When the three dragons flew over the town, the villagers, who had never seen such creatures completely feared for their lives, especially when they landed just out of the village in front of the lord's manor.
Some people even cursed the new nobles saying they brought this upon the village hurting the harmony that had formed between humans and monsters. Now these monstrosities were here but to the dismay of the villagers, the beasts simply laid down.
At the Null family home, they all came out and invited the Crost family inside.
“So Young master has already exterminated the Trolls, I did not expect it to be cleared so quickly.” Nil said in shock by how quick the requests were complete.
“Sir Nil would be surprised by how many people want troll blood. Not only alchemy but it can help enhance our own familiars improving their vitality and regeneration capabilities.” Rufus said sitting down while Opal brought in tea to serve them. The Null’s were using the herbs that were good for tea to treat these high nobles from another nation.
“Sir Nil, we have around 100 trolls from our harvest, as you should know, the blood is the most precious commodity trolls have to offer. Does this village by chance have someone that has a familiar with extraction skills?” Rufus asked.
“Extraction?” Nil said scratching his head.
“Father, extraction means butchering, Nadir’s pot does that but it’s not really strong and even to extract from common level 10 monsters, it almost bursts.” Xero said.
“So there is one, well we aren’t really in a hurry, if the extraction doesn’t waste material when failed then we do not mind completing more hunting requests in the surroundings while the blood is extracted.” He said.
Nil showed an eccentric expression and called over Nadir and asked about her pot. “Extracting? No everything is stored inside Potty but he only pulls the stuff out if it succeeds but if it fails nothing much happens besides getting a bit stronger.” She said summoning the pot. The Crost’s saw why it would fail under extraction of level 10 monsters.
“Then we can leave the extraction to you then?” Rufus asked.
She nodded, “Sure!” She smiled innocently.
Rufus pulled out four magic bags and the pot sucked out their entire content directly from the bag causing the people some shock by the suction force.
“Alright! ‘Extract “Blood”’ she said specifically targeting the troll's blood.
BANG!
Almost instantly the pot burst leaving the room in silence as it was reabsorbed into the seal.
Nil smiled wryly, “As we said, it might take a little while.” Nil said.
“It is expected, the pot spirit shouldn’t be more than level 5 with many closed channels, to extract troll blood is a bit hard. So what kind of monsters are most troublesome for the expansion?” Rufus asked.
“Most definitely the goblins to the east, they block the passage to the river which has a good supply of fish and fresh water the village will need for expanding and work. Also they block the passage to the cleared troll mountain that also should should have minerals located below.” He said.
“I see, what was the reward for it?” Rufus asked.
“Well besides keeping the body as usual, the price was 8 gold for driving them away, 15 gold for complete extermination without a single goblin left. The same request for the orcs is 10 gold for driving them off and 20 gold for killing them off but they are to the north but we fear raiding parties eventually coming.” Nil said.
“That is quite a high price to pay.” Rufus said.
“The danger to the village is high enough because once the village really starts expanding they will threaten us far too much. Without getting rid of them in one go it would be too hard.” Nil said.
“Have you thought of using goblins as workers?” Rufus said.
It was common to use special slavery brands of monsters like goblins who have a fast breeding rate but also good potential. As long as they are raised a bit better than common slaves they will evolve into something a bit stronger and fit for mining.
“I would need slavers and trainers, with the funds we have it isn’t good at this time. Only once the mines and farms are set up will the village get income. I still need to improve the roads as wells.” he said.
“I see.” Rufus nodded understanding the outlook of the man. “We shall accept the goblin and orc extermination, it will also present a good place to train our juniors.” Rufus said and drank his tea and nodded, “Also, this tea is quite good, I wonder if I can get some leaves.” He asked.
“My my, why thank you, we make it from mountain herbs we found around here.” Opal said and walked off before returning with a small jar holding the herb. “Here is a live herb, I’m sure someone like you can easily cultivate it.” She said.
One of the servants received it and stored it away while thanking Opal.
“I believe we can complete these tasks by the end of the day, at most tomorrow. Thank you for the refreshing Winter Sunshine herb tea. It was quite warming, we shall take our leave as to complete the tasks quickly.” Rufus said and stood up.
Nil stood up as well and lead them to the door and watched them climb up and fly off on the dragons.
“As expected of a noble, even drinking such tea from our home he was respectful even if he didn’t have to be.” Nil sighed.
“Daddy, I want some rocks.” Nadir said suddenly.
Nil looked at her confused, “Is there a reason sweetie?” he asked.
“Potty isn’t coming out, I keep getting images of rocks so he wants rocks.” She said.
“If it is only that I can help with it.” Xero said and called out Ashley, “Can you spawn a strong earth sword.” He asked.
“Anything for master~!” She said and her from her hands a shine came taking the form of a huge greatsword.
Xero took it and held it in front of his sister, “Oh~! As expected of little bro.” She said and put her right hand with the familiar seal on the blade.
It slowly began to shine and and was suddenly sucked into the familiar seal. After that Nadir suddenly yelped as she grabbed her arm in pain. Blue lines traveled through her body and a few cracking sounds were heard as some mana channels were opened and began to flow more naturally through her body.
It lasted no more than 10 seconds but it covered her body. Even so it only had 10% of the channels open. Then the Pot spirit suddenly shined and appeared in front of her and not it was no longer a clay cup but a stone jar with a stone lid and all. It looked similar to a juice or ale container unlike the previous form.
“Oh, it seems to have evolved or maybe it grew up.” Xero said.
He looked interested at the pot that was made of the dense stone that Ashley made her sword from.
“It looks quite sturdy now, I wonder if it can survive extracting the trolls now?” Zip said.
Nadir was pouting, “That hurt.” She cried out.
“Sister, try to extract the troll blood now.” Nil said.
Pouting she snorted and flowed her mana into the pot, “Extract blood.”
The pot shined and vibrated and burst and withdrew into her seal while blinking, “Bro Potty wants more stone.” She said.
Xero smiled reluctantly and had Ashley make a few more allowing his sister to transmit it to the pot making the dirt rocks slowly compress slowly become solid grey stone as it grew harder and denser.
Finally after 4 great swords the pot had a large change and it suddenly appeared made out of hard stone but its outer image was made of smooth white stone and written on the side was the word ‘Spirit Pot’.
When she finally tried the words shined and the pot lifted into the air and began to spin as mana began to flow inside at a steady pace. For a whole ten minutes it was like this before both it and Nadir ran out of mana and she was sweating.
“Potty was able to extract 10 trolls.” She said tired before she suddenly started to cry like a child and jumped into her mother's arms saying she was so tired.
Opal pet her daughter back to calm her, “If you want to help daddy, you should work hard to grow up into a strong girl okay.” Opal said warmly.
Even though Nadir was 15, being spoiled she retained a childish personality so she reacted just like one and nodded with a runny nose. Opal took out one of Nadir’s mana stones and told her to hold it and keep extracting so that she could get stronger for her father.
With a childish nod, she took the stone and activated the extraction skill once more and the pot started to spin again as it once more began to extract the troll blood.
***
“Young master Rufus, why were you so courteous to those Rank 1’s?” Cain asked Rufus.
Rufus looked back at the red headed distance cousin of his, “Is there a reason that I must not be courteous towards them? As nobles from the Crost family, a Duke family from the Radiance Empire, what is the point of acting in a pompous manner towards a family were one of them possesses a devil familiar. At the very least by the end of his life, he will be a Rank 6 noble. What is the use of butting heads. Also his family is just risen nobles but in one generation they can leap a large number of ranks. If that talent persists, eventually a royal family member would be married to their family or someone from their family into the royal family gaining duke level nobility. Only a fool would openly antagonize everyone below their rank like all the nobles that are normally expelled.” He said
“As expected of young master. Still I wonder…” Yasmine said and looked back at the only other person riding with Rufus, “Could it be that young master thinks that…” She stopped mid way but Rufus understood and smiled.
He waved it off but chuckled.
Univa just saw Yasmine looking at her but was confused by the exchange.
They flew to the north west area and soon found a large settlement with rough buildings and a number of goblins all around. A space of 20 meters around were cleared of wood and they even had a palisade built with watchtowers.
The goblin population here was also very well geared, when smarter evolutions begin to spawn, they always cause the goblin population to slowly advance like a primitive tribe going through several eras in a short time even discovering blacksmithing and other such things.
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“Ho~! The village lord wasn’t lying when he said this was a headache. He had guessed around 100 goblins but there are nearly four times the number of goblins, and subsequent evolutions.” Cain said as they looked down.
“The tribe is more developed than the village. It seems they have a mine which they extract metal and stone. From the looks of it, as long as this village persists for at least 2 more years, they will expand and start forming a goblin nation.” Yasmine said.
“It is too bad for them that we have them as a target.” Cain laughed.
“We do a fly by, all who possess flying dragons call forth, we shall take care of the goblins in a single sweep, burning the village in a sea of flames. It is the quickest method to deal with the weaklings. The strong ones will come later.” Rufus instructed.
The servants, and Univa, jumped off and their flying beasts summoned, they all began to fly alongside the dragons.
They moved in quick but from the watchtowers the goblins still saw them and sounded the alarm but it wasn’t quick enough as the speed they were flying, they quickly appeared before the village and without warning the three dragons released a continuous stream of fire while all the smaller dragons shot fireballs at the goblins or at buildings.
Within moments the entire village was a sea of flames and the dragons flew overhead and began to circle around like vultures.
At that time four larger goblins appeared. One was a muscular ogre holding a large battleaxe, one was a goblin mage with robes and a staff in hand, another was a swordsman and the last was a yellowish ogre.
They roared in anger and the yellow one looked up and stuck his hand out. With a blinding light coming out of his hand, it struck Cain’s dragon from behind.
“Damn it! It’s a thunder Ogre, damn fucker, want to fight daddy so much fine!” Cain cursed and took out his wand and chanted a spell that caused green light to flash on his dragon and the wound closed before he cast another spell with a long chant releasing blue light onto the dragon.
He roared as he turned to the center of the goblin village. The eyes were red from anger as he reared back, a small vortex of mana surged on his open mouth before he breathed out. With the buff spell, and his rage which induced a strange aura evolving the fire into dragon flame that were many times hotter, the dragon caused a flashfire like beat to burst out and cover the camp.
Before it reached, the goblin magic pointed the staff out and a huge barrier formed around the village. The thunder ogre stuck his hand out once more and launched an even thicker bolt of lightning and the fire and thunder impacted extinguishing each other.
“This is much harder than we thought it would be.” Cain said.
“Cain, do not just bulldoze through. Although we have strength, being able to properly use it is how your become strong.” Rufus said.
“Yes young master.” Cain said.
Rufus nodded and pulled out a wand and simply pointed at the magic barrier and shot a small ball that seemed like a mana bolt.
That said when the ball hit the barrier, it was like a mountain impacting it and the ball exploding shattering the barrier.
“Go!” He said.
“All juniors, find and kill the goblins and hobgoblins! We shall deal with the leaders!” Yasmine shouted.
The juniors all exclaimed and everyone flew in different directions while the dragons advanced.
The three leaders put away the wand and pulled out a sword out as the dragons neared and suddenly dove down and landed with a crash smashing half of the village while the three jumped off and landed in front of the four leaders.
“So which one wants to die by my blade first?” Rufus asked. The large muscular ogre growled and rushed out. “So be it.” He smiled slightly.
Circling in the air Univa dove down on the back of Tryus and pointed to a group of two hobgoblins and 10 goblins. “Eat those hobgoblins, they will be good food for you.” She said and he roared and dove down. As she neared she put her hand behind her back where there is a small knob. Under her clothing was a restraint suit she used for training and she loosened it allowing her to use her full strength.
She took out a sword to fight with. That said her swordsmanship was mediocre but compared to savages like goblins, it was still good. With her strength, she can still overpower them.
Tryus crashed into the group making them disperse and swung his tail around. His several meter long body sent a few goblins flying while Univa jumped down and landed with her blade piercing the heart of one of the downed goblins.
Although she had felt sick when she was in the camp, killing monsters, after two months of it plus another three months of heavy training, she wasn’t as affected but she had sleepless nights during that time.
People who live peaceful lives from the start will always have trouble adjusting to a savage lifestyle. Xero had hunted with his father and so he had seen blood of butchered animals since young so he had little fear of butchering, cooking and handling dead creatures let alone killing them.
Pulling the sword out she parried an incoming sword form a hobgoblin that caused her to stagger. Her strength was only at a level 12 standard, a hobgoblin, on the other hand, ranges from level 12 to level 25 and this one was a brute with lots of muscle showing it was several levels of strength above her. That said, with the sword, speed is key so after the first hit, she began to dodge with her speed when suddenly she ducked and a large tail came and smashed the hobgoblin back. Following that was a large claw cutting into its chest before lifting the still living hobgoblin to the drake's mouth and biting the head off and ripping it out.
Tryus threw the body down to go kill the others before it feasted while Univa turned away from the scene and went to kill nearby goblins. In a few seconds the area had been cleared and Tryus finished killing them and began to eat them like crocodile, ripping parts and swallowing hole.
When it finished it roared and her familiar seal lit up as he began to develop innate skills.
“Finally!” She exclaimed as he examined the spells.
They were as she had expected, Dragon’s aura, a unique ability that the dragons of her family develop, this aura mixes in with the spells of the dragon when they enter a state of anger which creates the famed Dragon fire. This spell was key to evolving a drake into a dragon and it makes the transition easier compared to other people with dragon type creatures.
The aura skill was completely formed in seconds while the other two were slower, she smiled as she found that it was ‘Fire breath’ and ‘Lizard’s claw’.
She spent no time at all as she broke the element of the Fire breath and added ‘Fire’ and ‘Air’ to make blue fire which was more powerful even if cost more mana. She quickly moved to the other spell and wrote down a very special magical formula sequence that was quite long and then broke a specific section related to the world ‘lizard’ and replaced the area with the new magical formula.
When these were done she began to make the spells more efficient but she felt something strange from the Blue Flame Breath as if it wasn’t going right even if she was properly improving it. It was only at the last second that she looked once more at the elements at the very start.
What she saw caused her to turn pale. When one is writing runes, especially elements there is a need to be very careful, the reason is because a few runes were very similar to one another which is what happened here. Instead of having the Fire and Air rune, instead she wrote the Ice and Air rune. This made the Blue Fire Breath to actually be the Blizzard Breath spell. It was a spell required for an ice dragon.
Before she could change it the spell completely formed and even if she changed it the spell would not break apart. She was completely depressed at this moment even when the Lizard Claw properly transformed into the Dragon’s Claw skill which gathered the dragon’s aura into the arm bulking up the power of the impact of the next hit.
Her depressed eye shine as she pulled out a few common mana stones. There were two ways to make an innate skill, wait for them to develop, or write one yourself.
With her skill, she would have trouble making it herself but she could do nothing except make the true Blue Fire Breath alongside the Blizzard Breath by relying on extra mana from the mana stones she got from her family.
Because the area was guarded by Tryus and most of the goblins were already dead, she simply mounted him while working slowly to draw up the many complex magical sequences. She paid no attention to the servants who were cheering about the growth of their familiars as she worked.
It was only after half an hour that she finally finished. It was a working formula but it wasn’t that good. She would need to return to school and get the help of a teacher without revealing it to her brother so that he would not report her blunder to her father. The family was quite keen on the fact that they raised fire dragons, not ice. To appear with an ice dragon she would be pushed to a branch family at best instead of remaining with her family. This was the cruel reality of a large duke’s family.
“Haha! Good harvest! Not only was the ogre a good warm-up, his gear isn’t half bad, we could get a pretty coin from this axe.” Cain said as he flew up.
“This mage staff is impressive, the gemstone is also large and a good magic conductor.” Yasmine said.
“These Ogre cores are the best harvest, young master, what will we do with these cores?” Cain asked.
Ogre cores are the monster core inside ogres. After a specific evolution, monsters from these cores which are similar to demon and dragon cores that form in the heart or brain. They contain the majority of mana and crushing a familiars monster core will result in a similar effect to what demons experience having all their mana released.
“One holds magic capabilities but of lightning magic, the other is strength based, the magic one we shall hold onto and trade for a fire based core of equal value, the other, Yasmine you can choose a junior with low strength base that is putting in good effort and reward it to him. It should supplement his familiars strength to better standards.” Rufus said
Yasmine bowed, “Understood.” She said.
“We shall spend the night at the village, it is dark already and winter nights aren’t more unbearable than the daytime so we will not move around during this time.” Rufus said showing even he was uncomfortable with that kind of cold.
As everyone landed on the dragons, Rufus looked back and with some interest and smiled, “Tryus has begun to develop a dragon core, did he obtain a small evolution during the battle?” Rufus asked.
“Yes brother, he developed the Dragon’s aura and Dragon’s claw but…” She frowned, “He lacks the Fire Breath so I am trying to draw it myself.” She said.
He smiled, “That is good, it is good practice for you to try and draw it and learn to develop it without having the natural laws make it.” He said nodding approvingly as he saw his sister develop her dragon to be a powerful fire dragon.
They flew back and set up magic tents to sleep in.
Univa, reluctantly, left early the tent to ‘look around’ and moved to the Lord’s manor after remembering a specific fact from last year.
“You need help making a Blue Fire Breath spell formula?” Xero asked.
She nodded embarrassed, “I… I kind of messed up and drew the Ice rune instead of the fire rune when the Innate skills were appearing.” She said
“Ah, that’s right, fire and ice do have similar runes, but why did you come to me?” He asked.
She frowned and looked away, “Um… you were the top student in magic knowledge class last year, mostly because the others bullied you and you worked five times harder so I thought you would be able to help me. I was able to set up a basic structure of a common fire breath but it is harder to advance.” She said.
Xero scratched his head, he never expected that others would know how much effort he put into learning magic during his first year, it caused him to feel embarrassed. “Um then let's see it.” he said extending his hand.
Univa reluctantly extended her hand and Xero moved his mana into the familiar seal and looked at the Innate skills. “Wow, so these are dragon skills.” He muttered. Soon he found the two formula near the throat. One was complex and quite perfect while the other looked like a shriveled up prun.
He could see why she wanted help, in one glance he could see several dozen problems. Efficiency problems, mana leaks, heat dissipation, problems that would even cause the spell to reverse and maybe injure the dragon from inside. He never saw such a broken formula but that didn’t mean he couldn’t fix some of them. The formula was already Blue Fire Breath and it indeed did what it needed to but improperly.
“Do you want me to tell you the problems and solutions as I go?” Xero asked.
“Sure, I want to learn what I did wrong.” She said.
With a nod he began to fix the very basic areas were mana leaks existed in the mana gathering phase. It followed by how to properly connect the element runes, then temperature control, sequences that needed to be written to protect the mouth and throat of the dragon, another to increase the fire resistance, mana efficiency problems, more mana leaks, fixing the heat dissipating leaks, the proper propulsion sequence.
As he went explaining one by one, she watched trying to get hints and actually admired him for being able to build off her trashy spell and how the shrivelled spell seemed to slowly gain life as the spell was slowly built and when it finished, it was glowing identical to the Blizzard Breath spell.
“T-thank you.” She said and took out a gold coin. “Take this as payment, I can’t accept free help.” she said dropping the coin into his hand. He held it accepting the money that he was in need of to guarantee another month at the academy. Not only that he was able to improve his own knowledge of magic formula construction through building a true spell by hand. One belonging to a dragon instead of a demon.
He lead her out and after she vanished into the night, he walked back to his room and picked up the large stone greatsword and felt the magic flow until he felt the magic formula.
There were more than just a few, in fact, there were a number of earth spells built into the sword. Of these spells, there weren’t many that were finished as some were a bit advanced in nature and needed delicate calculations that Xero did not know at the time.
What he did have was an Earth Sword Barrier spell, which caused a giant wall in the same of his sword to appear from the ground and block incoming attacks, breaking apart after a short while if the sword was removed from the ground.
He took the volcanic sword and equally it had its own spells like Flaming Slash and a newly formed spell combining the principles of his flying sword and vortex. It was called Fire Blade Tornado. It made countless fire slashing spin and advance towards the enemy.
The green sword was made of a unique wind attribute rock found in a windy canyon training ground in the academy and it had similar spells like Gale slash and such. The final was the wood sword, under Grunt’s suggestion, it was tempered in the Bloodvine tree and it indeed developed the blood sucker skill. By analyzing the spell Xero found some runes and sequences that when put in a specific order, allowed his sword to spawn tentacle like vines when stabbed into the ground that he could control with his mind.
All these spells were slowly forming his repertoire of stored spells and with his recent exercise to help Univa, he began to look through the formula and change a few things to further advance.