Now that Adyra had System access, we needed to train her. More than a thousand mermaids would soon follow her. For that reason, I planted the seeds of an educational facility in the mermaid kingdom. If the mermaids wanted to thrive after being exposed to the outside world, we needed to strengthen our cultural values. That's why I gathered with the Heralds and Queen. Callisto and a proud Adyra with her new silk underwear were listening to our meeting but with express orders to just listen.
"We need to create holidays and festivals. Here is what I think," I said. "We will create four holidays on the equinox and solstices. One of them will be for the harvest in the winter solstice when the large fish schools migrate from the north fleeing the cold. Opposite to that, on the summer solstice, we will celebrate the Queen's coronation. Then on the equinoxes, we will hold ceremonies to honor our two divine protectors, Kraken and Leviathan."
The idea of a religious holiday made the two Heralds salivate. That created a dilemma. We were approaching the Spring equinox. The demigod that got this slot would receive their Faith first. The two siblings were vain to an extreme. That vanity and inflated pride were what led them to play that game of war with the mermaid tribes.
We were a Kingdom in name, but our behavior was basically tribal. Our cultural level was on the hunter-gatherer stage. What little traditions the mermaids had before the Age of Eclipse died in the war along with those that knew them. We needed to rebuild from the ground up.
Now that the mermaids were exposed to the crafts and cultural values of the surface nations as well as being enticed by the tales of those that went down the mercenary path, like Medaya, we ran the risk of every player with low culture in a game of Civilization. Of being absorbed.
"And who do you suggest takes the next equinox?" Kraken, ever suspicious of me, asked. She never truly forgave me for stabbing her with {God-Slayer}.
"Can't you guys decide? Let me tell you since this is the first time we are doing such an event, whoever goes last will have a better festival, as we are bound to commit mistakes and learn from them. I also think you should think about starting a priesthood and creating personalized Classes. This way you can delegate some of your duties, and we will have divine spellcasters among us. I heard from Yznera that a priesthood allows you guys to channel even more faith."
Honestly, these two monster demigods were children. Dangle the promise of more divinity to them, and they greedily jumped on the opportunity.
"We will ask our mother," Leviathan, the more level-headed of the duo compromised.
"Also, decide who gets the next holiday in two days. We need to get started," Eathelin said, reinforcing what I agreed with her beforehand. "Some of our girls are getting activated by the System. We need to start training them. I spread word that they should not pick a Path before undergoing a basic training Arista is putting together."
Mermaid school, here we go.
"Oh," Kraken raised her tentacles. "We have some prayers from mermaids to allow men back in the reef. Now that the fries and calves are all grown up, they want to have more daughters."
Mom rubbed her temple. With as many mouths to feed, our food situation was hanging by a thin line. My item box was the go-to backup plan but we stretched what seaweed and kelp we could farm with four Sunrods to the limit. And I had no luck finding more anglerfish during these years. It was like they just vanished. Without their specialized light-emitting organs, the cost of enchanting a sunrod was astronomical even for me.
"I think I need to add a second island, this one few miles away for we to build a surface city to trade with the merchant ships more efficiently," I said. "We can also facilitate the meeting with the men there."
"What do you think of making a mermaid brothel?" Leviathan suggested.
I cringed at the idea at first. However, many mermaids were willing to pay to have a man. Economy 101, the law of supply and demand.
"We can do it, I think," I was running ideas past my mind fast. "We need to make a building where the mermaids that can't transform their tails into legs can have their meetings. I can also tap into the male seed I have stored and teach some of the new mermaids how to unlock medic classes. They can inseminate the other mermaids."
And to that, I needed to make storage rings that preserved the semen fresh. We didn't have enough enchanters.
"My Queen, Heralds," I said formally. "We need to create a school. A facility to educate our mermaids."
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Leviathan picked the Spring equinox for himself, leaving the more sensitive Kraken with the Fall equinox. Our seasons were mild since we were in a tropical region of the world. There were no recorded cases of snow.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
I brought Marlowe and Callisto on board to help me create the mermaid school. Rules, regulations, classes. I dumped the responsibility of being the headmistress to the kidnapped and assimilated [Princess], who was having trouble working with the former court [Wizard of her former Kingdom twice removed because she still held a grudge. I had to mediate the two of them several times.
We had no manta ray that could hold all the newly-activated mermaids on her back so we needed a physical facility to house our academy. And not all dolphin-mermaids could breathe water, so we needed something with surface access for them to breathe. A zero-level dolphin-mermaid with ten points of Endurance, the average, could hold her breath for half an hour, increasing that by one minute per point. There was also the problem that mermaids naturally needed more room for their tails, especially some of the more ornamental fish-mermaids. Some of the latter could have ridiculously long and diaphanous fins three meters in length. Worse, those fins were as prone to tearing as dry newspaper paper flapping in the wind. Dry, at least.
I needed another island with a cave system underneath and plenty of grottos with air. Then I needed to mind the fluctuations of the tides, to which we had three moons to collaborate. I was about to blow a gasket. The solution to the tidal problem was simple. Enchant the caves with pockets of air to keep the air breathable and the elevation relatively steady. Water could exert a lot of pressure with just a few meters of elevation and compress the air. All that had to wait because we needed to stop everything to host the festival.
We were near the Spring festival, and Leviathan picked ten young mermaids to be his [Priestesses], planning to grant them the Class during the festival... Then Kraken got envious because she wanted to have a priesthood as well and didn't want to wait half a year. We picked another ten girls and let her bless them in the same ceremony.
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I sat on the island beach watching the waves crash against the ring of the atoll. I was exhausted. At least I had no power-hungry [Kings] plotting invasions, no deranged deities trying to kill me. No dragons swooping in to harass me.
I could get used to this. To kill time, I fiddled with my Status and my eyes darted to a very important but forgotten fact.
> Total Perk picks available: 62
That was a freaking lot of Perks to pick. They were further divided by either Species or Class, and by rank. I could use a Perk from a higher rank to purchase a lower one, but not the other way around.
People usually spent Perks as soon as they gained them, some daring to leave picks open to decide later, but they also usually gained Perks at a much slower rate. I opened the list of Species Perks available for the initial stage, or rank zero as they call it. The list was ginormous because I could pick from more than a dozen different species, not to mention the Humans that had their own way to pick without a List. I filtered mermaid Perks only. Even though they would become mostly useless for the future me, that's what I was right now.
I had decided to live as a mermaid. I should pick mermaid Perks.
> Reef Home (rare): Your Home Ground Perk works whenever you are within Mind x 5 meters of any patch of coral larger than one square meter.
>
> Improved Home Ground (very rare): Double the range of your Home Ground. The bonus of Home Ground also applies to attack.
>
> Sand Sense (uncommon): You can sense the direction and distance of creatures and objects in a cloud of sand, even if they are obscured from your vision.
>
> Sand Cover (uncommon): You gain a 25% bonus to stealth if you are inside a cloud of sand. Sand Sense is half as effective on you.
>
> Sand Stirring (rare): You can spend 10 MP/(second*m2) to keep sand from settling down.
>
> Sand Eyes (rare): Sand and silt cannot blind you.
>
> Sand Sight (rare): You can see through sand and silt not resting as a substrate as if it weren't there.
>
> Dolphin Language (rare): You can communicate with cetaceans.
>
> Dolphin Friendship (rare): Improve the reaction with Cetaceans by 4 steps
>
> Mermaid's Kiss (uncommon): You can grant Water Breathing to a target whose skin you kissed by paying 500 MP/h.
>
> Mermaid's Tears (very rare): Your sincere tears have magical properties when used by non-mermaids.
>
> Detect [Aquatic Creatures] (very rare): You can sense them in a range of 10 x Mind meters.
That was it for the base species' Perks. Moving on to rank 1. Pale Dolphin-Mermaid. I picked it because it was the rarest species rank-up available, but it had nice Perks. It specialized in stealth, quite obvious once you think about the name.
> Water Regeneration (rare): When immersed in water, your resources recover 25% faster.
>
> Coral Blending (rare): When within 1 meter of coral, you are immune to detection Perks and Skills. You can still be spotted by other senses.
>
> Ripple Suppression (uncommon): When swimming, you create 75% fewer ripples.
>
> Ripple Negation (very rare): When swimming, you do not create ripples.
>
> Sonar (rare): You can understand reflected ultrasonic waves to detect disturbances in your whereabouts. Range depends on your projection and detection abilities.
>
> Sound Dampening I (rare): Sound waves that reflect off of you are dampened by 33%
>
> Sound Dampening II (very rare): Sound waves that reflect off of you are dampened by 67%
>
> Sound Absorption (ultra rare): Sound waves that hit you are completely absorbed.
>
> See Thermoclines (rare): You can see thermoclines.
>
> Pierce Thermoclines (very rare): You can see through thermoclines. Your sonar can pierce these barriers with 50% efficiency.
>
> Abyssal Sight (very rare): You can see disturbances in the water when there's no light.
>
> Detection Sweep (very rare): After concentrating for 2 minutes, tell the general direction to a chosen creature you have a Detection Perk for in a range of 200 x Mind meters if there's one in a cone 45 degrees in front of you.
Onward, to more powerful Perks. The second tier was when things got really interesting. I already had {Pierce the Veil}, the entry-level Perk for the Veiled subspecies.
I stood up and looked. Elven sight's built-in 10x augmentation is awesome. "Yes, ships. It seems some fleet decided to invade our territory."