Author: Thank you guys for reading.
Horrible, horrible past couple of days. Wanted to post this a while ago. My apologies.
This chapter is longer than the norm though, and will resolve everything in the first area as he sets off to new locations. I had a lot of time to think on how to progress the story at the very least so...enjoy. (Regular updates returning since things are settling down on my end)
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It took two years, a long two years of work before everything finally got into a state of absolute stability, along with me finishing up all my preparations. The amount of annoyances I had to deal with was far from little. At the very least, I managed to level up my skills, and made a few discoveries too.
The first thing I had to do though was create countermeasures for that damnable organization. Dealing with the other chosen that appeared at my doorstep was another matter as well. Many, if not all, of the sub-gods who had their chosen in relatively good travel distance to my location sent their representatives to me since I apparently did such a good job with the other three, John, Smith, and Claire.
The three fit in well with their work and were no longer so...squishy. At the very least, they can put up a fight. Though not with any of the powerhouses, it's enough to be respected in this place. As such I had to put the other 13, whose names were too many to remember, that appeared into a similar training regime and figure out where their skill sets lie best.
I noticed a trend where these sub-chosen originate from some area of business and management. Perfect for assisting in running things and any other place I would incorporate them. Not so much when it comes to fighting against any of the dangerous forces in the world. Made me wonder about the origins of the main-chosen, not enough to investigate them however given what I experienced so far. Val’s chosen maybe, the others...not so much.
In regards to matters of me dealing with the main-chosen, I’ll get to that later.
Before dealing with my new helpers, I had to liberate the citizens who fell under enemy control. As I had everyone with any form of power under enslavement, they were unaffected since even if their minds were controlled, I had the body. This included most of the guards who protected key areas like instructed. One being the location with the domesticated animals where a brunt of the citizens went. The rest charged towards administrative buildings and tried to wreak as much havoc as possible.
It took an entire two months to get to everyone of those people and free them. When they were freed, they were instructed to an ever growing shelter formed by the guards to protect them from any further encounters with the organization if they were still around.
The gates and walls were obviously sealed and protected, but I couldn’t risk them still having some people in the city. I had my group sweep through the streets since they were immune to any attacks and brought what remained of the rioters. Eventually with diligent effort and many nights without sleep, I got to the entire population. No signs of the conspirators though.
The whole thing brought my synchronization of [spiritual control] in my [Full Body Control] skill to 72%. The speed at which I was able to free the citizens sped up accordingly as a result. Since they weren't bound for long, a slight push was all they needed to helped them break free.
With all the people I freed, I made a few discoveries regarding this mind magic. Not only does it bind the mind and subject it to hallucinations to weaken its strength. The soul of the victim withers as a result. What I did was strengthen the soul to invigorate the mind. After trying to figure out the relationship between the two, I had a sudden revelation. [Willpower]. From the description I acquired from Amare, it's not easy to comprehend but originates as a type of strength from within that usually remains dormant.
On earth people would sometimes acquire great strength and do impossible things during times of crisis. When I thought thus far I got a sudden notification of my [Willpower] stat increasing by 2 points. This helped me understand that my theory held some credibility. [Willpower] is a hidden strength within the soul and has a strange relationship with people's minds. I also learned that comprehending my system more deeply than from it's simple text will gain benefits in regards to their uses.
Gaining interesting insights aside, I was annoyed with how things were at the time. The situation could’ve been very easily reversed without a real solution, so I went into researching one. My family's estate had plenty of room to accommodate my experiments, and the others in my group, so it was a good place to start finding a solution. Layla however refused to enter unless the building she spent most of her life in was completely destroyed, which I obliged. I didn’t see any reason not to grant such a wish.
My supposed family members who weren’t assigned to different areas were visually less than thrilled to see us back, but couldn’t really voice their thoughts. If anything the hate in their eyes had intensified from before. It mattered little to me, and their lives would be cut down later when they finished teaching the guards everything.
The guards in actuality have free will, as they were mostly just paid to do my family's dirty work and they have their own situations. If anything, they don't really care who they work for as long as get paid from what they said.
As they can't lie with a slave collar when ordered to speak the truth, I made a deal with them. They will essentially be slaves with privileges. People who joined their ranks were also subjected to enslavement with the same rights. As long as they abide by the rules I’ve set in place, they can do what they want on their free time. Plus they get paid fairly with meals and dorm provided unless they live with family.
The slave collars would simply enforce loyalty, and they didn’t seem to mind when it was explained thoroughly to them. If anything, as long as they could enjoy themselves and remained fed, anything would work. Even regular monster subjugation didn’t deter them, as they agreed that it needed to be done.
I kept wondering why the hell such hearty people were just following along with what my family and the upper class dictated. When I asked, they simply stated it was safer for their families if they didn’t anger the ones in control. Looking further, a lot of the guards had some sort of family or another that they looked after. The main problem was just the ones in power. Nothing short of stereotypical in my opinion were if people didn’t follow along, the people they cared about suffered instead.
With the guards in check and their numbers growing from either recruitment, bandit subjugation, or slave dealer usurpation. Bandits and slave dealers didn’t have the same privileges as the ones who were recruited. I had to go and reorganize the administration that managed them since a few of the policies weren’t up to standards. One of the sub-chosen who used to do a lot of military work from what he said made a lot of improvements but such things aren’t my expertise. Essentially, they were a lot more organized, and had a stable military structure with better timetables and the like.
A division was formed to make trips to other areas while gathering supplies to be traded cheaply. Labrindel and Korgoth aren’t particularly well off in the food department and will have to make due with the materials from demon/magical beast subjugation. The guards will also seize bandits and the like along the way. Given time, the two cities would be like Birgen.
One particular group of guards that were sent to Korgoth had a specific job to do. Find Khan. I had an endless amount of delays preventing me from locating him myself. A while back I discovered he was being forced as a gladiator in the coliseum of that city. Nothing at the time said he perished but I can't be sure anymore. At the time, I could only hope the guards would have success in their search.
The final city in the area, Concord, with the only ‘powerful’ family left, closed itself off. Even if they try to put up some type of feeble struggle, I already decided to claim them as well. I would do it personally when I set out.
These matters aside, when we were renovating the estate from it's overly gaudy appearance we discovered a few more hidden rooms. I thought we found them all the first time, but apparently not even my relatives knew of these ones.
They had some interesting historical records and items with enchantments I can learn. The best one being within an underground passage in my father's living area. I’m pretty sure he used the room to hide the clans most important secrets, because I found quite a few good things. Two being a small chunk of [Versilian ore] and a book on enchantment formations.
[Versilian ore] is like the jack of all trades when it comes to mystical ores. It’s not the best in any one aspect, but is at a better level than common metals by a bit. Compared to [Mithril] that is amazing for mages and [Adamantine] with the best defensive strength currently discovered, it can't compare. But it does have decent defense and magical attributes to speak well of. It is even a better enchant material compared to iron and the rest. The best one being [Orichalcum] by a long shot though.
If I’m lucky, I can get the three best ores and meld them into one super ore with my transmutation skill.
There are other unique ore as well, but they aren’t suitable for armor due to corrosive properties or some other problem that's bad to have on contact with the skin. Maintaining weapons with those ore are most likely very annoying but still interesting nonetheless. Who knows what these oh so great sects are hiding.
Putting the ore away to work with later, I looked through the book to see if there was anything amazing within since it was so well hidden compared to the other ones with useless or incomplete enchant arrays. I had such high hopes for the other enchantment books I found, but they only had theories with the basic clean rune or similar for practice. This one however was a compilation of all sorts of runic arrays, and they were complete. I have been working with broken or low grade runic arrays that needed constant tinkering to find better variants this entire time.
These were just hard to replicate due to their complexity but were in their most perfect form if what I’m reading is correct. With my memory and ability to enchant directly into a structure using magic hands to alter objects, this problem is nothing to me. Just that a lot of them need higher grade enchant material than the norm to support them.
One enchant array caught my eye immediately though. [Inspection]. This one doesn’t need amazing material to use it on, and is the best thing to use in order to filter out people I don't want to enter the city.
Placing it at the gates and along the walls will inspect those around it. Following the instructions the book indicated shows that I could inscribe it to be alerted to certain elements. One being malice toward the city, another being contraband, it gets pretty broad. It's pretty much perfect to keep out the organization members.
After analyzing the gates, it was discovered to already have such runes in place but they were broken from defending against sieges from the past, based on the damage being covered up.
After spending another 2 months getting the walls and gate in a state that will prevent a repeat of the runes being broken I felt satisfied with the results. Now Birgen has a detection system for any bad influences that enter the city. What was left was making a tool that removes outside influences or something similar to allow other people beside me the capability to remove the organizations bindings or at least prevent it. I got a few runes that can help, but mass production is the problem.
Thankfully some of the sub-chosen had some good ideas to set up an assembly line for its creation and mass production, we just needed to design some machines to premake the runes on the materials before assembly. We all settled on various forms of accessories. Rust was also more than happy to help with building the machines we would need after getting the designs done after constant review.
We also made machines to forge materials for the walls to have the inspection rune upon being made. These would be sent to the other cities to rebuild their walls and for any forts and towns that would eventually be made.
Rust is also now the owner of the blacksmith shop I visited back when I was first leaving Birgen. The previous owner was not up to my standards so I had him deposed into a more fitting role of a maintenance worker for the eventual sewer system that will be implemented. After Rust saw the work the dwarf was selling, he had no issues with where he ended up and even landed a firm punch to the other dwarf saying things about shaming his ancestors.
I’ve noticed that ever since Rust started drinking, his work became a lot better and he became very talkative. So much so that people try to get him to pass out drunk just to make him stop talking. I don't really care if he gets drunk or not as long as he does good work, which doesn’t seem to be a problem. He even became a more suitable teacher for his recruits that will help in his growing business.
Other than removing the organizations hold over Birgen, putting countermeasures, and fixing some problems with administration. I spent time remaking my equipment with the new ore while training with everyone.
Me, Shiro, and Puerial had higher specs so we were ahead of everyone in our normal routine, but I spent some time setting things up for everyone to get a stable growth pattern for a good while. They will have to experiment on their own to improve later if they chose to do so. Layla especially worked hard to fix her stamina issue, while Belle worked to get some variety in her repertoire.
I myself have not slacked off and made some improvements on my skills. The new information I had access to that Amare hid in my system revealed details my skills normally wouldn’t tell me.
The biggest one being [Magic Hands] having a separate window that unlocks when it reaches intermediate (25/100).
Magic Hand Effects
Cosmetic
Physical
Mental
Resistance
0% {- [-] - - -} 100%
0% {- [-] - - -} 100%
0% {- [-] - - -} 100%
0% {- [-] - - -} 100%
This screen evolves and gains many functions as the skill reaches advanced (50/100) and so on. This one is simply the most basic form with not much to it until later. The effects are also not easy to see when it is first used on people. It's something that takes time. Each one of the functions have a specific effect on people. The values that affect them are the focus that the skill applies to each aspect.
Cosmetic slightly alters a person's genes every time it is applied to make the recipient not only visually more appealing, but makes their body function better than before. Like making a set of clothing fit better sort to speak. The effects it has on people are very broad in my opinion.
‘Physical’ stimulates their potential cap for how strong they could be. I don't have a limit due to growth correction while others do, unless they train up enough mana in their bodies to stimulate their bodies to continue growing. Most training is pretty much to use mana to evolve into stronger forms. The training used dictates the evolutionary path of the body. My skill seems to override the need to evolve with mana.
‘Mental’ helps the mind become stronger. Multitasking, critical thinking, comprehension, everything is stimulated to function better. However, if it isn’t practiced than it won't improve. To fix that I just made a bunch of games to stimulate the mind like chess and such. Everyone enjoyed that type of training.
Resistance relates to the immune system and is in a constant state of improvement as long as it is influenced with my skill. Thus making it more difficult for people to become sick or get poisoned to death.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
To increase a bar, I had to decrease another. Doing so will help improve not only peoples strong suites at a faster pace, but can aid their weak points more as well. Shiro doesn’t really like figuring out the answers to complicated problems or thinking outside the box on her own while Puerial only has the ability to keep up with us for so long. I can fix these problems at a faster rate if I use this screen well.
The girls had no objections to this discovery and trained to improve their weak points to the best of their abilities while not slacking on their strong points. However this doesn't really change their personality so they need to gain real life experiences to become real experts.
Another skill that started to shine was [Mana Gathering] as I started making some time to focus it and improve its current level when I read the new information I got. When it reached intermediate, like usual, it made a qualitative leap in its function.
Mana Gathering
Passive/Active Skill
Intermediate Level 1
Description:
Mana is channeled from the air or from people to improve recovery.
Effects
MPR +.022% automatically.
MPR +1.2% when channeled.
[Mana Siphoning] +.5% Mana taken from held target at a fixed rate.
Like the name says, it gathers mana. It doesn’t have to be from a common source. Thus, I trained it up to unlock the siphoning function. The amount the MPR goes up increase from .001 and .1 increased to .002 and .2 percent per rank as well. No doubt these values will increase further in the future as well. This skill will be the bane of all mages in the future.
[Explosive Strike] is also a part of the strike series where I can make a fusion similar to my [Full Body Control] skill. I learned that synergies are a good thing and does help train up the aspect faster as proven by how fast [Spiritual Control] reached 72%. It also doesn’t hinder the growth of the other two as they slowly improve as I play catch up with the third.
The strikes I worked on Learning were [Piercing Strike] and [Phantom Strike] as the fusion seemingly works in threes and up from what I can tell. I don't know if it's definite since it's not one of the things mentioned on my info table. So far I felt the two skills were missing something and wouldn’t form even though it looked like I performed them correctly. I’m not particularly worried since they will appear when I figure out the issue, no use complaining over having to wait.
The only skill I feel perplexed about was the [Asunder Style] skill. All it really does is correct my posture when fighting to help me unleash more properly formed attacks. But I don't see how it relates to a particular style when I fight. I just decided to listen to my gut and give it time.
A major change I made however when my CP reached 76 was add them to my sub-stats that were still at 19. As with the others, they came with skills.
General's Call
Passive Skill
Uncommon
Description:
User’s voice carries more weight in a conversation. The user inspires the masses with a war cry boosting morale by 10%.
Noble Stance
Passive Skill
Uncommon
Description:
The user carries an odd allure that brings respect. Bartering is 20% more successful.
Mesmerizing Gaze
Passive Skill
Uncommon
Description:
Staring into the user's eyes has a mesmerizing effect. Information can be extracted from targets more easily. Effects double toward the opposite gender.
Artistic Hands
Passive Skill
Uncommon
Description:
Your hands have an artistic sense all on their own. Things created by the user are automatically more aesthetic. Creations have a chance to have an additional effect.
All of them seemed pretty interesting and when my sub-stats reach reach 40 points they will evolve into a better version.
With all said and done, I spent my time training up my current skills to unlock other functions and the like. A useless skill, can essentially become something amazing under this system. So I also keep an eye out for anything with potential. Likely places to look would be other so called sects. Now I have something to look forward to when I plunder them besides possible treasures.
I also heard about what happened at the high gods regular meeting. I didn’t expect much from them. Amare and Val lashed out a bit childishly too in my opinion, but a discussion I had with Amare before made me ignore their outbursts to look at the big picture. Gods are bound to their instincts. Their alignment influences their personalities, though the older ones have a better grasp on keeping under control where it doesn’t hinder their objectives.
Even if Amare was a bit childish, she still accomplished what she wanted. She took control of the council along with Val, and can dictate the course of the gods governing this world from now on.
The biggest annoyance I had to deal with though was one of the sessions I had with Amare that resulted from their meeting. In order to end some complaints and prevent some idiot from barging into my territory and cause trouble, we set up a sort of chat room. It was a discussion I truly would not wish upon my enemies. I think my intellect dropped a bit from it as a result.
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Amare’s Dwelling
“Do I really have to answer their questions?” (Kuro)
“Just enough to get them to stop making a fuss. I suggest approaching this the way you would as if dealing with children.” (Amare)
“That sounds tiresome, I’ll just handle it however I feel is natural. I’m not gonna baby grown adults.” (Kuro)
“That's fine, just...try not to make it your mission to kill them.” (Amare)
“They can't be that bad.” (Kuro)
After saying such, Amare just gave me a look as if she pitied me, ‘they aren’t seriously as bad as she says right’, was what I thought at the time. I wish I was able to go back and better mentally prepare myself for what was going to happen.
…
“First things first, who were you before you came to this world?” (Neran)
“Hoh, that sounds interesting. Where could the supposed ‘golden egg’ come from?” (Serious)
“Why does his past matter? I want to know how he got so strong when we came to this world first.” (Ren)
“Yea, and if he has a few ideas on how to get back at those bastards who controlled us.” (Jason)
“...” (Kuro and Aeria)
I gazed over at the only woman here and she had a face that showed she loathed her very existence at the moment. My gut indicated that I will have to struggle not to kill these guys.
“Hey! I asked you a question.” (Neran)
Is it just me, or does this guy have a problem with me. I never even met him before, so what the hell is up with the attitude.
“Firstly, don't raise your voice toward me or I will reunite your face with the floor. Secondly, before asking someone for personal information, giving your own is common courtesy.” (Kuro)
I had the impression I wouldn’t like this guy, so I had no regard with holding my words.
“Guh, fine...I’m Neran. The hero chosen by the God Cosmian. Back on Earth I was-” (Neran)
“A pretty boy with all the girls swooning over me with the ‘Stick of Justice’ so far up my ass I-” (Ren)
“REN!” (Neran)
After that Ren guy interrupted Neran’s introduction that looked like it was about to turn into some long self praising rant. The two started endlessly arguing. Picking up some information from their argument, the two knew each other from Earth. The only noteworthy information I got was Ren being a martial artist. Neran also appeared to have the so called ‘Popular’ life.
...Why the hell was Neran selected to be here. I can understand Ren a little. Even if he doesn’t appear to have the right mentality, he still has some type of battle experience and mind set to train. But Neran...what the hell was Cosmian thinking. Why didn’t the gods pull in soldiers or something. Anyone with the capability to do what's necessary would have been an obvious choice. All I can feel from Neran is naivety.
“*Sigh* Putting these two aside, who are you two.” (Kuro)
“Serious.” (Serious)
“Hmm, ah, names Jason” (Jason)
Serious appears to be just observing...not someone I would trust under normal circumstances seeing how careful he appears with regards to information. For now I’ll just keep an eye on him. Jason seems a bit more simple. This entire time he has been practicing some fighting moves. Though from what I've seen so far in this world, he is lacking quite a bit in technique.
*Sigh* I’m already starting to hate being here. These guys don't feel to be taking the situation seriously at all in my eyes. Amare already told me how they didn’t do any research on the skills and abilities this world has to offer. If my evaluation was skeptical coming in here, I don't think it can go any lower than it has.
“Names Kuronus Lux, just call me Kuro.” (Kuro)
We ended up discussing a few things, Neran became extremely annoying wanting to know my origins from Earth. I just shrugged him off and wanted to end this whole gathering already. This gathering could’ve happened a long time ago but the gods were too competitive with each other and refused to cooperate. After finally meeting with the others, the wish for the good old days of separation crept back up within my heart.
Even though I explained a lot of my discoveries to these people, the only one who appeared to understand was Aeria standing quietly in the back. I already understood her intentions of avoiding these guys. Our evaluations may be similar to each other.
In the end I simply had to endure trying to teach these guys to stop being them long enough to do some investigating and research on their own. For whatever reason, they didn’t put the skills this world has to offer in their eyes. So I ‘thoroughly’ had to ‘beat’ the idea of learning these skills as a useful endeavor directly into them. Much to their dismay.
Even if they resented me for my ‘generous’ teachings...they had it coming. I especially ingrained some extracurricular knowledge into Neran. I even notice a slight smile on the girls otherwise passive face. I wonder if she enjoyed seeing these guys experience my teaching methods.
With noticable fear in their eyes Jason, Serious and Ren left to train themselves up. Neran just had a look of utter hate and frustration while he disappeared from my site. The only ones that remained were me and Aeria.
“Now that the idiots are gone, do you have any real questions for me.” (Kuro)
“...I was told that you having a skill that can combat mind control. I…” (Aeria)
“No need to hesitate in this regard since I have no intentions to withhold information. As for that skill, I don't know if you can learn it without a bit of practise. Though for now, I devised some countermeasure for that organization that has been making a mess of things.” (Kuro)
“Countermeasures?” (Aeria)
After a long discussion, I taught Aeria what I learned thus far about the organization and about matters regarding the world. It was then I realized the other chosen left without hearing this information. They were adamant about ways to get stronger or about my past that it never came up when they were here...whatever, I’ll just relay the details from Amare.
Aeria seemed to appreciate my discoveries and left to put them into practice while I returned to my own business. Amare praised my ability to be lenient toward the others as she bid me farewell.
So far, a lot has happened. Out of all the main-chosen, Aeria seems to have good qualities. I haven't encountered any sub-chosen that didn’t have a particular strong suit, if anything they are really useful.
I’ll have to find other companions for the coming fights though.
As time passed, everything in Birgen, Labrindel and Korgoth seemed to be reaching a state of stability. Neferia was rather far so things were slow moving in that area. The best news to alleviate a bit of the tension was finding Khan. He lost an eye and an arm with his muscles no longer bulging, but he was alive, even if malnourished and half dead. Tammy cried for a long time with her emotions being all over the place. After I treated him and restored his missing limb and eye, I set him up in a program to slowly recover his strength.
He was too out of it to discuss what happened though, I also didn’t ask. I just let him feel the relief of seeing his daughter again.
After I left the two during one of my regular treatment sessions and returning to my own home to rest, I couldn’t help ponder my situation. Never would I have guessed my life would change so much. Magic, another world, gods and so much more. My life from before seemed so small even if it felt so profound to me. Regardless of the grand scheme of things, I will keep pushing forward. There are countless people in this world that need to be killed and I remained in this area for quite a while, and there are still many things to do.
Returning to my room I knew that my current life was coming to a close. Things will become a lot more complicated. Even so, I will face it.
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A/N: Sorry again for making you all wait.