The mountain goblins gained more stamina in the first few days of endurance training than I had imagined, maintaining pace with both weight and incline for close to forty minutes before exhaustion forced them down from the test runs. With a full week of endurance training they should be able to run the weighted incline phase for a full hour. At that point I would halve their running training and double their combat training.
As much as speed was a necessity for goblins, these guys were being built for the sole purpose of being the first one's in and the last one's out. Hand-eye coordination and movement speed would keep them alive longer than being able to run while on a front line. Mountain goblins were just built differently.
The kobolds were already starting to move on to combat training after recovering from their miles, practicing the open-hand versions of Wing Chun hand strikes as well as the rest of the art's bodily weapons, movement skills, and grappling techniques. This was all done for the group as a whole on a TV and looped over the first basic video's techniques again and again.
Unlike with Poniard's training, there was no speed or memory challenges for the other goblins or kobolds because I had to edit the videos together myself for the parts I wanted. However, they spent more of their training time in sparring gaining actual experience whereas it had just been Poniard and I alone. Regardless, Poniard was still the peak of goblin existence.
While walking around with Poniard who was already familiar with the different martial arts in the training regimes by now, we simply corrected their forms or showed them how to properly extend themselves. Just the curvature of their claws meant that some things had to be changed to accommodate their anatomies. However, being both bi- and quadrupedal had its benefits toward their balance and agility.
After another few days of nine hours of steady training with two solid rest hours with the artifact, the kobolds who healed faster as a higher grade than the usual goblins no longer needed to be corrected in their motions and had even started wearing weights. I knew that they were naturally stronger than base goblins since they started at D grade.
When both the young and old lesser kobolds were able to exercise with fifty pounds of lead blocks around their forearms and shins while wearing a hundred-pound vest, however, I was absolutely astounded at how well they could manage before needing the artifact.
During the first weighted session it took an hour before they could no longer function properly with their weights on before a ten minutes rest with the artifact had them practicing without the weights. During the second weighted trial, they worked with the artifact sustaining them the entire time and managed for nearly the full four hours of combat practice before collapsing in the last half-hour. Yesterday they managed for almost eighty minutes without the artifact before resting and continuing on without weights.
The mountain goblins also made good gains. Today alone, they had run for two full hours overall and were pretty much at the point where they were also ready to start their combat practices. Yesterday that had done two running sessions that grew progressively closer to two hours in length.
Today, though, I ended up having guests in the form of my entire team showing up at the property between three different vehicles. Oddly enough, it was hard to recognize everybody at first because most everybody was wearing normal clothes. Luckily, Karen was wearing her brightly colored cloak and Eliza was wearing her hear in the same twin tails running down her back.
I, as a man, could not help but notice that the curvature of Eliza's combat suit did not lie in any way whatsoever.
Leaving the kobolds to finish their weightless combat training under the studious gaze of their elder, Glaive, I tell Poniard to set the other goblins running again before jogging to the gate. Unlike when I had customers and had to pretend like nothing about them but their money mattered to me, I was excited to show off my property to the others.
I had even gotten some of the buildings like the kobold dorm and greenhouse installed. The only plant actually growing in the greenhouse was the thorny tree from the sick troll portal and the few plants I had brought back from the undead portal. Because the greenhouse was so large, though, these 'originals' took up a special place in the middle of the greenhouse around a circulated pool of water brought over from the other side of the portals to enrich the greenhouse with moisture.
"Everyone showed up together," I say with only slightly forced enthusiasm as I unlock and open the gate under the curious escorts of the hobs who carried with them wooden practice swords. "Come on, come in, let me show you around. If you guys let me know you were coming I would have had some stuff prepared."
"We brought the beer," Fred and Frank chorus together, holding up large bags and cases of beers in either hands. Emile and Carlos and Leo were also carrying some bags and even the grill we brought in the portal. The ladies, somehow, managed to walk in empty handed but still act like they own the place while going in different directions and yelling to one another.
Even though the property took up an entire block and the building across the street was an abandoned printing warehouse, I still had SOME neighbors!
After taking the guys to one of the rest pavilions near where the critters were currently training to unload, everybody but me opened and emptied a beer in unison before crushing the cans and throwing them in the same grocery bag. I was left to drink a soda at a normal pace like a normal person. Even though we were on MY private property.
Briefly convening once again on the agility course to explore the gradient difficulty, the ladies soon joined us at the pavilion as the guys were finishing their second beers and setting up the grill. This time, though, I used to excuse of working to not have to cook for everybody on such a small grill. Karen was upset, but then I presented her with the rest of the needles I had promised in another recent deal.
The warped pine's new sprout was already more than seven inches in height and would probably grow at about one foot per week. In ten weeks the sprout MIGHT be the same size as before and grow another branch of needles. This, though, I kept to myself and did not tell to Karen.
After a while I had to check lower the treadmills for the mountain goblins but after that the first round of burgers and hotdogs were ready so I took everyone to tour the current buildings. Even though the kobolds had their own dorm there was no longer any friction between species because of how busy and tired they were kept. So, I kept them in the same building.
Keeping them together was easier than giving the hobs the keys to the patio gate and kobold dorm so that they could wander the property at their leisure. Once I got another hob or another adult kobold I could start keeping them in their own dorms. Of course, I still showed off the fact that I currently had a building for every species I used as products.
The others loved the greenhouse, though, despite how barren it was. Leo and Gwyn and Karen all remarked on the quality of the MP in the air within the building since they were more sensitive to it as magic users. I got to have fun showing off once again how the completely enclosed building allows for the nearly perpetual recycling of mana water from the pond to saturate not only the soil but also the building itself with MP. The water had a D grade of two-twenty.
Then came the final stop to the sadly short tour after a brief look at a large but barren barn building. The 'hole'. Because Malco the undead lizard had such a high and unique form of mana signature, we were forced to store the beast in a small underground bunker only forty or so yards out from the front gate.
After pulling aside the fake sod on top of a large D grade sheet metal lid, I push the lid back in its slot to reveal the dimly lit interior. Even from the entrance we could see the black light like glow of Malco's magic lines covering most of his blackened purplish body. Around him the concrete walls of the bunker were brightly lit and no part of him was cast in shadow.
Because Poniard was busy I did not bother with having the beast activated and the others did not mind at all. They were more than happy to remain outside of the creepy monster pit and just look in at the 'sleeping' giant.
After we returned to the pavilions so the others could start another round of beers and food I went ahead and ended the combat training for all of the critters early and sent them inside with the hobs to be fed. While Poniard and Glaive relaxed off to the side with Si-Pon, I sneaked a couple of bottles of beer over to my familiars. I knew it was possible for dogs to get drunk so I figured something might happen if I gave Glaive two or three but Poniard was much smaller.
Both of them drank the bottles I gave them with only reactions to the glass instead of the usual plastic they had to grip daintily. The beer went down in moments like they were emptying bottles of water and then they looked at me like they were still thirsty. So, while telling Karen about the warped pine hidden in plain sight nearby so she would distract the others, I got both of them another bottle.
Nothing happened and I started feeling bad for the possibility of dehydrating them and just got them regular bottles of water. When I got back, though, Glaive's tail was wagging like it did before Poniard bathed her every evening when we got home and Poniard was rocking lightly back and forth on the tabletop he used for a seat.
They were both buzzed if not wholly drunk.
When I finally stopped poisoning my familiars and joined the others by the pine, Ms. Gwyn and Eliza and Emilia started talking to me about goblins and other creatures they could buy from breeders by pooling contribution and credits. Karen would have been involved but she had joined the guys in getting drunk and having fun.
Altogether the rest of the party had enough contribution and credits to buy all of the ranged units- women- familiars as well as two breeding pairs. What they wanted was an uncommon hybrid between Earth and portals in the form of an enlarged roadrunner that had lost most of its feathers, tails, and wings to develop long but scrawny arms and reptilian scales. Standing on average at around four feet in height at full maturity, these D grade entities were a high-speed ambush predator that were only found in New Mexico and Nevada territories.
For creatures like these who were not subhuman, training would be more similar to that of an animal by teaching them a list of commands and actions. For this, the most important training was not only how to target which entity and attack but to also retreat on command at any moment. I made a show of this with the goblin exam footage by stopping the final kills.
Together we worked out as a group not only the general training outline for their road raptors but also the training plan for my future stocks of road raptors. The basics of their command and action needs were sit, stay, come, silence, hide, attack, circle, and fetch. Unlike the kill or attack orders, fetch was a hunting or thieving order that would be tough to train.
Eliza made a valid point about asking if I could teach them to do actual tricks and I had to think quick on my toes to come up with an excuse not to. With Si-Pon's help it would only be too easy to train most animals but I used the excuse of their personally teaching their raptors simple tricks for a bonding exercise. They all accepted this excuse, thankfully.
As we were working out what kind of physical training routine they wanted- obviously a leg oriented regime- Poniard and Glaive decided to join us by the tree. Both of them were drunk to a higher degree than I thought because Poniard had trouble walking in a straight line and Glaive also seemed to be slithering despite walking on all fours.
Not long after they showed up, the others were giving me strange looks because Poniard kept trying to climb up my body while Glaive just rolled around like an excited puppy that wanted attention. In the ensuing silence I could not help but admit I had given them some beer to see what would happen. When Karen heard this, though, she seemed to glide right over with a rosy tone in her cheeks.
Laughing, she quickly started pulling Glaive off the ground and trying to waltz with the kobold. Unsure of what was going on, Glaive could only be dragged and pulled around the area while everybody else enjoyed the show, unwilling to risk angering a human after their experiences with me. Eliza, Ms. Gwyn, and Emilia seemed unhappy with me for some reason, though.
After a while, though, they started to loosen up as Glaive actually seemed to be learning how to dance. At first she really was being awkwardly dragged around so that she was basically falling everywhere thanks to Karen, but eventually she started getting the hang of maintaining her balance and finally she started keeping pace. Poniard simply succeeded in climbing up to my shoulders where he cheered for a few seconds before passing out wrapped around my head.
After half an hour of exhausting themselves, Glaive and Karen were actually taking turns spinning one another before Karen could no longer keep going. After Karen simply plopped down on the ground Glaive also breathlessly plopped while burning off the rest of the alcohol in their system. Until she seemed to remember that I existed because the kobold's ears suddenly perked up and she slowly turned her head to stare at me while panting with their tongue out.
I did not even have to wait for the ladies to start laughing at me before I knew what was happening and turned to run. However, with a sleeping Poniard on my shoulders I could not move very far very fast. By the time I heard Glaive getting to their feet there was already a large clawed hand clamping down around my wrist.
"Karen!" I found myself yelling as the kobold's drunken strength overwhelms me and starts pulling me into a face-to-face waltz pose with Glaive. "Save me!" Poniard never even woke up.
*