“There should be ten of us not including me, Master.” Stronk looks over to Nibbit. “There is also Nibbit and Mibbit who should be combat ready, which you should already know.”

“I see. “ I nod my head. “Do you believe that they will be able to stand on their own in a fight or need more practice to be truly competent.”

He makes a grunting noise, his eyes squinting slightly. “They will be able to stand on their own Master. They will put their all into the fight to slay all that stands within your path, Master.”

He holds my gaze for a moment before looks away and loses a bit of fire in his eyes. “But, it would be wise to have General Sek to confirm. He has been over watching our training after all.” He says with a clearly unenthusiastic tone.

I smile and put my hand on his shoulder. “It is better to be safe than sorry Stronk. I do not doubt your men’s resolve and it’s better this way. I already planned on Sek putting plenty of men around you all when you fight so they can step in when it gets to dangerous for one of you in the fight.” I lower my voice and stop smiling. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost anymore of you.”

Stronk freezes for a moment before nodding his head in understanding. His body visibly relaxing and he sighs. “Understood Master. I’ll go see General Sek and ask him we are at a satisfactory level for real fights and tell you right away.”

“Splendid! The only difference between what Sek that will affect you, is how much you will be coddled in tonight's fight. But fear not! Your weapons shall taste blood and ground bones!” I chuckle.

“Now with that said. “I groan getting up from my seat. “I shall go relax for a bit and do some more training before we move tonight. I will speak to all of you when that happens. Understood?”

They both nod their heads. Stronk does a salute while Nibbit bows. With that I swish my cape behind me as I leave for some flair. Not like that will achieve much in a shitty tent.

Once I exit the tent, I make a bee line to a secluded area to start doing a mixture of relaxation and training. I shall call it...Tralaxtion! No that is beyond dumb of a name… I don’t even think it’s possible to do both at the same time anyways… Whatever.

When I sit back in my little secluded grove. I let out a big sigh, trying to make my body relax from the nerves wracking me.

It’s not easy having to worry about all of Nibbit and them. The world is cruel as shown by what happened to our past village and the town I brutally torched… It brings back the thought that there will be no restarts and at anytime, anyone of us could get our life snuffed out like candles, against an unstoppable force, or gale of a storm.

How much easier would it be to not have to worry about them. Be on my own, and only have to worry about numero uno.

… Probably not any better… I will probably be more paranoid knowing myself. Not able to sleep properly as I fear that I will be assassinated in my sleep with no guards. But if I use the undead like I have now, I would just get attached and grieve when they pass on as well. There would be no difference between them and the Goblins besides one breaths, the other doesn’t and levels.

However, not all bad with having all of them. Just thinking of them all, Nibbit, Stronk, even Mibbit slightly makes me grow a smile on my face. To have someone looking up to me and trusting their lives in me fills me up with pride but equal measures of stress and fear.

What decisions will I have to make to make them safe, survive and thrive. Will I have to potentially do more of that tragedy I caused in retribution or I have to do small sacrifices of my people to help the whole of us…

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, as they say...

I haven’t even recently thought about are logistics we are going to have to worry about in the future, ugh… Pain in the freakin rear… I doubt heros have to deal with this shit…

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Well, they would if they were given a quest for this shit.

Lets not think about this stuff. What are the things I should do for the near future and long term.

Gaining strength is definitely number one, If I’m not strong enough how will I be able to defend everyone. Sek at the moment could with his men but it is better to not be content with what I have now.

Easiest way at the moment to gain strength is to continue to practice with magic. Killing creatures or defeating dungeons are too difficult to find or too weak to be worth my time. It doesn’t help we are are not in the position at the moment to explore as we need to settle down first and fortify the area.

Second thing on the list would be to find a base which we are doing tonight (Hopefully). So if everything goes well, increasing the strength my people would take priority. As they grow in strength, so do I.

Third and finally at the moment is to gather more information about the world. Which is also something I can’t really do without any libraries, but Erlin, his sons and Nibbit should help me with that until I able to enter one.

Ugh… The stress is coming back… The thought one one random power house just appearing and whooping my ass if I go anywhere is freaking me out. I don’t have plot armour for fucks sake! Or do I…

No, let's not get into that dangerous kind of mindset. It is better to be cautious, methodical, and overestimate your foes and go all out instead of underestimating them. There is no such thing as Overkill after all. Double tap and all.

Hm… I wonder how powerful I am with my stats are for the general population. Erlin should be able to help me with that. I was able to single handedly decimate a beginner town but that's it. A beginner town, surrounded with slimes, horned bunnies, wolves and goblins Not the most dangerous foes unless in large quantities or good leadership for goblins.

Enough of this. Let's get into practicing magic. What should I practice first…

All of my affinities are pretty neglected except Hellfire and Necromancy. Their are both immensely strong at this point, and comparing them to what they used to be at the Mage level is terrifying.

Biomancy is good at the moment, I will need more test subjects for that, and the one time I used it on myself to thicken the skin of my knuckle still haunts me. The pain is… Abhorrent is not giving it enough justice. It feels as if it is breaking down at a microscopic level rebuilding itself, ripping,tearing and the feeling of thousands of needles stabbing into it as acid melts it down.

Just thinking about it is making my body shiver and my bones and teeth ache. Now what I did to that noble… That had made him mad with pain, there is no way in hell that he was completely sane after that. The scary part, that is just manipulating the skin layer, how much pain will be inflicted when you manipulate the muscle and deeper layers?

What about Entomancy? Nah, I haven’t seen any large bugs at all. And I’m not even talking about the typical giant bugs you find in fantasy stories. I haven’t seen any bugs the size of my palm, such as a spider or a dragonfly.

Ehh… Maybe I should be looking for small spiders, as they should be more venomous than their larger cousins. Get a couple and start using them as little assassins. Send them into fortified areas like castles or towns to kill targets without to even enter it!

No, bad! That’s something a villain would do… Unless I was targeting someone evil that is… Hehe… All is fair in love and war right..? Well… Apparently not when you look at war crimes actually… Is there even war crimes in this world? Yeah, the Gods were upset with me burning… Let's not dwell on that.

Entomancy will be but on the backburner until I can find some specimens. Maybe some flies or mosquitos. Finally get the suckers to stop bothering me when I’m trying to sleep.

That leaves Bloodmancy and Nightmare. One is hopefully will be safe, besides cutting myself from my understanding it so far, and the other… Very dangerous as I have heard.

I want to get Nightmare higher, however the Prince did tell me not to unless Iess I have a way to protect myself from them. With my stats, I might be able to kill one but it’s better not to test that theory. All of my predecessors probably thought the same thing before they were then killed.

Add a little footnote for step three… Find information about Nightmare Demons and the affinity/spells… Perhaps even things that combat them just to be certain.

Well, that means the only choice left at the moment is Bloodmancy. Which is a dumb name and will be renaming it for Haemomancy. Who thought bloodmancy is a good name? Why not just name it be Haemomancy- Why am I wasting my time on this train of thought!?

What kind of new spell or perhaps passive could I create with it… I could make blood spears out of my blood and fire them. I doubt I will be able to re- Why wouldn’t I be able to reabsorb them…

Let's try it… Relax… I let the beating of my heart lull me into a state of serenity. Feel the blood and… Mana, flow through my veins in a lazy manner as if my veins were calm rivers.

Paying attention to my fingers, I try to coax the blood to come out. Using the mana within my blood, I am able to make some of my blood in the area come to the tips of my finger tips, feeling pressure build up.

My fingertips start to bloat, turning to look like blood blisters and before I can stop pulling on the mana, their the size of tomatoes! Right after however, I wasn’t prepared for the pain of them popping like water balloons.

I clench my teeth and eyes in pain, fighting back the urge to swear like a thousand year old polyglot sailor! The pain can only be described as banging your little toe on a table, hard!!!

How did I think this was a good idea!?! Why didn’t I just fucking cut my finger tips before doing this!? Intelligence, Wisdom, your supposed to increase my mental clarity not diminish it!

Opening my eyes I see something that slightly elevated this horrendous failure of hindsight and spark of stupidity. I see ten what could only be described as daggers made out of blood. All of them floating above my hands, ready to be used.

When I look at my fingertips I see them look like how a gun barrel looks like after exploding the end of it. Squirting out a bit of blood before healing rapidly before my eyes as if nothing happened.

This spell better have broken me through to the next rank, dammit..