The day after the city incident, Fred had time to check his log.

*Congratulations* you have participated as a defender in a battle: the Aquitaine chase of Ludnus.

+200 exp (+100 exp first battle: chase)

+ 60 stat points (+30 stat first battle: chase)

+600 exp for your contribution to the fight

+200 stat points

*Congratulations* you have won as the defender in the battle: the Aquitaine chase of Ludnus.

+600 exp (+300 exp first win: chase)

+200 stat points (+100 stat first battle: chase)

*Congratulations* you gained the victory for your side for capturing the flag.

+1000 exp (+500 exp first time.)

+400 stat points (+200 stat points for the first time)

-Flag: an object/location/person that once captured, ended the battle

“Ha Percy, you’re just a flag.” Fred mocked, “I got 1500 exp for capturing you.”

Percy gritted his teeth, they had stopped for lunch, it was a quick one, and they didn’t set up a fire or anything, they were still in enemy territory and as soon as the horses had gotten a drink and food, they would be off again.

“I bet your friends got exp for defending you, you would probably be listed as a flag for them as well.”

Rudy and Delphine weren’t going to confirm that in front of Percy.

‘I wonder why he wasn’t listed as the leader, maybe a captured leader wouldn’t end the battle, or he wasn’t the leader.’

They were off again shortly after. Fred decided to allocate the rewarded points to Dex and Vit at a 1:1 ratio, just to give them a boost, he could feel the strain on his speed and skills, at the moment he was making up for it by having more power in his swings as well as high skill levels.

With his free stats from levelling up, he was level 6 just before this battle and now was level 8 thanks to this battle. He decided to put them into End.

‘Status’

Status

Name

Frederick

????

Age

11

year

2

month

Ascension

3

Level

8

Body

Pre-teen

Super-Soldier

Esper

Race group

Human

Culture

Franconian

Social

F Earl/ M Duke

Bastard

Exp

1180/5120

23%

Exp Mod

200% (Pre-teen)

Sub-Race

Adeptus Astartes

Assimilation 21%, *2.68 modifiers to stat points

Military

Rank

Recruit*

Level

3

Command structure

0

None

Affinity

Lightning

29% (+134.2%)

Fire

11% (+65.6%)

Metal

7% (+57.6%)

Legion Trait

Thousand Sons

Class

Scholar

Legion Trait

Iron Warriors

Class

Engineer

Subclass

Subclass

Subclass

Subclass

Stats

points

Condition

Thousand sons

Iron Warriors

Health

200

291970

Stamina

200

233476

Mana

200

478303

Modifiable

Power

2018

346.13

100%

100%

Density

2901

572.22

100%

115%

Dexterity

1851

317.48

100%

100%

Vitality

2238

383.86

100%

100%

Endurance

2554

503.77

100%

115%

Intellect

3467

957.40

140%

115%

Wisdom

3369

930.34

140%

115%

Fred could tell his muscles were a little more pronounced. They weren’t anything to write home about, but, except for Rudy, and to an extent Delphine, other kids his age, looked a lot thinner, except for those with a bigger appetite.

Furthermore, his hair started to give off a silvery sheen, and his eyes had a light blue tint to them.

Not only that, Fred, Rudy, and Delphine, were starting to pull ahead of their peers when it came to height.

___

Due to rushing, the convoy would only take 5 days, however, on the early morning of the 4th, the scouts brought news of the ambush team chasing them, causing them to rush faster, “Rudy, are all the pistols loaded.”

“Most are, there is still 5 left,”

“Alright, let’s load them in case.”

Fred also gave 5 scouts 2 pistols each.

They were a mile out of Escroquer when they saw the chasers, due to rough terrain, the chasers could close into just under a mile before the chasers could be spotted.

They would be pushing it to make the border in time. Fred spotted about 10 knights and over 80 light cavalries. No insignia could be spotted. The chases caught up just as they reached the border, however, they continued, and a skirmish ensued. Fred, Delphine, and Rudy managed to get some shots off, downing a few of the light cavalry,

He managed to see the scouts put 3 shots into one of the knights, however, one shot was shrugged off by the armour, and the other 2 only did superficial wounds. It reduced the knight’s fighting ability but didn’t knock him out of the fight completely.

“What the?”

“What happened?” Delphine asked,

“That knight just took 3 bullets and is still fighting,”

“He must be a high levelled knight,” she said as if that was normal.

Other than super soldiers in his old world, and even with super soldiers it was a rare chance, 2 bullets to the chest could down a man, especially where they hit the knight. And these were smooth ball rounds, they are supposed to be a lot messier.

Other than using magic, although Fred had experience with Esper powers, this was the first time Fred truly understood the difference between the people of this world and the previous world.

Fred should have expected that, with the status and numbers, but seeing it in action gave it a whole new perspective.

“Hey look, they are breaking off,” Rudy snapped Fred out of his thoughts.

“We have reinforcements,” Delphine responded, “Look.” She pointed to the front of the convoy; they could see 40 something cavaliers with the banner of Escroquer.

Within a couple of minutes, the cavalry rode past and joined up with the knights, the chasers were forced to flee.

___

The following day, they managed to make it to Poilutonne. The kids from the continent stayed in town for a night before boarding the return ship.

Rudy and Delphine also returned to the county down south.

“Have we got any news of what happened in the capital?” Fred asked,

“Nothing at the moment, it’s still early days yet,” George answered.

“It looks like we will need to speed up preparations” Fred responded; it was just them two in the lounge at the moment.

“The soldiers are asking about those pistols the scouts were using. They want to know if they will be getting equipped with them.”

“I need to refine them at the moment, they are too big, and the calibre is too large for recoil. They aren’t penetrating some of the tougher knights.”

“It would be difficult; the aristocracy has an advantage in resources and heritage.”

“Heritage?”

“Have you not checked; you should have a boost to exp. It’s as you grow your body; it changes through ascensions. Some of that gets passed on to your offspring, it also increases the number of stat points you earn, from the excess residue of the resources and ascension level your family achieved.”

“Really, how do I check this?”

“Under the family name, you should also gain a boost from your social rank.”

“But my family name is question marks.”

“Just focus on it.”

*Heritage bonus*

Human

Base original exp per level: 40exp per level

Modifier: -75% exp requirement

Modified due to genetic heritage from your families past growth.

Base original stat points: 1

Modifier: +1000%

All stat points received are based on base original stat point

“Wait so a free person or serf would need 40% to level up their first level?”

“No, no, no, almost no one by now needs 40exp to level up, it’s on record that most of the family needed 14 exp, about 400 years ago. And just by ascending once your child is guaranteed to only need 39 exp.”

“O,”

“However, as a testament to our position, we are one of the strongest bloodlines in the kingdom, par the royal family. We weren’t handed the title of the duchy on a silver plate.”

“That makes sense,”

“Have you checked your social modifier

*Social bonus*

Base Serf,

40 points in health stamina and mana points,

+20 points in ascension to health stamina and mana points,

Modifier

Earl, heir/Bastard (1 County): +150% modifier.

The system has deemed social status a key contributor to the success of the race and can gift more energy to people with higher status to help the human race.

‘It looks like the system is prioritising its help,’

“I see, does the modifier increase if I change these statuses.”

“Yes, in a way, what does yours say?”

“Earl, heir/Bastard (1 County): +150% modifier.”

“I see, yes, so if you can upgrade your title to a duke, you will increase your modifier percentage points by 50 points,” “If you remove heir, in should increase another 20 points, if you can remove bastard, 20 points, and finally 30 points for each extra county, and a bonus 10 points for forming a duchy with 3 counties. At that time, you will get an extra 5 points per county until you reach 6.”

“That’s a lot. How do I get rid of the title bastard?”

“You have to be recognised as a contender by the family member with the highest rank. Or you achieve enough merit for the highest rank of the land to reward you with status, even if he knights you, it removes the status.”

“Is it worth it to get knighted by the king?”

“He can’t, in your case, you’re a landed noble, he would have to give you a rank that could own a piece of land recorded by the crown.”

“What does that mean, a piece of land recorded by the crown.”

“So, the smallest land recorded by the crown is a large estate, that is for Barons, but the King, acting as a separate entity to the crown or a noble can reward a knight a small estate, less than 1/3 the land area than a large estate.”

“Even if he doesn’t give you land, he has to give you a title of one that can gain land. And if that is the case, he would probably give you an estate in the capital, this is what he uses for a lot of court officials, as landed nobles have their land to manage, and it causes a conflict of interest then”

“O ok,”

They talked a few more about this before moving back to the topic of pistols.

“I want to make 2 new regiments, or to be more precise, convert two regiments.”

“Go, on” George encouraged him to continue.

“First a light cavalry unit that uses a sabre and pistol. We could convert any sabre shield units into this.”

“Well due to the steel mill we don’t really have any light cavalry units at the moment, we can use scouts, and give them pistols.”

“O ok,”, Fred would have to think about this, he wanted to create a carousel unit. “Well, the second is a sharpshooter unit. I can create a longer barrelled gun for infantry, in fact, they should already be in production if the weapons factory is up and running.”

“We can go check that this afternoon, how will this sharpshooter unit work?”

“Well, I want this to add, or replace the bowmen, and in the future add to all line infantry, as shown with the knights, the guns aren’t perfect, but we can use them for opening salvos, or on wall crenelations.” Fred went on. “For now, I would like to train them for any high-value targets, like wizards or knight mounts.”

“Ok, shall we go have a look at the factory?”

___

“Good evening foreman,” Fred greeted.

“Good evening young master Frederick, Sir George”

When they got to the factory, Fred was introduced to the first musket. The factory had produced 7 so far.

*Notification*

All legion traits now have access to medium line infantry

All legion traits now have access to sharpshooter infantry.

White scars, Space Wolves, Night lords, Raven Guard, and alpha legion now have access to sniper infantry.

Dark angels, white scars, blood angles, Ultramarines and sons of Horus now have access to dragoon infantry.

Iron Warriors, Imperial fists, Iron Hands, Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Sons of Horus, and Word Bearers now have access to Heavy line infantry.

‘Wow, I’ll have to check these out later.’

“Do you like the weapons we have made so far?”

Fred looked over the weapon, he couldn’t say it was great, but how much of that was due to the technology over their skills, he couldn’t tell. “Are you having any difficulties with producing the weapon?”

“No, no sir, we are having no trouble at all.” Fred could tell that the foreman was just placating, it seemed he did have a problem with it.

“Out with it, Time is against us, foreman, if we can find better ways to produce them, and in a much faster time, it would be an idea.”

“Well, it’s new ground to us, we are only able to use what we know for it but couldn’t tell you if what we know is the better version.”

“Alright, let us go over the construction method together, we can see then if anything needs improvements.”

They moved over to the production area, and Fred could spot a problem already, “does each person work on their own gun from start to finish?” it looked like most of them are craftsmen who dabble in metal crafting and wood crafting.

“Yes, why?” the foreman was confused.

“Alright people, Listen up!” Fred shouted to get the attention of all the craftsmen.

“You all are working very inefficiently,” he could hear groans of discontentment.

“Raise your hands if carpentry is your strongest skill,” eight of them rose their hands. “Right move to the left.” Fred separated everybody into areas they excel at, whether it was the stock, barrel, the Snaplock, or accessories, or assemblers.

“Each group will focus on their specific task, and then you will hand over your parts to the assemblers. This will allow your skills in that specific area to skyrocket and then the guns will be of much better quality. It will make the construction of guns more efficient.”

“But this isn’t how items are crafted. What if my stock doesn’t fit his barrel?”

“I will be speaking to the director, and we will discuss creating better tools and measuring devices so that we can create a standard template.”

“But…”

“Look, time is of the essence now, if you want to continue with your method, that’s fine, but I will have to change your contract to commission base and you won’t be able to use this workshop as the space will be needed for people who wish to work my way.”

“Look, trust me, my way will allow you to focus your exp into specific skills, this will make you specialists, and specialists have a higher value.”

The group finally agreed.