Jordan inspected the Advancement Crystal in his hand for a moment. With that last Crab slain, he’d collected a total of 15 today. Something which also came with the bonus of a generous helping of Experience Points. Almost all the Crabs had been Level 3, save for their leader, who’d been Level 4. So when you put all that together plus the doubled amount for slaying Initial Mergers…
EXP: 3155/5625
More than halfway to Level 7 now, he thought to himself. Now that he knew from Haje that D Grade and the ability to unlock his Sublcass were only a few more Levels away, Jordan hoped to get there quickly. He didn’t think that it was unreasonable to believe that selecting Artificer as a Subclass would be a great aid in furthering his ability to create his own drones.
Heck… he should be able to double-check what its Skills looked like, just to remind himself. So with the Crabs now taken care of, Jordan took a moment to do just that through a mental request with the System. A moment later, a new screen popped up before him.
Active:
Skill: Build Drone
Grade: E1
Scaling: Wisdom, Intelligence
Description: Craft a type of drone from a set of starter recipes for various kinds of tasks. The type and resources required depend on the model and quality of the chosen recipe.
Base Cost: Varies
Oh yeah, that’ll be the good stuff. I’m going to assume that all the recipes will be in my head, from how it’s all worked so far. So then there are two possibilities: the models for the recipes are either the same or different from my current summons. But even if it’s latter, I should be able to take all the details and apply it to creating my own version of the land drone still. Heck, from the way it talks about starting with a whole set of recipes… His thoughts trailed off as the possibilities danced within the forefront of his mind.
Granted, Jordan didn’t know for sure if the Skill themselves would be the same. There was the chance that the Class and Subclass format was simply a choice of which one you wanted to have first. Or it could just as easily be something where the Subclass was more limited, instead of potentially doubling your total Skills, assuming you never gained a new one before then. With Haje’s own Class restriction, there would be no way for him to know, however. At least not until Jordan reached it himself, which would hopefully come sooner than later.
Hmm, speaking of Haje, I should probably reserve one of these gems for him. Still dunno if I’ll even be able to save up the x needed to get Summon Land Drone to E5 before I reach Level 11. But either way, all he should need is one to get another evolution for his Skill. In fact, he should only need 11 gems to get his Skill up to E5 for himself. So that could be done the moment after I meet back up with him. Hmm.
He needed a moment to think about that one. On the one hand, he could see two immediate pros. That would be the ability to quickly satisfy his curiosity to see if reaching E5 brought anything special, like the Fundamental Evolution at Grade E3. And even if it didn’t, it would still allow his new friend and sole citizen of his Kingdom to become even stronger. Perhaps, if he wasn’t already, the bonuses the evolutions brought might make Haje the most powerful Initial Merger on the whole planet.
Yet on the other hand, there was a reason why Jordan had been weary to tell Haje about the Advancement Crystals before. And while they’d called each other friends now, all one had to do was take one look at humanity to know how greed could easily make friends and family alike tear each other apart. This was along with the fact that they’d still only known each other for just a few hours at this point.
If Haje were to attack him now, Jordan believed that he could at least get away. Especially now that he once again had a set of these gems. Since Jordan could pick from the different options they provided and make use of their one-time effects in a pinch. However, if each evolution made Haje’s Stats more inflated, would the gems even help if he turned on Jordan right after gaining two free evolutions?
Shaking his head, Jordan decided to move on from that question. It would continue to stew in the back of his mind, but he didn’t need to make a decision until he at least met up with the stone giant in question again. So for now, he could just think about something else instead. For example, right before he put the new Advancement Crystal away, he felt a bit disappointed.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
I tried to ask some of the other Crabs about the people they captured, but none of them ended up willing to talk. But it was just my luck that out of all of them, the one I killed last was a Telepath. Assuming he has some kind of mind reading or even mind control Skill, I might have been able to use it on one of the others. Haaaaah, damn it. Now I wish Appraise didn’t alert the target; then I would have been able to use it on all of them. Would have been as easy staying hidden from afar as they came out. But… no. Jordan sighed as he regretted not being able to learn anything.
Though at least some of the Crabs had been wearing armor, and all of them had owned at least one item of some kind. Jordan did find it interesting that some of them had been given equipment to wear, compared to every person in his group at least getting something. But perhaps that was the System being at least kind enough to recognize that Humans generally needed clothes, while maybe that wasn’t the standard for Crabs?
However, while he’d been glad to loot them, they had unfortunately not dropped anything of use regarding the captured Humans. All Jordan had to go off was a single name: Emmeline.
At the very least, I know a couple of things. The first is that Appraise listed them as already being members of the main Guild for the Golden Prince. One that I can only assume has unlocked a ton of stuff by now if their coordination for claiming Kingdoms is anything to go. Plus just how it’s already listed as the top Guild. And then the second is that… we’re not just food, but “delicacies” to them. And if they’re taking people alive instead of just transporting the corpses by keeping them fresh inside a pocket space, I’m not sure if I even want to know the end result of that.
But even so, he could make a guess on what it meant. And if he was right, Jordan felt that if given the choice of being taken dead or alive, it’d be an easy one to make. Though in his humble opinion, he would much rather never end up in that kind of situation to begin with. On that pleasant note, Jordan hopped onto his land drone and drove back to the Crabs’ home. Or rather, what would soon be called a new extension of his Kingdom.
Several minutes later, he hopped back off the drone. The iron powder directly around the dome now had even more holes from fresh Crab tracks. Yet now that he was approaching the building itself, Jordan noticed something that he hadn’t from afar. They were faint and mixed with the Crab tracks directly around the dome itself. But going in a somewhat straight line away from the dome was another set of tracks.
Humans shoes.
Even when away from where the Crabs had moved around, they were still rather faint. Likely just due to the passage of time and the wind shifting the powder of the beach, he assumed. Yet while they were even harder to see in some places than others, it was still enough for him to know where they’d been going. Moving directly away from the dome’s only entrance, they had actually just kept walking along the beach. Had Jordan initially investigated the area from another angle than his position by the hills, he probably would have seen them a lot sooner.
Jordan kneeled down. They’re a… day old, maybe? Or- ah screw it, I have no damn idea. But definitely looks like a whole group of people. All sorts of designs for the soles of the boots, so that at least helps to differentiate them. Maybe around five people, from the looks of it. Anyway, guess there’s only one thing that I need to do first, then.
He glanced back at the dome. When Jordan had slain the only Level 4 amongst the Crabs, he had received an additional pop-up. Compared to just the usual notification, it’d stood out clearly from the rest.
Lord slain!
Kingdom Mandate claimed: Golden Empire of the Eternal Golden Prince (Rank 1)
Note!
The slain Lord’s Mandate has automatically been absorbed. But to claim the corresponding Kingdom, the user must do so within its center. In addition, any living subjects of the slain Lord’s Kingdom will be notified of the transfer of ownership.
As far as the order of events went, the System had helpfully made it clear for him. If he didn’t want to warn the last Crab escorting the Humans, the Kingdom claiming would need to wait a minute. Though even if that hadn’t been the case, he still would have gone to help them out first. Because even if claiming the Kingdom only delayed him by a minute, the right thing to do would be to leave immediately.
Promptly hopping back on his drone, Jordan sought to do just that. While he didn’t know how long it’d been since they left, he did know something else. His land drone could drive a lot faster than a single group of captured people could ever walk. And when as he ordered to look ahead, his air drone would be able to fly even faster than that.
Unless the Golden Prince’s stronghold happened to be a lot closer than he would ever want it to be, Jordan believed that there was still every chance he could catch up to them.