Nitya
“So, what did you learn?” Epecteos asked as he looked at all five of them during their first training session after they woke from the battle.
Nitya and Irena had started joining in on the daily training after they learned about Aalam’s identity and it had benefitted the two of them greatly, their ranking on Earth’s soul net now solidly above everyone but Diana.
Aalam and Isaiah had accounts as well, but they generally used the soul net for combat training, not ranking, and thus greatly reduced their own stats whenever they fought on it, so their rankings weren’t that high.
“Even Isaiah and I are only about the level of an average soldier of one of the more powerful armies in the War of the Chosen.” Despite their complete and utter victory, not a single member of the Bronze Legion’s second army having died, Diana sounded somewhat dejected.
“We are rather young for the War of the Chosen, so, even though our skills are all of high grade, our combat experience will generally be quite a bit lower than our opponents,” Isaiah added, his expression and aura also somewhat dour.
“Anything else?” Epecteos didn’t seem down at all, and was instead smiling, as he always seemed to do when any of them were in the middle of learning something new.
“Aalam is still overpowered.” Nitya decided to inject something a little more positive into the conversation. “As long as we can avoid fighting, he can generally wipe out the entire enemy army by himself.”
Epecteos turned to look at Diana as Aalam frowned, and the smile on his face did not change. “What is wrong with Nitya’s statement?”
Diana raised three fingers of her right hand. Then she lowered her ring finger. “First, Aalam isn’t the only individual with a strong detection skill. We were just lucky we were up against the undead in a forest, as their detection skills are generally about sensing life. The forest environment made their skills much less accurate and they had yet to create artifacts for themselves to fix this flaw. Had that not been the case, we couldn’t have trapped the soldiers and commanders who were chasing me in a formation and their army would have found and annihilated our main force without us able to do a thing.”
Diana then lowered her middle finger. “Second, there are multiple different types of battle scenarios in the War of the Chosen, and they can generally be broken down into 43 types. Of those 43 types, only 27 would allow plagues to work. And biological warfare is a known tactic others will try to use against us as well.”
Then Diana lowered her last finger. “Finally, in the War of the Chosen it is absolutely impossible for one powerhouse to carry a weak army. And we are currently a weak army, the average stats of our soldiers even lower than those of the Violet Mountain Sect army Mila is part of, which isn’t expected to last past round four. There are five battle variants which make having one powerhouse only completely pointless, and those become much more common in the War of the Chosen’s later stages.
“Even with the artifacts Aalam has been creating and the law armors he’ll hopefully be able to make soon, we might not make it past more than a few more rounds as we are right now.”
Epecteos nodded and then turned to look at Isaiah. “So, apprentice, what do we need to do to improve?”
At the word apprentice, Isaiah’s dour feelings seemed to disappear and he stood up a little straighter. “First and foremost, we need to increase our stats, and there are two main ways to do this. First, we can increase our levels. Second, we can use natural treasures.
“Leveling up will prove challenging, however, as we want to remain on Earth for the benefits to Law comprehension and safety concerns. There isn’t anyone to kill here and, even for monsters like me and Aalam, the ambient primal energy levels just aren’t that high yet, so to this day I’ve only gotten close to advancing to level 38 and Aalam is only about a twelfth of the way there.
“We’re also out of Primal Energy Stones after Diana used the last of our reserves from the Shadow Thief’s inheritance to trigger her race evolution, so, unless we want to leave Earth and head to an E rank world or higher where we can spend our time hunting, leveling up at this time will probably be difficult and it would be better to just wait a few decades until Earth itself can support our growth.
“As for natural treasures, we’ve already used most of what we gained from our two trips to the Trial Tower and what we have left is only enough to add maybe a total of 1,000 stats to whoever absorbs their power.
“We do, however, have Diana who can now rid herself of impurities at a ridiculous speed; Aalam, who can rid himself of impurities about a fourth as fast as her; and me, whose bloodline grants the ability to rid myself of impurities at a high speed as well, though nowhere near as fast as those two with their ninth level cultivation techniques.
“If we had some way of getting a lot of natural treasures, even ones with a high percentage of impurities, our two strongest cultivators would be able to strengthen themselves at a rather fast rate.”
Epecteos started laughing and everyone turned to look at him, Isaiah’s expression and aura quickly showing he was worried.
“Master, am I wrong?”
“No. No, Isaiah.” Epecteos waved his hand as well to even more highlight the negative. “I just find this situation a bit absurd is all. Here I am, someone who never used a single natural treasure in his life because the impurities would make my future advancements impossible, yet to you impurities from treasures worth 1,000 stat points seem like nothing.
“You’re not wrong. The logic is just so beautifully different from what I’ve been used to all my life that it made me laugh.”
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Epecteos’s aura did show a high level of joy to match his face, so Nitya was pretty sure he wasn’t lying.
Epecteos then turned to Diana. “Does your master have a way to get such natural treasures?”
“No.” Diana shook her head, but her expression was the same as she usually wore when she was reading or gaining information from some other method, so it was likely someone else was talking to her. “Mila does, however.”
There was a pause for a second as Diana seemed to wait for something. Then, instead of starting to explain what Mila had suggested, she asked, “Did anyone else know our force is technically called the Consortium of the Red and Blue Flower?” The name of the force was spoken in Universal Standard while they were all speaking in English, and Nitya could feel Diana’s frustration.
“Yeah.”
“Of course.”
Nitya turned to look at Aalam and Isaiah, both of whom were looking at Diana with slight expressions of confusion. Then she looked back at Diana, who appeared frustrated.
“Why did you allow her to name it that? It’s so boring. And it means nothing.” Diana was mostly looking at Isaiah, likely correctly thinking her brother was a lost cause given Aalam had never cared one whit about the name of anything he’d ever invented. Even with his artifacts he would just go with whatever the System suggested.
“She gave good reasoning.” Isaiah seemed even more confused by the question. “Whatever the name of our force was, it would appear on official documents, so, as we are a hidden force, it would be best if it was both boring yet would make people think there was some complex history behind it as well. That way they wouldn’t even start down the path of thinking the name was just something completely random.”
“Oh.” The level of irritation in Diana’s aura quickly dropped. “That sounds very much like Mila.”
“What is it my granddaughter has suggested?” Irena’s voice sounded normal, but her aura showed more irritation than Diana’s had. As far as Nitya could tell, Mila had been actively avoiding both her living family members, yet Irena’s servant bond with Aalam meant she and Mila could talk whenever they wanted even with Mila many galaxies away. But Mila had barely ever said any words to her grandmother over that bond unless she had to pass on information or give orders.
“Mila’s explaining a complicated trade plan.” Diana summoned what seemed to be a blank information orb into her right hand and started filling it with information. “And apparently she’s been working on this for years with Nana Xara’s help.”
When she finished putting the information in, Diana tossed the information orb to Irena, who took a few minutes to read through it, and then Irena passed it to Nitya and Nitya started reading through as well, coming to understand the multi-step plan which seemed to end with them having a hidden Territory about the size of a galactic empire.
There was a section at the beginning, however, which was highlighted, and it didn’t involve taking over Territory at all. In fact, it involved locations too far away from Earth for Aalam’s Territory to expand to until he hit D rank and at least doubled his Soul stat from its highest possible effective value at E rank.
These three locations were all incredibly far away from each other, three different E rank worlds in three different Galaxy Clusters where there wasn’t even a single B rank force. But each of these three Galaxy Clusters had something special about them.
In the first there was a natural wonder called a Miasmic Soul Mine where a type of natural treasure called Miasmic Soul Gems could be found by the trillions each year. Miasmic Soul Gems were Soul stat boosting treasures, but only the most desperate cultivators would use them raw as they were absolutely filled with impurities. Instead, they would be processed by alchemists into pills. But the level of impurities would still be high no matter what the alchemists did, so the pills would always be of very low quality, only ever used by D rank forces or weaker on cultivators who no longer had a chance to advance.
As a result, for the amount of Soul boosting energy they contained, Miasmic Soul Gems were some of the cheapest natural treasures on the market.
The second of the three galaxy clusters also had a natural wonder, a Netherwater Spirit Source. This was a natural treasure shaped like a 70 kilometer orb which hovered over the galaxy cluster’s only C rank planet and couldn’t be removed. It absorbed mana from the planet, lowering the planet’s level to the border of D rank, and it used this mana to generate a type of liquid natural treasure called Netherwater, which could boost Spirit by a low amount if consumed, but would also kill anyone with less than roughly sixteen thousand Vitality and twelve thousand Toughness.
The amount of Netherwater on the C rank planet made it basically unlivable, and Netherwater wasn’t a good poison due to being nearly impossible to conceal and also incredibly difficult to aerosolize. As a result, Netherwater was incredibly cheap as well, especially in that Galaxy Cluster.
Finally, the third galaxy cluster had an artificial wonder created by a long dead B rank, the World of Wood. This was a minor spacial dimension that didn’t hold much power, but it grew certain types of trees at a ridiculously fast rate. The types of trees it could grow were not very powerful, producing Uncommon grade E rank wood at most, but there were so many trees and they grew so fast that any of the types of wood produced were incredibly cheap in that galaxy cluster.
According to the information in the information orb, when she’d been bored near the end of her life, the Yin Yang Sage had come up with a way to use a side effect of one of her plague techniques along with Miasmic Soul Gems, Netherwater, and one of the types of wood the World of Wood produced the most of to create a special type of offensive poison cloud talisman, the blueprint of which they’d already received as part of a bundle of blueprints the last time Mila had completed one of the Yin Yang Sage’s quests. The creation of this talisman used the impurities of the Miasmic Soul Gems and the Netherwater, not their beneficial parts, so, as a byproduct of the talisman construction, Miasmic Soul Gems and Netherwater with far, far less impurities were produced, not usable by most, but basically perfect for Aalam and Mila.
And they could also make a profit by selling the talismans.
“Nitya.” Diana turned to look at her. “Out of all of us, you have the aura and power set that stand out the least.”
“Thanks, Di.” Nitya wasn’t actually offended, as it was true. She was a wind mage, a powerful one, but still a wind mage. And wind mages were common. Yin yang summoners, heavenly spark crafters, four aspect warriors, and four element monks, however, were not. Still, it was fun to watch Diana stop for a second before she realized Nitya was joking.
“Would you mind taking the risk and going to buy large amounts of the required materials?”
“No problem.” From what Nitya had learned, E rank planets were generally ruled by D ranks and usually didn’t have too many E ranks, so, as long as she didn’t flaunt too much wealth and also heavily hinted she had a powerhouse behind her, she would likely be able to buy all the required materials without much issue. She was still nervous, however, though she tried to hide it. “Glad to be of help.”
“Epecteos should go with her just to be safe.” Aalam looked from Nitya, to Diana, to Epecteos. “I can make him some armor which will make it impossible for people to read his aura, so he can just act as if he’s Nitya’s bodyguard.”
“Alright.” Diana nodded as Nitya felt her heart start to beat a little faster. “That’ll be more expensive, but it would be good to be safe.” She turned to look at Epecteos. “Are you okay with that, Epecteos? I know this is digging into your savings.”
“No problem.” Epecteos smiled. Then he looked over to Nitya and nodded. “Keeping my apprentices safe is important.”
The nervousness which had been building up inside Nitya completely went away. With Epecteos along, this little trip of theirs wouldn’t be dangerous at all.