“Good, it seems that you are developing well. Focus your efforts on King’s Hill, if others attack then the outer outposts can flee and pull back, small parties will find it easy to move through the Beast Mountain Range, an army? Well, they’ll piss off every animal around,” Evernight said.
“Are we going to be attacked?”
“Maybe?” Evernight shrugged.
“I wish you weren’t so cavalier about it all,” Aditya sighed as he felt his heartburn acting up.
“My employers are interested in controlling the Beast Mountain Range, nothing more. They want to do trade here and recruit capable and loyal people from those amongst the population. That is it. Now if something threatens the Beast Mountain Range, truly threatens it, there are a number of things that they can do. I’m not sure but just one team could probably destroy a country without the subterfuge they used to make the Zatan Confederation collapse.”
It was too clean and well-timed to be anything but. It has been some time but to destroy a country out in the open without exterior help. Are they more confident in their power or they just really don’t want to lose their investment here?
“Keep up the good work’ Reinforce the outer outposts but build up King’s Hill the greater benefits you have to the other powers and the harder you are to fight, the less willing they will be to fight you.”
“What about this Adventurer’s Guild that has appeared?” Aditya asked.
“They’re a good group, there might be some issues with other groups being annoyed that they’re taking people from among their ranks but don’t worry, they'll help if you need it.”
“I heard that they say they have places in higher realms. That adventurers can go to higher realms through them?” Aditya asked.
“I’ve heard the same,” Evernight said in a way that made Aditya close his mouth. He had gained some trust but there were still things he didn’t know about his mysterious masters.
“They should be able to exert some greater control over the mercenaries and other fighting groups that can be seen in the outposts. If people want to join their ranks and go to the higher realms then they will need to prove themselves.”
“That is, if they survive. With the recent activities in the Beast Mountain Range, the beasts have increased in strength and numbers, the last couple of years they have been quiet and their numbers limited for some reason. Now they’re stronger than before.”
“Is it an issue for your traders?”
“No, it is an issue for the different road-building crews. We increased the number of fighters protecting them and we haven’t had many issues. Pan Kun is now using it as a training opportunity. We’re quickly getting some of the highest leveled guards out there. Though, many of the fighters are looking at the guards and looking at the Adventurer’s Guild, looking between the choices of staying here for the rest of their lives and being under our command or heading to the higher realms and having greater freedom. I don’t know if having the Adventurer’s Guild will be a good or a bad thing in the end,” Aditya voiced his true concerns.
Evernight smiled and pulled out a piece of paper.
“This is from the leader of my people,” she put it on the table.
Aditya looked at it and then back up to Evernight unconsciously asking her permission to open it.
She chuckled and waved for him to get on with it.
He opened the letter and read the contents.
His expression turned serious as he read through it all.
“So the leader of your people is interested in recruiting from the guard ranks, picking out those that they trust and have proven their loyalty and giving them complete training, not just the training that they received before we took the outposts?”
“That’s pretty much the way of things. They will be offered an opportunity to go to the higher realms, to learn more about crafting and more that they wouldn’t have access to before. This means that you can keep on pulling in more recruits and you will have a group of guards that if you come under attack will return to assist you and be much more powerful, possibly as strong as people in the Fourth Realm?”
We are losing some of our best guards if we do this, but there will be some that remain, they can train the new recruits coming in with this new soldier training. Their roots will be here, and if we are under threat then we can get their help. It also binds us more closely to this mysterious power and directly.
“If we come under attack, what will our masters do?” Aditya asked.
“Depends really, every situation can have a different solution,” Evernight said.
“What if it is something that we can’t deal with, that we’ll be destroyed for?” Aditya pushed.
Evernight looked at Aditya, her playful smile fading as she looked up at the ceiling.
“No one in the first three realms should be able to threaten you, the Alchemist Association has no interest. Those of the higher realms have so many resources that are better than what can be found in the first two realms that it wouldn’t make sense for them to come down here. Only a group that is too powerful or too large would make us act. King’s Hill and Vermire allow us a direct connection to the outside world, through you we have had fifteen thousand people join our ranks and you are sending more every day. You have created a shadow city effectively. A city that we can exert power through into the First Realm. We have placed a lot into this endeavor. If something comes along and threatens the Beast Mountain Range, we can still disappear. We would take all of those that we could who were innocent or loyal and place them under our direct protection. If the power learns of us though. Well, we can’t very well just hide. At that time you’d see the true power of my people.”
Aditya felt the weight in her gaze.
“Thank you,” Aditya said, feeling relieved. He didn’t want to seem like another outpost lord trying to save his own skin but everything he had was on the line. All of his people, all of his guards, all he had made. When he started it was to accrue power and spit in the eyes of others that had pushed him down or to the side because of his injuries. He’d become attached to the people around him and couldn’t insulate himself from them all. While King’s Hill was a large undertaking the reason that his people in Vermire hadn’t become a problem was because he had supported them for so long that now they supported him. A large portion of the people in King’s Hill were from Vermire.
“So, how are the numbers looking for the market? I’ve heard that you’ve been making a large profit and that the first auctions have gone off well, a number of people were talking about them on my travels. Some were calling it an unofficial meeting of the outpost lords as they created a bidding war among themselves,” Evernight smiled again.
“I wish that they wouldn’t make such a show in public, we have the private auctions as well for the items that we don’t’ want to put on the public market but they’re traders and fighters to the bone!”
Their conversation had a relaxed tone as Aditya reported on Vermire, King’s Hill and the rest of the Beast Mountain Range.
***
Qin and Julilah were in the Vuzgal Library, it was packed with people supervised by the librarians that drifted around the building. People joked that if the Vuzgal defense force were defeated, all it would need was someone stepping into the library and raising their voice for the attacking force to be defeated.
The librarians spent their time caring for the library, but in their spare time, they traded insights into what they had learned.
By themselves, they were powerful combat experts. When they had learned of combat techniques, they had created a whole section of how people could create new combat techniques and all of the techniques that they had created.
Many of them were also part of Tanya’s new school of pure magic, like crafters they spent an inordinate amount of time, figuring out the combination of different attribute mana that a person combined together to create a spell.
Julilah jotted down a note on her pad of paper an
d sat back in her chair.
“That should work,” she muttered to herself.
Qin had her eyes screwed up, trying to mentally picture the formation that she was thinking of creating.
She was drawing out partial sketches, focusing on different parts.
Julilah made some more notes, looking at the gathered information and waited.
Qin finished up her sketches and looked at the different interlinking runes and circles that would create the formation.
“Ugh, too many linking damn circles, going to be a big power loss,” Qin grumbled.
“Qin, what if we made a power formation and then added formations to it?”
“Well formations already have that,” Qin said.
“With your component formations you can say have one formation that is a mana barrier and then another that adds in, buffing the people in the area of the mana barrier. With an attack formation, you can have a formation that summons a flame, you add in another formation and the flame becomes a fireball, then another and you can direct where the fireball attacks. Where does the power come from?”
“It comes from the first formation. Right now the base formation can only have three other formations that support the original formation or add another effect like buffing those people in its range, beyond that and the power is too much. Why?”
“So my formations are much smaller and I’m reaching a power ceiling with my current materials. I can change materials and then the power would increase but it would hit that ceiling again in the future. I am wondering if there is a way to boost the base formations. Formations aren’t that flexible,” Julilah said.
“Yeah, basically a reusable spell scroll, power it up again and use it all over as long as it's not damaged,” Qin nodded.
“Yeah, so I took another routes: amplification formations,” Julilah said, leaning forward, getting heated about the topic.
“Formations to amplify the spells cast inside them?” Qin nodded, she’d made a number of them herself. For the defense of Vuzgal and key supplies for the Alva Army, all peak crafters that received the benefits of Alva were requested to make high-tier supplies to support the military. She and Qin had made several amplification formations, tied into the mana-storing formations at Vuzgal and Alva.
“I had a look at that and reviewed our notes on the formation sockets. The power component of the formations is usually the first to burn out or deform until the formation can’t be used. They have to be inlaid perfectly and not cross any of the controlling circles or runes or they might diverge and turn the formation into scrap. Like the rifles and weaponry of the army, what if we were to plug in controlling formations into a power formation?” Julilah looked at Qin with expectant eyes.
“It should work,” Qin was looking at the desk, not seeing it as she organized her thoughts.
“So, yes having a formation to be the power source and using formation sockets to direct that power would work, still the effect of the formation would be limited by the formation socket,” Qin said.
“What if it was a power formation as the base and we linked in amplification formations?” Julilah’s breath was heated, staring at her friend.
Qin frowned, her eyes tracking left and right.
“I...I don’t see a problem with it,” Qin looked at her friend. “With that kind of formation, then our mages could use it, crafters could use it as well to have greater control over their spells. Then if they plug in a formation socket, it turns from amplifying their spells to another type of formation. Go from hurling meteors, to plugging in a healing formation socket. What if we could combine that with the armor of the Army? Wait, where are you going?”
“Formations to make and theories to test out!”
“You! Wait up!” Qin yelled and ran after her friend.
A throat was cleared and the two of them saw a librarian frowning at them and looking at the books that they had left in the private room they had been working in.
The two girls looked at one another and meekly bowed their heads to the librarian and went to clean up the books and put them on the cart to be reshelved.
The librarian smiled at them and walked on peacefully, mana seemed to flow around them, their control reached an incredibly high stage, through training, or cultivating their body and mana gates.
Qin and Julilah quickly shuffled out of the library making sure to not make too much noise. Once they were out of the library they broke out into a run, racing towards the formation workshops.
The two of them sped across the grounds, using their combat techniques that they had picked up that were mandatory classes for Alvans.
Chapter: Raiding Orcs
The stalls were quiet compared to the last month and a half the group had healed countless people.
Rugrat cracked his back as he looked at the smithy that he had practically lived in the entire time, repairing and creating weapons.
He hit his mug filled with beer against Erik’s before they both tapped the mugs on the table and took deep drinks.
“Looks like things are turning out for the better now. Even for the crippled people you and the rest of the team healed in your free time. Some created groups and stood on the walls, killing beasts, leveling up,” Rugrat said.
“Once everyone got into a rhythm it got easier, six damn weeks though,” Erik drank his own beer as he opened and closed his free hand, sending healing spells into it and his arm.
“They are hauling in the bodies of the beasts and cutting them up. Traders will swarm here soon enough and there isn’t anyone left to heal. Actually, people might start asking questions about us," Rugrat said.
"Time to leave?"
"I think so," Rugrat said. The two of them sat there and drank their beers in silence.
“Three days? Get everyone rested and ready,” Erik said.
“Makes sense to me,” Rugrat said. “What about our reward?”
“Five percent of the total haul? Get it in cash.”
“You know that they’ll short change us.”
“I know, but do we really need mana stones that badly?” Erik drank from his mug again.
“Try and get ingredients and materials from them as well. Sure we can grow a lot of stuff down below, but its just lying around up here.”
“You have a point Rugrat. Alright We’ll get it in resources, everything else in mana cornerstones if we can.”
***
Three days later, Erik, Rugrat and their Special team snuck out of their inn under the cover of night and were in an abandoned alley checking their gear.
Night was a relative term. The glowing plants and crystals that lit up the city didn’t stop while the light formations were dimmed down so that people could have something close to a normal sleeping schedule.
Compared to the system in Alva, it was unremarkable.
“We’re clear,” Storbon said as he jogged back from the alley entrances. Lucinda was watching the entrance with her beasts making sure that no one was following them or could enter the alley.
“Helmets on,” Erik said.
“Badass,” Rugrat grinned as he pulled his helmet on.
“As long as it’s not part of that kickass set you made me,” Erik said, shifting his cloak so it wasn’t hiding his body armor any more and he could move his arms freely.
They pulled on the helmets they were a new build, they covered their entire heads. They looked like faceless killers, the helmet had no eye slots.
Formations like those screens that were used in Vuzgal allowed them to see outside the helmet with only a small limit to their vision.
Another formation controlled the environment inside the helmet, keeping it from getting too hot or cold and pumping in more air . It would also purify the air if they were attacked with poison.
==========
Commander Helmet MK2
==========
Defense:
387
Weight:
4.5 kg
Charge:
Durability:
100/100
Slot:
Takes up helmet slot
Innate Effect:
Increase defense by 5%
Socket One:
Vision projection—See through helmet’s armor.
Socket Two:
Clean air—Air is cleaned and temperature regulated
Requirements:
Agility 42
Strength 42
==========
“Feels like I’m a modern knight,” Rugrat said, his voice reaching their ears, built-in comms were also added.
Erik smirked in his helmet.
“This is badass,” Yao Meng said to the laughter of others, saying what Erik was thinking.
Erik adjusted his gloves.
==========
Tropic Thunder
==========
Defense:
157
Weight:
1. 8 kg
Charge:
1,000/1,000
Durability:
100/100
Slot:
Takes up glove slot
Innate Effect:
Stores blood energy
Socket One:
Sixth Realm Page 30
