Outside the window, I am watching as the chaos is slowly residing. My men had won, but there were some casualties. My heart ached a little. But I don’t know whether it was compassion about seeing someone I know murdered or my possessives. Lately, I found out that I became very possessive. It seems that I dislike losing something that is mine.
Back in the room, I watch the leader of the white gang screaming in agony. The integration with an apprentice is a lot more painful with their stronger soul. Here and there I had to help out the integration before the soul could purge the foreign element out. So that is one of the restrictions? I ask myself. It seems that converting someone higher than the second stage intermediate would be extremely difficult to accomplish. Good to know.
Not back to the white man. Taking a closer look, I see that he looks like someone from a refined background. Normal riffraff's wouldn’t take so much care of themselves. Maybe a fallen aristocrat? Who knows, that would explain the meditation technique and how he got his hands on.
No, I fear that the other side also has an apprentice. I hope that the loses won’t be too severe. It’s already too late to rush to the base of the dark gang, I can only hope for the best.
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After the sun came out of hiding, the reports slowly trickled in. Most of the teams succeeded. There were unfortunately some failures too. I luckily don’t have to punish them. Unluckily they perished with the enemy using the grenades.
The city is going to be in an uproar in the morning. So I commanded them to clean up and lay low. Some of them I send to the other strongholds, which were already in the hands of the converted.
Feeling tired, I left them be and went back to the tower. But before that, I made sure that white man can’t do anything foolish. I fed him some weakening plants and then used a second seed to make the integration stronger. At one hand he would be knocked out for longer, but that’s good too. He won’t wake up until the integration is complete.
And hey, he is not without benefits. Because of the process, he might have a chance at breaking through the second stage.
While leaving the compound, I saw a lot of my original men lying on the floor completely exhausted. That is one of the side effect of the berserker potion. Later I will let Right-man compile a list about them. More data should be useful to make the potions better. Not stronger, but if I can optimize it the way, that people can use another one after the first, it will help tremendously.
Back at the tower again, I make sure that I don’t have anything I oversaw in terms of damage and then go to sleep. First stage apprentice unfortunately can’t replace sleep with meditation, only third stage mage apprentices can do that.
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The next day I woke up more refreshed then I thought. Inspecting myself, I found out that I reached the peak of the first stage. Next, I will need a breakthrough or a potion helping me with that. The expedition should be good for that.
Now I have a look over the stuff I took form white man. The most notable being a bracelet. It is grey. Not very conspicuous. This should be the artefact that helped him concealing the fact that he is an apprentice. Highly useful in the exploration that will begin in a week or so.
Having time, I look over the list Nelton provided to me. In there were 76 names. Most of them were peak first grade like me, but not very strong. The list also included the rewards for killing them. Very interesting. Some were worth more than others. This particular first stage is worth nearly as much as one of the few third stage targets His name is Mathew and he is very talented in alchemy. One of my priority target. Since making the berserker potion I got somewhat interested in it. Most of the others were nothing to brag about. Very few of the more talented people don’t want to be under anyone, so they just offered a token of aid, but they are not important.
If Isaac loses enough power, they would leave him too.
The other VIP’s I am interested in was one very talented artificer and a strong mage known for having a lot of weird things. Not strong, also not worth much but the treasures he might have interested me.
Other then them, most of the first stage ones were free kills, I only have to be cautious about the late-stage second-grade ones. They were troublesome and at the level where they could defend themselves better. From this point on, they would have enough spells and treasures to make up their weak points and strengthen their strong ones. I have to either ambush or leave them be. As for the Third stage target. I would most likely leave them be. It isn’t worth it.
Continuing the list. I found some of the resources, which were useful. For the third stage apprentice, they even gave out a potion, which helps first stage peak people breakthrough very enticing, but I won't risk it without a major advantage.
Back from those thoughts, I went back to my normal routine of making scrolls, mediating, training with the cube and translating stuff with the occasional spell engraving, if something is useful enough.
At least that was my plan. But something throws in a wrench into it.
That is the gangs. I visited them a couple of times since the assault and I more or less managed to unite them. What took a lot of time was to make up rules for them. They would follow it because of the seed, but how well is another problem. The three leaders also had some problem with each other.
White man looked down on the new black man because he isn’t a mage apprentice and they both had beef with mantis because of the whole operation. The rules I laid down were more about keeping low and working together. They didn’t work well with the three leads. The others were more or less okay with it. In my last attempt, I made an announcement.
When I come back, I would help the one who made the best progress is taking over the west district with making them a mage. Luckily all of them possesses a weak affinity, so it won’t be too hard. I already have some ideas. And for white man I said, I could enchant his potential. At least giving him a chance at becoming a mage. For whatever reason, he was a lot more enthusiastic about it then I thought. The other leader was also very interested.
But I also didn’t allow them to sabotage each other. Healthy competition is good. Sabotaging the whole organization for it is another matter entirely.
With that out of the way, I am already very excited for tomorrow, the start of the expedition. It was told that I flying ship is going to pick us up, but what he exactly meant eludes me. Since when do ship fly?