It's been almost a year since my generals have left to train. They should be returning soon, I hope they've all gotten stronger. I've gotten all my classes except for a few up to level twenty five. If I keep working towards my goals I can achieve them.
All the generals are slowly returning. I even told Lances group to come back around this time. Once they get back I'll explain what I've been doing since they've been gone and our next moves. Lances group has finally returned… What is with those familiars, they are giants! How strong did the group get for Leaf to make familiars that big?
“Alright with everyone here, lets start the annual meeting for the Nooby Army. First order of business is going over what we've all been up to for the last year.”
Starting with Gobber, we all go over the past year. He tells me things I already know. Like how Kline had to get stronger for them to continue. How he brought Kline back and made me teach him another class. I taught him time mage. The level fifty skill is instant incantations. Extremely good for any caster. It's just time mage isn't often picked since it has very little utility when compared with other mage classes. Losing out on two skills would be a big drawback for anyone who could only pick two classes.
Gobber continued, explaining how they made it through many tier three and four dungeons together. Finally how they pushed through a few tier five dungeons and killed the bosses. They showed me plenty of rares they've gotten. Even a pile of gold from their trip. All this will be necessary for our plans.
Lance went next. He explained how they had a rocky start. After a few months of close calls in dungeons they got everything straightened out and started clearing tier five dungeons. They cleared far more than Gobbers group. I expected as much though, it's a group of my generals, of course they'd do better than a group with a two generals in it.
I asked about Leaf's familiars and she explained her new secret skill… I'll have to learn that later and make sure I ask everyone else for any secret skills they might have unlocked… Leaf also asks me to teach her another class… WHAT!?!? HOW!? Well it doesn't matter how I guess. I'll have to figure out the best class for her.
Sock went next… When he went over his story I knew a part was coming up I didn't want him to go over. When he returned with Brick… I still remember everything that happened when he returned clearly. Apparently there is some bad blood between Brick and Epieoth. When Epieoth seen him traveling with my group he attacked him. Yelling.
“What is this demon tribe killer doing here!?”
“I'm here with my companions. They've said their master could treat this mans injuries. While I find that hard to believe, I still traveled with them.”
“You think I'm just going to forget what you've done to my people? We're about to go to war with your region!”
Brick started to get angry once Epieoth said that.
“My region? HOW CAN YOU THINK I WOULD STILL BE LOYAL, TO A REGION THAT KILLED MY PEOPLE! They called us in to take care of you demon tribe and then betrayed us the moment your numbers were too small to matter. That's why I practice elementalist now. If I don't use my class, it will let down all those who've died for nothing.”
“Kite! Let me kill this man! I fought against him when we were in school but he was too strong then. With all the practice, and my new class I think I can beat him now!”
I had to break them up.
“Epieoth did you not just hear what he said? He is in the same exact situation as you. With the bigger armies forcing you to fight against your wills until both of your tribes were pushed to extinction.”
… It was extremely hard to break them up… I managed to do it somehow. Sock talked about it briefly. Brick was still with his group. I could feel the tension between him and Epieoth when their part was glossed over. They explained that with Bricks help they managed to start clearing into tier fives quickly. Brick even said they were almost ready for tier six dungeons. If we split up the groups, pulling all the strongest members together. We could definitely clear tier six dungeons.
The last group went. It was Zergnar's group, his group had spent the most time back at the base. They were only gone for a few months then returned. Bringing back some very interesting pets for me. First was the black egg. Zergnar was showing it to me and it started hatching in his hands. He set it down and we both watched it hatch. The moment the creatures head popped out it looked at me… My heart skipped a beat, it instantly bonded with me…
Bonded with greater unique variant black griffinling
It was a dragon/griffin hybrid! I've never seen such a rare monster in either of my other lives. Dragons are extremely rare to find. For it to have been able to mate with a griffin must have meant it was a young dragon. Which are even more elusive. Dragons don't die from age, they only get bigger and bigger. A thousand year old dragon would be so hard to kill, you'd need an army to fight it. The dragon must have been under one hundred years old to be a similar size to the griffin to mate with it. Meaning that it is beyond a rare pet.
He also brought me an imp named Blue… Who didn't like me at all. I guess Zergnar got his hopes up and when he seen a child was his master... He was severely disappointed. He was ready to leave until I convinced him to stay, we'd even feed him for free. He could roam around the fortress unimpeded by everyone. It was hard to get him to trust me. Finally when I was making the support automaton dolls he started to get closer to me. Near the end of year long break he finally bonded with me. He already knew how to use water magic. He was a rare variant imp with the class Aqua mage which he ended up teaching me.
Class learned Aqua mage- passive skill gained Water absorption- Able to pull mana from the surrounding water, passive total mana increase
Aqua mage skill upgraded Water spout--> Jet stream- Able to form a jet of water to shoot out at your enemies
I asked him if he had any secret skills. He didn't yet, maybe if he evolves again. I also taught him three classes. Black mage, Time mage and Elementalist. I tried teaching him a few other classes before I attempted Elementalist. He couldn't learn white mage, bard, blue mage, monk, summoner or nature mage… He's blue so I expected him to be able to learn blue mage... I just assumed he wouldn't learn elementalist when I taught it to him. After that he said something to me.
“I get it now. You're not strong, you can just make other people strong…. That's why you have so many followers. That is a pretty selfless thing to do.”
Yea I already knew, greed was talking my ear off when I was teaching everyone for free. He said they should pledge their loyalty to me for my teachings… That seems unnecessary since we're all in the same army anyways.
Finally the changling… What a strong mount for me. At least until the griffinling grows up. I had to tame it, it would not bond with me trying everything. It took around five hundred attempts to tame it… If it wasn't bound to not move or attack me, it would have been impossible to do… I've been thinking of ideas of what it should be when riding it. It's too small to be a good aerial mount so I'll stick to the ground for now. Zergnar can handle the aerial combat.
Zergnar also asked about taming a raid boss… I'll think of something later after the war for that. It would be nice to have a dragon, fly over the battlefield raining hell down on the enemies. Any raid boss would be extremely strong against most troops. I think it goes without saying that taming a raid boss would normally be beyond the means of anyone. Without my huge amount of classes and jobs. I've never heard of a raid boss being used that way either...
Finally it got to my turn. I explained what I did the since the first few days the groups all left to get stronger.
“The first thing I did… Was make all the poison I could… Then drank it.”
Everyone looked confused at what I was saying until I spat out six different kinds of poison. Strengthening my poison spit to the point it could be far more useful than it was currently. Not only could I spit poison, it made me immune to that poison as well. It would also make producing poison far cheaper, since I can just spit it out.
I have a weak damage, numbing and hallucinogen poisons. For strong poisons, I have damage, numbing and an acid that can erode armor. It was painful to drink the damaging ones but the acid did no damage to me at all. My knives cannon is now coated in each kind of poison except the acid one.
"Then I started with becoming familiar with the demon tribe members. I fought every single one of them over a few days to see which ones were noticeably stronger. I managed to beat around half with my tricks but a few really stuck out… Epieoth had held back when I first fought him… I couldn't even get any attacks off on him before he rushed in and pinned me to the ground.”
Epieoth spoke up.
“When I fought you the first time. I was trying to teach you spellthief to see if you could learn it from just seeing it be used. With you not mentioning it when we fought, I assumed you didn't. When I seen you using spellthief moves against the demon tribesmen I knew you did… I should have asked back then.”
I start explaining everything I've been doing over the passed few months since them. How my hand grew back quickly after everyone had left… It also helped me remember everything I've done this year.
I taught the remaining demon tribe that hadn't learned classes yet a class. Pairing some of the non combatant demon tribe with jobs that could help us in the long run. Greed made sure if anyone was staying here, they were putting in work. The next month or so was me training against Epieoth every single day. From the moment we woke up until I went to sleep was spent fighting against him. While I managed to get a few lucky hits in on him I was never able to beat him.
He told me something I hadn't known. Demon tribe members can see peoples auras. You can see peoples traits by the color of their aura… Epieoth noticed something wrong with mine though and said something.
“Well… You're aura has changed. Before it was an extremely bright blue aura. The strongest and lightest I've ever seen… Now it has traces of a far darker aura of red. It's something I've never seen a person have before. Most people have varying degrees of three colors. Yellow, blue and red. All different shades of those three colors. I've never seen anyone with a mix like you have. And to be on the exact opposite ends like that. I've never seen an aura quite that dark before…”
Epieoth could see my greed trait through my aura. I explained my trait situation too everyone… Most of them had noticed I acted weird… I also had to explain my gauntlet to them too. That's when I remembered the gauntlet Sock had given me. Similar to Aegis but without the symbiotic trait. Instead it had a mana blast effect that allowed you to shoot out excess mana…
It wasn't a very good gauntlet for me. I ended up giving to to Gobber, who doesn't really use his mana often. He still has some because of his blue mage class. If I had worn it, I would never use that effect and it had the indestructible effect and anti magic runes on it… Meaning I wouldn't be able to launch full scale chi waves with it on. I pretty much need to sacrifice a hand to shoot out full scale chi waves… It's a big decision but if it will save lives, I'm willing to make the sacrifice.
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Continuing to train, most of my classes hit twenty five. I finally reached twenty five with shaman. Meaning I could make my own totems, which I was waiting for. I could now make my automatons.
The first ones I made were the hulking tank knight/warrior automatons. They'll take the brunt of the attacking force head on. They each had four arms, two shields and two swords being held by them. Pairing them against the spellthieves revealed some weaknesses in their ranged...
The next batch I made were thief/archer automatons. They'll provide support for the hulk automatons, they can even be picked up and used as giant two bolt crossbows by other troops. The hulks could approach the battle with them in their hands, fire, then move into melee dropping them back down onto their feet.
They have four arms. With four crossbows mounted to their forearms. After firing they can reload them all at once and fire four more bolts. They also had four hidden blades attached to the underneaths of their arms. So close range fighting they weren't completely disadvantaged. They could also carry things in their hands still since they didn't have anything in them. Perhaps throwing knives or bombs? We'll see in the future.
The last batch I made… I wasn't even sure I could make them. Using totem making I had just learned with the moon phases. I started making automatons out of wood. They could double as totems. I taught them shaman/bard. I gave each eight hands. They were each given four violins to play, once they learned new songs. They were each made with the eight different moon phase totems. So even if they fight as a group they won't be useless. I only made around twenty four of these automatons. They're very difficult to make and I could only make three during each moon cycle.
Finally I'll go over the changes I made to my equipment. I hollowed out my metal sword. I originally tried using a metal tube for an idea. It immediately blew up on my new hand, throwing shrapnel everywhere… Injuring my freshly grown hand. Trying to use a tier five wind scroll to shoot out a perfectly rounded rock caused an explosion.
I hollowed out my metal sword and made it so it was thicker than the metal tubes I've been using. It also shot a smaller projectile than my cannons. It shot it so fast that it could go through six walls strengthened by control nature magic. The knives cannon could only make it to the second one. I'll call my new weapon a gunsword.
Finally replaced my wooden sword with three totem swords. I made them myself out of special wood received from the treant. Since I've been keeping my promise of regrowing the trees. I asked him for some special wood to make my three totem swords. He gave me a branch from himself to make them with. Treant wood is extremely strong and sturdy and resistant to fire. It has more mana than normal wood too.
I make the three totem swords, one health regen, one mana regen and one attack speed increase. I rounded the ends to points on the pommels. I can pierce the ground more easily this way and by applying control nature to them. I can make them as large as totem poles. I tried using control nature to increase the size and armor for automatons but they stop working.
Over the next few months I kept increasing the automaton numbers. Having them slowly learn the common language so they could be taught classes eventually. Totaling 200 soldiers. The main problem is… Only the shaman ones stay active, meaning if we're attacked by anyone before we power them up, they'll be useless.
Finally I made an automaton for myself called Gear. After seeing how Pokodo would ride on other party members, I thought of the idea to use an automaton in a similar way. It will replace my backpack permanently. It's head looks over my shoulder to see the battle. It has no legs and Gear's body is tucked completely behind me. Gear has six arms, all with shields that can be used as spear tips with pointed sharp edges. They can reach all the way out in front of me. I've taught him a few formations for attacking and defending.
The first is drill formation. He spins his arms as fast as he can thrusting the spinning bladed spears to attack. The second is flower formation. He blocks together with all his shield spears, it resembles a six petal flower. Third formation is lotus formation. He opens up flower formation enough for me to fire arrows point blank range. Finally fourth formation is shotgun formation. He aims his six arms and fires bolts from them. It is very time consuming to reload the bolts in his arm. But it fires like an explosion of bolts. Six arms with four bolts in each arm, equaling twenty four bolts fired at once.
He'll increase my combat potential tremendously. Maybe I wont get knocked out as often with his help. Gear is another guardian/knight, both increase his survivability. Automatons can't regenerate health like humanoids. The only way to increase there survival is by boosting there total health. That's why using them is so dangerous. Anyone who knows there weaknesses can use hit and run tactics to weaken them permanently before they attack.
With Gear protecting me, I can freely shoot arrows. With the tracer skill and dual shot, I can fire four arrows. I have taken a particular liking to dual tracer snipe shot. It's another signature move to add to the collection to open fights with. Dual tracer focused shot works well too if I'm already in combat. Firing four arrows at once I can almost fire one per second.
I can always quickly pull out my heirloom sword which can be changed in sizes as well. Meaning storing it on my chest for fast draws works perfectly. Gear would be far too complicated for any of my other generals to learn how to use… Except for maybe Trice… If she wants a Gear mk2 I'll make one for her.
We had broken through to the other side of the mountains the first month the generals left. I was just too busy to search the other side until after all the experimenting was over. Running through the cave we could make it to the ocean two weeks faster. It still takes around a week of traveling to get there.
We'll need to build boats still but that shouldn't be too difficult. I had to wait because Zergnar left with a lot of the construction gnolls who switched to beast riders in their spare time. He only returned shortly to drop off the baby griffins and my pets. Then he left to train the troops more. All the experience the troops are getting right now could save their lives out on the waters.
I checked the coast and found a kobold stronghold. After a few weeks of reading up on them. It seems like they're extremely superstitious and will follow anyone scary enough to keep them in check… Which is any one of my generals but me. I'll gain them as followers once we start heading towards the ocean as an army. Kobolds don't get along with humans very well but they'll follow anyone if they're strong and scary enough.
The last few months was spent bonding more with my pets and getting closer to everyone. If the time it took for my griffinling to hatch is an indication of how fast it will grow… It will be five years before I can ride it into combat, since it took five times as long to hatch as the other griffin eggs did…
That's just a guess though, griffins can be used as mounts within a year of being born. They were up and moving around mere hours after being born. I had to carefully feed my griffinling for weeks after it was born. It wasn't able to walk for an entire month. It's going to be so strong once it's bigger, that will be worth any effort put towards helping it grow. I named him Darkclaw. A similar name to his mothers.
Morpheus the changling can change into any animal around two hundred to three hundred pounds. The bigger end of the animals can carry me. I've tried out a few but my favorite so far is wild tusked boar. Morpheus isn't big enough to be an owlbear… I wish it could be though. Maybe after it evolves some more. For extreme speeds I would go with a gazelle type monster. I haven't needed to travel quickly yet.
Finally the last month I spent exploring the other side of the mountains with a small group of soldiers. The monsters are surprisingly strong, to the point if we weren't overly careful with every new encounter we could have died. I ended up bonding with a bat. It was a normal bat in the area, the group I was traveling with almost killed it. It is just a dartwing like Zergnar's. If it can learn to talk like my other pets, it will be a nice support that can view area's while flying when I'm traveling by myself. I named it Purple for the tiny purple strip running down its back.
I had gained two levels from fighting the monsters near the ocean. Absorbing one of each monster increased my stats the most over all the levels I gained. These monsters gave around one to each stat and sometimes even two to certain stats. Speaking of absorbing I finally absorbed a piece of the basilisk… It was about to go bad so I cooked the few hundred pounds we kept in a void storage bag. It had a few freeze enchanted stones for keeping it longer. It was extremely delicious meat. To the point that once the basilisk respawns, I might send some troops back to kill it for the meat. It gave me ten stat points in all four of my stats. I also gained a skill from it.
Blue mage skill gained Bad breath- able to turn breath into a weapon, can infuse breath with any poison or harmful spell you can use
That was all I could do in the short year I had for myself… I still need to keep getting stronger. Before we push the pirates we're going to do a single raid. I need to see how much stronger all of my generals have gotten.
(Kite stats before year long training) (strength- 230) (dexterity- 200) (intelligence- 260) (stamina- 300) (total = 990 stats)
(Aegis 20 stack stat boost before training) (strength- 1150) (dexterity- 1000) (intelligence- 1300) (stamina- 1500) (total = 4950)
(Kite stats after training) (strength- 270) (dexterity- 250) (intelligence- 300) (stamina- 350) (total
= 1170)
(Aegis 20 stack stat boost after training) (strength- 1350) (dexterity- 1250) (intelligence- 1500) (stamina- 1750) (total = 5850)