"… It looks like the Holy Crusader and the great general worked hard," Zolast said as he entered. He avoided their names to the benefit of the sixteen new recruits that we had just collected.

Recruits that were lying on the ground, demolished completely to the point that they couldn't even move. My recently recruited, and even more recently named worshippers.

Sixteen Shades. It had a nice ring to it, like one of those knightly orders people loved so much.

My accelerated training had been painful, but that was inevitable. They might be armed with two Master Skills and an Awakened skill each, but that didn't begin to come close to my seal of approval.

But, after an extended, painful session that drilled the basics of combat, as well as a way to resist Charisma, they had earned their first point on that path. The rest of the training had to depend on Takis, who would be their commander as they worked to clean the mountains.

I wondered how he would train them. I had no specific requests from Takis, and that was not because I underestimated those guys and their classes. No, I could train every single one into decent fighters, ones that were able to operate alone, with the ability to take down a level hundred knight with a rare class by creating a favorable strategy…

But I also knew that it was not the best way to maximize their value. If I did that, they would turn into inferior versions of Mahruss and Karak, their religious devotion preventing them from developing the flexibility I required. Ultimately, they lacked the sense of practicality I needed to trust them with critical tasks.

That didn't mean they were worthless. Takis was a strategic genius even without factoring in the benefits from his stats — which went even further once he managed to Awaken them. I was confident that he would find a much better way to utilize them as a team rather than using them as church enforcers.

Sixteen of them, together as a team, each with awakened stats, and specialized gear…

The perfect kill squad.

Speaking of gear… "High Priest, do you mind healing them so they could go and pick up their gear," I said. Zolast waved his hand, the healing magic replenishing their Health — which I had deliberately drained to zero to properly teach about resisting the pressure of the Charisma while they were exhausted and damaged — and quickening their recovery at the same time.

They bowed respectfully and left, leaving me alone with Zolast. "Well, that was better than sorting skill stones, at least," I said.

"Don't be a child, it wasn't that bad," he admonished, trying to sound serious, but his smile disagreed.

"Certainly not. You're the one that forced a god to work as a mere assistant," I said. "You should know that, considering I am now a god, I'm entitled to be a spoiled, lazy bastard and let my little followers work for me."

"Heresy —" he started, then paused with a thoughtful expression. "Does this count as heresy now that you're technically one of them," he said, then paused for a chuckle. "Barely an apprentice, from the looks of it, but still…"

I shrugged. "I'll ask Set during our next inevitable discussion. I'm sure he will be a nice guy and explain."

"I'm sure of it. His jolly attitude is famous."

"Speaking of Set, do we have anything to deal with before we go and check up on the siege? Mahruss already gathered the army, and the sooner we improved them, the sooner they moved to the mountains and started leveling up. And, I want to stay near at first to prevent cultists from pulling a trick."

"I thought you were going to leave them alone and focus on searching for Jertann."

"Multitasking, my friend. This time, I'm not going alone, but bringing with me our newest recruits. It'll take a while to properly test the new recruits Mahruss had picked to decide which ones are a good fit for the mission, and I can easily do that in the mountains as well."

"True. And, that way, I can focus on finishing the dungeon," he added. "Our experimentation taught me quite a few things about building a dungeon."

"Speaking of which, try to wheedle some secrets from the princess about dungeon construction. You're better than them, but that's only because you're much more capable when it comes to the arcane. The royal family inevitably has a lot of little secrets, maybe her mages know some of them."

It was important, because the only reason we even managed to improve the dungeon enough to mass-produce Expert Skills was his extreme magical control, essentially brute-forcing many complicated problems with his magical skills where a specific spell or material would have worked much better.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

That earned me a deadpan expression. "Thanks, our glorious leader. I never thought of that."

"Think of it as a divine gift of wisdom," I said in an exaggerated smug manner, before letting my expression fade back to normal. "Still, a productive two-day streak, don't you think so?"

"We unveiled both the mysteries of the dungeon and the secrets of divine alignment. Overall, I can confidently say that, when measured by their impact, it was the most productive two days we have ever experienced."

I nodded. That much was certain. The secrets of divine alignment alone were priceless, as it gave us a chance to gather an army that was completely loyal to us with no external dependency.

The plight of Zolast and the other mysterious cursed man I had saved — who was still alive and well, as far as I could detect through the Heroic Party connection — showed that gods could pull some tricks. I didn't know how costly it was to curse, but even if they couldn't curse thousands easily, just cursing a few dozen people at the right time might turn a glorious victory into a devastating defeat.

Expert skill was a similar benefit. We had enough money to buy the necessary amount, but actually finding enough in the market was a challenge, not to mention those were not always the same skill. It didn't matter to a guild, but an army couldn't function easily when its weapons of were determined based on their market availability.

"Any plans about leveling above one hundred?" Zolast asked. "Once the new army starts working on the mountains, your Experience gain will explode once more. It shouldn't take more than a day to reach level one hundred."

"Good question," I said, thinking for a moment. "Not yet. Ascension and the limits of level hundred are still a mystery. We managed to dig up information about heroes being able to reach above a hundred, but we have no idea whether that's true."

Zolast shrugged. "And, even if there's no limit, I don't want to imagine how much experience is required to level up over one hundred. It's a pity that the same required Experience reduction doesn't affect the Heroic Party."

I nodded. "Speaking of which, I have an experiment to conduct," I said as I closed my eyes, and focused on my Experience and Zolast.

[-1,000,000 Experience]

"Interesting," he said. "Did you channel the experience they had been gathering?"

"No, it was from my own stored experience. How much did you receive?"

"Eight hundred thousand, and fifty-three," he replied. "So, either you wanted to use a weird number…"

"No, I lost a million," I said. "It has some loss, roughly twenty percent, but it's an acceptable drawback. That way, not only can I boost the youngsters quickly, but also manage recruitment easier," I said.

"Does it make that much of a difference," he said. "We can always bring them to the dungeon for a quick leveling session." I tried to repeat the same trick with the Followers, but it didn't work. Another difference between Divine Followers and Heroic Party.

As I talked with Zolast, I focused only on my Heroic connection, this time one with the member that was the furthest away. The recruit I had made was a distraction. Without the communication trick, the information I could get was limited. He was alive, he was reasonably healthy, and he was still not caught … though the last one was more a guess based on his location, constantly changing back and forth.

Technically, he might have been caught again and imprisoned in another flying castle, but I doubted that. Even if they had decided to imprison him for a reason, I doubted they would do so in a flying castle, risking another loss.

I decided to send a gift his way before focusing back on our discussion.

[-25,000,000,000 Experience]

Unfortunately, I wasn't being sarcastic when I framed it as a small gift. It wasn't all the Experience I had in my storage — the latest war against the corrupted beasts had been very productive — but it was barely enough for me to level up four times. Still, it left me enough Experience to raise myself over ninety with some margin.

"Oh, tell me, what happens when I go and recruit a poor servant, always dismissed and overlooked in the palace, yet not allowed to level up because they don't want them to discover anything sensitive."

Zolast's eyes widened. "They level up instantly, but since they didn't disappear, no one even checks them. After all, how could they improve when they had been working all along."

"Exactly," I said. "And, since we discovered a way to use the Heroic Party to communicate…"

"They will have an undetectable way of communicating the secrets they discovered." He sighed. "I wonder if any other hero ever thought about using it like that."

"Likely, no, no matter how much sense it makes," I guessed. "There's a reason that they are going for young and impressionable candidates, and keep them in their castles as they slowly indoctrinate them. Allowing a hero to develop a reliable source of information outside their immediate control runs contrary to that. They want the unique benefits the class offers, not a potential rival."

"They really made a mistake when they didn't kill you the moment you arrived, right?" he asked.

My smile was vicious. "Oh, the biggest," I said before I waved my hand. "Speaking of which, why don't you go and pick the Expert Skills the new dungeon teams have collected," I asked. "I still need to level up."

He left, and I walked to the special leveling room, with wards strong enough to handle the inevitable side effects.

After a few glows, I reached a new level of power. However, I didn't touch my stat points. Reaching above level hundred was not a guarantee, and while getting even stronger was tempting, I didn't want to lose my flexibility.

I needed to be ready for many types of possible surprises.

[Class: Hero

Level: 90

[Authority: 1,000,000]

[Health (2,400/2,400)

Mana (1,500/1,500)]

[STATS

Strength: 80

Agility: 100

Speed: 100

Vitality: 80

Attunement: 50

Perception: 80

Concealment: 50

Charisma: 100

Resilience: 50

Memory: 25

Intelligence: 25

LOCKED…]

[Stat Points: 155]

[SKILLS: —]

[ABILITIES: Elevated Life - Complete - Human

Heroic Party (8) ]

[Alignment: Unaligned]