Ben trekked out into the middle of nowhere and found a large valley that would work for what he had planned. He climbed down into the valley and created a huge concrete and rebar pad. The concrete pad was 100 feet x 100 feet and 10 feet thick. He designed so it could support a tremendous amount of weight.
In the center of the pad, he took out his sculpting tools and began to chisel out a recruit formations that he had memorized from the Stables, Circus, and Barracks. These three interlinking formations were also socketed with slots to hold Origin Crystal used to power them huge amounts of Mana and Qi.
When it was complete Ben had Athena connect a custom recruitment menu to the connecting formations to give him the same options he would be allowed to use in the Barracks and Stables.
The creatures Ben planned to create would be too large to be made inside of the Ground Forces Barracks. This is why he traveled here into the wilderness to make this open-air recruitment formation.
Before he began recruiting he went around the outside of the valley and used his Tunnel Tool to make large multi-roomed burrows to temporarily house variously sized creatures. Ben also built cow, pig, sheep, and deer ranches in the valley.
The ranches were set to not slaughter the animals when they matured. Ben even removed the fences surrounding the ranches to allow the animals created at the ranches to freely roam around the valley.
At the top of the valley, Ben then built a wooden wall surrounding the valley to keep the ranch animal from wandering away.
Lastly, he walked back down into the valley and built four Medium Military Camps. These four camps would allow him to house 6272 troops in them.
[Medium Military Camp]: A square camp that contains 392 small wooden shacks. Each wooden shack can sleep, four soldiers. The camp is surrounded with a wooden palisade wall. The palisade wall has a wooden tower on each corner and a wooden gate in the center of each wall. [Houses: 1568 units] [Costs: 500g] [requires: 2000 units of wood]
[This camp can be built anywhere outside of your build zone and can be deconstructed]
Now that he had a temporary location to hold the new creatures he wanted to recruit it was time to get to it.
First Ben began by creating a War Elephant template. The template Elephant was designed to be much larger than a normal elephant but it still had its standard characteristics.
[War Elephant]: Elephants are the largest land animals on Earth. They have characteristic long noses, or trunks; large, floppy ears; and wide, thick legs. A War Elephant is an Elephant trained to be driven by a master and to attack as directed during battles. War Elephants are armored and their tusks sheathed and bladed. A War Elephant outfitted with armor and weaponry is truly a foe to be reckoned with. A Charging War Elephant is a terror to behold. They can stomp and gore enemies while the soldiers riding them wield bows and spears.
He held off on actually making any elephants for now and moved on to make a new template. This one would be for a [DIre Tiger] which are similar to a Saber Tooth Tiger but on a larger scale.
[Dire Tigers]: Dire tigers prey on just about anything that moves. They lord over their domains. and stalk prey with incredible stealth, especially considering the size of their gigantic bodies. They will patiently stalk a potential meal, striking whenever the creature lets down its guard. Dire Tigers grow to be over 12 feet long and can weigh up to 4,000 pounds. A Dire Tiger attacks by running at prey, leaping, and clawing and biting as it raked with its rear claws. They will also bite and squeeze the throat to suffocate an exhausted prey.
The last creature template Ben made was for a [True Dragon].
[True Dragon]: All true dragons gain more abilities and greater power as they age. They range in length from several feet upon hatching to more than 100 feet after attaining the status of great wyrm. The size of a particular dragon varies according to age and variety. A dragon attacks with its powerful claws and bite, and can also use a breath attack along with special physical attacks. Older, more intelligent dragons are adept at sizing up the opposition and eliminating the most dangerous foes first.
When he was happy with the large black dragon template, Ben had a new race he wanted to create which could be considered a cousin to the dragon. This new template would be for the [Sivak Draconian] race.
[Sivak Draconians]: Sivak Draconians are created from the eggs of Silver Dragons. They generally attack with huge two-handed swords, but can also use their claws and/or armored tails. Sivaks have gleaming silver scales and black eyes. Topping nine feet in height, they are the largest Draconian race. Sivaks can run and glide like most other Draconian races, but they also have the unique ability to fly. They are extremely agile in the air, as maneuverable as dragons and nearly as fast. The Sivaks' movement and flexibility gives them an important tactical advantage. They can race forward on all fours, silently glide from a height, or attack from the air. Many opponents are unfamiliar with the existence of flying Draconian, giving the Sivaks the additional advantage of surprise. A Sivak charging on all fours can suddenly take to the air and swoop down at its opponent from behind.
'Alright, I have a few new templates that I want to use for the next war all I need now is to collect the money I will need to make create these creatures and troops.'
Before Ben decided to leave the valley he made another concrete bunker there with a teleport formation inside and linked it to the formation back on the Training Grounds in Dragonshome.
This would allow him to bring his troops or any other recruits to this valley later.
_______________________________
He began by making the rounds to each of his businesses to collect as much as he could. By the end of the day, he collected what he could and went off to use the Qi Chamber located next to the Renaissance Castle.
The alterations he made to his Qi Chamber with the new Origin Crystals allowed him to increase the amount of QI gathered by the formation which was helping him to make rapid gains. Over the next few days, he was expecting to gain another level in his cultivation.
The following morning inside the Dragonshome Barracks recruitment room Ben began using the Sivak Draconian template. The Draconians looked similar with a lizard man with wings on their back. They can speak and are an intelligent race with thick silver scales covering their bodies like scale armor.
The recruitment process was going to take some time to complete due to the sheer number of troops Ben needed. He wasn't sure how much it would cost to make a Dragon yet, but he was sure it would cost quite a lot.
During this time he also created teleport formations in the towns which are under siege in the Rodara region. This would allow his people to send food supplies to the Rodara capital and towns which were now surrounded by enemies.
The three northern kingdoms thought they could force them into submitting by cutting off supplies to these towns and cities but little did they know everything needed was being brought over from Dragonshome via the teleporter formatons.
This allowed Ben to take his time and begin sending the Sivak Draconians to military classes while he made arrangements for his counter-attack.
There also is a new general introduced to the line-up. Ben made a large intimidating black Sivak Draconian named Kizar to lead and train the new Draconian regiment.
_____________________________________
A month went by and the northern kingdoms showed no sign of leaving the Rodara region and seemed they would even remain there throughout the winter if needed.
They had made a couple half-hearted attempts to fill in the moats and found they are too deep and wide. They would lose a large portion of their troops attempting this and decided to go back to encircling the towns and capital and preventing anyone from entering or leaving them.
Ben took advantage of this delay and allowed them to remain encamped around those Rodara towns and the capital. During this month he continued to recruit men and creatures.
He also made custom armor for the Draconians, Dire Tigers and the War Elephants. He also designed a lightweight Mythril alloy basket to strap onto the backs of each War Elephant.
Each of these alloy basket had enough room to carry two archers and two spearmen. The archers would fire arrows into the enemy ranks while the spearmen used extra long spears to strike at any enemy who came into range of their elephant.
The War Elephants were given huge Mythril chainmail armor covers and long blades which were bolted securely around their tusks.
The DIre Tigers were outfitted with Mythril alloy sectioned armor pieces which are secured to them with leather straps.
Since the Draconians had wings and a unique body shape they also needed a custom armor. Ben also went for the Mythril alloy to reduce weight. The Draconians can fly and glide so a heavy armor would hinder this ability.
Ben also created two large black Dragons with red spikes down their necks and backs. These monsters cost him 5000g each to create. This held him back from making more than two dragons for this campaign.
He made sure to increase the number of his standard troops along with the addition of these new creatures. Even after all this preparation, he was still far from matching the numbers the enemy had invaded with, but he began to feel confident with what he already had.
_____________________________________
A new regiment of two thousand human female Light Infantry Swordsmen was also recruited to play a large part in his plan to strike back at the three kingdom invaders.
This regiment made up of good-looking human women with long silky hair were led by a beautiful new general named Helena. They were currently issued Mythril alloy chain mail tunic which they wore under short white silk side split day dresses.
Around their waist, they wore a white web belt that carried two canteens and a dagger with a foot-long blade. For footwear, the women would wear low cut white hiking shoes.
There wasn't enough time to train this regiment of women for combat but for now Ben only had one task for them. He planned to go fishing and this regiment of women was to be his bait.
Ben was currently standing in the secluded valley in the Rodara wilderness while looking over a list of his troops, creatures, and war machines.
___________________________________
___________________________________
Current Ground Troops
___________________________________
2000: Human Female Light Infantry Swordsmen- General Helena
4000: Elven Archers- General Victor
2000: Human Mounted Knights- General Justinus
2000: Human Heavy Infantry Spearmen- General Kaeso
2000: Human Male Dismounted Knights- General Decius
2000: Human Male Javelin Cavalry- General Cassius
2000: Human Male Infantry Phalanx- General Quintus
200 Half-GIant Male Heavy Armored Swordsmen/Heavy Armored Axemen
2000: Sivak Draconian Male Heavy Heavy Armored Swordsmen
2: Black Dragons, Male
200: Dire Tigers, Half Male/Half Female
1000 War Elephants, Half Male/Half Female
________________________________
20: Human Male Cultivator/Magi
20: Human Female Cultivator/Magi
20: Fairy Female Magi/Cultivators
238: Spiritual Sumit SECT Disciples
300: Human Male Engineers: 3 man teams manning: [200 twelve pound breech-loading cannons]
150 Ammunition limbers holding [Canister Shot] and [Explosive Shells]
________________________________
100: Human Male Engineers to maintain and operate siege machines
20 Siege Towers
40 Trebuchets
20 Ballista
10 Battering Rams
500 Siege ladders
500 Wooden Mantlets
___________________________________
___________________________________
'I have just over eighteen thousand troops to fight against sixty thousand enemy troops. I also have some terrifying shock troops along with my war machines and rifled cannons. The two dragons should be enough to send these invaders running for the border, but I want to thin out their ranks. The best case scenario is if I find the right place to fight them I can draw them in and hopefully wipe out a large portion of their forces before they realize they can't win. The worst case is my troops are routed and I have to retreat to Dragonshome and begin recruiting all over again. If I lose my troops it would be a huge setback and I might have to wait until next summer to strike back again.'
Ben closed his troop list with a worried sigh and went to walk around the valley to make sure there was enough food from the ranches to feed the DIre Tigers and Dragons. The War Elephants were kept in a sectioned off area of the valley near where his troops were currently living in Military Camps.
Thankfully the system has the capabilities to create these deadly creatures with enough intelligence to know not to attack the men or other creatures made by the system.
As for the free-roaming pigs, cattle, and sheep they were slaughtered a few times a day by his men to feed the Dire Tigers. In times of peace, it would be great not having to worry about the Dire Tigers slipping into the ranches and eating up all the livestock. The only drawback was people would need to be assigned to always slaughter the animals to feed them.
The two black dragons were intelligent enough to understand the common language and knew they were allowed to freely eat the free-roaming ranch animals and to not raid the ranches or surrounding kingdom's livestock. Their large appetites led to Ben making a few more ranches and this is why he was double checking with the men watching over them to be sure they had enough food to remain healthy.
Once he found everything was working out fine, he went to sit down and begin looking over his map of the area surrounding the Rodara capital. He planned to make his first attack directly against the main forces surrounding the capital and assumed if he could defeat this large army the smaller forces around the towns would be the least of his problems then.
'Alright, I need to try and find the perfect spot for this battle.'
Ben sat at a table in the Military Camp for the next few hours marking the places he thought would benefit him the most in the upcoming fight.