Chapter 179 Scheming
“What?! You’ve been inside the Sun temple, and you actually spoke to these foreign races?!” Oliver shouted out in excitement, feeling that each of Dilan’s words sounded next to impossible.
He had been a nerd in the past, which was why his hand was trembling in excitement at the thought of talking to a foreign race.
Oliver wanted to rush over and have a word with them as well but it was his good fortune to have Ailee by his side.
She held him back, forced him to stay put, and to keep listening to Dilan’s report.
Dilan had returned not too long ago. He had ordered the others to call everyone over, including Old Jeff, Williams, Kathrine, and others, who had been working outside the hospital.
He didn’t say anything else and waited patiently before everyone had arrived.
Most information he spoke about was rather nice to listen to but the anger and frustration in Dilan’s eyes made it clear that there was something he had yet to reveal.
Ailee’s discomfort increased the more Dilan spoke.
And exactly as she had expected, Dilan began to speak about the slaves once he had reported everything about the Sacred Shop, the deal he made with the Priestess, and other miscellaneous things.
“They…enslaved the races they’ve conquered? Well, this is actually not something uncommon to do in the Era of the middle ages. Didn’t you expect that Dilan?”
Neither Williams, Sven nor Xenia were actually surprised about the fact that the survivors of the defeated races were enslaved.
“Rather than annihilating entire races after they had been defeated, it is actually better to make use of them.
This is even more so the case if the beings of the defeated races are more proficient in certain fields of work than their own race.
You could learn a lot, have cheap laborers, and gain a lot. So, I cannot really find fault with their behavior. I’m sorry…”-.
Sven sounded truly apologetic to Dilan. He could not tell why it was necessary to apologize but Sven felt that it was necessary.
Dilan’s expression looked bad enough to make his own people fear his reaction. This was certainly not good and clearly showed his stance toward slavery and bondage.
It also showed the others that Dilan’s past may not have been as rosy as some thought it was.
In fact, Dilan didn’t have anything to say in response. After conquering a territory, it made sense to take charge of the people, who had not fought in the war. To ensure their loyalty and to prevent them from rebelling, using ancient magic to subdue and enslave them seemed logical.
One could even say that it was the most efficient and cheapest way to ensure a large, loyal labor force at their disposal that would never dare to usurp them.
But even if that was the case, Dilan couldn’t think that it was correct.
‘Is life better while being enslaved, or is it better to die?’
Dilan was actually not sure about the correct answer. If the slaves were treated properly, without too many restrictions except for being loyal to their master, staying alive might be worthwhile.
However, Dilan was having an internal conflict with himself because he didn’t want to acknowledge that enslaving someone was humane.
His mind was rattling wildly, enlarging the mess in his mind.
But Dilan knew that there was no point in breaking his head over the slavery topic. It was not as if he had enslaved someone, or that he thought of doing something stupid and reckless just because the Sun temple had enslaved a few races.
The Sun Temple was mighty enough to enslave beings at Tier-3, meaning that they could easily restrict Tier-3 beings and engrave the enslaved with ancient magic.
For now, the Sun temple in the Shikan plains didn’t have these capabilities, and the Eternal Guards he saw were the strongest existences in the temple but it didn’t mean that this would always stay the same.
“We have to become stronger, much faster!” Yvonne suddenly exclaimed. She was seated next to her sister and would prefer to stay quiet and observe everything around her instead.
In fact, she officially joined the leader meetings only after advancing to Tier-1.
Given her occupation and the speed with which she improved, it was impossible not to include her in the gatherings. Her strength was something the entire group required, and the same could be said about the others.
“Yes, we need to become stronger. That’s why I want to use the Sacred Shop to our advantage.” Dilan had calmed down a little bit and nodded his head while agreeing to Yvonne’s words.
They wouldn’t be able to enter Tier-2 in the following nine days, but he was certain that they could procure enough corpses to fulfill the quota mentioned by Brashta.
18,000 Bronze Tier-1 corpses should be equal to more or less 30,000 Sacred points.
And that was after allowing his Ascenders to absorb the sacrificed monster’s Essence crystals.
30,000 Sacred points were more than enough to purchase dozens of powerful ability crystals, even more, if they chose ungraded, or Tier-0 abilities with few stars.
However, in that case, they would have to upgrade them, which might or might not be a problem.
‘I have yet to find out the upgrade requirements for [Thunder Step]. If we purchase powerful Tier-0 ability crystals but cannot upgrade them, it will be a big mess as well…’
For now, the issue Dilan had in mind was actually not much of a problem. They had yet to procure enough Sacred points and think about what everyone in their group actually needed to improve at a faster rate.
Would it be better to provide the low-leveled Tierless Ascenders with powerful abilities to allow them to improve much faster, or was it necessary to further strengthen their best warriors?
Those were important questions that had to be answered…but only in the future.
For now, there was something else that had to be solved.
“How do you plan for us to improve faster? What should we do to meet the monster corpse quota you just mentioned?” Sven was a little bit doubtful if they would be able to even find that many Tier-1 monsters in Rian.
That was what made him feel was the reason for Dilan to venture in the Shikan plains. This would make it easier to transport the corpses to the Sun temple as well.
However, Dilan merely smiled as he revealed what had been on his mind.
He threw the Penta Item Pouch at Sven without saying anything.
Several seconds of utter silence passed before everyone could see Sven’s baffled expression.
“Since when?…How?”
Sven was not even able to ask proper questions but Dilan knew what he wanted to say.
“I got it by chance when I exchanged 50 Bronze Tier-1 Essence crystals at the large gate within the Krendel’s Underground Valley.”
Dilan had forgotten to tell Sven and the others about the Penta Item Pouch before. Only now did he tell them but this was quite good as well.
The timing was perfect, which was why his smile turned even brighter when he added,
“I don’t know if anyone noticed this already but I got Mira a new ability crystal as well. The new ability was a Tier-0 ★★★★★ ability, which I also obtained in exchange for 50 Bronze Tier-1 Essence crystals at the large Gate within the Krendel’s Underground Valley!”
Dilan kept smiling even after he finished speaking, while Williams and the others took the Penta Item Pouch from Sven to figure out what shocked him so much.
Williams knew how hard it was to actually shock Sven, which was why he had been the first to move.
And as expected, the information about the Penta Item Pouch was truly shocking.
“Is that real?! It might only be able to store a total of five items, but you can actually stack them one above another! This can be described as a highly effective storage space. Oh my lord!!”
Williams was even more shocked than Sven. Thus, for a minute everyone was baffled and their eyes flicked to Dilan as if he was a treasure trove.
“So…that is your plan?” Sven asked after a while, to which Dilan only nodded his head without saying a word.
“How about you tell us your plan as well? I won’t get younger the longer you make us wait…” Old Jeff was intrigued by the Penta Item Pouch and was curious to know how it had been created but Dilan’s expression was even more intriguing because it looked like he planned to suck the Sun God’s Temple dry.
It might have been shocking that the Sun Temple belonged to a true God but it was not as if the Sun God had actually descended on Milarn.
As such, with Dilan in front of them, everything revolving around the Sun God’s Temple seemed far less impressive.
“You plan to make us focus on hunting Bronze Tier-1 monsters to sacrifice their corpses while we exchange their Essence crystals with Bronze Tier-1 treasures at the large Gate, right?” This time, it was Kathrine, who had spoken.
She had kept quiet for quite a while. Her mind had been in a similar mess, simply because the danger of the Ligrav and Rasnian race was much higher than what she had hoped for.
They were not a new race but had already annihilated several races, a total of six races had been enslaved, and they had the support and backing of a true God.
Once it was possible for them to transport higher Tiered individuals of their race to Milarn, they might be annihilated in an instant with the emergence of an inferno.
Despite her earlier worries, Kathrine felt that she knew what Dilan’s plan was, which was why she straightaway asked her doubts when Old Jeff wanted to know about his plan.
“Kathrine is mostly right. I want to assemble an Elite Combat Unit and want everyone else here, except Old Jeff, and Bianne to join me to go hunting for the following nine days.
I want us to focus on increasing our stats and level while putting aside the Essence crystals that won’t provide any additional stat points. A group of the Porter Unit will bring the monster corpses to the Sun temple to sacrifice them. I’m the only one, who is rewarded with Sacred points, either way, so I’ll receive the points from all the sacrifices made by the human Ascenders in the surrounding area.
As Kathrine mentioned, the leftover Bronze Tier-1 Essence crystals will be exchanged with Bronze Tier-1 treasures in the hopes of procuring more abilities and Penta Item Pouches to increase the hunting efficiency.”
Dilan finished his explanation rather simply. In his opinion, his plan was not actually difficult.
The only problem was to appoint fresh leaders of the subunits because it was not feasible to prevent the strongest people in his group to focus on management tasks.
They should focus on increasing their strength, not their management skills.
And that was why they had to work hard on finding a way to reform their group and re-assign their responsibilities.
Several hours passed by and Dilan got to know many Survivors he had never seen before. They had been praised by Williams, Kathrine, Ailee, and the others, and been told to showcase their capabilities, whether it was team management, martial art knowledge, and so on.
Thus, the group was once again reformed, and sub-leaders, along with the management team below the sub-leaders and so on were shuffled.
Slowly, but steadily, Dilan’s group turned into a real community that began to work like a well-oiled machine instead of an old and rusty machine.
Dilan liked what he saw, which was why he couldn’t help but forget about his worries for a few seconds.
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