Maxwell’s summon was honestly amazing. He had said that a B rank mercenary group was at max 500 men but sitting in the banquet hall Olivia’s internal world was hardly only 500 men.
The 10 B ranks sat at the front and behind them were two or three young adults each, after going down the ranks the number just increased. The original group alone possessed 250 members but the current young generation was clearly over 600 members alone.
Furthermore, unlike Maxwell who is specifically training Olivia as the leader and had all rights to pass everything, causing her and Logan to be E rank, the next generation was all F rank but their physical strengths were clearly higher.
“Why are there so many people? If this trend followed then the group would have thousands over the generations.” Logan muttered behind Maxwell.
“People die.” Maxwell muttered in return simple and short.
It was clear that the group remained purely a family thing, those who survived would train the next generation and so on.
“You all responded fast and well.” Maxwell said.
“What else can we do with the sudden appearance of a demon kingdom?” one of the ten B ranks said but his eyes were on Maxwell’s intense pressure and youthfulness that surpassed B rank and his old age of 65.
“I bet you all already feel it, I have surpassed B rank but this isn’t by my own effort.” He said and waved Logan and Olivia back. “This feat is the result of the discovery, or should i say, rediscovery of what was once belonging to our order!” He shouted. “Take them out.” He quickly whispered.
They each took out an inventory box, at one point or another, they all have heard of Legend swords and what kind of tools accompany them and one of them was the Inventory box.
Each of them pulled out the scroll of the Golden Lion’s Mana development technique.
It came out and hovered in the air before landing in each of their hands naturally.
Logan dropped one side and held it on the top.
The older men were looking at that strangely, “What is that?” One C rank asked.
“The lost art of the Golden Lion’s mana development to S rank.” Maxwell said.
Instantly every elder gasped and some were trembling. “It was stored in the hands of Helix likely at the command of the 4th grandmaster. Helix left the current method on my son who was there first and later, at the command of one of the grand elders of the Order of Legend smiths he cloned the scroll to perfection with every last magical ability leaving no faults.” He said.
“This! This is a treasure and a half!” one of the B ranks said with extreme desire.
“Yes, however you all are aware that the scrolls choose their owners.” Maxwell said and tossed the two scrolls over the crowd and it began to fall making the young generation run but half way down it magically stopped and suddenly shot back to two in front of Max.
“Olivia is my replacement, she is the next Leader and my son is her vice. Also, we not only possess this but the lost weapon skills which included the mana channel flow of the magic weapons. With the combination of this, the Golden Lion can fully revive into the knight’s order of the past. However, everyone knows the dangers, don’t they?” He said serious.
The excited expressions on everyone’s face stilled like a stagnant pond.
“Is this why you called us?” one of the men asked.
“Yes, the scrolls are fully intact, it possesses the capacity of identifying our technique and converting our entire magical system to the proper form of the golden lion. The conversion allowed me to surpass the barrier of B rank and it already produced a cycle on my mana pool to solidify this effect. With every one of you old fools empowered, we can easily establish the protective sphere for the creation of the Golden Lion Army once more. The day will come when the Knight’s Order of the Golden Lion will once more spread far and wide!” He shouted.
All the old men roared and the young adults cheered alongside them.
“Everyone, I have already said it but my daughter has the most perfect talent I found for this art, I searched for 5 years before settling down here and training her. Are you old and young going to accept following her as your leader?” Maxwell asked.
This was the moment of truth, the main problem is that instantly, 10 bright golden eyes from the B ranks and shined.
They all learned the golden eye of truth and both Logan and Olivia felt the chill as their bodies were completely examined.
“The boy has a higher magical talent.” One of them instantly said.
“His body is more fit for purely the sword. Maxwell is right to say that the girl is most proper, her body is fit for extreme situations of fighting with any weapon in her hand.” Another one said.
Logan had nothing against that, it was true. His talent for the sword truly did surpass Olivia by miles but he wasn’t very good with other weapons.
He soon started to frown and Maxwell noticed he did a simple gesture and suddenly the glow went off and they all blinked.
“Huh?” Olivia muttered and looked at him.
“As the leader, you have the unique ability to mentally block when the golden eye of someone is used on you or people of your choice.” He explained.
“Only leader?” Logan asked.
“It is a status quo. The top needs the capacity to control the bottom after all.” He said. Maxwell turned to them as they shook their heads, “Well?” He asked.
“Your assessment is correct, in terms of talent, between the two she is indeed better but don’t forget that we all have kids whom we searched far and wide for.” one of the ten said.
“Yes but they are still limited by their development. Alright, if you all properly agree, bring out your altars and swear to Olivia to bind your command chains.” Maxwell said.
Logan had expected as much, each of them took out a familiar altar and Olivia took out her own. The ten stood and touched the altar, they recited a complex ritual chant and oath and ten lights shot out and infused into Olivia’s altar.
The entire chain of command of the ten branches under each of these B ranks fell under command.
As for the children, after the young generation was instructed on what to do and at the end, close to 1,000 people were united under the banner of the Golden Lion.
After that, in pairs, the men walked in rank and touched the scrolls and infused their mana. Every reaction was the same as they felt their entire bodies seemingly change from the weakest stage to their strongest. Just like Maxwell, the 10 B ranks became A ranks producing an unbelievable force of 11 A rank masters. After so many years, each of the old men had basically reached the peaks of their ranks. With each infusion, it would push the men to the start of the next step and would require the following step that was sure to be copied.
Finally after the last old generation the new one came and the reaction was the same though weaker.
They had only mana of F ranks so they barely had that great of a change but it did help them reach the next cycle.
After that was a massive reorganization, the reason is that the ranks of so many had gone up that the ranking count now was 11 A rank, 39 B rank and 200 C rank.
First everyone had to upgrade their oath of loyalty to their ranks, this included even A rank leaders and the B ranks each became leaders of their own branches as they formed altars with their oaths.
“This is probably the most prosperous the Golden Lions has been in a long time.” One of the A ranks said.
“So what do we do about recruiting? Are we going with orphaned children all over the continent?” Logan asked.
“That would be stupid.” Maxwell said.
“How so?”
“The ancient order was not limited to humans. It was one of the creeds the ancient hero left us which was to include free sentient monsters as well as humans. There are ancient records in the libraries even showing the later leaders even recruited some hybrid demons. The development was extremely poor though.” Maxwell said.
“Well yeah, the ancient method produces very faint traces of holy mana in our mana. The order was meant to be a force against any future demon invasions. It is obvious that demons couldn’t properly train a technique that produced even the faintest traces of Holy mana in their bodies.” Logan said.
“Is that how it works?!” Maxwell said shocked.
It was obvious that no one knew this because it had been so long.
“It was explained to me by Helix himself.” Logan said.
Everyone accepted it instantly because Helix was an old being, if he felt something bad that required the return of the Golden Lion Order then he naturally would not lie about such a thing.
“The question now is how do we recruit monsters.” one of the A ranks said.
The hall turned silent because they knew what they meant. Nuntip was in utter chaos, barely a week had passed since the Dark Empire hijacked the Great Empire’s broadcast and forcefully shouted that humans had methods that could stabilize a monster's body. Even S rank monsters were required to help control the millions of sentient monsters outraged by this.
It was exactly what they wanted because now, dungeons were nearly on the brink of eruption all over the place.
Eruption was when massive monster waves burst out of the dungeons but most of the time they are mindless monsters who had massive populations. These monsters had a short lifespan of a few month's and as they die, those who are left would eat the monster cores to survive longer. Only less than 5% of any eruption survived as their bodies reached a stable enough state that it would not constantly leak.
That is very dangerous for tower dungeons who had massive cities of millions every 20 floors.
“We should focus on small scale improvements at this time.” Logan said.
“Huh?” the leaders said and Logan called out Storm. “This is my partner as well as my mount, Storm. I originally obtained him as a Crystalback Lightning Lizard but by feeding him an ogre horn, he started to evolve and awakened ancient bloodlines and is a full drake. He is young still but he is a proper drake instead of a lesser one. There are still abundant amounts of such eggs in the areas that were once thunder forest. The natural creatures have yet to return to normal. I feel like it would be very helpful if every person had a powerful mount, if we want a powerful revival, what better way than every member possessing drakes or dragon mounts?” Logan said.
“The boy has a good idea but the execution isn’t that good. Not everyone has such high affinity for lightning as you.” He said.
“So? From what i know, you either get a modern thunder dragon’s blood and forcefully inject it into a common lizard and raise it or you somehow activate ancient bloodlines. There are a lot of different lizards who can evolve into dragons, I guess it just depends on likes and dislikes.” Logan said.
Everyone nodded, dragons were the mightiest mortal being, it is quite true that having members riding them would be great.
“The only problem with dragons is that they have an instinctive dislike to let others ride them. It is almost genetic at this point since those transformed with blood are no different.” one of the A ranks said.
“I feel no disgust for my master. I pride myself at the thought of having my master ride me into battle.” Storm said.
“Really?” Maxwell asked.
“It might just be a modern mentality but I do not feel this rejection.” He said.
“We could think of this another time, we need adult Drakes or Dragons for the reverse scales as well so that there are no problems with their growth as well.” Maxwell said.
“Okay so if we need other creatures I think the easiest to get in great numbers is monster goblins and make them sentient by fixing their monster core position.” Logan said.
When he finished saying that, everyone looked at one another and smiled and nodded.
Out of any monster breed, goblins were by far the most numerous and those surviving in the wild but not sentient originated from dungeons and were among the survivors but like common animals, their bloodlines degraded over time with less and less mana they had. Those dungeon monsters that survived escaping all have monster cores and the tamer guild had a massive market of capture and selling these populations perfectly tamed.
That said, they do not fix the sentience of them or it would cost a lot.
“This is a good plan actually.” One of them said.
“You ten, go to the tamer guilds and purchase as many wild goblins as you can, they are usually sedated with magic seals so it should be easy to get them from breeders in large quantities.” Maxwell said.
“Should we get other races as well?” one of them asked.
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“Kobold and Orcs should work as well.” Maxwell said.
“Seriously, works?” one of the new B ranks said.
“None of you have ever seen a proper trained orc. Those raised on quantity of mana from birth are pigs but those raised on purity, now those are some seriously strong warriors. Their entire muscular structure changes more to humans and they become more like humans. Kobold are the same as they become lizard beastmen if not some form of dragon breeds, though those generally require a higher race’s blood.” Maxwell said.
“Oh! That sounds interesting. The creation of a breed of lizardmen of my own breed.” Storm suddenly exclaimed.
The idea did spark some interest but it stayed at that.
Eventually the meeting was finally over with and they began to spread out and leave to start preparing.
Those B rank and below all stayed to learn the weapon skills from Olivia while Logan walked out into the dojo and was stopped by Maxwell.
“Where are you going.” He said.
“I’ve repeated this a lot already. Mortis desert, I need to secure Holy water in case something happens with the demons walking about. News reports yesterday say that there are already half a million half demons gathered in the Dark Empire and tensions from the monster’s rampage is getting high so I need to do what I can now.” Logan said.
“The storm is still raging in the east, just wait until it is over and I will go with you. Don’t underestimate my contacts, every B rank is a leader of a division and now you are among the 51 divisions. You will have not only human orphans but monsters to train and will need help dealing with that.” Maxwell said.
“They are all unranked, all monsters sold are generally under a month of age. Storm’s massive size is plenty to scare them witless.” He said.
“Yeah but did you forget that until they swear an oath of loyalty, you cannot openly spread the knowledge from the scroll. Your battle beasts are one thing since they are bound to you but these are going to be free members.” Maxwell said.
“So you are saying that you want to teach me how to train their mana without doing the same thing that i did with Jade which converted her into my battle beast?” Logan asked.
“Exactly.” he said.
“Isn’t it just to avoid purifying the mana? I just have to make their mana follow mine to do the technique.” He said.
“It isn’t as simple, also I am not letting you into an A rank danger zone with that kind of attitude to meet the only living saint in Nuntip. Don’t think Storm’s boosted speed can outrun anything faster than a D rank who is low in speed, that isn’t happening.” Maxwell said. “Also, it is ten times safer, the route I will show you.” He said.
“Oh and what a genius path is that?” Logan asked, teasing his adoptive father.
“Hehe, you will see.” Maxwell said and walked off laughing.
Logan shook his head and could only head to the micro world, inside, the six kids were already holding wooden training swords. They were traditional longswords and they were the same length, not a length adapted for their sizes. They had to adapt to that constant size because it was among the most common weapons.
He looked at each of them and nodded and walked over and had them hold their forms as he modified their posture to help properly move the power of their bodies.
After a week, they had all already started on their mana channels.
He looked at Helen, the girl with A rank mana in her mana pool, among all of them, her development was the best for obvious reasons. She was already on her second cycle but the speed was naturally slower because it was taking more mana to open the entire system but they all already saw differences.
In just a week she grew 5 cm and she had a constant strong presence which was a result of her mana being out of her natural league.
Right now she was using the A rank mana itself to grind through it but when it was all opened perfectly that would change as the F rank technique would likely decompress all the mana. She would need to release little strands at a time while constantly consuming it as she went. In this disaster, she would have an easy path to power however, her body had to accompany her strength.
In the same way that physical strength without mana caused a certain imbalance, more mana with a weak body was also dangerous. Of course mages obviously existed but they still took some time to work their bodies at least to a basic degree to allow their natural capacity to not be limited by their bodies.
After that he let them continue and watched their forms.
He constantly fixed problems until he took a wooden sword and controlling his strength, he gave a quick slap to the spot that was constantly getting out.
“I’ve fixed this problem five times, five is the limit until I start to hit them. I’ve passed this treatment my whole life so if your bodies aren’t listening to what you want, I am going to force them to listen through pain.” He said. “Now continue.”
This day, he was far less merciful and they all finished training with bruises.
He tossed each of them a healing pill and then made dinner. After that they were sent to train their mana until they went to sleep.
What was really shocking is that even after a week, the storm in the east was raging, it had moved further east and the center of the storm was at the edge of the continent. The storm no longer reached Eshen but it was still raging hard.
Sea travel wasn’t open yet as they hoped the storm would leave the coasts off the eastern edge.
When the 10 A ranks returned, they came back with beast bags upon beast bags.
This is a special kind of transport back for huge numbers of monsters, aka living beings. They contained 1,000 newborn goblins, 300 kobold and 500 orcs.
Of course, the price for so many monsters was not small but the funds gathered over generations is not small either.
Each division, not counting Olivia who would be in charge of the young generation of humans raised by the elder generation, were tasked with a part of each race. This was about 20 goblins, Logan was left with one less since it was 51 divisions, 6 kobold and 10 orcs.
Logan lacked a single member each but his three battle beasts basically equaled the numbers among members and he also had the 6 children so he honestly had a few extra members.
Logan dropped them in his micro world.
“How are the others going to transport so many monster races?” Logan asked.
“The same way we got them. It saves travel fees.” he said.
“Don’t they check each time?” Logan asked.
“Yes but anything not considered sentient only has a small bit of tax charged. It isn’t strange for tamers to form squads of certain races so naturally this isn’t strange if you are a part of a mercenary group.” Max said.
He grabbed one of the unconscious goblins and undid the seal but he still wouldn’t wake up easily.
Maxwell handed it to Logan and had him fix the core.
It soon began to groan in pain until it was finally in place when it suddenly shouted as the glow slowly spread until the solid form fully turned into mana and it began to grow a bit and the distorted body fixed up.
It collapsed unconscious.
“These are particularly distorted, they went from 3 fingers to five all of a sudden and grew nearly 10 cm just from that.” Logan said.
“Infants of a very wild goblin group, these likely didn’t even kidnap humans to mate, they did it with animals. You can tell by the look.” Maxwell said and picked up a different one and forced the mouth open and revealed tusks before taking a different one and showed the longer nose and canine fangs.
“Why are they even capable of this?” Logan asked.
“For the same reason that goblins can evolve into so many creatures, they simply have the DNA of too many creatures as a result of being a dungeon’s weakest breed. These faint traits don’t really change much though they do show later on. This boar mated one will likely be a heavy tank fighter, thick bones and hard muscles. The wolf bred one is likely to be lean, possibly obtaining female gender making her slender.” He said.
“So everyone of these will train the golden lion form right? So they are likely to adapt to their strongest techniques then?” He asked.
“Yes, this is called talent. You are firmly the best sword user talent I have seen but that isn’t everything.” he said.
“Yeah yeah.” Logan replied.
He moved to the next and one by one the goblins were ‘fixed’. The angle of their cores wasn’t as small as Jade’s who had barely 5 degrees off the perfect position. These had between 40 to 60 degrees off the straightened side which showed in their monstrous form.
Fixing it was painful as their muscles and nerves were connected and their bodies turning back to mana for a time was also painful but after it passed, they became stronger and smarter while their genetics became more flexible once more.
The kobold were even worse, they were like slightly humanoid lizards with four fingered stubby hands and two fingered feet bent like animals.
Orcs looked like pigs that stood up on two legs.
The changes in those were equally as drastic. First, their hands took full five fingered forms their torso developed and their musculature improved. The animal legs remained only for the lizards while the orcs changed into humanoid five toe feet while the head remained like a pig but the format of the body was a lot more humanoid.
After that, it was time to wake them up and Storm did that by roaring on them. It was like the clap of thunder and it rushed right into their head causing many to jump in fear.
Jade was there because there was an interesting thing about monsters. Those who were of higher ranked breeds could understand the garbled nonsense they said and even command them.
They all fearful run back as they watched the large lizard glow and drop down as a lizardman. Jade and him walked forward while not holding in their magical presence making them all cower.
“Do you understand my words?” Jade asked.
The goblins began to speak in indistinguishable mutters just like Jade had done surprisingly, goblins with even basic intelligence close to sentience form a language out of this nonsense that they could actually understand. As they become more sentient, it develops into a full language unique to each tribe.
Those who learn to speak human language retain the capability to understand instinctively what their weaker races speak though not those who become sentient and form tribal language.
“You are now my followers brought here by my master. You have not been enslaved with magic because my master has plans. This is a rare chance to grow powerful and free. The only bondage is the one of loyalty but you will grow strong, smart and powerful.” She said.
The goblin’s had shining eyes like a child that heard it could become a hero.
Storm glared at the kobold who cowered even more than the goblins. His presence was ten times greater towards them because the social structure of humanoid lizards and dragon breeds is unique. All lizards originate from the progenitor of dragons, there was always some trace of it but it was rare for them to achieve anything. Storm could activate it because he ate the horn and grew his own filling his body with mana and energizing it. Common lizards would not normally achieve this, they would be stuck just like how crystalback lizards are stuck as lizards.
Without these magical treasures not found near them, there is no way to step beyond their limits but when it is achieved, the bloodline of a higher lizard causes instinctive fear.
He did not ask them, he simply said, “You are my followers.”
That was all it took for them to fear him and bow.
All that was left was orcs and Maxwell walked to the small group and took out a small magic tome.
He grabbed one and it squealed like a piglet that was caught.
He didn’t let up though and carefully injected mana passed it through him and injected into the book.
This was like a loophole in the system of magic books. The rule is simple, the person who injects mana absorbs it but as you can see that is not the case. In fact it is ‘the body where the mana was released from obtains the knowledge.’
Passing it through someone to make it exit and absorb the knowledge is a trick found to teach monsters who don’t know the human tongue how to understand it. This is important when recruiting monster breeds without forcing them into bondage to a master.
The book burst and was absorbed.
He let go and the fearful infant orc ran to the others.
“Orc, you understand my words now.” Maxwell said.
It looked fearful but that knowledge clearly made it much smarter.
“You were brought here not to be enslaved but to be trained as warriors for my cause. A knight’s order that can span throughout the land. You are among the first, are you warriors or are you pigs to wallow in the mud?” he asked.
It was shocked and began to grunt like an orc as if grumbling to the others.
Logan was shocked when they walked forward despite their size and were showing off determination.
“Good, we will forge you into powerful orc warriors.” he said and turned to Logan. “And their loyalty is secure. Others will not have much trouble just selecting one leader to learn the human tongue though.” he said.
“When can we go to the desert?” Logan asked.
“Travel is still blocked but I did say I would show off my contacts and I know you wouldn’t stay put so we can go. I’ve already got a ferry prepared for us heading to the nearest port in the Mortis desert. Let me check the time frame.” He muttered and started to look at the date and time.
“With luck we can get there in about a week and just barely catch it as it arrives.” He muttered and grinned.
Logan was still confused by what Maxwell was so excited to catch but he knew nothing of what was going on.
“Alright let’s go and after putting down the door in your room, we can leave travel to the sailors and deal with opening their mana pools.” Max said.
They left the two to make sure the wild monsters didn’t go crazy without supervision and left. Maxwell made one final visit to Olivia telling her he was leaving with Logan for his own safety.
“This is a test, all of them are testing your leadership skills. I’ve let you teach the students of the dojo many times so that you don’t get stage fright so now isn’t the time either. You know the complete techniques and are among the few people who can fully use it since everyone needs to obtain magic weapons with open mana channels before anything else.” he whispered.
She nodded and gave him a hug, “Don’t die and don’t bicker with Logan, you already did a lot of bad by lying to him so just try to make amends instead.” she whispered back. “At the end of the day, even if you adopted us to be the next golden lions, you are still our father.” She said.
He gave a small smile, this kind of sentimentalism would have been ludacris in his youth but age changed a lot of things.
He walked off and with Logan, boarded a ship. They had stocked up on a lot of previsions already and this only increased with the increased numbers of passengers from the monsters.
When they finished boarding and the ship set sail, the two headed inside and together, they used their mana to open the mana channels and mana pool which, for Max, was an exercise to get control of his new higher purity mana which needed even less mana to do exactly what Helen was doing.
Even Logan’s E rank mana had great effect but it naturally needed more mana but they still got the very first cycle for all of the monsters through in the first two days and their bodies started adapting after they were done.
“Dungeon born and outerworld monsters sure are different.” Logan said.
“Yeah, dungeon born would have instantly grown up but they are also much older souls so they feel no difference.” Max said.
“How long until they can speak in human tongue to do the oath?” Logan asked.
“Shouldn’t be long, it should take about a week for their vocal cords to achieve maturity with mana flowing freely now. That said, they are going to be like starving men because their bodies are going to accelerate in growth which the magic bodies of dungeon monsters don’t need.” he said.
“Sir, how do I add my bloodline to these kobolds? I wish to have some bloodline connected followers.” Storm said.
“Blood into a vein is viable but you have to be careful that your blood won’t kill them. Adding bloodline should only be done to creatures who are properly F rank or their body won’t be able to handle it. The body requires mana to adapt because it will need to undergo evolution and a common lizard breed Kobold will likely evolve into either a Crystalback Lightning lizard or that other breed after you have gained horns.” he said.
“Do they obtain my same monster form?” Storm asked.
“No, they are not born as such, it is why they do not evolve as animal lizards do.” Max explained.
They understood so they withheld any extensive changes and began to prepare food before Logan went to train the children until lunch when it became an all out battle for food as the monsters were starved but when they finished their bodies began to glow as the food was digested and it began to adapt. Mana drew to them as the food became nutrition. Only sufficient food was digested while the rest was left.
They went to sleep soon after.
This cycle continued for three days until the mana channels were opened and they all began talking with some clarity due to the magic tomes for language prepared in advance.
They all swore loyalty as disciples just like the kids and finally began to learn how to actively channel mana and train their form. Maxwell clearly kept Logan from teaching them the F rank until all the children were equal to their development. This was for two reasons, to make them see the hierarchy, second to build comrade mentality and structured training. They needed to learn to wield every weapon in the forms of the Golden Lion. Monsters developed quickly if they knew how to channel mana as seen by Jade who achieved E rank from F rank alone in a year inside a dungeon.
They would have to follow that example but even more, they had to learn the skills of the sword so that their evolution actually fell into specific breeds of sentient and intelligent races.
This was the ultimate hardships of trainers, monsters were far more unpredictable because elements they can’t control exist. Mentality and genetics played a big role and it was why calming meditation to slowly improve their minds, magic training to train their skill and learning knowledge to develop their intelligence. All this to breed intelligent races compared to brute races.
None of them had proper gender and mating frenzy forced the male gender to form but that was not the case as they constantly underwent minor evolutions during the travel to the desert. Males and females properly formed among all three races until it stabilized fully.
As they reached this point, the boat finally reached the first port of the desert.