Chapter 788: The fourth day of the development trial (part 21)

Now that the situation regarding the injured wolf was dealt with and while the girls of the sect were finishing their daily tasks and dinner was being prepared, Aster gazed at Angela whose eyes shone with expectation behind of her glasses to then say.

"We have some important things to discuss about, before and during dinner, so I’ll cut the round of inspection short, however there is enough time to check on two things more or less, so, surprise me", he jokingly said which made the receptionist girl smile.

Normally Aster checks on the progress of all the important ongoing projects, which include but aren’t limited to, the construction of vehicles namely rafts and since they now have horses in the team, carts and carriages are on the making as well.

There are the girls from the blacksmith peak who work non-stop in processing iron ore to make steel, the girls from the alchemist peak that refine medicine and other concoctions under Mylene’s supervision, the girls from the rune peak who are mainly in charge of expanding the camp in an scalable way and of course the girls from the battle peak who are the most flexible, procuring materials, food, exploring the outer layer of the forest, and assisting with their strong bodies wherever they are needed.

But today, they have a big event to "celebrate" during dinner, the lynx officially joining the team, which means that Guardian is ready to speak about what happened three hundred years ago, the crazed bear and similar topics, which are of utmost importance, because the next and last remaining target to deal with, within the development trial is the bear.

And before that, there is a little conversation Aster has pending with one of the black horses that were brought back as a prisoner whose fate has yet to be decided, due to something the king mentioned which is of great interest to him, so the inspection round will be short today.

"Mm, other things can be checked tomorrow, but there are two which those girls really worked hard to outline in a single day", said Angela as she guided Aster out of Mylene’s workshop, followed by Kana and the lynx.

The first stop was within the camp, at the area where the girls from the blacksmith peak were working, along the way Aster saw that the rustic aqueducts designed by Angela and Eris had water running through them and he smiled to his insides but didn’t say anything.

"Clang!", continuous loud metallic sounds could be heard, which would lead to believe that those girls are overexerting themselves using large hammers to pound large pieces of processes iron, but that’s not the case at all.

Well, the girls from the blacksmith peak were indeed working on pieces of iron that were placed on top of their anvils with their hammers, but they were using refined strikes belonging to the different techniques in the manuals they each chose.

"Senior brother is here~", said one of the blacksmiths, which of course made all the others look Aster’s way, the short dark red-haired girl Blair who virtually was leading the girls from the blacksmith peak in Aster’s absence finished sharpening the blade of a battle axe that had a hammer head on its left side and called all girls to meet Aster.

Originally due to the urgent need of metalware, the girls of the sect didn’t use the forging methods of their manuals, they used the generic teachings Aster displayed for them and mass-produced spear heads during the whole previous day, of course they gained experienced and familiarized themselves with mortal blacksmithing which required the use of more tools and external means not to mention it tired them out.

Of course, while there was a need of metal weapons, Aster also didn’t want the blacksmiths to stagnate as it wouldn’t be fair that the other girls could advance in their respective profession manuals, so with Angela’s help a number of spearheads per girl per day was stablished, once they met their quota, they could spend the rest of their time practicing their specific forging methods and were free to use a portion of the refined steel to make a single creation of their election as well.

’With the arrangements set up by Angela and myself, I expected them to show traces of the forging techniques of their manuals in their handling of materials and maybe even the initial refining of the iron, but to think they can already display unique hammering aspects’, thought Aster.

The previous was quite something, because regardless of their talent as blacksmiths, they were tight in terms of time to practice, Aster didn’t have any problems in integrating the initial form of the Galaxy Forging because he already had experience with pure blacksmithing obtained from mortal records, so there was only one possible explanation for those girl’s rapid progress, there was something that allowed them to shorten the time needed to reach their daily quota which in exchange increased their free forging time.

"You smug girls, went as far as to hide whatever you used to shorten your forging time, what a shame and here I brought enough iron ore to double the amount assigned for free blacksmithing", jokingly said Aster as he saw the vast majority of blacksmiths whose smiles stiffened for a second, luckily Angela came to their rescue the next second.

"Ahem, don’t tease them too much, they wanted to surprise you so they went as far as to eat dried fish to skip their lunch time and move our newest project away, bring it here", said the receptionist girl as she looked towards one of the many tree agglomerations, in response a couple of adult horses pulling on a couple of carts with blankets covering the cargo on them, guided by one of the girls whom Kana has taught the basics of interacting with horses, approached the smithy.

"Amazing", said Aster as he saw the blankets being removed, there was a simple water wheel on one of the carts which was within his expectations, however on the second car there were a few ancestors of the power hammer, trip hammers which can be powered by force produced by the water wheel.

"We had a small debate among ourselves and decided to ask sister Angela for a tool that would be helpful regardless of our forging method, so these trip hammers which had been calibrated to eliminate the slag discarding and initial shaping of the processed iron were the result", said Blair representing the girls from the blacksmith peak.

In average, the initial cleaning and shaping of the processed iron takes around twenty to thirty minutes to each girl, judging by the size of the thick metal plaques on top of the trip hammers, eight portions of iron can be worked by them at the time, there are five trip hammers, that’s forty portions of processed iron that can be initially shaped to be worked on.

"Unfortunately, we can’t control the output of the aqueduct with precision so these tools still need supervision from at least one person each to ensure the iron won’t be damaged, but with five people that don’t need to be blacksmiths and ten minutes we get the results that would need forty blacksmiths and thirty minutes, the extra time and energy can be used to accelerate the other steps, what’s more a new mission of assisting in the smithy was added to the monolith", concluded Angela to which Aster nodded in recognition, these girls basically learned about industrialization, automatizing a process that doesn’t require the experienced and refined control of a blacksmith.

"You did well, from this moment onwards, the amount of processed iron assigned for free creation will be tripled, of course in exchange one of your three creations should align with the needs of one of the girls helping you with the trip hammers", said Aster, no matter how talented and efficient he is, he can’t create personalized equipment with special effects for more than two hundred girls in a few days.

He’ll of course focus in the core combatants of the sect, namely his group and the elites like Valentina, Mikaela, Agnes as well as the top core disciples like Amanda, Brenda and Violet, while the others would normally start with the standard spear and dagger which would be the first out of the four-equipment selected by Aster for every girl to have, but now all the other girls will get an extra weapon according to their fighting styles to train with in the meantime.

"Thanks, senior brother~", said the blacksmiths in unison, having their assigned iron doubled was already amazing and Aster instead ended up tripling it, they were all smiling from the bottom of their hearts as of current.

"The second project is not so game-changing as the tools powered by water wheels, but since it would allow us to sleep in peace, I think it’s equally important", said Angela as she guided Aster outside of the camp, all the way to not so far from the border of the forest and to the right close to the shore of the lake where a trench eight meter deep and thirty meter large had taken form.

"Are you going to encircle the whole territory around the camp with a moat?", said Aster with a tinge of surprise, the area given to the participants to stablish their camp was massive, for a normal person just to walk from the camp to the border of the forest would taken more than an hour and that was in a straight line, if you moved to the side all the way to where the territory was met with a tall mountain that had an invisible barrier blocking anyone from climbing it, said time would be quintupled at least, in a rough calculation with proper planning, a self-sufficient settlement large enough to accommodate more than ten thousand people could be built here.

This position was optimal they had the huge wall which separated the camps at the back of their settlement, the seemingly endless lake was at the right side so that was two sides that were naturally protected, in the future anyone that tries to reach the camp of the myriad occupation sect could realistically only do it from the front in other words the forest, because even Aster with his monstrous body is not sure he could climb the mountain at the left side of the territory safely, so a large scale movement through it is virtually impossible.

"Mm, besides the natural barrier, once the core wall is finished and if it’s stated that we’ll spend more than three months in this place, a second wall will be built", said Angela, this was the conclusion she reached alongside Eris and all the authorities of the rune mastering peak.

"Speaking of that, we’ll get an approximate idea of how much time we’ll remain here from Guardian later", said Aster, with this the inspection was over, so he parted ways with Angela and while still followed by Kana who was sitting on the lynx’s back, Aster arrived at the area where the horses were living as of current.

"Sister Ember", Kana greeted the filly who was laying down near her aunt and her cousin in other words the foal which is the legitimate heir to the position of king of herbivores.

The horses were in high spirits as of current, not only did they learn that the traitor king of fangs was dead, but all the black horses were captured and the ones whom had committed unforgivable actions had been mostly killed, with only five of the captured forty something having been judged worthy of being executed, the rest had eaten meat of other horses but only after they were dead, what’s more than half of the remaining black horses were from the desert adapted breed, so they didn’t even fight with the original herd of horses.

"I thank the king of humans for his help, now that the mortal enemy of our race has been eliminated, please let the rest of us join your herd", said the mare who bowed her head at Aster thanking him for helping them avenge their dead friends and relatives.

Originally not all the horses showed interest in becoming mounts for the girls of the sect, mostly the younger ones fascinated by their newly friends gave it a try, the mare didn’t interfere with their personal choices but she also didn’t join the group officially very much like Guardian, though in her case it was because she had to bear with the continuation of her race, only after witnessing the strength of Aster and the others given how they basically crushed the king and captured all the black horses, did she take the decision of betting everything on Aster and the girls.

"No problem, you can all go and obtain your manuals after dinner", said Aster, those who officially joined the group were granted a temporary assessment and merits according to it, so they joining didn’t burden the others after all, even Aster whose merits could be exchanged for a large amount of lower ranked merits, couldn’t provide manuals for more than twenty horses in a single go.

"Thanks, king of humans!", said all the adult horses in unison, the term which they used to refer to Aster was a bit funny, but he didn’t say anything about it, with Valentina and Mikaela’s recognition he was indeed the one leading the group from the sect, as he has the most experience and knowledge regarding mortal ranked stuff after all.

"Little Kana, how can we help you?", asked the filly as she approached the little girl, to which Kana said.

"Big brother wants to speak with a horse in specific", Aster nodded at what Kana said to then add.

"The king of fangs said that he consumed the meat of a strange "creature" which according to the subordinate that brought the meat, walked on two feet like us, the arm bone which he ate also came from that creature, I want to a detailed description of it", he said.

The king wasn’t interested in the origin of the meat he got from his subordinates, he got an arm from one of the desert black horses and after eating the meat, he used the bone to make that red arm bone which is what gave it those muscular arms, Aster wanted to know more about the creature from which that arm originated.

"I-I was the one that brought the arm back", said a desert horse which was tied to a tree, which was also the sole desert horse that was sentenced to death by the decision of the normal horses after his past actions were judged.

"King of humans, he ate one of his relatives alive, please don’t grant him your pardon", said the mare, to which Aster smiled.

"Don’t worry, even if he asks for his life to be spared, being alive isn’t necessarily a reward, I guarantee you that he will pay for his crimes", he said, to be honest Aster thought that killing the five black horses was a waste, there is so many uses they can be given after all, but he also understood that the horses deserved this much of revenge, luckily the horse which he was going to interrogate wasn’t among the ones that were part of the original group, so they simply didn’t want him to be pardoned but whether he died or not wasn’t so important for the mare.

"Tell him to describe you the creature and make a simple sketch of it", said Aster to Kana who nodded and then after a few minutes of speaking with the horse, she frowned and without making any sketch she turned to see Aster to then say.

"Big brother, based on what he told me, it was one of those ugly people we met back at sister Esmeralda’s realms, only the upper part of its body was there and it was pierced through the chest by a sharp rock within the desert, as if it had fallen from the sky", said Kana referring to the Orcrary race guys which Aster and the girls met back then.

Their leader Merkel left an impression in Aster’s mind, because he wounded the three sisters, though only Nina suffered a wound that couldn’t be healed without Immortal grade resources, he managed to do so while under the watch of Mina, though that was also because Victor betrayed Iris and they were heavily outnumbered.

’I already knew that people from divine firmaments would appear, but to think an old "acquittance" might be among them, well that’s fine, those four will be really happy to know about this’, thought Aster.

Those arms looked familiar, but Aster didn’t directly assume they came from an orcrary, there are countless races after all, but with Kana’s assurance he had gained information about one of the enemies he could meet here, it was still a mystery how did half of its corpse end up in the desert though, but that could be left for later.

"Dinner is ready, let’s have Ember and her aunt accompany us", said Aster, since they were the leaders of the horse group they were qualified to hear about Guardian’s past.

...

At the dinning area, Aster’s group was met with the sight of a bunch of girls sitting on the ground petting and feeding small pieces of meat to the baby cobras.

"They are cute right?", said Vivian who was surrounded by baby cobras, apparently, they still saw the white-haired girl as a giant king cobra and had gotten close to her, as for Vivian she liked new funny experiences so she was all smiles.

"Yes~", said the girls of the sect as they fed the baby cobras under the happy gazes of adult cobras, the children being able to eat to the content of their hearts, brought smiles to their faces, the young ones also received raw meat, in their case fish though.

As for the adult ones, since it was confirmed by the old king cobra that their stomachs had no problem, they were given a kind of food they had never eaten, grilled fish, after all they aren’t normal mortal animals.

The same scene repeated with the anacondas, though they didn’t look as harmonious not because they were ostracized, but since they don’t have venom, they didn’t have Vivian to act as a bridge between their children and the girls from the sect, still the fact that they could eat as much as they wanted was enough to put them in high spirits, naturally they were mostly given fish since it was the most abundant source of meat.

"Cobra grandpa, mister anaconda come eat with us~", said Kana to the old king cobra and the young anaconda leader, who nodded and followed Aster to the leader’s table, where everyone but was already sitting.

"Today we celebrate our victory over the anaconda and the king of fangs, but more importantly we have new friends joining our group, I toast for them", said Aster as he rose his cup while signaling at Guardian, the mare, the old king cobra and the young anaconda leader, the latter two had agreed to officially join the group already, because their fate was tied to the little wyrm anyway.

"Grrrr", feeling the expecting gazes on her, the lynx softly growled as she started telling her story, which was translated by Mira instead of Kana.

"Everything started 310 years ago, when I was in the middle of the trial to become the next king of carnivores, the lynx race had beaten the wolf race and thus it was our turn to claim the tittle of king of carnivores, however while the candidates were hunting, the ground trembled and I saw a pillar of light descending far into the distance".

"Back then, the forest extended all the way to where the bear currently lives, all that rocky zone didn’t exist, and the pilar of light landed around that area as well, so while the others kept competing over the position of the king of carnivores, I left to find out what was that", said the lynx as the memories from her youth flashed though her mind.

Well, according to Guardian she can live up to five times her current age, so technically she is in her twenties at most, in fact back then she was ten years old which is like a third of what a normal lynx can live and a fourth part of what a king of the lynx race could live, but from a mortal animal point of view she used to feel way older, until she learned from Kana that cultivators get to live from dozens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.

"After travelling for almost a week, I reached my destination and there I saw a group of humans, unlike this one there were only around thirty or so of them, a third of them were directly killed by one of the beings in the sky, a pair of black mist eyes to be more accurate".

"The remaining died during the next week when they tried to kill boars, the black mist eyes left and a few days later another pilar of light descended, this time the group was of forty humans and the one that brought them was a stone tree".

"Unlike the previous ones, they were organized, the stone tree was also more benevolent than the black mist eyes, and that group created a small settlement within the forest, they were also the first humans that I personally met", mumbled the lynx.