It took one more day before we finally reached Uniden. This desert capital was on an island that is almost ten times bigger than common ones. The oasis is very huge and forms a large lake with large amounts of aquifers spreading the bountiful waters to the city.

The city doesn’t have protection but with magic, naturally looking rock walls were raised around the city and even below it. The city sits on stone and not sand and most buildings are built following egyption architecture which uses mud and dried grass brinks and further covering of mud that is then dried, to make the houses.

The inner part of the city has lots of grass and trees due to the water.

When we arrived, it drew a lot of attention. Black Cat sighed, “Finally we arrived.”

When she looked at me, she was surprised that I was taking out a huge pile of items. “W-What?!” She exclaimed.

“This is our payment remember. Now that we have arrived, this is what we owe you for the transportation.” I said.

“You saved us from the Desert Rock Demon, we can’t accept this without paying.” She said.

I smiled at how righteous she was but that wasn’t exactly a flaw.

“Then i will charge one fourth of the original price, three hundred gold coin then.” I said not avoiding the easy money.

She nodded and agreed and passed the money to me.

Happy with over 1,500 gold coins we had gained from them, we thank the Dark Guild for their help and disembarked.

“Ahaha! You guys are finally here!” A loud bellow made me look to the side only to see a group of seven buff policeman dressed in armor and a cloak above. The cloak clearly has resistance to heat like most clothing in this place.

“Gelot! It’s been awhile!” I said and walked over and shook his hand.

“Oh? You’ve grown.” he said grinning.

“Yeah, I finally got around to grinding a bit.” I said.

“So… why did you come with the Dark Guild? You join them?” Orion, the group’s second in command and Magic Swordsman.

The group had all retrained and regained their old classes they once had. The only different one was Gelot who, instead of Warrior, got the hidden class Bounty hunter.

“No, we joined our boss’ guild.” I said and sent an invite to the group.

They look at each other, “Um… I don’t know…” he said wryly.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to at the moment, we are actually planning to wait around here for the update, for some reason the bastard didn’t send any backup for the incoming update wanting us to lead the charge.” I sneered.

The men laughed, “Come on, let’s go to a bar and enjoy the drinks. This place is incredible for a desert town. You can then tell us about your recent adventures.” Gelot said.

We laughed and walked into the town, I took a look back and saw Black Cat shouting but took a glance at us before turning back.

At the tavern, we spent a few hours talking about what happened to us, I even introduced them to DD. It was incredibly shocking for them to learn about the dual personality thing but they soon got along with him as they began a drinking contest.

We took the time to also talk about the guild. The fact that the guild was, amazingly, ranked 98 helped them show expressions of interest and they eventually joined after persisting a bit.

“So how do you hunt around here?” I asked.

“Until recently we had our own boat and we hunted small mobs in the sand sea but they were all eaten by the monsters out there now.” Gelot sighed.

I was grinning, “Want me to take you to a high level hunting ground?” I asked.

They looked at each other wondering how a newbie to the area can show them where a hunting ground is.

I had them take me to wherever they were resting and after making sure there was no one looking, I opened a portal into the Hive. When we entered the palace, they had an amusing expression. Since ‘I’ had not brought many people inside, i had not seen their expressions but it was quite amusing. Not to mention the palace looked totally different from what they knew.

“What is this place?” Gelot asked.

“This is the palace from that time you slept in. My class is a Unique Hidden class and this place grows when needed.” I said.

They all instantly looked at me. Although they knew I had a bug breeder class and they had come inside the palace, they didn’t know the grade of it. Unique Hidden Class were one person only classes, once one player obtains it, no one in the world can anymore. Even if the player deletes his character it's impossible. VRMMO games are quite unique in their deletion process, when a character is deleted they actually aren’t. The game compiles an extremely extensive archive of data on each and every person through brain scans, actions, reactions and more and when the character is deleted, it is used to form an NPC AI exactly like the person. Even many memories, as long as he had thought of it, would be recorded to build the NPC. Still it wouldn’t be perfectly like the real person and in my case it would cause quite a disaster if Levi noticed.

“What is this place?” Gelot asked.

“This is the Levi’s home, the Palace.” I said and walked around until the little girl appeared and came to hug.

“Papa, the girls are all gathered already.” Levi said.

“Oh right, it’s been a week already.” I said. I turn to the others, “The hunting will have to wait.” I said and walked through the palace holding Levi.

“Where are we going?” Hawk, the groups archer, asked.

“You’ll see.” I replied.

Soon we reached the huge room, before walking I put Levi down and breathed in deeply and burst through the door, “EVERYONE GET IN LINES! ALL GROUPS FORM UP FACING ME!”

All the girls were resting or lazing around while some were sparring. When my roar resounded through the room, they all jumped up in shock and took a moment before all the more timid girls ran in line quickly forming up but the more disobedient girls were slow.

I marked each one and nodded, “Alright, like i said a week ago, there will be ranking and rewards. I set up a set of evaluation rules without any of you knowing them prior to this so that I could get to see how you all acted without knowing the evaluation rules.” I said. “Drone, show them.”

A large flat stone appeared next to me and inscribed on them were all the rules I made.

Group Evaluation

A group evaluation is presented in several aspects.

How fast the group adapts to hunting How fast they form a group mentality. How well they hunt How much they hunted Average of increase in level of the party.

Individual Evaluation

Individual evaluation is presented in several other aspects

Mentality during hunts and group activity. How present they are in decision making. How they act towards their fellow groups whether positive or negative. How much they contributed to the success of the party’s hunt. How many levels they increased within a period of 1 week

Grading of each aspect will be done using the ranks of F, E, D, C, B, A, with F being the lowest and A being the highest.

“Now, using the drones, I had them watch each of you, we will make a ranking but first. Drones, stand next to each girl with individual evaluation and one drone stand in front of the group with the group evaluation.

Countless drones appeared each holding a sheet. With a drone behind me I went over each and every one and split them among groups. Top 30, ranks 31-100, 101-300 and 301-340.

When the last one was graded, I congratulated the top 30.

“Now you all are split into these four groups, this is your ranking. Drones form a large ranking list with each of their names on the back wall.” I said.

The flat wall soon shimmered into existence and the names and rank of each girl appeared. Those with the top rankings felt pride but those with the lowest felt shame. Of course, more than just a few of the 34 leaders were placed in the lowest ranking making them complain about the ranking until they saw their own individual grading.

“Now then, I am sure you all remember the meal I gave you all last week…” I said.

At once the girls gulped and started to drool, having to whip their drool from the corner of their mouths.

“Only the top 30 rankings will get food of that degree. Top 100 will get similar grade food but in much less quantity, the top 300 will get a well seasoned roast and the bottom ranking…” I said glaring at the girls with their rather horrible misconduct. “Will get simple salted and smoked meat for the night.”

The last 40 girls paled or turned red with shame and anger.

“You can’t do this! I’m one of the highest leveled Maiden!” one of them shouted.

“I can because I was authorized to, you are in my care and I am giving you a high class training ground as well as giving you complete guarantee that you won’t die. If you were in normal training grounds, by the end of this week there would already be less than half of you here!” I said.

My glare this time was on all girls who paled. They knew themselves, the War God Church had cruel means to make the strongest warriors. There is no way around it after all, only through countless life and death huntings can a battle maiden mature. Even the ‘safety’ given by the drone only comes when they are on the brink of death or when a monster too strong appears and would one shot them.

“Also, the reasons why, although more than half of you are the top levels but are the lowest ranking is how you treat your group. You’re all selfish brats who both use groups as bait, insult them and discourage them. In an army, you would have been whipped several times over for such actions if it was my army because you are killing their moral.” I said.

They all looked unsatisfied, “Oh so you don’t agree? Fine then? Drones, take her and hold her down. Since she is unsatisfied, i will give her the treatment she deserves.” I said.

The next five minutes came with the spanking of a paddle and the cursing and crying of the girl before she was released. She ran away from the drones but glared at me. Of course there was no damage because this is an educational strike.

“Good, let this be a warning, from now on you will all work on teamwork and building team unity. Anyone who insults, criticises and even hurts their own teammates will drop ranks rapidly and will be singled out for a spanking next week!” I announced.

The more timid girls trembled at my words and I nodded as the lesson was given out. “Now drones, prepare the tables and kitchen at the center.” I ordered.

The group of policemen were in shock as the room began to shift. I walked over “Sorry you had to see that, not sure how you're all reacting to this.” I said.

“Um… using a paddle on a girl like that… are you a sadist?” Tyson, their fighter, asked.

“Shut up Tyson.” Gelot smacked him on his head. “So who are these girls?” he asked.

“Have you heard of the Church of the War God’s Battle maiden?” I asked.

They nodded and froze before looking at the girls. “Are these all Battle Maiden?” they asked.

“Yes, they’re recruits. I got a quest to raise at least 100 of these girls to level 100. The common method of training is throwing them in high level monster infested forests, those who come out are those who survive. Since I can save them at a moment’s notice, it was decided that I would raise them like an institution. That said, I personally decided to work on their horrible behaviors.” I said. “Show Educational Strike and Quest: Training Ground Master, to the group.” I said.

The two screens appeared, soon the men were shocked by the two things but soon understood that I wasn't doing anything bad to them. It was a case of using one to warn all.

Once all the tables and kitchen formed, me and DD began to order the drones around to start cooking. There were more stations since we would split the work with different types of meals.

After handing out the orders carefully one by one, I took a chance to look at the level range.

It was expected for them to have a fast growth rate but NPC still has decreased exp gain as a balance.

Even though they had the same power as Levi their level up speed was lower. The level 30 girls only reached level 35 after fighting as a party for a week while I went from level 25 to level 42 in two days with only Levi. It can be seen the difference. Of course, looking at their hunting rate, it was beyond clear their low hunting speed didn’t help them.

“Seems I will have to buy some time to help train them to improve their hunting.” I thought but decided now wasn’t a good time.

I started to cook as well and eventually the meal was served. An interesting fact should be noted, the higher class the food, the more filling it is. For the top 30, they even left some food behind while the top 100 ate it all. The top 300 ate a lot of well seasoned roast meat and still were a bit unsatisfied and the last forty had to eat plain smoked meat while crying.

Of course i ate as well and got one strength stat after eating the entire meal making me sigh at how little i get now.

Iron stomach gives me stats but there is a limit I can extract from each monster. It’s not a legendary rank skill after all.

“Alright guys, it’s official! Droso is the cook!” Tyson shouted.

“Yeah!” the policeman shouted.

“Cook your ass! You assholes are gonna eat smoked meat only!” DD shouted.

The men laughed and soon the food was eaten. The girls were let into their rooms to rest for the day.

“So let us see this hunting ground!” Gelot said.

“Alright.” I said “Drone, show me all the Wilderness areas.”

Wilderness Zone

Tropical Rainforest

Forest of the Night

Desert

Canyon

Glacial Mountains

Lightning Mountains

Volcanic Badlands

Crystal Cavern

Windy Grasslands

“Aren’t a few habits?” I asked.

“Habits are hidden within the wilderness, they have simply grown large enough to be called wilderness zones.” the Drone said.

“Alright, anyway, make your choice.” I said to the guys and showed them the screen.

The group looks at each other strangely unsure of what they should do. It was clear that they were a bit weirded out but after some talking they pressed the desert.

A portal appeared and walking through brought us to a huge desert. Cactus and dry plants formed in small outcroppings and sand covered the land but even within the view of our group we could see several small waterholes.

Animals were all small such as jackrabbit monsters, snakes, wolves, foxes and many other creatures could be seen near these water holes. They were wry of each other but due to the water holes being something required by all and getting injured means getting eaten, these areas become safe areas.

Far off was an expanse of sand without water or green and on one side was a large stone outcropping that was the Desert Oasis.

At this moment, the scorpions suddenly came out from the Oasis. The interesting thing is that they came floating and stopped around us.

The group got armed instantly but i just laughed, “Don’t worry, they’re one of mine.” I said but looked interested at the strange sight of hovering scorpions. Something strange about them is how they pull their tails into their back with only the hook faced down.

“They seem to have other features after having evolved but not completely to Tier 3 yet.” I thought.

Their size was already quite large but they weren’t strong enough to support large weight.

A check of their stats quickly showed that. The emperor had 0.5 as the base at level 1 while the rest had 0.3.

“I should probably start breeding them.” I muttered and began to give orders. Like before, their instincts told them which was better. Of course the emperor was the strongest but it had a ‘defect’. It dies after breeding so I chose the strongest current common black scorpion and bred him with her.

After I sent them away, I found the group suffering to kill a jackrabbit man.

When i joined in we finally killed it while the guys were beaten hard.

“This is a killer hunting ground.” Gelot said.

“Of course it is, the level range is 60-180.” I said. They all looked at me in shock. “If it wasn’t for the girls, i would have further upgraded this place so it would have gone up.” I said.

“Wait, upgrade? Didn’t you teleport us?” Gelot asked.

“Nope, this is inside me, it's similar to a Druid’s Grove.” I explained. “But it’s a bit better because i can make quick upgrades by adding things like Magic Crystals and mana Stones. It even affects my own mana quality and quantity.” I said.

They looked at me with clear jealousy on their face for being able to carry around such a high level hunting ground.

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s not like i can mindlessly upgrade because eventually it will get too high leveled for me to even use. I need to be at least in the middle of the level range to be able to safely upgrade.” I replied.

“What kind of upgrades do you have?” Gelot asked.

“Until now I found four, when bugs evolve is the first.” I said. They nodded and understood the reason since the habits were made for the bugs. “The second one is Magic Crystals which require a huge amount of mana to spread all over but when it does, it causes huge upgrades through elemental mana appearing inside.” I said.

“That is like a Druid eating those essence things to upgrade their grove.” Ripley, the Rogue, said.

“Yes, it’s similar but it weakens Droso while the upgrade is going on by draining his mana and even reducing his mana regen.” Flor replied.

They were surprised but nodded.

“The element ones just improve the elements of the Hive, it has a lower effect on my mana quantity but it affects it. I have 10% more than normal already. The third upgrade is using mana stone, this is a major upgrade that can directly increase the mana quantity and if the mana stone is middle or high grade, it can upgrade the grade of the magic crystals making them more pure and the effect stronger.” I said.

They understood the cheat and understood why I couldn't use this kind of upgrade yet since I was still so weak.

“The last upgrade is finding Geographic items. The Sea Sand in the Sandora Desert is one kind of this item that i already gained and it is slowly forming in this wilderness making it grow.” I finished explaining.

“Alright, so this is an easily expandable hunting ground, if that is the case, what do you have in mind?” he asked.

“We will soon be going into unknown territories, the level range will definitely be at least level 100. Just looking at the monsters of the desert you can see that.” I said and they nodded. “So for us to succeed in reaching it and surviving in the wilds, we need at least level 80. The update is in one game week. Previously I used Levi as a bus from level 25 to 42 in two days. Now that we have a week to train, I want to both level up and focus on breeding my bugs, particularly those.” I pointed to the Oasis.

“Alright, I am game, it will be a short while before we can hunt ourselves but we are all between level 28-30 so we can soon hunt if you help us level.” I said.

“That is fine.” I said. “Before that though, Flor, how is your blacksmithing?” I asked.

“So so, I haven't trained much in it as you know.” she said.

“Yeah, figured as much, we need to upgrade my weapon that is a newbie model and i want to upgrade some of the Magic Crystal to Regular rank.” I said.

“That’s fine. I’m not a carpenter to make that strange instrument so I can't help anyway.” She said.

“Right, you guys, I will call Levi to help you level up and will start dealing with my stuff, make sure to help her when you can and don’t let her fight alone.” I said.

“Get out of here!” Avent shouted.

I flashed my middle finger before leaving the Hive after calling Levi to help them.

After that I left the inn for the Magic Shop. I had expected it to have plenty of regular rank items but was surprised when I found High Wind and Earth Magic Crystals and shockingly, Water Magic Crystals.

“Drone, what is the mana improvement of High Rank magic crystals?” I asked

“Low quality is 3%, middle quality is 6%, High Quality is 9%.” She said.

Looking at them closely, I found that they were all low quality and asked about high quality but the man didn’t even blink as he rejected. Clearly not wanting to sell to me. This could be because of the intimacy I had for this region's people. I came from the west so I’m not from this region the shops favor their own over strangers who come and go.

I didn’t mind as I purchased a single crystal of the three types Low Quality High rank Wind, Water and Earth Magic Stones.

Each piece went for 75 gold but since I was loaded now I paid without minding and left while sneering at the old man for his overcharge. “As soon as i integrate this and level up enough to integrate the Mana stone, i can sell middle quality High rank Magic crystals in bulk.” I sneered.

I went to a blacksmith next and after drawing the blueprint for a level 40 requirement Glaive, provided the raw materials and money, I left since it would take a few days.

I returned to the Inn and entered the palace. I found High Mana potions from Flor which were for the magic crystal integration.

I did that immediately and had the three crystals quickly integrated and after an hour of drinking mana potions one after another all three were finally integrated.

High rank Wind, Earth and Water Magic Crystals have been integrated into the Hive.

Several Wilderness and Habits have undergone rapid growth.

Desert Oasis has grown and can now be visited.

Tropical Rainforest has improved the water quantity and quality. Rapids have formed in the Rainforest, aquatic life is greatly improved. All of the Hive’s water has increased in quality.

Windy Grasslands have greatly improved and winds have become stronger and sharper.

Desert has become windier and Wind magic stones have become abundant in the sand and in outcroppings. Earth Magic stones can be located with more ease and are accompanied by mineral ore.

Because of the High Wind Magic crystals, Air quality and quantity of the Hive has increased. Due to insects breathing through their skin, they will be able to obtain more oxygen and thus shall experience an increased growth.

Due to the High rank Earth Magic Crystals, Crystal Cavern have dramatically grown and Earth Magic Crystals can be found alongside gemstones and high quantities of mineral ore.

Mana quality and quantity has increased by 10%. Current increase is 15%.

Looking at the sharp increase and improvement, I nodded because it would become easier to breed bugs in a place with greater quantity of air but it might become harder to breathe for the same reason.

“Damn, that is sure gonna fuck with us.” DD said

“What?” I asked.

“The greater air quality and quantity. It won’t just affect the bugs but the animals. With more oxygen, lizards might even revert into dinosaurs.” He replied.

“Well… it's one kind of evolution yes.” I nodded “If that happened, it would just become another source of materials.” I thought.

Not giving mind to the consequences, I moved to the location where the group was battling and found them in a scuffle with a pack of Desert fox and joined in to help them out by using a new sneak attack. I randomly stab the ground but a portal opens up where I stab and under one of the fix slicing right into the creature.

“I’m back!” I shouted and jumped into the fray.