Over the next few days, besides crashing down on bandits and training the soldiers, Logan spent most of his time absorbing mana and grinding away before releasing D rank mana into the micro world and it began to show rapidly.
Not only were the orchids almost bursting but even the fields were filled with a great deal of growth that was almost magical considering how slow it grew before.
Naturally the biggest growth was from both the number of spirits as well as the size of the island.
The orb constantly expanded and stabilized at around 20 kilometers while the island itself constantly grew alongside the tree until it was 15 kilometers across and the tree was 10 meters tall above the altar.
He actually did the process he did before again because naturally the tree had expanded and grew new branches and it had been what pushed the island to 15 kilometers.
When it reached this size, the orb began to form an isolated weather pattern but it was very premature and couldn’t support itself so Jade and Storm still worked together to form storm clouds and made it rain to gather water.
Maxwell said that it was important to fill the bottom half of the orb with water, at least 25% of the orb had to have water because it would flow through the channels thanks to the world tree sucking up and releasing water through the island and naturally gathering in the small channels.
The result of the massive growth was that now the micro world could actually accept a few small villages that could support the micro world. Animals were still not born but Max said that it was something only a C rank world tree would produce.
It would naturally generate wild animals because at C rank, the size of the island would expand upwards of 30 to 40 km from what Maxwell said.
When they were building their own micro world, they had to do it the hard way and literally damage the world tree and feed the roots back to the tree. He had it slightly easy because of it.
When the island finally stabilized, he also began to secretly build his underground temple.
Even at this current level there was a level of structure he could create to hold the pedestal left to gather the faith.
Although magic was used from some of the C rank knights, at his request, they were able to make an entrance opening from the basement of the chapel, something that was designed from the start since things had to be prepared for maintenance of the chapel's function.
He made sure to follow a specific path until he reached the spot and then formed a wide cave. It was obviously barebones as he made very basic adjustments to get the very basic shape of the area and finally put down the pedestal after the others were gone.
The aura was very dull but it permeated the area of its immediate surroundings. He had a long way to go and he felt an immense lack of knowledge to prepare all the things passed to him by the angel. “I need to start extensive magic studies of all elements. These magical barriers, even magic crafts to process magical materials.” He sighed.
He left it there while carefully closing the tunnel that led down there leaving only a small opening the size of his fist so that he could follow back.
After that he gathered the remaining members that had been recruited before the soldiers and took them to test. Even a number of talented soldiers were in the mix.
Indeed, all of these were disciples that had learned the three basic sword forms and one of the B ranks watched over them to test it out until they finally passed.
“Good, this will greatly improve your division’s efficiency with the increase of knights. How much will it go up to now?” The B rank asked.
“349, as fast as it might be, it will still be another month or so for the next batch but it will definitely be a big one.” Logan said.
“That is grand, how are the current F ranks?” He asked.
“Good, those with talent for magic, certain weapons or overall have all been showing those things now. Especially Helen, her magical talent is amazing and she already has 3 cycles and has great control of her magic.” He said.
“It is expected for a half fairy. Still, a knight is a knight and magic is secondary.” He said.
“I know, the condition for E rank was to be a full master of all sword combos and at least 5 other weapons right? Do I pick for them?” He asked.
“I would say go with the easier ones to handle and learn before you get to the very uncommon and strange ones.” He said.
“Alright.” Logan nodded.
He took the others back and each of them were instructed on the F rank rules before making their oaths and learning the F rank training.
Like the first batch, Logan watched each of them as they processed and among them were naturally a lot of monsters and many of them began to evolve into a higher race. The soldiers who were among them also seemed to ‘evolve’ momentarily or released glowing auras during each time they would complete one of the primary channels.
In the end, after their first cycle they were all ready and were outfitted with F rank equipment of the order while the monsters were given an ogre horn to evolve before that.
Once everything settled, they began to divide up the knights and those that were already F rank were still put in a higher rank until they were stronger than the others.
“Sir! Why are we still put under the children of all people?” The soldiers that advanced said.
“If you do not want to take orders from children then you should put effort into training. I’m finalizing the conditions for E rank soon.” he said.
“What does that have to do with our positions?!” he asked.
Logan stopped and glared up at him, “My word is law in this group, as for what the conditions have to do with it, it determines which group of weapons you will all train! The more weapons you master to combat efficiency, the higher your standings but don’t think that strength is all you need! Don’t forget all the rules of an F rank and don’t think as a D rank i don’t have many rules imposed on me to run my division correctly! It's not your place to complain about a millennium old hierarchy that has kept this order from vanishing completely.” He said to the soldier who had complained.
The man had been a C rank when he first started and he groaned when he was forced to swallow his pride.
Logan dismissed him and kept finishing the patrol and schedule and fixing everything up for the division to run the area they administered.
After it was done he went over the general trend of the division and thought about all the examinations he had given all the soldiers he had been left with.
“As expected of common soldiers and people who come from common backgrounds. Most talent is concentrated on normal weapons, especially after years of just training that. Some are almost talentless and resorted to ranged weapons.” He said.
He knew that those people who had E or D rank would be unlikely to rise up without a very large amount of effort. The ones to upgrade from the soldiers are honestly very talented but he had found that there are at least 50% that still mess up things that he had hit many times already.
Even with many of them actually having mana infused into their bodies their evolutionary potential is rather low.
He checked the file of them and soon found a trend and shook his head, “Figures, using puzzle piece techniques, and many of them being incompatible and somewhat forced, caused some damage to their potential.” He muttered and knew it would take a while for their bodies to fully break the magical effect that had affected them and restore their life force that they hadn’t even realized was damaged.
They are in a state similar to his family even as they recover now.
“No wonder the eyes are important for finding talent. I hope that this won’t affect their strength and growth too much.” He muttered and sighed.
After that he checked and decided on the next five weapons that needed to be mastered for someone to go up to E rank.
With everyone gathered he announced the conditions for E rank and some of them complained.
“Isn’t it too much?” one of the soldiers asked.
“No.” Logan said and drew his sword and transformed it into one of each weapon. “Every weapon has a use, every attack has many positions no matter where you are.” He said.
“But it is going to slow everyone down if we try to learn everything instead of quickly going up the ranks?!” the soldier said.
Pa!
Logan vanished and appeared already smacking the soldier's face and pushing him to the ground.
“This is the last warning! You soldiers are just that, soldiers. You all underwent disciplinary training at boot camp yet you think now that Eshen is gone you can act without order because this isn’t an ‘official’ army in your eyes. I’ll warn you now, anyone that complains will begin to feel physical punishment! You will obey orders just as you obeyed them when you were army soldiers!” He roared as his magical presence shrouded everyone.
“Now, weapon training is a discipline just like boot camp as well as a method to weed out the untalented. Golden Lions during their peak era were weeded out from tens of millions to make sure they had the talent to learn all the weapon arts! They were the ultimate soldiers! In the past, you wouldn’t even pass disciple rank if you did not master all the arts! You getting the option to ascend to F rank with just 3 sword forms and not even mastery of spell combos is an immensely low bar! Full mastery of all combos of 5 new weapons for E rank is to not overload other ranks as well as to weed out others who will in turn fill support roles beyond fighting!” He roared as he walked through the ranks. “AM I UNDERSTOOD!”
“YES SIR!” they shouted.
“Good, furthermore, you should all be aware but since the armies never had a standardized mana training method, all of your puzzle piecing caused problems in your life force that are being fixed as you train the golden lion system and evolve slowly after you all got your mana infused into your bodies. As fast or slow as you can grow depends on your effort, talentless people can still ascend if you put in the effort. Now you are dismissed, those who are disciples are to continue training, those who have just ascended should focus on finishing the mastery of the combo spells. The oldest group, we will begin training new weapons.” Logan said and dismissed them keeping only the oldest groups and pulled out piles of wooden staves and polearm shafts.
“Staves?” Storm asked.
“Magic staves are commonly used for long range but there are fighting styles for them in close combat. I picked this because it would allow those who become F rank but still have lower talent to learn self defense in case they don’t go higher and are placed as healers or other jobs. Beyond that we will start on polearm weapons, spears, long bladed polearms, ax headed polearms and finally axes.” he said and raised a wooden battle ax from the pile, showing them.
“Each of you will take one and for the next week we will learn all the forms, you must commit them to memory, after this week we will train for real and i will constantly fix your forms.” He said.
They nodded and they each came up in an orderly fashion and took the five weapons before getting back in line.
They spent half of the day going through the motions before Logan walked out and was met with a messenger with orders from the A ranks.
He opened it and checked out what was going on.
“Request from the adventurer guild. Request for immediate evacuation from over 20 areas all around the north.” he muttered and frowned.
Then it opened into a map with dozens of evacuation points and Logan frowned because it included the invaders.
“All people involved in the evacuation are civilians and any surviving nobles. As the only surviving human nation, requesting evacuation help.” the message said.
“And what of the slaves?” he asked the messenger.
“Slaves?” He asked.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Shiarus and Oblistan are both guilty of being slaver nations. What happened to their slaves?” he asked.
“Obviously the slaves are noble property so obviously they either died with the nobles when they died to the demon bombs or they are coming with their owner.” The messenger said.
“They are coming, sure, but they aren’t going to stay slaves.” He said.
“Huh?” the messenger said. He was a messenger from the guild but he didn’t know much about the situation of the army.
“No one will remain slaves. If the nobles want protection, they are going to release all their slaves, the Golden Lions do not accept slavery of any kind, this includes for monsters who can also become sentient.” He said.
“Sir… in this situation…” the messenger said.
“There are no concessions to this. I will personally go to all these points and save everyone but if a noble accepts my evacuation, he will only be released after he has gone through the hands of the A ranks and their master control is broken.” He said.
“Y-you can’t treat nobles like that!” He said.
“Nobles? Nobles for what nation? There are no nations left except the Dark nation, the Central empire, the Southern Alliance and North union to the west of Iteno.” he said. “Eshen is now technically a mercenary nation in its formation period so it isn’t exactly a surviving nation, only because we have soldiers protecting it is it stable.” Logan said before closing the scroll and called out the official army members and informed them of the changes.
Then he turned to the messenger, “Did the A ranks say anything?” He asked.
“Uh… only to say that the process of evacuation is up to you.” He said.
“Good.” Logan said and dismissed him and organized everything.
“Are you going alone?” Storm asked.
“Yes, you all will manage the division. I can fly into the territory at high speed and transport through the microworld. That is why I had this request sent to me. I’m sure whoever got the other extra microworld is doing the same but further away.” He said and proceeded to prepare provisions before spreading his wings and cladding himself sufficiently before exploding into the air and blasting towards the marked guilds on the map.
He entered into Shiarus first and with a cold expression, he reached the first town with a guild and found the entire city closed up and under heavy defensive formation secured by any adventurer.
When he approached, many archers among them aimed at him with bows but he stopped. “I am Logan Holt, Vice captain of the Golden Lions, a request for evacuation was sent.” he said.
Instantly the faces of all the people got very happy and a messenger was sent to the guild.
Soon a man ran out. He was B rank and was the guild master and met with Logan and he started to understand the situation.
While he was talking, crying could be heard as strong men pushed their way and opened the path and at the center was a man with a disgusting man.
“Finally the evacuation crew is here. Eshen scum, open the portal to safety! My life is more important than all this common filth! Open it now.” He ordered.
Logan, who was talking with the guild master, scowled as he looked at the man.
He looked behind the man and saw a mass of tens of thousands of slaves which disgusted Logan.
“Shut up and let me finish my conversation with the guild master to understand the entire situation.” He said.
“You little cur! You think you can talk to a noble like me like that!” the noble said
Logan had no patience for this man and turned to him, “Noble? I see a destitute old disgusting man without a government. Now shut the fuck up before i leave you alone here!” he shouted and turned to the guild master with a scowl.
The face of the noble turned bright red but when he tried something, the marksmen and archers all turned their weapons on him and the guild master was also excluding a very angry aura.
“Please continue.” Logan said.
“Right, the collapse of Shiarus has led to complete collapse of society. Adventurers have been helping gather up civilians after we saw the rapid degradation of society. Most of the shiarus army has also gone to hell and many divisions have turned into bandit groups. They have caused quite a lot of damage as of now and most of the towns with guilds have concentrated roughly 40% of shiarus’s population. The rest are being forced to work for all the bandits now. All the bandits are nearly at war and it is likely that the ones to win will form a bandit nation. The guild naturally doesn’t accept such a thing so we are taking what we can get. HQ has ordered all nearby guilds to proceed to Eshen and work as the Golden Lion scout and reconnaissance divisions, joining alongside the adventurer guilds in eshen.” he said.
“Alright, I get it now. We will gladly accept it but the Shiarus civilians will have to be aware that Golden Lions follow different rules and they are likely to be looked at badly because of the war they caused since all humans in the golden lions are eshen.” he said.
“They have been made aware and accept the future that will come to them.” He said.
“Fine, we will help as requested, please inform all the guilds ahead of time and I will start moving the people into my micro world. Adventurers, please help as security to maintain control so that panic doesn’t set in.” he shouted.
They all nodded and they headed to the guildhouse where Logan pulled out a large double door in a frame and he touched and pulled the door revealing a doorway in the air.
The adventurers moved in front and guild personnel right after at Logan’s request to make an official census. The noble was extremely annoyed at the pace but the guild master kept them sufficiently scared. In the microworld, the towns' worth of people were told to camp in certain areas and once every civilian was done the adventurers were told to guard each of their groups primarily to keep the nobles from causing trouble.
Logan had to stomach not attacking the noble to free the slaves. He just took deep breaths as they entered. The guild members were the final ones in and the guild master actually asked, “Why did you want a census?” He asked.
“They are all going to be our civilians now, also it was to make sure no demons were mixed in without identifying themselves. I’ve been analyzing everyone with eye magic so I am sure that there are no demons mixed in.” He said.
The Guild master was shocked by his caution but understood as he passed him all the information and Logan storied it and let the rest enter before packing up the door and headed off to the next town.
For roughly a week this continued as he cleared out 20 towns and 4 cities that had guilds inside and all at once 40% of the population was held in Logan’s hand and he headed home to unload this immense number of people.
That said, Logan communicated with Max and they were ready for it because there were 35 nobles each with thousands of slaves.
When he finally arrived, all the members from C rank to A rank were ready, with cold glares and when the door opened, they spoke nothing as shadows engulfed them. It was night time and they burst out.
Logan didn’t need to join, he was just waiting at the door.
When people finally arrived, many of them had fearful expressions and the guild masters walked up.
“Um… should the old leader and members really do what they did?” He asked.
“One of the primary purpose the golden lions follow is absolute eradication of slavery. If i didn’t know slaves died with their masters I would have long killed those nobles.” Logan said coldly as he looked at the beaten up men. Their faces and bodies were marked and their clothing was ruined. Most of their guards were injured or fearful as they walked past him.
“That will teach them.” He said.
“Um… what magic did they use?” one of the guild masters asked.
“Nothing, golden lion mana was designed by the hero to destroy slavery magic. The flow of our mana through it will instantly destroy the magic.” he explained. “Enslaving a trained member of the golden lion is very difficult.” He said.
The guild masters were shocked by this information and frowned. “What will happen to the slaves?” they asked.
“Monsters are likely to be either sent to farm villages or join the army, humans will first be sent to receive treatment because of how badly they treat them. Thanks to the identification we did on everyone including slaves, we also know which people are Eshen and will be able to return them to their families.” he said.
They understood and helped the people leave until they were all out. Instantly there was a massive swell in population and the airships were used to move them to new towns being built all over west eshen and when the last one was out, Logan visited his group and checked on them before going off to the next ones.
Over the next three weeks, he cleared Odriacia, Oblistan, Tosmana, Iteno and six other nations south and west of them including the collapsed union empire. Most of the union was now being run by the dungeons but they didn’t mind the human populations being sent off to human nations. They were far more comfortable with sentient monsters instead of humans who were once their controller.
Even if the population increase was limited to below 50% of each nation, instantly Eshen swelled to over a hundred million from the tens of millions that were originally there.
Not only west eshen but even the archipelago was oversaturated with people. As for east Eshen, a lot of the demon flames were nearly gone and with this they all headed and used magic to rip the earth still on fire and put it near the dungeon to isolate the danger before they placed people around it.
When the final census was calculated the peak of the order was gathered up.
“As of now, Eshen is officially at 102 million strong. This amount is extremely high for the 500 thousand to monitor so we are likely to start having trouble if this continues.” Olivia said.
“Any suggestions for this? It is difficult for us to continue recruiting members as it is. 300 members can only do so much.” Maxwell said.
“We need to reestablish a police force.” the army general said as he sat on one of the high seats.
“Right, the old police force is all but gone so we need to reestablish this. How is the situation of the remaining judges and lawyers coming along?” Olivia asked.
“We gathered all of them and they have been going over all the old Eshen laws and are looking through the Order’s rules. They are clearing out all the ‘copy’ laws and gathering it all into a single system of laws. Judges are ready to establish the judicial system again.” Max said.
“Then we need to set up a police force before the lawyers finish so we can have those two systems ready and we can release the army from the local patrol. How has the navy equipment been?” Olivia asked.
“We’ve repaired what we can to full and our shipyards have begun extensive construction to replace our naval forces.” the navy admiral said.
“Good, the divisions with all the navy forces should return to the archipelago and retake as much naval security as possible. The Dark nation’s marine force is too dangerous for us so we need to maintain vigilance as well as maintain maritime security so that pirates don’t suddenly overrun the archipelago since it is a mass of fertile land. How is the air force?” She said.
“We’ve repaired all the still viable ships and taking from what was scrapped we’ve rebuilt about 20 new ships. The current force is roughly 30% of the original number we had. The dry docks have started their construction since we finished transforming the scrapped ships into working ones and by the end of the year we should have another 10 air ships ready.” the air force general said.
Olivia nodded and finally looked to the army, “What about land weapons?”
“The demons did not attack our primary weapons depot since those are national secrets. They did attack those that were easier to locate and we lost roughly 30% of our weapons stores. With this amount we can still easily outfit all the present soldiers with guns, bows, swords, spears and most other weapons.” He said.
“Does the army have a magic weapon crafting division?” She asked.
“It is small and used primarily for large weapons like air ship cannons.” He replied.
“Right, their numbers thankfully were helpful for the armor and magic sword production we’ve been doing but they will likely need to head off back to this job if we are to establish things back to normal. Police forces will also need military level equipment until there are enough police to calm any people from committing crime.” she said.
“How do you propose we tackle such cases?” one of the A rank army commanders asked.
“Until we have a firm government structure established, we need to go the hard handed method. Putting people in jail is almost a reward in the current situation so people who commit crimes will be forced to pay their crimes with service. Construction work for homes, producing clothing or even working factories for mass production of ammo and such. All under the supervision of one of the old generation A ranks who can watch them at all times with their enhanced eyesight.” she said.
“Is that not like slave work?” the army commander asked.
“This is work to pay for their crimes. If someone murders another, in the situation we have, we either use terror to scare criminals with death sentence to reinforce that we aren’t playing around or we force people to work their crimes off in service of the population’s safety.” she replied.
The man nodded but it seems they approved of the method. There was no other way besides taking the hard approach but which hard approach you took determined what kind of leader they were following.
Max was inwardly happy but didn’t show. He did ask however, “How many high security prisons Eshen possesses?”
“Before the war, we had 4 maximum security, 8 high security and 20 low security. The prisoner ranking was naturally divided up with low security being D and lower while high rank was C ranks while maximum was B and A ranks. After the war, all max security prisons were destroyed. Their occupants either killed or escaped, only 2 high security prisons remain and half of the low security ones survived. 2 new max security prisons have been built in the archipelago since then and 4 other high security prisons since the war ended.” the army general explained.
Everyone’s face warped into a frown because of the problem.
“Damn, barely a fourth of the original prison force yet we have almost five times Eshen's original population now that so many nations gathered in one.” Logan said. Everyone was conflicted but after a moment Logan went from frowning to confused. “Wait… now that I think about it, what happened to all the airships that traveled between all the airship ports between nations?” he asked.
“Huh?” everyone muttered confused.
They all started to look at one another in confusion until they looked at Max and the other A ranks.
They looked at one another and one of them actually smiled, “From what I know, Eshen currently has roughly 30 national airships dedicated to air transport between east and west Eshen but those were being used in the same manner with the archipelago since the war started. The usage was completely suspended since the fall of all nations. As for international ships, there should be 15 Eshen owned international airships and 12 ships owned by other nations. Most of them have been left to rot in our soil since the nations collapsed since they were national owned ships.” he said.
Instantly the air force general understood what Logan meant by mentioning this, “You want to commandeer all these ships to rapidly rebuild our air forces?” He said.
“Yes… in fact, if the bandits of all our neighbors have not noticed this yet, we might even be able to sneak to their air ports under the shadow of night time and take all the inactive airships used for travel from them as well. If every nation has even just 20 inactive ships, that would mean we would have an immense boost and all we will have to struggle with is properly remodeling these ships with military level weaponry and equipment.” he said.
The three generals grinned and so did the other high ranking members. It was unsure if other nations would think of this but as the weakest survivors, thinking outside the box is the ticket to survival.
“Alright, all in agreement to investigate this?” Olivia asked and there was a resounding “YES”.
“Good, now we also need to properly distribute the original members of the Order throughout the territory's largest cities. Unlike most soldiers, the old members and their children all passed inhuman training to make sure our sense of danger is keen. It was what saved us during the demon bombing and many other cases throughout history.” Olivia said.
All the A, B and C rank members nodded and using a projected map of their territory and all the towns and cities in Eshen, they distributed the divisions.
“Each of you should also establish police training groups. You’ve all worked as dojo masters so training adults for police forces shouldn’t be difficult. The hard part is going to be background checking someone.” she said.
They all agreed but thankfully the adventurers guild all had access to criminal records of their assigned nation. They brought most of what could be useful so the Order would also be establishing new adventurer guild bases in these towns while gathering these records into one secure place.
They continued through the meeting making many points and each one suggesting methods to organize the nation so that there were no problems