Jacob went over the two downed warriors. They did not look good. Their wounds were quite severe and needed treatment.

He took out the last of the herbs he was saving and started applying them to the wounds. The two adults groaned, but they were feverish and dizzy, barely able to talk.

“They lost too much blood,” Jacob assessed. “Give me a minute to stabilize them, and I’ll answer your questions, Fred. Can you wait?”

Jacob felt the kid staring at his back and heard a whispered yes.

“Geneva, I heard that you fought hard. I’ll teach you something later, as soon as you can stand, ok?”

The woman wasn’t even nearly as bitter as Frederick was and simply nodded with a solemn expression on her face. But, unfortunately, she had still lost two-thirds of her group.

Jacob did not have natural healing capabilities, but he still closed the biggest vessel ruptures with some rudimentary methods.

What a big mess…

He had left them on their own, and this had been the result: eight people were dead, and two were grievously injured.

“So, Fred, ask away,” Jacob said while turning to face his new friend.

“Why a sword?” was the principal’s son's first question.

“It’s the only weapon I’ve practiced within my entire life. But, of course, I can wield an ax; it just would not have guaranteed victory.”

“Entire life? When have you ever practiced with a sword? I don’t remember St. Peter or any nearby city having such classes.”

Jacob smiled at Fred, unapologetic.

“I’d rather not tell, Fred. If I told you, there might be hazardous consequences, much more than you would even be able to think of.”

If a word came to a strong Demonic Beast or, God forbid, to a Dragon, Jacob would die immediately. There was also the question of human greediness. If people knew about his great knowledge, they would tear him apart, hoping they would get some powerful Cultivation Technique, Martial Technique or Spell.

“Ok, so you are somehow a sword-freak.”

“Yes. Think of it like this: I’m part of the biggest conspiracy theory you could ever imagine, but I’m on your side. I just have to be careful.”

He heard the four people behind him, even the two almost dead, start rustling.

“For f*ck’s sake, Jacob!” Frederick tried to comb his hair with a hand, finding resistance in the blood clumps that had landed on them. “Well, I suppose that you cannot answer how you know all these things about everything, then.”

“Huge conspiracy theory, told you,” Jacob smiled.

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“Christ, Jacob, people just died. Can’t you be a little more serious?”

“People will keep dying at a tremendous rate, Fred. If I guessed it right, the entire Fort Mountain is already lost. How many lives is that, four- five-hundred? We live in a world made of death right now. So let me have my own little sense of humor.”

Frederick stared at him but nodded slowly. The kid was stubborn but not stupid. He knew that it did not make sense to argue about some jokes at the moment.

“So, let me ask something else. What can you tell me?”

Jacob looked around, even at the person who had fled after getting Frederick’s order.

“All the people here deserve to know something,” he started explaining, “these people talked about Cultivation Techniques. You don’t know, but Joseph and Juliet already have one each.”

Everyone looked mightily confused.

“What’s a Cultivation Technique?” Frederick had a hunch but still asked.

“They help you cultivate your Qi and Mana. They exponentially speed up your leveling speed. But, of course, there are different attributes in each and every one of us that make cultivation faster or slower. But, Fred, you have terrific talent, second only to Helena, who has what you might describe as a legendary talent. And when I said terrific, you can put it on a scale. Your talent is at the 9th level out of 10 levels total.”

“And how do you…”

“Can’t answer how I know all of this, Fred. It’s still part of the conspiracy theory stuff. It’s classified, you could say. But the reason Joseph put down more fighters than anyone else, even if he himself has not noticed, is that I taught him a Martial Style.”

Jacob noticed he was going off-topic.

“Ok, let’s go back to the Cultivation Techniques before we get into anything else. Well, I’ll give you all, only to the present people, a Cultivation Technique. They are not easy to leak, but it’s still doable with enough time on hand. I want to distribute them to every person fighting for mankind, but for the moment, I need people I can trust. If a strong Cultivation Technique were to fall into the wrong hands, we would risk some bloodiest wars.”

Jacob kept going.

“I’ll give each one of you a Cultivation Technique best suited for your talent and Affinities. If I had done this before, maybe we would have saved one or two people, but… I want you all to understand one thing.”

He went over to the fainted guy, the only enemy they had left alive.

“This guy’s Cultivation Technique is garbage. There is no formal classification, but let’s just say, hypothetically, that we were to rank them on a scale of one to one-hundred.”

Jacob placed a hand on the guy’s belly after lifting the shirt.

He used a variation of the Talent Reveal Technique.

“Ah, I thought it would be stronger than this, even if still garbage.”

Jacob got up and dusted his hands.

“His Cultivation Technique would get something like… 22 points? Maybe a bit less. But you get the idea.”

“And what about the ones you have?” Geneva asked with a glint of excitement in her eyes.

“Well, before I say anything more. I just want you all to understand that talent, Cultivation Techniques, and everything else in this world works on a logarithmic scale. Someone in the 2nd realm, the Mantis realm, is not two times stronger than someone in the Cockroach realm. A warrior in the Mantis realm, even the weakest, could take tens, if not hundreds of Cockroach realm warriors at the same time.”

“So,” Jacob smiled toward them, “since I did not know how much I could trust Joe, here. I gave him a Cultivation Technique with a score of… let’s say, 65 points.”

Everyone looked at Jacob with wide eyes.

“So, in a logarithmic scale, Jake, you are saying that this technique is what, ten-thousand times better, if not more, than the one this guy’s using?” Frederick asked.

“Yes. It’s not just speed, though. Speed in cultivating is tricky to calculate. It’s more about long-term outcomes; and that’s why I did not have a problem giving Joe such a lousy technique.”

“Lousy?” Joseph looked down at himself as if there was something wrong with him.

“In the early levels, they don’t change that much. But as soon as you reach higher realms, you will start feeling the drag of a lousy Cultivation Technique.”

“Christ, Jacob, would you say how strong are your Cultivation Techniques already?” Frederick was both excited and annoyed.

“My Cultivation Techniques? Well, they are in the 90s.”

The mic dropped.