Logan was ecstatic as he flew for nearly 2 hours to leave Tosmana and another 4 hours to reach the town of the Golden Lions.
It should be said that it would take days to reach the spot he had reached. When he landed in the golden lion courtyard a few people came on guard but saw it was him and calmed down and returned to patrol.
That said, soon enough Max walked out.
“Logan, I saw and felt your strength. Your speed has surged up and your mana finally reached D rank.” Max said.
“Yep, all four of us did and I’ve only done a cycle to let the new quality of mana into the Micro world but we are all stable.” He said.
“I can feel it, you have the first cycle. This came at just the right time but we have business. Tell me, how many disciples can upgrade to F rank?” Max asked.
“How many? Well… the six original children, the 30 some original monsters and barely ⅛ of the slave monsters we rescued can even reach the continuous three full sets of sword forms.” Logan said.
“Have any of them perfected the forms?” Max asked.
“Not really, they can do about half the short sword’s form perfectly before they start showing problems once they start mixing the form with Shadow step.” Logan said.
“Oh, perfect! So their problem is the blended use! That means their common form training is complete?” Max asked.
“Just about, yeah.” Logan said.
“Perfect, bring all of them out and we will conduct a proper traditional test and as long as they complete the basic forms perfectly we can have them go up.” Max said.
“Is there a problem?” Logan asked.
“A lot.” Max said.
Logan frowned and Max called him inside.
“We expected this to happen but it started happening much faster than we expected. Monster mercenary groups have begun to go wild.” Max explained on the way in.
“Going wild? How so?” Logan asked.
“Unlike monsters properly educated about the world after solidifying their bodies how they used to, the pressure from several millions of monsters of weaker strength made it that they didn’t learn common sense of the outside world.” Max said.
“Wait… are you telling me that they have no common sense… are you talking about money wise?” Logan asked.
“Exactly. First off each monster received a worse conversion rate when trading gold because they simply didn’t know the actual one. After that, they kept their ‘gold’ value as if tip had the same value despite the trade that happened.” Max said.
Logan frowned, “Don’t tell me… they think basic food items like bread cost several hundred Tip.” Logan asked.
“Exactly and as you can probably guess, this caused problems after they ran out. Of course, the strong ones either went to hunt or work but the weaker ones couldn’t sustain themselves and asked for protection from stronger ones. It seems some monsters began to learn the actual prices and this caused many to become enraged and they began to attack human transports, farming villages and basically act like ravaging monster colonies.” Max said.
“How are the nations reacting?” Logan asked.
“Those particularly vicious ones were regarded as monster hordes and bounties put out while those that are still far from destructive but have taken to looting are being watched. A great deal of missions for mercenaries is coming in with much higher pay as well. Thankfully, you finally reached D rank. Now we can send out groups. The young generations under Olivia are being tested and those who pass will start inheriting the other 51 divisions.” Max said.
“Inherit?!” Logan said.
“Naturally, we are the old generation, we are here to protect you but you children are the ones that will be doing the mercenary work. The ones picked will be allowed to upgrade to E rank and each one is the best child from each leader so they are naturally also leader material. They will take up the division in their father’s place. That said, we need to start increasing the fighter numbers.” Max said.
They finally reached a large hall and the other A ranks were there.
“Are you ready because those you pick out will be put in line and tested right now and if they succeed, they will be promoted to F rank and be provided with a basic Golden Lion magic sword with basic transformation function like Arashi had before it became a Golden Lion Sword.”
Logan frowned but nodded and understood that this was needed for the future.
He took out his door and put it in the corner and went inside.
The monsters and children were doing many different things but he walked to the training field and putting two fingers in his lip he whistled loudly. He didn’t even check the changes to the Micro world but everyone was stabbed by the piercing whistle and quickly stopped what they were doing and quickly ran to the field where Logan was waiting.
Only some of his family weren’t desperate since these were not training to become knights.
“Alright, you have all trained hard over the last years, because things are moving quicker than planned, we are moving ahead in schedule. Those who cannot perfectly do the basic forms of all three swords line up to the sides. This does not include achieving perfect skill combos such as using Shadow step and any of the attacks. Just the basic forms.” Logan said.
Those who could not achieve this turned and quickly went to both sides while the remaining ones quickly reassembled in a neat line. “Good, those remaining will be tested by the old generation leaders. You must put your all into this, those who properly succeed will earn the right to a promotion and become F rank. Furthermore, all monster races will earn an ogre horn unlocking your mana filled body capacity.” Logan shouted.
Everyone in the middle exclaimed but Logan stomped and they instantly felt silent. He inwardly nodded at the control.
“Good, everyone will come. Those who are not participating, quickly sit on the sides while those in the middle make proper training lines in the center of the hall outside the door to the Micro world.” Logan shouted.
“Yes!” they shouted together.
They each go and grab their training weapons and Logan opens the door and walks out.
They filed out and he inwardly counted a total of 182 of his 300 official disciples. The rest walked out and sat on the sides with proper discipline.
The A ranks watching smiled when they saw the strong reinforced control Logan demonstrated showing both his control and charisma. This was also a test for Logan in a sense and they were very satisfied with this performance.
The lines weren’t messy either, Logan wasn’t an idiot to try and make people of different natural sizes try to match the length of their arms so from the start, all training lines were made with each race in mind. The reach of every member was similar and only the spacing of those between races was a little more spaced to give a little extra in case.
Everyone naturally noticed.
“Spacing!” Logan shouted and they all stomped with a shout and took the two handed sword and measured forward and to each side perfectly spacing. The spacing method was that each row should touch only the top edge of the training swords of their longest weapon that was being trained.
The front was naturally determined by holding it out forward.
Naturally, smaller races have tighter formations but that is also why there was more space between each race’s rows.
It took a little less than 30 seconds for the lines to stop moving once more.
“Long sword! Start!” Logan shouted and watched from the front and they all took their long sword and began the basic forms but didn’t go into the combos. It was much more tense than when they do normal training. After that was the short sword to make sure there was no error and was like a rest period from the heavier weapon and finally they did the two handed sword and when they finished they stopped like they had started.
Max was grinning and looked around. Each of them nodded and Max stood, “Good job, this does not mean your training is over but it is the first step to the future. All of you have passed your test. You are permitted to learn the F rank mana development but first…” Max said.
Logan nodded as he listened and walked forward and took out the altar.
“Everyone knows and remembers my words. When you became a disciple you were giving rules pertaining to disciples. Now the rules of F rank will apply and you will swear a new oath.” Max shouted and took out the rule book and began to read the F rank rules one by one. This was part of a ceremony and no disciple could say that they actually didn’t know the rules after listening to it. Max also had mana running through his voice making it impossible to not hear it and remember.
When it was done he called each of them forward and they swore the new oath.
From there, every one of them was given a very basic magic sword made of only E rank material that most common magic smiths could forge into magic weapons. Of course, it takes much more skilled smiths to achieve the three transformation swords.
Logan knew that these were the base for future legend swords that would eventually be required.
182 people passed and everyone was allowed to return to the micro world and Logan remained.
“They are good, some were naturally tense but it is normal with 11 A ranks watching them.” Max said.
“I’m also happy that they did so well.” Logan said.
“Yes, well you will need some time for them to get up to speck in F rank but try and do the best you can.” one of the A ranks said.
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“Yes.” Logan said.
“Good, now they are going to get live training as soon as they fully finish solidifying F rank. These are the targets you need to deal with. They are spread around the north and east area of the continent and you need to meet with them, resolve their aggression peacefully. If they don’t accept peace…” Max said.
“I get it. If they accept peace I will try and obtain some basic common sense knowledge for them to work with.” Logan said.
“We got that already covered since it started to come in.” Max said and tossed a magic bag. “Inside are many copies of the general price of all basic items and magic tomes of common Nuntip language, the written language portion.” Max said.
“Alright. What do I do about armor?” Logan asked.
“Have them all achieve F rank first. The goblins are likely to evolve into hobgoblins instantly unlike common ones who might need much more mana because of their training. All of them might evolve in fact. Have them eat the ogre horns and let them all assume their most stable evolutionary form. We will then get armor properly fitted.” one of the A ranks said.
“Great.” Logan nodded.
He turned and stored the door away and with nothing left, he went to his assigned room and quickly headed inside.
Everyone was very excited. When Logan entered and called them, he had all those still unranked disciples to go work and brought everyone else to the far side of the training field and took out his scroll and opened it to the F rank.
They weren’t ignorant, Logan worked very hard throughout the year to make a huge amount of funds to properly give everyone basic knowledge among other things including basics of magic.
He slowly taught them the process and technique and had them start while he watched the feeling of their mana. Improper flows show quite obvious differences and he would make sure to stop anyone that started to feel off.
It took about 3 hours to correct most of them and they all properly formed the vortexes throughout the system and finally formed F rank mana and began to develop their mana pool.
To speed the process up even a little, he injected just a small bit of his mana and let them grind away. The decompression of the hot flame like mana produced a lot of continuous mana for hours as they completed their mana pool.
When that finally happened, they finally began to see changes. A few of them started to have small growth but even then it would take another month and Logan knew that he wouldn’t be able to go instantly. Four people, even if higher strength, would have a lot of trouble fighting an entire horde. Not to mention that they have D ranks among their leaders in these. Using the minions to exhaust them and then attacking was a very viable method used by many cruel individuals.
That said, at the same time that they started training, he took to going quiet and absorbed mana and promoted the growth of the Micro world. He had only done a single day of processing the mana from it but this time he was honestly gathering, pulling and releasing D rank mana into that world.
The progress of the monsters instantly showed a speed up. Among other things, the internal space of the micro world began to expand along with the land size. The sprout also began to grow and the short 20 cm tall sprout began to grow to about half a meter of length.
During this time, the elemental spirits blossomed in number as they spread far. Storm and Jade worked together to make it rain regularly and after a month, when the last of the new F rank golden lion knights finished their first cycle, the amount of land available was a diameter of 2 km in a 5 km wide space.
This size would continue to grow until it was probably 4 km across before he reached C rank.
All the monsters finally evolved upon finishing, as expected by the old generation, basically all the monster breeds of basic monsters evolved. Those who were enslaved but were stronger breeds just grew stronger however.
Most of the hobgoblins were divided between Knight and Warrior, Kobold were foot soldiers, orcs were Elite Warriors.
Orcs had the biggest change, their fat slob-like bodies changed and achieved a full human physique with a stronger upper torso compared to fat abs.
Their animal features all evolved into humanoid hands and feet and this happened to all animalistic ones.
“Good, you all did not disappoint, this is the first step but all of you are taking the first step. As promised, each of you will get an ogre horn, they are all E rank ogre horns so when you eat it, you need to process this completely and you will feel immense pressure. Kobold, yours will be a slightly different process.” Logan said.
The Kobold looked confused and he called Storm, who was grinning, and Jade. She took out a syringe filled with red blood that was glowing almost.
“What Jade holds in her hand is a syringe with some of Storm’s dragon blood. You are all the most common of lizard types. As such, thanks to the many blood tests which showed it was safe among your kind to exchange blood, you will gain a drop of Storm’s blood before you eat your ogre horns. This will allow you all to accept his bloodline with a far lower chance of failure.” Logan said.
“I-is this safe… sir?!” one of the kobolds asked fearfully.
“It is a commonly used method for certain rare races to spread their bloodline. Many creatures have weaker breeding abilities and some, like Storm, could even be the first of their kind. Like your mount, this is purely to get you on the bloodline path of a dragon.” Jade explained.
They all swallow hard but nodded in understanding.
“Good, we will not lose time, we will start now.” Logan said.
The Kobold walked to the side and Jade began to inject the blood and each time, they shouted in pain because of the incredibly magical blood before being fed the horn completely.
Logan on the other hand handed out the horns to the goblins, or hobgoblins now. They were among the most excited as this was the horn of something from their direct bloodline.
Logan hoped that most would be lord or intelligent variants of other more violent races.
After that were the more evolved races who actually had horns or other specific parts that took those functions but they lacked that specific function. Eating it would likely achieve the effect of unlocking biological abilities and strength.
Very soon, everyone except for humans had eaten it. Humans naturally had their own method already activated by Logan.
They all were in pain as they tried to remain sitting and process the mana.
Among the worst ones were the Kobold who were facing the most pain due to their entire bloodline transforming into that of a Lightning Crystal Drake.
That said, Logan could feel the quantity slowly process and come from the stomach until they finally began to break the limit.
When it did, they began to evolve.
One by one, it went. Those who already had it only glowed for a short while similar to humans as their bodies adapted but a lot of magical changes happened in sequence.
The ones with the hardest trouble were naturally orcs. Orcs don’t have horns, even the pig style ones don’t have horns, they grew tusks normally but now the horn of the Ogre was trying to adapt and find the valve and evolve their bodies.
Logan watched them. At D rank and with a year of learning from the massive library in the HQ he was able to use higher levels of identification magic nearing the activation requirements for the golden eye. He saw that power gathered slowly near the mana pool and his heart suddenly evolved and engulfed the mana pool.
At once the mana was released and Logan figured out why humans could never find out even when there are races that don’t have horns. The process of evolution was blinding. Humans always had the method but it was fragile and would blow up their bodies and hearts if huge quantities of mana forced it open but monsters weren’t like that. They were formed of mana primarily and even native outside world monsters were no different. As long as their mana core is fixed right, their pool and channels opened they will slowly grow more magical and evolve like dungeon monsters.
The channels in the heart don’t exist until they evolve and form them when sufficient mana flows through them and they need to evolve to support that.
It began to bulk up rapidly as the mana in the entire micro world was drawing towards over 100 monsters evolving together.
Thankfully, the quality of mana was much higher than natural outside mana and the quantity supported the many evolutions.
It all slowly went on until they all finished evolving.
Logan looked at the most genetically unstable race, the hobgoblins and smiled. There was not a single common ogre, troll or anything.
Despite some being over 2 meters tall, Logan was clear that many were lords and many were quite a number of unique variations.
He looked at the kobold and saw them form green crystals. Horns were on their heads, fins on their back and spikes running down the middle of their spine. They had successfully reached the same Crystal Fin Lightning Crocodile bloodline that Storm had achieved. They were official Crystal fin Lightning lizardmen instead of simple kobolds. In time, they will become Draken, humanoid Drakes, and when they finally achieve Storm’s dragon form, they will achieve the rare Draconian form.
These are humanoid dragons, most natural races born of this race are actually dragons who assumed human form and mated with humans causing hybrids.
He looked at all the monsters and was happy with the great results. They would need time to process all the mana into F rank again but that is done naturally through training now. Even Logan was in the process of filling up to his maximum.
Logan took one of the magic swords and examined it and called everyone's attention and finally taught them how to achieve the true magical spell of the Golden lion’s weapon art by opening the mana channels and using it.
“Your weapon is your life line. Weapon spells are very powerful and can help you nearly jump entire ranks if you train sufficiently. Just like your body, magic weapons also need to open mana channels and develop them properly. Remember this, every cycle you do you do the same to your weapon or you will eventually break it with your own mana.” Logan shouted.
After teaching them how to sense the mana channels he examined in detail their new races.
The goblins were actually divided. First were Lesser Knight Lords, then there was an entire group of variant ogres called Oni. Oni are highly intelligent but with the regeneration of ogres and their brute strength but we're smaller. Naturally it was lesser oni like the lords.
The last group were magician types divided into affinity. For instance, one was a Shamanic Ogre which was a mage type ogre with high dark affinity. It was all similar to that, among them was High goblin which is another strange breed that kept their goblin like look.
It showed the genetic flexibility of goblins but that didn’t mean anything as they all trained the same sword techniques and what changed them was their differences and choices.
After that Logan went to talk to Max and brought out everyone. The difference in disciples and F rank knights was a big change and Max grinned seeing the very ‘aura’ of difference that came with such a large change. The evolutions naturally pushed their bodies to higher strength levels compared to their mana levels. A good example was the lizardmen who were E rank in body just like Storm at the time he evolved.
“This is good, you will definitely not have trouble with those untrained mobs if it is pushed to it.” Max said.
“We need armor now.” Logan said.
“We are already prepared and just need to adjust the size. Now tell me, do you want the god’s crest on the armor or leave it empty?” Max asked.
Logan was surprised and looked at Jade before turning.
“What is your choice?” He asked.
They each looked and grinned, “We will accept the crest of the great gods!” they shouted together.
“Alright, it is a minor change but remember, having that and properly showing this will mean that your division will be considered a Paladin Division, remember that.” Max explained.
“Sure.” Logan said.
“Good, I have armor for you as well, it is proper B rank armor for a leader and you will have to grow into it. It is an ancient design, though naturally modernized with modern materials and fabrication processes.” He said.
“That is probably best.” Logan said.
Like that, they spent a week getting their armor and were fully outfitted. The armor was full body and they had underclothes to wear it but no one was bothered by heat. Logan’s armor, however, was impressive. It was full knight armor made of some kind of gold alloy.
Logan looked at the old design and marveled at how the etching almost perfectly aligned with the crest of the gods after it was inlaid.
“Do all of you have armor like this?” Logan asked.
“Everyone under B has proper armor matching their B or C rank but it is hard to get A rank without true master smiths even if we have so few of us.” Max explained.
“I see, is it safe for a D rank to use B rank armor?” Logan asked.
“It’s fine, the leader has to have proper protection. I’m sure you feel it though.” Max said.
Logan nodded and the next moment, all his clothing glowed and transformed into much lighter armor and clothing.
The division was shocked and began to examine and shockingly, all the armor began to transform and become traveling clothes.
“And this is how you will protect yourselves. The armor has a disguise function for practicality but if any sneak attack comes, it will instantly engage to protect.” Max explained and slapped Logan and instantly his clothing glowed and even a helmet formed covered him before a loud ringing came from the slap and Logan went back several meters.
“This is all we can provide, we need reputation and money from now on. Remember, you are no longer a common adventurer, Logan. Before you head out, make sure to register everyone as an adventurer and get IDs for everyone. They are convenient to say the least.” Max said.
Logan disarmed the armor and nodded.
“Let’s go everyone after we register, we will go deal with the first target on the list.” Logan said.
Everyone exclaimed and followed Logan as he walked out.