We reached their base after six hours of traveling, and I was both surprised and annoyed that I had to come back here. They had taken over the hive mind tunnels. It was intelligent and dumb at the same time. Other monsters wouldn't enter this place for fear of being swarmed, but if other insects and swarm-type monsters burrow under the earth. There are other reasons why this is bad, too. If the tunnels collapse on top of them, they are very fucked. Still, they were fortunate that this place is mostly stone and not dirt, so there is not too much worry about a structural collapse.
The only reason I ran straight into the tunnels was that my old dying self influenced my actions which caused a lapse in mental judgment. The Iron Mask didn't help since I caused the incident by being unable to control my feelings. But is it that bad the influence my old self had over me is almost gone? No, My old self was far more powerful than I would be for a very long time. If I had been able to learn from it and gain the knowledge I used to have, I would have been unstoppable and would most likely kill everything in the first layer without even getting hurt at all. But that doesn't feel like the right thing to do. I want to challenge and grow with every fight and kill to reach the peak for myself and no one else.
But since Mother said that they all are her followers, I'll help out this time to help them grow faster and stronger so they can survive the oncoming light side beings.
I didn't talk to anyone while looking over them, seeing what each could do best. It took a while to study and plan what they should do first. And after I planned the training out, I turned to the spider and spoke. "I will help you all get stronger, but this will be a one-time deal since I have to focus on myself without falling behind too far on my timetable. Most of you will hate me, but I don't care." As I spoke, she quickly chirped in and told me they could never hate me and would do whatever I said.
"As I said, I really don't care. I have things that need to be done, and I will only stay for three days, and after that, I will leave to finish leveling and become a tier 3, then head to the second layer." Fist looked pissed. I was talking to them like this, but what could he do? They were all weaklings. "Fist, you are the strongest in this group but still too weak to fight me or another tier 2 monsters. Cry all you want, but this is the truth, and only power can change that. And to prove that I will only fight with my hands, no magic, tail, or claws. I won't even use both; only one will do." Rage plastered over his face, and he charged me.
He walked until he was face to face with me. And punched at me with quick jabs. Each was knocked away with the back of my hand. Punching harder resulted in the same thing happening.
He began to use skills to increase the striking power of his fists, but it was still not doing anything to me.
"Wow, you are weaker than I even thought you were. No wonder I have to help you all become stronger. I even overestimated you, shame." I was sad by how weak he was. But, I held back, knocked him upside the head, and watched him drop. If he was only this strong, the others must be even weaker. "Fuck, three days ain't even close enough to make you all stronger. You all get seven days, and I won't be getting any rest, so you won't either."
Thus began the first day of training them all. Running, lifting, and being hit lasted for eight hours. Then the light magic resistance training began, increasing their odds of surviving the light forces. I created a light bolt for each and every one of them and told them to grab it and let go once their hp was half empty. Then, the spider would heal them. This lasted six hours, and when the spider ran out of Mp, I would heal them.
None of them could even move, so I dropped food and the rock with the pond water and began training myself again until they were rested enough to begin again.
Fist was the first one up only after four hours of sleep and began to train again. The spider was next only two hours after him; minutes later, the rest began to train more.
I was starting to feel tired and wanted to sleep. But I forced myself to push through it. Many hours drove by as my body started to shut down; two light bolts to my thighs were enough to wake me back up.
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I was still nowhere close to running out of mp. So it was still safe for now to keep pushing myself.
Another day passed before even pain was unable to keep me awake. But, before I went to rest, I wanted to try something first. I had something that may help, even though I shouldn't use it for this. Wait, I can use it for everyone here. I smiled like I was crazy. Time for the old one.
Well, it worked maybe a little too well. Today is the fourth day, and nobody can even move anymore. MP and HP stopped going up anymore for everyone. So we slept and rested to recover from the strain that built up in us these past few days. Just long enough for us to be okay and able to regenerate all of our resources once again. So I learned something new today. If my body requires rest and I don't stop to recover, everything will stop working. If I push further past that, I might start bleeding out the resources. I may test this out in the future to see if I can gain resistance to it just in case enemies capture me. I would then act like I was dying and strike. If I were captured, they would want or need me alive so that I could use this against them. But since I am still free and weak, I need to hurry this up and then leave to the second layer.
I told them to rest today, and tomorrow we would begin again; then I went inside my shack and closed the door to sleep on the bed.
I woke up only a few hours later, which was weird since I had to rest longer to be rested completely. Was it the bed that made me recover faster? I usually sleep on the floor or the chair. Increased rate of sleep. Is the bed magical? Well, the shack itself is magical, so yeah. That was a stupid question, and of course, this whole place is magical in one way or another. I guess I am still a little mentally exhausted. Physically I am fine, but my mind is around 70% rested. I should relax to return it to 100% before doing anything today.
Today was the seventh and final day of my training them all. Again, everyone was better than there were on the first day of training, and everyone here had resistances up to tier 3 for light magic, as that was the main focus after day three. Almost everyone glared or hid away from me except for the spider and fist.
Fist had the most remarkable growth out of everyone here as he pushed the hardest and longest out of everyone with the spider close behind him. He had gotten some good combat skills, raised them all to tier 2, and even gained the danger sense skill. I taught him how to make his skills more passive, like always having them on. It took six days for him to keep it up for ten seconds. He had gained some more skills, but he didn't tell me about them, but they did something to make him heavier and more robust.
The spider and her mist was a great boon to the light magic training as it healed everyone continuously without fail. She had told me that she got it to tier 3, and it barely used Mp to heal all of us during training. Unfortunately, her primary healing skill only hit tier 2, so there is little growth. However, she had gained defensive and evasion skills during the training making her faster and harder to hurt. Danger sense was a new skill she had just gotten five minutes ago. Whenever she gained a new skill or increased in level and tier, she would run to me and tell me like a small happy child. But her most significant growth was her level increase to Lv 13/15; she was almost at tier 3. She has the fastest growth, which shocked me because of how fast it was.
Fist and I fought four more times before returning to resistance training. My fighting passive skill increased by a few levels, which was one of the better things to happen during training. The other good things were my regeneration skills; almost at tier 3. I should hit tier 3 in all my skills before I reach the max level and evolve, so I don't have to spend extra time focusing on that later.
The spider tried to keep me a little longer there as a thank you for helping them. But I refused and told her that I still needed to leave. Fist looked both happy and regretful that I had to leave, probably because I was the only one who could fight and push him further than any other monster.
As I was leaving, I looked over at the weak goblin and felt proud as it could run by itself now instead of being carried around. I may have forced it to burn me and run at the same time, so he was very afraid of me. So I would just laugh and swing my claws and blade-like tail at it, giving it minor cuts. As I passed him, I laughed and swung my tail behind me. It ran to hide behind the spider and Fist.
I told them to train hard, and maybe they would be able to survive and evolve, and maybe they might be able to regain their chances of having a class. I did leave them with ten tier 2 corpses and the rest of the tier 1 monsters that left a sizeable mound of bodies. This would be the last time I saw them for a while if they survived, and giving them more food, for now, would help them in the long run. And since I never picked up the giant bowl I made with the pond water in it. I'll make a bigger one since who knows what will happen.