Last Divinity: The Advent Of Dreams-Chapter 38: Preparations for an Expedition

" I win." He whispered to her ear and Viona found a blade against her neck. She lowered her sword.

" What happened? What kind of ability is that? I didn’t see you move at all, it was as if you teleported."

He laughed but he didn’t answer her. The others were on the same boat as her, not one of them understood what just happened.

They saw him take a step and the next thing he was behind her with his blade on her neck.

He understood though, he used the first and simpler version of dream step. When he raised his foot the image was imprinted in their minds.

Their perception and thought process got stuck with that image, he walked slowly towards Viona.

However not one of their brains registered any of that as they were still processing the initial image. Of course this ability was easier to break as long as one was prepared.

If you infused your brain with mana to speed up your thoughts process you can process the initial image faster.

Resisting it effect would be easier than what they had just experienced. If he had used the second ability of dream step though.

Even if one increased their perception and thought process, it wouldn’t matter since time was sped up for him.

Of course no ability was infallible, with enough speed, it was possible to keep up with him.

They went back up, Khali had some preparations he want done. Tomorrow they were leaving.

Not for good but according to Viona, there should be some people around the distant mountain he saw.

He went to check on the trucks and the armoury. Unfortunately in the past two years he was unable to increase the power of the guns.

Even with the enhanced gun powder, their power was stuck at the peak of rank 1, he even made high calibre snipers and armour piercing rifles.

While stronger than the other guns, they were still stuck as the peak of rank 1, it was as if the chasm to rank 2 was uncrossable.

He even started to believe that perhaps science was also a dead path until Lucy made a missile launcher.

He had planned to create them himself but chose not to after seeing her work on them. Her initial missiles were quite simple.

They moved in a straight line but their power could match that of an acolyte spell. Unfortunately they were too large to be carried by a person.

So they were mostly mounted on the glass walls and the vehicles. He had also noticed a problem with the increasing power of his weapons.

Recoil, the squires who were at 3 mana nodes and below couldn’t handle the stronger guns like pump guns, armour piercing rifles or the high calibre snipers.

They can still handle the automatic rifle with the power of a 5 mana node without falling or their arms breaking but not anything stronger.

While this was a bit of a problem, it wasn’t anything major. It was not like they would need to carry around those high calibre weapons.

They can always be mounted or use bi or tripods for the guns. " Sebastian." He called out.

A middle aged man with greying hair showed up. Sebastian was slightly older than Sam but he looked much older.

Even after becoming an awakened which increased his lifespan and therefore should’ve made him look younger.

He still looked like an old skinny man in his 60’s. According to what he learnt, this man had lost his entire family.

Two daughters, a young son and his wife when they escaped their former home. After studying him for a while Khali knew why he looked like this.

It was stress and depression, even when he awakened he subconsciously desired this weary look as it symbolised his pain and loss.

Khali learnt this old man had talent for politics and negotiations. In the past two years he’s been the one dealing with the Dryads.

The Dryads wanted to grow their forest as fast and naturally as they possibly can without using magic.

For that they needed fertiliser and Khali had the remains of countless creatures they killed in the dark plus the means to create manure.

Most remains were from clickers of course but the desert has other inhabitants. Their remains were good fertilizer.

Of course there was not much negotiation, barely any actually. They gave the Dryads the remains they don’t need.

In exchange the Dryads grew the crops he gave them using their magic and both parties benefit.

The faster the forest grew on it own without the magic of the Dryads, the faster the strength of the Dryads grow as well.

Ambient mana made the growth speed of plants faster than normal and even faster with fertiliser. Trees could grow to over 5 metres in a few months.

More so, he also gave them a large sector under the dome to grow their trees. The sunlight was better than the artificial light underground.

The tree grown there were stronger and healthier. On top of that were the blue flowers.

Under the sun they showed their true power. They can absorb sunlight and give it back out much more pure to the plants around them.

That made the plants grow even faster and healthier. He sent Sebastian to prepare a few things with the Dryads.

Then he went to check up on Lucy, he had given her another task. To make homing missiles.

He didn’t give her any clues on how to do it, she already had all of the basic scientific knowledge to build it.

All that was needed was for her to figure it out on her own. He didn’t know how long the trip to the other mountain would take.

He told her he would check her progress when he returns which seemed to place a lot of pressure on her.

However that seemed to make her even more excited. He realised she wasn’t different from Viona.

She was a different kind of junkie though, a knowledge junkie. He shook his head and left.

Night came, the preparations for tomorrow were mostly ready. He went to sleep.

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234 kilometres away was a tall mountain, so tall it seemed like it could reach the sky. The mountain was hollowed out near the base.

Inside were houses of mud and stone and hundreds of people could be seen running around.

Infront of the entrance to the caves stood two people. A muscular man and a short red headed woman.

They were looking at the distance at another mountain because near that distance mountain was light that lit up to the sky like a beacon.

Both had no idea what it was or what it meant. They had ignored it before but the mage woman could no longer.

She was a seer and an occult mage focussing on spirit magic and the spirits were whispering a great change was coming.

Whether the change was bad or not she did not know, what she did know however was that it would come from the light that drowned the night. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

They both looked down and saw the sand rise and sighed. " Another night of endless fighting." She whispered with a weary sigh.