towards my home. I stopped by at Val¡¯s inn to have some dinner and a good conversation. The next day, I headed to the town so I could arrange my apprentices'' training. When I made it there, everyone was busy and it didn¡¯t take me long to figure out that Roger was planning another trip. After I organised my apprentices'' training, I went to Roger to ask him to purchase some second-rank metals, fabric, and leather for my new armour. Roger was happy enough to give some of the dragon leather for my brigantine and for the leather straps other pieces of my armour required. I explained some more about the construction of the armour I was making and the different requirements for it but after I was done, I went and got something to eat and then collected one of the most important pieces of loot we got - the dragon core. I wanted to head straight back home so I could properly inspect the dragon core, but I was interrupted by Goose who was approaching the town. I hadn¡¯t seen him in quite a while as he and the wolves were busy fighting off some of the monsters that have appeared in our land. chapter 253 Goose had grown to the size of a large dog, but thanks to my increased stature, I could still extend my left arm to let him perch on it. Through our bond, we communicated, and it seemed that Goose wanted to spend more time with me. When I explained that I would be home for a while, he appeared quite pleased. I had missed him too and found it remarkable how quickly he was growing. It crossed my mind that I should construct a large tower for him at home ¨C a place where he could sleep and survey the land. But that project would have to wait; there was a great deal of work I needed to address first. Back home, I walked to the sheltering shade of the large oak tree where I could see the graves of my family. A part of me wished they could witness the world around us as it is now. But then, I refocused. I hadn''t come here for them, but to seek a quiet place to concentrate. I sat down against the tree, allowing Goose to lay next to me. Then, I took out the dragon core and started to examine it. The first thing I noticed, which I had expected, was that it wasn¡¯t a monster core. What I hadn¡¯t expected was that it was basically the same core that''s currently inside of me. That was interesting on so many levels, but I wasn¡¯t even going to try to figure out why they were similar. The more important thing for me was that there was indeed an elemental seed inside the core. While taking the seed from a monster core was simple, taking it from a dragon core wasn¡¯t. I didn¡¯t know if it was because of the type of seed or the core itself, but it took many hours to extract the elemental seed of dragon fire. It felt incredibly powerful, but I also felt it would take longer for it to mature. Before I took the elemental seed, the core was probably worth tens of millions. But now, I felt that the fire element was gone from the core, making it a lot less valuable. Perhaps in the future, I will find it a use, but right now it was time for more improvements. I was incredibly sad that I couldn¡¯t incorporate stronger flesh into my body, but the dragon bone, claw, scale, and teeth that I had in my possession were something that I could use to make my body stronger. The scale, while not completely compatible with my subdermal armour, would still make it a lot stronger. Thanks to my upgraded stats and better energy control, it took me only two days to incorporate everything. Goose didn''t stay with me for the entire time as he needed to hunt for food, but he did return occasionally, which was quite nice. After a good night''s sleep, I watched as my apprentices made their final preparations for their survival training. Some seemed to be excited while others were scared. It was going to be a hard time for them, but they would need it as next year they would need to start their own homesteads. I didn¡¯t go with them as I felt it was something they needed to do for themselves from the very beginning. Now, I was alone in my homestead after so long, well not alone as I had Goose and my other animals. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. The delivery of the blood came yesterday, so I started by offloading it and taking it to my smithy. Beside the smithy, was a quickly built shelter for the huge amount of charcoal my apprentices had made. I was once again able to use my right hand, but it was a bit stiff, so bringing all the barrels of blood was good exercise. When that was done, it was time to start. I started the large forge and placed my largest crucible into it. I then filled it with as much blood as possible. It took quite a lot of heat for the blood to begin to boil and slowly evaporate. Turns out that dragon''s blood was quite resistant to fire, but that actually made things easier as it took a few hours until I needed to add more blood into the crucible. During the downtime, I inspected the unique metals or just napped. It would take a long time until all the blood was gone. Like this, days went by fast until a week and a half later when I added the last bit of dragon blood there was. The constant napping allowed me to keep going without having proper sleep, but I was going to need to push my body even harder now as I would probably not get an ounce of sleep for the next week. I started by putting the blower to the maximum speed possible. This burnt a lot of charcoal but it was necessary to get the metal inside to the proper heat needed. There wasn''t even enough for a proper two-handed sword that would fit me, but there were a few unique metals that would enhance the metal inside the crucible to an even greater degree, which should bring the amount of metal needed to the correct amount to make a proper greatsword for my stature. The pure metal inside the crucible already felt incredibly potent, but when I continued to add unique metals while using my material modification ability to remove the unwanted parts, I didn¡¯t know for certain if what I was adding was going to be better but I felt that it was correct so I continued. When I was done, unfortunately, I knew that I couldn¡¯t sleep. I needed to let the metal inside the crucible cool a bit but I couldn¡¯t let it cool completely otherwise nothing I had was going to be able to heat up the metal once again. I was only going to be able to get one shot at getting this correct. When the metal was cool enough, I cracked the crucible as it had already reached its limits. The metal piece that fell out was still glowing brightly. It weighed around 7 kilos and I could just see how it wanted to be a weapon. Picking it up with my tongs, I put it on the anvil and started to hammer it. At first, I was controlling my strength but I wasn¡¯t even leaving a dent in the hot metal. I needed to use more of my strength but even when I was using all of it, it was barely enough. I then started to use my energy to boost myself. This, however, required me to also use my energy to strengthen the anvil and my hammer. When I finally felt that I could start working properly, I activated my weapon core ability and connected it with the piece of metal. Immediately, my ability notified me that I was successful but I felt that I could make this connection even better if I used a real core as an ingredient. It appears that any monster core would work but I had the perfect candidate. The dragon core worked perfectly fine but it would have been even stronger if it still had the fire element inside of it. That would have made the weapon fire-oriented and possibly even given it a fire-type ability, but right now it was going to just make the weapon core a lot stronger which I desired more. The work was incredibly tiring and I actually needed to slow down, otherwise, I would risk running out of energy. Over the next three days, I worked without rest to finish the most beautiful greatsword I had ever seen. The blade itself was 210 centimeters long with the handle being 30 centimeters. I still needed to make a handle for it as currently, it was just metal but I couldn¡¯t keep my eyes open and I fell asleep right there in the smithy next to the finished greatsword. When I woke up, I took the greatsword and put it on the table, but then rushed out to get something to eat and deal with the animals. The animals didn''t require anything special as the barn doors were open and they could eat whenever they wanted, but I still went and checked on them. I then watered everything that needed watering and returned to the smithy. For the next few hours, I spent making a handle for the great sword out of iron oak and dragon leather. The blade still needed to be sharpened and that would take a long time, but luckily, thanks to my abilities, I was able to get close to where I needed to be with the profile of the blade so I wouldn¡¯t have to spend a month trying to grind the blade into the proper shape and sharpness. I still took a break and made myself a properly hot sauna so I could relax and clean myself before the most mind-numbing job began that I was still going to have to do for at least a week. chapter 254 POV Luana "Hey, Luana, you''re way too focused. Can you hear me, hello?" I suddenly felt someone''s hand getting closer. This finally snapped me out of my hyper-focus on this book. I recalled that someone was calling my name. Looking up, I saw Adam. A smile came to my face. "Hey, Adam, you''re back already? I thought you were supposed to come back from your family¡¯s home in a few more days." He smiled back at me. There was no reasonable reason for a smile to be so beautiful, but I was able to focus and listen to what he had to say. "My mother and father needed to go deal with some things, so there was really no reason to stay longer. Plus, I kind of missed your smile." It was hard, but I was able to keep from blushing. He certainly knew what he was doing. "And of course, I came here to ask you if you have found a party to delve into the second-rank dungeon so you can start taking harder classes." That question made my smile disappear. I hadn¡¯t known about this requirement. I had hoped and understood that I wouldn¡¯t need to make a lot of friends here. I wanted to finish this academy myself without any distractions, but now that has backfired as I don¡¯t trust anyone enough to join their party. "Some have offered me to join their party, but I don¡¯t know, it just doesn¡¯t feel right as I don¡¯t know them at all. I guess I¡¯m a bit too paranoid," I said and gave a weak smile to Adam. "That''s not paranoid, it''s completely reasonable. But I¡¯m actually quite glad to hear this as I also need to join a party and delve into the dungeon." Adam¡¯s words surprised me quite a lot. "I thought you had a full ride so you wouldn¡¯t have to take on any missions or delve into the dungeons to get access to all the classes." Adam finally sat down, and I could see that he was quite tense and worried. "Normally, yes. But my father told me to do it. ''You need to learn how to survive in dangerous situations, so you will go and delve into that second-ranked dungeon and you will start to take more combat missions as well. Is that understood?'' Yeah, those were his exact words. So here I am, looking for a party member." "So then you didn''t just miss my smile?" I asked. It was funny the way his face moved like a fish for a little while, but then I laughed lightly, making him let out a heavy sigh. "Of course, I¡¯ll join you. Do you have anyone else for our party?" I asked, to which he quickly nodded. "Yes, one of my childhood friends, Horus. He''s from the physical side of this Academy. He¡¯s an excellent off-tank and a melee damage dealer. I can already see your questions. No, he¡¯s not an asshole noble, but he¡¯s from a prestigious knight family from Verdia." Adam and I talked a while longer about Horus, but he seemed like an excellent candidate and would fit with our strength levels. We now had a mage, Adam was the healer, and it seems like Horus would be an excellent party leader and a damage dealer. But unfortunately, we didn''t have good candidates for the two other spots. The other students that were close to our strength level were already in other parties. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! "It seems that we will have to take a risk and recruit outside the Academy. Unfortunately, I don¡¯t know anyone outside our academy that I could invite, so we will have to go to the arena and hopefully find two fighters who could join us," Adam said. But then an image of someone came to my mind. I wondered if he had reached the second rank. "Adam, I might have someone for the tank position. I will send them a letter, but unfortunately, he''s the only one I can think of. So no matter what, we will still have to start scouting the arena to find someone to join us." We agreed to go to the arena on the weekend. I watched as Adam went off to his class and I headed towards the mail room. Hopefully, Rich will be able to get this letter soon and can join us here. I believe that there is a good chance that he¡¯s second rank and he should be an excellent tank and a damage dealer. POV Rich Before I could start with my grinding session to make the blade into the correct shape and sharpness, I noticed a wagon that was led by Roger moving towards my land. It seems that he was back from his trip and while he could be going towards the mountain, I didn¡¯t think so. Just in case, I started to clean up the smithy to hide what I had been doing. After that I decided to do some farm work and see how my plants were doing. I got so sucked into observing my evolution project plant that Roger actually had to call to me to get my attention. "Sorry, Roger, I was a bit too focused." He waved my apology off. I walked to him and we both gave each other a proper handshake before Roger began. "I got everything you asked for but I also decided to bring some more bow-making materials." The wagon truly seemed to be full of all kinds of different woods, some horns, and metals as well. There was also a large bundle of fabric. "Everything seems high quality. I¡¯m impressed and truly grateful," I told Roger. "No need for that. The better the bow material, the more profit we will get. And as for the metals and fabric, the better their quality, the better your chances for survival, which is important to the whole nation." I didn¡¯t know what to say to Roger''s words, so I just thanked him sincerely. We continued to talk, and I was glad to hear that he was indeed able to purchase a large piece of land. Our architects were already designing how we wanted our compound to look and function. There were even talks about having our own portal station there, but that would mean that we would need other substations in other cities to make it worth it. While we were unloading everything, an idea came to me. "Hey, Roger, I¡¯ve only ever heard of portal stations that use mana, but are there any portal stations that use energy as a source of fuel? If there is, in the future that should be a resource that we would have easier access to." Roger stopped working for a while as he thought, but eventually, he responded. "I can see the merit to that, but I have never heard of energy-based portal stations. But I will definitely do some research to see if that is possible." After the work was done, Roger hooked up the wagon that brought me the blood, but he didn¡¯t ask anything about what I did with it. I went with him and we went to the inn to have a proper meal before I sent him off and headed back to the smithy. I had a lot of work to do. With the second-rank materials, I would be able to make myself a full second-rank armour set and I was also going to upgrade my other weapons to the second rank. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have access to more useful unique metals but fortunately, it didn''t matter thanks to the high quality of the materials that Roger brought me. Working with these materials was hard, but nothing compared to the dragon metal. I started with my armour and it didn''t take long for my basic tailoring to rank up, giving me three options that all seemed to have their merits. The first option was minor alterations, the second was fabric dyeing, and the third was strong sewing. None of these really jumped at me, but fabric dyeing would make everything easier. However, honestly, it was something that I wouldn''t need an ability for. The only ability that might be situationally useful is the minor alterations. If I remember correctly, this ability allows you to modify an item''s size by a little bit. As this seemed the most useful, I picked that one. As my work continued, I did find it useful, but you could only stretch a material out so much before you started to affect its other properties, so the minor part was truly appropriate. A little while later I was able to rank up my basic leatherworking. I got three choices, but this time the choice was obvious. I picked an ability called durable finish. This would make whatever I made last a lot longer. chapter 255 Completing the armour only took three days, and I was incredibly pleased with it. I still needed to dye it, but I think I will let Emma do it. That would give her an excellent experience boost, and I didn¡¯t have the dyeing skill like she did. I then started to make my weapons: a single-handed sword, a knife, a dagger, and a hatchet. This ranked up my basic weapon-making skill, giving me another three options to pick for an ability. The choice here was also incredibly simple. I chose ''material synergy''. It was an ability that instantly got my attention and after a quick glance at the other abilities, I picked that one. While my material modification ability helped quite a lot when combining different materials, it wasn''t quite meant for that. This new ability, however, should help me immensely with my future projects. I continued by making myself three throwing spears. After that, I made a new tower shield. I was now starting to run out of the second-ranked metal that I ordered, but I basically had everything I needed. From the leftovers, I made myself a few more throwing daggers and arrowheads. With that done, a week had passed since I began, but now I was a lot stronger and felt prepared to fight whatever might threaten us next. The next morning, I dropped off my armour at Emma¡¯s place and then went back to the smithy to start grinding the blade. The day started to go by, but even before I was finished, my apprentices returned. They were a sorry bunch as they walked down the road towards our home. They barely even looked up as they walked past me as I had a big smile on my face. They looked properly tired, but it seemed they had received excellent training. I didn''t mind as they went straight to bed, but they would be cursing themselves later as they would need to wash everything they touched. I let them make this mistake as they would never make it again, but for me, it was time to get back to grinding. I still wished that I could listen to a book while I was doing this, but those hopes would remain unfulfilled. The blade itself was incredibly tough, and I constantly needed to use energy, otherwise, the grinding stone that I was using would not even leave a scratch. I was quite close to being done and I couldn¡¯t wait to test it out, but luckily the next day went by a lot faster as I could hear my apprentices cursing near the river as they were washing everything that they had made dirty. The next day, the grinding was finally over and it was time to put a truly sharp edge on the blade. For this, I started to use my core energy, but even then, it took an entire day to sharpen both sides. After lightly oiling the surface, I was done. I didn¡¯t exactly think oiling was necessary as I was quite certain this blade couldn''t rust, but I was used to doing this, so I didn¡¯t mind. The blade itself was quite thin and it had a good enough give that it wouldn¡¯t shatter. It also had a continuous taper to the tip, making it quite narrow towards the top. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. When I tested the edge, my finger immediately started to bleed, even when I was using my abilities to boost my defences. I hadn¡¯t expected it to be so sharp. It was a good thing that I didn¡¯t need to make a scabbard as I was just going to keep it in my tattoo storage. Now, for the first time, I flooded my energy into the greatsword and I could feel how the weapon core activated and a instant later a small shockwave was produced by the greatsword. For a moment, I didn¡¯t know what was going on, but then I sort of felt the greatsword and then there was a snap, like a bond between us was formed. Now the greatsword felt right in my hand. I continued to provide it with energy, seeing how the greatsword almost came to life. I almost needed to empty my entire energy pool before the greatsword couldn¡¯t accept anymore and I even gave it some of my core energy. I felt it ready to be used whenever I wanted, but the greatsword was also using that energy. I couldn¡¯t figure out what it was using it for, so I found a good and relaxing space and meditated with the greatsword on my lap. After a few hours, I had my answers. The greatsword was using the energy to keep itself in perfect condition and slowly to improve its own properties. I had theorised this before, but I was glad that it was actually working and it seemed to be at a much faster speed than I expected, but it would still take decades for it to truly make a difference. One interesting thing about this greatsword was that I didn¡¯t need to use any abilities to enhance its strengths, just giving it energy was already enough, but when I used my abilities for the first time, I felt that I didn¡¯t need to fight with the weapon to use the amount of energy I wanted. This was something new and only when I truly pushed my core energy into an ability, I felt the slightest of resistances. It was hard not to grin like a madman. This weapon was quite literally perfect for me. It was also quite easily able to cut through metal, but with second rank metals, it had a harder time which made sense. But if I put enough energy into my abilities, even that was possible. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have the shatter enhancement to test if this blade could withstand it. But from my understanding, it should be able to as the metal''s molecular structure was incredibly tight and resistant to change. When the testing was done, I finally just looked at the greatsword. The metal itself looked like steel but had a red hue to it. The handle also looked dark red, matching the rest of the sword. The blade also had a pattern on it like flowing water, making it quite mesmerising to look at. I continued to familiarise myself with the greatsword and practised some moves until it was time for me to go to sleep. The next day, I went and picked up my armour, now coloured in my clan''s heraldry. I spent some time with Emma so we could catch up. It seems that she has found herself a man. I teased her by asking when the wedding is and it was quite funny to see her go fully red. It was a good time catching up, but it was finally time to get back to what I was trying to do before all this dragon stuff happened. First, I joined Francis in starting to work on my digging skill. It took a while, but there was a lot of work to do which helped me rank up the basic digging skill. I got a choice of three abilities, ''defensive digging'', ''soil composition'', and ''enduring tool''. While defensive digging might be useful, it would only be in rare situations. I could already see soil composition. ''Enduring tool'', however, would be useful basically always, so I picked that one. During one of the visits to the city for a meeting, I was notified that a letter was waiting for me. Usually, when someone needs me, they find a way to notify me immediately, so I wondered what was going on. The letter seemed ordinary enough and was addressed to me. Opening it up, I was surprised to find that it was from Luana. It seems that the Academy she was from required them to delve into a rank two dungeon, but they didn¡¯t have the members required, so she wanted me to join them. They said that it was quite urgent. While it sounded interesting and quite useful, they also mentioned that it could last around two months and currently, I didn¡¯t have the time as the harvest was approaching. I wrote a letter back saying that I appreciated the offer, but I was currently too busy to get away. I also confirmed to her that I was rank two and said that I would be free in about two months, so if they still wanted me by that time, they should write to me again. With that done, it was time to go back to the meetings and then back home for sleep and to check up on my apprentices. chapter 256 After I ranked up my digging skill, I moved on to the next one, which was basic quarrying. It was quite easy to join the workforce there, and I was either put to work destroying rock into smaller fragments or cutting out large pieces of stone from the mountainside. Once again, it took some time, but the constant work helped me quickly improve my skill, as did the tips from other more experienced workers. I was able to rank up my basic quarrying, getting once again three different ability choices. This time, the choices weren''t that good. The first choice was rock understanding, which I could already do. The second one was curved split. This would be useful for both fighting and crafting, but I could already do this by just manipulating energy. So that only left the last one, rock enhancing. This one had more potential and after I picked it, I tested it out to find it quite useful. It basically just made the basic properties of a rock better. This unfortunately meant more work for me, as I would need to go and enhance the roads that we were building and every other military structure that would benefit from enhanced stone. With that skill ranked up, I moved on to my basic mining. It was so much easier to mine when you could see everything as if the tunnels were flooded with sunlight. Thanks to me not having to sleep so often, I was able to continue working almost without rest, which helped my skill level up fast. It still took some time and it was getting close to harvesting season, but I was able to rank up the basic mining skill before I needed to return. This time, the choice was incredibly hard as all three abilities would be useful: earth sense, ore sense, and ore insight. I deliberated this choice for quite a while as every single ability had its uses, but in the end, I picked earth sense as this was the most encompassing and something that I couldn¡¯t do at all currently. After I picked it, I almost passed out from the rush of information. I had truly made the correct decision as earth sense synergized with my interactive map. So now, slowly, with the connection I had to the land and the nation itself, my interactive map was slowly being updated with everything that was underneath the earth. I needed to suppress the information as much as possible so I could function and would later go through it. It would take quite a while before it was done, so now I said goodbye to all my coworkers and headed back home. I still visited quite often to give my apprentices new challenges, but I was away most of the time. As I was checking up on everything, I happened to see three eggs lying in a corner, laid by a chicken. When I went to pick them up, I received a notification. "Finally," I said out loud as my basic animal product harvesting finally ranked up. That had taken so long. Checking the abilities offered, I was a bit disappointed. The three abilities were animal tracking, quick skinning, and animal diet. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Nothing really jumped out at me. I didn¡¯t need an extra ability to find out an animal''s diet and while quick skinning would be nice, I didn¡¯t have the other abilities that would make this truly useful. That left animal tracking and while I could already do this, it was the best choice out of the three, so I picked that one. I was only disappointed for a few moments as I remembered it was time for harvesting, which brought a wide smile to my face. This year, the weather hadn''t been so perfect and there had been a lot of storms with a lot of lightning. But currently, the weather was pleasant and would be for a week or two. It was time to start the harvest and this time we split into different groups based on what everyone enjoyed the most. My old apprentices joined me and it was nice to once again see George''s baby. It was so cute but it was too young to even crawl around yet, but it shouldn¡¯t take too long until that happened. While the others started to tackle the regular crops, I worked on my evolution project. It seems that at least half reverted back to their previous state and about 1/3 of the remaining half evolved in a completely different way. The rest kept their current evolution or deepened that evolution. So about 2/3 of the harvest was useless for my evolution project but they could still be used as food. The rest fell into three categories: new and interesting evolutions, same evolutions as previous, or deepening of the desired evolution. What I was looking for was making plants that were specifically useful at something. One thing that I was focusing on was making them more nutritious so they would give more calories. That way, you could eat less but still get the calories needed to keep going. Of course, I also tried to boost the vitamin amount but I only had little success with this. The more interesting was to increase the sugar amount and specific proteins that would help make more interesting alcohol. When I was done and had packed my seeds for the next year, I helped others with the more difficult jobs. Some of my apprentices constantly needed to make food as this was hard work making our bodies extremely hungry. The atmosphere was lovely and the days rolled by. We had already learned from last harvest so this time everything went even smoother. And when we were finally done with my land, we moved on to Emma and George''s land. Harvesting their land took a lot less time, especially with all my current apprentices helping. Transporting the extra harvest back to the town was a lot easier as the road was almost finished. Currently, the work had stopped as everyone was working on harvesting but within the next week or so after the harvest, the road would be completed and construction of the swamp dungeon road would begin. Most of my apprentices went to help harvest around the town while I went back and started to work on the planted trees. I went over every one of them, making sure that they were healthy and trimmed off a few unnecessary branches that had grown or mixed the soil so they would have the nutrients they required. This took quite a while and the harvest was finally over for everyone. Things slowly got back to normal but many started to already prepare for the winter ahead. For me, it was time to start making more bows and finally put the finishing touches on the book I was writing for the goblins. Weeks went by and I was able to rank up my bow making skill to the advanced rank. There was only one choice that looked promising so I picked that one. Quick craft was an ability that I hadn¡¯t heard about but the name itself promised great things. When I started to test it out, I realised I had gotten an amazing ability that was on the level of material modification. It gave me insight on how to craft faster but not only that, it also seemed to bend time a bit so I could craft faster than normally possible. With that, I was able to accelerate my bow making a lot but I also finally finished the crossbow book I wanted to make. Writing was still quite hard for me but not because of the technical side, it was just unfamiliar. My body was dexterous enough that I could perfectly copy any letter, but that didn''t mean I didn''t accidentally slip into a more familiar language every once in a while. It was finally time to go visit the goblins. chapter 257 The trip to the goblin land was simple enough, but sneaking through the forest was a bit harder due to my size. I made a note to myself to come back here and practice until I regained my previous skill level. I went straight to one of the scouts, where I had a small problem. They didn''t recognize me immediately, but when they did, they couldn¡¯t figure out why I had grown so much, which was funny to explain. I asked for an audience with their leader and it didn''t take long for me to be granted one. Their village had grown a lot, not by the number of goblins living there, but because they were now constructing real buildings, and that took a lot more space than the tents they were using before. I was led to an impressive building where I found Stebs Soot. He was also taller and he didn¡¯t have the pronounced belly goblins were known for. "It''s been a long time, my friend," I started and offered my hand. Stebs Soot only hesitated for a single moment before he took my hand. "It really has. Is something wrong? I heard that the construction on the road had begun. Is there something more you require from us?" It seems that our relationship really had strained. "No, no, Stebs Soot. I am here to catch up with an old friend and offer you a gift. It was quite a lot of work, so I hope that you will like it. But before that, perhaps we could eat and catch up?" Stebs Soot¡¯s mood seemed to brighten immediately and I was led to a proper dining room. We spoke for a few hours about absolutely everything. The food was also incredibly delicious. It seems that they had improved their stew even more. But I could see Stebs Soot getting a bit restless as I still hadn¡¯t given him the gift I promised earlier. "I see that you can¡¯t wait any longer, so here, take this." I took out the book and handed it to him. He was a bit confused, so I started to explain. "From our previous talks and the current one we had, I figured that you guys would have a lot of trouble fighting stronger monsters. While evolutions help you close the gap, only you having a class doesn''t help the other goblins protect your lands." "So, I made a book that explains and teaches how to make crossbows and other weapons that are similar to them. I figured that for you guys it would be perfect, as those weapons can be very powerful and would require less strength than expected. With them, you should be able to protect yourselves even better." It was at this moment that I saw a single tear fall from Stebs Soot''s eye. "This is truly magnificent. Usually, complex constructions go over my head, but even I can understand how to make a crossbow with your instructions. This will really help us a lot, but I still don¡¯t fully understand why you would give us a treasure like this." Stebs Soot continued to leaf through the book even while he spoke. I was pleased to see him liking it so much. "Well, we have not been the best neighbors as of late, but I hope that this will show that we appreciate you as well." There was silence for a long time, and it was finally broken when Stebs Soot gave me a solid nod and then continued to flip through the book with a smile on his face. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I offered to show how to construct a crossbow and quickly, Stebs Soot got some of their best crafters together for a demonstration and instruction on the book I gave them. They were all incredibly excited, especially by the more powerful weapons that came later in the book. With some of those weapons, even wounding the dragon that I fought would be possible. However, it will take them a long time until they reach the competency to make such weapons. After a short tour of the village, I headed back home, but I did spend two days in the forest learning to move silently again. The forest was however just too dense to not make noise because of my large size, but I was still satisfied with my progress. When I made it back home, I finally felt that my earth sense started to calm down. There were many points of interest that drew my attention, but the first thing I noticed were the empty black voids underground. At first, I didn¡¯t understand why they would be there, but I soon figured it out. It meant that there was a hollow space there. They were basically a large hollow space underground and one was under the lake that led a long way downward. It kind of made sense. There were two rivers that fed the lake and the water needed to go somewhere otherwise the lake would have long ago grown much larger. But that didn''t answer the question of how there was any water in the lake; it should all be flowing downwards. I was incredibly curious, but I had to put that on hold as there were more things to find. For one, some of the rabbit burrows went a lot deeper than I ever thought. There were also some underground rivers, but they either disappeared beyond our borders or went too deep. I did find a few buried treasure chests near the town, but I didn¡¯t expect them to hold anything too valuable. Thanks to our expansion into the nearby mountain, I also got a clearer picture of the resources there. I could see quite a few unique materials inside the mountain and many metal veins. The iron vein we were currently mining was big, but the most interesting was the underground river that surfaced on the mountain and brought so much salt. I don¡¯t know how, but a large section of rock had changed into a unique material that produces salt, and when the river flows through it, it collects it. It would be interesting if we could get to that rock, but it''s really deep inside the mountain. One of the most important resources, however, was in abundance. We had a lot of rich soil, so we should never run out of food. Unfortunately, the grasslands weren''t as fertile, simply because of the type of grass that grows on it. It¡¯s still an incredible resource, especially because of all the rabbits that live there. I was skimming through the grass fields, but there wasn¡¯t anything that interesting. That was until I reached near the edge of our territory. There, I found a large concentration of iron in the soil that extended all the way to the mountains on the other side of the grass fields. Mining here would be quite pointless as we would need to sift through a large portion of soil, which I didn¡¯t even think was possible with the current technology. However, I was quite certain that the concentration was high enough that the iron oak saplings would be easily able to absorb the iron there and become like the large iron oak that¡¯s on my land. This was incredibly useful and we will certainly need to use that area of our nation in the future. I took out my notebook and started to mark down everything I thought would be useful: the multiple sources of clay that I found, the information about the mountain, and so on. When I was done, I headed to the town where, where I started to explain the information I had, an emergency meeting was held when it was understood what information I had. Some plans needed to be changed with the new information, while others needed to be made about the future. There were also talks about specialty homesteaders, and I really liked the idea. So, a new procedure for new homesteaders was put into paper. When the meeting was done, I received a message that a letter had arrived for me. When I reached the town''s mailing station, I found out that it was Luana who had sent me another message. When I finished reading it, I was surprised that she still seemed to want me as one of the party members. I guess exploring the lake can be done at a later date. If I wanted to do this, I should do it correctly. So, I went off and found Roger. After I talked with Roger, I notified others about my plans. I wrote back that I would meet them in the Verdia city-state in one week. Well, technically, I could have left immediately, but Roger also wanted another merchant trip, and it was always safer to travel with others. That way, I would have a guide that I know, and we were able to travel quite fast thanks to Roger''s connections. chapter 258 The preparation took three days, but now I was standing in front of the portal station, ready to venture further than I ever had in this world. I was the first to arrive, as I was quite excited to see what this world would show me. Roger arrived just a bit before our agreed meeting time. We greeted each other, but after a small pause, Roger continued, "And I thought that I was early. How long have you been waiting here?" He asked with some amusement. "I''ve been here a little while. I woke up early and didn¡¯t want to do yet another check-up of my gear, so I came here. It would have been better if it was a sunny morning, but I guess at least it isn''t raining." Roger nodded his head before he looked up at the sky. "You are correct about that, but who knows what the weather might be behind the portal. The second time we went, one side of the portal was sunny with perfect summer weather, while the other was having one of the worst downpours I¡¯ve ever experienced." We continued our small talk until the portal was opened. When we stepped through on the other side it was later in the day, but it seemed to be quite a lot sunnier here. My appearance seemed to have frightened some of the guards around here who looked at me with worry in their eyes. I guess I should have let Roger go first. When he came through, everyone calmed down a lot. I was then introduced to a friend of Roger''s who was this portal complex''s guide. I was half paying attention as I looked towards the sea. In my later life, I lived quite far away from the sea, but my childhood was spent in a coastal town with beautiful beaches and a large river. While I had never seen so many sailing boats as there currently were sailing on the sea, it was still a familiar sight that I didn¡¯t know I had missed so much. Our guide noticed my attention and we were soon led to oversee the bay that brought so much wealth to this city. "Rich, if you ever want, you just have to ask and I will organise you a sailing boat so you can go and experience the bay as it¡¯s meant to be experienced," offered the guide. "I would probably take you up on that offer, but unfortunately not right now. But I will certainly remember this offer." All of us continued to talk, but I did little of it. When I was finally asked how I was feeling after the portal jump, I remembered that it was supposed to be unpleasant after the first time, but when I explained to them that I wasn¡¯t feeling anything wrong, things started to move faster as we prepared to jump to the next destination. The next place once again had a lot of water, but I could instantly tell that it was a lake. I don¡¯t know exactly how, but it just looked different. We didn''t spend much time here, and since I wasn¡¯t feeling anything wrong after the portal jumps, we continued onwards. Everyone else had travelled enough through portals that they didn''t have to wait as long, but in the next city, we needed to wait longer as there were actual schedules for portal jumps into Verdia. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Unfortunately, this city wasn¡¯t that interesting as there wasn''t really anything to see this deep into the city, but mainly because leaving the portal complex meant having to deal with religious preachers, and honestly, I was having too much fun to deal with them currently. Still, it seemed like an interesting city, especially the deep forest where there were many dungeons and even more dangerous monsters. There also still seemed to be a lot of freshwater lakes and rivers here, but they were a bit further away from the city. The weather, however, was a lot warmer. It seems that we were truly approaching the tropical zone. We had a six-hour wait, which got a bit tiresome, but at least there was music in the waiting area and they did offer refreshments. One thing that was unfortunate was the amount of people. When I brought that up to Roger, he just laughed at me and told me that I hadn¡¯t seen anything yet. His answer dampened my mood a bit, but I guess I should expect it from the largest city in the world. When we finally went through the portal into the largest city in the world, I was honestly a bit disappointed. At first glance, the city didn''t look anything special. The only thing different was the taller buildings, but I was quite used to that back on Earth. I guess it would be a lot more impressive if I could look at this from the sky and see the absolute immensity that this city is. The portal complex was already so crowded, and I could see every race imaginable represented. On average, I was one or two heads taller than everyone else, but there were still quite a few who were as tall or even taller than me. At first, I was a bit overwhelmed with so many people and wondered how the smaller races were able to walk in this crowd, but soon I figured it out. Usually the edges of walkways close to the buildings were left for the smaller inhabitants. I walked closer to the edge of the road because of my size. Carriages were constantly moving, but there were some streets where only people were walking. The roads were paved with stone, but as we were walking closer to our compound, I saw more places where the street stones were broken or missing altogether, leaving dirt holes behind. I guess that the maintenance priority was in the more affluent areas and places that saw more traffic. Perhaps calling the land that we owned here a compound was a bit of a stretch. We simply owned a large city block with multiple smaller streets and many buildings, but mostly warehouses. One of the smaller warehouses was converted into a more tavern-like building, and this is where we were going to stay until I found out more about this dungeon Luana wanted me to join them for. It was a bit uncomfortable sleeping in such a humid and hot environment, but with my extra stats, the problem wasn¡¯t physical but more mental. I suspect that in a few days, I will be used to it. I still had three days until I was supposed to meet with Luana, but I also needed to visit the Court of the Young, so I could finally get that problem taken care of. When I got out of my room, I found that Roger was already up and eating breakfast. I joined him. "What are your plans today, and do you want me to come along?" Roger asked, but I shook my head. "No, I will find my own way. You do not have to worry about me. You can do what you need to do here without having to shepherd me around." I answered him. We continued to talk, and he gave me the general layout of areas around us. After eating breakfast, I was going to need to walk quite a long way. The Court of the Young only had one location here, and it was close to the very center and the busiest area of the city. There were also many arenas around there, but I was quite amused that you don¡¯t actually need to go there to view the fight. We could actually just sit at our compound''s tavern and see every fight that was going on in the hundreds of arenas in this city. What an absolutely brilliant wonder. Whoever the wizard was who made this happen, he must¡¯ve been quite brilliant. I also found an interesting function with my interactive map. I can actually incorporate real maps into it, so now I had a perfect city map so I wouldn¡¯t be able to get lost, and I could actually make a route to my desired location which would help keeping track of my location even easier. chapter 259 It took me about an hour to get out of the more industrial section of the city around our compound. There were two different routes that I could take, one through the more residential area or the more commercial one. I picked the commercial route as I also wanted to check out what items were for sale. I had only been in the proper commercial section for about 5 minutes when I had to catch a hand that tried to slip into my pockets to find something valuable. The young child who I now held tight looked incredibly scared. "Nice try, kid, but you should learn more about identifying your targets so you won¡¯t make a mistake like this again. Here, take this and better luck next time." I pulled out a silver coin and handed it to him. The young child was completely dumbfounded. I just left him there while I moved on. That was quite fun. The other thieves seemed to be more observant. They didn''t choose to steal from a person wearing full armour and carrying a large tower shield in one hand. Why was I in full battle gear? The answer was quite simple. I had no idea how safe this city really was and being ready for a fight was a good idea. It also helped that because of my strength, I felt like I was just wearing normal clothing. The street food here was also quite excellent, and I continued to sample as I walked towards my destination. Every once in a while, I popped into a shop to look at items. One thing I found interesting was a lot of items had different kinds of upgrades like enchantments or runes that would give stat points. I found them quite interesting and eventually, I made it to a shop that specialized in them. The seller was quite enthusiastic when he explained all the benefits, but I was also able to get him to speak of the negatives. Having extra stat points was, of course, incredibly good, but they did limit how much ability strength you could use. So, for example, my knife, I could currently put enough energy into it to cut through a large tree. If I were to put, for example, 100 strength stat point runes onto it, I might not be able to put enough energy into it to cut through the tree again, but the extra strength might help me do it. Basically, it¡¯s a balancing act to see if the extra stat points are worth it or not. Usually, they are extremely beneficial at lower ranks, but honestly, it depends on your build. I could still see myself adding some more specialized stat points to my gear, but currently, I wasn¡¯t worried about it. Also, temporary stat points wouldn''t help you to get over a threshold to gain a trait. A few hours later, I was still in the commercial area, but I finally found a shop that had rank two items. From there, I found a shoddy knife that was rank two but it had the shatter enchantment. Roger had given me enough money that I could afford this, but it would still consume over half of it. Still, it was a necessary expenditure. Now I could test my greatsword and see if it can truly withstand this enchantment. If it didn¡¯t and my sword broke, I would want to rage quit. But I put that out of my mind and continued to walk. I picked up the pace quite a lot, but even then it took me in total eight hours to make it here, and I even sometimes ran on the streets that were meant for fast travel. When I made it to my destination area, I was a bit repulsed about the luxury displayed here. Everything was so golden and ostentatious. At least the Court of the Young wasn''t as bad as some of the other buildings, but it was still bad. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. It had a more simple design, but there were still the columns and tall narrow windows that were all decorated with intricate carvings. To enter, you needed to ascend a wide staircase. I also noticed that as I entered this area, there were a lot more eyes on me. Some were curious, but that was more of the exception as most were, for lack of a better word, disgusted. I did not enjoy being here, but in life, you need to do things that you do not enjoy. After I ascended the stairs, I was stopped by the guards who were barring the way inside. "Only the members of the Court of the Young can enter. Please present your identification or leave promptly," one of the guards said, and I was actually pleasantly surprised. I had expected something more along the lines of ''you don''t belong here, get out.'' I pulled out the ring that I had gotten and showed it to them, after which they stepped out of the way and let me go inside. Inside, there was a hallway made from stone polished until it was a mirror. In the center, there was a carpet that you were supposed to walk on. There were many statues and large, truly beautiful paintings. All of them were of landscapes, and I thoroughly enjoyed them all. It was quite a long hallway, but at the end of it, there was a larger room with a reception area and many doors leading out of it. I also saw two hallways that went further into the building. I approached the receptionist and showed my ring. "First time here, and I guess I need to take an evaluation or something like that?" I asked. The receptionist checked my ring with some sort of a device. After that she looked like she was meditating. "Ah, yes, Rich Dirt, currently rank two. Already had an evaluation with the Adventurer Guild but now has reached rank 2 and is here well before the deadline. Excellent, excellent. It will just be a few minutes before an attendant will come and show you further in. Until then, you can wait here or if you have any more questions, I am happy to answer them." "How long does this usually take as I have some other commitments in a few days that I need to take care of?" I asked the receptionist. I got a pleasant smile in return. "If it''s in a few days, then you truly have nothing to worry about. I have never seen it take more than two days, but normally it¡¯s just one day or even less." I thanked her and then went to sit on one of the luxurious chairs at the edge of the room. Unfortunately, there wasn''t anything to read here, but I also didn¡¯t need to wait long as I saw a lanky man approach. "I assume you¡¯re Rich Dirt. It¡¯s a pleasure. I am Ferdinand the Third, but just call me Ferdinand. We have a busy schedule ahead of us, so please follow me." I got up and started to follow him as he started to explain more about what was going to happen. Apparently, this was like a college entrance process. I needed to take a few written tests, get interviewed, and take an introduction class as to what is expected of me and what the Court of the Young does. The tests were quite easy, but I did recognize some of them being personality tests and so on. I didn¡¯t try to lie on any of them, and I was pleasantly surprised that we got the results basically immediately afterwards. Ferdinand was quite a pleasant person, and the test results were basically just fail or pass. Of course, I suspected if you fail, then you probably won''t go on living, but that was never mentioned, and if it came to that, I would fight until I died. The classes taught quite a lot, and I was quite glad that basically nothing special was expected of me. I could be as active or inactive as I wanted to be, although there were a few exceptions. One, if I reached the third rank, I needed to join an organization or make one. The second requirement was that if there was a decision to be made that required all members to cast a vote, then I needed to show up. That, of course, surprised me a bit, especially when I learned more about what the Court of the Young actually was. It was basically the junior version of the World Council. Here, young and promising individuals could start their journey for political power. When you reach rank three, you would not be allowed to actively participate in the lower realm''s activities so this is the place you could continue your journey. Politics weren¡¯t that strict but in some cases, it was, for example, you were part of a Kingdom that declared war on another Kingdom. You simply weren''t allowed to take part in any fighting or negotiations and if you did the best outcome would be a heavy fine and worst death. chapter 260 They were trying to make the Court of the Young sound grand and majestic, but I could see through their misdirections. There was very little real power here; the most significant power you had was your potential for the future. The Court of the Young barely had any political power and was mainly used for people to satisfy their political machinations and educate themselves for the future. After the class, there were more tests to see if you had learned what was being taught, and I passed those with flying colors. There were only two things left: one was a test to see if I had any restricted or banned things on my achievement page, and then the interview. Ferdinand dropped me off at the testing facility and said that he would go and organize the interview so I could get out of here as soon as possible. I was quite thankful to him as he seemed quite genuine and did his work with the utmost professionalism. After he left, I needed to wait a few minutes before I was called into the testing room. Here, I saw a short, quiet-looking woman who was setting up a device that looked like a dentist chair. She didn''t greet me or anything, just pointed to the chair. I didn¡¯t mind her attitude; anyone could have a bad day. After I sat, it took a few more minutes before she spoke. "OK, everything is ready now. I just need you to verbally confirm that you accept a full reading of your achievement page." She was waiting expectantly, but that''s not what Ferdinand said. This wasn''t supposed to be a full reading. "I think there¡¯s been a mistake. I¡¯m not supposed to have a full reading," I said. That made her mad. "What are you, an idiot? Do you think that I do not know my own job? Now confirm it or I will kick you out and we''ll see how you like not being able to pass and what consequences that brings." I believe she expected me to be scared, but I wasn¡¯t. I was getting a bit mad. "Now listen here, I will give you only one chance to do your job properly." My answer didn''t please her, and I wondered if she would double down or back off. I didn¡¯t need to wait long. She doubled down. "Oh, I¡¯ll show you. No one threatens me." I saw as she went to press some kind of button and I had seen way too many horror movies not to know what came next. I immediately shifted my hands up and away from the hand rests and quickly moved my upper body and head as far away from the headrest as possible. My instincts were correct as I found my legs bound. But my upper body and hands were free and that scared the tester. She tried to get away, but I was able to grab her and pull her to me. She tried to escape but I didn''t let her. I wasn¡¯t stupid enough to hurt her, but I was willing to just sit back and hold her tight so she couldn¡¯t do anything with the device I was still unable to break free from. At first, she was cursing, but when I wasn¡¯t talking back or hurting her, she started to understand what was going on and started to plead with me instead. I wasn¡¯t listening and eventually, she stopped, but it still took her about half an hour before she knew that she couldn¡¯t convince me of anything and another half an hour before Ferdinand came through the door with quite a few guards following him. I covered the tester''s mouth so she couldn¡¯t speak first. "What is the meaning of this, Rich? Let her go immediately," Ferdinand ordered, but I didn¡¯t do so. "I¡¯m sorry, can I please explain myself before I do so?" Ferdinand and the guards were conflicted, but I guess my calm demeanor and seemingly unworried expression convinced him, and he indicated for me to continue. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "The person I currently restrain asked me to verbally confirm if I wanted the full reading. I remembered that you explained that I needed a reading to see if I had any banned stuff, so I declined and asked for that instead. She got quite confrontational and tried to forcibly restrain me, which I promptly reciprocated." After that, I was ordered to release her, which I did, giving her a chance to tell her side of the story, which was, of course, completely different from mine. But I could see that she was quite worried, and I soon understood why. Someone came to this room who was thoroughly annoyed and almost like a video playback showed what had exactly happened in this room. A new tester was brought in after they profusely apologized to me. During the testing, Ferdinand explained to me what was going on. Apparently, there was more political maneuvering than I had expected, and having the complete information of a person''s achievement page was worth quite a lot of favors and money. Basically, this happened from time to time when someone promising came along, so they tried to gain an upper hand over them. I felt that the interview after that was a lot less invasive than I originally expected. I guess they were feeling quite embarrassed about the situation that happened. Which I was actually now quite glad that had occurred. I still needed to stay the entire night here. There was also some kind of a night inspection as there actually seemed to be curses in this world that could be triggered during the night, and apparently, the room I was sleeping in was built so it could test all the known curses that might turn me into a bloodthirsty monster. I passed the test with flying colors. The bed was also extremely soft and comfortable to sleep in. The next morning, I received a few more things like a bank account token and access stones so I could go to the headquarters whenever I wanted to. I would also receive a stipend every month for being a part of the Court of the Young. This time, I returned through the residential district. It didn¡¯t take long until the pristine streets turned into more worn-out and dirty-looking ones. Houses here were also a bit more rundown, but I wouldn¡¯t say that it would be a bad place to live. But you could obviously tell that people didn¡¯t make enough money that they could afford constantly keeping up with the maintenance of their buildings and surroundings. Alleyways were also filled with people that lived in worse conditions, but it didn''t take long to figure out that most of them were refugees escaping from war or other disasters. I wondered why people wouldn¡¯t be sleeping in the empty houses, and there were a lot of them, but I soon saw some guards kicking people out and from context, I figured that they hadn¡¯t paid their rent. So I guess the owners of the buildings would rather have empty buildings than allow people to stay in them who couldn''t pay their rent. I guess that¡¯s fair enough, but I would accept even a fraction of rent rather than letting the building stay empty. A house that isn''t being lived in doesn''t last as long as a house that has someone living in it, so I guess they will regret that down the line. This city truly was huge, so I guess you could find every living situation that''s possible, around here. It also seems that in the residential district there was a lot more organized crime, but I was left alone, probably because no one wanted to pick a fight with someone like me. I could see gang markings almost everywhere, but those lessened when I was closer to the commercial area. When I made it back to our compound, I headed to my room where I took out the knife that had the shatter enchantment and started to examine it. Enchantments seemed to be like a language that, when energy passes through it, it creates a certain effect. It was fascinating to see how this enchantments was made as the symbols were made from energy that was crystallized into specific shapes. Next, I took out a knife that had +25 to all three basic stats that were added using runes. These were specific symbols that were carved into the metal and then filled with monster core paste. If you insert energy into it and you need to do it constantly, you will get a direct benefit back to yourself. I am certain that you could use it to empower the item itself using different runes, but this knife only boosted your stat points. I took out my rabbit foot necklace and began to scrutinize it. After a while, I discerned a faint pattern resembling a runic symbol. It was entirely different, of course, but I surmised that all the runes might have been transcribed from similar items, like my rabbit foot necklace. Once I had finished examining it, I was surprised to receive a notification. It appeared that simply observing and understanding the pattern had triggered a new skill called beginner weapon upgrading. chapter 261 Finally, something exciting happened with my achievement page. I was quite disappointed with what I gained after the dragon fight. Yes, the class levels were okay, but I only got a few levels for my skills and abilities. The worst part was the two traits for empathy and intelligence. Both traits were swallowed by the giant amongst men. For the 320 milestone, they were disappointing. One made my nervous system a bit faster while the other allowed me to sense the mood of living creatures better. I guess I have had some good lucky pulls previous times and now it was just time for mediocrity. I also thought that I should perhaps do some more baking as that was quite close to ranking up and I had left my trapping skills unused for quite a while. Perhaps I should stop wasting time and do what I came here to do. I took out my greatsword and a knife with the shatter enchantment. I was incredibly nervous. I took a deep breath and hit the knife against the sword, putting a small amount of energy into the enchantment. The moment they came into contact two things happened. A chip flew off the knife and the enchantment worked like it should. An energy wave exploded from the contact point that was supposed to shatter my sword, but it didn''t look like it had any effect. I let out a huge sigh but I knew I would need to test it again and stronger, but first, I spent quite a long time examining the sword as closely as possible to see if it took any damage. I couldn¡¯t detect any with all my abilities activated so I concluded that it really didn¡¯t do anything to hurt the sword. But now was a moment of truth. I was scared. I started to use all the power I had. I needed to keep the knife from disintegrating and I even started to use a lot of my core energy. I didn¡¯t care if the knife survived but I did try to make the enchantment work as best as it could. I used all my strength to hit the sword. This time the knife broke into multiple pieces from the impact. It was also harmed by the intense energy coursing through it almost completely destroyed the knife but it did its job as the enchantment worked as intended. This time there wasn¡¯t a single shock wave but it continued to ripple like a small pond continuously bouncing from one side to another. This continued for a few seconds but eventually, the enchantment stopped without having damaged the sword. I was so relieved that I actually laid down on the floor as I let my adrenaline slowly subside. That was more nerve-wracking than being inside the dragon fire. But my job wasn¡¯t done. This time however I also used my abilities to monitor how this enchantment worked on my sword. I now know what it wanted to do. It created a resonance that would literally vibrate the blade into pieces but whatever properties the dragon metal had, it was most definitely immune to this sort of damage. An evil grin appeared on my face. Perhaps I should go to the arena and get myself a winning streak. I dismissed that idea almost instantly. This sword was a trump card and a really good one. There was no point in revealing it so soon. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. But going to the arena might not be a bad idea. I still had today and tomorrow free before I needed to meet with Luana and it would be a good idea to test myself against other rank two fighters. But I don¡¯t really feel like fighting today. Watching fights might be a good idea. I went and joined others in the Tavern who were just hanging out and watching some fights. It was quite an amazing experience as you were able to see fights quite close up and whoever was controlling the viewing angles was doing an excellent job. Today passed quite quickly but during the night I had little to do so I just meditated. I also seem to now be accustomed to the Tropic heat which was good news. In the morning after breakfast, I decided to go towards one of the arenas where new fighters could sign up. There I found a large crowd of people, most waiting not to get into the arena to watch the fights but in line to sign up for new fights or to sign up as a new fighter. After I had waited in line for about 20 minutes I found out that I needed to go to a different arena as they didn''t accept rank 2 fighters here. That was a bit disappointing but luckily I didn¡¯t have a long walk and the registration area outside the arena for the rank two fights was empty. But this place was a lot larger than the previous and had two more arenas right next to each other so there were a lot more people around and me approaching the rank 2 registration booth did draw a lot of attention. ¡°I¡¯m here to register as a rank two fighter,¡± I said to the attendant who was already quite alert from me approaching. ¡°Yes, of course, I will get the paperwork started immediately. I just have a few questions that I need you to answer. Let¡¯s start by what¡¯s your name and main occupation?¡± Let¡¯s hope that this isn¡¯t that comprehensive. ¡°My name is Rich Dirt and I guess my main occupation would be a farmer.¡± My words made the attendant stop writing and slowly look up while I heard laughter coming from the crowds of people around here. The attendant looked at me curiously like he wanted to say something but after looking at me for a little while he just finished writing and continued. ¡°Now I will need to know what stat block you fall into, are you 1500 to 2000?¡± But before he could continue I interrupted. ¡°Yes, that''s the one.¡± He nodded and continued. ¡°OK, good. Do you have any previous experience in arenas or tournaments?¡± I shook my head and he continued to write some more and then put the paper into some sort of a machine that spit out a token. ¡°OK, here is your fighter ID. You are currently only qualified to fight in the open beginner rank 2 qualifiers. Everyone needs to go through this qualifier so you could face any kind of opponent. Just remember that you can always surrender before the fight if you believe it to be a bad match up. You can never die in the arena but you can certainly be hurt enough that you might never fight again so always be mindful of your opponents.¡± And after that speech, he handed me the token which I took and left. Now I need to once again wait in line so I could register for a fight. Everything here worked like clockwork which I would suspect as they had a long time to perfect how things worked. Fighters can earn quite a lot of money. Every fight would pay you something and the higher you climb the more you can earn. The arenas themselves earn money three ways. If you want to watch the arenas from the screens you need to pay a certain amount every month which is then distributed to arenas by the watch time they have gotten. The second way is by selling arena seat tickets, that is the lowest income they make. The highest income, however, is made from betting. After I registered I found out that I would be making quite a lot. One fight would already make me enough that I could stay in a decent inn for a few days and have enough left over to start putting aside for better equipment. It took me an hour until I was let inside and then out into the battleground. I had expected sand but found a solid surface that was quite grippy. I tested it a bit and found it to be extremely durable. This was a pleasant surprise but I guess they had figured out the best surface for fighting. Looking around, I found myself in a similar place to a Colosseum and I wondered if the gladiators saw the same sight as I currently did. I was in full armor with my shield out and my one-handed sword held tight as I listened to the referee whose job was to see if anyone used any illegal enhancements. Apparently, there was quite a large list of banned enchantments and so on. The fighter that I was against was in leather armor and wielding a slightly longer spear than usual. He looked quite mean. I could also see that he was intimidated by my size and equipment but his arrogance didn''t seem to allow him to think straight. Now all that was left was to wait for the signal to begin our battle. chapter 262 As soon as the signal for the fight was given, he rushed towards me. I could see how he used multiple abilities to boost himself and the weapon he was wielding. I answered in kind, but I focused on defense for a moment. His attacks were decently heavy and I constantly needed to move and adjust my shield to keep his attacks from sneaking through. Whatever ability he used allowed him to bend his spear, but it wasn''t too dangerous of an ability thanks to my big shield and proper angles which didn''t allow him to sneak past my defense. After our second clash, I still hadn¡¯t tried to attack a single time. He changed his tactic and this time it seemed his goal was to destroy my shield. Now every time he attacked, a strong explosion rippled out every time he hit. But it wasn¡¯t even scratching my shield as I was using my abilities to strengthen it quite a lot. He tried this approach one more engagement but he couldn''t continue for long. Whatever he was doing was using a lot of his energy and I didn¡¯t think he could continue fighting for long. He was extremely frustrated and the second he opened his mouth to start insulting me or express his displeasure, I charged in. That caught him by surprise. My sword had barely started to cut into his neck before he was simply gone, only leaving a few drops of blood behind on my sword. I was pronounced the winner and asked if I wanted to retire or continue. I had barely used any of my energy reserves so I gave an affirmative and just waited for my next fight. It didn''t take long until a female fighter was brought near me. I listened to the pre-fight explanations once again. She was wielding a long sword and was in medium armor. She looked like she knew what she was doing and as soon as the battle began I needed to defend against a flurry of blows that didn¡¯t seem to have an end to them. While she did have abilities to boost her weapon and armor, they weren¡¯t her main abilities. She seemed to have many different kinds of multi-attack abilities which made it feel like I was fighting multiple opponents at the same time. She was also quite fast, but her strikes were quite weak. She had to travel a lot more then me as I just had to circle in one spot to keep her from attacking anything else but my shield. I felt like her attacks were building something that was similar to my kinetic absorption. So I decided to do some more active defending. Instead of allowing the full strike to hit my shield, I stepped into it to mitigate a lot of the strike''s damage potential. This interrupted her flow quite a lot so I kept doing it. It took only about a minute for her to make a mistake and extend herself too much. The shield blow that I made unbalanced her even more than she already was. For the first time in this fight, I attacked with my blade and I aimed a thrust straight at her neck. She had two options: let herself be teleported out and lose the fight or let herself fall to the ground. She chose to fall to the ground but I didn¡¯t even give her a single moment to think as I lifted my tower shield and prepared to bring it down with all my strength into her midsection. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. When I was about to hit, she screamed surrender but even for me, it was too late to stop the hit and she was teleported out when I suspected I was about to rupture some of her organs. I was proclaimed victor and then indicated that I wanted another fight. Once again I waited while I thought over the fight. I didn¡¯t much enjoy it. She hit too lightly to cause me real troubles and whatever she was building up was taking too long. But she might have potential if she gets some abilities that allow her to hit stronger. The next fight I was against a young man who was quite small and was wielding two nasty looking daggers. My opponent was already grinning like he had won the fight and when the signal was given, I found out why he thought that. One moment he was in front of me and the next he was gone. I moved as fast as I could, turning myself around while striking at the empty air behind myself at an appropriate height so I would hit his head. When I was about halfway turned around, my opponent appeared behind me but a little more to the right than I expected. That just meant my strike hit faster than I expected. My opponent wanted to bury both of his daggers into my back but he was fast enough to figure out what had happened and even try to dodge but he was simply too late. He was teleported out and I got to enjoy the dumbfounded look on the referee''s face. It took him a few moments to recover before he declared me a winner and asked me if I wanted to continue. I gave an affirmative and went back to standing in my waiting area. The referee approached me and asked, "How did you know that he was going to be behind you?" I smiled at that. "I just guessed." I laughed harder from the expression he made from my answer but he seemed to be quite impressed by that but he didn''t continue to talk with me and walked further away. I am guessing referee shouldn¡¯t be too cordial with the people they are judging and I didn''t mind as I also wanted to think about what just happened. It honestly was a complete guess on my part. He just looked too young and probably hadn¡¯t fought someone with as much experience as me. Then he would have probably known that his best choice would have been to attack from the front. Almost everyone close to my experience would have expected him to jump and try to attack from the back. If I were the one to teleport, I would probably go to the side and try to be as low as possible but that wouldn''t work in my size. Still, I think the side without the shield would be the best and then just try to overpower my opponent''s weapon with my reach and strength. This time it took a bit longer until another fight was announced. This time it was an average-looking man that was wielding a short sword and wearing leather armor. I immediately didn¡¯t like his attitude but it wasn''t like the previous fighter. I felt that he could back up that confidence. I readied myself for a proper fight and from the first strike against my shield, I knew that this was going to be a lot more difficult than the previous ones. His short sword was able to deliver extremely powerful blows but he wasn''t able to do them constantly. Like that he still wouldn''t get past my defenses but I actually started to angle my shield so his strike wouldn''t be able to deliver so much damage. He was also quite fast and I also needed to defend with my sword. I was in fact so busy defending that I hadn¡¯t had an opportunity to attack. Of course, I could have boosted up my energy usage and overwhelmed him but I was not here just to win the fight but also to learn. Our fighting continued and while he did make a few minor mistakes they only gave me a few moments of time to ready myself for the continuous attack I knew that was coming. Whoever he was he was experienced and had held back quite a lot of his cards so when another strike hit my shield I wasn¡¯t expecting it to be so much stronger. This caused me to be off balance for only a moment but he once again showed that he was keeping his real aces for a perfect moment. Suddenly I was surrounded by three of him, all attacking vulnerable places. He expected me to not know which one was real, but my eyes could easily tell. I also did something he wasn''t expecting. I abandoned all defense and made it look like I was attacking one of his clones. I boosted my sword up enough that I knew that this strike should end the fight. The next moment, I let the strikes hit me but I wasn¡¯t surprised when every one of them had weight to them. Whatever ability he was using, the strikes would be real, but my armor was strong enough that none of them were a threat to me as I was strengthening my armor by quite a lot. His face of surprise was amusing. He tried to get away almost immediately but it was already too late as my power strike crashed through his defensive ability and made him disappear. When the fight finished and I was declared the winner, it was hard to keep myself from smiling. chapter 263 That was quite a good fight, and I think I learned a lot about how to defend myself. I also felt that my assumption that in this world, you should be ready for almost anything, is absolutely correct. Someone else who could get past my defenses and use the same technique as he did would be quite deadly. I was offered a break, but I declined as I was having too much fun. Of course, the next fight and her weapon promised anything but fun. She had a bow and looked like she knew how to use it. The fight was a long one as she was fast enough that I couldn¡¯t catch her easily, and she seemed to have an endless amount of arrows. It took longer than all the others combined, but I couldn¡¯t be reckless as some of her arrow shots were truly deadly. I especially disliked the one that tried to bind me in vines whenever it hit my shield. Eventually, she did make a mistake as she was slowed down by her own arrows which had made the terrain a lot more difficult to move in. I still decided to continue fighting. I just hoped that I wouldn¡¯t have to face another long-range fighter. My next opponent I instantly didn¡¯t like. He looked slimy, and I could see cruelty in his eyes. He was wearing medium armor and wielding a sword and dagger. The fight began normally enough, but he was slow enough that I didn¡¯t have to use my sword for defense. For some reason, my opponent didn''t like that and he finally used some more abilities that sped him up but looked like they also exhausted him. The moment I needed to use my sword to defend myself, his dagger launched needles into my right side rib cage. They didn¡¯t pierce my armor, but a moment later I found out that they didn¡¯t have to. I didn¡¯t know exactly what he did, but I felt something attached to me that was trying to suck up my energy, but I wasn¡¯t letting it. My energy control was strong enough to keep it from doing that, but it was also connected to my opponent who was liberally pouring energy into this thing. I went on the offensive using my considerable strength. My first strike was aimed at his neck and was able to get past his dagger block by simply smashing through it. However, I wasn¡¯t able to do any damage as I hit an invisible barrier just before his skin. I continued my attack and he did his best to defend, but I soon figure out his combinations of abilities and the artifact he was wearing around his neck was a bit too strong for me to quickly smash through it. Over this time, I also sensed how the thing attached to me was growing in strength and if I let it grow for too much longer, it might actually cause damage to me. I still wasn¡¯t completely sure what it was, but I was quite certain it would cause an explosion of some sort and he could trigger it whenever he wanted to. I stopped my attack and backed off, which made him look at me curiously, but I could still see that need to hurt someone in his eyes. I could expose myself and smash through his defenses, but there was an easier solution. "I surrender," I announced, which made the referee incredibly confused and my opponent sneer at me. "What, are you such a weakling that when you couldn''t get past my defenses you immediately give up? You''re pathetic," my opponent tried to taunt me, but I didn¡¯t answer which finally made the referee declare my opponent the winner. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I continued to stare at him, but nothing changed and the thing attached to me continued to gather energy. "The fight is over, end your ability or I will consider you trying to kill me," I said. That stopped his smirking. "What ability, I¡¯m not doing anything," he answered. The referee was confused about our conversation and then I remembered. I looked towards the referee and announced, "This fighter is using an ability outside of combat that is heavily damaging or even deadly." As soon as I finished saying, the thing attached to me immediately started to empty of energy. And the person responsible for it now looked at me quite angrily. The referee asked for more clarification and I was happy to provide it, which made my opponent look at me like he wanted to murder me slowly. "Sorin Blackthorn, this is yet another report made against you. If you want to fight again, you will have to go through a full evaluation," the referee announced after a few more people joined him for a discussion. Now the feeling of danger was quite palpable and there was a strange glint in his eyes which I didn¡¯t like. I examined the spot where the needles hit once again. It was quite difficult to sense, but there was still something attached to me. "Sorin Blackthorn, remove the tracker. But don¡¯t think that I¡¯m afraid of you, I just don¡¯t want to deal with you whenever you come to find me," I said. My statement silenced everyone and this time I saw doubt in his eyes, but it was only there for a single moment. I could see his reluctance to do so, but as soon as one of the people with the referee started to raise his hands, I felt the tracker disappear. "This is not over, I will get you back for this," Sorin said, but even before the referee could start reprimanding him, I answered. "Let me at least warn you about what will happen if you ever find me outside of an arena. There will not be a fight, I will simply crush you, but I won¡¯t kill you the same way you like to kill your prey." "I will not let you die fast, in fact, I will be carving pieces from you for so long that I will need to feed you to keep you alive. And as a good coincidence, I happened to have fresh meat readily available." Not just my words, but my eye contact and expression seemed to be convincing enough that his face went fully white and he took a few steps away from me. When I took a step closer, I channeled my memories when we actually found a place during the war that was torturing people like that and I guess I was convincing enough that he thoroughly believed that I had done this to someone and was willing to do that to him. He walked away as fast as possible and I saw other people who had joined the referee quickly follow. "I know that I lost, but I am up to fight some more," my words snapped the referee back into reality, but it took quite a while longer for a new fight to be found for me. I hope that he will never come to try to find me, but if he does, I will just kill him as fast as possible as torture really isn¡¯t something I enjoy doing, especially the way I explained. I still get shivers every time I remember that place. I never have understood how some humans can fall so far to do something like that to a living thing. The last two fights have been really a damper and if things didn''t pick up, I think the next one will be my last. But as soon as I saw the person I was up against, I knew that it was going to be a fun time. The rhino beastkin that I was against was taller than me and a lot wider than me. He didn''t have an evil grin, just an excited one. He was wielding a two-handed battle hammer. The weapon''s head was larger than my own and from the looks of it, it seemed to weigh more than a full-sized bus. Before the fight, he had his weapon poised on his shoulder, ready to bring it down as soon as the fight began. This time, as soon as the fight was declared, I rushed in, but I wasn¡¯t going to take any of his big attacks against my shield. While I was certain that I could defend against it if I went all out, I was still certain it would damage my shield. So instead, I chose to dodge the overhead strike and move in for a strike of my own. I was able to do some damage, but it was just a scratch even when my weapon was heavily enhanced. My opponent wasn''t stupid. Although he was slower than I expected, he was still able to make distance by using the handle of his weapon to make quick attacks that I needed to defend with my shield, otherwise, they would hurt quite a lot. I used my speed to my advantage and learned that I could go a lot faster than I thought when I was pushing myself. I could feel how my muscles were heating up from the constant use, but that seemed to be good news as they seemed to respond faster and move faster when they were hot. He also had some abilities that made him move faster, but only in short bursts, but that was still dangerous enough. Every time the hammer went by me with proper speed, I felt how it pushed the air aside simply because of its mass and speed. It was a scary weapon, and I needed to give it my all to continue to dodge. We were both pushing ourselves, but my opponent was doing so a lot more than me. It took me a little while, but I started to learn his habits which allowed me to hit him more. chapter 264 I wasn¡¯t able to make a decisive strike, but eventually, my opponent surrendered. He was getting too many wounds, and I think he simply didn¡¯t want to spend too much on healing. During our entire fight, he was unable to deliver any decent attacks, so I guess he knew that it was a lost cause. He didn''t seem angry about it and when I was declared the winner, it was the first time I was able to shake hands with my opponent. "It was a good fight. I enjoyed it," I said, and he answered back, "It was indeed, but I still need to be a bit faster. Then we would have a proper fight." Him being faster was truly a scary idea, but I was quite certain that his build wasn''t meant for dueling but taking down massive monsters. We exchanged contact information, but he needed to leave as soon as possible to get healed as he was bleeding all over. I once again went to stand to wait for the next fight, but this time I rested the shield against myself so I could stretch and move the hand that was holding it up. Even his handle strikes eventually made my hand sore. My next opponent had her face covered by a scarf. She had darkened leather armor and was wielding two daggers. She looked deadly and professional, and when our fight began, I could see she was quite skilled at misdirection. I do not know what abilities she used, but it was hard to keep track of her weapons. Because of that, she was able to get past my defenses quite often, but her blades weren¡¯t able to cut through my armor. As our fight continued, I also started to attack, which she was able to dodge or defend, but just barely. Even when she used abilities that made her weapons stronger, they weren''t able to get past my defenses, which made her radiate disappointment. Our fight hadn¡¯t gone on for long, but I could already feel how she was getting exhausted. Apparently, she wasn''t built for prolonged fights. She took a brief pause and got distance, but when I started to follow her, she rushed towards me. I was expecting some sort of open ability when she jumped towards me and straight at my raised sword that was going to pierce her abdomen. To my surprise, she didn''t do anything to defend herself. Thanks to that my sword pierced her and she was able to get one of her daggers to scratch one of my cheeks as I wasn¡¯t wearing a helmet that covered my face completely. She still couldn''t get further in to do any real damage, but the next moment I knew that she didn¡¯t have to. That small scratch was enough that she was able to deposit whatever poison she had. It was incredibly deadly and so painful that I was unable to keep standing and fell to one knee. My vision was blurry, but I could still see the smirk on her face. I still, however, had enough strength and could think clearly enough that I pulled my sword that was still buried inside her upwards and tried to cut her in half. It was hard to figure out what she did, but the next moment she was further away from me, and I saw that I was only able to cut halfway through the rib cage. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The moment I saw her fall to the ground, gasping for air, was the moment I felt sharmar¡¯s organ demand energy. I gave it all that it wanted, and only a few moments later my vision began to clear. It was clearing out the poison incredibly fast, and only about 5 seconds later I felt good enough that I was able to stand again, although I was a bit wobbly. That made my opponent''s eyes go wide, and when I started to approach, she started to panic. I think she was feeling so much pain that she didn¡¯t realize that I was going to end the fight and that she was going to get healed enough by the wonder so she wouldn''t die. She tried to pick up her dagger, but she simply didn''t have the strength, and when I made it to her, I was strong enough to quickly plunge my sword towards her head, which made her disappear as soon as the tip touched her. I was declared the winner, but this time I didn¡¯t answer immediately when I was asked if I wanted to continue fighting. I checked myself to find that the poison was almost gone, so I decided to continue fighting even if I wasn¡¯t in top condition. But during real battles, you might not be in your top condition, so continuing to fight and learn seemed like a good idea. The next fighter appeared to be a young man who seemed quite excited about the whole thing. A curious thing I noticed was that he had only one sword scabbard, but he held two long swords in both of his hands. He was wearing leather armor that was quite scuffed up, and I didn''t think it was even able to provide defense against first-rank attacks. However, his weapons seemed quite adequate. He was waving them around, trying to get the crowd going, but he was totally failing at that. When our fight began, I was a bit surprised at how serious he got, but it made sense. Otherwise, how would he have made it this far? The respect I gave him broke as soon as he started to make his second strike. His first was expertly made. It was strong, fast, and accurate, but when he used the second sword in his left hand, it felt like he was a child using an oversized sword to try to mimic someone making a strike. Now, perhaps I was a bit exaggerating. He could probably kill anyone under the first rank with one strike, even with his left hand, and he could be a menace to anyone in the first rank, but he certainly wouldn''t be able to do that in the second rank. It was actually quite annoying as his second sword was interfering with his first one, which was still extremely deadly. I started to push him, and his movement slowed down even more simply because fighting with two weapons was incredibly difficult, and while he had some skill in it, he wasn''t close to being proficient enough for this level of fighting. It didn''t take long for me to get him to a point where I could finish the fight with one strike, but I stopped just before I did that. An idea came to me, and I pulled back a bit to try to make it happen. He was once again able to get into a proper rhythm. Now I just defended and waited for the perfect opportunity. It didn''t take long. I was able to push his right-hand sword back into my opponent with my shield, and his left was left completely open. I made my sword disappear into my tattoo storage, and I grabbed his sword and yanked it out of his hand. I then backed off and threw his sword out of the arena. I made my sword reappear and waited for him to attack me. He was incensed, but he didn''t get angry, which made me smile. He attacked, and this time I really needed to defend myself. He was a lot faster, and his mastery of the sword was way above me, but he still found it hard to get past my shield, and whenever he did, my armor was good enough to defend myself, which always gave me a good opportunity to strike back. He, however, didn¡¯t have the protection I did, and after multiple wounds, my opponent finally surrendered. I walked to him and offered him my hand. He took it, and we shook hands. "It was a good fight after I got rid of your hindrance," I said. He didn''t say anything to me, but I liked his attitude. He was in no way pleased about the situation, but I could see that he understood his mistake. "Here, let''s exchange contact information. You have a lot of potential, and I¡¯d hate to see it wasted." He accepted, however, he was a bit reluctant, and he quickly went off to find his sword, and I went back to wait for another fight. This time it seemed to be another spear fighter but he had good gear and looked older. This probably meant he had experience and his ability levels should be high. It looked like it was going to be a hard but fun fight. chapter 265 POV Luana I was quite nervous. Tomorrow we were supposed to meet Rich, but everyone else was quite skeptical about him, especially after we found our 4th member. I was glad that it was a woman, but she was also quite a lot stronger than her stat blocks would indicate like the rest of us. We had also found a few more promising candidates, but none of them were good at tanking. I still believe that Rich should be good enough, but the final say wouldn''t be with me but with the whole team. We were already in Verdia, and I did love how there were good restaurants here with food to die for. When I finally saw the server bringing the food we ordered, I could hardly stop myself from drooling. As I smelled the food in front of me, I also heard the voices of Adam and Horus. It seems that they were also returning to the table and just in time. As they sat down, I listened to what they were saying while enjoying the food in front of me. "I understand that you are worried, and I agree to an extent, but we have had this discussion many times before. There simply isn''t anyone else that''s at our level that can keep up with us and isn''t already a part of a different party," explained Adam once again. "Yes, I can understand, but I don¡¯t have to like it. I mean, we have all trained together for months, and even our latest member has a month with us. But already the four of us should be able to make our goal without any problems. We could just bring anyone as our fifth." "Horus, our goal shouldn''t be to just finish the requirement but to delve as deep as possible. The deeper we go, the more rewards we will get," I said between bites. Both of my companions went silent for a moment before Horus continued. "So, you have always assured us that he can deliver, but how deep do you actually think we can go?" I needed to think about that. We basically had the perfect party composition, and everyone was a lot better than the average, but we were also at the beginning stage of rank two. "We could probably make it to the 4th milestone and possibly a bit beyond. But if our teamwork is good enough, we might reach the core." I was interrupted by Adam starting to cough. It seems that some of his food went down the wrong pipe, and of course, Horus was looking at me like I was mad. Perhaps I was, but this dungeon favored the typical archetype of a party. "You are crazy, you know that?" Horus said, which made Adam look at him disapprovingly. I did like how he was defensive like that. We continued to eat while enjoying the entertainment of the endless arena fights. "Welcome back to our short break. Today we have had some incredible fights as always, but more will come. The higher ELO fight will begin in a few hours. But today¡¯s big news is a new fighter. While his record currently is 9-1 and that loss is currently under review, the more impressive part is that he has achieved that record today. Yes, you heard me right, he has fought 10 times from the morning to the afternoon," one of the commentators said. "While this is impressive, what my co-commentator so conveniently forgot to say is that he''s only in the beginning leagues in rank two and has yet to fight anyone truly dangerous," the other commentator said. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "Are you crazy? A few of the fighters he has fought have been downright dangerous and have had incredibly good performances before fighting him. But you are somewhat correct. Only time will tell how well he will do. Currently, unfortunately, we know nothing else, and the things we do know, unfortunately, we cannot yet disclose as this is the beginning league, so we are not allowed to disclose any pertinent information." - "Hang on, I''m receiving new information. It seems that the next opponent has been chosen for him, and I suspect his reign of terror will now come to an end. He''s up against a mage. " That comment made me concentrate more on the screen that was most prominently displayed. Up until this point, I was only occasionally glancing at the fights, but I did always like when mages won fights. Unfortunately, it seems that my smile and attention to the commentators clued my companions in on my thoughts. "Luana, you really need to stop thinking that mages are the best," Horus said, to which I gave him a murderous look. "Fine, I will concede that on average mages are stronger, but so many have fallen because they think too highly of themselves." That made me look away and concentrate back on the screen. I knew he was right, but those damn teachers and their philosophy were starting to affect my thinking. I wanted to be a fighter, unlike most who have access to mana. They usually only do it because there isn¡¯t a better option as it pays well, and our equipment and the resources we require cost quite a lot. The fight was about to begin, and I examined the fighters. One was a typical water mage, but the other one was a massive armored fighter who was using a large shield and a long sword. Although for regular-sized people, it would be more like a two-handed weapon. "I bet two meals on the mage," Adam said, to which Horus scoffed. "Look how arrogant that mage looks. He might be able to do damage, but I think he will fail in the end. I will take that bet." They both looked at me, but I shook my head, to which they both looked at me questioningly. "I¡¯m not sure. Horus is kinda right." As soon as I finished saying that, I wished I hadn¡¯t, as the shit-eating grin on Horus made me want to punch him. Also, the melee fighter''s body structure kind of looked similar, but I couldn¡¯t put my finger on who he reminded me of. POV Rich Facing down a rank two mage was nerve-wracking. I had no idea what kind of a mage he was, and I generally knew very little about them other than they can cause tremendous damage. This one, however, looked high on his own power, but I was about to find out if he had the right to be like that or not. I kind of got the feeling that he was a water mage, but I wasn¡¯t completely certain about that. One thing I knew definitely was that he was quite powerful, and while we were waiting for the referee''s countdown, I could already see how he was preparing a large spell. The moment the fight was declared, his spell activated, and my plan to try to dodge it was scrapped. A huge tidal wave of water approached me, and I simply didn¡¯t have the time or the space to escape it. I held out my shield, but I was soon enveloped by the water, and it seems that the mage had complete control as I saw him squeezing his fist which made the water exert more pressure on me. With his other hand, he continued to create more water. It wasn''t real water. It had some properties like water, it looked and acted like water, but it was a recreation. Over 70% of it was just mana that loosely mimicked water, while the rest of it was a more accurate physical simulation of water. I was like a weak candle about to be snuffed out. My mind screamed to burst and fight the torrent of mana with my own torrent of energy, but just before I did it, I pulled back. What was I, a stupid teenager? There was no need to show everyone what I was really capable of. Instead, I made sure that the flickering light that was my energy inside this crushing mana didn¡¯t go out. If I moved, I would also give away that I wasn¡¯t going to die so easily. I made my sword disappear while hiding myself behind the shield. I pulled out my throwing knife. I charged it up with double the energy I thought I needed. Quick calculations ran through my head to get my aim correct. I should do a straight throw as a spinning knife would be more affected by the mimicry of water. I put as much strength as my body could gather into the throw and watched as my knife cut through the magic and flew straight at the mage. The spell that he was casting hid the approaching knife, so the mage didn¡¯t even know what happened before he was teleported out. A few moments later, most of the water disappeared, and the remaining water quickly started to steam away. Usually, when a fight ends, there¡¯s cheering, but everyone was quiet. Even the referee hadn''t called my win. But I wasn¡¯t concerned about them. I was looking at my knife that was buried into the wall of the arena. Son of a bitch. I walked close to it and tried to look inside to see that it was about half my arm''s length inside the wall. The stone looked incredibly tough, but I guess it¡¯s time to use that grip strength that I should have. I was able to get two fingers into the hole, and then I activated my ability and crushed with my hand, being able to get a chunk out of the wall. This won¡¯t take long. chapter 266 POV Luana I could already tell what spell the mage was about to use, and I somewhat regretted not betting. The water rushed out and almost immediately surrounded the fighter. Everyone in the restaurant complained in their own ways as we were all hoping for a longer fight. Then a moment later, the water disappeared and the mage was gone. "What the fuck just happened?" I heard Horus say, and I had to agree with him. What the fuck. I also heard the commentator say in unison, "What the fuck just happened?" We all turned to look at the fighter who was approaching a wall and the screen quickly focused on what the fighter was focusing on. There was a hole in the wall. "He must have thrown something and that¡¯s how he won," Horus said. Can that be it? It would make sense. The mage probably didn¡¯t have any defensive abilities or spells active because he thought he would win in a second. "I told you all that he was too arrogant, what is it now Adam, seven meals that you owe me?" Horus'' laugh was always close to some mad wizards, but this time I could really hear it. Adam was totally annoyed and just before I was about to comfort him, we were all interrupted as the fighter began to break the arena wall to get whatever he threw out of it. "I thought that arena wall was supposed to be incredibly tough?" I asked and I got nods in return. "Now that''s a fighter I wouldn¡¯t mind delving with. Perhaps we should see if he¡¯s available for a delve just in case?" Horus asked and I couldn¡¯t disagree with him. He looked like everything we were looking for but I saw Adam shaking his head. "We have seen too little of his fighting and we don¡¯t know his personality which is quite important for us. We don¡¯t want to delve that long with someone we can''t get along with or even worse, a mad person." The commentators were going crazy and we did finally see that it was a throwing knife with an interesting design that ended the fight with the mage. It was still an incredible win and he must have some way to resist mana. Otherwise, he should have been crushed in an instant. To everyone''s surprise and the delight of the commentators, he chose to continue fighting. Now that''s some impressive stamina. His next opponent was already well known and the commentators quickly filled us in that he had a 20-5 record. Usually, he made quick work of any of his opponents with the two hammers that he was wielding. We ordered more drinks as we watched the fight. It was a long one but the shield and sword fighter never backed down and he was impressively good at defending himself even though he barely attacked. The commentator filled us in that it was his usual strategy and whenever he did that, the fight usually ended with a burst of activity and usually a one-hit kill in favor of the shield and sword fighter. A few minutes later, that proved to be reality as one strong attack finished the fight. Once again, he chose to take another fight. And I saw some people starting to bet not if he would win but if he will take another fight or will he finally quit. When his next opponent was announced, the workers of this restaurant had a hard time keeping order. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Even we were invested but we were able to keep ourselves in order a lot better than the rest. He was going to fight the Yellow Flash. He had a 21-1 record, and that was only because he was fighting a top-tier mage who was able to spread his attack throughout the entire arena. POV Rich The next fighter kind of looked like a Spanish rapier fighter. The weapon he wielded resembled a rapier but it felt incredibly powerful and I wasn¡¯t certain my armor was going to be able to defend against it. My opponent also didn''t look arrogant, he looked like he was concentrating on the fight and was hoping that I would prove a challenge. That got my blood boiling and it was hard to contain myself as the countdown started. Just before the fight began, I felt a cold sweat at the back of my neck. Immediately, I boosted my defenses as much as possible and started to raise my shield to protect my face. As soon as the start of the fight was called, I saw a yellow flash and then a heavy bang on my shield that I was just able to get in front of my face. The blow was strong enough that I had to take a step back but I was only able to get a small glimpse of my opponent''s face who looked thoroughly pleased that I wasn¡¯t dead. The yellow flash didn''t appear again but the speed of his attacks was ridiculous and the strength of them didn''t make any sense. He was pushing me back towards the wall. I knew that this fight was over if he ever got me against the wall. I started to move more but he did as well, always moving to try to push me towards the wall. The constant moving and the strength I needed to exert started to heat up my muscles and I was now able to move faster. Attacking with a sword swing would be pointless as it would be too slow. I was left with thrusts if I wanted to start attacking and I needed to as I was still being pushed back. My defensiveness finally made my opponent go into a pattern and as soon as I saw the gap, I took it. My sword flashed out, but once again I saw another yellow flash and my opponent escaped my attack and was now quite far away from me, looking at me with a mix of surprise and anticipation. ¡°Lovely.¡± Once again, I saw a yellow flash, but I was already moving my shield and sword before that. Even then I needed to quickly tilt my head otherwise he would''ve skewered me. My shield was able to cut down his attack angles and my sword that I was thrusting out was able to stop him from getting too close. If I hadn¡¯t done that, the fight would¡¯ve ended there. I took a deep breath and started to push my body as much as possible as I kept defending and attacking at ever greater speed. It took a while but I was eventually able to stop myself from being pushed back but the moment I did, my opponent activated some sort of an ability that made him even faster and I knew that I wouldn¡¯t be able to keep up with just my body alone so I activated my own haste ability and was able to take him by surprise for a single moment, giving him a tiny cut to the back of his hand. We both took a moment to breathe deep and then we rushed each other once again. He was still faster than me but I was able to pump more energy into my haste ability for momentary bursts of speed which required him to do the same with his abilities. I do not know how long the fight was going on and it didn¡¯t matter. All I was focusing on was trying to match his speed and do any damage I could. I was burning through energy like a maniac but I wasn¡¯t putting too much into my defenses or weapon to keep at least some things hidden. But I was having so much fun and I was so focused that it was hard to think about anything else. Speed. I need speed. I felt something click and it seems like I sped up a little bit more. I was now starting to push him simply because I was a lot stronger and he wasn¡¯t capable of blocking my attacks. He was only barely able to divert them. But even now, he had the speed to simply dodge 95% of my attacks. Another yellow flash indicated another attack but I hadn¡¯t expected anything like this. He had gotten out of weapon range but he still attacked with a horizontal slash that produced a similar attack like my flying slash. It was so close and so deadly that I needed to dodge it. So I bent my body backwards so much that I was almost horizontal to the ground and watched his flying attack fly over me. I immediately snapped up to find my opponent frozen in shock. That allowed me to make a similar attack which he wasn¡¯t completely able to dodge and I left a proper wound on his shoulder. Our fight continued but his attacks were slowing down. It was only a matter of time before I would win. He still put up an incredible fight and at times he was still pushing me back but I was able to mitigate his flying slash attack by attacking with my own flying slash. My strike met his, overpowered mine but it slowed it down and weakened enough that I was able to defend with my shield. chapter 267 POV: Luana The fight we were currently watching was incredible, something no one would''ve expected to have happen on a random weekday during the day. What we were witnessing was something that would typically occur during prime time and would have been advertised for at least a few weeks. Everyone was focused on the fight and the servers didn¡¯t miss the opportunity to continue bringing drinks to anyone running low. Betting was happening constantly and even we were participating amongst ourselves. I had already won three meals simply because the shield and sword fighter had managed to stay in the fight for so long. He looked like he was burning with how much heat was coming off him. Now that he wasn''t being pushed back, the question was brought up if he could actually win this one. No one had expected this from the start and I suspected a few gamblers who bet it all at the start on the sword and shield fighters win were getting quite excited right about now. The fight continued until we heard some other patrons yell that the Yellow Flash was about to do his signature move. We saw the flying slash type attack and everyone expected the fight to be over, especially because of the strength of that attack. But then a giant man, who had to be 8 feet tall, tilted his entire body from the knees up to be almost parallel to the ground to let the attack bypass him. He then sprang up like nothing had happened and launched his own similar attack, delivering a wound to the Yellow Flash. Everyone went crazy and when the fight continued, everyone cheered. It was already impressive that such a big person could move so fast, but his body strength and agility was unreal. The fight continued and slowly the sword and shield fighter was pushing the Yellow Flash back, and it seemed that we finally had a winner. But the Yellow Flash didn''t back down and the fighting continued to be top tier. So it came as a complete surprise when the sword and shield fighter backed off and announced, "I surrender. I¡¯m all tapped out." The moment he said that, absolute silence fell over everyone. What on earth did he mean that his tapped out? Then the commentators reminded everyone that this was the 13th fight this day for the sword and shield fighter and it was completely reasonable that he was out of energy. It was actually quite surprising that he was able to fight for that long. We watched as the fighters approached and shook each other''s hands. We couldn''t hear what they were speaking about as we weren¡¯t allowed to listen in, but soon the sword and shield fighter took off his helmet. And I almost choked on the drink I was having. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. That was Rich. How the hell did he get so big? And why was he already in the city? Had he been here for long? My companions were looking at me with concern as I stopped choking. It was hard for me to speak but I was able to get out, "That''s Rich." "What are you talking about? He doesn¡¯t resemble the description you gave us at all," Horus exclaimed and Adam soon followed but he whispered his words, "You told us that he was our age. He looks like he''s in his 30s." I was able to get my breathing back in order to answer, "I have no idea but I recognize that face and I thought his body shape was a bit familiar. He''s grown a lot and obviously gotten a lot stronger as well." After a moment, both my companions said in unison, "Well, shit." Both of them took out communication crystals and quickly started to send messages. "What are you guys doing?" I asked them and saw embarrassment on both of their faces. "I asked a few others to join us during tomorrow¡¯s meeting just in case Rich wouldn¡¯t show up or be good enough. Yeah, I can see by your face, I¡¯m fixing it," Horus explained. I wanted to chew him out but Adam spoke up, "I kinda didn¡¯t give a definite answer that Rich was going to join us on our delve to the academy''s administration." Both of us looked at Adam in horror. "Dude, what the hell? Why didn''t you confirm it?" Horus said. I was dumbstruck and Adam''s answer just asked for a proper head smack. "Dude, you were going to invite people to replace Rich just in case. What''s the difference?" Adam answers. Horus''s face blanched. "Changing someone you have confirmed is easy enough but currently we only have a verbal agreement with him. With the performance he had, he will be offered millions to join different guilds and adventuring parties. We can only offer him potential loot which might not even be worth as much as the gold he will be getting." "I¡¯m fixing it right now, just give me a moment," Adam answered but Horus shook his head. "Any lawyer would be able to void that contract and do you even have a definite answer from him? Only the promise that he will join us. Fuck, and we were so close. I can now understand how you thought that we could delve so deep, Luana. He seems really impressive." Horus was correct. He could ditch us. But I took a moment to think back about all the interactions I had with him and what I observed while both my companions were nervously working on dealing with their errors. I honestly didn''t know too much about Rich but he seemed to be quite an honorable man who had a ridiculous amount of energy when we were fighting in the raid dungeon. I looked back at the screen where some other fights were going on. Was he truly out of energy, he didn''t look like he was slowing down and while he looked exhausted at the end of the fight, he certainly didn''t seem like he was out of steam. No way did he really give up a win. "I think we have nothing to worry about. If he promised he will join us, I¡¯m quite certain he will." POV: Rich I was walking out of the arena a little bit disappointed that I wasn¡¯t able to finish the fight, but I did make a promise to myself that I wasn''t going to push myself if I fell below 20% of my energy reserves. And I was so close to victory as well. But it really doesn''t matter, it was just a matter of time before I won and from the looks of it, he wanted to make a good career out of dueling and messing up his win-to-loss ratio would have been a shame. I was probably never going to fight in the arena again or if I was, I was never going to give a shit about my score. After I collected my winnings, I needed to dodge quite a few people who wanted to speak with me. While some of them looked respectable, most seemed to be after money and they saw me as their golden ticket. As soon as I got into the large crowd, I started to camouflage myself to look different and used my stealth abilities as well. That move already removed almost all of my tails but there were still some and probably a few who I couldn¡¯t detect. I used different crowds and open spaces to speed away or get lost in and even jumped onto a few buildings, making myself very light to quickly move on the rooftops and then jump into crowds again. I didn¡¯t feel anyone following me after that but I still continued for a few hours and after a few more roof trips I headed back home. Now if anyone was still following me, they deserved to find out where I lived and probably because of that they will figure out who I am. But hopefully no one did as I really didn¡¯t want to worry about any of that. It was now quite late and I went to bed early so I could meet Luana tomorrow. chapter 268 Morning came faster than I anticipated. I was awake before I needed to start moving. I decided to do some stretches and check everything. While I still wasn¡¯t completely clear about the dungeon and how long we were going to be inside versus outside, I hoped we would have some time to train together as I was seriously missing teamwork experience. When everything was packed up and rechecked, I started my walk towards my destination. It was going to be a long one as the place I was going to was on the north side of the city. Even now, there were a lot of people moving around, but the streets were basically empty compared to the busy time during the day. The place where I was going was a large compound owned by an Academy, that seemed to be quite a prestigious one. Roger gave me some information that he learned, and from that, I gathered it was at least one of the best in the area, if not the world. It was incredibly large and occupied an entire island somewhere in the shallow sea. When I reached the edge of the compound, I was stopped not by the city guard but by the academy guards. "Stop right there. Only Academy students and people with written permission are allowed past this point," said one of the guards while blocking my way. "Just a moment, I should have the written permission somewhere." I had tried to fit so many things into my tattoo storage that it was a bit difficult, even with my expanded skin surface area, to move things around so I could get the item to my hand and then pull it into reality. The guard was getting a bit restless, but eventually, I got the piece of paper out. "Here you go, and my apologies for the wait. It seems that I need to rethink my storage organization." After the guard read my paper, he just nodded at me and continued his patrol. That was kind of rude, and I already got a bad feeling about this place. Perhaps our plan to send our bright talent into these academies might be the wrong one. The few students who I saw didn''t seem too bad, but there were certainly people who held themselves in a way that I didn¡¯t like. But whenever I saw guards, I was quite certain that the Academy had some sort of agenda on how they wanted their students to think. Thanks to my interactive map, finding the place where I needed to go was no trouble. To my surprise, it seemed to be a smaller arena. After entering, I found the place to be quite similar to where I fought, but the quality was certainly worse, and I could see several places where repairs were made that were quite obvious. There were a decent amount of people here, but it only took me a few moments to locate Luana. She was with two other people, one who looked like a typical Knight but not with heavy armor, more like medium armor. There was also another young man who seemed to be wearing mage clothing. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. My entrance didn''t go unnoticed. A lot of people were looking towards me and starting to discuss among themselves quite animatedly. The higher level of noise alerted more people, and soon I saw Luana and her friends notice me. As soon as they did, I started to walk towards them, and they looked a bit nervous, which was kind of weird. Luana was the first to speak when I was getting close. "It¡¯s good to see you, Rich, and I¡¯m incredibly grateful that you chose to accept my proposal to come and delve with us. Seeing your fight yesterday certainly was impressive, and I do have a few questions about your last fight." At that moment, Luana was elbowed by the mage-looking fellow. "Oh yes, these are the other two party members. Adam, he''s our healer," she said while pointing at the mage-looking person. "And this is Horus. He will be our off-tank and damage dealer while also being the party leader," she said while pointing at the Knight. I shook their hands when they were introduced, and I did like the self-confidence that I felt from them. They didn¡¯t feel like bad people. "It''s a pleasure to meet you both. My name is Rich, and while I¡¯m mainly a farmer, I do quite a lot of fighting, and I am the general for my nation. I hope that we can have a fruitful delve and that we will all grow stronger from the challenges and from learning from each other." My words seemed to be enough to break the first contact ice and assure them that I could be an asset to the party. "Rich, I¡¯m truly glad that you are here. We kind of expected, after the performance you showed yesterday, that you might have gotten offers from other parties or even guilds, so we¡¯re quite glad to see you are here," Horus said. I was a bit confused, and I guess it showed on my face. As they looked at me quite puzzled. It took me a moment to realize what was going on. "I understand the mistake. I haven¡¯t received any offers. Basically, I ran away from the arena after I was done. I was too tired to speak with any of them, and besides that, I already said that I would be joining you." My words made them relax. Moments later, Luana spoke up. "Now, for the reason we¡¯re meeting here, we need to go through an evaluation, both individual and team, to be allowed into the dungeon. Everyone else has already gone through individual evaluation, and our last party member will join us a bit later. She has something she needs to take care of before we leave." "If the evaluation isn''t too complicated, I don¡¯t see any problems with it. But are we leaving immediately after the evaluation, and when will we actually start the delve?" I asked, and it was Horus who answered. "The evaluation shouldn¡¯t be too hard. It¡¯s just to test that we can pass the minimum requirement. As for the delve itself, we have had quite a hard time finding people for it, and we have pushed it back as far as possible, so unfortunately, we will need to delve basically the day after tomorrow. The delve itself will take at the maximum two months, but I will make a comprehensive report on the dungeon when we are all on the Academy island." I nodded to that, and then we just waited for my evaluation and simply got to know each other. They all seemed like people who I didn¡¯t mind being around, so that was at least good news. Adam seemed to be from a noble family but a decent one. Horus was from a huge Knight family that had hundreds of active members in this city alone. It seems that delving this dungeon wasn¡¯t just an Academy thing for him as he needed to also prove himself to his family. Luana also needed to complete this dungeon quite badly, as then she would have access to better classes. Adam only seemed to be interested in delving this because his father told him to, but I didn¡¯t mind as he was the healer, and anyone who chose that occupation and was that good at it didn''t need extra motivation to keep the people around them alive. It also looked like Adam and Horus were good friends, and Luana seemed to fit into their friend group quite well. Eventually, I saw a more official-looking person approach us, and I saw everyone else got more serious. "I assume you are the delving party of Horus." When he received an affirmative, he continued. "My name is Cornelius Snodgrass, and I am the assistant to Professor Evangeline Worthington. I am here to evaluate an individual named Rich Dirt and then evaluate the entire party to see if you are qualified to enter the Ruin of Lost Ages. Now, if there are no questions, I need Rich to follow me." He started to walk away immediately, and I quickly started to follow behind him. I just hoped that this wasn¡¯t going to go badly. I wasn¡¯t worried about not passing but about the evaluator, who I didn¡¯t get a good feeling from. chapter 269 POV Luana I was so relieved everything went so well, but I had so many questions to ask Rich. However, the others were correct; this wasn''t the place or time to do so, and we would have quite a long time to spend together inside the dungeon. We were all quite happy at the moment, and he seemed to be really strong, which would give us an excellent chance in the dungeon. Not only that, his equipment seemed to be of excellent quality, which meant that we wouldn''t have to spend the little money we had on getting him the gear needed for this dungeon. We watched as Rich easily passed the basic tests. But it was quite obvious to us and everyone else looking that he wasn''t putting everything into his tests and only did enough to pass, which started to piss off the evaluator. Adam and I looked at each other at the same time, and we both saw worry in each other''s faces. As Academy students, we were expected to perform to the best of our abilities, even while taking basic tests. "Should we have told something to Rich?" I asked my companion, but Horus shook his head. "It wouldn''t have changed anything. He doesn''t seem the person to show everything he has, and it''s actually quite reasonable as he¡¯s not a part of this Academy." Rich¡¯s face had already morphed from his pleasant look into a more neutral one, but after the last test, the evaluator started to chew him out about not performing the best he could. That made his face go cold, and I did not like that at all. This was really bad. And only a moment later, the evaluator screamed loud enough that everyone could hear, "If you do not do exactly what I tell you to do, you will fail." But Rich wasn¡¯t backing down. "I am not your joker, and I¡¯m not here to jump through hoops. I was invited to join a party to delve a dangerous dungeon. I do not give a flying shit about your needs. I will pass the test however I choose do." Then Rich then looked towards us. "You wanted me to be here, but I will not play stupid games." That made me swallow hard as he was completely correct, but I couldn¡¯t do anything. If I did, I would be risking being kicked out. Luckily, I wasn¡¯t alone as I was reminded of that when Horus and Adam rushed towards the evaluator, who looked like he was about to explode from rage. I was still a bit stunned about the whole situation, and I did hear them mentioning their family names, which quite quickly cooled down the evaluator. Eventually, all three of them came back with the token that showed that Rich had passed the individual evaluation. "I haven¡¯t met a bootlicker who was so full of himself in a long time. But the good news is that our party evaluation will basically just be us showing up and him giving us the token we need. I didn¡¯t want to use my family name like that, but honestly, at least it''s good for dealing with people like him," Adam said with a disgusted face. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. I was just glad that this was over as my hand was shaking a bit. I¡¯m never afraid of a fight, but social fighting is something else, and I just don¡¯t have the background to even qualify as someone worthy of fighting people like that. Rich, to my surprise, seemed to be incredibly pleased about the situation. It seems that he was quite glad that others came to deal with the situation, and he seemed to be a lot more comfortable around us. We continued to small talk, and it was quite interesting to also find out that Rich actually was a farmer. At first, I thought that he was just joking, but it seems like he truly enjoyed it, and Horus was quickly educated on why farming was important when he mentioned that he didn''t think it was worth his time thinking about. The lecture Rich gave was incredibly interesting, and it kind of felt like an old man telling children how the world actually worked. I never actually thought about how important farming is and how it could be used to control a population by manipulating the price of basic food. I made a mental note to read more about what the books in the Academy library said about this topic. After the discussion, it only took a bit longer until I saw our last party member walking into the arena. POV Arabella Dealing with cancelling the rental agreement was more troublesome than I thought. Why do they have to be so annoying about not just letting you cancel it? I would have been even fine with paying a few extra months just to have it done with in 5 minutes, but no, the two weeks notice wasn¡¯t enough. They still spend hours trying to convince me to stay or make it so annoying that I didn¡¯t want to continue handling the rental agreement. At least I was now done with that place and had my own home. Sandra was quite pleased with our new home, and thanks to there being quite a lot of work needing to be done there, she wasn''t too mad that I was about to leave her for two months. It would also not be good for my career in the arena, and I would have made more if I stayed and fought duels. But I just made it to the next stat block, and this dungeon should help me level up quite a few times, so I wouldn¡¯t have to be fighting people who had hundreds of stat points more than me. The carriage was moving stupidly slowly; I guess morning traffic was picking up. I had hoped to be done with this part of my travel, but I would have to suffer through it. I wonder who the last member of the party is. I do hope that he¡¯s strong enough as it''s so much easier to fight with a good tank. There are simply so many more opportunities like that to do real damage, and constantly having to run away from monsters is quite annoying. The small mage is also quite good, and she seemed to have a wide range of spells to use for different encounters. The healer, I¡¯m still not sure about, but I guess we will see when we are in a real fight how he will perform. Horus is impressive, but I would expect it from his family. Having a guard or a bodyguard from his family is not just a good idea to keep yourself safe, but it''s also a status symbol to show that you are truly connected and wealthy enough to afford their services. Making a connection with the next generation was truly good fortune and one of the other main reasons I chose to join them. After the carriage ride, I still needed to walk, and I did so as fast as possible without looking like I was running. I once again showed the guards the paper that allowed me to go inside, and I was so glad this was going to be the last time I needed to do that. When I finally reached my destination, I found quite a few people inside, but I noticed Luana the same time she noticed me. I didn¡¯t need to be shown who our last party member was. He was a mountain of a man wearing armour that covered him from head to toe, but currently, his helmet was removed, revealing a handsome face. He had a beard, something quite uncommon. He has a large shield, and in his other hand, he was holding his helmet. His armour had heraldry, but I didn¡¯t recognise it. I got the feeling of danger from him, but it wasn''t directed towards me or the people around here, which was good news. It seems that they might have actually found someone who could keep up with the rest of us, but I would be the judge of that. I approached them and was quickly greeted by Luana and the others, and then introduced to Rich Dirt. It was a peculiar name, but I kind of liked it. ¡®What more would the nation want than rich dirt as it will feeds and support its nation and people¡¯ I remember my grandfather''s saying and wished that I could speak to him once again. Rich was even larger close up, and his hand completely encompassed mine when he shook it. It was kind of weird as even amongst other Duelists, they usually give me the courtly greeting of kissing the back of my hand. chapter 270 POV Arabella We only had time for greetings as the evaluator approached us quickly and asked us to start. "Okay, this should be quick," Adam said. I wondered why and looked at Luana questioningly. "We had a bit of trouble before, but Adam and Horus were able to handle it by using their connections. The evaluator is basically just doing the bare minimum needed as he wants to redeem himself from his previous mistake." Her words made me smile a bit. One thing I did miss about my previous life was the connections that made everything so much easier. We were taken to a special area of the arena. As we stepped inside, iron gates rose from the ground to limit us to a single area and so our opponents wouldn¡¯t be able to escape and cause any damage to others. "You will be facing 12 first-rank wolf type monsters. Your goal is to eliminate them as fast as possible while receiving as little damage as possible. You have a maximum of 5 minutes and I wish you all good luck," the evaluator announced. We waited until Horus quickly organized us by putting Rich in front, then him, then the healer, and at the back were Luana and me. After that, he gave an affirmative nod to the evaluator. A door was opened from the arena wall and 12 monsters rushed out. I wondered what we would have faced if the evaluator wasn''t being nice to us. "Get here, you furry bastards!" I heard Rich yell, and the next moment all of our opponents focused on him. That made me smile and I started to pull back my bow and shoot the wolves I had a clear line of sight to. Luana was doing the same but she was even more efficient than me. I also didn¡¯t see the need to give it my all as one-fourth of the wolves were already dead before they reached our tank. To my surprise, Rich didn¡¯t focus fully on defense but also used his long sword to kill the monsters with one strike. He didn''t seem to have any specialized tank abilities but his defenses seemed strong enough and he didn¡¯t even move a single inch backwards, which was decent. The monsters who did get past him didn¡¯t charge at Horus, they turned around and tried to attack Rich¡¯s back. They never made it as Horus made quick work of them as they weren''t even paying attention to him. I was also helping but I was quickly running out of targets. Just two shots later, all the monsters were dead and I don¡¯t think Adam had to even cast a single healing spell. "Now that was impressive, 17 seconds to finish the test. I do believe that you will go quite deep into the dungeon and I wish you the best of luck as you have all passed the required test to enter," announced the evaluator as the gates started to descend. Groups of people rushed the dead monsters to start harvesting and clearing everything away. The three students were incredibly happy and congratulating themselves, but I saw Rich looking at my bow, so I approached him. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. "I paid quite a lot for it but it was worth every single core. The design is new but it fits my style quite well. I noticed that you didn¡¯t use any specialized tank ability, did you not see a need to use any?" I explained and asked. "The bow design looks quite interesting," he said with a smirk, but I didn¡¯t understand why. Then he continued and I grew a bit concerned. "I mean, I¡¯m not a specialized tank but I can absorb quite a lot of damage and do quite a lot of damage as well. I honestly don¡¯t know why I keep getting the tank role, it''s actually kind of funny." I had no idea how to process that information. It seemed I wasn''t the only one either; the shock had our other party members rooted to the spot. "But during our raid, you were a tank. I don''t understand, are you saying you''re not a tank?" Luana managed to get out, her words tumbling over each other in her confusion. Rich looked at us, clearly bemused, and then began to chuckle. "You guys worry too much. I have the main ability needed for a tank - attracting the attention of our enemies. I can also withstand a lot of damage, so I won''t go down easily. That should give each of you enough time to finish off whoever we''re up against. I really don''t think you guys need to worry. While I have little experience fighting with others, I believe we''ll gain plenty of it in the dungeon." His words weren''t exactly comforting, but we didn''t have any other options, and his reasoning seemed acceptable enough. Still, I could see that we were all a bit worried. "OK, we can discuss everything later. Right now, let''s get to the portal station and head to the Academy Island. There, I can give you all a lecture on the dungeon, hopefully quickly enough for us to get some sleep before we need to leave tomorrow morning. The trip to the dungeon will take an entire day, after which we won''t have much free time if we want to get a proper night''s rest before we enter the dungeon." Horus explained. POV Rich I was surprised about their reaction when they found out that I wasn¡¯t the dedicated tank, but I guess it made sense and I was glad I told them so early. It would have been trouble if they found out later. I couldn¡¯t believe the coincidence that the Archer and our last party member had one of my bows, and not just any bow, one of the second ranks I made and the one that had the iron oak as one of its materials. The way I saw her look at her bow, it might be a good idea not to demonstrate that I also could shoot. It shouldn¡¯t be a trouble to keep to close range weapons and my throwables. The trip into the Academy went fast but the amount of security before the portal station was ridiculous. Luckily, we''ve been able to get through it without any problems and when I stepped through the portal, I found myself to be in a large underground room where I found the walls to have small holes and many people moving behind them. I instantly recognized this as a kill room but I was surprised how normally everyone else took this. My party members were moving fast and I didn¡¯t mind keeping up with them as I really wanted to get out of this place. They really took their security seriously here but once we were above ground, things calmed down by a lot and even sometimes it was hard to see any guards as there were so few around. It was a sudden change but I was quite glad about that. ¡°Welcome to Academy Island. This entire island is owned by the academy and the Verdia city-state alliance. We are in the East Shallow and as you can see we have crystal blue waters and white sands for relaxing after studying,¡± Luana said. The place here was beautiful with palm trees and beautiful lush grass and of course the water and sand. It seemed like we were in a big coastal city with paved streets and beautiful buildings that were professionally maintained. Soon we were surrounded by stores but we quickly moved away from here and I listened as Luana explained to us the more interesting sites. Eventually, we made it to the proper Academy where hundreds of students were walking around and I would guess thousands were in class studying. We were going to one of the smaller buildings where Horus had reserved a small classroom which he could use to educate us on the dungeon that we will be delving into. I was now kind of curious as to why a dungeon would need such a long lecture, but I guess I was going to find that out quite soon. chapter 271 We walked into a relatively small classroom. There were five rows of desks. Adam and Luana sat in the second row, right in front of the blackboard. I picked a spot in the third row, right next to the window, and Arabella chose a seat in the third row as well, but closest to the exit door. Horus walked towards the blackboard and wrote in large letters: "Ruin of Lost Ages". Then he began to lecture. "Ruin of Lost Ages is one of the oldest dungeons known. It has been verified to have reached maturity during the fall of the orcs, but many believe it reached maturity even before the goblin wars. It is a rank two dungeon from start to finish, but around the first 30 floors it will only have first ranked opponents as a norm. Although their numbers still make those encounters second rank.¡± ¡°There are in total five escape chances. The first is at level 25, the second is at level 50, the third is at level 75, the fourth is when you reach the core at level 100, and the fifth chance is one month into the delve no matter where you are inside the dungeon. Technically there is also a sixth chance, but that''s not optional. If you make it to two months inside the dungeon, you are instantly kicked out and that is also why two months is the maximum amount of time we told you about and we offered Rich and Arabella to join us.¡± ¡°As you can already tell, this dungeon is quite special amongst the great dungeons. It has many more special features. One is that there are many different ways to descend to the next level, but they are never fixed and no party has been able to use the same way down as others. The floors also change, but they do so slowly. Mapping out the entire dungeon is quite literally impossible. There are, however, quite good maps for the first quarter of the dungeon as there have been many efforts to try to map those areas.¡± ¡°Those results, however, have been erased over time as the dungeon continues to change and the sheer immensity of every floor honestly makes the manpower spent on it quite useless. The first floor alone is around 10 square miles and every floor just gets bigger after that. No one even has a clue how large the later floors can be, but fortunately, it doesn''t mean that we need to explore everything. As I previously stated, there are many ways to get to the lower floors.¡± ¡°This dungeon doesn''t limit how many people can enter it, neither does it have instances. The chances are quite low that we might run into anyone else, but if we do, every party that enters are technically our allies. Although no one can actually find out what''s going on inside the dungeon, so contact should always be conducted carefully and we should always be prepared for anything. Also, we should try to get away from anyone as quickly as possible as the dungeon doesn''t really like larger parties inside the dungeon.¡± ¡°Now for the environment. As the name would suggest, you can find basically every type of ruin inside. That means that the environment will sometimes be an even bigger challenge than the monsters inside.¡± It was at this moment that Horus took out a huge book and showed us the title: ''The Myriad Ruins of the Dungeon Ruin of Lost Ages''. He then started to show everything we needed to watch out for. There were even certain stone patterns that we needed to watch out for as that would indicate what kind of traps we might run into. This continued for quite a while and I was both fascinated and bored at the same time. There was a stupid amount of information to go through. Some of the ruins were quite interesting and I couldn¡¯t wait to see them for myself, although, as I understand, the chances were quite low we would end up in the section that might have the more interesting types of ruins. When we were finally done with that book, Horus took out a second one called ''The Inhabitants of the Ruin of Lost Ages''. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Somehow this book was even longer, but there was even more valuable information here. Inside were all the monsters that we might run into and the number was truly staggering. The writer even wrote at the start that she thought that this was only about 50% of the monsters we might run into. What I found most interesting is that fallen races were actually included. But of course, along with them were mutated animals, creatures from horror stories, and a lot of your more standard fantasy creatures. When we were done, my head was barely working from all the information I received and to make things worse, it looked like others were able to understand or at least didn¡¯t look like they were having as much trouble as I was. Perhaps that was understandable as two of them were mages and I was quite certain that Arabella was some sort of a noble. The sun had long set when we finally left the classroom, but I was quite glad it was finally over so I could go to sleep and hopefully my brain would be able to process all the information I received. Arabella and I were taken to an inn. But when I started to walk up the stairs, I heard Arabella exclaim quite loudly, "What do you mean there isn¡¯t two rooms? This is unacceptable!" Her loud voice made my headache worse, so I walked closer to the person she was arguing with as Horus tried to calm her down. "We can understand your reluctance, but we don¡¯t have any other available rooms. But the one you are going into does have separate beds." The moment I heard the person who had the keys explain the situation, I simply grabbed the keys before she understood what happened and started to walk upstairs, silencing everyone there. I honestly didn¡¯t care, I just wanted to sleep. I looked for the room number on the key chain and when I found it, I saw that I only had a few more steps to take before I was able to go inside the room. I tossed the keys onto the nearby table and then just picked one of the beds which was long enough for even me and even without removing my armour, I just laid on the bed and went to sleep immediately. My ears did pick up someone entering, but I didn¡¯t feel any direct danger, so I just fell asleep. The next morning I woke up and felt a lot better. The information I got yesterday also seemed to have sunk in. I did a few quick stretches to get the kinks out that sleeping in armour causes, but it wasn¡¯t that bad as the bed was soft and this was a good way to get used to wearing armour 24/7 for possible the next two months. I did notice that Arabella was sleeping in the other bed and I was quite disappointed that she seemed to have removed her armour and was sleeping unprotected. In the dungeon, we were going to face intelligent monsters and anyone intelligent will know that the best way to attack someone is to attack them when they don¡¯t know you are going to and the best time to do so is when someone is sleeping. I probably pissed her off yesterday and the question was, was I going to do it again? She will need to learn this soon enough and why not start when this is relatively safe. Why I wouldn¡¯t count this completely safe but that was because I didn¡¯t know how she would react. Nevertheless, I pulled out one of my throwing knives and threw it at her shoulder. Immediately after my knife left my hand, her eyes popped open and she was able to get away from the attack, but barely. And she was incredibly angry, but before she could do anything, I spoke up. "That was an easy throw. Anyone more serious would have been able to hurt you or even kill you. If you were wearing armour, you would have been a lot safer. We are about to go into a very dangerous area where we need to be constantly ready for a fight and while your reaction was acceptable, you currently don''t even have a weapon to fight back with." At my last words, she somehow managed to get my knife in her hands, to which I gave a solid nod. At least that was something. She threw my weapon back and without saying anything else, I started to walk out. She had calmed down quite a bit, but before I could exit, she spoke again. "I just wanted one last good sleep without having to worry about my armour." I continued walking out but answered her, "It''s better to be prepared so you can have many good sleeps after the dungeon, instead of this being your last." chapter 272 When I got downstairs, I decided to go straight over to the meeting point, which was a tavern at the edge of the city. It was quite a large place, obviously meant for travellers. There were already quite a few people here, and meals were already being served. I ordered myself two meals called the "Three-Day Breakfast". The server even looked at me funny, as if questioning whether I had read what it was called. But I didn¡¯t regret it, not even for a moment, as multiple plates piled high with all kinds of foods were brought to me. The server said, "This is your first meal. We will bring you the second one when you are finished with the first, simply because there''s not enough table room for the second one." I laughed at that as I was eating a large piece of garlic bread with a generous coating of butter. When I was close to done with the first meal, Arabella showed up and ordered for herself. Soon after, the other three made it here as well. They watched in horror as the second meal showed up, but I scarfed that one down almost as fast as the first one. When everyone was done eating, Horus took out a map to show us our route. "We will stick to the main road that goes to another academy¡¯s main city, but about halfway we will need to take this less travelled road that will sneak past this mountain range and go through the jungle afterwards, so we could finally make it to our destination." It was definitely a long way to walk, but seeing the mountain path, I could understand why we couldn¡¯t take a faster form of travel. Although I could probably run there in a few hours, the others didn''t have a quick move ability that could cover such a large distance. We checked everything one last time, as each of us was carrying at least one expanded bag so we would have all of the food and consumables we might need, not to mention all the tools we might need to bypass traps. The place here was quite beautiful and quite foreign to me. Although I did have a few trips to tropical areas back on Earth, I was mainly in the northern hemisphere and in a temperate climate. It didn¡¯t take long for the temperature to start rising as we moved away from the coast. The main road was quite boring. I stared, bored, as there really wasn''t much to see other than farmland and plantations. But when we got to the mountain range, the nature became quite beautiful, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself, unlike the rest of my party. Apparently, they weren¡¯t that used to walking, and while their bodies didn''t tire quickly, their minds certainly couldn¡¯t take the boredom walking can cause. Conversation helped, but I was rationing my stories as much as possible, as we had a lot more boring times ahead, and this one actually wasn''t too bad, at least for me, as the sights were quite wonderful. Adam was the first one to show exhaustion, so I proposed that we take a break at the highest point we were going to reach on the mountain and have a good lunch. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Everyone agreed, and I was just glad we were able to find a nice plateau that overlooked the jungle below. I was sitting at the edge, letting my feet suspend over the edge while others rested a bit further away. I also used this time to check up on my land and my nation. Everything seemed to be going well, but I was also quite worried about going into the dungeon. I wouldn¡¯t be able to escape from there if something went wrong and they needed my protection. But I couldn¡¯t be a guard dog all the time, otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t be able to get stronger, and that might lead to ruin even if I was there. The walk down the mountain was obviously easier, and I started to train the others in the art of talking about nothing so they wouldn''t be bored. It was hard going at the start, but when we were out of the jungle, I felt they were starting to get used to it. It will still take a while, but eventually, we will be able to talk about the weather for hours without getting bored. It was now getting quite late, but with me leading and others needing to keep up with my pace, we made it there way before Horus predicted. The place itself looked like a simple town and it didn''t have any tall buildings. The largest feature was, of course, the dungeon entrance, which looked like a collapsed castle. We were able to relax for quite a few hours in the tavern and get a good night¡¯s sleep in our own rooms, thanks to getting here so quickly. In the morning, we started to approach the dungeon entrance. I was glad that we didn¡¯t have to deal with many people, as we needed to constantly speak with new people and show proof that we had permission to go closer to the dungeon entrance and eventually enter it. We were all standing before the half-collapsed main gate of the castle when Horus spoke up. "We will officially be inside the dungeon as soon as we get past the broken gatehouse, but we will not really be inside the dungeon proper until we take the stairs downwards further inside the castle.¡± ¡°The first floors, as mentioned, are quite simple for us, and everyone should be able to solo it, so currently there is no need to be in proper formation, but we will do so anyway as we don''t have experience fighting with each other. Now, Rich, you will be in the lead, and as soon as we get to the first floor, we will light torches to try to find out which area we ended up in." I didn¡¯t answer back but just walked in front and entered the dungeon. Light peeked inside from the numerous holes. I located the stairs down quite easily as they were just past the courtyard. I felt Horus activate some sort of ability, and I immediately knew where the other party members were and what their status was. From that information, I knew that everyone was healthy and well-rested. He had also activated some buffs, but the most interesting was the boost to our low light visibility. For me, it really didn''t matter, but I could see how useful it could be. I pushed forward a bit and others followed. Just before I started to step downwards, I looked behind me. "Ready?" I asked, and everyone gave an affirmative in their own ways. We descended downwards, and I could feel the moment when space warped and the very next step, I felt the stone underneath me be a bit different than the stone the castle was made out of. I immediately looked around as soon as I stepped off the stairs, and I quickly figured out where we were thanks to the stone pattern, moss, vines, and tree roots. As soon as I felt others behind me, I spoke up. "We are in the Wolf Forest Ruins." "Well, that¡¯s appropriate as we did have to fight wolves to get access to this dungeon," Arabella spoke, but right after that, we heard some movement down the hall. Almost immediately, a torch was lit by Adam that illuminated the place even more and allowed me to see far enough to see the pack of four wolves that were trying to sneak closer to us. As soon as the torch was lit and their cover was blown, they started to rush towards us. They were able to take a few steps before one of them was killed with an arrow and another one with an ice bolt. I didn¡¯t have to do anything as the other two were killed just a few moments later. The wolves disappeared almost immediately after they were killed, but they didn¡¯t leave behind anything. "We will only start to see regular drops after floor 50, so don''t mind that they didn''t drop anything," Horus explained. That¡¯s right, it had slipped my mind that mature dungeons dropped loot consistently, but what they dropped depended on the dungeon. I wondered what kind of items we might get from a dungeon that has lived for 1000 years or more. chapter 273 Even though it was mentioned that the first floors were technically second-rank, I think they were bullshitting. All I''ve had to do is walk, but the good thing is that we were descending quite rapidly. In about a day, we were already on the third floor, but everything was still a cakewalk. I only had to use my shield once when a hidden snake ambushed us. Its attack was so fast that it actually broke its own neck when it hit my immovable shield. At least there was a consolation prize: I got an emerald-colored scale as a drop. It was mesmerizing to look at, especially how the light bent and bounced off it. I guess it could make a good jewelry component and it probably had some stat gains it could give. I was allowed to keep it as it wasn''t worth that much, but every drop that was worth something, or nobody wanted, went into the loot bag and would be later sold off and then distributed among us. The traps on the upper floors were also jokes. The only dangerous ones were pit traps with long drops. The dart traps were especially a joke as they couldn''t even pierce my unboosted armour. At first, Arabella and Horus worked on disarming them, but that was taking way too much time, so I just walked through them, triggering everything so everyone else could follow without having to worry about getting poisoned. The first time I did it, Horus was quite displeased, as he called it unnecessary danger. The second time, he tried to hold me back, but I just dragged him with me as I walked, and he needed to let go of me so he wouldn''t get poisoned. After that, whenever I could, I just walked through traps so we could get through everything faster. This sped up our descent quite a lot, and by the 10th day, we had reached the 23rd floor. Nowadays, I was able to fight, but the reason was because we were facing a lot more enemies, not because they posed any danger. We were still getting barely any experience as we were fighting rank-one opponents, but at least my taunt level had risen quite a lot. Other than that, it was quite boring, and I didn¡¯t think that would change until we reached the lower floors, where we could finally start truly fighting. When we made it to the 25th floor, I got the feeling that teleporting out of the dungeon was only one thought away, but none of us wanted to end our run. However, I did feel that it was time for a change. "I feel like we have not taken this dungeon seriously enough. It almost feels like we are walking leisurely through it, and I do understand that we needed to get used to each other a bit more, but I think we all now feel comfortable enough fighting around each other that we should start pushing faster and fight harder so we can descend quicker.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know about you guys, but I want to get as deep as possible, even if it means that when we teleport out of here, we¡¯re half dead," I said, bringing back some energy into our party. While everyone agreed that change was needed, some were uncertain that pushing so hard would be a good idea. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. In the end, I also agreed that we shouldn¡¯t push so hard immediately, but we should slowly ramp things up as we got more used to each other, fighting closer to our limits. After this change, we only walked when some of us needed to rest; otherwise, we were moving fast and didn''t wait until monsters reached us, but instead, we charged at them. This allowed us to increase our speed, and Horus'' knowledge of the dungeon allowed us to quickly figure out and find the staircases downwards. Most wouldn¡¯t call this lucky, but I did. On the 28th floor, we reached ruins that held second-rank opponents. They were a type of fungus creature that mimicked other monsters in shape. They also released spores, but Adam was able to neutralize them before others were hurt. My system was luckily able to clear them out even without Adam''s help, but it was certainly easier if my body didn''t have to do extra work. Usually, we should have slowed down because of the harder enemies, but we weren¡¯t messing around and attacked everything with prejudice. With us fighting second-rank monsters, the number of enemies we fought simultaneously drastically reduced, and after a few fights, while we were dealing with some traps, I spoke up once again. "I think it would be best if I changed my shield out for a two-handed weapon I have. I will put it in my tattoo storage so I can pull it out whenever I need to, but I feel the extra damage would help us move even faster." No one disagreed, but I did need to do some rearranging and to take quite a few things from my tattoo storage that I was keeping for emergencies, like food rations and water skins, and place them into the adventuring bag. I made my shield disappear and brought out my greatsword. I couldn¡¯t help but smile when I looked at it, and as soon as I was holding it, it almost felt like I was stronger. It was Adam who was the first to notice that my blade wasn''t ordinary. "Rich, that¡¯s quite the particular weapon you have there. I didn¡¯t expect for you to have an even stronger weapon," Adam''s words brought more attention to my greatsword, but I just thanked him and ended the conversation, which was a quite clear sign that everyone understood that I didn¡¯t want to talk about that topic. We were lucky on this floor as we didn''t need to travel a lot before we reached one of the boss rooms that would allow us to descend. I had still not been able to use my sword as the few opponents we had found were killed before they could reach me. But this time, when I saw the giant biped lizard that was about four meters tall lying amongst the swamp ruins it was close enough that I was able to rush it in an instant. Even though the monster was formidable as it was able to activate its defensive abilities and its evasion ability before I reached it. That, however, wasn''t enough as one cut crushed through its defenses, cutting off one of its arms, and it simply didn''t have the time to activate its poison breath as I was able to cut off its head with the second strike even before a single drop of poison was able to drip from its lips. It almost felt like I was cutting through air; my blade was so sharp. I didn¡¯t even push my abilities, just used them normally. My mad laughter was cut off when I heard Horus clearing his throat. "Oh yes, my apologies. I might have gotten a bit too excited there," I said while trying to stop laughing. They were a bit more used to my more eccentric behavior, but they all looked at me like I was mad. But then the attention was put on the blade that I was holding. "If you want to know what it¡¯s capable of, then honestly, I have no idea as this was the first proper opponent I have had to fight with this weapon," I told them, which stopped the flood of questions I was certain would have come. I did notice Arabella looking at the sword a bit confused, but she shook her head like clearing it, and we all continued downwards. "With so much extra damage Rich can do, we should be able to continue to ignore defense and rush through any encounter for at least the next twenty floors or more. So everyone, prepare yourself for constant fighting and traveling," Horus said just before I felt the familiar feeling of being displaced into a different area of the dungeon, one floor deeper. chapter 274 The next two floors were monotonous, but at least I got a bit more exercise with the hordes of first-rank monsters. Cutting them down was as easy as cutting wheat thanks to my greatsword, but we continued at a reasonably fast pace. Then we were once again fighting rank two monsters where we could actually move faster because we still had the damage to annihilate the smaller number of opponents, even when they were individually stronger. The current area we found ourselves in was a cold, crypt-like ruin where our enemies were armored suits and the occasional skeleton. I was currently exploring on my own, and I once again had to thank my interactive map as it made moving around so much easier. I had begun to explore on my own when I started to get anxious just sitting around and waiting while others slept. I still guarded them for four hours, after which Arabella took over. Apparently, elves needed about half as much sleep as humans, but of course, I needed a lot less sleep than that. I have been getting to know my sword a lot better, and I¡¯m still amazed at how good it actually is. Even now, cutting through second-ranked monsters that are made of metal armor was stupidly simple. I still needed to strengthen the sword with my abilities, but I was nowhere close to the maximum output I could do. But that just meant that I could keep going a lot longer before I reached my minimum threshold of energy that I wanted to keep in case of emergencies. This area was especially dark, even for me, as it seems that this dungeon was a lot better at managing how much dungeon energy it put into the air. In other dungeons I¡¯ve been through, I could basically see like it was bright sunlight, but currently, it was more like dusk. That, of course, changed when a monster was nearby as to my eyes they lit up like black and white fireworks with a few hues of blues splashed in. Sometimes I missed normal colors as the sights I was using usually didn¡¯t include a lot of colors. However, this didn''t change anything about my fights, which I was still ending with only one strike. This was an incredibly good way to gain experience, especially thanks to the density of monsters. I have already leveled up twice, and I was closing in on my third level up for all my classes, but unfortunately, my time exploring was about to come to an end as I needed to go back to the others. Soon we will be continuing onwards, and I at least know the general direction we needed to head towards. Hopefully, Horus will be able to guide us more directly so we can keep advancing fast enough that we would have a chance to reach the core. On my way back, when I was relatively close to our campsite, I was stopped when Arabella walked out of the shadows. The only reason I was able to not react was that I noticed her just before she revealed herself. "Who are you?" she asked me in a cold tone, which made me wonder why she would be so hostile. "I have no idea what you are asking, as I¡¯m many things," I responded. My words did not please her, but I hadn''t expected them to. But before she could continue, I spoke first. "Leaving our party members sleeping and defenseless is quite worrying. Do you have an explanation as to why I shouldn¡¯t consider you a traitor?" She took a step back as I said the last part quite menacingly. I, of course, didn¡¯t mean it as they should have already been up for quite a while making food. Unfortunately, it seems that my ruse didn¡¯t work as well as I had hoped. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. "Don¡¯t try to deflect. You and I both know that I wouldn¡¯t have left them if they were still asleep. Did you really think that I wouldn¡¯t notice your maker¡¯s marks that¡¯s on your equipment? It''s the same one that''s on my bow. And I could sense that iron oak handle your sword has. So I will ask you once again, who are you?" "Okay, I guess it¡¯s time to stop beating around the bush. Before we continue, please enlighten me about what you know about iron oak," I said in a calm and in a relaxing tone which had the desired effect of confusing her. I do not know what went on inside her head, but eventually, she answered. "An iron oak is a sacred tree for the elves. Its story began with our own and has been intertwined ever since. All of our greatest heroes have wielded weapons made out of iron oak, and we have a connection to that wood in our very blood. If you don¡¯t have an iron oak growing on your land, you are not considered a noble it¡¯s so influential. This wood is highly regulated, and I can¡¯t even remember hearing about more than five occasions when it has been sold outside Elven nations." Well, shit. I did not like how she is looking at me. The secrecy about our iron oak needs to be upgraded quite a lot. But there¡¯s already a problem, and I was correctly looking at her. Whatever she saw in my face made her rapidly back off, which snapped me out of it. I laughed a bit awkwardly and said, "Sorry about that, your news was just a bit unfortunate. Just out of curiosity, do you perhaps have anything else made of iron oak that I could examine for a moment? And honestly, don''t worry, I¡¯m not going to hurt you if you keep being civil." It took quite a while before she took a few steps closer and then pulled out a necklace that had a crescent moon symbol carved out of iron oak. She was extremely hesitant, but she did give it to me. I wondered why she was so trusting all of a sudden, but as soon as I touched the symbol, I dived into it to try to figure out if the iron oak on my land was the same as from the Elven lands. It was not but at its current state it was. The one on my land wasn''t actually iron oak; it was capable of absorbing any kind of metal. This one that I was holding, however, was just an iron oak and would be no matter where it¡¯s grown. However, I suspect it still needed an iron deposit underneath it; otherwise, it would just wither. "Interesting," I said while handing the necklace back. She was quite curious as she put her necklace back, which revealed a bit of cleavage which was hard not to notice. I started to walk back to our camp. "Wait, where are you going?" she asked me, to which I replied. "We should keep moving, otherwise we will be late. As for the reason you came here, we will discuss that later, but now we need to hurry." I walked alone for only a little bit before she joined me, but I was glad that she just walked beside me and didn¡¯t try to ask more questions as I had no idea how to answer them. Everything got a lot more complicated, and I felt like I couldn¡¯t just bluff my way out of this. If she really lived in a Royal Court, I was quite certain that my acting skills and any other social skill weren''t going to be good enough to fool her. The only thing I had going for me was brutality. They had all seen me truly fight when I started to use my greatsword and they were all a bit scared of me after that, but eventually, the got used to it. But I was quite certain it was still at the back of their heads. But I wasn¡¯t sorry about that as it gave me some advantages, but more importantly, it should get them used to the later floors. I¡¯m quite certain that none of them have experienced what we will face down there. I, of course, also don¡¯t know exactly what¡¯s going to be down there, but I can guess. From the speed at which our enemies are getting stronger and from the traps, I will not be surprised if we will soon start to lose limbs quite often. Thankfully, I was able to bring up limb replacement with Adam, and he assured me that he will be able to do it quite easily. I wasn¡¯t so certain that it would be so easy on me as I wasn¡¯t exactly made from normal human parts, but I also wouldn¡¯t break as easily as the others. I truly hope that my taunt ability is up to the challenge. If it''s not, I am quite certain I would be the only one that would have a chance at walking out of this dungeon. With those thoughts in my mind, I threw myself against our enemies, trying to level myself up as fast as possible. I should also probably use my free points to at least get to my next energy storage milestone to get the trait from it. But the real question is, should I use those free points on any of my other stats, should I keep them for later, should I be doing what I have always done and just put everything into energy storage? Currently, I was nowhere close to running out of energy, but that was because of my party members who needed to rest a lot more than I needed to. But even if I was alone, I was quite certain that I still wouldn¡¯t need a bigger energy tank; my current one was already big enough. Then again, I did have other people here who should know a lot more about the system than I do, so perhaps it¡¯s time to start guiding our downtime discussions towards topics I need to learn about." chapter 275 The fighting continued to get tougher, with some spikes of truly hard fights, mostly because of the environment. We truly shined when we had enough room to fight, but not every ruin afforded us this. The current one was especially brutal as we were fighting ghouls who came in packs of ten or more. My sword was still able to handle them, but not being able to properly swing it limited its effectiveness quite a lot. Then there was the problem of my party members barely being able to help as the corridors we were walking were so narrow. The ghouls were resilient, their claws could do some serious damage. Worst of all, they had some sort of a mental suppression field that they generated, which slowly sapped your mental strength, making you want to give up. While brief contact didn''t affect any of us, the long walk through these halls and fighting endless monsters started to even affect me, not to mention my party members who had to stay quite far away to avoid a mental break. I was glad to see that I could still solo even this far down against unfavorable conditions, but I certainly wanted to get out of this area. The place was dark and damp, and the stones were awkwardly uneven, so even fighting and walking was annoying. Whoever designed this place certainly made sure that anyone here alive would feel unwelcome. Occasionally, I could feel Adam casting rejuvenate spells on me, which did help with mental fatigue, but it was a losing battle. After another corner, I heard the telltale sign of scraping claws and once again readied my blade for battle. From behind another corner emerged a ghoul, and I charged forward and cut it almost in half, making sure I destroyed the brain which killed it in an instant. Immediately, I felt that this was somehow different, but my attention went elsewhere as I was hit with a strong mental attack which wanted to force me to my knees and make me give up. It was the same feeling that every ghoul gave me, but this time it was amplified many times over. I immediately felt a spell hit me that helped me regain some strength, and I was able to defend myself and kill two other ghouls. But every time one of them died, it felt like someone was hammering my brain. Over the course of having my mental abilities, my defenses have grown quite strong, and for the first time, I felt an active attack instead of the passive mental influence I felt before. It was incredibly difficult trying to focus on two different things as I still needed to defend myself against the ghouls who were attacking me, but I also needed to try and figure out what was going on inside my mental palace. Inside my mental palace, I already had a castle and one of the walls I planned to build. I could see every few seconds as the wall shook from the impacts and I could see the stones crumbling. This shocking scene allowed one of the ghouls to land an attack, but my armor was strong enough to protect me. However, that also helped whoever was trying to break into my mind as a large chunk of the upper wall broke and fell to the ground. I focused and tried to see what was attacking me, but a few of my abilities interacted at the same time and only a momentary glance at my interactive map showed me a direction and the general location where the monster was currently attacking me mentally. It was at this moment I ran back through the fight and figured out that I had already killed over 20 ghouls, but the hallway wasn¡¯t filled with bodies. These ones were disappearing shortly after their deaths and way faster than other monsters disappeared after they were killed. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. "There¡¯s someone making these ghouls! That undead monster is also responsible for the mental attacks," I yelled out to inform everyone what was going on. I didn¡¯t need to actually yell as I had linked my commander ability to the party which allowed us to communicate without any problems, but currently, it just felt right to yell. This was a truly dangerous situation. It took a few moments, but I got a command from Horus. "Rich, Adam is going to cast a larger spell on all of us, and you need to hold out for a little while longer so he can cast it. As soon as it activates, you need to rush through to the ghouls and find the monster¡¯s location. We will be right behind you, killing everything that you rush past. The spell won''t last long, so go as fast as possible. We will keep up." I gave an affirmative back and continued defending myself on all fronts. On the physical side, I was able to easily handle it, although the mental strain was starting to affect my body. The mental side was a lot worse as I simply didn¡¯t have any active defenses, or if I did, I didn¡¯t know how to activate them. I had killed yet another ten ghouls when I finally felt the spell activate, and I immediately rushed forward following the red line that was supposed to lead to the monster responsible for this. My sword cut all that was in front of me, and my body did the rest as I rushed forward. I felt flame and heat behind me. It seems that Luana was barbecuing everything behind me, and it seems her control was as good as ever since none of the flames reached me. Rushing forward, it didn¡¯t take long until I reached a room which showed signs of it being a staircase room that leads downwards, and in the middle, sitting inside a circle, was a child-sized ghoul that opened its eyes as soon as it saw me, making me fall to my knees from the sheer pressure it was able to put on my mind. I heard voices telling me to lay down, that fighting was pointless, that nothing can aid me. I struggled against it and used my sword to help me get back up. But even before I was able to get up, I saw the small ghoul being hit by arrows that seemed to be melting the very flesh of the monster. Its screams were horrible and ear-piercing, but the pressure on my mind was almost gone, and I didn¡¯t hesitate for a single moment as I charged forward and delivered a strong attack against it. To my surprise, even my blade wasn''t able to cut through its head completely, but it was able to deliver a devastating wound, and two more strikes finally ended the monster, and I just sagged as my body screamed for rest. "I need to sleep," I was able to get out before darkness started to claim me, but I did hear Horus speak. "Dude, you deserve it. Take as much time as you need. I was too overconfident. We shouldn''t have continued down this way when we found out about the mental aspect." POV: Luana I watched as Rich fell asleep, completely exhausted. Although I also felt quite tired, I was still capable enough to help the others clean up this room and fortify it, just in case. The flashes of those monsters trying to get past Rich, how their limbs were cut off, and how they screamed when I burned them, rattled around my brain while we were setting up camp. I had been close to death before, but not like this. This seemed so much more brutal, and as soon as I thought that, I remembered how Rich often said how brutal real combat can be. I noticed that I was given a bowl of stew that was made from dried vegetables and jerky. Usually, I barely ate, but I found myself with an empty bowl. "Do we still have enough for refills?" I asked and noticed how Adam looked at me, quite worried. But I could see his eyes and what was in them, and if I had a mirror, I believed mine would have been worse. This truly was a trial, but not the kind I was expecting. Horus and Arabella were doing a lot better than Adam and me, but of course, Rich was doing fine. Sometimes, I could even picture that he was enjoying this, and that scared me. Someday, was I going to be like him? That idea terrified me, and I quickly decided that this silence around the campfire was unacceptable. "Did we get any loot from the boss?" I asked, and Arabella was the one who spoke up. "Yeah, we got quite an ordinary-looking ring, but I¡¯m quite certain it¡¯s not. This system doesn¡¯t give me a name for it, and whatever requirement it has, I do not meet them." We processed that for a few moments, and Adam was the one who next spoke. "Well, throw it to me then. I¡¯ll try it." He tried the ring on, and it was definitely something as it resized itself, but once again, nothing seemed to have happened. Adam, even without being asked, threw the ring to Horus. "Nope, can¡¯t seem to get it working. Let''s see if it works for you, Luana." And I had to scramble to catch the ring when Horus threw it at me. I didn¡¯t feel anything from it. It looked like a silver ring, and its ability to refit so fast was quite interesting, but once again, it didn''t seem to be doing anything to me. "I guess we will need to wait until Rich wakes up and hope it will work for him. Otherwise, I hope that we can find a trustworthy appraiser who wouldn¡¯t fuck us." As soon as I finished saying that, I realized that I had cursed and covered my mouth with my hands as quickly as I could. I looked around to see amusement on everyone¡¯s face. "It seems that Rich''s language is starting to rub off on you," Arabella remarked while holding back laughter. I need to be careful as I saw what the teachers could do when students curse in front of them, and I did not want anything to do with that. I¡¯m probably just tired, and that¡¯s why it happened. Things got quiet again as everyone was just inside their own minds, but eventually, it was time to go to sleep, and Arabella was the one who would be keeping watch. chapter 276 My eyes snapped open and my heart started beating as if it was trying to escape my chest, but I instantly calmed down when I figured out Arabella was approaching me. She had a water skin and a bowl of some sort of food which she offered me, and I gratefully accepted. I downed the water in large gulps until everything was gone and then started to eat the food. I wasn¡¯t back to 100% yet, but I was close and the small headache wouldn¡¯t slow me down. "Thanks for the food and water," I said to Arabella when I was half finished with my bowl. "The others wanted to wait longer, but I was quite certain that you only needed 8 hours to get back up on your feet. At least they needed to take the watch this time. You really should let them do it more often, otherwise later in the dungeon they might not be use it when it will truly count," she said before leaving. I soon followed; it was time for the morning meeting. Apparently, we had made excellent time as we were 10 days ahead of schedule and should be able to keep this or extend it during the next four floors as we will reach the halfway mark of the 50th floor. The food and water helped quite a lot and I felt my headache slowly going away. "Oh yes, before I forget, we got this ring from the boss. None of us could figure out what it does so could you test it out?" Horus asked and at the same time handed me a ring. It wasn''t much trouble to get my armor off my hand and after I¡¯d done it, I should have figured that the ring was too small to fit any of my fingers, but as soon as I got it close, it resized instantly and I slipped it on. "Nothing seems to have happened. Yeah, I don¡¯t think it does anything," I told them. At that moment, glowing runic patterns appeared on the ring. I saw questioning faces as they could all see it glowing. "Well, this is quaint. I like the aesthetics, but anyone who has learned the intricate art of the mind wouldn''t have any problems here," I heard someone say. I instantly looked around but didn¡¯t see anyone, but I kept hearing running commentary. "Did you guys just hear someone speak?" I asked, but they all shook their heads. I couldn¡¯t figure out where it was coming from until one of the comments enlightened me. "This wall needs repairing, but why someone wouldn''t just go over it is beyond me." Instantly, I jumped into my mind palace and saw someone flying around. It kind of looked like a baby-sized bumblebee, but without the fat body that they could use to stand upright. They still looked like insect ones the same with its hands which it had two pairs of. As soon as I manifested, it flew towards me at incredible speeds. I took a defensive position, but it stopped in an instant, far enough away that getting to it fast would be troublesome. But even if I could get to it, I didn¡¯t know what I could do. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. "You look a lot more impressive than I thought. My name is, well, I don¡¯t actually have a name. That''s weird. But I guess it makes sense. Would you like to name me? It¡¯s your right as my master," it said, answering its own questions, which was a bit off-putting. "I don¡¯t want to be your master," I told him, to which he started to giggle, which would be the best term as he flew up and down and made a weird noise. "Well, too bad because I chose you and anyways I will serve you excellently and from the looks of it, you are in dire need of it." Well, there was a lot to unpack there and I absolutely didn¡¯t know how to feel about that. I focused back on the real world. "There¡¯s someone talking inside my mind and I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s the ring," I said. What followed were mixed reactions. Adam and Luana cursed, Horus said that I was lucky, and Arabella was thoroughly confused. "How in the hell did the mind companion choose you over the rest of us?" At least I now knew what to call it, but I guess I should try to get some of those answers as I brought my focus back into my mind palace. "So, are you my mind companion?" I asked it and it immediately started to bob up and down. "That I am and I would have to say I¡¯m quite brilliant, especially because I have a lot of knowledge about everything related to the mind and a few other topics." Well, this was starting to sound a lot better. "My companions also tried you on, why didn¡¯t you pick one of them?" It didn''t answer immediately, but eventually, it did answer after flying slowly in a circle. "Ah yes, now I remember. One was completely unsuitable, two others I didn¡¯t like their defense. They were so boring and besides that, they wouldn¡¯t have been able to keep up with my upkeep anyways. One was more promising, but that one also didn¡¯t have the upkeep I required." Now that didn''t sound so good. "What upkeep?" I asked it, hoping it wouldn''t be something bad. "I require energy power. The more I get, the more I can do to defend your mind. The amount I can get depends on your soul strength and I felt you were strong so you could feed me a lot and I could be very strong and make sure nothing can mess with your mind the way I feel like you desire it to be." I focused on my energy and I did notice a new connection to the ring but the energy draw wasn¡¯t that bad. But I did feel a different kind of connection as well. When I pulled up my achievement page, I found under my Bonds not just Goose but also Mind Companion. Well, I guess this was a lot more official now. It wouldn¡¯t be so easy to get rid of it, but honestly, I didn¡¯t think that I wanted to. "I¡¯m keeping the ring," I said to the others. I could see reluctance in their eyes, but none of them objected. I tripled the ring''s energy connection and I could feel how it buzzed around happily while starting to fix everything that had been broken. I would need more time to speak with it, but currently, we were on a tight schedule so I indicated that I was done and we headed towards the staircase and headed downwards where we found an above-ground ruin and we all sighed out in relief. There seemed to be plenty of room for us all to fight properly and we all smiled at each other and then rushed towards the closest enemies we could detect so we could alleviate our frustrations. We rushed through the remaining floors incredibly fast as it seemed that the environments were quite kind to us and the monsters weren''t mind-bending assholes and would die without trying to break our minds. When we had defeated the last boss, a triple-headed Arctic wolf, before we entered the 50th floor, Horus announced a longer break so we could take the time and properly solidify our gains as much as we can. From our casual talks up until this point, I¡¯ve been able to learn quite a lot about stats and I now know why free points were so valued and it was not because they would help you reach milestones to get trades, although that was important. The main reason why people valued them so much was because quite often you were just a bit shy from reaching the next energy rank and if you have maxed out your classes, that will be your last chance at reaching the next rank. While some can fight people above their rank, you would obviously want the huge power boost as that is always the correct choice. I now kind of regretted that I was putting so many free points into energy storage, but I also feel like it helped me reach this far which was a good compromise. It also seems that my training plan ability was quite clever to use my adventure class to boost my energy storage. I decided currently not to use my free points as my adventure class level up were helping me close in on the milestone. The rest of my stats have also been boosted up quite a lot with the level ups I have gotten, but none of them were close to a milestone. chapter 277 After a nice, long sleep, I ate more than usual just to have that nice, full feeling. I then went into a meditative position so I could refocus my mind and let my body stabilize from the influx of stat points I have been gaining. I felt that my mind has been too focused on fighting lately, which is making me make unwise decisions as I want to keep pushing to reach our goal as fast as possible. But this shouldn''t be the case. Our goal should be survival, and only after that should we strive to reach the core. While doing that, I also occasionally observed the others, and I didn¡¯t like what I saw. Horus and Arabella were quite fine, but they were built more like me, so that made sense. Adam and Luana, however, were a different story. I could see the signs that they were starting to crack from the continuous pressure. I should have figured that seeing that would be harder in this world. They were built a lot stronger than we were before the war. I should continue to observe and see if there are any changes during this rest period. Hopefully, they will just need some more time to accept what has happened because if they don''t, we''re never going to make it. And explaining it to them when they are already broken will be a lot tougher because they would fight against anything, even if that something was trying to help them. I continued to also reflect on myself, especially on the fact that my skills and most of my abilities aren''t leveling up as fast as I expected them to. I do not know how to feel about not being able to level up skills and abilities by doing the same thing over and over. It seems logical that eventually, you would reach the end of what you could achieve by doing the same thing, but at least to me, it feels like I¡¯m far from that point, but I guess the system doesn''t agree. I cleared my head once again. There is no point in going over the same thing once again. There is no point in wishing things were different if there is nothing I can do to fix them. I just got to accept that leveling skills and abilities is going to take a long time, but at least I have been gaining a lot of class levels, which is still quite nice. I wondered about the rest of my party members. Have they been gaining any new skills? How many levels have they gained in their class? I kind of want to know, but it¡¯s something I will never be able to learn, at least not with our current relationship. I also used this time to check up on the nation and found it quite interesting that some of the goblins joined the road-working initiative. Currently, humans and goblins were interacting without fighting each other, probably more than any time in history. I wondered how long this can still be kept a secret. As I was quite certain that the world council wasn''t going to like this, but that was a problem for the future. It was now time to concentrate on the sword. I took it out and laid it across my legs. It was still in excellent condition, but a bit of sharpening was called for. Continuing to sit down in the meditative position, I took a few hours to bring the edge back into perfect condition. My eyes still sparkled every time I looked at it, and I could just get lost in the patterns on the blade. Inside the sword, I saw that the weapon core was slowly refining the molecular structure to make it as perfect as possible for its purpose. I also saw how it was strengthening energy paths, but everything it was doing was slow-going, but it seems that the constant fighting has improved the speed, which makes sense as the constant usage of energy should help the weapon core make itself better. "Time''s up, let''s pack up and head downwards," Horus spoke, and everyone immediately started to work, but I was still in my seated position, slowly moving the enhanced sharpening stone steadily down the edge. Luana was the first to stop as she looked at me without understanding what was going on. I was usually the first one to start packing even before Horus had to say anything, and I guess it would be quite weird as I was basically disobeying a direct order. I continued what I was doing until slowly everything came to a halt. "Is something wrong?" Horus asked with a bit of nervousness in his voice. "We should take a longer break. We have all pushed ourselves, and there''s nothing wrong with taking a bit of a bigger break. If we keep going without resting properly, and I¡¯m not talking about our bodies, we will start to break," My words had the desired effect, at least on most of my companions. Unfortunately, as I had feared, Adam still wasn''t thinking clearly. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. "Who do you think is breaking because I am damn certain you know it''s not you, so tell me who do you think can¡¯t handle this?" Adam said quite furiously. But I was impressed that he was able to hold himself together as well as he did. "Of course I¡¯m not breaking. You can''t break something that''s already shattered," after my statement, everything went deathly quiet. "There is nothing wrong with needing extra time to let your mind work through things. The reason I brought this up is because Adam, you and Luana have both been struggling more than the rest of us. That is not something to be ashamed of. It is perfectly normal, and both of you are actually doing better than most others would." "Please, everyone, sit back down around the campfire. We have plenty of time to make sure that we can get as far into this dungeon as we can without being destroyed by it. Let me ask you, what point is there in making it to the end when you are left an empty husk? There is no need to answer. There is no point, at least for us." I continued sharpening my weapon as I saw everyone sit down, Adam being the last one to join us. I looked into each of their eyes, trying to learn as much as possible. "Horus, I must say, you have assembled some impressive people," I said, my words taking everyone by surprise. I did see satisfaction in Horus''s eyes. "We''re all above the regular people in terms of being able to survive and even thrive in life and death situations. But we all have different motivations and things that we can survive without being destroyed by them. On that front, Adam and Luana are the worst off. If you choose the life of combat, you will excel at it. But both of you need to be careful so that you don''t experience too much at once.¡± ¡°Adam, you could be a top-tier close combat healer who can also do some damage on his own, but currently, you are only here because you were told to do this. This affects you negatively.¡± After a short pause for my words to sink in, I continued. "But because of who you are, you are still doing it beyond expectations. You just have to be careful, especially currently, as this is the most amount of combat and death you have experienced. From what I have observed, you will be forged by this and made stronger without negatively affecting you, but that¡¯s only if we don''t push too hard. Just be conscious of your own mental state the same way you would be for your patients." We continued to sit in quiet as Adam absorbed what I told him. Eventually, he gave me a firm nod. After which, I moved on to Luana. "Luana, you also have little experience with this amount of combat and death. You find it hard not to think about what we have been going through as you feel like you should be able to handle this without problems because you want to be a great fighter." She answered in the affirmative, but she hesitated for quite a while as it was hard for her to acknowledge to herself that she might be having a hard time with the thing that she wants to do for her life. "I will be honest with you, you could be an excellent mercenary. You will just need time to forge yourself into something stronger. You will most likely still find it hard to accept when you lose people and if you have to do things against your morality. I suggest you focus on being the best mage you can so that you could choose your employers so you would never be forced to do something you are not comfortable with. It will take some time, but you have great potential to become what you want to be. Just please be mindful and don''t try to push yourself too hard." My words seemed to have an impact, and I readied myself to just continue to sit here until Adam and Luana had a chance to think things through and hopefully, they will want to extend our break. What they didn¡¯t expect was Horus to speak up. "I want you to do the same to me. Tell me what I need to watch out for?" Horus asked, and I looked at him with a curious eye. After a few moments, to my surprise, Arabella nodded, indicating she wished to know hers as well. "If you want to, it¡¯s no trouble. Both of you are not the same as Adam and Luana. You are more like me, gifted in the art of destruction." My words came as no surprise to them, but Adam and Luana were surprised. "Horus, you will not be broken by doing things that most wouldn''t do while being threatened by death. You will do them because it¡¯s your duty. What will break you is what comes afterwards when you find out doing those things wasn¡¯t necessary and the people you serve will become the people you hate.¡± ¡°You will continue to function and do your duty, but slowly, you will turn into an empty husk with empty eyes who continues to live because you know nothing else. You have a large family, so I¡¯m guessing my words have helped connect some loose threads." I looked at him, and I knew that most of what I said wasn¡¯t a surprise to him, but my last statement made his eyes water. "That explains it. I always felt that my grandfather wasn¡¯t the same after his last assignment, but at least now I understand what must have happened. Thank you, Rich." "I guess it¡¯s your turn, Arabella. You are the closest to myself, a person capable of becoming a hero." I could instantly see the wince that she tried to hide. "You are quite a lot older than the rest, and I believe you already know what I said, but you have also survived another kind of battle often referred to as the game.¡± ¡°From what I gathered, you were quite high up, and the fact that you have managed to get yourself banished instead of executed means that you were quite good at it. You could do terrible things in the name of whatever cause you choose. The rest of the world just has to hope that you choose to be a hero and not the villain." The rest of them were all looking at Arabella and me, trying to figure out if what I had said was correct or not, but eventually, Arabella spoke up. "You seem to have remarkable knowledge for someone so young. I am close to triple their age and yours, but something tells me I am wrong in my assumption of your age.¡± Elves really were gifted with genetics. They lived longer than any other major race and even for her age she still looked like a young adult. "What about you?" Luana asked me. I guess it would only be right if I share it with them as well. chapter 278 "Well, to understand me, you''ll need to know a bit more about my background. While everything I''ve told you about myself is true, there''s a quite important fact that I haven''t mentioned. A large portion of me isn''t from this world." Upon hearing my words, Luana let out a sigh of relief. I guess she knew about it but kept it a secret, probably because she didn¡¯t think I wanted anyone else to know. But honestly, I wouldn¡¯t have cared if she had told. Arabella looked at me, wanting more answers, so I explained things a bit more. Everyone found it quite confusing that I technically was just a skill that combined with the consciousness of a boy from this world. "Unfortunately, the part from the other world was a lot larger and mentally stronger than the young boy who had basically just died." They tried to ask more questions after that, but all I could do was shrug my shoulders as I had no more answers to give on that front. "Like I said before, I am very similar to Arabella, but I have actually fought in a large war where I was hailed as a hero for quite a while by the people around me and afterward by the rest of them who were saved by the war I fought in. During that time, I was surrounded by a lot of soldiers, so believe me when I say that the reason I could so easily read you is because I¡¯ve seen plenty of people like you before and seen what breaks them." I fell silent, lost in thought as my words brought back many memories and faces of people long dead. "How to start... I was just a nobody, but unlike many others, I didn¡¯t die. It gave me an opportunity to find out that I¡¯m really good at violence. It didn¡¯t take long until I was leading a small group of men that eventually turned into a large group.¡± ¡°I was their hero, the person that led them through fight after fight. But unfortunately, the fighting never ended, and because of my success, harder and harder missions were given, which of course led to many losses." I was brought back to reality when Horus coughed lightly to get my attention. It appears that I had sunk into memories and was watching the flames with vacant eyes. "Sorry about that.¡± ¡°I saw as the people who called me hero died or were broken, and eventually, I was no longer called that. The first chance I got to move up in leadership, I took it. It changed the casualties from people I knew and depended on me to numbers, which, while still hard to handle, helped mend a little bit of the broken self I was.¡± ¡°Unfortunately, while that did help, it was only for a while. I once again excelled at my tasks, and soon I was responsible for so many more than I ever had before. The reality of that war was that 500 casualties per hour was something you celebrated. Thinking back on it, it''s still an absurd thing to celebrate - only 500 casualties an hour, what luck are we having today?¡± Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! "That was what shattered me. My combination of beliefs and the strength of my will is the only thing that has kept me going and will unfortunately keep doing so until something finally kills me. You know, everything related to that war, I am actually proud of one award that I had gotten. It was after the war that I took upon myself to help as many veterans as I could who were no longer capable of handling a life without war. I did so voluntarily, and without my knowledge, I had helped many people. When I received the award, it was the proudest I¡¯ve been. "Over 1000 veterans were helped by me personally. It was a number that shocked me when I first heard it just before I got the reward. The only thing that I regretted was that I wasn¡¯t able to help all of them. So, to sum it up, I am one of Arabella¡¯s possible futures, one of the worst ones. But just to make it clear, the only good outcome for people like me and Arabella is to die when we have accomplished our duty." I lifted my eyes from the flames to find sadness staring back at me. "You can''t change the past; you can just continue living. I think it''s a good time to have a competition. Let''s see who can tell the worst jokes. Allow me to start. Why don¡¯t eggs tell each other jokes? They might crack up!" The groan I got from Adam was magnificent. And so, we spent the rest of the day telling jokes and funny stories until we all went to sleep. After which, we all felt a lot more refreshed and ready to dive deeper into the dungeon. As soon as we had stepped onto the 50th floor, I felt that same feeling I felt back on the 25th floor, just having to agree, and I would be teleported out. Looking around, I didn¡¯t see anyone disappearing, so we got into formation and started to figure out our surroundings and what we might face. It looked like quite a common ruin type. An open, old stone town that nature had reclaimed. The first run in with the type of enemy we would be facing came in the form of an ambush from the top of the ruins and the trees. Seven flying squirrels, the size of large dogs, flew towards us. But it seems that their ability to control air was at an incredible level. None of our longer-ranged attacks landed, and only Arabella was able to do any damage or even attack a second time as the rest of us weren¡¯t as fast as she was. "You flying rats should have stayed in your homes so you could continue to suck your mother¡¯s milk." My taunt worked like it always did, and every single one of them focused on me. They didn¡¯t come into melee range, but they were close enough that I could jump and attack them, which led to their first casualty before they could even do anything serious to us. With their focus on me, the fight was over quickly enough as their strongest move of trying to lift me up high with their air manipulation and then attack or drop me didn¡¯t work as I just made myself too heavy. Now a lot more cautious, we were ready to quickly move through these ruins and find our way down, but after killing two more groups, we happened to find the boss room to take us downwards. That was incredibly lucky as we hadn''t even spent half an hour on this floor. Our opponent was the same kind of flying squirrel, except it was ten times bigger. At first, we thought that this was going to be a long fight, wounding it enough to kill it would be difficult if it also had the same air manipulation, but things turned out to be different. It somehow split into hundreds of smaller, incredibly agile and fast flying squirrels. This fight could have been incredibly dangerous, but my taunt once again worked as intended. So all I had to do was strengthen my defenses and let Luana cast fire spells on top of me whenever a large group of them flew towards me to try to damage me. It was a boring and slow fight, and in the end, trying to find the few smaller flying squirrels that were still alive was troublesome, but overall this was still our fastest floor. After a short rest, we once again went deeper, but our minds were all on the loot that we got from the last boss. It looked incredibly interesting and felt powerful, but unfortunately, none of us were specialized in identifying it, so we didn''t know what it could possibly do. chapter 279 We were still making good time descending, but the fighting started to get complicated as the monsters we encountered began to exhibit a multitude of different abilities. If the trend continued, we might finally get stuck if we ended up in a disadvantageous environment and opponent. But, like with every other combat, luck plays a large part in whether you will succeed or not. Fortunately, we were still able to bypass most traps by me just running into them, but we have encountered some traps I haven''t triggered because my danger senses have started to warn me about them. Thankfully, we have Arabella and Horus who are both quite capable of disarming traps. I also figured out that some traps that might pose a danger to my defenses I could just launch an attack against, which would nullify them. All of this combined allowed us to get past the trapped areas of the ruins relatively fast. The real question is how long will we be able to keep this up as I imagine these traps would grow quite deadly to any one of us. Horus has warned us that in the future we might need to start backtracking and find different ways through if we find something too time-consuming or too dangerous for us to tackle, which made complete sense. The fighting was a complete blast as I was able to roll over most monsters by just bisecting them with a single strike. And the few monsters we have run into that have required more usually were in lower numbers so the difficulty wasn¡¯t greater. Protecting my party members has also grown harder as we have run into more ambush-type opponents who have usually been able to launch their attacks before I could intercept or taunt them. This also led to our most serious injury where Horus lost four fingers. Adam had him fixed in less than a minute but we did take a break afterwards so everyone had the chance to absorb what happened. Even with everything going on, we were still pushing ourselves even further ahead of schedule. I continued to observe everyone¡¯s mental health. We''ve been taking more breaks and talking. As a result, everything seemed to be satisfactory. It seems that my party members truly were the best of the best and I wasn¡¯t complaining. I also believe that us all gaining levels have helped everyone keep their sanity as I know that I certainly am looking forward every time I level. While I haven¡¯t seen anything noteworthy, I was moving ever closer to my stat milestones which will hopefully allow me to get more powerful traits. We were approaching the boss room of the 71st floor. This area has been especially tough as we were in quite high-tech ruins where we were fighting golems and trying to get past incredibly intricate traps. On my left hand over my armor was a new bracelet that I got from the last boss from the previous floor. It was a straight upgrade for my shield which was now laying forgotten and probably absorbed by the dungeon as bringing it along would be pointless extra weight. It was when deployed a lot smaller than my previous shield but in every other way, it was far superior. When deployed, it resembled a Viking shield that was made out of brass-looking metal. But it wasn¡¯t shiny, it was dull. It was incredibly receptive to my energy which helped increase its effectiveness when using the abilities this shield came with. Increased toughness, deploy/store, and shield others. Deploy/store allowed me to change the shield from its bracelet form to its shield form. Usually, this would take at least a few seconds but I can push it to be almost instant. Increased toughness allowed me to truly make the shield something that could protect me but that also consumed a lot of energy. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Shield others was something that actually made me a tank and not just someone who could only taunt monsters, now I can actually defend my party members as well. Luckily, this ability worked even when the item was in bracelet form. When someone else was attacked, a large portion of the damage would reflect onto my body instead of my party member. There were many limitations on how much damage it can transfer but it was still really good. Of course, my armor and defensive abilities helped mitigate any damage that made it to me. Thanks to this, we have already been able to save a lot of time not having to regrow Arabella and Horus''s arms as they would have lost them from trying to disarm the horrible traps for this area. To my surprise, items with abilities weren¡¯t that rare for second-rank adventurers. The problem was that they simply didn''t end up in the open market as no one wanted to sell them. When you did have such an item that you didn''t want, you usually traded it for another item that suited you more. It seems like there was more of a barter system for these items rather than selling them for coins or anything else. And after fighting with it for about a day, I had to agree this item was just so damn useful. My musings were interrupted when the door we used to enter this room shut behind us. Everyone cursed, but Arabella and Horus were the loudest. "This is stupidly complex," Horus complained. As if the room had heard him, we all heard stone grinding against stone. When it stopped, water started to slowly fill the room. We all started to panic a bit, but I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I''ve never experienced this feeling before, nothing quite like being threatened by slowly drowning. "At least the water is warm," I said to everyone, which seemed to calm the situation down a bit. "Rich, go see if you can open the door that shut on us. Luana and Adam, see if you can stop that water from coming in. Arabella and I will try to once again solve the puzzle," Horus said, and we all followed his orders. I moved to the door, but it looked like a solid piece of rock I couldn¡¯t see through. Knocking on it, it felt like the most solid object I¡¯ve ever come across. I tried to punch as strongly as I could, but all I did was end up hurting my hand. I tried a multitude of ways to get through it, but strength didn¡¯t work and there didn¡¯t seem to be any other way to open the door. The water was now up to my shins. I looked at what Adam and Luana were able to do. It seems that they truly were able to slow down the water, but they didn''t seem to be able to stop it completely. No matter what they tried, some water still got in. Arabella cursed again, and we heard the stone grinding again, and the water started to pour in faster. This isn¡¯t good. We all moved to the puzzle to try to figure out what it was and if we could help Arabella and Horus. Arabella began her explanation of how the puzzle worked, but honestly, she was making it sound way more complicated than it actually was. It was a type of labyrinth puzzle where you needed to deliver an exact amount of energy to different nodes inside the labyrinth. If you messed up your energy containment or even if you brought too much, you could mess up a part of the labyrinth, making the puzzle possibly unsolvable. There also seemed to be a sort of a timer because if you don¡¯t bring the energy to the nodes fast enough, they will disappear, which will cause you to fail immediately. It seems like multiple people can do this at the same time and honestly, perhaps it was meant to be done by multiple people. The amount of nodes was ridiculous. We put our hands on the puzzle so we could also join in, but it soon became clear that Adam and Luana weren''t really that good at controlling energy. "You guys really need to do some more training with your energy, you guys suck," I told them when they retreated without doing too much damage. For me, controlling energy wasn¡¯t the difficult part. Honestly, nothing was truly difficult, it was just time-consuming to figure out the labyrinth as we couldn¡¯t see it from up top, we could only sense where the nodes were where we needed to bring a certain amount of energy. I wish that they had called me earlier because I was better at this than both of them combined. "Horus, don¡¯t go back in," I quickly told him as I saw that he almost lost control the last time he finished a node, and luckily, he listened to me. He slumped down in exhaustion. Arabella stopped without me having to say anything, which actually allowed me to concentrate better as I wasn¡¯t constantly worried about others. I was certain that if we met up in the labyrinth none of us could have stopped the explosion that would have taken out a part of the labyrinth. I was constantly battling the time. I needed to add more and more energy packets that were constantly moving so I could keep up. I never had to do such fine control before with so many different amounts of energy and having to move them all independently, and eventually, I did mess up and one of the energy packets exploded. This, however, happened in a good spot with multiple ways around it. My mind sank into this task and I constantly moved the tiny energies along the paths, ensuring nothing went wrong until finally, I didn¡¯t see any more nodes. I came back to myself to find out that the water was almost up to my neck, but it was starting to drain. We all celebrated but readied ourselves for battle when the doors behind the puzzle started to open. It was time for us to release some of the tension we gained from the puzzle room. chapter 280 POV Luana We all rushed into what we presumed to be the boss room, but I couldn¡¯t detect anything there. Soon, Arabella and Rich said at the same time, "Clear?" We were all still vigilant; we just never expected a boss room to possibly have an ambush. "Everyone, keep vigilant," I heard Horus say, but my attention was pulled towards Rich, who was looking at all of us with a questioning look. "Why do you all look like drowned cats?" This infuriating man! It was because we were drowning. My fingers still hurt from trying to hold on to the wall so I could keep my head above the water line. Who would have guessed my robes could get so heavy when soaked in water? I was about to give him a piece of my mind, but at that moment, we started to hear stone grinding. Slowly, in the centre of the room, a figure began to form from rock that was flowing like water that started to look like a human-like monster. I started to prepare my kinetic strike spell, the one that has been incredibly useful in dealing with other golems on this floor, but the monster kept getting bigger. While holding a spell isn''t too much trouble, it''s still not good for damage output. Rich, of course, attacked with his ranged attack. "Hold all attacks," I heard Horus command, but immediately after that, Rich spoke, "Why?" My first thought was because the monster wasn¡¯t ready yet, but I believe almost all of us came to the same conclusion. "Everyone, ranged attacks. Let''s see if we can do any damage before it finishes coalescing itself," Horus commanded. We all followed Horus''s command, and I launched my spell to see it do almost negligible damage. I so hoped that it was because it was more immune to damage while coalescing, but something told me this was going to be an incredibly difficult fight. We continued to attack, and we were able to do some damage, but the monster kept growing, now being over 10 metres tall. The taller it got, the harder it was to damage it. Two more metres and none of us was able to do any damage; we were barely leaving any scratches. "Retreat," Horus yelled, and we all started to move back towards the door, but as soon as I took a step backwards, the door slammed shut. Similarly to the last room. Rich blurred past me, and we felt the power in his attack when he tried to break the door, but there didn¡¯t seem to be any damage. "We ain¡¯t getting through here," Rich announced as he ran back to the front. It seemed that the monster, now almost 20 metres tall with arms that reached the floor, was done coalescing. Every other golem we had fought had a major weakness in their head where there was a crystal that they used to observe their surroundings, and we all waited for that crystal to appear, but it never did. "Hey, you porous-looking rock, want to see if you crack when we cook you?" Rich taunted the monster, and once again I held my breath like I do every time, hoping that the monster would focus on him. It was hard to tell, but after so many fights and so many different monsters, I knew that Rich had once again succeeded, and I sighed internally in relief. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The monster wasn¡¯t fast, but that was the only good thing. Its damage output was ridiculous, as my abilities indicated that if I were to be hit by it, I would turn into paste. But the most troublesome fact was that none of us could damage it. None of my spells, even when I pushed them to the limit, did anything to it, and while cooking the monster to see if it cracked might have been a good taunt, it was never going to work in real life. We had hoped the miracle sword Rich used was able to do something, but even that was only able to leave a small scratch. The small hope that gave us was extinguished the next moment when the monster repaired itself. It was harder to see from the corners of my eyes, and I felt that the room was closing in on me. It was the same feeling I got from the last room, but even stronger. Was this going to become my tomb? How long could Rich keep dodging, or perhaps the monster would finally start to target the rest of us? I could hear Horus trying to say something to us, but it was like I was deep under the water, as I could barely hear his voice. There had to be a way out. I quickly started to look around, and I noticed the staircase that should lead us downwards. Yes, of course, that¡¯s the way out. I focused on it and started to move towards it. I stopped for a moment as I thought I heard Horus''s voice, but it must have just been the wind. Why would there be wind in this room? The next moment, my vision was blocked by someone tall. Was that Rich? "Don''t give up so easily. I still have a plan," I heard his voice clearly, and the next moment I understood those words, and my vision cleared. He picked me up and threw me, and while flipping through the air, I now knew why I felt that wind. The monster was almost about to hit me. I saw Rich sent flying by the attack, and the very next moment, I hit the ground hard. I think I blacked out for a moment, and then when my eyes opened, Adam was looking down on me while casting a spell. "Don¡¯t worry, the same thing happened to me, but I tried to get through the door we came in from. Rich apparently has a plan, but it will take a while. He told us to get to the far corner and just in case, to be ready to defend against any wide-range attacks that might reach us.¡± I nodded to that and took the hand that was offered to get me back on my feet. I was led to the corner, and I started to cast defensive and obscuring spells. It was a good distraction, as I really didn¡¯t want to think about what had happened. We watched as Rich got his ass kicked. I had seen him fight plenty of times, and I knew that he could have dodged every single attack that monster made, but instead, he was constantly allowing the monster to hit him. He was very careful about when the attacks hit him, only allowing the monster to come into contact with him at the beginning of a strike or the end of it, where there wasn¡¯t too much power left. Even then, any one of those attacks would have killed me. Why was he doing that was something that we were all discussing, and it took about half an hour before Arabella figured out the reason. Rich was somehow collecting or storing the kinetic energy from the Monster''s Strike to presumably store it up for a huge attack that will hopefully damage or kill the monster. But from the looks of it, it will still take quite a while before he has stored up enough of this kinetic energy to do any real damage. Occasionally, Adam needed to heal him, as he was still accumulating damage from all the hits he was taking. This comfortable rhythm was broken almost exactly one hour into the fight when suddenly the creature''s attack accelerated, catching Rich off guard. I winced as I heard the bone crack that echoed inside the room. How was that so loud? "Wait, Adam, this is probably going to take a lot out of you, so prepare yourself," we all heard Rich say before he once again moved and then yelled at the monster, "Why in the living shit did a limestone motherfucker like you wait so long to use an ability? What the fuck is wrong with you?" Now, I wasn¡¯t certain if that was a taunt or if Rich was truly mad. I looked towards Adam, who was confused at Rich''s warning, and I saw how he weaved the spell to be as strong as possible. When he cast it, I heard him mumble under his breath, "Shit, that''s ridiculous." And when the spell ended, he yelled towards Rich, "What are your bones made out of? It took over 10% of my total mana to fix that one break." I was completely stunned like everyone else, but a moment later, I understood that it made sense. If Rich had weaker bones, he would never have been able to take those hits. That last hit would have broken every bone, or at least shattered his arm bones completely, not made a singular break. "Watch out," we heard Rich yell, and we all focused back on the fight to see a shower of small rocks flying towards us. Immediately, I used one of the defensive spells I had laid down to quickly activate my shield spell, but I continued to weave the spell stronger and denser, then started pumping in as much mana as I could. chapter 281 POV Luana Being completely connected to my shield, I felt the impact of those small rocks. Each one felt like a mountain and my shield started to crack, but I continued to weave the spell so I could repair and strengthen it continuously. I collapsed from having spent nearly 30% of my total mana and pushing my mind to its limits. But I succeeded. The shield was cracked by the end, but it was able to keep us safe. Rich told us that he believed that might happen again, and I suspected that we were going to have to stay mobile as well. But I hadn¡¯t seen the true extent of the attack. It wasn¡¯t targeted at us. The entire room was torn apart. There was no escape from that attack. I felt how I swallowed the last moisture left in my mouth as I realized I would need to do that again, possibly more than once. The next almost three hours went by in a blur. I was completely exhausted so much so that I wasn¡¯t even able to stand up. It has been almost three hours from the first time I needed to use the shield spell. I had to use it two more times and if I was correct, this bastard of a monster was going to use it once again quite soon. Horus reassured me that either way, we were not going to need the next shield as Rich was going to kill the monster or he wasn''t and we were dead no matter what we will try to do. I don¡¯t think it was as comforting as Horus thought it would be. Horus and Arabella were the best off as they had done nearly nothing. Adam was almost in the same situation as me as he has needed to fix Rich up a few times. Rich, the person who is doing the most in this fight, however, looked like he was just having fun. It was honestly sickening how good he was at fighting and that body of his was straight up cheating. Fortunately, he was on my side so I wasn¡¯t complaining that much. My energy training truly sucked but even I was able to feel how much of it he was storing up after having been hit by such strong attacks for so long. If this didn''t kill the monster, nothing will but how would he be able to even use that much stored-up power, I had no idea. ¡°I¡¯m going in,¡± we heard Rich speak in a calm and cold voice. That voice sent shivers down my back and I was pretty sure it was going to be a recurring voice for my nightmares. It promised death. We all looked as Rich activated some sort of a last-stand ability which ramped up his energy power even more and then he stopped suppressing the power he had been collecting. I had to shield my eyes, he was glowing so brightly. ¡°How isn¡¯t his body turning into dust?¡± I heard Adam ask. As soon as Adam finished saying that, we heard a painful scream. While Rich seemed to be able to somewhat handle this amount of power, it certainly came with a cost. I suspect that he wouldn¡¯t be able to handle this for much longer but he also didn''t need to. All the power inside his body started to move towards his sword. He didn¡¯t hesitate and started striking with his ranged attack as soon as he reached some sort of a threshold within his sword. The first attack that landed left a large scar but every other second he was able to launch an attack as powerful as the first. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Every hit made the monster stumble backwards and more and more rocks from its body started to fall to the ground. It lost its left arm first and it didn''t take long until one of its legs couldn''t bear its weight and it started to fall to the ground. Even without one of its arms and legs, it still tried to crawl towards Rich. But the power Rich held also started to wane after so many attacks but the last one he held in his sword seemed to be a step above the others and this time he didn¡¯t launch a ranged attack but rushed in. The monster tried to attack him with his arm but he just dodged it and delivered a large overhead strike on the monster''s head. The sword pierced through the rock and split the head into two pieces, finally ending this prolonged fight. I slumped in relief as this fight was finally over. Releasing the spells that I still held onto, my mind relaxed and I fell asleep hoping that they will allow me to sleep until I was fully recovered as I really didn¡¯t want to deal with the mana exhaustion headaches. POV Arabella I watched as Luana slumped into unconsciousness. The next one to go was Rich, and then I saw Adam perform his final spell to heal Rich up from the damage he took from channelling so much power, after which he also blacked out. We had somehow survived with three party members completely exhausting themselves while me and Horus were completely fresh. We just stood there not knowing what to do. I don¡¯t know about Horus but I felt completely useless in this fight. ¡°I guess let¡¯s bring Rich back here and make this our campsite for a while until everyone¡¯s recovered,¡± Horus said and in agreement, we started to move towards Rich but then I stopped. ¡°Hey Horus, perhaps it¡¯s better if we bring Luana and Adam to Rich and make the campsite there.¡± My words stopped him and he looked between Rich and the two mages, let out a tired sigh. ¡°You are correct, bringing those two would be way easier than trying to move that fat ass.¡± ¡°Horus, he¡¯s in no way fat. I would say that he¡¯s actually in perfect physical condition. But I will concede that he weighs way more than he should.¡± It didn¡¯t take us long until camp was set and we didn''t even have to worry about defences as the door never opened and the only way out of this room was to go downwards. ¡°Horus, this place seemed to be way harder than it should have been.¡± I asked and after a little while he answered. ¡°Little is known about what lays so deep in this dungeon so we most likely just got unlucky and ended up in one of the hardest sections on this floor but from the few books I¡¯ve read of personal accounts of this dungeon this far deep, one floor you might breeze through like we did the last floor and then right afterwards the next floor will get you killed almost immediately, kinda like with this fight. But those are rare occurrences, mostly it''s still a linear rise in challenge, we just have to hope that the next floor will not be like this one.¡± If that¡¯s the case, would it be wise to go past floor 75? If I remember correctly most don¡¯t go past that but our goal is to reach the core which seems like a stupid decision. I continue to listen as Horus spoke about the dungeon but my eyes drifted towards the sword that was only a few feet from me, still held in Rich''s right hand. The wood in the handle called for me but the sword itself didn¡¯t seem welcoming. I kinda wanted to touch it and see if I could verify the maker''s mark because it¡¯s hard to believe Rich made this sword. It just didn¡¯t make any sense because how could he be so good at crafting and fighting? Making the bow I can kinda accept as he seemed to have been a master bow crafter in his other life but there¡¯s no way he should have been able to make this sword or even have access to materials to even attempt something like that. ¡°Horus, what did the boss monster drop?¡± I didn¡¯t get an answer to my question so I look towards him to find him scanning the room. ¡°I don¡¯t think there is a drop which is super weird for this floor unless of course Rich is on top of it but that seems unlikely.¡± After we slept, Rich was the first one to wake up complaining about the headache and looking way too cute with his sleepy face. ¡°Son of a bitch, I must have slept really badly as my chest hurts so much. I don¡¯t even think I got hit there once,¡± he complained as soon as he had something to eat and I once again wanted to ask him 120 questions but this simply wasn¡¯t the place or time but at least I know where he lived so he wouldn''t be able to escape those questions. Adam and Luana woke up almost 12 hours after Rich and they needed an entire extra day to get back into fighting shape. We were all quite glad to be out of this area as it brought nothing but misery without giving us anything back, well perhaps a few skill levels for the ones who fought but for me, this was basically a zero-gain floor. chapter 282 Waking up after exerting myself so much was painful, especially the headache, but weirdly, my chest hurt the most, which was strange. Even after hours of resting, after my headache was nearly gone, and everything else seemed in peak order, the left side of my chest still hurt. Did the monster do something to me? That didn¡¯t make any sense. Not finding anything wrong, I decided to go and look at my achievement page. I had quite a few notifications. I guess I have more time to go over everything as it would be quite good to see how much I¡¯ve gained over our time here in the dungeon. The biggest thing was that my adventurer''s class leveled up twice in this fight and got me more stat points in energy storage, giving me a new trait. Whatever was governing luck in this world was certainly being nice to me today. The new trait was called multiple energy cores. Looking inside my energy body, I could see how my energy core started to slowly branch out, building pathways to the presumed other cores that will eventually start to grow. This seemed to have taken some of my energy regeneration, an actual noticeable amount, but it wouldn''t hurt me too much. It''ll take some time until I can start to take advantage of this new upgrade, but I have also gained quite a lot of other stuff. My first homesteader class is now level 33, while the other two are level 32. All three also gained a two-level from this fight, which was quite good but not quite enough to get me to my next stat milestones. I was quite close with my perception and constitution to the 640 milestone. Presence was also really close to the 320 milestone, but wisdom wasn¡¯t too far off. Hopefully, I will have as much luck with them as I had with energy storage. Technically, my strength also wasn¡¯t too far away from its 2560 milestone, but that''s because I was getting a lot more of it than any other stat. Agility is also quite close to 2000, getting to 1977, but my vitality is starting to lag behind, not even reaching 1900. During this fight, it also seems like I was able to get past three skill milestones, giving me new choices in ability. For my camouflage skill milestone, out of the three choices, I picked thermal masking as I really didn¡¯t have a good way to hide my body heat, and hopefully, this will make hiding myself easier and less energy-consuming. My tracking skill also leveled up, but that probably happened before we entered the puzzle room. When the choices were given, I truly had to believe that this was a lucky day as one of those choices was ethereal sight. Not only was this another vision ability, but it also sounded quite powerful as well. Although how it would possibly help me, I had no idea. What even was ethereal and where could I possibly see it? I tested it out, and perhaps there were wisps of something around that looked like wind, but even while fully concentrating on this ability, nothing really changed from my regular vision. I guess that further testing is needed. Now for the last major upgrade, my basic energy construction skill ranked up. All the choices were quite good. One was energy chains, then there was energy shield, and lastly, energy armor. Two were defensive, and one was offensive/crowd control, possibly. I have already been doing something similar to energy armor but completely manually, which takes a lot of concentration and extra energy, so perhaps having a system-helped version would be quite useful. Then again, the other two also sounded good. After a while from the options, I disregarded the energy shield as it would do basically the same thing as energy armor, and I felt that it would be the better choice for me from the two. But that still left energy chains. In the end, it came down to usage time. I would be using energy armor constantly compared to the situational usage of energy chains, no matter how good it might be. With that done, I looked over some of my level gains for abilities. The most impressive being my weapon abilities reaching level 60 and armor enhancement reaching level 77. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. With the level gains, I find it a lot easier to strengthen those abilities and use them more freely, allowing me to use them more specifically, like strengthening my chest area or arm armor, for example. They have advanced quite a lot in this dungeon, but this makes sense as they are one of my most used abilities and something that has kept me alive. After Adam woke up, I thanked him profusely for keeping me in the fight. His healing was really crucial for me to be able to keep going, especially after the first heavy attack landed and broke my bone. It was quite quiet, but everyone seemed to be handling everything well enough, so I just focused on myself. I still had a lot of healing to do, but no matter what I did, my chest still hurt every once in a while. Once again, I tried to find a reason, but I couldn¡¯t, but my searching did lead me to my mind palace. No longer did I have a singular small castle with a small wall; I would now more call this a citadel than a castle. My mind companion was doing excellent work, building everything up and strengthening what was already made. With my instruction, we also had some aerial defenses in the form of mounted ballistas. I couldn¡¯t find my companion immediately, so I figured he must be somewhere inside the structure, but I didn¡¯t feel up to searching for him, and it kind of felt impolite to call him here if he was working on something important. I also still needed to name him. The rest time we needed to take so Adam and Luana would be ready to continue went by quite fast. Fortunately for us, the next floors were a lot easier. None of us could simply fight through those floors anymore, and we all needed to put everything we had into the boss fights. Like this, we were still able to make good time descending until we reached the 74th floor, which brought with it a different kind of danger. POV Luana After we found ourselves on an extremely dangerous floor and won against it. Things weren''t much easier on the next floors, but for some reason, it seemed like everything was going as expected. We had one more floor to clear before we could once again choose if we wanted to leave or not. Currently, I would choose to stay, and I knew that Adam felt the same. Perhaps my choice was also influenced by the item I got from the last boss, a ring that allows me to boost one type of elemental spell to be up to 40% stronger, which is incredibly beneficial. Currently, it''s set to fire type, and clearing out the smaller packs of mutated goblin-rat creatures we found ourselves against was incredibly easy because of that. However, we were in a weird, empty part of the ruins, and I was starting to get concerned because we should be encountering more monsters. Suddenly, Rich raised his hand and showed us a fist, which meant we needed to stop. I didn''t understand why he couldn''t just mentally tell us that, but we all stopped. Horus, who was closest to the front after Rich, he walked next to him to try to figure out what was going on. I had a good line of sight to what was in front of us, but I didn¡¯t see anything. That calmness didn''t last long as another party of delvers appeared after they dropped their camouflage. The only thing I could do when I recognized who they were was to curse inside my head. This was not good. I knew two of them, and even a few teachers had warned the rest of us to stay away from them. They were extremely politically connected and came from old families, and unfortunately, they were also quite like what Rich would call ¡®complete dicks.¡¯ Just the look on their faces and those evil smiles made me shiver, and they didn''t promise anything good if they were going to do anything to us. I could see Horus trying to think of something, but the best-case scenario would be that they would steal everything from us, and even Adam''s family couldn¡¯t do anything to punish them afterwards. It seemed that the other party had come to an agreement as they started to walk towards us fast, acting like they owned the place. Before they got too close, a horrible presence burrowed deep into me. It felt like I was a bunny, and a giant hawk was about to catch me. I heard that familiar cold voice. "Hey Horus, since we are in this dungeon, if we kill anyone, no one can find out, right? Doubling our loot sounds quite good, but since I will be doing most of the murdering, I want the majority of it." Every movement stopped, and my mind finally cleared enough to see it was Rich who was emanating that dreadful presence and apparently quite ready to kill the other party with his bare hands, which he was currently using to crack his fingers. We all had asked him to stop doing those cracks because, with his bones, it sounded way too loud and scary. The first one to speak was Horus, to my complete surprise. "No, they are our schoolmates. We aren¡¯t supposed to be doing things like that now, aren''t we, Hunruka?" Horus''s answer and his question got things moving again. They didn''t answer immediately but tried to size Rich up, and whatever they found, they didn''t like. "Adam, wait, let me think, Horus, we were here trying to welcome our schoolmates, and your party member here seems quite bloodthirsty. You should choose your party members better, but I¡¯m glad that being from the same school actually means something to you. We''re all in a hurry, so let''s not waste our time. Let''s do what protocol demands and head back towards where we came from." "That sounds fine to us. That¡¯s why protocols have been set up. We wish you the very best and hope for a fast stair find for you and your party," Horus said, and the other party reciprocated. It all happened so fast. We backed off while constantly looking at each other seeing if someone will make a move, but as soon as the corner was turned, we started to move even faster. "We need to find the staircase down as fast as possible. I do not trust them, and good thinking, Rich, you probably saved our lives there," Horus said, to which Rich just shrugged his shoulders. chapter 283 I kept my senses constantly aware of our surroundings, even during the fighting. I managed to scare the other party away, but I was a bit disappointed they didn¡¯t choose to fight. However, I was quite certain they wouldn¡¯t give up on us so easily. Everyone was still quite tense from the encounter with the other party, and they were all eager to get to the next floor. I was certain we wouldn¡¯t make it before we needed to take a break and sleep for the evening. The fighting on this floor wasn''t too bad, but it was still exhausting for the others. During the short breaks from fighting, while we were just exploring or waiting for traps to be disarmed, I enjoyed looking at how in my energy body my new trait worked on making new pathways so my energy cores could connect to one another. Currently, I have seven new ones that are incredibly small and I think won¡¯t ever be as significant as the main one. The cores that have been started are in the neck, brain, both shoulders, both lungs, and one in my stomach. The amount of them is truly astonishing, but I don¡¯t know exactly what they will do. Will they function similarly to the original core that I had, or will they be more like extensions of it? I have no idea. Perhaps this is just the beginning and these are the building blocks for something even bigger and better. I guess I will be able to find out in the future. Another strange thing is that I haven¡¯t been able to locate my mind companion. I think I will actually call it to me the next time I have a chance, but not today, as I don¡¯t want to be distracted just in case the other party discovers us. We continued fighting, but as I suspected, we weren''t close to the next floor''s staircase. Everyone seems to be accepting the fact that we will be continuing to fight until we find one. This was unacceptable for multiple reasons, but most of all because I didn¡¯t want to get hit by my own party members as I¡¯ve noticed their aiming capabilities starting to diminish. "We should find a place to camp. We have already pushed ourselves too far. It seems that we won''t be getting out of this floor as soon as we wanted," I said. My words came as a heavy blow to the others, but they all understood that we can''t keep pushing. "Rich is correct. We were all hoping to get to the next floor before we needed rest, but let¡¯s make this rest as short as possible. No extra downtime this time. Everyone eats as fast as possible and everyone gets to sleep immediately. Rich will take the first watch, and the second will be Arabella." Horus agreed. It took a while for us to find a suitable campsite. "Rich, if I remember correctly, you do not need to sleep this time, so please prepare the food before the rest of us wake up and while Arabella is on watch so we can get moving as soon as possible," Horus said to us after we reached our campsite. I gave him a firm nod and he watched me a bit longer than usual, trying to figure out what I was thinking, but then he followed his own command and we quickly ate and I watched as they all went to sleep. We were in a tunnel-like ruin structure, but the tunnels were quite wide and the stone seemed to be quite well-kept and didn¡¯t damage easily. However, there were still sections that were collapsed, sometimes so badly that we needed to go around them. We were currently in a side room of a bigger room. I didn¡¯t like that we didn¡¯t have an escape route, but I have come to realise that this is actually the best choice in the ruins of this dungeon as any path that you leave to your campsite will probably be attacked by roaming monsters. Roaming monsters are a lot weaker and there are fewer of them than in the normal monster packs who patrol a certain area, but they are still dangerous. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Usually, we set up ourselves in a hidden position where we could see and attack anything that came through the only way into our campsite. But that¡¯s what every party that is sent down here is instructed to do. So this wouldn¡¯t work this time since we possibly needed to defend against someone who would know this fact. As I looked at the room, I noted just how thick the walls were. With a little bit of testing, I figured out that I could remove those stones, so I started to work. My idea was to make a hollow space just above the doorway so anything that came through we would have a perfect opportunity to attack them from above. If any other party came through this door, they would expect us to be at the sides of the doorway, which should give us plenty of opportunity to attack back. I still didn¡¯t like it because they could overwhelm Arabella, for example, and defending against who knows what abilities in a closed space didn''t sound promising. Unfortunately, there wasn¡¯t anything else I could do during my watch as we still needed to be mindful of the dungeon monsters. My shift went by slowly as I waited for the proverbial shoe to drop, but it didn''t happen. There was only the expected amount of roaming monsters which I took care of with my throwing daggers without them even finding me. I didn¡¯t want to jump down and attack just in case the other party was waiting for our lookout to make a mistake like that which would allow them to quickly take one of us out without possibly alerting the others. Finally, Arabella joined me in this room and I did enjoy the look of brief panic when she didn¡¯t find me where I was supposed to be. It only took her a singular moment to locate me after which she gave me an approving look. "That''s quite a nice idea but I don¡¯t think there will be room for two of us up here," she said, which confused me a bit. "Why would we need room for the two of us up here?" I said while starting to climb down. I wasn¡¯t looking at her so I didn''t know exactly what her facial expression was but I guess she was a bit confused. "You aren¡¯t going to join me, wait, you aren¡¯t thinking of going out there like you usually do. It isn''t safe and what if they attack us, we would need you to have a chance at defeating them." I turned around to find her closer than I expected and quite worried. "No need to worry, I won¡¯t go far. I will try to find another lookout place that could keep an eye on this doorway from the other side. I don¡¯t quite like being so closed in without knowing the capabilities of our opponents." She seemed to accept my explanation and after a brief conversation, I headed outside where unfortunately I was going to not keep my word as I needed to move further away. If there was going to be a fight, I want the odds to be in our favour as much as possible. I was going to need to follow some assumptions that I hope were going to be right because if they weren¡¯t, this could end really badly. But I have some good evidence to suggest that I was at least somewhat right in my guesses. If I was wrong, they would have already attacked us but since this hasn''t happened, I was going to try to execute my main plan. Of course, the best plan would have been to somehow disguise our passing, making their party unable to find us, but none of us had any abilities that would work and the energy control that I had that could help dispel some of our trail, I wasn¡¯t so certain would work against the people in the other party. I was now moving quite fast, hoping that I could reach my preferred ambush spot before they did. Thirty minutes of running later, I slowed down to a crawl but I didn¡¯t detect anyone ahead of me. This was a decent ambush site. The tunnels here went in multiple different directions and the one that we chose to go in had traps just a bit after the tunnel started. While I wasn¡¯t the best with traps, I had looked at them being disarmed for quite a while now and I slowly worked on rearming them but making it look like they were still disarmed. Whatever these traps were, my danger sense went crazy when I tried to rush through them so we need to take our time and disarm them. Just in case they had someone with the same kind of ability, I made sure that I could trigger the trap with a few stones that I could throw, but hopefully, it will work as they will be expecting all traps to be disarmed. Setting myself in a good hiding spot and making sure that I didn¡¯t leak any energy while I was doing this, I set in to wait. This was the biggest gamble as I expected them to follow our trail exactly as we left it. They of course could have some other sort of ability that could lead them straight to us and there was a possibility that amongst all these tunnels there was a faster way to us. Luckily I didn¡¯t have to spend long contemplating on my choices as my senses started to pick up disturbances coming from the way we originally came from. It could just be a monster but as time went by, I figured it was the party as they felt a bit too strong to be the roaming monsters. chapter 284 The enemy party consisted of five members: one scout, most likely with a rogue-type build, a tank, two mages (one of whom was the leader), and one healer. I commended their discipline. No one seemed to be speaking out loud, but I had no idea if they had some sort of communication ability like we did that allowed us to talk without actually making any sound. The party did perhaps seem a bit distracted, and only the rogue was truly alert. From the first moment I saw them, I never looked at any of them directly, as I learned long ago that people can tell, even back on Earth, when someone is looking at them. Observing them from the edges of my vision was difficult, as I was quite used to trying to figure everything out using my different sights. But then again, when was the last time I tried to assassinate someone? My window to observe them was quite short, as I didn''t have much choice in where I was hiding. The rogue did stop everyone for a moment, which caused me to hold my breath even more than I currently was. That, of course, was physically impossible, but I still felt I somehow accomplished it. The very next moment, the rogue started to move again, and I knew that I had succeeded at least with the first part of the plan. They continued to walk further in, and I tried to stop my heart from starting to beat faster. The moment for explosive violence was starting to come closer and closer, and I was completely prepared to murder all of them. Whether I attacked depended on how many were hurt, as I wasn¡¯t crazy enough to try to fight all of them at once. "Stop!" one of them yelled. My stone was already flying as I threw it with as much speed as possible without causing too much movement. It looked like I wouldn¡¯t be able to remain completely unnoticed. I saw a magic barrier appear behind the party, protecting them from any attack from behind them. Fortunately, my stone had already passed, and I heard the trap activate. I heard three distinct cries and the magic barrier broke. Immediately, I rushed in, this time not trying to hide myself but moving my energy as fast as possible and preparing my defenses and my attack. My first target was the healer who was currently working on weaving a spell. I saw how he looked towards me when I was too close for him to do anything. The way his eyes widened when he saw the sword coming at his throat was a mix of complete disbelief, fear, and resentment. Whatever defensive talisman or equipment he had, they weren''t good enough to defend against my attack, but he was able to cast one spell before I split his head in two. It was a powerful healing spell targeted at the rogue who had been able to dodge most of the spikes that now filled the hallway. One of the mages and the tank were dead. The leader of this party, the mage who cast the shield spell, had been able to defend himself completely. So, I had one really angry mage and a recovering rogue I needed to defeat. Immediately, I started to send out flying slashes imbued with core energy. Even before they hit, I activated my call of the ancestors and sent all of the ghosts to attack the rogue who was still recovering. My flying slashes started to impact and noticeably damaged the shield, but the mage was filled with anger and righteousness. And I felt some sort of a spell hit me. The next moment, I was floating in the air and starting to move towards the spikes. I continued to attack with my ranged attacks and I seemed to find quite good success with my throwing daggers as I was able to wound the mage. While attacking, I was also making myself heavier, and I could see the strain my opponent was in trying to move me. Unfortunately, even before he was forced to drop me, he used his other hand to instantly cast a lightning spell towards me. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. I saw how thick the mana was in the spell and knew that he must have an ability for that spell. The pain was mind-numbing, but the damage wasn''t there as my defensive abilities were working overtime to keep me safe. Two of the ghosts returned to me, but I was once again free to move. I suspect my enemy didn¡¯t think that I would be able to move after that attack. Still, I was attacking someone who was incredibly good at fighting and, to my surprise, also had a sword. Still, I had surprised him, and the weak block he was able to produce after I shattered his mana shield with my sword sent him flying into the wall. I tried to follow through, but my danger sense spiked, and I dodge-rolled towards the mage instead of going for an attack. The place where I had occupied just a moment before now had two daggers that would have hit my lower back. The rogue must''ve used some sort of an instant movement ability. The mage was still a bit stunned, but all I was able to do was send one flying dagger towards him without even seeing if I hit, as I needed to defend against the rogue who was pressing his surprise attack. For some reason, the rogue was smiling, but when our weapons met, I knew why he was smiling. He had the shatter enchantment on his weapon and a powerful one, but nothing happened to my blade. His smile faded, but mine had never wavered. But he learned quickly from his mistakes and another dagger wasn¡¯t coming for a slash. Instead, he was trying to pierce my armor, and the amount of energy inside that blade made me believe he would be able to do it. Not only that, I also felt a magic build-up from behind, meaning I hadn¡¯t managed to finish off the mage. There was no time for a new attack as our blades were still connected. The ghosts were still too far away to help me. I decided to use my superior strength and turn the block I made to stop the first dagger to push the rogue as far away from me as possible and as close to the ghosts as I could. It seems that I was still underestimating my own strength because when I stepped into the attack and then used all my strength to push the sword forward, I ended up sending the rogue flying backwards into the spikes. My ghosts were already waiting, and even before he hit any of the spikes, he flew into multiple weapons that my ghosts were wielding, killing him instantly. Then the lightning hit again, but this time it didn''t stop. "You fucking bastard, where are the rest of you, I will have everyone you came into contact killed, and the only thing I will be sad about is that I couldn¡¯t bring you out of here and make you watch it all happen. Insects like you are the reason the cleanse must happen again," he continued to talk, but it was hard to hear. He also didn''t seem to be running out of mana, which was bad news. But why was he getting closer and closer? I wondered if this was just my imagination or was this bastard truly that confident. I was on my back, barely able to move, and I needed to keep pumping my core energy into my defenses so that damage wouldn¡¯t get through. The damage lessened for a moment as he needed to use one of his hands to kill the rest of my ghosts, but he soon returned and started to pour even more mana into his spell. "You are a particularly resilient bug, but I think I actually like that about you. Your screams are wonderful, and please keep resisting for as long as you can. I do enjoy when my prey fights back." Through the haze of pain, sudden clarity came over me when I understood that he was villain monologuing. I let more pain through my defences, which did cause me some physical damage, but I also attempted to speak to him, which of course didn''t work as I was barely able to control my body. He got even closer. As soon as he was close enough, I dumped basically all my remaining core energy into my defenses, which momentarily blocked all the lightning, making me regain control over my body. I immediately reached for his hands, and he was too surprised to do anything about it. Being so close to the source of the spell started to destroy my hand, but as soon as I was grasping his hand, I activated another one of my abilities, crushing hand, and with my strength, all that was left of the mage''s hands was meat paste. The scream he made was wonderful, but with my other hand, I crushed his other hand as well as it was still casting lightning. Before he could do anything else, as I knew that mages did have spells that they could use without hands, I crushed his neck and face with both of my hands. I was covered in blood and bone bits, but the job was over, and I laid back down to rest for a few moments. That had been incredibly close to not working out, but the smile on my face didn''t disappear even though I had just murdered five people and was about to loot everything I could from them. Getting back up, I was reminded of my older self as I groaned and every joint hurt to move. I started with the mage as he was the closest, even though I usually liked to keep the best stuff for last. He was wearing a mix of armor and mage robes, and while they looked incredibly powerful, I wasn¡¯t going to take them as they had his house insignia all over them and who knows what enchantments these items held. His expanded bags were a different story, and while I wouldn¡¯t use the main one, I did empty it out into the other storage items he had, and there were more than expected. I carefully went over every item, and if it looked like it might have house insignia¡¯s, I just left them on the ground for the dungeon to absorb. I drank one of the healing potions they had to get myself back into fighting condition, although my core energy would be depleted for at least a day. To set up the fight and the looting took about three hours, so I had plenty of time to return and cook up some breakfast for the others. chapter 285 As I was walking back after having cleaned myself with energy, my mind was on the loot I got. From the different bag designs, I figured that they had also killed another group before they came after us. Perhaps their plan was to roam the 74th floor, collect loot, hopefully find some other parties to kill, and loot them as well. Then the only thing you needed to do to leave was to go down the stairs of a boss room. I wasn¡¯t going to tell the rest of the party about any of this. the loot I was going to keep and bring back to my home and probably let it sit for a few years until doing anything with it, just in case I could be identified from some of the items I stole. "Arabella, don¡¯t shoot, it''s me Rich," I said when I got back to the doorway that led to our campsite. "That¡¯s not our password," She answered. "Of course it¡¯s not, but this is," I spoke back, after which I heard three knocks and gave two knocks in return. After a bit of silence, I walked in and looked up to see a bow aimed at me. "I don¡¯t think that they will be coming if they were they would already have reached us," I said. "I believe you might be correct. I will continue to watch, but you won''t have much time to make food as I believe they wanted to wake up a bit sooner than usual," she told me, after which I started to walk to the camp to see what kind of food we could make today. "Wait, why are your gloves burnt like that?" she asked me. Damn it, her eyes are way too good. "Just some ability experimentation," I answered while continuing to walk to the camp. I had a feeling that she wasn¡¯t going to let that go, but this was just another small thing with all the things that she wanted to know. But if she hopes that she will get answers after we escaped the dungeon, she will be disappointed. Arabella will need to search for me afterwards, and reach my home, if she wants any answers beyond the shrugs I¡¯ve been giving her. After I woke everyone up and we finished eating, we once again started to explore the ruins. It took us six hours to find the stairways downwards, so perhaps we could have finished yesterday, but the boss was an annoying one that was quite resistant to physical damage, and Luana needed to use quite a lot of mana to finish the fight before the thing started to do too much damage. We descended downwards and this time the feeling of escape being just a thought away was a lot stronger, but we all once again didn''t accept it. The place we found ourselves in was nothing like we had seen before. It was a city-type ruins, but it must''ve been a huge metropolis as the streets were incredibly wide. The bricks that made the streets seemed to be made out of dirt, but they were as hard as any rock. The buildings themselves were low to the ground, only about two stories, but the walls were made out of intertwined branches. Going closer, I saw that they were grown from the ground and then wove together to make the walls. To my eyes, they reminded me of the plants that grew at the end of my river''s delta. My inspection was interrupted by the monsters of this area. They were 4 and a half feet tall stick creatures. I rushed in and my sword swings killed dozens with every strike, and after my taunt, it seemed that they were never ending. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. About halfway in, when I was completely surrounded and had trouble defending my back quickly enough, I started to swing my sword in a circle and just continued to do that, spinning around and around until I no longer felt any monsters rushing towards me. My head was incredibly dizzy by this point, but standing still quickly helped me recover my senses. "Shit, what the fuck was that?" I said out loud. "That was a proper swarm, and we might be in trouble here. We might need to fight this quite often, so I need everyone¡¯s resource numbers so we can figure out how often can we keep this going and hopefully find a way to optimize this." Horus explained. I just knew that that was correct. When I looked at how much experience I had gotten, it almost convinced me that this wasn''t going to be too bad. But after letting out a loud sigh, we all understood that this was going to be a challenging situation. The only reason that we were able to keep going was the large fighting space and my taunt ability working overtime. The spinning maneuver was incredibly effective against them and actually helped me conserve resources a lot better than fighting normally. The monsters also seemed quite susceptible to fire damage, but unluckily if you set them on fire they will eventually go out, so setting one on fire unfortunately didn''t cause the entire pack to be set on fire. After fighting three more times, we ran into trouble as somehow we managed to get the attention of two packs which pushed our resources to the limit. Unfortunately, you can''t continuously drink energy-restoring or mana-restoring potions as you will get sick from them. We chose to camp on one of the roofs of the numerous buildings and that saved us from fighting with roaming packs. In the morning, Horus announced his brilliant plan that we were going to jump from building to building as they weren¡¯t too far away from each other so we could advance without having to fight. This kind of worked as the monsters weren''t able to get to us at least not quick enough that we weren''t able to escape by jumping to another roof. The problem was the monsters didn¡¯t disappear and continued to follow us. Not wanting to get way too many monsters to follow us, we had to continue to fight on the ground. I already had multiple notifications waiting for me but because of the type of fighting I was doing and after having expended so much energy, I needed to sleep like the rest of them, perhaps even worse because as soon as I got an opportunity, I immediately fell asleep. At least everyone wasn¡¯t complaining that I wasn¡¯t doing my part in making food or staying up for night watch. The rest of my party didn''t really need to do too much during the fight at least compared to me, so I was glad that they understood that I needed every bit of sleep I could get. This floor also cost us a lot of time, making us lose almost half of the time advantage we gained to reach the core room before the two-month deadline. When we finally found the boss, we all cursed. We had hoped that it was a singular creature, perhaps a big tree, but no, it was just more of those same creatures although they did look a lot tougher and the way they moved, it looked like they have one mind or a hive mind of some sort. Even worse, the streets here were a lot more narrow and to engage the boss we needed to enter the building they were in which was a large building but still too small to keep everyone safe. We also figured that the surrounding streets would also be filled with monsters meaning I wasn¡¯t going to be able to keep them safe. Many plans were brought up but all of them were rejected in the end. We simply couldn¡¯t figure out how to keep everyone safe and even worse we didn¡¯t know how strong our enemies actually were. ¡°The way I see it, we are going to use the entrance to the boss area to keep our sides safe, leaving only two openings. I will take the one towards the inside and Horus will defend the one outside. Don¡¯t worry, I have an ability that should help you. I will also use my boost to give every one of us more damage and hopefully, we can survive long enough to kill every single one of them.¡± This was the first time I revealed 2 abilities that they hadn¡¯t known of. They especially didn¡¯t know what to think about when they found out how much I could actually boost them and then of course came the question as to why I hadn¡¯t done this before. ¡°That''s quite simple, we didn''t need it before.¡± They tried to argue against it but they only got as far as opening their mouths before they figured out that I was correct. We rested until everyone was off potion cooldowns and every resource pool was filled to the top. chapter 286 We began moving slowly at first, trying to stay as hidden as possible and avoid making any noise. We needed to reach the entrance of the building before anyone noticed us, as fighting our way in would make everything much more difficult, especially if more monsters came from behind us. Fortunately, staying quiet wasn''t a problem for me as I was able to silence every noise I made with my abilities. However, Horus wasn''t as fortunate. Every movement he made created noise, but he had learned to keep it down quite well. We managed to get quite close before we heard the screams of the stick monsters. This time, however, it was a lot more eerie as they did it simultaneously, with only a slight delay, causing endless echoes. I kicked into high gear, but even before we reached the doorway, more monster screams came from all around us. Before I entered the doorway, from the corner of my eye, I saw some of the monsters that came from the outside. I was relieved to see that they were only the regular kind of stick monsters, the ones we had fought before. When I stepped into the doorway, I activated my Call of the Ancestors ability, and ghosts quickly left my body with large tower shields and axes. They parted ways to let my party members in, but I already had to start attacking as the short tunnel we were in was already half-filled with the boss monsters. My sword didn''t let me down, and it cut through them like any other monster, but I did need to use quite a significant amount of energy compared to the stick monsters from before. I immediately activated my Heroic Stand ability as I met all the requirements of standing against superior numbers, and those enemies being strong enough to cause me serious damage. This time, I didn''t go for power output but efficiency as I continued to push my way closer to the edge of our small tunnel. The tunnel made a good choke point as the monsters couldn''t push their entire mass towards us. Like that, when I reached my position, I made myself heavier and started to carve anything that came close to me. The dungeon made the bodies of these monsters disappear quite fast, like with every other swarm-type monster, but even then, their own bodies proved to be difficult terrain for them to continue to push through. These ones, however, were a lot more organized, so I never faced fewer opponents than the tunnel allowed to attack at the same time. This coordination made things harder, and I concentrated on saving as much energy as possible. Knowing that I probably didn''t need to use much core energy defending my entrance, I used a large portion of it to make the ghost that now defended the other side of our tunnel. Only five of them were needed to defend the entire width of the tunnel, but they switched with each other so no one''s shield took too much damage. Of course, Horus also switched in to do a lot more damage to the monsters outside whenever he was ready. With the boost I was providing, his sweeping attacks killed dozens. But like me, he was conserving as much energy as possible. Arabella and Luana were using their own efficient attacks against the boss swarm. Arabella used conjured arrows that, when they hit, caused a kinetic shockwave that was quite efficient at killing these types of monsters. Luana was throwing fireballs which were also quite effective against these types of monsters. Adam currently didn''t have anything to do and probably won''t ever need to heal us, but he will need to start spending his mana to keep us on our feet as our exhaustion will continue to build. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Like this, minutes quickly turned into hours, yet our fighting still continued. I hated the boss of this area even more as I must have killed at least seven times the capacity of the boss room''s amount of monsters but they never stopped coming. At least on the other end of the tunnel, things were looking up as fewer and fewer monsters were showing up. With that, Horus was able to come towards me, and I pushed further into the room so I could start spinning once again. I didn''t want to do this, but against these types of monsters, it was simply the best way to fight. Every one of us was exhausted, even me, although my body could keep going for a while. Unfortunately, I would run out of energy before that. If I wasn''t using so much energy, my body could probably keep fighting for a week straight if I pushed myself, but running so much energy through my body is the same as sprinting while carrying your own body weight back on earth. With me being able to do so much damage, the number of enemies finally started to diminish. When I was finally able to stop, I fell to the ground as I was so dizzy, but I didn''t care. The way down was open, and while everyone was exhausted, we had survived yet another fight. I didn¡¯t dismiss my ghosts, keeping them for defense. Adam was the one who found the boss item drop. "Hey guys, I found it. It just looks like a stick and I don¡¯t feel anything when touching it," Adam announced, and we all focused on him. To me, it didn''t look like a stick but a sapling. When Adam got close to us, I could feel some life in it and I knew that this item needed to be planted and grown like a tree. "Can I have that?" I asked. "Most likely. I don¡¯t think that anyone else would want that," Horus said. After everyone had their turn with the stick, I was able to get it simply because no one else wanted this loot. I examined it more, but finding out anything more about it seemed to be impossible. When I finished and put it away, I noticed that everyone else had a faraway look. I knew that they were looking at their achievement pages and it was time for me to do the same. Up until this floor, I had gained on average 10 levels for every one of my classes. But this singular floor gave me 6 levels with all of my classes. I could now understand why every one of my party members had a small smile on their faces. As I finished with my level-ups, I was incredibly glad to find that I had reached four milestones with four different stats. My perception and constitution hit the 640 milestone while my Presence and wisdom hit their 320 milestone. I was also able to advance my cartography skill to the advanced rank. Two of the choices I was given were pointless as my interactive map was better than them, so I was left with only one real choice: an ability called hidden paths. I didn¡¯t know exactly what this ability would do, but from the name, I could guess. While this wouldn¡¯t be my first choice, I was still quite excited by the possibility. But now for the traits. It seems that for perception, I got something called temporal awareness. Focusing on my sense of time, which was already quite good, I now felt that I knew exactly what time it was, even inside this dungeon compared to the outside world. Currently, this might not be that useful, but for war and cooking things to the exact time will now be made a lot easier and I wouldn¡¯t even have to go and buy one of those dwarven pocket watches. The constitution one was interesting. It was called vitality overflow and I could already feel how it was working on restoring my body from the exhaustion the long fight caused. I felt that there was a lot more to this trait as it wasn''t absorbed by the giant among men, so it must be quite powerful. Only time will tell, but it was already quite helpful as my headache from using so much energy already started to lessen. The next trait was called unseen shadow and I got it from my presence stat. This one I have no idea how it will work and currently, I couldn¡¯t find any difference because of it. I will probably need a good meditation session to figure this one out. The last one was from my wisdom and was called harmonic resonance. Again, I have no idea what it could do and currently, I didn¡¯t seem to find any way to activate that as well. Traits overall were more passive benefits but many had active components and something called harmonic resonance could be either one, but I¡¯m guessing it would be a lot easier to figure this one out if I just went home as I had a feeling it would reveal quite a lot. Other than that, I have gotten more level-ups for my skills and abilities but nothing too exciting. I allowed the rest to go to sleep, feeling good enough to take the first watch and if there was any need for fighting, I had my ghosts who could help me. Nothing happened during my watch, but I was glad that I was able to go to sleep. When I woke, we all ate a whole lot and after some discussion decided to go deeper into the dungeon. As we descended, the feeling of escape that was just a thought away disappeared and we were once again left without a way out until we reach the core or the two-month mark from our entrance to this dungeon. chapter 287 The world plunged into darkness. I heard Adam cast a light spell, and Horus tried to light a torch, but none of these seemed to help us see. Even with my eyes, nothing seemed to appear before me. As I continued to switch around my vision and try different combinations, hoping to find something that worked, Horus was trying to come up with a plan to get us through this floor. Nothing he came up with seemed to work well. As the minutes passed, we thought we might need to navigate this floor by sound. Luckily, after about ten minutes, I was able to see something other than darkness. "Hold up, I might have something," I told the others, who stopped discussing their failed plans. It took about ten more minutes before I was able to dial in a better view, but even then, all I could see were outlines of things; the rest was still complete darkness. As I explained that I was able to see something, we got up and continued onward. It seemed that the dungeon was at least somewhat forgiving as the tunnels seemed to be made of smooth stone and there were no traps around. The monsters, however, were even worse than I had imagined. I had thought that without sight, the monsters would make noise so you would have a chance, but no, they were some sort of animal hybrids. It was so hard to see them properly as their fur made their outline blurry for me. When one sneaked close, it was preparing some sort of a claw attack that I was able to detect with my energy sense. But I would have needed to react extremely quickly before it was able to attack someone. Now, I could just step close to it and easily kill it with one strike. I could imagine how its eyes got wider, or whatever it was using to see, as I was able to just detect it and kill it. The experience was quite good as killing it was even simpler than some of the first-rank monsters above, but I could understand why as fighting them is so difficult, especially if there are more than one at the same time. The floor turned out to be a beautiful place for me as I was gaining so much experience. The others didn¡¯t like it that much. The boss monster was just a bigger version and a lot tougher, but still nothing compared to the last few floors. We got some sort of ring from it, but none of us could figure out what it could do. It was probably meant for some sneaking class, so it would make sense that it wouldn''t work for us. The next floor was the complete opposite; it was incredibly bright. We were in an almost jungle-like environment, but the trees were so thick as to block out the constant sun. The heat and the humidity were awful, but nothing our bodies couldn¡¯t handle. The ruins themselves looked to be the oldest we''ve come across. There was almost nothing left of the buildings, even though they were made from what looked like incredibly tough stone. What was also different about this floor was the background sound of smaller animals, like in real life. "Is this a complete ecosystem?" I asked. "There are some reports of areas that are extremely realistic, especially this deep down. If we are in a jungle area, then the traps will not be something man-made. The poisonous animals that are around here will be the traps also there will probably be a larger variety of monsters we must fight, and their difficulty might fluctuate more than normal," Horus answered and continued his explanation, although he often reminded us that this deep down, everything he was saying was conjecture at best. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Arabella was the first to notice the first dangerous thing. It seemed to be a simple plant, but when a bug flew by, its leaves which were filled with small, hair-like spikes moved and pierced the bug. It tried to escape, but only in one or two seconds its movement stopped, obviously injected with a significant amount of extremely dangerous poison. This place might be a lot more dangerous than any traps we might''ve come across. When the first monster showed up, I knew that this was going to be a difficult floor. It was some sort of dinosaur, kind of like a velociraptor but without the claw and a bit bigger, but they also seemed to be in a pack. They were incredibly coordinated, and for the first time, I needed to use my taunt multiple times as it seemed that whatever pack abilities they had, they were able to break my ability eventually. They also appeared to have some speed enhancements, but their most dangerous aspect was their bodies. They were incredibly strong, and their skin and feathers proved to be quite difficult to overcome. If I was able to make a proper attack, I was still able to end their lives, but if I was just a bit off, my strike would just slide off. They seemed to be a lot more susceptible to piercing damage, so Arabella was able to fight quite effectively. It didn¡¯t take long for Luana to switch up her spells into more piercing ones. We continued to try to find a way down to the next floor, but it was difficult as we didn''t want to go too deep into the area with a lot of plant cover. The numerous smaller rivers proved to be the most dangerous places as there were many different types of water monsters here, from crocodiles to different sorts of dinosaurs that lived inside the water. All of them could survive and attack on the ground, making them that much more dangerous. While the areas close to water were some of the most dangerous, it wasn''t always so, especially when a larger dinosaur showed up. Luckily, it seems that we won¡¯t be running into any T-Rex, but some of them weren¡¯t far off. Luckily, they seemed to have long necks, making it a lot easier to deal critical damage. Otherwise, the floor was quite pleasant, especially when Arabella showed us a safe berry to eat that she knew about. It was incredibly delicious but also had the side effect of making you quite full and less tired. I collected a lot of the seeds as apparently it was quite difficult to find this as there was none left in the wild. Only some individuals were still growing them. When we found the boss room and the way down, we actually debated skipping this one and perhaps finding another one, but Adam was running out of poison cures. Everyone had gotten poisoned multiple times. Luckily for me, it wasn''t a problem thanks to one of my sharmar¡¯s organ. But it was only a matter of time before someone got poisoned by something we couldn''t get rid of. The boss we were up against was a giant crocodile-like monster that was in knee-deep water inside a mostly intact building. But even then, only the walls stood, and they still had multiple holes where you could easily get in from. There were also quite a lot of large rocks and no roof. That gave me an interesting idea. "Hey Luana, if I remember correctly, you had some sort of a levitation spell. Could you pick up a few of those large rocks and then just levitate them as high as you can and throw them onto the boss?" I asked, but unfortunately, I was informed that I was stupid and even if she could do that, the monster would probably not even feel it. She was right. I guess I was channeling a bit too much tabletop RPG energy with that suggestion. The fight turned out to be even worse than we imagined as the monster had elemental control over water, but fortunately, it wasn''t strong enough with its water control to do any real damage to me, although I did have to hold my breath for quite a while during some parts of the fight. Whatever its hide was made out of, it seemed to be even more resistant than the scales of the dragon I fought. It also had an ability that was able to block most of the energy off my attacks, but during the fight, I was getting better at getting past it, and even without energy, my sword was top-tier. Still, making any critical attacks was impossible for a two-bus-sized monster. By the end of the fight, the water that was clear at the start was now so thick with blood that it was actually more viscous than water. This time, we didn''t rest in the boss room but went out so we could rest and get ourselves clean before we descended onto the next floor. Luana was also able to freeze our pathway to the stairways downwards so we wouldn''t have to go through that blood and water mixture. chapter 288 We continued to descend, but progress became increasingly challenging. We were getting lucky in finding boss rooms. However, it wasn''t just the bosses that posed a significant threat; even the regular monsters began to deplete a significant portion of our resources. The more worrying part was that my taunt ability was beginning to falter. The monsters we encountered were becoming more intelligent, which apparently made it more difficult to convince them to only attack me. I guess this was understandable, but I certainly didn¡¯t like it. Every monster now possessed multiple abilities, and many had mastered elemental control to a dangerous degree. On the 78th floor, the main enemy was a beast covered in quills so sturdy that even my sword couldn''t cut through. It was able to shoot them but even more dangerous was its control over lightning. I needed to kite the monsters as getting close to them would get me knocked out. The best and the only way to do any damage to them was from the side, which would be impossible if they were chasing you down. None of us could have won against it on our own but as a group effort, we were able to prevail. The push to get this far down and still be within our timeline has only been possible because everyone''s mentality has been strengthened. Thanks to that we have been able to keep pushing ourselves past our limits. I haven¡¯t slept for over five days now. The constant fighting that has happened has pushed me to my limit. Thankfully one of the latest traits vitality overflow, has been able to keep my body and mind going. It was sorely needed to keep me going. Currently, we are having a short rest on the 95th floor with only five days left before two months deadline. This floor is different and incredibly difficult. We are in a large room with three entrances, and I thank the land for every moment of respite we get. This room was the first we entered on this floor and will be the last, as it also contains the stairs leading downward. The problem is that the stairway is sealed and won''t open for another six hours. We''ve already spent 14 hours here, and every thirty minutes, a horde of monsters emerges from the three corridors. Now perhaps this wouldn''t be that bad if we weren¡¯t fighting monsters that weren¡¯t bullshit and the stupidest fucking things alive. They stood about two feet tall, with round bodies and stumpy feet. Their faces, as wide as their bodies, boasted even wider mouths. They somewhat resembled frogs, but not quite. They were ranked two, which means we were gaining experience from this. However, I''d rather face more conventional monsters that wouldn''t grant me any experience. Killing them wasn''t the issue; that was the easy part. It''s just that there are so many of them but that also wouldn''t be a problem the problem was that those fuckers were deceptively fast and when they died, they exploded. The resulting burning acid was among the most horrific substances I''ve encountered. Not only will you never be able to get it off as it''s just so sticky. The corrosive aspect and flames combined even burn through my hand in a few seconds. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Luckily, I only got drops on me but even they made my forearm resemble Swiss cheese. During the fighting, Horus has been hit the worst and had his right arm completely destroy five times. He''s now running out of swords to replace the ruined ones. I have no trouble defending my hallway although it is getting exhausting even for me. Luana is also fine and she¡¯s able to keep her hallway clean and over the long hours, she has become extremely efficient at it. The problem is for Arabella and Horus as they lack the aoe damage needed for this fight. The real problem is that these monsters are basically immune to their own substance that they spill out when they explode. It will eventually get through their skin and make them explode but for how dangerous this substance is they are stupidly resistant against it and most of the time it won''t matter because they would already have gotten too close if you didn''t kill them yourself. Our situation improved slightly when we began collecting drops from these creatures. Each time they dropped something, it was their skin, which could be used as a defense against corrosive substances, especially if one had defensive abilities. Fortunately, Horus did. However, as the battle dragged on, our primary concern became exhaustion. Clearing a wave typically took 20 minutes or more, leaving us with a mere 10-minute respite before the next onslaught. I was usually among the first to clear my hallway, and once done, I''d rush to relieve Horus and Arabella, allowing them a bit more rest. When the battle finally ended, we were all so exhausted that we practically collapsed. Our reward for this fight was intriguing: we received three scrolls. As we ate, Luana examined the scrolls. "These are magical spell scrolls. They cast a 20-meter circle area up to 100 meters away, which will be covered with the substance those monsters had," Luana explained while stuffing food down her mouth. I was given one scroll, Arabella the second, and Adam the third. Just holding the scroll felt like holding something incredibly dangerous. How could mere paper hold so much destructive power? I transported it into my tattoo storage, placing it close to my wrist so I could access it quickly if needed. The scroll will burn up when we use it, which makes them a one-time weapon but it would probably save our lives against some sort of a monster that we shouldn''t even be fighting. We decided to take a long rest so we would be properly rested as none of us thought that we were going to get an ounce of rest when we descended those stairs before we got out of the dungeon. I woke up before the others and began preparing food. Using our best supplies, I made a meal, as it might be our last chance for a proper feast. From here on, we¡¯ll likely rely on rations. I quite often checked in on my mind companion, but I still didn''t know why he was absent for such a long time, but when he returned he seemed to be quite excited. He mentioned needing to change everything, telling me about enhanced defenses and attack capabilities. When I asked about attacking other minds, he looked at me as if I was stupid, telling me that I can''t attack another''s mind. He seemed irritable after that, so I gave him space. It''s probably not a good idea to upset someone in charge of your mental defenses. I''ve yet to name him, but I''m considering Alan. Maybe my apprentices will have suggestions. Thinking of them reminded me of my homestead and how much I missed it. Going to see the world, exploring, and fighting in dungeons is all good, but being away for two months is already pushing it, in my opinion. There is still so much left to do at home. I want to make a proper bow-making workshop. Perhaps later, I might consider having more animals, like goats. However, I have a feeling that I won¡¯t be able to stay at home constantly to care for them, so that might not be feasible. The few cows and chickens aren''t much of a problem, and I could always ask Val to check up on them once in a while. But managing a proper herd would be too much work to simply ask as a favour. It seems I zoned out thinking about my home, as everyone else seemed to have woken up and started to eat what I had prepared. After finishing my meal, I took some time to sharpen my blade and maintain my armor. My equipment has been holding up incredibly well, and I just hope that I wouldn¡¯t damage it in the last couple of floors. We packed everything up, took a few minutes to ready ourselves, then stepped downwards. We felt the familiar displacement once again and found ourselves in some sort of ruin one floor down. chapter 289 It had been 20 minutes since we arrived at floor 96, and we were already feeling the pressure. At first, we thought we might have stumbled upon an easy fight, as we were seemingly battling goblins. They were ranked two, but they didn''t feel too strong. However, as soon as we attacked them, things took a weird turn, then became outright scary. My first strike was aimed at three of them, but in an instant, they weren''t there. Instead, they were a few meters away from me. The next moment, an arrow was about to hit one of them, but that goblin appeared in front of me, dagger poised to strike. I kicked at him, but once again hit nothing. Slowly, more and more goblins showed up. None of us could land a hit on them, and they consistently broke my taunt. Nothing we did seemed effective. Similarly, they weren¡¯t able to harm us either. They seemed to have some limitations to their rapid movement, as they only seemed to go where they had been before. "They''re not using a movement ability; they''re manipulating time," Luana informed us. Replaying my memories while continuing to attack them, I realized she must be right. Horus began sharing common strategies for fighting time manipulators. However, all of them were resource-intensive or took more time than we had if we wanted to reach the core. Observing the goblins, I noted their weakness. The strategies Horus mentioned were meant for stronger individual opponents. "There''s no need for anything fancy. Just get into a tight formation C, and let¡¯s do some run and find the boss room so we can get out of here as soon as possible," I suggested. After a brief silence, Horus responded, "That might work. They can¡¯t do much damage. Everyone, form up and let''s move." What followed was a chase, with us constantly running from the goblins. Some of them had long-ranged attacks, but Luana easily defended against them. Some had movement abilities, besides time manipulation, they were the most challenging to handle, but we just had to fend them off whenever they got too close. Like that, we continued our run for about an hour before we reached what looked to be a boss room. "There are also time fluctuations coming from that room," Luana informed us, so we slowed down a bit. I started to recall the strategies Horus had shared. "Adam, use the scroll," Horus instructed. After a few moments of shock, Adam pulled out the scroll we got from the last floor, opened it, and activated it to go off inside the room. We didn''t hear anything, but as soon as we stepped into the entrance, the goblin shaman-looking boss reappeared, ready to fight us. That was all it took for its legs to be gone, and only a few moments later, it was dead. The unfortunate part was that the item it dropped, the staff it was holding, also melted away, but it was able to resist the substance for a little bit. It was unfortunate, if we had been a bit faster we might have saved it. After about 5 minutes of keeping the goblins out and waiting until the substance burnt away enough that we could safely get to the stairways. We were done with this floor. We celebrated our small victory as we ran across the boss room and took the stairways downwards. We finished this floor in probably record time, and it gave us some breathing room time-wise. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. The environment on the 97th floor wasn''t as pleasant as the last floor. It was incredibly hot; the stones that made up the ruins were reddish in colour and quite hot to the touch. The air quality was also quite bad, and we could all smell the sulfur. "Fiend, switch to cold-type attacks. Don¡¯t let them scratch you. Regular materials don''t hurt them much; use silver alloy weapons or blunt weapons," Horus quickly explained. But even before he finished, a fiend popped near us. Out of reflex, I attacked it. It looked like a flying demon, about four feet tall, flying with its wings. I processed the information Horus told us too late, but I was glad about that. Expecting my attack to do little damage, I prepared to back off. I could already feel Luana weaving a spell. But when my blade got into contact with this monster, even before it touched it, the monster''s flesh seemed to part ways, and the horrific scream it let out did some actual damage to my ears. I was easily able to slice it in half, and we all watched as the corpse fell to the ground and quite quickly started to smoke and disappear. "Wow, I never expected that sword to be a silver alloy weapon and still be this formidable against normal creatures. But this should make things easier," Horus said while he himself took out a beautiful-looking silverish sword. Arabella was looking at me like she wanted to split my skull open and study it. I recalled all the materials I used in making this weapon, but I didn¡¯t put any silver into it. Perhaps one of the unique materials I used has the same effect as silver on these types of monsters. We took a few moments to readjust to the environment, and Luana cast some defensive spells that should work in this kind of environment. Then Horus started to explain all that he knew about these types of monsters. Apparently, fiends are well known amongst the higher-ranked adventurers. ¡°They''re not a constant threat, but there are huge areas underground where they rule supreme. From what scholars understand, they are not native to this world, but no one knows for certain. There have been many expeditions to try to wipe them out, and huge areas underground have been cleared of them, but never has anyone been able to eradicate them completely from this world.¡± "Expect many different forms of these monsters, and unfortunately, from my knowledge, most of them have wings. That means that a lot of our party won''t be able to help in most of the fights, but they are weak to cold magic, so we should be able to manage this without too much trouble," Horus finished, and then we started exploring. The place was horrible. Most of the monsters we came across weren¡¯t melee fighters, so our mages indeed needed to do the heavy lifting for this floor. But the environment was also quite challenging, especially places with lava. Some of the monsters were so far away from us and flying over lava pits that I wouldn¡¯t have any good way of fighting them even if I tried. The few larger monsters that charged at us, Horus and I finished quickly. Arabella was the least effective in this area as her arrows didn¡¯t do much damage, but none of us held that against her, as every one of us has run into areas where we weren¡¯t that useful. This place was vast, and unfortunately, because of the lava and multiple collapsed tunnels, we needed to backtrack quite a lot. I still needed to taunt everything, but it seems they were especially susceptible to it. I mostly just had to say, "Hey, you!" and the monster was completely focused on me, no matter what kind of damage they took. That also meant I got to feel fireballs on my face, especially when we were facing multiple enemies, as defending me was a lower priority than attacking because I could handle the low-damage spells. Even when we reached the boss room, we had only spent around 16 hours on this floor. We were quite apprehensive, as the variety of monsters we ran into on this floor was quite high. The difficulty also went from easy to downright scary. We just had to hope that whatever boss we found wasn''t going to wreck us. We approached carefully. When we saw what we were up against, we all cursed inside our heads. It wasn''t a huge monster, only about four metres tall, but the bottom half was a spider with eight legs and a huge body. The top half was a fiend, and it looked quite intelligent, which meant trouble. chapter 290 POV Vespinax I was growing weary of this research path. Perhaps I should set it aside and revisit some other research I haven''t touched in a while. How long have I been trapped here? My usual method of telling time doesn''t work. My connection to the outside world is severed; all I have left is my research. Even this has become challenging due to the constraints placed on me. I can only utilize my current abilities for researching new spells. At that moment, I was informed that a group of delvers was nearby. At least there would be some excitement, and hopefully, I could get some snacks. If other demons consume them before I do, I''ll find a way out of this room and consume them, hoping to savor the aftertaste of those delicious adventurers. But that''s impossible; I''ve tried escaping this room for so long. There are openings large enough for me to walk out with my eight legs, but I can''t. My captor won''t allow it. It doesn''t matter. I retrieved my two most cherished staffs. They''ve been with me through numerous battles. Their utility is unmatched, but I''m only permitted to use spells up to a certain strength level, lest I become too powerful. My captor doesn''t realize the true value of utility. I stood in the center of the room, waiting and hoping the adventurers were strong enough to reach me. My mouth watered in anticipation. Hours seemed to have passed, but I couldn''t be sure how many. I remained vigilant, and my patience paid off. An unexpected attack came, but I quickly conjured a protective bubble around myself. It shielded me from a dangerous arrow and a chilling spell. The hastily erected bubble was already showing cracks, but I didn''t need it anymore. Their attack from outside meant my restrictions were lifted, and I could see a bit better beyond the room. It was a party of five, and they seemed remarkably unbothered by all the fighting they must have undertaken. This might be more dangerous than I initially thought. Looking at my staffs, I hoped that I wouldn¡¯t lose them. What was I even thinking? Being here for so long has started to change my mindset. Curse this enslaver of mine! I am the one who''s supposed to enslave or eat any whom I choose. I tapped into that bloodlust of mine, welcoming it like an old friend. "Come closer. I wish to properly see the snacks that have presented themselves to me," I said, struggling to contain my excitement. But my vision was still a bit hazy as they weren¡¯t inside my room yet. They entered cautiously, and I refrained from launching any surprise attacks. I wanted to observe them in all their glorious deliciousness. When they came in, it was hard to contain myself. "What wonderful tastiness has come to me today," I could hear the excitement in my own voice. Four of them looked truly delicious, and I bit my lip just from looking at those four. But then there was the bigger one. Oh, how dangerous he seemed! But he was a proper meal, something I hadn¡¯t had in so, so long. I was snapped out of my daydreaming when they began their assault. "Ruining my fun like that, bad snacks!" I barely managed to get my shield back up in time. This shield was needed to prevent them from truly hurting me as their attacks were strong. With my other staff, I began to cast a chain lightning spell, targeting the mage first, hoping it would then spread to the rest. But I was interrupted. "Hey, you clumsy-looking, hairless, fat spider. Come and fight me." said the proper meal. Without my control, I couldn¡¯t focus on anything else but him. It was his stupidly effective taunt ability. I knew I couldn¡¯t break through it easily. At that moment, my lower half notified me that it was free. At least that was something. I could send some artillery spells towards the rest of them, but it would take time to charge them. The mage with them was quite good, but still, it was better than nothing. Now, it was time to focus fully on this proper meal and ensure I didn¡¯t become its meal. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. He charged at me, so I released my lightning chain spell. He dodged most of it, and his defense abilities glowed from the amount of energy he used to defend himself completely from my attack. I started to use more physical spells, like rock creation, hurling large rocks at him. However, he easily cut through them and kept advancing. At this point, I noticed the weapon he was holding. It was incredibly dangerous to me and definitely had an infusion of dragon essence. It was one of the things we were truly susceptible to. Only fire that can actually burn us is dragon fire. I used one of my staff to constantly attack him, trying to keep him at bay, while the more defensive staff constantly formed barriers to defend against his attacks and those of the others. Now, I wasn¡¯t thinking about how delicious they were because I needed to concentrate or they would overwhelm me. Whenever I could attack the others with my lower half, I gained a bit more breathing room, which allowed me to summon stronger spells. But even area effects that should have completely destroyed his energy defenses only dealt a moderate amount of damage. I was also getting hit by the other attacks, as my first priority was to defend against that sword. I had hoped that their other sword fighter would come closer and help the big one out, but he just stayed with the mages. I didn¡¯t like that; he would be a completely fresh fighter for later in the battle. So, when I got my next opportunity to breathe a little, I summoned four fiends, transfer their control to my lower half who then attack them. What I didn¡¯t expect was for all four of them to concentrate on the new enemies. It did give me a little bit of time to focus on my most dangerous opponent, but why didn''t he even once look at his party members in concern was a bit weird. This reminded me of one of my oversights. I was just looking with my regular eyes. I quickly cast one of my proudest spells, which allowed me to see so much more than was normal. For a moment, I was blinded by the stupidly strong soul energy coming from right beside me. Because of that, he was able to inflict a decent wound on me, but I just healed myself, fixing everything they had done to me up until this point. Then I noticed how their minds were connected, and I was reminded of another party that came here a while ago that needed to communicate by speaking to each other. A simple spell to make the room silent, and I was quite quickly able to dispatch all of them. Unfortunately, they didn''t taste as good as I was hoping. I also saw how much strength the big guy was giving to the rest, and I just had to wonder how much energy this person had to use. I now classified this fight as possibly deadly. The fighting intensified as soon as my summons were killed. I had barely any time to think, as I needed to constantly defend against multiple attacks that were harrying me. Within seconds, their communication lines brightened, and they began to shift positions. They were planning something significant. As soon as the formidable opponent backed off, I began channeling mana into both of my staffs, hoping to counteract whatever they had in store. The attacking mage had managed to conceal the weaving of her spell for long enough so they could to something big. I couldn¡¯t identify it precisely, but it felt akin to an icy ray. However, that was easily defended against. To my surprise, the rest of them pulled out some sort of scroll and began casting as well. Each spell felt chillingly cold, and each was uniquely dangerous. It seemed they were using up their entire supply of cold-type spell scrolls on me. This battle was proving more challenging than I had anticipated. Two of those spell scrolls were physical attacks. To counter them, I prepared an offensive spell. My defensive staff would have to handle the mage''s attack, and I hoped my automatic shield would suffice against the other two. Moments later, the room was engulfed in a blinding white light from the colliding spells, and I felt the sting of the cold. When the room returned to its normal state, I was moderately wounded. Their combined attack had done damage, but with a quick healing spell, I was back to full health. But this was incredibly exhausting, and I could see that they were all exhausted as well. Casting spell scrolls when you don''t have mana is quite taxing. So, the only one truly still up for fighting was their healer, whom I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about. I could see the big one starting to prepare to attack again, but even he looked wobbly on his feet. "A truly great showing, but before we continue this, I would like to introduce myself to worthy foes. My name is Vespinax, and I am a glorious demon born in the prime Hell. While you will all still be my snacks, I would like to hear your names as well." It took a little bit, but one by one, they all said their names. All were glorious except for the one I was most excited about. ¡®Rich Dirt¡¯ didn''t sound like the name of a great warrior. "I would have expected someone as old and experienced as you, Rich Dirt, to have a more grandiose name," I remarked. He answered me almost immediately, which was different from my usual experiences; normally, adventurers didn''t want to speak with me at all. "Well, that¡¯s because I¡¯m a farmer, and I think that name suits me better," he replied. It was hard to contain my laughter. "You, a farmer? Well, I suppose all of us need our hobbies. But I guess it¡¯s time we continue this battle." As soon as I finished saying that, everyone moved again, and the battle was restarted. chapter 291 When Vespinax launched his attack after finishing his speech, he unleashed a lightning attack that spread throughout the entire room. It would have required a significant amount of my energy to defend against, but there was a simpler solution. The attack only electrified things on the ground, so I jumped up, making myself as light as possible, I managed to stay in the air until the wave passed by. Luana was as brilliant as ever and defended everyone around her. After that, I quickly resumed my assault. The boss we were fighting was absurdly difficult. It used one of its staffs to constantly create barriers that my sword couldn¡¯t penetrate. If it hadn''t been preoccupied with defending against me, I believe we would have lost the fight long ago. This battle was also starting to strain our resources. I considered using my core energy to finish him off quickly, but he was resilient. Given the speed of his healing, I wasn¡¯t sure if it would make a difference. The stalemate persisted until I realized how much mana he was spending every time he was doing something. "Luana, reduce your damage output but cast as many spells as possible. He''ll need to continuously use his defenses. Arabella, multiply your arrows whenever possible; they don''t need to be too powerful. He''s running out of mana," I communicated to everyone. We all adjusted our fighting styles accordingly. No longer large strong attack that took time to prepare landed on Vespinax. Now many ice small ice beams and a multitude of arrows constantly hit Vespinax''s defenses and body. I continued to attack with my sword but also launched numerous energy knives, forcing the monster to defend or, even better, start healing himself again. The effect wasn''t immediate, but our resource expenditure decreased significantly, while his worsened. From his expression, I guessed he believed we might be running low, but for some reason, he didn''t consider that he was the one depleting his reserves, not us. It took another half an hour before his first defensive spell was weak enough for me to break through. I inflicted a wound that he tried to heal, but he couldn''t fully mend himself. Then realization dawned on him. "Curse this slaver of mine. If my immortal soul was still connected to the prime hell, this would never have been a problem. Take care of my staffs," he instructed before charging at me, boosting himself with the last of his mana to maximize his strength. However, it wasn''t enough. My body might be smaller than his, but my muscles were incredibly powerful. From his comment, I ensured I didn''t damage his staffs. After repelling his charge, I easily cut through him with my sword and continued to do so until I ended his life for the time being. He would likely respawn, and someone else might fall victim to him. As expected, the staffs dropped immediately, like any other weapon, but they didn''t vanish with his body like other weapons wielded by other monsters we have run into in this dungeon. What surprised me was that the boss also dropped another item, which was likely the intended drop for our group. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. I sat down, having expended a significant amount of energy in the battle. But I wasn''t the only one; Luana and even Adam had exerted themselves considerably. Fortunately, we had enough time for a brief recovery session. In the meantime, we examined the loot we acquired. From what Luana and Adam told us, the staffs were extraordinary. One staff could hold ten spell weave patterns for attack spells, while the other could hold ten patterns for defensive or support spells. It was like having ten spell abilities from an achievement page, but with the flexibility to change them out to any spell as you required. None of them had ever even heard of a staff so exceptional, but there seemed to be a limitation. Luana and Adam were certain that they couldn''t channel spells that were beyond rank 2. Luana claimed the attack staff, and Adam took the defensive one. The third drop was a book that looked quite beautiful. The book had intricate gold and dark red markings and a latch that held it together. Luana and Adam were unable to open it. They had hoped it was a spell book, but since they couldn''t open it, the rules of loot meant that others would have a chance to test it out. It didn''t open for Horus and Arabella, but when I touched the book, I felt a connection to it through my soul. The book seemed to test me, and whatever it found, it was satisfied. I heard a click, and it opened. Luana and Adam rushed over, and I opened the book to find, written in large intricate letters on the first page, "Compendium of Spell Waves created by Vespinax, the Demon of the Prime Hell." Underneath was a description of the demon Vespinax and a brief history of his life. "What kind of language is that? Can you read it, Rich?" Luana asked. I turned to see that they didn¡¯t see what I saw, but some sort of illegible script. If I told them it was a spell book, they would definitely use their prime loot claim chances on it. "It seems to be a history of the demon we defeated, written by him," I replied. My words visibly deflated both of them, and the excitement from the loot seemed to fade, replaced by the exhaustion from the fight. "It at least seems like an entertaining book, so I''ll take this as my loot," I told Horus, who agreed. I spent some time flipping through the book, which seemed to contain an endless array of different spells. However, I couldn''t comprehend any of them. Understanding different spell waves is already a challenging task, and creating new ones is even more difficult. Most mana casters specifically choose an adventurer''s class that already possesses a variety of spell abilities, so they don''t have to learn new ones. For those who do venture into learning, only the basic spell weaves are common. To acquire the rest, one either has to pay a hefty price or find someone to teach them, which can be worse than the upfront cost to just buy the spell weaves. With this book, my nation should have access to a vast catalogue of different spell weaves. This will be immensely beneficial for us in the future. While I did feel a twinge of guilt for not being entirely truthful with the others, the safety of my nation is more important to me than losing a bit of possible favour with Luana and Adam. I stored the book in my tattoo storage and began to meditate, preparing myself for the next floor. I also reflected on the recent battle, realizing the reason behind one of my most disliked tropes. I have always disliked it when enemies converse during fights without attacking each other. But now I know it allows both sides to recover from their previous actions, ensuring the battle doesn''t devolve into a weak exchange of blows. I could vividly imagine a scenario where two long-time rivals both just expended a lot of strength attacking or defending and then going straight back to fighting. However, this time, it would resemble two frail children trying to harm each other without causing any real damage. Of course, they could choose not to converse during this recovery period, but why miss an opportunity to undermine their opponent or like in our recent battle, where the demon was keen to learn our names. I wonder whether he regretted not being able to eat us. chapter 292 As soon as I opened my eyes on the 98th floor, I sensed that this floor might be our last floor of the dungeon. Moments later, I heard curses around me. "At least it isn''t a water floor," Adam remarked, only to receive a punch on the shoulder from Horus. "Don''t even joke about that," Horus retorted. The size of the ruins often changed sizes based on the monsters within, and the hallway we found ourselves in was vast. The walls, typically made of brick-sized stone blocks, were now as big as the stones used in pyramids. The ceiling towered at least 100 feet above us. "Judging by the size of these stones, there are a few possibilities," Horus began. "We might get lucky, and this place was built by people who liked grandeur. But given the massive doorways, it''s more likely constructed by some giant race. There''s hope that these giants no longer inhabit these ruins. We might face different monsters. Let''s just hope we don''t encounter giant trolls. If we do, our best bet is to hide until time runs out." After his explanation, Horus instructed us to stay close while Luana cast a scouting spell. "Damn it," Luana muttered. Soon after, the sound of something massive approaching grew louder. "We''re up against giant cyclops. They seem nearly immune to magic, which is why my spell broke. They''ve detected my general location," Luana explained. Horus chimed in, "Cyclops aren''t too bad, depending on their other resistances. At least they shouldn''t regenerate. We should be able to handle this one, then decide our next move." We quickly assumed battle positions. The monster finally came into sight around the corner it was around 50 feet tall, but it didn¡¯t stop and hit the wall quite hard. This shocked us enough that we didn''t start attacking, and we all watched as the cyclops took a few steps back, shook its head, and then finally started to look around. Once it found us, it roared and began to charge again. "Hey, big fella with one eye, want to fight?" I said, but it had no effect. This was the first time my ability had truly failed. One of Luana¡¯s most powerful attack spells did nothing more than clean a part of the monster''s skin. Arabella¡¯s arrows didn¡¯t penetrate deep enough to even bury the arrowhead. Horus''s attacks didn''t do anything, merely bouncing off the armor the monster was wearing. My sword managed to cut through the chin guard it wore, but the metal was so thick and strong that I wasn¡¯t able to hurt it at all. We all expected someone to be hit by the swing of that monstrous club it wielded, but the monster just ran past us. "What?" I heard Adam say, and we all watched in astonishment as the monster continued to charge until it hit another wall at the hallway''s cross-section. "They are the stupid variety," Horus finally remarked. ¡°That''s why your taunt didn''t work. The less intelligent cyclops are extremely resistant to mental effects and are generally quite resistant to all forms of damage. Now, when I say stupid, I don¡¯t mean that they don¡¯t learn. So be careful; it probably won''t make the same mistake twice, especially after it brought itself so much pain," Horus added. We quickly saw that his words were correct. This time, after it shook its head and looked at us, it didn¡¯t charge blindly but approached us at a slower speed, readying its club. I charged towards it, and when I got close enough, it did stop to swing at me. However, all I had to do to evade was to halt my movement. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Even so, the club passed dangerously close to me, and I believed the shockwave from its movement could have easily killed a regular human. After it passed me, I advanced, using the club itself as a shield from the stone shards that exploded outwards from the point of impact. Such a hit would have been fatal to me instantly. I didn¡¯t waste any time and quickly rushed underneath the monster. It saw me, but its movements were much slower compared to mine, and it lacked the coordination to squash me. This gave me ample time to attack. After a few strikes, the monster''s lower leg armors fell to the ground as I cut the rope that held them in place. To cut its actual legs, I had to channel a lot of energy into my sword, and even then, it took multiple hits to reach the bone. Each strike caused the monster to cry out in pain and grow even angrier. However, no matter what it did, it wasn¡¯t able to hit me, and I continued my assault. Only about a minute after I began my attacks, the monster finally fell to its knees and then onto its stomach. I moved swiftly, but its hands were more coordinated, so it took a while of dodging to get to the neck. It''s one eye never left me, and the anger in it never faltered. One strike wasn''t enough to end it, but it was enough to stop its struggle against me. I could have just walked away, and it would have bled to death, but after two more strikes, its life ended quickly. Not long after, its body disappeared. "Rich, how are your resources? Did it take a lot to kill it?" Horus asked, but I stayed quiet for a moment. It took a decent amount of energy to kill it compared to other monsters I have faced. But I genuinely felt bad about this kill. It didn''t feel like a fight to me; it was more like felling a tree. There have been other monsters in this dungeon that I could easily handle, but this one felt different. I believe it¡¯s because, with other monsters, if I were in their position, I could imagine myself using different tactics to fight me better. But for this monster, if I were in its shoes fighting myself, I don¡¯t see any effective strategy. The giant cyclopses are simply too large and slow. Perhaps if the cyclops would kneel, but then it would be an even simpler fight if I just got behind it. "It doesn''t take too much energy, and I could fight quite a few of them before needing rest," I informed the rest of the group. I was right in saying that I won¡¯t enjoy battling them, each encounter played out similarly. They charged at us twice before approaching slowly, giving me the opportunity to engage, chop them down, and then sever their necks. It felt as though I was in a slaughterhouse, constantly murdering creatures that couldn''t defend themselves against me. I continued my work, and every monster we encountered was defeated by me. The others simply didn¡¯t possess the firepower to be effective, so the task of killing was left to me and my sword. After dispatching another monster, I examined my sword. I realized that it was the reason we had ventured so deep into the dungeon. I had never imagined it to be so potent, which made me ponder the capabilities of a sword forged from Rank 4 dragon blood. Regardless, I was profoundly grateful that I had taken the risk and expended so many resources based on a hunch. We never encountered more than one cyclops at a time, but we soon discovered why when we stumbled upon two of them battling to death. Horus theorized that they were extremely territorial. After one defeated the other, I swiftly engaged the other and killed the victor. Navigating this place was time-consuming since everything was magnified. We spent hours traversing huge empty tunnels, but eventually, we stumbled upon something we had only seen a few times before. We found the edge of the cyclops ruins, which connected to normally-sized ruins that were quite dark and damp. We could continue through the cyclops territory, or try our luck in the new ruins. The choice was left up to me, as I was the primary fighter here. However, I had to concur with the others: the unknown is always more perilous than the known. We decided to continue exploring the cyclops ruins. One thing that surprised all of us was the absence of traps, but none of us complained about that. Our progress was slow due to the sheer size of the ruins, and the time advantage we had initially gained began to disappear. When we finally reached the boss room, we were only a few hours away from hitting the red line that would leave us with just one day to complete the 99th floor. Peering inside, I had expected to see an even larger cyclops, but instead, I was met with a different sight. It was still a cyclops, but it was shorter, standing at about 30 feet tall, which likely meant it would be a more challenging fight. The real difference was that there were two of them, connected at the hip. They looked alike, suggesting they were twins, possibly conjoined since birth. Both wielded their own clubs and appeared more intelligent than the other monsters. I was fairly certain this fight would be tougher than the others on this floor, and Horus seemed to share my sentiment. chapter 293 The plan was devised, and we executed it swiftly. As soon as I gave the signal, Adam activated one of the scrolls we had acquired. He managed to cover the top half of the monster in the burning acid, but the substance wasn''t potent enough to break down the tough skin of the cyclops. However, it did induce panic in them, causing them to move in an attempt to rid themselves of the painful substance. As they moved, they quickly realized that the floor was coated in ice, thanks to Luana''s spell, causing them to slip and fall. The battle between the acid and the cyclops'' skin was brief, with the skin mostly winning. This situation left me in the perfect position to target the exposed neck of one of the twins. Its cry of pain alerted the other, which, despite its pain, nearly managed to grab me. However, I had cut deep enough to ensure that the creature would eventually bleed out. I knew that this strike was crucial, so I utilized core energy. Yet, even that wasn''t potent enough to pierce through the bone. The other twin tried to stem the bleeding but weakened over time, allowing me to finish both of them off. As a reward, we received two wooden rings, but we didn¡¯t know what they could do. They felt powerful, and there was a strong connection between them. Although I didn''t particularly enjoy this floor, we had to press on. The next floor, the last one where we needed to fight, resembled a typical ruin. It was, however, a bit damper with more vegetation than usual. The first monster we encountered nearly killed Luana. None of us had noticed the deadly snake lying in wait, ready to strike anyone who ventured too close. We adjusted our tactics, but as we delved deeper into these ruins, we encountered more snakes, each larger than the last. About eight hours in, we faced off against 40-foot pythons, each possessing elemental abilities. Fortunately, everyone was capable of dealing damage on this floor. One python managed to coil around me, and only my enhanced bones saved me from being crushed. It acted swiftly, but its attempt to suffocate me took longer than it anticipated. This delay allowed the others to kill it with ease. After that encounter, I proceeded with increased caution. Any other snakes that tried the same tactic were swiftly bisected by my blade. As the hours passed, our concerns grew. We were drawing closer to the two-month deadline with only 12 hours remaining. Moreover, the monsters we faced became increasingly stronger. At times, we encountered areas without snakes, replaced instead by large lizards with elemental abilities similar to the snakes. We pressed on, occasionally having to clear out dozens of monsters before advancing. The most dangerous were the venomous snakes, particularly those capable of emitting poison clouds. While I wasn¡¯t poisoned by the poison from the clouds, they still inflicted significant damage to my airways. Without the others, none of us would have survived. This floor truly tested us in every way, and each of us had to give our utmost to keep moving forward and, more importantly, to stay alive. Occasionally, we encountered areas with deep water, but Luana expended a considerable amount of mana to freeze these sections. Everyone, except for me, had already consumed at least one regeneration potion, either for mana or energy. Resource-wise, we were still in a decent state, but we urgently needed to locate the boss room. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The fighting intensified as the monsters grew larger and demonstrated better control over the elements. It became common for me to confront fire-breathing snakes, but they weren''t the most dangerous. The ones with lightning abilities posed the greatest threat. We encountered them more frequently, prompting Adam to spend 15 minutes adjusting one of the recorded spells on his new staff for lightning resistance. Without Adam''s spells to counteract the lightning, I would have been killed numerous times. Regardless of the challenges, we pressed on, using our resources and drawing ever closer to the boss room. When we finally located it, we seriously considered waiting out the timer. The creature before us was a mythic entity, even in this world: a Hydra with five heads. It was larger than the dragon I had previously fought. The central head was red, indicating fire abilities. To its right was a green head with poison abilities, and the furthest right was a greyish head with wind abilities. To the left of the central head was a bright blue one with lightning abilities, likely the most dangerous, and the furthest left was dark blue, indicating water abilities. None of us were certain that we would engage in the fight, but we still began strategizing. We knew that my taunting ability had its limitations, especially against entities with multiple intelligences in one body. There might be a chance that I could still taunt the entire hydra, but if I did, I would likely be defeated quickly. Horus prepared several spell scrolls and distributed them to everyone except me. These scrolls contained a spell that was similar to my ability, allowing each of us to engage a head of our choosing. We hoped to be fortunate enough that this hydra couldn''t regenerate its heads, but according to Horus, the chances were slim. Our plan was to inflict significant damage on each head without severing it completely. Horus provided the last of our supply, about 20 more spell scrolls to Adam to give him some offensive capabilities. I targeted the fire head, Luana took on the lightning, Adam confronted the poison, Horus challenged the water, and Arabella faced the wind. Once we were in position, we initiated our assault. "Hey, you big, ugly, barely-red lizard, come and fight me!" My taunt immediately drew the attention of all the heads, each one displaying a murderous intent. The massive body supporting the five heads began to advance, gaining speed. However, as each head became distracted, the hydra''s body grew confused due to receiving multiple conflicting commands. Eventually, it halted. The fire spewed by the red head was less intense than dragon fire, and my enhanced defenses managed to withstand it. However, prolonged exposure would still be deadly. I charged forward, launching a flying slash towards its head. The creature cried out in pain, halting its fiery onslaught. Although the damage was minor, it was a start. The heads moved similarly to snakes and were quite lengthy. When I got within range, the red head attempted a physical attack. This was more manageable for me, and despite some close calls, I was able to inflict significant damage with my sword. I was incredibly careful not to sever the head entirely. I felt I was close to killing it, but I had to be back off because the other heads were still dangerous, especially with their area-effect damage. We had to maintain constant communication to alert each other of impending attacks. The battle soon morphed into a complex dance, requiring us to move precisely. One wrong step, and moments later, we could find ourselves engulfed in a poison cloud. Fortunately, Adam continued to heal us. Before I could re-engage in melee with the red head, I was struck by a lightning attack. The water head had made the floor wet with its previous attack where I happened to step in just as the lightning head unleashed an area-of-effect attack. Adam got me back up. I was also enveloped by the poison cloud twice before I was free to move forward, but I had learned to hold my breath, significantly reducing the damage. Still, I needed healing to keep going at full strength. The head tried to swallow me whole once again, but my swift movements allowed me to evade. This was possible because the head had to cover a much larger distance compared to the few meters I needed to dodge. With every strike, the head''s movements became slower. Eventually, it ceased its physical attacks and attempted to unleash fire. However, its injured neck meant that only a fraction of the fire reached its mouth, with the rest escaping through the numerous wounds I had inflicted. This was the opportunity I needed to finish off the head. I watched as it slumped in defeat. I moved to help Adam, but both the lightning and poison heads bite into the defeated head, tearing it apart and detaching a significant portion from the hydra''s body. We watched as a new head, identical in size to the previous one, replaced the old head in less than ten seconds. It roared, glaring at me with even more animosity. I was entirely convinced it retained the intelligence of the previous head, which meant it knew how it had been defeated before. chapter 294 The room shook from the roars of the five-headed hydra as they welcomed back their last head. The battle resumed immediately, but the red head was now a lot more cautious with its attacks, especially when confronting the pesky insect-like adversary it was up against. The five party members grew concerned; their initial strategy of incapacitating the fire heads without severing them entirely had crumbled. It appeared that even when taunted, the older heads would attempt to sever the incapacitated head completely, negating all their efforts. Quick communication messages were exchanged among the group. They soon realized that trying to disable all the heads simultaneously was beyond their capabilities. Throughout their discussion, the hydra unleashed a barrage of elemental attacks, each aimed at eliminating a challenger. Rich, having the most time on his hands, tested the hydra''s body¡¯s resilience. His flying slashes, even when imbued with core energy didn¡¯t even leave a scratch. On one occasion, he managed to get close enough to strike the hydra''s body with his blade, but for the first time, his blade failed to leave even a scrape. The hydra, aware of its vulnerability, had long ago developed an ability to render its body nearly invulnerable, provided it remained stationary. Its five heads, with long flexible necks, didn''t require the body to turn to launch attacks in all directions. At present, all five heads were fixated on distant opponents who had spread out sufficiently, ensuring that they could not make use of the devastating combination attacks they could make. The few accidental combination attacks, luckily for the five party members weren¡¯t as lethal as they could be. The room resembled a dazzling light show, with abilities and magic illuminating the space every few seconds. The hydra''s breath attacks, while dangerous, were also mesmerizing. These beams of power typically sliced through anything in their path. However, this time there were two exceptions. Luana''s shields could withstand even the most potent lightning strikes, while Rich simply tanked the fire attacks with his body. The rest of the group had to be more cautious, relying primarily on dodging. Adam had honed his healing skills throughout this dungeon. One of the benefits he''d acquired was the ability to channel his knowledge into his body faster than he could heal anyone else. This ability enabled him to manage the toxic areas left by the green head''s attacks with little effort. He was still exploring the limits of this ability, but he was certain that he needed to enhance his offensive capabilities. Rich truly had been correct that he needed more attacking power. Without the scrolls Horus provided, his damage to the head was minimal. Arabella found battling the wind head frustrating. While she could maintain a safe distance, the wind attacks could still reach her. The more significant challenge was ensuring her arrows reached the head without being deflected by the torrents of air controlled by the head. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Despite these challenges, her target looked like a pincushion, and she noticed its movements slowing. Previously, this would have been a cause for celebration, but now she realized that all her efforts would soon be undone. Regardless, she persisted, taking solace in the fact that her enchanted quiver ensured she''d never run out of arrows. Horus was having an absolutely terrible time. While his defenses and mobility were sufficient to keep him alive, he could barely inflict any damage. To make matters worse, the water that the head used was freezing cold. The head had only approached him a few times, and the few attacks Horus managed to make weren''t enough to significantly slow down the head. Horus was also the one who was using up more of his energy than anyone else, and because of that, he already needed to drink a second potion, with seven potions being his limit. Luana was having a wonderful time. She was able to fully channel her magic. However, every attack the lightning head made was potentially deadly, so she couldn¡¯t afford a single mistake. Using her new staff, she continuously attacked with conjured metal rods that pierced deep into the head. She had slowed down quite a bit; otherwise, she would have already disabled the head and would have had to fight a new one when other heads ripped the current one out. The damage had slowed the head down, allowing her to think about other solutions to the bigger problem of actually taking down this mythic monster. Rich was increasingly annoyed. The red head was more cautious now, but with the incredible sword in his hand, he had already brought the second red head close to its death. "Fuck it!" all heard as Rich screamed and rushed in to seize an opportunity when the red head extended itself a little too much. This time, he almost cut through the head completely. Almost immediately, two other heads bit into the red head, tearing it off to allow another head to take its place. In under 10 seconds, a new red head regenerated. They all roared once again, resuming their attacks. They had hoped the regeneration would slow down, but nothing of the sort happened. Even before Luana''s lightning head was too damaged to continue fighting, the water and fire heads bit into it, ripping it in half, allowing another one to grow fully healed and capable of fighting better than the damaged one. It seemed like a hopeless situation, having to fight a monster that couldn''t truly be hurt while their own resources continued to dwindle. Horus and Adam were the first to start to break after their heads were torn apart by the other heads, and they had to face a fully healed head once again. But this time, Rich, not wanting to give up just yet, had been using his eyes to their fullest. He found a different source of power inside the hydra, not the energy or mana coursing through it, but something else. When the wind head was replaced for the second time, he noticed how that source of power diminished ever so slightly. The room echoed with a powerful roar, but this time it was Rich, not the hydra, making the noise. The very next moment, he exploded with energy, causing a light show similar to the hydra''s most powerful elemental attacks. He activated every one of his abilities that could aid in an attack and launched a flying slash that cut through the lightning head and the water head simultaneously. The battle paused for a moment, as none had expected such ferocity and power. The very next moment, the two heads began to regenerate. However, Rich, having observed a decrease in the hydra''s power reservoir with each regeneration, began to laugh maniacally. "How was Rich the first to break?" Adam inquired through their communication channel. "I''m not broken," Rich responded, "but I''ve discovered they can''t regenerate endlessly. I''ll start cutting them down at every opportunity. Just support me and keep us all going." Rich then charged forward, getting close to the heads that were hesitant to use strong elemental attacks near their own necks, leaving them with no choice but to engage him in melee combat. It wasn''t a straightforward battle, as any one of those attacks could swallow Rich whole. However, he began to sever the heads of the hydra one by one, watching them regrow but knowing there was an end to this madness. The others didn''t fully grasp what Rich meant, as they couldn''t perceive what he saw. Yet, over the course of two months, they had come to trust him, especially in combat. The dynamics of the battle shifted, and while all the heads remained focused on their respective adversaries, this allowed him to land more effective blows on the different heads of the hydra. chapter 295 The battle was as brutal as ever, with constant close calls that would have been nerve-wracking even to seasoned veterans. But they all had an iron column to support themselves in the form of Rich, who never once gave an indication that they might lose this fight. In Rich¡¯s mind, however, things were different. He knew that this was the best their team could do, but the ball of power that represented the hydras regeneration was diminishing too slowly. He needed to decrease his attack power slightly; otherwise, he would run out of energy before the hydra ran out of regeneration. Even while he was being as efficient as possible, Rich was uncertainty about who would be left standing in the end. The fighting continued for hours, getting closer and closer to the deadline. But even faster than the approaching deadline came the limit of the other four party members that fought with Rich. They did their best, gave everything and even more, but they simply didn¡¯t have the resources meant for a fight this long. Their potion limit was long ago maxed out. Horus was the first to go, collapsing even while still trying to dodge. He had been unresponsive to communications for over a minute, and that was the only reason why Luana was able to get the defensive spell over him; otherwise, he would have died on the spot. Arabella was the one who rescued his unconscious body, and for a moment there, Rich needed to fight all five heads simultaneously, losing ground. Time was needed to make a safe place where the unconscious body of Horus could be placed, and most likely for the rest of them if this fight didn''t end soon. "Rich, how much longer?" Arabella asked as she reengaged her head, but she was barely able to speak, she was so exhausted. There was a brief silence before Rich replied, his voice as gentle as he could muster. "Longer than any of you can endure. Just do your best, but ensure you inform the rest of us when you''re nearing your limit." Rich''s words didn''t offer much comfort, but the remaining party members continued to fight with all they had. For Rich, it became increasingly challenging to damage the heads, especially after Arabella had to retreat. As soon as she reached safety, she passed out, but at least no one had to worry about rescuing her. Now, with only three members left, they faced the five heads, which began to be pushed back by the coordinated attacks of the heads. The only reason they hadn''t been defeated was Rich, who punished any head that became too aggressive. Luana was the next to fall, leaving the lightning head to cause chaos. Shortly after, Adam had to retreat after having to heal half his body that had been devastated by a lightning strike. All four lay unconscious in the safe spot created by Luana''s spell, leaving Rich to face the five heads alone. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. He didn''t retreat. Instead, he did the opposite, instilling fear into the hydra for the first time during this fight. He charged at them, cursing each head with creative curses, all conveying the same message: why wouldn''t they run out of regeneration? His sheer willpower intensified his energy, allowing him to continuously fend off the heads that relentlessly attacked him. The hydra, in its desperation, began using powerful elemental attacks near its own body, causing severe injuries to its other heads but forcing Rich to momentarily back off. While the hydra was an intelligent monster, it was still a beast, and its instincts began to dominate its actions. The most prevalent instinct now was fear against this diminutive creature that continued to harm it repeatedly. For the first time since the battle began, the hydra''s body started to move, trying to create distance between itself and this formidable adversary. This action, however, brought a smile to Rich''s face. His next attack penetrated deep into the hydra''s body, causing it to scream out in pain. It knew instantly it made a mistake. The hydra''s ability to render its body invulnerable was disrupted when it began to move. Now, Rich had a better target to attack to cause permanent damage. It took a while, but the hydra managed to reengage its protective ability, slowly making its body invulnerable once again. However, the damage was done. It bled from numerous wounds, and its regeneration only worked on its heads. However the damage to its body effected its regeneration efficiency and now, that regenerative power was waning, diminishing faster with each passing moment, especially when a head was severed from its body. Rich, screamed a battle cry, sensed victory was near. But he was so engrossed in the fight that he failed to notice his dwindling energy. When his attack faltered, he tried to drink another potion, but spat it out. It tasted vile because he had reached his limit, and consuming more would be as lethal as the hydra''s fangs. Pushing himself, he began using the last of his core energy to bolster his other abilities, making him appear demonic to the hydra. All five heads trembled, fearing that their opponent had merely been toying with them. The hydra was also running on fumes; its energy, mana, and regeneration were all close to being depleted. They tried their best, but he was overpowering them, severing their heads with every strike. For the first time, the heads didn''t regrow in ten seconds. Every time Rich cut a head, it took longer for one to regrow, allowing him moments where he didn''t have to dodge or attack. However, he could barely stand. His body was destroyed from the energy he had used, and he was bleeding from his eyes, nose, and ears. Yet he still persisted. With his last cut, he took out two more heads and then collapsed to the ground. He observed the hydra, which was now completely headless. Every single one of its heads was trying to regrow, but they did so slower and slower. If none of the heads managed to regenerate Rich would win. The red heads had almost managed it, but because every one of the heads tried to regrow, it took the last bit of energy inside the hydra. If only the other heads had not tried to regenerate they might have managed to survive but with the regeneration halted, the massive heart of the beast finally stopped, and it slumped down in defeat. Rich pushed himself up, making his sword disappear into his tattoo storage. Before that he however took a moment to look at his greatsword and thank it sincerely for bringing them this far. Slowly, he walked towards the safe spot where the rest of his party members were all unconscious. Each step for him was agonizing, feeling like a stab wound. But his traits and body was already working hard on restoring his damaged condition. He pushed onwards, reaching them, and then did the impossible: he threw two of them over his shoulder, grabbed another in his hands, and began to walk, wobbling on his feet, towards the stairway downwards. He knew the exact time, thanks to his trait, and was aware that he only had ten minutes to reach the stairway down or they would have failed. He made it there in five minutes, and as he stepped onto the staircase and felt the world shift. He found himself in a new location where he was staring at a seven-headed hydra that was twice as big as the previous one. But above that, shining brightly, was a huge floating dungeon core. "Congratulations," said an unearthly voice that echoed in the gargantuan room Rich found himself in. chapter 296* "Congratulations," I hear echoing all around this vast room. My focus immediately shifts to the seven-headed hydra, but I don''t believe it was the one speaking. My gaze travels upwards to the massive dungeon core, which is as large as my sauna. "You''re a quick one. Some who have made it this far never even consider that someone else might be speaking besides the intimidating hydra in front of them," the voice comments. I have to agree about the intimidating part, as I''m quite certain this monster is of rank 4. "I admit, I''m surprised you made it here. In all my time as a dungeon core, your party is the weakest to ever reach my grand hall," the dungeon core stated in a mostly monotone voice, but I thought I detected a hint of excitement. "I never would have guessed that you could make it this far, which made watching your party all the more intriguing. You''d be surprised how much something like this can enhance my mood," the dungeon core continued. For the first time since arriving in this world, I felt truly unnerved. This being was unlike anything I''ve encountered before. Its morality seemed entirely different, and to it, our lives were as insignificant as stalks of wheat are to me. "But look at me, rambling on. It''s time for your rewards. However, we seem to have a problem. Your party members are completely exhausted, and nothing you do will rouse them. You might not be aware, but you all performed well enough that they can request almost any reward they desire. If I can grant it, I will. If I can''t, or if you ask for too much, the nature of your reward will be up to me. But you''re in luck; I''m in quite a good mood." This was a problem. I tried to wake them up, but the dungeon core was correct; they were completely out. "They will need quite the rest after you pushed them so hard. It''s impressive that they are alive at all," the dungeon core commented. "Just give me a few more seconds, please. I''m looking for the paper where we all wrote down what we wanted, just in case someone was knocked out when we reached here," I said. It was something I was skeptical about when Horus brought this up, but who would have guessed that he would be completely correct about such a contingency? One thing I was certain about: none of us knew about the, ask for too great a reward and you might get screwed, part of the reward process. "Well, I don¡¯t know whether to be impressed or disappointed. I was kind of hoping you would have to come up with all the rewards yourself or perhaps take them all for yourself," the dungeon core said. The last words were spoken in a sweeter voice that made my back shiver. I only contemplated that choice for a moment before rejecting even the thought of taking up its offer. I felt that if I made the wrong choice, I would be losing more than just potential connections to powerful people in the future. "I think I will stick with what they have written on this paper," I said, to which the dungeon core hummed in delight. I pointed towards Horus. "He wants a skill called ''Light of the Embers Reach''." The dungeon core laughed so loudly that everything shook, and even the hydra seemed amused. "A bold and large claim, but truly, this one pushed himself past so many limits to reach this far. You might not know this, Rich, but all of them pushed well past their limits while trying to keep up with you. Delvers of your strength and with your level of equipment have made it here before, but none of them were accompanied by four who were so weak." There was a momentary pause, and then I felt the power level in the room rise, subsequently sinking into Horus. "It is done. Let''s move on to the next person," the dungeon core said, and I complied. I pointed towards Luana. "She asked for a trait called ''Elemental Awakening''," I mentioned. After my words, there was a brief silence. "Unfortunately, she could have gotten something better with her performance. I can''t change it completely, but I can enhance it a bit." Following that, the room pulsated with power, which then flowed into Luana. "Next?" the dungeon core inquired. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. I pointed towards Arabella. "She''s asking for a trait related to a true connection with a sacred tree. That''s all she wrote," I conveyed, sensing the dungeon core''s disappointment. "Even with her performance, I can''t grant her that. It''s not mine to give. Truly disappointing.¡± ¡°However, now I get to choose her reward. Hmmm, what to pick? Well, I guess there''s an interesting connection available. I like the idea, but someone else might not. Why should I care?" After that, the room surged with power, which then settled into Arabella. I didn¡¯t like the dungeon core''s words and hoped it hadn''t done anything too bad. Next, I pointed towards Adam. "His note says he wants something offensive that would complement his type of magic," I relayed. The dungeon core seemed deep in thought about this reward request. Eventually, it spoke, but I realized we had long surpassed our two-month time limit. "An intriguing request. I can see your influence on this young man. He could be truly great or someone truly scary. I''ll leave that choice to him." After those words, the room brimmed with more power than before, all of which flowed into Adam. "But now it¡¯s your turn, Rich Dirt. Let me warn you, though: you don''t have the merit to receive as grand rewards as they did. For you, this dungeon was much easier, and that sword of yours bordered on cheating. While I do encourage that as much as possible, it will still affect your end reward.¡± ¡°I will give you some time to think. You will have up to three days. That¡¯s about how much I can manipulate the flow of time in my seat of power. I recommend you think long and hard; this might be a unique opportunity for you." After those words, I felt the dungeon core''s presence lessen, but it was replaced by the hydras. I did as much for the others as possible, but their bodies were just too exhausted, as was mine. I woke up about a day and a half later, but now I was quite close to being back to a normally functioning person. My muscles were incredibly strained, and I felt my energy control was quite weak, but that was expected given how much I had pushed myself. I opened up my achievement page to see all the notifications before I started to think about what my reward might be. I found that I had leveled up quite a lot, with my classes pushing 40 or above. The last floors provided a significant amount of experience. I quickly went through my adventurer class levels, but unfortunately, there wasn¡¯t anything noteworthy, so I opted for stat point increases. My strength was now over 3000, well above what was needed for a new trait. Surprisingly, my dexterity also surpassed the needed stat points for a new trait. But before I delved into those, I looked at what my regular class levels offered, as level 40 was a milestone. I had the standard 3x stat points, but I also received a decent number of free points: 50 for my first homesteader class and 40 for the two others. The first homesteader class granted an ability called Land''s Heart, which felt incredibly potent, though not in combat. The Heroic Commander ability was named Banner''s Presence, likely meant to help with leading armies. I''ll need to test this one out later. Renowned True Archer provided a skill named Beginner Equipment Bond. This sounded intriguing. From my brief interaction with this skill, it seemed to suggest that I could form a connection with my equipment, adapting it to my needs. This will likely require extensive testing. Since it''s a skill, there''s a good chance I might acquire abilities that enhance the equipment I wear, which is an exciting prospect. There were also skill and ability improvements, though nothing groundbreaking. Saving the best for last, I turned to the traits I had acquired. For reaching the strength milestone, I received a trait named Pressure Resilience. While I didn¡¯t know exactly what it will do, the name was quite descriptive. For the dexterity milestone, I got a trait called Reflexive Precision. This one seemed more intricate, but I sensed significant potential in it. Now, it was time to contemplate the reward. Looking at my achievement page my mind short-circuited. There was so much to process, and many things were left sitting and unused. I pondered whether I could get a duplication ability to create a version of myself to handle tasks the way I envisioned. However, given my desired outcome, I doubted I could ask for such an ability. It took me quite a while to think about this but in the end, there was only one answer. ¡°I would like a trait or skill that would enhance my energy control and manipulation that I wouldn¡¯t be able to get by just learning and training.¡± The dungeon core¡¯s presence immediately filled the room again, and I could hear its laughter. "I knew you wouldn''t disappoint. It''s your greatest asset, except perhaps for your sword. But from what I can tell, you were the one who made it, so I think it still falls under your expertise in energy manipulation.¡± ¡°I don''t know if you''re aware, but you''re an absolute genius at manipulating energy. So much so that there''s only been one other who could rival you. He conquered this dungeon four centuries ago. But now, for your reward. You''re a unique one. He didn''t ask for a similar reward, nor would he have been given one as strong, he was with a stronger party and overall, he was more powerful." The history lesson was quite intriguing, but I felt like a child waiting to open his Christmas presents. Eventually, the dungeon core continued, "I''ll admit, you''re challenging to reward simply because you could learn so much on your own. From your achievement page, I sense you already have your future secured in a direction that would''ve been easy for me to assist with. But I guess I''ll need to think outside the box." Time continued to pass, but the dungeon core kept pondering, and I didn''t dare interrupt. "I''ve got it! It was difficult, but I think this will work beautifully." Power filled the room, but this time it sank into me, and I could feel a new skill appear on my achievement page. I checked it: ''Beginner Kinetic Energy''. "Now, don''t be disappointed that it''s a skill. I assure you, you couldn''t have learned it on your own. But unfortunately, our time here has come to an end. Goodbye." And as soon as the last word was spoken, I felt the world around me twist, and we were all outside the dungeon. chapter 297 POV Luana Everything was so hazy. I tried to open my eyes, but everything hurt, and the intense light wasn¡¯t doing me any favors. I tried to recall what had happened, but all I could remember was casting spells and then darkness. It took me a few moments to orient myself to my surroundings, but I found myself in a room that smelled like a healing potion. As soon as my vision cleared, it all hit me at once: the boss, the last fight. Wait, did we win? I opened up my achievement page and was bombarded by numerous notifications. I quickly scrolled to the recent ones and sighed in relief when I saw the dungeon completed notification, along with some free points and the trait I had wanted. However, it was a superior version compared to the one I had written down. How had that happened? A few moments of reflection led me to the realization that I didn¡¯t really care. We had achieved something we shouldn''t have been able to. Of course, it was Rich''s fault, but right now, I felt more inclined to thank him than blame him for pushing me so hard. I wanted to go find him, but just the act of sitting up, fueled by the excitement of completing the dungeon, drained me so much that I had to lie back down. A few moments later, someone entered my room and introduced herself as my nurse. The subsequent hours were filled with tedious tests. My irritation would have been lessened if they had answered my questions, but eventually, one of the nurses relented. I learned that we had been out of the dungeon for four days now and that everyone had made it out, though most seemed to be in a condition similar to mine. They mentioned I could have visitors later that night, so I wasn¡¯t overly concerned anymore. Going through all the notifications, I was so glad to find out that I wouldn¡¯t have to level up a single time for the next two years to keep up with school standards. However, it would probably still be a good idea to focus some time on it. I was able to eat dinner, which helped me recover quite a lot, and then I was finally able to see Horus. "Look who''s finally up," he said when he opened the door. His arm was still in a cast, but that was to be expected as we all went over our every limit for healing and potion consumption. "You look like you''ve been hit by a cart," I answered, which brought a smile to his face. "Everyone else is healthy. I know that the people here don¡¯t want to say just in case they give bad news, but we all made it, and every one of us was able to get an incredible reward," Horus explained, and I couldn¡¯t have been happier. "So, how did the fight end? Did Rich manage to outlast the hydra?" I was expecting a story, but instead, Horus''s face lost some of its happiness. "Unfortunately, I wasn''t able to meet Rich when I woke up. He left a letter, but apparently, he needed to leave urgently because something had happened in his nation." That news floored me. We had been together for two months, and while it seemed like a short while, it felt like I was going to miss someone special, a true friend. Was this what he spoke about when he said that fighting makes lifelong friends, and it hurts whenever you separate? We sat quietly for quite a while before Horus spoke up, "You know, Arabella is quite mad. She didn''t get the reward she wanted, and apparently, Rich was supposed to answer some questions. It was quite funny to see her reaction when she found out that he left." We laughed at that, and I guess I needed it because afterwards, I felt better. "Wait, what about the loot?" I asked. "He said that he''s already taken the important pieces when the normal item picking happened. He wants us to inform him about what we discover, but he said he''d most likely just want the items meant for him to be shipped to some compound in Verdia. We probably won''t meet him for quite a while," Horus answered. With those words, we switched the conversation to more casual topics just to fill the time. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. POV Rich The questioning was annoying, but since no one suspected me of any wrong doings, I was able to leave the dungeon guards offices without too much trouble. Visiting them in their hospital beds was a weird experience. I wasn''t going to wait until they woke up, so I just wrote a letter explaining a few things to them then went to find a way back. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that in the market, they sell teleportation crystals that are keyed to certain locations, and the ones most sold were the ones back to Verdia. They were a bit expensive, but I had the money for it. Luckily, I didn''t have to announce any loot, so I was able to get back to Verdia easily and without any problems. I didn''t waste much time, so I practically ran towards our compound as I needed to get back home as quickly as possible. There was a significant battle that was going to happen soon, and while I was certain we could win, there was no need for extra casualties if I could get there to help. But that would be the real question; to my knowledge, I wasn''t sure if that was possible. Approaching our compound, I found it to be completely changed. The streets around it were larger, but now the entire area that we owned was walled off, making it a lot more secure. I approached one of the entrances where one of the guards recognized me, but the other didn¡¯t. "Stop right there, no entry unless you have a pass," one of them said. Of course, I didn¡¯t have one, as that system wasn¡¯t implemented the last time I was here. "Don''t worry, Rich, I will get everything sorted out as fast as possible. And Mika, be nice to him," the guard who recognized me said while running off, while Mika seemed incredibly confused. It seems that we have a lot of new blood, but the guard seemed incredibly professional. While I could see the curiosity in his eyes, he didn¡¯t speak up. Soon, the other guard returned, and following him were a few more official-looking people whom I also didn¡¯t recognize. "Rich, it''s great to meet you. Roger has told me much about you. You have arrived at a fortuitous moment. Please, quickly, follow me." And even before he could introduce himself or any of the others, I was quickly ushered further in, where I soon started to hear some yelling. I did recognize one of the voices; it was Roger. "We need to get them through as fast as possible. We have 400 trained soldiers here who could swing the upcoming battle in our favor in an instant if they''re there," Michael said. And even before we made it to the large area where they were, I heard another voice answer. "I understand this, but you have to realize that this is something new, and I haven¡¯t been able to optimize it yet. It will require a significant amount of energy, and while we could get enough from the soldiers here, that would diminish their effectiveness by quite a lot." When I rounded the corner, I saw a group of soldiers numbering 400. They were heavily armored, and what was most interesting about the group was that half of them were dwarves, while the other half were humans or other similar sapients. "Then there''s the problem of me only being able to get them to the capital. From my understanding, it will still take a while for them to get to the battlefield, so there''s literally no way we can help them," said a scrawny-looking dwarf. When Roger saw me and the others who brought me, he sighed in relief. "Thank the water you are here; you have no idea how much I''ve missed you," Roger said as he ran towards me to welcome me back. He filled me in on what was happening and who the soldiers were. Apparently, the scrawny-looking dwarf was one of the pioneers of portal technology that used energy as a power source. However, he was owned by a merchant company that wasn''t willing to release him from his contract, at least not for a reasonable amount. So, what Roger did was buy the entire merchant company, then fired all the leadership, and offered anyone else a new, more reasonable contract, which almost all of them accepted, including the new portal engineer. I was impressed. The fact that the merchant company''s previous leadership wanted almost as much for the portal engineer as Roger needed to buy their shares on the open market just showed how inept they were. We had been discussing this for a few minutes while everyone looked at me, trying to figure out who I was. Unfortunately, Roger noticed this, and while turning around, he addressed everyone, "I am sorry I got a bit caught up, but allow me to introduce the High General of the United Freeholds, Rich Dirt." What followed was confusion, as no one knew how to react, which was a bit amusing. I wasn¡¯t, however, sure about the new title I apparently had. I pointed towards the portal engineer. "Can you portal me back to the capital?" He nodded in response. "That''s great. Michael, there¡¯s no need for everyone else to come; we need people to guard this place as well. I will go by myself, and that will be enough. So, let''s get this started," I said, and quickly everyone sprang into motion from my words. It seemed they had done this before, as the portal engineer took his place at the center of the room and began to weave energy, much like I had seen Luana do with mana. Soon, people started to approach him, offering some of their energy, which made the spell grow larger and larger. After about 70 people had approached him, a portal appeared, and through it, I could see what was presumably the capital. "I appreciate the lift," I said as I walked through. I was greeted with a rush of power that being on my nation''s land gave me. I soaked it in as guards surrounded me, but I soon heard commands for them to stand down. I was back home. chapter 298 I spent a few moments breathing in the wonderful air that wasn¡¯t too humid; it was just right. The air was already quite cold, but I like it that way. It was also wonderful to once again be aware of everything around me. However, I stopped admiring the beauty of this land and focused on the upcoming battlefield. It was past the goblin lands, near an outpost around the first-rank dungeon. I still had some time, but just in case, I thought I should start moving. "Yes, I already know about that," I told the lieutenant who rushed here to report about the upcoming fight. "I will move out immediately. Everyone else, back to your posts." At my command, every legionary began to move. It wasn''t hard to find my way out, and now I could run on a properly built road. The bridge over the river was also wonderfully made, and I was quite certain it could handle an incredible load. There weren¡¯t any goblin guards, but that was because some of them were assisting with the current defense of the outpost. It seems that over the past two months, the relationship between the goblins and my nation has improved significantly. I guess fighting and working together does help strengthen relationships. I deliberately bypassed the goblin village; I wanted to reach my destination as quickly as possible without alerting them to my approach. While I could go there and take command, this was the perfect opportunity for others to learn. The main reason I wanted to arrive quickly was to prevent possible major mistakes before they occurred and to provide everyone with my boost, which would make the fight easier. Beyond the goblin village, the road quickly turned from a properly paved one into a dirt path, but for my current needs, it was absolutely sufficient. When I reached the swamp, I actually stopped. There was a temporary wooden bridge built over the river that connected the forest and swamp, but beyond that was something that must have taken a lot of magic, abilities, or possibly both. They were filling in and raising the area where the future road would be. We had talked about what we might do here, but before I left, nothing was decided. I would be quite interested to hear what their plan and execution looked like. Just in case, I didn¡¯t use the half built road to go further into the swamp. Instead, I moved as I did the last time, jumping over the water and using the dry parts to advance inward. The outpost wasn¡¯t anything special. It currently looked like a wooden fort with a few watchtowers, but I could imagine it in the future becoming quite a large town. The walls themselves, unfortunately, wouldn¡¯t help against the fight that was going to happen, so currently, the United Freeholds had set up a defensive area further from the fort. There were about 800 Legionnaires, 400 goblins and nearly 200 Vikings against a few thousand flightless birds that used to inhabit this swamp but were driven out by the salamanders. Now, it seems that they have found themselves a leader who wants to claim the area that the fort currently occupies. I''m guessing that this is going to be a problem even in the future because the dungeon is emitting energy that is of a higher rank than the surroundings, which would make it a desirable area for any powerful beast or monster. Fortunately, the flightless birds, approximately 1 metre in height, aren''t much of a problem. In fact, it would be quite beneficial if they re-inhabit the area for hunting and restarting the ecosystem. The issue is that they have a beast or monster controlling them, and a few thousand of these birds can inflict significant damage, even to stronger beings like the citizens of the United Freeholds and the goblins who also inhabit the outpost. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Currently, I don''t know their exact plans, but from the positioning of the troops, I can make an educated guess, and it''s not a bad strategy. I just hope they plan on sending elite teams to find and eliminate the leader because that would most likely end the conflict. I was relieved that we weren''t facing anything too perilous. If I had to estimate, I was probably operating at only about 10 to 15% of my combat power at this moment. The hydra fight had drained me, but just recalling it brought a smile to my face. I chose a decent hill a bit away from the upcoming battle and camouflaged myself as best as possible, to simply observe. Using my ability, which allowed me to see everything even clearer than with powerful binoculars, I was also reminded that there wouldn''t be any telltale glint from glass to give away my position. Being a sneaky long-range fighter certainly has its advantages in this world. It took a few hours, but I liked that, while still preparing, the soldiers didn''t do anything too strenuous that would harm their combat ability. Everyone seemed to have high morale, although the newer troops were understandably a bit nervous. Their anxiety heightened when the noise of the approaching bird horde became audible to all. The oncoming birds seemed impressively adept at traversing the swampy land, which made sense as it was their natural environment, making it an awe-inspiring sight as thousands charged towards the legion''s lines at top speed. I integrated my commander ability into the current command structure that the soldiers were using. There were only a few low-level abilities helping to boost and communicate, but instantly, my ability transformed the entire command structure, making it run better than the best systems back on Earth. Immediately, I could hear chatter; everyone was surprised and thrilled that I had returned. However, I couldn''t have people be distracted so close to the battle. "Everyone, focus up and continue with your current orders. I am only here to provide support in the form of enhanced boosts; the rest is up to you." My words silenced all communication, but quickly the commanders leading this fight acknowledged what I said, and the soldiers readied themselves once again. This time, I was channeling my energy into my abilities, which in turn enhanced the defensive and offensive power of everyone connected. This was straining, but some pain and a longer recovery period were minor compared to the lives of my soldiers. Given the speed at which the birds were moving, it didn''t take long for the first ones to reach the shields. Even before that, many fell to the traps set by the Legionnaires or the javelins of the goblins. The birds didn¡¯t charge in one group; they were quite spread out. So, at first, they didn¡¯t pose any problems, but as more of them reached the troops, they began jumping onto one another or even using their small wings to fly just a bit, trying to get over the first wall of shields. The Legionnaires, however, were prepared, and shields and spears awaited any bird that made it over the first row of troops. Quite a lot of arrows and bolts were used to kill any bird that managed to get on top of the formation, and soon it became a problem as too many corpses started to weigh down the shields that protected the heads of the Legionnaires. I heard orders being given, and slowly the shields started to move like a wave, pushing the dead birds backward and eventually off the shields. It was a lot of physical work, but they had been training for quite a while and all had plenty of levels under them. However, they won¡¯t be able to keep this up forever. This is why a little while ago, I noticed that groups of Vikings started moving to the sides of the bird horde, trying to keep them contained. This also allowed elite fighters to get behind the bird horde and start to find the leader that was in charge and causing the birds to act like this. Time went by, and I was quite glad that I was able to make it here; otherwise, they would have been a lot more exhausted, and there already might have been deaths on our side. Currently, the soldiers who had been wounded were pulled out of the fighting, but if the elite fighters took too long, the frontline would need to keep fighting even while wounded, likely leading to many deaths. Time marched forward and soldiers who were wounded had to stay on the frontline. Luckily, the elite fighters had finally found their prey. The light show was immaculate, although brief. The first-rank monster couldn''t withstand six first-rank elite fighters for long. As soon as the bird was defeated, the rest of the horde paused for a moment. Then, they began to act like normal birds, scattering in every direction to escape the intimidating creatures nearby. I must say, this was one of the quickest battle conclusions I''ve witnessed. After the leadership was defeated, the rest fled within two minutes, leaving behind only their fallen comrades and many wounded soldiers. Healing magic managed to keep the most severely injured alive, but I still offered as much assistance as I could. Afterwards, I left the rest to the other commanders and set out, hoping to sleep in my own bed that night. chapter 299 It took some time, but I managed to find my way back home, but by the time I reached my land, it was already midnight. Tonight, however, was beautiful, with more stars in the sky than I could count. The world was illuminated by the endless stars on a black background, but soon it will be difficult to see them all when the two moons start illuminating the sky. Stepping onto my nation''s land always revitalized and strengthened me, but it was nothing compared to when I set foot on my own land. It welcomed me back warmly, and I almost felt it was eager to start a new season of growth immediately. However, I calmed it down and simply strolled around, reconnecting with my land. A constant smile adorned my face, and it felt like I was breathing the purest air possible. Everything here just felt right, and I was so grateful for my decision to stay and build a life on this land. Often, when we were in the dungeon and others discussed different builds for various classes, I found that my choices weren¡¯t optimal for becoming the strongest I could. But being here reaffirmed that being the strongest isn''t always the best, especially when simpler things bring me so much joy. This sentiment might not resonate with everyone, but for me it does and I''m glad to have my own land. I continued my walk, observing the surroundings until the sun began to rise. It was time to address my neglect. There''s so much I''ve overlooked, but before focusing on myself, I need to attend to my 12 apprentices. As I approached the main house, I noticed the chimneys smoking. Upon opening the door, I was pleased to see four individuals busy preparing food. They instantly turned around, and one even grabbed a knife in surprise. Seeing me, smiles spread across their faces. "Rich, you''re back!" one of them exclaimed. At which point, Thomas began banging on a pot, rousing everyone else up. "Yeah, I¡¯m back. Let me help you make some breakfast, and after that, we should catch up," I told everyone. After the banging stopped, a few people, still with sleepy eyes, glared at Thomas because he woke them up a bit too early. I suspect a few pranks have found a new target. Helping with breakfast was a treat and I taste tested everything being cooked. I was quite tired of rations, so a proper breakfast of eggs, fried potato, and meat was heavenly. I only assisted a little, but it was a good time because it gave us a chance to discuss what they had been up to. Their stories were interesting. By this time, they had all discovered their passions and were pursuing them, even beyond where my knowledge could assist. However, what I could do was guide them on strengthening their foundations, enabling them to excel further in their chosen interests. As we ate, I shared my story. They enjoyed how I described the dungeon and the battles within, but they all became silent and focused intently when I got to the part about the hydra. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. It was hard for them to believe, but they tried because they knew I wouldn¡¯t lie to them. Watching their reactions to my tale was fascinating but even more interesting was seeing their expressions fight between disbelief and the understanding that what I was saying was the truth. After breakfast, I quickly gathered everyone so I could get their schedules so I could spend time with each person alone. This would allow us to delve deeper into what they had achieved and what they aimed to accomplish. It would be a lot of work, but I genuinely enjoyed it. It was wonderful to witness such growth. It was also a relief not to push myself with testing new abilities or traits, as my body still needed recovery, even if I appeared healthy. On the first day, I spent most of the morning in the greenhouse. It was quite lovely to see it remain vibrant green inside. Clara and I spoke for hours, and I learned from her about how she managed to keep everything so green so far into the cold period. Apparently, she had bought some broken climate stabilizers that were used to maintain large storehouses at the perfect temperature and humidity. She was able to fix one up sufficiently to keep this small greenhouse as it would be during summer. All of my apprentices still needed a few levels until they could become full homesteaders, but that will be addressed during the winter. Clara already knows she wants to grow specialized plants that will likely require multiple greenhouses with varied environments. While I couldn¡¯t assist her directly, we could theorize, and I could help her with the design work for her envisioned homestead. They didn''t know it yet, but come spring, they will all need to start building their own homesteads. However, before I announce that, there are some bureaucratic homesteader matters I need to address back at the capital. It''s kind of awesome that people have started to refer to it as the capital, even though by population and size, it''s just a small town. But, considering its rapid growth in just one year and the fact that I don¡¯t see it slowing down, I suppose the title isn''t too much of a stretch. Although its growth should slow down a lot as we begin to build different outposts that will eventually evolve into villages throughout our nation. During lunchtime, I visited Francis, who was nearby preparing new fields for the upcoming spring. He was quite excited to still be working, and it seemed he had missed me a great deal. Back at the homestead, I spent the rest of the day with another apprentice who was quite torn about where she wanted to make her home. She absolutely loved fish and fishing. A few months back, when I mentioned fish farms, she hasn''t been able to let that idea go since. We discussed logistics and how much she might have to dig. But honestly, when she began to realize the amount of work it would take, she wasn''t disheartened. Quite the opposite, in fact. It seemed the more work involved, the more excited she became. It was incredibly satisfying to see such passion, especially when I could help her realize her dream. That night, I slept peacefully in my own bed. I was quite pleased when I woke up to the smell of breakfast. But before I headed to eat, I decided to focus a bit more on my own body. I could see the damage was still there, but it was steadily healing. What interested me most were the energy cores that were now so numerous. A total of 17 were in my energy body and it looked like that will be the max amount. All of the smaller ones were about 1/5 the size of the original, and they also produced about 1/5 the amount of core energy that the original core did. Still, that was significantly more than before. Energy paths connected all the cores, making it much easier for me to expel tremendous amounts of energy for abilities. I would still need to do the same thing with all the other cores that I did with my main core when I copied it from my energy body into the physical one. Once again, I wasn''t sure about the consequences, just as I hadn''t been when I originally did it. But so far, it has benefited me greatly. I hope nothing goes wrong. Did I just jinx myself? Regardless, the smell of delicious food was too much to resist any longer. It was time for breakfast, and afterward, a chat with another one of my apprentices. chapter 300 After my talk with my next apprentice, which luckily lasted a shorter time than the first two. She just wanted a nice home where she could raise a family which was an easy problem for me to help with. I headed towards the capital. On my way, I stopped at the inn and said hi to Val and his family. We only talked briefly, but he seemed quite excited about some new beverages he''s been brewing up. But that prompted an interesting question, one I pondered while walking to the capital: Is it safe for me to start drinking? I know that because of my trait, ''Giant Amongst Men'', my body is fully grown, so it shouldn¡¯t affect me negatively. I mulled over this until I reached where Francis was working. I concluded that I would try Val¡¯s new brew, but I wasn¡¯t going to start drinking even in moderate amounts. There might not be a need to physically limit myself, but mentally, I think I want to wait. My thoughts were interrupted when Francis began to nuzzle me for scratches. Happily, I obliged, scratching his head and neck for as long as he wanted. "Look at you, working so hard. You''re such a good bull." I received an affirmative moo in response and continued to chat with him, even though he probably didn¡¯t grasp much of what I was saying. A good while later, Francis wanted to get back to work, and I continued my journey towards the capital. I¡¯m not fond of bureaucracy, but I recognize its necessity. One thing I was genuinely grateful for was that I didn¡¯t have to deal with it as much as if I were actually running the place. I never understood stories where people aspired to be kings, especially if they faced situations similar to mine. It''s like raising your hand in class to ask the teacher for more homework because you have a smidgen of free time and wish to fill it with nonsense. It was the first time since I made it back that I used the gateway leading to my home. So, it was also the first time I noticed something interesting a little ways outside the town walls. There were quite a few people there. As I got closer, I realized it was an obstacle course of some sort. It took a while to reach it while walking, mainly because my eyesight was so sharp that I could see everything from a distance. There might be a few things I hadn''t considered when planning the defense of a town or an area. Probably many people in this world have excellent eyesight and can see great distances quite clearly. Need to interrupt that as best as I could. But I''ll think about that later. For now, I began observing the people attempting the extremely challenging obstacle course. It reminded me of extreme sports enthusiasts who design obstacle courses where participants jump onto small platforms, hold onto narrow ledges, and leap towards a swinging ring on a rope trying to fit held rods into it to not fall, all while covering significant distances. This particular course, however, seemed to be designed to be ten times harder. Almost everyone was using their abilities to tackle the various obstacles. I was quite impressed by the setup, but many of those attempting the obstacles really should start with simpler ones. Most were constantly failing, but I did notice some who were faring better, and they seemed to be the ones in charge here. I inquired for more information and quickly learned there was a fee for an hour of practice. It seemed quite reasonable based on what I last knew about the average income of most people. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I was noticed almost immediately, and I guess I now know how celebrities feel when people start talking about them in hushed tones, looking at them as if they''re someone to worship. I didn¡¯t enjoy the feeling, and I guess I even kind of disliked it, but it wasn''t too big of a deal. "There¡¯s also a completion reward if you do the full course. You will get your credit back that you have spent in the last week," one of the establishment workers said to me after explaining about the place. She looked somewhat hopeful that I would try this challenge, and I was curious about how well I would do. "That sounds like a nice challenge. Where do I pay, and how long is the line for the challenge?" I asked, and she responded immediately, "No need to pay, and you can go immediately." I guess my disapproving look made her rethink her words. "I mean, if you fail the challenge, you can pay for one hour''s usage. But I think there¡¯s a good chance you''ll complete it, so there wouldn''t be any need to exchange credit and then give it right back, right?" she said with a hint of nervous laughter at the end. I was impressed. She came up with a plausible excuse, even though my participation would likely attract more people here, generating more income than I could ever pay them. She led me to the starting point, and soon the person who initiated this all joined us. After a brief introduction, I was given the rules by the person who designed the entire place. The primary rule was that you couldn''t use movement abilities. That made perfect sense; it would trivialize a lot depending on your ability. But since I was still recovering, I decided not to use any energy to boost myself and would rely solely on my physical body. The news made the owner a bit nervous, as he probably wanted me to complete that obstacle course. Even I have already heard some complaints that it''s too hard. He should probably invest in a simpler obstacle course, but I guess everyone makes mistakes when opening a new business. You just have to hope that you didn''t make a blunder so big that you can''t continue with your business. Before I started, I stretched and limbered up as much as possible. Some suggested that I shouldn¡¯t wear my armour, but I waved that off. I wanted to try and complete it while wearing battle gear. The first obstacle was a standing jump over a three-metre sand pit. I cleared it with ease, my tall body helping me with this. However, there would be times when my large size wouldn''t be so advantageous, but that would come later in the obstacle course. Next were some monkey bars, but they were spaced quite far apart. You needed to get some momentum, otherwise, you wouldn''t make it to the next one. As I continued, the obstacle course slowly started to rise. About halfway through, I needed to jump across pillars that were only one inch by one inch and spaced up to two metres apart. An interesting thing to note was that they were five metres above the ground. For safety, there was a net underneath, but I wasn¡¯t sure it could handle my weight. That, however, would only be a problem if I failed. I visualized the route I would take and then jumped, letting my body do the work. I jumped from one pillar to the next, never stopping until I reached the other side of the obstacle. This one was quite hard. Even a slight miscalculation in the jump could land you in the net. I wasn''t looking forward to the next few obstacles, as I would need to hold my entire body weight with only my fingertips. Halfway across the first obstacle, I began to regret leaving my armor on, but I managed to complete it without too much trouble. The rest of the obstacle course passed in a blur. I wanted to finish it quickly since I didn''t have much time. When I finally jumped off and rolled to break my fall from the last obstacle, I found that everyone was staring at me in silence. "I''m pretty sure he actually didn''t use any abilities," I heard someone murmur. As I met the eyes of those watching me, I began to wonder if I''d made an error, seeing something akin to blind worship in their expressions. The owner recovered first, starting to clap, and everyone else followed his lead. He seemed sharp, realizing I wanted to leave and not trying to detain me. Instead, he made a quick announcement. "We''ll call it Rich''s Challenge, where you''ll need to complete the obstacle course without any abilities. As a reward, your name will be on the same plaque as our high general, Rich Dirt." His words ignited enthusiasm in some of the attendees, and I wondered how long it would take for someone to replicate my feat. chapter 301 When I got into the town, I found it to be quite bustling. So many seemed to be moving with purpose, but what I enjoyed the most was how everyone looked. They weren''t miserable or worn down; they looked happy and healthy. It will still take a few days until the main force of the army makes it back here, but the injured were already being treated. We seem to have many more professional healers, probably from Verdia. I asked one of the nurses about the seriously injured people from our previous battles, and I was glad to hear that already half of them were fully restored, or as good as it was possible to get them, and slowly they were working through the rest of them. After that, however, I really needed to hurry as I had another appointment with one of my apprentices. The village hall didn¡¯t look like it used to. To the sides and possibly the back, there were extensions built to the building, expanding its capacity by quite a lot. It made sense as we were starting to run out of space, but I was glad to see they were able to finish it before the winter truly set in. I looked up towards the sky and saw that the winds were bringing huge storm clouds. It looks like it will start to rain quite soon. Inside the building, I headed upstairs but was stopped by the receptionist. "Rich, good afternoon, but if you¡¯re heading towards your office, then I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s no longer where it used to be. Would you like me to take you to where your new office is?" I looked towards the receptionist and nodded. "Good afternoon to you as well, and yes, please show me the way." We headed to the back of the building, and I was glad that I was correct. There seemed to be an extension towards there as well, just as I expected. My office was now quite large, but the thing that I didn¡¯t like was the table with a lot of paperwork on it. The receptionist looked apologetic, but before she could start apologizing, I waved her off. "It''s not your fault, and thank you for showing me the way." She still apologized but then quickly left as she was probably the only receptionist currently working. At first, I didn¡¯t notice this, but I was pleasantly surprised as everything from the table, chair, and even the writing utensils were meant for a person my size. Sitting in the chair made me forget how good it is to sit in a chair made for your size. It seems that I would need to come here more often to get through this paperwork, or perhaps I should come here at night. Currently, I was recovering and helping my apprentices, so I basically had the nights free; it might be a good idea. Planning my immediate future made my shoulder blades itch, reminding me that I was still carrying a lot of storage devices that I got from that party I killed. There was no hurry; nothing will happen to them, but there was also the need to look over the items that I personally got from the delve. Once again, I wasn¡¯t in a hurry but there was so much to do. I started to look through the paperwork for the thing that I was here for, and about halfway through the third pile, I finally found the bundle of papers about homesteading. In this paperwork were written down the rules for the class ''homesteader'', its responsibilities, and the benefits that you received from the nation. I sat back, found a comfortable position, and started to read through them. I agreed with most of what was written, but there still were some changes that needed to be made. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Homesteaders were one of three entities that could own land in the United Freeholds. The first was the nation itself, the second was guilds, and the third was the homesteader. There were good reasons why only those three could own land, but mainly it was because of the class ''homesteader''. Every person with that class will help elevate a piece of land in a way that would cost an enormous amount of resources or a stupid amount of time. Not only that, but every homesteader could have a dungeon connected to that land, which would mean that you could make clusters of dungeons that border different homesteader lands, making it easy to manage those dungeons. There was quite a lot written about resources and how they would be handled both for production and procurement. Production was the easy part: if you made something, you could put it on the local market where someone can buy it or even the nation could buy it at an appropriate appraisal price. Procurement is a little bit more difficult. While lower rank and plentiful resources will be handled like I''m used to back on Earth, for more limited resources, a waiting list approach is being used. Apparently, you could sign up for a certain type of resource, and when it becomes available and you''re next on the list, you will be able to buy it. Of course, it was a lot more complicated than that, but those were the basics of it, and I didn¡¯t really want to delve deeper into it right now, though I noticed a bundle of paperwork on my table about the full system. Being a homesteader gave you quite a few benefits, but mostly it was the fact that you could own land that allowed you to access those benefits. I was glad to see that they were trying not to turn homesteaders into nobility, but we will see how well they can accomplish that. The problem that needed to be addressed was in the responsibilities. There were currently certain areas in our nation marked as possible land for homesteaders, but there was also special land marked for homesteaders that would require someone willing to deal with the special requirements. Currently, however, it would be mandatory for homesteaders to pick the special requirements areas, but this will need to be changed to ''highly recommended'' instead of ''mandatory''. The special requirements were quite varied, but mostly they had to do with the resources in that area. For example, the vast areas of rabbits in the grasslands. There was a provision where a homesteader could get huge pieces of land, like 10 times my land size, but the catch would be that you needed to manage that area. You would be responsible for the rabbit population, give out permissions about how many rabbits could be hunted, and so on. I found the idea interesting from the first moment I thought of it but making it mandatory was a significant oversight because not everyone would be equipped to handle such a responsibility. It was also a requirement for a homesteader who had established his or her homestead to start taking apprentices. There was also a lot of information about how that would work, what the requirements were, and so on. But it basically boiled down to: if you''re an established homesteader, you must teach the class to others. Quite straightforward. There was even an entire branch of the government planned that would eventually handle everything to do with homesteaders, but currently, it seems that there were only three people employed. Now, at least I know what information to give to my apprentices and where to send them after I was done with getting a better idea of what they wanted for their future. I also liked that there was no requirement for someone who has the homesteader class to claim land and start building their home. It was mainly added because of more adventurous people who might want to go and gain strength before they start their home. I also loved how there was a clause that the homesteader could always find a home in the United Freeholds, even if they have adventured for years and years. I added the changes to the paperwork with my thoughts and comments. Then I put them into the outbox outside my office, and then I hurried back home as another one of my apprentices would soon be waiting for me. I was quite excited to learn about how he had advanced and what he might want for his future. I don¡¯t know why, but it was incredibly satisfying seeing people achieve their dreams. Just before I started to run back, it finally started to rain. Usually, the cold rain was something I hated, but now it just felt great. If this rain would have come a week or two later, it would have been snow, and we would have had our first snowstorm. chapter 302 The next apprentice was a bit of a special case. Tim and I could get along really well, and we were quite good friends, but he''s also quite old already. "You see, Rich, I¡¯ve had my own farm for quite a while now, but like most who find themselves in this nation, I had to abandon my home.¡± ¡°At first, I thought of nothing else but starting over and making a new place for myself; that¡¯s why I''m here as one of your apprentices. But being here, learning from you and the others, I have come to realize I don¡¯t think that I want to start from the beginning. But I do want to homestead, so I was thinking..." At this point, he stopped working and stepped closer to me while looking fully serious. "Rich, would you accept me into your clan so I could take care of this homestead when you¡¯re not here and help you when you are?" The question floored me. I hadn¡¯t even considered something like that, but it could be so helpful, and Tim is someone easy to get along with. "I won¡¯t say no, but let''s wait until you have all gotten your full homesteader class, and then you can decide. I won¡¯t lie and say your help wouldn''t be welcomed. This would be a huge decision, so don''t make it lightly; we still have some time before we truly need to decide." He gave me a firm nod, and we continued to work in comfortable silence. It was a nice way to spend an evening, and after that, the night got even better. Tonight, we were going to the sauna. It was incredibly fun, with everyone joking around and just having a good time. I was the only one who was able to enjoy the water for longer than just a quick jump in after we all enjoyed the hot steam in the sauna. Until the end of the week, I spent time with my apprentices, having a one-on-one with each of them. There were only a few who still hadn''t decided what they wanted to do, but the rest of them had some idea at least of what they wanted their homestead to look like. When I¡¯d finished with everyone, I told them that next spring they would be claiming their land and starting to build their own homes. Only a few had expected this apprenticeship to be so short, but they were all excited. I then shared the information I learned in my office and told them where they needed to go to register themselves as future homesteaders, and a little bit about what that process meant. During the nights, I worked through the paperwork that had piled on my table. Most of it was just so I would be familiar with the nation and the new systems being implemented, but there were a few more important points that needed my input as well. The most crucial one was information about the meeting that was going to happen next month, where we would discuss and plan the future development of our nation. It will be an extremely important meeting and will probably last an entire week before we can even begin to start making a proper plan for the future. But now that the most urgent things were done, and with the new week starting, I once again started giving lessons about energy control, this time in a building meant for teaching. So from Monday to Friday, every morning for two hours, I was giving lessons. The list to sign up for my class was so long that doing just one lesson a week would mean that I would never finish with just the basic course, and I did want to start giving out lessons beyond the basics. By this time, my body had also recovered, and while I still wasn¡¯t at 100%, I felt confident fighting once again with all that I had. By this time, my hands were also itchy, as I wanted to go through all the loot that I had. But I held back, as I had an interesting plan and I was executing it during the night. It took me a full week to finish it, but just thinking about it, let alone standing inside, made me feel incredibly happy. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. I now had a proper secret treasure room. Inside the root cellar, where I previously had made the secret door and a small hole where I could store some things, I now had a small room, but it was properly strengthened and had stone walls and floor. I had just finished making a simple table and a chair. Grabbing the oil-burning lantern, I put it on the table and started to take out the pieces of loot that I had gotten from the dungeon. I started with the stolen loot. There were two distinctly different piles of loot. One, if I had to guess, would be from a delver team that reached around the 60th floor. There wasn¡¯t anything too special in it, but there were some weapons and armor that might be useful for our army officers. However, I won¡¯t be giving them out anytime soon, as I am still a bit paranoid about someone finding out that I was the one who killed them. There was one exception, one piece of equipment that synergized with myself so well that I could already tell what it could do. It looked like a leather friendship bracelet, and when I put it on, the energy in the air immediately started to vibrate. I breathed in slowly through my nose, and for the first time, I could smell energy. It was like fresh spring air. I almost didn''t even have to think before the energy surrounding me leapt to do anything it could to help me. The bracelet basically extended the inner control that I had over my energy into the surroundings, although it did so only to a small distance of about a meter or two, but it was already exceptionally powerful in my book. I was a lot more disappointed about the loot that the party I killed must have collected by themselves. They had some armor and weapon pieces and even a few crafting ones, but once again, only one piece of loot seemed to resonate with me exceptionally well. It looked like a tiny hammer that archaeologists use in the movies, and after I touched it, I felt an incredible connection to it, and it wanted me to craft things. I felt that whatever boost it had, I didn''t actually need to use it as a hammer, just have it on me. But for now, I will leave it in this room just in case. That was a bit disappointing, but I think some of it comes down to the fact that I don''t really need a new weapon or armor at this current stage. I feel like when I need to make a new set of armor, the ones that were dropped by the dungeon simply won''t do. For the loot that I got myself, I was a lot more excited about. The first piece of loot I was already wearing was the ring that gave me my mind companion. He was an incredible resource, as my mind palace looked so formidable now, and somehow he''s even been able to make stone golem-like defenders, so I''m certain whoever wants to break into my mind will have a terrible time. The next thing that I pulled out was the Compendium of Spell Waves created by Vespinax, the Demon of the Prime Hell, but I don''t yet know what to do with this, and I will probably need to schedule a time with our mages so we can figure out how I can transfer the knowledge from this book into a form that others could read. I spent some time flipping through it, and I was 100% certain that there were more pages in it than physically possible, so who knows how long it will take to actually finish copying this entire book. I started to take out the lesser pieces of loot that I had gotten, quite a few of them being materials for crafting. It was a nice pile of rank two materials, and I could probably use them to make myself equipment for a while because I was still over 1000 points away in my vitality from reaching the next rank of energy access. Just in case I might have missed some pieces of material, I went through my tattoo storage and had to stop when I found something that I didn¡¯t know was there. I pulled them out of the storage to find five different colored necklaces. Wait, did I pick up the loot from the last boss? I could have sworn under oath that I didn¡¯t, and I actually did swear when I got out of the dungeon, and whatever device they were using actually believed me. Was I that out of it that I picked them up on instinct, or did the dungeon core actually help me out? Whatever the case might be, I was glad to have them, but they didn¡¯t really resonate with me, which was quite disappointing. They did look incredibly cool, with incredibly detailed symbols of the corresponding elements of the hydra head. I accidentally brought two of them closer together, and they actually snapped into place like there were magnets inside of them. After a moment of shock, I immediately gathered every one of them, and when they all snapped together, I was left with a circular pendant with fire being in the center, surrounded by the others. I still didn¡¯t feel any resonance with this item, but it felt incredibly powerful, and more specifically, there also seemed to be stat points that the pendant would give. Putting it on, I did feel it tried to connect to something inside of me, but it couldn''t, which was disappointing. But when I looked at my stats, I was incredibly pleased to see that the pendant boosted 5 stats¡ªStrength, Dexterity, Vitality, Constitution, Endurance¡ªby 500. This was an incredible amount of stat points, and I felt the energy corresponding to those particular stats strengthen inside me even more. The unfortunate thing is that these stat points don¡¯t count for getting traits or the next rank of energy access. The last piece of noteworthy loot was the sapling, or stick as others called it. For it, I sat and meditated for the rest of the night to find out what it needed, but unfortunately, it just needed to acclimate until spring before I could plant it, and I didn¡¯t even find out what kind of tree it would grow into, let alone anything else. chapter 303 Now that that was taken care of, I could focus on my achievement page and the new things I''ve gained. The first things to test out would be the new ability. Ethereal sight was still something I wasn''t 100% certain of, and it didn''t seem to work consistently, but I guess I will just have to give it time to get used to it. Energy armor I have gotten quite proficient at, and with my manipulation, it''s basically a second armor that I can manipulate for any situation. I could even use it for attacks if things get too close, which I think would be a benefit against swarm-type monsters. Lands heart was not what I expected it to be, and unfortunately, it didn''t help me push my incredible connection to my own land even further. But what it did do was allow me to have a shadow of that connection even outside my land, making it incredibly useful for basically everything. My map ability liked it the most because I was able to get extremely detailed feedback from the land outside our nation''s borders; I just had to go there. I was also able to receive a lower-intensity boost, which at first glance might not be that strong, but having it constantly is quite nice, especially for energy regeneration. Banner''s presence was more difficult to test, but like everyone else is saying, I was the high general, so gathering a decent-sized force for testing wasn''t too tough. What I was surprised about was that when winter arrived, our armies thought it was going to be a quiet season with less training and less need to make specialized equipment for the winter. Three days of me yelling at the commanders and positioning troops into formations, and then running drills, made everyone understand the grave mistakes they had made. Other commanders, who usually didn''t train with the regular solders, now learned the error of their ways. Of course, all of this was a good opportunity for testing, and I have to say, I didn''t expect this ability to work the way it did. It literally created ghostly banners for every unit in my army, and only my army could see those banners. We didn''t have any official unit symbols, but they were quickly adapted from my ability''s ghostly banners. They also didn''t give direct combat benefits, but what they did give was something even more important. It helped boost and keep the unit''s morale, but it did it in a subtle way. It didn''t affect the mind; it just did what banners used to do back on Earth. It signified that the unit was still capable of fighting, and just knowing that others around you are still fighting is incredibly helpful to keep you on task. So, while this isn''t an overpowered ability or something that will make battles incredibly easy, it is, however, something useful and helpful. In this world, at least when an army has a person like me with command capabilities, they don''t usually use banners because they''re not needed for communication. But I¡¯m glad I was able to see it to know how useful it actually is. I am even contemplating adding a banner system into our army, so we would have it even without my ability, but there''s time to think about that. Now that the army was sorted out and I was certain that they weren¡¯t slacking anymore, I was able to get enough free time to continue with the things I have gained in my achievement page. The next easiest thing was to figure out were all the new traits that I have gotten. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Multiple energy cores is an incredible trait, and I will still need to copy over all of the paths and new cores into my real body. But I want to wait and continue to observe how they function, so I can make sure that I do this correctly, as I will only have one chance and I¡¯m pretty sure my trouble sense indicates that if I mess it up, I would die. Temporal awareness is something that I have come to love. But I was already pretty good at telling the time on my farm inside the dungeon, and in a city, it¡¯s more difficult, at least it used to be. I also believe that it will be quite helpful for crafting, especially when dealing with time-sensitive materials. It kind of feels like I¡¯m back on Earth where a clock was always at hand. Vitality overflow is something that has kept me going in the dungeon and has helped me recover a lot faster than I should have. I took quite a long time to meditate on it, but this trait isn¡¯t as defined as, for example, temporal awareness. Its limits are fuzzy, but what it basically does is channel my excess vitality energy into restoring and boosting me. Unseen Shadow isn''t a very helpful trait for me because I''m not an assassin. That being said, it will most definitely help me sneak close to anyone I want and perhaps even help me hide my presence so I could once again surprise the army personnel under me. This required immediate testing, and for the next four days, the army personnel who were working as guards learned to keep their eyes open while doing their jobs. It was quite a fun time, but focusing too much on what basically is a hobby wasn''t a good idea. The next trait, Harmonic Resonance, was something I didn''t even have the faintest clue about, but a meditation session later, I had a better idea of what it was and started to test it out. What it turned out to be was one of the most flexible and powerful traits I have. What was even more wonderful was that it worked incredibly well with one of my other traits, Kinetic Absorption. Kinetic energy is basically a wave of moving energy, and not the kind of energy abilities use. Harmonic Resonance allows me to manipulate those waves of energy, amplifying or de-amplifying them. Not to mention that it should work incredibly well with my new skill, Beginner Kinetic Energy, but it will require a lot of testing and training to make any use of it in a fight. Pressure Resilience was something I will probably not be able to test, but a meditation session later, I had a good picture of what it does. It basically allows me to endure pressure a lot better, be that the puncture kind you could get from a sword or water pressure under dozens of meters of water. Another thing that made me a better fighter, even if only by a little. It did add some survivability in an environment I am ill-equipped to deal with, which I was glad about. The last trait, reflective precision, is something that will require tens of years of practice but will help me achieve greater heights of mastery than I ever could by myself. My swordsmanship is the perfect way to explain it. Currently, I''m still mastering the basics, but with this trait, I can basically program my muscle memory. This way, I can perform actions without thinking, like any master, and with enough time, I could get optimal actions for basically every move my opponents could make without even having to think about it. This will, however, require a stupid amount of training, but eventually, it should pay off incredibly well. Now it was time for the skills. Beginner equipment bond is an interesting skill; it teaches you basically how to ritually bond equipment to yourself. Unfortunately, my skill level was too low to do it with my current equipment, so I started with a simple hammer to see what effect it would have. That helped me level it up, and I now understand how in the future this skill is supposed to work. With every level-up, you receive a bit more information on how things are supposed to work, and I also got a small clip showing what this skill would allow me to do in the future; it looks incredibly exciting. It should make it so that using bonded equipment is even less taxing on my energy, and my own energy should slowly strengthen that item the more I use it. Beginner kinetic energy is a completely different beast. The dungeon was correct; without its guidance, I would have never figured out that energy could be used like this. It was basically so foreign that if for your whole life, you knew that red-hot metal burns you, but now you learned that it can actually freeze as well. Coming to terms with this fact will be difficult, and it actually made my brain hurt. It will be a really long process for me to gain any proficiency using energy this way, but I also think it''s an incredible opportunity to push my energy manipulation even further. It also seems like I was correct, and my harmonic resonance and kinetic absorption seem to have some similarities with what this skill is teaching. chapter 304 Now that all important things were taken care of, I was able to focus on mentoring my apprentices and starting to grind skills again. Winter slowly started to take over, and I could feel how the land''s life retreated; it almost felt like everything around me was going to sleep. That, of course, wasn''t the case. About a week before the big meeting started, we once again needed to mobilize our army, but this time only the Vikings. There must have been a dungeon break-up high in the mountains past our iron outpost. It was a low-rank dungeon. So, fighting the monsters wasn¡¯t the problem; it was the rapid response that we needed to do. But the Vikings were trained for that, so they took up the defensive positions around the iron outpost before the monster horde reached us. This time, nothing would have happened if they hadn¡¯t made it because I was so close, but it was good to see that even without me, everyone was doing their jobs excellently and ensuring that the United Freeholds'' people would be safe. The fight took about three hours, but the only moments that were dangerous were in the first 30 minutes, where there were truly a lot of monsters. The monsters themselves were weird¡ªa mix of goat and wolf. After the defensive battle, we moved to clean out the rest of the monsters from this mountain as not all attacked our position. This was kind of nice for my throwing practice because using my bows would have been overkill for anything up here. When we reached the broken dungeon, I let one of the units take point but followed them quite closely. It seems that no matter what broken dungeon you go into, it would feel like a horror scene, as everything was so wrong and it felt like only ghosts still took residence in this dungeon. I let them break the dungeon core, but I captured the seeds. Now we had three more, and when I reached the capital, I found out that we now had a way to store them for a longer period, so we could save them up for later use. Currently, we didn''t do that, as there were still open spaces around the capital for dungeons. Only a few days later, it was time to start the meeting. It was held in the largest room we had, and for the first half-day, we just went over current numbers and what we had achieved this year. It was quite impressive, but one thing that was highlighted was that there weren''t really any new refugees from the local area. Our population has still grown a little bit, thanks to the connection we have with Verdia. It was quickly mentioned that currently, we have plans to expand that avenue for gaining new people. It was honestly incredibly impressive seeing all that has changed. Keeping everything working and expanding has taken a tremendous amount of work, and I was incredibly glad that I didn''t have to do any of it. When we reached the numbers for people''s classes, I was even more impressed by how much information we had and how much has changed for the regular person who also had access to this much information. During the next spring, one of the new large buildings that will be built will have only one purpose, and that''s to deal with everything related to the achievement page. There, every citizen can get access to all the information the United Freeholds will have access to, but some things will be restricted, like the darker side of the achievement page, but only to those people who aren¡¯t initiated into it. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. We already had multiple gangs in the capital that held different territories, although everyone here just called them guilds, like the Red Knife Guild and so on. None of them were allowed to mess with regular citizens. While currently they weren''t directly helping the capital, the skills that they have learned here and the class levels gained have already helped us keep our compound in Verdia safe from thieves. We also seemed to have an assassin guild, but currently, it was only three people who had done that line of work before. Practicing for them isn''t something that we can fake and something that we want to allow in our nation. How to handle this type of guild was also on the list of topics for later on, and I was kinda interested in others'' ideas of how we could make this work because, honestly, I had no idea. The first day was so long, and my head felt like it was smoking from all the information, but after a good night''s sleep, I felt ready for the next one. Eventually, we made it to nation planning, where sites for outposts that will eventually grow into villages were discussed, as well as the construction of major roads that would connect everything. However, I immediately saw a problem, so I stood up to speak. "I''m afraid that we are doing this backwards. First, we need to look at our defensive strategies before we start planning road networks and future villages." After those words, I walked to the front of the room where a large map of our nation''s territory was hung up. "It will depend on the terrain and area, but our nation''s defence will be split into sections where effort will be placed in a strategically important position where the headquarters for that section''s legion will be built.¡± ¡°A legion will be about 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers plus support staff. So, their headquarters and fort will be at the minimum the size of a small town. For fast movement and supplies, the headquarters will need to be connected to a major road network." As I looked around, I saw everyone following what I was saying, but I also saw faces of dismay. There was a good reason for that because currently, our entire population would make up a full legion with support staff. "I can understand your concerns and that I might be thinking too far ahead, but a fully functioning legions headquarters would be for the far future. Those places will not right away be that big; we will slowly build them up like everything else." At this point, David started to ask clarifying questions; After that he clearly understood what I meant and quickly started to explain the defensive and logistical needs and how that would affect the local area. I have thought quite hard about the defensive headquarters and how we should build them, and what their purpose should be. If you wanted to have a castle that would be incredibly easy to defend, just build it on top of a mountain with an incredibly narrow and long road up. Supply it with enough food to last for years, and even 100 men could keep it defended for years against armies 1,000 times bigger. But that would be all that you could do: just defend the castle and be safe inside it. But that would also mean that you would be trapped in that castle, and the besieging army could do anything they wanted to the land around it. No, what we needed were places that could project strength but also be strong enough to defend against superior numbers. A legion''s headquarters needs to be able to project its strength throughout its entire defensive section so people can feel safe and could just live without worrying about rogue war parties or hordes of monsters showing up and destroying everything. Soon after that, the bigger meeting ended, but smaller, more specialized meetings happened simultaneously after that. While I wanted to go to most of them, I needed to focus on the military side of things as my input was actually necessary there. There were also some votes for some decisions on what we will do and what we won''t. I was surprised at how many people waited until I voted so they could back me up, but that luckily allowed me to get one decision passed that wouldn''t have happened if people didn''t follow my example. I wanted more compounds in different parts of the world, similar to the one in Verdia. The main problem was the cost of it, but I believe it will be incredibly important for the future, especially because everywhere around the world there are a lot of refugees who are looking for a new place to live. When the madness was over, the winter had truly arrived, but I felt the itch to explore. Fortunately, I could explore and make credits at the same time because we now had so many missions to survey the lands beyond our nation''s borders. chapter 305 POV David I checked my timepiece once again, but that didn¡¯t change what I was seeing from it. It was 5 minutes past eight, and I was now officially late. Hopefully, I''m not the last one and they haven''t played too many hands. I opened the door to find a nicely furnished room with a circular table in the middle and six people sitting around it. "Look who decided to show up, it¡¯s David," Roger announced to everyone, and I found myself being looked upon by six people who were arguably some of the most influential people in the United Freeholds. "Too bad he made it so fast. I was hoping to get some more coins without having to worry about the number wizard," commented Oakard, one of the three generals of our army and the one who led the defense of the Swamp Dungeon Outpost. "You just don¡¯t like it that this game isn¡¯t just luck, and while I haven¡¯t played it enough, the percentages for winning are quite clear," I answered while sitting down and pouring myself a glass of whiskey. I received the dealer coin, so I shuffled the card deck in a way to make sure that everything was random. "Can you stop wasting so much time? If you shuffle it so much, the cards will be worn out before we can play," I heard Roger say, he always seemed to find a way to end my enjoyment. He was the one who introduced us to this game; it was quite popular in Verdia, called Texas Hold''em. I made two passes so everyone had two cards, and after the big and small blinds put in their coins, it was time to start playing the game. I didn¡¯t have good cards this time¡ª2 of hearts, 9 of clubs¡ªso I folded as soon as the action got back to me. "So, how goes the preparation for the Winter Solstice?" Roger asked Betsy. She was in charge of the workforce and job distribution, and the person currently ahead of the Winter Solstice celebration team. "Everything is going well; that''s how it''s going," she answered, but from her tone of voice, she didn''t seem to like that it was going so well. After I discarded one card from the deck and put three communal cards into the center of the table, I knew that I should study how others reacted to what was being shown. But currently we weren¡¯t playing this game to win; it was more to just talk with each other and spend some time winding down from our jobs. Betsy folded and then started to speak again. "There''s just too little to do in the winter, and it''s getting harder and harder to find jobs for people. Maybe we should find a few more mining locations, as they seem to be good places to channel workers into so they can work during the winter." "Exploration missions are being completed faster than expected, and we already have quite a few viable locations to set up new outposts for different kinds of resources," I answered while adding a new card beside the other communal cards. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. "I would''ve expected your calculations to be more precise," Rodger asked. "My calculations weren''t wrong; I just don''t know why Rich is doing so many of them and so fast." Everyone scoffed at my words. "What?" I asked them. "There''s really no point in asking why Rich does something; you just have to hope that it doesn''t turn into you having to drill with your troops for months," Oakard said while looking at his cards, extremely unhappy. The next moment, he folded. We all laughed a bit at that, and I could understand his sentiment. We all had those kinds of Rich stories. Eventually, Phil joined as well, and now there were eight of us. The game continued, but unfortunately, I had a string of bad cards, depleting my coin stack quite a bit. We continued to casually talk about what bothered us and just joked around while playing this game. But soon it was past midnight, and I had to say goodbye to everyone, as it was time to get some sleep before tomorrow''s work starts again. I just need to remember to talk to Rich when he next comes back and tell him he needs to slow down or stop his explorations and give others a chance to get better at exploration as well. POV ???? I snap out of my meditation to look at the nine people in front of me, waiting for me to address them. "I¡¯ve just received word: we cannot go with the original plan. We have an enemy that we need to defeat before I can reach the third rank." My people looked at me with confusion, and I could understand their sentiment. Nothing should be able to trouble us, but it seems that even luck and fate have their limits. "This person cannot be allowed to reach rank 3, but it seems that we still have some time. However, we must keep everything a secret; if we move too openly, we might be discovered too soon." Everyone nodded along, like they always did, but they knew that I knew everything, and their devotion to me was absolute. "Who is this person that we need to be so wary of?" asked my right-hand man. "Apparently, he lives quite near here, which is why we need to be so careful. The only thing that I know about him is that his name is Rich Dirt, and we cannot let him reach rank 3; otherwise, we might actually fail. So go out and find everything you know about this person. I want to know how we can destroy him so we can make sure that this world can weather any disaster with us here to defend it." They immediately bowed as deeply as they could and left my seat of power. I had a clear vision of this person who is going to be my rival. My victory over him should be assured, but there are weird things around this person that make the future uncertain. One thing that is, however, guaranteed is that if I don¡¯t kill him before he reaches rank 3, I won¡¯t be able to win, which is frustrating as I don¡¯t understand how he could even be a threat to me. His face is already annoying me, and I can¡¯t wait until I can make him suffer. POV ???? I could feel one of my servants gathering his courage to speak to me, and I wondered what was going on. This continued for quite a while, and I was actually falling behind on my scheduled paperwork. He usually isn''t this timid. Time continued to tick by, and I was starting to get annoyed. I think my annoyance leaked out a bit because my servant made the choice; whatever he was scared of telling me, he was more scared of my getting angry about his weakness. He greeted me and bowed down as he should, but I could still see him shaking as he handed me papers. I looked at the writing on the paper, and just from my loss of control, my servant almost fainted. It was an official report of someone trying to make sapient creatures from monsters. Why are there idiots in this world, and why is it my time to sit on the judge''s chair? "Who are the other six that are currently scheduled to sit in the chairs?" My servant rattled off six names, and it lifted my mood a bit. Currently, there was no one whom I despised. Now, more about this report. It''s reported to be going on in the northeast on the Green Continent. The report was made by some queen accusing the Nation of United Freeholds¡ªan interesting name¡ªof cooperating and helping goblins to evolve. "Ha ha ha, now that''s a laugh. I''m almost not even mad about all the time I''m about to waste. This will be so much more interesting than I originally thought. Servant, bring me three more inkwells. I need to work a bit faster so I can enjoy this show to the fullest." chapter 306 I was sitting on a stage with everyone else who were important figures in the United Freeholds. The winter solstice celebration had just begun, and I was required to participate at least in the opening ceremony. There were so many people, and while it was nice to see everyone in a festive mood, for me personally, it was too many people. Another thing that made it hard to continue sitting was the smell of the different foods that were being cooked in the numerous stalls everywhere. Now, I didn''t like large crowds, but I could tolerate them, especially for good food, and before I went back to my home, I would visit as many as my stomach could handle. It took me an hour before I was finished with my mandatory participation, but after that, I got to enjoy all the sweet pastries, wonderful meat, and interesting combinations of different foods that I had never tasted before. I have to thank my body because I was actually able to enjoy everything, and while I did feel stupidly full, I was incredibly happy with the quality and taste of everything I tried. Usually, I run back home, but this time I walked, enjoying the cold winter. This year we hadn''t seen much snow yet, but during January and February, the snow should get taller than a human. My apprentices were not home, but Francis and the wolves were. It''s been nice reconnecting with them, and especially with the wolves, whom I have been taking on survey missions. Unfortunately, I¡¯ve been told that I¡¯ve been doing too many of them and not giving others opportunities, which I guess makes sense, and in all honesty, it was getting a bit dull because none of them went up north where there were more dangerous areas. I also didn¡¯t want to go too far out just in case trouble showed up, but when the snows get thick, it should be a lot safer for me to explore a bit further. The house was empty without anyone else here besides me, but I really missed the quiet and remembered the early days when I was literally alone here. Things were so much simpler, and I kind of did enjoy it that way. Knowing that you were the only one around for miles and that everything you got was done with your own hands was honestly marvelous. Now, I could just go and buy all the resources I need to do anything I want. What a weird sentiment, wanting things to be harder just because I enjoy that more. During tonight, I enjoyed the sauna and was incredibly thankful that I built one. During the spring, I will have to help George build his own, and probably after that, Emma and Arthur will want one as well. I have enough fire bricks for a lot more saunas than that, thanks to my current apprentices working harder during the summer. Speaking of my current apprentices, they have been pushing themselves hard in the dungeons, and already a few are just two levels short of getting Apprentice Homesteader to level 20, so they could finally become real homesteaders. They have also been working hard on planning their own homes. They are constantly going to the capital to search for the land they want and to acquire the resources to build their homes. While most of the wood they will get from here, my land couldn''t support all the building wood and other resources; otherwise, I would be left quite barren. To get the credit they need, they have had to take loans from the nation, but there''s barely any interest on that, and they should be just fine even if all they do is farm. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Two of my apprentices actually took up the offer to claim land in the grasslands, where there were a lot of rabbits, and I was quite interested to find out how their skills and classes would evolve if they are able to once again reach the max level. I had a feeling that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of different variations for the Homesteader class, depending on what you did, but we will need to wait and see if I was correct about that. This spring will certainly be quite busy for me, but currently, I was enjoying my free time and, because of that, was planning my own expedition that I wanted to go on in the following few days. I always start my expeditions on Saturday because from Monday to Friday I give lessons, and while usually I make it back to give my lessons on Mondays, sometimes I don''t. But I don''t worry about it, and I have already stated to every one of my students that if I''m not here, then I''m not here, and they should work on just strengthening their basic manipulation of energy. The days went by quickly, and I found myself geared up and ready to leave. Walking through my forest was always a pleasant time, and this time I wasn''t really going that far. My target was the east mount where the stone creatures lived. I still remember the cave opening next to a river, and that has been in the back of my mind ever since I saw it. It was now a lot easier to notice all the stone creatures, and I was quite impressed by how many there really were, but most of them are just three or four stones. It really made me wonder how they reproduced and why they lived on this mountain and not somewhere else. But that would be something to discover at another time, or perhaps the cave might give some clues. When I reached the entrance, I was amazed by how big it truly was. If you stacked three of me on top of each other, we could still walk in without having to worry about hitting my head. The light didn''t reach too far in, but I didn''t have to worry about that thanks to my eyes. I didn''t know much about the caves, but it did seem natural, and I slowly continued to walk deeper in. It was constantly curving and descending. After about half an hour of walking, the barren cave started to change into a more lively place that didn''t look like anything I had seen before. It started slowly; there were a few mushrooms at first, then some moss. It was so dark that even my eyes had trouble, but slowly as I walked deeper in, I began to see better once again. Soon, those mushrooms and moss that seemed normal started to give off a bluish light, and the further I walked, the brighter it got. Still, to a normal human it would be no better than a night light, but for me, it was enough to see this place like it was daylight. Soon, more plant life started to appear, and then creepy crawlers. They were not aggressive and hid from my approach, but they were definitely quite dangerous for smaller animals. Sometimes the cave opened up to a larger room, and a few times there were splits and other openings. Slowly, I started to map everything out, and I did find even a few interesting things like crystal formations and salt pillars that didn''t seem quite normal. Everything was quite damp, and there were even small streams of water flowing downwards. After about a two-hour walk, my map was telling me that I had descended enough to reach the ground height outside the mountain, and it seemed that the cave network got even bigger after that. The creepy crawlers were getting bigger, and I actually had to step on a few of them who rushed me. I still haven''t seen any mammals, but I have seen a few dung piles that indicate there should be some other creatures down here besides bugs. The deeper I go, the more the plants were changing, but mostly they keep getting bigger. Currently, I was admiring a mushroom that was a little bit shorter than me and wondered if it was edible. It didn''t seem dangerous, but there must be a reason why it wasn''t eaten, so I currently left it alone. chapter 307 As I continued to explore, I started to notice more pathways that didn''t seem completely natural. It almost looked as if someone had eaten or tunneled their way through the original tunnels that were here, widening and connecting them even further. It took me a while to see that some sort of mole-like creature was responsible. I only saw a small one, the size of a normal cat, and it seemed to have some sort of eyes as it was able to watch me from its hiding hole. It was quite a small one, but there are probably bigger ones deeper down that should be at least the size of a minivan. The tunnel network led away from the mountain and towards my own land, and I continued to follow, finding ever stranger bugs. Mostly, they stayed away, but I did have to fight a few who were rank one. My exploration came to a pause when I saw a snail whose shell was taller than me. It was moving at about a human walking speed, which wasn''t that impressive as it was chasing a larger centipede. It seemed that it had been chasing it for quite a while because the centipede was so tired it was waiting nearly to the last second before once again speeding off. I moved closer to watch the slow hunt, but when I got close enough, the snail noticed me and changed its direction towards me. Was it going to try to chase me down? I tried to gauge how strong it was, but it was somehow able to camouflage itself. Slowly, I was working through that, but to my surprise, it was able to put on a burst of speed and get to about 5 meters from me. Just before I took a step backwards, its mouth opened up, and it expanded so much that it could swallow me with one bite. Even before I could move, something like a spear-like tongue shot out, and I had barely enough time to strengthen my armor enough so it wouldn''t pierce me, but even then, it did quite a lot of damage to my armor. It tried to pull me in, but it only got me one step closer as I started to increase my weight significantly. That, however, didn''t seem to matter as it didn''t care if I came to it or it came to me, and I soon found myself almost enveloped by the mouth. Whatever camouflage it was using was now useless as I was so close to being swallowed by it. It was definitely rank 2, and the amount of energy and strength in its mouth made me unsure if I would be able to escape it. There was also a foul smell I had come to associate with toxins. Its inner mouth seemed to have been filled with needle-like teeth that were all about to attempt to deliver their deadly payloads. I couldn¡¯t move backwards as its stinger still had a firm hold on my chest plate. I pulled out my 2-handed sword from my tattoo storage and quickly channeled energy into it, while also strengthening my armor as much as possible, even using my core energy. I made my energy armor especially thick in hopes that it would prevent the needle-like teeth from piercing into me. It all happened simultaneously: as I attacked its spear-like tongue, its mouth closed around me. My energy armour fought against its bite, but the needles still pierced through. Thankfully, they didn''t reach my skin, although its bite force was more than I expected and it started to crack my energy armor. Fortunately, I had better luck with my sword, which was able to cut through the spear-like tongue. This action caused the creature to scream, making my entire body vibrate. There wasn''t much room to get a proper swing here, and I wasn¡¯t able to pierce through the mouth as I was awkwardly positioned and didn¡¯t get any strength for my strike. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. There was only one path left for me, and that was to go deeper in. I took two quick steps, which probably surprised the snail-like creature as it thought it had overpowered me. But instead, it soon got to taste the tip of my greatsword as I continued to drive it deeper in. The creature opened its mouth and tried to push me out, but it was already too late as I pushed my sword even deeper in and then pulled it straight up, cutting most of the beast and its shell in half. I stepped out of the corpse and leaned against the wall to calm my racing heart. That was actually a close one. It took me a few moments to recover, but after that, I quickly moved to the corpse and stuffed it into my adventurer''s bag, as the smell of blood was already attracting attention. Thanks to my energy armor, I wasn¡¯t actually covered in gore. After hiding my presence as much as possible, I quickly moved away from this place as more and more creatures were showing up. It seems like I should be a bit more careful here. The more careful approach to exploration slowed things down a bit, but I was able to move through the area without having to fight anything else that might prove a threat. The place here seemed to be incredibly large, and I was now about 100 metres below my own land. It was weird to think about it, but around 100 metres above my head, a river flowed that headed towards the lake. As I continued to move, I figured out that I was actually slowly moving towards the lake, and I was quite interested in how it would feel to know that you are underneath a lake. The caverns here were larger, and I now know why no one was eating the largest mushrooms. They literally had worse nutritional and calorie values than wood. Their spores, however, were quite large, and it seems that quite a lot of creatures down here would eat them. I wondered if I could use them to make any sort of bow or perhaps use them as building materials, but they just weren''t sturdy enough. No matter how inedible, they were still mushrooms. One thing that also changed is that the plants here weren''t just meals for other creatures, but they also started to become carnivorous and indeed ate the creatures that consumed them. My favourites were plants that resembled tall grass, but whenever something got close, they would pierce it. As the creature slowly rotted away, they sucked up all the nutrients from the blades of grass that pierced into the creature''s body. It was like they were pierced by spears and then just left there until only bones were left. It''s also quite funny that the bones and the half-consumed bodies were the baits for new creatures, so other blades of grass that hadn¡¯t been able to pierce or had already consumed their prey would have another chance. I wasn¡¯t able to figure out how they knew where the prey was, and for that, I will probably need to come here and visit this place another time. It didn¡¯t take too long until I reached my desired location, but what I saw was beyond my wildest dreams. Even before I reached this place, I could hear falling water that was quite loud and got even louder as I got closer. One of the tunnels led into a larger room, but the entire floor was full of thousands of holes, some only as large as my finger, while others were bigger than a house. The place was huge, the biggest room I had seen underground, and it was constantly raining. The volume of water was impressive, but when I snapped out of this beautiful yet weird sight, I began to question my sanity as this didn''t make any sense. I was hesitant to move onto the floor as I could see that the water had burrowed its way through the floor in thousands of places. Obviously, the larger holes were caused by sections of the floor becoming so weak that they collapsed. That problem, however, was more focused on the centre of the room, and the edges looked quite solid, so to speak. So, hesitantly, while making myself as light as possible without having to worry about the volume of water pushing me away, I walked onto the floor to look upwards. What I saw was a large hole that stretched quite far up, and thanks to my sight, I could see that the ceiling was made out of plant material of some sort, but water was constantly coming through it. My brain short-circuited for a moment, and after a quick check from my map, I realized that I was directly underneath the lake. Wait a goddamn minute. My lake doesn¡¯t have a bottom? It seems the only reason it''s a lake is because of the apparently thick bottom full of some sort of plant that''s preventing a large portion of the water from just falling through. But it seems the two rivers that feed the lake are just enough to keep the water level stable. Now, that¡¯s just a theory on my part, and I will admit it''s not the best one, but currently, that was all I had to explain what I was seeing. What I did next was look downwards to see the water continue to fall, but soon it seemed to start to divert towards the north where I couldn¡¯t follow it any further with my eyes. There were multiple tunnels that led from this room into who knows where, but most likely it would just be a continuation of the cave network I was currently exploring. Now, I kind of wished that it wasn¡¯t winter so I could examine the lake''s bottom from up top, but I think I will end this exploration here as this entire situation was a bit too big of a shock for me. chapter 308 After the lake discovery, I felt that my exploration needs were filled for quite a while. I settled into a more relaxed living after that and focused on my apprentices, my teachings, and improving my own skills. Time flew by, mainly because I was having so much fun, and even before I realized it, I could smell spring in the air. Now, I always liked that smell, but compared to my apprentices, I might have just been a stone statue with how much emotion I showed. They always needed to do something, and I could see constant smiles on their faces as they all knew that it was about time they claimed their own land and became true homesteaders. All of them had levelled up enough that they could now start their own journeys, but they still needed a little bit of help. For that, Francis and I were going to help transport their border stones, especially for the two who accepted the special offer of taking care of the rabbit areas in the grasslands. They needed more stones than all my other apprentices combined, but I didn¡¯t mind the extra work, especially because the nation was going to pay me credits as this was something they requested. My older apprentices had already marked the places they were going to build their homes and were just waiting until the ground was a little softer before they started to dig. I did tell them that it would be good training to start digging now, but I''m not sure if they agreed or not. Whatever the case was, I still liked the look on their faces when I suggested that. I will still help my current apprentices as well, but all of them have hired help so they could build their houses a bit faster and have people who know what they''re doing constantly there. Some of them moved quite far away, so it''s not realistic for me to be able to constantly monitor them and help them when they run into trouble. I was incredibly proud that no one asked me for that, but they came up with the solutions themselves. I was even more proud that none of them just hired someone to build a house for them; they only hired help. That meant that my teaching was taken to heart. What I did tell everyone was to have me around whenever they claimed their land because they would need help with the trait of true nature connection, as it can be overwhelming and needs time to get used to. One by one, my apprentices left, setting up near their construction sites, except for one. Tim was still here. "So, I guess you are going to stay?" He grunted back an affirmative, and I nodded back as we stood and looked over the land where life was returning quite fast. "If you think you won''t have to build a house, you are incorrect," I said with a broad smile on my face. "What?" he said, looking at me a bit shocked. "Yep, find a place on my land and build yourself your own home. After that, I will make you officially a part of my clan, agreed?" It didn''t take long for him to smile widely as well and give me his hand to shake. "Agreed." After the handshake, he walked off with purpose in his steps. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. He would have been a great homesteader if he just had the passion to start over again, but I could completely understand someone who simply didn''t have the desire left to do everything over once again. I wonder if something happened to this place, would I be willing to once again start over? I didn¡¯t know the answer but hoped that I never had to find out. About a week later, after I returned from helping one of my apprentices, I felt a stick break that indicated trouble and that I should immediately return to the capital. I immediately rushed out, saying a quick few words about what had happened to Tim. The run to the capital was quite fast, as with the new roads, I could push myself a lot more. The trouble was coming from a portal station where Roger was with a group of three people who were surrounded by our guards but who didn''t seem very concerned. I could understand why because two of them were rank two and one was rank three. As soon as they noticed me, the rank 3 one turned to me. "Rich Dirt, you are under arrest by the order of the world council." The two rank two people moved towards me with purpose, and I could see that they were ready to pull their weapons. My people were about to try to stop them. "Stand down and clear the way," I gave out the command, which actually made the two rank two people stop their advance. "What am I accused of?" I asked in a firm tone, and I could see the rank three person contemplate on what to do, but it seems that he decided to be civil. "You are accused of purposely trying to evolve monsters to be more similar to the enlightened races. And before you can ask, you have been accused of this by Queen Amellean the Third," I was informed. I looked towards Roger with my eyebrow raised, and he quickly understood what I was trying to ask. "She''s the queen of the large nation down south, the one that was formed from the last remnants of the fallen kingdom. She is the last surviving member of that royal line." Well, that explains it. I remembered the annoying bodyguard that fought with us against the dragon. Yeah, they didn''t like us, especially me. "You aren''t denying the charges? Are you confessing your crime?" one of the rank two persons asked. Honestly, everyone around, including his own comrades, looked at him like he was an idiot. "I won¡¯t even dignify that with an answer, but I will come quietly." Two rank two people approached me once again, but when one of them pulled out handcuffs, I took a step back. "No need for handcuffs. I won¡¯t cause any trouble, and I especially don¡¯t want people thinking that I¡¯m guilty because they see me in cuffs." The rank two people looked at their commander, who continued to study me for quite a few moments. "Very well, follow us. But if you cause any trouble, I will find an even worse pair of cuffs that would make anyone think that you are a dangerous individual who need to be locked up or killed." I gave a nod to that, as that was probably the best I could get out of this situation. Thankfully, it took a bit of time for our low-end portal gateway to be charged up enough, so I had enough time to give instructions and learn a bit more about the time frame we were working with. While this was a worrying development, I was pretty sure that helping out fallen races wasn''t actually illegal. But from my current understanding, most think that goblins are monsters, so hopefully there are more informed people in whatever court I find myself in. What also helped me stay optimistic was the attitude of the people who came to take me away, especially their leader. It was good that the hearing was in 6 days, so this shouldn''t take too long to figure out what will happen. That was both good and bad news because the longer it takes, I''m pretty sure the more I could have gotten out of the queen when they lose this case. However, there were still a lot of unknowns, and I really didn''t like to put myself at the mercy of some people I didn''t know who thought that they ran the world. But in the long run, this will be the best option, and I just have to hope that if I play by their rules, I will be able to get ahead. Now, as for the queen and that bodyguard, they are beginning to become a pain in my ass, and even if they lose, I''m pretty sure that they would find other ways to mess with us. Unfortunately, they''re a bit too far away to do anything direct, and even if I wanted to, their population was way too large for us to do anything militarily. This will require some thought. But whatever the case was, they had angered me quite a lot, and I was planning on taking them for everything they had. chapter 309 POV: ???? I walked into my accommodations and immediately sent a pulse to investigate every inch. The four servants, standing in a row and waiting, looked pristine as they needed to be, and they had kept everything exactly the way it was supposed to be. "I want an early dinner, at least five courses, but surprise me. I want the best wine that¡¯s currently available, and I need eyes on this Rich Dirt fellow and that stuck-up queen. Otherwise, everything else will be standard." They immediately set about their tasks, with two of them leaving the room to execute my orders. I went to my library and chose my favourite seat. It didn''t take too long, but it was close to taking too long before they were pouring me wine. After I sipped it, I relaxed more into my chair. Now, for the next seven days, I had a free schedule, so I could enjoy some intriguing politics. While I would have liked to kill that bastard before he executed his plague plan, I must admit that things have become a lot more interesting, though there¡¯s also more work. I will decide in the next 50 years if this was a net positive or a net negative. It was taking quite a while for my ability to work its way through this building so I could know everything. The defences here were excellent at slowing me down, then the size of the place also played a crucial role in my ability being so slow. And of course, there were accommodations like this one with people as strong as me, and spying on them would take more resources than I wanted to use. Dinner was excellent, but this time I decided to eat more like a grass dwarf, as I was treating this responsibility more like a vacation than an actual job. "Your Magnificence, Queen Amellean the Third has arrived with an impressive rank 2 bodyguard. He was quite highly ranked in tournaments, and they were met by quite influential people. The Queen seemed to be quite friendly with them. We pulled up everyone''s background, and it seems they went to the same school together. This is probably how Queen Amellean the Third was able to get this set up so fast." My servant continued to relay the information, and while I was quite full and savoring the taste of an excellent dinner, I memorized every piece of information I received. It will be quite the event, and others are eager to see what Rich Dirt will do. There¡¯s also very little information about him, but he''s known to be an impressive fighter and general. While the information is sparse, it is certain that he has won two battles where he was numerically disadvantaged by quite a lot. He was able to help set up an impressively large nation that doesn''t follow convention. And of course, he has finished a raid dungeon and reached the core of the Ruin of Lost Ages Dungeon. The last accomplishment is incredibly impressive, especially because the other people in his party weren''t that powerful. In fact, from my calculations, they should have never made it. I never make a mistake like that, so I¡¯m missing something, and that¡¯s both infuriating and exciting. I tried to take another sip of wine, but my glass was empty. I looked towards my servant, and she quickly refilled it. Well, tomorrow will be his move to play, and we¡¯ll see how well he does. Sometimes I regret that I can''t sleep, but tonight passed quite quickly as I was catching up on all the new information about everyone who''s here. The place is quite full, so unfortunately, I will not be able to go and see Rich Dirt as he arrives, but a viewing screen should be in place by then. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. I could see my servants furiously working, and I noticed their sweat. The screen still wasn''t set up, and we already heard rumours that Rich Dirt was only a few portals away. That was incredibly fast. Did he not put up a fight? I would have liked to know how he stacked up against the rank 3 standard. I had paid out some coin to ensure that the people sent to arrest Rich Dirt were of a specific power ranking, so I could more easily determine his power. It would be quite disappointing if he just gave up. The screen started showing the portal square just before the rank three stepped through. Following him was a man that towered over him. My first impression was of a barbarian-looking man, but that illusion shattered almost instantly. The way he looked around to instantly locate any threat, the intelligence in his eyes, and how he held himself made me involuntarily stand up and walk closer to the screen. I cursed out loud because I really wanted to see him with my own eyes. He was an impressive figure, and I could almost sense the potential emanating from him. I had been so focused that I didn¡¯t even notice he wasn''t wearing any cuffs. "Oh, you brilliant bastard, this is going to be so much fun, isn''t it?" I looked at the other people around the square, only to realize that most hadn¡¯t realized someone who had been arrested had just arrived and there would be a huge court case with him at the center. He''s even acting like they are his personal guards as they''re walking him inside. "Do we know that those guards are still in our pockets?" I asked my servant. It took them a few minutes to answer, and by this time, Rich wasn¡¯t in view anymore. My servants confirmed that the guards were still loyal to us, so he didn''t pay them off. I guess I will just need to wait for the report. The report I got made me smile widely. Rich had somehow been able to get himself not thrown in prison but into house arrest, and from the looks of it, he¡¯s got a pretty nice place. How was he able to accomplish this? Apparently, by being reasonable. That was the same response my purchased guards gave me as to why he wasn''t in chains. As the days went by, he continued to surprise me, and I did love how he made the queen constantly mad. The guards rotated constantly, but he always managed to be civil with every one of them and even managed to get a few tours of the place. Someone else was able to confirm that he did have some persuasion ability, but it wasn''t the illegal kind and couldn''t force anyone to do anything if they didn''t want to. Still, the queen was quite confident in their victory, and it seems like there are bigger forces at play here who have chosen this fight as their battleground. From my information, they have tried to get Rich on board from the moment he got here, but he seems quite resistant to their offers. I wonder why he doesn''t want to play the game. There shouldn''t be any way for him to escape, but he has been able to accomplish things I didn¡¯t believe he could do. For the first time ever, I think I''m actually glad that I¡¯m one of the judges. "Has the world really burned to the ground is this way I''m thinking like this?" "It is time, Your Magnificence," one of my servants informed me. I checked myself in a mirror one more time to ensure everything was perfect, and then, for the first time since I arrived, I left my accommodation. With my servants behind me, we walked to the judgment chambers. My entrance was a special one, only used by six others today. Three of them had already taken their seats, and I was about to be the fourth. Walking through the doorway, I needed to ascend quite a few stairs as our seats were the highest. We were also shrouded in darkness, so no one could see us directly. When I reached my seat and sat down, none of the other judges looked at me, and I didn¡¯t look towards them. This was customary because sometimes rivals might be sitting next to you, and when you see them, well, some people can''t control themselves enough to guarantee that a fight won''t break out that could level this place. The judgment chamber was a large circular room, with the half facing me having multiple levels of seating for many to join and cast their own votes. In the center was the area where the accuser and accused would sit, and today''s speaker was already waiting in his seat down below as well. We usually didn''t have to say anything. The only reason we were here first was because of the nature of the accusation and many of the influential people pulling strings, as they had their own battles to fight in the game. The place was filling up fast, and it shouldn''t be too much longer before the accuser and accused would be brought before us. I had to work quite hard to keep my excitement down, and I was very curious to find out who would actually win. chapter 310 I was being escorted by four guards. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but eventually, I understood why I was able to get along with every guard so well and even convinced them to let me have a proper place to stay. It was my commander ability. As soon as they had even a little bit of respect for me, they started acting more and more like they were my subordinates. Thanks to this, I had already won the first engagement, and that¡¯s how everyone saw me. I was no longer viewed as a criminal but someone who was defending against an accuser. One of the tours I was given took me close to a wing of the building that housed some powerful people. In fact, they were so powerful that at least three of them were able to constantly monitor me, and I suspect everyone else around them. Because of this, I had a slight headache as I¡¯ve been maintaining the best defence I can to hide my energy body as well as possible so I wouldn¡¯t be discovered to have any cores. Fortunately, by the end of today, I would either be killed, so I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about it, or I would be able to go home where I don¡¯t have to constantly keep my camouflage at such a level. It didn¡¯t take long until we reached the doors beyond which was so much power. I ignored it for a moment and concentrated on looking unworried. As soon as the doors were opened, silence fell on the previously noisy room. "The accused has arrived," was announced by someone, and I was brought into the room where I could finally view everything. The place was large, easily able to handle the 1000 plus people sitting on old courtroom-like seats in a half-circle. In the middle, in the lowest area, was an open space with three tables; two of them being on the filled side of the room and the other towards the empty side where only seven other people sat high above everyone else. I ignored them for a moment, but their power almost suffocated everyone else in this room. Even then, at least half the people here could easily kill me in a one-on-one fight. I took the stairs downwards until a familiar face stood out just to the right of me. I stopped as soon as we were at the same level, and the guards didn''t interfere or push me to move downwards. "Hi there, Meredith. It¡¯s been quite a while," I said to the adventurer I met some time ago. She was hesitant, but as I presented my hand for her to shake, she cracked under the pressure of so many people watching. She stood up, shook my hand, and although she tried to speak, she couldn''t find her voice. "It''s so nice to see a familiar face. I see you have progressed quite a lot and are close to reaching the second rank. Congratulations," I remarked. She once again didn''t know how to respond, but I just smiled broadly and looked her over. I let myself appear worried, as I genuinely felt that way. She hadn''t trained her energy control much, and there was quite a little of it compared to how much mana she had. I could already see that her mana channels were starting to push into her energy body more, which would lower her lifespan significantly. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. "Getting stronger is always important, but always know the cost of it. You should really work on your energy side of things more. I''d really like to catch up more, and hopefully, in the future, we can run into each other again. But I must go now. Bye, Meredith," I said. She still couldn¡¯t respond, but I put her condition behind me. I probably shouldn¡¯t be so concerned about an enemy, but seeing potential go to waste kind of hurts me inside. We continued downwards and finally reached the table where I was going to sit. I only had one chair, while the other table had three, but I wasn¡¯t concerned. "Thank you for the escort," I said to the guards, shaking hands with them. After that, I sat down in a quite comfortable chair and finally looked at the seven people shrouded in darkness. The queen wasn''t here yet, and I¡¯m pretty sure that I was brought here earlier than intended. I guess I''ll have to thank my guards for that. As I looked at them, I controlled my camouflage the best I could but still channeled some more energy into my eyes. Slowly, the darkness unraveled, and I could see the seven pinnacle existences in this world. There were more than only seven, and these were probably not the strongest, but they had still reached rank 5, the absolute limit of this world. I guess I have to thank Luana, Horus, and Adam for constantly talking about the most powerful existences in this world, as any teenager would when they dream about standing on top of the world. They could probably snuff me out with one thought, or perhaps they would actually need to lift a finger. My ethereal sight also confirmed the rumours I heard in the dungeon about rank five people. But I was quite certain that what they were saying had to be what they were talking about. There was a clear limit to how powerful you could be before the system interfered. No one knew what happened, but when someone reached rank 6, no matter how much they fought, they disappeared from this world. That was the only case when the system acted so forcefully, but it wasn''t the only way to disappear. Currently, I have legendary classes with a limit of level 80. Next comes mythic classes with a level limit of 160. Not many get a choice of class after that, but some do, and if you pick it, you will also disappear. If you are in rank 5, you would just have to mentally let go and accept the system''s offer, which will also make you disappear from this world. There should also be a way for rank 4 people to disappear as well, but Adam said that you needed a ritual for that. Now, no one knew for certain where you disappeared off to. Many believe that you die and are simply consumed by the system, but the current most likely belief is that you are taken to some other dimension or world. While I didn¡¯t know much and my only source of knowledge was three teenagers, the last explanation made the most sense to me as I was also from another world. But seeing how the dimension weaved around these seven individuals, almost like making a cocoon for them, was incredibly interesting to see. But even more so was how the world itself seemed to reject their presence. I had always wondered what stopped a singular madman, who got strong enough, from killing everything or making himself the God of this world. It looks like there is an actual power limit, and of course, not to speak of the system itself, which can be quite firm on some aspects, especially people controlling other people. Every form of system slavery or even magical slavery is forbidden, and if performed, will give you a red achievement page marking you for death. I was so consumed in examining this phenomenon that I almost missed it when the queen and her party were announced. She didn¡¯t look like much, but there was determination in her eyes, which at least let me understand how she had gotten this far. To her right was the bodyguard who was sneering at me, and when I smiled back at him, he moved his hand to his weapon, which made me smile even more. To the left of the queen was a much more dangerous opponent. She was quite short, but that was to be expected of a dwarf, and her blue hair was quite striking. She was the leader of the camp that supported the queen and had their own agendas. The only reason I knew that was because I was approached so many times by the camp opposing her camp. I stood up but stopped looking at them and instead looked towards the speaker. He would be the most important person here well besides the seven, and from my understanding, every speaker is completely neutral. While they will take into account the whole situation, they will focus first on the actual laws that even rank five people are subject to. Now, whether they will be able to enforce those laws on those people is another question entirely. But both the queen and me aren''t strong enough to even try to go against those laws at least for now. chapter 311 POV ???? The first scheduled to arrive was the queen, but I could see that Rich was already being escorted here. He certainly knew how to play the game, but I¡¯m quite convinced that he doesn¡¯t like to play it, which oddly makes him better at it. It was truly a weird combination, and now I knew that amongst the seven, some were also interested in him. I saw a few of them smile ever so slightly when Rich was taken out of his chambers before he was scheduled to be brought here. What was it about him that made you root for him? It didn''t take long for him to be announced, and for the first time, I was able to lay my eyes on him. For a human, he truly was an imposing figure. He was still wearing his armour, which even had battle damage on it. That choice was definitely the wrong one, as it showed that he didn¡¯t want to be a part of the affluent lifestyle everyone here was after. This also showed that he wasn''t going to compromise his values to be more appealing to the people here. That was probably an even worse thing, but not for everyone here. His way with the guards was downright scary. But I guess that makes sense for a military man. Still, the way those four acted, it was like they were his employees. Then he stopped his descent down the stairs and started to converse with someone he apparently knew. The name rang out, and I quickly figured out it was one of the queen''s servants, and there was something more. Yes, right, she was the one who made the first report to the Adventurers Guild about Rich. I would have expected unpleasant words, but Rich seemed genuinely happy to see her, continuing the one-sided conversation, seemingly genuinely worried about her condition. I had seen that condition many times before on ambitious mages. Most of the time, no matter how much you warned them, they would just continue to push themselves and quite quickly die in the process. It was always hard to determine if this was some sort of a move or not, or perhaps it was both. But it was hard to continue to analyse his behaviour when I was so annoyed that he hadn¡¯t even once looked at us, or that stupid camouflage that he was constantly maintaining that made it hard to see anything specific about his energy. That all changed when he sat down and then fully concentrated on all seven of us. It was still hard to tell what he was doing with his energy, but he was obviously channelling it into some sort of sight ability. It was at this moment that I got a good look at his eyes and had to control my desire to move away. He must have multiple sight abilities, and some of them must be quite rare. It almost looked like he could pierce the darkness around us, but that shouldn''t be possible. His eyes changed more into something unnatural, and he seemingly looked at things even I couldn¡¯t see. For the first time, I turned my head to properly see the others'' reactions, and they were doing the same. What was he seeing? Perhaps a better question was: should he be killed? With only three class slots, he would struggle to reach rank 5, but it might be possible. So, do we let him climb and see what he could do, or kill him now and possibly stop a future enemy? I probably wasn¡¯t the only one thinking the same thing, but I wondered if the other six had already come to a decision. Most likely not, as he was just rank two; we had plenty of time to monitor and decide. But he also seemed to be a good fighter, and we would need good fighters to keep the monster kings at bay. I was shocked when the Queen''s arrival was announced, as I hadn¡¯t paid enough attention to see her coming. Focus, you idiot. When the Queen and the other two with her reached the table, the speaker stood up and started the proceedings. The first 10 minutes were just introductions, and then the speaker produced a piece of paper that was the accuser''s report to the world council. Everyone knew what was written there, but the speaker still read everything out loud. "A grave report to the world council: Our scouts came across a goblin village that seemed to be different from what they were used to. They decided to stick around a bit longer to observe and found that those goblins were in constant contact with the nation of United Freeholds. The goblins looked weird and not like the scouts were used to. We believe that United Freeholds, and specifically Rich Dirt, an outsider to our world, is responsible for trying to evolve goblins to be more like the enlightened races." The report continued; it was more technical after that. This sort of clarification, in my opinion, was a waste of time, especially because we had other cases today as well. When the speaker was done, he gave the floor to the accuser and the accused, and both had three hours to make everyone here see their point of view as the right one. The blue-headed woman began; what was her name? It was a long one: Isabella Charlotte Amelia Elise Windsor. And of course, she started by making everyone listen to her name. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The Queen''s camp started by defaming Rich and questioning his character as he''s not from our world. He just continued to let them talk, but whenever Isabella started to push her ideas too far, he spoke up. "Objection! She is making up baseless claims. I will repeat that I have gone through testing. So, her assertions that I¡¯m a raving madman are illogical." Rich didn¡¯t use the same words every time Isabella pushed too far, but the meaning was the same: Stop bullshitting. Isabella, of course, didn''t stop, but I could see as the time went on how she grew more frustrated. Honestly, Rich wasn¡¯t the best at this, but he had his own way of doing things, and I guess we will see if it will work out in the end. Isabella soon gave up on trying to make Rich look even worse and moved on to the main point of this case: that Rich and the United Freeholds were trying to force goblins to evolve into a more enlightened race. A lot of the people here, of course, didn''t like that, and Rich was going to lose if things didn''t change. However, Rich continued to speak minimally and only objected to facts that were wrong. Even then, the picture wasn''t good, as it seems that they really had been helping them, perhaps not directly evolve, which would be a shut case, but help them indirectly. About two hours into the three hours the Queen had, Rich spoke up without objecting to something Isabella said. "The relationship with the goblins is not something we forced onto them, as Isabella is claiming happened. They came to me looking for a way to change their current society and offered knowledge and resources in exchange. Since I was in need of those resources and knowledge, I answered their question. That was how it got started, not by me killing their leadership and then taking control over the remaining goblins." The words that Rich spoke silenced the room for a while and made Isabella start to flip through her papers. Obviously, she had quite a lot of material prepared to colorfully describe how Rich forced the goblins to change. It didn¡¯t take her long to find a new thing to bring up, and the similar dynamic to before continued as Rich didn''t let her get too wild with her accusations. When Isabella was starting to wind down, she only had about 20 minutes left, but I believed that she was soon going to call for a vote that wasn''t going to go in favor of Rich. It was at this moment that Rich once again spoke up, "I would like to get a clarification from Isabella. She often uses the word ''monster'' to describe the goblins. I would like to know what she means by that?" There was a moment of pause before Isabella, for the first time, lost her cool. "What are you talking about? ''Monster'' means monster; what else could it mean?" Rich let out a slow sigh. "''Monster doesn¡¯t always mean a monster. I¡¯m quite certain that most people here have at some point been called a monster. That doesn''t make them a monster in the eyes of the law. So, are you calling the goblins a monster because you personally don''t like them, or is it that you believe that they are proper monsters?" Isabella answered immediately, "Of course goblins are proper monsters; that''s why we''re here." "From what I have learned, technically, goblins are a fallen race and not a proper monster," Rich answered, which silenced the entire place. So he did know that they were a fallen race and used the confusing terminology to wait until Isabella was almost out of time. This way, she couldn''t change her story and have enough time to make everyone believe another angle she might come up with. That could work, but it would depend on if anyone backs him up. Since he didn¡¯t want to play along with the other camp, I wondered if they would help him or not. Silence continued, and the speaker looked around to see if anyone had anything to add to this development. If not, he was going to need to make a decision on whether to continue discussing if the goblins are a monster race or a fallen race. "Although this isn¡¯t common knowledge, from what I know, Rich Dirt does speak the truth. The goblins are a fallen race, and if that''s the case, everything discussed here wouldn''t go against any law that I know." Everyone looked towards the one who spoke, but to my surprise, it wasn''t from the other camp. Instead, it was someone from a completely different camp and shouldn''t have anything to do with this case. I quickly ran through my memories and figured out who this person was. Why would he help? But then I remembered his son was Adam, one of the party members Rich had when he delved into the dungeon. It seems that Adam¡¯s father appreciated that Rich helped his son complete the dungeon. What followed was quite the heated discussion, which ended with the speaker asking us to clarify the situation. Every one of us confirmed that the goblins are a fallen race. The absolute panic in the queen''s eyes was a great pleasure to see. Unfortunately, Isabella was able to hold herself together a lot better, although I could still see the struggle she was going through. I was quite certain she knew that they had lost. Within the next minute, the speaker announced that the accused had won and was cleared of all charges. "Speaker, before you end this officially, could I please bring up another point?" Rich spoke, and after a bit of thinking, the speaker agreed. What was Rich thinking? Fortunately, I didn¡¯t have to wait long. "While I am pleased that this case is now over, because of this false accusation, I have been forced to be away from my nation for a seventh day now. I am the high general of United Freeholds and one of its strongest fighters. This long of an absence has affected my soldiers negatively as they continue to clear broken dungeons that threaten our nation. I request compensation from my accusers." The queen went pale from those words, and her bodyguard was having a hard time not attacking Rich. While I''m impressed that Rich was trying something like this, I suspect that it won¡¯t work; being away for a week isn¡¯t that big of a deal. "And what sort of compensation are you looking for?" the speaker asked, but I¡¯m pretty sure everyone could tell his voice was a little bit colder than before. "A guarantee that the Queen''s nation and her allies can''t declare war or start hostile actions against United Freeholds for 20 years, and 80 million gold coins to be paid over the course of 20 years, so 4 million a year to keep the numbers nice and neat." I found myself nodding along to keeping the numbers nice and neat, the way they should be, but I stopped as soon as I noticed that I was doing it. Was that last remark a trap? Because I could see many others nodding along, and I¡¯m quite sure they were not nodding in agreement to what he said, but to the fact that numbers should be nice and neat. I wasn¡¯t the only one to notice this, and I could see many stop their nodding awkwardly. But the speaker noticed the nodding, and what Rich was asking for wasn''t actually that big of a deal. With the current political environment, more peace was desirable. "The amount of gold coins to be paid is changed to 40 million, so 2 million a year, but the peace agreement will stay as stated." With those words, the speaker ended this case, and Rich was finally free to leave. chapter 312 As soon as the speaker finished speaking, my heart finally relaxed. Risking my life like this was nerve-wracking, and I honestly just wanted to break. Now that I was once again a free man, I was going to get the fuck out of this madhouse. Absolutely everything here was annoying, from the 7 people who could snuff me out with a single finger to the annoying people who think if you aren''t wearing clothes with gold embroidery, you are somehow lesser. The discussion around this room was still quite loud, so only a few noticed as I put the chair back under the table and calmly started to walk out. Halfway up the stairs, I looked to my right at the person who spoke up and probably saved my life. I didn¡¯t know who he was, but I continued to walk and gave him a nod that every man knows what it means. He hadn''t expected that, but he returned the nod, and I continued to walk up the stairs. As soon as I was out of the room, I let my long legs do the work and quickly walked towards the portal station. I had already set up and purchased a portal to Verdia, and only after a 5-minute wait, I escaped the people who probably wanted to talk to me. Just in case, I didn¡¯t stop and went straight to our compound as fast as my walking legs could take me. Roger wasn¡¯t here, but the other people I met the last time I was here were. They were incredibly glad to see that I was safe, and after about half an hour, the portal engineer was able to take time from his critical work to open a portal for me to go back home. I just wanted to go back and sleep in my bed. But there was a lot we needed to discuss, fortunately, it was basically just good news. Everyone here was worried to death about me. "I am glad to be back. But from the sound of it, you were just waiting to see what happened and not preparing for the possibility of me not coming back?" Immediately, David answered, "Of course not, don''t even think like that. Besides, there''s no one else like you. I honestly don¡¯t think anyone can replace you." "Now, that might be the case, but this is a dangerous world. If there''s no one who can replace me, then we should work on having multiple people who could do that. In fact, we shouldn''t just think about me. Without you, David, I suspect this place would collapse even faster than without me." "While I would have liked for this situation not to have happened, it showed us all, I believe, a huge oversight. This is a dangerous world, and any one of us could die at any point, but that shouldn''t mean that United Freeholds should suffer because of it," I said. "I think you¡¯re right, Rich. I¡¯ve been so focused on my own work that I didn¡¯t notice that my disappearance would mean our entire economic system would stop functioning in a week or two. I also bet there are more people like me in the government who are crucial, but no one else knows exactly how to do their work." The discussion continued, and while I would have liked to go home, crucial mistakes like this needed to be addressed as soon as possible. When I did finally get home, I found Tim digging his home''s foundation. "Rich, you¡¯re back!" He yelled as he started to walk towards me. "Is it true that you were arrested? We were all awfully worried. I''m so glad you''re safely back home." He said, extending his arm for a handshake. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. I returned the gesture. "It was a little dicey for a moment, but things should be calm for quite a long while. Anyways, should we go and take a look at how you''re doing with your foundation?" I asked. "There''s always time for that later. You should go and get that armour off. In the meantime, I¡¯m going to go and fire up the sauna. Then, let''s cook some barbeque and enjoy a few beers from Val¡¯s latest batch," Tim told me, and his joyous mood was quite infectious. "That actually sounds really good. What sort of meat do we have?" And like that, we talked a little bit longer until we separated, and I went inside to take the armour off. It needed a bit of work after my underground exploration, but that would be for later. Putting on more comfortable clothing, I went back outside to see Goose speeding towards here, holding onto what looked like a dog-sized rabbit. He had been quite far away hunting, and while usually he could fly quite fast, he was currently carrying quite a lot of weight. I had truly missed him, but unfortunately, he couldn''t perch on me anymore because he was simply a bit too big for that. Talking with Tim and Goose, who basically never left my side, helped me relax quite a lot. The weather was quite nice, but I guess to a normal human, it would still be quite cold. The sauna helped me relax even more, and when I finally got to bed, I felt good once again. When I woke, I realized I had slept in. Going to the common room, I found some leftover breakfast. After eating it, I went outside and found Tim already working. I left him to his work; instead, I went to the smith. I took a few moments to just look around and came to the decision that I needed a proper workshop to make bows. Doing it in the smithy just felt a bit too cramped, and I wouldn¡¯t have the space for more specialized equipment. I already had the spot picked out, but what I didn''t have was enough lumber to actually build it. That brought a smile to my face, and I went and got my lumbering gear. But I didn¡¯t head over the bridge; instead, I went towards the inn where I took a right turn that would take me to Adam¡¯s place and the quarry and mines past that. I didn¡¯t go that far, only until the road reached the forest. The forest was a little bit too close to the road in my opinion. If it was too close during a storm, trees could fall onto the road, or animals could use it as places to ambush anyone walking down the road. I didn¡¯t use any energy to boost myself instead I suppressed it, so I actually had to work to fell every tree. However, I did have to use my energy to boost my body when I gathered 2 logs onto my shoulders and walked back home. This was incredibly inefficient, but it felt good to work out my body, and this type of work actually made me sweat a little bit, especially with the larger trees. It will take me a while to gather enough logs to be able to build my new workshop and have some ready supply for anything else I wanted to make. The next day in the morning, I went into the capital to give my lessons, and then after that, I spent a little time doing some government work that I really needed to do, as I didn¡¯t want a huge pile of paperwork stacking up on my table. This time, when I went to cut down trees, I did bring my logging cart because otherwise, it would just be inefficient, and I had other things I wanted to do as well. During the night, I decided to concentrate only on studying kinetic energy, as I wanted to level that skill up and also learn to use it in combat. It was an incredibly difficult thing to learn, mostly because it felt so foreign and different. The best description I could give is trying to learn to breathe underwater. It was just that foreign. Still, I could see the potential it had. While it didn''t work exactly like telekinesis, it could produce similar effects. I was never going to be able to pick up and move an object to a specific location, but I certainly was going to be able to violently move it from its current location. I should also be able to make quite solid walls with it, but currently, it was barely deflecting dropped coins. The potential, however, was incredible, and I could just imagine how useful this would be in a fight. Being attacked by multiple enemies? Just push one of them away. Don''t have enough time to block? Just make a wall of kinetic energy. The possibilities were quite literally endless, and it would give me even more flexibility, which I already had quite a lot of. chapter 313 For the next week, I fell into quite a lovely schedule. During the next week, I taught a class on basic energy control. Since there were quite a few interested whom I deemed good enough, I also decided that after the basic energy control class, I would do an intermediary energy control class. Everyone was so excited when I started this new class, but as I explained what they would need to learn, their expressions changed from excited to worried, as they needed to learn quite a lot and by the end of this class would need to gain the energy storage stat. I had been quite curious for a while why energy storage could be unlocked by an action, but since then, I have come to learn that there are a few other stats that you can unlock by doing certain things. For example, the constitution stat can be unlocked by causing constant damage to yourself and then rapidly healing it by drinking potions or being healed by a healer. It was an incredibly painful and expensive way to gain a stat unlock, and usually, you would get the stat from a class if you needed it anyways. Now, probably a lot of the ways to unlock different stats have been kept hidden by the groups who discovered them, but I wasn¡¯t going to keep the way I discovered a secret. One of the ways I¡¯ve heard to unlock the luck stat, and this is something quite well known, although no one I¡¯ve spoken to has been able to pull it off. Even though I give it a go ever so often, and I even tried cheating it, it unfortunately didn¡¯t work if you cheat. You need to leave it completely up to chance. You just simply have to take a coin and then flip it. It doesn''t matter which side it lands on. To get the luck stat unlocked, all you have to do is flip it another 49 times and have it land on the same side. Now, David actually did the math and told me that doing something like this should be impossible, but since there is actual documentation that someone managed to do it, even David couldn¡¯t argue that if you were one of the few people to pull it off, you would get the luck stat unlocked. I have gotten up to seven without cheating, but most likely, if an event has an absolute near-zero possibility of happening and you manage to make it happen, you will probably unlock the luck stat. This, of course, didn''t stop people from trying, but now I at least knew that reaching that far would probably never happen for me. After that, I always went into my office to do some paperwork, but fortunately, I really didn¡¯t have that much to do. Soon, I could go into the acquisition warehouse where I looked over new unique materials that had been found, classified them, and wrote down the properties I could detect. After that, it was time to get back home and chop down some more wood. When I had enough of it, I used my ability so the lumber would be ready faster. Then, I started to dig out the foundation for the bow workshop. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. On a rainy Tuesday, when I was in my office finishing some paperwork, I heard a knock on the door. "Come in," I said, and one of the secretaries walked in with quite a thick bundle of papers. "The peace treaty terms arrived from the queen. Before everyone signs, we are having everyone read them over." She was about to continue, but I held up my hand to stop her. "Why is that bundle of papers so big? The peace treaty should only cover one-fourth, if not less, of a standard paper. And if it includes the payment plan, I can understand if it¡¯s one, maybe two pages, but why are you holding something that looks like a book?" She tried to open her mouth multiple times, but eventually said, "This is the paperwork they sent over for us to sign. From what David told me, it mostly just ensures that both sides uphold the same agreement. He also wanted some clarifications from you about what exactly is supposed to be in this agreement." When she finished, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in and out. I indicated for her to give me the agreement, and I quickly skimmed only a few pages before I stopped. "It seems she continues to want to play games. Could you please turn around for a moment?" She looked at me, confused, but did what I asked. I opened up one of the drawers attached to my table, pulled out a few papers, then placed the peace treaty at the bottom and the papers back on top. I closed the drawer. "Tell David to write back to the queen and remind her that the peace agreement and the exact wording of it are already in effect. There''s no need to sign any other agreement. Also, we should let her know that she owes us 2 million gold coins, and if she doesn''t pay within 90 days since the start of the agreement, we will contact the World Council." She left after that. That bitch of a queen. She wanted the peace agreement to go both ways, but I was quite deliberate with my words during the hearing. They can¡¯t declare war on us or take any hostile actions, but we could whenever we wanted to. She tried to make the peace agreement both ways so we also couldn''t declare war for the next 20 years on her or any of her allies. But I wasn¡¯t going to take the bait. With this agreement, we should be able to get quite a few other nations as allies simply because if they are our allies, she can''t attack them as well. I so want to see her face, but more importantly, I would like to see the rage her bodyguard will experience when this plan of theirs doesn¡¯t work. Hopefully, he kills some important figures; that would be so funny. It actually made me feel a bit better, and when I looked out of the window, I saw that the sky was also clearing. Perhaps this will actually be a nice day. That wasn''t actually the case because the secretary soon returned as an emergency meeting was called where I needed to explain everything once again. It seems that from the last time, no one actually understood what this meant for us. But by the end of the meeting, I was actually terrified by all the ideas that everyone else came up with on how they could abuse this peace treaty. It almost made me feel bad for the queen, almost. As I was looking at the finished foundations, I was a bit conflicted. Tim was working hard every day, yet if I were to start building, I would probably finish well before him. Perhaps I should take a break and visit my other apprentices. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. So, for the next two weeks, the second half of the day, I spent going to my different apprentices'' future homes, just talking to them, seeing how they were doing, and helping out a little bit. Everyone was progressing well, and I was glad that everyone had hired competent help. I had hoped that my birthday would go unnoticed once again, but that didn''t happen. So, I actually had to celebrate my 15th birthday. I couldn¡¯t believe that I had already been here for three years; it seems time has gone a little bit slower than it did during the last years I was on Earth but still fast. The celebrations weren¡¯t anything fancy, and thanks to that, I could tolerate it, which was probably why everyone kept it small. I left everyone else to celebrate while I returned home to find that Tim had started the sauna. He invited my old apprentices, as well as Val and his family, to have dinner as well. I liked that a little bit more than the celebration in the town hall. It was nice to just spend some time talking about nothing and just joking around. The water was especially refreshing, but I was the only one who could enjoy it. However, I could see that Arthur had leveled up quite a lot, and I was quite certain that next year he wouldn''t worry about how cold the water was. chapter 314 More time went by, and I continued to follow a similar schedule to before until it was time to get started with preparing the fields for sowing. Tim and I were sitting and eating breakfast, and I took a few moments to just think about how he''s doing. He still had plenty to do to finish his home, and he really seems to be enjoying that. Perhaps I should deal with the fields alone this time. "Tim, it''s time to start preparing the fields, but I think this year you can just continue building your home. I will do the field preparations myself, and no, there''s no need to start disagreeing with me. I also want to use this as a training opportunity." He still protested for a little while, but I could tell that his heart wasn¡¯t in it, especially after I said I was going to use this as a training opportunity. Perhaps he knows me better than I thought, but that¡¯s to be expected since we have worked together for more or less a year. When breakfast was over and everything was cleaned, I spent a little time helping Tim with some heavy lifting and then went to inspect the equipment I was going to need for farming. This year, there won¡¯t be any extra fields, but I also wasn¡¯t going to reduce the size of them. There was still going to be 12 apprentices that I was going to take after my current ones, let''s call it, graduated. I kind of wanted to take this year off, but I couldn¡¯t justify it as it was crucial to get as many homesteaders as possible to start teaching other homesteaders and then them teaching the next once and so on. The start is always the slowest, and I couldn¡¯t crippler my nations growth. There were already 6 candidates who have been picked out and whom I actually agreed to take on. Another six will need to also be found, but I will be using the same method I did the last time for them. Having checked up on everything, it was time to get started. The potato fields were going to be the harder ones to do, so I started there. Once again, I had to pick up stones that were being pushed up from deep underground, the same way as back on earth. I guess I will forever not escape this task, but at least my body makes this a lot easier this time around. When that was finished, I harrowed the field to break up the large clumps of dirt. Now, it was time for the hardest part, something that could not be done alone with my current equipment. My solution for that was the kinetic energy skill that I was slowly training, and which I hoped I would be able to get to the basic rank with today¡¯s training. My plan was to be the puller or do the job Francis usually did. To hold the plough steady, I was going to have to use kinetic force barriers like hands. That meant a lot of fine control to keep them steady and, at the same time, move at the same pace I was pulling. This training was crucial if I wanted to use these kinds of barriers to keep myself protected during a fight where I constantly needed to move. While I could already use static barriers, they were a lot less useful. And of course, I needed to train them to be stronger because currently, even a regular human''s punch could shatter them, but it would stop one of those punches, so that was already progress. This wasn''t going to be easy, but I never expected to be sweating after doing the first row. My barriers shattered three times because you actually need quite a lot of strength to keep the plough steady. And after I turned around and looked at my work, I internally cringed so hard that my stomach started to hurt. I think a blind dog would have done a better job than I did. Taking a deep breath to refocus myself, I positioned everything for a second row and started once again. This was better, but it was going to be a lot of work to continue like this, but I couldn¡¯t help but keep the smile off my face. When was the last time that I struggled like this? Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I positioned the plough for another row and just revelled in how hard this was. Halfway down the row, I got the notification that my skill, ¡®Beginner Kinetic Energy,¡¯ ranked up to ¡®Basic Kinetic Energy.¡¯ Just 10 more levels, and I would get myself a new ability. POV Tim It was lunchtime, and I marvelled at how much work I had been able to do. This body of mine was now so much stronger than it used to be; it was laughable to think I could ever do anything back then. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. I didn''t at first notice how Rich was struggling. When I first saw it, I almost jumped down from the wall I was building to go help, but then I saw that smile of his. Yeah, no way I was going to get close to him if he was smiling like that. It made my body shiver to think about the last time someone interrupted him while he was smiling like that. I still remembered how my muscles hurt after the training we all got from that incident. I was walking towards Val¡¯s inn and to my surprise, I saw Val sitting outside on his new porch where there were multiple tables for people to eat at. I still remember the conversation we had when we had dinner in the inn. Val had brought up that the weather was getting nice, but there wasn''t really a good place to set tables outside. Rich agreed and said that he needed a good-sized porch. We, of course, discussed this quite a lot during the evening, and I believe Val was planning on hiring some people to make it, but the next morning Rich was already hard at work making it, and by lunchtime, he had finished it. It wasn''t anything special, just a porch that worked perfectly fine for the establishment and would probably not need replacing for a long time. I¡¯m still impressed by how willing he is to work even now when he''s rich enough to live in a big city in complete comfort. It¡¯s one of the things that I truly admire about him. When I got closer, I saw Val get up, yell something into the inn, and then go back and sit down. He waved for me to join him. "Good day to you, Val. Taking a break outside?" I asked him. He nodded before speaking. "A good day to you as well. Come join me; I told the wife to bring us two lunches and two beers." He smiled after saying that, and I smiled back. "Well, thank you for that," I said while joining him on the bench he was sitting at. When I sat down, I saw where Val was looking. He was watching Rich work. "Someone who could be king, yet he still works in the dirt. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever truly understood him," Val said after he had been quiet for a little while. I knew what he meant. "He could be a king, yes. He is the high general, but he will always be a farmer at heart.¡± ¡°He truly enjoys everything to do with farming, even more than me, and I¡¯ve done a fair share of it without ever complaining." After my words, there was a longer silence, which was interrupted when Val brought out a pipe and some tobacco. "Want some?" he said. My hand checked my shirt''s back pocket on reflex, and I still felt the old pipe my grandfather gave me. I pulled it out, and there was no need for any words as he handed me some tobacco. "So, how good of a farmer were you?" Val asked. It came as a little bit of a surprise because no one truly liked speaking about the recent past as there wasn¡¯t anything nice to be said, but I guess this was just that kind of situation. "Level 40 expert farmer, but I didn¡¯t specialise as I still hoped to advance my class." My words somehow made Val choke on the tobacco smoke. I chuckled a bit at that. "Level 40? That''s impressive, like really impressive. You must have been really successful." I took a deep pull of smoke before I let it out and answered him. "Yeah, back then I was really proud, thought of myself as a proper farmer, someone that should be an example to others. What a fool I was." Val didn''t say anything to my words; we just sat in silence until I started to speak again. "I learned the true meaning of what it means to be a farmer from Rich and the trait ''Nature Connection'' which came with the Apprentice class. You see, I used to take from the land all I could and only gave back as much as I needed so it could keep giving me everything it had. What an idiot I was.¡± ¡°My land would have still failed if I kept doing it, and I guess thinking back on it, the harvests already were diminishing. The bigger problem was that if I died, my older son, who was going to take over, wouldn''t have even been able to get one harvest without my abilities that kept the land alive. Yet, I never thought of that." There was a brief silence as we smoked and watched Rich work. The food came, and we finished eating before Val asked a question. "How were you able to get an apprenticeship if you had that high of a class level? I remember something about not being able to get it if you are too high-leveled." I took a sip of beer before I explained. "I had a second class slot. Filled it with Herb Cultivation. I had picked it in hopes of getting more coin, but all it did was allow us to have better tasting food. It fit the requirements, so it was overridden by the Apprentice Homesteader class." "Why the question? Do you perhaps want to take the class as well?" I asked Val, who shook his head. "No, I''m more asking for my children. From my understanding, the class should give them the best chance to do whatever they want to do in the future." I thought about that for a little bit, but I had to agree. "You are right. I honestly don¡¯t know if there''s any better class to establish this formidable of a base." Things were silent after that. This Wednesday was quite quiet; there was scarcely anyone around, so all we could hear was the sound of nature and Rich working. "My older boy would have liked it here; he truly enjoyed farming." Why did I even say that? It was hard to think about them. "Do you perhaps have some more of that tobacco?" I asked, and Val pulled out the pack and handed me some more. "You spoke about not wanting to start your own farm again, instead of staying here. Why?" He asked. It took a while before I started speaking. "Yeah, I could start all over again, but the main reason I pushed myself so much was because of my family. I don¡¯t want a new family; it just somehow feels wrong to start all over again. And besides that, I found a new way to be helpful." I pointed towards Rich, who was currently on his knees digging something up, completely covered in dirt. Val looked where I was pointing, and I think he understood. Rich was the one who was holding this nation on his shoulders. He also needed support, and I am completely happy helping him maintain his home. It was at this moment that we saw a group of adventurers walking towards the inn while pointing and laughing at Rich. "Hey, old-timers, you enjoying the show as well?" one of them asked. "Yes, but just don''t be too loud. You don''t want the high general to hear what you are saying," I answered them, which made them all shut up and immediately look towards the person who was now getting up from the dirt. He continued to rise until he cast an imposing shadow. This image seemed to melt their brains and I wondered if any of them had died because one looked like he was about to faint. "But why?" I heard one of them say before they all sat down around the table and continued to watch how Rich worked. Val went back to work and asked them what they wanted, but they all answered without paying any attention. They were solely focused on Rich, and I wondered if he could change someone¡¯s worldview by simply farming. chapter 315 It took me an entire day and a half to finish the potato field. It looked like something I would have done when I was 10 years old, doing my first potato row with the help of my grandfather. While it wasn¡¯t perfect, it will still suffice. What did weird me out a bit was that on the second day, I had quite a crowd of people watching me from the inn. I was a little curious, but I decided not to go and ask what was going on. Instead, I continued my work, planting all the vegetables and everything else in the span of two weeks, as some were a bit too early to plant sooner. The longest amount of time I spent was on my plant evolution project, and it took quite a while to categorise and log every change for the seeds that I was going to plant so I could track them for the future. Not long after that, it was time to celebrate my apprentice graduating and achieving the homesteader class. Of course, the first one was Tim, as he only needed to make a house that was in a convenient location and also had me to help him. He was only able to get the homesteader class because my land worked for him since he became a part of my clan. There wasn¡¯t any special ritual or celebration; we just shook hands, and he became a part of my clan. He was quite overwhelmed after he received the true nature connection, but I was able to guide him through it. I also gained a level from his graduation and wondered if I was going to gain one for every one of my apprentices. Things after that became a lot more peaceful, so to say, however, we did occasionally need to fight off encroaching dungeon monsters that came from broken dungeons. Over the coming months, every one of my apprentices graduated. I postponed taking in a new apprentice until after the summer solstice. I did gain 12 levels just from my apprentices graduating. It was a huge boost, but conquering a few broken dungeons helped level up my other classes a few levels as well. One of the things that I had focused on during this time was my kinetic energy skill, and just before the summer solstice, I finally ranked up from the basic rank, gaining a new ability called ¡®kinetic ball.¡¯ The other choices were a lot worse, but this one wasn¡¯t the best either. Still, I could see some uses for it. What it basically allowed me to do was leave balls of kinetic force that would either repulse or attract anything nearby. It couldn''t do this for a long time, only for short bursts and one-time use. Terrible, but still, there''s quite a lot of utility in that, especially because I could get quite far away from it, allowing it to act like a mine that, from my understanding, was quite hard to see even with energy vision. A day before the summer solstice, we got a surprise visitor. Bert had arrived, bringing some bad news but also a nice opportunity. He needed to give the bad news officially, so a meeting was called so everyone could hear his words. "I came here for two reasons. The first I bring from the Thorn Rose Company. They regretfully have to stop any interactions and the current deals in place by the order of the queen. This was not a decision that was taken lightly, but with the deepest regrets, the Thorn Rose Company can''t continue to do business with you." He then pulled out a stack of papers. "Here are all the nullification papers for the current deals." He placed them on the table and then breathed out a huge sigh of relief. Even I looked at him with a question, to which he straightened himself out once again. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. "That was my last standing order from the Thorn Rose Company. With that, I am no longer employed by them and I¡¯m free to speak my mind, and hopefully, my words will help build some goodwill towards my second reason for coming here." "The Thorn Rose Company was bought out by the queen. I no longer have to keep that a secret. That¡¯s why, during the last few months, you probably had a bad time dealing with them. Basically, everyone who could left, and there is no one left there whom you know Rich. I recommend that you don¡¯t agree to the nullification agreements and take them for all they are worth. I bet some of those canceled deals came with quite huge penalties." Everyone had been worried about what was happening with their relationship with the Thorn Rose Company. And most were still thinking of signing the papers because, before the troubles that happened during the last few months, they had been an excellent business partner. But now, those worried expressions turned almost feral, and I didn¡¯t know whether to be proud or worried about how they mirrored the military mindset: friends would be treated like brothers and enemies like bitter rivals. Bert explained a little bit more about what had happened. It seems like the queen wanted to hurt us in the only way she had left to do so, but I was quite certain that the people here already knew how to make her hurt even more. I honestly didn¡¯t have any clue how or what they were going to use to punish her, but I was incredibly glad that I didn¡¯t have to worry about any of this. Once again, I was incredibly glad that I didn¡¯t go down the king route. Just thinking about that sent shivers down my back. Finally, it was time to hear Bert''s other reason for being here. "As you all know, I am a druid and was born in a Grove. Since the start of the plague, things have not gone well for them, and now there''s even more pressure put on them, both politically and militarily, as the land they¡¯re currently on is quite valuable and relatively safe.¡± ¡°This has happened many times before, but the difference is that this time they''re making deals with others to stop us from relocating. The people who want the location also want the druids to keep living there so the land would prosper.¡± It was- obviously hard for Bert to speak about his people''s misfortune, but none of us urged him to continue as he needed a few moments to recover. "So, I come here today knowing that this will bring you political trouble, but could you please help me and my Grove by offering us a place to live the way druids need to live and to so inside the borders of your nation?" There was a moment of silence before Bert was answered. "We will need to discuss this, but be certain that we will give it our entire focus, and indeed we will do this immediately. So, could you please wait outside while we work to give you the answer as soon as possible?" Of course, Bert had hoped for an immediate ''yes'', as anyone else would have as well. But I could see that he knew that we couldn''t just immediately agree, so he steadied his shoulders and started to turn around to walk out. I was sitting on the edge of the table, so I turned my face a little so no one else could see that I winked at Bert. It was kind of funny seeing him try not to react to me basically saying that we were going to agree. What followed was a rapid conversation. I didn¡¯t speak up, but I was glad to see that from the very beginning, everyone was focused on not if we should do this, but how we were going to do it. There were quite a few concerns, but one of the biggest was that the druids required their own land. And with the current laws, they couldn''t own land. Of course, we could change that law, and it was brought up, but a more elegant solution was found. We called Bert back in and gave him the news. One of the council members gave the verdict. "You and your grove are welcome in the United Freeholds. We will even help you bring everyone here. We have plenty of land and possible locations, so we will need to work together to find a suitable place for your people. However, there is a ''but''. You see, we have quite strict laws about who can own land, as landowners for us are quite important." Bert looked worried for a moment. "Not to worry, Bert. We believe we have a solution for that. If you owned that land, would that be a problem for your grove, or would that suffice for your needs?" The council member asked, and Bert took a few moments to think about it. He seemed a little unsure but eventually gave an affirmative. "Then that is excellent news. You coming here at such a time was quite fortuitous. You see, Rich here is supposed to take a new batch of apprentices who will all get the ''Homesteader'' class. The people who have that class can become landowners in our nation." No more words needed to be said for everyone to understand. Bert was going to need to take my apprenticeship. After that, he could claim the land his group had set up on, and they could have full access to the land after. There were a lot of things that needed to be taken care of, but a few people left with Bert as their situation was quite time-sensitive. One of the council members spoke up before we all dispersed, "And I was beginning to think that perhaps we could take some time off after the summer solstice?" Everyone laughed at that comment because now everyone had even more work to do. But no one was mad at that fact because it was work that everyone believed in. chapter 316 During the summer solstice, I once again had to make an appearance during the celebration. But since this holiday happened during the summer, most wanted to be closer to nature than in a town. Because of that, I didn¡¯t have to spend so much time, and the celebrations were a bit less formal. Thanks to that, I was able to get away and go back home where I, Tim, Francis, Goose, and Freya could celebrate the summer solstice together. Freya''s children all now had their own partners who they fought with, and two of them were pregnant, same as Freya. About two months ago, most of the wolves left the United Freeholds to find a partner for themselves. While not all of them did, there were also three new female wolves that the male ones brought back. They all seemed quite happy. However, Lucky was one of the ones that didn''t get lucky, and she was looking forward to having her own puppies the most. We had barbecue and sat around the fire, just enjoying life. Afterwards, it was another visit to the sauna. I was still amazed that the heat was working on my body. But it seems that I was unconsciously slowing down my energy movement and lessening the strength of some of my traits, so I could still enjoy one of the most wonderful experiences anyone can have. Unfortunately, only Tim and I could enjoy this, as others had fur or feathers, which ruined the effect. The next day, Tim and I got to work as we wanted to make a more cohesive training plan for the new apprentice. I was honestly a little bit sad because I was most likely going to have to do this for many, many years, and even with my enhanced memory, I was quite certain that some of their faces would start to blur together. I was at least thankful that I could remember names better and didn¡¯t have to re-ask or actually have a person next to me that remembered names for me, like I did during the war. We discussed the basic skills that every homesteader should have, so they would have no problem starting their own homestead. There would be a lot of free time for them later on, where they could do what they liked or, hopefully, discover their passion. There was also a lot of one-on-one time that they were going to have with me and Tim, as we did not only want to teach them the skills but also the mentality of a homesteader. This was especially important because it would be crucial for them to adapt to the true nature connection trait correctly. The next week was a busy one, as I had many interviews with potential apprentices, and I also finished building my bow workshop. I once again kept everything simple but practical. It was the style that I liked the most. I would need to fit making at least one high-rank bow into my schedule so I could keep Roger happy for the extra income that would generate for the nation. I haven¡¯t checked on how many credits I have, but I was quite certain that if I wanted to pull them all out, I could probably crash our current economy. Bert came back at the end of the week with 20 druids. The Grove wasn¡¯t overly happy that they would need to wait about a year before they could truly claim land. But when they stepped into our nation''s land, their frowns changed into smiles. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. "The land here is so welcoming and it''s brimming with life. It almost feels like we¡¯re back in the Grove, however, it is a little bit different, but that''s not necessarily a bad thing," said an elderly Ursine. Bert stepped up and introduced the Grove mother, who was his biological mother. She had a difficult name to pronounce using the human mouth, so we all ended up calling her ¡®Mother¡¯ as that was something she preferred. She instantly recognized that I had the true nature connection, like she had. "My son told me about you, Rich Dirt, but I have to say his words did you no justice. You are the tallest human I¡¯ve ever met, and it''s quite nice for a change to look a little bit upwards when speaking to someone." We spoke for a little while, and the perfect way I could describe her was that she was like a mother. She was caring for those around her but fierce against anyone trying to threaten the ones she cared for. I could see the rage whenever the topic was brought up about those forcing them to give up their independence. That was also one of her concerns about how they would be treated. When she found out that they could become citizens yet could have their own culture and do things their way inside their own land, she almost cried. But she held it back like a seasoned leader and someone who needed to show strength to the ones who followed her. Bert was going to go with the rest who came to search for a place for them to set up and prepared for the rest of the Grove to join them. They had already abandoned their previous home, and around 300 druids were currently living in our Verdia compound. But before Bert left, I made him my apprentice. When he read the description of the class, he looked at me dumbfounded. "You are actually so freely sharing this class, and you would even allow me to have my own apprentice?" The absolute disbelief in his voice was quite pleasant to hear, and I only gave him a single nod before we separated, and I went to get the rest of my apprentices. It was also quite nice knowing that in a year, I was going to get another 12 levels just from my apprentices graduating. I wonder if this would really keep up and grant me one level every time because that kind of sounded overpowered. Whatever the case, I still needed to continue making new homesteaders so United Freeholds could prosper. POV ???? In front of me was a table full of reports about a person called Rich Dirt. My journey to rule over this country wasn''t an easy one, but with the help of my God, it was made possible. My God was an existence beyond us all; his domains were luck and fate. Now, I could finally understand why Rich Dirt was supposed to be my rival and why he needed to be eliminated. He is an existence that shouldn''t exist. It took a lot of digging, many favors, and luck to gain every piece of information available about this unholy creature. Every time I saw his face, it felt like he was spitting on the image of my God. Yet, what was even more frustrating was how hard it was to see his future. All futures are in flux, but usually, it''s quite easy to figure out someone¡¯s future. Yet, he seems to be making choices that go against logic. It was always harder to see the future of chaotic people, but he wasn''t strictly chaotic; it was something different, and I hated it. Even worse, somehow he was able to survive fights that he shouldn¡¯t have. That was the thing I was most scared of. I took a deep breath in as I realized I had finally admitted it. He could somehow fight against his fate; even if he was fated to lose, he still somehow clawed his way to victory. I could not let that happen this time. There was much to prepare, and even worse, I didn¡¯t just need to beat him; I needed to win against his nation. A place like that didn''t fit into my god''s vision of the future, but we would not be ready before they made alliances with the nearby nations. I wished that we could just make slave armies, but even thinking about it would be too dangerous. This world was so against magically enforced slavery that there were people who specifically hunted those who risked it because of the rewards they would get. But we had another form of mind control, the only true form, and the only righteous one: to believe in a true God. We were going to make our army strong enough that we could crush all the nations around us, and my followers and I would make sure he met his end before he reached rank 3. chapter 317 While I didn¡¯t particularly like that I needed to take on new apprentices, the moment I had them, it was quite exciting to learn what they liked and then teach them the way of the homesteaders. Bert was an interesting case because not only was I teaching him, he was also teaching me energy-based magic. This magic needed more than just spell structures; it also required ingredients to do what usually mana did. So, it was a slower form of magic, and while it could be used for fighting, it was more meant for support and ritualized magic that affected people or areas. I quite literally sucked at it. I had no problem with making the spell structures, as that was just energy manipulation, but you also needed to pull specific compounds out of the ingredients. While I could do that without much trouble, the problem was choosing the correct ones to bring out and to have them in a specific amount, something I just wasn''t that good at. Bert says that my problem is that I¡¯m hurrying too much and not doing things precisely enough. It was kind of like following a cooking recipe exactly how it was written, but I¡¯ve never been able to do that well. I like to cook with feeling, even while baking, which should be a more exact art, but it has worked for me up until this point. This approach, unfortunately, doesn¡¯t work for most of the energy-based spells. There are exceptions, as some of the spells require that all of the ingredient needs to be used up. That, I can do really well: just grab everything that ingredient has and channel it into the spell structure. So, I have some spells that I get perfect scores on and some that I can barely pass. Unfortunately, the more useful and strong spells are the ones that don''t fit my style. I also checked the spell book I got from the dungeon, but unfortunately, all it had was mana-based spells. The current count of spells that I have been able to decipher for our mages is closing in on 500, but we still have no idea how many more there are. I¡¯m not really going that hard on it, as I need to do other things, and the mages also need quite a lot of time to get the hang of the spells so they can put them into the nation''s repository. Time flew by as my days were filled with teaching others, learning myself, crafting, and then fighting and leading armies to conquer dungeons or defend against monsters. Arabella has tried to get access to our portal a few times now, but she has been denied every time. I wonder if she will eventually decide to just come here from the closest other portal, but I¡¯m guessing she can¡¯t because, from my understanding, she still has quite a lot of fights left on her arena contract. Near the end of the summer, I was once again in Verdia, as I¡¯ve been helping supply energy to our portal mage who helps us bring refugees to our nation. We have now received over 1000 refugees from Verdia alone, and the city-state is quite grateful to us as people continue to escape and travel to bigger centers of population to find safety from the endless wars that are happening. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. That wasn¡¯t the only reason why I was here helping the portal mage, as there were enough people to supply the energy to bring the people over. The portal mage also needed to gather data, and he said that a singular person charging his ability was better for his research than multiple people doing it. He was still far away from developing a fully functional energy-based portal station, but every time I spoke to him, he seemed more excited, and I¡¯m pretty sure the last time he told me that his latest prototype was actually able to teleport an apple across the room without it coming out with parts of it missing. I would be quite excited if we got this working because, while getting back from Verdia was easy, getting here still required multiple portal jumps. It was at this moment when I turned onto the street where our compound entrance was and saw Arabella storming out, looking quite furious. When she saw me, she basically did a sliding stop as her feet stopped moving. It was quite funny to see, but I didn¡¯t stop and continued to walk towards her. "Hey, how are you doing? It''s been quite a while," I said with a smile. I could have sworn that I saw smoke rising from her head; perhaps it was a mistake to tease her like that. The next moment, she moved so fast that I couldn''t stop the punch to my stomach. "Son of a bitch!" She screamed out when her punch didn''t move me at all, and from the looks of it, at least two of her fingers were broken. "You should have aimed lower. But let''s get back inside; there should be a healer that can take care of it." She looked at me as if she was contemplating, not my suggestion to go in and get her healed, but my suggestion that she should have aimed lower. I cocked an eyebrow, which made her huff in annoyance. "Fine, why do you constantly wear armour? It''s annoying." I laughed at that. "For the very reason that just happened. Now, tell me how everyone else is doing. Or have you not kept in touch?" We moved back inside, where for a moment the guards almost moved towards us to stop Arabella, but when they noticed me, they immediately stopped. "Can we get a healer, please?" I asked them, while Arabella showed her hand. They moved immediately, which made Arabella look at me weirdly. "Who are you, really? I heard about your trial, and while I¡¯ve learned a lot about you, it still doesn''t explain this," she said, pointing at her bow. "Well, straight to the point. I can appreciate that, but you should know that I won¡¯t answer. I mean, would you if the situation was reversed?" I could see how she wanted to argue; her mouth even opened a few times, but she closed it while her expression kept getting darker. She was quite furious, and I could feel that not all of it was directed at me, but more at the situation. We were led to a side office where a healer quickly fixed her hand. We sat there quietly for a while before she started to speak of the rest of our party members. It turns out that they were doing quite well, and we continued to talk like we had during our delve, just speaking of small things to fill the time. But we didn''t have forever. "It was nice to catch up, but I have an appointment I need to keep that will take me away from this city," I said. I could see the disappointment returning to her face, and then, when I was already halfway out of the room, she spoke up. "What can I do to receive the answers I¡¯m looking for?" I pulled the door closed once again and turned to look at her. She looked quite sad, probably expecting an answer she wasn''t going to like. I wondered what was going through her mind. Did she think that I was going to make her sign a binding contract that would limit her freedoms and would be quite close to breaking the system''s rules on slavery? I gave her a small smile. "You have to join the United Freeholds." Her head snapped up, and our eyes met. I saw hope in there, a lot deeper than I expected. It seems she had her own secrets, as deep as mine, but doubt returned to her eyes. "This offer doesn''t have an expiration date?" With those words, I left, as I was almost close to not making it in time to start supplying the portal with energy so we could get almost 100 refugees to our nation. I wondered what she was going to decide and why this was so important to her. But whatever the case was, I guess time will tell. Bringing the refugees over went as expected, and while I had only been away from United Freeholds lands for less than a day, I already missed the feeling I got when I walked on this land. The next big event was going to be an alliance signing with two of the closest nations to us, and then it was harvest time. chapter 318 On an otherwise unremarkable road that was slowly being reclaimed by nature, I watched as three armies and the leaders of three nations met to make an alliance. Now, this wasn''t just a defensive alliance or to get access to each other''s trade markets; no, this was a proper alliance with each nation cooperating to help the others to the best of their abilities. There were a few reasons why this location was chosen, but the main reason was that after we sign this alliance agreement, we would march and conquer a couple of city-states. This was quite crucial. These city-states separated the other two nations and would make trade almost impossible for them. United Freeholds would also get one of those city-states, the most northern one and our first target. But not only that, we would get claims on quite a lot of land towards the east until we reach the border of a nation that we haven''t been able to contact, and quite a lot of land towards the south where one of our alliance nations stands. The huge southern forest, where we got many of our refugees, would now officially be ours to claim. This would be incredibly useful because, as a nation, we didn''t actually have that much forest; most of our land was in the grass fields. One of the reasons for this alliance was that nation we couldn''t contact, but the other reason was the other alliances further south. They were a lot larger than any one of our nations, but combined, we were a more serious threat that most didn''t want to haphazardly attack. Our soon-to-be allied nations were a lot more populous than us, but the nations towards the south had an even larger population. I was incredibly glad that we had gotten a lot of refugees from other places through the portal, but honestly, we needed many more to keep our nation functioning. I was watching the large tent, where we were going to have the signing when I felt a disturbance to my right. I nodded to that disturbance and felt it disappear from beside me. This morning, I dreamed of a particular movie I had seen, and when I woke up, I thought more about what we were doing and how we were protecting the people here. Honestly, we were all a bit naive, but I guess that¡¯s to be expected because none of us had actually ever done anything like this. Thinking back on it, I didn¡¯t understand why we thought having three arms with us meant that everyone here would be safe and we could do things without being disturbed. Now, however, our assassins'' guild and spies were all over the place. As suspected, they would have been easily able to assassinate key figures which would, of course, cause this alliance to not happen. While I was quite confident in my abilities, even I had protection, even though I didn¡¯t like it. Basically, if they managed to seriously hurt or kill me, this deal would not happen because the other nations needed a general with my abilities to help them win against the city-state and act as a deterrent to anyone else who would try to attack us. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. The signing itself was incredibly boring, and the only thing that kept me awake was imagining ninja-like attackers that I needed to discover and defend against. The other nations'' leaders were still a bit sceptical about if I could deliver what I had promised, but they still signed the alliance agreement because of the other things the United Freeholds could offer them. The next day, I was given command of all of the armies here. Compared to the United Freeholds'' army, the other ones lacked discipline, but at least they had competent fighters, and my abilities quickly helped organise them so I could use them to the best of their capabilities. We marched on the first city-state, and even before we made it there, the town was ours. Elite Vikings had already infiltrated and killed the leadership, so when we arrived, the gates were already open, and we could just march in and claim ownership of this town and the nearby region where almost 4,000 people lived. This was almost a 40% increase for our nation¡¯s population. A contingency of our legion and leaders for this new land had already been brought with us and were left here as we continued to march forward. The people we had conquered didn¡¯t really mind it as the leadership that was in place wasn''t that good, and we brought quite a lot of food with us. The harvest this year had been quite good, but I was a bit sad that we needed to do it in a hurry as I needed to be on this excursion. Many of the people here would be sent back to the capital so the land here could support the reduced population better. Usually, doing a campaign just before winter was a bad idea, but our combined armies and my ability to lead an army should make this a swift campaign. I didn¡¯t mess around this time and was completely serious and professional the entire time, as I had many eyes on me from different nations, and they weren''t going to see any weakness coming from me. A few more of the city-states, which were actually more like town-states, we were able to conquer using the same tactic as the first one. But for the proper city-states, of which there were three, we needed to actually fight to conquer them. I held nothing back and used tactics I knew worked back in Earths medieval times, which I modified just a bit to accommodate the different abilities and magics of this world. Many times, I heard words describing me as brutal and ruthless. But I did what I needed to do so we would lose as few soldiers as possible while causing maximum damage to the enemy. Many of the city-states, who prepared for a long siege, found their walls crumbling and being overrun by Legionnaires and allied troops. We still lost a lot of good soldiers, but that was the cost of war. We even had a singular open field battle where the remnants of a few city-states allied together to actually have a numerical advantage over us. However, that didn¡¯t help against our firm lines, archers, and the cavalry unit which were all boosted by my abilities. It was still a long fight, lasting three days, where at noon we''d gather in the field and fight for a few hours until our men were too exhausted to continue. I¡¯m guessing that they wanted to retreat after the first engagement, but if they did that, we could''ve just run them down. I respected that they chose to stay. They probably hoped that they would be able to break through our lines, but on the third day, their army''s morale finally broke. Many started to run away or surrender. It was the last major fight of the campaign that lasted almost two months. Afterwards, I wasn¡¯t called brutal and ruthless but instead a genius and a brilliant tactician. If they only knew that most of what I knew about this type of battle, I had learned from books about ancient warfare back on Earth. While we returned triumphant, we still had many military funerals, and quite a lot of new names were added to the memorial stone in the Forest of Remembrance. Still, by all accounts, it was a really successful campaign with minimal losses and a lot of territory gained, which had quite a lot of population. That was one of the more important reasons why this entire thing happened. I was quite tired from the entire thing and was just reminded once again that I didn¡¯t like large-scale battles, but for some stupid reason, I was really good at them. And I couldn¡¯t rest easy knowing that more soldiers would have died if I wasn¡¯t leading. Hopefully, there will soon come a time when a better general is found, so I won''t have to act in that role any longer. Unfortunately, I had a gut feeling that that won¡¯t happen for quite a while. chapter 319* The war was over. All the soldiers were back, and all the paperwork and meetings were done. This was my second day home, yet I couldn¡¯t relax. The war and the people who died didn''t bother me as much as knowing that I would need to do this again. It was a bit weird because both should bother me. My leg was constantly bouncing, a sign I wasn''t relaxed inside. This time killing some monsters wasn''t going to help, not this time. I turned to my achievement page. I¡¯ve been ignoring it because I felt normal for the past year, so I¡¯ve just been doing my things and not really paying attention. Although, I have checked it a little bit because it still felt great to see the numbers go up. I have been able to get a few basic skills to rank up as well. Not that I have had much time to continue to level those skills or the abilities I was able to get from them, but there were a few exceptions. For ranking up basic trapping, I was able to get an ability called ¡®efficient baiting.¡¯ What it allowed me to do was use less bait for the same results, and it was one of those abilities that seemed to be universal. It actually allowed me to use it in battle to make ¡®bait units¡¯ look more appetising. I still don''t know how that works, but system abilities are sometimes quite weird. Basic trap making allowed me to get an ability called ¡®silent alarm,¡¯ which turned out to be less useful than I originally hoped for. Currently, with its low level, it only allowed me to connect to one trap, and when that trap was triggered, I would be notified. When I level it up, it will probably have connections to more traps, so it might become useful then, but it''s still limited in the scope of what it could provide. My mind started to wander again back to the battles. It seems that even the achievement page couldn''t distract me for long. I went and walked outside where snow was slowly falling, but it wasn¡¯t yet so cold that water would be covered in ice. At that thought, my movement halted immediately. Wait, I still haven¡¯t checked out the lake from this side. How did that slip my mind? It was one of the more exciting discoveries I¡¯ve made in recent times. I felt purpose in my body, and my heart started to thump a bit louder. That, however, reminded me that inside, I no longer had the heart of a human. My stat points have grown immensely since the dungeon, in large part thanks to the apprentices graduating, but also the war. My vitality reached the 2560 milestone, and the new trait I got was something I didn¡¯t really like to think about much. But over the months, I¡¯ve grown to accept this change, although it can still be a bit jarring when I''m reminded of it. The trait was called ¡®Heart of the Vercor.¡¯ It changed my human heart to something different, I''m guessing from a different creature called the Vercor. But no one has been able to find this creature in any of the recorded bestiaries. Whatever the creature was, its heart is incredibly powerful. I now feel like my heart has no problem supplying my large body with the blood it needs, even during the most difficult fights. It also helps that my blood got an upgrade. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. When the endurance stat reached the 640 milestone, I gained a trait, ¡®Boundless Blood,¡¯ that was consumed by ¡®Giant Amongst Men.¡¯ The combination worked incredibly well, and I actually haven¡¯t been able to push myself in any fight to truly test out my new capability. Empathy and intelligence also reached the 640 milestone, giving me the traits ¡®Emotional Resolve¡¯ and ¡®Cerebral Vastness.¡¯ I still don¡¯t know about the last one, but I guess my mind just feels more open, and it''s easier to think about more things. Both of those were also consumed by ¡®Giant Amongst Men.¡¯ My class truly has leveled up a lot: ¡®First Homesteader¡¯ is level 65, ¡®Renowned True Archer¡¯ is level 53, and ¡®Heroic Commander¡¯ is level 57. It was honestly quite weird to look and see that every class was at a different level, but I guess it needed to happen sooner or later. All those levels have boosted my stats quite a lot, with the highest being strength at 3748, well over the 3500 needed to get access to rank three energy. Dexterity still needed a bit more to get to that milestone, and vitality has just gotten past 3000. Technically, I have enough free points to actually reach all the milestones, but I¡¯m not in any hurry. If there¡¯s an emergency, I can always add them when necessary. My adventure class has also reached level 80, but I could have already leveled it up many times more. Currently, I had a decision to make as I once again was able to choose from all the available skills and abilities, and I just didn¡¯t know what to pick. I completed the body, mind, and soul idea that I had, but what should come next? I had no idea, and I didn¡¯t have any specific need that I currently wanted. So, like my free points, I''m going to wait, hoping that it would be a good trump card to have in the back of my pocket for a dangerous situation. I felt a bit better now, going through so many of my improvements while walking towards the lake. But there was still more. Basic baking finally ranked up, but unfortunately, there weren''t good options to pick, and I had to go with ¡®flawless dough rising.¡¯ It wasn¡¯t bad for cooking, but with all of my ability picks, I tried to choose ones that covered a wider area so I could use them unconventionally. At the end of the war, I was also able to advance ¡®war tactics¡¯ and gained the ability ¡®tactical morale boost,¡¯ which sounded incredibly useful for crucial moments. Since I was going to need to lead our armies for a while longer, I felt it was a prudent choice. Basic taming was something I hadn¡¯t expected to gain, but with Freya¡¯s new pups, being there when they were born helped level the skill up. I ended up picking ¡®dominance assertion,¡¯ which just sounded badass. It would be so awesome if there was going to be a battle, and we met the enemy leadership, and I just ordered them to kneel and surrender, and they actually did it. It wasn''t mind control, something that could have been really bad, but it was more of a natural domination booster. From my understanding, I could be quite dominant if the situation called for it. Basic traps, the skill I gained long ago from my dungeon, gave me a wonderful ability called ¡®camouflage sense.¡¯ When activated, I basically had a sixth sense about creatures that wanted to hide near me. While some abilities work differently and won¡¯t be detected by this ability, more natural concealments would be quite easily seen through. The last major skill rank up was my basic homemaking. From that skill, I got three very powerful choices but ended up going with a convenience pick called ¡®energy clean.¡¯ Now, I had already learned how to clean myself with energy, but I couldn¡¯t do it well outside my body¡¯s boundaries. This ability allowed me to clean large areas quite effectively, and it was an even better version of the way I was cleaning myself. Not even for a second have I regretted taking it, and I¡¯m pretty sure that I actually smell not just clean, but good, whenever I use it. I¡¯ve also gained a lot of other levels for my skills and abilities, and while they do help make the skills and abilities better, those gains don''t feel as good as they originally did, probably because I have grown numb to them. Perhaps if my skills were of a much higher rank, those levels would be more of an event. Going through my achievement page took so long that I reached the lake. The water was quite close to the freezing temperature, but it wasn¡¯t quite there yet. Snow was still falling, so even I felt the nip in the air as I stripped. I did some stretches and then started walking to the lake. The cold felt so refreshing, and I started to feel more normal as excitement began to build about what lay beneath the surface. chapter 320 I felt the water envelop my head, and I was underwater. Adjusting my eyes a bit, I managed to enhance my vision to see further in the water than normally possible. Still, I needed to swim deeper to get a clearer picture of what was happening. Soon, I encountered large underwater plants with huge leaves that were at least 10 metres below the surface. The leaves and stems that had reached this far up looked healthy and vibrantly green. There was a lot of marine life around them, but nothing seemed big enough to threaten me, though I think I spotted a few larger fish in the distance that would be quite the catch. Swimming deeper, I noticed it grew darker, and the same plants that seemed so vibrant above now appeared more sickly. It seemed there was a lifespan for them, and they needed enough sunlight to grow properly. I was about 20 metres deep, and I still had another 10 before reaching the bottom, but it was incredibly dark now, almost like being in a forest with a canopy overhead. Honestly, I wasn''t sure what I had expected, but I hadn''t anticipated the entire bottom to be filled with the same water plants that surrounded me. Getting even closer, I began to feel a faint current. It seemed that somehow these plants were preventing the water from rushing downwards, creating this lake. How that was supposed to work, I had no clue. And I was starting to run out of oxygen. I hadn''t brought my knife, but I used my energy to cut a few samples of the large leaves from the bottom. I wasn''t concerned that removing one would cause a chain reaction destroying this lake, as this layer of plant matter should be multiple feet deep. Just to be safe, I took a few more samples from the leaves higher up, and even the stem. Swimming up with so much dragging behind me was challenging, especially since some of the leaves were larger than me. When my head broke the surface of the water, I took deep breaths, having pushed myself quite a lot, but I enjoyed the feeling. So, while I dragged my loot next to my clothes, I decided to go back in and practice holding my breath at the bottom of the lake. There was some pressure that deep, so it was a slightly different environment, and I wanted to get used to it. As for the plants, I''ll examine them later, and then I should post a job listing that will hopefully find someone more qualified to fully understand this plant. With a smile on my face, I walked back underwater. This kind of new training and experience was quite distracting and also helped me work through my lingering problems of leading an army. How could it possibly be so calm down here? I didn¡¯t want to just stand still to practice holding my breath because if I needed to hold my breath, I''d probably be doing that while exerting myself. So, for fun, I started chasing fish around. Most didn¡¯t appreciate it, except for one peculiar-looking fish whose scales almost resembled zebra stripes. POV ???? This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I was staring at our war table, darkness creeping in at the corners of my vision. Nothing had worked, and I was furious. How could things not work out? We were the servants of a god of luck and fortune; everything should work out for us. I held out my hand for someone to refill my wine glass, but the servant fumbled the bottle, and it crashed to the ground. I stared at the spilled wine and the shattered glass. Before I knew it, the wine glass I was holding joined the wine bottle on the floor, breaking spectacularly with shards flying everywhere. I looked around, grabbed another item, and smashed it too. I continued this rampage until I was breathing heavily, seeing the terrified looks on the servants'' faces, while my loyal followers remained expressionless. "Kill them," I ordered. Instantly, the servants fell, each dispatched in various ways by my followers. "Fix this place up and don''t disturb me until I call for you." After that, I returned to my seat of power. The alliance between the three countries closest to us shouldn''t have happened. We had assassins ready, but the security was so heightened that we couldn''t risk being discovered. That was the excuse those incompetent fools gave me. Yet they failed me a second time when we convinced remnants of the city-states to band together and crush the alliance''s army led by that vile man. I had been so confident that we would be more ruthless than him, thinking that would give us a huge advantage. I had been wrong. He could match my generals in ruthlessness. He was a decent general, but nothing special, especially against my people who had faith and luck on their side. We didn''t see him fight directly, but we know he''s quite formidable. I''m even more worried about his individual fighting power than the combined might of the alliance''s armies, who currently outnumber us. Another problem was his perceived strength. He was nearing rank 3, and my victory was no longer guaranteed. My biggest worry is that he''ll survive the first conflict, where we should be able to surprise and kill him. After that, I fear he''ll find a way to reach rank 3. This means I must also make my own preparations, which I''m reluctant to do as it would set us back significantly. But what can one do against such an unholy abomination? The soldiers need preparation, and so do the citizens. The current plan of merely labeling them as villains won''t suffice. I need the populace to be deathly afraid of him, yet willing to sacrifice their lives in hopes of saving their loved ones. It shouldn''t be hard to paint him as an unholy monster, an affront to our God. We need to crush them completely and prepare for contingencies, especially if my fears are confirmed that we can''t defeat them in the first battle. I wanted to destroy things again, but more than anything, I wanted my hands wrapped around his throat squeezing the life out of him myself. He has caused me so many headaches. Just thinking about it brings relief. He shouldn''t expect what we''re planning to throw at him. With me leading the charge, we should overwhelm him quickly or be able to decimate his armies while he''s fleeing from us. I can already see the two armies about to clash: him and his elites about to collide with mine. Then we reveal that most of us are rank 2. While some of us will die, his elites will soon perish, leaving him overwhelmed and easily killed. There are a few futures where he stands alone and puts up a decent fight before we kill him, but the most likely future is that he would run away. After which, we will sweep through and rout his army. It''s fantastic to know that it¡¯s only a matter of time before we hunt him down and kill him. Knowing the future helped me relax, and I was ready to continue with the preparations. **** In early winter, during a cold yet clear evening, a beautiful sunset made an undisturbed lake with clear water sparkle. The only thing that marred this beautiful image was a bundle of clothing and armor next to large leaves from an underwater plant. The lake surface hadn¡¯t been disturbed for over half an hour before, slowly and almost gently, a head started to emerge from the surface. It didn''t take long for more and more of this man to be revealed. He took deep breaths while walking calmly out of the water. He was a tall man, over 8 feet, and looked as if he was chiseled from marble. Yet, that image was instantly broken by the many scars on his body, the largest being on the right side of his head that reached down to his right hand. It looked like a lightning strike had left deep scars, yet those didn¡¯t seem to affect his movements. As you continued to look at him, your eyes would be fixated on his eyes as they seemed unnatural, even scary. They would draw you in, and the deeper you looked, the more they would suffocate you. If those eyes were to look at you, you would feel exposed, as if they could see what you were made of. Yet, those eyes weren¡¯t dangerous by themselves. Whether you lived or died depended on the kind of smile you saw on the face of this terrifying yet beautiful creature. chapter 321 After I got dressed, I started to bring the leaves back home. I also needed to check my achievement page because I had leveled up my basic swimming enough that I was able to rank it up. Now, I had a choice of three abilities: Current Detection, Sustained Breath, and something called Hydrodynamic Flow. The first one seemed weak, at least in this world. Perhaps in a more technologically advanced world, it would be of more use. But the more I thought about it, perhaps it could also better detect energy or mana currents that are natural for this world. There might be something to this ability. Sustained Breath could be useful for some things, but it wasn''t really calling to me. The last one, Hydrodynamic Flow, was intriguing and a bit confusing. What would it do? Would it make me a better swimmer, allowing me to move smoother through the water? I was kind of interested in what this ability could do, so I picked that one. Testing it out, it seemed that it also worked on air, and I could basically make myself more aerodynamic. This didn''t help at all with my current walking speed, but I''m guessing if I were to run, it could make some difference. While I wanted to go back into the water, I didn¡¯t think there was too much of a hurry to test it out. Winter was approaching, so I assumed less was going to be happening. When I got back home, I started to examine the plant. It was incredibly tough, like leather, even the more decayed ones from the bottom. I really didn¡¯t know how exactly to test them, but one thing I tried was to squeeze water through them. They were malleable enough that I could use them like bags. So, I filled one with water and then sealed the top, which prevented any water from getting out. I began to squeeze it tighter, but no water seemed to come out, and the leaf itself was still intact, even while I was putting considerable pressure on it. This isn''t a half-bad material, but then all of a sudden, water started to drip out as I continued to squeeze. I thought it had finally broken, but it hadn¡¯t. It seems that when I reach a certain pressure, the water gets through the plant and starts dripping out. I exerted more pressure and the flow increased. Even when I squeezed as hard as possible, the leaf didn¡¯t actually break, but almost all of the water did come out. It did look a little bit damaged, like it lost some of its colour, kind of similar to the ones from the bottom when I compared them side by side. What an interesting plant. The leaf itself was only one to seven millimetres thick, and it got thicker the closer it got to the stem. The stem itself seemed hollow from the inside and seemed to make a perfect tube. There was a lot of evolution on the plant but understanding them more was difficult as the majority of the markers were foreign to me. I examined it with my abilities but other than being tough and water resistant I didn¡¯t identify more specialties, but I have not worked or examined many plants. After I tried to burn it without much success, I didn¡¯t know what else to do with it and sat down to think. Now I understand why there was a lake. The plant was incredibly watertight, but there were limits. Otherwise, this plant was quite miraculous. It was as strong as leather, but even more bendable, and completely watertight if it wasn¡¯t under too much water pressure. If this thing could be cultivated, I could see plenty of uses for this kind of material. But it would also depend on how long it would last. I could leave that for other people to find out. It seems a trip to the capital is in order tomorrow, or maybe today since it''s well past midnight. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. I couldn¡¯t go immediately in the morning as I wanted to spend some time with my new apprentices. It was nice to see that all of them were eager to learn, and I did my best to pass on my knowledge to them. Time flew by faster, and before I knew it, it was close to evening. I excused myself and made a quick trip to the capital and the job building to post a job listing. I was searching for someone who was well-versed with water plants and the materials you could make from them. Since I hadn¡¯t eaten dinner, I decided to step into one of the newly built taverns and order myself a lot of food. "If you are having company, then I think this table is a bit small for everyone. We should have a few bigger tables open towards the other side of the room," the waiter said to me after I put in my food order. That made me chuckle. "No, it''s all for me, so this table is good enough." There was an eyebrow lift, and she quickly apologized for assuming and left. That made me feel better. I kind of liked these interactions. It reminded me that I hadn¡¯t checked up on and tested the legionaries in a while. I wondered if the guard rotation had already happened. It shouldn¡¯t have, but I wasn¡¯t going to rush out now as there was still a lot to eat. Sneaking up on fresh guards wasn¡¯t as fun. I wasn¡¯t going to need to sleep this night, so perhaps I would stay here a bit longer than expected. Yes, the night was going to be exciting. It didn''t take long for the food to start arriving, but they couldn''t bring it all at the same time since I was sitting at a small table meant for only two people. The place was quite lively, and when I was about halfway done with my food, I noticed two people coming in who I hadn¡¯t expected to be together. Fortunately, I quickly learned that Mirhit and Omar were only together because Omar was visiting and Mirhit was assigned to show him around. The last time I saw him was at the alliance signing, but he didn''t play a big role there. I remembered Omar better from the dragon incident as I had a bit more contact with him then. He was a politician through and through, but he seemed decent. It was quite funny that they decided to eat just one table across from me. Fortunately, they didn¡¯t recognize me because most of the time my face was looking at the plates, and I guess I made myself a bit harder to see as I didn¡¯t want the attention. I wasn''t purposely listening in; that weak magic item they used to disrupt their voices didn''t work very well because I was so close, and my hearing was quite excellent. We should really invest in better devices, at least for people as high-ranking as our spymaster. From what I know, Mirhit has been doing an excellent job and learning his occupation quite well. I didn''t pay much attention to their normal conversation until they started whispering, and that''s when I started to listen more closely. "Have you been able to find out anything about the nation that doesn''t want to be contacted?" Mirhit asked, but Omar shook his head before speaking. "It''s so weird, honestly, but I''m getting closer. My contacts just seem to get unlucky and miss the representatives of that nation when they appear. Like, three times we have missed them simply because someone wrote down the wrong tavern name by accident." "That is truly unfortunate. As you know, I have my own ways of finding things out, but the further I send them, the higher the chance that some predator eats them. I''ve been so unlucky when I send them towards that territory; not even one has gotten close enough to get any idea of what''s happening there," Mirhit said. They soon switched topics when a drunk patron got too close and could overhear their conversation by accident. Now, I had been quite worried about that territory. A nation so intent on staying isolated was likely up to no good. But when I was informed that they did send out diplomats to connect with the World Council, I thought that perhaps we were just unlucky and hadn''t been able to connect with them. One incident I can understand, but something weird was going on, and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck rising up as my imagination started to run wild. I left my food half-eaten as I walked over to their table. "Do we know what kind of power the diplomats use?" I asked Omar, who clutched his heart in surprise at my sudden appearance, as did Mirhit. After seeing their response, I realized I must have unconsciously made myself even more inconspicuous. "Speak, its important," I urged. Omar recovered and replied, "One was definitely a mage. Another, I think, was an energy-based spear user. There isn''t much information out there. However, there was a damaged piece of paper with some more details. It wasn''t very readable, but one of my abilities helped decipher it. I''m fairly certain one of them uses holy power, but it''s not confirmed." Shit, I had hoped that wasn''t the case. I tried to control my emotions, but I was genuinely concerned. "Have you heard of any nation run by religious figures? Like those who lead churches?" I clarified. Omar pondered for a moment before responding, "Not that I''m aware of. And even if there was, I don''t think they need to report it to the World Council. Though, that might be a good idea." This was worse than I expected. I just hoped I was overthinking. "How long would it take to raise this concern and make it a requirement?" I asked, hoping that the answer would be in less than a week. The answer I received was a minimum of three months. It could have been worse, but it was still bad news. "Finish your food quickly, both of you. We''re going to have a late-night meeting that might turn into an all-nighter. Eat all you can," I instructed. I truly hoped I was wrong in my suspicions, but why else would they remain isolationist unless they were plotting something? chapter 322 Was I being too paranoid? Was there really a reason to get everyone up? These unfortunate coincidences could just be that. I didn¡¯t even know if holy power could work like that; I barely knew anything about it. Just assuming an entire nation was planning something nefarious was a bit over the top. It didn¡¯t take them long to eat their food and for us to start walking towards my office. They were still not sure what was going on and my uncertain face certainly wasn¡¯t helping "Take a seat, both of you. What do you guys know about holy power and how it works?" There was a bit of silence before Omar started to speak, and Mirhit just shrugged his shoulders, not knowing anything. "It has always been a niche type of power, a lot rarer than mana. But there are a few places where it''s used constantly, and not even the people who use it know that they are using it. A perfect example is actually this nation and your surveillance system. It runs on the belief of the nation." I was totally confused about this, and I guess it showed on my face. "I believe I had the same face when I found that one out. Every nation uses something similar. The Kingdom before this used the same belief in keeping people subservient to the nobles, so whenever laws were broken against them, it was quite easy to track that person down.¡± ¡°Many believe that it¡¯s the achievement page that gives that, but it isn¡¯t. It''s the people of the nation itself. That¡¯s why if a nation is run poorly, they have less of that belief, which will weaken whatever system they have," Omar explained, and I started to feel out the nations surveillance system to see if it was true. I couldn¡¯t directly feel holy power, but I could make a pretty good guess as to where it¡¯s being used simply by the absence of my ability to sense it. Sensing the city and the nation¡¯s land as a whole, I felt how it worked, quite similar to the way I could see things on my own land. But I had never delved deeper to try to figure out what made it work. There was definitely a lot of energy and some mana that came from the land itself that made this entire thing work, but it wasn''t the complete picture. There were parts that remained cloudy for me, and that was the part that was coming from people themselves. That must be holy power, even if I can''t completely confirm it. "Sorry about that, I just had to make sure," I told them both. "That was so freaking cool! I haven¡¯t had the ability to see energy for a long time, but whatever you did, it was so complex I was simply mesmerised," Mirhit said, looking at me a bit creepily. Omar looked more composed, but I could see how his political mind was working behind his eyes. "Unfortunately, that didn''t help at all, and now I think I¡¯m even more worried." My words sobered them up, and they refocused on our current discussion. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. "I know a lot less about individuals who use holy power, but I do know it can be quite unconventional. The most famous one I knew could make himself completely invulnerable for a little while, but that''s about it," Omar finished his explanation of what he knew about holy power. "Let me explain to you guys what has me worried. Lately, churches dedicated to different gods have been appearing, and from my understanding, they are somewhat close to religions from stories from my home world. That''s a problem because gods usually have a gimmick, like they are really good at fighting, so whoever believes in them will have benefits belonging to that domain." "What I am currently afraid of is that the nation we can¡¯t contact is planning some bad things. They¡¯re using a lot of holy power to make unlucky things happen to keep their secrets. If they have such power, doing anything against them or even fighting them is going to be a nightmare." They both immediately understood the implications, but Omar also understood how far-fetched they were. "Do you really think we need to worry about this? It''s highly unlikely that anything like that is going on." "If I was a normal citizen, I would agree with you and leave it at that. But I¡¯m not just a regular citizen. Unfortunately, I¡¯m the person in charge of security for not only this nation but two others. And if there''s even a 0.1% chance that this kind of threat is close to our borders, I can¡¯t let it go." After my words, we took some time to think before Mirhit got up. "I¡¯ll go wake everyone else up, then we¡¯ll have a proper meeting." He was able to take two steps before I called out, "No, wait, we need to think a bit more about this. You know, they built a sauna here just a little while ago. Let''s go there, but I feel like we need a fourth. Everyone else is probably soon going to sleep, but David will probably still be in his office. Let''s go see and then invite him as well." I stood up and started to walk towards the door, but the other two were frozen. Before I opened the door, I spoke up, "Unpredictability kind of goes against luck, and besides that, I actually do want to go to a sauna right now." I started to walk down the left hallway but stopped as I tried to remember the new location of David¡¯s office. I think I made the correct choice and continued to walk down the corridor. It didn¡¯t take long for the other two to catch up with me, and they still seemed a bit unsure about the whole thing. "If you had five cats, three dogs, and one turtle, who would you feed first every morning?" A little smile came to my face as Omar missed a step and almost face-planted, but Mirhit was a bit more composed and answered immediately. "One of the dogs, as he would be sleeping next to me." I actually hadn¡¯t expected anyone to answer that as it was a completely nonsensical question, but I wanted to be a bit chaotic right now. I just had a feeling it would be a good idea, so why not go with it? I knocked three times on David¡¯s door and then walked in. I had been correct; he was fully awake, and it looked like he was about to call out. His mouth was open, but me opening the door seemed to short-circuit him a bit. Next to him was the representation of the owlbear, who looked quite regal, and to whom I gave an elegant bow. It took a moment for him to do the same, and I could see the confusion in his eyes. "David, I see you¡¯re working hard, but it¡¯s time for a break. Let¡¯s go and visit the sauna." "What? It''s almost two hours to midnight, and I have a lot of work still to do. There really isn¡¯t much time for fun." But David¡¯s words didn¡¯t really have any strength behind them by the end, and ¡®fun¡¯ sounded so hollow. I actually wondered how he was able to produce that kind of a sound. "Perhaps, but this is what we''re doing. And bring the owlbear as well. What else could we do? We need food, drinks, and perhaps some tobacco for some of you?" I asked in a questioning tone, to which Omar and David nodded. "OK, let''s split up then. Mirhit, you get the food and drinks. David, the tobacco. And Omar will come with me because he¡¯s a guest here, and we can''t have a guest going out and doing things in our home." chapter 323 "Well, what are you guys waiting for? Let''s move," I said to David and Mirhit. "Omar, follow me. Let''s get the fires going." I walked out but stopped before I turned the corner. " Mirhit, don¡¯t tell David what¡¯s going on, OK?" I got a quick nod in return, so I continued to walk. The sauna was directly connected to the town hall, but it was a separate building at the back, so it took us a little bit to get close to it. Before we made it, Omar spoke up, "I don¡¯t really know what you¡¯re up to, but I am actually really curious about what a sauna is. I¡¯ve never heard of it." That was hard to hear. "You will soon find out. We are almost there, so I guess I can start explaining a bit." During the short walk to the door that opened to the sauna, I was able to give a brief explanation. "OK, now I¡¯m actually interested. That sounds amazing, but for some reason, I think you make it sound a lot better than it actually is." I didn¡¯t dignify that with an answer and just opened the door and walked inside. I found the lantern and lit it up to reveal quite a cozy sitting room that was obviously designed to handle a wet environment. "This was the resting room I was telling you about, and through that door should be the heating room." I walked there, opened the door, and then I heard Omar speak. "Wait, have you actually ever been here before?" I lit up the heating room and replied, "Nope, but the design should be familiar." The sitting area was quite big and could easily fit 10 people, which was nice as this was designed to be bigger than my sauna. "OK, this actually looks quite good, but I¡¯m still a bit sceptical," Omar said, and I guess I can understand. It honestly sounded a bit crazy if you didn''t have experience with it: sitting in a heated-up room close to the boiling point of water to get relaxation and enjoyment out of it. I never actually thought about it like that, and it did sound weird. "As you can see, there are two heating elements. The one with the stones on top is the main one, and you throw water onto it. That turns to steam, and it feels quite wonderful when the heat rolls over your skin." Omar listened quite attentively as I explained, all the while stacking wood into the furnace from the stack that was kept in this room. There was also a fire flint hanging on the wall, but I used my own to start the fire. "Now, I don¡¯t exactly know how this works, but I was told that this heating element works faster than normal. So, in about an hour, everything should be heated up, but we also need to start the second heating element." I walked closer to the entrance where there was a huge cauldron set into the furnace, but it was currently empty of water. "While this also helps heat the room, it¡¯s mainly used to boil water. I need to get it full before I start the fire. Luckily, it seems that there¡¯s a pipe that is directly pointed into the cauldron, but I¡¯m not seeing a way to open it up so the water can start filling the cauldron." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. That was quite curious. Was there a way to make the water flow somewhere else? I started to look around, but then Omar took a step towards the pipe and ran his finger along it, which then started to spill water. "It''s quite the standard enchantment for a spa. Haven''t you come across it before?" Omar said, smirking. "No, I haven''t, but thanks for showing. It would have taken me quite a while to figure that one out," I said, chuckling a bit. I tested it out a little; you just had to run your finger along the pipe to close or open it. That was actually quite wonderful. I should inquire about this a bit more; it might be quite helpful back home to make some things easier. As I started to make a fire for the second time, David arrived. "You made it here fast," I told him, but it seemed he was fiddling with a device in the adjacent room before he poked his head in. "Yeah, I took my own supply of tobacco. What actually took time was getting the owlbear into its traveling housing. So, while I¡¯m not against all of this, I¡¯m a bit curious as to what Mirhit couldn¡¯t tell me," David said, just as I had gotten the fire going. "Do you perhaps have a writing utensil I can use?" David looked at me, a bit worried, but eventually nodded and handed me a pencil. I took out my notebook, ripped a few pages out, and then started to write on them, keeping what I wrote hidden from both of them. When I was finished, I began to rip the papers apart, making sure that I wouldn¡¯t tear through the things I had written. Both of them looked at me as if I was crazy. "This madness has a point to it. On one of these pieces of paper is written the real reason why we are here, while the others also state a reason, but they are not truly correct." After saying that, I walked to the center of the room and threw the pieces of paper up into the air. Nothing really special happened; the papers flew in all directions but stayed quite close to me, as I didn¡¯t want them to fly too far away. As they began to fall back to the ground, one of them took a different path, drifting closer and closer to the open furnace door. While it was a close call, it was sucked up by the fire and burned away. "No way," I heard Omer say as he quickly began to look through all the papers on the ground, using some abilities. In less than 30 seconds, he had finished and cursed out loud. "Sorry, David, I guess you''ll need to wait a little while longer. But know that we are quite fucked, as the answer was burned up by the flames and that¡¯s not a good thing." I closed the furnace door and picked up the papers while Omar was still in shock, and David had a worried look. When we were all in the resting room, Omar quickly took out his pipe to start smoking, having a distant look in his eyes. Yeah, that test was truly unfortunate. "So, shall we play some cards?" My words broke both of them out of their musings, and Omar looked at me as if I was truly insane. "What are you talking about? We shouldn''t even be sitting here; we should go and notify everyone." I took out a pack of cards and started to shuffle it, but before Omar could speak again, I interjected. "So, David, let''s play some regular poker for coins, of course. But half your bet will be covered if you want the answer to why we are truly here." "Why do I have a feeling that I¡¯m going to lose a lot of coins?" David said, and finally, Omar didn''t look at me as if I was mad. Instead, he gave me an approving nod. It was at this point that Mirhit burst through the door, both of his arms full with four baskets that all had food or drinks inside of them. "What wonderful timing! Bring them over here and take a seat to we were just about to start a hand of poker." There was a moment of hesitation before Mirhit did what I asked, and we started to play poker. Whenever David decided to bet for the answer, we were quite certain that he had excellent or good cards. But no matter how good our cards were, the three of us all put down our five cards so we could pick up five new ones. We saw some crazy hands, and each of us except David had at least gotten one royal flush. We played for quite a while before we finally called it quits. The reason we stopped was because David had managed to get four of a kind, and the three of us got royal flushes of different suits to beat him. "OK, if this doesn¡¯t confirm it, nothing does. Those bastards have luck on their side, and they don''t want anyone to know what they''re doing." chapter 324 Pov Omar The three hours of sleep were just enough for me to be fully ready for the day we were about to have. I looked around to see the 14 people with me in this meeting room, all being informed about the situation. Last night, a lot of things were discussed, but nothing was decided because we simply didn''t know if that nation was hostile towards us or not. But after this meeting, my main job was to find that out. There was a lot that we needed to understand, and I used my perfect recall ability to replay the scenes from last night, especially the poker game. That was absolutely ridiculous, and I kind of envied that sort of capability. While this meant I could return to my home and to a more familiar playground, it also meant that I needed to go and convince my family to start moving things along because this power shouldn¡¯t go unchecked. It also seems that I need to learn a lot more about the religions that are popping up because they might actually have true power behind them. They definitely need to be monitored better, and hopefully, we can find ways of using that kind of power to benefit our entire family. "It doesn¡¯t matter what the power is; it''s only dangerous if it''s used in the wrong way." That was what Rich said last night when the rest of us started to discuss that perhaps it would be better to eliminate that kind of power, even if they''re not looking to expand. I kind of agreed with him, but there are only a few people I know who could handle that kind of power without abusing it. There was no way I was going to bet that whoever was in charge of that nation was the kind of person who could handle power. Yet the benefits made my head spin. Using luck to your benefit is something everyone thinks about, yet few actually try to achieve it, and even fewer actually manage it. Making sure that crops don''t fail, protection from natural disasters, and ensuring the war effort goes as well as possible - all those benefits are not small. Thankfully, my family will be one of the first to know of the true power religion can bring. There''s no doubt in my mind that some other families already know this, but I¡¯m quite certain that they don¡¯t know the dangers like I do, thanks to Rich. I took a moment to properly look at him, a puzzle that I have been trying to solve for quite a while. He looked so put together, while others were outwardly displaying horror as David continued to explain what we knew about the situation. The moment he walked out of that portal, I knew he wasn¡¯t like most, but at least now I know what game he plays. I have been playing the game for close to 70 years, and in this time, I''ve learned that not all games are the same. What I¡¯m most familiar with is the game of families who serve the families who rule this world. It''s a brutal game, yet I thoroughly enjoy it. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Like all families who are so close to the top, we are always trying to make it to the top. When I was just starting out, I did push for that a lot more than I do now, but the goal hasn¡¯t changed. We are still trying to reach the top. Not all have the same goal, and it''s important to recognize it because it changes the rules. Rich knows how to play the game, and he knows it so well, yet it feels so different that even when I was younger, I might have picked up on the differences. But while I do know that he plays a different game, what game was the question I was trying to answer, and I finally figured it out. It was one of the comments he made last night, and finally, everything clicked. He was talking about religion when he mentioned that he had to make sure he knew what religion the soldiers under him practiced, so he could use them to the best of their abilities without pushing their beliefs too far. With a few more questions, I didn¡¯t just learn about religions but about him as well, and I now know that he plays a completely different version of the game. He learned and played the game he knows during total war, where everyone was a lot more brutal than usual and actually faced more physical threats than just spoken threats. I honestly wanted to learn more, but this wasn''t the time for that. Still, I knew enough that I wouldn¡¯t accidentally stumble and burn myself with what I say. His style might actually work quite well to balance out the more normal game, and I could certainly use such a person for my benefit as well. It was at this moment that Rich glanced towards me. I instantly changed my mind on that front. Rich couldn''t be used like that because you''d most likely get your hands chopped off even if you succeed. A more earnest approach would be needed, not something faked. I should lower my mask when I¡¯m around him and show my true self more. That thought was hard to accept, but it was the best approach. I actually think that Rich is a decent person who would be worth knowing even if I don¡¯t get anything out of it. Yet, it''s so hard not to play the game as I can already see multiple ways I could use him for my own benefit. But sometimes, it''s just best not to play the game. If my younger self knew what I was currently thinking, I wonder if he would think that I had gone mad. ¡®You never stop learning,¡¯ was something my grandfather drilled into me. I truly never realized how correct that statement is. I was broken out of my musings as decisions were starting to be made. Currently, only the 14 people here will know what''s going on, and when I message them back after I complete my mission, they will tell the rest. My mission will be to get the World Council bureaucracy moving with the help of my family. There were a few ideas thrown out to test the luck further, but Rich told everyone that they might already know something''s wrong, as last night there was more holy energy around our card game than normal. And of course, moments later, he basically told everyone the opposite of what he had said just a moment ago. "That being said, while we have a chance that they still don''t know, I say we see how far we can stretch their luck.¡± ¡°I will try to get 50 coin flips to land on the same side in a row, and if I do, none of us is going to tell anything to anyone for a full month, or something along those lines." After Rich said that, everyone fell quiet. That¡¯s one of the most devious things I¡¯ve heard, and the sheer luck you would need to make that happen is immense. There was no way an entire nation''s whatever they were using to produce this luck effect was going to be enough. He''s just straight out ruthless when he needs to be. And I could see that small glint of a smile; it got my heart pumping. It would bring so many problems, especially if the nation isn¡¯t hostile to us, but I so want him to try. Like a few others, I started to shake my head. "It''s just not worth it with the current knowledge we have," someone said, and I agreed. But now that the meeting was over, I needed to start preparing myself. "David, before you go, do you perhaps have a room where I can make myself presentable?" David looked at me dumbfounded, but someone else spoke up, "Yes, follow me." It was a middle-aged woman, but she looked a lot more put together than everyone else here, so I followed her. We engaged in comfortable small talk, and it was a good warm-up for what I was about to go through. It was like preparing to go to war; everything had to be perfect as I couldn¡¯t afford a single mistake. I hadn¡¯t been this nervous in a while. I guess country life can do that to you. I''ve let myself go a bit. My speech pattern was a bit too relaxed; it needed to be crisper. Things didn¡¯t improve when I stood in front of a mirror. There were more mistakes than I had fingers, and my eye started to twitch a bit. If I looked like that when I was younger, my mother would¡¯ve chewed me out. After about two hours, I looked perfect, and I was told that the portal was already ready. I didn¡¯t like portal travel, especially when I needed to do it several times in a row, but things could be quite dire so I can endure. chapter 325 Pov Omar It took me 4 jumps to get to Verdia, but fortunately, I will now be able to avoid the public portals. No longer were there crowds of people; instead, these portal stations were housed in luxurious buildings, and we had ample accommodations for the wait times. I was fortunate that I was able to get a portal soon to the eastern twin city, which meant that I was finally back on the lower continents where true civilization resided. While Elves might disagree with this statement, even they have to admit that most of their continent isn''t really that civilized. My delay here was a bit longer, and if I had time, I would have liked to visit the underpass, as I always enjoyed seeing the sea from beneath the water. Cedric Elric Baelor was the wizard who created this wonder, my childhood hero, and technically a really distant cousin who lived around 600 years ago. The 20-kilometre stretch between the two lower continents was connected by the underpass, a network of underwater tunnels that allowed you to see the sea all around you. It is one of the pinnacle wonders of this world and has connected our two continents for a long time now. While sitting in the waiting room and looking over the city from my balcony, I observed the architecture, which is something of a hobby of mine. It was heavily influenced by Dwarven culture, as this continent named Thronheim was the birthplace of dwarves. The river delta that brings fresh water and makes farming possible here comes from the centre of the continent, through the most influential city in the world, and eventually reaches here. There were so many boats that I could see, some quite large, starting their journey upriver. I remember when I was young and on one of those boats, heading to the university city, a long way from here. I planned my approach for when I reached the family home. While I shouldn''t be here and should still be at my post back in my cousin''s country, it was necessary to be here. If the threat is truly credible, then my cousin might lose his position, and I would have failed my mission. While this was sort of a punishment mission, I certainly didn''t want any of my cousins to fail, and I definitely didn''t want to fail the family. The jump to the western twin city went without any troubles, and I always enjoyed looking at how similar the two towns were. The street layout was exactly the same but mirrored; the only difference was the architecture that now reminded me of the place where I grew up. Unfortunately, I won''t be able to visit the lowlands, the birthplace of Humans. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I now didn''t even have to use the private portals as my family had an estate here that connected to our seat of power. One final look to make sure that everything was perfect. As I was walking down the street, I could see constant trade deals being made as this was one of the most influential trade cities in the world. If you were to count the Twin Cities as one city, they would actually be the number one most influential trade city in the world, which makes sense as it connected the two most populous and rich continents of this world. The guards of my family estate almost made a mistake. I could see them twitch, moving to stop me, but at the last moment, they recognized me and gave me proper bows. The door was opened for me, and I walked inside to see the caretaker of this estate rushing to meet me. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. "I need a portal to the seat. I need to speak with my father; inform him for me, will you?" I said with the proper voice and posture. "Yes, immediately, heir apparent," he answered and took his position behind me while I continued to walk. His comment almost made my eye twitch as I hated my title of heir apparent. But at least he was fast, probably using his communication abilities to give out orders, as when I opened the door, the portal had already been activated. After jumping through, I found servants were already waiting, ready to receive me and bring me to my father. "Hold on just a moment. I haven¡¯t been here for a while, and I want to take in the view." They all halted as they had been taught, and I took a few steps out of the heavily guarded portal station to look over the heavily fortified estate that my family has ruled for almost 150 years. It was a true fortress but made comfortable for the nobility who lived here. Supporting this place was a beautiful mountain village, another show of power that our family could sustain such a luxury. The view from up here was breathtaking. I could see the lowlands stretching far into the distance. It was quite a distance down to the lowlands, but I could see the myriad of lakes and rivers that fed the endless grain fields that support the strongest kingdoms in this world. So much blood has been spilled by the nobles on this land, yet this tradition continues to this day. Although wars are now a lot rarer, political manoeuvring has become more of the style nowadays. Unfortunately, I couldn¡¯t spend too much time here as it wouldn¡¯t be proper, so I turned back to the servants so we could continue the game. Pov ???? When I woke up, I felt weak, which immediately shocked me into full awakeness. A large portion of my holy power seemed to have been diminished. I quickly got into a meditative pose, and fortunately, no one else was around, so I could show how worried I actually was. I was relieved when I found out Luck had taken that energy because if Fortune would have taken it, I would have been truly worried. The power was already refilling, and by lunchtime, I was going to be full again. I used some of the holy power to figure out what had happened, and it seems that Luck had helped keep our nation''s secrets, which I was glad about. But I would need to be careful as there will come a point where I should disable this feature. We wouldn''t be able to keep ourselves hidden, and if that feature is not used to keep ourselves hidden, we could put even more luck into making sure that the war effort progresses without any mistakes. Looking even closer at what had happened seemed to cost too much, and once again, I was reminded that the populace should be more devoted to our God. The war is getting closer, so perhaps it''s time to introduce a few more ways to worship. But I need to be careful that I don¡¯t overdo it. By spring, I hope that at least 10% of the population would be willing to whip themselves bloody to prove their devotion to our God. That way, we can guarantee victory, and I could be prepared if that unholy being does reach rank 3. During the next few days, I noticed more and more usage of the holy energy on the luck portion of the national working. We started to discuss if we should disable it, but currently, it was still within acceptable usage. That changed the next Monday when a large portion disappeared from my pool. I immediately told my right-hand man, and we were about to start the ritual to change the national working when a servant rushed into the throne room. "My divine connection, we have just received an urgent letter from the World Council." That explained it. I sat back in my seat of power, but the servant didn¡¯t approach me so I could read the letter. "Bring it here now!" I yelled, making the place shake a bit. That helped me realize how angry I was, and I forcefully calmed down. Finally, my servant came and handed me the letter, then quickly retreated. I gave my right-hand man a look that he perfectly understood. I read through the letter and immediately crumpled it and made it burst into fire. "Damn it." Well, this wasn¡¯t the worst thing that could happen as I was only being called to explain the religion thing and the national working. Fortunately, all of them were still focused on gaining personal power, and while this was happening a bit sooner than expected, it shouldn''t mess with the future timeline too much. It was at this moment that another large chunk of holy power disappeared. What''s happening? Then another, even bigger, and I was close to being out of the holy power collected by the nation. "No, what''s happening?" If I wasn¡¯t sitting on the throne, I would have fallen from weakness. I used the remaining holy power to see what was happening. I saw an image of that evil creature laughing as he threw a coin into the air, then catching it and showing heads. "37 in a row." I instantly figured out what he was doing. "That bastard!" was all that I could manage before I blacked out. chapter 326 From the night I discovered the luck anomaly, a week has passed. It has been a really busy time since then. Currently, I was in the war room that was in a wooden building where our future fortress will be built. This was our operation center for our armies. At the center of the room was a large table that had a map of our nation and its surroundings. It was so big that if you wanted to add something to the map, you would need to climb on top of the table and take a decent amount of steps to make it to the middle. Currently in this room were two generals: one ran the daily operations of the legion and the other, the Vikings. There were also a few high-ranking commanders and the leader of the spy division, Mirhit. All of us were waiting for a stick to break, notifying that we could start. Everything else was ready, so all we could do was wait, so I decided to look over the map. On this map was a lot of information about the terrain, important choke points where we currently have a presence, but there was also future information, the plans that we have made for the next few years. From the capital towards the southern forest, it showed three roads that were to be built that led to three outposts that would eventually grow into villages meant to harvest a lot of lumber for our growing nation. It also showed the constantly expanding farmland and, of course, even more future roads to be built. To the west would be quite a major road that will be connected to four mining outposts that are incredibly rich in metals and the future site of a legion fortress. The grasslands to the west were split by a river, so a bridge would be necessary. Coming back towards the east and the southern forest, depending on how well that section develops, there might be a need for a second legion fortress. But honestly, I would like to make it immediately because of the vast distances, but if there aren''t any people there, there wouldn''t be anything to finance a legion there. I continued to study the map and plan my future war strategies. But to the east of the map stretched an empty canvas. Mirhit''s bugs have been able to gather some information, but they don''t survive for long when they get too close to the country there. We have obtained some older maps, so we should know the locations of the towns, villages, and cities, and a rough estimate of the terrain, but that''s all old information from before the plague. I didn''t like relying on old information, but we couldn''t get closer due to the risk, and I wasn''t going to send Goose to fly over the land when it was so dangerous. When Omar wrote back to us saying everything was progressing quickly on his end, I wrote back asking if meddling with them could be considered an act of aggression against the country. Apparently, since it wasn''t something recognized by the World Council, they weren''t going to count this as a hostile action. Probably part of the reason was that they were quite annoyed that something so significant had been kept a secret from them. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. I was also informed that if that country''s leader cooperates, they won''t take any action against him, and then our opportunity to gather information would be over. Because of that, I could feel the coin in my pocket that was going to give us a chance to obtain accurate information. Everyone was incredibly stressed as we waited, hours ticking by. But finally, the silence was broken by a clear snap. It was time. I took out the coin and said out loud, "If I throw this coin 50 times and it lands on the same side, we will cancel our current operation." Just before I could throw it, one of the commanders spoke up. "I still don¡¯t understand how this would work. I mean, we really won''t stop this operation; it''s too important, right?" All I did was crack a small smile as I threw the coin and caught it, revealing heads. Like that, I continued, and every time it landed on heads. When I reached the 20th heads, it almost felt like the entire room was empty of energy and mana, and filled with something else that I couldn¡¯t see. I didn¡¯t stop and continued. Everyone was wide-eyed as this was actually happening, and for a brief moment, I thought about what would happen if we actually made it to 50. Fortunately, that didn''t happen because when I reached the 37th throw, I could almost feel a different taste of holy power, and then it landed on heads. I felt something different. I threw it again, and it landed on tails. "Goose, go now," I communicated through our bond. "Mirhit, be ready on my word." Mirhit didn¡¯t answer as he was sweating while being in a meditative pose. Currently, Goose was carrying a large bag full of Mirhit''s spy bugs. The plan was for Goose to fly over the country so we could make a more accurate map and hopefully see what they''re up to, but also to deposit Mirhit''s spy bugs all over the country so he could gather as much information as possible. Goose was now quite big and could easily have children ride him. But with my estimates, it would take him two or three more years until he grew enough that I could fly with him. That meant he could fly really fast with his wind manipulation. When the Mirhit part of the plan was done Goose will then fly in an expanding spiral from the center of the country while I was connected to him, so my map ability could record everything. It didn¡¯t take long until I had to say, "small release," meaning Mirhit would use five of his spy bugs to search the current area. This continued for hours until all the bugs were released near population centers. When that was done, Goose could finally start his final mission, during which I needed to concentrate more. So, like Mirhit, I got into a meditative position and started using energy so our bond would be as strong as possible. This way, my map ability would actually pick up the information that Goose was showing me. But even before this, I already knew war was coming. "They have three war camps where they''re training a lot of soldiers. Each camp has enough soldiers to be classified as an army, so 3 armies altogether. And from the positioning of the camps, it doesn''t look good for us. Still, we have a lot of information to gather. Mirhit, be careful and notify me if you start losing a lot more spy bugs than you expect." I didn¡¯t expect an answer, so I started to concentrate to the best of my ability. It took nine hours before we started to see that something was wrong. Goose was running into more and more flying monsters, but since he was rank two, they were barely slowing him down. All he needed to do was send a wind slash and dissect anything that got close. "My bugs are starting to die a lot faster than they should," Mirhit informed me. "What''s the situation with the information gathering?" There was a moment of pause before he answered. "We reached an acceptable level, but barely." I had hoped for more. "Start playing cards, and Mirhit, start positioning your bugs so luck can''t interfere with them being hunted down." I went back to concentrating while I heard the shuffling of cards. It didn''t take long before I got an answer back. "It''s not working like it should." Damn, I was hoping that when they got their luck working again, it would work the same, or they wouldn''t be able to use it. But it seems they have more control than I thought. This was incredibly bad news. When 17 hours had passed, Goose and I were finally finished, and he was heading back home. He was completely exhausted, but the wolves had prepared a feast for him. I opened my eyes to see that Mirhit was currently eating, and I raised an eyebrow in question. "Only about 10% are still alive, so it''s not a drain on me. I will probably be able to keep them alive for quite a while, and I am in secondary target locations just in case, like we discussed. This situation is way worse than even you thought." chapter 327 Before we all heard Mirhit¡¯s report, I took some time to rest, drinking water and eating something. Finally, I had time to open my notifications as things were no longer urgent. What greeted me was something I had hoped for, but I had only seen a similar message once before. It was incredibly satisfying to see it; however, the overall situation did dampen my happiness. Special action performed Ability gained: Holy power sight Activating the ability allowed me to finally see holy power clearly. There''s still quite a lot in this room from my messing with the coin. I had to admit that holy power was a lot more vibrant in the different colours it had. Energy and mana both had different colours, but energy was like looking through a filter that made colour seem extremely detailed, yet they didn''t emit much light. For mana, the colours were much brighter, yet they all had blue as a base, and it showed through quite well. Compared to energy and mana, holy power was the easiest to see, and it coloured everything around it. It was interesting to see that the free-floating mana was consumed by holy power. Yet, I could constantly see energy consume the holy power in this room. Well, perhaps ¡®consume¡¯ was the wrong word. None of the different substances ate each other; they cancelled each other out, with there being a clear winner in those conflicts. It seems I had watched the interplay of the three different substances for too long, as a reminder cough brought me back from my musings. I''ll have time to experiment with this new ability later, but this was one of those abilities that I needed to learn all I could as quickly as possible. Most likely, I was going to need it if I wanted to effectively fight against people who use holy power. I gave a nod to Mirhit, and he began. "Let¡¯s start with the population. Now, this is a rough estimation, but 80,000 to 120,000 is my current guess. The people are quite spread out, but there¡¯s a large concentration in the duchy capita of that region, which is now the capital of their country. While it''s not exactly one big city, they have concentrated quite a lot of their population onto a small area of land." "They have done that to have more control over the population, especially because of religion. Religion is the number one topic everyone is talking about, and it''s quite hard to comprehend because I barely know anything about religion. But I do recognize a lot of new buildings that are similar to the churches you told me about. I will need to keep listening to get a better picture about the religion." I gave a nod to Mirhit, and he was unfortunately correct. I didn¡¯t have a lot of time to give him more information about religion, which would have made this entire thing a lot easier. I¡¯m sure he will figure it out. After this meeting, we should find some time to properly go over all our information. However, this will be good enough to start a proper conversation with everyone else, especially the two other countries that will also be facing war. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. "The second biggest talking point I heard about was the coming war and how they will kill the infidels and rescue all who are willing to listen." We all winced at that, but it was kind of something I was expecting after seeing how extensive their war preparation areas were. Then Mirhit looked at me, and I just knew that there was going to be good news. "The third most talked about topic was how they will need to kill the unholy creature to the west, who, if left living, will end them all.¡± ¡°I was quite puzzled about this until I finally heard someone mention the name ''Rich Dirt'' while talking about the unholy creature. The man who spoke your name was killed in quite a brutal manner, and this is a direct quote: ''When you speak its name, you give it power.'' I rested my back against the chair to think a bit more about that. This was something I didn''t expect and honestly found quite weird. Obviously, through their religion, I was portrayed as extremely bad, but why would they need to do that? Something was wrong; I was missing something. I indicated for Mirhit to continue. "There are three separate training camps that are all rapidly training soldiers who are extremely eager to go to war. Honestly, their discipline and sheer commitment were scary to see. The people who taught often needed to drag the soldiers from the training fields; otherwise, they would push themselves so hard that they could die." I interrupted Mirhit, "The word you¡¯re looking for is ''zealot.'' They would do anything in the name of their religion." "Thank you, Rich. There were quite a lot of zealots. I would say most of the army was like that, and I think that was the main reason they were selected to join the army. Not everyone seemed to have the physical capabilities to join an army, but they were still there. Not all of the soldiers were at the training camp, but I was able to go through some left-open papers, and from the estimates, I would have to say that their current army is about 25,000 strong." That number was big, but not disastrous. However, it might become disastrous because I don¡¯t think they will stop recruiting. They will most likely start marching as soon as the spring earth firms up after the winter melt. I continued to listen as Mirhit gave us all the information he could. This made me even more certain about my prediction of potential trouble, yet I still didn''t know why they would hate me so much. The meeting lasted for three more hours before I called an end to it. During the last three hours, we learned a lot more about their economic situation, which was something that many people in this room at first rejoiced over. The country was in a bad situation, but that was mainly because they were putting so many resources into their army. It wasn¡¯t pleasant explaining to them that the populace wasn¡¯t going to rebel, but would face the suffering that was coming towards them with grim determination. My work, however, wasn¡¯t finished. I needed to start drafting letters to send with our diplomats into the other two countries to inform them about the situation. We must also start war preparations, which will slow down our growth once again, but it was necessary. No one else was coming to save us. However, we should also keep this quiet; otherwise, the further countries to the south might use this opportunity to also attack us, and if that happened, we would be in quite a predicament. There would be no rest for me, so I began drawing the map, I was just doing the rough outline. More qualified people will be filling in everything else with my input. On my abilities map, I already had a detailed enough image to start seeing possible paths armies could take and identify important strategic locations. I did not like what I was seeing, and I liked the situation even less when I acted as if I were the enemy country trying to conquer the three nations it bordered. Taking into account their need to kill me for some reason I didn''t know which was driving me a bit crazy, I would maintain the three-army format they currently have. I''d send about 50% to come after the United Freeholds and divide the remaining 50% between the two other nations in our alliance. They will probably not engage with the smaller armies but instead keep the allied armies locked up, then engage and overwhelm United Freeholds with superior numbers. It would be a solid plan that would eliminate many problems, and it would be quite flexible to deal with unforeseen situations. I would need to confront them in the open field because if they reached the capital, it would be over. We aren¡¯t ready for a siege. I would need to find a way for us to combine all the armies without relying on luck, ensuring they would have no other moves. Because if our armies combined, the boosts I could provide would give us a fighting chance. Was this possible? I was not yet certain. chapter 328 Today was a beautiful day; the sun was quite bright and warm, making the snowy landscape wonderful. I was on top of the tallest spot in the capital, one of the apartment buildings that had an observation tower built for some of the mages who requested it. I was currently running on two hours of sleep, and the last two days have been quite busy. The other nations have been alerted, and we will have a proper strategic meeting in seven days. The public has not yet been informed and won''t be until this meeting concludes, but I kind of feel sad knowing that war is again approaching us. Unfortunately, this was just the world we were living in. The number of wars going on was truly saddening. Fortunately, for most, winter wasn''t really an active time for war, but there were regions in this world that didn¡¯t have that luxury. I guess being in a winter siege wasn''t much better. I asked Roger for detailed accounts of current wars and the strategies and battle plans that had been implemented, and he came through surprisingly well. I only had a few hours yesterday to look over all the papers that are now on my table, and I will probably need some extra space for more to be delivered. My eyes were drawn towards my land, and with a slight adjustment to my sight abilities, I was actually able to make it out even from this distance. It felt like I was letting my land and my apprentices down, as I will probably have no time for them for a really long time. The more I thought about this war and studied about the war of this world the more I knew that this wasn¡¯t going to be a one-off battle where it was going to end with armies meeting and by the next day, it would be over. It wasn''t even going to be like the conquest of the city-states. It was going to be a proper, brutal war that was going to take a lot longer and cost a lot of lives. An inkling of a battle plan was starting to form, and the more I went over the information I had, the more I was certain that this was the best course of action. Unfortunately, it will lead to so much death. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and grabbed my emotions with an iron will. It was time to be the general again and be fully like I used to be. I didn¡¯t like how calculating I became when I delved so deep, especially how things that would break other men would just wash over me. However, it was necessary for the people who lived all around me. They had asked me to keep them as safe as possible so that they could live the lives they wanted. I will give them all that I have, even when it costs me so much. I let out my breath, and I felt the sadness disappear. All that was left was a cold center and my clear mind that was constantly working, finding a way to win this war. They were going to regret whatever they were trying to do, and I was going to beat their leader to death with my own fists. I opened my eyes and fully concentrated on my holy power sight. Immediately, the world changed, and I began to dissect and observe everything I could to learn more about this form of power. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Almost every person seemed to radiate a little bit, but none had enough to even fuel even a simple ability. Everything they had seemed to dissipate quite fast, so it couldn''t continue to build up. There was a clear difference between every person; some generated more, while others were able to retain more. Usually, in holy power, all the colors of the rainbow were represented at the same time, but there was always one color that dominated more. To learn more, I''d need to question people who were a bit abnormal, but that would have to wait for a later date. I continued to observe as much as possible for the next five hours until I felt I had a proper handle on the ability. What I didn''t like, however, was that it was a separate ability, and I seemed to have a few more sight abilities that weren¡¯t in the merged ability dynamic sight. It was time to combine the abilities once again. I took construction sight, ethereal sight and holy power sight to combine it with dynamic vision. It took me 8 hours to finish this, which I was disappointed about. That was a lot of time that could have been spent elsewhere. I opened my eyes once again and activated the dynamic sight ability. I found it more complex and powerful than before. It was time to continue on, so I climbed down but kept using the sight ability to test its capabilities and continued to refine my ability to use it. It didn''t take me long to make it back to the war room, which was now filled with people working on the map. It was time to get this done, so I opened my map using my ability and continued to give advice on how the map should look, like I had done previously. They had almost finished the section that we worked on yesterday, but we still had a lot to do. Mirhit had worked quite extensively to get a better picture of their cities, towns, villages, the state of their resources, and other important locations that were also added to the map in different forms. Everything was coming together nicely, and when this map is done, I will be able to gain more perspectives on our future strategies. I learned long ago that only relying on your own ideas will soon force you into a singular vision of what the battle should look like and the strategy to win it. No matter how good you are, you can fall into this trap quite easily. It''s especially important because the enemy might not necessarily think like you. If you are really good at strategy, you might actually fall into a trap of a bad general using a simple tactic. That tactic otherwise wouldn¡¯t have worked, but since you had planned for a lot worse, it actually could work. It was a hard lesson to learn, with a cost of nearly 100,000 lives. I mean, who would have thought the enemy general would just say ¡®charge,¡¯ something from medieval times. But since it was so crazy to just go straight for the enemy, most of my forces were concentrated on the flanks and more easily attackable positions. If it had been a medieval battle, I would have lost. But fortunately, modern technology allowed a few people to hold against an overwhelming numbers difference. Still, they were able to establish a beachhead, which extended the fight to a more brutal conclusion. Allowing this to happen here would have even more disastrous results, but I guess higher-ranking people could fight against a huge number disadvantages. It was something I needed to learn more about because I was quite certain that there were quite a few high-ranking people there. I don¡¯t think they would have rank three people, and besides that, rank three people would rarely be allowed to fight in an offensive war, especially around weaker people. Just the thought of relying on someone who wasn''t really that reliable like the world counsel to enforce laws for every instance was disgusting for me. Yet, there was no point in trying to strategize a war that would involve rank three people because we would automatically lose if this was the case. Now, I might be able to fight a bit against them if I didn¡¯t rank up myself, but if I did rank up, it also wasn¡¯t a guarantee for victory. Any fighting would need to take place away from the soldiers, which would mean that I would not be able to lead or give them my boosts. So, for the meantime, I was going to stay rank 2 and keep my free points ready for a situation if I needed to rank up. Even if it could land me in hot water with the World Council, I will still use my improved power to finish the battle fast if the situation becomes too desperate. If we won this war and the alliance didn¡¯t break up, we would be able to solidify our place in this world, and even if I couldn¡¯t help them with war directly after this war, I was quite certain that we were going to be able to weather whatever else might be thrown against us. chapter 329 It took us two days to record down all the information. After a lengthy discussion with the generals and commanders, I left them to come up with battle plans for both sides. I hoped I was wrong, but as they worked on this, I needed to check on something. There was a chance that the situation might not be as bad. Well, it was still quite bad no matter what, but if there was a way for an army to walk down this path, there was no way we were going to win this war. So, I took off running. When I reached the town that we destroyed, I wasn¡¯t even halfway to my destination. There was a decent forest in between, but there were plenty of paths for an army to take, so unfortunately, that wouldn''t save us. I continued more towards the east until I made it to the major river that separated the northern part of this continent from the southern. Goose was with me, but I didn¡¯t let him get too far away from me. Through his eyes, I was able to see what kind of terrain was on both sides of the river. The northern side was not suitable for an army. However, the southern portion would be good enough to bring in thousands upon thousands of soldiers. They were going to use this path to get to us, and there was no way we could fight a retreating battle for nearly 500 kilometres to reach the other armies. We couldn''t even use the river as an ambush point because the forest that was close to it was too sparse for an ambush. When it got dense enough for an ambush, we would be too deep into their territory, and with luck on their side, a large ambush like that wouldn¡¯t work. Now, if they didn''t have this path to us, they would need to take a route that would take them much further south and would leave us only about 150 kilometres to retreat after our initial battle. Just in case, I started to head towards that location to make sure that the forest was thick enough. If they decided to go through there, it would be to our advantage as we could set up many traps and smaller ambushes to weaken their entire army. It would be something I''d prefer because, even with all the luck in the world, we would have trapped the entire place so thoroughly that you''d need to burn it down to advance safely. Even then, with the right materials left in the forest, the smoke could become a deadly poison to anyone who was close to it. I continued to run at top speed, while Goose flew high above to give me an even better view. I reached a seemingly simple place where there was a larger road that moved from south to north and a smaller road that went east. If the river path wasn''t viable, this smaller road could be used by an army coming from the east to connect to the road network of the west. If you followed this road northwest, by the end of it, you''d reach our capital. If you went further south, it wouldn''t take long to reach the city-states we had conquered. This road that went to the east wasn''t the best, and further south there were a few more accessible and larger roads. But if the two armies united - the United Freeholds and the nation directly to our south, Frontier''s Collective, one of our allies - would be able to combine with a bit of manoeuvring, it would give us a better chance. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. I didn''t think our enemies would let us do that. I was certain they were going to use this road I was currently standing on. If we didn''t confront them, they''d just march north until they could see our capital. That''s why we''d probably need to engage them here and pull them towards the south. But none of this mattered as they had a perfect opportunity to stay north, next to the river, forcing all of our armies to fight individually. I spent two more days out here, getting an even better look at the land around me, trying to come up with a way to force their army to meet us further south. I would''ve liked to keep surveying, but I wasn''t going to find a miracle here. It was time to head back and see what others had come up with. I hope they had better luck. I didn''t like to use this word, especially when the enemy could manipulate it to their advantage. I rushed back home, all the while looking up at Goose, wishing I could already ride him. When I made it back and listened to what they came up with, I was disappointed. They had come to the same conclusion. Now, they did do an excellent job, and I wasn¡¯t disappointed in their capabilities as they were better than I expected, but we still didn''t find a clear way to victory. If only I could convince the other two nations to march their armies up here through the portals. It would cost us a lot, but with the combined forces, we would be able to achieve victory, but even that would be a close call. They would never accept leaving their nations vulnerable. And why would the enemy even want to engage us then? They would just burn and keep the two nations in our alliance, forcing us to go down there. But no nation would accept such a deal, especially when victory wouldn''t be guaranteed. I was certain that the enemy would be quite brutal to the civilians, which would basically make 2/3 of the army useless. They would have no reason apart from revenge to fight, and that wouldn¡¯t last as long as the war did. Unfortunately, rage has a time limit. The fury could only keep you going for so long, and after that, you could be too tired to do anything, especially hold the lines properly. No, the war will start with three different armies on both sides; that I was certain of. Our allies would most certainly be willing to give a portion of their armies, but if we did that, then the enemy armies might actually engage if they have the advantage. I went to pore over the information Roger sent me in hopes of finding a way to deal with this problem. I trained, discussed the problems with others, and continued to work through the paperwork, but I didn¡¯t find any solutions before the rest of the alliance leaders and generals came through the portal to have this meeting. I listened with half an ear while still continuing to think about this problem. "The threat is credible; don¡¯t question it," I had to say when one of the nations started to doubt if this was even a problem. The entire room went silent because I had used enough energy infused in my words that if I had used a destructive ability, half the people here would be dead. In six hours, other nations agreed that this was indeed a dire situation, but we also separated: the generals followed me to the war room, and the politicians stayed in the original meeting room, continuing to discuss the situation. "Here¡¯s all the information. We want your input, as I want to see what you come up with. Hopefully, it would help give a new angle that could perhaps work in finding a solution for a military victory in this war." I had worked with these generals before when we were in the combined army, conquering the city-states. But even they immediately picked up on how cold my voice was, which seemed to make them more aware of how bad the situation actually was. A day later, we still didn''t have anything. It always came back to the northern path. If there wasn''t one, we would have a lot more options, and some even looked promising. The river was quite massive, almost 50 metres across on average, and that got even larger towards the sea. It was also quite fast-moving. "Wait," I leaned in towards the map to get a better view. The river and its surroundings were lower than the surrounding land. I felt how the room went quiet; my mind was as clear as it ever was. "If a huge volume of water was released, it would follow the path of the river all the way to the sea. The area it would destroy would be quite wide, and it would cover all of the walkable paths an army could take." My words were quiet, yet all could hear them. "That would be nice if that could happen, but no water mage could make that amount of water; you would need an astronomical amount." I didn¡¯t even look up to see who had spoken. My mind was working overtime as I started to simulate with my abilities a new structure. "We¡¯re going to build a dam here," I showed them a point on the map. "It would need to be high, and we will need to start work now. It will be a difficult job, but we will also make it so that we can release the water. So, if they want to bring an army through that path, it would be killed by the surging water." chapter 330 With the dam idea, the strategy for this war started to become more reachable. There were still too many unknowns to finalize anything, but there were certain things that we could all agree upon that needed to be done no matter what would happen. We needed staging points for all three armies, and they would need to be built up so they could store a lot of resources and also ship them to the army when it''s deployed. This was going to take a lot of effort, especially because two of the armies were going to need to move quite a long way while constantly being ready for a battle. A lot of scouting would need to be done to find favorable ground, so if a battle did happen, we would have the advantage. We would also need to find a way to reliably gather updated information about our enemy''s troop movement, yet none of us had any good ideas on how to counter the luck aspect. A lot of things needed to be done, yet strategizing wouldn¡¯t help us get those things done, so it was time to start actually preparing for the war. One hope I still had was that if we prepared enough, they might give up on the idea of attacking us. We would need to ask a lot of our citizens, especially if we wanted to build the dam. The meeting where we informed the politicians about the current situation was a grim affair, especially because we didn''t even have an idea if we could build the dam that fast or to such a size that it would matter. Not to mention that we weren''t really that confident in winning the war even after that. The other nations'' representatives left soon after, so they could start preparing their nations for war. For us, we announced it the next morning. I was beside the speaker on the platform as we once again had to announce another war that was coming towards us, this one even worse. I, however, barely listened to the speech. What I did focus a bit more on was the reaction of the people, but mostly I channeled energy into my design mindscape ability to try to figure out how to build the dam so it could withstand the amount of water we wanted to collect behind it. It was slow going, but I had considerable energy reserves and regeneration, so I should get a proper design in a few days. The people obviously seemed worried, but I could see determination, which was good enough for me. Fortunately, I wasn¡¯t the one who needed to balance how much of our workforce we could divert to the war effort and how much needed to stay so our nation wouldn''t collapse from the lack of necessary resources and services. When the meeting ended, I gathered a team of engineers, miners, and people who have been working on logistics. When I explained the plan and what was going to be needed, I learned a few more colourful curse words. After they all calmed down a bit, I was able to explain to them about my ability and how I wanted their input. While I was completely confident that I could design a functioning dam that would work for us, it didn¡¯t mean that we would be able to build that dam. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. For example, I had a workable design finished in two minutes, but it was basically just a solid piece of rock that suddenly appeared in the river. It worked perfectly fine, but it would be literally impossible to actually build it. In less than 15 minutes, we figured out that we needed the input of builders as well. Another 15 minutes later, the builders explained that even with the abilities at their disposal, they wouldn¡¯t be able to finish this within the time frame we had access to. After that, we needed to move into a larger room because we needed the input of the mages as well. Now, we were actually getting somewhere. Slowly, a plan started to take shape, but a lot of the ideas needed to be tested. So, in three days, we had more than 100 people working on this problem. Even Francis was close by, as we needed to test how much he could actually pull because a few of the stones that we needed were going to be really big. Transporting to such a faraway place was also not reasonable, so scouts were sent out to find closer locations where we could quarry stone. We needed incredibly large pieces of stone, but thankfully with my ability to fuse together stone, everyone was able to breathe a sigh of relief as we would be able to quarry smaller stones. These would still need to be stupidly large, but at least they should be manageable. The situation in the town had also changed, as now 24/7 the smithies rang with the sound of striking metal. The only place with more activity was the fletching yards where thousands of arrows were being made. Our archery unit was now big enough that even a brief engagement with the enemy would use up millions of arrows. We were going to need a lot more of them because they were going to be the main weapon we were going to use to keep the enemy at bay while we continued to retreat. We weren¡¯t at full mobilisation, but we had enough time to train up fresh recruits to add to the war effort. We were also looking for outside mercenaries to hire, but that didn''t look promising as currently, the prices were so high simply because so many needed the services of mercenaries. There was another option of hiring adventurers, but they really weren''t suited for this kind of job, and I wasn¡¯t too sure about how loyal they would actually be to anyone who would hire them. There was also no chance of getting any other nation close to here to join us for this war, as they would rather use this opportunity to attack us instead. Fortunately, the biggest alliance couldn''t do that as the queen and her allies couldn¡¯t declare war on us. While things didn¡¯t look good on getting extra help, it didn''t mean that our people stopped working on that front. What was good news was that we would be able to use all our soldiers and capable fighters in this war, as we would leave the defence of the home front to the goblins and the druids. There would still be quite a lot of Viking units that would patrol our borders, so we could eliminate any intruders trying to infiltrate our nation. They should learn pretty quickly that they wouldn''t be able to hide inside our borders, but we still needed people strong enough to take them out. On the 15th day after the other nation''s representatives left, I was standing on an unassuming hill that was almost 20 kilometres from the future location of the dam. This was where our quarry would be built. There was enough quality stone here that we could build three of the dams that we were planning to build. Francis and two earth mages were currently working on making a strong enough road to transport the large pieces of stone we needed to the construction site. What didn''t help was the snow and the low temperatures, which would continue to get worse as time went by. A lot of the workforce consisted of Vikings, as even the legionaries didn¡¯t have the endurance and strength to work this job. We would need to rotate them out with other Vikings because they would need to stay sharp for the coming war. Even with all of this, it was still going to be a close call if we would be able to build this fast enough. It would actually take around a month and a half for enough water to be collected before I would feel secure about this path being inaccessible to them. I would also not be able to leave this place because they would surely try to sabotage this if they found out. The chances of that are low, but knowing that luck is on their side, one of their scouts would probably get lost and stumble close enough to see what we were doing. I would actually prefer it if they would send some elite warriors here because every one of them I could kill was one less who could threaten us during the proper war. chapter 331 The start of the dam project was the hardest. The mages needed to do a lot of ground hardening, and a lot of large wooden stakes needed to be driven into the flowing water so we could pump out one side of the river. That would give us a section of the river free of water so we could reinforce the bottom and start placing stones. Placing the stones was made a lot easier thanks to the mages and a few people with an ability to lower the weight of other objects. The design of the dam was a lot different than I imagined it at the start. What we were building was basically two half-dams. The first will be built on the southern side of the river to its full height. About 90% of the total construction on this side will not be in the river but outside of it, so we could reach the ground elevation that would allow the river to collect a stupendous amount of water, making a large lake of the surrounding lands. It will be tall enough and wide enough that we could use it to transport stones to the other side of the river, where we would build basically a copy of what we already built, except it will be almost 50% shorter as the ground rose up quite sharply on that side. What will be left will be about an 8-metre opening at the centre of the river when both sides of the dam are built. To close up the river properly so we could start collecting a large amount of water, we will be lowering huge stones, 12 metres in length, that will, one stone at a time, finish this dam. There are huge triangle-shaped supports that will help hold the dam and the huge amount of water. Destroying them will lead to catastrophic failure and release all the water that has been stored up, causing quite a lot of devastation to whatever is downstream. This will also, however, destroy one town and three villages, but that was unfortunately unavoidable if our enemy''s army really does try to use this path to reach us. Hopefully, it will not come to this, and if we win this war, the central stones could also be lifted out to slowly release the water, so in the future, if something goes wrong, it wouldn¡¯t cause such devastation. Time went by fast, but it didn''t take long for a small village to pop up as everyone needed good enough accommodations to keep the cold off them during the night. It also didn''t take long for a decent command centre to appear as I also needed to monitor how the war preparations were going. I usually did this work during the night, and during the day, I spent my time fusing stones together or helping place them. In about a month, the winter was truly upon us, and we were working harder and harder. I was incredibly proud of the men and women who worked here; they continued to push themselves to their very limits to get this job done as fast as possible. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Of course, everyone else was working hard as well, but we weren¡¯t the only ones who were preparing for war. From the reports I have received of the overall situation of the world, the next year was going to be quite bloody. Omar had already warned that the World Council simply didn¡¯t have the resources to monitor every war, and from the rumours, quite a few were going to try to use this opportunity to use their higher-ranked people to do a lot of damage. This made me want to rank up myself, but every time I started to think about doing that, I felt my trouble sense kicking in. It was a passive ability that constantly consumed my energy, but it had saved me multiple times. When I hadn''t listened to it, I usually took quite a lot of damage during the dungeon fights. Unfortunately, sometimes I did need to take damage so others wouldn''t die, but this also helped me learn more about this ability of mine. It was obvious that ranking up did something more than just limit how much I could engage with the enemy. My current theory is that it would be similar to one nation getting a nuke and the other nation needing to have the same for balance. I didn¡¯t want this war to become, for lack of a better word, nuclear. What was even more frustrating, however, was that there had been no scouts from the enemy nation here, yet. From the few flybys Goose has done, the enemy seemed to be shifting their focus from this path towards the southern ones. It could be that I didn¡¯t detect the scout, but I have been keeping my eyes open for any disturbances, and there were quite a few of our own stealth experts around keeping watch. Another possibility was that they might have someone similar to Goose. However, he has also been keeping watch constantly, although the sky was a large place and we aren¡¯t that stealthy about our activity. With this and all the other information, something just felt off, yet I couldn¡¯t put my finger on it, and it was driving me a little bit mad. I tried a longer meditation session; it did help as I felt like the answer was just beyond my grasp. Yet, no matter what I did, I couldn¡¯t make the final reach to understand. We continued to work while I tried to figure everything out, but on that front, there wasn''t any progress. We finished the first section ahead of time, but we didn''t take a break and continued to push. On the winter solstice, we finished the second half, but there was no celebration, as even with all the magic and abilities at our disposal, placing the final block to start sealing up the centre was nearing the limits of our capabilities. Before we started, I did call for a few days of rest so everyone could be at the top of their game. During this time, I sat on the edge of the dam looking downriver. The war was coming closer and closer, but the preparations were going as well as they could. I would need to stay here for about a month more, after which I could finally leave, knowing that even if they destroy this dam, the path here would not be an easy one with all the broken trees littering the way. Now, they would still be able to use this route if they wanted to, but if they did, it would take them too long, and instead of waiting for the enemy armies, we would march into their land and engage their other two armies if they still split them up. Like that, we can cut off the resources to the one surviving army, and while the time scale will be tight, I believe we would manage to stop them before they reach the capital. I always hate it when there are so many possibilities; my mind never stops working on them, but with so many different ways things could go, I could not focus on one thing to make sure that everything would go perfectly. What I had in this world that I didn¡¯t have on earth was the ability to actually meditate and my mind palace, where I felt at peace, and my mind wasn''t constantly overworking, trying to find solutions to every problem. I had started to visit this place more, and my mind companion Alan had done excellent work on this place. What used to be a castle with a wall now looked like a citadel ready for a 100-year siege. There were so many stone golem warriors that Alan had made to keep this place safe. I¡¯m pretty sure that whoever tried to invade my mind next would not like the outcome. chapter 332 I was about to end my meditation and thinking session on top of the dam when my eyes caught a heightened level of holy power that permeated this entire location. While I still wasn¡¯t that experienced with it, I was certain that the colour of holy power wasn''t mainly luck but something else. So, instead of leaving, I continued to sit all through the night, concentrating on observing holy power. Some of the holy power tried to touch me; it was a different kind that was in abundance and continually increasing. Yet, at about 9:00 AM, the entire place was suddenly filled with luck. ¡°High General, there''s an emergency.¡± Usually, I would have left, but the longer I stayed, the more the different kinds of holy power tried to slip into me. ¡°What¡¯s the emergency?¡± I asked, which made the person who came to inform me confused. Usually, I always responded to an emergency right away, I never asked what it was about, so it took him a little bit to start speaking. ¡°There¡¯s apparently a huge inventory mistake, and you were personally asked to look into it.¡± The more he spoke, the more confused he got, like what he was saying didn''t make much sense. ¡°Recheck if they really need my input.¡± He gave a salute and immediately left. It didn''t take long until he came back and apologized. Turns out someone had misspelled my name. It was someone else who had quite a similar name to me who they needed. More things happened, some that actually were emergencies, but I never left my spot. While this was inconvenient for some things, none of the outcomes were really that bad, and one even had a positive outcome; it turns out we had made more ration packs than expected and counted. Then, towards the evening, I finally figured out why this was happening. In the distance, I saw two of the lookouts speak with each other and pointing towards the water. They had noticed quite a large fish swimming upstream, but since it was just a fish and not even rank one, they didn''t do anything, but they were curious about the interesting species they didn''t know about. My eyes helped me see the large fish that was probably 8 meters in length but wasn''t much thicker than an oil barrel, swimming lazily even though the river current was strong. I continued to observe it as something felt of. There was a lot of luck surrounding this fish. Then I saw it. It was all thanks to my dynamic vision that now had ethereal sight as one of its abilities. The fish wasn¡¯t actually a fish; instead, it was a person transformed into a fish. Every so often, I could see glimpses of his soul''s outline. I turned my head towards the work camp as yelling came from there. Only a few moments later, I could see flames from one of the buildings, yet when I switched my vision, I could see so much luck-colored holy power. The other kind also tried to invade me once again, and this time it did succeed a little bit. Probably because I wanted to go and help even without its influence, but I now understood. From my tattoo storage, I pulled out a throwing knife and started to layer abilities and modify how energy interacted with this knife. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. It took me about 30 seconds to finish, but it was something I hadn¡¯t done before with energy, and this was quite crucial. I stood up and started to move towards the burning building. Yet, without even taking a full step, I threw the knife as strongly as I could towards the water. The energy worked as intended, and the knife didn''t shatter from the impact with the water or even change its trajectory; instead, it dove into it and hit its intended target, the head of the fish. It died, and I was actually glad it didn¡¯t change back to a human. The lookouts hadn¡¯t rushed towards the burning building as it could be a distraction, so they were keeping their eyes moving while looking for any intruders. The two who had spotted the fish were, like all the others, alert. So, I yelled towards them. "You two who saw the fish, next time kill anything you don''t recognize that might be dangerous. We have workers here who aren¡¯t that strong, and who knows what that fish would have been capable of." Both of them instantly looked towards me, and after my instruction, they both nodded. After that I rushed towards the burning building, but it was hard to keep a grin off my face, yet I managed it. I needed to keep everything off my face as I didn¡¯t want anyone to know that I figured it out. It was all thanks to me staying on the dam for so long. They didn¡¯t only have access to luck but also some kind of prediction or foresight ability that didn''t work properly on me, which I think is because of my soul resistance. I am still a bit unclear how it exactly works but that can be found out with time. It also explains so many other things. Every puzzle piece fits together. It seems that they did want to use this path, and whatever they tried to do today, I watched them trying to make it happen to the best of their abilities, but it seems that they failed. It was going to be important that they didn¡¯t know that I knew this. Yet, how can you hide something like this from someone who could possibly see the future? Although, whatever they¡¯re doing, there seem to be limitations, and how strong your soul is seems to be a strong counter to whatever they have. I mean, it could be something else, but I didn¡¯t think so. What else could fit a religious power set better than fortune? Otherwise, it would have just been luck that would have affected things. I guess it would be better to stay undecided since I can¡¯t be completely certain, so better not to make any definite decision. Unless that was a definitive decision. Why the fuck to things need to be so complicated. So much was stacked against us, but that was no reason to give up, and this was a great victory, even though no one would know about it. We only lost the one building to fire, and the only reason for that was terrible luck, as two of the mages who were decent with water magic just happened to be out on patrol. The start of the fire was also a complete accident, but I did let everyone do the investigation and reports, but I didn¡¯t care; I knew the cause. From now on, only in my mind palace did I think about the revelations I got; otherwise, it was business as usual. It was suggested to me that we postpone the finishing of the dam for another day, but I disagreed. It was time to start lowering the large pieces of stone. For that, we had to build quite a strong structure between the two sides of the dam. The equipment that we used, mainly the ropes and the wooden structures, was quite expensive as they were made out of rank two materials. They were a huge investment, and if we broke them, I was going to have to make quite a lot of bows. With everyone on high alert, nothing truly bad went wrong, except when we started to lower the stones, the volume of water was actually able to stop them from descending with just their weight. So, I actually needed to jump onto them to make myself heavier and then hold on tight as the water wanted to wash me downriver as I was lowered with the stones. I was going to need to come down here anyway, as I needed to detach the ropes, so riding the stone was actually a good way to get to the bottom. I did get a decent number of level-ups for my different skills, especially architecture, when we placed the final stone. I wasn¡¯t the only one who got a lot of level-ups, as everyone who had worked on this project gained a lot of contribution experience. It was a huge project, and a lot of people started to move back to the capital during the following week. Most of the fighters, however, stayed, as there was still time for the enemy to attack and destroy the dam before there was too much water collected. chapter 333 POV Ben A final look over the document convinced me that nothing was wrong, so I signed my name and reached for the stamp. I once again hesitated, like I always did, to pick it up. That stamp represented the authority of the high general, Rich Dirt. It was something I had been using much since it was announced that we were going to start preparing for war once again. I had just been a paper pusher for the legion since I lost my leg in the first battle of the United Freehold against the Slave King. After we got a few decent healers, it didn''t take long for my turn. They regrew my leg in 6 days. I still continued the work I had done for the legion, but with both legs, I did get a bit more training, which helped me get promoted a bit higher. Unfortunately, it meant that I was qualified to be the high general''s assistant. It wasn''t the most pleasant job, but I did it with all that I had. Rich deserved at least that. Still, I regret that I didn¡¯t take the opportunity to join the legion fighters. Now, a large portion of my day consisted of reading reports and compiling responses. The stamp was heavy when I used it, as I knew the meaning of it. He was someone I still didn¡¯t understand. Sometimes he acted like I expect, other times it takes my brain a stupid amount of time to understand what I need to do next because of how crazy the things he says are. After the ink was dry, I put the paper into a special bag and grabbed another bundle of papers. When I made it near the door that led outside, I put everything on the table beside it so I could dress up properly for the weather. The weather outside was cold, and I needed to walk through quite a thick layer of snow to make it to my first destination. Opening the door of a weird-looking building, I was greeted with bird noises that I still didn¡¯t understand, but I was pretty sure that particular pattern was a greeting. ¡°Good day to you as well, Goose. I have another bundle to take to the capital.¡± The answer I got in return, I was quite certain, was annoyance or possibly even a curse word. I understood his feelings, as such a magnificent eagle shouldn¡¯t be carrying mail. I attached the bag and left, knowing that he will go when he wants to go. Goose was a weird name for such a dangerous creature. Yet, my next destination was to bring the latest report to an even more dangerous creature. Starting my walk towards the dam meant that I needed to pass a lot of empty buildings, as basically everyone had left, and the only ones still here were us and a long-term observation team, who would also be responsible for destroying the dam if needed. It was so loud here because of the falling water, but hopefully, we will be leaving soon as there should be enough water collected that the high general should no longer need to protect this place. He was sitting near the centre of the dam, as he always does. Sometimes he doesn¡¯t move from there for an entire week, which is quite miserable as I need to stay constantly next to him while he reads the reports since I need to know what to write back. When I first started this job, everything was so much simpler as I basically had to do nothing as he took care of most of the paperwork, but very slowly, I have needed to do more and more of it. I haven¡¯t decided yet if he is teaching me or just doesn''t want to do the paperwork. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Honestly, I wish he did the paperwork himself because he¡¯s way too good at it, and basically, what takes me 4 hours, he''s able to do in less than one. For some reason, he knows so much about war. The current theory is that he used to be a general in whatever place he comes from, and if that''s the case, I don¡¯t know whether to be happy or sad to know that he has gone through so much. Fortunately, seeing him no longer makes me feel small as I have gotten used to the height difference. What also helps is that he''s sitting, which makes him seem like a normal man. Wordlessly, I handed him the report, as I have learned that he doesn''t care about formalities that much and actually prefers efficiency over it. I continued to stand beside him while he read and, like always, I looked down the river as he always did. I don¡¯t know what he was looking at, as to me, nothing ever changes, but I¡¯m certain that he¡¯s looking at something, as I sometimes see him looking thoughtfully at a certain point while his eyes seemed to change how they look. "I guess it¡¯s time for us to leave. Let''s head back and start packing up," his words jolted me, and it took me a little bit to understand them fully. As I looked at him, I already saw that smile that meant he was messing with me. Not that his words weren¡¯t truthful, but he seemed to get pleasure out of shocking people. Fortunately, I have never been on watch whenever he decided to start testing if everyone was paying attention while they were on guard. Fortunately, we were going to be able to get out of here and back to civilization. It didn''t take us long to pack everything and load it up onto one of the newer carts that had a sled instead of wheels. I saw Rich scratching Goose, and then he went flying off at incredible speeds. "Of course, I¡¯m not going to win," Rich yelled after Goose. I saw him shaking his head. "Get on to the sled and hold on tight." My mind once again stopped for a moment. "Why do I need to hold on tight?" I asked, but I wasn¡¯t able to keep the shakiness out of my voice. He didn''t answer me; instead, he took the ropes in front of the cart and then started to pull faster and faster. "You can''t be serious! How can you even think... No, please stop!" I continued to beg, but nothing helped as we continued to move faster and faster. There was no way he could win. I have no idea how long it took, but eventually, Rich slowed down enough that my mind seemed to start working again. Why was I seeing the capital? What happened? "So you are awake, that¡¯s good. You screamed so much that you passed out, but that was an impressive amount of screaming," he said. "Did you win?" was all that I could ask, as I really didn¡¯t want to think about what had happened. He laughed and shook his head. "Of course not, but we got faster than we should have, and it was good to stretch my legs." Stretch his legs? That was quite literally the most ridiculous thing I have heard, yet I didn¡¯t mention anything and just gave him a weak smile because that was all that I could manage. Why did I have a feeling that this wasn¡¯t going to be the most ridiculous thing I will see while working for him? Fortunately, things got back to a more normal state of affairs, but my day was still spent mostly doing paperwork. I also needed to go to quite a lot of meetings that I had no business being at, but since I was the high general''s assistant, no one questioned me being there. It was often because of Rich that I needed to join these meetings. He would just be walking by and say to me, "That meeting today at 11 with the other nation''s generals, join me," or "The 6:00 meeting, go instead of me and then write me a summary of what was decided." It was honestly madness, but fortunately, I wasn¡¯t the only one he treated like this. As time went on, seemingly more and more random people became his victims, and we were constantly being pushed beyond what our original job descriptions said. None of us had the balls to ask for an explanation, and I didn¡¯t even know how much someone would need to invest in willpower to be actually able to say no to him. I also think the reason why no one has said no is because he somehow gradually starts pushing you, and when you realize it, you are in way too deep to get out. Some of his victims were currently working with other nations to help organize things there, but things continued to get more and more efficient as time went on, which I learned from David is something that should go the opposite way, especially in war preparations. At the beginning, when this all started, I remembered how it took a while to work through a mistake, but now with so many people working and after Rich got to them, we can almost anticipate a mistake before it happens. I still haven¡¯t seen anything crazier than the sled incident, but I think I might consider the way he runs things a bit more insane. He must have his mentoring skills at a crazy level because how else would he have taught a simple paper pusher to be so good at his job that I basically have nothing to do anymore? Everything is just so easy now; sometimes, I even wish that we had a lot more soldiers so things would be more complicated. There was still one thing I wasn¡¯t ready for or knew how to handle properly: actual war. All this hard work distracted me quite sufficiently, but the temperature was now getting warmer. In another month, the temperature will be near 0, and a month after that, armies can march, or at least that''s what the druids are saying. Thinking over everything, I honestly don¡¯t think we could do anything more to boost our chances of victory. Soon, it will be time for the soldiers to take over. I just hope the preparations we have done will be good enough to keep as many of them alive as possible and bring us victory. chapter 334 In the capital city of the United Freehold, a lot of people were doing final preparations so they would be ready to march to war. There were a lot of emotions that shone through, but most of all, in everyone''s eyes, there was determination. In the centre of the legions'' command, in a large room, there were a lot of people, not just from the United Freeholds but from two allied nations as well. Everyone was waiting for Rich to begin, so everyone would know and understand the current war strategy. His voice was without hesitation, and his tone made it clear to everyone that he was in command. "To start this off, with the help of the mages, the roads can be made so we can already march using them. While I would have liked to wait a while longer, the enemy has left us no option. They have not yet declared war, but we can already see that our predictions were correct, and they will be marching their three armies towards us." "We have active surveillance of their movements, thanks to my bonded animal, Goose. Over the course of a few months, he has been able to gain an ability that improves his long-range vision, so we can watch from a safe distance. So, if there is any change to their predicted movements, we can react almost immediately. Because of this, we also have their exact numbers." "We are facing nearly 40,000 soldiers who are split into three armies. The first one has 12,000 solders. We have designated it the Eastern army. That will most likely move towards Bravenhold, our allies that are furthest from here.¡± ¡°The second army, which we are calling the Southern army, is 17,000 soldiers. A lot of the soldiers here have the lowest amount of training, and over 2,000 are just farmers given weapons. The third army, which we are calling the Western army, has 12,000 soldiers. It''s the most well-equipped and trained army with a lot of elites." "Speaking of elites, with the numbers we have been able to confirm, we actually have more elites than they do, but they also seem to be concentrating them in the Western army. We have also been able to confirm that the leader of this country and his 10 main followers are all with this army.¡± ¡°This indicates that both their Southern and Eastern armies, especially because they seem to be commanded by newer generals, do not mean to engage their opposing armies but keep them in place while they use their strongest army to engage and punch through anything we send against them." "I would like to thank both Bravenhold and Frontier''s Collective, who sent some of their very best to help bolster the United Freeholds army," Rich took a small pause and gave a slight bow to both of the leaders of their respective nations. The gesture was returned, so Rich continued. "It will most likely be that the United Freeholds army will need to engage the Western army, but that is not certain." "For a significant amount of time, both the Western and Southern armies will be using the same road until they reach this point," Rich said while pointing at a clearly marked split in the road in the enemy nation''s land. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "Unfortunately, with the time constraints we are under, we will not be able to reach the enemy before they reach this splitting point. It would have been better if two of our armies could simultaneously face two of theirs, but this is unfortunately not doable." "The Frontier''s Collective army is already focusing on making fortifications to hold if the enemy decides to engage. The town near that location, Aldermarch, will also be a huge logistic centre. Bravenhold¡¯s army of 8000 will move north until they reach the Crane River. There, they will wait for a little bit, so the eastern army are able to get a bit closer and then start moving east to join up with the Frontier''s Collectives army." "Supporting Bravenhold¡¯s army will be 500 of United Freeholds cavalry, along with 500 of Frontier''s Collectives cavalry and 500 of Bravenhold¡¯s cavalry. Fortunately, we have also been able to get 1000 mercenary cavalry from a nation towards the south who really needed the coin.¡± ¡°We will have a lot of options available to us, and what we will do will depend on how the enemy reacts. With the cavalry being so manoeuvrable, we should be able to find a favourable position to actually crush the Eastern Army." "For the Frontier''s Collective army of 10,000, their main goal would be to stop the southern army from advancing beyond this point," Rich once again pointed at the marked location on the map, which was a relatively small area between two rivers and quite a thick forest. "Now, while I don¡¯t think it will come to a direct fight, there will most certainly be a lot of skirmishes and testing of defenses. Your army is highly trained, and I am confident you will be able to hold even if it came to a direct conflict," Rich said while looking directly at the leader of the Frontier''s Collective nation. There were no other words, and after a short silence, Rich continued. "This all, of course, could change depending on the enemy''s actions. In Aldermarch, we also have stationed 2,000 mercenary troops from the same nation we got the cavalry. They would be able to move to help either the Frontier''s Collectives or the United Freeholds army. If needed, we also have enough time to merge both armies if the enemy armies don''t split up. We still think it''s more likely that they will." "Almost 500 of United¡¯s Vikings will be used to patrol the United Freeholds borders as we have confirmed that elite units have been sent through the large forest that separates us from the enemy nation.¡± ¡°The United Freeholds army, with 3,500 soldiers, will be leaving tomorrow and would have easily enough time to make it and support the Frontier''s Collective army or, as currently planned, engage with the 2,000 mercenaries the western army led by the enemy nation¡¯s leader." Most couldn''t keep the wince out of their face as the numbers weren¡¯t that good. Yet, Rich continued without stopping or commenting on their reaction. "With my boosts and the amount of elite fighters we have, the fight will be hard, but we should be able to pull them towards the Frontier''s Collective army. The plan is that if they don¡¯t follow, we will use long-range attacks, and if they do, start retreating towards the south. This will be an incredibly messy fight with a lot of smaller skirmishes." "With me and three other rank two fighters, we will be able to match the enemy leader, who''s rank two, and his followers and other elite fighters, who all seem to be rank one. There is a good chance that we will be able to kill the enemy leader in the first conflict, but we should not be counting on that.¡± ¡°This brings me to the most important point of this meeting: the enemy has luck on their side, which means that every action, every order, will need to be triple-checked. Everything that could go wrong needs to be accepted that it will go wrong." "This will put incredible pressure on everyone, yet we cannot let a simple mistake that could have been avoided ruin our chances at victory. For that, we have prepared procedures that everyone must follow.¡± ¡°The most important one being that all supplies will need to be kept as separate as possible because a simple fire that we expect will happen¡ªeven if we do everything perfectly¡ªcould possibly lead to our defeat." What followed was a detailed and extremely thorough explanation of almost everything that could go wrong and how to make sure luck wouldn¡¯t play a part in those things going wrong. It was a painful meeting that lasted well into the night and made literally everyone''s brain hurt from so much information. The enemy nation''s leader viewed this entire meeting after the fact to learn everything. He was impressed, yet he was glad that he was able to fool Rich because, in the first battle between them, not him but Rich was the one who was going to die. chapter 335 The next morning, everyone who needed to leave using the portals did so and as soon as they got back to their homes, it didn''t take long for them to be in front of the soldiers, giving a speech. This was happening in Bravenhold, Frontier''s Collective, United Freehold. The same scene was even happening in Aetherhold, a nation so overtaken by religion that none of the civilians or soldiers questioned even for a moment if attacking three nations at the same time was a bad idea. It was because they trusted their leader, who was directly connected to their god. None of the armies marched simultaneously, at least not at the start, because there was simply too much equipment and men. The line of soldiers slowly stretched out, and for the bigger armies, it took half a day before the entire army was marching. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers walking in different directions, yet the end result was the same: they would fight for what they believed in. The most disciplined soldiers marched on the United Freehold''s land. A large portion of them looked like they were all the same person. On their left side was a large square curved shield, perfect for formations fighting. On their right shoulder were multiple sticks. Three of them were short-throwing spears, one was a battle spear, and the last held a bag at one end that contained rations and other supplies. On their waist was a purpose-built belt that held a short sword on the left side, a mace or an axe on the right side, depending on the unit the soldier was in, and in the back, a general-purpose knife. All of them were wearing at least a gambeson and chain mail, but some also had, on top of that, more solid armour like a plate or leather half breastplate. On top of that armour, all wore an overcoat that was dark red, and over their heart, all had a symbol of the legion, the unit they were in and what clan they belonged to. Every unit could also be distinguished by the banners that were held above them, all with different designs, but the base color for all of them was dark red. In between the legions were many carts pulled by horses, and one particularly strong bull named Francis. Behind him were quite a few carts, as he was pulling basically a train of them all by himself. Inside those carts were weapons of war that would help close the gap in the number difference between them and their enemies. After that were a few special units of legionaries whose equipment was a bit different, as they were archers. Between them were a lot of carts, all full of arrows. Bringing up the rear were the Vikings, who weren¡¯t uniform in their looks, but most of them had armour made from more than just basic metal. Yet, one thing was similar for all of them: on their back was a large round shield, so they could also combine together for defence or attack. Amongst them were also a few more specialised soldiers like mages, and the borrowed elites from Frontier''s Collective and Bravenhold. Yet, between all those soldiers, there were also a lot of people who were not going to fight directly but helped manage the resources and take care of the more mundane parts to keep the army functioning. Back in the capital, the portal constantly flashed as the cavalry unit went through the portal into Aldermarch, so they could join up with the mercenary cavalry and Frontier''s Collective cavalry already waiting there. When proper command was established between them, they would be moving east to meet up with the Bravenhold cavalry and their army. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. They were all quite well equipped, but most of them could be classified towards the heavy side of armour. Almost all of them have a shield, a long spear, and a one-handed weapon, mostly swords that are curved a little bit. Both Frontier''s Collective''s and Bravenhold''s main armies more resemble adventurers with their leather armour and myriad of different weapons, yet both of them have more elite units, some who are even fully armoured in plate mail. Their training varies quite a lot, from almost farmers to actual soldier-type class holders who have trained their whole lives to be a soldier in the army. Aetherhold had a vast army split into three parts. Their training was decent at least for half the army, and while they had spent quite a lot of time training and levelling up, only very few had true combat experience. Only a few commanders wore anything better than leather armour. Yet, all of the soldiers of the Aetherholds army wore an overcoat that was half white and half blue, with the symbol of their god front and centre, covering their entire torso. What they lacked in combat experience, they made up in fervour. Their sheer belief that they were doing the right thing was better than any morale-boosting ability. Their weaponry consisted of a spear and a wooden shield, and very rarely did they have a backup weapon. In mass combat, however, a spear is a weapon that has brought victory to many and will continue to do so. It''s cheap to make, yet so dangerous, and a perfect counter to the leather-type armour most common in this world. All of the armies had a long journey, the longest being that of the United Freeholds. Fortunately for them, they had Rich Dirt, who used his unit boost ability to give a general speed boost to the whole army, making them move a lot faster than the other armies. The first armies that were going to meet were the eastern army of Aetherhold and the Bravenhold army, as they had the shortest distance between them. Fortunately, the cavalry that was moving to support them could move faster than the infantry and would make it there with plenty of time to spare. The Frontier''s Collective army was already half gathered at Aldermarch, and while a large contingent started the long march from the capital, multiple different parts of the army also began to march from other locations inside their nation. The soldiers that were already there had started to prepare and build fortifications near a narrow piece of land between a river and a thick forest. Time went by fast for the soldiers, as most of their day consisted of marching, setting up camp, or taking camp apart, and then, of course, sleeping. It was an exhausting time for any soldier, yet they were all grateful that they hadn''t even once had to do a quick march, where they would need to cover twice the distance in one day than normal. While all of the soldiers were beyond superhuman, pushing themselves day after day like that would still take a toll. Days turned into weeks, and a month had passed since all of the armies started to march. The soldiers of every army had seen every kind of weather, and if it wasn''t for the healers, there would already be lots of casualties from infections or other accidents. It was at this point that Rich was able to confirm that the Aetherholds army did indeed split up as they had predicted. Another two weeks passed, and the eastern army of Aetherhold stopped for a moment because they were at the border of Bravenhold''s nation. Even though there weren''t any villages or towns for another 100 kilometres, they couldn¡¯t cross the border yet because they hadn''t officially declared war, and to not do so would be political suicide with the other nations of this world. The message was sent to the leader of Aetherhold, who had hoped that something would change, and he could wait a bit longer before declaring war. However, he was also glad to see that they could still predict the future correctly. He composed four letters: three for the nations they were about to invade and one to the World Council to make the war legitimate in their eyes. Fortunately for him, in this world, the only justification needed for war was a desire to expand his nation. Yet, he also added that the Triple Alliance already threatened his country, and this attack would serve as a preemptive defense of his nation. This was to be expected, yet almost all of the leaders of the Triple Alliance had hoped that Aetherholds would give up its plans to invade. The one person who was glad about this declaration of war was Rich as he had feared they will delay for longer. He immediately sent word to the Bravenhold army and the cavalry to execute Plan A. The Bravenhold army would wait until the eastern army was seen on the horizon and then start marching towards Aldermarch, leaving the way into their nation open. Not far behind the Bravenhold army, the cavalry would stand ready to start harassing the eastern army and cut off their supply lines if they didn''t follow the Bravenhold''s main army. chapter 336 On a warm afternoon, when the sun was colouring everything in soft tones, the Bravenhold army finally saw the Eastern army start to appear on the horizon. As people pointed it out, a nervous wave went through the army. Message books and sticks were used to inform about the change in the situation. It was confirmed that they needed to execute plan A, so they started to pack up their current gear so they could abandon this location and start to head west on a decent dirt road. Everyone not at that location concentrated on all the information coming in so they could make the correct choices for their next actions. The leader of Aetherhold had already foreseen multiple futures and knew that the best-case scenario was to take a defensive position. Then when the main army of Bravenhold started to leave, to move out and use the extra-long spears they had prepared to keep the cavalry at bay, keeping both of the enemy forces tied to that location. There was a chance that when the United Freehold realized they would not be able to pull their army along, they would choose to send the cavalry to join up with them in Aldermarch. But he also had a plan for that. He wouldn''t mind a direct conflict with the Bravenhold army, as with the prepared holy spells he had left with the general of the eastern army, they should be able to defeat the Bravenhold army and then move towards Bravenhold towns, which would make the cavalry return. It was a perfect plan that a brilliant general would have come up with, even if they didn''t have access to future knowledge. It was because of that, a few days later, when Rich was informed that the eastern army was digging in, he enacted his plan. At the start, everything went as the leader of Aetherhold had expected. The Bravenhold army continued to march further west, so the eastern army started to march out of the fortified position towards the cavalry of the Triple Alliance. Then a few things changed a bit. First, the Bravenhold army took longer before they turned around to cover the cavalry army and while it came close they never actually engaged with the eastern army directly. It was at this moment that the leader of Aetherhold realized something was off because the Bravenhold army hadn¡¯t reached as far as they expected. They had been purposely dragging their feet, and now they were moving back double time, which meant that the eastern army wouldn¡¯t be able to get back to their fortified position and would, in fact, be sandwiched between the Bravenhold army and the cavalry army. In the western army, they had set up for the night, the leader of Aetherhold and his 10 followers were all in their command tent, trying to figure out what was going on. "It''s obvious that they want to engage or keep the eastern army there, but that just doesn''t make any sense. They can''t be confident in victory," one of the followers said, and immediately after, another spoke up. "It doesn''t matter if they want to engage; it will be a hard battle, but no one will win anytime soon, and even if the eastern army were to lose, it wouldn''t matter. Not even the cavalry would be able to come back in time to help them." "Silence," their leader said while looking over the reports and the maps. He was channelling his divine insight ability to try to figure out why things had changed. Of course, he knew that it was the fault of the heretic, but while he could somehow change his future, he still acted like a person, and it didn''t make any sense for him to commit to such an uncertain battle. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. In the past, every time he engaged with an enemy, he had a huge upper hand if it was possible and only engaged otherwise if it was the only solution. Yet here, there should be many better options than engaging. The United Freeholds army had marched south this entire time, but currently, they were camped near a crossroads where the road further south led to Aldermarch, and another road that went northeast would bring them into contact with the western army of Aetherhold. The only reason they would need to continue to march down that road was that technically, the Western army could cross the narrow forest between that road and the one that leads to the United Freeholds'' lands. They would still have another two weeks of marching before they reached the point where the Western army would need to engage them if they wanted to continue. They would be waiting here for a few days so the mercenaries could make it here. In the command tent, there was a serious discussion with a lot of yelling, mainly because Rich wasn''t there, and the letter he left just stated, ¡®I will be back in a few days.¡¯ When Rich was able to confirm that the Eastern army would be forced to fight both the Bravenhold army and the cavalry army on the open field, he immediately started his plan that he hadn''t told anyone. After he wrote that letter, he met up with Goose. Goose had grown quite a lot, and with the second rank he had achieved, he could now carry Rich for a short while if he used his wind manipulation. That was, however, when Rich wasn¡¯t using his ability to make himself weigh less. "We¡¯re going to try something new today. You''re going to have to push yourself, but not to worry, it shouldn''t be too draining as I will be helping, and you can let off some steam by killing some enemies afterwards," Rich said to Goose while scratching his neck. Goose immediately liked the idea and shifted into a better position that would allow Rich to get onto him more easily. Rich didn''t hesitate and climbed onto Goose. His eyes, however, immediately noticed how fate-coloured holy power started to appear all around him, nudging him back towards the camp. He just smirked at that. Currently, Goose was using the special harness they had made for him to deliver mail, but Rich had purposely overdesigned it so he could hold onto it against the wind resistance he was about to experience. With only a few flaps, they were soaring into the sky, and thanks to Rich supplying energy to Goose, they soon broke the sound barrier and could stay at that speed as they flew towards the eastern army. Slowly, word spread through the Triple Alliance that there was about to be a conflict with the Eastern army, and Rich was nowhere to be found. In the western army camp, the leader of Aetherhold started to feel that something was off. Yet, he couldn''t use up too much power to find out what was currently happening, as his ability to see the future and past didn''t allow him to see the present, and the closer to the present he got, the more he would need to spend his holy power. It was a few hours later when he finally got a glimpse of the United Freeholds Army camp command tent, only to find out that Rich wasn''t there, and no one knew where he was. He didn''t need to use his power to figure out what was going on. Rich was headed towards the eastern army; the only question was how he was going to get there. All of the army mages were using anti-teleportation and anti-recession spells. The area they were able to cover was quite big, but Rich was rank 2 and probably had abilities that allowed him to move fast. In a panic, he looked up and said, "Eastern army, how would the calculation for the upcoming battle change if Rich was personally there?" It only took one of the followers a second to answer. "It would be a complete slaughter. Not only could he boost his army''s soldiers, but there''s also no one who could fight against him, and he could probably solo the army with enough time as he can always retreat to recharge his energy and then continue to slaughter." The leader didn¡¯t say anything, but everyone could see how his face was turning more white than it already was. It was at this point that everyone else figured out what was happening. "We are going to lose at the eastern army; how would that change our plans?" one of the followers said and asked the others as they needed to readjust their current war strategy. "Doesn¡¯t the eastern army have the boost spells we made for them? It should help them hold on," there was an immediate answer by the 1st follower who spoke. "That would work, but only for a little while. They simply don''t have someone there who could fight Rich, and he could break the front lines, making those spells a lot less effective." They continued to strategize while their leader stayed silent. He was barely holding his anger. They knew that they couldn¡¯t win against Rich in an open battle; that''s why they had come up with this current plan that would allow them to kill Rich before any major conflict. Now they were going to lose the first battle, which would bring doubt into the hearts of his followers. This was unacceptable, yet he couldn¡¯t do anything to change this outcome. Rich, on the other hand, was working hard not to lose his grasp on the harness he was holding onto, but he couldn''t help but smile, imagining what was happening in the enemy command tent. chapter 337 The eastern army general did not like what he was hearing. Everything had gone to plan at first: they were pushing the cavalry back without having to engage, and they should have been able to retreat back to their defensible position if the Bravenhold main army turned back. So, early this morning, when he found out that their path was cut off by the Bravenhold main army¡ªwho wasn¡¯t supposed to be this close¡ªhe got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was still weird to him that their enemy wanted an actual battle because the winner would probably not be decided in the first engagement. That would hold the enemy forces down even further, so it just didn¡¯t make sense. He wasn¡¯t an experienced general; all of those were with the main army, but there wasn''t a need to be a genius-level strategist to know the best course of action. He ordered the long spearmen to position towards the south and the ones with the shields to face towards the northwest to face the Bravenhold main army. The battle lines were quite long and were in a shallow V shape. They didn¡¯t have a lot of archers, but everyone who had a little bit of experience with a bow became archers at the centre of the V, able to shoot at the cavalry or the infantry of the Bravenhold main army whenever needed. He also prepared holy relics to be used to boost their army. He was confident in this strategy, and with the holy relics, he was certain that he could hold this position and possibly launch a counter-offensive after this day of fighting. Then, however, he learned that Rich might be headed towards them. Immediately, cold sweat started to run down his back, and the images that had been passed on of this person¡ªno, the unholy being¡ªflashed through his head. He had planned on using the holy relics at a more crucial moment, but now he didn''t know how long he had, so he was going to use all three as soon as the first clash happened. He had his advisors move out of the command tent and distributed the holy relics between them. Using one was exhausting, except for the one that the general held in his hand; this one would hopefully boost him enough that he could face down the unholy being for at least a little while. The sight of the approaching army that they saw was quite horrifying, as none of this should be happening and was something their minds didn¡¯t comprehend properly. While the general never had true doubt in his heart, just around him for a brief moment, some questioned if their religion and beliefs were correct, but then they were reminded that the unholy being would be responsible for this unforeseen situation. After that, their resolve hardened. They were already giving defensive boosts as much as their meager abilities allowed them; they just weren''t meant for so many soldiers. The main army of the Bravenhold walked purposely, towards the main battle line to keep their cohesion, and in a minute or two, spears would be close enough to start their deadly dance. The horses and riders towards the south were gathering up speed to try to break through the spear line. The eastern army leaders were confident that the spears could hold, but just before one of the holy relics was used, for some reason, the cavalry, which was in a V shape started to split down the middle, stopping their commitment to the charge. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. This puzzled the eastern army general and his advisers, who looked at each other in confusion, but all of them realized at the same time that Rich must¡¯ve made it here and taken command. Then a sound was heard up above, making everyone look towards the sky. Only a blink later, a giant eagle was seen quite close to the ground, his wings wide open and visible air currents circulating around him. Goose was pushing himself to his limits to slow down enough so Rich could safely jump off him. When he did, Goose was still going well over 100 miles an hour and immediately after Rich had jumped, Goose sped up once again. At this moment, a lot of things happened at once. The Bravenhold main army collided with the Eastern army, but they were heavily boosted by Rich''s mass combat abilities. This made it possible for the Bravenhold main army to immediately start pushing back the lines of the eastern army. The horses, who were circled around, were once again gathering speed for another breakthrough attempt. Rich was still going too fast and headed straight for the enemy leadership. He started to push out his energy at an alarming rate but controlled it so that when he reached closer to the ground, the energy columns would start to slow him down as he started to roll. This had a devastating effect on the land around him. As for the eastern army general and his advisers, they were ready to activate their holy relics, yet before any of them could, they were crushed or sliced by Rich''s energy. When Rich stood up, he was surrounded by the dead enemy leaders. There was a straight line to the archers who were constantly firing at his allies. From his tattoo storage, he pulled out his sword and charged towards the archers, and as soon as he got there, he left a wide swath of dead bodies behind. Just before the cavalry was about to hit, Goose had circled back and used his wind manipulation to cut through the long spears, allowing the cavalry to almost effortlessly break through the line and advance towards the center where Rich was massacring everyone, and then to the other side of the V-shape to hit the backside of the eastern army line fighting the Bravenhold main army. With the leadership gone and the eastern army lines broken through or being attacked from behind, no amount of belief in a divine being could keep a person from trying to save their own life. The battle turned into a massacre, and wherever there was heavy resistance from the survivors, it didn''t take long for Rich to make it there. Whatever resistance those people had quickly crumbled when they saw the image of their version of the devil covered completely in blood. Fortunately for them, they didn''t have to be scared for long as they were soon bisected by an enormous two-handed sword. Even then, the fighting took half a day; there were simply so many enemies. Only about 25% were able to escape while the allied armies lost about 10% of their fighters. The aftermath of the battle was gruesome. There were still a few pockets of fighting going on, but those were far from the original battlefield and were mostly smaller units of cavalry chasing down escaped Eastern Army soldiers. It was at this moment that Rich walked into the Bravenhold army''s command tent, still completely covered in blood. There was silence as they all focused on the person who had just entered the tent. They had all felt the boost the army got when he arrived, and how in less than 10 minutes, he had secured victory for them. As soon as the cavalry punched through the line, the end result of the battle was known, even though they all knew it was going to take a while to achieve final victory. Rich didn''t greet them; he just walked towards the map. Pressed his bloody finger to their current location and drew a line with blood towards the town of Aldermarch. "100 cavalry and 2000 soldiers will stay behind to deal with the battlefield cleanup and stay in defense if the remnants of the eastern army ever recombine. I want everyone else moving towards Aldermarch in two days," that was all he said before he turned around and walked back out. The Bravenhold army''s general quickly followed behind him, and while he didn¡¯t disagree, he had questions. When he made it outside the tent, he stopped as he saw a giant eagle. He reflexively moved his hand towards his sword, but then his mind caught up, and he knew that that was Goose, the high general''s bonded animal. Before he could speak up, however, Rich had already mounted Goose and the next moment they were once again airborne and headed back towards the United Freeholds army. There was a moment, as they were still climbing, when Rich wanted to head towards the Western army and kill the enemy country''s leader, but whenever he thought about that, the hair at the back of his neck stood up, and he could feel his trouble sense ability flaring up. They had to have some safeguards that, unfortunately, seemed to make a head-on attack a bad idea. chapter 338 When Goose and Rich were about halfway back to the United Freeholds army, he took a moment to just appreciate that he was currently flying high in the sky on top of a giant eagle. It was a surreal moment for him. It was something he wished he could continue to experience without the backdrop of a war. Yet, whenever he looked around, his eyes didn¡¯t miss the large fields of mana-enhanced bubbles where all of the armies were located. Those were the standard spells any army needed to use, from alerts of any enemy movements to blocking out teleportation. He hadn''t dived too deep into the ability that changed his eyes, but his experimentations with holy power lent itself to other aspects. He could better recognize mana and energy peculiarities. Abilities and spells were supposed to be the same when used by different people, but the more Rich learned, the more he came to understand that the person affected those things a lot more. Rich was quite certain that if he studied a person enough, he could identify whenever they used a spell or an ability, but even more importantly, especially with spells, there were always vulnerabilities that could be taken advantage of. For now, unfortunately, only energy-based abilities and spells could be taken advantage of, but Rich was certain that in time, he would be able to gain abilities to deal with the other two types of power. He was also reminded of the elemental seeds slowly growing inside of him. Rich had been a bit too lax about collecting more, and unfortunately, he had fallen into the illusion that something 20 years down the line didn¡¯t matter as much. It might be even more important, as the current decisions you make affect the future even more. That was also one of the reasons for not going all out on the Eastern army, as he still needed to be seen as heroic and not like a complete monster. After a bit of time of just letting his mind be empty, Rich tackled the notification he got. He had gained one level in Heroic Commander, but that was the important change, the bit of skill levels and ability level, only had small effects. The reason was quite obvious: the people he murdered were simply too low level; only the Eastern army general was rank one, and even one rank below only gave a fraction of the experience. Anything below that should be considered near zero and pointless for class-level grinding. In Rich''s opinion, it was a brilliant design choice; otherwise, higher-ranked people would just kill lower ones to continue to gain more levels, and eventually, only a few strong creatures or people would be left on this planet. That idea made him look towards the West and the mountains there that indicated the border of the United Freeholds. Beyond that, they only knew a little bit, but he would have loved to take Goose and fly towards there. Unfortunately, he was reminded a few moments later why he couldn''t. A flash of light that only Rich could see momentarily blinded him. After he blinked the spots from his vision, he could see towards the northwest a new sun that was quickly fading. Only a few moments later, this time, a burst of mana covered a huge area of land. It was not concentrated, but its structure and its effects eluded Rich. The only thing he knew was that it was something similar to the anti-army spells that prevented teleportation. The sun that was fading was now barely there, and finally, Rich could understand what had happened. Since the levels of power were now low enough, he knew that it was holy power that had burnt so brightly, and the reason for it was quite obvious. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Somehow, the western army, led by the leader of Aetherhold, that so-called holy man, had teleported their entire army close enough that they were now only a week away from the United Freeholds'' army. Rich was frozen for a few moments. He had never envisioned something like this, but what was even more puzzling was why they didn''t teleport closer. Obviously, there was much he didn''t know about holy power, and he had hoped that it would continue to have its weaknesses. While this was unfortunate, it shouldn''t be too bad, that was, of course, if that was the only thing that had happened, and that they didn¡¯t have any further plans. He also couldn''t rule out that they could do that again, but Rich honestly doubted it. It didn''t take long, however, for him to figure out the effect of the mana bubble, at least a part of its effect. It was harder and harder to keep Goose on a straight path back to the United Freeholds'' army, and the closer they got to that bubble, it became obvious that that was the cause. What helped a little bit was Rich taking over Goose''s senses through their bond and guiding him like that, but eventually, even that didn''t work. That was really bad. Goose could put him down on the road, but it would take him at least two days to make it to the army, which meant those bastards had other ideas and weren¡¯t going to spend the week on a march without doing anything. He felt multiple emergency sticks break inside his armor, alerting him that the United Freehold army needed him back immediately. "Fly up, Goose," Rich said, and immediately Goose started to ascend. Goose understood that they could go over the bubble, but it didn''t take long for him to understand that that wouldn''t help them unless Rich was going to jump. Rich laughed out loud when Goose started to complain about this plan, but Goose didn''t stop, and eventually, they made it over the bubble that was at least two kilometers above the surface. It was a struggle for Goose, but he continued until he felt Rich start to move. He protested with a loud squawk. "Don''t worry, just head to Aldermarch and rest there," and after that, Rich jumped. He didn¡¯t free fall for long; using his energy after extending his legs and arms, he created with energy manipulation something similar to what flying squirrels had. That slowed his descent and allowed him to observe what was happening down below with his excellent eyesight. From this high up, he could see the enemy army, and while it was hard to tell, he was pretty sure that they were marching normally, or at least not extremely fast. Even with his eyesight, it took him a little while to see a smaller group of elites quickly approaching the United Freehold''s army camp. It would still take them a few hours to reach, which made Rich smile. Hopefully, the leader didn''t see this future, and they would be able to surprise them and kill a few high-level fighters thanks to him being there. Rich¡¯s happiness didn¡¯t last for long; only about halfway through his descent, he could see the advance force stop and then quite a few of them looking upwards, but unfortunately, two of them were actually able to locate him. He smiled in the hope that they would see, but he wasn''t certain if they could. It was a bit unfortunate when he saw that they were turning back. It would have been a great boon if they had been able to kill some of those strong fighters. The landing for Rich wasn¡¯t the best, as he really wasn''t an expert in these sorts of things, but for that reason, he had landed a little bit away from the army camp so no one would have seen how he tumbled multiple times before finally stopping. Using his energy to clean himself up as much as possible, Rich was straight-backed when he walked into the army camp and started to give orders for everyone to pack up and be ready to move towards Aldermarch. At this time, he headed straight to the command tent as he needed to actually give a detailed report and to discuss their current situation. The meeting itself started off awkwardly; the generals had not enjoyed the stunt he had pulled, especially because they didn''t know about the future-seeing ability. Unfortunately, this wasn''t the time, so Rich didn''t disclose that fact and just let the disapproval wash off him. He did notice during the meeting that the ambient holy power was constantly rising. It was hard for Rich to keep himself composed because he could literally do nothing to combat this and just had to wait and see what was going to happen. It took about an hour when a frantic commander crashed into the command tent. "Generals, we can¡¯t move," he said, barely composed, as he had pushed himself hard to make it here as fast as possible. Confusion took hold of everyone, yet no one spoke out, but they all did look towards Rich to see his response. "Explain?" was all he said, but everyone could feel the boiling fury underneath those words. Some commanders would have paled after sensing that, but they were all instructed by Rich, so they knew only to be afraid when they were at fault. "One of the long-range scout units was about to leave to make sure that nothing on the road towards Aldermarch had changed, but they could only take one step on that assignment before, no matter what they did, they couldn¡¯t take another step to continue their mission." Instantly, everyone in the command went into an even higher alert, but now there was also true worry. An hour later, they were certain that some sort of unknown spell was over them that prevented them from moving further away from the approaching Western army. Back in the command tent, everyone was worried, including Rich, but he was the one to speak up. "This is something I don¡¯t know how to fight against, so we must accept its effect. We cannot retreat and prolong the fight that we know we''re going to have to engage in. So instead of trying to find ways of breaking the spell, we should start planning for the battle ahead." chapter 339 As days went by, the Western army got closer and closer. Their progress was measured, but it didn''t take long for the first conflicts to start. Both armies'' scouts began to run into each other, and small-scale fights started to happen. Rich got involved almost immediately, but he went alone to help, hoping that some of the more heavy hitters of the enemies would also show up. Unfortunately for him, none did. It only took a day before no scouts from the Western army could be seen. This victory should have allowed the United Freehold Army to place traps and obstacles in the way of the Western army, but none of those worked as they should. Rich knew why, but he couldn¡¯t say, and he couldn¡¯t even order everyone to stop wasting extra manpower on that, as otherwise, he would be tipping his hand. So time continued to tick by as Rich was forced to watch failed efforts in things he knew wouldn¡¯t help their cause. He did try his best to focus efforts, without being too obvious, on the things that would help achieve the victory they were after. Over this short period of time, to the horror of the followers of the Aetherhold leader, their leader started to act differently. He didn¡¯t have his bursts of anger anymore, as he had started to control himself properly. He now understood that he had become way too childish whenever something went wrong, but he comforted himself with the fact that it was normal for someone of his strength and who could see the future. There was now determination instead of rage in his soul, and that''s because he started to think more about the next step and not just the coming fight. He knew there were going to be sacrifices but Rich would be dead or at least gravely wounded after the coming battle. Then it would just be a cleanup job and conquering the three nations. After that, the hard job starts, but at the end of it, he will be the ruler of this planet and be able to properly prepare for what¡¯s to come. A smile came to his face on the last eve before the battle. He didn¡¯t mind how the command tent went silent from just his facial expression; in fact, he enjoyed it. I am going to be a person everyone''s going to hail as a savior, but before that, I will accept being the villain. I must thank Rich, and I now understand why he was put in front of me. I needed to grow out of my phase of thinking that nothing could stop us. Similar thoughts continued to go through the head of the leader of Aetherhold as he listened to the battle plan he was already intimately familiar with. Not too far away, a similar situation was unfolding, except no one was sitting on a gilded throne, contemplating what would happen after the battle. Everyone here was concentrated on achieving their goal so they could continue to fight the next day. Everyone knew that the only way to achieve total victory was to win against the enemy leadership, and while they would try to do that, the most likely scenario was that the strongest fighters of both armies, after clashing for a while, would not achieve any significant victory against the other. That also meant that the result of the rest of the army''s fight mattered. Once again, there were too many people for one engagement to result in total victory, as the two forces were too evenly matched, and no terrain or other trickery could be leveraged to achieve that victory. Their goal would be to deplete as many of the enemy''s soldiers as possible while keeping as much of their fighting strength as possible. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. It was almost midnight, yet the discussions would have continued if not for Rich, who spoke out in a commanding voice, "We have done all that we can; now everyone rest. We need you all at full strength for tomorrow." Of course, not everyone would be able to sleep; people still needed to stay on watch. One of those people was Rich, who had slept the night before so he wouldn''t need to sleep this night, allowing even more people to be fully rested. Even he took his own advice and stopped thinking about tomorrow; instead, he focused on the beautiful night and just worked on his energy manipulation. Even before the sun rose in both army camps, almost everyone was already up and dealing with their duties. The United Freeholds army was way more efficient at this, so when the sun rose, they were already in their designated areas, eating a light breakfast and keeping their bodies lightly exercised so they would not be too stiff when the battle began. All of them were also given an extra waterskin and rations for what was to come afterwards. From up above, it almost looked like there was no longer any indication, except for the grass indentations, that there had ever been a camp here. In the Western army, however, even after packing up everything, the camp area was still quite noticeable as plenty of trash was around, not to mention a few shields some more distracted soldiers left behind. For almost everyone in the Western army, this was going to be their first proper battle, so no matter how ready to die for their faith they were, they were still nervous. It took four hours of marching for the Western army to reach about one kilometre from the United Freeholds army that was already waiting in battle lines. This place was quite perfect for a battlefield; it was incredibly open and could easily fit thousands of soldiers. In the middle was the road that was actually more of a tripping hazard than the grassland surrounding it. Beyond that, the forest started quite quickly, but there was a section between the two where it was obvious that the forest was quite quickly reclaiming the grassland towards the road. Rich looked towards the sky, which was mostly blue but there were a few white clouds lazily moving. In the movies and books, the leaders of both sides would meet each other and talk terms or perhaps come to some sort of an agreement. From the information Rich had read, that was extremely rare for this world. It was simply too dangerous, as there were too many dangers in this world to keep you safe from assassinations when you were this close to the enemy. Rich was surrounded by their best fighters on the right side of the army, mirroring how the Western army and their leadership were positioned. He could finally lay his eyes upon the person causing all this trouble. Rich only briefly noted his appearance, but he was a little bit surprised he wasn''t wearing his crown or the rich clothes but instead a sleek and easy to move in armour. His eyes quickly changed to see everything else about him as well and the ones around him. The first thing to jump into his mind was that there were a few mages in that group, and it was finally confirmed that a person could actually have all three sources of power inside one''s body. It was hard to see through the holy power as it was so concentrated, but he had gotten quite good at that. Yet, seeing anything specific seemed to be quite hard and time-consuming, so he mainly focused on the leader. He was totally fine with both armies just staring each other down, as it just gave him more time to learn everything he needed. Soon, he could see threads coming off the leader¡ªthick ones going straight to the people around him, and then a bit thinner ones to all of the soldiers in the army. There was something more, and Rich continued to strain himself until he saw even more threads. So many of them that it was almost impossible to see individual ones. All of them headed towards the east. Then everyone could see the disgusted face Rich made. The threads to the people around him and even to the soldiers were bright and clean, something that strengthened both. The other threads, however, were almost pitch black and were twisted in their meaning. Rich didn¡¯t fully comprehend what that meant, but he knew that it couldn''t be good. His disgusted face, however, broke the silence and made many of the enemy soldiers angry. Soon, battle shouts began from both armies. Every sound simultaneously stopped, and then one clear voice was heard above all, "I, the leader of Aetherhold, the voice of God and his messenger H..." That was all he was able to speak before a dominating and commanding voice drowned his out, "There is no need for you to speak your name. I will make sure no one will remember it, not even your God.¡± ¡°You have doomed your people, but unfortunately, my people must pay the blood price for your hubris. You have one final chance to turn around; otherwise, your destiny will be one of death." After Rich''s words, there was a long moment of silence before commands were given in the Western army, and they started to march towards the United Freeholds'' soldiers. chapter 340 As soon as the Western army took its first step, it was like a signal for everything else to start. The legion and mercenaries also started to advance, but they only did so for about 10 metres until they set up their battle lines and prepared for the ranged attacks. The western army frontline was the first to come into active range of the legion archers. "Nock, draw, loose!" was heard from multiple commanders speaking in unison. The already loud battlefield from all the movement of soldiers and armour instantly got deafening with the snap of bows and the sounds of hundreds of arrows flying and colliding with each other. When the arrows were at their maximum height and starting to come downwards, another battle started. As the arrows flew the mages started to fight with each other, disrupting spells or trying to cast ones for attack or defence. Right now, there was no clear winner, so while there were a few disturbances and some arrows broke or hit small barriers that soon disappeared, over 70% of the arrows still reached their destination. Yet, before that happened, another volley was released by the legion archers. The Western army soldiers had their shields upward, and they had their own defence buffs, so most of the arrows barely penetrated the shields. Yet, some that had the telltale sign of ability use acted like normal arrows or even penetrated deeper. Unfortunately for the Western army soldiers, not all of them had this kind of protection, and while they had decent armour, it was not plate mail, so many took wounds and a few even died. Towards the west, where the leaders of both armies and their strongest fighters were positioned, after the second volley of arrows landed on the western army, both started to move towards each other but in a shallow diagonal towards the forest, away from the rest of the army. Mimicking this behaviour, the eastern side of the battlefield''s elites rushed through the forest, trying to flank each other''s armies and prevent the other side from doing so. Soon, flashes of abilities and spells were seen, yet barely anyone had time to focus on other people''s fights. The legion''s archers were able to get off seven volleys before return fire from the western army archers started. It was less disciplined, yet the amount of arrows was almost double simply because there were so many more of them. Even from the start, they were slower to fire, but not by much. The legion and the mercenaries were a lot better armored and had better defensive boosts. Most of it was supplied by Rich, but his command ability there allowed others to add their boosts as well, which meant that even ability-enhanced arrows barely did anything. Over 95% of arrows fired were destroyed on impact or on the flight over to their targets. That was also the reason why there were any injuries at all for the United Freeholds army, as the high-speed splinters did manage to find a few gaps, but none of those were lethal. It was when the leaders had reached about 500 metres from each other that something changed. Rich held up his fist, stopping the forward movement of the fighters around him. "Something''s wrong," he said, but then went quiet. The person most unnerved by this change was, of course, the God''s Chosen. Up until this point, the battle had gone exactly as he had seen it, so immediately he was unnerved. He had seen Rich watch him as soon as they were able to see each other, and it unnerved him more than he wanted to admit. It was like he was slowly peeling away his defenses and seeing what was truly beneath his skin. Then, to his absolute bewilderment, the situation changed once again, but he was not certain if it was for the better, though everything logically told him that it was. The closer Rich walked to the enemy, the more his skin started to crawl. He knew that his troubled senses were trying to tell him something, but what that was the question. Rich almost slapped his own forehead, but he was able to stop himself. He immediately glanced at the other people around the enemy leader. It took a little bit, but he was now used to piercing through the obfuscation the holy power gave, he finally saw the trap they were about to walk into. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. They were supposed to face one rank 2 powerhouse and almost 30 rank one fighters. The inner core, the followers of the enemy leader, however were also rank 2, and some of them were not at the beginning of the rank. Scenarios immediately ran through his head, but one thing was clear: by the end of the fight, he was going to be the only one left standing from their side, and while the enemy would take casualties, it would not be enough. Rich cursed in his head but continued to try to find a solution. Only 30 seconds later, he found one¡ªa terrible one that would cost a lot, but he was used to sacrifice and pain. Through his command ability, he quickly reassigned everyone around him to back up and support the main army. This was something that would allow them to bleed the enemy even more while keeping more of their soldiers alive. He didn''t communicate out loud, yet everyone received the command. "This is madness," one of the other second-rank fighters said, who was next to Rich. "Those are your orders," came a cold voice that was almost unrecognisable, yet everyone knew that Rich had said those words. They, of course, hesitated, but Rich didn''t admonish them for that. In fact, he was proud of them, but he was even prouder that everyone did what they were told and started to move back, leaving him alone against odds that should guarantee his death. He closed his eyes and said a prayer he had said before every battle after his first true brush with death. When he opened his eyes, they were something from a nightmare that even made the leader of the enemy take half a step back. Rich didn¡¯t say a word, but he didn''t let his enemies recover. The very next moment, his best bow was in his hand, and he was already drawing back an energy arrow. Soldiers that were still marching only saw the bow emerge, then it being halfway drawn back, and then the arrow releasing. To the rank two enemies and even rank ones, his actions were not that fast, but they were still fast enough that the arrow was able to pierce through the weakest rank one member they had, killing him instantly. Rich didn''t stop; he was like a cold machine harvesting wheat. More and more energy gathered around him as he continued to fire. Three of the rank two enemies were actively defending against the arrows that were all aimed at the weakest of them, or the openings made by them moving to defend against the arrows fired. They also started to return fire in the form of spells and arrows. Immediately around the armour of Rich, another armor appeared, thick and radiating concentrated energy. For spells that were the mana kind, he simply took a step to the left or right to dodge, but the arrows he didn''t even bother to dodge as they barely did anything to him. He worried even less about holy power, as energy was as effective against it as mana was against energy. This type of exchange continued on for a little bit until the enemy changed their tactics and started to use wide-range mana spells that would not be so easily dodged. As soon as they hit, smiles came to the enemies'' faces, yet they were instantly wiped away when they realized that they had barely done any damage. Those attacks would have been devastating if Rich didn''t have multiple traits and abilities that allowed him to better resist mana. To win against his defenses, the spells needed to be more concentrated, so while they took energy to defend against, even more than the arrows that were still constantly hitting him, with his reserves, he could do this all day. Underneath his helmet, the already small smile became even wider as Rich stopped repressing his enjoyment. This scene was a heavy blow to the enemy morale, yet breaking zealots would be a lot harder. Once again, movement started on both sides as the enemy began to move closer and split up into smaller units. Rich moved more towards the forest as he didn¡¯t want any of the enemy rank 2 fighters to disengage and join the main army''s battle. He still continued to shoot even though he had not been able to do any more damage. However, he was depleting resources from his opponents, and fights at this level usually came down to who was able to outlast the other. Now, if they were fighting one-on-one, individual power would be more important, but this was not that kind of fight. While the leaders continued to move away from the main battlefield, the Western army had reached close enough that firing arrows over the heads of friendly soldiers became too dangerous. Through the command ability of Rich, other commanders quickly changed some buffs which gave archers extra range, so they changed their target to the enemy archers. The Western army responded in kind as their archers quickly rushed forward so they would be in proper range to fire against the legion''s archers. The battle of mages never ended, but with the best fighters rejoining the United Freeholds army, they were able to defend better against the arrow fire than the western army. Yet, the death toll was immediately higher, even after the first volley, than died on the approach of the two armies. When arrow fire stopped against the legion; their shields opened up so they could throw their javelins. The mercenaries also adopted the same tactic with their extra spears, so for a moment the space between the two armies was filled with arching wood with deadly tips. It all happened so fast that for a moment the Western army''s lines became uneven as everyone reacted at different speeds. Many died, yet even more dangerous were the now even more unwieldy shields that were already peppered with arrows. Screams of pain and the dying were heard when another command came, and another volley of javelins was thrown. This time, they were not as effective at bringing death, as the Western army had trained for this situation; it was just that the commanders were not ready or expecting it to happen so early. Rich, as he continued to dodge attacks, chuckled a little bit. Then came the final volley of javelins, after which the legion''s shield wall was recombined, and spears poked through it. The enemy didn¡¯t rush; they were more disciplined. There wouldn''t be a huge collide of people rushing each other. They would walk slowly, inching closer and closer until both were at spear range, so both could start pushing each other and so spears could find gaps in the enemy shield wall, and the toll of war could truly start. The army lines didn¡¯t touch simultaneously, but it was more like a wave touching a straight wall. It seemed unbelievable, but the noise of the battle exploded once again, and if not prepared, a person could collapse from just the noise alone. Concentrated efforts of ability users trying to break through the shield walls on both sides were countered in turn. The Western army continued to push, but the legion hadn''t buckled even a step. The mercenaries had, but not enough for anyone to worry, and soon they were able to stabilize and dig in for the hours of fighting ahead. chapter 341 While the proper melee began between both armies, the divide between Rich and the fighters of God¡¯s chosen finally started to have some more movement. When everyone understood that Rich was trying to slowly drag the fighter into the forest, they immediately understood that they would be put at a disadvantage. It was also obvious to them that a long-range fight was not bringing them the results they wanted, so a group of five rank-two fighters coordinated together and started closing in for close-range fighting. Their main goal was to disrupt Rich''s movements so others would have a better chance at dealing range damage. Rich didn¡¯t want to fight in close range yet. Not only would this make the fight more brutal and be disadvantageous to him, but currently, he was actually winning the resource war. So, he put his impressive body to work without relying too much on abilities, continuing to dodge the never-ending ranged attacks and now the five people pursuing him. It was a deadly game of cat and mouse that continued for over 30 minutes before there was finally a change that was not beneficial for Rich. The enemy finally understood that they needed to properly manage their resources, so the numerous attacks stopped, yet more deadly and precise ones replaced them. During this time, the confidence of those who fought against Rich continued to rise because even after all this time fighting, Rich had yet to deliver any real damage except for the opening move. That was a confidence Rich was about to shatter because he wasn¡¯t the mouse; he was the cat. While one of the main reasons why Rich had been battling the way he had was to bleed his opponents'' resources, an even more important reason was so he could learn more about his opponents and hopefully find weaknesses. For the rank two opponents, he had not been that successful as they were truly good. There was a lot more opportunity against the rank ones. However, there was one major problem: the leader of the enemy and the five rank 2 people around him protected the weaker rank ones incredibly well from range attacks, so he would need to close in. There were three other groups of first ranks who were on the move, but they seemed to be quite solid. He doubted that a change of tactics would have much effect on them. He could try to go all out against them, but the leader of the enemy had still to act and was probably waiting for a moment just like that. Rich was not certain what he would do, but he was certain he wanted to be close to him whenever the fight changed. It was at this moment that a sound disappeared from the battlefield that had been there from almost the start of the battle. The fight between the archers was finally over, with United Freehold claiming victory. The main reason for the Legion''s archers winning was their ability to keep firing faster than their opponents. What also helped a lot was that they were winning the defensive mage war much better than the Western army. As a result, the Western army''s archers had been decimated, and finally, orders for them to retreat were given. The Legion archers were now given orders to rest and be ready for action. This change did have an effect on the battle between God¡¯s Chosen and Rich. For the first time during their battle, the former looked away from Rich. Immediately, Rich acted as he was in a good enough position and rushed towards God¡¯s Chosen''s position, but he was not aiming for him. Instead, his target was the rank one mages, as they were real threats to him, especially because fighting off mana took a lot of energy. Everyone had gotten a bit too relaxed with the routine Rich had put them in, so their reactions were slowed by the change in approach. Rich had stored his bow into his tattoo storage while pulling out the two-handed sword that allowed him to conquer a dungeon he shouldn''t have been able to. The sword''s proper form and its coloring were only seen for a moment before it was flooded with energy so intense it was visible, making it glow a slight reddish color. His first step was using his movement ability, getting only a few meters away. He was already accelerating and swinging towards his first target, whose eyes widened. Yet, before he could finish his step, two of the first-rank people who had been using holy power-based spells the entire time finally used their true abilities. They attacked Rich''s mind with multiple of their abilities, which made him not only freeze in place but also forced Rich¡¯s consciousness into his mind palace. That, of course, was a surprise, as the two attackers weren''t expecting him to have defenses. One of their abilities was supposed to create a small room where the target would be trapped, yet that didn¡¯t work. When they walked out of the connection, they saw a large space, larger even than their own mind palaces, and a truly impressive fortress. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Their confidence immediately crumbled when they saw the walls and the seemingly endless amounts of golem warriors. On top of the gatehouse, Rich appeared at the same time as the two invaders, and Alan popped up next to him a moment later. "Go back, I have this," Alan said as the gate started to open, and the seemingly endless amount of golem warriors waited to rush out. Rich was about to say that he was trapped here when he felt the ability that kept him here break, and he was immediately back in his own body. The enemy leader had waited for this moment, but he didn¡¯t put all his belief in those two succeeding. He had kind of hoped that he could use the second spell he had prepared, using his ability to keep two active and prepared spells, but unfortunately, this ability only allowed him to activate one of them. He used the multi-teleport to pull all of the strongest melee fighters around Rich, watching how even while their weapons descended, they continued to be powered up by their abilities. The closest weapon was about 8 inches away from Rich''s back when he regained control of his body. It took him only a split moment to realize that there were more people around him and that he probably didn''t have any time for a proper defense. He pulled on the kinetic energy he had stored up from all the arrow hits and, using his latest knowledge on kinetic energy, pushed and amplified it in a perfect circle around him to push everything away. The weapons descending were the first to feel this force, and it was like they hit a wall and started to be pushed backwards. The next moment, everything around him was clear, as everyone was pushed at least a few meters back. Multiple ranged abilities and spells immediately started to be formed or were already headed towards him. He rushed forward to kill his original target, who was also on the ground from his push. The kill was so easy that he was just using it so he would have time to properly empower his sword. He still took a few more serious attacks from ranged attacks, but they couldn¡¯t break through his defenses completely. Immediately after he killed the weak mage, he headed back towards the others who had been pushed away. He started with the fastest rank two fighter who had been chasing him. They were all already up but not completely ready to protect each other or attack him. That was the only reason he had the time to rush by his target and bisect his head. It was a close thing, as the armor he had and his defensive abilities were quite excellent. Fortunately, this particular fighter had focused more on speed, allowing Rich''s sword to cut even through his metal helmet, even while not being completely empowered because of the short time frame. Now the god''s chosen properly joined the battle. Unfortunately for Rich, he was using his holy power not to directly attack, but to either power his allies or fuel energy-based attacks. This immediately changed the dynamic, and where Rich was feeling confident before, now he was on the back foot. Incredibly accurate spells aimed to cut off every avenue to keep the numerous fighters from catching up with him. Only about 30 seconds into this fight, the two people who mind-attacked Rich started to bleed from their nose and ears and the next moment collapsed dead. He received a short package of information from Alan, informing him that they had pushed the invaders into their own mind, and that the golems followed them there, killing their minds. He immediately inquired of Alan if they could connect to other minds around him, but the answer was a firm no. The battle continued, but one thing was clear: Rich had practiced his blade work enough that he no longer needed to rely on overwhelming attacks to push through other people¡¯s weapons. He was now a lot deadlier, and while he continued to give as good as he got, damage started to build up, slowly starting to slow him down. His defeat was now inevitable, so he changed the formula. Around him, a large bubble of energy formed, which he was completely in control of. It was an impressively large bubble, and while he couldn''t directly control the energy of other people, any energy used in abilities or spells just fizzled out after only traveling a little bit away from their caster. Now, fighters inside the bubble didn''t just have to worry about Rich and what he could do, but also random spikes and obstacles of energy that Rich could create anywhere inside of it. This gave him plenty of breathing room, allowing him to exchange attacks not with at least three enemies at a time, but now sometimes he would only have one close opponent. Every time that happened, he was able to leave a wound. Unfortunately, holy power was quite good at fixing bodies, so none of his enemies were wounded for long, but nobody could handle being healed endlessly. Slowly, the tide of battle turned in Rich¡¯s favor once again, especially when he was able to properly charge his attack and kill two first-rank opponents at the same time. The god''s chosen, however, was calm as the scene in front of him started to resemble his vision of the future. He began to prepare the spell and watched as Rich immediately sensed something was going on and started to make space so he would have room to counter whatever he was doing. He wanted to smirk but couldn''t, as it would inform Rich too much. It was an incredibly complex spell, something he shouldn¡¯t have been able to even power, but for the first time in this battle, he pulled on the black threads to power this dangerous spell. He was only able to hold it for a few moments, but through the communication constantly happening through his leader ability, he directed his followers so Rich would be in a perfect position. As soon as he released the spell, a circular golden beam with a diameter of 10 inches sped towards Rich. He immediately took action as he had waited and used his kinetic energy to help push him in another direction faster than the spell could move. This was, however, the only way he could escape, and so his actions were already known ahead of time. The straight beam curved, and the way Rich had escaped meant that he was midair and unable to dodge. The beam headed straight for his heart. All he could do was use energy control and kinetic energy to dodge the best he could. He was partially successful, yet the beam pierced through all his defenses and completely disintegrated the right side of his stomach, leaving more than half of a perfect circle cut out of Rich. Rich screamed out in pain as the speed and the desperate dodge he performed made him tumble on the ground with blood flying everywhere. He landed on his back, yet he was not moving. Immediately, commands were sent, and a few started to rush towards Rich, and some headed towards the army. Yet, the closest enemy to the army was a rank 2 range fighter, she only managed to take a step when her head exploded from a throwing knife. Everyone once again froze. And while not everyone had seen, the ones headed towards Rich had. From his lying position, he had thrown that throwing knife that was disintegrating during the flight from the amount of energy inside of it. The amount of energy around Rich was ridiculous, as it was pouring out like from floodgates, yet it wasn''t dissipating as Rich didn''t let it get away. They all watched as he slowly got up. Then, stretch, his bleeding had stopped, and people could even see blood moving from the missing piece of him that he replaced with pure energy. "Our fight isn''t over yet," he said and rushed towards them. chapter 342 POV Rich That blue-haired fucker and his shield once again blocked me, but this time I didn¡¯t try to cut through it. Instead, I made sure that the strike would deliver as much blunt energy as possible. That pushed him back half a step, giving me a moment to look around. They were closing in once again. There wasn''t any time to do anything more to the shield user. I made energy walls and spikes blocking anyone who was approaching, which slowed them down. Then I felt and saw it: the leader was powering up for a bigger spell and pulling on those black threads. Behind me, that sneaky spear user appeared and got a decent attack on my side, which did leave a scratch even through all my defenses. I stepped back, and the elbow to his midsection put him down for a moment. I couldn¡¯t finish him as I already took three more spells, and the hammer user was approaching. My shoulder still hurt from the hit he properly got on that location. I needed more time to think, so I started to make space by launching a few flying slashes. The combination of my body¡¯s speed and strength, and my movement ability, allowed me to stay ahead of everyone while only having to defend myself occasionally. I didn¡¯t know what the leader was doing, but it was going to be bad. I used my left hand to reinforce one of the spikes a bit more and was able to wound one of the moving fighters. As soon as he broke the energy spike, he received healing, but like every other time, I couldn¡¯t see who was healing. They were purposely keeping themselves hidden, and the energy just appeared in their body and started to heal the wound, so there wasn¡¯t any trace. But I¡¯ve never been able to see everyone at once, so I was down to about five people who it could be. I believed I could still see the spike of holy power used inside the caster¡¯s own body for healing others, but I was no longer certain of it. The shield user charged again, but this time I just let him charge with his shield and took the blow, concentrating on saving as much kinetic energy from that exchange as possible. I wanted to charge the leader and finish him off, but that wasn''t going to happen. He had planned this well. I needed to concentrate more as I almost fell into a trap if I would have dodged right. Need something to boost my thinking speed even more. If there only weren¡¯t so many of them, I would be able to kill them all in one-on-one battles, except possibly the leader. The way he used those black tendrils probably meant that as long as he had them, he wouldn¡¯t run out of holy power to fuel his spells. My best chance would have been to attack early on, but he had that mass teleport available, and probably a few more trump cards that would¡¯ve meant my death. I didn¡¯t feel anyone behind me, but I still turned, and for the first time, I was able to surprise the spear wielder who backed off before I got a chance to deliver a proper attack. Spells were now hitting me less frequently, but they were stronger. I made a push for one of the weaker fighters, but the shield user was once again there, blocking my finishing attack, and then I barely got out of there, quickly making space once again as I still didn¡¯t know what that leader of theirs was up to. I once again saw a path to him, and I so wanted to attack him before he could use whatever spell he was planning, but I could see all those defensive spells and traps made from holy power around him, and I could feel their power; they would have torn me apart. I needed to get him to move, but I couldn¡¯t even kill one of the other minions he had. Many of them had died, but still, most were left. The ones who died were just too slow or weak. Now, I needed to wait for the survivors to make a mistake I could capitalize on, but it was taking time. A blade was trying to bisect me, and it would have been really bad if I couldn¡¯t have dodged it, but being so tall made ducking under it a real pain. I made him pay with a pommel strike to the stomach, which sent him flying a few meters away before he could stabilize his stance. Why the hell was the leader still powering that spell up? He was almost glowing with power, even without me using my vision ability. Without them attacking so much, I had a little more time to refine the walls and spikes I am making inside my energy zone ability. There was no need to make the large walls I was making if I was able to clearly see the target. Better to just make bars around knee height that they would fall over, taking even longer than just going around the wall, or in the case of two of the enemies, just shouldering through the walls. I continued to make space, staying as far away from the leader as possible, when I felt that he couldn¡¯t possibly hold any more power. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. The wait was nerve-wracking. I still really wasn¡¯t sure if there was anything I could do to stop what was about to happen. I just had to hope that I could either defend against it or dodge it. The moment the spell activated, I immediately dodged, but it was so fast, that beam of light, and it felt like it was seeking destruction. Fortunately, everyone else had gotten away from me as well, so I didn¡¯t have to worry about other attacks, but that wasn''t much of a comfort. What was comforting was the fact that I was pretty sure I was fast enough to dodge away. The enemy was more hopeful; they probably thought that this was going to be the end, so I should have an opportunity to attack one of them. Fortunately, I didn¡¯t take my eyes off the beam as I saw it change direction towards me. Damn it, I shouldn¡¯t have jumped like that; now I couldn¡¯t change direction, it was so fast. My sword pommel was to the right of me, so I used it to push against the air, and since a lot of my kinetic energy was still in my feet, I used it to push against air as well to try to go even more movement towards right, but it didn''t work so well against the air; it needed something more solid to be effective. The attack was going to hit me, but I should probably live. But my organs would be messed up, and I would be out of the fight. Just a few milliseconds before the beam hit, I did something that I never thought I would do. I created an energy push inside my own body to push all my necessary organs further in. It was so painful, and the next moment I felt the beam hit in slow motion. Burning every cell until they were dust, but my body was so tough it took it a moment to overcome its resilience. The pain was so great that I blacked out for a moment, but as soon as I hit the ground and started to tumble, I woke up again. Immediately, all that I had learned about energy and how to manipulate it was used to stanch the bleeding, but it wasn''t enough; I needed to make blood vessels if I wanted to keep fighting until the healing potion could do its job. When I finally stopped moving, I concentrated on it as much as possible and was surprised to find how easily energy took to my commands. Then I felt the atmosphere change. Did they think that they had won? At the corner of my eye, I saw one of them moving towards the army. It made me mad. I exchanged my sword for a throwing dagger, put all my strength into it, and pumped it so full of energy that the metal almost screamed. There was no need to watch the result; I already knew what was going to happen. I made my sword reappear and used energy to help me stand once again. "Our fight isn''t over yet," I said to them. I activated Heroic Stand and then let go of any inhibitions. Immediately, energy charged out of me to support my body so that I could use it even faster. I took a deep breath in and felt my body heating up. It''s time to unleash the monster I keep locked. It felt so good to not give a shit about my enemy, but more importantly I hoped I could find my peace. *** Up until now, Rich had been methodical and always calculating his next approach. It was something he learned to do because the other option was simply too brutal for most conflicts. He charged at the shield user, the best defender, yet he didn¡¯t attack with his sword alone. No, he was like a terrible monster, using anything and everything he had. Energy attacked the shield user from every side, trying to crush him. He kicked, punched, and slashed so fast that the shield user could barely defend. It didn''t take long for others to reach the fighting duo. And while they were able to attack him, every one of them needed to take a few wounds to give him one. Then the leader started to charge up the same spell, but Rich just continued to fight, pushing back anyone around him and not letting himself be dominated. He was fighting like a cornered animal but also someone who wanted blood. When the spell was about half charged, Rich pushed through his encirclement. Everyone expected him to go after their leader, but instead, he charged at one of the weaker members. He was only able to get him to the ground before others once again surrounded him, trying to defend their fallen ally. Rich simply used his greater strength and stepped through his head with almost no resistance. He almost didn''t seem to notice as he continued to attack relentlessly. The energy he was burning, even with his reserves, shouldn¡¯t last for long, but any attack made against him was made weaker by him siphoning off energy to refuel himself. Then, finally, the moment came. The beam was once again shot, yet this time Rich rushed towards it and, at the last moment, dived underneath. While the spell could chase its target, it had its limitations and couldn¡¯t turn around completely. The resulting blast when the beam hit the ground made a crater, and everyone could see Rich after his roll dodge stand up, while dirt showered around him. The energy had formed a visible circle around him, constantly spinning, yet he himself was steaming from how hot his body was. Many who were in the fight or able to see it thought that Rich was just fighting like a mad beast, but that was not true. Not even a single ounce of intelligence was sacrificed; instead, all of it was turned into determination to find any way to win this fight. Because of that, he used his command ability to give orders to the only second-rank fighter he didn''t send away. Instead, he ordered him to stay stealthy and near the fight. "The healer is the energy spell user who has a red ribbon around her waist. Be ready to kill her as soon as I give the order." Rich then made his sword disappear while raising his empty hand into the air. Then he snapped his fingers, and the healer¡¯s head dropped to the ground. For the first time during the battle, the enemy leader screamed in rage. Not known to many, but he did have someone he loved, but now she was dead. He started to pull on the black threads, fueling his spells, and now indiscriminately launched them towards Rich. Every single one of them could seriously hurt Rich, so now even more importantly, he needed to move. He still fought like a monster and, whenever possible, tried to make sure that the allies of his enemies would feel the leader''s spells. When the first supporter of the leader died from his own spell, he finally snapped out of it, and the fight returned to a more balanced affair. The battle continued to be brutal, but the leader could also heal, although he wasn¡¯t as proficient at it. Rich, during this time, had drunk quite a lot of healing and energy-restoring potions, but he was fighting an inevitable battle of attrition. To the amazement of all, he was able to keep going while accumulating more and more damage, and somehow not completely run out of energy. An hour later, Rich was standing towards his own army, breathing hard and using energy and his sword to keep himself upright, while the enemy, about 100 meters away, was doing the same. There were only 18 of them left, and even the leader, who could pull endless amounts of holy power through the black tendrils, felt his body screaming from the overuse of power. Like that, both sides kept watching each other while the army continued to fight. From the start of the battle, 6 hours had passed when finally, a retreat was called on both sides, and Rich watched as the enemies retreated, still being ready for anything they might do. Today''s fight was over, but the war was only just beginning. chapter 343 Rich was in a horrible condition. He had multiple wounds that were slowly bleeding, and they were only doing that slowly because he was using energy as bandages. He couldn¡¯t drink another healing potion as he was already at his limit, so drinking more would do more harm than help. Yet, he still continued to stand ready to once again fight if the enemy''s top hitters decided to do anything against him or the army to his right that was currently fighting. The battle had been extremely exhausting, and all he wanted to do was go see the healers and rest a little bit. Slowly, the sun started its march downwards, yet the battle didn''t stop for quite a while. The United Freeholds had done the best they could, but even with their preparation, the enemy''s luck advantage started to show. Not in the form of them being able to kill more or push back the legion, but it mostly manifested in the higher than expected weapon destruction the United Freeholds army was experiencing. They had expected this, but not to such a degree, so the entire United Freeholds army had been forced to slowly give ground, to switch up the frontlines a little bit, and bring in new weapons. When the retreat was finally called, everyone who was fighting was thoroughly exhausted, yet the dead were left in the field, and the United Freeholds'' morale sank as they knew that they wouldn¡¯t be able to retrieve those bodies. When both armies had separated for a decent distance, Rich finally stopped giving his boost, which he had been keeping up the entire time, which made many collapse in total exhaustion. With the ability Rich had, it didn''t take long to figure out their losses, and a few others had abilities that helped determine the enemy¡¯s losses. The low numbers were the reason Rich was able to stay calm while standing next to the battle. Mainly, it was just an ancient battle by Earth standards; almost none of the fantastical elements were put to bear to cause deaths. The United Freeholds lost 6% of their soldiers, while the Western army lost 17%. The numbers were good enough for Rich. Scouts were set up and people were ordered not to take off their armour as everyone who could, got a little bit of rest. Rich finally made it to the healer''s tent where, promptly, the head healer they had been able to get exclaimed, ¡°How are you still alive or even awake?¡± Rich didn''t say anything until he lay down on the healing slab. ¡°Don¡¯t put me under. Also, keep in mind that I might need to rush out of here at any time, so make me as battle-ready as possible whenever I¡¯m here.¡± The head healer wanted to argue, but he didn''t. He had seen only briefly, but he had seen the battle between Rich and their enemy. If Rich wasn''t there fighting, they would all be already dead. The head healer had come to the United Freeholds from Verdia as he was one of their many refugees. Usually, that city would have welcomed a healer of his calibre, but the kind of abilities he had access to made him somewhat unconventional, and it was important for him to put his patients to sleep whenever using his abilities. These abilities were extremely efficient and even helped keep the body''s healing limit down. The problem was that they were painful if a person was awake. And when you reached a certain rank, it came with a decent level of paranoia, especially for those who lived in the world of arena battles. So, he jumped at the opportunity to get away from there, only to find himself on a battlefield needing to heal someone without putting them to sleep. The head healer knew that Rich was aware of how his abilities worked. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. He wasn¡¯t going to argue with him, no matter how much he wanted to, but he took a moment to gather himself for what was about to happen. To his surprise, Rich didn''t cry out for quite a while, but when he finally reached the biggest wound, the one on the right side of his stomach, Rich did cry out when he started to fix it. The legion stayed for only four hours before orders were given, and they started to march towards Aldermarch. It didn¡¯t take the enemy long to understand what was going on, but they couldn''t cast the spell once again that would prevent the other armies from leaving. They simply didn''t have the materials required for such a spell to be cast a second time. So, the leader and the remaining elites charged forward to try to stop them from leaving, yet Rich once again stood between them, and a short battle once again started. This time only one died, while Rich was once again wounded before they had to separate. Rich ended up once again on the healing slab of the head healer while they continued to retreat. The next time, the leader and elites came again, but this time there was also a larger contingent of the army with speed boosts trying to catch up. However, they found it hard to pursue as they were constantly peppered by arrows. They couldn¡¯t protect themselves well, as the United Freeholds'' mages were able to achieve an upper hand because they didn''t have to protect their own soldiers so much. Sometimes the battles were larger, sometimes smaller, but the full armies never engaged each other like they did in the first engagement. Most of the battles were between small groups of soldiers, but the most devastating fights were between Rich and the enemy leader and his followers. Their battles destroyed large areas of forest during most of their engagements. The enemy leader continued to pull on the black thread every engagement until his body couldn''t handle the amount of power he put through it. He continued to grow frustrated that they couldn''t end Rich and that they continued to lose their own. Rich, however, wasn¡¯t unscathed, and every fight he looked more terrible than the last. The head healer did his best, but even he was finding it hard to accept what he was doing to Rich. Yes, he was keeping him and them all alive, but as they continued to get closer to Aldermarch, the treatment got worse and the damage Rich received was beginning to truly get bad. During the fighting retreat of the United Freeholds'' army the Frontier''s Collective was engaging in the battle near Aldermarch that had started. They were up against the southern army, the largest army Aetherhold had, even if it mostly consisted of the least trained soldiers. Still, an enemy army of 17,000 against the 10,000 of the Frontier''s Collective army was a tall order for anyone. They had at least one surprise to give. Francis had arrived not long ago, bringing with him some legionary fighters that were trained to use the siege weapons they brought. With them, they should be able to start to hold and then later wear down the enemy army before everyone could combine. The southern army tried one massive assault, but the siege weapons shooting grape shots were too much to handle, so the battlefield transformed not into large army-against-army battle, but a place for smaller probing attacks. Like that, they would need to hold for probably more than a month, if not more, as no one knew exactly how fast the United Freeholds army could get here while fighting off the Western army trying to engage it. The Aldermarch situation improved when the Calverley made it there. They were ahead of the Bravenhold army, which was going to make it there a bit sooner than the United Freeholds army. The retreating battle had not been kind, even if they were almost at the end of their journey. Not only that, but the Southern army had been continuously reinforced with new recruits who were all ready for the final battle. The Southern army was also boosted by the remnants of the Eastern army. Everyone had to thank Goose for that piece of information. As it currently looked, the final battle would have the Triple Alliance ahead on soldier numbers, but not by any significant margin. However, the alliance strongest soldiers were quite ragged after a long march while constantly fighting. Their numbers had dwindled quite a lot after losing almost 30% of their fighting force. They had been able to kill off almost 50% of the Western army''s fighting force, but no one was pleased about what was going on. During this time, Rich was constantly fighting. On good days, there was only one fight, but it was quite common to engage the enemy at least two or three times. They knew that they were winning, slowly, but Rich was slower and slower every fight. It was their last chance to kill him as they were now too close to Aldermarch, but they were certain that they will be able to finish off Rich when one of the strongest enemy fighters had been able to actually get halfway through Rich''s left arm¡¯s bone, and the hammer user being able to brake five ribs. It was at this moment that they finally had to fight against Rich''s call of the ancestor¡¯s ability, which gave Rich enough time to recover a little bit and, with the surprise, kill another of the enemy fighters. That was the final fight, as they were now close enough that the United Freeholds army was able to get combat support from Aldermarch and the armies stationed there. The end result was that Rich was able to whittle down the enemy''s strongest fighters to only six, including their leader. He would now have a little more time to recover before the final confrontation between all of the armies would happen, and when he would finally be able to kill that frustrating bastard whose name he still didn¡¯t know and would make sure no one else would. chapter 344 Organising so many soldiers took time, something the leader of Aetherhold didn''t want to give his enemies. He tried to get Rich to fight them again as he was certain that they could finally kill him, but with the three armies combined and the leaders of the two other nations there. He simply didn''t have the manpower. He had spent it on trying to kill Rich. To draw him out now without risking being surrounded would be impossible. And then, when Rich really showed up, he wasn¡¯t certain that they could escape. He could see the writing on the wall, and no matter how much luck or the future he could see, a straight-up battle would mean that they would lose. It was a hard thing to accept, facing your own defeat, and that helped harden his heart to what he was going to have to do. It was going to be hard to get to this point once again, but he would have the peoples of three nations to sway to believe in his God. Sometimes hard choices needed to be made, while keeping the bigger picture in mind. The reason why Rich didn''t show up was because many healers were working night and day to fix the accumulated battle damage that was never properly fixed. Anyone who walked past that healer''s tent thought that they were torturing someone, but Rich simply wasn¡¯t willing to be put under, as otherwise, he was risking every life that had fallen for some comfort. He also felt like he deserved the pain for what he once again made people do. It took three days for all of the armies to be deployed and ready to face each other. Rich was at the head of his army in front of the legionaries, but he didn''t want to look backwards because he would see thousands of eyes that barely had a spark of life in them. While they were hard men and women before, now they radiated an aura of danger. It was something he wished they couldn''t do, but the road here was more brutal than he expected. Yet, he knew where to divert the anger he felt; it was toward that bastard of a man on the other side of the field, in front of his own army. Rich looked over his status page and put a few more points into energy storage, as he always did before a fight, so that he would have more than whatever fortune was told would expect. He also made sure that there were enough free points so that he could instantly get access to the third tier of energy. There were times when he was tempted to rank up, yet every time he felt it would be a bad idea. Now, when he thought about it, it still felt off, but not like it would be a disaster. That didn''t make him feel better, as it meant the enemy had some sort of trump card to play. Slowly, time ticked by until finally something major happened. The enemy soldiers started to mill around, and while they were quite a distance away, over a kilometre, Rich didn¡¯t have any problems seeing what was going on. Every soldier was taking out some sort of ranged weapon; there were even some who took out a sling. ¡°Ranged defensive positions, be ready for anything,¡± Rich communicated through his command ability, and immediately soldiers started to move, getting into formations and putting shields above their heads. There was a good reason why they had stood staring at each other for so long. Rich wanted the armies of Aetherhold to come towards them so they could start using their siege weaponry to devastate their numbers. Currently, the numbers were almost 20,000 of the Triple Alliance soldiers and about 19,000 soldiers for the armies of Aetherhold. They already had better soldiers, better equipment, and better elites. This battle, while it would still be a costly one, should already be won, but he knew the enemy; they were going to try to do something that would change the formula. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. It was then that a voice was heard. Rich knew that voice well; it had taunted him multiple times, but he also remembered the desperate screams when he killed his comrades one by one. ¡°I wonder what kind of noise he will make when he dies,¡± Rich thought. ¡°Rich, you have impressed me, and I now understand that my body is too weak for what I must do, but I am not alone in my belief, and you will learn what it means to truly believe in God.¡± The words were ominous, and Rich had a bad feeling. He concentrated to the fullest, watching how the black threads were pulled one by one. Yet, the holy power wasn¡¯t channeled into the leader''s body; it was channeled through the connection he had with his soldiers. Rich could see the ranged weapons starting to glow with power. Every single one of them seemed to be forming some sort of ability for long-range attack, and he didn''t see any attack that would be below rank one, and a large portion was even rank two. If their entire army attacked with such power, their defenses wouldn''t be able to hold out for long, and Rich would be surprised if 30% would survive the first attack. He started to rush but only managed to take a step before he noticed something. That bastard probably didn''t even notice, but pulling on the black threads slowly leveled him up, and I could see the moment second-rank energy was replaced by third. Not waiting for a moment, Rich immediately put his own points to also gain access to rank three energy. He was certain that he could kill that bastard and the enemy army with enough time, but still, so many of them would be killed by the attack that he couldn¡¯t defend against. Rich''s brain quickly tried to find a solution, yet he couldn''t see any way of stopping it, but there was one option. There was a low chance of it working, but even if it was a gamble, the other option was thousands and thousands of dead soldiers. Rich started to walk alone towards the enemy army. His walk was not slow, yet it wasn''t fast. He started to remove his half-broken armor, drawing even more attention by doing so. Everyone was puzzled by this action, yet the enemy leader, for the first time, was properly scared as he saw the eyes of Rich Dirt. In them, he saw something he had never seen before and something he never expected to see. It was what he saw in his own eyes when he thought about his God and in the fanatics who would do anything for the one they believed in. Then a voice sounded; it sounded broken and desperate, yet it was so powerful, as if it was trying to reach a place not of this world. "You have never claimed me; you are the one whom I have searched for so long, yet even when my body was frail, you didn''t come. I saw how you took my friends and enemies, yet no matter how I pleaded and begged before every fight, every battle, you never came for me.¡± ¡°I hoped that in this new world, you would be more kind and let this broken thing that looks like a man finally have his rest," Rich said those words with every ounce of his being. A tear slowly fell from one of his eyes as he continued to walk and take off his armor. At first, the enemy leader thought that Rich had finally broken, but he understood who Rich was trying to contact. It made him shiver with fright. From his God, he knew that Death was real and someone even his god respected. There was only a brief moment of relief as he thought Rich would just die, but as he continued to speak and nothing happened, he wondered. Was it true? Was that why he couldn¡¯t win against him? The god''s chosen thought. "This time I have business to take care of, so if you want me, you need to take me now; otherwise, leave me alone like you always do," Rich screamed so strongly that it seemed the world vibrated around the entire battlefield. The enemy leader took only a moment to understand those words. He needed to be killed right away. In his eyes, Rich''s image changed, slowly morphing into a towering monstrosity waiting to reap their souls. "Attack, everyone attack him now!" he yelled out, shaking in fear. No matter how desperate the battle between him and Rich was, and how many friends and followers he lost, he never even thought that he might die. Now, however, he was for the first time truly afraid that he might actually die. Thousands of ranged attacks that were meant for the Triple Alliance army now flew towards Rich. Of course, even in his panic, the god''s chosen didn''t want everyone to attack Rich; he mostly gave that command out of fear and reflex. But when he realized it was already too late, he smiled nevertheless. At least Rich was now about to die. He would have been afraid that Rich might escape the attack, but Rich just stood there, bare-chested, eyes closed, and with his arms stretched to his sides, waiting for his death, waiting for Death himself. Then the deadly shower started to fall around Rich. The attacks weren¡¯t that accurate, so in a large radius around him, the long-range attacks exploded when they landed, causing craters and making dirt fly high into the sky. The damage continued for about 30 seconds. No one could see what had happened, but no one from either side expected Rich to be alive. The Triple Alliance soldiers respected the sacrifices, giving them a chance, while the soldiers of Aetherhold were being reprimanded for not attacking the army. When the clouds of dust started to be blown away, the armies of Aetherhold prepared to march with the leader in front, but then everyone saw Rich still standing in the same position, completely unharmed by the thousands of attacks that had landed around him. "You once again abandoned me, but perhaps you will rethink for the next time when I deliver the harvest I¡¯m about to reap." The words were powerful and angry, but by then they were all focused on one man who was pale white and had already taken a step backwards. A silent command was given by Rich, and his army started to move forward at triple speed but still keeping their lines intact. Rich, however, charged forward, and he had only one target, one person he was going to kill before he targeted another. That person had already turned around and started to push through his own soldiers, trying to escape the vision of death he saw just a moment ago. chapter 345 Just before Rich started his speech to hopefully terrify the enemy leader, he needed to do one more thing with his achievement page. Up till now, his adventurer class was sitting at level 80, there waiting to be ranked up after he chose a skill or an ability from the enormous list available at every milestone. To survive what was coming, he picked an ability called Trinity Resonance. It was a famous ability, and something he truly contemplated picking earlier, but now he had no option but to pick it. This ability would allow Rich to use his energy control on either mana or holy power, although at a lower degree than he''s capable of doing with energy. It was like changing a sharp and well-made sword for a willow stick, but you would still have some control. Thanks to the other abilities he had, Rich hoped that it could pull off the miracle he needed. And while the words that he was saying were somewhat made-up, there was a part of Rich that truly hoped he would finally be able to rest. Thousands of attacks were approaching, but he only needed to worry about a fraction of them. While he wasn''t wearing armor anymore, his skin was tough enough, especially with his subdermal armor, that all of his armor-boosting abilities worked on him. Fortunately, the attacks that were coming were meant to kill large groups of people, so they weren''t too concentrated, yet a direct strike would still prove to be devastating. That was why he needed that little bit of control. He waited until the last moment, when explosions were already all around him, to truly activate his energy control and then use the new ability. Instantly, he lost a little bit of control of his energy, but he was good enough that it didn''t mess up any of his other abilities. But now he could feel holy power a lot better, and thankfully, he could control energy outside of his body, so that meant he could do the same with holy power. It only took small nudges to divert projectiles coming towards him, but there were so many that it was a different kind of difficulty. When he diverted the final projectiles, he didn¡¯t know if he was disappointed or not. Whatever the case, he knew his target, and when the dust cleared and he could see him, only for a moment he waited to give commands to the army and then started to rush. His sword was out soon enough, but his target wasn¡¯t facing him; he was escaping. That didn''t stop Rich; he started to cut through the soldiers who were between him and the soon-to-be-dead man. Rich was finally stopped when the god''s chosen last surviving followers finally broke out of their stupor of seeing their north star, their leader, panicking and trying to get away from Rich. They were still confident, but they shouldn''t have been. Without their leader, they had a lot less firepower, and they were fighting Rich, who was in a lot better state than he was during their last battle. They were still able to hold him back, but every minute, two of them died. Rich was already a quarter of the way inside the enemy lines when he finally killed the last follower. It was also at this moment the lines of the two armies met. Immediately, the Aetherhold soldiers felt the pressure as their mages were having a tough time protecting against the Triple Alliance mages. The regular soldiers fared better, but not for long, because an overwhelming amount of elites and assassins started to target their command structure. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Then, of course, there was Rich, who was carving a bloody path towards the enemy leader. It didn''t take long for him to catch up, but when he did, he was already fully covered in blood, making the enemy leader panic even more. "You must spare me; this realm needs my protection. No, don''t get closer. Would you really doom this world out of anger and revenge? It wouldn''t solve anything," he continued to try to beg as Rich walked closer, having to kill a few soldiers who were still brave enough to rush him. When Rich loomed above him, the enemy leader finally attacked. He used a similar ability, only a quicker and smaller version, to the large beam spell. It was aimed directly at Rich''s heart and it did do some real damage, but that didn''t stop Rich''s movement. The two-handed blade was pointed downwards, but before Rich plunged it down, he spoke, "I have never understood why people like you try to convince everyone that revenge isn''t worth it. It is." And with that, his blade, dove downwards, pushing through every protection and thoroughly destroying that pathetic man. A small crater was now where the enemy leader used to be. Rich looked around and, like a wave, the soldiers surrounding him started to break and try to run away. This caused a chain reaction, and soon more and more of the soldiers of Aetherhold started to run. It was at this moment that the cavalry of the Triple Alliance swept in from the right side, pushing deep into the lines, which caused a complete rout of the Aetherhold army only 8 minutes after the battle began. "Kill them all," was heard by every soldier of the Triple Alliance. They hardened their hearts, the ones who hadn''t seen too much battle, but others already expected it and didn''t even waver when they started to chase and kill all who ran. Rich stood amongst enemy soldiers who were running away; he was like a stone in a river, the flow of people running around him. He was glad that the leader was dead and that the army would soon follow, but he didn''t know if he was ready for the next part of the war. The part where they needed to conquer and occupy Aetherhold and then deal with the religious zealots there. He was not certain he could commit genocide once again. The battle, or perhaps a better word, the hunt, lasted for a week before they were certain that 99% of the enemy was dead. The cleanup was happening at the same time, and through all of this, Rich finally found out how bad his injuries actually were. He had continued to push way past his limits, and while his body was extraordinary and was able to keep up, the healers said to him that he would need at least one or two years to fully recover. That, however, wasn¡¯t something Rich was overly worried about. There were much more crucial things to worry about. The thing that occupied his mind the most was what was about to follow when they finished here. Soon, they should be getting a better report of what¡¯s happening inside Aetherhold so they could finally start to prepare. Over the course of the week, he had been coming to sit and think on a large stone next to the river, just watching the flow of water go past. This day was no different. He tried not to think about problems outside of his body and mostly focused on understanding and controlling rank three energy. It was a lot more potent, and that meant his fine control needed a bit more work before he was satisfied to start crafting, for example. There was also the small problem that he needed to join or make a rank 3 and above organization, or otherwise, the world government would come knocking. Rich opened up his achievement page and looked over all that had changed. This war brought him only two levels in first homesteader and renowned true archer, but it brought 12 levels in heroic commander. The stats had grown quite a lot, but one thing that was sad was that he didn¡¯t have any free points now. A lot of them were used to boost his energy storage and to get him to Rank 3. Before he could continue, he noticed one of the generals approaching him, and it seemed that he was in quite a rush. "High General, we figured it out. We finally know what the black threads were about." Rich braced himself as he had a theory. He was quite certain that all of the black threads were connected to the citizens of Aetherhold, and their so-called leader was consuming their life to fuel his spells. Was the country empty of life, or did they represent something else? The general continued, "Each of them was connected to every citizen of Aetherhold, and it seems whenever he pulled on the threads, he consumed their current and future potential to generate holy power for their God. He was basically consuming their belief, and in doing so, every single citizen understood the reality that they were nothing more than an energy source for a person who had just gotten incredibly strong." "So, is there no need to fight them?" Rich asked. "No, they have surrendered. Most of them are having a hard time reconciling the bad things they have done in the name of their false God," the general replied. Rich took a moment to absorb this but finally said, "Well, that''s convenient, but I¡¯ll take it as I actually don¡¯t think I can imagine a better outcome." With that, the general left, leaving behind Rich who started to let himself relax, knowing that the war was over. chapter 346* POV Rich I watched as the general left after a brief silence between us. People now knew the time crunch we were under no longer mattered. It was finally over. Goddamnit, that was simply horrible. The question was, am I still sane? Why did I put myself through so much pain and misery? Why couldn¡¯t that asshole just have died earlier? Everything still hurts. The worst offenders were the first beam attack I took and the last. Then, of course, there was my left arm that was almost cut off. Just moving it didn''t feel right. At least currently, I felt my real age, as everything hurt like it hurt back on Earth when I was close to dying. The worst feeling is if you''re trying to crack a joint and it just doesn¡¯t happen. Simply horrible. Those black threads were truly broken. Being able to use an entire nation of people as a power source. No wonder no matter what I tried, I couldn¡¯t even get close to him before the final battle. Even my taunt ability didn¡¯t seem to work that well on them, but it still was able to get me a few kills when I used it at the correct moment. Not only did my physical body hurt, but my energy body felt like a wet rag chewed by dogs. Even doing basic things constantly hurt. Slowly, I started to release my commander ability and every other ability that supported it and the army. I had gotten so used to keeping it up, it actually hurt my energy body to release the constant supply I was giving the ability. I opened up my achievement page to see all the improvements there. In some ways, this war was beneficial to me, but not as much as I had expected. My levels didn¡¯t go up crazily, but there were a few standouts. Of course, ''Heroic Commander'' and its 12 levels were impressive, but I also had 2 abilities that reached past the 100 mark. Nothing happened when they reached 100, and I wonder how high they could actually go. I know that there isn¡¯t a hard cap on the level for abilities, at least, but there certainly was a soft cap, and that was all up to you and how well you learn that ability. It seems that the system can only help you so much. Skills did have a cap, so to say, but I was far from that. Now, however, I was finally the proud owner of two expert rank skills: Expert Energy Emissions and Expert Energy Manipulation. I got them just before the final battle. They probably helped me quite a lot in actually surviving that ranged attack. Energy Emissions gave me not-so-exciting choices, but I ended up choosing Spectral Flare. From the small tests I¡¯ve done, it is basically a flash grenade meant for people of high rank and who have abilities to protect themselves against more ordinary flash grenade-type abilities. From Energy Manipulation, I was able to get one of the more known and sought-after abilities: Radiant Empowerment. It¡¯s an ability that helps you generate energy from ambient light, but more importantly, it actually has an element of healing. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Up until this point, the only healing I had was to make my own body repair itself a bit faster when I flooded it with energy, but this should help it be a lot more efficient. Some on-the-go healing would be quite nice when my defenses have failed to keep me fully safe. Meditation ranked up to advanced rank a few days ago while I was sitting on this very rock. There were some interesting abilities, but Mindful Recovery was the one that I picked. While meditating, this helps me fix myself properly so I wouldn¡¯t have to worry that something healed in the wrong way. An unexpected benefit was that now meditating helped recover energy even faster. A little while back, I was able to get my Organisation skill to rank up to advanced rank, and from there I chose Inventory Insight. It was basically a perfect recall ability for anything I considered stored, not just in my special bags or tattoo storage, but also everything stored on my land. I also suspected that if I continue to level it up, it would also work for any job I was doing. Technically, I was still the nation''s materials examiner, so I think that I should be able to even keep track of that easily from now on. First aid was something that I advanced to advance rank towards the beginning of the war, and I¡¯m pretty sure the ability bleed control that I picked that helps mitigate how much blood I lost, probably keeping me in the fight this entire time. It was so much more effective than just using energy wrap because it actually allowed me to reclaim blood that had already left my body. Unfortunately, this ability didn''t give me control of others'' blood or even let me do fancy things with it, but the next time someone puts a hole through me, they will be quite surprised when that won''t even slow me down. Kinetic energy was a skill that also ranked up. It¡¯s a skill that I¡¯m pretty sure I wouldn¡¯t have survived without because being able to use kinetic force was just so damn effective. From the rank up, I chose motion dampening, and it was quite a useful ability in so many ways. Its most useful thing was that it made controlling one aspect of kinetic energy a lot faster, and I hoped that I could get a few more abilities to make controlling kinetic energy faster and use up less of my mind''s attention. The final skill to rank up was my two-handed mastery, also reaching advanced rank. The choices were not the best, but the stunning impact ability certainly helped me kill a few of the stronger opponents I had to fight. It worked on principles unknown to me, and while it didn''t do much, even a second in our power level could be the difference between life and death. Of course, there was also the ability Trinity resonance, but that¡¯s a stupendously complex ability that I¡¯m glad I was able to use enough to save my life so I could finally kill that bastard. Man, did that feel great. Now that I had chosen the ability for my adventure class, I was able to level it up as well. The first thing I did was modify the stat gain again and put everything into energy storage, as that was what my training plan still recommended. 48 stats for every level, and I was able to get four more, taking my adventurer class to level 84. I was quite disappointed that I didn¡¯t get any skills or abilities that were worth taking. One of the choices would allow me to make my body glow a bit. Why would you ever take that and not the stat points? This did, however, bring me above the 2560 stat point I needed for a new trait. I also got wisdom to the next milestone, giving me a trait: mind-body harmony. It was promptly consumed by giant amongst men. Fortunately, this trait was quite straightforward and it was something I appreciated. The trait I got from my energy storage was a bit different. It was called energy dynamo and as soon as I received it, I felt a new structure appearing inside my energy body, connecting to my actual body. It was weird and I couldn¡¯t understand how it worked no matter how much I looked at it. Jumping off the stone and moving around a bit confirmed to me that it functioned. It made energy from my movement. It wasn''t much, but after testing it a little bit, I found it to be better than just my natural regeneration. Now, I couldn¡¯t fully test it because I was still quite hurt, but this will definitely make me even more sustainable during long fights. I was quite pleased with myself as I now had so many different ways of gaining energy without having to wait for the system to give it to me. But before I closed the page, I looked at the adventurer section and had to facepalm. How could I forget that my body skill wasn¡¯t just an expert rank but it was actually master rank? It was a bit annoying that the skills and abilities given by the adventurer class were put in a different section to the rest. Well, at least there was an adventurer section, thanks to that crazy mage who was somehow able to actually add this to the achievement page. chapter 347 While the actual war was finally over, I unfortunately couldn¡¯t just go home. They still needed me to be the high general. Fortunately, most of the soldiers could be sent back, but we still needed to occupy and claim ownership of the defeated nation of Aetherhold. While the people didn¡¯t see actual war, they lost a lot of people, not just during the war but before it. It seems that the coming of religion wasn''t as nice as I had expected, and before we got here, there was a lot of killing off the most religious people who did terrible things. The population of Aetherhold was a little bit less than the population of the Triple Alliance. Now, it had fallen quite a lot, but there were still a lot of people left. Most of them were near the capital, so when our armies finally made it here after doing some detours, the harvesting season was fast approaching. I wanted all of this, at least my involvement, to be over as soon as possible so I could go back home and do some harvesting, even with my broken body. Things, however, didn¡¯t seem like they would go so smoothly. The problem was the people; they were broken, and having them concentrated so close to each other was causing a lot of friction, like a lot, especially because everyone had a different opinion on how they should move forward. A lot of people just wanted to destroy everything to do with religion and kill anyone who even thinks about it. Not everyone is so angry about it that they are willing to destroy. Some are even quite understanding, and while they know that the God, they were praying to was false, they believed that religion had good aspects to it. In some ways, they were correct. If you don¡¯t blindly believe and just look at the facts, true religious communities work together a lot more than non-religious ones, and as a result, they have a better support structure whenever life decides to get mean. Just as long as they don¡¯t start blindly believing. Unfortunately, a few generations later, things usually don''t go so well. We have discussed this for almost two weeks, and the only reason the rest of the people haven''t killed each other is because of our presence here. At first, everyone was in favour of just eliminating any presence of religion and people who spoke for it, but I was able to discourage those actions as I really didn¡¯t want to be a part of genocide, especially when the people didn''t deserve to be genocided against. "I am getting tired of this, and our arguments are going in circles," I said to the gathered people in this makeshift meeting room. "We have only looked at one side of the problem and not talked about the other." I was interrupted by the leader of Frontier''s Collective. "Another problem? I¡¯m starting to think this isn¡¯t worth the time invested. Maybe we should just leave and let them kill each other however they please?" My look made him shut up. "While I don¡¯t disagree with you completely, there is the problem of us actually wanting to keep the land we are currently occupying. I¡¯ve been thinking about that for a while now as the other discussion hasn''t progressed in over a week now. Most of the people are here, but every one of us wants not just land but population as well, am I correct in thinking that?" Everyone nodded to that. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. "That means if we can keep the population here in the capital, we will also need to finding a way to split the land evenly and make it so all three of us get a piece of the capital and its population is quite unfeasible.¡± ¡°A lot of the people living here also disagree with each other and are quite willing to fight, at least right now. From the scouting group, we know that there are a lot of abandoned villages where the population originally came from." I could see others starting to realize what I meant. "Why don''t we split the people up? Those who think similarly would go to similar villages. This would stop the current hostilities and give time for everything to calm down. Also allow us to properly divide the nation without having to worry about one of us getting basically all the population." A tentative agreement was made almost immediately, but there was a lot to discuss to get it properly figured out. It took another week to gather all the information to find viable villages and towns to repopulate and make sure that the land would be divided not exactly evenly, but at least so it would make sense. The riches of the capital were divided also between the three of us, but they would mainly be used to restart the economy of this nation that would now be split into three. There were still huge expanses of land that weren¡¯t claimed between Aetherhold and our nations, but we still divided them up. So, when we finally got time and the population to properly claim those pieces of land, in the future, there wouldn''t be any problems or border disputes. It also meant that we were at the end stretch, at least for me needing to be here. The biggest problem actually didn¡¯t turn out to be dividing the population, as they were quite eager to leave this place. The problem was food, as it always seems to be. The idiot had bet everything on this war and probably taking food from our lands. The people were already starving, so supply lines would need to be made. The United Freeholds would probably need to support not just the conquered land but the other two nations as well, at least a little bit, because their projections didn''t look good for the coming winter. That was, however, the result of war, and when most of your working population was engaged in a war. Fortunately, the United Freeholds'' fields were quite large, and with the druids and the land itself helping us all summer, the harvest looked to be quite bountiful. Still, us giving so much away would mean living on the razor''s edge, as any unforeseen disaster would probably mean starvation for some. When we all signed the papers, the world opened up to me, and while the two borders of our nations weren¡¯t currently connected, I could still see everything inside this new part of our nation. We gained the land that bordered the large river where we built the dam and headed south for quite a while. It also stretched all the way to the sea, almost looking like a corridor taken out of the land. We gained 38% more population into our nation, split into two towns and 18 villages. This unfortunately meant we would need to build a really long road from the capital to the sea. Now that all of this was done, I managed to convince Goose to take me home, while I left others to continue working on integrating the new territory and the people now a part of United Freeholds. It was incredibly difficult to hold on to Goose, especially with my left arm that continued to give me trouble. Fortunately, we didn''t have to go so fast, and I could just breathe in the fresh air and look towards the ground as it sped by. This was really relaxing and something I sorely needed. What would have been at least a month¡¯s journey back was now just a few hours, especially because we could just go straight over the forests and other natural barriers. The landing was a bit scuffed as I was completely tired by the end of the flight, but when I stumbled off Goose, and as my legs touched my very own land, I felt a surge of renewing energy. It couldn¡¯t fix all the aches I was feeling, but it certainly was wonderful. "Tim?" I yelled, and then I heard stumbling and falling in the house. "Rich, you''re back?" Tim said with a happy voice as he rushed out of the house. I smiled back at him. "Let''s fire up the sauna, and does Val have some good ciders currently available? I think that would hit the spot really well." He didn¡¯t even think for a moment and immediately nodded. What followed was blessed normality, which I grasped hold of with both hands, and I wasn¡¯t going to let it go so I could slowly get back to a more normal mindset. chapter 348 Val and Tim were excellent companions for my first night back, but they are going to sleep as it was late into the night. The world around me was quite quiet, but I could still hear some of the night creatures going about their business. It was peaceful sitting near the slowly moving river, and I always found it hard to accept such peace could be part of this world when just a few weeks ago we were constantly battling. I certainly know that when this happened to me for the first time, I could barely handle the quiet. It''s better now, and this night certainly helped me feel normal. I¡¯ve gained a lot, but I truly hope that things will be more quiet in the coming years. Now, that being said, I can¡¯t stop advancing, but I think war certainly isn¡¯t the preferable choice. Hunting higher-ranked monsters and defeating broken dungeons should be my only combat ways of advancing. Especially hunting, because I¡¯ve been too cavalier about collecting elemental seeds. They need to be developed for a long time. Getting them would be a force multiplier for me and something I shouldn¡¯t push back. I should also consider not just fighting but purchasing those cores. I wonder what kinds of elements are in this world. I think there might be quite a lot. Slowly, I could feel a plan starting to emerge. Of course, there are two other ways of leveling up. First is just working on my homestead and doing things here, especially continuing to take apprentices, even if I can¡¯t truly give all my time to them. They should soon be coming back here as well; they have been helping near the capital. The final way is to make items. Crafting is something that gives experience to two of my classes, and I know that people can reach quite high just doing that. Thanks to a few of my abilities, I can make quite high-end items for my rank. That reminded me of an unpleasant fact. I would need to make a rank 3 organization. At the start, it would just be on paper, but I would need members soon; otherwise, the license for my organization could be revoked, and I would have to join someone else¡¯s. It¡¯s another headache that I don¡¯t want to deal with, but I somewhat understand the need. I can feel power inside me when I use my rank three energy. I could probably solo the entire army in less than an hour without using large AOE abilities. People like that would be extremely dangerous and would need better monitoring. Fortunately, it seems that the World Council at least understands that people who have reached this far need autonomy. Otherwise, things would go badly quite fast. I need to get my hands on a Rank 3 organisation handbook and rules. Need to learn the rules; otherwise, a simple step could be a costly one. Unfortunately, those lessons I have already learned, but I survived and will here as well, until I get strong enough to change the rules that I don''t like. But most of this can wait, not the Rank 3 organisation stuff, but the rest can wait until I¡¯m a bit more recovered. At least the harvest will soon begin, and I will be helping everyone else as well, not just my own land or my former apprentices, but the nation-owned land too. I sat for another hour just doing nothing before I as well went to sleep. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. The next morning I woke up a bit disoriented, but fortunately, I remembered where I was before anything unfortunate happened. I could already smell the breakfast cooking and joined Tim for a healthy but modest breakfast. When I asked Tim about it, his answer was quite profound and something I didn¡¯t disagree with. "Hard times are ahead, but if we start preparing for them now, they won''t be that hard." I completely agreed with that, even though there was a chance that we would have plenty of food, especially if we expanded our hunting efforts. Still starting to cut back on our expenditure right now would help quite a lot. It wasn''t hard to get the necessary materials so I could start learning more and creating the charter for my Rank 3 organisation. The good thing was that Rank 2 individuals could be full members, so at least I could have a few people join from United Freeholds. But unfortunately, Rank 1 people, while they could join as junior members, wouldn¡¯t count towards our membership goals. The coming days would have been quite pleasant if it wasn¡¯t for so much reading and the occasional pains that flared up. On a particularly rainy afternoon, I felt an emergency stick break. I snapped the pencil I was writing with and grabbed the connected book I had to read the information about what was going on. Apparently, representatives of the World Council would be coming here in a few hours to take me, once again, in front of the council to be charged, guilty or not, of attacking downwards. At least they were asking permission to show up, and I quickly wrote back that they should be given permission, but that I wasn¡¯t going to go and meet them, and that they should be escorted here. Once again, I had done nothing wrong, but apparently, people think that they can take advantage of me. Attacking down was actually quite a serious charge, and something that made every noble shake with fear. I have learned quite a lot about this topic in the past few days, and they couldn''t do absolutely anything to me unless they were trying to get me there for some other reason. It only took three hours and a little bit more when I heard a knock on my door. I had just continued to work, as this time I wasn¡¯t going to play by the rules. I didn¡¯t invite them in; instead, I went to the door and opened it. ¡°Hello, how can I help you?¡± I said to the seven people, three of them rank three, looking quite miserable in the rain, who obviously didn''t want to be here. They were escorted by a few of the stronger Vikings, but they wouldn¡¯t even stand a chance against the people who had come. ¡°Rich Dirt, you are charged with attacking down in a crucial moment during a war, changing its outcome,¡± he said. I could see that he wanted to continue to speak, but I held up my hand, silencing him. ¡°I do not know who sent you here or what evidence they have; they¡¯re wrong. The only reason I ranked up was because my opponent was rank three, and he was like that before me. Honestly, I would have brought him up on charges, but well, he¡¯s dead,¡± I said. A small smile came to my face when I remembered his death. ¡°While I won the battle, it did leave some long-lasting damage, which is why I didn¡¯t come to the capital and why I won¡¯t be joining you in heading towards the council headquarters. I have a lot more important things to do, like creating a charter for my rank 3 organisation.¡± There was a moment of silence when I stopped speaking, and I could see every one of them inching their hands towards their weapons. ¡°Are you refusing to be arrested?¡± the head guard said. "No, you can place me under arrest, but I just won¡¯t be going with you. And if I¡¯m found guilty, you can come right back here and tell me, or administer any punishment the World Council gives me. Yes, I know what that means, but tell them that I won¡¯t accept any conclusion if the witness isn''t mind-read about what he or she saw." My words made them hesitate, but only about 10 seconds of silence later, the head guard spoke. "Very well, don''t make me hunt you. If I have to come back, I will make sure you will suffer." As they started to turn away, and before I closed my door, I did say one more thing, "It would be a fun time, unfortunately, it won''t happen." I went and sat back down. I only sat for a few moments before I stood back up and started to make dinner while I monitored how they left. Was it that bitch of a queen again? She just couldn¡¯t leave it alone. Well, I should have that report in about a week, and then I will find out who accused me and if I¡¯m guilty or not. I¡¯m 100% certain that I won¡¯t be, but I wonder how I ruined their plans. Then it hit me. The queen''s bodyguard had been quite close to 3rd rank when I last saw him. They probably wanted me to go there, and he would find a reason to challenge me, and in the current state I am in, I¡¯m actually not confident in beating him. Wish I could see their faces when I just don¡¯t show up. chapter 349 It was actually quite refreshing to feel like a human again, as I was sleeping now every night, and that seemed to be helping me recover a bit faster. Every few days, a healer also comes and helps with their magic, but having such a powerful body as mine comes with negative aspects as well, especially when it actually gets hurt. I still can''t believe that they actually managed to damage my bones, but I guess it makes sense because rank two people could fight against dragons, so it makes sense that they could hurt my bones. With the apprentice here, we were slowly getting the equipment ready for the harvest. This year, there were also some fruits to get and nuts from the trees that I planted. The best yield was 18 cherries, and what a wonderful taste they had. There was also a pleasant surprise. Normally, if you plant apple seeds or any other tree seeds, you won''t actually get the same type of apple with the same taste; it''s completely random and usually not so tasty. Now, however, I could dive into the seed and see what characteristics the seed had, and when compared with the tree the seeds came from, I could get a pretty good indication of what the fruit will taste like. It¡¯s, of course, a rough guess, as I would actually need to grow the seeds to understand the structure I can see with my ability and the different markers to understand what they exactly mean. This meant that I had to do tree planting next spring. One of the seeds that I got from the goblins was an interesting bush-type plant that produced slightly glowing berries. It took me quite a while to look through my plant books that I purchased a little while back to find out that they were an ingredient for a mana restoration potion. It wasn''t the best potion, but it certainly wasn''t the worst, and growing the other ingredients would not be too hard. I opened my notebook so I could make an entry to bring this up in a future meeting. There were quite a lot of books on every surface in my bedroom and the living room. Seems like I need to make a bookshelf. It was a quick few hours of work, but it was still quite lovely. After the harvest, I should also continue to teach energy control and manipulation. There was also the demon spell book I needed to continue to help decipher. So many things to do. It was quite fun to make the bookshelf because I was just one of many on the homestead doing things, and it was quite nice to feel people doing normal things around me. The harvest didn¡¯t start on a certain day. For example, vegetables were harvested throughout the later half of the summer, especially cucumbers and tomatoes, which continued to produce fruits over time. Also, some of the root vegetables were already taken out of the ground, so we could already cook with them. These fresh ingredients were quite lovely. Yet, when I felt the plants were ready, we started with the potatoes. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. The work was incredibly fast, almost too fast, and I would have made everyone take more breaks if it was just our land that we were harvesting. Next were root vegetables, and then it was time for the grains. With my broken body, everyone else was able to keep up with me. But that was only because I was still collecting evolved seeds, although I was just collecting them and not thoroughly investigating them, as I could do that later. The reason why we were in such a hurry was because the weather wasn¡¯t going to be nice for long, and this year the raining season was going to be quite awful. Even though we were rushing, it was still a nice time as we were still constantly talking to each other, even if there was an undercurrent of sadness from all the lost soldiers. Currently, a lot of people were working on retrieving as many of our fallen as possible so they could be brought back and properly buried. I was not looking forward to those ceremonies because every soldier who died was the fault of me not being strong enough. I knew that wasn¡¯t a completely correct statement, but it would still be incredibly hard to tell the grieving family members or friends about the death of their loved one. Francis had also finally made it back here, which meant that we could load up quite big carts for him to bring back to the capital. Everything that had even a little bit of purpose was saved from the harvest and transported to the appropriate location before we moved on to Emma¡¯s and George¡¯s lands and started to harvest what they had planted. Emma had quite a lot of plants that weren¡¯t for food but for fabric. Making clothes to resist the winter was also quite important. George had basically what I had, although I found it quite interesting that he had even more potatoes planted than me. When that was done, we continued to move forward towards the capital, but there were still two pieces of land owned by my former apprentices on the way. It was there where I finally leveled up my farming to the expert rank. Like always there was a choice of three abilities: Targeted Soil, Fast Crop Growth and Sustainable Ecosystem. Fast Crop Growth was out as I didn''t like that, which left Targeted Soil and Sustainable Ecosystem. I have lived in this world for quite a while now, and I have read and listened to a lot of information about skills and what abilities you could get, but I hadn¡¯t heard about these two. It was honestly disgusting how many variations and simply the amount of abilities this system had. Apparently, there were entire libraries full of information about different abilities and even skills and classes, but it seems no matter how much they tried to plan and find out everything, this system always seemed to be surprising us all. Both of those abilities kind of sounded like they did the same thing, but I guess Targeted Soil was a lot more direct but also had larger limitations. Now, this was just a guess, but I expect if you target soil with this ability, other things would not find living there nice. This could be quite good for combating weeds, but the name just sounded off to me. I don''t know why, but it was giving me the same vibes as Fast Crop Growth. So, I picked Sustainable Ecosystem. As we continued to harvest, I started to test out my new ability. I found it less of an ability that could change things, but more of an ability that could inform you, though it did have some capability to change things. The information I got was actually brilliant, and it seemed to even connect with my map ability. It was incredibly surprising when it suggested to introduce a bug that was living in one of the forested areas in our nation to the grain field, as it apparently liked to eat one of the more annoying parasites that damaged grain stocks. What a wonderful ability to add to my repertoire. Finally, the letter with my verdict arrived, but since it wasn¡¯t accompanied by rank three guards, it meant it was a positive one. The letter itself was incredibly long and filled with diplomatic jargon, but the important thing was that I was cleared of charges and even got 300,000 gold coins in compensation. Whoever the queen had supporting her had quite the connections, as it was quite hard to find who actually accused me in the letter, but I had gotten quite good at reading this language. I really needed to do something about that queen, and I wondered why she was so threatened by me. Well, Mirhit should have some free time now; he should start gathering information about the nations to the south, and hopefully, he has the reach to start spying on the Queen''s nation. Hopefully, she won''t actually be a competent ruler, and we could perhaps spark a few rebellions so she would finally understand that she should focus on her own country. After that, I got back to work, and I was quite pleased that working seemed to actually help me recover faster. chapter 350 I needed to take a break from harvesting, as I was needed for an experiment. The portal engineer working on energy-type portals had finally finished a small, one-person version that he had just finished building between our capital and the regional capital of the new land we conquered. The town designated as a regional capital was at the mouth of a large river and against the sea. Currently, the portal was built in a warehouse, but this was just a temporary measure. Eventually, we would have a full-sized one that could transport more than just one person per trip next to the mana-type portal. When I walked in, there were a lot of people working, but many stopped and looked at me, including the portal engineer. "Rich, you made it. Good afternoon, and we''re ready to start in just a few minutes. Come over here so I can explain a few things," he said while motioning me to get closer to the portal. I''ll be honest, the design didn''t inspire much confidence that this thing could actually work. There were bands of metal with runes on them that were exposed, and there were sparks of energy flying off acting sort of like electricity. "You see this black square box that''s away from the portal a little bit? You see, it''s connected to it, and from this, you channel energy into the whole structure. Currently, it needs a lot of energy to work, and it can only be from a singular source, although the druids have some interesting techniques which I am learning from.¡± ¡°This is the main reason I found why the research in energy portals hasn''t gone further; they''re just too expensive to run. But I¡¯m confident I can get that number down by a lot. I just need to gather data, and I know that you could power this all by yourself." He continued to talk, but it became a lot more technical after that. He honestly acted and sounded exactly like a mad scientist. This brought a smile to my face, but I did have to hold up my hand so he would stop. "Everything you''re saying sounds interesting, but I will be honest, most of this went over my head. Let''s perhaps get started?" He immediately nodded too fast and too many times, "Of course, of course, sorry, I get sidetracked. Just place your hand on this and start channeling energy into it, slowly to start with," he finished, with a hint of panic in his words. Good thing he told me because I think I was just about to break this thing. Starting slowly was not just beneficial to the device but to me as well, as expending a lot of energy still hurt like hell. It was fascinating to watch the runes light up with my energy sight and see how they transformed and changed energy as it passed through, creating complex patterns, and when over half of my energy pool was channeled into it, the portal opened up, connecting the two towns. Fortunately, I didn¡¯t need to go through this, but a volunteer did. As soon as he stepped through, only a second later, the portal closed and a few runic bands melted. Immediately, everyone seemed to rush towards a section of the warehouse where communication items were held. Stolen story; please report. "He''s here, safe and sound," came from one of these items, and everyone cheered. Originally, they wanted me to power the portal multiple times, but since it needed fixing, I didn¡¯t need to do that. When I told them how much energy it actually took, they were all quite surprised. It did at least explain to them why some of the runic bands melted, as they weren''t meant to handle so much energy. Expanding energy was extremely exhausting and quite painful. Fortunately, I didn¡¯t need to use much energy while harvesting. There was still a lot to harvest. Things started to move faster as more and more soldiers made it back here. We would have wanted them to rest, but getting the food from the fields to the storehouse was a higher priority, especially because even I could now smell the rain that was coming towards us. We finished with four days to spare before the true rain started, and after meditating a little bit, thanks to my true nature connection, I knew the next two months were going to be extremely wet. A week after the harvest, we started the burials. We did them whenever the rain was not so bad, but most of the time, it was still raining. I stood beside every grave as the people who knew them said goodbye to their loved ones or friends. It made me sad and angry whenever we only buried a stone square with the soldier''s name on it and a little bit more information about what they had achieved or a message from their loved ones. It was always sad, but I was surprised how little anger there was towards me. It was something I wasn¡¯t used to but found it comforting. To my surprise, the saddest funerals weren¡¯t the ones with grieving families; they were the ones where no one showed up. It was just me and usually only four other people who dug the grave and placed the body or the stone inside the grave. Usually, grave markers for these graves also only had the name of the soldier and sometimes only the date of their death, as not even their date of birth was known. It was a failing on our part, and something we were already working on fixing. Never again will a grave marker have so little on it. Because of the rain and because we needed to bury so many, the road to the Forest of Remembrance had gotten quite muddy. So, with currently no other pressing job, me and a few others started to make a paved path to the Forest of Remembrance. I worked the most, as now I could be up for two days straight without having to sleep. During the day, I still mostly stood beside a grave where a fallen soldier was being buried. This took quite a while. During this time, in the center of the forest in the large clearing where there was already a huge stone with many names on it for our previously fallen, two new large stones had been brought here, and unfortunately, all three were quite full of the names of the fallen. The final ceremony in this clearing was hard, as standing and listening to all the names was one of the hardest things I have done, but I stood strong and held back my tears. It was the last thing that I could offer, a promise that I will remember and never release them from my heart. When everything was finally over, winter was a month away. Instead of focusing on myself or my skills, I decided to dedicate the winter to my apprentices. I would get to know them better and continue to give advice that would hopefully help them in the future. As the days and months went by, not only did I feel like I was giving my apprentices a proper amount of my time, but I was also getting slowly better. The world, however, didn''t stop on my account, and we did have to fight against a few weaker monster hordes from broken dungeons. The world at large was in a state of disarray because the wars during the summer were quite devastating, but I didn¡¯t think that they would stop. Fortunately, there were only the southern kingdoms to worry about, and more than half of them couldn''t even declare war on us because of the treaty with the queen. The other half could declare war in the future, and if any of our nations stood alone, I would guess they would declare war, but all three of us were actually quite fearsome. We were all a little bit afraid of what was to come because next year the largest project was to connect the two parts of our nation. The new people there wanted all of us dead not long ago. We weren''t certain how the regular populations would mix if they came into contact, but we hoped it wouldn''t be too bad. One thing that was good was that our nation was already made up of so many different peoples that there was a good chance that it would not be so bad, and over time, I think it will get better. Thanks to the influx of gold we got from the queen, we were able to finally get similar locations opened up as we do in Verdia. Because of so many wars, we were going to start bringing in a lot of refugees next year. We would need a lot of people to fill our nation, even if we weren¡¯t planning on having huge population centers and a lot more smaller communities. Still, the piece of land we owned was large and mostly uninhabited. chapter 351 After the funeral, things quieted down quite a lot, especially because of the constant rain. While being home was nice, I couldn¡¯t hide away much longer without attending to my other duties. Teaching was quite relaxing, and it seemed that even more people wanted me to teach them energy control, especially to acquire the energy storage stat. I looked at my achievement page with a bit of sadness. During the war, I was a bit too busy, and afterwards, I hadn¡¯t noticed, but I didn¡¯t receive my achievement for getting the three main stats to the 3500 milestone, which would have normal given me access to the third tier of energy. It turns out there was a reason for that. Apparently, you can only get the achievement if you don''t put too many free stat points into the three main stats during one rank. If you did, you would only gain access to the next rank of energy and wouldn''t get the free stat points or the achievement. I was a bit disappointed about this. Okay, not a bit disappointed, I was really disappointed, but it was necessary. If that bastard had realized he had achieved rank three and I was still at rank two, things could have gone a lot differently. Apparently, getting the higher achievements for most was basically impossible. There were only so many stat points you could gain, and everyone would eventually reach the limit of the stat points you could gain from a class. My train of thought was interrupted when the few final students left my classroom, and I started to follow them out. During the war, it became abundantly clear that the energy storage stat was incredibly useful for an army, as it kept us in the fight a lot longer and allowed us to deal our maximum damage for longer than should be normal. Because of that, gaining this stat would be mandatory for every army personnel. I, of course, couldn¡¯t teach everyone, especially as time went on. So, as I reached my office, I quickly finished the little bit of paperwork that had piled up during the day and then started to write my second book. The first one that I gave to the goblins had become quite popular, not only with them but with the people of the United Freeholds as well. It turns out that during the war, when goblins helped patrol and keep the monster population down in the nearby lands, they also struck a deal to copy the book I gave them. Apparently, the goblins were quite happy to get the book copied for free, but the bookseller could also sell it to anyone else. I could see problems with that deal, especially how the bookseller could be left with the better end of the deal, but it seems that both sides were quite happy. So, not only was I not going to interfere, but I think I wouldn¡¯t have interfered even if the deal was bad for the goblins, as they would need to learn to be more careful. The second book I was writing detailed the steps, different exercises, and my personal experiences and comments from how to start with energy control and detailing the path all the way to gaining the energy storage stat. Of course, there''s a lot more to learn about energy and how to control and manipulate it, but if I were to start writing that down, I think I would do it in another book. This one would already be quite thick. Because of this, I was going to name this book ¡®Beginner''s Guide to Energy Control and Manipulation.¡¯ The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. There are already many books with the same name, but the quality of those books is not judged by their names but by their authors. And I hope that in the future, whenever someone is looking for a book like this, the first recommendation they would get would be to find one that has my name on it. The weather continued to be rainy, but now it also started to become colder. It was interesting how time flew by when you start to get comfortable and into a routine. This Monday was also like that, as I was completely caught off guard when my secretary announced that I had a development meeting in two hours. The last time we spoke of this meeting was months ago; how was it already happening? I looked down at the book that I was working on; it was about halfway done, but I was quite happy with the outcome, and actually writing things down helped me refine my teaching methods even more and give me some different perspectives. The meeting started quite normally. The beginning was like every other Monday meeting: a summary of the current situation, how much food we had left, and if anything significant had happened. It was business as usual, but I was glad to hear that the hunting efforts were going well, allowing us to stay ahead of our food minimum projections. Life generally was quite good in the United Freeholds, and I was incredibly happy everything kept working well. "Now that the regular part of the meeting is over, let''s start talking about the longer goals we have," David said, as he was currently leading the meeting. He continued after a small pause. "The capital is already overpopulated, and in the new territory we gained, the villages and towns there are also quite full. We also have a need for quite a lot of basic, and well, let''s be honest, every resource we can get our hands on. So the plan is to start quite a few small villages near important resources, probably in places where there''s more than one important resource." David then pulled out a map that wasn''t as large as in the war room, but it still covered a large table we all sat around. "We have an incredible need for food, lumber, and metal, but other needs that are quite high are glass, clay, coal, textiles, and stone.¡± ¡°For stone we already have a quarry that''s good enough, but as we know, we plan on making multiple regions that are under the protection of different legions, and every one of those needs a fortress. Transporting all that stone across our nation would not be advisable, so local quarries would need to be made." David could talk quite fast if he wanted to, but fortunately, we were all used to him speaking so fast, especially when he got excited about something. He pulled out a bag that was filled with different wooden miniatures, with different ones for each of the resources, villages, outposts, legion headquarters, and even for dungeons. He started to place them on the map while everyone watched. The end result was quite impressive, as I hadn¡¯t even realized we had so many possible places to gain those resources. "Of course, some of the resources like lumber could be gained in hundreds, even thousands of different places, which is why I haven¡¯t placed any of the miniatures representing things that we can build.¡± ¡°We now need to come up with where we want to focus our efforts. We should also take into account that we will not be able to accomplish all of this in one year, so we need to prioritize. The most important being lumber and farmland," David finished explaining his thought process. We all silently observed the map, and as soon as someone gave their opinion, the arguing started. I let them continue while I looked at the map. This was not just the map of the United Freeholds land we currently owned, but also the agreed-upon lands that we divided amongst the three nations. It was a stupendously large area, and we would need to focus a lot of our efforts in a few corners, as otherwise we would be spread too thin. "We have a less than stellar road connecting us with our allies that will need to be fixed. A part of this route will also lead to our newly gained holdings that will also need a road. When the road will split in two different directions. The one going to our new holdings will need to go past that dam we built.¡± ¡°All along the roads are quite excellent farmlands, not to mention the forests there. The only thing missing would be the metals," I said while I stood up and pointed to two different spots on the map. This helped bring the discussion from a straight-out argument to a more productive one. It didn¡¯t, however, take long for everyone to agree with the basic plan, but the locations of everything were still quite hotly debated. There was also a problem of metals, and quite a lot of people wanted to go quite a ways to the West. The mountains that bordered our land towards the West had different metal deposits all over the place, but toward the very edge of our land, there were incredibly rich veins that seemed to go very deep. I allowed the others to continue to argue about the farms and the lumber villages while I tried to figure out a way to safely get metals. The problem was that it was quite far West, well outside the legion stationed at the capital to properly defend. There was a reason why we needed to make different regions that would be under different legions, as getting an army to a location took time, and if someone was raiding, they would have plenty of time to steal everything and get safely away. We, however, didn¡¯t have the manpower or resources to build another long road this year and also safeguard a place so far away. I knew there was a solution on the map; I just needed to figure it out. chapter 352 "You know, there is no reason why we have to make larger villages. It could be more efficient to have even smaller ones, but more of them. It would be especially good for forestry, as this way we wouldn''t harvest too much in a single location," one of those who was in charge of resource management for the nation said. That sounded interesting, and perhaps the same thing could be done with the mines. I started to look more at the singular metal veins found which were good enough and a lot closer to the capital. "While I would agree with you, the problem would be processing that lumber. If we made the villages smaller, there would be no way the sawmills that we would need to make in every village would be worth it. Most of the time, they simply wouldn''t have enough lumber to work even half a day," David said, after which a small silence followed. "There is also another problem. After our survey, we found that the entire length of the river to the forest, which was about 5 to 40 kilometres depending on the location, just doesn''t have that much wind. The sawing mechanics or even milling mechanics would need to be operated manually, or we would need to build water-based mechanical power converters, but to be honest, the river isn¡¯t that fast-moving," the only dwarf in this meeting explained, who was also one of the head engineers of our nation. "Now that''s certainly a problem. This would disrupt the smaller villages'' plan as we would have wanted them to be more spread out. This would cause quite a lot of logistics problems, and of course, guarding all these places would be troublesome," David added, and they continued to discuss. For mining, that wouldn''t be too much of a problem, and while a larger foundry would be more efficient, with the abilities people have, processing the metals, even if it''s a small operation, shouldn''t be any problem. Mines like these are also a lot more defendable; they¡¯re basically small fortresses if we make them similarly to the one iron mine we already have. A brief silence emerged as everyone was thinking, and the dwarf was the first to speak. "You know, we don''t actually need that much processed lumber. Most of the buildings for the villages would use the entire log, as making them into planks and building a framed house would actually make the building a lot weaker, and it would need repairs more often. Our main use for the processed lumber is for some of the town-level buildings and for the furniture makers. What if we made a larger settlement specifically for this, and I have a perfect location for it." The dwarf pointed his finger directly towards the dam we had built. He explained his plan a little bit more. I liked the idea of using the dam to power larger facilities that could handle the workload of 10 smaller ones. Like this, we should also be able to improve them to perhaps even process higher-ranked lumber. Whatever the case, that place was also a good location for a settlement as it was a midway point between the regional capital and the actual capital. Eventually, the time came when we started to discuss metal resources. I explained to them my idea of not using the best location right now but smaller ones closer by that would be easier to defend. Their location would also be quite hard for an enemy to reach without us being able to get there first, as they were quite deep inside our borders. And while there was a chance some monsters could come over the mountain, it was something we couldn''t do anything against except for regular patrols. This world was just too dangerous to guarantee complete safety. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. By the end of the discussion, we finished the next year''s expansion plan. We would be adding 24 villages or outposts, with a total population of all of those totaling up to about 3000. That would include their workers and their families. For this project, we would also be leveraging the legion, as it meant a lot of building. The legion would also be helping with the roadmaking, but even with our best estimates, it would take a year or two after this year before we¡¯re finished. While most of our workers were superhuman, it was still a lot of road to be made. The next few days went by quite fast, and while we had made the expansion plan, it would take a lot more work to actually start executing it and prepare the needed resources and manpower. While walking towards my office from a tavern that had especially good fish dishes, I noticed quite a lot of children huddled around a bench, discussing animatedly about something. I was quite curious, so I tried to see what was going on, but as soon as one of them noticed me, he started to poke another child until he got annoyed enough to look away from whatever they were discussing. But when he saw me, his eyes went wide as well, and he started to do the same thing that was done to him. It was such a strange scene that I actually stopped talking and continued to observe. It didn''t take long for all of them to be looking at me, and I was actually starting to get kinda creeped out. I decided it was time to leave, but before I could take a complete step, one of the children burst out of the center of their group and ran towards me at full speed. "Rich, would you please sign this?" the young child said while holding what seemed to look like a playing card. His eyes looked so excited, and after my brain recovered from the shock, I took the card while trying to think how I could sign it. The back of the card had an interesting design, but my brain short-circuited when I saw the other side of it. It looked like a trading card, like from the popular card games back on Earth, but the image was eerily similar to me. It was like someone had drawn a picture of me from behind while I was in my full armor, and even the two-handed weapon seemed to look like the one that I have. ¡®A Defiant Stand of a Broken Veteran.¡¯ That was the name of the card, but the description was eerie: ¡®There is nothing more dangerous or inspiring than a truly seasoned veteran who has chosen to stand against unbeatable odds. While most finally find their salvation and get to die on the battlefield, Rich Dirt will defy those odds.¡¯ ¡®Activating this card gives a morale debuff and a damage debuff to all enemies with the sentient classification. It also gives a morale boost to all soldier-type cards on your side of the field.¡¯ What the hell was this, and why was my name here? "This is my first rare card. I got it just before we left Verdia. My mother was quite angry that they used the last of my allowance, but when I told her how much this card was worth, she at least gave me a little bit of dinner.¡± ¡°Still, it was so worth it. I can¡¯t believe that I actually got a rare card. Best of all, it turned out that the newest release also features you. It''s said that whenever someone gets a card made of them, it means that they are worth watching." The child was so excited that he just continued to talk and talk, sometimes in a completely random direction, but I let him speak as I needed to understand what was happening. "I am so glad I found these cards; they¡¯re so interesting, but playing the game is actually super hard.¡± ¡°You know that they have been around for more than 50 years; some people are really too good at it, and they have such good cards." Well, that was an interesting piece of information. On the bottom right, there was a symbol which was probably the company that made them. "Where do you want me to sign it? Can you still use it if I do?" That made the child stop speaking, and a frown came to his otherwise happy face. "Hmm, maybe the backside... no, then I can¡¯t play with it. Over the description? No, then the other players could say that he can¡¯t read the description properly, but that shouldn''t matter. No, I can¡¯t risk it. Do it over the picture, but don''t make the lines too thick. I like the picture." I involuntarily chuckled a bit. I then pulled out my special pencil that David gave me. The ink wouldn''t come off so easily; not even water would be able to get rid of whatever you write with this. My signature wasn¡¯t long or complicated, something I was glad I decided on, as there were sometimes a lot of things that I needed to sign. Of course, forging my signature would not be that easy, as I made a specific signature with my energy when I wrote. My signature allows others to confirm that it was me and making forging it a lot more difficult. When I gave the card back, I wanted to ask a few questions, but the child almost immediately ran off. At least I was able to get his name, so I could later find him and ask more about this company that made the cards. I was quite certain that the image was taken from this war, and I was quite curious about how someone was able to get their hands on it. But with so many abilities in this world, who knows what possibilities there were. I was almost certain that whoever made it, wasn¡¯t from this world, but this wasn''t a priority, and I should have time later on to explore this new discovery. chapter 353 I was sitting cross-legged in the watchtower that was close to the barn and the main house. It was currently snowing, as it always was. The rainy season technically didn¡¯t end; it just transformed into a snowing season. Never in my long life have I seen so much snow before. If things kept going like this, every house would be completely buried. Next to me was a ballista, not built by me but by a branch of our military. The most interesting thing about this weapon was that it was not just built by humans or dwarves, but also by two goblins who expressed interest in joining this division that built the siege weaponry. They were accepted after we consulted with the goblin council, and they gave their approval for this. Our presence at the swamp dungeon reduced the goblins'' defensive needs by a huge margin, and with the understanding we have with the rock creatures off the nearby mountain, things have gotten a lot safer around here. Of course, now we only have to worry about a few monsters thanks to the snow, but we are always on watch for the flying monsters or beasts because so much snow means that they would be having a much harder time finding food. They were the main reason why such extensive underground storage solutions were developed around these parts. My own root cellar also had those devices now, keeping the humidity and temperature at the perfect range and helping keep everything fresh for as long as possible. I kind of want to extend that place, as it seems that my collection of interesting mutated seeds keeps expanding. Most of the time, I actually have no idea what those changes are, and while I could meditate and try to find out every single one, it would honestly take longer than just planting and seeing what comes of them. Of course, if I didn¡¯t have anything else to do, it would be faster, but I can have quite a busy schedule. Behind me, towards the smithy, was my latest building. My bow workshop, while finished, was currently almost empty of any equipment needed to actually help with the process of making bows and arrows. I still couldn¡¯t do anything too extraneous, especially in the energy department. Although I did want to test out my new ability I got for reaching advanced rank in masonry, thanks to the route I helped build into the forest of remembrance. My body was actually healed now, although I still needed to continue exercising to get the kinks out of everything. The most troublesome, and something that still gave me phantom pains, was my left arm, but doing exercise is slowly fixing that. The biggest problem still remaining was my energy overuse, and I really needed to be careful. Using energy for attacking and the other abilities I had used was easy, but if I didn¡¯t stop and I wasn¡¯t letting myself get back to normal, using energy for anything else would become crippling. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! It was frustrating because everything I did, from heavy exercise to crafting, used a lot of the same abilities and a similar way of using it, so everything interesting currently was something I couldn¡¯t do. It was so limiting that I hadn¡¯t even realized how much I was leaning on abilities and energy to do everything in my life. Slowly, I have come to appreciate, especially in the last week, how doing things without the boost of energy can be quite rewarding. For example, exercising that I have now started to do. It''s definitely not straining my muscles enough or even exhausting me completely, and while I do some general body exercises, I have started to do slower, more deliberate movements that strain me in a different way. Because of this, I pulled up my achievement page and looked at my logging skill which had been at level 19 for quite a while. Now, I was pretty sure I knew why I hadn¡¯t been able to break through to the next rank. How is it skillful to just chop down a tree with a single cut? The answer was, it wasn¡¯t; it was brute forcing it. That was the plan for the immediate future. Right now, however, I enjoyed how the sun was slowly rising from the horizon, especially because the snowfall had been getting weaker and weaker over time. It was going to be a beautiful day that was going to have a different kind of difficulty. After another hour of sitting and watching, I got up, stretched a bit, and then prepared the gear that I would need. There would be no bringing the fallen trees back; that would need to be done after the winter. My destination lay just over the small hills towards the Iron Oak and the forest that lay between that and my home. It was still my land, but currently, I wasn¡¯t looking for the best trees or the largest; I was looking for old trees that were already half hollow and only still kept barely alive by their stubbornness. There were also trees falling onto newer ones that were yet to fully find their resting place on the ground. All of these trees were going to be difficult to purposely fell in a way where they wouldn''t hurt the surrounding trees, or at least as little as possible. The first I found was a tall birch tree that was currently at about a 70¡ã angle as it had fallen and was currently supported by its neighbor by a few strong branches. The first thing I needed to do was clean up the snow. When that was done, I could examine the base of the tree better. It seemed that it was pushed over by a storm as half of its roots were out of the ground. I began chopping, making precise cuts with my axe so I would weaken one side of the tree and so it would start to roll when the rest of the tree started to break from the weakening. I didn¡¯t only need to use my strength but an exact amount of it, as even without using energy, my body was incredibly powerful. My attempt was partially successful; as the tree started to fall once again, it rolled but only a little bit before the base touched the ground once again. It was supported by a particularly strong and unfortunately curved branch from the other tree. What followed was me climbing the other tree and chopping off that particular branch, which finally made the original tree fall to the ground. My smile was quite wide, and after trimming the branches, I moved on to the next one. The next one was quite literally the largest and oldest pine tree I had ever seen. It was already completely hollow from the inside, and I didn¡¯t even see any healthy branches. It was already going to come down as the winds and the snow had already started to twist its body, and I could already hear the groans whenever the wind blew through this area. I approached it and laid my hand on it, and I could barely feel life. It was only still standing because it didn''t know anything else to do. It was so weak, yet it could still feel the pain of its body being twisted. "I will make it as fast as I can, but even then, it will take you a while before you finally die," I said. My axe fell heavily and bit deep. I was yet again reminded of how loud trees could be. It only took one more strike before I needed to dodge a falling branch and then get further away as the tree started to twist and then fall. The noise it made when it fell was loud, yet the silence felt louder after it fell. I don¡¯t know how long this tree had been here, but it was certainly one of the older ones in this part of the forest. I decided to look around a little bit more but only found a singular pine cone from the only branch that still had a little bit of color on it. "You''re coming with me," I said, and after a little bit of just waiting, I moved on to the next tree. chapter 354 It took me three more trips into the forest before I was finally able to rank up my logging skills. To complete this task, it still took me over a week, as I truly had quite a lot of responsibilities, especially after what happened yesterday with my dungeon. Yet, I had still not picked an ability from the three I was offered. This was the first time I was truly uncertain as to which one of the three offered I should pick. Lumber Grading Eye, Energy Chain, Barkskin. Three choices, each had their merit in picking. Yet, all of the three abilities I could already accomplish, and not just decently enough, but proficiently. Lumber Grading Eye was something that could give me perhaps better long-range capability for seeing unique trees. On my own land, it was a moot point because, through my map ability combined with many others, I could accomplish all of that while sitting in my living room. Now, I didn¡¯t know how precise this ability was, but I doubted it could give me more information than I could already get by placing my hand on a certain tree. Not to mention that I could also see uniquely changed materials, not from far away, but still at a decent distance, and while I wouldn¡¯t have the details from range, I could still see them. Energy Chain was interesting, as I could see the utility for them, not just for combat but for everyday tasks around the homestead as well. But I could already accomplish similar things with my current energy manipulation. Of course, not as fast or precise, but for the needs around here, it certainly wasn''t a requirement. For battle, it would make sense to get the ability, but I had so many combat-capable abilities that I simply couldn¡¯t use in battle because I haven¡¯t trained enough with them, and this would just add another one. Barkskin was something I was familiar with because it was quite a common defensive ability. It would certainly boost my defenses even further, yet there was a downside of it making my skin harder, which would hamper flexibility. I could see situational uses for this ability, but overall, I have learned it¡¯s better to dodge an attack, especially something rank two or above can dish out. This left me with a difficult choice to make, as none of the abilities were bad in any way, especially if looked at in a vacuum, but for me, they actually weren''t the best choices, any of them. I spent hours thinking about this, but eventually, the time came to meet up with Tim and Val. The dinner service was quite busy in the inn, but we had our own table, and after dinner, we started to play a little bit of poker, just for copper coins. Not being able to make a choice finally drove me to desperation, so when Tim shuffled the cards, I decided to get this over with. If Tim won, I was going to pick the Lumber Grading Eye; if Val won, I was going to pick bark skin; and if I won, I was going to pick energy chain. We were playing Texas hold''em, and the two cards that I got were both aces. Tim got a pair of nines. When both of us were left by the end of this hand, I won myself 20 coppers and a new ability, energy chain. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. I felt myself unwind after that. Sometimes, it''s best to leave decisions up to fate. And of course, I still had my two luck points from the rabbit foot drop I got from my own dungeon, which was currently connected to my hydra necklace. Usually, adding stat point items together shouldn¡¯t work like that; you couldn¡¯t just add stuff to other items, but it was the most basic of basic drops, so I was still able to get the two luck points. There was, of course, a reason why there were so many people on a random Wednesday in the inn. My dungeon had finally gotten a new floor. It wasn''t anything special, and I certainly couldn¡¯t use it as I had well outgrown the dungeon, but there were a lot of people quite happy about this, as this was the second strongest dungeon we currently had access to. Well, that wasn''t quite right; we could use the dungeons on our allied lands, and we did actually get a few more dungeons from the occupied land, but the best could only rival my dungeon, and overall, it was a bit weaker. One of the reasons it took so long to grow was my fault. It didn''t have many creatures to work with, and since we were extremely careful and no one had died, it also didn''t have any other materials to use for traps and things like that. That¡¯s where I had been for the first half of today, in a meeting to discuss the expansion packages we were going to give dungeons. Of course, some parts of these packages would need to be tailored for a certain dungeon, as every one of them started to show their own quirks. While currently it was still in its infancy. The dungeon management was going to grow into a branch of government all on its own. While continuing to play the game, it was nice to hear the excited voices of so many different people who had gone into the dungeon or would in the following days. We had quite an open dungeon policy, but if you weren¡¯t in the military or a part of the adventurers, you needed to go through evaluation to see if you could get permission to go to a dungeon, and if you did, you just had to reserve a time slot. If needed, people like that might have to hire a chaperone as well. Of course, there was also an age limit, and anyone under the age of 12 who didn''t have their achievement page open couldn¡¯t go, nor could they join the military, although we did encourage them to go to the school. There were talks about giving training lessons from the legionaries to younger people who wanted to get a head start in learning these kinds of things. Mainly, the training would consist of physical exercise, but also energy control and some weapon training. This was a dangerous world, after all, and anyone who was willing should be given the best chance at succeeding. There was a deeper plan connected to this as well, but that was a longer-term plan that would need a lot more homesteaders, but eventually, it should change quite a lot. What followed was quite a nice evening where I won almost 200 coppers. I pushed the coins towards Val to put on my tab. "I¡¯m starting to get annoyed; if this keeps going, you won''t ever have to pay for anything,¡± Val commented. And after a moment, all three of us laughed. Now that my short-term goal was achieved with the logging skill, I opened my achievement page once again and started to look at what my next goal should be. There were a few skills on the edge, but many of them would require me to be able to use energy without hurting myself. There were quite a few skills not like that, like animal care, but that was more of a long-term skill that would take a while. It wasn¡¯t too hard to do. If I had more animals, it would go faster. Finally, a long-forgotten skill jumped out at me. Basic bone carving was something I hadn¡¯t done for quite a while. If I wanted to get past the basic rank fast, there would be a need to use energy, but the skill wasn''t going to need anything special. It only needed a little bit of dedication and time to get it to rank up. I started off simple, making some arrowheads, and it was quite nice to just work in a cozy room and chat with Tim while he practiced his own skills. Time flew by quite fast, and before I knew it, I had achieved basic bone carving level 8, and there was just a week before the winter solstice. That meant it was time to put down my crafting, as I needed to be more present in the capital than before. It was shaping up to be a tamer celebration, as many were still mourning, and we didn''t have so much food to throw around. I still suspected it was going to be a nice day, and of course, at night, I was going to go back home and enjoy a lovely sauna with a few of my friends. chapter 355 With so much snow, it was difficult to keep in contact with the new villages and towns towards the east. The one that was connected with the portal was easy to contact and helped them prepare for the winter solstice like we were doing in the capital. Yet, the villages were quite far away, and getting to them would require at least first-rank people. The choice of who to send was hard; we didn''t want to send people who had fought directly against their soldiers. We also didn''t want to separate families, as this was one of the most important celebrations in this world. We did eventually find enough people, and they were also designated to visit those places every so often to get more on-the-ground reports and not just the ones written into the connected books every one of the village and town leaders were given. Of course, we had some bugs that looked after our new holdings, but even they were affected by the weather. What also didn¡¯t help was Mirhit''s focus on the Queen''s domain. We should still have a score to settle with her, but we needed to be careful and work from the shadows on that front. The morning of the winter solstice came late, but that was to be expected as this was the darkest day of the year. But when the sun did shine, it was truly a winter wonderland. The snow had been cleared from the town, but everything was still white, especially the rooftops. In the air, there was a scent of baked sweets and bread. It was a delightfully mixed aroma, yet every so often, as the winds changed, you could smell wonderful foods being cooked. Multiple music groups, located in different locations, provided constant background music, and for a moment, I could imagine myself back on Earth, bringing my children to a Christmas festival not too far off from what was currently around. Of course, then someone used some sort of ability that was flashy enough to get my attention, and the fantasy broke. What was a bit funny, although also scary, was that the walls currently weren''t providing any defense, as outside the town the snow was almost level with the top of the wall. The snow was soft enough that it could only support a few kilograms before something would break through and fall quite deep. If I could push my energy right now into making myself as light as possible, I could walk on the snow. When I discovered that I could do this, it really opened up the winter season to me, and I felt quite limited without being able to do this safely. But fortunately, it was only for this winter. As for the next, I shouldn¡¯t have any problems once again walking on snow. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. That made me realize that I hadn¡¯t seen skis. There were definitely sleds, and many children were currently pulling other children on small sleds, but I hadn''t actually seen skis. That was something that I needed to fix, especially for the army, as I did remember how much that helped Finland in the Winter War. What about ice skates? Yet, when I thought back, I didn¡¯t actually know how they worked. There was no way that just metal would work; it would have too much friction. Now, I did remember that they were sharpened, but they never looked like the edge was like a sword edge. Well, that¡¯s kind of disappointing. Still, I had got my notebook and made an entry to bring this up in a meeting sometime in the future. Perhaps we could figure this out, as I felt it would be a nice pastime and perhaps a hobby for some. As time continued to march forward, the different foods started to get ready, and the stalls one by one started to open. I stayed back for a little while as the first stalls to open were quite crowded, but eventually, things settled down a bit, and it was time to start taste-testing all the wonderful food. Of course, I only took a little bit. Couldn¡¯t be the one to break the rule of not consuming too much. The speech was nice and thoughtful. Fortunately, I didn¡¯t need to give one, but I clapped and cheered along with everyone else. The music groups that had been spread around before were now on the stage, giving a combined concert for everyone gathered. I didn¡¯t know any of the music pieces, but they were lovely enough, although I did kind of start missing the music I liked, the old classics, and the ancient ones. When it started to get dark, many lanterns and other light-giving devices were activated that made the entire town look even more magical. It was a wonderful time, and as the night continued, more stalls started to give out hot beverages, and they truly were wonderful. Yet, it was time for me to leave. When I got home, I needed to make quite a few fires in the main home and in the sauna. Tim joined me a few hours later, as he had also been in the capital but also stepped into the inn for a little while. "Val will be joining us a bit later. He¡¯s currently with his own family," Tim said when he walked into the sauna to find me sitting on the bench in the resting room and reading. We just talked about easy topics and played some cards. Eventually, Val joined, but he also brought his oldest son. "I thought he should also be shown the wonders of a sauna," he said, and I couldn¡¯t agree more. It was another wonderful evening, but this time there was no jumping into the river; the snow was a good second choice. Goose, unfortunately, couldn''t come inside as it would be too hot for him, but the resting room was just right. Eventually, Val¡¯s son got too tired, and Val took him home. It was already quite late, and after another half an hour, it was finally midnight. The next day would finally have a little bit more daylight than the previous one. After that, we all went to sleep, and it was honestly one of the most pleasant nights I have ever had. The next morning, however, it was time to get some chores done and then continue crafting with bones, as I only had two more levels before I ranked it up and got a choice of three abilities. This sort of system truly makes you want to push forward. It took me another month, but I did it. By the end of it, I wasn¡¯t making bone arrowheads but bone combs. The process was a little bit more involved. Using steam and pressure, you could flatten the horn. Afterwards, making larger items was possible. The choices I got were not the best, and from the three, I chose natural preservation. I couldn¡¯t test this thing out fully, but what it did was make natural materials have a longer lifespan. Not by infusing energy into them to keep them more stable, it just made them deteriorate slower in some other way. It was weird, but the abilities given by the system didn''t always work like you thought they would. I knew that there should be a way to learn how the ability actually did something, but currently, it was going over my head. Whatever the case, I was still quite pleased, especially when I found out I could use it on simple things like straw and make it last even longer. With this finished, it was time to find another goal. But before that, it was time to start shoveling snow again, as it simply doesn¡¯t stop coming down. chapter 356 It was time to get back to grinding, but I needed the skill to grind. I didn¡¯t have much free time currently, as I was busy training my own body, dealing with my responsibilities, and teaching my apprentices to the best of my ability. After looking through my achievement page, I found a skill that I hadn¡¯t used for quite a long time: basic alchemy. From the knowledge I have gained, I know that I could actually gain experience for this skill by brewing or distilling alcohol. Fortunately, I had Val, who had quite a large setup by now. He was more than happy to allow me to use some of his equipment. The process itself was familiar to me, as I had made different kinds of alcohols before. Unfortunately, it wasn''t the best season for beer or cider, but I did start to make mead and distill vodka out of potatoes. It didn''t take me long to gain a skill level, but unfortunately, the nation as a whole went into higher alert when Goose came back and reported a huge flock of giant birds flying towards us from the West, and unfortunately coming quite close before heading towards the South to find food. They were the birds why food stores were underground because if they smelled or saw anything that they could eat, they would swarm down and consume anything they got ahold of. We all had orders to stay inside and not even light any fireplaces, as the smoke might draw them in as well. I was keeping an eye out through my connection to the land, and I was actually quite terrified when I could finally see the flock on our land because it seemed never-ending, and while not all the birds were gigantic, none of them were smaller than Goose. The smaller ones often swooped down and dived into the snow, and while not always, most of the time started to ascend with their beaks bloodied from the rabbits they were able to get. Apparently, some of these birds had abilities that allowed them to locate prey even under the thick snow. That meant that our plan to hide the animals, mainly horses, in the capital underneath quickly built shelters, would not work because we didn''t build them like the houses, which seemed to be able to disrupt whatever ability they seemed to have. As soon as I saw the birds that had already successfully caught rabbits turn and head straight toward the capital, with a lot of other birds following them, I knew it was serious. Unfortunately, I will not be defending the capital on my own, although I should be able to if I weren¡¯t hurt. It would also be good for everyone else to start fighting without me, but I could at least help a little bit. I was one of the many who were under the watchtowers, and many were waiting inside houses that had roof access and a ballista that was placed on the roof. On top of me was also a ballista, a lot stronger than the standard ones built for the legion. Others that had ranged abilities were also strategically placed, waiting for their opportunity. We had, of course, hoped that we didn''t have to engage, but we weren¡¯t stupid enough to bet on that and had made quite a lot of preparations during the four days of early warning we had, thanks to a goose who had been purposely patrolling to find this flock of birds. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The birds flew straight towards the herd animals, but when they were close to getting in range, the defenders of the capital rushed out and manned the ballistas. This caused many of the birds to find new targets, but many didn''t survive for long. There wasn¡¯t an order for everyone to fire their ballistas at the same time. Because of that, there wasn''t a deafening sound of ballista fire, but a constant one. The birds were quite tough, but most of them weren¡¯t even first rank. The cries of the birds who were hit and started to fall unfortunately notified the larger flock that hadn''t turned towards us. Fortunately, not all of them turned to head towards here, especially the big ones; they just continued to head towards the South. But we still had approximately a thousand giant birds heading towards us, and we had only killed eleven. My ballista was a big one, but unlike the others, I wasn¡¯t using the crank to pull back the string; I was just using my pure strength and not using much energy to enhance it. Beside me, there were four helpers that supplied me with the bolts, and one who used one of his abilities to make the bolt fly faster. My aim wasn¡¯t perfect, but it was good enough, and even a wing hit that grounded the bird was good enough for now. Unfortunately, we didn''t have enough firepower to keep the birds from getting close, but we did have defenders with defensive abilities and some with attack abilities to keep the birds from attacking us directly. The birds, at least some of them, had long-range attacks. Whenever one was revealed to have this type of capability, the more powerful ranged fighters would engage them. Goose was one of the best we had in this regard, and he was using his ability to control the wind to the utmost and would most likely kill the most birds. Soon, the other birds realized one of their kind was attacking them, and soon a few of the stronger birds started to chase Goose. But he was fast and strong and was still able to do his job of engaging the birds who could fight at long range. The battle scene was still quite chaotic as the birds were swarming from every direction, and we were slowly losing people. A choice was made, and some of the animals were released and used as bait. This helped keep down the casualties as the birds often went for the easier targets. Many of the watchtowers were broken because of the larger birds who had been wounded fatally crashing into their last target. Many of the birds had defensive abilities, making regular arrow fire useless against them, and even ability-enhanced ones barely made it through the feathers. The arrows that impacted slowed them down, making them easier targets for ballista bolts to finish them off. The fighting was brutal, and after three hours, the 200 remaining birds abandoned their target and flew back towards the flock to catch up with the rest. We were left with many buildings damaged, multiple watchtowers broken, 40 defenders killed, and over 150 wounded. We also lost over 100 of our animals and had a lot of dead birds we needed to butcher. We were all exhausted, and after thinking about it a little bit, I realized I could have probably helped keep some of the damage down. But even if I could use everything I had, I think the birds would have still caused quite a lot of damage. What was good was that the birds froze quite quickly, especially because the days had been getting colder, but fortunately, the snowstorms had stopped happening. It was difficult to process the frozen corpses, but at least they would not go bad. My alchemy grinding was put on hold as I helped everyone else butcher the birds. It took about a month to get everything done, but when we finally finished, we had multiple warehouses full of bird bones, feathers, claws, and leather. Most of the meat would be processed by smoking and drying it, but currently, there were huge piles of meat just frozen next to the walls of the town. For the future, we were planning on fitting a lot more sturdier watchtowers, and not just at the edge of the wall, but all over the town. A lot more ballistas will be built in the future. We had survived another disaster, which could have been a lot worse if the main flock had actually come here. There were multiple rank 3 giant birds and even one rank 4, which meant that even if I was fully healed, I would have most likely not survived. This was a reminder of how dangerous this world could actually be, and the only way to be safe was to be stronger than anything else around. The houses were now fixed, but you could see quite clearly where the damage had been. We also had another large funeral but burning in the winter was a lot more difficult because of the snow and the frozen ground, but thanks to abilities, we managed. The entire last month was thoroughly exhausting, and I was glad to finally be back home and sleep in my own bed. chapter 357 The next week, I slowly got back into my routine, but I could feel my strained energy pathways. I had pushed myself a little too hard during the battle. Fortunately, I was able to hold myself back enough that it shouldn¡¯t affect my recovery time. Just in case, I took it extra easy during the butchering and with my current interest. Mashing up the potatoes was an interesting experience because if I could use energy, I would have been able to do it instantly. But now, I was cranking the shredder''s crank to slowly make the potatoes small for the first process of making vodka. The mead station, unfortunately, sat empty because there wasn¡¯t much honey to be had. There were only a few people who had abilities that helped with beekeeping, and it seems that because of that, in this world, they hadn''t developed smokers that would help calm the bees down like I was used to. It was also why our honey production was so low. To solve that problem, I already ordered some raw materials that I could use to start making the required tools and then the items for beekeeping so anyone could do it without having to have the abilities to do so. This was just the second batch of potatoes I was preparing. I had started one already and was ready for the next process. Distilling was quite simple, and I eagerly watched as the vodka slowly dripped out. It wasn¡¯t the best I¡¯ve ever made, as the setup I used to have on earth was a lot more sophisticated, but it was good enough to get me to another level. Now, it was once again time to wait as the potato mash I made got ready. In the smithy, we still had air pressure because the water wheel still worked. It was a hard job keeping the surrounding water from freezing, but every one of us ¨C Tim, my apprentices, even me ¨C chopped the ice near the water wheel to keep it from getting too close. The movement of the water wheel helped keep the ice from forming, and the movement of the river itself, but it still needed help. To not make this an empty job, my apprentice spent long hours in the smithy, practicing their skills and learning how to make and fix tools. Now, I joined them not just to teach but also to make my own tools, as I needed to make quite a few of them. Tin smithing used to be quite an important skill back on Earth; you could easily make a lot of shapes from it and have it be quite strong. From what I learned in this world, there were tin smiths here as well, but they weren''t that common. You also needed quite a lot of different tools for this, but I had the time to make them, and I didn¡¯t need to use my energy for this, as I would be mainly making items out of tin to help with farming, mainly gardening, and of course, beekeeping. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The process of making the tools was quite peaceful, even when there were a few apprentices always around me, whom I directed a little bit, but mostly we were just doing our work in silence or talking to each other, as they already knew what they were doing. For the metal of the tools and the anvils, I would be using the iron form the last harvest of the iron oak, mixing the different metal bars from the different sources of the tree to get the mix of steel I wanted. I did briefly think that perhaps I should try to make these tools into rank one tools, but that would require me to use energy, and a lot of it, and would mean that I would want to make rank one stuff with those tools, which I really didn¡¯t. Mainly, I would be making watering cans so we didn¡¯t need to use the wooden ones, and of course, for the main structure of the smoker that would help calm the bees down, I would also need some leather that was malleable so you could puff the smoke into the beehives. The weather outside was cold and getting colder, which meant that it wouldn''t be too long before it would start to get warmer once again, and it wouldn¡¯t be too long before spring would start. It would also mean that I would be once again a year older, and I didn¡¯t know what to think of it. I could feel how the time passed faster, and while I knew that it didn¡¯t, it certainly felt like it. I remember back on Earth when I started to just notice the time passing when it was time to celebrate Christmas or the summer solstice; otherwise, only birthdays made a small blip, otherwise time just flashed by. I didn¡¯t know what my current life expectancy was, but it was certainly in the centuries. What life would be like, I didn¡¯t know, but there was always a hope that I would be defeated in battle. The idea brought a proud smile to my face, although it seemed like my apprentices didn''t like that. I guess they had come to recognize this smile of mine; it probably signals another bad assignment for them was coming. Fortunately, this time they were lucky as I really didn¡¯t have anything truly heinous to give them. That made me feel a bit disappointed. How could I already be out of ideas? Fortunately, these apprentices would be graduating in a few months and starting their own homesteads, and that meant a new batch of apprentices that I could use the same tricks on was coming. Hopefully, in the coming years, I will collect enough of those ideas that I will never run into this problem again. Today, I had only finished five of the tools needed. It seems that without energy and my abilities, I could only work at a more normal pace, and my extra strength didn''t give me a lot of advantages as you couldn¡¯t hit with all your strength; otherwise, you would ruin the piece you were working on. A month flashed by fast. One side of this smithy that was previously empty was now filled with racks of different hammers. I had 12 of them meant for tin smithing, with 7 different small anvils that had a spiked end to fit into a bigger anvil, so I didn¡¯t need to use too much metal. I even made a few benders to make folding tin easier and extremely precise. I even made proper metal shears to cut the tin. When I will be able to use my energy properly, I will make new first-rank metal shears so I could cut even easier. Of course, these tools could also be used with silver and gold, and one of my apprentices did seem to like smithing with silver, so I wasn¡¯t the only one to use the new tools. It took me a few tries before I made a proper watering can, but when I finally finished one that was sturdy and waterproof, I received a new skill: tin smithing. Fortunately, this one also started at the basic rank, but I guess I did have some knowledge, although I never really did that back on Earth. Unfortunately, none of my other apprentices was interested in tin smithing. They already knew what they wanted to do, and perhaps in the future, another one of my apprentices would like to learn this skill. David liked the skill a lot, but not because he wanted to learn it. It was because otherwise, tin wasn¡¯t that useful of a metal for the nation, but now it might turn into an industry, which he was quite excited about. The only problem was we would need to find people who would be interested in that. Luckily for David, my next batch of apprentice slots were completely open, so if he found and I was compatible with the person, I would be willing to take on someone who would also be interested in tin smithing. chapter 358 While getting a skill level wasn¡¯t as impactful as it used to be, it still felt good. I had just leveled my basic tin smithing to level 3 after finishing the 10 bee smokers. I was running the test on the final one to see if it was working as it should. It wasn''t the perfect design because the metal parts got quite hot. And for the first time, it actually melted a hole through the bottom. To fix that, I needed to make the bottom, which was already meant to be taken apart so you could put in the burning material, out of iron, and that fixed the problem. I noticed that Tim was approaching, so I looked towards him to see a puzzled look on his face. "That looks like a curious device. What''s it for?" he asked. I smiled at him and started to explain. "I realized that we didn¡¯t have much honey while I was making mead," I said. To that, Tim nodded frantically. He quite liked the drink. "After doing some research, I found out that we didn¡¯t have a lot of beekeepers because a lot of people didn¡¯t have the abilities associated with this job." "However, I know of ways of beekeeping that wouldn¡¯t involve having abilities. This device helps calm the bees down so you wouldn''t be swarmed when you go to collect honey," I explained. To my words, Tim looked at the device with new appreciation. I could see gears turning in his head. "Well then, we will obviously need to get some beehives of our own. Should I get other beekeepers to help in getting bees and other necessary stuff?" I liked how eager Tim looked, but his question brought up some interesting points. It wasn''t hard for me to find wild beehives; it was actually something I could do while being at home and eating dinner, thanks to the ability I had. But seeking more information wouldn''t be bad. Also, testing out this device might also be quite unnecessary, as perhaps the bees here are not the same as back on Earth. "Well, we can¡¯t really test it during the winter, but would you be interested in working together on this project?" After my question, Tim immediately agreed. "It actually isn¡¯t all about the mead. I have always liked bees, but caring for them seemed a difficult job and something I didn¡¯t even know how to do. Now, however, you say that it should be possible to do it without any additional abilities with the help of that device. So, I can only say, should we get started right now?" It was nice to see someone as excited as me about this project. The rest of the day, we basically spent discussing and planning. Tim wasn¡¯t discouraged at all when I said that perhaps it wouldn¡¯t work on the bees as I expected. He was able to convince me that if regular smoke didn''t work, there was certainly some kind of smoke that would. He also quite liked the idea of us doing this mostly on our own but definitely agreed that the smokers, at least most of the prototypes, should be given to the current beekeepers so they could also test things out. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Honey was quite an expensive luxury otherwise, but Tim was quite certain that in the future, every home would have a jar of it. Apparently, Tim¡¯s favorite baked goods during the winter festival were the ones that had honey. It seems that I underestimated his love for it. I might actually need to fight a bit so I could actually do some beekeeping myself. Tim also volunteered, more like didn''t give me even the chance, of getting into contact with the other beekeepers. I did draw out the designs for the beehives I knew, but Tim was quite adamant in also finding out what kinds of beehives were used by the official beekeepers. "There is always something to learn from how others do things," he said to me, echoing back my own words I had once said to him. The smile he had after he said that made me want to give him unreasonable jobs, but he wasn''t my apprentice any longer; he was a part of my clan, and I really shouldn¡¯t do something like that to a clan member. The next day was also quite exciting, as I was able to finish another batch of vodka that allowed me to rank up my alchemy skill. The three abilities offered were unfortunate, as only one was something I couldn¡¯t do without a lot of effort; the other two were simply not necessary for me. Efficient extraction was an ability that I could use not only for alchemy but basically everything else crafting-related. While I could mimic this ability with my other stronger and more comprehensive abilities, it was one of the most recommended abilities to get if you did crafting. It would not only keep your costs down, but it would also help make your final product stronger. Unfortunately, again, I couldn¡¯t truly test this ability out, and I was really getting annoyed that it was taking so long to heal my energy body. This was something I needed to solve because if I kept putting stat points into my energy storage, I would have even more available energy to use which would make this situation even more likely. If something like that happened once again where I needed to use so much, even using potions to restore energy for a long period of time. It will cripple me fully even this time I came really close and I had a feeling that there would be times when I would need to do something like that again. So now, during nights when I didn¡¯t need to sleep, as I was slowly getting back to my previous sleeping schedule where I could stay awake for multiple days before I needed to sleep, I meditated. During those nights, I tried to use my true nature connection and my understanding of energy to figure out the solution. There were a few things I already wanted to test, but once again, I needed to wait until I could once again use everything I had. Like this, time passed. The weather slowly started to get warmer; eventually, it wasn''t below freezing, and the snow started to melt. That caused many problems, fortunately not for me, as my entire farm was on a gentler slope, and we only needed to make a few ditches to get the water towards the river. The rest of the nation was faring worse, but Francis was always there to help us. He was growing stronger and stronger and now could pull quite large devices that could make ditches that were quite big in one go. While we didn¡¯t see each other constantly any longer, Francis was quite enjoying his new life. There were always people around him helping him out. The jobs he did usually required a lot of people to help finish the job, like with the current job he was doing; there was a lot of relocating of dirt that needed to be done. From what some of the caretakers have told me, Francis will have a few more children coming this year. They''re hoping that some of his children would turn out like him, and I could honestly see the advantage in it. Yet, I thought that most of what he had been able to achieve was not because of his abilities or traits; it was because of who he was. Someone who truly likes to push himself and work hard. It was honestly quite lovely to see Francis be so respected. Of course, the wolves I helped raise were doing well enough, many having found their bonded people. If things continued like that, we would probably need to start making proper laws for smart animals, as I didn¡¯t just want creatures of this intelligence to not have representation. Of course, in this world, creatures who could help you survive were respected immensely. It was one of the things that I truly liked about this world; most of the time, animals were treated as part of the family, not like unfeeling servants. chapter 359 POV Rich I was absolutely mortified. I couldn''t believe I was sitting on a fancy chair on a stage, looking over a crowd of people. The snow had already melted, although it was a late winter this year. Still, the ground was now soft, and tomorrow we would all start preparing the old fields and making new fields for the future. At least one thing was good: no one starved, as we were able to ship all the extra meat we got from the bird attack to the needed places. So, why was I mortified? Those bastards had kept everything secret from me. That was something unpleasant, but I had promised myself I would not use my abilities to spy on others, especially because my connection to the land and the abilities that supported it notified me without me having to actually look if someone was betraying us. Yet, I didn¡¯t know if this was a betrayal. It was also my birthday. I was now officially 16 in this world. And no one was going to forget ever again that it was going to be my birthday because they had declared this day a national holiday: Dirt Day. Those sons of bitches, so clever. Of course, I immediately tried to call them out on it, but no, they were trying to convince me while smiling and trying to hold back laughter that no, it''s because it signifies the start of the spring and the work for the coming planting season. I think I wouldn¡¯t have been so angered if they had tried to hide the real reason a little bit better, even if I could see through it right away, but they were almost like mocking me. Oh, but I now understood. I see that they want to play games. I mean, I¡¯ve been nice to the army thus far, only training them a little bit for unknown situations. Yet, how could I have forgotten how important it is for government workers who could be targets for assassinations? How could they let their guard down? This needs to be fixed. For the first time since I heard what they were planning, a smile came to my face. Oh, it was on. POV David It has been a great few weeks. I don¡¯t even remember who came up with the plan, but everyone was on board almost immediately. I mean, he should have been ruling us from the beginning, but he didn¡¯t want that. But how could a nation not honor its heroes? Fortunately, I made sure that in the speeches we were going to have today that no one would actually mention that. We will mainly focus on the fact that it would be a day not just to remember rich dirt but also the black dirt that gives us life. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I was a bit saddened to have seen Rich so desperate and I almost called everything off. Rich eventually accepted that this national holiday was going to happen. Hopefully, he will cheer up a little bit. I saw a council member from the corner of my eye, and for some reason, he had turned white and was shivering a bit. What was wrong? As I continued to turn towards him, I could see the sweat forming on his forehead. That¡¯s troubling, and then I saw it. Immediately, my head snapped towards Rich. My mouth went completely dry, and I felt like I was going to fall, yet I couldn¡¯t because I was completely frozen. That smile, and then he looked towards me. Fuck, we shouldn¡¯t have done this. Oh no, we should not have done that. I was shaking now while looking towards the crowd. They didn¡¯t understand, but I saw the guards. Oh, I saw them, and I knew that they understood. That smile and that look, I¡¯ve only seen it a few times, but never directed towards me. I have seen what he has done to the guards. They called it the brown patrol because if Rich was training you to be alert, at some point you were probably scared enough to soil your own pants. I did not want that to happen to me. Perhaps I should visit one of our compounds in the larger cities. No, that¡¯s even more dangerous. My mind continued to run through scenarios, yet I couldn¡¯t find any escape. The worst thing was that I was hoping that he was going to pay me back as soon as possible, yet why did I believe that he would wait 50 years for revenge if he wanted to? Will I ever be able to relax, and if I do, will he be there? But no, that probably wouldn''t work either. I tried to swallow, but I couldn¡¯t; my mouth was still dry. Then I noticed they were signaling me; it was my turn to give a speech. Fortunately, the person who gave the speech before me stumbled and almost fell down when he noticed Rich. It was like I was underwater, and finally, someone reached their hand out to me and started to pull me out of the water. We were all in trouble, not just me. That should not have helped me, but it did; it made me feel so much better. I almost sighed out of relief, but I couldn¡¯t show it; it had already started. I can¡¯t let him know. POV Rich David was a crafty one, thinking I wouldn¡¯t notice how his heartbeat relaxed and continued to go down after he saw the council member stumble. He figured something out that made him less afraid. Well, good for him, but I had a lot of planning to do. That being said, I haven¡¯t used my stealth skills enough for quite a while, and this would be an interesting challenge. Just scaring them wouldn''t be enough; I want them to be as mortified as I used to be just a few minutes ago. Yet, there was time for all of that let them stew a bit longer before I start. There were some plans that needed to be realized. For one thing, relying too much on just growing food was not going to be safe enough. What if there was a disease, or more likely, some monster swarm that consumed most of the crops? No, a nation needed variety. For that reason, I was going to have more animals on my farm, and we should really start thinking of national herds as well. I also think I finally figured out what we should do with that dam. We should make the center area stronger, so it would be a lot harder to break the dam, and then use the hugely flooded area upriver, that was mostly quite shallow, to also start farming underwater crops and different animals as well. Fish was a given, but perhaps shellfish also. It was a huge national resource that we could truly develop. Fortunately, the ceremony didn¡¯t last too long, after which I went to my office and wrote some request letters for the acquisition department to find me some lambs and goats. Perhaps I should also do some more research on the different animals available in this world because there are a lot more domesticated animals in this world than there were on Earth. The animals would need to be able to eat lush grass, survive the cold, and be able to traverse rocky, hilly terrain. Didn¡¯t that dwarf homeland have a lot of this kind of terrain? I could make a few inquiries, but right now I¡¯m quite looking forward to tomorrow because I was going to go and help Francis with making new fields. I still don¡¯t think it would be a good idea to expand the fields on my own lands. I already needed to transfer quite a lot to the capital''s storehouse simply because my own root cellar wouldn''t be able to handle the volume we were getting. I suspected the next few months would be quite pleasant. chapter 360 There was, of course, a pleasant birthday back at my homestead as well. We also used this time to do a small celebration for the apprentices, as most had reached the maximum level of 20 they could achieve. Now they just needed to claim land, and they could become real homesteaders. Some of them had already picked out the land they were going to get; many were still searching. Afterwards, when we had all eaten, it was time for the sauna. Yet, not for the first time, it felt that I would need a bigger one. After that, it was time to get back to work, but I was quite pleased with my day helping Francis, so I continued to do that for a few weeks. It even surprised me how much we were going to expand the fields near the capital, but we were expanding in many different ways. Already, scouts had picked out or were still looking for the correct places for the many outposts that we were going to build. These would turn into villages that would start harvesting different kinds of resources near them. Quite a few teams also went to the different compounds we had in larger cities to inquire about the animals we would want to get and the water-based crops that we could possibly use in the large flooded area we caused because of the dam. We also started to make further plans to bring in even more refugees and were currently holding a lot of interviews with people who would be interested in moving to the soon-to-be-established outposts. Running a nation was truly a time-consuming occupation. The more I observed, the happier I was that I didn¡¯t choose to rule directly. If I did, I would have never been able to spend so much time helping Frances. Still, I was a bit disappointed that it would probably take me until the next winter before I was completely healed and could really start pushing myself once again. I did receive a letter from Arabella. Apparently, she had been approved for her citizenship in the United Freeholds, but it will still take her two years before her current contract to fight in the arenas is done. Before that, the United Freeholds wouldn''t fully accept her as a citizen because the contract she currently had could force her to reveal some of our secrets to her current employers, and we couldn''t have that. I was still quite surprised that she would actually accept this, but I guess she was kicked out of her own country, and I¡¯m guessing that she thinks that we have an iron oak, which for some reason she is really adamant about seeing. There could be a few reasons why she¡¯s chasing one so much. I guess it will only take some time before we figure things out. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Mirhit had been doing a good job as our spymaster. His ability to control the bugs he makes was truly something else. We now have a lot more information about the queen and her country, and every other country surrounding us, including towards the West past the mountains and the grassland. There used to be a few kingdoms there, and I guess there still are, except they''re filled with the undead, some of which seem like the intelligent kind, but it''s hard to get proper information. It was smart for us to not push too far towards that direction because we couldn''t defend it properly if the undead started to attack us with the numbers they had. Other countries to the South of us, beyond our allies, are in many different states of stability. We were pretty sure that at least two of them would have rebellions this year. Now, the Queen¡¯s country, while it wasn''t going to have a rebellion, definitely had some who weren''t happy with the quality of life and how many soldiers the queen was asking for. There was an opportunity there, and to my surprise, Richard, the adventurer who came to visit me with Meredith so long ago, had somehow found himself in a leadership position of a small rebel group. Apparently, he had been quite upset that Meredith had left him behind after they were kicked out of the adventurers'' guild. Now it seems that he had found purpose, and I was perfectly fine with the current plan to support his group without him knowing who was supporting them, so they could continue to grow and hopefully destabilize the country even more. While I wasn¡¯t the biggest fan of such tactics, they were quite effective if done correctly, and she had tried to mess with us a couple of times now, and I really didn¡¯t appreciate that. It was time to make her life hard, and we still had 19 years before she could do anything to us. We also received a request from our two allied nations to help them reshape their military to be more like ours. I needed to show up about a month from now in Aldermarch, which has become a trade center between our three nations. It was on a Monday afternoon when I had finished my classes and was already back on my own land, moving towards the lake. While what was underneath the lake was interesting, currently I was more focused on the interesting vine-like trees that grew inside the delta of the river. After jumping the river, I started to examine the plants. First of all, it seemed that they were extremely fast-growing, and the only reason they hadn''t continued to spread without stopping was because of the soil there. It was extremely unsuitable for them, and I was surprised that they had even grown so much. Now, it would be extremely dangerous to bring them and plant them on more fertile soil, but I did collect seeds. That I was going to modify so I could limit their spread but keep their accelerated growth. They weren''t any tougher than regular trees, but that wasn''t going to be a problem. I was going to use them to make living fences for the animals I wanted to get. I could imagine it now: tall wooden walls grown from this vine-like tree, blocking access to the hills so the animals could be relatively safe inside and not wander away from where I wanted them to be. This was once again going to be a long project, but I felt it would be a nice addition to my lands. However, I would need to be careful how I modified the seeds, as I wouldn¡¯t want them to start spreading uncontrollably. As I continued to examine and understand these plants more, I was exceedingly surprised at how suitable they would be for my purpose. Their root system was also extremely thick and strong, so they would stop burrowing creatures because the roots would easily reach the gravelly layer, making it harder for different animals to dig through. Of course, this wasn¡¯t something that could protect them from everything, but it would certainly help against anything under the silver rank. Unfortunately, this needs to be a project for next year, as I would need to use too much energy too fast to properly change the seeds how I want them to be. Of course, as I understand it, it will probably also take another year before we start to get animals from further away back to our nation, as the numbers we were looking for simply weren¡¯t available currently. Absolutely, the whole world was suffering from the lack of population to grow food. It seems that the disaster that was the plague will continue to be felt for quite a while, and of course, the constant wars didn''t help. chapter 361 POV Charles I was incredibly nervous yet excited. A new chapter of my life was about to begin as soon as I stepped through that portal. Many people were given an actual portal mage, and from what it looks like, an energy-type portal mage so he could connect to quite a distant land, probably one of the most northern civilized areas of the world. Normally, I would have liked to keep working here, but I can read the writing on the wall; none of the cities around the Central Sea will be expanding, and I would be fired like so many others with my skills. From a very young age, I thoroughly enjoyed architecture and even more so, city and kingdom planning. It was so fascinating, and there are so many aspects to it that most people never think about. At first, I was skeptical, especially because they wanted me to join their nation, but they kept wearing me down, and when they showed me their latest development plan, I almost puked at how ugly it was. But the idea behind it grabbed me immediately. Of course, they tried to hold back information, but I could see through what they were trying to hide. They were trying to build a brand new nation from the ground up. Immediately after I understood what they wanted from me, I walked into my boss''s office, quit on the spot, and then accepted the United Freeholds'' offer to become a citizen and to accept the job of head of the development branch of the government. At first, I didn¡¯t even know that I was accepting that responsibility, and I think they were a bit mad, but after I took their oath, I understood why they could trust people like me. I was quite hesitant to do this because I might die, but I wasn¡¯t going to let anything stop me from actually building a nation. "Everyone, move in an orderly fashion," I heard a guard speak, and then it was repeated multiple times. With me were at least 50 people; most of them seemed like they were not doing so well, but I could see the determination in their eyes. That was one thing that was common with everyone associated with United Freeholds. Whoever was in charge of the recruitment was doing an excellent job. When I stepped out of the devil portal, I found myself in a climate that was colder than I was used to, but since I mostly lived in a tropical climate, that was to be expected. Seeing almost everything made out of wood was a strange experience; even the portal station itself was basic, although there were a decent number of guards and soldiers around us. Whoever they were, they were well-equipped and seemed quite strong and disciplined. I saw larger buildings; they seemed quite well-designed. Then, however, I noticed the road. I was expecting muddy roads, especially inside the town, but they looked like they were made from extremely precisely cut stone. I used a few of my abilities to understand the little road a little bit better and was totally surprised. That thing will last for 1000 years, if not more, and that''s if no one maintains it. With this quality of stonework and design, I was surprised that everything else was made out of wood, but then I remembered how small the population they had was. It will probably be a few more years before they have the population, spare money, and workforce to start building proper walls and upgrading the buildings. A person was approaching me, someone who looked like a government official. "Good day, Charles. I¡¯m incredibly excited that you chose to join us. My name is David, and we will be working quite closely together. I¡¯m in charge of the economy, among other things, and I¡¯m truly excited that we get to work together," he said. I was a bit surprised as I had just thought that he worked in the government, not in charge of anything this important. Where were his guards? Wait, I was being rude. "It''s a pleasure to meet you, and I¡¯m honestly quite excited as well." Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. "Follow me then. I will show you to your office and then to your home," he said. I was a bit surprised by those words. "Well, that¡¯s some news. I suspected I needed to find my own home and, to be completely honest, I expected to be living from my office for a little while, and that might not change as I suspect there¡¯s a lot to do." David laughed at my words, but it was not a mocking laugh; it was a genuine laugh. That was refreshing. The town seemed to have a second wall, but it looked like they were dismantling it as we spoke. David explained that that was the original village and it seems like they have only been here for three years. That surprised me. Then I got my second huge surprise when David started to explain how their job system worked after I asked how many workers the government currently has. The answer was basically zero; everyone was a freelancer. This shouldn''t work, but David continued to explain, and even he said that they will continue to monitor it as their population continues to grow. Now, I had known that this part of the world was dangerous, I never expected them to have survived this many disadvantaged wars and other dangerous events. The fact that they actually had a rank one dungeon was unexpected, yet their ability to plant dungeons. Well, that I had to mark as the third surprise so far. Now, a few hours later, after dropping off my stuff in my house, being shown where to get food and the market as a whole, I was of course in office where I currently was looking at the map of this country and its surroundings. On this map were the development plans and already started outposts that they wanted to make into villages. The plan was decent enough, although it was ugly and would need a lot of polishing. The resources I had available and the workers were not the best, but they were driven, and I believe we will get the abilities we need to do this properly. A lot of the resources also went into the military, which of course I didn¡¯t like as I like to focus on the civil side of things, but I could completely understand the need even if I didn¡¯t like it. On that front, it seems that I¡¯ve met my match. Whoever this architect was, it was clear that he could plan not just a war strategy but a complete development plan to keep a nation safe. That was rare, but it was also obvious that he was out of his depth with the civil side of things. For example, his plan to use the flooded area they caused to be developed as a new source of different resources. Overall, it was a good plan but lacked detail and depth. Not many would think this, but even on a national scale, a simple overlooked mistake could cause a huge ripple effect. What did they overlook with this plan? Simple, it was time. Currently, starting to work on this right away would not account for what changes would happen to the plants and creatures surrounding this newly flooded area. Many times I have read and even seen people thinking that they could change the nature around them, only for something to change that undid all their plans. We could put a few years of effort into developing an underwater farming area only to discover a bug that had mutated to consume everything in its path. We would then have to cleanse the entire place and start all over. That was just the most likely scenario, as you should research which environmental changes make nature go a bit crazy. Still, groundwork can begin, but some things can''t be rushed. What can be rushed, and what they should have pushed for more, is to get more people to the different outposts and get a village built there by the end of the summer. With the current plan they have, it¡¯s going to take at least two years to reach the point that I want to reach this year. The problem, of course, is manpower, but I kind of understand them; they need to use the people they recently conquered. Hopefully, I will be able to convince them to use the amount of manpower available to them. It seems that they have forgotten that these places also need upgrading, and they haven¡¯t even done proper surveys of the kind of resources they actually have in their newly conquered lands, especially the ones that are actually a part of the nation, at least not right now according to the achievement page. The fact that they could monitor their territory so well is amazing, but it can also make them too reliant on it. A perfect example is the North. Now, I could somewhat understand that they didn''t use to have many rank-one scouts, but they do have them now after the war, and basically, all of the north was unexplored. Who knows what threats might lie there or what resources. It seems that they are not thinking big enough. For some reason, they seem to be content with the land they currently have. Bullshit. They should have the drive and the ability to claim the entire northern tip of the green continent, if not more, but that would depend on how willing they would be to conquer other nations. chapter 362 Lately, I always have something to do. Suddenly, things got even busier. Recently, we received a new batch of refugees and hires. It was a positive change, in my opinion, but it also meant a lot of work. I do feel that our growth as a nation will be a lot smoother in the future, but I have yet to meet the person who brought so much change. The reason is I¡¯ve been extremely busy finishing up all the paperwork required so I could create the organization required for anyone above rank three. I will just need a few people to join and sign the charter to make it legitimate in the eyes of the World Council. I once again looked at the top of the massive piles of paper to find the name and I once again winced. United Freeholds Company. That was the brilliant name that I came up with. Truly, I was disappointed in myself, but that was the only name that could encompass all that I needed this organization to do. If I just made a guild, we would be restricted in where we could operate and what we could do. Most likely, we would have to build our headquarters near an outer circle fortification. Every continent had multiple circles: the inner, middle, and outer. They were all situated near the center of the continent in places where most people couldn''t survive. There were monsters so dangerous there that even the combined strength of the whole known world would find it hard to kill. The only reason we could still survive and build our civilizations was because of the density of energy, mana, and holy power in those places. As a rank three, I would be able to survive going to the middle ring without too many negative consequences if I¡¯m fully healed, but fortunately, it works the other way as well. Monsters aren¡¯t like people, and the monsters at the pinnacle of their power, whom basically no one could defeat, would die quite rapidly if they left the rings. Those rings weren¡¯t stationary; they shrank and expanded all the time. The higher-rank organizations are required to put manpower into defending the outer and middle ring so the monsters who could leave would be killed by the defenders of civilization, as they call us. A Guild would need to operate there, while their members continued to strengthen themselves against the strongest monsters you could find in this world, well, except for the oceans, but only a few brave those waters. A company would have more freedom but would also need to support the defensive effort a little bit more, not just by manpower but also with resources. I deem that an acceptable cost for being able to operate all over the world, especially inside our own nation. Of course, there are many limitations once again, but fortunately, those limitations are mostly only meant for conflicts with other civilized nations. For them, regular people will need to be enough, and I will be making sure that our soldiers are all trained enough that my home would be safe. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. It''s funny that I started to make contact with civilization because I was afraid to lose my land, not to monsters but to other people. To fix that, I started a nation, and while I am truly enjoying the different kind of responsibility, it is a lot of work, but I think in the end it would be rewarding. Eventually, like always, my goal would be that no one could challenge or take my land, not even the World Council, and I could just continue to live on my land and farm and do the things I like to do. It will be a lot of work, but freedom has its cost, and it seems to become truly free, you must at first play by the rules of others. To change those rules, it seems that the nation I started would play a huge role. There will be a lot of challenges before I achieve my goal. But I will not stop, and like always, I am comforted by the fact that if I died pursuing it, I would not have to worry about if I achieved my goal or not. Unless I wake up yet again in a strange world. Well, hopefully, that won¡¯t happen. I packed everything up that I needed and started walking towards the capital, where I had seven people waiting for me who would sign and join my organization. When the papers are signed, we can fortunately use one of our mages who has the spell to deliver this kind of important paperwork safely. That way, I would only need to go and visit the World Council''s headquarters when the final hearing to start my organization would be held. Fortunately, it won''t be a grand display like my previous visit, but I am suspecting that I''ll need to deal with the queen''s plans once again. She was beginning to really get on my nerves, but we need to work slowly and secretly to undermine her base of power. The only thing that I¡¯m sorry about would be how many people would be hurt by our actions, but once again, in the calculus of life, people who are from United Freeholds will always be placed above everyone else. That doesn¡¯t mean that I want everyone else murdered; there''s only the hope that things will go as well as they can go. The alliance is, of course, the third thing that will keep me busy since I need to educate other nations in our alliance in military affairs. I am contemplating writing a third book as I¡¯m basically done with my second one, which teaches basic control and manipulation of energy. The third one could be for the military, more specifically the legion structure. Yet, I feel it¡¯s too early. Even during the war, I learned a lot of things that need to be changed, mostly because of this world and how it operates, but partly because I had never been a leader of a semi-medieval military. The ''semi'' part was the hardest thing to get used to because people with abilities could act so much like regular modern soldiers of Earth. Yet if an individual got even stronger, they would more act like champions or heroes from some of the strategy games that I played. Basically, I have had to pull knowledge from medieval, modern, and fantasy sources and somehow mix all of them together. It will take a lot of experimentation that will unfortunately cost lives before I can feel comfortable being proficient in this world¡¯s large-scale warfare. When I reached my office, my secretary had already shown in the seven people who were going to join. The first one, and the person I was still not used to seeing without him being in the shadows, was Keldric Veilstrider, the assassin who joined us quite early and who helped me fight the forces of that madman in the last war. There were three mages who had all joined us and led their own department in the government, which meant that they had taken the vow and were to be trusted. From the remaining three, one was Helwid, originally the commander of the bratty noble I killed so long ago, who was now one of the three generals underneath me. The other two were Vikings who had reached the second rank. One by one, they signed their name and made a fingerprint with their own blood. My own bloody fingerprint was on top of all the others, and I could see as every signature was added how the magic of the contract continued to get stronger. When everything was done, there were no congratulations; we all understood the responsibility that we would have. We would be the defenders of United Freeholds from the higher-ranked world, and it would be a hard job. We already had enemies, partly because of the idiot queen, but those old bastards also didn¡¯t like change, and our nation didn¡¯t operate like the rest of the nations in this world did. The mage sent the paperwork away with a spell, and now it was a waiting game until we were going to be summoned. chapter 363 Today was a glorious day because Goose achieved the second rank. He was now a lot more intelligent, but we still communicated through images most of the time. I tried to teach him some language, and he seemed able to learn it, but he didn''t seem to want to actually communicate like that. While this bothered me a little bit, it wasn''t actually that big of a deal. What was more important was that he now grew bigger, and it meant that he could fly me without me having to flood him with energy. This was brilliant news because now I would not have to burden the portal mages so much. Now I could just fly to the other nations when I start their military education. It will also mean that I could come back and tend to my own homestead whenever I needed to and when I got free time. Just in case, I decided to go and ask if he would be OK with everything. "Hey, buddy, congratulations again. The flight earlier was amazing, but I have something to ask you?" I received back excited images, so I just decided to march forward. "I will need to go to the two other nations down south, but with you now being able to fly me, I was wondering if you would be willing to do this quite often. That way, I could get new apprentices right away, and we wouldn''t miss a large part of the summer in their training." Goose immediately sent images asking how often this would need to happen. "Once or twice a week. Now I know that¡ª" That was as far as I got before I was slapped by a wing that could encompass me. The feelings and images I got basically called me stupid and that he would be more than happy to fly me, especially if I would join him a few times on a hunt. "I would be more than happy to hunt with you, Goose, but it might be more difficult to find prey that would be worthy of hunting." Goose slapped me with a wing once again. Apparently, I hadn¡¯t taken into account how far we could now go. "You are right, Goose. You are right." After a small pause, I could feel my leg tapping out of restlessness. "Want to go and fly once again?" I asked Goose, and it seemed that he was even more eager than me. He lowered himself so I could get onto the specially made saddle. It did not only help me stay on top of him while we flew but also provided some protection for anyone attacking his most vulnerable spot. Flying in the air on top of a giant eagle was the freest I have ever felt. Unfortunately, I couldn¡¯t fly with him forever. After he brought me to the capital, I got everything started to quickly choose the 12 new apprentices as my last batch had all graduated, so to say. I really needed to also remember that Emma was getting married this summer solstice. George already had a second child coming, and he also had two apprentices. Arthur had three apprentices, and I was quite certain that he fancied one of them. Perhaps after Emma got married, there will be another marriage this year, but I guess we will see what happens. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The other apprentices were still getting everything settled, but as I understand, next year quite a few of them will also take an apprentice. Now, it was quite normal that an apprenticeship wasn''t going to take just one year, but that was to be expected. Most will probably stay for three or even five years, perhaps even longer, but that would depend on the apprentice and the teacher. We were slowly starting to get the ball rolling on the homesteader class front. When I got my new apprentices and showed them around, it was time to head to the allied nations and start teaching them as well. Fortunately, Tim was quite happy to teach the apprentices, and of course, the extra hands always were appreciated around the homestead. Time went fast, and soon it was the summer solstice. The teaching was going quite well, and I guess it helped that I was stronger because I could see how many of the seasoned generals didn¡¯t want to change their ways. They did because all of them had seen me fight. Flying with Goose was incredibly fun, and sometimes he even asked me if I want a ride when there was no need. It was hard to say no to him. Emma¡¯s soon-to-be husband was quite average-looking, but I could see that he loved her, and that was enough for me. The wedding itself wasn¡¯t a big event, but both of her brothers were here, and they also brought their family and guests. I brought Tim. I gave her a big hug. ¡°Congratulations, Emma. I¡¯m proud of you, and I¡¯m certain your parents would be as well,¡± I said. She squeezed me quite hard, and after we broke our hug, I could see tears at the corners of her eyes. I knew that I hadn¡¯t always been there, and I can be a bit distant, but I think I will always have a special connection with my three first apprentices. It was also quite nice to just relax for a day and talk about easy things. Seeing George¡¯s young kid already crawling around, sometimes even walking, reminded me of how fast time could go. It was sometimes hard to remember so far back, but I did remember when every year seemed like an eternity. For the first time, I truly wondered if I wanted to have kids in this world. Sometimes I felt too old for new kids, yet if I didn¡¯t have to deal with all the troubles coming our way, I might quite enjoy raising a few rugrats. The summer solstice overall was quite nice after the wedding, and I did enjoy a pleasant evening in the sauna. This year, however, we had another pulse of death like I experienced during my first summer solstice. It seems that in the world, there was enough war and people not being buried properly that a wave of death that would awaken a lot of dead did spread once again over the planet. Fortunately, we didn''t need to deal with this as our lands were already protected, and we did give proper burials as well. Everyone else in the world, of course, will experience another awful summer, but at least this time, most places have armies that they can use to take care of the undead. Of course, if they are not too busy fighting each other. Sometimes the stupidity of the so-called civilized races astonishes even me. What followed was an extremely nice, although busy, summer. I was barely able to focus on improving myself, but I did continue to exercise, and slowly I felt myself healing. As another harvest approached, I finally felt that I could try a more proactive way of healing myself. It was a pleasant summer evening when I found myself on the bridge that I built, which I haven¡¯t needed to raise for a long while now. I sunk into meditation and started to use my energy inside my energy body and the parts of it that connected to my real body. I focused on the healing part of the energy I hold and slowly started to cycle around the worn-out parts that had healed quite well. Not only that, but I also started to strengthen those edges similar to when I needed to fight mana with my energy. There was an obvious need to improve my capability of channeling energy as I didn¡¯t want to become crippled after every serious battle. After an hour, I was already sweating from the effort, but I needed to go slowly and be incredibly precise; otherwise, I might hurt myself more. But I could see myself improving slowly but surely. Not only was I healing myself faster, but I would also make sure that this didn¡¯t happen again. I only managed another hour before I needed a break or risk losing control. While I was completely tired, there was a huge grin on my face. Finally, I was able to start actively helping myself instead of just waiting, and I also found a new way to continue to train energy manipulation and control to make myself even better at it. chapter 364 Another summer was coming to an end. Today, however, was one of the most beautiful days I¡¯ve had on this planet. The temperature was just perfect, and the breeze was still nice and warm. The sun was high up, but it wasn''t burning like it would have been during mid-summer. Now, I¡¯ve had days like this before, but the added smell of sweet fruits just made it perfect. The trees that I planted were now big enough that some of them began to give fruit in a decent enough quantity. For apples, it was about 5 per tree, but that was enough to fill the whole area with a nice smell. It was amazing to see the trees continue to grow so well, and I could just imagine the future for us that we were going to have. It will truly be a wonderful place to be, especially during the end of the summer. "Tim, I know that we agreed that we would use the fruits to make cider, but I think we should also use some of the harvest to make pies and eat a few," I said while picking one of the apples and biting into it. The juice was so wonderful, and from the corner of my eye, I could see Tim nodding his head while picking a plum and eating it. He had the same wild grin on his face that I was certain I had. We started to harvest the fruits that were ready, and I had to be thankful that I was actually rich because I could use expanded bags as storage. Otherwise, it would have taken us a few trips and about a dozen filled potato sacks to finish the harvest. However, in the future as the trees continue to grow, this will not be a few-hour job that we could do with only two people. When we were done, we walked past the pasture where my 2 cows were currently eating grass. As we made it closer to the center of the homestead, I could hear and see the constant activity that was going on. A lot of the apprentices were preparing for the harvest, but some were working on joint projects or their own pursuits. I was incredibly glad when one of the apprentices decided to pick up tin smithing. She seemed to enjoy it immensely and, to be honest, she already was better than me. For the practical devices, only a little bit of practice was needed and you would be good enough, but she was extremely good at making things look so good. While I could just make functional things, which I was happy with. Teaching her and working on my own stuff allowed me to get past the basic rank and gave me a choice of abilities. The choices weren''t really that exciting, but I think that I underestimated the choice that I actually made, but I was glad that I did choose it. Dispersed Strike was an ability that I at first thought would be good for tin smithing because it would help you smooth out the tin and give everything a really nice finish. But what I didn''t expect, but I should have, was that it could basically make my sword strikes also blunt attacks, giving me a completely different type of damage if I ever needed it. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. While you could classify this as a situational ability, I have truly been enjoying this a lot. That was because of the joint project the apprentices, me, and Tim were working on. While the root cellar was working perfectly, it was obvious that it was too small and didn¡¯t have room for different storage spaces with different requirements. The one that we were building now was five times larger in floor space but also three times higher. It was a lot of digging, but we had finished that about a month ago and were now working on making the walls from stone. That''s where the dispersed strike had really come in handy. It was a lot easier to get everything in their proper place when you could just hit it really hard and not be afraid of the stone breaking. We still had plenty of work to do as the whole structure was still completely open to the air, but currently, the project was on hold as we needed to start harvesting. ¡°Attention everyone, tomorrow we will start the harvest of the fields, but today we have some baking to do.¡± My voice wasn''t loud, but it carried to every apprentice, and basically all of them immediately stopped working and took a few moments to understand my meaning. The smiles I saw also brought a smile to my face. We were going to eat well today. The harvest had been going quite well, and we had about a week ago finished everything on our land. Now we were working on helping the nation harvest its massive field. The amount of food we were going to get was also the reason that the roads weren''t built much this summer. The capital needed a lot of stone and workforce to expand its storage by a lot. The rest of the workforce was dispersed throughout the many new outposts, or perhaps most of them should be called villages now. We have truly done a lot of building this year. Everything was progressing nicely, but then I felt one of the message sticks break, and I quickly looked into my bag to see which one had broken. I breathed out a sigh of relief; it was the stick that would be broken if we heard back from the World Council offices about my application for creating my own organization. Fortunately, the stick was broken from the top half, meaning that it wasn''t urgent. I finished helping pack the current cart we were working on and then excused myself. Back in my office, I read the letter I got. It was good news, especially because it seems that the hearing is a month away, so there is no need to hurry, and it seems they didn''t find anything wrong with the paperwork. That was the good news, but thinking about it a little longer, it was weird that the wait was so long. Most likely, it was because the queen and the support she has in the world council were planning something. That actually brought a smile to my face because I was actually now close to being healed and would be in about a week or so. I have not told anyone this, which probably means that whatever plan they are cooking up will most likely not work. I went back and continued to harvest, but it was hard to keep the smile off my face. This was going to be fun. I was quite certain that they weren¡¯t going to try something political, but this time, they might try something a little bit more direct. Thinking about that bodyguard, I remembered that he had reached rank 3 in early summer this year. Oh, please tell me that they want to challenge me to a duel. That would be so perfect. I can¡¯t wait to be able to once again fight and push myself like that. Hopefully, it would be a fight where I could actually kill him; that would devastate the power base the queen had. The harvest finished a bit over two weeks after I received the letter. The last few days were a bit rainy, but we were able to get everything into storage before things got properly wet. It will take a little while before things truly start to get colder, but I could already see the weather turning towards winter. The amount of food that we have gotten was stupidly large, and currently, a lot of caravans were probably reaching their destinations to bring winter supplies to all of the outposts, villages, and towns we had in our nation. I had yet to visit our second-largest town that was on the coast, and I do kind of want to see it, but I will probably not be able to do so before the snows come. From my understanding, the town itself was a lot nicer during the summer than in the winter. Fortunately, our portal engineer had been hard at work, and just recently, they were able to test an energy portal that they could power themselves. They said that they still have to work some kinks out, but that meant that before the next year, we would actually have energy-based portals that would be a lot more convenient to operate, as energy was a lot more abundant than mana for us. chapter 365 I was in my office, standing in the middle of the room, and all around me were various items. My armour was so badly damaged that I couldn¡¯t wear it properly after the war. The sword I had been able to fix up; it only had minor nicks. Now, I would¡¯ve liked to spend a year to learn how to be able to make low-rank three items, but I did not have the budget or the time to do something like that, especially because I might have a fight quite soon. Until this point, I have been able to get by with purchased armor meant for Vikings. Of course, I have not pushed myself in any fight, which is also a reason why I have not needed anything better. Now, Roger had acquired me top-of-the-line rank two armor. Getting rank three items will be something for the future. I also think that the basic knowledge I have from Earth will no longer function in crafting such items. The only reason I have been able to get by is thanks to my abilities. There will be a need to actually study under proper masters. The biggest reason for the change is because from rank three, regular metals like iron and its alloys will no longer be enough. It was time to start learning about truly powerful materials. Unfortunately, those would require a lot of energy to be used. That¡¯s why I did not start learning about them. I also know the money I have would not be enough. Fortunately, with my defensive abilities, the armor around me should be enough to defend me against anyone the queen is capable of acquiring. I still think the bodyguard is the most likely opponent I will have. I started to test out the pieces of armor. They were made out of iron-based alloys, but there was heavy use of unique materials. It was one of the jobs that I was still doing actively: identifying unique materials. As we have opened up more mines at more locations, the number of these materials has grown a lot bigger, but I¡¯ve also gotten the help of other people with abilities that help identify the properties of these materials. One of the more unique elements I can sense in the alloy is a crystal that was probably just normal quartz at some point but now seemed to have a property that allowed the iron alloy to have a better molecular structure that is strengthened by additional energy. It was a fascinating piece of... I don¡¯t even know what to call this material science, crafting expertise? Well, whatever it is, I¡¯m quite certain that the metal was made by someone surpassing rank two. Perhaps one of his apprentices has made this set of armor. Fortunately, Roger had been able to get a set that wasn¡¯t enchanted or heavily runed. It had durability and slow self-repair, and it seemed like they wanted to add more, but Roger was probably able to purchase it before any more were added. For anyone else who didn''t have many defensive abilities, runes and enchantments are not just recommended but are necessary for their survival. For me, they would interfere with my abilities. There probably aren¡¯t many medium armors, or perhaps medium-heavy armor users, with strong enough defensive abilities to not enhance these types of armor. I am a pretty big oddity in this world, as most with my types of abilities would wear the heaviest armor possible to enhance their defenses as much as possible. But since I usually fight alone and also have excellent damage capability, I need extra movement, and of course, it''s always better to just not get hit. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I did need to make the straps bigger, but I had planned for that. There will be plenty of weak spots because I¡¯m a bit too big for the few plate armor pieces I will be wearing. Fortunately, Roger was able to get proper chainmail. The gambeson was made by Emma. She did a really fine job, and I did give her a few of the fiber plant seeds I had been able to make a bit stronger over the two years. All of these items will be fine for now, but even in the outer ring area, it will soon not be enough. After quite a few hours, I had placed all the armor pieces onto an armor stand and sat behind my table, looking at my sword. It was quite a powerful tool, and I had grown quite attached to it. Now, I wasn¡¯t certain about this, but I think it will still be able to handle the beginning of the third rank. But later I think the enemies and the forces will start to be too strong, even for it. Still, the fact that rank one dragon blood could make such a weapon that it could still comfortably compete two ranks above it was quite amazing, even if it will not be able to handle the third rank fully. It truly is a legendary sword. At first, even I was a bit confused when I saw in some of the stores weapons and armor marked as epic or rare. My immediate thought was, how could something made out of rank one material be epic? Any rank two weapon should be able to destroy it easily. That¡¯s where I was wrong. Basically, it turned out that it was not just epic but a rank one epic, meaning that this rank one item could compete with regular rank two items. Rare was something that could survive against items one rank above. Uncommon was also a rank, but it''s just signified that it could survive a few attacks from items one rank above. Legendaries were weapons that could fight two ranks above their original rank. This system seemed a bit flawed to me after I learned about it because rank three at the beginning was so much weaker than the peak. Fortunately, when I was researching information about making a rank-three organization, I finally understood my mistake. Rank 3 is split into three different ranks: Low rank 3, then mid rank 3, and high rank 3. There was also mention of mythic and divine rank, three and four ranks above the original item. Apparently, there were a few such items recorded, but mostly they were like my sword, technically using low-rank materials but the properties making them function at a much higher rank. Achieving the same results at a higher base rank was almost impossible. From the knowledge I¡¯ve been able to get, never has there been a legendary rank 3 item. Now, I was quite certain that wasn¡¯t true; there must be a few out there, but that part of the book made it quite clear that it would just be a lot easier to use rank 4 or rank 5 materials to try to push rank 3 material so far. I felt quite saddened by this fact. I had done so much with this weapon, yet soon it would most likely join the wall of the other weapons I had retired. There was, of course, a chance of using a dragon that was at a higher rank, but for that, I would need to study crafting as a whole for quite a while and then try to get the necessary dragon blood. Of course, that''s easier said than done. There was, however, still a chance. Dragons so strong aren¡¯t going to be blown here by a storm. They are too strong for that. There is one place with enough crazy people who actually go hunting for dragons and a few other strong creatures. In the western shallow sea, at the very edge of the sea where it meets the ocean, is an island. On that island, there are many ports, but not for seafaring ships. So close to the ocean, it''s simply too dangerous for ships to sail the seas. There are, however, airships who brave the ocean and fly quite far out. It seems that dragons hunt those oceans because there are huge fish and other creatures who are probably a decent and perhaps the only food source to such strong creatures. It''s an incredibly dangerous occupation, and if you fly too close to the ocean, creatures that could swallow a whole airship could easily jump out of the water and swallow you whole. It was hard for me to imagine such an occupation and what those people might have seen. But if you brought back a dragon corpse or even a high-ranked fish, well, you could retire off of that. It could give you the capital to gain the resources needed to continue pushing forward. That''s why most people went and tried something so dangerous. It¡¯s a known fact that if you are stuck as an adventurer, buying better gear will allow you to keep pushing forward. My secretary came in and brought a few more papers I needed to look over. I stopped my daydreaming and got back to work. The day ended quite fast. Tomorrow will be an interesting day. Early at 7:00, I had my first portal out of the capital. It was finally time to go and finalize my organization. Fortunately, we now had presences in many major and minor cities. Thanks to that, my portal route was preplanned, and it would only take me a few hours to reach the world council headquarters. I once again looked towards the armor. I didn¡¯t know if I was looking forward to the fight or not, but I knew that if they didn¡¯t try anything, I would be disappointed. chapter 366 While waiting for the first portal, I was a bit fidgety. This armour wasn''t really meant for me, and while I could wear it and fight in it thanks to the modifications I made, it was still not perfect. Then finally, the blue portal came into being, and I quickly moved through it with a few other people. The next moment, I was once again in another part of this world, one that I was at least a little bit familiar with. The sight of the bay with its many sailboats once again brought me back to my youth. This time we only had 15 minutes here before another portal would take us further south. There was a portal route that was more direct, but we would have needed to go through the queen''s land. This time she couldn''t have done anything to actually hurt us; otherwise, she would have broken the agreement. But she could have delayed and asked for an unreasonable amount of money for the use of their portal. It wasn''t worth the headache, and it would have only shortened the route by two portals. It was a quick trip to Verdia, but here we had a little bit of a longer wait, but only for an hour. It was mostly for the three other people who would be jumping with me to the eastern twin city; after that, I would be alone. They needed a bit of time to acclimate to the portal travel as it was tough on the body. That was also why in the lower ranks, regular means of travel were so popular. It was expensive to use a portal and if you were weak enough, you probably wouldn¡¯t enjoy portal travel as it could be really unpleasant. Verdia itself was slowly putting itself back together. It was still powerful enough not to have to worry about wars. Here you could see how the world would be slowly healing itself from the plague if there weren¡¯t constant wars going on. The hundreds of coliseums were filled to capacity with fighters as many who had escaped the war and came to this city didn''t really have jobs left except to fight for others'' entertainment. Arabella was somewhere in the city, but she wouldn''t have to fight constantly; her fights would be the ones that were broadcast at prime hours as many would want to watch them. She was still at rank two, but she was certainly advancing her skills and abilities. She also seemed to be going for a full combat build, and I wondered if I could fight her on an equal footing at later ranks. Currently, I was able to dominate the lower ranks while I blazed past them, but I do not know if that will continue as I truly focus on a lot of things and not just put everything on my combat. Also, one of the reasons this organization was so important. We would need a lot more fighters who would be loyal to United Freeholds Company and, by extension, United Freeholds itself. Nowadays, I was constantly occupied whenever I had free time, planning the expansion of the UF company. Of course, I would like it to grow as fast as possible. Yet, doing it like that would be really dangerous. Like with everything, it needs to take a proper amount of time. Stable foundations need to be made. Only after that can we truly start building something grandiose. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. I was brought out of my musings by one of my companions informing me that it was time. We portalled to the eastern twin city and then to the western. After I said goodbye to the companions that came with me, I started walking the city, aiming for the general direction of the World Council building and the portal they had inside that would take me to the real HQ. I had technically been to this city two times before. On my way to my hearing and back, but I was only here for a few minutes on both occasions. But now, I had more than two hours to spend here. If I had to describe the city, I would say it¡¯s a mix of high medieval with fantasy elements. The houses were all three to four stories tall, and most had a storefront on the ground floor. The shops didn¡¯t look really that busy, but there were at least a few people in almost every one that I saw. It looked like every crafter had a storefront, but I think most likely it was there just to show their wares, and the real income came from orders. I changed my destination towards the coast. I heard rumors that you could see some of the wonder before the water got too deep. On my way, I passed numerous smaller market squares, but honestly, I think calling this entire city a Market Square would not be a bad description. The numerous food stalls were marvelous to see and taste. Some seem to have started to employ fire-breathing creatures to bring in more business. One had quite the lazy-looking lizard that roasted the meat before it was sold to you. The stick of meat tasted quite wonderful. To see the coast, you really needed to get to the very edge of the city; otherwise, the buildings would just block your view. It was still a bit hard to see because there was quite the busy port in the way as well. But unlike any other city, the center of the huge port had a road going into the water. The walls of this tunnel were see-through, so you could see the people and carriages moving in and out of it. I found a small caf¨¦ that had balcony seating and chose to drink some tea and eat some cake as I looked at this wonder. Unfortunately, even my eyes couldn''t see too far because of the water, but I could at least see how the tunnels started to branch out, forming many different pathways underneath the water that people could use to get to the other side. It was about 20 miles to the other side. There were also a lot of big ships not sailing from one twin city to the other but bringing cargo to further places. It was a marvelous piece of magic, this tunnel system, and I would surely like to go and at least visit one of the smaller towns that have popped up inside the tunnels. Unfortunately, it was time to get going, so I finished my tea and made my way to the world council''s building. Fortunately, I was able to bypass all the waiting when I showed my ring. Being a part of The Court of The Young was at least good for some things. There I had to wait with many other people for about 15 minutes before the portal opened up, and we walked through. What greeted me was a familiar courtyard, and I even recognized one of the guards. I gave a sharp nod as I walked past her and was pleased that she greeted me back as well. Now I had to go and get a room for myself. There was a good chance that I could finish everything in one day, but it wasn¡¯t guaranteed. Besides that, I didn¡¯t know the portal schedule, and it would take some time to get everything set up for my return trip. The courtyard was huge, and one side of it was touching the mega-sized building where the courtroom and a lot of other meeting rooms for the World Council were. However, my business wasn''t important enough to be located in that building. No, I had to go and follow the main road and actually visit the town surrounding the world council headquarters. It could be argued that the entire place was the World Council headquarters, including the town, but to me, that didn¡¯t really matter. I needed to find an inn that I could stay at and then, in three hours, reach the proper building where the hearing for my organization would take place. Now, if the western twin city was a high medieval city with fantasy elements, then this place was truly fantastical. There were buildings over 10 stories high with floating balconies and some that even seemed to have multiple waterfalls coming down the sides. One was entirely made out of wood, and I think the only reason it wasn¡¯t a proper tree was because of space restrictions, as I could see the stumps of branches wider than some buildings having been cut off. Some of the buildings more resembled a modern office building than anything else, and it seemed that my destination was one of those kinds of buildings. The place where I found the room to stay in was six stories tall, and I would certainly not call it an inn but a hotel, no matter what the receptionist called this place. In my mind, I went over the papers once again, the ones I sent them and then the ones I still had with me. There really couldn¡¯t be anything wrong because if there was, they might not let me make an organization right now, and that would mean that I would need to join someone else''s, and that would be a headache. chapter 367 Compared to the size of the city, there really weren''t that many people on the streets. Perhaps it would be different more towards the evening, but I guess this place is more for getting business done and not for leisure. After looking around a little bit more, there didn¡¯t seem to be any other portals here as well. Perhaps there were secret ones not publicly available, but I didn¡¯t think so as I believe that the security of this place is quite high. That made me wonder where in this world are the cities and towns for the truly powerful people, where they could trade and entertain themselves. Since I started working on the organization, a picture has slowly started to form in my head. This place only seems to reinforce this. The streets were constructed meticulously. I would guess that the paved stones were so straight that you could slide a piece of wood from one end to the other, and it would never catch the corner of a stone. The drainage was not consistent, but I¡¯m pretty sure everything was accounted for, and where there were closer drainage holes, it must have been because naturally, there would be more water at those locations if it rained. You could see the different architecture in almost every city block. It seems that the only way an organization or nation perhaps could buy land here would be to get an entire city block and then hire the best architects and builders they can to show their importance. The buildings weren''t made of gold or anything like that; they were a mix of function and form. That''s not to say that they weren''t luxurious. There were certainly elements that showcased the wealth put into these buildings. There was a notable exception to this. Many of the city blocks had buildings that were basically just meant for function. Some I could see were meant for living in, but there were also buildings intended for bureaucratic work. I stood in front of one of them. The building itself was a weird mix of stone and wood. Basically, all of the structurally relevant parts that held up the building were made of stone; everything else was made from a grey-looking wood. Pushing the door open and entering the building, I saw a decent-sized reception area with only one receptionist. There were a few guards here, but they looked quite bored. They did look towards me, but only with their eyes. I could sense that they would be ready to defend this place at a moment''s notice. I walked towards the receptionist and spoke in a pleasant voice, "Good day to you. I¡¯m here for my 5:30 appointment, name Rich Dirt." She looked up towards me for a moment, then flipped through some of her papers. "Good day to you as well, and yes, I can see you here. You are scheduled for an appointment in office 327. You can use the staircase to your right and go to the third floor. You will find the door towards the right side of the building. You will be invited in," she said with a small smile on her face while pointing towards the staircase I was supposed to use. I thanked her and then headed towards the staircase and climbed to the third floor. The building itself seemed to give me good vibes, and honestly, I wouldn¡¯t be disappointed if I had to work in this place. There were chairs against the corridor walls, some of them quite large, which I found quite pleasant. Just a normal-sized one wouldn''t be able to accommodate my size or the armor I was currently wearing. It wasn''t a long wait before the door with the number 327 opened up, and a guard looked towards me and invited me in. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. As I walked inside, I saw four other guards, two near the doorway and two flanking the table with three people sitting behind it. On my side of the table, there were a few chairs, but in the center, there was a big chair that seemed perfect for me. The people were wearing masks and had large robes, making it hard to tell what body type each person had. They seemed to mimic the really powerful people I had seen at my court hearing, except they used magic to hide themselves, and here they used physical objects. At least against me, this seemed to be working better as a way of hiding people¡¯s identities. I wondered how bad it would be if they knew that I could see through the shadows and actually see the people who looked over my trial. In front of each of the people were papers and a few other objects, but also a nameplate. The person in the center was named Blue, the one to the right was named Green, and the one to the left was named Yellow. "Good afternoon, Rich Dirt. Please take a seat, my name is Mr. Yellow." The person who spoke was the person in the middle, and that made me tilt my head a little bit. "Good afternoon to you all as well," I said while I sat down. "But I think there must be a mistake. I think you mixed up your nameplates because in front of you, it says Blue," I said to the person who introduced himself as Mr. Yellow. There was a moment of silence before Mr. Yellow picked up the nameplate and looked at it. "So it is. Thank you for pointing out this mistake," Mr. Yellow said while switching the nameplates. "We''re here because you want to start your own high-rank organization. I will be frank with you. A few people used quite a few of their favours to make sure that we went through all the paperwork with a fine comb and, if possible, delayed the making of this organization as much as possible." I winced mentally, and I¡¯m pretty sure I wasn¡¯t able to fully control my facial expression, but it was hard to tell what the people in front of me were able to see. I had expected something like that but had hoped the queen and whoever supported her would go for some more direct measures. Damn it, I might not get the fight I had hoped for. The most puzzling aspect was that they actually told me the truth. Fortunately, I didn¡¯t have to wait for long before I got an answer. "All of us spent quite a lot of hours going through all the paperwork, and we couldn''t find any mistakes. Well, except for one: the fact that there weren¡¯t any mistakes. Now, filling in these papers isn''t that hard work, but we only get clean papers like this when organizations who start out have backings that already have a presence in high society.¡± ¡°While you do have some connections, it does not explain this perfection unless you might have some hidden connections. So, tell me, how did you achieve such clean paperwork?" Mr. Yellow asked me. "I honestly don¡¯t have any hidden connection, and the connections I do have, I have through the court of the young and a few former party members. Those connections allowed me access to books, and I even had a few examples of the starting paperwork for high-rank organizations." After I finished saying that, Mr. Yellow looked towards Mr. Green, who said, "All true, but that brings up a lot of other questions. If I understand correctly, you chose not to rule over a petty kingdom, although you are connected to the government and are even the highest-ranking military officer. Did you perhaps get your expertise from leading and organizing an army?" Mr. Green''s question was a difficult one to answer. "It''s more complicated than that, but yes, I gained this expertise from leading and organizing a lot of soldiers." My answer didn¡¯t seem to satisfy Mr. Green. "That seems to be technically true. Let me ask you a different question: do you plan on conquering this world?" The question brought my mind to a stop. When did we get here? It was obvious that Mr. Green could tell if someone was lying, and he could tell that with scary accuracy and nuance. "No, I do not plan on conquering this world." My words were met with a slow nod from Mr. Green. "Then I¡¯m afraid we need to be a little bit impertinent," Mr. Yellow said. "Did you perhaps gain this skill in your former life? It¡¯s hard to imagine someone at the age of 12 learning so much about bureaucracy, but some of the worlds where people have come to us have been very different from ours," said Mr. Blue. I could feel the other two not being comfortable with the topic. It was the second time anyone had directly asked me something about my former life. It seemed to be quite a big taboo. At least now I know where the misunderstanding came from. "It seems that you are mistaken about a simple but important fact. Now, I know that people in this world grow up fast, so it might not be easy to tell. I was not 12 when I came to this world. I was over 70 years old, and yes, that''s with your timescale. To add to that, while I truly don¡¯t like bureaucracy, I needed to become quite knowledgeable on the topic." There were quite a few moments of silence, and I finally understood, as I used a few different settings of my vision ability to look at the world. They were able to communicate with each other without having to talk out loud. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t know how to listen in, so all I could do was just wait. ¡°This changes some things, but don''t take this as a bad sign. It will just mean that this whole thing will take a little bit longer. I hope you didn¡¯t have any other plans for the evening?¡± Mr. Yellow said with a bit of excitement in his voice. chapter 368 "So rich, can I call you, Rich?" Mr. Blue asked, and I gave him a nod. "Thank you, Rich. I understand that it''s not very comfortable talking about your past. Many can¡¯t handle it, but I hope you can explain to us a bit more about your experience that allowed you to be so proficient at, well, everything to do with bureaucracy." To me, it was still a little bit weird that everyone seemed so unwilling to talk about their past. I guess I could understand it could be quite traumatic, especially if you were ripped away from your life, but I had already lived mine. The only reason I haven¡¯t talked about it with anyone else is that no one has asked. "The short story is actually quite easy to tell; the long version would be too long. When I was quite young, but a bit older than I currently am, a World War started, and I volunteered to fight for my nation.¡± ¡°It was a terrible war, and many died, but I seemed to be quite proficient at leading men. I was promoted quite fast and kept being promoted until I was one of the highest-ranked people. Without the help of many experts who were able to teach me to run and manage so many people, I would have never succeeded." "I have always thought that a person can be an expert in anything he wants to be, as long as he has the drive. And no matter how much I didn¡¯t like paperwork, it was needed to keep the people who needed me alive, so I learned. This is the reason why I was able to manage all of this so well." They once again talked amongst themselves, but I was kind of getting a good vibe from them. I wonder why. "That is truly impressive. I am not aware of any of the more regular worlds having gone through a World War in the past 100 years, but time can be difficult," Mr. Blue said, and when he finished speaking, Mr. Yellow started. "We believe you, but I just know there will be trouble afterwards if we just leave it like that. Are you perhaps a genius at bureaucracy who just doesn¡¯t like it?" Once again, the way they acted was weird. It was like they were on my side, but why? ¡°Hmm, I am definitely not a genius at bureaucracy, but perhaps I have reached that level, at least the level of an uninterested genius. Yes, I think I have reached that far, which is basically just an expert in any certain subject.¡± I gave them a bright smile, but I was pretty sure that they were not satisfied with that, but I honestly didn¡¯t know how to give them what they wanted. "What''s an uninterested genius?" Mr. Green asked, but it was hard to tell if he was truly interested or just going through the motions. "Well, a genius is someone who is capable of being at the top of any field they are a genius in. They can achieve that by putting little effort into their studies. A person who is not a genius but is thoroughly passionate about it can reach that far and even perhaps surpass a genius, but only if that genius isn¡¯t passionate about that subject.¡± This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it ¡°It''s very rare to find an individual who is genuinely passionate and a genius at something. Those kinds of people are the individuals who will bring that subject to a new golden age and will be remembered forever." "This is truly interesting, and I think something we can work with," Mr. Yellow said. We talked about that and many other things. It took me a bit to understand, but I just had to remember what this meeting was about to put the pieces together. They were not here just to make sure that I wasn¡¯t a fraud; they wanted to make sure a person in charge of a high-rank organization could actually manage it. If I understood them correctly, they were quite impressed. I have had a lot of practical experience with this kind of stuff, which they especially liked. There was only one thing I didn¡¯t understand: why were they so willing to help me? They even admitted people used favors so they would make trouble for me. Finally, I couldn¡¯t take it anymore and I had to ask, "Shouldn''t you be trying to block me and not, well, help me?" There was a moment of silence before I felt a more serious mood take over the room. "There are many different camps, as they call it in the political world, but you could still divide them all between two sides. One would be the people who want most of all to advance their own agenda, and the second side who actually cares if civilization survives or not." "Rich, we are constantly fighting for our survival. If the high-rank people like you didn''t protect and fight in the rings, there would barely be any civilization, and high-ranked individuals would rule with iron fists and do terrible things. It has happened before.¡± ¡°You specifically seem like a truly competent person and who seems to have a lot of experience in managing a lot of people. We will give you your organization; we will even support you to the best of our abilities.¡± ¡°You have, however, made some unfortunate enemies, and you will need to fight those fights on your own, but if you survive, we believe you could help stabilize a large section of the rings. Only people similar to you can be granted permission to make a high-rank organization at least if things worked like they should." They stood up then and extended their hands for me to shake. One by one, I shook their hands, and they were strong. They then stamped my paperwork. "Congratulations, Rich Dirt, your organization United Freeholds Company has been approved. Tomorrow at 12:00 will be an orientation in this building, room 105. Don''t be late," Mr. Yellow said in a serious business tone. "I won¡¯t be," was the answer I gave, and then I left. There was a lot of information there to unpack, and I kind of felt I needed a drink and some food. When I got out, it was already dark, and it seemed that I was kind of correct; there were a lot more people out now than there were during the day. It didn''t take me long to find a tavern. It was quite busy, but I sat down at an empty table, and even before I could start thinking about what I wanted, a server approached me. Before she could say anything, I spoke, "Today¡¯s special, two portions, and one shot of white liquor, around 80%, if you have it." She gave a bright smile, "Right away." My mind was in a bit of turmoil. I knew that the inner parts of the continents were dangerous, but I never truly understood how many high-ranked people it took to keep the rest of the population safe. This will be problematic, and with so many people dying off, there will be a lot fewer new high-ranked people to take the older ones'' place when they die. It also explains why there are so few high-ranked people in the more regular world. This will be more difficult than I expected. I don¡¯t know how long I was out of it, but the shot was put on my table, and I downed all of it in one go. The burn was nice and helped me focus. It was sort of my ritual. Whenever I heard truly terrible news, I usually took a shot of something strong, but only one. Then came the food, and I immersed myself in the feast in front of me. It seems that this place truly knows the value of large portions. When I was almost finished with the first, someone bumped into my table and spilled all my food. When I looked up, I saw the grinning face of the Queen''s bodyguard. Finally, I needed to let off some steam. chapter 369 "Who let the country pumpkin like you eat here?" the Queen''s bodyguard said. I immediately stood up and pushed him back. The surprise on his face was satisfying. "How dare you. I want this person kicked out, and I want him to buy everyone in this establishment a free meal and a drink for disturbing us all," I said in a loud but not screaming tone. He recovered quickly and smiled at me. "You were the one to disturb us, and I demand compensation. Your smell ruined our mood, and I want you to kneel, apologize, and then leave and never return." He seemed to have quite a few people with him, but only the people around him were encouraging him. Everyone else looked at him like he was crazy. He wanted to push me so I would look like the bad guy, but I wasn¡¯t going to allow him to play the hurt party and to be honest both of our acting needed work. "You are mad, but you have also dishonored me. You threw out baseless accusations, and I¡¯m pretty sure most of the people here would back me on that, but why ruin everyone else¡¯s time? Let''s let our blades do the talking. For the dishonor you have shown me, I challenge you to a duel to the death." I could see the annoyance in people¡¯s eyes when I mentioned that most would side with me because if this went to a trial, they would all need to show up. As I ended my declaration, their looks turned into more predatory ones, and they stopped looking at me and looked towards the Queen''s bodyguard. He, however, was completely confused, but with so many high-ranked people looking at him with malice, he didn''t have time to properly think things through. "I accept your challenge," he said. After he finished saying that, I think he started to understand that something was truly wrong. "Let us fight a week from now in the dueling arena in this city," the Queen¡¯s bodyguard proclaimed, yet I immediately started to shake my head no. "No, that won''t do. I need my honor restored today. We will either fight on the street or in the dueling arena, but we will fight today. I am willing to wait a few hours to get this made official, but only a few hours. The choice is yours, bootlicker." The last word made his anger return. I had guessed correctly then; he did not like it when someone pointed out that a famous person of his rank was nothing more than a bodyguard, even if it was his choice. Just before anyone could continue, a few people popped into the establishment, and they looked like they were ready to fight. They were the guard force, and I could also hear a lot of people running towards this place, most likely also guards. Someone must have notified them about the disturbance going on. The guards looked a little bit confused as there didn¡¯t seem to be a fight going on. Then, an individual shrouded in blackness appeared and whispered something into the head guard¡¯s ear. Immediately the guard looked towards me and then the Queen''s Bodyguard. "There will be no fight on the street, is that understood?" came a very low and threatening voice from what seemed to be the guard in charge. "My honor is challenged¡­" I was only able to get out before I was interrupted by the head guard. "Since the challenge has already been accepted, we will organize the duel, but to the death. Is that really necessary?" he asked, looking at me. "Well, I am willing to compromise if he strips completely naked after I win and then takes a walk of shame around the city," I said. My words silenced the whole place. Yet I could see the head guard letting out a barely noticeable sigh of relief. "No, the duel will be to the death," announced the Queen''s bodyguard. "So be it," I said after a small pause. I did try to look a little bit worried, but I don¡¯t know if it worked or not. At least he was confident enough to continue and try to kill me. I needed him to be at least a bit more confident; otherwise, he might be too suspicious. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. The head guard looked truly disappointed, but he seemed to be doing a good job, as it was only an hour and a half later before we were in the middle of a Colosseum-type arena that was filling up quite fast as the word spread about what was going on. We were separated by about 50 meters, but the man in front of me now looked completely different. He was holding a long sword that constantly gave off a cold aura. His armor looked intimidating, not because of how it looked ¨C it was almost full plate armor ¨C but because of how it felt to my senses. It was definitely rank three, and with the amount of strength I felt from it, I wasn¡¯t sure I could pierce it. I pulled out my helmet from my tattoo storage and put it on. Then I pulled out my sword, my glorious two-handed sword that I crafted myself. It almost seemed to sing as I moved it through the air, getting my muscles heated up. It could sense my intentions and it wanted to taste a strong opponent. My opponent, however, smirked at my blade. I knew he had an incredible reputation for being able to destroy blades. It seemed that he might have an ability that helps the shatter enchantment be even stronger, but I was confident I would be able to handle it. *** The stands filled quickly. The only reason the guards were so willing to accept this duel, even if they didn''t want it to end with a death, was because every person needed to pay for entrance to be able to see this fight. In the regular world, it wouldn''t bring in much, but here basically everything cost monster cores, especially watching a high-rank fight. The reason they didn''t want death duels was that it was politically complicated, but it wasn''t their job to completely stop it. So, on a dark night, two men stood 50 meters from each other on a sandy floor, illuminated by large bonfires. As the minutes ticked by, the atmosphere continued to get heavier until finally, a bell was rung. The very next moment, the two people rushed at each other. To a regular person, it would look like they were standing one moment and the next they were in the middle of the arena, their blades connected as they tried to overpower each other. Both sides pushed at each other, but it only took a moment before Rich started to overpower his opponent. The grimace on the opponent''s face said it all. Cheers, boos, and general excited noises were heard as the fight didn''t end with one strike. The blades started to clash, but they weren¡¯t swings of blade masters. Both were still quite decent with sword fighting, yet one was quite rusty, being more accustomed to breaking enemy swords, and the other simply overpowering his opponents. The blades clashed, sparking and screaming every time they touched, yet both would not give up. The first exchange lasted for only 10 seconds, yet the opponents didn¡¯t separate. Instead, they continued to try to outmaneuver one another with swordplay. The thing that changed was that they started to do other things as well. The Queen¡¯s bodyguard was the first to act, using an ability that slowed enemies in his vicinity. It unfortunately worked by creating layers of ice on an enemy to slow them down, but Rich simply broke the forming ice with his movements. Slowly his body seemed to be heating up, helping him move even faster. Rich didn''t take this lying down and started to use his energy control to start disrupting his enemy''s movement and sometimes even interrupting his sword''s movements. This allowed for the first proper attack to land on the Queen¡¯s bodyguard, yet his armor was too tough for Rich to get through using a slash attack. The Queen¡¯s bodyguard was also able to get in some attacks, but Rich''s defenses were good, and even with his lower-rank armor, he was able to easily defend. The crowd once again cheered as they knew they were going to see a truly intense fight. Rich could''ve used more of his varying abilities, but he didn¡¯t want to reveal his trump cards too soon, so he needed to wait for the proper moment to truly gain the advantage. About half a minute into the fight, Rich was finally able to set up a piercing attack, and for a moment, everyone held their breath as the tip seemed to catch the metal of the armor. Yet, it was only for a moment before it was diverted and harmlessly slid off. For the first time since the start of the battle, both separated. Both of them were breathing heavily as they had gone all out and used everything their bodies had. Their stamina, however, was far from depleted. Both re-engaged almost immediately. This time, both were using even more energy, and soon the entire arena was flooded with their domains. Rich was the one dominating, while the Queen¡¯s bodyguard was a bright area of defiance inside Rich''s domain. This helped Rich dominate the engagement, and he was able to get in another hit, but this time his sword seemed to do a different type of damage. Rich was using one of his abilities to make his attacks deal blunt damage, bypassing a lot of the armor''s defenses. The Queen¡¯s bodyguard responded by starting to drop the surrounding temperature, and with every degree closer to the freezing point, he seemed to be getting faster and stronger. Still, the damage was starting to accumulate, so the Queen''s bodyguard wanted to change his tactic. He tried to make distance so he could use his beam-type ability, yet he could not get enough time to properly activate it. The fight continued, yet whatever the Queen''s bodyguard tried to do, it was too little. He had gotten off his beam once, and that was the first time he was able to draw Rich¡¯s blood, but it wasn''t enough. Soon, the damage started to affect the Queen¡¯s bodyguard''s speed. Rich tried to end the fight there, but he still couldn¡¯t pierce through the armor. Whenever he tried to hit the soft spots, the Queen¡¯s bodyguard pulled himself together and was able to divert the attacks. A large portion of the crowd loved the brutality, as Rich basically needed to bash his opponent to death. The other half was calling for the end of the fight, as a clear victor had already been shown. Rich continued to use his abilities to the maximum, and with every strike, he could hear the damage he was doing. That was another rib broken, and then Rich could see the trickle of blood coming from the mouth of his opponent. Two more strikes, and his opponent was now kneeling in front of him, his sword dropped. Rich didn''t give him mercy, and before the fight could be stopped, he was finally able to get through a weak spot in the armor that connected the headpiece and the chest piece. He thrust his sword deep. The Queen¡¯s guard only lasted another second before he died, regret at failing his queen the last thing on his mind. chapter 370 I could feel my heart starting to slow down. The fight was over, and my opponent was dead. I was still breathing heavily, and I could feel my muscles burning from exertion. There was some elation from my victory, but I never did like killing. What came before it, that was enjoyable: the fight to see if you survive or not, but I couldn¡¯t let him survive. Now, I don¡¯t know what his true goal was. Was it to actually get me into a duel and kill me, or to get me in some other way? But now, it doesn''t matter. There were people rushing towards here, and some of them seemed to be healers. I pulled my sword into my tattoo storage and did the same with my helmet. My armor had battle damage, but it would not hinder my movement. "Is your honor restored? Was it worth killing a person for your wounded honor?" I looked up to see an older woman speaking, who seemed to be using some abilities on the dead person. It looked like she wanted to speak more, but I answered her question before she could. "No, it was not." That made her look at me. "Then why?" she asked in a tired voice. "Sometimes there is no other way, at least not in a way that isn¡¯t risky for me or mine." It looked like she wanted to argue, but I didn¡¯t want to wait here. There was a nice shower and a nice bed waiting for me. So, I started to leave. "You are entitled to his possessions." That made me pause momentarily. It was a great set of armor, and even if I didn¡¯t want full plate mail, it would be useful. Yet, I didn¡¯t want it. "Donate it to the ring''s protection fund." I was quite tired of excitement for today. The shower was refreshing; it had hot water, and the pressure was amazing. It was always fascinating to see that magic could achieve the same as technology can. There might even be a case to be made that magic is even better, although I think it¡¯s on average a lot more expensive. I fell asleep almost immediately as I hit the bed. The next morning came quickly, and I was feeling a lot better now. I started to think back on the fight and what I could have done better. There would have been a few abilities that would have helped me win faster and without getting hit so often. I still believe that showing everything I had was a bad move, and indeed, I did win, even if it was unnecessarily brutal. The breakfast in the inn was nice, but I still had some time to spend, so I went back to exploring the city. The city''s location was hidden, and I could see it being surrounded by mountains, but I had a rough estimate as to where it was. I was brought out of my thoughts when I noticed an interesting building. It had a lot more windows; basically, the entire structure was just made out of windows, and that allowed me to see inside. At first glance, I would have to say it looked like an impressive gym. As I continued to look, I would classify it as a fitness center for superheroes. Some of the weights people were lifting resembled car-sized hunks of metal that were connected by bars. I walked in, paid the quite ridiculous sum, and did a proper morning workout. The ability that allowed me to increase my training difficulty had long ago stopped being useful. I see that I simply didn¡¯t have enough vision. Even without using this ability, I was able to get a proper exercise here. What a wonderful establishment this is. Unfortunately, I couldn¡¯t stay for too long as I had an appointment I needed to get to. Stolen novel; please report. When I reached the same office building, I was in yesterday, I found it to be a lot busier. The door I needed to go through was already open. The room inside was on the big side and looked like an auditorium. There were already about 15 people sitting all over the place. I picked a spot and sat down. I then started to focus on the person behind the table. He was a dwarf, and his table was full of thick bundles of papers. He was also filling out some of them and then putting them into larger and larger piles. Eventually, it seems that everyone made it here; there appear to be 23 of us. "You are all here, excellent," said the dwarf when he finished with the last bundle of papers. He then snapped his fingers, and all the papers disappeared, reappearing in front of the 23 people here. I was surprised to see my own name on the cover of the paper bundle. "Inside, you will find all the information you need to know, but we will go over some points. All of you have been granted permission to form a high-rank organization. It is already a marvelous achievement." The dwarf continued to talk, but it was hard to listen to him, and I wasn¡¯t the only one having difficulties. He was short by nature, and the room seemed to be meant for regular-sized humans. That didn''t seem to be a problem for this dwarf, as he was casually walking on air. He walked side to side as he spoke and up and down as well. Then he finally pointed towards the huge blackboard, and an image of the world appeared on it. What was different about this map was that the rings in the middle of the continents were shown. In all honesty, calling them rings was a stretch. Perhaps the inner ring matched the description the best, but otherwise, they seemed to follow a more natural line and be affected by terrain. It seems that mountains were one thing that truly blocked the spread of the higher-ranked areas, but that wasn''t always the case. I opened up my bundle of papers to see that I was assigned to a fort named Breach. It was on the Green continent, and its location, being in the northeast of the outer ring, fit my needs quite perfectly. I think I have a few people named after colors to thank for that, although those weren''t their real names. "You have all been assigned to different forts and their connected towns. You are all lucky that you will be operating in the outer ring because you have this supply line. The reason for the supply line is that getting portals into even the outer area is extremely difficult," the dwarf explained. I located this part of the topic in my paper bundle and read a little bit more about it. It seems that the higher density of energy makes portal travel a lot more difficult, mostly because of the extra mana needed to make a stable connection. "Most of you are starting a Guild. You need to complete a specific amount of extermination quests or risk your organization being disbanded. Do not worry, you will never have to fight with other organizations to receive quests; there are plenty available. In fact, I think they should raise the monthly numbers," the dwarf said, the last part more to himself than to us, but we could still all hear him. "Now, if you were crazy enough to start the company, you will still have to do the same amount of extermination quests, but you also need to support the Fort you are located in with supplies, be it food, defensive materials, and so on," the dwarf explained, and while he was doing so, he purposely looked towards four people, me included. It seems that there were four companies starting. One of the people looked towards me and then winced in pain. He had just tried to enter my mind, but my defenses are quite nasty. Need to thank Alan for that. The dwarf audibly sighed. "By the love of mountain home, why do I have to say this every time. You are not competitors. We are all fighting for the same goal of keeping our world safe. Every fort is owned by a large company and supported by smaller companies. You are to work together, and if you get large enough, you will be given an opportunity to start your own fort.¡± ¡°There is plenty of room, and never in history has there ever been a moment where there was no need for a new Fort. It¡¯s an unfortunate fact, but forts are lost quite regularly, which is why you should not infight. Is that understood?" All of us gave an affirmative in different ways, but we all gave them. I believed what the dwarf said, but I also believed it was not as simple as he made it seem. The lecture was quite long, but it basically just highlighted what was written inside the bundle of papers. The requirements, especially for resources to be given to the fort, were quite low, but that was because I had just started out. It seems that I will receive a piece of land inside the Fort and in the town supporting it. It was also written in large and bold letters that the resources for building will need to be supplied by me. When the lecture finally ended, I went and got myself a portal time to the western twin city, which was only in five hours. The wait went by surprisingly fast as I was reading and rereading the information packet I received. My journey back wasn¡¯t as fast; it took me a total of five days to get back to the capital, but to me, it went by in a flash. There would be a lot I needed to do, but also it wasn''t actually that demanding. I had plenty of time to grow the company without getting penalized, and the required extermination quests seemed quite straightforward and would not take a lot of time. It will still help me start climbing towards the fourth rank. chapter 371 I was glad about two things: one, it was winter, and the second was that I could take Goose and go to Breach and its connected City. Thanks to it being winter, I had a lot less to do at home, and the government work I needed to do for the United Freeholds wouldn''t take much time, again thanks to it being winter. It was honestly my favourite season. For me, at least, it had always been a time that was less busy, and I could do things that I liked to do. Now, however, it will give me enough time to figure everything out about my company and what I need to do there to make it functional. There are some annoying requirements, mostly about how and what resources you can use. The World Council generally wants to keep the high-rank and low-rank economies separate. I could see why because a single rank 4 weapon, for example, could probably purchase the entire United Freeholds. If they were mixed more often, it would cause tremendous trouble for both economies. I had my own company back on Earth where I sold whatever I made, but mostly it was for my bow business. This entire thing kind of reminds me of this: how you need to keep your and your company''s money separate and you could only buy certain things with your business card. But I think I have been thinking about this too much. So, I¡¯ll finish eating at this inn and then take this day and the next as vacation days. The walk back was nice, and I did enjoy the cold. The road was decently busy as every once in a while, I saw a group of people walking towards the capital and sometimes even a carriage that were transporting cut stones. From what I understood, they were trying to build up the stockpile in the capital so next year they could continue the road east with as much speed as possible. A lot of the stones were also being transported to the coastal capital using our newest energy-type portal. I would still personally call this a prototype, as it''s a long way off from the efficiency goals we have, but it''s a step in the right direction. They need information from constantly running the portal so they can figure out how to make it more efficient and to see how long each part lasts. I will need to get them to build one in the connected town as well. Wait, what was its name? Then I remembered. It¡¯s called Connection. That¡¯s why I tried to forget it. From what I understood, basically every town that had a similar function was called something stupid like that: Supply, Resupply, Food Bank, and so on. I do not know why they¡¯re named like that, but I would kind of like to know the history behind it. Wait, I¡¯m once again thinking too much about work. So, I switched off, and when I made it back to my home, I kind of would have wanted more alone time, but with so many apprentices, it was never going to happen. My vacation went by really fast, and I kind of wished I could take more time off, but I couldn¡¯t. Unfortunately, I couldn¡¯t pack everything that I wanted to, as Goose was still not so big that he could carry me and a lot of extra weight. This was also my first visit, so I didn¡¯t actually know what I needed to bring and what I could buy locally. The fact was that I would need to build two company buildings, one in Connection and the other in Breach. Both places probably had their own quality needs, but in the paperwork, it was mentioned that you couldn¡¯t use any resources below first rank, but that every location would have its own specific rules, and that could change if leadership changed. ¡°You ready?¡± I said to Goose, who bumped his beak into my chest and tried to guide me to get on. He was always excited when he could fly long distances. We also couldn''t wait for too long; otherwise, we were not going to make it to our destination before sunset. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. We did still have one stop to make before we set off. I mounted Goose, and he took off, soaring through the air without gaining a lot of height, towards Emma¡¯s homestead. We made it there in just a few minutes, and she was already waiting for us outside. "Good morning," I said to her. "Good morning as well. I have what you ordered, and I made sure it was as close to rank two as I could make it." We chatted for a little while longer. I took the large ribbon that I ordered from her. It had a distinct pattern of striped light blue and dark blue. It''s needed to mark every bonded or domesticated beast. If I had flown there without it, they would probably think a wild giant eagle was looking for dinner. Attaching it to the leg so it wouldn¡¯t come loose and flop around, which would cause other problems, was a bit difficult, but with my abilities, I managed. We said our final goodbyes to Emma and then flew off towards the South. Goose gained altitude fast and then settled into a fast, forward flight, where he was using his air manipulation to help speed us along. I started to give him some of my energy, but I needed to be really careful because if I gave too much, I could easily burn out his energy system, simply because he was still rank two. He was not happy about still being rank two. He was extremely glad to hear when I told him where we were going, as he was looking for more dangerous hunting grounds so he could continue to rank up. The saddle was most definitely not the most comfortable, and I could see many changes I would need to make to make the long flying sessions more comfortable for me and Goose. We would probably also need to figure out a fighting technique that we could use together, as I suspect we could hunt quite a lot using our mobility and my explosive damage capabilities. The current plan was to make contact, see what I would need to build, and then finish this month''s necessary contracts using Goose''s help as fast as possible. I thought that perhaps boredom might also be a problem during the long flight, but that wasn''t the case. With my eyes that I could enhance with multiple abilities, there was nothing I couldn¡¯t see. It was so interesting to fly, yet still be able to see everything so clearly. Goose wasn¡¯t the biggest fan of this, as I needed to scoot over to one side to peer downwards, and that messed up his flying balance. The third time I tried to do this, he threatened to drop me, so I, unfortunately, had to settle for just looking at the landscape that was in front of us. Unfortunately, with our speed, it didn''t stay in front of us for long. Now, my eyesight might have been amazing, but it was nothing compared to Goose''s, so he was the first one to notice our target. We did have to adjust our course a little bit, but I was quite amazed at how accurate Goose could be while flying such distances. We had flown about 3000 kilometers, and now we were flying quite slowly compared to what we did before. Finally, I was also able to see their city below. It was bigger than I expected, but there weren¡¯t any buildings higher than three stories, and none were taller than the walls surrounding the city. Honestly, this looked like a fort, and for a moment, I thought that perhaps we were in the wrong place. When I communicated this to Goose, he shook me a little bit, so I had to hold on. Apparently, I was being stupid, and Goose had brought me to the right place. To prove that I was wrong, he started to fly towards the West. The burst of speed was amazing to experience, and I had been ready just in case. Goose flew for about 30 minutes before he started to show images through our connection. The place I saw was formidable. It would take us around two and a half hours to fly there, but Goose wanted to show me a better image of it today, so he could prove me wrong. He turned around, but I still had the image in my head. It was hard to gauge the height of the walls, but they were massive and incredibly thick. There were towers, and I¡¯m quite sure all of the structures inside were built out of rock as well, and they even had towers inside the fort, probably to fight against flying creatures. We approached the city once again, but we didn¡¯t fly inside simply because I didn¡¯t know the rules here, and if it wasn''t allowed, it would be quite troublesome. Goose didn''t like walking, but he managed well enough as we walked towards the impressive gatehouse. Even before we landed, there were quite a few siege weapons pointed towards us, and as we got closer, I could see more and more people showing up. They didn''t let us get too close the gate as a group of 10 people jumped off the wall and started to approach us, so I stopped walking. "State your business here," the guard in charge told me when they were within comfortable shouting distance. "My name is Rich Dirt, the leader of United Freeholds Company that was assigned to Fort Breach. I am here to finish registering and establish my company," I replied. I could see the serious faces almost instantly change into pleased ones, except for the guard who was in charge. They were now quite close, so there was no longer a need for shouting. "Can I see the card?" the guard asked. It was a card that was inside the paper bundle and was the physical document proving my claim. I showed it to him, and after he examined it for a little bit, his face finally turned cheerful. "Connection welcomes you with open arms. We can always use any help we can get. We will escort you to the City Hall so you can take care of anything urgent. Please follow me," he then looked towards Goose. "Also, register the eagle so that we know it''s friendly, so you could fly straight into the city, although there are specific areas where flying creatures can land. Follow me, and hopefully, we can get everything taken care of today." I thanked him and started to follow. It seemed that they were quite well-trained and actually helpful. That was a nice change of pace. As we got closer, the large gate doors were opened, and I was amazed at how many people, not just guards, were ready to fight anything that might come through. This was also, however, a bit worrying. Were the surrounding lands truly this dangerous? When I cleared the gatehouse, I was greeted with what looked like quite the traditional medieval town, although I could see the magical elements hidden within. I wondered what wonders I would be able to find here. chapter 372 The first place I was led to wasn¡¯t actually the City Hall; instead, it was the Beast Hall. There, I could register Goose and leave him, so he would be taken care of and safe. The registration was quite standard overall, but it took a bit of time, which allowed me to observe my surroundings. There weren¡¯t as many beasts as I expected, but compared to other places, it was a zoo. The most common ones I saw were medium-sized felines, but there were also a lot of bird-type beasts, usually perched on someone''s shoulder. The people here were quite different from other places. Everyone looked like they were adventurers, and perhaps they were, but even so, people were doing normal jobs like sweeping while fully armored. I guess you just couldn''t let your guard down here. What was even more curious was what these people were wearing. The most common type of armor I saw was leather, but many were also wearing some metal armor pieces. Every weapon and tool that I saw seemed to be made out of either metal or creature parts like horn. The metals themselves were different. The only metals that I recognized were iron alloys. These seemed to be incredibly strong alloys, yet from what it looked like, they were the most undesired of all the materials I saw. Only a few had weapons or tools from this type of material, and the persons who wielded them weren¡¯t the best off. Most had armor that was barely holding together or looked to be incredibly young people who were just getting started on their journey. There was another curious fact: there were no children anywhere. Perhaps there was a place in the city where there were children, but I didn¡¯t think so. The reason I was quite certain of this was that there was no one under rank one. It seems that the rule that anyone under rank one couldn¡¯t be here was actually being enforced. I need to stop doubting the information I receive, even if it seems unrealistic. It cost me 100 cores to keep Goose here, and if things were truly this expensive for everything, I couldn¡¯t even imagine how much materials would cost to build entire structures. The City Hall wasn¡¯t far from the Beast Hall. But going there I did get a chance to better observe the buildings. Everything seemed to be made out of rank-one materials. Mostly, things were made out of wood, but there were some buildings made out of stones. The City Hall was like that, and it seems that the foundation was made from rank two stones. That was impressive. When we walked inside, I was momentarily taken aback. Quite a lot of people were moving in and out, but when I saw what was inside, I was incredibly confused. The building was almost split into three equal parts, but one was smaller than the other two. The d¨¦cor for each part was different, and it seemed that even how they operated was different. ¡°I don¡¯t tire of seeing that face,¡± the guard that was guiding me said. After saying that, he started to approach one of the sections that looked more tribal, if I had to put a word to it. I followed, but fortunately, I didn¡¯t need to ask as the guard continued to explain. ¡°Breach isn¡¯t the only fort that has this city as a supplier. You can probably see why this city got the name Connection. There used to be more, but two forts were overrun about 10 years back. Terrible business that was.¡± We made it to the receptionist tables, but my guide pointed me to a door. ¡°You go through there. You will be able to get everything sorted out. Just one last piece of advice: the preferred currency here is Mythryl coins. They come in small, medium, and large sizes. So, if you¡¯re going to buy any equipment, if you try to pay in cores, you would be overpaying by quite a lot.¡± I thanked him and then watched as he left. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. I wanted to let out a tired sigh, but bureaucracy was unfortunately a necessity. Two hours later, when it was already dark - fortunately, that didn''t stop me - I was standing in front of a large lot with a decent-sized building that had seen better days. The people in City Hall were incredibly happy that I had already made it here, although they were less happy when I told them I was alone. Nevertheless, I received a small stipend of 100,000 monster cores and five small mithril coins. With all of this, I was never going to be able to build or afford anything here. At least I wasn¡¯t going to be starving, but the prices were quite expensive. Because of that I was just eating my rations while I looked upon my land. I could feel a weak connection to it; it wasn¡¯t properly mine, but it still somewhat was, which was at least a positive. The money I did get would have allowed me to at least get started on getting a group of people settled in this building and perhaps start doing some jobs around the city. This wasn''t going to work for me. Now, I did want to slowly build up my company, but I didn¡¯t want to do it at a snail¡¯s pace. I stepped onto my company land, and the connection deepened a little bit. At least I was going to know if someone who wasn''t from my company would step on this land. The building from inside was even worse, but it would keep the cold out; other than that, it was completely empty. There was a decent-sized underground basement complex which was in better shape, but that was it. I''m pretty sure that the other companies and guilds were already established before they applied to become high-rank ones. I was starting from the beginning; however, I did have access to United Freeholds'' workforce, even if I had to pay them myself. One thing that seemed good about this city was that it didn¡¯t seem to sleep during the night. Some places were closed, but it seems that some also closed during the day and only opened at night. Just in case, I checked all the building material vendors, and while there were places where I could get cheaper materials, I still couldn¡¯t afford anything. Now, that wasn¡¯t completely correct; I could build a shack for the amount of money I had. It took me a little bit of digging to figure out that almost everyone who needed to do a lot of building went out and acquired their own materials. It turns out that most of the materials sold weren''t meant for this city¡¯s construction but to be sold to other forts or cities that didn''t have these types of resources. The portal network also seemed quite extensive, and the portal structures themselves were the largest I¡¯ve seen. That made sense because I could see huge trees being transported through to some other place. Trade seemed to be constant, and I guess it made sense. From what I saw on the large map that the dwarf showed us, not every city and fort would have access to trees, for example. The huge market, where the portal network was in the middle of, was also split into multiple sections, and the three largest were owned by the forts that were close to this city. Even then, they only took about half of the area of the market. The rest of the space seemed to be split quite confusingly, and it seems that many large companies had their own space where they sold and bought a lot of things. My five small Mythryl coins weren¡¯t that useful. It seems that the five of them were roughly worth about 500,000 monster cores. The same value as one medium-sized mithril coin. A large mithril coin was worth 1,000,000 monster cores. It was quite common to see rank three weapons costing 50 or even 100 large mithril coins. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever felt so poor. Fortunately, on the quest board, the tasks that were given were worth quite a lot of coins, but it will still take a while to get a proper weapon. I did overhear a conversation between a party of adventurers complaining that the quests here gave too little coin compared to the ones at the Fort. That at least seemed promising. Perhaps a better idea would be to go and visit the Fort. I still explored this place for a few more hours before I returned to Goose. He didn¡¯t much like the city and was quite glad when I told him that we were leaving. Only about 10 minutes later, we were flying out of the city and towards the Fort. This gave me some time to examine the Mythryl coins. At first, I expected this metal to be an evolved version of iron. It most definitely wasn¡¯t, even if it had some similarities. The structure was incredibly strong, yet I felt it was malleable, similar to iron, and I was quite certain you could temper it like you could iron. I felt I was still missing quite a lot of information, and I think I would need to hire someone to explain everything to me. However, for that, I would need some funds. Halfway through our journey, I received a notification. It seems like I was able to get a new skill: animal riding. It started off at the beginner rank, which was to be expected as I had never done any animal riding before in my life. While it was dark, I could still see the land below quite well, but more importantly, I could understand how different the land below was from what I was used to. Not long away from the city, the plants, trees, and even the ground seemed to become stronger. It took me a little bit to understand, but basically, everything down below was rank one, and as we started to get closer and closer to the Fort, I could see more and more areas that were also rank two. It was incredibly jarring to my vision to see a patch of ground that was rank two. What did that even mean? I wasn¡¯t completely certain, but I was debating on landing to find out. Yet, I could also see the creatures living down below. They were mimicking the rest of the land¡¯s power ranking. Another puzzle piece fell into place, explaining why all of this was necessary. chapter 373 We made it close enough to the fort that I could see it with my own eyes. At this point, Goose and I heard many bird calls coming from the forest below. The next moment, we saw many dog-sized birds taking flight and heading straight towards us. Most were rank one, but there were definitely rank two birds as well. They looked kind of like ravens, but they seemed to have two pairs of wings instead of one. They closed in fast, really fast. I had only gotten my sword out before they were almost at attacking distance. Then Goose acted. He used his wind manipulation to send wind slashes that quickly started to kill the flock chasing us. I launched a few flying slashes as well, but the whole battle lasted for less than 20 seconds. The bird bodies, however, didn¡¯t fall, and they were swept up by a wind current that Goose was controlling. He swept back towards the bodies and swallowed them whole. A few did fall down to the forest, but Goose got most of them and seemed quite pleased about it. I patted him on his neck, "Good job." After that, we headed back towards the fort. I hoped that there wasn¡¯t a contract on those birds because I had a feeling that you couldn¡¯t complete their quests retroactively. It seemed that I was also correct that fighting on Goose was quite awkward. At least I gained a level in my animal riding skill. From far away, the fortress looked like a fortress; from close up, it seemed to transform into something else. It was truly intimidating, but it also didn''t look pristine; there was quite a lot of battle damage. Most prominent were three claw-like scars that must''ve been a few meters deep and about 10 meters in length about halfway up the wall. The wall itself seemed to be about 50 meters tall, and the towers it had didn¡¯t extend much above that. When we were even closer, I could see the thickness of the wall, and you could easily build houses on top of that wall; it was so thick. There were a few people aiming large bows at us, but when I saw them, it seemed they were also able to see me, and they lowered their bows, most likely because they saw the ribbon attached to Goose''s leg. There was a large gatehouse, and only one. I could see people going in and out, but it was obvious the gates were only opened at certain times. Inside the fort, the area was not that large, but the buildings themselves seemed to be almost as tall as the walls themselves. At this point, I did not know if ''fort'' was a good description of this place because I could barely see any gaps between the buildings. It almost looked more like a bunker. The area inside the fort was even smaller than our current capital, but I could see why. Expanding the area inside would mean expanding the walls, and I didn¡¯t even know if that was possible when you had already built this monstrosity. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. A lot of people were on top of the wall and on top of the buildings inside. While I was contemplating whether I should land near the gate or on top of the fort, I saw flags being waved towards me. One of them was green, and the other was striped light blue and dark blue. I wasn¡¯t a master of flag communication, but in this world, green also meant good, and the striped flag had the same pattern as the ribbon tied to the goose. The area where the person was flagging the flags also seemed quite optimal for landing. If this was some sort of trick to get me to pay a fine, I was going to be really mad. We dived at a relatively slow speed towards the indicated spot. No one shot at us, and no one looked mad. When I landed, several really strong-looking people approached us. "State your business," one of them said. It seemed like a similar procedure to the city. "My name is Rich Dirt, leader of the United Freeholds Company. I have been assigned to this fort." ¡°Good enough, Near the gatehouse, there''s a way down. Take that and then go to the command center. You should find what you are looking for in there," the same person who asked me the question spoke and then promptly went back to their post while continuing to search the sky for any danger. The way people acted actually started to make me nervous. Is everything truly this dangerous? There was, however, one problem: what was I going to do with Goose? "Take him with you, there is plenty of space down below," the flag waiver told me, even without me having to ask. I thanked the man and walked along the wall toward the gatehouse. People on the wall were constantly alert, looking out towards the land and sky beyond. Then I heard bowstring thumps. I looked towards the other side of the wall; there were many archers firing heavily ability-infused arrows. It took my eyes a moment to see that they were shooting at large birds, but it seemed most of the arrows didn¡¯t even penetrate the feathers, but it did seem to drive the birds off. Holy shit. While these defenders were ranked two, I was pretty sure that they were shooting arrows that were more dangerous than what I could produce right now. I think I have been too lax in my thinking, even if I¡¯ve been really careful. I think I need to consider this more like a war zone where we are surrounded by enemies. When I reached the gatehouse, I was let in and needed to take wide stairs downwards towards the bottom of the gatehouse. When I reached there, I saw that the only way to enter was the two gates at the top of the wall and two gates at the bottom. One led to the outside world while another led inside the fort. There were more people waiting, and when everyone got into fighting positions, I joined them, only to see the outside gate being opened. A voice that sounded throughout the gatehouse, "Opening the outside gate, 3 minutes before closing. The incredibly thick and enchanted gate was opened. Everyone waited, but nothing happened. About seven people entered the gatehouse, while 11 left. When the gate was closing, I heard the voice once again, "Gate closed for three minutes before inside gate opening." No one seemed to want to talk, and everyone was still quite anxious, but I could see when the gate that led inside the fort was opened how people sighed out in relief. Everyone walked out of the gatehouse, and when the gate closed, the voice announced once again, "Gate closed for 30 minutes." It seemed that they were running a tight ship, but that also explained why I saw people entering and exiting in patches. There wasn''t a time when all the gates to the gatehouse were opened. Inside the fort, the buildings had many small windows that opened onto a small street. It was almost like walking in a maze, and behind many, I could see ranged weapons. The building walls closest to the gate also seemed to have claw marks and other kinds of damage. It seems that it wasn''t that uncommon for creatures to get inside. The street opened up a little bit and even more after the first bend. I still felt like we were walking between walls, and the current street we were on seemed to curve. I quickly figured out that we were walking the circumference of the fort. On my map, I could see that when we finally reached almost back to the gatehouse, it finally opened up to a more normal-looking street layout, and here there were people, what looked to be different artisan stores, and even as we walked further in, a large market area. There was one notable difference to the other markets in this world I had seen: there were no portal stations. I still believe that there must be some portal stations here, but perhaps they were only for emergencies. In the information packet I got, it was quite clearly stated that portaling to the outer ring was extremely mana-costly, but it didn¡¯t state it was impossible like in the middle and inner ring. chapter 374 POV Bruce I looked at the World Council report. They were sending me two new starting companies. I was a bit disappointed; I was hoping we would be able to get some more established companies, but I guess this will have to do. We will be back up to five companies then and should be able to comfortably continue operating, but those two last spots don''t seem to want to stick. One of them disbanded not too long ago, and the three before that were each lost on a mission with no one returning. Before that, those two spots needed to be emptied by me. Those were dark times. I looked up and saw the past of my hall. The five company heads and 12 guild heads were sitting with our most trusted, having the time of our lives. Then came the betrayal. I had expected them to leave as this fort was becoming too small for them, but instead, they tried to take my fort away from me. It was a brutal battle, but my half-orc body helped me survive it. I could feel myself once again sinking into the rage and darkness, but then I heard boisterous laughter. The scene in front of me changed immediately. There were a lot fewer people now in the hall, but my comrades were having fun and telling embarrassing stories about each other. I laughed as I heard the punchline. Back then, my hall looked a lot different; it was so much emptier. Back then, all I could think about was advancing. Now, there were trophies of the monsters we had killed and beautifully crafted weapons made by my friend. I enjoyed this a lot more, but I could also feel the acceptance. Some of my comrades had left as they continued to grow stronger. Opening up my achievement page, I once again saw those mocking numbers. There was so much joy in me when I made it past the 8000 milestone, getting to rank 4 was a great achievement. Yet, slowly after that, my classes reached their max level, and I could not upgrade them no matter how much I pushed myself. Two of my three main stats refused to get close to rank 5, capping out at a bit over 14,000. Many told me never to invest my free points anywhere but in my main 3 stats, but I didn¡¯t listen to them. Purely going by the numbers, it wouldn¡¯t have made a difference, but I always think that having more would have given me a chance to advance one of my classes. Personally, I don¡¯t think so, but I can¡¯t be certain. I¡¯m incredibly glad that I have put so many stat points into my toughness stat. It has allowed me to dominate and survive in the outer ring and even fight in the middle ring, although there I would just be another fighter, perhaps an elite fighter, but nothing more. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! I also think a part of this is my fighting style. Looking down at my fists, I often regret going down this path. Fighting without weapons is a huge disadvantage when it comes to fighting monsters. More civilized monsters, however, now that was a different story. It''s funny to see their faces as I get into grappling range with them and then just squeeze. Not everyone goes down so easily, but I enjoy those fights more. ¡°Commander, it appears that one of the new company leaders is here already,¡± my mind stopped working for a moment. This brought back some bad memories. I remember it started like that so long ago. ¡°Let him in,¡± I said, and then watched as my command was passed on and then the doors to my hall were opened. The entire place immediately went silent at the strange sight we saw. Just in case, I quickly rechecked the paper from the corner of my eye, but it did state that both of the company leaders were human. So why was one of them so huge? He approached, and I quickly glanced at his companion, a giant eagle. They can be fearsome fighters, and their flocks are probably responsible for more fort kills in the outer ring than any other species. This one was still young, yet already so big. The human, however, seemed even more impressive. Somehow, he was a bit taller than me. And for that reason alone, I instantly disliked him. He was wearing medium armor that seemed ill-fitting, but I could see that he would be using speed as well. With that size, he would be a decent opponent if he was at rank 4. There doesn¡¯t seem to be any weapons, so he has some sort of storage ability, and a flexible one at that, to be able to store different kinds of weapons. I''m pretty sure he would use multiple kinds of weapons; he just looks the type. He''s also really young, yet experienced. Perhaps trained by a strict father, but it didn''t feel right. Some traumatic experience that made him the way he is? Perhaps, but still doesn''t feel completely right. No, those eyes have seen too much. So, not just one thing made him, but many. The question remains, will he be like him? "Greetings, my name is Rich Dirt, the leader of United Freeholds Company. I was told that I was to report here?" he spoke with a decently deep voice, but there was no hesitation or fear. "You made it here sooner than I expected. It is usually customary to come with your main party. I would like to see them as well." Once again, he wasn''t afraid of my voice, even if I infused some of my more subtle abilities into it. "Don''t have a party, so to say, but Goose and I came here to start setting everything up." I stayed silent after his words as I needed to think. He took this time to look around at the trophies and weapons. Curious, that was different. There were a few other rank fours here. He should know that we could kill him at any moment. But he also isn''t stupid or overconfident. I guess that experience that I saw in his eyes came in handy. "Well, that¡¯s fine then. You will be given your own building as is customary. The rest of the information you will require you can get from the quartermaster. Wait, why is the name United Freeholds familiar to me?" I asked, not just the human but everyone around me. The moment of silence was broken by one of my comrades. "Wait, isn¡¯t that the nation up in the north? The one that had that big war with three other nations?" Now I remembered, and the human gave a nod. Now that was even more interesting. "Are you just from the nation, or do you have some more connections to that nation?" I asked. "Yes, I have my family land there, and I hold some government positions, most notably the highest military position. But don''t worry, thanks to Goose here, there shouldn''t be any problems running things here," he replied. There was confidence in his words, but every one of us seemed a bit unsure about that statement. Having a nation behind him, even if it was a young nation, would be advantageous as he would have a stable place to recruit from. Some of my comrades continued to ask him questions, but I just listened. A picture was forming in my mind of a capable man who seemed to have some ambition, but it didn''t seem to be overwhelming, which I appreciated. Managing truly ambitious people was tiresome. When he left, I ordered my spy to gather as much information about him as possible. It might be too early to be certain, but perhaps this one would truly not be too much trouble. Although, I think that he might get strong enough to challenge me and perhaps he might want to take the fort for his own as. However, that would be a problem for the future that might never happen. chapter 375 The building I entered inside the Fort was a bit run-down but a lot better than the one I got in town. There was even furniture, and it seemed that the whole building was heated by some sort of heating system that worked on ambient energy. It would have never worked if we weren''t in such a high-density area. What made me even more curious was that this was the outer ring. By how much would the density rise closer to the inner ring? It was hard to imagine what madness might be living there. The building was one of the tall ones that reached all the way up to the edge of the wall and might have been one of those I walked on when I first landed with Goose. There were many floors, but the space on a single floor wasn¡¯t too big, around the same size as my home. There was no exit except for the ground floor; there wasn''t even a basement, but the quartermaster gave me information that there was also a solid floor that was as thick as the outer wall underneath the whole Fort. That way, nothing could come into the Fort from below the ground. I sat down in one of the more comfortable chairs and thought back on the conversation with the fort leader. He was quite strong and seemed quite wary of me. Fortunately, it seemed that he wasn¡¯t going to try to mess with me just yet. I do think that someone might be following me, but I haven¡¯t been able to catch a glimpse of them. It seems that I¡¯m not completely at the bottom of the ladder, but I''m definitely not at the top. This meant that I needed to be a bit more careful about how I acted because if one of those strong people decided to kill me, I think they could succeed. On the other hand, it meant there was an opportunity here to learn from people who are stronger and have lived a lot longer than me. A perfect example is the leader. If I didn¡¯t know his age of 187 from the paperwork I got, I would have guessed he was in his 40s. There are more people like that. It was hard to understand what I was seeing at first, but seeing the leader helped me figure it out. It was possible for me to see if a person was older than they seemed. I would never know their exact age, but I think if I practiced a little more, I could at least tell at a glance if someone was a lot older than me. In fact, I think I should take some time and try to hone that skill, as it might save my life one day. First business, however, was to make a sign. The second floor had some crafting materials leftover from whoever was here before me. There wasn''t anything special here, but there were some paints and a piece of wood that was big enough. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. I carved the company name into it and then painted it. After that, I went to the ground floor where I saw Goose sleeping. He was quite tired from all the flying, and it was nice and warm here. The ground floor was a bit bigger than the rest of the floors. It also had three large doors and what looked to be a smithing corner, but all the equipment had been taken out, and only the shadows remained of what once was. There were also many small windows covered with wooden shutters. They were meant to be fired out of whenever the fort had been breached. I didn¡¯t see any battle damage on the outside of the building, however, there were some inside. I guess long ago there might have been a drunk brawl here. I hung the sign above the front entrance, mimicking how the other buildings had their signs placed. Now everyone should know that this building was no longer empty. The moment I did that, I could also feel the connection to the land the building was deepened a little bit, but it was still quite muddled as I wasn¡¯t the true owner of this place. This was a bit annoying, and I wondered if I would ever want to take over this fort. I laughed at my own joke; it would be way too much work. This fort, like the town, also didn''t seem to sleep at night. So what I did was go exploring. It turned out it was difficult to explore because there were a lot of shops, and each one was connected to a workshop where a master was working. It was hard not to simply watch what they did and try to learn from people who were obviously better than me at dealing with high-rank materials. Getting enough coin to be able to pay them to teach me just jumped up in priority. For that reason, I dragged myself to the quest hall. Even before I got close to the building, I could hear constant yelling, and the number of people here was a bit insane compared to the other places I¡¯ve seen in this fort. When I walked in, I saw that almost half of the room was packed tight with people yelling over one another. The scene reminded me of stock market traders before the 21st century. However, these people weren¡¯t trading stocks; they were buying and selling all kinds of quests, from material acquisition to monster extermination. There were also a few people on stage, apparently announcing new quests. I observed all of this for quite a while. It seems that buying new quests could be done with contribution points, or you would need to wait for one to be assigned to you. Apparently, there was a list, and you could even sell your spot on that list. I was going to be able to get my first quest in 3 days, and then I could sell or trade it if I couldn¡¯t complete that quest or just didn''t want to do it. All of this seemed like madness to me, but there was a positive side to it. The quests themselves were worth quite a lot. It would have taken dozens of quests to make the same amount of coins in the town. I was also curious about who was funding all of this. The answer was simple and complicated at the same time. The Fort kind of paid for the quests. It seems that it got a chunk of money every month from the world council, but it also seems that they were making coin from every quest as well because even with monster extermination quests, you needed to bring back proof of certain monster parts, which were quite expensive, and those you needed to give to the Fort. Fortunately for me, there was also, on the other side of the room where there weren¡¯t many people, a large board. On there were quests that anyone could pick up. But of course, there was a catch. All of those quests were the ones that no one was willing to do. It seems that if they were on there for too long, a guild or a company would be forced to do it. There seemed to be a few reasons why they might be here. The biggest seemed to be distance. A lot of the quests on the board were to the very edge of this fort¡¯s territory, and some of those would take a week or more to reach if you were hurrying. Outside this fort, basically the entire area was a war zone, and from my experience, the longer you are in a war zone, the more likely you are to run into something you can''t handle. It now made quite a lot of sense why such quests were so often on this board. Fortunately for me, I had Goose. The question now was what 5 quests should I pick so I could get this month''s quota done and go back home. chapter 376 I walked out of the quest hall holding only two quest slips, but with a big smile on my face. It turns out that not every quest counts the same for the quest requirement quotas. One of the quests actually gave me 6 points, so I could have just picked that one and been done for the month. However, I picked up the second one as well because they were really close together and would give me a good opportunity to gauge two different types of opponents. The harder quest was to exterminate a flock of birds. I was a bit surprised to learn that it was so common for different types of creatures to emerge that usually people just called them what they kind of seemed like and changed a few details. So, these birds are called white ravens, and I could see why they would call them that. They did kind of look like ravens, although they were bigger but not by much, and of course, they had white feathers. But not just white, they also had light brown feathers mixed in. It seems that this species has been an issue for about 10 years, but this flock was one of the biggest seen to date. The reason for that was the head of the flock, which was rank 3. There were also reportedly over 300 members in the flock, with over half of them being rank one and above. If it wasn¡¯t for Goose, I wouldn¡¯t have accepted this quest. I also wouldn¡¯t have accepted it if I hadn¡¯t seen a lot of metal ball slingshot ammunition for sale in one of the smithies. Me, armed with the metal balls, and Goose doing his wind manipulation, we should be able to handle the flock. As for the leader, that would be a more challenging fight, but I will purchase some better throwing knives for that fight. Bird-type creatures usually have one big weakness: their weak constitution. They just can''t take a hit, what made them dangerous was that they could usually dodge those attacks. The other quest I had was the exact opposite. It was only worth one point, although the payout was almost the same. The reason being that these creatures'' bodies were worth a lot more. More specifically, what was inside their bodies, but their defensive outer layer was also worth quite a lot. However, taking them down is not that easy. Not only do they have incredible defenses, but they''re also incredibly good earth manipulators and reportedly can attack from quite a distance. Once again, Goose was here to save me. They could probably shoot out earth spikes, so the fight wouldn¡¯t be like shooting fish in a barrel, but it should still be manageable. Normally, these creatures wouldn''t be targeted, as they were the type of creature that, if you left them alone, they wouldn''t bother you. The small herd of five, led by a rank 3 male, was currently moving ever closer to the edge of the outer ring, and if they continued like this, they would reach civilization in five months. They would leave quite the devastation if they reached that far. They were a mix of creature between an armadillo and a beaver: incredibly well defended and their favorite snack were trees. However, it seems that they could even eat meat if they wanted to. Their main diet was also the reason why they were so valuable. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Apparently, in their stomachs, through some natural and unnatural processes, crystals started to form from their diet. Those crystals were really valuable for crafters, as they could be used for many high-rank items. The shopping spree was not as fun as I wanted it to be, as I didn¡¯t have much coin. And everything I bought were basically the shittiest things on the market. Four small mythryl coins and 45,000 cores later, I was back at the company headquarters, figuring out the placement of the spears and throwing knives so I could easily pull them out from my tattoo storage when I was in a fight. Fortunately, the metal balls came in an ammo pouch that was expanded to be larger than it seemed. That could just go on my waist. When everything was done, there were still a few hours before sunrise, so I made myself as comfortable as possible and had a quick nap. When I woke up, I saw Goose trying to get himself through the staircase so he could join me on the 2nd floor. "Go back down, we will be leaving soon," I told him and got an irritated yet happy feeling back from him. He seemed to truly dislike being confined in human buildings. When I joined Goose on the ground floor, he sent me a feeling of hunger. "Not to worry, we''re going hunting, and there should be plenty of meat for you to eat." As soon as I finished saying that, he began acting like a kid at Christmas. He immediately wanted to rush out, but it took some time before we were back on top of the fort and were given permission to take off. We were heading back up north, but our journey wouldn''t be too long, especially because Goose wasn''t holding back in the speed department. The snow wasn¡¯t too thick here, but I guess it still wasn''t too far into winter. It didn¡¯t take us long to reach our destination, and we also didn''t need to search for long as our prey was kind enough to leave their nests and fly towards us. They seemed quite hungry, but I knew why there weren''t any living creatures for many miles as they probably hunted anything that came too close. My right hand went into the ammo pouch, and I pulled out a handful of metal balls that I started to infuse with energy. After activating my abilities, I threw them as strongly as I could. The metal balls multiplied as they flew, creating many energy copies. The result was that an empty spot appeared amidst the flock flying towards us. The bird noises exploded as they cried out in anger. Goose did not appreciate that and let out his own screech. Many of the birds tried to turn around, but thanks to that, the flock leader needed to also announce its presence. It didn¡¯t have any special characteristics, although I could see that the air around it was colder than around any of the other birds. I continued to throw the metal balls, but I never took my eyes off the leader. Goose dived into the flock and was like a blender; anything that got too close was sliced into ribbons. Then the leader acted. It seems that it could also control air, and its control was superior to Goose''s. If Goose had been alone, he would have died in the next moment. When the flock leader took control of the air, it immediately dived towards Goose''s neck. However, before it could connect, I materialized my sword and pumped enough power into it that I was not only able to stop its attack but also badly cut one of its wings. It was a testament to its rank 3 body that I wasn¡¯t able to cut it in half, and it had only fallen for about 20 meters before it fixed its wing with ice. It demonstrated incredibly precise control, but still, its flying capabilities were hampered, and Goose was once again able to take control of the air. Before it had a chance to recover properly, I ordered Goose to dive. I missed the first two throwing knives. The third one was dodged with wind manipulation, and the fourth one was diverted with the wind itself. It was recovering faster than I expected, but I threw two more throwing knives. Both of them were pumped full of energy. The first one multiplied, but it easily diverted all of them with its control over the wind. The second one, however, was a lot more special. While the first one was truly dangerous, the second one didn''t have that much damage capability, although it did have enough to truly wound the rank 3 bird. The rest of the energy was fueling a very special enhancement. What the knife would do was act oppositely to any further manipulation of its course. So, with the wind trying to blow it one way, it spent energy to act in the opposite way, keeping it moving straight. It was something that I had glimpsed during the war and had slowly refined since, but I had never actually used it in a proper combat setting before. I could swear I saw surprise in its eyes when the wind didn''t blow the knife away. It tried to block it by directly blowing icy wind towards it, and if it had another second to continue its defense, it would have worked, but it didn¡¯t, and the knife sunk deep into its body. Two more knives and it was dead. It took Goose and me a little while longer to finish off the rest of the flock, but many still escaped, which was to be expected. We only needed to bring in the body of the leader. After I secured the leader''s body and recovered a few of my throwing knives, Goose and I started to deal with the rest of the bodies. I went around and collected the more valuable feathers while Goose had himself a proper breakfast. chapter 377 Goose and I were once again flying. My riding skill was slowly leveling up, but I don¡¯t think I will be able to get to the basic rank during this outing. We headed towards the general direction of our next target. We hadn''t flown for too long before both of us could see a really obvious trail. It seems that these creatures could eat quite a lot of trees as they had basically created a straight line through the patches of forest in this area. That was a bit peculiar because the information I got about these creatures was that they usually chased after unique or highly evolved trees. Yet, I could see quite a few interesting-looking rank two trees even in this rank one area and not too far away from the straight path the herd was currently following. ¡°Follow the cleared forest path towards the east,¡± I said to Goose. It took us about an hour to reach the creatures. Goose flew lower so I could get a better look. They were quite big but not elephant size. They were walking in a straight line towards something while munching on tree trunks. They seemed to be using earth manipulation to constantly roll the tree trunks alongside themselves. I could see where the branches had broken off, but it seems that they were only interested in the trunk itself. Some had multiple tree trunks following them like this. ¡°Circle around them for a while,¡± I said to Goose while I continued to observe their behavior. The leader was easily identifiable. It was the biggest in the herd and about twice the size of the others. It had dozens of tree trunks that it was rolling behind him. Some of the other members of the herd seemed to want to head off the current path they were following, but the leader made them return by pushing them back to the original heading using earth manipulation. They were really good at earth manipulation, almost like it was as easy as breathing for them, especially for the leader. They were obviously not too worried about aerial assault, as it took the leader quite a while to notice us, but when it did, it became a little bit more wary of us. "Goose, pick up some speed and swoop towards them, but get ready to dodge anything they might throw at us." Goose immediately followed my command, and we dived towards the herd. Immediately, the leader made a powerful noise, which made the other members of the herd form a circular defensive area. When we got closer, I could see earth spikes being formed and then launched towards us. They were too weak to even reach our current altitude, but those were the ones launched by the regular members. The leader launched multiple ones and he didn''t stop. Those moved a lot faster and had a longer range, but Goose was fast enough and agile enough that it didn''t matter. We flew around them for two circles while they were trying to fend us off. Their fire rate reduced by quite a lot during this time, but it was obvious they could still continue for a while longer. "Goose, gain altitude and fly in ever-expanding circles." He did what I asked him to do, and soon I could see the herd continuing their trek. It was time to find out what they were going after. I didn¡¯t even have to say anything; Goose could pick up on my change of mood. He started to fly along the same path as the herd was taking. We had flown for a little over 30 minutes but covered quite a lot of land during this time. I had yet to see anything too interesting, and we were already out of the outer circle. Then I saw it. I was using a specific combination of my abilities that would allow me to assess the overall tree quality from afar, but when my eyes landed on a small patch of forest, I was almost blinded. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. It took me a bit of time to blink the spots out of my eyes. This time I didn¡¯t channel so much energy into my ability, which allowed me to see the most wonderful young sapling. Goose landed near it. Our presence did drive off a lot of wild animals who were a little too weak to try to challenge us. The tree itself was shorter than me, probably only two or three years old. It was the most wondrous thing I¡¯ve ever seen. It was like a mix between a crystal tree and a regular one. The leaves were deep green, but it looked a little bit sickly, and the bark was a mix of grey-yellow and cerulean-brown. The bark had a fractal pattern on it, but even more beautiful were the leaves, which were all a little bit different but also in fractal shapes. I touched one of the leaves, expecting it to break, but it behaved exactly like a regular leaf. My brain was having trouble comprehending how the fractal leaves could move like that. Goose shoved me quite hard with his beak. I was about to ask him why he did that when I realized how much time had passed. Goose also sent me images of him trying to communicate with me, but I had been non-responsive. I looked back towards the tree, this time seeing the subtle energy and mana fluctuations coming off it. Perhaps this was why it was able to survive this long. It must have had some sort of passive mental snare, and that also explained why so many of the animals around it were just around it and were only frightened off when they noticed my presence. It also seems that whatever effect it has, has a downside. The herd of creatures coming towards it have obviously learned how to sense special trees, and the leader seems to be strong enough to bypass whatever defensive measures this tree can exert. Perhaps when the leader got closer, it would succumb to the effect, but we would never find that out. I looked at the tree, at the size of it, and how large its root network was. If it were a year older, I don¡¯t think I could pull it off, but I think I could bring it back home. The mesmerizing effect was interesting, but that wasn''t the tree''s only extraordinary attribute. It was definitely not a normal tree, and what I could glean shows that it is a lot stronger than any other tree I¡¯ve come across, including the Iron Oak. It¡¯s also still quite young, and from my limited experience, highly evolved plants and creatures sometimes only gain access to stronger or more unique attributes later in their life. Currently, however, I could not bring this tree with me as I had some creatures to hunt, and they would weigh me down quite a lot. No, we would be picking up this tree when we were heading back home. It didn¡¯t take Goose and me long to be back in the air and closing in on the herd''s location. They were truly slow-moving, having advanced only a little bit while we were gone. "Fly up and then dive down as fast as you can. Use a lot of wind manipulation," I said to Goose. He followed my instructions, and I pulled out the strongest spear I could afford on my fort shopping trip. Only when Goose started to dive and use a lot of energy did I start to charge up the spear. It was in my right hand as I poured so much energy into it. The leader of the herd noticed us when Goose started to use his energy. It also masked some of my usage and made my spear look like a part of Goose¡¯s energy manipulation. The area below us was also flooded with a lot of energy, and dozens of large earth spikes started to fly towards us. If Goose continued his dive for too much longer, he would not be able to defend himself from the barrage of earth spikes flying towards us. My spear, however, was now fully charged. I grabbed hold of the saddle with my left hand and sent the command to Goose. He banked down even further but also to the left. The way he moved exposed me, allowing the enemy leader to finally see me. As soon as I could see my target, I threw the spear as hard as I could. With the multitude of abilities and the amount of energy used, the spear exploded towards the target. It still had enough time to almost encase itself in hard earth, but it was a step too slow. My spear pierced the creature''s weakest spot between its head and shoulder, where the armor needed to be flexible and because of that thinner. It was a close thing as I almost missed. A second later, the spear exploded, taking out a large chunk of the creature''s neck, but it was still moving and continued to attack us. Now, however, the attacks were weak. Goose and I, however, had other problems because he needed to pull out of the dive. Now, I don¡¯t know how many G-forces I experienced, but even for my body, I was brought close to blacking out. There was no need for a second attack on the leader because when we had circled back, the leader had bled out. Finishing off the other five members was a lot easier, but now it was time for cleanup. Butchering creatures like this was completely different from what I had experienced before. The skin itself reminded me of scale armor as it was kind of flexible but not fully. Fortunately, I had my adventurer pack, but after I had skinned all six creatures, it was close to full. Goose was feasting on the leader''s meat, but now it was time for the dirtier job. I needed to cut the creatures open to get the crystal balls inside of them. Fortunately, all of them were old enough that they all had at least three, but the leader had 12 and they were twice as big; one was even larger and had a slight blue hue. Otherwise, they were like white marbles. I could also see why crafters wanted them. These crystals had really good energy throughput capability. If I had these when I was making my sword, I could have made it even easier to use my abilities with it. The large one with the blueish hue and six others went into my tattoo storage. The rest of them, unfortunately, I would need to give to the Fort to complete the quest. chapter 378 The trip back to the fort was quite uneventful. Goose, however, looked a bit tired. I guess it made sense; the sun was about to set, and he had been doing a lot of flying and fighting. The descent into the fort was the same as last time, but this time we headed straight to the company headquarters. As soon as we made it there, Goose immediately curled himself up and went to sleep. I did not need to sleep this night; instead, I went towards the quartermaster''s building. There, I needed to stay in line because there were a few other groups turning in quests. When it was my turn, I handed in two quest slips I had. The person behind the counter looked at them, and before I could bring out the body of the bird, he spoke. "Wait, those quests were just accepted. You know what I really hate? When new people come in here and take the quests they¡¯re just not ready for. There will be a heavy fine for you not being able to complete this. Next time be more careful about your choices." I was honestly so confused that it took me a while to understand what this person was on about, but he just continued to complain. Either this person was having a really bad day, or he shouldn''t be working a job where he needed to communicate with other people. I even tried to cut him off, but he just continued to rant. He started to fill out some sort of paperwork, and apparently, he was writing me a fine. "That''s enough," I said, raising my voice a little bit and dropping the body of the bird onto the table. That finally shocked the person out of whatever madness had come over him. "This is the body of the rank 3 bird who had gathered a large flock around it. I can also report that I was able to kill over 90% of the flock, and the birds who escaped were below rank 2." From the adventurer''s backpack I had, I pulled out a cloth bag that was full of white circular crystals. "This is the proof for the second quest, and these were the crystals that were inside the creatures." His mouth moved for quite a while, like a fish out of water, but eventually, he started to record everything down. But when he looked at the cloth bag, it was obvious that he wanted the guards to search me. But because of the mistake he made before, he was unwilling to do so. They wouldn''t find anything because I was storing the crystals in my tattoo storage. There were supposed to be some abilities that could search through abilities like this, but they were exceedingly rare, and no one who had an ability like that would be here. It at least seems that when he wanted to, the madman could work fast. I was handed the bag with 20 small, 10 medium, and three large Mythryl coins. It was a small fortune outside the rings, but here I could spend it all in a shopping trip. I would, however, get a few decent pieces of gear. But this money I will be using to get the company started properly. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. After that, I went into the market so I could familiarize myself even better with everything here. It took 3 minutes for the bag where the coins were in to be stolen. I had no idea who took it or how, but fortunately, I was smart enough to store the coins in my tattoo storage. Near morning, I went back to the company headquarters and napped there until Goose woke me up. We then exited the fort and flew towards Connection. I was going to need to spend the day there as well. Mostly, I spent my time in the library learning about the laws of the place. Before we left, I went and got permission so I could portal here and also submitted paperwork so I could bring other people and animals through the portal. By the time I will be returning here, I should be able to bring others here as well. I did visit a tavern before I left, as eating rations was getting a lot less appetizing when I knew how tasty the food here was. Halfway through the meal, I was surprised. In the corner, there were three tables pushed together where younger-looking but still rank 2 individuals started playing with cards. I recognized the cards to be similar to the ones the kids who I talked to a while back had. I didn¡¯t need to go closer to be able to hear what they were talking about. Apparently, a few days ago, a card pack salesman had visited the city, so everyone had fresh cards and people wanted to beat their old rivals with the new additions to their card packs. I would need to keep my ears open and hopefully catch the salesman one day because I kind of wanted to see my own cards and perhaps purchase some. Whoever managed to turn their ability to see important events happening in the world into this business was a true genius. When I finished with my meal, I was feeling full, but Goose wasn''t. So, while we were flying towards the tree, Goose was keeping an eye out for some breakfast. Eventually, we found a big moose that was close to the second rank. Goose didn¡¯t need any help in taking it down, but I did collect the antlers. They fit quite easily into my new adventure backpack that cost me one large and four medium mithril coins. It was the biggest investment I''ve currently made, but it was so worth it. Not only could I bring the tree with me, but I could also have a lot more things I could fit into the bag while keeping the weight down by quite a lot. When we finally reached the tree, the passive effect tried to take hold once again, but I was now aware of it, so I could brush it off easily enough. I think the reason why it was so effective on me the first time was because I truly was admiring the tree. I started to carefully remove the dirt from the top layer of the soil. I made the largest circle possible; if I tried to make it any bigger, the bag wouldn¡¯t accept it as an object it could take in. Fortunately, the circle was big enough that the tree would easily be able to survive after a bit of care with its reduced root network. To cut through the roots, I needed to use my sword and focus on sharpness while channeling my energy into it. It took me about two hours to carefully cut the tree out of the ground. When the tree finally popped into their backpack, only a little bit was sticking out of the top. That was actually the way I needed it to be because if I were to close the bag completely, it would seal it off from the outside world, and there would be a chance that the tree would die before we got back home. Even with the weight reduction, the backpack weighed quite a lot because I had the beaver-armadillo creature skins and some other high-rank materials I purchased also inside the backpack. Goose wasn''t the happiest with this, as he needed to work hard to keep us in the air, and his speed was reduced. I explained to him about training, which made him a lot less annoyed about the situation. After a long conversation about training, Goose explained that he thought I was a bit mad by doing weird exercises and that he now understood why I had done those. He asked for my help to plan his own training regimen. I was happy enough to use my training plan ability to figure out his training plan. Channeling energy into Goose and the ability was a nice exercise for me as well. We were almost home, but the training plan was still not half done. Fortunately, I didn¡¯t have anything strenuous planned for tonight as I wanted a little bit of a relaxing evening while enjoying the sauna after I planted the tree a bit further away from everyone else. chapter 379 The next morning, I walked for quite a while before I reached the place where I planted my new tree. The planting timing wasn''t the best, as it was winter, but for a tree that was close to second-rank strength and seemed not to mind the cold, it was not really a problem. It was already soaking in the nutrients in the rich soil and absorbing the ambient energy and mana. It needed quite a lot, but that was a good thing. Because of my high rank, my land wants to follow my example, and over time the dungeon has proven not enough to absorb all of the excess. Because of this, over time, my land has had higher than the surrounding average of all three power sources. I had hoped that the sapling I got from the dungeon would fix this, but it¡¯s growing a lot slower than I expected, only having a few leaves last summer. I was quite pleased that the number of unique trees in my land was now three. Well, technically speaking, there were quite a few iron oak saplings as well, but those I will need to plant somewhere else. There were places I could plant them in the hilly forest to the west. That way, I could keep them on my land, but the metal content of those spots isn¡¯t even a quarter of that where the current iron oak is growing. There was actually a perfect place if we wanted more iron oak-type trees. I often forget that this tree could actually absorb any kind of metal. Wait. I moved so fast that I actually needed to catch myself before I fell. Would the tree be able to absorb higher-ranking metals like Mythryl? The problem was that whenever a deposit of high-rank metals was found, it was basically mined out as fast as possible. That will be a problem for the future, as currently, we didn¡¯t even have land anywhere near a place where high-rank metals were found. The idea of using different metals for the trees was interesting, even with regular ones, but I think iron would be the best choice most of the time. Fortunately, there is a large area in the grass fields near the western mountains where the iron content of the soil is extremely high. It was found by one of the survey teams but just marked in the report in the ¡®interesting but not useful¡¯ section. I was quite glad that I helped design the report sheet surveyors needed to fill in; otherwise, we might have never found out about this treasure. My map ability and connection to the land are overpowered, to say the least, but even with the combination of abilities and traits working together, it would be hard to figure out every curiosity our land hides. At least I am able to point people in the right direction to find the truly valuable resources and areas. The true problem is keeping this secret. There isn¡¯t really a place to hide anything in the grassland that¡¯s bigger than a rabbit. We can, of course, detect any spies in our land. But I am starting to understand the capabilities of high-ranked people, and I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if someone could simply look at our land from half a continent away. Whatever the case might be, we will not be able to keep this secret for long. The saplings are maturing quite fast, and soon the time to move them will come. The question is, who do I bring into this project? There are probably ways of hiding it; I can think of at least one right now. That being planting other trees as well, so we could hide or at least distract from the real prize of the future tree farms. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. I had finally reached close enough to my home base to see apprentices moving around, doing their own things. I still had time to think about the tree problem, as there was still plenty of winter to live through. I greeted my apprentices and observed how they did their current tasks. There wasn''t any need for me to guide any of them currently, as they had an excellent handle on everything needed at the moment. Teaching apprentices has slowly become routine, and with Tim also getting quite good at teaching the apprentices'' training them within one year has become a lot simpler. It might be a different story if I wasn¡¯t picking people who were excited to learn, but for the foreseeable future, I didn¡¯t see a time when I would need to pick anyone who wasn''t excited to learn. It was also a time for me to continue learning about crafting. Before we returned to Breach and Connection, I needed to make tools, weapons, and armor not just for myself but for the members of my company as well. This time they would be joining me, and unlike me, would mostly be living there. It was also time to use up the secret stash of dungeon-dropped items and materials I¡¯ve collected. It had been a long time since I visited my secret vault, and everything was a little bit dusty inside. I had my new adventurer pack with me. Into it, I put all of the stuff that I could melt down or use in crafting, and when everything was inside the backpack, I went to the shelf to pick up a special item. As soon as I touched it, I got a feeling from the item, wanting me to use it. It almost overwhelmed me. It was the tiny hammer that helped with crafting. Now, I wasn¡¯t entirely sure how it would help me, but that was the feeling I got from it. Fortunately, I didn¡¯t actually need to use this hammer to craft; I just needed to have it on my person. Before I left the vault, I pulled the hammer into my tattoo storage for the meanwhile, so no one would question why I walked out of the root cellar with a tiny hammer. There was a need to also make it its own belt. When I made it to the smithy, I found it to be empty. I set up my bag next to the large table and pulled out the rank three beaver-armadillo creature''s hide. Because of the scales of the creature, I would only be able to cut the belt into certain widths. My choices were to have one or two rows. One row would make the belt about 7 centimeters wide, while 2 rows would make it double that. I went with the one row. Before I started to cut, I brought out the tiny hammer and tucked it into my belt. I already had a good connection with the hammer, but I also used the knowledge I had gotten from my basic equipment bond skill to connect even better. It was almost like the hammer was speaking to me, but not quite. As soon as I looked at the leather and what I wanted to do with it, it was like it was whispering to me insights on how I should proceed. It was a weird experience, and I just absorbed it so I could get better used to it. I was brought out of my contemplation by a notification. It seems that my basic equipment bond ranked up to the normal rank. The whispering stopped as I stopped concentrating on crafting, but I was now given three ability options I needed to choose from. Immediately, one choice stood out to me, and honestly, it was so much better than the rest that I didn¡¯t need to think much before I picked it. You have gained a new ability: Item Set There wasn¡¯t much clarification about the ability, but I have learned that the more encompassing an ability is, usually the stronger it is. That''s not to say that a really specific ability is less powerful; in fact, it actually goes both ways. You either want a truly encompassing ability or a truly singular ability. Anything in between is usually weaker, but not always. I guess in the end, it truly matters if it fits you or not, and I felt that this fit me quite well. I decided to take a small break from crafting and meditate on the new ability. Two hours later, I was amazed. This ability would allow me to make item sets. So if you wear multiple items of the same set, they will be in greater synergy with each other, improving each piece of the set to be better than they would be individually. Unfortunately, I would not just be able to pick any items I want and then make a set out of them. No, the items already needed to have some sort of similarity or synergy between each other. For example, if I made armour from the same batch of metal, it would be incredibly easy to make it into a set. There was, however, a large problem with this. This ability wasn¡¯t the best at enhancing the base properties of materials; instead, it was more meant to improve enchantments or runes that were added to the equipment. That was less useful. First, I really didn¡¯t know anything about runes or enchantments, and second, they usually interfered with abilities, at least at the level of energy control I had with abilities. This needed some experimentation, and fortunately, I was planning on making a lot of equipment for other people, and that equipment was going to be enhanced by other crafters who knew enchantments or runes. This called for a change in approach. I first thought that I was just going to make the equipment, and give them to my company members who would then get those enhanced, but now I think it would be a good idea to observe how these enhancements are added and then afterwards make some of the items into sets. Nothing to it, to get started. chapter 380 With a proper belt made for my tiny hammer, it was time to test out my new ability. Before I started to make weapons and armor for my company members, I needed to know the limits of the item set ability. For starters, I tried to make my current armor into a set, and it worked perfectly fine. Adding the chainmail and gambeson was a bit more difficult, but in the end, they were made part of a set. The ability gave me feedback, so I knew that I could add more items to this set even long after I completed this ritual of set-making - I think that would be the best description. To my surprise, adding my mind companion ring into the set was easy, as was the leather bracelet of energy control and the hydra pendant. What didn''t fit was the tiny hammer; perhaps I should rename that to the hammer of crafting. I don¡¯t think it would appreciate being called a tiny hammer, even if it didn¡¯t have a mind to disagree with me. It took me a little bit of feeling out the ability to understand why I couldn¡¯t add the hammer of crafting. The answer was quite simple: It didn¡¯t fit the set I had in mind. Currently, in my mind, I was thinking of a regular defensive set, so trying to go against this was a bit too hard for my current level. That being said, there was a good chance that no amount of levels would add the hammer of crafting to this set. There was also a lot of resistance when I tried to add my sword to the set. This time it was different. The sword was simply too strong to be properly a part of the set. It was a strange resistance, perhaps more to do not just with the strength of the sword but with the sword''s intent. I often give personalities to objects; I have done that all my life, but the sword definitely has some sort of will, similar to the hammer of crafting and a few other of my more unique items. It seems that their will also dictates this ability''s capability of adding them into a set and increasing their power. There was one incredible feature of this ability. Something I never imagined: items could be part of multiple sets, although I did feel there might be a limit, but definitely, one to three would work perfectly fine. That was good news because I wanted multiple sets for different activities, and especially some of my more unique items could fit multiple different sets. When I was done experimenting and finished with the current set, I felt the ritual end and could finally see how it improved items. First of all, it unfortunately did little as making strong items seem to require some additional materials. Also, my current equipment isn''t well-suited for the enhancements this ability could provide. The armor was overall more defensive, as the set bonus strengthened the metal a little bit. What was a more noticeable difference were the added stat points I got from the hydro pendant. Before the set it only gave 500 to my stats but now constitution, endurance, and strength were boosted by 600. 300 extra stat points just from making this set, which took me, if I hadn¡¯t experimented, about an hour. Also, my leather bracelet of energy control seemed to be a bit more powerful, but only a bit. So, in conclusion, it seems that this ability improves the base material only a little bit, it gives a modest boost to unique items with more complex abilities, and a decent boost to the stat points of an item. There was also no doubt in my mind that this was a complex and deep ability that will take me a while to get to the true depth of. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. As I finished, I looked up at my tools. All of them rank one and are barely used. First task: make second-rank tools, not just for my workshop here but tools that we can use out in the field and to help improve our holdings near the outer ring. For the first item, I required a lot of fire clay and some rocks that I needed to pulverize and mix with the clay so it would survive the heating and cooling process of rank two metal. There was also a chance that I was going to melt my smithy down with the heat I required, but hopefully, the person I bought the rank two heating coals from didn¡¯t lie when they said that they would only radiate heat upwards. The only difference in this process and the ones that I have done earlier was the materials; otherwise, this seemed quite familiar. There weren''t enough materials for me to make a proper-sized anvil, so a half anvil would have to be sufficient. I continued to work and didn¡¯t even notice that night had come before I looked outside after finishing the anvil crucible and letting it cool off. It would take a few days before it''s completely cooled down. There was a need to replace a few firebricks that made up the forge. That didn''t take long as we had backup supplies of those bricks. I made a mental note to look for a clay deposit in the outer ring so I could make some stronger bricks. In the meantime, there was a lot of other work to do. Since I already knew what items I was going to make, there would be no problem premaking handles and other parts that didn''t require metal. An entire day was also spent on making the strongest bow that I could make for our one archer. There was also a need to make two sets of daggers, two long swords, and one shield. Everyone also required armor pieces, some more than others. One thing I didn¡¯t know how to do was how to make wands or staffs for magic users. Also, people who used mana and energy actually required completely different wands or staffs. Another thing I needed to learn or pay a lot more to acquire. Then there were the tools needed not just for gathering materials but also for processing resources and of course, butchering the creatures we killed. Something I wasn¡¯t even going to try to learn how to do; possibly I couldn¡¯t even without the necessary abilities were extended bags or dimensional bags, however you want to call them. Those were going to be expensive. A lot of things were going to be expensive, but fortunately, thanks to the abilities I have, at least we will be able to get started without going into large debt. There was no missing the good-looking buildings in both Connection and Breach where you would be invited in with open arms and big smiles to give you coins. In their minds, they just see you as walking bags of money that will continue to bring them profits without them having to do anything. There was no way I was going to make that mistake again. Being in debt once was more than enough for me. Days passed quite peacefully; the anvil turned out good enough, and I was getting plenty of practice using the higher-rank materials to make tools, weapons and armor. Hopefully, I will get enough practice that I would feel comfortable enough to start working on my own armor because the current one I was wearing definitely wasn''t going to cut it if we met a monster. Currently, the two fights I had were against beasts, highly evolved and high-ranked beasts, but still, they were just beasts. Monsters, on the other hand, had a core inside them and were a lot more dangerous. They were also hunted whenever one was spotted, and from my brief observation, the quests that were most sought after. One of those monsters would be worth multiple times what any beast could be worth, simply because of that core. That was going to be so unfortunate because I needed monster cores for my seeds, and while I didn¡¯t destroy the cores when I collected the different elemental seeds, their value would certainly be diminished because of what I took out. For me, they were just seeds, but for other crafters, and possibly myself as well - if I start crafting with them - they would be fuel to enhance any item we make. With powerful cores, items could be given special abilities¡ªperfect examples being my hammer of crafting. The more I dived into crafting, the more vast it seemed. Sometimes I feel that I have only scratched the surface of what this world has to offer, but I am also somewhat starting to see the end of it. Inside the inner ring, there are monsters and beasts so strong that I couldn¡¯t even imagine right now. Would I ever be able to reach that far? Having only three class slots was not a good start. If I didn¡¯t get amazing classes at my next advancement, there might be a chance that I don¡¯t actually make it to the very top of this world. That made me glad that I chose this path I¡¯m currently on. If I can¡¯t make it to the top, hopefully, I can help others do so who think like me and would want to see United Freeholds be a safe place. Perhaps one day, I could be an old man tending to a farm and not have to worry about what''s going on in the greater world. It was a nice dream and made me smile as I started to work on the next sword. chapter 381 I was in my office in the capital, and I had just given all the gear to my company members. There was an obvious problem: my office was way too small to have this many people all trying to test out their new equipment. Taking a new piece of parchment, I quickly wrote down that I needed a plot in the capital where I could build a modest-sized building for my company. I should have thought about this a while ago, but everyone makes mistakes. That''s why it''s important to have people by your side; one person can miss important details easily, but with more people, the chance of something being overlooked drops drastically. ¡°The gear is excellent, and I can¡¯t wait to test it out, but the enchanters and rune carvers will have a lot of work to do,¡± one of my guild members commented out loud without specifically addressing anyone. Everyone seemed incredibly pleased about the new equipment, but these were still not battle-tested. ¡°There is a bit of a change in plan; I would need to observe how these items are enhanced, and afterwards, I would need them back to improve them even more.¡± After my words, there was a moment of silence before a cultured voice spoke up. ¡°You got another overpowered ability, didn¡¯t you? There''s no way that your luck is just at two. That lucky rabbit''s foot you have can¡¯t be normal.¡± The assassin looked towards my hidden hydra pendant, to which I had long ago added the first loot drop I ever got from this world. Honestly, I¡¯m amazed that it simply worked like that, but it gives such a small boost that seems to work no matter what necklace I decide to wear. ¡°I¡¯ve given you the rabbit''s foot to examine, and besides that, what if it is special? I still wouldn¡¯t give it to you.¡± His face was unchanging, but I¡¯m pretty sure he was quite annoyed, not because of my comment but because others chuckled a bit at our back and forth. The enchanters and the rune smiths had their own large workshop, specially built for them. All of the people working here were refugees from large cities all over the world. We were slowly but steadily expanding into the largest cities, making our compounds, and with the blessing of the cities, taking some of the refugees off their hands. These weren¡¯t the best of the best because the people who were the best were already recruited by the local powers. That didn''t mean that these people weren''t good at what they did. Most of the time, the reason why they weren''t the best was that they didn''t have the resources to level themselves up enough to compete with others. Here, they had the resources, at least the lower rank ones, and in quite a good quantity to make them incredibly happy. That being said, none of them currently looked happy because of the pile of gear in the middle of the workshop that all needed to be enhanced in some ways and fast. It truly was an impressive amount of equipment because now there were also all of my tools that I was going to bring with me. All of them were going to get basic enchantments to make them more durable and actually be able to handle more energy throughput. It came to me as a surprise that such an enchantment was actually quite common. Turns out that enchanters and rune smiths could burn through tools as fast as I could if I didn¡¯t have such good control over my energy and didn''t hold myself back so much. There were about 20 people working in the workshop at the same time from morning to evening, and I continued to observe them for the eight days it took for them to finish all the items we brought. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Now, I understood why my item set ability needed materials so the ritual would work properly. It seems that, whether it''s enchanting or rune smithing, they needed what they called catalyst materials. Those helped bind the enchantments and runes into the items and power their effects. They also kind of act like batteries, and in some cases, they actually worked like batteries. It all depended on the rune or enchantment that was added. But no matter what, the runes needed to be charged by adding one of the three power sources. Each one required different base materials as catalysts and even required different techniques. It had been a while since I had felt so overwhelmed with information. There was so much to absorb, yet I loved every moment of it. From the two different approaches, I think I liked rune smithing more. There was a need in me to learn more about this craft, but currently, I already had too much on my plate. The important thing was that it did matter what catalysts were used if I wanted the item''s set ability to work to its fullest. Not only would the ritual catalysts need to be compatible with the enchantment and rune catalysts, but the item set idea or theme needed to synergize with the type of runes and enchantments that were added. Currently, we simply didn¡¯t have enough of the same type of catalyst to make item sets truly powerful, but even a little bit of added power would be better than no added power. So, when everyone was in their battle gear, wearing their new and old equipment, I made all of the items into sets. The entire process took about 10 hours. Technically, they could now go and be a lot safer in the outer ring, but I still had to make my own equipment, and it would be a good idea for them to practice with their new items. When I was finally back at home, I enjoyed a relaxing evening, and then in the morning, it was time to set up. It was a cold day, and the snow was coming in quite heavy, but I was clearing a patch of ground because there was no way I was going to melt this metal mixture inside the smithy. I was using the fire clay, but now I added three different types of rock powder into it and larger pieces of a very specific rock that would hopefully make all of this able to handle the tremendous amount of heat I was going to need. When the structure was built, it kind of looked like an old iron bloom. The big difference was that the inside was not going to process iron ore. Instead, it was going to hold a large crucible, but I was going to add different materials to hopefully make a bar of rank three metal that would have good properties for armor making. The crucible was made from fire clay and the three-rock powder mixture. It had been drying in the forge for three days now while the fire was maintained by my apprentices. Before I took it off the fire, I prepared all of the materials that were going to go into the crucible. Five bars of my eight remaining rank two metals I bought from Breach went into the waiting pile. Then, I started to take out unique materials I bought from the United Freeholds. Using my abilities, I pulled out the required parts from every material and added them to the waiting pile. My current process was less of a science and more about doing things how I felt they should be done. Many of the unique materials I purchased, I completely disregarded as they simply didn¡¯t seem to fit what I was after. After pulling out specific parts of an energy-enhanced piece of old water-damaged log, I heard a whisper and also felt that it was time to add the current pile into the crucible. After doing so and letting the mixture start to melt a little bit, I pulled out a light red crystal. It was the only unique material I purchased from the Breach and only because I felt a strange connection to it. It also seemed like I needed to pulverize it, but doing so was a lot more difficult than I expected. When I added this powder to the crucible, the mixture felt almost right, but the heat of the normal forge was too low as most of the materials hadn''t even started to melt. With the help of my apprentice and some long bars of metal, we transported the red-hot crucible to the bloom. Before I added the lid to the crucible, I needed to add the last ingredient to this metal mixture. From my tattoo storage, I pulled out the last large Mythryl coin I had and half of my remaining supply of small and medium Mythryl coins. All of them were added into the crucible, and then I placed the lid on top and hammered it in, making sure I wasn¡¯t burned in the process. It was a bit of a struggle to get the crucible into the bloom, but when we got it there, my apprentices went and brought a lot of coal from the forge and added it on top and around the crucible. Then I brought out the special coals I purchased and started to add them into the bloom. They hadn''t even started to catch fire when I had filled the bloom and closed it with more of the clay mixture. Then I started to pump in air using a regular bellows. No automation for this job, unfortunately. It didn¡¯t take long after I started to work the bellows for the coal to catch, then start to radiate intense heat. Almost immediately, my apprentices needed to back off quite a bit; otherwise, they would have been burnt. I, on the other hand, would need to endure this heat for the next four days because I would need to constantly keep this mixture at the right heat and add more coal. I sincerely hoped that I wouldn¡¯t run out, but I needed to do what my abilities and instincts were telling me, and they were telling me that this mixture needed to be at 12,300¡ã for four days and then after that, seven days for about 1200 to 1600¡ã. After that, it would need to cool for quite a while. chapter 382 It had been four very long days, but fortunately, this part of the process was about to end. I had plenty of coals left, which was excellent news. The temperature started to drop once again, so I started to use the bellows to make it start climbing again. Keeping the temperature stable and being up for four days straight while constantly using energy was exhausting. Then I felt the click; it was time. "Get ready," I yelled to my apprentices. A large sledgehammer, one of the tools that I had recently made and was ranked two, appeared in my hands. It took my energy greedily, but I needed to reinforce it; otherwise, it would have already started to smoke from the heat. The strike I made with it destroyed the upper part of the bloom. The temperature immediately started to lower, but I continued to destroy the sides, making sure I didn¡¯t actually hit the crucible. I needed to get the temperature down quickly, but I also needed to hit the burning coals far enough away so that my apprentices could approach. It took seven more hits before the crucible was exposed well enough and the temperature had gotten low enough that the apprentices could bring me square bars of metal that we were going to use to bring the crucible into the smithy forge. We moved fast, as the temperature couldn''t fall below 1000 degrees. We made it with plenty of time to spare. With the crucible in the forge, it would need to stay there for many days. Fortunately, I wasn¡¯t needed to keep the temperature right during this stage of the process, so I could finally get some sleep and let my apprentices handle it for a little while. Walking out of the smithy, I immediately jumped into the ice hole in the river and quickly washed myself off as best as possible. It became obvious almost immediately that I couldn¡¯t work with any of my armor on. So, for the last four days, I had been just wearing regular clothes that I had kept in semi-decent condition thanks to the energy I was using to protect them and myself from the heat. That didn¡¯t mean that I wasn¡¯t suffering the entire time, and I needed to drink health potions quite regularly. I walked back inside the smithy, checked on the crucible and that the temperature was correct, and then went to one of the corners, drank one more health potion, and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, different apprentices were keeping an eye on the forge. "Good afternoon, Rich," one of the apprentices said. "How long was I out?" I asked. The apprentice raised nine fingers. That was a decent amount of sleep. When I checked on the crucible, everything was still stable. During the following days, my apprentices and I fell into a routine. There were always two people constantly monitoring the forge, but when we weren''t, I was teaching them whatever they were currently pursuing, if I knew how to teach what they were trying to learn. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. With there being three dungeons nearby, none of them would have a problem reaching the level 20 milestone, which would allow them to upgrade their class to the full homestead class. It was always interesting to listen to what they wanted to do in the future and how they planned to make their dreams into reality. The most excited were the druids. Teaching two of them was a bit different as they were already closely connected to the land. They did try to teach me more druidic magic, but I really wasn¡¯t good at it. One of the other apprentices, however, was quite talented, and for her, it kinda turned into a double apprenticeship. She wasn¡¯t going to be a proper druid, but she did hope that she could get the class for one of her other current classes. Getting a gardening class to upgrade to druid was going to be tough, but knowing what she wants and having the strong willpower to try to get it was already half the battle won. When the seven days were finally over, we took the crucible outside, and I once again used the sledgehammer to break apart the crucible. It wasn¡¯t hard; only a few strikes and basically, the entire crucible crumbled, leaving behind a red-hot metal bar that was cooling at a decent speed. It will take a while before it properly cools down, but I could already tell that I achieved what I was after. It was a rank three metal and had what looked like decent properties. I could only confirm to what extent when I started to work with the metal. It took another four days for everything to properly cool down. Quite a lot of time had passed, and I knew it was going to take a while longer to finish the armor. Hopefully, I could get everything done before we would run over the deadline to complete next month''s missions. The metal bar weighed a bit above 43 kilos and would be plenty to make my armor. The design of the armor I was going to keep the same: a gambeson would be the starting layer, then I would make a chainmail layer from the rank three metal. Above that would be brigandine armor and plate guards for my legs and arms, and of course, a helmet. The brigandine armor would consist of rank three metal plates and armadillo-beaver leather. That same leather would also be used for the straps and any other leather part of the armor. Fortunately, the forge''s temperature didn¡¯t need to be stupidly high to get the metal red-hot. When it reached the desired temperature, I used a rank two chisel and hammer to break apart the large bar into more manageable pieces. When that was done, I needed to start making wire. This time, I couldn¡¯t use a wire puller, as the current one I had would have just been destroyed by this metal. So, what I needed to do was continue to hammer it so it would be the right diameter for the chainmail rings. It was an awfully time-consuming job, but it needed to be done. Fortunately, the rest of the technique stayed the same. I was actually quite glad that basically everything I was doing, I already knew how to do; the only difference was the materials I was using. It took me 16 days to finish the armor. After which, I gave the gambeson and the brigandine to Emma so she could color it in my clan''s colors and symbols. She had a hard time coloring the leather as it still had many small scales on it. She still managed and even said that she got a full class level for the job. That was great to hear, and I wasn¡¯t the only one to get my new equipment colored. Every member of my company had done the same. Four of them were still part of the Vikings but currently, they were on an external training mission. That was the order I used to get them the time needed to join, but they still had their unique unit colors that they could also add along with the symbols. There was a moment when I thought that perhaps I should create a unique color scheme for the company, but I felt it would be better if every person could also display their clan or allegiances outside the company. It was important to stand apart and show that you''re a part of the company, but to me, it was also important to show where you came from. It was one of the reasons why every soldier back on Earth had their country''s flag and unit patch on their uniform. Now that the preparations are done, I announced to everyone that two days from now, we would be leaving for Connection. I would need to set them up there and then go to the Breach and finish this month''s contracts before the deadline. When that was done, we would have more breathing room to operate and truly start to build out our corporation''s seat of power. chapter 383 I was in my office finishing up some paperwork when I could finally see that the sun was slowly rising. In about a month, it will be the winter solstice. It wouldn''t be long after that before I have been on this world for another year. The last month and a half has been really busy, but as I looked at my achievement page, it has also been really rewarding. A lot of my abilities and skill levels have gone up, and more importantly, I''ve gained two class levels in my Homesteading and Archer classes. Slowly, I was getting ever closer to the level 80 milestone. I was kinda excited to see what would happen and what classes would be offered, if any. When I finished reading the last document, I was able to stamp it by infusing some of my energy into the stamp so it would leave my energy signature as well. It was a recent change; before this, we had to sign everything with ink. This change has made my life so much easier. I started to put on the armor, which was a little troublesome, but I had designed it so I could do this without anyone¡¯s help. If I were to make full plate armor, there would always be a need for someone to help me put it on. When finally, every piece was on, I pulled out my sword from my tattoo storage as well. Infusing every item with a bit of energy. Made them immediately respond back. Activating all the runes and enchantments. With them activated, the next thing to activate was the set. The Eager Explorer was the name of the set I came up with. The enchantments and runes were simple ones, but they were by choice. This way, they wouldn''t limit my ability throughput and energy control with my abilities. There was still a small dip in those aspects, but the benefits outweighed the negatives. In the main 3 stats, I was now gaining a boost of 1200 to 1500. Strength was getting 1500, and both Dexterity and Vitality were getting 1200. Constitution was at a healthy boost of 1000. An 800 boost for Endurance. With 300 to Perception and Wisdom. All of the items were more durable thanks to one of the enchantments. Only one of the items and all of the accessories wasn¡¯t enhanced. It was my sword, which, fortunately, accepted being a part of this set. It took me a moment to get past the lightheaded feeling I got from the boosted stats. After that, I picked up the backpack, which was full of stuff to sell in the markets of Connection, and of course, the needed tools so we need to start building a proper compound in Connection. When I reached the portal station, I was surprised to find that I was the last one here. The other eight members were already waiting, with similar packs like mine, although theirs were a lot smaller in volume. We only chatted for a little bit before the portal mage came. "Are you all ready?" He asked, and I gave him my firm nod. Promptly, he moved to activate the portal with the correct coordinates to the Connection portal. After the portal came to life, we stepped through it to find ourselves in a busy market, as this place never really slept. "Everyone, you know the order: spread apart and sell everything before the prices start to drop." With those words, we all split apart to sell mostly food items that were highly prized here, but also a few other more difficult-to-get resources that would cost a lot to bring here otherwise. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. The morning passed quickly, and about four hours later, I was the last to reach our rundown compound. The reason was quite simple: I had the most to sell. When I made it inside, everybody was bitching about what a shit place this was. "OK, enough messing about. I see that everyone''s back. How much did we make?" There was a moment of silence before Keldric the assassin walked up and handed me a small coin bag. "I went and exchanged the cores into small Mythryl coins. We got four small ones. With a bunch of cores left." "That''s good news. I myself got about one and a half small Mythryl coins." I pulled out the large bag full of cores and put the small bag I got into it, then handed it back to Keldric. "This will cover the current operating expenses. I want half of you to always stay here while the rest go out to do errands or missions. It would be best if you went on missions with four people; otherwise, it might be too dangerous." "If I remember correctly, there''s a more secure-looking room in the basement. Get all the valuable things in there and make sure it''s guarded. I know it''s a lot of restrictions and being alert, but we will hopefully be getting new members soon enough.¡± ¡°Until then, we must endure. Goose should be getting here in an hour or two, after which I will leave for Breach. After we put all the things from my backpack into the secure room, I will be leaving to browse the market." Everyone immediately got up and started preparing so they could follow my orders. After I got most of my backpack emptied, I went into the market to see if I could find something to spark my curiosity and hopefully help me figure out how to better move forward. We needed to somehow get a lot of materials, and I was not really looking forward to buying all of it. If I did, I would need to constantly quest in Breach so I could afford everything. Goose was only about 15 minutes away when I finally found something interesting. It was a large warehouse shop that sold transport wagons. When I entered, I found the place to be more lively than I expected. This place kind of reminded me of a car dealership, with the best wagons in front and even descriptions of their capabilities. The closest one''s description said that it was a medium-sized wagon with small space enhancement, high defensive enhancements, and high weight reduction enhancements. Almost immediately, a salesperson walked close to me, and I asked him to explain the differences. ¡°This is a medium wagon. It''s your standard three and a half meters in width, two meters tall and six meters long. A small space enhancement means it''s between two and three times larger on the inside.¡± ¡°High defensive enchantments mean that it could handle rank two beast attacks for about 10 minutes before they could breach the defense and get inside. High weight reduction means that anything put inside weighs about 80% less. This makes traversing the treacherous wilderness a lot more manageable with a heavy load. The salesperson continued to give the sales pitch of the century, but I wasn¡¯t going to be able to afford it because it was listed for 235 large mithril coins. That was way out of my price range, but I could now see how others operated. They probably used these types of wagons as mobile command and defensive centers, moving around the wilderness collecting valuable resources and then heading back. "Thank you for your time, but I would like to look around a bit more," I said to the salesman who had finally stopped talking. He gave me a forced smile, but I commended him for his efforts. There were large wagons and even smaller ones with different levels of defensive and other enhancements. Some of them even had places you could open so you could fire out from the wagon. The further back I went, the more the prices dropped, until some of the ones that had obviously seen battle before were only worth medium mithril coins. The original salesman who had come to talk to me had stopped following me when I passed about the halfway mark into the warehouse. Now an older-looking salesperson who had obviously seen better days was the one to approach me. "Anything catch your eye?" he asked in a genuinely curious tone. It looked like he wasn''t too worried about making a sale. As he asked me that and I turned to face him, I did see an interesting and possibly the biggest wagon I had seen. It was also covered in a thick layer of dust. "Tell me about that one," I said while pointing at it. He gave a hearty laugh. "This one has been sitting here for quite a while. Its defensive and space enhancements are one of the better ones in here. The problem is that it barely has any weight reduction. A long time ago, it was a special order for a Beastmaster who had four woolly rhinoceroses that would pull that behemoth.¡± ¡°It''s also priced quite low at 10 medium mithril coins. In all honesty, it was the price we purchased it at, but it has been tested and taken up valuable space for so long that we''re just trying to get rid of it. But even then, ten medium mithril coins is a bit too much money to just throw this piece of history away." Goose had already waited for me outside the city for 30 minutes before I joined him. "Sorry for the wait, but I had to do some tests on an interesting wagon. You might get your stay in the wilderness sooner than we expected. It all depends on if Francis can handle that much weight." Goose looked at me with the face I knew meant he didn¡¯t understand what I meant. "Not to worry, I will explain it to you on the way. Let''s go head to the Breach and let''s also see about that trespasser who has been squatting in our building for the past three weeks." chapter 384 The flight to Breach was quite fast, and during this time, I was able to get Goose to understand why we needed Francis and how it would help Goose get his time in the wilderness. So he can feast to his content, and hopefully get closer to the next rank. This time, we didn¡¯t land on top of the Fort but at the entrance instead, so Goose didn''t have to walk all the way down, which he really didn''t like. I had always gotten looked at in Breach because of Goose, but now those looks also lingered more on me, most likely because of my new armor. It was nice to know that others found me more dangerous, but overall, I didn¡¯t like the attention. When we reached the company''s future headquarters¡ªcurrently, it was just a rundown building¡ªat least the sign was still up, so whoever was inside hadn''t messed with that. "Stay here," I said to Goose while I pulled out my sword and approached slowly. There was little to indicate that someone was inside, but I was kind of expecting that someone to burst out and attack me if that was their purpose of being here. I could still sense the relative position of the person inside, and whoever it was, was still on the second floor. I tried to open the doors as quietly as possible, but it had been a long time since anyone had maintained the doors, so just before it was opened wide enough for me to fit through, it gave a small squeak. Immediately, whoever it was on the 2nd floor started to move down towards me. Quickly, I rushed in to get behind one of the pillars on the ground floor. From behind it, I looked towards the stairs where I saw an arrow peeking behind the corner. Whoever it was started slowly to peek to also see what they were dealing with. Then, however, I saw the bow. It was one of mine, and I knew exactly who it belonged to. "Arabella, is that you?" There was a moment of silence before the person, now properly peeking around the corner, looked at me. "Rich, you finally made it. Where have you been? I¡¯ve been waiting for you for quite a while," she said, now properly walking towards me, putting her bow away. "Goose, it''s all clear; you can come in. What are you doing here, Arabella? Aren¡¯t you supposed to be fighting in the arenas?" Her face fell at those words, but she brightened once again when Goose pushed himself through the doors and joined me. "This is Goose, my bonded companion. Goose, this is Arabella, a friend of mine." Goose looked Arabella over, seemingly satisfied, and then went to the corner he enjoyed the most last time and made himself comfortable. "It''s a pleasure to meet you, Goose," she said, giving a small bow to Goose. "The arena is actually why I¡¯m here. I need a favor, and a big one. The people who I have a contract with have been really pushing to extend our current contract and also they have been using some loopholes to push me into ever more dangerous fights. I think my family''s enemies have found out that I¡¯m still alive and getting stronger and are paying my contract holders to kill me in the arena." Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. That was bad news for her, but "you know we can¡¯t accept you as a citizen of the United Freeholds. It would not break your contract, even if we did get a little more say in what you were doing. Whoever holds your contract will also get a lot of information about United Freeholds and that¡¯s unacceptable," I responded. She held up her hand to stop me. "I know, and I wouldn¡¯t ask you that, but I did find a loophole, well, someone I hired did. They can''t stop me from joining a higher organization, especially now since more fighters are always needed.¡± ¡°I already tried to join some others, but whoever is pulling the strings has been able to intimidate everyone or pay the stronger guilds to not accept me. This is why I¡¯m certain that it¡¯s one of the enemies of my family because I have been able to trace the coin to the Elven nations." "And you want me to take that risk? Messing with an entire nation is not on my ''To Do List,''" she gave me a look that said, really? "Fine, I have gone to war with other nations, but we¡¯re talking about petty kingdoms, not old nations whose youngest children are older than the nations I have fought." She deflated a bit at my words. "I thought you wouldn¡¯t care about stuck-up nobles trying to use their influence." I let out a tired sigh. "Well, you are right about that. So, you want to join my company?" I asked, and she immediately nodded. "Yes, but it also needs to be a restrictive contract so I would be able to get rid of the current one. So, perhaps an officer position, or whatever you¡¯re calling a position that has some responsibilities to the company. By the way, a bold move making a company. But knowing you, I should have expected it." Her words made me frown. "You were some sort of an elven princess, were you schooled in ruling and managing people?" I asked her, which seemed to confuse her a bit, but then I think she understood, although I¡¯m quite certain that she doesn¡¯t understand the extent of what she''s getting herself into. "Yes, of course. Small team management, hiring personal staff, coin management, and everything else you could think of. I kinda hated it all, but I needed to know everything to be able to be chosen as one of the possible heirs." Her words made me smile widely. This made her take a step backwards, and I could see dread come over her face. "Sit down," I said, half sweetly, half commandingly, while pointing to one of the more intact tables that had multiple chairs around it. "You and I are gonna have a long conversation about your capabilities. You are going to be truthful about anything I ask, but don''t worry, I won''t ask about anything too personal." She was still quite wary, but she did as I told her. What followed was a long interview where I tried to gauge her capabilities as a leader. After three hours of constant questioning and thought exercises, it was finally time to reveal what all of this was about. "Excellent, you truly have potential, although you are a bit rusty. That, however, is not a problem for me. I am willing to offer you a position in the company and make you a member right now. You just have to sign a three-binding contract." She seemed quite relieved when I started to speak, but when I got to the last part, she exclaimed, "What, are you crazy? Why would I sign something so binding?" I smiled at her and answered, "Quite simple. Someone who would be the vice commander and the second-highest ranked person in the company would need quite a binding contract." She was silent for a while before she spoke. "Why would you give me such a high position? It doesn''t make any sense." I chuckled a bit at that. "Have you not figured it out yet? While you would be the vice commander, I could basically delegate all of my bureaucratic and leadership responsibilities to you. So much more free time. The future is truly bright, isn''t it?" I asked. She was not amused, but in the end, she agreed. The three-binding contract was something that required both parties to give their blood, their energy signature, and make the contract system-bound. It was the second most binding contract out there and something that was basically impossible to break. One of the key points of the contract was that all other allegiances and contracts would be null and void, but there was also a lot that would ensure she couldn''t betray the United Freeholds Company or me. There is always the need to be careful when doing these kinds of contracts. That was a good reason why I also included myself in that statement because if she decided and truly believed it would be better for the company that I not be in charge, then she would have free rein to just try to eliminate me. When everything was done, she signed the contract. Now I had another member of the company, but she was also free to now join United Freeholds as well. "It will be a bit difficult to get you out of this place. Wait, how did you get here?" I asked her. She looked at me as if I was dumb. "I walked here from Connection, of course. And can''t Goose bring me as well?" I looked towards Goose. "You can try to convince him, but I need to go to the Quest Hall. Need to do some quests before I return to Connection. When we make it there, I will need to go back home, and I guess you can join me and become a citizen of United Freeholds then. And finally, be able to know the secret of that bow and what it¡¯s made out of." chapter 385 As I walked to the quest hall, the implications of getting Arabella to be in my company started to truly sink in. While she''s still rank two, she has incredible potential. Of course, the best part is that I need to do a lot less time-consuming management stuff. If I were in her shoes, I think I''d accept that trade. Getting out from under people who wanted to kill you, even if they weren''t willing to do it openly, was worth doing some paperwork. The first thing I did in the quest hall was pick up my assigned quests, but all of them were worth just one contribution point. They weren¡¯t the worst quests but also not the best, and would take some time to complete. Currently, what I was looking for was something quick I could do that others wouldn''t want simply because they didn¡¯t have Goose, who could fly them quickly to the edge of this fort''s territory. I looked in disappointment towards the crowd of people as they acted like animals, trying to trade with each other and trying to get new and better quests for themselves. Going closer didn¡¯t change my mind. I thoroughly dislike the whole situation. I kinda wish things would be a bit more civilized, but this is not my fort, so who am I to say how things should be run? The quests that were being offered by the quest hall workers were actually quite good, but the bidding war to get one of those was quite competitive. It also looked like rivals would purposely try to raise the price of any quest so whoever receives it would get less overall compensation. There were also quite desperate people in the crowd trying to sell the quests assigned to them that were less than optimal for their team setups. Those people almost seemed like sharks in a swarm of smaller fish. There was an area around them that was always clear of people. Some of the quests they were trying to sell off made even me wince. They were waving the papers around, so sometimes I caught a glimpse of what was written on them. One was to kill a mole-type beast. I could just imagine how hard it would be to find and actually kill one of those. My curiosity about these quests, which were so disliked that people actively avoided those trying to trade them, actually helped me find a perfect quest for myself. It was another bird-type creature extermination quest and seemed to be worth 5 contribution points. "You there, with the blue helmet and the bird extermination quest, come here!" I projected my voice, aiming mainly at the person I wanted to hear, but those nearest to him also looked towards me. The person I was addressing looked towards me, confusion in his eyes. Then, a spark of hope was lit in those eyes, and he began to push himself through the crowd, which parted for him until he made it in front of me. "Show me the quest," I said to him, and he quickly showed me the quest slip. It was as I expected. Another bird-type monster had collected itself a flock, this time a little closer to the Fort but still too dangerous and difficult for most guilds to handle. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. "A medium Mythryl coin and I will take this off your hands," my words made the man stop smiling. Desperation returned to his eyes. "Wait, no, what? You want me to pay you to take this quest, and so much? That''s too unreasonable?" "That''s the offer; you aren¡¯t going to get any better ones." He obviously didn''t want to pay me so much, but it was a quest that almost no one wanted to do and something his team definitely wouldn¡¯t be able to finish by themselves. "Fine then, take it," he said while handing me the quest slip and producing a medium Mythryl coin. I took them both and made them disappear into my tattoo storage. Fortunately, it only took about half an hour to finish getting what I needed from the quest hall, so I returned to the company headquarters. There, I found Arabella trying to convince Goose to take her with him when we were going to fly back to Connection. "Goose, it''s time to go. We have a mission to do. It involves more fighting and it''s against flying creatures." After I finished saying that, Goose looked questioningly towards Arabella. "No, she won¡¯t be joining us on this mission, and it won¡¯t be a long one." Those seemed to be the magic words, as Goose seemed to move faster than he ever had before in a building, and I only had enough time to wave Arabella goodbye as she stood dumbly in place, not understanding what had happened. She truly was a bit rusty, but nothing that some good training wouldn¡¯t fix. That made me smile. One thing that was good was that she had excellent gear, and I wouldn¡¯t need to make anything for her. The flight didn''t take too long, especially because Goose was getting better and better at managing the extra weight of me. It was good training for him. The fight was a lot easier than the last time. This time, the rank three flock leader didn''t have any cold-type abilities, only wind ones, and it wasn''t stronger than Gooses. Honestly, it was a joke of a fight, and Goose let out some of the frustrations of not getting a good fight by hunting down almost all of the birds who were in the flock. The whole mission took about seven hours. Unfortunately, there wasn¡¯t anything interesting along the way, not even some interesting beast to fight. It seems that this pathway was a bit more used as it seemed to lead towards the mountains where, if I remember correctly, there were some mining outposts. It was already dark when we made it back, so Goose and I slept on the ground floor while Arabella slept in the cleaned-up room she had made for herself while staying here. The next morning, before Goose woke up, I went and turned in the quest. I got a bit of money from the quest, but it wasn¡¯t going to change much. I would still be a long way off from affording the best of the best wagons. While I was gone, Goose had woken up, and somehow Arabella had managed to convince him to take her with us to Connection. I had hoped she would be able to convince him. This way, things became simpler. Outside of the fort, we mounted up. "Climb behind me and hold on tight; Goose can accelerate quite fast," I said to Arabella, who quickly climbed up and held on tight to me. I gave the signal to Goose, and he quickly started to fly upwards. I enjoyed the acceleration, and it looked like Arabella did as well. Then Goose communicated with me, wondering why Arabella weighed so little because he had expected he would need to struggle a lot more. I had hoped that Goose would connect those dots, but he was quite clever, which I actually liked, but right now, it was a bit detrimental. Goose never liked flying with heavy loads, and honestly, he could easily handle my weight and not be bothered if I wasn¡¯t making myself weigh more when he was flying with me. Perhaps it was not a nice thing to do, but because of this, he has been constantly getting stronger. While he did say that he wanted to train similarly to how I did, he wasn''t really into it. He did the bare minimum, so I think it¡¯s just better to keep him in the dark for now. I communicated back to him using our bond, "It¡¯s an elf race thing; they just weigh less." A small little white lie to make him stronger. I hope he won''t be too mad at me when he finds out. Flying with Goose was incredibly convenient, so we made it to Connection way faster than anyone would if they were walking or even running. When we made it to the company compound, it was basically the same as before. I was pleased to find that four people were currently inside and were taking their guard duties seriously. "Rich, you''re already back and with company?" The person guarding the front door asked. "Only for a moment. This is Arabella; she''s a new member of the company and currently holds the position of Vice Commander." His eyes went wide at that statement. "What, how, and why? Actually, never mind, I don¡¯t want to know." I smiled at him while we walked past and patted him on the shoulder. I showed Arabella a bit of the place and introduced her to the rest of the members who are currently here. Apparently, the rest of the members had gone on a mission to kill some beast and should be back in a few days. They were working fast, but I like that. "Okay, now that you''ve had your tour, let''s go to United Freeholds so you can go and register yourself as a citizen, and I can find out how strong Francis actually is." chapter 386 Pov Arabella We were walking through the market of Connection after just visiting the company''s house in this city. It was truly a rundown place, but Rich seemed to have a solid plan to fix it. I was just thankful that I finally got my freedom from that contract. I honestly still don¡¯t understand why someone was trying to get me killed. It¡¯s not like I could go back and claim my noble title. The whole situation was unsettling. Now, however, I was under a different contract, and while I was certain Rich was not trying to kill me, I was also pretty sure that he would work me to the bone if it meant he would need to do less work. Sometimes the man was maddening in his logic. Nevertheless, it still felt good to be around him, like it did back in the dungeon. He just seems like a solid rock during a storm. It was also kind of hard to start a conversation with him. Back in the dungeon, it was easier. We always had something to discuss or to take our minds off the situation we were in. He did talk, but they were one-word answers or really short sentences. It was obvious that there was something on his mind, so I let him have his silence. It was also nice to have him by my side because, while people still looked, their eyes didn¡¯t linger on me. It also seems like there was never something in our way as we just continued to walk at our pace, never slowing or hurrying. When we made it to the portal station, Rich paid to get a portal opened, and in less than half an hour, we were about to step through to his homeland. As soon as we stepped through, the temperature dropped immediately as we were further north during the wintertime. Looking around, there were soldiers all around us, ready to fight, but when they saw Rich, their commander immediately called the soldiers back. There was only one portal arch, but it seems like another one was being built. "So, this is the capital?" I asked. Rich smiled at me and answered, "That it is. While still small, it will grow bigger, but hopefully not too much, as we''re actually trying to keep it from getting too big." I gave him a questioning eyebrow, to which he laughed a bit. "Perhaps I will explain later, or perhaps you''ll find out. We will see. Anyways, let me escort you to the City Hall and get you an appointment so you can try to become a citizen." He now seemed to be a lot less closed off. Did he really just feel so much better in his own land and was now fully relaxed? That might be actually the case. I gave him a sweet smile and then said, "I¡¯ll follow you, big man." And so he led, the soldiers immediately parted to let him through, and I followed. I had to say that the soldiers looked really disciplined, and the city looked clean, although it was weird to see so many wooden buildings. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. This city was a lot smaller than Connection, so it didn¡¯t take us long to reach the City Hall. "Nice to see you again, Rich. Is there something I can help you with?" The receptionist asked when Rich approached. "Nice to see you as well. I have a person who would like to become a citizen. I believe we already have a file on her, but I can verify that now she has no outside allegiances, so I hope you can get this situation taken care of as fast as possible." "Of course, it would be my pleasure, Rich. Leave her with me," the receptionist said. Rich thanked the receptionist, then turned to me, "I have some things to take care of, but I will see you later." With those words, he quickly left, not even giving me time to say goodbye for now. How can he be so understanding at one time and so rude at others? I introduced myself to the receptionist, who excused herself, and after a few minutes came back holding a file. "Arabella, I will be truthful, if it wasn''t for Rich verifying your allegiances, it would have been a hard road for you to gain citizenship. Now, however, it will be easier. It will still take a while, but I think I will be able to squeeze in your appointments for today. Hope you''re ready for a lot of paperwork." It was hard not to show my disappointment. Paperwork was always complicated and time-consuming, but I had learned to tolerate it. My first appointment was in half an hour; fortunately, the time went by quickly. Everything went as normal until the person sitting across from me asked me specific question ¡°What are your current affiliations, like are you part of a guild or do you have any contracts?" I had hoped that I did not have to answer this question because of what Rich said earlier, but it seems like everyone here was thorough in their work. "My last contract was broken because Rich accepted me into a leadership position in United Freeholds Company." The person¡¯s head immediately snapped up from the paper. "Please repeat that." I did, and immediately after I finished, the person cursed under his breath. "I will be right back, just wait here." So I did, and about 10 minutes later, four more people came into the office. One of them walked immediately up to me and extended his hand for me to shake. I accepted. "My name is David, and unfortunately, it seems that we will have a lot to discuss about your future position in United Freehold." What followed was craziness. Apparently, there was a whole division of people working in what they called Rich management. I should have guessed this, but it was nice to see it confirmed that Rich could do some unorthodox stuff that would need smoothing over and incorporating into the overall structure of United Freeholds. My appointment to be in a leadership position of United Freeholds Company, which acts as the representative of the United Freeholds nation in the higher rank social structure of the world, was something that needed to be addressed. Of course, for them, the easiest thing to do was just to remove me and get someone who was more loyal to that position, but going against Rich was something they were not willing to do unless it was absolutely necessary. To this date, they have yet to find any reason not to take his words and actions seriously. So right now, I was in the city hall''s garden with a knife in my hand. I was going to be given a governmental position in the United Freeholds, and for that, I needed to make an oath to the nation itself. It was honestly quite brilliant, in my opinion. This way, they could ensure that I would not harbour any bad intentions towards the nation, and my position in Rich management would give me a high position without actually giving me any power. I was more than willing to do all of this, as Rich had truly helped me out, and I really wanted to hear the secret of how Rich was able to make bows from the wood of the sacred tree of Ferlin. When everything was said and signed, it was already evening, and I found myself in one of their taverns enjoying a nice meal. I wondered when Rich was going to find me and even how. Perhaps there were people watching me all the time, but if they were, they were really good. Then Rich showed up, ordered himself a plate, and joined me at my table. "So I heard you¡¯re officially part of the United Freeholds, congratulations. After we finish, we''ll head towards my home; we can talk there about more sensitive topics." He seemed a little down for some reason, but I immediately agreed and tried to finish the food in front of me as fast as possible. Somehow, Rich still beat me. How was that even physically possible? His plate hadn¡¯t even arrived, and I was already eating. There''s no way that he has an ability to eat faster. That would be such a waste. chapter 387 Pov Arabella We walked down a newly and well-built road. Rich was silent, and it seemed that something was truly bothering him. So, I decided to ask him about the road, which perked him up a bit. As he continued to talk, I looked down in amazement. So much work to make this road, but I think Rich is right. It will last for a while. Then he asked a question, "How were the roads built in the Elven nation you''re from?" I really needed to think about whether I should reveal some Elven secrets. This should, however, be known by some outside our race, so it shouldn''t be too bad if I answered him truthfully. "Well, I can tell you that we do not put so much work into making roads like you have here. While we also have some stone roads in mountainous areas, we actually have mostly grass roads. Don¡¯t give me that look; it¡¯s not as simple as you think.¡± ¡°They can handle as much weight as this road. How we achieve it is that if you walk on the grass, it absorbs a little bit of energy, which it uses to strengthen itself and its root system, making it capable of handling a lot of weight and traffic." His eyes started to shine like they did back in the dungeon when we got some good loot. He, of course, started to ask more questions, and I didn¡¯t hold back on my answers. "So, will you try to do something similar here? I bet you could figure something out, perhaps contact your supplier and get the grass seeds we use, like you did with the bow wood?" I had hoped that he would stumble a bit or show any signs that I had figured something out, but all he did was smirk at me and shook his head. "Oh no, you really have some wrong ideas, but about the road, I do have some ideas, but no, I will not be making grass roads like Elves. But I have certainly gotten some inspiration from them. It won''t be much longer until we make it to my land. So don¡¯t worry, you won¡¯t have to wait long for an answer." The way he showed amusement in every word made me want to punch him. We had only walked a few more steps before he spoke again. "You know, we are wasting some precious time here. Let us train?" And then he started to run. It took me a moment to understand his meaning, and I needed to push myself to try to keep up with him. The scenery blurred past us, but I was not as worried as I usually am when running so fast, as I was certain that my footing would be stable and that there wouldn''t be any holes in the road. It took me a while to catch him, but when I did, he started to slow down. It was then that I figured he let me catch up because we were closing in on what looked like an inn. It was a decent-sized one and looked quite good, but what surprised me when I looked around were the similar outposts to the ones outside the capital. I had asked about them, and Rich answered that they were dungeon entrances, but why were there three of them so close by? Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. "Rich, what is going on? Dungeons so close to each other should be competing for the energy around here, but I do not sense that that is happening." He looked at me for a few moments before answering, "You will find that out in time. You are a part of the government now, aren''t you? Perhaps you should have asked for some information packets, but we can deal with that later. That road there leads to my home. Let''s go." I followed his lead, but I kind of wish we would have visited during the summer, as I bet this place would look beautiful. What surprised me was how many people there were and how many different buildings. He showed me all around, and I was quite impressed by all that was built here. There was even a sauna, although its function seemed different than the ones that I''m used to. When I thought the tour was over, he started to walk through the thick snow towards what looked like hills. He once again went quiet, and I felt the mood change to a more serious one. We continued to walk until the hills turned into a forest. We had walked for quite a while when he finally spoke up, "So tell me about your connection with the wood that your bow is made out of." The question came out of nowhere, but he didn¡¯t stop walking, nor did he look back. I, however, did stop walking. Talking about this was completely different from talking about the grass roads. Not even regular citizens knew about Ferlin trees and their significance to our people. Still, I needed to tell him something. That something could not be a lie, yet it could not be the whole truth. Perhaps just the facts then. He has always seemed to be more the practical type. "To my knowledge, every Ferlin tree and every single gram of its wood is accounted for. I know that we have given some pieces as gifts to other nations, but you making a bow and just selling it in a random auction makes me think that perhaps you have a contact that has an unregistered Ferlin tree.¡± ¡°You see, I have a trait that requires me to bond with a Ferlin tree to get the benefits from it. There aren¡¯t many of them, as they are highly fought over and quite hard to cultivate." "My family only had two, and they could only be claimed by the leader of our family and the strongest member. We have a long history with these trees. So, I am hoping that perhaps your contact would be willing to allow me to bond with that tree. It''s hard to explain, but it''s more important than just the strength it gives us." I went silent as I tried to think how to explain it, but Rich interrupted my train of thought. "There¡¯s no need to explain any further. You can still have some secrets. I now know enough, and soon you will as well." What did that mean? "Wait, I told you my side of it; you can¡¯t just not explain your part." No matter what I said or asked, he simply didn¡¯t answer and just continued to walk through the snow, making an easy path for me to follow. Eventually, I stopped trying and just hoped that he was going to give me some answers eventually. I really didn¡¯t enjoy not knowing or not being able to do anything except wait. We had walked for another hour and a half before I felt it. It was like I passed through an electric field. A moment later, goosebumps covered my skin as I felt a pull towards something coming from deep inside of me. Immediately, I looked ahead towards where Rich was guiding me. "Is that even possible?" Then I heard that chuckle and immediately looked towards Rich. Before I could stop myself, I had thrown a punch towards him. He just caught it. "So, are you going to run towards it, or are we going to walk?" I didn¡¯t dignify that with an answer as I immediately jumped towards the tree closest to us and then started jumping, using multiple abilities I had to keep myself from falling as I jumped from tree to tree to quickly get to the tree that was pulling every inch of my being towards it. When I finally found it, I stopped and looked at the tree, confused. It was not a Ferlin tree. It was something different, yet similar enough. Still, my trait shouldn''t work. Then I remembered the reward I got for completing the Ruin of Lost Ages dungeon. It modified my trait so it would have a wider range of acceptable trees, yet I had still not found any that would fit. Now, however, I had. The need to bond with the tree was all-consuming, but I held myself back. Rich finally made it here, but before I could ask him, he gave me a sweet smile. "Go ahead," those two simple words meant more to me than he would ever know. "Thank you," I said, while I could feel my eyes getting wet, but I didn¡¯t wait a moment longer and rushed towards the tree to start the process and finally feel complete. chapter 388 Pov Arabella Before I knew it, I was in front of the tree, and both of my hands were against it. Then my trait triggered. The rest of the world fell away, leaving me in darkness except for the tree that towered over me. At first, it was quiet, but then I could hear a hum getting louder. It didn¡¯t take long for it to start hurting, but when I tried to back away from the tree, I couldn¡¯t; I was stuck to it. Then I remembered my training, and instead of trying to pull away, I pushed towards the tree and felt my hands sink into the bark a little bit. All of a sudden, the bark started to grow over my hands and slowly make its way towards my shoulders. I needed to stop this from happening, but it was so hard to resist. An image of Rich standing in front of us while hordes of monsters were trying to get us flashed through my mind. How could I be weaker than him? Immediately, I started to push the bark back, but it was still so difficult. I do not know how long it took me, but I was drenched in sweat when I finally pushed all the bark away from my skin. If I relaxed even for a moment, my progress would be undone. During all of this, my body was continuously heating up, but that was because I couldn¡¯t enter the tree. During all this time, both of our beings wanted to be pulled together, but I needed to let it happen in a controlled way; otherwise, I would just become a part of this tree and not bonded with it. The struggle continued, but slowly I was able to push my hands deeper into the tree. It was an incredible juggling act because while I needed to enter the tree and merge together, I couldn¡¯t let the bark consume me, which it was constantly trying to do. My struggle finally ended when I managed to pull my left foot into the tree. The last part of me that had been outside of it. Now, I didn¡¯t know what was going to happen because no one had told me what would happen afterwards. It was as if I became one with the tree and could see what it saw, hear what it heard, and feel what it felt. It was a weird perspective to have because it was so different from my own. Even then, I could still feel some commonalities between our species: the need for food, to have offspring, and simply enjoying the beauty of life. The tree showed me its most favourite memories. Most of them were of beautiful night skies filled with endless stars. But there were a few memories of a person I also knew. It seems that the tree liked the person because he had helped lighten its burden and given its offspring a chance at life. Those were only brief memories, perhaps calling them memories would be a stretch, but it seems even trees can remember. Then I felt everything click together as it was supposed to, and the next moment, I fell out of the tree onto the snowy ground. What I found was new strength coursing through me and a clarity of mind that has helped our leaders be the wisest among us. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. What I was, however, was completely exhausted, and I could only give a brief smile to Rich, who was standing over me before I passed out. Pov Rich I watched as Arabella rushed next to the tree, and when she touched it, my energy sight was basically blinded for a moment. After blinking the spots away from my eyes, I saw an incredible dance of energy moving between Arabella and the tree. What I didn''t expect was for her hands to sink a little bit into the bark without destroying it. Then the bark started to crawl over her skin, and it looked like she was in pain. So, this wasn''t just a simple bonding. If she failed, I am guessing she would die. That would truly be unfortunate, but I also couldn¡¯t help her. What was happening was way too complex for me to understand. That didn''t stop me from absorbing as much information as possible. Her battle seemed to go on forever, but slowly, she was merging with the tree. It took her 12 hours to step into the tree, and then about three hours after that, she walked out of the tree. I quickly rushed to check if she was okay, and she gave me a small smile before passing out. "I guess you¡¯re more than fine, but let''s get you out of here." She somehow felt heavier and more substantial than before. Fortunately, it didn¡¯t matter as I was strong enough to easily carry her back home. Fortunately, this wasn¡¯t a night that I needed to sleep, so I could give her my bed while I went out to meditate. Sitting on the bridge that I built, which seemed like so long ago, I started to meditate on what I saw. It was an incredibly complex process, but I think I could figure out a simpler way that would allow me to connect myself to trees as well, but nowhere even close to what Arabella did just a few hours ago. When I came out of my meditation, communing with the land and nature around me, I had figured out a bit of what I wanted, but it was a good starting point and something that I would eventually figure out. When I came out of my meditation, I found that Arabella was sitting next to me on the railing, deep in thought but quite energetic. "I assume everything went well?" I asked her, and she quickly confirmed my assumption. "Up for a little spar?" she asked, but when I felt her energy, it seemed that she was still rank 2. A little bit of exercise wouldn¡¯t be too bad, but perhaps I was being too confident. Who knows what the bond actually gave her. I should be at least a little bit careful. "Some morning stretching would be nice," I said while getting up. She gave me a mocking smile and started to walk to the other side of the river and closer to the forest, where there was plenty of open ground. When we had walked a little bit, she pulled out two daggers. "How about we do not destroy this place. I assume you have similar weapons?" My response was to pull out two daggers: one from my lower back holster and another smaller one from my tattoo storage. The next moment she was in front of me using some kind of movement ability, I matched her and backed away an equal distance with my own movement ability. She rushed in again, but this time I stepped towards her. I was able to block one attack and deliver another, while she was able to block one and deliver two attacks. My attack moved her and crashed through her block, giving me one point, but I was only able to block one of her attacks, and the other one hit my armor, giving her a point. She truly was a lot tougher, as my attack should have easily sent her flying at least a few feet. We stopped the fight when I reached 25 points and she had 18. The fight had actually made me sweat a bit, which was truly nice. She was in a similar condition, but we were both smiling widely. "You know, Rich, you should not be that fast and flexible and that big. It''s simply unfair." "You¡¯re one to speak. Your hands move way too fast. Do you perhaps have an ability that allows you to have a phantom hand or something?" Of course, she didn''t answer me. It was, however, time to get back to the Connection, and I also needed to bring Francis with me. That reminded me of an unfortunate truth. While Francis was strong enough to pull the old wagon if it was empty, he was not yet strong enough to do so while it had stuff in it. We still needed him, but I now needed to pay a lot more to get a different wagon. Eventually, Francis will be able to rank up or get strong enough through training, but that time wasn''t now. At least he was quite excited to be able to start pulling heavy things once again. It turns out that the road-making device we had made for him had gotten easy for him to pull over the last summer. We were all truly fortunate that Francis likes pulling heavy things so much. chapter 389 Francis looked quite worried as we were waiting for the portal to open in the capital. While pulling complicated devices and even being a part of the war helped him adjust to more human-made structures, he never really enjoyed being in the barn and spent most of his time outside. I kept my hand on his head and scratched it to keep him calm. When the portal opened, it did scare him a bit, but it seemed that his desire to pull heavy things was bigger than his fright of unfamiliar things. I still remember how excited he was when I told him what I wanted him to do, but when I tested him while Arabella was getting her citizenship, it turned out that he wasn¡¯t strong enough for what I wanted him to do. Communicating with him was always a long process as we didn¡¯t have the same connection as I did with Goose. When he finally understood that he wasn''t strong enough, he was quite upset. At first, I changed my plans so I would just get an animal that could pull a more modern wagon for transportation and that he should just train some more, and later I would bring him with me. He was more upset about that than actually not being able to pull the old wagon. So now, he was coming with me and Arabella as we headed back to the Connection. As we stepped through the portal and entered the busy market, I found that Francis wasn¡¯t scared, instead, he seemed more determined than anything else. That was a weird change in mood. "Arabella, go to the company compound, tell them that we will be planning an expedition, and if any of them were planning on leaving for a quest, tell them to put it on hold until I make it there." She immediately left, only giving a crisp nod. That puzzled me for a moment before I realized where we were. Of course, maintaining a proper image would be important to her around so many people. "Let''s go, Francis?" I said, starting to guide him through the market. Although he seemed determined, I still saw his body relax when we got out of the busy market. I noticed more eyes linger on Francis, but no one seemed to have hostile intentions. As we were closing in on our destination, the number of people walking on the streets started to increase. There seemed to always be a lot of people around this part of the city. When the wagon shop came into sight, I remembered how many people were around it, but last time I didn¡¯t really focus on them. This time, I was paying a lot more attention to the people around me simply because I had someone to protect. It was because of this that I noticed a curious line of people. It seems that they were offering their services as wagon drivers. That was indeed curious. I hoped that the old man was also selling today, as I believed I would get the best information about these drivers from him. Of course, I could ask the drivers themselves, but if they were anything like merchants, they would immediately sense that I didn¡¯t know anything about their business and that they could probably take advantage of me simply because of my ignorance. While Francis did have harnesses purposely made for him that would allow him to pull heavy things without hurting him, he didn''t actually have anything that would allow me to guide him. That was not necessary, as he was very smart, but all of a sudden, he started to veer towards the drivers we were currently passing. This surprised me so much that Francis had been able to take multiple steps and get really close to one of the younger-looking drivers, who had first looked happy to see Francis but when he started to scratch his head he immediately pulled away, his face going white. "No, I can¡¯t," he spoke out loud, with sadness and fright in his voice, but I saw hope in his eyes. To my surprise, Francis pushed his nose into his chest, pushing the boy against the wooden wall in what looked like frustration. This was getting out of hand. "Francis, what¡¯s the meaning of this? Stop bothering this young man." Francis looked towards me, but what I hadn¡¯t expected were pleading eyes. Why did I just get the feeling that things were going to get really complicated, really fast? The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Then I looked towards the young man, who couldn¡¯t have been more than 17, but he was in first rank, which was impressive. It seems that I might have looked at him a bit too menacingly, as somehow he got even smaller and managed to get even further away from Francis. "I am sorry, Mr., but your animal, he''s trying to bond with me, and it''s really hard to resist." Immediately, I took hold of Francis''s harness and started to pull him away, which was a lot harder than it seemed because he was kind of resisting me. "Stop it for now, you need to explain yourself, but we will not be doing it here." That made him stop resisting, and when I got him far enough away, the boy relaxed. "What''s your name?" I asked the boy, who quickly answered. "It''s Luke." "Follow me, and Francis, stop trying to bond with him for a bit." I started to walk away with Francis, but it seemed that Luke wasn¡¯t following. "Why are you still standing there?" I said over my shoulder, which finally made him start to move. I could already feel a headache. I didn¡¯t take us far away, just a bit away from the crowd of people, and then we entered a side street. Then I started to communicate with Francis. It was a bit hard to understand, but in the end, I think I got it. "So let me get this straight, you want to bond with him because then you won¡¯t disappoint me. Francis, you have never disappointed me." He gave me a huff of frustration. But then the boy spoke up. "I¡¯m pretty sure what he meant was that you wanted him to do something, but he couldn¡¯t, but I can somehow help him achieve it?" That made me look at him for a few seconds because I needed this time to evaluate him and think. Did Francis sense something in this boy that would allow him to be stronger? "Why does Francis think you can help him be stronger?" Luke looked at me as if I had just asked the dumbest question. "Because I can. Every driver waiting in that line can make almost any animal that can pull a wagon stronger, me included. I¡¯m not the strongest; I¡¯m still quite young, but I have a lot of experience as I have been doing this well before I got my achievement page. Of course, not here but in the neighbouring town east of connection." "Do you need to be bonded with animals to make your abilities work?" I asked, but he immediately shook his head no. "No, most of the others don''t even have any bonding capability. It would be bad for business because you can only bond with one or maybe a few animals, but owning an animal strong enough to pull wagons would be way too expensive." "Are you a part of any guild or company?" I asked. He started to chuckle at that, yet immediately stopped and straightened his back. He looked like he was expecting something, but I didn¡¯t respond, so he started speaking. "Only the biggest guilds and companies hire drivers permanently; most don''t have the need for our services for extended periods of time. Most of us, including me, aren¡¯t a part of any organization because of that." I asked him some more questions, but it was quite clear that he was a talented young man who seemed to like to deal with animals and was quite passionate about being a driver. I looked towards Francis, who was looking at me with pleading eyes. It was also quite clear from the explanation Luke gave me that with his abilities, Francis would be able to pull the old wagon. "It seems that Francis likes you enough that he wants to bond with you. However, I can¡¯t allow this to happen without you being a part of my company. So, I¡¯m offering you a permanent membership. In exchange, you would be a wagon driver for my company and be able to bond with Francis. Would you want to do this?" "Yes," the answer came even before I could properly finish my proposition. "Very well then," I pulled out a standard contract from my tattoo storage. I had 10 of them stored just in case, and after Luke read the contract, he immediately signed. "You know, this is way too good. Most other guilds would not offer a tenth of what you''re offering." I just shrugged my shoulders. Most people are too greedy and power-hungry to realize that they are limiting their own potential by being too overbearing. What followed was Luke approaching Francis, who was now a lot calmer. For some reason, Luke started to unlatch the harness Francis was in. He did it without any problems without having to ask me anything about this custom-made harness. That was quite impressive. Then the bonding started. It was a lot simpler than what Arabella had gone through, but it was still quite fascinating to watch. Perhaps I had moved a bit too fast, but that contract Luke signed had some important points that made it a lot harder for someone to take advantage of the company. Now I understood why he had taken the harness off. Francis grew a bit, about one foot, and he seemed to become even more muscular, but it was a bit hard to tell under all that fur. "Well, that¡¯s going to be troublesome. It will take me a while to make that harness workable again." To my surprise, Luke spoke up. "There is no need for now. I have an ability that should work, but it is only a temporary measure." I then watched as he put the harness back, and somehow it still fit. Well, that was convenient, as was this whole situation. I could feel happiness coming from Francis and Luke. Perhaps this was even better than I expected. The old merchant was incredibly happy to see me again, but he was even more so when I pulled out 10 medium Mythryl coins and, while handing them to him, pointed at the old wagon. "Most excellent! I knew I liked you. And you have also brought with you a most wonderful animal. But will he be able to handle such weight?" Luke was the one who answered, "Oh, he''s more incredible than even I expected him to be, and you should really not underestimate him. This one, in the future, will be able to pull mountains, I¡¯m sure of it." Somehow, the merchant''s smile became even bigger. It didn¡¯t feel like a fake smile like most salesmen have, but if it was a fake smile, he must have at least 10 abilities to make it look so genuine. We hooked Francis up, and with Luke driving, it seemed that Francis didn¡¯t have any problems pulling the large and heavy wagon. We will have some work to do before we can take the wagon out into the wilderness, but it seems that everything was coming together perfectly. chapter 390 When we made it back to the company compound, I introduced Luke to everyone. Four of our original members were currently out on a quest and should be back in a few days, which should not mess up any of my plans. What did make my eyes twitch a bit was my oversight of not thinking where Francis would sleep. There was what I would call a garage-like building here, but that''s where Goose slept. Both of them wouldn''t fit properly through the front door. Even the wagon would barely fit into the garage, but it would fit. Honestly, this entire building was starting to annoy me. The workmanship on it was shit, and time had done no favor to it. It was still made out of first-rank materials, so it was a decent shelter. Goose was also not going to like that in his sleeping spot there was now a wagon. At least he should have his stomach filled when he comes back, so perhaps he wouldn''t be so angry. "Fuck it," I said out loud while pulling out my sword. "Let''s make a bigger door." Four slashes later, I had a large door cut out of a side wall. Of course, immediately, everyone rushed to my location thinking that it was an attack. "Just remodeling a bit, don¡¯t mind me." Next, I went and brought the necessary tools from our storage, and turned the cut-out piece of the wall into a proper door with hinges and everything. It would not be really that secure, but it didn''t need to be; soon this entire building would be demolished and a new one built. When that was done, it was time to properly inspect the wagon. I had gone inside of it once, and I was truly amazed at how big it was. The back of the wagon came down like a spaceship ramp, revealing a way inside. The ramp was 8 inches thick, but there was still a heavy door to be opened to get inside. When I once again entered, I was still amazed at what I saw. The place was huge, much larger than it should have any right to be. It could easily fit my home and every other building I had on my land. The floor was covered in dust, but even then, you could clearly see painted lines on the ground. At the very center, there was a box outlined by a thick green line. Then there was a larger box outlined by striped green lines. After that came a larger box outlined by a thick yellow line. After that was a striped yellow line, then came a thick red line, and near the very edge of the wagon''s interior was a striped red line. From my understanding, the further towards the edge you go, the less amount of weight you should place there. Most of the weight should be kept in the center; otherwise, the wagon will become out of balance and incredibly dangerous to everyone involved. The height of the wagon was also impressive, and on the walls, there was a similar color pattern of stripes. The first green line was about double my height, and it just went on from there. On the ceiling was also a hatch. I guess we will need to build a staircase or a ladder there. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! On the outside, there were also visible slits that I presumed could be opened. While on the outside, I could reach my hand over and touch this slit; on the inside of the wagon, I needed to walk a bit to get to the first slit. Next to it were two cranks. When I tried to spin one, I needed to put a bit of strength into it before it started to move. The gears that started to move inside the wall sounded like they were at least 1000 years old. Fortunately, there seemed to be a maintenance panel. However, nothing seemed to be happening. Walking outside, I saw that the slit was now a lot further in. Testing this thing out a bit, I found that one of the cranks moved a vertical panel and the other a horizontal panel. So, if you wanted to, you could make a really small hole or open it completely, which was still quite small but good enough to shoot out of when you''re trying to kill something that''s outside. This double-panel system seems also quite secure, and the metal this entire wagon was made out of was impressive. I was not able to see or understand the metal fully because of the runes and enchantments that covered the inside of the walls. Those made it possible for it to have such good defenses. I also suspected that they enabled the wagon to be so large from the inside and be able to carry such a heavy load. What was also pleasant to see was that there was a door in the front and a ramp. No wonder the front seats were designed that way. It was so that they would not interfere when you lowered the front ramp. I suspect this was added for convenience but also so you could quickly get your animals inside the wagon where they would be protected from the dangers of the outside world. I finished inspecting everything and kind of wished that I would have some montage music to play as I started to fix this up. First was maintenance. I cleaned up everything and even got other company members to help me. Then I started to oil all the moving parts. Next, I worked with Luke to make Frances a proper harness for his increased size and so we could quickly get him inside the wagon if things got too dangerous. Next, I started to build inside the wagon. First came a sturdy ladder to the roof hatch. Then I added some simple structures that would ensure that any resources would be in their proper place and would make securing them easier. After that, I started to build simple barracks-type housing. When we got underway, this would be the first thing I would improve, but currently, it was good enough for ten people to sleep in, even if we weren¡¯t all going to sleep at the same time. The last thing I added were a few workshop areas that were basically nothing more than a table and the designated area for a certain activity. It was five days later since I bought the wagon when I finished the very basics. It was not a pretty job, but I would have enough time to properly get things done when we were on our way. Everyone already knew the plan and, since now everyone was back, it was time to move everything we were not willing to lose out of the compound and into the wagon. This way, none of our members needed to stay behind to protect anything, and we could all go on a longer mission. The goal was to do a few quests but more importantly, get resources so we could start building a proper company compound. Of course, all of this also meant that we would be fighting quite often, which would also allow us to level up quite a bit and strengthen every member so everyone would also be able to handle the fort''s quests. Right now, I needed to be quite involved in everything, but hopefully, I can get everyone strong enough that I would not need to personally handle the monthly quotas, and with more capable people, recruiting will become a lot simpler. Fortunately, even that would be handled by Arabella, which would simply mean that I would have more time for my own pursuits. When Francis was hooked up, and we pulled out of the company compound, I was sitting next to Luke, who was driving, and on the other side of Luke sat another member, with another two members on the roof for lookout. This would be our normal distribution of members while we were moving. This time, quite a few heads turned when we headed towards the main road out of the city. The city guards needed to open the gate fully; otherwise, we wouldn''t fit through. That would be an unfortunate problem in the fort, as there was no way we were going to get it inside. Hopefully, we would not actually have to stay near that place for long when we eventually go there. Right now, however, our destination was the wilderness. It didn¡¯t take long for the road to end, and with this wagon, we could barely tell the difference. I was honestly quite excited about what was ahead of us. chapter 391 The journey seemed quite peaceful, which was unnatural. Goose was high up, flying and keeping a lookout, but none of the beasts chose to come close to us, which was the reason why everything felt so unnatural. "Hey, let''s switch?" I said to one of the lookouts on the roof. He didn''t seem to mind, and we switched places. I needed to figure out why we weren''t being attacked. It took me longer than it should have to realize that I was the problem. We were currently in the wilderness that did have first-rank beasts, but most of the things were still below rank one. I, on the other hand, was rank three. Of course, it would make sense that beasts would be able to tell if there was danger in the area; otherwise, they wouldn''t have survived in this place. So, for the next few hours, I worked on pulling back this emanation that was coming from me. It was harder to do than I expected because it wasn¡¯t just to do with my energy output that was easily tamped down; it was the presence my rank three energy gave that was the problem. Slowly, however, I managed to start blocking this emanation. What followed was Goose almost immediately reporting that animals were no longer trying to avoid us, although some still did. It would make sense that not every beast would be searching for food or even want to fight. It took almost an hour before a fox-like beast tried to attack us. While I kept my eyes open and readied myself for action, this fight wouldn¡¯t give me anything, so the other company members got to fight. Luke and two others followed protocol. This was still early days, and things would change over time, but right now, the job was to get Francis unhooked, lower the ramp, open the door, and get him inside. Luke handled most of the logistics while the other two readied to defend if anything posed a threat to Luke or Francis. They had just gotten in when the fox-like beast was killed. This would get annoying for them soon, and I think I can already see some changes that need to be made. We followed this routine, moving during the day and resting during the night. We always had someone on guard so that we could be safe during the day and at night-time when everyone was inside the wagon. Slowly, we improved on how we dealt with danger. Now, depending on the threat, Francis sometimes even joined in on the fight alongside Luke. From everyone here, Goose and Francis were the ones who enjoyed being out here the most. They couldn¡¯t simply gain levels as they didn¡¯t have classes, but they were still slowly getting stronger by just doing the things that they liked to do, which was nice to see. However, I did see some changes that we needed to make. "Everyone, gather around. We have been out in the wilderness for five days now. During this time, we have had many fights, but I¡¯m seeing everyone starting to tire out. Because of this, we will start our days a bit later and end them sooner.¡± This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°This does not mean that this time would go to waste. Everyone will pick a hobby that they will do during their downtime. I will also be adding a time when everyone will be training fighting skills. This training time is not meant for you to be grinding your fighting skill; instead, you will be learning how to fight with your chosen disciplines.¡± ¡°Luke, I see you favor the spear, and I¡¯ve noticed you asking around about combat classes. I am assuming you have either a chance to upgrade your existing class to a combat one, or you want to add one. You have access to people who know a lot about fighting. You do not need to be so hesitant to ask for help. That goes for everyone." "While we''re here on company business, we are also here to train all of you. So, let''s learn to improve not just by ourselves but with the help of our company members. Each one of you individually is important, but together we make a stronger whole. So, let¡¯s all rise together so we can help even more people rise with us." During the next few days, I found that everyone was looking a lot more alert, and there weren¡¯t any of the tired eyes I saw a few days ago. Everyone was a little bit hesitant about what hobby they should pick, but I explained to them that we had plenty of room, so we could set up any workshop needed. Everyone relaxed even more when I told them that they do not have to stick with one hobby. It seems that for some reason, they thought that once they picked one, they would need to stick with that. That was a truly misguided way of thinking. Everyone was gaining levels slowly. Goose was advancing the fastest, but that was because he was flying a bit further into the wilderness to hunt some stronger prey. We weren¡¯t moving fast, but we were still making steady time going through the snowy wilderness. We had stopped a few times to chop down some trees, but we had yet to find a big enough place to set up for a longer time. When we started to run into rank two beasts, I knew it was time to find a more permanent place to set up for a while, and hopefully, a place where we could get some stone and wood. Flying on Goose was always exciting, and I couldn¡¯t imagine how annoying it would have been if I didn¡¯t have him to help me scout. We found a decent enough place a few days away that seemed to have a hill with at least rank one stone and a decently thick patch of forest with beautiful-looking rank one trees, perfect for making houses. Every night as we headed towards this location, I wanted to push us, but I needed to keep to a schedule. This area we were currently in was simply too dangerous to just do whatever I wanted to do. When we finally made it there, it was everything that I knew it would be. Here we should be able to load up everything we need, well, except for metal. That we would need to buy, but we should also be able to bring back more materials that we could sell, so we can buy the metal we need to make a proper company compound. I was not the only one who started to harvest the surrounding resources, but half of our members were always on guard and ready for a fight. We were attacked about three or five times a day, and I really started to wonder why there were so many beasts here. We were not the only ones to fight, as we could hear savage fights that happened quite regularly every day. Most of them were far enough away that we didn''t have to worry, but all of this truly made me wonder about the reproduction of the beasts in this wilderness. During this time, I have had to fight only twice. One was against a pack of wolves that had 30 members. They would have simply overwhelmed my company members, and while most would have survived, Luke and Francis probably would not have. The other fight was against a flock of birds. I have come to learn that these types of monsters are the most feared around here. Goose and I weren¡¯t always at the wagon. We have made multiple trips back to the Connection to get some items that turned out to be necessary. During the next outing, we would already bring them with us, but this current outing we were on was a test mission after all, so we could work out all the kinks. We also went to the Fort and did some missions so we wouldn¡¯t miss our monthly quotas. After being out here for close to a month, we started to head back. While I have adjusted the schedule, after so long of constantly fighting and working, people simply get tired even when they get enough sleep. The journey back was a bit more difficult because there was more snow, but Francis was magnificent, and thanks to Luke, he was getting better daily at pulling the wagon. Thanks to this pace, we will easily be back in time for the winter solstice. chapter 392 Francis was doing a magnificent job, and so was Luke. At the end of every day, they were completely tired. Coming back with the wagon hauling so much more weight was putting a lot of strain on both of them. Still, they were getting it done. They were, however, both completely relieved when finally, the city walls of Connection came into sight. The city guards did hold us up for a little while. They still wanted to do a proper check so nothing illegal or dangerous would be brought inside the city. They seemed quite impressed by the amount of resources we brought back but they were professional as always. Our first stop, however, wasn¡¯t our company compound or even the market; it was the city''s warehouse where we needed to pay tax in materials. Fortunately, this tax also counted towards the material responsibility of the company. If we brought in enough, we wouldn''t actually have to give anything extra to satisfy the company¡¯s material responsibilities towards the fort they are located in and its connecting city. When all of that was done, we finally made it to the company compound. I gathered everyone around me so I could make an announcement. ¡°I¡¯m certain all of you are wondering who will be able to go back to United Freeholds and who will need to stay behind to guard the wagon and what''s inside of it.¡± ¡°I am happy to announce that all of you can go back. I will be the one who will stay. Also, Luke, you can go as well, and perhaps you would even want to become a citizen of United Freeholds?¡± Luke looked a bit nervous, but he also seemed a bit more relaxed. He gave a small nod. ¡°Why are you all still standing here? Do you not want to go back? I mean, I guess if you wanted to, you could stay here and I would go back. Also, this break will be for two weeks.¡± I didn¡¯t even have to count to 10 before all of them had gone. This brought a smile to my face. While it was a bit sad that I wouldn¡¯t get to spend the winter solstice with Tim and Val, I would at least dodge my involvement in whatever event the government was doing during the winter solstice. I turned around and started to look at the building in front of me. Not all of this was rubbish. There were still some good pieces of wood that could be used to make the new building I was planning to build. First, however, I looked towards the boundaries of the land. It has become standard that the first thing built in United Freeholds compounds was the outer wall. I did not see a reason not to do the same. Now, it won¡¯t actually function as a wall but it would certainly look like one, but it would simply be a fancy fence. It did have one positive aspect: it limited visibility. It would make this a proper compound, cut off from the rest of the city, so it would function as its own little world. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have enough stone to make the entire wall out of stone and to also build a foundation. We just simply couldn''t bring so much weight back. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Still, I had some wiggle room. I think I will do it with the posts being made out of stone, and I will just connect it with wooden logs. Fortunately, on that front, I had plenty to use. First, it was time to dig. Time went by fast, but I did spend some time with Goose as well. He was missing the wilderness, but I assured him that when he made it to rank three, he would have more freedom to go and fly around. Building the wall/fence was quite fun. The winter solstice went by fast. When I finished, a full four days had passed. Now, however, the fun part. It was time to demolish the current building. With a sledgehammer in my hand and a big smile on my face, the first thing I did was destroy the non-weight-bearing outer walls. Next were the non-weight-bearing inner walls. What I also did was bring out all the removed materials and put them in neat piles. Every piece of metal was saved in a special pile as all of it was needed. When all of that was done, it was time to start with the roof. This was a tedious job as I wanted to preserve as many of the roof tiles as possible because they still looked good, and I wanted to use them. The house looked like a skeleton, and you could easily see through it. I kinda wanted to just start hitting the corners and watch the whole thing crumble down, but once again, I was more measured in my approach. I started from the top and worked downwards, leaving nothing left but the floor and the foundation. When the floor was removed, all that was left was the foundation. This also needed to be destroyed as it wasn''t up to the quality I wanted it to be. Here, I could be as wild as I wanted to, as I would just use the destroyed foundation as a base. It was incredibly fun to destroy all of it. I could have done it faster if I used more of my abilities and more energy, but it was also a good workout. When everything was done, only 2 and a half days had gone by. Being a superhuman was amazing. This would have been a week¡¯s job for a team of experienced workers. This is just wonderful. Now, it was time to do some more digging. Not only did I need to make the foundation area for the main building larger, but there would also be four other buildings that needed their own foundations. I do not know why, but I enjoyed every bit, even just the digging. Why was it so wonderful to work with your hands? I was busy making the foundation. Melding the stones together was so satisfying. It was at this moment, however, that Goose let out a cry, meaning that someone was actually approaching. I looked up towards the tower I built for him. It was a modified watchtower design. It was high up and was perfect for Goose so he could watch around us, and so he would have a good place to sleep that he actually enjoyed. Goose, however, wasn''t worried, and when the gates swung open, I saw my company members and Francis coming in. Had it already been two weeks? That didn¡¯t seem right, but after thinking about it for a moment, I think that amount of time had actually passed. I kind of felt proud of that¡ªsinking into work so much that you forget time passes. Now that''s the dream. "How was your vacation?" I asked them as they approached while they looked at the disappeared building. None of them answered me, continuing to look with dumbfounded faces. Was it really that surprising? I mean, I hadn¡¯t even started to properly build any of the buildings. "It''s good that you''re here now; I won¡¯t have to bring the stones here, you can do that for me. Also, you can start cutting out the logs needed for the buildings. They should be prepared enough for that.¡± ¡°What are you all standing there for? Let¡¯s move; I¡¯ll show you what you need to do. You, Arabella, however, need to start finding new members. This time, when we go out with the wagon, we would actually need people to protect this place." "Now, while we¡¯re all doing this, tell me everything about what happened back home. Luke, did you become a citizen?" I had noticed that he had a constant smile on his face, so I wasn¡¯t surprised when he answered in the affirmative. But what surprised me, however, was that apparently, he had found himself a woman. Apparently, others were constantly teasing him about it, but he seemed to be too in love to worry about anything. The better question, however, was. When we were building this building, what could Luke and Francis do? As I looked around, I saw that we had an empty place near one of the walls that didn¡¯t even have a garden planned. It seems that I had made a slight oversight. Not only people needed to train; animals needed to train as well. Immediately, I put my abilities to work to figure out a training plan for Francis and so I could figure out something that I could build that would help Francis train. Also, from the looks of it, all of them slacked off during their vacation. I think some proper training is in order. "Why are you looking at us like that, Rich please don¡¯t?" All I did was smile at that, and for some reason, all of them took a step back. chapter 393 The next month went by quite fast, but it was a busy and fun time. Building the compound, teaching others, and training them was really enjoyable. The main building was a behemoth of a structure. Unfortunately, we couldn''t build it larger than three stories, as that was not allowed in this city. While the front of the building looked at least a little bit inviting, this place was not meant to entertain a lot of people who weren¡¯t from the company. It was meant to be functional¡ªa place where our company could operate out of and our members could feel safe and united. For that reason, most of the lower floor was taken up by the kitchen and cafeteria, but also a bar area. The second floor was mostly meeting rooms but also storage areas. The top floor had most of the offices, but currently, a lot of them will remain empty. The basement housed the armory and the indoor training areas. The second-largest building was something close to a barracks. It had more privacy, but the rooms were still small and had bunk beds. It would still be more comfortable than a true barracks. The basement was mainly for storage. The third largest, however, which actually had the largest footprint, was a two-story workshop/stable. It had a semi-open side where the smithy was, and on the other side of the building were the stables. The middle was currently a large open area that would be filled with a lot of work tables so people could work on their own projects. There was also a place where we could store our carriage, and people could work on it if needed. There was a chance that we might want to get more than one carriage in the future, but right now, this workshop area was only meant for one carriage. The second floor was more storage, and so was the basement. Into the basement would go heavier things like metals and stone. Into the second floor would go resources that weigh less, like leather and stuff like that. The last building was a sauna. It was large and also had a small pool. Having two sources of recreation would help quite a lot. Currently, it was winter, but there would also be an outdoor pond and a lot of the area would be covered in grass. Inside the compound, there was also a large area for training and, near a wall, a place where animals could be trained, but currently, it was only meant for Francis. There were still a lot of finishing touches that needed to be made, especially building all the furniture, but we were slowly getting everything done. It was on a quite cold morning when I was doing some paperwork in my new office in the company compound''s new main building. The knock on my door came as a surprise to me. "Come in?" I said in complete confusion. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Arabella walked in, greeting me. "Good morning, Rich. I would like to talk to you about company business if you have the time?" I gave an affirmative nod and indicated for her to sit, which she did. "As you know, today I will start interviewing people who have shown interest in joining the company. If the interview goes well, they will be joining us here for a week of evaluation.¡± ¡°Therein lies the problem. The training you are giving is, well, let''s say intense. I¡¯m afraid... I think if they saw that, many would not be willing to join us. So I¡¯m here to ask you to take a break?" "Are you sure you¡¯re not just asking that so you would not have to train?" She schooled her reaction well, but it seemed that she wasn''t going to deny it. "I would be lying if I said that wasn¡¯t part of the reason, but I genuinely think it would be better for recruitment." I took some time to think this over. The current training I was doing was not meant for people who were just starting out, and because of that, Luke was getting an easier version than the rest. But first impressions are important, and even if we explained it as an advanced training method, it might still colour their opinion on whether they wanted to join. "Agreed. Is there anything else?" She shook her head, so I continued the paperwork I was doing. It was only so long I could dodge the paperwork I had back at the capital, so now I had to catch up on everything. I shouldn''t have done that; doing small bites every day is better than facing a mountain of paperwork that seemed never-ending. Perhaps I need a few more assistants, but the things I¡¯m looking over are actually important. This is also a good way to understand how the United Freeholds is doing as a whole and what the current projects and future estimates look like. Overall, things are going pretty well. Winter is always a quiet time. There isn¡¯t so much snow this year, so things are a bit more active. The food we got last year is being put to good use, and since there''s more than we can use, we have been able to sell off quite a lot to get important resources or straight coin. Building up the country''s coffers would be important. Like every other year, when spring comes, there''s a lot of expansion planned. It also seems that the flood of refugees is never-ending as the constant wars force populations to move constantly all over the world. Being in Connection is a glimpse into how things used to be all around the world. There are families here who have lived in the same place for generations, doing the same as their parents and their parents before them. Things were upgraded slowly as it was a hard life, but overall, it was a good living. Now, in the many fallen kingdoms, the petty kingdoms fight for territory. Most of those wars are not pleasant ones, with proper rules of engagement. These are wars for survival because if you lose, your life and the nation you are trying to build and every relative you have, would be put to death. It''s a good thing that I have been able to stabilize the political situation around the United Freeholds. The Queen''s nation is currently busy dealing with the increasing number of people who are unhappy with their rule, but that''s not unique to their nation. Most of the new rulers don''t really know how to rule a nation and the populace underneath it. Some push too hard; some are too lenient; both ways would bring quite a lot of trouble down the line. Because of our population increase, we have also faced some troubles, but we are slowly developing a proper system of laws and punishments. Last month, during one of my visits to the capital, I personally handled two executions. They were public affairs but needed. Even with our screening, some people just break when there''s too little or too much pressure, and things like that can rarely be avoided. While I did not enjoy doing this, it was important. We gave a lot to our citizens, and it is in the nature of people, when they get something, to try to get more. So, it was important to show that there were limits, hard limits, and people who exceeded them would be punished severely. There was also a reason why there were basically no prisons in this world. Keeping people who are past a certain power level is incredibly difficult and expensive, meaning most of the time, executing the offender is the best option. We still had a city lockup where most of the people who got into a bar fight or had some other minor infraction went to for a few days. Overall, however, we had a lot less trouble like that. It seems that the combination of choosing who comes to the capital, the way people can choose how to work, and the overall benefits we offer was good enough to keep almost everyone happy. Hopefully, this will continue to be the case even in the future. chapter 394 Even in the short time we had our company advertisement up, we were still able to get 104 applicants. It seems that it was quite common for entire adventure parties to try to join together, most of the time because they simply ran out of funding and now had to tie themselves to a bigger organization. Arabella was very strict, so from all the applicants, only twelve were accepted for the week-long evaluation. The two most surprised new members were two adventurers who were still in the gold rank. They tried to join just in case because in the advertisement there wasn''t any rank requirement, and fortunately for them, it was not a mistake but a deliberate choice. We didn''t care much about your rank but what you could do and your potential. It was, however, rare to have such ranks in this city but not unheard of. I mostly stayed away from the testing, but it seems that Arabella can pick them quite well because a week later, we had 12 new members. After they became full members we continued to train them and took them out on a few quests. Three weeks later, most of our members, except for the few who stayed back to guard the compound, left on another mission with the wagon. This time, the focus was more on training. The time passed quickly, but I was quite enjoying traveling and instructing our new and old members. Near the end of this mission, Goose finally made it to rank three. The joy in him was immense, and it made me happy just to see him experiment with his new strength. It would now be even easier to travel around. The winter, however, was starting to end, so we headed back to Connection. All of our members had progressed immensely, which was incredibly important. Because as the spring was approaching, I wanted to shift my focus to my homestead. Thanks to Arabella, it was now possible. As I was preparing to leave for home, she was already working on another recruitment advertisement, as she was going to expand the member count once again. She seemed very driven and to actually enjoy the responsibility. I would still need to go to the fort every month to do the fort''s monthly quests. I would also visit the Connection at that time, but most of the time, I would be back home. Goose also wanted to fight and hunt stronger creatures. We often went hunting closer to the middle ring. Thanks to Goose now being rank three, it made it easier to hunt and escape in more dangerous areas. Being back home, I focused on my apprentices and leveling up my classes. There was so much to do, but everything I did, I absolutely loved doing, except for the paperwork I needed to do for the United Freeholds. When my birthday finally arrived, I had to tolerate the fact that it was a national holiday. I looked at my achievement page and saw that I was now 16. It made me feel weird. My body felt like it was 25, my mind felt like I was in my 50s, and my soul, well, that felt ancient. It might be a good idea to meditate on this. Francis had come back with me, along with Luke, as we needed their help with more road construction. Francis was an absolute monster, being able to pull a device that could shift and cut through earth and rock faster than any machine back on Earth. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. With the help of Luke and many others who used their abilities on the device, Francis was basically able to complete the first step in our road construction at the same speed a normal caravan would be traveling down the road. I also decided to start a project on the idea I had about the roads. Perhaps we could make it work. Currently I needed to fund it myself but if this worked it would be amazing. It wasn''t only in this aspect that our nation''s construction speed continued to accelerate. With our open policy and giving out information about the achievement page, skills, and abilities, and how they work, people were quickly able to gain necessary abilities that helped them with their work. During some of the meetings, it was now common to worry about the nation not being able to supply enough work to our constantly improving workforce. Fortunately, we had large ambitions, so we were constantly expanding and even starting some large projects for the future. We still needed to be careful, and it didn''t take long for there to be a need to make a mandate that we need to preserve as much of nature as possible and not just exploit everything for resources. There was no way I was going to let them simply cut down entire forests so we could continue to expand. This limited us a lot, but it was necessary. Time continued to pass. Near the end of the summer during the harvest, I had advanced enough in my First Homesteader class to finally reach level 80, the max level for this class. Just before that, however, I had also gained enough points in my constitution to reach the 1280 milestone and gain a new trait. I had been out with Goose fighting a monster that was close to the United Freeholds border. Killing it leveled up Heroic Commander and First Homesteader. While it''ll take me some time to get to the max level of Heroic Commander, as I pulled up the notification, I felt something changing. New trait gained: Constitution reaches 1280 new trait gained: Blood of the Werewolf As I read it, I understood what was happening, but it was still hard to control myself. My heart was pounding so fast, and I felt so much vitality coursing through my veins. I felt so powerful, but fortunately, the effect seemed to dissipate as I started to get used to it. "Wait, am I a werewolf now?" That would honestly suck quite a lot because being cursed with the lycanthrope curse was actually really bad. Not only would I spread the curse every full moon, but I would also turn more feral every time a full moon passed. Lycanthropes are also outlawed and would mean that everyone would hunt me down if they found out. It took me three days to fully test everything. I had higher regeneration but not an insane level; my strength took another leap upwards. There wasn¡¯t, however, a curse trait that should have been on my achievement page that would indicate that I had a lycanthrope curse. Fortunately, Tim was willing to volunteer. So, it seems that I also couldn¡¯t infect others. It seems that this trait was simply similar to the vampire senses one I had and just gave me the benefits without the downsides of wanting to suck blood or curse others. It was honestly a complete relief, but I still wasn¡¯t completely certain and would only be after a full moon. Now, all of this completely distracted me, so I now pulled up the notification for my last first homesteader level up. First homesteader reaches level 80 (max) strength +36 dexterity +36 vitality +36 endurance +24 empathy +24 intelligence +24 wisdom +24 free points gained +75 perk is gained ability harvest storage max level reached choose a specialization (specialization locks class upgraded) It was the usual, more stat points when I reached a milestone. I also got a new ability, harvest storage. It did exactly as the name would suggest. It allowed me to store, quite frankly, a stupid amount of food that I personally harvested. With this ability, I now could walk around and have a personal root cellar. The ability turned out to be more complex than I originally thought, as I could adjust absolutely every factor from temperature to humidity to sunlight inside this space. What I could also do was split this space into different smaller spaces. Immediately, an idea came to me, and when I was able to put seeds into this storage, it was hard to stop smiling. I now had a perfect place where I could keep my evolution experiments. The 75 free points were amazing, but I didn¡¯t spend them on anything just yet. While holding my fingers crossed, I opened up my class advancement options to see that I actually had an option to choose from. There are many people who made it this far, getting to the end of level 80, but there were many who couldn''t advance past that. It looks like I would be one of those people who can. I opened up the description for the class upgrade I had available. First elder homesteader: You are the inspiration and the shepherd, the first to guide the others and the first to be an elder for all homesteaders. This class lifts all restrictions on every skill used in homesteading. Lands authority is upgraded to land keeper. Trait gained aura of Rich Dirt. Ability gained potential evaluation, and voice of an elder. This class gives a chance to upgrade a skill or ability into a more specialized one. chapter 395 First elder homesteader: You are the inspiration and the shepherd, the first to guide the others and the first to be an elder for all homesteaders. This class lifts all restrictions on every skill used in homesteading. Lands authority is upgraded to land keeper. Trait gained aura of Rich Dirt. Ability gained potential evaluation, and voice of an elder. This class gives a chance to upgrade a skill or ability into a more specialized one. Of course, I was going to choose it. Being 16 years old and already an elder, I mean, that¡¯s got to be some kind of record. It once again upgraded my land connection ability to what seems like a higher version, like it did during the last class upgrade. It also seems to have given me two new abilities, and the flavour text changed a little bit. The biggest thing, however, was the new trait: Aura of Rich Dirt. How could I get a trait that gives an aura that I already provide if it''s named after me? This didn''t make any sense to me. Wait, would other people be able to get this trait? I hadn¡¯t heard anything about named traits, although I have heard about named abilities. Named abilities were named after the people who made or came up with them. They were incredibly rare and incredibly powerful abilities. If the system acknowledged this ability and named it after you, others could get it as well. Did it work the same with traits? I did not appreciate how much weirdness was going on with my traits lately. Nevertheless, it was time, so I picked the class upgrade and felt how a part of me changed into something new with a lot more potential. Level up First elder homesteader First elder homesteader now level 1 strength +22 dexterity +22 vitality +22 endurance +12 empathy +12 intelligence +12 wisdom +20 Immediately, I was bombarded with information. It was coming from the land keeper ability. Now, I was not just getting the current information but also the wants and needs of the land. It was hard to explain; this was so much different than a person¡¯s need for food. It was like I had a new part of my mind. It was fast, and it seemed to constantly give me information that it deemed important. It took me hours before I could function normally again, and then it was all broken down once again when a monster appeared near our border. It wasn¡¯t even anything dangerous, but the land screamed "wrong" and wanted to get rid of it. ¡°Relax!¡± I sent down the connection I had with the land through this ability. Immediately, my mind calmed down as I was barely getting a trickle of information now. I continued to meditate on this ability and finally understood what was going on. It was like the land had been mute this entire time, and now, through this ability, it finally had the ability to speak, so it couldn¡¯t stop talking. I took a week where I didn¡¯t do anything else but just listened to the land until it finally started to relax properly. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. During this time, Alan also helped me. He was able to connect this ability to my mind palace. He said it would make it safer for my mind, so no one could use the land against me, and it seems that whatever entities the different parts of the land had were now able to better communicate with each other, so they didn¡¯t need me to talk. This required a redesign of a part of the huge citadel that protected my mind, as now there were meeting rooms where blobs of different colored ideas were able to communicate with each other. It was still really difficult to understand anything, but I could understand some things, like one part of the forest telling it didn''t have enough water. At least now they had a place to communicate their problems without me having to listen to them constantly. Finally, I could continue as I still had other things to test out. The aura of Rich Dirt was as I suspected, a weird trait. It didn¡¯t seem to do anything. Then it hit me, and I had to slap my forehead. Of course, it wouldn''t do anything extra; I already had my aura. Now, I just had it represented on the achievement page. Next, I tested out the voice of an elder. It basically made everyone listen to my words and truly think about their implications. I had been a little bit worried that it might be a mind-influencing ability, which would be bad, but fortunately, it just made people truly think things through and, while it was at the border of being illegal, it actually wasn''t. Potential evaluation. At first, this ability didn''t seem to do anything. That was until I tried it on a kid. It was a young boy, about the age of nine, who walked past me on the street of the capital. I hadn¡¯t expected anything, so it came as a surprise when I got a brief impression of three and what felt like a decent-sized blue ball next to a smaller white ball. What the hell was that? I continued to test the ability out. It didn''t work on adults but also didn''t work on anyone over the age of 12. It did, however, work on everyone under the age of 12, so people who didn¡¯t have access to their achievement page. Most of the time, I got an impression of two and a decent-sized white ball. The size of the ball was never exactly the same; sometimes, however, there was the blue ball, most of the time really small, and sometimes there was a really colorful ball that had every color of the rainbow represented. It didn''t take a genius to understand what was going on. The ball represented a person¡¯s potential or perhaps compatibility with different resources. The white ball was obviously energy, the blue ball was probably mana, and the colorful ball represented holy power. It took me a bit longer to understand what the number meant, and while I wasn¡¯t completely certain, I think it means how many class slots would be available when they get access to the achievement page. This means a lot more work for me. I didn¡¯t have to change my destination, as I was already going to see David. His office was no longer in the city hall; he had his own building. It was next to the library which was a bit smaller than the records hall. I didn¡¯t enter from the front entrance, as that was for people who needed something from the records hall; I, however, needed to visit David. As I entered and passed the security, I eventually reached a large room that looked like a huge library. The books here were very special and expensive. All of them were connected to the owlbear whose image appeared in front of me. "Greetings, Rich. I have not seen you in a while." We had bought a lot of upgrades for him, and thanks to his work, we were able to run our entire nation''s paperwork through him. "Good day. It has been a while. Could you show me the way to where David is? And while we walk there, we can catch up?" He gave me a deep bow and started to lead me deeper into the maze that was this room. It was nice to catch up, but a lot of what he talked about went over my head. While I could understand some economics, the level David and the owlbear were at was beyond me. When we reached David, he was sitting on the floor surrounded by towers of books. "Good day, David?" My voice seemed to scare him, as two towers of books were knocked over by him turning around too fast. "Damn it," he said while scrambling to restack the books. "Good day, Rich. What can I do for you today? I¡¯m a bit busy." "I was able to upgrade my first homesteader class." He immediately stopped moving and slowly looked at me. "What?" I repeated myself, and he only blinked, not understanding. Then, finally, whatever restart he needed to do ended, as he quickly gathered up two books and then started to practically run deeper into the room. "What are you waiting for? Quickly follow. I will record everything down." His actions made me smile. We were in his office, which actually looked decently organized. "Well, tell me already, please?" he said while preparing to write everything down. I began with the description of the class. He whistled when he heard all of it. "That''s impressive, but I think I would be a little bit insulted if I were called elder at the age of 16." I then showed him the point gain from the first level. ¡°Wow, that''s so many. That''s a ridiculous amount of stat points. You will be gaining 122 stat points at every level. That''s like 20 or 30 more than average. Well, congratulations, you have gotten yourself a legendary tier-five class.¡± ¡°I wonder how many stat points just an elder homesteader will gain. And I wonder if the abilities and trait would be the same or different. I guess we will just need to wait. I¡¯m guessing George will be the first to upgrade his homesteader class. I guess we will see then.¡± We continued to talk for a little while and we set up a future meeting to discuss what we can do with the potential evaluation ability I got, but David was quite busy, so I left to go back home and started to prepare for winter. Most of the winter I was going to spend in Connection, and we were going to take the wagon out once again. We now had nearly 100 members, and it''s about time we had a proper presence in the Fort as well. chapter 396 It had only been a day since my talk with David, and while being in my office in the capital, I was able to level up my heroic commander class by doing some important paperwork for the military. It was interesting how classes gained experience. For a true crafter, they could not gain experience from fighting or killing creatures, the same way combat classes could only gain experience by fighting. That was why dual classes, as they called them, were so sought after. All of my classes were dual classes, although my heroic commander had the least amount of ways to gain experience. Luckily, things to do with the military and training people under me counted towards experience gain. It also seems that I have finally obtained enough stat points in my presence stat to finally gain a trait. Compression of aura¡ªan interesting name for my new trait. I was quite familiar with how auras resonated out; I also knew that I could pull it back, making others who could sense such things unable to detect me from afar. Now, however, it seems that I can pull it back, but by doing so, I am making the effect stronger near me. I do not think it would help hide me better, but it certainly had an interesting effect, and it seems like people who normally can''t sense auras would now be able to. Immediately, I thought about a few novels I¡¯ve read back on Earth where experts were able to just kill weaker people by projecting their aura. I wonder if I could do that. After thinking about it I didn¡¯t think so. Even if I were to concentrate it even more because of what my aura is it won¡¯t kill. While it projects my strength, it was mostly a positive feeling people got around me and wasn''t meant for dominating. Well, it was a nice addition, but I still needed to get everything done. I remember the famous saying that the only two things in life that were guaranteed were death and taxes. Perhaps it would be appropriate to add paperwork to that list as well. It was quite a busy time, but even then, it only took five more days until we had a meeting about my potential evaluation ability and what it could provide us. It didn''t take long for everyone to see the benefit. So, I was tasked with examining all children from ages 6 and up and recording their potential. Fortunately, I was able to convince everyone that I needed a decent-sized team to deal with all the paperwork. While out of principle I didn¡¯t want to do paperwork, I actually didn¡¯t have the time to put too much effort into this. We began in the capital. There were long lines of children waiting for me to evaluate them. It took a lot of energy to do this, but I had plenty. I have kept advancing in my adventurer class. It has reached level 103. There have not been any good skill or ability choices. That meant I took the stat point option every time. I now had 3603 energy storage stat points. It was a massive number and I absolutely loved it. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Another positive about this project was that I was going to be able to go and visit every outpost, village, and town that was owned by the UF. Everything started out normal, but the list of children I needed to check was quite long, even just in the capital. It didn''t take long for us to see a curious pattern. Basically, every child under the age of 9 only had 1 class slot, and the power balls they had were a lot smaller. We had only been doing this for an hour and a half, but there was already a pattern emerging. It became quite clear that children who hadn¡¯t gotten access to their achievement page, were able to increase their potential. Now, we didn''t know how this worked: Was it a natural process something that couldn''t be changed, or could a person influence their potential? It would take a lot of time and more work for us to figure all of this out. Even without a meeting, the people around me all agreed that things needed to change in the future, but right now, we could just continue how we were planning to do everything. Only about 12 children later, after we began again, I got an even bigger surprise. My heroic commander class levelled up once again. I was completely dumbstruck by this. We continued, and a few hours later, I got another level up for my Heroic Commander. What was interesting was that my first elder homesteader wasn¡¯t getting any experience for this, or if it was, it was little. I knew that I got experience for my Heroic Commander when I made a training plan that was meant for the military. Was this something similar? Was I evaluating potential recruits and because of this ability, I was able to do it so well that I was gaining so much experience? Whatever the case might be, I just found a way to power-level one of my classes. Now, I was even more excited about this project. We continued to examine everyone, and then Goose took me and two others to different outposts, villages, and towns where we continued our task. We had nearly finished when it finally happened: I reached level 80 of heroic commander. Once again, it seems that I got more stat points than the normal level-up. The 65 free points were awesome. The perk, however, Presence of a Hero, I was unimpressed by. I did not like the word hero or even its concept. I did, however, feel how it melded with my aura, giving it a boost but actually not changing it by much. I was not amused by that fact. More excitedly, however, while once again holding my fingers crossed, I looked to see if I could upgrade this class as well. Legendary field marshal: You represent the pinnacle of military strategy, leadership, and combat prowess. This class lifts all restrictions on grandmaster fighting skills, grandmaster army skills, grandmaster armour skills and grandmaster leadership skills. This class gives the trait field mastery and the ability field control. This class gives a chance to upgrade a skill or ability into a more specialized one. The class''s skill description was quite amazing. Now, it also had flavor text, and it seems like I can finally reach the grandmaster rank with some skills. The grandmaster rank was actually a bit of a fake rank. Up until that point, the system would give you information so it could help you advance your skill. The Master rank, however, that comes after the Expert rank, is the end. Whenever you reach a grandmaster in any skill, it just displays that you have reached the maximum level in that skill, and the only way you can improve is by doing everything yourself. More importantly, it means that you can no longer gain any new abilities from that skill. I was nowhere close to getting to that point, and in all honesty, most of my skills were low for my current overall rank. Nevertheless, I picked the class and felt the power it came with. Level up Legendary field marshal Legendary field marshal now level 1 strength +40 dexterity +15 vitality +25 constitution +22 presence +16 The new trait and ability I would need to test a little later, but the amount of stat points was impressive. After adding them up, it seemed that I gained another legendary rank-five class. That was more than I expected. As we continued examining the children, one thing changed, however. I was now gaining a lot less experience than I was with my other class. All I could do was let out a disappointed sigh. I guess easy come, easy go, but at least I was able to upgrade my class a lot sooner than I expected. Now there was only one class left, which had been trailing behind others for quite a while now. It looks like I would need to spend more time making some bows. It would be nice when I headed to Connection to have all three classes upgraded, of course, if I can even upgrade my renowned true Archer class. chapter 397 I had been sitting on my bridge for a while now, looking at my achievement page. The weather was still nice and warm, but there was a hint of coldness. I still had six levels to go in my renowned true archer class before I reached level 80. It was a lot of experience to gain, but that wasn¡¯t the true problem. There was a feeling in the back of my head telling me that if I just grinded out the levels, I would not be able to gain an upgraded class. Making bows has been a job for me for quite a while. However, I don¡¯t know if I know enough to take my bow-making to the next level, so to say. The problem is I do not know what people stronger than me or equally strong truly require from their bows. In essence, a bow is a tool that helps you propel a pointed stick farther and faster than you could ever do yourself. That, however, was no longer true, at least to an extent. I could take my current bow, the best one I have, and exceed or match its speed and damage by just throwing a rock. Now, of course, I could fix that with a stronger bow, but only to an extent. I was reminded of the huge bows that the archers atop the fort used. The only comparison would be fantasy great bows. They were long, thick, and shot huge arrows. Basically, they were just ballistas. Without abilities, however, they would be useless. The reload time would be too slow, the same with their arrow speed. Anything that reaches rank three or above should be easily able to dodge those attacks unless they are really slow and cumbersome creatures. Finally, I figured it out. It was the same as with my current sword. While it was amazing, made from excellent metal, the main feature of it that helped me truly be devastating was its capability to handle my energy and abilities. Without it, it would still be an amazing sword, but I would not be able to fight rank three opponents with it. So, the bow and arrows would need to do the same; they didn¡¯t need to handle rank three combat on their own. They needed to be able to support strong enough abilities, which would transform them into tools that could fight such battles. My mind started to race with all the possibilities. I had many abilities that would allow me to bring out those properties in any bow and arrow. This would, however, also require some testing. While I could do most of it on my own, it was also time that Goose and I trained to truly be a deadly combination. I could just imagine if I could bring my ranged damage to rank three while riding with Goose. I guess it¡¯s time for a training montage. I wonder if there¡¯s an ability for that. Imagining that was pretty funny¡ªusing an ability that would turn whatever you''re doing into a training montage with music and everything. With a smile on my face, I went into my bow workshop. Time to start experimenting and seeing if I could enhance these bows to a ridiculous level. Time sort of slipped by. There wasn¡¯t as much crafting as I thought there would be. A lot of time was also spent with Goose, flying over forests looking for enemies to practice this fighting style and for trees that could be turned into bows. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. That didn¡¯t mean that I didn¡¯t try other materials. I also experimented with metals, and while they could make powerful bows, for some reason, they just weren¡¯t right. Fortunately, that didn¡¯t matter much. But now, making a bow was no longer just about carving it. What I needed to do was forge it with energy from the inside. The structure and the functionality were also important, but now it was not just about trying to make the strongest bow. That didn''t necessarily make it better. Many of the bows I made simply crumbled to dust from the overload of energy or failed in myriad other ways. My bow-making skill was skyrocketing, and so was my class. Now, I still did some necessary things not related to bow-making or fighting, but I did as little as possible so I could focus on this as much as possible. Because of this, it only took me a month to finally reach level 80. I checked out the last level-up notification. Renowned true archer reaches level 80 (max) strength +45 dexterity +45 vitality +27 perception +36 free points gained +55 perk is gained ability maker''s mark upgraded to renowned maker''s mark max level reached choose a specialization (specialization locks class upgraded) So, only 55 free points. That was the least out of the three classes. The perk was an interesting one as it upgraded my maker''s mark to renowned maker''s mark. I wonder what the difference will be, but that is not important right now. What was important was if I would be able to upgrade the class or not. Holding my fingers crossed, I looked to see if there was an upgrade. Prestigious true archer: This class lifts all restrictions on every grandmaster skill used in fighting or making a bow. This class gives trait bow speaker and ability indirect sight. This class gives a chance to upgrade a skill or ability into a more specialized one. There, however, wasn''t any flavor text. This probably meant that it would be my weakest class, but it was still a class that I could level up to level 160. Immediately, I picked it and felt my class change. Level up prestigious true archer prestigious true archer now level 1 strength +25 dexterity +25 vitality +15 perception +22 Looking at the stat point gain, it was at least a bit higher than standard, but it would barely be an epic rank-five class. It was a bit disappointing, but once again, I should be happy that I was able to upgrade it at all. Perhaps I could have spent more time trying to get a better upgrade, but I had a feeling that I wouldn¡¯t. The problem was that the class in its core was a true Archer, meaning you should be able to make bows and also fight with them. Now, the making part, I think that''s where I could reach proficient at that I could get a legendary rank five class. The fighting part, however, was holding me back. Now, I was quite decent with a bow, but I didn¡¯t feel it the same way I felt with a two-handed sword or even throwing a javelin. This style of combat just isn¡¯t perfect for me, but I¡¯m still glad I was able to get an epic class. The trait ¡®Bow Speaker¡¯ was quite helpful and will help me make even better bows in the future. It sort of gave me an even better intuition while making bows. The ability ¡®Indirect Sight,¡¯ however, was a game changer. I could now look in a quite large radius all around, no matter if something was blocking my vision. This ability also seemed to have synergy with quite a few other abilities. In the end, I was happy enough with what I got. It was now time to finally go to Connection, as I have pushed back my arrival date for quite a while now. Looking at my stats right now, they were in a decent state. I was, however, still quite far away from reaching the 8000 I needed in strength, dexterity, and vitality to gain access to rank four energy. It looks like it will be a while before I could stop grinding class levels. Now, I did the calculations that everyone did when they reached the final class rank. The situation was a bit sad. My strength stat would be enough to reach rank five energy access, but my dexterity and vitality, however, will fall short¡ªalmost 8000 stat points short combined. It was still an amazing achievement to get it so close to rank five energy access with only three class slots. I can¡¯t even change my adventure class stat gains to help fix the deficit. That would mean that I would need to get enough free points to make the difference. At least I might have a chance, unlike most. It meant a lot of dungeon delving in my future. It looks like I might need to research more about the moving dungeons similar to the one I did a while back. If everything else fails, I could also, for a large sum of resources, get the person who has the ability to remove a class to take away my current adventurer class, but that would also remove all the benefits that came with it, and I¡¯m not entirely sure that would be the best option. Anyways, that would be my future self''s problem. It will still be a long way before I need to worry about getting to rank five. I need to currently worry about getting to rank four. chapter 398 Everything was packed for my trip to Connection. There was, however, some time before I needed to meet up with the new company members in the capital. Arabella had done a good job recruiting in Connection, but there were also promising recruits in the UF military. This was also a good way to keep strong people tied to UF. Otherwise, when their service ended, many would leave and join guilds or other companies so they could continue their journey of leveling up. With my company, they do not need to choose to leave but can still stay connected. It''s good when a plan comes together. I suspect that if things continue like this, I will need to expand the company quite a lot as we will probably start to have members in the thousands. When I walked out of my room carrying my packs, I noticed a few apprentices cooking. They were from the new batch, but they have already settled in quite nicely. Tim and I had teaching them down to a science. That didn¡¯t, however, mean we couldn¡¯t improve things. Cooking for over 12 people was a lot of work, and I think the kitchen is a bit small for that amount of people. Not that it can¡¯t do it, there¡¯s just better options. With every batch of apprentices, we also have quite a few who are interested in making food. Having proper facilities for them would be important. It seems like we need to make another building. I¡¯ll need to talk to Tim about this when I get back. We could probably add some other things to that building as well, perhaps some brewing equipment, or perhaps a place to do some alchemy so I could finally get that skill ranked up. Speaking of skills, they were advancing, but the higher you get them, the slower things go. There was a reason why some rank 3, 4, and even 5 people were called empty barrels. In this world, especially if you have combat classes, you could quite easily out-level your skill, leaving you a lot weaker or emptier as you don''t have the powerful abilities you can get from getting to master rank of a skill. Thanks to my Homesteader class, this wasn¡¯t too much of a problem, as I have had so many chances to gain abilities. I have gotten lucky in getting some good choices, and having multiple weaker ones that do similar things also helps a lot. This meant that I wasn¡¯t an actual empty barrel, but I could be a lot fuller. It will take a lot of time and effort to get those skills up, and that was if I was focusing on a few of them and not on the ridiculous amount that I had. It was still green outside, but the leaves had already started to turn. A smile came to my face. This place looked so lived in. It was nice to see it being so lively. Back on Earth during my later years, even with my efforts, a single man could only do so much, and slowly nature was starting to reclaim what I had taken from her. I was not mad about it, but it¡¯s still nice to see everything be so alive and filled with activity. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. The new root cellar that the apprentices built about a year ago was currently the main place where we held our harvest. The old root cellar now mainly holds bottled and preserved stuff. There were so many different jams, but I think what I liked the most were the pickles. They truly were good to eat, and having gone without them for a couple of years caused me to consume quite a few jars. Currently, most of the apprentices were working on building a house and root cellar, but these were not going to be permanent. This was Tim¡¯s idea. We were both concerned that we simply wouldn''t have enough buildings to be built after a few more waves of apprentices. So, Tim came up with the idea of having a place where we could have them build a building and root cellar and then also deconstruct them. This way, every batch of apprentices will get the practical experience they need if they want to build their own homestead. Tim truly has been a lifesaver. Without him, I would not have this much free time, and who knows where I would be? As I walked towards the planted trees, I marveled at how large they had grown over a couple of years. The land was feeding them nicely, so they could grow large and strong. This, however, also meant that the time was fast approaching when I would need to relocate the iron oak saplings. This was still a secret project, but I have been pushing during some of the meetings that we should start expanding west as well. There were other reasons for that as well, one of the bigger ones being so we could secure our western border. While currently, we weren''t finding any trouble that way, there was an entire kingdom near the coast that no one has heard of since the plague. We have sent some scouts that way, but they have found nothing too worrisome for quite a large distance towards the west. Perhaps Goose and I should take a look, but I have a gut feeling that going to look would not be a good idea, so I¡¯ve been pushing it back. Eventually, I made it near where the hills start. I looked over the batch of tree vines I planted here. They were the plants I collected near the lake in the river delta that grew incredibly fast. I was able to modify them so they would grow a bit slower, so they wouldn''t mess up the soil around them but also stop them from spreading through their roots. That was truly difficult to achieve. I took an axe and started to chop them down and pull out the roots. They were almost there, but they needed a little bit more work before I could use them. When they were ready, they would make the perfect fence. They were incredibly tough and could survive being planted next to each other. As they grew, they were incredibly easy to guide, so it was easy to make them interlocked with each other, creating a strong weave which made a strong fence. Their roots also made it safer against predators who could dig; not even a fox would be able to get through if I did it correctly. These plants would also grow quite thick leaves, which would help shield animals from the wind and sun. I could even create overhangs so the animals could take shelter underneath them from flying predators and rain. Eventually, I want to divide many of the hills into smaller sections with this fence, so we could keep different kinds of animals and they would be quite safe without constant supervision. Of course, not every kind of domesticated animal could live in these hills, but I think some would quite enjoy it. There was the problem of water, but I also have a solution for that. There were many large boulders absolutely everywhere. Cutting them in half and then hollowing out both sides would create water troughs that would be filled with rain. And with enough of them, water shouldn''t be a problem. Hollowing them out would also be a good job for some of the apprentices, but if this didn''t work, I was certain I could think of a way to use the river for a solution. It was now time to go. I kind of wanted to work more on my homestead, but I should have a few centuries to do so. It was important to make sure I could have those centuries, and if that meant I would need to be away right now, then that was acceptable to me. It would also be nice to see Francis once again. After he and Luke got done with this year¡¯s road preparations, they left back to Connection and have been working there. While they haven''t taken the wagon deep into the wilderness, they have been taking it out quite regularly near Connection so the new company members could get practice. Everyone there has also been working on the inside of the wagon as well, so it shouldn''t be a problem taking more than 100 people into the deep wilderness for an extended stay. chapter 399 As I gave the go-ahead, the portal was activated, and me and ten others went through and reached Connections portal hub. We would need to wait a bit before the rest of our members could come through. There''s only so many people who can go through a portal at a time, so after we waited for an hour, all 30 of the new members were here with me, and we started to head towards the company compound. It wasn''t unusual for a group as large as ours to walk through the streets. What was unusual was the discipline. Everyone was walking in perfect lines, unlike other groups who walked in clusters. This got us some more head turns than usual. It took us a bit to finally make it to the company compound, and I did love the sight that I saw. There were some watchtowers built, and there were guards; there were also six guards at the main entrance. At first, they looked worried, but when a few of them recognized me, their stance quickly changed from guarded to welcoming. After a few quick words, we were let in. The facilities here could easily support 200 members; we will need to expand sooner than expected. Everything inside was properly maintained, and the people who were training already looked to be quite disciplined. This was good news. While I have been here every once in a while, most of what''s going on here was left to Arabella and the few other company members who joined the company at the start. There was constant activity happening all around the compound. There were multiple different groups training in different combat styles, and there was a lot of noise coming from the workshop area. "Winslow, come here," I yelled. One of the trainers immediately straightened his back and looked towards me. It only took him a moment to excuse himself from the people he was training and rushed towards me. "Sir, how can I help?" he asked when he made it close enough. "These are the new members from UF. Can you take them off my hands? I need to go and speak with Arabella." "Yes, sir, right away. Oh, I recognize some of you; that makes things easier. Follow me, I will take you to our storage areas so you can unpack. If anyone...?" I left him to do his job as I entered the main building. There was a lot of noise coming from the bar area. It was nice to see that they were still following my instructions about people having enough free time to also enjoy themselves. It''s important not to burn yourself out. Climbing the stairs, I reached the last floor and headed towards Arabella''s office. I knocked on her door, and after a few moments, she finally called me in. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. As I opened the door and she looked up, I could see a bit of frustration in her eyes. "Finally, it took you long enough to make it here. You know we should already be in the wilderness." I just smiled and sat down, which seemed to irritate her even more. "There was so much planning, and then you just send me a message that oh, I¡¯m going to come about a month later. Fortunately, most of the food we prepared will last a long time, and what didn''t, we could cook up and serve. You are lucky that you didn¡¯t message me later; otherwise, I would have accepted some of the quests, and then we would have been in real trouble if you didn''t show up." I could see that she was frustrated; I think she has been overworking herself a bit. So, I just let her express herself. I would have stopped her if she started to complain about things that weren¡¯t my fault, but she never did. That took some control. It seems like a leadership position worked well for her. Eventually, she stopped, and I could see her shoulders relax a little bit. "Your complaints are heard and noted. Like I said in my last report, I brought with me 30 new members. It would probably be a good idea to keep them here. I think extra security would be nice." She nodded to that, so I continued, "There is, however, one thing that''s been on my mind. I hate to ask even more of you, but I can¡¯t think of a better person." She looked suspiciously at me, probably expecting me to put a lot more work on her. She was kinda right. "Could you perhaps train me in the use of a bow? We could do it during the wilderness expedition?" It took her a moment to think, and then she looked at me in shock. "Wait, what? Aren''t you a melee fighter? Why would you want to learn how to¡ªwhat?" "Yes and no, I do have a class that is not just for making bows but for using them. I do decently enough, but I think there¡¯s a lot I could improve on. So, are you up for the challenge?" She looked at me for quite a long time before she gave me a slow nod. "I would like a bow out of the deal. I do hope that it will not be too long before I reach rank three, and I would need a bow then." That was an easy thing to accept. We continued to talk for a while as I needed to properly catch up on what had happened during my absence. While I did get the reports that she sent, it was hard to get the true feeling about how things had been going just from that. The situation was good. There were a few bad apples that got through the hiring process, but to their complete surprise, the contract they signed didn''t ensure that they couldn''t be kicked out. In most other guilds, whenever you joined one, you had a pretty good guarantee that you had a place there even if you started abusing the power you had. As long as you didn¡¯t mess with the guild itself, the contracts usually wouldn¡¯t allow them to kick you out. We, however, didn¡¯t go with the standard form. There was no way I was going to let such vulnerabilities mess up what I was trying to build. Time started to move fast once again as it took a while to prepare for the expedition. Almost 100 members would be coming with us, and it would probably be a few months before we made it back here. During the preparation, Arabella started to teach me, and oh boy, was there a lot to learn. Basically, what I had been doing was shooting a bow, not fighting with it. She essentially needed to break my current habits, and then she could finally start teaching me how to fight with a bow. "Unless you''re in formation while fighting with a bow, you should always be in motion. You have the range advantage, and you should always keep it, but this also means your biggest weakness is ranged attacks against you. Never move predictably. It''s like you''ve never actually hunted before." She continued to give me pieces of wisdom that I soaked in. I would need to teach some of these to Goose. They would apply to him as well. An image flashed in my mind of Goose in the future even bigger but still nimble, and an expert in his own fighting style. He''s going to grow up to be a true terror, isn''t he? The expedition started without any fanfare, but the inside of the wagon was truly impressive. It was like a large camp; it had a proper barracks and a few other workshops for everyone to use. The most impressive area/building was the cooking area. While eating rations would have been acceptable, the constant exertion nearly 100 people would be doing daily meant they would need a lot of food, and it seemed like we were prepared to give them that thanks to the cooking area and the people we recruited who had food-related classes. I had a feeling that it was going to be a fun expedition. We had some general goals to accomplish. Leveling up our members and gathering some resources were the main ones, but the most important goal was to find a metal vein of some sort that we could mine out. It would be a game-changer if we found the right type of metal. Not only could we upgrade our gear quite cheaply, but it would also be an excellent nest egg to use for expansion. chapter 400 Most of my days were filled with training. Arabella was a decent enough teacher. Because of this, I felt a lot more connected with the bow style of fighting. I wasn¡¯t the only one who was constantly training, but I was one of the few who didn¡¯t venture away from the wagon to fight with different beasts, except if one of our groups ran into trouble. Most had never gone this deep into the wilderness, so of course, there were times when they were unable to judge a challenge correctly or were ambushed by some of the more sneaky creatures. Whenever that happened, they needed to signal that they were in trouble and hold on long enough for help to arrive. There was, however, a punishment if someone did that. Not a truly harsh punishment; we didn''t want people not to call for help, but we also didn¡¯t want them to rely on it too much. One of the punishments was that they needed to eat rations instead of the cooked meals. This was already quite the incentive to quickly learn whether you should fight or retreat. The other type of punishment was doing shit jobs that no one wanted to do, many of them actually involving shit. When I felt I was good enough with the bow, Goose and I also started to train. We had been doing this before, but now we did it against stronger opponents. Quite often, we would fly to the Fort to take on some quests that were close to the wagon so we could get some proper experience under our belts. Goose turned out to be quite crucial for the rest of the members as well. Thanks to him, I was able to fly to Connection and complete quests and take on new ones that were near our wagon. We could also resupply if needed, but I also had quite a lot of food in my harvest storage. Thanks to all of this, we could basically stay out in the wilderness for years if we wanted to. This was only possible thanks to the wagon we got and for Frances and Goose. If we wanted more of these types of wagons, we would first need to find someone who could build them and then have access to more animals that were as useful as Frances and Goose. That was an incredibly tall order, but Arabella had put in some information requests to try to find out who built this wagon. There was a possibility that whoever built it might still have a business that was open. While right now it would not be too stressing, we figured that the upper limit of this type of expedition would be 200 members. Otherwise, you simply had too many members who couldn''t do anything or needed to go so far away from the wagon that they would need to camp out in the open, which would literally defeat the purpose of the wagon itself. Frances and Luke were advancing at an incredible pace. Fortunately, we were planning on staying out here for a couple of months. Near the end of it, Frances should reach rank three. How animals advanced was quite a lot different from how humans did, but one thing was in common: the more driven and passionate you are about doing something, the faster you will advance. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. When the snow started to fall, we had pushed deep enough into the wilderness that rank two creatures became commonplace. Everyone was advancing at an incredible pace, and thanks to the skill training they were getting daily, they were only falling behind their class a little bit. Before I noticed, we were well past the harsh winter we got, and it was finally time to head back. It had been an incredibly productive expedition. We pushed quite deep into the wilderness and towards the mountain range that protected the civilized lands from the high-rank monsters that were beyond it. Thanks to that, we were able to find three metal veins and mine them out completely. Unfortunately for us, none of them were high-rank metals, but they were heavily imbued regular metals. They were good enough for our needs. During the trip back, I focused on making some weapons and armor for everyone. It would help gain me some skill levels while boosting the combat effectiveness of our members. Before we got too far back towards Connection, Goose and I took another flight to the Fort, but this time to pay our tax in metal. You couldn''t just go out and collect materials; you also needed to pay a portion of them to Breach or Connection. Metals like this would be worth a lot more in terms of contribution in Breach, and since Goose could handle a lot more weight, it was the obvious place to take them. I hadn¡¯t seen the Fort leader since I first reported to him. He even seemed quite surprised to find me still alive and paying a lot of tax to him. He still seemed his gruff self, although I did see a spark in his eyes that I hadn¡¯t seen before. I wondered what that was about, but when I was leaving after paying my taxes, I noticed a person I knew from somewhere. My mood instantly soured when I recognized him. It was the same person I had seen in the company orientation and the same one who tried to read my mind. It seems like he was assigned to this Fort as well. He and the group he was surrounded by were heading towards the leader''s hall. Just before they entered, he looked toward me and gave me a small smirk. Damn, this was going to be trouble. It had been over a year now since the last troublesome event. It seems like I needed to set the accident calendar back to zero. This was quite bad timing, as we were going to send two teams to the Fort after they got some rest back in Connection. Those two teams seemed quite strong, and I was confident that they could handle quests around the Fort. Soon, I should have finally been able to take a break from coming to this fort every month to do the quests, but now I don¡¯t think I should leave those company members to deal with whoever that was. Damn, I had really hoped that I could have a peaceful summer back at the homestead, but I guess I would need to keep a closer eye on the company so they won''t get into any trouble. Back at Connection, we couldn¡¯t sell everything right away and we actually flooded the market a bit just with the taxes we paid. Francis was a complete hero to be able to actually pull so much weight. We were only able to get this much thanks to him getting to rank three. What was also amazing were the enchantments on the wagon. I actually lost a decent amount of gold coins because I bet that the wagon would get over-encumbered enough that its wheels would sink into the ground. It never happened. When I was finally done with company business, I headed back to UF as everyone was starting to prepare for the coming spring. Basically, for a month, I need to do paperwork. Once again, I had been away for too long. If it wasn¡¯t for the national holiday, I think I would have forgotten my birthday. However, the system also had a different way of reminding me. I had almost forgotten I was going to get this achievement. Achievement gained Rank three in five years free points gained +1000 My mouth hung open when I saw the amount of free points. 1000 points meant that I would be a lot closer to achieving rank 5. This was good news, but I would still need a lot more free points. Speaking of that, I once again looked at the report Arabella sent me. One was filled with the current locations of moving dungeons; the other, however, was the single lead we had on whoever built the wagon. Currently, one of the raid dungeons was located quite close to the city the lead was in. It also wasn''t too far away. The city itself was connected to a fort that was located on the eastern side of the outer ring. It was a bit more towards the south than Breech, but with Goose, it really didn''t matter too much. I should be able to get this done and be back for the planting. Before that, I needed to finish up dealing with all this paperwork. chapter 401 Goose and I were flying quite high. Underneath us were the grasslands that extended from my land all the way to the middle ring. It occupied the upper center of this continent, filled with smaller wildlife, mainly rabbits of all kinds. The closer you got to the center of the continent, the more variety and stronger animals appeared. This kind of trip should have taken me months, well, perhaps about a month since I¡¯ve gotten a lot stronger since my last visit to a raid dungeon. Still, it kind of broke my brain every so often, just thinking about how large this singular continent was. Goose seemed to also be absorbing all the new sights like I was. ¡°One day we must fly over all continents. I think it would be a wonderful trip,¡± Goose immediately agreed. Like this, we continued to soar past the landscape, heading to our destination. Goose was surprisingly accurate, but we still had to double back so we could locate the city we were searching for. This one was called Supply. Whoever came up with the names wasn''t really that imaginative or had a weird sense of humor. Like Connection, it supplied three different forts but was a little bit smaller, simply because it was newer. This time, however, I knew the protocols better. We landed well away from the city, on one of the roads that didn''t lead to a Fort but instead towards a more normal civilization. ¡°You can fly around and see if you can find anything interesting. Just remember to keep practicing your wind camouflage. This is a good place to practice, as there shouldn''t be anyone here who could hurt you, but people around here would still be strong enough to potentially see through your camouflage.¡± When I was done talking, Goose immediately took off, and I soon lost sight of him. He was getting really good at manipulating air and somehow found a way to manipulate the air in a way that helped keep him hidden even while flying. He had gotten too annoyed at his prey running away as soon as they spotted him and making him fail many hunts. Now, hunting with him is ridiculously easy. From my backpack, I pulled out a heavy cloak that would help keep me hidden. While using my company name would help in many ways, it would also hinder me in others. While there was no law against companies expanding into other cities or even forts, the companies located in those places certainly didn''t like someone else trying to get a piece of their pie, so to say. Getting into the city wasn''t the problem, although the guards did look at me a bit weirdly as I didn¡¯t have any visible weapons on me, unlike almost everyone else. It didn''t take me long to find the place where I could register myself for the raid dungeon. Since this raid dungeon appeared on a Fort land, the companies of that Fort were the ones in charge, but even with so much manpower, they still needed to open spots for others who could pay. There were a lot of people outside the building, and many were advertising their group as they wanted to join others so they could purchase a spot and try their luck in making their money back while also gaining some more permanent benefits. I didn¡¯t bother with them and headed straight into the building. As I opened the door, there seemed to still be a pretty long line of people waiting to be addressed by the person behind the table. Currently, there was arguing coming from that table. "If you are not willing to pay the listed price, please leave the line immediately." "What list price? This is extortion! No one is going to pay your outrageous sum. I demand you..." The person behind the table snapped her fingers, and immediately two people materialized beside the angry customer, who immediately shut up. From this angle, I couldn¡¯t see his face, but I was pretty sure it was bone white at this point. He didn''t make a sound as they escorted him out. The line moved pretty fast, people looking down at the large book on the table, some made disappointed sounds, others angry huffs. Only two placed coins on top of the book, and soon after, it was my turn. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Finally, I was able to look down to see the price, and even my eyes widened. One medium mithril coin and eight small mithril coins. That was a ridiculous sum, and from my knowledge of the raid dungeon, there was no way to even make half on a single run. "Is this only for a single run?" I asked her. "Yes, of course, only for a single run. If you are too poor, then move along," that made me raise my eyebrow. "You know that you are overvaluing this raid dungeon by quite a bit. Most likely because the teams you currently have clearing it are a lot stronger than the people of this city. I would guess that most here would only be able to clear 5 waves in four hours." She was halfway towards starting her normal response when she clapped her mouth shut. I pulled out the required coins and placed them on top of the book. I then marked an empty spot for tomorrow night and left. When I got outside, the crowd had thinned out quite a lot. Most likely, people were off to do some quests to get more coin. Most probably thought that they would lower the price eventually, but they probably needed some extra coins too, to assure that they could run the dungeon. Of course, every company would like to monopolize a raid dungeon, but by law, they were required to give up some spots to others. You could only get the best rewards for the first clear; afterwards, it became harder and harder to get anything useful besides monster cores. Now, I had some investigations to do and hopefully find a clue about whoever built the wagon we had back at the connection. What I found was a large complex that was quite active. It seems that the business was booming as I saw hundreds of workers moving around, bringing materials to the different buildings that kinda looked like large garages. They also seemed to have a building where they displayed their wagons. I walked into it, but after looking at the garages, I was a little bit disappointed. This was because of the newer design. They were smaller on the inside but instead offered a lot more weight reduction. Their defense also seemed quite good but wasn¡¯t on the level our wagon was. I was beginning to doubt that this was not the place I was looking for, but the company symbol was nearly identical. There were many other people here besides me, and it didn¡¯t take long for me to be addressed. When I asked about custom orders, I was quickly led to the second floor, where another attendant brought out a few catalogues with different kinds of features and designs. There were three catalogues: one looked quite new, another a little worn, and the last looked pretty old. The further back I went, the more the wagons started to resemble what I was looking for, but not even the oldest designs were anywhere close to what I was looking for. "Is there something wrong?" the person assigned to me asked. "No, nothing¡¯s wrong. I just think I¡¯m a bit over my head. There are just too many options, and I¡¯m a little bit torn between all of these amazing enchantments and my guild''s Beastmaster." "Not to worry, that¡¯s why I¡¯m here. But what''s wrong with the enchantments? Does your Beastmaster not like some of them?" Laughing briefly, I nodded to his question. "Yeah, I think so. When I left to come here, he told me to get a large wagon and to make sure he could use this wagon to train his beasts even more. The problem is he has six rank two Woolly rhinoceroses. I frankly think that there is no wagon in this catalogue that they would find even a bit difficult to pull." When I looked up, I saw huge eyes looking at me. Eventually, he found his voice once again. "I can see the problem. Can I see the old catalogue for a moment, please?" I handed it to him, and he quickly leafed through it and winced when he made it to the end. "This is a bit unfortunate, but I truly think that there¡¯s nothing we can offer you that would satisfy your particular needs. We are sorry to have wasted your time." "No, no, it''s no problem. Perhaps we should get multiple wagons and lash them together, but we don''t have the capital for that, or the people who could make use of so many wagons. It is I who is sorry for wasting your time." I kind of hoped that he would point me in the right direction, but it didn¡¯t seem that I would get lucky. Most likely, the company that made my wagon was bought out by this one, but apparently, they didn¡¯t get all the designs. When we reached the staircase, I expected him to stay on the second floor, but to my surprise, he followed me down and then started to speak in a low voice. "7th warehouse on 5th St," and as soon as he finished saying that, he turned around and went back up. Well, I guess I was wrong; it did work out. When I reached 5th St, the city had turned a lot more unkempt. The 7th warehouse was not a large building, but there still seemed to be some life inside. Knocking on the small door beside the large one didn¡¯t seem to have any results. Controlling my strength carefully, I knocked a bit harder. Soon after the door cracked open slightly. "We will get you the coin, wait, you aren¡¯t Slay. Who are you?" said a girl who must have been 10 years old at the most. And what kind of a name is Slay? "I am someone who wants to commission a wagon. I was led to believe that this particular location would be able to make the kind of wagon I need." Her eyes immediately started to shine. She swung the door open and quickly beckoned me in. I followed her into a quite cozy but also messy workshop that was dominated by quite a large wagon. "Father¡¯s currently working inside, but he''s not good with the business side anyway, so if you would follow me into the office, I could write down what you need and tell you if daddy could make it or not." This so-called office was nothing more than a clear corner with a table and two chairs. The girl sat across from me and took out a large book that was obviously missing three-fourths of its pages, and from the looks of it, they had been ripped out. Before she could open the book, I pulled out a drawing of my wagon and showed it to her. The drawing also had the features of the wagon listed on the side. "I¡¯m looking for something like this." Immediately her eyes got wide, and a large smile appeared on her face. "That''s the model 5e. My great-grandfather worked on those. He, unfortunately, was only able to build five of them. Look, they look almost identical," she said while quickly opening the book exactly to the right page to show almost a replica of my wagon. On the page next to the design of the model 5e, there was also a list of materials and an approximate cost. It looked like 10 medium mithril coins was a steal, as just the cost of the material seemed to be around 43 medium mithril coins. "Oops, I wasn¡¯t supposed to show that page to the customer," her smiling face immediately changed into a sad one. "It happens to the best of us.¡± ¡°Now, how about we chat for a while and wait for your father to get done with his current work? I would be interested to know why your company isn¡¯t the same as the one who made this wagon," I said while pointing at the company symbol that was scratched off the book¡¯s cover. chapter 402 I had talked to Sandy for well over 2 hours, but I sent her to get herself some food. Currently, I was simply leafing through the design book, but I was doing my second pass. There didn¡¯t seem to be any design more suitable for my needs than 5e. The story of this company, or at least their founder¡¯s family, was a sad one. Their great-grandfathers started this, but the child¡¯s grandfather was the one to make a crucial mistake. He wanted to expand, but for that, they needed investment. Everything had been going great at the start; they were constantly expanding, but their new business partner eventually wanted to start taking the designs in a different direction. While this wasn¡¯t as sinister as I originally thought, the disagreement broke apart the original business, and it was quite obvious that the market trends favored their business partner. Still, they were doing good enough, that is until a monster horde big enough to get into this city, but not big enough to completely destroy it, happened to pass by. The girl¡¯s grandfather died defending the walls, and his father was still a bit too young to be able to hold up the business. Once again, some bad business decisions and currently, they were working mainly for other people as their loan interests were quite bad. ¡°Sandy, I think we should go and get some food, what do you think?¡± someone spoke from inside the wagon, most likely the girl¡¯s father. When there was no answer, it didn''t take long for a well-built man to poke his head out of the wagon and look around. Seeing me and not his daughter, he pulled out what looked to be a nasty-looking crossbow. ¡°Who are you, and where''s my daughter?¡± ¡°I¡¯m a customer, and your daughter went to get some food. Come sit down, we have a lot to discuss.¡± He didn''t lower his crossbow, but the next moment Sandy burst through the door, arms full of food. Nice timing. The man immediately relaxed his shoulders and made the crossbow disappear. They talked with each other for a bit and then they both approached. "We are currently busy with this project, but in two weeks, we can get started. So, if this is fine for you and you have the time, we can currently work out what kind of design and features you would prefer." I held up a hand to stop him. "That would not be necessary for now. Please instead take a look at this," I said while pulling out a contract and handing it to him. "It''s a rough one; we can iron out the details a bit more. But I hope you will agree." The man took the papers skeptically and started to speak. "We will not go into partnership with¡ª" but then stopped, probably because he continued to read. "With what, but that would keep me completely in charge, then why would you, what... why would you take such a risk? You gain nothing from it," he finally spoke when looking into my eyes. "You are wrong about that. I would gain quite a lot, but it would be in the long term. In the short term, you are right; it would be an unfortunate deal. I would need to give you funding and protection, not to mention pay off all your loans, and in return, just get priority work." "Eventually, however, I think we would be your only customer because you would only be making products for my company and simply won¡¯t have time for anything else unless you expand, of course, but that¡¯s up to you." "How can you protect us? I¡¯ve never heard of your company, so you must be from some other Fort?" I guess that age has wizened him up a bit, good. "It would, in fact, be a good excuse to expand here. We are reaching our optimal capacity; I need other cities to expand to. This could be a perfect destination if we had an asset like you that would require protection." The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. I was glad that he didn¡¯t disagree immediately. We talked and discussed well into the next day until he finally chose to sign the papers, however, they were changed from when I first presented them. I then gave them the money to pay their debts and some funds to continue running their business. That took a large chunk of my current funds, but that was the cost of expansion. We have discussed many plans with Arabella on how to expand, but it was difficult to do so in a way that wouldn¡¯t truly piss off any other company that occupied a fort and its connected city. Just in case, I went into my mind palace and the huge library Alan had set up. Here lay all the information I had gathered, and I quickly went into the law section. Wars between companies and guilds were fought quite regularly, but you needed to actually have a valid reason. Expanding to another city was one of those reasons, unless you had a valid reason to do so. Now, I was certain there were more loopholes besides the one I found, and after checking one last time, I was positive that what I had done was a safe and valid reason for expansion. We were not the only company to have such desires, and there were some really successful companies in history, but they often moved into the middle and the inner ring, becoming true giants but not bothering with the outer ring any longer. We would have some different plans, but that was for the future. After I went and got myself a proper meal, it was time to head to the raid dungeon. I made it there quite a few hours before my time slot, but I still registered myself, which caused quite a stir. "What do you mean you''re the only one going in? You need at least 20 rank-two fighters to be able to clear the first wave and beyond. You would get killed." I did not know what was going on with the companies around here, but I was starting to get annoyed. "Then I will die. Why is it your business? I have paid the cost for a time slot, so what¡¯s the problem?" That shut her up, and she gave me the token needed to proceed further. When I entered, I was immediately brought back to the first raid dungeon I went to. Everywhere was filled with impressive-looking tents, and in the middle was a bustling market. I spent my time looking through everything when finally, it was time to enter. Yet, once again, it seems that there would be trouble. As I approached the entrance, I was stopped by a large group of people. "So it''s true you intend to go in only by yourself. If you want to throw your life away, I can help you with my blade. You can keep your life we are willing to pay you for your slot. Here take a medium mithril coin." I simply walked up and punched him in the throat. He immediately collapsed. "Shut the fuck up." Someone else rushed me, and I simply grabbed the weapon arm and immediately broke it. That stopped the rest from rushing in. I simply walked past them and entered the dungeon entrance. Now they couldn''t come in even if they wanted to. I went and stood on the central platform that would start the waves. This was quite a famous raid dungeon, simply because it was only one of two wave-based dungeons. You had four hours to clear as many waves as possible or until everyone in the party was either dead or yelled surrender. The monsters were all rank two, but the volume of the later waves would prove difficult even for me. Now, my goal wasn''t to get to as high of a wave as possible. No, I needed to do this with as little energy used as possible. The record system of the World Council was truly amazing. I bet many would be surprised as to how much useful information you could find and how much useful information has been donated to them. My current knowledge comes from a Guild that, for fun and challenge, did all kinds of dungeons solo to see if they could find some new aspects to the known dungeons. From what I read, they seem to have been really successful. The portal system of this world was truly amazing; in just a few hours, you could be on the other end of the world, going through libraries of old reports. Knowledge truly was power. With my sword out, I carefully controlled how much energy I used and started to kill the first monsters that were in the first wave. Even without all the abilities that buffed myself, my weapon, and my every attack, my body was still incredibly powerful, and these were still only rank two monsters. My blade with every motion easily decapitated or cut off limbs, making defeating the first wave a breeze. I was breathing heavily, my body totally exhausted, as I watched the seventeenth wave start to spawn. "Damn it," I said out loud when I saw those annoying coat-type monsters. They had ridiculous defenses. Since the tenth wave, there was not a singular type of monster. Next came what I could only call a flying snake-type monster, but unfortunately, that didn¡¯t seem to be all the types in this wave. At the back of this massive room, I saw in every cardinal corner a huge monster starting to appear. Those silhouettes looked awfully like dragons. Fortunately, when they fully appeared, they were just giant versions of lizards. Now, that wasn''t much better, but I guess it¡¯s time to fight. The first few goats that charged, I simply jumped over them, which allowed me to start cutting down the flying snakes coming towards me. They seemed to have some kind of poison breath, which was incredibly good news as poison didn''t really work on me. They also died quite quickly, and even if I simply cut one of the wings, the goats trampled him to death. That was a nice thing I found out about this dungeon. The monsters were monsters, and they only cared about attacking me and not collateral damage. Once again, I was jumping over the charging goats when a huge tongue flew towards me. So, not fully lizards, but some gecko in them as well. Even before I could change my direction, the tongue wrapped around me and started pulling me towards the huge mouth. The creature screamed when I started to cut into its tongue, but it still took two strikes to cut myself free. This was going to be annoying as there were already two other tongues heading towards me. It was then, however, as I prepared to dodge, that I felt the world freeze. Immediately, all the monsters started to disappear. "Shit, did the timer run out? This was just starting to get interesting." It didn''t take long for a screen to appear in front of me, and I smiled, seeing that I had gained 300 free points. When I got out of the dungeon, there were a lot of people waiting for me, including the person who was present when I paid for this time slot. Before they could even start talking, I whistled. Immediately, everyone got into their combat stances. I slowly raised up my hand. There was so much tension in the air that I could basically see it. Then Goose grabbed me with his talons, and the very next moment, we were already out of the camp. "Nice save. Let''s head back home." chapter 403 I was back at my office in the capital doing some paperwork. It has only been two weeks since I returned with Goose, but this time I¡¯m being a bit more diligent in doing my paperwork, so I¡¯ve been coming to the office more regularly. I don¡¯t want to repeat what I did during the winter when I didn¡¯t visit for a few months. However, there was another report from Arabella that I needed to address. We have already sent two teams to supply and gather more information about that place while also protecting our new asset. That wasn¡¯t the problematic thing; the problem was in our fort. I had at first assumed that perhaps the fort connected to Supply would bring trouble, but apparently, when they found out who I actually was, they decided not to push the idiotic narrative they had come up with. That mind-reading asshole was already messing with my people, but our company wasn¡¯t the only one targeted. Apparently, he has some grand plans and somehow got the leader of the fort to somewhat back him. Still, he was being really careful, making sure nothing could be traced back. Fortunately, he is scared of Arabella enough that he hasn''t directly moved against our members. Arabella, however, can¡¯t stay there for too long, as she¡¯s mainly needed back at Connection. This wasn¡¯t the only problem on my mind. While we had secured a way to manufacture new wagons, we did not have more than one Francis who could pull them. There is no way the current horses we had could do the job, and they would be too squishy even if they could pull them. Another problem was the iron oak saplings. They were growing fast, and I needed to transport them before they got too big. While physically it should be possible even if they are larger, it would certainly not be good for the trees themselves to go through such shock. We would also need someone to take care of them, and I couldn¡¯t wait until we expanded westward. Even with the best estimate, it would still take a year or two before our presence would be noticeable towards the West. I tapped my fingers against the table while I thought. Perhaps murder was the best choice for the first problem. However, he would need to be the one who attacked first. I will need to apologize to the teams currently in Breach; we''re going to need to use them as bait. I would need to wait until Arabella left, but I already started to write instructions for her to follow. This needs to be done carefully. The third problem might have a solution, as one of the current apprentices is quite interested in trees. I would need to test her and see how loyal she was and if she could be trusted with this kind of secret. This would solve the problem of there not being anything towards the west yet, as she could just claim the land there as her homestead. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Homesteader''s land was a bit more flexible than I originally thought; there might be some interesting opportunities in the future, but we will see as the population of homesteaders grows. The second problem¡ªthat''s where I was stuck at. Not even hours of paperwork and intermittent thinking were helping me find the solution. ¡°Let''s go back to the beginning,¡± what did the salesman say about its origins? That''s right, woolly rhinoceroses were the animals to pull it. But there weren''t any, wait. A memory came back to me of the first goblin battle. They were using woolly rhinoceroses. Perhaps there is a way to domesticate them and actually find them in nature. I had checked, but there wasn¡¯t any for sale on the animal markets, but perhaps towards the north, there were free-roaming ones. Perhaps I should make a visit to the goblin town. Let''s just write a letter for now and see if they have any information. Then I headed back to my home but grabbed lunch with Val in the inn. The dungeons were not as busy now because a lot of new ones were being opened in other homesteaders'' lands. We were still trying to clump them up as much as possible, and there was even one with five that were relatively close to each other. There were two inns open there, and from my understanding, they were doing good business. Near evening, we had a meeting with every apprentice and Tim. It was finally time to start the planting season. Everyone was given different tasks, but unfortunately, I would only be able to focus on my personal project, as others just needed to experience more than me. They would be doing all of the work, from preparing the land to seeding everything and then making sure that wildlife didn''t mess up their hard work. It will still be nice to continue my plant evolution project. Val already said that last year''s harvest of the plants, where I was changing the sugar content, had been excellent for cider. There was probably a sweet spot before the sugar got too overwhelming, but I would also be continuing to make them even sweeter as I wanted an alternative way to harvest sugar as well. It had been a few days of hard work when I found the girl, who was interested in trees, checking over every sapling I had planted, making sure that they were all doing well. "How are they looking?" I asked her, which scared her, as she was so focused she hadn¡¯t noticed that I had approached. "You know that you should always be aware of your surroundings. But you are new to this, you will learn." "I hope I do because I never want to be scared like that again. They''re doing quite well, at least most of them. There were some bugs on some of them, but I removed them.¡± ¡°I am, however, a little bit worried about the oaks. I think they¡¯re a bit too close to each other. Now, I know that in the forest they can grow quite close to each other and they would get tall, but these feel like they want to grow big." I raised an eyebrow, which made her immediately explain herself. "I don¡¯t know if you have seen, but if an oak grows outside the forest where it has room to spread out, they don''t just get taller; they grow so large. It¡¯s like the one in your family graveyard. I think they are one of the most beautiful trees when they get to grow out like that." "I wholeheartedly agree with you. But where would you plant them then?" The question seemed innocent, but I hoped she would pass this test. She thought for a while but eventually started to speak hesitantly. "I am not sure. Usually, it isn''t that hard. But for some reason, nothing feels quite right. Like, it would not be any problem planting them basically anywhere around here, but for some reason, it feels like they would be missing something." Finally, she looked up and towards me. "Do you get the same feeling?" I gave her a slow nod. "You are on the right track. Perhaps you need to think a bit outside the box. Perhaps these trees have evolved a bit and have some special requirements. Because of me, this land now has much more energy than it normally would. You should know what that means." It didn¡¯t take her long to understand what I meant, and I could see how her eyes started to sparkle. I could also see that she wanted to ask me a lot of questions, but she held herself back as she already knew that I wouldn¡¯t answer questions that she should try to find answers to by herself. It seems like she would need some time to think through her thoughts, so I left. When she finally had some questions that wouldn''t directly give her the answers, she would find me. I checked a new notification that came up: my mentoring skill leveled up. That was nice. When I made it back home, it seemed that I had received a letter. Opening it up and reading what was inside made a large smile appear on my face. Looks like the goblins might have some answers for my beasts of burden problem. I couldn¡¯t go today or tomorrow, but with Goose, I should be able to go after that. It would be nice to see how they have advanced. I wonder if any other goblins are close to getting a class. chapter 404 When Goose and I landed near the goblin settlement, I genuinely took a few minutes to just look at it all. There were now more proper buildings, and I even saw a few humans walking around. It looked like a bustling village, but all those changes were nothing compared to the goblins themselves. All of them seemed taller, and their proportions were a lot different from what I was used to. All of their stomachs were also smaller, but it was still a noticeable racial trait. Those changes, however, were magnified in one singular individual. Stebs, the former scout now goblin leader, looked nothing like I remember. His stomach was flat, his frame was incredibly well proportioned to being nimble while still providing strength. He still seemed to be able to keep the strength of the goblin muscles, and I was certain that he was capable of fighting monsters who would have torn him apart just a year ago. "It has been a long time, Rich, but it¡¯s amazing, isn''t it, how much I¡¯ve changed. Just two months ago, I finally received confirmation that this is what the original goblins looked like. We are shorter than even dwarves on average, but our bodies were meant for the forest. Unfortunately, I do not think we will ever find out who we used to be." There was sadness in his voice as he said the last sentence, but he was still radiating happiness. "This is a moment to truly revel in. Perhaps it¡¯s not the first time in history, but you have achieved something incredible. More importantly, from the looks of it, you will not be the only one. This, I think, calls for celebration. Let us catch up before we talk about any business." I didn¡¯t think it possible, but the smile on his face grew even larger. He led me to his home, and I was surprised to find two kids waiting for Stebs alongside a wife, for lack of a better word. Perhaps ¡®partner¡¯ would be better as they didn¡¯t have marriages. "This is Vi and this is Guop. They are twins, something we didn¡¯t even know was possible. So, you could guess how surprised we both were." Stebs introduced me to his partner and the three servants they had, after which we talked about random things, mostly stories of interesting and funny things that happened. The food served was excellent, but I was certain there would be some humans who would not like it. I was never that picky with how food tasted, but it seems that every meal tasted a little bit earthy or woody, if that was even a word. Eventually, however, it was time for business. "It has been truly great catching up with you. Now, however, about the letter I sent. Do you really think you could domesticate woolly rhinoceroses so even humans could use them as draft animals?" Gupta sat back in his chair, thinking about it for a few minutes, but I was fine with the room being filled with silence for so long. "It might be possible, but we truly won''t know before we try it. We currently have three working for us, but it would not be hard to devote more resources into developing a larger industry around them. The problem is that we are rarely seeing them in the wild. During the winter, we only saw one mating pair, but there used to be many coming down south during the winter." Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. "We do not know what''s going on there, but even with your scouts, it''s hard to get any reliable information about what''s further north. It''s dangerous ground, and while our population has stabilized, we cannot take such risks in exploring further. We¡¯re also not seeing any goblin tribes moving around who we could get more information." "These are worrying signs that usually point to a goblin horde, but your scouts are certain that there isn''t any within a 1000 kilometers. So it¡¯s most likely some powerful monster messing with the ecosystem. Or there might be a horde further away, but for its influence to spread so far, it would need to be a big one with at least rank two breeders. Those hordes would still be difficult to spot." This was all quite worrying, but our scouts were trained, and I refuse to believe that with all the training and how we operated, we could miss something like that. "Why would you say that hordes with rank two breeders would still be difficult to spot? Is there a horde that is easy to spot?" Stebs chuckled at that. "When you get close enough, any horde is easy to spot, but most of our rangers use birds to see further away. Trees limit the visibility quite a lot, but any horde that has a rank three breeder will be easily seen because those breeders can use even trees as fuel to create new goblins." "Those hordes leave nothing behind but black dirt. So, they would simply be easy to see because of the huge black spot that they would leave, and that would continue to grow as they got bigger. That was mildly scary. "What about rank four or five?" Gupta simply shrugged his shoulders. "I have no idea, but there was a reason this continent was dominated by goblins for so long, even when we started to fight each other. Old forests, like in the north, are a rarity on this continent, mostly because we don¡¯t really like the cold that much. However, let¡¯s get back to the business of woolly rhinoceroses." A few hours later, Goose was soaring away from the goblin settlement. Everything would work if there were simply woolly rhinoceroses in this area. "Fly north," I said to Goose, and he immediately turned that way. It became obvious that we couldn¡¯t find any woolly rhinoceroses, or basically any creature, from up high, simply because of the thick tree canopy that blocked the majority of the sight onto the forest floor. When I was about to turn Goose around, he, however, sent me some images he saw towards the north and east. His sight was a lot better than mine, at least in terms of distance, but even so, the image was quite unclear because of the distance. Both of us could, however, recognize an anomaly when we saw one. Immediately, Goose took off towards there, even without me having to say anything. Ten minutes later, we had a better idea of what was going on, and another half an hour later, I could see the utter devastation. It was further north and east than any of our scouts would dare to go. For some reason some goblins had fled this far north, most likely because of some monster chasing them. But whether it gave up or they finally defeated it didn''t matter. They had set up shop, and from the looks of it, they had done tremendously well for themselves. "Get closer, but don''t let them see us." It took us a while to get close enough that I could properly see what was going on. The news was not good. Obviously, there were rank three breeders, as a huge swath of land was completely black, with even the tree stumps being pulled out. There was a wave of green moving around; there must have been a million or more of them. Most of them seemed half-starved, while others seemed to be eating meat that looked awfully like other goblins. The worrying part was that they were slowly making their way back towards the South. It seems that the stronger monsters and beasts of this area, not to speak of the whole forest, fueled the growth of stronger goblins. And while almost all of them were the same strength as the creatures I fought so long ago, there were clearly individuals who were a lot stronger. Near what I assumed to be the leaders'' camp, I could feel many rank three beings, and there was no sign that breeders were there. If they were to march south, I think the first thing to halt their progress would be the Breach itself, but they would simply walk past it and continue further South, most likely destroying all the petty kingdoms off the eastern coast. There was one bright side, or perhaps two, but the World Council would divert resources to exterminate this horde. Most likely, however, quite conveniently for some, they would not be able to gather up a decent force before the goblins reached the queen''s lands. The goblin horde would be stopped and exterminated, but United Freeholds would be gone. It seems like a few strategic strikes on the breeder facilities are called for. chapter 405 Thanks to Goose''s ability to stay hidden, it was no problem for me to continue observing how the goblins of this horde worked. For the weakest of the goblins, their daily routine was quite sad. I do not know exactly how long they stayed protected by the stronger goblins after they were born, but it couldn¡¯t have been too long. I could see a constant flood of young goblins being pushed towards the large camps. Calling those places camps, however, was a stretch. There were no buildings, and the only shelter these goblins got was when they dug underground. The only food they got was fellow goblins who had died. It seems like starvation was the main reason most of these goblins died. Their main job was to cut down trees and bring the lumber towards seven different breeder camps. From the energies I felt, each of them had one rank three breeder, but there were many rank two goblins there. Some would also be breeders, but I think a lot of those were there to protect the breeders. This brutal life would eventually help them get stronger if they survived. Those who got decently strong seemed to move to different camps. Those were more organized, where there actually were some structures built. From there, it seems that groups of goblins would go out into the forest to hunt for food. Besides the main camp where the leaders were, there were also two camps that actually looked like camps. Those were for the stronger goblins, those who have achieved gold rank or above. There was way too many of them. There were simply too many, and I was having a hard time figuring out if I could do something. The problem was that there were also shamans, and the large lightning scar I got from one of their lightning attacks reminded me of how dangerous they could be. I had incredible stamina, but fighting down there would be dangerous. There''s simply too many different abilities in this system, and even monsters could have a wide variety. Still, I was quite certain I could kill and destroy at least four of the breeder camps before they would be able to pin me down and eventually exhaust me. Goose could come and save me at some point, I could then relax and try again, but the second try would be harder. There were simply too many unknowns. We did have goblins of our own, and perhaps we could convince some of them to infiltrate, so we could find out more about what kinds of abilities these goblins had. This seemed truly troublesome. Goose interrupted my pondering with a few images of us training to fight together. "It wouldn''t work; there¡¯s simply too many of them, and you getting close to the ground is a bad idea. They will definitely have some ranged attacks. Although there would be a lot fewer than on the ground, you would still eventually exhaust yourself by attacking and defending, and I myself would also eventually tire from the constant attacks." There was silence between us as we continued to glide over this destroyed land. Goose once again broke our silence. The images he sent this time were different. They were of us, higher up, Goose defending but not attacking, while I concentrated on taking out the ranged attackers. After that, I would rest, and we could simply stay up high, only attacking when I had enough energy to do so. Hmm, it could work. It would be an endurance battle then, something that would take me many days to accomplish. "They would simply escape after we kill their ranged attackers. In the forest, we will never be able to find them up, and they would simply start up once again. This way, however, I think we would be able to destroy most of the Breeders, wait.¡± This reminded me of the many spell scrolls I had in my tattoo storage. It was something the mages of UF suggested. Now, every high official and many in the military had spell scrolls that they could use to kill one strong individual or many weaker ones. I had the strongest and most out of almost everyone, but even they will not be enough to destroy so many. I did, however, have multiple different fire-type spell scrolls. While it was quite a large area that was black and devoid of trees, it was not yet unimaginably big. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. It was obvious that cutting down the trees was not a true priority as it was left to the weakest of them, and the main source of food came from the hunting parties. That meant that I could possibly set the edge of the forest on fire and trap them all in here. They would obviously want to use shamans to put out the fire. Goose and I would need to kill those shamans anyway, as they would be the only true danger to us unless they had some archers, which I didn''t believe they could have in large numbers, if they had any. There would still be a lot of goblins who would be outside the ring of fire, but perhaps towards the night, more would return. "There might be a way, Goose. Excellent suggestion. We will still need to stay and observe for a few days. It will be a test of endurance for you, and I hope you¡¯re ready." From our bond, I got a sense of determination back, which made me smile. The smile, however, quickly turned into a more sinister one. Was I really about to do this? Will I truly succeed and actually be able to take out such a large army? We waited for two days before I was able to completely confirm a pattern. I did not know exactly how many came back, but a lot of them did come back during the night. A lot of hunting parties, however, left before the sun even rose, so there would only be a few-hour window to trap as many of them as possible. The first 10 minutes or so would be incredibly crucial. I would need to use all of the fire-based spell scrolls, and Goose would need to use his wind to spread the fire even further. The trees here were old and strong, so they would resist, but once they caught fire, it should be quite hot and truly difficult to put out. I did notify UF that I was going into a large battle and whom I was facing. Obviously, they were not happy, but they couldn¡¯t exactly command me to return. So, about an hour before midnight, we began. Goose swooped down, and I readied the first spell scroll. It was hard to modify the spell scrolls, but it was possible to an extent, so the flame wall spread out beneath us, covering the edge of the forest while we flew over it. This was the best scroll for this kind of job; the rest of them would not be so easy. Goose used his wind manipulation to fan the flames. We could not fly too fast, but even then, our first ring was only about 10 minutes long. I had only two spell scrolls left, and most of the job was up to Goose to fan and spread the fire. I used the spell scrolls on the parts of the forest that were not yet on fire. It was on the 2nd ring when we were first attacked. One was a lightning-type spell, while the other was a group of small rocks. Goose was able to dodge them, but he immediately returned back to fan the flames while I started to shoot back. It was the most crucial time, but after the 4th ring and me having killed at least five of the shamans, we had succeeded in setting the entire forest edge on fire. It seems that finally, the goblin leader figured out what was going on and started to send shamans to tame the fire in certain places. We still climbed higher but not too high so I would still be incredibly effective at devastating those groups of goblins who were trying to stop the fire. We couldn''t dodge forever, but now that Goose was fully concentrated on flying and defense, the few attacks that hit didn''t do any real damage. Those shamans were quickly protected by large goblins, most of whom used shields, but it seems that they were happy enough to use their own bodies to protect them. We couldn¡¯t stay in one place for too long; otherwise, we would be too vulnerable, but it was also good that we were flying around that way we could interrupt the many shaman groups. The arrows I shot were made from my own energy. Otherwise, I would have needed a truly magnificent storage skill to have so many arrows that would be needed to kill this goblin horde. It was unfortunate that we would basically get no experience out of this. That was, however, a fleeting thought as I concentrated on searching for my targets, making arrows, and shooting them. Not all arrows were the same; some I made so they would pierce through the toughest of shields, some would explode, but mainly, I just shot as many as possible. The many hundreds of hours of practice paid off as Goose and I worked perfectly together. Goose was a little bit frustrated that he couldn''t attack himself, but he needed to defend and conserve as much energy as possible. For hours and hours, we attacked the shaman groups that tried to put out the fires while also defending against their return fire. I was right; there weren¡¯t many other ranged attackers, but they had more shamans than I expected. They must have had thousands of them. Most, however, were quite weak, and whenever my arrow found one, they usually died. It took until midday for there only to be two groups of shamans left. There were about 200 in both; they were the strongest and quickest, but mainly they still survived because they had defensive spells. They weren¡¯t the best at putting out the fires that were now constantly spreading further into the forest, making it even more impossible for any of them to escape. The goblin leader and most of their strongest warriors constantly screamed at me. Unfortunately, I knew the goblin language well enough to understand the insults. Mainly, they were calling me a coward for not facing them on the ground. Perhaps I was a coward, but I was eventually going to be a winning coward. My arm that was pulling back the string was completely exhausted, as was the rest of me, but I still kept firing. Now, I put a lot more energy into my attacks, and three hours later, I was certain that if there were any shamans left, they would be hiding in the mass of the weakest goblins trying to survive. Finally, Goose and I could ascend further up, where he could glide and start to regenerate his energy while I did the same. Every once in a while, I used a few of my abilities to shoot a splitting arrow that would split into almost 500 arrows before it hit the ground. Those were shot at the large mass of goblins. We recuperated for eight hours before we dived back down, and I truly started to kill. Like that, it took us three days to basically kill everything. There were only three rank-three goblins left, including the leader. Finally, I jumped down from Goose, and they looked at me in utter confusion. That confusion stopped when I pulled out my sword and charged at them. They lasted a minute, and with the leader''s head now rolling down the small hill, everyone inside the ring of fire was dead. It took us three more days to extinguish the fire, and we waited another two, but no other goblins returned to this location. It seemed like it was finally time to return. I suspect it won¡¯t take long for the wildlife to find this place and eat what¡¯s left of the goblins. While this wasn''t easy to achieve, I think I have underestimated how powerful properly built high-rank people could be. chapter 406 When I was back in the capital, I was surprised that no one started to lecture me about my bad decision-making. There was, however, a special meeting, but yet again, it wasn''t to question my actions; instead, it was for me to be able to properly give a report on what happened. It was a surprisingly long meeting, mostly because during the fight, I learned quite a lot about what higher-rank goblins could do. That was incredibly valuable information for the future, especially because there were certainly more goblin groups that escaped who were out on a hunt. They shouldn¡¯t pose a problem for quite a while, if ever. The only reason the goblins were able to do so well in such a dangerous area was because of the numbers they had and the amount of high-rank goblins amongst them. By the end of the meeting, I had let down my guard, so it came to me as a complete surprise when most of the people had left when David started to yell. ¡°What in the name of nature were you thinking about when you decided to attack a goblin horde of that size on your own?¡± Immediately, out of reflex, I answered back. ¡°Goose was with me as well, so I wasn¡¯t alone.¡± The pencil that David was holding snapped. I was able to gather myself, sit down, and listen to how the decisions I made were the wrong ones, even if the results were most likely the best results we would ever have been able to get. David wasn¡¯t the only one to speak up; many of the generals gave their opinions as well. I understood why they were doing this, and in a way, it was quite sweet of them. What I did was incredibly dangerous, and while thanks to Goose, we came out of that fight untouched, if had not been so lucky some of the attacks could have still led to our death. Still, we survived, and in the end, results were what mattered. ¡°Wait a second, I thought we had plans ready for when I¡¯m no longer here. In fact, if I remember correctly, we should have planned if most of us died so everything would still keep functioning.¡± That shut them up for a moment before David once again started to speak. "Do you think we are miracle workers? We currently have over 10 individuals we cannot replace, even if we use multiple people to replace them. You, you son of a suicidal rock, are the hardest person to replace." "Nothing can match your statistics, but most of the time, we don''t have to match your statistics; we don''t even have to come close. There are, however, exceptions, like the massacre you orchestrated." "Most of our military needs are taken care of. We have enough homesteaders that even without you, the class would not disappear, but with you, everything is so much easier. I don¡¯t even think you know how many resources you save us just by being you. The second one is Mirhit. The amount of information he can gather... we would need to spend two times our current yearly budget just to get close." This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. That was a surprise to me, but it''s been a long time since we have talked, just the two of us. We exchanged words quite often during meetings, but the spymaster of UF is quite busy. Like David said, the amount of information Mirhit is able to gather is tremendous. Thanks to him, we have also been able to use as little resources as possible to keep hostile nations in turmoil by supporting their rebels. "So, what I gather is that you would already survive without me, even if it would be a heavy blow for the time being." The look David gave me made even me lean back a bit. "I didn¡¯t say that I would now go out and try to get myself killed. Like I said before, it was literally the best time to attack the goblin horde before they got too big. I will try to survive as long as possible; that is something I unfortunately can¡¯t change about myself." After my words, the silence stretched and started to become uncomfortable. "Just out of curiosity, who''s the 3rd most valuable member of UF?" David immediately looked away, not meeting my eyes, but one of the generals pointed the thumb towards David. I was not surprised; he was basically the person who kept our entire economy functioning, besides many other important aspects of running a government. The fact that we had already reached so far that you could survive even without me was comforting. It meant that we were going in the right direction. Unfortunately, I was certain it would still be decades before I could finally retire to my farm. "It seems like we still have a lot of work to do; we should move past this death talk. Perhaps I have been too closed off about my future plans." Immediately, everyone perked up. "The reason I started all of this is so I could retire as soon as possible and know that I could be completely safe without ever needing to pick up a blade to protect us. So I could farm in peace until I die, and hopefully, this time it will stick." Their reactions to my words were magnificent to see. While it took everyone a different amount of time, they all basically came to the same conclusion. Why did that make so much sense? While everyone that was still present continued to talk late into the night, it was not a formal meeting, and while we talked business, there were also times where we just joked around. I think everyone needed it. While I was battling, they were all here worrying, which was a different kind of stress and, in some cases, as exhausting. My arm, however, would disagree as it was still hurting and incredibly sore. Near the next morning, when everyone had gone to bed, I went into my office and finished writing my letter to Arabella, who was back in Connection. It was time to quickly finish the problem at the fort. People like that mind reader would only become more troublesome as time passed. I would have had no problem with him, but it seems like his ambitions were a little bit too high. Some people really need to learn to properly evaluate who they are pissing off. It would still take a few days to set everything up, so I think I can finally relax and go back home for a bit. When I made it back home, I started to prepare the sauna. It would still be about an hour before sunrise, but I didn¡¯t really care about the time right now. I just wanted to relax. The most upsetting thing about all that happened was how much I actually gained from that battle. While some of my abilities leveled up, it wasn''t anything special. None of my combat skills were close to ranking up, and from all of that, I didn¡¯t even gain a single level in any of my classes. It kind of makes sense why basically everyone with a high rank never came and fought against weaker creatures. It was basically just a time waster. Morning came, and some of my apprentices, and even Tim, came to check up on me. They left quite quickly to do their own things, but I also think they sensed that I just wanted to be alone for a while. Near midday, I finally left the sauna and called Goose to me. "Let''s go and fly a bit. This time we won''t engage, no matter what. Let''s make sure there aren''t any other goblin hordes we can see towards the north, and let¡¯s finally see what¡¯s going on in the West." "At least now, I don¡¯t get a sinking feeling whenever I think about going towards there. Perhaps the difference is now that you can hide yourself. You really are the best, you know that, Goose?" When I finished saying that, I stopped and scratched him on the neck near his ear. It was the spot he liked the most. "Before that, however, you go and hunt, and I will go and eat as well. This time, I also want to test out how fast we can go, and yes, I will make myself as light as possible." That immediately boosted Goose''s mood even higher. I watched as he took off, then walked towards the main house. chapter 407 Goose was truly fast when he didn''t have to carry extra weight. He couldn¡¯t keep up this speed for long, but currently, I was supplying him with energy so we could keep going longer. He was enjoying every moment of it, and so was I. I did not know how fast we were going, but Goose wasn¡¯t using his wings any longer and was only using wind manipulation to keep himself going at this ludicrous speed. Eventually, we did slow down as we could not risk Goose''s energy pathways getting damaged from overuse. It was still nice flying peacefully over the land, but we still kept an eye out for anything unusual down below. We didn¡¯t notice anything wrong as we continued to fly north. Of course, we couldn''t cover every inch of the forest, and I could see even less than Goose, but after a few hours of flying, we were certain that there weren''t any goblin threats left in the north. When we reached the tip of the continent, we simply turned left towards the west, and then continued to fly a bit before going south once again. Like this, we continued to fly up and down until we had looked over the entirety of the northern part of the continent that was above UF. The further west we got, the less of the deep forest we saw. To my surprise, there also seemed to be orc tribes living near the west coast. The settlements we saw were crudely made and they seemed little better than the goblins. The difference was that the orcs seemed to be a lot stronger individually. They were, however, a lot less of a problem because they couldn¡¯t breed as fast. I do not think that they would have the capability of raising a large enough army and then marching it towards UF lands. Smaller warbands perhaps, but even to our current military, that should not pose a threat. Further south, we saw a mountain range and afterwards, a really large lake. We then went towards the east and searched the lands between the western coast and the mountain range that separated the grasslands from the western part of the continent. That mountain range ended, and from there, a hilly countryside connected the grasslands to the western part of the continent. It wasn''t a large gap before another mountain range started there, but it was still significant. From the maps I¡¯ve seen of the green continent, this is the only viable way you could march a large army from the western part of the northern continent to the east, and of course, the other way around. We flew over this new mountain range, and it was interesting to see that most of it was covered in some kind of grass. We even momentarily landed on these mountains to find an interesting type of grass that seemed to be able to live on bare rock face. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Because of this, the mountain seemed to have a lot more life. It made sense, and I wondered if this entire mountain range was dominated by this plant. We once again flew towards the west. I knew there was a huge river around which a large kingdom was supposed to stand. However, no one had heard of this kingdom since the plague got really bad. Now I was certain that people in the World Council knew what had happened but for some reason didn¡¯t want to advertise it. The first thing we saw when we got closer were large undead birds flying around. There wasn¡¯t a large number of them, and I now knew why my gut was telling me not to come here before. They would have certainly noticed Goose without his new camouflaging capabilities. I had expected them to be flying around looking for food, but it sort of looked like they were patrolling. Things got even weirder when we reached the proper lands of the kingdom. We didn''t see anyone alive, but the undead were not aimlessly walking around looking for food. The land itself had also changed; it was now touched by the undead, and barely anything living was still down below. The fact that a lot of the undead were farming threw me off quite a bit. At first, I thought that perhaps there were some necromancers who controlled everything and were forcing their undead to grow food for them, but that is obviously not true as no normal plant could survive here. I saw a lot of ruined villages and towns, but once again utter weirdness, the undead were rebuilding. Nothing made sense, and it made even less sense when I saw really powerful undead doing the same jobs as the less powerful ones, like skeletons and zombies. Just in case, we did a singular flight through the Kingdom, but it seemed like absolutely everyone had turned undead, and they were all acting really out of character. When we reached the end of the Kingdom and the start of the Lakelands that lay further south, we turned around and flew over that mountain range towards the grassland, after which we would be heading back home. This trip had already taken a few days, and Goose was starting to get truly tired. There was really no point in going further south. The Lakelands, as the name suggests, were a huge area of land with lots of lakes and rivers. It should have been a perfect place to colonize, yet every attempt has failed because of the numerous amount of strong beasts that live in those lands. The land is fertile, and a Kingdom could probably just survive from fishing alone down there, but you would need a proper effort from a large nation to start to colonize that place. My mind went back to the undead Kingdom. A person, or even a group of people strong enough to control so many undead, would be people who were power-hungry enough that they should have long ago marched to conquer new lands. They should easily be able to get through the Lakelands and go further south where larger kingdoms used to be and are now filled with petty kingdoms with a decent enough population. Perhaps they are building up their forces, but what I also saw didn¡¯t make any sense. Why would they be building buildings they shouldn¡¯t need, and farming¡ªthat was even weirder. Were they remembering their past lives and simply doing the same acts they would do when they were alive, perhaps? There are simply too many questions, and of course, there was no denying the danger they represented. What was his name? Right it was Khris, our resident necromancer. He has been doing a good job gathering up the remnants of the undead and allowing our legionaries to level up and practice group combat on them. Perhaps it''s time to send him on a proper mission. He should be able to figure out if the undead are controlled or not controlled by anyone. If not, it could possibly be even more dangerous for him to go and scout than a regular human, but he is still the only one with any expertise in this area. I will need to think about all of this while we''re flying back home. I could also see why the World Council was trying to keep this a secret. The amount of undead and the strength of them would mean there would need to be a proper call for war, and given how things are currently in this world, I suspect no one would truly want to deal with it until they need to. Everyone was simply too focused on their own worries to deal with something that wasn¡¯t currently a problem. It will probably be a huge problem in the future. One thing was, however, certain: we could not deal with this problem. A part of me wished that we had never taken this flight, but it¡¯s better to know than not know. chapter 408 We made it back to the capital. I still didn¡¯t need sleep, but Goose desperately did, so he headed to his roost that was built specifically for him. My mind was still mostly occupied by the new discoveries I made. It seems that my trouble sensing ability really helped us here. Thanks to it we were able to figure out about the Undead Kingdom without them finding out about us. When I reached near my office, the secretary who was currently working stood up. Before she could say anything, I started to speak. "Is there anything important I need to know? If not, I need to call for a meeting." I expected there not to be anything, but she spoke up, "Yes, you have one priority letter; it''s on your desk." Damn it, I wasn¡¯t expecting that. "Follow me." I walked into my office while leaving the door open. She followed me in, but when I saw who the letter was from, I rushed a little faster to open it. It was from Arabella. She was expressing concern about the mind reading. She expects them to make a move soon. She was able to get one of the message sticks to a team leader, and they were to break it if they sensed any trouble out in the wilderness. That meant that I needed to be close enough that I could reach them and help them whenever they broke the stick. Apparently, they will be leaving. When I saw the date, I almost cursed. They left this morning from the Fort. I knew that our flight had gone a little bit too long. Goose was also really tired, and my plan for him to take the team members away before the fight might not be as valid as before. I¡¯ve also never liked that plan as it was too predictable, and when you''re dealing with a schemer you should expect them to know what you plan to do, especially in this world where they could have, and actually do have, mind-reading powers. Well, maybe there is another option, perhaps even a better one. First, I need to deal with this. ¡°So like I said, I need a meeting tomorrow at 10 AM. Let¡¯s say it''s mandatory for upper military, upper government, and Khris¡ªshit, I don¡¯t know his last name¡ªthe one who has his own team and is a leader of a special unit in the military.¡± ¡°That should be enough for you to get ahold of them. This meeting should be classified, so no one else should attend. It¡¯s also a priority one meeting.¡± As soon as I finished speaking, I could feel her mood change. We have only had three priority one meetings, and none of them meant anything good. She, however, was a professional and didn¡¯t let that affect her work. ¡°Yes sir, right away,¡± she said as she went to inform and set everything up. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Now to work on the most immediate problem. I don¡¯t use my connection to the land and map ability often unless it''s to look at new hostile creatures or people. There are also so many new citizens that it sometimes overwhelms me a bit. Because of this, it took me a few minutes to find my target. Fortunately, he was heading towards the portal research station and wasn''t conducting some field experiments. From one of the reports I received a while back, the current head of the portal research Kodgrid, the person who made it possible for us to have energy-based portal stations, is capable of teleporting with a few people even into the outer circle. Unfortunately, the report also said that while our energy-based portal stations were a little bit better than mana-based in being able to connect safely to more energy-dense areas, it was not significant enough to make portal connections to the forts feasible. Today, however, I didn¡¯t need to use a portal station to get to the fort; I, in fact, needed simply to get there. The portal research building was one of the more impressive buildings in terms of how it was built. It wasn¡¯t massive, but it was still big; the impressive part was how it was made. The thickness of the walls was already impressive at almost three meters, but all this stone was also enhanced by my hands and a few others to make it even stronger. It was also one of the bunkers for the surrounding citizens in case the capital was ever under attack. When I entered the building, all work immediately ceased. They also looked like children who had just been caught stealing cookies. My eyes narrowed, but I quickly shook my head as I didn¡¯t have time for that. " Kodgrid, come here; we need to talk." Fortunately, there didn¡¯t seem to be guilt in her eyes, which actually made me even more curious about what others were up to. As soon as he was close enough, I started to speak. "Would it be possible for you to teleport us close to Breach and then teleport you and five other people to Connection?" He stopped moving closer to me as he started to think. "It''s possible. I can take you to the Breach, and I could teleport up to seven people, but that would be close to my limit teleporting so far and so quickly. Will there be time to rest in between teleports?" I immediately shook my head. "I still think I can do it. Do you need me to do it now, and exactly where should I go?" That was a damn good question: how would he know the exact location of the party? If it was Goose and me, it would be easy enough to locate them from the air. "It could be today, but also not, but I still think it¡¯s highly likely that it will be sooner rather than later. They will be notifying me with a message stick. As to how to find them, I don¡¯t actually know. I might have to go with Goose so I could find them. This is a big oversight overall; we need to find a way to locate our members more reliably, but that won¡¯t help us now." I continued to think about it, but soon Kodgrid interrupted me. "Wait, you said they would be notifying you with a message stick. I might be able to use the connection to trace back to the location. That way, I could teleport us straight to the location of the other stick. I''ve never done that before; give it here and let''s go to my office." I immediately did so and followed him to his office. After which, I watched him gather some components and cast some spells on the stick itself. After about half an hour later, he finally said that he was done. "That was a little bit more tricky than I expected, and this spell will only hold for about 8 hours. After that, however, I won¡¯t be able to cast the same spell again on this stick without breaking it." "We just have to hope that they call for help sooner than that, but by that time, Goose should also be ready to go." We continued to wait and, while doing so, we talked about portal stuff and even ate breakfast. It was three hours later when the snapping of the stick silenced us both. "Take my hand now," Kodgrid said, and I immediately did, after which I felt power gathering inside of him. The next moment, we were surrounded by forest at a small campsite, startling five members of my company with our sudden arrival. chapter 409 "Report," I said in a commanding voice, which made all the people except for Kodgrid straighten up. "We left this morning on a mission to exterminate some quest beasts. About 30 minutes ago, we felt that someone might be following us. At first, we thought it was a beast stalking us, but it didn¡¯t feel right. As commanded, we set up this camp if we were to feel that something was off and then break the stick." So, I think I was correct; these people were just bait to get me here. "Kodgrid, get them out of here now," everyone was a little bit confused, but in less than a minute, everyone was prepared, and then Kodgrid cast his spell, taking him and the party members out of here. Now, I was left alone in the forest. The campsite itself was in a small area that had less vegetation and was free of trees, and of course, there was the small campsite with a fire in the middle. Let¡¯s not mess about as that might backfire, it would be better to be sneaky and hide nearby than to wait for them out in the open. I was careful and controlled my energy output as much as possible, but slowly I took control of the surrounding lands so I would know exactly who and what was on it. It was an amazing ability I got a while back and while it didn''t come close to being actually on my land, it did mimic the effect quite well. It had also been quite a while since I used my stealth-oriented abilities and skills. I made sure to hide myself in a spot where I could easily see the whole campsite and still be in a position that wouldn¡¯t compromise my defensive capabilities. So no climbing a tree, which would make me an easy target to anyone who could actually find me. What followed was a long wait. I couldn¡¯t remember the last time where I needed to wait so long in such a tense situation for an enemy I wasn¡¯t sure would or would not come. There could be many things that could have tipped them off that something was wrong, but I hoped that their curiosity would eventually bring them here. One thing I had learned long ago was that I wasn¡¯t suitable to be a sniper. I had some patience and discipline, but the longer I waited, the more fidgety I got. I still don¡¯t understand how some snipers could just lay down and stay in that same position for so many hours. It seems that the increase in stats, or perhaps the fact that I could observe more helped me endure this torture for a bit more than 7 hours. Finally, however, I felt human feet enter my zone of control. It took this person some time to make it further toward me, but with every step, I got a clearer picture. It was obviously a ranger of some type; he even had his bow out. He got a bit closer but still was a decent way away from the campsite when I felt him release some of his stealth abilities so it would be easier to sense his presence. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Immediately afterwards, those abilities masked his presence once again, and he started to slowly trace his way back to wherever he came from. Why would they do that? It didn''t take long for me to come to a conclusion. Now I was 100% sure they were waiting for me to get here. The party members were truly just bait to lure me and Goose here. While it was nice to confirm what I already was quite certain of, it meant that they were confident they could take me. If they were willing to wait for so long and make it so obvious that they were here, it also meant that they wouldn''t go away. At least I hope so, because now I was quite certain I wouldn¡¯t have any trouble waiting here for as long as it took for them to actually show up here. Just thinking about their frustration brought a smile to my face. There was also no point in just sitting here. During all this time, I noticed one thing about this ability of mine that allowed me to mimic my own land. The longer I stood in the same place, the stronger its effect seemed to get. Perhaps it¡¯s time to pour a little bit more energy into this ability and see if I could slowly make this area feel even more like my land back home. The person came four more times, releasing his presence and then backing off. When I finally sensed more than him coming closer, it was already the next day, although it was still early morning. I had to frown when I finally sensed no more people joining the ones who were already coming closer. There were 14 of them, half of them being rank three while the other half were rank two. A core group of four people, with one of them being the mind reader were close together, perhaps the ranger was also a part of that group, as the rest of them seemed to be less sure of themselves. Oh, I had no doubt that they would do anything to kill me when ordered; it just seemed they didn''t fully support the idea of attacking people who hadn''t done anything. I wasn¡¯t in a forgiving mood, and if you choose to follow such a person, you should accept what would happen to you. The other question, however, was whether I would be actually able to kill all of them or even survive their combined attacks. I might be able to escape, but that ranger was rank three and who knows what spells the mages knew. The ranger was the first to reach the campsite and quickly went back to report what he found. It didn''t take long for all of them to be in the campsite. They were slowly spreading out, and I was just waiting for the perfect moment. ¡°I do not see any signs of them going away from here, and I hadn¡¯t seen that damn chicken as well,¡± the ranger said, and I almost rushed out to crush his neck for calling Goose a chicken. ¡°I did not expect this; perhaps they used teleportation devices instead. Troublesome, but then why leave the camp? Wait, he¡¯s still here.¡± As soon as I heard the leader say that, I rushed out and cleanly cut off the head of the closest person to me. There was silence, and only the fall of the head and the body made any noise as everyone waited for the fighting to start. I felt him trying to enter my mind. It was like a sledgehammer trying to break through my mental defenses and freeze me in place. My defenses held, but even that small distraction allowed the Ranger to shoot an arrow at me, and everyone else to ready their defenses. The arrow that came towards me was fast and filled with a lot of energy, but I had sensed mana in the Ranger as well, and it made no sense for him not to attack without that. I took a simple step to the left so that the arrow would miss me, but still I readied my sword for defense and boosted my armor as much as possible. I had expected something to happen, but the arrow suddenly disappeared and then reappeared to perfectly hit me in the neck, I had not expected. I was barely able to get my sword in the way to divert the arrow slightly downwards, but when it hit me, I was blinded for a moment by the flash of power it emitted. Now I knew why they all went into a defensive position. The arrow exploded with such force that if I hadn¡¯t used my core energy, I would have been blown apart. The surrounding small campsite was now a large one as all the trees were blown back quite a distance. My chest armor was quite damaged, but the attack hadn¡¯t penetrated it. When the dust settled, I still stood where I was when the explosion happened, although a bit more smoky. Absolutely everyone looked at me in astonishment. The Ranger looked like he was half dead, and most likely the energy that I felt from the attack before was all meant to hide what it actually was. That must have been at least a dozen different abilities stacked together to make the most devastating attack possible. With this one attack, half of my core energy was gone, my armor was in some parts heavily damaged, but even worse were the energy pathways inside the armor. There was no way I could channel any more core energy through them, but they wouldn''t know that. So, I smiled as I looked at them and took a step forward. It was so satisfying to see them take a step back, even that mind-reading jerk. chapter 410 So I wouldn¡¯t lose my initiative, I didn¡¯t stop with just one step; instead, I accelerated so I would have more movement speed. What I didn¡¯t do was use my movement ability to get close to any of them. Instead, I let go of my sword with my left hand so I could produce and throw multiple throwing knives. Most of these I could only empower a little bit as they didn¡¯t stay connected to me long, but one was special. That ranger wasn¡¯t the only one who could hide their actions. That being said, even this shouldn''t have been enough to hurt any of these people, and as expected, every single one of them was able to block my attack easily enough or even dodge it, except one. The ranger who had attacked me had most likely used every bit of his power. Because of my quick actions and the surprise of the rest of his party members, they weren¡¯t quick enough to react to the single real attack. The knife buried itself in his skull, immediately ending his life. That was for the damaged breastplate. However, there wasn¡¯t any time to wait or be happy that another one of my attackers was dead. Now was the right time to use my movement skill, but even so, the mage I appeared in front of wasn¡¯t surprised. She already had her defensive shield up. The strike I made still cracked it, but it saved her life as one of the shield users was able to make it to me. He used some sort of charging skill, and the hit he managed to land on me was decent. He still wasn¡¯t able to move me even an inch. The quick pommel strike I did to his head was devastating. He started to drop him to the ground, but he received a wave of healing magic and was able to stay up. Before I could execute my next attack, my mind was assaulted. This time, the attack wasn''t a probing one or meant to freeze me; it was designed to break down my defenses. There was no physical indication, but I still took a sideways step from this blow alone. Near the connection point he used to connect with my mind the stone wall meant to protect me shook from the assault. Another blow came a moment later, and the stone started to crack. This time, however, I was able to remain unaffected in the real world and was able to protect myself against the sword strikes coming towards me. Everything was still a little bit muddled. "Don''t worry, I got this," Alan said in my mind palace as he started to command the stone golems. The constant attacks still forced me to be aware of what was happening in my mental state, but I was now a little bit faster in the real world and started to fight back against the three close-range attackers who were slowly pushing me back. All of these people here seemed to be extremely well-trained and, more importantly, had properly built builds for their classes. It was time to burst. I increased my energy output, and with the surprise burst of power, I was able to cut down one of my attackers by simply powering through their defense. That attack on my mind doubled at that moment, nearly causing me to take a knee. Inside my mind, I did not see soldiers attacking my fortress but concepts. Somehow, my stone golems were still able to attack these concepts, slowing down their assault. Still, the wall would not hold for long, but my mind wasn''t protected by a single wall; I had a large citadel, and what was currently being attacked were simple fortifications built around the connection points to my mind. In the real world, however, I now knew why the attacks on my mind doubled. Multiple abilities started to hit me, not to seek damage but to suppress and hinder me. I had never felt proper debuffs before, and now that I had, I never wanted to experience them again. For a moment there, I felt like I was 90 years old, barely able to move but still carrying 300 kg of weight up a steep hill. Multiple attacks hit me, and I could only block one. A few were diverted by my armor, but three of them got through and drew blood for the first time in this battle. They were still shallow wounds, and I was glad to see that my energy was eating away at my debuffs at a visible rate. I did not know if anyone else could see it, but since my full energy control reached outside my body, the different colors of the debuffs laid around that bubble. Now, however, small holes started to appear where my energy was eating away at the effects of the debuffs. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. The ones that were mana-based were the more volatile ones, but thanks to all of my abilities and traits, I wasn¡¯t consuming too much energy fighting these debuffs. The exchanges were still in their favor for a little bit, but slowly I was gaining back strength. When my first wall fell inside my mind palace, I heard the mind reader yell, "Attack now!" Everyone around me disregarded their defenses and fully committed to an attack. I used my core energy to dispel most of the debuffs as fast as I could, and with them not focusing on defense, it came as a complete surprise to them when I was all of a sudden able to attack them nearly at my peak strength. Through my connection with the mind reader, I was able to feel his surprise when he noticed how well-protected my mind actually was. However, he was too late to warn his party members as I quickly got through four of them before the rest were able to get their defenses up. I didn¡¯t let up, however, but there was only one proper close-range fighter left. Everyone else seemed to realize that as well, as they stopped debuffing me and instead started to buff their last chance at victory. It seems that was the correct choice. He was the best fighter out of the ones who attacked me and with the buffs, he was actually pushing me back. My swordsmanship simply wasn''t as good as his, and while I was stronger and had more energy to constantly use abilities, the ones he used were refined to a scary degree. We crossed blades for over 30 seconds and in that time one thing became clear: if I continued like that, I would be defeated. My mind was still secure as now many more stone columns were able to attack, reducing the amount of damage the mind reader could do. Fortunately, the mages were occupied and couldn''t directly attack me, but it still didn''t matter. Now perhaps I could outlast them, but I was uncertain and I needed to use tremendous amounts of energy to keep up with this swordsman. After parrying and trying to counterattack, only for that counterattack to be used against me, I came to a conclusion: why continue to fight him? For the first time in this battle, I disengaged and, thanks to my tattoo storage, it was easy enough to switch my sword for a bow. My brief bow attack didn''t catch them off guard, but one of my arrows was still able to wound one of the mages. Before the swordsman caught up with me, I switched weapons once again. Waiting for the right time. I did my weapons swap once again. Everyone expected me to shoot at the mages once more, so instead, I shot the swordsman. He was incredibly fast, but one of the arrows still buried itself in his thigh. What they also didn¡¯t expect was for me not to switch to my sword but instead get close up with two knives. He was good enough to block me even if he was barely able to use his sword so close up. But as soon as he grabbed one of my hands to block, he and I both knew that he had messed up. With the sword, he had the advantage, but close up, when only strength mattered, he was hopelessly outmatched. Before he knew what happened, I had him in a bear hug and actually dropped myself to the ground with him on top of me. He had to drop the sword and both of his hands were trying to choke me, but simply flexing my neck muscles made it still possible for me to breathe. He, on the other hand, quickly started to lose consciousness. Some of the mages started to attack my hands and even my exposed side. They were doing some damage, but my defenses were currently holding up and they wouldn¡¯t break through in time. The fight was still loud, but the crack was deafening when the first rib of the swordsman broke. The rest followed quickly, but before he could properly pass out, his spine cracked as well. He was still clinging to life. I threw him off me, waiting for the mage''s attack, but no attack came towards me. It took me a moment to realize that they were actually running away. I quickly stabbed the swordsman just in case, ending his life, and then started to follow the mages. My mind was still being attacked, but the mind mage was the fastest at running. For some reason, that did not surprise me. With my movement skill, it was easy enough to catch up, and while each of the mages put up a bit of a fight, they died quickly enough until only one was left. We had traveled for a decent distance before I was finally able to catch up, cornering him against a cliff wall. "If you kill me, the Fort commander will have your life." I chose not to kill him immediately, even if he was still trying to attack my mind. "Perhaps, but I will still kill you, and what happens to me afterwards shouldn''t be your concern." My words even managed to pause the attacks he was launching against my mind, but only momentarily. "You think you''re special? I do not know what you did to deserve such recognition, but even if the Fort leader does nothing, I will simply have to turn your bounty in, and your life would be over. I want you to sign a contract that would make you my servant." It was now my turn for my brain to grind to a halt. What was this person on about? ¡°Are you confused?¡± He laughed at my confusion but then got serious. ¡°I didn¡¯t really think that I could kill you. What I didn¡¯t expect was for you to be so tenacious; perhaps I should have expected it. Do you really think that I can¡¯t escape right now, it would still be a waste to see you killed alongside everyone you knew. With you in my control, I would have two of the 16.¡± "Two of the 16, what do you mean?" I asked in genuine confusion. "Do you truly not know?" he replied. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out what looked to be a trading card. He had his guard up for almost that entire time, but when he glanced at the card for the briefest of moments, there was an opening. Immediately, I rushed him, but I didn¡¯t stab; no, with one of my hands I grabbed hold of his body and with the other cover his mouth. He tried to fight back, but he didn''t have the strength to even contest me a little bit. There was a little bit of fear in his eyes, but not enough. He tried to activate some sort of teleportation, but with my energy control, I made the surroundings so thick and full of it that the connection simply fizzled out. Still, there was no proper fear in his eyes. "I suspected you would have a few different ways out, but if I can''t kill you physically without you escaping, perhaps I can kill your mind?" "Alan, go on the attack and destroy the mind," I heard a chuckle. "As you command," the gates opened up, and this time the walls didn¡¯t shake from the attacks but from the marching of the stone golems. This time I did see fear. He started to struggle, but it was useless. His mind, however, was really powerful, so it took a bit over half an hour to destroy his mind enough that his body died. Finally, I was able to stand up and, in doing so, I noticed the trading card just out of hand''s reach. I went and picked it up to see what this was about. The card''s name was ¡®Supreme General¡¯, and it featured a picture of me in command behind a round table. On the card, however, it said ¡®one of one.¡¯ There was also no description, but then I noticed in smaller print at the bottom edge of the card, ¡®15/16.¡¯ So, I guess this collection has 16 cards in total, mine being the 15th. But how would controlling me be able to control two of these cards? No, wait, I think he meant controlling the people these cards represented. So if I was one of them, who was the second person he would be controlling through me? The first name that came to mind was Arabella. This, however, didn¡¯t explain anything. I, however, had a feeling that this was not a good thing. Will the troubles never end? chapter 411 As I was holding this card of mine, I felt like this was a pivotal moment. This has set me on a path that I cannot escape from. I felt so very weak at this moment. Slowly, I walked away from the dead body that was next to me until I reached a tree that I sat next to. It was a sturdy tree that helped support my back. As time started to pass, my mind came up with scenarios and disregarded them until I was as certain as I could possibly be about what was in front of me. While nothing is certain, if you have enough pieces of the puzzle, you can see what the puzzle is meant to be. Currently, I don¡¯t have many facts, but over the course of my life, I¡¯ve learned to glean a lot of information from the simplest truths. Something big was coming; it wasn''t going to happen tomorrow or next month, but there was also no stopping what was going to happen. It was also a fact that I was already involved. I didn¡¯t know many things about the company and the person behind the trading cards, but I have heard of some rumours. It is said that whoever runs the company has some sort of clairvoyance abilities. Now, I never believed that there was one singular future, and I never will, but someone who could see even a little bit into the future and who didn''t like what they saw will most likely try to influence events to take a certain course. It seems that I am involved, and most likely Arabella as well. For there to be cards that could be randomly gotten by anyone, it''s also quite clear that the other side would know what was going on. That fact should already be a failure for the card maker, but perhaps it was necessary for everyone to know what game they were playing. In the end, it doesn''t matter much. Most likely, both sides have been moving pieces for a while now, and it was the seer, the one who controls the trading cards, who has chosen the date when the real battle starts, and the setup ends. My card was the 15th; that means there is one more, and then all the pieces are known, and the game can truly start. I have two options in front of me: try to fight the future someone was trying to set up for me or be a good little game-piece and act how they want me to, which will most likely be how I would act normally. All of this made me quite mad, but there is nothing I can do about it now. I¡¯ve already been thrown into the water, and it¡¯s either I swim or sink¡ªthere is no other option, as I didn¡¯t believe anyone would be willing to jump in after me to save me, not when they need to deal with trying to keep themselves afloat. ¡°Power,¡± it comes back to that word, that singular concept. If I had been a little bit weaker, right now, I could have been someone''s slave, someone who was eager to play the game without even knowing what the game was. Now, I still didn¡¯t know what the game was, but I had a damn good guess. Unfortunately, I couldn¡¯t actually find out what the game was; otherwise, others would know that I know of this game. Calling what was about to happen a game was disgusting: so many lives would be destroyed simply in the name of power. Perhaps this was my destiny. I have always tried to give people as much freedom as I think I deserve. Was this the only reason I was brought to this place? So, they could dangle my heaven in front of me, yet to reach it I must once again walk in hell and be the reaper of innocence. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I wanted to break something, but as soon as I thought of that, the feeling immediately disappeared, leaving me even more empty. Taking a deep breath, I slowly pushed myself up and then finally let the breath out. No point in complaining about things I cannot change. There is only one thing I can do, and that¡¯s to do the best I can. I left everything on the corpses of the ones who tried to attack me. I didn¡¯t want to come off as a thief. Previously, I thought that perhaps I would make them disappear as if this fight never happened, or simply deny everything. I no longer think that¡¯s the best course of action. A blunt statement would be best. I will simply say that we had a disagreement, and they lost. This will bring trouble but only a little. Most importantly, it will not bring more questions. For the last time, I looked at my card and then made it disappear into my tattoo storage, hoping that no one will ever see it again. Anonymity was my best weapon at the moment. This also meant there would no longer be any time to slack off, most likely for a long time. Truly unfortunate. It was time to start actively leading my company, recruiting more from UF, and making sure that we could expand as fast but as safely as we can. Next would be to deal with UF. It was time to start a few of the longer-term projects I have been thinking about. First and foremost, the expansion of our food production. In the next 10 years, UF needs to be the largest producer of food in the world, and that means we need a lot of homesteaders or more specifically, larger clans. So much to do, and of course, expansion¡ªwe need to expand a lot. Fortunately, my company will be able to start funding many things. Education will also be incredibly important; getting as many loyal people into the court of the youngest possible will be crucial. There are a few more smaller things that I can do, but that was all, except of course, getting stronger myself. I will need to focus on completing as many dungeons as possible, and when I have enough free points so that I will not be stuck in the fourth rank, it will finally be time to advance my current rank. I guess it was also time to continue to work on my energy control and fighting capability, as those would also become quite needed. It was going to be a busy time. POV Reginald Ferdondla the Eighth. "Sir, the latest find." My subordinate said while handing me a tiny packet. They had found another card, but he was too nervous, which meant something was wrong. I opened it up and read the title of the card: The Immortal. One of One. It seems that they were prudent this time and used an unlocking card to reveal the text. Previously a simple healer, now forged in the fires of battle inside a deep dungeon and under an unlikely mentor. He does not yet know the true extent of his power; no one does, but one thing is clear: the longer he lives, the stronger he will get, and he cannot die, so crossing him will guarantee your death. My mind immediately started to work the problem. Numerous of my abilities fired up, trying to decipher these meanings. However, everything ground to a halt when I noticed a small detail. This wasn''t the 15th card in this set; it was the 16th and final card. It took a titanic effort on my part not to crush this card in my hand from the sheer fury I felt. ¡°Am I to understand this correctly, but are we missing another one? I can excuse missing the 4th card in the set; it came out before I knew of this set and the meaning behind it. It was most likely destroyed, and we will never find out who that card represented.¡± ¡°Yet somehow, with all our resources and our preparations, we have somehow missed the 15th card. Can someone explain to me how that¡¯s possible?¡± There was silence, which was the correct answer because I already knew the answer. It was a simple fact that we couldn''t check every new card pack, and while the amount of people who knew the true game was small, it wasn''t that small. "I guess there¡¯s no unusual movements?" The only answers I got were negative. There was only one thing to do: it was to make sure that the 16th card didn¡¯t fall into the hands of the opposition. I started to read the packet of information that identified the person on the card. Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that someone like this could potentially be my rival. It was a bit of a ludicrous idea that someone could be my rival, but I will eventually not be able to grow stronger, and given enough time, he should be able to catch up. It should, however, be a really long time, and perhaps I would tire of this world by then. It should be enough time for me to fix everything that¡¯s wrong, and perhaps then that insistent feeling of this world wanting to push me away would finally stop. I wonder if the card maker saw the introduction of religion. The last report I got on this topic was quite enlightening. It was another way of getting even stronger. If executed correctly I should have enough power so that even if they were all to attack me, they would still all perish. It is time I stopped hiding. ¡°We will execute the prime directive, but with a little bit of a twist. Gather everyone.¡± My subordinate looked excited. Some of them had been preparing for this moment their entire lives, and I wasn¡¯t going to let them down. It was time for this world to once again be ruled by someone competent, not that bumbling mess of a world council. It was time for a new power to rise, someone who could actually unite all the races and finally free our continents of the undeserving races and the monsters who claimed themselves to be the true rulers of this world. chapter 412 Pov Rich Dirt The sun was just rising. It was an auspicious day for my birthday. Looking over the surroundings from a large stone pile meant for the future fort made me feel amazing. It has been a long journey to get here, but finally, we will be building our own fort. It will be a massive one, as the stone pile I was on, meant for this build, is already taller than five stories, and we have multiple ones. From this far up, I could see the fully built foundation. A few thousand people were already working this early to start the rest of the build. Many more were still gathering more stone and metals so we could finish this monstrosity in just a few years. All of this started when I found that card almost 20 years ago. From that point on, I haven¡¯t really had any time to simply appreciate what we have accomplished. My senses spread over the land so I would miss nothing. While I had succeeded in every one of my goals, doing so also made a lot of enemies, and no one was going to mess up this crucial stage of the build. It was still a bit unfamiliar for me to get back so much information when I wasn¡¯t on my own land, but a lot of things changed when I finally reached rank four about a month ago. It was a bit of a touch-and-go, but fortunately, I was able to make it to rank four before the year 20 deadline. Today has officially marked 20 years of me being in this world, and the achievement of getting to rank four in 20 years gave me a nice boost of 2000 free points. I could have reached rank four a lot earlier, but getting the amount of free points I currently have was not easy, but at least it was now guaranteed that I wouldn¡¯t be stuck at rank four. I opened up my achievement page and looked at my classes and stats.
Name: Rich Dirt stats:
Species: Human strength: 4942->10,121* +(5500)
Gender: male dexterity: 4337->8,091* +(2200)
Age: 37 vitality: 4259->8,013* +(2200)
class: endurance: 892->1,696* +(1800)
First elder homesteader level 62 empathy: 873->1,677*
Prestigious true archer level 52 intelligence: 875->1,679*
Legendary field marshal level 52 energy storage: 3603->5907*
Bonded Animals/Items: This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. perception: 1329>2,583* +(800)
Goose constitution: 1473->2,727* +(2000)
Alan presence: 739->1,651*
wisdom: 760->2,100* +(500)
Free points: 13100 (luck: 2)
13,100 free points¡ªit was honestly an amazing amount of points. I was keeping them just in case. Who knows what achievements I might get that would possibly allow me to put points in a few other stats. Gaining all of the class levels has also been a difficult journey but something I think I truly have enjoyed. I couldn¡¯t have done all this in such a short amount of time if I hadn¡¯t been pushing myself so hard. The only reason I can still keep going is that I know there will be an end, a sweet end no matter what. My adventurer class was also nearing its end. I had reached level 151, reminding me that I only had nine more levels before I maxed out that class. That was still 432 stat points for my energy storage stat. However, it won¡¯t allow me to reach another milestone to gain another trait. I''ve still gotten a new trait for every single stat, and all of them have enhanced or changed me in some ways. Every once in a while, I think about checking out the rest of my achievement page, but honestly, it''s a mess and I no longer really care about the numbers or how many skills and abilities I have. It¡¯s a weird way to think about them as they are a part of me, but they''re also simply a text displayed by the system, only loosely tied to what you really are and what you know. Still, they were my power in this world but no longer the only power I held. While I was no longer actively participating, at least as far as the rest of the world knew, in the politics of UF, I was still important to my nation. As I looked towards our plans, I recalled how much we had actually expanded. In the land area, we were currently the ninth biggest nation, and, as I planned, we were the largest producer of food in the world. It was not an easy journey, but we achieved that milestone 11 years ago. It brought a smile to my face to know that right now, if we really wanted to, we could produce more than half of the entire world''s food production. That being said, that was food for anyone rank one and below. I now know why I had such a big appetite when I first ranked up. It was because I needed food with more sustenance. It was also a nice way to make ourselves seem weaker. Not producing anything for a higher rank means that while a lot of eyes have landed on UF, they do not yet feel threatened. If they only knew what I was planning, but perhaps just saying that only I was planning it was a falsehood. Technically, I was no longer needed; I was the last person, but finally, they had enough competent people to even take my position and fill it if I were to ever die. The only time they would currently need me would be if things went truly wrong. I heard the familiar call from behind me. Goose was coming back from the middle ring. He had been hungry and needed some proper food. He achieved rank four way before me and now was so big that a normal person would need a rope ladder to get to the saddle even if he was lying down. However, everything wasn¡¯t perfect. The population, while now nearing 20 million, was still quite low and a lot of that population was from occupied nations. It causes a lot of civil strife, but no one wanted to start anything big because of the legions placed in those regions. We were now quite close to the Queen''s nation, having conquered a lot of the petty kingdoms on our way south. I looked towards there but even now I still needed to look quite a lot towards the north from my current location, the approximate border we had on our eastern coastline. When this fort is finished, our lands will stretch here, covering a huge portion of the grasslands. We have also taken all of the north and some of the west as well. There has been a huge block in our expansion towards the west, and that¡¯s the undead kingdom. Fortunately, they are now weak enough that I was confident we could win in a war. Perhaps a more proper way to say it would be that we had caught up to them in strength and passed them during the last few years. The world council has, multiple times, demanded that we organize and eliminate the undead threat, but it''s nice now to have enough power to simply say no, you aren''t paying us enough. It was one of the brighter highlights of my life here. The main reason why we can be so bold is thanks to my company now having an actual rank five member. His rise truly reminds me of those old books I''ve read about cultivators. The speed of his advancement has been amazing, and fortunately, the company is now strong enough to actually support someone like that. He''s a nice kid, although he''s still not a threat to the true monsters of this world, and I''m not talking about actual monsters. Speaking of those monsters that are in human shape, or at least close to human shape, they have been playing that disgusting game of theirs. We are getting ever closer to the lines being drawn in the sand. Fortunately, both sides are still trying to steal pieces from each other and gain new ones. Our company and UF is one of the last large pieces that are still up for grabs. In reality, it''s just to keep us as free as possible for as long as possible, as we have already decided on which side to choose. There would have been a possibility of us remaining neutral, but because of that card, I don''t think it''s possible. Looking up, I saw Goose slowly descending. Seeing him struggle to land brought a smile to my face. That''s what he gets for not practicing enough. "Having a bit of trouble?" I yelled to him, only to get a face full of cold air. "Refreshing," I said with a big smile on my face. Normally he wouldn''t have any trouble, but with so many weaker people around, he actually needed to control the way he landed so he wouldn''t kill them with the wind he generates. chapter 413 Pov Rich Dirt Goose and I enjoyed watching how the Fort was built. Unfortunately, we couldn''t stay here for long as I needed to go to an important meeting. Fortunately, our destination wasn''t far, but with Goose, I guess nowhere was truly far. That reminded me of a conversation long ago about us going on a flight to see all the continents. We should do this as fast as possible. After talking to Goose a little bit, he agreed, but that was for after the meeting. It was not just for curiosity or fun; it would be a good idea to know the land as maps can never truly convey reality. It was still fun to see Goose struggle to take off without trying to cause a mess down below. He really didn¡¯t belong in areas that were filled with creatures that were too weak. Our flight took us directly north, and unfortunately, I had annoyed Goose enough that I simply had to jump off him about a kilometer off the ground as he refused to take me down. I was practiced enough in falling nowadays that I didn¡¯t even leave footprints on the ground as I landed. No matter how many times I did it, it still felt amazing. I looked at the tall walls, and while this was a city, it was the most fortified city UF possessed. Here, a lot of high-ranked people could live openly, and deal with the higher-rank market. This was a city-like Connection, at least in its function. It was here to support our outer ring Fort. Jumping on top of the walls revealed the huge town that was quite bustling with activity. Just a few years ago, there were only a few hundred people here, but one thing that UF has learned to do is to build. We had many fortresses that were headquarters for the Legionnaires and one for the Vikings. Most of their time was focused on training and making sure that no monster threatens our citizens. Of course, there are exceptions as a few of the legions are now quite good at normal warfare. I did not head to the administrative center of this city; instead, I went to my company''s compound. It was a large one, occupying a significant portion of the city. It was our largest compound and currently our headquarters. I had no problem getting in; the guards recognized me instantly, but I was still glad that every time they asked me for identification. You can never be too careful with all of the abilities that are in the system. "You are late," Arabella immediately said when I entered the meeting room. I had to recheck my internal clock. "No, I''m not. There¡¯s at least 30 seconds left until the start of the meeting." She did not look happy at that reply. She most likely would have wanted to debrief me before the start of this meeting, but I needed to be careful about how much I pushed myself, as burning out meant a lot of trouble in the future. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. I sat down and greeted everyone else in the room. That annoyed Arabella even more, but it had been a while since I¡¯d seen some of the members here. Eventually, she started. "You are all the most important members of our company, all of you leading branch officers. Our diligent work has brought us to this point. While it''s not officially announced yet, I got advanced notice. We are now the number 10th strongest company in the world." Those words stunned everyone, including me. I had not expected us to be so highly ranked. In the grand scheme, it meant little as it was truly hard to accurately gauge the strength of a whole company as large as ours. "I had not expected us to reach this for quite a while. While we are the most numerous company, most of our members are active in the outer ring, so I didn¡¯t expect us to be so highly ranked," our representative from the elven continent said. "Rich has often said quantity is a quality of its own. I''d also like to add to that saying. Quantity can turn into quality surprisingly fast if supplied with enough resources." Her words made everyone think for a moment. I liked the way she thought. And of course, she was completely right, and I wondered how much she truly understood of my plans. There was a reason why I was so focused on the outer ring. There were a lot more people to recruit; that was definitely one of the reasons, but the more people you get on your side, the higher the chance that you can get lucky and someone can truly shine. As I thought of that, I looked towards the person who could most likely kill all of us here. Well, not perhaps Arabella and me, but the others for certain. Our first rank five member. He looked like an unassuming young adult, and in fact, he was one. He still had the sparkle in his eyes, and I hoped he could keep it as long as possible. Both of us have also spoken quite a lot about how the world seems to want higher rank people to, for lack of a better word, ascend. I feel it a little bit, but it took him a few months of being in rank five to finally be able to sleep well enough to start resting. It seems that the world tolerated rank four individuals, but once you got to rank five, it really wanted you to just go away. It was a curious function of the system that no one actually truly understood, and more importantly, no one actually knew what would happen afterwards. There are some that thought that the system simply consumes you whole to empower itself, but I didn¡¯t believe that. I had come from another world, so my best guess was that you go to another world after this one. He sounded a little bit excited about that, but I wasn¡¯t interested. I would be content enough to simply farm my land and be buried there. The meeting continued, but this part was regular business. We were informed about how well our different branches were doing and our future expansion plans, but then the mood shifted. "We have also finally reached the crossroads; both sides are putting more pressure on us, especially because they know whichever one we choose, UF will follow. And with it, a guarantee that their armies will be supplied with food." ¡°We all knew that this time would come. We have all made preparations as secretly as possible to make sure that we didn''t tip anyone off.¡± ¡°It is unfortunate that we do not get more time. It has taken more and more resources to keep us out of the conflict, and with our spies, we knew which side we would support.¡± ¡°It is truly unfortunate that we must pick the underdog. Why couldn''t things just be easy?¡± "Because where would the fun be in that?" everyone said at the same time while looking at me. "You know, guys, I¡¯m really not appreciating my words being used against me so often," I said to everyone, which broke the somber mood a bit. The mood was still serious. No matter how lightly we might take this, a lot of our members were going to die in the coming war. I knew a little bit more than they did, but they were correct that we unfortunately needed to choose the underdog. The other choice was to support a dictatorship that wanted to control too much. I didn¡¯t have many principles, but giving people the ability to choose was one of them, and unfortunately, that man believed otherwise. ¡°So, we are all agreed, that however was the easy part. Now we need to think of a way to minimize the fallout of the other side. They will start to suppress us and most likely actively start fighting us even if they do not declare official hostilities.¡± Arabella was right, our easy days are over. chapter 414 It took time, a lot of time, but eventually, the meeting was over, and our plan of action was completed. What I disliked the most was how little I was going to be involved, at least at the start. It was necessary, otherwise, we would be revealing our strategy too early, and that would be disastrous. Everyone was preparing for a long war, but I had some other ideas, which I had to keep secret from many. A lot of people were leaving the compound, so it was quite easy to slip into the mass. Most likely, Arabella would¡¯ve liked some alone time, but my mind was too fractured. It seemed to want to slip back into my old world and the war I fought there. If there was any way to keep that from happening here, I must. Even if it means our defeat, I¡¯m not sure I would want to be alive if that happened, as I¡¯m pretty sure that, that dictator of theirs is hiding more than anyone suspects. I¡¯ve only seen him once, about a year ago, in a World Council meeting. I could certainly see why so many called him the strongest; he seemed to radiate power¡ªtoo much, in my opinion¡ªbut that wasn¡¯t the thing that caught my eye. It was the way his eyes looked. I am pretty sure he was trying to hide it, but nowadays, there¡¯s little my eyes can¡¯t pierce. Looking his way, I could just see him wanting to kill all who opposed him, but he wasn¡¯t worried about that. No, he was more worried about his image than anything else. In that meeting, there were some of the most powerful people on this earth, yet he didn¡¯t seem to fear fighting any of them, even if they were to challenge him together. That was not what I was hoping to see, and while normally that wouldn¡¯t matter in a worldwide war, in this world things were different because if you were strong enough, you were even more powerful than a nuclear weapon in the battlefields of my old world. When I entered the forest, which was a decent way away from the town, I called for Goose. It would take him a bit to get here, but it would also take me a while to get further into the forest. It was not my favorite way to get on him, as it meant exerting a lot of effort. But nowadays, he really didn''t like landing, spending most of his time in the air as it was so easy for him. I would need to use the trees to get as high as possible and then jump so Goose could pick me up. "Where are you off to?" I heard a voice coming from my right. "Hi there, Arabella. I thought you were leaving with the others." "I am leaving with the others, but that isn''t for another eight hours. It seems to me that you¡¯ve been avoiding me for a few months now. I know you like to be direct, so I will be as well. Are you distant because of the war, or because you are tired of us?" "Arabella, I¡¯m not tired of us, and yes, it''s about the war. We will most likely not meet for quite a while, but I guess I¡¯ve been in my mind too much. Goose is coming, so I don¡¯t have much time." I used one of my movement skills to get close to her and give her a proper kiss because it might have been the last. She was a little surprised, and even more so that it was so short. I think she understood now, she looked so defeated. "Goodbye," was the last thing I said before I jumped a few times to reach the top of the tree. "You''ll pay for that," I heard her say before I jumped even higher and was picked up by Goose''s air manipulation and pulled toward the harness I used to ride him. I silently wished that I would actually pay for that. Goose communicated with me, wanting to know where we were going. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. "Everywhere, my friend. Everywhere." His excitement was palpable. We then climbed higher and started our journey over all the continents. We skipped most of the Green Continent, as we already knew it incredibly well. Toward the south, after the high-ranked zones, and at the southern tip of this continent was a huge mountain range that separated a decently large portion of land from the rest of the continent. That piece of land once belonged to the empire. At one point, they were the richest country in the world solely through the amount of trade they did. Now, there were only remnants left. Aster, once the great capital city, stood in ruins because they were the ones that the second plague started¡ªthe one that killed my family. They were the ones to create it, and they paid a terrible price for it. We spent some time flying over the mountain range, and I could see how this country could start and be mainly focused on trade, as there were only two entrances to this land area, and even now, both had huge forts protecting the passes. We headed farther south, but it had already been a few days since our flight started. That meant that right now, the representatives of our company were announcing to almost everyone our allegiance, and it wouldn¡¯t take long for the war to escalate. I needed to stay away because I wasn¡¯t sure I could keep myself from trying to stop all of this. But it should be too late now, and it would definitely be too late in a couple of weeks, which would be the perfect time as we should be done with our sightseeing. We were now over the central area of the Shallow Sea. It was a massive sea between every continent, but this central area was the connection point to all the continents. The ship traffic down there was massive, and the many islands inside the Shallow Sea were mainly supply or trade ports for all the ships. It would have been amazing to see this about 50 years ago, as the number of ships should have been ten times the amount currently sailing. Towards the west in between the Alberany and Veridisia continents, there was a world wonder, and it was truly magical to see from high above. But it was even more magical when we flew closer. This particular wish was made by quite a powerful wizard, and I have to say, I feel like his sacrifice at the end of his life must have been worth it. There were about ten larger floating islands with many smaller ones, and honestly, I never thought I would be able to witness something so amazing. To the south is the human continent of Veridisia¡ªit¡¯s where their species evolved- or at least that¡¯s what everyone believes. Perhaps every species started out as travelers, but I didn¡¯t want to start thinking about that. The upper portion was a jungle, not really suitable for life, but the bottom half of the continent was basically a paradise. There were so many rivers and lakes and, thanks to that, so much fertile land. There was a reason why some called it the golden sea, but it wasn¡¯t as fertile anymore, and quite often, there was famine, especially nowadays. We then headed east towards the continent that was the birthplace of the dwarves. The northern portion of the continent was once again a jungle, quite unsuitable for civilized life, although a lot of it has been tamed nowadays. The southern portion is also not that habitable, mostly made of rolling hills covered in rocks. It is good enough for a lot of domesticated animals, and a huge portion of dwarves started out as tribes herding those animals. As a civilization, they truly started to advance when they began to delve deeper into the earth to get the riches that were there. Further east is the endless ocean that no one has been able to cross, and I wasn¡¯t going to try, as there were monsters too powerful out there. Somewhere in that ocean was a place where dragons lived, and I did not want to get close to that place. We headed north after we finished flying over that continent. This place was the birthplace of many Beastkin, many of whom start their own civilizations. The mountains at the southern and most eastern tip of this continent were amazing. It was also filled with towns for many of the Beastkin who could fly. We didn¡¯t stay here for long, as we would certainly be spotted. The huge feature of this continent was the large lake. There were some underwater beastkin who lived in the lake, and we were fighting here since a large portion of this continent¡¯s high-rank zones were inside the lake. Fighting underwater always sounded quite awful to me, but fortunately, there are many adventurers strong enough and willing to challenge the waters and find themselves victorious. We didn¡¯t fly over the green continent to get to the Elven one. Instead, we flew over the ice sheet even further north. The funny thing was, there was actually life here and some civilization, although it consisted of only a few towns and one fort. My company had even spread here, but I wasn¡¯t going to fly down and introduce myself. Eventually we reached the elven continent and headed down south. Near the center of the Elven continent was another wonder that could be seen: a collection of seven trees that were a couple of kilometers tall, housing a capital city. The largest and strongest Elven city. The trees looked amazing, but we never went too close to them; it was simply too dangerous. It had been a couple of weeks since we started our journey, and it was time to return. I had been receiving information about the situation constantly during our flight, and I now knew that, no matter how much I tried, the war was going to happen. In fact, it had already started. Now I just had to hope that I wasn¡¯t delusional and could actually make my plan work. chapter 415 Our destination was a specially built facility¡ªor more exactly, a huge fortress¡ªwith only one purpose: to help end this war. Right now, it was the main command center for our alliance, with many of the representative nations and organizations coordinating their efforts from one place. Usually, I wouldn¡¯t want everything to be in one place, but it was needed, as this wasn¡¯t Earth, and here there were abilities and skills that could be used to boost not just a few, but the entire war effort. "Goose, you go back home and guard everything there. We will either meet again victorious in a peaceful world, or this will be our last flight. It has been an honor to watch you grow and to fight beside you." I could feel what Goose was feeling, and it was hard to keep my emotions in check. I patted him a few more times on his neck and then jumped from high up towards the fortress below. Goose screeched his goodbye, and I hoped I would be able to see him again, but a part of me doubted it. The enemy we were up against was not simple, and not what everyone thinks he is. Supposedly, he¡¯s a charismatic leader who wants to unite the world to more effectively put an end to the monster problem, and that might be true, but there are correct ways of doing things. From what I can tell, he plans to take away everyone¡¯s freedom in exchange for a more protected world, which I¡¯m not even sure can be achieved. I landed softly and was instantly surrounded. ¡°It¡¯s Rich, stand down!¡± I heard someone say, and I watched as one of the strongest fighters of my company walked up to me. ¡°You finally made it. We were beginning to worry. Everything is ready, but every day there have been more questions about our actions. I don¡¯t think we could have kept anything hidden for much longer.¡± ¡°Well, it¡¯s good that I¡¯m here then, isn¡¯t it? Start setting everything up down below and have them start pouring everything they have into the pillar. There isn¡¯t much storage capability, but that¡¯s relative because of the amount of energy I¡¯m about to use.¡± He immediately saluted me, and I was escorted into the fortress proper. Most of the people who were escorting me were from the United Freeholds, but not all of them, and they were puzzled about what was going on. I was a well-known individual, but to the public, I wasn¡¯t anyone special¡ªnot anymore. It was just another way to hide my identity for this moment. It should give us a bit of extra time, and hopefully, that would be enough. The fortress itself wasn¡¯t anything special; it had one purpose, and that was to defend against high-ranked individuals. Its walls were thrumming with magic, energy, and holy power¡ªa combination of all three to make it as strong as possible. I never expected it to actually work, as it shouldn¡¯t, but this world was filled with geniuses, and our alliance consisted of almost 70% of the world¡¯s population, which brought along enough of them to make wonders like this. Some of the people escorting me split off from the rest of the party, going down instead of up at the first staircase that we came upon. Down below were thousands of people from the United Freeholds, who could store huge amounts of energy that was dense enough for me to make use of. It was going to be painful channeling all that energy, but this fortress should help with that. It took us a bit of time to reach the heart of the fortress. We had to go through many checkpoints. By the time we made it outside the main war center, I could feel the fortress drumming with energy. I could also hear arguing coming from behind the doors. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°You can return to your posts,¡± I said to the people escorting me. I walked up to the doors and swung them open. The arguing stopped immediately as everyone looked at me, but only a few people recognized me and smiled when they saw me. ¡°Who are you?¡± asked a huge person, a beastkin of some rhino-type animal. I didn¡¯t answer him; instead, I walked to the center of the room where a huge round table stood. It wasn¡¯t just a round table¡ªit was a magical artifact made by a wizard as his last wish. It displayed the entire world and our entire war effort in real-time. This was the key, and everything would fall apart if it couldn¡¯t handle what I needed it to do. I touched it, slowly starting to feel its capabilities. To my surprise, it reacted to my touch. ¡°What are you doing? Stop that,¡± someone said, but I was too concentrated on the table and what it was telling me. ¡°You will work perfectly,¡± I heard myself say as I got more information back from it. It was semi-sentient, which was a big surprise to me, but I guess it shouldn''t have been. The energy requirements for it to properly work were immense, and no one was supplying it properly¡ªjust using its basic functions to monitor and communicate orders. Such a waste. There was one problem, it didn¡¯t recognize me as the supreme general in command of the entire war effort. I needed that to use it properly. ¡°I call for a vote to elect a supreme general and nominate myself. There is enough authority here for an immediate vote, and from the looks of the war effort, it is needed.¡± The room erupted in yelling as almost everyone demanded to know who I was, how dare I, and that there couldn¡¯t be a supreme general because we were a council. ¡°Silence!¡± I yelled, and if this wasn¡¯t a fortress of such strength, I¡¯m pretty sure the entire room would have shaken. There were exactly three rank fives here, and I was just at rank four, but my core helped refine energy, and that refined energy was basically as strong as rank five. I didn¡¯t have much of it to use, but it was enough. ¡°Explain yourself,¡± one of the rank fives said, ready to fight if needed. I looked towards him. He was a normal human and led the faction of the Veridisia continent that opposed the dictator. The lower half of the continent was where humanity began, and it was the most densely populated area in the world except for cities. ¡°What do you think this fortress was built for? It was built for me to use this table, be supplied with endless amounts of energy, and use my abilities and traits to boost our entire war effort. So, this war that would go on for decades will only last years. It will also cause the enemy¡¯s elites to start searching for this place, and they will find it eventually.¡± I looked around at the surprised faces and continued. "If we get our act together, our regular armies will crush theirs, but from all accounts, they have superior elites, and in the end, that''s what matters in this world. This place gives us the best defensive advantage we can get, and we should continue working on making that advantage bigger.¡± ¡°I hope I can get everyone support in that. When they find us, we must protect this place, drive off their elites again and again until the final confrontation, where everything is decided in one go. We will either succeed, or we will fail, but at least the winners will have a world that won¡¯t be overrun by monsters." There was silence after my words as everyone processed what I had said. Another one of the rank fives eventually spoke up. "You¡¯ve been planning this for quite a while¡ªat least 20 years. Why, and how did you know?" I simply reached into one of my sleeves and pulled out from my tattoo storage a simple card and showed it to them. "You¡¯re one of the 16¡ªand one of the two hidden individuals no one has been able to identify. No one knows who the card maker is, but everyone knows he or she can see the future.¡± ¡°Only a few know that those 16 cards from this set all represent individuals who are paramount to deciding this world¡¯s future. I am number ten myself. Arabella is one of them, and altogether we have six on our side¡ªnow seven. You have my full support. I vote yes to making you supreme general." Only the other three rank fives knew about the cards, but when they all voted yes, it didn¡¯t take much convincing for the others to do the same. "Now that I am supreme general, I need everyone to pick up this table and take it near that large central pillar so I can touch both that pillar and this table. And please, can we get a comfortable chair or something because I¡¯m going to be in that position for at least months, probably years." The table itself was not easy to move, and it took all of us to do it. I did question how we got it inside and was told that the fortress was built with it inside. It was good that there were other people who could think about the future and not just what was needed at that moment. The table now eagerly accepted me, and I started to activate my abilities that would help me boost and command the entire army of this alliance. ¡°Where is all that energy coming from?¡± I heard someone question as I started to channel more and more abilities that required increasing amounts of energy. Fortunately, I had trained my energy pathways ever since that war, but even still, I was feeling the strain. Slowly, I gained control over more and more communication channels. While I couldn¡¯t boost the entire war effort at once, I could boost a dozen or so large armies at the same time, and that would be enough. There were two critical fights happening right now, and I focused on them. I couldn¡¯t see exactly what was happening with the soldiers themselves, but I could sense how they stopped giving ground. I bet they were confused as to where their strength was coming from, but that didn¡¯t matter. In just 10 minutes, the front was stabilized, and they started to reorganize before we began to push. I sank more and more into the table, giving hundreds of orders every few minutes. I had some capability to multitask, but the table made everything so much easier. In a day, I had set up a proper information network, allowing me to gather more and more intelligence on our enemy''s movements, helping me see the bigger picture more clearly. chapter 416 It took me a week to stabilize the entire war front, and we were already pushing in a few places well enough that the only thing the enemy could do was retreat. My body was in constant pain, but I wasn¡¯t hurting it faster than I could heal. Every so often, healers came to help me, which made this more bearable. In a month, we were winning on all fronts, except whenever elites got involved. Fortunately, we had good movement capabilities for our elites, making it impossible for them to achieve total victory on any battlefield with only their elite forces. I was gathering more and more intelligence about the enemy alliance, trying to figure out what they were up to. It took a few more months, before the war effort ground to a halt as we needed to siege large fortresses to continue taking land. But I was not foolish enough to simply assault well-defended fortresses. We needed time to take them down, and every effort they made to stop the sieges or push further into our territory was met with swift defeat. I had some practice with this from Earth, but little compared to how much practice I¡¯ve had in this world. It¡¯s kind of funny how good I am at a thing I don¡¯t like to do. Nevertheless, it took about three more weeks, during which time I was able to take a few smaller fortresses before they finally figured out what was going on. Now the search was on for this command center I was in, but we had gotten a lot of time to strengthen the defenses here to repel elites. The winter months came, grounding the war to a halt in a large portion of the world, but not everywhere¡ªsome places were tropical enough to not be affected. It was a pretty cold night when, for the first time, the fortress alarms started sounding out. We had finally been found. I could observe what was happening since this fortress had its own senses. There were about 20 attacking us, most likely a probing attack. What they didn¡¯t expect was how weak they got when they neared the walls and the response they got. In just a few moments, five of them were dead¡ªone rank 5, the others high-rank 4s. We managed to kill two more as they retreated. It was the beginning of the end, and I just hoped that we would come out on the winning side. The assaults continued as they probed our defenses, finding them quite sturdy. We were pulling more and more elites away from the armies, and so were they. Eventually, the fortress was manned by a whole army of elites and besieged by a whole army of elites. For the first time in nearly a year, I removed my hand from the table and concentrated on commanding this singular army, giving them as many boosts as I could. This was like a trigger, and a battle unlike any other began. The fortress shook from the magic attacks launched by the enemies¡ªattacks that could have obliterated entire cities. This fortress couldn''t handle that kind of punishment if it wasn¡¯t actively protected by people as strong as the ones attacking. ¡°No one should have this much power,¡± I heard someone say, who was also helping boost our people with his own abilities. There were about thirty of us who were strong enough to boost even rank fives, and we were making the difference. There were many more elites on the other side, but our defensive position and the boosts we were giving were making the difference, giving us a fighting chance. The fighting continued, and from the looks of it, if things continued as they were, we were going to be able to defend this place. Still, the losses were immense, with hundreds of elite dead by the end of the day. If this continued, this world would suffer quite a lot from the onslaught that would find its way, no longer barred by adventurers. ¡°Enough,¡± came a word so loud that it actually shook the entire area, including the fortress. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. I could see a person rising above the enemy camp and finally saw the one leader the enemy alliance, the person who started it all. He was radiating with power, and from what I could feel, it made me shudder with nervousness. I had never felt a rank 5 that was so close to rank 6, but this person was so near. If he were to get a few more levels, I was certain he would reach rank 6 and would be forced out of this world by the system itself. Unfortunately, I was pretty certain he had ways to make sure he wouldn¡¯t gain those few levels. ¡°Your resistance is admirable, but I cannot allow this to continue. I do not want any of you to die, as you will all be needed to push back the monsters. So please be reasonable and surrender; none of you will be harmed.¡± Those were some pretty words, and I could see and feel how his army believed them. Even I believed them, but I knew there was more to it. I still didn¡¯t understand what, but I knew he was doing it for himself more than anything else. Still, the battle that had been going on since morning had ended while this person hoped we would surrender. It was at this moment that something happened. It was like a physical blow to the man floating above everyone else, and then his kind appearance changed. I didn¡¯t know what had happened, yet a moment later, information flooded the table, and I pushed it out to everyone, including the enemy army. Someone managed to get through his defenses and access his full achievement page. It was the scariest thing I¡¯ve ever witnessed. His stats and levels weren¡¯t the scary part¡ªthey were what I expected from someone who was close to rank 6. It was the traits, skills, and abilities. There were literally thousands of them, so many that it made my achievement page, which was considered incredibly long, look minuscule in comparison. ¡°You weasley little rat, ruining everything.¡± The next moment, he was holding a smaller-looking rank 5, who had been pulled from the fortress, by his throat in an iron grip. ¡°You just had to do that, didn¡¯t you? But at least you¡¯re going to give me a better set of abilities that will make me even stronger.¡± All of us then witnessed how he activated some type of ability and started sucking everything that was the person who managed to get his achievement page. It was hard to see what was happening, as I was using the fortress to witness it, but in about 10 seconds or so, all that was left of the person he was holding in an iron grip was a mummified corpse that he simply let drop. He then looked towards the fortress, and I could see his eyes changing. ¡°Those are Velli¡¯s eyes! You¡¯ve stolen his abilities and traits, you bastard!¡± someone yelled and launched themselves at the floating man. They were simply stopped by a single hand movement, far away from him. Those eyes then scanned the person who had tried to avenge their friend¡¯s death. ¡°You literally have nothing I want, and I suspect you would never come to my side. Goodbye.¡± He finished speaking and then crushed his hand, which crushed the high-rank four in an instant, leaving behind a mangled corpse that fell to the ground. ¡°There is so much more potential here than I ever expected. I never imagined I would be able to improve so much, but I will take everything you hold dear and make it my strength.¡± He then started to weave a spell so powerful that I could feel the world barely being able to contain it. It ripped through the fortress, destroying the outer wall, and it was like he was pulling apart an orange¡ªbut doing it to the entire fortress. One moment I was safely at the heart of the fortress, the next, one side of the room was pulled away, exposing the entire fortress. I lost connection to the fortress as all the spells were destroyed, but I could still remember the look on his face¡ªmore importantly, the looks of the people behind him. I wonder if he ever expected that when he exposed his true self, what it would do to his subordinates. It didn¡¯t matter. It was time to fight. I jumped out of the fortress, further away into the field on the left side. Many died when he pulled apart the fortress, but it wasn¡¯t meant to be an attack on the people here¡ªhe just wanted to get rid of our protections. Thousands of spells landed on him, some strong enough that they should have destroyed a city. He needed to protect himself, he just couldn¡¯t take it, but he was still so damn strong. Then he teleported, and just with his hands, he started killing or maiming. None of his people attacked us; they simply watched, not knowing what to do. I¡¯m pretty sure the spell was broken, and I don¡¯t mean an actual spell¡ªI mean the vision of the charismatic leader who wanted to protect the world. This was my chance. ¡°You see who he actually is? He¡¯s only after power to make himself stronger. He would make this world his farm so he could gain more and more of it. If he¡¯s left alive, all of us, our children, and our children¡¯s children will just become resources for him, and he will take any who have power that he doesn¡¯t. That¡¯s the future he wants¡ªthat is all he will ever want: absolute power so he can gain even more of it.¡± My words rang out on the battlefield, causing a halt to the fighting. For the first time, that person looked at me, and I could see his eyes change for a moment and a creepy smile come to his face. ¡°So you are the one who has those abilities to boost half of this world¡¯s armies. And those other abilities and traits¡ªyou are just a walking treasure, aren¡¯t you? I¡¯m going to enjoy taking all that you have.¡± chapter 417, fin His full attention was scary, but was he actually drooling right now? Anyway, he just helped make my point. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but I think you messed up right now. You should really learn to handle your desires¡ªyou shouldn¡¯t let your abilities take control of you.¡± He looked a bit confused at that, and then I pointed towards his own army. When he looked towards it, he was hit by a powerful spell that actually managed to damage him. I don¡¯t know how long it had been since he saw his own blood, but he looked angry. ¡°You liar! You¡¯re a useless piece of shift!¡± I heard the person who had attacked him yell. He looked back towards him with a smile on his face. ¡°I¡¯m going to enjoy taking that as well.¡± He then attacked, but to my surprise, someone rushed in front of him, saving his life but getting destroyed at the same time. It happened so fast¡ªbut was that Adam, the person I ran that dungeon with? Yet the next moment, Adam was once again standing there, after I had just seen his upper half nearly completely vaporized. ¡°You think the two of the 16 will fall so easily?¡± the person who managed to land an attack on him once again yelled out. Adam rushed him, and every spell aimed at him was destroyed, yet the next moment he was whole again. Was Adam actually the person from the 16 cards called Adam the Immortal? I¡¯d heard he started to fight more after our dungeon delve, and that he started to develop better self-healing. But he was ranked five now, and from the looks of it, killing him would not be easy. ¡°Thanks for coming close enough,¡± I heard him say, and I saw Adam freeze. Once again, I saw that same sucking ability he used on that person before. This time, however, he was interrupted when another spell hit him so hard it tore through his defenses, leaving behind a wound that glowed with red power. It took him a moment to stop whatever that spell was doing and disconnecting from Adam. He just barely managed to defend himself against the next spell. His own army started attacking itself. It was too much to hope that everyone would come to our side, but it was good enough. ¡°Everyone who¡¯s strong enough, back up the people attacking him, and if you are one of the 16 and good enough at fighting to survive, join the fight. Other than that, help the ones in his army that rebelled and get away from him as soon as you can.¡± That was the word I gave through my abilities so they wouldn¡¯t be heard by the enemy. It took a moment, but everyone left in the fortress started to move around the fight that was happening between the powerful spellcaster, him, and Adam. I saw him notice what was happening, and then he glanced towards me, but only for a moment as he needed to concentrate. Adam was so good and so willing to let his body be destroyed that he was actually able to make his spellcasting kind of useless. Still, he had so many abilities, but I concentrated on boosting Adam and the other person as much as I could. They accepted the boost immediately, but unfortunately, he figured out that I was giving that boost. ¡°You are beginning to become really annoying,¡± he said, but before he could move¡ªmost likely to try to catch me¡ªhe was stopped by an arrow. I looked towards the tower where it was fired from to see Arabella. She started to shoot more, actually being helpful. It didn¡¯t take long for a few others to join the fight, and we were properly starting to push him back. I was pretty strained boosting so many, and I couldn¡¯t simply throw energy into it as I only had my own reserves. I could understand the problem he was having¡ªhe simply had too many abilities, and the more you had, the more you would need to think about what to use in a certain situation. That momentary hesitation cost him quite a lot. More and more people joined this fight, but some were simply too weak and should have known better. They moved so fast that I could barely kept up, but I couldn¡¯t go too far as the abilities I was using to boost these few people needed me to stay in the fight. He was so stupidly strong, and the only reason he hadn¡¯t destroyed us was because of Adam. His body was incredibly resilient¡ªspells that would have killed me instantly barely did anything to him, so if he wanted to take Adam out for a few moments, he truly needed to push his spells. I couldn¡¯t predict who was going to win, but I was still ready to help if needed. I was still just rank four, and even with my core energy, I didn¡¯t think I could do enough damage, but I might be able to surprise him, so I stayed ready. What I didn¡¯t like was that Arabella moved closer. She was able to keep him from moving too freely, but no one could get too close to him¡ªotherwise, he would try to use his draining ability, which didn¡¯t seem to have any counter. They were slowly whittling him down. His body was healing incredibly fast, but I could see it starting to slow down. "Enough," and then he exploded, the blast being powerful enough to push us all back, but it didn¡¯t do any real damage. Unfortunately, that did give him some space, and before they could resume their attack, he managed to cast a spell that took almost a second to set up. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. He aimed it at the powerful spellcaster who had been able to consistently do real damage to him. "No!" I yelled but it was too late as Adam moved in front of the spell. Unfortunately, it wasn¡¯t an attack spell. As soon as it hit, it transformed into something else, and instead of doing any damage, I watched as Adam and the powerful spellcaster were launched into the horizon. We had lost. It took him only moments to kill the few others who had been able to keep up with him, leaving only Arabella and me. ¡°You two I won¡¯t kill. You, Rich, I believe is your name¡ªyour achievement page is tasty. I haven¡¯t had a harvest this good in a while. But you, Arabella, I thought I took you off the board. Instead, I drove you to the person I should have been keeping a better eye on. Who are you, Rich? Why are you so important?¡± I hoped that I could keep him distracted long enough for Adam and the spellcaster to get back, but I doubted it. Still, I pulled out my card. ¡°I think you¡¯ve been looking for me?¡± I said while showing him the card. He started to laugh. ¡°That damn fortune teller¡­ I¡¯m going to find her eventually and take whatever ability she has for myself. Still, she almost succeeded. But now it¡¯s time for you both to die.¡± He started with Arabella, and I rushed towards her. To my surprise, he actually let me. I could now see what he was doing properly. He sent energy tendrils toward her; they penetrated her heart and formed some kind of black hole-looking orb. I could feel it starting to suck everything she was into it. She looked at me and mouthed ¡°sorry.¡± I wasn¡¯t going to watch another loved one die. Attacking him would be useless, even with my core energy, but whatever ability he was using, it was based on energy and manipulating that¡ªwell, that I was good at. I grabbed a hold of that black hole and wrenched it out of her, causing her to black out, but it was still sucking her dry. ¡°That¡¯s impressive. I¡¯ve only seen a few who could manipulate this ability of mine. Still, it¡¯s useless. I¡¯ve made sure that nothing can interrupt this connection unless I want it to.¡± There was a lie there, but why? I noticed how the stream pulling everything toward him was incredibly inefficient, and he was also making sure that nothing reached him except for what he wanted, which was the few skills and abilities of hers he desired. I pulled the black orb into my own heart and watched the pull on Arabella stop. But now it was pulling from me. ¡°Well, congratulations, I guess. Didn¡¯t even know that was possible, but not to worry¡ªI¡¯ll take from her when you¡¯re dead. Still impressive.¡± He then properly started to pull from me. I could feel him trying to take the traits, abilities, and skills he wanted, while letting all my class experience simply disappear. There was nothing any of us could do against him anymore, especially when he got my traits and abilities. He was unkillable¡ªnothing in this world would stop him. This world¡­ ¡°You want what I have so much? Then take it all!¡± I stopped fighting the pull. Instead, I pushed into it but also took control of the energy as much as possible so he wouldn¡¯t be able to disregard my stat points and experience. It was hard, but this connection¡ªthis ability of his¡ªwanted to take everything. He had to fight against it, to disregard the things he didn¡¯t want, but I figured out why he didn¡¯t want them. He was so close to rank six. I should be able to help push him to reach it. It took him a moment to understand what was happening, and I saw that happy face of his morph into something terrified. ¡°No! Stop that! Don¡¯t¡ª¡± he continued to beg, but I didn¡¯t listen. I felt how my stat points were drained, how I lost my abilities and skills, but I made sure to keep my energy manipulation skills and abilities for as long as possible. I could see how my classes lost levels so fast. I even lost a few traits, but those weren¡¯t the important ones. He tried to attack me, but the abilities and spells he had channeled into this main ability of his made it impossible for anyone he targeted to damage him. But he never expected a need to damage them, so he didn¡¯t remove the immunity he had woven into this ritual of his. Finally, he stopped being stupid and started fighting on the energy level, which brought him some success, but he wasn¡¯t only fighting against me¡ªhe was fighting against his own abilities. ¡°You finally learned, but I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s too late.¡± I watched as my Adventurer class disappeared, then my Legendary field marshal. It didn¡¯t take long for my Prestigious true archer class to follow. One by one, my levels decreased from my First elder homesteader class. It was at level 7; I was so weak. Everything hurt so much. I was on the ground, barely conscious, when I saw it. He yelled so loudly, so angrily, but the next moment, he simply disappeared¡ªtaken from this world to who knows where. We had won. He was gone. Then I coughed out blood. I had made a mistake¡ªpushing so much out damaged me so much. But I kept some of my abilities and traits, which were now too powerful for my body to handle. ¡°Rich! Wake up, Rich!¡± I heard Arabella¡¯s voice. ¡°Healer! I need a healer!¡± Then I felt someone trying to heal me, but it was barely doing anything. Still, I managed to speak a few words, ¡°Take care of my f...¡± I felt more healing, but I didn¡¯t hear anything anymore¡ªthe blackness was coming in, and I hoped it would stay, but I still fought against it with everything I had. Then I felt a jolt, I came back, and I could hear words again. It was Adam who was speaking. ¡°I am sorry, Arabella. He is too damaged, and his own traits are killing him. He saved the worl...¡± Then the voices faded out again, and the blackness started to claim me once more. ¡°Hey, system, could you send me someplace that would finally put me to rest?¡± Those were the words I focused on it as I felt death coming. Then emptiness¡ªbut I wasn¡¯t unconscious. A moment later, I felt something brush against me, and I got the feeling of ¡°as you wish,¡± and then I was launched somewhere. Everything felt so empty, like there was nothing left except me. At the start, I felt other presences like me moving around, but soon everything fell silent. Was something supposed to happen, or was this my existence now? Then I felt it¡ª the edge of my consciousness slowly being sanded down. What¡¯s this? Was this that should have killed me so long ago but simply wasn¡¯t strong enough back then to end me? I was moving in some direction, always in the same direction, and the further I moved, the faster I was being destroyed. I tried to fight against it, as is my nature. Even if I wanted to die, I would struggle to my last with everything I had, but I think the system actually did what I asked. It sent me towards someplace that could even destroy me. Goodbye, everyone, and I¡¯m sorry I couldn¡¯t keep your memories for longer. I felt myself weakening. I don¡¯t know how much time had passed¡ªit was impossible to know¡ªbut I knew I was about to die. Finally, I would be able to rest. I was a bit sad that I couldn¡¯t keep homesteading. I would have liked to see what I could have done with a few centuries of simply farming a single piece of land. The end was near now, but then I felt it¡ªsomething grabbed hold of me. I tried to fight it, but it was pulling me and protecting me against the void. Not again. And then everything went black. The next moment, I opened my eyes and was surrounded by forest. I was fully naked, this time in an adult body. ¡°Son of a bitch.¡± THE END.