Chapter 72: Deal With The Yokai

"HAHAHA" Sia was hysterically laughing as in the far off distance droves of Minotaurs entered a large cave, where they would live for the next few months. "I can't believe they actually bought that act of yours." Sia said smacking Scitus's back. her face suddenly turned serious as she mimicked Scitus from the previous day, "who gave you the right to look at me." She said with a serious expression that quickly melted in laughter.

“the best part, the best part is…” she said between laughter, “I don’t know any slave magic. hahahaha.” She broke into another fit laughter that did not end for a few minutes when she calmed down Scitus had already left her far behind.

Scitus didn't believe his plan was completely successful, one of his greatest weakness was his compassion. Despite everything that had happened, no one had died and he feared that the minotaur's or possibly other monster groups would see through his brutal methods. Even killing a few people wouldn't damper his state of mind because he had the firm belief that he could later revive them and in fact, he already revived the minotaurs killed by Eveline and had imprisoned them in a different location. He couldn't reveal that he had revived them because he simply had no reason other than his own morality to do so. He also couldn't hide them forever but he couldn't let them die or guilt would have eaten at him until there was nothing left.

Each revival required massive amounts of mana, it required about .1% of his personal mana if the fey helped and about .2% without their help. However, if he used the accumulated god energy, it would only take one god energy per person. However, god energy was far too valuable to only use on reviving the dead. There were several methods to obtain god energy, one of the easiest was land expansion for every certain quantity of land he obtained, he would gain one extra god energy per month, another method was to claim a sort of taxes directly from the bodies of his citizens. All living things had mana and citizen could offer mana to their god, that was were the problem lay. There were two forms of mana that existed in a person, that was life mana, life mana was the mana that held a person's soul to their body and their mind. taking that mana was like taking pure mana and was the most valuable form of mana. Life mana did regenerate over time but at a much slower rate than ordinary mana and it would weaken the citizen in question to nearly hospitalization requirements of care. On the other hand was personal mana, personal mana was excess mana that person produced and could therefore be used for personal purposes. This was the mana that gods often took from their citizens, the downside to it was that it came in an un-pure form, the less skilled the citizen was the less valuable there mana was, therefore even of a god who had several hundred thousand citizens, the amount of god energy per month they could amass may only reach a few dozen, most of which would be used for protection from disasters, enemies, food, mass production, and even army training. The larger the nation the higher the production of god energy, but by that same metric, there was a greater consumption of god energy.

This was especially hard on Scitus who had to take less mana then other gods because his citizens need mana to function normally; though as a bonus, monster mana was more naturally more pure than mortal mana so in some ways the god energy production equaled itself out compared to its counterparts but nonetheless he still required a massive amount of god energy to truly form his kingdom.

“right now I’m spending most of our monthly god energy budget on the project we have with the Duergar as well as mass production of food resources. We can’t keep this expenditure forever. If we keep going at this rate, I won't have any god energy left by the start of November." Scitus was currently near the middle of August and what he feared most was the upcoming winter. He had learned from Sia and Seresa that winters in the oasis were even harsher than those in his world. In fact, even summers and springs had their hardships, Scitus had simply been lucky and hadn't experienced a natural disaster. Earthquakes, Tornados, tsunamis, these were only the most basic forms of disasters; the truly frightening disasters usually involved mana. One such disaster was a disaster called the Void twister, it was a massive amount of collected mana that formed a twister-like blue force that sucked the mana out of all things. Everything dies in its wake, monsters turn to shriveled husks, Humans have their life mana sucked clean out of them and without their life mana, their soul, body, and mind are separated, causing mass death. The only bright side to a void-twister was that it moved slowly and could be easily avoided; since their trajectory tended to go in only one direction. This would save lives but not the crops, animals, and trees that remained, all magic buildings would be destroyed, along with any other magical item in its path.

"I need to save some god energy in case such a disaster strikes." Scitus talked to himself wondering what he should do and when and in the most effective method. At that time he had saved up 10 god energy, a large portion of his god energy had already been used to make city improvements and his underground city project which ate a massive quantity of god energy.

"of all those in the Oasis, the yokai may be the only ones willing to work with me." The yokai were a special race that didn't entirely fall under mortal, monster, or fey. They were half creatures, half-monster half-fey, half-monster half-human, or half-fey half-human. they all had unique appearances and were shunned by most of the world as abominations. It was only in the oasis that they found solace, their half-blood status had allowed them freedom in terms of travel, they were not attacked by the other races especially those who had half their blood. Even the godless would sometimes trade with the yokai, though only half-fey half-human yokai. Surprisingly, the yokai could breed but their blood would always be either half-and-half or full-blood. A half-human half-monster could have a full-monster or a full-human child or even another half-child, all depending on their partners. however, full-blood children were incredibly rare and nearly all children were born half-bloods.

“genetically it doesn’t make a lot of sense but perhaps magic has something to do with it. mana alters DNA to allow the birthing process?” Scitus theorized.

“they don’t protection, they certainly don’t food,” Scitus pondered his choices until he finally called upon Sia and asked for her to take him to the yokai region.

The region was of average size compared to the other races but notable the yokai population was slightly larger than average, it extended somewhere between the swamp people territory to bordering the minotaur territory and the lizardfolk territory. Those Minotaur, swamp people, and lizardfolk did not have the best relationship and the yokai territory aced like a buffer and mediator to the west of the yokai territory was the forbidden territory, which they always guarded.

The yokai was the closet thing to a unified nation, roads extended from town to town, small city's that were more similar to towns existed in two separate areas and their towns were bustling and busy with the days work. The people were all different, some were like ghostly phantoms that floated from place to place, others were like monstrous creatures from a child's nightmare and other still appeared completely human except for the notable horns that grew upon their head. Others still appeared to be animals, literal animals, some walking on all fours and others walking upright but Scitus’s surprise it didn’t appear uncanny or terrifying, just a bit strange.

The city was called Maou and its ruler was an ogre-like man by the name of Riu who had ruled over the city for a little over 50 years. Contrast to his appearance, he was boisterous an outgoing, most of the citizens called him kind ogre and everyone liked which is how he had retained position as mayor for so long.

Scitus and Sia were calmly greeted and brought to a waiting room in city hall. After some time a secretary, who had elven ears and cat-like eyes accompanied by a gently flowing tail, came up to them and allowed them to enter Riu's office. Riu was a man as large as his reputation, he stood at an intimating ten feet tall, about as tall as Terra and far bulkier. He was like a solid wall and he appeared strange sitting at his desk writing various things and completing documents. Looking at this Scitus realized that this is the kind of stuff he had been making Seresa do for the past several months "I'll give some time off once this mess is settled with." It wasn't that Seresa worked harder than the others it was simply that her job was tedious and boring, for a girl as playful as her, it was hell.

Riu stood up and shook Scitus and Sia's hands. "welcome my fine city, I hope you are enjoying your stay."

"yes, it's a very lovely place and surprisingly advance despite the hardships in the oasis." Scitus commented. "yes, it took a lot of blood to build this place but we've managed to sustain this place for several generations now." Riu happily said as his two long lower teeth shifted to allow his bright smile to take shape. Scitus took note of the Lower incisors that extended to just over his upper lips. "peculiar" Scitus thought; he couldn't think of an evolutionary advantage for such teeth.

Despite his time in the oasis and learning incomprehensible things he still on occasion attempted to use his knowledge from his world but things did not always line up. It was like doing a math problem the wrong way and still getting the correct answer at the end.

"we've come to make some trade deals." Sia quickly went into the negotiations. Scitus had excellent judgment but he lacked experience and didn't know how to deal with the other races. Sia, however, had spent a good part of her life in the oasis and had learned as much as she good so she could avoid causing trouble. She was powerful indeed but if the entire oasis turned against her, she really would be in trouble, that was not mentioning those shadowy elites whose strength rivaled even her. One such elite existed in the yokai territory, which added to the many reasons no one caused problems for the yokai. They not only had bloodlines that the other races could agree with, but they also had a powerful backer. His name was Tora and had the bloodline of a true dragon and a once-famous Maenad hero from the age of the old gods which at that time was known as The Reclamation Era.

His lineage was strong and rare, among dragons only seven were known to exist. The true gods had prevented powerful fey from being born often. A powerful fey may only be born once every hundred thousand years and it is not always a dragon that is born, sometimes it is a phoenix or even a sphinx or thunderbird. Their life spans are nearly endless and no powerful fey has ever been known to die of old age and only battle has taken the lives of many powerful fey. And who are those that can nearly rival fey? They are heroes, if enough hero's join forces, a dragon could be slain, a prosperous kingdom, destroyed.

However, Hero’s were not unheard of, all great kingdoms have at least one hero in their ranks and at most ten, only the five world empires have more than ten heroes.

Tora was a little over four thousand years old but was still appeared to be a young man in his late twenties, he was older than Terra by more than a thousand years. Unlike Terra who was born after the fall of the monster kingdoms and during the age of the old gods, Tora had lived those final days during the monster era his mother a powerful dragon and his father a mighty hero fighting side by side and reclaiming the once-powerful monster kingdoms for the mortal gods. No one knows exactly what happened afterward but he eventually founded the yokai territory a few decades after the beginning of The New Gods Era, one thousand years ago.

Sia did most of the talking but Scitus would on occasion interject with his own judgment as he couldn't let Sia give too much to the yokai and sometimes he needed to make sure they could afford to make some concessions. After a few days of discussion, the Maou agreed to sell their surplus food to the Kingdom of Monsters the payment was new farming techniques which would benefit Scitus in the long run too and a soldier exchange program of sorts. Scitus would send 10 soldiers to the city and Maou would send 5, this was to build trust, lastly, the food had to be paid with stone as the city was going under construction and they wanted to change the buildings from primarily wood to primarily stonework buildings. Riu wanted to bloom into a true city, the first of its kind in the yokai territory. Although Scitus was reluctant to sell the stone he was gifted by the Duergar, he needed food more than he needed stone and with the Duergar assisting him he wouldn't ever be in too much need of stone. After all, the Duergar were helping Scitus because they believe that given some time, they would obtain heavenly materials, the kind that only kingdoms with gods who enjoy.

They were not wrong, although Scitus and the Duergar did not know it at the time, there was an undiscovered cave nearby with stones that had already condensed mana into themselves and with Scitus's expansion came a revitalization of the mana, it was slowly becoming a mana-stone mine.