Chapter 10 Part 3 of 3 (Patreon)

***

It took hours before Erik was released from the medic’s custody.

An intelligence officer was waiting with information books.

The dust had barely settled on the ground as Erik frowned.

“Thank you. Seems it has been a busy two weeks.” Erik’s mind worked quickly. “Seems that everything is taken care of. So there isn’t anything for me to do. In that case I have something to talk to Rugrat about.”

“He’ll be at the school,” Storbon said, the special teams had rotated in and out quickly. There were plenty of missions that required their attention.

“Kanesh Academy it is,” Erik said. They left the cultivation training center. Erik smiled as he felt someone rapidly approaching.

Gilly raced up the side of the metal mountain. She was bigger than before, her markings more vibrant.

She half came to a stop, her momentum and weight would have staggered Erik before. He took her full weight with a laugh.

“Are you a small lizardling! Damn lap monster,” Erik laughed as Gilly licked him eagerly, clambering all over him as if she was a small baby lizard.

She calmed down a bit as Erik gave her scratches and belly rubs.

“Come on, we’re going to find Rugrat, then George and then we’re going to put you and George into monster tempering school. I guess that I should join you in it as well.”

Erik’s hand reached his chest unconsciously. Gilly lowered her head poking his chest with her snout. She poked him a few times before sniffing.

She pulled back her head, looking at him with her large eyes.

He patted her side and climbed up on her back. She expanded to her full size, her rear and forward legs had developed more but she had leathery frills and extended elbows.

“Sure looks like a Dragonling to me,” Tian Cui said.

“Can you fly?” Erik asked. Gilly turned her neck back to look sideways at him. She shook her head, though Erik could understand enough through their connection.

“She’s tried a few times with limited results. She keeps sneaking to the fire floor to try it  out, the heat gives her more lift probably. George makes fun of her. But he and Davin make sure she’s safe.”

“A water Breathing and Earth altering Dragon, I thought they were all fire related,” Storbon shrugged.

“Well, she might not be a true dragon, or the simple fact that fire looks badass might make people only talk about the fire dragons,” Erik patted Gilly’s side. She set off forward at a sprint.

“Shit! Wait for us!” Tian Cui yelled as the four person special team ran after the duo.

Erik had nearly been thrown off, he threw himself forward, grabbing onto his handle.

He sent a reproachful thought at Gilly. She looked back with a dragon’s grin.

Well I couldn’t very well stay angry at that could I?

***

“Yeah, that is weird,” Rugrat nodded as Erik finished telling him about his tempering. Rugrat had already told Erik about his experience as well.

“So are you still at the starting stage, what do you have to do now?” Erik asked.

“So the solid core is drawing in mana all on its own, I passed the low stage and I’m at the middle stage, I really held my mana cultivation back, now that I am in a place with all of this gear and training supplies my level’s been shooting up.”

“Calm down there rocket man.”

“Anyway, the next stage is mana heart, been looking at the information we have. Mana heart basically transforms the mana veins. Instead of just storing mana in the core, it spreads out. Goes through the mana veins again and enters the rest of the body. The mana heart is the center of it all, just like our regular heart. But instead of oxygen it’s mana that’s moving through the body, the gates are the mouth and lungs, the heart core, then sends it through the secondary less used mana channels and into the body.”

“The monster core, the mana core, the two cultivation systems are linked and share a lot of similarities. Pure mana increases mana cultivation, the attributes that are connected to the mana increase cultivation,” Erik said.

“It must be possible to do them both. But that would take a ton of resources. Slow and steady working on one and then the other is the easiest,” Rugrat said.

“What do you think about the fighting and what’s going on?” Erik changed the subject.

Rugrat let out a sigh, he rubbed his face and stood up. They were in the manor, one of the last remaining buildings by the gnomes. It was officially Erik and Rugrat’s home but they’d spent such little time here. A secondary council building had been built since Erik had jumped in to complete his metal tempering.

People didn’t want to return to the dungeon headquarters where the mana pillar, while reduced, was still shooting down into the ground day and night.

“The whole thing is complicated. We kept Alva secret to protect everyone. Elise has created a trading guild that spreads across five realms. Jia Feng operates three academies filled with crafters. We operate some two massive dungeons, Alva and under Vuzgal. Multiple small dungeons. We own a city in the Fourth Realm, and control a growing regional power in the First Realm. An army of twenty thousand strong. Population in the hundreds of thousands, Blaze and Jasper have built an Adventurer’s Association in the hundreds of thousands across several realms. Like, just think about it all. Wandering Inns, Sky Reaching Restaurants, think of all our friends, and our people. I had no idea what we were stepping into when we left Earth, that’s for sure,” Rugrat put his hand beside the window, looking at the dungeon headquarters. “The question is simple. What happens if people figure out the truth, find out we’re behind the Institute attacks, we run the Beast Mountain Range, Vuzgal is owned by people who call the Frst Realm home.”

“Well, we’ve got two options. One, we don’t care and take them all on, we show our might, put the fear into our enemies. Two, we hold back, we ready ourselves, keep the secret as long as possible.” Erik said.

“Glosil has already talked about this before and his answer made the most sense,” Rugrat snorted and looked at Erik.

“If we reveal the secret, we lose the trump card of surprise. The longer we hold it, then the more room we have to maneuver. I have the feeling that at some point, they’ll figure at least some of the connections. Shit, it might scare the hell out of them.”

“Why?” Erik asked.

“Dude, man, brother, I just told you all about Alva’s people, all of the things we’ve got going on. At this point we could go head to head with the Willful Institute, we’re not just two dudes running for the Beast Mountain Range Trial to get away from Second Realm sect students.”

“They have the numbers, the cities, it’s a massive sect,” Erik argued.

“Yeah, a sect, people have their own cares and alliances, look how Elan has had them dancing in his hand with a few moves! They don’t have a standing army, our people are actually stronger on average. We’ve made things open to everyone, while they close them off to conserve resources. Free access to information, classes to the Novice level are free. Apprentice classes with support and prices that won’t destroy a person’s future.”

“You know sometimes you make sense.”

“Well it’s a Friday!”

“Is it?”

“Hell if I know.”

“How’s Egbert doing?” Erik nodded his chin to the skull in a box on Rugrat’s belt.

“So when I was cultivating, Egbert repaired or upgraded faster. So I got some help from Tan Xue and Qin, made a Egbert head charging box! Just a metal box charged with mana stones, a small mana cultivation training room.

“Why the window? And why didn’t you take the duct tape off of his face?”

Rugrat unclipped the box.

“Well, didn’t want to just put him in a metal box, be inconsiderate. I’ve been meaning to take it off, but I forgot, fused the box together and have to cut it open with a mana knife, recarve the formations.”

“Summarized, you think it will be funny and you want to scare people with the skull on your belt?”

Rugrat held up a finger to refute Erik. His eyes moved back and forth.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Erik rolled his eyes.

“Alright, well lend me George for a little bit. I got a quest from the Ten Realms. We know that beasts can increase their ability by consuming other powerful ingredients and monster cores. I think that they can increase their power in a way similar to tempering their bodies. Gilly got stronger being with me on the Earth floor. George is always hanging out on the Fire floor. I want to go and talk to Davin, then talk to the beast trainers and see if we can’t start training our mounts in the body cultivation training centers.”

“Sure, worth a shot. What are you going to do with your monster core thing?”

Erik’s face crumpled as he let out a pained sigh. “Bouchard and the other body cultivation experts want to run tests, feed me different ingredients then different meats then consume a monster core normally and then eat it.”

“You can eat a monster core? Wait, ingredients? Like the ingredients that we feed to the beast mounts?”

“Good talk, I’ll see you later, lots to do!” Erik slapped his legs and stood.

Rugrat laughed.

“They want to feed you beast kibble! Oh come on! Maybe it will help with the hair!”

Erik touched his head, with the metal tempering, all of his hair had fallen out, it was nothing more than a shiny Q-ball.

“Shut up!” Erik said. Rugrat’s laughter only grew as Erik marched out of the room.

“Asshole.”

“Ask Delilah if she can make you a concoction, miracle hair grower! Maybe Zhou Heng can make you a wig!” Rugrat yelled at his retreating back, snorting and chuckling.

Erik signaled his goodbye with a middle finger, he could hear Rugrat down the corridor. Erik pulled out his sound transmission device.

“Umm, Delilah, I was wondering…”

***

Rex Tallahassee had worked on ranches most of his life, when he got the Two Week Curse he’d drank himself into a stupor, his girlfriend left him because ‘he had no future’. It had been a mean joke.

When he appeared in the Ten Realms it had been a big adjustment. He’d been close to a town. He learned about the Ten Realms there and helped out farmers with their trained livestock.

Someone must have talked and Knights appeared one day. He was captured and taken to a city in the Shikoshi Kingdom.

There he’d met the other Earthers, the rest was common history after that.

“Hmm, in good health, been eating well. Good activity. No abnormal injuries,” He finished examining Gilly who preened at the praise. He tossed her a hunk of meat. She snapped it out of the air as George looked over at Gilly and then pouted at Rex who pretended to not see.

“So what do you think?” Erik asked.

Rex had joined the beast trainers in Alva, adjusting diets, exercise and training he brought modern practices to the beast trainers.

“Well, you know I’m always looking for new ways to train beasts. Right now we’re focused on raising as many beasts for the military as possible. We’re having to tame wild beasts, breed others and then raise the youngest. With the massive military population we have seven different breeds of panthers for just the regular army. Then dozens of other beasts for artillery squads, mage squads, close protection get whatever they want. We’re still growing out our aerial beast species. Basically, we’re just trying to meet the current needs, while we’ve got ideas on pushing beasts further, we haven’t tested it out. Right now it is, healing heals, food with different medicinal ingredients speed up maturation and build strength and monster cores are the shit,” Rex put his thumbs through his belt loops, he wore a simple long sleeve shirt rolled up, jeans, boots, ball cap and was perpetually chewing on a piece of straw.

“Not even the Special Teams?”

“They get the best of the best! The beasts that have reached the highest level and have different useful abilities. We’re just starting to get into selective breeding. Its not saying that I wouldn’t be interested, though. Hell, it might be a new way to raise beasts! I kind of wonder if they each have an actual affinity towards a mana attribute, or if it is due to environmental factors or whatever they consume,” Rex chewed on his straw in thought.

“I’m not sure about that, but when I was tempering my body with the Earth attribute, Gilly was there training with me. Afterwards she had grown bigger and was stronger. I want to learn more about how beast’s cultivate.”

“Well, hell, I’ll give anything a shot once. Though I ain’t going to push anything.”

“Glad to hear it. Davin!” Erik yelled into the air.

Erik saw a head pop out from among the buildings of the Earth floors’ beast training compound.

“Come here,”

Davin muttered to himself and flew over like a pouty kid being called to chores. He was slumped down as he hung in mid-air near Erik and Rex.

“Davin is an Imp, so he has a beast core and the whole ten yards. He might be a useful resource for you.”

“Hey little guy,” Rex pulled out some meat and tossed it over.

Davin’s eyes went wide as his jaw seemed to unhinge, opening as wide as his head, clamping down around the meat.

“Okay, well I’ll leave that with you,” Erik said.