As he was about to start working on a few axes, and other common tools he would need around his new smithing lab, he sensed two presences approaching.
~Alpha and... Zhayen,~ he thought to himself without so much as taking his eyes off the work he was doing.
That was the level his earth sense had now reached. Not only could he tell the threat level of the beings he was sensing, but he could tell other things now as well. For instance what size they were, how much energy they were carrying, and if he focused a little more, what kind of mood they were in.
Even though his earth sense could sort of tell all this before he had started making more progress towards evolution, it wasn't as pronounced and would've required him to spend unnecessary time trying to figure these things out.
~Wait, earth sense, that's it,~ he thought to himself, walking towards the curtain that acted as a door to his room, before drawing it for his two guests.
"Alpha, I found a way for you to see," he said as Zhayen led Alpha through the door by his hand.
Even though Lucius had basically predicted they would be there, Zhayen didn't seem at all shocked by this. It seemed seeing Alpha's insane workout had made him immune to whatever 'mystical' powers Lucius could display.
"W-What?" Alpha stuttered in disbelief, moving his hands around in the air -as if trying to feel out where Lucius was.
"Here," Lucius said, grabbing Alpha's hand before guiding him towards the center of the room where the two sat down.
Although what he was about to tell Alpha was basically a commune secret, he supposed that letting Zhayen sit around wouldn't be too dangerous. After all, the child was still anti-social towards everyone else, and he was basically on a sort of apprenticeship trial run for the commune anyway -since he had been disowned by his den.
"How well can you use your earth sense?" Lucius asked.
Alpha took a moment to think about this, and from the way his mouth was moving he seemed to realize what Lucius was onto.
Though after a few more moments, the smile that had been creeping up his face suddenly disappear, and he slump his head in defeat.
"I can only tell that there are others in this room with me, but that's all. I can't even discern the difference between the two of you," Alpha replied.
This sort of made sense, since Alpha was still one evolution behind Lucius. And there was also the matter of Lucius being a guardian that might've increased his earth senses ability.
However, if he could get Alpha to evolve, and perhaps have him train using his earth sense to a proficiency that even Lucius himself hadn't reached yet, perhaps he might become even stronger than he was before. After all, there were limits to how well Lucius could use earth sense due to his reliance on vision- whereas Alpha had no such limitations.
Of course, there was no fix for the loss of his arm, but with training, he could become proficient at using one arm as well.
~At the rate I absorb sunlight right now, one full session should be enough. But the problem is the logistics of it all,~ he thought to himself.
They could only absorb sunlight on the surface, and although he had no doubt he could get Alpha out of the dark forest, and into the clan lands, the issue of the location of his evolution pod arose.
He wasn't certain if he could move the pod, much less how it would do without contact to sunlight during the process. He didn't want to risk having something bad happen because he had been too hasty.
~Maybe if I build a small base for him on the surface?~ he thought to himself. He could run all his operations from there, though that would mean he'd have to go with the warriors that had been stationed to him.
And there was still a clear risk that one of the undead had noticed movement to and fro the den, so in the event that they were attacked he wouldn't be here to help them.
~So it'll have to wait until I'm finished with this,~ he thought to himself, before looking at the spearheads he had crafted.
If he could actually craft magic weapons, then that ought to be enough for the Zeldraves to defend themselves. Or at least fend off any attackers until Lucius could arrive -as he would have to do daily security checks to ensure nothing happened to them.
"Alpha, just give me a few days, and I'll take you to the surface to have you evolve. Your earth sense's sensitivity should increase by a great amount after that. But for now, train to make use of what you have. Earth sense is like a limb, the more you use it, the stronger it'll become," he explained to Alpha.
"T-Thank you, captain, I'll do my best," Alpha said after a moment of silence, his face a bit brighter than before.
Whereas anyone else would've been disappointed by this, Alpha took it with determination.
"Before I go, can you tell me a bit about the Buri- Bushi-" Alpha mumbled.
"Bushido code," Lucius corrected with a smile, before telling him a bit of what he knew.
He briefly told him about the eight virtues of the bushido code, and gave a few more examples of famous samurai he knew of.
He even told a few anecdotes about how they went about their day upon Alpha's request - it seemed he was bent on completely immersing himself in the role.
All the while Zhayen listened on as well. In fact, the child seemed more interested in this than any of the spells Lucius had cast in front of him.
After around 2 hours of chatting, and even sharing a few laughs at some of the odd things samurai sometimes did, Alpha left to his room to digest what he had learned. Zhayen offered to guide him back, but Alpha insisted that he walk back by himself.
Of course, this didn't turn out well, as his earth sense was still very weak, but Zhayen helped guide him in the right direction when he was struggling for too long.
~It's good that Zhayen seems to like Alpha,~ Lucius thought to himself. Not only because he was worried about Alpha being alone all this time, but also because he wanted to work without the child distracting him.
*
