Year 142 (continued)

This year, one of my FTC graduates’ class transformed into [Aeonic Lord]. I don’t recall ever seeing any of the nobles obtaining such a class, so, it’s presence was quite a surprise to me. I am able to upgrade a class to its’ aeonic variants, but so far no Lord or noble had ever approached me to do so.

So, rather than be assured, I suddenly felt that all my nobles were not as loyal as I thought they were.

“Perhaps it’s a matter of faith, rather than loyalty.” My artificial minds suggested. “I believe many are loyal, in their hearts, you are their [King]. But not their [God].”

Hmmm...

That’s certainly possible. The mechanisms of faith are not truly understood.

At the same time, I revisited my [Anointed King] class again. If I gave it to him, what would happen? Perhaps the [Aeonic Lord] is an entry level class into the whole path of aeonic-aligned noble classes?

Kraviek, the relatively-young student, was a treefolk noble. It’s appropriate, I suppose, that the treefolks are the first to believe in my divinity. A young sapling in his mid thirties, he was born in the early days of the Freshlands, and grew up in a merchant house in the inner segments, and then later, granted his own territory as his family were one of the pioneer settlers of the outer segments.

The treefolk had been one of the first to embrace my divinity, and so, my artificial minds’ suggestion certainly had a basis.

“Kraviek.” I spoke to the young treefolk Lord, and like all my other aeonic classers, I could sense him very clearly.

He immediately prostrated in the way treefolks always had. “Praise the Tree.” Patreeck’s scan of his memories and thoughts was like flipping through the mind of a zealot. One who believed everything. Faith, and more. “Please, how can I be of service?”

“Well done on achieving your class.” I started with praise. I wanted to know more from the person. “You are the first I know of.”

“You honor me, your holiness.” Holiness? That didn’t seem right. I certainly am not holy.

“I prefer to be referred to as Aeon.”

“Yes, Aeon.”

“Tell me, how do you feel about your new class? What does it do?”

Kraviek was still prostrated on the floor. “My Level 20 [Aeonic Lord] granted me a mix of [Aeonic Weapons] and [Blessed Lands], which supports agriculture, husbandry and forestry.” I see. So the Aeonic Lord is essentially a nature-focused lord, similar to a Druid and Lord. A variant, I suppose, of the druidic Lords.

-

Progress was made on our anti-air research. We’ve developed beetles able to fire thorny projectiles, similar to a mobile anti-air tank. The choice for thorny projectiles, instead of their own body parts is simply because we wanted to amplify the damage dealt, by using anti-demon wooden ballista bolts. So, a battalion of ballista-beetles could carry a load of 3 to 5 anti-demon bolts each, which they could then use to rain death on an army of flying demons.

They would unfortunately be defenseless once they exhausted their anti-demon bolts, but no matter. I was still quite proud of Horns.

This was like a medieval beetle version of a V2 rocket launcher.

If I wanted to make beetles with unlimited ammo, it is possible, but usually that would compromise on their range and their actual damage output. So, if I wanted beetles who could provide long range support with high amounts of damage, separate ammunition from the launcher was a good idea.

After all, I’ve been making anti-demon bolts all this time!

The next matter was an issue of force projection. I am now a continental power, and as a continental power, there will be occasions when I need to project significant force in a particular location. Currently, I can do so by spawning multiple [Giant Attendant Trees], but I believe that’s insufficient.

So, I decided to activate my second [Titan Soul], on the Walker. The idea would be to make the Giant Walker into a mobile anti-air fortress, loaded with all the anti-demon bolts and ballista beetles. That way, I could station it on the Eastern coast, facing the Eastern Continent.

The Walker, I hoped, would be a walking Aegis supercruiser.

At the same time, my [master woodworkers] and [war fletchers] focused on making stronger, more powerful anti-demon bolts. Together with mages, who wove and enchanted the bolts with [flight] and [target-seeking] abilities, these were the magical equivalent of second-generation surface-to-air anti-demon projectiles.

This was a development that started 5 years ago, when we found out about the flying drakes, and has roots in the first anti-demon bolts and spears. Next up, would be to figure out a way to cram more soul-power into it, essentially adding nuclear-tipped weaponry into my arsenal.

The Walker’s corpse, now covered with trees, bushes, vines and animals who lived in it, shook. It’s as if the ground itself broke apart. New trees emerged as the Titan Soul lodged itself in the center of the massive corpse, it’s rejuvenating energy repaired broken limbs and made new ones out of wood and stone.

It took a while, about 3 months for the Titan Soul's energies to imprint itself on the massive building, and then finally, it was ready. When it first rose out of the overgrown forest around it, the entire city was immediately on high alert. They thought a monster had appeared.

We even received requests for help from the nearby kingdoms when they saw the massive tree-covered walker starting to walk.

“Do not engage. That thing is a special-minion of Aeon.”

The massive walker mentally contacted me once it was fully awake. “Walker reporting for duty.”

“Ah yes, I must grant you a name. You shall be Hytreerion. Your first assignment is to walk to Freshka, where you will be outfitted.”

It took about a week for it to walk from the Lilies’ lake to Freshka, guided by my artificial minds. As it was as large as a walker, it had to take a path away from residential centers. Perhaps for my artificial minds, it’s similar to guiding a massive truck.

Once it arrived, I had Hytreerion loaded up with Ballista-Beetles, a massive armory for all the anti-demon bolts and weaponry, and also it needed to be outfitted for habitation. Hytreerion came default with multiple rooms, similar to empty [customisable rooms].

“How many people should be the crew?”

“Demon walkers don’t need crew, why should this need a crew?”

It was slower than a beetle, but it could walk without ever needing rest, so in long distances it would be just a bit faster. But since it needed to detour around habited spaces, it would still take longer to get anywhere.

In the end, after I explained just a few key traits of the walker, the Valthorns eventually developed a crew. There would be at least two upgraded classers, one [Great Druid] and one [Sharpshooter], and a few [Commanders].

Outfitting Hytreerion took a month, and we spawned a special [biolab] in Hytreerion’s back, which allowed the person inside to communicate with Hytreerion and provide navigation guidance. I expect Hytreerion to be mostly guided by my artificial minds, but I had to prepare for the possibility that my communication network could break up should the demon king have a massive jamming ability. After all, it happened once, I’d be a fool not to prepare for it again.

During the process, Hytreerion’s presence was a havoc of it’s own.

The Treetiary College students had a mixed view of my presence, and Patreeck detected multiple messages that spoke of Hytreerion to the rest of the continent. Even though we’re technically on the same side, there’s still a huge amount of suspicion among each other. Some of them were rather factual, a lot were just hyperbole. Some had a mix of worry and suspicion, that I’d somehow managed to create a walker-class creature.

For the Treelogy priests, they were more deferential. They converted one of the customisable rooms into a prayer room, and even asked for a [tree of prayer] to be placed in the walker. They spoke of this as a fact of divinity.

The commoners were just disturbed for a few days, and then they got used to it.

The Valthorns and the Valtrian Order were just busy outfitting the Hytreerion. They got to see it up close, and the ballista beetles that have settled into the tree-towers on Hytreerion’s back.

Once Hytreerion was ready and fully equipped with all the anti-air weapons I can cram in it, it made the slow walk across the continent to the eastern seaboard of the Central Continent. I reckoned that the demons, should they arrive, will come from the east. They were not going to fly a curved path, unless there were islands that they could stop along the way.

-

I continued to experiment on the [Tainted Demon Crystal Core], and I struggled to comprehend it. I could tap into the aspect of the core that was a ‘native’, but I’ve not been able to activate the other part, which was the demonic energies.

“Maybe it’s not a good idea to use it.” I wondered whether using demonic energy was a step too far, in the same league as blood magic. If anything, demonic magic would make me a target for the heroes. The heroes have some kind of demonic-sensing ability, so using demonic mana would instantly flag me.

Still, I’ll deal with that later. Even if just for the knowledge.

-

Small battles broke out during the year, and we captured a few more temple-navies. Some of them just surrendered without a fight, some attacked the cities outright. It was strange, but the navies were getting desperate, and the blockade began to crumble.

As the news of the navies deserting their blockade locations, more kingdoms pulled back their navies.

It happened rather quickly too, and suddenly, there was no blockade anymore.

It ended rather naturally, and didn’t even require any offensive from us. It was a rather big letdown for the young sailors and navies who were itching for a big ‘break-the-blockade’ kind of fight.

I suppose that’s how wars are lost sometimes, the logistics and planning at the back of it crumbled.

Now that the blockade’s over, it’s a lot easier for pirates and merchants to sneak to the other continents. They would have to quickly disguise their ships and attire to fake themselves as locals, but that’s a lot easier than fighting a navy. Some of the ports usually would be willing to turn a blind eye if the right amount of money was paid.

So, news from the other continents trickled in.

It seemed that there were 3 new heroes, all appeared on the Eastern Continent, right in the battlegrounds. They were saved by the temple’s forces, who had been forewarned. Are the gods of the temples the same one that summoned them? I remember having this conversation with Harris, Mirei and Gerrard, and they were not sure. It seemed like there’s some kind of overlap, but it was also possible the gods took different forms with different people.

They are trying to escape though, and that stirred a bunch of rumors about the new heroes being eunuchs or impaired.

-

Then... Lausanne returned. At least, she and her family, plus a lot of others sailed a wooden ship to one of the ports. The ship was in bad shape, but it seemed that their skills somehow allowed them to escape and navigate through the ocean.

Laufen was overjoyed. Everyone close to that group was relieved. I felt relieved too.

At first, when the ship landed, no one knew who they were. But the moment she landed on the shore, the Eastern Coast was filled with my trees, so she was immediately in the range of my telepathic communication. So once I told Jura, a huge convoy of beetles was on the way.

That was when I met little Arlisa. The young one year old half-elf toddler girl. There was something about her that was different, the way her soul seemed to resonate with my spiritual vision so easily.

Was this because of Lausanne’s overlong exposure to my energies and the familiar? The second generation was therefore more adapted to it?

Why was I even thinking of it from an evolutionary angle? Maybe she really just was special, and was born with a special gift, like how Indra had his gift, that gave me this vision.

‘Tree.’

It wasn’t a voice. But more of a thought.

‘TreeTree.’ Arlisa could respond to me telepathically even though she’s only slightly more than one. I thought that was way too early.

“Uh... your daughter...”

“She’s cute, right?” Lausanne smiled, and she introduced Arlisa to her grandmother. Laufen was just overwhelmed. She’s been away for years and now she came back with a kid? What’s she supposed to think?

“Why didn’t you contact us?”

“I couldn’t. All the normal communication lines were interrupted, and my flying birds kept getting attacked by the drakes.”

For the rest of the crew, we offered them hospitality in the port city. They were in a continent that was said to be cursed, at least for the past 10 years, so they had a lot of preconceptions to adjust to. Most of them were just massively surprised to see normal people, instead of mutants.

For Lexi, Ardi, Lausanne and Arlisa, they were on a convoy of beetles back home.

“I’m going to stay put for a while.” Lausanne said.

“You’re only staying put because you have a daughter.” Laufen teased her.

“Well... maybe that’s true.” Lausanne shrugged. Once back, Lausanne soon told me about what she learned from the heroes, and her time in the Eastern Continent. There were parts she omitted, but she was not aware of Patreeck’s abilities, so I soon learned of her house arrest by the Aivan church, and her subsequent contract of ‘community service’.

The heroes were handicapped. They would take a while before they are even able to kill the demon king.

All this pointed to one thing.

Why is the demon king not more aggressive? This sort of circumstance should result in an aggressive demon king. Unless something resulted in it not being able to do so?

Did the earlier generation of heroes almost win, that the demon king is still recovering?

Or, are the demons programmed to just go to sleep even if it did win? If so, what is the point of this conflict then?

More importantly, why did the god even give the new heroes a ‘handicap’? They must have weighed their chances, and the gods must know something. Is the demon king unable to move for the next one year, that’s why the gods do this?

Or is the handicap just an outcome of the 2nd time summoning within a short period? I wished I could ask more, but Lausanne’s knowledge only went so far. Maybe even the heroes don't know the answer. But the gods must know about the handicap, so the fact that they went ahead with it meant they knew the chances of survival are decent.

> The new heroes have a handicap, know why? < Lilies was one of those I asked.

Puzzling.

-

I had Lausanne's daughter, Arlisa tested in the biolab, the young toddler was turning 2, and I wanted to know what made her able to respond to me telepathically.

As I dived into the young child's soul, I noted it was still unformed, there was a small spring in the middle without any bricks around it. The shores were still shifting and moving.. This was normal for young children, I recall Lausanne herself was unformed at that age. Then, I noticed a little green crystal right in the spring.

[Inherited Aeonic Compatibility (hereditary - 2 generations) - Skill transforms into [Blessed by a Soul Tree] if conditions met, or will be lost.]

[Inherited Skills - (locked) - will transform to new skills on maturity]

"If Lausanne's able to pass on skills, Master, I believe Jura and Laufen may be able to pass on skills too." Patreeck said. "Given Jura's level and his unlocked soul, it would be highly likely that he can pass on a good number of skills."

Uh.

"We should also consider those with the upgraded classes like Edna, Faris, whether their descendants will have inherited skills. If we can merge their skills with those from the nobles, it would create individuals of extremely high potential."

Yes, yes. But why doesn't everyone have inherited skills? Everyone has their own parents, and their parents all must be of a certain level. Surely there must be some condition.

And why was this the first time I’ve seen a hereditary skill? I’ve heard of it from Patreeck and the nobles, but surely, I’ve seen so many Valthorns and so many others... Or do all the hereditary skills transform into a regular skill once they hit a certain age, or just disappear? If they all transformed, perhaps I’ve been looking at them when they were older, and the hereditary skills by then, already transformed into something else.

Or am I looking in the wrong place? Or perhaps, like my soul forge, I needed a different ‘lense’ to view them?

“Anyone else has Blessed By a Soul Tree?”

Patreeck immediately came up. “Based on the last checkup of the Valthorns, there are six others who possess the skill. But their blessing is only the basic level, not like Lausanne’s advanced blessing.”

Ah. Problems of an empire, I’ve delegated most of the [biolab]’s scanning to my artificial minds. But I can’t be mentally everywhere at once, even if I sort of am everywhere, physically.

“I want to observe all the Valthorns and upgraded classers’ children. This includes nobles. I want to know how this hereditary skill thing works.”

“Glad you finally agree, master.”

“I’m not agreeing. I’m just analysing.”