Day ten of the expedition. In the castle I placed, I set kilns and forges with enchanted Fire-affinity jeweled Cores, to avoid burning things and creating smoke. We were underground and even if this cavern was big, it still had a limited air supply. I dismantled hundreds of monsters in the {Shadow Workshop} and trained my proficiencies as well as gave the class instruction while I did it.
I brought the monsters I killed when we first arrived back to life and set them against my pupils. In Snowdrop's form, using a dire horse as my lower body, my tails reached an impressive twenty-four meters, four times my body length, which for a centaur was measured from the rear hoof, up the leg, along the back, and up the humanoid torso. Inside this area, twenty people could fight without risk of injury. My tails moved to block and parry attacks against them automatically. It also granted them to benefit from my {Leadership} and {War Technique} Proficiencies.
I used my wings and spear to defend attacks against myself but the monsters quickly learned to ignore me and go for the ones hurting them. This method of training was a blessing, it allowed me to train several proficiencies at the same time.
Even the maids and knights joined in the training, and we split the expedition into three groups. One training, one resting, and the third group doing their own thing. Which for the Dwarves, was mining and smelting the shit out of the giant stalactites, stalagmites, and random ores I had stored in my item box.
The tent camp was dismantled in favor of the castle. We didn't have enough rooms for everyone and for some reason the girls hogged all the rooms before the others could even try. The afterglow stamped on some of their faces was so obvious even the guys in our class noticed.
I quickly put everyone to work so the awkward conversation never took place. As I went around assigning jobs and talking about the expedition goals, my leadership Proficiency ticked up by a point. I don't know if both events were related or not but I got an epiphany.
I already wanted to test a medium-range teleportation enchantment, for my floating home above Windemere. This cavern presented the perfect environment for a prototype. If I could secure this location with better defenses and link it to the surface, we would have direct access to the deep Dungeon with its bountiful resources and Exp farming. It could catapult Windemere to a regional superpower.
All I needed was a sponsor, and I knew just the guy. First, we needed to turn this cavern into a Dungeon city. I was the most powerful real estate mogul in Yznarian. I carved another hemispherical hole and selected a mansion to put down. This one had twenty-five bedrooms and between the two buildings, we finally had enough room for everyone.
In-between and even during training sessions, I planned the layout of the buildings and chose between the ones in my item box. The next Kingdom that picked a fight with me would probably be stripped of their interesting buildings because the idea of having a city in my pocket was too attractive. Mental note: make the Academy add mundane courses, in engineering and architecture along with many others.
I found one of the cathedrals from the dead God of Tushies that would be perfect for a renovation. I set it down on the ground and started to work on it during my free time. The kythaurpódi teeth from skinning the monsters along with other monster claws, teeth, and horns became a decorative part of the structure as I embedded them. I worked on more of the kythaurpódi corpses, going through almost all my stock - I might go on a hunt for another of these monsters to keep the soul and resurrect to farm Exp, parts, and Cores every now and then. Given their regenerative and multiplicative properties, I could get a lot from a single specimen every twelve years.
Anyway, twenty days later, I had no notice of when Lorna's soul would come to me but I had a ghost town and a cathedral to Bit, God of Monsters. The Abbey of Teeth. Time to bother my favorite deity.
> [Administrator Hotline]
>
> CALL START
>
> Haru: Wyxnos, do you have deep gnomes? Like gnomes that live in the Dungeon? Do you want a temple in the underground?
>
> Wyxnos: Maybe. What's the catch?
>
> H: Can you put me in contact with Bit? I need him to bless a thing here and grant me his protection to my other thing here. If everything goes right, you might want to move a group of these deep gnomes to Windemere, and make them my subjects.
>
> W: Why would I do that?
>
> H: Dunno. Having you as a stakeholder in this enterprise sounds like a good idea, only to keep you from doing something stupid like destroying it. Why do you think I agreed to make that cathedral for peanuts? Get me Rabhorktaar on the line as well. I might put an [Assassin] training facility down here too.
>
> W: You got me curious. Wait a moment.
>
> CALL END
Long story short, I talked with the three deities and negotiated an extensive deal. They also taught me how to use Pandora to communicate between deities. My status in the fabric of things was nebulous as it was, but achieving a domain for Pandora muddied things by a large amount. I was a mortal but with a divine subordinate, something a guy compared to an ant keeping a human as a pet. I've seen pet-master combinations just as strange.
Bit would give us a group of monstrous priests from a cult that formed elsewhere and Wyxnos a group of deep gnome settlers. The God of Monsters wanted a space on the cathedral above and would help with the enchantment to control traffic. He also gifted us a Dungeon Core we would install in this cavern and it would control the mana levels and stray spawns on its own, giving us the chance to make mini-dungeons that could allow for segmented leveling for different Classes and ranks.
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Next to the Abbey of Teeth, the Ministry of Darkness and the Monastery of Cogwheels appeared in a few days. I took the expedition up to enjoy a few days of rest on the surface and went abroad to pick my new citizens.
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Scorched Continent, west bank of the Demon Divide Mountains
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When the Second Demon Lord exploded (in my face, nonetheless), the shockwave caused a mountain range to rise, splitting the continent in the middle along the north-south line. The western half was considered lost by the civilized races, a land where demons and nightmares prowled. That was far from the truth. The sentient survivors from the cataclysm became scattered post-apocalyptic survivors, subjected to slavery, predation, famines, and the threat of having their souls stolen by the demons. Other sentient but not as civilized species were also caught in the aftermath, but faring a bit better due to their monstrous traits.
The minotaurs were one such species. The three-and-a-half meter tall bull-men thrived in this environment, due to their multiple stomachs that allowed them to eat things that were probably deadly to humans. After the Boner God died and Bit ascended, they quickly found their prayers answered. The new God of Monsters granted them sponsorship and access to priest Classes. The minotaur Kingdom expanded and consolidated their domain, sheltering other monstrous sentient species and becoming a bulwark against the Demon incursions against this planet.
Traveling in the Scorched Continent was a bother. No fairy circles to the portal through, not many trees able to stride through. I was left with two fast-travel options, going along the Ether-lanes, probably the poor cousin of the Ley lines (I never stopped to see what they actually were but I had a hunch), or my seldomly-used {Shadow Warp}. I could move about a mile each jump. Neither gave me a good way to orient myself so I went with option number three, a slower one.
For the cheap cost of 3.6 million Energy already with my ridiculous discounts, I summoned a level 165 blue dragon and watched the critter's behavior. When it didn't give any signs of trying to evade my control, I climbed aboard and rode the beast. A rank-four dragon was massive. This guy was, from snout to the tip of its tail, the length of three eighteen-wheelers bumper-to-trailer. I had no idea how the dragon [Saint] was that big but I believe it was.
As I approached my destination, I could see the people down below scattering, thinking it was a dragon attack. I contacted Bit and asked him to warn his priests. The enclave defenders quickly lowered their wands. I landed my dragon on a big and hurriedly emptied square and dismounted.
For the first time in my life, I felt entirely comfortable letting my true self (Or whatever went for "true self" these days according to the System. I might have turned into a chimera by now) shine. Almost literally, but only my unicorn horn ensconced between my fox ears, which I let in the original orange-white color. Wearing my black were-jaguar skin with twenty multicolored fox tails waving behind me, my pristine white wings, I walked on the streets of Demonbane, the capital of the secret minotaur Kingdom of Viaan'myria. It was almost a city-state but there were fortress-cities on the outskirts to shield the mainland from the demons. They still needed land to farm.
A group of armored minotaurs approached. They wore a Greco-Roman breastplate with an armored skirt and greaves to protect their legs and no helmet or arm armor. No gambeson either, the breastplate was worn directly over their fur.
"Are you the great Bit's envoy?" The lead minotaur asked in their strange guttural and almost-bleated language. Their mouths made some phonemes impossible to pronounce.
"Yes, that's me. There's a group of believers I'm to pick up to bring the faith to another continent."
"Follow us. Our King wants to talk to you," He waved and the other minotaurs boxed me, giving me a wide berth because of my tails.
I walked without fear or threat, with the most neutral stance I could muster. The people in the city were the most eclectic I could think of. Bird-people, insect-people, squid-people, Kin, elves, humans, gnomes, goblins, even a giant sitting next to a tavern window drinking straight from a keg. The buildings were all made of stone, wood was a premium item here.
As I passed a butchery, I could see several stuffed demons on display. I recognized some of them from Arista's cleansing of the Ethereal north of here. "What are these?" I asked innocently.
"Claw-fiends," my escort answered. "Nasty demons. They don't stop attacking until you crush them entirely."
They had a strong exoskeleton, a mix of a mantis and a crab. They had four bladed pincers in the front and twelve crawling legs in six pairs along the slender body. Their heads were bulky and with curved scythe-like horns. They were mostly brown with a few patches of red, blue, and black, forming a camo pattern.
"Are they hard to kill?" I was barely suppressing my mirth.
"Aye. One of the strongest and most plentiful fiends. One by itself isn't a big danger, but they roam in packs of a few dozen to a hundred or more."
"What do you do with the carcasses?"
"Weapons, armor. The bodies can be smelted for some metals. The red parts of the carapace yield good iron, you can extract blue-iron from the blue parts, and the other contains copper."
"Blue-iron?" I asked, prompting for a detailed explanation.
"Blue-iron or demon-iron. That's how the folks call it."
Interesting. I extracted only the Cores from the bodies but didn't throw them away. I had no idea what they were for. Maybe some Ability in the new proficiency I was developing. "Do you guys eat the meat?"
"Only a bite, only once. Unlocks {Corrupted Blood Resistance} for new warriors."
Interesting. Maybe setting my title to [Demon Slayer] can garner me some goodwill points.
We reached the castle and after waiting for only one hour, I entered the throne room. People attending the court session watched me and kept chatting. I picked a few new languages and identified a few new species. Gobrytrook, for example, was a two-meter-tall muscular hybrid species, a cross between goblins and trolls. Not a half-breed but a hybrid. The Lore about them told me they were sterile, like mules.
The Minotaur [King] sat on his throne. I stopped at the right distance and nodded at him.
"Kneel!" Some minotaur in robes standing to the King's right shouted. I didn't comply. The King glowered at his compatriot (maybe the seneschal, prime minister, or ceremonial master, depending on which culture they adapted from).
"I beg your pardon, [Demon Slayer] Goddess," The King spoke and lowered his head, to the surprise of the inhuman courtiers. "The great Bit warned me of your arrival, but there was no time to instruct my staff on the proper protocol."
I guessed I had to roll with it now. For the sake of our extended friendship.