by David Burke
“I’m glad you are back,” his old trainer said. “I take it the meeting didn’t go very well.”
“Seemed fine to me, but I wasn’t in a very talkative mood. There is too much left to be done here. Meeka will just have to clean up the mess I made,” Kyle replied.
The former gladiator looked at him for a moment with his head cocked to the side. When Kyle didn’t expand any further, he said, “I’m getting recruits for the guild, but everyone wants to join your team. Essentially, the Adventurer’s Guild in Nargossa and Sacred Destiny are the same—at least in everyone’s mind.”
“This is good. It’s one of the things on my to-do list. We do need to build up an army, but I’d rather focus on quality than quantity.” He grinned at the smaller man. “Do you think you are up to being the trainer of an army?”
“No small jobs around you, I see.”
Kyle chuckled at that. “Go big or go home, I always say. So, are you up for it? There would be perks.”
“I’m interested in it, sure. I’m still handy with a blade, but I am wise enough to realize that I’ve lost my edge—though not so much that I can’t pass on my experience to the next generation. Question is, do you want me training gladiators, who are the best in individual combat, or adventurers who are the best in team efforts, especially against monsters?” Saber asked.
“Both and more. They also have to learn how to work together as a military unit. I’m not so naive as to think that once we officially take over Nargossa, that either Calrissi or Thena—likely both, though hopefully not at the same time—won’t try to take it from us.”
Saber whistled. “So… it’s true. You really do mean to become the lord of the city.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“Not just of this city. There are things I know because… well, just because I know them. There are some even bigger threats coming our way, and we’ll need a unified front if we are going to fight this enemy,” Kyle said.
“Things you know because you are the reincarnated war god?” Saber asked as nonchalantly as he could manage.
Kyle’s eyes bore down into the man as he dug into him with his divine senses through and through, looking for a trap. When he was confident that the man wasn’t the pawn of another god, he asked, “What do you know?”
“Very little… but I suspect much. I have waited for you to say something, out of respect, but if the situation is dire, then perhaps the time for beating around the bush is over.”
“For now, just assume that what you are guessing is correct. Gilthan or Nyda can fill you in a bit more. What I need to know is, will you be responsible for the training of an army or not?” Kyle pushed.
Saber paused.
Kyle could tell he was going to say yes, but the man was making at least the appearance of weighing his options.
Finally, he said, “Yes, but I will need some assistant trainers—especially people who are good at the structured, larger unit, military type combat. I can teach individual or small group tactics but not for larger units.”
“Then you had best get to recruiting,” Kyle chuckled. “You have my full authority to recruit. We will pay 1 silver per day for trainees. They aren’t likely to get a better deal than that anywhere else. There will be extra combat pay—and for those who excel, there will be other perks.”
“Sure, you want to dump all of this on me?” Saber asked. “I thought you’d want to have a direct hand in training these troops.”
“There are many things that demand my attention. If you are worried, rest assured that I won’t be relaxing or anything. But besides that, I have some rewards in mind for you ,if you take this task on,” Kyle replied.
“No offense, but I’m doing this to see something bigger than myself come together. I don’t need any extra coin—I have more than enough of that stored away,” the former gladiator said.
“I’m not talking about coin,” Kyle smirked. “So, will you take the job? Will you swear an oath of loyalty to me?”
Saber’s look said he was truly curious, but he gave his oath and then followed Kyle out into the training area.
Kyle told his new military commander to have a seat on the ground. Then sat down next to him. “To be clear,” he began, “I am still learning as I do this, but I believe I can enhance you.” Kyle didn’t go into detail explaining the difference between divine splinters, bloodline awakenings, or any of the other things he wanted to try.
Saber said nothing. Kyle took that as the man’s acquiesce, acknowledgment of the risk.
Each time he started using his essence to reshape the world around him, he learned something new. The power to create whatever he wanted was intoxicating. Kyle knew he had to resist becoming addicted to it. Not that he would refuse such a gift or balk when he truly needed to change reality, but he knew it was a slippery slope.
He needed to focus on growing in power, but also on making sure that power didn’t turn him into a tyrant.
He flooded raw essence into Saber as he brought the man into the cycle of the essence he was cultivating. There was only a tiny amount of essence within Saber at any point, but this was as Kyle expected. He was the same as every non-mage mortal that Kyle had scanned.
The thing was, he still had essence channels. They just had never been developed. They were rather emaciated and had various blockages in them, but blockages could be cleared and dried up channels could be brought back to life.
Kyle began slowly building more and more raw essence in Saber’s system. The man shook. His muscles tensed and he grabbed ahold of his legs. A slight groan escaped his lips. A large part of Kyle’s mind remained focused on the cultivation, but he opened his eyes to check on his friend.
Saber briefly dipped his head as a signal for Kyle to continue.
As the process continued, more and more of the raw essence built up within Saber. The flow within his channels started to pick up speed. If this worked correctly, Saber should have the aptitudes of a mage. Of course, what he did with those aptitudes would be up to Saber—it might still take him some time to learn how to use essence.
Kyle also intended to make changes that would be of more immediate benefit, though. While Saber didn’t have a latent bloodline—he was just a regular human—but that was still something Kyle could work with. He manipulated Saber’s DNA as he pushed the life-giving aspects of sea and earth essence into the man. All the while, he continued to build up strands of raw essence within the former gladiator.
Over the course of the next few hours, Saber’s body regained its youth right before their eyes. He looked at least ten years younger, but more than that, his muscles and bones became denser. His nervous system grew more and faster synapses. He experienced new growth and development akin to what might have once happened in his mother’s womb—if significantly accelerated.
The defects that limited his body over time as he’d aged were purified. Even his DNA became purer. More than that, his genetic background was improved and he became better than he had been, better than the potential that he’d inherited from his parents.
Kyle tried to go slow but wasn’t sure how long any of this was taking. His focus was more on ensuring the microscopic changes he was making weren’t hurting Saber than keeping track of time. So much so, that he almost didn’t notice the particular collection of one particular strand of raw essence.
In Kierra, it had been the purple essence which he associated with space. For Hilde and Gli, it was the red essence of fire. Now, inside Saber, the essence that seemed to stand out the most was a light-yellow color. He thought for a moment and then memories which were not his own reminded him that this essence was Wisdom Essence.
That made sense to him, since humanity had been born in this universe upon the death of the Goddess of Wisdom—along with elves, dwarves, and the glytharen. Humans were the closest to what the champions had been, once upon a time… before they had become gods.
Now, he had to figure out what to d
o with that knowledge. Perhaps the purple reflected Kierra’s fiendish heritage? The reason he wasn’t sure about his hypothesis was that Fire Essence had spawned the birth of the first dragons.
If that was so, then why did his beautiful celestial have an inherited link with fire? Celestials had been born from the death of Nade, Goddess of Mercy. Of course, Hilde’s people were not directly connected to the rest of the celestials. They thrived on raw essence, unlike any other of their cousins.
There was more here he didn’t understand, but he would have to work at it. For now, he needed to focus. A part of him wondered why Krig had never done this with his warriors, but Kyle felt he already knew the answer. Krig and his kind had learned the art of cultivation long ago on a world in a different universe, and Krig likely felt that giving away this power—enhancing mortals like Kyle was doing now—would have shortcut the natural order of things.
That was why he’d pushed the mortals to continual conflict. He believed that it was only through struggle, that they would find the means to improve themselves. As Kyle hadn’t gone through the same process, there was nothing but pragmatic need to drive him. Kyle felt an enemy was coming and knew that this enemy would require an army to fight it, but a traditional army would be insufficient.
If there wasn’t one suitable for the task, then Kyle would create one. He just hoped he had enough time.
Saber’s form had consolidated. The man was no longer trembling, although he was going to need new clothes and new armor, as many buckles had popped when his frame expanded. But there was still one more thing to do.
Kyle could have waited to see if the man would develop an aptitude for one or more essences on his own, but that just wasn’t gonna cut it. He couldn’t leave this essential aspect to chance. In order for the new breed of warrior Kyle needed in his army—which Saber now represented—to be effective, they would have to fight with more than just their natural, physical gifts.
With time, Saber might develop more, but for now, war essence was still what came most naturally to Kyle, so that is what he pushed into Saber. Kyle shaped the man’s essence channels to accept and process this signature power. Then, when he thought he had reached the limits of Saber’s mortal capacity, he pushed even more War Essence into him.
He willed a change in the essence, condensing its power into a denser form. This was where the risk he’d warned the old gladiator about came in; he already knew that not every mortal would have this aptitude. But since Saber was a man who had trained and fought his entire life, having reached the pinnacle of individual martial excellence, Kyle figured that if any mortal could handle a greater amount of War Essence, it would be a man like his friend.
Kyle felt the resistance build as he increased the density of the essence he fed into the man. Saber’s channels just weren’t prepared to circulate that density of essence. Carefully, he pushed. He was cautious, going slow so as not to rupture anything until finally, with a pop, the flow began.
Kyle had created a Monster Tier mage out of a man who, a few hours ago, had never wielded essence in his life.
The strain knocked Saber out, and Kyle gently picked him up, carrying the man to his quarters. It would be interesting to see what he could do—after he woke up, that is. Kyle wondered how long his friend would be out for.
He didn’t miss Maevis, standing off in a corner of the training yard, staring wide eyed at what Kyle had done to Saber. Jealousy was clear on her face, but Kyle didn’t say a word. She would need to do more than surrender control of the guild to him, if she expected to get any attention from him.
Chapter 10 - Running Wild
Kyle was surprised to find he’d been working on the changes in Saber all afternoon. The sun was already setting, this day was virtually over. He hadn’t accomplished even half of what he’d intended. He sighed. Apparently tampering with regular mortals was a much slower process than with those who’d already had an innate power for him to awaken.
The results couldn’t be argued with, though. Saber might have to sleep it off, but he was clearly going to be significantly more powerful than he had been before. The only question would be just where he would end up on the power scale. Kyle was hoping that he would be at least low Monster Tier, but only time would tell.
A core of Monster Tier soldiers would go a long way to creating the army that Kyle envisioned he’d need to fight the void.
After dropping Saber off in his quarters and tucking the man in, he’d walked back out into the training yard. The sun that was setting in the west was just a fiery semi-circle sinking below the horizon. The problem was, Kyle wasn’t ready to settle in for the night. With this much raw essence running through him, he didn’t know if he’d ever truly need to sleep. He might do so, but only because it was relaxing—more out of a force of habit—but he felt as fresh as the moment he woke up this morning.
It dawned on him that there was another member of his team who favored the night. He focused on his connection to Kierra and decided to go find her. Meeka hadn’t filled him in on the tasks the rest of his team had been assigned, and he didn’t want to track the noblewoman down to find out. She would undoubtedly want to talk about the meeting with the Governor, and he just had no stomach for politics at the moment.
There. He could sense Kierra. Interestingly, she was a few miles out, well south of Nargossa. Maybe she had been tasked to scout the territory? As he sensed her emotional state, if he had to guess, he’d say that she was hunting. He could feel her anticipation, how keyed up she was. He only ever sensed emotions from her like that when she wasn’t hunting when she hungered for more intimate meat. That thought brought a smile to his face.
Well, it would certainly be a pleasant evening for a run. He leapt over the wall that surrounded their compound and took off at a jog. At first, he was just trotting through the streets of Nargossa on his way towards the gate. By the time he approached the city wall, surprised to see that the guard had been quadrupled and the gates were already shut, he’d lengthened his stride and was running.
Maybe this had something to do with the refugees coming up from the south? Kyle reached out with his senses but didn’t detect any monsters near the city. Maybe Kierra was busy driving monsters away. That would be like her.
Then, he caught a flicker of something else. He could sense another divine splinter off to the south. One of Dod’s broken pieces was there. Maybe this trip would be worth more than simply just time spent with Kierra.
He quickly looked around, but then decided it didn’t matter if anyone saw him. With a lunge and then a powerful leap, he was soaring through the air, arcing over the wall to land a hundred feet on the other side. Truthfully, his mastery of sky essence might not be up to Gilthan’s level yet, but he could fly—as he had already proven. But there was just something so much more satisfying about using his body to its full potential, rather than essence.
Now, he was sprinting down the road in Kierra's general direction. He did take notice of the tent city that had formed up outside the city walls. Few of the refugees looked to be in decent shape. They must have fled whatever happened to the south rather quickly. There were a few families, but more often than not, he only saw mothers and crying children gathered together, without a man in sight.
He made a mental note to find out more about what was happening. Verden could obviously be a harsh world, but he still wanted to know about something that affected the corner of it he was set on bringing under his control. For now, though, he simply ran.
His pace ate up the miles and, before long, he was closing in on a Kierra. When he came upon her, she was fighting in a dried-out riverbed with her back to the steep berm that made up its bank. She was under assault from several undead. Each one that got close was ripped to shreds by her deadly claws. But even as she dismembered them, it wasn’t enough to stop them.
The severed limbs continued to inch along the ground towards her. She had not only to dodge the crude weapon swings of the
various undead who were still standing undead, but also the grasping hands that crept along the ground.
Watching her, Kyle realized she was a thing of beauty in battle, more graceful than a dancer, more agile than an acrobat. He paused for a moment to take full stock of the situation. He didn’t have Hilde’s flame with which to destroy the undead, but there had to be other options.
Kyle wasn’t worried that the undead could harm them. Either he or Kierra could readily escape them. What he worried about, was how to permanently destroy them. For now, he decided he would just have to bury their parts.
But then his observations bore fruit. He spotted two figures on the far side of the river; they were simply standing there, watching. Closer observation with his divine senses showed that the smaller of the two figures was positively suffused with death essence. He was robed, like a mage, but had so much death flowing in him that Kyle found it hard to believe he was a living man.
