***
Elder Lu Ru was walking through the halls of the Blue Lotus headquarters in the Fourth Realm. This Blue Lotus controlled all of the Blue Lotus locations in the realm. Elder Lu Ru was from the Seventh Realm. Given the nature of the Fourth Realm, it was necessary to have someone of his Strength managing this realm.
He got a message as he was walking to his meeting with Emperor McMahon, who controlled nearly one hundred and fifty cities.
“What is it?” he asked in a grave tone. Being late for his meeting was no small matter.
“A contract has been broken by a friend of the Blue Lotus,” the man said on the other side.
Elder Lu knew that it wouldn’t be insignificant if they were calling him now. “Do you know which?”
“No, the information is only saying one thing: Alchemist West.”
Lines appeared on Elder Lu’s forehead and his stomach turned.
Few knew what that meant, but he did. His wife had a bad constitution, it took her more resources to increase her cultivation and she aged rapidly. While he was still in his prime from a cultivation standpoint his wife was quickly aging. Anti-aging concoctions had helped her, but they couldn’t be used repeatedly. Her life was coming to an end. But then the Age Rejuvenation potion had appeared. The weakest one was able to give her two to five more years; the strongest could give her another fifteen. It would give him more time to look for other solutions.
He had the position to look into who had invented the potion; information that was hidden away from most.
A man called Erik West had created the concoction, then given the recipe to the Blue Lotus and the Alchemist Association. He was a mysterious man—a healer and an alchemist. Direct disciple to one of the Three Pill Heads of the Third Realm. A man who continued to travel through the realms even with his position.
He was a fighter but his abilities hadn’t been recorded since he had appeared in the First Realm just a few years ago. They didn’t know how strong he was now or the abilities he had developed.
Erik had helped out the Blue Lotus and shown that he was a good man. He controlled a restaurant in the Third Realm that the heads of the Alchemist Association often frequented.
He had even healed a Blue Lotus head’s son of an affliction no others had been capable of, for free.
“Alright Cui Chin, what the hell is going on why did Erik West break the contract with us?” Elder Lu asked.
“He broke it because he lost trust in the Blue Lotus,” Cui Chin reported.
Elder Lu flicked his sleeves. His face turned thunderous. “Have you reviewed the entire situation?!”
“We have not. I thought that it would be best to inform you.”
“Did he break faith with him, or he break faith with us?” Elder Lu didn’t think that he would do something so stupid but he needed to check.
“We’re not sure,” Cui Chin said awkwardly.
Elder Lu’s expression turned from calmly listening then to one of anger.“So, we don’t know how it happened but after all of that, someone broke his trust as they’re fleeing from this Blood Demon army?”
Elder Lu was a calm man but now rage twisted his expression, causing him to pace. A terrible pressure appeared around him; his guards, standing by his sides, shook with the weight of his anger.
“As it stands, yes,” Cui Chin reported not flinching at the anger in his voice.
“Why was this information about Tareng not brought to me sooner?”
“There was already protocol for a city potentially affected by a plague,” Cui Chin responded in a displeased tone.
“Come to my office. Bring everything that you have found out. Contact the head of the Crafter’s Association. Get someone to look up the rules we must follow.” Elder Lu flicked his sleeves cancelling the sound deafening formation and cancelling his communication and turned around.
“Tell the emperor that I am deeply sorry. I will agree to his request minus seven percent. I will give him three extra percent because of my rudeness,” Elder Lu said to a woman in his entourage.
“Yes, Elder Lu.” She answered as she hastily walked toward where the emperor was waiting.
Elder Lu looked to his personal guard’s commander. “Wake up the army.”
The man opened his mouth before closing it, a stony expression on his face. “Yes, Elder Lu.”
“Get me the contact information of Head Xue Lin, now.” He looked at another aide. The aide started talking into his communication device rapidly as Elder Lu stormed through the halls of the headquarters. Everyone moved away from him as if pushed by an invisible force.
***
Erik had no idea what had happened. All he knew was that twenty people died who didn’t need to. This was only their opening engagement; he wanted to know how the enemy reacted, what their actions would be. From there, he could adapt his tactics to work against them.
“Han Wu,” Erik called out as they rushed through the forest.
“Sir?” Han Wu said, closing in on Erik.
“I’ll take care of position Bravo. I want you to move to Charlie and start preparing it. Take the crew that was with you at the observation post and gather an army section from the reserve,” Erik said.
“Sir.” Han Wu dropped back and then moved off with Gong Jin, Imani, Xi, and Tully. They altered their direction to make best speed for position Charlie, their third planned ambush point.
A section from the mortars would meet and assist them.
Erik and the rest of the group reached position Bravo in just an hour; with their map and their mounts, they had made good speed.
Erik and the rest looked at the creek and started to get creative now that they had seen the effects of the IED’s and compared it to what they had learned back at Alva.
“Mortars, this is Outpost Four. Fire mission, point Alpha—fire point codename Crater City,” Roska said.
“Outpost Four, Mortars. Fire mission, target point Alpha, marker Crater City confirm,” Yui replied.
“Mortars, fire for effect. Will adjust as needed,” Roska said.
Erik was linked into their channel. He looked to the new position of the mortars but still he didn’t see anything in the night as they fired for the second time.
***
“Target point Alpha, Crater City! Confirm!” Yui barked to his mortar pits.
“Target point Alpha, Crater City! Pit one confirms!”
“Target point Alpha, Crater City! Pit two confirms!”
“Target point Alpha, Crater City! Pit three confirms!”
“Target point Alpha, Crater City! Pit four confirms!”
“Fire when ready. Shift fire east to west, down the road! Pit one, you will fire one illumination round for every three high explosive rounds!”
“Pit one will fire one illumination rounds for every three HE rounds!”
“Fire!” Yui yelled out.
The gunner confirmed that they were on target. The assistant gunner pulled a round out of their storage ring, dropping it into the mortar tube.
The mortar tubes fired, the assistant gunner dropping round after round. On Earth, it took at least two to four seconds for each round. The mortar teams cut that time in half, firing a round every second or two.
The gunner adjusted their sights and changed the trajectories of the mortars. Even a small half turn on the traversing gear or elevating gear could change where they landed by tens of meters at these ranges.
***
Roska and her team watched the Blood Demon army from their observation post. They had moved to a secondary observation post just in case.
The switchback had been repaired by the mages. The healers and alchemists dealt with the wounded; the dead were held in storage rings.
It was hard to see what had happened to them exactly under the cover of night. They knew that the Blue Lotus fighters had killed a lot, but the damage from the switchback and mortars was hard to assess.
They estimated that they had critically injured or killed
two to five hundred with the mines, two or three times that number with the mortars and the Blue Lotus suicide squad had killed maybe three hunred.
With the healers and the alchemists among them, they’ll be able to save a lot of them, still in our opening attack we hurt three percenrt of their force in one go. That has to hurt.
Roska clenched her hand, feeling the power within her body. Everyone in the Alvan Army had increased their levels rapidly, now they were all the levels of Masters themselves.
They were wary of the people from the various associations but now they could at least hold their own ground in terms of sheer power. In techniques and abilities the association’s guards would still win out.
Seeing the effectiveness of the different tactics up close and personal was a first time for Roska. She knew that they would be effective in theory, but without even showing their faces, they had taken out up to fifteen hundred people and ruined the road, slowing them down and showing that they could hit the enemy at any time and inflict mass casualties.
People were moving up the new switchback when that whistling from just a few hours ago could be heard again. Rolling explosions covered the switchback as the fire moved down the road.
Roska and her team watched as an illumination round appeared in the sky. Suspended from a parachute, it lit up the entire road.
The mortars came down without pause. The overwhelming firepower caused people to jump off the road and into the tree line. Mana shields appeared, the mortars landing on them from above.
“Let’s get moving.” Roska and her people moved out of their observation post and got on their mounts, moving to meet up with the rest of the forces at position Bravo.
“Mortars, this is Outpost Four. Fire mission complete—bug out,” Roska said.
“Understood. Moving.”
In two minutes, Roska and her people disappeared from their position, while the mortar section had packed up their tubes and were on their mounts, headed to another mortar position that they’d sent an advance team to scout out.
In just those three minutes from ten mortars they had dropped nine hundred mortar rounds on the Blood Demon Sect. Everyday there were more rounds coming up from Alva producing ten thousand mortar rounds per day. They would stagger their attacks spacing out mortar fire, using more or less mortars, so they did dig into their reserve ammunition but kept continuous pressure on the enemy. Even a handful of mortar rounds such as smoke could disorientate and make it hard for the Blood Demon Army to move forward, or illumination rounds could keep them awake during the night.
***
Rugrat spent nearly all of his time making weapons and ammunition. He had only went to the dungeon once because he got an alert that the dungeon was complete.
He had offered the Ten Realms the same agreement as Erik had with some minor alterations.
“I, Dungeon Master Rugrat, wish to create a dungeon agreement with the Ten Realms. The Ten Realms will administer over this crafter trial dungeon with additional terms,” Rugrat said.
==========
Agreed. Additional terms?
==========
“People can get tokens if they prove their skill. If they make a Journeyman-level item, they get a token that will allow them to reach the Journeyman-level crafting area. They can only enter the trial once a month and with the token once every two weeks if there is space.”
==========
Agreed. Additional terms?
==========
“Sixty percent of the power in the dungeon will be used to expand the crafting dungeons and the main combat dungeon. The remaining forty percent will be held in the Mana storing formation and used to build out the sixth hidden dungeon floor.”
==========
Agreed. Additional terms?
==========
“That’s it,” Rugrat said.
==========
Agreement reached. Breaking this agreement will result in a permanent loss of ten percent to each attribute.
==========
Do you accept this agreement?
==========
Rugrat let out a deep breath at the severe penalty, but nodded. The Ten Realms would manage the dungeon; trying to reclaim it was practically impossible.
“I agree.” The golden light of the Ten Realms descended on Rugrat and covered him. It had a stifling pressure as it seeped into Rugrat’s body before disappearing.
Rugrat felt that his control over the dungeon lessened. He was able to create, but no longer destroy.A big grin appeared on Rugrat’s face as he ordered the undead in the dungeon to get moving.
“Okay, so looks like we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way!”
Rugrat made five tunnels branching off from where the smithing dungeon trial intersected with the stairs heading down to the original set armor dungeon.
These different tunnels would each house a different craft testing area.
Rugrat went forward into the smithing area. In a few minutes, he was able to pass the Novice test and use the Novice smithy to create a Journeyman-level weapon.
With it, he was rewarded with a token that allowed him to skip through the other areas. He entered the next floor, finding himself in a low-lit cave.
He pulled out his blade and started cutting the metal away from the deposits. He went through the Apprentice and then into the Journeyman mine and finally into the Journeyman-level smithy.
Rugrat felt his mind calming down as he changed into his smithing gear. He moved around in his short shorts, checking his range of motion and put on his apron, affixing his cowboy hat on his head.
“It’s time to pound some metal,” he said. Thankfully, since he was in the crafting dungeon rather than Vuzgal’s smithy, everyone was spared the terrifying image of him standing in front of the furnace burned into their memory.
He tossed some ingots into the flames, adjusted his American flag booty shorts and worked the bellows.
Chapter: Snake in the Grass
Elder Lu listened to the information that had been gathered at his orders. The more he heard, the darker his expression turned.
“I want those people isolated and checked as soon as they arrive. Call the Alchemist Association and the healing houses. In the meantime, bring up all available information on the Blood Demon Sect: their allies, their enemies—I want to know it all.” He was calm but the vein that was popping out of his neck showed that it was only on the surface. “Do we have anyone in the Fourth Realm who has ever come into contact with West?”
A woman reading over papers raised her hand, reading at the same time.
“Yes?” Elder Lu asked as he nodded at her.
She looked up to check he was talking to her. “Hiao Xen. He had descended the realms for a place for his son to recover from his injuries. He was given leave to do so. His son was healed by Erik West and he has climbed the realms rapidly since. He is currently a deputy head in the Fourth Realm.”
“Have him come here immediately. I wish to talk to him.” Elder Lu had read the files but he didn’t know Erik personally. It was only the break in the contract that had alerted him. He needed to know just what kind of person everything was resting on.
“Also, see if the head of the Crafter’s Association is free for a meeting. At this point, we will not make any moves. We must find fact from fiction before we act. All of our actions are watched and we do not have much time to decide what action to take.”
Everyone had stopped making noise, looking to Elder Lu.
“If the Blood Demon Sect has perpetrated this crime, we will contact the enemies of the Blood Demon Sect. We will come to an agreement with them, and push our armies forth to destroy the Blood Demon Sect. We might trade in goods, but we are not some weak group to be stepped over. We are fighting for the Blue Lotus’ honor and our standing—do not forget that.” He looked at them all, seeing the weight of his words settle on them.
“We have plenty of work to do.” He tapped the table and stood. The others stood
up as well.
***
Hiao Xen, once getting his order to report to the Fourth
Realm’s headquarters, was taken by a guide through the totem to the headquarters of the Blue Lotus. What do they want me for, and why so urgently?
He hadn’t been to the headquarters in the Fourth Realm before, but he could see from the expressions of the people in the halls that it looked as though something important was happening.
He was led to a large office with powerful guards standing outside of it. Both of them wore armor that identified them as personal guards for the Fourth Realm Head. They were people from the Seventh Realm.
There was no aura around them, as if they were the abyss. Their movements were smooth but Hiao Xen didn’t feel any power in it.
He saw their skin. It looked as smooth as polished marble. Body Like Sky Metal?
Hiao Xen examined the Mana around them, but there was no sense of Mana entering or leaving their body. It was as if they existed in perfect harmony. Is this peak Mana Heart or Five Aperture Mana Heart?
The door opened to show a man talking with another man and woman, who looked at maps and reports on the table in front of them.
“Deputy Head Hiao Xen,” one of the guards said respectfully.
“Come in.” The man leading the conversation looked over and stood.
Hiao Xen moved into the room and bowed deeply. “Elder Lu.”
“Good.” Elder Lu nodded as he looked at the deputy head and then up at the doors to make sure they were sealed.
“This is head of the Fourth Realm guards, Lei Huo.” He gestured to the woman.
Hiao Xen bowed once again and sincerely.
“This is head of intelligence gathering, Cui Chin.” He looked more like a guard than an intelligence officer. He was a swarthy man with focused eyes and large muscles. He had an easy smile on his face but Hiao Xen felt as if he was stripped naked in front of this man.
The Fourth Realm (The Ten Realms Book 4) Page 37