Chapter 34: Quick Escelation
Sera wanted to use this time to expand her influence to as much as she could get away with. With all the major forces of the Eastern Continent being either too carefull or just too weak to do something about the current situation.
As of right now Sera Hawke could only use swarm tactics and flood her enemies with unrelenting numbers from her Golems. Her target, the northern free cities.
Most if not each and everyone of these free cities are not actually free. One way or another the rulers of these cities are connected to factions around the Eastern Continent and is being used as training grounds for their young descendants.
Due to the nature of the Eastern Continent, this single Continent alone contains at least 10 billion humans and that is not taking into account the other various races that are vying for supremacy.
She intends to absorb the northern free cities into her Metal Sect considering that they are preety much weaklings to begin with. Not to mention how many cultivators would be tempted to join the Metal Sect just to reach the Foundation Establishment level alone.
Right now Sera can nurture several hundred of Core Formation experts if she opened up her own tresury, provided that they are worthy of course… but that is very much unlikely at the moment as the people currently flocking towards the Metal Sect are mostly just wanting to escape the chaos rather than wanting to actually throw their lot at the Sect itself.
Attacking the other Sects on the west would be a bad idea since Sera does not exactly know their current strength not to mention if whether they could call some favors from the other factions. If that really happened that would be a huge mistake on Sera Hawke’s part it wasn’t even funny thinking about it.
It made Sera shiver just thinking about biting more that she can chew. That is why even though the free cities are poor and weak it is also a huge source of manpower. Something the Metal Sect currently lack the most, Sera only need to march her thousand or so peak Foundation Establishment disciples and they would most likely the ones knocking on the gates of the Metal Sect.
Not to mention the growing number of Golems in Sera Hawkes arsenal, the giant Mech, and even the Flying Fortress loaded with hundreds of Rail Guns. In her mind right now the northern free cities could easily steamrolled if the need ever arise. As for their loyalties… it doesn’t matter as long as they obey her commands and not betray her she would supply them with resources to cultivate.
At the currnet state of the Eastern Continent, specifically on the topic of cultivation Sera found out 2 things.
One is that to cultivate to higher realms you need reasources… obviously, but most people just throw money at their cultivation problem hence they just throw as much resources as they can until they could breakthrough their bottleneck.
Two is to breakthrough using enlightenment, a vague concept that only the true geniuses use to achieve higher realms. But the problem is that nobody can help you understand this enlightenment procedure since it is different from each individual.
Sera intends to simply throw more resources at the problem until it is solved just like what she is used to to back on earth. The concept of cultivation still eludes her and just takes this world of magic for granted.
“it’s fine as long as its there, but I don’t intend to rely on it forever”
Sera intends to reinvent technology on this world by using magic as its foundation. Not only it would speed things up it also made things a lot easier, she could not bear the thought of starting software programming from scratch. Good thing that in this world of magic there are objects in this world that could give birth to Spiritual Incarnation of a treasure.
“by making a magic based Quantum Computer I can have a Spiritual Incarnation for the “tool”. all I need to do is find high quality materials to create it with”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Luckily for her the Metal Sect has everything she needs and could create high tier magical equipments that would give birth to Spiritual Incarnations… so long as the secret under the Metal Sect could remain secret.
If at any given point in time the secret of Spitritual and Heavenly Metal mine under the Sect is revealed to the world… only calamity would befall Sera Hawke.
Thousands of people have been injecting their spiritual energies to the metal Sect as the Matriarch have instructed to help maintain and “power up” certain spell formations, when infact it is to feed the mysterious Spiritual Metal mine that eats all kinds of magic to spit out large blocks of spiritualy enchanted metal ingots of various kinds.
By using this method Sera could easily harvest over one thousand tons of valuable spirit metals for construction of her Golems and Mech. But she felt that this kind of progress is too slow since she really can’t ask for to much mana from the cultivators otherwise it would be suspicious.
“the last thing I need at this point is to have colorful rumors flying around, who knows which ears they would land to!?”
That is why she wanted to expand if not gather more people to integrate into the Metal Sect so that she could harvest more mana without alerting the wrong types of people.
Feeling impatient Sera sent five hundred Foundation Establishment disciples with the support of ten thousand Knight Golems towards the northern free cities to invite people to join the Metal Sect.
Such a relatively large group was eye catching in these parts, as a large group of Foundation Establishment level cultivators don’t really move together unless they are escaping or marching towards war.
Because of such a sight the smaller factions could only turtle up and not dare to venture out in hope that they would be overlooked. This kind of reaction is of course opposite of what Sera Hawke was hoping for. After all she sent this force to show that the Metal Sect could easily produce hundreds of Foundation Establishment cultivators as long as they join.
Sera was never interested in the actual disciples all she needed from them is their mana injection so that she could increase the harvest of spirit metals.
With such a force roving around the free cities they instantly became the talk of the entire region.
“hey have you heard? The Metal Sect is recruiting disciples”
“haha how could we not know such a huge force suddenly appearing out of nowhere”
“so? What do you guys think? Should we join?”
“hmp! The few Nascent Soul cultivators that they have has perished alongside most of their Core Formation experts during the attack of the rogue cultivators, this is an act of desperation if they are personally begging for disciples! Hahaha!”
“but the fact that they could still support disciples means they are still a formidable third rate Sect!”
The argument continued back and forth speculating the pros and cons of joining an “injured” Sect. The loss of the Dragon Veins among third rate Sects and Factions is was no longer a secret and a lot of people are actually picking their choices of which third rate factions they would attack the moment it shows weakness.
The Eastern Continent might looked like it has stabilised but it would only take a few pokes to stir the hive for it to become chaotic again, people are showing a front of being behaved and peaceful but this kind of masquerade could easily be discarded at their own convinience.
The disciples of the Metal Sect are nothing special, and is in fact considered average at best despite its somewhat deep foundation. The Metal Sect’s legacy techniques are simply a collection of variations of manipulating the Metal element.
For majority of the people in the Eastern Continent that is what they would think if they made an in depth study of the Metal Sect’s legacy techniques. But it is different for Sera Hawke, with the power of sience as her foundation she could create new types of metal alloys that could only exist in theory back on earth. but couple it with magic and then you have a near infinite potential in the ways of metallurgy.
The disciples of the Metal Sect took a month to parade throughout the whole of the free cities showing off their Foundation Establishment level cultivation to any people willing to watch. But what the people are actually interested in are the Golems.
These “puppets” are a considerable addition to any faction’s fighting force.
“do I get to have a puppet if I join the Metal Sect?” asked one of the bystanders
“forget about this clumsy Golems, we have Mechanized Jet Fighters that could fly high up on the sky and you could have some depending on your ability!”
“really!? wow I wanna join”
In this world cultivation and magic is as normal as breathing and walking. Technology on the otherhand is quite a novel thing in this world since they could not conceptualise something moving without the usage of magic as its primary source of power.
It did not take a long time before a huge batch of youths join the march to join the Metal Sect and even some thick skinned middle aged people joined in and try their luck, Of course they were all welcomed as it was the explicit orders from the Matriarch.
To get as many people to join the Sect regardless of their talents in cultivation. Many disciples scratched their heads on the order since if the new disciples are untalented then that would be considered as a waste of resources.
But that does not matter to Sera Hawke as all she ever needed is actually the spirit or mana injection from the disciples. Under the guise of training the entire Metal Sect has been designed to take spirit or mana as payment for any establishments services.
And with the convinience of technology brought to this world nobody even considered asking why. Everyone thought it was part of a gimmick to drain the disciples and eventually force them to cultivate.
In just a few years of openly inviting people to the Metal Sect its entire territory became a gigantic metal city unique in the world. As the more and more magic is injected into the heavenly / spiritual metal mine the more harvest Sera could have up to the point that she is now having trouble consuming the precious metals due to the sheer amount.
Because of this she had to mobilize half of he Metal Sect and send the disciples outside of the Sect terrytories to “train”, they had the Knight Golems for support in their mission as they literally sweep through the entire region.
The rising status of the Metal Sect after the loss of their Dragon Veins did not go unnoticed and now various forces from the west have started making their move.
“so? I’m sure you guys have heard of the news right?” a shadowy figure said
“what of it? Its just another Sect in their last gasp of breath” another said in a raspy voice
“i won’t be so quick to judge them on that, if you have seen what I have you will be moved too”
“oh, you saw something that could move you? How rare, even you know your own limits to not covet those good things from powerful people”
“it is because the Metal Sect is also just a third rate Sect like ours and unlike us their Dragon Veins have already gone dormant. It would be only a matter of time before their cultivation progress stalled into a grinding halt. All we need to do is wait patiently before we strike”
“ what about the other factions? Won’t they intervene?”
“hah! Those spineless cowards would be too busy to find alternatives to bother us. With their Dragon Veins under threat of going dormant it would only be hastening their own deaths if their tried to play hero!”