After noting down the growth of every leafling, Lucius decided to let them have a rest before they continued.
While they were resting, he began allocating the helios points he had absorbed. From the 623,000 helios he had gained, he allocated 200,000 into growth and used the rest to buy Evo points.
"Only 988,680 more Evo points to go, great," he sighed to himself as he looked at his quests tab.
~Speaking of which, what's up with this new quest? Usually, it's something like 'absorb sunlight', but now...~ he thought, looking at his daily quests.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
─────⋅☾ Daily Quests ☽⋅─────•
<Discover new catalyst> 300 exp
─────⋅☾ Milestone ☽⋅─────•
<Buy 988,680 Evo points> 600exp [Unlock ??? in item shop]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
~New catalyst? Like what? Fertilizer?~ he pondered, before deciding to deal with it after they had found a new camp.
After 30 minutes of resting, Lucius continued the march.
*
The rest of the day carried on without much happening, and soon the sun was beginning to set. Seeing as how the leaflings were still a bit sluggish from their earlier session, he decided to let them rest early today.
After finding a suitable spot in between the shelter of two shrubs, Lucius allowed them to sleep.
"Alpha, get the remaining members of your squad and take up watch," Lucius ordered, noticing that Alpha was still awake, and didn't seem to be in any mood to sleep.
Alpha nodded his leaf in response before shouting orders to his squad mates and disappearing off into the forest.
Another leafling was awake as well, sitting a bit outside the camp on his own.
"Hannibal, come here for a second. I want to tell you a story."
Hannibal turned to look at him, a faraway gleam in his eyes. After a moment, as if thinking it over, he slowly approached Lucius before taking a seat.
"Do you know what food is?" Lucius asked.
"No? I've never heard of that."
"It's something that other creatures need to survive. Without it, they would starve and die. A slow and painful death," Lucius replied, looking up to the sky as if remembering something.
"Now, there was once a leader, exactly like me. His camp was running low on food, and there was only enough left to feed but a few of them."
"Search, and search as they might, they didn't find anymore, and soon the camp was beginning to grow restless," he continued, imagining the scene play out in his mind.
"There were simply too many of them to feed, and not enough food to go around. Soon, a few of them were so starved that they were unable to look for food themselves. They became a liability, that still had to be fed," he said, before stopping to look at Hannibal.
"His people would die if this carried on. So what do you think the leader did?" Lucius asked, looking at Hannibal straight in the eyes.
Hannibal thought for a moment, before slumping his leaf and replying, "He sacrificed the liabilities to save the remaining camp," he whispered.
"He sacrificed the liabilities for the survival of the camp," Lucius repeated with a nod.
"With the remaining food, and the fallen men to act as a supplement, there was now enough to completely satiate the entire camp for a while. And they could continue to hunt for more food."
"With the remaining camp smaller than it was before, it was easier to feed, and hence the food lasted longer."
"However, Hannibal, soon a month passed by, and their food supplies were once again running low."
"There was only enough food left to supply half the camp for a month, and only half of them were capable of searching for more food."
"So what do you think the leader did this time?" Lucius asked, once again turning to Hannibal.
"He sacrificed the half, to save the other half," Hannibal replied, his words choking at his throat.
"He sacrificed one half for the other. And only the effective ones remained," Lucius responded in a faraway tone.
"A few days after the second slaughter, they found a land filled with all different sorts of food. The leader had managed to save a few of his people, and brought them to a paradise."
"A smart leader, who thought of the greater good. Wouldn't you agree?" Lucius asked, dusting himself as he stood up.
Hannibal didn't answer immediately and waited till Lucius was halfway toward the camp.
"Is that the end?" Hannibal whispered.
"No. His men were disgusted at what they had done to survive," Lucius replied, coming to a halt before he continued.
"They whispered things such as 'maybe we could've made it if we just starved a little longer', 'maybe we didn't need to eat our brethren', maybe, maybe, maybe,"
"But the leader knew the truth. He knew that it was the only way."
"However, no one would listen. And despite him having saved them, they killed him and tossed his body far away. Spitting insults at his grave," Lucius said, vile contempt in his tone.
"W-why are you telling me this?" Hannibal asked, his eyes downcast in pure agony.
"Do you think the leader was right? Or do you think that his men were right?" Lucius replied, before walking on to the camp.
"I-I think his men were right," Hannibal replied, his words barely audible.
"Wrong. He was right."
"He knew beforehand that they would do this, but despite that, he did it anyway," Lucius whispered, turning to look at Hannibal.
"Not only was he prepared to give the lives of some of his precious subordinates, he was also prepared to give his own. I didn't have anything in mind when I decided to tell you this story. After all, it's just a story."
"Good night Hannibal," Lucius said finally, before finding a spot amongst the other leaflings and taking a rest.
***
Lucius woke up early the next morning and took over the watch shift from Alpha and his men, to allow them to take a rest as well.
He started the morning with the same routine he had done yesterday. A few pushups, sit-ups, and then stretches.
All in all, he had accumulated 34 points into agility, 23 into strength, and 4 into stamina. However, unlike yesterday, he planned to have a set of more complex movements for his martial arts training.
