Jacob had set up the necessary Spirit Gathering Formation in St. Peter and had already activated it. In Ochre, Epagogia had done the same, and they had already started killing wolves around the clock. Her and Jacob had set up a supply line to get back the carcasses every hour. Then, Jacob would store all the unused bodies inside Kevin, waiting until they would need more food or crafting materials.

Two days had passed since he had a little breakdown before Juliet came to him and saved him from himself. It had been a pleasant night he had spent chatting about silly things; even though Juliet had not developed romantic feelings yet, he was still more than happy to spend much time with her. It was unfair, maybe, but their Ancestral Bond gave the both of them the greatest connection one could imagine. Everything was easy and relaxed, and there was no risk of misunderstanding each other.

Now, with the forward base operating at full-swing, Jacob was the only person in the city, apart from the traveling Geneva, capable of killing Bloody Demonic Wolves. He had already killed five this morning. He had found them by the traps set on the Spirit Gathering Formation, trapped by simple huge holes in the ground. In fact, Mantis realm or not, the stupid wolves had fallen right into the traps while searching for the source of power.

Rose was now the head of the special group of women whom Jacob had elected as his personal interim police force on his left. They were all given the strongest resources after they had signed the Soul Contract; and, as Jacob had been pleased to know, every single one of them had been struck by his words and then given one last push by Epagogia.

Now, he could completely trust these people to not turn into murderous machines; at least, not against human allies.

“Rose, how’s the relocation of people coming along?” Jacob asked.

“The houses built with Earth Magic kind of suck at the moment. So many people had to sleep on the hard ground, basically. Geneva has done a few runs to take up some mattresses, but that’s for sure the number one reason for discontent,” Rose said.

“Number two?”

“People don’t want to train that much,” Rose winced while hearing her own words. After Jacob had inducted her and the other women, they had been put through hell. Every morning they would wake up before anyone else, and Jacob would instruct them on combat, general Demonic Beasts knowledge, and all sorts of things. She hoped it would get better with time, but Jacob told her he was giving them time to acclimatize before real training.

Whenever they weren’t training, they would follow Jacob around, wearing and red band on their arms. They helped break up fights, calm down people, and show that St. Peter had some semblance of law-enforcing.

Now, since Jacob had finally managed to free his schedule a bit from cultivating and doing Alchemy non-stop, he was going to hold his first lesson ever in crafting. He would host all the classes in the evening. During the day, people would be supposed to practice independently with what Jacob gave them the day before. He hoped that people would take him seriously.

“If they don’t want to train, let them. Drags will be drags everywhere. The more you try to help them, the more they suck you in. So let them fall behind and give them less food if they don’t train; that should motivate them enough to make an effort.”

“If you cut food for lazy people, they might revolt,” Rose pointed out.

“And I will cut them down if they do,” Jacob replied nonchalantly. “This is the apocalypse, not a Spa.”

“Being a bit gentler wouldn’t hurt,” Rose suggested.

“Sure, and maybe I can even give them a feet massage,” Jacob commented. “Rose, again, we can’t afford to look back all the time when you have to fight enemies in front of you. Either the people you are protecting are at least not causing problems, or you beat some sense into them. There is no other solution.”

“Whatever,” Rose scowled.

Jacob knew the woman didn’t exactly love him, but it was fine with him. He was not looking for mindless drones. If she had opinions, let her voice them. But it would be up to him to decide what to listen to and whatnot.

He arrived in front of some wooden tables covered in newly made parchment. Jacob had asked Epagogia to help him make some for the first batch of students.

His first course would be on something he knew extremely well: Inscription Patterns. He would teach these people the fundamentals that they would later on use for Smithing and Alchemy, mostly. Also, they needed to learn how to make the right parchment for the Inscription Patterns. It was quite easy, and it involved mostly Qi. Of course, you could further refine it with some reagents, but that was not Jacob’s plan.

Let’s try and keep this as simple as possible.

He got in front of around fifty people who had been waiting for him and were now scoffing at the sight of the little kid who had given the big welcoming speech of St. Peter. It wasn’t a bad turnout, and Jacob expected more and more people would join in the future. He saw by the side one of Marina’s assistants with a tablet that had an Inscription Pattern on his

Jacob put a hand on Kevin’s hilt and took out a little mountain of corpses while staring dead straight toward these people.

“Well, you are all here to learn how to craft things and to earn Contribution Points. So, let’s start by learning how to skin a monster and make some parchment out of its hide.”

Everyone looked positively disgusted by the first lesson topic.