It has been almost two weeks since Gerald got his new weapons.
He visited the library soon after to see if he could find any books about spear-fighting, or techniques that would make his attacks better. After getting a good base of knowledge, he went to the Warrior's Guild and got himself a seasoned warrior to be his mentor for a while.
Although two weeks might not seem long, he was capable of long hours of arduous training with a good teacher, so he got the hang of it quickly. What he studied were the finesse and elegant techniques, alongside brutal and direct combat. But in a real fight, only strength and speed mattered.
Even if your enemy was a slippery eel, if you could land just one good strike, it would all be over in an instant. Tricks and fancy moves were only good for the show, nothing more.
That was also his preferred approach. Unless a situation required finesse and tactics, going straight forward was the easiest and fastest way of solving a problem.
And while he honed his skills and was getting used to his increased body strength, Qiona was busy making a new potion on his command. He gave her the recipe for the Stamina Potion and she was more than happy to waste a few days learning to make it. He promised her knowledge and his personal secret potion formulas if she was a good student.
And, of course, if she couldn't be considered 'good', then everyone else could only be considered trash.
She studied from dawn to dusk, and her brilliant mind absorbed everything like a sponge. She was also a hard worker in the area of potion production, and Gerald was more than happy with her progress.
During this time, he took a few days off and went to find a few more herbs for the Mana Elixirs. However, to his surprise, the potion didn't seem to be having the same effect on his teammates. Sera and Xilia drank the potion and they both gained approximately 29MP from it. But that was only from the first one…
The second potion they drank only netted them 25MP, and after Gerald gave them another one, the increase was barely above twenty!
Although the increase was still quite big and they almost reached 80MP each, it was quite clear that the potion was losing its effectiveness.
Thinking about it, Gerald noticed the discrepancies, they gained more than him at first, but later their gains declined rapidly while his didn't.
"Maybe there is something in the potion that saturates the body and prevents more of the potion from having the effect?" Gerald wondered. "I still have some nanites to detoxify what my organs can't, so this probably has some minor effects…"
Not much could be done even if that was the case, so he threw that thought to the back of his mind. He considered getting them another one or two Mana Elixirs just to push them over the 100MP mark, but any more would be just wasting the potion's potential.
While all of this was going on, he didn't forget to absorb multiple Essence Cores each day, resulting in him gaining around 300kg of strength each week. Combined with the Minecrawler Queen flesh he was constantly consuming, his abilities grew almost exponentially, at least in the short run.
"Another week or so and I'll reach Silver Rank 2, that's just insane!" He could still remember the time when he was amazed that someone reached just Silver Rank 1, but now he was about to personally double that in no time! There were no words that could describe how great he felt.
The Auction House also finally announced that they would start selling the, already famous, Potion of Focus.
Needless to say that the news spread like wildfire and every mage, and every organization worth something, tried their best to reserve some for them. Since the demand was so high, the price skyrocketed and each potion was to be sold at ten gold a piece to keep the masses under control.
The profit on the invested capital was more than 1000%, gaining them at least five times the return, after splitting it with Gerald.
A black market for the potion became active before even the first vial left the Auction House.
A few servants and apprentices suffered severely after they were caught trying to smuggle out a bottle of two, and were fired from their job, with their reputations ruined for eternity. No potion-production facility or shop would hire them after learning of their untrustworthy nature.
While it might seem on the surface that only good things were happening, yet another tragedy took place in the Kingdom. There was another Goblin attack, this one taking place in the south, with even stronger and more brutal attackers.
Because the people were more prepared this time there were fewer casualties, however, the damage done was even greater. That's because instead of a horde of Goblins, this time there were mainly Hobgoblins, with a great amount of Orcs as reinforcements and even an Ogre was seen roaming around a small city at dusk.
The four-meter-tall gruesome monster looked like an agile ball of fat from afar. The beast was well over Silver Rank 4, with a massive layer of fat on its body granting it great protection from conventional weapons. No sane man dared to come close to fight it, as the beast single-handedly pulled a tree out of the ground to use it as a club.
Once again before dawn, the beasts retreated, and nobody could find any clues as to where they went. It was as if they disappeared into thin air.
The news increased the level of anxiety in the population and many flooded into the cities and walled-off towns, increasing the stress on the already over-populated places.
Luckily for Gerald and the girls, they didn't feel much of this change, but they did have a few crazy people try and break into the Black Onyx Mansion.
Due to this incident, they decided to try and hire a few guards for the same price as at the beginning, just that this time people scrambled to be employed by him instead of demanding more money.
"There we go, you see? In times of uncertainty, a stable job can give you peace of mind, and many only then recognize the true value of honest work," Gerald said, taking the opportunity to educate the girls.
In these hard times, when food prices are slowly rising and when finding a place to sleep was getting increasingly difficult, having a warm place to stay through the night was often the most valuable commodity among them all. Having ten guards for the mansion was not a problem at all. Space and money were no longer a concern for Gerald at all.
There was also the question of food. While the average people had to work hard for every little piece of bread, he could simply leave the capital for a few hours and come back with some game.
'Although it seems quiet now, the world is already preparing for war,' he quietly thought. 'The city guards already doubled in number and I even saw royal soldiers march through the city, establishing order… This is not going to be pretty…'
It was only a question of time before those on the bottom started feeling the pressure. After the first person broke the peace and resorted to violence, the fragile equilibrium would crumble, and murders and stealing would start.
The population of Auralba already numbered over a million and more people were entering the city walls every day. It was simply unsustainable.
"I need to keep getting stronger, faster!" Gerald alone couldn't affect the events that were still to come, not even with his superhuman magic powers. He needed to grow faster!
***
He was not the only one worrying, of course.
The King had a much better understanding of how bad the situation was, and was more than aware of the damage the last monster horde attack did.
Food production now declined in the south too. Average people were too afraid to leave the confines of safe city walls for fear of stumbling upon those beasts. With the human activity diminishing in the wild, more wild animals moved closer to the settlements, resulting in even more animal attacks which in turn made villagers and townspeople shrink back even more.
It was a vicious cycle. The only ones pushing back were the warriors of the Warrior's Guild who had their hands full with requests for guards and hunters.
"Sigh, what a mess… What a fucking mess!" The King was in no mood to spend his time with his wife the last week and was instead locked in the war room with his commanders and generals, coming up with strategies and scenarios for the upcoming war.
The Emperor of the Burronian Empire refused to communicate, and all pleas for peace were ignored, as no reply came from him.
The spies of Myrtana sent back news of the Imperial armies slowly gathering, and the iron and food production there increased by at least 30%. They were clearly preparing for an invasion with no mercy.
"It is only a question of time… A month, maybe two, that's all we have…" a person spoke with a solemn voice.
"They probably heard of our hardships and are just waiting for us to exhaust ourselves with these filthy beasts before they attack us!" another slapped the table in anger.
"These damn Goblins!" A commander spoke through gritted teeth, "If only we knew where they went so we could crush them once and for all!"
The King quietly sighed and turned his gaze towards a certain direction, far from the confines of the capital walls. 'It still grows...'
***
Gerald, holding a wild animal in his metal hand, suddenly turned his head looking around the forest in confusion.
"Weird, I clearly felt someone looking at me…" It all began a few days ago. He suddenly felt as if someone was observing him, making his brain tingle. But every time he turned around, there would be nothing. It was the first time he felt anything like it, so he wasn't sure what it was at first. But now he was sure.
Every time he killed he would feel a presence, almost as if someone was standing just a few meters away from him, quietly watching, observing...
"That's creepy…"
He packed his stuff and returned back home shortly after.