∼ Day 132 ∼

The procession of thousands upon thousands of various races and caravans caused quite a stir amongst the wildlife of the Ebonwoods. Before, those ferocious and fearsome beasts roaming the untamed woods dared not approach the road, and now, they outright fled far, far away.

Not only the number of monsters making up the spectacle was more than enough to scare off the creatures that go bump in the night, but the sheer power emanating from certain individuals more than drove home the message to any still opportunistic predators.

Watching the veritable sea of newly recruited monsters for our settlement, I could only shake my head in disbelief. Although I had expected a great many to join us on our trip back home, this was way out of anywhere my estimations may have laid before initially coming to Ebongrave.

Catching Mia's coy smirk from the corner of my eye, I tugged the mental leash on the feline beast I was riding to playfully bump into her's. I was about to indulge myself in some conversation with her, but the steady patting of a pair of mounts to my side catching up to ride alongside me caught my attention.

"Maldrak..." I sighed.

"You can't avoid me forever," He merely chuckled, clearly unfazed by my exasperation. "I merely wish to - converse a bit with you."

"Uhuh," I droned out dubiously. "Surely, it is not because that you wish to piggyback on the recent success I've found myself enjoying."

"Well, you certainly can't fault someone for taking advantage where one has played their hand," Maldrak grinned, revealing more of his ivory tusks. "Besides, I do not believe that having my help is something detrimental. After all, you haven't shunned my back to my dreary domain as of yet."

"Yet," I emphasized with a pointed look.

As a pause accompanied the background noise of the caravan and monsters conversing, I looked over Maldrak's large form atop his large warg to also glance at Melane's figure. Catching my gaze, she simply cast me a devilish grin, her face and mannerisms almost identical to that of her father's.

"Riddle me this; why is it that a king of millions of subjects, lording over a city of colossal proportions wish to simply abandon it for... what? To join some stranger in his escapades to places unknown?" I asked.

"A king, but one of ants," He corrected, a frown managing to find its way onto his face.

"But a king nonetheless." I countered.

He let out an exhaustive sigh.

"Xavier, do not take me for a fool. We both know exactly why I am here and offering you my support." He paused to meet my gaze, the calm tone of his voice revealing the bare truth of his words. "You're anything but normal, simply not one of ordinary and mediocre destiny like most other monsters who live to be slaughtered by those with far greater potential.

"I would have to be blind to not realize that fact by now, and so would others. While I might very well not provide much to the table far down the road, I'm a very strong ally to have in this very moment where you're still short on sufficiently powerful allies to help you grow, let alone someone with the experience of ruling the masses. You're going to need all the help you can get if you're to face what lays before you, and I'm offering you that help and guidance."

He paused, glancing towards Melane with a gentle smile.

"I only have two desires in this world, to fully realize the potential that I myself bear, and to protect the one thing that drives me forward in pursuit of that goal. My daughter."

Although I hadn't expected anything else, him voicing those words did prove to help me assuage my preconceptions about anything regarding that blasted city and the time I spent there.

Using my promise to meet and speak with him, Maldrak had essentially hitch-hiked himself and his daughter onto the caravan of recruits back to the settlement. He wished to see if it were possible for us to work something out between us.

While there was the glaring flag of him being a powerful individual with millions of greenskins at hand, I didn't worry all that much about bringing him back to the settlement. It wasn't like he could mobilize even close to that many greenskins, let alone get them across weeks upon weeks of travel through deadly and unforgiving lands as the city was anything but cohesive like a true monster society like Ebongrave.

Maldrak himself did pose a threat though, but then again, I had confidence in my power ever since undergoing to massive changes I had. So coupled with the genuine sincerity I was able to read from the ambitious but fatherly man, I was not worried.

"Fine," I sighed, but not hiding the small smile on my lips. "But it's going to be a long ride, make sure those old bones of yours don't give out halfway now."

Launching into a lengthy talk of discussions and the occasional banter, I found myself surprisingly enjoying Maldrak's company. Although the conniving old man pulled the rug out from under me more times than I wanted to admit, I hadn't had the opportunity to really converse with such another like-minded individual.

Maybe he was a good fit after all.

Only time will tell...

***

The last few days had been long and tedious, but we made it out of the Ebonwood unmolested. Not that it was much of a surprise then again. There was some brief in-fighting amongst the recruits, but it was just the typical scuffle that you'd find anywhere where there were multiple types of individuals sharing different ideologies and traits.

But that did bring my mind to a certain subject that I hadn't touched much upon since sitting up the bulletin in the recruitment market. We had been strongly advised against taking in too much diversity of races, so we narrowed it down quite a bit. Primarily, it was greenskins, trollkin, a curious race of very intelligent and inventive creatures that looked like pale and long-eared goblins, and lastly a specific grouping of beastkin that leaned towards the more docile and less territorial side of the races as some of that kind could easily bring a whole heap of trouble when allowed to go unchecked with those feral and wild natures of theirs.

There were the occasional oddballs though with a spattering of the same kin seeing as we couldn't really be picky when it came to getting the best craftsmen and such as they came in rather diverse races, including their families.

Although we had kept the diversity to a minimum, I still needed to be careful and have certain groups monitor and make sure that too much friction didn't occur within my ranks. Quite evident from the scene from just yesterday when a group of trolls accosted those pale-skinned goblins for tricking them into losing their food through gambling where they had essentially scammed the somewhat slow-minded trolls.

Looking around, I stretched my travel-weary back. We had set up camp right outside the Ebonwoods, and everybody was in high spirits after escaping the seemingly endless monotony of trees that was the stretch from Ebongrave to the Lowlands. By now, most of the preparations, tents, and food were finished, so many were now merely enjoying each other's company.

From the many bonfires and torches liting up a large swathe of land from the tens of thousands gathered here, I smiled. It was a pleasant sight.

It didn't take me long before I had made myself over to the bonfire where most of the leadership and powerful individuals of this gathering were. Which was not limited to Bob, Mia, Maldrak and his daughter, various master smiths and craftsmen, and so on. I could surprisingly enough already see many of those exact blacksmiths arguing with each other over who was best suited to craft some armor for Bob.

While I had been initially surprised at their initiative from their previous arrogance and aloof attitude towards us, it made sense after remembering that any blacksmith or craftsman worth their tools wanted the products of their hard labor and effort to be worn by the best and strongest of fighters.

And Bob was about as fierce as they come, let alone his obvious potential to grow into something much more powerful than he already was.

Having nothing better to do, I pulled up my status and skill list to once again look over what had changed.

-Status!-

Status

Information Attributes

Traits, Titles, and Skills -Name- "Xavier Tal'chor" STR 35 ⇒ 36 Skills 21 ⇒ 19 -Race- Strigoi (Blood Fiend) VIT 152 ⇒ 155 Traits 9 -Sex- Male AGI 104 ⇒ 105 Titles 4 -Rank- D+ DEX 38 ⇒ 39 Skill Points 1 ⇒ 16 -Level- 27/50 INT 38 Resistances

Health 1372/1372 CHR 37 Physical Resistance 29 ⇒ 32 Stamina 362/362 WILL 55 ⇒ 56 Magical Resistance 30 ⇒ 33 Mana 425/425 MAG 124 ⇒ 126 Mental Resistance 32 ⇒ 33

-Skill list!-

Skill list Name Tiers LVL -Codex- 4 2/20 ⇒ 3/20 -Dominion Mastery- 4 1/20 -Blood Plague- 3 6/15 -Blood Lord- 4 1/20 -Blitz- 3 1/15 ⇒ 5/15 -Imbue Rake- 3 9/15 ⇒ 14/15 -Ambrosial Senses- 3 6/15 ⇒ 8/15 -Greater Mana Mending- 3 1/15 -Onyx Body- 3 8/15 ⇒ 13/15 -Mana Control- 3 10/15 ⇒ 12/15 -Stealth- 3 5/15 ⇒ 10/15 -Formation Constructs- 4 1/20 -Blood Conversion- 1 5/5 -Blood Born- 3 9/15 ⇒ 12/15 -Lesser Eldritch Vitality-

3 9/15 ⇒ 11/15 -Shadow Manifestation- 3 8/15 ⇒ 12/15 -Stygian Transformation- 3 4/15 -Mana Condensation- 3 5/15 ⇒ 8/15 -Synergize- 1 1/1 Although nothing major had changed about my attributes and such, mostly the increases being from training and consuming the occasional meal of powerful blood; not also including the effects some skills had on my body passively, the greatest change had occurred for my skills.

I had not only cleared a lot of room for more with only nineteen skills taking up space, but I had also massively increased levels and advanced a couple into extremely powerful fourth-tier skills.

But what really was the focus of my attention was the fact that I had more than enough space cleared up on my skill list, and I had some skill points saved up.

I had made sure to keep an eye on the Skill Shop listings as they had a tendency to change whenever I myself did, so while many old skills had been shifted out, others had come into the picture.

And one such exact skill had captured my attention for quite some time.

Skill shop Skills Name Type Cost Requirement -Greater Elemental Resistance- Defensive 15 Exposure to higher energies / Resistances - 25 Grants greatly enhanced resistance towards any type of elemental damage or influence.

After great consideration, the main things I should be thinking of improving were either my capacity and generation of mana or the durability of my physical body.

My mana was essentially taken care of by Mana Condensation that continually was empowering my mana, so I had been eyeing this resistance skill. Mostly because while my vitality was continuing its outrageous trajectory towards endless regeneration, the actual durability of my body had fallen short.

After all, my regeneration wasn't going to do much if my head was blown apart from one power attack. Besides, I had already planned for this skill to be assimilated into Onyx Body, so it would hopefully create an even more powerful all-in-one defensive skill as it would undoubtedly have very good fusion compatibility with each other.

I needn't further consideration.

-Greater Elemental Resistance!-

[Skill - Greater Elemental Resistance has been added to the skill list!]