Master of the Hoard - Chapter 33 (Patreon)

The rest of the encounter was clean-up, and not the liberating kind. I spent a couple of minutes going over the downed Dweelers with my breath weapon, making sure that every single one of them was down for the count.

"Sire, are you certain this is going to work?" Aelis was staring at the prostrate monsters, not a twitch revealing the nervousness that emanated from her. I couldn't really blame her. If all the monsters were to rise at the same time, we'd be seriously outmatched.

"No - not entirely - but from what I've seen so far, it should. You can't tell me that nobody has experimented with the distribution of experience before?"

Arthor walked to the fore. "Not that we know of. It's ridiculous, really. Who would willingly share their experience with others?" Behind his flippancy, I could feel an emotion I hadn't experienced stemming from him before. Was it... fondness? Surely not.

I huffed. "It doesn't cost me anything, and the stronger you are, the better off we all are as a group. Let's test this properly, though, so we know exactly how things work."

The following hour wasn't fun or pretty. In fact, even heavily censored, it would never have made it to the movies. First we experimented with the results, and then we went through every single monster, making sure that everybody in the group had caused light damage to each Dweeler. Then we killed them. That was probably the most humane part of the encounter.

Afterwards, while the Talpi were busy carving up the scrawny monsters for meat, I sat with Arthor a ways off from the stench. He was looking at his paw, holding his pet rock aloft in the air with a focused look.

I broke the silence. "This is a broken system."

He grimaced as his concentration broke and the rock hit his paw. "What kind of dragon are you? It's kill or be killed. We have been over this several times now."

I shook my head. "No, I'm getting used to that part. I don't like it. It’s inhumane and I’m probably a horrible person for getting accustomed to it. What I mean is this, we've just figured out that everybody receives full experience from every kill, regardless of the number of killers or the damage you do. That's completely broken. Every normal system would..." I waved expansively with a claw, "grant you a part of the experience based on the damage you've done or something."

Arthor huffed. "Want to change the will of Deyra? Good luck."

"No. I just don't get why every group doesn't do what we do. Share kills." I mean, sure, it stank of cruelty, even if you could find slaughtering techniques back on Earth that were less humane. But the efficiency of it could not be denied.

He shrugged. "Oh, we do share the experience when we can get away with it. It's rarely possible for our kind to subdue our enemies. We have to take what we can get. As for you dragons or other deadly monsters - apart from you, I haven’t heard about you being good at sharing.' He looked pensive for a while. "I'm sure there are others who share kills - but, you know, our conversation partners inside the mountain are few in number."

"I get it.” I rested my head on the floor, thinking aloud. "So, basically, what you're saying is that we have an incredible opportunity here.”

Arthor's paw was digging under his chin, but froze. "That's what I said?"

"Yeah. Bear with me. So, we've just agreed that the very best way for everybody to gain in levels fast is for everybody to join in on all kills, right? And to date we have, the Clenchers - a race that's practically perfect for catching smaller prey? On top of that, we have some good defenders in the Crawls and a handful of talented earth specialists that are able to trap most enemies inside the earth itself - and we have me, who can weaken most enemies to the point of collapse. Are you following?" I grinned at him.

"I... Yes. What you’re saying is that we could become a power in the mountain.”

“That’s exactly my point. We’ve been working in the right direction for a while already, but combining our powers and doubling down on training…” I let my message trail out.

Arthor nodded his head carefully. “With that, I believe we might eventually reach the top of the mountain itself. I need to know, however, and weigh your words - do you mean this? Are you willing to share that much with us?"

I looked him in the eyes. "I don’t go back on my word. I mean this with every fibre of my being. I know it's everybody for himself here - but I have always believed that having a good team raises me up. To the best of my abilities, I'll do anything to ensure that my success is our success."

He swallowed and I could feel a sensation of hope worming its way away from him. "In that case, how about I make sure those laggards get to work?"

The experience from the Dweelers was bountiful and pushed me halfway to level 14. Before applying my hard-earned attribute points, I decided to look at my personal info. It had been a while and I wanted to see what had all changed.

Personal Info:

Name: Onyx

Race: Fledgling Shadow Dragon. Level 13 – experience toward next level: 7100/13000

Size: Very large

Stats and Attributes:

Health: 260/420

Mana: 135/290

Strength: 23

Toughness: 42

Agility: 52

Mental Power: 29

Mental Control: 59

Health regeneration rate: 42/Hour

Mana regeneration rate: 366/Day

I felt very good about my development. Sure, I wasn’t the toughest bastard out here and definitely not the strongest, but I was agile enough that it made a huge difference. Heh. And I could prove it. Half a tribe of Dweelers had just tried to take me down and failed. My mana regen was through the roof as well and I still got two free points to that one each level. No need to throw additional points into that. No, this time, I decided to go all-in on Mental Power. I’d enjoyed experiencing exactly how effective my Weakening Fog was when applied against lower-level monsters and would definitely need to be able to hit harder if I was to improve my survival against tougher foes. There was still that other potential dragon out there that might detect me sooner rather than later.

For the Talpi, the gain was even better. Every single Talpus, including Aelis, Roth and Arthor, gained a level and most of the less outgoing ones even gained two. The scrawny Dweelers looked decidedly unappetizing and bony, but Aelis assured me that there would be food for weeks and that the legs were a delicacy. The butcher work would be an ongoing process for at least half a day, but I told them to load me and some of the Crawls up with food and send us back with a single scout. No need for us all to just stand around and watch.

Soon, we were back in my domain again, spreading the good news to everybody in sight. Not much had happened since we were gone. Only a day and a half had passed, and so I went straight to the Clenchers to resume my training. At this point, the Clencher male pretty much understood all my commands. I was keeping it simple, still, but had added rewards to my regimen. Small pieces of raw flesh for when he did well. If the ugly creature had a tail, I actually think he would've wagged it when he saw me.

Though, I almost killed one of the Talpi with sheer shock. Or at least, that's what it looked like. Since the training was going so well, I decided to try something new and take the Clencher male for a walk outside his enclosure. Of course, I neglected to mention this to the workers and the Talpus carrying meat into our wannabe freezer looked like he had a heart attack when he saw the huge form lumbering along next to me. His obvious panic was enough that the Clencher tried to get away from me to get to the meal on legs, and I was forced to throw my weight on the carnivore, holding him down until he relented. On the whole, the Clencher did well, though. We did a tour of the place and ended with a short walk outside the base, both to get him used to my minions and to acclimatize him to my presence outside familiar places. The trip in itself was wholly uneventful, and I praised the ugly good boy more than he really deserved. When I left the Clencher, however, one tiny detail had changed, and I let out a low, pleased growl. The minion count in my domain had just increased and the Clencher male was now a green dot at my side instead of a hostile red! I did not throw a party right away as the handful of traitorous Talpi who tried to jump me a while back were ample proof that you could be part of my domain and still backstab me. Regardless, I reveled in the tangible proof that I was winning over the Clencher to my side. After a moment of confusion, I realized that the Clencher actually counted as 4 minions – maybe this was Deyra’s subtle way of balancing the system, so I couldn’t have 100 Clenchers under me. Bah. Ah, well. I was still at a minion count of 52 with a max of 100. Plenty of room to grow.