Apparently, my class post had caused a bit of an incident when people found out about it and what it could mean for them. The 25 open spots for my class had been filled in about 15 minutes. Even David was able to get himself into my class. Almost half were just regular people, and I was glad to see that not every spot was filled with people on the top.
I looked over the 25 people eagerly waiting. “Please everyone, find a place to sit down but make sure you are at least 2 meters away from anyone else.” After I said that I waited until everyone spread out and sat down on the dirt. Not everyone looked so happy about that but that was their problem. This reminded me that we should also build a school for all the children. Something to bring up during the next meeting.
I once again looked at my students now in their proper places. I wonder what they would want to get out of this class. “Energy is something that every living being possesses. It is something that even children who don’t have a class have. They don’t have a lot of it, and we wouldn’t either if our achievement page wouldn't help us. The more stat points we gain the more energy we gain. Every stat point gives us a different flavour of energy. Your strength stat gives energy that is a lot better at helping you express your body's strength.”
“Most people will never be able to use all the strength that their achievement page displays. Why is that? It’s because while you have the energy inside your own body it just sits there in useless places not helping you be stronger, but it will still help you feed your abilities. We are here so you can learn do you use that energy to strengthen yourself when needed.”
Most of this information seemed to come as a surprise. I picked up two pieces of wood that I brought with me for a demonstration. “I have here two pieces of wood that are of different thicknesses. For this demonstration, I will not use any abilities.”
I dropped the thicker pieces of wood and tried to break the thinner piece in half. I struggled quite a bit, but I was able to break it. There were impressive-looking faces among my students. I guess it was quite impressive that I was able to do that without any abilities.
“Now I was purely able to do this, but my energy was just slowly circulating inside me.” I then picked up the other piece of wood and tried to break it, but it wouldn’t even bend a single millimetre. “You see completely stiff. Now I know you cannot see this but I’m manipulating the energy inside my body making it move faster and at a certain pattern so it would help me be stronger when I try to break this piece of wood.”
I once again struggled but I was able to do it. “No abilities used just energy manipulation inside my own body. This is something everyone can learn so you can take full advantage of all the stats you have earned by sweat and blood. Now we will start with the basics. I will teach you how to feel the energy that is inside you.” I then sat down the same as them and started to explain what they should try to sense and how the energy should be moving inside.
After the first explanation, I moved around and guided individual people who were having trouble. By the end of the lesson, everyone had learned how to feel their energy and started to guide it to circulate faster. “You have all completed the first lesson. You have signed up for the eight lessons as stated in the post. You will graduate from the basic class when you gain access to your energy storage stat. We will continue in the next lesson, but you must all work hard to continue to practice what we have learned today. You are all dismissed.”
With that, I watched as my students started to leave but David approached me. “You know Rich, I have been trying to learn this for a long time and you have no idea how much I have paid different tutors, but none have been able to teach me what you have during these two hours. Do you plan to keep doing these classes?” David asked and I nodded while saying goodbye to some of the students who said goodbye to me.
“You are a brilliant fighter and a military strategist, but I will be honest with you. This might be your greatest contribution to our nation.” When David finished saying that he gave me a deep bow and then left.
I wondered if he was correct. Is this truly something that so many people struggle with? To me it comes naturally so it's hard for me to understand why everyone's having so much trouble but even when teaching my apprentices, I could see how much they struggled and with the students here as well. Perhaps I should do this more often.
It was at this moment when I noticed a small bug trying to get my attention by flying up and down. I quickly followed it and was led to the village hall into the office, given to Mirhit. Inside I found Mirhit nervously pacing almost on the verge of panic. As soon as I opened the door, he looked toward me and tried to speak but his words were jumbled like he wanted to tell them all at once.
I moved towards him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. My touch seemed to calm him a bit and he was able to start speaking a bit more normally. “Rich you remember when I reported some refugee caravans that hadn't made it to our border? Well, I have expanded my bug as much as possible and continue to scout so I have been able to cover more land and Rich. There are so many of them that didn’t make it. So many.”
He was on the verge of breaking down, so I squeezed a bit harder but made sure not to hurt him. “Calm down and explain to me what is going on.” I had to repeat myself a few times and after a few tears had come from his eyes he started to explain a bit better.
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“The refugees that have made it here are only a small percentage. Most don't make it through the southern forest. There are many pockets of undead and other monster groups that have grown in strength from all the killing they have done. Yet there are more coming. They are all escaping the wars down there. The only way to escape is towards the north, towards us.”
I looked him in the eyes, and I could see how they were slowly hardening. The people of this world were hard, but even so, he was quite young. Seeing so many needless death will affect anyone. This is something that I can’t decide on my own and there was a need for immediate action. “Are you saying that you can see current caravans moving towards our borders and some of them are currently under attack?” I asked Mirhit.
“No current I do not see any caravans under attack, but some are headed towards clusters of monsters and undead. I’m quite certain that they will not survive those encounters. But I’m not too deep into the southern forest and there's a lot of forest until farmland starts again.” He answered.
There wasn’t time to wait so I pulled out from my tattoo storage a device that when broken would give a signal to every important figure and call them for a meeting. “Mirhit, you have a report to give and the rest of us need to figure out what to do with the information you have given us,” I told him and that seemed to make him surer of himself. He got up and made himself a bit more presentable before I led him to the meeting room.
A few people had already reached it and from my serious face, their faces paled a bit. What followed was an argument-filled meeting. Everyone felt bad for the people out there, but no one was quite sure of what we should do about it. They were outside our lands, but they were still people and from the more callous viewpoint we needed more people.
While in a perfect world, we would try to save them all and bring them here, but it was just not feasible. The distances were just too large and even I couldn’t spend weeks escorting a single caravan. The legion was too weak to help, and they didn't have enough training. The Vikings were currently handling monster problems but a large portion of them could be pulled away. Then teams of them could go and meet the caravans and protect them while they headed this way.
A special team of people was selected to work with Mirhit to choose the targets that we were going to save. There was also a plan that the few of the fastest moving members of the Vikings were going to go from caravan to caravan to guide the different caravans to join forces.
Khris and his team were going to work on clearing out as many undead as possible any way they thought best and after we might even have a fight for the legion. Towards the end, David ran the numbers and it turned out that about 70% of the caravans didn’t make it to our borders. That number silenced that room for a while.
As we got more and more people from the caravans, we would be able to help caravans further away from us bringing in more refugees. It was a positive cycle but one that will put even more pressure on our resources. With the refugees we have here were many who had classes that supported cities and villages and made gathering and processing resources possible at a large scale even without the necessary tools or facilities.
Currently, there is an open contract in the job building for any resource. If you know how to cut down wood, you could go out and make a decent amount of credit. If you know how to make bricks, you could make even more. If you had abilities that made you do those things even better, you could secure your future quite quickly.
When I walked through the village after the main meeting ended, I could see almost everyone doing something. Currently, the market was full of barter traders. It was simple and the only way it could currently function. The few people who traded with coins didn't have to pay any taxes at least not yet. Our economy was still too small, and it would choke the small trade that was currently happening.
We were also in dire need of coins, and we hope that the goblin delegation that was supposed to come in about two weeks would be looking to buy at least some food but hopefully some other things as well.
I had long ago deposited all my coins and given credit in return. At this point, we might have to figure out how to mint magically safe currency. Making coins that can't be replicated by magic or other means was incredibly difficult so we couldn’t just use mined copper, silver or gold to make our own coins even if we had a supply of all those metals.
I was heading home where my apprentices were having a break day. While it was important for them to keep working it was also important to take breaks so they all decided that this day would be nice for a sauna. I had agreed and planned to join them after my class, but things got in the way.
I was running all out when I once again felt like an ember was in my chest. It usually happened when I was exerting myself. At first, I could barely feel it, but it was getting stronger and stronger. It had only been happening for the past few days, but it was starting to affect me more.
I stopped running and it immediately started to lessen but it lingered longer every time. At first, I thought that perhaps it was a side effect of my energy seeds, but it didn't look like that was the case.
While I meditated, I didn’t get a clear picture, but I could see that the seeds weren’t the problem. It took a bit, but I figured out it was my giant among men trait that was causing this problem, but I couldn’t figure out what this effect was.
It took a full minute for the feeling to disappear and once I started to run. Again, it quite quickly returned. It didn't hurt but it didn't feel pleasant. My mind was partly occupied by this problem but the sauna and hanging out with my apprentices helped ease my mind. It wouldn't make sense that it would be something bad but then again it also might not be a good thing.
It was deep into the night and my apprentices had gone to sleep long ago. I was in the river looking up at the stars and moons. I let the current take me downstream and when I reached the bridge, I swim back up past the sauna and then just let the current take me back down. I pushed myself quite hard when going upstream so my chest started to heat up again. While it wasn’t screaming hot it was still quite unpleasant to the touch.
Like this, I try to understand more. Why was this happening and what was it doing? Was it my constant prodding or just its time but finally something different happened? The feeling didn’t go away. It was now a constant companion no matter what I tried to do. I climbed out of the river and entered meditation. When I came out of it the sun was starting to rise.
“Well, shit!”