Logan was sitting while reading the rule book. It was shockingly big but there actually weren't a lot of rules, though the number increases as you go up each level. The huge walls of texts actually explained the rules and countless situations that happened throughout the years and exactly how each rule would and should be enacted and the reactions.
In the disciple, or unranked, the disciple has to give up any thoughts of revenge in the unforeseeable future but this is because they have to forget their rage and focus on training but not train with hatred in their hearts.
This is maintained all the way to C rank. After B rank when they become branch leaders, the revenge clause changes.
The order will help resolve the anger of the knight’s heart but within limits. The revenge cannot affect innocent people, that said, if the revenge is based on the premise of near genocidal tendency of one group or enslavement, it becomes even more loose.
The very first rule of the book is to fight for the absolute destruction of any and all forms of slavery. He narrowed his eyes as he saw this because it meant there were no rules stopping his revenge but he knew that the oath would force him to smother the flames and only sustain the embers. Although his oath is that of a branch leader, his actual strength imposed the rules of only E rank on him.
This was because of the magic involved which is maintained by his own mana so growing stronger will naturally impose higher level rules upon himself.
Also there are clear clauses which prevented him from using third parties to achieve his desires early either because it could end in more tragic fates affecting the innocent people.
That said, the order itself is free so it prohibits any interaction with national army forces. This prevents certain members of specific nations from helping their nation. Basically, becoming a Golden Lion Knight means ignoring the armed calls of a nation.
Of course, the current golden lions are unable to do that so most of the time, if caught in a war situation, such as a war breakout in a place they were presently located, they are to actively register purely as civilian support. Though, if members are from the attacking force, it is more likely for the group to find a chance to leave.
Being caught in political messes is what the group has been doing for the last few centuries.
It also seems that battle beasts are affected by their masters so they are required to follow all the rules since they train the techniques of their masters as well.
“So all basic rules are around separation from the nation of origin.” He muttered.
At this moment, Storm walked out stretching. He was in his small form but even he couldn’t compress down to the size of a lizard anymore. His smallest size is that of a medium sized dog. Only in his human form can he shrink down and funny enough, all his battle beasts learned to do that so that they can be close to Logan on his shoulder. Of course, Jade didn’t even need that but learned it nonetheless because it was a great escape method.
“Master, it seems you are fine.” Storm said.
The sun was still early in the sky but only because they were so high up.
“Yeah, the rest did wonders for me and the lingering pain and mental fatigue is gone.” Logan said.
Storm nodded and looked around.
At that moment Logan remembered something and reached into his inventory and took out a big crystal.
“Now that i think about it, this is a blue lightning mana crystal right?” he asked.
Storm looked and transformed into human form in normal size and carefully took the crystal. He examined it and nodded, “Indeed, it is clearly a higher purity and greatly compressed compared to my purple lightning that my race produced from common lightning we eat.” he said. “Jade said each boss reward works perfectly for each of us participants right?”
“So are you going to absorb it?” Logan asked.
“What about master’s sword? It can upgrade with this?” He asked.
“Nah, if anything, you would be able to cast spells with this new lightning and Arashi will be able to eat it from that so there is no problem. Take your time.” He said but Logan remembered something, “What happened to all the lost spikes?” he asked.
“I ate them all and absorbed them until they broke down and started to regrow.” he said and transformed. Logan looked, and as Storm said, all the missing spine spikes were starting to reform.
“I shall wait until we are safely on the ground to eat and absorb this.” Storm said as he returned the crystal and walked around a bit until he found a nice area that would get a lot of sunlight in a short while.
The morning soon came and with it some breakfast.
At around 9 am the ship finally descended into the airship station in the archipelago and they walked out.
“Wow, what is this strange humid smell!?” Jade said like a child.
“That is probably the smell of the sea.” Logan said.
They walked out and after presenting his ID he was let through after a much quickly inventory check of his magic bags. This is the benefits of being a member of that nation, the movement speed is so much higher.
They left and headed to the docks to get on the boat that would leave not even half an hour later.
The ship was not heading to the port that Logan originally went to when he registered, which was on the western side of east Eshen. Instead it was going to one of the ports on the eastern side close to the mountains blocking Eshen and the Mortis desert.
While on the ship, they had access to news reports on a crystal screen so that passengers would be able to watch something. It was passing the 9 oclock news at this moment.
“...unfortunately, a massive sea storm is picking up suddenly. Although the storm will not hit Eshen directly, the edge of the storm will definitely reach the eastern shores and affect the archipelago region causing high waves. The storm should arrive near the coastal regions within a few hours and all travel anywhere to the east is cancelled. Everyone is advised to avoid coastal zones for at least 2 days after this because it is still unknown if the incident is caused by natural causes or by a powerful sea monster.” the reporter said.
Logan frowned, “Damn, there goes our trip. We will have to get the refund and rebook it after the coasts are cleared for travel again.” Logan groaned.
“We will be able to explore a bit of your homeland then.” Jade said with a smile.
He forced a smile a bit and sighed, “You might not like it.” he said simply.
She didn’t know what he meant, she had used his internet device to read about Eshen and had read a lot of impressive stuff about it before and after the war. The fact that it became a place where many retiring adventurers of all professions went to pass on their knowledge made it impressive to say the least.
Soon they reached the port and got off and entered the city. One thing to notice is that the ports had an impressive system of wave breakers that was easy to see underwater. Large machines like those of street barriers for vehicles were built at a pretty good depth and in case of emergencies both weather related and external threats, they would rise as high as 20 meters out the surface of the water for a stretch of nearly 500 meters. In normal days they remained underwater.
At this time, half of them were out in preparation for the storm.
At the shore there were already warnings which showed that soon the ports would be closed as the second layer of wave defenses would activate. The port stretched fully across the entire city’s length and around most cities were defensive walls which is a habit that most nations had when building cities because it was just another roadblock. That said, when building coastal cities, the ports were made special. In the case of a storm, the ships are pulled onto land and the entire harbor would rise to the height of the walls. The walls wasn’t straight as well, it was curved. The curve faced towards the ocean and the lower side was further back so when the water hits, it will instantly be curved back instead of upwards.
It can’t be said how many times this has saved cities from rough waves and tsunami.
If the storm was heading directly towards them, they would even bring A and S rank adventurers because in some cases, massive storms aren’t natural, they are extremely powerful monsters going on a rampage.
Driving it away or killing it would cause the storm to end soon after.
This was not the current case because the storm was coming down upon the Mortis desert area. It was a rare sea storm coming down from the north, it is likely to be one of the new rainstorms that would get further inland filling a lot of space with sandy and muddy water which is likely to dry after a few hours of direct sunlight.
Some speculate that there is a powerful creature preventing the desert from regaining natural weather patterns deep in the desert but the city of the saint paladin proved that wrong as nothing actively attacks purely to destroy his efforts.
In fact, the small oasis he has built draws in monsters who are quite passive towards the inhabitants of the city as the water is a great help to their own survival.
The dream to break natural weather is his biggest goal and supposedly he is soon to open river channels. How much of this is true Logan did not know.
Walking into the city, Jade was happy to see the people unworried about the weather though it was clear that they were preparing to close up but as they walked around she began to frown.
“Master… why are people of your age so…” she stopped to think of the proper word.
“Starved? Weak? Depressed?” Logan asked.
She thought a moment and nodded, “No matter how many islands they open in the archipelago and no matter how many people got adopted around the time i did, there is no way that everyone, nearly half the population worth of children, would be able to get adopted because there is no land to open. Even with the effort of many older adventurers, the number of islands still doesn’t fully cover the requirement of space and development, safety and open space for employment. They are children, they have basic education, most work to pay their time as an orphan to reduce the burden on the kingdom who was fighting a war. Those lucky to be adopted were able to at least become adventurers.” He said.
She instantly understood why he said she would not like it. She looked around and could see the slightly skinner young men and women just going about their days, an air of tiredness around them.
“Can’t we do anything?” She asked.
“This is close to several million children and young adults, the most we can do is wait until western Eshen is safe enough and help open the land that they can once more cultivate like most civilians.” He said.
Stolen novel; please report.
She looked sad after hearing but suddenly perked up, “Isn’t master a branch leader of the mercenary group now. Can’t you take in even a few of them to train, teach skills and maybe even become adventurers with us?” She asked with possible hope.
He smiled weakly, “I’m sure once Olivia is finished her training, that is the first thing she will do. This is currently the easiest place to get people who would be willing but we can’t take anyone in because we are heading to Mortis Desert, the danger level is not to be underestimated. Desert Land Drakes, Sand Worms, Massive desert condors and even strange creatures such as sand sharks exist. It is a very cruel place that malnourished people with no fighting skills could survive.” he said.
“Yeah… but we do have that little orb.” She muttered.
Logan sighed because she was right but he had nothing built in there. He didn’t even have a storage space for provisions in case something happens. He needed at least 1 km of space to make a few houses, a farm for constant food production and figure out some way to allow the orb to gather mana besides adding items dungeons usually produce to concentrate mana.
“That place is currently too small and if we get stuck, those inside would starve to death before we could pull them out.” He said.
She nodded in understanding but clearly she was depressed.
Logan knew she was very nice. It might be an effect of the holy water on her soul which likely changed her personality a bit but she is extremely nice and clearly wants to help others.
Sadly he couldn’t take anyone with them where they were going.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know the city’s structure and by chance, they came upon an orphanage. It was Jade’s first time seeing one but as soon as she saw it, her face turned pale as she saw the children who were close to the age of young adults that the orphanage could not care for anymore and many children.
“Master… what is this dark dreary place?” She asked.
He could only force a smile, “This is an orphanage, it is where children who lost their parents go and were adults without families or wishing to have children can adopt them.” He explained.
“It is so cold here, there is so much suffering.” She said.
“Yeah… the kingdom had to both sustain 10 years of war as well as many orphanages filled with children. Even with so many adopted and taken to the Eshen archipelago that accounted for less than a third of the orphans.” he explained.
He pat her head to try and make her feel better and moved on in hopes of getting some distance from it so she would not feel that coldness.
They rented a room with a single double bed. Both of them tend to shrink so they can sleep alongside him so this size was never too bad.
In the room, Jade was still pale and seemed a tad bit out of it.
“Are you okay?” Storm asked.
“Just… a little out of it since I felt that feeling from the orphanage.” She muttered, “I’m going to rest a bit.” she said and laid down.
They decided to let her sleep it off and left to purchase supplies.
Logan headed to several alchemists and came out grinning as he sold the lesser troll blood. Unlike the low prices paid in gold in Helix, he got 3,000 tip per gallon bottle. If it had been true troll blood it would have been nearly 10 times the price because those are used to produce higher quality elixirs.
In a short time he took to visit several alchemist shops, his funds rocketed to over 200,000 tip lining his pockets with a satisfying weight.
He purchased a few higher quality healing potions. Sadly, the development of pills is a very recent discovery developed by a few willful young alchemists who found the secret but only for common low grade potions. Things like a healing drought made of lesser troll blood or a low to middle quality Healing elixir pill has yet to be developed.
The problem stems from the magical and medical properties being unable to remain stable when the mixture is dried. The concentration also skyrockets making it hard to get the dosage correct to match a single potion bottle that is about 50 ml for each portion.
There he purchased a few dozen empty barrels and located a natural spring, the two headed outside the city walls and took fresh spring water. It took a few hours to fill it but they eventually close up the last of the barrels and store them in the inventory so that it doesn’t go stale.
They raced back before the shops closed and purchased large stores of crops and meat to last them a few months before finally returning and finding Jade in bed still.
However, when they entered, Logan instantly felt something strange due to his bond with her quickly ran over and turned her over.
Her face was flush completely red and she was having a high fever.
“Something is wrong!” He said and quickly threw the covers off and looked around before remembering something and began to use magic to conjure water and cool it a bit before having her drink it.
She was sweating heavily so he first rehydrated her a bit before freezing some water and putting it in a small cloth.
“Hold some of this ice to her head and keep her cool.” He ordered Storm and quickly ran out.
He didn’t waste time as he ran to the nearest healer and told them they needed help and how she suddenly fell ill all of a sudden after reaching the city.
The clinic sent one of their experienced doctors and entering the room, she sat down and began to take her temperature and pulse before taking some glasses and starting to use medical type identification magic.
“She isn’t human, what race is she?” she asked.
“She was identified as a Lesser Priestess Lord.” Logan said.
“Lord?! This is quite the humanoid, even normal lords maintain a few monster traits. Nevermind that…” she said and began the magical analysis. “Her mana is being slightly disrupted. It is causing a lot of troubles in her body and it all originates directly from her monster core.” He said.
“Is there something we can do?” Logan asked.
“This isn’t that serious. She is a dungeon creature right?” she asked.
Logan confirmed it, “I’ve had her for about a year.” He said.
“Right, well the problem stems from her monster core starting to go crazy. Her flow is irregular, place your hand against her chest and channel your mana development technique and it should fix the flow and her body will calm down.” the doctor said.
Logan sighed and sat where the doctor was and began to channel mana and start the flow just like he did when he tamed her.
It took awhile for the full system to form just in the mana pool but after it did, the mana started to get in control before starting to flow through her body and building the full system until the cycle was complete.
Letting go, her body began to do the technique naturally and the fever quickly broke and her mana was back to normal before she fell into a deep sleep.
He sighed in relief and thanked the doctor, “Do you know what happened?” Logan asked.
“To a degree.” She said, “Certain breeds have certain requirements that keep them healthy. For instance, a Burning Whip vine, a plant monster, will protect and even cultivate entire patches of Flame herbs and consume them regularly in month to month intervals. Tell me, when you arrived in the city, what was her reaction?” he asked.
“Let’s see, it was normal until we docked, as we walked around she was happy at the start but soon noticed the condition of the young population due to the side effects of the war and the current food problems still present.” he said.
“Okay and after that?” she asked.
“Then, as we looked for an inn, we came upon an orphanage and she instantly turned pale. She said the orphanage was cold and filled with suffering so I got her away from there and she went to sleep right after.” He said.
“I see. Lesser Priestess Lord, this is a very rare breed of lord. What was she as a hobgoblin?” She asked.
“Healer. I had her learn several types of medical knowledge in case pure magic could not handle certain problems.” Logan said.
“Right, a different but similar breed that is much more common is the hobgoblin cleric but it is also rare without at least 2 generations of breeding however clerics who become lords are more often either a half priest lord or a Half paladin lord. Both are righteous but don’t really have reactions like this girl.” she said.
“Is there a difference between priest and priestess?” Logan asked confused.
“As a matter of fact, there is. For some odd reason, when comparing males and females in terms of magic, females are much more powerful with light magic and this translates to healing magic. A priestess is more powerful than a priest but it has a backlash. Priestesses are also much more caring to the point that feeling and witnessing the suffering of others without at least trying to do some good for even one person could make this breed of monster extremely sick. You can even say that their very biology pushes them to complete many deeds of good.” She said.
“I didn’t know that. I haven’t heard of this breed before though.” Logan said.
“That is because it is a rare species. Dungeon goblins don’t get gender until at the very least, their third racial evolution when their bodies are big and have space for this but monsters like goblins have an amazingly tiny female population on top of that. Wild goblins aren’t even capable of breeding like common breeds and are pests because of it since they require at least a human or another humanoid breed to substitute for their lack of females.” she explained.
Logan nodded, he had heard the same from Helix. “She was experimented on as a goblin and the person who gave her to me had rescued her. He already called her a female because the experiments seemed to have caused her to develop a gender, somehow.” Logan explained.
“I see, well now you know. Also, although her body is stable, you had best figure out what to do for the orphanage. She will be normal for the rest of the night and morning but ignoring the orphanage will just make her constantly sick again.” the doctor said.
Logan understood and paid for the services.
He went inside and explained a bit.
“I see, so it is like crystalback lizards who need lightning at least once every so often to actually maintain a healthy diet.” Storm said. “What will you do?”
“Well, donating money is unlikely to satisfy Jade.” he said and got up.
“Are you planning to adopt some children?” Storm asked.
“It is likely to result in that. We should quickly prepare some housing inside the portable island. Come on, I need some help moving wood.” He said before summoning Jin. “Take care of Jade and make sure no one tries anything.” He said.
Jin nodded as the two left.
With a sigh, he headed searched for an architect and paid for him to help design a simple farmer’s house and showed him the portable island since it was the area they would construct.
“Hmm… just farming?” He asked.
“No, I was planning to recruit slightly older children. I am part of a mercenary group and will train them in the safety of this place while other children can be farmers.” Logan said.
“I see.” he said.
He brought out a table and blueprints and established the island perimeter and they quickly split the land into four quadrants. The house was in the middle and had 1 master room for Logan and his party and 4 large rooms for up to 3 beds each, a kitchen and a dining room.
The four quadrants were split, north, south, east and west and the north side would be cleared and packed to be used as a training field while the other three would be farming areas.
The design was pretty basic but it filled the requirements.
With wood as the main material, the architect told them how the frame worked if he was going to do just general wooden walls. If he wanted a more complete house with actual luxuries like air conditioning and heat or cold isolation then he should look for a company to build it quickly. It wouldn’t take more than about a week to finish this size of a house while the fencing could be done with some logs and planks.
What was important was surrounding the entire island with some form of fence so that no one fell under the island and got stuck there. Although the orb could support their weight but the fall would not be nice.
To say nothing of it, they have had it for over a year and knew that the weather was stable and didn’t change. It maintained a late spring early summer feeling. The mana inside was also filled so it was stable and was good for crops.
In the future, they would now have to supplement the mana for the children.
They eventually left and with the blue prints they went to buy wood beams and planks along with nails.
They worked through the night after gathering everything and used some basic magic to put up the foundation and frame beams before hammering the plank floors and walls. Finally they hammered in the roof and moved on to the fencing.
The edge fences were a meter and a half all around the island and they finished it off by building the four fences with a gate to each side. There was a small fenced area around the house just to separate it and there was a gate facing each side into each area from the house directly.
It was extremely basic and the kitchen was still undone. It was stone and required an oven and stove. As for electrical equipment, that was out of the question.
One thing Logan noticed as well is that network signals were isolated from the outside world. It gave some interesting ideas for the island’s usage if he ever discovered how to make this island grow.
They returned to the outside world and appeared in the inn where they had entered. Jade was still asleep but because of the swirling she woke up but blinked sleepily.
“Hey Jade, how are you feeling?” Logan asked.
“Fine.” She said but she was clearly down.
“That is good.” he said.
“Yeah.” She said, still sad.
Logan looked at Storm and Jin before letting out a sigh, “How about we go get some breakfast.” he said.
“Master, I was conscious when the doctor talked about my condition. I don’t want you to help children just because of me.” She said.
Logan smiled and took out the orb and showed her, “Well that isn’t much of a choice. I won’t let you constantly be sick because of something as simple as this.” he said.
She looked and was surprised as a small house and fencing had appeared.
“We spent the night building it. It is very basic and we still lack a kitchen but it should be enough after getting a few builders to finish off those parts.” Storm said.
She smiled but guilt was on her face so Logan sat down and pat her head and comforted her, “Come on, it might be a little early and we would have to take only a few more precautions but we can take a few kids to start working out how to train them.” he said.
“Alright.” she said.
They got up and went to eat and before 8am they went to the orphanage.