"Anyway, we'll be doing this at the same time every day from now on. The goal of this isn't only to increase your stats, but to ingrain some battle instincts into your minds," Lucius explained as the three of them lay on the ground completely exhausted.
"You two remember the necromancer and his undead horde right?" he asked, looking towards Hannibal and then Alpha, both of whom replied with an exhausted nod.
"Now that you guys are powered up, we have a chance at dealing with them. But first, we need to whittle down their forces, which will require both of you to be at least on par with Pagan," he continued explaining.
"Additionally, we are also going to take part in a tournament of sorts. This will be our chance to gain a few allies, and perhaps resources we wouldn't otherwise have access to. But that's on the basis that we prove we are worth allying with," he said, before pulling out his system shop and giving Alpha the Elmando skill.
"Practice using it in your free time."
"And don't fail me," he finished before leaving.
"Sometimes I think Lucius hates us," Hannibal whispered, to which Alpha replied with a grunt.
"Losers don't get to talk, especially if it's about the Lighted One," Pagan said before healing himself.
*
It was currently close to mid-afternoon, and the camp seemed fairly active. For some reason the little shrooms were walking back and forth, carrying small bits of meat to and fro a particular building.
Lucius followed them, and found that they were coming from the 'First-beast's quarters'.
"Oi, look, it's the crazy creature," the insectoid said, before scurrying towards Lucius, its mouth completely covered with food remains.
The arachnid baby was currently stuffing its mouth and didn't even pay it any mind.
"Watch this, all I have to do is run around and shout random words and it'll be happy," the insectoid continued, before scurrying around Lucius shouting "crazy creature" over and over again.
~So that's what exipor means,~ Lucius thought to himself.
"What a simple-minded creature... well at least it's powerful, I'll give it that," the insectoid said, before giving Lucius one last up and down and going back to its meal.
"Why are you guys feeding them so much food?" Lucius asked as one of the little shrooms came into the room, still, a little amused by the insectoid's... unique personality.
"The First beast requested we feed it," one of the shrooms replied in a squeaky voice.
"And how did you figure that?"
"It kept clinging on to us, and chasing us around... it only does that when it's hungry," the shroom explained.
"Sigh, so it's bullying kids now?" Lucius sighed, before going to grab the arachnid. The arachnid shrieked as it was lifted from its food.
"Oi, enough of that," Lucius said, pointing a finger at the creature. It continued shrieking for a moment, before looking at Lucius with almost innocent eyes, like a child begging for mercy.
"Nope, it seems I need to put you on a training regiment as well," he said. Though the creature did not understand what Lucius was saying it could tell that it was in trouble.
"Yeah, the crazy creature does is like this sometimes..." the insectoid said in between mouthfuls. "No respect I tell you..."
"We ought to teach it who's boss... though you can go first. I don't really feel like doing all that right now," it continued, before almost choking on its food.
"You too," Lucius said, looking towards it, and for a moment he felt something weird happening to his voice.
[Words harmonized.]
"What? Wait, did it just speak?" the insectoid asked in shock, before looking at Lucius with an incredulous gaze.
"Take these two to the training grounds and tell Alpha to have them do a few exercises," Lucius ordered, turning to one of the kid shrooms.
"As you wish Lighted One."
"It must've been my imagination," the insectoid said in relief before going back to its food.
"If you don't follow them, I'll kick you out of the camp," Lucius said, turning back to the insectoid, and once again his voice changed.
"Wait! You can talk!? For how long?" the insectoid asked, a more submissive tone to its voice.
"I got the 'Crazy creature' part if that's what you're wondering," Lucius replied as he was about to leave the building.
"Hehe, the child can't even understand me. It's just a little joke," the insectoid explained, rubbing its front legs together.
"Just follow the shrooms. By the way, I want to talk to you later," Lucius replied, before leaving.
"I think I made it mad," the insectoid whispered to itself with a gulp.
*
After getting a bit of meat from what Lucius assumed was the 'kitchen' building of the internal camp, he set off for the arachnid cave.
Apparently, Asclepius had found a way to enhance the effect of scent-covering herbs, so the smell of meat would not attract hunters to the camp. He had to admit, his investment in her was slowly paying off.
However, before Lucius went to his destination, he wanted to take a quick look at how far the necromancer had invaded. He had avoided checking earlier out of fear it might've prepared for his return, and found some way to follow him back to the camp.
But with the marked tree, the 8 pillars, and Hannibal, Pagan and Alpha now evolved, he doubted the necromancer could penetrate to the center.
~Its only moved a few meters?~ Lucius thought to himself as he looked down at the decayed forest floor from high atop one of the trees. It would seem that there was a line of the undead standing guard over the outermost decayed parts, though their numbers seemed a little small compared to what he had seen earlier.
~What's going on? Are they facing some problems?~ Lucius thought to himself before it hit him.
The decay extended towards the dark forest from here, and if his memory was correct, the necromancer's undead horde had been carrying dead creatures from there as well. What if some force was drawing the necromancer's attention?
Perhaps a few dark forest clans had realized that the necromancer was a threat.
~I figured that this would happen... though I wonder how much of its forces it has redirected to deal with this threat,~ Lucius thought to himself, before sneaking deeper into the decayed part of the forest.
