“I will put down the information. What if not all of the wood is sold?”
“Sell it to the highest bidder—tax reduction for those who are making arrows. They will count as weapon exports, so only people who have a contract with us or those who are whitelisted will be eligible. Anyone found selling to non-whitelisted groups will have their trading license removed.”
“Yes, Guildmaster.”
Elise cut the channel and watched the world moving by outside as her carriage headed toward the city totem.
With the Alvans-turned-bandits, rules had to become stricter. Losing a license would be a death sentence to most traders. They would not be able to buy or sell to Alvans. Anyone who was part of the deal would be fined, and they would have to do hard labor. All their materials would be seized as well.
Elise had always thought wars were fought with swords and shields. She never thought of how traders could affect the balance of a war with the right information.
She rode in silence, thinking on plans to gut the supply chain of the Willful Institute piece by piece.
Most traders cared about profits and security. Seeing a large leg for them to hold on to, they would tell the Willful Institute they were blood brothers, while behind their backs, they would make deals to protect their future. Money was their master. Some were loyal to the Willful Institute and required some more work to break that trust before they could be drawn away too. The Institute had their hands full; their people were getting killed, and there was inner strife. How do they have the time to worry about small suppliers? In peacetime, they might not need any of these items. In times of war? Different materials are needed.
The carriage reached the totem, and Elise disappeared in a flash of light. She reappeared with her security in the city Doran.
Time to buy out the Willful Institute’s stock of healing ingredients. Who told them to be so reliant on autumn weed? Thankfully, they had Erik to test their healing concoctions and tell them the most used and crucial ingredients. The cheaper and more inconspicuous, the better!
30
From Afar
Elan stood in Alva’s command center in the barracks. The room was surrounded by ten other rooms and was the Alvan nerve center of the Ten Realms. Intelligence agents and people from the Adventurer’s Guild, Trader’s Guild, and Alvan armed forces—they were all there. Information would come in hourly, and the globe taking up half the room would have markers changed. Boards of information were shifted as well. Reports passed between the command rooms.
“The Trader’s Guild has bought up to three-quarters of the supply of autumn weed. Competitions have started between four more Willful Institute locations and other sects in their area. There have been eight small-scale skirmishes. Three Institute locations are preparing for an all-out fight and are calling on their allies and supporters from above,” a military aide said.
“How many locations are fighting currently?” Elan asked. People rushed around; his eyes flicked to the boards of information.
“There are thirteen locations fighting openly.”
“How many are fighting our forces and other forces?”
“One is fighting our Adventurer’s Guild. The others are fighting foreign forces.”
“Have any of them looked for support outside of their internal factions?”
“Not at this time,” the military aide said.
Glosil walked into the room, and the military members snapped to attention. He saluted back to them and walked over to Elan.
“Commander.” Elan nodded to Glosil.
“Special Team One and Four have returned and are readying for their next mission. Special Team Two is watching over the commanders, and Three is prepped for deployment. The air force is on standby for insertions and evacuations. Domonos and his Dragon Regiment are biting at the bit, ready to put boots on the ground,” Glosil said.
“Once their cities start to fall, the Willful Institute will gather together and assert their full strength,” Elan said.
“Sirs! The city that Special Team Four hit broke their silence. They’re sending out messages to the higher sections of command,” an aide said.
“Contact the lords,” Glosil said.
Rugrat was covered in grit, dirt, and grease. Weapon parts and formations lay in front of him. Unlike his appearance, everything was lined up with almost clinical precision. He looked tired, but his eyes were filled with calculations and plans.
He sat in a Mana Cultivation room where mana materialized as a mist. With every breath, the room shook as mana shot into his body through his mana gates.
The air around him turned turbulent and chaotic.
His veins were traced out by mana as it burned through his body. His eyes stopped flickering from weapon part to weapon part as he raised his sound transmission device, listening to the message.
“I’ll be there.”
Rugrat rose from his chair. Power seemed to flow around his body in invisible currents. He quickly transformed into a warrior with sharp eyes.
He used a Clean spell on himself and checked the gear on his belt, eyeing his boots as he walked out of the training room. “We’re heading to the command center.”
The special team members flanked him as he strode forward. The glow of his mana channels and his eyes faded. The special teams were able to withstand the pressure coming off Rugrat.
People moved to the side.
Rugrat’s easygoing attitude was gone. He was a man at war.
Erik’s body was like broken charcoal; mercury, like blood, flowed from hundreds of wounds as it cracked.
He hissed in pain.
There were several metal strips on his body, needles that he had inserted to make sure that his cultivation would continue to increase and not find a setback.
Erik grunted as he pushed against the ground. Veins stuck out of his arms and his forehead, breaking his skin and covering him in blood. He didn’t blink as he stared ahead, waging an internal battle.
His body trembled. Giving up would be so sweet. But surrendering was a poison of the mind and would eventually tear him apart.
Erik stared at his elbow. Come on, you motherfucker—all the way!
He started his push-ups again, finding strength as he reached the top. He held it; his blood poured from him, staining the ground as he dug in again.
Erik fucking West doesn’t give up! One more—come on, you have it in you!
He lowered himself, not seeing the testers watching him. They were barely holding themselves from rushing forward. The drawn, dark faces of Roska and her half-team.
Anyone who had seen some shit or pushed their bodies to the limit would understand the respect in their eyes at seeing another pushing himself past his absolute limits to reach a new high.
Erik dipped down, flexing his back and stomach harder, trying to push his chest forward while everything else wanted to sag and collapse.
“One more,” he muttered. He struggled upward; he seemed to reach his limit, holding and then pushing again. Inch by inch, he got himself up.
Erik hissed as he reached his last push-up. He moved his knee forward, leaning backward as he rested on his knees, fighting for air.
His entire upper body shook as he drew in powerful breaths. The wounds on his body were slowly starting to heal, but there were so many.
His sound transmission device went off. Erik raised the wristlet and tapped a command.
“I’ll be there right away.” Erik grunted and pushed himself to his feet. He used a Clean spell, removing the blood. He took out another needle; he put it on his side and secured it. He put another on the opposite side. With a yell, he hit the backs of the needles, driving them into his sides. Black and silver shot out from where the needle pierced his body. He quickly pulled on a shirt before it got covered in blood and walked out of the room.
“Command center,” he said to Roska.
Glosil looked up when Erik and Rugrat entered the command center.
It had bee
n nearly two years—or was it closer to three—since he had seen them in a battle. Out of all their forces, they trained harder than anyone and were always out fighting. With how relaxed they could be with handling things within the different areas of Alva, he forgot just how powerful they were.
Glosil stood a little straighter as he saluted. His eyes were dark, but in the depths, they were shining with pride at being their subordinate.
He led them to a conference room and debriefed the two men.
Storbon finished his report of everything that had happened in the city, and Elan followed up with Wang Xi’s viewpoint and everything he had seen.
“Options?” Erik adjusted his collar to cover his burnt-looking neck. There was a bulge under his shirt where he was squeezing an IV bag of what must’ve been healing concoctions.
“We move up the schedule, hit them everywhere. Where we can’t use the special teams, use the CPD squads from the Dragon Regiment. Have the Dragon Regiment in support and call general mobilization,” Glosil said.
“I agree,” Elan said.
“Why?” Rugrat asked.
“We have a small window to weaken the Willful Institute in as many directions as possible. Once the higher-ups realize they are fighting on different fronts, they can rally people together. They can move more forces and resources around. They can go on the offensive and worse, they can retreat,” Glosil said.
“Why is retreating bad?” Erik asked.
“If they retreat, they will pool their strength. They lose a city that they would have lost already, but now they have one city with a strengthened core and the resources of two cities instead of one.”
“Do it. We’ve started it now. We can’t back out, even if we wanted to.”
31
Keeping Up Appearances
“Igot back from my task just some days ago, but your mind is elsewhere,” Mira said. Her pouting face softened.
“There is a lot going on.” Chonglu sighed.
“You are the head of the Battle Arena and are being groomed to be the leader of Vuzgal. Neither of those are small tasks. With the competition coming up, it will be a big deal.”
She didn’t know the half of the things that were happening. When he thought of Alva, he used to think of it as a wide network. He had never thought that it reached quite this far or had so much power. Vuzgal was just the tip of the iceberg.
“Yeah, the upcoming fighter’s competition has me on edge,” Chonglu lied. He couldn’t tell her anything about Alva and what was happening in the shadows.
“I heard from the Vuzgal Fighter’s Association Branch Head Klaus that there are some hundred fighters coming just for the competition and the prizes. More are coming to check out the weapons and wares of the crafters. Really, Vuzgal is impressive with how it can draw so many people to it.”
“Vuzgal has spread its wings over the past year. All the old land across the city has been recovered. New buildings go up every day. House prices have increased by twenty times. Traders come from across the realm, and people with money and without crafts go to the academy. The Blue Lotus hosts a general auction every other week and a special auction every two months,” Chonglu said.
“Seems that becoming a lord was your vocation.” Mira smiled.
“I became a lord in the First Realm because we needed to settle down. I was not letting us raise our children between fighting.”
“You were always the mature one.” Mira curled up closer to him.
Chonglu couldn’t help but smile and kiss her. “There is a lot happening.”
“I wonder what will happen at this year’s fighter’s competition. Last year was exciting!” Mira grinned.
Chonglu bopped her on the head.
“What was that for?”
“You are not entering the competition!”
Mira pulled her neck back and pouted again.
Chonglu smiled, but there were worries in his heart. He would be happy if there were no unplanned incidents with the fighter’s competition.
The Vuzgal totem was paused for the night. They said that they were updating their formations and the defenses—not abnormal in the Fourth Realm. They could block people from coming in and going out, so no one could teleport in and see their secrets. A stone wall inside the defenses around the totem shifted and shook, revealing a tunnel underneath. Men and women marched up the tunnel’s ramp. They marched out of the defenses and circled the totem.
Guards on the walls were alert, watching outward.
The totem filled with power, and the guards disappeared in a flash.
The next group marched into position and disappeared.
Domonos watched over them as they disappeared. Things were moving faster than they had predicted. Once the fighter’s competition was done, he would support Glosil being the commander in the field.
The glow of the totem faded.
A few minutes later, it ignited again. A group appeared around the totem from the Tiger Battalion. They marched down the secret tunnel that would take them to the barracks.
The totem lit up as another group appeared; it flashed a few more times. The last group to arrive was the newly minted air force.
The Eagle Company. They would cover for the missing soldiers in the coming fighter’s competition, and they could train up even more people for the army and air force.
Seeing those men and women marching away from the totem, Domonos’s heart beat in time with their feet.
32
Rear Echelon
Rugrat pressed the pins into place. Turning the rifle to the side, he pulled on the charging handle. It took a little effort to pull on. He needed to cultivate to Body Like Iron stage or have a high enough attribute from leveling up. Though with it, even if he were out of mana crystals, he could still fire the rifle at the lowest settings.
He pulled a magazine out of his vest and checked the rounds. They were mini sabot rounds with mana stones, where the propellant and primer would be in a regular round.
Rugrat was excited, but his hands moved with mechanical precision as he slapped the magazine into the rifle. He pulled on the charging handle, cycling a round up and into the chamber, priming the formation powering pin.
He peered down the sight. It looked like an ACOG sight, but it was one hundred percent Alvan made. Two rows of metal blocks rested along the barrel, pointing off at angles. A floating heat shroud was positioned between the two rows and under the barrel of the gun.
Rugrat had put a bipod there. He placed the gun into a mount and tightened down all the nuts that secured the weapon, making sure that while lined up with the iron plates at the other end of the range.
He laid out a cord and backed up behind the testing blast shields.
Everyone related to the project, and the military was there to see the display.
“Fire in the hole!” He checked around and tugged on the string.
Rugrat felt the mana rushing through the weapon. Two blocks on each rack popped up, formations activating to cool them down rapidly.
“Shit!” Tan Xue said, using spells to enhance her eyesight.
“Damn.” Rugrat followed right afterward, staring at the hole through the test plates.
A screen blocked his vision, making him frown. He was about to swipe it away, but he had already scanned the content. “Hell fuckin’ yeah! Oh right!” Rugrat laughed as Ten Realms Experience flooded his body. It felt like the weight that had been resting on his heart lifted and he laughed, his body absorbing the Experience wildly.
“Fucking expert at beer drinking, gun shooting, freedom loving and goddamned smithing. Take that, Miss Watson. Never amount to nothing, my hairy ass!”
He wondered if other groups who were working to create applications found that they gotten some Experience for creating their components and then more when they finished them. He would have to ask them later. Didn’t Erik get Experience after working with Old Hei on that pill? Damn. Maybe the Ten Realms wasn’t so bad. It was just that people w
eren’t working together, which was why no one ever heard of five people breaking into a higher skill level together.
“Range is safe. Get those plates for me, will you?” Rugrat yelled to some helpers.
They ran off to get the plates, and Rugrat waited for the others to gather around him.
He pulled out four items, putting them on the table with the weapon. Each were as long as his arm and as thick as his large thighs.
“This is the AR Eight, as in automatic railgun version eight. Instead of using gunpowder, this uses formations to accelerate the round out of the weapon. The rounds are fired at a much higher velocity and can impact with greater kinetic energy.”
These words would have confused them before but were now understood.
“This weapon is prone to overheating. You have to watch how many rounds you are shooting and how fast, much like when you are firing our modified machine guns.”
He tapped the rail of blocks. “These will disperse heat as quickly as possible but watch out for it. You could deform the firing mechanisms. As for effective range, we haven’t tested out just how far we can shoot these. Think a kilometer for regular troops; say two to three kilometers for sharpshooters and above?”
It sounded insane compared to people on Earth dealing with hundreds of meters. Though with their reaction speed and their control over their bodies, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities.
“That is just stupid. Our engagements are all within one hundred to two hundred meters thus far. Even based on the information from the higher realms, forces can effectively engage one another at one hundred meters. With us doubling that effective range, in battles with distance, we’ll have an advantage. If fighting becomes up close and personal, dial down the acceleration and increase the rate of fire.” He tapped a dial above the trigger and forward from the fire select.
Sixth Realm Part 2: A litRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 7) Page 36