Expanding Base Territory
7 days later, 100 km away from the base. Southwest from the base, among the fields of snow that began growing a couple of inches since some time ago, early afternoon.
An incredibly long line of students could be seen marching with discipline in the direction of the base. They seemed somewhat stern, but the cold also made them seem united and a bit too serious. Some armored cars were here and there in-between this large quantity of marching students, which the students seemed eager to get close to but were doing so with calmness and in an orderly manner.
However, all around those students, quite a few dozen armored cars were spread through a very long rectangle-shaped formation. They were somewhat protective of the students, taking care of them so that nothing that could endanger them on their way to the base remained unseen. And they were, of course, not from the academy but from the base.
Far away from them, towards the direct south, Ciemnosc and Gallah were in slightly furred coats. It wasn’t that the entire base’s uniform had changed or something. It was just that others weren’t like himself, like Ciemnosc, so when the snow seemed to get colder and was beginning to make his troops wary of the simple temperature lowering furthermore, Ciemnosc began to crazily work with Creature’s hides to craft an insanely amount of set of clothes.
They ended up being so good that their reception was even beyond Ciemnosc’s expectations. The students who got to wear them first never let go of them, washing them delicately with their Power Energy, sleeping in it, training in it, dining in it… Only when big adult’s time arrived in their daily lives would they finally take it out, but keep it in a tightly closed and secure box while papapa’ing all night.
And now, with Ciemnosc taking over a week to build over a million sets of clothes, the students who wanted to have at least 2 sets of such were beyond disappointed when the Chief told them no. Little did they know, the Craftsmaking division was starting to be taught a new class; starting today.
“Are these all?” Ciemnosc asked Gallah while looking at the long and wide marching new, fresh blood. Their legs had their knees raised well enough, and they only looked down at the snow to spend some extra time at least doing something. Not bad, indeed.
“Mhm, a little over 500,000. Generous, don’t you think?” Gallah answered, pointing at the students he had done his best to turn into ready-to-be brainwashed students into fearless and zealous warriors of death against the abominable major organizations!
“Good job.” Ciemnosc nodded, praising Gallah the thankful as he stuck his chest out. Of course that he also admired Ciemnosc. How could he not? Not only is he a little kid that can do what the entire Rocaloi Academy, his home, cannot do, but he also makes the other girls orgasm without needing to use his most primitive tool. If Ciemnosc wasn’t a ‘man’ to admire, then it was to envy, and Gallah had the former kind of feelings when it came to the boy.
Ciemnosc looked at the marching students. He could see they were mostly tired and had been marching for so long due to their large numbers. He could only understand Gallah’s worries as he had only gone back to the base with not even half this number of students.
Keeping on looking at the marching fellas, Ciemnosc spoke to Gallah before leaving by turning around and walking away into the snow. His voice was calm and casual as Gallah attentively listened, “Get them ready to know what they need to do. The outposts are already designed. You have 2 weeks with the girls to get these students to become my troops. There is going to be a lot of work to do next month. Oh, and start building those large ships. They aren’t keeping silent for no reason.”
Step- crrk, step-crrk, step-crrk…
“...” Gallah kept silent after hearing Ciemnosc’s words before slowly calming himself down. After which, Gallah walked back to the marching group, took out a certain medallion-like thingie, and spoke to it, only storing it back into his Covert Space bag when he was about to join the armored car back within the marching students at the front.
… On the other hand, Ciemnosc had begun a slightly large trip to a certain unknown place for anybody except himself and… those who followed him before but were no more.
He didn’t ride on his commanding vehicle, as it was notoriously easy to see within the snow, being too large and wide, as well as reflecting too much light. The mere, weakest of sunlight from the sun would turn it into a rapidly moving eternal flash bomb, let alone now that the afternoon had arrived and he was to drive from the west to the east.
Instead, Ciemnosc was driving on a bike. This one was now slightly darker in color and without any light reflecting on it. In any case, it was to Ciemnosc’s liking, and he also… wanted to drive in it, not only for sneaky purposes.
Unequivocally with the utmost skill, Ciemnosc drifted right into the enemy’s territory as if he was just exploring part of the west on his commanding vehicle like before. But all Ciemnosc saw around those lands was snow, there was little to no scout, and those around weren’t even doing a half-assed job.
With such lousy ‘guarding’ of a spot or 2 around the snow, Ciemnosc easily and calmly made his way towards the north after crossing over the other shore by detouring on the land of course. The place he was arriving at was just north of where outpost 1 used to be located, exactly where he once stored an incredible quantity of resources.
It didn’t take that much time for Ciemnosc to travel from around the base’s immediate surroundings to this place on the eastern shore of the Little Lake and rather lose to the borders between the organizational territories of the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect and the Preferential Light Justice Sect.
Once he was there, the little cascade that he thought would’ve frozen or dried up was still there, falling on a body of water that was small and more appropriate to be called a lake than the Little Lake itself. Its water was really cold tough, to the point it was like the liquid cold version of the climate nowadays.
After checking the water for fun, Ciemnosc then went over to where the hidden stuff was. But while walking all around and witnessing the still left-alone secret place not having been entered by any cultivator except for a few animals that might’ve simply walked by, he felt somewhat nostalgic. It had been quite some months since he visited this place, and even more so since he had last seen them… dead or alive.
After some more time, Ciemnosc finally went over to pick up the stuff, all stored within his Covert Space bags, as he then made his way back to the base.
. . .
Many days later, the 10th month, the 4th day of the 4th week since the start of the war. Base, around the ports that have been finished being built.
Changes had begun occurring all over the base since the win at the naval battle back when only a few medium ships had been built, not even needing a full hand’s fingers to count them. For instance, about the same subject, there were now 4 ports forming part of the base fully built. The 3rd and 4th ports were as large and wide as the 1st and 2nd. But with them already being built over the deep waters and their connection to the lakebed with its supports at the end of each already made.
Back then, a few weeks ago, when the 3rd and 4th ports were being built, the capacity for sailors to go underwater at appropriate times of the day was being tested. For the creation of those 2 ports was going to be difficult mostly due to the needed support at the end of each port. Whereas the number of sailors needed for such was to be considerable, or else the time required to work this part would be too large as they could only work during the daytime.
Stolen novel; please report.
But that wasn’t the end; hell no. Ciemnosc already planned for the deepest waters of the Little Lake and the large version of his new ship models. But for now, that was still in the midst of being fully designed and planned. Though the complete blueprints were there, his Craftsmaking division still had to work to attain the required knowledge to arrange for logistics, so he let them decide where to build which. As for whether they were right, wrong, or just need a little help, he didn’t need to babysit these people he harshly trained for so long.
In fact, these Craftsmaking division people were already recruiting new students, troops, or sailors with potential. Not only that but even without Ciemnosc’s permission or even a word, at least a hint about it. They had begun taking in disciples, which is especially so for the elite students who were close to being selected as a leading student by any of the big bosses around.
As such, the Craftsmaking division was already on the road to self-supplying themselves and forming a little big sub-organization to speak of under the base’s name.
Though at first, they were wary of Ciemnosc’s thoughts on all their doings for the sake of the Craftsmaking division, it was like kids telling an adult a big secret that could shock his head off! Only to, in the end, end up receiving an indifferent ’oh, okay’; not knowing that such things were even things or teenagers to get used to. Or similar stuff.
In this way, Ciemnosc was glad such a thing happened. He just didn’t want to push it this time to see how others would react. And well, there has been indeed an incredible development from his thoughts about other Craftspeople thanks to this Craftsmaking division people of his. Furthermore, as the matter of building other defensive outposts for each port was the most needed to be attended lately, they were also the ones to take the load off of Ciemnosc’s back.
It wasn’t the hugest, most enormous, and most complex of challenges. But such things were so lacking in his previous experiences that he has always been the one to do it all. Especially the array formation inscriptions. Though it is the same for the latter up to a certain extent, he at least didn’t have to do it all by himself and alone.
As such, the construction of outposts for each port had begun early on in this 10th month after the new half a million students finished their acclimatizing. Which; after being freed from compulsory training, they turned into chicken blood-injected, hungry big bad monsters who just wanted to take over the world for the base and the academy!!
That had to be worked on, of course. And unlike the other batches of new students, this third batch of new students was as if already a little in the known and were expecting to be thrashed about a little. Naturally, that thrashing turned into physically and mentally tortured ‘only’. And that little turned to exponentially.
Their adaptation worked better than in any other batch of students, however. Starting by the fact that they only needed a week and a few days instead of 2 weeks like Gallah and the rest thought it would take, and even surprising Ciemnosc, whose eyes never fail to notice. But perhaps he was still not experienced. Maybe he just didn’t know he had to check the spirit and will of those he studies and analyzes and not just check their potential, talent and so on.
In any case, the third batch of new students had a lot of vigor and energy to give. While their spirits were high up at all times and a good enough portion of them even soared into the Conflagrate realm by the time their training had ended. But that didn’t mean they were ‘just better’. Simply put, they had a different stat to any other batch of new students, but that was something that was incredibly helpful for them and the base, especially for the couple of missions that occurred during the 10th month.
The outposts built for the ports’ sake were more or less the same size as those he created in the past. Only they had lower but thicker walls, and relied more on array formations for protection and scanning measures of the territory. They built roads to the port they were assigned to, and the walls of the outposts were covered by cannons all around on top of them.
Though the cannons that were both directly snatched from the enemy during the last several weeks were a lot, they were still not enough to build an armored car with it right away. Besides, building an armored car with its cannons already installed was a formidable change that even Ciemnosc was unaware of until his people decided to do some extra, unnecessary experimenting here and there out of boredom.
Naturally, after such a finding was found, Ciemnosc built a building directly beside the Craftsmaking division building for experimenting. Each outpost was to have both troops and sailors in them. Essentially, the base’s troops in them. Without the Craftsmaking division settling in any of those. Both their needed capabilities and safety were of utmost importance to the base.
Still, every week, even back to where the large 4 outposts were being planned, the Craftsmaking division’s people would make a trip to analyze and further continue the research. In the case of the outposts and ports, they would check everything and make sure that it was all in order. They would repair anything if necessary. Advise those in charge of the outpost on how they should work their array formations as if it was a patient instructed on their medicine, and so on.
That would, obviously, form part of their routine once the other ports were built. But they were most difficult, not only because of the 10,000+ meters depth but also because the shipyard for the large ships couldn’t be missing anything. They just needed to confirm these 2 things, and the base would take most of the Little Lake for themselves.
For now, a large formation of ships was already built. A couple hundred small ships and medium ships could be seen sailing the Little Lake from time to time with the trimmest consumption of Inferior Powerful Stones, which was about 1 or 2 per day.
There wasn’t much to scout the waters of the Little Lake. If anything, all that the base had to worry about was that the blockades they placed a few hundred kilometers away from the enemy’s reconstructed 2nd port were to be attacked for no reason again or that the enemy suddenly moved to the south in an attempt to invade the base’s territory.
The missions which occurred during this 10th month weren’t just randomly or for the sake of more looting and/or training in actual, intense naval battles with the base’s troops.
On the first mission after the victory in the first naval battle, the base had placed 4 small ships to act as a blockade away from the enemy’s 2nd port. However, after a few days and once a couple of weeks went by, they were randomly attacked by what was recognized later on as a mistake on the enemy’s part where some enemy cultivators just wanted to try firing at the small ships for whatever reason. Be it to intimidate, to try out, or literally just to kill those sailors unawares.
In the end, the mistake was made into a full-out assault on those 4 small ships. The first shots fired shot by those enemy cultivators behind the cannons on the 2nd port were first berated, then just used as an excuse to start a battle with the new boss’s orders. The new boss of the 2nd port wasn’t someone willing to wait to deal a decisive blow to their enemy, and he showed it right away as he sent all the 2nd port’s ships to intercept the small ships.
With the 2nd port’s cannons continuing firing and the small ships being charged over by the enemy ships, they were retreating at last when some hooks came from their bow, also firing their own cannons and destabilizing each other as they pursued the small ships.
In short, the small ships were almost accelerating at top capacity while informing the base and baiting the enemy pursuing them. But their protective barriers only resisted for a few more minutes. When they fell, it took about a minute for the enemy ships to aim their hooks at the same general spot of the retreating small ships over and over again.
When one small ship was caught by a hook at last and became trapped at once, the hooks were inscribed with array formations that directly made the speeding up effect of the small ships unstable… that sealed the fate of all those ships baiting and the ones pursuing the ‘escaping’ ships.
Not leaving anyone behind, the other 3 small ships turned around immediately and continued with an immediate full-speed charge right into the enemy ranks. Before the enemy ships’ protective barriers hadn’t only been down, they even began destroying large chunks from the enemy ships’ structure.
So when the small ships charged over the enemy, who were, in turn, busy with hooking more and more with their hooks at the small ship caught behind and being fought back as the small ships revealed their fangs to also get themselves to become attached to the enemy ships. The small ships charging over destroyed tens of enemy ships all at once, together.
Since it was the entire 2nd port’s formation of enemy ships, they weren’t just a few dozen, so more than half still remained afloat and ready to engage in any category of battle with the small ships. But it was the small ships whose crews became desperate and ferocious, worse than savage, feral beasts who even used their teeth to take away the lives of their enemy.
The enemy… was just too many, however. Over time, as they were fighting and battling to kill the enemies, not for survival, the small ships and their crews began taking more and more hits, casualties appeared, and the enemy was finally getting the upper hand.
Back at the base and the 2 ports, there was an ongoing drill for port 1. And when the news came that their fellow sailors were being engaged by the entire enemy’s 2nd port, they were astonished and befuddled!
It was mostly due to the training of the 3rd new batch of students starting their sailor life for those who were added to the upgraded naval military of the base. While it was the 1st students to become part of the base and the 1st batch of new students that were instructing these new sailors.
Even then, the instructors were confounded as they were all ordered to respond to the enemy!
…