Chapter 33: Expansion
Metal Sect
Eastern Continent
The temporary Elders of the Metal Sect were working hard to the bone, not that they are being forced by Sera but because they are forcing themselves. The rewards alone being given for each task completed amounted to at least 3 times a medium difficulty mission back at the old Metal Sect.
These temporary Elders wanted to quickly amass wealth and resources as fast as possible as safe as possible while there are still less than a thousand people here at the new Metal Sect. Who knows whether they would still be generously paid in the future after there is a flood of new disciples entering the Sect, considering how the new Matriarch or the Sect do things it should be less than 10 before this new Metal Sect emerge as a second rate Sect.
Sera Hawke of course was ever watchful even though she completely delegated the task of managing the entire Metal Sect to these temporary Elders she still observed them vigilantly so as to avoid any form of treachery. Not that she suspected them of betrayal or anything like that but simply to be safe rather than sorry.
She then started creating metal houses and apartment blocks for the refugees in the outer rims of the Metal Sect. Since these refugees are only looking for shelter during this calamity she would not easily invite them inside the Sect since Sera does not have that much manpower at her disposal to manage a large group of outsiders, most of them may be innocent but some of them could be trouble makers and during this precarious situation of the Metal Sect it was imperative that nothing goes wrong during the rebuilding process.
On the core location of the Metal Sect the “War Factories” are pumping out hundreds of Knight Golems and Mechanized Jet Fighters every day like clockwork as she desperately tries to fill in the gap of her defenses. In the past few days Sera gave the refugees work to earn their own upkeep, they mined mineral ores and in turn they recieved food, water, shelter, medicine and all other nessecities.
The current Metal Sect might look amazing right now with the new and shiny buildings but only Sera Hawke knew that compared to the real powerhouses the Metal Sect would still be pinched like an ant if anything like a second rate Sect or above decided to attack this place.
Even with the current fighting force of five thousand Mechanized Jet Fighters and ten thousand Knight Golems, she knew all of this numbers would do is to buy her enough time to hide and escape. If Sera is to survive an actual attack from a second rate Sect or higher she knew that it is going to take more than just a few thousand soldiers just to meet the requirement for her to even force a stalemate.
Unfortunately for her just as she intends to build up her forces up to speed her cultivation hit a bottleneck. No matter how many medicine she took her cultivation seemingly remained stagnant.
“oh boy, this… is going to be a problem” Sera said to herslef
As this would mean that she either needed to push herself to the limit like putting her life on the line in a middle of fight to gain enlightenment or read more books which is most likely in the hands of higher ranking Sects. That also means until the Metals Sect rose to power Sera might not progress a all which is like a chicken and egg dilema in a sense that she needed power to get that knowledge from others but she currently have no power to even contest others.
Unbeknownst to Sera Hawke that this moment in time is a golden opportunity for her and the Metal Sect to build up their powerbase uninterrupted. The reason being the war with the Continental Isle just ended and its participants are recuperating, the rogue cultivators attack and devastation continent wide brought much confusion and pushed each and every faction in a defensive posture so much so that they would not even have a full understanding of how much damage the rogue cultivators have brought to the Eastern Continent.
With Sera’s bottleneck at the early stage of Core Formation level this would be the best time for her to personally manage the Metal Sect in its entirety.
“I need that giant Mech built as soon as possible”
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With the amount of resources she currently have at her disposal as long as nothing unexpected happens a huge surprise would shock the entire Eastern Continent that is Sera Hawke.
During this time Sera observed that as the days pass by more and more refugees are streaming in the territory of the Metal Sect, Despite being surrounded by rolling hills and mountain ranges most of these refugees are cultivator families that were forced out by the rogue cultivators.
Most of them lived in prosperous cities but during the attack they could barely even defend themselves. With chaos, anarchy followed then came the looting and killing it was pandemonium. These are just some of the smarter people who decided to leave the city as it became a beacon for bandits to pillage.
“now is the best time for these people to resettle and with a little bit of temptation I can make them enroll here in the Metal Sect there is still power in numbers after all”
Eastern Continent
Metal Sect
5 years later
After Sera Hawke’s brief and dramatic rescue of the Metal Sect she quickly took over of the Sect in order to build her force here in the Eastern Continent. It has been 5 years now since the new Matriarch Sera Hawke took over the reins of the Metal Sect as she rebuilt it from ground up.
The situation in the Eastern Continent was literally a blessing falling from the sky and into her lap as the entire Continent was in chaos and a huge stream of refugees entered the territory of the Metal Sect.
As soon as she noticed them Sera spared no effort to recruit these refugees en masse, considering her offer the refugees were only to happy to join under the banner of the Metal Sect. The newly rebuilt Metal Sect was truly a wonder to the people of this world, skycrappers were seen by the dozen, the hollowed out mountains completely mined of of minerals has been transformed into mountain sized forts that detered other third rate Sects to having malicious intentions againts the Metal Sect.
Despite the sudden huge influx of people joining the Metal Sect, 99 percent of them are just QI Condensation level with their Elders being only in the Foundation Establishment level. Sera did not hesitate to overwork Gemini Doc in producing thousands of vials a day for the new members so that they could quickly enter the Foundation Establishment stage. This is not only to increase the strength of the Metal Sect but also to impress this new members.
Boosting their strength just as soon as they joined the Sect was already more than enough to boost morale and increase their impression of the Metal Sect.
Sera introduced limited Sience and Technology to the new members of the Sect such as mechanics, medicine and some basic electronics. Though when It came to electronics Sera Hawke had to be careful since she did not want them to learn too much that they could start hacking into the systems she placed in the entire metal Sect.
But on the other hand she also did not want to shorthand them on knowledge since the purpose of this is to strengthen them and deter any and all potential enemies.
In her mind magic is good and all that, but to Sera all this magic suff is still very unscientific and would rather trust good old Sience and Technology which she can control with ease on the tip of her fingertips.
In jut a few years of getting used to the refugees has been fully integrated into the Metal Sect as full fledged members. The knowledge that Sera shared to her people were well recieved aside from Electronics, she heard a lot of complaint that these “runes” are to sensetive and frail that even a little mistake could make the entire thing malfuction.
But rather than be angry or dissapointed she only smiled as this showed critical thinking and is the first step in progressing towards greater heights in technology. These people are not that talented when it came to cultivating so Sera found a use for them and have them study Electronic Diagrams.
Eventually she hoped to create a magic free Rail Gun now that she have resources to rely on. the problem would be people, she needed more people to eventually assist her Since these people would eventually have heir lifespans increase by at least 200 years as Sera provide them with medicines. Back on earth starting from the 1900 up to the year 2000 in just 100 years so much of the technology changed so much so that they are borderline witchcraft if it was brought back 100 years in the past.
She had plans to build a giant Mech using only the most high quality of materials and now Sera have all of them.
“it’s now or never!”
The Mech is being build inside the hollowed out mountain fort for secrecy all of the workers are just drones that Sera have to supervise most of the time to ensure that this clumsy robots would not steer away from the blue prints.
Meanwhile the disciples of the Metal Sect are hard at work not only to gain more understanding and mastery of their craft but also to help in the mining operations. Such as radio active materials the Matriarch had given them a device to identify such materials and is listed as a top priority in case it is found.
Lucky for Sera, radio active materials have no practical use to cultivators and has already managed to find a literal ton of it in just a few years of casual mining. She is already numb to this types of things where logic is already overturned multiple times. Back on earth radio active materials is one of the rarest materials in the world.
But here apparently you can just dig it up. But that is mostly due to this world having no basic understanding of sciene aside from alchemy in which they make their pills and other medicine to aid in their cultivation.
Now that everything is on track she asked one of the temporary Elders of the Sect to finally introduce her of the surrounding factions near the Metal Sect.
“w-well to the north are pretty free cities if a cultivator is strong enough they just build their own city. The north is also very desolate of resources so much so that even in the recent r-rouge cultivator attack did not lose too much”
“oh? And why is that?” Sera asked with a raised eyebrow
“weell, you see they don’t have that much of a wealth to begin with and the most they could provide is materials on the level of Foundation Establishment only. After giving up these “precious” resources they were just left alone as the rogue cultivators went away in search of a more wealthy target”
“south is where we are right now. Very close to the ocean and just a few days away from the natural barrier that separates the Eastern COntinent and the Continental Isle, we have SOME resources but only eough to be called a third rate Sect. We are also sharing borders with several cultivator clans enough to be called a third rate faction and we are the lone Sect in these parts”
“to the East is plains, just plains aside from spiritual steeds there is nothing of note there aside from the nomadic tribes that like to keep to themselves like the north they also don’t have that much in the means of cultivation resources. That is why they were also left alone in the recent attacks”
“the west on the other hand is quite rich in resources and home to over a dozen small scale Dragon Veins. Though ther status right now are currently unknown these third rate Sect are probably the same boat as the Metal Sect. With a dormant Dragon Vein and is currently declining”
“well not if I can help it” Sera said
On the other hand this temporary Elder only took Sera Hawke’s words as overestimating herself or to boost morale. In her mind “everybody knows that without a Dragon Vein a Sect would eventually meet it downfall, especially if a Sect can’t protect itself without powerful disciples.
Sera shew what was on this person head but she just ignored it. “As long as they are doing exactly what I want I don’t really care about anything else” Sera thought as she stared at the map planning her next move.